Not much than 8 weeks till coronation of Sunak, that’s a bounce in time for the Locals. The have to wait till locals argument is dead in a ditch.
The general election is 2 years away at least, no need to rush.
Waiting until the locals at least gives Boris the chance to recover a bit after ending the remaining Covid restrictions etc. If he doesn't then a change can be made.
Given the NEV in the 2018 locals saw the Tories on 35% while the NEV in 2019 saw the Tories on only 28% anyway, a new leader is more likely to get a bounce translating into the locals next year when the 2019 council seats are up again. This year it is the 2018 locals up again
So you concede Rishi likely to be crowned in about 8 weeks from now if the letters go in this weekend, so the party takes new leader new government bounce into the May ballots?
All you seem to be asking for is give Boris just a little bit more time? So There is no reason the leadership candidates should wait.
The Tories only reach 34% even under a Sunak leadership with Opinium, hence they would not even get a bounce in the May locals but a loss given the Tories got 35% last time they were up.
However next year 34% would still be a bounce given the Tories only got 28% in the 2019 locals
You are sure the not for real question in an old opinium poll trumps the reality someone getting hustings oxygen of publicity, then the crown put on their head?
Even Brown and May got a brief bounce, bounces themselves do not last. Longer term polling is more reflective
So now you are conceding Rishi WILL give his party polling bounce in Mays locals if installed in time, and how long it lasts in bau no one knows? That is a fair way of looking at it, I agree.
No, he would see a loss of sears and votes given the 34% he polls in the hypothetical poll is less than the 35% the Tories got in 2018. A poor start.
However 34% would still be an improvement on the 28% in 2019. A Starmer leadership at this stage would be less about trying to still win the next general election but more about trying to save the furniture. Therefore converting the Labour majority government polls forecast now into a Labour minority government in a hung parliament and saving some Tory MPs seats
But? That’s back to where we started before we made progress in discussion 🤷♀️
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
Could be never, hybrid working at least is here to stay I think.
For the unvacinnated minority of course international travel is off the agenda indefinitely too even if the vaccinated return to tourism abroad
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I think you're right, but who knows.
Regent's Park was absolutely swarming today (covid-adjusted). Perhaps city centres become the place to live and you commute out to work?
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Tourist heavy areas are definitely still struggling compared to areas that local people go to. Old Street and Shoreditch was rammed last night, my wife and I went for lunch today at a pub near home (East Finchley) with my sister, brother in law and their two kids and the pub was heaving.
I think Leicester Square and Covent Garden will take longer to recover than the rest of London's hotspots.
Conservative politicians should be talking about how they made the right decisions about Omicron and how the economy and society benefitted from it while demanding the removal of all remaining restrictions.
Instead they're having to deal with the consequences of stupidity and immaturity from Downing Street.
Ironic isn't it.
Yet that plank jn Wales called it a ‘dangerous experiment’.
The Welsh and Scottish administrations got it wrong and sacrificed their hospitality industry at the critical time of year for those businesses to own the Tories. They failed. The press needs to hold them to account.
You mean apart from BBC Scotland amplifying the complaints of every hospitality representative and their granny day in and day out, or sending camera crews to follow any partying Jock they could find in Carlisle on 31/12/21?
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
Could be never, hybrid working at least is here to stay I think.
For the unvacinnated minority of course International travel is off the agenda indefinitely too even if the vaccinated return to tourism abroad
I think you are absolutely right. A mix of home and office working is the future here
Terrible decision to stand aside after Amess. Might have looked reasonable at the time, but events, dear boy...
I disagree. You can't have business as usual as far as the by election goes after an MP has been murdered. No one will read much into the result because of the very specific circumstances so I don't think Johnson will be able to take much comfort from it.
But that's the point, you can guarantee if it were properly fought you'd get a result you could read something into. Like eastbourne 1990.
No. Sentiment has changed from Democracy Must Not Be Subverted by the IRA to compassion following the crime trumps all. Neither is right or wrong. Both follow the spirit of an age.
Labour are currently triumphant but face colossal risks. A Burgon, a Jezza, allowing Diane Abbott on the media, a few anti Israel actions by Labour's anti Semites would place them back where they were. The extreme left never goes away, as jezza's reign proved, it morphs and waits.
SKS's number 1 priority is avoiding risk. he is right to avoid Southend and the criticism it would attract.
What I notice is that when asked about Labour's breaking of rules a la Tory ones, their denials are quiet and brief and question averting. They are clearly not sure that discipline has been maintained.
All politics being relative, while Boris is (I think) finished the Tories are not. They will be be very keen to level the playing field and neutralise the attack in due course by 'they were no better than us' in the bad old Boris days.
Triumphalists of the centre left might like to check out with Oddschecker the odds on 'Government after Next GE'. The Tory majority are favourites at 15/8. Lab minority 3/1. Lab maj 11/2. Food for thought.
There have undoubtedly been indiscretions by many in the political realm. The current revelations are nonetheless so much more serious because a) the people breaking the rules are making the rules b) the sheer scale of the rule breaking c) the dark arts adopted to conceal the wrongdoing (Suitcasegate) and d) the implausible denials.
This weekend the Opposition should broaden their attack to the Party and Cabinet that is protecting Johnson. As it stands, once Johnson is gone the new leader will try to wipe the slate clean. That is more difficult if they are tarred with Johnson's brush.
Billings goes, caught on the boundary hooking. I mean, what is the thinking of this (I use the word generously, of course)? Woakes nearly got caught the same way earlier in the over but he is a bowling all rounder, even if he puts most of the top order to shame. There is absolutely no excuse for a supposedly top order batsman playing shots like that in this situation. Its undisciplined.
I suspect he calculated 'one hook and I've saved the follow on.' Would be quite typical of Billings' mindset in his years at Kent.
Sigh. They’re chasing 300, following-on should be the last thing on their silly minds.
Both Scotland and Wales are rolling back their unnecessary measures to tackle Omicron. The leader of the Welsh regime even tried making political capital out of the difference between their measures and England’s. Wales and Scotland needlessly damaged their hospitality sector at the time they most needed the custom just to play politics. Shame on them.
Decisions I don't agree with = "playing politics". Childish stuff from you.
Drakeford accused the U.K. government of being risky, and dangerous. He should keep to discussions of his own moronic policies, such as cancelling park runs.
By the same token, should all English commentators be silent on that which happens outwith England?
That’d be half of PB’s content culled in a oner.
We'd have to have a forum Speaker who would decide whether marginal policy discussions are devolved or reserved. E.g. Leon's ALIEN ROCKET story from yesterday. Defence is reserved so I'm allowed to speak. Mental health services are devolved, so I get the ban hammer. Tricky.
And just imagine, no Scottish PBer would ever be allowed to comment on Scottish constitutional matters such as independence.
HYUFD’s ‘doesn’t matter what Scotland thinks, no Tory government will ever allow another referendum’ stamping on a human face, forever.
The scope of "forever" just shortened pretty considerably. HYUFD folded last night, no Tory government for the next decade, because Dom.
Tremendous post by HY when he finally caved in. I’m looking forward to him caving in on the human face stamping strategy too.
As I also said this morning even if it takes two decades for the next Tory government it would still refuse indyref2 when the party returns to power.
Starmer would also refuse an indyref2 in favour of a Brown grand commission on devomax and a Federal UK unless the SNP hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Expect Alba to grow further as a result
Not much than 8 weeks till coronation of Sunak, that’s a bounce in time for the Locals. The have to wait till locals argument is dead in a ditch.
The general election is 2 years away at least, no need to rush.
Waiting until the locals at least gives Boris the chance to recover a bit after ending the remaining Covid restrictions etc. If he doesn't then a change can be made.
Given the NEV in the 2018 locals saw the Tories on 35% while the NEV in 2019 saw the Tories on only 28% anyway, a new leader is more likely to get a bounce translating into the locals next year when the 2019 council seats are up again. This year it is the 2018 locals up again
So you concede Rishi likely to be crowned in about 8 weeks from now if the letters go in this weekend, so the party takes new leader new government bounce into the May ballots?
All you seem to be asking for is give Boris just a little bit more time? So There is no reason the leadership candidates should wait.
The Tories only reach 34% even under a Sunak leadership with Opinium, hence they would not even get a bounce in the May locals but a loss given the Tories got 35% last time they were up.
However next year 34% would still be a bounce given the Tories only got 28% in the 2019 locals
You are sure the not for real question in an old opinium poll trumps the reality someone getting hustings oxygen of publicity, then the crown put on their head?
Even Brown and May got a brief bounce, bounces themselves do not last. Longer term polling is more reflective
So now you are conceding Rishi WILL give his party polling bounce in Mays locals if installed in time, and how long it lasts in bau no one knows? That is a fair way of looking at it, I agree.
No, he would see a loss of sears and votes given the 34% he polls in the hypothetical poll is less than the 35% the Tories got in 2018. A poor start.
However 34% would still be an improvement on the 28% in 2019. A Starmer leadership at this stage would be less about trying to still win the next general election but more about trying to save the furniture. Therefore converting the Labour majority government polls forecast now into a Labour minority government in a hung parliament and saving some Tory MPs seats
But? That’s back to where we started before we made progress in discussion 🤷♀️
No as elect Sunak now and any bounce would be over well before the locals and the Tories would be back to his forecast 34%
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
Could be never, hybrid working at least is here to stay I think.
For the unvacinnated minority of course International travel is off the agenda indefinitely too even if the vaccinated return to tourism abroad
I think a lot of people will never return to the cities.
Covid has helped a lot of us recalibrate. We've learned that being close to nature is far more interesting and exciting than fume-filled city life. Growing, preparing and cooking your own food is a heap more fun and exciting than wasting money dining out.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I think you're right, but who knows.
Regent's Park was absolutely swarming today (covid-adjusted). Perhaps city centres become the place to live and you commute out to work?
Only if central London House prices and rents collapse
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Not much than 8 weeks till coronation of Sunak, that’s a bounce in time for the Locals. The have to wait till locals argument is dead in a ditch.
The general election is 2 years away at least, no need to rush.
Waiting until the locals at least gives Boris the chance to recover a bit after ending the remaining Covid restrictions etc. If he doesn't then a change can be made.
Given the NEV in the 2018 locals saw the Tories on 35% while the NEV in 2019 saw the Tories on only 28% anyway, a new leader is more likely to get a bounce translating into the locals next year when the 2019 council seats are up again. This year it is the 2018 locals up again
So you concede Rishi likely to be crowned in about 8 weeks from now if the letters go in this weekend, so the party takes new leader new government bounce into the May ballots?
All you seem to be asking for is give Boris just a little bit more time? So There is no reason the leadership candidates should wait.
The Tories only reach 34% even under a Sunak leadership with Opinium, hence they would not even get a bounce in the May locals but a loss given the Tories got 35% last time they were up.
However next year 34% would still be a bounce given the Tories only got 28% in the 2019 locals
You are sure the not for real question in an old opinium poll trumps the reality someone getting hustings oxygen of publicity, then the crown put on their head?
Even Brown and May got a brief bounce, bounces themselves do not last. Longer term polling is more reflective
So now you are conceding Rishi WILL give his party polling bounce in Mays locals if installed in time, and how long it lasts in bau no one knows? That is a fair way of looking at it, I agree.
No, he would see a loss of sears and votes given the 34% he polls in the hypothetical poll is less than the 35% the Tories got in 2018. A poor start.
However 34% would still be an improvement on the 28% in 2019. A Starmer leadership at this stage would be less about trying to still win the next general election but more about trying to save the furniture. Therefore converting the Labour majority government polls forecast now into a Labour minority government in a hung parliament and saving some Tory MPs seats
But? That’s back to where we started before we made progress in discussion 🤷♀️
No as elect Sunak now and any bounce would be over well before the locals and the Tories would be back to his forecast 34%
Like they say in the advert “how do you know that?”
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffe, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
And they can't compete with the Co-op when your suitcase is empty...
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
In late Nov people were going back to office work, now they are WFH again.
The Tories need to ditch this ASAP so that city centres can begin to recover. As I say, it will take a while
But I am optimistic for London (at least this afternoon, I might be in despair by this evening as variant Omega with its 98% CFR emerges in Gabon). Tootling around today I realised - again! - how much people LOVE cities. Boulevarding. People watching. Flashy restaurants. Exotic shops. Cool art galleries. Flea markets. Places to ogle and flirt with cute examples of your species. Falafel stalls.
None of these innate and intense human desires for exuberant human society and display have gone away. 59 year olds may be happy to retire and WFH in Godalming, visiting London for a mediocre musical once a month, but most people - esp the younger - will not.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
Sorry but I must make this rebuttal again to the repeated assertion that Johnson's popularity was fake and a consequence of Corbyn being the alternative. To an extent, sure, but it's not by a long chalk the whole explanation or even close to it.
Back when he was running for Tory leader one of the things that put him in pole position were polls showing he'd beat Corbyn convincingly in a head to head. And the Corbyn he was beating there was not the 'discredited' Corbyn of GE19, it was the Corbyn who was neck & neck with Mrs May in polls and also neck & neck (or better) against the likes of Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, indeed against all the realistic Con alternatives bar one - a certain Boris Johnson.
The guy was genuinely popular when he became our PM, and much as one might wish to explain this away by reference to Jeremy Corbyn it remains a regrettable fact.
Sorry, but it’s too easy to rebutt your rebuttal Kinabalu! Firstly the polling stats Mike Smithson keeps posting, how voters say they voted anti Corbyn not pro Boris should be conclusive on its own, because it’s not even close. Before that, with his crude racist remarks and harsh treatment of the remainer big hitters, thrown out a party they had served all their life for rebelling just once, Boris was not popular in or out his party even before the election.
You need to explain why polls in the summer of 2019 showed that Johnson, and only Johnson, would take the Cons from level pegging with Labour to a clear lead. They chose him because of those polls and they turned out to be right. Within a short time of him taking over they did have a clear lead and that lead persisted until, 12th Dec, it manifested as real votes in ballot boxes and 369 elected MPs. It was a brilliantly executed political triumph and Johnson's popular appeal was an integral part of it. I yield to no-one in my dislike and lack of regard for him, I really don't think it's possible to have a lower opinion of the bloke than I do, but I can't be going along with a history rewrite on this.
Not much than 8 weeks till coronation of Sunak, that’s a bounce in time for the Locals. The have to wait till locals argument is dead in a ditch.
The general election is 2 years away at least, no need to rush.
Waiting until the locals at least gives Boris the chance to recover a bit after ending the remaining Covid restrictions etc. If he doesn't then a change can be made.
Given the NEV in the 2018 locals saw the Tories on 35% while the NEV in 2019 saw the Tories on only 28% anyway, a new leader is more likely to get a bounce translating into the locals next year when the 2019 council seats are up again. This year it is the 2018 locals up again
So you concede Rishi likely to be crowned in about 8 weeks from now if the letters go in this weekend, so the party takes new leader new government bounce into the May ballots?
All you seem to be asking for is give Boris just a little bit more time? So There is no reason the leadership candidates should wait.
The Tories only reach 34% even under a Sunak leadership with Opinium, hence they would not even get a bounce in the May locals but a loss given the Tories got 35% last time they were up.
However next year 34% would still be a bounce given the Tories only got 28% in the 2019 locals
You are sure the not for real question in an old opinium poll trumps the reality someone getting hustings oxygen of publicity, then the crown put on their head?
Even Brown and May got a brief bounce, bounces themselves do not last. Longer term polling is more reflective
So now you are conceding Rishi WILL give his party polling bounce in Mays locals if installed in time, and how long it lasts in bau no one knows? That is a fair way of looking at it, I agree.
No, he would see a loss of sears and votes given the 34% he polls in the hypothetical poll is less than the 35% the Tories got in 2018. A poor start.
However 34% would still be an improvement on the 28% in 2019. A Starmer leadership at this stage would be less about trying to still win the next general election but more about trying to save the furniture. Therefore converting the Labour majority government polls forecast now into a Labour minority government in a hung parliament and saving some Tory MPs seats
But? That’s back to where we started before we made progress in discussion 🤷♀️
No as elect Sunak now and any bounce would be over well before the locals and the Tories would be back to his forecast 34%
Like they say in the advert “how do you know that?”
Billings goes, caught on the boundary hooking. I mean, what is the thinking of this (I use the word generously, of course)? Woakes nearly got caught the same way earlier in the over but he is a bowling all rounder, even if he puts most of the top order to shame. There is absolutely no excuse for a supposedly top order batsman playing shots like that in this situation. Its undisciplined.
I suspect he calculated 'one hook and I've saved the follow on.' Would be quite typical of Billings' mindset in his years at Kent.
Sigh. They’re chasing 300, following-on should be the last thing on their silly minds.
Both Scotland and Wales are rolling back their unnecessary measures to tackle Omicron. The leader of the Welsh regime even tried making political capital out of the difference between their measures and England’s. Wales and Scotland needlessly damaged their hospitality sector at the time they most needed the custom just to play politics. Shame on them.
Decisions I don't agree with = "playing politics". Childish stuff from you.
Drakeford accused the U.K. government of being risky, and dangerous. He should keep to discussions of his own moronic policies, such as cancelling park runs.
By the same token, should all English commentators be silent on that which happens outwith England?
That’d be half of PB’s content culled in a oner.
We'd have to have a forum Speaker who would decide whether marginal policy discussions are devolved or reserved. E.g. Leon's ALIEN ROCKET story from yesterday. Defence is reserved so I'm allowed to speak. Mental health services are devolved, so I get the ban hammer. Tricky.
And just imagine, no Scottish PBer would ever be allowed to comment on Scottish constitutional matters such as independence.
HYUFD’s ‘doesn’t matter what Scotland thinks, no Tory government will ever allow another referendum’ stamping on a human face, forever.
The scope of "forever" just shortened pretty considerably. HYUFD folded last night, no Tory government for the next decade, because Dom.
Tremendous post by HY when he finally caved in. I’m looking forward to him caving in on the human face stamping strategy too.
As I also said this morning even if it takes two decades for the next Tory government it would still refuse indyref2 when the party returns to power.
Starmer would also refuse an indyref2 in favour of a Brown grand commission on devomax and a Federal UK unless the SNP hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Expect Alba to grow further as a result
Where would PB be without its Jockland experts?
We'd just have to soldier on without you I suppose.
Here is a reference SA graph to compare. Given the very different testing regimes I think it is informative to look at SA Covid admissions rather than cases.
A certain amount of familiarity to SA's 2 week wide "peak" there I think. Capital first then rest of the country.
EDIT: How the feck is Covid not in my spellchecker yet?
Cases - R is collapsing. While the later part of this change may be related to the testing policy change, it began before it was made.
Admissions - R is flat MV beds - the rate of decline is getting steeper Deaths - Still going up
Other than to access sick pay is anyone reporting Covid positives now? I know plenty of the Omicron ravaged who didn't add themselves to formal figures. It appears a redundant metric.
Boris Johnson's support was very shallow but I think Starmer's is even more so.
Both men are dishonest opportunistic charlatans who have sold out any principles they ever had.
So fairly typical politicians of the Twitter age, sadly.
That’s some claim!
Your bitter and inaccurate knee-jerk reaction to adversity is fairly typical of anonymous polemicists of the obscure blog age.
Nope - nothng to do with "adversity". Even when Starmer was unpopular and Boris popular, I said that Starmer was a dishonest charlatan. I have thought Starmer was dishonest ever since he ran on a Corbynite platform to lead Labour, and then made a right turn to suck up to Middle England. A mirror image of Boris's own career. And his Brexit policy under Corbyn was more or less the last word in opportunistic dishonesty.
And I don't particularly like Boris either, and never have, though I admire him for delivering Brexit and routing Corbyn. I don't know any other politician who could have done either, let alone both. But I've always held my nose while supporting him.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
81k new infections compares to 146k same day last week.
Are the same number of tests being taken and/or reported? I relish the demise of Covid as much as anyone but I've never been sure what to make of test statistics because the scale and sampling methodology seem to be either arbitrary or undisclosed.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
Could be never, hybrid working at least is here to stay I think.
For the unvacinnated minority of course International travel is off the agenda indefinitely too even if the vaccinated return to tourism abroad
I think a lot of people will never return to the cities.
Covid has helped a lot of us recalibrate. We've learned that being close to nature is far more interesting and exciting than fume-filled city life. Growing, preparing and cooking your own food is a heap more fun and exciting than wasting money dining out.
Sorry Sean.
Sure, some people will feel this and go to Pembrokeshire to grow their own sourdough. But it's about 10%, and most of them - I believe - would have made the move anyway, it's just been accelerated
That means property prices in London will flatline or fall, but that will attract the young - who have recently been priced out - and they will flood back in, and so the cycle of life returns. Young people, most people, will always love cities, because they love human life. We aren't going back to some rural economy of cottages and crofts
Conservative politicians should be talking about how they made the right decisions about Omicron and how the economy and society benefitted from it while demanding the removal of all remaining restrictions.
Instead they're having to deal with the consequences of stupidity and immaturity from Downing Street.
Ironic isn't it.
Yet that plank jn Wales called it a ‘dangerous experiment’.
The Welsh and Scottish administrations got it wrong and sacrificed their hospitality industry at the critical time of year for those businesses to own the Tories. They failed. The press needs to hold them to account.
You mean apart from BBC Scotland amplifying the complaints of every hospitality representative and their granny day in and day out, or sending camera crews to follow any partying Jock they could find in Carlisle on 31/12/21?
Am I wrong, or is PB full of people who think that Mr Drakeford and Ms Sturgeon ordered the pub doors to be welded up?
Here is a reference SA graph to compare. Given the very different testing regimes I think it is informative to look at SA Covid admissions rather than cases.
A certain amount of familiarity to SA's 2 week wide "peak" there I think. Capital first then rest of the country.
EDIT: How the feck is Covid not in my spellchecker yet?
We shall see in the next couple of weeks, how the new testing regime matches with surveillance data. Also if the admissions start falling (and match which data set)....
Sorry but I must make this rebuttal again to the repeated assertion that Johnson's popularity was fake and a consequence of Corbyn being the alternative. To an extent, sure, but it's not by a long chalk the whole explanation or even close to it.
Back when he was running for Tory leader one of the things that put him in pole position were polls showing he'd beat Corbyn convincingly in a head to head. And the Corbyn he was beating there was not the 'discredited' Corbyn of GE19, it was the Corbyn who was neck & neck with Mrs May in polls and also neck & neck (or better) against the likes of Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, indeed against all the realistic Con alternatives bar one - a certain Boris Johnson.
The guy was genuinely popular when he became our PM, and much as one might wish to explain this away by reference to Jeremy Corbyn it remains a regrettable fact.
I don't dispute Boris Johnson's evident popularity, at least within an election-winning section of the population, but I do take issue with what you are trying to claim with your assertion that I have bolded.
If we consider the situation May's government found itself in 2019, May had survived a Conservative Party confidence vote in her leadership. She had lost not one, not two, but three Commons votes on her Brexit deal, the first by a margin of 230 - the largest defeat for a government motion for 100 years. The government was a shambles, and the Conservatives collapsed to below 10% in the European Parliament elections.
And against that, what was the largest opinion poll lead achieved by the Corbyn-led Labour Party?
Only 10% (twice). Once by the margin of 33% - 23%, and the second time by the even more absurd margin of 31% - 21%.
Corbyn's Labour Party fell to below 20% in several opinion polls. They even came fourth in one - before Boris Johnson was leader of the Conservatives.
In the circumstances, that level of performance from the official opposition completely discredits the leader of the opposition. Despite his Lazarus act in GE2017, he could already be regarded as the weakest leader of the opposition for the best part of a century, even before being smashed by Johnson at GE2019.
OK. A little prediction game. Now that the fear of COVID is receding, where do people think the vax numbers will end up for 1st, 2nd and boosted?
My guess is*: 91%, 85%, 67%.
I just don't see people being panicked into getting jabs from now on, so I'd expect apathy and overconfidence to set in with the bulk of those who haven't had jabs, 2nd or boosters.
It would be pretty remarkable for someone to to both win a huge majority and to lose it. Usually they at get out and the successor can be blamed for a bit part of it.
81k new infections compares to 146k same day last week.
Are the same number of tests being taken and/or reported? I relish the demise of Covid as much as anyone but I've never been sure what to make of test statistics because the scale and sampling methodology seem to be either arbitrary or undisclosed.
Boris Johnson's support was very shallow but I think Starmer's is even more so.
Both men are dishonest opportunistic charlatans who have sold out any principles they ever had.
So fairly typical politicians of the Twitter age, sadly.
That’s some claim!
Your bitter and inaccurate knee-jerk reaction to adversity is fairly typical of anonymous polemicists of the obscure blog age.
Nope. Even when Starmer was unpopular and Boris popular, I said that Starmer was a dishonest charlatan.
Unless you have a personal axe to grind like Paul Gambacinni from Starmer's time at the CPS, or you are Jeremy Corbyn, I am not sure where you will find your evidence.
The old accusation which had some merit was his charisma by-pass.
Has the parish councillor (PC) published the latest Scottish sub-sample proving that the Conservatives are about to triumphantly gain Gordon from the SNP? Must have missed it.
(YouGov are the only pollster to routinely correctly weight geographical sub-samples; Fieldwork: 12th - 13th January 2022; Weighted sample = 145)
I’m sure HY will be along in a minute to hail this as a victory for the Union, again.
That Slab figure does surprise me, even now. Scon, not quite so much - the bedrock British nationalists.
Would be rather different for Holyrood of course - a lot more Green, though whether that comes from SNP, Labour, SLD and/or all of them is a good question.
But subsamples.
That SLab figure doesn’t surprise me. There is a Labour activist who occasionally pops up here (forgotten username I’m afraid) who is always banging on about if Labour ever rise again in England then they will automatically rise again in Scotland. I have disputed this assertion of his for many years. We’re about to find out who’s right! Labour are back in England. My contention is that this is a disaster for the Scottish Conservatives and the Union rather than the SNP. Time will tell.
In the short term the BJ scandals are simply going to play straight into the hands of the main anti-Con party. In Scotland’s case the SNP.
It is actually the SLD figure that stuck out for me. This is tactical unwind taking place in currently strong SCon areas. I expect the SLD vote share to shoot up at the next GE, but with a poor show of actual seats won.
Dutch lockdown watch: from today, the lucky people of the Netherlands may visit gyms, hairdressers and non-essential shops. But only until 5pm. This follows on from the grand re-opening of schools on Monday. Aren't they lucky?
Meanwhile, according to the helpful updates provided by ourworldindata.org, their Omicron casedemic continues to track that of the UK with an approximate 2.5 week lag. Indeed, it looks likely that, when today's stats are updated, the Dutch and UK numbers will achieve crossover and they'll go ahead of us.
Panic lockdown for a month, followed by a miserable slow crawl out the other side: this is the kind of policy that a lot of people were jumping up and down and screaming for in this country before Christmas. And it's been a dreadful failure.
This experience has been a disaster for the Dutch people, but we should also be thankful for their sacrifice. If nobody had tried a lockdown against Omicron then the iSAGE tendency would doubtless have continued to insist that not doing it was a missed opportunity, that a "circuit breaker" would've relieved the pressure on the NHS, and so on and so forth. As it is, we now know that this tactic is useless and any further appeals for it can be disregarded. Thank God.
And all the scientists and politicians that called for it must be asked to explain themselves. They cannot slink away into the shadows. They nearly fucked us all mentally, once again, for absolutely no reason
There must be a reckoning. Nothing punitive, but we need answers and - if needs be - apologies
Also one from you for years of Boris Johnson ramping?
Boris Johnson's support was very shallow but I think Starmer's is even more so.
Both men are dishonest opportunistic charlatans who have sold out any principles they ever had.
So fairly typical politicians of the Twitter age, sadly.
That’s some claim!
Your bitter and inaccurate knee-jerk reaction to adversity is fairly typical of anonymous polemicists of the obscure blog age.
Nope - nothng to do with "adversity". Even when Starmer was unpopular and Boris popular, I said that Starmer was a dishonest charlatan. I have thought Starmer was dishonest ever since he ran on a Corbynite platform to lead Labour, and then made a right turn to suck up to Middle England. A mirror image of Boris's own career. And his Brexit policy under Corbyn was more or less the last word in opportunistic dishonesty.
And I don't particularly like Boris either, and never have, though I admire him for delivering Brexit and routing Corbyn. I don't know any other politician who could have done either, let alone both. But I've always held my nose while supporting him.
But how does twitter come in to it? Both men were well embarked on their careers pre internet let alone pre twitter.
And you exaggerate. Starmer was a time-server and self-advancer, but charlatan is a strong charge.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
In late Nov people were going back to office work, now they are WFH again.
The Tories need to ditch this ASAP so that city centres can begin to recover. As I say, it will take a while
But I am optimistic for London (at least this afternoon, I might be in despair by this evening as variant Omega with its 98% CFR emerges in Gabon). Tootling around today I realised - again! - how much people LOVE cities. Boulevarding. People watching. Flashy restaurants. Exotic shops. Cool art galleries. Flea markets. Places to ogle and flirt with cute examples of your species. Falafel stalls.
None of these innate and intense human desires for exuberant human society and display have gone away. 59 year olds may be happy to retire and WFH in Godalming, visiting London for a mediocre musical once a month, but most people - esp the younger - will not.
They can ditch the guidance but they cannot force businesses to pull people into offices and factories for 5 day weeks.
I do think you are right and if house prices do fall in London it will pull plenty of younger people in. It’s not only about city working but city living. Probably many of those who have moved out of London to commutable places like Wycombe, Woking, Canterbury and the like.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Pret, like Starbucks before them, have radically decreased the quality and range of their cake choice. Which turns out to be the metric on which I judge a coffee shop.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Not sure on the wisdom of Sir Keir's calling for Boris to resign. That runs the risk of turning it tribal. The Tories will rally around Boris, and when he then doesn't resign it will feel like a kind of Labour defeat. This happened with IDS and the Iraq shenanigans. In the end everyone was concentrating more on IDS's haplessness and his inability to land a blow than on Tone's misdemeanours. Moreover, Boris's allies in the media will now decide it's open season Sir Keir and will be digging up all sorts of dubious lockdown behaviour by Labour MPs, spuriously or otherwise. Sir Keir should have kept his distance.
I was in a very small minority, making that point on here just after PMQs. The LotO calling on the PM to resign, has the effect of rallying many Tories who were on the fence, to avoid giving Sir Keir the satisfaction.
I think there is something in the general point that calling on X to resign and when they won't it looks poor. But there are exceptions. I really don't think him levelling every criticism under the sun but NOT calling for resignation would have made a difference in the 'cause Tories to rally around' stakes, and Keir has not been throwing the demand around willy nilly, he has allowed things to build and build before he did it. At a certain point he needed to escalate his own words or it'd look ridiculous.
That some Tories are also demanding it, albeit few of them, shows that the moment he picked was different, and that they have done so means his words don't look isolated or meaningless.
81k new infections compares to 146k same day last week.
Are the same number of tests being taken and/or reported? I relish the demise of Covid as much as anyone but I've never been sure what to make of test statistics because the scale and sampling methodology seem to be either arbitrary or undisclosed.
About 20% fewer week on week I think
The main things are that (currently)
- there is little or no pressure on testing. - positivity (ration of positive test to overall tests) is falling as well.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
I seriously don't believe that guy. Bad comedian in bad Boris wig, and if he was a character in a novel you'd say the made-up surname was heavy handed.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
Have we ever seen Fabricant and Johnson together in the same place?
Even the name... Fabricant, one who fabricates... in other words, a liar.
Lots of people wearing face masks at the snooker. Must be quite 25% of the crowd...
I was there in person last Sunday and most of the crowd were using them at that juncture, but I think it's still a requirement of the petty rules and gentle encouragement was given.
No matter. We'll be rid of the wretched things (once and for all, hopefully) in a few days' time.
Boris Johnson's support was very shallow but I think Starmer's is even more so.
Both men are dishonest opportunistic charlatans who have sold out any principles they ever had.
So fairly typical politicians of the Twitter age, sadly.
That’s some claim!
Your bitter and inaccurate knee-jerk reaction to adversity is fairly typical of anonymous polemicists of the obscure blog age.
Nope - nothng to do with "adversity". Even when Starmer was unpopular and Boris popular, I said that Starmer was a dishonest charlatan. I have thought Starmer was dishonest ever since he ran on a Corbynite platform to lead Labour, and then made a right turn to suck up to Middle England. A mirror image of Boris's own career. And his Brexit policy under Corbyn was more or less the last word in opportunistic dishonesty.
And I don't particularly like Boris either, and never have, though I admire him for delivering Brexit and routing Corbyn. I don't know any other politician who could have done either, let alone both. But I've always held my nose while supporting him.
But how does twitter come in to it? Both men were well embarked on their careers pre internet let alone pre twitter.
And you exaggerate. Starmer was a time-server and self-advancer, but charlatan is a strong charge.
I have read on here that Starmer has had life handed to him on a plate, whereas Johnson is a grafter...or have I got a vowel wrong?
PBers of a certain mentality have a long history of predicting the downfall of London. Wrong then, wrong now. The WFH mandate will be dropped in days. People will WFH a bit and work in town a bit. And when they are in town, they will enjoy what London has to offer. And London will bounce back, as it always does, and as you’d expect of the greatest city in the world.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
In late Nov people were going back to office work, now they are WFH again.
The Tories need to ditch this ASAP so that city centres can begin to recover. As I say, it will take a while
But I am optimistic for London (at least this afternoon, I might be in despair by this evening as variant Omega with its 98% CFR emerges in Gabon). Tootling around today I realised - again! - how much people LOVE cities. Boulevarding. People watching. Flashy restaurants. Exotic shops. Cool art galleries. Flea markets. Places to ogle and flirt with cute examples of your species. Falafel stalls.
None of these innate and intense human desires for exuberant human society and display have gone away. 59 year olds may be happy to retire and WFH in Godalming, visiting London for a mediocre musical once a month, but most people - esp the younger - will not.
They can ditch the guidance but they cannot force businesses to pull people into offices and factories for 5 day weeks.
I do think you are right and if house prices do fall in London it will pull plenty of younger people in. It’s not only about city working but city living. Probably many of those who have moved out of London to commutable places like Wycombe, Woking, Canterbury and the like.
The streets of London - certainly Camden and Hampstead today - are "visibly" younger than they were pre-pandemic. And I am sure this is true, not just a function of me getting older and everyone looking younger
There are multiple reasons for this: younger people have less Covid fear, for a start, so they are more likely to go to pubs, shops, markets, Peruvian gastro-brasseries. But I also wonder if the Great Replacement is already happening. The older people/family types who were going off :London anyway, have made their move, younger people who love the hubbub are taking over
If so, this is a good and natural thing, and better than what came before, when inner London was getting so expensive it was turning into a ghetto of the old and rich - like inner Paris
Conservative politicians should be talking about how they made the right decisions about Omicron and how the economy and society benefitted from it while demanding the removal of all remaining restrictions.
Instead they're having to deal with the consequences of stupidity and immaturity from Downing Street.
Ironic isn't it.
Yet that plank jn Wales called it a ‘dangerous experiment’.
The Welsh and Scottish administrations got it wrong and sacrificed their hospitality industry at the critical time of year for those businesses to own the Tories. They failed. The press needs to hold them to account.
You mean apart from BBC Scotland amplifying the complaints of every hospitality representative and their granny day in and day out, or sending camera crews to follow any partying Jock they could find in Carlisle on 31/12/21?
Am I wrong, or is PB full of people who think that Mr Drakeford and Ms Sturgeon ordered the pub doors to be welded up?
You are not wrong.
Some not-taking-the-SNP-to-account from a surprising source.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Pret, like Starbucks before them, have radically decreased the quality and range of their cake choice. Which turns out to be the metric on which I judge a coffee shop.
I went off them when they stopped offering the All Day Breakfast Sandwich. It was my secret and guilty pleasure but OMFG they were good. You had to douse them in soy (giving you enough salt to last a month) and eat them with hot tea
Fucking superb. High quality eggs, bacon, sausage and excellent ketchup all squished together between good bread. Why the hell did they discontinue?
Pret's stuff is now tediously generic. Their hoi sin sauce duck wrap is exactly the same as the one in M&S, except the one in M&S is higher quality. And the supermarkets are more inventive
Dutch lockdown watch: from today, the lucky people of the Netherlands may visit gyms, hairdressers and non-essential shops. But only until 5pm. This follows on from the grand re-opening of schools on Monday. Aren't they lucky?
Meanwhile, according to the helpful updates provided by ourworldindata.org, their Omicron casedemic continues to track that of the UK with an approximate 2.5 week lag. Indeed, it looks likely that, when today's stats are updated, the Dutch and UK numbers will achieve crossover and they'll go ahead of us.
Panic lockdown for a month, followed by a miserable slow crawl out the other side: this is the kind of policy that a lot of people were jumping up and down and screaming for in this country before Christmas. And it's been a dreadful failure.
This experience has been a disaster for the Dutch people, but we should also be thankful for their sacrifice. If nobody had tried a lockdown against Omicron then the iSAGE tendency would doubtless have continued to insist that not doing it was a missed opportunity, that a "circuit breaker" would've relieved the pressure on the NHS, and so on and so forth. As it is, we now know that this tactic is useless and any further appeals for it can be disregarded. Thank God.
And all the scientists and politicians that called for it must be asked to explain themselves. They cannot slink away into the shadows. They nearly fucked us all mentally, once again, for absolutely no reason
What a shame you didn't demonstrate they were wrong at the time! But of course, you couldn't, because all you had was wishful thinking, and a lot of specious reasoning that wouldn't have stood up for five minutes under critical analysis.
You must have been told 20 times a day that scientists were advising caution because by the time we had better data, if things carried on going as they were going, it would be too late and the NHS would have collapsed.
The fact that Omicron suddenly stopped spreading as fast as it had been, for reasons no one understands - least of all the anti-science brigade on social media - means we were luckier than we had any right to expect. The optimists were proved lucky - for which we should all be very thankful - but they really shouldn't kid themselves they were proved right.
Has the parish councillor (PC) published the latest Scottish sub-sample proving that the Conservatives are about to triumphantly gain Gordon from the SNP? Must have missed it.
(YouGov are the only pollster to routinely correctly weight geographical sub-samples; Fieldwork: 12th - 13th January 2022; Weighted sample = 145)
I’m sure HY will be along in a minute to hail this as a victory for the Union, again.
That Slab figure does surprise me, even now. Scon, not quite so much - the bedrock British nationalists.
Would be rather different for Holyrood of course - a lot more Green, though whether that comes from SNP, Labour, SLD and/or all of them is a good question.
But subsamples.
That SLab figure doesn’t surprise me. There is a Labour activist who occasionally pops up here (forgotten username I’m afraid) who is always banging on about if Labour ever rise again in England then they will automatically rise again in Scotland. I have disputed this assertion of his for many years. We’re about to find out who’s right! Labour are back in England. My contention is that this is a disaster for the Scottish Conservatives and the Union rather than the SNP. Time will tell.
In the short term the BJ scandals are simply going to play straight into the hands of the main anti-Con party. In Scotland’s case the SNP.
It is actually the SLD figure that stuck out for me. This is tactical unwind taking place in currently strong SCon areas. I expect the SLD vote share to shoot up at the next GE, but with a poor show of actual seats won.
There is no a priori reason, in any case, for Labour Scotland Branch to track Mummy in England. One could go up and the other down . For one thing, the political competition is so different. The SNP have already mopped up a lot of the less nationalistic voters and the latter have gone in part to the Tories with their No Surrender with Ruthie campaigning. Plus more parties so more complex local battles.
Plus there are huge policy problems. In England they now have to worry about not dissing Brexit; in Scotland it's completely the other way round (and they were already being suspected as a pro-Brexit party years back when Mr Corbyn was in charge).
Of course, they don't have the huge disadvantage of being led by Messrs Johnson and R-M etc that the Scons have, but oin the other hand Scottish Labour aren't a separate party at all. Firstly, they don't even have financial independence. So Jenny Formby could yank Kezia Dugdale's lead when they had that row about spending money on the latter's court case. And secondly, tightening up the exception in the electoral legislation on descriptive names for parties would kill even that that pretence.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
In late Nov people were going back to office work, now they are WFH again.
The Tories need to ditch this ASAP so that city centres can begin to recover. As I say, it will take a while
But I am optimistic for London (at least this afternoon, I might be in despair by this evening as variant Omega with its 98% CFR emerges in Gabon). Tootling around today I realised - again! - how much people LOVE cities. Boulevarding. People watching. Flashy restaurants. Exotic shops. Cool art galleries. Flea markets. Places to ogle and flirt with cute examples of your species. Falafel stalls.
None of these innate and intense human desires for exuberant human society and display have gone away. 59 year olds may be happy to retire and WFH in Godalming, visiting London for a mediocre musical once a month, but most people - esp the younger - will not.
They can ditch the guidance but they cannot force businesses to pull people into offices and factories for 5 day weeks.
I do think you are right and if house prices do fall in London it will pull plenty of younger people in. It’s not only about city working but city living. Probably many of those who have moved out of London to commutable places like Wycombe, Woking, Canterbury and the like.
The streets of London - certainly Camden and Hampstead today - are "visibly" younger than they were pre-pandemic. And I am sure this is true, not just a function of me getting older and everyone looking younger
There are multiple reasons for this: younger people have less Covid fear, for a start, so they are more likely to go to pubs, shops, markets, Peruvian gastro-brasseries. But I also wonder if the Great Replacement is already happening. The older people/family types who were going off :London anyway, have made their move, younger people who love the hubbub are taking over
If so, this is a good and natural thing, and better than what came before, when inner London was getting so expensive it was turning into a ghetto of the old and rich - like inner Paris
Lol. The old and rich have moved to a better life in the country, keeping their houses to be rented out room by room to all these young people you're indecently ogling.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
In late Nov people were going back to office work, now they are WFH again.
The Tories need to ditch this ASAP so that city centres can begin to recover. As I say, it will take a while
But I am optimistic for London (at least this afternoon, I might be in despair by this evening as variant Omega with its 98% CFR emerges in Gabon). Tootling around today I realised - again! - how much people LOVE cities. Boulevarding. People watching. Flashy restaurants. Exotic shops. Cool art galleries. Flea markets. Places to ogle and flirt with cute examples of your species. Falafel stalls.
None of these innate and intense human desires for exuberant human society and display have gone away. 59 year olds may be happy to retire and WFH in Godalming, visiting London for a mediocre musical once a month, but most people - esp the younger - will not.
They can ditch the guidance but they cannot force businesses to pull people into offices and factories for 5 day weeks.
I do think you are right and if house prices do fall in London it will pull plenty of younger people in. It’s not only about city working but city living. Probably many of those who have moved out of London to commutable places like Wycombe, Woking, Canterbury and the like.
The streets of London - certainly Camden and Hampstead today - are "visibly" younger than they were pre-pandemic. And I am sure this is true, not just a function of me getting older and everyone looking younger
There are multiple reasons for this: younger people have less Covid fear, for a start, so they are more likely to go to pubs, shops, markets, Peruvian gastro-brasseries. But I also wonder if the Great Replacement is already happening. The older people/family types who were going off :London anyway, have made their move, younger people who love the hubbub are taking over
If so, this is a good and natural thing, and better than what came before, when inner London was getting so expensive it was turning into a ghetto of the old and rich - like inner Paris
Lol. The old and rich have moved to a better life in the country, keeping their houses to be rented out room by room to all these young people you're indecently ogling.
Conservative politicians should be talking about how they made the right decisions about Omicron and how the economy and society benefitted from it while demanding the removal of all remaining restrictions.
Instead they're having to deal with the consequences of stupidity and immaturity from Downing Street.
Ironic isn't it.
Yet that plank jn Wales called it a ‘dangerous experiment’.
The Welsh and Scottish administrations got it wrong and sacrificed their hospitality industry at the critical time of year for those businesses to own the Tories. They failed. The press needs to hold them to account.
You mean apart from BBC Scotland amplifying the complaints of every hospitality representative and their granny day in and day out, or sending camera crews to follow any partying Jock they could find in Carlisle on 31/12/21?
Am I wrong, or is PB full of people who think that Mr Drakeford and Ms Sturgeon ordered the pub doors to be welded up?
You are not wrong.
Some not-taking-the-SNP-to-account from a surprising source.
Good heavens. It must be the End Days, and Ragnarok is coming. Signs and portents. Scons campaigning for independence (albeit their own), huge volcanoes in the Pacific, and Leasky actually approves of SG policy!
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Here is a question. If cases drop at this rate, will the government actually still wait a fortnight before lifting restrictions? Or might they abandon them earlier?
Disappointing from England again. Australia reaching 300.
Politics is not the only field capable of spotting squirrels.
Cricket fans should be more concerned by the culture of racism in the sport than how much a team lose a match.
PB posts recently about Ashes must number thousands PB posts about racism in the sport… er…
Boris Johnson is jealous. If only his PB team were that effective.
The whole point of sporting endeavour is to discuss the play, the players, and the results. It doesn't mean you are unconcerned about deep-rooted problems in the game. It also doesn't mean you are in favour of racial discrimination because you fail to talk about it all the time.
What is Scottish cricket doing to investigate institutional racism in the game?
Excellent whataboutery.
So do you believe that it is OK for Scottish cricket to be racist, or do you just believe it doesn't exist? By your own argument your failure to talk about it means that you condone it.
When the MPs were threatening to withdraw money, they were talking about English cricket. Sport is devolved in Scotland, Wales and N Ireland. I’m not aware of their legislatures threatening to abandon the game.
Wales? You sure mr expert? England and Wales cricket is one body. But you wouldn’t know that as you know nothing about cricket and are just trying to wind people up. Good luck Duartstickson
Sport not devolved to Wales you say? You sure mr expert? Cricket Wales is recognised by Sport Wales and the Welsh Government as the national governing body for cricket in Wales.
The five sports to receive the most emergency relief funding 1. Bowls – 81 successful applications, £130,103 awarded 2. Cricket – 69 successful applications, £110,067 awarded 3. Football – 76 successful applications, £96,223 awarded 4. Golf – 18 successful applications, £78,538 awarded 5. Rugby Union – 14 successful applications, £43,637 awarded
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
In late Nov people were going back to office work, now they are WFH again.
The Tories need to ditch this ASAP so that city centres can begin to recover. As I say, it will take a while
But I am optimistic for London (at least this afternoon, I might be in despair by this evening as variant Omega with its 98% CFR emerges in Gabon). Tootling around today I realised - again! - how much people LOVE cities. Boulevarding. People watching. Flashy restaurants. Exotic shops. Cool art galleries. Flea markets. Places to ogle and flirt with cute examples of your species. Falafel stalls.
None of these innate and intense human desires for exuberant human society and display have gone away. 59 year olds may be happy to retire and WFH in Godalming, visiting London for a mediocre musical once a month, but most people - esp the younger - will not.
They can ditch the guidance but they cannot force businesses to pull people into offices and factories for 5 day weeks.
I do think you are right and if house prices do fall in London it will pull plenty of younger people in. It’s not only about city working but city living. Probably many of those who have moved out of London to commutable places like Wycombe, Woking, Canterbury and the like.
The streets of London - certainly Camden and Hampstead today - are "visibly" younger than they were pre-pandemic. And I am sure this is true, not just a function of me getting older and everyone looking younger
There are multiple reasons for this: younger people have less Covid fear, for a start, so they are more likely to go to pubs, shops, markets, Peruvian gastro-brasseries. But I also wonder if the Great Replacement is already happening. The older people/family types who were going off :London anyway, have made their move, younger people who love the hubbub are taking over
If so, this is a good and natural thing, and better than what came before, when inner London was getting so expensive it was turning into a ghetto of the old and rich - like inner Paris
Lol. The old and rich have moved to a better life in the country, keeping their houses to be rented out room by room to all these young people you're indecently ogling.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Wig is a shorter and easier word to use than fabricant.
Here is a question. If cases drop at this rate, will the government actually still wait a fortnight before lifting restrictions? Or might they abandon them earlier?
They will wait until it filters through to admissions, I think.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Maybe they’ll be reduced to small unfashionable towns with the sort of clientele that only use known brands. The sort of people that stay in travelodges rather than interesting B&Bs and eat in Harvester rather than an independent gastropub.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Wig is a shorter and easier word to use than fabricant.
'Twat' is shorter to say, although not shorter to write. And it describes Fabricant better.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
Have we ever seen Fabricant and Johnson together in the same place?
Even the name... Fabricant, one who fabricates... in other words, a liar.
Sorry but I must make this rebuttal again to the repeated assertion that Johnson's popularity was fake and a consequence of Corbyn being the alternative. To an extent, sure, but it's not by a long chalk the whole explanation or even close to it.
Back when he was running for Tory leader one of the things that put him in pole position were polls showing he'd beat Corbyn convincingly in a head to head. And the Corbyn he was beating there was not the 'discredited' Corbyn of GE19, it was the Corbyn who was neck & neck with Mrs May in polls and also neck & neck (or better) against the likes of Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, indeed against all the realistic Con alternatives bar one - a certain Boris Johnson.
The guy was genuinely popular when he became our PM, and much as one might wish to explain this away by reference to Jeremy Corbyn it remains a regrettable fact.
I don't dispute Boris Johnson's evident popularity, at least within an election-winning section of the population, but I do take issue with what you are trying to claim with your assertion that I have bolded.
If we consider the situation May's government found itself in 2019, May had survived a Conservative Party confidence vote in her leadership. She had lost not one, not two, but three Commons votes on her Brexit deal, the first by a margin of 230 - the largest defeat for a government motion for 100 years. The government was a shambles, and the Conservatives collapsed to below 10% in the European Parliament elections.
And against that, what was the largest opinion poll lead achieved by the Corbyn-led Labour Party?
Only 10% (twice). Once by the margin of 33% - 23%, and the second time by the even more absurd margin of 31% - 21%.
Corbyn's Labour Party fell to below 20% in several opinion polls. They even came fourth in one - before Boris Johnson was leader of the Conservatives.
In the circumstances, that level of performance from the official opposition completely discredits the leader of the opposition. Despite his Lazarus act in GE2017, he could already be regarded as the weakest leader of the opposition for the best part of a century, even before being smashed by Johnson at GE2019.
I'm not saying Corbyn was ever a *strong* LOTO but if you look at the polling history - hope the link below works - what it shows is the Cons trailing Labour or at best about even in the period up to Johnson taking over, then after he takes over they quickly establish a big lead which persists right through to the GE in Dec.
Here is a question. If cases drop at this rate, will the government actually still wait a fortnight before lifting restrictions? Or might they abandon them earlier?
They will wait until it filters through to admissions, I think.
Pity.
At least Downing Street's serial law breaking coupled to falling case numbers means we can be fairly confident they won't be renewed.
Are PBers genuinely trying to argue that London becoming an even younger city is a bad thing?
Old scrotes who have moved out to Somerset, who are finding it dull (which it is) and trying to reassure themselves they've made the right move, despite the nagging suspicion it was a terrible error
I have a couple of friends in this exact position. They loved it at first. Now? Hmmm
Terrible decision to stand aside after Amess. Might have looked reasonable at the time, but events, dear boy...
I concur. Irrespective how a seat becomes vacant, it should be properly contested. Failure of democracy to have a phoney by-election. Ditto speaker.
Even in Batley and Spen?
Southend AND Batley 2016 were the right call.
I agree.
Contesting the seat of a murdered MP is distasteful. One of the tools we have to combat extremism is this kind of institutional immunological response.
We cannot let those who wish to divide us, succeed.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Wig is a shorter and easier word to use than fabricant.
I hope the poor man doesn't read PB, there could be hell toupee.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Maybe they’ll be reduced to small unfashionable towns with the sort of clientele that only use known brands. The sort of people that stay in travelodges rather than interesting B&Bs and eat in Harvester rather than an independent gastropub.
If they try moving in on Cannock, I'll still eat at Hannah's.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Wig is a shorter and easier word to use than fabricant.
I hope the poor man doesn't read PB, there could be hell toupee.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Wig is a shorter and easier word to use than fabricant.
I hope the poor man doesn't read PB, there could be hell toupee.
Terrible decision to stand aside after Amess. Might have looked reasonable at the time, but events, dear boy...
I concur. Irrespective how a seat becomes vacant, it should be properly contested. Failure of democracy to have a phoney by-election. Ditto speaker.
Even in Batley and Spen?
Southend AND Batley 2016 were the right call.
I agree.
Contesting the seat of a murdered MP is distasteful. One of the tools we have to combat extremism is this kind of institutional immunological response.
We cannot let those who wish to divide us, succeed.
It's interesting how little debate there was on this subject in 1990 when Ian Gow was murdered. No-one was particularly surprised when the LDs contested the by-election, from what I've read.
Conservative politicians should be talking about how they made the right decisions about Omicron and how the economy and society benefitted from it while demanding the removal of all remaining restrictions.
Instead they're having to deal with the consequences of stupidity and immaturity from Downing Street.
Ironic isn't it.
Yet that plank jn Wales called it a ‘dangerous experiment’.
The Welsh and Scottish administrations got it wrong and sacrificed their hospitality industry at the critical time of year for those businesses to own the Tories. They failed. The press needs to hold them to account.
You mean apart from BBC Scotland amplifying the complaints of every hospitality representative and their granny day in and day out, or sending camera crews to follow any partying Jock they could find in Carlisle on 31/12/21?
Am I wrong, or is PB full of people who think that Mr Drakeford and Ms Sturgeon ordered the pub doors to be welded up?
No, we know what they did. Drakeford stopped people doing park run. You could no longer go to watch professional sport. Amateur sport cancelled. Covid theatre in pubs and restaurants. All pointless.
Comments
It wasn't ever thus but now I know he's irredeemably toxic.
For the unvacinnated minority of course international travel is off the agenda indefinitely too even if the vaccinated return to tourism abroad
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Regent's Park was absolutely swarming today (covid-adjusted). Perhaps city centres become the place to live and you commute out to work?
I think Leicester Square and Covent Garden will take longer to recover than the rest of London's hotspots.
This weekend the Opposition should broaden their attack to the Party and Cabinet that is protecting Johnson. As it stands, once Johnson is gone the new leader will try to wipe the slate clean. That is more difficult if they are tarred with Johnson's brush.
Covid has helped a lot of us recalibrate. We've learned that being close to nature is far more interesting and exciting than fume-filled city life. Growing, preparing and cooking your own food is a heap more fun and exciting than wasting money dining out.
Sorry Sean.
Cases - R is collapsing. While the later part of this change may be related to the testing policy change, it began before it was made.
Admissions - R is flat
MV beds - the rate of decline is getting steeper
Deaths - Still going up
I reckon don’t even think about it, just get on with the rest of our lives. 👍🏻
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
The Tories need to ditch this ASAP so that city centres can begin to recover. As I say, it will take a while
But I am optimistic for London (at least this afternoon, I might be in despair by this evening as variant Omega with its 98% CFR emerges in Gabon). Tootling around today I realised - again! - how much people LOVE cities. Boulevarding. People watching. Flashy restaurants. Exotic shops. Cool art galleries. Flea markets. Places to ogle and flirt with cute examples of your species. Falafel stalls.
None of these innate and intense human desires for exuberant human society and display have gone away. 59 year olds may be happy to retire and WFH in Godalming, visiting London for a mediocre musical once a month, but most people - esp the younger - will not.
A certain amount of familiarity to SA's 2 week wide "peak" there I think. Capital first then rest of the country.
EDIT: How the feck is Covid not in my spellchecker yet?
And I don't particularly like Boris either, and never have, though I admire him for delivering Brexit and routing Corbyn. I don't know any other politician who could have done either, let alone both. But I've always held my nose while supporting him.
That means property prices in London will flatline or fall, but that will attract the young - who have recently been priced out - and they will flood back in, and so the cycle of life returns. Young people, most people, will always love cities, because they love human life. We aren't going back to some rural economy of cottages and crofts
If we consider the situation May's government found itself in 2019, May had survived a Conservative Party confidence vote in her leadership. She had lost not one, not two, but three Commons votes on her Brexit deal, the first by a margin of 230 - the largest defeat for a government motion for 100 years. The government was a shambles, and the Conservatives collapsed to below 10% in the European Parliament elections.
And against that, what was the largest opinion poll lead achieved by the Corbyn-led Labour Party?
Only 10% (twice). Once by the margin of 33% - 23%, and the second time by the even more absurd margin of 31% - 21%.
Corbyn's Labour Party fell to below 20% in several opinion polls. They even came fourth in one - before Boris Johnson was leader of the Conservatives.
In the circumstances, that level of performance from the official opposition completely discredits the leader of the opposition. Despite his Lazarus act in GE2017, he could already be regarded as the weakest leader of the opposition for the best part of a century, even before being smashed by Johnson at GE2019.
My guess is*: 91%, 85%, 67%.
I just don't see people being panicked into getting jabs from now on, so I'd expect apathy and overconfidence to set in with the bulk of those who haven't had jabs, 2nd or boosters.
* on current metric of population over 12
Suggestions...
Also a good artist that might have painted such an idea.
The old accusation which had some merit was his charisma by-pass.
In the short term the BJ scandals are simply going to play straight into the hands of the main anti-Con party. In Scotland’s case the SNP.
It is actually the SLD figure that stuck out for me. This is tactical unwind taking place in currently strong SCon areas. I expect the SLD vote share to shoot up at the next GE, but with a poor show of actual seats won.
And you exaggerate. Starmer was a time-server and self-advancer, but charlatan is a strong charge.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
I do think you are right and if house prices do fall in London it will pull plenty of younger people in. It’s not only about city working but city living. Probably many of those who have moved out of London to commutable places like Wycombe, Woking, Canterbury and the like.
That some Tories are also demanding it, albeit few of them, shows that the moment he picked was different, and that they have done so means his words don't look isolated or meaningless.
- there is little or no pressure on testing.
- positivity (ration of positive test to overall tests) is falling as well.
These suggest that the fall is real.
Even the name... Fabricant, one who fabricates... in other words, a liar.
Hiding in plain sight, I tell you.
No matter. We'll be rid of the wretched things (once and for all, hopefully) in a few days' time.
There are multiple reasons for this: younger people have less Covid fear, for a start, so they are more likely to go to pubs, shops, markets, Peruvian gastro-brasseries. But I also wonder if the Great Replacement is already happening. The older people/family types who were going off :London anyway, have made their move, younger people who love the hubbub are taking over
If so, this is a good and natural thing, and better than what came before, when inner London was getting so expensive it was turning into a ghetto of the old and rich - like inner Paris
Crikey.
Some not-taking-the-SNP-to-account from a surprising source.
Or would that be YouGov?
Fucking superb. High quality eggs, bacon, sausage and excellent ketchup all squished together between good bread. Why the hell did they discontinue?
Pret's stuff is now tediously generic. Their hoi sin sauce duck wrap is exactly the same as the one in M&S, except the one in M&S is higher quality. And the supermarkets are more inventive
You must have been told 20 times a day that scientists were advising caution because by the time we had better data, if things carried on going as they were going, it would be too late and the NHS would have collapsed.
The fact that Omicron suddenly stopped spreading as fast as it had been, for reasons no one understands - least of all the anti-science brigade on social media - means we were luckier than we had any right to expect. The optimists were proved lucky - for which we should all be very thankful - but they really shouldn't kid themselves they were proved right.
Plus there are huge policy problems. In England they now have to worry about not dissing Brexit; in Scotland it's completely the other way round (and they were already being suspected as a pro-Brexit party years back when Mr Corbyn was in charge).
Of course, they don't have the huge disadvantage of being led by Messrs Johnson and R-M etc that the Scons have, but oin the other hand Scottish Labour aren't a separate party at all. Firstly, they don't even have financial independence. So Jenny Formby could yank Kezia Dugdale's lead when they had that row about spending money on the latter's court case. And secondly, tightening up the exception in the electoral legislation on descriptive names for parties would kill even that that pretence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The five sports to receive the most emergency relief funding
1. Bowls – 81 successful applications, £130,103 awarded
2. Cricket – 69 successful applications, £110,067 awarded
3. Football – 76 successful applications, £96,223 awarded
4. Golf – 18 successful applications, £78,538 awarded
5. Rugby Union – 14 successful applications, £43,637 awarded
https://senedd.wales/media/tvlhsodh/gen-ld14478-e.pdf
But you wouldn’t know that as you know nothing about cricket and are just trying to wind people up. Good luck Tubbtubbs
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
https://twitter.com/weatherdak/status/1482237555764383745?s=20
I think I've only ever been in a Pret three or four times - and all bar one of those because a friend's wife used to be a manageress of one.
I've only ever had a Subway three times: once before a gig at the Camden Palace, once in Romsey, and another in ?Edinburgh?.
I look in the window, see what they have to offer and the prices, and look for somewhere else. Even a Greggs.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&url=https://www.ft.com/content/263615ca-d873-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17&psig=AOvVaw0PO4x-FD19cTmnswXo-I6y&ust=1642352713197000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAgQjRxqFwoTCJD87ZietPUCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
At least Downing Street's serial law breaking coupled to falling case numbers means we can be fairly confident they won't be renewed.
I have a couple of friends in this exact position. They loved it at first. Now? Hmmm
Contesting the seat of a murdered MP is distasteful. One of the tools we have to combat extremism is this kind of institutional immunological response.
We cannot let those who wish to divide us, succeed.