I somehow have the feeling there's more videos or leaks coming next week. Whenever there seems to be a bit of a lull or some respite, they always seem to reemerge.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
We allow six weeks for a Safeguarder to provide an independent report. Sometimes they need longer, if the potential interviewees are uncooperative.
I would have thought it would take at least 6 weeks to go through all the receipts from the local Co-op for all the booze that was purchased....
You'd want to look at people's work calendars and diaries and CCTV as well and all of this stuff over a year for 2 separate periods. It's a hell of a lot of work and you'd want a professional team on it, including IT people to collect and preserve and verify all the electronic material.
Sue Gray has none of that.
It really pisses me off when investigations are just given to whoever is available - as if it's a matter of asking a few questions - rather than given to those who are expert in this stuff. Investigations are hard to do right. Even the police often can't manage it. This is skilled work.
(Yeah I know I am talking my book - but I and my team did thousands of investigations - and in none of them did anyone, whether internal or external, ever query our factual findings, even if there was sometimes debate about what the right disciplinary proceedings should be - which was not my job anyway.)
Really not sure that is right. The English legal establishment is overwhelmingly in favour of *thoroughness* to the extent that Commercfial Court Trials take 20 weeks where the equivalent court in a European jurisdiction would set aside a couple of days (literally) to determine the same issue. Because everybody involved is paid by the day. You could easily in a couple of days max find the smoking guns in partygate, or that there aren't any, by looking at the relevant email accounts. A couple of hours would actually be fine because you are only looking at the time between the invite email, and the party happening.
What Johnson has done is quite clever, though he almost certainly doesn't realise, because the terms of ref ("general overview") would suggest a quick in-and-out smoking gun hunt, whereas there's no chance of that happening
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
Something is definitely happening in Denmark which is not happening in the UK. Both countries have good vax rates, and boosters (but the UK has a lot more prior immunity from infection)
The Omicron waves looked similar in both countries, until Jan 10 (roughly) when the UK peaked and plunged. A couple of days before, Denmark seemed to do the same, but now Denmark's case load is going back up and still climbing.
"UK is still close to 100% #Omicron BA.1 and its cases are dropping.
BA.1 cases are also dropping in Denmark, but BA.2 now makes up nearly 50% and is sustaining the overall growth of cases.
We must be prepared for BA.2 to get dominant everywhere sooner or later."
Strongly suggests BA2 is more transmissible than BA1, but as for greater or lesser severity or its power to reinfect, who knows. So far it is not doing anything to hospitalisations in Denmark, which is reassuring
I'm really not sure Denmark does look like the UK up to the 10th.
Unless Google is giving me fake figures, they were rising steadily, just with an artificial dip due to 2 days of lower tests on new years weekend. If anything the last week looks a little lower than the week before.
Denmark is definitely climbing
You may be right about the drop being a statistical glitch, but their 7 day average yesterday - 20,639 - was the highest of the pandemic, for them. According to Worldometer, anyhoo
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos or leaks coming next week. Whenever there seems to be a bit of a lull or some respite, they always seem to reemerge.
Cummings
"Officials I spoke to in 2021 said to me and others that there were various parties after I left and the PM was aware of them. I have also been told there are other photos of other parties against the rules in 2021, some picturing the PM."
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
I'm not totally convinced the boundary changes will go ahead because it dilutes some of the Tories newer strength in the red wall in areas like the North East. On the other hand the Tories gain extra seats in the South and Labour still loses out in Wales.
I think chicken running used to frowned upon in the Tory party (except 1997) although Mims Davies was still allowed to move from Eastleigh to Mid Sussex in 2019.
Original strain of Covid, or origanal strain of omicron? If the former, no worries. I seriously doubt it’s the latter, as there hasn’t been time. So no, don’t stress.
It is not undetectable by PCR, it is merely impossible to identify as Omicron Vs delta by PCR. Irrelevant as e know everything is Omicron now anyway
Don't like the sound of plus virulent. Of all the things I am right about the one I least want to say I told you so, is that the theory that it gets more benign with every wave is baloney
Thanks for that doc link. It is safe to say, assuming that document portrays events as they happened, that animals were saved at the expense of humans and that non at-risk humans who worked for an animal charity were saved at the expense of at-risk humans.
Whoever was responsible for or justifies this is beneath contempt.
Hmm do you see the animal charity chaps as to blame? It was arguably not in principle unreasonable to ask*; it was up to the Gmt to allocate priorities.
*Though misguided/tactless/optimistic/imprudent/etc in reality ...
Anyone who wasn't hoping for a My First Pony kit in their stocking a couple of weeks back, knows that there is virtually no welfare downside to humanely destroying an animal. They also know that high profile "rescue the doggies at all costs" campaigns means megabucks of donations from people whose mentality is at that level. Indded Farthing was giving it large about the stress thirst this that and the other the doggies might encounter on the way to the airport as if that were not an additional reason for them to be put to sleep
So, yes, they knew what they were doing, and human lives were acceptable collateral damage to a successful campaign. Trebles all round.
Thanks. I was wondering if they had genuinely not realised the situation was so shit that the only sane thing to do (given the risk to the hounds never mind the humans) was to get out the syringes and anaesthetic. But if he was fretting about the risks to the hounds ...
The document states that there is as we speak an American animal charity operating in Afghan so the concerns from the start were misplaced. As the Crisis team pointed out. Until they were over ridden.
Maybe Mr Farthing dipped in to PB at that time and shat himself at all the evacuation of Saigon II and Khmer Rouge year zero predictions. For those not used to the hysteria it can be heady stuff.
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
The boundary changes make Boris Johnson's seat safer.
It's a bit of a shame you didn't spell this out properly in the thread with both sets of potential results. Or if you did I missed it (despite re-reading through) You wrote this:
'As we can see at the 2019 election Boris Johnson had a healthy majority of 7,210 but recent polls show him losing his seat (some with the boundary changes.)'
Is Mike's rather brilliant tweet before or after the boundary changes? Can you gives us both sets of potential figures?
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
The boundary changes make Boris Johnson's seat safer.
It's a bit of a shame you didn't spell this out properly in the thread with both sets of potential results. Or if you did I missed it (despite re-reading through) You wrote this:
'As we can see at the 2019 election Boris Johnson had a healthy majority of 7,210 but recent polls show him losing his seat (some with the boundary changes.)'
Is Mike's rather brilliant tweet before or after the boundary changes? Can you gives us both sets of potential figures?
Something is definitely happening in Denmark which is not happening in the UK. Both countries have good vax rates, and boosters (but the UK has a lot more prior immunity from infection)
The Omicron waves looked similar in both countries, until Jan 10 (roughly) when the UK peaked and plunged. A couple of days before, Denmark seemed to do the same, but now Denmark's case load is going back up and still climbing.
"UK is still close to 100% #Omicron BA.1 and its cases are dropping.
BA.1 cases are also dropping in Denmark, but BA.2 now makes up nearly 50% and is sustaining the overall growth of cases.
We must be prepared for BA.2 to get dominant everywhere sooner or later."
Strongly suggests BA2 is more transmissible than BA1, but as for greater or lesser severity or its power to reinfect, who knows. So far it is not doing anything to hospitalisations in Denmark, which is reassuring
I'm really not sure Denmark does look like the UK up to the 10th.
Unless Google is giving me fake figures, they were rising steadily, just with an artificial dip due to 2 days of lower tests on new years weekend. If anything the last week looks a little lower than the week before.
Denmark is definitely climbing
You may be right about the drop being a statistical glitch, but their 7 day average yesterday - 20,639 - was the highest of the pandemic, for them. According to Worldometer, anyhoo
Look at the actual day by day figures. All bar 1 day this week were lowest than all of the non disrupted days the week before. The average is moving more due to patterns of weekends and bank holidays than anything else.
Overall the trend looks that they've just had a longer slower rise than the UK and are in a relatively high plateau. Nothing that looks like rise, fall, rise.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
Well quite. So Tory MPs who say they need to wait to find out the facts are talking through their arse. Either do this properly or not at all. But the Gray report - and I mean no disrespect to her - is irrelevant.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
"Dick as Head". Very good!
I was criticised by some when I used just that phrase in one of my many headers excoriating the useless woman. But glad it is now finding favour.😀
I missed your original work. I trust the royalty cheque from Ydoethur is in the post.
The Met Police beating ten bells out of "woke me too" women protesters incandescent with rage that Sarah Everard had been kidnapped raped, murdered and her corpse mutilated by a serving Metropolitan Police officer was presumably proportionate for their Covid rule-busting. After the beating of course some were then arrested and charged for breach of Covid rules, and that is fine...if the same sanctions are applied to Johnson's Covid rule-breaking indiscretions.
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
I didnt even know he had joined! Seems pretty clear cut he has done a spot or three of bullying in the past and would be very wary of him having seniority again without some remorse being shown. Don't know if its something that would stop someone being a mere member of a party or not, up to them.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
We allow six weeks for a Safeguarder to provide an independent report. Sometimes they need longer, if the potential interviewees are uncooperative.
I would have thought it would take at least 6 weeks to go through all the receipts from the local Co-op for all the booze that was purchased....
You'd want to look at people's work calendars and diaries and CCTV as well and all of this stuff over a year for 2 separate periods. It's a hell of a lot of work and you'd want a professional team on it, including IT people to collect and preserve and verify all the electronic material.
Sue Gray has none of that.
It really pisses me off when investigations are just given to whoever is available - as if it's a matter of asking a few questions - rather than given to those who are expert in this stuff. Investigations are hard to do right. Even the police often can't manage it. This is skilled work.
(Yeah I know I am talking my book - but I and my team did thousands of investigations - and in none of them did anyone, whether internal or external, ever query our factual findings, even if there was sometimes debate about what the right disciplinary proceedings should be - which was not my job anyway.)
Really not sure that is right. The English legal establishment is overwhelmingly in favour of *thoroughness* to the extent that Commercfial Court Trials take 20 weeks where the equivalent court in a European jurisdiction would set aside a couple of days (literally) to determine the same issue. Because everybody involved is paid by the day. You could easily in a couple of days max find the smoking guns in partygate, or that there aren't any, by looking at the relevant email accounts. A couple of hours would actually be fine because you are only looking at the time between the invite email, and the party happening.
What Johnson has done is quite clever, though he almost certainly doesn't realise, because the terms of ref ("general overview") would suggest a quick in-and-out smoking gun hunt, whereas there's no chance of that happening
No - you are wrong. To take disciplinary action what you propose would not do. It would not satisfy an external regulator either.
A quick and dirty view we have already - that there were social events at a work place which were contrary either to the law and/or the guidance and/or internal instructions. Politically that is probably all that is needed.
But to establish the facts accurately could not be done in a couple of days. Believe me - I know.
I fear in Wales the mask mandate has been there for so long that Drakeford would be very reluctant to let it go. There will come a point however when the question becomes - if not now, when?
Something is definitely happening in Denmark which is not happening in the UK. Both countries have good vax rates, and boosters (but the UK has a lot more prior immunity from infection)
The Omicron waves looked similar in both countries, until Jan 10 (roughly) when the UK peaked and plunged. A couple of days before, Denmark seemed to do the same, but now Denmark's case load is going back up and still climbing.
"UK is still close to 100% #Omicron BA.1 and its cases are dropping.
BA.1 cases are also dropping in Denmark, but BA.2 now makes up nearly 50% and is sustaining the overall growth of cases.
We must be prepared for BA.2 to get dominant everywhere sooner or later."
Strongly suggests BA2 is more transmissible than BA1, but as for greater or lesser severity or its power to reinfect, who knows. So far it is not doing anything to hospitalisations in Denmark, which is reassuring
I'm really not sure Denmark does look like the UK up to the 10th.
Unless Google is giving me fake figures, they were rising steadily, just with an artificial dip due to 2 days of lower tests on new years weekend. If anything the last week looks a little lower than the week before.
Denmark is definitely climbing
You may be right about the drop being a statistical glitch, but their 7 day average yesterday - 20,639 - was the highest of the pandemic, for them. According to Worldometer, anyhoo
Look at the actual day by day figures. All bar 1 day this week were lowest than all of the non disrupted days the week before. The average is moving more due to patterns of weekends and bank holidays than anything else.
Overall the trend looks that they've just had a longer slower rise than the UK and are in a relatively high plateau. Nothing that looks like rise, fall, rise.
Having said that, looking at positivity rate suggests they're in a weak decline (whether you look at trend on the peaks or the troughs -
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
I didnt even know he had joined! Seems pretty clear cut he has done a spot or three of bullying in the past and would be very wary of him having seniority again without some remorse being shown. Don't know if its something that would stop someone being a mere member of a party or not, up to them.
Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner, has found Bercow guilty on 21 charges out of 35 of bullying three members of staff
He is appealing but if upheld he could be banned from Parliament
I assume he would be the first speaker to be banned
Something is definitely happening in Denmark which is not happening in the UK. Both countries have good vax rates, and boosters (but the UK has a lot more prior immunity from infection)
The Omicron waves looked similar in both countries, until Jan 10 (roughly) when the UK peaked and plunged. A couple of days before, Denmark seemed to do the same, but now Denmark's case load is going back up and still climbing.
"UK is still close to 100% #Omicron BA.1 and its cases are dropping.
BA.1 cases are also dropping in Denmark, but BA.2 now makes up nearly 50% and is sustaining the overall growth of cases.
We must be prepared for BA.2 to get dominant everywhere sooner or later."
Strongly suggests BA2 is more transmissible than BA1, but as for greater or lesser severity or its power to reinfect, who knows. So far it is not doing anything to hospitalisations in Denmark, which is reassuring
I'm really not sure Denmark does look like the UK up to the 10th.
Unless Google is giving me fake figures, they were rising steadily, just with an artificial dip due to 2 days of lower tests on new years weekend. If anything the last week looks a little lower than the week before.
Denmark is definitely climbing
You may be right about the drop being a statistical glitch, but their 7 day average yesterday - 20,639 - was the highest of the pandemic, for them. According to Worldometer, anyhoo
Look at the actual day by day figures. All bar 1 day this week were lowest than all of the non disrupted days the week before. The average is moving more due to patterns of weekends and bank holidays than anything else.
Overall the trend looks that they've just had a longer slower rise than the UK and are in a relatively high plateau. Nothing that looks like rise, fall, rise.
Jeg synes ikke det her ligner et knæk, 7 dages gennemsnittet har aldrig været højere og vi har ikke set det typiske fald i smittetal i denne weekend. BA2 tager nu føringen og jeg vil tro vi topper ved en 30k inden måneden er over. Smitten brager derudad blandt de 10-19 årige.
Translated from Danish:
I do not think this looks like a crack, the 7 day average has never been higher and we have not seen the typical drop in infection rates this weekend. BA2 is now taking the lead and I would think we top at a 30k before the month is over. The infection erupts out there among the 10-19 year olds.
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
Well quite. So Tory MPs who say they need to wait to find out the facts are talking through their arse. Either do this properly or not at all. But the Gray report - and I mean no disrespect to her - is irrelevant.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
"Dick as Head". Very good!
I was criticised by some when I used just that phrase in one of my many headers excoriating the useless woman. But glad it is now finding favour.😀
I missed your original work. I trust the royalty cheque from Ydoethur is in the post.
The Met Police beating ten bells out of "woke me too" women protesters incandescent with rage that Sarah Everard had been kidnapped raped, murdered and her corpse mutilated by a serving Metropolitan Police officer was presumably proportionate for their Covid rule-busting. After the beating of course some were then arrested and charged for breach of Covid rules, and that is fine...if the same sanctions are applied to Johnson's Covid rule-breaking indiscretions.
The Met police need blowing up (metaphorically) and starting again. Instead of which this government is passing an anti-protest Bill which will give these authoritarian and incompetent bozos even more power to regulate or ban what we can or cannot protest about.
This is what should be bringing this government down not bloody parties.
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
Rangers at Pittodrie on Tuesday.
Out of interest do we have any Rangers fans on PB (I know we've plenty of SNP Types)?
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
I fear in Wales the mask mandate has been there for so long that Drakeford would be very reluctant to let it go. There will come a point however when the question becomes - if not now, when?
The people will just ignore him as was happening a few weeks ago
Something is definitely happening in Denmark which is not happening in the UK. Both countries have good vax rates, and boosters (but the UK has a lot more prior immunity from infection)
The Omicron waves looked similar in both countries, until Jan 10 (roughly) when the UK peaked and plunged. A couple of days before, Denmark seemed to do the same, but now Denmark's case load is going back up and still climbing.
"UK is still close to 100% #Omicron BA.1 and its cases are dropping.
BA.1 cases are also dropping in Denmark, but BA.2 now makes up nearly 50% and is sustaining the overall growth of cases.
We must be prepared for BA.2 to get dominant everywhere sooner or later."
Strongly suggests BA2 is more transmissible than BA1, but as for greater or lesser severity or its power to reinfect, who knows. So far it is not doing anything to hospitalisations in Denmark, which is reassuring
I'm really not sure Denmark does look like the UK up to the 10th.
Unless Google is giving me fake figures, they were rising steadily, just with an artificial dip due to 2 days of lower tests on new years weekend. If anything the last week looks a little lower than the week before.
Denmark is definitely climbing
You may be right about the drop being a statistical glitch, but their 7 day average yesterday - 20,639 - was the highest of the pandemic, for them. According to Worldometer, anyhoo
Look at the actual day by day figures. All bar 1 day this week were lowest than all of the non disrupted days the week before. The average is moving more due to patterns of weekends and bank holidays than anything else.
Overall the trend looks that they've just had a longer slower rise than the UK and are in a relatively high plateau. Nothing that looks like rise, fall, rise.
Jeg synes ikke det her ligner et knæk, 7 dages gennemsnittet har aldrig været højere og vi har ikke set det typiske fald i smittetal i denne weekend. BA2 tager nu føringen og jeg vil tro vi topper ved en 30k inden måneden er over. Smitten brager derudad blandt de 10-19 årige.
Translated from Danish:
I do not think this looks like a crack, the 7 day average has never been higher and we have not seen the typical drop in infection rates this weekend. BA2 is now taking the lead and I would think we top at a 30k before the month is over. The infection erupts out there among the 10-19 year olds.
If they're sequenced it, I'm sure there is a variant of variant - just yet there appears to be no data to suggest it's spreading any quicker than the old one.
Ultimately we're at the stage that Omicron spreads quickly enough to make quicker spread a pretty irrelevant characteristic anyway - the only thing that would matter is if we had comparable spread advantage without the mildness.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
We allow six weeks for a Safeguarder to provide an independent report. Sometimes they need longer, if the potential interviewees are uncooperative.
I would have thought it would take at least 6 weeks to go through all the receipts from the local Co-op for all the booze that was purchased....
You'd want to look at people's work calendars and diaries and CCTV as well and all of this stuff over a year for 2 separate periods. It's a hell of a lot of work and you'd want a professional team on it, including IT people to collect and preserve and verify all the electronic material.
Sue Gray has none of that.
It really pisses me off when investigations are just given to whoever is available - as if it's a matter of asking a few questions - rather than given to those who are expert in this stuff. Investigations are hard to do right. Even the police often can't manage it. This is skilled work.
(Yeah I know I am talking my book - but I and my team did thousands of investigations - and in none of them did anyone, whether internal or external, ever query our factual findings, even if there was sometimes debate about what the right disciplinary proceedings should be - which was not my job anyway.)
Really not sure that is right. The English legal establishment is overwhelmingly in favour of *thoroughness* to the extent that Commercfial Court Trials take 20 weeks where the equivalent court in a European jurisdiction would set aside a couple of days (literally) to determine the same issue. Because everybody involved is paid by the day. You could easily in a couple of days max find the smoking guns in partygate, or that there aren't any, by looking at the relevant email accounts. A couple of hours would actually be fine because you are only looking at the time between the invite email, and the party happening.
What Johnson has done is quite clever, though he almost certainly doesn't realise, because the terms of ref ("general overview") would suggest a quick in-and-out smoking gun hunt, whereas there's no chance of that happening
No - you are wrong. To take disciplinary action what you propose would not do. It would not satisfy an external regulator either.
A quick and dirty view we have already - that there were social events at a work place which were contrary either to the law and/or the guidance and/or internal instructions. Politically that is probably all that is needed.
But to establish the facts accurately could not be done in a couple of days. Believe me - I know.
1. Yes. The external regulator is part of the legal blob too.
2. Don't be patronising with the "Believe me - I know" stuff. I have conducted a lot of big ass Commercial Court litigation.
3. Explain: how would it take more than a couple of hours, given access to the email accounts of all recipients of the invite (which is expressly mandated by the terms of ref), to establish what we want to know, which is: did BJ know the party was a party?
Something is definitely happening in Denmark which is not happening in the UK. Both countries have good vax rates, and boosters (but the UK has a lot more prior immunity from infection)
The Omicron waves looked similar in both countries, until Jan 10 (roughly) when the UK peaked and plunged. A couple of days before, Denmark seemed to do the same, but now Denmark's case load is going back up and still climbing.
"UK is still close to 100% #Omicron BA.1 and its cases are dropping.
BA.1 cases are also dropping in Denmark, but BA.2 now makes up nearly 50% and is sustaining the overall growth of cases.
We must be prepared for BA.2 to get dominant everywhere sooner or later."
Strongly suggests BA2 is more transmissible than BA1, but as for greater or lesser severity or its power to reinfect, who knows. So far it is not doing anything to hospitalisations in Denmark, which is reassuring
I'm really not sure Denmark does look like the UK up to the 10th.
Unless Google is giving me fake figures, they were rising steadily, just with an artificial dip due to 2 days of lower tests on new years weekend. If anything the last week looks a little lower than the week before.
Denmark is definitely climbing
You may be right about the drop being a statistical glitch, but their 7 day average yesterday - 20,639 - was the highest of the pandemic, for them. According to Worldometer, anyhoo
Look at the actual day by day figures. All bar 1 day this week were lowest than all of the non disrupted days the week before. The average is moving more due to patterns of weekends and bank holidays than anything else.
Overall the trend looks that they've just had a longer slower rise than the UK and are in a relatively high plateau. Nothing that looks like rise, fall, rise.
Jeg synes ikke det her ligner et knæk, 7 dages gennemsnittet har aldrig været højere og vi har ikke set det typiske fald i smittetal i denne weekend. BA2 tager nu føringen og jeg vil tro vi topper ved en 30k inden måneden er over. Smitten brager derudad blandt de 10-19 årige.
Translated from Danish:
I do not think this looks like a crack, the 7 day average has never been higher and we have not seen the typical drop in infection rates this weekend. BA2 is now taking the lead and I would think we top at a 30k before the month is over. The infection erupts out there among the 10-19 year olds.
If they're sequenced it, I'm sure there is a variant of variant - just yet there appears to be no data to suggest it's spreading any quicker than the old one.
Ultimately we're at the stage that Omicron spreads quickly enough to make quicker spread a pretty irrelevant characteristic anyway - the only thing that would matter is if we had comparable spread advantage without the mildness.
There are a few experts who think there is enough evidence to say BA2 likely is more transmissible. But really, they are just guessing as much as anyone, and we've probably exhausted this topic for now
We need more data, which we will shortly get. As you say, all that matters is a variation in virulence, or ability to reinfect. Apparently BA2 now constitutes 80% of cases in west Bengal so we will know very soon if BA2 is "nastier" - it will show up in Indian hospitals
I fear in Wales the mask mandate has been there for so long that Drakeford would be very reluctant to let it go. There will come a point however when the question becomes - if not now, when?
The people will just ignore him as was happening a few weeks ago
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
The boundary changes make Boris Johnson's seat safer.
It's a bit of a shame you didn't spell this out properly in the thread with both sets of potential results. Or if you did I missed it (despite re-reading through) You wrote this:
'As we can see at the 2019 election Boris Johnson had a healthy majority of 7,210 but recent polls show him losing his seat (some with the boundary changes.)'
Is Mike's rather brilliant tweet before or after the boundary changes? Can you gives us both sets of potential figures?
It would be great to know.
I do not think Boris will be defending his seat
I don't know. At the moment he's doing nothing but making unconvincing efforts to cover his arse.
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
The boundary changes make Boris Johnson's seat safer.
It's a bit of a shame you didn't spell this out properly in the thread with both sets of potential results. Or if you did I missed it (despite re-reading through) You wrote this:
'As we can see at the 2019 election Boris Johnson had a healthy majority of 7,210 but recent polls show him losing his seat (some with the boundary changes.)'
Is Mike's rather brilliant tweet before or after the boundary changes? Can you gives us both sets of potential figures?
It would be great to know.
I do not think Boris will be defending his seat
I don't know. At the moment he's doing nothing but making unconvincing efforts to cover his arse.
My prediction, as above: he'll never contest a parliamentary election again.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
Well quite. So Tory MPs who say they need to wait to find out the facts are talking through their arse. Either do this properly or not at all. But the Gray report - and I mean no disrespect to her - is irrelevant.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
"Dick as Head". Very good!
I was criticised by some when I used just that phrase in one of my many headers excoriating the useless woman. But glad it is now finding favour.😀
I missed your original work. I trust the royalty cheque from Ydoethur is in the post.
The Met Police beating ten bells out of "woke me too" women protesters incandescent with rage that Sarah Everard had been kidnapped raped, murdered and her corpse mutilated by a serving Metropolitan Police officer was presumably proportionate for their Covid rule-busting. After the beating of course some were then arrested and charged for breach of Covid rules, and that is fine...if the same sanctions are applied to Johnson's Covid rule-breaking indiscretions.
The Met police need blowing up (metaphorically) and starting again. Instead of which this government is passing an anti-protest Bill which will give these authoritarian and incompetent bozos even more power to regulate or ban what we can or cannot protest about.
This is what should be bringing this government down not bloody parties.
There were demonstrations against the anti-protest bill in many English cities yesterday, some of them quite large. They got pretty much zero press coverage - they will, of course, only get publicity if they start being troublesome or pull down statues or something. There's the problem - the media will cover parties, but not (peaceful) protests.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
They should put their former leader up. just for shits and giggles.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
They should put their former leader up. just for shits and giggles.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
It would be good fun if Labour could find a way of putting up Andy Burnham, or even Ed Balls, against Boris in Uxbridge.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
They should put their former leader up. just for shits and giggles.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
It would be good fun if Labour could find a way of putting up Andy Burnham, or even Ed Balls, against Boris in Uxbridge.
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
Rangers at Pittodrie on Tuesday.
Out of interest do we have any Rangers fans on PB (I know we've plenty of SNP Types)?
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
Well quite. So Tory MPs who say they need to wait to find out the facts are talking through their arse. Either do this properly or not at all. But the Gray report - and I mean no disrespect to her - is irrelevant.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
"Dick as Head". Very good!
I was criticised by some when I used just that phrase in one of my many headers excoriating the useless woman. But glad it is now finding favour.😀
I missed your original work. I trust the royalty cheque from Ydoethur is in the post.
The Met Police beating ten bells out of "woke me too" women protesters incandescent with rage that Sarah Everard had been kidnapped raped, murdered and her corpse mutilated by a serving Metropolitan Police officer was presumably proportionate for their Covid rule-busting. After the beating of course some were then arrested and charged for breach of Covid rules, and that is fine...if the same sanctions are applied to Johnson's Covid rule-breaking indiscretions.
The Met police need blowing up (metaphorically) and starting again. Instead of which this government is passing an anti-protest Bill which will give these authoritarian and incompetent bozos even more power to regulate or ban what we can or cannot protest about.
This is what should be bringing this government down not bloody parties.
I can't recall a Cabinet in my lifetime as malign as this one. The Police and Crime Bill is about as illiberal as a government can get. Where are the vanity by-elections in Haltemprice and Howden when they are needed.
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
The boundary changes make Boris Johnson's seat safer.
It's a bit of a shame you didn't spell this out properly in the thread with both sets of potential results. Or if you did I missed it (despite re-reading through) You wrote this:
'As we can see at the 2019 election Boris Johnson had a healthy majority of 7,210 but recent polls show him losing his seat (some with the boundary changes.)'
Is Mike's rather brilliant tweet before or after the boundary changes? Can you gives us both sets of potential figures?
It would be great to know.
I do not think Boris will be defending his seat
I don't know. At the moment he's doing nothing but making unconvincing efforts to cover his arse.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
They should put their former leader up. just for shits and giggles.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
It would be good fun if Labour could find a way of putting up Andy Burnham, or even Ed Balls, against Boris in Uxbridge.
Mindless Balls against Andy Burnham?
Could work...
Come come, Balls is good. The only politician with a professed love for the works of Herbert Howells.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
They should put their former leader up. just for shits and giggles.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
It would be good fun if Labour could find a way of putting up Andy Burnham, or even Ed Balls, against Boris in Uxbridge.
Mindless Balls against Andy Burnham?
Could work...
Come come, Balls is good. The only politician with a professed love for the works of Herbert Howells.
The 'Mindless Balls' referred to Johnson.
On Ed Balls, I'll mark that as a point in his favour, but he was still the dull old fool who came up with post neoclassical endogenous growth theory and building schools for the future.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
They should put their former leader up. just for shits and giggles.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
It would be good fun if Labour could find a way of putting up Andy Burnham, or even Ed Balls, against Boris in Uxbridge.
Mindless Balls against Andy Burnham?
Could work...
I'd be amazed if Balls ran for parliament again (at least under a Labour banner). Burnham wants to get back - he really believes his own press, but I don't think he'll ever actually manage it. Too much to lose and almost nothing to gain.
Boris is really very likely to lose his seat wherever he stands - he's got a huge personal vote problem. I think this will change a bit, but he's really going to struggle to be an MP after 2024.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
Well quite. So Tory MPs who say they need to wait to find out the facts are talking through their arse. Either do this properly or not at all. But the Gray report - and I mean no disrespect to her - is irrelevant.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
"Dick as Head". Very good!
I was criticised by some when I used just that phrase in one of my many headers excoriating the useless woman. But glad it is now finding favour.😀
I missed your original work. I trust the royalty cheque from Ydoethur is in the post.
The Met Police beating ten bells out of "woke me too" women protesters incandescent with rage that Sarah Everard had been kidnapped raped, murdered and her corpse mutilated by a serving Metropolitan Police officer was presumably proportionate for their Covid rule-busting. After the beating of course some were then arrested and charged for breach of Covid rules, and that is fine...if the same sanctions are applied to Johnson's Covid rule-breaking indiscretions.
The Met police need blowing up (metaphorically) and starting again. Instead of which this government is passing an anti-protest Bill which will give these authoritarian and incompetent bozos even more power to regulate or ban what we can or cannot protest about.
This is what should be bringing this government down not bloody parties.
There were demonstrations against the anti-protest bill in many English cities yesterday, some of them quite large. They got pretty much zero press coverage - they will, of course, only get publicity if they start being troublesome or pull down statues or something. There's the problem - the media will cover parties, but not (peaceful) protests.
If they start pulling down statues that will be evidence of how badly the bill is needed.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
They should put their former leader up. just for shits and giggles.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
It would be good fun if Labour could find a way of putting up Andy Burnham, or even Ed Balls, against Boris in Uxbridge.
Mindless Balls against Andy Burnham?
Could work...
I'd be amazed if Balls ran for parliament again (at least under a Labour banner). Burnham wants to get back - he really believes his own press, but I don't think he'll ever actually manage it. Too much to lose and almost nothing to gain.
Boris is really very likely to lose his seat wherever he stands - he's got a huge personal vote problem. I think this will change a bit, but he's really going to struggle to be an MP after 2024.
Boris has always found being an MP tedious hard work that is below him. He’s always tried to spend minimal time in the commons and has historically not given a rats arse about networking with the parliamentary party. There’s no chance at all he’ll run again as a backbencher next time and he may very well step down as an MP shortly after stepping down as PM, so he is free to make proper money without having to declare it.
I fear in Wales the mask mandate has been there for so long that Drakeford would be very reluctant to let it go. There will come a point however when the question becomes - if not now, when?
Well, herein is one problem with the imposition of ‘temporary’ restrictions. They tend to hang around for longer than justified, through inertia and/or an ‘abundance of caution’.
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
The boundary changes make Boris Johnson's seat safer.
It's a bit of a shame you didn't spell this out properly in the thread with both sets of potential results. Or if you did I missed it (despite re-reading through) You wrote this:
'As we can see at the 2019 election Boris Johnson had a healthy majority of 7,210 but recent polls show him losing his seat (some with the boundary changes.)'
Is Mike's rather brilliant tweet before or after the boundary changes? Can you gives us both sets of potential figures?
Tory staffer from the Cameron era said to me this evening (paraphrased) - for the 2015 Lynton Crosby got the barnacles off the boat, right now Boris is the biggest barnacle of all, enough to sink the boat.
Edit - he asked me whether I was ready to rejoin and help shape the future of the party again once Boris has been ousted. I'm open to the idea. Mainly because the party is being dominated by parochial HYFUD types.
Tory staffer from the Cameron era said to me this evening (paraphrased) - for the 2015 Lynton Crosby got the barnacles off the boat, right now Boris is the biggest barnacle of all, enough to sink the boat.
Edit - he asked me whether I was ready to rejoin and shape the future of the party again once Boris has been ousted. I'm open to the idea.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
They should put their former leader up. just for shits and giggles.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
It would be good fun if Labour could find a way of putting up Andy Burnham, or even Ed Balls, against Boris in Uxbridge.
Mindless Balls against Andy Burnham?
Could work...
I'd be amazed if Balls ran for parliament again (at least under a Labour banner). Burnham wants to get back - he really believes his own press, but I don't think he'll ever actually manage it. Too much to lose and almost nothing to gain.
Boris is really very likely to lose his seat wherever he stands - he's got a huge personal vote problem. I think this will change a bit, but he's really going to struggle to be an MP after 2024.
Boris has always found being an MP tedious hard work that is below him. He’s always tried to spend minimal time in the commons and has historically not given a rats arse about networking with the parliamentary party. There’s no chance at all he’ll run again as a backbencher next time and he may very well step down as an MP shortly after stepping down as PM, so he is free to make proper money without having to declare it.
I think that's roughly right - somewhat sadly. I'm not sure one can point to him ever having made a good speech in the commons for example.
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
A final tweak of the boundaries to create an Uxbridge, Epping and Canvey Island Constituency.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
I'm not totally convinced the boundary changes will go ahead because it dilutes some of the Tories newer strength in the red wall in areas like the North East. On the other hand the Tories gain extra seats in the South and Labour still loses out in Wales.
I think chicken running used to frowned upon in the Tory party (except 1997) although Mims Davies was still allowed to move from Eastleigh to Mid Sussex in 2019.
Mims is a rare case with mitigating circumstances.
1) She stood down in Eastleigh without any other job or constituency lined up, she needed to move somewhere closer to where her children were (the joys of being a single parent.)
2) She went through the normal selection process for Mid Sussex
3) I'm not sure leaving Eastleigh (where she had 14,000 vote majority which became a 15,000 vote majority after the election) counts as a chicken run. Mid Sussex had a slightly larger majority, but still.
Tory staffer from the Cameron era said to me this evening (paraphrased) - for the 2015 Lynton Crosby got the barnacles off the boat, right now Boris is the biggest barnacle of all, enough to sink the boat.
Edit - he asked me whether I was ready to rejoin and shape the future of the party again once Boris has been ousted. I'm open to the idea.
Is the move to Switzerland on hold then?
It's up to my wife. I'd rather stay anyway and have done since since we got the move approved. We've lived in Zurich before and it was extremely dull. I think since we've bought our house and now that we've got a big garden and we live in a very quiet road her view of what life with kids would be like has changed compared to our flat in Hampstead just off the main road. The decision was made when we were still in our flat but for 3-5 years down the road rather than this year. She moved it up to this year but it seems as though she's not up for it, but I can't be sure.
Basically, I don't know but I'm going to assume we aren't going until we book the flights and arrange for transportation of our stuff. Both our workplaces aren't bothered about whether we work here or on Zurich and mine specifically would prefer I don't go and have said once travel restrictions are reliably gone I'd be expected to be in London for 3 working days a month anyway.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
Well quite. So Tory MPs who say they need to wait to find out the facts are talking through their arse. Either do this properly or not at all. But the Gray report - and I mean no disrespect to her - is irrelevant.
As a professional investigator who has done more investigations than most - and certainly more than Sue Gray - I would like to say that given -
1. the number of parties and other social events 2. the number of witnesses who would need interviewing - some maybe more than once 3. the emails, chats, phone messages and other electronic records which need collecting, checking and reviewing and checking against witness interviews 4. the internal instructions, as well as other applicable guidelines, which need reviewing
there is no way on earth that all this can be done properly and a comprehensive report written by the end of this week.
Well, of course it can't be. But that isn't her job.
Buying a large bucket of whitewash and pouring it all over takes about five minutes. I'm surprised she even needs a week, tbh.
(On a more serious note, the question isn't whether they happened - it's about what rules were broken. And since it's abundantly clear that many laws were broken, all she really can and should do is refer it to the police. For whatever good that will be with the egregious Dick as Head.)
"Dick as Head". Very good!
I was criticised by some when I used just that phrase in one of my many headers excoriating the useless woman. But glad it is now finding favour.😀
I missed your original work. I trust the royalty cheque from Ydoethur is in the post.
The Met Police beating ten bells out of "woke me too" women protesters incandescent with rage that Sarah Everard had been kidnapped raped, murdered and her corpse mutilated by a serving Metropolitan Police officer was presumably proportionate for their Covid rule-busting. After the beating of course some were then arrested and charged for breach of Covid rules, and that is fine...if the same sanctions are applied to Johnson's Covid rule-breaking indiscretions.
The Met police need blowing up (metaphorically) and starting again. Instead of which this government is passing an anti-protest Bill which will give these authoritarian and incompetent bozos even more power to regulate or ban what we can or cannot protest about.
This is what should be bringing this government down not bloody parties.
There were demonstrations against the anti-protest bill in many English cities yesterday, some of them quite large. They got pretty much zero press coverage - they will, of course, only get publicity if they start being troublesome or pull down statues or something. There's the problem - the media will cover parties, but not (peaceful) protests.
If they start pulling down statues that will be evidence of how badly the bill is needed.
Catch 22.
It would be interesting to read a header from one of our lawyer commentators regarding the policing bill. The criticism seems to be that it’s too broad in nature, but it would be interesting to hear the specifics.
Clearly, in a democracy, there has to be a right to protest the government, or to highlight some perceived injectice or other in the world. The problems in recent years appear to be “protests” that look more like riots, with wilful damage to public and private property, and “protests” that set out to deliberately cause significant disruption to the public and to essential services, for example by blocking main roads. This last example usually accompanied by policemen having tea with the protestors, seemingly not empowered to do anything about the problem.
It’s a very difficult line to draw, and I don’t envy those who have to work through such legislation to get it right.
The sleaziest part of the whole thing to date, in a crowded field, is Downing street briefing that it already has expectations as to what gray is going to say. If I were her I would threaten to resign if any further such suggestion is made.
There's a lot of puffery about how well 'ard she is, any suggestion of non-independence is purely about her structural position and entirely non-personal. In fact she seems to have form for burying bad news
Tory staffer from the Cameron era said to me this evening (paraphrased) - for the 2015 Lynton Crosby got the barnacles off the boat, right now Boris is the biggest barnacle of all, enough to sink the boat.
Edit - he asked me whether I was ready to rejoin and shape the future of the party again once Boris has been ousted. I'm open to the idea.
Is the move to Switzerland on hold then?
It's up to my wife. I'd rather stay anyway and have done since since we got the move approved. We've lived in Zurich before and it was extremely dull. I think since we've bought our house and now that we've got a big garden and we live in a very quiet road her view of what life with kids would be like has changed compared to our flat in Hampstead just off the main road. The decision was made when we were still in our flat but for 3-5 years down the road rather than this year. She moved it up to this year but it seems as though she's not up for it, but I can't be sure.
Basically, I don't know but I'm going to assume we aren't going until we book the flights and arrange for transportation of our stuff. Both our workplaces aren't bothered about whether we work here or on Zurich and mine specifically would prefer I don't go and have said once travel restrictions are reliably gone I'd be expected to be in London for 3 working days a month anyway.
Well, good luck with whatever you decide. I can sympathise as somebody who's also pondering future options. But I hope that you are able to feel happy that what you decide is right for the two of you.
On topic, another point is that Labour ran a 25-year-old unabashed Corbynite with some unfortunate past comments about Jews in Uxbridge last time and sent in the Momentum hordes who may well have been more of a hindrance than a help. Yes, they provide manpower and enthusiasm but also a backlash and were never the best at targeting the most persuadable voters rather than assuming there were big shifts occuring and reservoirs of untapped voters.
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
They should put their former leader up. just for shits and giggles.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
It would be good fun if Labour could find a way of putting up Andy Burnham, or even Ed Balls, against Boris in Uxbridge.
Mindless Balls against Andy Burnham?
Could work...
Come come, Balls is good. The only politician with a professed love for the works of Herbert Howells.
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
Rangers at Pittodrie on Tuesday.
Out of interest do we have any Rangers fans on PB (I know we've plenty of SNP Types)?
I think you’ll need to convince them that Rangers have a cricket team to get some support. Not convinced, BTW, that there are many “SNP types” (c) @JBriskin3 in the Aberdeen support.
Tory staffer from the Cameron era said to me this evening (paraphrased) - for the 2015 Lynton Crosby got the barnacles off the boat, right now Boris is the biggest barnacle of all, enough to sink the boat.
Edit - he asked me whether I was ready to rejoin and help shape the future of the party again once Boris has been ousted. I'm open to the idea. Mainly because the party is being dominated by parochial HYFUD types.
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
Rangers at Pittodrie on Tuesday.
Out of interest do we have any Rangers fans on PB (I know we've plenty of SNP Types)?
Am personally a fan of Partick Thistle FC.
NOT because I give a blind fiddler's farewell fuck for soccer. Rather, because of the team's mentions in George Macdonald Fraser's "McAuslan" stories!
Tory staffer from the Cameron era said to me this evening (paraphrased) - for the 2015 Lynton Crosby got the barnacles off the boat, right now Boris is the biggest barnacle of all, enough to sink the boat.
Edit - he asked me whether I was ready to rejoin and help shape the future of the party again once Boris has been ousted. I'm open to the idea. Mainly because the party is being dominated by parochial HYFUD types.
And then if Sunak does not become leader or the Tories lose the next election you will be off in a huff again. Meanwhile it is activists like me who do the hard work of leafletting and canvassing and fundraising, win or lose, rain or shine, regardless of leader that actually keeps the party going on the ground!
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Hope so, the Ashes are long gone, it is three weeks til the Winter Olympics and we have an international break from proper football too. We need something to entertain us and bet on.
Rangers at Pittodrie on Tuesday.
Out of interest do we have any Rangers fans on PB (I know we've plenty of SNP Types)?
I think you’ll need to convince them that Rangers have a cricket team to get some support. Not convinced, BTW, that there are many “SNP types” (c) @JBriskin3 in the Aberdeen support.
Well thanks for the reply.
I'm sure there's plenty of SNP Types amongst Aberdeen supporters - we're a divided nation.
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Project Kangaroo was the name - it was a JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for a Netflix style service. The Government blocked it on competition grounds. Recently, they have admitted they were wrong.
The sleaziest part of the whole thing to date, in a crowded field, is Downing street briefing that it already has expectations as to what gray is going to say. If I were her I would threaten to resign if any further such suggestion is made.
There's a lot of puffery about how well 'ard she is, any suggestion of non-independence is purely about her structural position and entirely non-personal. In fact she seems to have form for burying bad news
Being in charge of turning down FOI requests does not make you a bad person but it doesn't qualify you for her present job either
At long last, a Boris Johnson appointee with actual, proven expertise!
One way to view this is that if you are a tory MP seriously worried you are going to keep your seat when the reckoning comes if Johnson is allowed to remain as leader then you might well be willing Gray on to plunge the knife and save you the job.
That 'aint gonna happen. They have to grow their own balls.
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Project Kangaroo was the name - it was a JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for a Netflix style service. The Government blocked it on competition grounds. Recently, they have admitted they were wrong.
A bit too late….
BTW, if people think subscription is the answer for the BBC, look at what is happening in France with the paid subscription service Salto, which combines the equivalent (roughly) of France’s BBC and Channel 4 (it’s more like France’s BBC / ITV combo but hey). Doing very poorly in subscribers (as is Britbox in the U.K.) because people won’t pay for product they think they should be getting for free.
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Project Kangaroo was the name - it was a JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for a Netflix style service. The Government blocked it on competition grounds. Recently, they have admitted they were wrong.
A bit too late….
BTW, if people think subscription is the answer for the BBC, look at what is happening in France with the paid subscription service Salto, which combines the equivalent (roughly) of France’s BBC and Channel 4 (it’s more like France’s BBC / ITV combo but hey). Doing very poorly in subscribers (as is Britbox in the U.K.) because people won’t pay for product they think they should be getting for free.
Isn’t that because they can watch free on TV, or pay to watch online? If the choices are pay or have ads or don’t watch…
The sleaziest part of the whole thing to date, in a crowded field, is Downing street briefing that it already has expectations as to what gray is going to say. If I were her I would threaten to resign if any further such suggestion is made.
There's a lot of puffery about how well 'ard she is, any suggestion of non-independence is purely about her structural position and entirely non-personal. In fact she seems to have form for burying bad news
Being in charge of turning down FOI requests does not make you a bad person but it doesn't qualify you for her present job either
At long last, a Boris Johnson appointee with actual, proven expertise!
One way to view this is that if you are a tory MP seriously worried you are going to keep your seat when the reckoning comes if Johnson is allowed to remain as leader then you might well be willing Gray on to plunge the knife and save you the job.
That 'aint gonna happen. They have to grow their own balls.
Alternatively, if Gray's report does NOT whitewash the PM (or only applies a very thin coat) would be a clear sign that the top-level Tories are throwing Baby Boris to the wolves?
I somehow have the feeling there's more videos and leaks coming next week.
Considering the last few weeks it is not unreasonable to think more may come, but I believe the damage to Boris is already done
Betting that the worst has already come out, is generally NOT a good wager where Boris Johnson is involved/implicated
At least everything has moved in last seven days from he can survive to May.
a brief running order
If the 54th letter doesn’t happen early in the week, Further to come from invisible assailant, something damaging different to party’s? If you were mystery assailant you would have saved something quite juicy for the day before the day of the vonc? even if Gray report doesn’t offer much, it still offers cover to hide behind for letter writer who say to media it didn’t clear it up enough. the same time from opposition for sure there will be calls for a proper independent enquiry, and I am sure the police will investigate. And I’m convinced wallpaper for access isn’t over yet. It doesn’t just breach ministerial code for investigation, but MP code of conduct. Probably the most damaging thing I could think of might not have happened yet. would be the Gray report is not so bad, nicely presented by the PM; MPs don’t act. And details emerge casting doubt on the report suggesting Sue Gray has been lied to. Damage=off the scale, possibility they could lie to Sue Gray=🤣
Most likely though, it will be so difficult to defend Boris, as MPs try, the opposition will be tweeting the constituents with what they are saying, they will realise they just can’t go on like this.
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Project Kangaroo was the name - it was a JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for a Netflix style service. The Government blocked it on competition grounds. Recently, they have admitted they were wrong.
A bit too late….
BTW, if people think subscription is the answer for the BBC, look at what is happening in France with the paid subscription service Salto, which combines the equivalent (roughly) of France’s BBC and Channel 4 (it’s more like France’s BBC / ITV combo but hey). Doing very poorly in subscribers (as is Britbox in the U.K.) because people won’t pay for product they think they should be getting for free.
I signed up for BritBox with a Black Friday deal. £29 for the year. Been churning through classics such as Darling Buds. Thick of It or Yes Minister rewatch is good with a whisky after the cheese’n kisses has gone to bed. But there really is loads on there.
One thing I don't understand about the 'lets undermine the BBC' brigade in Tory party. The BBC makes British/England TV. They should love the stuff: Call the Midwife being tonight's prime example.
Do they seriously think that Apple will make a TV series that worships the world of 1950s and 1960s english nuns and midwives? Dripping with nostalgia?
Archers would be another. They seriously think Netflix would do the Archers?
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Project Kangaroo was the name - it was a JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for a Netflix style service. The Government blocked it on competition grounds. Recently, they have admitted they were wrong.
A bit too late….
Yes it was the same stupid thinking that blocked the Sainsbury's/Asda merger allowing for independent ownership of two UK supermarkets. The CMA seems to live in the stone ages where the internet or international competition doesn't exist. So instead Asda got bought in a LBO by private equity, the petrol forecourts were forcibly spun off and "sold" to the parent and now motorists have lost a huge downwards pressure on petrol prices. If the Asda takeover could be reversed and the forecourts forcibly demerged it should be. Sell it all to Sainsbury's, the Issa's are taking the nation for a ride.
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Project Kangaroo was the name - it was a JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for a Netflix style service. The Government blocked it on competition grounds. Recently, they have admitted they were wrong.
A bit too late….
That’s the one, Kangaroo !!
It was first mooted in 2007 and knocked on the head by the coalition.
One thing I don't understand about the 'lets undermine the BBC' brigade in Tory party. The BBC makes British/England TV. They should love the stuff: Call the Midwife being tonight's prime example.
Do they seriously think that Apple will make a TV series that worships the world of 1950s and 1960s english nuns and midwives? Dripping with nostalgia?
Archers would be another. They seriously think Netflix would do the Archers?
On subject of reports, given Boris Johnson's oft proclaimed (and monetized) admiration of Winston Churchill, the following episodes of "Winston Churchill: the Wilderness Years" are rather interesting (and contrasting):
Ep.3 - In High Places https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCLiZxvQAYI (wiki) ". .. Samuel Hoare and Lord Derby become the centers of intrigue regarding a report from the cotton industry related to the India question. A witness seeks out Churchill. . . ."
Ep.4 - A Menace In The House https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ymaigVpXgg (wiki) ". . . Armed with papers as evidence of Hoare's tampering with the cotton industry's report to parliament, the investigation begins and ends. Churchill is incensed with the result and suffers for it in the house. . ."
One thing I don't understand about the 'lets undermine the BBC' brigade in Tory party. The BBC makes British/England TV. They should love the stuff: Call the Midwife being tonight's prime example.
Do they seriously think that Apple will make a TV series that worships the world of 1950s and 1960s english nuns and midwives? Dripping with nostalgia?
The other crazy thing is that the Tories most loyal demographic are the same people who are most likely to watch the BBC.
One thing I don't understand about the 'lets undermine the BBC' brigade in Tory party. The BBC makes British/England TV. They should love the stuff: Call the Midwife being tonight's prime example.
Do they seriously think that Apple will make a TV series that worships the world of 1950s and 1960s english nuns and midwives? Dripping with nostalgia?
The other crazy thing is that the Tories most loyal demographic are the same people who are most likely to watch the BBC.
This. 100x This.
I just don't understand it. Other than their funders and the press barons as we used to call them all hate the beeb.
As Nadine will be out of office long before any of her plans take place then we can be assured the whole thing has been part of the 'red meat' tactic of a desperate No 10 and a departing PM.
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Project Kangaroo was the name - it was a JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for a Netflix style service. The Government blocked it on competition grounds. Recently, they have admitted they were wrong.
A bit too late….
BTW, if people think subscription is the answer for the BBC, look at what is happening in France owith the paid subscription service Salto, which combines the equivalent (roughly) of France’s BBC and Channel 4 (it’s more like France’s BBC / ITV combo but hey). Doing very poorly in subscribers (as is Britbox in the U.K.) because people won’t pay for product they think they should be getting for free.
It’s got 2 million outside of the UK and expanding Into S Africa and Australia and 555k in the UK and grown by 10% over the last 12 months.
Not too shabby and it is still growing in a market where you have free on demand catch up services from all main terrestrial channels as well as quite a few on free view. It is losing money though.
One thing I don't understand about the 'lets undermine the BBC' brigade in Tory party. The BBC makes British/England TV. They should love the stuff: Call the Midwife being tonight's prime example.
Do they seriously think that Apple will make a TV series that worships the world of 1950s and 1960s english nuns and midwives? Dripping with nostalgia?
Archers would be another. They seriously think Netflix would do the Archers?
"Hey, we need to sell some Global Britain shit. We got anything?"
They don’t suffer from the ludicrous overkill that bedevils so many American streaming series.
Six episodes is very often plenty to tell a story.
The commercial pressure to flog the shit out of an idea gave us the likes of House of Cards - which would have been infinitely better wrapped up in two series.
Netflix and other streaming has actually helped with this, as they seem more inclined to go for things of 10-13 episodes rather than the traditional 22-24 of american network dramas. There are ups and downs to that, but while you do get stuff going on far too long, I like getting absorbed in a long running show over many years. A lot of the Korean stuff seems to only have 1 series, although often about 16 episodes of anything from 60-80 minutes, so they can seem overlong.
Some of their stuff is a lot longer than that. Roots of the Throne, a rather good historical drama, is a single series of fifty episodes of an hour each.
As Nadine will be out of office long before any of her plans take place then we can be assured the whole thing has been part of the 'red meat' tactic of a desperate No 10 and a departing PM.
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Project Kangaroo was the name - it was a JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for a Netflix style service. The Government blocked it on competition grounds. Recently, they have admitted they were wrong.
A bit too late….
Yes it was the same stupid thinking that blocked the Sainsbury's/Asda merger allowing for independent ownership of two UK supermarkets. The CMA seems to live in the stone ages where the internet or international competition doesn't exist. So instead Asda got bought in a LBO by private equity, the petrol forecourts were forcibly spun off and "sold" to the parent and now motorists have lost a huge downwards pressure on petrol prices. If the Asda takeover could be reversed and the forecourts forcibly demerged it should be. Sell it all to Sainsbury's, the Issa's are taking the nation for a ride.
They’re looking to buy Boots now according to a report in thisismoney.co.uk
One thing I don't understand about the 'lets undermine the BBC' brigade in Tory party. The BBC makes British/England TV. They should love the stuff: Call the Midwife being tonight's prime example.
Do they seriously think that Apple will make a TV series that worships the world of 1950s and 1960s english nuns and midwives? Dripping with nostalgia?
Archers would be another. They seriously think Netflix would do the Archers?
"Hey, we need to sell some Global Britain shit. We got anything?"
The BBC is materially incapable of investing the same $10-12bn per year that the big three are pumping into TV show production and that's because it is limited by the licence fee and public funding model. The BBC could be a global powerhouse of TV production but it's not. That's because it can't raise the necessary money and invest in production houses, in house production and it can't cut the waste of having 17 replications of duties.
It may be worth reminding people that the first season of the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will cost Amazon more money (£340 M + £182 M for rights) than the entire BBC spends on drama in a year (£289 M for 2021). The BBC funded by the licence fee is a minnow in the TV world. Saving the licence fee will not save the BBC, further inaction will ultimately kill the BBC. If the BBC wants to be a major player in the streaming world, which is what TV is in the 21st century, things do have to change.
Indeed. The lack of understanding about the global media landscape when our MPs and other numpties talk about the BBC and why it should or shouldn't keep the licence fee is laughable. The BBC pretence that £3.7bn per year or a number in that region is enough is also ridiculous. A media organisation today needs £12-15bn in revenue just to feed the media investment beast to create enough output for the following year. The BBC is uniquely placed as the major UK media organisation to take advantage of our huge TV and movie production capability and the dominance of English language media globally, but it has clung onto the licence model for 5 years too long instead of gambling on being a global streaming player.
The BBC also has a GREAT brand. Still. But, as you say, they need to move fast to monetise and scale up, because in 5 years, certainly 10, it will be too late
If they cling on to their present dwindling fee, which is evermore unsustainable, they are doomed to become one of the irrelevant state broadcasters of old Europe, somewhere between RTE in Ireland and RAI in Italy. Still significant at home but dwarfed globally, and increasingly ignored on any wider stage
I actively want the BBC to survive, as a great British institution (and brand). But they need to wise up. To be fair I think plenty of people within the BBC know this. As it is so bloody obvious
Britbox is a step in the right direction. It seems to have enough subscribers to be commissioning some original drama, which is positive.
The BBC's output in drama is incredibly weak, but as you observe, everyone else's is moving that way too.
Britbox has a global reach, it is about to be rolled out in Australia.
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Project Kangaroo was the name - it was a JV between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for a Netflix style service. The Government blocked it on competition grounds. Recently, they have admitted they were wrong.
A bit too late….
BTW, if people think subscription is the answer for the BBC, look at what is happening in France owith the paid subscription service Salto, which combines the equivalent (roughly) of France’s BBC and Channel 4 (it’s more like France’s BBC / ITV combo but hey). Doing very poorly in subscribers (as is Britbox in the U.K.) because people won’t pay for product they think they should be getting for free.
It’s got 2 million outside of the UK and expanding Into S Africa and Australia and 555k in the UK and grown by 10% over the last 12 months.
Not too shabby and it is still growing in a market where you have free on demand catch up services from all main terrestrial channels as well as quite a few on free view. It is losing money though.
One of the issues with Britbox, from my perspective, is that it targets a small segment of the market - older, mostly white, men who think TV was better when they were growing up in the 60s and 70s. It's not easy to run a subscription service that doesn't appeal to women very much or the under 40s at all.
One of the things Netflix has going for it is that it has hugely wide appeal, it really does have something for everyone. For example my dad watches Star Trek and a few other sci-fi shows, my wife watches some of the trash shows like Sexy Beast but also a lot of the documentaries and drama shows. It even has Bollywood movies!
Britbox seems to built on a nostalgic view of Britishness rather than a forwards looking one that takes advantage of the nation's huge resources in TV production.
Further to my post way back at the beginning of this thread, is there a chance Johnson can cancel the boundary changes?
We know that he will throw anyone to the lions to save his own skin. Anyone. So why not sacrifice a stack of other tory MPs to make his own constituency safer?
Thoughts?!!!
The boundary changes make Boris Johnson's seat safer.
It's a bit of a shame you didn't spell this out properly in the thread with both sets of potential results. Or if you did I missed it (despite re-reading through) You wrote this:
'As we can see at the 2019 election Boris Johnson had a healthy majority of 7,210 but recent polls show him losing his seat (some with the boundary changes.)'
Is Mike's rather brilliant tweet before or after the boundary changes? Can you gives us both sets of potential figures?
It would be great to know.
I do not think Boris will be defending his seat
I don't know. At the moment he's doing nothing but making unconvincing efforts to cover his arse.
My prediction, as above: he'll never contest a parliamentary election again.
Comments
What Johnson has done is quite clever, though he almost certainly doesn't realise, because the terms of ref ("general overview") would suggest a quick in-and-out smoking gun hunt, whereas there's no chance of that happening
You may be right about the drop being a statistical glitch, but their 7 day average yesterday - 20,639 - was the highest of the pandemic, for them. According to Worldometer, anyhoo
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/denmark/
"Officials I spoke to in 2021 said to me and others that there were various parties after I left and the PM was aware of them. I have also been told there are other photos of other parties against the rules in 2021, some picturing the PM."
I think chicken running used to frowned upon in the Tory party (except 1997) although Mims Davies was still allowed to move from Eastleigh to Mid Sussex in 2019.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/john-bercow-bullying-inquiry-latest-b1994117.html
'As we can see at the 2019 election Boris Johnson had a healthy majority of 7,210 but recent polls show him losing his seat (some with the boundary changes.)'
Is Mike's rather brilliant tweet before or after the boundary changes? Can you gives us both sets of potential figures?
It would be great to know.
Overall the trend looks that they've just had a longer slower rise than the UK and are in a relatively high plateau. Nothing that looks like rise, fall, rise.
The Met Police beating ten bells out of "woke me too" women protesters incandescent with rage that Sarah Everard had been kidnapped raped, murdered and her corpse mutilated by a serving Metropolitan Police officer was presumably proportionate for their Covid rule-busting. After the beating of course some were then arrested and charged for breach of Covid rules, and that is fine...if the same sanctions are applied to Johnson's Covid rule-breaking indiscretions.
A quick and dirty view we have already - that there were social events at a work place which were contrary either to the law and/or the guidance and/or internal instructions. Politically that is probably all that is needed.
But to establish the facts accurately could not be done in a couple of days. Believe me - I know.
I fear in Wales the mask mandate has been there for so long that Drakeford would be very reluctant to let it go. There will come a point however when the question becomes - if not now, when?
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-11-08..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Share+of+positive+tests&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Color+by+test+positivity=false&country=GBR~DNK
He has left the "nasty party" perhaps leaving his "nasty party" anger management issues behind too.
He is appealing but if upheld he could be banned from Parliament
I assume he would be the first speaker to be banned
Although:
https://twitter.com/JakobJunker1/status/1482707602903556099?s=20
Jeg synes ikke det her ligner et knæk, 7 dages gennemsnittet har aldrig været højere og vi har ikke set det typiske fald i smittetal i denne weekend. BA2 tager nu føringen og jeg vil tro vi topper ved en 30k inden måneden er over. Smitten brager derudad blandt de 10-19 årige.
Translated from Danish:
I do not think this looks like a crack, the 7 day average has never been higher and we have not seen the typical drop in infection rates this weekend. BA2 is now taking the lead and I would think we top at a 30k before the month is over. The infection erupts out there among the 10-19 year olds.
This is what should be bringing this government down not bloody parties.
Out of interest do we have any Rangers fans on PB (I know we've plenty of SNP Types)?
The BBC missed a trick with IPlayer. However it looks like they wanted to create a version of IPlayer as far back as 2012 that would have been like Netflix but were stopped by the govt partly due to the public service remit. I read an article on wired earlier today that was talking about it.
Ultimately we're at the stage that Omicron spreads quickly enough to make quicker spread a pretty irrelevant characteristic anyway - the only thing that would matter is if we had comparable spread advantage without the mildness.
2. Don't be patronising with the "Believe me - I know" stuff. I have conducted a lot of big ass Commercial Court litigation.
3. Explain: how would it take more than a couple of hours, given access to the email accounts of all recipients of the invite (which is expressly mandated by the terms of ref), to establish what we want to know, which is: did BJ know the party was a party?
We need more data, which we will shortly get. As you say, all that matters is a variation in virulence, or ability to reinfect. Apparently BA2 now constitutes 80% of cases in west Bengal so we will know very soon if BA2 is "nastier" - it will show up in Indian hospitals
Obviously pales into insignificance compared to the national picture, but if can find a good local canidate with slightly more life exprience than a year as a councillor and roles in the NUS, and that ought to be worth a few additional votes from last time.
Can you imagine McDonnell* vs Johnson, the last fight? Would be hilarious.
*I was referring to the real leader, not that stupid puppet of his.
Could work...
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/football/scottish-premiership/aberdeen-v-rangers-betting-31144182
On Ed Balls, I'll mark that as a point in his favour, but he was still the dull old fool who came up with post neoclassical endogenous growth theory and building schools for the future.
Boris is really very likely to lose his seat wherever he stands - he's got a huge personal vote problem. I think this will change a bit, but he's really going to struggle to be an MP after 2024.
Catch 22.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/calcwork23.py?seat=Uxbridge and South Ruislip
Edit - he asked me whether I was ready to rejoin and help shape the future of the party again once Boris has been ousted. I'm open to the idea. Mainly because the party is being dominated by parochial HYFUD types.
1) She stood down in Eastleigh without any other job or constituency lined up, she needed to move somewhere closer to where her children were (the joys of being a single parent.)
2) She went through the normal selection process for Mid Sussex
3) I'm not sure leaving Eastleigh (where she had 14,000 vote majority which became a 15,000 vote majority after the election) counts as a chicken run. Mid Sussex had a slightly larger majority, but still.
Surely that counts as deliberate?
Basically, I don't know but I'm going to assume we aren't going until we book the flights and arrange for transportation of our stuff. Both our workplaces aren't bothered about whether we work here or on Zurich and mine specifically would prefer I don't go and have said once travel restrictions are reliably gone I'd be expected to be in London for 3 working days a month anyway.
Clearly, in a democracy, there has to be a right to protest the government, or to highlight some perceived injectice or other in the world. The problems in recent years appear to be “protests” that look more like riots, with wilful damage to public and private property, and “protests” that set out to deliberately cause significant disruption to the public and to essential services, for example by blocking main roads. This last example usually accompanied by policemen having tea with the protestors, seemingly not empowered to do anything about the problem.
It’s a very difficult line to draw, and I don’t envy those who have to work through such legislation to get it right.
NOT because I give a blind fiddler's farewell fuck for soccer. Rather, because of the team's mentions in George Macdonald Fraser's "McAuslan" stories!
Most people think they are called Partick Thistle Nil
I'm sure there's plenty of SNP Types amongst Aberdeen supporters - we're a divided nation.
A bit too late….
That 'aint gonna happen. They have to grow their own balls.
a brief running order
If the 54th letter doesn’t happen early in the week,
Further to come from invisible assailant, something damaging different to party’s? If you were mystery assailant you would have saved something quite juicy for the day before the day of the vonc?
even if Gray report doesn’t offer much, it still offers cover to hide behind for letter writer who say to media it didn’t clear it up enough.
the same time from opposition for sure there will be calls for a proper independent enquiry,
and I am sure the police will investigate.
And I’m convinced wallpaper for access isn’t over yet. It doesn’t just breach ministerial code for investigation, but MP code of conduct.
Probably the most damaging thing I could think of might not have happened yet. would be the Gray report is not so bad, nicely presented by the PM; MPs don’t act. And details emerge casting doubt on the report suggesting Sue Gray has been lied to. Damage=off the scale, possibility they could lie to Sue Gray=🤣
Most likely though, it will be so difficult to defend Boris, as MPs try, the opposition will be tweeting the constituents with what they are saying, they will realise they just can’t go on like this.
Probably this week.
Do they seriously think that Apple will make a TV series that worships the world of 1950s and 1960s english nuns and midwives? Dripping with nostalgia?
Archers would be another. They seriously think Netflix would do the Archers?
It was first mooted in 2007 and knocked on the head by the coalition.
They lost first mover advantage.
Ep.3 - In High Places
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCLiZxvQAYI
(wiki) ". .. Samuel Hoare and Lord Derby become the centers of intrigue regarding a report from the cotton industry related to the India question. A witness seeks out Churchill. . . ."
Ep.4 - A Menace In The House
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ymaigVpXgg
(wiki) ". . . Armed with papers as evidence of Hoare's tampering with the cotton industry's report to parliament, the investigation begins and ends. Churchill is incensed with the result and suffers for it in the house. . ."
Just catching up with the Sussexes being denied both state or their own funded protection whilst in the UK.
Is the artist formerly known as HRH the Prince Andrew still in receipt of state funded protection? Asking for a friend.
I just don't understand it. Other than their funders and the press barons as we used to call them all hate the beeb.
Not too shabby and it is still growing in a market where you have free on demand catch up services from all main terrestrial channels as well as quite a few on free view. It is losing money though.
"We have the most trusted brand in the World!"
"Oh, fuck that..."
Who IIRC was a big, fat fraud?
Roots of the Throne, a rather good historical drama, is a single series of fifty episodes of an hour each.
https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands-2021/
One of the things Netflix has going for it is that it has hugely wide appeal, it really does have something for everyone. For example my dad watches Star Trek and a few other sci-fi shows, my wife watches some of the trash shows like Sexy Beast but also a lot of the documentaries and drama shows. It even has Bollywood movies!
Britbox seems to built on a nostalgic view of Britishness rather than a forwards looking one that takes advantage of the nation's huge resources in TV production.
Who, incidentally, would still be a better Prime Minister than Boris.