POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

"“One of the most powerful charges made against the UK political elite by those advocating Brexit has always been that it deliberately mis-sold the nature and direction of the European project to the British people,” he said." (Ivan Rogers.)
Good article and basically true. The above is certainly accurate. Then they compounded that lying about the advantages to be gained from leaving. They mislead us now on the question of who is to blame for the trade problems with Ireland.

[Stanley]

Thanks to Private Eye for reminding me who it was that got the monopoly on providing the veterinary services essential to the smooth running of the N Ireland protocol of Brexit. They have quite obviously failed.
Later, Johnson is reported as saying that the relationship between the US and the UK is 'indestructible'. This is typical of the overblown rhetoric he delights in. Someone should take him on one side and explain the history of the relationship....

[plaques]

Watched 25 mins of 'lessons to be learned' Matt Hancock interview. I think so far he has got an unbelievably easy pass.
Q, Did you say that patients moved from Hospitals to Care Homes would be tested?
MT A, I made it clear they would be tested when testing was available.
My comment. Hancock was in charge of testing, vaccinations and PPE. Testing was available but he never made it a priority to Care Homes.
MT A. Cases of covid were rising exponentially while testing was linear.
My comment, both were increasing but one faster than the other.
MT A, There was a problem with asymptomatic testing there were many false negatives.
My comment, How many is not quantified but it would have been less than no testing.
MT A, there was testing in hospitals.
Q, but only a small number of hospitals?.
MT A. but there were some who did testing.
MT A, and there was a four day delay in getting testing results during which time they could have caught it from incoming patients.
My comment, why didn't he prioritise the test from hospitals?

In a nutshell there was very little testing from Hospitals to Care Homes.

The final bit of chutzpah. Things have run much better after Cummings left.
Cumming took control away from him and split it up to dedicated operational units.

[Stanley]

Good summary Ken but does any of it actually mean anything?
It strikes me that they have these procedures just to reassure the public that someone is minding the shop. Trouble is whatever they do is after the event.
No. I don't know what the answer is. But we definitely need something better than this!

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report that the 21st of June end to restrictions will almost certainly be delayed for 4 weeks. Expect screams of rage from the usual subjects but if it's true, well done for actually using common sense.

[PanBiker]

If you log in to your router it will give you the actual connection speed to the exchange.

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

The Daily Mail is now shouting from the rooftops that the EU says Northern Ireland is not part of the UK. But it got the story from Dominic Raab, the man who in 2018 admitted he `hadn't quite understood the full extent to which the UK was reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing for UK trade'. Now he hasn't quite understood the full extent of Macron saying that getting goods from Paris to Lyons is different to sending them from London to Belfast. The latter two are on different islands and have border checks between them.

[Stanley]

The bottom line is that the exit protocol was badly negotiated and was always going to be a disaster. The only way to keep it on the road was to lie about it. That started right back with the referendum campaign, remember '£350million a week to the EU'? What I can't understand is how Johnson persuaded himself he could get away with it. This present dispute with the EU is a case in point. They thought they had a treaty and an agreement, Johnson says they don't understand. It will all end in tears.....

[plaques]

Johnson and his buddy Frost drew up an agreement that the UK would set up a customs border for all goods entering and leaving NI. This entered the International agreement. He had no intention of doing it and unilaterally kicked the can down the road for 6 months. The 6 months is shortly up and he is preparing for another 6 months kick. At some point the EU's reasonableness or unreasonableness depending which side you are on will snap and we may see sanctions being applied. Which will all go to prove in the Brexiteers book how unreasonable they are. Meanwhile with no customs checks it won't be just sausages that are smuggled across the border but every other nasty that you can think of.

[Tizer]

Matthew Parris wrote his Saturday article in The Times on how trade treaties need politicians to show respect and be trustworthy. There followed a long list of examples of Johnson being unreliable and rude in his dealing with the other G7 leaders, such as saying Merkel was like Hitler, the EU was like the Nazis and calling the French turds. Parris points out that the leaders won't have forgotten his gaffes.

[Stanley]

You are both correct in my view. Johnson has no concept of diplomacy or statesmanship. Don't blame me, I voted against Brexit and against him wherever possible. He may be PM and able to move aircraft carriers but he's still a buffoon.
He and Frost seem to have torpedoed both fishing and farming. They are vandals!

[plaques]

As a reminder back in 2016. Michael Gove promised 400,000 new UK jobs when we left the EU. If we put this along with Rees-Moggs 'the technology already exists' to deal with the customs problem and the fact that countries will be queuing up to do deals with us. Framers and fishermen will be laughing all the way to the bank. There will be no reduction in food standards. And we have total sovereignty (except where others tell us what to do)
Life is a bowl of cherries.

[chinatyke]

As a reminder back in 2016. Michael Gove promised 400,000 new UK jobs when we left the EU.

And then Covid came along...
Bowl of cherries? I think you are cherry picking.

[Stanley]

You're wrong China it wasn't Covid but stupid forecasting to back the Brexit votes. You'll see in the next six months....

[Stanley]

See THIS Report of House Leader Rees Mogg's thoughts on lockdown and the NHS.
"Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has come under fire from Labour after he suggested that lockdown curbs can’t continue “just to stop the hospitals being full”. The Commons Leader told ConservativeHome.com’s “Moggcast” podcast that “the NHS is there to serve the British people, not the British people there to serve the NHS”. He also suggested that protecting the health service should no longer be the government’s top priority and that patients entering hospital for a few days was “not very important”."
Exactly which planet does this man think he is on?

[plaques]

Rees-Mogg said that “infections are not what matters any more”, adding that the number of deaths from Covid should be the key consideration as the UK came out of the pandemic and ministers weighed up the need for personal freedom.It would appear that you have to die before it counts as serious. On that argument there has to be a cut off point ie: 50, 100, 1000 etc. I'll bet he never put a figure to that number.: I never thought that being killed by a virus was a personal freedom.

[Tizer]

I'll bet covid infection would matter if it happened to him. His money in the Virgin Islands or Caymans or wherever might not help him then!

[Stanley]

See THIS, it's an outright rant but I think the man has his facts right.

[Tizer]

I like the Rees Mogg rant - let's see more of that!
---------------------------------------------------------------

This morning a Times investigation reports the following. I've not given a link because it's behind a pay wall and I don't have access to any more of the story, although you can see the first part of it on the image of the front page of The Times on the BBC at the moment...
`Firms charging £10k a week to look after single child in care'
`Private companies are charging up to £10,000 a week to look after a single child in care, it can be revealed. An investigation by The Times has found that firms that rushed to set up children’s homes during the pandemic were paid tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money despite many being deemed “downright dangerous”. About 175 children’s homes were registered by the regulator Ofsted during the first wave of the pandemic last year, a third more than in the same period in 2019, at a time when in-person inspections were suspended. Failings at almost a third of them were discovered. Reports revealed they were cited for unsafe restraint practices or putting children at risk of sexual or criminal exploitation...'.

[Stanley]

My son in law works at the extreme end of child care and believe me there are some circumstances which are extreme but even so £10k sounds a lot!
The whole of that sector is in a mess largely because of outsourcing and under-funding. Like social care it has been kicked down the road time after time and each time it comes back it is of course worse.
Some of the most disappointed people in Britain post-Brexit are the fishermen and farmers. I seem to remember Johnson saying he would rather die than throw the farmers under the bus or am I mistaken?

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report of the result of the Amersham by-election. The LibDems have wiped out a 16,000 Tory majority with 8,000 votes more than the Tory candidate. Amersham has been Tory ever since the seat was created. I wonder how this will be explained?

[plaques]

I wonder how this will be explained?

Most people are pretty liberal in their thinking. Liberal in this sense being fair minded, and not given to extremism. This is how Corbyn was portrayed as a extreme left wing Marxist commie taking the country back to the 1900s. So what is extreme about the Conservative party.
1 Boris is a buffoon, likeable but still a buffoon and not fit to run the country but he is keeping many Tory MPs in a job so that's OK.
2) People are gradually waking up to the fact that Brexit was sold on total lies by BoJo buffoon and his cronies.
3) Some MPs at the top have put personal profit and careers before the country something which should be the other way round.

Although Facebook and Twitter may be gaining ground in the political propaganda stakes its still the Right-wing press who are the big influencers albeit now they are using rather convoluted arguments and statistics to win people over.

What OG says today the ........

[Whyperion]

See THIS BBC report of the result of the Amersham by-election. The LibDems have wiped out a 16,000 Tory majority with 8,000 votes more than the Tory candidate. Amersham has been Tory ever since the seat was created. I wonder how this will be explained?

Turnout was 52% compared with 77% in 2019
Labour vote (which had been declining - possibly due to remainers and corbyn haters switching to libs)
In summary Tories stayed home (the media appear to have been really silent on this by-election actually taking place - an assumed tory hold?) And Labour switched to Lib Dems (though I doubt when they did they would have expected the conservative vote to evaporate.
HS2 might have been a factor (there are better ways of building a railway to be honest, but like local authorities once they get an idea , its right and has to be defended and pushed through even when its wrong)

Raises interesting questions about Batley and Spen. Will it help Labour (showing that Labour are still for the north), or encourage a split to Lib Dem (and poss Galloway respect?) , allowing the conservatives up the centre, or has the cummins/hancock/ brexit shambles now been noted by the would be conservative votes and the build up (and tory baseline?) of it crumble away. I could not call it, but maybe the likes of Mogg's prouncements if widely reported may have an influence.
(Thinking about Mogg its a bit similar to (was it Gove?) If you want a decent (?influential?) education go private as the state version is only basic childcare [ if the likes of John Lewis stores note that numeracy skills are lacking in new staff it does raise how schools are at present teaching application and understanding of how the number and mathmatical world actually work ], being currently in a London urbanish area most of the state funded acadamies seem to be attended mainly by ethnic minorities (many of whom DO go on to forms of further education), Stockport seems to divide into the Private/Grammar and a fairly decent acadamy that is attended by far fewer ethnic minorities - from what I have seen the kids are bright and engaged with learning). Moggs implication (and again near local to mum it becomes London Zone 5 and mega £m properties there are adverts for private hospital treatments including GP appointments at £95 a go) is that health services should be more paid for than provided by the state (and there may be a realism that state managed death is probably not a good use of NHS resources - though I tend to think of it a medical learning opportunities - what Mogg also missed is that a good number of covid deaths have been - in the UK and elsewhere - among the health professions, the disease is killing those whom have the expertise to cure others (of other diseases), it robs the investment in training and resources.
I think Hancock mentioned (via leaked reportage) that ventilator prices had been increased by manufacturers - sounds like a lack of good pre-planning and contract management in the NHS - Johnson in the G7 general 'anti-pandemic responses for the future' agreement may have had this in mind, of course that agreement effectively means the reversing of the planning notes and research that was being torn up under Cameron (and May did not spot what was happening with her mind on other matters)

[Stanley]

Basically correct I think Ken. But I think we have to be careful about this result. How many times have we seen The liberal party steal a by-election and sometimes by enormous swings. 'Go home and prepare for government' is not the right message. More like concentrate on doing a good job for the voters of Amersham and hope the word spreads.