No, he's a troll who purports not to understand the difference between books *about* Hitler and books (there's only one) *by* Hitler.



Halfon's deployment of Sweep is funny, but was obviously meant to be.

jesus ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...speech-commons

If anyone didn't already know that Jacob Rees-Mogg was an idiot for trying to do away with the electronic attendance and voting procedures... maybe they get it now.

http://news.met.police.uk/news/opera...-appeal-403826

The very definition of white privilege.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-52911605

Wow media really getting into some nitwit territory there

So if the council is making those investigations, the media should just ignore it?

You sound like you think its the media doing the investigation.

Its just a reprint of a fairly topical story in a regional newspaper.

Standard.

For a guy who thought brexit was worth it to get rid of the unelected European officials DB is pretty defensive of the unelected official running Britain.

Building a property without planning permission and not paying council tax on it would be classic Cummings.

This is a valid news story, I'm sorry that you find it upsetting.

Doesnt upset me, just a distraction. I think they should be reporting on what's going wrong, not the personal ins and outs of a guy they don't want to stay in office. Report on what he'd doing wrong in his job, at least.

I guess I'm more commenting on the nitwittery in this forum, bothering to post nonsense stories like that.

Classic Dom.

That was me amusing myself, sorry.

he has tested -ve for covid

Oh, he did, I'm shocked

I'd like to repost this from 15th March in the light of the new Sage papers on Test & Trace
In February the advice was, as expected, that test & trace would have to be abandoned because of lack of capacity once the infection numbers were too high

but they also said, unsurprisingly, that we need more resources.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ry-papers-show
Note this was on 12th Feb

The government followed the advice on having to abandon test & trace - they didn't any option really at that point - but as with PPE and care homes, they didn't do their ****ing job and tackle test & trace capacity.

and on care homes in particular (same link)

Face masks mandatory from June 15. Why? That stipulation should have come in March or April. Broader in scope, too.

I guess the one positive side-effect of covid-19 is that it has disenchanted populists in the UK and around the world.

As if the failed covid-19 policies weren't enough, the lack of progress of post-Brexit negotiations under Frost sets the stage for the next big shock to the UK's economy.

Whatever we think of the various face mask (and other PPE) policies, it's clearly all been driven by lack of supplies rather than anything else.

It's truly extraordinary how brexit is barely news these days. Not sure the lack of progress isn't being exaggerated but whatever the progress, the slow moving **** is approaching the fan now. A particularly worrying part of brexit is that we had built up some reserves in case of problems. These have been a lucky bonus during the covid crises but are they going to be replenished by this bunch of incompetent *****.

On the bright side it's hard to disrupt trade when there isn't any and those worried about queuing at passport control to go on holiday must be feeling pretty foolish now.

Sure, N95 masks and surgical masks are the gold standard. But cloth face masks have some positive effect and they aren't in short supply. Even the supply of non-surgical medical masks isn't too bad. Cloth mask or better regulation works in other countries.

Agreed.

When I think of tradeable goods, I don't just envision cloth, wine, smartphones, or cars.

Most financial services are tradables. Sure, the financial sector has been hit by covid-19 but it hasn't come to a complete halt. Same with digital goods such as digital music or apps. Those are tradeable and parts of the digital goods sector is even booming these days. (E.g., more people subscribing to Spotify and Netflix.)

People (including at the BoE) expect that even with a substantial post-Brexit agreement, economic growth of tradeables will be roughly one percent below the path in a world with a 'no' vote on the referendum.

And that is from studies published 2019/early 2020, so before covid-19 and before the news of the last months of slow progress in post-Brexit negotiations.

Besides, most of the effect of Brexit at this stage is through lower productivity growth, not through less trade. So there is less research and development, less training of staff, less development of software, less investment in new machinery or factories etc. (Of course, that is because lower trade is expected for the future.)

So sure thing covid-19 depresses international trade a lot. And that is a huge shock to GDP all over the world. But low investment in the UK due to Brexit-related uncertainty and such is a factor that's depressing UK GDP above and beyond that.

The bright side bit was dark humour

Even considering those who think brexit is a good idea overall, doing it during this crises is ****ing insane, irresponsible and a disgraceful thing to force on the EU.

I guess I missed that as a non-Brit. Following British politics for the most part due to being worried about a close relative of mine who lives and works in England.

That's ok most brits don't get my humour either. Where you from?

Germany. Off-topic: BTW, I met Ian Kershaw mentioned a few posts up a few times through my relative. Not just super-smart, a nice guy, too.

This was never really the case though, as is now pretty obvious. It's been obvious ever since they defended bojo proroguing parliament. Parliamentary sovereignty was just a cover phrase used because the real reasons(immigration and the desire to cut off freedom of movement) led to some unpalatable accusations being directed their way. It's likely come too late but at least C19 has exposed this government as the collection of shysters it really is. It's been pretty bad for the UK as a whole up until now, but my real concern is if a second wave hits at winter time and this rabble are still trying to force through new rules by December 31st. 2021 could end up being a lot worse than 2020 for those who choose to tough it out.