UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

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The polling was largely conducted before Sunday evening, which is when this business turned into A Scandal.

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Mark Drakeford and Llafur Cymru may as well be the captain and crew of the Special Boat Squadron as far as the UK (indeed much of the Welsh) electorate are concerned. The Welsh Parliament is essentially a minuscule dot on the face of UK political reporting, the focus of which will very much be on Johnson and the government getting their nuts roasted by Keir Starmer and feet shot by... themselves. Regardless of the performance of the devolved governments in this crisis (and they will, as always, seek to nationalise their failures whilst localising their, few, successes), the focus in the media will be very much on the UK government’s handling of the pandemic.

There's also the reality that it is very difficult for public health policy in Wales to be that different to England for reasons beyond even Scotland: the border is porous (because it is not a historical border at all) and a large proportion of people in Mid Wales and also on Deeside use hospitals on the English side of it.

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The main issue seems to be a failure to maintain correct quarantine procedures; in particular the decision to send patients back to care homes, rather than to consider using the 'Nightingales' as isolation hospitals, as should have been done, as I presumed was the point. This is a rare example of a decision that must have been made by a government minister, that will certainly be minuted, that has led directly to the otherwise preventable deaths of a significant number of people. This is all extremely important because mostly this virus has been spreading through the healthcare system, rather than through 'the community'.

So far, so bad. But there has also been a spike in dementia-related mortality in care homes since the crisis began. Once again, we may observe a decision taken by the government: to allow for the relaxation of standards of care in residential care homes for the duration of the crisis, in order to ease pressure.

Right now, of course, the public is not exactly aware of this; it is a nasty rumour floating around, rather than common knowledge. One way or another this will change and I think people will be less than amused.

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Cummings could at least claim a reasonable motive in heading to Durham, although why he didn't ask his niece to come down to London instead is a mystery and finding local childcare would have been hard - one mention of coronavirus and most people would not return the call.

The trouble there is that once in Durham he did not make use of the extra childcare support that he claims was a factor in the trip. It was also interesting to observe at his press conference that he did not seem to be sure of the exact ages of his nieces. You should also note the studied ambiguity around the central matter of whether he and his wife were ill and what with. There's a reason for that: if either had Covid (and thought they did) at the time of his trip north, then that would have been a clear breach of the quarantine order, but if neither did then the trip would be impossible to justify on the grounds that he has chosen.

Duffield, like Ferguson, seems to have been motivated by baser desire.

This would be the MoS's framing, yes. But the reality is more complicated than that, particularly if you're aware of certain details of her biography that really do... er... complicate a simple curtain-twitching reading. She was, of course, right to respond with 'my bad' and to then immediately quit her post, but this is an interesting example of how the lockdown has made things difficult for people with messy or difficult personal circumstances.

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That 'everyone' (i.e. in politics and the media) needs to get a few nights worth of sleep and calm down.

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Not all of them. One of them, in a picture that's sure to make at least one front page tomorrow, went for a slash next to the memorial for the police officer who died protecting Parliament from a terrorist three years ago.

Peak British Far Right.

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And one of them literally murdered a Labour MP four years ago. They're a joke, but a dangerous one.

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To a significant extent that is because 'The Labour Right' does not exist as a coherent faction or even group of factions, and hasn't since the early 1980s. And that the same is true for the moderate Left. So what you had was a lot of smaller groupings and tendencies, most of which did not get on, operating according to their own logic and agendas and basically failing to cohere. Of course, perhaps they could have done if there was better leadership, but the only figure around who could have taken that role at the time was Watson, a man who, despite considerable tactical acumen, has never shown any capacity for strategic thought.

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if it even survives the EHRC report.

The EHRC does not try to destroy organisations, its purpose is to clean them up, or, to be more specific, to force them to clean themselves up. It is quite likely that whatever the report recommends will be more or less what the new leadership would wish to do anyway. It might make some of it easier: 'we are legally compelled to do this' makes doomed rearguard actions difficult.

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It isn't as if there is no space between 1987-2015 style domination of parliamentary representation or 'just one seat, you know, the one full of English students'.

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I think probably the fairest thing to say about it is that it's a genuinely cross-factional product - meaning it has enough in it for everybody to accept it, but that accordingly in pulls punches in multiple directions to avoid antagonising elements of the party.

Most takes I've seen on it from any faction have been either, "This proves what I was saying all along" or "This fails to denounce my opponents sufficiently", which gives you some idea of its likely utility. Though that's not necessarily the fault of the report, obviously.

I think the best description of it would be a 'polite version of the truth'. Which still has its uses - it is good that it has highlighted the issue of electorate churn, which is critical to understanding so much of what happened, and of what might happen in the future.

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That may have been a factor sure, but I think all else pales into insignificance compared to having a simple three word slogan that both resonated and bore constant repetition.

May never had anything as compelling as "GET BREXIT DONE!"

It was an Issue Election (other things as well, but) and historically those were always won by the side able to best condense its message into something easily transmissible. 1945 was a case in point, actually. Quite often they led to, how shall we say, evaporating landslides.

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I've thought for a few months that we appear to be in the early stages of a divorce between the Labour Party and 'Left Culture'. I suspect both parties will be better off apart, but it is going to be messy.

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I mean T-May already defunded the police so I’m not sure where the meat and two veg of this argument lies?

The result of which has been, and this news may come as a surprise, a rise in crime.

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y i k e s

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Of course, Julian Lewis has past form with political espionage and skulduggery, so his outwitting the government whips on this one isn’t unexpected.

Allowing him to be the potential critical vote (on a committee that also counts Kevan Jones as a member...) is serious 'I never thought the leopards would eat MY face' territory, incredible.

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Also, I mean... *gestures towards the current employment of a certain somebody*. A free hit is right.

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Is Delyn a Red Wall seat? That would be a very interesting by-election. Given the current polls and how by-elections go it would probably be a Labour gain, though it depends when it is held.

It isn't as if that term means much so who knows. It's a mixture of small industrial towns and prosperous countryside and was won by Labour at all General Elections from 1992 until last year. The sort of socially polarised constituency where, under 'normal' circumstances, Labour is very hard to beat and will usually have a comfortable majority, but will rarely win by a massive amount. It was only created in 1983, but had it existed before (and on something like its current boundaries) it would almost certainly have been Labour at every postwar election save 1959.

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There are strong rumours that someone who was a member of his inner circle is a Kremlin asset. But then there are also strong rumours that so is a reasonably well-known backbench Conservative MP (who, for non-ideological reasons, should certainly know better). If this problem is as bad as has been rumoured for a while and is argued for in this report, then it isn't something that can be seen through the lens of British party politics.

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If one must elevate a distinguished former England cricketer known to be a Conservative to the Lords, would it not have made more sense to go with Strauss? Who is an intelligent and earnest man, the sort that could easily end up being a capable minister. Whatever his other merits, Botham is... not that.

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A Conservative MP - reported to be a former minister and in his fifties - has been arrested on multiple charges of rape. Still in custody, name not released yet.

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Situation in Wales less of a mess because... well... AS levels and coursework were not abolished there, making certain obvious (if still imperfect) solutions possible.

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The BTEC disaster is magnitudes worse than what happened with A-levels but I doubt the government will take it as seriously because it's working class kids getting f-ed. Makes me so angry.

I seem to remember Gavin Williamson, who I understand is still (somehow) the Secretary of State for Education, make a Big Public Statement the other month about the Importance of Vocational Education, that it was as valid as the academic route and so on. And yet now... silence, inaction. What a surprise.

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My main feeling about the Proms is that I miss it and that I'm not entirely sure what the point is in having the closing night to a festival without, you know, having the actual festival.

Anyway, the timeline to this nonsense runs as follows:

1. A music critic employed by The Times wrote a 'some people are saying' article about these particular songs in the BBC Music magazine. As is nearly always the case with 'some people are saying' articles, before he wrote the article no one was actually saying anything. However...

2. As always ends up happening, some people were lured by this incredibly obvious bait into advocating the position in question, almost certainly because they thought it would be beneficial to their careers. Given the state of crisis that the musical world is in as a result of the pandemic, one might question whether this was entirely responsible.

3. The Times then triumphantly runs a story about the 'controversy', talking heads start yelling, No. 10 wags its fat finger, the tabloids run outraged headlines.

Essentially a classic piece of Culture War dialectic.

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One thing that's quite clear from how this has played out is that many people who have decided to weigh in have never actually watched the Last Night. Because while certain elements of the programme are taken very seriously (Auld Lang Syne and the National Anthem), these particular songs are not: they're always played for laughs - with stupid costumes, car horns going off all the time, and, occasionally, even deliberate bad-playing from the orchestra - and have been ever since they became regular fixtures in the 1950s. It's a Post-Imperial joke.