Westminstenders: No pubs till Christmas?

[RedToothBrush]

Today the news has moved towards acknowledging covid-19 reality: Nicola Sturgeon has explicitly stated that some social distancing will carry on until the new year in all likelihood.

When Matt Hancock asked if this was true for England too, he refused to say yes but he said that Scotland was working from the same framework as England.

In case anyone does still need this spelling out, this means the outlook for the hospitality and leisure industries is bleak.

There are extremely unlikely to be many enjoying a holiday in the sun any time soon, whether it be in Devon or Spain.

We won't be celebrating birthdays in restaurants nor having a pint in the pub.

Conversations on the doorstep from a couple of metres away is as good as it gets.

That means if you can't adapt you may not survive.

To add into the mix changes to customs to those companies who are operating seems insanity. But that's a political not a scientific decision to be made.

Whether reality in this will kick in, in the next six weeks or so before EU budgetary decisions relating to an extension have to be made remains to be seen.

Until then, there is no news but covid-19.

Oh he is in for a shock then
What a way to finally understand what parenting is all about!

If he does take paternity leave then his appointed (anointed?) deputy should have the power to make decisions and be held responsible for them.

I think you haven't been paying attention these past few years. That would be the case for a real country, not the poundshop Zimbabwe the UK has descended into. The Tory party - as the party of government - has become infected with the "big man" disease, and no one is going to dare do anything that might be taken as even a hint they want to be PM one day. Luckily the people involved, Raab, Hancock, Patel have already made sure they are fairly safe by being hopelessly incompetent. Sunak has been a bit of a dark horse, but I am sure he''' manage to display some world class buffoonery to keep himself alive.

I mean trying to count a pair of gloves as two items ? Not even Mugabe would have been that brazen. I can see him looking down, signing, and imagining how much easier he'd have found it in the UK, rather than Zimbabwe.

I'm going to guess Numberwang was the mastermind behind the 1 pair becomes 2 multiplying of the fishes act.

I'm going to guess Numberwang was the mastermind behind the 1 pair becomes 2 multiplying of the fishes act.

Dianne Abbot is being blamed on some social media ...

Raab to take PMQs.

He wouldnt dare taking some paternity leave now, would he???

I hope Carry and the baby are OK though. Im sure birth was early (and she has had the virus too)

Tony Blair, for all his myriad faults (before anyone starts), seemed to manage having a kid and carrying on working, not to mention not leaving any of his proginy behind in any pubs.

According to Robin Cook, trying to run the country with a family and specifically a new baby was why Blair made the wrong decision to invade Iraq (which of course he resigned over himself). He said he understood why Blar made the wrong choice - he was so bloody knackered.

He wouldnt dare taking some paternity leave now, would he???

I believe it was announced quite soon after news of Carries pregnancy.

According to Robin Cook, trying to run the country with a family and specifically a new baby was why Blair made the wrong decision to invade Iraq (which of course he resigned over himself). He said he understood why Blar made the wrong choice - he was so bloody knackered.

With apologies to the principled late Mr. Cook, that's a nice fairy story.

The UK didn't get to win an invasion of Iraq on the throw of a dice. It was the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of people that sexed up the dodgy dossier so that keen eyes would be deceived.

And frankly, as someone who was up at all hours looking after DS from day one, I am insulted that Mr. Cook thinks parenthood can be used as an excuse for an illegal war. There are plenty of fathers who take on their full share of parenting without breaking the law.

My point was, in response to the pp that Blair didn’t in manage kids + work, he messed up horrifically.

Altho whether one wants, in all seriousness, to attribute an accidental illegal war to childcare and night feed sleep deprivation is a question of taste.

But I can’t agree that a lot of work went into the sexed up dossier. It was fairly shit.

As Cook commented when he resigned “I do not believe Iraq has WMDs as the term is commonly understood.”.

Blair made the wrong call and then others had to beaver away behind the scenes to justify it.

As DGR touched upon yesterday, according to Wiki "As at 23 July 2015, a total of 454 British forces personnel or MOD civilians have died while serving in Afghanistan since the start of operations in October 2001. Of these, 405 were killed as a result of hostile action."

We are loosing more people every single day than we did in a war that lasted 13 years and still we have not enough PPE, incorrect figures and lack of testing.

But I can’t agree that a lot of work went into the sexed up dossier. It was fairly shit.

To be fair, the documentary "In the Loop" did rather show it had been rushed.

For some reason, I can't shake a Mark Thomas bon mot when he was accosted by a Channel 4 executive over "Big Brother" that he was dissing ("Serious Organised Criminal" DVD)

Exec: A lot of people have worked very hard on Big Brother
MT: A lot of people worked hard to invade Poland. Don't make it right though ....

According to Robin Cook, trying to run the country with a family and specifically a new baby was why Blair made the wrong decision to invade Iraq

Jacinda Ardern has a baby (herself! not her partner) whilst running NZ. She is one of the head of state that has handled the situation the best both the CV-19 and with the terrorist attack against a mosque.
Blaming bad decisions on a baby is lame.

@QuestionMarkNow

Yet again women being held to higher standards than men (and vastly outperforming them)...

Blaming bad decisions on a baby is lame.

And you think that’s what Cook actually said?

Cook resigned in principle over Blair’s poor decision.

If, in parenthesis he doesn’t hold a grudge against Blair, and acknowledges the difficulties of being PM that’s up to him.

Either way Blair can’t really be held up as someone who successfully combined premiership and family because he made a balls up of it.

If you were Carrie, would you let a nanny anywhere near Pfeffle?

I didn't agree with the iraq war but I do disagree with the subsequent demonisation of Blair that has only served to keep the centre left out of power.

The January 03 'dodgy' dossier was described as that because much content was copied from the Internet without attribution - no one claimed the copied content was incorrect. But as with so much of the Brexit lies the simple attribution stuck.

More than a month after the 'exposure' of the dossier 412 mp's voted for war. The precedent set by Blair, in going to parliament, was what kept us out of the US intervention in Syria - as a country we will never go to war again without a parliamentary vote - that is one hell of a legacy.

More than a month after the 'exposure' of the dossier 412 mp's voted for war. The precedent set by Blair, in going to parliament, was what kept us out of the US intervention in Syria - as a country we will never go to war again without a parliamentary vote - that is one hell of a legacy.

I recall David Cameron getting knocked back over Syria.

Or course, you can still bomb far away countries without being at war, so it's of limited value. In fact hasn't the UK been proudly using drones over civilians with little to no oversight since ?

Truly, he is the messiah. Feeding the 50,000

Blair and new labour were actually pretty good if it wasn’t for the small matter of an illegal war. But as fuck ups go it’s fairly major.

Even people one couldn’t stand like Mandelson and Campbell seem like geniuses compared to the current duds.

If you were Carrie, would you let a nanny anywhere near Pfeffle?

If you were a nanny would you go anywhere near Pfeffle?

Read the grim piece in the Guardian about the music festival company hired to manage the temporary Covid mortuaries.

Scant training, little pay, no supervision. Moving bodies in transit vans.

What could possibly go wrong?

Scant training, little pay, no supervision. Moving bodies in transit vans.

Maybe the UK is missing a trick here ? Maybe we need to reopen as WW2 theme park ?

We are a WW2 theme park. End of pier style.

Whether we will ever open again is debatable. If the plague doesn’t get us, hard Brexit surely will.