Bugger BTL

Whatever you think of the coronavirus legislation and the various politicians, Graham Brady is quite right here. That's exactly what's happening. Parliament has been sidelined. It's piss-poor governance, and foolish for the executive to expect the legislature to be up for it.

Correct. I'm not saying there are no scenarios in which a state could potentially be trusted not to misuse an ID card scheme, but we aren't currently living in one. Nobody with any sense would want this current shower anywhere near a project like that. There would also be widespread abuse, as there is now of passports, so the idea that it would do anything much about people working illegally is fanciful.

Yeah, of course Tory MPs aren't going to be stupid enough to rebel against a policy that props up prices. Why would they?

Yes, I hardly think a small house in Eccles is an unreasonable ask. It's hardly a desirable area, and the fewer kids being driven around in the morning, the better.

That thread is hilarious, several posters clearly panicking about having overpaid for cramped shitboxes are yarning on about how dreadful the provinces are and how awful it must be not to live in Central London. Bit too much protesting going on there, methinks.

From the more affluent areas yes, it can certainly take a while. There are thousands of family sized houses within walking distance of the city centre, or a couple of met stops if that's more your thing, and certainly many of them have seen price increases on this basis. But the people who are earning the bigger salaries in the centre tend not to want to live in them. Again it's really different to London in that respect.

That's exactly what they do and it's ridiculous. Manchester city centre is equated to Central London, you can tell from the tone of the article. But the two are completely different beasts. Google tells me that Zone 1 in London, which seems a fairly strict definition of what constitutes Central London, is 4 miles long and 6 miles wide. Greater Manchester is actually not that much smaller than Greater London, but as GM includes lots of areas which aren't really Manchester in any sense, let's be conservative and say anything within three miles of the city centre constitutes the equivalent area to Central London. There are lots of family sized properties within that radius that aren't at all expensive by local standards. They'll be in a tasty area, sure, but it's not like nobody ever got mugged on the way into or out of their expensive city centre apartment either. Obviously Manchester as a whole has an affordability problem just like pretty much everywhere in the UK, there's hardly anywhere that house prices and private rentals aren't too high, but that's not the slant those complaints are coming from. Manchester city centre being too expensive for families to live in is a non-issue: no families want to live there and those wanting to be central have options that aren't any more unreasonably priced than the conurbation in general.

The legislation is incredibly widely written. They don't define severe distress at all. Any half decent lawyer would drive a coach and horses through it, even if it were possible to enforce the face covering rules. Which it is not.

Of course they will. I'm in Greater Manchester. I won't abide by regulations that forbid me from hosting or visiting people I know in private gardens, whilst the government simultaneously encourage me to get out and about alongside people I don't know in establishments whose cleanliness I can't vouch for but that have a card reader present. And in the unlikely event the police take an interest, I'll be bringing Cummings all his excuses up as I play dumb.

Like with a lot of things, it's luck. Some people end up raising suspicion and being looked at with a fine toothed comb for whatever reason, others not at all.

Yes. The will is still clearly there in the same way, because the Tories know they need the votes of the homeowning classes and the priced out generally don't go for them anyway. But the range of devices available to achieve this is not. I believe they'll want to, I feel much less confident that they'll succeed.

I found it convenient for a couple of years in my footloose and fancy free early 20s: didn't want the bother of caring for a garden, had a balcony which was fine for the washing and saw no benefit to living in and thus being obliged to keep clean a larger space than I needed. Common enough view for people in that life stage, I suspect, but I'd had enough of it by the time I stopped. It has a shelf life.

That ex RCP lot are no good.

Fair point well made.

Patel's days were numbered before all this anyway. She has been promoted wildly beyond her ability, to an embarrassingly obvious extent.

There are a number of factors, I think. There's the practical difficulty in enforcing the new regulations. Then because of the Cummings decision, there are going to be people who were fined appealing that (there are already lawyers offering to assist with this) plus who will be using it any ongoing prosecutions for those who chose not to accept the fine. I would guess CPS will also be taking this into account when deciding whether to take cases forward. Then lastly yes, people are just much less willing than they were. The police likely don't have enough officers to even notice every instance where someone has said balls to it, social distancing and the lockdown rules can't be that important if they're all weighing in to defend him. Much less to actually sanction them.

Essentially. I realised last week that it was finished now, be that a good thing or bad.

Yes, the optics of that were appalling for Johnson. He sounded like he was trying to invoke the divine right of kings. The handling of this has been hugely damaging to the Tories, to the extent that I doubt Labour actually want Cummings to go at this point. He's a target on their back, which is why dozens of Tory MPs have had the sense to call for him to go.

I think of myself as a fairly savvy spender but I've certainly purchased more in the way of art supplies and children's books in the last three months.

I don't find this particularly surprising. Yes, Amazon etc were still delivering, but you'd have to essentially be seeking it out, and clearly a lot of discretionary spending on items rather than socialising and experiences is relatively unplanned. People have spent more on discretionary items during lockdown, so for example if you're flogging back garden trampolines or hot tubs, it's been a successful couple of months for you. But you have to measure that against spending to socialise, travel and grooming, all of which has essentially stopped, and things like clothing that people are still buying if needed but are much less likely to want to spend unnecessary cash on. The refunded holidays point is a good one too.

Matt Hancock's civic duty comment being another classic of this genre.

It's interesting that a number of the backbenchers have weighed in saying Cummings should go, that he's costing too much political capital to defend. They talk of many angry constituents: I can well imagine.

Are you sure? The criminal standard of proof is beyond reasonable doubt, but in the employment tribunal it's balance of probabilities, so it's at least theoretically possible for something to be proven to the latter but not former standard. I have no particular horse in this race fwiw, and if anyone is either a criminal or employment lawyer do feel free to pull rank.

No idea. Didn't say he was?

Grauniad are now saying witnesses saw him at Barnard Castle near Durham a week after he claimed to have gone back to London! Popcorn time. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/23/new-witnesses-cast-doubt-on-dominic-cummingss-lockdown-claims