Friday 13th November 2020

[refitman]

Morning all.

[citizenJA]

Good morning, everyone.

[tinyclanger2]

Hoi

[gilsey]

How Covid-19 pushed Croydon over the edge into bankruptcy

Plenty more to follow, I expect.

I'm interested in this bit

Croydon borrowed £545m over the last three years to buy a shopping centre and a hotel and to set up a property development business.

Many councils have done similar deals, AFAIK encouraged by central govt, in an attempt to generate steady income for the future after 10 years of underfunding with no end in sight. Other councils may have taken a bit more care in their dealings than Croydon did, but the pandemic will have blown them all out of the water, regardless.

No expectation of anything happening other than local people taking the hit from reduced services. Misery for all.

[gilsey]

I'd like to think that our journalists will remember this in January. Grant Shapps.

this morning, when asked if he could rule out any possibility of vaccine imports being disrupted by the failure to strike a UK-EU trade deal, Shapps said he could. He replied:

Yes, I can rule that out, for two reasons.

First of all, we’ve done an immense amount of work on border readiness, and making sure that we’re able to keep goods flowing.

And, even as a back-up to the back-up, as it were, we’ve also signed a freight contract, which is upwards of £100m, to make sure that we are able to get category one goods in, which it won’t surprise you to hear, include things like vaccines.

So, even if there are [problems], which we very much hope that there won’t be – and we’ve planned for there not to be – we still have a back-up.

[RogerOThornhill]

Morning all.

This is quite amusing on the goings of Cummings.

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I’ll spare you the jokes, you’ll have heard them all already. Instead, the news Conservative MPs have longed to hear for months: Dominic Cummings is finally going.

Listen to the prime minister’s slapheaded Svengali and he’ll tell you, as he told the BBC late last night, that this was always part of the plan. Last year he wrote that he hoped for his job to be “largely redundant” by the end of 2020.

Nothing to see here. Because what you’d really do if you only planned to stay another year was spend several months of it gutting an entire floor of the Cabinet Office for your own space-age office quarters.

But here we are, a month out from the deadline given in that half-forgotten, year-old blog, and he’s gone one further than his original promise. As of the New Year you can substitute “largely” for “completely”. Lowering expectations only to then exceed them when we least expect it. Classic Dom.

Quite.

Completely revamping government and the civil service, that review of defence spending etc etc. And what to show for it? Not a lot...

[citizenJA]

I'd like to think that our journalists will remember this in January. Grant Shapps.

this morning, when asked if he could rule out any possibility of vaccine imports being disrupted by the failure to strike a UK-EU trade deal, Shapps said he could. He replied:

Yes, I can rule that out, for two reasons.

First of all, we’ve done an immense amount of work on border readiness, and making sure that we’re able to keep goods flowing.

And, even as a back-up to the back-up, as it were, we’ve also signed a freight contract, which is upwards of £100m, to make sure that we are able to get category one goods in, which it won’t surprise you to hear, include things like vaccines.

So, even if there are [problems], which we very much hope that there won’t be – and we’ve planned for there not to be – we still have a back-up.

"...due to the scale and complexity of the changes, the lack of time and the impact of ongoing negotiations, there is a very high risk it may not be implemented in time.

The government has left itself little time to mobilise its new Trader Support Service (TSS), in which it has announced it is investing £200 million, to reduce the burden on traders moving goods to Northern Ireland and to help them prepare. It will be challenging to establish the TSS by 1 January 2021. Work needs to be done to identify NI traders and sign them up to use the service; recruit and train the staff required; develop software to enable traders to connect to HMRC’s systems; and deliver educational activities to traders. There is also ongoing uncertainty about the requirements for the movement of goods under the Protocol. Therefore, there is still a high risk that traders will not be ready."

- National Audit Office
6 November 2020
The UK border: preparedness for the end of the transition period
https://www.nao.org.uk/press-release/th ... on-period/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[RogerOThornhill]

The answer to this one is simple - they really don't give a damn...

Timothy’s tweets raise questions over departmental impartiality

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/timothys-twee ... artiality/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Department for Education board member Nick Timothy has been accused of breaching impartiality rules over tweets expressing partisan views and criticising opposition parties.

The former chief of staff to Theresa May and New Schools Network director was appointed as non-executive director at the DfE in March.

Schools Week revealed last month that his appointment was rushed through without competition at the behest of education secretary Gavin Williamson, a close ally of Timothy’s.

Rules are for others...

[citizenJA]

Off topic
I've read Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell and enjoyed it very much

[citizenJA]

I used to read new fiction a lot more ten years ago

[AnatolyKasparov]

Arizona finally called for Biden - Fox News breathes a sigh of relief.

[RogerOThornhill]

A reasonably well-known musician that I know posted this up on facebook

Music & Munificence

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/issue-153 ... ZvGdeT3CVQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The big bucks bailout for David Ross’s private opera-in-the-back-garden enterprise isn’t the only “cultural recovery” handout to the deserving rich that has raised hackles. Now a musician tells Lord Gnome that “everyone I’ve talked to in the live music business is flabbergasted” at the recent hand-outs to a west London music café, the Troubadour – £647,172 from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Covid fund, plus £35,000 from Arts Council England.

Owned since 2015 by a wealthy American investment banker Giles McNamee, the Troubadour may have been a venue of choice for the likes of Bob Dylan (and indeed Private Eye) in the 1960s but those days are long, long gone. Today it is a wine bar, restaurant and coffee house, but musically speaking the standard fare is described by one denizen of the London gig scene as “open mic evenings and nothing acts… The Jazz Café or even the Dublin Castle it ain’t.” Yet its new grant is even more than the DDCMS has given to far weightier London music venues such as Kings Place (£562,000).

A sentimental few grand to help a “heritage” café might be one thing, but more than £680,000 in total from funds designated for cultural recovery? “That’s just crazy,” says the musician. “You could subsidise half of what’s left of London’s rehearsal rooms for that.” He has, however, overlooked one fact. McNamee may be a Yale-educated Bostonian but he spent his schoolboy years in the UK. At a place called Eton.

[RogerOThornhill]

Poor Lawrence...

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Kelvin MacKenzie
@kelvmackenzie
Sad to hear Laurence Fox has been sacked by his agent for his political views. If he had centre left opinions he'd be either Hamlet or James Bond all week. Makes you sick doesn't it.
10:11 AM · Nov 13, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

He's no James Fox. Or Edward Fox. Or Emilia Fox for that matter...

[RogerOThornhill]

Oh, and Biden wins Arizona.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Oh, and Biden wins Arizona.

Echo in here?

[RogerOThornhill]

That was quick.

BBC Breaking News
@BBCBreaking
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's adviser Dominic Cummings leaves Number 10 Downing Street with immediate effect https://bbc.in/3f8T1Bf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Did he do a Malcolm Tucker "You will fucking see me again!" when he went out of the door I wonder?

[AnatolyKasparov]

Less than two days ago he "definitely" wasn't going. Hmmm.......

[RogerOThornhill]

Political Polls
@PpollingNumbers
BREAKING: Biden wins Georgia

CNN

I'm assuming that Trump won't ever follow previous practice and concede but go on proclaiming that he woz robbed right up to the point that the Electoral College goes for Biden and probably even after Biden is sworn in.

[tinyclanger2]

I am so tired of Trump's whinging it's exhausting.

[tinyclanger2]

Being a bit homesick and nostalgic ...

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[tinyclanger2]

Similarly ...
[youtube]2HwmO_GZfzI[/youtube]

[tinyclanger2]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/ ... -continues" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A coalition of 1,000 legal experts and scholars Friday denounced as unconstitutional President Donald Trump's ongoing refusal to accept the election results and called on his legal team to meet their "ethical obligations" by ending their support for the his false claims and assertions.

[tinyclanger2]

"There has never been a more important time for America's lawyers to acknowledge the importance of these solemn commitments, and to demand accountability for those lawyers and federal officials who do not live up to their oaths and ethical obligations."
—1,000 legal experts

[AnatolyKasparov]

One local council byelection yesterday:

Edinburgh - SNP hold with approaching 40% of first preferences, a modest increase on three years ago, when this division (which was expanded from three to four councillors after boundary changes) split 1Nat/1C/1Lab/1Grn; poor vote balancing meant the SNP only got one seat despite clearly topping the vote. Tories edged into second place in 2017 and held onto that now despite their vote dropping by 5 points, due to Labour falling by a bit more and their 16% only just keeping third place in front of the Greens who went up by 4 points. LibDems doubled their share to 8%, though they are still some way short of their levels of support in 2007 when they won a seat in the predecessor ward, followed by an Independent (just the one this week) and finally perennial wooden spoonists north of the border the Libertarians, the actual party leader stood this time and that might explain them getting a better than usual 42 votes (though still only 0.6%)

Actually gets a bit busier next week, with three contests (still all Scottish of course)

[citizenJA]

Similarly ...
[youtube]2HwmO_GZfzI[/youtube]

I love this one

[citizenJA]

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA