Monday 10 May 2021

One more week

 The fretting of the media over the insignificant local election results has gotten very boring now, the whole narrative about labour doing so badly is not even really true. The Governments who managed Covid were all rewarded - so much for the anti-lockdownistas and covid denial mobs - the people have spoken. 

In better, news all major economic forecasters continue to uprate the UK's growth rates for this year as the vaccine roll-out continues to go well and the landmark ending of many lockdown measures from next Monday on track and only 5 weeks until Covid freedom! At least until October/November and the onset of any variants if we are unlucky.

Shame the rest of Europe has not got its act together enough on this issue and they remain lagging. 

This time next week, you never know, it may even be a bit warmer. Certainly a good start to the week to be writing this after all these long months. 

17 comments:

Stylites said...

I would disagree.

The "people" who voted have ... are the ones that voted.

Given that there is no party representing the "anti-lockdownistas and covid denial mobs" as you deem them, then voters are a self selecting group of people who agree with such things. To believe that is some kind of measure of general agreement misses the point.

dearieme said...

"gotten": are we all going to be obliged to speak in silly Americanisms now?

At least on this blog we won't be subjected to a bogus justification that it's OK to use it because it was once English. Will we?

Bill Quango MP said...

Howdy y’all.

Bill Quango MP said...

I’m quite tempted to murder the Estate Agent.
Confident, that when the jury sees the facts, I shall not only be exonerated, but rewarded for my actions.

E-K said...

Blue team wins.

Yay !

E-K said...

To be fair - thank God it wasn't Labour in power and Boris played a blinder with the vaccines.

We are living under unnatural conditions and still could be for a very long time if the grey men get their way.

(Very few were Covid deniers and restrictions have gone on a lot longer and deeper than flattening a sombrero - and I still don't know anyone who's died of CV-19.)

E-K said...

My friend in London recruiting sees hot desking combined with WFH as the future. He has seen an upsurge in new projects being sent off shore to Sth Africa and predicts that (now London is a gangsta ghost town dump) many will be moving to gated districts out there for better work, lifestyle and weather.

We have noticed and upsurge in London refugees buying houses in our area.

The costs of lockdown are a long way from being fully manifested.

Anonymous said...

I don't think the local government results were pointless or insignificant. Tories winning net 13 councils and 294 councillors is a meaningful achievement and is actual power. Labour did well in mayoral runs, but mayors are largely figureheads with no power. Also Labour failed to get a majority on the London assembly and Khan did poorly against a rubbish Tory candidate.
Up in Scotland the Tories managed to hold their number of seats despite no Ruth and Brexit and Boris and all the other things that were supposed to decimate their vote. So not bad, all things considered.
Over all I think Labour are in a bad spot.
They lost 8 councils and didn't gain a single one. The response from Kier was dreadfully mismanaged.
The SNP have nowhere to go. This was their best shot at a real mandate for independence and they didn't make it. This leaves them with their record in government, which is pretty abysmal on almost every front. If nothing changes, the next election will not be kind to them.

Anonymous said...

WFH of course you pay for your own heating and broadband, it's going to save companies money. Must have used a lot of extra energy with millions working from home.

Btw I see that as part of our carbon neutrality plans, new homes built after 2024/5 are supposed to have low-carbon heating. At the moment, 100% of the newbuilds going up everywhere are gas powered.

Three alternatives

1) we don't get anywhere near hitting the target and everyone shouts at Boris

2) hydrogen replaces gas - timescales, ND? Surely we miss the target anyway. Is the infrastructure actually there? Can methane pipes take hydrogen or will it leak more (smaller molecules)? Not to mention the vast amount of electricity needed to make H2.

3) GSHP - ground source heat pumps plus underfloor heating, which seems to be HMG's preferred approach. No room for usual layout, need a big garden, only alternative on new estates is borehole tubes - a 10kw borehole setup requires about 250m of pipe, twin pipe so that's a 500ft deep hole (in reality there'd be borehole(s) shared by an estate). Are there enough geologists and drilling rigs to go round?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/956094/Government_response_to_Future_Homes_Standard_consultation.pdf

(I see that according to this doc there are 25% more homes in the UK than there were in 1990. Pity there's probably 35% more people)

Nick Drew said...

Will do a post on that stuff soonish, Anon

E-K said...

Are we sure it's nothing to do with a flat cap rejection of woke-ism ?

Nick Drew said...

Are we sure it's nothing to do with a flat cap rejection of woke-ism ?

Looks to me like it's exactly that - in favour of transactional stuff, like: who actually delivers stuff? Which (e.g.) Andy Burnham clearly does, in Mancs

And Sadiq Khan frequently doesn't ... Labour must be shitting themselves at how weak their supposedly new-bedrock metro-woke vote fared in London, against an outright clown like Bailey

Yet another near term post a-comin'

Jan said...

I reckon Labour would win with Andy Burnham in charge.........

Bill Quango MP said...

I reckon Labour would win with Andy Burnham in charge.........

He has skeletons in his closet. Actual skeletons. From the bones of the dead.
But he is a proper politician. And appears competent.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Turnout was, what, 34%? What a great victory. No wonder they don't want a 'none of the above' option.

John Miller said...

I’m please th hear, Mr Drew, that you’re going to do a post on “going green”,which seems a complete fantasy to me.

I assume if you’ve only ever worked in PR it seems just a case of selling it to the plebs, but when you know a smidgeon of chemistry,physics and biology it seems an impossibly expensive task and quite likely suicidal.

Anonymous said...

Who were those of us who think that lockdowns were an unwarranted overreaction supposed to vote for? There was nobody. Take a look at the turnout to see how rich Boris' rewards are.

I'm in London and voted for a bloke with a dustbin on his head.