This will probably come as no surprise at all, but ...

"Private hospitals treated a total of just eight Covid patients a day during the pandemic despite a multi-billion pound deal with the government to help stop the NHS being overwhelmed, a report reveals."

Full article

^ Just poppped in to post that one: yeah, absolutely no surprise at all.

Tory MP Peter Bottomley has stood by comments he made about MPs struggling to get by and needing more pay.
The MP faced an angry backlash over the claims, with Labour accusing him of being out of touch.

But Sir Peter said the comments were part of a broader interview in which he also expressed concern about universal credit cuts.
He said he was trying to make the point that increasing MPs' salaries from the current average of just over £80,000 a year would make it easier to widen the pool of people interested in changing careers to become parliamentarians, without having to take a pay cut.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58830792

Are they the kind of people you want to attract?

That was my immediate reaction. I'm not sure that there is any evidence to show that increasing the pool of former company directors, hedge fund managers and Eton old boys slightly wider is really the transformative revolution that we need in our political system.

No comment.

Just when we thought there were no Brexit Benefits we've seen the return of a fine old Great British Tradition™ that of crooks fleeing to the Costa del Sol when the heat is on. How many years was Ronnie Biggs out there? Maybe Johnson should aim for that record rather than Thatcher's years in office.

boris-johnson-jets-holiday

Ronnie was in Brazil.

My mistake, but thank you. I know the Costas were the usual place and was too lazy to research past my somewhat hazy memory!

nvm.

I wonder if Boris Johnson will declare a fair value for the accommodation he is receiving from Zac Goldsmith.

I thought some might like this.

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I AGREE

Matt Hancock tweeted

@MattHancock
Honoured to be appointed United Nations Special Representative.
I’ll be working with the @UN @ECA_OFFICIAL to help African economic recovery from the pandemic and promote sustainable development.

Today it was announced that his response to the pandemic was the worst public health crisis in memory.

Now he's put in charge of a whole continent’s economic recovery.

It gets even worse when you read stuff like this

Succes?! :eye-poppi

Hancock was actually pretty quick off the mark in ordering large quantities of several different vaccines (whose efficacy was not yet known), and then had the good sense to leave the actual rollout of them to the people who knew how to do it.

It's just about the only thing he, and indeed the current government, did get right.

News story saying Truss and Raab are going to 'share a house'

It's a 115 room mansion!

Tory MP David Amess has been stabbed at a constituency surgery:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58929453

Fatally.

It is a shame. He was a timeless campaigner against drugs. He even asked a question in parliament on cake.

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I AGREE

That's how I remember him. An idiot. Though I wasn't aware of his (later retracted) Weinstein-related comments.

Wonder if it was an assassination?

I see the murder has it's own thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=354843

If it wasn't before, Africa is ********d if little Matty is getting involved.

https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/sta...13761622380550

Are we surprised he mucked-up his own job? It seems to be pretty much the definition of his “career”.

Whoops.

Alas poor Matt, Africa barely knew you!

The line given on PM just now is something to do with sitting MPs not being able to take up such jobs...Unlike all those other jobs sitting MPs manage to do on top of their supposedly hugely demanding job in Westminster for that paltry salary of £80+k and all those expenses.

Nice to know that the UN has some better standards than our Parliament...

Wasn’t Gordon Brown a UN rep whilst still an MP?

He was indeed. Special envoy in 2012, MP until 2015.

I think they binned him off. I don’t believe his statement.

^ Apparently Brown was allowed to be a UN envoy as he'd announced his intention to leave Parliament at the next election, as he duly did. Hancock has said he has no intention of giving up his £80k+ and all his housing expenses paid sinecure and wanted to showboat for the UN while we carried on paying for the useless ******.

Hey guys.

Honoured to have been appointed United Nations Special Representative - oh wait, just had an email...

Ah, 'We regret to inform you we will not be taking your appointment forward.'

Ahem. Well I didn't want the post anyway, as there is a little known rule that says I am not allowed to, anyway. Somewhere.

<sfx> smashing plates, screaming, crying.

I'm shocked and surprised.

To learn that Hancock seems to have told the truth.

I'm sure he's deeply ashamed, and will endeavour not to repeat his mistake.

Why do I think the cost of having Heat Pumps installed will rise by £5000

Aside from the fact that they won't be effectve for a sizeable portion of UK houses. Ours for an eg. is a solid walled Edwardian house in a conservation area, so will be pretty useless.

Forgive my naivity, but heat pumps have long been rejected by those in the know for most homes, and its generally been the consensus that we'll be injecting hydorgen into the gas network to lower the carbon footprint of heating our homes.

That's my impression as well. Heat pumps work well for buildings with very low demands for heat, ideally with underfloor heating. If buildings are constructed from the start with that in mind then happy days but the government is proposing to have these things installed in the current UK housing stock.

It only becomes a commercial proposition if the price of gas rises even further but then that will also have an impact on the cost of the electricity required to run heat pumps.

AIUI for most of the year water will need to be heated with an immersion heater because it won't get hot enough from the heat pump.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58899006
So when they increase the capacity of hydrogen production, they'll start injecting it into the gas network. Not a huge surprise.

That should be fun given the diffusion habits of molecular hydrogen. Who'll be paying for the charges to the distribution network I wonder.

Imagine Mark Francois wanting to do away with anonymity on social media whilst at the same time demanding anonymity in an MP's <ahem!> recent rape case.