[kreuzberger]

She knew what side her bed was battered...

[Tubby Isaacs]

In extracts of the speech released in advance, Johnson says that too much previous government investment was focused, with detrimental effects, on “areas where house prices are already sky high and where transport is already congested”.

“By turbocharging those areas, especially in London and the south-east you drive prices even higher and you force more and more people to move to the same expensive area,” he says. “The result is that their commutes are longer, their trains are more crowded, they have less time with their kids. They worry at the same time that the younger generation won’t be able to get a home and that their leafy suburb or village will be engulfed by new housing development but without the infrastructure to go with it.”

The last bit sounds like it's aimed at Chesham and Amersham. I'm not sure they're going to buy that it's Labour's fault, mind.

Labour counterproductively invested in London, did it? Aside from Labour being gone for 11 years, weren't you the London Mayor calling for this investment?

[Youngian]

A Labour leader who made that speech would be finished; ‘Corbyn/Starmer to collapse middle England house prices.’

[Tubby Isaacs]

That speech sounds like it was a bit thin.

How long before he's bringing back grammar schools everywhere? Majority of 80. The sane backbenchers who blocked May from doing it have likely gone.

[Samanfur]

Did anyone else see Anna Soubry on Newsnight last night?

She was saying much the same thing, and wasn't holding back.

[Watchman]

That speech sounds like it was a bit thin.

How long before he's bringing back grammar schools everywhere? Majority of 80. The sane backbenchers who blocked May from doing it have likely gone.

Better that than Pritti wanting to bring back "the rope"

[Crabcakes]

I think "freedom day", and Johnson's insistence to again try and have his cake and eat it by appeasing his backbenchers while saying "be careful" is going to haunt him like nothing else he's messed up. Not even Brexit.

Case numbers are skyrocketing, and it's young people and kids who are getting ill. The public might accept some old people dying. They might be able to write off young people getting ill as them being reckless. Children getting covid in schools and getting sick and potentially dying is never going to be accepted, and he (and Williamson) through their idiocy have set up the perfect conditions to get as many kids sick as possible, as quickly as possible, just before they all go on holiday.

And even if kids just get a mild dose, because self-isolation is still a thing until August anyone who gets ill in this last week - and their families - will have to spend 10 days indoors, potentially fucking up people's first holidays in years if they booked to go away in the first week or so. I *guarantee* you some Tory will be caught going on a holiday with their family when they should still be self-isolating. I absolutely guarantee it.

[Andy McDandy]

I'm almost praying for a wet summer. All those Express readers cooped up in B&Bs in Blackpool coughing all over each other.

[Oboogie]

Surely this speech is just a desperate dead cat to to move the news agenda away from the backlash against racism and his Freedom Day?

[Andy McDandy]

Plus the health bills being rushed through...

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Not working on Sky News.

Highly sceptical.

[Tubby Isaacs]

[Tubby Isaacs]

I know it's not the main point, but giving 8 city regions bus and train networks as good as London is quite a promise. Given the differences in population and commuting, that's going to be a lot of trains and buses "transporting fresh air", as Alistair Darling once cruelly put it.

[Cyclist]

Leeds-Bradford 1,777,934 (2011)
Greater Manchester 2,835,686 (2020)

The first results from Google.

With decent cross-Pennine links that's a combined total of over 4.6 millions. Not exactly "transporting fresh air".

[Youngian]

Huge transport infrastructure pump priming is likely to suck skills and investment away from private sector jobs. Its not as if skilled Poles will be lining up to fill the void.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's not really like London though. That's two regions some distance apart. London's metro region, as defined by the EU, has a population of 12m, not counting all the visitors.

Maybe I'm being a bit semantic here, and nobody takes Johnson seriously anyway.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Huge transport infrastructure pump priming is likely to suck skills and investment away from private sector jobs. Its not as if skilled Poles will be lining up to fill the void.

Yeah, I thought the right were big on "crowding out"? Isn't that what Johnson's hinting at with that factoid about West Midlands private sector employment? (Which in any case, reflects that Labour lost election after a big slump).

[Tubby Isaacs]

[Tubby Isaacs]

Bloke tries to be fair to Johnson, then realizes he shouldn't have been.

[Andy McDandy]

Sorry for the stuck record, but remember when John Prescott had the piss taken out of him for...