Former GOP Senator Rick Santorum said after the President’s “election stealing” address that he didn’t think a single Republican elected official would associate themselves with what Trump said. Over the last few days, we’ve seen the opposite borne out-most have stuck with him 👇
I would imagine McConnell is focussing solely on the upcoming senate run offs in Georgia and control of the Senate. If the Trump base believes there were irregularities they might be more likely to turn out, fundraise and the like. But what a potential cost.
There’s this Tocqueville quote from Democracy in America which always rings so true about American elections and even from the 19th century, he puts we journalists who always write that this is a crisis/existential election back in our box a little.
He meant it always seems a moment of crisis, of high passion and tension and then subsides when the election is over. It’s part of the strength of the republic and we shouldn’t get too excited over what appears to be danger. Feels like that’s about to receive a stress test.
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.@BorisJohnson: "One of the many merits of the excellent conversation I had yesterday with President Elect @JoeBiden, was that we both strongly agreed on the need for the UK and the US to stand together to stick up for our values around the world."
"To stand up for free trade, to stand up for @NATO, to fight climate change...it was refreshing to have that conversation, I hope to have many more."
.@BorisJohnson asked by @angelaeagle whether he has advice for his "erstwhile best friend" @realDonaldTrump: "I had and have a good relationship with the prev president, I don't resile from that. It is the duty of all British PMs to have a good relationship with The White House"
There's no legal challenge (or recount) which is going to overturn margins of this size. As you can see, Penn alone is now getting towards 50,000
Reminder Trump can't win without Pennsylvania. Even with Pennsylvania, he'd need to flip Georgia and Arizona or Nevada to get over 270. With these margins, it's not going to happen.
Apologies previous tweet had Penn margin at 50k but that is remaining votes, so have corrected.
Some good news on attendance in schools in England.- attendance overall is at 89% so doesn't appear to have been affected by the second lockdown. Attendance was:
92%: primary
87%: secondary
Still 38% of state-funded secondaries had one or more pupils self isolating due to Covid. 8 to 9% had 30 or more pupils self-isolating due to potential contact with a case of coronavirus inside the school. That's 3000+ schools with 30 or more kids off due to covid isolation.
This is also across the whole of England- I suspect the regional picture might be quite a bit different.
BREAK: The Welsh government has announced that they are cancelling GCSE, AS and A-level exams in 2021. Students will instead be graded through in-class teacher assessments.
Education minister Kirsty Williams on the decision: "It is impossible to guarantee a level playing field"
Teaching unions in the rest of the country have been arguing the same thing. That with so much pupil and staff absence, lockdown time missed, varying geographical restrictions and worsening educational inequality between rich and poor, exams in 21 are a fools' errand.
After all, we cancelled exams for kids who had basically finished their courses but in England now are planning to press ahead with those for students who have missed a lot of teaching time and in some cases continue to do so.
As we've been reporting on NN for some time, there's a crisis of lockdown regression taking place in schools. Ofsted today:some young kids "have lapsed back into nappies...others have forgotten how to eat with a knife and fork, or lost their early progress in numbers and words."
Ofsted: "Among older children, inspectors heard that many now lack stamina in reading and writing; some have lost physical fitness; and others are showing signs of mental distress, manifesting in an increase in eating disorders and self-harm."
"Across all age groups, children with SEND have been seriously affected in both their care and education, as the services that families relied on – particularly speech and language services – were unavailable."
Jonathan Van Tam on the Pfizer vaccine: "I have to say this is a really important scientific breakthrough. I am certain of that."
JVT: "We've seen today the results which show the effectiveness of the first vaccine. We haven't seen the detail...the next step is to see the safety data, which I imagine will come in the next few days."
JVT: "Age is the biggest priority...they need to get the vaccines first if they are safe and effective...I'm hopeful but not yet certain that we might be able to see some vaccine by Christmas."