bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

i know this is trenchant commentary but when Corbz and McD were talking about chucking the bunce about ... oh never mind :(

i'm sure this will totally be real money that totally goes towards improving the quality of people's lives and not just into the bank accounts of Tory party donors

"highest levels [of investment] in real terms since 1955"

whenever they use "real terms" it means it's invariably bullshit, because it's usually used to make it look like raised living standards for millionaires lessens the murderous effects of austerity or massaging figures to hand-wave away how shit everything is!

my fave "in real terms" bullshit recently was some melt/tory wonk saying the tory austerity of the last 10 years was only a 1% cut in expenditure in real terms. They just might not targeted what they were cutting wisely.

EXCLUSIVE

Nadine Dorries, a health minister, has become first MP to be diagnosed with coronavirus

She has been in Westminster for past week, met hundreds of people, and attended a No 10 reception hosted by Boris Johnson on Thursdayhttps://t.co/3seuE2NGYE

— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) March 10, 2020

ooh bloody hell

Health minister too. Better not have been in the Cobra sideroom.

could take out the whole cabinet temporarily and maybe the higher level of decision makers in the nhs, fuck

It's Nadine Dorries - don't take this from us.

bit of night nurse, she'll be reet.

They going to quarantine parliament? They’ll have to, surely? That place is small and it’s an ideal place for coronavirus to spread.

Btw Alex Sobel had to self isolate a few weeks ago, so he’s in the clear.

Er, he could get it again tho right?

Was it ever established if it came back or it was just the same infection continuing?

This is not quite up there with the time the Trinidadian Minister of Health visited a hospital to launch a PR campaign hyping up the cleanliness of the nation’s facilities, ate a tuna sandwich and nearly died of food poisoning, but it’s close.

Surely the blasé ‘i was shaking hands with everyone’ approach can’t survive this and idk how they could suspend parliament and not issue some form of stronger guidance on public gatherings, etc.

Govt response to Nadine Dorries having coronavirus

Officials are conducting the standard process of contact tracing and identifying anyone who has shown symptoms or might be at risk

Staff are not being told to avoid Whitehall / parliament yet

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) March 10, 2020

I think both parliaments should keep on convening throughout this epidemic, good opportunity to thin some of this worthless garbage out

Portfolio: Mental health; work and health; suicide prevention; vulnerable groups - including homelessness and veterans' health; patient safety and quality; NHS litigation - including indemnity; sponsorship of CQC and NHS Resolution; maternity care; inquiries; patient experience; cosmetic regulation

Anyone read her '...Lovely Lane' novels? Yes you have don't lie.

jesus fucking wept, Belle and Sebastian just did murder suicide on each other

who knew there was money in Call the Midwife fanfic?

Lol, ‘contact tracing’. Even a junior minister is going to be in contact with civil servants and parliamentary staff, as well as the other MPs, journalists, any constituents that come up...unless she keeps scrupulous records they’ll have a job on their hands.

not if they've been washing for 20 seconds a go

They going to quarantine parliament? They’ll have to, surely? That place is small and it’s an ideal place for coronavirus to spread.

Christ, imagine if they had to cancel the Budget? Or all the PMQs questions were about this? Jesus, I hope she didn’t do any surgeries, her constituency is pretty rural (I think?)

she did a surgery on Saturday.

Nadine Dorries first felt ill last Friday as she was signing a statutory instrument which made coronavirus a 'notifiable' disease

The full symptoms did not kick in until Saturday as she held a constituency surgery in Mid Bedfordshire

— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) March 10, 2020

Thanks for so many good wishes. It’s been pretty rubbish but I hope I’m over the worst of it now. More worried about my 84yo mum who is staying with me and began with the cough today. She is being tested tomorrow. Keep safe and keep washing those hands, everyone.

— Nadine Dorries 🇬🇧 (@NadineDorries) March 10, 2020

Would be having quite a huge not wash hands drive in the vicinity of old vulnerable to flu death tories for the rest of my fucking life if it wouldn't affect actual decent human beings as well

"if you thought the dramatical scriptwriters that have been writing political scripts recently had retired .... well they are back again.."

Laura, please do shut the fuck up!

She should be fired for doing a constituency surgery in the full knowledge she was ill.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ESz8OFqXsAAT7SW?format=jpg&name=medium

someone inform social services as there is a definite correlation between ppl who commit cruel dog neglect and shit parents that will go on to commit child neglect.

xp

yep, but I'd rather she died than got sacked tbh.

Surely should have reported bojo to the RSPCA to save the dog, given the long trail of child neglect leading up to the dog purchase.

Yeah that’s not surprising at all - dog was clearly only for PR. Poor dog though. Just can’t understand that mentality.

George Osborne had a cat he gave away as well.

You could almost tempted to think some of these pathetic rich spoilt brats are both bone idle and lacking in basic living skills and totally awful people to boot. No wonder so many of these pathetic fuckers have to employ cleaners and butlers.

The dog shat all over the Downing Street flat apparently. Dilyn OTM.

Hmmm…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/uk-more-nostalgic-for-empire-than-other-ex-colonial-powers

As a side note, I've met countless Canadians of English descent who genuinely believe that, on balance, the British Empire was ultimately a force for good.

patriotism/shame is a stupid choice, if you're going to have a nonsense irrational connection to power on the basis of imagined volkisch belonging, you may as well be happy about it

"If we hadn't done it someone worse would've" is a position you find a lot, including on old ILX threads!

Mind you I feel like most ex-colonial powers have their own version of why their imperialism was more defensible than everyone else's - Portugal certainly does.

xpost

I like to think it's possible to experience a fuzzy sense of national belonging without devolving into neo-fascist fantasies but I'm not so sure anymore. As for shame, I have no idea what the alternative could have been for (say) postwar Germany, although in light of the Alternative für Deutschland's (pun intended) rise to prominence in recent years, perhaps a more solid long-term solution ought to have been considered, assuming such a thing is conceivable in the first place.

xp

It's depressing what a long shadow colonialist propaganda leaves, for generations after the empire has gone

when I was a kid I have vague memories of peak empire maps at school and our headmaster who was definitely in the first stages of senile dementia telling us a fairyland tale of a benign stewardship of other nations until they had become technologically advanced enough to look after themselves..

patriotism/shame is a stupid choice, if you're going to have a nonsense irrational connection to power on the basis of imagined volkisch belonging, you may as well be happy about it

Eh, I'll take the nonsense irrational connection that isn't a slap in the face to everyone in the countries that got colonized, thanks.

Yeah pom I really don't believe in a benign patriotism.

The PM is to appoint the controversial former Cabinet minister to sit on Parliament’s esteemed Intelligence and Security Committee.

good week to sneak Chris Grayling into a job and do it for maximum lols as well

Yeah pom I really don't believe in a benign patriotism.

It gets trickier when you're dealing with historically oppressed/colonized minorities that have had no choice but to cling to a more or less loose sense of (counter-)identity, but yeah.

It does, and I'm aware of a kind of privilege when I say it. I'd draw some heavy lines between cultural and linguistic affinities and belief in the nation state I guess.