The cardinal error you're making is assuming politics has to make sense, I would have thought the last few years would have disavowed you of that notion.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:22 (four years ago) link
Hello?
67% think government prepared badly for coronavirus pandemic, yet 61% think government is handling the situation well
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:23 (four years ago) link
Notwithstanding the fact that you picked out the least serious part of my post.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:28 (four years ago) link
People like money in their pockets more than they like Boris Johnson. They will need to keep things working for most people.
I saw people gasp at that poll on twitter but ultimately Sunak has kept the show on the road for enough people, so the numbers reflect that.
xp I treat all boys of your posts seriously, Tom! Even if you do not.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:31 (four years ago) link
I don't, I thought you'd have realized that by now!
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:33 (four years ago) link
i'm with optimistic alphie on this one tbh, the tories were blase about this monster and the british love a good comeuppance story iirc, sunak is all they have now
― imago, Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:35 (four years ago) link
All those numbers are saying: "Herd immunity was a joke but I'm on furlough with most of my salary/mortgage holiday" etc. xp
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:36 (four years ago) link
Whatever makes you feel better.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:37 (four years ago) link
sunak and brexit, that is
lol
― imago, Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:38 (four years ago) link
psyched that we’re gonna officially overtake the italian death toll in the next day or two, let’s fuckin’ show johnny eu how it’s done just before we pull the hard brexit ripcord
― Millennials are using this app to speak in just 3 weeks. (bizarro gazzara), Sunday, 3 May 2020 12:52 (four years ago) link
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 bookmarkflaglink
This is not a feeling, just how I think it might play out.
Like I said yesterday almost everyone in every country (bar maybe Brazil and the US) is backing the current government and what they do. It's not about the Tories being infallible but you do you.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:01 (four years ago) link
how do people keep their faith in the great british public (a mostly powerless minority aside) eventually "getting it", now, in light of the past decade or few?
― What's (Left), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:05 (four years ago) link
Who mentioned anything about the Tories being infallible btw?
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:08 (four years ago) link
Lol
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:11 (four years ago) link
I think people get it when they can't pay their bills.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:12 (four years ago) link
Absolutely no point making any predictions about the next election, we're in the middle of a once-a-century upheaval and no one has any idea how it's going to play out.
I do think people are underestimating quite how bad the recession is going to be though, modern economies aren't meant to just be stopped for months on end, we're in uncharted territory but it's going to make 2008 and onwards look like a walk in the park.
― Matt DC, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:12 (four years ago) link
Like I said yesterday almost everyone in every country (bar maybe Brazil and the US) is backing the current government and what they do.
About that.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXFmEvhWkAAlmuR?format=jpg&name=small
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:14 (four years ago) link
I don't get the sense the French or Spanish government are going to fall.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:16 (four years ago) link
And yet you get the sense that the British goverment is going to.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:20 (four years ago) link
What I don't understand is, given that politics in the UK was already completely distorted and irrational before this crisis even started, why anyone is so confident that 1 plus 1 will add up to 2 after it - when it wasn't adding up to 2 before it.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:21 (four years ago) link
It's less about a rational "well perhaps we need an improved safety net and these guys aren't going to provide it" and more of a desire to punish the government.
Ironically the danger zone for the Tories is if things have started improving significantly by 2024 - Labour governments tend to be elected during moments of national optimism. But the election is four and a half years away and no one has any clue what's going to happen in the next month.
― Matt DC, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:25 (four years ago) link
it's unclear/doubtful if there's anyone in the position to take advantage of upcoming disasters and upheaval
― The Cognitive Peasant (ogmor), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:25 (four years ago) link
Lol not at all. I just said why they are doing well, and why they might not in future. Whereas you seem to be saying the Tories will get away with it because the public are so irrational they will give Boris slack as the economy goes down the drain
XP to Tom
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:28 (four years ago) link
the kind of economic settlement that'll be necessary once the immediate crisis has dwindled - whatever that might mean - is not going to be something that any of the major parties are conceptually prepared for or good at. best guess is that a Tory government will at some point try to go hard on an austerity for recovery programme, but it won't work. electorates generally blame governments for their economic suffering (perceived or real) whether the sitting government is actually at fault or not. so nothing is a given as far as future elections are concerned.
all feels like a sideshow tbf but that's where we are and that's why assumptions based on the past are more or less meaningless
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:32 (four years ago) link
All I'm saying is I'm wary of all this "Well, when X then Y" conjecturing when there's actually some evidence that Y might not necessarily follow X - I wouldn't exactly call the former breezy optimism but nonetheless.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:35 (four years ago) link
well i wouldn't underplay the current blitz spirit either, the nation seems to be in a fever dream it's probably never experienced before and the rona is only one of the factors in that
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:37 (four years ago) link
Worth remembering end of the og blitz spirit was getting rid of Churchill
― Non, je ned raggette rien (onimo), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:41 (four years ago) link
yeah but there's a ton of reasons why i don't think this compares much, it's a fantasy of a mentality almost nobody really remembers, which is why i think this is unparalleled. we're in a Disney blitz spirit
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:43 (four years ago) link
but also yes, again, all bets are off, all predictions are based on very little
Lots of middle England wanking off in their sheds while playing the sound fx of bomber squadrons, pretending they are in an Anderson shelter. That's the level of unreality some people seem to be living in.
― calzino, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:50 (four years ago) link
Some of these lot are just as nutso as the 5g anti-lockdown gang in their own frazzled way.
― calzino, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:52 (four years ago) link
Indeed but that was all about optimism, it's kind of in short supply at the moment plus Keir Starmer.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:55 (four years ago) link
Reading Henry Green gives the distinct impression that the war was seen as a massive pain in the arse by people in London at the time. I'm sure that was outweighed by sheer fear but the whole Blitz spirit mythos is something that's been concocted in retrospect.
― Matt DC, Sunday, 3 May 2020 13:57 (four years ago) link
exackly
also a lot of the looting, fucking and murdering written out of it
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 3 May 2020 14:00 (four years ago) link
The tories were quite reluctant to open up the tube stations for the great unwashed to shelter in during the blitz iirc.
― calzino, Sunday, 3 May 2020 14:00 (four years ago) link
(xxp) One of my favourite novels! I think there's the sheer tedium of hanging about wating for something to happen which, when it does happen, is worse than you expected.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 14:02 (four years ago) link
When you compare the blitz to what happened to Warsaw or the war of annihilation and hunger plan to starve 30m to death in the Soviet Union. Its like endlessly talking about an autoglass cup final from '94 or something.
― calzino, Sunday, 3 May 2020 14:15 (four years ago) link
The idea that Jonson are co are going to suffer from this makes no sense to me. This is a national disaster. Cummings' MO is making hay from disasters. They will spin this so that upsides are created out of thin air, foreigners, immigrants, the press, the public themselves will be blamed and scapegoated for the economy (and eat it up), the PR will reach new levels of Brave New World totality, mendacity and psychological penetration, and the press will dutifully report it because the tone will be overwhelmingly "Don't do down Britain". Lies work, we have seen that, and lies are are supremely effective when you only need 42% of the vote, or polling.
And Keir Starmer will go along with all of it.
― glumdalclitch, Sunday, 3 May 2020 14:25 (four years ago) link
the other complicating factor is that we’re in all likelihood going to end up with a catastrophic brexit so fuck knows what state we’ll be in by the time of the next election and how the great british electorate will be taking it
― Millennials are using this app to speak in just 3 weeks. (bizarro gazzara), Sunday, 3 May 2020 14:29 (four years ago) link
Twitter bots all using same text about “journalism missing the mood” - I’ve heard that same phrase from some people too. Who is paying for this? pic.twitter.com/bB5jFjhPSo— Paul Joyce (@bergersmicer) May 3, 2020
― Matt DC, Sunday, 3 May 2020 14:29 (four years ago) link
I was going to say I can't wait for them to turn on the NHS but they've already started with that Mail story rubbishing doctors with links the Labour Party.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 14:31 (four years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxqvwkmTNy8
― mark s, Sunday, 3 May 2020 14:37 (four years ago) link
> already started with that Mail story rubbishing doctors with links the Labour Party.
there were a ton of nhs fuckup stories in the news at the start of the year (just as brexit was being "done"). almost every day some neo-natal unit was underperforming or something was massively over budget. felt like an attack at the time and i wonder how much worse it would've got without the covid thing.
09 dec Deaths of 4,600 NHS patients linked to safety incidents 09 jan A&E staff 'despair' as NHS delays are at their worst ever level 21 jan GPs in revolt over NHS England's plan to increase their workload23 jan England's poorest 'get worse NHS care' than wealthiest citizens 13 feb Record number of A&E 'trolley waits' reached in January, NHS say 26 feb NHS failing stroke patients with 'postcode lottery rehabilitation'
(and that's just the Guardian articles)
and the war stuff on tv is being ramped up this week too, what with VE day on friday. it includes that big churchill thing, Darkest Hour.
― koogs, Sunday, 3 May 2020 15:10 (four years ago) link
55 years since VE Day? What kind of a crappy anniversary is that?
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 15:19 (four years ago) link
LOL 75! OK, fair enough.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Sunday, 3 May 2020 15:20 (four years ago) link
still crap, still maddening
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 3 May 2020 15:32 (four years ago) link
"it includes that big churchill thing, Darkest Hour."
lol just look up the ludicrous train scene on youtube if you want a laugh!
― calzino, Sunday, 3 May 2020 16:16 (four years ago) link
every day is VD day when boris is pm.
― calzino, Sunday, 3 May 2020 16:17 (four years ago) link
lots of countries national myths are mostly bullshit, but I don't think many have the same levels of delusional triumphant smugness as the UK.
― calzino, Sunday, 3 May 2020 16:22 (four years ago) link
I recall reading some UK foreign office attache colonel major type made a pissed up prick out of himself at a drinks event during the Tehran conference in '43 by insisting that blitz had been much worse anything they had suffered!
― calzino, Sunday, 3 May 2020 16:29 (four years ago) link