I’m that cameraman he was talking to - he asked me as a way to clear the path to bring his daughter over from across the road. https://t.co/IAhgybr5W2— Marc Ward (@MarcStevenPhoto) May 7, 2020
― stet, Thursday, 7 May 2020 21:53 (four years ago) link
I gotta stop hitting “Post Anyway”
― stet, Thursday, 7 May 2020 21:54 (four years ago) link
TELEGRAPH: @Keir_Starmer : we owe it to VE Day generation to protect them from virus in care homes #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/59BgkJvG6X— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) May 7, 2020
― stet, Thursday, 7 May 2020 21:57 (four years ago) link
that should win over the button-tuftons easily, great job starmzy
― Millennials are using this app to speak in just 3 weeks. (bizarro gazzara), Thursday, 7 May 2020 22:06 (four years ago) link
Picture of Johnson on today's Telegraph suggested he is still sick AF
― nashwan, Thursday, 7 May 2020 22:07 (four years ago) link
Full moon tonight, the meltsplainers cycle has begun!
― calzino, Thursday, 7 May 2020 22:08 (four years ago) link
last night as i lay in bed, about to drift off, it occurred to me that yes, there is a twin crisis. of: 1) health 2) unemployment and the wider economy
and it further occurred to me that all of our/labour's ire, such as it is, is directed towards 1 i.e. why did bj waste february, where's the ppe, why has the nhs been allowed to become so dramatically underfunded for 10 years, why is procurement so shit, etc
and while yes, all those things are true, they are also the sorts of things that can bedevil any administration in any crisis to a greater or lesser degree. i tend to think voters will cut governments some - or even quite a bit of - slack for fumbles and fuck-ups in a 'black swan event' even if it leads to deaths. it's a war, bad shit happens in a war, let's not get too down on ourselves - we're all trying our best. labour shouldn't stop pointing these things out. but i think it will not get that much traction.
where labour has a moral duty to shout louder, and more forcefully, and with conviction, every day, and on a subject where it holds the trump cards, is on #2.
have you guys realised that there are now suddenly, without warning, tens of millions of people without work?? this sort of thing just doesn't happen! ever! it's just extremely rare in history - the volume and the quickness of it. it often presages Extremely Bad Shit for ruling elites but sometimes also for everyone else. we're all sort of skating past it at the moment but it is true that the govt can't just guarantee 80% of wages to prop up a collection of zombie firms that will never actually come back.
the only solution to #2 is a radical programme of work. it's actually not that complicated. let me put it to you this way.
1) there is lots of work to be done2) there are tens of millions of unemployed
if the private sector can't match up these unemployed people with the work that needs to be done - for society, for the ill, for the environment, for our infrastructure - then the people need to act. it's that simple. the tories haven't got a fucking clue what to do here. but labour might.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:08 (four years ago) link
Anyone know what time this stirring flypast is occurring, specifically in London?https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/raf-jets-to-roar-over-uk-to-mark-75th-anniversary-of-ve-day
RAF jets will roar over Britain to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, as Boris Johnson urged the nation to unite in tribute to the achievement and sacrifice of the wartime generation.The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall will lead a two-minute silence from Scotland on a day of celebration and commemoration which also includes a “national toast”, an address by the Queen, and a nationwide sing-a-long of Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again.Original plans for VE Day 75 were cancelled due to Covid-19, so national events have been adapted. The public in lockdown is encouraged to celebrate Victory in Europe from their gardens, doorsteps and living rooms.
The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall will lead a two-minute silence from Scotland on a day of celebration and commemoration which also includes a “national toast”, an address by the Queen, and a nationwide sing-a-long of Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again.
Original plans for VE Day 75 were cancelled due to Covid-19, so national events have been adapted. The public in lockdown is encouraged to celebrate Victory in Europe from their gardens, doorsteps and living rooms.
― the fucking cunts treat us like Styx (Matt #2), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:10 (four years ago) link
Right about 15 minutes ago? I was getting my walk in and they went over while I was crossing the Millennium Bridge.
― santa clause four (suzy), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:24 (four years ago) link
Thought I heard something! Guess they couldn't be bothered with Manor House.
― the fucking cunts treat us like Styx (Matt #2), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:27 (four years ago) link
yeah, just then i think
(just heard *something* loud go over my flat (W12) and i often get the tail end of any queen's birthday flypasts on their way back)
― koogs, Friday, 8 May 2020 09:28 (four years ago) link
Heard nothing here in Corbynville.
― Frank Bough: I Took Drugs with Vice Girls (Tom D.), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:28 (four years ago) link
Is there lots of work to be done right now? To my eyes we're going through an almost unprecedented collapse in demand for labour beyond a few obvious areas - healthcare, food etc.
― Matt DC, Friday, 8 May 2020 09:29 (four years ago) link
Centrally there are a lot of road works/pathway widening happening.
I think the Red Arrows went along the Thames and over Buck House?
― santa clause four (suzy), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:34 (four years ago) link
look at the state of public transportation outside london. look at the state of mental health provision. look at how few people can afford a home. things need doing and building.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:34 (four years ago) link
In the longer term yeah - these were the arguments that should have been made a decade ago but weren't because I dunno something about a deficit.
The problem for Labour is that it starts to look like forcing people into jobs and I'm sure the Tories will have a wealth of exciting workfare schemes up their sleeves in any case.
― Matt DC, Friday, 8 May 2020 09:38 (four years ago) link
There are going to be a lot of people who aren’t traditional claimants (read: middle class swing voters) so I am thinking that some of the removals of conditionality now current will stay that way for an extended period.
― santa clause four (suzy), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:42 (four years ago) link
I can't say I know what the 'national mood' might be right now (other than racist), but maybe for a lot of people the situation's laid bare the iniquities in a way that doesn't happen with the everyday drip-drip of disaster capitalist asset-stripping. These things don't usually happen all at once, as Tracer Hand said, and it's kind of pulled the curtain back a bit and revealed the tactical incompetence behind it all. Shame Starmer's the centre forward we have mind you, but even the shittiest striker fumbles in an open goal every so often.
― the fucking cunts treat us like Styx (Matt #2), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:43 (four years ago) link
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/07/world-war-2-victory-day-russia-75th-anniversary/
The Blitz is invoked as an image of national solidarity while denying the rather harsher truth that the civilian casualties in London, Birmingham, and other southern cities of England were as bad as they were because of the threadbare air raid precautions deliberately adopted by a cost-conscious Conservative government.
good Tooze piece I was reading on my phone whilst walking past a load of flag-wanker houses. Him and D Edgerton are good at path clearing the propagandist ww2 lies still quite precious to many politicians and fantasists 70 odd years later.
― calzino, Friday, 8 May 2020 09:46 (four years ago) link
good little barb about the "miraculous recovery" of Boris in there as well
― calzino, Friday, 8 May 2020 09:48 (four years ago) link
Idly considering a half arsed troll of ww2 stans whereby I insist that we are appeasing the virus
― Microbes oft teem (wins), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:50 (four years ago) link
Pity he forgot that it wasn't just London and Southern England that was bombed.
― Frank Bough: I Took Drugs with Vice Girls (Tom D.), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:51 (four years ago) link
(xp)
Woman 'threw unexploded WW2 bomb across garden' https://t.co/pjwb3RCdoj— BBC South (@BBCSouthNews) May 3, 2020
― Matt DC, Friday, 8 May 2020 09:52 (four years ago) link
That's nearly a week old but feels apposite.
― Matt DC, Friday, 8 May 2020 09:53 (four years ago) link
(xxp) Even Paisley was bombed! Though, of course, I knew nothing about it until, like, last year.
― Frank Bough: I Took Drugs with Vice Girls (Tom D.), Friday, 8 May 2020 09:54 (four years ago) link
Some Luftwaffe stragglers flew over Huddersfield but they had got lost on the way to Manchester and didn't see anything worth bombing!
― calzino, Friday, 8 May 2020 10:00 (four years ago) link
the Luftwaffe were a very haphazard amateur operation in comparison with the RAF who were much better at raining fire and death on civilian populations.
― calzino, Friday, 8 May 2020 10:09 (four years ago) link
when they did the Hudds flyover they completely missed the huge ICI plant which had been a very important part of the British military industrial complex chemical munitions division since WW1.
― calzino, Friday, 8 May 2020 10:24 (four years ago) link
before i catch up with the rest of it just wanna acknowledge that booming post of an hour ago Tracer
― Flaneuring Bevan (Noodle Vague), Friday, 8 May 2020 10:33 (four years ago) link
there's a long-standing kinda chip on the shoulder of people from Hull because it had the shit bombed out of it - maybe the 3rd most bombed city in the country? - but was never named in the radio broadcasts except as a north-eastern city
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_Blitz#Reporting
― Flaneuring Bevan (Noodle Vague), Friday, 8 May 2020 10:44 (four years ago) link
Got home to find potential SUSPECT DEVICE in Lamb’s Conduit Street popo and we’re all being told to stay inside - massive cordon all the way to Unite HQ.
― santa clause four (suzy), Friday, 8 May 2020 10:49 (four years ago) link
xpbombing the shit out a poorly defended big coastal city would have been a relatively easy option as well, if the Luftwaffe wanted to improve their stats for the war office "let's do Hull again that was a piece of piss"
― calzino, Friday, 8 May 2020 10:52 (four years ago) link
In terms of tons of bombs dropped:
London (18,291)Liverpool/Merseyside (1,957)Birmingham (1,852)Glasgow/Clydeside (1,329)Plymouth (1,228)Bristol (919)Coventry (818)Portsmouth (687)Southampton (647)Hull (593)
― Frank Bough: I Took Drugs with Vice Girls (Tom D.), Friday, 8 May 2020 10:53 (four years ago) link
jesus they made every bomb count in Coventry
― calzino, Friday, 8 May 2020 10:55 (four years ago) link
Same with Southampton - it's still fucked now!
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Friday, 8 May 2020 10:57 (four years ago) link
When it says Glasgow it mostly means Clydebank:
As a result of the raids on the nights of 13 and 14 March 1941, the town was largely destroyed and it suffered the worst destruction and civilian loss of life in all of Scotland. 1,200 people died, 1,000 people were seriously injured, and hundreds more were injured by blast debris. Out of approximately 12,000 houses, only eight remained undamaged[1] — with 4,000 completely destroyed and 4,500 severely damaged. Over 35,000 people were made homeless.[1]
― Frank Bough: I Took Drugs with Vice Girls (Tom D.), Friday, 8 May 2020 10:58 (four years ago) link
allegedly part of the reason for bombing Hull was it was on the way home and nobody wanted to land with bombs still onboard
― Flaneuring Bevan (Noodle Vague), Friday, 8 May 2020 11:01 (four years ago) link
bomb map of london: http://bombsight.org/#13/51.5515/-0.0524
― mark s, Friday, 8 May 2020 11:19 (four years ago) link
One dropped just round the corner from me!
― Frank Bough: I Took Drugs with Vice Girls (Tom D.), Friday, 8 May 2020 11:24 (four years ago) link
where you in?
― Flaneuring Bevan (Noodle Vague), Friday, 8 May 2020 11:26 (four years ago) link
damn i meant "were"
I was queueing outside Morrisons at the time.
― Frank Bough: I Took Drugs with Vice Girls (Tom D.), Friday, 8 May 2020 11:28 (four years ago) link
ditto, it was an unreclaimed car park for years tho now it has an ugly cluster of tiny but expensive flats
a neighbour says he once encounter a tiny little old lady on the corner gazing around and he asked if he could help and she said "i grew up in the square and then one night in the war there was an air raid warning and we all went down into the shelter and there was a huge explosion nearby and when we came out again my building was gone so we moved elsewhere straight away with nothing and i haven't been back since till now"
― mark s, Friday, 8 May 2020 11:28 (four years ago) link
ditto to "near me"
― gyac, Friday, 8 May 2020 11:35 (four years ago) link
So I'm sitting here listening to the sound of the council van drifting over from Finsbury Park: "You should be here for exercise only. If not, then please go home." *sick Autechre-style electronic blips* - Loop back to the beginning and repeatDo other parks have this crap going on? They seem to think that the pigeon-scaring noise loops under the recorded announcement will scare people away, not realising that everyone listens to music that sounds like that nowadays anyway.
― the fucking cunts treat us like Styx (Matt #2), Friday, 8 May 2020 11:42 (four years ago) link
Sounds like they are missing the mood of Sunday’s presumed directive to all go on a picnic
― Microbes oft teem (wins), Friday, 8 May 2020 11:53 (four years ago) link
Watching the Welsh govt CV briefing just now and as with Scotland's yesterday it's full of press cunts continually questioning the right of a country's leaders to make decisions to protect their people.
― Non, je ned raggette rien (onimo), Friday, 8 May 2020 11:54 (four years ago) link
I heard a R4 presenter suggest that some people might be throwing 40's themed tea parties and having a singalong to that Vera Lynn song today. I'm having dreams about leading one of them nazi flamethrower units through Middle England and raining flaming oil on this sick fucked up demented brain-worms version of nostalgia!
― calzino, Friday, 8 May 2020 12:43 (four years ago) link