love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

Great stuff, guys!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXqEIXCWsAEOXDP?format=jpg&name=900x900

Really otm.

in the face of government's criminal neglect, we need a vehicle to coordinate & support social distancing from below. the trade unions are the obvious yet don't have the strength (or right now the creativity or guts) to act as the driving force.

— Sita Balani (@sitainshort) May 10, 2020

can't believe this was nearly the first time in my adult life where rents might have to come down, and the labour party bravely stepped in and tabled a solution to keep them high, while turning landlords into unregulated money lenders, transferring even more power to them

— tristandross (@tristandross) May 10, 2020

more hats off to Sir Kier commentary

this fucking country

Can I see my parents? Can I have my husband on the post-natal ward after baby is born? Can we ask a friend to come and babysit when I am having baby?

From the below, I have zero idea. https://t.co/dJoro1HEHk

— Clementine Wallop (@CWallop) May 10, 2020

Lots of focus on "stay home" becoming "stay alert" but not as much on the complete removal of "protect the NHS"

with doctors currently taking legal action to force an independent enquiry into the catastrophic PPE failure, probs best not mentioning the NHS at the moment.

711 more deaths in england alone today

time to open this baby up and see if we can make it to 2,000 a day

Where's that from? I'm seeing 205 deaths in the UK total.

🥳🎆🇬🇧STREET PARTY🇬🇧🎆🥳
🤪🍾🇬🇧TO HONOUR🇬🇧🍾🤪
🥰🎉🇬🇧THOSE WHO DIED🇬🇧🎉🥰
🤡🎂🇬🇧OF PREVIOUS🇬🇧🎂🤡
😂🥂🇬🇧STREET PARTY🇬🇧🥂😂

— Tom Little of "Grandstand Theme Tune" Fame (@ThisIsTomLittle) May 9, 2020

oh wait, was looking at an old email sorry

200 for the day, but that's just hospitals.

And it's a Sunday.

and a bank holiday weekend

and The Italian Job is on the telly

“It’s the self deterioration society”.

🎙️ Historian @Rog_Anderson and I deconstruct VE Day and other British wartime myths on the #JeggitPodcast. This is a really eye-opening discussion - not to be missed. https://t.co/Zr6r1ZwIVM

— Jason Michael (@Jeggit) May 10, 2020

good little discussion here about the addled exceptionalism of brit nationalists and their crazed delusional ww2 mythology. not like I learned anything new, but just nodded in agreement.

There should be no return to work until it is safe to do so.

If work cannot be done safely, it should not proceed.

People must come before private profit.

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 10, 2020

miss u king

this rent biz is the most perfect faultline exposing issue

It has also exposed how there now could be 20million+ people who could make the most credible claim of "political homelessness" yet

Boris trying his best to be serious with this completely confused and befuddling prime ministerial broadcast.

He wants me to go to work tomorrow, get tae France, ya wanker.

this rent biz is the most perfect faultline exposing issue

The weird thing is that it kind of is and kind of isn’t. I’m struggling to imagine how substantial the difference in policy would have been if RLB had won or Corbyn had stayed. It’s also not unthinkable that the bulk of the Labour policy will also end up being implemented by a government with no better ideas for averting a major housing / economic crisis.

we’re gonna end up with a six-figure death toll, easily

I'm not watching but by all accounts this is a vague incomprehensible mess.

the two years thing is, as stephen bush says, not even coherent. spain are doing a similar thing with six years which softens it but idk how you'll administer that. sorting out housing benefit seems the more obvious route. as it stands this won't even help landlords as many will be unable to pay, and we may see a lot of these small time 'good landlords' trying to sell and making house prices crash, and ofc even if it doesn't it will make the economy tank further

House prices are going to crash whatever happens.

open labour are backing rent cancellation

a q of degree

The government is going to absolutely desperate to get people out spending disposable income before too long and I don't know how that would square with having hundreds of thousands of people whose disposable income is completely swallowed up with rent arrears.

reforming housing benefit is extremely overdue and the easiest lever to pull in a crisis

there'll just be widespread bankruptcy if there's no rent cancellation, plus ppl disappearing

Yep, though one of Bush’s objections to the two year thing is that the Labour policy of expanding housing benefit means there shouldn’t really be any arrears to pay back (which idk).

Economically I guess the route out of this for the govt will involve gigantic rounds of QE which has the knock-on effect of feeding asset bubbles, including in housing.

"ppl just disappearing"

Lol once got caught doing a flit by a fairly dangerous landlord. I laugh about it now but it was a very dodgy situation to get through unharmed!

This "I'll be the PM of the whole nation" is going to play v. well for Scot Nats. Especially now England is the last country in Europe with "extremely high" excess deaths.

It seems his announcements only really apply to England so he is the Prime Minister of the whole nation of England.

I think that's a ref to Sturgeon's public dissing of "Stay Awake" or whatever it is, and her demand it not be used in Scotland.

My interpretation of Boris Johnson this evening: the pandemic of COVID-19 in the UK is much more serious than we have been led to believe. Johnson was unusually serious, fists clenched, no jokes about squashing sombreros.

— richard horton (@richardhorton1) May 10, 2020

He recorded the message before Sturgeon's "diss"

Just watched boris hands for 15 mins pic.twitter.com/BZpUiKMyK0

— John McGinn (@jmcginn7) May 10, 2020

I felt like I was in the room and he was talking to me...what a brilliant speech @BorisJohnson well done 👏

— Ben Stokes (@benstokes38) May 10, 2020

That corkie must have hit his head hard

Horton is right, I think. In practice all secondary school and most primary school has been cancelled for the academic year. Restaurants aren’t going to reopen for two months. It’s an admission that the U.K. is absolutely nowhere near being ready for the end of lockdown and wouldn’t be out of step with the suggestion in the ST this morning that the real rate of new infections is 18k per day. That’s the context Johnson’s telling people to go back to work in.

Poor people, mostly

Working class people in the likes of construction are going to risk getting this disease and die, whereas people who can work from home can jog more than once a day. Seems fair.

from the comments to horton’s tweet thread

Rightful #VEDay75 focus on #WW2 sacrifices puts #covid_19 UK tragedy in chilling perspective: civilian deaths in 6 years - 60,595; excess deaths in 7 weeks - 55,000 @ChrisGiles_
Photo: Jonathan David Shepherd pic.twitter.com/0kNvBx9QEA

— Nigel Taylor (@SilverLotheni) May 8, 2020

Did anyone here seriously believe that bars and restaurants would be open in July? Does anyone believe it now?

people in England will be allowed to sit in parks within their household groups, to drive to beauty spots for walks, and to take unlimited amounts of outdoor exercise. People will be able to meet and sit down with a single other person from another household outdoors as long as they stay two metres apart.

this is all already happening