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

There is nothing in Tudgenhat's wikipedia entry about him being Jewish, and nothing in his father's either, also if you read the entry the passage isn't actually mocking his name, not exactly anyway.

not read it tbh. I find his humour pieces in the Observer generally not very funny tbh and I say this as someone who has enjoyed his tv shows.

without reading the details i feel safe saying that nobody should be assumed incapable of dickitude, include Stewart Lee

the MoS hatchet job on Starmer has got to be the most inept right-wing attack job I've ever seen. Less donkey sanctuaries more donkey jackets next time eh lads! His approval ratings have probably just shot up 10 pts with rich nimby pensioners in the tory heartlands who don't want property developers ruining the view from their back garden.

And now, the political party broadcast the Labour Party should be doing.

Our letting agent asked us to make a video of the flat we are basically being forced out of. I wish them the very best of luck. pic.twitter.com/h3fcOw657w

— Sandy Batchelor (@sandybatchelor) May 17, 2020

Excellent work

I AM A FREE

I AM NOT MAN

A NUMBER

on his bedroom wall, very good work!

not all landlords, just about 99.9% are scum of the earth

I love this and so do you don't lie.

Perhaps if World War 2 happened today the questions would include:- pic.twitter.com/XeOOrJPnuX

— Lord Ashcroft (@LordAshcroft) May 17, 2020

But if World War 2 was only happening today what would've been shown instead of 'Allo 'Allo? A Troubles sitcom? Don't make me laugh!

Dad's Republican Army

Only Melts and Donkies

the adventures of Starmy the cheeky brylcreemed spiv

Bombed and abandoned buildings were a treasure trove for looters. After a raid on Dover, one man returned home to find his entire house stripped. Even the carpets and pipes had been taken by opportunistic thieves.

Others even looted while air raids were taking place. At the height of the air raid on Coventry in November 1940 two men were caught ransacking a wine seller's.

"I cannot think of conduct more detestable than that, during the most dreadful air raid which has ever taken place, you should be found looting," the judge told them as he jailed them for six and seven years respectively.

In Kensington, west London, a gardener was caught removing rings from four dead bodies in January 1941 while on one day in November 1940, 20 of the 56 cases at the Old Bailey were looters. Ten of these were auxiliary firemen.

There were also cases of murderers hiding their victims in damaged houses. When the bodies were discovered it was assumed they had been in the house when the bomb hit.

I think I've found the real Blitz Spirit here!

and there's some more over here! (sorry for vile racist content)

The migrants invading Britain off the Kent coast are not genuine refugees, they are economic migrants who have navigated through many safe countries to reach Britain for our welfare system. @pritipatel must not grant a single one asylum!

— Leave.EU (@LeaveEUOfficial) May 17, 2020

which of us is not hearing "Don't Panic" shouted in a Norn Irish accent right now?

some top quality content itt this morning lads

this point abt the UK being a magnet keeps coming up bc it has intuitive appeal & I think the reasons why asylum seekers/refugees often travel through a bunch of other countries but make the extra effort to get to the UK are interesting and there are a few different answers and the decisions are not always beyond question

refugees can get pretty animated on this point ofc bc lots of them naturally feel that there are wrong uns giving them a bad name who they want to differentiate themselves from, and I think it's patronising to put it down purely to internalised prejudice

Not that individuals aren't already held to often nonsensical standards of scrutiny, and ofc nearly all the underlying issues would require international coordination to address which hints at the pure xenophobia behind the brexiters concern on this point

also if you read the entry the passage isn't actually mocking his name, not exactly anyway.

I read it before commenting, like a good user of the world wide web, and I don't really see how it's not mocking his name. In a bemused rather than scornful manner, and obviously it's not the main focus of the article, but it's there.

Googling reveals Tugendhat is indeed a Jewish name, needn't mean the MP is Jewish. At any rate I suppose you could make the case that in Brexit Britain mocking ppl for having continental-sounding surnames isn't much better.

I like Stewart Lee an' all.

This is exceptionalist bullshit and myth-making though. At the height of the last decade's refugee crisis the UK was taking in fewer asylum seekers than Hungary. Even now Germany, France, Sweden and Italy have been taking in more, although Italy's location makes it something of a different case.

Throughout the late 20th and early 21st century the UK probably had a reputation for treating immigrants better than a lot of other European countries, I would imagine that's gone now but as diasporas grow and people move back and forth then a kind of aura builds up, whether that's true or not.

I'm not convinced that welfare really comes into it as a motivating factor especially given the condition of our welfare state compared with other European countries. On balance the notion that refugees and asylum seekers take up a disproportionate amount of the welfare bill is probably on the rise across Europe though.

Most of the people I've talked to in detention centres barely know welfare is a thing! The push-pull is much more between waiting for byzantine bureaucracy to become a legal citizen vs getting into yr mate's group of eight ppl w/ one deliveroo liscense and earning some money.

Everyone who makes it here wants to work. And great news folks apart from anything else we desperately need at least 50,000 more nurses and coppers total.

The differential, or perceived differential, in wages between destination and origin countries is probably more of a factor. Also language, the number of people you know in the country, etc.

my old scouser friend who lives in berlin says signing on das pancrack is much more easier and the german SS is much less punitive and more generous than the ugly and cruel UK benefits system. he said when you are on unemployment over there you get free electricity, but i don't know if he was taking the piss when he said that. I'm sure there are parts of Europe with much worse benefit systems than the UK, but not that many.

yeah the UK still seems to have a pretty good rep amongst a lot of people - the job market, education system, welfare, and the experience ppl have on the street & in society. hungary and italy obviously have geographical reasons for being many people's first ports of call, but afaik not many people stay in hungary, and although italy is fast catching up I think the UK still has more refugees per head (altho still a way down the league table ofc). the UK needs to sort out its system, close the detention centres, offer much more support to asylum seekers and refugees and ultimately take more people, but atm the left/liberals are mostly concerned with general moral argts and the discussion about the practicalities and the underlying structural factors is dominated by/ceded to the right

Friend of mine in detention told me about a mate of his who went to Germany first and quit because "it was too racist". Can't really believe Germany is more racist than the UK generally (it's not a contest, I know), but the UK does have a much larger BAME population so there's probably more of a support system.

yeah I don't know enough about what it's like in these other places but anecdotally sweden and germany seem to have the best rep and italy the worst. asylum seekers are concentrated v unevenly so they're not necessarily having to deal with a lot of mail readers I suppose

English language.

Let's face it, if the US was where Ireland is no-one would come to Britain.

You'll blow Lord Ashcroft's mind with that send it him.

It were right bad during the US potato famine and 40 million mericans flooded that little Atlantic island to escape famine and disease.

Any clue as to whether Labour's policy is 'return to school only when safe' (RLB, Education) or 'i'll be sending my kids back on June 1st but the government needs to give people more confidence' (Lucy Powell, Business)?

I think Lucy is doing policy on the go here.

Great time for putting out mixed messages from the shadow cabinet. Thought these melts were all over message discipline.

too real for the Real England thread

Whitley Bay people are now putting up privatisation conspiracy posters pic.twitter.com/Q4o8Z7QVTW

— Peter Wells (@peterkwells) May 18, 2020

Lucy Powell isn't even in the Shadow Cabinet so I'm not sure why Sky were interviewing her and not RLB (or Ed Miliband, if they're treating it as a business/employment issue). Looks like an on-the-spot fuckup from Powell tbh.

It's either that or she went out/was sent out with the deliberate intention of undermining RLB, and I'm not really sure what the benefit of that would be to the leadership given the schools issue is a disaster waiting to happen and likely to be a hugely unpopular decision from the govt.

so much for all the careful media management and consistent messaging

I saw some Tory minister - Culture Minister - getting mauled by Kay Burley, of all people, this morning over the idea that you can expect people to go back to work but not to take any risks when using public transport.

Don't know the ins and outs but this is a positive step wrt to Italy immigration.

Bill to regularise undocumented migrant workers in agriculture, domestic and care sectors passed by parliament in Italy!

5-6 HUNDRED THOUSAND undocumented key workers who've been keeping Italy going through the pandemic will benefit. Imagine. IMAGINE. https://t.co/6mCruslCbQ

— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) May 14, 2020

I don't know how you make the Tube safe, or trains. There's no real ventilation. You can space people apart with a 'conductor' in each car to enforce it but it's absurd - everyone's breathing the same air

CON: 47% (-3)
LAB: 35% (+4)
LDEM: 9% (+2)
GRN: 3% (-2)

via @RedfieldWilton, 15 May

whoah! the people's lawyer making some gradual headway in the polls, this donkey derby isn't a sprint race!

Govt just announced that everyone over the age of five can now be tested if they have symptoms. Two months too late.

“I said ‘can be tested’. I never said exactly when.”

^ how do I shot? Googling govt pages are still on the "apply if you are an essential key worker" steez...

xp

"If Labour had someone like Yvette Cooper..."

Oh. pic.twitter.com/TtJn1KUoaz

— Sam ✌️ (@samisam147) May 18, 2020

You think these people have vanished but they've been in an office somewhere repeating the same sentence every 10 minutes for the last 5 years. Someone opened a window and the sentence made its way out into the world to meet its friends in a short BBC article

London (subject to weekend effect caveat obv, again) reported zero deaths for a 24 hour period yesterday for the first time in months. Currently reporting 15 in last three days & highest at peak (with admin capacity constraints being more hit too) for that was 156.

— FQ Coyle (@francisqcoyle) May 18, 2020

Can't believe Yvette Cooper is ignoring Starmzy's leadership and waving thru some racist Tory bill