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

Naming the date of departure would make sense to me:

- Johnson doesn't want to be Prime Minister especially, he wants to have been Prime Minister, that's a mission that can be accomplished any point from next year
- He probably doesn't especially want to fight an election he might lose, he wants to be in control of the manner of departure, Blair-style
- Tory MPs are less likely to push him if he jumps before an election (there's also very little chance they'll believe him, but that's a different issue)

But I think he's more likely to be testing the water on numbers ahead of the bill vote.

as a chump with low recognition outside of Scotland

Gonna have to stop you there. I think most Scots would struggle to point to the guy in a line up.

especially in a line up of sickly looking humpty dumptys who look like they've been dragged off the wall, repeatedly!

"By the start of August, restaurant attendance had already bounced back to near 2019 levels. People were basically going out as normal, so the half-price discount scheme didn't encourage a "return to normal"; it encouraged extravagant levels of eating out," it said.

"But when the scheme ended, things went right back to where they would have been. At the start of September there were more outings than at the start of August, but no more than would have been expected based on the long-term trend of reopening. There seems to be virtually no lasting impact on people’s consumption."

"At the same time as the scheme was operating, the UK started to see an uptick in COVID-19 cases. This overwhelmed testing capacity and caused some regions to reimpose restrictions."

not the point here but jesus you forget how expensive London eating out had got when you've been away from it for a few months (and they've added a couple of Covid quid to the bill). £9 for scrambled eggs? gtf

Imperial saying R now at 1.8 with doubling every 8 days. Steve Baker thinks it's time for us to "live like a free people".

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-11/u-k-virus-r-value-rises-above-1-for-first-time-since-march

the only real freedom is the freedom to die to keep jd sports in business

Imperial saying R now at 1.8

uh yikes??

Yep. I get that case numbers are much lower than they were in March, but how much longer can they keep going "it'll be alright by Christmas, hang on let me just shut down Birmingham, now, where was I? Yes: wash your hands, eat out to help out, get to work"?

'it'll be over by Christmas' got us through a world war

work out to eat out

London feeling more like Madrid on these criteria

1/
Look at the shape of these curves.

New York and Madrid had similar epidemics until they spectacularly diverged.

In March, both cities were caught by surprise and shut down because of #COVID19.

In September, the situation is under control in NY and alarming in Madrid.

Why? pic.twitter.com/VF0BCl0xyt

— Miguel Hernán (@_MiguelHernan) September 11, 2020

yeah he's not resigning, it's the chummy compulsory office drinks bollocks

BREAKING: PM is meeting right now with Conservative MPs, as backbenchers threaten rebellion over the govt's plan to break international law.

He's telling MPs he wants them to "understand his point of view, not the polemic view in the papers."

He says no time for questions.

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) September 11, 2020

Meanwhile

"Should the UK authorities breach – or threaten to breach – the Withdrawal Agreement, through the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill in its current form or in any other way, the European Parliament will, under no circumstances, ratify any agreement between the EU and the UK."

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) September 11, 2020

johnny eu determined as ever to try and sink the good ship britain by means fair or foul, glad we’re getting shot of the shifty buggers god bless u boris

Motion of no confidence in Richard Leonard has been withdrawn, I’m told

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) September 12, 2020

it would have been quite forensic if they checked they had the numbers for a monc before attempting to remove RL, lol at the party of competence!

Source says: “What a waste of everyone’s time. Even with the Labour Students rep they didn’t have the numbers so not quite sure why they went through with it all.”

I've been enjoying Richard Leonard's lockdown hair

https://www.helensburghadvertiser.co.uk/resources/images/11762593.jpg

I'm not a fan of the guy tbh, but love to see the "fucking useless plotters" doing their thing again. He looks like he has a very stringent daily hair care regime and buys Head & Shoulders by the crate!

He's slow and deliberate and uninspiring. Nicola Sturgeon looks positively bored with what passes for FMQs when he's up.

What can you do but laugh at this cunt?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhyT0Q5X0AIAbQM?format=jpg&name=large

Never mind that, what exactly is going on here?

This is the finest book written about Corbynism and the politics of the last five years. Also the greatest book ever published in SE15. Buy it! https://t.co/1k9wuYliOb

— John McTernan (@johnmcternan) September 13, 2020

He’s subtweeting Owen Jones, whose own history of the past five years is out today.

McTernan has (unironically) supported the New Socialist issue so there is um, a but going on (he still follows me lol)

John Harris has written a review of OJ's book today.

I'm gonna regret this but here goes

Cunt

Could've told you that without reading it.

It's possible I've missed part of the social media exchange here but I'm still not making the connection between McTernan/Lemmey and Owen Jones (unless McT is just taking it as an opportunity to throw indirect shade on OJ).

That’s it exactly.

Can’t believe xyzzzzz_ revealed himself to be a melt by not softblocking John McT when he followed btw (as I did).

softblocking john mct is bad praxis, this is canon

Perhaps ILX lurker John McT could explain this for himself.

If only he'd restricted himself to lurking

If you want a remarkably straight-forward explanation of Labour's organisational aims and electoral strategy under Keir Starmer, check out Bridget Phillipson's comments at the Labour to Win conference this morning: https://t.co/hbyjz9DEUE

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) September 13, 2020

"Our language and our framing must reflect the world as our electors see it, not as how we might discuss it at a GC" & "we cannot be thought of as a party whose reaction to every problem is more spending. It’s a habit we got into, and it’s a habit we need to break"

the fiscal conservatism or "austerity lite" of Miliband Labour is back on the agenda, because it was so popular with the electorate in 2015. Tt would have been polite for this cunt to mention this was going to be the direction he'd take the party in back in Feb.

next time the exit poll drops and Labour are facing a complete annihilation, I'm going to disguise my absolute glee worse than Jess Phillips did in December.

Randox, a Northern Ireland firm, pays Tory MP Owen Paterson as a consultant. It won a £133m testing contract unopposed at the start of lockdown

It disposed of 12,401 used swabs in a single day on 2nd Sept

The firm has voided more than 35,000 used test kits since August (3/5)

— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) September 13, 2020

don’t make me tap the sign⬇️

nothing will happen

Btw, the criticisms of OJ are also coming from the left.

"The actual existential danger to Labour’s left is resignation and disengagement" not failing to engage constructively with the leadership argues Nicky Hutchinson. https://t.co/NIMbBeH1Dn

— New Socialist (@NewSocialistUK) September 11, 2020

I’m wondering which MP is ‘Nicky Hutchinson’ but can’t identify one off the top of my head that’s from the SCG *and* writes well.

I didn’t think that was an MP? I think Nicky Hutchinson is a general pseud the NS uses for people who are published there.

Yeah it's almost certainly a left twitter person.

lol i thought you meant "generally a pseud" on my first read.

Bizarro journalism, in which people are asked questions and then the interviewer attempts to stop them answering. pic.twitter.com/W3uagpJLb8

— barney farmer (@barneyfarmer) September 13, 2020

Urrrrrrgh I hate sympathising with the fucking blueshirts

that's one of the most despicable elements of this culture war - you end up agreeing with melts occasionally!

just spend a few hours listening to a few Times Radio shows and then follow that Today or PM on R4 and tell me what the difference is pls

only if you really despise yourself and have nothing to live for anymore I should have added!

Lol I was getting the ads for Times Radio on Facebook and that was enough thanks

they use the same cast of dismal melts for *balance* on Times Radio, but the difference is they let people slag off the current Tory govt without interruption or as Marr would have it with impartiality!

when I was dying in bed of the 2010 swine flu once I fumbled about with the radio and became hostage to Talk Sport for a few hours. I was too fatigued to get up and change channels - that was a similar experience to me with Times Radio today with a severe hangover.