ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

Relevant:

I have been told that the picture was taken during David Graeber’s wake — his partner is in the picture — but as yet the method by which The Sun journalists obtained the picture is not clear. I suspect it was taken from a private Instagram or Facebook page. https://t.co/9GzDHwPK5A

— Mic Wright 🏳️‍🌈🌋🏴‍☠️ (@brokenbottleboy) October 1, 2020

It was originally a party of 6. Others arrived. They failed to send them away. Have some heart. Professor Graeber was only very recently dead ffs. https://t.co/TGMc4PrL7u

— Mic Wright 🏳️‍🌈🌋🏴‍☠️ (@brokenbottleboy) October 1, 2020

that puts all in a different light I mean ffs who could turn someone away from a wake.

I'm sure keith the ham-faced killer would though!

Weirdly there's a reasonably sympathetic article, both in explaining who David Graeber is and that Corbyn was within the rules when he arrived, has apologised, has paid the fine - in the Mail.

(I suppose any chance to fuck with the Sun?)

Weirdly sympathetic = He's no longer a threat. Starmer has cast him aside. There's no mileage in going after him.

Yeah, but it could have thrown in a 'commie' or two.

Nah there’s nothing in it - guessing the party have told them that’s that and there’s no real mileage in the story? Anyway Starmer didn’t do anything about the member for Canterbury breaking lockdown to see her (married) lover, so.

The entirety of a boxout:

David Graeber: anarchy and anthropology
David Graeber was a professor of anthropology at Yale University but is most famous for his activism.

He worked on the initial stages of the Occupy Wall Street movement which saw crowds mass by the buildings to stop them functioning in a protest against economic inequality.

Mr Graeber was also a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics.

He was born in New York before moving to London and was married to artist Nika Dubrovsky.

He said in 2015: 'Huge swaths of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they believe to be unnecessary.

'The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.'

honestly my old man opinion here is why is someone posting a social media picture from a wake? put your phones down people, live in the mourning

Maybe because it's all made up.

I'll go you one better: maybe life is just a simulation.

clawing my fucking eyes out at the synopsis https://t.co/NuKbPuel81 pic.twitter.com/DtE10rlsne

— Marl Karx (@BareLeft) October 2, 2020

looks like Baggymp has got some more competition in the already crowded political fiction market

setting your political thriller in 1997 is the act of a coward

let's roll back the dial to before the modern world was born in fire and blood and greed and tyranny so i don't have to offer any insight into our times, because i am an empty-skulled moron and am afraid to try

having said that, if it ends with the dashing journalist gil peck preventing 9/11 from happening i will buy three copies

Good thinking, avoiding any plot twist that could be undone by the presence of a mobile phone.

otm

i can't wait to hate-read excerpts of this on twitter tbh

I certainly hope Pesto isn't killed in a hit and run in the near future

huge striker by steve bruce vibes pic.twitter.com/xAT0ItaA8e

— cruyff guy (@clxpnd) October 2, 2020

End of discussion frankly.

Lets get that on Ian Penman's desk, give him some proper meat for the next LRB.

100% this is ghost written by the way, Peston is basically always working afaict, he doesn't have time to write even a shitty novel, unless he's literally been working on it since 1997.

I dunno man Gil Peck's work doesn't seem that onerous, you can save a lot of time by never fact-checking

Wait did he actually name his alter ego after two imperial measures?

Could've gone with Robin Carbonara ffs

Gil Peck Heron

the infection will not be herd immunitized

Is tweeting stupid questions about five times a day really “always working” though

it is if you're a lazy dullard

i speak from a place of deep personal experience

I have time to write a shit novel I simply choose not to, my protagonist would be called Rod Ounce

Isn't he basically always on TV? IDK, he seems very difficult to avoid right now.

nah gyac rumbled me ages ago, I've been on ITV while Pesto was writing this book

BREAKING: Downing Street has refused to call for Covid-positive MP Margaret Ferrier to resign.https://t.co/bF3ux0wKSM

— HeraldScotland (@heraldscotland) October 2, 2020

'Colonel Poo' is surely a primer suspect in The Whistle Blower?

(xpost - hmmm, I wonder why?)

Have to say in the Corbyn situation the fact it was a wake arguably makes it worse from a public messaging point of view, thousands of people this year have been unable to attend the funerals or wakes of their loved ones and that will continue to be the case because of the rule of six, it just reinforces that 'one rule for them' dismissiveness and, at worst, fuels the ongoing rage.

The story isn't gaining traction because the Ferrier situation is transparently so much worse, the government doesn't want to draw attention to these breaches for obvious reasons, and because most of the country stopped caring what Corbyn does and doesn't do months ago.

I'd care to argue one way or another on this when I heard (which was a few hours before it was posted here) but I just don't give a shit. Corbyn isn't the leader.

I mean it's also a good example of why immediately putting your hands up and going "I fucked up, I'll pay the fine" is better than trying to hide it or explain it away.

Coopers still won't have him pay the fine tho, lol.

*coppers, so'z

"I fucked up, I'll pay the fine"

Sorry but that's still pure "one rule for them" privilege.

it does give off strong "i'll park where i like" vibes

It is but it kills the story.

Also he was a guest and not the organiser, it’s the responsibility of the organiser to limit numbers.

My @guardian story: Hundreds of thousands who lost jobs in pandemic denied universal credit, official figures show https://t.co/vPIRWJIhk8

— Patrick Butler (@patrickjbutler) October 1, 2020

Piece on the FT blog on the EU lab markets looks v bad, even if the support schemes across the EU are better than UC.

About 26% of new universal credit claimants are from managerial, administrative and professional backgrounds, according to findings by the ESRC-funded Welfare at a Social Distance academic research project, a trend that may bring fresh scrutiny of a welfare system designed primarily for people on low incomes.

damn, they are treating them as badly as they do to working poor people, this calls for reforms.

The number of people who seem surprised the system is in such bad shame is one of the main reasons why the Tories have been able to get away with it for so long. There isn't really any reason to be surprised at this stage but it does show quite how little attention a lot of people pay to what's going on.

"I had assumed that we still live in a society where there was a safety net for people who from no fault of their own need support at time of crisis."

Idk I distinctly remember spending some time in a north London jobcentre about 7/8 years back and watching a a posh man raging at staff because he was an architect and got the same rate as everyone else... if they didn’t know by then I don’t know if you’d ever get through to them.