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

Lol erm there is not much on Sundays beyond these Sunday shows. It's when Parliament is off and not making horrible laws so idk it's ok to me.

Vicky Blake, UCU: 'I think it has to be about fees, and that is disgusting. The longer universities can keep the students there, the more money they are entitled to. It is grim when you patch together what is probably behind all this.'

— automnia (@aut_omnia) October 18, 2020

The picture of RLB above reminds me that I like RLB.

Sunday:

pic.twitter.com/OZSxNdxJQX

— dinosaur (@dinoman_j) October 18, 2020

xp

I still feel angry that the RLB campaign didn't seem to realise they weren't in some ordinary leadership contest, and they were tamely losing a life or death struggle against the right wing of the party and ceding control back to them for decades. They should have played as dirty as Kier did while he was playing at being a soft-left unity candidate even though everything in his recent history revealed he was a reactionary tory cunt to the core. They might have still lost but at least they could have gone down fighting. I agreed with Perry Anderson's take on this (with the added big Marxist professor words!).

my main consolation is she'd still have lost. a ton of Crumhorn's left following are desperate to believe in narratives of reasonableness

Happy Sunday

Are you joking me. The Covid symptom tracker app has partnered with Samantha Cameron's fashion brand to try to sell me silk face masks? Is this a sick joke pic.twitter.com/irQF9HWSzs

— Ana Kinsella (@anakinsella) October 17, 2020

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkmDd1EWMAEeKAk?format=jpg&name=large

We're gonna need such big gulags

lol in what way is Tory campaigner, Ian "bestiality is best" Austin in any way like a centre-left pm from New-Zealand?

Knowing which MPs individual politics journos belong to is really helpful in trying to work out what’s actually going on at any given point, so the guy has done us a favour here. pic.twitter.com/c5nlrLrnbt

— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) October 18, 2020

I bet Creasy was one of the top leakers during the Corbyn era. Great when MP's claim to be on your side then undermine their own party by leaking to right-wing rags purely for reasons of factional spite and selfish careerism.

Creasy, Watson, Hodge, Chuka. And that’s just to Guardian/Obs.

“A national two-minute doorstep silence.” pic.twitter.com/Zwk7wgxrnQ

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) October 18, 2020

if it wasn't bad enough seeing that goofy aryan brat in a fake RAF uniform now this preposterous coordinated nationalism from the Mirror apparently getting cross party support. what next? melt down all the copper pipes in yr house to make a giant tom moore statue on every suburban street.

my most gammony neighbour's just had his flag* replaced in time, he'll be scanning the doorsteps for traitors

* it had become increasingly tattered over the past few years and was basically in shreds. I was beginning to think he'd abandoned it and was making some kind of point on the state of his once beloved Union

I have to agree with Calzino about RLB's campaign. I still need to read the Perry Anderson article properly.

Greater Manchester reportedly running out of hospital beds and already at maximum capacity in some areas. Did this happen anywhere during the first wave?

I’m sure they converted loads of rooms and beds for first wave to catch the demand, I haven’t heard if they’re doing the same this time though?

they converted a lot of care homes to mortuaries too

I've seen some headlines/regurgitated press releases about Nightingale hospitals but I'm not sure where in the country they are or whether they're being used.

This is all going to get vey nasty, not just the obvious immediate public health disaster but the political blame game is going to get much more blatant. There are already reports that Johnson wants to go for a national circuit breaker but feels he can't because Starmer has already suggested it. We're at that level of infantilism now.

definitely some hospitals reporting at capacity in the first wave, mainly iirc around London. I don't *think* any of the nightingale hospitals were used with live patients. They are all ready to be opened but the issue will be in staffing them

Maybe worth remembering that hospitals running out of beds has been happening since long before covid.

Breaking: The Cabinet has accepted the recommendation of a Level Five lockdown for six weeks.

— Philip Ryan (@Philip_Ryan) October 19, 2020

oh no lol it's ROI, ignore it.

lol I was like WAIT THERE'S A LEVEL 5? LADS THEY'RE JUST MAKING IT UP NOW

oh no lol it's ROI, ignore it.

I wish we could...

level 5 lockdown in the UK is reversed for nuclear apocalypse, life sterilising deadly gamma rays from alpha centauri and when it is sunny for more than a week, but for the Rona!

x-post.

Even if we accept that the Nightingale Hospitals are "a good thing", wasn't there an issue that they were set up with loads of ventilators before it was discovered that so much more was needed to treat patients with Coronavirus?

and that there weren’t enough doctors and nurses available to properly staff both them AND regular hospitals at the same time

key problem aiui from the worst of spring covid was that if you decided to send someone to a nightingale from your hospital to free up capacity you had to resource it (with people not pounds) and it therefore reduced your capacity disproportionately.

You were therefore better to keep filling up and counting bodies than to send critically ill people away with their own entourage of doctors and nurses.

xp what bg said

I’m not watching this but some of ye might like to

TONIGHT: “I think it’s fairly apparent Keir had other motives”

Former Shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbott, tells @lewis_goodall she was suspicious of Keir Starmer when they were in the shadow cabinet together

Watch our film on the future of the Labour Party at 22:45#Newsnight pic.twitter.com/tYAVNrrJbT

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) October 19, 2020

x-posts - Yes, of course, those things.

Had an invite (because of my day job) to go and work in a Nightingale two hours away. It wasn't very appealing. If my memory serves me, I think it was at a time when there was a severe lack of PPE.

all party leaders will change their position on something out of electoral necessity, nothing to see really. Just call him an unreconstructed tory wanker instead, Diane!

or even just a fucking melt

even if Starmzy was the trusty centre-left social democrat he pretended to be during the leadership contest and showed some commitment to the Corbyn manifesto. It would be electoral suicide if he maintained his previous brexit position or the current equivalent which would be a Rejoin position which even ultras like Dunty have abandoned! Diane is alright really, but just say what you mean - he's a total bellend!

BREAKING: the culture recovery fund was meant to support struggling arts venues. @VICEWorldNews has found that over £350k of gov money is going to companies owned by a luxury property firm – which has a combined portfolio of £2.7 billion.

my story:https://t.co/ddSH4Z5T4o

— ruby lott-lavigna (@RubyJLL) October 20, 2020

this was good on pop brixton — https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbmp5v/pop-brixton-market-gentrification-london

I agree - he is a bellend.

The House of Lords has just voted by huge majority of 226 to indicate its likely rejection of Johnson’s Internal Market Bill provisions for override the Good Friday Agreement & international law

564 peers voted: one of the largest votes in the entire history of the Lords!

— Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) October 20, 2020

Looks like Greater Manchester is about to have restrictions imposed upon it without financial aid?

Leading to the vexed question of how exactly the restrictions are going to be imposed.

the_government_source_stenographer has logged on

5. Govt source says ‘Other local leaders in GM were more reasonable and constructive but Burnham was too proud to make a deal.’
6. GM source says there was 'unanimity' on their side, and govt was 'trying to grind us' into accepting a deal that was too low

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) October 20, 2020

3. PM raised offer to 60m in call with Burnham, but he felt couldn't accept it as wdn't be enough to pay wages of low paid at level he had promised
4. So Tier 3 being imposed, with no deal yet on the cash and final offer likely to be under 60m

Looks like a test and trace will buy you 200 greater Manchesters.

https://t.co/xiVKLef4Bg pic.twitter.com/pgyLudGpks

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) October 20, 2020

This is an extraordinary moment. A government acting out of pure, politically-motivated spite at a time of national crisis. Shame on them.#manchesterlockdown https://t.co/wEuwfpheN1

— Phil Harrison (@MrPMHarrison) October 20, 2020

Looking forward to seceding tbh

this is nice but can whoever is writing his tweets please rephrase to 'I Support Andy Burnham, this offer is disgraceful' rather than this word salad? Thanks https://t.co/XuO8BzT5VN

— Owen Hatherley (@owenhatherley) October 20, 2020

it's great when other Labour mayors chime in with such a strong message of support for beleaguered regions getting fucked over by the tories

does anybody including Sadiq think Sadiq's in the Labour Party any more?

Yeah let's see how much money they stump up when it's a region with a few more Tory marginals in it.

jfc, why isn't anyone wearing a fucking mask in the UK?

Oh mate you have no idea. It’s insane out there!