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

London as a whole counts for a quarter of the economy iirc.

Yeah that rang false to me, although I can believe that the levels of hospitality spending here were extremely high I don't think they were that high.

The government will end up picking up the tab whatever happens, whether it's through higher unemployment benefit, lost business and personal tax revenue, the loss of wider cultural capital (which in turn attracts actual capital), a further hit to GDP by further constraining a lot of people's spending power etc etc. Obviously I've never run the numbers but the costs of not keeping businesses going probably outweigh the costs of doing so, to the extent that keeping them going must be basically free.

But yeah NV OTM, plus they don't want the public to realise the extent to which businesses and the state are interdependent.

seems good

https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/huge-moment-as-architects-homelessness-project-launches

yeah putting aside the horrible nation it reflects that's a smart idea

Does this look like an appropriate father/son interaction to you? pic.twitter.com/imI9CupzQw

— black lives matter (@jrc1921) October 22, 2020

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ek93FflXUAEQGOQ?format=jpg&name=small

lol I already can't stand another minute of this showboating melt mediocrity, but know you are really making hate the the fucker!

Britpop and Peterloo Massacre are a terrible concept for a band, we need more Bad Boy Chiller Crew who eschew melty grandstanding politicians and single malt whiskey for a double JC with coke

even though he's allegedly some force for good who we should we be impressed with because the bovine Labour membership are a bunch of idiots who voted for someone marginally more conservative than him to lead the Labour party. Fuck Burnham, he's another waste of space. A shallow, clumsy grandstanding poseur, who only impresses those that either lost their mind in '19 or were just wooly-minded shite-talking melts to start with.

True story: in 2016 I got a call from the Labour leader's office asking if I could help them put together an all-star grime version of The Internationale

— Dan Hancox (@danhancox) October 22, 2020

He kept that quiet!

Britpop and Peterloo Massacre are a terrible concept for a band, we need more Bad Boy Chiller Crew who eschew melty grandstanding politicians and single malt whiskey for a double JC with coke

It's such an astonishing, unself-aware line from whoever wrote it that I'm trying to work out who it was. Guessing John Harris but it really could be any of them.

Next election catchline should be "no divvys round here", clearly.

so much to answer for

up here in the North there's no wage packet jobs for us, thank Christ

Andy Burnham, earlier today

https://i2-prod.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/incoming/article12465883.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/JS108278206.jpg

I like Andy Burnham.

And Ken Worthington.

This attack was four days after this widely reported tweet from Priti Patel. https://t.co/t6PP6AjndK pic.twitter.com/sRXrZR74w8

— mARGHcus (@marcusjdl) October 23, 2020

lol Jane Merrick was getting a twitter shellacking as a hypocritical arse for bigging up Rashford after previously ripping the shit out of Corbyn's school meal policy, she couldn't take the heat so has protected her account.

my name is kier
i am a knite,
i live to please
the labour right.
i look like ham;
my face is red
i shud be twenty
points ahed.

— R I Peach ☭ (@peachlux_) October 23, 2020

Nationwide adverts getting better

Some choice quotes from Kent MPs in the local press:

"The current Conservative government only decided to introduce a voucher scheme because, during the Covid-19 lockdown and later summer months, many people were not able to work and were struggling financially. However, as more people can work, the argument for continuing to provide free school meals for a period stretching into spring next year, becomes difficult to sustain."

https://i.postimg.cc/76SZwCNQ/2-AIKKE0-QROFHW74-BDMBB.jpg

"You suggest that I voted against free school meals. This is untrue. The original motion, put by Labour as part of their regular ‘Opposition Day debate’ opportunities, are an entrenched feature of our Parliamentary system and are designed to be purely political and often follow the ‘mother and apple pie’ formula of looking so reasonable that they couldn’t possibly be opposed.

"Such motions, even if carried, have no statutory basis and don’t become new law, it is the role of government to bring to Parliament new law and spending plans which Parliament can then consider soberly.

"Such opposition day motions are never supported by whichever governing party. This is all part of the weft and weave of our system."

https://i.postimg.cc/CxZYwBhH/UTWJ5-PP74-VPWH8-AF7-LQF.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElBJs3nW0AAWzhj?format=jpg&name=small

Every male in this video will be bald within five years pic.twitter.com/D5cvOa7Uk7

— black lives matter (@jrc1921) October 23, 2020

this is why some countries programs to liquidate their accursed landed gentry were very popular with a majority of their population.

the main guy honestly looks 55-60yo.

EXC: Tory co-chairman @amandamilling & more than 100 backbenchers have written to Keir Starmer tonight to warn that @AngelaRayner’s “Tory scum” jibe has led to widespread abuse of Conservative MPs pic.twitter.com/DqLnHIsi3L

— John Stevens (@johnestevens) October 23, 2020

lol, make this shit up couldn't

huge congrats to angela rayner

make people who vote to starve children afraid again

*fires up hansard*

I have been called “Tory scum” for years and had insults in the streets, and I am pretty used to that. It is part of the process, and although we might say that it should not happen, it does. What happened at this election, however, was different. I never thought that in my own constituency someone would come up to me and shout the name of the Leader of the Opposition, then describe me as, “Israeli and Zionist scum.” I never thought that my posters would be ripped down and posted on social media under the phrase, “Fuck the Tories #CorbynIn”. I never thought that my staff would be spat at in the street by activists, by people naming the Leader of the Opposition as their motivation for calling my staff “Tory fucking scum.” That is what is happening in our democracy.

Andrew Percy back in 2017, on something that definitely happened exactly as he describes

From a Lancaster shop window. @davidmorrisml you’re not welcome. #FSM pic.twitter.com/fssUhpOGId

— Michael Gibson (@LancasterIsHome) October 24, 2020

footnote worth the extra money ink

My phone added money to that sentence wtf

That private school video looks like a satirical attack on private schools? I don't really get it.

it appears to be a bunch of rich kids trying to be self-deprecating but instead it’s just another reminder of how completely insufferable and useless rich kids can be

some of the accents are too on the nose to be not-rich kids pretending imo

"A further 174 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported on Saturday, bringing the total to 44,571. There were 224 deaths on Friday."

~500 deaths a day by Xmas? What's the trend with cases?

Yes I think El Tomboto is correct - it's self-deprecating self-celebration, or the like.

remember the hazy lazy days of spring when we were pondering whether the ongoing death toll could just become background noise to the media?

around 200 dead people per day in this country directly attributable to this disease. and then the next day 200 more. and then the next day. and the next. it’s fucking mental!

Sorry SV covers this a bit in the outbreak thread:

"New cases up about 10% on this time last week but hospitalisations up nearly 50%."

Now fair’s fair, credit where credit is due. Well done Andy Burnham https://t.co/XJbsV8VaDB

— Stephen Smith (@SteveNickSmith) October 24, 2020

We're back to arguing about whether pencils and toasters are essential shopping.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/4a27481b1e21d71baa0753942711dc546cb02e12/c=0-21-4379-2495/local/-/media/2017/02/02/USATODAY/USATODAY/636216233907056760-AP-Groundhog-Day.3.jpg

I blame people for arguing back tbh, nobody showing us how you can budget to live on fuck all money is arguing in good faith and I suspect none of them have ever had to do it

pic.twitter.com/LGxjLEHQs9

— Cold War Steve (@Coldwar_Steve) October 24, 2020

this is good!

Welsh government to review ban on sales of non-essentials

who needs tories with friends like Mark Drakeford, seriously what a fucking prick.

a lot of this food poverty doesn't exist discourse used to be "they can't be poor, they've got 44" tv's and smartphones" during the dying days of the Blair era. It isn't really worth replying to them, they are doing a good enough job of showing themselves up as subhuman scum already.

It doesn’t make sense that people can order non-essential stuff online when the in-person iteration of that retailer is shut. They tried the non-essentials thing for about a week in England and ISTR bits of Superdrug (cosmetics etc) getting blocked off. Eventually they had to relent.

as soon as you start to think about it it's pretty hard to draw lines around non-essential. i know back in spring i was probably unsympathetic to unnecessary stores being open but clothes, toiletries, even tech stuff feels pretty essential depending on your circumstances

The example people are citing most is ‘what if my kettle breaks?’ because nobody in the UK can fathom that being on the non-essential list.

kieth's gonna love this

🤔 pic.twitter.com/pNNfEfA1iH

— Dawn Butler MP✊🏾 (@DawnButlerBrent) October 24, 2020

<3