Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

well at least he's quite clear-headed and principled on the big Zoos in January question, got to be thankful for this gift to us!

58 000+ new cases today. gulp .. I'm sure I heard Spiegelhalter say you divide the new cases number by 50 to get an approximate number of the deaths within 3 weeks

That conversion will depend on a few things though, I imagine you can raise the numbers a bit if the hospitals are full.

It’s been said earlier and better by better people than Rafael Behr

Fuckit then - give me three? And while you're at it, what the malign power that Rafael Behr's been wielding to push the country into this state?

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 4 January 2021 bookmarkflaglink

If Rebecca Long-Bailey had been allowed in her job as Shadow Ed Secretary, for one?

NEW: @Keir_Starmer tells me all schools in England SHOULD close as part of a new national lockdown.

"National restrictions need to come into place as soon as possible and tragically, school closures have to be a part of that." @ITVNewsPolitics

— Daniel Hewitt (@DanielHewittITV) January 4, 2021

lol he's such a ridiculous cunt I don't know how he doesn't die of embarrassment

When I think of tragic I think of, for example, the death figures.

get fucked keir starmer

Corbyn would've been calling this for weeks. Starmer is doing this an hour after Sturgeon and Johnson pretty much announce it.

its just like an episode of the thick of it!

Only this morning Shadow Education Secretary Kate Green said the Labour-proposed lockdown would “try to get this virus under control and to keep children in class”.

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) January 4, 2021

"Only 100 people opposed the 2nd lockdown, but all of them had columns in the Barclay Brothers press" https://t.co/FR7mHWBAPp

— Will Davies (@davies_will) January 4, 2021

Corbyn would've been calling this for weeks. Starmer is doing this an hour after Sturgeon and Johnson pretty much announce it.

Behr just thinks Corbyn is a senile old fool with shit dress sense and would've written the precise opposite of the column pulled out today.

He’s so BAD at this

"It is inevitable that schools will have to close."@SamCoatesSky asks Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer his position on shutting schools. He says school closures need to be part of "a national plan".

Read more: https://t.co/EsS5xy4W0v pic.twitter.com/qUhm6Rg5DK

— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 4, 2021

its so depressing that guardian types (without style) have such a depressingly shallow sense of politics that conflates aesthetics and content in such puerile ways. the gall of a publication with a fashion section as dire as the theguardian.com criticising anyone for their appearance is beyond daft. scruffy jeremy corbyn didn't read our ten best mens cardigans feature.

in the counterfactual "what if corbyn as still leader of the opposition" ( a very meaningless and beyond unlikely counterfactual of course) all the awful libs who do care about COVID and want more done about it would've somehow managed to pillory him for being to pro-lockdown

Yeah, cunt chicken as you’ve never seen it. “Jeremt Cromtb doesn’t want YOUR children to get an education!!!!”

Crobyn or somebody else, it's hard to imagine anybody fucking this as badly as Kieth.

he makes the Maybot look like a dynamo

Presumably the terrible PR is also down to the people he's got around him but I assume they're his appointees. Fucking Campbell must be spinning in his grave

if only

Forever dead in my heart

xps

tbh the guardian types (readers not writers) in my acquaintance are mostly maintaining an embarrassed silence over starmer these days after initial cautious optimism (ironically or not the same trajectory they went on with corbyn but way quicker)

look if corbyn was somehow PM or still leader of HMMLO last year he would have been deposed almost immediately over his covid response regardless of what it was. Labour MPs, Tories & others would deliberatly sabotage any effort, helping spread the disease which the entire media (guardian and all) would happily blame on Corbyn and the left in general. tell me that's not believable as counterfactuals go

this is super sad - people with downs are one of the most at risk groups out there:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/04/husband-from-uks-first-downs-syndrome-marriage-dies-of-covid

City lost €6bn of trades today.

EU share trading flees London on first day after full Brexithttps://t.co/ZcLV0j4Lkz pic.twitter.com/AT8S7xF7n4

— Katie Martin (@katie_martin_fx) January 4, 2021

Worth it

First day of the transfer window

My brother works in a school & spent all day today trying to figure out how to administer covid tests to entire year groups. He’s convinced that the reason govt waited until today to announce closure is so that they can be shanghaied into operating as test centres now that they’ve been sent all the kits & been “trained”

Han was sent home at lunchtime because of not having test kits available or something

Very light on details here apart from schools.

this fucking cunt is hopeless

everyone over 70 vaccinated by mid-feb is absolute fantasy, get fucked boris

Well, the number of people over 70 left to vaccinate will get exponentially smaller each week so they just might do it

What happened? Just checked the tl and it was just people calling Johnson a cunt

He has an announced a new lockdown into February, closing all schools. Everyone to stay at home. But 0 details on closure orders/financial support

no mention of universities either

also he justified opening schools for just one day because every day of education is valuable

and then kieth said he'd done the right thing

This thread is the nearest thing I can find to the documented changes:

An immediate stay at home order. You can only leave home for:
1. Work, if impossible to WFH (eg critical worker or construction)
2. Shop for food or medicine
3. Exercise, once per day and only locally
4. To help vulnerable people
5. For medical appointments or fleeing harm

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) January 4, 2021

kieth: "it's inevitable that some schools will have to close in this situation... I am not calling for schools to close."

What do you do in this situation pic.twitter.com/pRQA29g46W

— 👽Arobzz👽 (8-8) (@Arobzz_) December 2, 2020

In a round of broadcast interviews ahead of the Prime Minister’s address to the nation on Monday night, Sir Keir said a March-style lockdown was needed, with a tougher “stay-at-home” message.

ITV News Political Correspondent Dan Hewitt reports that Sir Keir Starmer wants a national lockdown like November, not March, with the national 'Stay At Home' message brought back.

Fuck I don't know if I'm a critical worker or indeed what the fuck's happening

Me neither but come now we were discussing covid etc

Anything missing, Starmer is asked.

Golden opportunity to talk about proper money to support people isolating / unable to work

He says nothing missing

He is a waste of space

— CarolineJMolloy (@carolinejmolloy) January 4, 2021

Boris looks like he's got a shiner (left, his right, eye)

Kieth will have to get one as well now!

Lord save me from parent whatsapp group lol alcohol chat

oh and covid pls lord

ha are we in the same group kinder

the crap memes, oh god