Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

You'd hope for something, I dunno, cleverer than "all schools", really, wouldn't you?

(Not withstanding that schools are already open).

Xpost to Left

What I mean is that although there was crap things, there was that sense that things could actually get better.

Sometimes, anyway.

When I see old hignfy I think “these ppl are the reason everything got so bad”

I mean I don’t ever see old or new hignfy but if I did

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/4/24/1429890434539/5f88a18f-b20b-4a88-8ec7-65ab41ce647b-620x372.jpeg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=0b60efbefd7d4eab84e8e136b8b79802

we thought things could only get better. but this was a fantasy

Exactly.

And now, we doubt they will.

the nostalgia is a really tempting dead end

I used to work with someone who would sing "I got a feeling tonight is going to be a fucking shit night" when that Black Eyed Peas song would come on the radio. He was singing Kieth's Anthem!

The government will simply follow the data which by coincidence is telling them to do what they want to do anyway

When I see old hignfy I think “these ppl are the reason everything got so bad”

― jammy mcnullity (wins), Monday, 22 February 2021 08:45 (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflag

except of course i don't ever see old hignfy except maybe in my nightmares

i see the news wires are buzzing with this story:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/fresh-evidence-prompts-calls-probe-anti-labour-dark-money-groups/

"Fresh evidence prompts calls for probe into anti-Labour 'dark money' groups

Exclusive: Electoral Commission urged to investigate potential coordination between ‘near identical’ campaigns that spent heavily on attack ads without declaring any donations"

For some reason Nick Ferrari says there’s no flag behind Starmer when he addresses the country unlike Tories. “No no that’s wrong actually,” Starmer says

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) February 22, 2021

hahah

thinky_face_emoji

Vaccines Minister now on #BBCBreakfast saying
“On 8 March which is 3 weeks after the middle of April where we will have offered the vaccine to all over 50s we will see schools reopening”

He said the same on #SkyNews@piersmorgan your country needs you! pic.twitter.com/66TGhrFV0I

— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) February 22, 2021

that vaccine minister plan in full

https://media1.giphy.com/media/U7y8XyKuIcYiEeFiFD/200_d.gif

Firm grasp of his brief

Good morning

MarkRobla, 34, placed the carved plaster head on a pike on top of the plinth at St Peter's Hill green at 4am on Sunday, February 21.
https://t.co/BwogvCB46Y

— DPAC Sheffield (@DPACSheffield) February 22, 2021

Turner Prize material imo

'Do you tap dance for the Tories?': Caller challenges Keir Starmer for saying Health Secretary Matt Hancock doesn't need to resign over his delay to publish Covid contracts.#CallKeir | @Keir_Starmer | @NickFerrariLBC pic.twitter.com/U8LnWOLhvJ

— LBC (@LBC) February 22, 2021

dying at this one

this sight of this hapless ham puppet is increasingly upsetting

'everyone hates me so we're probably getting it about right'

they should start making him go to their focus groups and allowing undecided voters to verbally abuse him directly, that might help them get an endorsement from the sun in 2032

Kieth meets his public

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k-P9QVutBk

https://i.imgur.com/7oGCO9z.gif

look, under corbyn, we pleased some of the people most of the time

that was the old politics, and it failed for us in a major way in 2019

now, under my leadership, we're taking a bold step forward

now, we please none of the people all of the time

Kieth is no Roy Castle but he does do lap dances for tories I hear

"I'm getting stick from both sides so I must be doing a good job"

No Kieth that just means it's only a small minority who don't think your a cunt

Keigh did say he wanted to unite the party lol

the drummer for Gay Dad Dodgy has cracked it for Labor, possibly after a few cans

At least I know who's running comms for Kieth now then

not good enough

Starmer Out for the Summer

Every Loser Wins by Nick Berry (the three times loser remix)

If You're Thinking Of Kieth

Starmer Out for the Summer

lol

To ensure this is the last lockdown, restrictions should be eased cautiously.

That's why the Government's "big bang" reopening of all schools on 8 March is totally reckless. Scientists warn it will push the infection rate above 1.

There should be a phased reopening of schools.

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) February 22, 2021

Johnson seems to be getting an easy ride this evening ...

It’s starting to sink in quite how bad the plan is now. Just accepts another 30,000 deaths to start with and then goes from there.

So here're my thoughts on the govt's COVID-19 Response Spring 2021 plan.

This is a cynical bastard's take on the plan. For actual scientific information, please follow @dgurdasani1 @trishgreenhalgh @chrischirp @Dr2NisreenAlwan

Here goes:
(1/12)

— Hisham Ziauddeen (@HZiauddeen) February 23, 2021

- This is not a plan for controlling the pandemic.
- This is a plan for opening up the country, presumably to save the economy, hoping to get life back to normal, placating the COVID sceptics in your party.
(2/12)

— Hisham Ziauddeen (@HZiauddeen) February 23, 2021

I mean, I'm not saying it's an argument against, but the COVID sceptics in his party were up in arms immediately.

i think the only thing that would satisfy a lot of covid sceptics is for us all to be herded into one wetherspoons with a coughing person

without masks

'kill everyone now'

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/408356cf3c1a516ec974cbb25e950e18ac9383b4/0_206_6877_4128/master/6877.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=3f59798acb737f9b81b8b8b512a53725

"No ifs, no buts, no equivocation .."

How low do the infection and sickness levels need to be before there's a tipping point for you guys vs all the other harms?

Is suppression to endemic and flu-like numbers (like we have with um the flu) enough to allow my children to try to rescue their relationships and educations from ruin?

Like I'm not quite cheering for Spoons Coughfest21 yet but this shit is killing people in so many other ways.

I'm sending my big lad back to school a few days after his first vacc on Thursday. But this is a special school with tiny class sizes, so obv completely different type of school. But yes, it is killing people in many other ways.

Fully re-opening schools before teachers aged 50+ are vaccinated and with limited / no modification to class sizes, layout, etc, seems like the most irresponsible thing but idk what a path to 'zero COVID' is meant to look like more broadly. Lockdown for the rest of the year, border closures and travel restrictions for several years, mandatory vaccination, etc? It's not going to be politically tenable to have heavy restrictions in place when more or less every adult who wants a vaccine has had one.

I took my kid to visit a college called Camp Hill where he hopefully will be continuing after he finishes at his current school barring the LA not being complete dicks. But he was very excited at the novelty of a taxi journey after not really going anywhere since last November. But the palpable disappointment when he realised it was just a half hour flying visit did sadden me somewhat.

Like I'm not quite cheering for Spoons Coughfest21 yet but this shit is killing people in so many other ways.

― Major D in QAnon (onimo), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 09:16 (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I agree. what a difference it would have made if vulnerable people had been able to properly self isolate. if employers had not been able to do what they like. if the bbc hadn't cheered on the gutting of the nhs at the last election. if gov had decided to at least temporarily stop gutting the long-term slashing of public health and local authorities and cared enough to engage with the hard work of contact-tracing instead of hoping an app would fix it. basically if anything had been seen as anything other than an opportunity to hand out money to pals of the government or for labour to appeal to a tiny clique of centrist columnists by agreeing with everything the government does.

imagine grants for small businesses and support from local public health officials to make businesses more covid-friendly, proper resources for schools (when the school many of my friends work in reopened during the first lockdown, they still didn't have soap in most of the toilets, this school had student body over 90% BAME in one of the worst affected areas in the country at the time). There are a million ways that efforts could have been made to support people and businesses to engage with better public health measures instead of constantly pitting them against 'normality'

Ultimately the main effort has been to preserve throughout existing labour conditions or if possible make them worse (cf starmer's insistence now that teachers should have to work through their holidays) and consequently the framing of economy v safety has become firmly entrenched into any conversation we might have. In truth there are so many ways we could have approached this, but they would have taken imagination and most importantly threatened existing norms around workers rights and welfare provision. We are not the ones who made it a choice between the economy and safety, this is literally the option that we are presented by the combined incompetence and avarice of this government and their supporters (across media and business)

Booming post

"cf starmer's insistence now that teachers should have to work through their holidays"

this guy needs stringing up