love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

My neighbourhood's WhatsApp group has been fine, but I guess Cambridge is a bit different. Nobody even mentioned Boris.

we had a maybe stereotypical encounter with some irish travellers a couple of years ago. they came to the door and offered to clean and sand the patio, my wife had no idea who they were or what they wanted and said she would ask me. Then the next day they just came and did it, my father-in-law was at home and he speaks no english, he thought they were from the council or something, then they presented him with a bill for £600. I talked to the guy and said I wasn't going to pay it (aside from anything else it's a rented house and I don't have £600 to spare) he was not at all happy but didn't threaten me.

My mum who is Irish herself paid this dodgy lad a small sum to take a few branches off a tree at the front. He had a business card with his mobile number so to her that made him a consummate Pro! One of the branches he carelessly cut took out the neighbour's BT line and before he made a fast exit he was asking if she could give him the card back!

Oh, I remember you saying that at the time (or thereabouts) (if it was you..) it seemed like a dangerous standpoint, but hey I wasn't there. (xpost)

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/11/uk-lockdown-police-apologise-after-man-threatened-with-pepper-spray

More exuberance from the filth

look they only threatened to pepper spray the guy taking food to vulnerable relatives, what more do you expect them to do

"de-arrested" is not a word that tv cops say much

An extensive internal investigation into the way Labour handled antisemitism complaints will not be submitted to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, after an intervention by party lawyers.

The 860-page report, seen by Sky News, concluded factional hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn amongst former senior officials contributed to "a litany of mistakes" that hindered the effective handling of the issue.

The investigation, which was completed in the last month of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, claims to have found "no evidence" of antisemitism complaints being treated differently to other forms of complaint, or of current or former staff being "motivated by antisemitic intent".

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-antisemitism-investigation-will-not-be-sent-to-equality-commission-11972071

Conversations in which the same group refers to Mr. Corbyn's former chief of staff Karie Murphy as "medusa", a "crazy woman" and a "bitch face cow" that would "make a good dartboard"

love to see that "plurality of voices" coming back to the party and the bullying Corbyn era ending.

well if i was in any doubt about cancelling that direct debit before now

Wow. Somehow it's even worse than I thought.

factional hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn amongst former senior officials contributed to "a litany of mistakes" that hindered the effective handling of the issue

this isn't quite the picture Starmer painted at the Jewish hustings during the leadership election.

just heard Nick Thomas-Symonds being interviewed on the radio, he was shit

never apologise, never explain. never give a shit.

― Pliny O'Toole (Noodle Vague), Saturday, April 11, 2020 5:31 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yes, when I heard that crap on the radio i involuntarily shouted out 'so what are you doing about it then, do your fckng job'

"de-arrested" is not a word that tv cops say much

that report is both entirely in detail quite staggering. plenty of wtf examples in the excerpt here:

The whatsapp messages, which the report claims were leaked to the investigation by one of the group's members, show the private conversations of senior party managers & staff in Labour's Southside HQ during the time of Lord McNicol's tenure as general secretary - they reveal: pic.twitter.com/c6BA0xplGL

— Tom Rayner (@RaynerSkyNews) April 11, 2020

Ooft, hadn’t clocked this one - that’s an extremely serious allegation and if there’s evidence for it, it’s very definitely in the public interest for it to be released. pic.twitter.com/gDp5bkhR8b

— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) April 11, 2020

‘now is not the time to ask difficult questions’

*18 months passes*

‘now is not the time to dwell on the past’

The leader of the Labour party, Keir Starmer, has said now is “not the time to ask difficult questions” on whether the government was too slow to act on the coronavirus crisis, but said more scrutiny of decisions is needed.

“I challenge the government hard on this, not just to score a point, but to fix it,” said Starmer on Sophy Ridge on Sunday, adding that challenging questions will need to be asked in future.

“I’m trying to resist calls for apologies or criticising past decisions. I will work with the government on this, we will support them in trying to get this right.”

look asking for accountability of those responsible for the decisions that have killed 10,000 people in the uk in the last few weeks is the old politics

and yes, tens of thousands more will die in the coming weeks, but now more than ever what we need to do is resist the urge to sit on park benches

ah, it's another grand day for ruining ilx

I'm basically a lame placeholder who serves no purpose other than reassuring the establishment everything's cool now - the opposition is gone says Sir Kier. If he fell down a sinkhole and was never seen again who'd fucking notice?

Because how politics works - the leader of the Labour Party asks the tories to be a bit nicer and they listen and act accordingly then everything turns out OK. Real opposition - the adults are back.

The Private Godfrey of Dad's Army Britain.

Meanwhile thousands of people have no money and nothing to eat.

1.5 million according to latest YouGov polling. As in people going a whole day without proper nutrition. Anyone there Kier?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVWtSLEXgAEG-oy?format=jpg&name=medium

this bumpf from last month seems embarrassing now, but much of how the media are dealing with is not going to age well. Constantly spinning a fictional narrative straight from cchq while a thousand are dying a day.

can't blame the government for this stuff calz, it's an act of god

ah, it's another grand day for ruining ilx

FAN SERVICE ENSURES CITIZENSHIP

There is paywalled piece in today's Times where some Cambridge think tank academics are saying if the death rate spirals out of control this could end up breaking up the UK. Starmer might be treading on egg shells but I bet Sturgeon won't be scared of "politicising" the UK government's clown shoes bungling of this pandemic from the start.

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE LESS

Sturgeon is in a different position to Starmer in that she's actually in power rather than in opposition and can make decisions that have a concrete effect. I don't know the extent to which Scottish policy has diverged up to now but if the situation deteriorates north of the border then her name is on it as well.

she did hang the chief medical officer so at least she's tough on lockdowns

she also took the bold step of refusing to suck the fingers of an entire ward of coronavirus patients, unlike boris

going back a bit, no answers for this?

Also, while we are here, and without naming names, why do melts consider Jeremy Corbyn ‘arrogant’? IDGI.

― santa clause four (suzy), Saturday, April 11, 2020 2:41 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i answered

had the unconscionable temerity to be correct for 40 years

it's as simple as "comfortably bourgeois people don't like to be accused of being beastly, don't want to have any money taken off them"

whether Corbs was a bit of an old prig/bore who i'd happily argue with from the left and from intersectional perspectives is a different question, but i'm pretty sure that wasn't the E4 Celebrity Massive's issue with him

sorry yeah i didn’t mean to dismiss your answer. i think you’re right, i think also his not paying sufficient obeisance to the forms of british politics is part of it. there’s an old clip on YouTube of him being interviewed on the topic ‘why are labour politicians from non-elite backgrounds so scruffily dressed?’ which speaks to the question, i mean to say, answers the question

Announcing that you aren't going to hold the UK govt to account takes some arrogance. It's like saying fuck you I wont do what you tell me to do to the membership that elected him.

there’s a marina hyde piece having a go at him about antisemitism which i think kind of elucidated the psychology of people disliking him for me. but i don’t want to go and look for it because it will depress and anger me tbh

It's based on the idea that Corbyn knew deep down that the project was doomed to failure and chose to stay in position anyway knowing that the end result would be a big Tory majority with all the damage that would do.

That reading of things generally didn't survive the 2017 election and has only really been resurrected (gleefully) since December. Its also arrogant to believe that the two big leadership majorities he won were somehow irrelevant in all this but these people rarely display that level of self-examination.

he’s not saying he won’t do it! he says that challenging questions will need to be asked in the future!

*distant sound of a can being kicked over the horizon*

(xp to calz obv)

Also if it hadn't been him then it would have been Andy Burnham who no absolutely no one bothers to talk about in wistful "the Labour PM we could have had" tones.

nah i didn't think you'd dismissed it thom it was just easy to miss :)

like i said, i don't think it's complicated, and personally i think it's easy to spot when somebody is "he rubs me up the wrong way" versus "even the prospect of very tame parliamentary socialism gives me the vapors" and it's invariably been the latter. there were very very very few good faith arguments against Corbyn as leader that acknowledged the underlying acceptance of our current economic settlement. that's why so many of the "critiques" were ad hom, and ad hom extended to treating every one of us happy to see the party shift leftwards as brainwashed personality cultists.

i even wondered on occasion whether physiognomy had something to do with it, but maybe this is no more than thomp's 'scruffily dressed' point.

i have enough dour relentlessly rulebound lefty friends to know how grinding that can be to engage with, but i can honestly say i've never thought about voting Tory just to spite them.

well maybe v occasionally

It's also a way for the Labour Right to deflect their share of the blame. They already react with ostentatious fury to the idea that they may have contributed to this disaster, because their self-image is based on the idea that they were the only ones with the welfare of the party in mind all along.

It's not that different to the FBPE ultras refusal to accept that Brexit intransigence eventually led to a much harder Brexit than we needed to have. Basically it was all the fault of the people you opposed and not your lot.