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

i hate to be a wet blanket but since most people who die of it die about 4-6 weeks after getting it, doesn’t that great statistic indicate that whatever we decided to do about 4-6 weeks ago REALLY FUCKING WORKED?

I guarantee there will be further death spikes incoming that will be proved by future epidemiologists to have a strong correlation with confusing dumb as fuck govt messaging that led to VE day rope congas, multi-generational picnics, tennis lessons, much complacency etc..

Yvette Cooper is such a vile tory oxygen thief. What are you supposed to do with dogshit elements within the PLP who think Starmer is too left wing! I give up.

Every time Blair is conjured out of the ether to, for example, tell the nation that schools should re-open on the 1st of June, i wonder who's paying him and whether it's just the formal donors to the Institute for Global Change (US State Dept, Pinchuk, KSA, etc) or there are more direct inducements.

Technical difficulties explain some failures to vote. But I also understand that five MPs contacted whips to say they were going to abstain as voting against immigration bill will "put further holes in the red wall"

— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) May 19, 2020

This "air bridges" thing makes me froth, after careful consideration we'll consider which of the less sickly continentals we might let in, surely they'll be happy to reciprocate?

They are giving her free reign on
-family reunion rights
-who will be entitled to apply for what kind of permanent settlement & after how long
-the entire asylum system
-the future of immigration detention
-NHS visas
-trafficking victims

All without seeing so much as a sketch.

— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) May 19, 2020

Beyond the few Lab MPs chasing shadows this was always going to pass and Patel would never get a 40 seat rebellion even if all the Draconian legislation came up in Parliament in its gory detail. There are far too many racists in this country.

there is already is a gaping hole in that red wall and it is called Sir Kier Starmer. With the current parliamentary maths it only would have been a symbolic vote against the immigration bill, if they can't even do that they should go join Ukip or the tories, where the cunts belong.

I'm actually surprised that flight from Greece of 50 vulnerable people to be reunited with family already here was allowed the other week. Maybe she just didn't notice.

Can someone from @BBCNewsPR @BBCNews explain the difference in reporting and tone? Not that I’m advocating Muslims break lockdown rules but why the double standards? pic.twitter.com/lal5QBfmq8

— The Trashies (@TheTrashiesUK) May 19, 2020

UK's state broadcaster in racist double standards shocker.

Full steam ahead. Immigration yesterday, the size of parliament now.

https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/your-vote-matters-wherever-it-is-cast-in-the-uk

they can gerrymander all they want but aren't we trying to have faith that the house of cards is falling in on the tories

I'm fully prepared for one of those 'Cassius Longinus first said this in AD 230' gambits when it comes to metaphors for the failing Tory party. This lot are going to be around forever.

Wonder if the clash with teacher's unions will form the basis for anti-union legislation..

If they're competent, this is an opportunity to completely shift the nature of British democracy and put the Singapore-with-lousy-weather plan into place for real. You need largess in public housing, great infrastructure and a relatively low cost of living to compensate for the gutting of workers' rights. etc. With almost unlimited capacity to borrow and a massive labour pool, they're never going to be in a better position to construct an appropriate carrot to go along with the stick. I'm not sure they've got the vision or ability to deliver it, though.

competent you say?

cabinet ministers trying to shift blame onto the scientific advisers today, you love to see it from the safety of quarantine

Wonder if the clash with teacher's unions will form the basis for anti-union legislation..

They'll be milking it for all its worth, for sure.

Yes, and I noticed the A Scientist Did It And Ran Away message this morning.

let's hope they haven't been stockpiling teachers

I'm not sure that Tory MPs are exactly united behind that vision either, there are still substantial numbers of fiscal conservatives on the benches to whom that would be anathema.

Tory incompetence is a good opportunity for the Labour movement.

If they are competent.

Someone, somewhere, be competent please!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQj1PzTUwAAz7iV.jpg

I think SV has accurately described what Cummings is going for, and perhaps Johnson as well with this "low-tax, One Nation conservatism" thing. It feeds into what I was saying last week about an emerging tendency on the right, distinct from the Osbourne approach. On the other hand I'd be sceptical that, say, the Treasury-as-institution is especially onboard with the idea of almost limitless capacity to borrow and that's a whole other battle.

I'm not sure that the Tories are really going to build lots of public housing. They might even fuck up infrastructure.

This is probably a decent guide to what is planned. This Liam Booth-Smith guy was the CEO of a think-tank that has coined the (horrible) term 'neo-localism' and this appears to involve a load of Tory MPs. It may not be social housing in the way that we have typically understood it but they are absolutely going to try and split the Labour vote on lower-cost housing, particularly outside big cities.

Covid-19 has probably derailed this now but the new Tory 'project' has for some time looked like an exercise in utopia-building that is highly exclusionary to certain groups of people - specifically those born outside the UK but probably other groups as well - and with workers' rights shredded.

love 2 live in an ethnogulag

Another way of looking at is it that New Labour used architecture, development and 'public' (in reality mostly privatised-public) space as a way of convincing people that inner cities were visibly improving and voters could see what a great job they were doing - but it was focused on commercial/retail space and other areas like arts funding. Housing, or at least public housing, was largely ignored.

I suspect the intention here is similar but for TOWNS and with much greater attention paid to housing priorities. But that's going to set up areas of confrontation with more straightforward Thatcherites, of which there are still many.

Thanks, Matt - I can't read the FT link but the second one gives me an idea of what is in the plans.

just google search "Cummings picks housing expert to head Downing Street joint unit" and then you can read it!

Thanks!

The think tank page is probably more enlightening really but there's also a large amount of vague waffle in there.

shelter have a good graph on new home building over the years (under section 2)
https://england.shelter.org.uk/support_us/campaigns/a_vision_for_social_housing

back to the 70s is it

Cherry picking the worst elements of an authoratarian low wage low workers rights city state for a population of 64 million always sounded so sinister, like when when May used to allude to it I used to think you aren't meant to say this stuff aloud until you've made it sound a bit more palatable!

death toll 545 today. these are people who got symptoms about six-ish weeks ago, right? on average. so in the height of the lockdown mentality. i’d guess we could continue seeing a slight drift downward over the next few weeks. and then in about a month an edging up again. unless there’s something i’m missing?

Six weeks is a long time, it could be 3-4 weeks from the point of infection. It does depend on how widespread the virus is right now compared to the height of the lockdown, as well as just before it. I would be surprised if it was more prevalent but that doesn't mean idiots won't start spreading it again - I went out for a walk for the first time in maybe a fortnight and there were massive groups of people hanging out and not observing distancing at all. (I also really hope the group I saw huffing nitrous balloons had filled them themselves).

I'd be interested to know how many of those 545 people were physically going out to work during the lockdown. People were required to pour onto the few trains and tubes remaining even in late March and early April.

the local garage opened its doors again this week. I'm not even sure if the owner furloughed his workers or just took the decision to shut the doors for a month at the peak because mechanics are in the key worker category I think. For selfish reasons I'm glad it is open again because the building has a period charm to it and it is so well organised with a neat row of bays all signposted like: "prep bay" "spray shop" etc.. when walk past it every morning it gives me a happy feeling and Suzy would be impressed the owner has a beautiful pet whippet that is sometimes sat on the forecourt. I have seen mixed groups in the park again, children getting coached at the tennis club every night. This govt puts out muddled messaging people just start carrying on as per. there is definitely going to be a big second spike - probably not as bad as from the herd immunity period but probably worse than anywhere else in Europe at this rate.

yeah matt you're right. at least according to this the average time to death is 18.5 days. add in the reporting lag and it's about 3-4 weeks i guess.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/12/coronavirus-kills-average-185-days/

Honestly as long as you don't get too close to another person the chances of catching it in the park seem to be pretty low? Certainly less than you would at work/on your commute/in the pub/on the way to a massive sporting event in another part of the country. Most of what is happening now isn't even going to come close to those petri dish weeks in March.

Looks like schools won't be reopening after all after a mutiny by councils.

BREAKING: Courts to open once more to hear eviction hearings on 29th June, solicitors are told. https://t.co/Z0D80a6mIR

— LandlordZONE (@LandlordZONE) May 19, 2020

I got a letter from my school today which basically said, we're being asked to prepare for this, but we won't be ready by 1 June; when we are ready it will be super weird; your kid won't be with his usual classmates; he'll be in a 'bubble group' of 10 children; will you be sending your child in whenever we do open the gates? A bit thumb-on-the-scale there - they clearly don't want it. I still haven't answered because frankly I don't mind - he's already had it so he's safe. But I feel like saying "no" just to stand with the teachers.

It seems to be moving towards a position of the local councils deciding whether to reopen or not. I’d imagine some still will but idk how many will want to take responsibility on behalf of the government.

TH that’s what we told ours - we are OK with sending him so long as the staff are happy with the situation because we’re concerned for their safety.

with my son it's a case if he goes back the danger goes both ways. Social distancing is impossible in a whole autism school, even with smaller classrooms. And it isn't just the teacher's that need shielding, if you are non-verbal and autistic in a hospital with covid 19 symptoms, your odds of getting sectioned or put to the back of the queue if you need emergency ICU and basically ending up dead are much much higher than if you are a neurotypical patient.

I'm not convinced the government has given any thought at all to how it would work logistically.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/19/extra-uk-bank-holiday-could-help-remedy-37bn-coronavirus-loss-to-tourism-mps-told

October? Should happen just in time for the third spike of infections! Not to mention the pissy rain season coming in.

John Major mooted a holiday in October, but he wanted to replace May Day bank holiday, the socialist one, with some kind of patriotic thing, Trafalgar Day.

We should make Thatcher’s birthday (Oct 13th) a permanent national holiday.

The fact that it’s also my birthday is just a coincidence.