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

As a chaser, the pharmaceutical industry has written to the government to point out they've used up all their no-deal Brexit stockpiles during the COVID situation and urgently need to know whether there's going to be a trade deal. The government response to date has been that there won't be disruption without one in place but clearly not everyone is buying it.

the Mail is running a story that claims government wants to "reopen" restaurants and pubs before the end of the month, and while i doubt that i don't doubt it enough. story feels like a toe in the water but it's not like they pay public opinion any mind anyway.

On the long read front have been reading this on the Sage deliberations/slow lockdown etc. It says again that one of their early concerns was avoiding a second peak, especially in winter when the NHS can't cope.

https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/coronavirus/2020/06/where-science-went-wrong

At the time the worry about a second peak was also one of their public justifications for pre-23rd soft lockdown. They said they worried that a hard one would hold for about ten weeks and then they wouldn't be able to sustain a second one. Which is now, partly, what has happened. (They probably didn't expect it would be their own govt breaking the lockdown, mind).

So I guess we're heading to the worst of both worlds: a late lockdown with more excess deaths than anyone, to be followed by a potentially worse second spike.

Was actually asking for a friend, so thank you Ed!

Somewhere in the back of their minds is the possibility of becoming the government that cancelled Christmas. If that happens it will be incredibly difficult to rely on the goodwill of anyone other than die-hard Tories and Brexit ultras, and they might need some of that for the gigantic recession and potential No Deal chaos on the way.

So yeah, I doubt the pubs will be open by the end of June but they will definitely reopen in the next few months.

ft has a piece about the 'save the summer six' (including sunak) who want to open the hospitality sector by June 17. they're definitely making big noises even if these are only performative/focus group prompts

When I saw this “save summer six” bollocks I had the same thought that it was a trial balloon but idk it felt like there was a backlash against schools reopening and they just pressed on with it anyway, they’re gonna open all the shops whether it’s safe or not... I kinda feel like if they’re mooting the 22nd it’ll be the 22nd. Mental as that is

yeah no doubt there's a lot of wishful thinking by the media but the government has opened up a propaganda push on this today i think

We won't.

pic.twitter.com/IcMHel4Sbv

— Tiahowler Jon Von Biltawülf (@Biltawulf) June 8, 2020

Wouldn’t surprise me if they base the decision on the weather forecast for that week tbh xp

the Mail is running a story that claims government wants to "reopen" restaurants and pubs before the end of the month,

More specifically they will only open to serving customers outside, from what I've read (elsewhere).

Good luck Britain.

glasgow cc better relax their outdoor drinking by-laws

(tbf ppl already drinking takeaway pints in the local park by me)

Local rumour with absolutely no evidence I've seen from UK or Scot govts (basically 2nd hand info from two friends who are friendly with two publicans) is that pubs with beer gardens will "soon" be able to open in a limited capacity and that other pubs may be allowed to place some tables and chairs on the pavements outside.

They are reopening in Ireland in a v limited capacity so they may have an eye on that, but we don’t have thousands of new infections a day, so.

(xp) Yes, I could see that happening. Then they'll call a snap election and Boris will be elcted Prime Minister for life.

Lockdowns had a dramatic impact on the spread of coronavirus in Europe with strict controls on people’s movements preventing an estimated 3.1m deaths by the beginning of May, with 470,000 deaths averted in the UK alone, researchers say.

yikes

in that case we should definitely open things up in a couple of weeks, what could possibly go wrong

Guy’s a joke.

Edward Colston was responsible for 100,000 people being moved from Africa to the Caribbean as slaves. 20,000 died en route.

The statue shouldn't have been taken down in the way it was. But it should have been removed from our streets a long time ago. pic.twitter.com/1vkhE0khan

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 8, 2020

Thinking about how different things could have been had Labour won the 2019 election. Perhaps some of the 10,000 extra cops could have saved the statue before it went in the drink.

anyone else surprised at quite how badly he's handled this? thought he'd come out with measured, bland statements but w/ this law&order shit it's almost like his most sceptical detractors were right all along

I must say, I didn’t see SV pivoting to “Starmer isn’t that bad” so fast, but 2020.

textbook white moderate bullshit from the haircut

what a cunt

Here’s how you respond to this bullshit btw

Lord Mandelson says people responsible for toppling Edward Colston statue in Bristol should be arrested, says “I find mob rule very disturbing ...that’s the law of the jungle, isn’t it?” But he should recognise that the real barbarism was the slave trade itself #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/z7wAJf3E52

— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) June 8, 2020

Labour’s alignment was lawful neutral all along.

Less 'Starmer isn't that bad' more 'the left of the party did next to nothing other than repeat the same extremely limited law & order mistakes when they had the reins'.

Abbott's signature policy was flooding the street with more police however many epic clapbacks to Mandleson she dishes out.

'the law of the jungle' eh mandy, that's an interesting phrase to use in this context

lol Mandelson helped to enact an illegal war that killed millions of people and led to some statues being pulled down

xxp in the name of compromise to the right, as you well know

if you've got a junk email to feed them, the conservatives would love to hear your opinions on their new immigration bill https://action.conservatives.com/immigration-bill-survey/

They couldn't be more Trump if they tried. Next stop chain emails to Tories saying the woke left wants to stop Boris delivering Brexit and only they can save him by opening their wallets

Mandelson called yesterday ‘the law of the jungle’ did he now?

FUCK OFF

these nice social liberals are so racist

If Starmer had just avoided using the words "completely wrong" he would have got away with it and no one would have noticed but yeah he's misjudged the mood and handled it very badly. Most newspapers aren't going to allow the LOTO space for a nuanced back-and-forth, you get a sentence if you're lucky. The BBC report, when I looked this morning, didn't mention him at all. You can't turn something like this into a political Rorschach test where the gammons see "completely wrong" and go ah yeah that's great while everyone else focuses on "the statue should not have been standing". People are going to see one or the other and it's usually going to be the one you don't want them to focus on.

The question is whether or not they wanted the pandering signal to go out more prominently.

Even if it isn't remotely surprising that the former Director of Public Prosecutions wasn't like "yeah go on, tear them all down".

Wish someone could got it through to the membership what a class A wanker Starmer is back in January.

Most of these dickheads probably knew anyway!

I wonder if someone could gently put it to Labour centrists that if they don't want unelectable lefties winning next time round then preventing a steady drip-drip of instances like this might be helpful.

On a lighter note Derek Draper's still in a coma

Lol I did a Google check on him last week along the lines is Draper dead yet

Farage cosplayer goes IN

A hero has risen. pic.twitter.com/TeFUTkrfOu

— Jack Dawkins (@DawkinsReturns) June 8, 2020

lol, thought that was a Monty Python sketch for a moment

Found the best take

If we start to judge historical figures by 21st century standards, we'll find that quiet a few folks weren't that nice... Almost as if they didn't know any better 🤔

— Ben Bradley MP (@BBradley_Mans) June 7, 2020

"They didn't know any better". In the 17c. The era of constant debate about political and religious freedoms, of bible reading, of mass economic change and theory, of deliberately mendacious religious and racial excuses for slavery. Didn't know any better.

look who are we to say that owning people was not, in fact, the right thing to do in olden times

I was thinking that you have to be a completely ignorant moron to think such a thing about slavery, have zero understanding of the dynamics and extreme exploitative tendencies of early modern capitalism, zero knowledge of that history - but then, it's a Tory innit. If they know, they are lying about it. It's part of the upsurge of "the west did nothing wrong/we were all innocent of injustice then" of the last decade, Douglas Murray etc. This mindset is real, and you know that Tories are all saying it in their homes. Just that this one said it out loud.

These people aren't interested in talking about slavery, they're interested in defining themselves in relation to the other people who are talking about slavery.

Ben Bradley is so dumb I'd be amazed to see him write his own name

Look we cannot judge people from ye olden days and we should show that we are not judging them by the neutral act of keeping statues of them

Look if we start judging Tory MPs by 21st century standards, where is this all going to end?

The fuck, he was born in 1989? I feel very strongly that there should not be sitting Tory MPs who are the same age as Taylor Swift and Gareth Bale.

Maybe not so bad if they are brainy boffin high flyer types like Wilson was in his early thirties, but this lad is thick as pigs hit!