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

DIDN’T HAPPEN 🚨 pic.twitter.com/irqLV9Dm8f

— The Trashies (@TheTrashiesUK) June 10, 2020

good work, wish i'd thought of that

schools "catchup" over summer

Breaking News: R Number between 0.7 and 0.9

(ie same as it's been for weeks)

although boris has just said "we've got it right down", to a mere 39,000 new cases a week.

Anecdotally, people are reserving hotel rooms across Europe - and the UK - like it's going out of style.

A bunch of hotel chains are offering flexible booking, which is going to come in handy when more countries put up big NO BRITS signs at the border.

Add Austria to that list

tbh I fear the Southern European countries will be sufficiently shook by the idea of tourism collapsing that they won't leave the brits out

Portugal have already said some come one come all.

.@BethRigby: "What do you now wish you had done differently?"@BorisJohnson: "We're going to have to look back at all of it and learn the lessons we can, but frankly I think a lot of these questions are still premature."

Follow live: https://t.co/4sGQDLLTHi pic.twitter.com/EsO3tghtQR

— SkyNews (@SkyNews) June 10, 2020

Fucking hell this is honestly even worse than it looks in print.

boris in full 🤷‍♂️ mode

What's with all the #ScumMedia replies to that tweet? Is that some coordinated right wing thing?

good replies to this

The madness of censoring shows like Little Britain, by Brendan O’Neillhttps://t.co/e8XCfpzdAJ

— Coffee House (@SpecCoffeeHouse) June 10, 2020

"Cancel culture", that's the new one is it?

[Thread]1/ The hashtag "Scum Media" is trending in the UK as some people rally to defend #DominicCummings. With democracy constantly under attack, it's important to understand attacks on our media. I downloaded around 19000 tweets from 7030 accounts. Some findings 👉 #CumGate pic.twitter.com/InBQ5hBlsu

— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) May 25, 2020

Thought this thread was interesting on #ScumMedia - does seem to be a coordinated thing with a lot of bots involved but also a lot of sincere idiots fuelling it.

Also straight up Nazis but that's par for the course.

Cheers

Boris Johnson has had to go on the telly today and specifically make having sex legal again, and yet Labour are still behind in the polls. Starmer must walk

— LES MONUMENT (@wariotifo) June 10, 2020

yeah the scummedia cloud are mostly bots and people so demented they think the bbc political dept are lefties.

look champ, your mummy and I love each other very much but... pic.twitter.com/kKQWACDU25

— Liam Williams (@funnylad5) June 9, 2020

I had a good laugh at that earlier. As soon as CCHQ cotton on to how ripe the style of PR the Starmzy office puts out for public consumption are for such easy parody and clowning he is so doomed if he is still here for the next election!

already today Boris has used his early lame (or some would have it, forensic) attack lines against the tory govt, it's only gonna get worse for him unless he stops being a pathetic reconstructed tory melt wanker.

it's a race to the bottom with Starmer because no matter what his intentions are, he doesn't explicitly promise much. So the Tories can just go back all that to well look what you lot did towards the creeping privatisation of the NHS etc type arguments, that do actually hold water.

at least when Corbyn was there these arguments were often specious nonsense because he came with different ideas. I'm not saying he was perfect, but he was good enough to make me and many others who previously wouldn't vote, actually vote with some level of enthusiasm. That's all gone now.

I'm a bit drunk rn, but just saying this Starmer fellow is rotten to the core and I saw it early not because I'm Nostradamus with x-ray eyes. But I just simply looked at his short but revealing voting record, his wretched cop-loving, poor-hating DPP record, that's all you needed to see to get the measure of this slimeball.

Some ministers want Boris Johnson to go act against his scientific advisers:

"We want things open as quickly as possible. I don't think some people realise just what this is costing the country, but the PM is listening to the scientific advice.”https://t.co/OaFLbLqgiX

— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) June 10, 2020

LET RLB SPEAK ON HER OWN FUCKING BRIEF YOU CUNTS https://t.co/f33xJJJwM6

— sam (rejokerfied) (@sapphite2) June 10, 2020

disgraceful and fuck off Reeves, I'll never vote for a party that puts an arsehole like you in the shadow cabinet.

The FT story above to be read in conjunction with Stephen Bush:

So far Starmer appears to be succeeding. Most people encountering him for the first time like what they see, and in polls he is beginning to draw level with Boris Johnson. If he continues on this course, he will end the parliamentary year with a decisive lead over the Prime Minister on issues of leadership, competence and trust – political advantages that tend to lead to election victory.

So why aren’t the Conservatives more worried? In part, because the challenges of the pandemic transcend the difficulties created by having a competent and popular Labour leader, and a more effective opposition. But there is also a sense that, as one minister put it, Labour is a “one-man team”. If perceptions of the party are changing, it is because people warm to Starmer and are inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, rather than because they are enthusiastically backing the party as a whole.

Tories might agree that Starmer is doing an excellent job of making the case against Johnson – but they don’t believe he is yet convincing voters that the Conservative Party needs to be thrown out of office. His arguments – against Johnson’s lack of grip and his fundamental unseriousness – all seem like equally good reasons to replace Johnson with his Chancellor, Rishi Sunak.

Sunak perceived, at the same time, the rock-solid voice of stability and the leader of the 'get back to work / school / TK Maxx, you slackers' faction. Something will have to give.

one of the 'save the summer six'!

lets see how much they love deep pockets Sunak when he stops printing money and makes some difficult easy decisions.

Sunak was such a lightweight and RLB was ripping him a new arsehole on the tv debate back in december. Its unbelievable how fast shit rolls uphill these days.

I don't know where the rest of that Bush piece goes but he's right and it leads to a lot of thoughts give the lie to the optics crowd

also possibly to the change can be effected thru parliamentary democracy crowd

"A&E attendances at hospitals in England were down 42% last month compared with a year ago, new figures show. A total of 1.3m attendances were recorded in May 2020, down from 2.2m in May 2019."

People aren't even going to A&E and they aren't going to Primark either, whether 2m distance rule is scrapped or not.

hmmm i seem to remember that time kids' school records were being secretly shared w the home office to deport them (btw this is still happening) ...anyway, @AngelaRayner 's response was... "schools shouldn't take the place of the borders agency" 🧐 https://t.co/wH1dfIPbsV

— gracie mae bradley (@graciemaybe) June 10, 2020

nice response from Rayner there for the benefit of imago who thinks she has been unfairly derided on here!

So the Tory backbenchers are edging ever closer to just publicly saying it and damn the consequences - get out there, get our investments the economy moving again and who cares if a few OAPs die make a sacrifice, you bloody shirkers. Can't wait for Starmer to give them a Stern Look when the distancing rules are bunged in the bin. Expecting the R rate to remain as stubbornly unshiftable as a middle-aged man's paunch.

The Conservatives aren't too worried about Labour because a) they have a hefty majority and no reason to call an election for four and a half years and b) they have other things to worry about right now, and conclude that if they fuck those up badly enough then they are screwed almost regardless of what Labour does. I suspect the thing driving the Sunak line is the (probably accurate) perception that the country is on the verge of an economic catastrophe. But this all seems to be based around the misconception that it's the lockdown itself that is suppressing economic activity, rather than the virus. But I think it's more likely that if they bungle the transition of lockdown then they will end up with a raging public health disaster AND an economic disaster at the same time.

This is interesting as well:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/public-favourability-towards-boris-johnson-continues-fall

In terms of the parties themselves, 44% of Britons now have an unfavourable opinion of the Conservative Party, compared to 39% in May. Now, only a third (33%) are favourable towards the party, down from 36%. Labour numbers are consistent over the past two months having improved following Jeremy Corbyn’s departure as leader. 31% are favourable towards the party and 39% unfavourable. In ‘net favourability’ terms, the Conservative figure of -11 is identical to that seen shortly after last December’s General Election but Labour’s figure of -8 is significantly improved from -27.

But also...

Meanwhile, 46% of Britons are favourable towards Chancellor Rishi Sunak, 19% are unfavourable. 32% are favourable towards Health Secretary Matt Hancock and 38% are unfavourable.

32% for Hancock, fucking hell.

Usual caveats about polling behind unreliable etc etc.

'Trying to stop people dying but not doing so very effectively' vs 'not trying to stop people dying and knocking it out of the park'.

If they just change their KPIs to read 'kill loads of people' they'll be looking at a five-star appraisal at the end of the year.

‘He’s just knocking things out of the park and people can’t stand it’

This audience member says Boris Johnson has done a ‘brilliant job’. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/ut0vZY6hVT

— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) October 17, 2019

"knocking it out of the park"

scarily well did

Question Time 2048 pic.twitter.com/URDFi6VC8C

— Dr. Jennie Bujold🌹🏳️‍🌈 (@JennieBujold) June 10, 2020

lmao

Farage fired from LBC.

silenced by the establishment yet again

thanked for his service

Times or TalkRadio to the rescue perhaps, or he's off to the States for the rest of the year.

throw him in the harbour ffs

UK about to slip into the bronze medal position in the Coronalympics btw, what with Brazil steaming up on the inside and almost topping 40,000 deaths already. I have a feeling plucky Mexico might beat us to the podium over the long run too. #FlatteningTheCurve

India coming through fast as well.