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

Most of us have acknowledged some of the positive experiences of lockdown but I wouldn't raise that in the same post as what Johnson is doing here which without exaggeration is a new depth of wickedness in his evil career. Shaming people into death and/or exploitation ffs.

Wonder whether this is going to rub against companies that now would actually like their employees to stay home as it might save on office costs?

http://www.unknown5.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Carthaginian-Fire-Pits.jpg

One of the biggest sources of my potential return to depression at the moment - I'm OK now but I'm monitoring the warning signs - has been this unseemly rush to ignore any good lessons the lockdown might have offered for society and to return to the most broken of systems as quickly as possible, except with extra background death.

It's likely to enrage parents who have been juggling working from home with full time childcare and home schooling, for one thing. That's a big group.

Austerity let's be honest some people have loved it.

From the same people who brought you “people love benefits they’re having kids just so they can get more benefits they’re making more money than you, get ‘em”

Most of the papers are, via their editorial and columnists, already well into trying to bully and shame the public for not going out and spending more.

work makes you free dead

I suppose part of the issue is that conventional politics and economics are based around the notion that its more valuable to a functioning society for people to be working than not working, and in normal times that's probably true.

It's very difficult for a lot of people to get their heads round the idea that, suddenly, the single biggest contribution a lot of people could be making to society is to stay at home, hence the harrumphing about people 'getting paid by the government to sit at home'.

At some point, as the virus recedes, that will stop being the case - this is all a massive gamble on us having got to that point already.

i think the "value" of people "working" could stand to undergo a lot of analysis - sorry for stupid quotation marks but both of those concepts need heavy reexamination. luckily this opportunity to collectively examine this stuff has gone now and we can resume normal service.

Areas where there is genuine value, where, there's just shit that needs to be done, will come back pretty quickly assuming they ever went away. The conditions or pay won't necessarily be any better, in fact they might be worse, and that's one of the big missed opportunities.

There will also be a lot of structural unemployment as society decides that they just don't need certain things to be done in the same way - a lot of that is going to be white collar work and the ramifications of that haven't really been thought through yet.

tbh i've have loved being furloughed with the caveat that i've also been really worried that the job i hate going to might not exist soon.

this paradigm shift some where predicting in March ain't happening, we might have start killing some of them instead

it has demonstrated to me that even tho i only make just above min wage i'd prob take 55% of my current salary to never work again, but then again i am single, own where i live and p much never go out, which applies to v few people

Another problem for economists is that literally no one fully understands the behaviour of the key variable here, the virus. Not just the extent to which it could spread or persist - and what effect that will have on the economy - but also what the long term health consequences of surviving covid will be for thousands of people, what that will mean for their capacity to work (or do anything else) and the pressure on the NHS in the future.

Probably one of the reasons why Sunak barely mentioned the virus on Wednesday.

I'm pretty sure thousands of previously healthy people now finding it difficult to walk short distances without getting shortness of breath will be a massive boost for the UK's already dire levels of productivity. Boris will be telling them to "man up" no doubt.

there might be a point where Boris stretches this - got a huge working majority, can say what I fucking like - to the point where there is a backlash.

I don't think saying what he fucking likes is about the majority, it's Boris doing the Trump thing of relying on his personal following and his proven ability to get away with stuff other politicians can't get away with.

I've been so calm and peaceful during lockdown, even despite the background noise of constant deaths, my partner's long-term depression getting worse and fears for my job security. I went back to work this week to prepare for re-opening on Monday (thanks for holding off, Sturgeon!) and within an hour I had lost any sense of calmness I'd developed over the past three months. I hate my job but I hadn't realised how much, and actually the prospect of getting paid off and a decent redundancy fills me with joy more than anxiety now. I've also never actually had this much money left over at the end of the month even though my income is reduced - not just because I've been staying in and not doing gigs/clubs/pubs, but even just the little pick-me-ups like a trip to Greggs when I feel too done in to make a lunch the night before. Now we can visit people and I don't feel so isolated, I'm with oscar bravo, I would happily live a minimal and simple life if it meant I never had to deal with the public and a hierarchy of management again.

I've been fine with the lockdown until the last month or so when I've probably been more bored than I've been at any time in my life.

The things I miss most about working are the people I work with and having something to keep me occupied during the daytime.

Wonder whether this is going to rub against companies that now would actually like their employees to stay home as it might save on office costs?

I mean, this is us, but we're not going to pay a blind bit of notice because everyone can work from home, like afaict the whole of the City.

NV otm - one of the depressing things about that "at least Corbyn isn't in charge" piece in the Guardian during the week is the idea of what changes John McDonnell might've been able to jimmy open at this point.

I don't think saying what he fucking likes is about the majority, it's Boris doing the Trump thing of relying on his personal following and his proven ability to get away with stuff other politicians can't get away with.

Yeah, he doesn't think the Boris Field is powered by the majority, as far as he's concerned the Boris Field emanates throughout the universe.

A few friends on Facebook have been talking about how the last month has been the worst - going into lockdown together gave some sense of 'unity', but now that different parts of society are not just pulling in different directions but accelerating, the shearing effects are really getting to them.

To an extent that's been the case all the way through though - going to the supermarket to get the weekly shop in a mask means ignoring that none of the staff have them.

(also there's the weird British-to-the-point-of-Miéville about people going "I'm in a queue, I'm six feet from the people behind and ahead of me, I'm fine, other people are going past all the time but they're not in the queue so they're not a concern" but that's not really relevant)

Enjoyed that cunt being in intensive care, ngl

The only enjoyment we'll be allowed for the next four years till Starmer loses, it's like a little treat.

If only the ventilator had malfunctioned or some pissed off NHS staff accidentally dropped it on his head, multiple times

If Kier got the Rona there would an emergency focus group ready to go into action

He would try to reason with the virus and understand its motivations and why it's been so successful.

... and die accordingly.

I’d love to get paid without having to work, all else being equal, but it’s not exactly like a normal holiday if you can’t go out and do things and you can’t separate the not-working from the ongoing crisis that is killing people. Even the people I know who say they’ve been enjoying the lockdown are upset that they haven’t been able to see family, for instance.

I really hated trying to work from home, I’ve never done it before and my job is like 95% practical lab-based activity anyway, plus my flat is tiny so there was no way to have a separate work & living area. I got on better with my 3 weeks on furlough, but I just didn’t have the concentration for the flat-bound pastimes I really enjoy. In that respect I guess I’m glad to be back at work? Although I’m knackered and stressed and about to be much more knackered and stressed once our busy season starts.

tl;dr foad boris

Yeah Boris can fuck himself imo

EXC 🚨 Keir Starmer has launched a boycott of Facebook in solidarity with Black Lives Matter

Leaked email says Labour backs "complete boycott" because of hate speech on FB, so no paid ads "at all"

Party spent >£1m on FB last year

Call made last week but not publicly announced

— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) July 11, 2020

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EcrIBV3WsAIQyfi?format=jpg&name=medium

oh dear here we go again.

if only this was foreseeable

like as if Tories suddenly started losing sleep over the terrible working conditions they have done so much to stimulate in the last decade and blame it on local pc labour councils and the pigs!

Regulators In this country are so underfunded that an employer can expect to wait 500 years for a minimum wage inspection but, yeah, blame political correctness. https://t.co/epGTuEt5tF

— Aditya Chakrabortty (@chakrabortty) July 11, 2020

Gordon Brown warned allies of Sir Keir Starmer not to appoint Ed Miliband to the shadow cabinet after concluding that he was “unprincipled”, “useless” and had “trashed his achievements”, according to friends of the former prime minister.

Brown cautioned against Miliband’s improbable return to frontline politics earlier this year. His former aide and successor as leader has since been appointed shadow business secretary.

Two sources said Brown’s stance stemmed from Miliband’s decision to distance himself from his mentor’s record during his time as party leader and his failure to speak out against Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

I already knew Broon was a thin skinned churlish bitter bastard, but lol what a doggedly bitter bastard he is!

grim times ahead when Sir Kier is going to be put under pressure by right wing Labour grandees to purge the shadow cabinet of "troublesome lefties" like poor old Ed is considered to be trouble by these horrible grim bastards that aren't happy enough that they got extremely lucrative jobs in top 20 hedge funds after leaving government.

Did anyone find Miliband's return improbable?

Not especially tbh, Stephen Bush pointed out that bringing Miliband back into the fold ensured the headlines for Starmer were 'Miliband' s Back' rather than 'Purge' and it seemed the sort of thing that might conceivably happen even under Corbyn.

Brown kept Miliband in his Cabinet for his entire Premiership so I'd take that with a pinch of salt. "Sources close" to Brown could include some of the worst people in Labour politics who have an axe to grind going back a decade.

Like Gordon Brown?

I've not read that Observer piece on Starmer so I don't know what his favourite colour is. But at least from the pic it looks like he's fixing to be 20 pints ahead, what a normal bloke!

Hmm something tells me Labour are not actually going to cede the entire Facebook playing field to Dominic Cummings for the next four years so let's see what happens here.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/11/competent-likeable-decisive-keir-starmer-beating-boris-johnson-on-all-counts?CMP

This doesn't actually look good for Johnson at all except for the section on the economy. Wonder how that would look if they asked the same questions for Sunak vs Starmer though. (Also I can still see the Tories doing something genuinely deranged like going for Priti Patel next time round).

tbf no-one knows who Annelise Dodds is

Those Starmer numbers just look like honeymoon type numbers to me. And again, yes, it's unlikely Johnson will stay on anyway.

One thing that will drag Starmer down is the kind of in-fighting from the right of the party. RLB today, Red Ed tomorrow, and on it goes. Poor performance at council elections is another potential opportunity for them too.

That's assuming any of those things happen - if Labour do well in local elections (and the conditions might be right for them by then) then the right of the party will have to keep quiet whether they like what's going on or not, or risk looking like the churlish wreckers they are. Depends what happens in any by-elections along the way as well.

Who from the Labour right would they think they could replace him with? I find it hard to imagine a resurgence of interest in Dan Jarvis.

Pretty sure Jarv can do more press-ups than Starmzy.

"Who from the Labour right would they think they could replace him with?"

Doubt they are capable of reflection, which is also why they wouldn't stop either.

Those Starmer numbers just look like honeymoon type numbers to me. And again, yes, it's unlikely Johnson will stay on anyway.

It's almost impossible to imagine Boris serving a full term. "I do like that Keir fellow why I might even consider voting for him thats right!"

the right of the party will have to keep quiet whether they like what's going on or not, or risk looking like the churlish wreckers they are

It's only the difference between overt and covert. Having said that, covert is more difficult due to limited intelligence