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

not sure the Tory party could pull another leader out of its arse with the same appeal to the right cross-section of idiots in the electorate

this

Supposedly that Vernon piece is feminist irony.

All forms of this Rishi fandom is excruciating nonsense, there is some bizarre projection going on that won't age well. Can't wait until people start blaming him for the crash and they want his broken corpse strung up from a lampost

Things that are happening over the next five years:

- Recession with a potential depression, depending on how the Tories manage it

- Brexit, with a potential break up of the UK and further depletion of GDP

- with an option of a climate event.

I think saying the Tories will get away with it is something understandable given the last few years, but that can also be called naive.

Not naivety, just thinking with the press actively working to hush up bad stories and hyperfocus on the opposition, any old cunt could do what they liked and get away with it, and thus far that’s been the case.

That's a perennial state of affairs and it will happen again with Starmer. The government doesn't necessarily benefit if it's sufficiently discredited in the eyes of the electorate though (and if the public doesn't give enough of a shit about the stories themselves). We're a way off that yet and there are more than enough people in the country who fundamentally want what the Tories are offering.

Alphie your post is slightly playing down the ability of the right to make hay out of a crisis though. The Tories probably see a disputed Scottish referendum as an opportunity for one thing - the very fact of holding it would be disputed in court and it gives the Tories the opportunity to look like defenders of the union while placing Labour in an incredibly difficult position.

We're not talking any old cunt here, we're talking Boris Johnson, who really does get away with stuff that no other UK politician can get away with.

I remember this. I also remember how this same Labour MP instigated a racist pile on because I dared to do some material about her at a Stand Up 4 Labour gig. Assisted by Stella Creasy and Guido Fawkes. https://t.co/eoFxxfJb8a

— No such thing as BAME 🇩🇲🇧🇧#FatAndRound (@thetwerkinggirl) July 19, 2020

Jess Phillips' and other Labour arseholes like Creasy's conscious bias towards a fellow black MP

well Stella's conscious bias towards a black comedian, but fuck all these arseholes!

Bunch of failed human beings! 🤮

I blame the parents. If we look at their backgrounds I expect we’ll see parents who’ve passed their rearing to anyone else except themselves.

I think we should ask their parents what they think of their children’s behaviour. Are they proud?

— #PeopleB4Privilege #BLM #IStandWithChrisWilliamson (@2010somerset) July 20, 2020

This country's in a really fucking weird state.

crank left got to keep cranking

personally wouldn't stand too close to that fellow, bet his farts are rank!

bobby pesto: "are you feeling quite scared over there?"

wtf

As an impression, it's actually not that bad.

But a dreadful, dreadful scene that shows what utter bastards they all are.

Not naivety, just thinking with the press actively working to hush up bad stories and hyperfocus on the opposition, any old cunt could do what they liked and get away with it, and thus far that’s been the case.

― scampos mentis (gyac), Sunday, 19 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Well as I said covid has been covered by low borrowing rates to shore up unemployment, and also tell me of another government that is in serious trouble because of its actions on covid? I'd struggle to find any resignations of top cabinet officials. There is a very good piece in The New Republic talking about how governors and Mayors across the states haven't even said sorry or resigned over the mountain of cases and deaths.

He will be PM pic.twitter.com/Ahjnw3Z9FE

— Cllr Shepzy (@tshep42) July 19, 2020

One for Calzino.

a parody account, surely?

the whiners will vote Lab anyway

what's his scotland strategy

Not to care because a Lab govt is probably the only route to a second IndyRef, I guess.

@centrist phone loves starmer and is the leading Labour Right crank of twitter, joke account!

Big 'hates the left far more than the right' energy from the moderate "Doctor"'s twitfeed

It's it interesting how the exact same people on Left Twitter who supported Corbyn's policy of funding 10,000 extra police, are now angry because Starmer doesn't support defunding the police.

HE GOT US HE

I voted for pigs, deal with it!

my contention that the centrist phone is an intelligence-services psyop remains otm

i hated Crombyrne, i was only in it for the extra pigs tbh

i assume Cllr Shepzy is the parody account btw

no-one with a voice like that is ever going to be pm anyway, the British constitution says: kermit voiced melt, you aren't going through the door, dickhead!

The number of cops is irrelevant if they can’t solve burglaries but are all over black teenagers as busywork.

Not naivety, just thinking with the press actively working to hush up bad stories and hyperfocus on the opposition, any old cunt could do what they liked and get away with it, and thus far that’s been the case.

― scampos mentis (gyac), Sunday, 19 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Well as I said covid has been covered by low borrowing rates to shore up unemployment, and also tell me of another government that is in serious trouble because of its actions on covid? I'd struggle to find any resignations of top cabinet officials. There is a very good piece in The New Republic talking about how governors and Mayors across the states haven't even said sorry or resigned over the mountain of cases and deaths.

I think Cllr Shepzy is real.

lord help us

gyac - If "It’s yet to really play out" in a country with a bad handling then I'd say the same for the UK, which has been a half-way house in its handling, as in it has borrowed a lot to keep the show on the road but it's obviously far more tailored to big business and property owners.

We've seen tens of thousands of lay-offs in the last three weeks, and protection from eviction lapses in a month.

fairly stinging assessment of the UK's performance during the crisis on A1 of the NYTimes

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/world/europe/coronavirus-mistakes-france-uk-italy.html

"Alphie your post is slightly playing down the ability of the right to make hay out of a crisis though."

Oh yes...well, I think we might all be underplaying the other crises we could find ourselves in though.

I often think of the generation that vote Tory do so because they've done well out if the system that has come into being (and social democracy is as much part of that as post-Thatcher capitalism). But if the crisis being engineered make us all poorer then I'm not sure the property class will indulge in pro-union backing when a lot of other things are falling apart.

Lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to vote Tory these days. Pains me to say so.

Labour have no little to offer to a lot of the lower social economic groups now. But it needs breaking down, poor BAME groups would vote Lab, as would many young, educated but also in precarious positions.

By the time the next election comes along there could be some serious shift for a lot of socioeconomic groups.

For sure.

and also tell me of another government that is in serious trouble because of its actions on covid?

Brazil 100%, US possibly.

get Modi as well and that's the four horsemen

AMLO not doing particularly well out of it either.

Bolsonaro didn't replace the sacked health minister, the choice insider quote about dealing with C-19 in Brazil sounded a bit like they are copying the UK: "this is like fixing an aircraft while it is flying".

Serbia, Israel.

No governments have fallen in India, Brazil or the US so far -- the trouble is purely from a polling perspective, so far...and my understanding is that Netanyahu was saved by the covid crisis?

Prove me wrong covid, kill Bolsanaro.

I think there's still rally-round-the-flag effect even in hard-hit places, it's hard to price that in. When the dust settles it's going to be whether the most incompetent govts can successfully play it off as "we did our best in the toughest times" or if they can't get the stain off.

Wasn't the Mexican President being almost as dismissive about it as Bolsanaro at one point?

...and my understanding is that Netanyahu was saved by the covid crisis?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-jerusalem-and-tel-aviv-thousands-rail-against-netanyahu-covid-19-polices/

I don't know how reactionary Dr Moderate Phone is - but it's tiresome that his (?) analysis = to look at polls and say 'Starmer's doing well', as if it's KS's own achievement rather than a reflection of the political conditions that exist for KS - or, by comparison, JC, for whom politics was mainly set up to stop him 'doing well', whatever he did.

Dr M might as well look at polls and say that the current government is doing well. That wouldn't tell you much about what they're actually ... *doing*.

The phase 1/2 Oxford COVID-19 vaccine trial is now published. The vaccine is safe, well-tolerated, and immunogenic. Congratulations to Pedro Folegatti and colleagues. These results are extremely encouraging. https://t.co/oQp2eoZYIg

— richard horton (@richardhorton1) July 20, 2020

No governments have fallen in India, Brazil or the US so far

You said "serious trouble", not "dispensed with altogether". I think it's reasonable to say Bolsonaro is in serious trouble, certainly compared to Boris.

Don't get the sense that Bolsanaro will be impeached.