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

one aspect of the selective easing of lockdown is that its remained most stringent in restricting any non-commercial form of social gathering, you can't have a big birthday party in your house, but you could have 30 people round to the pub no bother.

― plax (ico), Monday, 31 August 2020 08:35 (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Currently working out which beloved friends and family don't make the final 15 from 4 households in my garden for my son's 21st and hoping the weather isn't shit.

Meanwhile the local Spoons will be as chocka as pretend social distancing allows.

(also fully aware half of the country doesn't even have a garden in which to put up a shitty last minute ebay gazebo)

Cursed paragraphs

ANDREW NEIL lost it on Monday’s edition of This Morning as he weighed in on the controversy surrounding an image singer Adele posted of herself marking Notting Hill Carnival celebrations at home this weekend.

yeah i thought she looked like Katy Perry too Andrew

Try Glasgow less then

Also in Scotch news

EXC: James Kelly quits Scottish Labour shadow cabinet and calls on Richard Leonard to resignhttps://t.co/cNPfUrquyw

— Paul Hutcheon (@paulhutcheon) September 1, 2020

I know, I know, reading PMQs in the Guardian isn't self-care, but the state of this.

Sir Keir Starmer also pays his condolences to the rail crash victims. And he pays tribute to John Hume, the former SDLP leader who died during the recess.

Turing to the A level grade debacle, he asks when the PM first knew there was a problem with the algorithm.

Johnson says he and Gavin Williamson understand how difficult it has been for parents and pupils.

He says the government did act. Students know have their grades. Will Starmer congratulate those students?

Starmer says he has already congratulated students. But Johnson ignored the question, either because he did not know, or because he did know and did nothing. So when did he know?

Johnson says Ofqual said the system was robust. He accuses Starmer of undermining confidence. He says Labour still does not support children going back to school. Will Starmer say schools are safe?

Starmer says Johnson has a tin ear. He says Labour has said it wants pupils back. Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, said so in the Commons yesterday. The government has no grip. That’s right, isn’t it?

Johnson says Starmer wanted to stay in the EU. He backed an IRA-condoning Labour leader.

Johnson condones the Internet Research Agency does he not

Hasn't he got an ex-IRA as an MP?

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/02/cummings-recruit-sacked-after-suggesting-police-use-live-rounds-on-blm-protesters?

Love 2 disrupt the establishment

The lady is not for turning.

Far be it from me to except a compassionate response to Mercy Beguma's death from the Secretary for Work and Pensions but this response really is only possible if your job is to be an administrator of evil pic.twitter.com/pR4EgfGHI9

— Wail Qasim (@WailQ) September 2, 2020

Astonishing. Even in 2020, even with this government, that's just an astonishing response.

Not even got it in her to spout fake standard garbage "any death is tragic ... lessons to be learned to make sure this doesn't happen again ... thoughts and/or prayers etc"

Thank you Andrew Bowie

I regularly get asked as Conservative Vice Chair for Youth if 'Social Media' might put people off getting into politics.

Last night I posted a picture of my dinner, a plate of fish and chips.

These are a selection of the responses. pic.twitter.com/EE6QBjNCmv

— Andrew Bowie MP (@AndrewBowie_MP) September 2, 2020

love playing jenga with 4 frozen chips from jack fultons because I'm a tory cunt.

Dunno how he got all those responses to a tweet that he restricted responses on.

If it's any consolation you could easily become a 5 chip twat by eating one of the chips 👍

— James Felton (@JimMFelton) September 2, 2020

Hold the phone, I've just thought of a way you could become a 4 chip twat

— James Felton (@JimMFelton) September 2, 2020

Absolutely under no circumstances did he get his assistant to make these up so he could throw his hands up in outrage.

If they were real someone might have mentioned his use of emojis because wow.

basically it's this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29SslXv_Ja8

Oh dear lord I didn't realise that what I really needed this morning was the knowledge that this guy I had never previously heard of is going to be called Scottish Tory 6 Chips Twat for the rest of his political life and it's entirely self-inflicted.

meanwhile Hat Mancock acquits himself beautifully when faced with the woke fascism of, um, Kay Burley

“Tony Abbott is a homophobe and a misogynist”

Health Sec @MattHancock: “He’s also an expert on trade”#KayBurley

JM pic.twitter.com/92IFWVcDYH

— Kay Burley (@KayBurley) September 3, 2020

oh mattpaws

Is Tony Abbott an expert on trade?

I thought Liam Fox was our expert on trade.

@josiahmortimer

In London, I was directed to a Covid testing site over 40 miles away. With no car, it was a non-starter

So I booked a testing kit. Which arrived too late for it to be usable

Visited Paris a couple of months ago - they have walk-in testing sites on the banks of the Seine. Why do we not have walk-in centres across the UK??

Seems like the replies are real xps

Spent the evening talking fish? Only one option for dinner 😏🐟 #seaofopportunity #britishfishandchips pic.twitter.com/SeMrb7cb2w

— Andrew Bowie MP (@AndrewBowie_MP) September 1, 2020

Try again

I only see two replies from people he follows and I can't reply

Why do we not have walk-in centres across the UK??

First one opened in Scotland last week with another 21 to follow.

You need to look at the 'Retweets with comments" xp

Scottish Tory 6 chip twat https://t.co/OjBijjDAMt

— Aaron Harvey (@whitelined) September 2, 2020

He's talking about the times when he was subtweeted. Sadly 'Scottish Tory 6 Chips Twat' is real, which has ruined everything.

Meanwhile Hitler, Fred West, Dr Harold Shipman and Jimmy Saville are all trending at once and they're all going back to that Matt Hancock interview.

If I was working in Westminster at this time and fancied fish and chips, I would simply go to the Laughing Halibut* on Strutton Ground rather than the six-chip silverware version you get in the subsidised HoC restaurants.

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/19/6f/1a/ca/the-laughing-halibut.jpg

*I just broke out in a cold sweat wondering if it had closed; it has not. Phew!

That does look good and with one or two exceptions I'm a fully paid up member of the 'London fish and chips is shit' club.

Even then it does still astonish me how awful the immediate Westminster area (as opposed to Westminster borough) is for restaurants. Given the concentration of highly paid MPs in the area you'd assume they'd be amazing but it's a desert.

the mps have their own secret restaurants where they feast on the souls of the poor iirc

xp it’s dire, Strutton Ground is where a lot of people go (i learned about the chipshop from reading an old D Miliband interview- it’s near the foreign office so they used to get their fish and chips from there). There are only so many good places, Farage has been sighted in all my former favourites. 😞

There seems to be nothing other than sandwich shops and absolutely bog standard pub food which I suspect says a lot about the tastes or working patterns of our political class.

I mean most ministries have a heavily subsidised canteen as well I guess.

Re: that secretary of work and pensions statement - I helped a friend try to get the HO support she mentions. We were on hold for 40 minutes and after we got through there was no follow up for months. Going through that channel would hardly have prevented starvation.

Yeah in some ways the Burley line of compassion isn't great, what about breaking down how difficult it can be to get help in the first place? All very easy to deflect when you have someone like Coffey.

Here is Hancock today.

“Tony Abbott is a homophobe and a misogynist”

Health Sec @MattHancock: “He’s also an expert on trade”#KayBurley

JM pic.twitter.com/92IFWVcDYH

— Kay Burley (@KayBurley) September 3, 2020

That was posted a couple of hours ago

👍

Sturridge has gone to Chelsea. He's also an expert in trade.

i assume this means that government support for those suffering mental ill-health will be massively ramped up now, fantastic news

The husband of Conservative minister Chloe Smith has claimed that coronavirus is a “mental illness”. Sandy McFadzean, who married the Norwich North MP in 2013, attended last weekend’s march against coronavirus restrictions. He has previously re-tweeted posts describing the Government as “globalist puppets” and “tyrants”, the Eastern Daily Press reported.

A poster for the Unite For Freedom March, held in London on Saturday, called for an end to social distancing, track and trace and the use of face masks, PA Media reports.

McFadzean, who is employed by Credit Suisse as a vice president, wrote on Twitter: “Covid-19 is most likely an outbreak of mental illness.” A further post read: “Government need to be clear. Either there is a killer virus on the loose or there isn’t. (Spoiler alert: There isn’t).”

Smith, a Cabinet Office minister, told the Eastern Daily Press that her husband was a private citizen, that he was entitled to his own views, but that she did not agree with him on this.

This piece on the Pret economy is a good way of looking at the way work is changing and how it could be beneficial to all however it doesn't take account of what the impact would be in the collapse of commercial rents. Tories are so incompetent I doubt they could manage the change.

McFadzean, who is employed by Credit Suisse as a vice president

Omg his handle

Sandy McFadzean's Twitter account which was deleted after Ms Smith was contacted for comment by the EDP pic.twitter.com/akgkPU7D7D

— BoneyMcBoneface 👬🌈 (@enobkered1) September 3, 2020

It was interesting to see near uniformity in the comments under that FT article - although perhaps not surprising given how expensive and onerous the business of having an office job has become.

I'm a lot less bullish about the idea that the economic benefits will genuinely be diffused, though. Spending in independent shops might be up a bit but it's going to take a more skilled hand than this government has if the future isn't a collapse in transport infrastructure, millions more unemployed and an even greater market share flowing to Amazon.

Almost everyone who works at a Swiss bank is Vice President of something. They hand the titles out like toffees.

lol at @stateistoobig, just laying out the entire stall in one handle

and an even greater market share flowing to Amazon.

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Thursday, 3 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-54009484?