Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

Now we're all sovereign citizens (NB: non-sovereign citizens please submit for a points evaluation before posting)

Blue passports, though...

johnny eu doesn’t like it up ‘em

Shant be asking permission for anything as long as derry aint free, son

Pls don’t deport me for posting here

So happy for my new life of only eating true British gruel out of a used Wellington boot

lol we're all gonna die all over again

whats next for the plucky little kingdom

Secession

repatriation of the normans

Trying to look on the bright side for 2021 in the UK but really coming up short here.

the trembling flatulent rotting corpse stage of a long dead empire or as Perry Mason might put it Ukania Ultima

Holyrood and local elections, nothing to piss anyone off there

Jess Phillips and Starmzy feeling the wrath of FBPE today, extremely bitter laughs

Enough of ‘Remainers’ and ‘Leavers’ – we are all in this together now | Jess Phillips https://t.co/LaiytlNLSV

— Jess Phillips MP (@jessphillips) January 1, 2021

it's been fun watching them turn on their own

there is a horrible layer of irony wherein even Jessbabs is...not wrong...to tell the FBPEewees to give it up now ffs, but obviously there's more than enough plague going round for both their houses

Did anyone get a FBPE in the new years honours

I think big Dunty told them to chillax as well.. a lot of them won't be reasoned with and now that Corbyn has been marginalised they need someone to kick.

The defeat of Corbynism won't be good for Babs career either.. Now there is no point to her people who previously liked her now see her as the self publicising vacuous fule she is.

Wonder if 2021 will see another doomed breakaway party, most likely people are too dispirited at this point, but you never know.

The main problem with starting a new political party in the UK is that it's always going to be the first 50-100 years that is a hard and pointless slog for absolutely nothing!

also the next 100 years after that, and the next, and so on

As we saw the last few years, there’s an endless pool of money for any number of centrist projects

Joylon might start a Barristers that think Kieth is a Tory cunt clique, but that wouldn't count as a party.

when we get near another election somebody might decide it's worth a few quid just to muddy the waters some more, why take risks when you've got all the money and there's an endless supply of idiots who want their wallets inspecting?

Surely top rich melts like the visionary who made a few quid posting dvds through letterboxes wouldn't need a new centrist project now Kieth is running the show.

pic.twitter.com/Y3KDO36Ngv

— Sarah_Woolley (@Sarah_Woolley) January 1, 2021

is that bernie

it's the constellation known as the old nonce!

Could Britain rejoin the EU? It seems like a hopelessly lost cause – but so did leaving
Jonathan Freedland

"Did anyone get a FBPE in the new years honours"

someone needs to put in a good word for this lad

this fucking guy

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/5/21/1400698424922/Jonathan-Freedland-009.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=f0f6c5ef45cc7dbc31e79b67d3f24eae

he has a look in his eye like he waking while watching you get converted into a cyberman

waking = wanking

autocorrect on my phone has clearly sided with him

Another government u-turn! London primary schools this time, what a shock. This is like yer lads doing doughnuts in stolen cars at this point.

they need to close them in the rest of the country as well ffs! maybe they'll save that announcement for a day before they are due back

Took the threat of legal actions by council's too.

Thinking there has to be a U-turn in the vaccine roll out too.

I hope so re the latter, where is the pressure coming from tho? They don’t listen to scientists

I know, it's really grim

I have been reading a little about that and apparently there might be some benefit to extending the intervals?

This issue is, appropriately, contentious. As a vaccinologist - & citizen & relative of people in at-risk groups - I fully support the UK decision to increase dose intervals of both our Ox/AZ product and the Pfizer product. I'd happily receive either with a >8w gap. Here's why 🧵 https://t.co/PZaxgGJUj4

— Sandy Douglas (@sandyddouglas) January 1, 2021

I'm not the only immunologist happy enough with it. I get the tories have been awful through the pandemic but its important to bear in mind this was not a political choice, it was advice given by the MHRA. https://t.co/UWVkahRjHV

— Dr 「サマンサ」Sammie 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈➡️🇺🇸 (@curexcomplex) December 31, 2020

would I be rude in suggesting a UK covid thread? I can't keep up with the general ukpol one but the covid stuff is useful to me. however I understand if it'd get too messy.

> this too

Based upon the biology, I'd eat my hat if the Pfizer vaccine is substantially less effective with a longer dose interval. Most vaccines induce stronger immune responses with longer intervals. A couple of examples below. There are more. pic.twitter.com/pxJTqjchpz

— Sandy Douglas (@sandyddouglas) January 1, 2021

i guess we’re gonna find out one way or another

https://i.imgur.com/37bSTa0.jpg

Thanks, that’s quite persuasive as far as ultimate efficacy - but the worrying thing is still the potential for vaccine resistant strains to evolve if millions of people are going around for months not fully vaccinated, no?

Yeah was thinking we could use a UK Covid thread even though it’s massively political anyway. (I wouldn’t put it past them to somehow fuck up the second dose in the name of the economy)

It'd only end up being about the US anyway.

the Outbreak thread is quite US-centric already tho

Yes, I'm joking but...

xp I agree but they don’t seem too concerned about it? I wonder if there was the same concern about MMR vaccines where the spacing is years apart? My practice asked me (as they don’t have my vaccination records) if I had had the MMR booster, incidentally, and I said I thought I had but wasn’t sure, but they want me to get it anyway because there’s always outbreaks in the area.

see also: Suzanne Moore

Kenneth Branagh to play U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Sky Original drama This Sceptred Isle

The five-part drama will chart the events surrounding the U.K. Prime Minister, the government, and the country in the face of the first wave of the global pandemic.

goddamn everyone involved with this project to hell, oh sorry I forgot we are already there

Maybe he'll be portrayed as a cunt

will they show his domestic violence that everyone pretends to have forgotten

who’s playing starmer? will jezza be in it too?

Will it be one of those novelty pornos like Who's Nailin' Palin or something?

Michael Winterbottom has co-wrote it, that's all you really need to know

Nobody’s forgotten it but the victims and witnesses won’t stand up the story. They’ve been approached multiple times.

So it will be one of those novelty pornos like 9 songs xp

Xp lol yeah i bet they've been approached

Untitled UK Pandemic Project (TV Series) (pre-production)

there is something quite jarring about the imdb entry for it, especially as the UK govt is still editing the untitled UK Rona death project even before they've got to the post-production stage

They'll just make it up as they go along.

Michael Winterbottom has co-wrote it, that's all you really need to know

― calzino, Saturday, 23 January 2021 18:54 (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

at least this way there's half a chance it'll be about the making of a fictional series called This Sceptred Isle about the pandemic, which would be more interesting

all the other recent pusillanimous attempts at dramatising UK politics on tv in some kind of knockabout feelgood fashion without addressing the evils of this tory govt have been so fucking execrable, but I reckon The Trip to Fascist Isle of Death with Branagh could be a fresh start!

Keith @Keir_Starmer has a message for @KetamineLovejoy pic.twitter.com/xMZ74RhwpS

— Yer Da After Too Many Drams (@Ecoclown) January 22, 2021

"who’s playing starmer?"

reckon this lad could do a job

UK Minister provokes 500 Covid cases at DVLA Swansea as symptomatic told to work, vulnerable refused home-working, Covid absences over 10 days trigger warnings & workers told turn off test-and-trace apps so phones don’t ping RESIGN ⁦@grantshapps⁩ 👎🏻 https://t.co/yURBp9eteM

— Geraint Davies (@GeraintDaviesMP) January 23, 2021

I've been waiting for the "fury" over that "explosive row" to show up anywhere on the BBC or sky news websites since last night.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/23/minister-faces-fury-over-mass-covid-outbreak-at-top-government-agency

lol at this from 2015.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/28/grant-shapps-profile-farce-to-tragedy

and yet...

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/24/scotland-independence-referendum-nicola-sturgeon-snp-wins-may-?

Britisher tanks in Glasgow by October 🤣🤣🤣

Broon and Gove are going to save the union ...loool

English council chiefs back postponement of May local elections https://t.co/spcvIjMch2

— The Guardian (@guardian) January 24, 2021

This is bullshit, we've had elections in the US already. Should've been able to work out the logistics by now.

for local elections this should've been a piece of piss

there are a lot of logistics you’d think they’d have worked out by now but... y’know

An example we should follow.

Breaking: Chicago Teachers Union members vote to defy Chicago Public Schools' reopening plans and continue working from home tomorrow because of health and safety concerns, a source says. About 86% of CTU members voted, and 71% of those members approved the collective action

— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) January 24, 2021

xp seems like whatever dept signs big checks for mates has been running v smoothly they should get a performance bonus

maybe it's just me but i don't believe Tory MPs give one fuck about the wellbeing or mental health of children

nor some of the Labour MP's who have happily voted/abstained to fuck them over for the last decade but have suddenly developed a great hitherto unseen sensitivity about the state of their mental health

probably the most egregious Tory example of a *sensitive* covid hawk is Graham Brady from the 1922 committee. lol There is someone who really cares deeply about the mental health of children and the class driven educational inequalities that comes with a lockdown.

it was a clever move from the Scottish independence movement to put agent Broon on the radio babbling on about citizen's assemblies and sounding like an irrelevant desperado with nothing of substance to say other than the threat that the UK *might* become a failed state

Our research showing a pretty shocking one in ten people say they're being asked to re-apply for their jobs on worse terms and conditions: https://t.co/eesXe4JaAW

— Kate Bell (@kategobell) January 25, 2021

The people: The government have really mishandled the situation.

The government: WHY DON’T YOU JUST DIE OF OLD AGE, FATTY. https://t.co/mGj3TFrPhY

— PIP (@papa_anastasis) January 25, 2021

Lol

NEW: @BorisJohnson tells broadcast pool he is 'looking at the potential of relaxing some measures' before mid-February.

— Joe Pike (@joepike) January 25, 2021

seriously fuck off Boris

fuck's sake, what is going on

i can already tell you with 100% certainty my kids are not learning a single fucking thing right now despite our best efforts

Backbenchers gearing up for another assault on reality.

My birthday is mid Feb, sick

If the government were serious about home learning during lockdown, they would have hired strings of experts in our fields - writers, scientists, historians, geographers etc and got us to talk directly on zoom to different ages of students for 20-30 minute chunks.

— Michael Rosen 💙💙💙🎓🎓🎓 (@MichaelRosenYes) January 25, 2021

Couldn't move in my school back in the day for all the writes, scientists and historians walking around whilst the teachers all smoked behind the bike sheds

we got this eminent slaphead called Prof Sal Solo from Classix Nouveaux (who had become a born again christian) lecturing us on how to stay away from the reefer and satanic music! But come on Michael are you sure you'd want to let this Tory govt choose which UK PolProfs are to be let loose on the nation's kids, that could end badly.

Love Michael, but last thing we need is more passive lesson-watching, we already have plenty of that on BBC Bitesize

NEW: No 10 source says PM meant that the 'looking at' will happen before mid-Feb, not the 'relaxing'.

— Joe Pike (@joepike) January 25, 2021

Looking at both An Post and Royal Mail last night, I realised I had no idea what the lack of guidance on either meant in terms of how I would send stuff to Ireland or vice versa. Very minor both in the grand scheme of Brexit fuckups and for me, but also upsetting because that has always been an easy link for me and it’s gone for the time being at least.

Sher look, ordering anything at all has just been an act of faith punctuated by a shrug since early December.

Incredibly tone deaf response to the pandemic from the Chorlton estate agents who once tried to keep my deposit pic.twitter.com/ifGGKMnFKp

— James Jackson (@derJamesJackson) January 25, 2021

Say what you like about the Blitz but it was a catalyst for redevelopment

Looking at both An Post and Royal Mail last night, I realised I had no idea what the lack of guidance on either meant in terms of how I would send stuff to Ireland or vice versa. Very minor both in the grand scheme of Brexit fuckups and for me, but also upsetting because that has always been an easy link for me and it’s gone for the time being at least.

― scampish inquisition (gyac), Monday, 25 January 2021 12:41 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

It’s a limited amount of experience because I’ve gone from 45% of my orders bein eu bound to umm 8% (and just told my commercial landlord lol if you think I’m paying you rent) but we (and the couple sellers groups im in) have had no trouble sending stuff under £135. I’ve already got lazy about declaring the right codes too, pretty much labelling everything as Clothing Accessories (this catagory doesn’t need to change, whereas say Trousers changes per type of material, denim, cotton, synthetic fibres, cut corduroy etc).

Obviously there is a hell of a lot more things to send than clothes though. And things that should definitely be declared at over £135 (not 100% sure why this is the magic number, vat iirc?). You can also declare “gift” and a small description on a cn22 label, and should not be treated the same as someone sending something commercially. God knows if this helps in a world where mans can’t even keep his sandwich meat though.

IIRC the threshold for import VAT and duty on gifts arriving in the UK remains £39 but for commercial items is now £135 (in theory - supply VAT is supposed to be collected by the seller but nobody knows exactly how this working yet).

I think i missed this when it was reported earlier but the FT is suggesting that around 1.3m people born outside of the UK have permanently left the country in the last 12 months, 700k of which were in London.

is that a euphemism for 'died'