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

^

Not even the sight of these Thatcherite cunts falling back on socialism is enough to make me watch so much of a millisecond of any of their announcements and press conferences.

so fucking rude of them to announce the job support scheme at 6pm on a friday, when so many will go into the weekend unsure whether or not this will help save their job!

My son has a job at Odeon and apparently he'll get covered by the scheme so small mercies, not thanking a Tory tho ever

Takeaways are supposed to be fine, Daniel

should've checked this thread sooner, was just thinking takeaway thoughts but sadly put something in the oven instead

what's going to be more annoying, if Tory Fake Socialism works and they're hailed as geniuses for it, or if some drawback is seized upon by the press and forever more we hear "we tried to be nice in an emergency and we found out that we you just can't have nice things"?

need a ranked index of the covid safety of all uk takeaway options

reckon chips will be top so i'm sticking with those until someone proves me wrong

I did come out for Last Night of the Pubs and bought four pints of TAKEAWAY ale (in little plastic cartons) and I’m following a strict procedure of decanting into a glass, disinfecting hands and then taking the glass through to the living room. Even then it’s a daft risk to take (really felt like I was walking into a fucking incubator) but pubs have been good to me despite everything and I wanted to drink goodbye to normalcy

FWIW I'm only being fulsome in my praise now in case I end up joining the rest of you in the Rishi Gulak.

I can see you've not installed the Tankie-autocorrect app yet, Matt!

"not thanking a Tory tho ever"

Stephen Milligan deserves some praise tbf!

I taught in a summer school at Stephen Milligan's old school, they still have his name in their list of notable alumni carved into a plaque on the common room wall.

Boris Johnson, asked if he'll be seeing his mum this mother's day, says: "I hope I'll get to see her."

The actual prime minister, publicly making clear he hopes to ignore the life-saving advice of his own scientists.

It is not an exaggeration to say those seven words will kill

— Tom Peck (@tompeck) March 20, 2020

(xp) Reminds me I need to stock up on tangerines tomorrow.

... to eat, I hasten to add, I ain't no Tory.

Reminds me I need to stock up on poppers and tights

tom peck give your head a wobble

how does this 80% scheme actually work then? will all pub, cafe etc workers be covered? assume you don't need to have CV19 to take advantage?

Tom prick

Yeah straight away if they’re salaried, which I’m guessing most aren’t. Don’t need to be sick. And casual staff are covered by an average earnings scheme HMRC runs?

Fundamentally not doing much for the non-salaried. A lot of ppl are on the line. And then there is this:

imo a grave mischaracterisation of the UK. they are not carrying out the effective parts of the "wuhan-like response", like mass testing. workplaces are still open. transport is packed. there is little to indicate they're not still going for herd immunity https://t.co/qgzxqzFQOE

— joolsd (@joolsd) March 20, 2020

This has pretty much been my position anyway since they went shit, but fuck Picturehouse

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/20/outrage-picturehouse-cinema-staff-redundant-coronavirus-immediate-effect

Somebody should be compiling a list of these companies and the people making these decisions

They’re making a list
They’re lying in wait
Gonna find out who’s
Guillotine bait

Picturehouse should be denied assistance, what a bunch of Tories

Xxp Jack Monroe is doing one on Twitter

Right let's do this. I'm making a #Covid19ShitList for all shops and companies who have treated their staff badly, failing to provide for them, reducing or removing sick pay or healthcare benefits, firing them, making them homeless. SEND ME NAMES AND DETAILS.

— 🌈👩‍🍳📚Jack Monroe (@BootstrapCook) March 20, 2020

Good lad

Thread quickly turns into "let's cheer the good guys of capitalism to be positive" wankery

Reminds me I need to stock up on poppers and tights

twitter is bad
xp

xp I used to get such brutal amyl hangovers I probably don't have the constitution for it nowadays

That's why it's unopened. Ditto.

Lol my second regular pub has gone to £1.50 a pint tonight to get rid of as much stock as poss. Tragically can't be arsed to change out of pyjamas. I've been craving sweeties for the last hour.

A mate's local in Leeds is selling all its stock at £1 a pint

I know it's terrible but the thought of all these masques of the red death going off tonight tickles me

You can teck my bread and milk, but get your nervous sweaty disease spreading hands off my bup, you panic buying part time pisshead cunts!

I actually saw signs of booze panic buying earlier, much more hench dudes with 18 packs balanced on their heads out of heatwave season than usual.

jack monroe a she iirc!

Yeah I know it was a kneejerk "lad"

The Government has published more information on the cancellation of GCSEs and A-Levels which says exam boards will ask teachers to submit judgments about grades they think their students would have received if exams had gone ahead

— Sky News Breaking (@SkyNewsBreak) March 20, 2020

This is bad news. Massively disadvantages students from minority and less affluent backgrounds who consistently outperform teacher expectations. Given that we don’t know that the next university / school year won’t also be disrupted, idk whether it’s not just better to write the year off and start again when we can.

Though it looks like there will be an exam option for learners who aren’t happy with their grade next academic year.

Maybe they can grade the students on their social distancing manners. In other words, keep the fuck away from me you little rascals.

My lad was coming to the end of doing his PGCE, told to go home after school closed on Friday. Hopefully he'll be passed on the work he's done so far but he's a little stressed about it at the moment.

The welfare problems the government hasn't solved - essential piece by @Anoosh_C.

1. The five-week wait for Universal Credit remains.
2. Those who earn less than £118 a week still don't qualify for sick pay.
3. Self-employed get just £94.25 a week.https://t.co/6lcmKs0DtF

— George Eaton (@georgeeaton) March 20, 2020

My lad was coming to the end of doing his PGCE, told to go home after school closed on Friday. Hopefully he'll be passed on the work he's done so far but he's a little stressed about it at the moment.

We've got SCITT (the school-based version of the PGCE) students with us, and they've been told it's likely the rest of the course will be waived but they will have to complete the final assignment. Given the wretched state of recruitment and retention, there's no way they'll jettison a whole year's worth of trainees. He'll be fine, I'm sure.

it took half a century but i finally realised that the red death in "masque of the red death" is a play on "black death", well done E.A.Poe

now studying the giant maggots in doctor who series "the green death" to see if something similar applies, get back to you in 50 yrs i guess

Re self employed people, that’s around 25k black cab drivers in the shit in/around London alone. Have seen some of them wondering if they could be repurposed as delivery drivers/transporting key workers - better idea than just doing nothing imo?

I've been thinking about the guy who does the pub quiz I go to, that's all he does for a living - pub quizzes - guilty LOL thinking about how he could be repurposed.

I’ve got some uber drivers in electric cars going around Brisbane and I’m trying to keep the money coming in for them. I spend my Saturday (in between coughing my guts up) building a platform to turn them into delivery drivers for independent stores with no delivery infrastructure and surge capacity for those stores that can’t keep up. Next step is to get them to hit up some stores in their neighborhoods and get them signed up.

It didn’t take much work to set up a Shopify store front and connect it to couple of different delivery platforms (getswift and OpenFleet) both of which do an uber style dispatch of delivery drivers. Easy enough to do but can help if anyone wants help setting it up in their locales.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/10-days-that-changed-britains-coronavirus-approach

even if a tenth of this happened it's still appalling:

Like this caricature of a trade union bureaucrat praising this as a great victory for class collaboration in the national interest while 5 million people face destitution.https://t.co/AYvVnGChxi

— libcom dot org (@libcomorg) March 21, 2020

it seems there were actually limits after all, anyone praising that pencil-necked tory cunt who isn't a tory should be branded. Apparently there might be something aimed at the working poor next week.. but why the drip drip drip of new measures every few days when every hour is precious?

Tories are so good at dividing the British public