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

The last financial crisis took place under the last Labour government, and under the Tories there has not been a recession as such.

proof that austerity works imo, time to liquidate more poors once this all blows over so we can pay for the generosity the government showed in the crisis

Rescuing us from a crisis they had no control over by making the tough choices that need making. Part 2.

There are just too many ppl involved this time, not just poor ppl.

no point wishing death on this lad

I hope we don't have an inquiry when this is over. If there are lessons to be learned, fine; but if there is just blame to be spread, forget it

— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) April 7, 2020

No one could have predicted something like this. It's a miracle we got off as lightly as we did. Can you imagine how much worse it would have been under Labour. Labour have actually been in power all along. Boris has only been in power for a few weeks and already come through such a major challenge (or martyred himself in the process say what you like about that man but he put his life on the line) he's the right man for the job, fighting off a global threat while the BBC, Labour, the EU, and the metropolitan elite trying to thwart him at every turn. Labour don't even collect the bins on time. Time to move on now I don't see why we have to talk the country down like this and politicize everything

some people just don't get that politicising politics is not what adults do, it's what 6th formers with Crass stencilled on their pencil case do because they don't do serious politics!

lol it’s 8 o’clock and eerily quiet

#fapsforblobbyinstead

talk about a gunge tank amirite

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-06/12/16/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-02/anigif_sub-buzz-10552-1497299782-1.gif

blobby got a run-out on HIGABMNFY yesterday, fighting mr motivator.

they shd wipe all the hignfy tapes and cancel it and just run the clip gyac posted in its place

Fuck, I wish I hadn't turned on the news, "We're all rooting for Boris", "Uniform support for Boris", "The whole country's behind Boris". Fuck off. I'm telling you they'll be building statues to him in 10 years time.

As I said, the vibe is pretty reminiscent of Thatcher. Pragmatically his death is the best possible outcome.

It gives me no pleasure to say this.

The cunt's going to be strutting around like fucking Montgomery of Alamein for the foreseeable and this nation of servile scumbags are going to lap it up.

Ugh. What's on Talking Pictures...

lol

So how'd that clap for boris thing go? Obviously zero interest in Stoke Newington, but I'd be delighted to hear it failed in less politically obvious places, too.

Not a peep in our safe Tory constituency - and we have a Tory councillor on the street.

silence in our well-to-do birmingham street, wishes for his recovery in the street whatsapp group but they'd rather clap the nurses, one confession that "i like him but i can't clap one man when blah blah"

Btw Daniel check out the Real England thread.

As I said, the vibe is pretty reminiscent of Thatcher.

People are going through this. Haven't done so myself.

One reading of this is that government scientists saw a catastrophe looming, but because they couldn't communicate it in terms of a governmentality, they kept it to themselves https://t.co/IEcWfGKvNk

— Will Davies (@davies_will) April 8, 2020

Btw Daniel check out the Real England thread.

This has the content I crave.

Will be applauding the fact that Thatcher's still dead from the steps of my domicile at 8pm

When news came from China in January of a new infectious disease, Johnson had reason to believe his country was well prepared. It had some of the world’s best scientists and a well-drilled plan to deal with potentially lethal pandemics.

actually reads like typical hyperbolic boris bullshit, scary that he was probably still talking like that in early March.

Charles Bellm, managing director of Intersurgical, a global supplier of medical ventilation products based outside London, said he has been contacted by more than a dozen governments around the world, including France, New Zealand and Indonesia. But there had been no contact from the British government.

damning stuff here and Hancock's repeated bleating that the testing travesty is all down to the lack of a domestic diagnostics industry doesn't cut the mustard.

Imperial’s prediction of over half a million deaths was no different from the report by the government’s own pandemic modelling committee two weeks earlier. Yet it helped trigger a policy turn-around..

for two weeks they sat on their hands knowing a disaster was imminent and all their strategy and planning was pathetically inadequate, yes Kier's correct they've not quite done a good job here.

the thing that fucking boggles my mind is that it was obvious from available data before the start of the infection in the uk that the mortality rate was at least 3%

me, a dumbass: well, let’s say half of the uk population of 67 million is infected and 3% of them die, that’s... oh fuck, a million people dead
the uk government, very smart: i love the stereophonics and horse racing, get out there and have fun folks

think you're being quite unfair there

it was known that mortality rate was at least 3% for craven southern european types

it could never have been guessed what effect the virus was to have on strong anglo saxon stock, the data just wasnt there

EUgenics

all the hyperbolic blather that Boris used for the Brexit election/campaign: the best scientists, best engineers, GB ingenuity blah blah... what Edgerton termed "demented revivalism". That kind of mindless bullshit is the most dangerous thing during a pandemic it seems, because Boris was still in bullshit mode during the most critical period and now we'll pay the price while that cunt hides under a ventilator.

It's because the government thought they could deal with the virus while simultaneously protecting the economy and that turned to be impossible for obvious reasons.

I'd presume Diagnostics is a high investment low profit industry, hence this neolib hellhole not having much of one.

not much of a Diagnostics Industry in comparison to Germany I mean.

Apparently it's not really got as much to do with UK vs German industrial capacity as Hancock would like to pretend, it's the publically funded side that they've allowed to go to shit.

(xp) So they keep telling us - as if it's something to be proud of.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/06/matt-hancock-biotech-germany-coronavirus-health-system

all the hyperbolic blather that Boris used for the Brexit election/campaign: the best scientists, best engineers, GB ingenuity blah blah... what Edgerton termed "demented revivalism". That kind of mindless bullshit is the most dangerous thing during a pandemic it seems, because Boris was still in bullshit mode during the most critical period and now we'll pay the price while that cunt hides under a ventilator.

I think this is probably right and is also reflected in how the government approached dealing with the public - the idea that British people are so committed to liberty and the Keep Calm and Carry On mentality, they wouldn't tolerate a lockdown. Johnson was engaging with a national myth he has been boosting throughout his career, not reality.

It's such a weird line to take: "The Germans are good at producing that stuff whereas we're good at, er...." But I suppose they don't have a leg to stand on.

Toryism is a virus with many receptors, distrust of clever work being one of them.

It's such a weird line to take: "The Germans are good at producing that stuff whereas we're good at, er...." But I suppose they don't have a leg to stand on.

The UK has maybe the seventh or eighth largest biotech industry in the world so while Germany's is bigger it's not as if we're slouches in that capacity. The US has the largest and they are fucking the pandemic response even worse than we are. It's a transparent tactic to disguise their own complacency and lack of preparation.

having the tools at hand is meaningless if you don't bother using them

other countries like Taiwan for example took command of their industries quite fast to get what they needed in time, without worrying about the disruption to the economy.

Edward Argar - junior health minister - tells Today programme there are 8,000 ventilators on order. Yet the Guardian suggested 61,000. When is an order not an order? Why is there such lack of clarity? Why is noone got a straight story?

— David Edgerton (@DEHEdgerton) April 8, 2020

they've been pulling figures out of their arseholes for weeks now, how is the public supposed to trust these slippery pieces of shit on anything?

But Boris is willing to die for us, DO YOU SEE?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-path-speci-idUSKBN21P1VF

Dunno if this has been shared, Reuters journalists doing the good work that serious political commentators like John Rentoul think is unnecessary.

speaking of which, hatt mancock is set to issue an emotional appeal for help, definitely not weeks after he should have gotten his fucking arse in gear

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, will ask industry leaders to help the UK find an antibody test that works.

Hancock will issue the plea on a conference call on Wednesday, echoing his call for help on ventilators, after the government conceded that none of the antibody tests it has are good enough for mass usage.

Biotech companies will be asked to help identify and mass-produce a fingerprick test that is accurate enough to offer to the general population to see if they have had coronavirus.

At the moment the UK is relying on laboratory tests to show whether a patient currently has coronavirus, and there is capacity to test 14,000 people a day – typically those in hospital, care homes or prisons, or NHS workers.

The government is targeting 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month, with both types – lab tests and fingerprick tests – making up the total. But it looks increasingly unlikely that an antibody test will be ready in time.