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

some say I'm quite unpredictable!

Keir Starmer for PM...post mortem

101 uses for a dead Kiert

from keir to obscurity

the unite labour staff branch is the relevant one, I assume unison have an equivalent.

everyone ripping the piss out of Hancock's bullshit badge scheme for carers (some of whom are on 8.50 to 9.50 ph). But it is just as fucking condescending + risible as when Kier said nurses should get medals tbf!

my experience working in social care sector definitely contributed to the most serious bout of depression i've ever had but maybe a badge would've made it better

mind you 9.50 p/h might've made it better

https://cdn.thedailymash.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/20190309171918/jimbadge250.jpg

Xp
I think when my partner did it in the early 90s she was getting half them contemporary payrates I quoted above!

Just been hearing from a mental health nurse that “the government has really failed us. We have been told to reuse face masks”, “staff will get the virus”, “I feel like giving up every day.” @NHSuk @MattHancock #CoronaCrisisuk

— Douglas Beattie (@DouglasBeattie4) April 15, 2020

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVqk3OAX0AEg0w2?format=jpg&name=large

no matter how fucked up my life gets. I'd rather die of starvation than eat anything from Frances Barber's kitchen after she's been trying her luck again on jamieoliver.com

In a time of crisis, the magic of Pharrell's Happy is needed more than ever https://t.co/hG0oipXGHS

— The Guardian (@guardian) April 15, 2020

Tom will have a go at you for posting these parody accounts

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/06/Ben-Beaumont-Thomas,-L.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=9b9f1267e276fe4e6e03adbd1676ca24

^ look at the size of this lad’s fuckin’ head

https://www.channel4.com/news/pregnant-nhs-nurse-dies-with-coronavirus-but-baby-saved

fuck that is awful

That is devastating

Horrendous.

72% of #NHS staff who have died of #Covid-19 were of BAME origin.
17% of NHS staff are BAME.

— Simon Lennane (@DrSimonLennane) April 14, 2020

I'd love to know the stats on how many of these fucking happy clappers are quite friendly with yack yack and farage

presumably why our esteemed press aren't stepping on the govt's throat about this
xp

scum

EXC: A number of Labour staffers tried to stop the party’s workplace Unite branch sending letters of solidarity to Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Clive Lewis - all of whom were named in the leaked internal report as victims of racism and racial profiling https://t.co/wdmy0wdAif

— Shehab Khan (@ShehabKhan) April 15, 2020

the official line of this opposition party is we must support the government's programme of racialised mass murder

"opposition party" ? them days are gone now :(

why did corbyn nominate mcnicol for a peerage anyway? he's absolute scum. his presence in the panorama doc was stomach-turning

too timid & 'labour to his core' for his own good the dozy bastard

I get why people wouldn't want to reuse face masks but why can't they be washed and reused?

Like if two happy birthdays of hand washing protects me how does it not work on PPE?

Lewis Goodall’s thread about ICU is otm

Talked to a few doctors on #covid19 frontline this evening about excess beds/capacity issues the govt spoke about today

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) April 15, 2020

Based on the fact that people I respect like Laura Parker supported him, was willing to keep an open mind about KS, but dere god

Serious question: Have you ever seen a major political party come up with a set of weaker demands? https://t.co/M6rZm8O59i

— Michael Walker (@michaeljswalker) April 15, 2020

they are doing a fucking cracking job there apparently!

Walker’s follow up tweet is interesting:

“ Sometimes if I don’t have much time to prepare for a podcast I just draft fairly open questions safe in knowledge my guest knows a lot. It’s not the best way to host an podcast. It’s a terrible way to act as the official opposition!”

Possibly giving Starmer too much credit but this looks very consistent with a prosecutorial line of questioning - open with something fairly neutral to get information you can then pick apart. The big problem is that, outside of a Parliamentary debate, the government doesn’t have any pressure whatsoever to actually answer any questions, they can just ignore them or say ‘it’s not the time to discuss it’.

*Possibly*

mcnicol gone from the lord's, real shame the cunt won't be executed.

Has he gone from the Lords or just been removed as Labour Whip?

tt on that Labour communication just up there: "wow, that is powerfully weak"

gotta say, so far so good as far as the starmer predictions itt are going :/

unless mcnicol's been exiled to novaya zemlya, that'd be something

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/15/labour-must-turn-its-back-on-factionalism-says-keir-starmer

Stepping down before being pushed?

He's 'stepping down' or 'standing aside' and a do-si-do..

Shame they haven’t suspended him already.

Starmer's got to follow his procedure ofc..

Stan knows where it’s at.

A fucking badge?

The French have literally just given €1500 to those on the front line in health care and we're giving out fucking badges?

What the!!

— Stan Collymore (@StanCollymore) April 15, 2020

"These politically crooked officials were prepared to risk dramatic damage to the interests of the British economy and working people just in order to scratch their factional itch.”

quite at odds with Starmer's account of events of the Corbyn era. it's almost eerily like he's part of a faction himself

I think people have got to stop re-running the debate between globalists and nationalists.

think gordon brown is in for a shock if he thinks all this palaver is going to mute that debate. while we'll definitely need co-ordinated international action, with the closing of borders, suspicions about foreigners (5G, "the chinese virus" etc) it will probably retrench a type of extreme national solidarity which could mutate into a toxic nationalism if allowed

“Being isolated, people realise the need to be connected, the importance they attach to friendship, the importance of acting as a community.”

I mean I think that's right, it's just 'community' can have various very different meanings within that debate

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/16/gordon-brown-on-covid-19-recession-and-trump-when-theres-a-crisis-you-have-to-act-quickly

Journalists should stop asking about an ‘exit strategy.’ There is only one way we can ‘exit’ full lockdown and that is when we have a vaccine. Until then, we need to find ways we can adapt society and strike a balance between the health of the nation and our economy . #COVID19

— Nadine Dorries 🇬🇧 (@NadineDorries) April 15, 2020

"Prof Neil Ferguson, whose modelling has guided Downing Street’s crisis strategy, this morning told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that when the UK lockdown does eventually end, social distancing measures are likely to remain in place “indefinitely” until a coronavirus vaccine can be rolled out.

Ferguson warned that it would not be possible to relax the lockdown until a significant infrastructure was in place.

He said the UK’s ability to come out of lockdown would “depend on how quickly case numbers go down”. But it would also require an emphasis on scaling up testing and contact tracing, because if measures were relaxed without a strong plan in place there was too much risk of a resurgence in cases."

I'm sure this is right but am struggling to conceptualise what 'indefinite social distancing' means in practice.

Aside from that, The Guardian suggests that there's no central planning on easing restrictions and different departments are running with their own projected timelines / plans - which is likely to continue at least until Johnson comes back to work.

I'm sure this is right but am struggling to conceptualise what 'indefinite social distancing' means in practice.

'we'll continue sacrificing essential workers in a slightly more controlled fashion until science saves us' is basically how i break it down to an extent

it would also require an emphasis on scaling up testing and contact tracing

that would mean scaling up contact tracing from essentially zero since the government chose to abandon it before they'd even really started