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

hove is made up

xp same time as white dog shit, HMMMMM

And thickens!

They're selling ice cream tubs like that right now pic.twitter.com/UeT1Bnohhm

— Jon Mills (@jonmillsphoto) April 27, 2020

Jesus Christ

https://comps.canstockphoto.com/close-up-of-2019-diary-with-pen-on-stock-photo_csp63187322.jpg

ah but look at this detail

I'm pretty certain I've been to Marrocco's, when we met a friend in town she took us out for a walk to there because the icecream is that good.

Either way, we can agree that this means probably more than it reasonably should to people on both sides?

No way, this has been the most exciting story of the whole outbreak

Hm hold fire folks it's sounding like the guy who had the info that Marrocco's was a false flag was himself a false flag

One day David Hare is gonna make a really shitty mini-series out of this story

given that housing is going to be a major dividing issue at the next election.

Second ice cream salesman on the grassy Knoll?

Ha I should probably catch up on all messages first... Just saw the next post

Ice cream guy didn't claim they didn't sell those tubs, he said "in that form" possibly meaning the split flavour you can see in the wider shot of the boy 🤔

tbf the marrocco tweet said nothing about tubs, just that the ice cream was in a “form” they aren’t doing this year... 🤔

lmao xp

That’s what you call... a double scoop

Regardless of whether its a media issue or not, housing has been one of the main issues buoying the Labour vote in metropolitan areas since 2015. Starmer's policies may change that but no one knows what his policies are going to be yet.

Also looking at it from the other angle there is virtually guaranteed to be a major house price crash in the next year or so and voters tend to punish a sitting government after that happens.

jon mills is no straight talking mr whippy lover + is a photographer so is possibly quite invested in preserving the integrity of that 2019 pic they sold to the express!

That’s what you call... a double scoop

there should be journalism school classes about that thread my god it's astounding

Oh no

So Matt is now going to be publishing a daily email where he *explains* the cartoons. pic.twitter.com/CwIWjxVEQ1

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) April 27, 2020

a cock and balls story

bg nails it again

He looks like one of his own cartoons

Holy shit. According to #Panorama, the government counted EACH glove rather than each pair and counted paper towels as PPE given to hospitals, to inflate the numbers.

— Laleh Khalili (@LalehKhalili) April 28, 2020

Today is the ten year anniversary of Brown calling that woman a bigot. So depressing to think how much the last decade has been shaped by his refusal to stand by that assessment.

10 years since Brown called Gillian Duffy a "bigoted woman". I wrote this about it in HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT 👇
What's interesting isn't 'Brown was right' but that he said it behind closed doors while reproducing anti-migration messages. Anti-migration views aren't born in a vacuum pic.twitter.com/nPo269YtvN

— Maya Goodfellow (@MayaGoodfellow) April 28, 2020

Like so many politicians and journalists before him and countless who would come after him, it was as if he believed people's views to be entirely unconnected to the the political climate around them they has helped create.

Maya Goodfellow nailed it.

We didn't just get to where we are with this government and migration because Brown was criticised for calling Gillian Duffy a bigot.

We got here, in part, because of the ways New Labour - and Brown - reproduced anti-migration politics and helped entrench anti-migration views

— Maya Goodfellow (@MayaGoodfellow) April 28, 2020

Between 2005 and 2009 98% of all asylum seekers fleeing persecution because of their sexuality were refused refuge and extradited back to their home countries to face persecution https://t.co/QvqzMZeir1

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) April 22, 2020

Given what we now know about some of the unelected people advising Brown, and later Miliband, it's entirely likely they were instrumental in pushing these messages. It's obvious from that recording that Brown didn't really believe this shit but he went with what he thought the mob were demanding, and who was giving him that information?

There's quite a telling bit in, I think, Alistair Campbell's diaries from 1997 where Major writes to him and says that he and Paddy Ashdown had agreed not to go hard on immigration as an election issue and requesting that Blair do the same. And it wasn't an election issue at all 1997. William Hague in opposition *did* go hard on it, backed by the Mail, the Sun etc which pushed Labour to start parroting harsher and harsher rhetoric. The more Labour did it, the more it gave license for IDS and Howard to push further the right, and we ended up where we ended up.

The stupid thing is that New Labour derived no real benefit from all this, because for all the rhetoric of good vs bad migrants, they were also significantly expanding immigration, particularly from new EU states, and that's what the gammons remember, not the untold suffering that thousands of migrants experienced, and continue to experience, in their name.

Also the Home Office as an institution, and successive Labour Home Secretaries, were enthusiastic proponents of the line, not reluctantly dragged along.

shurely not racist cunt Jack Straw?

Care home deaths have been updated:

At least 5,500 care home residents in England have died with coronavirus, says ONS official
Nick Stripe, head of the health analysis and life events division at the ONS, has been speaking to the BBC about today’s coronavirus death figures released this morning. He said there have now been around 27,000 excess deaths - that is more deaths than you would expect on average for this time of year - in the four most recent weeks for which figures are available.

Of the 12,000 excess deaths in the most recent week (see 9.42am), he said that around 25% of those did not involve coronavirus being mentioned on the death certificate.

He also said that there total number of coronavirus deaths in care homes in England was probably now at least 5,500 - which is higher than the official most recent ONS figure. (See 9.55am.) He explained:

In care homes we are now seeing over three times more deaths in total in care homes, in that last week, than we saw four weeks previously. And 28% of those deaths are from Covid.

Now, we’ve also taken data from the Care Quality Commission over the last few days. The Care Quality Commission collects death notifications of all deaths of care home residents. And we have been able to compare that data against our death registrations data, and it’s a good match.

So from the 10 to 17 April, for example, we can see a very close match.

If you take that data, we can see the Care Quality Commission has figures for England of 4,343 deaths in care homes between 10 and 24 April, so much more current, that’s last Friday.

And we know that we had 1,000 deaths registered in care homes prior to 10 April.

So in total we are looking at around at least 5,500 deaths in care homes in England related to Covid by 24 April

As one senior minister said to me last week, govt has job to do to shift opinion and ease lockdown. ‘We spent weeks telling people to stay home & live or go outside & die. We have to tilt the narrative’ https://t.co/MVKakUalrC

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) April 28, 2020

Lol they are going to kill another 30k for the economy

wonder what’s making brits so cautious

maybe those 40,000 dead people have something to do with it

what's this game where some people are pretending the likes of Rigby, Keunnsberg have been eviscerating the shit out of this govt on a daily basis and not feeling the national mood etc? Christ they always seem to be first in line to ask "probing questions" during that daily press conference which i stopped watching weeks ago tbh!

some people won’t be happy unless there’s total supplication before chairman boris

This is a scandal. Has @JonAshworth called an urgent question? Has @Keir_Starmer condemned the actions of this government and called for resignations?

All I'm seeing so far is hand wringing. Not good enough. Seems it's a slippery slope from being 'constructive' to complicit

— Universal Basic Income Now, Fuckers! (@holski_beat) April 28, 2020

mostly otm but I think Kier has bypassed the slippery slope and just gone straight to complicit. Once Rishi starts rolling out austerity 2.0 (presuming we all don't die lol) I have no hope that this insipid cunt will oppose it in a meaningful way, in fact I think he'll be right behind it being the fiscally responsible adult he is.

it’s cool that we’ve now had a moment of silence for carers killed by coronavirus and weekly claps for carers but holding the government to account for their continued failure to protect carers is forbidden

what's this game where some people are pretending the likes of Rigby, Keunnsberg have been eviscerating the shit out of this govt on a daily basis and not feeling the national mood etc? Christ they always seem to be first in line to ask "probing questions" during that daily press conference which i stopped watching weeks ago tbh!

yeah i just saw my mum share this on facebook (from someone of her age group who apparently owns a fucking yacht) and i just don't even

message to all our Negative UK Press - including Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC, Robert Peston of ITV, Beth Rigby of Sky, Piers Morgan of ITV, BBC News in general and all the other negative UK press.

Journalism is missing the "mood" in this great country of ours - the United Kingdom. We do not want or need blame. We do not want constant criticism of our Government who are doing their very best in a very difficult and unprecedented global emergency.

We want and need a constructive contribution to the national effort to help us out of this crisis. We need hope, optimism and faith, with less negativity and more positive support from these journalists. It is time you all changed your negative and political rhetoric for the health of this nation and start supporting our Government.

(row of british flag emojis)

Let's get this message VIRAL and they might just take note.

lol... Peston .. give me a break!

anyway what i actually came to share was this cretinous editorial from the shadow chancellor:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/28/rishi-sunak-coronavirus-rescue-plan-labour-britain-economy

It is the job of a constructive opposition, and of a shadow chancellor in the midst of the economic crisis brought on by coronavirus, to amplify the concerns we are hearing from the frontline and suggest solutions.

Those concerns are more acute in our country than in many others. There is evidence that key elements of the economic package are failing and that families and businesses across the country are paying as a result.

A key statistic released last week suggested that business confidence has taken a stronger hit in the UK than across the eurozone.

One in 10 of our workforce looks set to be unemployed as a result of this crisis
When it comes to the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme there have been significant issues in actually getting cash to businesses. Switzerland has a population of under 9 million, yet it approved four times as many loans within its first week as the UK has done in a month.

I welcomed the chancellor’s announcement on Monday that the government would underwrite loans of up to £50,000, as Labour has urged. However, it remains to be seen whether the new approach will be matched with capacity in the banks. And issues remain for those businesses that require more than £50,000 in support. Labour will keep pushing the government to ensure they get the support they need.

I don’t know where to put this so I’m putting it here

https://warontherocks.com/2020/04/covid-19-and-british-nuclear-deterrence/

If a submarine loses communications with British policymakers, the crew attempts to listen to the BBC Radio 4 Today show. If the show cannot be heard, the submarine crew is to assume that the United Kingdom has been attacked and should then access the letter of last resort to perform a politically designed task, such as placing the submarine under U.S. command, sailing to Australia, targeting the state responsible for attacking the United Kingdom, or deferring to the judgment of the submarine’s commander.

what if the today show has just finished? they just sit on their hands until tomorrow’s show or is hearing a bit of desert island discs enough reassurance for them to not immediately nuke moscow?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52455072

Looking at the graph in this - is there a reason why care home patients aren't being transferred to hospitals? Is it that the patients themselves are too ill/frail to even make the move or dying too quickly, or is there something else happening?

in fairness to the british navy when lauren laverne took over desert island discs many radio 4 listeners interpreted it as an indication that they were witnessing the end of the world

I thought it was govt policy not to transfer them to hospitals? Might have misheard this though.

what if the today show has just finished? they just sit on their hands until tomorrow’s show

Catch up on iplayer 👍 💣

Mike Soutar, chief exec Evening Standard, is stepping down after only seven months. "In the last few weeks I’ve taken time to reflect on my own ambitions and plans and it is on that basis that I have made the decision to step away to pursue other business interests."

— Chris Williams (@cg_williams) April 28, 2020