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

This previously slipped my attention because it's a very thin book, but Michael Gove and Sarah Vine also own 'Beyond Human Rights: Defending Freedom' by Alan Benoist, a central figure in the European New Right and Third Positionist movements. Just a couple over from Ruth Rendell. pic.twitter.com/UzVVbv9O6y

— libcom.org (@libcomorg) May 4, 2020

fuck's sake!!

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/germany-radical-right-hit-hard-virus/

This piece looks at how support for the far-right has declined during covid, this is partly to do with the rallying around the flag occuring throughout Europe and not solely confined to the irrational uk electorate.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXMqY1FXsAEcge5?format=jpg&name=large

I noticed a couple a weeks back the CDU have a clear majority in the polling. AfD are in UKIP style freefalling decline.

jesus, people get two weeks of gentle authoritarianism and they give up on actual fascism already? lightweights

i heard starmer this a.m. on Today. he's like a big, baffled sheepdog. he wants in on the action. he's keen. he's got a few things written down to say. he says them energetically. you can imagine his eyes swinging around wildly as he talks, looking for someone who looks likely to pat him on the head.

move over crace i've got this superficial sketch writing shit SEWN UP

Privatise the BBC

What is @BBCNews playing at?#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/7ObJLAAhEP

— The Horse from Readin' Irving (@bojack90s) May 5, 2020

how are they supposed to report on it if it wasn't in matt hancock's press release?

I love border-collies and resent their keen as mustard nature being mocked like this and being compared to an inanimate puppet of a lapdog like Starmer!

The time to worry about the far right will be when things are ostensibly returning to normal but countries are experiencing recessions or depressions the likes of which most people have never seen in their lifetimes. The UK is probably less vulnerable here than other countries - in part due to the voting system but also because we have a government that will not hesitate to adopt its language, drawing off support but also legitimising that language.

It would be astonishing and frankly terrifying if the country was not past the peak this far into lockdown. In two weeks' time we'll probably have a much clearer picture of how it's working but without widespread testing we can't really know the extent to which it's going to come back. Everything suggests that care homes and hospitals are the real hotspots right now which at least in theory makes test-trace-isolate more feasible as an approach.

Is it unrealistic to think we'll probably end up seeing some relaxation of measures before the end of the month? Even if it's being able to sit in the park or whatever. More generally the government is going to have a hell of a task on its hands convincing people it's safe. Avoiding a depression is important but if they rush the transition out of lockdown it'll negate any economic benefits and probably make things worse, especially if they have to lock down all over again.

i think we'll see easing, i don't think the easing will be based much on a scientific plan

reporter on sky news last night standing in front of No. 10 was asked by the anchor how the government was going to handle the 'pressure' for easing the lockdown and she very smartly replied 'it's quite the opposite, actually - the question is how will the public respond to being told that restrictions are easing? they've been told for weeks to stay home, protect the nhs, and save lives. how is the government going to give them the confidence that anything has changed?'

I mean the far right are in government now.

What the far right have been doing is spreading and reacting to news stories from before lockdown that when shared read like mosques have been open since lockdown. And last week Nigel Fascist-Partridge, exploiting 'key worker' status, tweeted a video of himself on the beach speculating about how people enter the country by boat and are taken off in vans, some to jobs they've lined up, and others 'bringing the virus', putting words into the mouths of some locals and that they don't believe the official figures.

I expect a lot more anti-globalisation rhetoric citing the virus directly.

there was a lot of stuff on social media at the start of lockdown, it seems to have tailed off a bit but yeah you're right i'm sure it's still out there and likely to resurge as lockdown eases

I mean the far right are in government now.

Well yeah, that too.

The BBC ran a story about mosques opening for Ramadan on the front page without saying those mosques were in non-lockdown areas of Pakistan and Indonesia.

Both that and the story you've linked to just above suggest a problem with stories from the World section being just chucked on the front page without any context in the headline. Difficult to know whether it's incompetent/slapdash editing or deliberate shit-stirring. Or both.

I know what my money’s on! Just absolutely no trust whatsoever.

For the front page of the site to just not be mentioning that UK swaths have overtaken Italy is...

Sorry. I forgot that journalism has misread the mood of the nation.

i feel like at this point it's fair to assume there are some pretty nasty bad faith actors somewehre in the BBC's news editorial staff

It's a massive but woefully under-prioritised issue in digital info design and online journalism generally. When stories are shared even if the date is visible on the page itself it's not in the 'capsule' that people see on social media which is usually just the headline, main picture and opening sentence. The date of publication and any acknowledgement that the story has since been updated or contains out of date info are usually tiny and easily missed. Integrating them so that they at least appear at the start of the main article text itself might improve things but probably not going to happen any time soon. The story can easily be shared second-handedly with that information removed but most news organisations either haven't got to grips with the problem or are actively encouraging it.

For the front page of the site to just not be mentioning that UK swaths have overtaken Italy is...

I'm conflicted about this. That Guardian line is spun – the comparisons aren't like-for-like (Italy's numbers don't include suspected cases, our numbers are based only on death certificate wording, etc). They'd be open to criticism for pushing a comparison that doesn't fully stand up. The BBC isn't alone in noting but essentially ignoring it – the FT is too, and they've been all over the appropriate comparisons.

But the wider point — that it's being generally underplayed quite how shockingly bad things are here – is bang-on

Isn’t the FT arguing that the catastrophic death count has been dramatically undercounted though?

When you consider the death rate in terms of the size of the population the UK isn't the worst in Europe. I didn't realise Belgium was doing so badly.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

speaking of chucking world news stories onto the front page without context, the Guardian has been publishing local Australian stories into its main feeds for YEARS now with zero indication that that's where it's from - still catches me out sometimes. i'm like 'there's a massive forest fire in wales????'

Obviously that's not an excuse, Germany has a significantly larger population than both the UK and Italy and is doing a lot better - allowing for regional mistakes made in easing the lockdown of course.

"Belgium was doing so badly."

there might be a correlation between high c-19 death rates and countries with lousy domestic cuisine!

there's a general impression of european countries 'easing' their lockdowns, often with little in the way of detail when reported in the news, that contributes towards a feeling that this is the time, everyone else is doing it.. but in france and spain their easing only gets them to about where the uk is now i.e. restaurants doing takeaway, kids allowed in parks, some people allowed to travel for work etc. By these standards we've been 'eased' the entire time!

Belgium apparently is more inclusive in its data so I'm not sure they are actually 'the worst'.

speaking of chucking world news stories onto the front page without context, the Guardian has been publishing local Australian stories into its main feeds for YEARS now with zero indication that that's where it's from - still catches me out sometimes. i'm like 'there's a massive forest fire in wales????'

Yeah, I don't think it's clear to a lot of people in the UK that compared with other countries in Europe much of the UK hasn't really had a lockdown at all

Yeah but the freedom-loving* Brits can’t be held to the same standards as Jean Foreigner and Paddy Gobackwards.

*except in the case of countries formerly part of the empire lol

Attacks against Chinese on the increase in the UK.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-hate-crimes-against-chinese-people-soar-in-uk-during-covid-19-crisis-11979388

i for one am impressed with how malleable the great british public's racist violence is

there might be a correlation between high c-19 death rates and countries with lousy domestic cuisine!

― calzino, Tuesday, May 5, 2020 11:44 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

got to pull you up on this one Calz, Belgium is one of the best places to eat in the world IME

Christ I hate this guy so fucking much

I will respectfully challenge the Government - I want our country to succeed.

However, I will not 'watch my tone' when dozens of NHS and care staff are dying unnecessarily.

A clip of my Q to the Health Sec today. pic.twitter.com/5jjQRXyIm3

— Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (@DrRosena) May 5, 2020

Also where does that thesis leave Italy and Spain? The US, you may have a point.
xpost

I thought Belgium's national dish is oven chips with blood sausage or something!

it’s beer iirc

best chips in the world, with the possible exception of the Netherlands

Here's more songs about chocolate and beer.

Christ I hate this guy so fucking much

That praise from Tom Watson has gone to his head.

That Allin-Khan video has been shared all over the place today, just terrible judgement from Hancock.

The BBC is now going with 'Highest Death Toll In Europe' as its main story.

Seriously though, I do think Hancock's ego has been puffed up by getting smoke blown up his arse over his incredible unprecedented success with testing.

and his brilliant Rona app that he says is everyone's duty to download ... yeah I'd rather actually install a disease

You wouldn’t download a disease would you?

I haven’t been following; why is this app so much worse than eg Facebook or GMaps?

The only people who'll download it will be Tories! Might give skewed data on the viral spread. Fuck that anyway, I'd be as likely to download an app from HMRC tbh.