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

there is a number of bame people in there but in low profile positions and his leadership team is all white, there won't be no grime4kiermit that's for sure

The idea that the Tories were always entirely confident in beating Corbyn doesn't really stand up to any scrutiny. I think they were pre-2017 - they were not even remotely scared of him - but that result shook them because it suggested something in the wider country they just didn't understand. You can tell by looking at the way a Boris Premiership was perceived by Tory MPs in 2016 (a bit of a joke, perhaps outright dangerous and something to be blocked) vs 2019 (pretty much their only hope). In the short term it looked like the 2019 lot were vindicated but all the 2016 reservations will turn to be vindicated by history if he carries on like this.

There's probably a wider discussion to be had about what it means to keep a government with this kind of majority accountable in this situation. If PMQs doesn't matter now then when does it? Still, I don't think it's especially controversial to believe that Corbyn's questions, no matter how important, were pretty easily batted away even by a politician as limited as May with some standard-issue "bringing us back to the 70s blah blah Venezuela" bluster with a load of people braying behind them. Boris has never been good at PMQs and seems outright lost without the braying mob to play up to.

Whether it makes a difference or not is the question. Most people don't watch any more of PMQs than the twenty seconds that get shown on the news or fly on social media - so if Starmer can win that specific bit of it then it might make a difference. But at the same time, people don't like or even vote for the reality of Boris, they like the *idea* of Boris, and a lot hinges on whether he can keep that balloon flying. And if Johnson was especially concerned by facing Starmer at PMQs then he might have prepared better, so presumably he thinks he just doesn't need to, and he might be right.

There was some Twitter post doing the rounds last week saying that if you actually watch the Blair-Major exchanges then Blair would go hard every week and would be going all out to savage Major. Obviously we weren't in the middle of a lethal pandemic then and the Parliamentary circumstances were completely different but the guy was making the point that the don't-rock-the-boat-too-much consensual approach is a fantasy of Blairism that's built up in Labour centrist circles over the last decade rather than reflective of the real thing.

I like the last point - 1990s Labour in Opposition would be interesting to revisit.

yep the right of the Labour party have a very selective and curated version of Blairism that is nowhere near reality. But on the other hand Major did say if he ran against himself he would have still lost in '97. The Tory party were completely spent at this point in history.

I just watched an exchange out of curiosity and yeah Blair is just taking the piss out of him, Major stakes everything on highlighting Labour divisions over Europe and hey he turned out to be right about that, just a couple of decades out.

Even a spent and humiliated Major was much better at it than a victorious Johnson fwiw.

Alastair Campbell and gentlemanly consensuality don't really sit together too well.

images of him playing bagpipes behind a nurse who he is following and at Charlie Kennedy's grave would suggest a new kind of stalker/serial killer - a real sick bastard!

I feel a two-part ITV crime drama starring David Tennant coming on.

Johnson has been routinely terrible at answering questions on TV. No reason this would be any different in the HoC. And does it matter in his case? Clearly not.

Yes, as Matt says, the idea is more important than the reality.

The Telegraph has now announced the end of the lockdown four times, to no avail pic.twitter.com/wX7oBqmSbv

— Will Davies (@davies_will) May 7, 2020

death by repetition

BBC were pre-announcing it this morning, looks like something's going to happen

Many dozens of people in the park sunbathing yesterday tbh

it pains me that there ought to be a sensible approach to letting people be outside but any slackening on the government message will probably lead to people being dicks and another spike

then again most of the people who are actual dicks are already being dicks so shrug i dunno

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8296289/Black-people-FOUR-TIMES-likely-die-coronavirus-white-people.html

"and that's ok"

I think that introducing ambiguities into what can and can't be done is almost inevitable and is going to be a problem later down the line. I have zero confidence in the government to communicate it clearly - or at least without a load of unnecessary faffing around first. At the same time I am absolutely desperate to be able to at least sit in the park this summer.

There are going to be big problems with smaller and more popular green spaces as well. It's going to be impossible to open up London Fields on a hot day with any degree of social distancing, for example.

totally privileged viewpoint here but my god getting some kind of kid-playdates back (even attempted socially-distanced ones like the new Irish rules suggest) would ease perhaps the worst bit of this lockdown for me

The problem with all this stuff coming out via leaks is that there's not much opportunity get a sense of how the government is going to message 'if we hadn't locked down when there were 700 new cases per day, we'd have had a huge spike' at the same time as 'relaxing the lockdown when there are 6000 new cases per day doesn't risk a huge spike'.

pic.twitter.com/ci7LXOLcPA

— jack (@jrc1921) May 7, 2020

a bit of hand-waving, random mumble, cheeky grin, wiff-waff, sorted

Yeah, fanciful dreams aside I'm not sure exactly how significant the weekend's announcement can actually be in the immediate term beyond "when we hit point X we'll do Y". xp

they were saying on the tv that there was a review built into the original lockdown, and that this is just that.

i don't trust them to stop this any better than they started it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/revealed-the-secret-report-that-gave-ministers-warning-of-care-home-coronavirus-crisis

Sturgeon says no decisions have been made at Cobra yet about what Johnson might announce on Sunday - she says there could be a call later today to talk about it, making clear that Scotland could take a separate path

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 7, 2020

sure is gonna be fun when Scotland stays in lockdown but Westminster withdraws the furlough scheme

Great time for the UK goverment to be testing the Union even further.

It sounds like some Welsh ministers aren't happy with the testers being sent out by cchq either, they've still got the Stereophonics ringing in their ears

tfw capt tom has no trousers and two dicks

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXZaRSiX0AEzJwL?format=jpg

the ODB is defiling a poppy with one of his dicks, will never be able to eat his horror cake face after this!

Xp that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen

Fair play to Sub-Zero getting included in that lineup of total legends

one along the "more heroes" window features blobby, raoul moat and the cat-bin lady

I heard capt tom is releasing a charity single a cover of Kevin Gates "I got two dicks!"

one for the plug and one for the load?

Next time someone makes a song and dance about journalists being vital in holding governments to account, you should play them footage of UK's finest asking questions of government ministers at these daily coronavirus briefings - fucking pathetic.

Heard that Laura K has switched up her daily opening question from "when will the lockdown end?" to "aren't you ending the lockdown too soon?"

Raab says the government is looking very carefully at why BAME people are more at risk. When it gets those findings, it will consider what action to take.

Yeah, real fucking mystery.

Heard that Laura K has switched up her daily opening question from "when will the lockdown end?" to "aren't you ending the lockdown too soon?"

I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.

British media today: "Can I just shock you? I like lockdown - despite what I said earlier." pic.twitter.com/B8LaHq0c22

— Ross McCafferty (@RossMcCaff) May 7, 2020

If you can craft Daedric Armour in Skyrim, are you still working class?

— Rosewood Shoehorn (@apiarism) May 7, 2020

Did the clapping thing happen tonight or has everyone given up on it?

there was quite a lot around our way, yeah

I didn't hear anything here in deepest Tory voting West Yorkshire. It's been 20+ degrees today and lots of people are drinking in their gardens and maybe are growing weary of it - idk

i think they're saving it for the two world wars and one world cup rally tomorrow

It happened, and in my estate was followed 30 minutes later by one of the neighbours on a loudspeaker doing a call to iftar prayers.

Did the clapping thing happen tonight or has everyone given up on it?

Louder than ever tonight in my neighbourhood - or maybe that's because I had the windows open and wasn't watching the telly or listening to music.