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

Which one?

Beat me to it. The Joe Biden one isn't the Official ILX US Politics Thread.

Christ, the Labour Party leadership election taking 4 months (or however long it was) was painful enough but nothing compared to US presidential campaigns which are more or less infinite.

seriously can't believe how long that primary has gone on

hey if it's always an election then you don't have to do any actual politics

had a quick peek, makes you glad the UK melts are so cowed

US thread is a really good example of people pushing people who think differently to them further away, with each post the possibility of persuasion diminishes.

So are we allowed to comment in a political thread concerning a country we're not from? I've never been sure of the etiquette.

This happens everywhere but its notable that the removal of Fred doesn't actually seem to have made any difference. Its tempting to compare Fred to a massive shit that has a smell long after the shit itself has been cleaned away, but I think that's somewhat unfair and only a small contributory factor.

Have you heard he's been unbanned btw?

Can I just say; Piers Corbyn speaks for Piers Corbyn and only Piers Corbyn.

...Every family has a Piers I'm sure 🙄😂

— Tommy Corbyn (@TommyCorbyn) May 16, 2020

lol !

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/16/thatcherite-thinktanks-back-increase-public-spending-in-lockdown?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

in a call to around 125 members of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, the Daily Telegraph reported that the prime minister said there was “no question” of a return to austerity, and assured them he would “double down” on funding transport projects in the north of England.

Left-leaning thinktanks and academics have lined up to condemn plans for a return to austerity, saying it would harm the recovery, and adding that further government borrowing would be needed to secure a return to growth after the virus-induced mothballing of the economy.

All thinktanks should be liquidated "a return to austerity" the faux-naive graun pretending that austerity ended is such an insult to millions of people still living through it. cunts

the recovery

what is this

If this lot are as proficient at recovery as they are at prevention I wouldn't expect much.

I know that liking an eminently sensible Twitter thread is ultimately meaningless but Clive Lewis comes across as a slightly dim, misogynist boor who allies himself on the right side of several arguments. Debobbaire was a whip under Corbyn so can hardly be on the irreconcilable right of the party but is a terrible communicator and comes across as someone who is basically well meaning but has internalised a lot of dreadful shit about how sensible grown-up politics is done.

that's what I was reaching for when I posted she isn't an ideologue, ironically the flimsy sense of what her *politics* are, that you get from listening to her - are certainly more informed by party factionalism than any kind of political conviction and much more so than than in the lefties she accuses of factionalism or "un-Labourness"

well fuck it, she's an irredeemable melt is the truth!

Clive Lewis often positions himself to the left of many awful people in the PLP but still seems a very *grasping* unreliable type of political operator who I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw him. Even if he wasn't so obviously such a terrible human being.

Love too see comrade alphie is so influential he can prevent tens of thousands of swing voters in the US from voting, just because of his utterances on little-read website ilx dot com.

Good to see the government’s approval ratings fall; long may it continue. I see that Eton and other rich kid schools won’t reopen til the autumn, but state school children must be resilient or something?

thank god the idea that you are responsible for what crimes one awful political party commits on it's most vulnerable citizens and ethnic minorities by not voting for another awful party that you have come to despise will not become a commonly held logical fallacy in the UK political chat bubbles until at least 2024!

Love too see comrade alphie is so influential he can prevent tens of thousands of swing voters in the US from voting, just because of his utterances on little-read website ilx dot com.

LOL that one leapt out at me too. He will be pleased.

Good to see the government’s approval ratings fall; long may it continue. I see that Eton and other rich kid schools won’t reopen til the autumn, but state school children must be resilient or something?

Gove on Andrew Marr this morning trotting out that disingenuos garbage about "What about poor and disadvantage kids, they have a right to an education and will miss out on opportunites if..." blah blah blah. On another note, how sweet to hear the mellifluous and distictive native accents of the two Scotsmen Marr and Gove.

Also apparently the government won’t be fining parents for non-attendance at schools? 🤨

The UK has withdrawn its exemption of the French from quarantine upon arrival; I expect we’ll do the same in the spirit of reciprocity as we did to Spain earlier this week.

Meanwhile Gove is whining about inflexible Brussels negotiators today.

haha going to be a nightmare for the govt to get out of this lockdown

You have to listen carefully to what Gove says because he has a tendency to hide what he really means in a dense jungle of bumptious verbiage - so he slips in a comment about the economy in among his claptrap about teachers wanting to teach and children from disadvantaged backgrounds not being allowed to fall behind.

thank god the idea that you are responsible for what crimes one awful political party commits on it's most vulnerable citizens and ethnic minorities by not voting for another awful party that you have come to despise will not become a commonly held logical fallacy in the UK political chat bubbles until at least 2024!

i think we had plenty of practice with this argument during the pre-Crombyn years, but tbf to the USians they've had less experience of choosing between two morally corrupt parties designed to represent the interests of the exploiter class

I was talking to my son's teacher, he's my new best friend because I found out he not only hates tories but also isn't impressed with Starmer either or with his much vaunted forensic abilities.

like this morning I heard Ayesha Hazarika very much overstressing the utter brilliance of that forensic PMQ gotcha where Starmer asks why did the Rona deaths/infection rate comparison charts with other countries disappear from their daily bulletins. Wow you should hear him talking to Ocado customer services, he manages to get his name and address correct and speaks in such a concise manner that call centre staff have been known to applaud him.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/17/as-public-confidence-in-the-government-tumbles-the-coronavirus-truce-is-over

Don't usually like linking to Andrew Rawnsley but MPs do actually talk to him and this stuff was interesting:

Even generally loyal Conservatives have become deeply disturbed by the unenviably high toll of fatalities. “Do you know how many people have died in Hong Kong? Four! Just four!” exclaims one senior Tory. “People are waking up to the fact that Britain has done really woefully.”

It is now taken as given that there will be the mother of all public inquiries when this is finally over. Key players at the centre of events are writing private records of who did what when and who failed to do what when. One senior official tells me: “We are all keeping notes.”...

Cabinet ministers are letting it be known that they are furious about the lack of prior consultation by Downing Street before it makes key announcements. Tory MPs joined the ridicule of the prime minister’s confused and confusing broadcast. When it was over, one former cabinet minister turned to his wife and said: “What has he just said? What did that mean?” Two-thirds of the public agree that the government’s new rules are not clear. Another former cabinet minister says: “Boris has had his worst week of the crisis. He lost control of the messaging.” I’m told that a WhatsApp group used by about 250 Conservative MPs seethes with “sulphurous feelings” towards the cabinet.

Barring a sudden onset of competence, this is going to end in a gigantic clusterfuck of finger-pointing, blame-shifting and backstabbing among senior Tories.

you love to see it, even while accepting it won't make any difference

I have a feeling that the broadcast last weekend is going to go down in history as a disaster on almost every level - politically, medically, scientifically, economically, morally. Hard to see any level on which it succeeded unless the aim was to sow confusion from the outset.

He's a cock but that Matt Lucas video that did the rounds this week has probably done the government more damage than anything Starmer has managed up until now.

oh god that Matt Lucas is a war criminal on so many levels I couldn't watch it

Given the revolt against Johnson’s “plan” from the regions as well as the nations, it feels a little like his authority has shrunk back to the size of London.

The video isn't even any good but the point is that it resonated. People have given up months of their lives because of a belief it would be worth it in the end, any sense that it's being squandered, that the UK might end up prolonging this crisis, is going to stoke rage and distrust.

I mean just look at the way the UK races up the bar chart here.

That Jenny Harries is an absolute disgrace with the things she’s saying. I have friends messaging me from Portugal and at home going what the fuck is going on there???? Just fucking insane every single day.

i didn't know there was a Matt Lucas video i'm socially distancing from the nation's favourite faces

at least he hasn't performed a hostile takeover of the entire kid's book industry like his erstwhile partner in warcrime

I'm actually envious of anyone who hasn't received it at least three or four times on various WhatsApp groups.

at least he hasn't performed a hostile takeover of the entire kid's book industry like his erstwhile partner in warcrime

ah right, i've yet to enter the world of WhatsApp and i dunno my Facebook circle is mostly on...other issues

I don't even have a television Facebook circle, they call me the desolate one. i'm to very offline desolation what starmer is to forensicness!

i know! imagine my surprise when i discovered you on that other social media site

I'm just doing my bit to make twitter even worse!

i enjoy Twitter, it's the newsfeed we deserve

I lol hard at some bad stuff on twitter. The other day i lost a follower (and I don't have many so it's quite easy to notice!) for liking a sicko Ian Huntley/NHS clapping joke, that probably wasn't that funny but it cracked me up at the time.

maybe it's just my imagination but after a walk to the shops i'd say socially distancing is dying on its arse, it was almost as if people had got the idea it didn't matter any more

Labour's Sir Keir Starmer calls for 'four-nation' approach on coronavirus and lockdown https://t.co/wI4Tg0lObI

— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) May 17, 2020

well yeah which begs the question why the fuck would Scotland + miscellaneous others want to get their c-19 guidance from a govt that has fucked it up worse than anywhere else in the world and whose messaging has been chaotic, inconsistent and dangerous? Kier might have used up all his forensicness on that utterly brilliant question he asked last week.

maybe it's just my imagination but after a walk to the shops i'd say socially distancing is dying on its arse, it was almost as if people had got the idea it didn't matter any more

Just been to the shops myself and it's not just your imagination.

I saw people having a big multi-generational picnic in the park yesterday. This is the crappiest excuse for a lockdown in Europe and it's down to the garbled contradictory messaging coming from the Westminster govt.

What percentage of people are wearing masks?

Portugal seems to be 100% in shops/buses, 60% on street but declining as its getting warmer, and 0% in parks