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

Please rewrite all Starmer tweets in the style of Danny Dyer from now on.

we will never waver in our commitment to tackling hate

*tory islamophobia inquiry throbbing in the background*

I'll never forget this Ruggers fellow.

Seven years ago today, Lee Rigby was murdered while serving his country. We will never forget him or waver in our commitment to tackling violent extremism and hate.

— Keir Starmer

whit

― megan thee macallan 18 year (||||||||),

Potentially opening can of worms here but is the problem what Keir says here, or that he comments at all? I don't have strong opinions here, though I do have some time for Dyer's perfomativity

just odd that he even chose to comment at all, when as far as I can see no one else is marking this important anniversary. feels a little like he’s overcompensating against the image_from_rochester.jpg critique

he enjoys this variety of standard mealy mouthed empty politician burble, because that it is what he is.. just a complete class "a" reconstructed tory cunt imo.

He commented on the anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing (also today) as well. It's basically a box ticking exercise but people do notice these things, you can tell because under the Rigby tweet there are people going "what about the Manchester bombing?", despite the fact it's literally in the previous tweet.

I bet the Jezza twitter get's about 1500 "what about drummer McRiggers?" when he's tweeting about some constituency matter.

It's basically harmless and kind of dumb but I guess you do probably have to do a dutiful round of commemorating the anniversary of every recent terrorist attack. When it's the anniversary of the Finsbury Park attack I can virtually guarantee his mentions will be full of people going "didn't see you say anything about Lee Rigby". There's something very rote and performative about all of this but then there is about so much of politics.

I suppose 7 years is a strange timeframe.

I realize its a box ticking exercise and performative, was wondering if there were objections beyond that

If Khan didn't get his Rigby tweet in before Starmer that's him done for.

in the context of it coming from Sir Kier, the creepy reconstructed tory cunt who is taking the PLP back to the 2015 model and disenfranchising a couple of hundred thousand members who thought the party could be changed, it's quite alright to say fuck off to him imo

If I read a gigantic dossier on Starmer entitled: Huuuge Evidence & Fact based report on how much of a Tory cunt Starmer is, that contained lots of fresh revelations about his political and personal history. I still wouldn't think any less of him as the Leader of the Labour Party.

This is a good piece on the care homes disaster (written by Cameron's speechwriter lol).

https://members.tortoisemedia.com/2020/05/18/coronavirus-care-homes-ian-birrell/content.html

cat talk is thread instaban tho

Yesterday's u-turn by Boris Johnson was the right thing to do.

We cannot clap our carers one day and then charge them to use our NHS the next.

When we emerge from this crisis we need a new settlement where we truly value those who contribute so much to our society.

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) May 22, 2020

ffs Keir they're 'wealth creator creators' get it right

I hope some of these Tories that were complete stans for the 2010-15 austerity cuts and beyond that are currently being critical of the current government don't get any ideas that they haven't got blood on their hands as well.

There is an NHS doctor in today's Graun saying don't clap us, the NHS isn't a charity, just fund it properly.

That Tortoise piece is excellent but good grief it reads like an attempt at atonement from someone who helped get Cameron elected (although afaik didn't follow him into government).

The point that social care has received very little government support for decades is a crucial one, of course private equity was going to swoop in on what was a demographic no-brainer when there was next to no state support.

Of course it would have helped if the government wasn't basically funneling coronavirus patients straight in there and out of hospitals. For all the fetishisation of public-private partnerships over the last couple of decades, the real-world communication and co-operation between the two sectors is often woeful and the crisis is a particularly clear and lethal illustration of that.

i’m kind of surprised G4S doesn’t already run all the UK care homes.

or some other PFI behemoth that couldn't run a tap

i thought Lee Rigsby was just out having a walk in which case there's tons of us serving our country most days

fucking dickhead is posting like a Rangers fan.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYnaZWYXgAI5S3_?format=jpg&name=medium

Jeremy Dyer weighs in :get your brass tacks right, this Rigby fellow wasn't serving his country yer slag.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/21/what-would-negative-interest-rates-mean-for-mortgages-and-savings

Savings rates have already been hit by the two base rate cuts in March and most easy-access accounts from high street banks are already paying just 0.1% in interest.

Andrew Hagger, the founder of the financial information website Moneycomms, says he thinks it is unlikely banks will start charging people to hold their everyday savings. “Many would just withdraw cash and possibly keep it in the house, thus opening a can of worms around security and break-ins,” he says. “However, if the Bank of England did introduce negative rates, I’m sure we would see even more savings accounts heading towards zero.”

!

definite rangers fan energy emanating from the riggers tweet

"Mention fridges so people joke about the PM hiding in a fridge"

Keep 2 metres apart when you go outside. That’s:

🔴 1 bed
🔴 2 benches
🔴 3 fridges
🔴 4 chairs#StayAlert

— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) May 22, 2020

It looks like Hobhouse and Moran are both pitching to shift the Lib Dems to the left:

https://werahobhouse.org.uk/abandon-equidistance/

Hobhouse's is essentially positioning them as the potential junior partners in a Labour coalition.

idk where that leaves a huge chunk of their membership, if nobody else joins the race.

reluctantly voting Tory as per?

SBed gyac for being a cat owner

True NV.

pic.twitter.com/06CGMI0Tf2

— Joanna Walsh (@badaude) May 22, 2020

xps, i'm currently measuring everything in red squirrels as they seem to be more of a consistent size than either benches or fridges.

i'm going with the 8 grey squirrels #fuckred #endthegenocide

A woman freaked out at me this morning because I was leaving TOO MUCH room in the queue for the supermarket. "That's your mark there, move forward!" Lots of anger and shouting. I pointed out to her that it made no difference to how soom she'd get into the shop.

lmao, have had to laugh at all the drivers on the roads speeding. it's like, mate, nowhere's open, what's the rush

I have also had the same conversation as fetter, sometimes with the Sainsbury's staff - it's a minimum not a maximum! Also we are all the way around the car park, nothing we do matters.

not like Brits to get anal about queueing

The SAGE advice seems to suggest that if the R number is substantially below 1 then there might be ways to partially open schools and not immediately return to exponential growth but if it's pretty close to 1 then there probably isn't.

Current estimates are somewhere between 0.7 and 1, but they can't be more specific than that - so there's no way to show that re-opening schools wouldn't lead to exponential growth again.

Given that we have been in lockdown for two months, and as blase as Britishes have been about lockdown there's been relatively little movement between regions afaik. So the R number could be substantially lower in some parts of the country than in others.

The R number isn't the only consideration here, it's about the prevalence of the virus more generally. It's less safe to open schools in areas that are coming down from a higher peak.

Although the communications are enough of a mess without throwing regional variations in on top of that.

They are going to need to get really unambiguously clear on comms if they want R to drop further because it's getting proper busy out now. I had to wait to cross the road, ffs

so anyone coming into the uk who breaks the 14-day isolation will pay a £1000 fine on the very small chance that they’re found out

so basically rich people have carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they want, who’d have guessed it

I know of one rich person who has five trips booked in the next four weeks. All the tickets in her name.

Wonder if that surveillance infrastructure they built to monitor poor immigrants will swing into action to stop her.

taking all bets

CLAP THE CUNT IN IRONS

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/22/dominic-cummings-durham-trip-coronavirus-lockdown

Police spoke to Dominic Cummings about breaching the government’s lockdown rules after he was seen in Durham, 264 miles from his London home, despite having had symptoms of coronavirus

At the time, the government had instructed people not to travel and to stay at their family homes. Cummings, however, was seen in Durham. A member of the public is understood to have seen him and made a complaint to the police.

lol

I feel like phoning someone to complain every time I see him too.

His parents can't exactly be spring chickens so what exactly was he doing visiting them a few days after displaying symptoms? This can only be attempted murder as far as I'm concerned.

I know it’s Laura K, but she’s now tweeting in defence of Cummings, clearly on behalf of Cummings, in reply to the journalist who broke the story? fucking hell

Source says his trip was within guidelines as Cummings went to stay with his parents so they could help with childcare while he and his wife were ill - they insist no breach of lockdown

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 22, 2020

how the fuck is any of that within the guidelines

He who writes the guidelines can bend the guidelines

my wife’s been ill on and off for weeks and my parents live a lot closer than 250 miles, if only i’d known i could just pop my daughter over to see them because it’s been challenging sometimes

Yes, there’s no fucking way it’s in the guidelines, apart from a passing ref from Deputy CMO made weeks after his trip. Wonder if he’ll last until next PMQs