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

Big LJ energy here (he’s talking about cricket)

My wife got a bit angry with me because I was listening so intently I started to drive away from RHS Wisley with my mum still hanging out the side of the car...

— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) August 27, 2019

Hodges has also been busy in the Mail supporting Farage's attempts to get the government to sink boats of people crossing the Channel. Maybe Glenda doesn't mind that.

i'd've disowned the cunt long ago not joking

Glenda Jackson was in the Blair government for a couple of years but those early cabinets were quite different to the later ones. She was probably closer to the likes of Robin Cook and Mo Mowlam than Corbyn (but probably to the left of both).

if hodges had been given the ilx hazing treatment aged 19-30 he might've turned out like me 😇

I like to think Glenda is sitting there smoking and drinking, regardless of the hour, only acknowledging Dan when she absolutely has to.

@Ginabellman You think that's bad. I recently found out my mum has been spelling my middle name wrong for 47 years...

— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) March 9, 2016

wait is he 50 omg

ahhahaha he is FIFTY

This is how I feel realising you’re only a couple of years younger than me.

:o

One MP has received 1,000 emails overnight complaining about Dominic Cummings. I’m told this extract is typical of most of them.

MPs worried this is causing irreparable damage. pic.twitter.com/O3ZJbYpUZw

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) May 26, 2020

sorry your culture-war dog-whistle didn't work

NEW - YouGov poll

59% think Dominic Cummings should resign (up from 52% at the weekend) pic.twitter.com/h0Jxch9poJ

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) May 26, 2020

#AccidentalPartridge pic.twitter.com/GJrLC6tzA4

— Accidental Partridge (@AccidentalP) May 26, 2020

lol

Downing Street lobby briefing

No10 spokesman said that when they said Dominic Cummings was “at home” through April, he didn’t actually know where he was and just knew he wasn’t at work. “It was very obvious at the time that what I was setting out was that he wasn’t at work”. 🧐

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) May 26, 2020

Read that as Dominic Cummings didn't actually know where he was - which would explain the phone conversation with Johnson that neither could remember any details of.

I must admit I can absolutely believe Cummings shitting himself, freaking out and losing his marbles when he thought he had the 'rona.

That's pretty much what happened.

Looks like it. Have a word with him, Tracer Hand.

That would have been totally survivable though – "I panicked when I got the Rona and made a bad mistake and I'm sorry" would have more than done the job (and might have covered the birthday trip when it inevitably came up). It's the arrogance that's done for him

My mum: “Are you going to be doing more stuff defending Cummings”. Me: “Yes”. My mum: “Then you’re an idiot”. So that’s going well then...

— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) May 26, 2020

if he apologised he would be failing in his mission to act as a lightning rod, trolling the media & making them look incompetent, & making everyone talk about him instead of rona

Talking about him is talking about rona though.

Tory MPs in marginals getting jumpy is one thing, Tories in safe seats is another.

indirectly, it's a sideshow, an outlet for public anger that might otherwise have a more politically useful target, as he gets to play the maverick villainous arrogant bad egg while making clear none of the rest of the govt had any idea. whether he eventually gets sacrificed or not the longer this goes on the less time the uk death toll is in the headlines

I note starmer is really going hard on the nandy-concerned-eyebrows in his rona-related weirdly slow, cloying announcements. this shows more humility than the more imperious, disdainful furrowed brow of blair

if I was starmzy I’d be tempted to just bunt johnson’s line back at him by saying “people can make their own minds up and don’t think any reasonable observer would support what he’s done, particularly in light of all the sacrifices ordinary people have made for two months up and down the country.”

There is no way this shitshow is 5D chess. The rona isn't going anywhere while this plays out; it's just waiting in the queue

Not really convinced the sacrificial lamb tactic is viable when everything is about the pandemic. Public anger at Cummings' behaviour is directly connected with the government's handling of the crisis.

meh, while Cummings stays in post it kind of is, if he goes over this - sacked, resigns, shot by concerned passerby with silver bullet - it'll not be thought of as a government failing by anybody who matters after a fortnight

Well he isn't going is he?

and the effect will be broadly the same i suspect, forgotten given time, not directly linked to poor, too loyal BoJo and way down the list of this government's demonstrable faults and failings by the time another election comes round

it's not that he shouldn't be sacked and it's not that people aren't angry but it's not the kind of anger amongst the kind of people at the kind of time that will effect much political change. it slots neatly into the one-thought-at-a-time functioning of our news media, is all

Sorry, I forgot that everyone itt is thinking about the next election when I'm thinking no further than the end of the week. Mea culpa.

sadly enough the likely best outcome from a Starmzfront Labour point of view would be for him to stay in post and then this to be revisited in a legit post-Rona enquiry but i can't build up much excitement for that prospect

I've not recovered from the last election, I feel like my synapses, or whatever, have been so burnt out I can barely even process the word 'election'.

yeah i'm not saying anybody is "wrong" to be angry. i broadly agree that this kind of public anger is fuel to a Cummings and distracts from what the government are actually doing and what they want to do but i wouldn't make a whole shtick out of that.

also this thread is for bad jokes and howling it isn't the Fifth International so

Yes, it's distracting from what they're doing – but even if we were focused on that nothing would change there this week, they'd brush it, say the comparisons were wrong, etc etc. You might get a bit more attention on Brexit, but the country isn't interested in that now.

Meantime there's a big scalp up for grabs, one which Johnson has glued himself to in a way that has cost him 20 points already. Even if nothing more comes of it than a love-to-see-it resignation, it's worth a bit of a distraction to get it.

I think this is only a minor distraction. Anyone see video of that huge queue for the food bank in Elephant & Castle shopping centre? I mean, the economic contraction and fall out has potential to really blow up this summer and beyond xp

If Cummings really is holding the different factions of the cabinet if not together, then in check, it's hard to know what kind of impact keeping him / turfing him out is going to have on all of the more important stuff.

someone said if domcum goes, BJ will have to deal with a load of resignations. who will resign? domcum's staff or cabinet ministers?

5D chess is nonsense bc it suggests a level of control and order which is impossible. this is just 'flooding the zone with shit', in keeping w/ the disruptive agent of chaos modus operandi that has characterised this wing of the right.

Pretty obvious that Johnson doesn't think Cummings leaving the government is a minor distraction.

that strategy doesn't usually call for the shit to be yr own suicide, but xp

i’d venture a guess that the economic consequences of many millions of people out of work will be more severe, and more transformative long-term(for better or for worse) than anyone is yet grasping. it’s absolutely massive and the characteristics of this virus mean no quick solutions. this government is absolutely not up to the challenge. a scandal of this size and shape will look, in retrospect, like a day out at, er barnard castle.

TS: 'flooding the zone with shit' vs. 5D chess

5D chess but all the dimensions are indistinguishable from shit

someone said if domcum goes, BJ will have to deal with a load of resignations. who will resign? domcum's staff or cabinet ministers?

it's the birthday present from me to you

Btw I agree with the theory I saw earlier on twitter, which is that this whole thing has fucked what most of us assume is the government’s intention to shift the blame to the public.