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

Yeah I mean I'm uncomfortable with telling people how to vote at the best of times, but it isn't a zero-sum game and lots of the people most at risk are in groups who by and large aren't especially represented here.

The challenge with tactically threatening to withdraw your support, as a bloc, in order to influence policy is setting the red lines in a place that gives that threat some teeth and doesn't automatically get you written off as a lost cause.

"We are not the Tories" was the problem not the solution under New Labour as much as anything and they were capable of being pretty authoritarian when it came to some of those groups.

"to keep enough left-leaning waverers onside, and they're also probably calculating that having a few tankies very publically flounce out will do them no harm with other voter groups."

They are courting LBC phone-in racists rn! They don't care for tankies.

no one has said anything since the election as grimly otm about future of the social movements around and encouraged by corbyn and the long-term relationship between the left and the labour as aditya chakrabortty on desolation radio just before the election, m/l predicting the demise of the left for a generation https://soundcloud.com/desolationradio/assessing-corbynism-with-aditya-chakrabortty-chakrabortty

remember relistening to this on election night at 2am ahhhh

https://armchairideology.blogspot.com/2020/06/welfare.html?m=1

"Reading the interview the remark is part of, his overall intentions are clearly to increase the size and the scope of the welfare state while building some level of consensus amongst the sceptical. But I do wonder if it might be possible for politicians to discuss the welfare state without doing so in a way that detracts from its purpose."

This seems OTM broadly.

National Insurance has never functioned like insurance since the day of its inception btw

when chakrabortty quotes voltaire at the end there saying "you really can't retreat to your garden" it just made me think that's exactly what's going to happen

Well even just bone-simple car insurance doesn't 'pay out what you pay in'. Once you're covered by a policy it pays out, even if you just bought your first car last month.

I understand the issue with the quote but in context it seems clear that the point he was making is that the government is letting people down by chizzing them out of what ought to be their due, which seems reasonable enough.

I guess I am psyched to see how ppl who supported the starmzian pivot to a second ref will do telling leave voters who abstained in 19 about the importance of voting

If the argument is to make the case for welfare both more accessible and more appealing to those on higher incomes, then say so. Don’t wink at the deserving/undeserving poor idea that was so successful for the Tories. The reason this country has children going hungry today has its roots in much of the ideology that the benefits system should be difficult to navigate and punitive towards those who need it most.

This too seems difficult to refute

why should a recently unemployed worker in wales be entitled to less than an english worker in the home counties who has had state economic policy (investment, interest rates, protecting industries in recessions) catered for around their needs for decades?

— ▀▀▀▀▀▀ (@immolations) June 5, 2020

I tell that unemployed Welsh worker to vote for the red donkey anyway.

If you view the main purpose of unemployment benefit to be providing a soft landing that lets you maintain your obligations / standard of living as far as possible after you've lost your job, until you've found a new one, it doesn't seem that hard of a question to answer. Whether that's the appropriate way to view it is the harder part.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52933804

Sizeable margin for error here but... this seems good?

it seems good but we've only just charged pluckily out of lockdown so i'll wait a couple of weeks

That is good - but also quite a long way from the '4000 cases a day across Britain target' that iirc they wanted to get to before the easing of lockdown.

The bit that's simultaneously reassuring and terrifying is the part about only 29% of people returning a positive test having any symptoms at the time.

That's 21% lower than I was expecting

Good news message from Emma @Underthecranes https://t.co/SpdP12cRWc

— Michael Rosen (@MichaelRosenYes) June 5, 2020

I feel like I say this at least once a day, but I ❤️ Zarah.

Speaking to the Women and Equalities Select Committee in April, Liz Truss brought into question the rights of trans women and young people.

I've written to her for answers on the Government's plans for the reform of the Gender Recognition Act and trans healthcare. pic.twitter.com/Obx8jTIe7x

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) June 5, 2020

Q. When will UK zoos be able to reopen?

Hancock says this is close to his heart because he comes from Chester and knows Chester Zoo “extremely well”.

But they must be reopened in a safe way, he adds.

Exclusive: Tory MP attended lockdown barbecue with journalists - Spectator deputy editor, Freddy Gray, and Isabel Oakeshott - as well as Richard Tice, Brexit party chairman https://t.co/IZ9POz4tWn

— Claire Phipps (@Claire_Phipps) June 5, 2020

Q. When will UK zoos be able to reopen?

Yes, these questions from members of the public are always so salient and probing.

open the zoos, free the prisoners

... 'cos that's a jubilee

(Dave Greenfield RIP)

Hancock has been known to throw turds at the gbp occasionally and publicly prance about with a visible erection next a female of the species, wouldn't doubt his suitability to be housed there!

at Chester Zoo I meant!

lions on the street of Chester would add to the Roman ambience imo

So does Bob Seely get punished here or can they all just do what they like now?

tbh getting into a "ban every naughty MP who broke the lockdown" was always a route towards tit for tat madness

best neighbours:

https://i.ibb.co/4JCCfSb/IMG-20200605-113010.jpg

<3 <3 <3

they also might have blood on their hands from clapping so ferociously, amirite?

357 deaths today, probably more than all of Europe combined again.

WE'RE NUMBER 1 WE'RE NUMBER 1

Read 'em and weep, Europeans... errrr

The government has extended the ban on eviction hearings for renters until 23 August (it was 25 June). Good to see, as I mentioned in my show last night, it needed doing as mortgage repossessions are already barred until 31 Oct. Full info https://t.co/upojF9zVvD

— Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis) June 5, 2020

EXCLUSIVE in tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph

Former Labour MP Frank Field set to become peer after Jeremy Corbyn's three candidates blocked https://t.co/qMJP0iTy7e

— Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) June 5, 2020

quite appropriate really, living in an age of death and with a dead opposition party.

not that I'm complaining about the ring-wraiths blocking Tom Watson of course!

So he 'left' Parliament at the last general election did he? Here I was thinking that, despite holding the seat for 40 years, his massive personal vote wasn't sufficient to stop him losing the seat by 17,705 votes.

I've got a suggestion for his title, Lord Cunt.

that title could still do with being boiled down to its essence tbf, just make it a bit shorter!

tbh getting into a "ban every naughty MP who broke the lockdown" was always a route towards tit for tat madness

Fuck it, most MPs deserve to get kicked out, can't do any harm.

if you chucked a grenade into their funhouse, whichever ever side it lands in there is only a very slight chance of taking out a human!

There's some speculation right now that the R rate is now over 1 in the North West.

Aaaah!

congrats to niccy sturgeon for successfully puttin everyone who reads this off shaggin for life x pic.twitter.com/hAxFX5bk4j

— erika (@erikatkatcat) June 6, 2020

Poll needed!