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

if only the left had someone

https://i.imgur.com/ZfV6v1J.jpg

fp

Re: Boris, the tabloids today were full of WHY DID YOU GO TO THE BEACH FFS and CRYING HEALTH MINISTER DISAPPOINTED IN US BAD BAD CHILDREN; I don't mean to kinkshame but would really want out of this s&m roleplay the govt and the press seem to be engaged in with the populace.

Members of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs met with Keir Starmer this morning: pic.twitter.com/JDaGIIZyij

— Socialist Campaign Group (@socialistcam) June 26, 2020

Cross-party MPs have urged government to stop homeless migrants being forced to return to the streets.

29 Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green MPs have signed a joint letter warning of a coming ‘cliff-edge’ as the programme housing people experiencing homelessness in hotels during Covid-19 ends across England at the beginning of July.

Pleased to have MPs across political parties join me in a letter to the Government warning of a coming ‘cliff-edge’ as the programme to house people experiencing homelessness in hotels during COVID-19 ends across England at the beginning of July. pic.twitter.com/DFo31HVlD5

— Apsana Begum MP (@ApsanaBegumMP) June 26, 2020

looking forward to starmer showing strong leadership on this one too

on the “soft AS” phrase - it’s not a good one. the intention was to say it’s not the grotesque and violent version of AS that people who hate jews (mainly but not exclusively on the right) but it is still AS, and feeds into tropes of global jewishness (my reason for taking exception to the word “imperial”). it’s probably best expressed here by Bush:

Keir Starmer has Rebecca Long-Bailey, his former leadership rival, from her post as shadow education secretary after she described the actor Maxine Peake as a “diamond” and shared an Independent interview with the Shameless star in which she said that “the tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services”.

What’s wrong with that? It’s true to say that the world’s police forces share training and exchange techniques, and that holds true for the police in most nations.

But it is not true to say that neck kneeling was taught by, or originates from, Israeli secret services - as Amnesty International, cited as the original source for the claim [tell us], they have not said so.

It goes to the essence of many of Labour's long-running problems on this issue - why should Israel’s security services be treated as more responsible for the killing than those of the United Kingdom or France, or any of the countless forces that use aggressive restraint techniques? Why is Peake, a British actor, singling out the world’s only Jewish majority state as the point of origin for the killing of an African-American? Why not the United Kingdom - or why not simply the United States, where the killing took place? It's an example of an all-too-common pattern on the British left: of placing Israel at the heart of a global web of ills.

As I've written before, the true face of Labour's antisemitism problem is not people who have hatred in their hearts, but people who are either simply unable to see the problem when it is in front of them, or are unwilling to confront or condemn expressions of it when they see them.

It was poorly put, at best, by Peake. It’s grey enough in terms of AS to have set alarm bells going for RLB, especially considering her position, especially considering perception of AS was considered a major vulnerability in the last election, and being seen to respond better - quicker and more decisively - has been made a priority for the leadership.

i don’t think it’s an unreasonable level of vigilance to say to your senior party members “think twice before publicly posting anything with a reference to israel in it, and then probably don’t anyway”.

even without starmer’s desire to marginalise the left it would have created a hell of a headache. with that it was probably an incredibly easy decision.

it’s a huge pity to see her go, especially taking into account calz’s tweet up thread about the work she was putting in at grassroots level to be across her brief and the general extreme crapness of williamson. she’s clearly diligent and capable and the last senior Labour person able to articulate the principles of socialism from the position of the front bench.

apologies for prolonging the conversation - one of those posts where you go, do i really want to post this? but did just want to clarify the bad “soft AS” point.

as always on AS i’d encourage people to go to this excellent report on Anti-Semitism in Contmepoearu Britain.

The attempt to comprehend the meaning of these figures from the point of view of a British Jewish individual, results in a significant breakthrough in understanding Jewish anxieties. Fierce antisemitism is undoubtedly a minority position in British society. However, Jews lead their lives without full knowledge or certainty about the scope or character of the thoughts and attitudes of others. Such is the nature of social interactions. What Jews come across in everyday social encounters at an individual level is expressions of single attitudes, often in a casual manner, rather than comprehensive profiles of all attitudes that other individuals may possess, and antisemitic attitudes, at some level, can be found among 30% of the British population in some shape or form. These attitudes do not need to be fierce and do not need to cluster within a particular individual in order to be noticed by Jews. British society harbours some sort of anti-Israel attitude or attitudes, which are often treated as suspicious by many Jews, and not without reason, since, as we have seen, for significant proportions of people, anti-Israel attitudes are indeed mixed with antisemitic ones. Thus, 62% of British society endorse at least one antisemitic and/or one anti-Israel attitude, making the likelihood of Jews encountering such attitudes very high. In light of this recast, Jewish anxieties and fears instantly become more understandable.

29 Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green MPs have signed a joint letter

arise coth

Emma Hardy in the running to replace RLB, i've met Emma (briefly), she seems meltier than a Mr Whippy on Bournemouth beach

if you've obtained a rep for something (fairly or not) you have to really go hard the other way to remove it. Labour has got itself a rep for antisemitism. This isn't the time to publically thread through a semantic argument about why it's good not bad actually to bring up Israel in the context of US police brutality.

Not convinced it needed to be a sacking personally, and it is definitely storing up debts that will have to be repaid, but I think Matt's right about the short-term appeal of it to KS.

whats going on in glasgow atm?

Contmepoearu

didn't he play for Steaua Bucharest?

if you've obtained a rep for something (fairly or not) you have to really go hard the other way to remove it. Labour has got itself a rep for antisemitism. This isn't the time to publically thread through a semantic argument about why it's good not bad actually to bring up Israel in the context of US police brutality.

The logical end point of this would be to not express any solidarity towards Palestine whatsoever.

Labour also developed a perceived reputation (fairly or not) for 'anti-white racism', Irish republicanism, hatred of the armed forces and NATO, anti-Hindu sentiment, support for Assad and Putin, etc, etc so excited to see what else they can lean in on.

Hardy became politically active in 2011, after joining a campaign protesting against school cuts and meeting Alan Johnson, the then-MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle.

Radicalised by Alan Johnson, the shame of it.

The logical end point of this would be to not express any solidarity towards Palestine whatsoever.

Not even the end point! They would then find another stick to beat the left with.

Oh sorry, SV said as much above.

"if you've obtained a rep for something (fairly or not) you have to really go hard the other way to remove it. Labour has got itself a rep for antisemitism."

That's running -- to an extent -- after an issue that is played up by the right-wing press. Which is the mistake Stephen Bush is also making.

bush is another one saying that what peake says is factually wrong rather than speculation, but I've not seen anything showing it's actually false. seems odd to focus so intensely on nice distinctions w/ a remark while doing this.

the q of what's the best solution when there is a problem w/ prejudice and language (or a perceived problem, or something in between) is tricky and I wonder if a new tack is needed. for a long time the liberal/left move has been to focus on the direction of travel; the important thing to to push for the right cause because the scale of the problem is so vast. never calling a black woman aggressive in an office dispute, or ever singling out israel for criticism is surely preferable to doing it without thinking about it (or ofc w/ bad intent). but inversing the logic still maintains its structure and it's just as flawed, and ppl are sensitive to this sort of unfairness/hypocrisy and the right can get a lot of mileage out of it (cf. rotherham child abuse scandal). ultimately I think it's more expedient to try and do the tough job of arguing that things can be more than one thing at the same time and in a grey area rather than this sort of posturing

https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/west-george-street-incident-live-18494009

Local reports suggest a number of people have been seriously injured

Also ...

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2020-06-26/trafford-centre-owner-intu-confirms-it-has-gone-into-administration-but-says-shopping-centres-will-continue-to-trade/

xxp tbf peake herself has said she was wrong but afaik she's not in a position to know either!

armed police on the scene

Major incident in Glasgow as armed police arrive on scene#glasgow #glasgowcitycentre pic.twitter.com/P0m2yRVbHS

— SMT Daily (@SMTDaily) June 26, 2020

It's kicking off everywhere right now.

Sky reporting fatalities and police using firearms.

Given that the police are saying there's no danger to the public they must have shot the attacker.

Danger for the public is gone says Sky, though ppl should still stay indoors

xp

BBC says three dead in 'city centre hotel'

Have read, without confirmation, that the people attacked were asylum seekers, so maybe they were being housed in a hotel.

fuck :-(

I know there's a lot going on right now but this is the information I've been looking for for a while:

The proportion of Covid-19 patients in hospital who are dying is falling, research suggests.

The University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine studied deaths in hospital in England and found that the number of people in hospital with coronavirus is reducing by 2.4% every day - halving every 29 days.

The number of deaths is also reducing by 4.3% per day - halving every 16 days.

On 2 April, at the height of the epidemic, there were 644 deaths in 10,737 people in hospital with Covid - giving a 6% death rate, the researchers said.

But by 15 June, there were 50 deaths and 3,270 people in hospital - giving a death rate of 1.5%.

The authors suggested several reasons for the “steep and continual decline in the death rate in hospital of patients”.

One could be that patients with Covid-19 in late March and early April included a significant proportion of patients who caught the infection in hospital, they said.

“These patients, because they were in hospital, were more likely to be sicker and more vulnerable than patients who acquired infection in the community and so more likely to die from Covid-19.”

But as this changed, and patients with community-acquired infections became a greater proportion of patients in hospital, the death rate could fall, the researchers suggested.

Other reasons may be that medics have become more skilled at treating patients with Covid-19, patients over time have become younger with fewer underlying health conditions, or people are now suffering less severe disease.

The researchers said: “The reasons for the declining death rate in hospitals may be a combination of one or all of these factors or due to some other reason we have not considered.

“In either case, further research is warranted to understand why the hospital death rate has declined so markedly over the past eight weeks.”

That figure will presumably go down even more thanks to the dexamethasone treatment

And Boris being awesome.

https://i.imgur.com/ZfV6v1J.jpg
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.USPYGSPst0xSrLLgsinnXgAAAA%26pid%3DApi&f=

one of them is a joke Brummy stereotype performing left wing ideas purely for effect and well you know where this is going

rt this to make @baddiel’s piles flare up https://t.co/EWNujJjXAz

— Marine A. Hyde (@spagbolshevism) June 26, 2020

NEW @Survation Poll – Leadership Approval:
Johnson / Starmer
Net: +6% (+2) / +10% (-4)
Favourable 44% (+1) / 35% (-2)
Neutral 15% (-) / 30% (-1)
Unfavourable 39% (-1) / 25% (+1)

2,003 respondents, fieldwork 24-25 June 2020. Changes w/ 9-10 June 2020.
https://t.co/S0FVWD7zeD pic.twitter.com/ogwhlx6CN8

— Survation. (@Survation) June 26, 2020

oh deary me, declining approval ratings and voting intention polling, it looks like the gbp prefers their Tory cunts unreconstructed and of the straight down the line variety!

lol get fucked you coiffed boiled ham

Only getting a 1-point bump from opening the pubs seems hardly worth the deaths and long-term damage

So as it turns out Stephen Bush is taking on this role as chair on inclusivity in the Jewish community:

https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/racism-i-know-is-when-an-antisemite-sees-my-skin-and-thinks-i-share-their-repellent-views-1.500519

this thread is really getting me down today, unfortunately I live in it so no looking away.

xp wtf

...why would antisemites see black skin and think a Black person shared their antisemitism Stephen? pic.twitter.com/GIfp8iy1JM

— Your Mum says Black Lives Matter (@judeinlondon2) June 26, 2020

Only getting a 1-point bump from opening the pubs seems hardly worth the deaths and long-term damage

Good lord I've just realised they're reopening the pubs on a Saturday instead of doing the closest-to-sensible thing and opening them on a Monday or Tuesday. Whoever signed off on that really didn't think it through at all.

srsly i made the joke yesterday, it's like "if you were gonna do this inadvisable thing, what would be the worst way to go about it?"

"They're going to call it 'Super Saturday' and cause chaos" says the Mail, who *checks notes* coined it 'Super Saturday'

then again the beaches have been full of people for the same reason

Absolutely assumed they were going to go with INDEPENDENCE DAY.

I got the Stephen Bush article from that thread but didn't want to import it so much...but I was wondering why he ventured out of his usual beat -- parliamentary politics and numbers and intrigue -- to talk about AS in detail.

i'm too pished to read Stephen Bush on a Friday evening but from the clips i think there's a point there about assumed alliances/orientations?

The antisemite in question isn't necessarily black but I think he's saying that people just assume because he's black he can't also be Jewish and start trotting shit out as a result.

It's possible that with background and right amount of luck he has personally experienced less overt anti-black racism than AS over his life - I wouldn't want to assume otherwise, but it does strike me as unlikely. Columnists in general don't write headlines or have much say in that one and the choice to use that specific line feels... loaded.

https://labourlist.org/2020/06/its-time-to-reverse-ten-years-of-tory-decline-in-our-armed-forces/

lol