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

100 staff working in 13 care homes across Leicestershire have been told 'you're sacked' unless you accept two weeks less paid holiday, a 30% cut in wages, scrapping sick pay scheme plus more. This is the reality of a broken, privatised system where profit trumps people.

— Chris Jenkinson (@UNISONRegSec) June 29, 2020

"Why then, is the new national security adviser a political appointee with no proven expertise in national security?" asks former prime minister Theresa May

Michael Gove says not all national security advisers have been "steeped in the security world"https://t.co/7R5crkq6sE pic.twitter.com/aQE810tiBp

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) June 30, 2020

O_o

"Bad experts still bad, experts suggest"

The post has apparently only existed since the Cameron government which is probably a factor in why Cummings and Gove think it's so open to them fucking with.

Fucking hell, the look of loathing and contempt on May's face. I know she looks like that most of the time but she really hates Gove.

a rare moment of alignment with the rest of the human race

Yes.

Quite remarkable.

It's amazing. I also think there are going to be more Tories that hate the announcements today, too. I wonder how long he keep this lot together – signing a pledge to GBD is different from agreeing to all the other shit

Love too see it.

Though I'm sure Starmzy will put her in her place soon.

I wonder how long he keep this lot together

it would be a shame if the tory party split, then there wouldn't be any more "countdown to inevitable tory party split" thinkpieces that i've been enjoying since 2016.

https://i.imgur.com/P88TmoE.png

We need ZS to add some laser beams shooting from her eyes

a bunch of spooks and wannabe spooks fighting over spook stuff is the kind of political stand the country needs right now

On a fundamental level Tories understand power and will do virtually anything to get it and hold onto it, it's not in their nature to split, although as we've seen they can be a big man for a purge on occasion.

(xpost - tbf if this appointment fucks up it's going to do so very badly indeed)

glad to see she's still wearing weird shit around her neck

Also they've got a big fuck off majority they can afford to carry some disgruntled backbenchers.

They don't really, though - SBush OTM with the "Labour had a landslide loss, but the Tories didn't get a landslide majority". They've already had some lossees to backbenchers, can definitely see this getting messy with what's to come.

meanwhile in 20pts ahead corner:

New from Labour NEC. Lara McNeill asks Keir Starmer if he will uphold same zero tolerance approach on antisemitism to Rachel Reeves' praise for Nancy Astor

He said "I'm not going to discuss that"

Also refused to be drawn on BLM - one source says he is in "no mood to compromise"

— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) June 30, 2020

lmao

"There is a balance that must be struck, between law and order..."

Lol don't question the big boss even if he is a hypocritical dickhead.

the real blue labour was the friends we lost along the way

Struck in particular by this ... Lab-to-Con switchers in 2019 are to right of even most *Tory* voters on social values issues. It is not going to be easy for Lab, with its current metro-liberal, soft Corbynny base, to get these people back. pic.twitter.com/JYvUscfZNR

— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) June 30, 2020

no fan of landlordism, but i'm going to have to get the bailiffs round to evict sir keiron starmer from my head and collect 5 months of unpaid rent

— Stan The Golden Boy (@tristandross) June 30, 2020

fuck me the difference here between the blue bars (which the govt publishes) and the red (which it doesn't) is stark. This graph is for Leicester:

But the govt is sitting on a much more complete dataset including pillar 2, which tells a completely different story

More than 90% of new cases in Leicester are now under pillar 2, yet these numbers are not public. If you’re a local biz owner in Leicester, you only see the blue. pic.twitter.com/aZY20EuOGc

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) June 30, 2020

Jesus Christ.

So what exactly do the blue and red bars represent, ie what is the diff?

Possibly a good question in there for the next PMQs. Oh no never mind, let's not politicise this and no questions!

uhhhh can we get the pillar 2 data for glasgow pls

Why oh why didn’t I take the blue pillar

Blue is positive tests handled in hospitals, red is positive tests outside of hospitals iirc.

Have literally no idea what that graph means, but I'm going to go with yikes!

Xp okay yikes! confirmed

Test (but hide the results) & Trace (using untrained testers) is going to save us!

It means the UK govt are putting out misleading data and causing even more unnecessary deaths because spin is more important than keeping people alive.?

There must be shitloads of red pillar data right now b/c no one I know has had any real trouble getting a test in recent weeks.

OTOH publishing it all would have a real negative impact on the reopening of the Dog & Duck in Solihull this weekend so maybe just leave it yeah.

My friend and her 11yo daughter have been low-grade I’ll for weeks and haven’t been able to get a test. Apparently they credit-check people and if you haven’t got a credit footprint and they can’t find you in the system, no test for you!

If this doesn’t seem right can anyone recommend how my pal and her girl could get a test?

Yeah stay away from the pubs lads going to be (literal) carnage.

A Public Health England official, who declined to be named, said non-publication was a ministerial decision. “The Department for Health and Social Care need to make the decision to publish — and they should — but we can’t push them because we are their arms-length body.”

all signs point to the pubs stuff being absolute madness.

skol we’re all gonna die

This just in, from a professionally well-informed source in Leicester: in one three-bedroomed house in the city, into which around 40 workers have been squeezed, all c.40 inhabitants have tested positive.

Death toll up 155.

40 people in a three-bedroom house??

Can believe it.

It'll be one of those places run as a dormitory, maybe for East European or Middle Eastern itinerant workers. Expect health and safety measures to be hovering somewhere around zero.

My immediate assumption was that they would all be working in the same place as well.

Some enterprising local businessman will have employed them, let's applaud the fellow's entrepreneurship.

looking at that suppressed pillar 2 data from upthread and enjoying the rich psychological terrain from which our government is operating, whereby if you simply do not show the community infection numbers to the public there will be no second spike

My immediate assumption was that they would all be working in the same place as well.

Each of those poor people probably have £100/week taken off their wages for lodgings, and might even be sleeping in beds in shifts.

Would it be too much to ask some of those freedom-loving statue protectors to come and protect some real live human beings ?

yes