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

saving privates brian

I don't think his charming gf would repeat that comment she made about utilising progressive eugenics to eliminate trans people from the human race again, just because free speech is under threat from the vile twitter mob!

She’s his wife and she’s got even worse over the time, as you’d expect.

Maybe obfuscation is the wrong word, just bat the question away,

Anything that doesn't sound like you're hiding a body in the basement. The content doesn't even really matter, whats more important is the length of the reply. Long answers are the stock in trade of swindlers

"it is what it is"

this fucking country

How is Keir Starmer doing after 100 days, compared to previous party leaders?

Our exclusive polling from @yougov shows voters rate him:

- similar to Tony Blair
- very different to Jeremy Corbyn.
- more similar to David Cameron & Theresa May than Corbynhttps://t.co/4DAH3DDnd6

— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) July 13, 2020

voters otm tho i suppose

'another future is possible', it's just that i, sir keir starmer, will do everything in my power to stop it

If Richard Curtis was to write some execrable NewLabour fanfic comedy he have invented Sir Kieth Starmer

the vote that sucked

This is up to companies in the city to tell the workers they have to come in. And what if they don't and wfh is working really well, what then?

PM urges people working at home to look at coming back to work in a safe way

— Nick Eardley (@nickeardleybbc) July 13, 2020

PM to country: “please come get the rona so pret doesn’t go to the wall”

Our workplace has already emailed us to go “we have no plans to change what we said already”. Feel bad for anyone being forced.

It's commercial rents that they are shitting themselves about. A lot of companies are going to look at the potential cost saving here.

I know from some friends who work for them that several big companies have told their office staff they won't be back until 2021

That's my understanding as well. I would be surprised if the majority of office-based companies were back in the office this year, excluding things like call centres and maybe some IT functions. I doubt there are many who want to see a debilitating rona outbreak among their workforce, possible lawsuits etc. And yeah more than a few will be wondering why they're spending so much on office space right now.

It's especially hard on city centre pubs and restaurants I suspect, especially given vastly reduced tourist numbers (and if those don't come back it'll be because we've got much larger problems than a few restaurants closing down).

Pretty sure a lot of middle/senior management are quite enjoying the thousands of pounds they're no longer spending commuting into London from Surrey or Kent as well.

withdrawal of furlough in october is a car crash waiting to happen

not to mention all those hours saved not pissing about in airports

xp

It's commercial rents that they are shitting themselves about. A lot of companies are going to look at the potential cost saving here.

HIS STANCE HAHAHAHA pic.twitter.com/6a9WkOWxdx

— ACAB And Looking For A Hand To Hold (@Possum_Stan) July 13, 2020

the new Avengers movie looks lit

omg that is real? lol. he's picked up some power stance tips from his tory friends

Why do male politicians look so weird when you take them out of a suit?

rude

Jeremy Corbyn fan of #TheFall seen here with vinyl edition of the Hex Enduction Hour - take that Cameron! pic.twitter.com/tXEG1Ml9Mw

— Graham Brown-Martin (@GrahamBM) September 15, 2015

Corbyn a big fan of controversial racist opening track The Classical

Pretty sure i'm not going back to the office until Q2 next year, if at all. A consistent theme of corporate comms has been that working from home has had no measurable impact on productivity. The office is likely to become an optional 'collaborative space' rather than somewhere you go to sit for 40 hours a week.

in many respects that's a big improvement to the work world in general, imo

My work are definitely not expecting us back in, and definitely listening to the people enjoying the new way of life (which isn't everyone*), to the point where when I asked about restarting my abortive move to Scotland they were happy to say sure, we will sign off that you're working from home for the next six months and we don't care where.

It definitely helps that I've been seconded to our parent company, whose European head office is in Edinburgh, mind, so if and when I have to come back into the office there's one there.

* they sent out a survey on it, and it came back nearly perfectly split six ways between "Ideally I would like to work 0/1/2/3/4/5 days in the office per week"

Pretty sure a lot of middle/senior management are quite enjoying the thousands of pounds they're no longer spending commuting into London from Surrey or Kent as well.

The counterweight to this is that sitting at home means they’re not surrounded by sycophants and minions. Plus half of them are divorced and bored out of their skulls.

Pretty sure a lot of middle/senior management are quite enjoying the thousands of pounds they're no longer spending commuting into London from Surrey or Kent as well.

big downside to this -if it is a long term trend- is just imagine how shit the trains are going to get without that revenue and without that pressure to deliver. or maybe operators go bust and we can start re-nationalising things?

i've been using a chopping board for a desk for 4 months, would be nice to sit up straight. plus air conditioning.

on the other hand, i can have an hour's lie in and still get to my desk an hour early.

A British pub landlord has put an electric fence in front of his bar to encourage customers to keep social distancing.

Jonny McFadden, who runs the Star Inn in St Just, Cornwall, said there was limited space in his small pub and he had struggled to get the social distancing message across to some customers.

He described the barrier as "just a normal electric fence that you would find in a field".

Asked if it was switched on, Mr McFadden said: "Come and find out - there is a fear factor and it works."

He said the fence was a good deterrent because customers "don't want to touch it to find out whether it is on or not", adding that "people keep away from it, people are like sheep".

So this COVID outbreak on a 'farm' in Herefordshire leaves Priti Patel's political correctness/Labour council KILL narrative looking a bit shop-soiled - given that there's probably never been a Labour councillor in the history of Herefordshire County Council let alone a Labour council.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-53393255

and with the tories so doggedly devotes to truthfulness in all things as well, they’ve really painted themselves into a corner here

What the fuck is their deal with masks? Why all this “you should really really wear a mask use your common sense” dancing around just mandating them?

Saw someone make a really good point on twitter that use of masks should be not only mandated but multiple masks should be given for free (since it's a public health matter), and concrete advice should be given on wearing them.

The research on how effective they are is spotty btw. Social distancing and washing hands is still the thing to do.

i'm wondering if mandating masks would fuck with their "get back to school" policy in particular, obviously also "get back to work" and "get back in the pub"

Totally is, especially the pub one lol

There's something about clarity and clear instruction, isn't there? So, even if we believe that lock down was too slow, too late, when we were told to stay at home, it was hideous but also sort of okay. (I know for lots of people it won't have been). But we're now at a point where every message is so confused and messy, that it's strangely anxiety provoking.

And I'm really fucking sick of the "people aren't working" message - life has been exhausting for months and loads of people are.

Impossible to think -- unless there is a vaccination programme soon, and that isn't going to happen -- something somewhere will not blow up soon in a random way.

i think this at least partially accounts for their terrible messaging now - it's clear that a bunch of things they should be doing aren't just late but directly contradict other messages they've given in the last few weeks

I don't even think it is all about an internal conflict between "sensibles"/c-19 hawk factions in the Conservative party, it's all a performance and employing a cacophony of contradictory messages deliberately because there aren't any factions, they are all hawks!

I don't think it's a factional thing I just think they've painted themselves into a corner

of course it could also just be a disorganised cacophony of chaos, without any rhyme or reason and just powered by stupid fucking pols, that are way out of their depth.

also some of them were probably cracking because the pressure of a lockdown that was polling at 80% while the money that owns their sorry arses is getting impatient with this nonsense!

And they’ve caved

BREAKING
It will be compulsory to wear a mask in supermarkets & other shops from 24th July, govt announces - £100 fine for those who disobey. Use of face coverings in other settings 'under review'.

— Hugo Gye (@HugoGye) July 13, 2020

What happened to Gove and his trust in the common sense of the British public?

lol at ‘from 24th july’, like the deadly virus is just gonna chill for the next week-and-a-half