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

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

You obviously can't wear a mask if you're eating or drinking, looking forward to seeing them get forensically questioned on this anomaly

Shops now legally obliged to treat masks as PPE I assume

Can't buy a mask because I can't go in a shop because I haven't got a mask.

Vending machines outside.

(seriously though, I've never seen one for sale, but then I have only been in two shops in the last 4 months)

that's two more than me. You can get a cotton mask for a few quid on ebay.

I saw some on sale on Morrisons the other day, first time ever.

I guess the big shops will all have people handing them out outside, makes no sense to turn customers away for the negligible cost of a mask

In the early days of lock down, some things seemed fast changing. But it seems curious that it has taken until now (plus a few weeks) to get to the point that masks should be mandatory in shops. But it seems even more curious that Gove was briefing that this wouldn't happen until a few hours ago. Are our government that sketchy or is this all designed to make Gove seem a bit sketchy??

wtf - why were these preparations not started months ago when we got past the crisis crisis period and things stabilised a bit and we learned more about the behaviour of this thing?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/14/action-to-stop-winter-covid-19-second-wave-in-uk-must-start-now

The same reason the country wasn't told to wear masks in shops back in March. The same reason we locked down two weeks too late. The same reason we didn't have enough PPE or testing infrastructure. The same reason they allowed hospitals to decant patients straight into care homes without checking for the virus.

In an attempt to explain the mixed messages, Downing Street insiders said the intention had been to announce the change later in the week but, with Labour seizing on Gove’s comments to demand a statement on the issue from Matt Hancock, the grid was ripped up.

They dismissed Gove’s comments as a “good old-fashioned fuck up”, rather than an indication of disagreement inside government about the right approach.

https://www.ft.com/content/804175d0-8b47-4427-9853-2aded76f48e4?

The Huawei thing is coming up again today - the government agreeing to the backbenchers' demands and the backbenchers saying it's not good enough.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/13/uk-expected-u-turn-huawei-fails-to-satisfy-tory-rebels

I'm sure they all have varying reasons but it definitely feels like there's a wedge of the parliamentary Tory party that's explicitly pursuing US trade goals over UK ones.

some of those lads really miss the Cold War

meanwhile Labour going after soft meaningless target Gove instead of asking why supermarkets are less safe than pubs, restaurants and schools

I'm very happy with the cheap Huawei tablet I bought as a replacement for the kid's ipad that crapped out after 5 months, not fucking with overpriced + overrated American junk again!

bit of cheer for once (if it can actually be enforced)

This might seem like a small victory in the grand scheme of things, but it's an important one. "No DSS" (ie no one on housing benefit) has been all too common on lettings adverts for private rented homes. Today a judge has ruled that it is discriminatory. This is brilliant news. https://t.co/FXpS1I6hhV

— Tom Copley (@tomcopley) July 14, 2020

Sunak looking for the V-shaped recovery but the GDP rise of 1.8% May disappointing. Economists expected rise of +5.0%.

Suggests hopes of a rapid rebound from the lockdown may be too optimistic & full economic recovery could take longer than many people had anticipated

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) July 14, 2020

Gove isn't a meaningless target, he's at the top table with Johnson and Cummings with oversight over all Cabinet decisions and a potential future leader. Not getting a kick in when he's being publicly contradicted/hung out by Downing Street would be a wasted opportunity.

'Why are pubs and schools more safe than shops?' is the important question though you're right. A well ventilated M&S is probably a lot safer without a mask than a lot of pubs, especially smaller/older ones. But of course no one would want to wear a mask while drinking, which would further undermine the whole return-to-normality shadow puppet show.

Obviously the government undermined public trust in itself at an absolutely key moment in the pandemic so it makes perfect sense that millions of people don't believe them now they're saying it's safe. Going back and forward on masks compounds that.

well quite

i think Gove is meaningless in this sense because there's nothing much to hang on him here, a difference of opinion, easy to spin as not incompetence, just a lazy zing. there's nothing there to exert any pressure on him or Johnson

whereas the mixed messaging is front and centre now in the rules themselves and it's either incompetence or negligence

i guess what's irking me is that Labour *seem to be* holding back on exploiting that mixed message because it would commit them to saying "opening the pubs was wrong"

Lab have missed millions of opportunities. Where is track and trace, why have Lab allowed this to disappear from the headlines.

this constructive opposition nonsense is going come back and bite them on the arse when it becomes completely clear that opening the pubs was a terrible decision for this country and they are all closed again. Labour are supposed to capitalise on Tory fuck-ups not share the blame with them.

i don't know what they think their game is but saying "we told you so" after tens of thousands more deaths is not gonna make them any more popular than intervening now

i realise as i type this i'm not outraged, it's like the residue of where i should care, but still, whoever was in opposition, there's a minimum duty to repeatedly call out this homicidal shitshow

Johnson will gleefully throw the blame back at them anyway, he's already using the "do you support this or not?" line at PMQs.

It probably won't work because people will blame the government anyway but Labour won't be able to fully capitalise on it either.

when I say capitalise, I don't mean lol loads of your family got da Rona in because of pubs and you didn't listen fule! I mean getting some respect and moral authority from taking a correct stance, even if it isn't a popular one at the time.

yeah sometimes you have to oppose on a point of principle

Maybe they just agree with the government.

The problem for Labour is what happens if opening the pubs doesn't fuck up, which I think is unlikely but still a significant enough possibility. Then it can be spun as gambling with livelihoods instead as lives.

I do think that people's memories for what opposition parties do and don't say can be pretty short - Cameron was saying Labour weren't spending enough until the exact point when he started saying the opposite and no one seemed to particularly notice or care.