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

x-post: I'm not going to argue with you on that one, Noodle Vague.

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/04/english-councils-with-highest-covid-rates-launch-own-test-and-trace-systems?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-53656852?

So I know it's the BBC but I'd like to be a bit more positive. Only time will tell, and it doesn't get the government off the hook for its messaging.

You simply won't hear a better explanation of what the number of cases around England actually means -- @robertcuffe on the News Channel earlier pic.twitter.com/jGpBvo9NDg

— Catherine Wyatt (@catherinehwyatt) July 31, 2020

The video in here is good as well, along the same lines.

The government is at least taking decisive action here, of sorts, the problem is the obvious inconsistencies regarding pubs staying open in Manchester etc. Thing is that we were always going to end up with regional lockdowns to prevent small regional outbreaks from getting out of control - this is a good thing and immeasurably preferable to another nationwide lockdown, which is where we'd otherwise end up.

That wasn't adequately communicated to the country when we came out of lockdown and the government is atrocious at communicating bad news. It was all sunlit uplands now, normality by Christmas etc etc. That's clearly not going to happen but the danger is that people either panic every time there's a preventative local lockdown or get fatigued and stop believing the government altogether.

Good John Burn-Murodch visualisation of where different parts of the country are now. None of the areas currently under restriction are anywhere near where Leicester was when it was locked down (including Leicester itself).

NEW: I’ve updated the chart of new cases in England & Wales to show two critical parts of the story:
• Differentiating between places with an isolated cluster (Swindon’s Iceland depot) vs community spread
• Showing where Leicester was when it locked down https://t.co/RlJcg1x4JG pic.twitter.com/ayu7KRFHDu

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) August 3, 2020

https://russss.github.io/covidtracker/map.html

Just leaving this here as well.

The New Statesman has done something genuinely useful for once and launched a local authority covid tracker that let's you know the number of cases in the past week, whether they're rising and also the risk of local lockdown - but it's also paywalled. Currently only Swindon looks like its at risk of lockdown but these things change quickly.

FIASCO: 50 million face masks bought by the UK govt, part of a £252m contract, can't be used because of safety concerns. Procured through Horlick family-owned Ayanda Capital, controlled through Mauritius, with 5 employees and £44,509 of tangible asset.https://t.co/7KPHyzPYBs

— Prem Sikka (@premnsikka) August 6, 2020

the stench of crony capitalism, one dodgy fucker who advises the board of a dodgy shell company owned by Tory donors and also advises the UK board of trade, in this case seemingly his "advice" was to piss away a lot of money on cheap tat masks he'd procured from China that are not fit for purpose for the NHS.

Was reading Maugham's twitter thread on it this morning.

Arsenal cutting off 500 employees. Surely the first of many of these announcements across football.

Even if it's not outright corrupt (and it certainly looks dodgy af), the government's procurement procedures are clearly a mess. Given the vast sums of money currently being printed, not to mention flowing in from bond investors, and the speed at which the government needs to do things, anyone with a plausible-enough looking Powerpoint presentation and an office in the Bahamas is going to be trying to siphon a few tens of millions off here and there.

Is the woman in the middle of that awful painting supposed to be Angela Rayner?

I think she is supposed to be the QT audience member who flipped from being a tory voter to someone who enthusiastically campaigned for Corbyn after an epiphany.

No she’s from a daily sport story iirc

Lol there is my complete misunderstood interpretation then!

that prem sikka tweet sounds eerily like the opening to the vanity fair article about the scrapping of a nationwide testing plan in the US:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air

Charlie Mullins saying furlough needs to be ended from his holiday home in Marbella feels like a perfect metaphor for late capitalism pic.twitter.com/FkXIP4P93P

— 'Client Journalism' Expert (@ClientJournoExp) August 6, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/06/covid-jobs-crisis-rishi-sunak-safety-net

Nothing to see here, we've been discussing for months but it's goo to see this written up

Most were vastly overqualified, and a good number had PhDs. All were now fighting for part-time work in retail. “It made me sad,” Pringle tells me. “That’s not why they spent so long studying. But it says a lot about the state of the jobs market.”

there are a number of illuminating subtexts here that i would like to unravel sometime somewhere else when i've finished internally screaming FUCK YOUUUUUUUU at the author/quotee

Even the melts are losing patience with kier leader https://t.co/cdACJTOFjH

— Bort van houten (@DaleMur88720086) August 6, 2020

hah! Kier's gently gently style of non-opposition is even trying the patience of prominent melts now

My friend buries her sister today. Her body was found decomposed after her Universal Credit was suspended and her only source of contact, her telephone was cut off. She couldn’t visit her due to ‘the advice’ from @BorisJohnson #BorisHasFailedTheUK

— Christina Farrell (@CFarrell2009) July 28, 2020

Dear God don't read the replies

👍

Oh to have such faith in anything

He is being forensic and luring Johnston into a false sense of security.

— Doctor Neutopia (@oceanclub) August 6, 2020

Lol while also luring too much (to be 20 points ahead) of the electorate into thinking he's a useless milquetoast tory twat, clever game!

One dimensional draughts on a ZX80

That reveals all the scumbag donors that Starmer was too embarrassed to reveal tells the real story

That thread..

xxp I follow that account and it’s definite sarcasm!

I wouldn't mind reading some Mason style proStarmer lols, but I never see any. Everyone on my twitter wants him to die!

I did wonder xp

How does 6 months do this to a person?

Oct 2019 🤝 March 2020 pic.twitter.com/lixHSxz4nR

— Gwared-The Melancholic Legacy of Brazda & Seel ✊📕 (@Gwared) August 6, 2020

this melt mofo will look older than Dennis Skinner by the next election at the current rate of degradation!

it's all that property developer money corroding him from within.

Andrew Bailey told the BBC it was important that policymakers helped workers "move forward" and not keep them in unproductive jobs.

He said coronavirus would inevitably mean that some jobs became redundant.

Keir can take his place in the guillotine queue, serious work to do first

I don’t think that’s him in October 2019, this was him campaigning in the GE.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Ff73b7e62-1c07-11ea-84a6-10ccf4ec8de6.jpg?crop=6653%2C3742%2C33%2C103&resize=1180

yeah but this is what he looked like before campaigning started

https://martinplaut.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/keir-starmer.jpg

all them Big Macs bound to supersize you a bit

xxp
I'd suspect he was putting on a bit of fake ebullience sat next to Corbz there, if wooden personality free cunt wasn't his only setting!

all them eccles cakes and mugs of sugary tea in the caff bound to pile the weight on too

My hope is that Kier Starmer is re grouping and biding his time to re gain power bring honestly and sanity back to the U.K. political arena.

— Michael Llewelyn Day (@DayLlewelyn) August 5, 2020

I found a real Kier Stanner here!

even he can't spell his name right

lol just read some quote in the Graun from a PLP wanker complaining that the WhatsApp transcripts in the leaked Labour report where they were making sexist and racist comments had all context edited out to make them look racist and sexist.

Call the fucking WAHHHHMBULANCE.

Sipping a Cappuccino etc.

https://www.ft.com/content/e02992f6-cf9e-46b3-8d45-325fb183302f

It's the People's Vote long piece. Lots of '97 era politics just falling apart. But Rudd is failing upwards, so that's ok.

I happened to be in Labour Party HQ the day after Labour won the the Oldham by-election, Corbyn’s first test. Met with v senior comms staff.
Me (making introductory friendly small talk): “hey, good result, eh?”
Them (faces like thunder, through gritted teeth) “yeh” https://t.co/5avQEwL5WP

— CarolineJMolloy (@carolinejmolloy) August 7, 2020

Nice?

Staff at Lord Lebedev's Evening Standard have been told that around a third of employees will lose their jobs, including 69 journalists - almost half the editorial team - plus a bunch of casual employees. Free print paper is still being produced on reduced circulation.

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) August 7, 2020

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eez-6SvWoAAZRV9?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

From Paul Mason's 2011 novel Rare Earth, lol never heard of this before. Not just a great polemicist but also a master of erotic fiction!

mods ban calzino pls

who is going to take one for the team by reading it

He actually called the character Chun-Li?

john lanchester would be proud

Stevie T, formerly of this parish, has read it:

Mason's own novel, Rare Earth, is quite enjoyable in a sub-Pynchon way. The Pinefox and myself were talking about going to the Mason event - impromptu ILB FAP?

― Stevie T, Thursday, August 14, 2014 11:42 AM (five years ago)