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

I can see why the kicking it got last time would cause the government to give notice of the French quarantine, but has anyone had at them on the fact that medically it's nonsense? Not to mention the effect of U.K. holidaymakers piling into the ports to get back in a hurry.

Westminster Voting Intention:

CON: 43% (=)
LAB: 36% (-2)
LDM: 9% (+2)
GRN: 4% (=)

Via @RedfieldWilton, 12 Aug.*
Changes w/ 29 Jul.

*pre results fiasco

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) August 14, 2020

should be bejlihjfeilje points ahead!

Luke Akehurst’s just lost at his own clp’s nomination meeting 👁👄👁

— Sarah 🤝 (@Sarah_Cundy) August 14, 2020

What a delightful way to end the week.

👍👍👍

Tells you everything you need to know about @PhilipJCollins1’s ejection from The Times https://t.co/NneavSNAM5

— James Schneider (@schneiderhome) August 15, 2020

you might not be able to hurry love but you sure can hurry a p45 these days

There's a whole generation of columnists who have spent five or 10 years willingly playing the useful idiot for the right wing press who are suddenly finding themselves surplus to requirements. It's one of the few silver linings from the last few months. But it's as likely to be the fact that, without anything else to do, he's been unacceptably critical of the government recently.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/brazils-bolsonaro-gains-more-popular-approval-says-datafolha-poll-idUSKCN25A1JX

Meanwhile this bounce in Bolsonaro's poll ratings probably says a lot about our own situation as well. You can lead, through a combination of mendacity, incompetence and stupidity, a disastrous pandemic response that kills tens of thousands of your own people and hammers your economy, but as long as you keep throwing cash at voters they'll support you.

Datafolha has a history of minimizing left wing ratings and inflating right wing ratings ftr.

I wasn't aware of that - do you mean in the same way as our pollsters do or in the sense of being outright shifty and unreliable? How is this comparing to other polls?

Doesn't mean that the phenomenon I described doesn't apply though. As long as people are still having money put in their pocket they're more likely to take the "they're doing the best they can" line.

I'd have to check if there were any other recent polls.

Mostly same way as UK pollsters - leading questions and the like. Also a history of minimizing numbers for left-wing protests. They're not pro-Bolsonaro to be clear, more traditional Brazilian right. But the sheer scale of human disaster in Brazil, which comes closer to the US than the UK imo, makes me somewhat skeptical.

this “not supporting modi/hindutva is anti-hindu/anti-indian racism” thing seems to be picking up more traction now. wonder where they got the idea from

from the comments it’s clear no one has the foggiest clue what this is all about but they’re clearly delighted to have another anti-racist sounding talking point to defend their racism with

On this #IndiaIndependenceDay and after 20 years of service, I have resigned from @UKLabour – an institutionally racist, anti-Indian party.

I realise now that socialism is a toxic, hateful ideology and I believe Labour has been damaged beyond repair.https://t.co/bVTANB2cDB pic.twitter.com/Kl5Kp3bT3u

— Sundip Meghani (@Sundip) August 15, 2020

how long has the “thin blue line butchers apron” design been a thing in UK fascist circles? hope he enjoys his new base

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EffZT73XkAIX90m?format=jpg&name=large

if the slack bastards were serious about political assignation they'd have come to me for stabby murder tips!

Which Cluedo piece represents the hospital full of covid patients that Boris boasted about shaking hands with?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/15/ofqual-suspends-a-level-appeal-criteria-hours-after-announcing-them

This is almost certainly because they were fairly sensible but contradicted Williamson’s ‘triple lock’ promise.

At 11am today, we fall silent and remember all those who sacrificed so much to not only defend our country but to fight for a better world and a better future. #VJDay75

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 15, 2020

More like bankrupting the country, to defend a dying empire and anyone who marks this day without mentioning nagaski and hiroshoma is a vile piece of shit.

...

EXCLUSIVE Sunday @Telegraph splash
Public Health England will be scrapped and replaced by a new body to protect country against a pandemic next month.
Matt Hancock to merge Covid-19 work of PHE with NHS Test and Trace to create National Institute for Health Protection. 1/

— Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) August 15, 2020

The ultimate dangerous fuckwittery vs spending a month on ilx stanning for herd Immunity

Fuck off, calz.

No you fuck off gyac

Covering yourself in glory, aren’t you? Two times I’ve defended you from people attacking you, and both times you’ve proven them right and me wrong. Well, fool me once, as they say. If you do get permabanned because you won’t stop being a prick and log off, you had it coming.

If I want to express my contempt for arsehole posters on here it's all of your business!

Fuck this place its a hive of middle class smug pricks

You’re the only one still going on about this and I think it’s fair to say the person in question knows he was wrong and you’d have to have a real bad grudge to think someone trying to rationalise the situation (which was clearly what it was) was stanning for the government.

You want a medal eh? I've not had an apology yet

pardon my ignorance of uk politics, here, but what exactly are you looking to get out of this interaction, calzino? stet isn't saying anything close to what you're alluding to today, and I don't get how collapsing his decades of ilx goodwill into "arsehole poster" does anything at all

Maybe when you get banned by some arsehole who misrepresents what you posted you might also feel aggrieved

I’m taking my own advice and logging off but like read the fucking thread, it wasn’t him and quite frankly you deserved to have that comment deleted so stop flogging the horse ffs.

xp that's fair! I say a lot of things that I feel are misinterpreted, but that's the cost of public conservation. I've definitely changed how I've interacted with people in recent years, when I realized my intent didn't matter as much as how my words were viewed by others. I could use a cooling off period from time to time

itt gyac knows what posts should be deleted

And for that Mair slur Stet, if you aren't going to apologise for that then fuck you forever arsehole

Hi Calz, I really hope that you've managed to get to bed (and sobered up a bit?) by now. I'm gonna be honest, I'm worried about you. I know you are really angry, and it's completely understandable that you're angry, both for ::gestures at fuckwits in Whitehall:: and ::gestures at life stuff:: - and it's clear that the way the admins bungled handling your whole situation, has made you *more* angry, not less.

My dude, I get it. I'm not going to go all ~bullshit~ at you, because there is a level of rage-inducing fuckwittery beyond which a human cannot NOT be angry. Your rage is real and completely legit.

But I am scared you are going to get yourself banned permanently from ILX, and I would miss you. I know you as an intelligent, insightful, *funny*, piratical maverick with a heap of great stories (the story of your missus vs Kick Knave had me laughing for days). But right now, the way you *express* your rage is scaring even people who care about you. I know the UK politics threads = one of the few places you have for *channeling* that rage, and I'm worried that you are going to lose that, too? Can you find another way of expressing your anger, that doesn't scare the horses?

FWIW, you probably missed this, as it was a fast-moving thread, and he expressed it really badly, but Stet *did* apologise for the Mair comparison. He admitted that it was shit-stirring and apologised for making it:

You didn't have to bring up Thomas Mair at all, and what you personally find uncomfortable is neither here nor there if you weren't the one who banned him.

It's here, because it explains why I support a temp ban for someone describing how they're going to kill a politician. I didn't mean it to be shit-stirring, can see that it is – and am sorry for it.

― stet, Monday, 10 August 2020 20:27

I don't think that makes the situation any better, but I hope it can help you to find some way to make peace?

Hey calz, sad that you feel so fucked off with everyone here - hope it was just the idiot juice talking. I know that it's not all been beer and skittles for you, but I know that there have been ilxors that have been affected by violence including stabbing incidents so might be worth dropping that shit - don't wanna see a good man get banned. Hugs 2 u!

No gif can do this one justice

My message to the Prime Minister: I don’t just want all children back at school next month, I expect them back at school.

No ifs, no buts, no equivocation. https://t.co/Q00nsGFH8u

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 16, 2020

I haven't found the strength to read this but I somehow doubt the teaching unions are mentioned in this.

Aren't those the exact same words Boris used?

On the news just now: Boris is going to place adverts saying it's safe for the kids to go back to school

Followed immediately by the news that Ireland have just posted their biggest numbers for months...

Following the science...

Yes, he’s taking a weird headmaster tone to say he’ll demand an explanation if the government doesn’t do what they’ve already said they will. It’s ludicrous as, barring any massive outbreak, schools will definitely go back. If there is enough of a safety reason for the government to u-turn, why would you ever object to them doing so?

it's hard to be the leader of the opposition when the government have a sizable majority and four and a half years left on their term, and there are many different ways to oppose them, all of them flawed or difficult in one way or another, but Starmer seems to have picked the worst strategy possible, who the fuck is happy with this apart from a handful of media twats on twitter? and even they are getting a bit restless.

If the government has a big majority then what’s the point in not opposing them? If tens of thousands have died and they’re still polling 40% then agreeing with them is worse than useless. The LOTO should be trying to set the narrative, not follow it.

Starmer comes across as very out of his depth, politically, even more than Corbyn did. He’s simply not very good at this and it shows. But at least we don’t have a pandemic with a massive recession on the way or anything.

xps to whoever mentioned Ireland: the rising numbers are almost all attributable to food processing plants and factories.

the most charitable spin i could place on Starmer's performances is that he's trying to establish his public persona as the sensible grown-up in contrast to the reckless, feckless Johnson. i don't think Starmz has to put this on, i think the blustery managerial dumbass he presents is just him. there is probably some feeling around the Labour leadership that establishing his credentials is all that matters this far from a general election. one might argue that this is why Starmer and the party are for shit.

Are we absolutely sure that the public doesn't lap this sort of stupid shit up? I mean it reads like Sam Allardyce giving a public dressing down to a fancy but inconsistent midfielder and maybe that's the intention?

If there is enough of a safety reason for the government to u-turn, why would you ever object to them doing so?

I'm guessing reopening schools is one of those things where if it goes well you look like a prick for having opposed it and if it goes badly then it's because the government bungled it and you can make political hay with that later. The tone of this should really be "what is the government doing to ensure that schools can open safely for teachers, pupils and their families?" and I'm not sure why it isn't.

the most charitable spin i could place on Starmer's performances is that he's trying to establish his public persona as the sensible grown-up in contrast to the reckless, feckless Johnson.

If you're playing the long game this does make sense. I don't know how you measure that. Is he succeeding in this, who knows? I don't really know what proportion of the public have even heard of him

Or could pick him out in a lineup, probably more what I mean.

it's *possible* that a section of the public loves this shit, tho personally i don't think that's sufficient reason to do it and Starmz only wishes he had the man of the people gravitas of a Big Sam

your last question is more on point, but i'm not sure the difference between forensically vacuous and just vacuous is worth pondering

The point on tone absolutely correct. Starmer doesn’t want to be the person held responsible for kids not going back to school or look obstructive but, rather than positioning himself as the government’s supervisor, Labour should be outlining how they should be going back and setting up a situation where they can call the government reckless for not following their advice.

Alright Mark Hughes then but good lord no one wants to be Mark Hughes. If he drops down the scale to Phil Brown then that's it.

it's starting to look like Mr Starmer is just not very good, even by what we might guess are his own terms

Even Rentoul hates this lol.