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

Fuck me, Hancock is basing this on evidence from Test and Trace that most people are catching it at home. Which means it's evidence from late-April onwards, when ... nobody was in an office. So, yes, empty offices are safe places to be. Genius.

Reporting in from self-isolation: you have to fill out an online form and print it out before you travel back (there was an e-mail from the airline to this effect but still guessing plenty didn't read it), you're supposed to print it out and hand it out to someone on arrival but there was no one there when our plane landed. So yeah, seems pretty easy to disregard if you're that way inclined.

Also does he think everyone drives to the office or something?

Gets driven to the office

shocked_pikachu.jpg

A company run by long–term associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings has been working behind the scenes with the exams agency Ofqual on its disastrous strategy for determining A-level results, the Guardian can reveal.

Public First, a policy and research firm owned by James Frayne and Rachel Wolf, who both formerly worked for Gove, has been involved on the project with Ofqual since June after being granted a contract that was not put out to competitive tender.

Details of the contract have not been made public and Ofqual declined to say how much public money had been spent hiring Public First.The firm is understood to have been initially contracted to assist Ofqual with communicating its A-level and GSCE results plan to help secure public confidence in the strategy.

A spokesperson for Ofqual said it initially contracted Public First without a tender to work on “insight on public opinion for this year’s exam arrangements”. The spokesperson added: “Public First is currently assisting Ofqual’s small communications team with an unprecedented amount of media interest in a complex policy area.”

Wolf, a former adviser to Gove when he was shadow education secretary, is one of several staff from Public First who are understood to have worked with Ofqual on the approach to the awarding of A-level, BTec and GCSE grades for students, who were unable to take their exams due to the Covid-19 school closures.

A Cabinet Office spokesperson told the Guardian that Gove had not been involved in Ofqual’s appointment of Public First. They said: “The Cabinet Office had no involvement in the contract and did not discuss it with Ofqual.”

I was wondering why the comms around this were so bad and...mystery solved.

Trebles all around

I'll be a bit more specific as it's potentially important. OFQUAL is not an overtly political organisation, as such, and is always extremely conservative about making public statements, other than to give exam boards a dressing down. Under normal circumstances, there's absolutely no way you'd have a situation where they were leaking anonymous statements to the press. However, a few days ago, there was a Telegraph scoop with an unnamed 'OFQUAL source' quoted attacking teachers who had juiced their predicted grades to an unbelievable extent. That came as a surprise not just to me but to the guy i know who used to head comms for OFQUAL.

When it became clear that there'd have to be a change of policy, OFQUAL released a series of statements that, at least partly, threw themselves on the grenade.

The cronyism / corruption angle is valid but it's the kind of low-level grift we've become accustomed to. I'd be more concerned about politicised comms teams with ties to government and the Tory press being foisted on independent organisations and regulators.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/labour-red-wall-and-vicissitudes-britains-voting-system/

In fact, across the 50 seats lost in the North, Midlands and Wales in 2019, total votes cast for Labour increased by nearly 30,000 so that Labour’s vote share was 39% in 2019 – unchanged from 2010.

Labour did not, therefore, lose the red wall seats because of a dramatic collapse in its vote over the last decade. Instead, the Conservatives made large gains in these constituencies at the expense of the Liberal Democrats, increasing their vote from around 670,000 in 2010 to over a million in 2019, compared with Lib Dem losses of around 300,000 votes over the same period.

so it was all Swinson's fault.

the ConDem years put off lots of LibDem voters who then ..erm switched to the Tories.

not really sure what the best thread for this is, thought there was a Play for Today thread but couldn't find it, anyway here'll do, fill your boots

For those of my Twitter followers who enjoy arguing about whether the Labour Party has historically been sufficient radical (and let's face it, that's most of you), this BBC Play for Today of All Good Men (1973) by Trevor Griffiths is a real treat https://t.co/qOtFO4HpLa

— Juliet. (@zinovievletter) August 20, 2020

that's the very good twitter acct who recently did an ace post on the difference between braindead ch4 schedule now compared with the early 90's one (which also contained lots of garbage but some absolute gems which wouldn't get made these days).

"old slums or new ones.. towerblock variety"

some cracking dialogue

haven't watched it all yet but Griffiths was a good writer iirc and tbh i'll lap up all the Play for Todays i can get

there is a really good line where old Labour fule says: how can a squirrel kill a tree? and Frances de la Tour answers : they eat the bark, when the stripped parts meet in a circle, the tree dies. Yes sir kiermit.

when you don't know whether to lol or bowk

Night all. Imagine a world where you drop off to sleep to the words ‘President Biden met with Prime Minister Starmer’

— jojo77 3.5% (@fbpe_jojo77) August 21, 2020

‘to discuss the most mutually-profitable method of machine-gunning climate refugees at border crossings’

I would imagine the prospect would send most people to sleep so that is excellent unintended shade.

The situation in Birmingham and Oldham, among other places, is starting to look very worrying.

https://t.co/PSPASwNPjd pic.twitter.com/5uGtQvpSZo

— black lives matter (@jrc1921) August 21, 2020

Peter Shitlon

Too easy a target, I'm taking the high road

I reckon him and Le Tiss would love our elective dictatorship to be at least 20% more fascist.

At least 50% of the replies to that tweet are St George flag wankers suggesting Blojo is doing a great job apart from being too weak on dinghy illegals.

Don't read the replies, never read the replies.

Have Peter Reid or Big Nev weighed in yet?

solid approach to ilx also

xp

'“I’ve had members of my association claiming universal credit and they’re shocked by how low it is,” says a Tory MP.'

Illustration, if needed, of how the Osborne-IDS cuts were enabled by a combination of wilful ignorance and tabloid scaremongering. https://t.co/FBTFYK3npw

— Jonathan Portes (@jdportes) August 21, 2020

it's actually higher at the moment because of covid. wait until it drops down to its normal rate again.

it's currently £102pw + change but is usually £82. if you are under 25 it is £85 normally £65.

if some of these arseholes wouldn't listen to the UN rapporteur, Corbz/McD and countless other good people who have been highlighting how fucking shit UC is, before voting for these cunts again, then it's sowing then reaping time I'm afraid.

Did the coronavirus write this? https://t.co/CjYvc6aJPe

— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) August 22, 2020

Well well well

EXC: Tom Watson held secret talks with Jo Swinson about standing for the Liberal Democrats in Lewes at December’s election. https://t.co/MGXCbUAbbl

— Patrick Maguire (@patrickkmaguire) August 23, 2020

That's paywalled but I'd like to know how that panned out and why it didn't happen given that Swinson would have taken virtually anyone on board at that point.

It's also done the unthinkable and made me look very very slightly more favourably upon Chuka Umunna for at least following through on it.

Was watching C4 news yesterday and a young Black activist from Brixton was complaining that he’d been presented an award last year by his local MP and the following week, the MP passed him in the street and didn’t recognise him.

xp in the replies

So was it @tom_watson that failed the candidates assessment! We were told someone did but no one will tell us who??? Come on Tom you know where you are much more wanted and where you will be more utilised!!

— Sadie 🌈🔶 (@sadietrent_92) August 23, 2020

If the story in the article is true then Watson decided not to stand on the promise of a peerage that was then turned down because he fell hook line and sinker for an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

The ongoing presence of Gavin Williamson has really obscured quite how comically bad Tom Watson is at Machiavellianism.

tbf he's comically bad in a number of areas

xxp can we not link that person here, thanks

Watson's forthcoming parliamentary thriller novel (of "ambition and betrayal" provisional title The House!) could be an intentional comedic masterpiece if he included his best material, but he is too much of a pompous prick to fess up to what a bumbling clown he has been, especially with his paedo-ring busting heroics.

The name was vaguely familiar but I hadn't actually made the connection as to he was and didn't bother to check, it was more to get the screenshot out there.

Killed the embed, there are so many of these accounts that it's difficult to keep track.

as much as a running joke Watson is, he still wielded enough power + influence to get Dawn Foster sacked from the Guardian. None of these wankers are ever actually amusing clowns.

baggymp was one of the great running gags tbf

i mean not so much running as jogging for a bit and stopping for breath but you know

He was listening to some classics last night tbf. Also need to point out the top message in his shoutbox is still someone calling him a cunt.

a lot of suspects in this thread

Tom is as fit as a butcher's dog now, fucking shitbird does 3 marathons before breakfast!

i know also body shaming jokes are bad but also Tom Watson is a tory cunt

i know also body shaming jokes are bad

It's never stopped a single ilxor from going there