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

wasn't Benet Brandreth in Game of Thrones?

He has a law firm with Bobson Dugnutt.

Excellent piece.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/11/tories-arent-incompetent-economy-brexiter?

Calzino listens to Times Radio?

Lorinda Long.

just listened for one day for lols + because I like my tory talk-radio to dispense with any pretence of impartiality!

this is why Starmer only seems to attack them on *competence*. He doesn't have any better ideas of a national economy himself, he's just owned by different paymasters and is very quiet on austerity despite how you are supposed to take it on trust that he won't be as shitty as them cos he's the Labour brand.

If Starmer can only attack them on competence and hasn't got any better visions for the UK then that is another decade of guaranteed tory govt

"These electric shocks are killing me"

"And they're so inefficiently administered!"

I know Edgerton can be a bit annoyingly like a FBPE professor on twitter sometimes, but I respect his consistent contempt for New Labour and its dogshit legacy.

he finishes his last book with the juxtaposition of people burning Thatcher effigies whilst Blair is grifting about, adding respectability for cash pr to murderous dictators.

That's a great and accurate piece by Edgerton, you'd think the Graun would be embarrassed to publish him

Great Woody post from Tracer.

I think people might be attracted by the notion of competence in leaders, not quite sure that's what KS has exuded so far.

I'm basing this on Nicola Sturgeon. Scotland, give or take a fortnight and despite what the unionist media says, has broadly aligned per capita with rUK on cases, hospitalisation, deaths, etc. and has been in some cases (care homes) possibly worse. Despite this Nicola Sturgeon's popularity remains high as she fronts to the public every day, takes endless shitty questions and explains every decision calmly and reasonably.

This leads to her social media profiles being full of comments about how great a job she's doing and her relative approval ratings being about 100 points above BoJo's.

Of course much of that is biased by Nats supporting her regardless but there's no doubt for me that the appearance of competence has won the respect and support of people who previously mostly ignored politics.

re: Edgerton, yes accurate and good except it works till it doesn't. ERM crash type event and a proper recession to put a kibosh on it, except the incoming Lab leadership aren't at the races to challenge this.

Yeah but the point is that Blair based his campaign against the Major government on competence (and lack of corruption/grift, bitter lol) precisely because from a policy point of view there was little to separate them.

Sure a section of the public likes the idea of competence, it's the old "we need to be ground down by the grown-ups" steez. I've always believed the Tories are entirely competent at pursuing their actual agenda.

Whether it looks good to anybody else the Tories' real paymasters never lose out when the economy tanks

That's why I used "notion" and "appearance" - many people don't know what they want by competence. Someone highly competent with the wrong agenda will do more damage than a well meaning idiot.

In the case of KS, what the media identifies as forensic attention to detail often comes off as nitpicking middle manager and everyone hates those, even themselves.

xp

Like the boss who prints out and quotes to you from an old email to highlights how you've only met 92% of your targets.

yeah i think the Tories have got a handle on portraying Labour as fussy ditherers at the moment and Kieth is helping them

(i missed the bit about KS in your first sentence, soz)

seeing as one of Keith's donors (that he kept a bit fucking quiet back in feb) is the bet365 family. I never got to hear his thoughts on gambling addiction. Perhaps he believes if gamblers were more forensic and studied form with a barrister's level of concentration they'd win more often!

"progressive addiction"

it's one of my hobbyhorses i know but the TV advertising of gambling has reached extreme levels of evil under lockdown, and they also seem to be allowed to do the kind of adverts that alcohol companies, for example, are expressly prohibited from doing

The number of ex Labour MPs working for gambling bodies and boards is an actual disgrace. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with gambling, but these companies are predators and targeting lonely/vulnerable people.

booze adverts have a restriction on the age of the people in the ads for example, also iirc a booze ad is not allowed to show punters explicitly "enjoying" the product, cue Billy Hills adverts full of cheering jumping cunts playing online bandits and none of them apparently blowing the family food budget in 10 minutes flat

there have been some changes recently. Apparently you can't put money into your gambling account with a credit card anymore. Oh and previously if you'd withdrawn winnings you'd have the option to reverse the action and immediately give it back to them, well know you have to wait for the payment to go back into your bank before you give it back to them!

know

yeah i am not against gambling and have enjoyed a bet on the horses or the football from time to time, i've also in the past had a brief minor issue with bandits and the thought of bandits that you can carry around in your pocket all day getting aggressively marketed at people 24/7 is fucking sick

i was thinking the other day as well, given the prevalence and ease of online betting the only justification for reopening the shops during rona is so they can get those poor saps back on the blackjack/roulette machines

these bookie phone apps are deadly for people with addiction issues and the way they target people with them goes way beyond having a leisurely flutter on the geegees, this is more like selling crack.

NEW: Prime Minister to address the parliamentary party this afternoon 17:30 – MPs have not been given details of the purpose of the meeting

— Katy Balls (@katyballs) September 11, 2020

just wants to cough all over them

Just a big 'fuck you guys you owe me your jobs' probably.

yeah this will be related to breaking the law breaking the law and he'll probably be telling them to sit the fuck down

https://youtu.be/Y8klW9trVTQ

there have been some changes recently. Apparently you can't put money into your gambling account with a credit card anymore. Oh and previously if you'd withdrawn winnings you'd have the option to reverse the action and immediately give it back to them, well know you have to wait for the payment to go back into your bank before you give it back to them!

― calzino, Friday, 11 September 2020 11:17 (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol that's a cloak of responsibility around 'just leave your winnings in your account to continue to bet freely!' - completely removing the need for chronic gamblers to lie to themselves about 'doing something with the winnings'

what kind of monster schedules a meeting for half five on a Friday

One who wants to remind the attendees that he's in charge

there are rumours circulating that Johnson might be announcing the time of his departure

find that very hard to believe but is there enough of a streak of idleness in him for it to be possible, and will his main (financial) interests be dealt with once Brexit has been got done?

it's the famous after work chat in the pub on a friday which many of the worst bosses seem to think is a great way to talk to "their team"

End of week meeting is bad vibes tbh

My first thought was "no way he's resigning" but announcing he'll resign in January or after Brexit is irrevocably fucked or some other future date has at least a feeling of possibility

still think "stop moaning about us breaking the law you melts" is odds-on favourite tho

in answer to "what can i hope for from such a meeting?" my poisoned brain skipped beyond an r. budd dwyer to the scene in edge of darkness where darius jedburgh opens his briefcase to induce a plutonium criticality event in front of (and thus expunging) the world's gathered nuclear paladins

ok i prefer that option stay safe London ILXors

maybe BoJo will turn into a tree

"My first thought was "no way he's resigning" but announcing he'll resign in January or after Brexit is irrevocably fucked or some other future date has at least a feeling of possibility"

I can see a similar, Cameron-style, I don't want to deal with the consequences of my actions but I believe it when I see it.

Absolutely no chance the cnut is resigning before the later half of this decade imo.

he's a man of many qualities, you have to weigh up the incompetence, the entitlement, the venality, the dishonesty and see which will come out on top today.

forgot the cowardice sorry

Absolutely no chance the cnut is resigning before the later half of this decade imo.