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

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.

Speaking of cowards

👀 https://t.co/jHqGwySNZB pic.twitter.com/jHEq9O9aVL

— W////ΛM 🏡🤝🌹 (@willuminare) September 11, 2020

"the boss's summer offensive against Boris"

lol, if you thought that shook the earth just wait for his winter offensive - be like the bloody uprising of tet mau!

Winter offensive: Starmer has too much porridge for breakfast and stinks out the shadow cabinet while outlining why Labour are going to be agreeing with the government again.

pour one out lads

This is the most painful cancellation I have had yet. From someone I spent 10 years working with, many lovely family dinners and lots of laughs. Someone I thought was a friend. pic.twitter.com/WW5yCfGjfk

— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) September 10, 2020

Conditional support for the Pretfucker vs the McShitter

xp this is a parody of the Laurence fox / Rebecca Front tweet from yesterday

Yep. Tbf on Wes the joke was just as lame coming umpteen thousand times from lefty twitter!

If he was doing a good job of offering opposition to the govt and holding them to account. Then I don't see something as insignificant as a chump with low recognition outside of Scotland almost becoming a CuK would be a distraction. Delaying the inevitable reveal makes you look shifty and conniving as well.

Naming the date of departure would make sense to me:

- Johnson doesn't want to be Prime Minister especially, he wants to have been Prime Minister, that's a mission that can be accomplished any point from next year
- He probably doesn't especially want to fight an election he might lose, he wants to be in control of the manner of departure, Blair-style
- Tory MPs are less likely to push him if he jumps before an election (there's also very little chance they'll believe him, but that's a different issue)

But I think he's more likely to be testing the water on numbers ahead of the bill vote.

as a chump with low recognition outside of Scotland

Gonna have to stop you there. I think most Scots would struggle to point to the guy in a line up.

especially in a line up of sickly looking humpty dumptys who look like they've been dragged off the wall, repeatedly!

"By the start of August, restaurant attendance had already bounced back to near 2019 levels. People were basically going out as normal, so the half-price discount scheme didn't encourage a "return to normal"; it encouraged extravagant levels of eating out," it said.

"But when the scheme ended, things went right back to where they would have been. At the start of September there were more outings than at the start of August, but no more than would have been expected based on the long-term trend of reopening. There seems to be virtually no lasting impact on people’s consumption."

"At the same time as the scheme was operating, the UK started to see an uptick in COVID-19 cases. This overwhelmed testing capacity and caused some regions to reimpose restrictions."

not the point here but jesus you forget how expensive London eating out had got when you've been away from it for a few months (and they've added a couple of Covid quid to the bill). £9 for scrambled eggs? gtf

Imperial saying R now at 1.8 with doubling every 8 days. Steve Baker thinks it's time for us to "live like a free people".

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-11/u-k-virus-r-value-rises-above-1-for-first-time-since-march

the only real freedom is the freedom to die to keep jd sports in business

Imperial saying R now at 1.8

uh yikes??

Yep. I get that case numbers are much lower than they were in March, but how much longer can they keep going "it'll be alright by Christmas, hang on let me just shut down Birmingham, now, where was I? Yes: wash your hands, eat out to help out, get to work"?

'it'll be over by Christmas' got us through a world war

work out to eat out

London feeling more like Madrid on these criteria

1/
Look at the shape of these curves.

New York and Madrid had similar epidemics until they spectacularly diverged.

In March, both cities were caught by surprise and shut down because of #COVID19.

In September, the situation is under control in NY and alarming in Madrid.

Why? pic.twitter.com/VF0BCl0xyt

— Miguel Hernán (@_MiguelHernan) September 11, 2020

yeah he's not resigning, it's the chummy compulsory office drinks bollocks

BREAKING: PM is meeting right now with Conservative MPs, as backbenchers threaten rebellion over the govt's plan to break international law.

He's telling MPs he wants them to "understand his point of view, not the polemic view in the papers."

He says no time for questions.

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) September 11, 2020

Meanwhile

"Should the UK authorities breach – or threaten to breach – the Withdrawal Agreement, through the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill in its current form or in any other way, the European Parliament will, under no circumstances, ratify any agreement between the EU and the UK."

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) September 11, 2020

johnny eu determined as ever to try and sink the good ship britain by means fair or foul, glad we’re getting shot of the shifty buggers god bless u boris

Motion of no confidence in Richard Leonard has been withdrawn, I’m told

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) September 12, 2020

it would have been quite forensic if they checked they had the numbers for a monc before attempting to remove RL, lol at the party of competence!

Source says: “What a waste of everyone’s time. Even with the Labour Students rep they didn’t have the numbers so not quite sure why they went through with it all.”

I've been enjoying Richard Leonard's lockdown hair

https://www.helensburghadvertiser.co.uk/resources/images/11762593.jpg

I'm not a fan of the guy tbh, but love to see the "fucking useless plotters" doing their thing again. He looks like he has a very stringent daily hair care regime and buys Head & Shoulders by the crate!

He's slow and deliberate and uninspiring. Nicola Sturgeon looks positively bored with what passes for FMQs when he's up.

What can you do but laugh at this cunt?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EhyT0Q5X0AIAbQM?format=jpg&name=large

Never mind that, what exactly is going on here?

This is the finest book written about Corbynism and the politics of the last five years. Also the greatest book ever published in SE15. Buy it! https://t.co/1k9wuYliOb

— John McTernan (@johnmcternan) September 13, 2020

He’s subtweeting Owen Jones, whose own history of the past five years is out today.

McTernan has (unironically) supported the New Socialist issue so there is um, a but going on (he still follows me lol)

John Harris has written a review of OJ's book today.

I'm gonna regret this but here goes

Cunt

Could've told you that without reading it.

It's possible I've missed part of the social media exchange here but I'm still not making the connection between McTernan/Lemmey and Owen Jones (unless McT is just taking it as an opportunity to throw indirect shade on OJ).

That’s it exactly.