ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

shocked that the great white hope of the people's vote is sanctioning this line

meanwhile i know it's been a few months since i've been on a train but i can't remember the last time i saw any graffiti on one

My trains are often graffitied tbf, I particularly enjoy some of the graffiti en route to work on the way as well, especially the “Southeastern are cunts” someone has thoughtfully sprayed on the side of a bridge.

This whole thing is sick, could do without the shadow justice secretary and the mcshitter reacting this way. Believe survivors (unless they’re not from your faction).

Shadow Justice Secretary doesn’t care about survivors is it? https://t.co/z0KhW9N7FQ

— Your Mum says Black Lives Matter (@judeinlondon2) September 16, 2020

Nothing ever mattered, Alphie.

― scampo italiano (gyac), Wednesday, 16 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

*goes on to post about internal factional Lab politics*

“Southeastern are cunts”

otm

Anyway yes this is the thread where we should see Brexit getting done. I'm excited!

Don't know much about this Athwal thing tbh but the extent to which he and his supporters keep referring to his family having gone through hell just seems quite dubious.

Great day to be in the Labour party, really covering itself in glory 🎶

EXCLUSIVE: Lesbian staffer quits Rosie Duffield's office over the Labour MP's 'overtly transphobic' opinionshttps://t.co/e94J2cVN63

— PinkNews (@PinkNews) September 16, 2020

That article was bad enough that I actually gasped out loud at one point, fair fucks to the staffer on walking.

Oh

I'm very pleased and relieved that the test result for one of my children came back negative this morning.

Thank you to the NHS hospital where my wife works for ensuring that their staff and family members have quick access to a test.

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) September 16, 2020

i feel like maybe there's a broader point he could make?

Not every marginal Labour MP is being kept in their position by the youth vote but Rosie Duffield absolutely is. Even if the Tories lose the next election they are going to win Canterbury back.

You’ll actually love to see it. I’ve seen so many activists angry at her behaviour since even before the election she was on TV slagging them off. Absolutely terrible person.

It's the petulant contempt in her response that rankles, along with everything else.

Duffield asked her staff member if, as a lesbian, she knew Sandi Toksvig.

Rayner doing great at PMQs: ‘get some skates on it!’

"The next time someone drives from London to Durham it will be for a Covid test" is a pretty good line in fairness.

yeah nice moves from Rayner

Rayner: What was the top priority for the cabinet this weekend? Restoring grouse shooting. It's good news for people like the PM's friend who paid for a luxury Christmas getaway to a Caribbean Island and funded his leadership campaign and just so happens to own two grouse estates

— Simple Politics (@easypoliticsUK) September 16, 2020

Guess now we know why we’re not seeing much of her.

Angela Rayner says she has a message from someone called Keir. He cannot go to work today because his family needed a test.

In new World Beating System news...

With some Londoners being offered local coronavirus tests only by entering an Aberdeen postcode, Matt Hancock has said that "people should take this seriously and not game the system"#MattHancock #TestandTrace #testing #Twickenham #governmenthttps://t.co/F4SR7pUrFp

— PublicTechnology (@PublicTech) September 16, 2020

love to game the system by doing a 1,100 mile round trip to get a covid test

It's gaming the system to pretend you live 500 miles away so it will offer you a test down the road, apparently.

Nev still speaking truth to power

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/sep/15/neville-southall-everton-keeper-boris-johnson-jk-rowling-loose-cannons?CMP=share_btn_tw

a genuine hero tbh

he's no Peter Shitlon!

I'm predicting a surge in the polling for Labour this and then when Keith the Cooler comes out of quarantine it'll dip back down to minus a few points behind.

Nev was always a real one tbf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XadLaAYKol0

"let's just level the playing field a bit"

(swings a lump hammer at Owen's right knee)

We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.

Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period. https://t.co/Ecu9jPrcHL

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 16, 2020

Voting for Joe Biden now

A locked account I follow makes the excellent point that ofc the US doesn’t care that much about a trade deal with the UK, they don’t need to except as an extractive partner.

Going to need multiple ukpols threads at this rate

I’m hearing from a well-connected person that government now thinks, in absence of testing, there are 38,000 infections per day. Chris Whitty is advising PM for a two week national lockdown.

— Anthony Costello (@globalhlthtwit) September 16, 2020

A locked account I follow makes the excellent point that ofc the US doesn’t care that much about a trade deal with the UK, they don’t need to except as an extractive partner.

― scampo italiano (gyac), Wednesday, 16 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

We both follow this account too

Just stalking calmly as I normally do

👍👍👍

A good candidate for fucking off into the sun, here

Hey @joebiden would you like to discuss the Good Friday agreement? It is also called the Belfast Agreement so it doesn't offend both traditions. Did you actually know that? I was born in NI and I'm a Catholic and a Unionist. Here if you need help.

— Conor Burns (@ConorBurnsUK) September 16, 2020

Anthony Costello, thank you for your opposition.

I've been told by another insider I respect that Chris Whitty does not support a 2 week lockdown, so I'm pleased to correct the record.

— Anthony Costello (@globalhlthtwit) September 17, 2020

Also lol nothing matters

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/chris-grayling-ports-brexit-ferries_uk_5f625651c5b6ba9eb6e8ab0d

'No Ships' Chris Grayling To Be Paid £100,000 A Year To Advise Ports Company

Also the Mail putting the boot in (though this may partly be because the Sun has a several-page interview with Boris)

MAIL: Boris: we’ve failed #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/jEgWcHkEzj

— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) September 16, 2020

Grayling does have experience (of downing the odd bottle of tawny) tbf

That Mail headline suggests a bigger problem for the Tories, in that Johnson isn't just failing at delivering proper testing infrastructure, or failing to contain the rona. It's that he's failing to deliver for garden variety affluent middle-aged Tory voters what they want most of all from government - the ability to go about their lives in a perfectly atomised self-centred little bubble without anything really getting in the way. (That was part of the promise of Brexit as well, I'm sure).

Those people will probably turn out and vote Tory anyway but you probably don't want to piss off too many of them for the mood music alone.

It also suggests why the government might take a fundamentally dangerous approach to announcing a second lockdown.

Use of the phrase 'Good Friday', referring to the day that Jesus Christ was crucified before rising again, the most important event in the Christian calendar, may offend some traditions of Christianity.

it does bring back painful memories of the pubs not being open tbf

Ah now, we've abandoned that too, in the spirit of reconciliation and also because we really wanted to.

Why you gotta play that song so loud?
Because we want to! Because we want to!
Why you always run around in crowds?
Because we want to! Because we want to!

good to hear someone from the shadow cabinet calling for UC to be scrapped, you wouldn't be sure they were unequivocally opposed to fucking anything from the way forensick kieth talks.

are the pubs finally open on Good Friday? thank fuck for that

British PM Johnson's father applying for French citizenship https://t.co/VQLEOiv4wI pic.twitter.com/88Er4Fv1jP

— Reuters (@Reuters) December 31, 2020

the fact that click-and-collect is still being allowed says so much. We could easily go delivery-only and reduce unnecessary travel but the Gov't doesn't see a problem with people being encouraged to spend in a less safe manner if it helps the economy.

But on Wednesday the prime minister sounded a more concilatory note as parliament approved a new trade deal with the EU, saying: “This is not the end of Britain as a European country. We are in many ways the quintessential European civilisation... and we will continue to be that.”

Cunt.

working in retail the past six months has been grim - not just my own personal experience but the people I know in other business saying the same thing - you're using less manpower hours in your branch because you're not taking the same money, but you're expected to get the same level of tasking completed plus keep the place clean and sanitised, and manage the volume and flow of customers. And of course, the nature of it is that the customers who are going to physical stores are the ones who are least likely to take sensible precautions etc because anyone with half a brain would just stay home and order only what was necessary via the internet.

But on Wednesday the prime minister sounded a more concilatory note as parliament approved a new trade deal with the EU, saying: “This is not the end of Britain as a European country. We are in many ways the quintessential European civilisation... and we will continue to be that.”

Could detect some dogwhistles in this babble (European = white, which the UK will continue to be), but prob giving it too much credit.

whenever someone starts harping on about 'civilisations', you know they'll have the callipers out soon enough

Twitter relitigating Darien today is a preview of what’s coming with IndyRef II. Brexit proxy culture war with added patronisation, the Holyrood campaign is going to be grim too.

i love it when people take an active informed interest in history tbh oh wait

Tom D OTM.

I was wondering how the UK government would manage to fuck up the vaccine rollout, but even I didn't foresee them delaying the appointments for the second jab by three months against all expert advice. The Tory backbenchers are essentially serial killers at this stage, can't wait for everyone to vote them back in at the next election.

Libcom again on that, quoting the virologist that caek quote in the outbreak thread and pulling the strands together.

This is useful on some dodgy numbers floating around on the new one dose/twelve week gap MHRA plan. There are a couple of things that are not clear though. https://t.co/VktKpzCrPN

— libcom.org (@libcomorg) December 31, 2020

We'll just keep playing with fire. It doesn't help the Tories to re-start the economy though. If enough ppl get a sense they are not protected, if cases are high in 2021 through some new mutation they won't be shopping much. We know the economic model runs on these small margins.

this government walks that perfect line between negligence, contempt and incompetence to be fair to the lads

It's the bonus dithering that's making it such a clusterfuck

We would like to offer our closed @BrewDog venues to help with a quick roll out of the vaccine. For free.

meh! still going to boycott your hideous brand for the rest of my life.. nauseating cunts!

The 'For free.' used for dramatic effect like that like it's the most important aspect of the gesture.

I do a lot of good work for charity.. and I don't even charge them y'know!

love to do things for the publicity free

964 covid deaths confirmed today, it's a runaway train at the moment

Put this in my EU poll but we need it here too:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/31/the-left-brexit-economic-uk

While I do buy the remarks of the EU as a neolib castle that needs to change, and the slowness of the economic response from the EU (seen less about the vaccine program) there is not a word about Scotland or NI, or whether the EU will just leave the UK to its own devices (such as finance, huge assumptions that it will always be fine). The write-up on manufacturing and free movemnt is amazing, as if these were not part of UK policy directions (EU migration as just the latest set of migrations of low-wage labour from the likes of the Caribbean), and whether this will just not mean another set of shoddy migrations in a guest worker style scheme for farmers and the like.

It is true the left will need to re-orient policy that is more than just re-join though.

New International now!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqliGDgXMAI4Ujw?format=jpg&name=900x900

that Joylon Windmill is so much better than the LOTO these days is not all down to some epiphany he had battering a fox to death in a kimono

mind like with Lady Caroline, people like this fucker will often posture left when it's so easy to outflank Labour. But the minute a left-wing leader shows up - they will show what they are really about!

Is Jolyon a hoax that has different people running the account or does he just occasionally spin a big wheel containing random behavioural prompts like "libel Owen Jones" and "boast about battering a fox to death"?

why not try living in a windmill

Really can't see what Britain gets out of this? Sounds like a maaaajor concession- the kind which were happy to wave guns around to prevent. Only beneficiaries seem to be the Spanish workers faced with job losses from a hard border. UK interest doesn't seem to have come into it? https://t.co/Fv7aia4mNT

— Tom Munday (@tommundaycs) December 31, 2020

I'd forgotten about that big old Gibraltar question and how it will pan out, so did the govt it seems but tbf you can't argue with the result.

xp delayed lol!

11PM - I can hear fireworks being let off by what I assume are Leave voting wankers.

It’s New Year’s Eve though

The fireworks went off at 11PM exactly, continued for five minutes, then stopped.

Happy new year one and all

deeply fucked up country when you think about it pic.twitter.com/JVLAXDOXLk

— c (@c15gg) January 1, 2021

Disaster capitalism and disaster medicine in one night.

Very concerning email sent out to staff at the Royal London Hospital this evening, detailing the extreme pressure the NHS is under.

It warns “we are now in disaster medicine mode. We are no longer providing high standard critical care, because we cannot.”

Via @JujuliaGrace. pic.twitter.com/C9LAcPIhQd

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) December 31, 2020

for-n-sick in our mess age

Yeah it's time for a new UK Pol thread with extra sovereignty

caution: dyed-in-the-wool lexit opinion incoming but something to think about?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/31/the-left-brexit-economic-uk

There's been stuff to think about all down the line, tho I don't believe the "opportunities" outweigh what's been lost. There could certainly have been much better negotiated Brexits once the referendum happened, some of which might even have been better than the status quo.

The EU itself isn't all that, this is the main point.

The Imperial report on the new UK B117 strain is out. Very concerning findings, that highlight why we need to act on this *now*. These findings suggest that the situation within the UK is likely to get much worse than it is now. Here's why-

Thread.

— Deepti Gurdasani (@dgurdasani1) December 31, 2020

Many on the remainer left accept the EU has its faults, but they fear that Brexit will be the start of something worse: slash and burn deregulation that will make Britain a nastier place to live.

This, though, assumes that Britain will have rightwing governments in perpetuity

it will tho

always has

thats right

ok guys lock her up

Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021