Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

Fully re-opening schools before teachers aged 50+ are vaccinated and with limited / no modification to class sizes, layout, etc, seems like the most irresponsible thing but idk what a path to 'zero COVID' is meant to look like more broadly. Lockdown for the rest of the year, border closures and travel restrictions for several years, mandatory vaccination, etc? It's not going to be politically tenable to have heavy restrictions in place when more or less every adult who wants a vaccine has had one.

I took my kid to visit a college called Camp Hill where he hopefully will be continuing after he finishes at his current school barring the LA not being complete dicks. But he was very excited at the novelty of a taxi journey after not really going anywhere since last November. But the palpable disappointment when he realised it was just a half hour flying visit did sadden me somewhat.

Like I'm not quite cheering for Spoons Coughfest21 yet but this shit is killing people in so many other ways.

― Major D in QAnon (onimo), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 09:16 (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I agree. what a difference it would have made if vulnerable people had been able to properly self isolate. if employers had not been able to do what they like. if the bbc hadn't cheered on the gutting of the nhs at the last election. if gov had decided to at least temporarily stop gutting the long-term slashing of public health and local authorities and cared enough to engage with the hard work of contact-tracing instead of hoping an app would fix it. basically if anything had been seen as anything other than an opportunity to hand out money to pals of the government or for labour to appeal to a tiny clique of centrist columnists by agreeing with everything the government does.

imagine grants for small businesses and support from local public health officials to make businesses more covid-friendly, proper resources for schools (when the school many of my friends work in reopened during the first lockdown, they still didn't have soap in most of the toilets, this school had student body over 90% BAME in one of the worst affected areas in the country at the time). There are a million ways that efforts could have been made to support people and businesses to engage with better public health measures instead of constantly pitting them against 'normality'

Ultimately the main effort has been to preserve throughout existing labour conditions or if possible make them worse (cf starmer's insistence now that teachers should have to work through their holidays) and consequently the framing of economy v safety has become firmly entrenched into any conversation we might have. In truth there are so many ways we could have approached this, but they would have taken imagination and most importantly threatened existing norms around workers rights and welfare provision. We are not the ones who made it a choice between the economy and safety, this is literally the option that we are presented by the combined incompetence and avarice of this government and their supporters (across media and business)

Booming post

"cf starmer's insistence now that teachers should have to work through their holidays"

this guy needs stringing up

Also very depressing but that's where we are, and all that amid the screaming of backbench normalisation hawks and the gutter press that nourishes them

Just to get it off my chest - this country is truly, deeply fucked and there is no relief in sight

all the teachers i know are fucking exhausted and have worked through every 'holiday' this year

I hate Starmer more than any member of the Conservative party because at least they had the conviction to join their natural party. He's been the worst possible LOTO we could possibly have during a pandemic. I know it's already been said a thousand times.

yes

both as in "agreed" and "it has"

https://t.co/xeGZG9QHHO pic.twitter.com/5cm4k5aPqC

— aaЯjan (@aarjanistan) February 23, 2021

lol, your a very funny tory - I'll kill you last.

He's been the worst possible LOTO we could possibly have during a pandemic

I'd agree that he does get worse, he seems to lowering the bar more every week. I can't even keep up with how awful he is (I lied!).

_He's been the worst possible LOTO we could possibly have during a pandemic_


It's not so much this for me as it how he somehow conspires to get _worse_. Even the meltiest seem to be noticing that there's not much reason for hope (ok Will Hutton apart) because he declines every opportunity to do something better.

Corbynism raised the expectations that the Labour Party could be a vehicle for change. I just hope great numbers of younger people are never going to let that go rather than melting or getting into that useless false paradigm of "if you don't support Labour then you support Tories".

It’s honestly more likely they just won’t bother voting at all.

Most of the timeframes that have been set seem reasonable to me, or at least in line with what I see elsewhere in Europe. The schools are the big fuck up, and even that I wouldn't envision as such a disaster if teachers and staff got vaccinated.

The problem with schools is it’s always been discussed as though it’s solely a matter of timing - “when will it be safe to open schools” instead of “what are we doing to make it safe to reopen schools”. afaict the answer to the latter is always “fuck all” when there are a shitload of things that could have been done

teachers aren't getting vaccinated, that's the problem, and i've no idea why that's not a very very simple priority action to sort out?

Teachers seem to be considered malingering foot-dragging wreckers by both the main parties unfortunately, despite NEU being 100% correct in every position they've taken so far.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eu59bxjWgAUrgs-?format=png&name=900x900

Worsel Gummidge has really let himself go

the Crowman was having a very bad at the office when he made that puffy faced gaunt bastard!

Unlock mass events with this one weird trick

fuck is this

BREAKING: The Labour Party has now re-opened applications for its Liverpool Mayoral selection

Unprecedented move comes after three shortlisted candidates were re-interviewed last weekhttps://t.co/LBQICiSp8f

— Liam Thorp 💙 (@LiamThorpECHO) February 23, 2021

Understand that no previous candidate will be invited to apply. New nominations must by in by 12pm on 25 February. The ballots will be distributed from 8 March and must be returned by 12pm on 29 March.

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) February 23, 2021

I could do dat. Gissa mayoralty.

i'm sure this is all above board and will lead to the best possible candidate being selected

Tom D OTM.

Shop thy neighbour.

Starmer should encourage Chris Williamson and Ken Livingstone to apply so whatever preordained melt fool he has lined up will look like a credible candidate

Look democratically electing candidates is the old politics

Lmao this is basically all because Corbyn endorsed a mayoral candidate, isn't it? Pathetic.

— The Holly and the (Redacted) (@holski_beat) February 23, 2021

No results for "#LabourAntiblackness"

The term you entered did not bring up any results. You may have mistyped your term or your Search settings could be protecting you from some potentially sensitive content.

could Anna Rothery beat off any hollow Starmer candidate if she stood as an independent? would love that to happen

perhaps i could have put that a bit better

being an even bigger hate figure in Liverpool than Boris would be a hell of an accomplishment

starmer is a plant

but he wants to keep plants banned

(xp An invasive weed, to be more precise.

it's funny that because I often think it would be fun to hack him down to size with a garden machete

NEW: Understand that Anna Rothery intends to seek an injunction if the decision to reopen the Liverpool selection process without the previously shortlisted candidates is not reversed. "If the decision stands, then I will be left with no choice but to challenge it legally."

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) February 23, 2021

Labour's Liverpool Mayoral Candidate announced:
It's Mr Gerry Mander

— Solomon Hughes (@SolHughesWriter) February 23, 2021

xxp it's a simple mistake, he actually just said that he want to keep his bantz planned.

Anna Rothery would've been the first Black woman mayor of a major city in the UK and was blocked from making history by the Starmer regime because she was too left-wing. They treated her with such disrespect they informed the press before her.
Black Lives Don't matter to Labour.

— Chardine Taylor Stone (@ChardineTaylor) February 23, 2021

I hear Kieth tipped off his Bet365 donor pal so they lay off a big attractive overround book on the Liverpool mayor betting odds before he pulled the rug on the game!

Fucking disgusting.

Verdict on whether Emilie Oldknow gets to know who blew the whistle on *her* appalling WhatsApp messages comes on Friday.

It’s an extraordinary thing to do without even a surface justification as the assumption a lot of people are likely to make without one is that they’re suspected of corruption as well.

What would be really interesting is if a credible independent figure now came forward, someone respected in the city who was promising a total move away from the current administration and promised to work across the parties - you have to say they'd have a decent chance

— Liam Thorp 💙 (@LiamThorpECHO) February 23, 2021

https://i.postimg.cc/NjkrWJ2P/353-D8005-8-AE4-4-F6-E-84-F5-7631922-EAB4-A.jpg

Charline is a good follow, never seen her looking to leave the party. Maybe that's what they want but the price they'll pay is too high.

I was a laughing earlier at the comment: it's a shame Dobson is dead!

Across the UK, the appeal of buy-to-let purchases has been waning, as residents leave central London, either moving to more suburban areas or back in with family during the pandemic https://t.co/EecSUnHqzj pic.twitter.com/r36vFlWmr3

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) February 19, 2021