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

yeah it really is awful. that combined with the drip drip of support measures, rather than a macron “no business big or small will be allowed to go under” to allow them to continue to pay staff regardless, as well as immediate payment measures for the gig economy and people who have already been laid off, produces horribly fluid uncertainty.

― Fizzles, Friday, March 20, 2020 9:23 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Fizzles otm. I don't get why the UK gov hasn't come out guns blazing. Macron, and over here the Dutch, have done that. No business will go under, they've basically written a blank cheque for business (not a dumb cheque like US that says "here's $1000 now fuck off and g/l with yr medical bills") to be able to let people keep their job and income. My business will see three people sent away on leave for half of their hours, but 90% of those hours will be covered by the government. Employer gets reimbursed, can pay the normal salary to the people sitting at home weathering this storm: profit.

Uk seems to have a special blend of half-assed financial measures and vague mixed signals about what measures are to be taken health-wise.

It means those economies are going to rebound much more quickly later on. When you consider lost corporation tax, spiralling unemployment benefits and the wider hit to the economy, keeping businesses going must be basically free for the government.

Every time I read about the number of young people still going to pubs I think 'this is proof the Tories are going to continue winning elections forever'.

― Matt DC, Friday, 20 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Reading this hilarious argument of someone on left twitter last night convincing himself that Johnson's assurances were good enough so he could go for a drink. Thankfully this was shouted down quickly but the guy really wanted a drink.

Exactly If you're a bartender, or supplier of meat to restaurants or pubs, you obv have zero business. You need the gov to compensate your income to see this out. Plus side is you won't have to pay for unemployment afterwards, and things can go "back to normal" a bit more easily when this is done. I fucking hate saying it but our rightwing government got this right. It's put three of my colleagues hearts and minds really at ease, taking away the fear of no income etc. xp

UK governments in unable to see beyond the end of their noses shocker.

Austerity is going to look like the Scando welfare state when these cunts decide to start clawing the money back

Really wanting a drink is a powerful imperative tbf

My 24-yr-old has been paying National Insurance for two years. After losing job due to corona, inquired about Jobseekers’ Allowance. But can’t claim because needs to have been paying NI longer.
What happens to kids without homes & supportive parents?

— Allison Pearson (@allisonpearson) March 19, 2020

why it's almost like this thin veneer of a welfare state that us lefties have been bleating about for the last decade isn't actually a made up phenomena (like that photo of the kid on the floor of a hospital corridor).

At a guess, i'd imagine the government thinks the French plans might be sustainable for a few months but the policy of letting this play out, rather than trying to control it, means that anything they put in place needs to be viable for nine months to a year, idk.

Nice self-own from supportive mum of the year AP

My heart goes out to the Pearson family at this difficult time. In my prayers.

NV - some talk of loans from what I've seen. But that's poll tax riots territory. Same for rents. Under a lockdown a person can't be thrown out due to non-payment.

Our numbers of cases/deaths are almost matching Italy's 12 days ago -- literally only a few digits in it. It's also remarkably complacent. From both Tories and most of the opposition.

Still somehow hopeful that the sheer blinding necessity of just unequivocally guaranteeing incomes will make it happen very soon but can't help but see their fear of this as the reason for the lack of decisively shutting everything non-essential down.

bread's all been panic-bought, circuses closed down by the so-called politically correct brigade

Aviemore Coylumbridge Hotel sent this letter to staff today. Not just fired but chucked out of their accommodation with no notice and no redundancy pay! @BritanniaLtd Britannia Hotels should be ashamed of themselves. Certainly no "room at the inn" here, disgusting. pic.twitter.com/p6ZB2IYfoK

— John G. Burns (@ScaryHighlander) March 19, 2020

LAURA K: Prime Minister, in the wake of a million deaths, food riots, and cars burning in the streets, could you still say that people were right to vote Conservative?

BORIS JOHNSON (Surrounded by riot police): Yes I would, Laura! Attempts to salute and falls over Cripes!

ASSORTED PRESS PACK: Thank God for the Prime Minister keeping us all jolly in such dark times!

PESTON: Viewers trying to obtain paracetamol scrapings from the ruins of Truro may ask could the Prime Minister have done anything more? But in my opinion, we have the right man for the job.

i'm looking forward to next year when bog roll hoarders get their heads forcibly shaved in public

Yeah this crisis is really bringing out the capital punishment enthusiast in me

SOME CUNT ON TWITTER: Jeremy Corbyn though 😂😂😂😂😂😂 can’t believe you’re STILL trying to score political points off this “crisis” 😂😂😂😂😂 you lost get over it 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Capital punishment for the punishing Capital xp

The status quo is over, you can't claw the money back, people paying tax in 2080 will still be paying for the response to this crisis, and that's fine. It requires a fundamental change in our attitude to government debt and the money supply more generally. What happens to the economy from now on is 100% dependent on what the government does. Obviously this doesn't necessarily mean the return of the social democratic consensus - what's coming might be considerably worse than the status quo.

Make sure you let Johnson, Cummings et al clear on that dude.

Are they particularly interested in or driven by austerity? Serious question. Obviously they're no fans of the welfare state itself but Cummings doesn't appear to be cut from the same ideological cloth as Osbourne.

But yes I think in general that they and the party behind them lack the capability to think long-term about what this crisis means for the relationship between government, business and individuals. Subsequent governments might not.

He seems like a classic Internet libertarian to me. Probably not interested in the kind of bovine punish-the-poor shit of your IDS types but I feel like the opportunity to reframe the social contract will be irresistible to Cummings, and why would Johnson, a vain moron fixated on personal legacy, not want to buy into that?

You're probably right, the question is whether internet libertarianism is really compatible with the gigantic amounts of government intervention that will be required to prevent Boris's legacy being 'PM of a pile of smouldering rubble'. Unlike in 2008-2010 there probably won't be a change of government between the intervention and the clear-up, so they can't blame the deficit on previous incumbents.

For the avoidance of doubt I don't think even the best case scenario is leading us anywhere good, but wherever it is it won't be a return to the status quo.

Sure, I'm just quite concerned that we'll end up looking back fondly on this shit show status quo. Apart from their likely incompetence this is the worst imaginable government to be running this crisis and the aftermath, possibly for a long time, with the most likely near-future change in direction only coming from within the Tory Party itself. And that's before we factor in the vast tranche of the UK electorate filled with masochism and love of the jackboot.

The strategy of leaking stuff as a trial balloon, officially denying it, and then u-turning on that is also making everything worse, as a lot of people have access to multiple contradictory statements, and are muddling through (and muddling through on the side of "doing what I want to do").

On of the journos attempted to get the PM to call his father immoral.

This is regarding the "I'm going to go to the pub no matter what" from Stanley Johnson? The tragedy of Boris is that he'd be far more comfortable in his father's position. Well, the tragedy other than the fact that he's not hanging from a lamppost, but it's early days.

We'll know we're fucked when there's a glowing Polly Toynbee article proclaiming a bright new political consensus.

I'm sorry, this performative despair isn't helping either. Every crisis is, in some sense, an opportunity to effect change for the better, at least in theory.

My landlord, Golden Equity Properties, is sending eviction notices out in the middle of a pandemic. Today, they shut our water off without notice again, the third time since #COVID19 crisis started. pic.twitter.com/WUWOGo7ApK

— Emina Gamulin (@EminaKosjenka) March 19, 2020

At least now lovers of Mao's deadly but effective approach to land reform wont be so against the grain! Ready to pour one out for the first millionaire landlord/property company scum that get's strung up on a DIY gallows.

(I meant *my* despair, to be clear)

lol alltime top 10 dn there

Who exactly do Golden Equity Properties think is going to be contemplating moving or viewing houses right now? The only people looking will be other people made homeless because they can't pay their rent.

probably cut their losses and sell them off to some dodgy billionaire using them as the oligarch equivalent of shoe-boxes full of money under the floorboards.

AF going full xyzzzzz is it? We do love to see it.

Golden Equity Properties setting up all the conditions for a rent strike.

That sucks, but it's in Canada

My landlord or rather letting agent has sent me an urgent questionnaire I have to fill in, tbf it's mostly about whether I'm in a vulnerable group rather than outright saying are you planning to pay rent next month. I guess this means I have to tell them my wife died, although I dunno if that would actually change my tenancy at all

I don't think my mum is going to survive this, she's a recentish breast cancer survivor in her late 70's. Her partner is a cantankerous old Ukippy type fuck who still goes to the library every day to read all the newspapers, then the pubs, then the "funhouse". She's not self-isolating and when her I told it's quite likely going to be as deadly here as in Italy, she was quite dismissive + said "you can only do your best, no point worrying".

I was thinking yesterday in the absence of bog roll we may see a resurgence for UK newspapers

Make a killing, start buying shares in Izal.

using newspaper as bog roll is more like 70's nostalgia, which is good honest nostalgia imo - unlike all that propaganda hangover ww2 shite!

Colonel I'm so sorry.

provided they are in joint possession of one (1) human soul they will respond by leaving you the fuck alone for six months or so

This was my commute to work in London this morning @BorisJohnson. This is what you get on London underground when you reduce the service but people still have to go to work. There was a lot of coughing too.

How do we stay safe in this environment?#CoronaVirusUpdate pic.twitter.com/wT345MEjND

— David Riley (@DRileyamusing) March 20, 2020

Incredible.

CP feel free to forward that questionnaire to your MP and ask them straight out what they’re going to do about it

hastings mp = the tory who succeeded (hence is even worse than) amber rudd

which is not to say don't bombard em with this stuff, love and solidarity CP and everyone else

Pubs, restaurants, gyms, leisure centres and cinemas across London will be told to close in a massive ramping up of measures to slow the coronavirus surge.

Boris Johnson chaired an emergency meeting this morning to decide what will be the most drastic action yet to try to shield the capital’s NHS from being overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients.

Shops are not expected to be in the first wave of closure, but it is understood that non-essential stores could be included if they fail to stop customers handling items that could then pass on the virus.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-clampdown-london-cinemas-pubs-shut-a4392981.html

I don't really understand the way of communication here. If this is the decision, why not make it known yourself immediately? Or is the Standard just guessing here?