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

nice to see phillips, benn et al punished for being essentially snakes

NEW: Sir Keir Starmer's new communications director is reportedly to be from a private healthcare lobbying corporation set up in 2013 by Bill Morgan, ex-special adviser to Tory Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, architect of most recent rounds of NHS privatisation. #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/uvnCLtzNQf

— Afshin Rattansi (@afshinrattansi) April 6, 2020

all PR people are amoral shysters tbf

crankish account as well like, but that Nunn seems extraordinarily awful and I wasn't a Milne fan either tbh but at least he wasn't from a private healthcare lobby background

now more than ever we need the influence of private healthcare in politics

a lot of shit stuck to milne alas, i guess the thought here is to hire someone utterly beige, but that background is odious if accurate, yeah

a sexy PR campaign isn't why a party sells. You tell me - Get Brexit Done? What was that? There was nothing in that goddamn manifesto.

Excuse me. We'll talk about this after.

Shadow chancellor is actual work though, Chuka was probably holding out for shadow culture or shadow defence.

butler def a poor omission but folks admit you were /slightly/ blindsided by this cabinet lol

the proof of the broad church approach is yet to come (and i know it's not ideal) but for all of starmer's weak rhetoric and collaborationist demeanour there's enough for me to keep a shaky faith for now

xxp Sometimes it's the lies you don't tell.

INCISIVE HEALTH's logo reminds me of the excellent 70s board game AMOEBA (my sister has our edn of this with her in hastings i imagine)

https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/183520314107_/Vintage-1960-70s-amoeba-Board-Game-by-Marx.jpg

butler def a poor omission but folks admit you were slightly blindsided by this cabinet lol

the proof of the broad church approach is yet to come (and i know it's not ideal) but for all of starmer's weak rhetoric and collaborationist demeanour there's enough for me to keep a shaky faith for now

― ban laggy jazzer (imago), Monday, 6 April 2020 14:21 (thirty-four minutes ago) link

Lol stop pretending this isn't your politics it's embarrassing.

butler def a poor omission but folks admit you were /slightly/ blindsided by this cabinet lol

It's pretty representative of what i've always thought Starmer's base to be, tbh - a bunch of soft-left technocratic people bookended with a smattering of unreconstructed Blairites and optimistic leftists. It seems pretty clear that the Labour right was briefing the sympathetic press on what they wanted to happen, not what they knew was going to happen.

One of the other founders of Incisive Health was an adviser to Jon Trickett and their client list is the usual mix of pharma companies plus the General Medical Council, health charities like Alzheimers Research UK and 38Degrees. They'll take anyone's money in the healthcare sector.

Not a hill anyone should be arsed to die on but it doesn't necesarily mean he'll be lobbying on behalf of private healthcare from within the leader's office, although I'd worry how many of them will have his phone number already. TBH I'd be OK if he stuck to what PR guys are supposed to do rather than the modern version which appears to be to control every aspect of policy despite being completely unelected.

I'd be more worried about the fact that he worked on Owen Smith's campaign and we know what a rousing success that was.

Reckon we are still waiting for @wesstreeting and @jessphillips @stellacreasy What’s happening there ..?

— emily m (@maitlis) April 6, 2020

sad lol

Isn't Creasy on maternity leave in any case?

The Queen wants the big names for the Emergency Cabinet.

— Simon Hedges (@Orwell_Fan) April 6, 2020

100% the other two are sitting by the phone getting increasingly irate.

I wonder how well Starmer and the Right. Hon. Member for McDonalds get on, given the former's legal history.

Isn't Creasy on maternity leave in any case?

Yep, otherwise I reckon she'd be in. Although she didn't back Starmer - I think she went for Nandy.

🐦[Reckon we are still waiting for @wesstreeting🕸 and @jessphillips🕸 @stellacreasy🕸 What’s happening there ..?
— emily m (@maitlis) April 6, 2020🕸]🐦

jess phillips has demanded to speak to the manager of the labour party

— ryan 🚩 (@ryxnf) April 6, 2020

TBF she's done excellent work holding Pizza Hut to account.

If Starmer's concerns are primarily presentation then why would he want either of those eejits within a thousand miles of an important job?

in Wes's likes lmao pic.twitter.com/02nZU13DAO

— Charlie (@vampiretraums) April 6, 2020

They're absolutely useless at the one thing their fans say they have going for them, wtf is wrong with people??

!

If you fancy some light relief at home this evening, join in @IanMurrayMP’s pub quiz tonight. He does good questions, entertaining music and some gags that are even quite funny.

Register here on Zoom: https://t.co/6pWy47sOSD pic.twitter.com/8sI5FhANSr

— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) April 6, 2020

god forbid one should sign up and abuse the opportunity to interact directly with a political talent of the magnitude of ian murray

Do these fucks never learn?

Is it called Egghead?

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The member from Birmingham yardley not going quietly

Canvassing opinion on the new shadow cabinet. Asked for thoughts, one Labour MP simply replies: "Would have been better with me in it". I mean, fair enough.

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) April 6, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/06/hospital-admission-puts-new-focus-on-boris-johnsons-health

Purnell says the hospital admission will be difficult for Johnson who, like his father, rarely admits to illness or notices it in others. “When I worked with him as his deputy [in the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels bureau], he was certainly very, very intolerant of illness in others, and considered it as sort of a weakness.”

I mean of course he thinks like this, a lethal combination of blitheness and bullying.

No real surprise that he's one of *those* bosses.

At least ten TFL staff have now died, including eight that worked on buses.

If only Bob Crow was still with us.

boris is more of a jim crow man

Raab hasn’t spoken to Johnson since Saturday?

The Prime Minister has been taken to intensive care

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) April 6, 2020

hwfg

thoughts and prayers

Holy shit.

I’m fully behind his speedy recovery if it means avoiding Raab or Patel as PM.

So the charade that he was a-ok just a precaution lasted exactly 23 hours.

Boris Johnson dying while the Ghanaian pallbearer meme is big would be the closest Britain has ever gotten to giving reparations

— Masaiism-Lowryism (@Cam_Oflage) April 6, 2020

I’m sure he’s still leading from the front

lol xp

Graun still asleep it seems.

Crikey.

He couldn't...could he?