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

Am I the only person who thinks that the young @lukeakehurst bears a resemblance to Leon Trotsky? pic.twitter.com/MP0vmuzuAl

— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) April 16, 2020

She haaaaaaates him, LOL.

The scene from Westminster bridge #ClapForCarers pic.twitter.com/JpzM0YBjgH

— Damir Rafi (@d_rafi1) April 16, 2020

get social distancing ya xunts

Wot no spikes?(heads on)
Yet?

let's help the NHS Rona by crowding together on a bridge *slow claps*

Large groups of police / ambulance / fire brigade ppl gathering at landmarks to listen to the clapping definitely seems to be a thing across the country, which doesn't appear enormously sensible.

how long until clapping for carers is infected by the same sort of bullshit that surrounds poppy nazism.

"why were you not clapping citizen?!"

Shocked and slightly terrified that Bobby Pesto seems to be doing some actual journalism.

I’ve been sent the criteria issued to doctors for those #covid19 patients who are allowed to be transferred from hospitals to the emergency Nightingale ones that have been set up all over the UK to increase intensive care capacity. And what they show is that...

— Robert Peston (@Peston) April 16, 2020

Short version - the makeshift mega-hospitals, like the one at the Excel centre, aren't taking patients most seriously at risk and the NHS trusts thinking about sending COVID patients there also have to provide equipment and medical staff to look after them. The Excel centre apparently has 19 patients.

the complaint from doctors right from the start is that the nightingales weren’t going to have adequate staffing because, well, the nhs isn’t adequately staffed but nice to see pesto pretending to do some journalism because A Secret Source sent him a memo and he gets to feel all woodward and bernstein

Piers and now Pesto - this government must be in real trouble..

I’m not sure the Nightingale story is what is being suggested - they don’t have the equipment for people likely to have serious complications/be most at risk, so those people should be prioritised in real hospitals?

👏👏👏

Ten nurses suspended for refusing to work without N95 masks https://t.co/WfOZevqldu

— The Guardian (@guardian) April 17, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/nightingale-hospital-in-london-to-treat-less-critical-covid-19-cases

This has been the whole plan all along?

With apologies to Bobby P I think we might have to withdraw those 'actual journalism' props.

Also hospital trusts have fewer non-covid cases at the moment so if they need free beds for people less serious or recovering, they likely have them without having to send the patient and their staff to a Nightingale.

Story about nurses being suspended is from California, what's it doing here?

I didn't see.

This is my interview commenting on the leaked Labour Party report on antisemitism. https://t.co/t1Wf7KVcUx

— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) April 17, 2020

This has been the whole plan all along?

The bit about it being designed for less serious patients, yes. I am not sure it was reported at the time that NHS trusts would have to send their own staff to look after any patients.

The things I do, so that you don’t have to do them....This isn’t so interesting but it is a good guide to responses to that Labour report. The main one is the most tiresome weapon in the hack’s arsenal: noisily pretending not to understand things that you do in fact understand... pic.twitter.com/grcsaBX21j

— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) April 17, 2020

Also, the JLM response to the report leak was....not good.

Responding to #LabourReport, it’s much more important to focus on why it seems that holocaust deniers weren’t acted against and so many complaints were simply ignored in 2016-2018 than on suspending local party branches for talking about the report, no?

— James Schneider (@schneiderhome) April 17, 2020

over 7 billion quietly doled out to big business https://positivemoney.org/2020/04/bank-of-england-provides-7-5-billion-in-big-business-bailouts-all-hidden-from-public-view/

In the midst of a pandemic, overcrowding and lack of hygiene are threats to life for everyone.

How Mears Group and the Home Office are putting asylum tenants' and residents' lives in danger.

Thread>>> pic.twitter.com/Uqr1sRzntx

— SYMAAG (@SYMAAG) April 15, 2020

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-leaks-report-antisemitism-racism-diane-abbott-butler-a9468521.html

In other news Starmer said earlier that he didn't enjoy having to "sell himself to the membership".

Must have been tough for him, but at least he's all those apolitical ice-cream eating feeb's votes in the bag now.

aww, diddums xp

The big donations to Keir's leadership campaign have FINALLY been revealed. He was swimming in cash from super-rich donors, including £95,000 from hedge funder Martin Taylor.

Not sure we'll be hearing much more from Labour about hedge fund billionaires.https://t.co/RFeTeWoFzU

— EL4C (@EL4JC) April 17, 2020

lot of construction industry ppl in there. baron alli, the guy who helped create survivor and worked at endemol with a cool 100k. longstanding supporter of the labour right trevor chinn w/ 50k, likewise fbaron hollick w/ 25k. green energy company w/ 20k, baron myners formerly of the guardian group, M&S and some big property company w/ 10k. joan bakewell in there too.

I take back everything I've ever said about Starmer, he is a much much more of a Tory arsehole than I ever inferred he was.

barons4keir

mark burnett the producer of survivor also one of the biggest trump supporters and produced the apprentice

makes unison's 10k seem p irrelevant

Labour will need more donations after they haemorrhage 200k members, but who needs members any more, eh?

Might wanna cross-reference those donors with the construction firms building ‘affordable’ and social-rent flats in Camden.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/apr/17/woman-90-climb-highland-mountain-home-help-nhs-margaret-payne

A 90-year-old woman hopes to climb the equivalent of a Highland mountain by taking repeated trips up and down her stairs, to raise money for the NHS.

Maybe Boris Johnson can speed his recuperation by swimming the Thames or something, should be a doddle for someone who thinks ill people are all malingerers.

fuck this fucking shithole country

NHS bosses are preparing to ask doctors and nurses to work without full-length gowns when treating Covid-19 patients, as hospitals across England are set to run out of supplies within hours, the Guardian has learned.

The guidance will be a reversal of Public Health England (PHE) guidelines stipulating that full-length waterproof surgical gowns, designed to stop coronavirus droplets getting into someone’s mouth or nose, should be worn for all high-risk hospital procedures.

In a significant U-turn, PHE is set to advise frontline staff to wear a flimsy plastic apron when gowns have run out, in a move that doctors and nurses fear may lead to more of them contracting the virus and ultimately put lives at risk.

Easy to forget, and maybe I was naive to start with, but I remember a few weeks ago thinking "bloody hell, this could kill 10,000 people. Even 20!" And now we're at 15,000 official fatalities, plus however many in care homes etc. So given that we're nowhere near the end, and there will probably be further outbreaks once rules are relaxed, we're maybe looking at an eventual six-figure death count for the UK? Hard to predict, obviously. It just seems to be normalised now, and still most Britishers are right behind the Tories. Sigh.

that report from the us that said we could be heading towards 60,000 deaths and which was roundly rubbished by those in power isn’t looking too fantastical nowadays, it must be said

they subsequently revised that figure down to 37,000

why that’s barely any at all!

just ftr

no thanks for mentioning it

37,000 feels all too plausible rly

Still on target for the highest in Europe though? I wonder how many people were tut-tutting at feckless and slapdash Southern Europeans and saying. "That won't happen here, you mark my words."

As soon as the lockdown is over the Tories should call an election and double their majority.

don’t fuckin tempt them

there was a lot of, 'well it's a different culture in Italy...'

Too much of de hugging an da kissing!

We survived the Blitz we can survive thisuuughghh *drops dead of COVID-19*