iirc he hasn't been seen since they weekend-at-berniesed him out of the hospital approx one COVID-19 ago
https://www.abc.net.au/news/image/11826304-3x2-700x467.jpg
― Non, je ned raggette rien (onimo), Monday, 20 April 2020 12:21 (four years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWC3fDCWsAAqnVU?format=jpg&name=900x900
the image used by itv news tweet attached to his statement where he forbids anybody from the proletariat outliving him and to start digging now or he'll rain diseased blood on us!
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 12:33 (four years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWDDAI3XsAMyGXy?format=jpg&name=small
― Dadjokke (Sgt. Biscuits), Monday, 20 April 2020 12:44 (four years ago) link
in case you were in any doubt that we are living in profoundly cursed times
We would be in so much better a place if Tony Blair were prime minister— Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) April 20, 2020
― He is married to Brogmus, Linda. (bizarro gazzara), Monday, 20 April 2020 16:14 (four years ago) link
I mean he's not exactly wrong, we'd be in a better place with literally any former PM but Brown is probably the one you would want around in a crisis. Don't even want to think about how Blair would be around Trump.
― Matt DC, Monday, 20 April 2020 16:17 (four years ago) link
idk where to put this but i'm deeply depressed by the apparent inability of basically anyone left right or centre to imagine a way to handle this whole thing without state repression
― fuck it (Left), Monday, 20 April 2020 16:54 (four years ago) link
same lack of imagination behind so many leftists' support for the police state under corbyn. not that i have much idea how to proceed but i wish less was being taken for granted
― fuck it (Left), Monday, 20 April 2020 17:00 (four years ago) link
i hear you, and yes
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 April 2020 17:11 (four years ago) link
unfortunately I don't think it is a good time for thinking outside the box - the only viable option seems: whatever has prevented spiralling death figures elsewhere. I might lack imagination but I can't see any better ideas rn.
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 17:39 (four years ago) link
There is no imagining away the material facts of an epidemic & how a virus spreads; lockdown is no more authoritarian in principle than eg evacuation and if everything was in place as it should be to actually look after people this would not scan as repressive but as entirely excusable paternalism in the public interest, and for a limited time.
― Microbes oft teem (wins), Monday, 20 April 2020 17:49 (four years ago) link
Unfortunately I think our physical liberty stopped existing in any meaningful sense when the virus hit. Lockdown is collective responsibility as much as anything else. Doesn't excuse a lot of the police behaviour, clearly.
― Matt DC, Monday, 20 April 2020 17:57 (four years ago) link
Not the fact of the lockdown but the ways lockdown plays out in policing and public imagination.
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 April 2020 17:59 (four years ago) link
OTOH I'll likely feel differently in a year when all these new draconian powers have been retained for migrants, black guys, Muslims and no one else.
― Matt DC, Monday, 20 April 2020 18:00 (four years ago) link
And tbh I don't believe any pandemic is an automatic trump card over civil liberties. We don't seem to have reached a point where they're being eroded yet but I think eternal vigilance over politicians and bourgie fascism sympathisers is always a good idea
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 April 2020 18:01 (four years ago) link
(eroded any further than the pre-existing trends, Matt otm)
― clap for content-providers (Noodle Vague), Monday, 20 April 2020 18:02 (four years ago) link
The tracking app on the other hand reminds me of ID cards in that it is only going to introduce a new layer of authoritarianism without solving the problem. Like, it just isn't going to work.
― Matt DC, Monday, 20 April 2020 18:06 (four years ago) link
feels like a good time to get an old phone
― ogmor, Monday, 20 April 2020 18:17 (four years ago) link
This govt and IT - they need to ditch professor Vardy or whoever it is before attempting a Rona app. It will probably end up causing total societal collapse in a week!
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 18:21 (four years ago) link
"I'm a sovereign human being, I stand under common law only" - Thread of Freemen
― mark s, Monday, 20 April 2020 18:21 (four years ago) link
re: lack of imagination, the rise of mutual aid groups is somewhat of a positive development - grass roots, just ppl trying to help each other out and started before any of the govt initiatives. One good argument I saw for keeping them going is that undocumented ppl aren't going to call govt-related help groups
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 20 April 2020 18:25 (four years ago) link
I'm just thinking a dysfunctional government app that ends up working in tandem with the disease and helping it spread would not be unlike a subplot from Rick and Morty.
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 18:35 (four years ago) link
mutual aid is great ofc long as it doesn’t get recuperated into unpaid labour for state/capital... but it’s depressing seeing ppl so surrendered to existing conditions... the assertion that they exist is like a shrug which I relate to emotionally but it feels like defeat
― fuck it (Left), Monday, 20 April 2020 18:44 (four years ago) link
rick and morty is a documentary
― mark s, Monday, 20 April 2020 18:52 (four years ago) link
Fishy?
Regarding those 128 fake #NHS Staff accounts posting for 'Herd Mentality' and support of the Govt that were set up by @DHSCgovuk or their marketing agency ...Posts were sent using Hootsuite, a mass-posting tool. Account registered to 1 person with 4 assigned contributors. pic.twitter.com/r7fRFQaFwG— John O'Connell (@jdpoc) April 20, 2020
― The Rampaging Goats of Llandudno (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Monday, 20 April 2020 19:57 (four years ago) link
bantheclap? what?
― silby, Monday, 20 April 2020 20:06 (four years ago) link
the only good hashtag!
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 20:09 (four years ago) link
"43 accounts use actual photos of actual NHS staff."
jesus wept
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 20:19 (four years ago) link
So, there should be no politicisation of the coronavirus, unless Conservative.
― Mark G, Monday, 20 April 2020 20:24 (four years ago) link
Red Ed is back.
(THREAD) It is worth explaining why I think government has made the wrong call on CBILs. It is falling into the trap of thinking the danger at the end of all this will be that we have done too much, too quickly when the danger is the opposite: we do too little, too slowly (1/)— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) April 20, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 20 April 2020 20:56 (four years ago) link
Glad to see Boris is on the mend
is anyone else just absolutely REPULSED by this giant baby pic.twitter.com/0Un7QQ4kZF— Yard Sard: A Memoir (@DuckAlertsNOW) April 20, 2020
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 20 April 2020 21:08 (four years ago) link
need a quite a hard-nosed authoritarian one giant policy relentlessly upheld rn imo
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 21:53 (four years ago) link
one giant baby I meant!
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 21:55 (four years ago) link
Credit where credit's due that's some good Twitter wonkery for Miliband.
― Matt DC, Monday, 20 April 2020 21:57 (four years ago) link
I hated myself for voting for his worthless and vile 2015 aberration of what passes for opposition, but never doubted he's not a decent person.
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 22:02 (four years ago) link
*nods along*wait
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 20 April 2020 22:10 (four years ago) link
ah i read the thread now!
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 22:17 (four years ago) link
XXX forensic
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 22:19 (four years ago) link
BREAKING: Leaks show NHS using ‘knowingly flawed’ tests, missing 25% of positive coronavirus cases – Hancock under pressure to resign.https://t.co/K4yt9PtlP5— openDemocracy (@openDemocracy) April 20, 2020
Hancock allowing the NHS to use tests with a 25% failure rate. "no test is better than a bad test" indeed
― calzino, Monday, 20 April 2020 22:28 (four years ago) link
That's actually better than I thought; back at the start of April they were saying up to 30% false negatives. Fucking hell, all the same. https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-how-reliable-are-the-uks-coronavirus-tests
― stet, Monday, 20 April 2020 22:34 (four years ago) link
I think 30% false negative is apparently pretty standard for that type of test?
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 20 April 2020 22:53 (four years ago) link
False positive rate seems more relevant (and needs to be much higher than that) for the intended use case of letting people out
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 20 April 2020 22:59 (four years ago) link
If 5% of people are immune and the FPR is 20% then 4/5 of people you’re assuming are immune are not.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 20 April 2020 23:00 (four years ago) link
The only accurate tests are blood tests but they are slow. I assume there is no real incentive to test NHS workers for immunity as you would have to send those without home.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 21 April 2020 06:23 (four years ago) link
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/nhs-staff-to-be-asked-to-treat-coronavirus-patients-without-gowns?
Hancock needs to go.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 21 April 2020 07:57 (four years ago) link
He won't and if he's under pressure to go I haven't heard much about it outside of this thread.
― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.), Tuesday, 21 April 2020 08:00 (four years ago) link
I'm afraid that accountability is completely gone from public life in UK since 2010. There are obvious antecedents such as ignoring public feeling and demonstrations re Iraq, but the FTPA has allowed politicians to act without any fear of accountability. Its hard to imagine that the expenses scandal could happen now, can you imagine the justifications that peston and kuenssberg would make. Probably May did more than anyone to push the envelope on this by pressing on in the face of repeated unprecedented commons defeats, but even then patel resigned. The johnson gov has is fully enjoying the fruits of this dismantling of accountability in an extraordinary way, but it does feel like malice, corruption and incompetence are an absolute baseline norm in public office now. I can't imagine that hancock will have to go, that any of them will have to go.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 21 April 2020 08:07 (four years ago) link
I can’t see how replacing him would make things any better, tbh.
― ShariVari, Tuesday, 21 April 2020 08:12 (four years ago) link
Probably wouldn't make anything better now, no. More about paying for mistakes, of which this is clearly one.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 21 April 2020 08:19 (four years ago) link
I see what plax is saying but at what point do we get some accountability back. Sunak is playing with fire, as is the call to end the lockdown which could result in a 2nd spike.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 21 April 2020 08:31 (four years ago) link
its not about single instances of 'people going,' but it does seem that the complacency about hiring a cabinet full of dimwit loons is only possible when you know there are repercussions for loose cannon fire. The situation we are in is the result of a political culture that does not fear repercussions.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 21 April 2020 08:34 (four years ago) link