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

Oh look, it’s the UN rapporteur who shredded the Tories & their brutal austerity, which meant the UK press almost completely ignored his report. He’s back explaining how said policies have exacerbated the covid response & he’ll be completely ignored again https://t.co/VFFCi9cDPx

— Mr Demos of Pnyx (@gem_ste) April 26, 2020

that radical the UN rapporteur saying what Starmer should be saying if the useless fucking cunt actually was a LOTO in the meaningful sense of the title.

absolutely stonking interview on moneybox tonight about umbrella companies who have been getting away for years with paying their employees (temps essentially i.e. supply teachers, health professionals) technically minimum wage - with each job topped up with a "discretionary bonus" - on which tax is paid. now guess which amount the government's 80% job retention payment applies to. yes, minimum wage.

lots of creepy crawlies under lots of rocks that coronavirus has tipped over.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000hmy3

yep the moneybox program is much more probing than Sir Forensic and it is often quite a dark heart of middle England part of R4!

You know like when Corbyn's twitter would wish RIP to someone recently departed or have the temerity to comment on anything other than Stopping Brexit and he'd get blanket bombed with 18 megatons of shitty useless FBPE whataboutery, well I haven't got the energy to do that to Starmer but FP me away if I'm too repetitive about what a useless tory cunt he is on here, but I'll continue posting till the death!

Boris Johnson just said ‘many people will be looking at our apparent success’ in relation to Britain & Coronavirus.

apologies for quoting piers moran here but when he can get away with saying that without being met with spontaneous gales of laughter .. i just fucking don't know what!

https://t.co/ho6nYduulv pic.twitter.com/lvhV53TKix

— gentle stunts (@raaleh) April 27, 2020

Woah. As a former photo director this is some fucked up propaganda level misinformation. The cranes were there last year and are no longer there. This photo is not from during lock down. They need to address and I for one will be making a formal complaint to IPSO https://t.co/A8oC8KpS0D

— Jamie Klingler (@jamieklingler) April 27, 2020

Christ.

Government seem to want to encourage the public to become keener to exit the lockdown than public currently are.

Compare this description of today's Opinium poll, in news report on govt thinking, to the actual Opinium poll findings.

Tel reporthttps://t.co/HFZd9KgE9q pic.twitter.com/zvEhRyPhWj

— Sunder Katwala (@sundersays) April 26, 2020

yep I saw someone who lives in the area saying that is definitely an old photo and lockdown rules are being maintained as good as anywhere else in the UK.

Boris - "I know you're all desperate to get back to the pub, but please do be patient"
Public - "No thanks mate, we'll just settle for not dying for a bit"

Even the dumbest Sun readers don't want to get the Rona. No amount of propaganda will change that for now.

i'll get me coat

RLB and Andy McDonald are making the right noises as in: risk assessments before easing lockdown, no return to normal, ensure vital workers are paid properly. It's almost like there is an opposition after all.

Lammy was about to get ratioed this morning when he deleted his tweet that was only expressing concern for prison officers and other staff having PPE and not the sub-human prisoners who are involved in a scheme where they are sowing urgently needed masks together for a wage of £12.50 a week!

Starmer has retreated from Corbyn's suspension of rent payments to now supporting only a deferral of rent payments https://t.co/j09hZK2rKs

— Nick Srnicek (@n_srnck) April 26, 2020

Such a disaster

Even the dumbest Sun readers don't want to get the Rona. No amount of propaganda will change that for now.

― calzino, Monday, 27 April 2020 bookmarkflaglink

I'd love to know the impact of covid on circulation figures. Anyone know?

The dumbest of Sun readers haven't heard about coronavirus.

actually buying a newspaper doesn't seem like a very sun reader thing to do

I say this but my grandad bought the sun

Obviously a suspension is better than a deferral but both are avoiding the key practical consideration of what can be done to prevent landlords from hiking rents to make up the shortfall later down the line. I'm not sure what a workable policy would even look like here.

I suppose it doesn't really matter given that neither Corbyn nor Starmer have been in any position to enact these policies and the Tories aren't going to pay even the slightest bit of attention to what Labour thinks they should do. Where it does matter is as a signal of future policy given that housing is going to be a major dividing issue at the next election.

The Tories are going to be absolutely desperate to reinflate the housing market by the next election and the possibility of any controls on buy-to-let landlords feels more remote than ever.

The tweet Matt posted above has been deleted, the photo was kosher after all:

I’ll remove the original tweet, the thread w/o cranes looked completely legit. Apologies. Here is the metadata of original shot. I stand corrected. https://t.co/CqhVv7Hkko

— Jamie Klingler (@jamieklingler) April 27, 2020

It's not clear that Starmer's policy is different from Corbyn's aiui. "Rent suspension" can either mean cancellation or deferral. Rent cancellation would have been radical by Corbyn's own standards.

It's notable that Ilhan Omar has put togther an outline of what cancellation would mean in the US context:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/17/ilhan-omar-rent-mortgage-bill-coronavirus-pandemic

If the Labour left is committed to it, it'd be interesting to see what they can come up with along the same lines.

you know metadata can easily be edited right? I have no evidence that it was, I haven't been to Brighton in a few months so I dunno what cranes are there and which aren't, but metadata proves absolutely nothing

Lammy was about to get ratioed this morning when he deleted his tweet that was only expressing concern for prison officers and other staff having PPE and not the sub-human prisoners who are involved in a scheme where they are sowing urgently needed masks together for a wage of £12.50 a week!

Looking forward to everyone who's currently going on about social isolation being inhumane taking up the cause of prison abolitionism when this is over.

"Obviously a suspension is better than a deferral but both are avoiding the key practical consideration of what can be done to prevent landlords from hiking rents to make up the shortfall later down the line."

I mean this is about not being evicted because you can't pay rent. A deferral will surely make this more likely?

We know that any noise Labour make is unlikely to matter in a parliamentary sense but it is about amplifying the voice of people who rent.

xps

I'd be more inclined to believe the poster on that thread who lives in Brighton who says it's an old pic.

Yeah leaving aside the moral issue there are extremely good public health reasons for not having huge numbers of evictions/displacement/relocation of people, or spiralling homelessness, at the exact point at which evictions are permitted again.

The Omar approach makes sense to me - any suspensions or cancellations for mortgages and rent need to proceed in lockstep, otherwise you will end up with landlords accruing costs that, barring some previously undiscovered benificence, they will end up passing on to renters later. The banking sector can take the hit in the way that no one else can, and the government is going to end up footing the bill one way or the other anyway.

I was about to say "warning, there are some truthers on that thread", but welcome, truthers!

(I do think that "The Great British Public are complying with everything, streets are empty" and "The Great British Public are going about entirely as usual" are becoming increasingly entrenched moral positions when the truth is somewhere between them)

Indeed, the streets certainly aren't empty round here.

xp Andrew - go fuck yourself. I am not a "truther", just pointing out that "metadata" is not proof of anything! it's literally an editable field!

is there not a law in Germany that prevents landlords increasing rent by a specific percentage, ie its capped at 5% or something similar?

Also you can comply with everything and still be out in the street, it's virtually impossible to buy food and avoid people in a densely populated urban area, lots of people still need to physically go out to work etc etc.

Here is the original photo with it's embedded metadata. Before we put it on our newswire we verified the camera date, interviewed the photographer and cross checked with other pictures taken around the same time. While we don't get everything right we're not dishonest pic.twitter.com/iL4VP3bZVS

— Jon Mills (@jonmillsphoto) April 27, 2020

xxxp sure, but the editing of it to fake a newspaper headline is still a big step in every way other than technically, right?

Matt - sure, but that only adds to the tensions with (perceived) piss-takers - see the vein of pure (and concentrated) anger from people who try their hardest, and are aware of and uncomfortable with the risks they do take to get by, when they see idiots on Westminster Bridge.

Sad that Ian Austin somehow managed to get on this call

I was on a zoom call today with amazing Labour activists and some creep dressed in camouflage waving a gun and a knife joined the call. Very frightening so I don’t wanna hear how “the left is a bad as the right” hot takes. Fascists/alt-right are a VERY real and violent threat.

— Chardine Taylor Stone (@misschazmatazz) April 26, 2020

is there not a law in Germany that prevents landlords increasing rent by a specific percentage, ie its capped at 5% or something similar?

I think it might vary by region but yes, it's usually capped. I think the Omar plan goes about this the right way - offering federal funds to compensate landlords in the short term but only on the basis that they commit to a long list of tenants' rights, including some rent controls, for X number of years after.

Screener of Lammy's tweet

@DavidLammy do you want to apologise for this now deleted tweet cheering on forced labour in prisons? pic.twitter.com/upl2OcSr4C

— stephen (@neufunkaum) April 27, 2020

It was so very benign of him to express concerns about the availability of PPE for the prison wardens and not the subhuman slave labourers though!

There used to be this screw that lived accross the road from me. He was a violent domestic abuser who got sacked for violent misconduct. His ex partner showed me some of the transcripts from the internal enquiry into an incident of serious abh he committed against a prisoner. He was basically a violent bully who was too thick to join the cops.

My prime minister

We asked @JeremyCorbyn about Coronavirus, he didn’t hold back 🔥

Watch full film: https://t.co/7iPJ1FxdXV pic.twitter.com/hNcMC861jH

— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) April 27, 2020

some quite forensic criticisms of the multiple failings of this incompetent govt there.

lol I thought Kay Burley was being sarcastic with that "heavy is the crown" comment, what a prize chump.

good stuff from the absolute boy there

a little bit on the salty side for a brand new convert to "polite and respectful discourse" as myself, he could at least add the caveat that they are completely fucking it up under very difficult circumstances!

10% of all global C-19 deaths on this tiny island, that is a phenomenal achievement tbf. They said Global Britain could punch above it's weight.

totally brilliant response from @MayaGoodfellow https://t.co/kQiltO1vBu

— Sukhwant Dhaliwal (@SukwantDhaliwal) April 27, 2020

quite

The plot thickens…

The photo is from last summer , there’s a wider shot used in the daily mail and the ice cream being eaten by the young lad was in a form we haven’t done this year .

— Marrocco's Italian (@marroccoshove) April 27, 2020

that photography agency lying out of their arses!

Wait a minute...there's no ice cream place called "Marrocco's" in Hove!!