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

Yes there are 30-40 percent of people who when asked will say they want to ease the lockdown, for whatever reason.

we're all enjoying not having to commute (or share space with our insufferable colleagues) too much

Foresee a concerted Back to Work putsch from the Spectator-Telegraph-Guido axis following the VE Bank Holiday weekend

media seem to have been gently presaging the return to work over the last couple of weeks, i've heard very little pushback from journos on the idea that it's coming

anyone else having a fucking nightmare trying to pick up prescriptions? they changed the system & it keeps fucking up, I’m being shunted between places each telling me medication should be at the other place that just sent me I’m losing my mind

it was a semi-nightmare last time, i'm phoning for mine tomorrow which is 10 days in advance of when i need it, we'll see how it goes

Oh man there's some peak Dunting right now.

Echobelly are underrated.

— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) April 29, 2020

If we're going to call comics graphic novels then we should call literature word books.

— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) April 29, 2020

i mean they kept fucking mine up before the lockdown so

Dunting: High and Low

my wife got somebody else’s medication on Monday. luckily she noticed (!) and she brought it back Tuesday and coincidentally the lady whose it was was standing in the queue next to her.

dunting kruger

i got a phone call a couple of months ago because Boots had given my meds to somebody else by accident and obv they were very embarrassed at potentially outing me as somebody taking antidepressants, not that i cared

fwiw I have been using Pharmacy2u for ages now and they have been fine, I don't have to do anything just click a button on an app and they come through the door a few days later

I will have to go to the chemist in the next couple of days tho cos my cat needs a new inhaler

afaik there is no vetpharmacy2u

anyone else having a fucking nightmare trying to pick up prescriptions? they changed the system & it keeps fucking up, I’m being shunted between places each telling me medication should be at the other place that just sent me I’m losing my mind

um i think so just doing what i did before all this bs. idk I just called the surgery a while back to make sure they'd send it to the pharmacy but it apparently never happened

Ah. Can I suggest you get them to set you up on patient access? It’s how I order my prescriptions and the prescriptions all go to/from the NHS spine and you can specify where it gets sent, how much you want to order.

When I got a CAHMs nurse a couple of years back one of the best things she did was hook us up with a local prescription delivery service who are very good and when there has been any fuck ups it hasn't been from their end.

Dunt - nominative rhyming slang determinism

“Equally I’m going to disagree with him that it is far too early to make international comparisons. If they are to be done, they should be on a per capita basis. We are already seeing there are different ways that deaths are measured not just in the UK, but across Europe and across the world.

what did they start/stop counting care home deaths to their tally in Italy, Spain and France as well and then after a couple of weeks say ah.. add 'em on, we've fucked it anyway! It sounds like Starmer was a bit more forensic today he used "truly dreadful" as a criticism of the govt response to c-19.

misquoting Starmer there - he was calling the death toll truly dreadful

John Crace seems to think my MP is doing a fab job of softly softly, catchy flunky at not-PMQs. I didn’t watch because I was out for a walk and didn’t want to hear anyone’s rote baby congratulations.

"Sub Dom hankers for Daddy"

is this the fucking graun or xhamster!

A bead of sweat formed on Raab’s forehead.

enough already!

the pressure certainly won't be coming from people who plan to match their c-19 hawk tough-talk by getting on crowded buses and trains every day. no sirree, they won't be so cavalier with their own precious health and for what for what cause? for an nth of a % improvement on GDP for a month until the death toll starts spiralling out of control again.
― calzino, Wednesday, 29 April 2020 15:40 (seven hours ago)

Absolutely

hey look we have a judiciary: the supreme court has 'struck out' govt legislation from 2016 that sought to ban publicly owned bodies from conducting boycotts

The rule stated that councils must not use their pension policies “to pursue boycotts, divestment and sanctions against foreign nations and UK defense industries.”

But the Palestine Solidarity Campaign challenged the government, and in 2017 the High Court ruled in its favor.

That decision was overturned in 2018 by the Court of Appeal but has now been upheld by the Supreme Court.

love the way they sneak the arms industry in there

grim lol, does seem somewhat tacked on!

tbh John Crace has always looked like a prison guard who murders inmates for his own sexually-sadistic gratification

— Rosewood Shoehorn (@apiarism) April 29, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/29/jd-wetherspoon-plans-to-reopen-pubs-in-june

The chain expected like-for-like sales to be 10% lower during the first month after reopening, and then gradually increase by 2% each month, ending up 3% higher than before lockdown.

Tim Martin must really be banking on a steady influx of parched Brits to replace the pub regulars heading onto the ventilators.

Sub Dom Raabs one out as Sir Keir felches him with forensicity pic.twitter.com/i4olmrvHQq

— TheIainDuncanSmiths (@TheIDSmiths) April 29, 2020

Sweaty Raab vs. Forensic Starmer, no contest.

I could totally picture Raab in a Nazi-themed s+m dungeon and he looks quite like Baron Ribbentrop.

what in the name of shitting christ is wrong with people?

And they say it isn't a cult of personality, all this worship of Magic Daddy.

tbf crace has always been worse than bad but now is his time to shine (even more badly)

it turns out the so called adults in the room are as politically sophisticated as a classroom of recalcitrant children who've been on the yellow smarties!

it puts their complaints about the cult of Corbynism into sharp relief

I watched a bit of it yesterday and Starmer did pretty well but not at the level you'd expect judging by all the hosannas. It is really difficult to overstate quite how terrible Raab is at PMQs, visibly shitting his pants on camera, apparently just making things up in moments of panic.

Credit where it's due Starmer is very good at one thing, which is using a follow-up question to puncture a balloon of diversionary bullshit. That will come in very useful against Johnson for whom diversionary bullshit is his primary method of communication. That's not even being forensic, it's basic interview technique and it shows up how bad most politicians are at it.

The downside is that Starmer appears to be doing this at PMQs and nowhere else. Most people don't watch PMQs obviously but in this quieter format and at this particular time you could argue it matters in a way that the old orgy of hot air and pre-rehearsed zingfest didn't.

Turning Raab into a sweaty bumbling wreck isn't the most difficult task in politics. I wonder if the fact that Raab is a lawyer and knows that he's up against a far far more successful and talented lawyer isn't somewhere at the back of his small mind?

Boris should have retained Geoffrey Cox in his cabinet, in the old PMQ game of blowing much hot air without saying anything he'd beat any former barrister!

I wonder if the fact that Raab is a lawyer and knows that he's up against a far far more successful and talented lawyer isn't somewhere at the back of his small mind?

If this is the case I fear for anyone that Raab ever represented in court.

When Raab did the daily presser last week he looked like he was going to faint. And that even before anyone had asked him any questions!

I declare Mr Raab is suffering from the vapours

Fuck this guy

NEW: Starmer met with Labour Friends of India, said: "We must not allow issues of the sub-continent to divide communities here. Any constitutional issues in India are a matter for the Indian Parliament, & Kashmir is a bilateral issue for India and Pakistan to resolve peacefully."

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) April 30, 2020

Internationalism begins at home nowhere

profiles in courage

let's not get too bogged down with "issues" like murderous ethnic cleansing, too much student politics is where Corbyn went wrong.

Besides the message being "Pogroms are good" I don't know why Starmer is doing this. It's not going to shift Hindus that vote Tory. Modi doesn't give a shit, and if anything it alienates Muslim communities that turn out for Labour, or Hindus that hate Modi.