Not really convinced the sacrificial lamb tactic is viable when everything is about the pandemic. Public anger at Cummings' behaviour is directly connected with the government's handling of the crisis.
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:03 (four years ago) link
meh, while Cummings stays in post it kind of is, if he goes over this - sacked, resigns, shot by concerned passerby with silver bullet - it'll not be thought of as a government failing by anybody who matters after a fortnight
― Children of Bo-Dom (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:07 (four years ago) link
Well he isn't going is he?
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:07 (four years ago) link
and the effect will be broadly the same i suspect, forgotten given time, not directly linked to poor, too loyal BoJo and way down the list of this government's demonstrable faults and failings by the time another election comes round
― Children of Bo-Dom (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:09 (four years ago) link
it's not that he shouldn't be sacked and it's not that people aren't angry but it's not the kind of anger amongst the kind of people at the kind of time that will effect much political change. it slots neatly into the one-thought-at-a-time functioning of our news media, is all
― Children of Bo-Dom (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:11 (four years ago) link
Sorry, I forgot that everyone itt is thinking about the next election when I'm thinking no further than the end of the week. Mea culpa.
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:12 (four years ago) link
sadly enough the likely best outcome from a Starmzfront Labour point of view would be for him to stay in post and then this to be revisited in a legit post-Rona enquiry but i can't build up much excitement for that prospect
― Children of Bo-Dom (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:13 (four years ago) link
I've not recovered from the last election, I feel like my synapses, or whatever, have been so burnt out I can barely even process the word 'election'.
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:14 (four years ago) link
yeah i'm not saying anybody is "wrong" to be angry. i broadly agree that this kind of public anger is fuel to a Cummings and distracts from what the government are actually doing and what they want to do but i wouldn't make a whole shtick out of that.
― Children of Bo-Dom (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:21 (four years ago) link
also this thread is for bad jokes and howling it isn't the Fifth International so
― Children of Bo-Dom (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:25 (four years ago) link
Yes, it's distracting from what they're doing – but even if we were focused on that nothing would change there this week, they'd brush it, say the comparisons were wrong, etc etc. You might get a bit more attention on Brexit, but the country isn't interested in that now.Meantime there's a big scalp up for grabs, one which Johnson has glued himself to in a way that has cost him 20 points already. Even if nothing more comes of it than a love-to-see-it resignation, it's worth a bit of a distraction to get it.
― stet, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:28 (four years ago) link
I think this is only a minor distraction. Anyone see video of that huge queue for the food bank in Elephant & Castle shopping centre? I mean, the economic contraction and fall out has potential to really blow up this summer and beyond xp
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:29 (four years ago) link
If Cummings really is holding the different factions of the cabinet if not together, then in check, it's hard to know what kind of impact keeping him / turfing him out is going to have on all of the more important stuff.
― ShariVari, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:36 (four years ago) link
someone said if domcum goes, BJ will have to deal with a load of resignations. who will resign? domcum's staff or cabinet ministers?
― young dom full of cum (||||||||), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:39 (four years ago) link
5D chess is nonsense bc it suggests a level of control and order which is impossible. this is just 'flooding the zone with shit', in keeping w/ the disruptive agent of chaos modus operandi that has characterised this wing of the right.
― The Cognitive Peasant (ogmor), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:39 (four years ago) link
Pretty obvious that Johnson doesn't think Cummings leaving the government is a minor distraction.
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:39 (four years ago) link
that strategy doesn't usually call for the shit to be yr own suicide, but xp
― stet, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:40 (four years ago) link
i’d venture a guess that the economic consequences of many millions of people out of work will be more severe, and more transformative long-term(for better or for worse) than anyone is yet grasping. it’s absolutely massive and the characteristics of this virus mean no quick solutions. this government is absolutely not up to the challenge. a scandal of this size and shape will look, in retrospect, like a day out at, er barnard castle.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:42 (four years ago) link
TS: 'flooding the zone with shit' vs. 5D chess
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:42 (four years ago) link
5D chess but all the dimensions are indistinguishable from shit
― mark s, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:47 (four years ago) link
― gyac, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:49 (four years ago) link
it's the birthday present from me to you
― young dom full of cum (||||||||), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:50 (four years ago) link
Btw I agree with the theory I saw earlier on twitter, which is that this whole thing has fucked what most of us assume is the government’s intention to shift the blame to the public.
― gyac, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:51 (four years ago) link
Gove will tie himself in knots trying to decide whether to go. Obviously if he goes before DC he cuts off someone he has really put his neck out for and looks like a moron. But if he goes after, he looks pro-DC and has the country hate him more — sacking DC would be a popular move right now. I think he'll stay.
― stet, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:52 (four years ago) link
and yeah, any blame at all that could have landed on the public goes straight to DC now
he's a wrecking machine
― Children of Bo-Dom (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:55 (four years ago) link
Yes, Dominic Cummings specifically will be blamed for it and the government after that. It still makes him a human shield.
They don't even need to flood the zone with shit in order to keep the death toll off the front pages, the death toll has been off the front pages for weeks now. They could just drop SHOPS OPEN YAY type announcements for weeks and most of the press would happily play ball.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:55 (four years ago) link
he's been caught out, has reasoned he doesn't need to fall on his sword & can further aggravate the media and help johnson spend less time talking about tens of thousands of deaths while also acting as a pressure valve for public anger. the most important public feeling is apathy, and the main tactics to increase it are division and delay. lots of ppl are sick of lockdown already and the intensity of feeling is likely to gradually fizzle out over time with the risk coming from spikes if particular issues emerge around which public sentiment galvanises. if during the peak of the crisis public anger is focused on trying to get one person to resign then that's not too bad for the govt considering how appalling their handling has been, it is at least something they are in control of
― The Cognitive Peasant (ogmor), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:56 (four years ago) link
Their own failure at handling this has fucked them, though, and shops opening isn’t going to make people forget that? How many of us here know people bereaved who couldn’t attend their loved ones’ funerals? I know several people. The numbers I know who were actually sick with this horrible thing were higher.
― gyac, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 13:57 (four years ago) link
So many social posts angry about being able to visit Primark before family.
― santa clause four (suzy), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:00 (four years ago) link
Yeah, not saying the cunts won’t get away with this, but this has spread too far and affected too many people who have been enduring it for the common good they were told we are all working towards.
― gyac, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:01 (four years ago) link
when you can't keep people happy you focus on managing their anger
― The Cognitive Peasant (ogmor), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:01 (four years ago) link
Yes I'm not saying that easing lockdown measures will distract from the Cummings thing, that's taken on a life of its own that they can't control. But prior to that they had been distracting from the death toll for some time with reasonable success, in the press at least.
PREM FOOTBALL IN JULY pages 1-3, another 150 dead tucked away on page nine, that sort of thing.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:06 (four years ago) link
It's also possible that Cummings just lacks the self awareness to adequately manage the anger when he himself is the story.
they can fire cummings whenever they want
― The Cognitive Peasant (ogmor), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:07 (four years ago) link
they don't want to, and that's what's damaging them
― stet, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:10 (four years ago) link
It's also not clear that Johnson thinks he can fire him and maintain control of the cabinet.
― ShariVari, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:12 (four years ago) link
managing anger medium-term requires a management of the pandemic and of the economy tho, it can't just be not bothering but saying we did -- both of them have real-world impact on many many ppl even if the bbc is not talking about it, and that disparity is what's currently not being "managed" and has now (i suspect) slipped off into the unmanageable
― mark s, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:14 (four years ago) link
being able to fire cummings is still a degree of control, which they wouldn't have over a lot of other things the public could be writing letters to their MPs about atm. johnson might personally be in poor health and not feeling up to managing the cabinet but while I seem to think cummings is more effective than a lot of ppl, no player is bigger than the club esp w/ the tories, and even if johnson loses control of the cabinet it doesn't benefit anyone good
― The Cognitive Peasant (ogmor), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:25 (four years ago) link
Mark OTM. Also they are looking less and less like get-shit-done types by the day and this episode has only exacerbated that.
Question is whether they're keeping Cummings on out of dependency, expediency or fear.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:26 (four years ago) link
whether he eventually gets sacrificed or not the longer this goes on the less time the uk death toll is in the headlines
You say this like anyone gave a fuck when the UK death toll was in the headlines - people didn't, it was succesfully diverted on to "wankers going out to the park, grr" type feelings. Now thanks to the Cummings thing that's pretty much gone and tons of people who were previously apathetic or giving the government the benefit of the doubt are actively angry.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:29 (four years ago) link
The daily death toll has been going down for some time and it's becoming less newsworthy in any case with a few exceptions like care homes. Question is what happens if it starts going up again an, as others have pointed out, we're reaching the point where VE Day and subsequent relaxation of the lockdown might start having a noticeable effect on that.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:35 (four years ago) link
yeah the death toll in itself is too gradual and slow-building to cause a crisis by itself, but the underlying suffering makes it if not inevitable then at least v likely that public anger wld coalesce around something/s sooner or later, as part of a collective display of grief and so on. the state is much better at nudging/fabricating public outpourings than it is at dealing with pandemics
― The Cognitive Peasant (ogmor), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:37 (four years ago) link
As has been said on this thread, I think the govt's reasoning until now was that the anger would coalesce around having us turn on each other. And that seemed to be working fine.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:42 (four years ago) link
still a lot of boot-throaters on my facebook feed saying 'well philip schofield broke lockdown and he got to keep his job' and comparing the very unfair media treatment of poor wee domcum to caroline flack
― a denim head and an aficionado of Japanese craftsmanship (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:44 (four years ago) link
xp that's always their first choice
― The Cognitive Peasant (ogmor), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:48 (four years ago) link
I've seen a grand total of one person supporting Cummings on FB, one of those Rangers supporting fat bald mods my sister knows... Actually there was one more guy, who was not quite supporting him but using it as an excuse to attack the hypocrisy of the SNP, I go to his homepage and there he is standing in Ibrox Park with the scarf on. These guys are just born trolls, it's almost like they can't help themselves.
― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 14:56 (four years ago) link
Also, to hazard a guess, much of the conversation in this country is currently happening on WhatsApp groups, including with family members people can't see. They'll be absolutely full of ranting and grumbling and sharing stupid anti-Cummings memes and the government has little to no visibility over them. The way that influence and sentiment evolve and spread in that kind of ecosystem in a lockdown is new and it's difficult even for galaxy brained data gods to know how that's going to play out.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 15:18 (four years ago) link
Oh for the days of the giant lasagne.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 26 May 2020 15:20 (four years ago) link
a friend well-versed in such things pointed out that focus groups are currently more or less impossible
― mark s, Tuesday, 26 May 2020 15:24 (four years ago) link