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

was gonna do a riff on Chuka running and then i remembered why that won't be happening

Im kinda hoping Layla Moran becomes leader and takes some points off the Cons in the south, She seems the best of a bad bunch as well, though no doubt I'll be swiftly disabused of that notion by someone

as ever, comes down to voting record

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/25689/layla_moran/oxford_west_and_abingdon/votes

def not a monster and well to the left of swinson, but alas still a lib dem mp. if she becomes leader, should amalgamate the party with keir starmer's labour (from which her viewpoints appear fairly indistinguishable) to become the supermelt double-cheese pizza of a political party ('neoliberalism's last hurrah!') we all dream of

Rosie Duffield giving the whatabouters a hernia, I see

I have a to say I'd been wondering which Labour MP was going to get this treatment today.

Rank amateurism in allowing her to resign as opposed to letting Starmer publically sack her.

Really good summary of where we are at.

The UK government has 'launched' a test and trace system this week, which is being used as the justification to re-open non-essential shops and send reception, year 1 and year 6 children back to school. It's also relaxed some curfew restrictions at the same time.

— libcom.org (@libcomorg) May 31, 2020

I know some people in this thread have had covid but reading it you just think we've barely begun with this disease and it's response.

it does look to the untrained eye as if the UK gov has spent the last 3 months doing fuck all about Covid

and most of the public statements of scientific advisers has been some real "Profiles in Courage" stuff

I feel lucky to have had it, and scared shitless on behalf of everyone who hasn't. This is such a flaming bag of shit. I only hope enough people survive it to demand an inquiry that puts heads on spikes.

That intervention from the scientists is brutal.

One of the letter’s main authors, Prof David McCoy, director of the centre for public health at Queen Mary University, London, described the test, trace and isolate system – which aims to quarantine people with Covid-19 and those who have been in contact with them – as “a mess”.

“It is not a system,” he told the Observer. “It is just a fragmented collection of different programmes with nothing really holding them together. We needed to have spent much of April organising the test and trace programme and that was not done. We have wasted the time we had bought ourselves.”

Part of that failure could be blamed on Dominic Cummings, he added. “Firstly he breached the lockdown rules but also as the chief adviser to the prime minister he has to take some responsibility for the failure of the government to make a proper response to Covid.”

Try to avoid using the word spike if possible.

(xp)

There is no way that they're going to get away with blaming a second outbreak on the public, the anger is immediately going to be directed at Johnson, Cummings and Hancock.

I hope you're right, nothing would surprise me

It does seem designed to shift the blame to the public.

it does look to the untrained eye as if the UK gov has spent the last 3 months doing fuck all about Covid

I continue to be slightly astounded at the pitiful incompetence of the UK response, don't know why I'm surprised really but it's the absolute refusal to learn from mistakes or realise how badly they're shooting themselves in the foot at every single moment.

that a significant chunk of the british public continue to defend them is just as, if not more, depressing imo

UK response? Bit unfair on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

lol Wales

Well, their schools aren't re-opening tomorrow.

But, yes, LOL even the Welsh are refusing to do as Westminster says.

lots of folk frothing on twitter about how there is no planning permission so no council tax charge at the spare house on daddykins estate that Cummings was staying in, seems like small beer in the current scheme of things but maybe another nail in the cunt's coffin

England, I meant! Looking forward to visiting the Gaelic Alliance countries in a few years btw, if they'll let me in.

This is pretty good on how the government may get away with it, as the virus isn't understood.

My reading on the govts loosening of the lockdown. There is some loose evidence out there that the maximum natural course of the virus has already been reached in the U.K, or at least in badly impacted areas.

— W Bott (@willbott4) May 31, 2020

If that turns out to be the case then it's extremely good news for everyone, but it isn't really anything other than speculation really.

yeah it seems to rest on a lot assumptions i’m not seeing a lot of elsewhere

I can't think of any down side to trusting to luck

It does seem to be behaving in unexpected ways – no resurgence in places where lockdown collapsed, unexpected upticks in other areas – which makes me even less happy that this shower are utterly busking it xp

obviously the chinese government have used the 5g network to send the virus the order to cool it a bit, once we all relax slightly they’ll turn the big dial marked ‘KILL PEOPLE’ back up to max

Yeah the thread author did acknowledge the speculation.

Just wanted to put out there the unknowns that might have informed the decisions -- not excusing this govt's thrash approach -- it's also here in this interview with this guy when he talks about Germany.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/covid-19-expert-karl-friston-germany-may-have-more-immunological-dark-matter

that guy appears to be a total don

do you mean he has an olive oil distributorship that he uses as a front for his illegal trafficking operations?

General impression from a couple of walks around the hood and nipping into the shops is that the UK is now free of Covid-19. Well done chaps 🇬🇧 let's get brexit done 🇬🇧

I'm recycling old newspapers from about a year ago and it's all May and Tory infighting and things like this

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/08/michael-gove-branded-hypocrite-after-admitting-using-cocaine

A year is a long time in politics

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-hospital-admissions-testing-public-health-england-a9540101.html

There's that London 'spike' graph again although the piece does say it may be within the margin of error.

PHE said it had recorded 264 new respiratory infection outbreaks in the most recent week. An outbreak is defined as two or more people who are infected with the cases linked to a specific location.

A total of 215 outbreaks were in care homes where 78 tested positive for Covid-19. Another 13 outbreaks were linked to hospitals where 12 were positive for coronavirus. There were three outbreaks in schools where all were positive for the virus.

Outbreaks in empty schools? The schools they're just about to reopen?

Hampstead Heath up near Kenwood was very genteel today, social distancing and good behaviour all round. Then again that's in the posh bit. Having said that even Finsbury Park looked fairly sparse when we drove past it around midday, so it's not all like Clapham Common:

Clapham Common this afternoon pic.twitter.com/2V17VfKAnA

— Jamie Macwhirter (@jamiemacwhirter) May 30, 2020

At Brockwel park it mostly twos and distancing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tom-watson-peerage-bercow-corbyn-karie-murphy-lords-reject-a9540941.html

*Airhorn noise*

hah!

I had to spend a lot of today with the only Tory I know (brother in law’s girlfriend, one of those ‘comes from one of the 4 posh streets in a northern town where they don’t even have the accent’ types) and she is really starting to lose faith in them. I learnt a while back to let her talk, I’m never gonna get through to her but maybe I can learn how they think. She had never seen Boris talk like he didn’t know what to do before, he used to be so in charge when it came to Brexit etc but he looks lost since getting the rona and his advisers aren’t listening to him. Really losing faith that he is the person we all thought should be listened to.

It made me think that the Cummings thing isn’t even so much a ‘us vs. them’ thing as much as ‘we all thought Boris was a Churchill type and now we are losing faith cos he can’t even sack off this nobody, then what we he actually be a strong leader about’ type situation

that guy appears to be a total don

At Brockwel park it mostly twos and distancing.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 31 May 2020 18:12 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

ran around about 6:30 - 7 and yes a lot more distancing than clapham common but still just how much it has eroded stressed me out a lot. a fucking twelve aside football game happening for godsake

Dulwich Park was lots of distanced seated small groups. Definite change but not scary

There was a fucking drunken gammon dad's and kids rounders game at my local park. Cunts acting like tribal tatts offer Immunity.

*Airhorn noise*

Another prick that did exactly what he was supposed to

Btw, as usual (and what's good about twitter)* is how you can find counter arguments quickly so here is one (within the tweet...) for that Guardian piece:

For clarity, "a bit strange" is the measured, collegial, academic way of saying "this piece is absolutely out of its tree". https://t.co/UsrB8cB1mB

— Lafargue (@Lafargue) May 31, 2020

* it's good to see disagreements among experts in the field, not that you can judge what is or isn't correct, so it's more of a hole you can dig for yourself, and that can be time consuming.