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

I have no particular dog in this horse

words and expressions that make you irrationally delighted

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AOLMr5HPb5I/maxresdefault.jpg

living the dream!

TV news on boats gawping at travellers over the last few weeks has indeed made Farage look ahead of the game again but anyone who acts like a few thousand asylum seekers a year - or yeah just the movements of PoC in general - is the biggest scandal will always be able to make hay.

Hats off to @WorcCollegeOx for placing all the students to whom they offered places this year - irrespective of their scores in the government's A level debacle. THIS is how you do it guys. Come on everyone, please follow suit 👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/Dvdh7szC10

— Rachel Clarke (@doctor_oxford) August 14, 2020

I suspect that’ll end up happening at most places that haven’t massively over-offered.

This is great.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/14/it-hasnt-sank-in-residents-win-60-rent-reduction-in-london-council-flats

ho ho ho. rhyming kitemark with shitemark shows such quickness of mind and devastating wit I'm genuinely pissing my pants - she's done it again

I suspect that’ll end up happening at most places that haven’t massively over-offered.

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Friday, August 14, 2020 12:56 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i thought pretty much everywhere except oxford and cambridge over-offers though?

Given the number of students who are likely to try and defer by a year I'm not sure it'll make much difference except at the most popular universities.

Given the level of coverage there's been around schools reopening we've barely heard about what's happening with universities at all. I'm assuming they aren't packing students into halls but who even knows any more.

I think a lot are playing it by ear but several have said that there will be no in-person lectures already.

There is another lever the government could pull, which is lifting the hard cap on numbers. You could have a larger U.K. cohort at oversubscribed universities to offset any decline in overseas students if they were allowed to.

That’s a fantastic story SV. I found this detail incredible: The management company in its defence said that it “spent £400,000 annually on repairs to the properties”. Spread out among 250 flats in condemnable nick! Fucking jackals.

On thing that’s not been said is the lack of international students - I presume almost all unis are begging anyone and any money they can get.

In theory yes but they can only legally recruit around 5% more English students than last year or face huge penalties. It’s something the government could relax if they wanted to and is one of the least painful ‘fixes’.

I can see why the kicking it got last time would cause the government to give notice of the French quarantine, but has anyone had at them on the fact that medically it's nonsense? Not to mention the effect of U.K. holidaymakers piling into the ports to get back in a hurry.

Westminster Voting Intention:

CON: 43% (=)
LAB: 36% (-2)
LDM: 9% (+2)
GRN: 4% (=)

Via @RedfieldWilton, 12 Aug.*
Changes w/ 29 Jul.

*pre results fiasco

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) August 14, 2020

should be bejlihjfeilje points ahead!

Luke Akehurst’s just lost at his own clp’s nomination meeting 👁👄👁

— Sarah 🤝 (@Sarah_Cundy) August 14, 2020

What a delightful way to end the week.

👍👍👍

Tells you everything you need to know about @PhilipJCollins1’s ejection from The Times https://t.co/NneavSNAM5

— James Schneider (@schneiderhome) August 15, 2020

you might not be able to hurry love but you sure can hurry a p45 these days

There's a whole generation of columnists who have spent five or 10 years willingly playing the useful idiot for the right wing press who are suddenly finding themselves surplus to requirements. It's one of the few silver linings from the last few months. But it's as likely to be the fact that, without anything else to do, he's been unacceptably critical of the government recently.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics/brazils-bolsonaro-gains-more-popular-approval-says-datafolha-poll-idUSKCN25A1JX

Meanwhile this bounce in Bolsonaro's poll ratings probably says a lot about our own situation as well. You can lead, through a combination of mendacity, incompetence and stupidity, a disastrous pandemic response that kills tens of thousands of your own people and hammers your economy, but as long as you keep throwing cash at voters they'll support you.

Datafolha has a history of minimizing left wing ratings and inflating right wing ratings ftr.

I wasn't aware of that - do you mean in the same way as our pollsters do or in the sense of being outright shifty and unreliable? How is this comparing to other polls?

Doesn't mean that the phenomenon I described doesn't apply though. As long as people are still having money put in their pocket they're more likely to take the "they're doing the best they can" line.

I'd have to check if there were any other recent polls.

Mostly same way as UK pollsters - leading questions and the like. Also a history of minimizing numbers for left-wing protests. They're not pro-Bolsonaro to be clear, more traditional Brazilian right. But the sheer scale of human disaster in Brazil, which comes closer to the US than the UK imo, makes me somewhat skeptical.

this “not supporting modi/hindutva is anti-hindu/anti-indian racism” thing seems to be picking up more traction now. wonder where they got the idea from

from the comments it’s clear no one has the foggiest clue what this is all about but they’re clearly delighted to have another anti-racist sounding talking point to defend their racism with

On this #IndiaIndependenceDay and after 20 years of service, I have resigned from @UKLabour – an institutionally racist, anti-Indian party.

I realise now that socialism is a toxic, hateful ideology and I believe Labour has been damaged beyond repair.https://t.co/bVTANB2cDB pic.twitter.com/Kl5Kp3bT3u

— Sundip Meghani (@Sundip) August 15, 2020

how long has the “thin blue line butchers apron” design been a thing in UK fascist circles? hope he enjoys his new base

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EffZT73XkAIX90m?format=jpg&name=large

if the slack bastards were serious about political assignation they'd have come to me for stabby murder tips!

Which Cluedo piece represents the hospital full of covid patients that Boris boasted about shaking hands with?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/15/ofqual-suspends-a-level-appeal-criteria-hours-after-announcing-them

This is almost certainly because they were fairly sensible but contradicted Williamson’s ‘triple lock’ promise.

At 11am today, we fall silent and remember all those who sacrificed so much to not only defend our country but to fight for a better world and a better future. #VJDay75

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 15, 2020

More like bankrupting the country, to defend a dying empire and anyone who marks this day without mentioning nagaski and hiroshoma is a vile piece of shit.

...

EXCLUSIVE Sunday @Telegraph splash
Public Health England will be scrapped and replaced by a new body to protect country against a pandemic next month.
Matt Hancock to merge Covid-19 work of PHE with NHS Test and Trace to create National Institute for Health Protection. 1/

— Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) August 15, 2020

The ultimate dangerous fuckwittery vs spending a month on ilx stanning for herd Immunity

Fuck off, calz.

No you fuck off gyac

Covering yourself in glory, aren’t you? Two times I’ve defended you from people attacking you, and both times you’ve proven them right and me wrong. Well, fool me once, as they say. If you do get permabanned because you won’t stop being a prick and log off, you had it coming.

If I want to express my contempt for arsehole posters on here it's all of your business!

Fuck this place its a hive of middle class smug pricks

You’re the only one still going on about this and I think it’s fair to say the person in question knows he was wrong and you’d have to have a real bad grudge to think someone trying to rationalise the situation (which was clearly what it was) was stanning for the government.

You want a medal eh? I've not had an apology yet

pardon my ignorance of uk politics, here, but what exactly are you looking to get out of this interaction, calzino? stet isn't saying anything close to what you're alluding to today, and I don't get how collapsing his decades of ilx goodwill into "arsehole poster" does anything at all

Maybe when you get banned by some arsehole who misrepresents what you posted you might also feel aggrieved

I’m taking my own advice and logging off but like read the fucking thread, it wasn’t him and quite frankly you deserved to have that comment deleted so stop flogging the horse ffs.

xp that's fair! I say a lot of things that I feel are misinterpreted, but that's the cost of public conservation. I've definitely changed how I've interacted with people in recent years, when I realized my intent didn't matter as much as how my words were viewed by others. I could use a cooling off period from time to time

itt gyac knows what posts should be deleted

And for that Mair slur Stet, if you aren't going to apologise for that then fuck you forever arsehole

Hi Calz, I really hope that you've managed to get to bed (and sobered up a bit?) by now. I'm gonna be honest, I'm worried about you. I know you are really angry, and it's completely understandable that you're angry, both for ::gestures at fuckwits in Whitehall:: and ::gestures at life stuff:: - and it's clear that the way the admins bungled handling your whole situation, has made you *more* angry, not less.

My dude, I get it. I'm not going to go all ~bullshit~ at you, because there is a level of rage-inducing fuckwittery beyond which a human cannot NOT be angry. Your rage is real and completely legit.

But I am scared you are going to get yourself banned permanently from ILX, and I would miss you. I know you as an intelligent, insightful, *funny*, piratical maverick with a heap of great stories (the story of your missus vs Kick Knave had me laughing for days). But right now, the way you *express* your rage is scaring even people who care about you. I know the UK politics threads = one of the few places you have for *channeling* that rage, and I'm worried that you are going to lose that, too? Can you find another way of expressing your anger, that doesn't scare the horses?

FWIW, you probably missed this, as it was a fast-moving thread, and he expressed it really badly, but Stet *did* apologise for the Mair comparison. He admitted that it was shit-stirring and apologised for making it:

You didn't have to bring up Thomas Mair at all, and what you personally find uncomfortable is neither here nor there if you weren't the one who banned him.

It's here, because it explains why I support a temp ban for someone describing how they're going to kill a politician. I didn't mean it to be shit-stirring, can see that it is – and am sorry for it.

― stet, Monday, 10 August 2020 20:27

I don't think that makes the situation any better, but I hope it can help you to find some way to make peace?

Hey calz, sad that you feel so fucked off with everyone here - hope it was just the idiot juice talking. I know that it's not all been beer and skittles for you, but I know that there have been ilxors that have been affected by violence including stabbing incidents so might be worth dropping that shit - don't wanna see a good man get banned. Hugs 2 u!