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

I like the sound of this O'Hagan

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_O%27Hagan

William O'Hagan (4 June 1944 – 15 May 2013) was a British journalist on the Daily Telegraph and a butcher, known for his virtuosity in the making of top-quality sausages. He is credited with revitalizing the British sausage industry.[1]
He was the son of Ebbo Bastard, a South African rugby union player.

ebbo bastard's wikipedia entry is a (short) wild ride

Are we not all, in a sense, the son of Ebbo Bastard?

this will make ranking the o'hagans a tougher ask

we will need to get the opinion of a professional butcher

and a bastard

London based media clans with Irish sounding surnames are usually pretty rank!

you have to make sure they don't start breeding together, that's how Brendan O'Neill happened.

Oof. EU post meeting statement on UK Internal Market Bill - remove the clauses which break international rules by the end of the month or we'll take legal action against you: https://t.co/dDLto9trAw

— Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) September 10, 2020

Has been a while since i studied international law but i'm reasonably sure this is not how international law works:

🚨 NEW: attorney general @SuellaBraverman has set out her legal position in defence of the Internal Market Bill and the clauses which undermine the Withdrawal Agreement. pic.twitter.com/XtIZW8Cssg

— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) September 10, 2020

Or rather, the ability of a country to pass laws domestically that break international law has no relevance to whether it's legal to do so.

^which is why it's called 'international' law.

I don't get the AG's statement, other than it attempt to say "the government isn't breaching international law, it's just saying that Parliament is able to". "I haven't robbed your house, I'm just standing in your living room holding your TV. You should trust me that I'm not going to walk out the door".

xp

In fact no, it's worse than that. "I've taken the TV out of the front door, you should trust that I'll walk back in and put it down again. Unless I don't, because there are exceptional times"

best country ever

I won't carry this telly across the border of your property to my property next door

(I may write "there is no border" on a piece of paper and use it when and if it suits me)

Attorney General @SuellaBraverman still hasn’t resigned, but she has broken her recent silence on the Internal Market Bill by publishing a statement of HM Government’s ‘legal position’ on it.

It runs to one side of A4.

And it is utterly risible.

/1 https://t.co/jx1Jy2cAIL pic.twitter.com/xJvwej8yL5

— Mark Elliott (@ProfMarkElliott) September 10, 2020

maybe it's ok as long as you break no more than 6 laws at one time

How restless are Tory MPs over this? Is the bill something than could feasibly be defeated in the Commons?

Surely you are looking at a defeat in the Lords

every time someone uses the word "risible" the bad guys get stronger, sorry if this offends

Which could mean it's reformation as revenge lol xp

a tory *rebellion* has begun! an amendment has been tabled and is getting some serious tory wanker signatures.

lol I'm listening to Pienaar on Times radio

real old-school GOP surprised at what they've signed up too with Trump vibes across segments of the Tories rn

STATEMENT FROM MEMBERS OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CONCERNING THE WITHDRAWAL AGREEMENT pic.twitter.com/4z53x3ht08

— Conservative Lawyers (@SocConLaw) September 9, 2020

Have to say these names look like they just came out of a random Tory MP Name Generator.

wasn't Benet Brandreth in Game of Thrones?

He has a law firm with Bobson Dugnutt.

Excellent piece.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/11/tories-arent-incompetent-economy-brexiter?

Calzino listens to Times Radio?

Lorinda Long.

just listened for one day for lols + because I like my tory talk-radio to dispense with any pretence of impartiality!

this is why Starmer only seems to attack them on *competence*. He doesn't have any better ideas of a national economy himself, he's just owned by different paymasters and is very quiet on austerity despite how you are supposed to take it on trust that he won't be as shitty as them cos he's the Labour brand.

If Starmer can only attack them on competence and hasn't got any better visions for the UK then that is another decade of guaranteed tory govt

"These electric shocks are killing me"

"And they're so inefficiently administered!"

I know Edgerton can be a bit annoyingly like a FBPE professor on twitter sometimes, but I respect his consistent contempt for New Labour and its dogshit legacy.

he finishes his last book with the juxtaposition of people burning Thatcher effigies whilst Blair is grifting about, adding respectability for cash pr to murderous dictators.

That's a great and accurate piece by Edgerton, you'd think the Graun would be embarrassed to publish him

Great Woody post from Tracer.

I think people might be attracted by the notion of competence in leaders, not quite sure that's what KS has exuded so far.

I'm basing this on Nicola Sturgeon. Scotland, give or take a fortnight and despite what the unionist media says, has broadly aligned per capita with rUK on cases, hospitalisation, deaths, etc. and has been in some cases (care homes) possibly worse. Despite this Nicola Sturgeon's popularity remains high as she fronts to the public every day, takes endless shitty questions and explains every decision calmly and reasonably.

This leads to her social media profiles being full of comments about how great a job she's doing and her relative approval ratings being about 100 points above BoJo's.

Of course much of that is biased by Nats supporting her regardless but there's no doubt for me that the appearance of competence has won the respect and support of people who previously mostly ignored politics.

re: Edgerton, yes accurate and good except it works till it doesn't. ERM crash type event and a proper recession to put a kibosh on it, except the incoming Lab leadership aren't at the races to challenge this.

Yeah but the point is that Blair based his campaign against the Major government on competence (and lack of corruption/grift, bitter lol) precisely because from a policy point of view there was little to separate them.

Sure a section of the public likes the idea of competence, it's the old "we need to be ground down by the grown-ups" steez. I've always believed the Tories are entirely competent at pursuing their actual agenda.

Whether it looks good to anybody else the Tories' real paymasters never lose out when the economy tanks

That's why I used "notion" and "appearance" - many people don't know what they want by competence. Someone highly competent with the wrong agenda will do more damage than a well meaning idiot.

In the case of KS, what the media identifies as forensic attention to detail often comes off as nitpicking middle manager and everyone hates those, even themselves.

xp

Like the boss who prints out and quotes to you from an old email to highlights how you've only met 92% of your targets.

yeah i think the Tories have got a handle on portraying Labour as fussy ditherers at the moment and Kieth is helping them

(i missed the bit about KS in your first sentence, soz)

seeing as one of Keith's donors (that he kept a bit fucking quiet back in feb) is the bet365 family. I never got to hear his thoughts on gambling addiction. Perhaps he believes if gamblers were more forensic and studied form with a barrister's level of concentration they'd win more often!

"progressive addiction"

it's one of my hobbyhorses i know but the TV advertising of gambling has reached extreme levels of evil under lockdown, and they also seem to be allowed to do the kind of adverts that alcohol companies, for example, are expressly prohibited from doing

The number of ex Labour MPs working for gambling bodies and boards is an actual disgrace. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with gambling, but these companies are predators and targeting lonely/vulnerable people.

booze adverts have a restriction on the age of the people in the ads for example, also iirc a booze ad is not allowed to show punters explicitly "enjoying" the product, cue Billy Hills adverts full of cheering jumping cunts playing online bandits and none of them apparently blowing the family food budget in 10 minutes flat