ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

m8 you'll be needing it

imagine all these pub landlords who might have just spent grands updating their kitchens to defy a tier 3 lockdown, lol!

at least they've got that latest Van Morrison album on the jukebox

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Elng66sXEAASO4f?format=jpg&name=small

When it comes to campaign time with him it will be like the Theresa May conundrum again - "where can we hide this arrogant unappealing freak with nay policies, whilst putting out repetitive slogans, because the more visible he is the more we lose!"

They will be struggling to find Labour activists to play crowds of adoring fans like they did with May. Lol she did a press conference at Thornhill Cricket club in a room packed to the rafters with tory activists in 2017. Thing was I've been there before, it's smaller than the average smallish pub. For those that thought all that Ooh Jeremy Corbs football chanting was a bit tiresome, a Starmer campaign will make Broon look like a dynamic populist.

He's not good at thinking ahead, he's too used to being a tyrannical bore type boss - where even if he fucks he's not accountable for his own mistakes. He's definitely not suited for politics

― calzino, Friday, 30 October 2020 21:22 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol otm. cf his brexit strategy that he's abandoned now it has depleted ratfucking utility. he doesn't realise only tories are the default boss and so only tories can be as inconsistent as they want without anyone giving them too hard a time about it. the next few years will have plenty more opportunities for us to watch him sputtering on c4 news and i doubt any of us will feel any better. what a cunt.

it's a miracle I strung anything otm together last night - I was three sheets to the wind. Scuse the repetitive chainposting. phew! at least no-one got murdered.

In the aftermath of Corbyn's suspension from the Labour party, both the party's and Keir Starmer's net favourability ratings take a hit

Labour party
21-22 Oct: -11
29-30 Oct: -23

Keir Starmer
21-22 Oct: +5
29-30 Oct: -2

entirely predictable.

National lockdown is going to give him an out this week, I think.

Johnson was beginning to get some traction with the Captain Hindsight stuff and now he's announcing a strategy KS called for 18 days ago.

With cases doubling at least twice since then there's a worthwhile line of forensic questioning on if, in hindsight, the PM made the same mistake as he made in mid March and how many people it will kill.

all the briefing has been about 'english' lockdown - what does this mean for scotland?

That -23 might also have something to do with the publication of a report concluding that the party unlawfully discriminated against Jewish people.

More generally, a new national lockdown combined with the end of furlough means that the average voter is not going to be particularly interested or even paying attention to internal disputes within the Labour Party.

I'm not sure about that, despite a new national lockdown UK media looking for anything to report on other than more govt incompetence and spiralling Rona deaths and will be quite happy to keep the internal disputes of the Labour on the front pages!

Since it was completely fucking obvious to anyone who was paying attention - even those of us without direct access to up to the minute data and scientific advice - that we would end up with a national lockdown anyway, the question is why Johnson tried that Captain Hindsight thing anyway.

The only conclusion is they were relying on people having very short memories, or that the government is just fundamentally incapable of thinking more than one or two moves ahead. Even when the moves are, it bears repeating, completely fucking obvious.

Park for a moment the science and the business arguments. The great unacknowledged fact is that forcing a lockdown on the cheap (no furlough, no sick pay) is the riskiest political strategy that could be taken by Johnson. It smashes the coalition that gave him his 2019 landslide

— Aditya Chakrabortty (@chakrabortty) October 31, 2020

Good Aditya thread here.

(I mean the other conclusion is that the entire political strategy is based on LOL Nothing Matters and I really wouldn't rule that out).

We may have overplayed that phrase on this thread but it comes from a place of truth

real déjà vu the last weeks hearing about how we’re on a similar trajectory to France, hmmm it’s getting p bad in France, looks like France is heading for lockdown, hey maybe we should do something to get ahead of this... lads? Anything? followed by pre-announcement of an announcement of a lockdown at some point

tbh, I think it’s unlikely they’re going to go into an open-ended lockdown without cobbling together an extension to or replacement for the job retention scheme. They didn’t do it out if the kindness of their hearts the first time around.

If you liked March you’ll love November

what happened to operation moonshat

and rishi where's my fucking 500£ PS5 voucher

They’re still trying for moonspaff from what I read in the graun the other day, linked with these saliva kits. No way theyll be able to handle the logistics tho

Like we’re too dysfunctional to do regular t&t

There will almost certainly be support. Inadequate support, but nevertheless..

What it may not stop is the Xmas spike because er, schools are staying open..

Is there any reliable data on how much transmission is happening in schools?

Fuck I forgot about my free PlayStation, wankers

Dunno about schools but unis are also exempt which seems worse

Tho I guess the damage is done there

Lots of quotes from science people but schools not discussed at all. I'd like to see some rationale for it, especially if covid is playing havoc with all age groups.

because the UK govt is very concerned about the mental health and education of children, especially the poorest ones.

They could've done it with half-term as one of the four weeks 🤦

At the same time if anything should stay open this time that wasn't open last time it's probably schools - delaying your university education by a year is a lot less damaging than further delaying school education at a crucial point in development.

But only if there's a credible plan for keeping schools open safely and protecting people who live in multi-generational households, which there transparently isn't.

Sending students all over the country from covid infested halls also probably not a great idea right now and lord knows being in lockdown in halls must be a miserable experience.

The ongoing problem is that there is no alternative for school-age learners. They’ve had months to put a robust online learning strategy in place and haven’t even distributed a third of the promised laptops yet.

The universities face financial ruin if learning is suspended and fees refunded. They’re better positioned to teach online in most cases though.

They were floating the idea of a strictly enforced 2 week quarantine for uni students in early December so they could come home for the holidays right?

Yeah that'll work

"delaying your university education by a year is a lot less damaging than further delaying school education at a crucial point in development."

If schools are a vector of transmission there should be more of a strategy around this. Attended a Lab union call and someone from the teaching unions was saying how many schools in a lot of places are partially shutting due to covid outbreaks and the extent of it has been underreported.

If the government gave a fuck about child development a programme could've been developed to mitigate against impacts. Maybe you could have children going once or twice a week? It requires planning and work, which isn't on the menu with these people in charge xps

yeah i mean

Not sure going once or twice a week would make much difference given it only takes a short time to transmit the virus, and schools necessarily involve the same people seeing each other every day anyway.

let’s be honest, the reason they want to keep a schools open is so that parents won’t have an excuse to stay at home and avoid putting their lives on the line to keep the economy from asphyxiating entirely

my son's transport escort had to do two weeks of self-isolation when someone she worked with tested positive, yet when she told the school her kids attend they said: no biggie, they don't need to self-isolate as well. I don't know if she has got it wrong or that is how ridic the rules are.

my daughter's a TA at a special school and nah they seem to be pretty fast and loose with the bubbles

my feeling is that head teachers view closure as a failure - that they didn’t do enough, that students didn’t adhere to policy etc - so they will bend whatever roles they can in order to stay open

rules

I have loads of friends working on special schools and they have told me some pretty insane stories throughout

Not sure going once or twice a week would make much difference given it only takes a short time to transmit the virus, and schools necessarily involve the same people seeing each other every day anyway.

― Matt DC, Saturday, 31 October 2020 bookmarkflaglink

From my understanding of what the union rep was saying it could be more of a rota where so many kids go in on a day for set hours.

Anyway, what struck me is that none of this was ever worked through.

this is a crass generalisation but in my experience a lot of headteachers are real dicks

There seemed to be about 5000 art students wandering around Camberwell yesterday. They were mostly wearing masks but still in the usual gormless pavement-blocking throngs

It was the first time since about April that I'd felt the "oh no, people are within 2 metres of me" nervousness that had otherwise faded away from becoming jaded and going to the office a lot

I can’t find the cite now but there was a study showing the most you g kids were catching it from adults, not the other way around. Primary schools seem safe to keep open they said, much less clear about secondary and up.

real déjà vu the last weeks hearing about how we’re on a similar trajectory to France, hmmm it’s getting p bad in France, looks like France is heading for lockdown, hey maybe we should do something to get ahead of this... lads? Anything?

The one thing that will absolutely not happen is Westminster acknowledging that there's anything to be learned from foreigners.

xxp Yeah, Edinburgh is not a relaxing place to be walking around now.