Thursday 7th April 2022

[refitman]

Morning all.

[Willow904]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... -incidents

Families asked to take in Covid-positive loved ones as NHS faces ‘perfect storm’
Trusts declare critical incidents as heavy demand, staff shortages and Covid cases overwhelm health service

Cases were steadily rising before the end of testing. We now have no idea how many cases there are and therefore when the number of hospitalizations can be expected to start going down. Covid is having a bigger impact locally now than in January with our GP surgery putting out texts about lack of staff, urgent appointments only, the chemists shut temporarily due to lack of pharmacists and I also had my dental appointment cancelled because my dentist has covid. None of these people can work while they are positive and potentially contagious, no matter how mild their symptoms are, because they all regularly come into contact with people with underlying illnesses who are more susceptible to covid. I feel the choices the government are making now are as reckless as some of the choices they made at the beginning and really need to be challenged. Without testing we have no way to stop covid spreading or help those most at risk to avoid it.

[gilsey]

The important thing we learnt early on, asymptomatic transmission, completely ignored in the current guidance.

'Living with Covid' is as chaotic as the experts predicted. Rather like Brexit, what a coincidence.

[gilsey]

I saw the story about Mrs Sunak's non-dom status last night, many years ago I studied basic tax law and have some memory of the tedious ins and outs of resident/non-resident/not ordinarily resident/non-domiciled status, all of which have different implications for the tax payable in the UK.

So my first thought was, that's novel, how can you have a different domicile to your spouse? Don't think we ever covered that possibility.

Good explanation from Richard Murphy here.



https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/202 ... an-answer/

[gilsey]

[AnatolyKasparov]

Sunak's fall really has been almost dizzyingly rapid.

[Willow904]

I'm not sure I'd consider still being Chancellor "a fall" as such.

[PorFavor]

Quite.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Just in case anyone hasn't seen this and needs a good laugh to brighten up their day.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[AnatolyKasparov]

Even better is a tweet along the lines of "Moscow fury at being labelled a Galloway-adjacent government"

[Sky'sGoneOut]

https://socialistworker.co.uk/news/unio ... ng-crisis/

Union leaders and Labour must tackle cost of living crisis.

I think we can all agree with that can't we? Oh hang on there's more...

Rather than mobilising against the cost of living crisis, union leaders and the Labour Party support pro-Nato marches and military funding.

Ummm...

Trade union leaders are turning their backs on the cost of living crisis while they busy themselves supporting a march that will boost Nato’s escalation over Ukraine...(snip)...But by deliberately not mentioning the role of Nato and Western imperialism, the organisers are covering-up the crimes of the West.

I see. Just one question, as the SWP claim to be Internationalists where is the international solidarity with the workers of Ukraine in denying them the means to defend themselves from a fascist totalitarian despot intent on murdering as many of them as possible?

Maybe I'm missing something.

[tinyclanger2]

You are missing nothing.

[refitman]

[frog222]

@ TC2 and Sky

Here Mélenchon and other lefties called Ukraine all wrong too. Neat graphics of Nato expansion were used as proof of Evil, when for some time Putin didn't mind at all ! The original sin was ignoring Jan2000 Grozny, and all (?) western leaders connived in that . Then came Crimea etc and still nobody got moving on alternative sources of energy .

" The slogans—troops out of Ukraine, no to Putin’s war, Ukrainian refugees welcome—are ones that everyone should support. " What a loada fucking bullshit, next it'll be Motherhood and Apple Pie. Talk about giving more serious arms is so far just talk ...

Neighbour was talking to kindergarten teachers up near Cherbourg today, problem with the 4yo Ukrainians is that they hadn't had early socialisation which is universal here .

[AnatolyKasparov]

And it has been pointed out that even *parish councillors* have to provide details of their spouse/partner's involvement in such things.

[frog222]

[frog222]

I despise Welby for his participation in the Corbyn pile-on , and I've never been a Corbynista .

Out of interest how many jews were suspended from the LP under Corbyn, and now how many under Starmer ?

[AnatolyKasparov]

Still, there is DFH there to amuse us all (even if unadvertently much of the time)

[frog222]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Jenny Haries told us kids were more likely to die in a traffic accident than catch Covid and now she's head of the UK Health Security Agency that seems perplexed by what could possibly be causing liver inflammation in children after intentionally exposing them all to a novel virus that's known to cause inflammation of the liver.

I mean they classed people with liver disease as vulnerable precisely because they knew Covid can cause liver damage so it's not like they can now pretend they forgot or it never happened.

Who am I kidding? Of course they can.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Oh great, Dan Hodges. What a treat.

[refitman]

Oh great, Dan Hodges. What a treat.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Oh great, Dan Hodges. What a treat.

You can watch him so we don't have to.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Audience member.

'100 years ago Nikola Tesla downloaded electromagnetic energy from the sun'.

Say what?

[PorFavor]

Wasn't that the man who thought that Ramsgate was the answer to everything?

[AnatolyKasparov]

Wasn't that the man who thought that Ramsgate was the answer to everything?

As the old retort goes, must have been a pretty silly question.

[PorFavor]

You've been there, then?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

QT from Canterbury this evening. I once stayed in a mental hospital there. Not as a patient. It's a long story involving excessive drinking and nurses.

Anyhoo...

Let's just get to Dan Hodges straight away shall we? First of all as someone who's known a lot of people with alcohol problems Dan's rapidly ageing, puffy yet wrinkled red face tells its own story. Who knows, maybe he has a skin complaint but he looked like shit. Rather disturbingly Dan's only applause of the evening came when he advocated starting a nuclear war. He was met with silence when defending Sunak's wife avoiding tax, blaming all of Kent's traffic congestion on P&O and actually being quite sensible about energy policy. It was only when he went all gung ho and suggested we should be shooting down Russian planes and bombing their air defences (which is what the no fly zone he was advocating would entail) that he garnered any kind of response. For all his bullshit online in front of an audience he seemed timid and a waste of everyone's time.

For the Tories we had Greg Hands who got laughed at from the very beginning when he tried to explain why the 'energy bill reduction' is not a loan despite people having to pay it back. He made it worse by doubling down using some econobabble claiming it was only reversing the polarity of the income flow or something which only served to increase the guffaws and chortles. At one point he tried to co-opt Emily Thornberry into his defence of Sunak's wife by claiming her husband had been abused in parliament. She seemed entirely nonplussed and he ended up being laughed at again.

Which takes us to Emily Thornberry who did her usual stalwart job. I was a little irritated that she clearly hadn't read up on the fact that non-dom status is a choice that people pay for so she missed a golden opportunity to really put the boot in but otherwise she did fine.

For the Church of England we had Justin Welby. Justin talked a lot about seeing truly horrible things, mass graves, thousands murdered in South Sudan, and talked of Putin eventually being held to account by god. Yet what I'd like to know is why a loving Christian god would allow all this grotesque suffering to exist in the fucking first place.

And finally for 'ViceUK' we had Zing Tsjeng who I'm afraid to say was an even bigger waste of everyone's time than Dan Hodges. She genuinely was utterly vacuous.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Oh and the final question was about traffic congestion around Kent.

Nobody mentioned brexit.

Not on the panel or in the audience.

It has become the thing no one dares speak of, at least in a place where the stupid fuckers voted for it.

[PorFavor]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Purple cats rule.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[Sky'sGoneOut]