Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st May 2020

Post by **refitman** » Sat 30 May, 2020 6:00 am

Morning all.

Post by **refitman** » Sat 30 May, 2020 10:39 am

Does everyone remember the brick-bats thrown at Corbyn, for not being hugely visible in the media? Now Starmer's a genius for letting the it play out

.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Sat 30 May, 2020 11:05 am

Good morfternoon.

Call for inquiry into why senior Tory helped donor avoid £40m tax

Cabinet Office asked to look into Robert Jenrick’s unlawful approval of property project
(Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... id-40m-tax

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Sat 30 May, 2020 11:14 am

Morning all.

Why I quit working on Boris Johnson's ‘world-beating' test-and-tracing system

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... n-lockdown" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

After the Dominic Cummings story broke I started hearing more media stories about the track-and-trace programme. Health secretary Matt Hancock claimed that “highly trained track-and-trace staff” were in place. I still had not seen the government system we were supposed to use.

Over the next few days I learned more about my job from watching the news than I did from those who were supposed to supervise me. I still did not feel qualified to do it. Then it was announced by Hancock that we were going live the next day. On my chat there was a message from a supervisor asking the more experienced members of our chat to help those who needed help. The blind leading the blind! How were people who started the same day as me, and who had the same short and basic training as I had, supposed to help me do my job?

I see Alan Johnson is the latest ex-Labour minister quoted in the DT telling teachers to ignore their unions and get on with it.

And the headline in the DT this morning?

Revealed: How the Government ignored its own coronavirus experts on the risks of reopening shops and schools

A document from Government scientific advisors warns that opening non-essential shops, bars and schools could push the R number above 1

x gazillions.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 30 May, 2020 12:31 pm

refitman wrote:Does everyone remember the brick-bats thrown at Corbyn, for not being hugely visible in the media? Now Starmer's a genius for letting the it play out .

Media are hypocrites shocker.

But the polls suggest Starmer's "give 'em enough rope" strategy isn't working so bad.

Post by **refitman** » Sat 30 May, 2020 3:55 pm

[youtube]U7zkejgYSlg[/youtube]

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 30 May, 2020 4:14 pm

SH2 wrote:While we await the EHRC Reoport, Watson very funny on Seumas Milne and Andrew Murray. Good for a few laughs now the nightmare is over.

https://player.acast.com/lastcall/episodes/labour-pains" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not that Watson has much credibility. What was the point of persuading 50+ MPs in marginals to stay, when they all lost their seats anyway?

Oh, hello.

So that is your only substantive criticism of our former deputy leader, then? How genuinely hilarious.

As for the EHRC's findings, weren't they originally supposed to be out in January - and were then "definitely" being published this month??

There are some reasons being suggested for the delay, it would of course be wrong for me to speculate tho

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 30 May, 2020 5:16 pm

No, nothing like that.

If anything the opposite, that its actual findings (whilst not ideal from a Labour POV) might not be as damning as some have speculated.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 30 May, 2020 6:15 pm

Why do you persist in presuming such an underhand motivation? I would hope you were familiar enough with my past posts to know that I am not and have never been AS, despite whatever other differences we may have. I totally supported the likes of Walker and Williamson being removed from Labour.

And it was just some speculation, the fact is that it has now been delayed considerably from the original planned release date - and I presume there *are* reasons for that.

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Sat 30 May, 2020 6:36 pm

Just ignore him AK.

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Sat 30 May, 2020 6:54 pm

CONFRONTING CORONAVIRUS IN THE NHS
The story so far
I had this 15/4 report from NHS Providers on my ipad for weeks without reading it, for some reason I looked at it today, it's mainly 'look how wonderful we are', so I skimmed through the rest. The 'optimistic' conclusion included this

Integration of health and care.
The rapid discharge of tens of thousands of medically fit patients from hospital into social and community services shows how quickly care can be integrated when organisational and budgetary silos are ignored or bypassed.

'Medically fit'
They bypassed concerns about the patients' health too.

I'm surprised they hadn't edited it out.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 30 May, 2020 7:49 pm

SH2 wrote:It will have taken a long time because difficult and politically sensitive.

The implication you have made that it has been deliberately held back by dark forces because insufficiently critical of Labour, is precisely the kind of conspiratorial nonsense that has bedevilled Labour from the start of the Corbyn disaster.

No, that is your interpretation of my comments.

Your first comment was always going to be true, so why was it originally briefed that it would be ready for January?

Anyway, enough of this now.

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Sat 30 May, 2020 9:35 pm

Matt Hancock
‏
Verified account

@MattHancock
5h5 hours ago
More
Thanks to the nation’s resolve, horseracing is back from Monday

Wonderful news for our wonderful sport

I''m sure it's just a sheer coincidence that the person who is in charge of test and trace is also a steward of the Jockey Club...

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Sat 30 May, 2020 9:54 pm

And Hancock's constituency includes Newmarket...

howsillyofme1 · Post by **howsillyofme1** » Sat 30 May, 2020 10:00 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:
SH2 wrote:It will have taken a long time because difficult and politically sensitive.

The implication you have made that it has been deliberately held back by dark forces because insufficiently critical of Labour, is precisely the kind of conspiratorial nonsense that has bedevilled Labour from the start of the Corbyn disaster.
No, that is your interpretation of my comments.

Your first comment was always going to be true, so why was it originally briefed that it would be ready for January?

Anyway, enough of this now.

Don't bother trying to engage with this moron AK - you are too intelligent and subtle for him

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 30 May, 2020 10:11 pm

Yeah, that old adage about wrestling with a pig again.......

frog222 · Post by **frog222** » Sat 30 May, 2020 10:26 pm

DER SPIEGEL: At the beginning of the corona crisis, you stepped out onto the public stage of your own free will. Why?

Drosten: I didn't want to expose myself to later accusations that I had failed to issue timely warnings that people here could die too. And who else should inform people about the pandemic and explain it to them? As somebody who works with coronaviruses, I simply felt it was my duty. That's why I made the decision in mid-January to invest the majority of my time in informing the public and to shift my working group's focus to the introduction of a test.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/ge ... 4ff07c5659" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Those "later accusations" could also be a conscience in full working order ?

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Sun 31 May, 2020 10:13 am

Dave Hill
‏

@DaveHill
Following Following @DaveHill
More
Achievements of Robert #Jenrick so far this year: using powers over London Plan to score political points; driving 150 miles early during lockdown; telling England's local authorities their costs & losses would be covered, then rowing back; Westferry Printworks affair. Not good.

9:44 AM - 31 May 2020

Quite.

For all the screeching from the usual suspects out there, at least Rosie Duffield apologised and resigned as a whip.

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Sun 31 May, 2020 11:18 am

This is weird, two stories about the same thing but at complete odds on a major point. The BBC has two North Somerset academy trusts unilaterally deciding to delay re-opening until 8th June while Somersetlive has North Somerset council requesting all schools in the area to delay re-opening, giving a completely different impression - ie. a Tory run council contradicting a Tory government policy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-52851681" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Schools delay re-opening due to Weston hospital closure

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/som ... al-4177290" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

North Somerset schools advised NOT to open on Monday amid coronavirus outbreak at hospital

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sun 31 May, 2020 11:20 am

Still to spot cJA this weekend......

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Sun 31 May, 2020 12:30 pm

Good morfternoon.

How a decade of privatisation and cuts exposed England to coronavirus

Government reliance on private contractors follows dramatic changes to local councils and public services (Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... oronavirus

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sun 31 May, 2020 12:55 pm

Yep, this is the sort of "joining the dots" that we need.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 31 May, 2020 1:40 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Still to spot cJA this weekend......

Here I am

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 31 May, 2020 1:41 pm

Good afternoon, everyone.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sun 31 May, 2020 1:53 pm

Well, nice to see you ("nice")

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 31 May, 2020 2:35 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Well, nice to see you ("nice")

It's good to see you, AK

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 31 May, 2020 5:15 pm

Speaking earlier this month [Dominic Harrison, the director of public health for Blackburn and Darwen] said there was “a huge disconnect” between different branches of government, with some functions of the local public health system having been disabled in recent years.

“People like environmental health officers, community and neighbourhood teams, youth services workers – the people who you could deploy in a crisis, who already know where the vulnerable are and how to reach them – those were the kind of staff they used during 2009 swine flu to work closely with the NHS, but they have been lost,” Harrison said.

How a decade of privatisation and cuts exposed England to coronavirus

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sun 31 May, 2020 5:15 pm

Anyone about on this admittedly fine evening?

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 31 May, 2020 5:17 pm

I think I'm adding to PorFavor's earlier link of this article and isn't an echo.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 31 May, 2020 5:18 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Anyone about on this admittedly fine evening?

Me. News from a lot of different places isn't improving much.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 31 May, 2020 5:23 pm

Next month, Britain will mark an anniversary many Conservative ministers would rather forget. Shortly after 12.30pm on 22 June 2010, George Osborne stepped up to the dispatch box as chancellor of the new coalition government and announced the longest and deepest period of cuts to public service spending since the second world war.

from same article
I dislike Osborne for reasons not entirely due to his work as a Tory minister.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 31 May, 2020 9:43 pm

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Sun 31 May, 2020 9:56 pm

That's it we're done. Lockdown's over.

I've mentioned previously that this area of Leeds has behaved pretty well up until now, but today it was as if someone had flicked a switch. While walking around there were two predominant sounds, music blasting from packed garden parties and police sirens. Johnson, Cummings et al have let the genie out of the bottle and there won't be any getting it back in. As for wishes all it'll be offering will be illness and death.

It's all very well standing at a podium wittering on about baby steps and maintaining social distancing but out in the real world the park next to me looked like a festival, I've never seen it so packed. And what are the police supposed to do? Because by the sound of it, unless there was a major crime spree, they were going from party to park to party trying to break this stuff up but they stand no chance.

We're still in the middle of a pandemic with 8000 new infections every day, just barely keeping a lid on this virus but due to a combination of fuckwittery from the right wing press, Cummings being a lying dick and Johnson bribing the public as a distraction it seems this area at least collectively thought 'ah fuck it'.

frog222 · Post by **frog222** » Sun 31 May, 2020 10:23 pm

Sky, I've seen other reports like that, unsurprised but also so sad to see them confirmed by you too.

The only possible consolation potentially available is that those events may actually ONLY concern a minority of people , and a majority is being sensible , one may call them the ...... Silent Majority

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Sun 31 May, 2020 10:57 pm

Heh, I'd like to think so Froggy, and you're right a majority are still behaving, but the minority who aren't seemed to go today from tiny to significant. It was a distinct change. Although weirdly it's quieter now than it has been all week at this time of night and I have the windows wide open. Maybe they've got it out of their system? We shall see. Anyway I should close the windows as I'm attracting moths.

frog222 · Post by **frog222** » Sun 31 May, 2020 11:29 pm

Sky'sGoneOut wrote:Heh, I'd like to think so Froggy, and you're right a majority are still behaving, but the minority who aren't seemed to go today from tiny to significant. It was a distinct change. Although weirdly it's quieter now than it has been all week at this time of night and I have the windows wide open. Maybe they've got it out of their system? We shall see. Anyway I should close the windows as I'm attracting moths.

Cross fingers ! Appears to me that the situations of a 100 in a Tesco queue and 4 only with masks might be n exception

Hopefully ...................

In April, blood clots emerged as a mysterious symptom of coronavirus.

Soon after, we began hearing reports of Covid-19 patients dying from strokes.

Then came “Covid toes.”

What do all these symptoms have in common? Impaired blood circulation.

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Sun 31 May, 2020 11:57 pm

Might be difficult in a wheelchair, but in most other respects it's quite appealing at the moment.

[youtube]wNTf8iublLc[/youtube]

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Mon 01 Jun, 2020 12:08 am

I make no apologies for the splendid ridiculousness of this.

[youtube]4Z9do-0Fdis[/youtube]

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Mon 01 Jun, 2020 12:17 am

I really enjoyed that!

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Mon 01 Jun, 2020 12:30 am

frog222 wrote:Appears to me that the situations of a 100 in a Tesco queue and 4 only with masks might be n exception

Nope. It took me nearly 40 minutes to get into Tesco on Friday, the queue went back onto the street behind the shop so yeah about 100 people and I only saw one person wearing a mask. And I wasn't wearing one so I can't criticise that. But what I can do is vape, and I've been doing some fascinating experiments in these queues watching where the vapoour is going after I breathe it out. I'm not one of these dicks who makes huge clouds on purpose, it's a waste of money and annoys people, I try to be discrete, but even just breathing normally I can watch the miasma I create disperse across a lot of the queue if the breeze is right because the queue is going back and forward in the car park. It's condensed in a small place. So I can see who I'd have a chance infecting if I had Coronavirus. It's fun.

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Mon 01 Jun, 2020 12:35 am

PorFavor wrote:I really enjoyed that!

I had a hunch that might tickle some of your prog rock fancy.

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Mon 01 Jun, 2020 1:07 am

[youtube]NAj8suae3WY[/youtube]

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Mon 01 Jun, 2020 1:46 am

[youtube]OJ9VBMBS3qE[/youtube]

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Mon 01 Jun, 2020 1:49 am

[youtube]--pdLtQhDeo[/youtube]

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Mon 01 Jun, 2020 1:54 am

[youtube]MzkWyhzwO1Q[/youtube]

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Mon 01 Jun, 2020 2:30 am

Night night.