FlyTheNest

" It can only be speculated why the Prime Minister, his chief advisor Dominic Cummings and the Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock decided to deprive local communities of the data they needed to keep their populations safe. Was this driven by an ideological loathing for local government; a Big Data driven obsession with knowledge as power; or a desire to hand lucrative data management contracts to private companies?

Whatever the motivation, it has left the country – as it emerges from protective isolation – groping in the dark for any sense of how safe we are. It means that the choice about whether to go shopping or to the pub has become more about an individual’s personality type and their innate level of caution than any kind of rational decision-making. "

"The statutory requirement for the notification of certain infectious diseases first came into being with the Infectious Disease (Notification) Act 1889," " Since 1968 clinical suspicion of a notifiable infection is all that is required to report a case of a disease. The attending doctor must notify the proper officers, " (COVID 19 is on the list)

I kinda sense a turning of the tide.

Monbiot in the Guardian today was warning about the rise of a new kind of fascism but I'm not so sure.

Starkey's stupidity is emblematic of the right's 'culture war' that's been allowed to run riot on social media and been facilitated by the traditional media since the turn of this century. But now, through the concerted efforts of American campaign groups given a boost by the 'Black lives matter' movement, look what's happenning. Even Zuckerberg is shitting his pants because major businesses don't want their adverts being displayed next to neo-nazis. Youtube has rid itself of David Duke and a swarm of other assorted white nationalist gadflies, Reddit got rid of the 'The Donald' subreddit amongst a lot of other far right guff and Twitter is editing Trump himself.

It's not like me to be optimistic but it's pretty obvious there's a change going on with American social media companies and their tolerance of the kind of views the right relies on for its culture war to continue for much longer.

Some argue that to deny these right wing headcases a platform will drive them underground and make them more dangerous.

To them I say Milo Yiannopoulos. Remember him?

With Katie Hopkins soon to follow him into obscurity.

I think the right has lost this culture war, they don't know it yet and they've done a shit load of damage, but their tantrum is close to being over.

Theo Usherwood
@theousherwood
Boris Johnson says it is the "teas, changing rooms and other stuff" that makes cricket a greater risk for Covid-19 transmission than tennis.

Daniel Howdon
@danielhowdon
This is 100% a case where the correct answer to the question "is this causal??" is "probably but also I don't care" because all the ways in which the relationship can be confounded are exactly the same thing: treating staff better and taking more care for residents.