Saturday 4th & Sunday 5th July 2020

Post by **refitman** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 7:23 am

Morning all.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 10:29 am

Where was everyone yesterday afternoon/evening?

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 10:44 am

This is great.

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

Tides of History
@labour_history
As commentators predict a 100 seat Tory victory, Churchill is jeered and cheered by thousands, with one boy throwing a firecracker at him.

In Blackburn, Barbara Castle is wary about overturning the Tory majority

A thread on the last day of the 1945 election campaign

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 10:44 am

Morning all.

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

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 11:10 am

gilsey wrote:This is great.

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

Tides of History
@labour_history
As commentators predict a 100 seat Tory victory, Churchill is jeered and cheered by thousands, with one boy throwing a firecracker at him.

In Blackburn, Barbara Castle is wary about overturning the Tory majority

A thread on the last day of the 1945 election campaign

My grandad was one of those who went to boo and heckle Winnie when he visited Barrow - one of the swathe of Labour gains from the Tories

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 12:36 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Where was everyone yesterday afternoon/evening?

migraine yesterday

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 12:50 pm

Good afternoon, everyone.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 1:44 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:
gilsey wrote:This is great.

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Tides of History
@labour_history
As commentators predict a 100 seat Tory victory, Churchill is jeered and cheered by thousands, with one boy throwing a firecracker at him.

In Blackburn, Barbara Castle is wary about overturning the Tory majority

A thread on the last day of the 1945 election campaign
My grandad was one of those who went to boo and heckle Winnie when he visited Barrow - one of the swathe of Labour gains from the Tories

Was he in the clip used in Spirit of '45?

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 2:41 pm

Don't think it was ever captured on camera, sadly.

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 4:13 pm

When I read Gove's speech the other day I did wonder how he'd managed to take sole credit for this one.

Lib Dems accuse Tories of ‘stealing’ pupil premium policy

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... ium-policy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In a speech last Saturday on restructuring government entitled “The privilege of public service”, Gove cited the pupil premium as “one of the reforms of which I am proudest”. The education secretary during the coalition years added: “I believe it has been transformative”, adding that proper data was now needed to judge just how effective it had been.

But his comments angered leading Liberal Democrats who insist that although the Tories had also mentioned a premium for poor pupils in their 2010 election manifesto, the drive to introduce it under David Cameron’s government came from them. They say they had to fight constantly to fund it properly during the coalition years from 2010 to 2015, as the government ordered huge cross-departmental austerity cuts.

frog222 · Post by **frog222** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 6:48 pm

[img]https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5e ... 66375.jpeg
[/img]

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

According to the Telegraph's Brussels correspondent it's a British rule not EU.
So the current Telegraph's man in Brussels is correcting one of his predecessors, delicious!

James Crisp @JamesCrisp6
· 18 juil. 2019
NEW: EU sources insist that rules that mean smoked kipper producers in the Isle of Man must use "plastic ice pillow" when sending to UK, as made famous by Boris Johnson, are BRITISH rules and not Brussels' rules. 1/

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 7:17 pm

Why of course they are, how many times has that happened down the years.

frog222 · Post by **frog222** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 7:33 pm

Being observations or memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, as well public as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665. Written by a Citizen who continued all the while in London. Never made public before

It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, among the rest of my neighbours, heard in ordinary discourse that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again.

We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days to spread rumours and reports of things, and to improve them by the invention of men, as I have lived to see practised since.

But such things as these were gathered from the letters of merchants and others who corresponded abroad, and from them was handed about by word of mouth only; so that things did not spread instantly over the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems that the Government had a true account of it, and several councils were held about ways to prevent its coming over; but all was kept very private. Hence it was that this rumour died off again, and people began to forget it as a thing we were very little concerned in, and that we hoped was not true; till the latter end of November or the beginning of December 1664 when two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the plague in Long Acre, or rather at the upper end of Drury Lane. The family they were in endeavoured to conceal it as much as possible, but as it had gotten some vent in the discourse of the neighbourhood, the Secretaries of State got knowledge of it; and concerning themselves to inquire about it, in order to be certain of the truth, two physicians and a surgeon were ordered to go to the house and make inspection. This they did; and finding evident tokens of the sickness upon both the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions publicly that they died of the plague. Whereupon it was given in to the parish clerk, and he also returned them to the Hall; and it was printed in the weekly bill of mortality in the usual manner, thus--

Plague, 2. Parishes infected, 1.

https://www.gradesaver.com/a-journal-of ... ext/part-i" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

EDIT -- on "spreading rumours", see FACEBOOK below ! ( Daniel Defoe published the above in 1722 )

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sat 04 Jul, 2020 10:25 pm

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA

frog222 · Post by **frog222** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 9:47 am

Facebook is out of control. If it were a country it would be North Korea Carole Cadwalladr

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... orth-korea" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Meant to post this looong one a couple of days ago --

” A similar tactic was employed in 2018, after George Soros criticized Facebook as a “menace” against which society needed to be defended in a public speech in Davos. The company hired a firm to produce incendiary pro-Facebook research that contained anti-Semitic tropes about Soros, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, as the shadowy funder of anti-Facebook groups. The documents were then passed around to journalists with the urging that they look into Soros’s financial interests. In the ensuing controversy, Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s head of comms and policy and already on the way out, was blamed, while Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg stated they had no knowledge of the affair.

“Facebook employs the only comms people who have ever yelled at me.”

The 2016 presidential election changed everything. After Donald Trump’s ascent, greased by the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the embedding of Facebook staff in the Trump campaign’s digital operation, tech was seen as a political force unto itself. Journalists began digging into Facebook in a way few had before.”

??????????????????? Embedded in the 2016 Trump Campaign ?????????????????????

In conversations with more than fifteen journalists and industry observers, I tried to understand what it is like to cover Facebook. What I found was troublesome: operating with the secrecy of an intelligence agency and the authority of a state government, Facebook has arrogated to itself vast powers while enjoying, until recently, limited journalistic scrutiny. (Some journalists, like The Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr, have done important work linking Facebook data to political corruption in the UK and elsewhere.) Media organizations have stepped up their game, but they suffer from a lack of access, among other power asymmetries

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/repo ... cebook.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (Columbia Journalism Review)

For many years journalists were only marvelling at the technical prowess of FB... now at last they've seen the POWER .

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 10:19 am

Facebook changing its algorithms between the 2017 and 2019 GEs is widely thought to be a factor in the different results.

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 10:37 am

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Facebook changing its algorithms between the 2017 and 2019 GEs is widely thought to be a factor in the different results.

I think it's simpler than that. The same people who worked in conjunction with Cambridge Analytica & used Facebook to deliver the Brexit vote worked on the 2019 election, using similar tactics. Theresa May, in contrast, ran a traditional campaign - badly.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 10:46 am

It has been suggested as a reason, not *the* reason.

Tories did try to use Facebook in 2017, but as you suggest weren't as successful at it.

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 11:28 am

AnatolyKasparov wrote:It has been suggested as a reason, not *the* reason.

Tories did try to use Facebook in 2017, but as you suggest weren't as successful at it.

All the parties use social media, of course. When it's about clearly branded ads that echo the national campaign, it's just another way of delivering a traditional campaign. When tactics are used that produce a level of brainwashing that leads to people, when asked why they voted the way they did, to come out with the same identical, meaningless gibberish, it's something else, though. That these tactics are mostly hidden make them very hard to counter. What narrative is being stealthily disseminated right now to prop up our floundering PM? It's hard to fight what you can't see and will prove an ongoing challenge for the opposition.

GetYou · Post by **GetYou** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 12:13 pm

Well, whoda ~~drunk~~ thunkit?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... in-england

Next up, water is wet, claim scientists.

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 12:43 pm

Richard Murphy is angry.

the Treasury is saying that there is a choice. That choice is between deaths and deficits. And it is saying that the choice has to be more deaths, and less deficit.

The choice now is deaths or deficit, and the Treasury is choosing deaths

NHS chiefs in standoff with Treasury over emergency £10bn

IMO the Treasury's thinking has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with tory ideology.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 12:44 pm

Actually, in this instance it might be at least as much "Treasury ideology".

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 12:52 pm

To demonstrate that this is traditional tory ideology which hardly needs any beefing up by the current incumbents, David Gauke:

pursuing left wing economics makes working class voters poorer.

https://www.conservativehome.com/thecol ... erals.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Did working class voters get poorer after 1945? Or just before WW2, after Keynes?

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 12:59 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Actually, in this instance it might be at least as much "Treasury ideology".

Indeed, and has nothing to do with economics.

Looked at one way, it's surprising how much Brown managed to achieve, especially with Darling immediately after the Financial Crisis.
It was a crisis, which leads me to think that if Sunak wanted to he'd find it reasonably easy to roll the Treasury over now.

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 1:03 pm

Avoiding unnecessary expenditure requires vigilance. It means investigating a very small leak in the roof and taking the necessary steps to fix or replace it straight away. Financial prudence is not watching and waiting until the small leak is a torrent and the roof is close to imminent collapse and then trying the small patch which might have worked in the first instance (or at least buy you time to find the funds for a new roof), moaning you can't really afford a new roof only to spend twice as much on replacing damaged furniture, ruined carpets etc, all the while living a stressed and miserable life.

So that's the Treasury ideology.

Johnson ideology, meanwhile, appears to be set up a go fund me page to fix the roof, only to abscond with all the money.....

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 1:04 pm

The same deaths or deficits 'choice' is in front of us all day, every day with lockdown easing.

'Don't we have to ease lockdown to save the economy', the pundits say, ad nauseum.

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 1:51 pm

gilsey wrote:The same deaths or deficits 'choice' is in front of us all day, every day with lockdown easing.

'Don't we have to ease lockdown to save the economy', the pundits say, ad nauseum.

The argument that people were more at risk from lockdown than from the virus started as soon as lockdown started.
The very basic fact that we have the ability to prevent people being harmed by lockdown but we currently have few tools available to prevent people being harmed by the virus is conveniently ignored. We have the resources necessary to feed and house everyone if we choose but of course we have long ignored that.
The worst aspect of all of this has been the disablism, though, the way the virus has been presented as only a threat to people with underlying conditions and the very elderly, as if they somehow don't count, as if they somehow aren't us or our parents, our friends and colleagues. Presented this way, it encourages the idea that lockdown is an inconvenience undergone purely for the sake of other people, rather than ourselves and so the seeds were sown for its rejection right from the start. Many Johnson supporters will have been manipulated into welcoming yesterday, despite the abject failure of getting things like an effective track and trace programme established, despite the ongoing deaths and ongoing threat. The very loud and very anti-socal fireworks let off down our road last night, that scared the bejesus out of one of our cats, is testament to that.
I find it hard to see how we get back to a place where the government is held accountable in a democratic way when controlling the national dialogue through the press and social media is so easy for them.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 7:15 pm

Good morfternoon, everyone.

frog222 · Post by **frog222** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 8:13 pm

Unfortunately, the EU does accept we are fully independent. Not being a member means the EU is not considering our interests any more, only its own. This is how sovereign entities behave. The ‘unreasonable demands’ he mentions are part of the price the EU sets for access to the single market. If we aren’t prepared to pay it there will be a Gallic shrug and nothing more. Even if we leave without a trade deal, the EU knows we will be back at the Berlaymont building within days, banging on the door asking for a trade deal. This is the reality – and both sides know it.

I didn't get around to reading the ERG plea to those Forriners

https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/cummings ... g-nervous/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hello lone JA The others are all fuelled up and dancing in the streets while the Spitfire is overhead protecting them from Europe, resurgence
of Covid, the End of Empire and the Bolshies

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 9:16 pm

Evening all.

Big package to the arts coming tomorrow from the Chancellor by the look of it.

And I've had an attack of gout which got steadily worse yesterday as time went on and was so bad that I was literally shaking in bed. Ouch. Still not that great but no beer for me until it's cleared...

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 9:39 pm

I got some Transylvanian wine (no really I ordered it online). I'm getting hints of Children of the Night, Succubi and possibly guano. I decided I might as well try as many weird wines from the EU as I can before they all become prohibitively expensive. It's actually pretty tasty.

Which leads me on to Sunak and the treasury vs the NHS. As far as I understand it the Bank of England is buying up all the debt Sunak has magicked out of nowhere so what's another measly £10 billion when the BofE has already pumped out a couple of hundred billion in quantitive easing? It seems nuts to pick a fight with the NHS at a time like this. Could it possibly be that it's the looming spectre of a no deal Brexit that's making them nervous? That they need a reserve to keep the economy ticking over if/when things go arse over tits? If we give the NHS the money so people can have much needed operations will that result in us having to shove wheelbarrows full of cash to the supermarket? That seems highly unlikely with inflation at 0.5% and I can't remember any hyperinflation caused by quantitive easing after the banking crash. I'm perplexed and befuddled by the Tories indulging in what looks like a wholly unnecessary fight that they can only lose in the 'court of public opinion', and while it's tempting to assume they're doing it simply because they're wankers I suspect it's because they've looked at their economic recovery forecasts, factored in Brexit, and are shitting bricks.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 9:40 pm

@RogerOThornhill
I'm sorry reading you're in pain.
It's exhausting; being in pain is exhausting.
Please take care and wishing you better soon.

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 9:59 pm

As for the pubs opening yesterday I'm delighted the carnage I was expecting didn't happen. Here in Leeds at least a friend who was out last night said it was eerily quiet in the town centre and a Geordie friend told me Newcastle was much the same, in fact he said most of the pubs were still shut.

I've heard tales from the South of Bacchanalian frenzies but you have to take into account that down there it only takes them a couple of pints to get pissed.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 10:32 pm

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 10:39 pm

RogerOThornhill wrote:And I've had an attack of gout which got steadily worse yesterday as time went on and was so bad that I was literally shaking in bed. Ouch. Still not that great but no beer for me until it's cleared...

That's awful, sorry to hear that Roger. My mate has it but takes tablets and only drinks cider and wine these days because, he claims, any alcohol based on grain gives him flare ups. And he seems to have it under control, I've only seen him limping once in the last year. But then he had his 40 something blood checks at his doctors and they detected impaired liver function so he was supposed to be going in for an ultrasound of his liver but it's never happened for obvious reasons. As a result he's currently drinking like it's his last chance to get pissed and I'm afraid to admit I've been...well, not encouraging him, but joining him.

I hope yours improves because from what he's told me it sounds bloody painful.

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 11:16 pm

Sky'sGoneOut wrote:I got some Transylvanian wine (no really I ordered it online). I'm getting hints of Children of the Night, Succubi and possibly guano. I decided I might as well try as many weird wines from the EU as I can before they all become prohibitively expensive. It's actually pretty tasty.

Which leads me on to Sunak and the treasury vs the NHS. As far as I understand it the Bank of England is buying up all the debt Sunak has magicked out of nowhere so what's another measly £10 billion when the BofE has already pumped out a couple of hundred billion in quantitive easing? It seems nuts to pick a fight with the NHS at a time like this. Could it possibly be that it's the looming spectre of a no deal Brexit that's making them nervous? That they need a reserve to keep the economy ticking over if/when things go arse over tits? If we give the NHS the money so people can have much needed operations will that result in us having to shove wheelbarrows full of cash to the supermarket? That seems highly unlikely with inflation at 0.5% and I can't remember any hyperinflation caused by quantitive easing after the banking crash. I'm perplexed and befuddled by the Tories indulging in what looks like a wholly unnecessary fight that they can only lose in the 'court of public opinion', and while it's tempting to assume they're doing it simply because they're wankers I suspect it's because they've looked at their economic recovery forecasts, factored in Brexit, and are shitting bricks.

On the other hand, if they gave the NHS £10bn for staff pay increases that would be an appropriate response to the economic shock caused by the virus, and in due course by Brexit as well. Keynes told us what to do.

Actually, given that the £10bn they're asking for is mainly to hand over to the private sector, it's hard to see why No10 don't like it.

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 11:24 pm

Willow904 wrote:I find it hard to see how we get back to a place where the government is held accountable in a democratic way when controlling the national dialogue through the press and social media is so easy for them.

Johnson's government is like nothing we've ever seen before, like Trump's it's constantly campaigning, no mistakes can be admitted, no ground can be given, it behaves as if it is under constant attack. He has an 80 seat majority yet his government is behaving as if they're a paranoid and defensive minority.

And we know why. Cummings and his other assorted Brexit goons are stuck in that mindset. They're revolutionaries fighting against the very state they now represent and run. And they want to smash it all up and recreate it in their own image.

The problem being there is no image, Cummings is a psuedo-intellectual fraud, Johnson is a clown and as Spock say's in The Wrath of Khan, 'It is much easier to destroy than it is to create'.

What both Johnson and Trump's governments demonstrate is the complaceny of the those who always assured us to trust in the system, trust in all those hoary old understandings that would prevent idiot populists gaining power and wrecking everything. At least the U.S has a written constitution for all is faults. Here we had unwritten rules. Lambs for the slaughter.

Anyway what...oh yeah, social media at least in the US is taking a turn for the better whether they like it or not so it's not all doom and gloom. Or doomsters and gloomsters as a certain cretin seems keen on saying for some unnacountable reason.

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 11:42 pm

gilsey wrote:On the other hand, if they gave the NHS £10bn for staff pay increases that would be an appropriate response to the economic shock caused by the virus, and in due course by Brexit as well. Keynes told us what to do.

Actually, given that the £10bn they're asking for is mainly to hand over to the private sector, it's hard to see why No10 don't like it.

Agreed on both points.

Apparently their objection to giving more money to the NHS to have operations done in private hospitals is that it's inefficient which seems somewhat curious.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 11:46 pm

@RogerOThornhill

Sorry you're suffering. I hope it goes away very soon.

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Sun 05 Jul, 2020 11:51 pm

[youtube]ZVcnX3B9WsU[/youtube]

Sky'sGoneOut · Post by **Sky'sGoneOut** » Mon 06 Jul, 2020 12:20 am

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... tor-afloat

I wonder how much of this will get down to the small music venues, I doubt the Marxist collective place I go to see new punk bands is going to get anything. Not that they'd want it, being revolutionary socialists. They're just sending us begging emails to their crowdfunding page.