UK Politics: What about a Masquerade?

[Which Tyler]

21 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Using people who were labour activists and not bothering to mention it or considering how their political affiliation might affect what they are saying is the issue the BBC is being accused of.

Having said that, it’s ofcoms job to intervene here, not really the government ministers. 

But national front and UKIP activists are A-OK.

 

I seem to remember that anyone making a fuss about that was a loser making mountains out of mole-hills

[Heartofice]

14 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

But national front and UKIP activists are A-OK.

 

I seem to remember that anyone making a fuss about that was a loser making mountains out of mole-hills

I don’t remember that but neither is ok. 

[dog-days]

A couple of lines keep floating into my head during lockdown in connection with all the people who work as carers for coppers an hour on lousy contracts:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play

Plus ça change. 

[Fragile Bird]

5 hours ago, mormont said:

Hey, remember how Johnson was moved to intensive care just as a 'precaution'? Now he needed 'litres and litres of oxygen'.

I mean, we all knew they were lying at the time. But the blatant 180 degree spin is an excellent reminder of just how willing this government are to lie to you and expect you to forget all about it weeks later.

In fairness, though, do you really want to report really bleak news about the PM in the middle of a crisis? The Russians were already reporting he was on a ventilator, and would have spun whatever was reported. Everyone was reading between the lines anyway, asking why he would be in an ICU bed if he didn’t need it.

(I’m no fan of BJ)

[BigFatCoward]

If Boris gives all his kids 3 names he's soon going to run out. 

[A wilding]

It's okay, he just leaves it to their mothers to name them.

[Heartofice]

Owen Jones has turned the world upside down with his book shelf investigative journalism. He’s the hero we deserve.

[Werthead]

Gove, to his credit, has been very consistent in criticising antisemitism when it has come up even in the Conservative Party, so it's probable he had a copy of Irvine's book so he could reject its nonsense. There are Jewish writers with copies of Mein Kampf because they want to learn what people find in the message so they can combat it. I'm not sure I'd have a copy of it front and centre on the living room shelves, but maybe he's one of those guys who doesn't categorise and just throws books on the shelves wherever (probably also why the book on Thatcher is squeezed between volumes on Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler).

[Heartofice]

It just shows that with football gone the country’s national sport has become identifying books on bookshelves during zoom chats, and Owen Jones is the Ronaldo of it.
 

 

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

It just shows that with football gone the country’s national sport has become identifying books on bookshelves during zoom chats, and Owen Jones is the Ronaldo of it.
 

 

Yup, being nosy is definitely the best part of Zoom!

[Maltaran]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Gove, to his credit, has been very consistent in criticising antisemitism when it has come up even in the Conservative Party, so it's probable he had a copy of Irvine's book so he could reject its nonsense. There are Jewish writers with copies of Mein Kampf because they want to learn what people find in the message so they can combat it. I'm not sure I'd have a copy of it front and centre on the living room shelves, but maybe he's one of those guys who doesn't categorise and just throws books on the shelves wherever (probably also why the book on Thatcher is squeezed between volumes on Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler).

Also, apparently the particular Irving book is an early one from before he started open Holocaust denial, which IMO makes that more plausible.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

It just shows that with football gone the country’s national sport has become identifying books on bookshelves during zoom chats, and Owen Jones is the Ronaldo of it.

No, that's these guys.

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

No, that's these guys.

That's a great twitter account.

I do like this fine collection of space opera and 90s epic fantasy (pretty sure I can spot some Wheel of Time hardbacks behind his name).

 

 

[Werthead]

6 minutes ago, williamjm said:

That's a great twitter account.

I do like this fine collection of space opera and 90s epic fantasy (pretty sure I can spot some Wheel of Time hardbacks behind his name).

 

 

Yup. Towers of Midnight, Path of Daggers, Winter's Heart, Crossroads of Twilight, Knife of Dreams. Looks like some Tor US paperbacks on the top shelf, then a lot of Neal Asher. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy on the top shelf, I think some Gemmell and Al Reynolds as well. Some Dan Simmons as well.

[karaddin]

On 5/3/2020 at 6:52 PM, mormont said:

Hey, remember how Johnson was moved to intensive care just as a 'precaution'? Now he needed 'litres and litres of oxygen'.

I mean, we all knew they were lying at the time. But the blatant 180 degree spin is an excellent reminder of just how willing this government are to lie to you and expect you to forget all about it weeks later.

I saw some speculation on the weekend that not only was Boris in a much worse condition than they made it seem, he's also still not in a very good way (given how long it can drag on) but that they're trying to avoid letting on as it runs contrary to the desire to paint the pandemic as something that can be bounced back from as things open back up.

I'm not sure how many appearances Boris has made since his illness as I'm obviously not from the UK, but there's definitely signs of certain interests trying to AstroTurf an anti lockdown movement in Aus similar to the already thriving one in the US so I assume the same is going on in the UK.

[Werthead]

As an addendum to the above, it should be noted that although Gove has been pretty consistent on criticising antisemitism, he's also been much less consistent regarding Islamophobia: he even wrote a book in 2006 which took a "blame all Muslims everywhere for everything fundamentalist extremists do" line. Apparently the stringent nature of his anti-Islam comments raised alarm bells with both David Cameron and Baroness Warsi, who has been investigating the problem in the Tory Party for the last few years (and roundly ignored for as long).

5 hours ago, karaddin said:

I saw some speculation on the weekend that not only was Boris in a much worse condition than they made it seem, he's also still not in a very good way (given how long it can drag on) but that they're trying to avoid letting on as it runs contrary to the desire to paint the pandemic as something that can be bounced back from as things open back up.

You don't bounce back from coronavirus very quickly. It seems to take 4-6 weeks for even mild cases to fully resolve themselves and for people to feel mostly "back to normal." Some people are being told that they have permanent lung or kidney damage and will never recover (I suspect COVID-related lung and kidney transplants may start to be a thing further down the line).

It's makes the suggestions that this is no worse than the flu quite infuriating, ignoring the fact that the flu can kill you. A general case of the flu will last about a week of really notable symptoms but generally recovery after that point is fairly swift. With this thing, nope.

Given Boris's age, it's likely he'll be several more weeks before getting back to full speed.

[Werthead]

Some concerns about the UK government app, such as the fact it switches itself off unless you've left it running in the foreground; it drains battery life like no-one's business and it has massively flawed data security issues.

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Some concerns about the UK government app, such as the fact it switches itself off unless you've left it running in the foreground; it drains battery life like no-one's business and it has massively flawed data security issues.

Sounds a lot like the Australian one. Is the "active foreground app" requirement just for iPhones or Android too? I'm pretty sure ours is semi functional on Android, it's just the apple ones with that problem.

[Loge]

5 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Sounds a lot like the Australian one. Is the "active foreground app" requirement just for iPhones or Android too? I'm pretty sure ours is semi functional on Android, it's just the apple ones with that problem.

According to the article it's also recent Android versions.

[A wilding]

Speaking as an IT professional, "some concerns" is an understatement.

Assuming they get this to work, it will basically upload complete details of exactly where you have been (the "anonymous" is easily breakable) to central government servers. You have zero control over that data, and the government is giving zero guarantees as to what they will or won't do with it. And they have a long history of mission creep with such data, and of casually handing it over to all sorts of organisations. But they are clearly hoping that the "stop the pandemic" airhorn will drown out all objections ...