Westminstenders: All bets are off

[RedToothBrush]

We are seeking an extension. Apparently. No prizes for guessing why.

There is no news but COVID news. And that's all there will be for a long time.

Enjoy your stockpile and your sunny uplands it brought.

Keep safe.

Grinchly
Stay safe and warm.
Hopefully the panic buyers will have filled their newly bought extra freezers yes really so you'll be able to get what you need delivered.

In fairness to Sunak it was a very good start.

Credit where credit is due.

(It looks a bit like a copy paste of Macron a week ago.)

Mistigri
Sunak's dad is still a GP, his mum was a pharmacist.
All the SPADs in the world will not compare with his parents bending his ear about the reality they see (thank goodness)

Get well soon Grinchly

Its also unclear how small Limited Companies - of which there are a couple of million - will be able to access any help at all.

This is very scary. I should be fine - OK, I’m going to have to turn down some additional work that I was planning to start next month, but I can still manage to earn a decent living around entertaining DD. I would imagine that most people won’t be so lucky

“Good-morning, good-morning!” the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
“He's a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

I am reading The mirror and the light currently and was struck by,
"In the old days- that is to say a month ago"

That poem fits all to well, squid - one of the verses I remember
The arrogant optimism of the upper class generals in WW1, blindly sending thousands of troops over the top to be mown down

Sunak has really risen to the occasion, some inspiring remarks he made,
trying to bring the country together - as BJ should be doing

A future PM ?
Would be miles better than the current one

As TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said, Sunak is showing “real leadership

We really needed someone to do that, because blundering BJ sure as hell hasn't shown leadership

• except up the garden path

Just because

...its the sat BJjusy stands there with his gob open like a great thundering walloper
😡

BigChoc
From what I hear, Rishi Sunak is hugely respected by civil servants he works with
because

• he listens
• he respects
• he takes advice
• he does detail and accuracy

Cummings must hate him

Sure, tories enact half the labour manifesto they screamed was impossible, weeks too late, not addressing the homelessness care crisis or zhc they caused, whilst not acting on public health measures likely causing the deaths of thousands.

Applause.

The view from the frontline is not like the view in the media that's for fucking sure.

I too am reading The Mirror and the Light and think it’s a book that reflects its time of writing, it has a different feel from the first two in the trilogy, as though she had to work very hard to keep her distance from the modern (post 2016) world with all its parallels. I thought her use of modern language in a historical setting in the earlier books surprisingly convincing, but don’t feel it works so well in this one. However I’m no literary critic and happy just to enjoy, am eking it out by only reading at bedtime. When I finish I’ll read it over again straight away as I did with the other two.

I'm so angry and I'm so fucking scared.

Sunak's dad is still a GP, his mum was a pharmacist.

I didn't know that, thank you.

He seems to be the best the Tories have to offer right now.

Squid, I don't know what to say, you and your colleagues have been let down so badly and there is nothing we can do now that will put it right :(

squid
I'm so so sorry 💐
People are actually falling for the govt spin on this
I spent most of the press conference shouting at the scree!!
There is NOT enough PPE - that's a LIE
By not locking down we face a health crisis like france and italy...100s of preventable deaths per day
Ffs!

Time for some of those "Lessons of History"

There are mainly two: First, that Progress is never inevitable and things sometimes go backwards: We used to have supersonic air travel, doorstep milk deliveries and four postal deliveries a day.

Second, and most pertinent, in times of crisis, people always think that when it is all over, we will somehow go 'back to normal.'

No. Normal is where you find yourself, not where you were. The new normal will be different, any attempt to enforce a return to the old way of doing things is doomed to failure. We failed to see this in 1918, but recognised it in 1945. In both cases, it was JM Keynes who was the prophet of our destiny.

Now young Rishi is turning out to be an enthusiastic Keynsian, and the silence from the neocon voices in this govt who wish to screw down the proles so the Gods of the Randian New Olympus can continue to rake it in ever exponentially greater quantities is more than welcome.

Just imagine if it was John McDonell announcing this stuff.

More confirmation of the much higher death rate for men:

Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force response coordinator says that data from Italy indicates

the coronavirus fatality rate is twice as high for men across all age groups

So some people think there's a silver lining to the virus? I'm not that surprised, but then I really don't expect much from people.

Yep, when Tories turn to socialism you know it's a Scale 10 emergency on the Sphincter Scale

but at least they are doing it
FInally
A shame that so many thousands have already lost their jobs

Even more importantly, lockdown at last, to try to flatten the curve that the NHS has to handle

Presumably Ferguson & Whitty have been explaining the facts of CV & exponential growth to BJ

Northwick Park Hospital running out of ICU beds may even have been what persuaded him not to wait for Monday,
but probably several other London hospitals have been screaming warnings for at least the last week

No silver lining but more of an ill wind that blows some good. This is the death of civil aviation as we used to know it. Business travel in particular is exposed for the valuless expense it always was.

The case for a true welfare state, some form of Universal Basic Income, security for private tenants, the social responsibility of business and the public duty to support such businesses. We've been waiting for homeworking to take off for twenty years, now it's happening and the case for huge expensive offices is blown out of the water. You can even see a future for John McDonnell's broadband as a public service, if not actually free then supplied like water and bins as a social merit good.

The 21st Century began on 11/9/01. Could this be the moment when we turn our great crash into a New Deal?

627 dead in Italy in one day.

380 in Lombardy alone.

That should be more than sobering to anyone.

The numbers aren't slowing yet either.

"So some people think there's a silver lining to the virus?"

Well, a Brexiter at the end of the last thread was cooing about how good it was for the planet

But No
I see no silver lining, nothing that could possibly be any consolation after so many deaths, with likely far more to come around the world

• and Africa & refugee camps yet to come -

so many people losing their livelihoods, careers, homes, savings ... maybe even pensions

The deep global recession, maybe a longlasting Depression

This virus is an utter disaster that will kill many elderly and blight the lives of the young

We boomers have mostly had the best of times until now:
free uni, buying houses on average incomes etc

the younger generation have been landed with the 2008 crash, uni loans, house prices ....
and now a once in a century global pandemic, with a global depression bolted on

and in some countries like the UK, future employers may be dubious of the "calculated" exam results this year