Covid-19 Megathread

[Carbomb]

Chris Bart-Williams.

[BomberPat]

4 hours ago, Cod Eye said:

Now, many are traditional working class people who for one reason or another have voted for the very party that was hell bent on destroying the industries that put food on the tables of their parents and grandparents(and in many cases their tables too) in the not so distant past.

Because, to a lot of them, their parents and grandparents' livelihoods may as well have been ancient history.

Nothing speaks to how much Labour deserted the "traditional working class base" (which I'm trying to say with as few dog whistles as possible), quite as much as how god-awfully out of touch they sound when they try and argue that they haven't.

In Authentocrats, Joe Kennedy recounts a story of Owen Smith feigning surprise at being served a cappuccino in a cafe, calling it a "frothy coffee" and saying that he "normally got it in a mug, not a posh cup". Because for all the Tories acting as if lattes and avocados are bywords for middle class luxury, you'll find an equal amount of middle class Labourites convinced that the working class plebs have never even conceived of either of them.

Similarly, to an 18 year old kid working on a zero hour, minimum wage contract in a call centre or in Sports Direct or an Amazon warehouse, or a 20 year old who's been out of work for a year, descriptions like "former mining town", or "post-industrial" are all but meaningless. These people are two or three generations removed from "mining town" being a meaningful description of where they live, but it's still the kind of language we use to talk about a lot of working class communities. Those two things combine to make it sound like Labour just aren't really talking to the people they've taken for granted for so long, whereas at least the Tories make a show of promising to fix their problems, even if there's absolutely zero evidence that they will.

 

There's also the question of what we actually mean when we talk about "working class people" and "working class areas" - are we talking about a social, cultural identifier, or a purely economic one? Is Bethnal Green, or Birmingham Ladywood, or Bradford, not a "working class area"? Are the BAME people disproportionately represented in the lowest percentiles of household income not working class voters?

The Tories have done very well out of reframing "working class" as a cultural category rather than a financial one, and we still talk about "the working class" in terms of coal-miners and flat capped Yorkshiremen with whippets, and not in terms of exploitative contracts, food banks and the gig economy, so the Syrian Uber driver or Romanian barman is excluded from conversations about "the working class" while landlords, property developers and the like consider themselves "working class" - and have that delusion pandered to - because they have the right accent. 

That's not to say that either party has fuck all to offer the flat capped, whippet-keeping Yorkshiremen either. 

 

Anyway, that had sod all to do with Covid - what matters now is that we've seemingly gone back in time to a tighter lockdown with a government promising surefire successful testing technology that likely doesn't even fucking exist, and in a month's time still won't exist, and they'll have stopped talking about it and starting blaming the public again.

[Keith Houchen]

13 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

 

There's also the question of what we actually mean when we talk about "working class people" and "working class areas" - are we talking about a social, cultural identifier, or a purely economic one? Is Bethnal Green, or Birmingham Ladywood, or Bradford, not a "working class area"? Are the BAME people disproportionately represented in the lowest percentiles of household income not working class voters?

A Tory plant on Question Time asked how Labour can reconnect with working class areas and listed white towns. Akala asked him why he mentioned those places in particular and not Tottenham, Tower Hamlets or Moss Side and pressed him for an answer. Then of course Chuka Umunna joined in the pressing and the Tory looked deflated. It was lovely and is on YouTube somewhere

Edit - around the 9:20 Mark. 

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by Keith Houchen

[Carbomb]

3 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

A Tory plant on Question Time asked how Labour can reconnect with working class areas and listed white towns. Akala asked him why he mentioned those places in particular and not Tottenham, Tower Hamlets or Moss Side and pressed him for an answer. Then of course Chuka Umunna joined in the pressing and the Tory looked deflated. It was lovely and is on YouTube somewhere

Yeh, love that moment. Akala's tremendous in general - been catching a lot of his interviews and lectures on YouTube. He's not presenting anything new in terms of social structures or relations, but that's because there isn't anything new to present, they're the same old problems, but he does provide a lot of detailed, historical information that really does help to give context to what's being debated, and why it's important to look at it from angles that have been either never considered, or were but have been forgotten.

[SuperBacon]

That's a cracking post @BomberPat

Had confirmation that our Monday night 5 a side football can continue. Which is too funny to be honest, that you can play there but not in a park. 

Fuck it, every one might as well just throw birthday parties and call them business meetings.

 

[David]

11 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

The Tories have done very well out of reframing "working class" as a cultural category rather than a financial one, and we still talk about "the working class" in terms of coal-miners and flat capped Yorkshiremen with whippets.

[PowerButchi]

10 hours ago, BomberPat said:

 

Similarly, to an 18 year old kid working on a zero hour, minimum wage contract in a call centre or in Sports Direct or an Amazon warehouse, or a 20 year old who's been out of work for a year, descriptions like "former mining town", or "post-industrial" are all but meaningless. These people are two or three generations removed from "mining town" being a meaningful description of where they live, but it's still the kind of language we use to talk about a lot of working class communities. Those two things combine to make it sound like Labour just aren't really talking to the people they've taken for granted for so long, whereas at least the Tories make a show of promising to fix their problems, even if there's absolutely zero evidence that they will.

 

 

Now, you see, in my constituency which was one of the most solid of the red wall, the youth vote wasn't the problem. 

The issue was people, several of them my friends, from 50-80 who were staunch Labour voters and remember or worked in industrial Rhos and Brymbo or Shotton who voted Conservative as Out Means Out and all that. 

The Youth vote in my area went massively Labour, to the extent that Plaid Cymru have had a huge influx of young members since Keir Starmer got in. And there a lot of anger about the selling of the water, and the end of coal and steel amongst local youth, far more than the middle aged. Almost to the point of romanticism.

"No one can afford a house without a trade, but trades are over subscribes but dad worked on steel, but steel/coal has gone so I'm fucked for life. Tory pricks" - if you get me. It's mine and the one below's generations "Thatcher took our milk". Although, when it comes to brass tacks it's the same as our father's and grandfather's "Thatcher took our jobs". I've never even so many smiles and handshakes as the party we had in the Oddfellows Arms when Thatcher carked it, and its a shame that so many of the men celebrating the cunt going to hell saw fit to vote Conservative. 

The Cofiwch Treweryn and Yes Cymru movements are huge amongst North Walian youth at the moment and there's large Facebook groups dedicated to it and people walking and spreading the word and there's posters and stickers and graffiti everywhere. Theres a real feeling of hope and a passion to fight. 

If it wasn't for the fucking Brexit vote the red wall would still exist.

And the saddest thing is that all those dyed in the wool Labour voters moved away to the tories to fuck off the EU, when the EU is a massive centre right Neo Liberal hole - essentially the Conservative party since Major to Cameron. And Labour should have attacked the last election from a Bennite point of view instead of making Corbyn pretend he was Denis Healey. "Listen lads, we've never liked the bastards anyway, here's our historic proof on the left. Blair did like them, but fuck him, we dislike him as much as you do". Moreover if Labour did take that tact and made it a Brexit vs Brexit vote against the Tories they wouldn't have lost out on votes as the Lib Dems are almost Jeremy Thorpe era levels of irrelevance now and people know that and would not waste their vote on them unless they live in the Shetland Isles or Cornwall. 

Labour's lack of understanding of their bread and butter ex trade unionist voters in the, let's say, more *ahem* old school *ahem* areas has fucked them forever. 

Now I'm happy with this all day, as there's now a thirst for Left Wing Nationalism in Wales (32% want independence according to latest polls which has pretty much come out of nowhere. The Welsh language areas of the West of Wales have always been so inclined as @garynysmon will attest to, but now its even hitting border areas like mine on the far east and its gaining huge momentum. Especially after realising that the Conservative MPs which were parachuted in for the last election are either absent or absolutely fucking useless) Scotland will have another referendum at some point, and Ireland will reunite as an independent nation in full in the next 25-30 years unless Westminster shit it and cause issues. 

England is fucked if you're left wing though. Absolutely fucked. 

Edited September 11, 2020 by PowerButchi

[Dead Mike]

8 hours ago, PowerButchi said:

Now, you see, in my constituency which was one of the most solid of the red wall, the youth vote wasn't the problem. 

The issue was people, several of them my friends, from 50-80 who were staunch Labour voters and remember or worked in industrial Rhos and Brymbo or Shotton who voted Conservative as Out Means Out and all that.

Fairly similar experience to mine. I live in a town that was historically Labour but has swung back & forward before a Tory landslide last year, I door knocked & leafleted round Stoke as my mum was standing as a Labour councillor (lost to the Tories) & once I'd actually been having conversations with people & getting the same message repeated over & over I knew Labour had fucked it. As you say, it was ALWAYS older voters & the message was ALWAYS 'I've voted Labour all my life but I'd never vote for Corbyn'. These people look at voting Labour the way an ex-smoker looks at ciggies or a Vegan looks at their meat eating days.

Quote

Labour should have attacked the last election from a Bennite point of view instead of making Corbyn pretend he was Denis Healey. "Listen lads, we've never liked the bastards anyway, here's our historic proof on the left. Blair did like them, but fuck him, we dislike him as much as you do". Moreover if Labour did take that tact and made it a Brexit vs Brexit vote against the Tories they wouldn't have lost out on votes as the Lib Dems are almost Jeremy Thorpe era levels of irrelevance now and people know that and would not waste their vote on them unless they live in the Shetland Isles or Cornwall.

I disagree with this bit, the Brexit referendum was always a far right power grab. When you looked at who was financing & championing it the idea that it could end up being a socialist win was just daft. In this case 'Lexiters' were just Gove & Cummings' useful idiots. The fact Jezza was as much (if not more) of a Brexiter than the likes of Rees Mogg & Johnson helped them. You had the situation where Farage was tweeting Corbyn speeches to help his cause & Labour were trying to please everyone (over 70% of Lab members were against Brexit) & pleasing nobody. Citing the idea of a 'jobs first Brexit' was ludicrous & was never going to win over the membership as they saw it for the bollocks it was. Every version of Brexit leaves the UK worse off, people poorer & costs livelihoods. The polical equivalent of trying to sell a 'pigs first' abbatoire.

 

All of this doesn't even take into account the way the Tories moved politics from policy to identity & culture. When you look at the 'new' Tories it's not people who are voting based on policy, it's a cultural division & it was something I didn't really understand until it was too late as I was still thinking about politics in historic terms. When people told me 'Labour have abandoned the working classes' I used to replay with polcies about increased workers rights, representation etc. but it was never about that. Labour was seen as a vote for the snowflakes. A vote for middle class, latte drinkiers who looked down on the rest of us. All the 'football lads' who now voted Tory weren't voting for the Tories, they were voting against Vegans, LGBTQ, Muslims, Refugees etc etc. Every time someone like Owen fucking Jones went on TV saying how horrendous Boris is for saying women in hijabs look like letter boxes or bank robbers & what disgusting behaviour this is you knew that there were a dozen blokes who had said the same exact thing in jest & had just been told that Labour thought they were scum.

Quote

England is fucked if you're left wing though. Absolutely fucked. 

100% & it's only going to get worse.

[Jazzy G]

Further to my earlier post here's some Viz Covid satire. 

[Cod Eye]

8 hours ago, PowerButchi said:

Now, you see, in my constituency which was one of the most solid of the red wall, the youth vote wasn't the problem. 

The issue was people, several of them my friends, from 50-80 who were staunch Labour voters and remember or worked in industrial Rhos and Brymbo or Shotton who voted Conservative as Out Means Out and all that. 

The Youth vote in my area went massively Labour, to the extent that Plaid Cymru have had a huge influx of young members since Keir Starmer got in. And there a lot of anger about the selling of the water, and the end of coal and steel amongst local youth, far more than the middle aged. Almost to the point of romanticism.

"No one can afford a house without a trade, but trades are over subscribes but dad worked on steel, but steel/coal has gone so I'm fucked for life. Tory pricks" - if you get me. It's mine and the one below's generations "Thatcher took our milk". Although, when it comes to brass tacks it's the same as our father's and grandfather's "Thatcher took our jobs". I've never even so many smiles and handshakes as the party we had in the Oddfellows Arms when Thatcher carked it, and its a shame that so many of the men celebrating the cunt going to hell saw fit to vote Conservative. 

The Cofiwch Treweryn and Yes Cymru movements are huge amongst North Walian youth at the moment and there's large Facebook groups dedicated to it and people walking and spreading the word and there's posters and stickers and graffiti everywhere. Theres a real feeling of hope and a passion to fight. 

If it wasn't for the fucking Brexit vote the red wall would still exist.

And the saddest thing is that all those dyed in the wool Labour voters moved away to the tories to fuck off the EU, when the EU is a massive centre right Neo Liberal hole - essentially the Conservative party since Major to Cameron. And Labour should have attacked the last election from a Bennite point of view instead of making Corbyn pretend he was Denis Healey. "Listen lads, we've never liked the bastards anyway, here's our historic proof on the left. Blair did like them, but fuck him, we dislike him as much as you do". Moreover if Labour did take that tact and made it a Brexit vs Brexit vote against the Tories they wouldn't have lost out on votes as the Lib Dems are almost Jeremy Thorpe era levels of irrelevance now and people know that and would not waste their vote on them unless they live in the Shetland Isles or Cornwall. 

Labour's lack of understanding of their bread and butter ex trade unionist voters in the, let's say, more *ahem* old school *ahem* areas has fucked them forever. 

Now I'm happy with this all day, as there's now a thirst for Left Wing Nationalism in Wales (32% want independence according to latest polls which has pretty much come out of nowhere. The Welsh language areas of the West of Wales have always been so inclined as @garynysmon will attest to, but now its even hitting border areas like mine on the far east and its gaining huge momentum. Especially after realising that the Conservative MPs which were parachuted in for the last election are either absent or absolutely fucking useless) Scotland will have another referendum at some point, and Ireland will reunite as an independent nation in full in the next 25-30 years unless Westminster shit it and cause issues. 

England is fucked if you're left wing though. Absolutely fucked. 

I've not seen the actual breakdown, but I believe the same thing happened here. The younger end were massively in favour or Labour/Corbyn and the older end were the stereotypical "send the buggers back" and "Brexit means Brexit" lot(see the infamous Channel 4 news video). I think it was only the fact that many of them would rather die than vote blue in a General Election that Labour managed to hold(the saying round here is put a red rose on a broom stick and it would win). The Tories even redefined the wards to include a more affluent areas in the poorer ones to dilute the vote. It worked for one ward, who voted blue thanks to wealthy Penistone area being included the ward.

Pat makes a great post about the younger ones being massively removed from the devastation that the Tories caused many Northern "Working Class" towns(not ignoring those further south, but I don't know enough about them). I lived through the miner's strike(my first memory is of my dad taking me to a soup kitchen at a local theatre on Christmas day as they couldn't afford a christmas dinner), and I've seen first hand what they did to my town, so I have made sure my kids know exactly what happened, and will do the same for their kids too. I know many others that do round here too...

[neil]

4 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:

Further to my earlier post here's some Viz Covid satire. 

God bless Viz. Vastly underrated.

[Harry Wiseau]

So the Birmingham Lockdown begins on Tuesday (obviously) but from whats been said so far it seems that it comes down to - you can't have anyone round your house. Pubs, restaurants, shops, leisure centres, bingo halls, cinemas, saunas appear to be ok but you can't have your mom (that's how it's said / written in Birmingham) round for lunch. So my parents now can't pick up my kids from school on a Friday when both myself and wife are at work but if my kids could walk to walk to the closest pub then they could sit with them? Nice and clear. and "Birmingham" is a bit vague, is it anyone with a B postcode? obviously it'll all be clarified shortly and make perfect sense. 

[Keith Houchen]

8 minutes ago, Harry Wiseau said:

you can't have your mom

We’ve all had yours anyway!

[deathrey]

I know that the restrictions include Sollihul and Sandwell but not sure about anywhere else.

 

 

[Guest]

I'm being sent a home testing kit to use (as part of an official study into the kinds of people who catch the virus), and it feels like I've landed a pre-order for a limited edition Sega Saturn Mini or something. Should I put it on eBay?