Day of Chaos 2: a.Covid-19 thread.

[Tjm86]

Seems that Justice Department guidance is a lot clearer than Johnson's ....

[sheridan]

As for Morgan, it shows he has the capability to be a great journalist. Mostly, though, he's just a git. Still, I'll take him being on the side of good for now.

It's like those films where the bad guy allies with the good guy to deal with a greater threat, but once the threat is over they go back to being a bad guy again (and they have the element of surprise as the good guy has got used to them being on the same side).

[sheridan]

Seems that Justice Department guidance is a lot clearer than Johnson's ....

Nice use of Mega-history there - davywavy is either a dedicated Squaxx, or well-versed in the ways of using wikipedia to get background for an article :-)

[TordelBack]

Seems that Justice Department guidance is a lot clearer than Johnson's ....

Nice use of Mega-history there - davywavy is either a dedicated Squaxx, or well-versed in the ways of using wikipedia to get background for an article :-)

Nah, has to be a genuine SdK - that's deep knowledge on display there.

[JayzusB.Christ]

As for Morgan, it shows he has the capability to be a great journalist. Mostly, though, he's just a git. Still, I'll take him being on the side of good for now.

It's like those films where the bad guy allies with the good guy to deal with a greater threat, but once the threat is over they go back to being a bad guy again (and they have the element of surprise as the good guy has got used to them being on the same side).

I've seen it comparef to Godzilla versus Mothra.

[shaolin_monkey]

As for Morgan, it shows he has the capability to be a great journalist. Mostly, though, he's just a git. Still, I'll take him being on the side of good for now.

It's like those films where the bad guy allies with the good guy to deal with a greater threat, but once the threat is over they go back to being a bad guy again (and they have the element of surprise as the good guy has got used to them being on the same side).

I was thinking he was like the guy in a huge epic who starts off as a complete bastard, and gradually over time starts redeeming himself.  Ultimately he ends up making the ultimate sacrifice, and completes his arc by going over the edge of a high place, dragging the truly evil dude with him.  Which hopefully in this case will be Cummings.

[Professor Bear]

That an opportunist like Morgan is the highest-profile critic of the government says more about the state of the British media class than it does Morgan's abilities as an interviewer.  By all means enjoy the spectacle of his "taking down" Tory nonentities and giving the illusion of accountability, but it's merely a spectacle, nothing more.  He has always been dreadful and that hasn't changed.

Anecdotally, I can actually remember Morgan's tenure as a supposedly left-wing figure in British political journalism (which wasn't a difficult trick for a centre-right populist to pull off during the Blair premiership), as he made an effort to become a minor celebrity pundit back before such an ambition was made considerably easier by the rise of tv programming that required a factory line of minor celebrities to feed it.  He spent years at the helm of the Daily Mirror pulling the paper towards the right-wing politics of Blairism while simultaneously complaining about the Guardian being seen as the face of British leftism and winning awards that for some reason Morgan felt belonged to the Mirror purely because it had higher sales (though this animosity didn't stop him giving multiple interviews to the Guardian, in which he repeatedly and rather ungraciously lambasted the paper and its readership as out of touch and unrepresentative).  He came off as a preening arsehole, tbh, and I think most people dismissed him as destined for oblivion before tv's inexplicable hunger for angry gammon (like there was a fucking shortage) gave him a boost.

[IndigoPrime]

"the right-wing politics of Blairism"

Seriously? I know you're no fan of Blair, but...

[Professor Bear]

Relatively speaking.

[Funt Solo]

I recall people talking about New Labour having shifted the party well to the right as it tried to catch up with the Tories.

We have this:

A YouGov opinion poll in 2005 found that a small majority of British voters, including many New Labour supporters, place Blair on the right of the political spectrum.

And then his support for much of what Thatcher did - here, a quote from the horse's mouth:

much of what she wanted to do in the 1980s was inevitable, a consequence not of ideology but of social and economic change

On the other hand, Labour (New or otherwise) always a much stronger supporter of public services than the Landed Toffs Tories.

Sources (that have sources):
  Blairism
  Tony Blair

[IndigoPrime]

Objectively, though, it's just bollocks that Blair was of the right. Yes, he wasn't at the Corbyn edge of the party, but Labour's policy platform during much of his time was progressive and helped a lot of people. That this was twinned with some more authoritarian (vs liberal) tendencies doesn't make him right wing either.

[Funt Solo]

I guess it would be fair to say he's not right-wing by your definition but he is by some other peoples. I don't really have a clear idea in my head of where the divide would be between left and right. Or, as the aging barmaid (misnomer) at my first local would always tell me: "Shower o' c*nts!"

[I'm all distracted now by whether my "peoples" in that context requires an apostrophe.]

[IndigoPrime]

By some people's definition, even the Green Party are right wing. (Yes, I've had angry Corbynites lob that one my way.) But in any rational look at British politics, Blair was not right wing. To the right of his party, sure. But if he's right wing, that makes the Lib Dems of the era far right, and the Tories, what, actual extremists?

[sintec]

I always felt Blair sat pretty firmly in the centre ground - which is certainly to the right of some of his parties members (and to the right of my own views) but he was no Rees-Mogg. The problem with it was it resulted in there being no real opposition from a left wing perspective for a long while and that arguably allowed the Overton window to be dragged towards the right. That is more a flaw in our 2 party system than anything else though.

[Bolt-01]

Ahem - take this to where it should be lads.