UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

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Because a No Deal isn't exactly great for the EU either... but they don't seem to be biting yet.

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But the offal from the bazooka would still land on the EU.

There will be a deal at some point, the ultimate question is when and how much damage is done in the meantime.

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I'm seeing the projections for all this could be unemployment reaching close to 3 million. Considering we had that in the 1980s and the Tories still won two landslides...

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'Long Covid' seems to be for many "you're very tired for a few months after this" and "I'm anxious after suffering from a potentially deadly disease"; the jury is still out on how many people will have serious long-term health impacts.

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'Long Covid' seems to be for many "you're very tired for a few months after this" and "I'm anxious after suffering from a potentially deadly disease"; the jury is still out on how many people will have serious long-term health impacts.

‘Long Covid’ does seem to consistent with classic postviral symptoms; I wouldn’t say it’s something especially shocking.

Indeed. The West has become used to an environment without diseases of these ilk like TB and polio; our ancestors wouldn't have batted an eyelid at Covid-19 considering that they had plenty worse out there. I was reading about George V's older brother who died of "Russian flu", which is theorised by some to be a coronavirus that is now the common cold.

To be clear, I'm not an anti-masker - and I want my jab ASAP - but we need to be realistic about our response going forward, because this will not be our last pandemic.

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Well, he won a couple of European Parliamentary elections...

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The first episode of the original Spitting Image from 1984 is now available on YouTube via their official channel.

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They tend to favour strong prison sentences, for one thing.

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See George Blake has died.

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It would also severely damage UK-EU law enforcement cooperation.

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They also don't have a majority for this in the House of Lords (or in the commons, or even their own MPs)

The opinion polls on this have support at around 55% for certain more heinous murders like children or police officers.

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I trust the NHS will do the best it can to roll this out effectively; they've given a lot in all of this and I hope they get their just reward after.

Speaking of rewards, I think we'll be getting the honours list coming out shortly.

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The Honours List has come out.

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Gibraltar isn't part of the UK. Or indeed the Common Travel Area. Passport checks were already required and the territory voted overwhelmingly Remain.

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Indeed, far more like Part I. At least we have the vaccine now. If we didn't, we would have to find a new solution, because let's face it, this wasn't working.

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This is all very much "Do as we say, not as we do" and "the floggings will continue until morale improves".

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Never happened to me at my CLP meetings.

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"Follows Back Pro-European".

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It's quite good, isn't it? Certainly better than Davies' last show (Banana/Cucumber/Tofu), and I'd say better than QaF was back in the day, though I was much more partial to the American version of that anyway.

I actually thought It's a Sin really pulled its punches on the political commentary. The complacency, if not outright malevolence, of a lot of Tory and some Labour politicians at the time was much uglier   than the show depicted. Also, the AIDS activism in the series was a little glossy and pollyannaish for my taste, a la the 2014 movie Pride.

Not sure it was mentioned before, but there was a minor media scuffle about it when it aired. One of the semi-fascist papers referred to the sex scenes as 'explicit'* while referring to equally sexy depictions of straight intercourse in another show as 'steamy'. Homophobic double standards at their best.

*In fairness, the scenes were pretty graphic in that Russel T Davies/QaF/rimming sort of way.

I certainly don't disagree here; although an interesting defence I've seen is that the purpose was to show the impact on the part of the gay community which wasn't engaged until the mid/late 1980s- although a part about the utter horror of being one of those people on the switchboard or one of those activists could have been fleshed out if they had more episodes.

The scene where the main characters reject the early AIDS activists in the pub as 'scare-mongering because they can't get any' was sadly too true of the treatment that many faced.

There was a very minor discussion on twitter about the main character Richie confessing he voted Tory; this is something that was actually a lot more common than people think. Before the epidemic/Article 28 the 'gay' vote was certainly a lot Tory than people appreciate- I remember reading newspaper cuttings from some of the community press about the Miners strike and there was a strong disdain for the miners & their community (which was associated by some as being Macho, homophobic & the provincal community many gay people left as young adults)

The other interesting thing is that it seems the first time that the British response to HIV/AIDs is actually been discussed- a lot of people know about the American experience (no doubt due to Rent, Angels in America)

There was an amazing play on in London in 2018 called the The Inheritance which while dealing with the US side really put into perspective just what it did to an entire generation of gay men; including those who survived and had to live with it.

The Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco, a weekly paper for the community there, was regularly running a large number of obituaries for those who died of AIDS in the area and when they had an issue in 1998 where they had for once received no death notices, they made that fact the cover story.

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The man is 99 and spending five nights in hospital for "observation" does sound troubling.

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So, Piers Morgan has left Good Morning Britain. Good riddance.

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They did elect H'Angus The Monkey as mayor, you'll recall.

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Former Welsh Secretary Dame Cheryl Gillan (Con, Chesham and Amersham) has died aged 68.

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France uses Second Ballot, which is arguably even less representative. Also, as plenty of other countries demonstrate, PR doesn't give you good politicians.

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We haven't had a proper sex scandal yet. Then again, sex scandals are much harder to achieve these days - people expect politicians to sleep with prostitutes. It's only when it is non-consensual when it's an issue.