Thread by @doctorow

The US and the UK have been locked in a fierce competition since March, to see who can bungle their coronavirus response worse. The US is the clear leader here, both in per-capita deaths and infections and in elevating lethal junk-science to a conservative loyalty test.

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But the UK has put in a remarkable showing.

Remember "cumgate" (Prime Ministerial advisor Dominic Cummings' breathtaking violation of his own lockdown rules)?

theguardian.com/politics/2020/…

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Then there's Boris Johnson, who beat Trump in the who-gets-infected-first race by months.

For all that the UK has lost most of the events in Infection Olympics to its American cousins, it continues to lead in that most quintessentially ENGLISH of events: the omnishambles.

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Maybe it's the lower population or the high degree of inbreeding in the British upper classes, but whatever the secret is, you just can't beat HMG when it comes to awarding lucrative and vital contracts to bumbling politically connected insiders.

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The Tories are SO good at this that it's nearly impossible to keep up. That's where @sophie_e_hill's "My Little Crony" comes in, being an interactive visualisation tool for tracking and tracing the UK's world-beating incompetence and corruption.

sophieehill.shinyapps.io/my-little-cron…

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Drawing on public data sources from @openDemocracy, the @BylineTimes and elsewhere, Hills's visualiser lets you explore the connections between government contracts, political donations and the familial/corporate/social connections that link them.

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From shadowy offshore entities to dirty trickster PR agencies to those fun-loving lads and lasses at @SercoGroup, Hills gives us the red-yard-and-pushpin version of the mass-murdering, economy-destroying, NHS-worker-applauding Tory response to the virus.

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Have a rummage, you'll be furious you did!

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