Cummings will leave No 10 at the end of the year, just like he always said he would.
Media: "Oh my God, Cummings is leaving No 10!!! What does this mean???"
The state of these court stenographers.
Yesterday, I explained that Cummings's job will be done by the end of the year: the Brexit transition period will be over, ideally - from his point of view - with no deal, and his deregulatory dystopia will be locked in place.
All the rest is gossip.
Almost the entire media seems unable to distinguish between political journalism and court gossip.
All the while, real crises rage around the world. The biggest of them - the gathering collapse of our life support systems - is almost entirely ignored.
The media lives in a self-referential bubble of irrelevance, thrilled by its own gossip, unable to see our realities.
The greatest constraint on progress is the industry I work for.
It systematically distorts our understanding of the world.
This exemplifies the bullshit that passes for political journalism in the UK.
You can watch my very rare outing on the BBC today, here. You can see why they keep me off: bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod…
I'm grateful to have been allowed on air by @BBCPolitics, for the second time this year.
But it drives me mad that Farage and the dark money thinktanks are on every day, while it's an event to see anyone to the left of Keir Starmer.
We're considered extremists. They aren't.
I'm sorry to deflate the mood, but I think it's now time to face some cold realities. 1. It's brilliant that Trump lost, but Biden epitomises the reasons why Trump came to power: the neoliberal consensus that killed people's faith in politics. theguardian.com/books/2016/apr…
Thread/
2. As parties of the right and former left adopted similar neoliberal policies, disempowerment turned to disenfranchisement. Large numbers of people were drawn to the anti-politics that Trump seemed to represent.
3. Biden will take the reins just as the pandemic and accompanying economic crisis come to a head. Though he didn’t cause them, he will be blamed. He’s in danger of becoming the 21st Century’s Herbert Hoover.
New and exciting:
We're planning what we believe is the world's first live investigative documentary, @rivercide_live
It will investigate a massive and neglected issue: river pollution.
It's low-budget and entirely crowdfunded.
Please help: kickstarter.com/projects/frann…
Thank you!
Mainstream broadcasters have terribly neglected these issues, with the result that neither the polluters nor the UK's 4 governments are feeling any pressure to stop the death of our beautiful rivers. Bypassing the broadcasters, we'll use a new technique to focus public attention.
We have a great team of experienced film makers and investigators: @frannyarmstrong@nicolacutcher@nicky_nicholls, Peter Armstrong.
We're going to shake things up.
But we need your help.
💚
I understand the arguments for keeping schools open.
But why are we pretending that the measures required to make them safe have been taken?
That school staff won't die?
That outbreaks in schools won't spread into the community?
Please read and RT. Thanks theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Not a penny has been allocated by the government for the refurbishments required to make schools safe.
£500m was given to restaurants.
Billions to corporations in opaque, untendered contracts.
But NOTHING for schools. questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questi…
There was nothing very complicated about it.
The government could have spent the summer holidays carrying out an emergency programme of school works: ventilation systems, windows that open, Nightingale classrooms etc.
It did nothing.
Literally nothing.
The latest shocking coronavirus scandal:
Like the health department, the Department for Education has quietly replaced experienced clinicians with call centre workers employed by Serco. It's one reason why disaster looms in England's schools.
My column. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
The lockdown will be another failure without a massive, emergency programme of school refurbishment, extra premises and professional health advice. But no such help is on offer.
So school epidemics will spread back into the community, and we'll be stuck in the cycle again.
If the government had set out to screw this up, it couldn't have done a better job. The massive suffering caused by this pandemic will continue until it treats public health more seriously than corporate profits.
This is the kind of misinformation that can kill people.
Peter Hitchens vs Reality.
Note how @ClarkeMicah (Peter Hitchens) chooses a graph that ends just before the second peak begins, and tweets it *this morning* to suggest there is no peak. This is a genuinely dangerous act of spreading false information.
I'm afraid it is consistent with his record of climate science denial, his denial of atrocities in Syria, and other outrageous distortions of the truth.