In a functioning state today should be decision day on harder lockdowns and school closures. Both the figures and the anecdotal evidence from medics saying SE England hospitals reaching capacity and staff reaching limits of resilience BEFORE the effects of Xmas relaxation seen 1/
2/ But this is a sociopathic government: no empathy, self-aggrandising claims, continual lying and manipulation, narcissism... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
3/ The decisions need to be taken sooner, not later. Schools and families need to plan; if the Nightingale shut-down has a logic, it needs to be explained. And there's no urgency in the public health comms...
4/ January looks like it will be dreadful: the mix of cases is changing (ignore the eugenics clickbait brigade - every life is worth saving!)...
5/ All crisis managers know time has two effects: you become better prepared but also capacity and resilience are degraded... eg hospital oxygen pipe systems reaching limits because of better treatment...
6/ All citizens ask of a government is that it honours the Hobbesian contract to keep them safe from chaos. Every day of dither and buck-passing by Tory ministers breaches this pact...
7/ One reason the Tories keep dithering is that every decisive action makes their indecisive prior actions look weak. Again, evidence of sociopathic attitudes at the centre of power... newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
8/ January's health crisis deserves its true appellation the #JohnsonWave

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Paul Mason

Paul Mason Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @paulmasonnews

29 Dec
By this morning it was clear there is an urgent case for a total lockdown, total schools closure and a new furlough scheme. What did the Tories do? Dithered. What did their outriders do? Demeaned the deaths over-60s with "conditions". By tonight - no action. Remember that...
... the exponential function does not wait for political kite flying, or for radio hosts to stop spewing lies, or for Xmas to be over... it doubles over time. Everything coming off the wards says it's horrendous now. HM Govt job is to take action...
Much as I want Wed 29/12 to be a debate about the Brexit deal it is totally secondary to saving lives. I urge MPs to stage a rebellion tomorrow unless the govt shuts all schools and imposes a new, urgent lockdown...
Read 7 tweets
21 Dec
The virus is out of control. Countries are closing their borders with the UK. 18m Brits have Xmas cancelled. No Deal Brexit chaos is 10 days away. Whose job was it to avoid this? Your Conservative MP ... 1/
2/ ... is there a political aspect to the border closures? You bet. Johnson squandered all goodwill with Europe with "gunboats in the channel" threat ... but it's just par for the course, as with the PPE scramble ... governments will protect the ppl who elect them
3/ Also to blame... BXP numbskulls. Destroying cross border solidarity in Europe has been their life's work. They wanted "control" ... now we know the consequences...
Read 5 tweets
18 Dec
1/ Liz Truss speech signals Tories planning a sustained onslaught on anti-racism, feminism, LGBTQ+ ... but I'm not going to resist it by defending Foucault. Postmodernism was a dead end for the left, as I said in #ClearBrightFuture...
2/ Truss claims modern anti-racism/feminism and therefore socialism has "no space for evidence" as truth and morality are relative... she's wrong because we didn't need pomo to be anti-racists... here's Lewisham 1977...
3/ I entered left politics in 1976 and I can tell you that the dominant rationale for feminism, black liberation politics and gay liberation had nothing to do with pomo... it was the Marxism of CLR James, Fanon, Rowbotham, Thompson, Berger...
Read 11 tweets
14 Dec
The genius of Le Carré's writing came from the tightly compressed class world he depicted: almost no proletariat (yet the entire ruling class in the 70s feared us); almost no sex; but the post-war middle class shown in fine-grained layers... 1/
2/ So as in private school staff room, every character framed within strict limits... and all characters defined by actions and voice... hence two great actors come up with very similar landing places, decades apart... (Rikki Tarr)
3/ As in Balzac and Dickens, all the characters are recognisable types - that's why we should drop the "spy novel" label - from a specific class formation and historical period, and yet become so real they never leave you...
Read 6 tweets
7 Dec
It's Brexit revisionism day... 1/ I pushed for Labour to adopt a Norway style deal a) after the Referendum and b) again from July 2018. Leadership said no both times... then in early 2019 came the research showing Labour was losing more Remain votes than Leave votes...
2/ Theresa May's deal was an *attack on the working class*. No Labour MP or trade union leader could have supported it. The options were Norway or Johnson's hard Brexit...
3/ For as long as possible many on Labour left held out for a Norway solution: single market, free movement - and there were signs the SNP would have gone for it...
Read 9 tweets
12 Nov
"Lee Cain - a Marxist Analysis" 1/ Vote Leave won, took over the Tory party and govt and then a) Covid b) Biden cancelled their essential project ... plus...
2/ Johnson is not stupid but lazy and has a short attention span ... he can't lead and has no vision so outsources everything to cronies ... but the "thin deal" creates a fork in the road ... meanwhile ...
3/ Everyone in govt knows that when the public reckoning happens over the late lockdown, Johnson and Cummings are toast... but there's a deeper problem of fiscal strategy ...
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!