UK General Election 8th June: Shake it all about?

[Cain]

No, he promoted one.

Suella Braverman, last seen saying "As Conservatives, we are engaged in a battle against cultural Marxism" last year, is now Attorney General.

[LMNO]

I'm not sure that's what's meant by "Intersectional Feminism".

[Cain]

Are you suggesting we shouldn't have government officials repeating antisemitic conspiracy theories frequently invoked by Neo-Nazi terrorists in their attacks? That seems a bit narrow-minded, don't you think? Somewhat prejudiced, dare I even say bigoted?

[LMNO]

Look, I'm just asking questions here.

[Doktor Howl]

If the human race was a horse, it would have to be shot.

[P3nT4gR4m]

If the human race was a horse, it would have to be shot.

If a horse was in the same state as the human race would you bother wasting a bullet?

[Junkenstein]

Javid out before he can even do his first budget.

That's probably the saviest political move he will ever make. Avoids having his name tied to the inevitable deal/no deal situation and hs2 among many others.

Ledsom finally out as well. Presumably because Cummings no longer needs her sect of 12 ish mps.

With the promotions and various others staying in place (raab/Hancock) it's looking like a grand show of incompetent shit to come. One may even eclipse grayling and hs2 just might be that shitshow. A minister is coming for that and I doubt it will be anyone capable of finding their arse with both hands and an atlas.

[Cain]

I see we have successfully managed the pivot from "if Labour will get in, they will kill all the Jews" to "just because eugenics is immoral doesn't mean it won't work, and what's the big deal about having so many eugenicists advising the government anyway" in record time.

[Faust]

I see we have successfully managed the pivot from "if Labour will get in, they will kill all the Jews" to "just because eugenics is immoral doesn't mean it won't work, and what's the big deal about having so many eugenicists advising the government anyway" in record time.

Just over a month? Its almost as if they were just using the antisemitism as a lever in the last election, and they secretly harbored even worse views

[Cain]

A lot of polls actually show a lot of very abhorrent views on both Muslims and Jews in the Tory party. I guess that's what happens when you spend a decade pandering to the extreme right and co-opting all the parties to the right of you...you become a home to extremist, racist lunatics.

[Faust]

And over the last two years any support it could get for brexit uber alles probably meant they needed to rely on shady folk to vote stuff through, it seems to be a symptom of parties that need to win with first past the post, with proportional representation and transferable vote it sands the worst edges off the parties and allows them to fragment to increase the chance of other parties going in.
Otherwise each of the big two will go further and further out to the extreme fringes

[Doktor Howl]

A lot of polls actually show a lot of very abhorrent views on both Muslims and Jews in the Tory party. I guess that's what happens when you spend a decade pandering to the extreme right and co-opting all the parties to the right of you...you become a home to extremist, racist lunatics.

What's funny is that it doesn't matter if they started out pandering.  You say something often enough, you'll believe it.

[The Johnny]

In Germany recently, some politician guy got elected by a small margin because he made an alliance with the ultra-right... at his swearing in ceremony or something like that instead of shaking his hand they threw funeral flowers at his feet as a symbol of either a death of his political career or of democracy (?)...

My point is that he was so publicly shamed by EVERYONE that he ended up resigning the position... not like this could possibly happen in any other country that I could imagine, but at least its a template of how things ideally should work.

[Pergamos]

And over the last two years any support it could get for brexit uber alles probably meant they needed to rely on shady folk to vote stuff through, it seems to be a symptom of parties that need to win with first past the post, with proportional representation and transferable vote it sands the worst edges off the parties and allows them to fragment to increase the chance of other parties going in.
Otherwise each of the big two will go further and further out to the extreme fringes

I'd really love to see the Democrats in the US going to the fringe, for some reason only the Republicans do...

[Cain]

A good thing we didn't think the NHS needed more funding or anything

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/03/icu-doctor-nhs-coronavirus-pandemic-hospitals

ICU treats patients whose lives are at risk or whose organs have failed. Severe Covid-19 leads mostly to lung failure but also causes kidney and cardiovascular (heart and blood vessel) failure. All these are rapidly fatal without intense and prompt treatments only available in ICU. In simple terms, treatments include a ventilator taking over the patient's breathing while the patient is anaesthetised (placed in an induced coma), a dialysis machine cleaning the blood and drugs or machines supporting the heart and blood pressure. The reality of care is, of course, considerably more complex and highly intensive.

So let's look at some statistics: it is likely that more than 30% of the whole UK population will get Covid-19 – it may be as high as 60% in some estimates. Most will have no or mild illness but maybe one in seven will need hospital admission. Of patients in hospital up to one in five may need ICU care – that would be an unprecedented number of people admitted to ICU. As many as one in 50 of patients known to have Covid-19 may die from it.

ICU is a precious and scarce resource in terms of beds, staff and equipment. This is especially so in the UK. In 2012 the UK had about 4,100 critical care beds including ICU beds and "high dependency" beds which are a step down from full ICU care. Compared with other European countries the UK ranked 23rd of 31 in terms of ICU beds per head of population and 29th of 31 for all hospital beds. Germany has approximately four times as many ICU beds per capita as the UK and the USA perhaps 10-fold as many. Data from 2017 suggest little change. Most UK ICUs therefore run at or above 90% occupancy and often can only admit new patients only by discharging others – even when workload is normal. Covid-19 will increase pressures not only because of weight of numbers but because intermediate treatments for pneumonia and lung failure are "aerosol-generating" (ie they risk spreading the disease) so cannot be used and early recourse to ICU is required.

Increased ICU demands equate to each ICU bed being needed for approximately 100 more patients than on average in the epidemic period – at least 10 times the normal throughput and equivalent to needing at least another 10 ICUs in the hospital during the epidemic. Of course, this demand will be in addition to, rather than instead of, normal workload as the illnesses that usually require ICU admission will not go away during the epidemic. In Wuhan, ICU capacity was increased by over 1,000 beds in two weeks by building a new hospital, but this is not possible in the UK.

And on and on and on.

If only we'd had some kind of party, running on a platform of reversing the disastrous NHS cuts of the past decade...