Brixton coronavirus: local help, resources, business closures and news

[editor]

I took a walk around Brixton last night and then up to Clapham and back and it was heartbreaking and depressing seeing so many bars and restaurants grimly hanging on with barely a customer in sight. I passed one large restaurant that was completely empty, the Dogstar had about three people in it, Market House, PoW and others were closed, but the Albert seemed to have a few people in.*

(*this isn't a comment to encourage people to go out, but a reflection on how bad it's going to be for staff and businesses, all of whom have bills to pay)

Sainsburys on Water Lane was pretty much completely and totally bereft of food - even the freezers were empty - and although there was a bit more on offer in the Clapham Sainsbury's, there was absolutely zero fruit and veg. Happily I managed to get most of what I wanted from my local shop....

 

[nagapie]

81 confirmed cases in Lambeth. People really need to stay home and the government really need to come up with some coherent policies to make people feel safe. Also schools, closed but not really. Some schools reporting 60% will continue to attend. Many people I have spoken to not heeding the scant advice to only send children if both parents are key workers or sending to grandparents because they are too worried about loss of earnings.

 

[editor]

Yes please

Coronavirus: Streatham MP joins call for Emergency Universal Basic Income

Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy has added her support to a letter signed by a cross-party group of Parliamentarians calling for the Government to consider implementing an emergency Universal Basic I…

www.brixtonbuzz.com

 

[editor]

Shop updates:
TK Maxx and Foot Locker have closed. Pret is only takeaway now (and mainly been serving free coffees for NHS workers).

Greggs, Dominos and McD are also giving away food/drinks to NHS staff.

 

[editor]

This is what we're reduced to

 

[happyshopper]

Truly shocking. But it will perhaps be too easy to condemn. Low-income families who are forced to live hand to mouth and face the uncertainty caused by the Government's uncertain and often conflicting messages, will naturally want to take the safety first option.

 

[editor]

Truly shocking. But it will perhaps be too easy to condemn. Low-income families who are forced to live hand to mouth and face the uncertainty caused by the Government's uncertain and often conflicting messages, will naturally want to take the safety first option.

It's just all awful now - poor people having to fight their way into low cost supermarkets, rich people filling up their 4x4 boots with more food than they can possible eat in months, pub workers stuck between a rock and a hard place by risking their health to go into work - or not be able to pay for food.

And worst of all, a fucking useless dithering government who put profit before the health of the nation.

 

[Rushy]

Just been announced all pubs and restaurants to close tonight.
Government to pay pay grants covering up to 80% of the salary of workers kept on by companies, up to a total of £2,500 per month.

 

[editor]

I wonder how this compensation is going to work if people have already been laid off, or if they were casual zero hours workers?

 

[Winot]

Just been announced all pubs and restaurants to close tonight.
Government to pay people not working 80% of their salaries up to £2,500pcm.

The pubs thing had to come. Should have been earlier but perhaps they are eking out the bad news.

The salary thing is just extraordinary.

 

[Rushy]

The pubs thing had to come. Should have been earlier but perhaps they are eking out the bad news.

The salary thing is just extraordinary.

Even Frances O'Grady complimenting the chancellor on "real leadership".

 

[CH1]

Re shopping - I rather foolishly left it till 12 noon to set out for some bread & other sundries. Nothing available in Camberwell at all - at Lidl, the Co-op or Morrisons.

Came up trumps (just) by moving on to Peckham Lidl, where I got one of the last 49p own brand wholemeal loaves. Whilst I was at it I decided to get the very last seeded white loaf (if you don't count the one lying on the shelf ripped open).

If people hadn't been panicking I could have made do with my usual purchase - a 75p own brand Lidl seeded wholemeal loaf.

My Peckham Lidl experience was enhanced by a middle aged Rasta getting frustrated at the self service tills and ranting at high volume about Israel always looking out for black people. I'm not sure he and Jeremy Corbyn would've agreed on definitions there.

He seemed to be a regular - and about five previously invisible Lidl shelf-packers/stock-checkers sudden;ly materialised and asked him to leave the store.

Having had a satisfying shop, I repaired to the Kentish Drover, which was only half or a third full and had a pint of a really excellent guest ale. The barman/manager was kind enough to take cash. As regards closing etc. he said "We are the last to know".

 

[organicpanda]

I wonder how this compensation is going to work if people have already been laid off, or if they were casual zero hours workers?

according to the CBI anyone who was on the payroll on the 28th Feb will be entitled to it, I noticed the government was very vague as to zero hours contract workers and silent on the self-employed so I guess we can go fuck ourselves in their eyes

 

[nagapie]

Even Frances O'Grady complimenting the chancellor on "real leadership".

She must, as the teenagers I teach would say, have corona in the head.

 

[editor]

according to the CBI anyone who was on the payroll on the 28th Feb will be entitled to it, I noticed the government was very vague as to zero hours contract workers and silent on the self-employed so I guess we can go fuck ourselves in their eyes

Loads of pub workers and casual workers aren't on regular payrolls. They're going to be fucked and they;re some of the people who need the most support. And what happens if the company has gone bust?

 

[David Clapson]

The shops on Electric Avenue are overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables. I was there 5 minutes ago. It's like a time warp from last week. No queues. Bizarre. Meat and fish too. The only thing I couldn't get was eggs. Even the short shelf life stuff is there in adundant quantities - avocados, cherry tomatoes, strawberries...

 

[Rushy]

The shops on Electric Avenue are overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables. I was there 5 minutes ago. It's like a time warp from last week. No queues. Bizarre. Meat and fish too. The only thing I couldn't get was eggs. Even the short shelf life stuff is there in adundant quantities - avocados, cherry tomatoes, strawberries...

billythefish

 

[editor]

The shops on Electric Avenue are overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables. I was there 5 minutes ago. It's like a time warp from last week. No queues. Bizarre. Meat and fish too. The only thing I couldn't get was eggs. Even the short shelf life stuff is there in adundant quantities - avocados, cherry tomatoes, strawberries...

I'm going to do a feature promoting the small businesses when I get a chance.

 

[David Clapson]

I should have asked them what the secret is. Perhaps it's that their staff just don't stop? Some of them looked a bit haggard! Restocking of shelves was going on continuously, whereas in M&S and Sainsburys and Iceland at around 6pm there was nobody attempting to replace fruit and veg.
Presumably the independents get their stock from New Covent Gdn market. Clearly there's no shortage there yet.

 

[organicpanda]

Loads of pub workers and casual workers aren't on regular payrolls. They're going to be fucked and they;re some of the people who need the most support. And what happens if the company has gone bust?

I agree, for all the money they are saying is available (until you read the small print) there seems to be a complete lack of understanding of the day to day situation of a large proportion of the population and a complete lack of joined up thinking and of giving actual information, just a series of headline grabbing quotes that don't address the very real problems for a lot of people

 

[editor]

I should have asked them what the secret is. Perhaps it's that their staff just don't stop? Some of them looked a bit haggard! Restocking of shelves was going on continuously, whereas in M&S and Sainsburys and Iceland at around 6pm there was nobody attempting to replace fruit and veg.
Presumably the independents get their stock from New Covent Gdn market. Clearly there's no shortage there yet.

Plus people can't drive their enormous cars up to the shop and stuff their vast boots full of bulk-bought foodie booty.

 

[David Clapson]

I agree, for all the money they are saying is available (until you read the small print) there seems to be a complete lack of understanding of the day to day situation of a large proportion of the population and a complete lack of joined up thinking and of giving actual information, just a series of headline grabbing quotes that don't address the very real problems for a lot of people

That's what happens when an amoral newspaper columnist is given a country to run.

 

[Treacle Toes]

 

[Treacle Toes]

 

[CH1]

I thought he was introduced in an odd sort of way - like he represented charities (which AFAIK he doesn't).

 

[Gramsci]

For the big stores its a logistics issue.

I was at Nisa in LJ this evening at around 7pm. The staff were unloading lorry full of stuff into shop. As they were doing it people were asking for things.

I chatted to one of the staff and said how are you coping with all this. Toilet rolls, pasta were flying off the shelves. Told her I felt sorry for shop staff working now.

It was so mad in Nisa I walked out. All I wanted was the cheap beers.

This country is not short of food. Its short of NHS staff and equipment. If people would only not panic buy. Its not necessary. Its a sign that people don't trust the authorities.

Which reminds me read this today on the Blitz today by the historian Overy.

Why the cruel myth of the 'blitz spirit' is no model for how to fight coronavirus | Richard Overy

Wartime leaders disguised the awful reality of being bombed with tales of British resolve. It’s no fit approach for this crisis, says academic Richard Overy

www.theguardian.com

The idea of the nation all pulllng together like during the Blitz is a fantasy. In fact the Blitz caused panic and trauma for the citizens directly affected.

I don't blame people for panic buying. But I see it as symptom of society on the edge.

For decades we have been told the free market is best etc. Even the lessons of the last economic crisis were quickly forgotten. Once the scum in the City were bailed out the rest of us were given "austerity".

One thing is for certain under this government the City will bounce back out of this crisis.

 

[CH1]

I don't blame people for panic buying. But I see it as symptom of society on the edge.

I blame the government. I remember the sugar crisis in 1974. They had rationing then: one bag per person. And people accepted it.

The problem is that no-one in Britain has a proper job any more (apart from healthcare and rubbish disposal).
Now no-one works in a factory or does a craft like shoe repair or piano tuning. We are a nation of spivs and hustlers.
And of course Napoleon correctly observed the English are a nation of shopkeepers.

Shopkeepers meet hustlers - and you get

as per editor post #65

 

[Gramsci]

Wondered what you view on this twitter post is?

The twitter is wrong. He does not lead an organisation of independent owned independent business.

He works for an organisation called Brixton BID . Which is composed of business rate payers. Not just independent business.

Nor is he a leader. He is an employee of this hybrid of local state organisation that is presented as a community organisation.

I have real concerns about him. To much likes to see himself in the community leader role.

 

[Gramsci]

according to the CBI anyone who was on the payroll on the 28th Feb will be entitled to it, I noticed the government was very vague as to zero hours contract workers and silent on the self-employed so I guess we can go fuck ourselves in their eyes

Whiich is a big swathe of the working class in London. Something the middle classes don't understand.

I was chatting to someone who works for a City company. He is now working at home. He is already getting cabin fever. I said look you have still got a job and are being paid. What's the problem?

Im worried Im stuffed next week. The economy of this country works on basis of precarious workers and the rentier class ( Landlords as such like)

So far the landlords are going to be ok.

What I would like to see is ending of rent payments for two months across the board.

 

[editor]

Wondered what you view on this twitter post is?

The twitter is wrong. He does not lead an organisation of independent owned independent business.

He works for an organisation called Brixton BID . Which is composed of business rate payers. Not just independent business.

Nor is he a leader. He is an employee of this hybrid of local state organisation that is presented as a community organisation.

I have real concerns about him. To much likes to see himself in the community leader role.

Most Brixton businesses I know don't give a fuck about Brixton Bid. In fact, make that all.