Quite a short update today I’m afraid. It was my youngest son’s 12th birthday yesterday and being with him and making sure he’s having a nice time have kept me busy. Longer one tomorrow, I hope.
Moral Relativism and the Collapse of the Rule of Law
This is a blog post I wrote for the Telegraph in the immediate aftermath of the riots that engulfed many of England’s cities for four days in the summer of 2011. It was published on 11th August 2011. I thought I’d post it today, given the disturbances we witnessed in London yesterday.
Towards the beginning of Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s masterpiece about a group of teenage boys marooned on a desert island, a scene takes place in which the most vicious of the boys, Roger, throws stones at a younger boy whose sandcastle he’s just knocked down:
Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.
Rupert Myers, a barrister, quotes this passage in an interesting article about the riots in the Lawyer. He makes the point that the law cannot be upheld by the naked exercise of state power alone. To a great extent it depends upon consent. There is a whole network of feelings and beliefs, some of them conscious, others not, reinforced by conventions and taboos, that underpins the rule of law. Once these constraints fall away, the whole edifice becomes much more fragile. If the sole bulwark against anarchy is fear of getting caught – fear of the police and the punishment the lawbreakers will receive if they’re hauled before the courts – then the centre cannot hold.
It was this fear that evaporated in some of England’s cities on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. Among crowds of young people, the collective belief in the power of the state collapsed and, to paraphrase Yeats, the blood-dimmed tide was loosed. There was a kind of mass realisation, reinforced by the television coverage, that if enough people broke the law simultaneously the police were powerless to do anything about it.
It’s tempting when assessing the causes of these riots to blame the police and the courts for being too soft – and, by extension, the social liberalism of politicians on both side of the divide, with their concern for human rights and reluctance to appear too authoritarian. (See John McTernan’s column in today’s Telegraph for a powerful expression of this view.) Certainly, the immediate remedy is to strengthen police numbers, give them the license to respond to outbreaks of disorder more robustly and instruct the courts to hand out tougher sentences. Who knows, these changes may even become permanent as public opinion on law and order takes a hard Right turn. In light of recent events, Kenneth Clarke’s proposed reforms of the criminal justice system and the Government’s cuts to the police seem completely idiotic – a gold embossed invitation to criminals to run riot. The Sun and the Daily Mail had it right.
But in the long term we’ll have to address the deeper causes of these riots. Fear of getting caught will never be enough – the rule of law depends upon consent. By “deeper causes” I don’t mean social deprivation or youth unemployment. The eye-opening revelation of the Court hearings today and yesterday is that there’s no such thing as a typical rioter, as Andrew Gilligan makes clear in his vivid account. So far, those arrested and charged include an 11-year-old girl, a 31-year-old primary school teacher and the 19-year-old daughter of a company director who is currently at Exeter University. The participation of those from relatively affluent backgrounds, either in full-time education or full-time employment, makes a nonsense of the knee-jerk responses of Ken Livingstone and Harriet Harman, blaming cuts to the Education Maintenance Allowance, among other things.
However, the fact that the rioters defy easy classification should also give conservatives pause for thought. In the House of Commons today, David Cameron said that tackling gang culture would be a “national priority”, but the 17-year-old ballerina who appeared in Westminster magistrates court for stealing two television sets from the Croydon branch of Richer Sounds isn’t a gang member. Some of the rioters in London were African-Carribean teenage boys, to be sure, but we don’t even know at this stage if they were in the majority and, judging from the television pictures, most of the rioters in Birmingham and Salford were white. It seems likely that those involved in the disturbances were not, predominantly, from one ethnic group or from any particular socio-economic background. The sickness that David Cameron referred to on the steps of Downing Street yesterday is endemic and all-pervasive.
The root of the problem is that the bonds of civilisation – the whole panoply of conventions and taboos that Golding refers to in the above passage – have become too weak. In our increasingly diverse and multicultural society, the only values that command anything like universal assent are procedural ones – ethics, rather than morality. We’ve been taught to value tolerance and mutual respect and to abhor racism and homophobia – essential conventions if all the different “communities” are to get along – without being asked to believe in anything substantial to anchor those conventions in. On the contrary, the prevailing orthodoxy that’s taught in our schools and universities is that one set of substantive moral values is no better than any other and to claim otherwise is to risk appearing racist or sexist. Indeed, there’s a widespread belief that the survival of the procedural conventions depends upon a general skepticism about anything deeper or more meaningful – that the one strengthens the other. In fact, as we witnessed in England’s cities earlier this week, moral relativism does not lead to peace, love and understanding but to a kind of Hobbesian nihilism. Far from propping up the procedural values we’ve come to depend on, moral relativism has left them fatally weakened. As Yeats observed in his prophetic poem, the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
This is what Angela Merkel had in mind when she talked about the failure of multiculturalism and what David Cameron meant when he said we had to reject the wishy-washy liberalism of the progressive Left in favour of something more muscular and robust. Where they’re both wrong is in thinking that the problem lies with ethnic or religious minorities who refuse to embrace our liberal democratic values and the framework or rights and responsibilities that goes with them. Clearly, that is a problem when it comes to certain sections of our Muslim populations, but the bigger challenge is how to persuade our indigenous peoples to embrace those values. As Daniel Hannan points out in a blog post today, the response of Tariq Jahon, a Muslim, to his son’s death in Birmingham on Monday night was more authentically British than the behaviour of the Caucasians who looted the Bullring. The same goes for members of other ethnic groups who stood up to the rioters:
The Turkish shopkeepers and restaurateurs who patrolled Dalston, the Sikhs who stood with drawn swords before their temple, are reacting as generations of British people reacted in similar circumstances. Rather than simply whining about the failure of the state, they took responsibility.
The problem with multiculturalism is not that different ethnic and religious groups can never peacefully co-exist, or that certain immigrant groups can never be persuaded to embrace our way of life. Rather, it’s the taboo it introduces against the teaching of substantive moral values to anyone, not just members of particular “communities”. It creates a general reluctance to promote any values other than procedural ones. The result is far too many people cast adrift, black and white alike, imagining they believe in something only to discover, when social order breaks down, that they believe in nothing.
Perhaps the root of the problem is the progressive Left’s conviction that mankind is essentially good. After all, if you think human beings are fundamentally benign and altruistic, then failing to teach them about right and wrong isn’t going to pose any major problems. They’ll just get along regardless. But the lesson of Lord of the Flies is that this is sentimental and naive. Released from the bonds of civilisation, human beings will quickly descend into cruel, atavistic creatures who pursue their own selfish interests at the expense of everyone else’s. Sigmund Freud got it right when he pointed out that men are not gentle creatures who just want to be loved. On the contrary, they are fundamentally territorial and aggressive:
As a result, their neighbour is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus. Who, in the face of all his experience of life and of history, will have the courage to dispute this assertion?
That’s what we witnessed during the four days of rioting – Homo homini lupus. It’s a mistake to see the rioters as belonging to a particular ethnic group or as being “outsiders”, as some local MPs claimed. They were just ordinary people who’ve been insufficiently socialised, members of all communities and none. What they lack isn’t material wealth or meaningful employment, but a moral framework that enables them to see that smashing shop windows and setting fire to cars – and stealing – is wrong.
For four nights, those precious six yards that protected the boy in Lord of the Flies were breached. Unless we reject the moral relativism that has led to this sickness, they’ll be breached again.
Professor Lockdown Blows Himself Up
Great column by Dan Hodges in today’s Mail on Sunday entitled “Professor Lockdown tried dropping a dirty bomb on Boris… and blew himself up“. It’s about Neil Ferguson’s attempt to blow up Boris when he testified before MPs on Wednesday by claiming half as many people would have died from COVID-19 if the UK had just locked down a week earlier. As Dan points out, Professor Ferguson wasn’t saying that in the run-up to lockdown in March, as the SAGE minutes make clear.
Shortly after the story broke about his study that triggered the Government into imposing full lockdown, Ferguson was asked if Ministers had been too late in safeguarding the nation.
“Overall, I think we have got the timing about right,” he responded. So whatever brought him to last week’s assessment that lockdown was too late, that wasn’t his view back in March, when it actually mattered.
But there is another major problem facing Ferguson and his fellow revisionists. For months the Government’s opponents have been demanding publication of the famous ‘SAGE Minutes’.
These tablets of stone would, we were told, finally reveal the truth about the extent to which Boris and his Ministers really were ‘following the science’, and how far the fight against COVID-19 had been undermined by political expediency.
And those opponents were right. When they were published a week ago – to little fanfare – they did reveal the truth.
Worth reading in full.
Latest Death Data, Deconstructed
A reader has been in touch to point out that today’s NHS England’s headline figure of 27 deaths only includes four that were recorded yesterday. The 27 were made up as follows:
- 11/4 – 1
- 1/5 – 1
- 28/5 – 1
- 10/6 – 2
- 11/6 – 3
- 12/6 – 15
- 13/6 – 4
The total for the whole of Britain today is 36, a 53% fall on last Sunday’s total of 77.
Is the Two-Metre Rule Heading For the Scrapheap?
Rishi Sunak appeared on Sophy Ridge this morning and gave the strong impression that the two-metre rule is not much longer for this world, given the drag it will impose on our economic recovery. He told the Sky presenter that the Government is “urgently” looking at whether the social distancing rules can be relaxed to boost shops and allow more pubs and restaurants to reopen.
Later in the day, Boris went on a walkabout in Westfield Stratford and talked to shopkeepers preparing for tomorrow’s reopening. He also gave the impression the two-metre rule will soon be ditched. He told reporters:
As we get the numbers down, so it becomes one-in-a-thousand, one-in-sixteen-hundred, maybe fewer, your chances of being, two metres, one metre or even a foot away from somebody who has the virus are obviously going down statistically, so you start to build some more margin for manoeuvre, and we’ll be looking at that and keeping it under constant review.
The tricky thing will be persuading the public that it’s safe to abandon the two-metre rule, given how successful “Project Fear on steroids” has been – a point made in this piece by the Telegraph’s Chief City Commentator Ben Marlow. A YouGov survey of almost 3,700 adults has found that 58% wanted to preserve the two-metre rule, with just 24% favouring a reduction to one metre and only 8% wanting it scrapped. Give me strength.
Powerful Critique of Epidemiological Modelling by Theoretical Physicist
Lockdown Sceptics has published an original article today entitled “Canaries in the Mine” by Dr Rudolph Kalveks, a retired executive with a PhD in theoretical physics. It’s a powerful critique of the models relied upon by Professor Neil Ferguson and others in trying to predict the course of the pandemic across a range of countries and argues that simpler, less sophisticated models provide a better fit with the data. This is his conclusion:
Countries across Europe have been easing their lockdowns since May 4th and, if only 10% of susceptible populations had been exposed to Covid, the potential for a subsequent sizeable second wave would be significant. However, no such signal has appeared amongst the fatality statistics to date. This in turn undermines the claims of the UK Government to be “following the science” when it persists with a lockdown and introduces travel quarantine measures (that would normally be associated with the early stages of an epidemic) at a time when a straightforward epidemiological analysis of the data indicates that the epidemic is substantially over.
I’ve created a permanent home for this piece in the right-hand menu as a subpage of “How Reliable is Imperial College’s Modelling?” Worth reading in full.
Can’t Get a Birth Certificate? Contact Your MP
The reader who got in touch a few weeks ago to say she wasn’t able to get a birth certificate for her newborn has been in touch to say she’s now managed to get one.
About two weeks ago I decided to email my local MP explaining that I couldn’t get my daughter’s birth certificate. Within a couple of days Lambeth were in touch with me and today the certificate arrived… annoyed I didn’t think to do this sooner and also very surprised it worked.
Any parents of newborns out there, you now know what to do.
Round-Up
And on to the round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘As the Left now controls every lever of power, we face nothing less than Regime Change‘ – Peter Hitchens with a typically gloomy analysis of our current situation in today’s Mail on Sunday
- ‘Anonymous Berkeley Professor Shreds BLM Injustice Narrative; Berkeley Responds‘ – Zero Hedge has reprinted the now withdraw letter about BLM purporting to be by a black history professor at UC Berkeley
- ‘Is There Still Room for Debate?‘ – Excellent column by Andrew Sullivan on the Maoist cultural revolution sweeping American journalism
- ‘The Tom Cotton Op-Ed and the Cultural Revolution‘ – Similar column on the same subject by Ross Douthat in the New York Times
- ‘The American Press Is Destroying Itself‘ – And a third piece on the same theme by Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi
- ‘Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police‘ – Rabble-rousing New York Times op ed that could well result in people becoming less safe – the pretext for getting rid of the editor who published the op ed by Tom Cotton. Don’t suppose anyone will lose their jobs over this one, though. Incidentally, the author, Mariame Kab, was a Soros Justice Fellow in 2016-17
- ‘On board the Diamond Princess: the coronavirus cruise from hell‘ – Sunday Times magazine piece based on interviews with the people on board
- ‘Inside the Swedish city that may prove the country’s strategy was right all along‘ – The Telegraph reports from a Swedish coastal city that’s been largely unaffected by the pandemic
- ‘No 10 tells it like it isn’t. So we make the rules‘ – Matthew Syed in the Sunday Times is becoming increasingly disillusioned by the Government’s handling of the crisis
- ‘Pub landlords in talks with officials for later last orders‘ – Every cloud, as they say
- ‘Primary schools told they can open fully with 15-pupil class size cap‘ – The Telegraph reports on what sounds like a concession by the Government on the reopening of primary schools, but isn’t, as far as I can tell. Few primaries can reopen in full if they have to observe the 15-pupil “protective bubbles” because they don’t have enough staff or classrooms
- ‘Let’s never have another shutdown‘ – Lockdown Sceptic Luke Johnson makes the case in the Sunday Times for avoiding another shutdown
- ‘iPads, sleep pods, wellness hubs – how NHS is spending Captain Tom’s charity donations‘ – Not sure I’d be happy about this if I’d contributed
- ‘Shoppers Brawl Over One-Way Arrows At Store‘ – Funny story in the Smoking Gun. Suggests that the arrows on shop floors may not be great at ensuring shoppers keep their distance from each other
Theme Tune Suggestions From Readers
Just the one suggestion today: “Time Loves a Hero” by Little Feet. Relevance? The lustre of heroes, including those we put up statues to, fades with time. Incidentally, the pollster Opinium has found that over half of UK adults (55%) say they disapprove of the protestors who pulled down Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol, versus only 25% who approved. Approval for the protestors is highest in London, at 42%.
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
A few weeks ago, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have reopened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have opened near you. Please visit the page and let us know about those brave folk who are doing their bit to get our country back on its feet.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. It takes me many hours every day, which doesn’t leave much time for other work. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. Alternatively, you can donate to the Free Speech Union’s litigation fund by clicking here, and join the Free Speech Union here. Incidentally, the Mail on Sunday has a good piece about Stu Peters, the Manx Radio DJ suspended for challenging the concept of “White Privilege” whom the Free Speech Union is defending. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here.
And Finally…
This video of Michael McIntyre visiting a fortune teller before lockdown is very funny. The first thing the fortune teller tells him, after gazing into his crystal ball, is that he won’t be working as a comedian soon, but as a substitute teacher and amateur hairdresser and the uniform he’ll be wearing to perform these jobs will be track suit bottoms and the T-shirt he slept in the night before. I know how he feels.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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What the world needs now:
https://youtu.be/lAacOHkQMzw
Current thinking for Scotland:
https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1272613755298426880
Current thinking on COVID-19: (thread) 1. This virus is too dangerous to let spread through a population unchecked. Not only bc of health services capacity & deaths in elderly/vulnerable groups, but also because of the morbidity it causes. Not the flu but a multi-system disease.
Countries cannot stay in lockdown forever, or even until a vaccine. Cannot expect people to shield indefinitely & kids need to be back in school, shops/pubs open, & 1m v. 2m misses larger issue that kids need to play together & even at 1m many businesses not financially viable.
The ‘least worst’ path out ‘test/trace/isolate’ will be stretched when winter hits & flu symptoms rise which can be the same as COVID symptoms. Already hard for hospitals to categorize patients (green/red/amber) without testing them. 2nd winter lockdown needs to be avoided.
Increasing # of countries attempting/succeeding at national elimination (get rid of virus w/ border screening) like Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, Faroe Islands, Iceland, New Zealand & E.Asian countries. They can form safe ‘travel bubble’ & wait for other countries to join them.
Instead of living with constant threat of Covid-19, people might start asking… Read more »
So it’s facemasks for at least a year then.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/15/fears-face-mask-vigilantes-bus-boss-warns-issues-might-arise/
Ah, the good old “new normal” again. Please wake me up! This MUST be a nightmare.
Just watching this video which is very interesting, particularly as it was recorded on March 20th.. very prescient.. https://vids.theoven.lol/video/1385/d-e-sub-corona-the-collapse-of-the-system—corona-und-der-herbeigefuhrte-crash-ernst-wolff-?channelName=Anonymous
Always good to be sure who the utter see you next Tuesdays are.
Agreed… a badge of dishonour is always a welcome sight when it comes to sizing someone up.
You are doing a fantastic job, but I feel it is like the Resistance blowing up the occasional train, when what we are waiting for is D-Day.
The “death” statistics are clearly wrong. The BBC reporting is clearly deceitful. The “science” is clearly ignorant.The NHS is almost empty. And yet it is taboo to mention these facts. Dr. Atul Gawande: quite often the doctors just don’t know, and the autopsy results (when done) are not what they expected.
We have a powerful nexus of the BBC (I’d say the broadcast media, but the problem is the BBC), the public health professionals, and elected politicians subservient to both. They don’t give a ** about the cost, because it has no impact on them personally. A simple rule, 80% pay up to max £2,500 for any public sector worker not at their normal place of work, would see lockdown disappear like morning mist.
Watching the Q&A in ITV. Karol Sikora clearly muzzled to some degree but still positive. What the fuck is the ITV Corona safety message though? Virus can live on cardboard for up to 24hrs! Can live on metal for 2-3 days! Tiny droplets can travel at least two metres! 19 times more likely to speed indoors! Why the crap did we lockdown and stay indoors? Bloody joke, patronising and scaremongering extraordinaire.
So what’s the solution?
Complete disengagement from media and polity. Eventually, a parallel, underground civilisation will evolve. We’re already seeing the seedlings… those hairdressers and shop-keepers prepared to ignore the whole lockdown thing, advertising through word of mouth.
We’ve all had a good hard lession in exponentiation over recent weeks.. So long as everyone who knows about a product or service tells 2 people…
seems that people are just getting on with it
Keep buggering on.
Try to persuade your fellow citizens around to your point of view, by whatever means you have at your disposal. Support other like-minded individuals and businesses/organisations.
Try to stay sane.
As far as possible, withdraw financial and other support from anywhere that pushes the “new normal”, making clear your reasons.
Opinion is beginning to change. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think it will change enough to move us back to normal. The human social instinct is powerful.
I think the tapering off of the furlough will wake a good few people up!
It’ll help, for sure. Be nice to think we’ll be over it by then anyway though, every passing day more damage is done.
My daughter has just finished her first shift at the hospital since the management took the ridiculous decision that all staff must wear a face mask at all times and in all areas.I have to say she didn’t look well when she came home,she said it has been absolutely awful wearing a mask all day,she and several of her colleagues quickly ended up with headaches that lasted all day,her eyes are sore,she has a rash where the mask has been and she feels at lot more tired than usual.The staff have put a lot of complaints into Occupational Health and they say they will discuss it with management tomorrow,no-one thinks this will make any difference.The general consensus amongst the staff is that the NHS trust is trying to justify the huge amount of money spent on PPE that wasn’t necessary.
I foresee a lot of hospital staff going off with illness or stress
With medics I can sympathise.
Administrators, I cannot.
That’s probably where the NHS staff shortage will occur – loads of medics coming down with illnesses associated with prolonged mask wearing.
And it will somehow be turned in to a triumph for Johnson & co.
Reminder to make a donation to Free Speech Union
https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-free-speech-union-fighting-fund
I was doing a bit of google research on the FSU earlier and came across several Leftie articles about it. I had no idea how much the lefties hate and fear Toby until I read how they tried to mack him and the FSU – he must be doing a pretty good job (though I have yet to come across a single politician who has been influenced). I rather doubt Toby is bothered; after all, we all know the quote, ” First they mock you …. “
”mock” not “mack” of course.
Muck rakers, they deserve mockery
That was Gandhi… Gandhi has been cancelled for being a racist.
Go figure.
True, I’d forgotten that. I wonder who will be next – Christ allowed that woman to kneel down and wash his feet, surely that must have been sexist!
Well, Millicent Fawcett whose statue was erected in Parliament Square recently had a very questionable involvement in the Boer War.
It’d be terrible of anything were to happen to that. Obviously.
And for speaking up for armed self-defence too. For those who didn’t feel capable of non-violence.
Done
National Trust just sent me a sugary little newsletter about how happy the birdies are in all the places I can’t visit.
To which I replied as follows:
Why the bloody hell should I want to listen to anything you say? You have cast me out from all my most loved places, plastered them with threatening notices, blocked entrances with tree trunks and rocks and barbed wire, and shown clearly how determined you are to keep your sites shut off forever, from everybody. Cowards, traitors, You shame the tradition that gave you life.
Fuck off. Just fuck off.
May be freely copied by anyone else soft enough to have been a member of the NT in Wales. (I have cancelled my membership.)
OS. Sorry about the NT bits I left in. Hands shaking with anger.
This lockdown is like a wet dream for the NT. Micro managing with stupid signs and one way systems. How they love to treat everyone like 2 year olds. I went to Stourhead last week. Told NT woman at the end that it was awful, horribly sanitised. She tried to persuade me it was ‘better than nothing’ as if I should be grateful.
Did you put the ‘fuck off’ bit in the reply Annie ?,please tell me you did !.
Indeed. Everyone I know who was an NT member has, in sadness, turned their back on it.
It was thoroughly infiltrated by identity grifters and eaten from within. If the rioters toppling statues are the sprinters, those who now control the NT are the marathon runners of the long march through the institutions.
I cancelled the renewal of my membership, due soon, and wrote to NT explaining why. They emailed back offering a 25% reduction! If they’d done that to start with, like English Heritage, I might have considered it but I emailed back saying thanks, but no thanks!
I’m not surprised that it was reported that the National Trust has asked how a bailout, if there are more than enough members are cancelling or not renewing en masse due to their antisocial distancing measures and lack of facilities.
They took a statue down from outside the front door of Dunham Massey last week so I shredded my membership card.. What are they going to do once they come for the Hall?
the problem we have is that we are all in agreement. we have become a concensus not a debate.
We need people of a different persuations to bring their argument to the table
without that we are simply a consensus, not a debate
I agree (couldn’t resist, sorry)
why aploagise for free speach
Haha, good one!
i have familly who live in Isslington, I love them to bits , but Im always accusing them of being a consensus not a debate
That you’re right is why I keep coming back here. The idea of having civil discourse on the internet with someone whose opinion differs meaningfully from yours is proven to be an absurd halcyon dream. I’ve been trying for 25 years, and the quality of debate dropped like a stone when the internet was made accessible to those of limited intellect.
I love to debate with anyone who is game – i dont drink lattes by i do like coffee – if u are brave enough for an intelectual gibber jabber – im game too
i am very happy to be persuaded
Okay, here we go then….
Proposition: All Lives Matter is the wrong response to the BLM chant, for the same reason that All Lives Matter was the wrong response to the COVID panic.
I’m.i,e it. Couldn’t agree more.
Damn my typing. *I like it
“All Lives Matter is the wrong response to the BLM chant”
Why?
And what’s the correct response, in your view?
Not sure what mine is, other than “identity politics will lead to trouble, it’s the wrong road”.
I agree with your statement, but it doesn’t negate or conflict with my proposition.
I don’t have the right answer on the All Lives Matter question… it’s a bit like science.. I can disprove this, doesn’t mean I can prove that.
If you were to assert ‘all lives matter’, my first question would be, ‘even Harvey Weinstein’s life? Even Charles Mansun’s? Even Harold Shipman’s? Or Peter Sutcliffe’s? Or Osama Bin Laden’s? Or the life of a misunderstood and underappreciated Austrian artist in the morn of the 20th Century?’
If you grant me that, then you have to agree that ‘All Lives Matter’ is false. We then negotiate on where the line is drawn.
totaly with you – utub the Glenn show, Cops and Race
two grownups having a grown up coversation
are these 2 middle class intelectuals out of touch, or have they got a point? discuss…..
Saturday night’s Triggernometry stream was powerful on this, too… as was Dave Smith’s latest Part of the Problem podcast (also on YT).
sorry mate – didnt read proprly – way too complicated
the covid panic is irrational – not baszed on fact
the blm chant is not based on fact
simples!
That is also true… sadly they both prove the power of rhetoric – a language appearing almost alien to those of us who prefer to deal in facts (i.e. dialectic).
I like consensus. It’s what I need right now as not many people I know agree with me. The problem with online debate is that it starts off in a reasonable and balanced way, then as more people join it becomes less reasonable and more unbalanced. Before long it has descended into arguments before finishing up with personal abuse. There’s no substitute for face to face debate.
It’s good for sanity to know there are others of like mind, it keeps us going. But I would love to engage with a true lockdown believer who’s prepared to argue their case based on logic, evidence, reason, rationality.
Yes, exactly not just try to shout you down by accusing you of wanting to ‘kill people’!
One possibly interesting point to debate is this:
Let’s assume for a minute that lockdown followed by new normal actually saves covid-19 deaths.
And let’s assume that Imperial’s prediction of 510,000 deaths was correct.
I don’t think they ever claimed they would save all of those lives, though that’s what Ferguson seemed to say the other day, but let’s say that we could have kept deaths down to just a little over average, for the year.
We go on for a few years with the “new normal” and then find a vaccine, so maybe a fair few of those 510,000 are still alive.
Would that have been worth it? Where would you draw the line? How many deaths?
i have very little experience of this form of debate, but if people go off piste it is easy enough to ‘ignore’ by not reading their posts – but never mentaly ignore just because you dont like what they are saying, its much more intersting to engage where possible
More common sense from Germany:
A teacher in Sachsen-Anhalt tried, via the courts, to prevent schools from operating without ‘social distancing’. The Higher Administrative Court in Magdeburg ruled that the relaxation of the social distancing rules did not contravene the State’s obligations towards the health of teachers or pupils, as there was no definitive scientific evidence that reducing the ‘social distance’ from 1.5m was harmful:
https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/sachsen-anhalt-unterricht-ohne-mindestabstand-in-grundschulen-ist-rechtens-a-709ff426-5b57-48b2-9b44-2b9ddebc65d8
Yeah! If only we could have some from FatBoJo!
Be careflu what you wish for. Germany has trampled mercilessly on free speech over recent years.
I thought I’d leave that typo in as it made me chuckle.
Hopefully Simon Dolan can use that in his case..
Apologies if this has been posted already, but it appears that Norway has abandoned track-and-trace as the loss of privacy cannot be justified by the low number of cases:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-norway-apps/norway-to-halt-covid-19-track-and-trace-app-on-data-protection-concerns-idUKKBN23M18T
Cynic that I am, I imagine issues with cost and effectiveness are being shrouded under cover of a feigned concern for privacy and liberty.
Good! Were they calling it ‘track and trace’ or ‘test and trace’? Am sure it is no accident that the Uk system has now changed the word ‘track’ to ‘test’..
That’s a pity. There is or was a lot of competition in that market. When the AAA tried an outrageous price increase on us my wife phoned them and said we didn’t want to pay it, and they said “oh all right then” and cancelled the increase. Worth a try.
Meant the AA, not the yank version.
i am with AA and we go through the same ritual every year. They auto renew (as it is on card) with a huge increase, and i ring them up and tell them where to go,
didnt mean to send that as it is unfinished. after i tell them where to go, i then tell them comparative quote details and they happily revise the premium back to what it was . I am actually quite happy with the service i get from the AA .
6 COVID-19 deaths announced by PHE for 14th June in Scotland again. Only 15 the day before too.
How much longer can this charade go on for?
Missed the 0 for Scotland for the 14th June
Probably until Wee Krankie has lost her desire to hog the limelight!
Scotland is in it for the long run in that case.
As long as they think they can get away with it since it’s all about control
Article from Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson (Oxford Uni, Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) that blows the social distance ‘rule’ apart:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/15/no-scientific-evidence-support-disastrous-two-metre-rule/
The gist is that when you dig into The Lancet meta study (of 172 previous studies), only 5 reported specifically on Covid exposure and proximity with infection – comprising a total of 477 patients with just 26 actual cases of infection. Our ‘scientists’ worked from this, then doubled the distance to be on the safe side, according to Professor Dingwall’s interview on Sky a few weeks ago.
Heneghan’s conclusion: ‘Much of the evidence informing policy in this outbreak is poor quality’.
I think that is being polite!
Carl Heneghan is the Professor for EVIDENCED BASED MEDICINE at Oxford. Neil Ferguson is the Professor of THEORETICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY. Who do you believe?
The one who talks to the camera with his eyes open when answering questions posed by a journalist or politician. Clue, the one who is actually a doctor!!
Please God this madness ends soon. At present, my life is on hold, there is basically no reason for me to get out of bed in the morning. I’m single, early-retired, and until the bubonic plague struck us I was doing a significant amount of voluntary stuff, helping elderly folks and those with mental and social issues. I dread to think what my erstwhile clients and their spouses/families are dealing with now. No medical treatments, no respite care, no Age UK and MIND support groups.
My (Catholic) bishops tell us we can enter the parish church now, for “private prayer”. Well, hoop-de-doo. So, I can go in and say my rosary, attended by a squad of masked and gowned parish Karens (nauseating at the best of times) hovering over me at my devotions and sanitising anything thing I may happen to come in contact with? Fuck off. And don’t think you’ll be getting any money from me, for the period you utterly betrayed us, bishops.
Is this the world you want to live in?
No Dave, it isn’t… the ennui, frustration, stress, anxiety, panic and resentment are slowly building and they aren’t going to get an opportunity to reduce any time soon that I can see.
The only thing we can do is keep badgering our MPs, councillors and other such sinecured frauds and leaches.
And we can change churches if we’re being Karened out of our minds… I’m sure some priests are taking a much more pragmatic view, even if you have to go to a neighbouring diocese. I’d agree that it’s outrageous one may even be made to feel that need – especially if it’s a church you’ve attended for a long time, and a priest you have a close relationship with, but I know some who are doing just that.
Thank you, Aidan. We aren’t getting the Mass back any tme soon, that’s for sure.
My 84 year old aunt – my favourite aunt – who has been an active Catholic for her entire life is reduced to attending Mass on YouTube, during the period when she’s trying to recover mentally and spiritually from losing her husband of 50 years. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Any “churches” going along with social distancing aren’t worth their salt
Oh that’s a far wider subject…. I’m sadly concluding that there are very few churches left that are prepared to represent what is still a silent majority amongst church-goers who are aghast at women priests and gay marriage.
I’m afraid I would never go to a church service lead by a woman or an openly gay priest – I’m sure there must be exceptions, but I’ve seen too many blithering, spineless, pandering sermons that directly contradict Bible teachings from these hastily appointed tokens intent on pushing their tawdry and insidious agendas, and too many examples of congregations dwindling to nothing as the church abandons its teachings and, in turn, abandons those who have chosen to live by those teachings over a lifetime.
The situation in the Church mirrors the wider culture. Libs in charge of the agenda; women in charge in the parish. They control everything, their hands on all the levers of power. True supernatural faith in retreat. Stay strong. And… “stay safe!”.
Don’t forget the paedophiles that are just conveniently forgotten, just like a certain report that the government is refusing to publish.
Down voted for bringing up the inconvenient truth about paedophiles in the church, some people need to wake up and live in the real world.
No, downvoted for making an unnecessary and unwelcome interjection, purely for the purposes of virtue signalling, like a woke imbecile.
The guy said the church now mirrors the wider culture. There is a systemic problem with paedophiles in this country which is conveniently ignored by the woke media. You’re calling me woke, for raising a topic the woke ignores, you paedophile loving utter moron!
No need, Davey. Were you saying at the weekend that the hippies should tear down the Baden Powell statue because the scouts harboured the occasional fruit?
You keep defending your paedophile priests and vicars, and believing in fairies mate.
Do you know… I sometimes think that, if pressed, these Priestesses could be pushed to admitting their belief that if Jesus had just obeyed the rules and kept his nose clean, he needn’t have come to such a sorry end.
mate, dont get bogged down with the bollocks, thats too easy – crack on with life
I’ll try!
Vernon Coleman on churches not being opened yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc973XH_KRw
On a mask box – from Simon Dolan’s twitter feed:
Brilliant
Omigosh. Cat out if bag. Miiiiiaaaaaaoooow.
But actually the muzzles have nothing to do with the bug, and everything to do with signalling compliance. Whatever s..t they throw at you, you’ll take it.
Simon has asked people to send in an FOI to the Department of Transport ‘asking for the name and findings of the peer reviewed study which led to the imposition of mandatory face masks on public transport you can do so here’
The address to write to is on his Twitter feed. I rather think there is no such study!
This has cheered me up no end. Clearly someone in the PPE world has realised that the hard of thinking might be have unrealistic expectations of the level of protection that these masks offer!
Remember the chicken wire to catch mosquitoes analogy? Sadly, muzzle-istas will just trot out the crap that wearing one stops you spreading this nearly non-existent virus. We just keep resisting and hope others will wake up…
I’ve just watched Raab in the press conference.
Why will he not smash Beth Rigby’s false dichotomy between lives and the economy?
He lets her get away with perpetuating this. Why are they so scared of pointing out that there is no distinction? Is it because then they will get questions about lives lost to the lockdown? Do they think such questions can be avoided or delayed?
And by the way, I’m still convinced that Andrew Doyle is writing all of her material.
The “top rank” of TV news journalists hasn’t come out of this with much, if any credit. I wonder if any of them have wanted to ask more fundamentals questions and not been allowed to by their bosses, or whether they just haven’t had the interest or imagination.
Of course it’s their bosses. This is all staged.
I agree Bella. Too many ducks in a row, over too long a time period, for this to be anything other than a coup.
Do you imagine any of these TV news wimmin don’t have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they like? Okay, maybe Emily Matalan got a flea in her ear after that Newsnight mongologue, but not exactly the kicking she deserved, was it?
I gave up years ago expecting politicians to question the basic thinking behind the questions they’re asked by either the press or their political opponents. I can’t explain why they won’t do it, because some of the thinking is so obviously flawed and attacking the question would seem to be so easy, but they definitely won’t.
A few things to note from Raab.
1) He mentioned a second wave, apropos of nothing. Can’t imagine he thought of that himself. Who’s writing the script? Where’s the question from journalists asking where the evidence is for this second wave, as opposed to the theory.
2) He talked about “suppressing” the virus. What exactly does he mean? When is it “over”? Where are the questions from journalists about when this is finished?
3) He said “the science is fluid, ministers make the decisions” or something along those lines. Where did that come from? The “realist” wing?
Seems like an incoherent mess to me.
Don’t like the mention of a 2nd wave – is this a none-too-subtle new programme of continual hints that a 2nd wave is inevitable?
Well they have to do that if they want their nonsense to carry on having support, but then why say the science is fluid, which was presumably said to give wiggle room to reduce two metres? One thing sounds like they want to perpetuate the madness, the other sounds like they want a way out.
Like I said, seems to contradict itself.
I see they’ve sent the man to prison who urinated next to the memorial for PC Keith Palmer. Fourteen days for “outraging public decency”.
OK, but they close the public lavatories and they close the pubs. So where are people supposed to go? Anywhere would have outraged public decency. And he was drunk, as one suspected, and he had no idea that the memorial was there. A fine, maybe, but prison?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-urinate-keith-palmer-memorial-andrew-banks-court-a9566301.html
Indeed… if anyone outraged public decency it was the yellow-bellied ‘Sir’ Craig Mackay – the senior officer who, when he saw PC Palmer being attacked locked his car doors and sped away. No consequences faced.
And I distinctly remember public decency being outraged at the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, ordered by Cressida Dick. No consequences faced.
The guy convicted is clearly not amongst our best or brightest, but yes, if there are no public conveniences and no public buildings or businesses open, what the hell are you supposed to do?
Any photos of BLM or Antifa peeing in the streets? There surely must be. I dare say there’s even the odd copper who has been caught short.
Well, I’ve had a look and I found this:
https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/public-outrage-as-man-arrested-for-urinating-on-statue-of-sir-winston-churchill/
And has he been convicted? I think I already know the answer..
And this guy was peeing ON the statue, not merely next to it..
This is basically modern blasphemy, like a lot of the “hate speech” stuff.
When I saw the story and the pic, I assumed the man probably just wasn’t aware of the location – he wasn’t urinating on the memorial, just next to it. Frankly, I’m amazed there could be any conviction at all in such circumstances..
When the sh*t really hits the fan, and the establishment and wokerati (same thing) need defending against some very nasty people who want their stuff, it would have been people from this chap’s community who would have stepped up to the plate to do it, just as they have done before. These people are the real thing: fearless hard cases – and I admire their sheer guts and bravado and capacity for alcohol.
But if the PM and all the papers slag them off as they have done today, why should they help out in future? Soy-sipping Guardian readers are ten a penny. People who will wade into violence without hesitation are an incredible national asset – and the British used to have a much-envied reputation for it.
Yes, when there’s a real war, the first place they go for lads to fight is the working class towns and cities, like my place of birth. That’s what made me so angry when the slurs went in thick and fast over Brexit. I am taken by how many of the governing elite are the children of conscientious objectors. I’m not sure how we could defend our country if there was a conventional war when we have so many who seem hell-bent on destroying from within.
Absolutely right.
Harsh, especially as he turned himself in.. How many people have been convicted and sentenced for crimes committed the weekend before? Double standards..
I will say right at the beginning this is unsubstantiated rumour, gossip and heresay:
While out shopping today I got talking to someone in one of those 2m but being ignored queues to get into the DIY store infested with hi-vis Karens. In my defence not my fault, to keep me busy my wife has gone on a complete house redecoration campaign and I’m trying to fix all the problems that are coming to light with the house.
Anyway this woman saw my fresh scar across the top of my finger and asked how was my visit to A+E – 2 worst things in a kitchen is a blunt knife and a clumsy chef. I keep my knives razor sharp (the wounds heal quicker and better) so guess the problem. I explained that I have a comprehensive first aid kit at home an treated it myself and got it to knit without needing stitches and was complimented on what a good job I done sorting my self-inflicted wound out.
She asked if I didn’t go to A+E as I was scared of coronavirus? Said no and made it clear I was sceptical to say the least. She… Read more »
Well that’s interesting.
If you don’t got back to one of your previous posts from today here is my answer about opticians:
Took the wife for her yearly eye test yesterday to a local independent that she has used for years as she’s diabetic.
Only person wearing a mask was the optometrist/opthalmologist doing the eye test.
Only changes we could see was the useless flimsy screen in front of the receptionist, hand wash if you wanted it but it was not mentioned or forced and a printed certificate on the wall saying they had passed the covid-19 hygiene/cleaning course.
They do not do the puff of whatever into your eye to check pressure of the eyeball at the moment on advice from their trade body.
Nowhere as bad as I thought it would be, almost civillised.
Good to hear some positive info for once!
That “puff of whatever” is checking for glaucoma. Are we expecting that people won’t start developing glaucoma at the moment?
V important point. I used to take my late mother for an eye test precisely to get the puff test. Glaucoma has very few symptoms, until it blinds you.
I get free eye tests because my dad had glaucoma. I’m about 6 months overdue an eye test at this point. I won’t claim I’m very worried right now, but if they’re not going to give me a pressures test, then there’s no point in going at all.
The amount of weed smoked over the past 3 months should keep glaucoma at bay. (Replying for a friend).
At last people in the NHS might be thinking about speaking out. I hope they have the courage to do so. If they do then the great brainwashed general public might actually listen.
Wait until the public enquiry. CRASH BANG WALLOP.
I hope that if a few start telling the truth it will turn int a flood.
All this can be over except for the trials of ministers & senior civil servants who got us into this mess.
I worry not. It seems clear that the actual number of deaths isn’t really the issue. People died, ergo the virus is bad, ergo this has been the right thing to do.
Very interesting! I have heard similar from many avenues.
Can people who baulk at conspiracy theories concede, at least in part, that this has been stage?
Am sure Sign Dolan would be interested in this, especially the bit about the veiled threats. Simon posted yesterday about the gagging of teachers so evidence that the health service appear to be being gagged would be helpful for his case. Anyone know how to reach Simon if you don’t have Twitter?
Have you noticed that supermarkets have very few bargains or offers these days but I suppose they do have to pay for all the Covid relayed nonsense (eg very fetching staff t-shirts with ‘please stay 2 metres apart’ on the back!)
I won’t be going to any shop until the measures are scrapped in full.
It’s bad enough at Sainsbury’s, where today a woman told me to stay away even though I was a good distance from her behind the checkout counter.
“Social” distancing not. It’s antisocial and rude.
Yes I hate it ignorant staff barking at you all the time will go on line till it’s all back to normal
Remarkably I managed to get a delivery slot for tomorrow, so I don’t have to actually go into one of the stores for the foreseeable fuchsia. I’m building up a comprehensive larder of non-perishables, household materials and booze, because I feel it in my bones that one day soon we’re going to be waking up to find out that a new lockdown started while we were sleeping. I’m also buying everything I can from Amazon who have been fantastic throughout this, rather than Sainsbury’s which has been like a retail manifestation of the menopause.
Sainsbury’s have been atrocious,a rude Karen there reduced my mum almost to tears by saying her and my dad couldn’t go around the shop together !,I gave the CEO’s office merry hell but they really couldn’t care less.
I think one of the reasons I am how I am is that my 81 year old mum would tear Karen a new one.
I’m genuinely saddened by the misery, humiliation and frustration these little gauleiters are inflicting, and I saw it coming the moment power was conferred on them. In the 70s, the enemy in the Beano was the parkie. These Karens are proof that human nature doesn’t change, and always retains the capacity to disappoint.
Perhaps something Matthew Hancock can import for the contact tracers in the UK?
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/de-blasio-tells-covid-contract-tracers-not-to-ask-positive-cases-if-theyve-attended-blm-protests/
That’s… just extraordinary. It’s anti-logic.
Just like ‘wokeness’ then.
Not at all…. In order to be anti-logic, you need to understand logic… random posturing bears no relation to logic or its polar opposite. They simply don’t have the intellectual faculties for it.
No, I don’t mean that he’s opposed to logic, I mean that this is the exact opposite of logic. Like matter and antimatter.
Yes, matter and antimatter mutually annihilate. They are diametrically opposite to one another – the interaction may gives off a proton or something, but it’ll be .
Logic and wokethink is like comparing Einstein with a tin of Noodle Doodles.
Would be good if someone could ‘befriend’ a contact tracer so we could get inside info and find out if they get told by Hancock not to ask if people have attended a protest..
Observed buses driving past me for several hours today. Majority of people NOT WEARING MUZZLES.
Buses still largely empty mind. But clearly no enforcement on the part of Arriva drivers at least. Heartening.
“Observed buses driving past me for several hours today”
Life’s pretty dull nowadays, isn’t it?
Good news on the muzzles though.
Hehehehehe yes yes it is
(I was in the entrance of a warehouse pretending to ‘test’ equipment that I knew was already working 😉)
To be fair, there are 4 bus routes that run past my house and I’ve spent much more time than usual watching buses today. If anything, they’re even emptier than they have been for the last couple of weeks and mask use has seemed patchy. Around half. This is zone 3 London.
That’s kind of amazing that they are still emptyish in London. Although. I suppose you have more of them there. (On the particular route I was observing there’s like two buses an hour 😐 welcome to the north )
Still though. If they’re not enforcing it in London, that makes me feel really good.
Two an hour? Two a week is good going in rural areas.
Would be fun if someone who lives near TV studios or a railway station used by media types could get a photo of some well-known TV journalist/presenter emerging from a taxi (or getting into one) without a mask…
I went out again for a walk in the afternoon and it was nearly rush hour and the buses were still dead – two went past me where no-one, absolutely no-one was wearing any masks or face coverings.
To be fair most of the buses where I live are empty see bus staff losing their jobs soon
Simon Dolan has posted on Twitter the ‘get out’ clause to use if you get challenged for not wearing one..
Yes, I saw a report that the union are telling staff not to risk confrontation with refuseniks; that, they say is a matter for the police – not that one can find any of course unless you are at a patriotic protest!
They did say that. I posted it on here earlier.
The buses and trains I’ve seen today around here,East Midlands,seem to have fewer passengers than the last few weeks.A large local food factory has a double decker bus on contract that collects workers throughout the town and takes them to work,since last week they have been using two double deckers because they are now only allowed to carry less than half the normal number of passengers on each bus !.
Another enormous scandal for Lancet. The “recovery” trial where they showed that HCQ was not effective for treatment of late Covid-19 infection in severe cases. BBC/MSM immediately responded with the usual warning how bad HCQ is for Covid-19 but see quote below
“In summary, it appears the RECOVERY trial based its HCQ dosage off a different drug class w/ a VERY different absorption profile…giving patients a near lethal dose of HCQ.”
There is another drug called hydroxy quinoline which is used for amoebiasis. They mixed up this drug with HCQ(a completely different drug) and used the dosage for that drug and /BBC will mention this scandal. Lancet’s reputation in tatters. Left wingers, can’t you see that you are manipulated?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1272542546758074369.html
Sorry this is nonsense. Hydroxychloroquine undergoes accumulation under repeat dosing. In order to reach steady-state as quickly as possible, loading doses must be given to maximize therapeutic concentrations. Such loading is smaller for malaria as the curative dose is over a shorter period and steady-state is not reached. The initial loading dose of 800mgx2 was designed to avoid the slow progressive increase that would occur normally on daily dosing. My disappointment is that it was only given as monotherapy, and there was no evidence of any antiviral activity anywhere without concomitant azithromycin.
Protocol here https://www.recoverytrial.net/files/recovery-protocol-v6-0-2020-05-14.pdf
I have other issues with the Lancet, but the dose in the RECOVEY trial is not one of them. Lethal doses are very seldom identified accurately and rely on data from often a single patient. Some exceptions being water (6L) and caffeine (about 15g). Hydroxychloroquine 20g survival here https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19157361/
Respectfully disagree.I don’t think this is nonsense. It doesn’t give you confidence if they chose a higher dose and mismatch the name of hydroxyquinoline and ad hoc use the drug dose of hydroxyquinoline for amoebiasis and use that amount of drug for treating Covid-19. This is not malaria treatment using very high doses initially. HCQ used for milder cases of Covid-19 was in much lower dosage.
In this study a much lower loading dose on day one
“The therapeutic regime was: HCQ 400 mg every twice in a loading dose followed by 200 mg twice for 5 days, plus AZM 500 mg on the first day followed by 250 mg daily for 5 days.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.10.20101105v
In another study HCQ-Doxycycline
From March 19 to March 30, 2020, we analyzed the clinical outcomes of fifty-four (54) high-risk patients who developed a sudden onset of fever, cough, and SOB, were diagnosed or presumed to have COVID-19, and were treated with DOXY (100 mg PO BID for 7 days) and HCQ (two regimens: i) 200 mg PO TID for 7 days or ii) 400 mg PO BID one day, then 400 mg daily for 6 days).
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.18.20066902v1
All other studies,as far as I am… Read more »
The lower dose trials hinted at some antiviral activity (e.g. Gautret, but only with azithromycin combination actually). Hence it is reasonable to presume that higher concentrations and time to reach those higher concentrations are reasonable drivers of clinical response. Whether the regimen has been tested previously is not the most important matter for an untested drug in a new disease with relatively low levels of clinical justification. What matters is whether a possibly relevant concentration can be achieved rapidly and safely, and whether there is acceptable safety cover for the chosen dosing regimen. All patients are monitored for standard safety signals, including ECG cardiac repolarization extension (known as long QT and a known side effect of both HCQ and AZM). Hydroxychloroquine was not stopped for safety reasons – that would have required fewer patients. It was stopped for lack of efficacy.
Agree with the above.But the incompetence is obvious in this interview
http://www.francesoir.fr/politique-monde/interview-exclusive-martin-landray-recovery-hydroxychloroquine-game-over-uk
“FS : How did you decide on the dosage of HCQ ?
ML : The doses were chosen on the basis of pharmacokinetic modelling and these are in line with the sort of doses that you used for other diseases such as amoebic dysentery.”
The chief investigator Recovery trial obviously think HCQ was used in amoebiasis which is false. In line with that, he uses the dose for hydroxy quinolone as used for amoebiasis as a reasonable dose for HCQ against Covid-19.
If that is not gross negligence, incompetence please tell me what is.
Pointless trial if they did not give zinc and azithromycin, because that is the protocol that doctors have said works..
Many trials are dodgy, placebos that work too well (i.e used vitamin C a know antiviral as a placebo with one of the HCQ trials. Sometimes the headlines in papers have a positive outcome but the conclusion of the summary not or vice versa. Many more ploys.
It has been truly sickening the way what used to be a truly world-class medical journal has demeaned itself over several decades. Mind you the same has happened to our formerly world class universities of Oxbridge!
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/coronavirus/aussie-man-84-had-covid19-for-11-weeks-with-no-symptoms/news-story/428dfc3a664f2118ec7a6d1169a7d7ba
“Wally Bridges has had six hip replacements, been hit by a truck, broken a leg, survived bladder cancer and, at age 84, has heart issues and an aortic aneurysm.He should have been horribly vulnerable to COVID-19 but, when he caught it, he barely felt it.”
This person had to stay in hospital 11 weeks being asymptomatic all the time as he was PCR pos for Covid-19 all the time
If you can carry this for 11 weeks without symptoms, how can you stop this coming into any country (cocooned New Zealand)? Shall we increase the quarantine time to 11 weeks?
The more one hears about this virus the more insane seems our response when the pandemic peters out. Track and trace?
Or maybe the machine was dodgy like the one at Taunton hospital which gave all false positives and pushed the mythical R for the SW to rise above 1, leading to lots of bedwetting in the comments section of the Dorset local paper.
People in the south west are still referring to those false positives as fact. “Oh but there’s a spike” I’ve been told several times this weekend. And it’s impossible to disabuse them of this belief. I give up.
Depressing but totally expected tone in a reply to my email from my MP. I pointed out that the IFR of Covid-19 was estimated to be in the order of 0.1-0.3%, there was no correlation worldwide between lockdowns in individual countries and their death rates and the peak of infections in the UK clearly occurred before lockdown. None of this, of course, made any impression on this junior minister who tells me (a NHS GP for 35 years with a degree in Physiological sciences) that “the irresponsible comparison between coronavirus and seasonal flu has long been proven dangerously inaccurate” and “excess mortality figures clearly suggest that but for the measures introduced here in the UK by The Government there would have been innumerably more cases and in consequence deaths from this dreadful virus.” So we have a complete evidence free response but, pat on the head, Doctor, you are clearly too stupid to understand!
Dear Dr
Thank you for your email regarding the coronavirus, the Government’s response and an exit strategy.
The irresponsible comparison between coronavirus and seasonal flu has long been proven dangerously inaccurate. You will be aware that more than 140 countries have… Read more »
Pathetic
That’s the sort of scientific illiteracy we are up against. And the sort of arrogant, bone-headed ignorance. Were that my MP they’d get a full blast back. Then again, he or she is clearly a brain-free zone.
I wrote to my MP yesterday. I suspect he’s a sceptic, but have challenged him to come off the fence.
Am I correct in reading the first paragraph as saying “lockdown must have worked because lots of other countries have done it and therefore things would have been worse if we hadn’t done it?”
If so, I think the government ought to make us all speak Spanish. Lots of other countries speak Spanish and they can’t all be wrong and if we don’t all start speaking Spanish now, who knows how much worse it might get?
German is what we need to speak, their lack of excess deaths shows that speaking German is the best way to protect from the coronavirus.
Ah yes, but only a couple of other countries speak German, so following their example won’t help as speaking German has been adopted by too few other countries for it to be accepted as the right model. That would be going out on a limb. Like Sweden. And nobody wants to be Sweden.
Why not be Sweden? Seems to have escaped the MSM that 24% of the people who have died in Sweden were over 90 years old!
I’m being sarcastic. I wish we were Sweden.
And reporting real cause of death not like us why do we always shoot ourselves in the foot pathetic
Ahem, Sweden has not locked down and people are not dropping like flies here!
Yes. Please don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t giving the guy’s argument any kind of credit.
I’ve stopped getting answers from mine. The only one she bothered to respond to was the one on Cummings.
So annoying. How does he/she ‘know’ that the effect of inaction would be much higher and longer lasting? What evidence can they provide for that? Absolutely none! AAAAAAGGH. It’s so annoying!
Looks like a collection of standard cut and paste responses that clearly makes no concessions to your personal situation. If I were an experienced doctor such as yourself, I’m sure I’d find it even more irritating than I do anyway.
“The irresponsible comparison between coronavirus and seasonal flu has long been proven dangerously inaccurate.”
This is an especially annoying example of how propaganda works. Of course, there has been no such “proof”. But lots of minor differences have been announced between this virus and flu, and the propagandists have just declared that this means it is “irresponsible” to compare the two. But numerous world class experts in directly relevant fields hold to the comparison as broadly valid. Rightly, imo, based on the numbers overall.
If you can be bothered you could unload on him with an evidence-rich riposte leaning heavily on the authority of your direct medical experience and qualifications, but whether it would have any actual effect to justify the expenditure of your time is pretty questionable. It’s doubtful imo they even read such responses unless you have an existing personal connection to them. If you were to do it on paper headed for your practice… Read more »
My guess is that the reading process is a quick scan for keywords and the replying process involves heavy use of the CTRL, C and V keys, as you say.
I suspect you’re more likely to get a more reasoned approach if your MP is a Tory back bencher than from a junior minister as they have a little less vested interest in toeing the government line and a dissenting opinion from them is not going to be headline news.
Not very likely, mind you, just more likely.
Mine’s a backbencher. I haven’t seen a peep of dissent out of any of them, on either side. Maybe Iain Duncan Smith on the 2 metre rule. But none of them are publicly anything like on “our” side, as far as I can see.
I have many friends and colleagues who like me from the beginning of “the pandemic” have been totally sceptical about the nonsense being trotted out by our glorious leaders. I’m not aware of anyone in the Cabinet having much of a scientific background and they are being advised by SAGE which as far as I can seen is composed of academics. Anyone with half a medical brain could see that Ferguson’s beloved computer model had come up with a ridiculous number of deaths- he assumed an IFR of 1% and that 80% of the population were susceptible and came up with 500,000 odd deaths. It doesn’t need a bug-ridden computer model to calculate that, a back of a fag packet calculation could come up with the same figure; it was the inputs that were wrong, stupid.
I’d have replied to said MP and asked him to quote his own medical qualifications! How dare a non-medically-qualified MP try to lecture a doctor…!
Your MP/GP seems to be forgetting that the entire point of “flattening the curve” was that there would be the same number of infections and deaths, albeit spread out over a longer period, so that “the NHS can cope” and we can “save our NHS heroes.” And that’s of course if you even believe a lockdown has any scientific merit at all!
A disgusting insult to a qualified prifessional. MP clearly spewing some predigested rubbish.
Sigh, Test and Trace…gave up at that point..
Urgh
Dishevelled woman rushes up to policeman.
‘Help, I’ve just been gang raped! It will kill me!’
Officer: ‘Madam, that is serious indeed, but I don’t think even gang rape is necessarily fatal…’
Woman: ‘But you don’t understand! TWO OF THEM WEREN’T WEARING FACE MASKS!!!’
Very good – and extra points for being strongly non-PC. [The only negative being that the policeman was polite and failed to arrest her for wasting police time!]
The Birmingham refuse tips have introduced a pre-booking system after the initial chaos when they reopened – whether they should have shut in the first place is another story. My wife took a car load of garden waste down today for our pre-booked slot. All went ok but she was quite amused by the fact she had to negotiate 3 separate hi-viz wearing clipboard wielding functionaries all of whom asked the same inane questions. Seems as though there’ll be plenty of work for the soon to be redundant millions in government mandated pettifoggery.