Apologies for not filing an update yesterday. Been incredibly busy with Free Speech Union business for the last couple of days. As regular readers will know, we wrote to Ofcom at the beginning of June informing the broadcast watchdog that if it didn’t withdraw its coronavirus guidance, which cautions its licensees against broadcasting “statements that seek to question or undermine the advice of public health bodies on the Coronavirus, or otherwise undermine people’s trust in the advice of mainstream sources of information about the disease”, we would apply to the High Court to have that guidance struck down. It would be an exaggeration to say it has played a major role in suppressing public debate about the pandemic and the Government’s management of it. But it has undoubtedly been a factor. Anyway, Ofcom has dug its heels in so we’re pressing ahead.
We had to file all the papers by close of play today and, inevitably, it was a last-minute rush. Apart from me, the team consists of two members of the FSU’s Legal Advisory Council – Dan Tench and Paul Diamond, both working pro bono – and Peter Ainsworth, the FSU’s Case Management Director. We had to challenge the guidance within three months of it being published and since it was published on March 23rd, the same day the Government imposed a full lockdown, we had to file today.
That means we’ve been working flat out over the past 48 hours to pull together all the documents, including a 5,000-word witness statement from Dr John Lee, the retired pathologist who’s written a string of brilliant pieces about the virus for the Spectator. Here is a key section from John’s statement:
A key error that I would like to highlight is the characterisation of COVID-19 by the Government and also by the broadcast media.
As has been well publicised, COVID-19 is a disease caused by a novel coronavirus usually causing a respiratory infection. In some cases it can be directly fatal, or at least a strongly contributory cause of death. Many of the fundamental parameters of the disease were unknown when the outbreak first came significantly to public attention in February and March of this year, and are still the subject of much uncertainty. For example, its reproduction rate in various settings (that is the number of people who will catch the disease from one person who already has it), the mortality rate, the percentage of the population who may be susceptible to catching it, and how the passage of the disease may vary with climate and seasonal changes.
There are of course a large number of serious human infectious diseases many of which we have largely conquered through vaccination or other public health initiatives. But globally many diseases remain. In addition to the burden of chronic disease, recent figures estimate 1.5 million annual deaths from tuberculosis, 1.4 million from diarrhoeal diseases, 1 million deaths from AIDS, 400,000 from malaria. Lower respiratory tract diseases are estimated to cause 3 million deaths annually, of which the various forms of influenza may kill 28,000 or more people in the United Kingdom in a bad year. The question is where does COVID-19 rank in the panoply of other serious diseases?
The answer from Government and the media was that COVID-19 is a uniquely serious disease presenting a grave threat to human beings and to our society. In January, February and March 2020, the broadcast media repeatedly showed graphic images from, for example, China, Italy and New York, illustrating hospitals apparently overrun with COVID-19 patients. This inspired a Government response unprecedented in peacetime.
I believe that this characterisation of COVID-19 is highly questionable. It is certainly a contagious disease, though not obviously significantly more contagious than a typical influenza, and much less contagious than diseases such as measles. It is also true that in a small proportion of cases, particularly in elderly people with co-morbidities, it can be an extremely serious disease, and in a small fraction of those cases, it can lead to death. But the initial framing of this disease was seriously flawed. The infection fatality rate (the proportion of those who catch the disease and die) came down from an initial wild estimate from the World Health Organisation of 3.4% (which would indeed have been an emergency and crisis) to 0.9% by Imperial College London, to 0.67% also by ICL, to 0.2% by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and will probably finally be around 0.1% (very similar to influenza).
But even this fails to characterise the epidemic properly. Those under the age of 18 have a vanishingly low chance of being seriously ill with this disease or dying of it, those under 60 a very low chance, and even older patients into their eighties who are otherwise fit and well, a low chance of this disease significantly affecting their overall level of health or their lifespan.
I would not want to be misinterpreted. Because this is a new disease and therefore could potentially affect a large number of people, I believe that it was reasonable to believe at the inception of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom that it constituted a potentially important and serious public health challenge for the Government and other institutions such as the National Health Service.
However, I do not consider, from early on in the epidemic, that it could continue reasonably or rationally to be characterised as a threat out of all proportion to other commonly experienced public health challenges, including the annual contagion of influenza. (In Germany, for example, mortality in the seasonal influenza epidemic of 2017/18 was about 21,500, while to date Covid-19 mortality is less than 9,000.) The alarm raised by the potential for a dangerous epidemic was rapidly replaced by increasing information showing, to informed and unbiased assessment, that the highly probable outcome of the epidemic was well within the envelope experienced in many years of the last quarter-century. At the same time, clear harms from the un-assessed policy of lockdown became apparent very soon after its inception.
This alternative interpretation was suppressed to the extent that the narrative concerning the disease presented on the broadcast media still maintains unchallenged belief in the disproportionate severity of the Covid-19 epidemic, long after this has been untenable in the face of accumulating evidence.
If one studies datasets published by the Office for National Statistics, and calculates all cause mortality for winter/spring for the last 27 years corrected for population for each year, 2019/2020 ranks not first, second or third, but eighth. It is also clear that for several of the last six years there has been lower than usual mortality, meaning that, in the unavoidable cycles of nature, a year of excess mortality should have been expected.
It also turns out that a key early assumption is incorrect, namely that the entire population is vulnerable to the disease. A large proportion of the population (40–60%) show immunological evidence of immune responses to this virus without ever having been exposed to it. This is because as many as one in six respiratory infections in a normal winter are caused by other coronaviruses, and, perhaps not entirely surprisingly, these stimulate immune responses that cross-react with the new virus. Yet even now, the broadcast media continue to repeat the initial incorrect assumption, many weeks after something that seemed highly likely from the outset, namely that many of us have some immunity to the disease, has new clear data to support it.
It seems to me that the conceptualisation and contextualisation of the disease, designed to support the official narrative established in the earliest stages of the epidemic, has not been seriously scrutinised or challenged by the broadcast media to date. Particularly in the key months of February, March and April, I believe that this lack of challenge has been a major factor in the formulation of responses which have been inappropriate and caused major collateral damage.
In my statement, I focus less on the way the Government has exaggerated the contagiousness and deadliness of the disease and more on the wrong-headedness of Ofcom seeking to suppress dissent when there is so little scientific consensus about the disease and how best to minimise the harm it causes.
The right to free speech is one of our most precious liberties – perhaps the most precious of all – and the fact that we’re in the midst of a public health crisis is a reason to protect it, not curtail it. All of us, whether scientists, politicians or ordinary citizens, are doing our best to understand the threat posed by COVID-19 and how best to minimise the harm it causes, both directly and indirectly. There are, at present, no settled views about any of these issues, and there is certainly no consensus among scientists that can be described as “the science”.
That is obvious from the number of times public authorities, including the Government, have changed their mind about how best to minimise the damage wrought by the virus. To give just a few examples:
a. on January 14th the WHO tweeted that there was “no clear evidence of human to human transmission of the novel #coronavirus”; on March 12th it declared that the Covid-19 outbreak was a “global pandemic”;
b. the WHO and the UK Government initially advised that the wearing of face masks did not play a major role in protecting people from infection outside healthcare settings; on June 5th the WHO issued new guidance, recommending the wearing of face masks in community settings and the Government made the wearing of face masks mandatory on public transport on June 15th;
c. on January 29th the WHO’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, praised China’s policy of locking down the population of Wuhan, as well as those in surrounding areas, saying it “helped prevent the spread of coronavirus”; on April 29th, the WHO’s top emergencies expert, Dr Mike Ryan, praised the response to the pandemic of Sweden, which did not lock down its population, as a “model” for the rest of the world;
d. on April 2nd the WHO issued a Situation Report in which it warned that people infected with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic could infect others; on June 6th the WHO’s technical lead on the pandemic, Maria Van Kerkhove, said at a press conference that examples of asymptomatic people infecting others were “very rare”;
e. on March 5th Boris Johnson appeared on This Morning and told the presenters that stopping public gatherings in order to reduce the spread of the virus would be “quite draconian”, and that one theory being discussed, and which he appeared to endorse, was that the British population could “take it on the chin”, “take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures”; on March 23rd Boris announced that to prevent the NHS becoming overwhelmed (due in part to insufficient numbers of ventilators), the British public “must stay at home” and the Government was ordering all non-essential shops to close, as well as libraries, playgrounds, outdoor gyms and places of worship, and it was prohibiting gatherings of more than two people in public and stopping all social events, including weddings and baptisms;
f. on May 24th Boris Johnson announced that primary schools would reopen on June 1st, with secondaries reopening on 15 June, and expressed the hope that all primary school children would enjoy at least four weeks of school before the summer holidays; on June 8th Health Secretary Matt Hancock conceded at the daily Downing Street press briefing that all schools would not reopen until September “at the earliest”.
Reviewing the constantly changing policies of public authorities, particularly the UK Government, it is hard to disagree with the words of Lord Sumption in an article published in the Mail on Sunday on June 21st 2020: “Does the Government have a policy for coronavirus? Indeed it does. In fact, it has several. One for each month of the year, all mutually inconsistent and none of them properly thought through. Sometimes, Governments have to change tack. It shows that they are attending closely to a changing situation. But this crisis has exposed something different and more disturbing: a dysfunctional Government with a deep-seated incoherence at the heart of its decision-making processes.”
In light of this, it was wrong of Ofcom to issue guidance advising its licensees not to broadcast material likely to undermine people’s trust in the advice of public authorities on the grounds that doing so is potentially harmful. In fact, based on the current advice of the UK Government, ignoring huge swathes of its initial advice — “take it on the chin” — would have been sensible and prevented more harm than it caused. It now seems plain that the Government’s response to the crisis from month to month has indeed been deeply incoherent, with its advice and the advice of state agencies often changing radically from one week to the next. In such circumstances, the best way to protect the public from harm is to allow scientists, experts, journalists and others to vigorously challenge the Government and public authorities, without the threat of broadcasters being sanctioned by the state regulator if those views happen not to accord with the constantly-changing position of the Government or other public bodies.
Do John and I have evidence that broadcasters deliberately chose not to feature sceptical voices on the airwaves as a result of Ofcom’s coronavirus guidance? No direct evidence, no, but we share the impression of many people in the sceptical camp that the coverage of the crisis by national broadcasters has been heavily slanted in favour of the official narrative.
John cites the fact that he’s been asked to appear on American radio stations more often than on British ones:
I was informed by Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator, that my initial article was accessed online over a million times in the first couple of weeks. However, there was no response to it from broadcast media in the UK. While I was invited several times on to radio shows and television in the USA, including nationally syndicated programmes, there was no contact from the BBC, which in normal times would be extremely surprising given the importance of the topic and the profile of the article.
I, too, flag up that I’ve had far fewer invitations to appear on broadcast media than in normal times, and cite the popularity of Lockdown Sceptics as evidence that the public has an appetite for hearing sceptical views that the mainstream media hasn’t been feeding:
At the beginning of April, I set up a website called Lockdown Sceptics in which I publish original material by scientists and public health experts, as well as links to articles by scientists, experts and journalists who are critical of what Eamonn Holmes called the “state narrative”, and daily updates in which I comment on the news. As of June 22nd 2020, the site has had 1,652,739 page views. On just one day May 7th – it attracted 148,188 page views. The site attracts a lot of comments from users – more than 1,000 a day at its peak – and one of the most common complaints below the line is that the coverage of the crisis on broadcast media is hopelessly one-sided, uncritically echoing the views and advice of the authorities.
During normal times I am regularly invited to appear as a commentator or newspaper reviewer on news and current affairs programmes, including the BBC News Channel, ITV News, Channel 4 News, Sky News, the Today programme, Newsnight, Daily Politics and the Andrew Marr Show. But since I started expressing scepticism about the virulence and severity of COVID-19, as well as being critical of the lockdown policy, I have not been invited to appear on any of these programmes to discuss the coronavirus crisis, save for Newsnight which booked me, then cancelled when I told the producer my views. And while it’s hard to generalise from my own experience, other commentators with similar views about the virus have told me the same thing.
For instance, the hostility of broadcasters towards dissenting voices has been noticed by Karol Sikora, Professor of Medicine at the University of Buckingham and a former WHO advisor on cancer. He has written several articles in newspapers drawing attention to the collateral damage likely to be caused by the lockdown – such as the number of people who will die because cancer operations and cancer screening programmes have been suspended – and yet his voice has been largely unheard on the broadcast media. He told me: “I have been asked on to the Today programme, the World at One and Newsnight. But after I’ve accepted, I get dropped a few hours later probably as they’ve been told I might express the wrong views.”
That the coverage of the crisis has been completely one-sided, with very few genuinely critical voices being heard, is also the view of Robin Aitken MBE, a journalist who worked as a reporter for the BBC for 25 years, ending up on the Today programme. He told me: “The BBC very quickly bought in to the Government’s lockdown plans and thereafter very little real debate was allowed. Jonathan Sumption popped up a couple of times but, in the main, anti-lockdown voices, which had a perfectly respectable case to make, were simply not heard.”
We’re unlikely to come before a judge this side of September, unfortunately, so there isn’t much we can do to salvage the current situation. But if we’re successful, at least Ofcom will think twice before issuing equally censorious guidance next time there’s a public health emergency.
Even though our solicitor and barrister are working pro bono, there will inevitably be costs associated with this action – indeed, there have been some already. The FSU has set up a Fighting Fund to help pay for this and other attempts to stand up for free speech in the courts. If you feel like contributing, please click here. And if you’d like to join the FSU, please click here.
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:
- ‘What the new UK lockdown rules mean for you‘ – Telegraph summarises tonight’s easing of restrictions by the Prime Minister
- ‘Art galleries, museums and cinemas will reopen‘ – The Times reports on the grand reopening + staycations allowed from July 4th. Whoopee!
- ‘It’s lockdown lift-off – but who wants to live in this new normal?‘ – Allison Pearson is underwhelmed by today’s announcements
- ‘The NHS pushing DNRs on the “mildly frail”‘ – Scandalous story in Off-Guardian via Dr Vernon Coleman. What Dr Coleman’s YouTube video about this here
- ‘Questions for lockdown apologists‘ – Good post on Medium by John Pospichal that I missed last month. He shows that Covid deaths increased precipitously after lockdowns in Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, New York City and Ecuador
- ‘Police in Netherlands use water cannon against anti-lockdown protestors‘ – Didn’t see these being used against the BLM protestors
- ‘I dared to question the aims of Black Lives Matter – and got the worst racist abuse I’ve ever suffered‘ – Esther Krakue is a black Briton who doesn’t support the BLM agenda. When she voiced that opinion on Twitter, she was subject to vile racist abuse, much of it from white liberals
- ‘We Can’t Breathe‘ – Website created by the organisers of an anti-lockdown rally in Texas
- ‘There are 185 billion reasons why no politician should consider a lockdown again‘ – Russell Lynch, the Economics Editor of the Telegraph, reports on a paper by the former Bank of England rate-setter David Miles estimating that the cost of the lockdown is far greater than the cost of the years of life we have saved from imposing it, even if we accept Neil Ferguson’s apocalyptic modelling. Exactly the same argument I made back in March. More on this tomorrow
- ‘Scottish schools to fully reopen on August 11 in “mother and father” of SNP climbdowns‘ – If they can do this in Scotland, why not England and Wales?
- ‘COVID-19 deaths fall across every age group, new figures reveal‘ – Unlike the rest of us, the virus seems to have gone on holiday – and it’s not a staycation. Will it be permanent?
- ‘Allow gyms and leisure centres to reopen‘ – Petition on the UK Government website. It’s already got over 70,000 signatures
- ‘Has anyone found a mask that can handle hot flushes, especially while wearing glasses?‘ – Useful Reddit thread for women of a certain age
- ‘Premier League: Mystery over “professional” haircuts‘ – The plait thickens
Theme Tune Suggestions From Readers
Only one suggestion today: “Gaslighter” by the Dixie Chicks. After all, we’ve all been gaslighted by the authorities.
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. Now that non-essential shops have reopened – or most of them, anyway – we’re now focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. 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. Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Note to the Good Folks Below the Line
I enjoy reading all your comments and I’m glad I’ve created a “safe space” for lockdown sceptics to share their frustrations and keep each other’s spirits up. But please don’t copy and paste whole articles from papers that are behind paywalls in the comments. I work for some of those publications and if they don’t charge for premium content they won’t survive.
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 usually takes me several hours to do these daily updates, along with everything else, which doesn’t leave much time for other work. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. Please don’t email me at any other address.
And Finally…
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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[…] The narrative of panic (rather than cunning plan) was also undermined by the fact that the Government got Ofcom to order the mainstream media not to report “contrary narratives”. The Free Speech Union is bringing a Judicial Review of this, which you can read about if you follow this link >>> https://dailysceptic.org/2020/06/23/latest-news-63/ […]
[…] The narrative of panic (rather than cunning plan) was also undermined by the fact that the Government got Ofcom to order the mainstream media not to report “contrary narratives”. The Free Speech Union is bringing a Judicial Review of this, which you can read about if you follow this link >>> https://dailysceptic.org/2020/06/23/latest-news-63/ […]
Brilliant
[…] the regulator published on March 23rd, the same day the full lockdown was imposed. As I’ve written about before, this “guidance” has contributed to the suppression of dissenting views about Covid in […]
A letter to the Bishop of St David’s:
Dear Bishop Joanna
In the absolute certainty that the Covid Coward Church in Wales will accept the hell of the New Abnormal with exactly the same craven servility as it has accepted the purgatory of lockdown, I write to point out that all Christian documents will have to be completely re-written. Christianity is, in its essence, a generous reaching out to other people, in imitation of Our Lord, and that is the total antithesis of the New Abnormal.
In order that no time may be wasted in perverting the Scriptures as required, I hereby offer you a suitable rendition of St Luke 10:30-37:
A certain man went down from Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner, and fell among BML thugs, which beat him up, because he was white, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there cam down a certain Church of England rector that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise an NHS nurse, when she was near the place, looked on him, and saw he wore no face mask, and passed by on the other side.
But a certain human being,… Read more »
I think you may be flogging a dead Church there, Annie….
No doubt, but I feel the better for it!
Absolutely fantastic letter Annie!
Great letter!!
Re: the ‘major incident at Bournemouth‘ (!). Here’s some feedback from the good people of the borough (Daily Telegraph):
Residents in Bournemouth have reacted with anger towards the people who ignored advice to stay away and traveled (sic) to Bournemouth Beach to enjoy the weather, causing Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council to declare a major incident.
Kaz Lewis told the Bournemouth Echo: “”I am disgusted. Care homes are not able to open because of this. The mental health of the elderly is damaged further because they can’t see their loved ones. People are actually incapable of seeing past their own selfish selves. Clapping NHS and then doing this. Come [and] speak to my family and find out the costs of this behaviour on us, I’ll tell you exactly the impact this is having.”
Andrew Michael Williams told the paper: “I couldn’t think of anything worse, I just cannot see the attraction of sitting on a beach with thousands of people blocking the view, with the relentless noise. I think I’ll stay home and stay safe.”
Gillian Latimer added: “So sad to see, especially for all NHS workers who have battled so hard to save lives. They should hang their heads in shame, we… Read more »
So care homes can’t open because of people who will NEVER go within fifty miles of a care home in the next year?
OK.
So care homes have been closed since March because of people who were going to come and sit on the beach in June?!
Really, what else are they to do after being robbed of their humanity and worth* for 3 months?
Actually I can think of many things that I’d rather be doing but that’s beside the point.
*I’m assuming that a good proportion of those people are furloughed
Path in Bournemouth. You’ve got to laugh. One of the many problems with local government is that they think the entire population is as thick as they are.
Hahaha! If they’re really anxious about ‘the covid’ they could hurl themselves over the edge and do us all a favour!
Empowered idiots running everything now.
You can just see them can’t you?
I live in a coastal region plagued every summer by happy bathers/tourists. The locals just hate sharing their treasure with outsiders, they resent it much, even those dependent on it for trade. This covid twiddle has finally allowed them to openly express their bile, that’s likely it.
But as you say, it’s a love-hate thing. They hate the tourists while also depending on them. When the economic pain bites, most likely the tone will change.
Let us hope none of their relatives ever need to work in a different area. “What you doing here, stealing our jobs and spreading your germs? F off back to Bournemouth. Was ever the last resort…”
A slightly more balanced report here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/25/like-armageddon-bournemouth-beach-crowds-spark-fears-uks-staycation/
An extract:
But other locals were less worried, suggesting the the council’s “state of emergency” was an overreaction designed to distract from their own poor allocation of services.
Local Steve Wood, 58, who spent most of the afternoon on the seafront with a pint of beer, admitted he had “never thought about” the possibility of day-trippers bringing in the virus. “It’s human nature [to come to the beach],” he said. “I think the council’s been caught with their pants down.”
Married couple Walter and Ann, both in their early 80s, were surprised to hear they were sitting in the middle of a “major incident”. “I think it’s an overreaction,” said Walter. “What’s the solution – are we going to drive all these people off the beach? That would spoil the area.”
Jordan Hale, 26, works behind a burger bar at the beach. He also called it “human nature” to want to enjoy the sun, especially with so many people on furlough. “I don’t have a problem with it,” he said. “I’m more than happy for people to come down. Without tourism, this county wouldn’t exist.”
He added that it was “so obvious” to him that beaches would… Read more »
“Connor Burns, the MP for Bournemouth West, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday: “Today was the worst I’ve ever seen it. Pavements were blocked [on] both sides of the road. The fines need to be much higher.”
Trust an MP to be enthusiastically part of making any problem worse. Never forget. Never forgive.
“The illegal parking near the beach today was deeply irresponsible and dangerous. Emergency vehicles would struggle to get through.”
Then open the bloody car parks, you morons.
These sad killjoys remind me of a certain type of person from the Middle Ages. You know, the ones who used to carry a bible in one hand and a box of matches in the other.
Indeed. Or the ones (often the same, no doubt), who “hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators“.
Quite. This comment from the article amused me:
To which one response was:
…er medieval matches?
And medieval bibles were hand-written, on parchment, and were enormous. You’d need a very, very strong hand.
For Londoners: TFL exemption badge is here (pdf):
https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/face-coverings#on-this-page-3
There’s a veritable army of bureaucrats drafting this nonsense, and we are paying them. And WHY do these clowns insist on referring to passengers as ‘customers’? It really irritates me.
So far in 2020 in England and Wales
Only 15% of the the total deaths are from people with Covid
0.4% of total deaths are from people of any age with covid with no underlying health issues
0.09% of total deaths are from people under 40 with covid with no underlying health issues
What do you think BBC viewers answers would be?
Just told them I won’t buy from them, though unlikely I was ever going to travel 300 miles for an ice cream
It is nice ice cream, I have been many times. Just not at the moment.
BBC “fact checks” face muzzles being deadly https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53108405
I’m sure that there are articles showing that they are deadly. If anyone can post a link, I’ll do a futile but satisfying complaint to them .
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2020/05/14/neurosurgeon-says-face-masks-pose-serious-risk-to-healthy-people-n392431
I’m not sure that will work -the article now has a correction
Correction: Many in the medical field are disputing Dr. Blaylock’s claims and do not see wearing a mask as a serious risk to healthy people, although people who have breathing difficulties, such as those with COPD, smokers, etc., may be adversely affected. Nor do the masks weaken the immune system, according to these medical professionals. While most concede that hypercapnia is possible, they say it is highly unlikely, especially with cloth mask
Sorry, I bookmarked it sometime ago, without the update I presume.
Mind you, having investigated further it seems that article comes from AP and is linked to Facebook which is pushing government narrative. So it’s just a counter punch and I have no idea who is right. I do know I won’t wear one, period.
Snap! (on both counts :-))
Beware the Facebook ‘fact checkers’: MSM and SM is now ridden with them. For more information, watch this:
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/23/watch-who-will-fact-check-the-fact-checkers/
The only ‘evidence’ in ‘afurmo’s’ link is a quote from one person. No scientific studies are cited. It is true that the CDC and WHO have put out contradictory advice on masks in the last month or so. Surely not an example of ‘policy-based evidence making’?
No, and as you pointed out (think it was you) WHO changed their mind after UK changed mind about masks on public transport and UK is second largest donor to WHO.
I imagine smokers will be badly affected if they wear a mask while smoking.
“The BBC’s anti-disinformation team “. LOL! They’ve got to be joking, haven’t they? Virtually their entire BBC News output, bat flu or otherwise, is one colossal vomit of misinformation.
Yep
Hear, hear!
Yep, name and shame.
Its not about naming and shaming, for me it is about a simple pleasure, go to get an ice cream, if visiting with someone else pass their ice cream to them , then get yours. Not about juggling multiple cones whilst trying to make card payment.
I am sure it does not need to be so difficult, stand in the queue in your family group etc.
Health & Safety types must be loving this.
Worth checking in person, Dave. The website might be just for the benefit of the local authority safety inspectors, whereas the people on the ground give it little credence. Farming types are usually pretty robust.
JohnB good advice.
I will drive past and see if the actual experience is different to what the website says.
and then you can make a point of advising them that you do not want to make a purchase under those conditions and tell them you will never darken their doorstep again
First train journey since march today. Outward journey had a depressing level of muzzle compliance, the only others in defiance being a pair of fake-homeless scouring the seats for lost change.
However on the return journey the vast majority were muzzle-free. Really positive.
On another note had an idea about what to do when pubs reopen. When they ask for your contact details, fill in the details of your local MP. See how they like getting the self-isolate phone call.
Great idea re MP
Lloyd Russell-Moyle Is my local MP. I would refuse to drink anywhere that thought I might be him.
Very good point, but on the other hand I struggle to think of any other MP more deserving of perpetual isolation in the hell of his own echo chamber.
How about my MP?
http://cindex.camden.gov.uk/kb5/camden/cd/service.page?id=Uy4sad7KjwY
Encouraging! Would you be happy to say which region your journey was in?
It was in the Midlands. Commuter line. Mix of people ignoring the rules too but probably weighted on the younger side, which was somewhat surprising.
Thanks – interesting about the younger people. Maybe there’s some hope.
Brilliant idea.
Boris and Hang-cock will get zillions of calls, hee hee.
Re: The MP idea – Genius!
I had a minor success, the person I mentioned who was wearing a Reebok branded face covering has removed it.
He says he has taken it off because of the heat, I think it was the common sense after I explain the down sides to him.
Folks, step back. Take a rest from the idiocies.
I went for a ride on my horse today. My horse is my greatest consolation, because throughout all this bollox she has behaved exactly like a horse, meaning that day by day she has displayed more and more superiority to the subhuman morons with which she has to share the planet.
Anyway, we went along the road overlooking the sea, along a shady track, across a flowery glade, and we had fun. Fun, FUN, FUN!!! (cackles madly).
And on the way home I saw lots more folks having FUN. Digging in the sand, bathing in the sea, eating ice cream and burgers, and generally doing all the things that sane people do at the seaside on a hot day.
Bugger the Abnormal. Have FUN, and imagine how the zombies hate it and you.
And think what miserable lives they lead. But better than that, forget them altogether and have FUN.
One of the places i go riding my motorcycle there are horses and i stop to speak to them and have a smoke. One old grey nag i’ve been giving an apple too is always good for a laugh. No matter where she is she trots over and takes the apple. I don’t know if i’m meant to feed her but what the hell. I wouldn’t want to ride her or any other horse for that. Big motorcycle no problem, four legs and a mind of it’s own., you’re a brave woman.
I like to live dangerously!
Horse’s top speed us considerably lower than your bike’s, though
Annie, I have reported you to PETA, the local authority, the police, and the RSPCA. Much as it upset me to do so, I felt I had to take a stand and denounce this dreadful mistreatment of our equine bothers/sisters.
In addition to the humiliation of being ridden (!) by mere humans, the WHO, CDC, and NHS all tell us that horses can catch covid19 ! Very irresponsible of you.
How on earth can we expect to defeat the dreadful killer virus with this sort of behaviour goodness only knows.
Horse lives matter !
PS What is this ‘FUN’ you speak of ? They didn’t mention it on our Common Purpose courses.
Ooh dear, I expect a black disabled transsexual BBC reporter will be calling soon to interview the horse, now sound asleep in her mare’s nest.
kh1485 to sorry to hear this.
Police should have much more important stuff to spend their time on, they are always saying they need more resources.
I suspect they have visited you because that is easier than investigating something which takes some effort.
Again sorry to hear that you have been targeted.
Road closures seem to be the popular around here at the moment why couldn’t they have done them at the beginning of Lockdown?
They shutdown the road works near us at the start of the event.
Never saw the point of them stopping work as all the workers are in the cabs of their own trucks & excavators.
I see those gits at the WHO have been at it again (from the DT):
So it’s a “very significant resurgence”. Would that be a slight increase in a few localities?
“new cumulative cases”
New cases excludes earlier cases. Cumulative cases includes earlier cases.Are these people illiterate or do they do it on purpose?
It’s a load of twaddle isn’t it?
They do it on purpose. Keep the fear going. Bastards. Just bastards.
Which 11 countries? And why don’t they ever mention increased testing?
Courtesy of guy153
Bastions of honest government and reliable reporting …
I think many of them are places that got the virus late (Kazakhstan isn’t generally as busy with international travellers as say London or New York) and therefore locked down early. So they are now going to have their epidemics.
It seems the WHO didn’t want to name the actual 11 countries at first to discourage fact checking and to be able to scare more people. Many people in the much more densely populated Western European countries will have read the headline and been left with an impression that a second wave was starting.
Those well-known European countries; Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and best of all – Kyrgyzstan.
‘honest government’ and ‘reliable reporting’ – packing in the oxymorons a bit there!
All countries that haven’t really had a first wave yet then…
Oh joy! I have made a hair appointment for 2 weeks time my hairdresser will now work from her garage rather than come to me. I wont be allowed in her house and she’ll have to wear a visor, I said upfront I’m not wearing a mask. I’ll have to wash my hair before the appointment and she’ll dampen it before cutting and the price has risen by £2. I’m so desperate I’ll put up with this for the short term.
Ah well, with luck you may leave as Bellissima Donna!
LOL that’s the plan 😉
As an act of civil disobedience, I suggest we boycott hair stylists until these draconian measures are ended.
I’ve been waiting 3 months and I’m desperate, I’ve been snipping away at it myself always a bad sign!
Steve Hayes are you wanting to cause a riot here in LS?
don’t do it, just let it grow wild like a mushroom
Oh no now I’ve finally got that appointment nothing is going to stop me!
I think most people have been mushrooming for the last 3 months.
i took mushrooms about thirty years ago and never came back to reality. It’s hard to say if it’s been a blessing or a curse.
I refused an appointment from my hairdresser because of these ridiculous restrictions – told her I don’t wear a mask. I’ve looked shite for a couple of months, a bit longer won’t hurt!
I’m not wearing a mask, she’s wearing a visor because she thinks it’s mandatory.
Lucky you! I hope she can see properly through the visor.
Rather than the usual chit chat you need to get into some serious talk with your hair dresser about the difference between guidance & legal requirement.
Besides you are not going to be talking about that lovely short break you had over the May bank holiday weekend, oh I forgot non of us normal had any sort of break.
Well it’s only you and her there, tell her she doesn’t have to.
i have 10 days to wait before i get my hair cut. first time since february so it needs it. my barber has the gear but will not use it. we did discuss how he would do my beard trim if i was wearing a mask
I think I must be very lucky with my hairdresser (but she has done my hair for 25 years 😁) – she messaged me as soon as they knew they could open and so I have one of her first appointments on 4th July for colour, cut and blow-dry – I am so excited!!! She didn’t say anything about a mask and if she’s doing a colour, then she’ll have to wash my hair.
I always knew there were advantages to being a SCRUFF.
Grow hair, tie back in ponytail, cut ends off if tail too long, job done.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53175459
Coronavirus: ‘Very significant’ resurgences in Europe alarm WHO
They decline to name the countries in question, lest some awkward people want to check whether this statement is true. And the BBC piece offers no perspective or second check – just parrots out what the WHO are saying.
We will be lied to about Europe for as long as things are going OK there as it doesn’t fit the narrative.
This will be kept bubbling for quite some time I fear so they can invoke their authoritarian regs any time!
“The 11 countries were later identified by the WHO as Armenia, Sweden, Moldova, North Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Kosovo.”
They may have updated the page since you visited it.
Sweden I’m sure have stated that they have increased testing. Most of those other countries don’t look like they had much of a first wave.
Yes agree, was just looking at some of them. Many of these look like the places where the epidemic started later so they locked down “in time”. Now, predictably enough, they are having to come out and face the music.
Since when have Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan been in Europe?
‘Alarm WHO’? I’m sure they’re delighted – this is just the ticket to keep the fear going!
“The seaside resort of Bournemouth in southern England has declared a major incident after thousands of people flocked to its beaches for the second day in a row.
The local council said visitors had “defied advice to stay away” from the town on one of the hottest days of the year – and it was now co-ordinating a “multi-agency emergency response” across the area.”
What we’ve come to – a hot day, people enjoying the beach (largely peacefully I believe, apart from littering which I despise but that’s a lost battle) and it requires a “multi-agency emergency response”.
I hate the idea that a council thinks it can tell people to “stay away”. It’s a free country, and we can all go where we like if it’s public land. That’s rather the point of living in a free country.
Petty authoritarians are absolutely in their element these days.
Yes, this whole Wuhan flu hysteria really brings out the worst in people.
In some people.
Indeed, and tourists in part pay their wages through their contribution to the local economy.
I found all the stuff during lockdown where people were told to stay away from beauty spots and not be selfish bloody irritating. I mean, where I live is lovely and yes I’d love everyone to stay away, but who’s being selfish here?
I always write to these councils. Cumbria was the last one I wrote to, offering a compromise: “You don’t tell me to stay away, and in return I promise to bring in every scrap of food I intend to eat and every drop I intend to drink. This way there is no face-to-face contact with your residents, and I get to keep all my money.”
“declared a major incident…… co-ordinating a “multi-agency emergency response””
Ye Gods!
(And the little fishes, as well!)
You’ve got to laugh at these local government parasites:
In other words, things got so bad that the parking Hitlers couldn’t issue tickets fast enough.
ridiculous. I’m ashamed to be British.
This kind of thing is perversity on steroids. Do these idiots really want to kill their towns? We were in a small High Peak town earlier and the Gauleiters have now banned all seats, however distanced, outside the poor, beleaguered cafes who are trying to make a fraction of their former living doing take-aways.
One cafe with fixed chairs and tables has been ordered to dig them up, leaving holes in the pavement. Brilliant! If they continue with this there will be no reason to visit as everything that isn’t already closed (and there are plenty of them) will have also gone bust and it will be a ghost town. It’s horrible!
I live just beside Southbourne beach and people have been coming down all week. Today looks to be extra special but nothing compared to what it can get like in normal times (think 3 miles of beach packed like sardines).
The only problem is people are sleeping on the beach and in their vans in the car parks. But what do you expect when they close all the hotels? There’s also growing litter and rubbish because there aren’t full services operational
I am actually really happy that people did this. Because if people are all mixing on the beach then how is it any different to get pubs and hotels back open. It looks like the penny might drop.
https://www.propublica.org/article/fire-through-dry-grass-andrew-cuomo-saw-covid-19-threat-to-nursing-homes-then-he-risked-adding-to-it
Investigative journalism from New York about Gov Cuomo order to send infected patients back to nursing homes. Minimum 4500 deaths. Similar article about NHS repetition of the same policy?
The quotation below must get a medal for smartest cynicism
“Science will determine whether the spread in nursing homes came as a result of returning residents or from asymptomatic staff who were already there,” said Jonah Bruno, a spokesman for the New York Health Department.
It’s strange how most countries followed the same plan. Was it a deliberate attempt to kill off the elderly?
I don’t see why “they” would want to do that, stripping the assets from the elderly in care costs and pouring them into off-shore investment funds is very much a thing “they” like to do. I can’t imagine “them” cutting off that revenue stream through choice. However with the new “national care service” coming our way perhaps “they” needed to cut down on the the overheads before the buy-out.
Lets not forget that the elderly who “died of covid” probably would have died soon anyway so why bother trying to kill them three months earlier.
Similarly when “they” sell of the NHS perhaps a requirement is mass vaccination, again to keep the overheads down “going forward” for the new corporate owners.
I was referring more to the council run care homes. The private homes would obviously take good care of their fee paying guests. The less elderly there are the less pensions to pay and less NHS treatment required.
I think there is, or was, a generally agreed protocol that would be followed should such a situation arise. One thing that was not part of the protocol was lockdown of the entire populous.
No, it looks malicious but it’s just incompetence. You credit these people with enough intelligence to plan and legislate with forsight, they can’t do that, they couldn’t find their own arse with either hand. They just went into a flat spin.
The same with Boris. One thought he was a man of depths and perception, seeing the EU for what it was. But no, he was just a man who saw a winning ticket, one that’d get him into power and he rode it all the way. It was the courage of the people that carried us out of the EU and it’ll be the same resolute bloody mindedness that gets us out of this. Hang on in there, the ballsy always win out in the end.
Boris reads Brixton thugs the riot act: PM slams ‘appalling scenes’ and warns they ‘face full force of the law’ after video showed overpowered police fleeing as mob screaming ‘run them out!’ injure 22 officers – with two having FULL BODY scan
This is why it is not “harmless” to pander to race-baiting, resentment-mongering extremists. It is not mere harmless niceness to attend or support demos to oppose “nasty racism”. It does not placate thugs to “take the knee”, it empowers and encourages them, and it gives them an excuse for future thuggery.
The Met have made their own bed here, but unfortunately it is not just them who will suffer for it. They will bear the first brunt, but it is ordinary citizens who will bear the full force of the failure of authority and of law enforcement.
Just another excuse to bring martial law to the streets. It’s coming.
They’re going to need to build a very big militia very quickly if that’s their plan… I mean, there will be plenty of unemployed to recruit from, but I wouldn’t like to be confident where their loyalties and the loyalties of their leaders might end up. If they don’t build it, it will arise organically in response to the need for street level security.
Most likely things will settle down again, and we’ll just collectively get down to the hard grind of paying for the lockdown for the rest of most of our lives. but imo the worst case of a general collapse of order and authority cannot be entirely ruled out as implausible, as it could generally have been in the past.
I really don’t want to see a total collapse but unless they start to lose these petty restriction now put in place to allow people to start trading again I can see it coming. Granted they will need a very big militia but in the meantime there is the experience of Northern Ireland to fall back on. Maybe a dim memory for these days but I remember it well.
Yep, it’s all in Coronavirus Bill
Anyone seen this? Dear God……..
“BRITAIN will pause for an “epic applause” on Sunday July 5 in what will mark a final clap for carers and other front-line workers who have helped the nation through the pandemic.
Broadcasters will suspend normal transmissions at 5pm as people across the country pause what they are doing to think of others as part of the biggest “thank you” the country has ever seen.”
They can f**k right off!
Good plan. I need to start thinking about activities that will keep me out of earshot of this b******t.
Liverpool v Villa, Mark, k.o. 16:30. Turn sound up, draw curtains. 🙂
Too painful! Not sure which would be worse tbh, out of mass collective bleating or your lot winning.
We’ll have won it by then Mark. 🙂 Chelski will do you guys tonight.
Hard to give a t**s atm, tbh. I can understand why it still matters to you – I’m honest enough to admit that if it were my side winning the title I’d still care…
For sure. I’m probably giving it a 20th of the attention I did prior to March.
Reckon you’ll start taking an interest in the CL later on though ! 🙂
[Mumbles something and refuses to meet JohnB’s eyes]
Cool, i mean who doesn’t like to stand and clap like some fucking prisoner from North Korea in appreciation of the piss poor government run services and the piss poor lefty fat nurses and the ethnic doctors who can’t speak a word of english. Think i’ll get me a black lives are more important than my life t-shirt to wear while i stand clapping my own idiocy
I saw it and discarded that idea pretty pronto!
What a flimmin PSY-OP! People who lap this up are such fools. I am going to make sure I am out in the countryside for this one, miles away from any possible contact with the happy clappers. I launched a protest at the height of the clap-ins, I blasted Crass,BigA LittleA out of my window very very loud throughout the clap. I think that killed off the few remaining clapping die-hards near me. They didn’t clap again.
Nauseating nonsense!!!
No thanks. However it will be interesting to see who participates.
I’ll make sure I’m miles away, out in the middle of nowhere.
Count me out.
Fuck off
At least they’re trying to end it. I think this should be welcomed. People need some kind of ritual to snap them out of their religiose hypnosis.
Anyone seen this? From the govt’s own literature:
There are some circumstances when wearing a face covering may be marginally beneficial as a precautionary measure. The evidence suggests that wearing a face covering does not protect you, but it may protect others if you are infected but have not developed symptoms.
It is important to know that the evidence of the benefit of using a face covering to protect others is weak and the effect is likely to be small, therefore face coverings are not a replacement for the other ways of managing risk…
Hardly grounds for making it compulsory, is it?
“It can’t hurt” is enough for some people to want it made into law.
But it can cause harm.
Ah but that’s good, precautionary, life-saving harm, you see.
the only thing i can think of for wearing a mask outside of doing engineering and painting is going down on a fat bird, but when that’s happening you’ve probably had ten beers and you don’t give a fuck so making compulsory won’t help
Ignore Biker and please don’t make this your last post!
Don’t go . . .I love your posts. I didn’t like the remark either but it’s just one post amongst many which are not like that at all. All of us are stretched to the limit at the moment, at screaming pitch, so we are angry and lashing out in all sorts of ways. Just walk on by if you can? We all have different morals, different ways of expressing ourselves and sometimes if I don’t like something someone has said, I just have to ignore and forget and remind myself that I support free speech even when I don’t like it! Please stay.
I have in the past, albeit 30 years ago. And I do understand, honestly. It gave me that oh so familiar clutch of fear in my stomach from years back. But we would hate to lose you because of one post . . . You’ve had a really rough few days. I hope Biker will come along and apologise, even if he cannot change the post now.
My wife, who’s a gynae nurse, laughed out loud at Biker’s post.
Different strokes…..
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
I would always, and have, placed myself in harms way to protect somebody who was unable to, or call out someone who was threatening to, I’m sure that Biker would too.
Things get on top of us all at the moment.
To be fair, I didn’t realise you’d been raped, it is the one of the worse crimes.
My wife has cared for women who’s been victims of rape and it is no laughing matter.
The famous quote draws attention to the fact that some people don’t share the same sense of humour, but they would protect people in a heartbeat.
Both me and my wife have worked in clinical education roles in the NHS, driving up quality and addressing poor care.
We have also been victims of incompetent clinicians too, we’ve never clapped
Don’t go, I love reading your posts! I don’t tend to reply to anything I find really offensive (not sure how I would reply to that one anyway!) and I’m sure others feel the same.
‘Judy Mikovitz (Plandemic) is suing California Governor Gavin Newsome for the lockdowns of the well along with the sick, mandated masks, right to livelihood and free travel, and unconstitutional unilateral powers taken by the Governor. This could set a precedent for future lawsuits to come. The economy, suicides, freedom are ‘only’ at stake and Judy Mikovitz stresses health concerns with mandated mask wearing.’
https://www.freedomwatchusa.org/gov-gavin-newsom-sued-over-mask-and-home-imprisonment-ord
https://www.freedomwatchusa.org/pdf/200622-LK%20ComplaintCalorniaMartialLawAMENDED15.pdf
Wow good for her
Good news though as the establishment over there is really against her not much may come of it.
The Constitution makes such challenges more likely to succeed across the pond. There have been some already.
I’m salivating with anticipation to find out the result of Dolan’s case. It’s just the beginning of the lawfare against the totalitarians.
Watching the news (as it is called) on the television this morning, with the
journalistsnewsreaderspresenters banging on about the importance of social distancing and following the rules lest there by a second wave of the terrible virus, I could not help but notice that three months of non-access to the services of a hair stylist had not made one whit of difference. They were just as well groomed as they had been before the lockdown. Not a hair out of place, not a hair a millimetre longer.These people are shameless hypocrites, professional liars, and destroyers of satire.
No one ever takes them to task about it. Funny that. Also, at the now-abandoned government press conferences, you’d have thought one of the journalists would have asked the talking heads how they managed to get their hair cut (Boris being the obvious one not to ask).
A week or so ago Piers Morgan (with a couple of others) attacked Boris Johnson for having scruffy hair. This is the same Piers Morgan who spent months calling people covidiots and accusing them of killing people for doing such things as sitting on a park bench or walking the dog.
and who then said that going on the first BLM protest was acceptable and tried to social distance. – and of course if you were his son
I don’t know why you bother with them Steve. Masochism’s not really my bag.
It is easier to critically evaluate the propaganda when you know what the propaganda is.
There’s a danger you will be influenced by it. Propaganda is insidious.
No, people are only influenced by propaganda when they consume it passively. You can easily test this for yourself. If you come across someone who has been influenced by the propaganda (as distinct from a propagandist), ask them some critical questions, along the lines of “how do you know…?” You soon see that they do not know. They are just repeating the sound bites, the headlines, the emotive rhetoric.
Got to be careful with tv, Steve. They were doing visual subliminals 50 years ago. Would they stop working in this area out of some sense of moral responsibility ? 🙂
When I point this out to people, as I have many times, they just look blank. They don’t even seem to have noticed, let alone put any thought into how these presenters, politicians and scientists have remained so well groomed…
It is not just them. The sports people, who are now back on our television screens, also seem to be remarkably well groomed. I have been watching the snooker and the players, officials and journalists have, with very few obvious exceptions, had access to hair stylists. Another point about the sports that is very striking is how we are told the sports have resumed now that they can observe social distancing, but of course they are not, which completely undermines the rationale for stopping sport in the first place. No matter where one looks in the responses to this virus, all one can see is inconsistencies, contradictions, empty rhetoric and hypocrisy.
I’m afraid you might need to add conspiracy, unfashionable as it still might be.
They do have a make-up department though, which does hair.
Hairdressing services are illegal. There are no legal exemptions. In fact, Piers Morgan claims that he has his wife style his hair (she obviously doesn’t) precisely for this reason.
Here’s my email to the Wallace Collection regarding their reopening on 15 July:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I have just received an email from you regarding your plans to reopen on 15 July and having read the email and following the link to your website. I am dismayed at the measures you have put in place such as timed tickets, social distancing and one way systems. I am a fairly regular visitor and part of the joy of coming to your museum is having the ability to drop in when I am in the vicinity to view my favourite objects and paintings in the collection and the thrill of discovering something new. This will not be possible under the “safety” measures that you have put in place.
I strongly believe that the arts not only nourish our soul and reinforces one of the aspects that makes us human but also encourages us to view the world through a different lens and question everything that we see and hear. It is sad that an august institution like the Wallace Collection have bought into this culture of fear and excessive safetyism without question.
While the Wallace Collection insists of treating me and other visitors like… Read more »
Well put. What a load of tossers.
Sadly I think this is only the beginning and I won’t be surprised if I will receive the same email from other institutions.
Seattle CHOP zone prompts lawsuit from businesses, residents: reports
Here’s my tentative prediction. The BLM movement might just have achieved what would have been regarded as almost impossible this time last year: it might have secured the reelection of Trump.
That might be just wishful thinking on my part, because just as the hugely imperfect Trump was nevertheless infinitely better than the actually dangerous Hilary Clinton and the Democrat machine, he is still infinitely better than the almost equally dangerous Biden (or whoever gets sneaked in as VP to take over when his health problems become too apparent) and, again, that poisonous Democrat machine.
What the BLM experience has done is remind people (of all races) just how dangerous anti-white racism can be for all when it is pandered to, and exposed the Democrat hierarchy and city governments as ineffectual panderers dancing around points of political zealotry while city centres burned. It’s also likely to concentrate the minds of the very divided Republican Party on the need to keep the Democrat machine out of the White House at all costs, which might result in the marginalisation of the inveterate Trump-haters in the Party hierarchy.
Trump has a mountain to climb,… Read more »
The problem will be postal votes – Dems bound to try and rig the election that way..
I suppose everyone has seen this?
Police injured during illegal Brixton street party clashes.
Twenty-two police officers have been injured and their vehicles damaged during clashes at an illegal street party in south-west London.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53176472
Thank goodness it was largely peaceful.
The atmosphere at the moment does seem to be ‘febrile’. Cynics might observe that it’s rather predictable if you go locking people in their houses for 12 weeks, then encourage rioting and vandalism and praise it for its virtuousness while emphasising that the people doing it are above the law.
and dont forget the street party in moss side , manchester, at the weekend at which the police decided not to take any action and which then resulted in the deaths of two men.
And not wanting to take a broad brush approach but there is something coincidental about the demographics of Brixton and Moss Side
What might they be mjr?
Recalls Peter Hitchens’ comments linked here yesterday, that I think we discussed. There’s the obvious rowdiness of youths cooped up for too long, and there’s also a more profound damage inflicted by the response to covid:
“If you do this to a society then you unstring the lute. You make all kinds of things very different. You change the atmosphere, you change the way people behave and the way they think. If you impose mass house arrest as we’ve had in this country, if you compel people to stay away from work, if you put in as we have had in Britain huge numbers of people being paid basically a government pension for not doing anything and at the same time there’s a constant air of panic and fear, then it would be surprising if it didn’t have social effects.
…
I think that the governments which shut down their countries because of covid 19 destabilised their own countries. I don’t think most of them understood what they were doing at the time, but … there were several things that they did and they were very profound. They took people away from their regular routine, of working, in many cases… Read more »