The Left-Wing Case Against Lockdown
It really annoys me that lockdown sceptics are so often dismissed as Tory-voting, Brexit-supporting, libertarian-sympathising, white, middle-class, middle-aged Gammons. Okay, yes, that’s me, but there are plenty of other sceptics out there who don’t fall into any of these categories. And what’s really infuriating is the assumption that anyone on the Left should be a lockdown zealot. Why? As each day passes, more evidence comes to light that the lockdown has caused disproportionate harm to the most vulnerable people in our society – children, the elderly, cancer patients, the BAME community (not all of them are vulnerable, obviously), those suffering from mental illness… the list goes on. And what about the catastrophic effect the Global Economic Recession will have on the world’s poorest people in the developing world, with hundreds of millions now likely to die of starvation, TB, dysentery, etc.? Are left-wing people now just expected to sign up to the mantra of “safety first” and to hell with the consequences?
So it was heartening to get an email yesterday from a woman who started out by explaining she was a Guardian-reading, Remain-voting, Liberal Democrat who voted for Jeremy Corbyn at the last election, but is nonetheless a staunch lockdown sceptic. I’ve published it and it now sits below “The Left-Wing Case Against Lockdown” by Alexis Fitzgerald on the left-hand side. Here are a couple of the opening paragraphs:
Let me preface this by saying that I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories: There was a moon landing. The earth is round. My child is vaccinated. I know there is a virus, unrelated to 5G, whose effects can be severe with tragic consequences. However, I have been sceptical about the official risk assessments since the news footage from Wuhan emerged at the start of the year. And when a global reaction is so over-archingly bewildering that it has “someone like me” thinking there is more to this than meets the eye, something is wrong. I’ve stopped short (just) of believing that China engineered the entire thing to destroy the US economy and take down Trump. I did read the article in The Asia Times that linked to last October’s “Event 201” and find it rather odd this ‘event’ isn’t talked about more in the media. If you watch the video it looks oddly as though some ‘thought leaders’ and TED talk types who had been simulating virus response strategies (perhaps with good enough reason), just couldn’t wait to roll out their global virus-suppression protocol. When Covid came along (Coincidence? We may never know) governments went ahead on the advice of the WHO as if this were ‘the big one’. After Wuhan locked down with a strategy that was fairly alarming even by Chinese standards, our not-so-fearless leaders followed suit around the globe as though it were a game of Simple Simon.
This is not the big one. I say that as a pretty risk-averse person. My young son calls me “over-safety woman”. But as a cautious individual, I also question advice. Education is important in my family. My grandfather was a doctor and a teacher at the ‘Ivy League’ Cornell University medical school, my uncle is a doctor, and two of my cousins have PhDs. I’m half-way through a health-related science PhD myself (I have a long way to go as a researcher, but am trying hard and learning lots). I’m actually only saying that to keep you reading, as personal perspectives and anecdotal evidence sometimes get unfairly dismissed in the current data-obsessed climate. You’ll notice I’ve included no data or stats here. This crisis is about narratives as well as numbers. I’m just a layman (let’s be gender fluid) like many others currently scratching their heads or shouting at the telly in exasperation. All it took was a calculator (the back of an envelope would have done) to divide the number of cases, hospitalisations, or deaths by the population of the UK to realise that the chances of getting or dying from Covid never came close to justifying a full “lockdown” and all the attendant ramifications that you have documented so well on your site. The only positive digits in my calculation were on the right of the decimal point, preceded by a fair number of zeros. It doesn’t take a PhD to work this out.
A luminously intelligent email from a switched-on liberal. Very much worth reading in full.
Cancer Stories
Yesterday, I reported Karol Sikora’s prediction that as many as 30,000 people could die unnecessarily from cancer over the next 10 years as a result of the NHS becoming a Covid-only service during the lockdown and asked for readers to send me their stories about cancer screenings, diagnoses and treatments being cancelled or postponed. Needless to say, I’ve been deluged. Here are a few of the best.
First, a story from an intensive care doctor, just in case you thought it was only civilians who aren’t getting adequate cancer care.
I am a doctor and have been working in ITU.
I am appalled at the current state of the profession, supine in the face of the lack of evidence in all the restrictions currently applied to accessing care. Unfortunately many colleagues appear to have abandoned critical thinking and become zealots.
I’m writing though about my experience as a patient. Earlier this year I had a standard mole mapping appointment. My back has a number of moles I cannot see and these are checked as part of a cancer surveillance programme. On this occasion a malignant melanoma was detected and removed with commendable speed and efficiency. I was as a result of having this lesion placed on enhanced surveillance so that my back should be checked every three months in case of any new melanoma occurring.
I have to state I’m not personally very worried as the lesion removed was slow growing despite its malignancy.
My follow up appointment was during lockdown. Instead of visiting the clinic and having my back inspected and photographed to check for changes, I had a telephone appointment. An audio call, not even video. I was asked if I had any symptoms. Well as I had no symptoms before the first lesion and symptoms are rare unless the lesion is well advanced I did not expect to have any. The point of surveillance is to catch lesions early before they spread. I did in fact have some itch (a symptom…) But told the clinician it was probably the healing scar from the initial removal causing the itch. I cannot see my back and could not tell if any moles had changed shape, size or colour. Nevertheless despite this pretty inadequate conversation I was deemed fine – next follow up in October.
As I say I’m not personally very worried. But this appointment had literally no value and might as well never have taken place. I feel angry for others for whom this might well have been a missed chance to catch a melanoma early and prevent extended treatment and possibly mortality.
Please retain my anonymity. But this is an example of how even when services for cancer are nominally re-opened, due to the exclusion of patients from attending hospital and being properly examined, they are ineffectual.
Now a story from a patient.
I live in High Peak. I have chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and had a course of chemotherapy at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in 2015/16. I was due for my annual check-up at the haematology unit there at 11.30am. on 20th. March. A fortnight prior to that date, with travel and accommodation arrangements in place, I was told by phone that my appointment was postponed for six months.
A couple of weeks ago I was informed by letter that, after a review of cases, it was deemed appropriate to conduct my check-up by phone. This would take place on September 11th “between 9.00am and 1.30pm” and it would help if I could arrange to get my blood sampled and tested in time for then.
So a thorough, hands on (!), physical examination and face-to-face interview by and with the consultant preceded by an in-house blood test (result in c.30 minutes) at the hospital unit which has treated me since my diagnosis has been junked in favour of outsourcing the handling of my blood test to me and to my GP who, in turn, has to rely on the testing service at a hospital in Stockport; and a phone call. My next job will be to ensure the test results reach the RSH and are available for the remote ‘consultation’.
I consider myself very fortunate in not being at imminent risk of my life at this time (I think: if the disease develops as predicted in 2016 I shall not require chemo. to save my life again til 2024/5). I am fortunate in being in good shape, physically and mentally, so can do the necessary running around now required of me. I am also fortunate in being already ‘on the books’ so, even though the previously rigorous protocol for the annual check-up has been dismantled, I am still being monitored after a fashion.
Many of the emails I received were from people who are justifiably angry. Here’s one:
My wife was scheduled for a cancer test, being in a high risk category – family, age and history – three weeks ago. She was understandably becoming increasingly worried as the day approached but was telephoned the day before and told that the appointment has been postponed.
FOR A YEAR.
To say that I am angry would be like calling the Universe big. The whole coronavirus fiasco has cost me my business, the career of my daughter and pretty much everything I have spent my entire life working for, but this is too much. Now these odious selfish… (what? I have no words to describe my feelings toward the perpetrators – cowards, tyrants, murderers?) are prepared to sacrifice my wife (40 years an NHS ITU nurse) on the altar of their imbecility. It is too much, it is intolerable. Can anyone give me a hint as to why? Cui Bono?
I best close before my anger, which I feel rising, takes over.
And many of the emails were very sad, like this one:
This is one of the many heart-breaking stories you will no doubt receive.
A very dear friend of ours, who notwithstanding his age (83) was very fit, walking his dog in hilly terrain at least two hours a day, doing all his own shopping, cooking and gardening, started to have digestive problems around February.
He went to see his GP, who took a blood test, said he was anaemic and prescribed iron tablets, which could (said the GP) lead to some minor digestive problems. I helped our friend to devise small changes in diet to increase his natural iron intake.
Things went from unpleasant, to bad, to worse. In March he tried to see the GP again, but by then the surgery didn’t allow patients in, only telephone consultations.
Other medication was tried, the iron tablets remained mandatory, nothing helped!
Finally, last month, our friend turned as yellow as a lemon. The GP relented, saw him, and referred him to the hospital for tests.
The next week he was admitted to hospital a day after my husband took him there for a Covid-test administered while he sat in our car at the entrance of the hospital.
When he woke up from the anaesthesia administered “for a biopsy” he found out that a duodenal stent had been placed. No explanation of the necessity for this was given, “it was necessary”… He discharged himself next day.
Two days ago he received a letter stating that he had terminal pancreatic cancer, that the GP would telephone to discuss further treatments etc.
He now does not wish to see or hear from another doctor ever again. Yesterday, he has had a very pleasant visit from one of the community nurses who outlined how their service will look after him, and has made his peace with God.Although he asked us to research “on that internet thing” how long he might still live (according to Pancreatic Cancer UK and Cancer Research UK that is three to six months), having informed him about this, he is now dying before our eyes, and will certainly not make it that long.
An oncologist friend of ours in another town had already warned us 2 months ago about the “tsunami” of cancer cases that would hit the NHS as soon as diagnosis and treatment was “allowed” again…
Our friend will now just be another meaningless number in the NHS statistics. I am disgusted, angry, and terribly sad!
Here’s another sad tale, this time about a reader’s father.
My Father was a 79 year-old retired merchant navy officer who had enjoyed a life of good health until being diagnosed with bowel cancer early in 2019. He underwent the major surgery associated with the condition but responded well to the treatment, a testament to his robust constitution.
Unfortunately in the autumn of 2019 they identified secondary cancers which were only able to be controlled with chemotherapy. However, he responded to the chemotherapy remarkably well, side effects were negligible and the count of cancer cells in his blood dropped to a little above “normal”. He was optimistic and we believed there could be at least a couple of decent enjoyable years left for him. He was benefiting from a costly antibody treatment which was intended to prolong life and I was a little surprised that the NHS were prepared to make such an investment in someone of his age, but we were of course delighted and grateful.
In March his chemotherapy was put on hold, to reduce the “risk” of COVID-19. He was already nervous about infection from the normal flu season so there was little possibility of him being exposed to the virus, except in the NHS!
The lockdown meant he was forbidden from seeing his children or grandchildren, living hundreds of miles away. And his life like everyone else’s was closed down.
In April there was a rapid deterioration in his health, at this stage the symptoms I believed were more due to being confined to the house and a lack of normal exercise. He was hospitalised, with no visitors or even social contact from the nursing staff.
A scan revealed the cancer had spread aggressively and the cell count had risen sharply. It is a fair assumption that three sessions of chemotherapy being denied was the main reason for this.
After a rapid decline my father died in June. Whilst we were lucky to get home home for his final days so he did not die alone, he was largely abandoned by the NHS he paid for over more than 60 years as a taxpayer. He was proud to point out he had paid his taxes every week since 1955.
A GP told him that he would no longer be treated and was only to receive palliative care over Facetime. I cannot believe the religious adulation being heaped on NHS “heroes” when all I have seen evidence of is cowardice.
In summary I believe the arbitrary removal of cancer services dramatically shortened my father’s life. However he was well past his “three score years and ten” and seriously ill so we accept he had to go sooner rather than later. However I know of at least one much younger victim of the cancer scandal.
I have heard countless tales from friends working in the NHS about hospitals being essentially shut and cancer services being withdrawn. I firmly believe my father’s experience will be the tip of a large iceberg, one containing much younger lives which have been unnecessarily lost.
The awful thing is, this crisis in cancer care is far from over. The patient backlog is now greater than it’s ever been and this winter there’s a strong possibility the NHS will return to being a Covid-only service.
There will be a reckoning…
Boris: Schools Must Re-Open Next Month
The Prime Minister is at last doing something right, urging schools to re-open in full next month. “No ifs, not buts,” the Telegraph quotes him as saying.
According to a Whitehall source, Downing Street has made clear there can be “no ifs, no buts” in delivering on the national priority. “Schools not coming back is not an option,” they added. “Failure is not an option.”
Senior Conservative MPs have called for Mr Johnson to take the lead on schools and sideline Mr Williamson, amid fears that widespread anger over this week’s exams about-turn has left him incapable of shaping public opinion positively.
Their concerns have been echoed by several Cabinet ministers, with one saying: “We’ve got to get schools back. That’s the test for him.”
Throughout the pandemic, the prolonged closure of schools has been among the greatest concerns weighing on the minds of Mr Johnson and his most senior aides and ministers.
Meanwhile, all 12 of Britain’s Chief Medical Officers have told parents there is an “exceptionally small risk” of their children succumbing to COVID-19 if they return to school. The Mail has more.
The highly unusual ‘consensus statement’ from the country’s most senior experts removes the final hurdle to the resumption of full-time teaching in September – to the relief of parents who have been forced to home-school the majority of children since March.
It continues:
All 12 Chief and Deputy Chief Medical Officers agree that “very few, if any, teenagers will come to long-term harm from COVID-19 due solely to attending school”.
And they say that small risk has to be offset against “a certainty of long-term harm to many children from not attending school”.
The experts also conclude that “teachers are not at increased risk of dying from COVID-19” compared to other workers, and say that the evidence from other countries is that reopening schools is not linked to a surge in cases.
When it comes to the evidence from other countries, English parents don’t have to look very far. Schools have re-opened in full in Scotland and there has been no resurgence in cases north of the border.
It’s not all good news, though. Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, gave an interview to BBC Breakfast yesterday in which he said that opening schools would likely cause a rise in infections and to compensate the Government may have to increase restrictions elsewhere.
A Doctor Writes
A doctor has emailed me to draw my attention to a recent editorial in the BMJ.
I am a practising General Practitioner. I wholeheartedly support your efforts to draw attention to the actual facts surrounding the current SARS CoV-2 pandemic.
I follow your Lockdown Sceptics blog almost daily!
I would like to draw your attention to the editorial in this week’s BMJ which expounds the benefits and virtues of T-Cell immunity which you have pointed out for months .
I read the first paper on this subject shortly after I had recovered from COVID-19 myself. This was from a group in Tubingen in Germany back in April or May. There have been multiple papers confirming these findings since as you know.
It has taken the medical establishment three months to even start discussing this evidence!
Meanwhile, a Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard says parts of New York and London have already achieved herd immunity. According to the Telegraph:
“It’s reasonable to think that some local areas have a substantial amount of immunity. I think there are parts of New York and London which are there,” said Professor Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “It’s really noticeable in certain pockets, but it varies city block to block and we have to be careful when interpreting what it means.”
Experts point to new modelling which has used data on the spread of Covid-19 to suggest herd immunity – previously estimated to be upwards of 70 per cent – could be as low as 50 per cent, or even 43 per cent, as one study found.
Make that 19%. A new German study found that 81% of pre-Covid blood donors had T-cell cross immunity to SARS-CoV-2. From the abstract:
SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell epitopes enabled detection of post-infectious T-cell immunity, even in seronegative convalescents. Cross-reactive SARS-CoV-2 T-cell epitopes revealed preexisting T-cell responses in 81% of unexposed individuals, and validation of similarity to common cold human coronaviruses provided a functional basis for postulated heterologous immunity in SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Worth reading the study in full if the technical language doesn’t put you off.
Postcard From Bogota
A reader has sent me a “Postcard From Bogota“, which I’ve published today. Here’s the opening paragraph:
For the first time in my life I fled from the Police. Running at 7am in my local park all by myself and with a mask over my face, a motorcycle with two policemen approaching on the narrow trail. I saw them early enough and was able to sprint away from the path and hide until they were out of sight. Exercising outdoors is again forbidden, and violation costs a hefty fine (equivalent to $300). My neighbourhood Chapinero was forced into strict lockdown again for two weeks on August 16th. All shops and businesses had to close again (except those which sell food or medicine) and citizens are only allowed outside for emergencies or to buy these products. Colombians have been in lockdown since March 20th and compete with other Latin American countries for the longest lockdown in the world award.
Life in Bogota sounds significantly worse than in England – even Oldham! I was particularly horrified to read that children aren’t expected to return to school until 2021, with predictably catastrophic consequences for the least well off.
Worth reading in full.
Round-Up
- ‘Hysteria is the most dangerous coronavirus symptom‘ – Excellent article by Asa Bennett
- ‘Why are the Conservatives governing like socialists?‘ – Great piece by Leo McKinstry in the Telegraph
- ‘Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark on cancel culture, equality and Paxman‘ – Good interview with Kirsty Wark by Decca Aitkenhead in the Sunday Times
- ‘Will COVID-19 cause TV shows to run out of episodes?‘ – The Sunday Times asks: Are we about to run out of telly?
- ‘Were holiday-wrecking quarantines worth it? Even the Government haven’t a clue!‘ – Peter Hitchens asked the DHSC how many holiday makers returning from Spain after it was ‘red listed’ have tested positive for the virus. Answer came there none
- ‘German Politicians and MSM Misinterpret Data – Latest Increase in Positive Cases is an Artefact!‘ – YouTube video making the case against a second wave in Germany. More cases is just an artefact of more testing
- Anti-lockdown protest in Ireland – Impressive turnout yesterday, judging from this Facebook video
- ‘Kenya wildlife conservancies need rescue from coronavirus impact‘ – The collapse of tourism in Africa is bad news for Kenya’s wildlife conservancies
- ‘New Zealand’s lust for lockdown is the latest example of vapid political virtue-signalling‘ – Good column by Madeline Grant in the Telegraph
- Podcast of Any Questions – For those who want to listen to me banging the drum for the old normal on Friday while on their morning constitutional, you can download a podcast of Any Questions here
- ‘Coronavirus “getting less angry” and we shouldn’t fear second wave, claims doctor‘ – Unusually sceptical piece in the bedwetting Mirror
- ‘Word of the Week: the New Normal‘ – Excellent piece in Spectator Life by Andy Shaw
- ‘Coronavirus pandemic halts life-saving UK cancer and heart disease research‘ – The Observer reveals that more than 1,500 clinical trials of new drugs and treatments for cancers, heart disease and other serious illnesses have been permanently closed down in Britain, as the entire medical-industrial complex becomes obsessed with Covid at the expense of everything else
- ‘Isle of Man resident jailed for visiting pubs during quarantine‘ – A Manx resident has been jailed for six weeks for visiting two pubs when he should have been self-isolating
- ‘Australians have been filled with fear and alarmism‘ – Latest jeremiad from our favour broadcaster, Sky News Australia’s Alan Jones
- ‘Covid will be present forever, warns SAGE scientist‘ – Does this mean we can dismiss Layla Moran’s ‘zero-Covid’ strategy as utter nonsense?
- ‘Keep Britain Free Survey‘ – Please complete this anonymous survey for Keep Britain Free, Simon Dolan’s group
- ‘Safety First‘ – Good piece by the Venerable Dr Edward Dowler, Archdeacon of Hastings, about the Church of England’s failure to rise to the occasion
- ‘Europe’s Virus Surge Is Looking Less Deadly Than Initial Wave‘ – Bloomberg says what we said on Lockdown Sceptics a few days ago – the so-called ‘second wave’ is much less deadly than the first
- ‘Get on with your lives! Professor says as coronavirus “not as deadly as first thought”‘ – It’s our old friend Prof Carl Heneghan again. Can he please be made the Chief Medical Officer?
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “Scared Of You” by Nelly Furtado, “Scared of Everything” by Chris Leggett, “We Like to be Frightened” by Vanik and “Bedwetters of the World Unite” by Frankie China.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums that are now open, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We’ve also just introduced a section where people can arrange to meet up for non-romantic purposes. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
A few months 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 re-opened, 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 re-opened – or most of them, anyway – we’re focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. As of July 4th, many of them have re-opened too, but not all (and some of them are at risk of having to close again). 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 – particularly if they’re not insisting on face masks! If they’ve made that clear to customers with a sign in the window or similar, so much the better. Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
I’ve created a permanent slot down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (now showing it will arrive between Oct 3rd to Oct 13th). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £3.99 from Etsy here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face nappies in shops here (now over 29,500).
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s a round-up of the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mask (threadbare at best).
Meanwhile, Joan Collins has written a diary for the Spectator in which she recounts her fight with an officious French police officer.
On a shopping trip to Ikea I wore a new plastic face visor, which I had seen being worn by London hairdressers. As it’s less stifling than a ‘muzzle’ mask, I could breathe more easily. However, an officious gendarme became deeply offended by it, and while I was mulling over the benefits of Ikea’s gravadlax vs its smoked salmon, he pounced. Gesticulating in Gallic fashion, he yelled at me to put on a proper mask, because visors aren’t legal. Chastised, I slunk away, muttering an Anglo-Saxon expletive under my breath, which, as he glared at me, I feared he might have understood.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is a lot of work (although I have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending me stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. If you want me to link to something, don’t forget to include the HTML code, i.e. a link.
And Finally…
I linked to Yoram Hazony’s piece in Quillette last week in which he tried to get to grips with why so many seemingly robust liberal institutions, like the New York Times, have proved vulnerable to capture by hard Left Neo-Marxists. I edited that piece and a couple of days ago I spoke to Hazony for the Quillette Podcast. You can listed to that conversation here.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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WHO and CDC have substantial funding from pharmaceutical industry. Uptake of flu jabs is currently lower than 50% of Americans and 70% of Britains. Just saying, VESTED INTEREST? Has the WHO’s scarily named Covid 19 (formerly known as SARS CoV 2) propaganda helped ito create a demand which will ncrease the flu jab uptake in USA and UK I wonder?
New Update available —– >>>>
I think we’ve just dodged a bullet with this latest virus (Covid19).
Can I suggest that a biological warfare agent, ‘accidentally’ released from an American sponsored Level Four Biological Warfare facility in a place in China that nobody had heard of before this year may not have been accidental?
Can I also suggest that this virus has ‘evolved’ five thousand years since its discovery in 2004? Yes five thousand years is how long it’s estimated for the virus to have mutated naturally to the point where it would infect human beings. Hmm…
On paper this is one hell of a nasty virus. No cure either.
You have to be a bit clever with biological agents, after all you want to kill the enemy without killing yourself! In this case the remit was just to kill off the weakest 90% of the population. What could possibly go wrong?..
One of the problems was that this ‘cure’ for many of the world’s ills (climate change, over population, lack of resources, etc.) was that those who wanted it implemented are not in the top 10% of health in the population.
This meant that the virus had to be… Read more »
You should repost this to tomorrow’s page, few people venture back once it’s up.
Depressingly Scottish schools are to introduce compulsory mask wearing.
Authorities and unions are complicit in increasing the hazards from respiratory and bacterial illness to the young.One wonders if the unions and politicians pushing for this will admit personal liability for any harms caused?
I assume sooner or later a clever lawyer will pursue a case for bacterial infection or asthma attack caused by masks.
I’m a member of a classic car club (I’d better not say which one!) and yesterday we took part in what we call the Cobweb Run. This was postponed from March but it felt pretty much as it used to do. We might have broken the recommendations ever so slightly as there were 19 cars at the start and we picked up another 9 at the half-way point. Our cars are two-seat sports cars so as most people had passengers/navigators we would have been over the permitted group of 30. No Police drones were seen however.
Our stopover was at Castle Howard in Yorkshire and the car park was about 90% full. There were very few face masks in evidence, at least outside, and the staff seemed fairly relaxed about their usage when you went to the farm shop and cafe.
As our cars are quite noisy we were filmed a few times as we passed through villages but this is quite normal so nothing untoward there. Overall, it was a positive experience. Maybe there is hope after all.
And winner of today’s best caption will win a years rail fares
Boris shows the world his true vocation, Infant Toy Tester.
Sorry, can’t be arsed to think one up. He’s just a jeffing idiot.
brooooom brooooom
New HS2 trains are show cased!!!
Boris finds something to hold his attention while SAGE meet to think up some new games for him.
9 yr old kid – ” I only asked him to make a choo choo train and it’s been 20 minutes..”
Boris – ” hold on … don’t tell me”
The only Grown Up in the room.
On behalf of the British Taxpayer I offer £200 Billion on this fantastic piece technology of wizardly infrastructure.
This is how I explained ‘sex!’ to Jacob when we were in prep together.
*note to shorthand, I don’t do trains, may I have Taxi vouchers instead ?
Aaaand we have a winner, against some excellent opposition.
Sorry KV, train only. Your train fares will be sent to you, Use ’em or lose ’em!! Network rail will expect payment within the month as they are skint just now. This is part of Richi Sunaks new initiative ‘get out to bail us out’.
A local charity shop has now decided that cash is evil and forbidden.My wife tries to make a stand and offers cash when paying everywhere,the assistant tried to coerce her into using a card but my wife stood her ground.The assistant didn’t seem pleased and her answer was to shove a small pot through the badger sized hole in her protective bomb-proof perspex screen and told my wife ‘put the money in there,not on the counter’,she then pulled it back to safety and,you guessed it,took it out and put it in the till !,the change was given in same way.Surely,these people must be able to see how ridiculous this sort of thing is ?,surely ?,I fear they don’t.
This morning at the supermarket I saw a woman, who was wearing a mask, leave the store and return to her car. She removed her face mask, folded it up and put it in her bag. She took from the bag cigarettes and lit one. Then she got out her phone and started messing with it. One really does have to wonder what such people are thinking of.
She had her mask on in the shop. She is protected. For it is written.
Amen.
The mask increases hazard and the smoking protects against Covid, thus cancelling each other out.
Frustrating, but it gives me hope to think that people only comply superficially because they think they must and aren’t true believers. She might not be too far away from rebellion. I’m an optimist where I can be!
What was that figure again, for people who have caught coronavirus from money? Silly me, can’t remember it, I’m sure it was a ’round’ number…
The copper used in coins KILLS viruses.
The power of copper to destroy viruses (and bacteria) has been known for decades, yet it is not routinely used in hospitals and care homes. I cannot help but wonder why?
Listening to ‘ Jennifer ‘ now on talk radio live 12.52). A breath of fresh air! Advocating mass civil disobedience!😃
Really?
Greater Manchester Police
@gmpolice
·
18h
You must wear a face covering (unless exempt) on public transport, in shops and supermarkets, and other enclosed spaces. This is both for your safety and the safety of others.
More info
https://crowd.in/0AJok0
Because your link points to this:
The best available scientific evidence is that, when used correctly, wearing a face covering may reduce the spread of coronavirus droplets in certain circumstances, helping to protect others.
Because face coverings are mainly intended to protect others, not the wearer, from coronavirus (COVID-19)…
Anytime you need help, GMP…
Send them the DELVE report that contradicts this and that states there have been NO RCTs using humans performed to ascertain if masks do cut human transmission of covid-19.
‘The term conspiracy theory is simply used to rubbish information as incorrect by those that don’t agree with, or don’t want the information to be taken seriously. It in no way dictates the truth of the subject’
seen on Twitter
Yes. Along with ‘right-wing/alt-right libertarian’, ‘anti-vaxxer’, ‘vaccine-denier’. It’s tedious. We’ve started countering this by pointing out that, if the facts are there in plain sight (i.e. on a Government or organisation website) it is not conspiracy theory, it’s conspiracy data. conspiracy evidence or conspiracy fact (we vary it a bit!) MW
A conspiracy theorist is increasingly anyone who asks questions about common widely accepted dogmas/ideas/societal norms.
It is said to have been put into general circulation as a way of plugging up questions surrounding JFK. Attributed to the CIA. I cannot recall if the term itself predates the assasination in Texas or not.
Point was, the label functioned as a stop to conversation. To rubbish earnestly asked questions. Point now is that the label is loosing it’s stopping power as people realise conspiracies are all around us. Just the kind and size of conspiracy is now debated not that there isn’t one.
Of course tinfoil hat has populated our lexicon and probably functions in the same was as conspiracy theory used to.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=SwlkumcRf6w
“This front-line, clearly expert Spanish doctor reveals the reality around the truly massive media madness going on at the moment. He explains the actual reality, and the interviewer is thrown into confusion…!”
Apologies if this has already been posted earlier.
The second studio journalist was more interested in berating the doctor who was being interviewed. Another Piers Morgan, but Spanish….Do they go to some training school where they practice lecturing and shouting down anyone not agreeing with them??
“I was in the hospital, my friend, and you were in the Studio.”
Did you catch what he said about September lockdown again in spain? 4:40 mark!
Just noticed this in my passing survey of The Groan.
“A police chief has warned that people are acting like “the virus isn’t out there” after a weekend of illegal gatherings in the West Midlands”
He really shouldn’t be endorsing the image of the dim Mr Plod.
Here is the news :
IT REALLY ISN’T ‘OUT THERE’ ANY LONGER IN ANY MEANINGFUL SENSE. THERE IS NOW NO EPIDEMIC.
Yes but some people were guilty of trying to have fun.
Der ‘vun’ ist verboten!
I wonder how many of these police chiefs have had gatherings in their gardens?
most of them meet up ‘down the lodge’
Not my bag (too old now) but I see these illegal raves as a triumph of the human spirit.
I am too old for these things too, but if I knew of one I’d be there in a shot.
Brilliantly said.
“Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper …”
George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia
Daily Mail: “100 nudists test positive for Covid-19 after ‘very worrying’ outbreak at French naturist resort – despite wearing face masks” –
When you read it it says 95.
Haha! You couldn’t write it!
If one is wearing a face mask, one isn’t nude.
Suggest a subscription to Audible. Wuthering Heights read by Patricia Routledge is brilliant, had me in fits of laughter.
Found this out today:
The House of Commons Information office says that MPs are responsible to constituents, Parliament and the political party they are affiliated to.
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/fymp/yaympenglish.pdf
So writing to them saying you require them to vote a certain way in Parliament is the correct way of giving them instructions of what their constituents require them to do.
There as something on UKColumn about this a month or so ago I recall watching.
You can’t give your MP ‘instructions’ – nor should you be able to. It’s not the way representative democracy works. The fact that the process is flawed in other ways doesn’t undermine that principle.
Yes, but they are there as the representative of their constituents, not to represent the political party and to ignore the constituents.
You can’t “require” your MP to do anything, either in practice or as a matter of moral duty. He’s elected as a representative, not a delegate. The most you can do is vote for someone else next time.
The thing is in the wording: “responsible to”.
Dictionary definition of responsible: answerable or accountable
liable to be called on to answer
b
(1)
: liable to be called to account as the primary cause, motive, or agent
a committee responsible for the job
So under them wording their first responsibility is to their constituents and being accountable to means explaining why they did not vote or act as per their constituent’s wishes.
This is why it is important to contact your MP with your intentions as if they receive different “instructions” they will have to act on the one with the most correspondence I’m guessing.
This is why vocal minorities seem to win, the silent majority do not make their wishes known so never get represented.
Then I saw this as well which is interesting:
: politically answerable especially : required to submit to the electorate if defeated by the legislature —used especially of the British cabinet
Yes, that Parliamentary leaflet is badly written, and they use the term “responsible to” rather loosely, because they don’t make clear that the only manner in which an MP is ultimately liable to be called to account by his constituents is at the next election.
You are perfectly correct that one should let one’s MP know of one’s views, and one can inform him and try to persuade him to follow your wishes, but you cannot “require” him to do so.
An MP is not required to do anything other than exercise his judgement as the elected representative of his constituents. He is elected as, supposedly, someone his electorate trust to represent them adequately by doing just that.
His constituency members have no recourse against him even if every single one of them were to march to Parliament to demand he voted a particular way and he refused, except to vote someone else in at the next election.
This is one reason I regard political parties as a pollution of our basic democracy. It confuses MPs’ loyalties, and makes people think they are voting to govern in detail, rather than what they are doing, which is to elect a member… Read more »
That’s why I believe the whip system needs to go and vote for true independents if I can.
Yes. I’d like to flat out forbid party organisations. Let it all be done at a human level, in each constituency.
The alliance4unity is Scotland has an interesting policy that anyone elected will then sit as an independent. They have to treated as a ‘party’ for the election of course because of Blair’s PR system…
This is why I’ve always objected to the US-presidential style Prime Ministerial debates. You aren’t voting for the person who leads the party, you’re voting for the individual who you most want to represent you in parliament.
Me too.
Which is what Edmund Burke’s constituents did shortly after he formulated that principle.
There are two clips on here that are disturbing
In the first a Dutch paramilitary hits a peaceful woman across the face with a long baton. The woman had her hands at her side and was absolutely no threat him. If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it
The second show paramilitary police in Paris enter a bar. The crowd in the bar are entirely peaceful. The police start lashing out with long batons, making many run a gauntlet of baton wielders with their hands in the air
The authorities may get away with this in the short term.
I only advocate peaceful resistance
However the resentment will build and people will decide to fight back. It is how ‘terrorist’ organisations are born
try Spain the Guarda Civil haven’t enjoyed themselves so much since Franco died
They got a taste for the ‘new normal’ on the crowds of women, children and the elderly in Barcelona a few years ago.
I think there are some in Spanish officialdom who hark back to the good old Franco days – an economic depression and a population controlled through fear is a route back to facism
You have a good point.
I love Spain; I have always enjoyed time spent there, and foungd it generally a very civilized environment, with great food and great lanscape. Usually ther only reservation has been embarrassment at UK tourists displaying cultural blindness – but fortunately that’s mostly confined to the ‘Costa Crap’ strip on the east coast.
But the country does have a dark underbelly in the Franco years and the fascism of that period.
… and that is the problem when totalitarianism is allowed once again to come out of its burrow – it can begin to devour society again – and that is what we are seeing with the Covid monster.
Guardia Civil pointed a machine pistol at me for trying to take a tourist photo of them once shortly after fat fuck Franco died.
The paramilitary riot police are not hitting protesters in the Belarus dictatorship (so far) yet peaceful pub goers in Paris and peaceful ladies in the netherlands are being violently assaulted by paramilitary riot police – strange times….
Peaceful resistance doesn’t get you anywhere. Our Establishment has had it far too easy.
the baton on the Dutch lady (girl?) was absolutely disgusting and made / makes me feel physically sick
I think he smacked her on the leg too. that has got to be v painful. she looked pretty skinny to me.
I would like to meet the scum that did this. so angry and sickened
Some drudge on R4 this morning. Because the Covid this years Proms will be audience free, what an ideal opportunity to rid the proms of Rule Britannia.
The very words Britains Shall Not Be Slaves give the hidden message that other people can be…
At which point I cancelled her.
Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia were always on borrowed time after the referendum. I can’t imagine any country in the EU willingly destroying their culture and history like we do – it seems confined to the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK.
As a musician, supporter of the Proms and left of centre, the nonsense about these two pieces is ridiculous. I’d find much of the Bible offensive garbage from a past age if I was daft enough to take iron age middle eastern myths seriously- but I’d never want to remove it from view.
Both the Sea Songs and Pomp and Circumstance 1 get played with a heavy doses of self-mocking irony. And they’re full of stomping good tunes.
Total bollocks that does worthy causes no good.
What’s wrong with the Sea Songs (or Sea Pictures I think they’re called)? I didn’t know there was any need for irony or nationalism or anything in them.
The ‘Sea Pictures’ is another work – a set of songs by Elgar. The ‘Sea Songs are the rollicking good set of tunes set by Henry Wood as a suite. Simply good fun. But important to the Proms because of Wood’s role in founding the series : he was a tremendously significant English musician in the first half of the 20th Century. The tune is history – to the point of being used by Beethoven in his ‘Wellington’s Victory.
As to the fundamental question … the irony of ‘Rule Britannia’ simply resides in the inflated sense of self-importance inherent in its 18th C. mythology. Just daft in today’s context.
But hey-ho – that’s history, and I couldn’t give a flying f. – even if the bit about ‘Britons never being ‘slaves’ hangs heavy in the air as a good proportion of the population crawl around in obeisance to Covid. 🙂
As far as I’m concerned – anyone who is offended can buy ear plugs – but, as with Covid – don’t expect me to shape my life to suit your decision to be ‘endangered’.
Thanks. Don’t think I’ve heard the Sea Songs but I really like the Pictures!
This is a genuine question. What is your view of Jesus Christ, as recounted in the Bible? When He spoke, He referred back to several parts of the Old Testament (e.g. the Ten Commandments, King Solomon, the prophet Jonah) and clearly took it seriously.
Presumably the irony of singing that Britons will never be slaves after the unquestioning compliance with the Covid measures would be lost on them.
It’s like the world is suffering from OCD – obsessive covid disorder
They’re turning our country into a Nation of anxiety ridden ninnies. I promised myself I wouldn’t contact my MP again but couldn’t stop myself from doing so today.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/23/care-homes-asked-place-blanket-do-not-resuscitate-orders-residents/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey
We knew this was going on a couple of months ago. Imagine if BAME people were singled out for DNRs? The DT wouldn’t allow comments on this article.
And those of us who refuse to wear muzzles are called granny killers.
BAME people are much better at looking after their elders than the natives
What ?
As a society we desparately need to have some grown up conversations about death. We all need to discuss and understand more about good ways to die and bad ways to die. What is acceptable? What does resuscitation look like for the majority of the frail elderly? Does it help or cause many more problems down the line? Does it even work?
When Boris set out the herd immunity plan back in March, I was behind this idea, and hoped (obviously stupidly) that we might be on the brink of seeing proper discussion of these types of topics in the media.
Blanket DNRs driven by a panicked NHS management are repugnant, but individually they are useful. If I was in a care home in poor health I would be happy to have one.
I’d agree with your last point,but it’s more than just blanket DNRs. There are allegations that some hospitals were refusing to treat the residents for anything at all.
Took long enough for the media to catch up.
Then the government spaffed my donation up the wall through a mixture of corruption and incompetence.
https://twitter.com/steph_bernard69/status/1297805930353098753/photo/1
Extremely useful slide for the information about France just now.Most cases among 20-39 years.Getting herdimmunity with masks and partying
We all need to party and have some fun, the country has become too miserable and depressed.
Yeah, quite agree. Lockdown lovers should get out more!
But preferably without a mask on! MW
Quick report from my weekend trip to Central London..Took a train to London Bridge ( mask-less, no lanyard) without any issues. A couple of strange glances but no comments and people just minding their business. Then changed to go on the Tube, past the security gads, no challenge , one of them even winked at me and gave me the thumbs up when he saw me without a mask ( could he be a LS?). Took a trip to central London, again a couple of strange glance and most people wearing their mask on their chin or under their nose, so completely useless but I had a feeling they are wearing it because they were told so. Just warrants a mention that I did not see any other person without a mask . While in London went to several shops and not been asked once for a mask..Security guards just nodded so I think they got a message that people are exempt and not to bother them.
All in all relaxing for me but the whole thing has a feeling of dystopian Sci fi film…People in masks, no eye contact, no energy …cattle waiting to be told what to do.… Read more »
I was pleasantly surprised how normal central London was. Marylebone High Street was great, restaurants were busy, the sun was out, people were out and about, it was normal. I think that people actually know that the pandemic is over.
👍
I just got off the tube. I saw 2 other mask-free people.
I got challenged in Peter Jones but saw the doorman off with a swift “I’m exempt” and a contemptuous look.
Well done that’s excellent news.
Are Gates & Schwab Committing Crimes Against Humanity?
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/rule-of-law/are-gates-schwab-committing-crimes-against-humanity/
Sorry if this has been shared before – too many comments now to look at them all! Great piece from Sky News Australia, again 🙂
https://twitter.com/Marshal45872251/status/1297607448216375296
Spot on.
Why don’t we get that here?
Thank goodness for Alan Jones (and LS of course). Compared with the ABC promoting this drivel from the Communist State of Victoria:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-22/sharon-strzelecki-heads-up-new-victoria-coronavirus-ad-campaign/12585894
A little report on my dealings with my GP and dentist for the first time since March. Phones answered promptly, receptionists relaxed, one at the dentist was singing. I asked about any special instructions for the GP appointment she said oh there’s nothing just a basic face covering.
Dentist not yet able to take bookings for checkups as dealing with the backlog so I am to ring back in September. She did offer to have a dentist ring me but it can wait a few more weeks.
My appointments are not urgent so no problem for me to wait, unlike others. What I wanted to report back on was how very relaxed, cheerful and without fear the staff were and these are inner city practices in the northern lockdown area all be it not one of the epicentre towns.
The fear is being manufactured by government, other political factions and MSM. I am sure this will all turn soon especially if there are no rises in admissions or deaths and our lovely professor Heneghan keeps up the irrefutable drip drip of pressure.
Good to hear but pity about the face-covering though. Our GP practice is nothing like normal but AG managed to get his bloods taken without a mask (in the ‘tent’ outside!) MW
This….in France. Very depressing
https://youtu.be/1Ahg9CqGJGA
How anyone can watch this sort of thing and think it is acceptable is beyond me. Yet I’m sure there are plenty who somehow feel this is perfectly justified.
Well you see the reaction to needless quarantine being introduced coming back from holidays and the average selfish twat response is ‘serves them right’. These people will never accept that what they’re enabling is disgusting fascist police state behaviour.
A French writer (can’t remember who) once said; “the policeman and the terrorist are from the same basket”.
It was Joseph Conrad.
In The Secret Agent. BTW he was a Pole.
Sequel to the video above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uVoFn808IY
Yes, Polish, as you say. I think we did the story for GCE English Lit (as it was then). It was a very prophetic statement.
What goes on in France, stays in France and not in the UK, now
Wow, he gets it over in a very powerful way. It is definitely turning. My feeling is by October something is going to give.
Sorry I’ve put this under the wrong french clip. And too late to edit
Yes, I was feeling quite hopeful until I saw the riot police in that bar….
Very brave police,stormtroopers of the regime,I hope they realise that eventually it will be them and their families on the receiving end of this kind of treatment if this madness isn’t stopped,they are just expendable useful idiots and they can’t see it.
For not obeying social distancing and what do they do, charge in and make everyone pack closer together and shout! Disgusting abuse of power by the Fun Police.
It was the use of batons against people that were only enjoying watching football that really sickened me
I can’t work it out from the uniforms. Are they police or gendarmes? Both are pretty militarized, but the latter more so. As it’s central Paris, probably the former, but I’d be interested to know.
The French have always had a funny relationship with their police forces. “Police = milice” used to be a pretty common piece of graffiti around France (the Milice having being a paramilitary anti-resistance organisation created by the Vichy government).
Had the look of the goons you usually see beating up the Yellow Vest protestors – Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité. They have inflicted a long list of life changing injuries on citizens over the years.
What goes round comes round
I was horrified but not surprised when I saw this. The police worldwide have been an absolute disgrace. What terrifies me the most is that the public seem to think the police are doing the right thing – people seem to love authoritarianism – especially if it is a left wing government in power. I can imagine the likes of Piers Morgan cheering on the police from home.
Perhaps that is what sparked off what the beeb are reporting as a riot after the match.
Wouldn’t trust a word the BBC says now, they misreport and put their own spin on so many stories now. I can’t imagine the BBC condoning sending riot police into a bar to enforce social distancing and causing panic – unless it is in Belarus perhaps.
The majority of those in the bar looked too young to be affected by the virus. Getting them to mix and get herd immunity would be a good idea, I would have thought, if this really was about the virus and not authoritarian control.
Awful!
I note Prof Whitty looking very uncomfortable during his latest pronouncement. Realised the monster you helped create is now getting hungry, Professor?
Whitty has often looked uncomfortable while delivering the party line. He’s often let things slip that Wankock has had to go out of his way to refute.
Tends to make me wonder what hold they have over him.
His job?
promised knighthood?
He looks kind of strange. As if he could have been Dr Spock’s cousin in Star Trek. Maybe he is.
I do think Whitty is a far weaker link than b’stard Vallance. You could see Whitty breaking under the pressure and spilling the beans, not Vallance. Vallance will go to the gallows protesting his innocence.
Whitty volunteered the information that pubs might have to close to keep schools open, which proves he’s a total crank, not that that singles him out amongst the SAGE crackpots and fanatics
This has now been said too many times, by too many SAGE idiots for me to think for a minute that it’s not going to happen.
If they close pubs in September, presumably for the whole of the autumn term, that means pubs are gone. Forever. And that would be a cultural tragedy. And on a practical note, it also means that all of that “eat out to help out” money will have been simply pissed up the wall, to no benefit.
Just another industry to be destroyed as far as this government is concerned. Soon we will have nothing left.
They’re not idiots. They just have another agenda, e.g. there’s at least one confirmed communist advising the government.
Nah, we’ll gag him.
More encouraging news from Ivor, this time France
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0ulA8u05Z-Q
A great interview. Well worth a watch – clear and lucid.
The interviewer is like a rabbit in headlights – “you can’t say that…”
Great comment…
This will end like the schooldays of last years sixth formers one day they went home and that was that.
Superb analysis and he conveys the message perfectly and professionally. One to share for sure.
Excellent interview – the guy sums it up perfectly.
Please keep bumping this. Most of the comments are ranting about leftwing wokeness and anti-Brtishness.
It would be a good place to get some comments pointing to their fearmongering covid propaganda. Please have a go. Doesn’t take long:
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.bbc.co.uk
I’ve just completed this- took 2 minutes. 93% gives 1 star out of 5. Nearly 7,000 votes. Tick a box to say send results to BBC. Everyone here do it?
“Most of the comments are ranting about leftwing wokeness and anti-Brtishness”
Yes – I noticed this, so just binned it, as it has obviously become mainly just a repository for frothing incontinence that no-one will take seriously.
One man’s “rant” is another’s forceful critique. As far as I’m concerned, both criticisms of the poisonous nature of BBC coverage are valid. The only difference is the woke and anti-British stuff has been going on for decades whereas the covid stuff is (obviously) very recent.
The point of the exercise is presumably to stop the BBC’s harmful activities, and in the end that will only be done by defunding and selling it off, which should have been done 50 years ago..
“One man’s “rant” is another’s forceful critique.”
…. or just a rant.
My comment is based on the evidence. The last thing the Beeb is is ‘left wing’, even if it doesn’t fit the simplistic ‘right wing’ term, either. All considered research and discourse analysis shows it to be essentially aligned with ‘establishment’ views. Which fits the Covid narrative, and much else.
Tom Mills : “The BBC – Myth of a Public Service” gives a good historical overview, and the work of the Glasgow Media Group can give a good insight into particular areas of bias.
I have no doubt whatsoever that plenty of people would describe most of the informed and forceful critiques on here as “rants”, because such judgements are almost invariably made subjectively. “Rant” is basically just another smear term designed to delegitimise stuff you disagree with.
No, the BBC is objectively left wing. The fact that, as we know, its employees skew massively to Labour/LibDem supporters, and include very few “Conservative” supporters, who experience an extremely uncomfortable environment, makes that clear to anybody not in plain denial of a truth they find inconvenient.It has historically pushed left wing ideas (most of which are now mainstream, in large part because of pushing by the BBC and other powerful propaganda organs). You don’t notice or mind it because you are yourself objectively left wing and so to you it’s just “obvious truth” or “plain decency”. But in reality it has been political indoctrination, plain and simple.
The BBC is also an establishment organ, which led to some dissonance in the organisation in the mid-C20th, but that has now been resolved by the establishment becoming fully left wing.
👍
The Bun, more sceptical articles & I think, a reflection of the mood of large parts of the country.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12479052/zero-coronavirus-cases-for-a-month-in-most-of-england-and-second-national-lockdown-not-necessary/
Motorway services last week during early morning rush hour ( ie before the homeworkers alarms have rung ), 80% unmasked. Of those going in with masks, at least 1/2 removed them when they saw they were outnumbered.
The tide is turning quickly
And see comments
Yeah, comments are looking more like LS comments 👍
Good, isn’t it? 😃