PR Blitz
With case numbers continuing to rise, the Government is pleading with the public to obey the new lockdown rules and reinforcing the message with a new advertising campaign. The Daily Mail has the story:
Boris Johnson last night begged families to stay at home as the Covid death toll hit a grim new record.
He said infections were rising at an alarming rate, despite the lockdown imposed at the start of the week.
And he warned the only way to prevent thousands more deaths was to follow the rules. “I know the last year has taken its toll,” the Prime Minister said. “But your compliance is now more vital than ever…”
With the virus apparently running rampant in London, an advertising blitz will run on TV, radio, newspapers and social media carrying shocking images of the severely ill in hospital…
The hard-hitting ad campaign was launched on TV last night, fronted by Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty. He said that while vaccines provided “clear hope for the future… for now we must all stay at home”.
Professor Whitty, who is the most trusted Government figure on Covid, said the rapid spread of the virus was putting “many people at risk of serious disease and is placing a lot of pressure on our NHS”.
Dramatic images will carry the stark message: “Coronavirus. If you go out, you can spread it. People will die.”
The intervention appears to be prompted by concerns about compliance, which is far below the level seen during the first lockdown in March last year:
No 10 fears that Mr Johnson’s stay-at-home order is being flouted, a suspicion backed up by figures from Transport for London.
Passenger levels on the Underground were running at 18% yesterday, compared with just 5% last April.
Bus use is at 30% of capacity, compared with around 18% in the first lockdown.
And traffic levels on main roads in the capital were at 76% of normal compared with 30-40% nine months ago.
Having declared a ‘major incident’, Sadiq Khan is calling for tighter restrictions:
The major incident declared by Mr Khan yesterday is a procedure previously invoked following the Grenfell Tower disaster and major terrorist attacks.
The Mayor called for the closure of places of worship and for face masks to be worn routinely outside the home. Downing Street sources said there were “no more new lockdown measures on the way”.
But the Mail understands that Health Secretary Matt Hancock and other ministers have been examining the case to extend the use of masks.
Worth reading in full.
The Telegraph meanwhile, offers some further detail on the mood inside the Government:
Ministers are increasingly concerned about compliance with the lockdown but believe there are few additional major options left to tighten the restrictions any further.
“There’s not a lot more that we can do,” said a Government source. “We’ve put in these very tough national restrictions. It is a lockdown for everyone all the time.” The source stressed that the focus now was on persuading the public to obey the current rules.
Heavier-handed enforcement remains a lever the Government could pull, however. Police forces are already stepping up their role, having said this week that they will take a stricter approach to the latest lockdown.
Government insiders pointed out that the blanket lockdown rules are simpler and should therefore be easier to police than the tiers system.
Whatever impact this will have on the situation in the hospitals, it has a nasty side-effect in overzealous enforcement of the rules, as the Telegraph reports:
People having snowball fights outside face £200 fines for breaching Covid lockdown rules, police have said, amid criticism of heavy-handedness by officers.
West Mercia Police said snowball fights were not a justifiable reason for people to leave their homes during lockdown.
They wrote on Twitter: “There have been two reports of snowballs being thrown last night between 11 and 11.30pm. This is obviously not a justifiable reason to be out of your house, this behaviour is likely to result in a £200 Fixed Penalty Notice for breaking the lockdown rules.”
The action came after police chiefs warned this week that they will take a tougher approach to the latest lockdown, including challenging and fining people outside their homes without a reasonable excuse.
On Friday, figures showed police have more than doubled the rate at which they are issuing Covid fines, with a record 7,396 in the first 20 days of December – the equivalent of more than 350 a day.
It came after two women were hit with £200 Covid fines after their countryside walk with cups of coffee was branded a picnic.
The women said they were surrounded by police, read their rights and fined after driving five miles to take a walk in the Derbyshire countryside. They were told the hot drinks they had brought along were not allowed because they were “classed as a picnic”.
Guidance for the latest lockdown says people can travel for exercise as long as it is in their “local area”. Derbyshire Police said driving for exercise was “not in the spirit” of lockdown.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: RT is reporting that West Mercia Police has rowed back on the criminalisation of snowball fights.
Stop Press 2: The Mirror has a grim story of police storming a house over a suspected lockdown breach on the strength of a tip-off from a member of the public. A neighbour reported the occupants for unauthorised household mixing, but it turned out the “strangers” seen entering the properly were paramedics bringing the family’s sick daughter back from hospital. See a video of the police entering the house here.
Unpacking Yesterday’s Frightening Number of Daily Covid Deaths
What follows is a guest post byWill Jones who has examined the data behind yesterday’s alarming number of reported deaths.
Much is being made of the “record high” of 1,325 deaths reported yesterday, with reports of a Government crackdown to try to bring the virus under control.
There’s no doubt that the virus is currently driving a worrying surge in hospital admissions in London and that deaths with Covid continue to rise. However, the high 1000+ totals of the last few days include the backlog of deaths from the Christmas period that are only just now being reported, making them artificially high. A look at the deaths by date of death shows that the seven day average was around 635 on January 1st, and though it seems set to rise to closer to 700 in the past week, it is still a long way short of 1,325.
The Prime Minister said yesterday that “infection rates across the entire country continue to soar at an alarming rate”. This isn’t the picture painted by the ZOE app however, where daily new cases in London have been falling for some days and also appear to be slowing across England. The researchers behind the app estimate “R” in both London and England to be 1.1 (and falling).
Alarmingly, despite Matt Hancock stating this week that he wanted to lift restrictions once the vulnerable are vaccinated in the spring, a Government source told the Telegraph: “If the vaccination programme rolls out really effectively and the vaccines behave as well as they’ve done in trials, then you start to see a real opportunity to start easing things off a bit over the summer and spring. But then you may need to have something reintroduced next winter and you think about things like mask wearing and social distancing to make sure that we don’t give the virus a chance to spread again.”
Is this another Government aspiration that will evaporate when push comes to shove and leave us with another long winter of over-cautious public health policy? Let’s hope not.
Stop Press: Professor Tim Spector confirms that both the ZOE App Data and the ONS survey suggest the surge is subsiding.
What’s Gone Wrong With Hospitals’ Oxygen Supply?
An experienced cryogenics engineer has got in touch with an explanation for the problems with oxygen supply that some hospitals are currently experiencing. He has a solution.
Your regular weekly update from our in-house senior doctor revealed yesterday that: “Problems have arisen with oxygen supply at some hospitals – this is not due to lack of oxygen per se, but an engineering problem with the pipe pressure. Non-invasive ventilation with CPAP which most patients require needs a lot of oxygen and the requirement is more than the pipework can supply in some places.”
Early in April last year I was puzzled by a report in the Independent of a mysterious “critical incident” in Watford General Hospital which was forced to close its A&E Department after its oxygen supply was cut off. A BBC documentary “Hospital“, which I saw during the Summer, showed an incident occurring at about the same time of critical oxygen supply problems. Pressures dropped below minimum levels at the Royal Free London hospital as April evening temperatures fell. The immediate response was to transfer patients from non-invasive CPAP therapy to lower-demand intubation ventilators. The NHS manager was shown later fast-tracking the procurement and installation of an extra healthcare cryogenic supply tank or bulk storage tank in only 10 days. This was a creditable achievement, but sadly too late to benefit some of the COVID-19 patients, including an elderly Jewish gentleman who might, or might not, have survived had he remained on CPAP. I learned intubation is reportedly well-known to be contra-indicated for older and frail patients.
I am familiar with cryogenic systems technology and practice, having worked in and consulted for the marine Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) sector worldwide and its professional advisory bodies since the late 1970s. Bulk gases are stored in liquid form as, for example, oxygen gas occupies 800 times the volume of the same amount of liquid. But the liquid has to receive heat so that it “boils-off” back into gas. The problem with simple bulk liquid storage gas supply installations is not so much the pipework pressure limitations, but the air-liquid heat exchanger capacity which generates the supply pressure by “boiling-off” the extremely cold liquid oxygen. LNG boils at -161.5oC at atmospheric pressure, not much warmer than the boiling point of liquid oxygen used in hospital cryogenic supply tanks which is -183oC. The liquid is fed into vertical finned tube heat exchangers which draw heat from the surrounding air to “boil-off” the liquid gas. The flow of the liquid from tank to exchanger is automatically controlled to maintain supply pressure to the outlet which feeds the hospital piping system. During cold, moist conditions, the exchanger tubes become coated with frost which insulates the tube rack. With high demand, the increasing ice coating insulates too much of the exchanger surface area and prevents further uptake of heat from the air. Where “boil-off” fails to meet demand, pressure falls to hospital consumers, usually a combination positive pressure non-invasive (CPAP) therapy, nasal cannulas or invasive intubation ventilators. This is leading to triage during emergencies. If oxygen supply cannot be restored, higher consumers have to be shut off in favour of lower consumers and heavy cylinders of compressed medical oxygen, which have to be frequently replaced are substituted.
The short- to medium-term solution is surprisingly simple and well-known to marine engineers responsible for practical LNG operations. In periods of high gas demand or high need to boil-off cryogenic liquid, hard ice coat build-up from the exchanger tubes can be melted by playing a relatively low volume of fresh water (e.g. from a hospital fire hose) onto the heat exchanger. Continuing to spray water will significantly increase boil-off gas capacity as water has 4,000 times the heat capacity for a given volume than air. This technique was also known to the US healthcare sector. In May 2020 Health Facilities Management Magazine suggested that water or steam be used. In the UK, the Independent reports that “although incidents have been widely reported as NHS trust bosses were told… not to try to push oxygen systems beyond their limits” as “unapproved procedures may cause permanent damage”. The only alternative advice given apparently was to provide compressed oxygen as backup in heavy cylinders.
Having tried to put forward the solution on several occasions with the local NHS in Wales and in the MSM without response or acknowledgement, I am dismayed to hear yet again nothing seems to have been learned and oxygen capacity remains a serious bottleneck. It was reported that the unused Nightingales have, in London at least, been cannibalised for their temporary units. It should have been obvious to those responsible that January, with its near-freezing temperatures, was likely to be much more problematic than a warm Spring. But we have become well aware of the procedure-driven and budget-driven limitations within the NHS.
Exponential Rise in Key Workers
One key difference with this lockdown, as compared with the first, appears to be the number of primary school children who are still going to school. The Guardian has the story:
Primary schools in England have reported a big increase in the number of pupils attending during the latest lockdown, leading to warnings it may increase the spread of COVID-19 and prolong the need for school closures.
A survey of school leaders and classroom teachers revealed a sharp turnaround in the numbers of children attending school this week compared with those who attended in March 2020 during the first national lockdown.
The survey by the Teacher Tapp app found that one in six primary schools in England reported that 30% or more of their normal roll was attending in person this week, far more than in the first week of the March lockdown.
Nationally the figures would equate to more than 2,500 primary schools in England with a third or more of their pupils in their classrooms. More than 300 of those schools said at least half of all their pupils attended in person.
The figures are the first evidence that parents have been sending their children to school in increasing numbers. Headteachers have complained about their schools “rammed” with pupils and of parents making implausible claims of being eligible “critical workers”.
One headteacher reported that a parent whose job was a dog-walker claimed to qualify as a key worker because many of the dogs’ owners were NHS staff.
Rebecca Allen, a Professor of Education at the University of Brighton and Chief Analyst at Teacher Tapp, said: “The much higher number of children attending primary schools each day during this lockdown will make it more difficult to reduce the rate of transmission.
“This, in turn, may mean that schools will need to stay closed for longer, thus delaying the speed with which we can get other children back to school.”
Worth reading in full.
This is at least partly because the rules on which children are allowed back into the classroom are more permissive than they were in March. The BBC has more.
Heads are calling for limits to the number of pupils in school during lockdown in England, with attendance rates surging to 50% in some places.
The two head teachers’ unions, NAHT and ASCL, say the high numbers attending could hamper the fight against the virus.
The Department for Education has widened the categories of vulnerable and key worker pupils who can attend.
The widened categories not only include vulnerable pupils and children of workers in critical occupations but also those who cannot access remote learning either because they do not have devices or space to study.
Children of parents working on the Brexit arrangements are also included.
Teachers have described streets around schools being packed with parents dropping off their children and almost all staff having to come in and work despite the lockdown.
Heads say they fear schools could be overwhelmed by children who do not have access to lap tops [sic] to learn remotely.
One Lockdown Sceptics reader has a child who is now going back to school. She wrote in to share her experience of school closures in her area:
Our daughter is of primary school age and during the first lockdown we kept her at home at the same time as me and my partner both attempting to work full time from home, this being largely unsuccessful for all of us.
In anticipation of the closures this time, we sought “critical worker” status from my partner’s employer and were lucky enough to have this granted. When the inevitable closures were announced on the Monday, we were ready and waiting to apply for a place for our daughter, which we duly did on the Tuesday. The school was closed to all pupils on the Tuesday whilst they organised the staff and awaited the critical worker place applications from parents.
On the Tuesday evening we received a couple of successive emails, the first notifying us that the place for our daughter was confirmed, the second outlining the plans for school opening for critical worker places from Wednesday and beyond. In that email the school outlined class numbers for each year group and the total number of places allocated. We were somewhat surprised to see that places in school (it’s not clear whether these include those classed as vulnerable, I have assumed that they are) amounted to over 50% of the normal capacity of the school (166/315), with our daughter’s year group being the largest class – a total of 28 children out of a possible 45.
I have no reason to believe that our daughter’s school would be much different from others in our area, which is situated in a fairly affluent part of South Manchester. A quick ask around local friends and colleagues reveal that other schools do appear to be around the same sort of levels. This is also in contrast to the first lockdown, where I believe there were around 10 out of 45 in our daughter’s year in attendance.
That being the case, one has to ask oneself, are any of the perceived benefits of school closures actually likely with this volume of children in schools (although as a lockdown sceptic I remain unconvinced of the benefits regardless)? Almost all of the teaching staff will still be coming into school, albeit in a shift type pattern, as will the staff of the onsite wraparound care facility.
I fear that all that has really been achieved by the closure of primary schools is the further disadvantaging of a large proportion of children across the country.
The Headteacher has since followed up the emails of Tuesday evening with an email requesting parents to all “examine our social conscience” and revisit whether we all really need the critical worker places applied for. From this I can safely assume from this that the Head is no lockdown sceptic herself.
Stop Press: A headteacher in Hull is urging parents not to abuse critical worker places, telling them to only send their children to school if they “absolutely have to“.
Stop Press 2: MailOnline is reporting that some pupils are being asked to do their own Covid tests.
Answer From A Legal Eagle
Yesterday we had a question for the legal eagles: If basic care is to be curtailed to promote vaccination programmes, can I sue the GP practice if my elderly mum doesn’t get the care she needs and then goes on to be hospitalised unnecessarily?
Today, a response:
I very much doubt it. Professional negligence law has two ready-made defences for the practice:
1) Compliance with law/health authority directives – The practice would say it was doing what its contractual partner (and the Government) told it to, and what it was therefore obliged to do.
2) “Reasonable foreseeability” – A successful claim would need to argue that it was reasonable for the practice to foresee that the absent care would be more critical than the vaccine. In the current uncertain environment – impossible, I fear.
Postcard From Luxembourg
One Lockdown Sceptics reader is lucky enough to live in Luxembourg were COVID-19 restrictions are being relaxed. He wanted to share his thoughts so he has written us a postcard:
The day before England woke up to its third lockdown, Luxembourg announced that it was actually going to relax its own restrictions. Yes, here in Luxembourg the shops will all be opened, the children back at school following a slightly extended Christmas holiday and we will even be able to go to the cinema and the swimming pool.
Perhaps there has been a slight whiff of Schadenfreude as the Luxembourgish authorities clamped down on arrivals from the island with the now famous mutant variant following Matt Hancock’s frantic ringing of the alarm bell. After all, this is the same little country that was among the first to be kicked out of Grant Shapps’s travel corridors with COVID-19 cases persistently in excess of 20 per 100,000. Do you remember that frightening threshold that forced so many holidaymakers to flee the pestilence and return to the UK before it pulled up the drawbridges? Maybe you have forgotten about it being so busy clearing streets of bodies now that cases exceed 1,000 in so many British towns. Or perhaps not.
While all of Europe sneered at Trump when he suggested that the more you test, the more cases you find, it was not long before the Luxembourg Government was saying something similar. Boris might have talked about moonshots, but Luxembourg really did roll out real mass testing early on. I don’t know how many invitations I have received for members of my household to be tested. It is possibly in double figures now. Of course, the sad consequence was that it was always up there near the top in terms of COVID-19 cases detected and much to its consternation, rather than receiving a pat on its back, other countries simply slapped restrictions on travel to and from Luxembourg. This eventually led to the wonderful controversy of the pugnacious Luxembourg Foreign Minister refusing to be tested before entering Germany for an EU summit in Berlin and declaring that the imposition of mandatory tests before crossing the border was “pure harassment”.
Despite this brilliant rollout of mass testing throughout the Summer, the action that we were all told was meant to stop COVID-19 in its tracks, Luxembourg has seen far more people reportedly dying of Covid since October than it did during the Spring – more than three times the number and with a youthful average age of 85. This meant that restrictions were progressively ratcheted up again until we had a curfew beginning at 9pm, non-essential shops shutting, masks, restaurants closed… you know the drill. But now the cases are dropping, the hospital beds are emptying, and the health service emergency level has been downgraded.
Worth reading in full.
We Need Scepticism More Than Ever
Sociology Professor Frank Furedi has written a long read for Spiked-Online defending the important role of scepticism at a time when it is increasingly considered a threat.
Look at the way so-called lockdown sceptics are now talked about. They are accused of “having blood on their hands”, and of holding “deadly beliefs”. They are to be ostracised, censored and humiliated. In this vein, one Guardian columnist even demanded that a specific scientist, who has criticised the lockdown consensus, be denied access to the media to voice his views. And little wonder. Scepticism is now routinely portrayed as dangerous, something to be quashed lest we all suffer.
It is not just criticism of lockdown restrictions that is under fire. Criticism of other aspects of the establishment’s outlook is also treated in much the same way, that is, as dangerous or threatening. Indeed, it is the attempt by our cultural, political and educational elites to demonise criticism that has contributed to the broader demonisation of scepticism itself. Think of the whiff of sulphur that hangs around those called Eurosceptic or climate-sceptical. They are not presented as mere holders of dissenting opinions; they are presented as morally inferior, and potentially dangerous…
Take the hysterical criticism levelled at the authors of the lockdown-questioning Great Barrington Declaration, and lockdown-sceptical individuals, such as Sunetra Gupta, a Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford. They have been personally and professionally maligned, and, more troubling still, their critics want them removed from the public sphere. This has all the characteristics of a modern high-tech witch-hunt.
Sceptics, he writes, are routinely accused of a wicked heresy.
Today’s sceptics are not accused of obscenity or moral corruption. No, they are accused of “denialism”. That is their evil deed. By categorising scepticism as denialism, one is attributing malign intent to the exercise of scepticism. The sceptic is therefore not questioning or interrogating an establishment position; rather, he or she is denying the truth of the establishment position. Such is the quasi-religious force of this strategy that the Guardian, which largely cleaves to establishment positions, updated its style guide in 2019, meaning that climate sceptics were from then on to be referred to as climate-science deniers. Unsurprisingly, this same rhetorical strategy has been applied to those sceptical of lockdown policies, with accusations of “Covid denialism” now routine on social media and in the press…
They have transformed the act of denying the Holocaust into a generic evil, a free-floating blasphemy, which can be attributed to all manner of sceptical positions. As one commentator puts it: “Denial is pernicious and can have dire impacts. Climate-change denial leads to lack of action that would preserve a healthy planet. Mask denial leads to increased spread of and mortality from the Covid virus.”
Yet if society is to develop, Furedi concludes, it needs scepticism.
A sceptical attitude is especially important right now. During this perilous moment, when humanity is confronted by a deadly threat like Covid, there is a temptation to close down debate and limit freedom of speech. In such circumstances, dissenting views can easily be caricatured as a threat to people’s health. To some it even seems that debate itself is a luxury we can no longer afford. Yet it is precisely during an emergency, like the pandemic, that debate and free speech become indispensable. They are the means by which we harness the creativity and the wisdom of the public to deal with the crisis in which we now find ourselves.
The 19th-century biologist Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote that “scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the unpardonable sin”. Now, more than ever, this is a statement worth heeding. Our future freedom may well depend on it.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Douglas Murray has made a similar argument in a piece for UnHerd called “Don’t censor the lockdown sceptics“.
The Iceberg Cometh
We’re publishing an original piece by Lockdown Sceptics regular Guy de la Bédoyère today about our seeming inability to come to terms with our own mortality, something that’s become starkly apparent during this crisis. Here is an extract:
Life is a little like being on the Titanic, but one without lifeboats and in a perpetual state of sinking. We do everything individually and collectively we can to maximize our chances of surviving for as long as possible by metaphorically clambering towards the stern, the last part to sink beneath the waves. And why wouldn’t we? But sink beneath the waves we will.
From a cultural and social point of view that is what we are all about. Human ingenuity is so powerful a force and the drive to improve our survival rates is such an integral part of what we are that they define our whole existence. The NHS is a manifestation of that aspiration because it has made healthcare available to all in this country. It is a defining aspect of our civilization. It is a force for fundamental good and an expression of compassion. But it comes at a price, and not just a financial one.
Unfortunately, what we seem ever more unable to reconcile is our enthusiasm to prolong life with the knowledge that it must end. By doing everything we can to extend life within what is possible for human beings we necessarily fill that 85-105 year-old group with ever more people who have underlying health conditions. That is the contract we have made in our society. The state provides that service, we support that service, we pay for that service, and we expect that service.
Worth reading in full.
Round-up
- “British Public ‘have been coerced to stop seeing the people they love‘” – Watch Charles Walker MP defend his vote against Lockdown 3 on Channel 4 News
- “The totalitarian hell of lockdown” – “Debate, dissent and independent thought are not allowed in Covid Britain” writes Emily Hill in Spiked Online
- “Moderna Covid vaccine approved for use in Britain” – Another vaccine has been approve for use, reports the Times, with delivery expected in the Spring
- “Less than a third of people self-isolate fully during a pandemic” – Home Care Insight reports on the low rates of full self-isolation
- “Boris Johnson was the last man standing over Covid schools closures” – It took the combined forces of Matt Hancock, Michael Gove and Chris Whitty to force Boris into a third lockdown, according to the Times
- “GP surgeries offered £1,000 to cancel second dose Covid jab appointments in roll-out chaos” – The payments to cover workload of postponing hundreds of patients and booking new ones in their place, says the Telegraph. Only in the NHS
- “Children’s mental health referrals hit record high as lockdowns and school closures bite” – The Telegraph reports on an inevitable impact of the lockdown which could last for years
- “Police Told Freedom of Speech Campaigner Toby Young to Take Death Threat Seriously” – James Delingpole in Breitbart, on the growing hostility towards lockdown sceptics
- “Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants” – MailOnline reports that the Deputy Chief Medical Officer failed to follow Government health advice in March last year
- “Message to the Prime Minister about Ivermectin” – Dr Tess Lawrie, Director of the Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy in Bath, asks Boris to take heed of the latest research into a well-known medicine that will save lives in the battle against COVID-19
- “Covid is a clear and present danger to the Bank of England’s independence” – Philip Aldrick in the Times on why the bank just might be out of a job
- “Denmark developing digital COVID-19 ‘vaccine passport’” – Denmark is getting its vaccine passport ready, reports Reuters, so that citizens can travel to countries that require them for entry
- “Lockdown supporters must be ready for the same medicine every winter” – Robert Taylor sounds a warning in the Telegraph
- “How the rise of digital technology facilitated lockdown” – Philosopher Mark Sinclair in the Critic, warning against the slippery slope of technological thinking
- “Whichever way you look at it, the new travel rules are bonkers” – Ross Clark in the Telegraph says everyday life has become a trap seemingly designed to allow public authorities to impose as many Fixed Penalty Notices as they can
- A brave citizen journalist filmed four coppers sitting in a cafe having a cup of coffee and asked them why they were breaking the rules
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four Today: “I’ve Had Enough” by The Who, “Cry Wolf” by Aha, “Can’t Give Up Now” by Mary Mary and “It’s All Going to Pot” by Willie Nelson.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. 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 as well as post comments below the line, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Sharing Stories
Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics so you can share it. To do that, click on the headline of a particular story and a link symbol will appear on the right-hand side of the headline. Click on the link and the URL of your page will switch to the URL of that particular story. You can then copy that URL and either email it to your friends or post it on social media. Please do share the stories.
Social Media Accounts
You can follow Lockdown Sceptics on our social media accounts which are updated throughout the day. To follow us on Facebook, click here; to follow us on Twitter, click here; to follow us on Instagram, click here; to follow us on Parler, click here; and to follow us on MeWe, click here.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, from the New York Post, we bring you a human rights attorney and the curious case of her cultural identity:
A prominent human rights attorney apparently posed as a Latina woman for years.
Despite claiming Puerto Rican and Colombian heritage for over a decade, Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan is actually a white woman from Georgia, according to a report by the non-profit news outlet Prism.
She serves as Senior Counsel at the Latino Justice Puerto Rican Legal Defence and Education Fund.
Records obtained by the site say Bannan’s family arrived in the United States from Ireland, Italy and Russia.
On Monday, Bannan, 43, clarified that she’s white in response to the report.
“I am racially white, and have always said that. However my cultural identity was formed as a result of my family, both chosen and chosen for me, and that has always been Latinx,” the attorney wrote.
“My identity is my most authentic expression of who I am and how I pay honour to the people who have formed me since I was a child.”
Bannan also sent an email to Prism saying she’s previously identified as white, that her “biological origins are Italian, atheist Jewish/Sephardic, some unknown (adopted grandfather) and who knows what else.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: For another story from across the pond, we turn to #Disrupttexts and their ongoing campaign to build an inclusive and equitable arts curriculum. Meghan Cox Gurdon has more in the Wall Street Journal.
A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature. Under the slogan #DisruptTexts, critical-theory ideologues, schoolteachers and Twitter agitators are purging and propagandizing against classic texts, everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dr. Seuss.
Their ethos holds that children shouldn’t have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacular, especially those “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm”, as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: “Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.”
The subtle complexities of literature are being reduced to the crude clanking of “intersectional” power struggles. Thus Seattle English teacher Evin Shinn tweeted in 2018 that he’d “rather die” than teach “The Scarlet Letter”, unless Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel is used to “fight against misogyny and slut-shaming”.
Outsiders got a glimpse of the intensity of the #DisruptTexts campaign recently when self-described “antiracist teacher” Lorena Germán complained that many classics were written more than 70 years ago: “Think of US society before then and the values that shaped this nation afterwards. That is what is in those books…”
The demands for censorship appear to be getting results: “Be like Odysseus and embrace the long haul to liberation (and then take the Odyssey out of your curriculum because it’s trash),” tweeted Shea Martin in June, to which Heather Levine, an English teacher at Lawrence High School, Massachusetts, replied, “Hahaha. Very proud to say we got the Odyssey removed from the curriculum this year!”
Worth reading in full.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to obtain a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card – because wearing a mask causes them “severe distress”, for instance. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and the Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. And if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face masks in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption. Another reader has created an Android app which displays “I am exempt from wearing a face mask” on your phone. Only 99p.
If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know you will not be insisting on face masks or asking them what their reasons for exemption are, you can download a friendly sign to stick in your window here.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry. See also the Swiss Doctor’s thorough review of the scientific evidence here and Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson’s Spectator article about the Danish mask study here.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched in October and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over three quarters of a million signatures.
Update: The authors of the GBD have expanded the FAQs to deal with some of the arguments and smears that have been made against their proposal. Worth reading in full.
Update 2: Many of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration are involved with new UK anti-lockdown campaign Recovery. Find out more and join here.
Update 3: You can watch Sunetra Gupta set out the case for “Focused Protection” here and Jay Bhattacharya make it here.
Update 4: The three GBD authors plus Prof Carl Heneghan of CEBM have launched a new website collateralglobal.org, “a global repository for research into the collateral effects of the COVID-19 lockdown measures”. Follow Collateral Global on Twitter here. Sign up to the newsletter here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many legal cases being brought against the Government and its ministers we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
The Simon Dolan case has now reached the end of the road. But the cause has been taken up by PCR Claims. Check out their website here.
The current lead case is the Robin Tilbrook case which challenges whether the Lockdown Regulations are constitutional. You can read about that and contribute here.
Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.
There’s the GoodLawProject and Runnymede Trust’s Judicial Review of the Government’s award of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.
And last but not least there was the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. A High Court judge refused permission for the FSU’s judicial review on December 9th and the FSU has decided not to appeal the decision because Ofcom has conceded most of the points it was making. Check here for details.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email [email protected] or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
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 hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here. (Don’t assume we’ll pick them up in the comments.)
And Finally…
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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Reichstag fire? Pfttt!
Surreal covid related experience with British Gas yesterday: freezing temperatures , boiler sprang a leak; fernox fluid stains fortunately discovered by chance,
Rang British Gas, only to be trapped in the automated message circle of hell-(Dante would have approved).
Endless questions, spoken answers received with ‘sorry, we couldn’t hear that, please repeat’.
After several attempts and a lengthy list of new variant covid protection measures- ‘please keep a 2 metre distance between yourself and our engineer when he calls’, being just one on the list.
My kitchen is small, so should I loiter in the hall while trying to communicate with the hapless engineer? My voice is rather weak, so probably not practicable for me to make myself heard effectively.
Finally got through to a human in the call centre; pleasant lady, but no appointments for 5 days. BG recommend calling on a private contractor, with a promise that costs will be reimbursed by BG for all customers obliged to do this.
Accepted 5 day delayed appointment but then called our local plumber, who came as soon as he read my pleading text: no mask, friendly chat as always, leak fixed: loose screw and internal washer, which he tightened… Read more »
Statement from Gab on the Tech Lord tyranny. https://news.gab.com/2021/01/09/gabs-statement-on-apple-and-googles-tyranny/
I’m lucky, tomorrow I won’t remember what I posted on here and can resume my nightmare without a care in the world.
I think we should change the site to ‘Lockdown Activists’. I think we should go 100% for the jugular. Let’s call for a TOTAL lockdown including supermarkets and hospitals. Let’s call for masks to be worn 24/7 including your own home and when you sleep. Let’s call for ‘vaccinations’ every two weeks. Let’s demand schools/colleges/universities to be lockdowned until 2030.
If anyone demurs accuse them of ‘killing granny’ and of having no conscience and wanting people to die. Go onto twatter, arsebook et al and hurl abuse at anyone who doesn’t support these measures. Get them de-platformed for not being ‘on message’. Any dissent to this should be met with total hysterics.
We’re not going to win doing what we’ve done for the last 10 months, let’s make it impossible for them to wriggle free. Let’s make it impossible for them to counteract the narrative.
It’s time we went on the offensive.
Amazon has decided to take down Parler by denying its web hosting services. Mozilla has also joined in the internet purge.
I’ve been using the Brave browser for some months but I am now downloading the Dissenter browser. I am going to delete Firefox as they are going to deny access to content with which they disagree.
Anyone still think that lockdowns, vaccines, tech overlords and the rest are not connected?
All the free speech media enterprises need to bury their differences and creat an easily accessible Freedom Site with related app that will mean we can easily get access to the equivalents of a You Tube, Google, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc
In its early days YouTube was mostly supported by people like us. It can be done again. All of the above names can be replaced.
Funnily enough I uninstalled Firefox tonight due to their de-platforming of DT. I don’t require my web browser to make decisions for me. Arrogant sons/daughters of bitches.
I’m currently using Pale Moon (which is Firefox based) and Vivaldi (chrome based) but would welcome a truly independent browser.
I’ll have a look at Dissenter. If anyone has any other suggestions for a truly independent, neutral browser I’m all ears.
I have been using Brave since June. I only downloaded it because Luke Rudowksi of We are Change has been demonetised by Youtube. I went to his YT channel and clicked on a link below one of his videos. I think he gets some small recompense. Brave is better, you get access to Tor and it is generally better except for opening attachments to emails (for some reason).
I have been using Brave for a while maybe I’ll continue with that.
I need to wipe everything clean from the NVME and begin again. I’ve been looking at Tails as a dual boot with Win10. I need Windoze for thousands of pounds of music stuff and the odd game but for the Net, email and sundry I can use Linux. I’m currently using Bodhi Linux on a usb to take a look at it.
I’m always in the market for reliable, independent and non surveillance software. I’m finally going to move to a VPN at the end of this month.
I believe avenues are being closed off to us and it makes sense to go with non corporate software.
Good idea. If you find a good VPN let us know.
I’ve been drinking all night and I love it. Without alcohol or weed then this dystopia is unbearable.
I had many questions to ask of the informed and more intelligent than I but I don’t remember what they were.
I’m rocking a total breakdown in my ability to understand what the absolute fuck is going on. No, seriously, I’m now of the opinion that I’m living through a film that I once watched on Netflix or prime or the bbc circa the 70’s. The whole shebang is redolent of insanity.
I’m sure I’m standing on a sea shore in the 70s watching the tide roll in. I appear to have become detached from life, viewing it as a black and white film that has no meaning to me.
If I were that way inclined I’d think that I’ve gone over the edge into some sort of pseudo reality.
It’s truly bizarre. On the plus side I’ve just spent £300 on midi gear. One of us is mental… I think it’s you.
As I’ve said, we’re living through the Book of Revelation, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, and several bad sci-fi films.
You may be right. I don’t know what it is but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to keep a grip on sanity.
Seriously, I think I’m having some sort of psychotic episode that is stretching out into months. I’m guessing that I’ve got no way back from this although in my more, ahem, rational phases I think I’ll wake up in the morning and it was all just a bad dream.
Something is breaking down in my mind. Maybe I’m a cartoon.
I am right there with you here in the the US, brother.
I’m not very religious, but I feel as though the forces of Satan and the Anti-Christ are ascendant in these times.
The Donald is not the hero many wanted, but he may be the one we need.
Even worse, he may be the only one we are going to get.
Fahrenheit 451.
I know exactly what you mean.
You’re sane and you’re not alone. A lot of people are using the “watching a film” analogy to describe this extremely bizarre experience.
Don’t forget John Carprnter’s “They Live.”
Although I have to say that the Biblical prophesy of a great delusion/deception that will lead to destruction at the end of the age and the appearance of Jesus is imo quite convincing. 2 Thessalonians 2.
This song by Black gets close to where I am and I despair.. https://youtu.be/u1ZoHfJZACA
‘They seem to hate you because you’re there.’
A thought on Mrs Krankie not publishing vaccine supply details. If she did, and the supplies remained high, maybe people would twig that uptake wasn’t as high as expected/hoped.
Twitter has it seems disabled the #1984 hashtag.
Kind of says it all really.
Kind of says twitter don’t allow hashtags made up entirely of numbers.
So you’re from Twitter are you? Our very own fact checker. I’m just playing devil’s advocate,
Has anyone tried #666?
Jack posted “2030” a week or two ago.
Says it all.
I note the optimistic comments on here about the change in attitudes. I am disgusted however by the action of the Plod in arresting two women in Bournemouth. I note hat the police can’t do something like this without actually outnumbering citizens by at least six to one. They are vicious bullies. And it used to be the case that people were arrested without handcuffs for such trivial offences. Now they not only put them in handcuffs but handcuffs behind the back – something only the Americans ever did. I broke my elbow some years ago and getting my arm in this sort of position is incredibly painful. however, if you protested about this, these uniformed thugs would probably charge you with resisting arrest or something. The plod didn’t arrest the woman filming. Probably not enough dozens for them to take on her as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvNbjF0gi0E.
The police in the video say it’s the ‘law’ that you can’t exercise more than once a day. As far as I know the wording is ‘should not exercise more than once a day’, it’s not the law. Also many of these police people had their numbers concealed. They have to be made accountable as individuals and sacked from the force.
Does anyone know about the guidance on handcuffs? Their use for something like this is inappropriate and – in my view – designed to degrade and humiliate.
Yes – it reminded me of the pregnant woman who was arrested in her home in Melbourne for posting a link to a demo on Facebook. The police handcuffed her in a similar way, in front of her children.
Can anyone link to the actual ‘law’ as opposed to the ‘guidelines’? The fact that the two ladies in Derbyshire have now been exonerated would indicate some sense is prevailing. Also a word about individual responsibility of police officers. This actually protects the good ones. They can say to their superiors ‘I won’t enforce non laws because I can be accountable as an individual’.
It is quite clear that the police have been briefed to use the arrest process as intimidatingly as possible, in fact as punishment knowing that few of the normally law abiding people they are targeting will ever be penalised by a Court.
It’s exactly the same way that they used to (?) arrest teenage delinquents on a Friday evening knowing that their social worker would not get them sprung from the Police cells until Monday morning.
It may turn out that treating the majority of the adult population as if they were delinquents has unintended consequences for the police.
I’m currently in a debate with someone who has dropped the images of army trucks in New York and mass graves in Iran as ‘proof’ that this is all justified. How do I retort?
Simply tell him that he will be in varying degrees of lockdown, wearing a mask everywhere and taking multiple vaccines every year for the rest of his miserable life.
Then walk away, this person is beyond saving.
He believes the vaccine to be the saviour. There is no hope.
Then let him have it. I guarantee that one day he will bitterly regret his wilful ignorance.
Might be worth reminding him that both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca shots are still undergoing clinical trials, and have only been granted emergency use authorisation by the UK government. They are unlicensed products.
Unlicensed? That’s illegal. Criminal.
Official figures how that there are not really many more deaths than usual in Britain.
Already used that one, but his propoganda images convince him that this is the plague.
Tricky, because he’s cherrypicked pretty much the worst case (New York) and a case for which we have no idea what the truth is (almost everything you read about Iran, either for or against, is propaganda for one side or the other).
All you can do is point out that there is no correlation between lockdown and better outcomes, no correlation between mask wearing and better outcomes, and the same modelling the government bases its scary fantasies on predicted tens of thousands of deaths in Sweden if they didn’t change policy, they didn’t, and nothing particularly bad happened.
But be prepared for all the usual bollocks in response. Probably a lost cause, or a very long haul.
Sounds like someone who soaked up the fear right at the very start and hasn’t changed stance since. Good luck!
Short of showing them photos of a bustling Stockholm I’m not sure, sounds like graphs won’t work. Maybe appeal to authority might work – people highly “in the know” – Neil Ferguson, Dominic Cummings – travelled across the country/London putting their loved ones at risk – would they have done this if risk was really high? Do they know why the nightingales were never used?
Tell him/her that the next time you see them you’ll kill them.
After all, they’re beyond hope, reason and saving. You’ll be doing them a favour.
Or suggest that they take their own life as this world is beyond their ability to cope and they’d be far better off in the next life*.
*Not a guarantee.
Cuomo and DeBlasio are paying NY hospitals to ventilate people to death.
New York has had a severe lockdown and yet has a far higher deathrate than South Dakota, Florida or Georgia, which have either relaxed their measures months ago or never really had a lockdown at all (South Dakota). How exactly does this make the case for lockdowns?
Well you know and I know that it makes no case at all. However, those with the ‘power’ believe it doesn’t matter what you or I think so meh.
Honestly we’ve gone far beyond supplying stats/graphs/alternative views. They’re not listening now, perhaps they never will.*
*Apologies to Don McLean
Can you pass your message on to Peter Hitchens and Toby, please? It’s taking some time, but hopefully we’ll get there.
World leaders condemn ‘disgraceful’ scenes at US Capitol
The same world leaders who are imposing Totalitarianism on people around the world? F Them!
Well they would, wouldn’t they. We live in a completely inverted world.
Much worse than Seinfeld’s Bizzarro World.
In a much earlier thread about the ordinary flu jab LS reader Lydia has replied
” my husband received a text asking him to have the flu jab
*so that he could have the Covid jab*”.
I have not seen or heard of the two being explicitly linked like this before.
Just been debating with someone who believes that everyone should have the flu jab, irrelevant of vulnerability. Where does this end?
It ends when 30 million have been culled due to stupidity. I’d like to say they’d be missed… but I’d be lying.
Research indicated that they are contraindicated – if you had a flu jab then getting the ‘virus’ might make you very sick
NHS declare no longer collecting/publishing data is possible due to capacity. Old news. More of the same behaviour this time from sturgeon – the scotsman reports
“Vaccine supply data to be kept secret after ‘judgements’ on workload from Scottish Government
“Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed figures on the number of vaccines supplied to the Scottish Government for delivery to the population will not be published to reduce the workload on staff.”
https://www.scotsman.com/health/coronavirus/vaccine-supply-data-be-kept-secret-after-judgements-workload-scottish-government-3090162
Both behaviour patterns look to a lay person like criminal behaviour, at least they look like enabling criminal behaviour. Both organisations, NHS and The Scottish Government, crap on about transparency endlessly when it suits. Furloughed at home on full pay the scottish government find themselves unable to meet their own bragging at the first sign of stress. Toy government run by disgraces to the nation.
The arrogance of these people is unbelievable.
Which is worse, secrecy or tractor stats ?
Account of man who entered Capitol building:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOjzEj_r0E4&list=TLPQMTAwMTIwMjFwG0dJ-MDzrA&index=2
Had a good and bad experience in part of NW London today.
My park visit was very positive. Pretty packed, all sorts of ages and very little mask wearing despite Genghis declaring an emergency and calling for masking in public places (Again! Does the little weasel fuckwit not bother to look at other countries, like Spain, where this has made ZERO difference?)
Supermarket visit after was less positive. Near the end of my shop I noticed a female Met Police officer and, given that I was literally the only person in the store without a mask, unsurprisingly made a beeline for me.
The convo started on the lines of:
PC: Where is your mask?
Me: I’m exempt (not strictly true)
PC: Do you have a lanyard?
Me: I have no obligation to wear one and there is no law to say I have to. Also, you have no right to be harassing me.
PC: Yes sir, under government guidelines….
What followed was a level of hostility and aggression that I think took her aback. In a nutshell, I told her that the police were a disgrace for harassing innocent members of the public, that this is the UK not China,… Read more »
Well done! Another small strike for the resistance.
Well done. It is absolutely clear from the government’s own guidelines that no mask exemption needs to be proven by a ticket, lanyard etc.
hero
Nice one!
Good on you! I’m utterly amazed at how little the police and shop staff know about the exemptions. It’s like YOU have to train them. I went to the park today, as I often do these days. Its was great. Everyone’s pretty relaxed, the cafe was open, and I sat on a bench to enjoy my coffee and cake – no hassle. But the town is getting worse and worse with the mask zealots. The 16 year old door Nazi was a piece of work today, bullying people and lining people up to take a squirt of sanitiser! My husband refused and just walked in. We both have valid exemption but I’ve now actually taken to wearing a badge, which keeps the interfering numpties away from me.
I never use hand sanitiser, even if directed. I sometimes say that I’ve just washed my hands recently like every normal person. It’s complete theatre for the virtuous.
I know. I sometimes wave an old, empty bottle at them, saying “got my own!” as I walk past.
It might just be paranoia brought on by the surreal nature of all these social controls but I have a real fear that we will see more human suffering at the hands of these lunatics.
In an interview last year Mr Gates was smiling at getting ‘their attention’ next time round, how fucking sinister and detached from humanity can someone be to find levity in a situation such as this.
https://youtu.be/fWQ2DsHWrQE?t=360
My fear is that the vaccine will predispose the gonzoid population to antibody dependent enhanced susceptibility to a new wildtype virus that conveniently emerges in the short to medium term.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7645850/
I see Her Majesty has taken the hit, that will suit Charly to a tee.
Maybe I worry too much……
Gates also talked about “the final solution” on one show until the presenter hurriedly shut him up!
Alternative social media platform Parler is in deep trouble as Amazon employees demand AWS stop hosting the service:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/amazon-employees-demand-company-drop-parler-aws-cloud-app-becomes-1-download
I’ve been avoiding Amazon this year, if they cave to this pressure I’ll have one more good reason to not give them business. Only problem is, if I were to pick a cloud provider for a corporate client, it would be between Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS… so I don’t think my one man protest will have much impact unfortunately.
I say this as someone who’d never support Trump and never used Parler – the principles at stake are too important here.
Your choice not to support Trump. However, over the next coupe of weeks I hope you come to appreciate his leadership and actions. The latter will speak volumes. I ask only that you see beyond the man and whichever of his policies you disagree agree with, and be thankful for what he’s doing/has done to save America. ‘As goes America so goes the world.’
He defunded the WHO, stood against China and spoke up for HCQ and Ivermectin.
Don’t buy books from Amazon. You can nearly always get them cheaper from Books Etc.
Unfortunately I can’t see to read books any longer. Rely on my Kindle.
Scary lead Local Live story for tomorrow
‘An area of (the city) has the highest number of new positive cases of Covid19 in the whole County the latest data has shown.’
Follows a random list of places with cases;
meanwhile.
‘ latest figures show that a further two people have died of Coronovirus in County hospitals.’
Two ? Out of 1.8 million Regional population, just like most other days for the past six months or so. That’s the sum of NHS overwhelmed by second wave ?
1.8m?
If that’s crisis my local NHS ward serves 300,000. It’s has a 2 a day rolling average with Covid since November. This is the epidemic phas e for the region though. We’ve had 140 over 2020 with Covid.
Things seem to have peaked already in my area. I am seeing a lot of coincidentally similar peaks on the 29th Dec elsewhere. Then declines faster than ever seen since the start of all this.
On the 5th, our local NHS trust serving 450,000 people, had 77 “confirmed covid” patients in hospitals.
Not being able to go to the pub, I settled down at 8 pm to watch the first ever Dad’s Army episode, being broadcast on BBC 2. But first, those gits at the BBC had to preface it with a trigger warning: “The following programme contains outdated language that some viewers may find offensive” – or words to that effect. So what was it? Hard to tell really. Maybe it was Corporal Jones going on about the “fuzzie-wuzzies” in the Sudan, who “didn’t like it up ’em”. Surely not? Perhaps it was when Mannering put the coal scuttle up to his face and ended up with coal around his mouth, whereupon Pike referred to him as ‘Al Johnson’. Again, harmless banter, so I’m at a bit of a loss. Any ideas?
I watched it too. Nope – no idea! What a sad state of affairs.
Didn’t the BBC also put a ‘content warning’ on iPlayer about Brum, a children’s TV show about a little yellow car in Birmingham (which I happened to be very fond of as a child)? I’m racking my brains to think of anything offensive about it even through the BBC lens!
‘Fuzzie-wuzzies don’t like it up ’em’
Is normalising anal rape of Sudanese people apparently.
Also seems certain sections of the left are blaming Brexit on the BBC for constantly re-running Dads Army and therefore fuelling nationalism.
When grease was shown over Christmas it triggered a load of snowflakes.You would think living under a real tyranny would make them grow up.
first time I heard a warning before a programme apart from “features scenes of an upsetting nature” was when they showed the film version of “On the Buses” years back and there was a warning that the humour was “very cheeky”.
Oops! It’s Mainwaring.
Did it mention the word ‘freedom’ in a positive context?
Maybe that was it.
Are we about to sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted science? I’m referencing the great Winston Churchill of course, even though we are supposed to hate him for his racism and war crimes,
The news from America, once a bulwark of freedom is bad, very bad. A new Presidency installed by electoral fraud. The social media monopolists moving to silence Trump and his supporters and – most ominously – their commercial pro free speech rivals as well. ABC calling for the country to be cleansed of Trump supporters. CNN celebrating the loss of employment for those who took part in the entirely justified protests . Total censorship of the fact it is now proven that BLM and Antifa were involved in the occupation of the Capitol building,
Remember, this is just the start. The Obama-Clinton-Biden crime syndicate haven’t yet got their hands on the levers of power. The attack on social media free speech will be extended to TV channels. The legal assault on political opponents will be unprecedented.
And of course this new dark age spirit of censorship and hiding from… Read more »
Seventy-five million American citizens voted for him.
I think the Political Director of ABC (a pretty worrying title there!) was, on this occasion at least, not calling for mass murder but just wants them all cowed into abject submissive silence,
That’s not what the word cleansing means in this context. It means the exclusion of the social category, either by enforced emigration or by actual genocide.
Yep.
I’m sure this individual at ABC would be just peachy with the Khmer Rouge solution.
The figure could have been potentially far higher than 75 million – by the looks of things, some Biden supporters had no idea what they were voting for:
She’s a pretty hard sceptic too. I wonder how she missed the obvious trait that the Dems had adopted. Masks for everyone, lockdowns on tap
There is something wrong with that tweet. There is no way she could have been ignorant of Biden’s lockdown position unless she was wilfully blind.
Remember that this is a woman who had her book about gays being slaughtered in medieval England totally debunked on a BBC radio interview.
Dr. Wolf is an ally, but not the brightest bulb out there.
And thought Milton Friedman was some sort of evil genius in the Shock Doctrine because he advised Pinochet about how to get Chile’s economy restarted after communist destruction. Which they did and kept Chile for a long time as the third most successful economy in the Americas
Ah, Chile.
Santiago was a great time in 2017, parts of the city are very close to European quality.
Fantastic skiing and wine as well.
She was a political advisor for both Al Gore and Bill Clinton – how could she not know that Biden is pro-lockdown? It isn’t credible.
It does seem rather unlikely. The only plausible explanation I can think of is Trump Derangement, one of the symptoms of which is a complete blindness to anything negative about anyone opposing him.
US searches for, “change my vote,” skyrocketed on Google around the Nov 3 time frame.
think was because it takes a while to realize how bad the democrats are. and then was too late . the lockdowns the vaccine the masks the ventilators have finally made it clear , but too late for some
Not to mention the Dem leaning MSM are trying to shut down Fox news.
The latest crazy rumors are that the good guys managed to grab Nancy Pelosi’s laptop in the US House chaos that worked as cover for the real op.
Supposedly the laptop has smoking gun evidence of the fraud effort.
This is the alleged real reason Pelosi is freaking out about impeaching Trump ASAP.
As the poster in Mulder’s office said, “I want to believe.”
Otherwise, God help us all with the future these Anti-Christs have planned for us.
Well yes you will always get such conjecture – I wait for confirmed evidence, as there now is of massive electoral fraud for instance.
Just watched Tim Pool’s latest, looking really grim over there. I’ve never seen him so pessimistic, and now an attempt by Nancy Pelosi to instigate a military coup! Dark days indeed.
Link?
Hi, you’ll feel much better if you use more informed sources than Tim Pool. He’s got a naturally pessimistic demeanour and outlook I find. Doesn’t have much depth to his information IMO.
I think anyone’s got a right to be pessimistic right now…who do you recommend then?
The Pelosi laptop story has been confirmed I believe.. apparently the laptop is crucially important because ‘they used it for presentations’.
If you believe that’s the only thing they’re worrying about, I’ve got some magic beans to sell! 🙂
Presentations? Zoom conferencing with the CCP? I’d love this sorry to be true but we shall see….
Dunno if true obviously but:
https://welovetrump.com/2021/01/09/gen-mcinerny-says-special-ops-got-pelosis-laptop-this-is-high-treason/
Thanks for the link. The fact that the social media giants have moved with such force to permanently silence Trump provides some circumstantial evidence that they are teriffied of that evidence Trump now has. But I await events and evidence!
String-
At the rate things are spiraling I fully expect to see you, Dominic, and Airwol…I mean the Lady leading the charge against PLA troops disguised as UN peacekeepers pouring over the Canadian border.
Hahaha 🙂
I miss the’80s….so much fun:
https://youtu.be/H3J8FiLNEtc
Without wanting to go too off topic, I’d be interested to read any links you have re. electoral fraud – or just pointers to good sources.
I got the impression there was fraud but not to the extent where it cost him the win. I think we all agreed that large sections of the media were incredibly anti-Trump in the run-up to the election, so for me the idea that he lost by a fairly small margin is easy to reconcile. Loads of people seem to think he’s the devil incarnate, so they’d vote for Biden. But I don’t know enough about it so it’d be good to read more.
https://siasky.net/AAC1BbOUU2qzuyeXkcwDwKlrbhMyM5fA3PIDYYG3F57qLw
3rd posting of the link now. Interesting conversation about election fraud. Continues after the skippable prayers.
Thanks! It’d be good if it told us who was speaking, and who they’re speaking to, and when.
I can’t link on this device but for me there were a number of key factors that you need to address before yiu can say there was no fraud:
1. Biden failed to win either of the two reliable bellwether states: Ohio or Florida.
2. Biden failed to win a sizeable majority of the bellwether counties in the USA (Trump won a large majority) as all previous winning candidates have done.
3. Biden’s total number of counties was tiny compared with Trump’s and with Obama’s totals. This showed he didn’t do what winning candidates have always done previously: gain broad support across the country.
4. Despite being a generally agreed lacklustre candidate, Biden somehow outperformed even the amazingly charismatic Obama.
5. Across the country in % terms Biden performed about 4.5% less well than the opinion polls had predicted. But when you gmtomthe swing states this wss cut dramaticallly to something like 1.5%.
6. So how did Biden win? He won huge piles of votes in just a handful of urban areas in the six swing states. What you see in those areas is huge margins of victories in numerous precincts – 90 or even 95%… Read more »
For me, a lot of this feels like statistics that might seem counter-intuitive, rather than certainty. I’ll play devil’s advocate here:
Trump visited Florida 16 times. They ploughed a lot into Florida because they knew it was a bellwether state – and maybe neglected the midwest at their expense. Maybe statistics about voter intentions are now so good, and anticipation of patterns in swing states so sophisticated (due to mobile data etc.), that efforts to change views were highly targeted. And this, in combination with it being close run, results in the data we’re seeing? Not surprising if Dems are more popular in urban areas. Because Trump has been made out to be devil incarnate. A lot of people openly despise him. He’s intensely polarising. It wasn’t because Biden was charismatic, it was because Trump awoke visceral hate – helped along by the media. Proves what we say about don’t trust opinion polls. Personally, this is pretty much in line with what I predicted – so it doesn’t surprise me. What was the margin for Brexit polls vs. actual? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s similar. Any evidence this wasn’t because Dems had big support in those areas? A set… Read more »
1. Absolute BS. HE held loads of rallies in Pennsylvania for instance, and rhe Dems didn’t sweep the Midwest. They lost big in Ohio, which had a swift and properly conducted count.
2. Yep voter surveys are so good that the polls got Trump’s vote wrong by 4.5% (and much worse in the weeks before the polls narrowed as they and always do, suspiciously). Nope, that’s not a credible position.
3. You’re not paying attention. The votes in those small number of urban areas (about one per state) were way above what Obama achieved. This success in urban areas was found only in these swing states. Moreover post election polls showed that Trump ate into the African American, Latino and migrant vote -all concentrated in urban areas. No one is saying the vote is not logically possible, Zero vote for Trump would be logically possible. The issue is whether using all the statistical methods at our disposal whether what Biden supposedly achieved makes any empirical sense. It doesn’t.
4. Among whom? Not Republicans. He has the hjghest approval ratings of any Republican candidate in living memory. One of the best predictors of voting levels is party registration… Read more »
Excellent summary, thanks. The splendidly named Matthew Braynard is a good source, also Robert Barnes and Richard Baris (these notes for other readers obviously!). It makes our setup seem reasonable despite the obvious fraud with postal votes but watch this space post covid apocalypse.
Christina Paterson on Sky paper review. Now reckons, having done a bit of reading, she is now an expert epidemiologist. Stick to English Literature love, and leave the science to the grown-ups such as Gupta, Heneghan!
though, super pleasingly, Gupta also has another career as a prize-winning novelist and literary translator…
Yes, Gupta has an incredibly impressive CV, and she is very thoughtful – just not very good in a broadcast media environment, which is a shame.
The fact that she is extremely reluctant and humble about being a public figure just her makes her even more trustworthy in my eyes.
Unlike these condescending megalomaniacs who clearly get off on being on telly 24/7 and telling everyone they know best.
That type of attitude is a definite indicator of a high quality person.
Would that we had more like her in these strange days.
Yes, her emphasis on the catastrophe in the developing world caused by shutting economies is excellent. 130 million starving to death is the current estimate I believe. We rich wankers always end up killing poor people with our whimsical virtue signaling and cowardice.
I now find that when anyone spouts lockdown retrictions, all I hear is yadda yadda yadda as per https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0FCcjwV9Kw
By the way who reckons the Queen and Phil the Greek have had a placebo?
If so – good on them.
For sure they had a placebo. Nobody of any renown will be getting the actual “vaccine” because if they drop dead shortly afterwards, too many people will ask questions. OK, maybe not the Queen and Phil since they’re will into their 90s. But no way did Fauci, Biden or Kamala Harris get the real thing. Too risky on so many levels.
I saw Fauci on video having the jab in his LEFT arm. In an interview afterwards, when asked about any effects of the jab, he referred to some discomfort in his arm, and his left hand went to his RIGHT arm, as if without thinking
The clip of Harris is particularly suspect.
I received allergy shots for years and my shirtsleeves were always well clear of the injection site.
Harris’s sleeve drooped on the needle immediately struck me as suspicious.
Fweedom!
Heneghan and Gupta, among the ‘outliers’, as Hancock said.
Now, Galileo. Quite the outlier in his day
Until shown the instruments of torture.
Would that be the Hancock who has no scientific or medical qualification or experience? The one with a PPE degree? The one who has never had a job in the Real World? THAT Hancock?
Did she say “and…it’s all…very…worrying…”?
I think that’s her catchphrase!
Not as worrying as the Hong Kong Flu epidemic of 68, the Cuba missile crisis, 9/11, and a host of other episodes we have survived. As an alleged journo she should be more concerned about the active media censorship going on.
Isn’t amazing how everyone on one side is suddenly a PhD in virology, epidemiology, and statistics as well as CPAs specializing in forensic accounting?
Bring it on…
The Telegraph: Tougher policing of lockdown rules ‘will hit public support’.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/09/tougher-enforcement-new-lockdown-rules-will-hit-public-support/
The government are in a bind now.Although there is no outright rebellion compliance is falling.If they crack down too much it will provoke a reaction as people will realise what is really going on.They also know they do not have the numbers yet for a full on police state.
Expect a full on media campaign as they pull out all the old favourites from the spring.Plenty of pictures of ICUs and photogenic young people telling us how they didn’t take it seriously but it’s real.
I think they may have hit a brick wall with the propaganda as well. The ramping up since New Year has been like nothing I have ever seen. Yet judging by the multiple reports on here today, people have largely stopped listening, and are now only paying lip service to the regulations for public consumption.
A cornered animal is very dangerous. I predict that they are going to lash out even harder in the coming weeks. Remember, they absolutely despise us, and will therefore not be able to help themselves. This, I hope, will be their downfall.
It’s been like the boy who cried wolf . It may be that the lastest strain is more transmissable and more dangerous but people are past the point of caring and sick of just existing/going bankrupt.
How to win friends and influence people
oh dear https://youtu.be/dvNbjF0gi0E
All the stuff about ‘tougher policing’ is nonsense, unless they a. massively increase police recruitment; or b: use the army in support of the civil powers, or c. swear in thousands of auxiliaries/special constables as was done in the General Strike and WW2.
Advert on television now.Join the 20000 new police officers
That’s the plan. Will be the same thing here in the US.
You can bet these are well-paid, low/no-skill press gang type jobs that will recruit heavily among economic migrants.
No white men in the advert anyway
No surprise!
A friend of mine tested positive for Covid yesterday, as well as her husband.
They started getting symptoms on Wednesday, her a cough and shortness of breath and him a high temperature and cough. She is about 30 weeks pregnant but otherwise said she is fine.
I met her and her kids in a playground on Monday (both kids fine so far). I am feeling fine apart from the normal tiredness of running around after my 2 energetic toddlers.
My husband wondered whether I should get tested for being close contact 2 days prior to her getting symptoms.
I said No Fucking Way.
Gabjan21
forgive me, but I am a stickler. I know what you mean, but
There is no test for covid.
We have to stop accepting the assumptions and pemises of our enemies.
Yes, tests mean fuck all as far as I am concerned. If it were this time last year, what happened to her and her husband would be otherwise known as a viral flu/bug/whatever and no one would give a shit.
Any chance of asking (without invading her privacy) as to whether she had a flu vaccination? Many thanks.
I’m not sure but I assume a lot that she would have, seeing as they ask all pregnant women to have it. She is also a doctor – a psychological one.
Many thanks for that.
If she is pregnant tell her to stay away from Paloma Faith’s FB
She sounds a bundle of laughs
There’s someone I know who’s been for 2 tests when he’s had a sniffle. I kindly explained to him that if people like him stopped getting tested, this would be over tomorrow. He tested negative both times. He could quite easily have tested positive despite not being that ill and contributed to the problem. He joked with me and said it was positive and I said he would have been the first person I knew directly to have a positive test, he said he didn’t know anyone either. We both said ‘Some fucking pandemic!’ I don’t think he’ll go again. He’s a nice lad but won’t question anything. A typical Joe Public, which is where our issues lie.
Peter Hitchens with an excellent piece:
PETER HITCHENS: I am, for the first time, afraid for the future of freedom in my country | Daily Mail Online
It’s funny how the defenders of Fascism accuse their opponents of being fascists.
“This is plainly a call for censorship. By ‘disinformation’, such people always mean ‘things I disagree with’. When I challenge them, they can come up with no examples of untruths.”
Hitchens called bullshit on this whole shitshow before the first lockdown. He can see exactly where this is going. This is not going to end well.
He’s always maintained incompetence as the primary motive.Maybe this is to steer his readers to the truth while keeping his national profile.
Or maybe, like me, he just disagrees with you about it.
It beggars belief 10 months later that incompetence is the primary mover.
It is undeniable that governments across the world are using this crisis for a huge power grab.
That is what I mean by conspiracy; we don’t know how this started and frankly it doesn’t matter.
They have told us that lockdown won’t end until enough people are vaccinated and even then we will still be subject to restrictions on liberty.
You don’t establish a police state due to a bungled response to a virus.
His point about incompetence is not just that people are not able to make good decisions but they are also not able to correct bad ones.
I hope when this is all over they retain Maurice the masked engine as a reminder of the madness of this time.
Trains will not be required in the new society. Except those with cattle cars.
Mr Hitchens is top dog
It is an excellent piece. Peter Hitchens has been one of the few people with a platform who has opposed the madness from the outset, and he has doubtless converted many others (see for example his Talk Radio weekly interviews with Mike Graham, starting with the first of them, for a clear example of how he has done this). However, this particular article seems to me to be marred by his focus on those he characterises as the Left. It is not the Left who are the government, who have violated our rights and liberties, who have turned parliament into a pretend parliament, who have cancelled elections, undermined the rule of law, decimated the economy, turned the NHS into a Covid service, converted the police into an arm of government enforcing the “spirit” rather than upholding the law, closed places of worship, shut schools, placed the people under house arrest, waged a campaign of terror against the people, and tried to turn everyone against each other. This fascism was planned and carried out by a Conservative government. So, unless we refine Left to include the Conservative Party, blaming the Left is not merely wrong, it is a category error.
IMHO, there is a Marxist initiative to collapse the country and its institutions aligned to what Climate Change/Extinction Rebellion failed to achieve as quickly as some wanted to see the Green New Deal enacted. There are Fascists now seizing control and handing out the goodies to their mates in big, state-friendly firms (Big Pharma for example) and using totalitarian methods to get there. Ultimately, if you consider Marxism at one pole of a line, and Fascism at the other pole, then make a circle out of the line, they are juxtaposed. They are fighting for the same space. The Tory government is Tory in name only. One of the key players is either a Marxist or a Fascist, and one or more are wet Liberals. Most of the backbenchers don’t appear to have realised as of yet what is going on.
Do tell, who is the key player in the Tory government who is either a Marxist or a Fascist? Who is (are) the key player(s) in the Tory government who is (are) a Liberal? Stories without names are no fun.
But more to the point, are you defining Left to include the Conservative government?
I am merely pointing out it is not a Conservative government.
Which party do you think has the majority in the House of Commons? Which party do you think is in control of the government?
The concept of ‘left’ or ‘right’ is gone. There are ‘Stateists’ and others. The ‘stateists’ believe that governments are ‘God’. Hence they have the ability to stop death. Nothing should interfere with this. Anyone not supporting this is a ‘denier’. Everything ultimately is subservient to this new ‘God’. I think its only a matter of time before state worship demands sacrifice of lives to ensure purity and life in face of denialism. The two most hated denials currently are covid and climate change. But it can easily get simplified to mask wearing if required.
Clearly AI and biotech will be used to keep ‘chains’ around the populace.
The concept of left and right is not gone. It’s fundamental and probably eternal, because it absolutely is not about who owns the commanding heights of the economy. The clear division of our main parties into one of the left and one of the right is gone, because (by my and Peter Hitchens’ reckoning) there is no actually conservative party and has not been one for many years.
If you believe that humanity and human society can be rebuilt top down, by clever elites applying radical, intellectually led change to culture,society and politics, you are leftist. If you prefer to stick to tried and trusted structures and let change happen slowly and naturally, interfering only to address clear problems and not pursuant to some grand plan, you are conservative and of the right.
The left are the enablers of the coup.They control most of the institutions of this country and have revealed themselves as power worshipers.If you have read Hitchens for a while he classes the Conservative leadership as blairite Clones.
And Tony Blair is a neoliberal. There is nothing Left about neoliberalism.
“Neoliberalism” just means lefties who recognised that overt state ownership or direct control of everything failed catastrophically in the leftist dictatorships and in the west by the 1970s, and that they could only achieve their wider goals by other means. That was what Blair was and Blairism is.
The failure of the Corbynite left to grasp that basic aspect of reality is why the Blairites keep trouncing them, and will always trounce them.
Tony Blair was a revolutionary.Like the CCP New Labour realised Marxist economics didn’t work so set about changing the country through mass immigration and social policy.
I now believe that these measures were to soften up the country for this globalist takeover.
It’s no surprise that he has resurfaced at this time advocating Globalist solutions.
This has been discussed a lot here. The “Conservative” Party absolutely are “the left”, certainly by the definition both I and Hitchens use. He has written books about it so I’ll refer you to them for his reasoning. For me, left/right is radical/conservative, and this government is not in the slightest conservative. It pushes all the radical policies, from mass immigration, through “hate speech” and pc rebuilding “better” of society and culture, big government interventionism and state controlled collectivist healthcare (now literally fetishised by this government) with unlimited spending funded by tax/inflation via the magic money tree, to the casual disposal of centuries old traditions and limits on state control. In its response to this disease it has gone for the most unconservative panic response it is possible to imagine: centralised direct coercive state control, crushing traditional liberties and precedents, and imposing radical, experimental measures copied from state socialist China.
The reason many think that the “Conservative” government is not leftist is, firstly, that the “Conservative” Party pretends it is so in order that it can keep taking conservative votes for granted, and the left/BBC/Guardian classes pretend that it is so because it suits them to have our government contested… Read more »
Good points. I like to mention that in the GDR (East Germany) they had an array of “pretend parties” called Christian Democrat, Liberal Democrat and even National Democrat (to appeal to the old followers of “the man from Austria”). They weren’t
allowed any real power of course. That’s kind of where we have ended up. The Conservative are definitely not Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats are definitely not Liberal and the Scottish Nationalists are definitely not nationalist. Even the Greens don’t seem much concerned about our environment, favouring as they do mass immigration, population growth, housing expansion and massive economic growth.
And in fact Labour does not promote the interests of the nation’s working classes, either, but rather those of a political elite of internationalist leftists, many of them very wealthy indeed, and their apparatchiks and hangers on.
Having now read the Hitchens piece, he explains the situation very well and very directly I think:
“But he [BBC Stalinist Paul Mason] says plainly what many in the Left-wing elite feel in private. And this explains their rather odd enthusiasm for Johnson’s closure of the country. I’m sure they are moved by deep compassion for sufferers from Covid. But they are also excited, more excited than they have been at any time since 1997, when the Blair victory swept the Cultural Revolution to power.
That revolution is now about 90 per cent complete. But there were obstacles: a Parliament with a real opposition, an independent Civil Service, an independent, conservative press, courts that stood up to the state, a BBC that at least permitted some dissent on its airwaves, a police force that at least tried to police by consent, independent universities.
Lockdown, with amazing speed, showed that all these seemingly mighty defences were paper tigers. We now have (with tiny exceptions) a lifeless rubber-stamp parliament, doormat judges, monolithic state broadcasting, a nearly-unanimous media, and a shouty, bossy state militia which obeys government rather than law.”
Whether you view Johnson and his party as “left” or not, it is… Read more »
For the first time? FFS Peter have you been hibernating for the last 20 years? Wake up Mr Dormouse! Get on the phone to Lord Sumption and start organising a mass demo for liberty and liberation from the Lockdown tyranny.
I am feeling really sad right now.
I phoned my Grandmother to see how she was and how she was feeling after getting the vaccine (Oxford one) on Wednesday.
Said she is feeling great, doesn’t even have a sore arm like the flu one and looking forward to getting her top up dose in April.
She then said – ‘but they say – ” even after the vaccines, we still have to abide by the rules”‘.
I haven’t hugged her since late Feb 2020.
My Mother passed away in 2017 and she is the next closest thing.
Please, when will this end?
I feel for you, Ganjan. It would be bizarre if you didn’t feel sad. If only we knew the answer to your question. Hang in there. You are not alone – everyone here is with you in spirit.
Thank you. This shit is hard.
It WILL. end. That’s all that I can say.
But – pardon my frankness – the more people who spout the sort of brainwashed bullshit you’ve just heard from your gran, the further away the end will be.
Exactly Annie and I am trying my best to spread the word on the real facts and logic whilst being diplomatically disguised. I feel that’s the best way for me when it comes to close family and friends.
Why have you not hugged your grandmother?
I decided with my mother in lockdown 1 that I would continue to see her as normal, every other week, and that we would hug as normal.
Unless your grandmother has specifically said you may not hug her, I cannot see what is stopping you.
There are certain government diktats in place relating to this, but it is up to you (and your grandmother) to decide what you make of this.
Seems UK citizens and our freedoms are increasingly under attack from Journalists with Australian Nationality.
Anyone have any insights as to why that is? I thought UK and Australia were allies? Seems not.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittany-vonow-98b68342/?originalSubdomain=uk
Brittany Vonow is just another who has joined the ranks recently. I’ve counted many of these articles written by under-qualified and divisive Australians, like Brittany Vonow.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13695379/lockdown-protesters-clash-police-coronavirus/
I would worry more about foreign ownership and government control of the media although that was a particular nasty article full of lies and slurs.
Yes – just noticed over the last few months that there are many Australians writing this nasty stuff for Daily Mail and The Sun. I sense coordinated organisation. They have zero scruples. I pay Linkedin loads for my business so can see 100% of their profiles. It bothers me. Deeply.
Speccy readers may find the wings over scotland blog of interest re the salmond sturgeon rumble. Wings are calling plagarism.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-slinging-of-mud/
This topic is not on LS topic except that sturgeon is purveyor of the finest cheapest lockdown bullshittery and looks like toast. This has ramifications for lockdown measures beyond nicola-hadrians wall.
Subscription cancelled this week due to tailing off of LD scepticism
Glad to see this. Though it’s not really covid related is it?
This topic is not on LS topic except that sturgeon is purveyor of the finest cheapest lockdown bullshittery and looks like toast. This has ramifications for lockdown measures beyond nicola-hadrians wall.
There is a huge scandal going on within the snp at present. It has not been covered in national media anything like the details that are available online. The very fact that the leader of 5.5 million people is facing strong and evidenced based calls to resign based on her conduct and integrity is newsworthy to the lockdown senario. The gamesmanship of daily pulpit puking by sturgeon seems an attempt to pre empt this scandal which has long been brewing. The coming elections in May will also be fought through a lockdown lens in large part. This particular story has a large bearing on that element too.
It won’t be long before websites like this, and by extension any opposition to the state, will be made illegal and be punishable by a custodial sentence.
Maybe this is why the Nightingale Hospitals were commissioned. They can be repurposed as the UK’s first concentration camps for dissenters.
If censorship starts online, i’m going back to graffiti and vandalism.
Maybe, but I doubt that.
It’s wildly pessimistic speculation, I’m not in a good mood today.
But there has been open discussion amongst leading politicians about introducing legislation against “anti-vaxxers” which could set a very dangerous precedent.
See you there Richard O! Look forward to meeting you.
Emotional day for me today…
This morning I was reminded by the ONS that we’re all going to die (sometime) courtesy of DeepBlueYonder. This resolved me that it was a good time to go to war – I mean go for walk – in a not so nearby seaside town here in the South West. Many people out and about with a similar idea far more than would be normal on a frigid winter’s day. That brought me joy seeing people enjoying themselves. I was happy also that I did not encounter any police or corona marshalls and was able to enjoy my “picnic” unmolested watching waves splash against the rocks – feeling awe in the power and beauty of nature.
Later in my walk I did encounter a few people who felt compelled by fear to outdoor mask. One particular young couple masked up to eyeballs brought out disgust in me at their blatant cowardice. They might as well have each sported a huge yellow stripe. This led to despair that society now values what used to vices – cowardice, fear and laziness. Later still as I walked into the town centre I felt sadness as I saw… Read more »