- “MPs back extending Covid powers until September” – Katy Balls provides some analysis of yesterday’s vote in Parliament in the Spectator. “The fact that there is little substantial opposition to the plans,” she writes, “means the Government isn’t under much pressure to offer concessions”
- “Dismantling of Yorkshire’s Nightingale Hospital starts” – The BBC reports that work has begun to dismantle the 500-bed emergency hospital in Yorkshire. It has not treated a single patient
- “Panel of independent experts prepares audit for ‘every UK Covid death’” – A London Loves Business report on the Covid19 Assembly project overseen by Dr Clare Craig
- “We’re living in a pornstar’s world” – “Lockdown is creating an unjust, atomised and deeply inhuman society,” says Mary Harrington in UnHerd
- “The case against the UK’s lockdowns” – Since March 22nd, 2020, the country has spent more than five months under some form of lockdown. Was it worth it? Noah Carl thinks not
- “Old Mortality: How the Corona Coup Tortures the Elderly – and Everybody Else” – Michael Lesher in Off-Guardian on what Covid hysteria has done to the elderly
- “The political class have lost their taste for risk” – There’ll be “safety-first decisions on everything from foreign travel to hospitality rules”, says James Forsyth in the Times
- “Revealed: Government plan for Covid ‘pub passport’ app on phones that will show proof of jab, negative test or immunity” – The Daily Mail reports on plans for a Covid app with which people can prove they have either had the vaccine, a recent negative test or antibodies from having had COVID-19 before. Publicans says its ‘bonkers’
- “What is the point of vaccine passports?” – Laura Dodsworth asks a good question in Spiked. Is it another behavioural-psychology ‘nudge’?
- “Covid passport checks could be needed to go to work, the theatre or a sports event” – Psychological ‘nudging’ may be about to ramp up a notch, says the Telegraph
- “The practical problems with vaccine passports” – Ross Clark points out a few wrinkles in the plans for vaccine passports in the Spectator, at least what’s known of them to date
- “Vaccine passports, ethics and human rights” – Barrister Adam Wagner talks vaccine passports with a couple of guests from Essex University for the Better Human Podcast
- “Oddly reassuring, reassuringly odd” – Hospitality entrepreneur Hugh Osmond appears on the Telegraph‘s Planet Normal Podcast with some stern words for the business groups which didn’t defend business and the inside track on his legal campaign to accelerate the sector’s reopening
- “Baroness Stroud speaks out against the Coronavirus Act” – “Rather than rely on the values which we know to be true, that define the success and prosperity of this great nation, of personal responsibility and trust, of keeping calm, and respect,” she says, “we rather chose to follow the path of a more authoritarian regime”
- “Emmanuel Macron backs EU vaccine export ban” – Macron is stoking the vaccine trade wars, the Telegraph reports
- “EU attacks call into question AstraZeneca vaccine pricing, warns Oxford’s Sir John Bell” – AstraZeneca may rethink its decision not to profit from the vaccine if it’s going to attract so much ill will anyway, the Telegraph reports
- “Sweden clears AstraZeneca vaccine for use in over-65s” – Sweden is giving the AstraZeneca jab to the over-65s, according to the FT, but it remains on hold for younger age groups
- “Rutgers becomes first university to mandate ONLY vaccinated students will be allowed back this fall” – The Daily Mail reports the start of a ‘No Jab, No College’ rule in the US
- “How Lockdowns devastated the cruise Industry” – John Tammy looks at the fate of the cruise industry for AIER
- “Herd Immunity Is Near, Despite Fauci’s Denial” – Dr. Fauci is saying that the US will need a 70 – 85% vaccination rate to achieve herd immunity from COVID-19, but, as Martin Makery points out in the Wall Street Journal, he is ignoring those who have been infected and recovered from the disease
- “New Zealand hospitals in crisis after ‘biggest January, February on record’” – “Hospitals across the country have reached crisis point,” according to Radio New Zealand, “with several emergency departments at capacity.” Noteworthy that it doesn’t blame Covid
- “Bill Gates predicts that the world won’t return to normal until the end of 2022” – The Daily Mail reports that, in an interview with a Polish newspaper, Bill Gates has claimed the world will not return to normal until the end of 2022. Is the the ‘new normal’?
- “The Lockdowns, Their beneficiaries and consequences” – Looking at recent elections in Australia and New Zealand, Phil Shannon is forced to conclude in Quadrant that lockdowns are electoral gold. He takes hope in the thought that lockdowner politicians might get their Churchill 45 moment in the end
- “Gavin Newsom Goes Undercover With The Recall Gavin Newsom Campaign” – An animation from Babylon Bee in which Newsom discovers that the people of California might want to recall him because of the closure of business, education, and bans on gatherings
- “Remittances: Lockdowns slow the flow of money” – A feature from DW News on how lockdowns have slowed the flow of remittances sent by migrant workers home to third world countries with devastating effects
There were some good speeches made yesterday by the 78 MPs who voted against the extension of the Coronavirus act for a further six months.
They included Sir Graham Brady, who remarked that “This habit for coercion and control has gone too far”
The Liberal Democrats all voted against. Former leader Tim Farron said that for him the greatest concern is that “the Government’s default, knee-jerk attempt to seek these draconian powers for this lengthier period of time is now beginning to fit into a pattern”.
And Finally, Sir Desmond Swayne gave an absolute barnstormer of a speech, saying, “Tyranny is a habit and we haven’t quite kicked it.”
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Restaurant/stadium/etc asks potential customers to present a “vaccine passport” before entry. As a potential customer I would first demand to see the vaccine passports of all the workers in that facility. Only fair, right?
Liberal Democrats it is then.
I have never voted for the Liberals, Lib Dems or whatever believing them to be a cowardly safe haven for those who cannot decide between Conservative and Socialist.
New, one issue, parties will achieve nothing except to waste money and split the anti authoritarian vote.
With a voice already in Parliament and the media and with their current 100% record why vote for anyone else, except those honorable notable Labour, Conservative and Other MPs that just outed themselves as champions of liberty ?
Yes Ben Bradshaw, that includes you, surprisingly.
76 is a good number to start with three years to build up the anti momentum.
Makes sense, if only because it is the only way to obtain Proportional Representation; and PR is the only way forward for small new parties to grow.
We need new parties in order to protect minorities from the ‘tyranny of the majority’.
PR is a disaster. It guarantees nothing will ever get done. That’s why ZZ Top run Israel. Strangely enough the most effective is a three party where the opposition plus the ‘third’ can stop the worst excessives of government.
The Liberal Democrats have always been a bit weak on actual liberalism. But to judge by their actions they are right on this and will get my vote unless there is an even more explicitly anti-lockdown party on offer.
Does anybody know how they voted for the 3 lockdowns and the previous covid bill?
The Liberal Democrats are not anti-lockdown; they are not opposed to the non-pharmaceutical interventions.
I suspected that. It’s just this specific extension they are against
Yup, I got a bit excited at that too, then I saw this https://www.libdems.org.uk/s21-covid-motion – they are firmly part of the ‘lockdown earlier and harder’ and ‘close the borders’ brigade. And it seems some of the labour MPs didn’t think the bill went ‘far enough’ in supporting people to self-isolate. So sadly this is not really coming about as a result of these people looking at the scientific evidence which says that quarantining the healthy is pointless, in the case of the lib-dems it’s probably a desperate grab for attention prior to the local elections, after which their local councillors will be pressing at every stage for ‘local powers’ – it never ends….
Ben Bradshaw seems to have made the transition so why not the Lib Dems, even if only for short term electoral advantage (which Ben does not require).
Doesn’t look like Bradshaw has made that much of a transition – only last week he was pushing for hotel quarantine to be replaced by a GPS tracking system. Replacing prison with house arrest enforced by electronic tag for the crime of going on holiday doesn’t cut it with me I’m afraid. I would be more convinced if he was asking when we are going to have an international tourist industry again….
Point taken, his main interest seems to be the resurrection of the local tourist industry which would, of course, benefit from the destruction of overseas travel.
my MP is firmly against all restrictions (as he emails me) and is in the CRG. Then he votes for everything going
And that only because they know that they’ll never be in a position to exploit it.
Sir Forensic fancies his chances at taking the helm of HMS Despotic if they can make this temporary emergency permanent.
Why are you simping for a party?
We don’t vote for parties, and we certainly don’t vote for leaders. We get one vote, in our constituency, and we vote for the actual candidates who are standing there. Please, please, try to get that through your skull.
Look at the individuals actually standing. Find out what they believe, and vote for the individual who best represents your beliefs, or for none of the above.
Sure, most low-information voters are just going to scrawl their X by the picture of the rosette that they’ve always voted for, but perhaps informed voter might try to be better than that. If we don’t, then all we’re ensuring is that the second-worst Party of Davos candidate will get in, time after time after time.
I have never voted for Ben Bradshaw precisely because he is of the Labour party (not that any other party has ever put up a candidate of merit against him).
Despite my now advocating voting Lib Dem on the basis of their new stand re Coronovirus legislation in Ben’s case I would now vote for him for that same reason and because he is the sitting MP.
I made that proviso in my initial post.
This from a conservative who never forgave them for getting rid of Enoch Powell because he was anti Common Market and never voted for them since they got rid of Mrs Thatcher for similar reasons.
Wonderland. Simply not where we live. I lived for a while in Andorra. Got to vote. You actually wrote the name on the ballot. That’s Democracy. In the UK it’s very simple. The only workable is a single issue anti lockdown. The rest will be fixed.
Regarding lockdowns being “electoral gold” in Australia and NZ, I wonder why in those countries the bottom-up popular will to stop Covid is so much stronger than in the Americas or Europe?
From an Australian poster on a (members-only) forum which I frequent:
Wow, is there no opposition to this? It’s so brutal, just for a mild respiratory illness.
In an extension of the orientalist attitudes that many Westerners have shown regarding East Asian responses to Covid, some argue that what has happened in Australia is that the country has gone back to its penal colony roots.
Repressive regime seems like repressive regime wherever it happens. Don’t see how that’s ‘orientalist’ or any other ‘ist’.
I can’t help but see regret in Aus/NZ future if this continues; this from someone who lives in a small, repressive, ‘let’s do zero-covid’ island which is in the same uncomfortable position.
Isle of Man?
Yup, the home of terrifying motorbike road racing, now run by bedwetters for bedwetters and going down the shitter with nary a peep.
See Paula’s excellent comment below.
Was the Isle of Man capable of following a zero covid plan in the way that the UK wasn’t simply because its much smaller size means it’s far more difficult for someone to reach it illegally?
If you head out to sea from the northern coast of France in a vaguely northwesterly direction you’re almost assured of making landfall in Great Britain, but reaching the Isle of Man would likely require far greater navigational skills.
I don’t think so, it’s fairly visible; I can see England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales from our coasts.
There’s just no pull factor to reach it illegally as benefits and housing are dependent on residency for five years at least.
I’m sure that there are other European countries that are far more attractive to benefit scroungers, and that most illegal immigrants to the UK come here not to scrounge but to work.
Although the real issue isn’t illegal immigrants per se, but about British citizens returning illegally if they’d ended up stranded abroad by an Australian-style border policy.
In Victoria it was highly publicized when an illegal gathering in a garden shed was discovered after someone at the local KFC drive-thru made a suspiciously large order, which alerted the manager to call in the licence plate to the police.
The problem is you can have ‘popular will to stop Covid’ until you are blue in the face – it’s a waste of time if the methods you are using are ineffective. If I was going to be very unkind I would say Europe and especially those parts of the US that are opening up are more alert to the follies of thinking you can ‘control a virus’ The UK had a carefully thought-through pandemic plan which it threw out of the window in favour of measures that had no evidence base. But at least in some quarters we seem to be very slowly realising our mistakes.
Surely the point is that if people have a strong will to stop Covid then they will accept the methods that are effective, such as sealed borders and highly intrusive surveillance: like the universal QR code checking mentioned above, which in NZ also applies to buses, shopping malls (both the mall as a whole and the individual shops within) and each building within university campuses.
It’s interesting that Americans are typically appalled by the harsh lockdowns in Australia and New Zealand, while Europeans are more likely to be appalled by their sealed borders.
I live in Auckland, NZ and have used the bus twice lately. There is no pressure to use the QR code and I have not worn a mask either, I now have an exemption but have not shown it.
I didn’t see anyone using a QR code at a mall entrance the other day, though I did see some using individual shop’s ones.
Recently there has been more PR about using them as compliance has fallen considerably, which pleases me!
You’re joking of course? If not you need professional help.
What did I say in my message above that implies that I “need professional help”?
Just reading about antibody-dependent-enhancement and I came across the following meeting “Consensus summary report for CEPI/BC March 12–13, 2020 meeting: Assessment of risk of disease enhancement with COVID-19 vaccines”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7247514/
Part of the conclusions are
“Data are needed on whether antibody waning could increase the risk of enhanced disease on exposure to virus in the long term”
I don’t suppose they have that data yet do they? Hasn’t really been enough time
IT GETS BETTER!!!
BLOOD TESTS TO ENTER A PUB???????
Apparently supported by the Damm man.
‘In March 19th the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a press release detailing changes to its operational strategy for K-12 students. It stated that among other things, students may now reduce their social distancing from 6 feet to 3 feet.’
https://www.aier.org/article/the-6-foot-mandate-was-bad-science/
Europe, and this country, begin to look embarrassingly backward, even stupid/dumb.
The case of Holmseley Care Home in Devon is very puzzling. The police have arrested two care workers on the basis of “wilful neglect”. The Home has had an outbreak of Covid 19. Nine residents are reported as having died of the disease. Yet the residents and most of the staff had been vaccinated. None of this makes sense. If the residents were vaccinated – and the vaccines are safe and effective, as we are constantly told by the authorities – how could the residents die of Covid 19? What did they die of? Surely the deaths would be vaccine adverse reactions? Why have two of the workers been accused of wilful neglect? What is it that they allegedly did not do? Why is there a police investigation?
“As part of their enquiries, officers are speaking to staff and conducted a search of the home. Post-mortems have been conducted on three of the deceased residents.”
maybe just trying to look like they are doing something?
Very odd report indeed (Local Live), it implies both that the deaths are Covid related and that the Staff are at fault.
Normalising Police involvement in cases of Staff non- compliance ?
Don’t understand how they could have an outbreak with vaccinated residents unless either the outbreak began too soon after vaccination for immunity to take effect, or at least half of the residents had such weak immune systems in the first place that the vaccine didn’t work.
I fear for the upcoming Panorama ‘Covid’ documentary. Glimpsing the trailers it looks like they’ll try to trash Sweden and extol Boris. Maybe with a ‘not soon enough, not hard enough, not long enough’ flavour. (I really hope I’m wrong). Of course the Sheeple will gobble it all up. Panorama used to be a strong investigative program. Hope lives eternal!
Outside of the metropolitan bubble it will reach those ten viewers who can’t be bothered to switch it off.