As if we ever needed the Government’s permission, Michael Gove says that Brits will be allowed to hug friends and family from May 17th – that is, “all being well”! MailOnline has the story.
The Cabinet Office minister said “intimate contact” between people in different households is set to return when the latest stage of the roadmap is reached in a week’s time.
Boris Johnson is set to confirm the relaxation at a Downing Street press conference tomorrow, after the vaccine rollout and plunging infections led to huge pressure from Tory MPs to speed up his plans…
It is also expected that funerals will be permitted to take place for up to 30 people from May 17th – a month earlier than anticipated.
But rules for weddings and “other life or commemorative events” will update as expected, with only 30 guests able to attend indoor receptions until June 21st.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Mr Gove said that the Government wanted to restore “contact between friends and family”.
He said: “All being well, the Prime Minister will confirm tomorrow that there will be a relaxation, we’ve already indicated a proportionate relaxation on international travel, very limited at this stage because we have to be safe.
“In the same way, as we move into stage three of our road map it will be the case that we will see people capable of meeting indoors.
“And without prejudice to a broader review of social distancing, it is also the case that friendly contact, intimate contact, between friends and family is something we want to see restored.”
Asked if that meant hugs will be allowed again from around May 17th, he said: “Yes.”
Gove also said that “we’ll be seeing more about [whether mask-wearing rules will continue in secondary schools beyond May 17th] shortly”, despite Education Secretary Gavin Williamson signalling last week that the decision had already been made.
Mr Gove said he was “genuinely worried” about Indian coronavirus variants and whether they might take hold in the U.K.. But he said currently there was not an issue that would derail the roadmap.
He said the Government is reviewing whether pupils should continue to wear masks in schools from May 17th – something Gavin Williamson previously said will be dropped.
Ministers have faced calls from union leaders for face coverings to remain in secondary schools and colleges for longer.
When asked whether mask-wearing in schools will end, Mr Gove said: “What we want to do throughout is balance public health by making sure we can return to normal as quickly as possible.”
“I won’t pre-empt that judgment, we’ll be seeing more about it shortly.”
It seems as though the Government could still bend to pressure from the teaching unions yet.
The MailOnline report is worth reading in full.
Stop Press: It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between reality and spoof: BBC News has produced a report on “how to hug safely” that could well have been published on Babylon Bee.
Stop Press 2: Silkie Carlo, the Director of Big Brother Watch, has pointed out that hugging was never not “allowed”.
Hugging was never *not* allowed, but the fact absolutely no one in the media checked or questioned this, & that the commentariat seems A-OK with Michael Gove instructing the public on when they can/cannot embrace other humans, is why we’re now living in twilight totalitarianism
— Silkie Carlo (@silkiecarlo) May 9, 2021pic.twitter.com/veURW17qZU
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Intimate contact to begin again! Keys in the fish bowl to celebrate?
Just read the headline on another site didn’t bother reading the above article. This sums up all the madness, when I point it out to people I get a funny look, Its been illegal to hug family and friends.
So when a jumped up little shite like Gove comes out and says we can hug people from the 17th my blood boils.
And they accuse sceptics of having no compassion.
Hasn’t the government yet grasped that intelligent people have never taken any notice of this stupidity? (If you do, you are, by definition, not very intelligent)
‘Allowed to’? Just f. off. I don’t need any self-seeking windy turd of an ex-journo to tell me what I’m allowed to do in terms of my family and friends.
Another reason I now keep my trap shut! On a few occasions when people have told me they haven’t seen grand-children/children/mums/dads etc, and I’ve basically called them barmy. I cannot comprehend it at all.
I couldn’t, she was in a care home, I never saw her again after March, too late now. Unforgivable what they done…
Of course I’m talking about people who could have but choose not to, I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear. The various care home scandals are utterly unforgivable and according to people who I know that work in them it’s still not much better.
My friend has just bought a lateral flow test for her & her husband before they go to see their grandchildren. Unfortunately, they have totally been brainwashed right from day one.
Yes sir.
Are they honestly that delusional to believe that anyone is taking a blind bit of notice of these pronouncements.
Oh, they are.
Zombies don’t hug without express permission and a safety guide from the BBC.
Still the safety guide’ll keep a lot of people in employment… Now to punish some coast guards who rescued children stuck on a cliff because they broke safety rules…
Unfortunately they are, there are plenty of delusional people, I saw hundreds at an outside market yesterday. At least 30% of the spineless brainwashed automatons were masked up. We are truly lost!!
Neil Ferguson fucked but didn’t hug afterwards
Why does no one ask why masks appear to be remaining after June 21st? Why is this just being blindly accepted by the media?
Because they are hanging on by a thread in their desperation to keep this sh!t going, and the mask is their one sure-fire symbol of fear, compliance and submission. Take that away, even if some of the sheep still wear it, and its game over. Cant let that happen at any cost!
Because they have been promised hundreds of millions in advertising by the government. Simple!
And I notice Gove is keeping the Indian mutant variant fear bullshit going despite ZERO evidence it is a vaccine evader or any more virulent or deadly than the strains we have had. I really hate Gove, he’s a snivelling little coke snorting shit who shouldn’t be anywhere near politics, never mind government.
Yes – having Gove in a government role is like sweeping your floors with a turd on a stick.
What a brilliant analogy.
Nicely put, but I think you’re being a little too kind.
Now you’re just being offensive to turds.
That little cunt wipe is using his ‘power’ to get back at all those that picked on him at school. I amuse myself sometimes by imagining him banging his wife wearing a white vest and socks and how disappointed she must be.
Anyway – to say covid is deadly is somewhat a misnomer. It’s not that deadly. It’s not pandemic level deadly. None of this has been deadly. It’s all just fugazi – a bad flu season dressed up in “you’re all gonna fuckin’ die’ with nearly every death marked as a covid death to keep the fear going that even seemingly intelligent people fall for.
God help us if any real thinking is required in the future. We’re fucked.
P.S. like most people with sanity – I’ve hugged and broken all the ‘laws’ this past year because they’re not laws. I have soooooo much ‘blood on my hands’ it’s scary.
We should dobba you in.
I’d would actually love that.
He probably spent most of school days having his head flushed down the toilet.
. . . and now he’s helping flush the country the same way. His mother would be proud.
I was going to say he’s a snivelling little coke-snorting cunt but then I see someone’s called him a ‘cunt wipe‘ which might be better. We have a rich language.
That bbc clip is a joke right?
Either that or they are ill these people.
Not intended as a joke.
Last year the Scottish zombies were given a (literally) step-by-step illustrated guide to going outside the house.
Oh I think the BBC know they’re taking the piss!
There was plenty of hugging in my park today, even with strangers who attended for the first time.
It beggars belief how people for so long have allowed the state to dictate who they have contact with and under what circumstances. Now the scientists are telling us how to hug. I want nothing to do with anyone who still follows this nonsense.
And I want to hug anyone who stands up to it!
Well, my in-laws will be ok with this. They have refused to see my husband since last year because he “won’t obey the rules” like wearing a mask in their house or staying the garden, and certainly not now he won’t have the quack-ceen.They hang to every word the “control-mind” tell them believing that everything is now a law. We’ve tried over and over to get through to them in some way but they have literally lost their bloody minds.
You and your husband sound like pretty decent fuckin’ people to be fair. Aren’t in-laws supposed to be kept at stick length anyway? Just carry on – your life will be better.
Cheers! Communicating with likeminded people on here and elsewhere, even if it is online, is what’s keeping us sane. It is sometimes the easiest thing if you just let go of people for a while, and just get on with life.
We accidentally met some like minded people at a garden centre today, and exchanged some useful information, which was brilliant.
( At another garden centre everybody was masked up outside, as requested. Bonkers .)
They. Want. Their. Own. Son. To. Be. Muzzled. In. Their. Own. House.
…
My supposedly very intelligent relative refused to see her Dad when he came out of hospital after a stroke because it was against the rules. He eventually meet her outside and she walked 3 meters away from him. Fuck that, if my Dad was still here I’d have been waiting outside the hospital to hug him. Having lost mine a few years ago, and still missing him every day, I just can’t fathom this attitude.
I’ve always been the odd one among relatives,now I realise why, I think for myself while they are all sheep.
My Dad has had a tough year – even hugged him hospital in front of the nurses, before they carted him off for a stent operation in another hospital.
Has Boris given Carrie a full list of those he intends to hug?
Hah! Brilliant.
I’m starting off with the Chelsea football team.
Was never much of a hugger myself anyway but I was always up for one with anybody who needed one regardless of what this nanny state government said I was allowed to do and not to do.
Am I not right in thinking there has never been a law dictating how far apart 2 people must stand? More PR Spin BS, guidance dressed up by the disgraceful press and presented as law, then cited by the police no less!
Guidelines only
Ha, ha, ha, ha! Government gonna give me permission to hug! Oh government you are deluded!!
Just seen that BBC clip of Catherine Noakes (who she?) telling us all how to hug. She seems typical of the armies of old harridan matrons and retired village schoolmasters they’ve been wheeling out to offer from their chintzy living rooms insulting, smug, p/matronising, big-nurse BOLLOCKS to an audience you’d have thought was adult enough to switch off at first sight. Enough already.
Grrr.
Lot’s of hugging seemed to be going on at the protests…two weeks later and?
Well we have continued to see good friends in our home throughout this nonsense including lunches
No change for us because we don’t follow this rubbish!
The government has no such power to mandate this. It never did and it never will.
Anyone who obeyed this is a disgrace to their species.
(Good old Laurel and Hardy. The Lancashire one and the American one Wonder if it was true about Stan’s “girlfriend” in that new film…).
How’s about f*ck off Mr Gove. I have never stopped cuddling loved ones and friends. Funny, I have never had corona and neither have any of my friends, In fact I still don’t know anybody who has had it.
Nobody tells me who I can and cannot have contact with you snivelling evil troll.
I didn’t know if I was crying with laughter or from utter despair as The Gove explained to Marr that the govt may allow us resume hugging. I do think that they believe that they have this level of control.
Must admit the thought of hugging Michael Gove fills me with consummate horror.
So many things were never actually ‘not allowed,’ or if they were, there were so many ways round the guidelines/rules/laws that there was virtually no need to follow any of them. Unless of course one is a blind statist zealot, or as Kingsley Amis would say, ‘a leaf blown in the wind of trend.’
The “experts” may teach us how to jump off a cliff shortly. So many sheeple would probably do it if they were told to… I’d only consider it if the “experts” led by example and jumped first! ( and then decide it’s probably better to not jump after them).