We’re publishing a guest piece today by Charlotte Niemiec, a freelance journalist. In an impressive tour d’horizon, she highlights the Government’s endless stream of contradictory and nonsensical advice, from face masks to school closures. Here is an extract:
Being generous, we could blame an incompetent Government blindsided by a ‘pandemic’ that hit just as it was popping the cork on finally ‘getting Brexit done’. But the actions it took went beyond naïvety and entered the realms of the Kafka-esque nonsensical. The last 18 months have been those of U-turns and false predictions followed by denials; hirings and firings of ‘experts’ paid to find or fabricate the evidence to fit the theory; promises to follow ‘the science’, to go by ‘data not dates’ – and then do the opposite. The mainstream media has refused to ask tough questions, social platforms have censored anything that doesn’t fit the fear narrative, scientists and medics and employees across the spectrum have lost their jobs and reputations for daring to speak out or refuse injection. The nurses on the ‘front line’ who worked around the clock last year without a vaccine will now be fired if they choose not to have one. This is their reward. The elites have flourished while the proles festered.
Worth reading in full.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/25/britain-has-fallen-rabbit-hole-second-wave-hysteria/
One of the comments
Anthony Martyn
25 Jun 2020 7:37AM
Why hasn’t a spike occurred in London after the first wave of protests, when many didn’t wear masks? These were attended by numerous people from ethnic backgrounds who are said to be more susceptible to the virus.
Why will there be no spikes in a fortnight after 1000’s of people up and down the country will have gone to packed out beaches this week?
Those questions have to be answered but one of the answers as to why we’re still living under farcical conditions, is that our society is largely run by a health and safety culture that takes the worst case scenario
Because this virus only spreads from conservatives. Only they can spread it. Leftist, progressives, and radical protesters are all too pure of heart to spread the virus.
Ah that must be it. All those folks in the supermarket and other shops who failed to catch it must be militant lefties. They just voted in Therese Coffey for a joke
(kidding)
Qualities of good science:
Not based on authority
Testable
Repeatable
Universal
Measurable (Tangible)
Observable
Narrow (Occam’s razor)/Simple
The protests (eg those allowed to breach lockdown*) and beach outings (eg a crammed beach at Edinburgh with enough people to make nik nak Sturgeon want to weep according to national press) and raves (eg 6000 people in Manchester) can be seen as the scientific method in action.
*It is a known known police officers always speak accurately so this officer saying Nicola Sturgeon’s office allowed the protest appears to be accurate.
https://mobile.twitter.com/craigy33?lang=en
The Sottish Police Federation press release a week later suggested policing is impossible because of political messaging.
https://twitter.com/ScotsPolFed/status/1273587406084530176?s=20
Covid is not a high consequence infectious disease.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid
Why hasn’t there been spikes throughout in London as the trains and tube were still packed everyday?
The reduced service meant everyone had to fit in just a couple of carriages so surely this extremely close contact would have meant huge infection levels.
Because the virus has already left the station?
Except when it comes to funding the NHS.
Where have the shysters, sorry, pollsters been finding the 50% ++ of the population that think it’s too early to ease Lockdown, open schools, open anything? Where has the government’s comfort blanket of focus groups been, that they should even entertain the miles of gold-plated red tape we have now been tied up in during our departure from Shawshank? Not on Bournemouth beach, obvs.
They are readily found amongst the commentators on the Guardian. That must be where they are all coming from.
They’re all on my Facebook feed today as I’m a Dorset local. Some of the commitment are amazing including “these people are so selfish” and “we’re in the middle of a pandemic”.
All taken in by the BBC propaganda
I’d noticed the persistent pandemic-mongering in the Grad and the DT.
Brainwashed
Far be it for me to defend the BBC or the Guardian, but the Covid bedwetters are all over the Sun and the Daily Mail too. And Toby’s wrong about the Daily Telegraph; they joined in the hysteria for the first two months and only did an about turn towards the sceptics way too late in the game to have any credibility.
And they are at it again today with two hysterical articles about Texas. Yesterday Texas reported 47 deaths out of a population of 29m. Total deaths there are 2,200. New Jersey reported 1,877 (most were backlog cases to be fair, but they dont mention that when reporting our figures) bringing their total to over 14,000. Out of a population of less than 9m. New Jersey has ‘full lockdown’. Texas has relaxed. New Jersey has had 21 x the number of deaths per head more than Texas. 21!!! Strangely, didn’t see that mentioned anywhere…
From the Telegraph’s 3 articles today relating to Covid in the US and wider world, it almost looks like this paper are going over to the same panic/hysteria/misrepresentation camp as the BBC, whilst in previous months (despite not being much of a fan of the “Torygraph’s” politics) I admired them as one of the few mainstream papers to take a (usually informed and articulate) sceptical view of the lockdown and the wider media’s reporting of the pandemic.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/25/us-officials-estimate-26-million-americans-have-had-coronavirus/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/26/america-failed-flatten-curve-coronavirus-cases-soar-new-records/
The “apocalyptic” (to quote one of the article headlines) way the facts are presented is as bad as anything in the BBC or Guardian! Surely if the actual number of cases is around 10 times the recorded number (up to 26 million) whilst deaths continue to decline at a steady rate, doesn’t that more or less conclusively prove the virus as something rather less than apocalyptic!?
Over the last few weeks the focus in the media seems to have shifted from “deaths” to “cases” whilst still reporting/predicting them with the same implied level of severity.
Some of them are on my Facebook feed as well and still going on about a “second wave”
They were on mine too but I unfollowed them.
I’ve been spending less time on Facebook anyway but I only saw them because I’ve placed some photos for scheduled posts.
What amused me is the council representative saying it was impossible to ‘keep people safe’ with the numbers crowded onto the beaches. Haven’t they realised, we don’t want to be ‘kept safe’!!
Exactly!
This is just poor planning on behalf of Bornemouth BID. It beggars belief!
They should of thought this would happen and planned for it accordingly. They should have set out thick plastic windbreaks in small 2meter (single person) 4meter (Co habiting couple) or 12 meter (family size /mixed household) cells on the beach. These should have been spaced out with 4 meter covid safety corridors with a clearly marked one way system with hand sanitizer facilities every 100 meters clearly signposted.
They didn’t even manage to get some of those flagey banner things with keep 2 meters apart on them, a schoolboy error!
For goodness sake these people really are thick. They are literally killing people with their last of foresight.
Muppets.
Absolutely, they could have made a fortune selling these things too. Clearly part of the problem is that Wales is still shut, and so people wanting to go to the beach have no option but to descend on the South Coast.
Thank God!
Two-six. I agree entirely brain dead councils up and down the land are caught by surprise that human beings are choosing to go to nice places for fun. It’s not even awkward to predict where the biggest groupings of homo sapiens will be on a given day, at a given time.
Those human beings by nature will leave a littered mess behind, wrong but human nature. The NLP’d Common Purpose goons could have spotted the opportunity and ‘reimagined-up’ a trendy thunberg keep Britain tidy effort. Capatlising on group think and as a primer into the eco ways they are going to foist upon us all to ‘green our way out’ of the depression.
I’m almost suspicious that they have been caught by surprise. The pattern I see is any place humans are gathering in spontaneous fun it is being stamped on by jack boots.
Closed shops and tourist venues will have concentrated the visitors into the beach.
The policy of closed pubs and cafes only allowed to provide takeaway will have exacerbated the litter problem. You’d like to think the council would have foreseen that.
Did I use council and foreseen in the same sentence?
Unfortunately like everywhere else, the council has lost all common sense.
Lost what they never had?
Pedants Corner (Lockdown Sceptics section): in the Round-up an American “Jacobin mob” becomes a Jacobite one in Toby’s comments! Are there really sections of US society calling for the return of the Stuarts?
As always, Toby is well ahead of us all regarding this important matter:
‘Prinz Franz von Bayern (painting by Dieter Stein), the legitimate heir to the Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France. Prinz Franz inherits his legitimacy to the throne of these United States as the legitimate heir to the Stuart kings of England under whom the first English colonies were established in what became these United States. As the United States threw off the oppressive rule of the House of Hanover, who usurped the House of Stuart, we feel that the Jacobite successors of the House of Stuart are the legitimate holders of any American throne.’
https://www.facebook.com/AmericanJacobiteSociety/
I believe you may have identified the mysterious new political home that Toby has in mind for lockdown sceptics.
This may well be the way forward for Britain and the U.S.A. in case the details of a mere trade deal prove troublesome.
HotUKDeals now censoring comments which merely question the efficacy of facemasks
Outrageous. The most logical question anyone could ask. It’s a nightmare!
Maybe a better question would be, can they be used for asbestos jobs? If not why not as asbestos is several times larger than the largest Corona particle.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/5742293/police-glasgow-kelvingrove-park-botanic-gardens-helicopter/
Seriously.Send help to scotland…….
What gets me about this second wave nonesense is that its based on the false assumption that everybody is currently sticking to the ridiculous guidelines and that by easing them, infections will rise and we’ll all die.
Most of the people I know aren’t sticking to any of them and haven’t for ages, if at all. They’ve seen who they want when they want. I’m sure there are millions of people who are also doing the same and completely ignoring them and have done for months. Despite all that nothing has increased and never will.
I do expect the NHS to be overwhelmed this winter but it will be from complications from regular colds and flu, because a lot of people will have immune systems that are completely shot to pieces now, also the impact of the lack of care for any health issue not covid will catch up with the NHS. Will they be prepared for this winter? Absolutely not
After the lockdown was imposed but international air travel was not being curtailed, and UK airports were not closed, many of us realised it was all a big con; and as you point out ‘haven’t been sticking to any of ‘ the guidelines. Why should we when 15,000 people a day were being allowed to enter the UK and wander about!
Absolutely. Nobody with any common sense has stuck to any of it for a long time, despite the government and MSM making out people are strictly adhering. I’d love to know how many people never stuck to it. It would be a great figure to shove in the face of the second wave brigade.
Good point; thanks for mentioning it. In order to challenge the claim of lockdowns being effective, I’ve been so far focusing on the amount of voluntary social distancing that was going on and is still continuing for some of us. Lockdown lovers usually retort that mandating it gets the non-distancers to socially distance, too. But that really is an unjustifiable claim to make; there may well be no more people “complying” than there would be choosing to distance.
Common sense is key here. And yes, despite what the Powers (plus zealots) seem to think, the general public have that in spades.
Have people been ignoring stupid bullshit like wearing masks whilst having sex (yes, they’ve still been having sex ;p), not hugging their parents, or leaving their post outside for 48 hours before handling it? – Probably.
Have people been bathing in each other’s bodily fluids, breathing in each other’s faces for protracted periods of time, or standing as suffocatingly close as possible to each other in compacted spaces for as long as possible, on purpose? (Even most BLM protestors managed to, you know, stay a good metre apart from their nearest compadre in order to dodge his debris). – No.
Most people – myself included… (to a point… ;p)… HAVE been taking sensible hygiene measures, even if they think the lockdown and social distancing is bollocks. i’ve said this before but why does being sensible rather than paranoid make one an irresponsible, dirty bastard? When did common sense become revolutionary?
That is why I still can’t and never will understand the social distancing bullshit. Who stood within a metre of a stranger in a shop for longer than about 5 seconds before all this. Not many people.
Washing your hands before eating, fine, that’s a normal thing to do. Staying away from people who are coughing their guts up is again a normal thing to do and these two things are probably the 2 main things to stop yourself becoming ill from a cold, which most people with common sense already did.
I hate that we all get treated like babies who need our hands holding all the time for everything. We don’t, we’re perfectly capable of making our own decisions and using our own judgment for any situation. Well some people are, others haven’t got a clue what day of the week it is
Guy (iirc) has been pointing out here for months that just ensuring that anyone who has symptoms stays at home for a couple of days would have achieved more than enough to control the epidemic
Yep. It sure would have. It was when they started falsely saying that asymptomatic people would spread it that it turned into the catastrophic disaster that its become and they are still acting like that is the case. Infuriating.
Maybe I’m too charitable, but I wouldn’t attribute it to deliberate lying. As Lord Sumption pointed out in his recent essays, politicians turn to scientists for definite answers – scientists give them answers but qualify that the (proven) science is still largely uncertain, and the politicians treat those as definite answers while omitting the qualifications. I think the media does the same thing. In this case, the qualified answer was, “We don’t know enough to rule out a risk of asymptomatic transmission,” which became in the media accounts “scientists have discovered a risk of asymptomatic transmission.”
I’m still not convinced either way. As I see it, the biggest (admittedly non-scientific) evidence for a.t. is the outbreaks in Italy and New York. The sheer size of those indicates they started with hundreds of mini-outbreaks, caused by planeloads of Patient Zeros fleeing the plague. Those may have all been presymptomatic, or people disguising mild symptoms, but one can’t rule out that some of them were completely asymptomatic.
It’s reasonable to equate milder symptoms with a smaller viral load, and no apparent symptoms with a very small load – and to equate a small viral load with a low risk of infecting others: not 0, but probably much closer to 0 than to the risk of catching it from a hospitalized patient.
Someone who sheds a small viral load is, ipso facto, a much smaller risk to a shedee than someone who sneezes mega-droplets on a OAP. That is, a small viral load should be manageable to a shedee with a viable immune system and no comorbidities. Let’s be reasonable, and logical.
Reasonable? Logical? Zombies don’t know such concepts exist.
Meh….trouble is, asymptomatic hospital staff have been transmitting it. Or maybe they are not observing infection control measures correctly….
Exactly. If anything has had *any effect in slowing transmission, flattening death curve etc. it has probably been those initial ‘stay at home if you’re ill’, ‘wash your hands’ warnings.
Until of course they forced everyone in your household to stay at home WITH you, and closed at the toilets so you couldn’t wash your hands even if you wanted to.
I’m as convinced as I can be that I was an early adopter. I don’t normally catch stuff but I came down with mild flu symptoms and an annoying cough back around the turn of the year, as did many other people.
We didn’t panic because we idn’t know we were meant to. I stayed in and only went to the shops when I had to and avoided coughing over people.Strangely it didn’t spread like wildfire any more than it did after it was identified.
I suspect a LOT of the problem was nosocomial spread, people getting infected in hospital and taking it home with them, and of course into care homes which it apears was deliberate policy.
Lots of good food and healthy people here, some of them elderly but still unaffected. During the lockdown I went for a daily walk, in places where there weren’t many people and was pleased to see some in their eighties or more happily wandering about. I sat in the sun a lot (vitamin D) we mostly kept our distance in a commonsense way.
Society and the economy could have continuedbut IMO that was never the intention
I think this has been manufactured deliberately and it’s linked with the Climate Change loons. Little by little they are restricting our freedoms and movements. All our entertainments are under threat, but they cannot subdue 70m people indefinitely if we don’t want to be.! Eventually there won’t be enough money to go around to pay for the public sector then watch things heat up.
Yes I’ve felt from the start that the lockdown was the result they required and the virus just the excuse. What was it, 140 countries in lockstep?
I certainly haven’t stuck to it or followed any of the script in this ridiculous charade.
We discovered on Thursday that two of our neighbours have been observing the lockdown, to the point that they’d not even been to any of the supermarkets, and any packages delivered were left for two or three days, just in case….
It’s quite logical really the younger generations are not threatened by the virus because they are socially very active and their immune systems are being regularly updated, the over 65s retirees etc don’t mix very much anymore and those in care homes only mix with others in their care homes. Mask wearing will only hinder peoples immune systems.
The NHS is ‘overwhelmed’ every winter. As it has finite resources and is chasing an infinite need, the overwhelming is inevitable – until you stop treating every disease except one. And then the zombies APPLAUD you for it!!!
“The total number of NHS hospital beds in England, including general and acute, mental illness, learning disability, maternity and day-only beds, has more than halved over the past 30 years, from around 299,000 in 1987/88 to 141,000 in 2018/9, while the number of patients treated has increased significantly.”
Jeez.
This looks like an analogue of “just-in-time” delivery. How is that working out?
This is like the Titanic: having just half the number of lifeboats needed.
All NHS planner and budget minders should be fired.
Hmmm. I read somewhere a few weeks before lockdown that there were 4,000 ICU beds available standardly in the national NHS and that they run at around 80% capacity.
That seems roughly right. If you run above 80%, it’s wasteful; if you run much above 80%, you have no surge capacity.
Or another solution Boris to the overcrowded beaches. How about the return of children to school and adults to their workplaces fully?
Well yes that would solve the problem but that’s using common sense and Boris doesn’t seem to do common sense.
I wonder how many of them were teachers?
Also if they opened the recreational locations where people go to spend their leisure time, people would, you know, probably go there instead of crowding up on the only available open public space.
Still not quite down with why pubs will be open in a week and libraries* won’t be, but hey, whatever the place, it should be open. Might be able to deal with those illegal street parties very easily if the pubs and clubs were open, eh Boris?
*I’m really revealing how sad my social life is now aren’t I.
My local library says it is opening on July 6th. However, we can’t browse or order any particular book and only a very limited selection of books will be available.
I hope they’re all dystopian to reflect current times?
HP and the Order of the Phoenix is very topical.
Propaganda, draconian rules and a resistance movement. Spot on!
FFS. This means all my local library will do is strap a few fully laminated copies of Harry Potter, Fifty Shades of Shit, and The Da Vinci Code to the door and hope for the best.
Will there be there any ‘BLM-compliant’ books left?
It’s pretty pointless opening them if you cannot browse I’m using my kindle more now.
Isn’t that part of the plan Not being able to obtain FREE books but having to buy them?
Lending Libraries have been one of the ways the ordinary working man educated himself and found out what was going on in the world.
Yes, we have a very decent library system here on Cape Cod, Mass., USA. I depend on it heavily, and they are very good at getting ordered titles to their circulation desks within a week. Great, actually. So under Covid Rules, they said it might take a bit longer for ordered volumes to arrive, for curbside pickup. So far, no books. That was weeks ago. So, yes, bonanza for Amazon. And for the secondhand bookstores that sell through A’zon. So, that is something good, I suppose. but I really don’t have room in my tiny flat for new books.
I am furious that libraries have been hit with these closures, because our library is never all that crowded. Very easy to maintain social distancing. And many people rely on the library for photocopying, internet access, reading daily newspapers, using the scanner, etc. We even have a garden, where people could in principle sit outside, plenty of room, a breeze. Honestly, it feels like our brains and our intellects are under attack, along with our mask-clogged lungs.
Well, they can’t encourage brains, can they? Zombies don’t have them so why should human beings be allowed them?
Or, of course, they could send in the army, spray people with tear gas, baton-charge them, fire rubber bullets, surround sandcastles with tanks, crush toddlers under the wheels of armoured cars, and generally show how well the lessons of China have been learned.
Excellent stuff as always. Particularly like the synergy between Guy’s article and the economists’.
“I need a new political home, as I suspect do many readers of this site, right and left. More on that soon…”
Toby, you tease you….
Pedants Corner (v2)
I’m sure that should be 67 MILLION – although with Priti Patel’s inability to get a grip on immigration, maybe Toby was right, after all…
‘There is a gold-plated antibody test you can have done by a company called Pyser.’
Just wondering why this test comes with such high praise. It’s almost certain that cross-reactive antibodies will produce a percentage of false positives using this, or any other antibody test. Also, there’s evidence to suggest that infection does not always result in antibody production (or antibody levels quickly fall following recovery). Such a situation would make the value of antibody testing extremely questionable regardless of test specificity.
Yes there’s something distinctly weird occurring. It seems many people shake the thing off without bothering to produce antibodies. Hail the all-conquering immune system.
Round these parts I believe there have been around EIGHT cases of covid. Many times that number of people – self included – had a suspiciosly covid-like cough/flu type thing back in December.January before it was identified. Same in many other parts of the country with low covid levels. Did we all catch it and are now immune? Or was there another suspiciously similar virus doing the rounds and not beng tested for? Impossible to know, but that Occam guy might have been on to something . . .
An ICU nurse we know (daughter of our neighbours) was quite ill with what was clinically diagnosed as CV19 back in March. She had 2 PCR tests (negative) and then an antibody test also showed up negative after she recovered a couple of weeks later. That’s one reason we’re pretty suspicious of the widespread faith in testing.
A lot of people round here think that a mild form of CV19 circulated in the winter which is why hardly anyone knows anyone who has ‘had it’, let alone died of it.
And yet, surprise, surprise, you would honestly think the Black Death stalks the land, judging by the number of designer masks and paranoid behaviour on display in a local small town yesterday.
I read a speculation that there were two viruses cirulating, the one that was tested for and the one that did the damage – which would explain why there are so many mild cases of covid and some very severe ones which would be those who also caught the untested virus.
Whatever, it has been described as a cold with an agenda, or flu with a turbocharger, yet it’s being treated as Plague 2.0
I think the young girls like wearing masks because they think it makes they look cool, it’s now become more of a fashion accessory.
Yes, that’s our take on it too BD. As has been said before, in your designer muzzle, you can be the star victim of your own personal woke drama.
Unfortunately, though, it seems not just confined to girls. Even women my age (late 60s) are buying (making?) them now and we’ve seen young men in sinister black ones. Apparently in Florida, a Covid19 shop has opened full of lovely coloured muzzles and hand-sanitiser!
Oh well, one business bound to do well – makes a change
A whole new economy! Plus perspex screens and notices
Cool, with no nose and no mouth?
Drool, more like.
“The Commission noted that some of the language in the show – such as a caller using the word “coloured”, which Stu didn’t correct – was “insensitive”. “
Why do all our institutions so cravenly accept this manipulation of language? Just because people choose to claim to be offended at a particular term, doesn’t mean their nonsense has to be taken seriously.
There must be a line to be drawn, quite far out, at which a term becomes a recognised and serious term of abuse, by the use of which it is reasonable to expect people to feel offended even if it is not used aggressively. What we are now forced to refer to as “the N word”, or p**i for south Asians, are terms that were used with insulting intent, so it’s reasonable to accept a degree of offensiveness. But “black” or “coloured”? That’s just nonsense. It’s just an intentional attempt to force people onto the defensive with stupid circumlocutions like “people of colour”, and it should never be pandered to by official bodies. The proper response to someone claiming to be offended by that kind of thing is a terse “grow up”, if we are in a context where politeness is required.
If the n word is such an insulting term, then why are so many rappers throwing it about like it’s nothing? Either everyone can use it or no one can use it, and i wish these people would just make up their mind already.
No, special people are “allowed” to use these terms, so as to put the not special people in their place.
Everybody should use any term they want, and then be prepared to live and deal with the consequences. Why do people claim they have the right not to be offended? People who watch reality TV offend me, but I live with it.
I respect your right to say anything you like, as long as you respect my right to take the piss out of you for saying it.
(This a general statement, not directed at anyone)
Yes, my point here was merely that public authorities and regulators should not be applying absurdly politically loaded standards.
No, they mustn’t.
Actually, to follow up – the core problem is that the law has recognised that saying something that causes offence to someone is illegal. The thing you say need not cause offence to the person to whom you say it, it needs only cause offence to someone within earshot.
I have no control over whether or not the things I say offend you. I have control over whether or not I intend to offend you.
And even if I intend to offend you, I should be able to say it anyway, and you should be able to put your big-boy pants on and answer me back.
Yes. Iirc this was the law Katie Hopkins lampoons as “brought in specifically for her”.
My distinctly woke brother sums the whole thing up as “it’s really easy – just be nice to people.”
Much of the time I want to strangle him.
Of course, being nice to people includes not making a needlessly big deal about them using the “wrong” terminology with no intent to offend, and it also involves not forcing them to jump through stupid terminological hoops for reasons of your own political prejudices.
But somehow it never works that way for the woke.
“… just be nice to people.”
That’s really easy to do when you’re on the same level in society as the person you’re talking to – I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been nice to anyone.
It would be slightly less easy if being asked to kneel in front of someone and pay them ‘reparations’. It would be interesting to see how your brother-in-law copes with that future development.
I concur. Problems arise however, when people are practically punished (usually by being fired, which is pretty extreme – even Hitler had a job before he was…. Hitler) by people who are offended.
This is where ‘living and dealing with the consequences’ becomes sticky – if those consequences involve losing your job or going to prison.
Lost my job because someone grievance artefact hunting in my emails. In 2014!
It’s the difference between “You can’t say THAT”, and “YOU can’t say that”.
See Trigger Warning, by Mick Hume.
I think the “n” word is actually a colour. It’s a shade of brown. So it’s use has not always been perjorative. The “p” word, by contrast has always been perjorative.
It’s interesting to note, though, that when on twitter Katie Hopkins was referred to by the “c” word. As far as I know the individual that called her this was not censured for the insult.
You must recognise that the presumption of equality does not exist in this ideology. Quite the opposite. In this ideology “black” and “white” are no more equivalent than “man” and “woman”.
So you cannot say “white lives matter” in the way that you might say “black lives matter”. That breaks their rules. For them “black” is an oppressed identity, “white” is not.
Feminism has been with us for a long time. But “masculism” sounds like a joke.
In order to deal with this, in my opinion, you must first understand it. I agree with your sentiment, but it’s no good complaining about it now.
I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t understand why you say “it’s no good complaining about it now”. No reason not to complain about wrong. Whether it can ever achieve anything is another matter obviously, that depends (largely) on how many people do it. We have to start somewhere.
Seems like you can say ‘White Lives Don’t Matter’ though.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8460059/Cambridge-University-backs-academic-tweeted-White-Lives-Dont-Matter.html
Niger is Latin for black.
Paki means beautiful.
Pakistan means beautiful country/kingdom.
Guy Gibson of Dambusters fame called his black labrador Nigger. Not because the dog came from Brixton but because like everyone in 1940 he had a decent education so it was meaningful – like calling a yellow labrador Goldie
How long before that film gets banned
Shoot all Nigels and Nigellas?
Fairly sure it has been Bowdlerised for recent tv showings.
“The “p” word, by contrast has always been perjorative.”
It depends on the context. I remember possibly twenty or more years ago, a fuss being made about an Australian cricket commentator talking about the “Pakis versus the Aussies” or something similar. He absolutely meant no insult by it, but still they came down on him. The thing is, the person who automatically sees the ‘insult’ regardless of context is implying that there’s something shameful about being Pakistani – which is just bigotry dressed up as virtue.
If Paki is offensive, then so is Aussie or Brit.
I recall a comedian a while back doinga skit on The Creation. God was saying
“I’ll make people all different colours. That’ll give them something to talk about!”
I suspect the tapes have all gone away.
The manufactured difference between ‘coloured people’ and ‘people of colour’ has always struck me as a very powerful thing. One is beyond the pale. The other is nigh-on reverential.
Such a gulf of meaning between two almost identical phrases. What lies in that gulf is what we’re seeing a lot of now – performative simpering. Heavily applied gravitas. Kissing of arse rather than arse-kissing.
Yes – it is a particularly weird one. I must say I can’t see why that distinction emerged. Indeed, to my ears, ‘people of colour’ sounds rather insulting.
Why not just call them Negroes?
Why not just call them people?
Well race does have meaning and is a very real thing – there needs to be terms to describe it. Only the wilfully deluded pretend “race is meaningless” and such.
So it’s about how to retain effective language without having to kowtow too much to the manipulative “offended”.
Remember how Benedict Cumberpatch fell foul of the language police when he referred to “coloured people.” He was denounced by the AAACP, who complained that he should have referred to “people of colour.”
The AAACP = American Association for Advancement of Coloured People…..
Vindication at Last? Well, up to a point. Let’s look at your analysis of Ferguson’s 500,000 deaths estimate. He used 1% IFR, which was the consensus figure at the time, coming out of China. You use the CDC figure of 0.26%, which is regarded as too low by many other groups: here “more scientifically accurate” can only mean “one I like better”. You use a QALY figure rather than VSL of over £1million. So an equally plausible cost of doing nothing would be more like £500billion. But either way, with an R of nearly 3, the 140 to 500 thousand deaths would have occurred within a few months, overwhelming the NHS and leading to numerous other deaths from a breakdown of the healthcare system. At that point it really doesn’t matter whether the body bags are piled up two high or eight high in the car parks, no government could tolerate the scenario — and quite right too.
“with an R of nearly 3, the 140 to 500 thousand deaths would have occurred within a few months, overwhelming the NHS and leading to numerous other deaths from a breakdown of the healthcare system. At that point it really doesn’t matter whether the body bags are piled up two high or eight high in the car parks, no government could tolerate the scenario — and quite right too.”
Gosh, I can only imagine the slaughter in Belarus where they must be stacking the dead like cordwood!
It really doesn’t matter what timescale you apply a fantasy death toll over, it’s still a pure fantasy.
I’m not familiar with “VSL”. Perhaps you could explain to a layman the difference between a QALY and a VSL and why you think the VSL would be more appropriate, and how you arrive at a VSL of over £1,000,000.
Value of Statistical Life. Also Value of Prevented Fatality. Used as a measure by various UK government departments. The Department of Transport was using a figure of £1M over 20 years ago.
So what’s the difference between a QALY and a VSL, and why and when would you use one and not the other?
And how is a VSL calculated?
Why do NICE use QALYs and not VSLs?
Quality Adjusted Life Year is a measure of years of enjoyable life saved by a medical procedure, and NICE rates them at around £30K. So, NICE will give expensive treatments to young healthy people with a long and enjoyable life ahead of them which they might deny to a 90-year old with dementia and 6 months to go. VPF is used as a measure for capital projects, and assesses the capital value of a life as £1.8M, which is roughly 60 QALYs, So it’s worth spending £1M to rebuild a road junction if it prevents one fatal accident.
The point of course is that you can find figures to support almost any version of this argument. It’s a category mistake.
I don’t know what you mean by a “category mistake”.
The lives saved are mainly of those nearing the end of their lives anyway. The road junction example possibly assumes someone young, healthy and productive.
Is this “one fatal accident” annual, or one for the useful life of the road junction rebuild?
I mean that arguing about the minute details of a hypothetical scenario is mistaking the sort of thing that it was.
Well, it’s the scenario that was used, and continues to be used, by our government, to justify the measures taken, and continues to be accepted as more or less settled science by mainstream media.
I don’t think you can say anything about this is minute.
The legitimate use of the “what would happen if we took no action” scenario is to decide whether or not to take action. In this case, it suggested quite clearly that the no action scenario led to intolerable results on any plausible set of figures. To suggest that it ipso facto supported or did not support some specific course of action is a mistake: the figures, as we’re discussing right now, were not sufficiently precise.
Well, I suppose one would need to define “intolerable”, and “plausible”.
Obviously there’s a death toll above which the kind of measures taken could be justified. I suppose it depends on the value placed on the various factors at play.
Plausible – I would say there were other plausible figures. There was very little useful information, it seems. I think you’d need more than “plausible” to take unprecedented measures, which is what happened, and to boot there appears to have been no attempt made to calculate the cost (financial and human) of those measures.
Honestly, this is now at such a high level of ludicrousness that I assume you aren’t from a specialist disinformation unit, because god help us all if you’re (normally) supposed to be protecting the country’s interests.
At no point was “no individual actor will make any changes” a reasonable scenario.
We have no examples where nobody in a country did anything to change their behaviour. We have varying degrees of lockdown as examples and we have a few European (and many Asian) countries that did not lockdown, and what we can see is that the lockdown countries did not do measurably better.
The salient word in your comment is ‘plausible’. It was nothing of the sort.
I the figures weren’t sufficiently precise, then no draconian policy should have been based on them. And the action taken should certainly have been monitored and modified weekly, as necessary.
YES!
When we didn’t know much, panic may have been appropriate.
It soon became obvious from actual FACTS that the lockdown was a severe overreaction. Originally there may have been some point to “flattening the curve” but it became obvious that only the elderly and sick were affected, and they were the least protected and even targeted.
I believe Ferguson was chosen precisely for his wild exaggerations: he has always been wrong by orders of magnitude. Others were making much more realistic predictions, like 40 – 60 000 deaths, but where’s the fun in that? Boris can claim he “saved” 450 000 lives You can’t prove he didn’t.
The gap between The Agenda/Narrative and facts is becoming ever wider.
Why aren’t you taking the Swedish public health leaders more seriously than Ferguson? They got it right, pretty much. Seems odd to be defending Ferguson…
Please explain yourself in principle. It’s clear that an infinite economic value can’t be put on any single human life, otherwise virtually nothing that we do, from putting on our trousers, to walking downstairs, to driving cars – putting aside hangliding and rock climbing- could ever be allowed.
So are you saying that this calculation is invalid, or are you saying that all calculations are invalid?
The ‘nothing ever allowed’ scenario that you describe is being applied right now, by career zombies to themselves. And they want it to apply to everybody until life is ‘100% safe’.
Honestly its amazing I am still here with the risks I have taken, I have used 8 of my nine lives for sure.
I have a confession to make…..
I crossed the road earlier today.
I know what you’re thinking – I must be some kind of care-nothing daredevil. But it felt so good I might do it again tomorrow.
You selfish bastard! Don’t you realise that we all pay your hospital costs if you get injured, so we get to tell you what risks you are allowed to take. And don’t get me started on the potential traumas to first responder heroes….
Could you not have used public transport like a responsible person? A taxi? Or a bus – if you go to the end of the route most buses will bring you back along the other side of the road, you know.
I know, I know. It was wrong, but… the road was just sitting there, with nearly no traffic on it…
Yes, you see that’s where you selfish, narcissistic privileged types always get it wrong. You think somehow you are qualified to make these highly complex judgements for yourself, instead of following the guidance set out for you by the authorities – your betters, for the general good, like a decent person would.
II shall wear a mask next time as an abject apology and as a sign of submission to the rules. Sorry. Guidelines.
(Huh. Apparently you can edit your username as you post. Which I just did there by accident)
And then apparently you have to edit it back.
You should have gone into lockdown and waited until there was no vehicle coming in either direction for three miles before crossing, and only then if wearing boot protectors.
Bad boy! You’re supposed to wait for the anti-traffic vaccine.
Well done! You are soooo brave!
(Why didn’t the headless zombie chicken cross the road? Because it was so scared of the other side that it preferred to drop dead where it stood?)
I’m saying that TY chose figures that supported his predetermined conclusion, while other equally plausible figures would have come to the unwelcome opposite.
The key phrase there is “equally plausible”.
Please present me with a scenario where wiping 20% off the GDP of the United Kingdom justifies a number of lives ever likely to have been lost to a virus that kills people largely over the age of 80 at a rate of 0.26% of infections. Of even 1% if you prefer.
What _are_ the plausible numbers? I really have spent a lot of time looking into the numbers, but I have yet to find a domesday scenario
The longer I follow this thread, the more the arguments suggest that using models might be a lot of fun but it’s very dangerous to base actual health and social policy on them.
And how much did Ferguson value the lockdown-generated deaths?
As you presumably will be aware from having read it, he did not address that question, in his Report 9, the no-action scenario, which was about the likely progress of the disease and the ability of the health service to cope with it.
Can you please provide evidence for a 1% IFR as at 16 March 2020 with a dataset wider than that supplied to Professor Ferguson from the small sample in China. For example, what was the IFR from the Diamond Princess – clue – nearer to the CDC figure?
Russell et al gave the Diamond Princess IFR as 1.2% (0.38-2.7) on 09 March. Ferguson’s “report 9” was using 0.9%, of course.
Time will tell but 1% seems somewhat implausible to me. We’re almost half way through this “pandemic” of what is supposed to be a highly infectious disease where there is no immunity in the population, and mortality is around 0.00625 of the world’s population. If my arithmetic is correct (I’ve wine taken) that suggests that less than 1% of the world’s population has been exposed to the virus, if you assume an IFR of 1%. That seems unlikely to me.
On the other hand, there’s a zipcode in New York City where nearly 0.7% of the entire population has died. That suggests IFR cannot be less than that figure. But I am not an expert. I merely point out that the experience of countries such as Brazil, India, Mexico, Chile, Peru and the USA suggests that we are far from seeing the end of things on the world scale.
Indeed we have not seen the end of things on a world scale – I guess we’ll have to wait a few more months for that, and then see if it is seasonal.
So far, seems to be disappearing in Western Europe and other countries that have had a proper “first wave”.
It just seems to me orders of magnitude below anything that would constitute the kind of threat that justifies shutting down the world, indefinitely.
I’m a hypochodriac, not as young as I was, and really don’t want to die, but I just can’t see the sense in the reaction there has been.
No, it doesn’t. It suggests transmission is nocosomial in certain environments, and that certain populations (i.e. that certain zip code) are populated by more vulnerable people, for whatever reason. Certain places have been disproportionately affected for reasons we still can’t completely fathom – and their figures are included in the general IFR, pushing it up. The point being it’s still incredibly low (CDC said 0.2%) even with those high rates included in the overral figure.
Those are plausible hypotheses, and indeed may well be true. In passing, we note that a single datum can suggest multiple hypotheses, more than one of which may be true. These are hypotheses about what is actually going on in the world, and highly important ones at that. Deciding between the various suggestions on the basis of what seems plausible to anonymous commentators on a personal blog, or even what seems agreeable to the blog owner himself, is less satisfactory than deciding on the basis of investigation and experiment carried out by people who understand what they’re doing and report them for peer-review.
Can you point us to some of these peer-reviewed investigations that justify their hypotheses with the data known to us so far?
Like the SAGE team for instance?
It doesn’t follow that the IFR in a zip code is representative of that for the national population.
The biggest problem is recording. Absolutely no standard method of recording so comparing results is next to impossible
Certain western countries (In particular UK) if you were sky diving. Your chute didn’t open. But tested positive then you get added to the statistics. An extreme example but even the NHS reported 95% of deaths had other serious illnesses.
Back in March Italy said the same thing.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says
Surely you can see that the numbers reported by the governments are massively over counted
The global IFR Is 0.25% even using the over counter numbers.
I am sticking with a clinician’s take on this pandemic rather than another ‘scientist’, and I refer you to Professor Heneghan’s analysis:
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/
Note especially: ‘using age-adjusted data from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Comparing deaths onboard with expected deaths based on naive CFR estimates using China data estimated a CFR 1.1% (95% CI: 0.3-2.4%); IFR 0.5% (95% CI: 0.2-1.2%)’,
Then, updating for new and more widely available empirical data: ‘We could make a simple estimation of the IFR as 0.28%, based on halving the lowest boundary of the CFR prediction interval. However, the considerable uncertainty over how many people have the disease, the proportion asymptomatic (and the demographics of those affected) means this IFR is likely an overestimate’
By all means take whatever figure makes you feel happy. It all tends to reinforce my point, which is that there are equally plausible and well-supported figures giving a very different answer to the one Toby Young would like to be true. And so the confidence in his assertion derives less from any form of scientific truth, or consensus, and more from what he wanted to believe before he started to write out his argument.
All of which supports the point: given how little was known, and still is, it was completely irresponsible, disproportionate, and morally bankrupt to impose a lockdown on the whole country.
Hear ! Hear!
Mr Pinch criticises Toby, whose analysis merely provides an opinion, which one can choose to reject. His opinion is harmless.
The same criticisms can be levelled at Ferguson, who’s analysis triggered policies that led to the destruction of the economy and the criminal number of excess deaths yet to come.
As a former scientist, married to a former scientist who is also an expert modeller, I do not need to rely on anyone else’s analysis and opinions.
77th Brigade
No doubt, One wonders how much stuff these guys read before it starts to sink in that they are being
lied to.
Yes. They’re all over the Telegraph comments.
I’m actually starting to think you’re right.
There’s always one in every comment thread and I refuse to believe people are so desperate to reinforce their lockdown zealotry that they would come to Lockdown Sceptics to do it, at this late stage in the game. Unless of course they’ve actually deep down seen the light and are now in the !triggered! stage, where they have to get all defensive in order to cling to the delusion.
Maybe they’re just employed to do so :/
— Hey, Correct The Record was a thing :/ (I’m still utterly flabbergasted the 77th Brigade is actually real – haven’t the MOD got anytihng better to spend our money on?!)
“desperate to reinforce their lockdown zealotry”. If that’s intended to apply to me, perhaps you’ld like to point to the comment where I advocated zealously for lockdown? I think you’ll find that I’m advocating for a serious examination of the science as opposed to a knee-jerk rejection of everything that does not support a predetermined conclusion.
Serious examination of ‘The Science’ that says we should extrapolate the worldwide IFR from *one* particularly bad local outbreak in New York? Which ‘Science’ is that?
Not what I said. I said it “suggested” something. A universal statement of the virus will need to accommodate these data points.
It doesn’t ‘suggest’ anything other than the fact that certain populations/areas are more affected than others. Welcome to viral transmission 101.
“The Science” doesn’t exist, therefore cannot stand up to serious exmination.
Intriguing to see on Malcolm kendrick’s blog one person assiduously going through and downvoting every comment with which it disagrees
Don’t be silly. But for the avoidance of doubt, no.
If anyone wondered why so many veterans end up homeless, lack of marketable skills and an inability to think would explain a lot of it.
First time here?
Yes. It’s been fun, but …
Do you really mean R or Ro?
R0, thanks.
It doesn’t matter wrt the Ferguson paper. He calculated Ro at 2.4 from Wuhan data, but his no-interventions model assumed that R would stay constant at 2.4 right up through 80% infected in August.
(even though herd immunity for that Ro should kick in at 63%).
Correct, he did.
And is there any evidence that any of his assumptions were anything approaching correct?
You really need to stop watching the bbc news
Nothing like this has happened in countries that did not lock down, so common sense says R has never equalled 3, and IFR is less than 1%. Body bags haven’t been “stacked” anywhere. I think you need to go to a beach somewhere, perhaps in Dorset, and relax a bit.
Common sense says all sorts of things. It said the earth was flat, and that cholera was caused by bad smells.
However, the paper 9 scenario that gave the 510,000 figure was not about failing to lockdown, it was specifically stated to be “In the (unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour”. Toby Young thinks the cost of that unlikely scenario would “only” have been £132billion and 140,000 deaths, and I’m saying that an equally plausible set of figures gives a cost for that unlikely scenario of between £500billion and £1trillion as the cost of the 510,000 deaths, together with the breakdown of the health service and likely civil society as well. I’m glad we never had to opportunity to find out which.
Common sense didn’t say those things. Pseudo-science did.
Civil society seems to have broken down anyway, by government mandate.
Did civil society break down during other pandemics in the 20th century?
Anyway, what’s not being included in the calculation is the cost to life and health of the lockdown, the damage to the economy and the restriction of liberty and the pursuit of happiness and a normal human life, of an entire nation, indefinitely.
I understand the maths, and I understand the difficulty of being the prime minister staring down the barrel of half-a-million deaths. But that was never the reality of the scenario and even accepting that it was terrifying, it must have been obvious very soon after that it wasn’t real. So where’s your argument that it should have been maintained once the maths was in? And where’s your argument that Ferguson’s model shouldn’t have been thrown out the window the moment it was brought in the room, given that there was a reasonable amount of data from other earlier outbreaks that made a nonsense of the assumptions put into the model (even assuming the model itself was sound)?
Mask because I would like to understand, not purely to be provocative.
I’m not making that argument. I’m criticising Toby Young’s purported calculations by showing that different but equally plausible figures lead to a radically different conclusion.
What makes you think civil society has survived unscathed? I would suggest that it’s been thrown under the bus to protect the NHS.
Cholera being caused by bad smells makes more sense than some of the covid nonsense people have been fed.
“But either way, with an R of nearly 3, the 140 to 500 thousand deaths would have occurred within a few months”
It’s interesting you say this yet the death toll in the entire world over 3 months is only just reaching 500k.
I think you’ll find that no country in the world opted for the do-northing scenario, and so the results of the hypothetical do-nothing scenario hardly apply.
All you have to do is look at the total population of the world and do some simple reasoning to see 500k deaths in the UK over 3 months would simply not happen.
Belarus?
Also Tanzania. They went even further actually. Their President actually BANNED FACE MASKS.
Lor, I love that man.
God bless him and his papaya.
And the sainted goat
This bloke posted under Toby’s DT article – 77th Brigade? Go back to barracks
I did indeed. I posted under my own name in an open way. Can you say the same?
Dr Richard Pinch from GCHQ?
Not quite. Vice-President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, the professional and learned society for mathematicians in the UK, although commenting in a purely personal capacity here of course.
I’m interested in trying to show people how mathematical modelling can, and cannot, contribute usefully to the discussion. Modelling may be a blackbox to many, but the modelling process should not be. A well-built model should be the product of a conversation between modeller and domain expert, in which the underlying assumptions, the input parameters and the uncertainties in those parameters are made explicit and the requirements are also made explicit. The result of the model should include a reasonable quantification of the uncertainties, such as a confidence interval, and a statement of the robustness of the result with respect to plausible changes in the assumed parameters.
It may well be that at certain stages the answer from the model is “We can’t tell”. There’s a strong temptation to give a meaningless answer at that stage – I recall reading of an instance where in the early stages of the AIDS epidemic, the model produced an answer of “anything between zero and two million” deaths. That is of course tantamount to “We can’t tell”. Unfortunately the politicians felt compelled to come up with a number, so chose the mid-point of one million as “the answer”. However, even in the “can’t tell” scenario, a robust modelling process should help to point to the parameters that give the greatest degree of variation in the results, and hence point to the scientific questions that most urgently need to be investigated.
If I recall correctly a lot of Ferguson’s calculations were based on what happened on cruise ships – probably the most idiotic starting point…a load of elderly people in confined spaces on a ship with a crew that might have only basic understanding of hygiene.
Except that the diamond princess had an IFR of 0.23%
All I know is “scientists” were caculating much higher rates:
Adjusting for delay from confirmation to death, we estimated case and infection fatality ratios (CFR, IFR) for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on the Diamond Princess ship as 2.6% (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.89–6.7) and 1.3% (95% CI: 0.38–3.6), respectively.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7118348/
Remember they were mostly under lockdown in their cabins so the epidemiologists ..
I’m guessing it was figures like that which generated the 500,000 domesday scenario.
I’m sure it was. The domesday scenario was genuinely terrifying – if I’d been a prime minister staring down the barrel of half a million deaths, I’d have panicked too. But it wasn’t many weeks in that the truth must have been obvious to SAGE if not to the government
And yet the Swedish experts looked at the ICL modelling and easily dismissed it.
Can we steal them? We have much better tax rates (or at least, we used to)
Exactly – and their projections have been closer to reality I would say, given they have not pursued a lockdown strategy. We also always need to remember that nowhere, literally nowhere, in the Far East has had a total lockdown strategy of the sort pursued in Italy, Spain, France, Belgium and the UK. The lockdownists were merrily predicting disaster for Japan. It never happened.
All the Far East Asian countries have done much better without lockdown than the total lockdown European nations have done.
So the argument that it is only lockdown that prevents deaths has clearly been disproven, even though that remains the staple of UK media coverage.
Maybe they took note of Ferguson’s previous track record and used a bit of common sense.
A cruise ship would have been a good starting point with real cases and empirical evidence.
Ferguson used nothing empirical, just a load of numbers and didn’t apply common sense to them.
You are assuming a “do nothing” scenario. I’m not sure many have actually advocated for that. It is a fact that the majority of the population either have no symptoms whatsoever or symptoms that are mild enough not to require hospitalization. Normal herd immunity occurs when about 70% of the population has been exposed to a disease. Some scientists actually believe that it may be way less for Covid (20%) but let’s go with 70% as the number needed. What percentage of the population are so vulnerable that they have a significant probability of requiring hospitalization and of dying of the disease? I think it’s pretty clear that whatever that number is, it’s less than 30% of the population. The logical solution therefore would be to totally isolate the vulnerable (and we have a pretty good idea of who they are) while the rest of the population are left free to go about their business as usual and build immunity. Once herd immunity has been acquired the vulnerable can then return to normal life.
Under this scenario, you would have neither vast number of deaths nor a breakdown of the health system since the brunt of the disease would be borne by those able to fight it off without a significant degree of danger.
“You are assuming a “do nothing” scenario. I’m not sure many have actually advocated for that.” But that is almost exactly what Toby Young is doing in the section I was commenting. His claim is that the do-nothing scenario would have been less costly than lockdown, using one set of figures. My point is that equally plausible figures show the cost some 25 times higher than his estimate, and much higher than his figure for the cost of lockdown.
N Fergusson based himself on a do nothing scenario didn’t he?
Folk standing like Anthony Gormley statues while a plague sweeps around them. That’s what report 9 put in my mind.
“N Fergusson based himself on a do nothing scenario”
I’m not sure exactly what that’s supposed to mean, but what Ferguson et al’s report 9 said, as the opening sentence of the Results section, was “In the (unlikely) absence of any control measures or spontaneous changes in individual behaviour” and followed that with “In total, in an unmitigated epidemic, we would predict approximately 510,000 deaths in GB”. So that part of the report was about the likely result of the do-nothing scenario (and it is these figures that TY wants to revise). The report then goes on to discuss the results of various mitigation scenarios. So, do-nothing was reported on as one, and the least likely, of a number of scenarios. So whatever the question is supposed to mean, I think the answer is “Not really, no”.
A brilliant summary of the case against Ferguson
‘Ferguson’s 500,000 deaths estimate. He used 1% IFR, which was the consensus figure at the time, coming out of China.’
But, ‘as any fule kno’:
‘From Jan 15 to March 3, 2020, seven versions of the case definition for COVID-19 were issued by the National Health Commission in China.’
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30089-X/fulltext
And Ferguson had available to him the best advice of locally based coronavirus experts:
‘“Compared to SARS and MERS, we are talking about a coronavirus that has a mortality rate of eight to 10 times less deadly to SARS to MERS,” Nicholls said. “So, a correct comparison is not SARS or MERS but a severe cold. Basically, this is a severe form of the cold.
Similar to a common cold, the surrounding environment of the outbreak plays an important role in determining the survivability and spreadability of the virus, he continued. Because of the impending shift in seasons, Nicholls said he expects the spread of the virus to be curbed in a matter of months.
“I think it will burn itself out in about six months,” Nicholls said.’
https://www.accuweather.com/en/health-wellness/coronavirus-expert-says-the-virus-will-burn-itself-out-in-about-6-months/679415
11th Feb 2020
So, either a lack of basic competence on the part of Ferguson, or a bare faced attempt at personal advancement by second guessing the wishes of the paymaster.
After all, the man has form
‘The epidemic and its control resulted in the death of approximately ten million animals, public disgust with the magnitude of the slaughter, and political resolve to adopt alternative options, notably including vaccination, to control any future epidemics. The UK experience provides a salutary warning of how models can be abused in the interests of scientific opportunism.’
https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/14288330/Use_and_abuse_of_mathematical_models_an_illustration_from_the_2001_foot_and_mouth_disease_epidemic_in_the_United_Kingdom.pdf
Toby . . . I too looked at that photo of a jam packed beach down south, and thought “Well, that’s what you get in an over crowded country when you stop a huge number of people from going abroad by imposing quarantine.”. What did they think would happen when the weather turns hot here?! We aren’t a nation that has outdoor swimming pools in our gardens and we normally get so little hot weather, we have to make the most of it. Watch out for more of this throughout the summer Boris . . . that was just the beginning. Lift the lockdown totally and ALL the quarantine. Get the planes in the air!
What’s going to be interesting is when there isn’t a massive spike in cases. How are they going to explain that?
Doesn’t seem to have worried them unduly with the BLM mobs.
Precisely!
Meanwhile in the Real World
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-24th-june/
just look at the indeasing numbers of hospital trusts reporting no deaths. That should be headline news. Oh wait . . .
increasing – time to cut my fingernails
Can’t blame that one on the barbers!
Podiatrist! I shall have to see if I can sneak in to get my toenails done but it will probably need a facemask
And when no one has to be a work or school any more…
Huh, so the line at which free speech becomes not ok is when it risks causing you financial harm. Interesting.
Free speech: Just wondering if there’s been any discussion here about the fact that the bloke who arranged the banner flypast in Burnley was sacked, and also (I’ve just seen) his girlfriend (apparently on the grounds that she declined to undertake ‘Intensive Racial Sensitivity Training’)?
Yes, covered a fair bit on the comments to the previous LS.
See yesterday’s comments page!
It’s just scary. It’s almost predictable now in state institutions / large corps etc. but piddling little engineering firms? Like….. what duty do THEY have to the party line? Like anyone is seriously boycotting them because they refuse to kowtow to the orthodoxy!
Man. The world is all wrong when you have to try and find a boss who agrees with your political views rather the one who’s just prepared to pay you for doing something.
It was extensively discussed in the previous comments section.
“The following day, the Isle of Man Creamery withdrew its sponsorship of his show“
This is a matter for people on the IoM I suppose, but there needs to be a campaign to boycott the Isle of Man Creamery. This intolerance of dissent will never end until companies understand that they will pay a price for pandering to antiracism as well as for failing to do so.
Hopefully Manx Radio has at least been embarrassed by this ruling.
What worries me most is that this sort of thing is just the latest in a long line of declaring someone guilty of an offence, whether actual or merely perceived, before they are allowed to defend themselves. Upending centuries of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. I really worry about my two lads, especially the elder one (20) who is slightly autistic and has a tendency to speak then engage brain. He is a good soul, and once he has things explained to him (my husband usually delegates that task to me!), he is usually very upset. How many young people’s lives will be blighted for a spur of the moment or awkward comment that was not intended to hurt. It’s scary.
We are coming into dangerous times, for sure, and it is getting ever more necessary to control what you say in public. We must teach our children the opposite of what we were taught: that “it’s a free country” and “our nation believes in tolerance for dissent”. The simple fact is that it isn’t and we (as a nation) don’t.
Yes, sadly I think that is the conclusion that must be reached. If possible take your revenge at the ballot box – assuming we don’t get to a situation (we’re close to it) where the Electoral Commission prevents new parties that want to take on the elites from being formed .
There is no party that is not fully on board with the woke agenda in my constituency (I include the “Conservatives”). At this stage I would definitely vote for an actively racist party just to try to balance things a bit.
2 bads don’t make a good!
Tyneside Tigress
Re your boy with the good soul. I hear you.
I have a boy of similar ilk – but ten years older. My boy too, is outspoken and fearless – brave as a lion. He doesn’t hesitate to speak out or act when something offends his sense of rightness. Its not that he’s unaware of the potential dangers at times…
When he was younger his blurtings caused me no end of consternation and embarrassment. I was constantly putting out fires. As he’s grown older I’ve had to hold my nerve when I’ve heard that he’s broken up street fights, kept people in place until the police arrive, told off the whole neighbourhood, etc.
He’s not come a cropper yet and seems to get along well enough with his neighbours to act as their local street mayor. There’s nothing PC about him – he can still make me cringe with embarrassment – but his blunt straight-outness seems to work for him.
The fates have protected him so far. And the gods take care of their own, they say …try not to worry.
Hope its okay to share where I’ve got to so far – that you’re not offended by my tuppence worth. I’ve found mothering my son (3rd out of 4) really taxing and worrisome and quite lonely.
Gina, thanks. Not offended at all. He did come a cropper on a couple of occasions at the ‘woke’ school. Again, husband sends me in to bat and teachers have tended to run for cover! We have had this since he was at infant school. Interestingly, he found his calling at one of the local clubs where he has volunteered for nearly ten years training and supporting deprived and disabled children. I hope he will be an asset to any neighbourhood and workplace, like your son – there is something refreshing about straight talking in a world of double speak.
“there needs to be a campaign to boycott the Isle of Man Creamery”
I see your point, Mark, but isn’t that the sort of thing that they are doing? How is coming down to their level going to help matters?
I doubt that everyone who works for the Isle of Man Creamery is a woke liberal. You would be punishing innocent employees of the dairy.
There’s no realistic possibility that such a boycott would affect jobs, at most it would affect the profits a bit. Nor am I saying it’s necessarily practical yet We may need to go further down the road to Year Zero before enough people begin to understand the costs of endless concession.
The point is that the idea of not coming down to their level merely concedes defeat. No company will ever stop kowtowing to the cultural revolutionaries so long as it is a one way proposition: stand up to them and lose business, or give in and lose nothing. It’s a no brainer at the moment, which is why it is happening so often.
Ideally, once there is resistance, a balance can be achieved, and a cessation of active hostilities based on mutual strength.That’s when people agree to accept freedom of speech for their political enemies – when they have to recognise that they have nothing to gain from this kind of thing.
Weakness never dissuades aggression by zealots. It always encourages further pushing. That is the lesson of dealing with the left for the past century in this country and in the US. It’s how we got where we are.
“The point is that the idea of not coming down to their level merely concedes defeat.”
I’m sorry, I strongly disagree with this attitude.
You assume that this is a war. I’ve said it before. That is their agenda. They want to fight you. They want to defeat their perceived enemies.
As all of this is psychological you “fight” them by not engaging in their tactics. By not playing their game. Taking up arms – psychological or tangible – is their victory. That’s when they have “won”.
Let me ask you a simple question: how would you define “victory”? When will we have “beaten” them?
They want to “defeat” racism. Can they do this? How will they know when they have achieved their aim?
And before you accuse me. No, I will not “take a knee” and nor would I suspend or sack anyone for exercising freedom of speech. But at the moment the Right is being stupid and playing into their hands.
Paul Embery was right to criticise the “white lives matter” flyover. There’s no law against being stupid. In this political climate that was dumb.
Be more intelligent about this and beat them at their own game!
No need to apologise. We disagree, that’s fine. We aren’t woke types, after all :=)
I think we addressed this point previously. There are both direct and indirect responses, and the direct responses do not have to be the kind that play into their hands. In the following exchange:
here
and here.
Even direct resistance that plays into their hands is not necessarily dumb, though. It is necessary to have both kinds of resistance. Ultimately there will be no compromise until they meet resistance. You cannot “beat them at their own game”, because you have already surrendered on the key points by playing their game.
Critics of the “white lives matter” flyover are mostly just continuing the long surrender that got us to where we are now.
I really don’t get these (relatively) small companies virtue signalling their way into political allyship with the Powers That Be.
What are they hoping to achieve here? Saintly pursuit of our dolla rather than just pursuit of our dolla? Surely they realise by now that people, by and large, couldn’t give a fuck about the politics of the people they buy their ice cream from, long as it’s tasty and cheap?
Two possibilities occur. It might just be run by a woke zealot, or there might have been some sort of quick approach from a woke group threatening a campaign and bad pr, and they panicked. Probably the first is more likely here, but I’ve no local knowledge to judge by.
The ‘brothers of the square’ should not be ruled out either.
The sheer volume of rubbish generated by visitors to Dorset will have been exacerbated by the government’s insistence on take-away only.
No doubt all those tutters clucking about social distancing won’t have thought how to cater for all these litter-creators. Shame about the poor souls who were trying to empty the bins though.
As for the traffic, I’ve made several attempts over the years to find a parking space in Bournemouth and inevitably given up and gone elsewhere. Hostile publc transport won’t be helping the current situation.
The wonderful local council decided a couple of years ago to add parking meters to the majority of roads near the beaches and built on a couple of public car parks.
I’m lucky as I usually work in Bournemouth and so if wanting to go to the beach would park in the work car park. But even in normal times I wouldn’t consider the beach in the height of summer.
The media knew where to look for a juicy story then. Interesting how all the reports from the Grad, the DT, the Times and the Mail are phrased almost exactly the same.
On the traffic point.
Is there visual evidence of half a million peoples conveyancing to the golden stretch of sand?
No visual evidence however the local travel news this evening said there were queues on the main A road out of Bournemouth and the beach road coming out of Sandbanks. From what they said it sounded like the usual summer traffic that builds up on a normal summer afternoon when people leave the beach.
Whether there were really half a million people on the beach today I don’t know, not seen an actual picture on social media apart from what is in the newspapers.
My son lives a stone’s throw from Sandbanks. When I asked him about the invading crowds, he just responded by moaning about the noise from concrete mixers that had been going for 12 hours behind his house all day. (He whatsapped me a recording. It was an awful racket and he’s having to work from home.)
Doesn’t seem the marauding influx bothered the locals too much.
The population of Dorset is only 420k ish. I don’t think it’s doubled today. Traffic is always bad in summer. This was entirely predictable with so few other options for a day out. Most of those people should be at school or work.
Two cars and a motorbike drove past Ferguson’s house. The figures were then extrapolated from this using a sophisticated model …
Two cars and a motorbike drove past Ferguson’s house. The figures were then extrapolated from this using a sophisticated model …
Briliant!
Even on a miserable November evening, parking can be difficult in Bournemouth. One other thing about the ‘state of emergency’ – last week the libdem council leader, who declared the emergency, was subject to a no confidence vote which she scraped through by 1 vote. Methinks a little politics may be going on here.
BINS!!!!! OMG they are LETHAL!
Clearly you missed the story about the refuse collectors being harrassed……
Can Boris survive? Quite a thought, perhaps worrying to those of us who are relying on him to drive the completion of the EU exit promise. However, as we emerge from lockdown, I’m reminded of an article I read somewhere a couple of years ago that pointed out that whether we would be better or worse off following Brexit would be the result of the post-exit decisions made by our government.
How strongly the economy emerges from its current comatose position rests on the same principle.
My sphincter is tightening.
Johnson can survive if the Parliamentary Tories stick with him, but if they do then I suspect the Tories will be wiped out come the next election.
Barring an economic miracle (and why should the national leadership that proved so non-existent for the coronapanic suddenly acquire competence out of nothing?), the only way for the Tories to get through without the kind of complete loss of credibility suffered by the Major government. imo, is for them to make a clear break from the coronapanic disaster, put the blame where it belongs, and distance a new government from it. But it might not be possible to do that at all, anyway, with no credible alternative leader in the wings. Such a leader must be a convincing Brexiteer as well, if we are not to reopen that can of worms,disastrously.
And changing PM mid-Parliament is a lot harder to get away with in these more presidential times.
I think the 1922 Committee may be priming Rishi for the throne. They will stab Boris in the back and do just what you say at the slightest sniff of public discord re: lockdown easing / end of furlough / disastrous emergency budget / more riots etc.
In fact, maybe they’ll let Rishi do his emergency budget in which he goes “Oh dear, tut tut, Boris and Cummings and Handjob done a booboo” in a roundabout way, makes a ‘heroic’ attempt to get the country back on an economic steer, ready to riDe to the rescue once Boris resigns due to ‘family commitments’.
Definitely a possible scenario. Might be a good one to time for after the formal EU departure as well, so that Sunak can have maximum freedom of action without that hanging over him and without have to spend any political capital on it.
That’s very likely. I read somewhere about rumours of growing discontent from backbenchers and that Rishi is their man.
I get the feeling that Boris and Cummings will stay to get Brexit done then they will have to go. I reckon that Hancock and Williamson will be forced out once lockdown and antisocial distancing is eased (and there will be loads of court cases waiting for them) or even earlier when rioting forces the real end of lockdown and antisocial distancing.
I too am worried, that the worst PM in British History will survive in office, to perpetuate the immense damage already done, and to avoid the vilification and political reckoning he and his government deserve.
I was/am strongly pro-leave but honestly I couldn’t give a toss one way or the other any more. Our parliament has failed us, we as a country have failed.
“Emerge from lockdown”. I beg to differ. The “new normal” is the continuation of lockdown by any other means. Millions are still furloughed, churches, schools and countless other places are closed or have had their activities utterly fucked up, the Coronavirus Act and associated legislation are still in place, among other things restricting who can visit us in our own homes. Propaganda and misinformation continues to spew forth.
And a Conservative government with one of the largest majorities in recent history, at the start of its mandate, has utterly failed to stand up for freedom of speech, in complete contradiction of the views of most of those who voted for it.
The PM and the others should be banished from office, forever, and publicly shamed.
I’d like to hang them by the testicles personally. Not sure you could do that without killing them and I wouldn’t want to kill anyone but….. yeah….
Working out the how would be a worthwhile project.
Practice on the lesser MPs and local busybodies? If you do mistakenly off Bojo can I dibs his scalp please?
I wrote elsewhere that they should be nailed upside down to a church door. The red hot poker would be good too. I got downvoted by a politician’s wife, who missed the point that those things were done in the past, unlike lockdowns
There’s a church in Essex, Hadstock, that is reputed to have the skin of a Viking nailed to the door. It probably isn’t true, but it’s pointing in the right direction. Hancock’s skin in Hadstock would be neat, but hard on the people of Hadstock.
They will probably limp on until 2024 thanks to the Fixed Term Parliament Act. They do, when all is said and done, have an 80 seat majority. But even if the government falls, who will replace it? I cannot vote for any party that accepted or demanded the lockdown. All political parties currently represented at Westminster supported the lockdown.
Yes, we so need a new Party, but the FPTP system makes that all but impossible, when combined with the fan-boys of the 3 ‘main’ parties who will never vote for any other party.
I’d say it’s very difficult but not impossible. If you can reach something like 28% under FPTP, you can start winning seats in large numbers. If you can mobilise some of the non-voters, a lot of the centrist Labour vote as well as the traditional Conservative -Brexit Party vote, and ensure that you concentrate the vote…maybe in the North of England, Midlands, East and South (outside London) then getting a majority is not impossible. I think people are ready to respond to a positive populist message but you need a leader or even better a team of credible people who can articulate the party’s policies. I think it needs to be a real party as well, not a personal vehicle like the Brexit Party.
Yes, we can get out of the EU, but getting the EU out of our increasingly useless politicians will become the real challenge.
I think lockdown effects are good and bad on the Brexit front…
The pandemic’s effects have been so hyped that the public are not going to differentiate between Pandemic and Brexit effects. Without the pandemic, the globalist media would have been able to present any disappointing economic news as “because of Brexit”.
But in a wider sense, yes, there are huge dangers. Blair and his sharks are constantly circling sniffing for blood. So are many “remainer in their hearts” Conservatives.
There is no doubt Boris or “Boris” (his image) has been terribly damaged by this nightmare. He seems not to have fully recovered from the virus yet though he looks a little better. But politicians are very ruthless – they can smell his weakness.
Pity they didn’t smell it last year. It was undeniably evident during the election campaign.
If I’d been in the vicinity if Bournemouth beach I’d have got hold of some of these morons and rammed their rubbish up every single bodily orifice. A good kicking would sort out a lot of people out who are simply too thick to care about the environment,
Of not if. Apologies for the typo. I wish you could edit posts.
They’ve added an edit function. Click on the cogwheel at the bottom right of your post, and then click on “edit”. Very useful!
‘Cogwheel’? I thought it was a virus! ;-}
I would LOVE it if some enthusiastic environmentalists would go and start litter picking around the sunbathers next time this happens ;oP
Why?
If anyone wants a laugh and a good summary of how to be politically correct check out Leo kearse at the comedy unleashed club
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=36Yfy0Aub1c
The PC bit starts about 17:45 in but the rest is just as funny
For the 33 spotters fraction.
33 tonnes of waste were removed on a day that reached 33C
Was Neil Ferguson weighing the waste by any chance?
Surely if it had been Ferguson it would have been 3300 tons of waste were collected…at a minimum.
I imagine if the Police were telling people to just “get off the beach NOW” a load of waste was left behind.
Neil doesn’t get involved with the actual verification of numbers using things like scales, he only models the amount of waste.
The next day he would model half the amount of rubbish and claim to have removed half the rubbish being the dedicated environmentalist that he is.
A child discarded a sweet wrapper. The figures were extrapolated from this using a sophisticated model …
Yes. The model was a Smarties box – increased in volume by 10,000% for no good reason but that it looked impressive. Bit like when they show teeth 4 feet high in a toothpaste commercial.
Thank you, I have added to my graph. I think I had 33 units of alcohol today too.
According to the DT’s interactive map a week or so ago, every sub-region in my part of Wales had 33 covicases. What’s with this magic number?
From the Telegraph today:
33 new cases in China and on Wednesday this week, 33 countries reported their highest numbers of new daily cases so far, including the United States and Brazil, which had the highest numbers of new cases globally.
No idea except 33 is the highest you can go in the masons and then ask who controls the masons?
Even if a return to large gatherings of people causes a few bumps in (true) total cases, how will government justify a return to lockdown given so few hospitalisations will result? The gatherings are of children and adults healthy enough to be on beaches and pubs, global death rate per case seems to be declining, the most vulnerable have already fallen victim, health service and care homes are surely (perhaps) better prepared, and it’s summer, along with many other reasons why worst-case scenarios no longer hold water.
Return to normality may long-term even push the demonstrated IFR below 0.25%, and make the whole charade look even more insane. Can we have our £450 billion back please?
Yes I expect that’s a best case scenario unfortunately
They’ll just make something up like the first time around. I’m sure Prof Ferguson is up for it.
The boss of the NHS wants people to celebrate the service every year with a clap on its birthday. He wants the event to start this year with an applause on the 5 July at 5pm.
Excuse me? How many people have they turned their backs on during the last three months? We’re supposed to clap for this?
How come the boss of the NHS hasn’t resigned, given that they had three years to prepare for a pandemic (since Exercise Cygnus) and still weren’t prepared? Never mind expecting us all to applaud him.
Over my dead body.
Which, if I have some sort of unfortunate accident or unforeseen health problem in the next few months, could actually happen yaaaaay!!
(And then they will test me until I come back positive for Rona and I’ll end up on the stats and you’ll all end up back in lockdown double yaaaaaay)
Thanks “friend”.
It really is a cult, especially the central organisations i.e. NHS England (I work there). Wouldn’t want the public to start questioning its persistent mediocre performance, so let’s encourage them to mindlessly clap instead.
This year, it’s the NHSs 72nd birthday, or some weirdly odd number. They were making a lot of noise about celebrating that. Anniversaries are usually celebrated on years that are a multiple of 5.
Actually, it’s more likely to be the last anniversary the NHS ever has.
Sounds like somebody looked at a calender and thought 2020 is a nice round number let’s celebrate then.
Far too logical!
No thanks.
Why should we clap for them when they’re being paid to do their job?
They aren’t doing their job. Unless Covvie is now the sole affliction of mankind.
A newly released meta-analysis on the use of face masks for reducing the transmission of viral respiratory infections within community settings shows the evidence for their effectiveness is equivocal at best.
https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/new-meta-analysis-raises-doubts-masks-work-prevent-covid-infection-and-transmissi
Quick question – is it actually against the law to hug someone? Reason being is that I know someone who has said that we should only be thinking about meeting in bigger groups when we’re allowed to hug?! Thanks.
Nothing in any law I have read about hugging people or distancing of any kind. The law is here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350
The distinction between law and guidance has been made deliberately vague by government and media.
Thanks.
I need to find the lord sumption quote about ministers statements being taken as law.
Boris stressed this week that the coronaregs are no longer law but merely guidelines. Therefore subject to interpretation – and common sense. Hurray!
My friend and I were discussing this today. For instance: It’s recommended that people sit back to back or a metre apart.
That surely means even small cafes can operate fairly normally. You sit opposite the person you’re with and a complete stranger can sit behind you only 6″ away at the next table, no problem!
Well, if it is, I’m a massive recidivist.
That someone is weird!
Well if it is against the law, I broke it yesterday. Twice. With a dear friend I haven’t seen in 3 months.
Seriously nobody tells me who I can or cannot hug.
Social distancing is just guidance according to the police, so I guess hugs are too.
That’s one of the nasty little side-effects of this bollox. Insofar as these horrible prohibitions are laws – and in Wales they all are – they turn (probably all) normal, decent people into criminals. Me, I’m approaching Al Capone status.
Annie Coronapone.
Ronnie and Rona Kray
How dare people enjoy themselves in the sunshine and sunbathe on Bournemouth beach! And how dare they spend money in local shops and help these businesses to thrive. How dare they top up their vitamin D levels and improve their immunity? Don’t they realise you can only go outdoors in mass gatherings if you are protesting in the name of BLM! Or if they are clapping our NHS heroes! Otherwise outdoor gatherings will kill us all and they will be de facto responsible for genocide.
ALERT! ALERT!
Track and trace!
Second wave!
Lockdown lockdown!
The way it is reported, you’d think this country has never had a problem with litter or gridlock before. “See what happens you let people out of their homes, they do stuff”. Just fuck off, please.
Hahahahaha.
THREE CHEERS FOR BOURNEMOUTH BEACH AND ALL THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THE MASS GATHERING TODAY!
Major incident for the mass media – not a ivory tower public health bureaucrat, pseudo-scientist or simpleton politician in sight.
If there aren’t literally hundreds of people dropping dead in a month’s time, this thing is officially OVER.
We owe the beach-goers a debt of gratitude.
Well, either they are proving lockdown isn’t needed OR they are building up herd immunity for us by catching the virus. Personally I’d lay odds on the first option. Either way, excellent! Carry On Down The Beach.
As a friend of mine asked we’ve had VE Day, Bank holiday weekends and BLM protests so how come we’ve not seen a spike yet?
They and the beach goers yesterday have shown that this is all bollocks.
It is double bollocks because even if we were right at the start of the epidemic with hardly any herd immunity a crowded beach like that would never have been a problem. When has anyone ever caught a cold from going to the beach? You’re outdoors with tons of fresh air, lots of sun and it’s often quite windy. The different families aren’t actually even going up to each other and talking to them (or coughing on them). They’re pretending they aren’t there and wishing it wasn’t so crowded. If anyone is shedding virus it won’t get far. You don’t catch a virus by just one or two particles touching you. You need a decent dose, which you get from sitting in a stuffy and crowded room for several hours with infected people watching reruns of Mary Poppins at Christmas.
The salt everywhere kills bad stuff too.
Beach goers are the true sceptics! Sign of the times.
In other news Carl Vernon just posted a depressing video about NHS waiting lists.
I’m glad someone is talking about it (the BBC keep making tokenistic little nods before getting back to their general fire and brimstoning of anyone who dares venture onto a beach) but man. Horrific.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDsBwWZf8DQ
It’s depressing but so true and its going to get worse – what about those suicide rates and increase in mental health issues like depression and anxiety? Not to mention ending up with a generation of socially madadjusted children who will see other people as potential biohazards and who will be unable to communicate face to face because they’ve not been taught the nuances of human communication and interaction.
We won’t have just a lost generation but a broken society as well.
I was on a train today terminating in Bournemouth (I got off a few stops beforehand). The train was busy with people heading there but not a ‘lethal’ lack of social distancing like the TSSA is making out. But this is what you get when you coop people up for months.
I’ve been out and about this week on a mixture of leisure and work related train trips. In general, I would strongly suggest readers do get to see some of our historic city centres before tourism gets going again. I visited an open air tourist attraction in London this week and had an enjoyable time, but it must be said their ‘scheme’ of offering you food and alcohol with no bins is causing trouble. And the Pimms was being served by a stroppy Aussie woman shouting ‘social distance, social distance!!’. And on that note, certain areas of the Thames Path (I walked round Hammersmith/Wandsworth/Putney) are turning into a tip due to this ill advised al-fresco stuff. The Thames ferries have restarted if readers are interested (I realised this too late!)
On my trip today, I visited a tourist area that has been overlooked so far. I am pleased to report some active lockdown disobedience in progress as regards pubs! I did feel sorry though for the shop owners, many of whom had made an effort to open but had very few customers, on a day they would have been minting it normally. Perhaps if Hancock wants to encourage some SD more of an effort should be made to spread demand round a bit??
On that note, Hancock can sod off. I wonder if he will get told off again for being a nasty authoritarian? The Torygraph comments about him are unprintable.
Littering’s bad enough, but in my city the council still haven’t opened the public toilets in the park I live next to. The park has been heaving for the past few days, with literally hundreds of people using the tree’d and bushy areas as a toilet. I’m sure you can imagine the consequences..
Yes this is also turning into a problem my way!!
Forgot to mention – South West Trains are using some hand sanitiser that seems to rip a layer of skin off….
That’s awful. Pity the poor staff who probably have to use it several times a day.
That’s awful.
One of the supermarkets I go to uses a brand of hand sanitiser that’s nasty – its caused my skin to peel rather badly and leave small wounds.
My local Aldi provides something but I’ve never been policed into using it.
There’s also spray and paper towels to disinfect the trolley handles but I always shop in the evening when it’s quiet and have never seen anyone bother to use them.
I only used it because my hands were rather filthy from having to pick one of my bags which had fallen in the park on my way to the supermarket.
As for the spray and paper towels to disinfect the trolley, yep, I barely see anyone use them either.
Squishiness abounds.
Soon to be followed by a plague of digestive infections?
All those photos in Daily Fail of the scenes on the beach have caused expats in Greece apoplexy. I’m back to trying to convince them that we aren’t all dropping in the streets with Covid and dying in corridors, and vainly trying to point out that there were only 4 current deaths from Covid yesterday (the rest were past deaths) and that’s out of a population well over 65 million. Any Amazon driver will tell you it’s more like 80 million if you count those not registered. There are screams of “don’t let the British in, we’re all going to die!” from British expats in Greece. The locals who actually need to make some money this tourist season, aren’t bothered, they’ve worked out the truth and don’t read the British newspapers, and will welcome any British person who wants to holiday with them, with open arms.
NHS staff warning: This quick share is to alert all colleagues to the potential fire risk in vehicles, caused by alcohol-based hand sanitiser. We have received a number of reports of hand sanitiser being the cause of fires when left in vehicles in the hot weather the UK is currently experiencing.
file:///C:/Users/user/AppData/Local/Temp/HSWQUICKSHARE011%20-%20Alcohol%20Hand%20Sanitiser%20-%20Vehicle%20Fires-1.pdf
Is that delicious irony? Or only delicious Alanis Morisette irony?
There is a certain sense of justice about it.
This was circulated round our office today, closely followed by a fellow sceptic sending a follow up email debunking it
It was sent to me by a bona fide H&S officer – not for the NHS but in public sector.
Funny as fuck
Can’t be real? Can it? Really, really real?
Oh my, oh my, ambulance spontaneously combusts, roasting all inside, but never mind, their hands were REALLY CLEAN,!
That gives me an idea, it probably makes a good barbecue lighting gel. They should be selling it off cheap before long.
I hope people don’t start drinking it.
Never ever thought I’d say this but I hope the scousers enjoy their PL-winning street parties tonight.
Thanks Tom.
And a guard of honour at the etihad to boot !
Massive parade through the city, coming hopefully in July. Interesting to see whether they try to lock down over a million people.
Just seen they set the Liver Building on fire. The daft we will always have with us.
I’m genuinely confused.
We’ve either just been subjected to an attempt by a disinformation and psy-ops operative or two to derail the comments and make us change our mind.
Or we’ve been briefly joined by someone who doesn’t seem to have a point to make beyond “numbers can be different numbers” and has impenetrable prose.
Personally, I really hope it’s the second one, because I would like to hope that our national cyber security is in better hands.
Not only one or two…I think there are others around trying to sow division. As I am sure Toby knows, he is a prime target for the rabid left so by extension so is this site. No one minds free discussion with people citing evidence but the disrupters make false claims and then disappear when evidence is presented to show the falsity of their claims.
There exists a “rabid right” too you know?
Equally as nefarious.
A member of SAGE trying out his defence for the upcoming corona trials. If yes, he is going down ‘bigly’!
He might want to try learning English.
Actually, tigress – I think this is now my favourite explanation.
You should try posting something on Twitter if you have an account. There are people just waiting to pounce and spout ridiculous nonsense just to get you off the subject. They’re like attack dogs and it’s so obvious that they’re not just regular people.
I have two accounts.
I’ve never used either and I’ve never looked at either n
We’re all going to Parler now
I went over to Parler when Simon Dolan did. The guy calling himself Mr Mason Mills is there too.
Yes indeed. It’s all very Correct The Record.
I’m surprised this site hasn’t been targeted more to be honest, either that or the moderation is very effective!!!!
Or maybe I’m subtly influencing your opinions in ways you don’t consciously understand?
You too?
All these people cramming onto beaches — watch the case numbers continue to fall.
My only issue with it all is that I’m paying for this jolly and will continue to be paying for some time. Apart from that, I hope everyone had a good time
Didn’t think of it that way, and it’s a good point; a large percentage of them will be on the delayed redundancy scheme if they’re free to be jollying it up on a weekday.
I am happier to be paying for soon to be jobless people to go to the beach then for the government and 77th brigade to engage in physiological warfare against the British people.
physiological?
sorry – psychological
Both. The physiological bit was locking people in their houses for 23 1/2 hours a day, as they did at the start, with Hang-cock threatening to make it 24/7.
There’s an edit function recently been added to the board.
Just touch your comment and you’ll notice the little icon in the bottom right corner
DISTRUST
GOVT
IGNORE
MEDIA
FIGHT
THE
LIES
You listen to that discredited quack Vernon Coleman?
The first company in the coming months to do an advert with a strapline that reads something like FUCK SAFETY, LET’S GO MENTAL! (probably booze or chocolate or…. Lynx) will E A R N A F O R T U N E
Three weeks on and still my petition to ban the compulsory wearing of face coverings/masks on public transport, has not been approved. What’s going on?
It’s quite possibly illegal under the emergency legislation.
Virgin media broadband went down today across London.
It’s impossible to speak with technical support. Apparently it’s “because of coronavirus “
(Yes, it’s working again now, thanks)
It’s the new universal excuse!
You’ve been Bugged.
I’d get used to that tbh. Especially when the masses are threatening to become too free for the securitants liking.
Haha! That’s nothing! The entire Scottish Government are working from home. Phone them and find out for yourself!
Or it might be just another creative fob-off.
Contentious petitions are a well known virus vector and require at least 60 days quarantine.
My even older petition to force the reopening if public loos also vanished without trace. I never heard another word about it. even to say it had failed to receive enough support (27 signatures?) to be considered.
Democracy in action.
Correction, democracy inaction.
Hopefully it’s because they know the edict will be short lived.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/matt-hancock-bournemouth-beach-coronavirus-a4480551.html?amp
Hancock threatening to close beaches. When will he just fuck off!
My list is not as good as Annie’s list and I’ve never been a “revolution “ kind of chap.
But I know who’s going to be first up against the wall.
More collective punishment which is against our human rights to impose this shit.
I double dare him to do it. He’s a flat track bully trying to scare the already scared and he’s enjoying this far too much.
Or maybe hes trying to keep you safe?. Ever heard of Hanlons Razor?
With every spoken word he reminds me of my old headmaster many years ago. Seriously, it’s time for him just to be quiet and go and sit in a cupboard somewhere. I’m sure he’s probably on the verge of a breakdown, so would like a lot of time off.
A spell in a Peter in Wormwood Scrubs jail will do him the world of good then.
Guantanamo Bay would be better. They have a juke box there that plays Britnay Spears Tunes with a special backing track of the sound of rabbits being strangled 24/7
Matthew Hancock, the increasingly posthumous-looking health secretary …
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/june-2020/boriss-corona-catastrophe/
Another brilliant idea – give everyone even less space to enjoy again, and this will soon be followed by hysterical news on parks being rammed after no one has anywhere else to go.
Honestly this stuff has gone beyond a joke now
Public transports operating : please dont use it
Shops are open : Please dont go to them
Beaches are open : Don’t you dare!!
Parks are open : Unless you’re exercising, dont even think about it
Also: No ones allowed over to visit you, unless you’ve got a garden, but stay far apart, and they can only go inside to use the toilet super quickly.
I honestly cant get my head around how it’s been allowed to get to this point, not just in the UK, but in so many supposedly freedom loving countries around the world.
I don’t understand on what basis? We’re allowed to travel, even allowed to sunbathe now. Social distancing is just guidance. What legal basis does he have?
Don’t understand what is what?
That’s the behavioural science in action. If there were definite laws people could go right up to the limit in confidence.
Better to create confusion so the defining line is a grey blur. This way you shut peoples freedoms down without actually doing so in law. Fearful of crossing the line people keep much further away. Hey presto behaviours altered without policing or even laws or legislation, just propaganda.
Just stumbled on this: The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights Paperback – 19 Jan. 2009 by Dominic Raab
Review ‘As useful a guide as you could want to the consequences…of a prolonged absence of proper parliamentary oversight or opposition.’
Considering we’ve had no Parliament for 3 months and the Opposition was MIA while they pissed about electing their leader …….. Hmmm!!!
No verification or medical sources but an interesting experiment of oxygen depletion with mask on:
https://youtu.be/Y-LAq6i0Aao
If I really have to wear a face covering – and I stress HAVE to – I will wear a simple light bandanna with plenty of room at the bottom to breathe in and out properly. Masks are awful, they slip up my nose and end up in my eyes, and are so hot. I have no idea how medical staff manage to wear them for so long.
I wondered about tailoring one from a single layer of j-cloth. It’s a face covering but has inbuilt ventilation.
When I finally run out of excuses and we can no longer bear the tip we live in, I wear a dust-mask to do my bit of the housework as I’m asthmatic. It’s an unpleasant experience and I can only stick a couple of minutes at a time, well that’s my excuse.
When Handjob made his announcment about PT, I crocheted one each for me and my husband on the biggest hook I’ve got in case we are ever in a situation where there is no way out of wearing one. I tested it for a short while and the holes are so massive we could breathe through them. I really hope we never have to though.
We both still have coughs from bronchitis last winter so my OH would use that as his excuse. We printed out those little cards too, in case of jobsworths, but we’re boycotting PT for the duration.
We only use food shops and a couple of small local ones so we have avoided using the chemical hand shite too. In mid-March I made some home-made sanitiser – surgical spirit with a dash of aloe vera in an old miniature vodka bottle. It’s about 90% alcohol and it doesn’t take the skin off your hands. These days I just wash my hands well when I get in from being out instead.
That’s pretty strong evidence against!
Shocking claims in an interview with Dr Judy Mikovits. Up to 50 million Americans may die from mandatory vaccination:
https://youtu.be/BpYW2A2_8A4
Sounds about as bright as Neil Ferguson.
Highly qualified but possibly scorned and with an axe to grind. Her video ‘Plandemic’ went viral https://drjudymikovits.com/ but has obviously been debunked by MSM:
I can’t say I disagree with her on those points.
Shouldn’t be too hard to come up with an equation, sorry model, to show a plausible worst case outcome.
ENJOY A GLASGOW STROLL IN THE PARK IF YOU DARE!
So we don’t currently live in a police state wee nicola?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-53183428
“I understand the desire to enjoy the hot weather”
We are told by the BBC, SNP and all other members of the PC Globalist coalition that equality of outcome is of supreme importance but this principle is totally abandoned by them for some reason when it comes to the pandemic.
We know for a fact that throughout the lockdown the super-rich have been able to travel in their private jets anywhere they fancy, so as to be able to enjoy the sun in places that are not lockdowned.
Sturgeon couldn’t care less about the people in the tenements.
I’m sure she can personally enjoy the sun in a large garden somewhere.
People – especially younger people – are making their own risk assessments and realising they face no threat to their own health whatsoever. Older people? Since when did we prioritise their “health” (they will never be “healthy”!) over the rights of younger people to enjoy their lives.
The PC globalists have created a very perverse culture.
Theyre finished btw.
No coming back from this fuck up for any of them.
Scottish people need to be very carefull of going out in the sunshine. After being under house arrest for the last three months and seeing no sunlight even opening the fridge door could cause sevear sunburn in some vulnerable people.
I would suggest the Sticky Nurgeon should draw up some kind of “Return To Sunlight” plan with gradually increasing exposures times clearly laid out. This should follow the science carefully so ginger, blonde scotts and albinos should be allowed less exposure than say swarthy darker skin types.
This would cut hospital admissions for sunburn and help save the NHS some more.
It’s a no-brainer!
It isn’t a Sturgeon, it’s a dead parrot that actually talks! A miracle!
Scotland has gone to Westminster with the begging bowl asking for a handout due to the dire state of the economy.
However this should not be seen to overshadow other priorities such as people sunbathing in a park.
Why is Jon Sopel joining in with US Dumbo Journos and wearing an ostentatious mask Acosta-style? Has no one at the BBC told the ex Labour Club chair to desist from promoting plague propaganda.
https://twitter.com/BBCJonSopel/photo
Plague propaganda should be made illegal. Spreading fear and loathing is a horrible thing to do. BBC presenters should be sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for their hate crimes against the populace.
And the BBC should be forced to cover the cost of his imprisonment!
I was unlucky enough to “watch” 45 seconds of BBC “News” yesterday, a report of people going somewhere in a train, possibly Bournemouth. The commentary said ” people were arriving by train, WEARING FACE MASKS.” With a shot of three masked up women near a train.
In 45 seconds I was able to tell the story was just there to re-enforce the mask message and the story had almost no other purpose.
The voice-over lady sounded like she was on tranquillisers and the language of commentary was tailored to suite an audience of six year olds.
Unfortunately, the audience that swallows this rubbish whole has the intellectual capacity of a 4 year-old.
Please don’t insult four-year-olds. They have curiosity, eagerness to learn, and above all the potential to go on to greater things. Zombies have only the potential to drag out a living death.
Truthfully I find a lot of television dumbed down nowadays which is why I rarely watch it. When did producers decide that their audience couldn’t possibly remember what happened in the first half of a programme, without a synopsis being repeated in the second half? Even travel documentaries do that now and it is so annoying. The BBC need putting to sleep. They’ve lost their way and are a shadow of their former selves, especially news broadcasts. I cannot bear to watch.
More ammunition for the lockdown skeptics:
https://www.lifezette.com/2020/06/new-data-shows-8-7-million-americans-likely-had-coronavirus-in-march-lockdowns-were-worthless/
https://news.psu.edu/story/623797/2020/06/22/research/initial-covid-19-infection-rate-may-be-80-times-greater-originally
It’s a U.S. Presidential election year.
The U.S. President’s campaign for re-election rested on U.S. economic performance.
Covid 19 drove a coach and horses through that performance and, consequently, the President’s poll ratings
The bbc is one of the big cheerleaders for covid 19 measures inimical to economies globally but particularly in Britain and the U.S.A.
bbc America is a joint venture between the bbc and AMC networks.
Let’s look at AMC networks funding of political parties:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs//totals?id=D000041981&cycle=2016
Oh! AMC networks supports the Democrats……….Is that a good look for Britain’s state broadcaster?
Follow the money…….you know the rest……….
Will Sopel be mentioning Stzrok’s handwritten notes from the notorious ‘by the book’ Obama White House meeting that reveal that it was Biden who suggested the Logan Act be used against the now exonerated (although ruined financially) General Flynn?
Trump (if he makes it that far) will win with an enormous and record breaking landslide. No doubt about it.
Yes, I believe you are correct. The soviet-style poll results that lefties keep having orgasms over are as fake as our democracy!
Seems to me the people have decided that they don’t like the lockdown, they don’t like BLM and they don’t like teachers and unions. We’re sick to the back teeth of these utter wankers and have decided that we’re gonna ignore them. The government have totally failed too so ignore them. Unless fuckers like Sturgeon are singlehandedly destroying Scotland while the whole time imagining they are saving the people. All these people are very lucky we’re British because the reality is we should be down at Westminster with our torches and pitchforks to let them know we’ve had enough. They’ve deluded themselves into thinking they’re wonderful because of the disgusting way the media have supported them and have silenced anyone who didn’t agree. They’re fucked as well.
Get rid of everything now or the people will rise up in a way this nation hasn’t known and take back our freedom.
They have no idea on how intolerant we’re becoming because of their holier than thou fucked up way of doing the wrong things all the time!
The biggest poesklap (bitchslap) is heading their way
Think it’s beginning to dawn on the less progandised members of the leadership tbh.
I believe is highly possible we’ll see much jockeying for power and distancing from blame when it becomes apparent those currently in charge are heading for the sack.
The photographs of Sturgeon’s Stasi at Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow are shocking. Her establishment of a centralised state police force is one of her most sinister policies, designed I believe so that she coud better control the police and therefore the whole population. However it is clear that throughout Scotland and indeed the UK people are taking their freedom back. We now have ample evidence that large outdoor gatherings are not a health risk yet the Scottish and UK governments still witter on about spikes and second waves. Dangerous fools!
She’s insane is Sturgeon. She’s drunk on the power given to her by the utter morons whom vote for her. You know over the years i’ve asked every person i’ve ever known who vote SNP if they could name a single policy of theirs except Independence and not one person could, not one. It’s staggering how stupid their supporters are. They are proof that while no other system other than democracy is any good, democracy is rotten.
Her control freakery and desire to micromanage every aspect of our lives certainly point to a personality disorder.
Its what she believes is good governance. That’s what her masters told her.
Agree, but why didn’t the partyers just divide into groups of eight and carry on?
Still plenty time for the pitchforks to be brandished.
I’m looking at around September time, once the furlough poppy runs dry.
Nobody tell Sturgeon or the BBC but Portobello beach has been heaving for months now. Now one gives a fuck about social distancing. No one gives a fuck what she says or the government says. Who do these people think they are? Just because there is a vote every five years means jack shit to me. It’s my life i’ll do what the fuck i want.
Keep reading of all these locations where no one “gives a fuck” about social distancing.
I’ve yet to witness such disregard for the rules when going about my day to day business.
you seem to be implying i’m lying well get your arse to Portobello and see for yourself unless you’re too scared
I’m a postman in glasgow who has worked the entire shitshow my friend.
You’ve obviously had the time to tour the beaches of Scotland at your leisure.
My wife and i (also a “key” worker) are hoping to enjoy a few days at the beach for a well earned rest in September so you can keep us posted on development s till then …
yeah pal i’ve worked 36 hours a week every week for a large supermarket through this. I must say though the post men have been pathetic. At the start you were all so scared you wanted to stop the post then it was lets go on strike for gloves and face masks and now it’s dump the parcel delivered days late on the ground and run away. So take your snivelling pish someplace else, pal
What a wallopper lol
i hope you posted your pish from ten feet away coward
I’m intrigued by Toby’s comment: ‘ The fourth estate, which has largely slept through the crisis, is beginning to stir. It’s going to get ugly – very ugly …’.
I wonder what he actually means here. The press have been woefully acquiescent in supporting this lockdown, and played an important role in bringing it about. I would have thought many commentators would want to forget about the whole thing and move on, very quickly.
Maybe it will get ugly – I don’t know. Of course, Toby knows the press far better, and will sense its shifting moods far quicker, than me and most of us on this site. Perhaps (if he reads this) he might expand on this comment in some future posting?
My impression is that those outlets you’d have expected three months ago to be at least slightly sceptical of imprisoning healthy, innocent people and banning human contact are slowly coming to their senses, but those on the left who have been the key propagandists (bbc, guardian etc.) are digging in harder than ever.
Yes I was wondering that as well. I don’t know what is meant by “the fourth estate”. Toby, if you read this, are you able to elaborate in your next update? Appreciate you may not be able to.
The fourth estate is the press. (I’m not sure who the first, second and third estates are.)
Ah thank you!
The aristocracy, the clergy and the commoners.
And then along came the Committee of Public Safety.
Ah! That sounds right. Thanks.
Clergy is the first estate (“Lords Spiritual”), the aristos the second (“Lords Temporal”) and the third is indeed the commons.
Yes, and if ever an institution has proved itself a beggarly, appalling failure through this bollox, it’s the Church.
They’re getting themselves positioned to be on the right side of the inevitable backlash.
Their livelihoods depend on it.
I wondered about that. In my view, the press have behaved appallingly throughout. Their worst sin is reporting the worst-case scenario guesstimates as established scientific fact, when Occam’s Razor suggested they were arse-covering exaggerations.
The press, with few individual exceptions, have stoked fear and fanned the flames of the resulting hysteria at every single turn. The worst of this surrounded the “half million” deaths which was the top end of Ferguson’s model prediction. Top end. We haven’t even reached that *worldwide* yet!
As the now inevitable backlash against the lockdown disaster unfolds, I feel it is important not to overly concentrate on a few individuals – Johnson, Hancock, Ferguson being obvious examples. It is clear to me that the failure is, at its roots, systemic, and runs right through our society.
Can anyone think of any institution that has come out of this with any credit?
Maybe people like the Samaritans have been quietly doing good work, unnoticed by most of the rest of us. And it is clear that many shops – independent and chain stores (our local Co-op for example) alike – have done well (and that means full credit to the staff of course).
But I’m struggling to think of much else. The managerialist culture running through our society seems to me to have a lot to answer for, and needs sorting in the ‘new normal’.
the co-op round my way have been awful and as a result i will never patronise them again
Our co-op has been great. It must come down to local management and staff.
Apparently our local Co Op has been great too. I haven’t been in it for 3 months as I don’t do queuing! But all credit to the staff, I hear they have been great.
I’ve been going in the evening wen there isn’t a queue.When I saw there wasn’t a queue the other day I went in, to find the queue is now at the other end. You have to stand in a line two metres apart and wait until you are ushered to a till. Yes their staff have mostly been good but there are still ongoing shortages. Hint to managers – if you had more you wiould sell more
Yes, of the supermarkets I have visited the Co-op has been the worst, not least because of the higher percentage of woke who tend to use it!
Round here, I’d give 2 of the 3 Coops a D grade – ‘must do better, could try harder’. The biggest has installed bloody traffic lights & an insane 1-way system. Another small one is run by an Obergruppenfuhrer. The 3rd one is sane, friendly and gets a B+ from us.
I don’t think I can actually, and that’s disgraceful.
I ask this as a serious question.
If anyone can suggest any organisations that have done well then I’m genuinely interested to hear.
As you say, that we should struggle to think of any institutions to have done themselves any credit is disgraceful – and I think a very serious matter worthy of analysis.
My local Sainsbury’s and Tescos in Flint have been superb throughout, with just one exception who I won’t allow to colour my view.
My local baker, the two small Sainsburys, Morrisons and M&S have been sensible and no Karens in them.
My local Co-op has been OK, my run ins there have been more with fellow customers not staff.
My local NISA shop, run by a lovely Sikh family, has behaved perfectly normally throughout.
Every political party is tainted to one degree or another by the lockdown. Every political party represented in parliament supported it and some (including Labour) were demanding a harder lockdown earlier.
The police certainly fail to come out of this looking good. I appreciate that the reaction has been highly variable depending on the force, sorry service, but I would suggest Derbyshire, South Yorkshire, Northants and Cambridgeshire need to take a good long hard look at themselves. They certainly need to replace their chief constables.
Wales. Total systemic failure here, thanks in large part to the devolved
assembly, sorry I meanassembly government, sorry, I do wish they’d make their minds up, I mean the SELF-DECLARED Welsh government being run by somebody who’s an even bigger bellend than Matt Hancock. Um, some non-entity whose name I can never remember. Somebody who just wants to make the point that Wales isn’t England, and Wales must do something different from or better than England just coz, you know. Coz. We can, so there. Pricks (the Welsh government that is).And pretty much everything these people are responsible for, the management behind every government department, the civil service running, I mean serving, the government/s. All of it. The entire establishment has let themselves down, treated us like cattle or perhaps children, and betrayed every freedom and civil liberty our forefathers fought, and in many cases died, for.
The name is Drakeford.
Drake – a male duck. A stupid bird that quacks.
Ford – very shallow water.
Sums him up.
‘Squalid little shit’ sums him up pretty well too, if the name escapes you yet again ( no blame to you if it does).
Depends what you mean by institution, but most have failed abjectly when put to the test, especially government, church, unions, supposed “rights” and “liberties” organisations.
Places I’ve found myself turning to or relying on more than previously (apart from issue-related places such as LS): CEBM, Fox News.
Also I’ve been lucky that my local co-op has been ok. Lip-service to coronapanic, especially early on, but because it’s not usually crowded and they haven’t overdone it I’ve never had to queue to get my shopping. Turned up at bigger supermarkets a couple of times and walked away (ostentatiously) when required to queue, but never yet actually queued except iirc the first day when it caught me by surprise.
Agree we shouldn’t focus on the idiots that led this. Although I actually suspect that the root cause of this may actually be social media – and I am aware that that seems crazy. However, I think SM is responsible for our lack of higher-reasoning and inability to see through bullshit. It is also responsibly for our MSM journalists who treat news like a social media like contest. SM obsessives are now trained to uncritically be told what is *popular* or *good* to think. This has not just infected the hard-of-thinking, but also seemingly intelligent people. Social media has played on our basic instincts to the point that it has made higher-level thought inconvenient. I hope to see some research into correlation between SM use and support of logically impossible ideas such as BLM and coronapanic.
So BBC breakfast this morning .. the latest scaremongering. a long interview with a neurologist who stated that COvid causes strokes!!!.
on the positive side they have finally acknowledged that kids are barely affected
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53181525
And i see now that as well as BLM marches and street parties, football fans celebrating championships is now a valid reason for ignoring distancing guidelines (but obviously going to the beach isn’t!!)
It probably causes broken legs due to fragile bones, senile dementia and cancer too, if the BBC want it to. They are beyond parody now.
I think it does cause strokes. I don’t watch BBC breakfast so I don’t know exactly what he was saying but Covid-19 often causes endothelial damage and blood clots which can lead to strokes and heart attacks. Some people reckon the virus might be actually infecting endothelial cells. Another theory is that it’s because of ACE2 downregulation leading to oxidative stress, which explains the link with obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure.
they did mention the usual causes that you refer to of obesity,, hypertension etc, and no doubt covid might add a small additional risk particularly to those with underlying conditions, but the BBC don’t contextualise and so give impression that it is major concern
So problem is really caused by the co-morbidities then?
That’s my suspicion, endothelial/glycocalyx damage may lead to strokes AND a worse covid infection
Yes. But if it is related to ACE2 then you would see this effect with Covid, SARS1 and NL63, but not with most other coronaviruses and flus, since they don’t bind to the ACE2 receptor.
jrsm posted a link to how influenza does increase risk of stroke, but I’m prepared to believe it’s not as profound an effect.
We have epidemic levels of diabetes, obesity and D deficiency in the West and this is a large part of the problem.
It appears influenza does too:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5899905/
Almost everything they say COVID causes, influenza also appears to cause it.
it’s almost like the virus isn’t real and we’re being lied to
Hmmm. Strange that!
Actually, the neurologist didn’t say the virus causes strokes. He used the words “seems” and “might”. The BBC anchors behaved as though he said caused.
People sitting around for three months watching the BBC and only walking to the kitchen to get another beer and a pizza is causing strokes, hearth attacks, lymph elodea, obesity, pulmonary thrombosis, leg ulcers, and diabetes.
The bastard BBC won’t say anything about that will they.
“Hearth attacks.”
Freudian slip?
oops, heart attacks but yer, probably a few “hearth attacks” too as people go crazy and smash up their living rooms
The Times has an article by Joanna Williams wondering with rising unemployment why haven’t the British taken to the streets.
I posted a comment essentially saying she ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait as more shops, restaurants, pubs and visitor attractions go bust. Add in the roll back of the furlough scheme and there will be trouble ahead,,,,,,
Yes, I think the end of the furlough scheme (plus the end of the good weather!) will see a lot more very angry people, once those redundancy notices start arriving and favourite places remain permanently closed. The huge Trafford Centre (and other such places owned by the same company) are about to go into receivership. The government has been lucky so far. Who wouldn’t want to be at home in their garden during the lovely weather we have had over the last few weeks? It has created a never-ending holiday feeling. That is going to end, very very soon.
Well said. The good weather will not last and as more businesses either go under or have to retrench will mean one thing – more redundancies. A combination of bad weather and inability to find jobs quickly not to mention people being unable to live their lives will lead to frayed tempers and violence.
Didn’t know about Trafford Centre but I read somewhere that shopping centre (featured in a Carl Vernon video) with the heat sensors has also gone into administration.
Apparently the whole of the INTU group (who own the Trafford Centre and other shopping centres) are deeply in debt because their shops can’t pay their rents. INTU may own the shopping centre you mentioned.
Ah its the same company. That’s not surprising, rents were supposed to have been paid 2 days ago. Very likely that landlords have not been able to collect any rents due to the lack of trading for 3 months and hardly anyone coming in since 15 June.
In previous posts I highlighted a big problem which will happen is commercial rents. How can shops pay rent if they can’t trade and why should shops pay rent for premises they can’t use.
Oh, has Carl Vernon done an update and mentioned it has gone into administration? Hope so!
Not Carl Vernon but I saw it here:
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/shopping-centre-group-intu-properties-administration-likely-trafford-centre-lakeside-kpmg-091736371.html
Thanks once again for restoring my sanity, Toby. I am currently being driven totally mad by the blatant dishonesty of the MSM reports screaming about a ‘second wave’ when there isn’t one.
The media reaction towards the beachgoers is blatant hypocrisy and quite convincing evidence that this entire farce is total BS. We didn’t see this same finger-wagging reaction to the BLM protests, did we? What kind of messed-up world do we live in where people who just mind their own business on the beach on a sunny day are regarded as selfish criminals, and those who tear down statues, commit acts of violence, and vandalise city centres are seen as saintly freedom fighters?
Some of my bf’s university friends are posting diatribes on social media lambasting those students who choose to go back to uni to meet friends, branding them as ‘f***king selfish’. Firstly, I didn’t see any condemnation from these people in response to BLM protests, and secondly, it’s quite astounding how young healthy people have catastrophically failed to weigh up personal risk. The way my bf’s uni town is structured means that very few elderly/vulnerable people actually live in the centre – they’ve all been displaced by young students and live in the surrounding villages. Because of this, the place is a total ghost town during uni holidays and its economy is very heavily reliant on student spending. I imagine it was the same over lockdown. Therefore, I would argue that given the data we have, there is no material risk to anyone that justifies curtailment of free movement if some young healthy students choose to have a party, after months of likely being cooped up with their parents, stressed about their exams and futures. Give them a break. Last time I checked, it wasn’t very common to invite vulnerable 80 year olds to student gatherings/piss-ups…!
This is indeed total madness in which we live but rather than leaning towards theories of orchestrated crises and control, I tend to believe that perhaps this really is just a sign of the times. It is true that what’s happening is the perfect chance for opportunistic governments to bring in authoritarianism as well as for other people to make a lot of money, but maybe this surreal idiocy is just the result of a combination of factors which have combined (un)fortuitously to create a situation never seen before in human history. Big increases in risk aversion due to human health advancements in the West, as well as the proliferation of bureaucratic ‘elf and safety’ red tape. A much larger aged population in the West, again due to health advancements and a falling birth rate. A 24-hour news cycle and social media has the enormous power to ramp up fear and disseminate propaganda like never before, and social media also means that politicians feel public pressure more acutely than ever before. The internet is also perhaps one of the most democratic inventions ever – it gives everyone a personal platform. This makes people think their opinions matter more than they actually do. This makes public officials far more receptive to public opinion. You could argue that’s more democratic, but that’s a debate for another day. Nevertheless, being young, I have never known a life without the internet or social media, but even I can see that what is happening now is a sad indictment of its effects on society.
Hear, hear!!! This is really health and safety gone mad. I said as much in my email to the Wallace Collection telling them that I would not come in unless all antisocial distancing is abolished.
You may be young Poppy, but I think you have the system well weighed up! The 24 hour news, internet, social media – all these give people a sense of entitlement that their views matter and must be impressed upon others. I guess in some ways we are guilty of that here too! But it’s also one huge propaganda machine. Life has changed dramatically since I came online in the early days of dial-up. I’m not sure that it is altogether good, although it does give people the chance to come together more easily to fight back too. I guess in the end, these things are just a tool, which can be used for good or bad.
A neat summary in your third paragraph Poppy. But then I would agree with you, having thought the same all along! However, I would add a question: when did a large proportion of the population loose the ability to think for themselves?
I was solemnly told by a supermarket cashier last Monday that yesterday i.e. Sunday, 173 people had died. Oh I said where did you see that? She replied it was in the news.
The confusion of people testing positive for coronavirus with dying of COVID 19?
I’ve been constantly amazed at how scientifically illiterate people are including the government. OK, my knowledge of science is very basic – stuff I learned from school. But its appalling how many I’ve encountered who are not aware of the role of oxygen in their body – that’s basic science and yet many are ignorant of this.
Exactly – and those who are unaware that they exhale carbon dioxide and other beasties.
Some, in influential positions, think that we only ‘exhale’ when we are singing. And they have the authority to ban singing.
I’m constantly amazed how little politicians know about anything. I’m surprised they can even function as human beings.
Often people get a partial story and fill in the gaps themselves. Almost all of us (unless very aware of it) are also guilty of belief reinforcement. So I’m hardly surprised that the checkout operator conflated “infections” with “deaths”. After all, unless we do our own research, one leads to the other, innit?
Forgetting that just because you had it it doesn’t mean that it will lead to death.
And look what’s happening here…..
https://twitter.com/northumbriapol/status/1276149988981125123?s=19
Utter hypocrisy!
Northumbria police:
“We’ll be in attendance to facilitate a planned Black Lives Matter vigil at Keel Square in #Sunderland tonight.
A Section 14 order is in place forbidding any other public assembly, including counter-protests, to ensure the public’s safety. Anyone with concerns should ring 101.”
Could they get any more shamelessly servile, politically biased and cynically dishonest?
you just beat me to quoting the tweet. This is basically a statement of policy from a police force that states that despite the rules for assemblies, we, the police are specifically facilitating this illegal gathering. However we the police will actively prevent any other assembly. Will all the police in attendance take the knee?
One of the aims of BLM is to disestablish the police. Why bother. The police are active supporters.
Also, just watched last nights match of the day. I see the overpaid and naive footballers are still taking the knee. And what is worse is that BBC show that happening for every game they show highlights off, with a typical brown-nosing comment of how wonderful. etc. I also note that a number of the black/coloured/ footballers of colour / (not sure what is PC these days) also embellish the kneeling with a raised right arm and clenched fist — as per black power mexico olympics 1968. At least they werent wearing a glove. But this is where we are heading… back to the 60s..
ITV on in the background and some corry actress is saying that you cannot compare BLM protests and going to the beach and that Govt. should take the privilege away. She is added to my list. She is quite happy on her houseboat and salary and should shut the F up. Bournemouth mayor came on to tell people to stay away.
Don’t these people realise how stupid they sound and how illogical their argument is???
Unfortunately actors and celebs are not exactly the sharpest tools in the box
this isn’t the police who are choosing to this this is evidence of the people we don’t know who run things from the shadows telling them. We live in a Global Dictatorship and they are winding up the fools to think they care about black people when in reality the Global Dictatorship don’t give two fucks who you are and just want you as food.
Please can people watch this video and share. I apologies for posting before but it ties precisely with Northumbria Police bias.
Police Scotland officer saying protests have been okayed by Nicola Sturgeon’s office.
https://mobile.twitter.com/craigy33?lang=en
I’ve been assured by Scottish Police Federation such political interferrence cannot happen. The Northumbria police tweet is at odds.
Those of us with Twitter need to retweet this on the accounts of as many MPs as possible, also to Simon Dolan as it will help his case. The Police are clearly not applying the law equally to all people, as they are supposed to.
Banning counter protests in the same area as a protest that has been applied for is standard practice. What I suspect has not happened however, is that the BLM protest has actually been okayed either!
“Banning counter protests in the same area as a protest that has been applied for is standard practice.”
Usually the procedure is to allow counter protests but not in the same place at the same time. That’s not quite the same as “forbidding any other public assembly”, although the geographical terms are not stated. My suspicion is that the government and police authorities are making a special exemption from the rules that apply to others for BLM, for political reasons. Is there any reason really to doubt that? I mean, it’s not as though it’s unusual, considering the contrast between the way anti-lockdown protesters were treated previously as compared with the mobs of dupes for the BLM scum.
“What I suspect has not happened however, is that the BLM protest has actually been okayed either!”
Well the policeman on the ground quoted in the video linked by Basics above doesn’t share your opinion on that, as far as Scottish protests are concerned.
The Internet is one of the greatest inventions in history.
I agree, there are many positives to the internet and it has completely revolutionised the way we live. I met my boyfriend and quite a few of my friends online. The internet gives us access to more information than any other human civilisation has ever had before, right at our fingertips and in our pockets. That’s a good thing. However we have to recognise how powerful the internet/social media is and how that power can be used to create negative outcomes in society, either intentionally or not.
“The internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it”
today, not so much
Well said. Whenever somebody tells me about how social distancing must be followed, and the lockdown is a good thing, I just point to the BLM protests. End of argument.
It is definitely a great argument to use; you just need to point out that there has been no spike in infections or deaths since the BLM protests and there is nothing anyone can argue back with!
“That just shows that masks work”
Poppy, Stay strong, its great that you are a free thinker. I do wonder why you are like you are, are your parents old hippy conspiracy theorist types? I know its easy to feel like you are a lone operator but you aren’t. We aren’t hearing the voices of dissenters or any counter narrative as they are being viciously supressed.
We just hear the over amplified voices of the brainwashed fools. If one good thing comes out of this madness it will be that people of your generation will be able to see clearly how our government treats us like vermin, how all news is propaganda, and the system does not have the welfare of the people on their agenda. This might “break the spell” that has been destroying the UK for the last 20 years as your generation takes up the reigns.
Oh yes I remember the old days when most houses didn’t have a phone and we had to use the village phone box. I remember when there was no internet just dial-up buletin boards and news groups. They were very “free”, the WWW came along, just a few pages at first available and no search engines. That was a free platform and it stayed like that until about the early 2000’s then the internet became main stream and people had worked out how to manipulate it and control it. Now I really think that people would be much better off in so many ways if they weren’t on the internet at all and had no mobile phones.
We used to read Schnews for our non state sanctioned information. That was a good way to go. We need to go back to steam powered phones, the sneakernet, and news letters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SchNEWS
Actually look up “The Echelon System” back in the 80’s, a system ran by the NSA to detect speach in a phone call and trigger a tape recorder to start running if the caller said a “keyword” like semtex or bomb….That was when everybody talked on the phone.
It occurs to me that BBC Breakfast’s reporting on Thursday morning “Look at this beach. Isn’t it lovely? It was really hot yesterday, it’s going to be even hotter today. Wouldn’t it be a shame if lots of people went to the beach? People aren’t supposed to be gathering in large numbers, but apparently nobody can stop them” Was pretty damn irresponsible, if you actually believe that social distancing is important and unless you want to help make sure your reporting the next day could be “oh my god! Look at all these people having fun at the beach! Second waaaaaave!”
Coronacircus asking some important questions:
https://coronacircus.com/2020/06/25/coronacircus-round-two/
“Agitation propaganda” makes a lot of sense.
The reaction to George Floyd incident didn’t smell right. The immediate riots which followed were far too convenient.
A few weeks ago we were permitted to return to work if we really must, the london tubes were packed and the headlines warned of a deadly second wave….. nothing
A couple of weeks later the sun came out and the people decided not to go to work but to go to Southend beach instead, again dire warnings of a devastating second wave, surely this time….. nah, nothing
A couple of weeks later hundreds of thousands crammed into London streets to demonstrate about things they probably don’t understand very well, second wave?…. not a ripple
Yesterday we had huge crowds enjoying the sun on the beaches (take your fucking litter home with you you dirty shites!), 1000s of people attended raves all over London, 1000’s celebrated football success in Liverpool – surely this time – fingers crossed – pray to the Mystic Meg Gods……
Meanwhile the poor sop in government who drew the short straw and is due to face the ‘News’ channels tomorrow morning is praying to the rain gods…. or face more awkward questions about social distancing….
I suggest we ship over some of those crazy Twister chasers from the US – maybe they can find the second wave
I’m wondering whether it’s beginning to dawn on those who are desperate for a second wave that if they don’t get one, they are going to have to face a rather unpleasant truth-that they have all been the victims of a massive scam. For me, this second wave panic is just a face-saving exercise by the government, media, lockdown zealots etc.
I know that there are people out there who suspect that what we have gone through is in fact the second wave, as more evidence comes through that the outbreak started much earlier than we thought.
Unfortunately people just seem to hunker down in the face of evidence and reality – eg. the flat earth lot
peolpe hate to be wrong or admit being fooled – a scape goat is needed to put all the blame on – I suggest Hancock
Give me a good old-fashioned flat- earther over the current mass zombification any day. There’s many hours of entertainment to be gained from them!
If things went back to the old normal and there was no second wave they would be found out.
The solution then is to put in measures that would never allow a second wave to happen. So regardless of the possibility of a second wave they can claim that their actions stopped the second wave from happening.
Coronavirus Act expires September. Judicial review July.
I thought the Coronavirus Act lasted for 2 years? I stand to be corrected on that.
I think the Act is for two years however I did read a comment from a QC in the DT in April that the lockdown part had to be reviewed at 6 months so in September. How true that is I don’t know, someone like Francis Hoar the QC for the Simon Dolan case would probably know more.
Just found this article about the act which mentions a 6 month review.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/insights/coronavirus-bill-amended-time-limits-and-post-legislative-review/
This is from the original SI. Although there have been three amendments, I can’t see any amendment to the expiry date.
S T A T U T O R Y I N S T R U M E N T S
2020 No. 350
PUBLIC HEALTH, ENGLAND
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England)
Regulations 2020
Made – – – – at 1.00 p.m. on 26th March 2020
Laid before Parliament at 2.30 p.m. on 26th March 2020
Coming into force – – at 1.00 p.m. on 26th March 2020
Expiry
12.—(1) These Regulations expire at the end of the period of six months beginning with the day
on which they come into force.
(2) This regulation does not affect the validity of anything done pursuant to these Regulations
before they expire.
Matt Hancock
Secretary of State for Health
At 1:00 p.m. on 26th March 2020 Department for Health and Social Care
Yes, I believe the initial plan was for it to last for 2 years, but some MPs managed to force through an amendment mandating it to be reviewed every 6 months.
Steve Baker forced an amendment which means that if there is no review after six months, the Act expires. It’s a bad ‘un, however you peel it.
There a couple of different “coronavirus” acts.
The original one called The Health Protection 9Coronavirus) Regulations 2020 is the first one from the 10th Feb 2020 and it lasts 2 years:
Expiry
16.—(1) These Regulations cease to have effect at the end of the period of two years beginning on the day on which they come into force.
(2) This regulation does not affect the validity of anything done pursuant to these Regulations before they cease to have effect.
It is under this one that the “serious and imminent threat declaration” was made and posted online on the 10th Feb but I cannot get an answer under FOIs as yet on the medical advice that had to be given prior to the declaration a super this section:
Serious and imminent threat declaration
3.—(1) These Regulations apply where the Secretary of State declares, by notice published on http://www.gov.uk, that the incidence or transmission of Coronavirus constitutes a serious and imminent threat to public health, and that the incidence or transmission of Coronavirus is at such a point that the measures outlined in these Regulations may reasonably be considered as an effective means of preventing the further, significant transmission of Coronavirus (“serious and imminent threat declaration”).
(2) The Secretary of State may revoke a serious and imminent threat declaration by way of a subsequent notice published on http://www.gov.uk.
(3) Before making a declaration under paragraph (1), or revoking a declaration under paragraph (2), the Secretary of State must have due regard to any advice from the Chief Medical Officer or one of the Deputy Chief Medical Officers of the Department of Health and Social Care.
(4) The publication of a notice under paragraph (2) does not affect the validity of any steps taken pursuant to these Regulations before the notice is published.
(5) A notice published under paragraph (1) or (2) must be followed by publication of the notice in the London Gazette as soon as reasonably practicable.
What is the ‘London Gazette’???
Here it is:
https://www.thegazette.co.uk
It’s the “Official Public Record” whatever that means.
Get it on official public record the finacial aid doled out by Gates to Government Scientist and BBC is widely known and condenned by the public.
The public recognise well the pattern of investment Gates has made across Public, Academic and Private sectors has a clear motive behind it.
Latest Gates investments in, I shit you not, Lab-made breast milk (milq – so its milk but not milk) and a small 3 million ish of £or$ for male contraception development that works by ‘bashing sperm’.
The pattern is their the public see it.
https://youtu.be/6wLKo3bSouU
Victims or willing collaborators?
I’m cynical enough to have always assumed that they’ll just fabricate a 2nd wave at an appointed time.
I posted on here a couple of weeks ago the link to an article in our local rag, with analysis of the ‘first wave’ (Worcestershire). In addition to many local attendees, we get the overflow of visitors from far and wide for the Cheltenham Festival every year. Local hotels are full of attendees, taxis taking groups to and from the festival, lots of groups getting off the train in the centre of Worcester and socialising in the pubs and restaurants before getting taxis to the event. The death rates peaked in the county hospitals on 1 April. Nobody around seems to know anyone who has tested positive let alone died. Working back from the peak in deaths to positive cases, then actual infections implies absolutely no impact from the Cheltenham Festival, and of course, no impact from lockdown!
The virus will do as the virus does. It’s probably – at worst – in its quiescent stage for the moment. At best, it’s pretty much gone.
Agree.
Sweden’s Covid Expert Says WHO Made ‘Total Mistake’ in New List:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-26/sweden-s-covid-expert-says-who-made-total-mistake-in-new-list
The problem is – he’s one of these scientests that actually talks sense and is therefore on the ignore list
Think he meant to say the WHO “committed an enormous crime” …
May have been lost in translation
That list of 11 countries was discussed here yesterday. It was pretty obvious that Sweden was the odd one out and before long somebody pointed out (correctly, as now confirmed by Tegnell) that their “surge” was due to increased testing. A quick look at some of the others on Worldometers indicated that those countries were earlier in their epidemic.
But some idiot at the WHO just sorted a spreadsheet by “newly reported cases” and read off the top few without spending even a few minutes to see what was actually going on. Then avoided mentioning until asked later which actual 11 countries these were.
But not before headlines were generated which in the UK press were meant to get people worried about the lockdown being lifted here. We lift the lockdown a bit here and cases immediately go up in Kazakhstan and Sweden does more testing! Oh my gosh! Close the beaches!
This is the same World Health Organisation that asserted that the coronavirus fatality rate was 3.4%. They arrived at the figure by nothing more complex than taking the number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths.
“Close the beaches” is Matt Hancock displaying his ignorance again. This government has already said we are “at war with covid”. Under Article 33 of the Geneva Convention 1949, collective punishment (“Some of you have broken our ‘guidelines’, so nobody can now go to the beach”) is a war crime.
For the pedants, who claim this “war” is rhetorical, the Geneva Convention is part of international law, so it is a crime against humanity as well. And if I recall correctly, crimes against humanity carry a harsher sentence than war crimes.
Those who have, and are, propagandising for the lockdown measures (which are clearly lethal) are also guilty of crimes against humanity, as the Nuremberg Tribunal trial of Julius Streicher showed.
Yes, am looking forward to establishing culpability over the lockdown. Followed by trials.
The political elite will not allow an inquiry with the establishing of culpability in its remit, as so many of them are culpable. The best we can expect as something on the lines of lessons learnt.
One step at a time Steve. Let’s get the result of Dolan’s judicial review first!
The Sumption Enquiry would be good. Never gong to be allowed to happen though. An enquiry by Lord Gove is possible.
If Hancock is stupid enough to close the beaches then he will see what happens, total anarchy!
He’ll probably trigger a riot.
And they would use a riot to justify tightening the lockdown.
That may be true but their credibility is now is tatters – I seriously doubt anyone is really taking them seriously now.
I said that
Then we are in agreement :o))
The problem with Toby’s new T-shirt design is that no one likes to admit we voted conservative – we always tell the polesters we are undecided or voting Lib Dem….
If I were to weae that Tshirt some of the places I go I’ll constantly be in a fight
wear – my edit buttons having none of it – ha, just worked
Whilst I don’t want to take money from Toby, you may prefer these https://shop.spreadshirt.co.uk/delingpod/all
thats more like it – ordered
Better!
Looks really good, in-yer-face-zombie-bastards, have ordered a hoodie.
[George Eustice] told BBC Breakfast that people have “generally” observed current social distancing rules – keeping 2m apart from other households.
Asked specifically about scenes on the south coast of England, he said: “We just have to recognise yesterday was the hottest day of the year, incredibly hot, a lot of people had the same idea, they all went to the beach, and yes of course those scenes at Bournemouth are a matter for concern.
“Those scenes” are taken by press photographers using telephoto lenses where you simply can’t tell how far people are apart. It’s almost as if they want to make the beaches look more crowded than they are, and as though people are closer together than they are.
If the government caved and changed the law, they would be denying people their fundamental freedoms based on images taken by anonymous photographers, whose interpretation is purely subjective, thus doing the bidding of a press that loathes the government. If the government did this, they would be confirming their spinelessness. When they eventually lifted the ban on free people in a free country going where they pleased, they would face equal criticism from the press. They may as well just ignore the BBC et al.
“people have “generally” observed current social distancing rules – keeping 2m apart from other households.”
Thing is, why would anyone sit within 6′ of another group on a beach anyway, unless crowding required it? 6′ is about the normal minimum social spacing between groups I think. In fact if you were sitting on an empty beach and some stranger came and sat down 6′ away you’d wonder why they were doing so, ordinarily. You’d assume they wanted to talk or something.
Partly reassuring/partly worrying visit to the big smoke yesterday. By big smoke I mean Newport, the nearest (but definitely not within 5 miles) city to where I live. Out of town retail park which is usually busy, even mid week during term time. Quieter than I’ve ever seen it. That’s the worrying part. Shops in Wales have only been open since Monday but no one is flocking to them. The retailers must be terrified. I went into Boots and big Tescos. Boots was empty as were the rest of the stores judging by the empty parking spaces and lack of people wandering round.
The reassuring part was the almost complete lack of face masks. Outside I saw only a couple people in masks and they were SE Asian, so I guess it feels natural to them. In Tesco another two, plus a lone staff member but the vast vast majority were face mask free including all the staff, bar that one person filling shelves. You honestly wouldn’t have known there was anything different going on if you teleported down into the middle of the store. There was a vague attempt at a one way system but people were pretty much just ignoring it. No one was getting stressed. People were stopping and chatting in the aisles, the staff were standing together chatting and laughing. It was all rather lovely. Sad that witnessing such normality is a relief.
Would be even sadder if we didn’t have even that much!
I was in my local high street on Monday and it was hardly different from during lockdown in terms of how many people were in the high street.
Worthing beach was the same, which implies that everywhere was the same. Nothing special about Worthing or Bournemouth.
I would imagine that most South Coast beaches were like Bournemouth yesterday. And why not when there is nothing else to do and its very hot.
I imagine everywhere was like that. But if you’re trying to enforce a lockdown you don’t want headlines that say, “Lockdown Over! We’re All At The Beach!”
Southend was. Very gladdening sight as well..
I saw the report in several papers. All worded exactly the same.
So, there was only the one report, covering UK’s entire coastline?
!!!
Local rags have long since been franchised. Check out BBC Local Democracy Reporters who are BBC journalists embedded on the staff of local rags. Undisclosed in the paper so readers are unaware they are reading a BBC journalists work. Local Demoracy Reporter may appear as subtitle to writer.
Why would the BBC have such an initiative?
Further, be aware of BBC Media Action.
I saw the report in the nationals. Grad, DT, Mail and I think the Sun. They were pretty much ad verbum.
This makes me pop a blood vessel.
Our hypocritical, scared of his own shadow unless he’s being ‘woke’, Drakeford (Wokeford) is threatening not to lift lockdown measures further because of beach parties, but he was totally fine with all the BLM protests – no threats were made following those just a polite request that the WG preferred people not to go on them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53186920
Though to be honest everyone I know has decided lockdown is over anyway so whatever Drakeford does or doesn’t do is pretty irrelevant. Unless you own a bar/pub/restaurant or holiday accommodation that is
Been ignoring him tbh.
Refer you to my comment regarding Matt Hancock and collective punishment below. Same goes for Drakeford. Perhaps they can share a poo bucket in their cell.
https://twitter.com/liarpoliticians/status/1276443407230140416 Tobias Ellwood now saying no one will be allowed to visit a beach if they do not accept the vaccine – outrageous! Would be good if someone could get this link onto Simon Dolan’s Twitter feed…
How the hell do they imagine they’re going to police that?
“Those scenes were unacceptable…”
Yet more BS. This is a free country, we are governed by consent. That consent is evaporating.
Carrie I’ve retweeted the tweet copying Simon Dolan in so hopefully he’ll pick up on it.
Thank you!
All MPs and their families to take the vaccine in public. All Common Purpose cronies and their families too.
And MSM journos.
They would just see to it that they were injected with some harmless substance instead..
What an absolute CHARLIE
Notice the beach is almost deserted today.
“Enduring pandemic” bollox.
You think they deserve a bucket? It’s more than they allowed the rest of us until recently.
The problem is for the businesses. It’s so unfair to them!
I do think Witty and Vallance need to be quizzed on the significance of false positives. Have any of the journalists heard of the concept of base rate fallacy?
We don’t know whetherall the reported new infections have been identified by RT-PCR tests or some type of of immunoassay. The former has a much greater specificity (lower rate of false positives) than the latter. However the accuracy is dependent on good clinical conditions and experienced professionals administering the tests. We don’t know to what extent the huge ramp up in testing has allowed for these critical factors in accuracy.
That huge ramp up gives rise to an obvious problem. If you are testing 200,000 people a false positive rate of only 1 per cent. means 2000 people will be falsely identified as infected. According to Worldometer one has to go back to May 27th to see that many new daily cases in the UK.
Where rates of infection are so low vs the rate of testing the test needs to be 100% accurate in order to provide policy guiding data.
Surely this is why concentrating on death rates/hospitalization rates is a far more accurate way of tracking the virus? Of course accurate death rates rely on accurate death reporting – the old from or with argument.
It is although there are still inconsistent reporting delays which hinder the usefulness of the data.
As for deaths it is not just the from or with problem there is also the presumed problem where care home administrators have been certifying covid as cause of death with no testing whatsoever.
Agree the death rate is the only thing we should look at. This virus is now here forever (similar to flu virus) and people will get infected but most will live (same as getting flu).
I couldn’t find this linked to anywhere though I’ve probably missed it, apologies if so, but a really interesting study. We’ve seen similar figures before IFR = 0.24%, asymptomatic cases 85%
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/25/highest-coronavirus-immunity-found-austrian-ski-resort/
‘I need a new political home, as I suspect do many readers of this site, right and left. More on that soon…’
Gnomic……
But then there is a clue….
‘…..the failure of liberal custodians of American artistic, educational, business and entertainment institutions to stand up to the Jacobite mob.’
Whilst in no way condoning the more thuggish tendency of the clearly numerous U.S. Jacobite monarchistic movement, could this be the new political home that Toby has in mind, nirvana, for so many lockdown sceptics:
‘Prinz Franz von Bayern (painting by Dieter Stein), the legitimate heir to the Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France. Prinz Franz inherits his legitimacy to the throne of these United States as the legitimate heir to the Stuart kings of England under whom the first English colonies were established in what became these United States. As the United States threw off the oppressive rule of the House of Hanover, who usurped the House of Stuart, we feel that the Jacobite successors of the House of Stuart are the legitimate holders of any American throne.’
https://www.facebook.com/pg/AmericanJacobiteSociety/posts/
A creative solution to so many problems in both nations.
Cometh the hour……..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lprk1SBBqB0
dont think this has been noted here …..
https://order-order.com/2020/06/26/ipsa-gives-another-taxpayer-boost-to-mps-budgets/
so additional money for our hard working and dedicated MPs who have earned our respect over the last 4 months
They don’t deserve it!
You don’t say??!!!
Wow, my son and DIL have been working their socks off from home – on reduced pay.
Talk about being in the wrong job!
Love the T-shirt. Can I have one with Scott Morrison’s picture on it?
How many are really dying from Covid-19?
Rob Verkerk PhD provides an update on the Covid pandemic. Deaths and infection rates, UK’s lockdown relaxation, vaccines, the virus’ origins and how government’s have failed to get behind a cheap and simple preventative that could save lives.
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/coronacast-6-how-many-are-really-dying/
“In 2018, based on World Health Organization data 2,947,050 people died from flu and pneumonia this being the 4th leading cause of death worldwide.
Another way of looking Covid-related deaths is by looking at rolling averages – 7-day rolling averages. This allows us to get a good idea of where we are on the trajectory – how far down the slope of the main epidemic wave we are. Well – in many countries – including the UK – we’re clearly a long way down the slope as we can see here in this Our World in Data graph.
But let’s remember to remind ourselves that death counts have been particularly inaccurate because of the suspension of post mortems and pathology services in most countries meaning it’s been wrong to do as the media often do and refer to these as covid deaths which implies they’re covid caused, whereas they are simply covid associated – or sometimes even just covid allocated – where there’s been a bit of fudging, as so apltly put by Dr John Lee in an article in the UK’s Spectator magazine, for which, ironically, Boris Johnson once acted as editor.
When we don’t know what deaths are cause by covid or not – as we’ve explained in a previous coronacast, a more reliable measure is excess mortality. That’s looking at any excess of deaths compared with those that would be expected in a given month or year – based on previous and recent history. Here it’s useful to look at the 24 EuroMOMO partner countries the data from which are pooled through the European Mortality Monitoring Project established originally by the European Commission in 2008 and is now supported by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (the ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe.”
How many are really dying from Covid-19?
Rob Verkerk PhD provides an update on the Covid pandemic. Deaths and infection rates, UK’s lockdown relaxation, vaccines, the virus’ origins and how government’s have failed to get behind a cheap and simple preventative that could save lives.
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/coronacast-6-how-many-are-really-dying/
“In 2018, based on World Health Organization data 2,947,050 people died from flu and pneumonia this being the 4th leading cause of death worldwide.
Another way of looking Covid-related deaths is by looking at rolling averages – 7-day rolling averages. This allows us to get a good idea of where we are on the trajectory – how far down the slope of the main epidemic wave we are. Well – in many countries – including the UK – we’re clearly a long way down the slope as we can see here in this Our World in Data graph.
But let’s remember to remind ourselves that death counts have been particularly inaccuratebecause of the suspension of post mortems and pathology services in most countries meaning it’s been wrong to do as the media often do and refer to these as covid deaths which implies they’re covid caused, whereas they are simply covid associated – or sometimes even just covid allocated – where there’s been a bit of fudging, as so apltly put by Dr John Lee in an article in the UK’s Spectator magazine, for which, ironically, Boris Johnson once acted as editor.
Some time ago on this site, somebody posted a letter from the British Institute of Pathologists, expressing concern that so few autopsies were being performed, and pointing out that the results would provide information about the virus and hence help to deal with it.
Clearly, somebody in government does not want accurate knowledge about the virus to be obtained.
Talking about autopsies, I think there has been a huge increase in the number of deceased that pathologists are having to deal with right now THAT HAVE BEEN DEAD FOR MORE THAN THREE WEEKS! (so somebody I know who knows a pathologist said)
I went to see a customer recently she said an old guy died in his flat in her block and nobody noticed untill the stench of his festering corpse became too much to bear for the other residents. Nobody noticed he had died during the lockdown. There must be loads of this going on.
I fear so. There was a news story a while back about a couple who nearly died of hunger because they were too scared to go out and shop. How many will have died of Coronapanic?
I would like to know how exactly deaths have been classed as Covid. Have there been deaths where deaths have been classed as covid without any justification eg no symptoms and no tests for virus. Even if people have been tested for Covid, how reliable are the tests. Are death statistics being fiddled? I have asked the question before; if coronavirus is such a dangerous and deadly disease why is it necessary to falsify death statistics by adding people who haven’t died of coronavirus but something else?
The answer in the rules is fairly straightforward:
– Covid is a notifiable disease, so if it is present, it needs to go on the certificate. There are three parts to a certificate: part 1 is what caused the death; part 2 is contributing factors; part 3 is anything known to be present
– The government made the decision for reasons of transparency (apparently) that any death with Covid on the certificate anywhere should be included in the numbers. My personal opinion is that this was done out of fear that some journalist would discover that there were X thousand deaths not included in the numbers with Covid in part 3 (or even 2) and they didn’t want to face the fuss that would come from that. Others here will have different opinions as to the “why”
It’s probable that in addition to the above (which is built into the process), there will also be a number of cases where Covid is on the certificate because the rules as to how much knowledge of, and recent interaction with, the deceased a doctor must have had before signing the certificate have been relaxed and Covid is both front of mind and easy. We will never know how many fall into this category.
No autopsy = no definite diagnosis – besides the fact that the tests are bollox.
When we don’t know what deaths are cause by covid or not – as we’ve explained in a previous coronacast, a more reliable measure is excess mortality. That’s looking at any excess of deaths compared with those that would be expected in a given month or year – based on previous and recent history. Here it’s useful to look at the 24 EuroMOMO partner countries the data from which are pooled through the European Mortality Monitoring Project established originally by the European Commission in 2008 and is now supported by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (the ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe.”
I met Rob Verkerk many years ago – he is one of the ‘good guys’!
GM by the backdoor in the UK?
Under EU regulations the UK has been protected from the onslaught of genetically modified animals, plants and foods. With Brexit looming and the passage of the new UK Agriculture Bill through Parliament, vested interests are trying sneak GM technologies in through the back door. Support for the inclusion of genome editing appears to come predominantly from those in Parliament with close ties to agribusiness. Opposition to the amendment seems to have been effective as it has yet to be tabled. However, despite consumer opposition to such technologies in the food chain, it’s unlikely to quietly disappear given the power of the pro-GM lobby in the UK.
Franken food
GM is different to genome editing.
GM by the backdoor in the UK?Under EU regulations the UK has been protected from the onslaught of genetically modified animals, plants and foods. With Brexit looming and the passage of the new UK Agriculture Bill through Parliament, vested interests are trying sneak GM technologies in through the back door.
Support for the inclusion of genome editing appears to come predominantly from those in Parliament with close ties to agribusiness. Opposition to the amendment seems to have been effective as it has yet to be tabled. However, despite consumer opposition to such technologies in the food chain, it’s unlikely to quietly disappear given the power of the pro-GM lobby in the UK.
Support for the inclusion of genome editing appears to come predominantly from those in Parliament with close ties to agribusiness.
Surprise, surprise…!
Worrying, we need to make sure Simon Dolan is up to speed on this..
Opposition to the amendment seems to have been effective as it has yet to be tabled.
However, despite consumer opposition to such technologies in the food chain, it’s unlikely to quietly disappear given the power of the pro-GM lobby in the UK.
nothing wrong with GM as long as it has controls. I guess you would be a supporter of greenpeace and their continuous campaigning against golden rice which as you are no doubt aware is GM crop which contains additional vitamin A which if grown and consumed in the third world would reduce the 600,000+ children aged under 5 that die each year from vitamin A deficiency.
It is not so black and white as you make out.
No I am not pro-Greenpeace. One objection I have is when crops are modified in such a way that you cannot collect seeds and grow a new crop, ie you have to re-buy seeds every year.
GM crops have been engineered to need repeated spraying with toxins like glyphosate. It’s all a big con trick.
Carrie – yes – i agree that GM and patented seeds that cannot be reused is an issue and can lead to dependency or higher costs. It is the same if you buy an F1 hybrid plant from the garden centre. You cannot grow another from the seeds (might even be infertile) as the nurseries want to make money from it.
This is a concern hence in my original post i referred to controls being in place
However Golden Rice has been made freely available (see my post below) and it is the blanket GM ban from Greenpeace and others and specific objections to Golden Rice that i object to.
After all most of the food we eat is a result of cross breeding to improve characteristics.
Unfortunately a lot of people think GM is all about creating 6 legged turkeys that will feed a family at christmas
Information is factually incorrect and that is exactly what is available in MSM.
GMO Golden Rice Is Fake News Propaganda
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/11/14/gmo-golden-rice.aspx
GMO Golden Rice Offers No Nutritional Benefits Says FDAhttps://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/gmo-golden-rice-offers-no-nutritional-benefits-says-fda
Genetically Engineered Golden Rice Falls Short on Lifesaving Promise
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/06/28/genetically-engineered-golden-rice.aspx
“Golden Rice, genetically engineered to produce beta-carotene, has been billed as a panacea for vitamin A deficiency in Third World countries
The GE rice has failed to perform well in field trials, with yields lacking compared to conventional rice varieties
Evidence has not shown that malnourished children will be able to convert beta-carotene, a fat-soluble nutrient, in Golden Rice into vitamin A, especially given their low-fat diets
Research is lacking to show whether the beta-carotene in Golden Rice will stand up to long storage periods and traditional rice cooking methods
There is, in essence, no reason to create a GE food that contains beta-carotene in order to relieve vitamin A deficiency. Such foods exist already in nature.
The real solution would be to help the developing world improve access to real sources of beta-carotene and other nutrients, including animal products like eggs, cheese and meat, and vegetables such as dark leafy greens and sweet potatoes.”
ah yes -links to Mercola. According to wikipedia Mr Mercola is
“an American charlatan, alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, … ”
so I am not impressed with the references you have copied and pasted
Try these
Wikipedia on Golden Rice
http://www.goldenrice.org/
I will let the readers compare and see which stand up…
Wikipedia is SUCH a trusted source of information – not!
Most people on this site critically evaluate various sources of information and then form an informed viewpoint. In addition they know that various valuable sources of information are banned, ridiculed or mislabeled such as with lockdownsceptics as it goes against the current agenda.
Even school children will tell you that Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information as it can be edited by about anyone and especially those with an agenda. https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/05/26/wikipedia-co-founder-sites-neutrality-is-dead-thanks-to-leftist-bias/
You obviously have strong views about complementary medicine and non-conventional health practitioners and that is your right. The recommended articles (mercola.com & greenmedinfo.com) are well referenced and fact checked.
and that is what i was doing – providing people on this site with an alternate source to the site of (as you put it) “a non conventional health practitioner” so that they can make up their own minds
and to be honest, a non conventional health practitioner could have made a far better job of dealing with covid than the NHS have !!!!
Greetings Fellow Sceptics!
I took the underground today to do some shopping and didn’t wear any face covering (I had the exemption in my phone just in case) and there were slightly more people who were not muzzled compared those who were.
Not surprisingly it was fairly dead, got chatting with a woman in the queue who had lost her job and she was worried about her child who was depressed – wanting to go to school and missing his friends and his activities. We both agreed that this lockdown and all the social distancing was insane and criminal.
On the way back there was this old lady wearing a muzzle who looked like she was about to pass out. Thankfully she had the presence of mind to remove it before she did. If she had passed out I would have done it for her.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-safer-travel-guidance-for-passengers#exemptions-face-coverings
The TFL webisite has it.
At our large out-of-town M and S this morning we had to queue for 25 minutes to get into the food hall. My husband and I always make sure that we talk about the ridiculousness of it all in the hope that something we say may be overheard and might prompt a discussion with one of the muzzled and gloved brigade.
At the till, a member of staff came up to refill the face mask box they have at all the tills now and asked us if we wanted any. My husband replied that we were “conscientious objectors” and I told her that we wouldn’t go anywhere that required us to be muzzled. The girl on the till agreed with me that people had quite happily shopped at M and S during February and early March without any worries at all even though the infection rate must have been at its highest then. Unfortunately the muzzled and gloved couple waiting behind us didn’t seem to cotton on!
That’s brilliant being conscientious objectors, I must remember to use that.
I get the feeling that supermarket workers have long ago cottoned on the fact that this is all bollocks. I remembered as chat I had with a Sainsburys bloke who said that no-one in his team had been off sick since this madness began and they have quite a diverse work force in terms of age.
Unfortunately the masked and gloved couple behind you and your husband must be far gone. The fact that they were wearing both is a testament to that.
Brainwashed fools
Some are, but others are just brainwashed victims. They need fixing.
One of the couple might well be reading this very thread! Just that that half of couple doesn’t wear the trousers. Don’t underestimate a good seed planted well.
I like the t-shirt. How about a lockdown sceptics face mask with the bulldog print?
I’d like a union jack ventilator
The situation in the arts sector is dire:
https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/uk-creative-industries-pandemic-loss-closure_51789.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=16June2020
Unfortunately I work in the sector on the software side of things, so I’m not feeling optimistic!
This criminal lockdown has to end in full now.
To be honest unless they stop the anti social distancing measures most of the arts is doomed. With it in place the cost of going to the theatre will sky rocket so who would be willing to pay to go.
Its going to be the same in my sector as well – we’re looking at far lower visitor numbers and it won’t be surprising if museums and galleries with the antisocial distancing measures and having to prebook even for those that are free will end up with even less visitors as they won’t want the hassle of prebooking and having to be treated as Typhoid Mary.
We are permitting a bunch of tyrants to take our liberty and destroy our prosperity and there is no sign of hope that I can see.
A well know and very well loved theatre is going to close for ever soon, I talked to the manager a few weeks ago.
I received an email from a struggling theatre. It included the following:
“Our income will not simply leap back to what it was before the crisis.
We have an active Community Outreach programme which works with vulnerable groups in the community. These include Women’s Aid for victims of domestic abuse, Age UK tackling loneliness amongst the older generation, Bury Drop-In for the homeless, Recovery’s Got Talent for those with a drug or alcohol addiction and The Befrienders Hub for adults with learning disabilities. The theatre provides a life-line for these people to have a voice. This vital work needs your help to continue.”
I’d love to shove that in the face of all those sanctimonious social-distancing morons out there. And see how they can continue to justify this thoroughly evil policy.
I would be tempted to write back to them and simply say that if they have supported the lockdown then they have contributed to their own problems.
They should seek contributions specifically from the parties responsible – lockdown supporters.
Can you say which?
not really its a small ish local one
A childrens play area nearby was open on Monday but when we went back today it had been cordoned off by the fun police. This bureaucratic heavy handedness is utter lunacy in my view
It’s sad to see them standing empty. In one play area near us, as well having chains on the gates and Covid warnings- the swings have been tied up, the roundabout has hazard tape all around it, and the seat for the zip wire has been removed. All to make doubley sure.
At the beginning of the lockdown, our son would point at every playground we passed and say “play area closed”. Now he shows no interest at all. We got a slide for the garden thinking he’d be really excited by it, but he wont go near it. Maybe he thinks that all play equipment must not be allowed, or that it’s dangerous. I’ve tried to talk to him about it but he doesnt seem to talk at all now days, and doesnt listen either.
I think lots of preschool aged children must have been very disturbed by the lockdown and I think healing will take some time. Probably when they open, some children will take some persuading to return, and when they do, will have to relearn climbing and playing
Sorry for moaning about it.
Don’t apologise for moaning about it ! What has been done to our children is so inhumane it is beyond words we must never forget this and it has to be said until those responsible have been held to account. I don’t know how we are going to do that.
This madness is incredibly cruel for the young ones. It’s almost unimaginable that this has been allowed to happen. What the actual hell do they think the risks are from catching covids from play equipment?? Lunacy on steroids.
James. I remember you saying a few weeks ago he was struggling because he couldn’t see his Nana. I hope he has/is able to see her now and wondered whether she might be able to coax him into playing on the slide? The whole thing is so unnatural.
Thank you. This site has been an important resource and support for me.
Son is now seeing Nana a couple of times a week!
It’s a bit sad that he used to be so close to her and now he is quite shy and withdrawn, in his own world, but I am hopeful that in a few months he will be playing with her again, and going on the slide. As long as we dont get another lockdown later in the year. (I don’t think we will as it will be pretty obvious by then, even to the BBC how extreme the Covid reaction has been).
I am also hopeful that the lockdown damage will heal. I expect there will be children – especially disadvantaged and SEN that will lose a year of academic progress. It would be interesting to see some scientific research into the effect of lockdown on non-verbal children. I wonder if that turns out to be the case.
What a huge relief to be able to drive to my mums. I have a job interview coming up next week so thank goodness I have somewhere to escape then for a couple of hours prep.
I do not feel any gratitude for having this freedom returned to me as I resent having lost it – but I am relieved!
Good luck for the job interview!
Quite, worse than the Wee Free in Scotland, who used to chain up children’s playgrounds. But that was only on a Sunday, not for months on end.
Was that because they were expected to be at Sunday school? Sunday was too holy a day for children to play.
Our current tyrants are certainly Wee, but not Free.
Crivens! will nobody knock them on their horrid wee heids?
James – I really feel for you. We’re now actively ignoring the remaining rules to make sure the boys (older than yours from the sounds of things) are seeing as much as possible of their friends. I’d urge you to find some like minded parents of kids the same age as yours and go and have the kids spend as much time as possible playing together. I’m finding that there are few parents who are not like minded at this point – including ones who were cowering under their beds a few weeks ago.
Kids need to play with other kids. If there’s a single thing you can pull out of the godawful decisions made over this thing, that’s more stupid and more evil than any of the others, it’s the rules that have stopped them from doing it.
I completely agree matt, we will try to do so. We have had several garden meets.
One of his friends is the same age but far more advanced that our son in language and ability. Interesting to see that he was also very withdrawn, and not at all inclined to play. This made me think that some of the behavioral changes we have seen may not be unusual. Perhaps many preschool aged children may be affected in various ways by the social isolation, changes in adult behaviours and disrupted routines.
Of all the restrictions and measures enacted to ‘save us’, the ones that deprive children of fun and instead fill their minds with scary propaganda are totally inexcusable and evil.
I’ve had to explain to my boys who are a bit older that the people(straw men) in charge have utterly overreacted to this virus and gone a bit over the top (to put it mildly) which immediately made them relax, as opposed to them being unable to get to sleep from having been shown daily during registration CBBC Newsround apocalyptic horror tales in March before the schools closed. The tied-up swings, biohazard tape around slides etc makes me so angry. It’s so insane and a feels like a visual, visceral assault. In April my husband took the boys to a local park grass area and the boys went on ahead on their bikes and waited for him there on a bench. They were questioned by a policeman on a motorbike and told off for sitting on the bench, that it might have been contaminated with coronavirus and where exactly did they live etc. The policeman then went off to interrogate other families sitting on the ground. They were in tears when their Dad appeared 5 mins later. This was in a small suffolk town. I feel for all the kids especially the little ones who just want to play with their friends.
To add to this I have just had to sign an agreement with my child’s school that since lockdown started I HAVE never, and WILL never, disobey government guidelines on lockdown in my private life, in order for my child to be allowed to attend school for one day. I also have to sign that I am happy for them NOT to be allowed to refill water bottles for fear of contamination by using the school tap. (And they are encouraged not to show excitement vocally). I seem to be the only parent with a problem with this.
I think I’d have not signed but I guess this is what parents are up against to get children back to school. I can’t see what right the school has to ask these kind of questions.
All of this sounds illegal to me.
What age is this?
This is 10 year old. I complained and kicked up a fuss, but was met with ‘take it or leave it’. 10 year old begged me to take it. I had to sign.
My little one’s school didn’t ask for anything similar, but if they had, I’d have signed too. Getting him back to school was too important to stand on principle.
I signed the form we were given. It was a list of boxes each requiring an “accept”. Much of it was sensible (eg. Don’t bring your child in if they seem ill), there was a statement about following government advice, which was pretty vague. I think they are covering themselves. If an inspector asked to see their Covid risk assessment, they have everything.
I dont know the law, but I imagine if a school was not taking covid seriously enough, I’m sure a public health inspector would love to investigate and bring a prosecution.
Publishing an image of the form would be useful.
That’s pretty disgraceful, although it might not be avoidable if it’s a private school.
However, I think you should email Toby now with a copy of that agreement. Education’s his specialist subject. Firstly, he might be able to help you directly, and second he will know if it’s worth raising the issue publicly.
Like most people, I complained on parent group and was left adrift by others too scared to agree publicly. Now obviously worried that will become ‘that awkward parent’. I absolutely cannot understand why other parents are happy with this. And of course, we still have to go through the whole temperature check shenanigans to get through the gates….
I think you are right to be reluctant to stand out as an “awkward parent”. But I do think sending it to Toby is the best thing to do now. He will be well aware of how and why to protect identities in these things, but it might be that he knows of ways to address such nonsense. He might have encountered it elsewhere or know of the best procedures to object to it.
i’m the parent they don’t like because i’m the parent that calls them out for their lunacy. They didn’t like it when i complained that the english class my 14 year old was in had no books, not one, anywhere. They were watching a video about black ghetto’s in the 90’s in America and had been doing this for weeks. He told me he hadn’t written a word in this class for months. Schools are so bad right now i don’t think most people have the faintest idea how bad and would probably not believe you if you told them.
Well I admit that I wasn’t a very popular parent either, especially as far as the “PSHE” state propagandists were concerned. but it takes a certain character type to be willing to do that and put your kids through it (I’ll have to ask them some time whether they’ve completely forgiven me yet).
I have kicked up a fuss several times over the years. I would say, however, many teachers – sadly mainly women – can be pretty nasty and seek to take it out on the children. The other problem I have encountered is the ‘busy body’ types in the parent association – I don’t do tombolla stalls and dressing up days to raise funds as I suffer quickly from compassion fatigue!
I know personality type comes into this a fair bit, but I was often an awkward parent (long done with all that now my two are grown and flown). I often had to remind teachers that I had never stood in the way of them doing their jobs, but in the final reckoning, I was their customer. I was (and am) a taxpayer, and they were supposed to provide a service.
I didn’t always get my way, but we got some silly things knocked on the head and some useful compromises.
Stand your ground. What happens outside school is none of their damned business.
We had a similar situation more than 16 years ago when the decision was made at our sons’ school to have fingerprint access to library books. We were the only family to object (on grounds it was a disproportionate response to the possibility of library books going missing), saying we would just buy any books needed if that was what it came to. The school backed off and gave them a barcode instead. Kick up a fuss on the water bottles as the first port of call – by making a point of giving him a set of single use plastic bottles to take in every day!
I’ve said before how we need to get cult de-programmers on board, to somehow try and shake people out of their psychosis… but maybe the situation is now beyond their skills. It just gets more and more extreme by the day. This is a world that has gone beyond unrecognisable.
Olive, that is so serious it ought to be dealt with by lawyers.
I would have also been very tempted to ask the person giving you the form if their surname was McCarthy. If they are teachers they wouldn’t have understood the reference anyway as McCarthy was white and therefore not in the syllabus.
Good grief! That’s draconian gone bonkers.
Ask to see their risk assessment with the scientific guidance they used to cook up the contract you signed.
Ask about the qualifications of the people who drew up the risk assessment.
So hard for parents to be put through this. Feel for you.
We should go round the play parks drawing chalk outlines of childrens bodies with the label “Rona” next to them.
I was seriously considering printing and laminating some signs saying “why are you torturing our children?” and going round attaching them to fences around playgrounds with cable ties.
But they’re opening next weekend, so it’s probably a bit of a futile gesture at this point
Matt- I wish I’d thought of that!
Cordoned using what, Bill ? That tape stuff cuts easily …
Well exactly but you don’t want to put the local jobsworth in a difficult position. It is policy handed down by the lunatics supposedly following the science whilst allowing massive protest marches! We are beyond angry but what can you do? Write to the MP again and receive platitudinous crap for the fourth time?
Chief constables are understood to have expressed private concern to the Home Office that plans to ease the coronavirus restrictions might lead to a rise in public disorder.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53187031
Not half the rise you’ll see if you don’t!!
So would they suggest keeping restrictions in place forever to avoid the possibility of public disorder?
That’s how I read it.
Are these the same senior police officers who colluded with the Black Lives Matter illegal actions?
Statement from the constabulary regarding last night’s musical gathering in Brixton
Very likely.
And Northumbria police have tweeted that they will be ‘facilitating’ a BLM vigil… selective policing or what?
My brain is certainly on a go-slow today. I read it twice, and don’t understand the point they have made (not an unusual occurrence reading BBC news). So the reason we are seeing violence towards police is that lockdown restrictions are too lax? In order for public order to be preserved the lives of the general public must remain on pause?
Understand why someone who believes a 2nd wave is coming may want lockdowns to stay, but the argument that we need then to prevent violence is odd.
During the lockdown the police had so little policing to do, they had to resort to telling people they were not allowed in their own gardens and had to go inside immediately; they had to try to shame people for walking their dogs; they had to tell people they could sit on a park bench; they had to make public announcements warning the public that they were not allowed to purchase non-essential items, and that if they did, an officer might have to check their shopping baskets. It is easy to see why the police would like that situation to continue forever.
They (senior officers that is) made total nobs of themselves over the “we’ll be checking shopping bags for non-essential items” line. Quantum mechanics, I forgive you. It’s not the same world gone mad, it’s a mad world that’s kidnapped me from my proper home. Send me back! Send me back!
Video: “The Coronavirus lockdown is unlawful and the fines issued are void”
According to the maker, the police are acting ultra vires.
https://youtu.be/tfWOUgHSq24
He is no fan of the police, and if you watch some of his other videos you can see why.
Useful chart:
Just noticed however, that the post is dated May 6th.
Boris did say last week that
the social distancing regs are now guidelines not law, so much of the chart is probably obsolete.
Sorry – would have deleted the chart post if possible!
On another site (Guido I think) I got shouted at for saying at the very beginning that the lockdown is a power grab and, once civil liberties were taken away, that we’d have to fight to get them restored.
The power grab is becoming more and more brazen every day.
If people don’t swallow the 2nd wave myth, try another lie ….
Caught an Uber today for the first time in months. I had to wear a face mask (surgical one) and this was the first time I’ve done it since lockdown. What a horrible experience. Claustrophobic and so so hot! It’s really uncomfortable.
I later went to my doctor’s surgery and received a full on interrogation at the entrance.
– Do you have a face covering?
– Have you any symptoms such as a cough or temperature?
– Have you been near anyone displaying virus like symptoms?
She was treating me like I was carrying ebola. When I collected what I needed from the receptionist, I smiled to say thank you but realised my smile was hidden from view. It’s sad.
What sort of world have we created? Mankind has survived for millions of years without the need for face coverings and masks? So why start now?
Because everybody has been driven insane
Didn’t someone say on here you could specify to Uber that you don’t (can’t?) wear a mask and get a driver who’s ok with that?
I think you can contact them via the app. There must be an official word for “fear of masks”?
Law abiding citizen? Those in masks are usually criminals.
Sanity.
But perhaps we should invent a more specific and polysyllabic one.
Maskophobia (seriously)
Maskaphobia, or fear of masks, is surprisingly common, especially among children. However, it is important to note that this fear is often a part of normal childhood development. Therefore, like most phobias, it is not diagnosed in children unless it persists for six months or longer.
I was really disappointed by the word “maskophobia” because it doesn’t sound nearly interesting enough. So I did a search to see if I could find a better term. I can’t (booooring) but I did find this under google’s “common questions” section, from the NHS website:
“ Face masks do not protect you from COVID-19. It is much more important to wash your hands properly and avoid touching your face and eyes. Specific types of face masks can protect health professionals looking after people with the virus.”
So there’s that. Also, I think the word _should_ be prosoponophobia. Phobia is Greek and prosopon is the Ancient Greek word for a theatrical mask. So I’m going to use that whenever I get the chance and eventually it will be a word.
‘ … then no more is heard
Than sounds of Strong Men struggling with a word.’
Prosopophobia – you don’t keep the -n in the compound. But sadly this word appears to mean ‘fear of faces’, which perhaps more characterises the mask wearers!
Hi – well one (slightly?) uplifting story re: masks. So I regularly donate blood and last week, I went again for the first time since lockdown.
In the week building up to the donation, via emails, blood website and texts, there was a clear message of: “… we ask that, if possible, you wear a face covering (mask) when coming to donate …” But this was also tempered with: “… you will still be able to donate without one.”
So it was with great trepidation I arrived for my appointment, un-masked. The people in the queue in front of me were masked. The masked lady at the door shouted the same questions to me (minus the face covering one – but in fairness, she did that to everyone).
As I went in, 15 staff and about 15 current donors *all* had masks. I was shown to an out-of-the-way waiting room (usually somewhat lively or chatty, but now like a library), all 12 donors in there also had masks.
I could feel their beady, judgemental eyes upon me. It didn’t help trying to go unnoticed that I also knocked a stack of 100 plastic cups down when fetching water … sigh.
But then, when I was taken to donate, the messenger, pre-questionnaire lady, the lady who gave me the needle, the one who checked on me, and the one who took the needle out were absolutely lovely! Jokey, friendly, and one even kept coming by, touching my arm, commenting on my dry, dry skin and recommending creams.
I left their feeling elated at having stood my anti-face-mask ground. And to boot, I passed someone coming in also without a mask. I know my story is anecdotal, but I thought I’d post anyway. Not every establishment is openly hostile or ignorant. Cheers all.
The staff probably wanted to hug you for making a statement. They have to suffer wearing the horrible things all day.
HaylingDave – I appreciate your post. I’m a regular donor and I’ve been wondering what the form will be at my next session. I have prosoponophobia (h/t Matt!) so I’m glad masks are not mandatory.
Can’t treat you like s..t. They need the blood.
Watch today’s UK Column re blood. Interesting!
https://www.ukcolumn.org/ukcolumn-news/uk-column-news-26th-june-2020
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/282529
Lass went on to criticize the Health Ministry’s use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) DNA tests, which he said have led to a large number of false positives, as they do not distinguish between active cases of the coronavirus and residual RNA traces of infections that have already passed. Lass argued that the recent spike in positive tests of the coronavirus – what has been dubbed the “second wave” of the pandemic – largely reflects inactive cases of the virus.
“The tests you are carrying out (PCR) don’t distinguish between an ‘active virus’ and a ‘dead virus’ which is not dangerous and cannot infect others.”
“In both cases, the test (which identifies the virus’ RNA, whether it is dead or alive) will come out as ‘positive,’” he noted.
“Before you close down a school or a city, conduct a ‘culture test.’ Only this test can prove that the virus is alive and able to infect others,” he urged.
Wow interesting
Seconded
Hi Toby,
Do have a look at this ‘coronacast’, I think you will find it very useful indeed. Covers the true number of deaths and how few people under 40 are dying, the downsides of wearing face masks, treatments that do work by increasing natural immunity, the lunacy of lockdown. And it is all bang up to date using all the latest data, very thoroughly and well researched, based on good (but largely ignored) science, and very rational. https://www.anhinternational.org/news/coronacast-6-how-many-are-really-dying/ . Keep up the great work – fab article in the Spectator this morning.
There really does need to be an enquiry into the care home scandal
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-muriel-had-a-chest-infection-why-was-she-left-to-die-in-a-care-home-12014691
Frankly, I think it ought to be a murder inquiry. Mass murder.
Trouble is that it was mandated “from above” and I doubt the right heads will be located and rolled.
Send in Mossad!
The rainbow in the window is ridiculously ironic.
I’m far from sentimental and certainly not one of these every life matters types. But something like this makes me angry, very angry. All these hypocritical do-gooders who claim they’re wearing a mask because they value life and every life is precious so lockdowns were necessary need to be made to listen to the names of every single person who’s been left to die unnecessarily.
“Lockdowns work” – Tell that to the families of everyone else that’s died, will die or suffer because of lockdown you smug, holier than thou pieces of ****.
The R rate in Germany for the current 4 day rolling average is 0.59. You didn’t know that? You’re forgiven. If you try to find it through Google you’re just greeted with last week’s hysteria (euphoria?) of the MSM when a very, very, very localised flare up forced their whole nation’s rate up to 2.88. Ridiculous even using an R rate.
Allowing an unquantifiable number to drive policy is daft, to say the least.
Par for the course though!
http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/se_mortality24jun.html
Very good graphics of Covid-19 deaths in Sweden
90% over the age of 70 7% 60-69 years
https://twitter.com/shaksper/status/1276123776275697666/photo/1
In this graph from Sweden divided mild green line severe purple line
Easy to understand the reaction in Sweden to WHO’s claim that the pandemic is out of control in Sweden. They are just mass testing people often for screening with masses of asymptomatic.The actual hospitalization is diving like ICU use.
The policy in Sweden was earlier to test the serious cases as you can see on the graph.
Sweden data today. Little correlation between increasing number of cases and decreasing intensive care/death numbers.
I would like to nominate “little correlation” for the understatement of the month prize.
Actually, it’s really very interesting how constant the positives are, especially in the context of the other numbers.
Saw this on the wall of an (ex-?)friend, now living in Australia.
Appalling use of statistics, with no attempt whatsoever at reading around the topic to decipher what those statistics really mean. Just the usual emotive comparisons with the Blitz, and so on. What infuriates me is that the information which you and I have access to is freely available to everyone. So why don’t they bother reading it?
Also worth pointing out … a considerable number of my friends/ acquaintances who have bought in to all the collective psychosis are, depressingly, mathematicians and computer scientists. I would have expected better of them, at the very least. What’s happened to their analytical faculties?
https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/after-a-botched-start-uk-may-be-about-to-make-new-mistakes-20200624-p555vy.html
Biden says he would use federal power to require Americans to wear masks in public
Anyone still not realised that if there’s a Stupid Party and an Evil Party in the US, the Democrats are the Evil Party?
Although with Biden in charge there’s a decent case to be made that they are both the Evil and the Stupid Party at the moment:
Biden slammed after wrongly saying ‘we have over 120 million dead from COVID’
Do you know what? If this thing had killed a third of the population, I’d consider wearing a mask.
…..while scrabbling around for food in the ruins of the nearest city.
Quite. The mask might help with the stench coming from the piles of rotting corpses, apart from anything else.
Brain dead maybe. Perhaps his supporters?
That comment could have just won Trump the election.
I hope you are right, both because I want Trump to win and because of what it would say about Americans.
I would add “by an even bigger margin”! It is surely inconceivable that Biden could win.
Well, it seems inconceivable to many who post here that anyone would want to vote for him and his party, but he’s ahead in the polls and has been for a while, and he’s odds-on favourite with the bookies.
What I find odd is why anyone who voted for Trump last time would vote Biden this time. I mean, Trump has been disappointing I feel but to vote for Biden over him, if you supported Trump last time, is weird. His party are so extreme, or at least they seem so to me.
I used not to care too much about the US, but longer term I think the survival of civilisation as we know it will depend on the survival of the US as a free society. Once they go over to the other side, they can start throwing their weight around against us, assuming we haven’t gone over to the other side too.
I’m not sure he is any more likeable than Hillary – and wasn’t she the shoe-in at this stage four years ago? He has already had his ‘deplorables’ moment, has a serious sexual assault allegation hanging over him, and a son with a somewhat chequered career making headlines periodically. Not sure if there will be live debates this time round, but his ‘senior moments’ might scare the punters.
I think I read he’s more popular among blacks than Hillary Clinton due to his association with the Obama adminstration. I doubt too many of those blacks would have voted for Trump last time, but Biden will probably get a higher turnout of them, which may make the difference in enough swing states to push it his way.
There’s a Dumberer and Dumberest Party in the UK.
Well he is about 97. Maybe he should just self-isolate instead!
I’m all for freedom of choice. If people want to wear a mask then that’s their choice but it should not be mandatory. Laws should be made for things that matter not on a whim.
If the evidence was beyond debate then that would be a different matter but it’s not. Anybody who willingly accepts mask wearing being made mandatory on the basis of flimsy evidence does not deserve freedom of any kind.
I’ll buy that t-shirt.Apologies, but I think it conveys a clearer message than the bulldog.
Aologies for the length but here is yesterday’s exchange with a local county councillor about the partial re-opening of toilets locally but also to ask her about what the sadists on [] town council are doing to local traders. We were slightly dreading her reply as she’s Labour but we think it’s not half bad:
OUR EMAIl:
Dear []
We hope you are well []
We were delighted to discover that the public toilets at [] have now re-opened. It’s a pity, however, that the one in [our village], remains closed.
We have visited [] recently on 2 occasions and we are disturbed by the way small businesses such as cafes, having finally been allowed to do business at a fraction of their former rate, are now being harassed by council officials who appear to be determined to put them out of business altogether. They are now not even allowed to have ‘socially distanced’ seating outside their premises and we understand one cafe has been ordered to uproot permanent seating which will involve a great deal of expense and disruption. We are aware of the council’s obsession with 2 metres enforcement, even to the extent of laying barriers along the road, but chairs outside a cafe do not prevent people who wish to ‘socially distance’ from doing so as there is enough space.
The seats in The Springs mall, Buxton, available to use throughout the ‘lockdown’, were taped off prior to measures being ‘eased’ on 15 June. While this is patently ridiculous, if not spiteful, given the demographic of many shoppers in Buxton, at least the manager managed to resist the order for them to be uprooted as it would have left trip-hazards in the floor. (Not to mention the cost of restoration if/when this lunacy finally stops.)
The risks from CV19 are now vanishingly small. Whatever people’s views on how the so-called ‘exit from lockdown’ is being handled, the above measures seem to be economic suicide and not, in fact, required by the Government’s ever-changing guidelines. We are only too aware of how well the Government’s media-supported fear campaign has worked with many of our friends and acquaintances. Many are now irrationally terrified to resume normal life. A large percentage of the country, including officialdom, has lost the ability to properly risk-assess and we wonder if the political will exists for it ever to be restored.
We also lament what appears to be the complete absence of any principled opposition to the disastrous effects of the Government’s various inconsistent policies and u-turns. The only dissenting voices appear to be along the lines of wanting a longer and harsher lock-down. Figures increasingly show that the effects of this protracted and unnecessary overreaction are resulting in the destruction of the UK economy, the end of the NHS, massive unemployment, many more deaths than from CV19 and the unforgivable crime of the care-home deaths.
Can we reiterate our point about the toilets. Necessity is not confined to geography. It is embarrassing to us that [our village], already missing its cafes and other amenities, now cannot even offer the use of a toilet to visitors in need.
Anything you can do to ease this situation would be much appreciated!’
HER REPLY:
‘Thank you for your email and good wishes.
I have pressed [] council, who manage the toilets for Derbyshire CC, to open them and have asked when this will be.
I too am concerned about the measures being pursued by DCC in [] will no consultation and very little notice.
I have already asked the Cabinet Member for a full list of proposals for town centres, and full details of any that relate to this ward.
If any changes are proposed for Whaley Bridge or [our village], I will make sure that traders and residents are able to give their views before any action is taken.
I understand that the Springs Mall is privately owned and the council have no jurisdiction there as we have had issues over the seating there before.
I agree that there seems to be little logic to the way that lockdown is being eased either from an economic or health rationale and this is contributing to a lack of public trust as well as the worst predicted outcomes in Europe – and some of the worst in the world – for both the number of deaths from covid and for our economy.
Covid is a horrific disease, which we need to prevent in as many people as possible, but sensible measure can do that as other countries have shown, and this best protects economies as well. I will continue to advocate for a common-sense approach, especially to the negligible risks of transmission in the open air.’
Surprisingly sane reply – good news!
The use of ‘horrific’ at the end spoiled it a bit though.
Yes, we thought that too. Maybe she thought she was sticking her neck out far enough already! To be fair, we pulled our punches a bit too i.e. we didn’t mention that there is in fact principled opposition but of course it’s not coming from the Labour moment.
We have always tended towards the left in our politics but nowadays we think right and left seem to have been rendered irrelevant. Certainly we are very grateful for this site and the sanity of so many of those who post on it.
Your letter is masterly.
Thanks! We did work on it quite a lot as we can’t bear to see the worried faces of the business people round here.
I know what you mean. My heart bleeds for those round here – tourist area.
“Covid is a horrific disease” BOLLOCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know, we thought the same but, as a reply from a politician, it could have been a lot worse. Also if she said she’s going to try and question what the council in question is doing, on previous form she will do so.
And of course we’ll reply and question that statement along with 1 or 2 others!
Hi Toby, Wow, I have thoroughly enjoyed all your posts, but I must say this one is particularly engrossing. So many facts, so many great links, so much information, and a wealth of useful, inspiring and position-confirming comments and praise. Nice job, if no one has said it earlier. Really well played! Cheers and have a great weekend.
Agree. One of the best LS
Only managed two notices today. Ripped down, ripped up, in bag with dogshit, binned.
Two is a poor score. Are they becoming scarce through over-collecting? Am I contributing to their extinction? I do hope so.
Perhaps they’re not getting replaced.
On one of my perfectly-legal-unless-you’re-Drakeford walks in the Conwy area, I happened to notice the litter bins which had been taped up (spotted on a previous perfectly-legal-unless-you’re-Drakeford walk) had now suffered the tape being partially ripped away. Horror of horrors, somebody had even inserted litter in said litter bins.
Not been to Conwy recently? Not that I’m accusing, mind…
You need to wait 2 weeks for the second wave of notices.
Might be “signs” of them within six days.
Pick up the excess litter with a spike!
I bagged 1 today a social distancing sign at the start of a moorland walk in the middle of nowhere
Yes, it’s mind-boggling. Mine were out in the wilds too. Won’t say where ‘cos it was somewhere the Quackduck says I didn’t oughter have been and gone to.
Good job Annie !.Perhaps you ought to save some for the future,I’m sure some of the corona lunatics that are loving all of this would buy them from you on ebay.
Yeah, a choice collection of the World’s Stupidest Posters.
In my town centre there are two posters that really need dealing with,but it would be an audacious raid as they are outside of the Gestapo headquarters,sorry,I mean local council offices,I would love to replace the very gender-neutral humanoids on the anti-social distancing posters with some sheep.The area is well covered by cctv so I would need some camouflage,plague doctor outfit or maybe a sheep costume ?
Wait for a BLM protest, then tell the mobsters that the notices were put up by heterosexual white males.
Pair of tights on head.. you can do it.
Dress as a sheep and wear a wolf mask
Paul.. I had same money making thought as you on reading Annie’s account. I laughted at my own honesty. Currently printing and boxing genuine antique anti life covid posters for sale just before christmas. My USP will be each geniune authentic poster will come with a free used mask fished directly from street or litter bin.
It’s going to be a big turkey at Basics Towers this year.
Will look out for them in Antiques Roadshow.Interesting monuments to the most monumental piece of folly in the whole of human history.
On the subject of closing beaches, with
everylots of camp site in the UK opening on the 4th of July good freekin luck with closing down beaches. Beach lockdown ends on the 4th of July.Campsites open but the toilets and showed are not!
Yep that’s true sadly. Crazy beyond belief.
You’re not kidding.
Who makes this stuff up?
These feckers want us living in the Dark Ages!
WHAT??!!
‘The Commission noted that some of the language in the show – such as a caller using the word “coloured”, which Stu didn’t correct – was “insensitive”. But this wasn’t a reason to reprimand the presenter’
In that case, Ofcom must consider the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to have an insensitive name.
It’s an example of what I call ‘euphemism creep’. I’m fairly sure I didn’t make that up, but I can’t remember where I got it from). ‘Toilet’ or ‘lavatory’ being a good example. In America – toilet (which originally meant the act of cleaning yourself) to ‘bathroom’ (the inescapable fact is that most bathrooms have lavatories in them and you’re not leaving your restaurant table to have a bath) to ‘restroom’. Once a word comes to mean the thing we’re uncomfortable discussing, a new word has to be found to describe it.
SARS-CoV-2 detected in Barcelona wastewaters in March 12th 2019. This study from the University of Barcelona was recently published. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1?fbclid=IwAR1JnFh4zR27aBe0gfDtxvcHG_xpM7emzhjmN5KdW2QaFDLYTe3d-bVgXQw
You probably mean 2020? From the paper:
Oh I see, they talk about March 2019 as well later on.
March 12 2019 is extraordinary and I suspect a false positive. But they found consistent results going back to January 15 2020.
Barcelona has lower seroprevalence than Madrid, and a lower death rate, apparently supporting the oonventional theory that the lockdown prevented spread from Madrid and “saved” Barcelona.
But what if Barcelona actually had the epidemic first? This would explain the lower seroprevalence (more of the antibodies had gone before they ran the tests, but note that this does not mean that people have actually lost immunity). If that were the case why fewer deaths? Maybe because they weren’t panicking, sending infected people back into care homes, but were just acting as normal.
It would be interesting to see the same analysis done on wastewater in the Madrid area.
It might be logical that Barcelona had the epidemic before Madrid. Catalonia has the highest number of international tourists, followed by the Balearic and Canary Islands (different types of tourists though). Barcelona, for example, hosts an annual IT/Tech conference in February every year – lasts about a week and the likes of CNBC and Bloomberg do live programming from it.
_if_ it’s true, it rewrites the history of the virus. Did it even actually begin in Wuhan, or even in China?
So curious about this – does someone keep daily samples of wastewater somewhere? In the National Sewage Archive or something?
Aka the BBC?
Yes. And they freeze the ones that are more than a few months old to keep them nice and fresh. Looks like they keep monthly samples for about a year. It’s actually a really good idea for exactly this kind of reason and I expect to see more tests like this.
Ah well……
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/06/26/this-is-what-we-screwed-the-world-for/#comment-23172
I think we need some new classifications in the UK.
Today we had a “Major Incident” in Glasgow where a man stabbed people in a hotel, 6 of whom are now in hospital.
Yesterday there was a “Major Incident” at Bournemouth beach where people went to the beach.
I remember the long lost days of sanity when a major incident was something like the Great storm of 1987.Every little thing today is a huge drama so the people dealing with it can bask in their self importance.
Nowadays they give every fart a name.
And be called ‘heroes’.
just for one day
I just had a thought that the stabbings today could well be due to the psychological effect of lockdown getting to people. We may well see similar events over time.
The assailant was an asyslum seeker, so probably has suffered much psychological trauma. Been housed in really crappy conditions, so presumably at the end of his tether and lost it.
Bojo on just now talking about the beaches:
Won’t name them or can’t? Surely their mantra have been save lives so it would be in the public interest to name the areas so precautions can be taken – utter BS!
Will we fight them on the beaches?
How kind, not to name-and-shame those naughty areas which have let the side down. Better tighten up the lockdown quick before it all gets out of hand!
Sadly the more blatant the lies, the more too many people will believe them.
But hopefully the rest will see through them.
Still a large portion of people swallowing this shite unfortunately
What a useless prick he is.
I’m sure he’s been extremely useful to the string-pullers!
That lazy fat bastard should be hung drawn and quartered.
lol, I’m still debating whether to self censor this …
Once again, Boris – define ‘spike’.
60 cases? 70?
NO HOSPITALISATIONS??
Apologies if this has already been posted but very interesting podcast about BLM: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1eFijpY9POsYrKhAB9KIJj?si=hhq881tCTP6H5piyS3jUIg
What worries me is the hierarchy of racism the BLM UK have created. If you’re not black then you don’t count. I’m Asian and according to them my experiences of racism are irrelevant. I’d probably be classed as a coconut. Well that’s not an insult to me. I love coconuts.
At last someone has ‘called out’ the press for their telephoto lens trickery. Ross Clark in the Spectator shows these images of the same scene:
We see how a telephoto lens changes perspective so that to people who don’t recognise the effect, the beach looks more crowded than it actually is.
Let’s see what happens in two weeks time. My guess is there won’t be a spike. Oh when will this madness end?
I doubt we’ll see a spike either, though it hasn’t stopped the locals on my Facebook starting petitions demanding people only travel in their own postcode area. I’m starting to despair of them.
I’m beginning to wonder whether some of these Facebook petitions are being seeded by 77th Brigaders. There’s no shortage of malicious snitchers of course, but one of their ‘operations’ is to get on social media sites and message boards and create division, diversion and disinformation.
And, yes, they are on here too. I would suggest not getting sucked in when they try and hijack discussions or post bollocks.
Personally, I attribute what’s left of my sanity to not being on social media and having nothing to do with MSM either. No telly. We watch a tiny bit of catch-up ITV and just the small sample of propaganda we see being pushed out for test-and-trace etc is enough to make us realise what most people are being brainwashed with.
Is it the same scene? I cannot find the buildings in the non-telephoto picture anywhere in the telephoto picture. I understand the trickery involved, but this looks like an apples and oranges comparison to me.
I noted that. It’s certainly taken from a different angle, so not exactly definitive proof.
I’d need a higher quality pixel count to be certain, but it is the same scene. In the left hand picture, the building to the extreme left side at the foot of the cliffs can just about be made out to the right of the buildings in the right hand picture. The buildings themselves are just out of shot, to the left.
The red-topped breakwater marker can just be seen in the right hand picture, it’s the furthest one as two are visible in the r/h shot.
As I said, could do with higher resolution pictures ideally, but I’m 90% certain these two photographs were taken from same spot, one with a standard 50mm lens, the other with a telephoto lens.
Thanks for investigating.
It’s the same stretch of beach. The picture on the left is just zoomed in past the big buildings in the right picture. If you focus on the stretch of beach past the buildings in the right picture you can see that it looks like people are more packed together.
I studies the umbrellas and found the same in both images. It is the same scene. I had to prove it to someone so spent some time checking them.
I’m pretty relaxed about the very busy beaches on the south coast. However as to changed perspective by using telephoto lenses, I understand the theory but the two photos shown are not of the same scene on Bournemouth/Sandbanks beach as proved by the building in the top left hand corner of the second photo, a building that does not appear in the first photo
It’s roughly this area, note the ramp leading up/down the hill.
It would appear that Professor ‘Lockdown’ Ferguson doesn’t think that any future inquiry into the (ongoing) disaster should blame individuals… still, at least he seems to accept that a second ‘lockdown’ won’t be necessary. I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies.
“I don’t think inquiries in this context serve much purpose in attributing personal blame on individuals,” he said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53193615
Well, he would say that wouldn’t he. I’m pretty sure there will be many who beg to differ!
‘A la lanterne’ would be my version of blame.
Soi-disant experts on les pendra.
Blame needs to be attributed to individuals so that they are kept away from power and cannot do further damage, and to discourage others from doing the same in future.
He talks about clusters of outbreaks in Europe. Where? Nothing significant that I am aware of.
Above all though, what astonishes me is this: He says another national lockdown won’t be needed. How on earth does he square this with their predictions, which they recently re-iterated? It makes no sense to me. Is the disease less contagious that he thought? Not aware he’s admitted that. Is it less deadly? Not aware he’s admitted that. As far as I recall he never said he’d save all those lives anyway, just that they needed to flatten the curve. So we’re coming out of lockdown, sort of, and having a lot more contact, semi-normal activity planned, ramping up over the next couple of months, and according to the government less than 10% have been exposed/infected, and we’re told there is no immunity. So how does explain it when, as one hopes, the R0 doesn’t go up above 1 and cases start doubling etc? Can anyone help me here? And why didn’t the BBC ask him that? Isn’t it an obvious question?
I think the answer to your last question is pretty obvious as well!
“I don’t expect to see a uniform, very large growth of cases across the country”.
Why not? Basic follow up questions.
Recent ex gov of the Bank of England Carney is on record long ago now that companies and industries that do not comply with the globalist green economy will be let go by banks. Lending will be prevented or made so difficult industries will be forced to comply.
The same greening of the economy wanted by the authority controlled extinction rebellion group and the miracle of miracles greta looking really very thin now thunberg. Yes its child abuse to my way of thinking.
Covid has seen leaps forward in this societal engineering. Search NHS Reset for anther corona-coincidence.
On easing out of lockdown; “Right now we are experimenting, frankly”.
And lockdown wasn’t an experiment? You couldn’t make this shit up. Or maybe you can when you’ve got as much brass neck as Neil
Providing you are taking part in a very friendly session!
Why is he still spouting off to the national press? And how dare he lecture us on being “sensible” after breaking lockdown himself? Does he have no shame?
He’s a cheeky bastard
You’re far too kind.
Says the man to blame!
I bet he did!
Ah, but BoJo the Buffoon has already indicated he would repeat Lockdown.
The threat of that is real, given that the successful ‘you’ll-die-if-you-go-outside’ plague narrative will leave no room for manoevre during covid-19’s forthcoming winter tour.
(I am not talking about non-existent ‘second peaks’ from ‘relaxing’ the lockdown, simply the inevitable seasonal winter appearance and re-appearance that ‘flu and all the corona and rhinoviruses make when the sun goes away and we’re all inside too much).
Sturgeon and her Welsh equivalent won’t need more than a hint of a drop of English spittle with a covid sequence in it to shut things down again and protect us from liberty.
And let’s face it, a huge chunk of the population will be delighted to re-enter a Lockdown Virtual Reality. At least until Reality Reality comes a – knocking.
Reality would come knocking on Day One of a second lockdown. We can’t afford to do it again.
I don’t give a shit what he thinks.
What he says is true about enquiries. Another reason I’m calling for a Royal Commission.
According to him (unless he’s prepared to admit he was wrong) we’re only about 1/10 of the way to herd immunity. So if we don’t need another lockdown why did we need the first one? He’s a politician not a scientist.
“He’s a politician not a scientist.”
I’m not sure he qualifies as either, guy.
Yes, you are absolutely correct. That is how he has done so well on the funding track. His emails need to be seized in any inquiry.
It’s the most stark-staringly obvious question, yet I’ve not seen anyone ask it of him or the government whose decisions were in large measure based on his advice.
As I posted the other day, it occurred to a pro-lockdown acquaintance of mine – not so much as a question for Ferguson but wondering why the government were relaxing things. I am possibly being unkind but I get a sense that some are subconsciously hoping for a second wave to make all their careful self-sacrifice worthwhile and vindicate their disapproval of “covidiots”.
“It is the great feature of the present epoch that all public disaster in the United Kingdom, and to a dead certainty, is Nobody’s work.” Charles Dickens.
I think Professor Ferguson is a Nobody.
He had help!
I’m almost offended.
For future reference I would like to record my own opinion that N Ferguson appears to look like a man with health issues. The press picture of him is a far cry from the Golum-like appearance seen at the more recent lords select comittee.
Yes, there were smirks and brass neck on display as he spoke about mortality rates, but I feel the man’s auto-relexes tell of a human in poor health. Weight-loss consistent with very hard working or stress seems apparent. Also the stress indicator of having his eyes involuntarily shut for large periods of time while talking.
Bill Gates looks to have aged greatly in the past few years also.
Basics – if we are delving into mental health, I think NF has psychopathic tendencies myself. A lack of empathy, for sure.
Remind to use that one when I next get arrested.
My suspicion is that the Flaxman paper was a political exercise in damage limitation because of the spotlight on Ferguson’s model. If they’ve only considered NPIs as reducing transmission then they’ve effectively assumed the conclusion. And the Imperial College press release ignoring the paper’s caveat about the counterfactual being for illustrative purposes only consolidates my suspicion. If this is the best academia can do then we’re screwed.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/26/the-lockdown-is-causing-so-many-deaths/
Dr Malcolm Kendrick on good form.
We locked down the population that had virtually zero risk of getting any serious problems from the disease, and then spread it wildly among the highly vulnerable age group. If you had written a plan for making a complete bollocks of things you would have come up with this one.
Kendrick is awesome!!
He’s great just as Dr John Lee is. It’s articles like this that I wish I was brave enough to share on Facebook and watch all the people I know for the NHS turn bright purple and explode with rage at being told the truth.
I don’t think I’d get away with it sadly.
I work alongside the NHS and most of them think this is a load of bollocks. Share the article.
Sadly the way Facebook operates nowadays, your post probably wouldn’t appear in anyone else’s timeline. I’ve tried to share numerous things lately and none of them get through the censorship
We all know it’s a pile of bollocks, and a horrific mistake. The NHS doesn’t decide, and the cogs (like me) that make it turn certainly don’t either. It’s PHE you should be pissed off with.
Yes, he’s very good, but as I commented, it’s not me that needs to read this, it’s that clown in Downing Street.
Can he read?
Oh … yes, good point.
Only Latin and Ancient Greek.
Good video skewering the double standards over going to the beach on Bournemouth and BLM protests:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G_5cqPadmE
I actually went to a pub today. For the first time in 14 weeks or so, I ordered a pint at a bar. It was an outside, hole-in the-wall bar, and the pint came in a plastic glass. Unfortunately all the pub’s outdoor furniture had been removed and stacked up, and I was told I must drink it off their premises. However, that was easily done on the grass surrounding the place. This was lunchtime, and by about 1 o’clock there was quite a gathering of people – standing and sitting around drinking pints. Some people had brought their own chairs, so all in all it wasn’t too far off an actual pub experience.
Did you pay cash?
No, card only.
Funnily how plastic is suddenly no longer demonised!
I remember in the early 70s going to a cider house in the Pershore area called “The Monkey House”. Cider was served from huge barrels via a hatch in the wall of the farmhouse.Seating was railway sleepers outside.
Corona Virus Update:
Our surveyor will be wearing a mask, gloves, overshoes and possibly a face shield to provide the best possible protection. Please adhere to the 2 meter rule regarding social distancing.
a. Please can you open all windows and doors prior to his arrival.
b. Can we meet with only 1 member of the household and can pets not be allowed to roam?
c. On the walkround can you open cupboards and arrange a ladder for the loft if you have items up there?
This is what the latest removal firm wants us to do for a quotation!
We said No thanks!
I would have told them No Thanks too in the strongest possible terms. Contrast that to a lovely “two men with a van” type of removal company, who came to move some things from a storage facility to my home garage, just three weeks ago. No masks, no standing back from each other in panic, I even helped one guy with carrying a table, and was sorting things in the garage where he was placing items. They had – quite rightly, I might have been one of the terrified – offered to mask up and wear gloves, and when I laughed, they grinned and we just got on with the job.
At least this one didn’t want us to deep clean the house & everything in it before they would set foot.
Two other companies couldn’t give a monkey’s about distancing etc. Yes they would wear masks if we wanted them to but otherwise they’d just get on with it.
Guess which ones might be getting our business?
Brainwashed idiots
Nuts
Damning report on Sky News right now investigating whether patients have been denied treatment in order to save the NHS.
About time too. Surprised it’s Sky though.
Will see what they conclude at the end.
It was Sky News that ran the piece on their news website that I mentioned earlier, about care home residents being denied hospital care to save the NHS. Are they finally deciding to turn against the whole Covid nonsense, or do they have another agenda? They are MSM after all.
Positioning themselves – their agenda is to survive!
Not trying to defend Sky, but they did flag this very early. Nick Martin spent a week in care homes in the north, and raised matters at one or more of the press conferences. Sky was also very good in raising the Primodos scandal – Jason Farrell (I think) went to the archives in Germany to get original drug company documents. I get a bit tired of lots of their other ‘woke’ stuff though!
Yes, I sometimes wish the Sky would fall!
There was a debate after the report which was rather neutral but at least it highlighted the issue and there will be a judicial review into what happened in care homes.
Criminal investigation surely?
It’s easy to see why Cummings is so keen to ban judicial reviews!
Didn’t know that about Cummings..
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/number-10-steps-up-revenge-21476420
LOL. Cummings can be spelt ps……th
The wonderful NHS, the envy of the world has been pressuring the over 70s to sign DNRs!
Daily Mail: Sunderland head teacher suspended for saying some staff were ‘sat at home doing nothing’ in lockdown.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8463765/Sunderland-head-teacher-suspended-saying-staff-sat-home-doing-lockdown.html
Surely she should have put those staff members on disciplinaries not be sacked herself. Oh sorry I forgot she told the truth which seems to be an optional extra nowadays.
This country is truly pathetic. I notice elsewhere on the DM they are ratcheting up the fear porn, suggesting deaths have gone up for the second day in a row.
I honestly wonder if we have a future.
No worse than the US. In my state, the gov declared it a crime to not have a mask on.
In my idiot country too
Council Newletter arrived tonight. Meeting next Monday to:
…. consider plans for creative interventions and temporary or experimental road alterations to help support social distancing and encourage people to walk or cycle when possible.
Social distancing? 1metre is normal for strangers!
A glimmer of sanity:
…. Officers propose that these measures would be set up in a temporary way that makes them easy to remove or amend as their impact becomes clearer and in response to consultation with businesses and residents.
Sounds like a terrible waste of money in a university town that’s going to be seriously strapped for cash very shortly.
They’ve put up some ridiculous plastic posts along a main road in my city to separate the cycle lane from the car lanes. I think with this heat seeing that has taken me over the edge tonight. I am so pissed off with this.
I sensed your pissed offness when you joined us this evening.
lol, yes, I’ve been in better moods.
Hopefully you’ll find some posts that make you laugh here.
It’s okay, thanks Cheezilla.
I live alone, which might be just as well sometimes … (lol)
Misery loves company John. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone to rant with.
Hopefully you’ll feel you’re in good company here.
Chin up, John. We’re all here for each other!
That’s very kind, thank you.
The main arteries from the ring road to the suburbs and city centre are being deliberately choked/narrowed here too.
So aggressively with the plastic bollatds that two HGVs or buses cannot pass without slowing. On the main route from ring road to A&E.
Several bollards have been hit.
Another covid-coincidence (tm!)
Weird indeed!
Sensible article in the Guardian (!!!)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/26/hardline-policing-may-provoke-civil-unrest-post-lockdown-government-warned
Jamieson certainly has more idea about people than the Big Dick!
It’s not been peer reviewed but Media thought it was worthy of printing.
Black Lives Matter protests haven’t led to COVID-19 spikes. It may be due to people staying home.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/black-lives-matter-protests-haven-t-led-covid-19-spikes-n1232045
There is no evidence yet that the wave of Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S. sparked COVID-19 outbreaks in the more than three weeks since they began, according to a study published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
No spike because people staying at home may have offset the people protesting. I really don’t know how this conclusion can be taken seriously.
Oh man, is that what it says! Sorry but I really can’t be bothered reading the article! How can they be so dumb? They just can’t admit it’s because there’s such a low risk. We’re not doomed by the virus, we’re doomed by disengaged brains!
So does that mean that when there’s no ‘spike’ in a few weeks after the Bournemouth beach MAJOR INCIDENT, the gvt. will praise the rest of us for staying home instead of partying in the sun?
—- This is getting beyond a joke now.
Another government cockup:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jun/26/satellite-experts-oneweb-investment-uk-galileo-brexit
Have you noticed the police are assuming there will be problems caused by alcohol consumption once the pubs open?
Have they not noticed that alcohol is currently freely available – and much cheaper! – from supermarkets and corner shops?
I’d rather clap the corner shops than the NHS. None of this queuing up or masks or handwash bollocks, they simply want your money. It’s good old fashioned free enterprise. After all, as someone remarked, if local governments ran (all) pubs then beer would be £10 a pint and only available from 11am to 4pm, Monday to Friday (except public holidays).
My corner shop is brilliant!
I’d rather use corner shops too. So much nicer.
Get stocked up with bog rolls again folks! There were 37 new cases in Australia today (population 25million), and this is what’s happening as a result:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-53196525
Victoria’s tally of new Covid-19 cases has been in double digits for over a week. On Thursday, 33 new cases were confirmed.
It’s that magic 33 again.
Not sure if anyone has shared this but I’ve just discovered Dr Vernon Coleman he has a good video to share that has cheered me up
https://youtu.be/PV8VUbf_Zo4
This is an interesting article on superspreading events.
How ‘Superspreading’ Events Drive Most COVID-19 SpreadAs few as 10 percent of infected people may drive a whopping 80 percent of cases in specific types of situations
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-superspreading-events-drive-most-covid-19-spread1/
In fact, research on actual cases, as well as models of the pandemic, indicate that between 10 and 20 percent of infected people are responsible for 80 percent of the coronavirus’s spread.
The above quote stood out to me. It’s been suggested that 80% of people have some sort of resistance/immunity to the virus. Could up to 20% of infected spreading be due to only 20% of people ever likely to become infected in the first place?
Anyone who actually coughs like this:
?w=590&h=800&9EBBB82E-F8C2-45AD-85AFD7D954E7EB36
would likely be a superspreader.
The article takes no account of people’s immune system.
One person infecting people at an indoor event makes sense but doesn’t explain how the pathogen can then spread so easily among a normal community, any more than it would explain why only one person in an office or school staffroom becomes ill with flu or tonsillitis.
Superspreaders? Supermarket checkout staff who pick their noses and then handled items…I’ve seen plenty of those.
But nobody died!
i regularly chat to staff in local supermarket Tesco and none of the checkout staff have contracted the virus. Since they are working many hours in close proximity to customers, often less than 1m in order to authorise my wine at the scanning system, and without masks or gloves… Most of the staff aren’t socially distancing and I find this reassuring that the chances of catching the plague is extremely limited/very unlucky in the supermarket.
I think that this is probably one of the most powerful points we can make to the terrified and the ‘lockdownistas’. How is it that CV19 wasn’t rife amongst supermarket workers and the many un-muzzled shoppers who have continued to shop throughout this whole insanity.
Oh, and BTW (currently displayed in our front window):
That’s a fine poster, which I might steal!
Be my guest – glad you like it!
It’s photoshopped. The “victim” didn’t have to wear a mask!
Yes, that’s why I ad-busted it!
I’ve heard the same, most of us have some immunity, coronavirus and the common cold are the same family afterall. What needs investigating is was it deliberate, I think it was.
Thank you Guy de la Bédoyère. Wonderful thoughts and comment.
“Defoe recounted how being confronted with an intractable disease began eventually to provoke among the Londoners of 1665, who had locked themselves down for weeks, a complete ‘Despair of their ever being able to escape the infection’. But then he noted this very phenomenon provoked another which was that they gave up worrying about the plague ‘and went anywhere and everywhere and began to converse’ and met in public places. In short, they undid their own self-imposed lockdown because it had become psychologically and practicably impossible to sustain it.”
Humility from Scientists is a beautifully large ask. Are they up to it?
Nah. Because that **** Ferguson is back out tonight, shamelessly chatting more shit.
A great number of large asks
A funny, bizarre but frustrating story of mine from today…. I’m a member of an outdoor swimming lake which has now opened with the usual restrictions of numbers and distance etc. I arrived and have to form an orderly queue to enter the lake. There are lanes which traverse along like at the passport control at airports – about 6 lanes of 20m long, so about 120 metres. In front of me were 3 people who had reached the front already by traversing up and down the lanes, bravo to the good holy citizens performing their duty!
Anyway, me being me, an independent minded and bending the rules thinks well since there are no people queuing in the lane i’ll cut across straight across the lanes since no-one there and I’m not pushing in etc so what on earth could be the problem???. you know like at airports you duck under the barriers to shortcut…well i do!
OH BOY was that a mistake … next thing i know some trumped up official shouted at me to stay in the lane and go up and down the empty lanes. I thought he was joking, but NOT! I wasn’t impressed and gave him a bit of my opinion (take a deep breathe!) One of the others in the queue told me after he thought was joking too.
Gawd help us all in this dawn of the “new normal” and panjandrum little hitlers with their five minutes of so called authority at a provincial lake!! I despair…but a few glasses of wine have helped anaesthetise the experience
Lake … little Hitler … chuck second in first …?
Did you ask him “Why ?”, snooze ?
Don’t sell those t-shirts. It’s a great message but some here did not vote conservative. The message is great among conservative supporters, and to put some pressure on Boris, but it makes anti-lockdownism look like a purely right-wing cause, it isn’t, it’s a cause based on reason and respect for liberty whatever your left,right or centre economic views. Wonder if there’s another way to say it, perhaps:
“Whoever we voted for in 2019, we didn’t vote for this lousy lockdown”
or
“Tories triggered the lockdown, Labour and the Lib Dems let them, None gets my vote again”
Great suggestions
Totally agree! I recommend this website to all who look like they have the brains to understand what’s going on, but I have always voted on the Left and I’m not pro-Brexit. This makes me qualify my recommendation to friends and acquaintances with “It’s a bit right-wing but there’s lot of valuable information and links there.”
I would like not to have to use that qualification, but the right-wing bias of so many commentators here who often shoe-horn in irrelevant topics such as BLM and climate change – and (sigh) Brexit itself, are going to be a real turn-off to most left/left of centre voters and add to their irrational belief that lockdown sceptics are right-wingers and not to be trusted.
These people mostly get their news and information from The Guardian and the BBC. I don’t have telly by choice, but I used to be a Grauniad reader till it turned into a hysterical tabloid mouthpiece of HMG. Now I read the Telegraph because at least it offers a few anti-lockdown articles, but I would never identify with its right-wing agenda.
In fact I find it rather amusing that those who perceive the current situation as a prelude to a coming dystopian ‘New World Order’ attribute that agenda to the Left: ‘Communists!’ or Right: ‘Fascists!’ depending on their own political bias.
Politicizing the situation is playing into the hands of those who would divide and conquer: For instance, I have many clients and followers on Facebook from the U.S. where I used to live and where I am quite well-known in a certain field as an author. The couple of times I posted my views on the MSM’s covid lies I was screamed at for being an ignorant Trump-voting ‘covidiot,’ which no doubt has the architects of the plan-demic rubbing their hands with glee.
“the right-wing bias of so many commentators here who often shoe-horn in irrelevant topics such as BLM and climate change – and (sigh) Brexit itself, are going to be a real turn-off to most left/left of centre voters and add to their irrational belief that lockdown sceptics are right-wingers.“
This is Toby Young’s personal blog. Toby is very much a figure of the political right (not the “far right”), a (formerly) strong Conservative Party supporter and broadly a conservative. You are perfectly entitled to warn any left-leaning friends of the inherent bias here, but complaining that discussion of the BLM problem in particular is “shoe-horned in” or “irrelevant” is just wrong and makes you look stupid or dishonest. I am not calling you stupid, quite the contrary, your comments here have struck me as intelligent and informed on many issues, I’m just pointing out that your assertion about discussing BLM here, specifically, is in itself either actually stupid or basically dishonest.
Have you actually read Toby’s rather extensive commentary on the BLM problem above the line here? Of course, if honest discussion of these issues makes you feel uncomfortable, which would be absolutely nothing unusual in our warped and propagandised society, you are perfectly entitled to simply ignore those extensive discussions if you prefer. But you are not entitled to then pretend they don’t exist, as a pretext for trying to suggest discussion of that issue under the line is somehow out of place, or at least not without being called out for the basic error.
“their irrational belief that lockdown sceptics are right-wingers”
That, by the way, is a very debatable matter of opinion. A month or more ago, Toby linked to some US analysis that suggested that in fact the general impression that lockdown scepticism, and corona-scepticism in general, tends to be more frequently found on the political right seems to be founded in fact. Clearly, by no means all scepticism is on and of the right, there are certainly plenty of very articulate lefties here, but overall, and certainly in the political party structures of the US and UK, it very much appears to be that way.
Mark, your assertion that my comment about BLM makes me look “stupid or dishonest” is abrasive and insulting however much you weaselly try to qualify that by your next sentence. The BLM issue is not *directly* related to lockdown, which is what this website has been set up to focus on – the clue is in the title. Neither is it described as Toby’s “personal blog” – If it were, then that would be a different matter, with readers expecting a wider variety of subjects.
> if honest discussion of these issues makes you feel uncomfortable, which would be absolutely nothing unusual in our warped and propagandised society…
So you continue your rudeness and patronising tone by jumping to the conclusion that the BLM issue makes me ”uncomfortable” as I am obviously being influenced by propaganda! Sorry, but you have absolutely no idea what my views are on this matter.
> Toby linked to some US analysis that suggested that in fact the general impression that lockdown scepticism, and corona-scepticism in general, tends to be more frequently found on the political right seems to be founded in fact.
Yes, it does seem true and there are a number of reasons for this: in the UK, the more left-wing media like the Guardian ramped up the hysteria partly because their ongoing agenda is to make the Tory government look bad, and probably also to claw back readers they had lost by positioning themselves behind the Climate Change agenda, which, face it, no-one wants to read about. They were not the only ones of course because all media channels seem to have been instructed via the government’s scientific advisors to terrify people into obeying its draconian measures, according to a paper I pointed to last week.
In the US, as I mention above, corona/lockdown scepticism has been associated with Trump and his followers, although in fact there are thousands of left-leaning sceptics as well (eg see the JP Sears video that Toby posted last week – he has a huge following.)
My point is that, in order to educate the brainwashed masses, we should beware of couching the situation in terms of left/right, and also disentangle it from hot issues like race as much as possible. Lockdown sceptics are in the minority, an ineffective and powerless place to be in terms of opening people’s eyes to the truth.
As someone who has already been both directly and indirectly accused of being ”racist” here (a genuinely inflammatory and menacing accusation in the current climate, and one clearly intended to silence or exclude the target) for discussing this very issue, I’m not going to apologise for coming across as “abrasive”, “insulting”, “rude” or “patronising” in defending against yet another attempt to rule out discussion of the BLM issue here. If you don’t understand why people on my side of this issue tend to be on a hair trigger for this kind of attempt to suppress dissent, then you haven’t been paying attention, and if as someone coming from the political left you are not one of those seeking to suppress dissent then that would be so unusual as to require you to state as much, not for me to refrain from assuming the contrary. On this issue, people on my side have every right to be defensive – in case you haven’t noticed dissent has been actively censored for years and people are being sacked regularly.
My assumptions about your positions are not unjustified based upon your words in the comment to which I was replying, which created a perfectly reasonable albeit rebuttable presumption of precisely what I suggested. Feel free to rebut if you wish, but since you do not deny it I see no reason to change it at the moment.
Anyway, however you think this website ought to be run, the fact is that it is Toby’s personal blog and he has spent quite a lot of his time here discussing the very serious problem of BLM, which in reality I and, it would appear, Toby as well see as closely related hysterias, not least because of the way their treatment has revealed the profound hypocrisy of both authorities and coronapanic propagandists.
I’m sure we might be in agreement on many matters, but if you actively try to exclude discussion of an aspect of the current crisis that I see as highly important, then you can hardly expect me to stay quiet in response. If you can persuade Toby to exclude discussion of BLM thuggery here then that would be his prerogative, and I would find somewhere else to discuss politics and leave your and others’ sensitivities undisturbed, but I won’t stop talking about this vital issue just because you and others dislike it.
one of the big concerns of the site and most of the followers is the misinformation about Covid coming out of the BBC, C4 and other MSM .. However the same misinformation is also being promulgated by them on other subjects such as Climate change and BLM which is the main reason why these topics have also been referenced here.
Additionally for BLM, attention is also being drawn to the different way in which BLM and their protests are being treated by the police and MSM compared with other protests such as Lockdown.
DT. reports that.Archbishop wants statues in Canterbury Cathedral to be purged in the spirit of BLM, and that we shouldn’t portray Jesus as ‘white’.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/26/archbishop-canterbury-says-church-needs-reconsider-portraying/
Oh God, oh God, I don’t think I can be an Anglican any more. My mother church isn’t just a whore, she’s a Nazi ehore.
The archbishop should be defrocked!
Iconography relating to Jesus is diverse around the world.
Also I think Jesus was not keen on self-righteous religious leaders, wanting to look good in the eyes of others.
Excellent point, James. ‘I thank God I am not as other men are…’
Which reminds me to admit that I am a sinner, and have a whole shedful of beams in my eye…
Justin Oilwellby is a complete lightweight and one of the elite. At least he’s had a lot of practice at taking the knee.
In many stained-glass windows.Jesus looks like a wet hippy who wouldn’t have said boo to a goose, man. That doesn’t, IMO, make an argument for smashing them or ‘purging’ statues. I mean, what???
In reality, of course, Jesus was an outspoken Jewish Palestinian rabbi, Make of that what you will.
We see one of his central messages as ‘Fear not’ so don’t give up yet, Anne. You are on the right path despite the failings of the churches in this catastrophe.
Thank you for that!
Many representations of Jesus are indeed repellently sentimental, but that isn’t why Oilwellby (nice one) is getting at them. A repellently sentimental black Jesus would, of course, be fine.
We need a new Wesley.
I suppose it’s not too surprising that the head of the CofE thinks this is a major problem. When the CofE speaks out these days, their voice is indistinguishable from all the secular intitutions which all share the same philosophy. They display viture through self-loathing and constant apology.
I hope the churches open soon. I think if there are restrictions on worship activities (eg communion, songs, the peace etc…) many will not think it worth returning.
At least JW was no coward!
Also weren’t a lot of these icons of Jesus made at a time when most people would have gone though their whole lives not seeing anyone from another country? Most people didn’t travel abroad. It seems entirely natural that Jesus would be portrayed in this way.
I thought Welby was an improvement on the very pleasant but incomprehensible William’s. I guess ultimately Bishops are politically appointed, so it is to be expected…
Yes, they follow the neo-liberal rules whether they realise or not.
Rank cowardice. Always hated the Church. Like Jesus/Yeshua though.
Feel better. Brits dishing the bullshit. Street parties and football celebrations. Bugger Boris, hang Hang-cock.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-lockdown-air-bridges-social-distancing-cases/?WT.mc_id=e_DM1260674&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New_ES_Sat&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_ES_Sat20200627&utm_campaign=DM1260674
What/when do you fancy the tipping point may be?
How many more happy mass gatherings and days out to the beach before those who have succumbed to the Governments fearing start to realise the game is up.
The Governments only have physical enforcement and the ‘second-wave-o-rama’ left.
Goes without saying thuggery that has come with some of the mass gatherings is wrong and condemable.
Whilst in ordinary times I would agree that thuggery is wrong. How does it compare to what this Gov is doing? Gov taken away basic freedoms, locked the healthy up, destroyed businesses and jobs, taken away healthcare for millions of procedures including life limiting conditions and cancer screening. A few fist fights after a few beers is of no comparison yet the police call a major incident. Me whole perspective on law and order and society has been scarred forever. No longer respect the institutions I would normally support.
You are right. Indeed i recently took a banning from social media for saying as much.
My point there was along the lines of after the affront to humanity that has been going on isnt it expected that people gather in fun and the inevitable excesses. Our lives f*cked by politician. Adding that no virus linked increase reported from any rave.
Somewhere in that i breached community guidelines.
Thanks for picking me up/making distinction. Worthwhile.
Telegraph reporting this morning that quarantine rules are changing and that we will now have a traffic light system, with countries worldwide being listed as red, amber or green. If you fly in from a “green” country you don’t have to do 14 days quarantine, but you still have to give contact details as to where you will be staying. At least I can now fly to Europe to see my family, one member of whom is sadly not going to be with us much longer. I can get to say goodbye.
It would have been more helpful to stop the daily PIA arrivals from Pakistan throughout the last 3 months. I’ve watched that flight come in every single day to my local international airport. The Telegraph mentions that too, finally, saying it is likely the source of half the imported cases of the virus. Other regulars every day have been Qatar, Emirates and KLM.
If Boris had’ve cancelled middle England’s summer holiday, the Conservatives would never have won an election ever again
The Conservatives did their best for three years to thwart Brexit. They couldn’t have done anything worse at that point (the opportunity to destroy the economy not being available to them at that point). But they still won the election easily in 2019.
It remains to be seen what it will take for some people to stop voting Tory. Destroying the economy? Will that do it? Not necessarily. People talk about just getting rid of Boris.
We need a new party and we need it fast and we need people to join it, promote it and vote for it. Otherwise we had better get used to this, whatever this is and whatever it turns out they have in mind for us.
I’m afraid I voted Conservative in the election but it was more of an anti Corbyn vote than a pro Boris vote. If there was a genuine real option of a new party I’d absolutely go for it.
The good news is , Mike, we have now got one!!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/25/uk-extinction-rebellion-activists-launch-beyond-politics-party-by-stealing-food
Of course, voting for the extinction guaranteed mob of brain dead lunatics, whose headline policy pledge appears to be the legalisation of theft, might not be to your taste either – I can understand that, but who else?
Toryism has failed monumentally over covid lockdown and blm protests and is now finished.
Labour was finished when Tony Blair destroyed it (and Starmer is worse).
LibDems have never got started and don’t represent an alternative anyway.
Green Party would introduce lockdown for life to ‘save the planet’ and so would Extinction Guaranteed.
So ordinary sane people like you and me are now completely disenfranchised and look like remaining so.
I’m thinking in terms of Nigel Farage and his Reform Party. But we would have to create a lot of publicity and join it in large numbers so that people risk voting for it and not just voting to avoid Labour.
citizens’ assemblies sound worryingly like a huge town council.
Pakistan has been responsible for 50% of Covid cases it’s reported that some of them are taken directly to ICU. Unbelievable this stupid government allows this to happen! We have millions of people waiting for operations!!
That’s quite a claim… where’s the source?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/26/exclusive-half-uks-imported-covid-19-infections-pakistan/
Nice one, Telegraph. ‘Ticks all the boxes:
1) Another ‘New spike’
2) Implying people with UK passports are not British and just health tourists
3 Keep quarantine measures going as long as possible
4) Jack up the fear porn
5) Blame the ‘Pakis’
Go back and READ it!!
You need to re-read the article. Even the headline says imported cases whereas you’re suggesting half of all cases.
Huge difference!
To continue with the theme of a new political home for lockdown sceptics (LS), we have previously seen how Toby plans to unite Britain and the U.S.A. under the Stuart monarchy.
https://www.facebook.com/AmericanJacobiteSociety/photos/a.809617809409556/819703378400999/?type=3&theater
Now, in order to make this work, in a democracy, given the susceptibility of the general population to manipulation, LS clearly needs a messiah to handle that bit.
There is, of course, one outstanding actor to play that role:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHbzSif78qQ
A brilliant speech
Unfortunately the great Graham Chapman is no longer with us
But his colleague, Michael Palin, would, I believe, make an excellent substitute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqaQ_Bhgmrc
A different genre of messiah, I grant you, but certainly no more boring than (I understand) the recently infamous Hancock’s half hour and possessed of a heartwarmingly reassuring actuarial style of delivery.
For clarity, a simple act of fealty to the Stuart monarchy allows Her Majesty’s reign over this sceptr’d isle to continue untrammelled. Given the well known dislike dachshunds have for the weather here, Emperor Franz I of Great Britain and the American Empire will no doubt prefer to reside in a gothic revival palace in Hollywood, close to his relatives there from the House of Saxe Coburg Gotha.
Follow the shoe!
Michael Palin the tedious prophet?
https://youtu.be/QqaQ_Bhgmrc
The safer we become, the more intolerable any remaining risk appears.
The dangers of Safetyism
Unherd interview: https://youtu.be/XxONOUwOX80
This is a great interview listened to it the other day. Love Freddie Sayers as an interviewer.
It is sad how much health and safety is now in force. Its changed so much since I was a child in the 80s. Life is a risk so as a human you accept that risk and do the best you can in terms of managing risk. But not to the extent we have now. Some of this comes down to people sueing companies for what they see as negligence even when at times the risk was theirs to take.
Worlds gone crackers
Freddie Sayers is pretty much the best interviewer I’ve ever come across. Great respect for him.
I am feeling something like that, myself. At the start of all this, I was prepared to get the disease as part of a national herd immunity strategy. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I reckoned I could endure flu-like symptoms for a few days and then I would know it was over. My gung-ho attitude (is that phrase allowed these days? sounds a bit colonial…) meant that I was able to face going out and carrying on as normal. There would have been a national ‘catharsis’ and sense of achievement at the end of it, whether each individual had caught it or not. Our immune systems would all have been made more robust to the virus and its subsequent mutations.
Where we are now, is that my version of gung-ho has changed in that I am prepared to go out and carry on as normal because the chances of getting the disease are very low – which is a different thing, even though it results in the same outward appearance. Part of this change of perception is due to the figures which show that the epidemic has almost disappeared, but which, of course, is also intertwined with the lockdown. Without lockdown, will the disease come back?
If I had to revert to the original scenario, it would take quite a bit of mental readjustment from me, and this annoys me. The government’s policies have weakened my own mental constitution, making me less able to face the real world than I was just three months ago. And I’m one of the sceptics! Clearly the average person will be even less able to cope.
I was prepared to follow government advice initially but on further research I concluded it was a scam. That’s not saying there isn’t a virus but that it certainly wasn’t as bad as predicted. The government wasn’t very clever in choosing Neil Ferguson as their advisor whose theories had been grossly over estimated in past epidemics but I again concluded the government intended to frighten the life out of the population deliberately! Think the government is on our side? Think again!
Politicians are only on our side just before an election.
Even then, they’re only pretending, Nick.
I know what you mean Barney McGrew. Before all this nonsense started, I didn’t think twice about risk really. I mean, I’ve handled half ton horses all my life and they can kill you without meaning to, very easily. I’ve flown all over the world. I’ve taken risks, and I am still here. But something inside of me has changed in the last 3 months and I really hope it changes back! Now I’m slightly wary of getting ordinary flu never mind Covid. I never even thought about it before. Now I am booking my flight to Europe for July to see my family, and I AM going, but my stomach is churning just a little with the “what if” scenarios. In fact it’s probably safer to fly next month than it ever has been, due to the drop in passenger numbers. So it has got to even me, and I’m a complete sceptic about the whole thing! I don’t think it’s even as bad as some of the other viruses we have had circulating in the past. But the insidious drip drip drip from the MSM does take you over. And if it can do that to us, who think for ourselves and research and query, how much more damage has it done to those who don’t?
Yes, I look at the media ‘to see what the opposition are thinking’, but inevitably some small part of it seeps into my mind each time. It is poisonous. This isn’t to say that I am convinced by the facts they are claiming (their warped version of ‘the science’); it is that my attitude to risk is being modified regardless of the facts.
Barney
Living without risk means you are already dead. Embrace risk. seek it out. I’m not suggesting we all become BASE jumpers but doing stuff we usually say no to.
Absolutely. I think it’s easy to underestimate just how adjustable fear levels and the mode of response to fear can be, both by individuals and in response to external stimuli such as propaganda and government actions.
Not the least of the crimes of our current government and general social elite has been encouraging fearfulness and discouraging the kind of fortitude you describe.
The most admirable response should be to keep calm and carry on, but our social and political elites chose to demonise that virtue as selfish and pretend instead that fearfulness is actually the virtuous thing, because it supposedly unselfishly helps “protect the vulnerable”. In fact, that was always the opposite of the truth.
This is one of the profound cultural problems at the root of our failure in response to this (not objectively very serious, in truth, had we responded properly) test we have faced in the coronavirus.
“The most admirable response should be to keep calm and carry on, but our social and political elites chose to demonise that virtue as selfish “
An excellent point.
“Keep calm and carry on” was printed all over cushions, bits of wood etc, not so long ago in all the slightly downmarket tat emporiums (the range, B & M etc.) that I presume would be so beloved by Karens. Whatever happened to that sentiment? Did they not even read said cushions etc?
Mark. An excellent assessment in my opinion.
Funnily enough, I have never been scared or worried about getting this virus. Perhaps I’m in a fortunate situation as a very active 21-year-old who exercises regularly, doesn’t drink or take drugs, and who eats a healthy diet, but even I acknowledge there is very small chance I could be incredibly unlucky with this virus and end up in hospital. But that chance is minute and it is not proportionate to put my entire life on hold for that negligible risk. I could be very unlucky with influenza, or driving in a car, or flying in a plane, handling sharp knives while cooking, or just walking down the stairs. I have been totally impervious to the government’s psychologically abusive fear campaign throughout this entire farce and if anything, I’ve been far more worried and anxious about the health effects of the lockdown. The NHS will indeed be overwhelmed this winter, but not by Covid patients – instead it will be the mile-long waiting list finally catching up with it as well as an overload of winter ailments due to house arrest and months of stress/fear/anxiety weakening people’s immune systems.
I know one argument of the lockdownistas to those who can assess personal risk is ‘Well what if you pass it on to someone vulnerable?!’ I’ve always been of the opinion that a single individual’s responsibility to the vulnerable has to end at a certain point. I am a big proponent of individual responsibility in all areas of life. I’m not going to cough/sneeze on someone, that would be totally insane and no-one would do that in a normal flu season, and I also don’t invade a stranger’s personal space or get really close to them in a shop etc. If I am symptomatic, I will isolate, stay away from others, and sit out the illness in bed until it goes away. Beyond this, I’m not really sure what else an individual can do to protect the vulnerable without totally upending his or her way of life, as we have seen with this lockdown. Even with the sodding lockdown, we have failed to protect the vulnerable, given the government has allowed the virus to rip through care homes and the NHS has totally abandoned vulnerable people with non-Covid ailments! I would have thought that it would be down to the individual to shield themselves and look after their own health after a certain point but I think a person’s stance on this issue may well be linked to their political views and will vary wildly depending on who you ask.
“… it is not proportionate to put my entire life on hold..”
Yes, I suppose this idea was central to my original robust attitude to the virus. I knew that any alternative to basic herd immunity would result in life as we knew it being thrown away, possibly forever.
Well, that happened. The lockdown reduced my horizons. Normal life is already lost and maybe cannot be regained. So now the calculus is different. It is now between a stunted life with, at least, good health versus a stunted life combined with the possibly-permanent effects of a disease that it might be possible to avoid getting. There is no option of risking the disease in order to keep the good life any more.
Mrs2-6 and I need to respond to a friend who has the “state sanctioned” view about not following the rules is selfish, irresponsible and callous as it fails protect the vulnerable and undermines all the Sacrifices we have all had to take.
Our response to this person will have to be like your one, pointing out the callousness of what actually happened to the elderly. Many of them dying all alone in a bio-prison.
However I am sure this will make very little difference. The brainwashing is almost total, his brain is hermetically sealed to any information that upsets their state manufactured mind-set. Its quite scary.
It is scary. When this is all over and free thinkers start rebuilding, what is there for those like your friend?
I really don’t know. They might just carry on being scared of the rona for ever.I would like to think they will realise in time how wrong they have been and how right I was and apologise.
The last few years have changed my perspective on risk entirely. I lost two friends, one in the Stockholm attack and one in the Ethiopian plane crash. Both in the prime of their lives and both with young families. It is so important to live your life to its fullest as things can happen in the blink of an eye that can take it away or change it forever. A life of fear is no life at all and that is what makes this all so frustrating for me, we have had the ability to make those personal decisions taken way from us.
Very true. Yet so many are now scared of living its a crying shame they cannot see they are wasting a valuable part of their lives they will never recoup.
Frankly, I don’t give a damn about them.
I’m much more concerned about the children and young people.
Me too. I can’t imagine the damage that is being done to them right now and how they will be terrified of other people giving them germs for the rest of their lives, or perhaps more importantly being obsessed about not giving their germs to other people so having a totally broken approach to life. Being scared of everything is the normal now anyway. I know people who have kids and they have literally never gone anywhere or done anything on their own. EVER. This is because of the perceived dangers out there their parents see. Its weird actually but it is a very real thing.
When I was a lad I was out all day untill I was nearly dead with hunger and I had to get home for tea. Roaming all over the place doing stupendously dangerous things miles from home, from probably about the age of 6.
I still remember being shown an “educational” TV show when I was at primary school (this would have been ‘80/‘81 I’d guess) about germs. I’m sure the actual message was more subtle than this, but what I took away from it was “germs are everywhere and germs kill you”. My sister watched the same thing a few years later and it turned her into a germaphobe for years.
Imagine how much worse 3 months of it will have been.
Without lockdown, will the disease come back?
From what I understand, the SC2 virus is likely to remain one of the corona and flu viruses which re-appear periodically and mutate. Evidence suggests that new ‘strains’ are already weaker.
I understand how you and other people are feeling, Barney. It is very hard to hold on to what you rationally know when being bombarded with propaganda to make us fearful and stay in our place.
However, I think there are some antidotes:
1) For a refreshingly sane perspective on the disease, the horrific social, medical, economical and psychological costs of lockdown and the need to end it immediately, see what Dr Scott Atlas says (and thanks to whoever posted this yesterday):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZqGSnVt8c8&feature=emb_rel_end
Dr Atlas is very robust on the reality of the disease and how we should regard ‘new cases’. We must remember that the lockdown has made little or no difference to the life of the virus. Its trajectory has been similar in all countries. Lockdown, if it did anything, produced more cases by failing to protect those who should have been shielded and locking in the healthy. If it were to come back we would need to get that right. I love the idea of speakeasy hairdressers – bring it on!
2) I advise giving the mainstream and social media as wide a berth as possible. They are there to do your head in. Early on, I was glued to BBC, Guardian, Worldometers, everything. I got uneasy when the 3-week lockdown came and went and the agenda changed. We weren’t going to wait until we ‘squashed the sombrero’ after all; we had to eradicate the virus. That was when I knew we’d all been had and I crossed over to the dark side!!
3) Please believe that it is not remotely selfish to take the LS line. The selfish ones are the comfortably (for now) furloughed and pensioned whose lifestyles have barely been dented by the lockdown. They can indulge their fears, project them onto every bugger else, secure in the knowledge that they are doing exactly what they are required to do!
‘Normal life is already lost and maybe cannot be regained.
You sound very despondent at the moment and I know how that feels. Some days, I really have to kick myself up the arse not to give in to despair. The disease was very nasty for the tiny minority who died and the few who have been left with permanent ill-effects. However, that applies to many other diseases to which humans are prone and we don’t all end up in a state of permanent fear.
CV19 has gone, for now, and we owe it to ourselves to insist on going back to normal – the old one, that is. We also owe it to everyone else: the poor souls trying to keep their businesses going, the brainwashed, the poor kids denied their education and development etc etc.
(Perhaps it’s because I’ve been a dissident since my late teens and always at odds with the mainstream that I am unsurprised to find myself once again in a minority and finding others of like mind where I can. It helps to be used to criticism and worse! Anyway, it has been good for me, in my oldish age, to find myself in solidarity with a lot of people who I would normally be at odds with! After all, it seems, I can broaden my mind.
)
La lutte continue!
Great post!
I’m presently on furlough, very much against my will I hasten to add! I work for one of the few large companies (in terms of employment) which is currently suffering one of the largest downturns in its history. Those on furlough are just a step closer to the exit gate; most colleagues do not yet seem to have sussed this part out.
I can only wish you good luck, Nick. We’re on small pensions and my OH will need cancer treatment in a couple of years. We are not expecting great things to be honest. It’s the head-buriers I feel for. When they wake up it will likely be too late. At least we’re mentally prepared.
The selfish ones are the comfortably (for now) furloughed and pensioned whose lifestyles have barely been dented by the lockdown.
Spot on! Great post. Thanks.
Cheers, Cheez!
Can I call you that? Love Mim.
It is impossible to eradicate any virus and we will need to learn to live with it as we have done with other viruses such as the flu virus.
The good news is that most of us will be ok especially if we improve our health and optimising our vitamin D levels. https://media.mercola.com/assets/pdf/ebook/vitamin-d-in-the-prevention-of-covid-19.pdf
And zinc I believe?
Eat shed roofs. Save lives.
Was thinking more in tablet format…
Always take vitamin D with Vitamin K2 and Magnesium. Yes Zinc, many of us have depleted zinc levels.
Though I was never a supporter of lockdown, after it was announced, I watched the daily infections continue to rise, knowing that the incubation for covid was 2-14 days. I knew that after the first week, new daily infections would begin to fall. They didn’t. So maybe we’d see the effect after a fortnight. Um no. That’s when I knew for sure we’d been sold a pup.
I’m facing the world as I always have, but with two important additions. First is contempt for both the political establishment and the mainstream media. I thought it was hatred, but it’s contempt.
My hatred is reserved for ALL forms of authority, no matter now nicely put. I will no longer be pushed, pulled, numbered, told what to do, where to sit, where I can go. They can all go to hell. The worst aspect of this lockdown has been how many “little Adolfs” we have running around, one of whom is the Secretary of State for Health. But no more of it, not for me.
See the anecdote from snooze below for an example of how rules and regulations bring out the absolute worst in far too many people.
We need as a culture to re-internalise the recognition that a rule, regulation or law is inherently and objectively a harmful thing, that absolutely requires a very strong and direct justification before it is allowed to be imposed.
Seconded and thirded. Needed to do more than uptick this because they’re my feelings duplicated.
The conspiracy theorist that I mostly keep locked up in an internal box would like me to point out that we significantly increased testing capacity starting at roughly the same time as lockdown, and focused that capacity initially on those who were already sick and those who worked in hospitals and were or might be sick (likely to test positive), then on those who worked in hospitals and other nosocomial settings who might be sick (likely to be positive), then on those in the above groups who did not have symptoms but had been exposed (likely to be positive) and finally to every hypochondriac in the country who wondered if they had it (not likely to be positive, but likely to return the largest possible number of positives) and to every single resident and member of staff in a care home, symptomatic or not (likely to return a large number of positives.
The plan, therefore, maximized the reported number of positives every day, and the increasing and then steady number of positive tests was at least mostly because of an increased testing capacity and targeting of testing.
Having put the conspiracy theorist back in the box, I would suggest that this was a by-product of a plan that also made sense on its own terms (testing in that order was probably the right thing to do, starting from a limited capacity), but at best, increased testing capacity prolonged the lockdown, because nobody was paying any attention to the fact that hospitalizations were still dropping regardless of the increase in ‘cases’
Yes it’s worrying the number of anxiety ridden people around. Doubtless they are many people using this crisis for solely political reasons.
Right from the start, me and Mrs 2-6 could see “The Corona Project” for what it was, a catalyst for global change. I decided to give “them” the benefit of doubt for a few weeks and started researching the real facts. Very soon it was clear SARS2-CoV was not really that much of a threat to anybody but the very old and very ill and the very unlucky.
We have no fear of catching this virus and I think I had it anyway in early April, so mild I hardly even noticed, I just felt a bit peeky with a persistent hot dry cough.
However the vicious propaganda has got even me a bit paranoid and I have to “give myself a thought check” now and again to remind myself it really is a pretty harmless virus for nearly everybody and look at the risks involved..ABSOLUTELY TINY. In fact I couldn’t believe that “they” picked such a crap virus to use as their vehicle to hang the scam on but then choosing The Common Cold was a stroke of evil genius. I bet they found it hilarious terryfying the world silly over the risk of catching a cold.
I take a much bigger risk in almost everything I do in comparison every day, for example cycling, climbing about on my roof fixing the guttering, THAT WAS SCARY, rubbing shoulders with the very very insane viro-zombies on a day to day basis…
We are looking forward to going to the pub it’s funny how the simplest of joys in life are becoming so important. I could throttle Boris for this I really could. I see he doesn’t think mask wearing is so important afterall as he is never seen wearing one and none of his cabinet does either!
Yes, except the pub is going to be like an episode of The Prisoner crossed with The Man in the Iron Mask.
can anyone advise me of the censorship process on this site. i posted something last night – within the thread about GM and this is still showing as “waiting approval” I dont know why. My comments are not contentious and certainly more accurate than the posting that i am responding to. Is this just an automatic triggered moderation based on some key word? Is anyone actually reviewing? Is it strange that a site linked to a proponent of free speech is being moderated?
That’s strange as I thought Toby was a proponent of free speech!
I don’t think it’s censorship
It’s probably an automated anti spam feature that kicks in for very long posts or those with a lot of links in them
Did it contain some links? I’ve previously found that posts with three or more links seem to have to wait for manual approval, presumably as an anti-spam measure, as Julian suggests.Also possibly for links that have been posted several times previously in the thread (not sure about that one). I suspect the software probably has thresholds you can set for that kind of thing.
If it’s your first post it just means that Toby is busy and hasn’t got round to registering you yet. Happened to me initially.
thanks all for the comments. Not my first post .. i have been contributing to the discussions since April. It might be the links – i think i had three in there..- and the spam aspect makes sense , I will try editing
going on a long bike ride to the coast and no doubt there will be many of the beautiful people wandering around looking hot in their swimming costumes. No one gives a fuck about this lockdown or the stupid virus or the wankers who are scared to give it up. Personally i’m no at the stage i hope every single on of the cowards stands on lego or cuts their throat eating a chip
I’m starting to feel a bit restless too. Been walking/hiking every day, even if only a handful of miles. Wet this morning, so will be doing an afternoon into evening walk. Never been hassled for doing it yet.
Have a good time! Keep Scotland tidy, bury a zombie!
The Coronavirus was found in a water sample from Barcelona in March 2019 proving its been around for quite a while, even longer than we thought! So this farce we’re forced to participate in lockdown, loss of human rights, jobs, lifestyles etc has been for nought. No wonder the government doesn’t want an Enquiry. We should demand our rights are reinstated NOW!
Has there been any supporting evidence for that finding, and how robust was it?
Submitted for peer review:
‘Dr Joan Ramon Villalbi of the Spanish Society for Public Health and Sanitary Administration told Reuters it was still early to draw definitive conclusions.
“When it’s just one result, you always want more data, more studies, more samples to confirm it and rule out a laboratory error or a methodological problem,” he said.
There was the potential for a false positive due to the virus’ similarities with other respiratory infections.
“But it’s definitely interesting, it’s suggestive,” Villalbi said.
Bosch, who is president of the Spanish Society of Virologists, said that an early detection even in January could have improved the response to the pandemic. Instead, patients were probably misdiagnosed with common flu, contributing to community transmission before measures were taken.’
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-spain-science/coronavirus-traces-found-in-march-2019-sewage-sample-spanish-study-shows-idUKKBN23X2HQ
Definitely merits further study, given the potentially huge implications.
The finding in early January is not really controversial I think, as there is reasonable evidence already that the virus was around in Europe late last year.
The interesting thing however is that this was Barcelona, which has lower seroprevalence and lower deaths than Madrid, apparently because the lockdown prevented spread to Barcelona.
But if the outbreak started _three months_ before the lockdown this becomes less plausible.
The lower seroprevalence in Barcelona may be because they were actually hit a few weeks before Madrid and so antibody levels had gone down by more by the time they did the testing.
All this basically makes it less probable that Catalonia is going to have a second wave.
Absolutely, not disputing the importance of the points you’ve made in this regard.
Agree Guy. I posted last night on your comment about tourism into Catalonia vs Madrid. It is also the case that many of the wealthier families in Madrid and Zaragoza have summer/vacation homes along the Catalan coastline. They are all in the process of leaving the inland cities now for those summer properties, so we should see a spike fairly soon if at all.
Here’s the link
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1301736/coronavirus-latest-news-second-wave-lockdown-uk-deaths-update
I can’t believe that March 2019 wasn’t a false positive. None of the samples between April 2019 and January 2020 were positive.
But what they did find convincingly was viral RNA going back to January 15 2020. If you look at the graph of reported cases in Spain (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/ and scroll down to “daily new cases”) we can see what looks like the effect Mimi first suggested here– that the “start” of the curve is just us ramping up testing late. The curve there rises steeply and then has a long tail.
The curve from the wastewater starts on January 15, peaks around the beginning of April, and drops back to below threshold levels on May 18. (Figure 1 panel D).
This is the actual wastewater evidence:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1
And here is a graph of the daily new cases in Spain hacked up by me to illustrate what really happened (Edit: just noticed those green lines are too high up, but I don’t think I can repost the image, never mind you get the idea).
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1301736/coronavirus-latest-news-second-wave-lockdown-uk-deaths-update
The graph makes sense. I was pondering last night how initial assumptions can lead to very different conclusions based on the same data.
Most notably the assumption of a novel virus with zero resistance/immunity vs the assumption of some inherent resistance immunity.
The former leads to conclusions such as non uniform spread of infection due to superspreader events, high asymptomatic spread and lockdown being the primary cause of the virus dying out.
The latter would cover the conclusions for the above.
Wow this is explosive if it holds up to scrutiny. Although that March 2019 result seems improbable. Expecting this news to be erased soon along with immediate defunding and a smear campaign initiated against the scientists.
A virus so evil and dangerous that we didn’t notice it in Europe for at least two month and maybe even a full year???
It’s not so dangerous afterall so the ramped up hysteria was totally unnecessary afterall, so why is Bozo continuing with this farce? It must be about control, there is an Agenda the government is working on I’m almost certain of it.
Improbable yes but what if it is proven true. Does that mean what we are experiencing now is actually the “deadly” second wave and all the asymptomatic cases or people being immune is because they had covid in the first wave in spring 2019? Is this the missing ‘dark matter’?
Plenty of people had what sounds like covid19 before and around Christmas.
This assumes that the tests were accurate – if in fact you can actually test for sarscovid2. I’m not convinced you can.
Here’s one you couldn’t make up! Head teacher suspended for telling the truth!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/26/headteacher-suspended-saying-teachers-sat-home-nothing-lockdown/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-onward-journey
A case for Toby to follow up on. It’s getting too ridiculous you cannot express an opinion before the Left wing fascists get you sacked.
She was working her notice already. New chair of governors.
Was she? so it’s a non story then?
Not if what she said was right. Whistleblower with nothing to lose.
So Bozo says that the “senseless murders” in Reading (which suggests that there can be sensible murders – and I think the Guardian/BBC probably believes that if the victims are straight white males), will not “change our way of life”.
The thing is, he and his ‘government’ have just destroyed a big part of our way of life on a whim, using all the psychological tricks in the SAGE book to do it. And then to top it off has encouraged officialdom to kneel before a bunch of communists and their army of useful idiots while they rewrite the past, producing for the first time in my life, a genuine sense that society is on the verge of breaking down, and a prospect of a genuine 1984-style future. And all in three months.
When anarchy comes those that wanted it the most will find it brings nothing but toil and strife under a new set of leaders who are (somehow) worse than the present lot.
What we have on the way is some sort of hybrid fascist/communist totalitarianism which is the opposite of anarchy. Anarchy literally means the absence of a leader or ruler.
We are absent a leader – and a Parliament.
However, I do think we are being ruled, just not by our elected representatives.
COVID covering just about all bases:
Three new coronavirus symptoms have been added to the official list.
The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has added a runny nose or congestion, nausea and diarrhoea to the recognised symptoms of Covid-19 .
Oh FGS! Why not declare we’ve all got it or had it and get on with our lives!
I am surprised they haven’t added, “Damp Spleen”, ” Flappy Toungue”, “Loose knees”, “Wrestless Legs”, “Clicky Teeth”, and “Anal Fissures” to the list as well.
Ha ha brilliant
Just a matter of time, I’m sure. Yawning too I imagine.
I forgot “Excessive Blinking” and like you say, very important, “Wide Yawning”, a sure-fire give away of the presence of covids
Some of your posts bring tears to my eyes. “Anal fissures” does not bear thinking about.
What about Covid Red Eye? My optician’s favourite…
Nutrient deficiencies etc
People knew all this in February. It’s why they stocked up on tissues and toilet paper…
Other symptoms:
Farting excessively
Quick, bring me a mask!
How about sore thumb, itchy eyes and dirty fingernails? Oh, and a bit of thrush for good measure.
Nurse on the Frontlines of COVID-19 Shares Her Experiencehttps://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/06/27/elmhurst-hospital-coronavirus.aspx
Mechanical Ventilation
“”Most patients who had difficulty breathing were immediately placed on mechanical ventilation. Many of these cases were likely nothing more than anxiety, she says. But why?
Financial incentives appear to be at play. Elmhurst, a public hospital, is able to charge Medicaid and Medicare a lot more for COVID-19 patients than for other diagnoses. According to Olszewski, the hospital receives $29,000 extra for a COVID-19 patient receiving ventilation, over and above other treatments.
Part of why mechanical ventilation is so dangerous is because you are given sedatives and paralytics. You’re essentially asleep for the duration, which could be up to a month.
“There’s no way you can recover from something like that,” Olszewski says. What’s worse, many patients are not even told that they’re going to be sedated. In a chilling conversation, a physician states that not a single patient has been successfully extubated and released since the pandemic began.
All patients who are put on ventilation die, and that’s a majority of patients at Elmhurst, regardless of their actual infection status. Is it any wonder, then, that this Queens hospital is the “epicenter of the epicenter” of the pandemic? It’s not due to rampant COVID-19 though.””
Why is this not being read in every newspaper! It also answers a few questions doesn’t it. Why Boris wasn’t put on a ventilator despite being in ICU and why the manufacturing of 1000s of ventilators were dumped! I had heard once you’re intubated it’s almost guaranteed you won’t recover.
I think I read somewhere that the death rate for those intubated is around 80%. From the point at which doctors in one of the other NY hospitals started talking about issues with intubation, and how they decided to rely on oxygen saturation plus known therapeutics to curb the cytokine storm, we should have done the same here. Moreover, the ridiculous advice to stay home to ‘save our NHS’ cost more lives – after 7/8 days if symptoms have not improved you need to go straight to hospital. Boris was lucky that someone spotted on the video call that he was getting close to crisis point (day 9/10). Add to all this the deaths the NHS caused by sending infected people back to care homes prior to them being left to die in some of the worst possible circumstances imaginable (as per Professor Carl Heneghan’s recent article), the wonderful NHS is likely responsible for up to two thirds of deaths either directly or indirectly.
But will there be any justice? I’m expecting a D notice to be slapped on all Government Covid Papers!
Yes I agree. The SAGE minutes, in my opinion, are ‘minutes of minutes’ prepared in full knowledge they would end up in the public domain well before the 30 year rule. I have looked at various documents in The National Archive from just after WWII, and some of the stuff (letters between government departments) is breathtaking even now. We haven’t seen anything from within the NHS, and I think it is highly likely that unless there is a Royal Commission with full subpoena powers, we are unlikely to see anything that implicates departments, let alone individuals. Neil Ferguson’s interview on the BBC yesterday could be read as a ‘don’t even go there’ to anybody minded to investigate?
One justification for lockdown was not to put the NHS under pressure. This is the same NHS which has cancelled non COVID treatments and sent infected people back to care home. This is an institution which doesn’t deserve clapping.
I agree. Nobody in our household clapped. It is a religion long past its sell-by date. Some great doctors, nurses and other medical staff, some less than good, some absolutely shockingly bad, collectively swamped by layers of bureaucracy. I have had my fair share of all of this over the past 20 years or so.
Agree they are doing their jobs and get paid for it by our taxes.
It’s the bureaucracy which is terrible. Got a friend who is a nurse (who had the virus) with whom I just spoke today. He’s just come back from 4 hours ‘agency’ work for the same hospital he is staff at because they were short staffed and earnt £250 (£62.50 an hour.) If NHS had more better paid and better trained nursing staff and paid them £25 an hour as opposed to the paltry £12 they get (these are rough figures, I know most work over 40 hour weeks and get a salary not hourly rates, but as a comparison…) then we might have a decent service. If only (overpaid)politicians and (overpaid) managers would get off their arses. Doesn’t suit them though.
In the US, there is a strong financial incentive to automatically put covid patients on ventilators.
I’ve not found any evidence that was the case here and I think as soon as they realised there was a problem, the practise was dropped.
However, financial incentives were offered to certain UK manufacturers to provide ventilators. I wonder if they had to repay any of the contract funding.
By the time Boris was ill, they’d realised that the use of ventilators was generally a very bad policy.
We no longer hear the ‘Wash your Hands’ message
Unless you take your own sink with you, handwashing is impossible when you leave home as all the toilets are closed…
Which is odd because that’s the most effective way to fight this virus and not wearing a muzzle. But I suppose you can’t virtue signal if you’re washing your hands…….
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?iso=20200704T08&p0=137&msg=Pubs+Open&font=cursive&csz=1
Times reports on pub on Welsh border which will shortly have two English bars open and one Welsh bar closed, with one-metre distancing on the English side and two metres on the the Welsh.
Enough to make a cat laugh. But not, of course, a zombie. Or Quackerduck. You can’t laugh when you’re brain-dead.
LOL I’d go with 1 mtr as a choice.
I think I know which bar will get more customers…..
Coronavirus: London’s Nightingale hospital recorded 144 safety incidents in 29 days
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-nhs-nightingale-patient-safety-london-a9587566.html
The Independent is just EVIL, easily the worst paper for pushing the brainwashing.
Just look at the graphics on their web page, all just total mind F*&^ery.
Indeed, but this is somewhat a scathing article on the hospital and suggests as long as they report it, they can make it up as they go along. Woefully undertrained and inept with a max of 35 patients at any one time.
Yes the way they say the high number of reported safety incidents was a good thing because they had robust reporting procedures is BS, the safety issues were because they had a load of numpties in them who didn’t know what the hell they were doing.
Apart from that, the Nightingale hospitals, rolled out ALL OVER THE WORLD were just a photo opportunity to increase the leverage of fear in the population, nothing more than that.
This is such a no value add article – agree with earlier posters that say we should give MSM a wide berth.
i.e “She showed data revealing the largest number of safety incidents involved medical devices, where there were 25 incidents which included the ventilators used to keep patients alive. Staffing issues and medication as well as pressure ulcers and communication incidents were also among the highest numbers.” WHAT?
I generally give MSM a very wide berth but thought relevant as it questions the capability for errors in such a small example. Could these errors be far more widespread?
25 ventilator incidents in 54 ICU patients seems significant to me.
Apologies if you feel it is a ‘no value add’ article.
Not directed to you but to the independent publishing it
Yes it seems ventilators killed you which is probably why Boris was never out on one! Or because the PM of the UK going into ICU doubly underscored how terrifyingly dangerous this virus was and scared the living shxt out of the public thereby enforcing compliance.
Good morning everyone. I just came across this passionate speech against lockdown and muzzle wearing in the United States. Fantastic:
https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1276784933093158917
Brilliant, a new addition to the LS Hall of Fane for sure.
Outstanding! We should not be letting the powers that be get away with this. Why arent the good guys in Parliament speaking up for us mortals? Is it because there aren’t any?
Oh boy, he proper nails it! Good for him. Where are the people like this in the uk?
Great stuff.
He nailed it!
Sent my request for an internal review to the Government Legal Department about there answer to my FOI saying it was too expensive to process:
“Thank you for your reply but I think it is inadequate and requires an internal review.
It is not exactly an onerous nor complicated request.
How contacting one person for one document that should be in the public domain as it is a crucial piece of evidence can take over 24 hours of research and cost over £600 at £25 per hour to find and supply? Please justify.
The request was for one document from one department that should be available from one person, The Secretary of State for Health, and that it should be in the public domain as an addendum to the serious and imminent threat declaration issued on the 10th February 2020 by The Secretary of State for Health.
This document should also be freely available with yourselves as the Government Legal Department as you are currently facing a judicial review challenge on the whole coronavirus legislation and associated actions and as this document is what underpins the whole of Government’s response it is a crucial document and should be readily to hand as evidence for the judicial review High Court hearing.
The request:
What was the advice given by the Chief Medical Officer or one of the Deputy Chief Medical Officers of the Department of Health and Social Care prior to this notice being issued?”
I look forward to your justifications on why it would take so long to track down and supply the relevant document and/or information.”
Not going to hold my breath for anything concrete to come out of it and have another FOI for the information in with the Department of Health and Social Care.
Well done!
You’re brill!
Fantastic!
Ending The “Corona-Panic”: 5 Facts Proving We’re Going To Be Just Fine (Part 1)
https://theemfguy.com/covid-part1/
Parts 2 & 3 available within. A hefty read but some excellent information and stats.
Thank you Steven! We get the Covid shuffle as well. You put your right foot in, they put their left foot back …..
I know exactly how you feel. It’s worse than talking to a brick wall, because a brick wall doesn’t give you stupid answers.
Ignore the bastards.
For lockdown sceptics Peru is an interesting example. Despite one of the earliest and strictest lockdowns in the world it has one of the highest number of excess deaths (apologies linking to the BBC but at least they’re covering it….)
“Peru imposed one of the earliest and strictest lockdowns in Latin America to stop the spread of coronavirus – but it now has the sixth highest number of confirmed cases in the world.
Peru’s President, Martín Vizcarra, says things are improving but has previously said results of the lockdown “haven’t been exactly what we expected”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-53150808
In other words, lockdowns don’t work and the progression and impact of the virus depends on the demographics of your country, amongst many other factors. Lockdowns, masks etc etc don’t make a material difference. Deprivation, low standard of health, crowded mass accommodation do.
Yep my family are the same, totally brainwashed. It kills me.
The media are propagating hysteria on the back of localised spikes which seem mostly caused by imported cases form the Indian subcontinent to the countries of the west. The pandemic is following a different course in countries such as Brazil, India and Pakistan where they are slowly reaching their peak.
From the Telegraph ; half of Britain’s imported cases are from Pakistan .
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/26/exclusive-half-uks-imported-covid-19-infections-pakistan/
From the Guardian, Australia’s spike in Melbourne is from Eid celebrations.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/25/reports-melbourne-coronavirus-cluster-originated-at-eid-party-could-stoke-islamophobia-say-muslim-leaders
From New Zealand; origin of their new corona cases .
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases/covid-19-current-cases-details
Lets go back to disease control basic rule 1 . Quarantine the sick . Stop flights from these countries for 4 months until the pandemic is over in these countries . Boris won’t do it because it would be a political hot potato.
I don’t think there’s any point quarantining anyone coming into the UK from anywhere. But this is worth a try in NZ.
Scotland want to be like NZ though. I’m sure we’re going to see quite a divergence between Scotland and England moving forward, or at least the pretence of one.
Is Sweden not included in the airbridge list because they are doing more testing?
Middle England doesn’t holiday in Sweden so they are off the menu
Sweden has been cancelled!
Well Sweden are in the naughty corner as they didn’t follow the majority of the world into lockdown. They’re probably considered to be too dangerous for the UK.
Yes, orrible free thinking types. I’v got family over just north of stockholm – they are happy with Tegnells dealing with the disease, and his honesty. There is a strange phenomenon over there – apparently, when people get very old, they die.
My personal trainer is Swedish and she moved back home just prior to the UK lockdown. Seeing her Instagram posts of going to the beach and a lakeside holiday is a bit like torture.
They’re very lucky to have a sensible scientific person in charge.
Funny that very old people die? Would never have occurred to me, thought we lived forever lol
Yes but if people didn’t die they could have lived a bit longer. Until they die. but if they didn’t die of that they could have lived a bit longer…
The Telegraph: Travel latest: British families ‘ignoring quarantine’, says Ryanair.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/27/travel-latest-british-families-ignoring-quarantine-says-ryanair/
Really? Who could have predicted that would happen.
O’Leary sowing the seed…
Given that the government, and its partners in the corporate media, have engaged in an organised campaign to make the public feel afraid in order to ensure compliance, are they not guilty of coercive control?
Sky ‘news’ was showing a sensationalised docudrama about the ‘armageddon’ in north Italys hospitals well before 23rd March, even playing violin music in the background for extra effect. It was stuff like this that drove the mass hysteria and caused our wishy washy leadership to panic and hit the self destruct lockdown button. They therefore cannot blame OFCOMs diktat (good luck Toby – fighting the good fight) – they are equally culpable – as are all the rest of the sensationalist MSM
The government define coercive control as:
The Government definition also outlines the following:
They are guilty as you say but who is going to hold them accountable, and when.
Given that they are all complicit (the Coronavirus Act 2020 was passed without scrutiny or division), the chances of them being held accountable are virtually non-existent.
I dont know much about it, but looks like there are only; Simon Dolan’s judicial review on legality of lockdown and rules and Toby’s judicial review of ofcom sensoring the free press – in the running
The lockdown measures are blatantly illegal. They violate our rights to a completely unprecedented degree. The Coronavirus Act, and the associated regulations, is clearly incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998 and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. The government and other organisations are also open to many other legal challenges. For example all the people who died as a result of the NHS refusing to provide medical attention or the people in care homes who died as a result of the decanting of older people from hospitals to make space in the NHS.
As for Ofcom – its position is not only censorship, but also blatantly absurd. Its position means that one day it is unacceptable to say that wearing masks provides the general population with protection, and the next day it is unacceptable to say that wearing masks does not provide the general population with protection. This makes Stalinist media control look lax.
Hopefully the results of the current judicial reviews will open the door for many many more legal challenges
Won’t be surprised if this will open the floodgates for more court cases. Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson should be afraid, very afraid…..
Dolan review, Royal Commission, Coronaberg trials, or a good old-fashioned lynching.
Could there be a better description of the great Incarceration?
Our media simply cannot handle the truth anymore…they won’t admit the huge holes in the lockdown ideology and they won’t tell the truth about BLM in the USA – it seems it is virulently anti-semitic (meaning progroms, not misjudged retweets):
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2020/06/0626-links-pt2-caroline-glick-silent.html
The only statistics that matter. Covid-19 deaths almost at zero now.
Source: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-27-June-2020.xlsx
yes but – what about THE SECOND WAVEEEEEEE????
No deaths is one too many according to the extremist wing of the Epidemiology movement, (the People’s Incarceration Front). They demand negative figures before the lockdown is eased.
What is epidemiology? Is it the ‘media studdies’ of the science degrees?
I.e. dead people coming back to life?
Isn’t that where politicians come from?
Apparently according to NHS England two of the people who died had no known underlying medical conditions …of the two one was 97 years old !
Extreme old age obviously doesn’t count as a medical condition, unless you live in the real world.
And the other was his great-grandfather.
We can only open up fully when we have eliminated death from ALL causes. We must guarantee all humans can live to 100. It must be safe!
Quite often when people say “oh no another two people died how awful” I always want to ask them if they’d just like people to live forever.
Dying is just part of living but the majority have forgotten this inconvenient truth!
I am 50 and I have lost lots of friends already, I have stopped counting. Alot of them died very young from a variety of reasons: Congenital heart defect(1), motorbike crash(1), congenital liver disease, cancer (6), heroin overdose (3), heart attack(2, almost 3), something strange(1), the others were not so close friends and older but cancer took them and a suicide. The youngest was, 19 the heart defect guy. A really good pal. He died very suddenly.
So yeah dying is something I am very aware of. Living and not living is a lucky dip. Really.
My dearest friend died aged 56 from a brain haemorrhage. A tragedy. He was wise, gentle, fabulously learned, modest, honourable, fearless and faithful. But I do know that he lived more in a short time than all the zombies in the world put together would live if they all lived to be 100.
I have literally no family left in the U.K. My mother was my last relative to die here and that was 3 years ago. My sister died 20 years ago of cancer. I have lost 12 relatives in 20 years, none of them from – or even with – Covid. Death happens. It’s a part of life. Sadly some folk seem to have forgotten that!
I think the only future we have now going forward is to live in a glass tank from birth, breathing filtered air and only eating totally sterile laboratory formulated nutritional supplements. All work and social interaction to be done via the internet and all bodily waste dealt with via a special tube.
The poor 97 year-old had his best years stolen from him!
Those figures make incredible reading, in round figures, up to yesterday (26th) 28,000 people have died with (not from) covid 19 and 26000 of those are in the age group 60-80. And we have destroyed society for that!! And yesterday 10 people died, again all in the older age group.
In case you think I am being ageist, I am in that age group too and I am really not worth destroying society for. This is not a pandemic this is a woke revolution.
I am off out now to buy a couple of cans of Marstons Pedigree.
Well said. May you live long and prosper!
Thank you.
If I knew how to draw a Vulcan salute in a text based forum I would draw one.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1301736/coronavirus-latest-news-second-wave-lockdown-uk-deaths-update largest Saturday spike in WEEKS. Meanwhile noone in the UK died from anything else and in particular from an untreated illness.
I think it’s best to look at a rolling average over a week or so.
I am not sure what you mean by “Meanwhile noone in the UK died from anything else and in particular from an untreated illness.”
I was being sarcastic -only coronavirus deaths matter.
Ah, sorry about that! Yes, good point. One of the more distasteful aspects of this whole thing is the desperate striving to appear virtuous while ignoring the huge damage being done on many other fronts.
It’s all about eradication now for some. Mission creep at it’s finest.
Bit of a rant on the new flippin “normal” … earlier went to Curries at out of town shopping complex so it’s a huge warehouse type store. Queues of course outside and not moving so a lonnnnnng wait. Got inside and there were about 10 customers in the whole big store, i couldn’t believe it! There were more staff than customers that were allowed in.
I had a rant at some poor fella that they’d overdone the social distancing to the excessive degree – is this really the prospect for our future??
I can’t see retail shops surviving like this as it’s an utterly depressing experience being herded like sheep and treated like lepers.
It’s the same at Matalan,a store big enough to park two small airliners in yet they let about twenty people in at a time,plus when my niece went they were operating with the bare minimum of staff so long queue outside and queue for the two open tills inside.
At least when they’ve made you queue to get in, there should be enough checkouts so that you can clear the store quickly to let in the next customer.
Their management clearly have as much idea about retail as the government!
Get the manger and complain, write to Currys and complain, write the the retail park owners and complain, write to your local BID and complain…Don’t comply as best you can and keep complaining.
Or just take it…..
I got told off for having the audacity to try and leave via the entrance in the new normal one-way WH Smiths by a face nappy wearing apparatchik, before I knew what I was saying “fuck off with that, sorry” popped out my face and I walked out the in door.
I had a similar meltdown at B&Q a few weeks ago. Haven’t been back since.
Does anyone go back to B&Q, having visited it under “new normal” regs?
I would write a letter or email of complaint if I were you.
That’s why I’ve been boycotting the high street – shopping can be stressful enough as it is and they’re making it worse by their insistence that we reenact the Soviet Union. All of this antisocial distancing nonsense is overkill.
However looks like the high street are really in trouble as I came across several news reports that landords were barely able to collect rent last 24 June and out of 10 shops 9 were unable to pay.
Give it another few weeks we might see more stores including big names go under.
I was in my local high street this morning and I wanted to see how busy it was. Saturday should be the busiest day for high streets and the the high street was barely different from during lockdown. I wonder if people have seen the same in their high streets.
I came across an ex-colleague’s post on social media where she went to Central London and mentioned that it was pretty dead there as well – shops are open but hardly anyone going in.
It is bad when central London is quiet.
Agree. And if central London is a ghost town, it does reflect badly on the UK as a whole.
yes i agree – i think the high streets are really suffering – around me it’s fairly bleak but the bakeries and greengrocers are doing well. Maybe in July will improve maybe when pubs open. Personally i just feel stressed going into any shop, not because of the virus, but all the queues, and the jobsworth camp commandants bossing around to follow one way systems, the other people who have the look of fear above the masks etc. It’s not a pleasant experience, and i hate shopping at the best of times, so will only go if absolutely necessary.
Although not a big shopper myself i’d hate the shops to close, not just because of jobs but is part of the fabric of society and empty shops make the area look desolate
I don’t think the pubs opening either will help. I don’t want the high street to die, if you want to see what an area looks like without one, you should see mine – the high street was decimated years ago and its now just identikit new housing all round.
However since the government won’t listen to us boycotting is the only way. I’d like to think that more closures might shake shops, pubs and restaurants out of their torpor and demand the end to antisocial distancing to enable them to earn a decent living.
I expect the empty shops will be interpreted by government and media as due to our fear of encountering the dreaded virus, rather than an aversion to the social distancing measures being put in place.
I’m wondering about the possibility of organising a *formal* boycott with clearly stated aims, so that our message and our demands are heard and understood. Unambiguously.
I hate it when shops close and I only shop on the internet as a last resort when something is not available in the shops. Shops have a multiplier effect as they give business to cafes, pubs, taxis and buses. When shops close there is a knock on effect on suppliers. As more shops go bust, there are fewer outlets for suppliers to sell to. I read an article how the publishing industry was badly hit when Borders closed as a big outlet to sell books was lost. Browsing is something I enjoy when shopping. People say the internet is cheaper but what will happen to prices if internet sellers have no competition from shops.
Hi – this may have been posted before – apologies if so. On Facebook there is a site called “Un-locked” which looks interesting, actually i think i learnt of it from a post on this site.
Anyway tonight at 7pm they are having a live discussion with a number of guests which sounds interesting and the Lockdown Sceptics is listed so maybe Toby is attending too.
Anyway here is the blurb from facebook
“Here at Unlocked Towers, we are gearing up for our first live Unlocked LockDown Lockin, starting tonight at 7pm, your host is none other than Martin Daubney with special guests Emma McClarkin (Beer & Pub Assocation), Christine Brett from Us4Them, comedian Simon Evans, writer, stand-up and creator of Titania McGrath, Andrew Doyle, activist Inaya Folerin, The Free Speech Union, Lockdown Sceptics, Michael Kill CEO of Night Time Industries Assocation on clubbing and the impact of not being able to open, businessman Ben Habib talking about the reverse furlough scheme, Scottish Comedian of the Year Leo Kearse, PLUS MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED.
Watch this space, please tell all your friends – we want to create a place to be able to discuss all the challenges and opportunities that lockdown has created. Questions from the audience will be put to our special guests. And we need to name the pub!
All are welcome!
Please make sure you have a glass of whatever tickles your fancy to hand.”
Toby mentioned them in his article so he presumably is one of the guests. Will have to watch it later on replay. Could be interesting.
I always thought the older generation would be more resilient as they been through the aftermath of WW2, food shortages, economic issues in the 70s etc.
My (almost) 88-year-old mother is furious and horrified about the whole Corona psychosis. Wish I could say the same for certain other members of my family.
Make you wonder if those who have been brainwashed by the MSM have lost the will to live hence the fear.
That’s the mentality that stands by while Jews are hounded on to trains for Auschwitz. Sounds extreme, but where do you draw the line?
These are some hard questions I would like to ask about lockdown policy
* To justify a lockdown a disease must be highly dangerous. There is an article from the BBC dated the 14th of March saying the majority of people only suffer mild symptoms and some people may never develop symptoms. If coronavirus was so deadly, why did even the BBC who like most of the mainstream media have been pushing the doom porn narrative admit the disease is harmless. This article was published 9 days before lockdown which indicates knowledge was available early on coronavirus was not dangerous. In view of this how could a lockdown be justified?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51214864
* If coronavirus is so dangerous, why are so many scientific experts arguing coronavirus is not dangerous and if these experts are wrong, why is youtube censoring them?
* If we are in the middle of a deadly pandemic why is it that if you look at the comments on videos by people like Carl Vernon many people think the idea we are in a pandemic BS?
* What was the logic of closing businesses. In my experience shops such as bookshops, clothes and electric shops don’t have large numbers of customers in at the same time. In hotels guests don’t mingle with each other as they stay in their rooms.
Especially when the Govt downgraded Covid-19 to an none highly infectious disease on 19th March.
I doubt we’ll ever truly get to the bottom of it all. I just wish if people can see the truth that they come out of the woods a bit more. I still feel in the minority camp.
This is a U.S. election year.
Broadcasters, most of the most prominent including the bbc (bbc America) global entities now, are determined to get rid of the U.S. President who is openly contemptuous of them.
AMC Networks operate bbc America.
https://variety.com/2014/tv/news/amc-networks-to-operate-bbc-america-after-200m-investment-1201337652/
This is how AMC Networks allocates its political funding:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs//totals?id=D000041981&cycle=2016
A shameful look for Britain’s state broadcaster……
Sky is now owned by Comcast Corporation.
Comcast U.S. political contributions (to Biden, Sanders, Warren) here:
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary?id=d000000461
And the Covid 19 crisis has sunk Trump’s poll ratings
‘The latest Reuters Ipsos poll, released Wednesday, found that only 37 percent of Americans approve of the way Trump has responded to the health crisis, the lowest percentage since the poll began asking the question in early March.
Of those surveyed, 58 percent of Americans responded that they disapproved of how Trump has reacted to the pandemic.’
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/504254-trump-approval-rating-on-coronavirus-response-at-new-low-poll
‘…. the findings confirm that the president’s political standing has deteriorated sharply since October.’
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/upshot/poll-2020-biden-battlegrounds.html
Do you recall the polls back in 2016? They said Trump and no chance and Killary was a foregone conclusion.
Spot on.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MMSZj2Bujfk
Trump Approval Largely Unchanged, Despite Claims to the Contrary
We won’t know which is true until November.
Handling of the corona virus has been mainly down to the individual states, as the U.S. is a republic. They’d criticise him if he interfered in state issues, and criticise him if he doesn’t.
The U.S. President is a good campaigner.
Against foot in mouth Biden, he should get re-elected.
I think it was a perfect storm of these things:
Plus: total f…..g stupidity all round.
Didn’t the Chinese lock down Wuhan because it was coming up to their new year celebration and, like thanksgiving in the US, people travel miles across the country to join their families.
Seems a sensible precaution under those circumstances.
This is a good news story… but no comment on any media.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-do-we-so-rarely-hear-the-good-news-about-the-economy
My hero!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8465287/amp/Boss-pub-chain-Marstons-declares-war-coronavirus-red-tape.html?__twitter_impression=true
Excellent! We need more like him.
Thank goodness for that!!!!
Right every other pub chain needs to drop all their insane “covid safe measures” now!.
As for Weatherspoons, just no….not now….not EVER!
In fact, pubs should seriously be signed as “COVID SAFE” for the zombies and “NON COVID SAFE” for people who don’t care. Let us decide. Sod these mental rules. Not that we need any signs at all anyway…
Perhaps we need to sign disclaimers now against suing an establishment or an event organiser if we do get the sniffles while in their premiss or event.
Even considering this as a way out of this nightmare is insanity but we almost have to do this. How anybody could actually make an claim stick that you got COVIDS in THAT particular place or event is beyond me anyway.
Do bed wetters go to the pub?
Gives ’em more to wet the bed with.
Rather than “COVID SAFE” those pubs should be labelled “COVID RESTRICTED” – its more negative. The other pubs are just “normal” and dont need a label.
Given there’s an incubation period, suing would be irrelevant as there could be no conclusive proof you caught it in a particular establishment.
About time! Far too few business owners have fought back, even just in terms of their own businesses and industries.
There should have been massively funded campaigns against lockdown from the beginning.
That is something that has bemused me all through this,I can understand small businesses being worried about rocking the boat,but why have most of the massive companies in the UK made barely a whimper ?,they usually always get their own way with the government so what is different now ?,are there some secret financial deals over and above the things we already know about ?.
I’ve assumed it’s basically cowardice, as with most acquiescence to or support for the coronapanic. The men and women making the decisions are either victims of the propaganda and actually scared of the disease, or they are frightened of being portrayed as selfish etc and losing business as a result.
Can’t join them now, in Gulag Wales, but first chance I get, I’m in. And I’ll stand any lockdown sceptic a drink. or two. Or more. If it’s Biker, probably several more?
Give us the nod and we’ll come and visit for a drink or two
i’ll pop over the bridge from bristol and join you for a pint of two (not keen on brains beer though!!
Meanwhile, here’s Peter Borg-Neal, ‘founder and CEO of a 28-strong pub group in the home counties’
That’s 28 venues to avoid as he’s all about ‘supervision’, ‘control’ and decorative glass screens. No singing, no football, no fun. He doesn’t like people gathering round duck ponds either. Watch it if you’re feeling strong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tzn-WnUw3E
Borg – the clue’s in the name, for Star Trek watchers….
Rival Wetherspoon’s – which is opening its 750 pubs in England from next week – has spent £11million on PPE and measures such as hand sanitiser machines and distancing signs to keep staff and customers safe.
But, like Marston’s, it also will not force staff to wear it. The group has set up screens at the bar and between tables that are less than two metres apart.
Well I know which chain I’d rather visit!
Here’s Patricia Yates, director of strategy and communications at VisitBritain (as reported in The Guardian):
“I love hotel buffet breakfasts [but] they are a thing of the past. And hotels will have to have social distancing so they won’t be opening at full occupancy and businesses will have to look at the sort of services they provide and really pruning those down to make sure that the infection control, that the cleansing regime, is right and that they can have social distancing.”
The deplorable stupidity just reaches greater and greater heights. How long will people tolerate holidays under those conditions before the leisure and tourism industry collapses altogether?
Will just boycott any B&B, hotel and restaurant that does any of this madness and won’t shed a tear if they go bust.
Agreed. Some of them are just begging for their own destruction. Sod them.
I’m hoping B&Bs, hotels and other businesses will unite against this toxic rubbish. If all of this bollocks is technically “guidance” rather than law -and, let’s face it, unjust laws can also be overturned- they could do it if there is the collective will. And perhaps form a new body based on decency, common sense and economic viability. A welcoming alternative.
VisitBritain can go to hell.
Its been disappointing how the hospitality sector not to mention the cultural, heritage and retail sectors have all been silent at this assault on their ability to operate. You would have thought they would be shouting from the rooftops warning the government that antisocial distancing would accelerate their demise but no they’ve not said anything and yet some choose to virtue signal over BLM.
Cowards the lot of them.
It’s already happening. Spare a thought for the small pubs, cafes and shops who cannot possibly comply with these sadistic, tyrannical and inhumane rules but daren’t open for fear of getting done by the local council & police or losing their insurance cover.
The virus has all-but gone. The danger is from the war being waged on the British public.
There is a place in hell for jobsworths like Mrs Stuff Britain, above.
To that I would add: the war is being waged not only on, but by, the British public. All those sanctimonious quislings.
Sadly true. There are a few of left in the trench!
Hell with no buffets.
My local council has just issued prohibition notices on two hairdressers that have been open,and they are very proud of themselves,they have been bragging how much they have done to keep us all ‘safe’,this mainly is shutting as many council services down as possible,not answering calls or emails,making life very difficult (and expensive) for small businesses and generally being a bigger bunch of arseholes than they usually are.
Every organisation that supposedly exists for the good of the country and the people is hell bent on destroying it and us and bizarrely a lot of them are determined to ruin the things that justify their overpaid jobs.
Mind saying which council that is, and which businesses? Victims like those businesses need support.
That sounds exactly like local councils. Extorting huge amounts of protection money in the form of council tax, being utterly incompetent at doing the jobs they’re supposed to (using Covid as an excuse to be even more rubbish than normal)- and loving every moment of their new Stasi role.
So sorry about the two hairdressers. I’m hoping there’s a local campaign to support them … ?
She will be on a nice fat wedge ,bet she doesent give a stuff about the hotels really as long as she toes the pc line she will get her nice fast pension.
She can pistol!
Sky News cuts off ex-Met Police chief after he says officers have ‘given up’ trying to stop young black men carrying weapons and accuses BLM aiming to destabilise society
The reality is that after a half century and more of dogmatic antiracist indoctrination, menacing suppression of dissent, and the construction of a vast antiracism industry and vested interest, we are largely incapable of having any meaningful discussion of these kinds of issues, because generalised observations about racial minorities simply are not allowed unless they are favourable, or they support identity lobby objectives and a victimisation and resentment agenda.
BLM-inspired violence is bringing the issue to a head, but it remains to be seen how it will all shake out.
Well said. It’s like some of my colleagues and even my family (save for my husband). Trying to reason with them is like trying to draw blood out of a stone.
This is a bit off-topic and I will say straight from the start that I am no supporter of the Queen or Royal family and if we could do away with them tomorrow I would as looking at the legal arguments we have not had a “royal family” or “monarch” since the 1972 European Communities Act was signed and enacted into law but I was going to write to HM Queen Elizabeth the Second and ask her to sort our her Government.
I got onto her website and saw the following:
“Correspondence which will not receive a responseAs a constitutional Monarch, Her Majesty does not intervene in any political or personal disputes, and letters asking her to do so will receive a standard reply to this effect.”
Tradition be damned, tradition can be broken, new traditions made – she either stands up for this country that she claims she is monarch of or she goes.
Why did she sign the ascent for all they legislation about coronavirus recently? Oh, maybe because it is mostly Statutory Instruments and supplementary legislation so needs no royal ascent nor and Parliamentary oversight which is why it is in force but with our supine and traitorous MPs at the moment anything would have passed. Have you been on the legislation page and seen how much legislation has been passed since March? And how much of it is S.I.s?
Where is she by the way? Nothing meaningful from her since day 1 except a speech that can be construed as saying “goodbye” (read it and it is full of double and triple meanings), does she even care about this country, the commonwealth or the people?
Probably on the shielded list and at home troffing food parcels
https://www.fortnumandmason.com/t/categories/hampers?channel=ppc&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9JCJjdii6gIVCLrtCh044g1VEAAYASAAEgI0tfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Have a read of her coronation oath… there may be a line about not letting a government act against her subjects or something or other.
Her oath is the key.
The only thing she would have had to give Royal Assent to is the Coronavirus Act itself, which was passed through Parliament so quickly it never really got a proper reading. The Queen does not involve herself in politics generally, although I agree this could be a special case, but she does talk to her Prime Minister once a week and offer advice. The PM does not have to take that advice. However legally he is “her” Prime Minister so he should listen to her. She’s a grand old lady now and has a lifetime of experience to offer. I believe she did very nearly ask Churchill to resign as PM when his handling of the London Smog was so bad. – that’s if you believe The Crown tv series! Anything else that has been imposed on us, ministerial guidelines, statutory instruments etc, do not cross her desk. You may remember she was put in a very embarrassing position last time she put a toe in the water of politics, when she agreed that Johnson could suspend Parliament over Brexit. The Queen and Prince Philip are still shielding at Windsor I believe.
Royal acsent.. to bills that run contrary to her oath.
Thanks Carrie!
As far as I know, the Queen has never refused to grant Royal Assent. I think it’s one of those things that legally she could do, but institutionally she never would. I wish she had though for this one!
Does anyone know when the Coronavirus Act expires? Somebody said September but I thought it had a life of two years.
Many extremely frightened voters, no doubt by a significant majority, albeit as a consequence of a politically motivated (in a U.S. Presidential election year) broadcasting media, have been right behind this government and its actions throughout this debacle.
Our constitutionally constrained Head of State, an international legend (of which we have vanishingly few), has acted accordingly..
I haven’t looked up the law but I believe she at least morally broke her coronation oath by not speaking out against Scottish independence. She swore to protect the United Kingdom but raised not a finger in its defence when its existence was threatened.
I do not agree with that conclusion:
‘Archbishop: ‘Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon, and of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs?’
Queen. ‘I solemnly promise so to do.’
‘…according to their respective laws and customs..’
Scotland has always had a separate system of law to England. If the people of Scotland decided to alter their relationship with the rest of Britain and become independent, that would become the law in Scotland. The Queen’s coronation oath would then oblige her to accede to becoming a separate Head of State of an independent Scotland.
The oldsters are scared, but at least they have some reason, looking at the demographics of deaths. I’m clearly in a minority when talking to them.
), the nearer you get to the exit door, the less you want it to open soon!
As long as life is tolerable (always the case for someone who can manage a round of golf
It’s the under-70s I can’t understand, who have negligible risk yet blindly accept the media scare hype.
What have we been saying here for weeks? Is the Telegraph going through old posts on here to find their new headlines?!
“Lockdown and ocial distancing could make our immune systems weaker”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/27/lockdown-social-distancing-could-make-immune-system-weaker-says/
Yes often read stories in the news that were flipping obvious from the begining of this.
Like the stories about how children will miss out on education, and that unemployment will rise.
Well this Conservative councillor isn’t believing the official narrative and is questioning!
I’ve e-mailed him and pointed him to this website!
https://youtu.be/2825PeH0-4E
Just read the transcript of the Knut Wittkowski interview – it’s excellent. For those who haven’t had a look/listen… do
Slightly off topic, but you did mention “free” education and “free” health services. Can I just remind people that when you insist on the state providing you with freebies that it inevitably means an increase in the size of the state, which in my view is something to be very wary of and not something to be applauded either by way of clapping seal-like or suggesting that it is a mark of an advanced and civilised country as you did.
Other than that, good website. Thank you.
My wife and I are both very angry about the attitude of the teaching unions, local authority and head of my son’s school about their collective attitude to school re-opening. Is anyone aware of any national campainging organisation body that is fighting for the re-opening of schools?
I am at a loss to understand the British public when the general consensus is that the government have no idea what they’re doing and ‘the scientists’ have not agreed at any point on anything…(they shouldn’t be determining policy anyway! :() So why is everyone waiting to be told what to do and then doing it like a load of sheep, unquestioning, (masks…) arbitrary dates set for 14 day quarantine. Public in general show zero concern for their loss of liberty which is going to be so hard to regain. Beggars belief. Wake up you lot!
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