I’ve written a comment piece for Mail+, praising the Prime Minister for refusing to give in to the gloomsters and doomsters. Here is an extract:
I think he’s been muddling through as best he can, driven by a combination of Machiavellian calculation and a sense of what’s in the public interest, like most national leaders.
At the beginning of the pandemic, that meant school closures, shuttered businesses and stay-at-home orders. But 21 months later, in the midst of a fifth wave, the political and economic calculus has changed.
To begin with, we now have a keener sense of the cost of lockdowns. I’m not just talking about the economic toll – £400 billion and climbing, as well as the collapse of thousands of shops, pubs and restaurants – but the social impact, particularly on the most vulnerable. Tens of thousands of cancer patients may die unnecessarily as a result of delayed treatment, the country is facing an unprecedented mental health crisis and education experts tell us it will take two years for children to catch up on the schooling they’ve missed.
Just as importantly, it has become clear that the non-pharmaceutical interventions favoured by governments around the world only have a modest effect on the life cycle of each viral outbreak, if any. The various waves triggered by new variants seem to rise and fall according to the same pattern, regardless of the severity of the restrictions imposed. They are self-limiting and eventually burn out of their own accord.
The starkest illustration of this fact is Sweden, which didn’t impose any lockdowns in 2020 and experienced an excess death rate below the European average. But it’s also true of US states such as Florida and Texas, where Republican governors resisted calls to follow the lead of Democratic governors in states such as California and New York, with their draconian shutdowns.
If you throw in the mass vaccination programmes, as well as the fact that Omicron appears to be milder than previous variants, the cost-benefit analysis has fundamentally changed.
Needless to say, most political leaders have doggedly stuck to the original playbook, responding to this wave as they have to every other, including Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland, Mark Drakeford in Wales and Paul Givan in Northern Ireland.
That has made it particularly difficult for Boris to resist the huge pressure he’s been under from his scientific advisers and their outriders in the media to impose another raft of restrictions.
But resist he has.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Patrick O’Brien in the Spectator thinks Boris’s decision not to impose any more restrictions could be the start of a comeback in the polls in 2022.
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A policy which Mao himself would purr about.
this contravenes our Magna Carta, which remains our most fundamental statute law, and which cannot be derogated.
The Great Global Warming Swindle – Full Documentary HD
https://rumble.com/vvvn6u-the-great-global-warming-swindle-full-documentary-hd.html
I first watched this in 2007. I remember Piers Corbyn appearing on it, more than anyone else, even though only he appears for a very short amount of time.
Yellow Boards By The Road …. for the love of humanity … green power = black death
Monday 12th September 3pm to 4pm TOMORROW
Yellow Boards
Junction A332 Windsor Rd &
A329 London Road
Ascot SL5 8FE
Wednesday 14th September 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A4 Bath Road &
Pound Lane Sonning
Wokingham RG4 6TB
Thursday 15th September 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction B3408 London Road &
Wokingham Road
Bracknell RG42 4FH
Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
So, once again, rich people in their fat cars would be allowed to drive there, because they’re the ones who will be able to afford permits, but the little people would be banned because it’ll be an extra expense. That’s people trying to get to their jobs and visiting families and friends and all the myriad reasons why people drive their cars. In effect, Oxford Council will be doing a sort of Net Zero lockdown by default. I urge all Oxford people to rise up and challenge this totalitarian nonsense.
In this case it doesn’t look like they’re interested in issuing any permits, though they have grudgingly said that for residents trapped inside the inaccessible zone, they might consider allowing 100 ‘passes’ a year (not explaining what these people are supposed to do for the other 265 days). Vans appear to be exempt, though this will probably change when local workers all buy small vans to travel to work.
It’s likely local government, like with most of these schemes, will have some sort of exemption, though the wealthiest mainly live within easy cycling distance in North Oxford or city centre apartments. These can virtuously cycle their battery assisted bikes into work (or to shop in the city with their child death-buckets attached, which is an alarmingly common sight) if they don’t work from home. Otherwise, if they currently believe they’ll be able to freely take their Teslas outside the city, they might have a shock when they encounter the newly created gridlock in residential areas and the two main roads leading north to the A34. To be fair, the first the majority of people will even know about this is when they receive a fine through the post.
Somebody voted in these council numpties. An old Chinese proverb says “Be careful what you wish for”
This achieves nothing toward reduction of emissions. With roads closed to certain users, people will simply do what they’ve always done when roads are closed: detour around them, increasing the total mileage driven and hence exhaust emissions!
At least we are now seeing what the greem movement is all about: eco fascism. They want other people (never themselves) driven back to the stoneage to appease their false eco-idols. They see other people (not themselves) as the sacrificial lambs to be slaughtered on the altar of eco-extremism. These crazed lunatics must not be allowed to get away with it.
It’s great to see an article drawing attention to the self-immolation of a once great city. My partner (who lives there and will no longer have a job if the proposed ‘bus gates’ go ahead) attended one of the phoney ‘consultation’ meetings. She described the demeanour of councillors as one of condescending boredom, and total disinterest in the concerns of people whose lives will be ruined by this scheme.
The article doesn’t go much into details about the scheme, and how it will affect people far outside Oxford city. Because of a criss-crossing network of canals and rivers, the only crossing point from one side of Oxford to the other is via what is effectively a tiny central ring road. This scheme will close off this ring road and stop drivers being able to cross from one point of the city to another. Instead they’ll be forced to drive several miles out to the A34 ‘ring road’, then back in again via one of the city’s already congested entry points. The council like to imagine people make these journeys for fun, rather than necessity, and that people share their own evidently luxurious position of being able to choose when and how they travel for work or other commitments.
Barring the obvious contradictions this raises if the council want to present it as in any way ‘green’, the resultant displacement of traffic will cause gridlock everywhere, impacting bus journey times and increasing danger for cyclists in residential areas.
More significantly, the A34 isn’t a ‘ring road’ as the council like to imagine – it’s a major arterial route from the north to the south of the country. Being a dual carriageway, it’s already completely unfit for this purpose, and already suffers a serious accident in Oxfordshire every few days. Adding local traffic to it will tip it over the edge. Southbound A34 congestion already backs up on to the M40 sometimes, causing tailbacks onto the motorway and leaving a stationary lane of traffic onto the sliproad vulnerable to accidents.
With A34 congestion routine, this will become the norm, and any journey through this part of the country, from North to South, or from the West to the South East will become a nightmare for everybody. Everyone travelling this way will pay for the narcissistic vanity of a bunch of pompous strutting Oxford councillors, in misery and inconvenience. The economic cost of massive delays to commercial and freight traffic alone will be enormous.