A photo circulating on social media in summer 2021 shows a scene which would have been unimaginable in 2019. In it, a row of small children – aged four or five perhaps – line up holding hands. They are all masked. Behind them stands a row of adults, one of whom is the Governor of New York. None of the adults are masked, and their smiles beam out at the camera. It is an archetypal example of the inversion at the heart of our global pandemic response.
Over the last two years the youngest members of society have often borne the heaviest burden of Covid restrictions, even though the risk from COVID-19 increases dramatically with age. This has created a deep and seemingly perverse inequity between adults’ and children’s lives, spanning contexts and borders. Indeed, it has become so ubiquitous that it risks becoming normalised.
At its most extreme, this upending of society’s natural responsibility to care for our young has endangered children’s lives.
In autumn 2020, U.K. university students finally returned to their campuses after months of isolation during lockdown. Even pre-pandemic, mental health issues were spiralling into a full-blown crisis for this age group. Barely out of childhood, this extremely vulnerable cohort deserves our protection and care. Yet, with a single-minded fixation on ‘protective’ measures, the institutions’ leadership too often discarded any compassion for these vulnerable teenagers in favour of decisions that can only be described as inhumane.
In November 2020, with the second lockdown underway, University of Manchester students awoke one morning to find metal barriers constructed around their halls of residence. The reported objective was to prevent student households from mixing. Horrified by the lack of prior warning, students protested by tearing down the barricades. The university backed down, but for a nervous 18-year-old away from home for the first time, the effective imprisonment must have been terrifying, and the mental health consequences could have been fatal.
Then, at the nearby University of York, during the same period, health and safety guidance decreed that in the event of a fire, self-isolating students should wait behind to allow ‘non-self-isolating’ colleagues to exit first. This ludicrous diktat not only displayed a profound lack of risk balancing, but also a dereliction of a fundamental duty of care and an ignorance of basic safety standards.
In January 2022, in a particularly shocking example, officers in Texas arrested a teacher for suspected child endangerment after her son was discovered in the boot of her car at a drive-through PCR testing site. The mother allegedly told officials that she had transported her child in this way so she wouldn’t be exposed to his infection.
These distressing cases testify to something deeply dysfunctional in our societal response to Covid. We have normalised the mistreatment of children, collectively justifying it against the backdrop of the pandemic state of exception.
This treatment of children should be unacceptable in any civilised society, no matter what respectability it is given by the cloak of ‘public health’. Much has been made throughout the pandemic response of the need for public health to act in the interests of an ill-defined concept of a ‘greater good’. Yet it’s striking that a now reengineered concept of ‘public health’ has barely acknowledged children as part of the ‘public’. In its name, we have not only marginalised our young people’s wellbeing, but often actively put them in harm’s way.
A pre-pandemic 2019 Public Health England strategy document lays out its vision and goals for the next five years. The document notes that:
Giving children the best start in life is vital for a healthy thriving society. The foundations of good physical and mental health, healthy relationships and educational achievement are laid in preconception through to pregnancy and the early years of life, which is when many inequalities in health often begin.
In crisis, we chose to cast aside these principles and priorities and inverted our public health paradigm by requiring the young to sacrifice their own health and wellbeing to safeguard that of adults. In doing so, we have shattered our implicit social contract.
In the brutal landscape of the Arctic Circle, reindeer do whatever it takes to protect their young. When the herd is threatened, the animals stampede in a cyclonic formation, making it impossible for predators to target an individual. A swirling wall of adult deer on the perimeter shields the fawns at the heart of the circle from harm.
How is it that the U.K. and most Western democracies have failed this basic tenet of nature, systematically and deliberately placing our young on the outside of our societal herd and demanding that they shoulder a burden that should never have been theirs to carry?
Molly Kingsley and Liz Cole are the founders of UsForThem, which since May 2020 has advocated that children be prioritised during the pandemic response. This is an extract from their new book The Children’s Inquiry: How the state and society failed the young during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is out now and you can buy here and here.
Commendations:
A devastating analysis of a country’s failure to prioritise its children and young people during a global disaster.
Professor Lucy Easthope, author of When the Dust Settles
Brave, urgent, fierce and vital.
Laura Dodsworth, author of A State of Fear
A truly important book. It needs to be read by policymakers and parents so that never again will our children be betrayed as they have been in the last two years.
Allison Pearson, Daily Telegraph columnist and bestselling author
About the book:
Despite being least affected by the virus itself, children and young people bore the brunt of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. When schools were closed, playgrounds taped up and play outlawed, children’s lives were closed down. The catastrophic impact on children and young people’s education, mental health, wellbeing, and life chances is becoming ever clearer, with the most disadvantaged suffering disproportionately.
In May 2020 Liz Cole and Molly Kingsley founded UsForThem to advocate – in an often hostile climate – for children to be prioritised during the pandemic response. Having heard from thousands of families, and having often clashed with policymakers, they have a unique perspective on how the state’s response to the pandemic has affected our children.
Here they document their shocking findings: how completely children’s health and welfare were sacrificed for that of adults; how policymakers appeared to disregard the harms they were causing; and how adults charged with protecting the young stood by and watched as children visibly struggled or slipped out of sight altogether. This dereliction of duty should haunt us for decades to come.
With exclusive testimony from academics, politicians, scientists, educators, and parents, as well as former Children’s Commissioners, the book exposes the problems at the heart of policymaking which led to the systemic and ongoing betrayal of children. From public health to politics, and from media discourse to safeguarding, the authors show how children were too often used as the means to further adult interests. Ahead of the public inquiry, the authors call for an honest appraisal of what went wrong, and commitment from stakeholders to reimagine – not just recover – childhood.
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Thursday Morning Spitfire Way & Comet Way, Woodley
Wokingham
No news round up for the 12th April?
Well done Kemi hitting back at the smug presenters.
Maybe she could have asked why all the Post Office workers have still not been paid compo after the TV show highlighting this issue.
Or maybe we could have a BBC series over the blood scandal where some of them still have not received compensation or even a TV show of the rape gangs and some’fictional police & other State paid workers standing back and letting it happen’.
Perhaps we could have a “fictional” series about ‘safe and effective,’ that should get the viewers interested.
😂
“Pseudoscience, a salad garden and a study on pregnant men: how Britain’s quangos spend your money”
Congratulations to the redoubtable Charlotte Gill for making the MSM. As a commenter on the Telegraph article states, “Interesting how many of these act as slush funds for Net Zero, DIE and other parts of the progressive agenda.”
Given that “Labour has also created dozens more quangos (including the Fair Work Agency and the Independent Football Regulator) since coming to power,” I somehow doubt Labour will be lighting many bonfires of the vanities, inanities and insanities.
“Oxford debate contest forces hundreds of children to declare pronouns”
Defund South Midlands Arts College!
“Welsh Government offers £5,000 more to student teachers from ethnic minorities”
And no human rights legal parasite anywhere to be seen.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-pows-war-crimes-putin-zelenskyy-a2185297338af410fb5122448e62db76
‘The Ukrainian soldiers clambered from the ruined house at gunpoint — one with arms raised in surrender to the Russian troops — and lay face-down in the early spring grass.
Two drones — one Ukrainian and one Russian — recorded the scene from high above the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky. The Associated Press managed to get both videos.
They offer very different versions of what happened next.
The Ukrainian drone video, which AP obtained from European military officials, shows soldiers with Russian uniform markings raising their weapons and shooting each of the four Ukrainians in the back with such ferocity that one man was left without a head.
“Out of all the executions that we’ve seen since late 2023, it’s one of the clearest cases,” said Rollo Collins of the Centre for Information Resilience, a London group that specializes in visual investigations and reviewed the video at AP’s request.
“This is not a typical combat killing. This is an illegal action.”
The Russian drone video, which AP located on pro-Kremlin social media, cuts off abruptly with the men lying on the ground — alive. “As a result of the work done by our guys, the enemy decided not to be killed and came out with their hands up,” wrote a Russian military blogger who posted the video.
Two videos. Two stories. In one, the prisoners appear to live. In the other, they die.
‘evidence of potential war crimes continues to mount’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14597453/Britain-backing-plans-Nuremberg-style-trial-Vladimir-Putin-amid-calls-Russians-prosecuted-crimes-invasion-Ukraine.html
‘Britain is set to back prosecuting Vladimir Putin for war crimes in a move modelled on the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after the Second World War.
It is understood the UK will join most European nations to back proposals at the Council of Europe to put Russians on trial for ‘crimes of aggression’ during the invasion of Ukraine.
An ad hoc military tribunal would be set up to prosecute Russian generals and leaders for war crimes, according to plans Britain will back at a meeting of the European human rights organisation next month.
A UN study found in March last year that Russia was continuing to commit serious rights violations and war crimes in Ukraine, including ‘systematic’ torture and rape.
The high-level Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the rights situation in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, said that it had found fresh evidence of widespread abuses.
It also voiced concern about the continued use of explosive weapons in civilian areas, confirming ‘a pattern of disregard by Russian armed forces for possible harm to civilians’
‘The evidence shows that Russian authorities have committed violation of international human rights and international humanitarian law and corresponding war crimes,’
COI chief Erik Mose
You are wasting your time, sweetheart. Nobody is interested any more.
Although the ICC established jurisdiction over crimes of aggression…….this only applies to countries and nationals from countries that are party to the Rome Statute. Russia, like the US and China, is not a signatory.
This is why Western allies have explored the option of creating an ad-hoc tribunal that would be empowered to prosecute the specific case of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“Without the crime of aggression, there wouldn’t be any war crimes either,” High Representative Kaja Kallas said in early February.
“Therefore, it’s extremely important that there is also accountability for the crime of aggression. No one from Russia and no one from Russia’s leadership is untouchable.”
“It is also very important to send a signal that unpunished crimes only encourage further aggression,” she added, stressing the tribunal should be set up “before the war is over”.
“I’m personally convinced it’s not going to be a fake institution in the Hague with no impact but that it’s actually going to serve for years to come, and history will judge this tribunal very positively.”
The immunity that heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers enjoy is considered an additional, and formidable, obstacle to the in-person prosecution.
“However, international law is evolving, and personal immunity is not a carte blanche for impunity,” the spokesperson of the Council of Europe said.
“The Council of Europe believes that the formula found for the Special Tribunal on this issue will suffice to ensure accountability and fight impunity.”
The last time the crime of aggression was brought to justice was during the Nuremberg trials held after World War II
The conditions are laid out in the draft agreement that would provide the legal basis to set up the special tribunal within the framework of the Council of Europe, a human rights organisation based in Strasbourg. The organisation is not part of the European Union but the bloc is closely involved in the process.
Technical work wrapped up in late March during a meeting of the so-called “Core Group” in Strasbourg, which produced three separate draft documents: a bilateral agreement between Ukraine and the Council of Europe, the statute of the special tribunal and the agreement detailing the management of the special tribunal.
The signature is pencilled to take place in Kyiv on 9 May, coinciding with Europe Day, although the exact timeline will depend on the political endorsement.
The limitations on the trial in absentia are seen as a “compromise” between countries, an EU official indicated. Following months of deliberations, the provision is now a “done deal”, with virtually no chance of being amended before the presentation.
“At the end of the day, it’s about politics and bargaining,” the official said.
Once Kyiv signs the agreement, the text will be put to a vote in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which gathers representatives of the 46 nations that are party to the organisation. Russia was expelled shortly after it launched the war.
A two-thirds majority will be needed to ratify the deal, and is all but guaranteed thanks to the broad support for the initiative among member states.
Some countries that have espoused Russian-friendly positions, such as Hungary and Serbia, might abstain or vote against it, although no individual vetoes will apply.
Democratic nations outside the continent, like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, are expected to join the initiative, broadening its legitimacy.
“The immigration lawyer fighting to legalise Hamas”
Arrest him for aiding and abetting a proscribed terrorist organisation!
“Trump’s tariffs might spell the end of China” – In the Telegraph, Benedict Rogers argues that President Trump’s targeted tariffs on China, if successfully leveraged by the global community, could cripple China’s economy and potentially lead to a domestic uprising.
Destabilising a country like that could easily lead to a shooting war. If the CCP feel threatened by
their own peoplethe people of China they will stir up jingoism and are quite capable of committing them as cannon fodder into a war with neighbouring countries.Reciprocal jingoism if you like.
“Lucy Connolly shouldn’t be in prison”
True. And neither should hundreds of others like father-of-three Bradley McCarthy, jailed for nearly 2 years:
UK riots: Man jailed for shouting at police dog and racist slurs – BBC News
“Bristol Crown Court heard he played a “prominent” role in trying to goad police, and had “aggressively” shouted at a police dog.”
[There was no mention of the “racist slurs”, added to the BBC headline to give further justification for throwing him in prison.]
I hope KING CHARLES III will issue A ROYAL PARDON to all those British Patriots unjustly imprisoned for protesting against the Horrific Rapes and Murders of CHILDREN by Third World Immigrants welcomed to the UK and supported by UK Taxpayers.