- “Coutts must be held to account over Nigel Farage” – The Nigel Farage bank row shows that political discrimination is alive and well, says the Spectator in a leading article.
- “Nigel Farage demands apology from the BBC over Coutts story” – Nigel Farage has demanded an apology from the BBC after it reported that his Coutts bank account was closed for financial, rather than political reasons, reports the Telegraph.
- “Coutts’ ‘inclusive’ attack on Nigel Farage is both sinister and absurd” – Whatever your view of Nigel Farage, Coutts’ actions should leave you with a feeling of profound discomfort, says Ross Clark in CapX.
- “Head of NatWest embroiled in Nigel Farage bank scandal” – Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman lead the criticism of Dame Alison Rose, who is under fire over a BBC briefing, reports the Telegraph.
- “Will the BBC now apologise to Nigel Farage?” – In the Spectator, Steerpike wonders whether BBC Verify will investigate the BBC for its misreporting of the Nigel Farage bank account scandal.
- “Revealed: The Coutts dossier on Nigel Farage in full” – The Mail reveals the 40-page file that shows Coutts cited Nigel Farage’s retweet of a Ricky Gervais joke and his friendship with Novak Djokovic to raise concerns about him being “xenophobic and racist”.
- “Sir Keir Starmer refuses support for Nigel Farage over Coutts row” – Sir Keir Starmer refused to come out in support of Nigel Farage over the apparent closure of his bank account for political reasons, says the Telegraph.
- “Woke capitalism and its useful idiots” – Yes, Coutts and other capitalist monoliths really are punishing people for being ‘unwoke’, says Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
- “Nigel Farage is the latest victim of Britain’s chilling new state ideology” – If Coutts gets away with closing Nigel Farage’s bank account for political reasons, then nobody’s freedom is safe, warns Lord Frost in the Telegraph.
- “Coutts’ reputation committee has destroyed its own reputation ” – NatWest needs to find a new CEO, a new leadership team and fire its self-destructive reputational risk committee, says Justin Doherty in the Spectator.
- “How the ‘sinister’ rise of diversity and inclusion turned Coutts against Farage” – The Coutts bank row has raised concerns about diversity and inclusion strategies now driving decisions at financial institutions, says the Telegraph.
- “Closure of Nigel Farage’s accounts by Coutts branded sinister by senior MPs” – The closure of Nigel Farage’s bank account was yesterday branded sinister by Home Secretary Suella Braverman, says the Sun.
- “Coutts boss who handled Nigel Farage’s bank account is a staunch Remainer” – A top executive at Coutts who handled Nigel Farage’s bank account is an avowed Remainer who has judged a diversity essay prize, says the Telegraph.
- “Westpac customer reveals what happened after he made a ‘modest’ cash deposit” – A pro poker player has unleashed on Westpac and accused the bank of engaging in “despicable behaviour” after his account was blocked over a “very modest” cash deposit, reports news.com.au.
- “Jay Bhattacharya: ‘I was shocked by the attack on me’” – Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, in conversation with Alex Gutentag, exposes censorship, disinformation and power abuse by the public health establishment during Covid.
- “The junk science behind face masks” – There is still no evidence that mask mandates limit the spread of Covid, say Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan in Spiked.
- “Why the ‘smartest people’ in the world ‘failed so miserably’ during the pandemic” – Numerous independent authors and investigators have greatly contributed to a rational view of the pandemic – much more so than many of “the world’s smartest people”, says Swiss Policy Research.
- “BBC climate editor accused of hypocrisy as he travels to Spain to report on heatwave” – The BBC remains mum on reporter Justin Rowlatt’s fuel-guzzling flight to Alicante to cover the current heatwave and its links to the climate crisis, reports the Telegraph.
- “Keir Starmer told he must pay for damage caused by Just Stop Oil protest” – Grant Shapps has written to the Labour leader demanding he pay for the damages after eco-protesters sprayed the Department for Energy Security with orange paint, reports the Express.
- “Net Zero: U.K. is being left behind, big business warns Rishi Sunak” – 100 companies, including Tesco, BT, M&S and Amazon, have written to the Prime Minister, urging him to focus on delivering Britain’s Net Zero goal, reports the Times.
- “Moment Lord’s intruder removed by Jonny Bairstow is assaulted during Just Stop Oil slow march” – Daniel Knorr, a Just Stop Oil supporter, was attacked while filming activists blocking a road in South Kensington, reports the Telegraph.
- “ESG is a surprise boon for fossil fuel giants” – ESG funds funnel billions to oil giants while sidelining nuclear energy, one of the most powerful decarbonisation tools humanity has to offer, says the Spectator.
- “Parents’ fury as they claim children as young as seven are being told they can be ‘pangender’ by teachers” – Parents are outraged after finding out that children as young as seven are being told they can be ‘pangender’ by teachers at a CofE primary school in England, reports the Mail.
- “My family’s ordeal reveals the strange, dystopian world of school gender policies” – Reports that trans guidance for schools has been delayed again ought to worry anyone with an interest in how the education system treats our children, says Jane Smith in CapX.
- “Britain is the working from home capital of Europe, study reveals” – U.K. employees spend an average of 1.5 days a week logged in from home, compared to an international average of 0.9 days, according to the Mail.
- “Communist influence in the United Nations and the World Health Organisation” – From its origins to the present day, evidence mounts of Communist infiltration within the WHO and UN. It’s time to cut ties, says Stephen McMurray in the New Conservative.
- “People on the Left are completely unconcerned by this which I think is terribly short-sighted” – The Free Speech Union’s Ben Jones says Coutts bank has reached a level of “sanctimonious self-righteousness” for closing Nigel Farage’s bank account.
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One observation I’ve made since the slow creep into a nanny state is diet. Food affects hormones. I don’t see many plant based gurus doing so well in cold weather either.
Agree; it is the food / diet:
Desiccation of Wheat
One would wonder why wheat is sprayed with glyphosate, even though wheat is not a GMO crop. This was the exact question asked by Dr. Stephanie Seneff as she researched the connection between the rise in celiac disease and the use of glyphosate.
Through her research, Dr. Seneff found that wheat farmers are using glyphosate on their crop just before wheat harvest for two reasons. First, they are desiccating non-organic wheat crops so they kill off the wheat after harvest so there is less to clear. Second, when you expose wheat to a toxic chemical such as glyphosate, it releases more seed as it dies. As a result, farmers get higher yield.
As a result, glyphosate can be found in one of the most-common ingredients of the modern western diet – wheat. Is this practice of desiccating the wheat crop mean the decimation of the gut? Dr. Seneff believes so:
“I just do not understand how the US government refuses to acknowledge that we’re basically slowly poisoning and killing our population.” ~ Dr. Stephanie Seneff.
http://www.renegadetribune.com/mit-scientist-explains-modern-wheat-causing-many-health-problems/
In the UK it was common practice to spray potato haulms with glyphosate before harvesting. This stopped growth and the tubers at a particular size, determined by Big Food i.e. Supermarkets.
Yummy.
Heartless hospitals: No-jab medics can see patients, but vaccinated relatives are barred
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/heartless-hospitals-no-jab-medics-can-see-patients-but-vaccinated-relatives-are-barred/
Tom Penn
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Sumption is right, but one of the most defining features of the State being seen to remove or alleviate risk is the endless hypocrisy. From the State’s view, it really couldn’t give a monkey’s about “risk” to the individual, as long as it can firstly exert more and more control, secondly extract money from the individual and thirdly, make the empty gestures to be apparently taking the steps that people want or expect, whilst not really doing so.
This approach is clear in almost every aspect of life, such as the limitations on the individual to be able to pursue work, the abrogation of meaningful financial protections, and the simply dreadful “Health” Service. It is plain that the State cares little or nothing for those at the start of their lives, those not wealthy, or indeed poor, and those nearing the end of life, as has been made manifest in the treatment of education on one hand, and that of the elderly on the other, over the recent 2 years. An impending example of this callous disregard, mixed with total incompetence, yet flush with “fine words buttering no parsnips”, is the effect of price rises on the three groups I mention, and others besides.
The main purpose of the state, historically and currently, is to redistribute fruits of labor of a large unarmed group of individuals toward a small armed group, under threat of violence. “Interests of the state” essentially mean interests of that small favored group and their most direct servants.
That’s certainly the bare bones of it.
I believe it began many years ago with the adoption of the “Precautionery Principle” by the UN and Governments. This then translated into risk aversion at all levels and particularly in schools where children were not allowed to do such things as play conkers or climb trees because it was ‘too risky’. (Probably fair to say that litiginous, ambulance-chasing lawyers have compounded that fear for teachers etc)
Fast forward to adults who have been heavily warned of “risk” from childhood, despite it being so small as to be non-existent, and put them into Uni’s with “safe spaces” and effective bans on hearing any speaker who might upset them by saying something they don’t understand or agree with and you have created a fully Risk Averse population.
You have now created a population where younger generations are unable to assess real or true risk – they have largely been prevented from doing so and have no experience to base assessment of any type of risk on.
I think Fear and Risk Aversion were political constructs to create voters who demand and feel they have to vote for those who will “protect” them from cradle to grave. (It’s also how the benefits system has been structured to create political dependency)
Risk aversion? Never heard of it….
If he falls off, the hardhat will protect him!
(well, that makes about as much sense as expecting a face nappy to protect against a virus!)
Who was taking the photo..?
The man who fell off the even taller tower just to the side of this one?
“…citizens of liberal democracies have become more and more risk averse…”
That may or may not be true but it hardly has any relevance to the democracy-denying, draconian Covid-19 restrictions that were imposed worldwide by states, almost in lockstep. The cause of that may be found in membership of corrupt organisations like the W.H.O and the W.E.F to which politicians had essentially surrendered national sovereignties.
But it does explain why populations were prepared to accept restrictions which were claimed to be about “keeping them safe” though – especially when actual risk was being massively and relentlessly exaggerated by politicians and the meida.
Those pushing this were clearly aware that playing on the fears of risk-averse populations would be likely to get the sort of compliance they wanted.
Risk aversion is a normal human survival trait. It has been mercilessly exploited by those controlling information channels – for their own benefit.
Yes, but it’s become a lot more extreme in the past couple of decades with the growth of ‘safety culture’, much of which is about appearing to be safer and box-ticking rather than actually making any difference – e.g. the railways where we now have a constant stream of tannoy drivel (“This is a safety announcement…”) on trains and stations, covering assorted things for which announcements are not needed.
It’s the assessment and mitigation of risk vs. the reward associated with the risky action which is the survival trait.
“I’m not leaving the cave because there are bears out there” ultimately leads to starvation unless the person in the cave can persuade someone else to expose themselves to the risk but confer the benefits on the person in the cave. That’s the ultimate risk-management strategy.
As a society we are moving further and further into risk aversion, not risk-benefit assessment, and that, ultimately, is not a survival strategy
We weren’t prepared to accept them. But we had no choice.You were arrested and fined if you disobeyed.
Correct. Personally I’m always averse to fines or jail
Whos-# see
Off topic, but I’m watching the Wales vs Scotland rugby match. I haven’t spotted a mask in the crowd, non of the on field personnel (medics, water etc) are masked. The only masks spotted have been camera personnel and the odd match side official. I hope this match is being shown in Australia and NZ.
Was the crowd vaccine vetted, though? I noted that the match in Paris had a greater degree of mask compliance.
People seem to be very keen on provoking their leaders to ban actions which they have deemed to be “risky”, rather than thinking about what they can do to mitigate the risk for themselves.
Being in a jumbo jet with me trying to land it wouldn’t be risky, it would be lethal, because I wouldn’t have much idea about how to do it.
Comments broken?
He’s correct.
I trained 25,000 practitioners in advanced project and risk management over a 20 year period. When discussing the business culture, the single most common feedback was risk aversion, or to put it another way, a complete lack of appetite for risk.
No risk, no exploration, no adventure, no breakthroughs.
Compare today with the pioneers of the last 200 years and it tells a sorry tale.
Risk aversion tied in with fear of being held responsible (an impediment for corporate ladder climbers) and being sued by someone for something.
This aversion to risk or “safetyism” was inevitable once feminism took control of much of the teaching profession the vast majority of teachers are now female with very few male teachers – when I was at school around the late 1970’s early 1980’s it would roughly be around 50/50 male/female … these days the profession is dominated by female teachers – nothing against female teachers who i am sure are very good at their jobs – but it’s no coincidence that the overwhelmingly female dominated teaching profession has coincided with an end to risky competitive sports, protection and helmet-wearing which is now almost compulsory for practically any outdoor activity and hi-vis bibs are mandatory whenever kids are taken out of school by mainly female teachers – also take into account that in health & welfare 82% of social workers are female with very few males – couple this also with the rise of intentional single motherhood it is now quite common for a child to progress from nappies to young adulthood without ever experiencing any positive male influence to their lives and in their thinking as they grow up which is important because males are much more inclined to be competitive risk takers than females. Female/feminist group-think is usually anti-risk which is highly problematic for a society that wants to flourish as an ambitious progressive democracy rather than risk-averse authoritarian nanny state.
Sniff, sniff. I smell hobby-horse shit
I agree with him. Society is increasingly feminised. More risk averse, more.passive aggressive rather than directly aggressive.
One can argue whether it’s a good thing or not, but it’s pretty real.
I agree with Eric. This does not mean we are wife beaters. It’s simply a matter of common sense.
Eric, does drizzle count as rain? Or is it just a lot of moisture in the air?
Many people are not capable of critical thinking and I am afraid that includes a much higher proportion of women, but with a growing proportion of men. Regardless of sex, whenever you put people who cannot think critically into positions of authority, the planet goes to schitt.
Women are stupid? Mostly stupid? Much more likely to be stupid than men? And you know because?
I’ve read all sorts of comments here over almost two years (yep – since the first days of Lockdown Sceptic). This is the only one I’ve seen that shows a seriously limited capacity for critical thinking.
But perhaps you’re just being pre-menstrual.
Did I touch a nerve? It is an observation that critical thinking is more deficient in one group than another. If you have a different observation then fine, it doesn’t make mine any less valid.
So now critical thinking is “more deficient” in women than in men?
You need to mix with more intelligent women – if they’ll have you. The women I know would subject you to some critical thinking you might not enjoy.
Perhaps you prefer to surround yourself with stupid ones who agree with you. There are indeed stupid women, just as there are stupid men.
I am actually in a technical industry and I know some really, really intelligent women. Mathematicians and scientists as good as or better than their male colleagues. Then I think of the women I know in management. One of them is amazing, the others are all morons, making stupid decisions all the time. I’m not saying that women are stupid. I am saying that many women (by no means all) are rubbish at making difficult decisions. You don’t need to be offended by that.
So am I and that is bullshit. There are hardly any talented women in my area. It has long been forgotten that we have different makeups. Men are far better at logical tasks and rational emotionless thinking and decision making.
I also wouldn’t want a fat dyke trying to rescue me from a burning building. Men and women never were and never will be the same.
I can assure you that there are some good ones. Men outnumber women by around 9:1 in technical roles in my workplace. The women that we do have in technical roles are really good at what they do, especially the ones that were educated in Central/Eastern Europe. Actually, come to think of it, all but one is from Central/Eastern Europe, and that one has the softest skillset of them all. Maybe that says something profound about our crappy education system.
Quite right, and there are an awful lot more poofters around now too
I think a bit more risk aversion among the leaders of the western World wouldn’t go amiss at the moment.
It is patently obvious to anyone paying attention that the approach taken to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has been misguided by powerful influences off, and that our lead-by-the-nose leaders are now realising that ‘the science’ they were told they were following was a false god and their jobs are on the line.
So, what they are doing is using the well anticipated military exercises in Belarus and Russia adjacent to Ukraine to beat the drums of war as a massive ‘dead cat’ to distract the people from their catastrophic mismanagement of the newly defined ‘pandemic’.
And, of course as usual, any military action we the people are dragged into, won’t be fought anywhere near the nation beating the loudest drum, but they will make a fortune selling us the weapons to use for their geopolitical ambitions.
Ultimately, safetyism is a radical form of self-regard, and un-American.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/safety-third-covid-19-and-the-american-character/
“Americans must now make a choice. It’s not merely a choice about how we want to live. It’s a choice about who we want to be. Those who fetishize safety posture themselves as virtuous people; they pretend that their concerns are an expression of a deep, abiding care for others. But this is a lie. Ultimately, safetyism—where the avoidance of harm becomes a way of inhabiting the world—is a radical form of self-regard. To elevate safety to the status of an idol reveals a fear of life; it conceals a pathological mindset where worry and uncertainty become a controlling presence. It is solipsistic navel-gazing, a decadent wallowing in anxiety and self-pity.
The dehumanizing aspects of safetyism are disguised by endless platitudes about the well-being of others. But insisting upon others’ compliance so that you can live a safer life (after all, we can never be entirely safe) is ultimately an expression of personal weakness. It is a betrayal of the national character. Taken to the scale of society at large, safetyism threatens the dignity of our people. The time has come for a collective embrace of risk—the inherent risk that is the price of freedom in an uncertain world. The time has come to reclaim our dignity, to become again who we are—and who Americans have always been. Safety third.”
Thanks for the quote,and the link. Looks an interesting site.
No Lord Sumption, western democracy was destroyed many many decades ago, tis but a fiction! We could go back further, but let’s start with Cecil Rhodes and his round table illuminati colleagues, who’s avowed plan was to reunite Great Britain and the USA into one political entity, facilitate a global war (WWI) destroying a unified Germany in the process, and establishing an Anglo Saxon one world government…. Let’s not forget the creation of the FED which gave control of global finance to an evil oligarchy of fabulously wealthy bankers and industrialists. We arrive at the present day, “elected” governments are but caretakers for a global elite that controls it all! A conspiracy theory? If anybody still thinks we have a say in anything due to our magnificent, incorruptible parliamentary democracy, your a waste of oxygen.
Hear, hear:
But I believe, first of all, that there are some areas of human existence which are, inescapably, our own private domain.
One example is whether we are going to get vaccinated and admit a particular drug into our bodies. The choice that I’ve made is that I want that. But I think that it’s a choice which rationally can be made the other way. I cite that simply as an example of one area which seems to me to be inescapably outside the domain of state action.
Not sure I agree with much of this.
Its not ‘risk aversion’ a such, its the feeling by many ( majority) that nanny state will make it OK whatever risk I run. Which does I agree lead to the State taking risk averse stances logically it has to otherwise it goes bust.
The reason people liked lockdowns and vaccines was because they felt ‘better off’. What was not to like about being paid to do nothing for a while? And if you did not bother to read about ‘these’ jabs, well just have them, no biggie, then I get to do what I want with the lolly I’ve saved through the lockdowns. Greed, sloth, nothing more complicated.
The rest of this piece explores Sumption’s own politics, its not mine.
It’s broadly called culture. The current fracas over COVID exists inside it, and is inescapably molded by it. It shapes the way today’s press behaves, the way politicians behave, and every other “way”. It might, or might not, determine how this or that individual thinks and behaves. Culture is a generality, but defines our larger environment.
Where did it come from?
Look back at the 19th and early 20th Centuries. The steady elevation of “The Idea” as gospel. Call it intellectualism, or whatever. … If we can conceive it, we’re legitimate if we worship it.
Look back at the Mod generation in Britain, and the libertine Sixties kids in the States. Consider the teachings of Dr. Benjamin Spock, by which many post-War kids were raised (and which he later rescinded.) Consider the rise of psychology in popularity, to where it generally became an ‘ism’, permitting anyone to invoke themselves as a victim of something.
Then consider how those shallowed-out segments of the population parented (or didn’t) their children.
Does it then surprise regarding where the worst of the Millennials come from?
Today’s Daily Mail website has an article about a dude who had the time and date of his wedding tattooed on the back of his hand. I give 5-1 odds that he married for the shallowest of reasons, having not a clue as to what love actually is. What happens to his psyche when …? Who will he blame? Certainly not himself.
It’s called culture, and is descending into the realm of the asinine.
America’s cartoonist Walt Kelly had his Pogo nail it, several decades ago. … ‘We have met the enemy, and they are us.’
Sumption: “We expect a high degree of protection from the state against these risks.”
An argument can be made that this is something which has been cultivated in the electorate. Sometimes deliberately, but at other times, not.
Neville Chamberlain wanted to “take care of all our people” (dialogue from Churchill: the Wilderness Years).
While signing the first of the 1960s Civil Rights acts, Lyndon Johnson commented that the legislation would weld the “colored” community to the Democratic Party for a century. (Guess what? That Act had been passed by a Republican Congress, over Democratic opposition.)
Welcome to the present day.
If this article has any content, I wasn’t able to find it.
I’ve now been banned from meeting with my parents since March 2020 and spent almost a year in complete social isolation (I still fondly remember a two sentence conversation in passing with an acquaintance in January 2021 as it was the only event of this kind in the time between October 2020 and end of July 2021). This happened for the largely hypothetical benefit of all kinds of other people I don’t know. It’s still uncertain if I’ll ever be able to meet my parents again. And there are still powerful voices clamouring for rolling everything back right into the state of January 2021.
Hence, if it’s Sorry, son, but democracy is for the benefit of other people and not for your’s, democracy can hardly expect a Thank you! from me in return. Give and take is ok, but not some always giving and some others always taking.
To elaborate on this a little in a more abstract way: It’s not extreme safetyism which is destroying democracy, but the idea – originally coined in the 1970s phrase The private is political – that the authority of the state has no legitimate boundaries. Eg, some moron convinces himself (herself, actually, in this case) that humans breathing unobstructedly is a grave danger to society as such. And of course, the state immediatley creates regulations defining what does or doesn’t constitute legal breathing. Likewise, someone else claims to be convinced that people meeting other people is just too dangerous. And of course, the state then decrees that families must be torn apart and that people may only legally meet other people from the same household. Etc. Whatever individuals might conceivably do, the state asserts a right to sacrifice it to this or that great cause at the politician’s discretion: All people are equal. Specifically, all people are equally valueless.
Totalitarian democracy is worse than totalitaran autocracy because it’s multipolar and completely erratic: Whatever someone commanding a PR budget can momentarily popularize, no matter how completely idiotic or how incompatible with what people believed were their perfectly legitimate own lives, becomes possible. In case this contradicts some constitutional declaration of rights of the people, Absolutely no problem, mate! It’s an emergcency! And we simply can’t have all those pesky right in an emergency! And it’s only temporary, y’know! We aren’t seeking to impose this forever, just for as long as we want!
If democracy doesn’t protect people from that, it doesn’t have a special claim of being the sensible system of government anymore, it’s then just another (and – theoretically – certainly not the best performing) method for selecting the tyrants du jour.
Essentially it is decadence in the so-called ‘West’ that is poisoning democracy.
Do you really want democracy, or just the wealth, goods, security, is has been said to offer?
The public sphere is the essence of democracy; it is being colonised, violated and corrupted by consumerism, tendentious politicisation, censorship, propaganda, which the modern person is ill-equipped to navigate: and why should they have to?
Bottom line: ‘homo occidentalis’ wants sex, stuff, pleasure, comfort; not truth, meaning, virtue, justice.
So he will get it – to his own damnation.
George WIll’s Wednesday column is on the same topic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/09/how-government-progressives-forfeit-public-trust/
How about the media forfeit public trust?
(Don’t get me started. My suspicions about the news media began fermenting 35 years ago.)
It depends upon what one means by “media”.
The American news media (meaning, apart from the Web blogs, and apart from opinion columnists like Will, who’s right-of-center) is probably 95% left-of-center. In about 2004/2005, a majority of it went off the cliff like a herd of lemmings. It slobbered all over Barack Obama’s feet, and was utterly blind-sided by ISIS.
Today, America’s self-described “Conservative Journalism” (Web blogs) is mostly a bunch of low-information pamphleteers, to whom conservatism has nothing to do with proper behavior and a sense of decency and personal honor.
As an unsupportable generalization … The Media as a whole (including entertainment and social media) … is hedonistic sanctimony.
We’ve had 30 – 40 years of governments terrifying their subjects – the war on terror and Covid being the 2 best examples. Of course, in situations like these, people’s ability to see through the BS leads them to rely on the state more and more.
He’s very good at articulating what everyone else is thinking.
Is it risk aversion?
I don’t see the population being very risk averse when it comes to taking experimental mRNA therapies.
I think he is confusing risk aversion with slavish obedience.
Restrictions are wrongly seen as safe, nannying is wrongly seen as safe.
The ‘risk’ was confected in propaganda. It was a fiction. The plebs just followed Fuhrer orders .
There’s a widespread false assumption that restrictions are safe when they’re as safe as punches from Frank Bruno.
There is risk aversion, but there is also denial of responsibility, that the government will cover my back so I don’t need to.
Extreme risk aversion is better expressed as abject cowardice…
These days I have to contain myself, if I hear the phrase ‘keep safe’ I feel inclined to commit GBH, it is the most cringeworthy, lily livered, nauseating, feeble, submissive phrase to come out of this covid nonsense. I do not want to ‘keep safe’ I want to live my life on the edge, taking risks, chancing my luck, (If you can make one heap of all your winnings, And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss) and dicing with death. I have nearly come to a sticky end several times in my life but my luck held and I am still here, I would not have it any other way.
This keep safe drivel has been the key as to why so many weak, spineless politicians have been able to take up the role of authoritarian tyrant whilst still pretending to be some sort of Mother Teresa figure. It has been an open goal for those keen on pushing us in to a nightmare world of global totalitarian communitarianism. But it is all for the common good…… really? and who decides what is the common good? and as the good book tells us; For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Some things clearly are in the common good, such as not going round murdering everybody but otherwise individuality and individual responsibility are key to a vibrant healthy society but such a view seems ‘off message’ in the modern ‘keep safe’ world.
Oh how I despise the stupid saying ‘keep safe’ it is an inanity and meaningless.
Paris, Macron gases his own citizens, women and children in restaurants of all places, the WEF “young leaders” Trudeau, Macron, Adern, or as I prefer to call them, “Junge Führungskräfte”, seem to have learned a lot from their master, ex Hitler-Jugend, Klaus Schwaub, obvious where this creature got his mentality from, and it appears to have rubbed off on them
Interesting discussion. Risk aversion is certainly a thing here. But what causes it? This is a more important question I think.
Extreme risk aversion is nothing to do with the threat to our democracy. If it was, we wouldn’t have shut down our economy and be in the process of shutting down our energy infrastructure.
What is happening is that woke policies are being implemented. They have no valid justification, so they are justified on scare tactics. These are not valid scares, but the public do not know this, and behave like sheep.
The irony is that the state has been a negative factor in health and safety during the Covid panic: lockdowns, increasing senescence, closing off hospitals to people with serious disease, stopping hospitals and doctors from using effective treatments, pushing treatments that are dangerous and don’t work.
Back when I read Esquire magazine about thirty years ago they did a satirical piece on the child safety craze. It ended with the infant in something like a flak jacket, lying in a bombproof crib, and Dad (the author) saying ‘Please don’t die on my shift, baby.’
It would probably read like straight reporting from the Daily Mail today.
It was wonderful to read this brilliant interview (I would strongly recommend listening to or reading the full interview): such clarity of thought based on huge knowledge, good, well-informed questions from Yascha Mounk, altogether very stimulating.
Excessive risk aversion restricts the individual who is afflicted by it. It means someone is left standing on the kerb while others, who can see that there is no traffic, walk across the road.
The problem is when excessive risk aversion is coupled with a perverted perception of risk and a zeal for “protecting” others. This is where punitive speed limits, bumps etc slow traffic almost to a standstill, there are long gaps in traffic, but you must not cross until the green light lets you.
It’s also where healthy people are compelled to avoid other healthy people or they will be punished.
Sumption is very worth listening to but I was not impressed by his remarks about Brexit. he stated that many who supported Brexit felt that any methods were justified to get that result. The most important issues surely were, and remain:
1 we still have not got what we voted for 6 years ago
2 we got none of what we voted for for 4 years
3 the Remainers used methods, with support from imaginative judges, to seek to deny Brexit at all
4 The example he gave (Boris trying to save a back bencher) was an ill-advised attempt to get around Parliamentary procedure which was of limited significance and a one-off issue whereas the Remainers abuse of Parliament would have resulted in permanent denial of the referendum result.
I do strongly agree that we need to return to a better respect of Parliamentary conventions but we also need Parliament to start respecting the people and our views and values. The poor quality of Parliamentarians flows from their selectio. Their attitudes are reinforced by the MSM and recently the Supreme Court all of which want a different people than there is and live in isolation from us.
‘Risk-averse’ reminds me about tiny aspect of my child-hood. Costly soft-surfaces in playgrounds were being introduced that only wealthy councils could afford; friends and I felt sorry for children there.
We viewed those surfaces as ‘spoil-sports’; couldn’t run ‘fast’ on them, couldn’t use them as ‘table’ for less active games, couldn’t bounce back to up and running, if tripped over own feet, so quickly as from tarmac.
Whole aim in life was play. Soft-surfaces wasted play-time.
When landed on hands and knees, (babies’ position) thing that hurt was ‘dignity’. Straight back on feet cured that hurt immediately.
Only problem was if an adult spotted ‘damage’ after play-time. Couldn’t always remember when it’d happened, didn’t hurt at all, already healing, but anti-sceptic lotion did hurt. Learning to control our feet better resolved that problem.
Maybe the tarmac enabled self-control and coping with life’s ‘ups and downs.’
When I see children now trip over their feet, adults dash screaming to them and cuddle them, holding them down. The children then start screaming.
Play-ground owners’ fault when children trip over their own feet?
Just seen my own typo. My apologies: antiseptic is actually what I meant
Pathetic, limp-wristed, wet-lettuce, woe is me wokes emboldened by media egging them on is what is ruining democracy. That and the the absurd get out of jail free card of deleting any opposing opinion.
Time to round up on these people and smash some sense into them the old fashioned way.
I asked a few people I know what they thought was the percentage of the population who have died from Covid-19.
These are not stupid people, but they gave ridiculous answers, such as 3%, 5%, 10%.
Well now that we know only 17,500 people in the UK died from Covid over a period of almost 2 years, and not the fraudulent figure of 148,000 which the government still clings to, we can say that 99.9875% survived per year.
Or, 0.0125% died.
(One person in eight thousand.)
And average age 82.5 years!
Some deadly pandemic!