It’s the last week of Module One before the long summer break. Up on Monday was Ms. Kate Bell, Assistant General Secretary to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), who took questions on budget cuts and workforce fragmentation: manna from heaven for a trade union representative to preach on the problems with cuts to services.
Ms. Bell: I think, you know, there is clear evidence of the workforce shortages on the ability to respond. I think, you know, even in 2019, Unison was saying half of NHS workers on the frontline of patient care say there are not enough staff on their shift to ensure patients are treated safely and with compassion, and I think you can see those impacts going through to the pandemic.
We also heard more about austerity as the cause, and all along it was the TUC leading the way in pointing this out.
Ms. Bell: Absolutely. I think, you know, the Inquiry has heard widespread evidence about the impact of austerity on the health service, and I think it’s important to note that the TUC was warning about this continuously throughout this period.
Also up was Gerry Murphy, Assistant General Secretary to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, who was asked what he adds to the issue of infection control. Not much, it seems.
Ms. Blackwell: Is there anything that you would like to add in terms of infection control and prevention and how that was being manifested within the care sector in Northern Ireland, in the run-up to the pandemic?
Mr. Murphy: I have no evidence to offer in respect to that. I simply don’t have – we have nothing from our trade – from our affiliated trade unions and nothing from our interactions with the Northern Ireland Executive at that time either.
Also up was Philip James Banfield, the British Medical Association U.K. Council Chair. Mr. Keith highlighted the peripheral role of the BMA.
Question: But was the BMA aware of the growing debate about whether or not that was a strategy that was suitable for a coronavirus pandemic, for example MERS or SARS? Was that a debate with which you engaged?
Banfield Answer: As far as I’m aware, there was no specific debate.
With the hindsight of time, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that many organisations weren’t that interested in pandemic preparedness. However, they are now.
Question: Having been approached, was any consideration given to formalising the involvement of the BMA, in particular requiring it to become an observer or participant in future exercises?
Answer: No, that invitation wasn’t forthcoming.
Question: Did you ask, though, Professor?
Answer: Well, I wasn’t there at the time, so I
Question: Did the BMA ask?
Answer: Not as far as I know.
Question: All right. So if it was an invitation that was not forthcoming, it certainly wasn’t one that had been sought?
Answer: I can’t comment on that.
Question: All right.
The perplexing answer – it’s not me, guv – asks why the right people aren’t being invited. If you want to know what happened in 2011 or 2015, why not invite the chair from that period? The BMA apathy is concerning, given that acute respiratory infections are dealt with mainly in primary care. By the way, where was the Royal College of General Practitioners?
Dr. Dixon, the Chief Executive of the Health Foundation, also took the stand and provided some numbers on health spending.
Answer: Core NHS spending was protected relative to other public services, but over that decade the NHS received about half or slightly less than half than it would have normally expected to receive per annum compared to a long-run average.
Question: That’s an average of spending, annual spending in the United Kingdom, is it?
Answer: Yes, real terms growth on average, long run, is 3.6%. The NHS grew 1.4% over that decade.
Question: When you say it grew, you mean the spending grew as opposed to the NHS growing in size?
Answer: The spending grew, yes, by 1.4% real terms per year.
Monday whisked through the witnesses. Also fitted in was Michael Adamson from the British Red Cross. He wants a Minister for Resilience, he’s not the only one.
“We would like to see a Minister for Resilience, because at the moment those responsibilities fall to the Paymaster General, and we don’t – whatever the qualities of the Paymaster General – we don’t think that signals a serious commitment to national resilience, particularly when the Paymaster General has a range of other responsibilities.”
More ministers and more committees will only give rise to more complexity and, inevitably, more confusion. TTE thinks we need a Minister for Ministers to ensure they are doing their jobs.
Tuesday saw the morning spent listening to people who have suffered bereavement during the pandemic. The stories are harrowing and worth reading.
Representing the Covid Bereaved Families for Justice was Mr. Weatherby KC. Several points made were noteworthy.
“The experts expressly discounted any suggestion of Covid being a black swan event. The evidence shows that it was not only foreseeable but actually foreseen.”
Weatherby didn’t mince his words.
“The ship had no captain, the central agency with all the responsibilities had no organisational role, and to make matters worse, there was no plan B.
“So the Inquiry might conclude that there was no lack of effort expended in this area, but efforts which resulted in this woefully inadequate level of preparedness.
“So what was missing?
“Firstly, although there were ministers involved, there was no single point of responsibility in central Government for civil emergencies or resilience or preparedness. The captain wasn’t so much missing from the wheelhouse as there simply was no captain.
“Secondly, what appears to have been the hub of central Government preparedness, the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, had no actual responsibilities and no actual organisational role or powers. It operated on an ad hoc basis, in a liaison role between disparate parts of Government.
“Thirdly, there appears to have been a reliance on both the U.K. threat assessments and the pandemic flu plan in all the devolved jurisdictions rather than a critical consideration of them. The planning assumptions were not challenged, there was no plan B on flu, and what planning there was related to consequences, not prevention.”
Representing the bereaved Families in Northern Ireland was Justice Mr. Lavery KC. He told the Inquiry about the problems with the Department of Health’s inefficacies in the absence of ministers.
“My Lady, I’ve said this previously, the scale of the waiting list problem in Northern Ireland is mammoth, and one talks about waiting lists in Northern Ireland being longer than they are in other parts of the U.K., but in some instances they are 50 times longer. This is a combination, I suppose, of U.K.-imposed austerity measures and a dysfunctional Government in Northern Ireland.”
Representing Welsh bereaved families was Ms. Heaven. She pointed to the woeful inadequacies in the Welsh health infrastructure that meant there wasn’t a single high-consequence infectious disease bed.
“Wales could not even deal with one high-consequence infectious disease when the pandemic hit. Since 2006 NHS Wales has surveyed and produced annual reports on all airborne isolation rooms in major hospitals across Wales. Every year the reports concluded that many of these isolation rooms were inadequate.
“In 2017 the Airborne Isolation Rooms Review Working Group produced a report to inform policy on airborne isolation rooms in major acute hospitals.”
She also mentioned the problem of hospital-acquired infection, which wasn’t a priority.
“Now, a matter of real significance to the Cymru group is hospital-acquired COVID-19. Many people in Wales died because they caught COVID-19 in Welsh hospitals with inadequate ventilation and poor infection control. It has been deeply concerning and upsetting to learn about the extent to which this issue was simply not a priority for the Welsh Government and NHS Wales.”
Ms. Heaven makes a vital point, but let’s be clear, prevention of hospital viral infection wasn’t a priority in any of the devolved nations’ plans for preparedness.
Mr. Ford KC represented the Association of Directors of Public Health. While we understand the need for KCs to represent bereaved families, we don’t understand why the directors of public health need one. Can’t they speak for themselves, and more importantly, how much is all this costing? Oh, and who’s paying?
While the public health directors want more money and more of a role next time, it’s still unclear what evidence-based interventions they will undertake to make a difference. While there’s a host of actions, everyone wants to instigate changes for the next time. However, anything that might be perceived as evidence-based only emerged twice in Tuesday’s discussion.
Mr. Weatherby: Assurance means an evidence-based scheme whereby minimum standards and consistency and compliance can be audited and proven.
Mr Weatherby: The default position should be that national risk assessments, together with their methodology and the evidence base behind them, and all civil emergency plans, should be published unless there are clear national security reasons why they must remain closed.
Most of the 63 referrals to evidence on Tuesday was opinion, the vast majority arising after the event. If only we had done xxxxxxx please, fill in the blank.
On the final day, we heard closing statements from the British Medical Association, the TUC, and the Government Office for Science, formerly headed up by Sir Patrick. The Office for Science thinks fundamental structural change is needed in at least two respects.
“First, the focus should be on capabilities and scenarios, and not specific plans for specific types of pandemic. The response to the emergency that eventuates will inevitably need to be targeted, but the preparation needs to be broad. Predicting the next pandemic with any sort of precision is impossible. There are too many variables. There is little value, we would suggest, in asking whether previous iterations of the NSRA foresaw the right sort of pandemic.”
But, finally, we found an evidence-based statement that reflects the reality of uncertainty:
“Similarly, there were some suggestions floated during the course of evidence apparently predicated on a belief that it is our powers of prediction that need to be improved. One is that drugs and vaccines effective against COVID-19 should have been stockpiled and would have been with a little more imagination. Yet nobody knew which drugs worked until extensive clinical trials had taken place, and you cannot stockpile a drug or vaccine which does not yet exist.”
The Office for Science considers we need to build the capability to do research.
“But what you can do is to assess and build your capability to research, trial, and roll out existing treatments when faced with a new hazard.”
We agree, but it shouldn’t just be for drugs and vaccines, where all the profits are. It should be for the non-pharmaceutical interventions that make a difference to society. Yet we haven’t done a single trial of masks before, during the pandemic, or have any plans to do one after.
Their second point is we need a more integrated cross-government response. Hmm, doesn’t that mean more money and more complexity for next time.
“Pandemics require an integrated cross and intergovernmental response. They present funding challenges which cannot be met by a single department, with a single budget from which to meet all of its day-to-day requirements.”
The Office also thinks we need to keep with the SAGE advice.
“The SAGE model allows for flexibility and a tailored response to the emergency that is being faced. It enables the right people to be assembled from the appropriate disciplines.”
There’s no need for an evaluation or reflection; it’ll be more of the same SAGE advice next time.
As the Inquiry breaks up for its summer break, we’ll also sign off from the Health Inquiry.
We’ve had six weeks so far, making it 69 witness statements in total.
Wednesday was the last day of Module One; the good news is Boris has finally cracked the code for his phone. Handy, though, that it’s on the day the inquiry breaks up.
The first phase of the Covid Inquiry has heard from its final witness. The interim report is expected in 2024. So, what have we learnt so far:
The plan was based on the F word and mainly on a 2011 document for an influenza pandemic.
Groupthink meant that other viruses weren’t considered. We didn’t need any plans because we have effective antivirals and a seasonal vaccine. However, while many thought the plans were dire, Dame Jenny of the UKHSA said they were “actually pretty good”.
Hancock thought we should have locked down harder and faster, while Hunt figured we should all move to South Korea. Also, when we did our one mock-up training day in a decade, most recommendations were ignored – it seemed it was Brexit that got in the way. However, this wasn’t the only excuse; it was the acronyms for Arlene, the lines of communication for the Scots, the lack of funding for the TUC, and for the public health directors; it was because they had to learn about what to do on the BBC. For the Inquiry team, it was that complicated organogram that was supposed to – but didn’t – guide the decision-making. But for everyone, apart from George Osborne, it was austerity that did it.
We also learnt that some experts can fit their knowledge of infection control on a postage stamp. Finally, we now know that a lockdown wasn’t planned for despite it being the extraordinary policy of our time. We also think it’ll be more of the same next time! But if we learnt one thing: the ship certainly had no captain.
We’ll return when Module Two Core U.K. decision-making and political governance kick off in the Autumn.
Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
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The demise of the Indian solar floater was hilarious. I’ll use that video to cheer me up when I become fed up with all this guff.
It was obviously designed by a committee of humanities graduates without an ounce of common sense.
“I know, let’s string together 10,000 of those things people put on their roofs, float them out to sea and charge people for the juice. It’s so green it can’t fail! People like ‘green’. This time next year Rodney my son we’ll be millionaires”
“Unemployed Britons to do migrant jobs under Labour plans”
That, as if we needed more evidence, confirms Labour are totally out of touch with reality.
I thought they were just ‘jobs’ didn’t know they were classified by residential status!
And, at the end of the season, do they return to their country of origin?
Do they mean Indian British, British Indians, etc, and are ‘migrant jobs’ just the seasonal jobs, or the low paid jobs?
Are legal/illegal migrants excluded from this employment scheme?
Russia ‘could disable British nuclear deterrent in one day’ in war”
I don’t doubt it. I would have thought one hour was more probable. All this brave talk by our politicians about fighting a country a couple of thousand miles away, with an army we don’t have anymore is just folly. The average Joe like me can see it. I wonder why they persist.?
I very much doubt it.
Ukraine is firing home made cruise missiles at Russia almost daily, with impunity…..and with considerable success.
That is so funny. Where do you get these from?
Your talking to AI. Time is better spent chatting to a baked bean can.
Definitely human. AI wouldn’t get so much wrong.
Hot off the press. Here is the warhead
We were told this was very successful at the start of the conflict, especially when used by female operatives.
Ukrainian forces conducted a series of missile strikes against Russia on 30 and 31 May.
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) conducted a successful strike against a Russian “Nebo-IED” long-range radar system near occupied Armyansk, Crimea. The radar system reportedly serviced a 380-kilometer-long section of the frontline, and Ukrainian forces reportedly observed a shutdown of the radar’s radiation signature indicating that the strike took the system offline.
Ukrainian forces conducted a strike on an oil depot near the port of Kavkaz, Krasnodar Krai with several Neptune anti-ship missiles early in the morning on May 31, and geolocated footage published on May 31 shows a fire at the oil depot.
Krasnodar Krai Governor Veniamin Kondratyev stated that the strike damaged three petroleum tanks at an oil depot in Temryuk Raion. Russian opposition outlet Astra stated that Ukrainian forces struck at least two additional facilities at the port and damaged a substation that provides power to the Kerch Strait Bridge.
Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukraine also struck a railway train carrying fuel near the oil depot.
Whoopeee. have they reached the Sea of Azov yet?
On a more serious note, since I can no longer edit my other comment, these pin-prick attacks are not part of any strategic plan, they are vengeance attacks trying to create positive headlines for Ukraine.
You cannot even start to compare these with the systematic destruction of the entire Ukrainian non-nuclear energy production system which Russia has nearly completed. NASA picture from March 7.
‘In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one’ Bonaparte
‘When it comes to restoring any country, the most crucial factor isn’t money or the size of the population; the attitude of those living there and those who will return is far more important. Without their faith in the future, no amount of investment will work.
And in this sense, things look optimistic for Ukraine. According to the Rating Group’s polls, despite all the hardships of wartime life and the setbacks at the front, 80 percent of Ukrainians believe their country’s future looks “rather promising.’
https://ratinggroup.ua/research/ukraine/absolyutna-bilshist-ukrayinciv-virit-u-peremogu-nad-rosiyeyu-pidtrimuyut-chlenstvo-v-yes-ta-nato.html
It’s very unlikely the Russians would do that.
“Never Interfere With an Enemy While He’s in the Process of Destroying Himself”
And the Russians certainly know that. Which reminds me, I those Minsk Agreements look more generous by the day.
“Starmer must introduce wealth tax after Labour wins election, top Blair aide says”
Always the ‘wealthy’. Life’s perpetual underachievers vent their envy.
Define ‘wealthy’… once they’ve skimmed the obvious, they’ll just be left with everyone else who’s been the least bit prudent.
Anyone with more than me.
And it’s always the Money: Socialists are like that.
More Political Influence? No.
More Free Time? No.
While we think of Trickle Down Economics as creating opportunities for wealth creation, Life’s perpetual underachievers think of escalating unemployment benefit.
“Scrap VAT plan if OBR says it will not raise money, Starmer told”
After causing enormous damage already to the private school sector, I would put all my money on the old Flip-Flopper having to backtrack. Its nailed on.
Maybe Labour will delay or back track but the damage has been done. The risk in private education has been raised several notches. Similarly with personal pensions whose beneficiaries are now very concerned about changes to limits on withdrawals and enforced “investment” in government mandated investmant classes.
With the Tories undermining private residential letting and holiday homes businesses, Labour undermining the above plus more, the risk factors for a wide range of legitimate activities have been increased.
Meanwhile the risks for the likes of Branson in the railway business have just dropped. Remember Mrs Blair “Isn’t there something we can do for Sir Richard, Tony”.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/putins-purge-of-his-top-generals/
What’s really going on?
Hang on……the world’s second largest army is being held by one a quarter of its size? A numerous and powerful country that straddles Europe and Asia, stuffed full of natural resources, Europe, India and China’s source of oil and gas is being defied, humiliated by a medium sized and impoverished new nation fighting on its own…….?
How can this be?
Napoleon Bonaparte, it is true, once said that ‘In war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four’ but no-one really reads him (or, indeed, reads at all) these days.
But a recent article in The Spectator, written by Owen Matthews, a writer who has spent nearly three decades, on and off, reporting in Russia gives us a clue:
‘Corruption was a major factor in the army’s failure to seize and hold northern Ukraine in February and March 2022. Over the previous five years Shoigu was given vast resources – up to 6 per cent of Russia’s GDP – to build up and reform the Russian army into a (regionally, at least) invincible fighting force. Shoigu’s big innovation was the Battalion Tactical Group (BTG), a small and integrated force that combined motorised infantry and artillery.
The problem was that while hardware was not in short supply, soldiers were. But rather than admit failure to fulfil the Kremlin’s orders, generals solved the problem by simply reducing the strength of units. Motorised rifle battalions shrank from up to 539 personnel in 2017 to around 345 on the eve of the Ukraine invasion.
The estimated 120 BTGs that attacked Ukraine all went in at far from full combat strength. And that shortfall told, especially in the wooded countryside and city suburbs of Ukraine. Each infantry fighting vehicle needed a commander, a driver and a gunner, leaving four men to dismount and act as actual boots – and, more importantly, eyes, ears and rifles – on the ground.
Without conscripts, each platoon was left with perhaps two fighting infantrymen per vehicle. Ukrainian forces reported attacking Russian armoured vehicles manned by their three-man crew alone. ‘With no dismountable men you’ve got a motorised infantry unit that doesn’t have infantry,’ said a senior British military source I interviewed in Kyiv in spring 2022. ‘Everyone’s stuck in their vehicles. You’re not going to have situational awareness. You don’t have the numbers to do common infantry tasks like stacking up [advancing to contact in single file], clearing buildings or providing security for an element.’
Corruption has continued to plague the Russian army as the war grinds on…..’
It’s Blackadder without the humour; Russian Officers leaping out of their vehicles into the assault, looking behind them and there is no-one following.
As the redoubtable Lord Ian Botham might have said:
‘They forgot the soldiers!’
As ever, I find myself asking what is the point of your posts? OK we get it Putin’s bid for the Sisters of Mercy humanitarian of the year award is not going so well, Russia is not the Garden of Eden run by Francis of Assisi. You talk of corruption as if corruption is unknown in Ukraine and the western world!
In my book they are all corrupt, Ukraine, Nato/USA and Russia and the only course of action of any benefit to the ordinary people of the UK is to end this war as soon as we can on the best terms we can manage to negotiate.
And there’s the rub, this war is not being fought for the benefit of the ordinary folk of the UK or anywhere else, it seems to me it is a war of corrupt money and power politics played by megalomaniac power politicians on all sides for their own benefit at the cost of countless lives lost in the needless slaughter and ludicrous amounts of our money poured into the corruption machine.
The news round up on here is: ‘A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy’
The Daily Sceptic encourages its subscribers to promote other stories challenging the prevailing orthodoxy that are not mentioned in the round up. The DS clearly cannot cover everything.
Regarding Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the prevailing orthodoxy on here, as represented by most commentators, can loosely be described as the RT (Russia Today) stance:
‘The inevitability of the denazification of Ukraine’
Putin’s invasion is framed so: ‘Ukraine, as history has shown, is impossible as a nation state, and attempts to “build” one naturally lead to Nazism. Ukrainism is an artificial anti-Russian construction that does not have its own civilizational content, a subordinate element of an alien and alien civilization……therefore the denazification of Ukraine is also its inevitable de-Europeanization.’
Including the sinister: ‘Nazi Ukraine will be eradicated, but including, and above all, Western totalitarianism……’
There is another, far more widely held, view outside the confines of DS commentators:
Documentary evidence from the Kremlin indicates that Putin’s real war aim is to establish a ‘Union State’ comprising Belarus (accomplished), Ukraine (partially accomplished), Moldova (under way) and the Baltic States (just started, at sea, the other day. This is because he was brought up with a vision that many people in Russia still adhere to – a vision of the Russian state as an empire that has to expand, and expansion is how you judge leaders. He will stop at nothing to achieve his adventurist ambitions
Russian authorities have committed war crimes in Ukraine and that some of their actions may amount to crimes against humanity.
These crimes include attacks on civilian infrastructure, wilful killings of civilians, torture, sexual violence, and forced deportations of children.
Rape is part of Russia’s military strategy and a “deliberate tactic to dehumanize the victims.”
Mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of victims were discovered in several regions of Ukraine following the retreat of Russian troops.
Filtration centres were identified in Mariupol and Kharkiv, where civilians were detained by Russian authorities, and confessions of cooperation with Ukraine were extracted by torture.
Putin is most certainly not the legitimate head of Russia.
The presidential election in Russia was a non-democratic process that did not conform to international standards.
Flaws included a biased and exclusionary nomination procedure, abuses of public resources in favour of Vladimir Putin’s candidacy, extremely unbalanced media coverage, a lack of public discussion of policy issues, and a lack of guarantees of secrecy in electronic voting.
The point of my posts on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is, therefore, to represent the views of so many to the tiny minority of RT fans who populate these comments sections by providing some balance, illumination.
Whether the West is corrupt or not offers no justification whatsoever for Putin’s actions, obviously, because he is the aggressor. The RT view that it is all the fault of ‘NATO expansion’ does not survive the most cursory examination; silly.
And Putin’s stated aim of cutting off the Baltic States will mean an invasion of Poland, war with Britain.
That bears endless repetition so I make no apology whatsoever for endlessly repeating it since it concerns the welfare of every man, woman and child in these islands.
Speaking for myself, I never read RT and I have deleted the official Russian military channel from my Telegram. i don’t comb the news for obscure titles that tell the story the way I want to hear it, I listen to people whose information shows over time to be reasonably accurate, which is why Western press features rarely and Ukrainian sources never. The latter are confined to my fiction section.
See previous comment, then select your favourite can opener
Fancy a Pint
,
A well made observation. A cynic might say that a degree of corruption is normal around senior politicians, which might result in the current proceedings against Donald Trump backfiring later in the year – after all, he’s had a lot of free coverage for his campaign! Ordinary people might assume that they’ve all been up to something, just that some get caught, & some don’t.
What ever happened to all those soldiers that Ukraine had at the start. They outnumbered the Russians by a substantial margin.
You must remember Zelensky talking about his million man army when the Russians “invaded” with just 40,000.
And don’t you remember at the start of the
Winter SummerSpring offensive last year when all the Russians were going to run away and the victorious massed Ukrainian forces would sweep through to the Sea od Azov.Of course, sacking your most senior soldier Zaluzhny won’t help either, along with others including Nayev. It does wonders for morale does sacking a popular commander.
Morning Monro , is your moniker an anagram by chance or subtlety on purpose ? Your constant posting of all things Russian seems all consuming on your part , have you any other hobbies ?
And a very good morning to you.
Hope this finds you well.
Monro is a sept of Clan Munro.
Yes, plenty of other hobbies, thank you.
Most of what I post is, you will have noticed, sourced from experts on Russia, which I am not. This takes up very little of my time, authoritative sources now being so very easy to find, given the ability to read.
That is why it is so puzzling that very little in the way of authoritative or informed opinion comes back in the opposite direction; or not really.
No offence intended I just can’t help being comically ( hopefully ) facetious ,anyway beside Putin you must agree that there are surely are worse & equally just as dangerous Actors on the World stage at this time . Most supposedly on our side !
I am only interested in the security of this country.
Putin threatens that security.
That is why I will continue to draw the attention of all those who visit this site to that threat.
This is Tommy Robinson’s new documentary which he premiered in London yesterday: Lawfare: A Totalitarian State ( 1hr 30mins ).
It covers everything from the scamdemic response and death jabs, Ukraine war, up to the post-7th Oct hate marches and the two-tier policing that is evident now to all;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUGufiKTm6Q&ab_channel=UrbanScoop
The reason so many immigrants are employed is that they are willing to do the nasty, boring, mindless jobs that Brits can’t be bothered to do. These are unskilled jobs. How much training does that take?
Willing to do those jobs for the time being – then what !
For information they are 11 cases of Cohen invoices for claimed legal services, the correspronding ledger entry and the issuance of a business cheque signed by Trump in payment for those services, totalling 33 spearate charges. The final charge is the issuance of a personal cheque to Cohen from Trump’s personal account.
So the solar farm in India has been devastated, but has it been damaged?
The world is confusing these days, and I’m a bit confused by this:
Neil Young withdrew his music from Spotify in February 2022 and his former band members immediately followed him off Spotify:
‘“We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast,” a statement signed by David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash posted Wednesday on Twitter said.’
However, according to an article in the NME in September 2023:
“Eric Clapton and Stephen Stills have helped raise millions of dollars for the Presidential campaign of controversial Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.”
It makes sense that Eric Clapton would support RFK, having suffered Covid vaccine damage, but Stephen Still – 20 months after supporting Neil Young’s boycott of Spotify due to ‘misinformation’ about Covid and vaccines, when RFK is also accused by the same type of people of spreading misinformation about Covid and vaccines?
But after the fundraiser for RFK, ‘The Daily Beast reported that Stills was still behind Biden to be president in a statement through a spokesperson.
“I support President Biden,” Stills said. “I was there as a guest to support Eric Clapton who performed.“’
It looks like Stephen Still is confused too!
Incidentally – which may or may not be relevant – David Crosby “died in his sleep after contracting Covid or the second time” in January 2023 at the age of 81.
Link to NME article:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/eric-clapton-and-stephen-stills-help-raise-millions-for-controversial-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-presidential-campaign-3501810
Link to The Hill article:
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/592523-crosby-and-stills-follow-nash-and-young-off-spotify/
Link to Fox News article:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/eric-clapton-raised-eye-popping-sum-rfk-jrs-presidential-campaign
It makes you wonder how thoroughly these celebrities think through the causes they support