British politics is undergoing a realignment which, like bankruptcy, had been happening gradually but is now showing signs of becoming very sudden. The Tory Party is in an open civil war. And it seems to be a winner-takes-all confrontation between two competing visions of the party’s future, which I will follow Steve Davies in calling ‘national’ and ‘liberal’ conservatism. I will do this advisedly, for reasons which I will come to, but whatever terms you use, there is a clear division opening up on the right in the U.K. between national populists (embodied by Suella Braverman, the recently defenestrated Home Secretary, who wrote an excoriating public letter to the Prime Minister after her dismissal) and an amorphous ‘adults in the room’-style centrist-dad-ism that it is appropriate, as we shall see, to refer to as liberal.
There are four things to say about this – so bear with me. The first is straightforward, short, and is being talked about a lot. The second is also straightforward and short, but is not really being talked about at all. The third is less straightforward, but still short, and is being talked about even less. And the fourth is very long and complicated, but I think important. Buckle in for the ride as we deal with them one by one.
First: the split is real and obvious, and the most likely outcome is that the Conservative Party will lose the next election, will be captured entirely by the national populists, and will then become the sole party for social conservatives in the U.K. I say this purely because I think that is the path of least resistance. There are already two major political parties in the country, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who have the liberal centrist-dad-ism game sewn up (three such parties if you count the SNP), and the only way for the Tories to develop a USP is to do something different. There may be an attempt to form a new party – Dominic Cummings, the architect of the Brexit campaign and also the 2019 General Election win, is already openly talking about this, and Matt Goodwin has also made noises in that direction. It may well occur. But since a revolution within the Tory Party is the easiest path to ultimate electoral victory, I think that is what will end up happening, and this revamped version of the party is what will crystallise as the main governing pretender on the right in the U.K. after an inevitable period of chaos.
Second: the Tories are not the only party undergoing a realignment. It is happening to Labour as well, although not a lot of people are noticing this. As the Tories shift towards national populism, an opportunity will open up for somebody else to be the ‘party of big business’, and I think it likely that Labour will pick up that mantle. This has already started happening over the pond to the Democrats (who now get the lion’s share of political donations from the big tech firms); it will happen here too, and we can already see the first signs of this. In short, what we once knew of as ‘left wing’ politics is dead, and what is emerging is a kind of technocratic elitism which relies for electoral support on a coalition between the professional, managerial class and the underclass who service them and are reliant on the State for benefits. The Labour Party will embody this coalition. There are important philosophical reasons for this development, but I will leave them for another time.
Third: some people are painting the Tory split as being between those who are in favour of low immigration, traditional values, popular sovereignty and so on, versus those who are in favour of ‘free markets’ and ‘fiscal responsibility’ (the article I linked to earlier, by Steve Davies, trots out this thesis). But the idea that the ‘liberal’ wing of the party believe in free markets and fiscal responsibility is for the birds. Liz Truss believed in free markets; we saw what happened to her. ‘Liberal’ conservatives sometimes pay lip service to capitalist values. But it would be more accurate to say that their liberalism is basically cultural and progressive. Economically, they are technocrats: managerial tinkerers. They have nothing in common with a Friedrich Hayek or a Milton Friedman or, for that matter, a Margaret Thatcher. (Charles Moore, in one of the truly great political putdowns, once said that “Margaret Thatcher liked capitalism. Tony Blair just likes rich people.” This applies by and large to the ‘liberal’ Tory wing across the board.) The split, in other words, is not about economics, but is really about the locus of power and the mode of government which follows. The national conservatives want the people to be in charge. The liberals want it to be ‘the experts’. There will be more to say about this.
Fourth: we have to think very hard about political philosophy and particularly the meaning of ‘liberalism’. This term, as is often the case in politics, is difficult to pin down. But it is important to make clear that modern liberalism is most decidedly not the kind of small-state, free market, capitalist variety of classical liberalism that people associate with the likes of Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill. It is something very different to that, and is best embodied in the character of the most important political liberal of the 20th century anywhere in the world, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In 1941, Roosevelt gave a famous State of the Union address, in which he set out the future of the new world order that was going to be put into effect after Allied victory (though the USA was not yet a belligerent in the war). The speech is famous for the so-called ‘Four Freedoms’. But it is most significant for what it says about the meaning of ‘freedom’ itself. Freedom, for FDR, did not mean a small state. It meant a big one: a state capable of achieving the six goals of what we can think of as modern liberalism – equality of opportunity for all, jobs for those who want them, security for all, the end of special privileges, civil liberties for all, and a constantly rising standard of living. Freedom in other words was not a matter of being left alone, but a matter of being given all of the substantive and material preconditions to act freely, and a level playing field in which to do so.
History, for FDR, like Barack Obama or Martin Luther King Jr., therefore had an arc. And the arc bent towards something like a totalitarian regime. It envisaged a State that would concern itself with literally every aspect of the population’s lives, and would accept no principled limits on its interventions in society. Equality of opportunity for all, security for all, the ending of special privileges, and a constantly rising standard of living, are goals without end: they envisage not a small state, but the biggest state that there can possibly be, constantly tinkering with, and modulating, the lives of each and every individual in society so as to maximalise their ‘freedom’ in the terms which I earlier described. Modern liberalism does not refrain from acting. It acts everywhere it can see inequality, everywhere it can see material want, and everywhere it can see a lack of progress. And since it can see those things everywhere, it everywhere acts.
This is the water in which we swim, and it is the underlying philosophy of all of our current political leaders. In principle, they see no limit on the scope of the State’s purview, and such arguments as exist between them mainly consist of bickering over where the specific contours of freedom should lie (for instance, whether the freedom of trans athletes to compete in whatever sport they like should trump the freedom of women to compete fairly against one another; or whether the freedom to smoke cigarettes should trump the right to be healthy, and so on). And the result is what we witness all around us: a State that grows endlessly bigger, takes on endlessly more responsibilities, and which eternally presents itself as endeavouring to free us from the material wants, anxieties, inequalities and barriers which purportedly plague us.
This means that liberalism is not philosophically different from the other totalitarian ideologies of the 20th Century, fascism and communism, as a number of 20th Century observers noticed. It is important to be clear what is meant by this. Of course, the ‘lived experience’ of a liberal regime is very different to that of a fascist or communist one. But the essence of all three of these ideologies was a conception of History being driven towards an ultimate end, with the State itself in the driving seat. In the case of fascism, that ultimate end was the final and total union between race and State; in the case of communism, it was what Alexandre Kojeve called the ‘universal and homogenous’ state of mutual recognition; and in the case of liberalism, it is the complete atomisation of each and every individual from any bond or duty owed to another, save what is voluntarily undertaken – and hence (always unspoken, but inevitably) a relationship of total reliance of every individual on the State to secure that status.
This is why purported ‘liberal conservatives’ always find themselves floundering. It is because they are living out an oxymoron. Liberalism is, so to speak, on rails; it can’t simply be paused at a point in time at which everybody can declare that there is just enough freedom now, thankyouverymuch, and we don’t need any more. (Much less can it, on its own terms, be reversed.) Wherever there is a claim that there is some inequality of opportunity, some substantive difference between starting points, some privilege or injustice, the liberal State must display an interest, and liberalism has of itself no internal critique to justify a failure to do so. Typically, the only things that constrain it are external: technological incapability, economic impracticality, or the political efforts of conservatives (which we will come to in a moment). And all of those constraints can be gradually circumvented.
I earlier mentioned FDR and called him the most important political liberal of the 20th Century. The most important political liberal of the 21st Century, playing slightly fast and loose with dates, is Tony Blair, and New Labour can be seen as the absolute quintessence of what I am describing. In 1999, when at the height of his pomp, Blair gave a speech which made all of this entirely explicit, and in such terms that it is worth reproducing at some length. This is how the speech began:
Today at the frontier of the new Millennium I set out for you how, as a nation, we renew British strength and confidence for the 21st Century; and how, as a Party reborn, we make it a century of progressive politics after one dominated by Conservatives.
A New Britain where the extraordinary talent of the British people is liberated from the forces of conservatism that so long have held them back, to create a model 21st Century nation, based not on privilege, class or background, but on the equal worth of all.
And New Labour, confident at having modernised itself, now the new progressive force in British politics which can modernise the nation, sweep away those forces of conservatism to set the people free.
He then rattled off a list of achievements – maternity pay doubled, the biggest rise in child benefits ever, extra money for pensioners, 650,000 more jobs, a national minimum wage, and so on. And then he set out his plans for the future. Again, this is worth quoting from at length:
The future is people… The liberation of human potential not just as workers but as citizens. Not power to the people but power to each person to make the most of what is within them….
The cause we have fought for, these 100 years, is no longer simply our cause of social justice. It is the nation’s only hope of salvation. For how do you develop the talent of all, unless in a society that treats us all equally, where the closed doors of snobbery and prejudice, ignorance and poverty, fear and injustice no longer bar our way to fulfilment.
Not equal incomes. Not uniform lifestyles or taste or culture. But true equality: equal worth, an equal chance of fulfilment, equal access to knowledge and opportunity. Equal rights. Equal responsibilities…
The class war is over. But the struggle for true equality has only just begun.
And he gave a forceful summary of the New Labour project as he saw it:
[I]t is us, the new radicals, the Labour Party modernised, that must undertake this historic mission. To liberate Britain from the old class divisions, old structures, old prejudices, old ways of working and of doing things, that will not do in this world of change.To be the progressive force that defeats the forces of conservatism.
For the 21st Century will not be about the battle between capitalism and socialism but between the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism.
The message of this is clear enough: liberation from inequality, from material want, from class divisions, “old ways of working”, and so on – and achieved not through a small state, but the biggest that there can possibly be, because it knows no limits on the project of liberation.
Tony Blair is a political virtuoso, whatever one thinks of his policies or ideas, and he stated the position very clearly. The 21st Century is not a battle between capitalism and socialism. It is one between progress – that is, liberal progress – and conservatism. It follows that anybody who describes themselves as a ‘liberal conservative’ is sleeping with the enemy – or very badly confused. So, in closing, let us make plain why exactly this is the fundamental division in politics, and what the role for conservatives has necessarily to be. Here, we need to turn to another political virtuoso, who I have written about before, and who I will no doubt write about again: Niccolo Machiavelli.
Machiavelli stood at the dawn of modernity. And, looking forwards, he put the central problem of modernity in simple terms. Premodernity was satisfied with the idea that the king ruled because of divine right – i.e., not because God had literally put him there, but because he governed his realm in the same manner as God governed the earth: through enforcing law. Modernity, however, would not be satisfied with this. Modernity needed a temporal, secular reason why the State should exist. And Machiavelli saw that this would result in one of two answers. The State could justify itself on the basis of it representing a people and enforcing their norms and customs as law – which meant it would be a republic. Or it could justify itself on the basis of its identifying and solving the people’s problems expediently – which meant it would be a principality. And at the heart of this distinction is the locus of virtù, or the capacity to rule. In a republic, it is the people who possess this quality, and that is why it is right for the State to be representative of their norms. In a principality, it is the prince who possesses it, and that is why it is for the prince to act on the population’s behalf at all times and in every circumstance.
Everything in modern politics flows from this dichotomy, and sharp-eyed readers will have already foreseen the point that I wish to make. Liberalism, fascism, and communism are all in essence justifications for a mode of rule which is fundamentally ‘princely’: all are predicated on the idea that the population is in some way benighted or corrupted and incapable of simply being left to its own devices, and therefore that government’s task is to reform it from the ground up (and indeed, that this is the basic narrative of History).
Against this stands conservatism, which alone among political philosophies holds that it is not that the people are benighted or corrupted when left to their own devices, but in fact that it is they who are the true repository of virtue. Goodness inheres not in the State, but in the familial, social, communal and religious institutions which people naturally create, and naturally congregate towards, and it is through embedding oneself within these institutions that one is made truly free – in the sense not of being free from ties, but in the sense of being free to realise one’s true potential. This does not exactly mean that there is no need for the State to exist at all, because man is fallen and there is a requirement for laws to be enforced and the people to be protected. But it means that the justification for the existence of the State derives from its reflecting, and preserving, the social norms of society, and its capacity to preserve that society’s way of life in a stable and secure way across time.
Another way of saying this, of course, is that what Machiavelli understood to be the republican justification for the existence of the State is the conception of the relationship between State and society from which conservatism derives. It is a project of trying to ensure that the State maintains and enforces laws which the people consider to be legitimate, and that the State acts to preserve and secure the conditions which they legitimately expect to endure. This is what conservatism really means, as a political project, and this means that conservatism is naturally, and inevitably, associated with a concept of the nation and sets its face against liberalism on the same basis that it opposes fascism, communism, or any other ideology which sees the role of the State as to reform society from above.
If the Conservative Party (or indeed some other party) can rediscover this fundamental feature of political thought, then it may very well be like discovering dynamite, because it will mean not just a ‘realignment’ but a return to the very roots of modern politics and therefore a reopening of the central question of our age: why the State, and indeed government, should exist at all. That will be exciting to witness, but the consequences will I think be explosive.
Three final codas. The first is that the conservative vision of the state is necessarily, based on what I have said, small. A conservative society, ideally, largely runs itself through other institutions such as the family, the church, mosque, synagogue or temple, the community group, the local charity, and so forth. Those Tories who genuinely like capitalism may compare this carefully with modern liberalism’s tendency to operationalise businesses to achieve the State’s ends. The second coda is that national conservatism not only has no constituency among our society’s elite, but that they despise and fear it, because they identify in it their true political enemy. This will make any genuinely conservative political project for the U.K. in the 21st Century extremely difficult to achieve. And the third coda is that conservatives need to think very carefully about the way in which they formulate policy, the rhetoric they use, and the manner in which they govern if and when they regain political power. Holding a national community together means recognising that the Britain of 2023 is not that of 1953, and that the fate of that community therefore rests on reconciling the needs of a vastly more diverse population than what once was. This is not a task to be underestimated, because the fate of the national community rests upon it – and preserving the national community is what conservatism must, as I have tried to show, necessarily be all about.
Dr. David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. He is the author of the News From Uncibal Substack.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Toby, thanks for making the effort today, happy birthday to the kid!
Curious to know if you have seen the governments 11th hour legal defense after being accused of closing schools illegally? They have said that they never ordered them shut, despite Boris being on video saying exactly that! Source: Simon Nolan’s Twitter today.
Dolan* sorry Simon!
BoJo has an habit of telling fibs, remember the £350M the NHS would get rather than sending the money to the EU.
Oh and Mr Cummins may have had a hand in that one as well.
I remember someone took him to court over that, suggesting it was a lie, and the judges, despite their tendency to back the Remainer cause, threw the case out, deciding it was a legitimate political argument. Meanwhile Remainer lies such as the suggestion that the EU has no plans for an EU army or that Cameron would stay on as PM if he lost the Referendum received no attention.
There was also the case of the bus adverts – gay vs. ex-gay. If I remember correctly, B. J. denied that he pulled the ex-gay ads, and that was also a lie.
hand up that one
Why do people like you continue to trot out the same fallacy about what was written on the side of ‘the bus’? If you’ve actually ever taken the time to read it you’ll know that it isn’t a promise, it’s a statement. Here it is again in case you’ve forgotten:
“We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead”
BTW, how much has Boris given to the NHS over the past few weeks? A lot more than £350 million!
The National Health Service has been replaced by the National Covid Service. The money that is thrown at Covid is whatever it takes to shoehorn in a Gated ‘partnership’ to the 4th reich of a biotech society.
The usurping of a true governance operates fear of loss of control’ and protects and projects fear and chaos as the means to reinstate its claim to power.
the centre that holds – is not the fear of pain of loss, but the heart and hub of a true support for the whole in all its parts.
The abandonment of even a masking in the heart, is the normalisation of a post truth management and control system that offers the mask of a virtual identity within a bubble set in psycho-bio-technical incentivisations.
That this is hollow and insane as a logical extension of insane premises doesn’t effect our ability to choose such an ‘identity’ by default to normals set over true nature.
‘NHS’ is being used as a symbolic trojan horse. As are terms like freedom and democracy. It is also used as a cash cow by Pharma cartels that operate a medical industrial complex no less operative as deep state or shadow power – which is come out of cover as the pretext for a global power coup – that already has effective control of all the levers of power.
Thank you. Honestly wasnt aware of that.
In our MSM in Germany this “bus lie” was and is always used as THE example of how the Leavers lied to the country.
I consider myself an understanding remainer. Meaning: I would have liked to keep the UK in the EU so that there is one more conservative voice that prevents this institution from turning from what it originally was meant to be (an economic treaty that would work together for prosperity and peace on the continent) to the United States of Europe. Therefore: remainer. But understanding because I detest what the EU has become.
It was by the way listening to Nigel Farage that made me see a lot of things more ciritically and clearly. I still like him. Has he an outspoken opinion on Corona and the lockdowns? Would really like to know.
Cheers
Rather suspect rothschild told farage to remain schtum on corona and lockdown, for the moment at least.
I actually have no idea what farage’s opinion is as haven’t heard him recently. I did hear he was booted off lbc for criticising support for blm.
That would imply farage tended to support the “corona is really a major threat” narrative. Did anyone watch or listen to it?
They routinely lie. It is what the public guardians do. They do it so routinely they don’t even know they are doing it.
I hear that Prof Sikora will be on ITV at 8pm tomorrow – might be an interesting turning of the tide in MSM.
anyone who wants to preserve the two meter rule is insane and deserving of utter contempt.
Biker,
Look at the sad future…..https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/14/what-could-a-physically-distanced-uk-look-like-after-lockdown
I suspect that the trade off for going to one metre will be compulsory muzzles in shops and , God forbid, the open air.
It isn’t fact. It’s scaremongering speculation. If Grauniads want to live that way, let them.
Evidently they do. I’ve just come from a Graun article exhorting us to support the high streets and the first few comments are all screaming that it’s madness and will trigger a second spike.
Reading the article, which waffles on about how people will be nervous about going shopping but £millions have been (and will be) spent making sure it’s safe for us.
I think it’s obvious that the bedwetters will stay home anyway and those who aren’t scared don’t want to go shopping in a miserable gulag. This is not the way to reboot the economy!
BBC at it again this morning..
“2m distancing rule under review despite warnings from scientists”
I went to MacDonalds today, just to see if it was open and whether there was any normality about it.
I couldn’t see as I turned in that there were two cordoned lanes with no way of changing your mind to get out of the queue. I was there for the duration. It was drive through only.
Loads of notices about the usual BS of keeping all safe. Cash not accepted etc…
There was a young lad outside being vigilant making sure everyone crept forward bumper to bumper and wearing a muzzle. Outside for god’s sake.
I was stuck in my lane for 30 minutes before getting to the Order area. I don’t eat their food but as I was there and parched I ordered a water. It took another 7 mins to get out of the place.
All staff were muzzled. I asked if it was voluntary. That was a ‘no’ but the young woman I asked seemed ok about it. FFS.
AVOID MACDONALDS AT ALL COSTS!
I’ve been to Macca D’s a couple of times since they reopened. Last week on the first day of opening and this week. Week one, first day our ‘local’ one opened there was a young lad on a chair on the road outside telling everyone how long the wait would be. He didn’t have a face mask. This week no queues. All the staff inside wore face masks, we asked the girl giving us our food how she felt about the face masks and she said they were horrible but they were forced to wear them. It seems mad that no supermarket staff are wearing masks but the staff at Macca’s are forced to, despite the fact that the majority are under 25 and at almost zero risk from covid 19.
It’s so sad and frustrating that no one seems to be pushing back on the wearing of the muzzle – that f. symbol of oppression.
It makes me feel sick at the thought of ever wearing one although I have no intention of doing so. I have absolutely no sense of humour about it, all I feel is an inner rage that if I was ever confronted or chastised (there’s a lot of chastisement from people at the moment, another bug bear) for not wearing one, I know the red mist would descend and then god help them.
I did however laugh out loud at Fairnances comment the other day about wearing a skeleton balaclava (I think she said balaclava), and at Peter Hitchens proposal to wear a gas mask, so maybe I have retained a smidge of humour after all.
I read somewhere recently that this continued lockdown with all the shit rules and obfuscation was for us to forget who we are and for us to get used to obeying so that they can drive through new laws without a whimper. Two words to that and one of them’s off.
I can only think that in these times of uncertainty with work that people are afraid to push back in case they lose their job but push back we must. I won’t be visiting any shop where they insist on it for their staff or god forbid their customers and will probably complain to them also.
I’d like to help shops and pubs etc… out as they re-open but they won’t be getting my custom if on top of the suppression of our liberties imposed by government, companies insist on suppressing their staff too.
I am heartened to read that Liberty Tree Tavern in Elgin, Texas is NOT allowing the muzzle at his place.
I just tried ringing them to congratulate them but seems they may have closed for the day but I’m going to keep trying though and if I ever visit Elgin I’m popping in to tell them that TG there are people out there with common sense.
Exactly. Some seem to positively embrace the restrictions.
Thank goodness sanity prevails at my local Aldi!
I’m not helping anyone out if they’re making my experience unpleasant and that includes pubs which is the one thing I have missed in all this
It is mad!
Its a form of virtue signalling that seems to join in caring while actually joining in hate of fear that is not allowed to be openly shared and questioned – but only TOLD what to do – OR ELSE!
Hi Nel.
I work at Mcdonalds. I’m a shift manager and all I can say is I have worked there for years under some very stressful times but nothing compares to the stress that we are working under now.
As soon as we enter the building we have our temperature checked and we have to declare that we are healthy and we don’t know anyone that is ill. We all have to wear masks as the nature of work we do we are always less than 2 metres away from each other. They are awful, if you have a shift in kitchen with them on you are done for. Its hot enough already and with a mask on its 10 times worse. We have less staff working each shift, normally we would have about 9 folk in the kitchen, we have 5 now to try to keep us spaced apart.
Another scary thing is the amount of young folk who actually believe that we are dealing with the plague and that we are all going to die. Alot of them are students who have had their exams trashed, their social life squashed, but they don’t care as they are doing it for the good of society.
The only good thing I will say about this whole situation is mega companies like Mcdonalds want to make as much money as possible with as little cost to them as possible. I’m not going into sales figures etc here, but all I will say is it wouldn’t surprise me if behind the scenes big businesses are campaigning for all this madness to stop. Our store is not making the profit it usually does, I imagine all our other stores are the same. When all the big retail stores open, after they have spent money on screens, sanitiser and goodness knows all what and after being closed for 3 months they will be wanting to make money and fast. If that doesn’t happen which personally I don’t think it will. Who wants to spend a day shopping to have to queue outside every store, then I am sure pressure will grow to stop all this social distancing nonsense and hopefully get our society back to where it was
It can’t possibly work.
My friend and I were discussing the logistics of buying clothes in a shopping mall. Queue for ages to be allowed in. You can’t try the clothes on, so have to buy an armful, then take them home to try on – which assumes you can afford to. Then you have to repeat the whole ghastly procedure to return the rejects for a refund.
People are queuing outside every shop, so antisocial-distancing becomes impossible – and forget window shopping and stopping for a coffee and a rest, especially if loos are off-limits!
Meanwhile, people are leaving the clothes shops with armsful of stock so, when you’ve finally got in, you’ll find there’s a limited choice remaining – and shops aren’t going to be able to afford tons of extra stock to cover this.
All this is to be policed by Jobsworths. Even people who aren’t scared are not going to go through such a gruesome experience. Amazon is going to have a bumper year.
If people choose online shopping instead of in store, then tracking our purchases becomes so easy, especially if it is all from Amazon. This is quite possibly of the goals of making in store shopping so miserable. Big brother is watching us ever closer.
I am so very sorry to hear what you are having to go through but confirms what I witnessed yesterday.
If you are working in hot kitchens with less staff so more pressure and stress on you, and having to wear a muzzle then I’m surprised you can even breathe. I wonder if there is some H&S law that can be triggered that you are working in unsafe conditions. Any lawyers out there?
It doesn’t surprise me sadly with the younger people as around where I live I’ve only seen younger people wearing them outside.
Who are these people they keep polling who agree with it all? I think there are far more out there now who want this nonsense to stop. As someone said previously, a poll company can manipulate a poll however a company / government wants. Suspect that’s what’s happening.
I can hope that eventually companies see sense particularly if their bottom line is at risk.
Perhaps we should boycott MacDonalds for their unsafe working conditions? There was the McLibel case in the UK brought by Helen Steel and David Morris lasted an epic 10 years that although HS and DM didn’t win on all counts, it was considered a ‘pyrrhic victory’ for MacDonalds i.e. a PR disaster that caused more harm than good. I doubt they’d want to go through something like that again. Anyway, just a thought. It will probably only be by boycotting large companies that we will see some change.
Anyway, again so sorry about what you are having to put up with at the moment.
Sorry should have said brought by MacDonalds against Helen Steel and David Morris.
Not just that. A couple of weeks ago, there were articles describing how residents were being told they couldn’t park outside their own homes because space had to be made for the cars queuing for MacDs.
Seriously? Then my comment above stands, we should boycott them
As I have never considered using them, I am feeling powerless here!
However, it is noticeable to me that society is being sorted. Those who are willing to consciously accept what fear frames them in, are lockstepped to the idea of control as the power to deliver from fear. That it doesn’t actually deliver, is the ongoing control system that runs in place of the choice to align in the heart.
If we merely react from quantitative evaluations, then we protect our investments even if they are severely contracted and assigned new terms and conditions. So the opportunity is a re-evaluation of everything from a qualitative foundation.
Truth of love – and love of truth – is that without which nothing else works, makes sense, has meaning, can be shared, or even truly known. The apparent prospect of losing this or being locked down into a guarded hell by a coercive protection racket is an opportunity to release a false investment instead of going down another level.
We cannot ‘think’ our way through the release of a false investment or identity, we have to live it.
Absolutely!
If shopping becomes like in this little film from Primark, shops will find themselves with no customers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=XCo_IPMrQ9g&feature=emb_logo
Oh good god . . . that is appalling. That’s another shop on my list of places never to visit. I won’t be treated as a leper.
Another one that won’t be missed….
Gawd…..I’m beginning to sound like the Lord High Executioner from the Mikado!
If shops don’t resist this nonsense they deserve to go under.
What are they supposed to do? They are observing government restrictions, otherwise they get sued.
We really need to divide the country in two, 2 metre “new normal” supporters on one side of the border and people who want to return to the old normal now. And see how each group gets on. I’d be willing to bet most of the other lot would be clamouring to get in after a few months at most, having realised that it’s not really living.
And they’re all out of work
Indeed – the 2-metre crowd could all move to Krankieland: she’d make them feel most welcome!
You’re a genius. Problem solved – we’ll do them a swap for all the normal Scots.
They could just start by declaring “Real shops aren’t for wimps, they can stay home – they will anyway.” The rest of us could then get on with it as normal (OLD normal!). I’m sure it would catch on fast.
There’s a simple remedy. Carry a tape measure with you and regularly measure 2m between yourself and others, point at them and accuse them of potentially killing somebody.
They’ll think you’re crazy and you then simply say “crazy isn’t it?”
I’d go even further, and stand there and burst into tears, sobbing “I’ve just got to take my Granny’s shopping to her and now you’ve probably killed her!”. They will give you the “are you completely off your trolley” look, whereupon you can grin and say “Yup, stupid isn’t it.”. Exit stage left with a smile.
Great idea
Indeed we are all being treated like bacilli. Because that’s what zombies see when they look at any other person than themselves.
Well, they won’t be seeing me in any of their poison shops.
Then return the sentiment kh. If they bark at you bark back. Same principle as with bullies – you have to stand up to them.
Easier said than done. They’re all drunk on the power they’ve newly acquired and will abuse it to have you kicked out. It’s the airport security phenomenon; introduced post 9/11 as a ‘temporary measure’ but still with us two decades on.
Pity they’d already got your money. I’d have relished leaving my would-be purchases and going elsewhere. Or, hopefully I’d have had the presence of mind (probably not) to demand a refund on the spot.
Toby,
It does not matter; it is a short version today. We all need our daily reality check!
Best regards
Mitesh
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-06-05/netherlands-coronavirus-lockdown-dutch-followed-the-rules
Dutch Cooperation Made an ‘Intelligent Lockdown’ a Success
Despite a largely laissez-faire attitude, the Netherlands has fared better than most.
When 511 Epidemiologists Expect to Fly, Hug and Do 18 Other Everyday Activities Again
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/08/upshot/when-epidemiologists-will-do-everyday-things-coronavirus.html
What a miserable mob of cowardly jerks. I wouldn’t go near any of them without a bargepole to keep their poison at a safe distance.
Well they can fuck off for a start (apologies to any epidemiologists, and their close family and friends, on the forum).
On a more serious note, I wonder if one cherry picked some of the juicier points from this, and published it, where there would be a few waverers who would start to realise what’s at stake here. I struggle to believe that, apathetic as many are, a majority would support the kind of long term madness that these apparently rather unusual scientists seem prepared to countenance.
It shows how utterly divorced from reality they are.
Well I’m hugging and I don’t care. Still here. By the way the hugging’s consensual. I’m not mugging anyone.
Makes you wonder if these people ever had social interests, active social lives…. or sexual partners pre-Covid.
The’re the ones you see lurking in lonely corners wearing hazmat suits.
Good grief, what a cowardly bunch of idiots. No wonder we’re in such a mess!
Thanks again, Mr Young. Hope you had a great day celebrating. On a more sombre note, I’ve just read the Peter Hitchens piece in full, with rapt attention. It is frightening but compelling. Where is the dissent? Where is the debate? None of the institutions which should guarantee such things are lifting a finger to help. But as Hitchens says, these evils are deeply rooted. And then there’s the Andrew Sullivan article – more appalling news. Both of them touch on something almost beyond institutional redress – that the whole of the intellectual class is seemingly under the thumb of the left, whether from fashion, fear or resentment. Somehow, we must organise and resist. I shall join your Free Speech Union for starters, but the forces ranged against us are daunting. And Johnson – that wretched, over promoted incompetent who has handed us back to the left just months after effecting a rescue! Does he have the slightest grasp of what he has done? In this world of intimidation, unfolding without the slightest hindrance from the Tories, one doesn’t know whom to trust any more. Who is speaking sincerely? Hitchens and Sullivan, yes; but the Telegraph with its new found wokery? The Spectator with its loud support for millions of migrants from Hong Kong? Are they for real? Or are they just afraid. I tell you, I am afraid – of the horrors of hard left bigotry coming down the track.
Completely agree with all that – and this time it is the young (no, no, not you Toby) who will feel the full force of this unfolding catastrophe through the rest of their lives.
Vernon Coleman. UK Column
how about we swap 3 million productive hard working Hong Kon-ians with 3 million unprodective lefties – kill 2 birds with 1 stone
I do wonder how much black lives would matter to the CPC.
Otherwise, I’m in somewhat qualified agreement to the above.
brilliant idea.. the lefties still have such an admiration for china.. no protesting about hong kong, no protests about the interned muslims and tibet, no protests about their third world colonialism and slavery. Clearly it is a better place to live than the awful racist and fascist uk
Thanks for making the effort Toby. Happy hatch day to your youngling, May he grow up to know a life similar to our own childhood, rather than the current kafkaesque Era.
Perhaps more noise should be made of the governments response to Simon Dolan?
The sheer audacity!
But surely anticipated?
My first suggestion for a theme tune:
Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire
Does not need any explanation.
This from The Guardian:
?width=140&height=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=03204cab07e9bbaec24e28ad68d3420fLibby Brooks
Scotland: Schools likely to continue ‘blended learning’ until end of next school yea
Scotland’s education secretary John Swinney says that schools are likely to continue with the ‘blended learning’ model from August until the end of the next school year.
With pupils across Scotland expected to return on August 11 to a mixture of at-home and in-school learning, Swinney told Sunday Police Scotland that things were “unlikely” to return to normal before the end of the school year since social distancing will be required for some time yet.
Some councils have already made public plans that involve children being in school buildings for only two days out of every five.
He also said that, while he understands some parents will be nervous about sending their children back to school, it will be a legal requirement.
Teaching unions and parents groups area already expressing concerns that the new model with impact especially on poorer families and those parents who are unable to work from home.
Words fail me! WTF is ‘blended learning’? I think it’s probably an acronym for ‘shit education’.
Sorry – I meant ‘euphemism’.
“Blended learning”. Mealy mouthed wankers.
Someone is paid a fortune to come up with nonsense like that.
I wrote about this here a week or so ago, but my 15 year old daughter (who didn’t sit exams this year) needed feedback from her English teacher on an essay she’s been assigned. Rather than being able to, y’know, put her hand up in class and actually ask the teacher, she had to send an email. That went unanswered for 4 days, at which point my daughter mentioned her anguish to me.
I rattled off a very strong message to the school, and got a reply fairly sharpish from the head of year teacher, who assured me my message had been passed onto the relevant English teacher. This was followed up by another email to let me know the English teacher had now responded to my daughter.
So, yeah, this is what blended learning will be like. Kids having to chase teachers for help via email 3 days a week.
I should add that my daughter is really bright, got all As in her prelim exams, always gets glowing reports etc. She takes her education very seriously and has a career path planned for herself. She was last week acccepted onto a social work apprenticeship which she should be starting next school year.
However, what about other more average pupils – like I was – or even kids who just don’t really care about school work much, or have parents who don’t give a toss.
What’s this blended learning bollocks going to be like for them?!
And finally, of course, the Scottish government has borrowed more money from the Treasury to spend on laptops for disadvantaged pupils who’s households can’t afford to buy them.
All of this to “keep the kids safe” from a virus which, in Scotland, has claimed ZERO lives in the under-19 age bracket.
Very best wishes to your daughter. She sounds like the sort of exam candidate whose work would be a pleasure to mark. ( I used to mark International GCSE English.)
Thought: there is a good deal of expertise in this site. Can we offer help to kids who are anxious to learn?
Honestly. I am so upset over the bollock fest thats come out of the Scottish government today. To be told after not being in school since March that when our kids go back in August it will be part time for the entire school year has nearly pushed me over the edge. If kids are not going to be in school full time for a whole school year, I would imagine that means no after school clubs, no sports clubs, no drama clubs or scouts, girl guides etc. All the fun stuff that kids love, helping to nurture them and build them into well rounded individuals all gone until God knows when.
At a time when European countries are almost finished coming out of lockdown. Some even speeding things up. Many of them saying lockdown was a waste of time and they wouldn’t do it again, Nicola is insistent she is going to keep following the science. Where the f*** is she getting her science from.
To cap it all when she did her speech today she still won’t say if we are moving into phase 2 this week. She’s “optimistic” but warned not everything she set forward for phase 2 will happen. I actually don’t know what planet she’s on.
I watched the local news Friday night. I was doing the ironing and it was on the TV and I couldn’t be bothered to find the remote. Anyways they totally laid into her, went on and on about the economy. Spoke to 5 different businesses still not open, no idea when they can open and all about to run out of money. To top it all 2 single mums came out and said if their kids were in school part time come August, they will give up their jobs and claim benefits as they would be better off. How can Nicola and the rest of the Scottish government not be concerned about this. These folk were in tears. It was harrowing to watch. All because she is on a mega power trip and has to be different.
She either needs to resign now or come out and do what other leaders have done, and not exactly admit they made a mistake but say the science has changed, they know more about the virus than they did months ago and get the bloody economy started up again. Otherwise there will be no economy left to restart.
That’s pretty much a recipe for rioting – those people’s lives have been destroyed by this lockdown and I won’t blame them if they decide to take matters into their own hands.
My daughter and a few of her friends were chosen to go on a trip to Malawi to work with school children over there. They’ve raised the required fees (£1000s) and are due to travel next year. I have to wonder whether this, too, will be knocked on the head.
It’s interesting that that evil swine Swinney is threatening parents with legal action should they choose not to send their kids back to school. Seems he thinks it’s legal to shut the schools and also not legal to send kids to school when he and his nationalista counterparts believe it’s a requirement.
Can they not just declare they are home schooling? Plenty of parents do nowadays, although I have no idea how they go about declaring it.
You write a letter to the school stating your intention to home educate, effective immediately. We did it 10 years ago.
It’s interesting that, like you noticed, she may not give us everything outlined in Phase 2. But when you read phase 2 (it’s on page 37 of her “route map”) it’s not much of an improvement over Phase fucking 1.
All the while Scotland has had around 14 deaths “with COVID-19” in a week and there’s less than 20 people with it in ICU across the whole country.
I know, its disgusting to think she can play with peoples lives like a cat torments a mouse. She is just on a massive ego trip. I actually thought her coming out today, as know she normally takes weekends off, to speak it might of been something encouraging but no. I really can’t understand why she thinks children are better stuck at home with no social interaction with their friends. No sports or any extra curricular activities.
My son belongs to boys brigade and swimming club. He’s missed a weekend camp with boys brigade something which he loved last year. Missed endless hours swimming, mixing with other kids not from his school but will be going to the same high school as him next year. He was a happy, out going kid who is slowly turning into a shell of his former self and its awful to see. All he wants to do is just be a kid and play. Academically I don’t know what is going to happen. He’s a bright kid. Loves Maths. Picks up new things easily but I really worry about kids who aren’t. Kids from socially deprived families, with maybe the threat of losing their jobs hanging over them. The stress that some of children must be suffering every minute of the day is unimaginable. Surely as a human being Nicola must realise this. I just really don’t understand how she can not see the bigger picture in all of this. She can easily turn around and change all this herself.
I feel for you. My kids are younger than yours from the sounds of things and we’re south of the border, but what we’re doing to our children can only be described as evil. I truly hope that there’s time to fix it for them, but the people who did this must be held to account.
I don’t think Nic is a human being. Or Comrade Stalin Drakeford in Wales either. Or any of their henchpersons.
Indeed, if it wasn’t for this site I would start thinking that I was the only human being left in the country. Don’t you get that feeling at times?
At my worst times I find myself envying those who died before this horror began. And then I pray God through Jesus Christ to deliver us, because nobody else can.
And to the revolting ‘stay safe’ mantra, I always reply ‘stay human’.
Nicola. Human being?
Surely a real human doesn’t maintain an immaculate short hairstyle throughout a three-month ban on hairdressers?
Usforthem now has a Facebook group for the opening of Scottish schools.
Let me get this right. If they’re trying to protect people from a virus (ha ha what virus?) are the kids only going to school part time because the virus is only working part time? Bit like the virus has just taken a holiday the last two weeks but back on 15th so now everyone has to wear face masks on public transport. Fucking idle virus if I may say so. Sounds like a draft of a sketch comedy to me, not real life.
A shop near me has a list of opening times that ends with ‘Closed Sundays due to coronavirus’.
This virus sure does move in mysterious ways. Muzzle wearers feel “safe” to take it off while having a drink in a bar’s outside seating area, but put it back on when they leave. Are they protected by an invisible anti corona force field while they have a drink but are immediately attacked when they’ve finished. No logic or common sense with these morons.
Please, don’t call her Nicola and don’t call Johnson Boris.
It disturbs me that the row of salad potatoes I have planted is called Nicola. Scottish as well! Never mind, I’m sure their tuberous personalities will be much more amenable.
If I had kids I’d leave the country, honestly.
I’m considering it personally (depending on how the next six months go… notably I’m more scared of books being burnt in the streets than the continuation of Covysteria, because I think the former is looming and will get worse whereas the latter will, eventually, fade away) – but if I had kids….. I’d want them out of here. Seriously.
I’m seriously considering it.
Actually, that’s not true – I’m actively pursuing it. I have a job I’m looking at on the west coast of the states, which may or may not happen, but either way, my wife has an Irish passport and I could get one, so I’m looking at moving us to Germany. My work doesn’t care where I am, I speak the language and they’re just so damn sensible.
I could be seeing you there. I have family over there. Not so great with the language (somewhat ironically) but I’ll do
Whatever you do, don’t come to Spain. Imagine if after the last election, Corbyn had been able to form a coalition with the Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and persuaded Sinn Fein to take their seats. That nightmare scenario is Spain’s reality.
We can’t let this happen. My friend is a headteacher and word on the street for secondary schools is that they will only be in school for one day a week! Primaries will be in ‘bubbles’, Mon/Tues for one group, Thurs/Fri for the other. Allowing for deep cleaning on a Wednesday!!
Another letter on route to my MSP (Lib Dem), although so far he’s been useless. This madness has to stop.
It wouldn’t be so bad if there was proper socialising for the teenagers on the one day per week. It will just rub it in.
It already was.
Covid dictionary
Blended learning- a form of torture imposed upon parents and children, where children learn very little and parents can’t return to work.
social distancing- an anti social method of ensuring that people can no longer socialise like normal human beings.
2m rule-a random amount of space suggested to make life as difficult as possible for everyone.
lockdown- being imprisoned within your own home by a controlling government.
Furlough- to skip work and be paid for it, an opportunity for the government to entirely ruin our country while people lie in the sun and drink wine.
Happy Birthday to your son Toby and hope the family had a good day celebrating despite all this. Many thanks again for your tireless efforts on this blog!
Universities everywhere are concerned about a ‘virus,’ but not the one you think
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=15028
Amid racial tensions in the United States, colleges and universities across the country have a new favorite metaphor: comparing the “virus of racism” to the novel virus that has upended the country.
After George Floyd was killed while in Minneapolis police custody, the University of Michigan Engineering department called upon students to “help eradicate the virus of racism.”
“For over two months, we have been dealing with the coronavirus, a pandemic that has shaken the core of our institution and the world. It has been a lot to deal with; and has at times felt overwhelming. Yet during the past week, another virus reared its ugly head,” read the official university communication.
“This virus is called RACISM,” the statement adds.
“Racism has been in the fabric of the country since its inception. It is so tightly entwined in our socialization that it has been second nature in driving behavior,” the message continued.
Aren’t metaphors awful things?
I thought the consensus was that using the pathogen analogy in politics was a very dangerous business after a certain someone used it on many occasions in mid 20th century.central Europe.
Do they really want to live in the kind of world this is going to lead to? I doubt they’d do. Naked self interest I can sympathise with. Motiveless suicide is much harder to take.
As only one ethnic group can ever be guilty of racism, then it should be clear that group is the ‘virus’
Greetings Fellow Sceptics!
Today was my last day of my Ghost Town Capital Journeys and while it has been good for my mental and physical health, from tomorrow I begin my boycott of transport and the high street to protest at the compulsory muzzling, the dehumanising antisocial distancing measures and the lack of toilets.
Also visited a work colleague to drop off some plant cuttings from my husband and we spent a wonderful afternoon having a late lunch and chatting. She also thinks this is all ridiculous and is also boycotting shops except supermarkets and transport as she told me “I don’t want to endanger my health because I have to wear a useless mask” or words to that effect.
On my way home via the bus, the irritating face mask message kept coming up and this bloke who sat across me rolled his eyes as soon as it came up the nth time then he muttered loudly “bollocks!”
Indeed the tide is turning.
*boycotting shops (except supermarkets) and transport – DOH!!!
and for the over-60’s (about 17m of us in the UK when I last counted), a cloth mask won’t do – they have to be medical grade, according to the latest WHO U-turn:
https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1279750/retrieve
I think I now believe that the WHO is just saying stuff in a desperate attempt to make sure people don’t forget they exist.
I’ve stopped listening to the WHO – its all quack advice and have to agree with matt, this is all a ruse to stay in the news especially after the US has pulled the plug on funding them.
Then surely they would do a better job by saying masks are pointless, antisocial-distancing is no longer necessary and the sooner life returns to normal, the healthier we all will be. That should get them notices and earn them some brownie points to boot.
Exactly. Why they haven’t done that is a bleeding mystery.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/13/8-simple-steps-to-end-the-lockdown-say-yes-not-no/
8 Simple Steps To End The Lockdown: Say Yes, Not No
To those paying attention, the evidence about Covid-19 and the lockdown response is clear. We’ve been sold a pup.
The UK Government itself has confirmed several times that the virus is not serious to the majority of people who catch it. The lockdown was a panic-driven overreaction.
There was a clue 19th March
‘As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.’
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid
All the rest was politics….now about to become a feeding frenzy for lawyers…greatly to the taxpayers cost……but, surely, ultimately, to the cost of the politicians responsible and their coteries as well…..?
Over ten thousand dead before their time:
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1931
Hope Simon Dolan uses this in his court case!
Sold a pup?
A baby Tyrant-osaurus, rather. And it’s growing up fast.
https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1261253109558513664/photo/1
Interesting from Slovenia. They started the lockdown with no deaths and 20 cases per day.They lifted lockdown with 20 cases per day and 4 deaths per day the peak and they have now declared the pandemic over 3 weeks after lifting the lockdown. Seems a natural epidemic curve hardly affected by anything done.
I can’t believe we’re half way through June and instead of making any progress to getting back to normal, all that seems to be happening is more progress into the absurd.
The government need to stop the awful and pointless briefings. If people care about how many people have died then they can find the figures out themselves. I’m sure they wouldn’t bother though because the ones who care about the “covid” deaths obviously haven’t bothered to do any research into any of the numbers over the last 3 months. If they had then they wouldn’t be frightened to go outside.
Open everywhere back up properly, that’s schools, restaurants, pubs, sports centres, hairdressers etc. If people wanna voluntarily wear masks then let them. Nobody else should have to. If shops don’t want to reopen then that’s their choice.
Completely sick of it all.
I’m very concerned this could go on for years if I does then I will ask to.be euthanased and I mean it cant stand the daily stress of it. All
I just can’t get my head around what is actually going on. We are well and truly through the looking glass now. There is no need for any of it, but I unfortunately agree with you, I think this insanity is going to go on for a long time now. It’s looking very bleak. I want to go back to the 90s.
Take at least one of the bad guy with you, Nic …
Nic,
This will pass faster than you imagine – I recommend 48 hours away from social media and much sunshine (if you can get out and away, that is).
Your new shopping experience at Bluewater and Lakeside….Good Grief!!
https://youtu.be/6LFz5qFzwE0
Just watched that – horrific! Tracking people using heat sensors – hello? When did we agree to that? And the financial investment that the shopping centres have made for all this makes me suspicious that this is going to be temporary… And if as seems likely, the 2m guidance will be reduced to only 1m, then all their signage will have to be changed again… so a waste of time making all these signs..
See many centres closing if this goes on i will not be going until the old normal returns
Had to laugh the other day. Several local authorities were protesting that if the antisocial-distance was reduced, all their 2m sineage would be out of date.
Barnsley council smugly disclosed that its signs read “Keep your distance”.
They must be the only council with an iota of common sense in this godforsaken country.
Jesus Christ. How depressing. I hate shopping anyway, but if you did used to enjoy it then there is no way you’ll be going out shopping like that, not when you can order whatever you want online and have it delivered to your house the next day. You’d have to be insane or unable to shop online to go there.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of insane people out there. Still, not sure how long even the true covid zombies could tolerate this. Would love to see these shops go bust if they continue to gleefully embrace this insanity.
Insane for sure!
AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!
I went to Sainsbury’s for some petrol and free tyre-pressure check on Friday. I wasn’t keen on Sainsbury’s before lockdown, because they’d replaced most of the cashiers with robots. For food, Aldi and Abel&Cole have my total loyalty now.
The petrol sales shop is the size of a Tesco Express but with fewer display shelves, so it has two really wide isles. There was an arrangement of barriers outside but, as it was 7pm and quiet, I went straight up to the door, like the person just in front of me. A very young Pakistani man politely asked me to please wait because only two customers were allowed in the shop at once.
I asked him if someone was spending ages browsing the aisles full of chocolate, soda and general junk food, did that mean we couldn’t just go in, pay for our petrol and get out. He said yes.
Can you imagine what that must be like at busy times?!
I told him I wasn’t having a go at him because obviously he didn’t make the rules but didn’t he think it was bonkers? He nodded and said yes he did.
I asked if he got a lot of flak about it and he said he did from some people. I sympathised and said that wasn’t fair because he hadn’t invented the stupid rule.
Poor lad, what a shitty job he has. At least it wasn’t raining, blowing a howling gale or both!
That’s the problem, I sympathise with the shop workers as I work in a customer facing role myself and I know that we are also powerless against the tsunami of insane and illogical rules. What I take exceptions are those ones who channel their inner Nazi or Stalin.
Vote with your feet. Don’t go. You can get anything online these days. Except groceries Well you can if you can get a slot. Gold dust these days. I don’t have a car and always did my shopping online, no problems. Until this fiasco. Haven’t a hope of delivery because those with cars have nobbled the slots as they are too effing scared to go out!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/14/the-lancets-editor-the-uk-response-to-coronavirus-is-the-greatest-science-policy-failure-for-a-generation
The Lancet editor, a well-known China friend and admirer of the Chinese way of inventing lockdown in an interview in the Guardian. Because of the scandal with withdrawing of an article in The Lancet he is now pretending to disassociate himself with Big Pharma. But he forgets that Big Pharma is the prime factor behind the lockdown. He is now criticizing the UK response as the lockdown would have been effective earlier. This is now a common thing to say in line with Fergusson. Three weeks earlier lockdown and everything would have been a success.
I have just read the article in the Mail. My take is, and has been since the retracted HCQ paper, he is shitting himself and trying to get his rewritten narrative out ahead of an imminent (US) court case.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8419201/Lancet-editor-blasts-government-allowing-thousands-needless-coronavirus-deaths.html
I think you mentioned AIER the other day. This just posted on ZeroHedge is interesting about the modelling:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/modelers-thought-everything-except-reality
My husband uses agent based simulation in other settings (regulatory economics) and said from the outset it should never have been used in this situation. He replicated the Ferguson 250k mitigation outcome on a spreadsheet with a five variable formula, and 60K with Diamond Princess dataset.
The zerohedge article is spot on. The shocking thing is that WHO in 2019 and ECDC and every epidemiologist in the world before the Covid-19 pandemic, never even considered lockdown/quarantine the healthy as an option at all. No evidence that it would be effective and the feasibility was considered impossible. In fact, many social distancing measures have a very low evidence of working and apart from handwashing, even the evidence for school closures in influenza is rather weak but could be used. Masks were even more controversial. That was 2019. And the China lockdown was imported and lauded in 2020 by many leading epidemiologists, unfortunately sitting in government committees and many with dubious link with Big Pharma. The epidemiologists doing the experiment, never done before, were the ones importing the lockdown principle from a totalitarian country. The onus is on these people to prove that lockdown worked.
Agree. They need to make their case in front of a full coroner-type inquiry, led by the likes of Dr Andrew Walker (he took the Ministry of Defence apart in various inquests to military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan). We need all the evidence on the table, including all the email chatter and inter-departmental memos behind the sanitised SAGE minutes, and testimony from the scientists not deemed worthy of listening to by the government – Professors Sikora, Heneghan, Gupta, Spiegelhalter.
Please not Sikora. I know he’s a hero here, but let’s not forget, he was the specialist who said in 2009 that this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdelbaset_al-Megrahi
Had weeks to live and so should be returned to Libya (he lived till 2012). He is and always has been a self publicist.
You realize that Sikora was in favour of lockdown? He was on that side in the Oxford debate featuring Hitchens.
He does seem to change his tune.
https://www.aier.org/article/how-a-free-society-deals-with-pandemics-according-to-legendary-epidemiologist-and-smallpox-eradicator-donald-henderson/
In that article is the full text of Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza(Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science; Volume 4, Number 4, 2006)
By Thomas V. Inglesby, Jennifer B. Nuzzo, Tara O’Toole, and D.A. Henderson
It is not possible to get the full text free separately so you need to read this in the link above. I recommend everybody to read this fascinating article by the legendary Donald Henderson. It is almost chilling to read this in light was is going on now with Covid-19. It discusses every measure used in Covid-19. What a miss that we did not have these type of professionals in charge of Covid-19 reponse.
Thanks for this
He should be concerned about his safety, at the very least. Many people who’ve upset big pharma seem to commit suicide in ‘unusual’ ways.
I think there is a link between the collapse in both Christian belief and the requirement to respect Christian observances in British society, and the descent into barbarous behaviour in our cities: ultimately a failure of liberalism.
One aspect I’ve not seen a comment on so far, is that these events will be closely watched in societies which are actively defending their traditions (such as Poland and Hungary.) I imagine these events will strengthen and reinforce their drive to retain their traditional culture.
Hello Phil,
Although I am not religious I grew up in an era when church-going and Sunday school was still the norm, and my feeling is that these activities instilled a level of morality and self-discipline (even among the agnostics), which is somewhat lacking in society today. The decline of Christianity has left a vacuum, which is being filled by various forms of activism that manifest themselves most obviously in the holier-than-thou virtue-signalling of the ‘woke’ community – theirs is a religion in all but name.
Unfortunately, ‘love thy neighbour’ has turned into ‘cancel thy neighbour’. There is a good piece in The Telegraph today, by Calvin Robinson, pointing out that the support of ‘woke’ activists only extends to those on the left – you can’t be BAME and a Conservative, it seems:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/13/dare-left-say-cant-conservative-little-short-racism/
I wonder if anyone could answer this question that I have been mulling over today. As the 2m rule is guidance, and not enshrined in law, is there anything to stop a shop from operating as normal for those who want to shop as normal?
The trouble is most people have been gaslighted into thinking if you are closer than 2 metres you will be infected with a deadly virus and you will die. I really don’t want to wear a face mask in the surgery but am fearful of being denounced to the local ” committee of public safety “. ie the practice manager.
Likewise any shopkeeper not insisting on the 2 metres will get a hard time and wetpantyhose wearers will go to the local rag.
Asked this question myself no one sees to know
I think this issue here is many employers will be forced into complying with the 2m spacing by health and safety codes – that’s where the enforcement angle of this will come in. I do agree from what I see locally and on my travels that most people are ignoring the 2m thing in their personal lives.
Probably, their insurance contracts – and threats from local councils.
It seems to be threats from the council around here,particularly towards small businesses.
Local councils are not exactly renowned for making intelligent decisions.
However, the government has shunted millions to them in order to provide “safe” shopping spaces. They are maybe being audited for compliance.
The draconian leaning works from the top down but it’s the poor sods at the bottom who suffer for it, businesses and customers alike.
Good question!
If you’re receiving funding from the state or are connected with the state for some matter like certain museums and heritage sites then you are forced to comply, doesn’t matter if its guidance or not.
Well if you look at, for example, this link here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19/shops-and-branches it is very clearly guidance, not law. There are similar documents for other workplace categories. I am not aware that there is any law relating to this specifically – for example Health and Safety law, or anything in the recent restrictions. The restrictions related solely to whether those businesses were allowed to open at all. What I am not sure about is whether general health and safety laws are broad enough to allow them to be used against a business that had not done a covid-19 risk assessment, or had done one but concluded the risks were low because it’s simply not that dangerous. A small business that felt strongly about this could risk it, but a larger firm would probably want to get their lawyers onto it before going against the guidance.
It’s not all about the law, or how enforceable any of it is. You also have to take into account 1) the willingness of the workforce to return to work productively (you can oblige them to turn up or be fired, but you can’t oblige them not to be sullen and slow or not to complain to the media) 2) the risk of litigation (if you’ve followed the guidance to the letter and someone gets sick, it’s not your fault. If you haven’t, it could be) and 3) virtue signalling (we are a responsible employer. Your safety is our first concern).
Yes indeed. That’s why the guidance is so damaging.
Triple whammy!
Here’s the email I have sent to Waterstones:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to you regarding your email below which outlines your protocols for Waterstones reopening tomorrow.
As someone who has loyally supported your store since 2004 when I came to this country as a student, I am dismayed by the measures you have put in place in the name of “safety” due to this current crisis. I take exception especially to the following:
Shopping is meant to be a pleasurable activity and one of the reasons why I continue to go to bookshops is the thrill of finding something to read by accident while browsing. These measures will take the joy out of book shopping, that moment when you find something that you’re not intending to read and buy but eventually do while browsing. Instead of what should be a positive experience, it will be re-enacting what shopping is like in the old USSR or East Germany.
While your company persists in treating me and other customers as inconveniences and carriers of disease, I will not go into your stores and will rather take my custom to other bookshops or online that will treat me as a human being with respect and dignity.
Yours faithfully,
etc, etc….
Hmm, I rather feel that about supermarkets too: I have little option but to use them, but, no, I shall not go to any other dehumanising stores.
Exactly. We have to put up with re-enacting the Soviet Union with supermarkets (thankfully my local Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and M&S have been fine) but I’m not going to stand for being treated like a leper by the high street.
If this accelerates their demise they will have no-one but themselves to blame.
In my town Morrisons have been pretty good but M&S and Sainbury’s have been awful,the worst of all for treating customers badly is B&Q.
It seems to vary from area to area. I’ve boycotted my local Tesco and Asda but mostly because of the long queues.
I’ve heard dreadful reports about B&Q.
Their website used to be crap, so if it’s still as bad, people will be looking for other sources.
B&Q’s customer service has always been awful. I’ve been avoiding them for years anyway.
Yep, I had a shocking experience at B&Q.
I won’t be going back.
If you think B and Q is bad. I would advise against visiting Wickes. Worst shopping experience I’ve ever had.
Well put Bart,they’ve lost me as a customer aswell,we can’t even have the simple pleasure of browsing a bookshop,not so long ago they were moaning about losing custom to Amazon etc and now they are doing this ?,there are no words really.
If Waterstones go under, they won’t get any sympathy from me – they have no-one to blame but themselves and their blaming Amazon won’t wash with me.
https://youtu.be/Yy_a8wpRAn0
Spare a thought for the retail staff who have to work there. Failure to comply with ‘safety’ measure will result in disciplinary procedures.
I am aware of this as I also work in a customer facing environment. However I object to being treated as subhuman and that is why I’m boycotting Waterstones and the rest of the high street.
Nightmare. Poor you!
Asthma. Breathing issues. Allergies. Select one.
They don’t seem to have thought through the H&S consequences of enforced masking.
Hear, hear Bart.
Happy birthday to your son!
Does anyone remember the great ash cloud crisis of 2010? Surely you do? Let’s not forget what happened. A volcano in Iceland erupted and almost instantly there was a total knee-jerk reaction that left hundreds of thousands of people suddenly stuck overseas with literally no way to get home. Governments and scientists dived in without thinking, panicked into believing there’d be aircraft falling out of the skies as volcanic particles destroyed the engines. Aviation ended just like that across northern Europe even though flying at lower altitude would have obviated much of the problem, albeit at elevated fuel consumption.
I was stranded in Rome but moved extremely fast and got myself booked onto the sleeper to Paris. But over the 3 days I had to wait before leaving I saw people being skinned alive by greedy hoteliers, and real trauma and distress as people’s plans collapsed. Families, school trips, business people – all done up like kippers without any official solutions. When I made it back from Paris on the Eurostar I headed out to Heathrow to collect my car and found myself in an aircraft graveyard, just like the one there now.
A personal friend and former colleague of mine is a very well-known travel correspondent frequently seen on TV. He was back then too. He assured me that privately and behind the scenes it was admitted it was a catastrophic overreaction that no-one had thought through and is unlikely ever to be allowed to happen again.
That crisis only lasted a couple of weeks but it was appalling and it was also confined to a relatively small part of the world. The lockdown as been a thousand times worse in every way. Whatever your position, whatever your beliefs – surely EVERYONE must know by now that this is something else we can NEVER allow to happen again? If another virus emerges in ten years and we do anything like this again, the chances of recovering from it in less than a century will be very small indeed.
What the lockdown and the ash cloud crisis in the space of a decade both prove is that the biggest risk we face is from panic-stricken governments led by blinkered specialists so focused on what they consider to be the all-consuming issue that they are literally incapable of lateral thought or considering the consequences of their decisions.
The one good thing about the lockdown is that the fallout is so devastating, so damaging, and so dangerous that it’s started to expose in ghastly detail just how insane it was to let a very small number of people from a very narrow background have so much influence.
I’d like to believe that the EVERYONE to whom you refer includes the main players in Parliament, but, then, I’d quite like to believe in Santa Claus!
I harked back to that time when it became clear to me, in early March, that this Coronavirus-panic was going to be another social engineering experiment, as the ash cloud – in my opinion – was.
Yes I remember the Iceland eruption well, as I was stuck in Portugal unable to arrange my father’s funeral.
BUT we who say “never again” may well see this again. We are a worryingly small minority here on this site.
When we get the next pandemic with a high IFR (like SARS1) the politicians have been given a clear route map as to how to manage the masses.
Swedenborg posted something at the end of the comments on yesterday’s page that mentioned we were “overdue” an influenza epidemic and a “Highly infectious” hepinavirus epidemic.
I looked up hepinavirus and my reaction was “holy crap!” I still think lockdown is a bad idea, but my god, I’d be taking that one more seriously.
Yep, we shouldn’t underestimate the pandemic threat. We should plan for something far worse than Coronavirus. Why don’t we have a Civil Defence Organisation like most countries? We used to. Looking at 9/11, Novichok, SARS, MERS, and now Covid-19 it’s clear our emergency planning has been lamentable. We need to put in a place a system that can deal with 500K casualties in a week if necessary – because that’s what you could get with many scenarios e.g. something like a meteorite impact.
But we should never again be put in a position where we lop off 25% of our GDP at the behest of a few weirdo academics for something no worse than a bad flu year.
Yes. You only have to look at the comments in the Grad and you’ll realise we’re the small voice of reason against the machine.
Thanks for the flashback to those heady days of 2011, seems a lifetime ago. I don’t think we are seeing a rebellion by multiculturalists today. The academy, media, and their youthful vanguard are generally intolerant authoritarians. This “woke” movement has been fed a very narrow view of the world, entirely built on a single dimension of the identitarian aggrieved (among the wealthy and upper middle classes) vs. everyone else. I do agree that they are nihilists however, as they really don’t believe their own rhetoric very profoundly, but it is a useful weapon to get what they want: public adoration and a stage from which to fling invective out on to the masses.
Another good video from sceptic Carl Vernon,the lunacy in this one has really wound me up,I think we have now well and truly fallen down Alice in Wonderlands’ rabbit hole,I no longer have any hope that this country will ever return to normal.The things being implemented in this video,in shopping centres,are very sinister and de-humanising and anyone that is prepared to be treated like this and spend money at these places really needs their head examining.Everthing has gone too far now,there is no going back,I know we are all trying to resist but the tsunami of madness is now overwhelming,I watched this video and I just ended up with my head in my hands,I just cannot see an end to this,everyday something else arises that crushes us even more and the majority of the population just meekly accepts,I am ashamed to be part of a species that is aiding in it’s own downfall.
I just want to go out for a drink and a meal with our friends,I want to go the the barbers,I want to go the swimming pool,I want to go shopping without being treated like a piece of shit,surely that’s not much to ask ?,it’s not being greedy is it ?,those things were normal weren’t they ?,it’s better to live than merely exist in a life without hope and enjoyment isn’t it ?.
Anyway,sorry for the rant !,here’s the video link,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LFz5qFzwE0
UK Column News – NHS Eye Witnesseshttps://off-guardian.org/2020/06/14/watch-uk-column-news-nhs-eye-witnesses/
Mike Robinson and Brian Gerrish discuss the economic fallout of the Lockdown, the £300 million spent on track-and-trace and an interview with Piers Robinson discussing the Times’ renewed attacks on the academics researching Douma and the OPCW leaks (more on this coming soon).
Most striking in this segment are three first-hand accounts of patients in NHS hospitals which describe experiences we are already becoming familiar with from many other sources, and that are hard to reconcile with real-world pandemic prevention measures, especially given the acknowledged low level of threat posed by SARS-COV2.
Thanks so much for the update Toby. I don’t think it’s short at all, plenty of content to get our teeth into.
Tomorrow will be a strange day of mixed emotions. I am finally seeing my boyfriend after exactly 3 months apart. I live alone and he is moving in with me likely for the rest of the summer, or until he needs to go back to university (God knows how long that will take). The only reason he didn’t move in with me before lockdown is because he expected the house arrest to last only a couple of weeks, but I knew deep down it would be far longer. My instincts tend to be accurate. These past 3 months have been unimaginably awful without him and not being able to see him has definitely been the absolute worst part of lockdown for me so that is a happy thing that will be happening tomorrow.
However, shops also open tomorrow. Once that immediate physical/psychological need of human contact is satisfied, my mind will inevitably turn these ludicrous, hectoring measures we are expected to abide by when walking into shops. I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place because I have always considered shopping a leisure activity and I desperately want to support the high street, but I also don’t want to give money to companies who enforce this utter crap and suck all the joy out of shopping. After almost 3 months of listlessness, boredom, stress, anxiety, and pretty much everything that makes life worth living being banned, we all deserve a little happiness and blessed relief, but we are being denied it.
I don’t see how all these measures will last. Again we are not really out of the furlough phase yet so perhaps a true awakening will not happen until October, when the money runs out and winter really sinks its teeth into us. Winter is miserable enough without an economy smashed to bits and NHS waiting lists stretching into next century.
I have always been a naturally curious person, always searching for the answers to questions, big and small. But I just cannot seem to find an answer for why this lunacy is unfolding around us. Why? Why are we upending our entire way of life for a disease which has been literally proven to be mild and affect severely only a very specific subset of the population? Why is it that we think this disease is worth stopping all activity, when humanity has lived through far worse in the past without forgetting what it means to be human? Why are our leaders not magnanimous to apologise, say they got it wrong, and make a real effort to fix the damage? And why is it that the UK seems so much slower to get out of this hell when every other country is much more willing to get back to the OLD normal? We really are the sick man of Europe.
I hope you have fun Poppy :o)
Enjoy your reunion and time together!!
The why is to connect all the dots up, quite frightening really when you look into it properly. Don’t for one minute think that the virus and the wokerati BLM riots etc. are a coincidence. They certainly aren’t!!!
You know by now not to trust the MSM (especially BBC and Sky , god knows about ITV if anyone still watches it) and their fear mongering bias (shown up again during BLM I might add). In amongst it all you DO get clues from leftfield stories coming out of nowhere (ahem… McCann ? Prince Andrew stuff…hmm ??). Some of the more ‘right wing’ papers appear to be talking some sense (ie. The Spectator) but they are still a bit behind the curve although I am sure they know more.
The UK being slower is not a coincidence, the imported riots worldwide for BLM from USA (also slow coming out) is not a coincidence (election year there isn’t it? No surprise). There is still brexit in the mix.
So when you can’t trust the news that you see and know for the lunacy this whole situation is and you know what the hysterial overreactions and lies are, where do you go? You have to find some answers.
Although I would never recommend Twitter to a normal sane person, I simply had to go on to try and verify some sort of sense/opinions around things or get some clues, facts, real stories. So I joined a couple of weeks ago. I recommend you do too, just try not to go insane.
I don’t want to tell you who to find and follow, but as a few people posting on here have said, ‘MasonMills’ is a good start, look who he follows, look at the comments from his posts, don’t forget the USA (very very important)… dig a little deeper with what you is complete crap : the virus and how dangerous it, and … this wholly suspiciously timed woke BLM rubbish which has dominated the news last couple of weeks, especially in the USA. You know the MSM have been peddling lies and fearmongering.
The whole situation is utterly insane but it’s pretty clear to me what’s happening, I just hope that you don’t freak out too much when you realise.
It’s not all lost though, not at all.
Fearmongering. – BBC showed tonight (and next two nights) a drama about the Salisbury poisonings. As the country is starting to come to its senses about lockdown, i wonder if the timing is just coincidental, or whether it is deliberately scheduled now to scare people again.
Ah…. wasn’t that supposed to be Russian involvement ? Ha… so is that the angle for the next stage of bullshit is it? Given that they’ve been trying to stitch Trump up with ‘Russian meddling in elections’ crap for ages.
Don’t be too surprised if they try resurrecting that shit.
I would actually pay more attention to the odd reappearance of the McCann stories oh and wasn’t there something to do with Prince Andrew too ?
Go down the twitter rabbit hole and you’ll be amazed what you find in the dirt.
Funny enough, rapper icecube is very interesting one to see what he has posted
I can’t find rapper icecube on Twitter – do you know his exact username? I’m not very good with Twitter!
Actually he is a bit of an outspoken BLMist so it won’t be palatable at all to a lot of people (but it is actually very subtle as he doesn’t support who most people think he does from his posts) but in amongst it all is a very interesting post of the George floyd ‘murder’ somewhere. Or better and more immediate is the Epoch Times, @GAFLCountryGirl has a VERY interesting post on the 13th June regarding the pictures of the police officer who allegedly killed George floyd
The smokescreen machine is gearing itself up for overtime.
Of cccccooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrsssssssssssseeeeeeee
I read a review and they were shoehorning Covid comparisons in every sentence. In one breath the bio-weapon peddlars are conspiracy theorists, in another, they feel justified in comparing a probably-released-by-mistake weird but ultimately mild common coldish virus to a bioweapon.
Lol – that did occur to me…but it seemed to be more about plucky feminist woman seeing off useless men and sorting everything out, so saving the nation.
Just some wires getting crossed there!
Twitter is a great source of information.
Cancel your TV licence.
I have.
Yep, took 5 seconds and I feel so much better (and 13 quid a month richer) too. Lets see them chase up the thousands who are doing likewise
Have fun with your reunion Poppy – you deserve it!
Watch U.S. Presidential politics. The left in the U.S., which includes almost all of the MSM, desperately wants Trump to lose. Prevailing wisdom is that an incumbent President will lose if the economy is in the toilet by the end of summer before the election. COVID has been more effective at economy-killing than anyone could’ve dreamed, and panic-mongering seems just as effective now as it was in March. Brexit is causing similar feelings in the U.K.
Will the election cure the virus? IDK, since so many are now heavily invested in not having been wrong. I personally hope Biden wins, partly because Trump is a goofball with no leadership skills, but mainly because if Trump is re-elected, I expect the mainstream media to treat us to another four years of manufactured chaos. Blackmail? Whatever, just as long as we are given back control of our own lives.
Oh no… you do NOT want biden to win trust me! Just think about it in terms of the MSM and who they have been attacking, they’ve been playing the same fearmongering game as our MSM here.
Just look down the rabbit hole on it. Unless you think MSM have been saintly and truthful that is
What a mess, the economy is wrecked over something only slightly more dangerous than the Flu. Up here in Scotland 26 people under the age of 45 have died as a result of Covid 19. Absolute joke.
I have been at work since the early days, the other half is a teacher and has been providing online work for her class, and other classes throughout.
In my work, non essential workers came back last week. Despite no cases in the company, and less than 100 cases in our entire region the returnees have imposed draconian policy throughout. Desks have Perspex shielding, limited occupancy of rooms, hourly cleaning schedules on touch points etc etc. Laughably when actually working on task (engineering) social distancing does not apply. Once task is complete, resume social distancing. The non essentials visit and provide ‘advice’ on how we should behave. The latest is a one way system through corridors and additional alcohol gels at every entrance. After all the procedures the tasks are still non distanced so in my eyes all of this is pointless nonsense.
The latest problem on the horizon is childcare, with most spouses now heading back to work our childminder does not have the capacity to take our kids back full time. Even part time would not work given our kids will get blended schooling which we expect to be 2 half days per week. How is this going to work when both parents are working? Who is providing the childcare when schools are not open normal hours? Grandparents seems to be the answer from schools…. not everyone has that luxury, lots are shielding.
All of this is a mess, overly cautious nonsense. I feel for those who will (Or already have) lose their jobs. This was a serious situation, turned into an apocalypse by the MSM, 24 hour news channels and ultra risk averse scientists. Ultimately this now has to be paid for and I suspect that is where a new era of cuts will soon be announced.
I do wonder if part time schooling is designed to make one partner give up work to look after children. What will single parent families do?
What a mess
It’s a mess. I think “designed” would be giving the government too much credit personally. They are making it up as they go along as far as I can see.
Today I spoke to some jobsworths at my local tube station (one of the main stations in London) about mask wearing. I asked them if they require a proof of medical exemption, and, if so, what kind of proof that might be. They didn’t know, but promised to ask someone higher up. For the time being, they said, if I tell them that I have medical reasons for exemption, they are going to take my word for it, and let me in without a mask. I pointed out that anyone could say that, and they’d have to let them in…
I’m thinking about obtaining a letter from my doctor, and wearing it on a string around my neck during any journeys on public transport. I hope my doctor can provide one.
Best wishes to all sceptics, and to Toby, and to his son on his birthday.
Are you sur they’re jobsworths? They sound pretty friendly to sceptics.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/13/lockdown-regime-deaths-the-true-cost-of-lokin-20/
Lockdown Regime Deaths: The True Cost of LOKIN-20
I’m still goggling at the fact that doctors can -are in fact told to – certify that death was due to the Covibug when they haven’t been anywhere the decedent/deceased.
In thenMiddle Ages, doctors seldom bothered visiting oatirnts. You sent the doctor a flask of your urine, he glanced at it, diagnosed your trouble, and most probably recommended a regime of bleeding and purging, governed by the rules of astrology.
It’s wonderful to think how medical science has progressed away from ignorance, arrogance and superstition.
And back again.
anywhere near
32.4% of Moscow doctors found to have coronavirus antibodies as Russia ramps up testing
https://www.rt.com/russia/491726-doctors-testing-coronavirus-antibodies/
Almost a third of Moscow’s doctors have Covid-19 antibodies, according to the most recent testing in the capital, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova announced on Saturday.
“In the first stage [of testing],15,500 doctors were examined in 60 institutions. Antibodies were detected in 16.5% in the initial examination,” Golikova revealed. In the second stage, antibodies were detected in 32.4 percent of physicians.
well above the 20% saturation – maybe doctors work environment have higher viral load so some of the 80% natural imunity need a helping hand from antibodies – just a thought
Viral load seems v. important with Covid-19…sure it’s part of the explanation re care homes as well. Sadly when people become aged, often suffering from dementia, their ability to act hygienically declines – like children they absent-mindedly pick their noses and then touch the furniture, people sitting next to them and so on…I’ve seen it myself. This must be a sure route to transferring major virus loads.
You don’t think it might be because they are old, frail, malnourished, probably dehydrated and their immune systems aren’t exactly in top shape?
The Modelers Thought of Everything Except Reality
https://www.aier.org/article/the-modelers-thought-of-everything-except-reality/
Much of the commentary focused on the absurd failures of the models being used by a handful of statisticians and epidemiologists. They predicted as many as 2.3 million deaths in the United States (the New York Times went one better and predicted 8.25 million deaths) if government didn’t crack down and shutter nonessential business, and lock hospitals down to become COVID-only zones.
Economists know something about the incredible failure of forecasting models. They have been deployed often in the postwar period. They came under heavy fire from economists of the Austrian and classical schools. They don’t grapple with certain facts of reality: second and third tier responses to policies, unpredictabilities of human choice, and the uncertainties of the future. There are too many variables operating in a complex system like a socio-economic order for any mechanistic model to capture them all, especially when dealing with an unknown and unknowable future.
The same forecasting failures afflicted the models that panicked politicians into locking down. They are too aggregated. They don’t consider population diversity and how novel viruses affect different groups in different ways. They presume that planners can know things that they cannot know, such as disease severity in the midst of an epidemic. Slogans like “flatten the curve” massively oversimplify social processes and human choices, and presume to know far too much about cause and effect.
It turned out of course that the models were horribly wrong, not only about the large death numbers but also about hospital capacity, unseen costs, economic effects, and even the demographics of the affected population. Remarkably, none of the models even considered the impact of the virus on long-term care facilities, and hence contributed to gross neglect of the population that should have received the bulk of the focus.
The Wall Street Journal sums up the blizzard of data rather sharply:
Future historians will be astonished to ruminate about what we did here. We shut down schools, sports, theaters, bars, restaurants, and churches – government ignored the rule of law and put individual rights on hold – but it is more than obvious now that this was all a huge distraction. The focus should have been on the aged with underlying conditions living in nursing homes.
The models nowhere included what ended up being our reality, even though that reality was upon us as early as February when people in nursing homes began to die in Washington State. We should have seen it long before the lockdowns began.
Now the modelers in the epidemiological profession need to learn what the economists figured out long ago. Human life is too complex to be accurately modeled, much less predicted. This certainly pertains to a novel virus.
For an idea of how serious this has got, take a look at the latest episode of The Travel Show on BBC iPlayer. The whole program is totally depressing but the section towards the middle about lockdown technology aids is truly appalling. It is just like an episode of Black Mirror.
If someone with free-thought woke from a coma during this disgrace and saw this program, they would likely infer that they had died and gone to hell.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000k5q2
The severe derangement isn’t even restricted to the UK, this madness is everywhere.
Spoilers:
The episode involves a carrying an essential hook to open doors, some kind of necklace strobe light that flashes if you are not safely two meters away from the nearest imbecile, and an AR app to show the hard-of-thinking how far away two meters really is.
Woe for retailers as half of shoppers could stay at home
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/06/14/woe-retailers-half-shoppers-could-stay-home/
One of the comments:
Tom Scott
14 Jun 2020 10:34PM
Who wants to queue outside non essential shops and then have to follow a one way system? Personally I won’t be back until social distancing is over.
SUSAN McDuff
14 Jun 2020 10:40PM
Likewise. I’ve had the virus so not worried about catching it.
I usually dash in and out of stores because I hate shopping. Queueing to get in, ruining my skin with compulsory hand sanitiser, and being assaulted by a temperature gun aimed at my head, will ensure I don’t buy anything non-essential for some time to come.
I see that The Telegraphy commissioned a survey by by YouGov, 4 in 10 saying they would cut spending to less than pre plandemic levels.
This is before the mass redundancies start, I think everyone would be wise at the moment to be careful with unnecessary spending. Do not depend on those wages or that salary, which may not arrive.
No one really knows what is around the corner, we have a good idea, but who three months ago would have said we would have been in the state we are in now?
Or maybe go and spend any spare cash you have before the chancellor takes it from you in cv19 taxes.
“Test Track and Trace” – Will this become the next killer to the economy?
“A total of 8,117 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in England had their case transferred to the NHS Test and Trace contact tracing system during the period May 28 to June 3.
Of this total, 5,407 (67 per cent) were reached and asked to provide details of recent contacts, while 2,710 (33 per cent) could not be reached.
When those who tested positive were contacted they passed over 31,794 contacts to the NHS Test and Trace team, 26,985 (85 per cent) of whom were reached and advised to self-isolate.”
So m, 27,000 people, most of them statistically Asymptomatic or unaffected, who could have been working, teaching, running businesses, running public transport, etc etc, have to self-isolate, providing yet another brake on the economy as we reach the tail end of this virus.
The more we are able to get back to work, the more damaging this becomes!
I’ll take 27,000 people out of the economy over many millions.
Let’s hope most of them are ignoring the fuck out of their ‘advice’.
Advised, not forced?
Only “advised” ….. for the time being
I think just about everything the government has put out has been advice with the option of making it mandatory. If we look back at what they were actually saying I think we’ll find very few if at all instances of anybody saying guidance was mandatory.
This is the advice about TTT from Francis Hoar, one of the people helping Simon Dolan.
https://twitter.com/francis_hoar/status/1265899776807243776
I’ve been having conversations with family and friends that I do not give them permission to hand over my personal details
The irony is that a true moral relativist would know better than to judge historical figures depicted in statues only by the standards of their own narrow-minded culture in the present day.
Multiculturalism if done properly is a good thing. In any case all the main religions in the world (except when misinterpreted by fundamentalists or other nutters) pretty much agree on the basics so there is really no problem.
Like anything else multiculturalism can be used like a bigoted pseudoreligion in its own right and as a general excuse for people to gather in cliques and disapprove of anything outside that they don’t understand.
All religions and other -isms require responsible interpretation and application and it’s failure to do that that is the problem.
We are now starting to see what delights non essential shops have in store for anyone who is willing to give them custom.
Even at the height of this plandemic I do not believe any of the main supermarkets treated customers like this and they could easily have done as they had the food that we needed.
Why are non essential shops and malls being so controlling, when their actions could easily back fire on them?
Sheer desperation, I think.
It isn’t just shops, it’s everything, everywhere. Human society is predicated on human association. It’s the way humans are made. S.d. is totally un-human, anti-human, dehumanising. The trouble is that zombies have left off being human. The question is whether that process can be reversed.
There is a good review of the recent systemic studies looking at the efficacy of the 2m distancing rule here:
https://massagehealth.co.uk/covid19_58/
There have been plenty of comments regarding dubious studies published in the Lancet recently. This article examines the recent Lancet-published study into social distancing and concludes:
‘All the papers really showed was that spouses, carers, people who shared the same bed, bathroom, dormitory etc were at more risk of infection than those who did not. Intimate contact versus not, seems to be the main factor. What the ‘statistical shenanigans’ of this paper did was to say that intimate contact equals a physical distancing of 0-1 metre; non-intimate contact was physical distancing of more than 1 metre.
So, when it comes to deciding if restaurants, bars, gyms, pubs, play areas, schools, shops should abide by the 2 metre rule just remember what the science says: If you hug, kiss, share a bed with someone then your risk increases. If you do not, the science says little else.
Of course, there will be people who are scared and will want to keep separation. There are those whose livelihoods have not been threatened by the social distancing and so they have nothing to lose by maintaining it. But there are millions of people financially and emotionally affected by it, and will be affected for years to come. The science has yet to show their sacrifice was worthwhile.‘
I posted a couple of hours ago (on yesterday’s page, I think) about my pleasant afternoon out with the family visiting friends, going to the park and sitting in a garden. None of us paid any attention to the 2 metre “rule”, except that I had a conversation with one friend in the way back from park to house to garden about the difference between 1m vs 1.5 vs 2 (2 – unnatural, requires thought. 1.5 – less odd, but still needs concentration.. 1 – normal personal space) and as we talked, we deliberately moved further or closer to demonstrate.
All great. But I’ll confess, there was a voice in the back of my head saying “dangerous! What about the virus!”
I’m completely rational about this and I’ve made a point of making myself well educated. I _know_ that the virus is effectively nowhere in London at the moment and that the chances that anyone anywhere near me has it are nearly zero. I _know_ that even if they did, my chances of catching it from spending a couple of hours at a varying difference from them are nearly zero. I _know_ that even if I did catch it from them, my chances of noticing I had it are small, my chances of getting particularly sick (as a fairly slim man in his early 40s with no particular health issues) are very low and my chances of getting very sick or dying are effectively zero.
But the propaganda has obviously got through to my monkey brain anyway. It’s really very clever the way they’ve done this.
Of course we are all affected by state propaganda…that’s the whole point of it…if you go against it you feel uncomfortable scaling from slightly uncomfortable to seriously doubting your sanity (the photo shows he wasn’t urinating on the memorial, but the BBC and Sky are telling me he was, and now tens of millions believe that, so who’s sane here?).
I think we all need to do a personal risk analysis – what’s your age, health status, weight, previous record on fighting off colds, or exposure to the virus…are you in a good state of mind, positive or going through some hellish personal crisis…Sounds like that’s what you were doing, which is good.
The risk analysis should give us some idea how seriously we should take the 2M rule. If you’re 25, healthy, average weight, in a good relationship and happy most of the time, I think your risk of suffering anything more than some sniffles from the virus must be close to zero…similar to being struck by lightning or at least run over crossing the road.
That was sort of my point, but sort of not.
My rational brain is realistic about the risks. I’m not untouchable – nobody’s completely untouchable – but I understand that I make decisions every day that weigh up the risk against the benefit. I’ve done that every day since I was old enough that my parents no longer had to do it for me and I will do it every day from now until the day I get that calculation wrong. At the same time, because I’ve become obsessed about the idiocy of the lockdown to an unhealthy degree, I know far, far more about this virus than the great majority of the population. I’ve spent hours researching it. Most people are just listening to what they’re told by the BBC/Sky/ITV… whatever.
My point is, if I still have the monkey brain voice despite all of that, let’s spare some sympathy for the zombies who have only heard that there is an “awful” “lethal” virus that has killed tens of thousands of all ages, and that, if they get within 2 metres of another human being, they will probably die next and they’ll take their granny with them.
Well I would say it’s easier for the herd animal just following what they are told to believe by the BBCSKYITVLBC corporation, because – remember – they are also told “this will keep you safe” even though we here all know it won’t but they believe it, so they feel safe. They don’t need our sympathy – they are a major part of the problem.
It’s much better to be a free thinking individual, even if you get it wrong. Obviously I don’t think you should take unnecessary risks with your or your loved ones’ health but – given we now know SAGE and the Government having been making decisions based on completely false assumptions (and quite possibly killing tens of thousands of people as a result) – I think it’s reasonable to do your own math about the risks on the basis of what you have read and common sense.
Yes you’re right – we must always remember that on here we’re a minority and the vast majority of people don’t go looking for scientific evidence/papers like we do. However, I would like to think that by this point, even if people are not seeking scientific info about the virus, that they are instinctively coming round to the idea that it’s nowhere near as bad as previously thought, people aren’t dropping dead on the street, most (if not all) people in their family and social circle are still alive, and that the government had gone way too far by doubling down on these horrifically damaging antisocial distancing measures.
I know what you mean. I’ve met friends who at the start of our day out didn’t hug or shake hands but at the end we did. Even though I refuse to social distance, I still have an unconscious urge to do distance when I see friends. When I’m with a colleague at work who, being like minded, refuses to submit to distancing mantra, we work closely, go for coffee on the same table and Telecon customers using the same PC, yet i still have a part of me thats screaming be careful, purely because propaganda has been put it in my head.
So those people, who are more susceptible to fear (my parents for one), I do feel sorry for, because the fear is incessantly fired at them from all directions. They don’t have the means or will or opportunity to seek the alternative opinion – that this is hideously overexaggerated and you’re not going to die, or even get ill at all.
What I won’t tolerate is people who push social distancing and seek to belittle those who don’t do it. They have a bizarre superiority complex and are the modern version of nazi collaboraters. I make a point of defying them at every turn because they’re not looking out for you, its a power trip, pure and simple
Understandable but more people die from flu each year (all age groups).
Optimise our immune system, that includes optimising your vitamin D levels. When you catch a bug do NOT dose yourself with paracetamol (Calpol for kids) as this will reduce the fever; the fever fights viruses. Fever is not as scary as the NHS and paracetamol manufacturers wants you to believe.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.18.20066902v1.full.pdf
Although not double blinded study but an observational study good results with combination doxycycline and HCQ for patients in Long Term Care Facilities in New York.
“DOXY and HCQ combination therapy is known to be anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory in both in-vitro and in-vivo studies. In addition, HCQ has anti-viral properties. Although this sample size is small (n=54), the results suggest that early intervention of DOXY-HCQ may improve the clinical outcome of high-risk COVID-19 patients suffering from moderate-severe symptoms in LTCF.”
This is interesting as having used doxycycline instead of AZT which is more cardiotoxic.This combination is also very cheap.
Comparison of excess deaths in Scotland to other countries (graph included below).
https://theferret.scot/scotland-covid-19-excess-deaths-rate/
Comparing Scotland to Sweden is a fair comparison and there is nothing to suggest that locking down here saved any more lives than if we’d done a Sweden.
I will concede that the decay rate on mortality graphs is faster with a lockdown. However it would seem this is at the expense of a higher excess death rate along with all the other socio/economic costs.
The objective now is eradication of the virus just because New Zealand managed it. Of course it is possible but not necessary when weighed against the cost of getting there.
Given what we know of the virus now, eradicating it would be like burning down your house to get rid of a fly. The house is currently only half burned and the fly is still there. We can either stop burning the rest of the house, keep the fly locked in a room and start rebuilding the rest of the house. Or we can keep the house burning until the fly is dead just because New Zealand managed to kill their fly and only lost a couple of rooms in the process.
NZ claims to have eradicated the bug, yes.
And proposes to remain in total isolation till the end of Time?
I’m going to be interested to see what happens in my second home of Greece, especially the islands which they locked down so hard nobody could enter or leave, and everyone had to remain at home on house arrest unless they sent an SMS message to request permission to leave the house. They are delighted their plan worked and very few people caught Covid or died from it. Well, their statistics are produced differently to ours …… but more importantly they are about to open up to tourists. Nobody there has any immunity. Watch this space.
Yes, also New Zealand. If there’s a spike / 2nd wave it will (to me) prove conclusively that Lockdown didn’t/ doesn’t work.
They haven`t really had the first wave yet.
The issue is not what NZ did or didn’t do, it’s that some people now look at it and say that’s what we should have done or could do for no other reason than they got a low death count.
If we knew what we know now at the start it is highly unlikely that any country, not even NZ, would have locked down. Nobody would be thinking about eradication of the virus.
Sturgeon is determined to be seen as a hallowed saint the way that nutcase in New Zealand is, who confessed to “doing a little dance” at the news of no new cases. Good luck to New Zealand which has become, as one Kiwi journalist put it, a prison colony.
The New Zealand nutcase looks like a coke head to me.
All that gurning, forced smiling and talking utter bollocks makes it fairly obvious.
Can’t stand that creep.
I think the puppets are allowed toot, as long as they keep functioning and obey orders.
https://forecasters.org/blog/2020/06/14/forecasting-for-covid-19-has-failed/
Very important article from Prof Ionnadis,Stanford Univ. An absolute for lockdown sceptics focusing exactly on the wrong predictions. Interesting he thinks Covid-19 is more like OC43 Coronavirus we have had for long time. He also thinks OC43 Coronavirus might have been behind the Russian “flu” pandemic 1890 which we have discussed earlier in this blog.
I’m keeping that link forever.
That man is a diamond in the rough.
So are you.
Thanks – This para says it all:
“Problems starts when public leaders take (wrong) predictions too seriously, considering them crystal balls without understanding their uncertainty and the assumptions made”
Yes I think it’s very like OC43, and also NL63 (which binds ACE2 just like SARS2 and came from bats). NL63 is probably about a thousand years old.
Many of these no doubt cause a lot of excess deaths when they first appear because nobody has had them before. Once they’ve settled down to an endemic level of a few thousand infections at any one time (per UK-sized country) the deaths are lost in the noise. They also evolve to become milder. Most of them aren’t even known about. NL63 was discovered a year or two after SARS1 when people were suddenly getting interested in these things.
Crazy news from China where they are doing masses of tests and aggressively locking down areas when they find handfuls of cases. They can’t seriously be trying to eradicate this virus that has been spreading in a population of 1.4bn for months.
Eradication is definitely what’s being pushed for Scotland. They’re even suggesting pushing the whole UK to eradicate then presumably we’ll use our clout over the world to force everyone to do the same.
Fortunately I don’t think Sturgeon wields enough clout over the UK, or the UK over the rest of the world, for this to come anywhere close to being seriously attempted. I hope I’m not being over-optimistic.
Has anyone seen anything in the press re: optician’s? Or seen any ‘rules’ concerning them?
I have to go, I’m going blind with my years’ old prescription. Getting headaches. I am DREADING what they will do to me there.
A slightly old prescription shouldn’t lead to headaches, Farinances. Are you spending more time on the internet/smoking/getting dehydrated ?
Yes, no (never- ew), and yes lol
Tbh it’s prob my hayfever. I’m still blind as a bat though even with my glasses on, they’re about five years old now
Took the wife for her yearly eye test yesterday to a local independent that she has used for years as she’s diabetic.
Only person wearing a mask was the optometrist/opthalmologist doing the eye test.
Only changes we could see was the useless flimsy screen in front of the receptionist, hand wash if you wanted it but it was not mentioned or forced and a printed certificate on the wall saying they had passed the covid-19 hygiene/cleaning course.
They do not do the puff of whatever into your eye to check pressure of the eyeball at the moment on advice from their trade body.
Nowhere as bad as I thought it would be, almost civillised.
The Times has reported that the government is mulling at introducing a VAT cut to tempt people back to the high street. But yet again, nothing about abolishing the antisocial distancing or opening toilets.
Here’s my comment:
Over the last few days I have received emails from well known high street shops regarding their opening protocols and far from encouraging me to go to their stores, I am boycotting them. They are treating me as a disease ridden inconvenience worse than subhuman.
Unless this government abolishes antisocial distancing, opens the toilets and ditches the face covering requirement on public transport, no amount of VAT cuts will tempt me back to the high street. They can stick it where the sun don’t shine.
It doesn’t matter if shops offer free goods with every purchase, or any other dreamed up incentive. I simply wont go under these conditions as i suspect the majority of people won’t either. Its not normal and is utterly unsustainable. I feel sorry for businesses forced to comply who don’t want to, they’re being dragged to bankruptcy. However, from emails and adverts I’ve received, many shops are proud to have created a sick collage of signs and stickers telling you how to behave and shop and how good it will be. They’re deranged, as its going to be shit and I can’t see how any of them at all will survive. My guess is 2m is dead and if not, the death of high streets is absolutely certain. The government should know this, its glaringly obvious, which probably means they’ll do fuck all or make it 3m.
Agree. I just got another one from Kate Spade (where I bought my work bag a few years ago) and my heart sank at the sinister message behind the cutesy fonts and colours. I shall be writing to them to inform them that until this madness is rolled back I will not be entering their stores.
Personally, I doubt that any shops are comfortable with the “government’s” rules, but, as with us individuals, they are powerless to oppose them except via very expensive legal challenges (like Simon Dolan’s and BA’s) – which, given the leftery of our legal system are virtually bound to be lost.
Like the Irishman wanting to visit Dublin, we really shouldn’t be starting from here. The insidious and long-term encroachment on all our important institutions means that we have, probably for many generations (and maybe forever), lost; the Lefties have won.
It is hard not to despair!
“We’re relaying policies on models with HUGE amount of uncertainty, with full of bias parameter choosing, ignoring the fail of constant needed adjust of its non reality fitting assumptions (lockdown, masks)”
https://forecasters.org/blog/2020/06/14/on-single-point-forecasts-for-fat-tailed-variables/
I can understand the above comment dealing with the link above and occasional parts of the article but post it here for anybody, who is well versed in these matters, to distil the essence of the article. You get the feeling something very clever and obvious is said without understanding how.
Its fudge factors. I’ve modelled for spectrum prediction in chemistry. You can have the good equations in your model – the knows that can be parameterised – yet when you model the data is still poor. That’s why you put fudge factors in. Equations to model parameters that have no business being in the model. If you need to constantly adjust fudge factors, the model is dead. Things like distance, masks or no masks, behaviours, the biology of the individual. If any of theses are given more weight than the knowns, you’re producing utter shit. Modelling disease? I can’t see how it can be done at all really. With the greatest will in the world, the best model is still crap, and those used by government have to be accompanied by hateful propaganda as well.
A model says “if this happens then this is what we might expect” and as soon as one variable changes then the whole model is wrong.
If you tried modelling a small area of a city one day the results would be different every day simply because all the variables have changed. Different people moving in different directions and doing different things at different times every day.
Models can also predict with uncertainty and give probabilities of outcome. You might model that area of the city, but draw a different set of assumptions for different days – e.g., Weekends will have different ages and mixing patterns due to schools. Then you run the model lots and lots of times (I like 10,000+) and look at distribution of outcomes. That distribution might have a very “fat tail” as Taleb says, in which rare and devastating events behave a bit like the Richter scale for earthquakes.
It’s pretty obscure. I think what they’re trying to say is that if you look at all the pandemics in history some of them are massively worse than others, so you can’t really draw too many conclusions from the “average” pandemic. All that stuff about fat-tails is meant to refer to the distribution of deaths in all pandemics (I think), not to the total deaths over time in a single pandemic.
But nobody ever did that. They just did crude estimates of the IFR and R0 from early case data. There was a certain bias from people like Gates towards wanting to believe in a terrible pandemic like the 1918 flu because they’ve been preparing for that for years and couldn’t believe their luck, but that’s about it I think.
Forecasting the size of any one epidemic is a pointless exercise – you will be wrong, and could be very very wrong (too small or too bif). Forecasting the likely distribution of epidemic size might be a little bit more reasonable#. For a process that is normally distributed, picking plus or minus two standard deviations means you’ll be in the right ball-park about 19/20 times. In epidemic land the distribution of size is so extreme that things could be very big, or they could fizzle out quickly by chance. Early in the epidemic it’s not possible to know which is going to be the case. Waiting for more information (Ionnidis position) is not the answer, because if you are on the big end of the tail, things will be a lot worse. Doing least harm therefore means acting early on such incomplete information.
. Almost nobody is of the view that we should have done nothing at all.
#In fact although the models had a reported headline number of deaths, what they really did was predict the distribution and sum the probability of overwhelming healthcare. For any assumptions in the (wrong) models, even what now appear right assumptions, this outcome was highly likely. Whether the social distancing and ad hoc behaviors that began before lockdown would have been enough, is the subject of this website
Agree that acting early with social distancing and other measures as stated in WHO and ECDC document 2019 seems reasonable. However, there was never any evidence for lockdown in those recommendations. Lockdown was taken despite there was no evidence to support it. You could argue that for theoretical reasons a 2 week lockdown in the right moment of the pandemic curve could be used. That was the theory of flattening the curve. It failed as the peak could not be identified. But continue with lockdown for further months had even less sense.
That sounds like a good summary of what the article was saying.
“For the first time in the post-war history of epidemics, there is a reversal of which countries are most heavily affected by a disease pandemic. By early May, 2020, more than 90% of all reported deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been in the world’s richest countries; if China, Brazil, and Iran are included in this group, then that number rises to 96%.”
One of the many good quotes in this rather long article about covid-19 response in all its aspects. With the risk that the link might have been posted before but the article have many references of use.
https://cassandravoices.com/current-affairs/covid-19-a-simple-moral-calculus/
I’ve been looking through my secret diary entries. Here’s one from 15th June 1984:
‘Today marks the first day of Comrade Shapps’ new policy for people to wear face coverings on public transport. According to Comrade Shapps, “The evidence suggests that wearing face coverings offers some, albeit limited, protection, against the spread of the virus.”
According to The Guardian, ‘The aim of the measures is to help stop asymptomatic people passing the virus on to others and also act as a visible reminder of the need for distancing and measures such as handwashing.’
I thought to myself (not to others as I would be ‘cancelled’) that this is interesting since last week the WHO said that passing the virus from asymptomatic people is very rare and it’s even more strange given that the virus is seriously on the wane (and has been grossly exaggerated – I know this because I’m involved in re-writing all the entries about it) and that by Comrade Shapps’ own admission they offer limited protection, yet many people secretly know that they can seriously undermine your health.
The real reason is clear, it’s a ‘visible reminder’ – it’s a placebo.
Meanwhile, people in their lockdown induced comas continue to comply with this nonsense because they unquestioningly believe the Ministry of Truth.’
End of entry.
The masks are also of course another way for our Manchurian Candidate (Borisovitch) to humiliate us and further break the will of those of us who may yet need to be sent for re-education.
Maybe. Or maybe it’s to reassure people who might otherwise not venture out. Once lots of people are out and about, then as long as no second spike follows (which seems unlikely) then they can dispense with them and we’re back to normal. Without the government having to admit that they did anything wrong. Or is that just wishful thinking?
It’s a badge of submission. Nothing less.
Absolutely!. Let’s keep saying it.
“The aim of the measures is to help stop asymptomatic people passing the virus on to others….”
Taken to its logical conclusion, for the sheep, that means they’ll never stop wearing masks!
Another email I have written this time to Kate Spade of my intention to boycott them:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I received your email regarding your reopening today and as someone who has bought from you previously and as had a positive experience from your staff, I am unhappy at the measures you have put in place in the name of “safety” due to this current crisis. I take exception especially to the following:
Shopping is meant to be a pleasurable activity and one of the reasons why I had such a good experience in your shop in the past was their ability to communicate and take into account my requirements for a bag (budget, size, little details such as zippers and the like). That will not be possible with your staff being masked and the excuse that they can still smile with their eyes is lame and doesn’t take into account that communication is less than 20% verbal with the vast majority being taken by the face. Although I am neither hearing impaired nor do I have any hearing difficulties, I have found it hard to understand what people who are masked are saying and I daresay that people who have hearing impairments or difficulties will find it even more challenging to communicate with your staff.
In addition, do you not realise that forcing your staff to wear masks is also a health and safety concern? Several studies have shown that prolonged mask use can lead to problems associated with the lack of oxygen going into the brain, that viruses and bacteria can saturate the mask which means that the user re-inhales all those viruses and bacteria that the body is naturally meant to exhale and that our respiratory system needs fresh air as part of healthy living.
Lastly I take exception with the queuing system. As I mentioned earlier, shopping is meant to be a pleasurable activity and not a dehumanising one that is redolent of the old USSR or East Germany.
While your company persists in treating me and other customers as inconveniences and carriers of disease, I will not go into your stores and will rather take my custom to other stores or online that will treat me as a human being with dignity and respect.
Yours faithfully,
etc, etc….
Thanks kh1485
I think this is the only way now to get the retailers and the government by extension to listen – via boycotts and letter writing. Today is the first day of my self-imposed boycott of the transport system and the high street. No way will I wear a muzzle and allow the shops to treat me as subhuman.
That’s so funny if it isn’t so ironic!
That’s even funnier. What are the odds that at the end of the day there is no actual progress?
Disposable socks have been around long before this madness but ain’t going to any shops that insist that customers wear masks and gloves!
Hear, hear!!! It’s appalling that the high street don’t seem to realise that they’ve just sown the seeds of their own destruction.
At the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law, why do I get the feeling that this is bringing out people’s inner Nazi or Stalin? That’s what I’m getting from these stores.
There was a man behind me in the queue to get into Boots (I was picking up a prescription for an elderly neighbour, no way on earth would I queue for this expensive shop otherwise); anyway, this man was picking his nose. Queuing gives people more time to do this.
with or without mask ?
No mask, although a lot of people wear them without covering their noses.
Yep it’s theatre to appease the fearporned masses.
Anyone I see from now on who wears a mask and wants to speak with me, I’ll tell them I can’t hear them and to please remove the muzzle if they want to converse with me.
The checkout lady at the Co-op had to repeat everything as I kept telling her “Pardon?”, “Terribly sorry can’t hear you” and “Can’t understand what you’re saying sorry”
just to lighten the mood. BBC R4 have a brilliant documentary on the whole covid 19 history
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08gtsqr
Only just listened to first episode from a week ago.
Seriously though .. this is DeadRIngers. For those who dont know it – it is worth a listen.. Although it doesnt really go far enough as the current situation is beyond parody
Also – i mentioned in an earlier post about the BBC scaremongering and the timing of the new series about the Salisbury poisoning. I wonder what other programmes they might put on now to continue to scare sh*tless the population. 28 days later….contagion… world war z…. 12 monkeys (note this is not about the cabinet) etc etc
Nevil Shute’s ‘On the Beach’ should be just the ticket!
Gosh that was a terrible novel (and I normally like his writing, or did when I was a teenager). It’s just anti-nuclear propaganda , perfectly healthy people in Australia all waiting for the best time to kill themselves (and they all eventually do, including a young woman full of life and prospects) just because a ‘radioactive’ cloud is heading their way and the rest of the world’s population have killed themselves just to be on the safe side. Instead of just, you know, waiting to see if the cloud really would kill them….what did they have to lose, anyway? Very odd, very silly, very much of the present, although it was written some time ago. I also feel that the timing of the drama Chernobyl was deliberate – again, anti-nuclear power propaganda. But then, they want to take down all forms of cheap energy; globalists want the masses poor and fighting amongst themselves for scarce (scarce for the masses, that is) resources.
Its a fantastic book where the characters are written with warmth and depth. The story is about impending doom as the residents of Melbourne know that the radioactivity will destroy them eventually, much like how the ‘new normal’, increased anarchy, orchestrated food scarcity and a tanking economy will potentially destroy us.
You are right about Chernobyl. When that excellent series came out, some people at the time were saying it was predictive programming of a cataclysm that will destroy our way of life. I dont necessarily believe in predictive programming but its worth keeping an eye on the coincidences we see in films and TV shows. I was in Pripyat a few years ago and that show literally blew me away.
Oh some people are realising what a disaster the High Street and shopping centres are going to be. From an article in the Telegraph this morning:
“Richard Lim, Retail Economics chief executive, said: “ One of the big unknowns is how customers are going to react if there is a gap between their expectations and the reality of shopping. If it’s not pleasurable, because of social distancing measures, they might not want to go back again.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/06/14/woe-retailers-half-shoppers-could-stay-home/
Quite so: I don’t even want to go back to supermarkets (sadly I have to in order to live). Other shops: I don’t think so.
Reading the comments looks like it won’t be surprising if many of the shops that are reopening today might close for good again before this month is over at the bare minimum.
A few weeks ago the head of an association representing big retail chains in Spain said they were going to take legal action against the government when the time was right. Hoping they follow up on this, as the country is now in the last week of the so called state of alarm.
Good for them. Would hope similar bodies would be preparing the same action here in the UK.
The problem is if you’re actually scared of the virus you won’t be going non-essential shopping anyway. If you aren’t then you’re going to be pissed off by all the distancing crap. So seems like a bit of a lose-lose situation.
You are right. I hadn’t thought of that. Better then to lift all the restrictions and let those of us who haven’t bought into the propaganda, lead the way.
I’m not sure this is the case.
Some people seem to want to parade their (righteous) fear in shops, on pavements, in parks, etc., while protected up to the eyeballs, and tutting at other less anxious people.
There will be a few of those, for sure, plus some diehard retail addicts, plus some people who actually need stuff (my shoes are worn out from all the walking), but the numbers will surely be way down on “normal” and way below anything that’s financially sustainable for most shops.
One imagines there will be an initial rush due to pent-up demand and the novelty value, then it will settle down, perhaps with gradual increase as some become more confident.
I feel sorry for people who work in shops who can’t do much about this, but I will not be doing more than the bare minimum until this is over, same for any other activity that will be ruined by “new normal”.
I can imagine the Devil in hell assuring people that hell will be more pleasurable than shopping in a British high street.
Whilst on my morning walk it was pleasing to see not all passengers on passing buses wearing face masks, as is supposedly compulsory from today. No doubt someone will post a photo from a Tube on Twitter later today of maskless commuters, followed beneath by the inevitable righteous shrieks of “selfish idiots!”, no doubt from the same people applauding recent mass gatherings of BLM.
Maybe a lot of those have the exemptions.Just waiting for a Karen to challenge someone who turns out to have lung cancer.
Or…. MSM will post a news story of loads of people wearing masks as per ‘subjugation’ to ‘new normal’… all manipulative bollocks
Bad news for the UK.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-14/don-t-plan-on-summer-holidays-in-u-s-fauci-tells-the-british
This man is now in deep disgrace. Any epidemiologist would know that after an end of a pandemic normality returns although you might have surveillance system to detect a possible second wave. He now hints that a vaccine would might be a requirement to lift the quarantine. Could we not have more proof that this man is in the pocket of Big Pharma? Not only the vaccine also his obsession of Remdesivir as an effective treatment for Covid-19. All to please shareholders in Gilead (Remdesivir) and vaccine (Astra Zeneca).Btw rumours that these two firm should join or buy out each other.
I disregarded Fauci from the start. He co-wrote a paper for the New England medical journal back in March where the conclusion was that this virus would be no worse than a seasonal flu.
As soon as he stepped up to the podium to state otherwise, I knew he was a fucking shill.
https://www.twincities.com/2020/06/12/mn-coronavirus-george-floyd-early-test-results-show-few-protesters/
“Results from about 40 percent of the coronavirus tests done in St. Paul and Minneapolis this week show 1.4 percent of participants who were tested had contracted COVID-19. Health officials are awaiting the rest of the test results and are encouraging anyone who participated in mass gatherings to get tested — regardless of symptoms.
The 1.4 percent positivity rate is lower than the 3.7 positivity rate of the more than 13,000 test results reported Friday. It is lower than the current seven-day average rate of positive tests, which is also 3.7 percent.”
Virus is selective? Would it not have been higher if it had been lockdown sceptics demonstrating rather than rioting masses?
For as long as Boris and Co. and TV presenters go unmasked so will I.
And when they do start wearing the bamn things I will not – I have checked with Dr Google and I am at the early stages of COPD – I also have anxiety about something defeating my innate immunity, although I don’t fully understand why, but it makes sense.
I shall be writing and printing of a doctors note to that effect to wave at any interfearing busybodies. ref; bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1435/rr-40 that someone posted in here a few weeks ago
I am also going to have 10,000 leaflets of the poster listing the dangers of facemasks that someone posted in here a few days ago – I shall have these delivered to all the homes in my town as a public service
On Twitter the responses to Boris shopping are overwhelmingly “he’s trying to kill us”.
That’s an excellent idea Major. How does one go about doing that please ?
(The 10,00 handouts).
You are magnificent. I shall start mass production here too.
go for it
Great idea. I might copy you and have some in my pocket to hand out to the muzzled ones amongst us. thank you.
Bless you!
Not sure if this has been posted before:
Swiss Policy Research: Facts About COVID-19
https://bit.ly/2YztBEW
It would seem that the 2009 swine flu “pandemic” may have been a dress-rehearsal for Covid-19 that was rumbled and had to be called off.
This riveting presentation calmly and rationally explores the facts and their possible consequences. It is necessarily rather long, but please do take the time to watch it all, and if you find it compelling please share it as widely as you can.
https://vimeo.com/7298827
The problem isn’t moral relativism; the problem is epistemological relativism.
In the politics of postmodernist-neoliberalist-globalism emotion has taken the place of evidence and logic. The political media elite no longer even pretend to be concerned with facts. Examples of this truism can daily be seen in the debates that decorate the parliaments of the so called liberal democracies and the narratives that fill the endless content of the corporate news media.
Consider, for example, the treatment of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” of illegal aliens. Instead of a dispassionate analysis of the policy, it is presented in purely emotive terms. Rachel Maddow, the Russophobic MSNBC anchor, was apparently unable to articulate her report for the tears. And there was nothing exceptional about this. Other television anchors have been moved to tears over the plight of suffering children. The jihadi propaganda, dubbed, the Aleppo Boy, had the same effect.
But these are merely obvious examples of this preference for emotion. Day in and day out, the political media elite push their preferred narratives by privileging emotive rhetoric. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, specialises in emotive, moralising. She takes pictures of children into the UN Security Council and attempts to use them as proof. Yet when actual witnesses are presented, they are denounced. When actual evidence is presented, it is ignored or dismissed as propaganda.
This privileging of emotion does more than merely exclude facts and dispassionate analysis. It hides the real sources of power and influence, responsibility and accountability. Yesterday’s report on the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of patients in Gosport Hospital was discussed in parliament. Everyone condemned the deaths and expressed their feelings and hoped things are now better. But the killings were not an aberration. They were the result of policies and institutionalised practices, put in place by the elite. The members of parliament, so fulsomely expressing their feelings, were wearing green hearts to show the world their solidarity with the victims of the Grenfell fire. Yet the people responsible for Grenfell fire were the same elite. The fire was a result of institutional policies and practices: policies and practices that have been developing for decades, ever since Thatcher imposed neoliberalism on the country.
In contemporary British society neoliberal imperatives are more than dominant; they are hegemonic. Neoliberalism is simply taken-for-granted, as though there were no alternative. But there are alternatives, which is why postmodernism is so essential. The postmodernist denial of objectivity and determinism, of evidence and logic; the notion that they are just narratives and that any narrative is no more valid that than any other, enables the political media elite to present whatever narrative it chooses as the narrative. But as the official narratives are all premised on the imperatives of neoliberalism, they cannot be honestly presented. Instead, they are wrapped in specious appeals of humanitarianism: “we” have to bomb Libya back to the middle ages to protect the people; “we” have to bomb Syria to uphold international law; “we” have to accept open borders and mass immigration for the sake of the children.
In these narratives, there is no room for the facts, no space for a cost benefit analysis, no opportunity for a consideration of alternative views. Postmodernism, whilst explicitly asserting that all views are equally valid, paradoxically collapses into totalitarianism, as when evidence and logic are excluded, the only way to arbitrate between differing views is power: and that power is neoliberalism. Everyone, and every institution, is required to accept the doctrines of neoliberalism, no matter how inappropriate or absurd or counterproductive. So health care becomes an industry, seeking to minimise costs and maximise profits and exacerbate inequalities. Regulations, purportedly in place to protect residents, are in fact remodelled to facilitate in the interests of corporations. Educational institutions are forced to compete to churn out ever more qualified people, who are ever less questioning or even capable of questioning. The senior ranks of police force are ever more skilled in parroting management speak and public relations spin, whilst violating the rights of the very people they are supposed to be protecting. And all this is hidden from view by a constant torrent of emoting and judging.
When emotion substitutes for evidence and logic, totalitarianism, increasing inequality and social dysfunction is the inevitable result.
Wow! This is brilliant stuff. You’ve put your finger on and explained loads of things I’ve been struggling to understand. I’m a very logical person, love evidence and debate and a large part of my distress these last twelve weeks has been the total absence of any of those things from the public arena. Good job!
Thank you. Except for the first sentence, my comment was copied from a post on my blog from two years ago; hence the references.
Thanks for the clarification. Your reference to the Gosport inquiry had me scratching my head.
Tell that to the family who’s relative died because of your words. Think before you write. I bet you didn’t even wear a mask when writing that.
People are dying and they should never die because all deaths are preventable. Emotions > Logic.
*I’m being sarcastic just in case it someone is wondering*
In truth it’s hard to be logical when dealing with anything that involves death. Particularly if people are led to believe that saving lives means that nobody needs to die. The reason we can’t move forward is precisely because people think that deaths are avoidable and we should be doing everything we can to prevent any death.
Here in Scotland the thinking now is that the only way to prevent COVID-19 deaths is to eradicate it. Why? Because somebody else did it and therefore so can we. Once it’s eradicated people can go on to die of other more acceptable things. Where’s the logic in that?
Thought you’d had a bad turn there, Nobody, to begin with! Glad to find after the first para you are perfectly well and lucid.
You’ve hit on a really good point there,that so many people find the fact that someone has died of covid 19 to be an affront to humanity whilst having no apparent concern for anyone that has died from any other cause is baffling. Nowadays we seem to a very long way from the ‘age of reason’.
I agree with all the bits i understood, I did google some of the words but I’m none the wiser.
Certainly there is no room for facts or critical thinking in the Lockdown, Black Lives matter, NHS, etc religions. Unfortunately, other than the few, no one is interested
There is a sever imbalance in the yin and the yang – but whats the solution?
A judicial review of the main stream media – is it telling the ‘whole’ truth or is it mis-informing people – if so what is the agenda? Why are all the MSM aligned?
Anyways that’ll never happen.
For me the key is keeping things simple, I’m not Chinese but the following is a good start…
Don’t do to others what you do not want others to do to you – a very simple ‘rule’ covers most things except self harm
Is ‘investigative journalism’ an antique?
I love the concept of a judicial review of the main stream media – but who will review the judges first?
Two prime current examples being the complete and rather sudden deletion of herd immunity from the range of acceptable policy responses, early in March as far as I can recall, and the simple denial of legitimacy to the facts in response to the fundamentally dishonest BLM claim of systematic racist killing by US police.
It’s “heartless” to seek herd immunity, and it’s “racist” to question BLM, so the facts in either case not only are irrelevant but cannot even legitimately by raised.
I think herd immunity suffered as a concept through having an unfortunate name. People hear “herd” and think “cattle”.
Again – emotion, not logic.
I think that might well have been part of it. Raised the question here at LS a month ago.
I’ve had a thing about ‘herd immunity’ for many years.
People who misuse the language often have an agenda.
Well iirc it goes back to the early C20th, and I think it was just an analogy….
I’m sure it does. But getting people used to the idea they’re part of a herd is always useful to the bad guys.
And yet noone was offended when it was used re: vaccines as it often is. (‘Vaccines help us achieve herd immunity quickly’).
Besides that I don’t get it.
We are a herd!! We’re an animal like any other. One of the biggest problems with the human race atm is the bullish (lol) inability to admit this. But I suppose when the western world is rapidly being taken over by vegans who think the food chain should be overruled by their emoshuns, what can you expect?
I was. Maybe I was the only person thinking clearly back then …
Get out of town. This is classic godless neo-liberalism at it’s finest. As for insulting people with other opinions (‘bullish inability’), I guess that is more acceptable if you think we are all a herd.
I also wonder who would accept them if scientists had used the English instead of the Latin and called them cowines!?
Hehehehehe
It’s remarkable how a word (and one which is often used in medical.and scientific contexts no less) has triggered so many people and governments into doing completely batshit things
A herd is what the zombie people are, except that I’ve seen more intelligence in the eyes of many a cow, horse and, dare I say it, sheep.
They’re a herd of sheep.
A herd of beautiful impala or something could be our positive comparison
The whole coronavirus narrative is an example of the preference for emotion over evidence and reason. The House of Commons Select Committee (Science and Technology) on 22 May 2020 asked Professor Yvonne Doyle of Public Health England what the scientific basis was for the two metre social distancing rule? Her response: the precautionary principle. Unfortunately, no one thought to ask: when did “it might be harmful” become science.
Principle indeed
What about the scientific principle?
I’m not really planning to shop for non essentials until the church services start again, otherwise it seems rather the wrong way round.
The godless, obviously including the government, the opposition and of course the bishops, simply don’t want to know that there are people for whom the Christian faith is fundamental, and Christian services in churches essential.
No doubt the many good and sincere followers of other religions have comparable impressions.
One of the biggest disappointments has been the role of De Fauci, an extremely influential person behind the whole Covid-19 response. In one of his first press conferences he said that flattening the curve would decrease the cases. A lie, as the flattening the curve would always have the same total number but distributed more evenly as a way of decreasing the health burden. It was obvious from the start that the lockdown was not for 2 weeks but a whole new instrument to promote vaccine and expensive drugs. His predictions of no normality until the vaccine has arrived and no more handshakes in the future confirmed the worst possible motive and also his shameless promotion of Ramdesivir.
And there has been real epidemiologists in the US and one of the most respected was Donald Henderson. He published a famous book about the epidemiology of infectious diseases which was produced in many editions. He was involved in the eradication of smallpox, and also in WHO when that organisation was not influenced by China. In 2006 he wrote the following article about future influenza pandemics. It is an exceptional well written document which discuss at length the difficulties with mitigation and social distancing for influenza, which is very relevant for Covid-19. Published this article yesterday but I give the link again as I think it is a splendid discussion of the problems which all our current epidemiologists seemed to have ignored.
The article is not available free on line but is embedded in full in the below link.
https://www.aier.org/article/how-a-free-society-deals-with-pandemics-according-to-legendary-epidemiologist-and-smallpox-eradicator-donald-henderson/
What a pity we didn’t have these persons in charge of the Covid-19 response. Perhaps we should have noted from the beginning that in charge of the US response was Fauci, Birx and Redfield ,all of them having been involved heavily in the AIDS response but there was never a respiratory disease epidemiologist at the top rank.
Fauci’s got form. His stance on Covid is about Trump and nothing else.
http://tmp.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/what_did_dr_fauci_have_to_say_in_2009_about_the_deadly_h1n1_pandemic.html
Fauci’s form is also evidenced in Plandemic, of course.
I think it’s also about good old money he’ll get from Big Pharma
Thanks. Having read the Henderson bit, my take on it is that the measures he lists and mainly dismisses as either not evidence based or with too high a societal cost have ALL been taken by a lot of governments around the world.
Thank you for an excellent blog. My most recent contribution has now been posted on the Quadrant website here in Oz. Readers here might enjoy it. Especially the concluding sentence:
‘Unfortunately, in this case (to distort an aphorism often wrongly attributed to Churchill) a dodgy alarmist model went halfway around the world before Professor Ferguson had got his trousers on’
.Written just over a month ago (though holds up well) and informed in part by your blog:
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/06/covid-19-and-the-problem-with-official-science/
On the effectiveness of masksRegardless of the comparatively low lethality of Covid19 in the general population (see above), there is still no scientific evidence for the effectiveness of masks in healthy and asymptomatic people in everyday life.
A cross-country study by the University of East Anglia came to the conclusion that a mask requirement was of no benefit and could even increase the risk of infection.
Two US professors and experts in respiratory and infection protection from the University of Illinois explain in an essay that respiratory masks have no effect in everyday life, neither as self-protection nor to protect third parties (so-called source control). The widespread use of masks didn’t prevent the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, either.
A study from April 2020 in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine came to the conclusion that neither fabric masks nor surgical masks can prevent the spread of the Covid19 virus by coughing.
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine from May 2020 also comes to the conclusion that respiratory masks offer little or no protection in everyday life. The call for a mask requirement is described as an “irrational fear reflex”.
A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the U.S. CDC also found that respirators had no effect.
The WHO moreover declared in June that truly “asymptomatic transmission” is in fact “very rare”, as data from numerous countries showed. Some of the few confirmed cases were due to direct body contact, i.e. shaking hands or kissing.
In Austria, the mask requirement in retail and catering will be lifted again from mid-June. A mask requirement was never introduced in Sweden because it “does not offer additional protection for the population”, as the health authority explained.
Numerous politicians, media people and police officers have already been caught putting on their respirators in a crowd especially for the television cameras or taking them off immediately when they believed that they were no longer being filmed.
In some cases there were brutal police attacks because a person allegedly “did not wear her mask properly”. In other cases, people with a disability who cannot and do not have to wear a mask, are not allowed to enter department stores .
Despite this evidence, a group called “masks4all”, which was founded by a “young leader” of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos, is advocating worldwide mask requirements. Several governments and the WHO appear to be responding to this campaign.
Many critics suspect that the masks are more likely to have a psychological or political function (“muzzle” or “visible sign of obedience”) and that wearing them frequently might even lead to additional health problems.
A study from Germany empirically showed that the introduction of face masks had no effect on infection rates (see graph). Only the city of Jena appeared to experience a strong decrease in infections, but Jena simultaneously introduced very strict quarantine regulations.
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
Some moreresearch into wearing of masks.
It’s on dropbox as it is the only way this research stays “visible” on the internet. It keeps being hard to find on wherever the author posts it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w5eojbzj13zbnyd/COVID-19_Rancourt-Masks-dont-work-review-science-re-COVID19-policy.pdf?dl=0
My other post on this is awaiting approval (?)
Check out this article
“On the effectiveness of masks” at:
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
(Excellent site generally, lots of fact based information)
It’s amazing how our perceptions are manipulated. A couple of weeks it was all about “excess deaths”. when the figures were looking grim. By Week 22 (to end 29 may), over two weeks ago, excess deaths were already coming down substantially and approaching the average. This data is two weeks old and the number of deaths has fallen dramatically since so I expect we are not v. close to if not at or below the average. I fully expect us to go into the deficit (which is good!) on excess mortality over the summer.
You might expect the BBC, Sky and ITV to be rejoicing at this fall in excess deaths but I haven’t heard it even mentioned for several days now.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending29may2020
As can be seen from the graphs, we’d done well earlier in the year having lower than average deaths, so that slighly offsets the huge Covid impact. There’s no doubt the virus has hit hard but not much harder than a really bad flu virus. Whether the lockdown has caused more deaths than would otherwise be the case, is an open question. I think it probably has by increasing anxiety and demoralising the aged.
We have never before shut down our economy for such an event and we must never do so again.
Not = now (close to the average).
Yup, excess deaths were only ever really mentioned while they were “bad”. I’m sure if you asked a lot of people they would be convinced that they were “bad” the whole time, not just around the peak.
Also notice there’s been very little about treatments or vaccines, whereas we used to hear a lot about them. Probably there’s been a realisation that there isn’t going to be one any time soon.
All we have now is stuff about the “new normal”, 2 metres, air bridges, second wave dangers, though even second wave dangers seem to be getting less attention – nothing really about a proper exit strategy. Just trying to foster the idea that this is how it will be, indefinitely. Evil in result, if not in intention.
More from the ‘useful idiots’. At least RMT members may not try to enforce muzzles. Our bus service is non-unionised so some of them maybe will. We now have to rely on the known good sense of the majority of them:
‘Transport union RMT has called for workers to be treated with respect as the new requirement for passengers to wear face masks on public transport in England comes into force today.
The union also said that it had received assurances that Police, and not transport staff, will be responsible for enforcing the legislation and the union has advised its members to avoid conflict situations with any passengers who refuse to wear face coverings.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said;
“RMT has been campaigning for face masks to be made compulsory for passengers on public transport and it is right that the Police and not transport staff will be responsible for enforcing this new legislation.
“We have advised our members to avoid conflict situations in the event of any passengers refusing to wear face coverings.
“We are calling for transport workers to be treated with respect, including remembering the essential role they are playing as key workers during the pandemic.” ‘
Just been to B and Q on our local retail park, so while I was there, I popped in to Next, Outfit and New Look ( just because I could!). Pleased to report no queues at any of them. I was pointed in the direction of the hand sanitisers in each store but refused them as I have contact eczema (a good excuse!) – no problem with being let in.
On another point, when Boris visited Westfield yesterday, did he drive himself, I wonder, or was he chauffeur driven? If so, did he wear a face mask whilst in the car? As someone points out below, until he and the cabinet wear face masks, we must also refuse to wear them.
Maybe we don’t need to worry about any of this at all as it won’t matter soon:
https://thatcricketblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/steven-hawking-mayans-miscalculated-by-8-years-2020-is-actual-end-of-civilisation/
The corrected date for the end of civilization is 21 June 2020. We also have a solar eclipse on the 21st June
The Mayans believed it was not the end but a rebirth, a ‘reset’.
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2020/06/mayan-calendar-may-show-2020-as-the-end-of-the-world-not-2012/
Something has to explain all that is going on!!!
PS. I don’t believe it but thought it quite interesting
“ The corrected date for the end of civilization is 21 June 2020. We also have a solar eclipse on the 21st June”
Thank good for that. At least there’s an end in sight.
And when a solar eclipse occurs, the part of the sun that is still visible is the… corona!
Don’t post this on social media, it’ll go viral.
It’s actually one of the closest things I’ve seen to a rational justification for recent events…..
True – and I wonder if, should the whole Cabinet offer itself up as human(-ish) sacrifices, the gods would be placated?!
Willing to give it a go. After all, what do we lose by it?
Nothing, but wouldn’t the gods be insulted by such lousy offerings?
It’s a risk I’m very willing to take.
Have asked a friend who was deeply involved in everything Mayan Calendar. Will report back.
“PS. I don’t believe it but thought it quite interesting”
It’s just as plausible as the Cult of Covid’ !!
You are correct. Probably more plausible when I think about it.
Worth remembering it is not a belief system. It is agreed by all that the Mayans defined a calendar with an end date.
Exactly when this is/was, what this means (if anything), etc., these are the moot bits.
In relation to the schools closures. I thought that independent schools might be able to lead the way following Simon Dolan’s revelation yesterday, but sadly no. I received this from an independent school that I e-mailed.
Thank you for your email and the additional information that you’ve provided. Whilst we are aware of ongoing challenges to both the Government’s position and the technicalities of what was or was not said/directed by them, it remains the case that, even if we were to assume the result of the Simon Dolan challenge, our insurers currently take a different view and it would be extremely imprudent of us to take any action that contradicted the advice – be that a directive, order or otherwise – of the Government, Public Health England or the Health & Safety Executive that would leave our policy null and void. I cannot take the risk – any risk, in that regard – that we would not be insured to have certain groups on site.
That’s awful, appalling. Apparently there is no longer any workable definition of what is legal and what is not. The ultimate tyranny.
It’s easy to underestimate the big part played by liability insurers (and behind them, compensation and claim culture) in promoting the culture of risk aversion and imposing the elf n safety rules and regs that bedevil our society.
At least, however, they replied in an intelligent, non-hysterical manner to your heretical suggestion.
Walked past my local underground station and saw two blokes touch in without wearing any face coverings. No staff or police to be seen around.
The buses that went past were almost dead which is the first time I’ve seen it without anyone. There was a bus that drove past with only one passenger and she wasn’t wearing a mask.
No sign that the National Conditions of Travel have been amended, that I can see.
They won’t ATM and this is only day one. It will be interesting how this will pan out as it seems to me that the fact that the buses are so dead can only mean that either many people are boycotting transport as well or the bus drivers are not bothering to enforce them.
All hell will break loose I predict when there are signalling problems, bad weather, a passenger faints due to the face covering or a crime is committed and there’s no way to go after the perpetrator because that criminal was wearing a sodding mask!
Sadly I’ve just seen a bus with around 7-8 people, all wearing masks.
Oh dear….
CAMPAIGN CALLS FOR HOME SEC TO QUIT IF QUARANTINE DEEMED UNLAWFUL
https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/campaign-calls-for-home-sec-to-quit-if-quarantine-deemed-unlawful-23449
Some key points raised:
“How have we ended up with a government that seeks to drive the final nails into the coffin of a once thriving domestic and international tourism industry?”
“It is our understanding that in addition to the government’s failure to seek a recommendation from Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) before implementing quarantine, the legislation was brought before the house without any impact assessment being conducted.”
“You will be remembered as the home secretary whom, despite being warned clearly of the consequences, continued to implement blindly and obstinately probably the most damaging and ineffectual piece of legislation that has ever been conceived by any UK government.”
Someone shared this on Simon Dolan’s twitter page:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/7-long-term-side-effects-of-wearing-face-masks/ss-BB15mbx2?ocid=sf&&fbclid=IwAR0AIqbdhvsJ3SstvWYQzBQoCz7JNESshBlt4S7b-r7Ts8cdSNiia7SdCdM#image=1
Good spot, then there is a H&S Case to be had, surely? Shocking pictures.
And the MSN comment? ‘You’ve heard the coronavirus is spread by droplets, so it’s ever so important to cover your face—particularly as your city reopens.’
They’re printing awful images and still sticking with the party line?
Microsoft should be boycotted also.
The photo of what the lower part of the face looks like after prolonged mask wearing is particularly disgusting!
Apparently the Co-op travel agents in our town has reopened today but customers are not actually allowed inside,they are being dealt with at the door !,somehow I don’t think they will have too many customers to worry about anyway.
I run a travel business, used to be high st but now in shared office space but do have clients coming in. I will not open until no measures are required. I will visit clients to discuss plans if they wish but will not make them go through what the shared office have stipulated is required.
Have changed my Tesco shop to ‘click and collect’. God, the relief! No hassle, no queuing, no hectoring gauleiters, no dead-eyed zombies, no nasty blue foot markers: just a nice, helpful employee in whose eyes glowed the friendly light of sanity.
Have also discovered several more seaside car parks that have been re-opened, albeit with horrid signs demanding antisocial dis. Noticed a striking absence of the word ‘please’. Now that we have no rights, I presume ‘please’ has been deleted from official language.
Exception to car park opening (remember this is Gulag Wales): the National Trust. Tree trunks, huge stones, padlocked gates, rusty barbed wire, and enough nasty notices to last a small Communist state for several years. Trust? I wouldn’t trust them with a sack of garden refuse.
On a happier note: visited a place that I honour, but dare not name in case it gets back to the Welsh Cheka. Suffice it to say that the visit involved a sunny grassy area, tea, cake, laughter of small children, gentle chatter of sane adults, and smiles. Nowadays that’s enough normality to make me want to cry.
Just nipped into town to do a few bits. The place is mobbed! Q for the bank was massive so i didnt bother, the Q for bargain booze was reasonable, luckily because i needed some esentials from there – the nice elderly fella at the front of the Q got shouted at for being too close to the door – extrordinary!
anyways, there are far too many people cluttering the place up – we either need rain, more lockdown or a final solution….
Heil Gates
Just got a reply from Waterstones and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry:
Good afternoon, xxxxxxx,
I read your comments with interest and I’m sorry that is how you feel about our plans and what is already in operation from today. We have responded to many concerns from customers, who have been encouraging about us following the government’s COVID guidelines for retailers, and the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, visited one of our stores on Friday to see for himself what the experience might be like. The video is on the HM Treasury Twitter feed.
Clearly we cannot operate bookshop browsing without being mindful of social distancing and a consideration for customers who might be worried about Health & Safety issues. We are treating all customers with respect and dignity, and certainly do take account of all views as well, which I am forwarding on to our Head Office team for you.
Stay safe, and I hope you continue to enjoy reading!
Kind regards,
XXXXXXXXX
Customer Support Team Leader
Waterstones
Am not suprised by this. Am tempted to write back to let this person know that s/he has just insulted my intelligence.
I did think it probably would have been better had they not replied and my blood did boil when they mentioned Sunak – hardly Joe Public and won’t have to put up with any of this nonsense.
A Customer Support Team hopefully to soon be without customers to support.
So,Waterstones,approved by HM Government,must be okay then.What an insulting reply,just what I expected.They are concerned about customers who are worried about H&S,in my opinion if someone is so worried about going to a bookshop I think they ought to find a safe,deep,dark cave and stay in it and let the rest of us behave normally, absolutely pathetic,reading between the lines I think they are telling you to get lost !.
The stay safe at the end makes my blood !,I got a message with that on when I complained to Royal Mail about six pieces of mail that went missing and they said they couldn’t look into it because of the ‘covid pandemic’.
I had the same thought, am thinking of a reply which is essentially to tell him that he’s insulted my intelligence and if Sunak turned up as an ordinary customer and not doing one of those “official engagement”, they’re not going to allow him to queue would they? They would wave him through and chuck out a few customers for good measure.
This “stay safe” bollocks is really getting on my wick now! I suspect Waterstones have implemented this stupidity because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be allowed to open. However, their regime is ridiculous. All they need to do is have hand gel for customers on the way in, then it wouldn’t matter how many books you had the sheer audacity to touch. How on earth can they operate on the basis of “quarantining” every book that’s touched? Stroll on! In some shops a large part of the stock will be out of use in no time. Waterstones is my favourite shop, but I’m not setting foot in the place until the socialist distancing has gone.
Agree, I always ignore people who wish me “stay safe”.
I understand that Waterstones have to observe regulation or the government will come down on them like a ton of bricks, however all this is overkill and it doesn’t make customers feel welcome and want to spend. That’s a good point, they quarantine everything and in the end they will have trouble with their stocks and inventory!
If some idiot tries the ‘stay safe’ routine on me, I reply that it’s bollox ( or words to that effect) and counter with ‘stay human’.
Good one – will use that as a reply. Thanks!
i say why stay safe? today’s as good as any to die. Seems people don’t like that.
We should go to the till armed with loads of books, handing each one over and then at the end say we’ve changed our mind. They’ll soon get fed up with it.
Pity they’ve caved as I love Waterstones.
Or order books by the bucket then return all of them saying “oh I’ve changed my mind….so sorry”
Hard to buy books without leafing through them at least a bit – but if people have used the sanitiser then quarantining books is OTT…
I will also write an email to Waterstones. I just wrote one to Liberty. Thanks for this.
You’re welcome. Go for it Laura, I also wrote a letter to Kate Spade which is posted on the comments here.
It’s theatre…Rishi Sunak and their comment ‘being mindful of social distancing and a consideration for customers who might be worried about Health & Safety issues’ with my emphasis on ‘might’.
Companies and Government are catering to the brainwashed and fearporned rather than to rational human beings.
Need to make sure they get more negative feedback than positive then – get writing folks!
Just returned to the shops on Regent Street, prepared to buy a lot of things, as luckily my family income and my income has not yet been affected by this insanity. I also went to Liberty of London, a favorite store. It is horrendous. When fitting rooms, cafes, and toilets are all closed – why shop in person? One-way streets, certain doors for exit only, store employees hovering to make sure you don’t touch the clothes? God help us all. I really am so depressed.
Jesus wept.
I like going to Liberty due to the historic nature of the buidling and the staff tend to be knowledgeable and pleasant. But after reading your account, all I can say is I’m sorry that your experience today has been horrendous.
We should boycott all shops until they grow enough cojones to pressure the government to end this lunacy.
We need to tell the shops why we won’t shop there until the ridiculous rules are lifted. Unfortunately the papers say that people don’t go into shops because they are too afraid.
Exactly. That said if you look at readers’ comments below any article about the high street, there are a lot of people who say they’re staying away not because of the virus but because of the antisocial distancing, no facilities, compulsory muzzling, etc.
There are a lot of those twits around as well, unfortunately.
Maybe bombard their Social media pages with negative comments and explain that it is not fear keeping you away, it is the crazy rules. Say you won’t buy from them if they don’t drop the rules..
Yes, we are all weeping now!
I couldn’t stomach it and would probably end up alienating all the sheep! My trip to Sainsbury’s today was bad enough and I won’t be going into any other shops until the whole lockdown has been scrapped.
So you can’t even *touch* the clothes? As you say, what is the point?
Has anyone else seen this:
https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/2020/06/11/the-science-and-law-of-refusing-to-wear-masks-texts-and-arguments-in-support-of-civil-disobedience/
Great article.
“Despite the announcement last week by the Secretary of State for Transport that from 15 June the wearing of face masks on public transport will be ‘mandatory’, there is nothing in existing legislation, neither the Coronavirus Act 2020 nor the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020, that empowers a police officer to compel a UK citizen to wear a mask, on public transport.”
Presumably they are using the 1984 Health Act: one of Maggie’s, hard to believe; Orwell was right, Thatcher has been used and then Cancelled!
Great!
However on of the comments to this article stated:
Here is the link to the Statutory Instrument that mandates the wearing of face coverings on public transport. Note that it was made law on 14 June and comes into force today, 15 June. It will also be laid before parliament today, not that that will serve and useful purpose.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/592/contents/made
However, courtesy of Simon Dolan’s Twitter feed: “If you don’t feel comfortable wearing a mask on public transport, simply don’t wear it and if challenged say that under Part 1 Section 4 (a) of The Health Protection (CV, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) you are exempt as they cause you severe anxiety.” I would add that the section also includes ‘physical illness or impairment’. I never thought I’d be glad to be an asthmatic!
Wait… the law says that you don’t have to wear a mask on public transport if you have a physical illness? Like a respiratory disease caused by a virus, for example?
That’s nice, because I was just thinking that there was no way for this to become any more farcical and it turns out I was wrong.
Also, masks is the only thing the Welsh Supreme Coviet is less savage about, so if you are crossing from England into Wales – highly unlikely, I admit – you can take off your mask as soon as your vehicle-from-hell crosses the border.
Incidentally, comments on Vernon’s anti-mask video on You Tube include a couple from bus drivers who say there is no way they will wear masks or force passengers to do so. Hearty cheers.
Oh man, that’s funny!
Government by Statutory Instrument – great.. (not). We are no longer being ruled by consent – this is a dictatorship! What is the point of laying it before Parliament? It will get through..no one will object, or at least not enough MPs..
Just received an e-mail from Hi- Fi chain Richer Sounds informing me of their exciting but safe plans for the grand reopening. Same old bollocks as everywhere else except they were inordinately proud of their appointment system to avoid queuing. Told them in no uncertain terms where they could stick their “safety” measures and cancelled my subscription to their newsletter.
I said to my wife a few weeks ago that we will soon need an appointment to go to a shop and I was only joking !.
Had to make an appointment to go tile shopping last week. It was actually quite good because the store manager gave me her undivided attention. She wasn’t bothered about masks, sanitiser and we spoke normally not miles apart. Rather than wandering around aimlessly for ages she found me the perfect tiles straight away and I placed the order. She actually said they had been really busy in April with trade work so a small ray of hope.
We’ve been having bits of piece of building work done, dealing with the various tradespeople doing that has been refreshing. Just acting normally.
i hate that shop, twice now i’ve bought amps off them the have blown up within 18 months of buying them. They sell b stock garbage
Some theme song suggestions
Aerosmith – Get a Grip
Alice in Chains – Lying Season
Alice in Chains – I Stay Away
Alter Bridge – Show Me A Leader
Alter Bridge – The Damage Done
Alter Bridge – Island of Fools
Audioslave – Show Me How To Live
Extreme – Politicalamity
Megadeth – Train of Consequences
Megadeth – 99 Ways to Die
Megadeth – Dystopia
Megadeth – Youthanasia
Motörhead – Over the Top
Muse – Panic Station
Muse – Hysteria
Queen – Was It All Worth It
Queen – Keep Yourself Alive
Terrorvision – Oblivion
Ugly Kid Joe – It’s a Lie
Van Morrison – Who Was That Masked Man
Oh I love this tune, brilliant jive track.
Uprising – Muse seems appropriate now
The Knack – My Corona
Crew Slut- Frank Zappa
How about ‘I’ve got to get out of this place, if its the last thing I ever do’…
This morning I took a look around our local market town down here in deepest Devon. There are lots of independent shops, and I’d say only about half are open. The high street is barely busier than it has been for the last few weeks (so, very quiet). Lots of muzzles out and about, many being used incorrectly (e.g. being touched all the time, pulled down around chins).
Many shops are requiring customers to use hand sanitiser before going in. Depending on your skin and how many shops you want to visit, your hands could be in a pretty bad way after an hour or two.
I wanted to go into one hardware shop to get a standard item, but was refused entry unless I used the sanitiser. The lady was a bit put out when I said no and walked on. It’s ok, I’ll get it online.
Of five buses I saw while driving there, three were parked up and entirely empty. Another one was on a nearby roundabout, and I couldn’t see anyone in it; in the fifth I could see only the driver as he was coming towards me, and he wasn’t wearing a muzzle. Their takings in fares can’t be sufficient even to pay for fuel, let alone muzzles for the drivers. I don’t know who’s paying for the buses, but presumably this can’t go on much longer. I guess the drivers can all get DPD vans.
High street shops were struggling before all this nonsense. How long before they realise that they can’t run businesses like this? That they will be going out of business very soon if they don’t sort themselves out? Even if they do, and try all they can to entice customers back, I suspect it may be too late for a great many of them. I hope all those unfortunate shop assistants insisting on the hand sanitisers aren’t too surprised when their jobs are gone. They too are victims in all this. And there aren’t any Amazon warehouses down here.
Well done Boris. Well done Hancock, Cummings, Shapps, the BBC, and the rest of the shower. Somehow I think – and sincerely hope – that all your days are numbered.
Ha, ha “the bloke shift”. Just avoid the “woke shift” at all costs.
It seems to have gotten worse around here. One of the local shops had sanitizer which it didn’t have before. Of course I didn’t use it.
If I were you, I’d say to anyone who tried to enforce it that you have already sanitised your hands in x number of shops and so it is unnecessary to do so again!
I just wanted to say hello to the two gentleman cyclists me and my elderly mum chatted to in Richmond Park earlier today. Initially we started discussing the absurd and draconian rules for cycling being permitted only before 10am and after 4pm on weekdays (except for key workers who are going to work) and then it transpired you were fellow lockdown skeptics!
It was so nice to have a face to face conversation about the bizarre and worrying situation we are facing. Orwellian 1984 was how one of you described it and we agreed on the total failure of our mainstream media and the uselessness of our MP’s amongst other things.
Hopefully you might read the comments section. If you do, just wanted to say thanks for the chat – you both made our day!!
Went into my local town centre today out of curiosity, it’s a lot busier than it has been over lockdown but still not back to pre-Covid times. The queue for Sports Direct stretched halfway down the high street, absolutely enormous, it was the sort of queue you’d see in normal times if there were a celebrity doing a meet-and-greet or something. No such fun now. The queue outside TK Maxx was shorter but had an intimidating-looking security member/bouncer at the front of it. It looked like a queue for a really crap club, with fewer drunkards and less close-quarters jostling.
The rest of the shops didn’t have queues but a lot of them had only one door open and a muzzled shop assistant standing behind a lectern-looking thing with hand sanitiser/tissues etc. to greet you upon entrance. These shops looked pretty empty, only 1 or 2 people inside, but that’s probably the arbitrary capacity limit anyway.
Lots more muzzled people walking around town, to my dismay. There’s something very sinister and unnerving about seeing so many going around with their faces covered but I take comfort in the fact that a lot of them weren’t even wearing the muzzle properly – on their head, on their chin, etc. One woman was wearing her mask on her forehead while having a cigarette.
“It looked like a queue for a really crap club”. Love it!
If only shops were as friendly and welcoming as this these days
https://youtu.be/euLQOQNVzgY
Can anybody link me to daily stats (positive tests, hospitalisations &c) for English regions? I’m specifically looking for London and it used to be published separately I’m sure, but I can’t find it anywhere.
Testing by area is on gov uk website
Quick trip today to my formerly lively, delightful High Street. Now pretty much deserted – quite a few of the bigger stores still not open with no indication that they will be. Smaller stores saying they’ll be open in a few days. Obligatory unsightly 2m spacing dots outside of Waterstones, with hand sanitizer and ‘rules’ being explained at length to anyone wanting to go in. I didn’t. Smaller independents much more relaxed, yellow and black taped floor markings but shop assistants shrugging their shoulders and making light of it all.
Spoke at length to an independent shop keeper preparing to open tomorrow – she has no idea if they’ll survive but is going to try her best and hope things pick up – her shop is so small it’ll be one person in at a time. We agreed it was all nonsense and that we should just open everything up, no stupid restrictions, and even shook hands to say goodbye! Given the number of pubs, restaurants and coffee shops in our town, until they open, I doubt many people will be shopping. It’s deeply, deeply depressing.
I counted 12 face masks, half a dozen ‘swervers’, three people actually driving in face masks (idiots). The only store that seemed more relaxed than before was M&S (Food store only) – they’ve been pretty good all along, unlike our Waitrose that has turned into something out of the former USSR with the queues and door guards.
The Waitrose in Uttoxeter has been brilliant. Other than limiting the amount of people in which will be driven by HQ it’s pretty much business as usual in there.
Funny how stores belonging to the same chain vary so much. I wonder why?
Seems to depend on the branch managers.
The one in Sutton Coldfield – which was due to close – sits in the middle. Sainsbury’s have been excellent. The problem I find is that when you live in a nice safe – dare I say it – predominately white middle class enclave the sight of bulked up mainly BAME security guards in hi-viz at the doors of supermarkets gives you a similar sense of trying to get into a dodgy nightclub at 2am. It just doesn’t fit with my sensibilities and the ones that indulge the most in it are the ones that will lose my custom permanently when all this is over.
On my trip out today I saw a car with two people in it. The driver had a muzzle and the passenger didn’t. Beat that!
Perhaps for each day’s postings we should have a special thread for the most ridiculous and absurd thing someone’s seen that day. The most up-votes wins.
Early on – first week I think – I saw a youth in a souped up Corsa in full face mask zooming down our road eyes down texting.
It’s the swervers that make the laugh the most – going out of their way to avoid me. I’ll admit, the grey roots must have them thinking I’m much older than I am, but really, it’s beyond a joke now. And I do try to laugh at them, otherwise I’ll cry because being treated like a leper really pisses me off.
Find a bit of coast path with a sheer drop one side and a gorse thicket on the other. And keep to the middle of the path.
Hilarious results guaranteed.
Bit naughty but I am chuckling at the pictures of enormous queues outside Sports Direct. Seems the Twitter outrage of 3 months ago against Mike Ashley has soon been forgotten/ignored.
Yes – but I wonder if they are paid for ‘extras’ to flesh out the openings!
‘paid-for’
Nice thought but unfortunately a new shiny tracksuit is probably the highlight of heir lives.
Heard they were giving 50% discount to NHS staff.
The first shopping centre in this video is straight out of the Gestapo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LFz5qFzwE0&feature=youtu.be
That’s just confirmed what I’ve been banging on about. This was always an experiment about social control and the proles (or the ‘sheeple’) have fallen for it hook, line and sinker. I think I might shoot myself.
Don’t, keep Britain tidy, shoot a sheeple.
Agree. The thing about the sensors was sinister and this video should be spread wide so that people can see what it really is and boycott the shopping centre.
Another thing I thought that would really take this shopping centre to the cleaners is if a customer has some sort of accident or incident while in the premises and the antoscial distancing measures and the lack of seating and toilet facilities was the culprit.
Just got back from the park and I’m hopping mad!!!!
I’ve stayed away at weekends, but went yesterday to find new distancing notices by the entrance and a wrinkly old volunteer, on hand for advice and sporting a hi-vis jacket ridiculous blue plastic gloves.
The park was very busy, though there wasn’t a mask in sight. However, I was shocked to see the toilets were locked. I thought maybe it was a weekend thing because, all through the lockup, the toilets have been open during the week.
Well, I’ve just been today and the loos are still locked. I can’t believe it!
How can they claim they are trying to get the sheep out from under their beds if they are simultaneously making even more draconian moves to make it as hard as possible?!
Very sorry to hear what has happened with the toilets. I am appalled that in their obsession with this virus, the government doesn’t seem to be realising that they’re creating more problems which includes the resurgence of cholera, hepatitis A, respiratory problems among others.
Quite so, there is a world of pain hurtling down towards the government (who strongly deserve it); sadly much of it will hit decent folk too.
There’s still a hapless council workman renewing the “do not use” tape wrapped around the monkey bars, every few days, on our common, where there are now regular largeish gatherings of young people, snogging etc etc. He’s doing that instead of emptying the (full) waste bins.
All public loos seem to be locked. Our friend Vernon Coleman has a tragic-hilarious video on this, if Y-T hasn’t taken it down.
It’s an ideal way to humiliate and degrade people, and keep many of them from leaving home at all.
Not all public loos – those that I have visited in the Suffolk coastal region have all been open.
It would seem they are trying to prevent people being out and about for ‘too long’, by limiting ‘shopping/socialising time’ to the time you can manage without needing the loo…
The Birmingham refuse tips have introduced a pre-booking system after the initial chaos when they reopened – whether they should have shut in the first place is another story. My wife took a car load of garden waste down today for our pre-booked slot. All went ok but she was quite amused by the fact she had to negotiate 3 separate hi-viz wearing clipboard wielding functionaries all of whom asked the same inane questions. Seems as though there’ll be plenty of work for the soon to be redundant millions in government mandated pettifoggery.
Dishevelled woman rushes up to policeman.
‘Help, I’ve just been gang raped! It will kill me!’
Officer: ‘Madam, that is serious indeed, but I don’t think even gang rape is necessarily fatal…’
Woman: ‘But you don’t understand! TWO OF THEM WEREN’T WEARING FACE MASKS!!!’
Very good – and extra points for being strongly non-PC. [The only negative being that the policeman was polite and failed to arrest her for wasting police time!]
Depressing but totally expected tone in a reply to my email from my MP. I pointed out that the IFR of Covid-19 was estimated to be in the order of 0.1-0.3%, there was no correlation worldwide between lockdowns in individual countries and their death rates and the peak of infections in the UK clearly occurred before lockdown. None of this, of course, made any impression on this junior minister who tells me (a NHS GP for 35 years with a degree in Physiological sciences) that “the irresponsible comparison between coronavirus and seasonal flu has long been proven dangerously inaccurate” and “excess mortality figures clearly suggest that but for the measures introduced here in the UK by The Government there would have been innumerably more cases and in consequence deaths from this dreadful virus.” So we have a complete evidence free response but, pat on the head, Doctor, you are clearly too stupid to understand!
Dear Dr
Thank you for your email regarding the coronavirus, the Government’s response and an exit strategy.
The irresponsible comparison between coronavirus and seasonal flu has long been proven dangerously inaccurate. You will be aware that more than 140 countries have now introduced measures which restrict citizens’ movement and encourage social distancing. While the same is true for countries around the world, excess mortality figures clearly suggest that but for the measures introduced here in the UK by the Government, there would have been innumerably more cases and, in consequence, deaths from this dreadful virus.
The Government is well aware of the impact its necessary and measured response to coronavirus is having on our economy. However, we know the cost of inaction would have been much higher, not to mention longer lasting. The Government set out its roadmap to recovery on 11 May 2020 and thanks to the enormous efforts of the British people, the country is today able to move to the next stage of its recovery with the reopening of non-essential retail shops and schools, to select year groups, and the easing of social restrictions outdoors.
The overriding priority of the Government is the safety of the nation. That is why all changes, consistent with all measures generally, will be kept under constant review, including by looking at the R value and the new number of infections, to avoid the risk of a second peak that could overwhelm our NHS. In that regard, the New NHS Test and Trace programme will of course help to ensure we keep the virus under control.
You are right to note the importance of ensuring that we get the parts of the NHS that were redeployed into the coronavirus response up and running again. I understand from the Health Secretary that work is already underway to achieve this, progressing in a coronavirus-secure way in order to keep both patients and staff safe. However, it is important to stress that the NHS is still open and available to people who need it; if you need the NHS or are told by a clinician to go to hospital, you must go. Similarly, if you have any medical concerns, you should seek medical advice just as you would have done before coronavirus. And NHS 111 remains available to anyone with residual concerns about visiting hospital for non-coronavirus related matters.
Thank you for contacting me on these issues.
Kind regards
Pathetic
That’s the sort of scientific illiteracy we are up against. And the sort of arrogant, bone-headed ignorance. Were that my MP they’d get a full blast back. Then again, he or she is clearly a brain-free zone.
I wrote to my MP yesterday. I suspect he’s a sceptic, but have challenged him to come off the fence.
Am I correct in reading the first paragraph as saying “lockdown must have worked because lots of other countries have done it and therefore things would have been worse if we hadn’t done it?”
If so, I think the government ought to make us all speak Spanish. Lots of other countries speak Spanish and they can’t all be wrong and if we don’t all start speaking Spanish now, who knows how much worse it might get?
German is what we need to speak, their lack of excess deaths shows that speaking German is the best way to protect from the coronavirus.
Ah yes, but only a couple of other countries speak German, so following their example won’t help as speaking German has been adopted by too few other countries for it to be accepted as the right model. That would be going out on a limb. Like Sweden. And nobody wants to be Sweden.
Why not be Sweden? Seems to have escaped the MSM that 24% of the people who have died in Sweden were over 90 years old!
I’m being sarcastic. I wish we were Sweden.
And reporting real cause of death not like us why do we always shoot ourselves in the foot pathetic
Ahem, Sweden has not locked down and people are not dropping like flies here!
Yes. Please don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t giving the guy’s argument any kind of credit.
I’ve stopped getting answers from mine. The only one she bothered to respond to was the one on Cummings.
So annoying. How does he/she ‘know’ that the effect of inaction would be much higher and longer lasting? What evidence can they provide for that? Absolutely none! AAAAAAGGH. It’s so annoying!
Looks like a collection of standard cut and paste responses that clearly makes no concessions to your personal situation. If I were an experienced doctor such as yourself, I’m sure I’d find it even more irritating than I do anyway.
“The irresponsible comparison between coronavirus and seasonal flu has long been proven dangerously inaccurate.”
This is an especially annoying example of how propaganda works. Of course, there has been no such “proof”. But lots of minor differences have been announced between this virus and flu, and the propagandists have just declared that this means it is “irresponsible” to compare the two. But numerous world class experts in directly relevant fields hold to the comparison as broadly valid. Rightly, imo, based on the numbers overall.
If you can be bothered you could unload on him with an evidence-rich riposte leaning heavily on the authority of your direct medical experience and qualifications, but whether it would have any actual effect to justify the expenditure of your time is pretty questionable. It’s doubtful imo they even read such responses unless you have an existing personal connection to them. If you were to do it on paper headed for your practice (assuming it’s in his or her constituency), it might be at least read, I suppose.
My guess is that the reading process is a quick scan for keywords and the replying process involves heavy use of the CTRL, C and V keys, as you say.
I suspect you’re more likely to get a more reasoned approach if your MP is a Tory back bencher than from a junior minister as they have a little less vested interest in toeing the government line and a dissenting opinion from them is not going to be headline news.
Not very likely, mind you, just more likely.
Mine’s a backbencher. I haven’t seen a peep of dissent out of any of them, on either side. Maybe Iain Duncan Smith on the 2 metre rule. But none of them are publicly anything like on “our” side, as far as I can see.
I have many friends and colleagues who like me from the beginning of “the pandemic” have been totally sceptical about the nonsense being trotted out by our glorious leaders. I’m not aware of anyone in the Cabinet having much of a scientific background and they are being advised by SAGE which as far as I can seen is composed of academics. Anyone with half a medical brain could see that Ferguson’s beloved computer model had come up with a ridiculous number of deaths- he assumed an IFR of 1% and that 80% of the population were susceptible and came up with 500,000 odd deaths. It doesn’t need a bug-ridden computer model to calculate that, a back of a fag packet calculation could come up with the same figure; it was the inputs that were wrong, stupid.
I’d have replied to said MP and asked him to quote his own medical qualifications! How dare a non-medically-qualified MP try to lecture a doctor…!
Your MP/GP seems to be forgetting that the entire point of “flattening the curve” was that there would be the same number of infections and deaths, albeit spread out over a longer period, so that “the NHS can cope” and we can “save our NHS heroes.” And that’s of course if you even believe a lockdown has any scientific merit at all!
A disgusting insult to a qualified prifessional. MP clearly spewing some predigested rubbish.
Sigh, Test and Trace…gave up at that point..
Urgh
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/coronavirus/aussie-man-84-had-covid19-for-11-weeks-with-no-symptoms/news-story/428dfc3a664f2118ec7a6d1169a7d7ba
“Wally Bridges has had six hip replacements, been hit by a truck, broken a leg, survived bladder cancer and, at age 84, has heart issues and an aortic aneurysm.He should have been horribly vulnerable to COVID-19 but, when he caught it, he barely felt it.”
This person had to stay in hospital 11 weeks being asymptomatic all the time as he was PCR pos for Covid-19 all the time
If you can carry this for 11 weeks without symptoms, how can you stop this coming into any country (cocooned New Zealand)? Shall we increase the quarantine time to 11 weeks?
The more one hears about this virus the more insane seems our response when the pandemic peters out. Track and trace?
Or maybe the machine was dodgy like the one at Taunton hospital which gave all false positives and pushed the mythical R for the SW to rise above 1, leading to lots of bedwetting in the comments section of the Dorset local paper.
People in the south west are still referring to those false positives as fact. “Oh but there’s a spike” I’ve been told several times this weekend. And it’s impossible to disabuse them of this belief. I give up.
Another enormous scandal for Lancet. The “recovery” trial where they showed that HCQ was not effective for treatment of late Covid-19 infection in severe cases. BBC/MSM immediately responded with the usual warning how bad HCQ is for Covid-19 but see quote below
“In summary, it appears the RECOVERY trial based its HCQ dosage off a different drug class w/ a VERY different absorption profile…giving patients a near lethal dose of HCQ.”
There is another drug called hydroxy quinoline which is used for amoebiasis. They mixed up this drug with HCQ(a completely different drug) and used the dosage for that drug and /BBC will mention this scandal. Lancet’s reputation in tatters. Left wingers, can’t you see that you are manipulated?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1272542546758074369.html
Sorry this is nonsense. Hydroxychloroquine undergoes accumulation under repeat dosing. In order to reach steady-state as quickly as possible, loading doses must be given to maximize therapeutic concentrations. Such loading is smaller for malaria as the curative dose is over a shorter period and steady-state is not reached. The initial loading dose of 800mgx2 was designed to avoid the slow progressive increase that would occur normally on daily dosing. My disappointment is that it was only given as monotherapy, and there was no evidence of any antiviral activity anywhere without concomitant azithromycin.
Protocol here https://www.recoverytrial.net/files/recovery-protocol-v6-0-2020-05-14.pdf
I have other issues with the Lancet, but the dose in the RECOVEY trial is not one of them. Lethal doses are very seldom identified accurately and rely on data from often a single patient. Some exceptions being water (6L) and caffeine (about 15g). Hydroxychloroquine 20g survival here https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19157361/
Respectfully disagree.I don’t think this is nonsense. It doesn’t give you confidence if they chose a higher dose and mismatch the name of hydroxyquinoline and ad hoc use the drug dose of hydroxyquinoline for amoebiasis and use that amount of drug for treating Covid-19. This is not malaria treatment using very high doses initially. HCQ used for milder cases of Covid-19 was in much lower dosage.
In this study a much lower loading dose on day one
“The therapeutic regime was: HCQ 400 mg every twice in a loading dose followed by 200 mg twice for 5 days, plus AZM 500 mg on the first day followed by 250 mg daily for 5 days.”
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.10.20101105v
In another study HCQ-Doxycycline
From March 19 to March 30, 2020, we analyzed the clinical outcomes of fifty-four (54) high-risk patients who developed a sudden onset of fever, cough, and SOB, were diagnosed or presumed to have COVID-19, and were treated with DOXY (100 mg PO BID for 7 days) and HCQ (two regimens: i) 200 mg PO TID for 7 days or ii) 400 mg PO BID one day, then 400 mg daily for 6 days).
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.18.20066902v1
All other studies,as far as I am aware of, all use the lower dosage and never the dose used in the recovery trial.
The lower dose trials hinted at some antiviral activity (e.g. Gautret, but only with azithromycin combination actually). Hence it is reasonable to presume that higher concentrations and time to reach those higher concentrations are reasonable drivers of clinical response. Whether the regimen has been tested previously is not the most important matter for an untested drug in a new disease with relatively low levels of clinical justification. What matters is whether a possibly relevant concentration can be achieved rapidly and safely, and whether there is acceptable safety cover for the chosen dosing regimen. All patients are monitored for standard safety signals, including ECG cardiac repolarization extension (known as long QT and a known side effect of both HCQ and AZM). Hydroxychloroquine was not stopped for safety reasons – that would have required fewer patients. It was stopped for lack of efficacy.
Agree with the above.But the incompetence is obvious in this interview
http://www.francesoir.fr/politique-monde/interview-exclusive-martin-landray-recovery-hydroxychloroquine-game-over-uk
“FS : How did you decide on the dosage of HCQ ?
ML : The doses were chosen on the basis of pharmacokinetic modelling and these are in line with the sort of doses that you used for other diseases such as amoebic dysentery.”
The chief investigator Recovery trial obviously think HCQ was used in amoebiasis which is false. In line with that, he uses the dose for hydroxy quinolone as used for amoebiasis as a reasonable dose for HCQ against Covid-19.
If that is not gross negligence, incompetence please tell me what is.
Pointless trial if they did not give zinc and azithromycin, because that is the protocol that doctors have said works..
Many trials are dodgy, placebos that work too well (i.e used vitamin C a know antiviral as a placebo with one of the HCQ trials. Sometimes the headlines in papers have a positive outcome but the conclusion of the summary not or vice versa. Many more ploys.
It has been truly sickening the way what used to be a truly world-class medical journal has demeaned itself over several decades. Mind you the same has happened to our formerly world class universities of Oxbridge!
Observed buses driving past me for several hours today. Majority of people NOT WEARING MUZZLES.
Buses still largely empty mind. But clearly no enforcement on the part of Arriva drivers at least. Heartening.
“Observed buses driving past me for several hours today”
Life’s pretty dull nowadays, isn’t it?
Good news on the muzzles though.
Hehehehehe yes yes it is
)
(I was in the entrance of a warehouse pretending to ‘test’ equipment that I knew was already working
To be fair, there are 4 bus routes that run past my house and I’ve spent much more time than usual watching buses today. If anything, they’re even emptier than they have been for the last couple of weeks and mask use has seemed patchy. Around half. This is zone 3 London.
That’s kind of amazing that they are still emptyish in London. Although. I suppose you have more of them there. (On the particular route I was observing there’s like two buses an hour
welcome to the north )
Still though. If they’re not enforcing it in London, that makes me feel really good.
Two an hour? Two a week is good going in rural areas.
Would be fun if someone who lives near TV studios or a railway station used by media types could get a photo of some well-known TV journalist/presenter emerging from a taxi (or getting into one) without a mask…
I went out again for a walk in the afternoon and it was nearly rush hour and the buses were still dead – two went past me where no-one, absolutely no-one was wearing any masks or face coverings.
To be fair most of the buses where I live are empty see bus staff losing their jobs soon
Simon Dolan has posted on Twitter the ‘get out’ clause to use if you get challenged for not wearing one..
Yes, I saw a report that the union are telling staff not to risk confrontation with refuseniks; that, they say is a matter for the police – not that one can find any of course unless you are at a patriotic protest!
They did say that. I posted it on here earlier.
The buses and trains I’ve seen today around here,East Midlands,seem to have fewer passengers than the last few weeks.A large local food factory has a double decker bus on contract that collects workers throughout the town and takes them to work,since last week they have been using two double deckers because they are now only allowed to carry less than half the normal number of passengers on each bus !.
Perhaps something Matthew Hancock can import for the contact tracers in the UK?
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/de-blasio-tells-covid-contract-tracers-not-to-ask-positive-cases-if-theyve-attended-blm-protests/
That’s… just extraordinary. It’s anti-logic.
Just like ‘wokeness’ then.
Not at all…. In order to be anti-logic, you need to understand logic… random posturing bears no relation to logic or its polar opposite. They simply don’t have the intellectual faculties for it.
No, I don’t mean that he’s opposed to logic, I mean that this is the exact opposite of logic. Like matter and antimatter.
Yes, matter and antimatter mutually annihilate. They are diametrically opposite to one another – the interaction may gives off a proton or something, but it’ll be .
Logic and wokethink is like comparing Einstein with a tin of Noodle Doodles.
Would be good if someone could ‘befriend’ a contact tracer so we could get inside info and find out if they get told by Hancock not to ask if people have attended a protest..
I won’t be going to any shop until the measures are scrapped in full.
It’s bad enough at Sainsbury’s, where today a woman told me to stay away even though I was a good distance from her behind the checkout counter.
“Social” distancing not. It’s antisocial and rude.
Yes I hate it ignorant staff barking at you all the time will go on line till it’s all back to normal
Remarkably I managed to get a delivery slot for tomorrow, so I don’t have to actually go into one of the stores for the foreseeable fuchsia. I’m building up a comprehensive larder of non-perishables, household materials and booze, because I feel it in my bones that one day soon we’re going to be waking up to find out that a new lockdown started while we were sleeping. I’m also buying everything I can from Amazon who have been fantastic throughout this, rather than Sainsbury’s which has been like a retail manifestation of the menopause.
Sainsbury’s have been atrocious,a rude Karen there reduced my mum almost to tears by saying her and my dad couldn’t go around the shop together !,I gave the CEO’s office merry hell but they really couldn’t care less.
I think one of the reasons I am how I am is that my 81 year old mum would tear Karen a new one.
I’m genuinely saddened by the misery, humiliation and frustration these little gauleiters are inflicting, and I saw it coming the moment power was conferred on them. In the 70s, the enemy in the Beano was the parkie. These Karens are proof that human nature doesn’t change, and always retains the capacity to disappoint.
Have you noticed that supermarkets have very few bargains or offers these days but I suppose they do have to pay for all the Covid relayed nonsense (eg very fetching staff t-shirts with ‘please stay 2 metres apart’ on the back!)
I will say right at the beginning this is unsubstantiated rumour, gossip and heresay:
While out shopping today I got talking to someone in one of those 2m but being ignored queues to get into the DIY store infested with hi-vis Karens. In my defence not my fault, to keep me busy my wife has gone on a complete house redecoration campaign and I’m trying to fix all the problems that are coming to light with the house.
Anyway this woman saw my fresh scar across the top of my finger and asked how was my visit to A+E – 2 worst things in a kitchen is a blunt knife and a clumsy chef. I keep my knives razor sharp (the wounds heal quicker and better) so guess the problem. I explained that I have a comprehensive first aid kit at home an treated it myself and got it to knit without needing stitches and was complimented on what a good job I done sorting my self-inflicted wound out.
She asked if I didn’t go to A+E as I was scared of coronavirus? Said no and made it clear I was sceptical to say the least. She then asked where can NHS staff send info to as they are not happy as the 2 hospitals in our region that she and her friends work in have had ZERO true covid-19 deaths with or from but lots of certificates with covid-19 listed on it.
No-one in management is interested, no-one will listen, they have been veiled threats against them if they mention it and they have no idea where to turn to as they do not like or agree with what is going on.
Pointed them in the direction of here, wed lake bell solicitors, lockdowntruth, ukcolumn, drmalcolm and so on.
Hopefully they will.
I also think a letter to the local authorities and LEAs is coming up after the response to Siman Dolan from the idiots in charge – no wonder the MSM will not report on it, it’s a total shambles and stinks of fuckwittery.
Well that’s interesting.
If you don’t got back to one of your previous posts from today here is my answer about opticians:
Took the wife for her yearly eye test yesterday to a local independent that she has used for years as she’s diabetic.
Only person wearing a mask was the optometrist/opthalmologist doing the eye test.
Only changes we could see was the useless flimsy screen in front of the receptionist, hand wash if you wanted it but it was not mentioned or forced and a printed certificate on the wall saying they had passed the covid-19 hygiene/cleaning course.
They do not do the puff of whatever into your eye to check pressure of the eyeball at the moment on advice from their trade body.
Nowhere as bad as I thought it would be, almost civillised.
Good to hear some positive info for once!
That “puff of whatever” is checking for glaucoma. Are we expecting that people won’t start developing glaucoma at the moment?
V important point. I used to take my late mother for an eye test precisely to get the puff test. Glaucoma has very few symptoms, until it blinds you.
I get free eye tests because my dad had glaucoma. I’m about 6 months overdue an eye test at this point. I won’t claim I’m very worried right now, but if they’re not going to give me a pressures test, then there’s no point in going at all.
The amount of weed smoked over the past 3 months should keep glaucoma at bay. (Replying for a friend).
At last people in the NHS might be thinking about speaking out. I hope they have the courage to do so. If they do then the great brainwashed general public might actually listen.
Wait until the public enquiry. CRASH BANG WALLOP.
I hope that if a few start telling the truth it will turn int a flood.
All this can be over except for the trials of ministers & senior civil servants who got us into this mess.
I worry not. It seems clear that the actual number of deaths isn’t really the issue. People died, ergo the virus is bad, ergo this has been the right thing to do.
Very interesting! I have heard similar from many avenues.
Can people who baulk at conspiracy theories concede, at least in part, that this has been stage?
Am sure Sign Dolan would be interested in this, especially the bit about the veiled threats. Simon posted yesterday about the gagging of teachers so evidence that the health service appear to be being gagged would be helpful for his case. Anyone know how to reach Simon if you don’t have Twitter?
I see they’ve sent the man to prison who urinated next to the memorial for PC Keith Palmer. Fourteen days for “outraging public decency”.
OK, but they close the public lavatories and they close the pubs. So where are people supposed to go? Anywhere would have outraged public decency. And he was drunk, as one suspected, and he had no idea that the memorial was there. A fine, maybe, but prison?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-urinate-keith-palmer-memorial-andrew-banks-court-a9566301.html
Indeed… if anyone outraged public decency it was the yellow-bellied ‘Sir’ Craig Mackay – the senior officer who, when he saw PC Palmer being attacked locked his car doors and sped away. No consequences faced.
And I distinctly remember public decency being outraged at the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, ordered by Cressida Dick. No consequences faced.
The guy convicted is clearly not amongst our best or brightest, but yes, if there are no public conveniences and no public buildings or businesses open, what the hell are you supposed to do?
Any photos of BLM or Antifa peeing in the streets? There surely must be. I dare say there’s even the odd copper who has been caught short.
Well, I’ve had a look and I found this:
https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/public-outrage-as-man-arrested-for-urinating-on-statue-of-sir-winston-churchill/
And has he been convicted? I think I already know the answer..
And this guy was peeing ON the statue, not merely next to it..
This is basically modern blasphemy, like a lot of the “hate speech” stuff.
When I saw the story and the pic, I assumed the man probably just wasn’t aware of the location – he wasn’t urinating on the memorial, just next to it. Frankly, I’m amazed there could be any conviction at all in such circumstances..
When the sh*t really hits the fan, and the establishment and wokerati (same thing) need defending against some very nasty people who want their stuff, it would have been people from this chap’s community who would have stepped up to the plate to do it, just as they have done before. These people are the real thing: fearless hard cases – and I admire their sheer guts and bravado and capacity for alcohol.
But if the PM and all the papers slag them off as they have done today, why should they help out in future? Soy-sipping Guardian readers are ten a penny. People who will wade into violence without hesitation are an incredible national asset – and the British used to have a much-envied reputation for it.
Yes, when there’s a real war, the first place they go for lads to fight is the working class towns and cities, like my place of birth. That’s what made me so angry when the slurs went in thick and fast over Brexit. I am taken by how many of the governing elite are the children of conscientious objectors. I’m not sure how we could defend our country if there was a conventional war when we have so many who seem hell-bent on destroying from within.
Absolutely right.
Harsh, especially as he turned himself in.. How many people have been convicted and sentenced for crimes committed the weekend before? Double standards..
I’ve just watched Raab in the press conference.
Why will he not smash Beth Rigby’s false dichotomy between lives and the economy?
He lets her get away with perpetuating this. Why are they so scared of pointing out that there is no distinction? Is it because then they will get questions about lives lost to the lockdown? Do they think such questions can be avoided or delayed?
And by the way, I’m still convinced that Andrew Doyle is writing all of her material.
The “top rank” of TV news journalists hasn’t come out of this with much, if any credit. I wonder if any of them have wanted to ask more fundamentals questions and not been allowed to by their bosses, or whether they just haven’t had the interest or imagination.
Of course it’s their bosses. This is all staged.
I agree Bella. Too many ducks in a row, over too long a time period, for this to be anything other than a coup.
Do you imagine any of these TV news wimmin don’t have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they like? Okay, maybe Emily Matalan got a flea in her ear after that Newsnight mongologue, but not exactly the kicking she deserved, was it?
I gave up years ago expecting politicians to question the basic thinking behind the questions they’re asked by either the press or their political opponents. I can’t explain why they won’t do it, because some of the thinking is so obviously flawed and attacking the question would seem to be so easy, but they definitely won’t.
A few things to note from Raab.
1) He mentioned a second wave, apropos of nothing. Can’t imagine he thought of that himself. Who’s writing the script? Where’s the question from journalists asking where the evidence is for this second wave, as opposed to the theory.
2) He talked about “suppressing” the virus. What exactly does he mean? When is it “over”? Where are the questions from journalists about when this is finished?
3) He said “the science is fluid, ministers make the decisions” or something along those lines. Where did that come from? The “realist” wing?
Seems like an incoherent mess to me.
Don’t like the mention of a 2nd wave – is this a none-too-subtle new programme of continual hints that a 2nd wave is inevitable?
Well they have to do that if they want their nonsense to carry on having support, but then why say the science is fluid, which was presumably said to give wiggle room to reduce two metres? One thing sounds like they want to perpetuate the madness, the other sounds like they want a way out.
Like I said, seems to contradict itself.
On a mask box – from Simon Dolan’s twitter feed:
Brilliant
Omigosh. Cat out if bag. Miiiiiaaaaaaoooow.
But actually the muzzles have nothing to do with the bug, and everything to do with signalling compliance. Whatever s..t they throw at you, you’ll take it.
Simon has asked people to send in an FOI to the Department of Transport ‘asking for the name and findings of the peer reviewed study which led to the imposition of mandatory face masks on public transport you can do so here’
The address to write to is on his Twitter feed. I rather think there is no such study!
This has cheered me up no end. Clearly someone in the PPE world has realised that the hard of thinking might be have unrealistic expectations of the level of protection that these masks offer!
Remember the chicken wire to catch mosquitoes analogy? Sadly, muzzle-istas will just trot out the crap that wearing one stops you spreading this nearly non-existent virus. We just keep resisting and hope others will wake up…
Please God this madness ends soon. At present, my life is on hold, there is basically no reason for me to get out of bed in the morning. I’m single, early-retired, and until the bubonic plague struck us I was doing a significant amount of voluntary stuff, helping elderly folks and those with mental and social issues. I dread to think what my erstwhile clients and their spouses/families are dealing with now. No medical treatments, no respite care, no Age UK and MIND support groups.
My (Catholic) bishops tell us we can enter the parish church now, for “private prayer”. Well, hoop-de-doo. So, I can go in and say my rosary, attended by a squad of masked and gowned parish Karens (nauseating at the best of times) hovering over me at my devotions and sanitising anything thing I may happen to come in contact with? Fuck off. And don’t think you’ll be getting any money from me, for the period you utterly betrayed us, bishops.
Is this the world you want to live in?
No Dave, it isn’t… the ennui, frustration, stress, anxiety, panic and resentment are slowly building and they aren’t going to get an opportunity to reduce any time soon that I can see.
The only thing we can do is keep badgering our MPs, councillors and other such sinecured frauds and leaches.
And we can change churches if we’re being Karened out of our minds… I’m sure some priests are taking a much more pragmatic view, even if you have to go to a neighbouring diocese. I’d agree that it’s outrageous one may even be made to feel that need – especially if it’s a church you’ve attended for a long time, and a priest you have a close relationship with, but I know some who are doing just that.
Thank you, Aidan. We aren’t getting the Mass back any tme soon, that’s for sure.
My 84 year old aunt – my favourite aunt – who has been an active Catholic for her entire life is reduced to attending Mass on YouTube, during the period when she’s trying to recover mentally and spiritually from losing her husband of 50 years. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Any “churches” going along with social distancing aren’t worth their salt
Oh that’s a far wider subject…. I’m sadly concluding that there are very few churches left that are prepared to represent what is still a silent majority amongst church-goers who are aghast at women priests and gay marriage.
I’m afraid I would never go to a church service lead by a woman or an openly gay priest – I’m sure there must be exceptions, but I’ve seen too many blithering, spineless, pandering sermons that directly contradict Bible teachings from these hastily appointed tokens intent on pushing their tawdry and insidious agendas, and too many examples of congregations dwindling to nothing as the church abandons its teachings and, in turn, abandons those who have chosen to live by those teachings over a lifetime.
The situation in the Church mirrors the wider culture. Libs in charge of the agenda; women in charge in the parish. They control everything, their hands on all the levers of power. True supernatural faith in retreat. Stay strong. And… “stay safe!”.
Don’t forget the paedophiles that are just conveniently forgotten, just like a certain report that the government is refusing to publish.
Down voted for bringing up the inconvenient truth about paedophiles in the church, some people need to wake up and live in the real world.
No, downvoted for making an unnecessary and unwelcome interjection, purely for the purposes of virtue signalling, like a woke imbecile.
The guy said the church now mirrors the wider culture. There is a systemic problem with paedophiles in this country which is conveniently ignored by the woke media. You’re calling me woke, for raising a topic the woke ignores, you paedophile loving utter moron!
No need, Davey. Were you saying at the weekend that the hippies should tear down the Baden Powell statue because the scouts harboured the occasional fruit?
You keep defending your paedophile priests and vicars, and believing in fairies mate.
Do you know… I sometimes think that, if pressed, these Priestesses could be pushed to admitting their belief that if Jesus had just obeyed the rules and kept his nose clean, he needn’t have come to such a sorry end.
mate, dont get bogged down with the bollocks, thats too easy – crack on with life
I’ll try!
Vernon Coleman on churches not being opened yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc973XH_KRw
Article from Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson (Oxford Uni, Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) that blows the social distance ‘rule’ apart:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/15/no-scientific-evidence-support-disastrous-two-metre-rule/
The gist is that when you dig into The Lancet meta study (of 172 previous studies), only 5 reported specifically on Covid exposure and proximity with infection – comprising a total of 477 patients with just 26 actual cases of infection. Our ‘scientists’ worked from this, then doubled the distance to be on the safe side, according to Professor Dingwall’s interview on Sky a few weeks ago.
Heneghan’s conclusion: ‘Much of the evidence informing policy in this outbreak is poor quality’.
I think that is being polite!
Carl Heneghan is the Professor for EVIDENCED BASED MEDICINE at Oxford. Neil Ferguson is the Professor of THEORETICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY. Who do you believe?
The one who talks to the camera with his eyes open when answering questions posed by a journalist or politician. Clue, the one who is actually a doctor!!
6 COVID-19 deaths announced by PHE for 14th June in Scotland again. Only 15 the day before too.
How much longer can this charade go on for?
Missed the 0 for Scotland for the 14th June
Probably until Wee Krankie has lost her desire to hog the limelight!
Scotland is in it for the long run in that case.
As long as they think they can get away with it since it’s all about control
That’s a pity. There is or was a lot of competition in that market. When the AAA tried an outrageous price increase on us my wife phoned them and said we didn’t want to pay it, and they said “oh all right then” and cancelled the increase. Worth a try.
Meant the AA, not the yank version.
i am with AA and we go through the same ritual every year. They auto renew (as it is on card) with a huge increase, and i ring them up and tell them where to go,
didnt mean to send that as it is unfinished. after i tell them where to go, i then tell them comparative quote details and they happily revise the premium back to what it was . I am actually quite happy with the service i get from the AA .
Apologies if this has been posted already, but it appears that Norway has abandoned track-and-trace as the loss of privacy cannot be justified by the low number of cases:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-norway-apps/norway-to-halt-covid-19-track-and-trace-app-on-data-protection-concerns-idUKKBN23M18T
Cynic that I am, I imagine issues with cost and effectiveness are being shrouded under cover of a feigned concern for privacy and liberty.
Good! Were they calling it ‘track and trace’ or ‘test and trace’? Am sure it is no accident that the Uk system has now changed the word ‘track’ to ‘test’..
More common sense from Germany:
A teacher in Sachsen-Anhalt tried, via the courts, to prevent schools from operating without ‘social distancing’. The Higher Administrative Court in Magdeburg ruled that the relaxation of the social distancing rules did not contravene the State’s obligations towards the health of teachers or pupils, as there was no definitive scientific evidence that reducing the ‘social distance’ from 1.5m was harmful:
https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/sachsen-anhalt-unterricht-ohne-mindestabstand-in-grundschulen-ist-rechtens-a-709ff426-5b57-48b2-9b44-2b9ddebc65d8
Yeah! If only we could have some from FatBoJo!
Be careflu what you wish for. Germany has trampled mercilessly on free speech over recent years.
I thought I’d leave that typo in as it made me chuckle.
Hopefully Simon Dolan can use that in his case..
the problem we have is that we are all in agreement. we have become a concensus not a debate.
We need people of a different persuations to bring their argument to the table
without that we are simply a consensus, not a debate
I agree (couldn’t resist, sorry)
why aploagise for free speach
Haha, good one!
i have familly who live in Isslington, I love them to bits , but Im always accusing them of being a consensus not a debate
That you’re right is why I keep coming back here. The idea of having civil discourse on the internet with someone whose opinion differs meaningfully from yours is proven to be an absurd halcyon dream. I’ve been trying for 25 years, and the quality of debate dropped like a stone when the internet was made accessible to those of limited intellect.
I love to debate with anyone who is game – i dont drink lattes by i do like coffee – if u are brave enough for an intelectual gibber jabber – im game too
i am very happy to be persuaded
Okay, here we go then….
Proposition: All Lives Matter is the wrong response to the BLM chant, for the same reason that All Lives Matter was the wrong response to the COVID panic.
I’m.i,e it. Couldn’t agree more.
Damn my typing. *I like it
“All Lives Matter is the wrong response to the BLM chant”
Why?
And what’s the correct response, in your view?
Not sure what mine is, other than “identity politics will lead to trouble, it’s the wrong road”.
I agree with your statement, but it doesn’t negate or conflict with my proposition.
I don’t have the right answer on the All Lives Matter question… it’s a bit like science.. I can disprove this, doesn’t mean I can prove that.
If you were to assert ‘all lives matter’, my first question would be, ‘even Harvey Weinstein’s life? Even Charles Mansun’s? Even Harold Shipman’s? Or Peter Sutcliffe’s? Or Osama Bin Laden’s? Or the life of a misunderstood and underappreciated Austrian artist in the morn of the 20th Century?’
If you grant me that, then you have to agree that ‘All Lives Matter’ is false. We then negotiate on where the line is drawn.
totaly with you – utub the Glenn show, Cops and Race
two grownups having a grown up coversation
are these 2 middle class intelectuals out of touch, or have they got a point? discuss…..
Saturday night’s Triggernometry stream was powerful on this, too… as was Dave Smith’s latest Part of the Problem podcast (also on YT).
sorry mate – didnt read proprly – way too complicated
the covid panic is irrational – not baszed on fact
the blm chant is not based on fact
simples!
That is also true… sadly they both prove the power of rhetoric – a language appearing almost alien to those of us who prefer to deal in facts (i.e. dialectic).
I like consensus. It’s what I need right now as not many people I know agree with me. The problem with online debate is that it starts off in a reasonable and balanced way, then as more people join it becomes less reasonable and more unbalanced. Before long it has descended into arguments before finishing up with personal abuse. There’s no substitute for face to face debate.
It’s good for sanity to know there are others of like mind, it keeps us going. But I would love to engage with a true lockdown believer who’s prepared to argue their case based on logic, evidence, reason, rationality.
Yes, exactly not just try to shout you down by accusing you of wanting to ‘kill people’!
One possibly interesting point to debate is this:
Let’s assume for a minute that lockdown followed by new normal actually saves covid-19 deaths.
And let’s assume that Imperial’s prediction of 510,000 deaths was correct.
I don’t think they ever claimed they would save all of those lives, though that’s what Ferguson seemed to say the other day, but let’s say that we could have kept deaths down to just a little over average, for the year.
We go on for a few years with the “new normal” and then find a vaccine, so maybe a fair few of those 510,000 are still alive.
Would that have been worth it? Where would you draw the line? How many deaths?
i have very little experience of this form of debate, but if people go off piste it is easy enough to ‘ignore’ by not reading their posts – but never mentaly ignore just because you dont like what they are saying, its much more intersting to engage where possible
National Trust just sent me a sugary little newsletter about how happy the birdies are in all the places I can’t visit.
To which I replied as follows:
Why the bloody hell should I want to listen to anything you say? You have cast me out from all my most loved places, plastered them with threatening notices, blocked entrances with tree trunks and rocks and barbed wire, and shown clearly how determined you are to keep your sites shut off forever, from everybody. Cowards, traitors, You shame the tradition that gave you life.
Fuck off. Just fuck off.
May be freely copied by anyone else soft enough to have been a member of the NT in Wales. (I have cancelled my membership.)
OS. Sorry about the NT bits I left in. Hands shaking with anger.
This lockdown is like a wet dream for the NT. Micro managing with stupid signs and one way systems. How they love to treat everyone like 2 year olds. I went to Stourhead last week. Told NT woman at the end that it was awful, horribly sanitised. She tried to persuade me it was ‘better than nothing’ as if I should be grateful.
Did you put the ‘fuck off’ bit in the reply Annie ?,please tell me you did !.
Indeed. Everyone I know who was an NT member has, in sadness, turned their back on it.
It was thoroughly infiltrated by identity grifters and eaten from within. If the rioters toppling statues are the sprinters, those who now control the NT are the marathon runners of the long march through the institutions.
I cancelled the renewal of my membership, due soon, and wrote to NT explaining why. They emailed back offering a 25% reduction! If they’d done that to start with, like English Heritage, I might have considered it but I emailed back saying thanks, but no thanks!
I’m not surprised that it was reported that the National Trust has asked how a bailout, if there are more than enough members are cancelling or not renewing en masse due to their antisocial distancing measures and lack of facilities.
They took a statue down from outside the front door of Dunham Massey last week so I shredded my membership card.. What are they going to do once they come for the Hall?
Reminder to make a donation to Free Speech Union
https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-free-speech-union-fighting-fund
I was doing a bit of google research on the FSU earlier and came across several Leftie articles about it. I had no idea how much the lefties hate and fear Toby until I read how they tried to mack him and the FSU – he must be doing a pretty good job (though I have yet to come across a single politician who has been influenced). I rather doubt Toby is bothered; after all, we all know the quote, ” First they mock you …. “
”mock” not “mack” of course.
Muck rakers, they deserve mockery
That was Gandhi… Gandhi has been cancelled for being a racist.
Go figure.
True, I’d forgotten that. I wonder who will be next – Christ allowed that woman to kneel down and wash his feet, surely that must have been sexist!
Well, Millicent Fawcett whose statue was erected in Parliament Square recently had a very questionable involvement in the Boer War.
It’d be terrible of anything were to happen to that. Obviously.
And for speaking up for armed self-defence too. For those who didn’t feel capable of non-violence.
Done
My daughter has just finished her first shift at the hospital since the management took the ridiculous decision that all staff must wear a face mask at all times and in all areas.I have to say she didn’t look well when she came home,she said it has been absolutely awful wearing a mask all day,she and several of her colleagues quickly ended up with headaches that lasted all day,her eyes are sore,she has a rash where the mask has been and she feels at lot more tired than usual.The staff have put a lot of complaints into Occupational Health and they say they will discuss it with management tomorrow,no-one thinks this will make any difference.The general consensus amongst the staff is that the NHS trust is trying to justify the huge amount of money spent on PPE that wasn’t necessary.
I foresee a lot of hospital staff going off with illness or stress
With medics I can sympathise.
Administrators, I cannot.
That’s probably where the NHS staff shortage will occur – loads of medics coming down with illnesses associated with prolonged mask wearing.
And it will somehow be turned in to a triumph for Johnson & co.
So what’s the solution?
Complete disengagement from media and polity. Eventually, a parallel, underground civilisation will evolve. We’re already seeing the seedlings… those hairdressers and shop-keepers prepared to ignore the whole lockdown thing, advertising through word of mouth.
We’ve all had a good hard lession in exponentiation over recent weeks.. So long as everyone who knows about a product or service tells 2 people…
seems that people are just getting on with it
Keep buggering on.
Try to persuade your fellow citizens around to your point of view, by whatever means you have at your disposal. Support other like-minded individuals and businesses/organisations.
Try to stay sane.
As far as possible, withdraw financial and other support from anywhere that pushes the “new normal”, making clear your reasons.
Opinion is beginning to change. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think it will change enough to move us back to normal. The human social instinct is powerful.
I think the tapering off of the furlough will wake a good few people up!
It’ll help, for sure. Be nice to think we’ll be over it by then anyway though, every passing day more damage is done.
Watching the Q&A in ITV. Karol Sikora clearly muzzled to some degree but still positive. What the fuck is the ITV Corona safety message though? Virus can live on cardboard for up to 24hrs! Can live on metal for 2-3 days! Tiny droplets can travel at least two metres! 19 times more likely to speed indoors! Why the crap did we lockdown and stay indoors? Bloody joke, patronising and scaremongering extraordinaire.
You are doing a fantastic job, but I feel it is like the Resistance blowing up the occasional train, when what we are waiting for is D-Day.
The “death” statistics are clearly wrong. The BBC reporting is clearly deceitful. The “science” is clearly ignorant.The NHS is almost empty. And yet it is taboo to mention these facts. Dr. Atul Gawande: quite often the doctors just don’t know, and the autopsy results (when done) are not what they expected.
We have a powerful nexus of the BBC (I’d say the broadcast media, but the problem is the BBC), the public health professionals, and elected politicians subservient to both. They don’t give a ** about the cost, because it has no impact on them personally. A simple rule, 80% pay up to max £2,500 for any public sector worker not at their normal place of work, would see lockdown disappear like morning mist.
So it’s facemasks for at least a year then.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/15/fears-face-mask-vigilantes-bus-boss-warns-issues-might-arise/
Ah, the good old “new normal” again. Please wake me up! This MUST be a nightmare.
Just watching this video which is very interesting, particularly as it was recorded on March 20th.. very prescient.. https://vids.theoven.lol/video/1385/d-e-sub-corona-the-collapse-of-the-system—corona-und-der-herbeigefuhrte-crash-ernst-wolff-?channelName=Anonymous
Always good to be sure who the utter see you next Tuesdays are.
Agreed… a badge of dishonour is always a welcome sight when it comes to sizing someone up.
Current thinking for Scotland:
https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1272613755298426880
Current thinking on COVID-19: (thread) 1. This virus is too dangerous to let spread through a population unchecked. Not only bc of health services capacity & deaths in elderly/vulnerable groups, but also because of the morbidity it causes. Not the flu but a multi-system disease.
Countries cannot stay in lockdown forever, or even until a vaccine. Cannot expect people to shield indefinitely & kids need to be back in school, shops/pubs open, & 1m v. 2m misses larger issue that kids need to play together & even at 1m many businesses not financially viable.
The ‘least worst’ path out ‘test/trace/isolate’ will be stretched when winter hits & flu symptoms rise which can be the same as COVID symptoms. Already hard for hospitals to categorize patients (green/red/amber) without testing them. 2nd winter lockdown needs to be avoided.
Increasing # of countries attempting/succeeding at national elimination (get rid of virus w/ border screening) like Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, Faroe Islands, Iceland, New Zealand & E.Asian countries. They can form safe ‘travel bubble’ & wait for other countries to join them.
Instead of living with constant threat of Covid-19, people might start asking their own governments – why not try to get rid of it altogether? With border checks, people can return to “normal” life whether seeing elderly relatives, opening schools full-time, & sports & weddings.
What the world needs now:
https://youtu.be/lAacOHkQMzw
… [Trackback]
[…] Read More: lockdownsceptics.org/2020/06/14/latest-news-55/ […]