There is a simple dilemma facing us as the election approaches. This is what I will call the Goodwin-Hitchens dilemma. The dilemma, for those of you who want to vote, is whether to vote for Reform or vote against Labour.
I call this the Goodwin-Hitchens dilemma because there is no question to my mind that the cases for each side have been stated most effectively by the academic political scientist Matthew Goodwin and the journalist Peter Hitchens: not least in the debate that Unherd hosted last week, ‘The Alternative Election Hustings’, where Goodwin and Hitchens spoke against each other, as well as against Rod Liddle and some others who presented quixotic, charming or alarming but ultimately irrelevant arguments in favour of other parties.
There is a consensus that the Conservatives have, over the last few years, performed poorly and ended up in a tangle. This was perhaps inevitable given their attempt to ride through Brexit. But it was certainly complicated by their capitulations to many standard administrative Leftist policies, most obviously concerning COVID-19, but also concerning Net Zero, Immigration and Diversity. These have unstuck the historical Conservative party as its subtle or cynical habit of capitulating to these while pretending not to has worn so thin that it has put itself in the position of having to admit that it is in fact in agreement with Labour — hence vote Labour — or that it has gone completely wrong — hence vote Reform.
The wonderful thing about this consensus is that it is almost universal. The entire nation is bonded together as effectively as if Henry V and Churchill and Harry Kane had formed a triumvirate. I see Labour and Green pundits using the same rhetoric of “decline” and “a need for change” as Reform and all but the most rigor-mortised brain-in-an-Egyptian-vase Conservatives. And of course now, as everyone anticipates a change, we see everyone working up a history of modern Britain in which the last 14 years are treated as a block, so that Nick Clegg and George Osborne are supposed to be part of the same rot as Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Just as everyone came to revise their estimation of 1997 in terms of the War in Iraq and the Financial Crisis, so everyone is coming to revise their estimation of 2010 in terms of Cost of Living and the Boats. Here in the Daily Sceptic we may deplore the evident absence of any discussion of COVID-19 but, let us face it, no politician ever wants to admit responsibility — except ostentatiously, for their achievements — and the truth is that what really happened during COVID-19 is still so embarrassing that it will have to be left to some future A.J.P. Taylor to tell the story at a time when everyone is willing to receive it.
Anyhow, back to the dilemma, for it is about whether we want to be positive or negative, whether we want to try to work for a long-term reform of politics — and accept that the worst that could happen has happened—or try to prevent the worst that could happen from happening. Our assessment of this depends on how serious we think it is that Labour will entrench a set of antipolitical protocols that will lock in a foolish administrative Leftist politics. Perhaps it will, perhaps it will not: perhaps, like all governments, it will do a certain amount, but then discover that the system of mediations running downwards from the monarchy, acrosswards from the institutions, and upwards from media and mass, will clog and clot its progress, and generate a situation of unexpected vicissitudes which will require the sort of headless-chicken virtue-signalling improvising which is nine-tenths of politics nowadays.
Goodwin has a point. If Labour has happened, if the thing is done and dusted, then a vote for the Conservatives will be a wasted vote, because it will appear to ratify the Bad Old System of the Uniparty or Blob — or what I prefer to call (having a taste for 18th-century language) the Court — in which Labour is the kamikaze wing of the consensus and the Conservatives are the carpetbagging wing of the same consensus. If we ratify this system then we are still stuck in the 1990s or 2000s: a mythical world in which we enjoy voting for or against Tory ‘scum’ and Labour ‘silt’, with no one doing anything about the quality of the water in the river of our politics. The problem with the Hitchens position is that although Labour is appalling, and even more appalling for lacking the decoration of hypocrisy which reconciles so many of us, at times, to the Conservatives, the Conservatives are pretty appalling too, and logically at the moment a vote for Conservatives just seems to be an admission that we are more half-hearted and cynical than Labour, while mostly agreeing with them. Hitchens’s reason for voting Conservative is very Hitchensesque, but, alas, it still ends in a vote for the Conservatives.
But Hitchens also has a point. This is because Starmer is extremely Blairite in one and perhaps two respects. He is Blairite in one obvious way, and this is in the positively Mandelsonian attempt to avoid letting Labour startle the pigeons. No one in Labour will disturb those busy dirtbirds of the City of London. Labour wants economic stability. This is New Labour redivivus: respectable, anti-Corbynite. And Starmer is perhaps Blairite in a second respect — if Hitchens is right — in that there is a conspiracy of the Latter Day Trotskyists to pretend to be sweet and reasonable when in fact they are committed Gramscian Marchers-Through-The-Institutions and intend to tie up the nation in a lot of what we now call lawfare, DEI, SDGs and goodness knows what else — with all sorts of newly recruited Thought Police to steer us along in our new comfortable conformity. If this is so, and it certainly seems at least possible, then Starmer’s regime may seem to be the telos of everything that has happened in the United Kingdom ever since the phrase ‘political correctness’ was first heard, whenever that was (let’s say, for sake of argument, the 1990s). Equity, Trans, Zero, Crisis, Economy, Ophobia, Privilege — everything will be bundled together in a grand Amazon packet and ‘delivered’ in such a way that it cannot be refused, even if we have to break down our doors to get the whole multi-purpose, rainbow-coloured, naughty-stepping, swear-boxing, procrustean-sleeping, brain-chipping, knee-bending, heat-pumping machine into the house.
But both sides have their problems.
Goodwin might be contributing to our doom. If Hitchens is right then there is no long term. The short term — Labour — will become the long term once Labour establishes its politics in the constitutional frame of our system.
On the other side, Hitchens might be contributing to our doom by condemning us to an unreformed system in which there is no likely that anyone will even be able to envisage opposition to the current Court of the higher-educated — half the population, remember.
What to do? No advice here. Historically, sceptics were always high-and-dry sorts who said — like Sextus Empiricus or David Hume — that one should not seek to change the world but, rather, go along with its traditions even if one personally was not entirely comfortable with them. Michael Oakeshott, a recentish sceptic, used to shrug his shoulders whenever asked a question about politics and say, “I don’t find it necessary to have opinions on such matters”. This sceptical doctrine, of course, was held at a time when societies were traditional. And we no longer live in a traditional society. Which is perhaps why sceptics are having to come out of the woodwork, the ivory tower, or the garden to say, “What the hell is going on?”
Good luck!
Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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They can just foxtrot oscar, sorry about my profanity I have zero tolerance for these people any more, they make me so angry.
I have found polls load the question for what they want you to say. I have no time for them.
…can’t remember the last time I saw anyone wearing a mask in my area….……as for testing, I think we need to call them out. I was walking my dog when a lady I see now and again said, “I won’t come too close I’ve just tested positive for Covid”…so I just said…”It’s only a cold by a new name, and I’ve had millions, so I’m not worried….but thanks for being polite…and off I went…..my hope is that it wasn’t rude, but that she might have a think?? I can always hope….
I was forced down the ‘get a jab or lose your job’ path. I wish I had had the courage of my convictions and said no. I have had two AZ jabs and had covid twice, absolutely, positively no more jabs for me.
Thank you for being so candid. You have my eternal respect, Benthic.
And I am so sorry you (and so many others in exactly your position) were so abused…
Don’t beat yourself up about it…seriously..if I wasn’t retired and instead had young kids, and a mortgage? Who knows…? The point is it was a giant scam of epic proportions, and many who got caught up in it were victims…..I mean it…
I love my family and friends, and many succumbed, for many reasons, and I’m not angry with them so much as the people who utterly scammed them….
My daughter was a specialist cancer nurse and was the only person in her department to refuse the un-tested vaccine. She’s just been promoted to run the department.
Bravo to her; obviously brought up sensibly by her parents!
I accompanied my wife into a NHS hospital in Aberdeen for her to have her electronic bone anchored hearing aid monitored. She was told to wear a mask and said she did not because of the stud in her skull and no-one challenged her.
I arrived a little later to be confronted with all the the apparatus of the last 3 years – mask dispensers, antiseptic sprays and doom laden notices – I ignored them all and was in the hospital waiting for an hour without a mask. Not one person challenged me and yet everyone had a mask on. Why? It can only be because either they are still scared or they do not want any confrontation.
I live out in the Highlands and this is the first time I have seen anyone with a mask for months and certainly I have not met anyone who is still testing. Who are these people?
cracking isn’t it? and no fundamental questions raised as to why all the jabbed seem to be continuously getting Covid or viruses in general.
A boosted etc friend was ill 2 weeks ago, she told me she had tested positive and is in fact still doing so even though she feels better. How many of these crap instruments of torture do people have? why do they test every time they sneeze. they didn’t for flu or a cold. Do they still get the tests for free?
my belief is that the testers and the maskers will never let it go, it has given their lives meaning, they are part of their own disaster movie, its exciting something to tell the Grandchildren.
I am trying so hard not to hate them, these people who have colluded with the collapse of the country, and who are the equivalent of religious zealots.
I just wish they would form a commune and go live somewhere like New Zealand or Australia, take Biden, Farrar. Fauci indeed all the Covid tyrants with them and go live their miserable lives away from those of us who have the sense and joy of life as a free human
Amen to that, Hester.
Cut New Zealand and Australia a break.
I wouldn’t wish those barstewards even on Xi Jinping.
Inaccessible Island for the lot of them.
Noooooooo! There are far too many in Australia already!
How do we wake up these Covid tyrants?
Not New Zealand or Australia! They like authoritarian regimes so perhaps China or North Korea.
I think you are spot on with the point that it has given their lives meaning, they are part of their own disaster movie – so exciting, and something to talk about.
With regard to the tests they are like the free gift on the front of a children’s magazine – they cost nothing to make in China and yet we give them predictive powers and permission to say we are ill or well. I am sure they are still getting the tests for free because if people had to pay for them they might stop using them.
We also need to remember that there are vast stocks of unused PPE so encouraging their continued use helps get rid of them.
All opinion polls work to the basis of “The answer you seek will be in the questions you ask”
Jiddu Krishnamurti 1895 – 1986
Those pesky ‘EXPERTS’ are at it again eh!
Definition of EXSPURT : Someone with a past, and a drip under pressure..
The version I recall was “An ex is a has-been and a spert is a drip under pressure!!
Covid rates have been moving higher for more than a week — the Zoe data is complicated because they decided to change the algorithm about a month ago, which resulted in a sudden and massive drop in cases. They appear to now be mucking about with the algorithm, as new cases have been oscillating by about +/- 10% on alternate days for about a week (111,000 today, 136,000 yesterday, 108,000 day before, etc etc). This is probably ‘a good thing’ as the ‘up stage’ of each Covid wave appears to only last 5-6 weeks.
The cry of ‘vaccines are waning’ is odd, because it has already been accepted that the vaccines don’t offer any meaningful protection against infection, and even when it comes to protection from hospitalisation more recent variants have evolved to the point where they can evade the immune response.
Of course, it probably isn’t that big a deal, because Covid is now a ‘nuisance infection’ in most — the only reason to still be concerned about it is because the population-scale experiment into ‘can we introduce disease enhancement in a coronavirus by vaccinating everyone using only the spike protein as antigen’ is still underway.
The problem to watch for re. disease enhancement is an increase in cardiovascular problems and autoimmune diseases, particularly in people not previously considered ‘vulnerable’ — Covid isn’t simply a respiratory disease despite all the reporting of the negative impact of Covid being centred around respiratory distress.
Here is an interesting paper to read from the Israelis:
The Incidence of Myocarditis and Pericarditis in Post COVID-19 Unvaccinated Patients-A Large Population-Based Study (750,000 people).
Last sentence of the abstract, ‘We did not observe an increased incidence of neither pericarditis nor myocarditis in adult patients recovering from COVID-19 infection.’
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35456309/
They were unvaccinated.
Exactly.
The Israeli study was from healthcare records, so it would have only picked up cases where myo-/pericarditis was actually diagnosed. There may be some time confounding relative to the diagnoses in the post-vax era in the sense that in 2020, medics weren’t particularly on the lookout for the conditions. The actual numbers diagnosed as having developed myo-/pericarditis were small (9 myo and 11 peri, after COVID) and the confidence intervals included the possibility that COVID promotes myo-/pericarditis. This pre-vax screening-based study https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2780548 of myo-/pericarditis does suggest that COVID causes myo-/pericarditis but that most cases are sub-clinical, that is to say the patient doesn’t realise anything is wrong and they only show up on screening.
None of this lets the vax off the hook. The results of that screening-based study for myo-/pericarditis are similar to the numbers in the paper on Thai teenagers after their second shot, and the Thai paper was better controlled (they checked the subjects before and after the vax) so we can be more certain about attribution.
Interesting, thank you I was not aware of the Thai teenagers.
The Israeli data is really interesting as they were the guinea pigs for Pfizer getting the first and second shots etc. before any other country – they are the Pfizer lab and I remember reading about myocarditis and pericarditis showing up in army recruits very early on.
Of course they do on planet Zog. On my planet I observe very few people wearing masks, certainly not 40%. Utter rubbish.
I’ve worn a facemark during the last 30 days but only to humour the staff at my mother’s care home during a recent COVID outbreak.
I only wrote this to point out that not everyone who has worn a mask during the last 30 days has done so because they think the masks do any good. From conversations, I think that probably includes most of the care home staff.
Our optician’s is still in full mask and sanitiser mode.
Oh dear Chris. That’s really disappointing to hear, especially as we’re 3 years on now. You should be the bigger person and have the courage of your convictions as opposed to conforming due to social pressure. We all know there are no ”buts” or exceptions when it comes to the hated symbols of indoctrination and obedience. You wear one you perpetuate the problem, simple as that.
Perhaps it would help if those who did it under protest took a felt tipped pen with them and wrote “This mask is useless” on the outside” or took their own annotated one with them.
Oh, they know I think the masks are useless because I keep telling them. As everyone in the home is testing negative for coronavirus infection, they should be gone again soon.
Oh dear, I’m sorry I wrote anything now. I should have more general. My intention was to highlight that of the 40% of people who wore a mask during the last 30 days, the majority probably would have been reluctant mask wearers complying with requests by health or social care settings. Re-reading the extract, I think it is just the 6% who wear them daily we need to worry about.
It’s difficult to believe, isn’t it, although I have seen medical and social care staff wearing them from time to time on the job.
Don’t know about self-testing but the 40% masks figure is utter nonsense. Single digits, especially outside London where it’s mainly Chinese and tourists wearing them. Maybe you get close to that 40% if you count people going to doctor, hospital etc where they get bullied into doing it.
I see a large amount of elderly people wearing them. Obviously they are very scared of getting ill and have been deceived into thinking the face nappys will prevent illness. It is very sad when we know the ill effects of wearing masks – lack of oxygen – unhygenic – bacteria breathed out breathed in again etc
Another headline might say that the majority of Brits are no longer scared of Covid-19, with a sub-heading along the lines of none of those bother to take related “tests” at all.
From a personal perspective, I’ve never used either of them. However, there is still a bit of obsession in the medical trade. E.g. earlier this week I had an appointment at my local dentists for a routine regular check, and before going there I had to fill out an online survey, which in addition to the usual checks/updates of personal details etc, there was an online form related to Covid -19, with a list of queries about symptoms – about half a dozen, as to whether I had experienced any of them in the last number of weeks (about a month) – yes or no. I guess if I’d answered yes, they would not have wanted me in.
As it was, I did have a (somewhat benign) bug in the back end of Winter that fitted the bill with their online survey, but I don’t know exactly what the cause was. Outside the time frame of their query, so I said no to all of them. Of course, in the past, no-one cared about exactly which common cold they had dealt with.
At the surgery, there was no evidence of anything related to the scare at all. All back to normal this week.
“As it was, I did have a (somewhat benign) bug in the back end of Winter that fitted the bill with their online survey, but I don’t know exactly what the cause was. Outside the time frame of their query, so I said no to all of them. Of course, in the past, no-one cared about exactly which common cold they had dealt with.”
Quite frankly John that is one of the most bizarre statements I have come across on here.
How the hell does anybody known the cause of a “benign” bug?
I have never, ever in my lifetime had a cold that was identified by name. Who ever tries to see a doctor in order to have their ‘cold’ named?
“Dr I think I’ve got a cold.”
A quick temperature check…”open wide…I’m sorry John but that’s a nasty cold – Coronation Street virus. Stock up on tissues.”
Well, most of us don’t know the cause precisely. Monro’s comment deals with it well, with a list of different coronaviruses. It was the work of the old Common Cold Unit that started identifying some of them – in particular, that was where the term “coronavirus” was invented in the first place.
Would the owner of a common cold feel any better for being told he / she had the Coronation Street virus as opposed to the Eastenders version?
A friend of ours insists on wearing a mask when sh goes shopping. She keeps on getting tonsillitis. Otherwise, I almost never see anyone wearing one of those stupid things. The polls are rigged.
In principle, tonsilitis – for as long as it doesn’t get out of hand – is a good thing: The tonsils are supposed to trap pathogens in a fairly harmless location to give the immune system time to kill them. It’s easily possible to help it with that: I used to have enormous problems with tonsilitis which would become so bad that I had to see a doctor because of the serious pain it caused me at least once per year. For +15 years, I’ve successfully avoided that by wrapping a scarf around my neck the moment one of my tonsils starts to feel odd and leave it there – with one or two breaks during the day – until everything’s fine again.
Nobody ever believes that and I guess your friend won’t, either. But ask her to try it. It’s simple to do, cheap and works.
Why only when shopping?
The “experts” are trying to portray children as walking germ factories again I see.
They are – and close contact means we each immunise each other.
…yes..as a granny I can confirm that when my grandchildren were at infant school we had colds all the time..walking bug factories..but in a good way….LOL!
I do appreciate disgruntled’s point though..what they did to children during the Con was nothing short of cruel and scandalous…and no doubt they will try to do it gain…
What they did to children was child abuse.
We have a duty of care to all children to protect them from abuse. If we fail the children we’ve utterly failed.
Agreed. And they didn’t lock us “down”. They locked us up. Incarcerated us at home for months.
Do NOT forgive these ßastards….
Thank you Ebygum – that was indeed my point.
I don’t think most people these days can cope with the idea that exposure to some nasties is actually a good thing – the peck of dirt my mum always talked about.
Talking to my cousin and wife yesterday. Both fully jabbed. Both plagued by endless colds/coughs/flu like symptoms.
What a total shambles
But both saying the stabs saved them, thanking the Lord Vaxx for the poisons, would have been so much worse….
Danny Altmann – Imperial College, London.
That’s all we need to know.
It is about time that the medical profession came clean and admitted what Coronavirus experts have been telling us since 06 Feb 2020: Covid 19 is now another endemic common cold coronavirus.
That does not mean it is not dangerous. All common cold coronaviruses are dangerous:
‘Although most commonly causing respiratory diseases, coronaviral infections may lead to a variety of clinical cardiovascular manifestations, as reported in 69 studies involving 49,156 patients…..Of the 69 studies, 22 were performed on HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-NH, HCoV-HKU1, and non-specified coronaviruses.’
Effect of coronavirus infection on the human heart: A scoping review, OUP public health emergency collection 1 Jul 2020
Indeed all common colds are dangerous, more dangerous than influenza……..to the elderly and infirm:
‘Rhinovirus infection in the adults was associated with significantly higher mortality and longer hospitalization when compared with influenza virus infection. Institutionalized older adults were particularly at risk.
‘Unexpectedly Higher Morbidity and Mortality of Hospitalized Elderly Patients Associated with Rhinovirus Compared with Influenza Virus Respiratory Tract Infection’, International Journal of Molecular Sciences 26 Jan 2017
But the fact remains that the entire medical profession is still having a fit of the vapours over a common cold, and we have spent a great deal of the taxpayers money investigating the common cold so we already know, have known for years, exactly what to do:
‘……good ventilation and hand hygiene should be encouraged and are likely to do some good…….It is therefore arguable that in the case of infections like coronavirus or rhinovirus colds, which are normally quickly self-limited, the best approach would be to relieve the patient’s discomfort and disability and leave their immune system to take care of the virus.’
A View from the Common Cold Unit, D.A.J. Tyrrell June 1992
Oh for heavens sake!
When I read an article like this, as informative as it is, my brain does a summary for me and tells me “there’s still loads of idiots out there.”
Tim Spector – another Davos man.
If you join ZOE ‘you are pioneers of a new kind of science’
Danny Altmann – Imperial Stormtrooper / Foot Soldier / Total Cnut helplessly watching the tide coming in and shouting Disney Science into the wind.
“watching the tide coming in and shouting Disney Science into the wind.”
That is poetry.
Has anybody took the trouble to review historical data on flu viruses and the prevalence within the population. There is always a blip at this time of year, it will subside into insignificance in a few weeks. FFS get a life
Important to remember: Professor Danny Altmann doesn’t really want face masks in public spaces, that’s just a stepping stone towards what he really wants: A full lockdown. Professor Altmann wants you to be forcibly locked up into your home 23 hours a day and to be legally prohibited from having any contact to stranger, lovers or relatives living in different locations. He wants your small business to be permanently shut down and the doors boarded up. He wants your elderly relatives to die miserably due to isolation and neglect. He wants your children to be tortured to make them see the error of their human ways. And he wants to steal your money in order to pay for all of this.
Next time you see Professor Altmann, just remember what a nice and sociable chap a really is.
What’s the definition of someone who has Covid? Someone who believes any lie the State tells them.
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
There seems to be a complete disconnect between these people and the real world. I include a number of acquaintances who are still cancelling social events because of it, but don’t ask themselves why they are still taking a vaccine which clearly doesn’t work.
Non-cleverness (apologies but that is used to avoid the censors) seems to be a key side effect of vaccination and the belief that it is all that is keeping them out of hospital.
My GP surgery is still insisting on masking otherwise no treatment will be given.I crossed swords with the dragon on reception last time I was there.
I saw this article before I went out this afternoon to a busy area of Belfast, near Queen’s University and three hospitals and a middle-class area of the city, so I deliberately observed whether anyone was wearing a mask, I must have seen several hundred people and not one person was wearing a mask, neither outside nor inside busy shops, literally zero. I go to different theatres quite often and it’s the same in all of them, it’s extremely rare to see anyone wearing a mask. So the “40% of Brits Still Wearing Masks” claims seems very misleading unless Belfast is very different from the rest of the UK and I see no reason why that would be. What people say to pollsters and what people actually do in real life isn’t necessarily the same.
Are we expected to believe this rubbish? Personal experience suggests less than 2% are still making some use of face masks.
Sorry. Posted this against the wrong article.
Perhaps you should stop publishing poll results unless the medical and epidemiological qualifications of those polled have been fact-checked. Or at least remind those who rely on such polls when developing strategies that they are being unscientific.
Re Professor Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London…
I’ve had it ‘up to here’ with these ‘professors’ – who ARE these people?!?!
Coming out with these pronouncements from institutions which are awash with conflicts of interest.
Time to turn the spotlight on SAGE, Independent SAGE etc, and challenge these so-called ‘experts’, and their influence on policy impacting on billions of people around the world.
Time for accountability…
It is and has always been the flu which seasonally rears its head. Its the gift that keeps giving to bone idle people who just don’t want to work and by the way let’s trash the economy while we’re at it.
This 40% proves the validity of Einstein’s comment that “There is one difference between intelligence and stupidity. Intelligence is limited”
Imperial College again! Selling scares stories by quoting ‘science’ is so 2019!!! We have moved on. As for the mask-eteers- in my circle of friends, on the tube, in the shops, I probably see about 0.00001% wearing it. And they are still the useless sorts.
This is clearly wrong.I see the odd person with a mask, but they are uninformed because these are usually brightly coloured cloth ones which are completely useless for stopping Covid. I have a nasty cold at the moment, but it is not Covid. In fact I have never had Covid, despite being very sceptical of the “rules” and trying to ignore them. I wonder who these “experts” are, psych-op people with nothing to do?
Why on earth are people STILL testing for covid? Can they not see that covid is no different to a cold? They’ve had it, and they’ve recovered from it how many times? Just like any other virus/cold/flu/bug and yet they are still convinced that it is different to other bugs they have had.
I have recently been in New Zealand where I found that people are still voluntarily testing and isolating for covid, even though it appears to just be government advice and nobody is checking up on them that they are isolating (unlike here). They have so bought in to the idea that it is for the safety of all that they find out if it is covid and then isolate themselves. No matter that everybody has had it multiple times. And if you get it you must find someone to blame who was near you and coughing and should have been isolating. No matter that just like any other illness you get it and then you recover after a few days.
I simply don’t believe their figures.
We have recently been to Barcelona. Travelled to Birmingham Airport on the train, no masks, in the 3 hours at the airport, 9 mask wearers (more people in wheelchairs than that), none on the plane, 2 at Barcelona Airport, 1 on the bus (still recommended in Spain), virtually nobody wearing during our 4 days in Barcelona.
So my straw poll would suggest very low figures. I would guess 1 or 2% tops.
Plenty of gobshites out there….
40% still wearing masks? Sorry don’t buy that. I’ve travelled to London several times recently by public transport and used the tube. I actually make a point (especially on the tube) of counting the number wearing the abominable things (sad I know). I reckon 5-10% tops wearing them and it’s getting less. Even the hypochondriac up the road has stopped wearing the bloody things. Only the real oddballs wear them in supermarkets. Testing seems to be entirely different, though god knows why anyone wants to know. What’s the point? One used to visit the doctor if one was particularly concerned about one’s ailment. Suppose what I’m saying is who gives a f…?