The Times leads with Nicola Sturgeon’s exit plan for Scotland. “The First Minister published a 26-page ‘framework’ for easing the lockdown and discussed plans for reopening schools, businesses and allowing small gatherings,” it reports. Sturgeon didn’t say when this might happen, but argued there should be a “better balance” between tackling the disease and protecting the economy. In addition, Arlene Foster, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, suggested that lockdown restrictions could be eased at a faster pace there than in the rest of the UK. Guernsey has already put an exit strategy in place, with gardeners, mechanics, estate agents and builders returning to work tomorrow. And in an encouraging sign, various senior Tories praised Sturgeon’s initiative, including Iain Duncan Smith, David Davis and former Chancellor George Osborne who said we need to start talking about “the hard trade-offs”.
According to the Telegraph, Boris will return to work next week (as predicted on this site on Tuesday). Will he make an appearance at the Downing Street press conference on Monday and unveil an exit plan? Sturgeon apparently thinks so. After all, why start talking about her own exit strategy yesterday unless she thinks Boris is about to do likewise? She evidently thinks a big announcement is imminent and wants to make it look as though she bounced the dithering Prime Minster into making a decision. She may be wrong of course, but Boris will have to do something to make it clear he’s back in charge. The holding line – that it’s premature to talk about an exit strategy while deaths are still peaking – won’t survive his return to Downing Street. Once Biggles has recovered from his injuries and is back in the cockpit, people will expect action.
But is the general public ready for a phased exit? One of the things I’ve been puzzling over during this crisis is the willingness of freeborn Englishmen to acquiesce to the greatest suspension of their liberties since the Second World War. And not merely acquiesce – most of them think the Government should go even further. According to an opinion poll published last week, only 6% of people think the current restrictions are “too severe”, while 44% think they’re “not severe enough”. James Kirkup, Director of the Social Market Foundation, has tried to unravel this mystery in UnHerd. One of the points he makes is that the 35% of the English electorate who identity as “very strongly English” are also the most authoritarian, according to research done by Paula Sturridge at Bristol University. “The more English you feel, the more likely you are to say that the state and society should tell people what to do, to make them conform and, when they disobey, to punish them harshly,” he writes. You can read his article here.
Thankfully, not everyone has fallen into lockstep with the new orthodoxy. A letter in today’s Telegraph is a reminder of how unimpressed many older people are by the official response to the crisis. Worth quoting in full:
SIR – Russell Lynch (Business, April 22) is right to warn the Government that to prolong lockdown for the over-70s would be “suicidal politics”.
There is widespread “elderly” contempt for the woke-driven pandemic policy: the craven subservience to discredited scientists; insulting war comparisons; deification of the heroic but ill-managed NHS; totalitarian hand-clapping; arrogant directives; officious policing; closing houses of worship; the brute ignorance of Christianity.
If lockdown is not speedily lifted, we 8.8 million “elderly” voters will take our revenge at the general election.
John McEwen
London SW1
There are some encouraging signs that attitudes are beginning to shift more widely. On Monday I noted that my local park in Acton was more crowded than it had been at any time since March 23rd and readers have been reporting similar experiences all week. For instance, one writes: “My eldest son, who lives in Thamesmead, goes out every early evening with his daughter for a walk. He assures me that in the last seven days or so there has been a dramatic increase in cars on the roads, more and more people about – often in groups that are quite clearly made up of children and adults from more than one household, and some evidently visiting other people. Prior to that it was silent with virtually no traffic.”
The Mail picked up on this new mood yesterday, noting that it was the hottest day of the year so far: “Britons all over the UK have ignored lockdown rules today to flock to parks, beaches and promenades as temperatures hit 75F.” The Mail reports that there were long queues outside B&Q stores across the country, as well as the Five Guys hamburger chain, and the AA says journeys were up 10% this week compared to last. If the public are tiring of lockdown it will be hard for the Government to keep it in place, particularly without an exit strategy. And the hot weather looks set to continue:
One sceptical website I’ve neglected to mention until now – and should have flagged up earlier – is COVID-19 In Proportion. It’s full of great graphs such as the one below showing that the the number of deaths in Week 15 of 2020 were lower than they were in some previous flu seasons:
The Media section is also worth looking at, particularly the bit comparing the hysterical alarmism of the BBC News website this week, when the ONS announced that 3,760 had died of COVID-19 in the week ending 10th April, with the home page of the same site on the 13th January 2018 when 3,075 died of respiratory disease. Needless to say, the latter contained nerry a mention of the unusually high death toll. As COVID-19 In Proportion reminds us, the cumulative death toll by the end of Week 15 in 2018 (187, 720) was higher than it was this year (184,960).
And here’s my favourite graph so far. If you take the assumptions that Professor Neil Ferguson and his team at Imperial College used to predict the death tolls in the UK absent a lockdown (510,000 if we carried on as normal, 250,000 if we continued with mitigation) and use them to model what should have happened in Sweden absent a lockdown, you get the following:
In case you can’t read the small print, the blue area is the daily deaths per 100,000 the Imperial model would have predicted in the “do nothing” scenario, the yellow area is what would have happened if Sweden had stuck with mitigation – which is what it did, obviously – and the red area is the actual number of Swedes who’ve died.
One of the reasons Professor Ferguson estimated such a high death toll in the UK absent a lockdown is because he assumed that <5% of the population had been infected and the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) is ~0.9%. As each day passes, those assumptions look more and more shaky. Yesterday, the results of an antibody study done in New York were published in which 3,000 people were randomly tested at grocery stores and shopping locations across 19 counties in 40 localities. The result? 13.9% tested positive, indicating 2.7 million New Yorkers have already been infected. In New York City the number is 21.2%. (In Stockholm it’s 25%.) And, of course, the higher the number of people infected, the lower the IFR, which is the number of infected divided by the number who’ve died. Mario Cuomo, the Governor of New York, puts the IFR at 0.5%, but in all likelihood it will turn out to be lower.
We’ve heard about the five tests our Government has set before lockdown can be lifted. Arch-sceptic Heather Mac Donald has devised five tests US state governors should set themselves before extending lockdowns. They are:
- How many coronavirus deaths do you expect to avert by the shut-down extension?
- What will your state’s economy look like after another month of enforced stasis?
- How many workers will have lost their jobs?
- How many businesses will have closed for good?
- How many of your state’s young residents, seeking employment for the first time, will be unable to find it?
When I made my original sceptical argument in the Critic last month, I pointed out that an extended lockdown would likely result in a greater loss of life than lifting it. But I was just talking about the UK. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the people who’ll pay the heaviest price for decision of Western governments to sacrifice their economies to keep the virus at bay will be those in the developing world. In this week’s Spectator, Aidan Hartley spells it out:
Starkest of all will be Africa’s economic collapse, wiping out jobs for many of the continent’s 1.2 billion people. Tourism, vital to the conservation of wildlife, forests and monuments, has fallen apart. Mining, oil and gas are close behind. Exports of tea, coffee and cocoa are also being hit hard. Until recently Africa served as a giant nursery, raising migrants to supply cheap labour for rich countries. Every month these workers send money home to their families, and remittances are now the largest source of foreign exchange in many countries. As diaspora Africans fall out of work, these funds are evaporating. In the high-density slums, each breadwinner might feed ten mouths. Nairobi city governor Mike Sonko promised mass distributions of Hennessy cognac because ‘alcohol plays a major role in killing the coronavirus’ — but such clowning aside, slum-dwellers have no cash reserves, nor a welfare state to rescue them. As global supply chains collapse, it becomes horribly clear that out of 54 African states, only Zambia is a net food exporter. Many Africans routinely rely on food aid. For oil-dependent Nigeria’s nearly 200 million people, life is about to get tough.
Another piece worth reading in this week’s Spectator – the 10,000th issue, no less – is Matt Ridley’s. Forget about finding a vaccine, he says, and focus on the treatments: “Within a month or two, one of the 30 or more therapies currently being tested is likely to prove effective and safe.” And there’s my column of course, although it’s not about the virus this week. (I also appeared the Last Orders podcast yesterday with Christopher Snowdon and Tom Slater.)
A bizarre article appeared in the Huffington Post yesterday arguing that it would be a shame if Oxford University wins the race to develop a vaccine because that could be used by knuckle-dragging nationalists as way to belittle the universities of other countries. Written by Emily Cousins, who teaches women’s studies at Oxford, it argues that any triumph for the ancient university “will be used as it has been in the past, to fulfil its political, patriotic function as proof of British excellence”. But as Andrew Neil pointed out on Twitter, if Oxford does develop a vaccine, won’t that in fact be proof of British excellence? After all, Oxford is consistently ranked in the top five universities in the world, often it he top two. You can read her bonkers argument here.
Thanks to all those readers who made a donation yesterday. If you’d like to make a donation to pay for the maintenance of Lockdown Sceptics, please click here. We’re now up to 165,000 page views, which has to be higher than the nightly viewing figures for Channel 4 News. Help me get this to 250,000 by telling your friends about the site. Let’s keep the pressure on Boris.
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.
This is funny and true!
No longer true. The movies suffer from the same thing. And the games are going down that road as well.
Read Classic real literature – watch classic films- ditch the Woke crap!
Restore sanity “Culture Counts” ( R. Scruton)!
Do you believe classic literature any more than you believe current “Woke crap!”?
Classic literature was the “Woke crap” of its day.
FFS, we need to learn from history, not repeat it, that includes not condemning “Woke crap” just because it’s “Woke crap”.
There needs to be an argument, not just finger pointing and name calling.
The whole problem with woke crap is that they close down debate and argument!
The BBC should be broke too.
It is morally “broke”.
The real evil people are Ofcom … who far from doing their duty and insisting on impartiality, push programmers to be racist, sexist and basically woke.
(Most people don’t care about race, the woke are the real racists & sexists)
Netflix subscriptions are for the unintelligent. You can download almost any film you like for free (your own copy – imagine!) and save it on a hard drive for watching whenever you like, offline.
Think of Not Using Netflix as similar to going to the toilet without putting your hand up to ask permission and without getting helped by Mum or Dad wiping your bum. A Netflix subscription is a combination of a lead around your neck and a potty.
I can get almost any car I want for free (my own copy – imagine!) and save it in my lock-up for driving whenever I like, uninsured.
Of course, it does rather rely on not rewarding anyone for having made it.
Theft and driving uninsured are crimes.
Downloading films and then watching them isn’t (whatever the Motion Picture Association would like you to think).
Refuting what that I didn’t say rather suggests that you have no counter-argument to what I did say.
“Of course, it does rather rely on not rewarding anyone for having made it.”
Someone made it and profited. You bought it, someone profited, unless you stole it, then you alone profited.
If you want to discuss ‘rights’ to material, I’m happy to point you to the ‘rights’ pharmaceutical companies have over covid vaccinations and their ability to impose them on humanity.
Like many things, including the scientific method, patents are a concept developed in a bygone era which have never been scrutinised because they benefit the wealthy who can spend fortunes on patent protection while the rest of us struggle to get a product to market.
Reward for anything is enshrined in ‘first to market’. Protection of that is an abomination of free enterprise.
A lot of stuff on Netflix is available on more4 or the iPlayer.
It’s called competition.
Have you got rid of Faceberk, Twitter and YouTube? Have you switched from a Google search engine? Do you watch the BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5?
These (and others) are, to one degree or another, pushing this anti-human, anti-truth garbage. So, have you got rid of all of these?
Yes, except I’ve occasionally wandered on to YouTube. Got rid of my TV in 2001. Just kind of drifted away from it over time.
You did right.
I find the irony of more channels, less choice, and more cost, quite staggering.
Our TV now only engages us for live sport.
Of course! Never subscribed to most of them!
Sky TV are the worst for their self-righteous pushing of all things woke. I made a complaint about the disproportionate number of black presenters and pundits they had and gave them some dates and times of dreadful/embarrassing c0ck-ups said presenters had made.
I was invited to terminate my contract if I don’t accept their stance.
I agree, I had Netflix on trial. It seems very limited in scope with regards to pretty much everything. Even movies you would assume that would be on there, aren’t for some reason, and putting on parts two and three of a trilogy, but not the first? Madness.
MagnetDL dot com + Flud (Google Play Store) + SuperVPN (Google Play Store) = FREE Netflix.
“Unintelligence” is Schwab’s and Gates’ programmed future for us all!
“Own nothing – be a moron- and be happy”
The “unintelligence” of “Schwab’s and Gates’” programmed future is an opportunity for the rest of us to exercise our intellectual capacity.
Without a challenge, mankind is nothing.
Sadly, 99% of people are stupid sheep and easily led
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves,
25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practise such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practise them.
(Romans 1:18-32 ESV)
Allow me to pre-empt the meat sacks who will inevitably scream in their rebellion to their Creator. If you do not believe in this, if you think it is folly, that I’m talking about a ‘sky daddy’ (there’s sophisticated atheism right there!), then by what standard do you judge the folly of a man thinking he’s pregnant? So what if a man thinks he’s a treacle and has a womb? Is there some Darwinian imperative that says this is wrong? Granted, on a Darwinian scheme, one’s ‘purpose’ is to propagate one’s genes, but given atheistic assumptions, whence lies the imperative to propagate one’s genes? Why ought the human species keep on moving?
In short, ugly bags of mostly water have no business ranting about oughtness.
Uptick for the Non-Historical-Documents reference, the rest of it was just wizard jabber.
Define ‘Non-Historical-Documents reference’, Meat Sack.
So what if it’s ‘wizard jabber’ (not a wordsmith, are you?) Is there some imperative compelling us not to indulge in ‘wizard jabber’? Do explain, Meat Sack.
Now, Meat Sack, how about you interact with my philosophical arguments? Are you a troll? No? Then take my philosophical arguments and deal with them.
5 ‘downticks’, no replies.
5 cowards.
Deranged zealot. One reply is enough.
No, I didn’t bother downticking you.
That’s an assertion begging for an argument. Surely you have an argument? I challenge you to refute me.
Argue away. But begin from recognising that I don’t know what “Jock” means. Is it something like “Meat sack” or ‘Sweats”.
Still waiting for an argument, Sweats. You’re not very good at this are you?
According to you I was begging for an argument:
I responded:
You didn’t.
Point made, and you conceded the argument.
Oh my. No, Sweats, it’s the assertion that is begging for an argument, i.e., it, being a mere assertion, demands an argument.
Good grief. You really are quite dense, aren’t you? You are so dim that it didn’t occur to you that it was your bare assertion that needed an argument.
You never give up, and never surrender, do you?
Is that an argument?
I like the star trek reference.
Well done for noticing that, my friend.
Boldly going where no pregnant man has gone before
I don’t know if he/she/it was being serious or extracting the Michael.
“Meatsack”. No idea what it means or what it’s supposed to imply relative to religion.
It’s called an internal critique, Sweats.
See my response below.
Saw it. Wasn’t impressed.
It took me few words to unimpressed you. It took you a rant to unimpressed almost everyone on this blog.
1 – 0
Is that an argument, Sweats?
No. Statement of fact.
Define ‘fact’. What is a fact?
Still waiting for some argument, Sweats.
Sadly, you missed my Galaxy Quest reference, which means we can’t be friends.
Sorry, Meat Sack, that’s just wizard jabber.
The man thinking he is pregnant isn’t folly it is manipulation. It is not about the pregnant men, so to speak. It is about about training us, especially the young, to not state obvious facts. To self-edit. Once that is conditioned in its just a question of then loading in the next verboten concept that uses your now-ingrained habit of hesitating.
Why do you think we have a Behavioural Insights Team?
It is both.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but this is not relevant to my point.
Your point being?
Put the single malt down, Sweats.
I’m teetotal, and I don’t sweat. Well, not much.
Then you have no excuse for your stupidity.
What stupidity would that be, precisely?
Your inability to comprehend and respond to philosophical argumentation.
There is no purpose in biology as that’s a philosophical category. Mammals are hardwired to propagate their genes, ie, this is going to happen as side-effect of activities they’re going to undertake if the opportunity arises.
Which is my point. Obviously.
I’m not sure what it is you think you are saying here, but needless to say none of this negates my argument.
What the words express, would be my suggestion (I realize the idea that words mean what they do mean is strangely unfamiliar to a lot of people but that’s not my problem). Propagation of genes isn’t even an activity, let alone a conscious activity. At best, it’s an ex post factum rationalization for something animals are wont to do regardless of its biological consequences. A question of oughtness doesn’t arise.
Considering this, if it’s human and pregnant, than, it’s not a man, and its own stated beliefs are immaterial here.
Okay. And?
So what if ‘words mean what they do’? What is ‘wrong’ with others coming along and ‘changing’ the ‘meaning’? Is this ‘meaning’ grounded in an objective reality?
Yes, to propagate one’s genes would by definition be an activity.
Define ‘conscious’. What is that? Whence does ‘consciousness’ arise?
Irrelevant.
Then why are you here? Ought I not believe in oughtness?
‘Its stated beliefs’ is entirely relevant here, since these fruitcakes are de facto running the show. So, on your world view, what is your rational objection here?
Let me try it this way:
Assuming Helen Keller is alone in the woods and gets hit by a tree, does this make a sound?
Try looking up principle of charity. That’s a necessary precondition for an honest, rational discussion.
You really are intellectually dishonest, aren’t you?
Yes. what’s your point? Have you honestly resorted to the contrived ‘Tree’ ‘problem’?
I well understand the principle of charity. It simply means one ought to look at an opponent’s view in the best possible light. I’ve not violated this principle. Furthermore, why ought I adhere to this ‘principle’? Are you sticking an ought on me, Meat Sack?
Do you have a point?
You’re a phoney, pal. Save the piousness for a more gullible individual. I’m the one having an honest, rational discussion, and you’re diligently swerving my arguments.
Define “Meat Sack” please.
It’s called an internal critique, Sweats.
Internal critique of what?
And what does “Sweats” mean?
A godless world view.
Don’t be coy.
I don’t know what you mean by “coy” either. You are talking in riddles. Not very good ones either.
Are you a bit simple? ‘Coy’ is a long-established term in the English language. Riddle? Good grief you’re dim.
Fair point.
Let’s put it this way. I don’t understand why you’re accusing me of being coy. What have I to be coy about. Or don’t you want to say?
Stop playing the innocent victim, Sweats. You’ve been avoiding the philosophical debate from the beginning.
You assume those of us who don’t hold your beliefs are atheist’s.
I equate any deity pronouncing themselves as the one and only to follow, the same as politicians announcing they are the one and only one to follow.
It doesn’t mean I don’t think there is something more to human existence than life on earth, it means I’m not gullible to fall for mankind’s concoction of various manifestations of him to the point that I’m willing to kill people for that belief.
How many religions are there? How many God’s are there?
The whole concept of there being one God is juvenile and conformist.
I’ll face any maker, or all of them if need be, and answer for the way I have conducted my life. The consequences are of my own conscience, not theirs.
No, I don’t. Are you dense?
Category Error. Try thinking metaphysically.
Explain this ‘something’. You sound like a hippy.
You mean you’re not so gullible that you would fall for mankind’s concoction that the universe and all of life, with its intricacy and complexity, arose by purely naturalistic processes?
Loads.
One.
As opposed to multiple gods being mature and nonconformist? Do you have an argument up your sleeve, Meat Sack? As it stands you’re living off assertions.
You hero! You martyr!
May I ask, So what? Who on earth are you talking to, and why should they care?
The excuse for any alternative opinion.
Truth and love man. Or doesn’t your thunderous, evangelical lectern pounding recognise this?
Right – so God’s responsible for Boris, Ardern, Macron, Schwab, and the Canadian womble who want to impose authoritarianism on us all? Thanks for that God, I’m sure we’re all grateful for your wisdom.
Yea right – yours. Which makes my point. You are small minded. Fortunately my Christian parents and Church raised me to understand there are many God’s, to many people.
Errrrr…..Yep.
That’s my point dimbo, “they” shouldn’t and don’t care, It’s me that should care, and me that answers for my sins, to myself. I am my own God and on the day of retribution I must reflect on my own behaviour. But you are too dense to work that out.
FFS. Have you not by now yet recognised that the only person in judgement of you is yourself?
Clearly not judging by your introductory rant.
No, you utter cretin, I pointed out your genuine category error. Are you this dense or are you just dishonest?
Define ‘truth and love’. Do you not possess the courage of your convictions? Are you a coward?
It never ceases to astonish that random blobs of protoplasm would worry about ‘thunderous, evangelical lectern pounding’ (even though I’m merely offering a point of view regarding truth.
Truth implies exclusivity.
Are you dense? Do you understand the concept of primary and secondary causes?
Moreover, is there something wrong with Ardern, Macron, Schwab, et al?
Wow. Then your ‘parents’ and ‘church’ are utterly smallminded and feebleminded, since they deny truth.
Ockham is turning in his grave. You really are quite moronic. Please provide your argument for multiple deities over and above one deity.
You refute yourself while walking. So why are you bothering all of us with your Meat Sack nonexistence? What in the world does ‘sins’ mean? Is there some objective standard of right and wrong?
That’s question begging since this is a very point in dispute.
Moreover, you appear to be sitting in judgement of me, so you once again refute yourself.
You are not very bright are you, Sweats?
I wasn’t aware of this.
I’ll be cancelling my family’s subscription immediately.
Edit: Done. And I told them why.
Good man!
You cancelled your Netflix subscription because of a blog post?
You might want to think about that.
For a bit of context Netflix lost 200k out of a total of 300m+ subscribers. Every other streaming service would kill for those numbers.
Given the increasing competition for content, raising prices and economic uncertainty the numbers are not as bad as people make out.
But they certainly will struggle if they keep shifting increasingly woke.
A proper perspective on the matter. Thank you.
Could the MSM possibly be lying to us?
Or the alternative media as well?
Does anyone know who controls alternative media?
They missed their projection by -2.7million subscribers, for a company who’s valuation is based on future profits and massive growth (sky high p/e ratio) that’s not a good quarter. Although the pandemic bump would eventually come down and the costs of living is a place to start looking for stuff you can live without admittedly.
No one ever bet the farm on a quarter.
Honestly, I am pretty tolerant of trash tv and even I am sometimes put off by the sheer INYOURFACE way Netflix appears to talk down to their own subscribers, pushing an agenda so aggressively it gives you whiplash. Stopped watching a few things due to this. It’s boring and predictable.
What really concerns me is the fact that, given the current climate, I cannot with 100% certainty say that you are jesting!
Now, If that is not an indictment, then what is?
It is a joke meme. But I agree. It’s only a matter of time.
No it’s not. Don’t be silly. Unless you’re 13 years old you know all this WOKE shit is just another fad we have gone through innumerable times in my 65 years of life.
It will pass over. Then the next lunatic fringe will move in.
Assuming the majority of Netfix users are in the northern hemisphere and hence (a) spring has arrived and (b) much of lockdown has gone, I wonder if this is just natural wastage.
Especially lockdowns. I suspect that didn’t do their bottom line any harm.
I cancelled my subscription because there just wasn’t anything on there to watch that was not propaganda. They really cannot produce anything without making it a political statement on race or gender. And to this date they have not had a single white actor play a black character, or a single man play a female character. But they had any number of black actors play white characters, women playing male characters, and trans actors play female characters.
LOL. Really good point.
“Black Panther” played by a privileged white man instead of a privileged black man.
And by the racist definition of “privilege” by BLM, every successful black man/women must be privileged because they are successful.
Speaking of Black Panther, interesting how there were no white citizens of Wakanda… They insisted that the characters in Wheel of Time be racially diverse, even though they were supposed to be completely isolated for hundreds of year, but they didn’t do the same with Wakanda…
And an outcast tribe. How very inclusive.
Black Panther is outright racism, if there was a White Panther there would be hell on.
Bring back the good old days of Black & White Minstrels and Planet of the Apes!
All total BS – don’t engage!
Are you seriously expecting me to engage?
I have noticed a change in the use of “different types” of actors in most tv series. Even adverts cannot show what famly is now. Everything has to be “mixed”. In reality that is not the case in the majority of house holds.
Not just mixed. Couples are almost always portrayed as a black male and a white female. You rarely see a white male as a father or husband. It’s almost as though they’re trying to subliminally suggest to white women that they should avoid white men, which is creepy.
All black families and all black adverts such as Just Eat are now becoming the norm. Just like PC, if you don’t bite back then the scope keeps creeping
Brigerton was just laughable with half the cast in Regency England black!
Musk is right. Netflix is a bit shit. It’s basically like the telly. You get the odd decent thing but mostly crap.
With every additional subscription service, be it the licence fee, Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, whatever, you get a bit of good stuff and big load of garbage you’ll never want to watch.
I order enough crap from Amazon to justify my subscription. Movies (very few) are a bonus.
I despise the call for Amazon boycotts whilst most of them calling for it evangelise for free trade.
I remember when Amazon was an obscure book club, and I was probably it’s only customer!
Remember when Yahoo and AOL were criticised for their dominance of the internet?
Amazon is already yesterdays internet man.
Worse still for us football fans was the decision to break up coverage for “competition”
Instead of one sky sports subscription you now need that, BT Sports and Amazon Prime to catch all the football which has more than trebled the cost.
I thought people paid not to see Harkle and Markle?
The sad truth is that they are now the “Real “Wannabee Celebrity ” Face of Pseudo “Royalty” 2022.
What with their “B Grade” behaviour and Andrew, the “Royal Bubble” has truly been burst!
Of course, we also now realise that as Charles is a life-time supporter of Schwab – we know exactly what he really thinks of us ‘plebs’.!
Frankly, if you have perused Netflix or Amazon Prime videos, you will be lucky to get a decent new movie once every six months.
Far better to get a VPN and download from Pirate Bay.
The exodus has little to do with what they produce, but the amount of dire repeats they offer.
The millennials now know what the last 40 years of the BBC was all about.
Not really in the spirit of good programming to deny them the funds they need to make better shows!
That said I used a VPN to get my porn.
Netflix” Obama-Clinton TV?
Who needs it?
Gave up on Nonceflix around the time they started promoting Cuties.
I find the very premise of ‘He’s Expecting’ extremely insulting and offensive.
Now if I made a complaint on those grounds – not that I ever would – why should my case not succeed?
I think it’s more a case of people having bugger all else to do during lockdown but now rediscovering pubs, theatres, cinemas and normal(ish) life.
And dogging is back on
Seems to be a bad week all round for woke media.
Goodbye CNN+!
Their impenetrable cataloguing system probably doesn’t help… and, after a year of watching what appeals, the algorithm that suggests ‘things you might like’ inevitably drives you into a cul-de-sac of mediocrity. They’re victims of their own success too, perhaps, in that people like to binge watch a series but then aren’t prepared to wait for a year or more to catch the next installments?
I was planning to get Netflix, but then it went woke, and nothing I could see of the content appealed to me anyway. I have a cupboard full of more interesting DVDs we bought for the kids years ago.
Recent difficulties? I would call a 64% drop in one’s share price, over three days something other than a difficulty.
Not just a pregnant man, he’s also a chink. Straight white men continue to be the victims of positive discrimination
Started watching Anatomy of a Scandal. Oh my God, where to start. Terrible direction, clunky, childish level script that thinks a 20lb sledgehammer represents subtlety. Leftist good, Tory bad. Endlessly. And the little touches that the Director probably thinks are exquisite, like one scene has a side lamp turned on and suddenly we are in another scene where someone has just, yes, turned a light on. Might just be me, but I really hate it. Plus I absolutely and quite simply, didn’t care what happened to the characters or ‘plot’.
I heard one of them say, that the idea isn’t that the robot gives you an orgasm but that you will give the robot an orgasm. That is the objective if you open your eyes.