Sir Martyn Oliver, the new chief of Ofsted, the national schools inspectorate body, recently gave an interview to the Times, in which he spoke of two key problems facing the teaching profession today: rank misbehaviour amongst pupils, and the often equally appalling behaviour of Ofsted itself.
According to Sir Martyn, in one school he entered, teachers were forced into “locking themselves in their classroom during break and lunchtime for safety reasons”. And, if the kids didn’t get them, the Ofsted inspectors certainly would: following an inquest into the sad death of the headmistress Ruth Perry, whose school received an inspection so severe she felt forced into suicide by it last year, Sir Martyn promised immediate reforms to ensure similar tragedies would never occur again.
Unfortunately, I strongly imagine that they will. I used to be a teacher myself, at secondary school level. Once, I was told of some Ofsted goons who had criticised a local school (verbally, not on paper, in actual officially recorded form, funnily enough) because some birds – the “wrong kind of birds”, no less – had shat in its playground one morning. Another local school was chided for not employing any black teachers. That no black people had actually applied to work there was deemed irrelevant. Is Ofsted really any better or any saner today?
Those Who Can’t, Teach: Those Who Can’t Teach Join Ofsted
My own final resolve to flee the profession came after my school’s newly appointed, no doubt wholly Ofsted-compliant Headmaster (why else would he have been given the job?) gave staff a speech introducing his way of thinking. Here, rather than talking about apparently irrelevant concepts like academic rigour or the need for good discipline, he preferred instead to expatiate at length about the pressing necessity of recycling something called “grey water” from the roofs of school buildings and how it was likewise now utterly essential that all of the apples in the canteen were “ethically-sourced”; I had no idea that beforehand they had all been being shipped in on the cheap from the Taliban.
If these absolutely essential tasks were not performed, he informed us, then how would it ever be possible for us to become a “sustainable school”, in a world in which we had only 10 more years left to save the planet? (This was 14 years ago, by the way.)
This robotic speech, delivered in a language only vaguely approximating to English, confirmed absolutely everything I had come to suspect about the way in which schools in this country were now being run, at least from on high: in a fashion which had increasingly little to do with their alleged core purpose of teaching children. The whole point of any school had become no longer to actually educate the pupils, but simply to pass the next Ofsted inspection – even though the specific criteria for doing so were frequently completely stupid.
For example, for some reason it had now become expected by Ofsted for schools to possess their own mission statement. Whether it specifically says so in their official documents, I don’t know, but this was certainly the impression that had been allowed to spread. Therefore, departmental heads were asked to solicit suggestions for one. My own personal offering was ‘To Be A School’, but regrettably this was not accepted. Senior management cobbled together something appropriately pseudo-meaningful written in fluent New Labour instead. It probably included the word “passion”.
Lessons Must Be Learned
British schools were now being judged more upon whether they appeared to be good, on paper, rather than whether they actually were good, in practice. And this was largely the fault of Ofsted and its central Government masters. It is actually pretty easy to make it appear that any given public service is good (or indeed bad), simply by rigging the criteria of judgement so that they measure not actual quality, but a series of arbitrarily chosen ‘performance indicators’ which in fact only act as little more than a checklist of Government-invented criteria of pseudo-quality, not the real thing. Hence, a school might score highly on sustainability or diversity matters, but so what?
Obviously, Ofsted does monitor and assess rather more important things like behaviour, attendance, attainment and teaching – but even here, the precise way it does so can often be misleading. I recall one Head of Department being hauled over the coals after one of her pupils had failed her A-level exam. Fair enough, you may think: except that the reason the kid failed the exam was because she couldn’t be bothered to turn up and actually sit it. It didn’t matter. Ofsted would still take a dim view, the teacher was told. The U-grade exam showed up in the data as a ‘Fail’, not a ‘Fail Due To Lazy Girl Staying In Bed That Day’. And, as always, the data were inflexible. So was everything else: up to and including the specific structure of every single lesson henceforth to be delivered.
One day, towards the bitter end, I babysat a student Geography teacher giving a lesson on the subject of waterfalls. Firstly, she explained what a waterfall was, how it would have been formed, and displayed a diagram of one. Perfectly sensible. More-or-less, this was how pupils would always have been taught. Then, however, she displayed a film clip of literally dozens of separate waterfalls running on the interactive whiteboard, one after another, endlessly, accompanied by an inane pop song, also about waterfalls, just in case children hadn’t got the message of what one of these falling water-features was called, or looked like (i.e., like some water, falling). This lasted for several minutes. Then, she produced a tray full of brightly-coloured plasticine and told the children to spend the rest of the lesson making models of her initial diagram in groups, before then getting them to stop, stand up and show everyone what they had just made. Surprisingly, all of them had made models of waterfalls.
These children were 16 years old, not 16 months old: their exams were rapidly approaching. Wholly predictably, several of them actually spent the entire time rolling the plasticene up into little balls and then squashing it against their own heads. Many were content to just sit there and gossip whilst one or two group members did all the work. Was this really a good way to approach delivering teenagers a GCSE lesson? I would suggest not. So why did the teacher in question do so?
The answer, in short, was Ofsted. It wasn’t her fault. She had to teach like this – we all did. Throughout the 2000s, teachers were actively encouraged to create lessons like the above retarded fiasco during their training. During this period, a seemingly official template appeared, determining the structure of how all lessons now – at least so trainee teachers of my generation were told during our training-period – had to be taught in the nation’s schools. These abominations were called ‘three part lessons’, their compulsory, central Government-mandated structure (just think about that for a moment) being as follows.
The first part was the ‘starter’. Here, some pointless and patronising game was often played, reputedly to warm the pupils’ brains up and get them intrigued. One, I recall, included having pupils perform an ‘earthquake dance’, such embarrassing gyrations supposedly illustrating, in some vague way, the different types of tectonic plate. Another was a so-called ‘brain gym’, where pupils gurned stupidly at one another like mental patients in order, somehow, to supposedly increase their innate brain-power, Dr. Kawashima-style.
An equal waste of time was the obligatory giving out of an ‘aim’ or ‘objective’. You couldn’t just say ‘Today we’re learning about waterfalls’. Instead, you had to write on a board “AIM: To learn about waterfalls”, followed by an “OUTCOME: To have learned about waterfalls”, or words to that basic tautological effect. Thousands and thousands of miniature whiteboards were purchased by schools up and down the country in order to be nailed up next to the main board, purely so these aims could be easily recorded and seen by pupils at all times, at needless taxpayer expense. You were even supposed to do this with lessons where you were just showing the class a video. Towards the end of my time in teaching, by which point I had just stopped caring, I left up a permanent ‘aim’ on my own mini-board which read “To waste public money on tiny boards”. Most children who saw it agreed with my sentiments upon the matter wholeheartedly.
As for the other two parts of the three-part lesson – oh, I won’t bore you with them here. Suffice to say, many sensible teachers completely ignored it all as being the soft-Stalinist rubbish it so clearly was and taught their classes in their own preferred way behind closed doors whenever they were not being watched. I certainly did.
In Ofsted-land, a strange meta-language was now being created. Lessons were now formally categorised as being ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘satisfactory’ or ‘poor’. However, that word ‘good’ did not necessarily mean ‘good’ as it would be defined in the dictionary. Instead, it meant “stuck slavishly to the predetermined Government framework for all lessons”. For example, that appallingly stupid lesson about plasticene waterfalls I mentioned above? In truth, it was ‘poor’, wasn’t it? And yet, in terms of its utterly vacuous structure, it would have been marked as being ‘good’, despite being, in actual practical educational terms, the precise reverse. And that was how Ofsted operated, during my own time in teaching. It’s a wonder more heads didn’t kill themselves.
Marking Their Own Homework
Or, wait. Did all this even happen at all? Or did I just dream it? Something certainly seems to have since changed, following my own time in the classroom. When Sir Michael Wilshaw was Ofsted chief between 2012 and 2016 under the first post-New Labour Conservative administration, for example, he point-blank denied that three-part lessons actually had to be followed at all. As evidence, he could even point to a sentence in Ofsed’s obscure ‘Clarification for Schools’ document (which no normal teacher would ever have actually read) from 2005: “Inspectors must not advocate a particular method of planning, teaching or assessment.”
Eh? 2005 was precisely when I was training to teach, and I can tell you now for certain that Ofsted was doing precisely this very same thing – or, if it wasn’t, then it did a pretty poor job of communicating this fact to every last teacher, head or training provider I ever met.
The forced Blairite imposition of three-part lessons, together with their mandatory whiteboard-recorded ‘aims’ and ‘outcomes’, on teachers now seems to have been somewhat abandoned, at least officially, but the contemporary line that they were never actually compulsory at all is a complete and outright falsehood. Consider Ofsted’s following 2002 piece of ‘best-practice’ advice for how a teacher should introduce a lesson about painting a (then still happily non-gay) rainbow to primary school kids from the mid-New Labour years:
Today I want you to paint a picture of a rainbow. Here is a chart showing the colours, a piece of white paper, a brush and some watercolours. Paint your rainbow as beautifully as you can. You are painting the rainbow to practise using your brush to blend colours. This is an important skill in art. Write this learning objective next to your title.
Or, alternatively, why not save some time and just tell the kids to paint a fecking rainbow, like a normal human would? Because, if you did, New Labour-era Ofsted would actually have failed you, whatever lies they try to spin now.
Fear of criticism by inspectors led to an increasing level of monitoring of ordinary staff members by middle and senior management in schools. Intrusions like ‘learning walks’ (re: monitoring of prisoners in their classroom cells) sprang up, wherein high-ups suddenly jumped into a teacher’s classroom in the middle of a lesson, holding a clip-board, checking up that your aims were clearly recorded, or that you were indeed performing a brain gym-type starter. This happened. I saw it. I would be immensely surprised if it isn’t still going on, just with the precise wholly made-up definition of what constitutes a ‘good’ lesson having changed randomly and capriciously in the interim: as it no doubt magically will do once again, once Labour get back into power again later this very year, as seems currently inevitable.
The contemporary British state simply does not trust professionals to be able to do their job or to make their own independent judgements about matters concerning which they know best – e.g. the specific children sat in front of them in their classroom every day, none of whom anybody working for either Ofsted or the Department for Education will ever have actually met. Schools self-evidently need to be inspected, but not in the Kafkaesque way they have been in recent decades. Rather than restricting themselves to assessing meaningful and legitimate criteria like pupil behaviour, what Ofsted actually largely enforce is a process of nothing but ‘pseudo-professionalisation’ – ‘pseudo’ because it can only seem ‘professional’ to someone who has never actually had to do the job, like a management-consultant, clueless outside academic or meddling politician. Looking good is everything. Doing good is nothing.
But then, why should we be even remotely surprised that our schools are now structured and run in this wrongheaded and wholly counterproductive way? It’s the precise same way every single other aspect of the British state is now run too, isn’t it?
Steven Tucker is a journalist and the author of over 10 books, the latest being Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science: When Science Fiction Was Turned Into Science Fact by the Nazis and the Soviets (Pen & Sword/Frontline), which is out now.
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.
Boris is such a sausage. If he truly believed his mumbo jumbo, he’d open the pubs on a Monday instead of aiming for his own little Poundland version of independence day
Tom,
Why not tomorrow?
I’d be in the boozer tomorrow given half a chance. Boris has clearly picked 4th July out for its connotations however.
Tom
Can’t wait for my pub breakfast/lunch!
Every time I walk past it .. …..
Not long now Hawk….
Tom
BUT Allison Pearson says…
“Using your pub app, ladies and gentlemen, please follow the bookings process and reserve a slot for a date after 4 July. On that day and no sooner, after donning your Hazmat suit (can’t be too careful!) or mask, go to the pub, register your details at the door, proceed to your table, sit down as safely as you can. Do NOT face your friend! Try to sit back to back. Try not to speak – droplets! Do not approach the bar. Place your drinks order using the bar-coded menu card on your table. The menu card will be destroyed after you have touched it.”
Too much hassle?
Wetherspoons apart, I don’t think any of this nonsense will be tolerated where I live.
One crumb of comfort is thinking how the old goat who owns Samuel Smith’s is coping with all this. Trying to ban mobile phones and tablets – Well how do you like those apples now that they are mandated by Herr Hancock?……
Samuel Smiths? I completely agree with him.
I have a 7 year old nokia and I often leave it at home when I go out. I use it mostly for taking photographs. If I do need to use it as a phone it has four hours free. It costs me £12 a month.
I hope never to own an i-phone.
I use my PC at home for the internet.
Heard a couple of comments re Samuel Smiths – can anyone advise what it’s about? Thanks
last year they banned mobile phones
Sounds a great idea.
Thanks
I thought we were all decent spotters of silly arbitrary rules on here? Pray tell, how can it be okay to read a newspaper or a book (as I’ve observed many times in a Sam Smith’s pub) but not read the news or a book on your phone? I was once ticked off for calling someone on my phone, inviting them TO THE PUB. I was in the beer garden too.
Riddle me that one my sceptical chums.
I have a phone so primitive that it can only be used for making phone calls, plus short text messages. And I leave it switched off when I’m out. No spies in my pocket!
My iPhone is pay as you go with no contract. Its mainly switched off and is for emergencies only.
Sam Smiths will not want to spend money on apps, disposable beer menus, hand sanitizer etc. It will put the cost of a pint of OBB up
Is this a joke?
Allison certainly summed up why it’s a less-that appealing outing.
It’s akin to being freed from prison but you’ll still have the ball and chain around your ankles, handcuffed and wearing a mask. Some independence eh?
I understood that, as far as Bojo’s concerned, masks are now optional.
Did I miss something?
On Public Transport masks are a requirement.
That’s now only at the discretion of the company involved, surely?
Is it?
It isn’t law but it could be a requirement for travel, determined by company policy. Hopefully it will soon be clarified.
If it isn’t law they can’t enforce it.
Not legally but they could possibly refuse to transport you. Let’s hope they see sense asap so it isn’t an issue.
They can refuse to let you on but can’t kick you off for it is how I read it.
Thank you Toby for all that you have done, YOU are a true leader and hopefully our next PM.
Seconded! With Peter Hitchens, David Starkey and Jonathan Sumption in the Cabinet. Or constituting the Cabinet.
Now there’s an idea
– lock the current Cabinet in a cabinet and let people get on with their lives!
So proud of the work you’re doing Toby. Thank you, thank you. Has anyone seen any MSM articles about the “surprising” lack of COVID cases due to BLM protests? Or is it a non-story now because nothing has actually happened? I still feel we have an endless road ahead, but furlough ending will speed you any remainders of this massive public failure.
Larua,
You will like this one:
https://www.wired.com/story/what-minnesotas-protests-are-revealing-about-covid-19-spread/
What Minnesota’s Protests Are Revealing About Covid-19 Spread
and ….
‘Act with necessary force’: Greta Thunberg says BLM protests & ‘corona crisis’ give blueprint for climate change fight
https://www.rt.com/news/492475-greta-thunberg-black-lives-matter/
So I suppose that this little twerp can see the virus with the naked eye!
Yep BBC have been trying to revive her star career with an interview which was not an interview but really just a homage to some saintly demi-goddess.
Obviously her “team” have decided now is the time to relaunch the very lucrative brand and get her out in the media again.
But… I dunno…Joan of Arc got burnt at the stake for her career relaunch – I don’t think some non-journalist (Justin Rowlatt) genuflecting before her on BBC will cut it. There are new heroes now – BLMistas for instance…new fonts of wisdom…Marcus Rushford, Killer Mike, Raheem Stirling…
I think Greta may have just been retired at the rather young age of 17.
Not before time!
Her team are employed by Soros NGOs, same as the BLM are backed by Soros NGOs.
Now that is someone Id like to lock in cupboard and throw away the key! She’s so obnoxious I really cannot why sane people would listen to it!
The love child of Vladimir Lenin and Violet Elizabeth Bott.
And she maketh me want to thcream and thcream until I’m thick. (I can.)
She’s backed by our friend Bill, so has a huge PR machine behind her.
How dare you!!
I recommend everyone read the whole article.
At first it seems very pro-mask, then dithers about the medical “evidence”, which is full of don’t knows, not sures, it’s unclears etc.
This is how important decisions are made – by the clueless.
Three cheers for the stroppy residents of Oklahoma!
I hope Trump’s indoor rally for mask-wearers doesn’t strengthen the case for them.
One more linked to that as well:
https://justthenews.com/accountability/media-4
Media cites Trump rally for COVID-19 danger but raises no such concern for Brooklyn event
I get a news update on my phone every evening, not sure why or where from but clearly an American site. You can guarantee that it is always some screechy headline about rising ‘spikes’ or ‘surges’ within Republican States that have opened early. I followed up one report and the spikes were due to increased testing, not people queuing up to die. The whole thing stinks, the media and government must think we’re stupid
Of course they do, And thanks to the brain-killing terror campaign, most people are stupid.
Unfortunately, a lot of people are stupid!
Doesn’t fit the narrative, Laura, so is being ignored.
A bunch of medical “experts” are fretting about the “inevitable” 2nd wave:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/24/health-leaders-urge-review-of-uks-readiness-for-covid-19-second-wave
Clearly, this isn’t over yet.
Pull down nasty notices! Go up the down lane and down the up lane! Boycott shops that treat you like dirt! Tell them where to stuff their masks! Support Simon Dolan, he’s got the buggers on the run! Resist! Eschew zombiedom! Get close to real people! Live life!
And, in case you missed it, here’s a link to a worthy cause:
https://click.pstmrk.it/2sm/www.crowdjustice.com%2Fcase%2Fface-masks%2F/oD_P7Ag/UnpD/A3YuFvvscT/cGxlZGdlX2NvbmZpcm1hdGlvbg
I no longer look apologetic because some gimp in a facemask looks at me with disdain when I get too close to their safe space. I now just tut and shake my head – it’s worth it to see their wide eyed disbelief and horror..
Ha ha, yes I do too!
Also politely declined the smart scan app at Sainsbury’s this morning which was enthusiastically being promoted by a staff member walking up and down the queue. Pointed out that I’d rather talk to a human being at the checkout, and if everyone signed up the app, she’d be out of a job anyway. I also pointed out that the virus has all but disappeared so the queuing (which was also used as another reason to download the app – makes them move quicker apparently) should be disappearing soon too if common sense prevailed. (Not holding my breath on that one though).
Of course the one question nobody asks is, given that this virus is so deadly, why haven’t the bodies of supermarket workers been piling up since the start of this pantomime……
I was genuinely disappointed to see a supermarket worker who had up to now been mask free wearing one this evening when I popped in for some milk. Her colleagues were still unmasked, so it is clearly not mandatory for staff in that shop to wear them.
I thought about saying something to her along the lines of “I’m deeply disappointed in you”. (I had quite admired her up to that point.) But after my recent experience in a shop with a black mask clad female who wanted me hung drawn and quartered for daring to question her choice of attire, I thought better of it.
Yep, stay alert John, they’re mental!
Members of my family, daughter & son in law. Daughter in law work for 2 of the big 5 supermarkets. They all work in large, heavily populated stores. None has had anyone off work from Covid. At the start there were a lot of staff off with cold etc. having their 2 weeks off fully paid but since then nobody. Nobody has died of it & nobody has a relative who has.
I stopped using Sainsbury’s long before lockdown when they started providing an ominous number of self-scan machines.
And always pay with cash if you’re able to. Ushering in their cashless society “revolution” is one of the big trojan horses of this lockdown. How convenient it coincides with the negative interest rates they keep touting as “the new normal”.
I’m one of the admins for the Us for Them Scotland Facebook Group, which now has over 8,000 members and who’s voices gathered together just over a week ago to urge the Scottish Government to ditch its ridiculous “blended learning” model that would see children, such as my 15 year old daughter, being in school no more than 3 half days per week.
Of course, now that Swinney has announced his caveat-ridden 180, the teaching unions are going all militant. The same teaching unions that forced 15 years like me in the 1980s to spend several hours a week sitting in the school dining hall, teacher-less.
I need advice on how to counter the unions…anyone got any ideas?
Well, one of the reasons given elsewhere for teachers remaining in a union is to do with insurance – teaching always brings the risk of accusations, possibly as we have seen 20-30 years later but providing you stay with the union, the legal insurance policy continues to provide protection – so if the government was to provide insurance (at cost) to registered teachers so they didn’t need to depend on the union then the situation might change
Actually they have a point about protecting teachers against false accusations. I used to be a teacher (not unionised), and fear of malicious accusations from lying children, always taken seriously and ruinous for an innocent teacher’s entire career and reputation, hung round the staff room like a miasma..
Unions can do a noble job when they refrain from bullying, bragging and smashing. It’s such a pity some of them have poisoned themselves and their members.
Thatcher faced up to them. Nobody else has dared.
Yes that is correct. Insurance is my only reason I am in a union because the risk is significant. Trouble is they use the fees to hire a bunch of opinionated pen pushers. Would someone like to launch a teachers’ union which is just for insurance?
It makes me choke that we’re in this mess because Boris, Sturgeon et al were ‘following the science’ then the Unions ‘advised’ teachers not to return to work despite ‘the science’. Maybe you could ask them on what basis are they advising teachers, ask for a copy of their ‘risk assessments’
As long as HMG and the MSM keep screaming 2nd wave, 2nd wave, the unions will be able to keep making their point about it being potentially unsafe.
Perhaps you can see an opportunity for your situation in the folowing hypocrical sequence.
It appears there has been a political instruction made to allow breaching of covid laws. You might get something out of that.
Video of Police Scotland officer stating special Sturgeons office decree being followed by Police Scotland allowing lae breaking.
https://mobile.twitter.com/craigy33?lang=en
Scottish Police Federation trade union press release pointing out the difficulties coming from political messaging it is okay to break lockdown laws.
https://twitter.com/ScotsPolFed/status/1273587406084530176?s=20
How dare you cries Anwar and others condeming the criticism by Scottish Police Federation – which was pointing out all protestors are currently breaking the law.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18527358.scottish-police-federation-blasted-comments-george-square-disorder/
Teaching Unions will be laced through with Common Purpose trained staff members who are linked directly into the network causing the social changes. This covid seems like it is the moment the Common Purpose ‘sleeper cells’ have been waiting for. You can see the unrelated to covid social and environmental changes across Scotland are happening. They will act in ways you perhaps might not anticipate. Know thy enemy.
Cpexposed – see training manuals in resources, they are trained to go in very hard against opposition. They will seek to stop your momentum in any fashion they can.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/19/media_begging_for_a_second_wave.html
Media Begging for a ‘Second Wave’
I’ll give them one. I’ll wave them ‘bye bye’.
With two fingers?
Absolutely!
I wish Toby and co luck with their FSU High Court action. It’s a no brainer for me but I would say that wouldn’t I? Strong and convincing pieces by Toby and Dr Lee. The lack of challenge of the standard narrative by the vast majority of the press has been shocking and surprising but perhaps more alarming is the lack of questioning by the public all over the world. It has shown leaders everywhere that their citizens are extremely easy to control – all you have to do is terrify them and they will comply with absolutely anything. I guess we knew this from history but to see it replayed in my lifetime….. I thought it was consigned to the history books. That scares me more than any virus or economic recession.
The Observer paper forces YouTube to again terminate The Iconoclast, doxes man behind it
https://www.rt.com/uk/492512-observer-gets-iconoclast-suspended/
It’s been a very clear demonstration of the power of propaganda.
Which reminds me: Does anyone have any sort of statistics on UK hospitals? I have not seen anything on how full the hospitals are, how many patients in the average hospital, etc. Nothing like that. All i see is people applauding the NHS for… something. Would really like to see some data, please.
Seconded.
This was mid April:
‘Figures from the national NHS operational dashboard, seen by HSJ, show that 40.9 percent of NHS general acute beds were unoccupied as of the weekend — 37,500 of the total 91,600 relevant beds recorded in the data. That is 4,500 more than the 33,000 the NHS said had been freed up on 27 March, and nearly four times the normal amount of free acute beds at this time of year.’
‘The clearout follows a huge ramping up of discharges from hospital in recent weeks in preparation for the covid-19 surge, with funding rules and checks scrapped, new facilities opened, and staff told to focus on discharge, change their thresholds, and be more directive about patients leaving hospital. The number of patients who have spent 21 days or more in hospital — so called “super stranded patients” — has reduced by 40 per cent, one source said.’
https://www.hsj.co.uk/acute-care/nhs-hospitals-have-four-times-more-empty-beds-than-normal/7027392.article
The Kings Fund is another source of info:
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs-hospital-bed-numbers
I saw a post mentioning the 41% max occupied ICU beds, but thanks for the source.
I wonder when if ever 59% of ICU beds have ever been that empty!
And we know what happened to those ‘discharged’ patients.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-early-pandemic-paradox-deaths-months.html
The early pandemic paradox: Fewer deaths in the first 4 months of 2020 compared to the previous 5 years
So, in other words, the NHS is probably less busy than ever, what with them telling everyone to stay at home.
They’ll be busy soon with all the people they’ve neglected for the past 2 months….
Not if they decide to neglect them for another 2 months…
Ah yes, ‘Protect the NHS’ from the 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave…….
I had non socially distanced drinks last night with friends in the village including two hospital doctors who I know but have not seen since the beginning. Admitted I was a sceptic and they basically concurred and admitted their holiday is nearly over. They said it was real and had seen a few really ill patients but it was largely nosocomial, virtually zero risk to most and Govt had done just about everything wrong that they could.
A friend of ours works (admin) at one of Manchester’s largest hospitals. She says that Covid suspected patients are kept isolated in one wing with the rest of the hospital , in her words, has been like a ghost town from the very beginning of this charade
Same in Western General Edinburgh. Very quiet with staff reporting feeling humiliated/embarrassed by the clapping as in work with little to do.
They told you. Who else are they going to tell, and when?
Roll on the Coronaberg Trials.
One possibility: it mutated in Northern Italy and the mutation was magnified by poor hospital treatment and the lockdown, so that competing milder mutations did not get a look in (I do remember the pics of patients in Italy lined up in corridors and medical staff passing between them). Who really knows? I doubt we ever will know, but I am convinced that a lot of people were battling extremely stubborn viral infections from October of last year…
There’s two reasons why Northern Italy was heavily hit.
I call BS on that. Athens is also incredibly polluted. But Greece has one of the lowest Covid death rates in Europe.
As for the one migrant theory, I don’t believe it. Northern Italy has a huge number of illegal work gangs with Chinese workers (many from the Wuhan region) working on fake papers. Some put the figure at 150,000. These workers will not have been known to the authorities and will have continued working on through any flu-like symptoms, because that’s what would be expected of them by their gang masters. Most of these gang workers will be relatively young and relatively fit, and probably with some natural immunity to the disease in many cases (as we see in China). They won’t have been collapsing and so would not be observed by the authorities.
Spain also has lots of Chinese work gangs, which probably explains their severe outbreak. Greece does not.
We do have Chinese work gangs as well and they may have played a part in spreading the virus as well. The pressure on a north London hospital (Northwick Park) could be an indication of that.
But you will have noticed that the MSM has made virtually no reference to the problem of these gangs (totally flouting EU work regs and operating on illegal fake papers). Why?
I’m also thinking that Greece escaped the worst because their elderly tend to still live in the villages and Mitzotakis very sensibly stopped the usual mass-exodus from Athens over Orthodox Easter so the most vulnerable were fairly protected?
Not compared with the previous 10 – looks like any other year. Max and min shown with median. Image posting appears to have gone. Whether there are substantially fewer in the second half of 2020 is more interesting.
Hospital admission figures for covid 19 patients would be far more useful now than daily new infections. For example the outbreak at the chicken processing factory on Anglesey. Around 150 positive cases so far – but how many of those required hospital treatment? If infection rates increase but hospital admissions go down then that’s a good sign. Will we be informed if this is happening?
No Spingler
The press have a certain story they want to post
Good point. But no, we will not be informed. There is no desire to ease the feeling of panic within the population.
I was in Stratford upon Avon on Sunday. In the city centre there were signs informing people to maintain distance due to COVID-19. Why? Like anyone can forget this pandemic is going on. I also found it interesting how people made a conscious effort to maintain distance (and i say conscious because as soon as they lost focus, the separation went away), but not because they were afraid of the virus. It looked to me like everyone was doing it so as not to be seen to not be doing it, if that makes sense. One wonders what the government could achieve if it conducted similar campaigns against other, more real issues. Littering, illegal parking, etc.
I think a lot socially distance out of deference to others, assuming that they ought to do it, without really believing in it themselves. There are some fear-addicts who are genuinely scared, but most don’t seem too concerned about it in my experience.
The government have been successful with dog mess Cristi. That my dog-loving fellow Brits have been so willing to pick up their dogs excrement from the pavement has never ceased to amaze me. Too many, perhaps victims of dogshit-shoe syndrome in the 1970s and 1980s. Although I am fond of dogs I have never been sufficiently enamoured to actually own one myself.
Stepping in dog shit was a regular occurrence when I was a kid. We had to turn our shoes up when we got back to the house, in case the stinking stuff got on to the carpets.
I own a dog and I have no objection to picking up dog shit. Torn-down Covinotices make good scoops.
But with public loos closed, who us picking up the personshit?
Ours have just re-opened!
Yay!!
Peer pressure was a large part of the nudge unit’s policy.
This Twitter feed is useful for data analysis like that. Don’t think there’s any specifically for UK but I imagine the general trends are similar around the world.
https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic
Large swaths of the press and public do not seem to get this basic point: more infections and fewer hospitalizations is *good.* Testing positive is not a “case.” So many seem to be willfully stoopid.
Cabinet Office website slides and datasets for daily press conference has Excel spreadsheet showing admissions, ventilator occupancy, total in hospitals with Covid since early March.
Hospital data here:
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-uk-hospital-admissions/
I’ve asked the CEBM team if they could express the numbers in terms of percentages in order to gauge loading vs. capacity.
For many weeks, the daily government statistics included ICU numbers as a proportion of capacity. I was always dubious about the relevance, because there had been a huge surge in capacity (repurposing wards, nightingale hospitals), so it was impossible to tell either what was happening with the absolute numbers or whether the standard capacity would have been significantly overtopped. As I recall, pre ‘crisis’ there were around 4,000 ICU beds across the country and we ran at about 80% capacity.
There is a new update to those figures:
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-uk-hospital-admissions/
Great data, thank you.
I have seen the figures for the General hospitals in the county . As a primary care physician you might expect that we are given this data every week to at least keep us in the loop. However apparently it was a mistake that the statistics ended up in my e mail inbox because the NHS considers this top secret .
Anyway in a nutshell there are no covid patients on ITU within any hospital in my county and the number of covid patients on the general wards are outnumbered by hospital staff ” off sick ” in a ratio of 100 to 1.
I can’t give you precise data to go and look at, but I can give you information from two friends, both of whom are nurses working in Covid Intensive Care wards. At one large hospital in the NW at the start of the lockdown, they got 200 beds up and running in a short time and were never over subscribed. As long ago as 6 weeks they were down to 80 patients, again elderly and/or nosocomial. Both admittance to ordinary Covid wards and intensive care wards became very low, dropped away. Now in single numbers on intensive care and the hospital is starting to revert to “ordinary” care wards again. Throughout they were losing around 50% of intensive care patients, the vast majority of whom were elderly and/or had comorbidities. But this is an intensive care facility and in ordinary times they lose patients anyway – that’s the nature of that particular department sadly. My other friend had come back out of recent retirement to help out in another Covid intensive care at a different hospital. Unfortunately she caught Covid right at the beginning and was off work for a while isolating, although she was never very ill with it. By the time she was ready to go back, she was told she wasn’t needed full time, not enough work. She is back now part time but they were never over subscribed in beds. Again mostly elderly with comorbidities dying, mostly people who were going to die anyway soon – sad of course, but not unexpected. Barely any patients left now. Neither of these friends thought the disease was ok, both said it’s a nasty one (although remember they get a bit of a skewed view as they only see the very ill) but they were never run off their feet.
We would have managed with just the ordinary hospitals and the Nightingales – which as we know were mostly empty – without shutting down the country. It’s been a vast over reaction thanks to some dodgy modelling.
It’s not just the hospitals. Our local paper this week reported that the 500 capacity morgue set up on the county showground had never been used and that the planned-for second morgue there had not even been built-all at an enormous cost to the taxpayer!
Second wave, second morgue, second BS.
Hospital I work at has 1 patient in ITU and 20 inpatients testing positive for Covid-19. They’re in for other diagnoses though…
As for Ofcom trying to suppress dissent… I’m not entirely convinced at this point that they’re doing it for the good of the population. For starters, no one knew how to approach this. So you’d expect the same behaviour as if you’d let loose a bunch of people in a pitch black room and told them to find the door: everyone would run off in a random direction. What we saw instead was a very coordinated effort in a specific direction: lockdown across the board.
Secondly, even if it was herd instinct to go in one direction because no better option was available, why did no country turn back on that decision when the evidence started mounting up? Why did everyone stubbornly proceeded on initial assumptions even though those assumptions were proven false?
I personally still believe that the response to this virus was a rehearsed and prepared action. I don’t know if the virus was deliberately let loose for this purpose or if it was a pre-made plan waiting for a trigger. Either way, everyone went from “nothing to worry, China is trustworthy” to “lock everything down immediately” extremely fast, and only after the virus already made it into their countries. Then you have the exercise that WHO (i think, maybe i’m mistaken) was running last year, simulating exactly a pandemic like this.
If what you want is control over the population, making them forget about freedom, get them adjusted to confinement and control, all in an effort to stop the protests from the “far right” that were getting more and more frequent in 2019… this is one pretty good way of doing it.
And for the people saying “Why would anyone want to destroy the economy over that?” All i can say is this: These people don’t care about money. They have so much money they can never hope to spend it all. Money doesn’t matter to them. Power does.
I’m convinced in the US there is a desire to keep people locked in doors so that they have to resort to postal votes in November. The left can then ‘manipulate’ the outcome
Much as I have been conditioned like everyone else to feel embarrassed by drifting into conspiracy theories, I do think that the ‘controlled demolition’ of the debt mountain has a lot going for it as an idea. If the world’s economy really has become the unsustainable monster we have been told it is, then it could collapse at any moment, leading to all kinds of chaos.
Instead, what we have now is a precedent for locking people in their homes whenever the authorities demand it, and a ready-made excuse for redistribution of wealth and ‘starting again’. The population has bought into the Covid narrative so magnificently, that they will be almost begging the government to relieve them of their savings and raise taxes, just to help get life back to normal.
I don’t believe that last sentence. They will be begging the govt to relieve someone else of their savings and raise someone else’s taxes.
My son commented very early on that all countries were using exactly the same vocabulary as they each went into lockdown.
Yep orchestrated by WHO with their financial backers
I did send a complaint to OFCOM (copied to the FSU) about their censorship of 5G and how they effectively shutdown Eammon Holmes and David Icke’s freedom of speech when they questioned the “everything about 5G is safe” narrative when this has never been proved.
I did eventually find a link to OFCOM’s tactics of fining the presenter, the show and the production company if they broadcast anything other than either a pro-5G show or one that really slanders the host etc to make them look like a raving loon after they fined a local radio station for airing a question 5G show.
Can’t find the link now (been 404’d like a lot of links I’ve read over the past 6 months) but will keep looking.
As soon as I heard that the government had come up with a 365 page document on the ‘crisis’ in just a few days, I knew it was a ‘rehearsed and prepared action’.
I am aware of event 201 but have not wanted to scare myself too much by watching it all on youtube.. what was the end result or conclusion and are we currently following the same pattern as in event 201??
I think there is definitely some master plan behind it, though hope it is not all as bad as UK column say.
Mason Mills is clearly signalling the way ahead to some extent, so is worth keeping an eye on. He said the mask advice would change way back at the beginning of April – and here we are, he was right..
Clearly the government knows it created a complete catastrophe from the word go and now they wait in abject fear for the final reckoning in terms of avoidable deaths (including those from non-Covid19 patients denied hospitalisation ), massive increases in unemployment, bankruptcies, mental health issues, suicides, etc., and of course the national debt.
This explains their determination to come out of lockdown very slowly, thus advertising ongoing wise caution – otherwise cynical types (!) might entertain the notion that it was all totally unnecessary in the first place.
Murder will out!
This is also why they want to keep the people as panicked as possible. That way, when the economy is falling apart, everyone will just think: “But we had no choice. We couldn’t end the lockdown. It was scary to go out there.” No one will even think about questioning the government’s decisions. And if anyone does think about questioning it… well, that’s what Ofcom, Google, Twitter, and Facebook are for.
I watched in disbelief last week(?) when the PM of New Zealand did a press conference to announce TWO yes TWO new cases of the disease (they only tested positive). Anyone would think from the look on her face that she had just lost her whole family to some catastrophic and awful event
Project FEAR
She lost her mind to a catastrophic and awful ideology a long time ago.
I could be wrong, but didn’t “she” send the military to investigate? Wow, this must be the emergency, high-adrenaline use case which will send people flocking to the local recruitment agency … “Join the Military – Be Part of the Covid-19/20/21/22/23/24 Hunt-and-Subdue ‘Intervention Unit’ … Our Great Country Needs You!”
99 Red Balloons spring to mind …
At least New Zealanders can get on with dying from more acceptable causes now.
Have another laugh. In the FT (pay wall)
https://www.ft.com/content/255567d5-b7ec-4fbe-b8a9-833b3a23f665
French give cool reception to Covid-19 contact-tracing app
Fewer than 70 people have used it to report positive test results in 3 weeks since launch
France’s coronavirus-tracing app has failed to take off, with only 68 people using it to register a positive test result in the three weeks since its launch, despite 1.9m downloading it on their phones.
Olivier Blazy, a computer science professor at the University of Limoges, questioned whether the app would actually contribute to the public health effort. “Adoption has been derisory and the results are ridiculous,” he said. “There were more people involved in the creation of the app than people who have benefited from it.”
Well… maybe… only 68 people actually got the virus in France in the past 3 weeks…?
I think people suddenly realised that if they report it, their family and friends will all be locked down for two weeks.
Also that they will actively be stopping their friends from going to work..with obvious financial implications..
I’ll be discouraging people from reporting cases, ‘you know what will happen they will lock us down again and we will lose jobs and freedom, keep quiet’.
I’m an avid pub-goer — I rarely ever drink in the house under ordinary circumstances — but I simply WILL NOT be going if I have to give the owners my contact details. Surely there must be GDPR implications?? I hope no one plays the game until pubs realize they’ll go bust and some sense prevails. THIS IS NOT MY NEW NORMAL!!!
Oh god calm down, it’s all BS, my local landlord finds it all hilarious, it won’t last 20 minutes in most pubs. It’s all about keeping the minority of believers happy whilst the rest of us carry on with normal life.
Good for you; the landlords in my locals will take it seriously, and I will not countenance the ‘new normal’ by supporting them.
They will though when they start getting fined.
They’ll only get fined if the police can be arsed to enforce this bullshit.
Newflash: they can’t.
(In fact, I was talking to someone I went to school with who is now a local bobby in the area we grew up and he basically says the pubs have all been given the wink wink nod nod by the police to do whatever the hell they like – because most of the officers want to go and have a drink too!)
The landlord of my local local (so like, extremely local i.e. on my road) just told me this evening that he will be trying to guess who has been in the pub on any given night by taking note of the joke names on the ‘register’. Apparently I’m a Margot Channing or Joan Rivers type of faker. Very complimentary.
There are going to be a lot of Matt Hancocks I expect.
Omigod classic. One night I can be Matt Handjob. The next I can be Matt Handonhiscock. So many options!
I suspect that the attitude at pubs operated by national pub companies may well be quite different from local “free houses”.
I had a brief chat with the owner who runs the bar at our sailing club – he will re-open but will NOT collect actual contact details of punters. He will offer a “reward” for the most imaginative name and contact detail for anyone, if required to collect these details. I am going to be: “Fatty Fatty Boom Boom Dave.” So okay, I’ve indulged quite a bit in the last three months – I’m only (a binge drinking) human.
Lol that’s amaze
GDPR…. good point
You can get your ass sued off for mis use of that data!
Probably not. GDPR has never been there to benefit the population. GDPR is there to ensure that the public can only access services that store data in a way the government can access it and make use of it. As such, if it benefits the government, GDPR can be ignored.
As for GDPR, I’d assume that the expectation will be that the info will be destroyed after a reasonable time period – say 14-21 days. Bit of an admin nuisance for the pub though.
The pub might destroy the info but, if digital, it will already have been sent to HMG?
Well, from what I’ve seen, it’s the pub’s data. They can store it how they want, and there doesn’t seem to be any centralised reporting requirement. I assume there’s a requirement to give the info for that time period to the test track and trace lot if there’s a confirmed infection who’s been there in the last X days (which is why I say 14-21 days). How much that bothers you depends on 1) how much test track and trace bothers you and b) whether you’ve given your actual details in the first place.
or it might land in a bin and then retrieved by someone.
The pub wouldn’t last very long if that happens. There’s a _reason_ all companies were in a panic when GDPR was coming in.
Try being a landlord and not Gdpr proofing your tenants data and see how quick you get sued. Faster than you can say “no win no fee”
Oh, yes. That’s why I’m saying they’ll just destroy the data when they don’t need it anymore. You definitely don’t want the hassle of keeping it.
Is this details at the door policy an intended shocker to gauge reaction?
Maybe think about such outlandish overstretches into the lives of the people have a reason behind them.
The Nudge Unit or Behaviourial Insights Team (clandestine fuckers) may well find national discussion and outrage about such proposals helpful to their cause. What’s another u-turn? Simply another proof the dear government listens to you.
I’ll be going to pubs asking for details. I will not be entering. A customer on their threshold turning their back on their business.
I’ve said it before – they have realised it is harder than they thought to get people to download the tracing app, and with Simon Dolan challenging them in the courts, this is just a way to harvest personal data without needing to legislate for it and risk being taken to court again. They probably reckon people are so desperate to go to the pub that they will comply.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/lockdown-lift-off-wants-live-new-normal/
The comments!
Esp…….
Jane Wood
23 Jun 2020 7:50PM
A whole nation, paralysed by the prospect of premature death from a virus. A nation which happily uses cars and lorries and planes to go on holiday to countries with strange diseases, which has people who ski, race, swim and climb mountains. Who eat food prepared in kitchen they don’t see by people whose habits they don’t know and who smoke and drink alcohol even though they know it could eventually kill them. But a virus with a mortality rate of 1% or whatever it is means life has to grind to a standstill and everyone should not go near another human being regardless of their age, their health or anything else. What has happened to our perception of risk? And worst of all, why have we been robbed of personal responsibility and choice?
Could not agree more.
Well said!
Excellent comment but the IFR is probably 0.1% so it’s even more outrageous than she says.
Another excellent comment from the same article:
Johnny Patriot 24 Jun 2020 6:56AM
A brilliant article. Allison Pearson just gets better and better.
This
I suspect there is an element of the Government scrabbling save face, staving off the Corona Day of Judgement
I think sums it up and it would be better to get the inquiry and the inevitable condemnation out of the way as soon as possible to get the longest non-Covid run-up to the General Election. As to the actual nonsense of going to pub and then sitting opposite the person you went there with, if we all just ignore it, it will collapse. There just are not enough police officers to enforce it.
Toby,
I keep saying it but I don’t know how you find the hours. Your passion, tenacity and mental resilience amazes me. A thousand times thank you for the great work you are doing against everything crazy that’s happening in 2020. It still doesn’t feel real to me; like we’re living in a science fiction movie in this crazy, warped dystopian future.
Personally, I’m missing the gym most of all. As someone who’s suffered from regular bouts of depression and anxiety in my life, going to the gym has been a life-saver for me. Not just the physical and mental benefits, but also the social life I get from it. I’m gutted we don’t know when we’ll ever be allowed to go back. I am so angry right now with what Johnson, Cummings, Hancock, Gove et al are doing to our lives and I feel so powerless. I pray that karma comes around and Simon Dolan’s case is successful. This must never ever be allowed to happen again.
Keep fighting the good fight. You are doing such important work and we are extremely grateful. Free speech; our civil liberties; the right for our children to be educated are all fundamental aspects of British life. I will never forgive this government for what they have done and for what they are continuing to do to us.
Add “establishment” to “government” and I’m with you 100%
I keep saying it but I don’t know how you find the hours. Your passion, tenacity and mental resilience amazes me.
Hear! Hear!
Many thanks also to your wife for tolerating your spending so many hours fighting for us all.
I’ve had Sky News on in the background pretty much every day since lockdown began. The bias in their reporting is so blatant. Every time they had a contrarian to the mainstream narrative on you could see the contempt in the questioning and the presenter would be dismissive of every answer often cutting them short.
I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that the media are more interested in making the news than reporting it now.
“I’ve had Sky News on in the background pretty much every day since lockdown began.”
Why?
Purely research purposes. I like to keep informed on the counter arguments.
That’s the only sensible excuse I could come up with.
I skim the Guardian headlines every morning, to ascertain the official narrative (no paywall!), but I wouldn’t dream of spending all day in there!
I don’t usually bother with any tv news, but during the coronapanic I’ve found Fox News relatively good. And it’s genuinely refreshing to hear people actually talking rationally about Trump rather than the kind of hysterical or cynical abuse you invariably get here. I just enjoyed this piece from today, which included Brandon Tatum, the former policeman who was so good on the BLM riots a few days ago, talking about the support for Trump in Arizona:
Border Wall progress: What’s been built so far?
I can’t get Fox anymore on my Sky package, they removed it for some reason. TV is going in the bin now anyway.
I only watch the news vids on t’internet.
get an amazon firestick and download some apps and stop paying for sky
Bin it!
You’ll feel so much better.
After a bit you’ll wonder how on earth you ever watched the wretched thing
I’m watching and listening to less and less news…and I was a total news junkie once. Probably dates from around the height of Project Fear 2 post referendum when the news on BBC, Sky and ITV became so off the scale biased with the anti-Brexit fear propaganda (none of which has yet materialised – at least I don’t remember them predicting a global pandemic caused by Brexit).
I briefly returned to intensive news watching when the virus story became big, initially being very open-minded about it all…but then one began to see all the contradictions: hang on, why are we in Europe having total national lockdowns but no one is in the Far East?…hang on, why is the virus so bad in Italy but not Greece…hang on why do all the extreme lockdown countries have the worst death rates…hang on why is Sweden doing better than us even though they don’t have a lockdown? Once the contradictions began to stack up, the wall to wall propaganda of the mainstream media once again became totally unbearable and of course for many weeks there was only one story: Coronavirus.
They predicted an epidemic of ‘Super’ Gonorrhea due to a shortage of medications. So….. nearly.
The moral is: if you are going to construct a Project Fear then make it general!
Not “sandwiches” or “gonorrhea” but “food” and “deadly infections”.
Yes, specificity is too enjoyable for them and therefore too transparent
Been no MSM in my house since January.
Good on ya
To my mind It’s called fake news and its been going on forever.We have literally been programmed)
Sorry to repost this; I attended the demonstration in The Hague last sunday (left before the watercanons though as I was there with my 12 y.o. son). Until some (hired?) hooligans destroyed the peace there was a good understanding between protesters and the police. Funny thing though: none of the police officers present (and there were a lot!) respected the one and a half meters distance between their collegues. Nor were they wearing facemasks…funny, isn’t it? A virus that makes exeptions for police people…
Yep, hired (or ‘on duty’) troublemakers have been a standard tactic for decades, Michel.
“A virus that makes exceptions for police people”
Indeed, as the following video Toby linked to a few days back made clear, it’s a remarkably selective virus:
The Corona Virus Doesn’t Spread in Gatherings I Support
The police have never followed the rules they’ve been enforcing.
No social distancing.
No PPE.
No respecting of said social distancing when ‘handling’ members of the public.
Nobbing around in massive groups and dancing on TikTok.
Having fun when nobody else is allowed to.
And the latest, most galling addition: Cracking the heads of ‘far-right’ lockdown protestors who happen to mostly be old blokes waving signs, whilst, a few weeks later, literally bowing down before the violent mob as it defaces and destroys our town centres. In letting *some* *special* people break the rules with impunity when it serves a political agenda they once again break their own rules by extension.
I think that’s what we call fair and accurate reportage. Nothing false in what you write there!
To describe them as “bowing down” shows remarkable restraint. I considered it to be grovelling.
We are again being forced to consider the way the world of football operates now the sport is being revived…
I’ve noticed that the players and managers, conscious of social distancing, are very careful to avoid the traditional handshake. Instead they do the elbow-to-elbow thing…only problem is that then, immediately afterwards, they pat each other all over, wherever they fancy: head, shoulders, face, arms or back!
How thick are footballers and their managers, eh?
It confirms a truth of the modern world: that virtue signalling, whether it be taking the knee or touching elbows, is far more important than good sense or reality.
No doubt these newly virtuous footballers are still shagging prostitutes, using racial epithets among themselves, indulging in huge quantities of Class A drugs, investing in dodgy tax avoidance schemes and throwing matches for money, just as they have always done.
And there must always be a plane flying overhead immediately before a match to provide political balance.
TBH I’d not been aware of the OfCom guidance* but now I am it explains a lot about why the media have been so single-minded in promoting the dangers of Covid and so resistant to exposing us to anyone with a non-approved view. It might even explain the soft and useless questioning by “top journalists” on the daily briefing – but their general incompetence and lack of statistical skills is a pretty good explanation in itself.
Anyway, thank you Toby for all your efforts on this site and FSU and thank God that you are there to bring the two together.
* PS: There’s that word “guidance” again, much as in 2 metres. If it’s “guidance” do the media have to follow it? Or when it comes from OfCom, is “guidance” actually like the laws of the Medes and Persians? I’m sick of “guidance” that is mandatory until the Government or other agency decides it suits it not to be (cf school closures).
If it’s guidance, it can’t be mandatory, because if it is mandatory it’s an instruction.
The journalists weren’t bowing to Ofcom, they’d been bought by HMG. The reason we’re currently seeing some dissenting articles is because the bribe ran out – check the nauseating begging letters in the Guardian for confirmation.
Anyone been to Waterstones since they reopened? What’s it like now – touch a book and it immediately gets carted off for quarantine?
Presumably if you have their back to them it won’t…
Don’t see the logic of this. You then go from Waterstones to the supermarket where each item has probably been fingered by 20 people in the last 72 hours.
i always fondle my mangos at Aldi to make sure they are not too ripe. And i havent washed my hands!!
IT’S MANGO MADNESS screams the Mail. “Brit boffins find mango fondlers are super-spreading virus. MP calls for their indefinite internment”
Intern the mangoes! Mangoes are super-spreaders!
Actually the funniest ‘touching’ story I heard was of a shop in Germany where people were rummaging through a pile of face masks, picking them up, trying them on and throwing them back on the pile.
Your dentist has to disinfect every surface your bum merely grazes, and yet you can go into Sainsburys and literally lick unwrapped loose vegetables before putting them back on display.
You have some strange shopping practices.
You can’t, actually. You will be sent to jail, just like the people licking ice creams last year.
A friend who went to Waterstones last week mentioned that she saw the trolley for the books to be quarantined. But she has no idea if they’re used since she was the only customer in there.
I won’t be surprised if they barely have anyone come through the door since they reopened.
All-bad Goodall on Newsnight tonight using smoke and mirrors on excess deaths.
Firstly, there is no acknowledgement that lockdown – depriving confused elderly people in care homes of contact with their loving family members might well have hastened the deaths of people who had the Covid 19 infection (but probably a lot of other pathogens as well in their lungs).
Secondly, not admitting that lockdown can directly cause deaths through many routes including failure to seek or denial of medical treatment.
Yes, I notice there’s a definite attempt in the media, and by the “experts”, to blame the virus rather than the government for excess lockdown deaths.
Oh yeah! Of course we here are no doubt all of us wise to such strategems, but of course the average Joe or Jane won’t necessarily see through such scamming of the stats.
I noticed this trend starting maybe 3-4 weeks ago. Suddenly, every lockdown zealot on twitter was going on about “60,000” deaths as if it was guaranteed that each and every lockdown death had to be due to the Coronavirus. The BBC played their part with a “3 ways to measure Coronavirus deaths” article, the last being counting all the excess deaths as being due to Covid. Clearly, the word came down from on high and their lapdogs in the press ran with it. The irony is that even the official Covid-19 count itself is probably too high as many died “with” it rather than “of” it.
Exactly. Most people at the end of life have several significant loads of pathogens in their lungs (I seem to recall the figure of 14 as being an average). When you think about it that makes sense since the lungs are very much the gateway to the whole organism. So if the organism is weak owing to old age and illness, that is where you will find the multiple sites of infection (in that lovely warm and wet envirionment of the lungs).
Thankfully we can look at the overall figures for lung infection to keep track of that. There clearly has been a large excess of deaths – so far – but I fully expect the excess deaths figure for lung infections including Covid-19 to go negative over the next few weeks. By the end of the year, looking at figures for the whole year, it won’t look nearly so dramatic. But total excess deaths for the whole year might be very bad as we see the impact of denied medical treatment, undiscovered serious ill health, mental health effects, effects of unemployment and so on.
Here’s what I predict: deaths from all that undiagnosed/untreated cancer, heart disease etc. will start to increase. This will lead to shrieks of “SECOND WAVE!!!” and justify the promised October lockdown
UK deaths with only covid19 on the death certificate ? Around 1400.
Do you have a source for that JohnB?
Have a look at ‘Over 95% of Covid19 deaths had pre existing conditions’ at off-Guardian.org.
NHS England website. 95% had other causes
See here
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
And also
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
This is the chat
Thanks all. Just off for a day trip to Rye. Will report back.
Have a great day – I hope the loos are open!
Thanks Cheezilla. After experiencing the worst ‘chat’ facility ever (courtesy of Rother District Council’s website (they weren’t answering the phone)), I was informed the disabled loo at Rye Harbour was open. Fantastic. Two miles being a tad far to walk, I’m afraid the bushes in Rye old town had to suffice.
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/06/23/week-23-graphs-from-christopher-bowyer/
Thank you so much Toby for all your hard work. You have been a lone voice in the wilderness and we are very grateful to you – we have been dismayed and disgusted by the actions of the government and the media from the beginning. I look forward every day to receiving your email to bring some sanity. I must be very naive but I had no idea that Ofcom were behaving so appallingly but I now know why there have been no dissenting arguments In the press – it also makes me understand why so many have been made to feel so terrified, Thank you again
In a local supermarket this evening…guy in front of me is wearing a face mask and may I say in quite an ostentatious way, as many do.
Just before he pays for his purchases his fingers go to his face mask to adjust it. I see his finger tips on the mouth part where all the pathogens will have been gathering in a lovely warm moist, sugary (with saliva) environment, perfect for growth.
He then takes his fingers off the mask and uses the card machine to pay, so putting his fingers in contact with surfaces that I then have to touch as the next customer in the queue.
The idea that face masks reduce infection is clearly utter nonsense. They encourage people to touch their facial area with their fingers – the surest way to passing infections both ways.
I have noticed the same thing
Cash is cleaner !
The cash in my purse has normally only been handled by me in the last 48 hours or so. The card payment machines have been touched by goodness knows how many people in that time. Contactless isn’t always possible, especially when paying for larger amounts like petrol. I’ll stick with cash!
And sometimes contactless will either not work due to bad internet connection or for security reasons so you have to enter your PIN anyway.
In one of my local shops the cashier wearing gloves places a piece of clean clingfilm over the buttons, then removes and bins it after the transaction.
I mean, honestly, do people think the bloody thing enters and leaves the body through the skin? Behave as normal. When you’ve been touching dirty stuff lots of other people have been touching, wash your hands when you get home. Try not to suck your thumb, poke yourself in the eye or pick your nose. Y’know, just like any normal civilized person over the age of 6.
Ahh well saving the environment is no longer an issue.
Safer – for lots of non-medical reasons.
I’ve noticed that a lot too. Not to mention some of them emit harsh sounds when they breathe.
Coronavirus press conference: Teatime shows rejoice as Hancock’s half-hour ends
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-press-conference-teatime-shows-rejoice-as-hancocks-half-hour-ends-9l7zjrtbl
About time
Hi Toby,
All I can really say is: Well done, and thank you. Really! Thank you! You’ve provided a respite to the insanity of main stream media, you’ve given me hope, clarity, inspiration and strength, at times when I’ve wobbled or stared into the abyss and contemplated jumping! Thank you! I cannot believe this government’s narrative – you couldn’t write a script with more comedic elements: Covid-19 tainted cricket balls, people roundabouts, hush order on hair-dressers, restrictions on promiscuity, dice-rolling as to which grand parents to visit … even David Brent couldn’t be this imaginative. Their icy tendrils of despair and apocalypse are everywhere. I am aghast, depressed, angry, shocked, disappointed, resigned and defiant every day, after a cursory glance at the media. There must be at least 20 stages of Covid-19-reality resistance. Jesus. My way through this maze of insanity is to a) write to my local MP (I know, futile, but worth doing and I’ve done thrice), b) not support businesses with dogmatic/draconian Covid-19 regulations (I know, we should be supporting local business, but it’s a difficult trade-off to embrace, and I’ve chosen my path, apologies) and c) embrace NORMAL behaviors such as shaking hands with a friend, hugging a friend, patting someone on the back, getting on with just dealing with crowded situations without comment, and generally making it known in a non-pushy, non-judgemental way that: I DO NOT SUPPORT SOCIAL DISTANCING! Most of my friends know this, and choice and common sense now prevail. This bleeding madness must end. Has to, right? Please, oh please say I’m not being naive?! I fear for my boys, 11 and 8, that they have not internalised any of this insanity. I am 52 and will be fine. They may not. I fear for my 86 year old London auntie who is petrified beyond reason. I can only support and advise her, not change the internalised narrative. But most of all … MOST of all … I fear this deceptive, puppet show government who have ruined our way of life for – arguably, I admit – a generation … will not get their comeuppance. That’s my biggest fear. That this will all fade away … Toby, Simon, you have my unconditional support, and maybe more importantly, my utmost respect! Take care, stay safe and stay alert, for God’s sake!
Your boys have you! They’ll be fine!
Excellent posting today! You and Dr. Lee sum up the situation so well. Thanks as always for your continuing work on the skeptical cause. I’d have lost my mind months ago if I hadn’t found a community of equally baffled folks.
I feel the same Mimi. If it wasn’t for Toby’s regular updates and articles, and everybody’s comments here, I’d be further round the bend than I already am! This site has been like a shining beacon in the darkness.
Well done and thanks for all your hard work
Here’s a petition about contact tracing, although I would be totally against it.
https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/sites/contact-tracing-joint-statement/
Contact tracing is one of those things that sounds good in theory but the practice in a nation of 70 million with 100 plus different language communities, a huge population of illegal migrants, illegal and unofficial overcrowded housing, strong class, religious and racial divides, and contacts with all parts of the globe? It ain’t gonna work! Any fule can see that. It might work in a small city state like Singapore with a high level of law-abiding conduct. It might work in monoglot, monocultural, monoracial states like Japan, Taiwan and S Korea. It might work in a brutal totalitarian state like China. But it won’t work here.
It won’t work here for those reasons, plus awkward old sods like me. The moment that gunk is on my phone, my phone will stay at home. I have a PAYG 2G (honestly!) phone, with no provision for apps, which will come out with me instead for as long as the trace facism continues. It’s one thing when your phone watches you to work out your location (GPS), local time tides and distance walked, etc; quite another when it’s idiots like Hancock who are watching you.
Why is everyone so tied to their phones anyway? Why take them out at all? What/who is so important that a call from them must never ever be missed, no matter where or when. I have never in my life
taken a phone out with me (I’m 58) except when I have been staying away from home to let my husband know I’m ok. I have an iPhone, my husband insisted, but now I only use it at home to WhatsApp family. A neighbour used to come to my house bringing both her house phone and a mobile phone, she would never fail to answer either, no matter how rude – and it is rude to answer a phone and have the other person sit around trying not to listen while you waffle on and on about nowt. It’s one of the reasons why I am in no hurry to ask her back after the lockdown ends (she is strict about it, saying we should only meet in the garden.). Well, no. I do hate most people at the moment, very angry, very, very angry…
Your neighbour is such an extreme case she’s clearly beyond redemption.
Exposé the lies.
Ok… There is a huge game being played here. It really is amazing what you find when you start doing your own digging. The virus is a nonsense, we know that but everyone is double downed locked in on a path that is a cover for something much bigger. That’s still ongoing. There’s loads of things in the mix – Trump (main one – they want to bring him down), Brexit, immigration… Etc etc
What’s immediate is this sinister and wholly connected BLM Marxism madness that’s infected the world. That organisation and ANTIFA need to be discredited and crushed.
The George Floyd video was a hoax, fake.
Now look at what I found regarding that famous picture at one of the London riots…
Not for those who are a bit delicate for bad language but not only is it hilariously funny, it’s incredibly disturbing and shines a bright light on what’s going on…
https://youtu.be/5H6UP74cn8Y
Very amusing…
I tend to think things are 33% cock up, 33% conspiracy and 33% chance, with 1% weird. So I don’t leap to the conspiracy explanation.
But this definitely has an odd odour to it!
Falling over after being literally tapped on the head? It looked so fake. We are evolved to try and stay upright in such threatening circumstances. In genuine assault videos, you see people still trying to stay upright after severe blows to the head, not light smacks and taps.
The “victim” is an ex undercover police officer specialising in penetrating football hooligan gangs? Hmmm…
Rescued by a “peace maker” wearing assault gloves? Hmmm…
Photographers just happening to be concentrated at that point (if they were concentrated at that density throughout the protests there would have had to be 100k photographers present? Hmmm…
Yep, smells to high heaven.
Sadly I can’t view it as YouTube wants me to sign in first and I don’t have an account.
Try this:
http://nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=5H6UP74cn8Y
There’s the idea that this is a consequence of the Everything Bubble – not just increased leverage in the stock market,with QE and share buy backs to inflate prices with no capital investment, but that media has been stripped and simplified to the flimsiest low-resolution information. Any slight deviation causes a huge overblown response.
The feedback loop of social media and its collective herding effect have resulted in a kind of drama addiction, that can be profitable and useful only if you are quick enough to ride it. It’s a bit like an extreme survival of the fittest, but the test will ultimately get too hard to pass. Like the The Bleep Test for sprinting.
In Chaos Theory there is the concept of the Predator-Prey cycle where at times it looks like a prey has been made extinct only for it to revive. Classical continuous mathematics cannot explain it whereas iterative discrete mathematics often makes a better job. And the rules employed are often very simple. Just repeating the previous conditions with a slight adjustment.
I think what we are starting to see is a break of this. On one hand we have the media and official narrative that 2 + 2 = 5, yet even within this and because of the actions taken, some are preparing for a more frugal lifestyle (which is the one thing the government doesn’t want). Maybe those people had already seen the writing on the wall due to the debt bubble and the previous GFC. And maybe they have managed to get a taste of what the future holds and realise they can survive it and reduce debts making them more “antifragile”.
The world will most probably burn in the next year. So pay off your debts, eat in a more simple way, reduce unnecessary expenditure, get out in the open air more and switch off the media as much as possible.
Possibly… But the BLM hoax is begging to be exposed isn’t it? Then what else is there…
That twonk Greta……
ianp, thought this video may interest you. It is long but raises some very interesting points in relation to the George Floyd death:
https://youtu.be/IdRcL6u2fZs
Quite honestly I don’t need to watch an overlong exposé of suspicious events for George Floyd but I might do later.
Just watch the original vid that has almost 3 million views on YouTube. Easy.
Watch the bit at the end where ‘the body’ is lifted onto the stretcher
Then watch it again, carefully, watch the head – no one’s head wobbles like that if unconscious/dead and then BOOM…. Blink and you miss it, but the body on the stretcher has no legs!! Everyone who sees that cannot unsee it…
Go from there, loads of other stuff not right with the video.
Stay Alert indeed…
Watch it again, carefully. It’s an illusion cause by the side of the stretcher being raise higher at the feet.
Crikey, need to sign in to yuotube to watch it. Is it porn ?
Very clever
Do Tactical Gloves have knuckle dusters in them? Are knuckle dusters classed as an offensive weapon?
Not understanding why the hero is wearing gloves.
This seems like a good opportunity to sack most of the teachers and recruit some new ones. There’s plenty of time as we’ve got till September, apparently, and there must by now be a lot of unemployed people to recruit from. We could start by looking for teachers who might actually be prepared to go in to work.
They might also do a bit more actual teaching and a bit less inculcating children with leftist slogans to the extent that half of them don’t know the difference between Churchill and the Chuckle Brothers.
How much training would they need? A week should do it.
the problem is that in the state system a teacher must be a graduate with a PGCE. So any new teacher will have been through the existing teaching training process and so will be indoctrinated with the same liberal left woke attitudes. Note that private schools do not have that requirement hence they have come very fine “unqualified” teachers
Yes, but the law could be changed, couldn’t it?
I don’t know why I bothered to post that, really, since the government hasn’t the slightest inclination to do anything to sort things out. Otherwise the lockdown would have been ended fully by now. I have a friend who keeps saying they should do this or that. It’s just pie in the sky. And now I’ve started doing it myself!
If somebody articulates it, others think about it. That’s a beginning, surely?
In 1945 with the massive expansion of the education system, they even recruited teachers without a degree or relevant experience in their subject. Though I must point out that some of the problems with our current system do stem from that decision.
We just need to pull the pendulum back a little.
As expected, its good to see the 2nd wavers out in force this morning. BBC, Sky all headlining our health “leaders” outrage at the governments pitiful lifting of lockdown. You’d think we were liberated WW2 french rather than still imprisoned yet the god like presidents of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, Nursing, Physicians, and GPs all sign a letter exclaiming their outrage at our freedom. Aside from never having been swamped at the height of this epidemic, the medical fraternity must be worried they now have to do a bit of work, like helping all those people imminently to die and suffer from non covid morbidities that have been ignored for 3+months. Respect for the health service and everyone associated with it, obviously barring those who do a genuine, fantastic job, has like for teachers, never been lower.
I was talking about yesterday’s relaxation of restrictions with someone yesterday who supported lockdown strongly, and still does. Their point was that the daily infections are higher than they were before we locked down, so why are we easing up?
This seems to me an excellent question.
We’ve not had the 510,000 deaths predicted by Ferguson et al. Imperial recently praised themselves for saving lives. That I’m aware of, the government and SAGE have never publicly acknowledged any significant change in their assessment of how dangerous the virus is.
So what is the government justification for easing up? I can’t see one, from their “scientific” point of view.
Furthermore, if by say the end of July we are not seeing a very significant increase in hospital admissions for covid-19, how on earth will they explain that? Either their assessment of the dangers was wildly wrong, or whatever restrictions remain during July are more than sufficient to control or suppress the virus, meaning that the previous restrictions were not necessary.
This seems to me an incredibly powerful argument. I’ve not seen this asked by any TV news journalist, but maybe I have missed it.
“…if by say the end of July we are not seeing a very significant increase in hospital admissions for covid-19”
No doubt they will engineer a modest uptick – not too much, but just enough to take the sting out of the tail for either position.
I saw an interesting idea on WM Briggs’ site this morning:
They’re also pushing “hospitalizations.” After lockdowns eased, people started to go to the doc for complaints they’ve been waiting on. They get tested. Lo, coronavirus is found. And the cancer patient (or whatever) is now listed as a coronavirus hospitalization.
Right, we cannot detect infections. Infections are diagnosed clinically, not by a relatively inaccurate PCR test, and we know, albeit anecdotally, that some people have testing multiple times.
I really want everyone to understand that.
Also, even if the number of people who test possible, the rates of people who’ve died with Covid are almost nil, even though the numbers have been massaged.
I want to scream in people faces when they opine on something that they clearly know nothing about.
There’s a not-very subtle deliberate ambiguity in the government’s published strategy.
If you look at their official definition of the “Alert Levels”:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884352/slides_-_11_05_2020.pdf
Level 2 actually means “herd immunity, virus is endemic”, and the action is “No or minimal social distancing”. And at Level 3, which means “nearly at herd immunity”, the action is “gradual relaxing of measures”.
But then as a sop to the other side of the debate, they add Level 1 (which is just a fantasy) and “enhanced testing, tracing, monitoring, screening” to Level 2 as if we were doing a South Korea.
But if we were really doing a South Korea, Level 3 would be “extreme containment measures”, not “gradual relaxing of restrictions” and we wouldn’t come out of Level 3 into Level 2 until all the testing and tracing was actually ready.
Please don’t tell your lockdown-supporting friend about this but the government strategy is “herd immunity plus [a completely unnecessary, futile and enormously destructive lockdown]”
and i caught the last 15 minutes of BBC 24 from 5.45 before Breakfast Time started, and every item was a doom and gloom covid item. They seem to be scraping the barrel now
On a lighter note .. i see the police are taking no action against the Burnley plane. They must be so disappointed there is nothing to charge them with .
Reminds me of the old Not the Nine Oclock news sketch about arresting a west indian gentleman for wearing a loud shirt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teSPN8sVbFU
i am surprised that clip has not been pulled!!
If anybody had seriously suggested that the pilot had not informed the relevant authorities before flying over a major city that’s adjacent to a major airport before pulling this counter-message, then they don’t know what they’re talking about.
So glad they can’t make anything stick.
#AllLivesMatter
Yes – definitely the correct (though surely it should be unnecessary) slogan, even if, after occasionally watching a bit of BC or Sky News, I wonder if some exceptions would be in order!
I think some people in these positions – a little like German generals in April 1945 – have got terrified eyes turned towards the inevitable legal fallout once it is generally understood the establishment has committed a putsch against the British people.
I for one want to see heads on spikes (pun intended) for this lockdown.
Hung, drawn, and quartered and their several members displayed on the walls of the principal cities of the realm.
Punishment for high treason. Was on the statute book until quite recently. If now off, needs to go back on.
I think it was a Mr Blair who removed it. Can’t think why …
There will be glaciers in Hell before I feel any respect for the National Hell Servuce and its performing seals.
Again, thanks so much for the update Toby. You have been a true stalwart throughout this pantomime and as long as you keep fighting the good fight for us, we’ll keep supporting you.
I had a lovely experience in an independent clothes retailer the other day. No useless placebo one-way system, no hectoring signs, no handgel at the door, and no limit on how many could enter the shop at one time, despite the fact that the shop itself was small and rails of clothes were packed tightly together. The only thing I could see was a perspex screen at the checkout but it was tiny and the shop owner kept leaning around it anyway to chat. He even let me try on clothes (shock horror)!
He was a kind fellow, and he described opening up the shop as like ‘waking up from a long sleep and being disoriented’. He told us how worried he was for the future of his little shop and said ‘Next month, where will I be?’ I came away with an absolutely beautiful vintage 50s style dress, much nicer than the bland tat seen in chain retailers. I couldn’t not support his local business after how nice he was and it was just such a relief to be treated like an actual human being for once. Really goes to show the difference between staff at big chains who, in their defence, are just ‘following orders’, and the increased flexibility to ignore such measures if you run your own small business. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my most unpleasant shopping experiences have been at places like Sports Direct and TK Maxx who really go to town on treating customers like they’re disgusting plague victims.
As far as I’m concerned, the government has lost all authority. Johnson is unprincipled, without strong leadership qualities and will do whatever he thinks will make him the most popular. Lockdown is practically over where I am; green spaces packed to the rafters with people, no swerving out of people’s way, cars on the road, shops much busier (but still below pre-lockdown levels). I don’t think anyone but the very panicked is listening to the government anymore. I am trying to be optimistic and still hoping that the economic fallout won’t be as bad as some papers make it out to be.
I find it interesting that second wave scare stories focus on infections rather than deaths. Infections may be increasing slightly in some countries in small localised outbreaks but deaths are still decreasing. Thus the increased infections but decreasing deaths could either be down to larger testing capacity, the disease becoming milder, or the disease working its way through the healthier/fitter portion of the population, or perhaps a combination of those three factors. Still, it is immensely frustrating seeing the governments and MSM manipulating this information to try and wring out every last drop of panic of this confected crisis. Whether the silent majority begins to see the light after months of lies and spin is another matter.
The BBCs main story today is disgraceful. They are praying for a second wave, which won’t come, but will be reported as such when there is a localised flare up of infections. The only thing that saddens BBC and Guardian hacks about deaths over the last few months is the fact they are in decline. The localised flare ups in Germany and Anglesey were reported with an almost gleeful, celebratory tone.
Disgusting isn’t it? They’ve gone from daily deaths to weekly deaths and sound on the edge of frustration tears that they can’t even sex those up.
Yes I saw that as well, I think it’s absolutely disgusting how the MSM are lying to us. Yesterday was Johnson’s opportunity to properly level with the public about the true costs of the lockdown but instead he merely likened it to some sort of ‘hibernation’ (?!) and didn’t even rule out putting us under house arrest all over again. It is total madness and it’s quite sad how people probably won’t realise how bad lockdown really is until October, when furlough ends and NHS waiting lists are buckling under the strain of winter ailments as well as the cancelled backlog of treatments. By then the government will have nowhere to hide but it will be too late to reverse the damage.
I really can’t deal with this dreadful and dishonest second wave narrative, just as I was beginning to feel optimistic about coming out of this hell. It really makes me feel totally trapped and it’s clear that if they’re going to play the long game, then we will too and we shall never, ever give up fighting.
To be fair some people do really believe the virus is at unnaturally low levels because of the lockdown. If that is true there will be a correction.
I think all the evidence points against this but it is a non-zero possibility.
A second wave is not a good reason for a lockdown but the possibility of one should be enough for them to start doing the preparations they should have done in January for the first wave: figuring out how to protect the vulnerable and how to prevent nosocomial infections. I think this is what the authors of that open letter in the BMJ (that the second wave stories are reporting on) are really trying to say.
Even William Hague (well, some people still remember that non-entity) has said Lockdown must NEVER be repeated!
compared to conservative MPs and leaders over the last 10 years Hague is a political colossus
Oh dear!
Hague covered up child abuse in welsh ‘care’ homes
“To be fair some people do really believe the virus is at unnaturally low levels because of the lockdown”
Yes, this is why I can never be all that enthusiastic about arguments that say that Covid is no worse than a bad flu year, etc. The argument fails because it’s only true with a lockdown in place. It means that all arguments that rely on absolute figures are pointless. They knew what they were doing…
Except the lockdown didn’t slow infections. Inconvenient that.
The problem with that is that there seems to be no correlation between lockdown level and virus spread. There are countries that had no lockdown in place that did a brilliant job, and countries with heavy lockdowns and huge number of victims. So it is not entirely clear that the lockdown had any effect at all.
Your post suggests it had a negative effect.
We know that, but they always have excuses regardless. Look at Sweden. In the public’s mind, they had a lockdown in all but name. Other countries will have had airport screening. Others will have had mask wearing early on. And so on. There’s no clean proof of anything, so most people are just left to think that lockdowns are common sense.
Wait till unemployment hits ….
I agree. Those arguments however will carry their full weight when the lockdowns have been lifted and the deaths stay about the same. Anyone who thinks this is what’s going to happen needs to get their columns out early so that they can say we told you so
I believe deaths may rise a bit in some places after lockdowns are lifted, but the UK is not one of them.
If we were coming suddenly out of total lockdown there probably would be a jump in cases. But we’re not. Look at the numbers of people who’ve bern in parks or on beaches, not to mention the BLM wild beast shows. Second wave is a non-starter.But the zombies will go on believing in it until the bed falls on top of them and squashes them flat. And the sooner the better.
Johnson is a pathological liar. No way he’d ever level with us!
Had a similarly promising experience yesterday. Needed a pair of shorts so visited a few shops, and eventually noticed that one of them had their changing room open – tried the item and it fit, so I bought it.
I had assumed closed changing rooms were uniform. Clearly not! Begs the question as to why most shops have closed them given it is certainly costing them money (and, I suspect, doing sod all in preventing the spread).
Precisely – I presume shops’ refunds policy is still the same, so I could just go home, try the item on in my own house anyway, and then return it? Maybe they will have some ridiculous ‘quarantine’ rule where no-one touches returned clothes for 48 hours, but why don’t the jobsworths implement that ‘policy’ for clothes tried on in shops? No logic whatsoever.
Many shops have actually extended their dates. I bought a top on sale online and their return date was extended to 40 instead of the usual 28 days.
And when there’s no stock left in the shops because it’s all waiting to be returned ……….
I don’t think they ever thought of that or I won’t be surprised if they’re not following their own rules.
What’s the hygienic difference between trying it on in a shop and trying it on at home? You could have all sorts of lurgies and bubonic plague circulating in your home.
“Johnson is unprincipled, without
strongany leadership qualities”Just thought a small edit might be helpful!
Thank you! Agree.
Great news about your normal retailer. I’m sure a lot of small businesses will have already gone to the wall but the current situation will hopefully encourage people to make a point of supporting the survivors.
Why is is that people who work in supermarkets have been expected to work all through this charade but zero chance of seeing a doctor On £100k/yr even now
Because the Drs and Nurses of our sacred NHS have been part of the problem (with a few notable exceptions) taking the money, many, with no or few patients. Taking the applause and spending paid hours making Tik Tok videos. Pontificating at the ‘lifting of lockdown’ whilst thousands go undiagnosed with cancer.
As i am still sitting on my ar*se (freelance, no work , no government money) i have been catching up on films.
Just noticed this 2019 film
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Feet_Apart
wonder if this is what government policy has been based on. If not they have certainly missed a trick in not having it as a public information film
Rent from Amazon for £2. Have a box of tissues handy.
All these cases being reported in Meat Processing factories and Slaughterhouses is concerning me as I think this is going to lead to a new narrative.
I remember reading a article before we were locked down, where one of the doomsday scenarios was a person at a farm having COVID-19 and then it being passed on to animals that are part of our food chain.
I’m just wondering if this is the pre-cursor to this scenario coming in to play, which would lead to further lockdown restrictions, food shortages, more social disturbance, and the devastation of the farming industry in the UK.
Gates doesn’t want a farming industry. He wants us to eat his dreadful laboratory manufactured rubbish.
This. Interesting coincidence that we hear stories about meat factories lending a flavour of questionable hygiene standards when Bill Gates and others want to promote lab grown meat, and insect protien – remember that msm driven junk from last year?
How is it that you in your life and me in mine know about these meat factory, its as though someone needs us to know that particular thing above all other issues – even above care home death investigation and, dare I say, I do, and even above current blm narrative.
Who wants me to know these things and why?
I’m turning to a Vegan diet….
I only eat vegans!
Ah yes, the old Soylent Green diet. Eat your Greens; it’s good for you!
No, I’ll tear strips off them with my teeth whilst they’re screaming
They’re lacking essential nutrients. You’ll have to supplement.
I’m sure a bunch of the usual suspects will say this proves we should all live off plant-based soy and mashed up Chinese newspapers from now on.
I don’t think viruses in the food chain do any harm. There wouldn’t be any anyway unless you were eating the cow’s actual nose or lungs and I wouldn’t rate their chances of being able to infect anything after being cooked and dissolved in acid.
Meat farming does have plenty of potential health consequences one of which is things like Swine Flu– new viruses crossing from animals into humans. Routine use of antibiotics is also a terrible idea. And plenty of other things. But Covid-19 is not one of them.
Even if they were, once the food is cocked, the viruses will be dead. Besides, these “spikes” have nothing to do with meat and everything to do with increased testing. Ignore, vilify and mock.
“Cooked” even
Cocked like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrhfSBbu1bY
It’s more than likely the spike we just saw was either the second “spike” anyway as this has been kicking around since late last year. The concept that somehow the government managed to pick exactly the correct point in time to see the spike is absurd.
Or, more likely the spike we saw was simply a direct result of the change to reporting requirements (thereby maximizing any “symptoms” as CV. More test, more doctors joining group think and categorizing everything possible as CV
The problem isn’t meat farming, it’s the slaughterhouses. That’s the reason for chlorinating chicken in the US. Maybe they’re paving the way for that here ……
Already played out in the US a few months ago collapsing the meat supply chain from farmer to customer.
I’m afraid that patience is running out with this top-down micro-management nonsense. BLM is just one manifestation of it. Don’t worry, the Corana Act runs out in September.
And we could have Joe Public taking matters into his own hands before summer is over or come October when the furlough scheme ends.
Once they wake up to the fact they’ve been sold a pup. :o))
It does run out in September, but the government has a majority of 80, and they will be backed by Labour anyway, so it will just continue.
They’ll need a really good reason to extend it. And we ought to have Dolan’s judicial review by then.
Just continue to eat meat, and start smashing the place up if/when they run out.
Support your local farm shop!!
There’s another narrative coming out of the meat factory / slaughterhouse cases.
The virus persists on cold surfaces. Which are chilled for a reason, to control other, bacterial sources of infection.
Therefore, come winter it will persist on a wider range of surfaces than it currently does.
Which means transmission will resume and we will have another lockdown.
The government will steal Christmas.
More likely due to increased testing. There’s only so much “increased testing” you can do. No long now, and they’ll be hitting diminishing returns.
I dunno. I think there is a hidden agenda but I don’t think enforced vegetarianism is on it. Despite the valiant efforts of a certain Neil Ferguson Mad Cow (BSE) didn’t result in a lot of people giving up meat and I noticed because I am vegetarian. (And I also believe in free choice and that people should eat what they want.)
Not seen EAT-Lancet then? Backed by a huge conglomerate of “food” manufacturers, drug companies,agrochemical and seed suppliers?
IMO the anti-meat agenda comes from the Seventh Day Adventist church: God told Ellen G White we should eat a diet based on grains. Funny he never mentioned that when Jesus did the thing with the loaves and fishes – “Should have used tthe tofu, son”
I’m surprised the vegans have been so quiet, so far. They own the narrative in most of the mainstream press, especially The Guardian, and Wikipedia, despite being only a single figure pecentage of the population.
I have nothing against vegetarians and vegans, it means more meat for me
The EAT-Lancet report was a pernicious piece of misinformation and the prescribed diet was seriously lacking in nutients. It was instigated by a worrying array of extremely wealthy people and companies.
I have nothing against other people eating meat either.
ignore them, what are they going to do, break their self imposed social distancing bollocks.
Just received an email from the general manager of my gym. Apparently U.K. Active and government are negotiating for a mid July reopening of gyms.
“Morning Ryan,
I hope you are well and believe me we are just as frustrated. I have already alerted our marketing & social media team of the petition however I have prompted them again this morning as any content we put up on our social media has to go through them first. Government & UK Active are saying mid-July so everything crossed it’s only 10 days later than we had hoped.”
I’m not a violent person, but if I saw Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock in the street I’d need to be “socially distanced” to stop me from punching them. Remember when Boris came out of hospital and on 15th May it was reported he was declaring a “war on fat”? He talks so much but does so little. Spineless.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8321793/Boris-declares-war-fat-PM-ditches-nanny-state-worries-demands-action.html
I remember seeing that article myself. It convinced me theyre taking the piss.
Yup – and then pouring it all over us.
I’m afraid John, given the fact that the majority of the population is content to go along with this charade, they’re not ‘taking the piss’ we’re giving it away!
Today, a journo (probably from the DT) reporting PMQs, suggested sycophantically that Boris was looking dapper in a new blue suit.
Never thought to question how Boris could have been measured and fitted for that during lockdown!
Annie has them on her list :o))
LOOOL!!!
First time post. This site has kept me sane during lockdown so thanks so much to Toby. I had a similar situation at Waitrose a few weeks back. Went to pick up a parcel after lining up for an hour to get in. My wife is East European and as we lined up I was thinking this must be how it was under Communism. Resolved not to go back to Waitrose again in the current climate.
and perspexed no doubt?
You bet.
Thanks Toby for keeping up the good fight and that piece from Dr Lee deserves to be disseminated more widely.
I took some time off from this site for the last two days as I’ve been feeling down since we had that work meeting and yesterday’s announcement felt very anti-climactic. I dread to think what measures museums and heritage sites will roll out as my boycott list is certainly growing longer and longer.
Thanks as well to the commenters here, you’ve made me laugh and keep the faith in equal measure.
Regarding John Lee’s point: b. the WHO and the UK Government initially advised that the wearing of face masks did not play a major role in protecting people from infection outside healthcare settings; on June 5th the WHO issued new guidance, recommending the wearing of face masks in community settings and the Government made the wearing of face masks mandatory on public transport on June 15th.
It would have been much stronger to say that the WHO’s guidance changed the day after Matt Hancock’s announcement on June 4th.
What John Lee has written makes it seem like the Government followed WHO’s advice after it changed but it was actually the other way round i.e. it’s an example of ‘policy-based evidence-making’. (After all the UK is the 2nd biggest funder of the WHO, after Bill Gates.)
It may be too late to change it but does anyone have Toby Young’s direct email address?
He posted one in his blog two or three editions ago.
His email in on this page
Thanks for the email links which I’ve saved for future use! Our internet was playing up and the site was going so slowly, I emailed the Free Speech Union and got a reply from Toby.
The current thinking is that the virus will return in winter. It’s certainly possible and it would be unwise to totally dismiss the possibility.
However, why would they expect a surge in the USA if they think it’s seasonal? Is it winter in Brazil or India right now? It’s either seasonal or it’s not. If it’s not seasonal then why has it receded in most places where it was once widespread? The most likely explanation is surely some level of undetected immunity/resistance.
The thinking seems to contradict itself at every step, changing explanations to try and fit observation. And now they’re trying to say it’s extremely risky to reopen the economy. How so? I thought the virus was more likely to return in winter. Can they even quantify the risk or are they saying there’s some level of extra risk in opening up but as they’ve been doing throughout all this we won’t know until it happens.
Well, i’m not entirely sure if it’s correct to say the virus will return in winter… More accurate would be to say that either the lockdown or the pandemic will return in winter. The virus… who knows?
And i have been asking myself where does the common flu come from every year? During the summer virtually no one has the flu. Come winter, everyone suddenly has it. Where is it coming from?
You’re right that it won’t be allowed to spread but there still needs to be an explanation as to why they think it will return now and/or in winter.
The flu is seasonal and travels round the planet like migrating birds. When it’s winter here it’s summer in the southern hemisphere and vice versa.
For some reason ‘they’ don’t want this virus to disappear. It is so ludicrous now that even I’m looking for the sinister ‘plan’.
Try looking here https://www.corbettreport.com/gates/ for part of the plan. I’ll keep searching for the rest…
I am not sure we can stop it spreading. Viruses don’t pay much attention to government diktats unlike people. The government will probably make more extremely harmful diktats and cause much more death and suffering and use whatever is circulating which will include coronaviruses of some description as an excuse.
They know it isn’t going to return imminently. So to keep people frightened, the return has to be postponed. Eventually people will get used to the prediction and ignore it. Same as The End of the World. Always nigh, invariably postponed.
The end of the world is nigh” is a much more frightening statement in Northern Ireland than elsewhere
That’s because you talk funny, it’s your own fault!
I’m not from there. My wife is though.
Keep your eye on South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Australia and New Zealand from now until October. If it doesn’t return there in the next four months (their winter/early spring), then we’re probably safe.
Well, not necessarily, because ZA, AU and NZ all locked themselves down so quickly they never really had a first wave. If it breaks out like wildfire in any of those places, it means nothing for what might happen here.
The most likely outcome is that the virus will stick around at a low level for ever. That level will most likely increase a bit every winter and go down again every summer. This is what all the other colds and flus do. The natural level is a bit higher in winter, probably because people spend more time indoors. This is what will happen in places where the virus is endemic, e.g. the UK, Spain, Italy, New York, Sweden.
In other places, possibly including some US states, lockdowns have suppressed the virus to below its natural summer level so it will find that level again when they are lifted.
This is what it looks like when that happens:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran/
Maybe it’ll be like the other SARS and just burn itself out. (A general FYI: I was chatting with a friend who had it back in April. He’s a nurse in his early fifties and got it pretty bad. A keen runner, he hasn’t been able to get back to it because he gets breathless. And because he has to wear an unbelievably convoluted mask at work now (he showed me a photo) his face is the colour of beetroot. The two family members who live with him got mild to no symptoms. And he and his wife – also a nurse – were both tested and have antibodies.)
Maybe. Probably not – it’s pretty unusual
Very sorry to hear that. But why?
so now we become like East Germany and half the population are watching the other half and reporting any misdemeanour to the Stasi.
You could try to turn the tables on this incident. Maybe contact your local paper or radio station and issue an apology for serving a disabled person a cup of tea. You’ll probably get a lot more support than haters.
or maybe contact a sceptic columnist (Liddle or Hitchens or similar) as that is the sort of event they like to report.. Plus any advertising is good advertising
You obviously haven’t been reading Liddle lately..!
I must admit I haven’t. I usually like what he says. What’s his current take on things?
He’s the opposite of a lockdown sceptic. I have to admit that it made me feel ill to read it. I just couldn’t believe that he had willingly taken the King’s Shilling or become so stupid and gullible, but there it is.
Here he is in the Spectator:
If you think we are right to abandon or dilute lockdown now, then you should not have been in favour of it in the first place, because we are only about halfway through the process of restricting the spread of the virus. And if you thought we should not have been under lockdown in the first place, then you would be unmoved by five times the number of elderly and vulnerable people dying of this disease than is the case at present. The clamour to abandon lockdown is not based upon rationality, but upon impatience and boredom and inconvenience. And the worrying thing for me is that the government is listening to that loud minority and not to the mass of people.
Vomit vomit vomit!!!!
In a nutshell, he’s bought the whole lockdown faster than he snorts coke from the belly button of a Eastern European whore.
It could go something like this:
“I’m really sorry for inviting a blind person indoors for her tea. I can imagine that the people who reported me have friends in a similar position. I’m sure they do the right thing and leave them outdoors in the rain, or walk the other way if they get into some difficulty. I imagine you’re the type of people who will throw a lifering to a drowning man before wandering off, thinking ‘Job done, what a wonderful person I am.’ You are likely the sort of people who run away when a friend is threatened with violence. I can honestly say, hand on heart, that without people like you, this world would be a far, far better place.”
Feel free to improvise.
Good to hear. Also put a note in your window addressed to the one who complained saying you hope if they were ever in need they’d be ignored!
I doubt if anything will come of it, honestly.
It’s not nice though Nick, Very intimidating.
Absolutely.
As I’ve noted before, it’s particularly annoying when you’ve been told in the past that the police “can’t respond right now” to a real crime, due to “lack of resources”, when you find they are suddenly able to waste time enforcing positively wrongful laws such as coronabollocks stuff or speech-crime offences.
Well, if the partially blind lady returns tomorrow I am sure you will allow her to sit and wait in your shop again – because that is the right thing to do
Clearly Blind Lives do not Matter
The sad thing about all this madness is that the disabled bet it physical or learning have been thrown under the bus. Its really scandalous and appalling what this has all come to.
Jesus wept.
That’s a new kind of low however I’m hopeful that nothing will come out of this.
Schadenfreude – Democrat state senator encounters “mostly peaceful” BLM mob, and gets a beating:
Protesters attack Wisconsin state senator in chaotic night at capitol: report
If only there’d been some police around, eh Senator Carpenter?
Meanwhile US Democrat politicians are keen to exploit the violence to push forward the recreation of local enforcement into forms more directly under their control and more politically to their liking:
Oakland mayor says public safety reform ‘means not just to reform the police, but to replace the police’
““We have a full Department of Violence Prevention led by a social worker but who carries the exact same title — chief — of equal stature to our police chief …” Schaaf said.
….
According to the East Bay Times, Oakland has hired former social worker Guillermo Cespedes to lead the Department of Violence Prevention with an annual salary of $213,418.92.”
Of course, social workers are all very well, but in the end they will have to address the same problems police have to address – dealing with violent criminals, and unless you are a very, very unworldly hippy fantasist, it’s rather hard to convince yourself that they will all respond well to social workers preaching “violence prevention” at them. So they will either have to call in the police to bail them out, or they will build their own militias to do the job.
Enforcement militias in the hands of leftist zealots. What could possibly go wrong?
The result of course will be the same as the past results of leftist zealot control of cities – flight of businesses and those decent folk who can afford it to places run by the sane, and the further immiseration of those left behind.
Heavens, what is this cuntry (sic) coming to?
That’s pretty disgusting.
Keep us informed if you can and I hope you can get it sorted out.
Coronavirus in Scotland: ‘Deepest recession in living memory’ warn experts
The Fraser of Allander Institute said the country was now in its deepest recession in living memory.
A report from the think tank said in the most optimistic scenario, it will be the end of 2021 before the economy recovers.
In the worst case scenario it could be 2024 before a “new normal” is reached.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-53157358
“The economy can recover, you can’t bring people back from the dead” some said.
Meanwhile during the recovery time some of the the people “saved” will end up dying anyway. But at least they didn’t die of COVID-19 I guess.
As I like to say on social media these days when people call for eradication – “The sooner we get rid of this virus the sooner people can get on with dying properly”
Were you cautioned or just spoken to?
Sickening and disturbing in equal measures. I only hope that those people that reported you will not cross your threshold again as you are a criminal in their pathetic little minds.
That’s seriously sick and rather sinister!
If somebody makes a complaint the police have to act, even if it’s for something stupid. If they didn’t caution you it’s not a big deal. Had you actually done something wrong they’d have at least cautioned you.
I’ve had similar experiences with neighbour disputes. Try not to let it get to you too much.
To add some detail. My neighbour called the police because I parked my car a bit too close to their car once. Then another time because my sink overflowed and some water dripped through their ceiling (I lived in the flat above them).
Two incidences allowed me to put in a complaint accusing the police of harassment. They put my neighbours on an ignore list (or whatever they call it) so the police will only act if it’s a legitimate complaint.
I’m furious on your behalf kh1485. Nothing I can do about it but at least you know you have support on here. Horrible to think people are spying on you – makes my skin crawl that our society has sunk so low. I don’t know where we all go from here.
Morning officer, tea or coffee ?
Good heavens. What is the alleged offence ?
Ok then, I’ll get back to work. Any news about the burglary here last year ?
(Fuck ’em, Kim, but politely.
).
Having a drink with friends in my garden last night (no two metres here folks) the woman told me she’d had her hair cut illicitly by a hairdresser who’s had a visit from the police because someone had snitched on her. The hairdresser told the police to fuck off pointing out that half the customers she’d had during lockdown were police officers.
Presumably they had to record their contact details before she could serve them ……
Excellent.
“ If somebody makes a complaint the police have to act”
That’s not at all true. The cops will go and see whoever they feel like Depending on the Political righteousness of the complaint.
Was it anything to do with the woman you mentioned with the camera and long lens the other day ?,seemed like she was up to no good.I’ve always thought that there are a lot of arseholes in this country but in the last 3 months I have been amazed at just how many there are.
Does anyone know the influenza figures for the Covid period?
How do the figures for influenza compare in 2020 compated to the 5 – 10 year average?
Thanks for any thoughs or data.
It’s all on the NHS statistics website. Last I looked, total flu & pneumonia (non-Covid) deaths for the year had reached about 40,000 by around 20th May. They were railing off rapidly though – you’d expect this in the last spring, but the drop was steeper than the 5 year average. 19/20 was a relatively mild season for the ‘flu.
Thanks. I will check the nhs site.
My hypothesis is something along the lines of has Covid stolen flu fatalities?
I appreciate the peak of covid happened before national house arrest in late winter March 20th ish.
Has a switcheroo occured if such a thing can be accepted given the statistics are indivdual lives. Just pondering.
Also flu figures here but classes as Covid if both present:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending22may2020
Virus top trumps and why very not!
Thank you above and following for comments.. including biker! I was thinking you’ve go to be pretty well bored to even start cooking up bat soup in first place.
“ My hypothesis is something along the lines of has Covid stolen flu fatalities?”
I think that’s likely, yes, at least inasmuch as many people who would have died of ‘flu will also have tested positive for Covid (very probably contracted in hospital while being treated for their pneumonia caused by ‘flu). However, the Covid “crisis” has occurred right at the end of the ‘flu season and so cases would have been falling anyway.
The other two questions are:
1) are we going to see fewer ‘flu deaths on average in the coming 20/21 season, because many of the people who would otherwise have died from ‘flu next winter, instead died from Covid in the spring (there’s a significant overlap in the vulnerable groups)
2) how many people registered as having died of pneumonia/‘flu before March, when we weren’t testing for Covid, actually had pneumonia caused by Covid
Point one is cracking. Thanks.
There was a flu epidemic during the election campaign which caused a lot of egg on Tory faces ……
Have a look at this..
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-flu-levels-according-to-phe-statistics-2019-to-2020
You will be shocked to see cases of flu have fallen compared to previous years!!
I wonder what they can possibly be re diagnosed as……..!
Again, no doubt at all part of the problem will be double diagnosis – it was the ‘flu that caused the pneumonia that killed the patient, but there was also a positive Covid test… so Covid it is. Flu deaths don’t happen suddenly though, by and large, so I would assume that the great majority would be in hospital, so we’re not likely to be looking at many instances of “what the hell was that? Oh, we’ll just say Covid”.
A couple of other factors though:
1) 17/18 was a bad ‘flu season (c. 50k deaths), so the 5 year average is higher than it “should” be
2) if you put the ONS numbers into a graph, it’s fairly clear that there’s a steep drop in ‘flu deaths in the same week that we passed the peak of Covid deaths – steep compared to the first 5 year average, which continues to decline gradually. What this suggests to me is that the “social distancing measures” (pre lockdown) _did_ have an effect of lowering transmission – at least of the ‘flu
In some ways, I’m surprised that ‘flu deaths continued to be as high as they were, even during the coronapanic. Given that we know that the virus spreads pretty effectively in hospitals, and given that I would assume that someone badly ill with pneumonia is probably more susceptible to picking up the virus, and given that we know that a positive Covid test makes it a Covid death, no questions asked, I would have assumed that practically everybody hospitalized with the ‘flu would also have tested positive for Covid
What’s that now? You’re saying there were 50k flu deaths in UK in winter 17/18?
How can that be – there was no national house arrest – the lunatic government didnt even let SAGE out of it’s box as far as I know.
Seriously thank you kindly Matt. Really interesting thoughts and comment helpful to me. I take the piss out off their narrative not you. It’s important to ridicule in dissent.
A day of reckoning required.
Yes, 50k deaths (slightly over) from “influenza and pneumonia” in winter 2017/18 (bear in mind, nobody dies of ‘flu, it’s the pneumonia caused by ‘flu that kills them). I’ve seen a BMJ article disputing this and it makes a fair point, but 1) it’s point is essentially about how well the causes of death on the certificates have actually been considered – we know we have the same problem with Covid and 2) the to sets of figures (2017/18 flu and 2020 Covid) use the same data source, which is ONS.
Ugh. *its *two
It seems Everyone tests positive Eventually. There are so many false positives with the testing eventually if you test enough then another statistic.
There was a good description of how they test for it here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m3LgrcDAlJs
It starts around 24 mins in. I’ve not seen the full video yet.
Anyway apparently the was the test is done is but concentrating the blood sample. Doubling 36 times until the positive tests start to detect the “virus”
However if you double it 60 times then 100% of people test positive.
Yes, Bill Gates wants all newborns tested, then for them to be-retested the next day (presumably to try and get a positive test)..
Home births rule, ok!
This is the t-shirt I want.
…………………….. Everyone tests positive eventually…………….
Steve, and to think my very own peasant brain cogitated with both it’s own brain cells together to predict such an ocurrance. I predicted a mild or dropping off of flu in 2020 compared to other years! Look at me! I feel dizzy with knowledge and scientific insight!
If i look downwards I can see Baldrick, no wait, professor ferguson playing with his lego. He’s looking up at me, “Cor mister! he says. Are you using the Scientific Method!? Wowee!”
Seriously Steve. Thanks – this stuff stinks – here is to a day of reckoning.
more people have died from boredom than the bat soup virus
Every day the new normal becomes more insane. I received an email advising the library will be opening soon (hallelujah I cried) but on reading through it only to return the books you had before lockdown and to pick up those you ordered before it. No browsing allowed, in fact nothing else is allowed. Boris can stick his new normal along with his vaccine!
My local authority said they were resuming the home library service last week. It’s a brave start for a council that’s basically covid-terrified.
Have you all see this? Oh boy!!
SNAP POLL: Changes to the lockdown rules…
Go too far : 37%
Are about right: 47%
Don’t go far enough: 7%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/health/survey-results/daily/2020/06/23/90749/3?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=daily_questions&utm_campaign=question_3 …
I love filling these in but clearly so do a lot of lockdownistas
Propaganda is effective.
I’m actually pleasantly surprised that the ‘go too far’ option is only 37%. In previous surveys the majority view seemed to be to keep a very tight lockdown for the rest of the year.
Me too. It could have been much worse.
The way a lot of these poll questions are asked is interesting. For example, whether one supports the reduction of 2m to ‘1m plus’ – I guess I support it because I support any easing of this idiocy, but I also don’t support it because I don’t agree with any sort of lockdown restriction anyway.
I’d spotted that.
Also, you can’t vote N/A, the only option is don’t know, which skews the results.
YouGov – run by Labour and the BBC for Labour and the BBC.
These people have clearly never been in a decent pub. Should put a useful stop to the stupid heckling in the Commons though.
Rachel Burden from the BBC’s Radio 5 Live has more on the new guidance issued by the government overnight:
Interesting extra detail on government guidance for lockdown easing: There is an additional risk of infection in environments where you or others are singing, chanting, shouting or conversing loudly. This applies even if others are at a distance to you. 1/3
You should therefore avoid environments that require you to raise your voice to communicate with anyone outside your household. All venues should ensure that steps are taken to avoid people needing to unduly raise their voices to each other. 2/3
This includes – but is not limited to – refraining from playing music or broadcasts that may encourage shouting, including if played at a volume that makes normal conversation difficult. 3/3
What about sign language or should I wear sterile gloves?
Hahaha!
https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1275728421612650496?s=20
The crucial point is that it is now GUIDANCE not LAW.
They can ignore it. I know I will.
Meanwhile in the real world, this from Prof Karol Sikora’s twitter feed:
“My colleagues in the pathology labs tell me the lack of cancer biopsies coming through is staggering – they’ve never seen anything like it. 840,742 people are waiting for diagnostic tests, 468,622 have been waiting more than six weeks.”
They can ignore it provided local authorities don’t require it for licensing approval on “health and safety” grounds, and provided their insurers don’t say that they will remove cover if they don’t comply.
Okay. They can ignore it for now.
I don’t frequent pubs anyway these days.
I think my comments regarding cancer are more important.
Yes. Thanks.
I’m compiling a list of links and facts for my local covid-scared councillor. She was worried the lockdown was being lifted too fast.
We’ve got to persuade local authorities to proactively help push the resurgence of the economy and the true welfare of their communities forward. Info like yours is extremely good motivation.
This is surely an argument for being against wearing face masks. A face mask (a) muffles your voice and (b) removes the ability of the listener to lip read, which we all do naturally. So if you are trying to communicate with a face mask wearer they are more likely to have to raise their voice and you are more likely to have to be closer to them to hear what they are saying. Therefore – far safer not to wear face masks – the government guidelines make it clear
And its dehumanising!
Facemasks are optional – except maybe on public transport.
Let’s face it, they may as well just outlaw fun.
I mean they already did, like, but…… they may as well just revise the Coronvirus whateveritis law and the other bullshit Public Health whateveritis arse-cover law down to one line: “No fun.” Would save everyone a lot of time in future.
‘Existing has replaced living’ would put it in a nutshell. But I am not going to be bounded in that nutshell.
If venues were weaned off muzak I should be delighted, always loathed it, but I should still talk as loudly as I bloody well liked.
That is appalling! I’m so very sad for you
It’s unbelievable what this country has come to. I hope the police weren’t too tough with you. Surely they can’t enforce guidelines though, only laws?
Fuk da Po-lice!
you can never find a Copper when you need one…
keep your chin up!
Hi kh1485, like everyone else I’m appalled to hear this. At least the police haven’t done any more than ‘talk to’ you but I agree with those who say that they shouldn’t have done anything at all.
It’s hard to know what to do about snitchers, who are the lowest form of pond-life. A friend of ours who runs a cafe has had to put up with a Facebook petition trying to get him closed down because he’s not ‘observing social distancing’. He is very like you, i.e. his cafe is a support centre for a lot of vulnerable and lonely people who have sorely missed being able to hang out there. He is still not allowed to serve food and everyone has to sit outside 2 metres apart and bellow at each other. He is secretly feeding a couple of old blokes who can’t cook for themselves. We think it’s actually racism as he’s from the Middle East.
Anyway, please stay strong. I would be very upset if it happened to me but these narrow-minded creeps will not win in the end. Remember, we may be ‘virtual’ mates but we’re all in your corner. Glad you are writing to journalists etc. Make as much fuss as you can and shame these buggers up!
p.s. is 1485 a significant date or number, we’ve been dying to ask!
… the only time the English crown has been found hanging in a thorn bush on the top of a hill…
Thanks KH and good luck with it all. You know you’re in the right and sod those snitchers.
Have you read ‘Daughter of Time’* by Josephine Tey about the Tudor propaganda offensive against Richard I? Now there’s a conspiracy theory for you and it’s a cracking good read.
If it becomes possible later in the summer, and we are able to do our cycling tour of Suffolk/Essex, we’ll call in for a brew and bring you a copy!
*Truth is the daughter of time.
Thanks for that and yes, wouldn’t it be fun for us LSs to meet in person in happier times? We can only hope. Anyway, we will defnitely be in for that coffee, sooner or later!
BTW, of course, Richard III not I, my brain has gone AWOL today.
There is no language bad enough for this.
This world just gets sicker and sicker.
Asda education pack that ‘normalises paedophilia’
https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/mums-furious-over-asda-education-pack-that-normalises-paedophilia/
I think it’s you that are sick if you think an innocent comment like “love has no age limit” is normalising paedophilia.
I love my parents. It’s not sexual.
I think this highlights one of the problems of the age. The 1960s “summer of love” attitude is tainted these days as people fail to distinguish between the two types of love.
You can’t use the word “love” in a general or innocent way without someone seeing something perverted in it.
We need full context before we can judge Asda’s material. I agree with your comments about love but that’s not the same as sexual behavour.
UK Column recently showed evidence of some very disturbing material in the official school material being used in Scotland. Fortunately it was spotted by a parent.
Did you read the excerpt from the book that Asda are selling to children? That is the bit that I find ‘sick’.
I don’t read children’s books.
My point stands. I am sick of these sorts of slurs.
Asda are a supermarket chain, not a paedophile ring.
Any implication that they are is stupid.
And this has nothing to to with the lockdown.
I haven’t slurred or implied that they are a paedophile ring at all. They have been selling education packs for children detailing children as young as 6 peforming sexual acts – that is not right. The organisation behind the books is https://www.diversityrolemodels.org/ who are helping schools become more LGBT+ inclusive. I don’t have a problem with that all but was more making the point of how the young are being educated.
Is it relevant to lockdown? Perhaps not directly but neither then is BLM which has taken up much space on these pages. In the race to be diverse and correct, I think more damage is being done than good and believe this is relevant to the direction this country is heading.
Just my opinion and I of course respect yours and suggest we leave it there.
I would just also like to add that I never meant to cause offence John and apologise if any was caused, that truly is the last thing I would want to do.
I feel sure that a lot of people — those who troubled themselves to look as far as the excerpt from the book — would agree with you.
This is clearly not aimed at primary school children. I don’t like it, but it is not normalising paedophilia and it is nothing to do with lockdown.
1) Only fuckwits sign up for emails from Asda.
2) Only fuckwits conflate love and sex.
3) However the ‘learning pack’ does resemble a pile of old pony.
Some, maybe most, of what’s in that indoctrination pack is creepy. There’s no place whatsoever for any of this material in primary schools.
This material is clearly not aimed at primary school children.
I don’t like it myself, but it is not normalising paedophilia.
The WHO released this publication a while back:
https://www.bzga-whocc.de/fileadmin/user_upload/WHO_BZgA_Standards_English.pdf
There is also a link on the official WHO Europe website if you look for long enough.
pg 38 is pretty sickening about 0-4 year olds.
Just popped onto the Guardian comments.
Man alive! How thick are these people?
All desperate/terrified of a second wave. Sweden decimated. Greece & NZ have done amazing and are now safe. 65k killed by covid. It kills anyone, any time.
I suppose this is an insight into the minds of people with humanities and arts degrees
Yes, in some ways it’s a fascinating insight into human psychology.
I’d substitute ‘ fascinating’ for ‘extremely worrying’!
lol, well yes Bella Donna. That’s why I qualified what I said.
In saying this I am looking at it from the perspective of an observer detached from the situation.
For some reason I never really think of their psychology as human – more inhuman.
more subhuman
It’s crazy. Greece certainly isn’t “safe”. They have zero immunity through having locked down too hard. And they are about to open up for their tourist season ….
Seems to me most of the bollocks comes from people with science degrees …
(I have one too.).
#me too
It shows.
This comment is presumably because of the off topic piece regarding ASDA referenced by another commenter.
I don’t like the material.
But is it clearly NOT aimed at primary school children, and it DOES NOT normalise paedophilia.
Read my comment.
We come up with ideas that *might* be bollocks, but we don’t willingly accept ideas that *are* bollocks.
Important difference that.
You can have degrees in anything and still be a muppet.
I bet you can have a degree in Muppetology.
You can, i was on the course but i dropped out when the LTGB Professor wanted me to sick my hand up his arse.
Oh dear!
?
I work in a company with half engineering / half linguistic degrees. I am unable to convince 90% of either group that this isn’t the end of the world. They just say: and the terrible sequels people get? They don’t get it from the flu. And they also say since we ‘know nothing’ about this virus, it can suddenly mutate into Ebola and kill one out of every two people it infects.
Educated people using “I don’t know, therefore…” Who would have thought it?
“I suppose this is an insight into the minds of people with humanities and arts degrees”
Ah, you mean ‘educated idiots’..
Just popped onto the Guardian comments? Hope you used hand sanitised on the way out.
“It kills anyone, any time.” Especially Guardian-reading teachers, it seems, given their fear levels.
SECOND WAVE! SECOND WAVE!
AUGUST! MAYBE SEPTEMBER!
They shrillly pronounce.
Through hope more than anything I suspect.
God forbid they might have to go back to work and actually do some teaching.
No, just very stupid people.
I notice that Secky Wavey has been postponed till some vague time in the winter, thus getting round the awkward fact that every previous prediction of Imminent Apocalypse 2 has been proved wrong.
Most of the people I argue about lockdown with on a daily basis are Cocksbridge masters-phd level scientists/engineers. I have three ‘arts and humanities’ degrees and I’m the one capable of seeing beyond my own nose.
Just sayin.
I think this had been the problem with “led by the science.” You give a scientist an obsession to focus on (how do we eradicate this virus?) and they’ll focus on it, to the exclusion of everything else. Their job is to give advice on how to eradicate the virus and keep people “safe” from it and only it.
Humanities (History here – though I lose track of whether that’s humanities or ‘social sciences’ nowadays) take in evidence, come to a conclusion based on all the evidence and makes the argument.
Rather like a government is supposed to.
Yes, spot on. You can’t see the whole world if you’re laser-focused on one very specialised thing. Policy makers need us ‘ideas’ people in there somewhere to help with this! In fact one of my loveliest friends, a physicist (i do love them), says something like “without the arts we wouldn’t have the sciences, because you need the idea of a certain ‘truth’ to inspire the scientific process of searching for the reality behind the idea”. – only he puts it way more eloquently, because he’s a very poetic soul that one. For a scientist
Makes sense to me – seeing as I see all the seeds of scientific endeavour being talked about by philosophers etc. way before science itself was a thing.
It just makes me even more pissed off and disappointed in the likes of Boris who is meant (as a classicist and historian) to GET this. He’s meant to contextualise ‘The Science’ and formulate a balanced response in light of what he knows about past world affairs. But no. Clearly he’s no David Starkey.
At University I learned that people studying Physics would often learn Philosophy as part of the course. It teaches you to question the accepted norms and seek answers/solutions that would otherwise not be considered.
Well this makes a lot of sense. A lot of sense.
Physicists are my fave scientists. Mostly because they’re complete loons
Despite the fact Fergy is one, and many people claim physics is just maths (it most definitely is not or I would find it beyond dull).
I know a lot of people with science backgrounds (including PhD level) who have totally bought in to all the lockdown psychosis. Sadly.
It’s very very sad. Beyond all the possible (probable?) vested interests and behind the scenes chicanery of the practitioners of ‘The Science’, most of the ordinary practitioners of plain old science seem to have thoroughly swallowed this crap too. I’m hopeful there’s a lot of the old ‘shy toryism’ going on in the scientific community – they all know what’s going on but are lily-liveredly focusing on their livelihoods rather than sticking out their necks.
Although, is cowardice better than goonery? Not sure.
Time to by shares in companies that manufacture “1 metre distancing” stickers?
Yesterday in Tescos a staff member was removing the 2 mtr floor stickers. We did our shop without following the arrow signs much to the disapproval of one elderly gent.
They removed them in my local M&S a few weeks ago and I noticed there were less of the 2m signs in my local Morrisons.
The buses round here have removed the stickers off the seats so you can sit anywhere. Unfortunately, they are mostly empty and anyone travelling is muzzled-up, fingering them, pulling them around, not covering their noses etc. As it gets hotter, this will get interesting. . .
To anyone who might be wondering why I was on a bus after my previous anti-muzzle comments, my husband noticed that a favourite driver (a big L.S.) was ‘on’ yesterday so we thought we’d have some fun. We ‘took the knee’ as he approached the stop – he nearly crashed the bus laughing – and we showed him our exemption cards (we genuinely have respiratory problems) mostly to protect him from getting ‘done’ but he wasn’t bothered anyway.
The only other passenger on that bus, an elderly lady, having listened goggle-eyed to our conversation with the driver, whipped her mask off at her seat and stayed talking to him for a couple of minutes before she got off. She did shake her head at us naughty people (old enough to know better, presumably) as the bus drove off but we smiled back. Well at lest she could see our smiles.
We saw 6 muzzled up people on a normally packed service which came as we waited for our return bus. Two of those were sat at the bus-stop fingering their masks as they waited for their service.
It was an interesting experiment but we’re now resuming our boycott as it’s just too weird.
PS Yougov polls: Don’t worry too much about them, they’re self-selecting from what we know. True, there are a lot of signed up, wilfully stupid, paid-off and scared people out there but we are staying hopeful of change, albeit slow.
2 metre rule to be maintained in Wales says our useless First Minister. So I can drive the 20 minutes it takes me to get to England and stay 1 metre from everyone else but have to stay 2 metres apart as soon as I come back over the border. What a farce. Devolution is a nonsense. Perhaps Drakeford is highlighting the ridiculousness on purpose so that Plaid never get enough votes for independence to ever even become a legitimate question?
Like in Scotland they are so pathetic that they have to be different to pretend to the kind of moron who votes for them that they are good at being in charge and no little Englander will tell them what to do. The cringe from the Welsh and Scottish governments is mind-blowing. I despise Devolution because all it is is another level of government we don’t need. We’ve the council, the scottish parliament, westminster and the EU. Making four useless tossers all telling me stuff i need to do to satisfy their demands so i can go about my life on my planet. Fuck them
Exactly what I expected from that squalid little man. But nobody around here is taking much notice of the two -metre rubbish rule, except in misery shops, which are avoidable.
He and Plaid are like that at the moment, united in common hatred of the wicked English (who bankroll them). But you can be very sure that Plaid is fingering a cosh in one pocket and a knife in the other, for when little Duckbridge gives his final quack. Won’t be long now.
It must be down to individual branch managers. My local Waitrose has been lovely throughout lockdown. Yes we’ve had to queue to get in sometimes but once in, apart from the perspex screens on the checkouts, everything else is as it ever was. No one gets stressed if you pass by at a normal distance, staff out refilling shelves no face masks or other PPE. I wanted something from a shelf next to where a young woman was refilling and asked her if it was alright to reach in next to her, well within a metre. She looked at me as if I was crazy and said yes of course. But it is a small and friendly branch and always has been but I wonder if it is the exception rather than the rule?
We use two Waitrose branches, one small and one large and staff at each have been absolutely fine. Some wear masks, some don’t; queueing to get in, the staff are always polite. There was just one occurence at a checkout, at the start of lockdown, when the woman barked at my husband to stand well back and was generally rude to him as he packed the groceries and paid.
I would advise barking back. Politeness is wasted on zombies. Stand up to them: their arms and legs will then probably drop off and be salvaged for parts by an Igor.
YouGov poll result – ‘When it comes to the steps the government has taken against COVID-19 (coronavirus), which of the following comes closest to your view?’
The disruption to the economy and society has not been worth the benefits in terms of lives saved and people protected – 17%
The benefit in terms of lives saved and people protected is worth the economic and social disruption caused – 69%
Don’t know – 15%
—
Oh dear. Perhaps I was wrong and there is still a lot of work to be done. The optimistic side of me reckons that this isn’t a representative sample of the UK because I would assume a person with average or ambivalent views on the situation wouldn’t bother to answer a YouGov poll, only those with stronger opinions would have a greater interest in expressing them. Still, I get that sinking feeling that this is unfortunately the majority view and I’m not surprised when basic economics isn’t a compulsory subject in schools.
Also odd that the percentages don’t add up to 100%… I am sure I copied them correctly.
Rounding.
The thing is most people haven’t felt the economic disruption yet as they are still getting paid by the government. When the economic consequences really kick in those percentages will change.
Exactly. We haven’t really seen the actual fallout yet however it will come, when companies are required to contribute more to the furlough scheme and finally in October when it comes to an end.
As I’ve said before, Poppy – propaganda is effective.
As Toby has implied above, the government has successfully used it’s influence with Ofcom to silence alternative viewpoints.
This has been achieved, not by overt censorship of content, but more insidiously by effectively giving mainstream media like the BBC the implied instruction not to give airtime on mainstream media to dissenting voices.
We are still a minority as things stand at present.
The benefit in terms of lives saved and people protected is worth the economic and social disruption caused – 69%
Interesting wording.
“Lives”, “saved”, “people”, “protected”. All very human words.
“Economic”, “social”, “disruption”. All very abstract words.
True. ‘It’s worth losing my job and having my family life ruined’ sounds quite different, don’t it?
Exactly!
Exactly. Question presupposes the lockdown actually DID save lives!
No, that’s a second point. I hadn’t spotted that.
Typical loaded question poll.The question is along the lines of “The government has done an excellent job in dealing with the Wuhan virus – True or False”
Just for the record. Visited my local branch f well known DIY outlet yesterday. No queue, casual guy on door monitoring nothing in particular. No “must have trolley” enforcement at all. Presumably open to local interpretation?
Good bacon sandwich from truck in car park as well.
Not sure if you have seen/mentioned this fairly convincing critique of the Flaxman et al. Nature paper. Seems that their (arbitrary) modelling choices drive the results more than a convincing effect of lockdown…
https://www.nicholaslewis.org/did-lockdowns-really-save-3-million-covid-19-deaths-as-flaxman-et-al-claim/
Some overlapping points are raised in this pre-print:
https://advance.sagepub.com/articles/Comment_on_Flaxman_et_al_2020_The_illusory_effects_of_non-pharmaceutical_interventions_on_COVID-19_in_Europe/12479987/1
Have just filled out another survey this time for the Southbank Centre and have said no to the following: mandatory masks, queues, social distancing, etc.
I also wrote the following:
I will boycott the Southbank Centre if they introduce measures like mandatory mask wearing by both performers and audience. There is no scientific literature that supports the wearing of masks by healthy people and they have been found to do more harm than good such as flooding the body with CO2 which can lead to a whole load of health issues such as hypoxia and even heart attacks from the lack of oxygen. They have been shown to be ineffective against Covid 19. Masks are also dehumanising and discriminatory against people with physical and learning disabilities. The performing arts is meant to uplift and be a shared experience but the wearing of masks is simply counterproductive and will ruin the joy of attending a live performance.
Very well said!
Totally empathise. Whoever reported you is one fucked up bitter person. Too many of them around.
Good article by Alistair Haimes in the Critic.
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-august-2020/ignoring-the-covid-evidence/
Excellent article, thanks. Spells it all out in a nutshell.
Thank you – an excellent article.
I also commend Simon Heffer to my fellow LS’s for a masterful evisceration of Doris and his minions https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/june-2020/boriss-corona-catastrophe/
… Matthew Hancock, the increasingly posthumous-looking health secretary …
Classic! Thanks.
= zombie. Dug up, dusted off, still obviously dead.
Masterful indeed. I think it’s one of the best pieces I have read on the pandemic.
on Johnson:
“lazy, selfish in the extreme and capable of a breathtaking lack of professionalism.”
From a comment in the DT:
…. the house of commons does not return to attended sittings in the commons as of 4th july….
Is that the reason for the magical date? The public can sort it out between us while Parliament takes yet another holiday?
More like they want to be ‘unavailable’ for questions. Also nicely timed so they can all go off on foreign holidays..
Hello Lovely Lockdown Sceptics.
I have been reading this blog every day since it started. A special shout out to Annie “The Ripper”, Poppy, Farinances, HugisHealth, Cared to death, Mark Hunter, Cheezezilla, Rdawg, KH1485, Biker, CarrieAH, Belladonna, Winston, Bart, Outlands, Barney McGrew, Awkward Git, OPUK, Big virtual hugs to all of you. We need to have a real-life get together after all this insanity is properly over. A Lockdown Sceptics party!
You regulars on here are all heroes. You are all very brave. I haven’t posted on here before for my fear of getting “on a list”. Now I feel it is slightly safer to stick my head above the parapet.
Thank you all for helping keep me and Mrs Two-Six sane. Thank to you Toby for doing this blog. A beacon of sanity in a totally mental sea of media driven git-wizardry.
Since the start of this “pandemic” it was clear to us that this virus posed very little threat to most people. It was clear that it was a threat to the very unwell and the very unlucky.
Then we watched in horror as the poisonous propaganda relentlessly rolled out with nobody standing up against it. All dissent systematically censored. Any counter narrative deleted. This happened across all media platforms, working in LOCKSTEP, as they say.
I know this is a common feeling amongst many of you, the feeling that we can see a train coming towards our family and friends who are sitting on the tracks with their backs towards the train and we are yelling “Watch out there is a train coming!”, and everybody is staring at you angrily and replying in unison “There isn’t a train, it’s a conspiracy theory!”
We watched in dismay as almost everybody around us went absolutely insane. There was nothing we could do about it. We really really tried.
The level of systematic brainwashing was just breathtaking. We have been psy-opped to within an inch of our lives.
The BBC has been evil, so has Ofcom. Most of the directors of Ofcom are ex-BBC employees. The BBC IS MI7.
The rest of the main stream media is also just evil. Almost beyond belief. Obviously I haven’t believed a thing the MSM say about anything for the last 20 years at least. This is why we are immune to the mind virus.
One of the most egregious pieces of propaganda almost certainly from the behavioural insights team, or SPI-B was the CGI images of that ugly man sneezing in the most exaggerated way possible and spraying out green virus spray, whereupon particle physics driven CGI animated the particles and trails of COVID19 slime flying out his ugly face.
This image later re-produced in every newspaper in the country, even local papers printed it on whole page adverts. I think it was this image and video sequence that influenced the way people viewed the threat of “COVID19”. It was ugly, scary, gave the impression of how the virus spread, made the idea of particles of virus in the air almost real.
Another very interesting thing I noticed, being a keep plane spotter was that the U2 spy plane did a fly-over of central Europe and the UK on about the 2nd night of the total Lockdown. It was transmitting a ADSB transponder code that could be seen on https://www.adsbexchange.com/
These aircraft take photos or huge swathes of ground in fantastic detail. They were almost certainly imaging the effect the Lockdown was having across Europe.
I am having some little badges made that say “NOT BRAINWASHED” and “COVID”-“1984” with the MI5 pyramid cap badge logo on them in the centre. I have a few more good designs on the go and if this first batch sell well I will get more made. I also have been working on a few T-Shirt designs.
Hopefully Toby or the moderators on here will allow me to post a link to Ebay when I get them from the manufacturers which should be very soon.
I will buy them.
And wear them at the party!
Hugses!!
I had another post ready to go but i re read your post and, maybe i’m paranoid, but it looks to me like you’re from the Secret Service leting some of us know we’re on a list.
Your on my hug list and pencilled in the margin, (big sloppy kiss too)
:-).
even more sinister
I thought it seemed iffy too – why that list of name checks? but maybe I was just narked not to be on the list!
Maybe just a marketing ploy anyway?
Honestly not iffy. I just wanted to give a nod to “the regulars” perhaps to show I have been paying attention and that I admire these posters. Yes perhaps my posting is a bit of a marketing ploy. However I did want to post something on here and give my two pence worth as well. I guess I ticked all the boxes of my objective list.
I also just REALLY wanted to have a reason to type “Annie “The Ripper””
They will shortly be organising Annie the Ripper tours of West Wales. Book early to avoid disappointment.
I’ll buy!!!!
Thanks for the shoutout
Thank you for your kind words
I was talking to a chiropractor this morning about the precautions he has to take to enable him to treat people. Face masks, aprons, extra cleaning, taking temperatures etc. Originally they were also supposed to wear face visors but they just steam up and are completely impractical. In their view it’s all completely over the top but they have no choice. These directives aren’t coming from the government but from their governing bodies, which in turn are acting on the instructions of their insurers. It’s the same with almost everything these days. They are afraid of people being sued and having to pay out millions.
And why is this such a problem now?
Because the Law Society allowed ‘no win no fee’ actions in 1995.
Prior to this no solicitor was allowed to take a case on a no win no fee basis. I completed my law degree in 1993 and remember it being discussed in one lecture as the Law Society had been resisting the call to allow no win no fee for years. The argument against was that they didn’t want the same ambulance chasing situation that was common place in the USA. But the lobbying continued (solicitors saw that there was much money to be made) and in 1995 the Law Society relented. Our society has gone down hill ever since – we as individuals no longer accept risk and if anything happens we know we can fall back on the no win no fee action. Hence our completely risk averse society and now all these over the top covid 19 secure regulations. It’s not because of the risk of covid. It’s the risk of being sued.
The obvious question is why were they not concerned with being sued over a flu infection last year? For anybody of working age flu is more dangerous.
Because flu isn’t a headline grabber I guess. Coronavirus is new and shiny and every body was talking about it on Facebook before it even became an issue over here.
It would also seem insurers have failed to factor in the risk of eventually having no business left to sell insurance too.
And it will come!
How can they be sued? You can’t prove where you got the virus?
The latest video from Carl Vernon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ConH-vziQ3Y
His analysis is spot-on as always.
I loved the sheep sign!
The covid shop is quite disturbing. The youngsters who are so excited by it all. They’ve been trained to be addicted to drama.
Indeed! And those TV presenters are horrendous!
Carl’s reaction to them at 9.10mins – just look at the expression on his face.
And it gets worse……
https://wsvn.com/entertainment/2-south-florida-restaurants-place-stuffed-inflatable-animals-to-promote-social-distancing/
Please will someone wake me up now!
Just take a pin with you. Or a penknife.
I saw one on another video that had inflatable people sitting at every other table in a restaurant!
Reminds me of that Last of the Summer Wine episode with the giant inflatable woman…
Cigarettes can accidentally burn things too …
Just watched it – the pop up shop and TV presenters were creepy. On what planet are these lot from?
I guess not many people will have heard of Spock’s Beard, an American progressive rock band formed in the early 1990s.
I don’t imagine that they were thinking about the coronavirus lockdown when they released their 13th studio album, “Noise Floor” in 2018.
However, the eight tracks on the album, in order below, have an eerie resonance to the extraordinary events we are living through (my thoughts in brackets):
“To Breathe Another Day” (we await the day when masks will be no more)
“What Becomes of Me” (when the economic etc. fallout hits)
“Somebody’s Home” (somebody is always home)
“Have We All Gone Crazy Yet (hopefully not but if the lockdown continues…)
“So This Is Life” (but we mustn’t allow it to become the “new normal”)
“One So Wise” (the one who can see what is really happening out there)
“Box of spiders” (box opened on 23rd March but the spiders can’t be put back in)
“Beginnings” (will the 4th July mark the beginning of the end of lockdown?)
They forgot to include:
“It’s life Jim, but not as we know it.”
(From Star Trekkin’ by the Firm)
Always going forward coz they cant’ find reverse?
Another Spock’s Beard fan here!
Nice one!
I’ll check them out on Spotify later. Definitely a fan of prog/post-rock type music (contributed a couple of songs in that style to the “theme tune” suggestions recently).
Not sure if there are any Mars Volta fans here (another US prog band, about 2000-2012) but some of their songs/lyrics also have a disturbing resonance, not least “Agadez” (lockdown=purgatory/limbo… gotta let me go,you’ve just gotta let me go… Because forget which way is out now), “Molochwalker” (the final chorus sums up the economic fallout rather well), and a lot of others. It helps that their lyrics tend to be so obscure and cryptic they could be about anything, but I’m not sure anyone else has made a better soundtrack to a world gone mad!
It’s only a matter of folding time and space
Before I become your epidemic
Got a couple of Mars Volta albums (De-loused.. and Bedlam…). An acquired taste that I’ve never really fully acquired. Definitely dystopian, though!
Toby well done about standing up for Free Speech. I’ve read numerous articles about people being deplatformed for wrong thinking and how appalling that the government does nothing to defend them.
The hippocracy of the other side is astounding. Two anecdotes from my own first hand experience.
1. During their so called phase one a grandfather and a nice guy travels across the nation with his household to meet up with mulitple other households of extended family and friends for a family celebration. Good luck to him I say. But, he then begins to preach how the leaders are doing great and how it’s right that we listen to the experts and release lockdown slowly. Made me puke at the time.
2. Young PHD from the citiy’s top university explain he is about to drive across Britain and Europe to visit family. It’s only the UK who are really in lockdown they said when I wished them goodluck adding we currently are to be within 5 miles of our homes.
We plan not to stop in UK (a 400 mile journey) they added. Then I began to be floored, we just hope there isn’t a second wave we get caught in! I suggested healthy people maybe ought to be contracting corona in order to weaken the virus similar to the principles of how flu used to work.
Oh no! Exclaimed the cross-continental PHD research fellow, the anti-bodies for corona don’t hang around for long! They looked down upon Basics the Pleb and stated with pitying distain they hope neither of us catch it.
The rank hippocracy is so obivous but to challenge these people, as I did in the smallest fashion, becomes heated.
For those who are acting like I have described above have a word with yourselves because your actions are directly causing our freedoms to be taken. Those very freedoms you are only too happy to take for yourself but see restricted from others.
The cross-continental traveller intends to say to authority if stopped they are repatriating therefore THEY declare themselves an exception to the Black Death of 2020.
For those of you who look as sceptically upon the violent Far Left anarcho-Marxist organisation BLM as you do on the lockdown, you may be cheered by my recent supermarket visit.
You may recall that Yorkshire Tea infamously declared its suppor for the Far Left fascist BLM and announced it didn’t want opponents of BLM to buy their tea.
I can report I found Yorkshire Tea on offer at £3 for a large box as opposed to the usual £5.89. This is very unusual – Yorkshire Tea is already quite competitively priced so you don’t normally get reductions on their products, particularly during the lockdown. A 49% reduction is unprecedented! That’s incredibly low.
So I think there has been a quiet boycott of Yorkshire Tea going on and the impact is being felt. Much though I like their tea, I am continuing with the boycott until they issue an apology for being so appallingly rude about people who oppose the BLM racists.
That’s interesting and that’s a hefty reduction given that barely happens. When I go shopping, will have a look to see if they have the same offer.
Shan’t be buying it. Or taking it if they give it away.
Yes, I managed to persuade my wife not to buy Yorkshire Tea when we were last in Aldi and for reasons above. I shall continue to by-pass YT and my boycott list will shortly have Sky TV (especially Sky Sports News) on it and when my current contract comes to an end. Strangely enough, Patrice Evra was the only present/pundit not to have a BLM sticker on his apparel. I wonder why.
The Aldi speciality teas are fair traded. Yorkshire tea isn’t!
Sainsbury’s do an excellent organic fair traded tea too.
They’re wearing BLM stickers now? I hardly watch Sky Lies these days they’ve become so PC and pro-racist (not a typo, a fact) so didn’t realise. I’m not surprised but I am still shocked. Have they never looked at BLM’s stated aims which included abolition of the free market and private companies like Sky?
Just looked at Tesco. £3 for a 160 bag box. Reduced from £5.39. Indeed very peculiar.
Great news. This must be causing a real ruckus within the company. I’m hoping people can keep up the boycott for a few months. It will have a salutary effect I think.
I didn’t buy it the other day. I went for another brand.
Excellent. The BBC did a good job in publicising Yorkshire Tea’s comments and repeating them/amplifying them ad nauseam, so probably a lot of people recall the offensive comments.
as a life long consumer of tea i just don’t get the love for Yorkshire Tea. it’s not nice at all. Even Tetley is better than Yorkshire. Nothing beats Clipper tea but Tetley and PG Tips come close. Yorkshire? i wouldn’t buy it if they were giving it away for free.
Can’t you at least pretend you’re boycotting it?
Tell you what i’ll buy a box, take it home, open it and then take it back saying it’s horrible and want my money back. That’ll cost them the loss of a box of tea. If that helps.
FFS! Things are getting better, are they? Read this little lot in The Telegraph (if you can, it’s paywall censored):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/24/new-normal-litany-rules-price-freedom/
Bloody madness – and thoroughly depressing.
That’s well and truly burst the tiny balloon of hope that I’ve had since last night !,just a continuation of the same bollocks and adding it to some new areas.
To me,going to the pub or a restaurant under those conditions would be intolerable.
Got the plumber coming Friday to fix the boiler first thing when he is through the door will be a mug of coffee
I’m just putting this here, but it is with reference to another commenter called “offlands” who posted a piece regarding ASDA and children’s books which suggested that it normalised paedophilia.
First of all. This has nothing to do with the lockdown.
Second. I do not like the material myself. I have traditional views on love and marriage.
However, having read the excerpt, it is very clear that it is not aimed at primary school children. It is certainly aimed at adolescents.
And it does not “normalise” paedophilia.
I feel very upset about this matter and misrepresented, since my initial reaction was that it was absurd to suggest that ASDA would condone paedophilia. And I still take that view.
I take your point. However, there is somewhat of an overlap (I almost wrote “intersection”) of issues between ‘lockdown’ and that stuff from Asda. It’s all about free speech. You can’t criticise ‘lockdown’, and you can’t criticise the virtue signalling shite from Asda. Well, you can, but only in places like this.
First it was, “So we don’t overwhelm the NHS.”
Then it was, “So we don’t have a second wave.”
Next it is, “Until we can find a vaccine.”
What will be after this? “The third wave” aka The Third Reich… All hail our Supreme Leader Boris Jons Un!
Follow the money and combine that with a non-Leader
Great article on the wearing of masks.
https://www.anhinternational.org/news/unmasking-mask-science/
“As masks become damp during prolonged usage, they can become a reservoir for a range of different pathogens. Breathing more deeply could result in bacteria and viruses being drawn more deeply into the lungs thereby increasing the risk of becoming more seriously ill.”
Just the point I was making last night when I mentioned the person in the queue in front of me at the supermarket was fiddling with the mouth part of their mask, just before using the card machine which I then had to use. Face masks encourage facial area touching.
Long time ago I used to commute for 3 hours a day. Can you imagine the state of a mask after 3 hours in hot humid train carriages in a heatwave by the end of the day?
These masks are nothing like the fairly loose surgical masks that Chinese people in particular were wont to wear in past years.
These masks may themselves cause a second wave.
‘They’ have to do something to ensure a second wave, now the most vulnerable have already died..
https://www.ukcolumn.org/ukcolumn-news/uk-column-news-24th-june-2020
View at 11.22 minutes onwards..
.
They are referring to an old BBC online article from April but a good analysis of some of the pap that our national broadcaster is churning out!
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/23/the-deadly-hydroxychloroquine-publishing-scandal/
There’s a bit of a split in the PC Camp. There is the Miserabilist Tendency who want to continue lockdown and further destroy the economy, society and children’s education. This tendency is dominated by the extremist wing of the Epidemiologists, the People’s Incarceration Front. Then there is the Red Dawn faction who want to see lockdown over so we can “learn its lessons”. When they say “learn” lessons they mean of course pursue more nutjob sub-Marxist policies.
I think Amol Rajan falls into the latter section:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kdv2
(By the way, is just me or does he have a very big head in reality as well as metaphorically?)
Amol is calling for a “rethink”. Does anyone believe there is any chance of this BBC-led “rethink” concluding that the pandemic has taught us:
1.Family is the most important thing in most people’s lives and we should pursue policies that support successful and stable families, rather than lone parenting.
2.There are limits to what the state can achieve.
3 The NHS were poorly prepared for the pandemic and performed badly, denying millions much needed medical and dental treatment.
4.We should have pursued a Swedish style policy on the pandemic.
5.Achieving equality of outcome for all factors is impossible.
6.Some cultures place more importance on maintaining family control over young people than respecting lockdown rules.
7.It is wrong to allow protestors to ignore social distancing rules when relatives are being denied access to loved ones in their dying hours or to funerals of loved ones.
I’d say there is about as much chance of that as there is of Amol admitting he ran a national newspaper into the ground before the BBC rescued his career and appointed him as their media editor.
i think lockdown has shown us the most important thing in life is riding motorcycles to country pubs
Agree wholeheartedly Biker but country pubs that are normal!
Mind you I’ve been riding throughout, roads are pretty much back to normal traffic now but in the beginning (I’ve read that somewhere else!) the empty roads have been wonderful!!
The first few weeks i was all over the place on my bike. The best thing was taking it off road up the hills and far away. I’ve been riding places i’ve wanted to for the last 30 years but never could because of the Forestry Commission and others stopping me. Not a soul around anywhere
Ever since lockdown began my husband has happily volunteered to go to the shops because he’s been able to ride the bike down empty country roads
Of course, his sense of direction has never been wonderful 
, so he quite often gets lost and has a much longer ride 
“Gets lost”…?
That’s what he’s telling you anyway lol
If pubs had been open, I definitely wouldn’t have believed him!!
When we were riding our bikes round Europe (many years ago) he went round a roundabout in Saarbruecken the wrong way! Luckily it was very early on a Sunday morning, so no other traffic about!
That’s something my father did for fun on a holiday in France many years ago.
Made the fortnight memorable only for the fact we all made it back home in one piece
It’s funny how those essential shops take ages & can use a tank full of fuel!
Just read this tweet from Amol:
https://twitter.com/amolrajan/status/1275138525579673600
He references his Radio 4 programme where, in his usual a-licking fashion he praises the producers as “Reithian Ninjas”…well Reith was a well known supporter of Fascism, so I suppose that makes sense.
Rajan says: “Huge, heartfelt thanks to those who have constructively criticised, or cleverly engaged, with this.” Then adds: “To those who have been abusive or lied, you’re muted or blocked. “ Lol. That’s more like Rajan’s idea of constructive debate. One strongly suspects that “being abusive” means “challenging Amol Rajan fake objectivity” and “lied” means “did not accept Amol’s perspective or conclusions”.
I can’t be bothered to listen to any of his Rethink stuff but notice that the six contributors looked like they were all lockdown supporters (even the Orban government are strong lockdown supporters). So in terms of lockdown policy, this was totally unbalanced.
Did anyone listen to it? Am I right in my suspicions?
Vaccine transparency – more needed now than everhttps://www.anhinternational.org/news/vaccine-transparency-more-needed-now-than-ever/
We sent an open letter to the UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock MP, on 20th April calling for a new public narrative around vaccines based in transparency. … there’s been a resounding silence from Mr Hancock’s office.
The 10-point VACCINE TRANSPARENCY Manifesto
The main safeguard for the public will therefore be transparency, something that was lacking through the development of several recent vaccines (e.g., Pandemrix®, Cervarix®, Gardasil®).
Public safety, the democratic process and fully informed consent must not be sidelined in the haste to get an incompletely developed vaccine to market.
This looks like an excellent manifesto.
Flu vaccines are also relevant to Covid-19. I have seen at least one scientific paper that takes seriously the notion that flu vaccines create opportunities for novel pathogens to flourish. This appears quite plausible – old people’s lungs aren’t magically improved by a flu vaccine – you simply remove or weaken the flu pathogen…the lungs remain a tempting environment for other pathogens who now have a clear path in.
Does anyone seriously think there could be any sensible, non-partisan discussion about this hypothesis? Of course not. There is too much money to be made from mass vaccination. Too many people have invested billions of dollars or their whole professional credibility in flu vaccination programmes. A combination of Big Pharma. dodgy charities, NHS and a craven health ministry will ensure there can be no open debate and that the manifesto too will be set to one side.
Please keep Simon Dolan updated on this!
If anything does come of it, we will all write to your council, your local newspaper, your MP, the head of your local police force… eh, gang?
Definitely. All for one etc
Sorry a bit off topic but can anyone explain to me what this is?
https://twitter.com/WorldCup_of_MPs
It looks trivial, perhaps it isn’t but I don’t get it….am I missing something?
So nobody in England is currently dying with/from Covid-19 and who does not have a serious underlying health condition. This is from NHS England:
A further 51 people have died in hospital in England after testing positive for coronavirus, or where Covid-19 was the direct or underlying cause, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 28,435, NHS England said.
Patients were aged between 48 and 96 years old and all had known underlying health conditions.
Our local hospital has had no Covid deaths for 3 day
We are at zero deaths across the entire county (Worcestershire) for the past 4 days. If I recall correctly there have been 3 deaths across the county in the last 14 days.
And yet………. /
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-death-data-in-england-update-23nd-june/
Spot the ever increasing number of hospital trusts listing no deaths (updated daily)
It’s an ex-virus
I it wasn’t filling every headline, it would be pushing up the daisies!
If you want to get a refund, you’ll have to go to Ipswich.
Hi my Albion friends ;o)
I am afraid I don´t have anything new today, I just have to vent.
This talk about the second wave is so unbelievably frustrating. Second wave in South Korea, China has it too, Germany will be drowning too, just a matter of time and of course the UK will have it very soon, because of the unbelievable lockdown lifting measures…
I simply can´t take this BS anymore. Enough is enough!!
South Korea on average has had between 20 and 50 new cases a day since April 1st. More than 50 Million people live there!!! Have you seen their number of deaths? 281….. SECOND WAVE!!!
China has like how many bazillion people? Theyve had so little new cases that on a graph you don´t see them. SECOND WAVE!!!!
In Germany when you look at the map of our districts, it´s all grey or light blue (meaning none to very few cases). Now there are two districts which are red, because of the frickin´ slaughterhouses. Still we manage to keep the number of new cases so low, that the overall number is decreasing. SECOND WAVE!!!!!
The UK just now started to lift some restrictions and what does happen immediately? Some scientists write an open letter warning of (wait for it…) the SECOND WAVE!!!!
I am simply at the end of my rope. I really cant take it anymore.
Sorry you had to read this, as I said, no news, just frustration.
I will take my little pookie son for a walk now. The sun is shining and we have baby pigs in the big park around the corner. Maybe that will lift my mood a bit.
Thanks for listening. All my best from sunny Northern Germany
Keep fighting brother. The uptick in workplaces can be as a result of increased workplace testing!
‘Uptick’. Please! No. I’ve just read this article in The Telegraph and it’s written entirely in Americanese; most annoying.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/portugal-puts-brakes-new-cases-tick-up/
tick-up/uptick, will likely, transportation, downtown, and so on.
I thought “mild increase” was too strong a phrase.
Uptick, upsick.
i thought the funny walk was banned by the BBC, don’t mention the war
I was feeling very low too yesterday but today slightly better. I get the impression that they are trying to drive us insane. Never give up, never give in!
They are the ones who are insane – or evil – it is a close call! Chin up – we need to keep fighting.
Both
You are right this is psychological war against us the people. We are the lucky ones because we are aware that much of the current situation is BS others are not so lucky and are doing exactly what the authorities want. They are being obedient and remaining fearful.
keep you head up and your eyes and ears open.
Thanks Herman, and please keep in touch – we are all here for each other as ‘ordinary’ citizens who have been denied their rights and sold a pup! As to the localised breakouts in Germany, various UK locations and Singapore there seems the common pattern of meat processing (so very cold temperatures and very close proximity work stations) staffed by immigrant workers, many of whom live in dedicated and very cramped accommodation. A cluster of positive tests, but at this stage, no meaningful increase in hospital admissions and deaths. Much is now being made of rapid increases in positive cases in US southern states, but again, I think the demographic, at least at this stage, is less problematic.
You are more than welcome to vent, we all have to, it helps keep us sane.
Very true.This is a venting site!
I’ve been feeling down after my workplace meeting late last week so I know how you feel.
Got a couple of FOI requests back this afternoon.
From a local council about if they re following the legal procedure set out in the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 to put operating restrictions onto individual premises:
1 – the name of the “proper person” that is designated for this role: Please confirm the exact legislation you require this information from, however, The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 provide the following definition
a “relevant person” means—
(i)a constable,
(ii)a police community support officer,
(iii)subject to paragraph (13), a person designated by a local authority for the purposes of this regulation, or
(iv)a person designated by the Secretary of State.
2 – how many notices has this person issued: Zero
3 – the names of the Justices of the Peace who countersigned the notices: N/A
4 – the actual reliable and accurate test used to confirm the individual or premises is infected or contaminated with the disease as stated: No information
5 – how much compensation has been paid out to individuals and businesses by the local authority (Shropshire County Council) under this legislation: No Information
6 – as notices must be posted on each individual premises closed or operating under restrictions under this legislation, how many have been posted as required as I have not seen one on any premises I look forward to your answers and explanations of the above points. Zero
So basically the council is not following the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 to make businesses restrict their operations.
My reply to them:
Thank you for your reply.
In answer to your question:
1 – the name of the “proper person” that is designated for this role: Please confirm the exact legislation you require this information from,
My original FOI request actually states “Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984” as this is the legislation that the Government has stated they are using to enact supplementary Statutory Instruments etc to “control the virus”.
In this legislation are very exact protocols that must be followed to put restrictions onto individual premises and to isolate individual persons and my FOI request was written to find out if the council is following these protocols as laid down by law.
Speaking to businesses I am getting the distinct impression that Environmental Health Officers are not following the legislation as not one business I have spoken to has received anything in writing from a council officer on what the legal requirements are for social distancing, restricted numbers of customers etc on their premises.
They only been given verbal instructions as to the “guidance’s requirements” and which, as Government has stated recently, guidance and advice is not law and is not enforceable in England. Verbal instructions are not binding nor enforceable in the Public health (Control of Disease) Act 1984.
So my question is:
Are the Council following the protocols as laid down in the Public health (Control of Disease) Act 1984?
Then from the Government legal department on the “serious and imminent threat” advice from the cMO etc prior to issuing the above notice:
Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
I can confirm that GLD may hold information relevant to your request. However, to comply with your request as it is currently framed would exceed the cost limit as set out in Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 12(1) states that a public authority can refuse a request if complying with it would exceed the appropriate limit of £600 as prescribed in regulation 3 of The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. This represents more than 24 hours at GLD’s rate of £25 per hour. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending this time in determining whether the information is held, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
In accordance with GLD’s duty under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to provide assistance, I would suggest that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) might have the information you have requested more readily available. As such they may be in a position to answer this (or a similar) request within the appropriate limit noted above. The email address for the FOI team at DHSC is freedomofinformation@dhsc.gov.uk.
So basically they claim calling up one person to get one bit of paper that should be in the public domain anyway will take too long and be too expensive. But at least they told me who else to contact so I’ll fire off the request this evening.
My heeeero! Take the buggers on! May the Farce be with you!
Simon Dolan might be interested in this..
Good work. It’s sad that FOI is the perfect way to ofuscate but at least you are clearly adding frown wrinkles of the scum who make a living defending the indefensible.
Don’t forget the Nolan princioles – 7 principles of public life. It is quite possible to argue that many FOI requests ought to become a complaint about non compliance with the Nolan Princioles. Not all cases, but where officers are deliberately pushing you to FOI for info they could reasonably answer you can look into having their observance of the Nolan Principles looked into.
Find the Nolan Principles in the Shropshire Council’s generic job cintracts/induction material.
Enjoy.
Our local B+Ms and Poundstretchers are pretty relaxed about everything. Almost pleasant being in them as much as i hate shopping at the best of times.
Congratulated the staff and management today for being so sensible and to keep it up instead falling prey to the idiocy displayed at B&Q, Homebase, Tesco and Sainsbury’s and all their little tinpot hi-vis hitlers.
I think it’s important to give praise and criticism where necessary.
Always good to hear that local managers with large chains can do the right thing.
‘hi-vis Hitlers’ is neat. You see a lot of those.
I agree,B&M and Poundstretcher here have been really good too,one day the pleasant lady in B&M put my change into my hand instead of almost throwing it across the counter like in a lot of places now,it’s a small gesture but it reminded me of the old days before the covid madness.
Why does anybody shop in Waitrose? They are so expensive. A branch opened I. Durham city but had to close, north eastern people don’t like being ripped off….
There’s a big one in Ponteland
I love my local Aldi. The staff are great and we usully have a laugh at the checkouts.
as is my local aldi.. staff are normal. only thing i dont like is the traffic lights outside
Our local Aldi and Waitrose have both been v sensible.
Not all of their customers have been, mind.
Hot news! Nostradamus predicted it all!
In case you don’t know, Nostradamus was a sixteenth-century French doctor who wrote a series of mind-bogglingly obscure pseudo-prophecies in incoherent French verse. Owing to one or two random but very lucky hits, he gained a considerable reputation in his lifetime, which continues to this day. He is always discovered to have predicted every notable event in modern history, plus many future events (including innumerable versions of World War III), and according to his followers he is never wrong. The only trouble is that his prophecies are never recognised or understood until after the event.
In this ‘quatrain’ he seems to be saluting, from the grave, a fellow prophet…
Lan .ii. mille et .xx. Anglois leur pays dessus foutront
Petit tas de merde fils Ferguut .D. cadavres predira
Governeurs people entier en grand cachot bouteront
Et economie en enfer dans char à main ira.
Faithful translation by Annie:
In the year two thousand and twenty the English will fuck up their country
A little lump of shit Fergus’s son will predict 500,000 corpses
The government will shove the entire population into a big dungeon
And the economy will go to hell in a handcart.
Wonderful how these old fellows could tell.
Sounds a bit like Al. He’s still not dead and is a British politician who made up obscure policies using incoherent babble and articles printed in allegedly quality newspapers. Owing to a couple of lucky elections in London, he gained a considerable reputation in some quarters as a capable politician, which has been shot down in flames since the last week of March 2020.
Al is better known as Boris, currently pretending to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Thought I’d share this message from the National Unworthy-of-Trust, which really demonstrates the close attention they pay to individual members’ communications:
Dear Supporter
Thank you for your email and sorry for the delayed reply.
Please be assured that we acknowledge your comments and your feedback will be sent to our Central Office forum.
Due to the amount of feedback we receive, we can’t respond to each one. However, we’d like to reassure you that we read and consider all comments sent through to us.
It’s only through feedback from our supporters that allow us to make improvements to our service as a whole, so thank you for taking the time to voice this.
Kind regards
Luke Bentley
Supporter Services Centre
National Trust
Manage your membership online easily with ‘My National Trust’
—- Original Message —-
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.
***
I am no longer a supporter. I told them that weeks ago.
“National Unworthy-of-Trust”.
Excellent, Annie!
I keep getting emails from them “We cannot wait to welcome you back…”
Mark it as spam
Liars.
Goes to show that they’re not really reading emails and just trying to fob you off with a form response.
Not surprised that you cancelled your membership.
Toby can we help the pilot who flew the plan with WLM banner and who was sacked from his job.
sorry its plane not plan.
What? Has he been sacked??
I wonder if he’d have been sacked if the banner proclaimed “Black Lives Matter”? (sorry, I know this is a stupid question)
How about a banner that just said, “Let’s destroy Western Civilisation”?
That shouldn’t be too controversial.
I though the police had said no crime has been committed?
Exactly, that is what I read – so why has he been sacked then? What is the source of this latest information?
Yes he was. Its disgraceful!
Burnley fan who chartered plane to fly White Lives Matter banner over Etihad stadium is SACKED from engineering firm where he worked as he defiantly says: ‘I’m not racist, I’d do it all again’
Daily Mail
The linked article ‘Questions for lockdown apologists‘ is well worth reading. In summary, it shows across a range of countries the deaths from all causes rising suddenly *after* the lockdown was imposed. So in other words, lockdowns were not imposed as a solution on a situation in which deaths were already occurring; the deaths started afterwards. This applies across a wide range of countries with a variety of lockdown approaches and timings.
Now I know correlation doesn’t mean causation but when you see something like this you do (or should) start thinking about whether there is a signal in there and what it might be telling you.
Go read it.
I’ve read it. I suspect countries only locked down as the infection rates began to climb fairly quickly, which will come before the deaths. My gut feeling is that governments panicked just as their country began to crest the wave.
“We can handle a thousand new infections a week. Christ, now it’s two thousand, so it will be four thousand next week and eight the week after. We have to do something… Panic!!!!”
That’s my take on it. Could be wrong. I often am.
Sounds dead on to me.
Far too much store has been set by the number of infections aka ‘cases’ all throughout this debacle, but especially now, when it’s already done its grim work on the most vulnerable in society.
Ooh we can edit now! No more sausage fingers!
It’s interesting, yes, but it’s also explicable. Deaths trail hospital admissions by an average of 2 weeks, so by any measure the alarm bells would have been ringing by the time the lockdowns were out into place. It’s interesting, but I’m not sure it’s a smoking gun.
Ukrainian MP demonstrates how to wear a mask:
https://www.corona24.news/c/2020/05/20/the-deputy-from-servants-of-the-people-came-to-rada-in-a-knitted-mask.html
If mask wearing becomes compulsory, and I cannot find a way out I will be wearing something similar, probably fashioned out of a piece of wire mesh.
I like the ‘Lone Ranger’ style of mask.
https://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Costume-Legendary-Crime-Fighter-Cosplay/dp/B00GDXQ0NE
I am thinking of a cheesecloth mask. When someone points out that it doesn’t work, I will point out that hers doesn’t either.
Great idea
I’ve been concerned that the level of hospital admissions for Covid isn’t tailing off. For me, this is the key indicator, rather than irrelevant case numbers.
However, the CEBM analysis says:
“It is therefore not clear whether ‘admission’ means admitted to hospital with COVID, admitted and diagnosed with COVID while in a hospital. or infected with COVID while an inpatient”.
Might this become the new version of the “Died with or died of” Covid debate; if they want to keep the scare level high – the more people who go to hospital with a broken leg and test positive (but with no ill-effects), the more “hospital admissions” there will be.
Link here
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-uk-hospital-admissions/
It could also be that the virus has mutated into a less virulent form.
It’s what all viruses do, quite naturally.
In the interests of transparency, they should publish the total number of people hospitalized for all reasons, but I haven’t found that anywhere. Probably you would find it doesn’t significantly differ from the same time last year.
At this stage they should be looking at hospitalisations leading to ICU. Seems a lot of places around the world may see an increase in hospitalisations but no corresponding increase in ICU/Deaths.
In Sweden the numbers of cases is increasing, but NOT the numbers of hospitalisations – numbers in hospital and in ICU are declining by the day..
Is that because the number of testing is increasing?
Yes!
I am curious how many have only contracted coronavirus after admission to hospital. If large numbers are only contracting coronavirus after hospital admission, how do you explain this if coronavirus is such a major danger.
Coronavirus is not a major danger.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/revealed-what-black-lives-matter-really-stands-for
A good piece.
The photo at the top reminds me of something.
Brilliant – thank you!
Here is a serious question.
The way our state broadcaster (BBC in case you have forgotten who they are) have treated this situation, would you now consider turning them over to being funded by commercial means rather than the license fee.
Before this all started I thought we got a good deal from the BBC and did not begrudge paying the annual license fee. OK so Detectorists was good.
The way they have played on people’s fears during the cv19 mess, with no thought for the mental health of the people who they are messing up makes me very angry.
From what I have seen over the last few months if the BBC could make people feel bad by putting a negative spin on anything they have done.
Yes, absolutely. Commercial/ subscription service – then I could choose not to pay for their news and subscribe to a less biased broadcaster, rather than pay for reading their propoganda. Mind you, I think the licence fee is out of date regardless of their bias, and a subscription like netflix would be more appropriate.
Firestick and Amazon Prime subscription serves me perfectly well for half the cost of the tv licence – no ads either.
Yes. I’d turn them over to the market dogs tomorrow if I was in charge.
Yes, with each new prominent issue – Climate Change, Brexit, Covid and now Brexit – we see that the BBC have become a fear-generation machine. But of course it is all politically driven. There are plenty of other things to be fearful of, most obviously the erosion of free speech in the UK, but those matters are of no interest to the BBC, or rather they wish to see such erosion.
So I am sure many people will say to you “join the club” – the club of people who once, long time ago, quite enjoyed the BBC.
I used to think it was good value, and in terms of quality and volume maybe it still is, given that a lot of commercial output is pretty dire. It’s hard for me to say though as I don’t watch much TV or listen to the radio.
But their performance during this fiasco has been disgraceful – I would put them a close second to politicians in the list of those most culpable. For that alone, they deserve to be cut adrift.
Beyond that, a publicly funded state broadcaster ought to at least pretend it is impartial, and pretend to try and reflect a variety of views within the society that pays for them. They stopped doing this a while ago, and have just become an organisation dedicated to campaigning for their vision of social justice – a sort of Guardian of the airwaves. They cannot be allowed to continue if we want to save this country from utter decadence and mediocrity.
They’re smug bastards, taking the piss out of the people who are forced to pay their wages.
I’m also fed up of all the ‘woke’ stuff; and identity politics – it is in every programme..
What you have experienced over coronapanic is what conservatives have experienced time and time again, for well over half a century, on issue after issue for which the socially liberal BBC hierarchy and staff bias has ruthlessly pushed society in the direction they wanted to see it go. Ridiculing and demonising conservatives and traditionalists and their opinions and ideas, biasing news and current affairs, and political discussions, and creating and promoting drama, comedy and soap material that serves the same goals.
So yes, I’m more than happy to see anything that scotches this plague on our society.
I have no idea whether this suggestion is practicable or what the real numbers might be, but this is what I would be pursuing were I in government (and now would be a particularly apt time to raise some much needed capital, even if it might not be economically the optimal moment):
Sell Off the BBC
You are obviously part of the problem. The BBC has been a propaganda organisation since its inception.
I had better do something about that then. I think our license renewal is August.
Yes. They clearly are going for clicks/viewing figures now.
Rather than reporting the news the are generating it.
The radio, docs and general programming is still good(ish).
The news reporting is on a level with Fox. And that’s even before Covid hit.
The BBC has been terrible throughout this, as Toby shows so clearly above in regard to their canceling the appearance of anyone who they realise might make some sceptical statements. Even that hotbed of zealots, the Guardian, has been willing to host, in recent weeks, one or two articles which ponder whether the damage of lockdown might not have been worth it. Not a single hint of diversity of opinion at the BBC though.
Really can’t be sure whether the licene fee or commerical methods would be the best way to fund the BBC, long term. But for the next year or so I think plenty of people would like to give the BBC some punishment by not paying anything to it by any means. After it has apologised for being the worst of lockdown zealots, and reformed to ensure it doesn’t become a state propaganda engine in future, then we can go back to thinking what funding model is best. And I think in such circumstances many who presently wish the BBC defunded as punishment for putting out such propaganda would be willing to contribute to it again if a fee model were continued.
Just seen in DT:
Only sensible idea I’ve heard from a ‘scientist’ since the nonsense started.Therefore unlikely to be implemented, eh?
The problem is it won’t affect the behaviour of the mice sorry people living in the city that much. Those who are scared of the virus will carry on “shielding” and “isolating” and those who aren’t won’t, which is pretty much how things are in a typical medium sized city under the lockdown.
Exactly. Impossible to get a true read ‘test’ on anything like this any more. Unless they let it ‘disappear’
(it never will) for a while before launching the test on a ‘new’ outbreak in aforementioned medium sized city
Well, wouldn’t that be preferable to imposed lockdown?
Apart from the economy being able to function?
Why don’t they try lifting the lockdown but sheilding the vulnerable until herd imunity achieved
Hahaha!
Boris, Vallance and Whitty’s first strategem. Pity they were derailed by “someones” of greater influence.
They absolutely will not do this. The chances are it would show that lockup has made no difference – other than wrecking the economy, making life a misery and causing untold collateral damage to people’s health, to name but a few adverse effects. Can you imagine the likes of Johnson and Gruber trying to wriggle out of that one?
The thought of then wriggling is quite unpleasant
Sensible my ****. These scientists want to test everyone in the UK once a week – 10 million tests a day, every day for the foreseeable future. That is a phenomenal waste of money for a virus that is benign for the vast majority of people it infects.
Testing bad, but better then lockdown.
Something (else) that I don’t understand….
Why are they testing vaccines on healthy monkeys and healthy people. The evidence seems to be that the healthy imune system deals with cv19 without much trouble – so what will these trial results really tell us?
That the adjuvants don’t actually kill us?
Well thats good to know atleast
Can I have a link to the testing on non-human primates?
It was on the news a few weeks ago re the Oxford vaccine, they said that although some CV found in throat, non found in lungs. My thought was that maybe it was monkeys imune systems not vaccine that was dealing with monkeys
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01092-3
Well they want to choose tests that make the vaccine look good
I agree it’s not a great test. The problem is nobody really understands what exactly the mechanism is of severe Covid or of vaccine enhancement. So nobody really knows for sure how to extrapolate from monkeys or healthy people to the people who actually might die of Covid.
Even worse, the way that you die of Covid appears to have quite a lot to do with immune system malfunction and vaccines are all about trying to prime that immune response. There are plenty of ways you could reduce severity in some people but increase it in others.
When you look at the published papers about the vaccine trials you get the impression they’re rushing things a bit… In the Liu 2019 paper about SARS1 vaccines (which all enhanced, ie made the disease worse) they found the lung damage appearing in the monkeys after something like a couple of weeks. But the Oxford guys killed their monkeys after only 7 days. Why not wait a bit longer?
All the vaccine papers make a big thing about how the monkeys got antibodies. But that’s the easy part. I’d like to see Liu 2019 replicated in full but for SARS2. You can also do a lot with transgenic (or otherwise genetically hacked) mice to figure out what’s going on. Yes mice aren’t elderly obese BAME men either but you can do a lot of in-depth work with them to try to understand how the disease and the vaccines work. Nobody has replicated for SARS2 any of the work that was done with mice for SARS1, MERS and RSV.
The Oxford vaccine will probably be all right but most people will be better to just take their chances with the virus.
“most people will be better to just take their chances with the virus.”
Could be a slogan for lockdown scepticism.
Expect to be accused of playing Russian Roulette though.
Thank you
Just had this discussion with my dad.
Taking this vaccine is DEFINITELY going to be riskier than just taking your chances with the virus, for at least 70-80% of the population. I mean, this is why we don’t ALL receive the flu shot every year, is it not?
After my brushes with the flu vaccine a couple of years in a row I’m not having anything to do with this jab if I can help it. My immune system will be my own vaccine, thankyou very much.
If only! But it appears some scientists are actually proposing to vaccinate the young (who as we all know, get over it) in order to ‘protect’ the old! This sounds daft to me. Why artificially induce short lived immunity in the young, who could acquire it naturally? Is the point to increase coverage?
‘Prof Peter Openshaw, from Imperial, one of the members of the UK’s Sage scientific advisory sub-group Nervtag, told the House of Lords science and technology committee it was this week considering a paper on targeting different groups in the population with vaccine.
“Sometimes it is possible to protect a vulnerable group by targeting another group and this, for example, is being done with influenza,” he said. “In the past few years, the UK has been at the forefront of rolling out the live attenuated vaccine for children.”
Giving the nasal spray flu vaccine to children who do not often get severe flu protects their grandparents, he said. Immunising health and care workers – who are likely to be the first to get the vaccine – would also help protect older people who have the most contact with them.’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/23/covid-19-vaccine-may-not-work-for-at-risk-older-people-say-scientists
It may be because (if you believe certain reports with regards to Bill Gates) that the vaccine will contain agents to sterilise people – no point in sterilising people above child-bearing age, obviously..
As regards the flu vaccine, there was a study done on people in the US military (who one would presume were healthy) who had received a flu jab, and it was discovered that it made them *more* vulnerable to future coronaviruses, not less..
Anyone who believes the former (deliberate attempt to sterilise youthful population) is daft, too. Latter can happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wQx-BjmfJk
I assumed the reason for that was just that they couldn’t be arsed and it would cost too much. Such rational thinking however is now history.
EXCLUSIVE: Burnley fan who chartered plane to fly White Lives Matter banner over Etihad stadium is SACKED from engineering firm where he worked as he defiantly says: ‘I’m not racist, I’d do it all again’
“His girlfriend Megan Rambadt, 21, has also faced criticism for some of her racist social media posts and been suspended from her job as a beautician. “
We have allowed zealots to create a situation in which “racist” opinion is regarded as inherently evil and intolerable. In reality racist opinion is just political opinion, and if it is not tolerated then we are not a free society.
The expression of opinion for which this man has lost his job and quite possibly made himself unemployable is not in itself racist, it is an absolutely legitimate political response to the racism of the BLM campaign. Whether or not it was intended as racist or made by a racist is, or should be irrelevant. This is a basic issue of liberty, not because this is direct government censorship (it is not), but because this is a grossly politically intolerant society.
Someone needs to offer both him and his girlfriend new jobs asap, to counter this cancel culture!
As far as I can tell from the story, he’s not he sharpest tool in the box. But no reason to suppose he’s not a perfectly competent welder.
Frankly, I doubt any company could afford to take the step of employing him now, at least until the furore has died down. We do not live in a society in which welders are free to express dissident political opinions.
What are the grounds for his dismissal? And have the correct procedures been followed?
No idea, but I daresay he might be able to get some compensation by pursuing that avenue, depending on the details. Won’t make up for either the entirety of the loss of his livelihood or the emotional and social damage done, but it will help some, if so.
There should be a fund set up to help him, as much to recognise the wrong that has been done to him as anything else. That’s one way ordinary people can try to respond.
In some ways the worst outcome would be if he is got at and persuaded to make a public apology to get his job or his employability back. That would solve his problem at the price of leaving this intolerance in place and reinforced.
One way some people will get back at his persecutors will be by supporting the EDL, no doubt, of which (according to the story) he is a supporter. They should, if they have any nous, be playing this for all they are worth.
Exactly – he cannot have done this during work time since he did not fly the plane himself. His employer would probably not even have heard about it without the ‘help’ of the MSM…
Hope he crowd funds a legal defence. The employer would have to show that the banner did not fall within the realm of the Human Rights convention as free speech. Given the Police are not taking it further one presumes even they don’t think it’s criminal speech. So the employer would presumably have to argue that it was in some other way illegitimate. Difficult, although one can expect a PC biased Lady Hale style judge to back the employer 100%
Sacking the girlfriend was a step too far as well..surely she would win a case for unfair dismissal?
Apparently she was suspended, for social media posts:
“Mr Hepple’s girlfriend Megan Rambadt, 21, also faced criticism for some of her racist social media posts and has been suspended from her job as a beautician.
He said: ‘She hasn’t stopped crying. Everybody is making her out to be a nasty, racist monster but she’s not like that at all.
‘She’s been suspended from her job and is really upset at what’s happened. She knew about the banner and supported it but like me, she wasn’t expecting this reaction.'”
A lot of ordinary people just haven’t grasped how dramatically intolerant and unfree a country they are now living in, until something like this blows up around them and they find that nobody has any sympathy for them because they have said verboten things, that are intentionally over-interpreted as far more evil than they are or weer intended.
Apparently she was suspended and offered ‘intensive racial sensitivity training (!), which she refused, so she was then sacked – see James Delingpole’s Twitter feed.. https://twitter.com/HopenotHateExp1/status/1275786895616815104
Good for her. People need to resist this indoctrination, this symbolic submission, and stop apologising.
I may be stupid, but I’m still trying to understand the twisted logic under which “black lives matter” is a truth that requires grovelling, but “white lives matter” leads to your own cancellation and that of everyone around you.
It’s clear that it was a statement designed to provoke (god help us all if that’s the standard of provocative statement we can come up with nowadays) but if there’s any sin, it’s misjudging the national mood. “White lives matter” is clearly not a racist statement. We’ve all woken up on a Sunday morning and thought “I wish I hadn’t made that joke. It didn’t go down well.”
Just to add: “only white lives matter” is a clearly racist statement. I wonder if the man’s employer has discovered that they ran out of space on the banner?
And I shouldn’t – but will – add, I prefer the Laurence Fox statement “All lives matter”. Others have made it too and been similarly made to vanish. It exposes the hypocrisy. To say that is unreasonable can only mean that you mean to say “black lives matter _more_”. Which is a clearly racist statement.
Here’s a question for the “woke” fellow travellers amongst us. What do they expect of the people whose lives they casually destroy for wrongthink and crimespeech? Do they assume they will all come crawling back to meekly accept reeducation?
I think we can safely assume they will not all be so weak. What of those who decline to bend the knee? What can we expect of them in the future?
This is not something that magically appeared, fully fledged, this month. None of it. The BLM scum were murdering people in their whipped up faux outrage years back, and the demonisation of the wrong kind of “racism” as something other than opinion began decades ago. It’s just all coming together and coming to a head.
The chickens are beginning to come home to roost.
Agree though bunter has destroyed the beauty industry wont allow them to open but absolutely disgusting the way he is being treated.
I feel the Marxists are testing the waters they got away with their demos I’m sure they will go for revolution and violent coup in the next couple of years and this is not at all far fetched look at Khan in london.
What has this got to do with Marxism?
BLM founders admit they are ‘trained marxists’..
A white man loses his job over a white lives matter banner, the act receives widespread condemnation but a black lives matter would be ok, there are laws against racial discrimination, we have successful black celebrities in all fields, white people are prepared to protest over a the killing of a black man in another country, BLM protests have white participants and illegal BLM protests are tolerated. Despite all this blacks in the UK are suffering brutal racist oppression according to BLM. Am I missing something here?
I recommend The Madness of Crowds, by Douglas Murray:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-madness-of-crowds/douglas-murray/9781472959959
He describes how the various activist movements have already won their battles, but they just won’t stop fighting.
yeah the anti white agenda
Unless there is something in his employment record, and no reason to suggest there is at this stage, it seems a no-brainer for unfair dismissal. If the police have said no case to answer I cannot see an employment tribunal ignoring that. Of course, it means he has to go through the whole tribunal process, and even if he wins, the compensation will be immaterial relative to having potentially lost his livelihood. He is a young man, and this is terrible.
When you demonise a political point of view you make demons out of those who hold to it or anything that can be painted as close to it. And one does not compromise with or tolerate demons.
It is unclear how they could have fired him so quickly. The disciplinary process takes at least a few days. Notification of a disciplinary hearing (24-48 hours to prepare), disciplinary hearing, then outcome of the hearing (preferably not on the same day as that could show that you made up your mind without taking facts into consideration).
Clearly, signalling their compliance with current politically correct orthodoxy is far more important to them than any potential for wrongful dismissal.
They maybe just reacted hastily, without thinking of the potential legal implications?
Another gem from PC Plod
https://youtu.be/ISkr-fjkeoM
Evening all!
What a heartening trip into deepest, darkest Cymru I’ve just experienced. My wife and I have always made the 20-mile round trip to our favourite town to do our weekly shop, partly because it’s always so quiet compared to the more urban supermarkets nearby, partly because the journey’s scenery is breath-taking, and partly so we can take our dog for a walk along the river afterwards.
And no Lockdown has stopped us doing that.
Previous weeks, it’s been heartbreaking to see the little town, normally bustling with life this time of year, so empty – a lonely ghost of itself. The powers that be had even closed off the footpaths leading down to the rocky banks of the river, to stop the local children playing there.
This week, the spark of life had returned to the town. The shops were still quiet (though it was early evening when we wandered round so it might have been busier earlier). But down by the river, groups of kids had leaped the barriers and were swimming and paddling together in the cool waters, and a rebellious family were enjoying a picnic by the river’s edge. A young family were hesitating at the barrier, as their little girl wanted to go down to the rocks, but as I passed I grinned at them and told them to ignore the blockade, and they squeezed through, their little girl delighted.
What’s more, at the bridge, there were about a dozen youths massed in defiance of all forms of anti-social distancing, the lasses goading the lads to make the terrifying leap into the swirling river below.
Here at least the young are openly flouting their elders’ rules, and it gladdened the heart!
I would have loved to see Komrade Drakeford seeing all this. I can imagine his tortoise-head turning purple with rage.
There is good video showing how quickly your oxygen levels get depleted when wearing a mask.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=Y-LAq6i0Aao&feature=emb_logo
I also note in Northern Ireland that there is now an enquiry into how effective masks were that were given out to health care workers because they weren’t tested properly. If proper medical grade masks cannot be trusted to protect from corona and have to be fitted correctly then there is absolutely no chance of a homemade one being in any way effective. It means the whole idea of mandatory masks completely ludicrous.
I saw this video via twitter – it actually explains well why they can be dangerous.
There are also scientific papers that are even questioning their effectivity for medical and dental personnel and assert that doctors and nurses are actually at high risk from hypoxia and hypocapnia.due to having to use face masks for long periods of time.
Meanwhile Oregon County in the US has made the wearing of masks compulsory but only for white people
That’s superb. Bookmarked.
https://medium.com/newsworthy-se/a-fraction-of-european-regions-account-for-a-majority-of-covid-deaths-778e546765a9
A very interesting map of Europe of excess deaths.Look at Italy many parts in the south hardly any excess deaths.Apart from UK with a more general excess deaths almost all other countries have regional excess deaths.Why is UK different?
Smaller, denser, more geographically integrated. Italy managed to contain it in the north (to the detriment of the northern health system and the southern immunity)
The maps of Spain and Italy correspond well to their serology studies. The places with more deaths also had more community infection which they were then unable to prevent from spreading into the care system with disastrous consequences.
Why more community infection in those areas? I think it’s likely to be lockdowns, assisted in Spain’s case by the geography. I don’t see why a big city like Barcelona should have lower serology or lower deaths than Madrid. This means they may well be due a small correction as lockdowns are lifted. We will see. Successful lockdowns are a sufficient (but not a necessary) condition of a temporarily low death rate.
One of the biggest reasons why I think the UK is at herd immunity is the evenness of the spread of deaths. If you had really stalled an epidemic at only 1/10 of its progression you would see hotspots that had gone almost the whole way and other places that had hardly been affected.
The final equilibrium state is not completely even deaths and exposure everywhere as R0 is different in different places, so you have to account for that. But there are no “Barcelonas” in the UK– big cities with much lower death rates than other similar big cities.
Sweden is interesting though. They didn’t have a lockdown so does the unevenness just reflect the different R0s in different parts of Sweden?
Sweden did, however, have a strong discouragement of internal travel and a population significantly compliant with the guidelines. There’s a big difference between Stockholm in terms of international incomers and cities like (for example) Linköping. Gothenburg probably sits somewhere in between, but closer to the latter than the former. Also, Sweden is huge and settlements are very spread out, with limited connections between. I can’t help thinking that, What we’ve seen in Sweden has so far been almost all about Stockholm, begging the question what happens to the rest of the country next.
Mostly true, however there are no regions of Sweden with zero cases. The large number of deaths in Stockholm (where a tenth of the population live) is not entirely due to population size; it is because of a large number of care home deaths there. Numbers of cases and deaths are mostly in line with size of population in each region apart from that. The four biggest cities by population are Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Uppsala, and these have the most cases. Malmö and Uppsala have had similar numbers of deaths even though Malmö is bigger, but then Malmö has population with a very low average age, which may explain this. You are correct about the discouragement of internal travel; some areas had no cases for quite a while, but you will never get 100% compliance with regard to travel…
We fiddled our figures to justify the lockdown
Reporting differences.
I wonder if it’s because our healthcare is more uniform across the UK. My theory has been that locking down and concentrating the sick in hospitals made things worse. As our hospitals are generally at a similar level throughout the country could this explain the uniformity of spread/death.
Have a look at swedenborg’s earlier comment above which links to the work of Dr Hope-Simpson….
Just a thought on social distancing. It’s totally insane because as a keen vaporista, I have noticed while sitting in the park the other day my vape cloud went at least 300 meters away and spread out covering an area of about 100 feet wide.
The vape enabled me to see how far my actual breath goes. My breath doesn’t “hold together” or “stay in the air more” because it has vape in it. Nope it does what breath does…..It’s just with the added vape it is possible to see it. A very cold day would produce the same effect with condensation I would imagine.
This alone makes the social distancing and masks look even more insane. Why not increase the social distancing to 300 meters, just to be on the safe side.
Don’t forget those nasty covids go straight through a mask with their tiny 20 nanometre bodies. Only a special magic ceramic filter would stop them in reality.
People’s breath travels a long long long way.
I’ve seen something on this (not especially scientific) and couldn’t for the life of me find it now. It apparently has something to do with the tendency of the specific make up of the chemical droplets in the vape mixture that makes them tend to stay together more. The normal particles you breathe out will probably travel all around the world eventually, but that doesn’t mean that any droplets carrying the virus will.
I would imagine “viral” junk is about the same as vape droplets, apart from probably millions of times smaller so would go miles farther than heavy sugary glycerine coated water droplets.
Point taken about the viral load open top cars draughty houses thing. I guess what we are gonna need in the new normal are personal breathing pipes for office workers connected to the outside air or if that is too risky, special “covid safe” air supplies. Just to be sure.
Still my vape cloud was almost thick enough to grab hold of even at 50 meters. Imagine if that vape cloud was laden with covids!!!!!!!! Lethal!
Actually I am surprised, as yet nobody has flipped their wig over my vape clouds drifting over them. Any day now I shouldn’t wonder.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t go round threatening people with my vape clouds, I use the little one when in public and in close proximity of the brainwashed and when I use the cloud chucker I ensure there is a “covid safe” fall out zone downwind of me
It was long before the lockdown that I witnessed hedge jumpers. People throwing themselves into traffic when I’d blow a modest cloud of vape while standing outside a pub or restaurant.
One of the articles posted below by Victoria had a link to this paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3563851
If you breathe in a couple of viral particles here and there you probably won’t get infected. If you sit in an enclosed space with the windows shut with somebody who’s infected the concentration of virus in the room goes up, you keep breathing it in, and eventually it establishes itself. Outside in the fresh air the virus just gets diluted too much.
Interesting too is the mechanism by which an ordinary cold turns into pneumonia. How exactly does this happen? One way or another you have to end up with enough virus getting into your lungs for it to become established there. A face-mask is probably rather effective at concentrating the virus in your own upper respiratory tract and causing you to breathe greater quantities of it back into your own lungs, where it can cause a serious disease, especially as you are having to breathe more deeply than usual to get enough oxygen through the mask.
What we need in the “new normal” is open-top cars and, especially in the winter, draughty and poorly-insulated houses.
I can smell people’s perfumes in a trail about 15m long after they’ve walked past me, the molecules giving the scent are vastly smaller than viral particles but it still makes one wonder about how far things can travel. The trouble is we’ve been letting epidemiologists give all the advice, rather than experts on aerodynamics who could make some proper conclusions about how well the viral particles can travel. If it turns out they go further than expected then the only eplanations for the limited spread of the virus we’ve seen are either that a lot of people are naturally immune, that herd immunity has already built up, or that a pretty big initial dose is needed to cause infection.
I’m a vaporista also, and I’ve noticed – and thought – exactly the same thing many, many times
I could make an absolutely irrefutable case for euthanising Ferguson and Hancock.
We have discussed earlier the theory of Dr Hope-Simpson about influenza and very temperature dependent epidemics. This short video tries to use this theory and apply to Covid-19 and using Covod-19 death curves as the most reliable method. Interesting discussion of very lockdown Peru versus no lockdown Brazil with the same death curves.
https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1275841060204396551
Very much enjoying this site here in WA state (where our governor just declared that not wearing your mask is now a criminal offense – of which I suppose I will continue to be guilty), I’m just wishing we had something comparable!
About the most discouraging thing in the world (since I’m not on facebook or twitter) is reading the comments sections of sites like the WSJ. I feel like it doesn’t take a whole lot of digging, reading, or critical thinking to dismiss most of the hysteria and virtually all of the executive power-grabs (regulations, mandates, etc…), but apparently that’s only something that Americans used to be interested in. Those of us here in the states would be especially interested in your take on this sort of stuff:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-numbers-are-accelerating-across-u-s-11593018754?mod=hp_lead_pos1
I’m in general agreement with this headline.
Sweden’s Covid Expert Says ‘World Went Mad’ With Lockdowns
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-24/sweden-s-epidemiologist-says-world-went-mad-imposing-lockdowns
The man behind Sweden’s controversial Covid-19 strategy has characterized lockdowns imposed across much of the globe as a form of “madness” that flies in the face of what is known about handling viral outbreaks.
“It was as if the world had gone mad, and everything we had discussed was forgotten,” Tegnell said in a podcast with Swedish Radio on Wednesday.
It’s the literal truth, if you define madness as an utter inability to engage with reality,
That man is a hero
They always make a statement like “Swedens controversial strategy” nothing controversial about it. Open, honest, following best practice where it existed improving when new info became available, admitting mistakes. The only controversial thing was almost every other country ‘strangled’ their healthy low risk population, locked them in their houses, refused to listen to counter arguments, manipulated figures etc etc and have left them a smoking ruin of a world. I will be applying for asylum in Sweden before the UK rush in September when the GOV decide that flu is actually just as bad so keep this nonsense going to SAVE MORE LIVES.
As a resident of Sweden, I am VERY happy not to be in lockdown. But what happened with the care homes here is nonetheless appalling.
At first I thought that the reason for the deaths was because a large number of the people who work in them, work in several different homes, and might have spread the virus that way. Or that it was a lack of PPE. Both of which I am sure played a part, but there are increasing stories coming out now, of care homes not offering oxygen to patients (I don’t mean ventilators, I mean the mask + oxygen cylinder version) and basically putting ill patients onto palliative care, ie morphine – euthanasia basically. Once the care homes were closed to visitors, there was little that relatives could do to stop this, although many did try. I have read stories of for example an 81 year old who recovered once his relatives insisted that palliative care was stopped. Time will tell how many elderly might have survived otherwise. I should also say that in Stockholm the hospitals were clearly told not to prioritise patients aged 80+, if they had to make a choice as to who to treat…
To treat or not in a care home environment is a difficult one in the case of people with medium to high level of dementia. Giving oxygen to older people without dementia is a no brainer as they have a quality of life worth saving. Giving anything more than palliative care to dementia sufferers, unless it’s still in the initial/mild phase, is less clear cut.
Sweden is most definitely not perfect but the way they approached this crisis was, in my opinion, sensible. Criticism should be made where it is due but on the whole I think the Swedish people have been treated relatively well.
People who are results oriented think Sweden failed simply because of the higher death toll but, as I posted recently, their approach seems almost exactly the same as British Colombia who are being praised for ending up with a relatively low death toll.
Sweden – now there’s a country that was properly “led by the science”!
For the most part! But Swedes do have a somewhat chequered history in some areas – not so long ago that certain groups here were forcibly sterilised..
Cambridge University has tweeted in defence of its academics’ right to express opinions and has condemned personal attacks and abuse
Wow! About time, right? Establishment starts to stand up against the tide of BLM-inspired persecution of dissent!
Oh, hang on, apparently not:
“Cambridge condemns abuse against academics, after petition to fire Dr Gopal launched
A petition was launched against Dr Priyamvada Gopal on change.org after she tweeted ‘White Lives Don’t Matter’”
Seems only some racially inflammatory statements warrant persecution and dismissal.
Well there’s a surprise.
“Far-right groups have counterprotested the Black Lives Matter movement, often using ‘White Lives Matter’ or ‘All Lives Matter’ as counter-slogans.
In the UK, a banner saying ‘White Lives Matter Burnley’ was carried over the Etihad stadium on Monday. The incident has been widely condemned, with Burnely saying they were “ashamed and embarrassed”.
Iffy Onuora, the equalities officer for the Professional Footballers’ Association, explained to BBC Breakfast, “The words themselves aren’t offensive, it’s just the context. It’s the rejection of the conversation we’re having at the moment. That’s what it represents.””
So there you have it. Menacing mobs vandalising statues and people being hounded out of their jobs for expressing dissent is “having a conversation”, apparently. But don’t think you can take part in that “conversation” if you disagree with the BLM bully-boys. Oh no, you need to know your privileged place, white boy!
A sign of things to come for us?
‘I am angry’: Germans back in lockdown demand accountability
Reaction in Gütersloh highlights the problems governments may face if restrictions return
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/24/west-germany-district-re-enters-lockdown-after-new-covid-19-outbreak
This reminds me of army boot camps where if one person breaks the rules everyone is punished. The result is that everyone turns on the individual rule breaker. We’ve already seen this in effect with curtain twitchers and people reporting their neighbours for minor infractions.
Whilst many Güterslohers had until recently lived in the hope of being able to go on holiday – if not necessarily abroad, then at least elsewhere in Germany – many are now being turned away by other states, who say they are not wanted.
I read earlier today that States in the USA may adopt a similar approach in refusing interstate travel from States regarded as high infection zones. We have seen Sweden being treated as a pariah, leper is probably more apt, state by her neighbours and there are even calls for the Scotland/England border to be shut should Scotland manage to eradicate the virus and England not.
Even if the IFR was 1% it would not be anywhere near an extinction level event. Yet the whole world has literally lost the plot both in how it reacted and now with the supposed endgame of either eradiction or a vaccine.
If we do eventually manage to eradicate this virus does that set the baseline for eradiction? All future and existing ways of dying that meet the threshold should be eradicated right? If it’s required for this virus then it must be so for anything else.
How do we react if another virus is discovered in the future? Will it be automatic eradiction before we even know anything about it? If we don’t immediately lock down and shut our borders then do we run the risk of being accused of acting too slowly?
If we eradicate all future ways of dying based on the threshold set does that mean all current ways of dying are the only acceptable ways moving forward? There can be no more new ways of dying, what we have already is enough?
Has anybody even thought about any of this? In theory we could have just let people die, mourned for a while and life could have carried on. Or we could have accepted some level of death, mourned a bit less for a while and life could have carried on as before. Instead the choice was made to take the most extreme option on the other end of the scale and created an ideology whereby nobody needs to die at all and eradication is the only way.
So the choice in future would not be accept some deaths, mourn for a while and get on with life but it will almost certainly be eradicate, eradicate, eradicate once the precedent is set.
All I can think to say at this stage is F***ing Idiots.
We all just need to rebel en masse when they try to do this to do us. No joke.
I am now ready to fuck up a few poiticians. Or I will be if they try and incarcerate me in my home again.
I won’t be going back to lockdown. May as well be prison, so have got nothing to lose.
Its not a matter of just letting people die. Increasingly it looks like if we had not imposed lockdown, an essentially evil policy and our health care service had continued as normal and actually treated ill people and not gone on a rampage emptying hospitals fewer would have died.
Also the lockdown death toll has only just started. People are going to be dying as a consequence of the shutdown of the health service and destruction of the economy long after this particular strain of coronavirus is gone.
Yes and they will hide them under a thin veneer called ‘Covid 19’ they will get a positive test somewhere along the mistreatment route.
My future way of dying will be suicide if this nonsense continues much longer and restrictions and lockdowns are imposed again – and I’m not joking or being dramatic. I’m honestly getting to the stage where I’m wondering if there’s going to be much left to live for and why I’m bothering with the daily mental fight in my mind. All I can see ahead is chaos, blackness, nastiness, and a world I don’t want to be a part of. And I’m not alone in these thoughts I know.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy, Carrie. Keep on keeping on
Carrie
We need boots on the ground to fight this nonsense. You are needed, so rebel often (it makes you feel good) and keep holding the line with us.
Thank you both. When I wake up nowadays I always seem to have a huge heavy black cloud over me. But just coming here helps, as then I know I’m not mad and I’m not alone.
We all felt alone on 23rd March when the lockdown was announced. Am I the only one who knows this is wrong? was my initial reaction. We’re not alone.
You’re right Nick, we aren’t alone even though it may feel that way sometimes. This site proves that. And many of the comments on the MSM websites too. I think more people are beginning to feel this way, but may be wary of speaking out.
But more are speaking out. And our numbers are growing all the time.
Totally with you on this but I guess we have to try and fight the wrongs to get to the right again.
What really annoys me is that it feels as if no one really cares about the whole anti social distancing and that it’s okay for social creatures aka us humans not to interact and hug and touch and be in close proximity. It’s so inhuman and it keeps being swept under the carpet.
Yes the economy is important but without social interaction then surely this can lead to ill health possibily deaths and then there will be no humans to work in the economy.
It is indeed the little things that count, isn’t it. And you are having such a horrible time of it with your shop, my heart truly goes out to you. I read about your experiences with the police in utter disbelief – as you say, not a world I want to be part of. Everything just seems to be such a battle right now and I’m so tired. I think I’ve just run out of anger, which was keeping me going, and have moved to the hopeless stage. But maybe this good weather has been the government’s saving grace . . . after all, who wouldn’t enjoy being furloughed in beautiful weather? Who needs a good shopping experience when you can happily lounge around in the sunshine in your back garden, or in parks or on beaches? If they invent a “second wave” in October when the climate is entirely different, just maybe people will react differently, get angry, suddenly wake up to what is happening. I just hope it isn’t too late by then.
Any more news re your contact with a journalist regarding your ‘incident’, kh1485?
Are there any ‘e-newspapers’ in your area?
You’re welcome kh1485, made me so angry when I read what had happened to you. Anything to help a fellow sceptic.
There is a journalist called Anna Brees on YouTube who has been doing some excellent interviews around the whole virus situation, might be worth contacting her?
Good idea!
I feel the same way..
Far from alone. But please, please keep on fighting it. Otherwise they win.
Yes, what have they done?
In my case, they have removed any chance of me co-operating with them *ever* again. I will not support a political party of any colour that is currently sitting in Parliament and (in my case) Welsh Assembly. If that means I spoil my vote, then so be it. Note I recommend black felt tip pen to mark each box. I also write a comment when spoiling my vote as to why. Spoiled votes have to be counted, because they have been cast.
I usually spoil my ballot. Yes they are counted. I am convinced spoiling is the only viable option. Our electoral system is broken beyond belief, there are no parties to vote for. They are all rubbish. If everybody spoiled their vote we would all have to have a proper discussion about democracy. However as 70% of the population are badly informed idiots who know almost nothing and have no critical thiniing skills. Perhaps we should just do away with the pretence of voting and just go with a full on fascist dictatorship from now on into perpetuity.
Carrie, the people you knew in the world before lockdown haven’t fundamentally changed. They’ve been lied to and misled, and feel they are doing right by keeping to the politicians’ crazy rules, but they will come to their senses eventually.
Keep strong – you have friends here
You’re right. Although it is hard because it has created a big gulf between myself and some of my friends. Again that is why this website has become so important.
They have instigated the most viscous propaganda campaign on us that we have ever seen apart from perhaps in the run up to the first world war when they needed young men to go a die in huge numbers. The propaganda then was probably just a little more evil than now but not much. Using the population to shame young men into signing up by getting women to hand out flowers to “cowards” is very similar to using community group think to shame people into lockdown compliance.
The result is damage to the UK and its people on an massive scale that will never go away.
We need to form new social networks and societies. The world is clearly divided now between who is a brainwashed idiot and believes all this virus insanity and those who don’t. Both groups are incompatible with each other. Don’t worry Carrie, I think we can do this but things will be different in time, they can’t lock us up forever and they can’t stop the time.
We need to try to separate ourselves from these zombies and re-build our lives separately until the mass-psychosis wears of.
Actually people are that stupid if Gove came on the telly tomorrow and said its all over, stop worrying, they would all probably get back to “normal” and forget about everything in a few days.
Pity he doesn’t live in the same sheltered housing as my partner’s mother. They all rebelled against being forced to stay apart so they pretty much do what they like now – going out round town, sitting in the communal gardens together etc. Touch wood but zero cases of coronavirus in their complex so far.
I think this generation is very aware that they are old and in reality don’t necessarily have long left in this world so would rather live their lives interacting with their friends and families than be stuck alone in one room.
Also as my mum says she lived through the times of the polio epidemic, Asian flu epidemic and the Cold War so she isn’t particularly concerned about a virus that is similar to flu.
As regards Sweden, if you removed the care home deaths from the stats then the numbers of deaths would be very similar to Norway and Denmark, so it is annoying that we in Sweden are being seen as a ‘risky’ country.
But weren’t there care home deaths in Norway and Denmark? I presumed all the Nordic countries would have had the same problem.
To be honest I am not sure, but both Norway and Denmark locked down. Stockholm’s care homes are big, which may explain the large numbers of deaths there. Remember that Denmark and Norway have much smaller populations than Sweden, and fewer immigrants (who are said to be a risk group as regards CV19).
Sweden has larger care homes than the other Nordic and Baltic countries. It is recognised there that they lost control of the situation in care homes (as did the UK, France, Belgium, Italy, many of the American States…)
I wrote this earlier…however, it is not really that they ‘lost control’ – see my other comment regarding the palliative care (as opposed to proper treatment) that was given to residents of Sweden’s care homes – it is scandalous..I know they were discouraged from sending people to hospital, as hospitals had already been told to not treat people 80+, if resources were scarce, but to not even offer basic oxygen to give people a chance, and to instead start people on morphine, is not acceptable.
Just wondering, am I the only one who’d have been prepared to comply with some of the post-lockdown guidelines (masks, keeping some level of distance apart where feasible, not gather in large groups, not share pens, wash hands religiously at all times… although under all circumstances I would, will and do refuse to accept any anti-cash discrimination trying to force me to use a contactless card) in the first place if we had not locked down, but now after resenting the safetyist idiocy which got us in to the catastrophic lockdown am against even what would have been reasonable infection control measures in the first place. I doubt I’m the only one who thinks this, which means that by implementing the illegal lockdown all the government have done is made people unwilling to obey procedures that might actually have helped where the lockdown failed.
I would have been quite happy to do the hand washing, avoiding large crowds, sticking to my own group of friends, and being generally sensible without lockdown – although not masks generally or social distancing to the degree that it has been imposed. In fact even without Covid, I think it would be a great idea if anyone showing symptoms of anything stays away from shops and work to stop infecting other people. And perhaps that may yet happen in the future if employers have realised it is a good thing to encourage. Up until now I suspect it hasn’t been possible due to employers’ demands.
I understand where you are coming from Carrie, but actually we should be grateful that people spead illness. It is how we build up our immune systems. That gives us the degree of protection we all need against everything the world (inevitably) throws at us, and in most cases prevents the most severe outcome of all – death. This disease (like most) is essentially about the strength – or otherwise – of our immune systems. That is why putting it into care homes was -and is- the single biggest catastrophic error that the Government committed. To avoid that becoming the real topic, they continue with the pretence that healthy people should be kept away from other healthy people as that ‘reduces spread’. All the evidence, from Cheltenham, Anfield and all the BLM demonstrations shows that is complete nonsense, and they know it is as well. Like Iraq, every lie they tell is trying to cover the fact that they told a whopper at the outset and are trying to cover their tracks. Truth will out though. It always does eventually.
In my current state of mind, I’ll do the exact opposite of what I’m being told.
I will not trust anything from the government, MSM, social media or or most people.
If I’m told to stay away, I’ll get closer, walk left, I’ll walk right. Tell me to wear a mask, make me!
I feel you. Although I am still attempting to be sensible with the hand washing/not touching my face etc. I find the contrarian in me too hard to contain sometimes and just delight in walking around rubbing my sweaty palms all over everything and eating things that I’ve dropped on dirty, dirty surfaces. In full view of horrified onlookers. It makes me smile when I see them squirm.
Me: Define ‘second wave’.
Idiot I was just talking to: More cases.
Me: How many more cases.
Idiot: Just…..more. They have a second wave in Germany now. And South Korea. And maybe Japan.
Me
*knowing they are having problems finding people to test meds etc. on in Japan….. like everywhere else*: Maybe Japan?
Idiot: Yeah everywhere is having second waves now.
Me *googles*: “As of midnight Sunday, South Korea reported 17 new coronavirus cases, the first time in nearly a month that daily new cases had dropped below 20. It was a drop from the 48 and 67 cases reported in the previous two days.” [This was Reuters on 22nd btw]
South Korea’s population is about 50 million. I repeat, define ‘second wave’.
Idiot: ……..
Everyone’s dead in Sweden you know.
Basically you can use their beloved ‘official case numbers’ against them. – because in population terms, there are HARDLY ANY!
This government has really done a number on its citizens. It’s like going to watch a hypnotist or Derren Brown but at the end of the show, the star turn refuses to bring the participants back into the room. Highly, horribly unethical.
They interviewed a lady on Sky News last night. She was representing the group that recently wrote an open letter to Boris warning him of reopening the economy too quickly. She was asked if a few cases amounted to a second wave and she came out with a totally unconvincing “well it’s essentially the same thing” or words to that effect.
To Mark, OKUK, and others who have hijacked this forum to expouse their racist views.
I have been following this site because I believe that something wrong has happened in this world we inhabit which I do not profess to understand. It may be the emotionally based influence of social media, the main stream media looking for profits, weak politicians, or I would even be prepared to look at ‘conspiracy theories’ about the extraordinarily rich using their power to influence how we live. Something is wrong, but it is has nothing to do with race.
First of all, you do not understand. Racism in Europe is still a big issue, but not to the level of the racism in the USA which is ingrained in the souls of many white people, they actually hate blacks, which is why there is a disproportionate killing of black people by the police, the reason there are a disproportionate amount of people with black skin imprisoned in the USA. Hence the pushback and protests. If you had black skin would you not be fighting back against this inequal justice in your own country?
Let me tell you about me and my Caribbean country. My skin is brown and I work with black people everyday. Personally, I do not see skin colour, but let me get down to the grass roots of how black people live here. I run a construction company and I have many employees who work with me during the day, operate taxis at night and even keep animals or grow food in between. Three jobs. They never sleep. Why? Because they know, very clearly, that the only way out of the disadvantage of having a black skin is education. So they spend all their money on educting their children, usually overseas at enormous expense. You can see the results where many doctors, lawyers, professionals of every sort, even members of the british upper judiciary have black skin.
What I would like to suggest is that the white british work as hard as the blacks in the world, educate your children to the same level, forget your white privilege, work hard and stop complaining. Already, the West Indians, the Chinese and Indians have outsripped you in educational standards, especially in science and engineering so you had better watch out.
Take your exit from the EU along with the exit from this nutty few months and make Britain into Great Britain again. The key, as black people understand, is eductation, education, education and at a much higher level than you are doing now.
Bob
You know absolutely nothing about racism in the US. Based on your comment, you seem to think racism is a one way street. News flash: that’s racist.
Accuse two people of expousing their racist views.(Perhaps you might point us at the specific comments where you think this is occurring)
Proceed to espouse racist views.
Hypocrite.
BLM has been talked about endlessly and negatively by the two commentators I mentioned but my main point is that the the BLM issue is real and is poignant. What do you think about my latter statements with respect to the level of UK education and white privilege?
I think your statements speak for themselves. Lets just say I consider each individual as an individual. I do not assume that their race or the colour of their skin is a good guide to the quality of their character or any other attribute such as their views on education, how hard they work, how lucky they were at birth, etc.
BobT, there is no racism in North Korea. Would you rather live there, or the Britain we currently inhabit? If ‘BLM’ have their way, through their army of innocents and UK institutions wishing to virtue signal themselves – literally – to death, that’s where we’re headed. Or give me an alternative vision, based on BLM’s ‘manifesto’.
BLM…. oh that ararchic violent group hijacking the good will of non racist people …. have you actually looked into what BLM stand for. Here is a good summary by the spectator.
1. BLM wants to ‘dismantle capitalism’
2. BLM says climate change is ‘racist’
3. BLM wants to abolish prisons
4. BLM wants to get rid of borders
5. BLM says unemployment is ‘violence’
6. BLM condemns stop and search
7. BLM wants to get rid of the police
8. BLM says the government appointment of a Pakistani heritage woman is ‘racist’
9. BLM condemned the suffragettes
10. BLM said Churchill is ‘staunchly racist’
All references and the back ground to the group here
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/revealed-what-black-lives-matter-really-stands-for
The vast majority or people in this country are not racist. On the face of it the BLM slogan is just, however as many thing in like are, do not accept the “face of it”. There is a hidden agenda you have obviously bought into
Avoid the question why don’t you …
You’re correct to say education is so important and the way out of poverty for so many. And as you say, look at our education system. It fails so many kids. Many times I have read that families from the Caribbean or Nigeria take one look at our system and send their children abroad for schooling.
I have read that many of our inner city schools fail children from the Caribbean community because they have such low expectations for them – a career in sport or music is all that is encouraged.
Yes, there are dedicated teachers who do indeed make a difference to kids’ lives, but there are also useless ones too who turn kids off education. And one good teacher in a sea of mediocracy can’t turn the tide.
Then there’s the peer pressure, and that applies equally to all groups. No one likes a swot or a brainy child as it shows them up.
And the role models too – the money involved in gangs and drug dealing are hard to resist.
And there’s the problem of family support, which is terrible for white working class kids whose parents think school is a waste of time and have no respect for teachers.
Social media is an added poison.
The problems go on and on.
And it’s definitely not helped by the instinct of all governments to centralise and control, providing a one size fits all education. And so we have the current situation, (NB this is a gross generalisation and over simplification) with undereducated white males left behind and resenting those of other ethnicities who have achieved through hard work, and undereducated black males left behind and blaming it all on discrimination.
So if I say, “I disagree” with you, would that be acceptable to you?
I don’t have to share your views and you don’t have to share mine.
Interesting that you think I and others have “hijacked” Toby Young’s blog site by talking about issues that he himself has spent quite a bit of time discussing above the line here. You are not the first to attempt that method of silencing opinions here that you (evidently) cannot tolerate.
You are simply wrong in much of what you write in this comment, but the key error is when you directly assert that there is in the US: “disproportionate killing of black people by the police”, which is supposedly caused by hatred of black people by white people. This is simply factually incorrect, as you would know if you had followed the information provided by Toby on this specific point. There absolutely, provably is not disproportionate killing of black people in the US by police motivated by racial hatred. That’s simply not open to realistic dispute, because the figures prove it. If there were such systematic killing, then it would show up clearly in the figures. In fact, more whites than blacks are killed by US police, and the only reason why blacks are killed at a higher rate proportionate to their share of the population (but not really at a particularly high rate considering the US black population of tens of millions) is because blacks perpetrate a far higher share of violent crime and therefore encounter the police in potentially violent contexts much, much more often, proportionate to their share of the population.
These figures have been quoted by Toby and are discussed at length in some of the articles he has linked.
You can certainly take the discussion further and talk about why it is that blacks perpetrate such a dramatically higher share of violent crime (13% of the population, 53% of known homicides, 60% of robberies, according to the figures for 2018 in the WSJ piece Toby linked a couple of weeks ago), and then you could reasonably argue for historic racism, slavery etc. as a, or even the, cause (and others could debate that). But what is not open to you to legitimately claim is exactly what you falsely assert here.
As so often. what is most problematic for you is not what you don’t know, but what you know, that isn’t actually true.
If you want a more honest assessment imo of the situation of blacks in the US, and the counterproductive nature of the self-destructive and anti-white racist position adopted by BLM, you should consider very carefully all of the words of this informed black US ex-policeman:
DAVID DORN WAS THE END FOR ME
What you should contemplate is why you are so intolerant of dissent on this issue that you find it uncomfortable even to share a comment section with people making political arguments that are in no way illegitimate and in no way meaningfully racist in any sense that could honestly and reasonably be regarded as offensive or threatening. The comments you reference overwhelmingly (as far as I’ve seen, anyway) consist of political opposition to BLM and the related wider dogmatic anti-racism movement. There has been no actual racism here, that I’ve seen, yet you seem to see it in political arguments about freedom of speech, opposition to BLM, and the mere right to express “racist”, and even actually racist, opinions.
“What I would like to suggest is that the white british work as hard as the blacks in the world, educate your children to the same level, forget your white privilege, work hard and stop complaining. Already, the West Indians, the Chinese and Indians have outstripped you in educational standards, especially in science and engineering so you had better watch out.”
This is probably the closest thing I’ve see here to actual racism. There are plenty of white Brits who have worked themselves as hard as any black person anywhere to get to where they are, and your prejudiced bollocks about “white privilege” deserves only contempt, both for its anti-white racism and for the disservice it does to black people (see the very good discussion of this by Brandon Tatum in the piece I linked above). Unlike you, though, I would never call for it to be banned or censored, because unlike you I am tolerant of dissent and an advocate of free speech and the benefits of full discussion.
In another piece linked by Toby, the leader of the British SDP dealt well with the poisonous “white privilege” nonsense:
The BLM movement could not be more wrong
I repeat my first paragraph.
None of your reply is therefore relevant.
It is not even correct in content.
Mark is always careful to deny what he has frequently described as a ‘blood libel’, ( for UK readers a false accusation, similar to that that Jews killed and drank the blood of Christians), that US police ‘systematically’ disproportionately kill black people. I’ve never seen anyone assert this. If it were true that they were thoroughly, methodically and according to a plan killing black people, that would be genocide. Does he actually mean to deny systemic racial prejudice in the US police? Apparently not, from the remainder of his comments.
“Mark is always careful to deny what he has frequently described as a ‘blood libel’,”
Interesting use of the term “frequently”. As far as I recall, it’s a term I used a number of times in the thread in which I first came up with it as an appropriate description of BLM’s intentionally inflammatory accusation of (to use BobT’s description) “racism in the USA which is ingrained in the souls of many white people, they actually hate blacks, which is why there is a disproportionate killing of black people by the police“. I have used it occasionally since then, but bearing in mind the high numbers of posts I make here on both the coronapanic and the BLM scum, I think “frequently” is intentionally misleading, presumably because you think it can be used to imply evil intent on my part.
Well, I make no apology for the use of the term, which imo is directly applicable to a false accusation of group killing motivated by group hatred, intended to whip up hatred and resentment in response, which is a fair and accurate description of the BLM core case.
Again, rather than engaging on substance you choose instead to pick a petty terminological fight over the use of “systematic”, which really does not change the substance of the issue. BLM itself uses the following phrases for its core false assertion that there is disproportionate, racially motivated police killing of blacks:
“state-sanctioned violence”
“rampant and deliberate violence inflicted on us by the state”
“violence … inflicted on Black communities by the state”
If you are really going to try to pretend that I have mis-characterised the core BLM case (as witnessed by its highest profile campaigning issues in the cases of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and numerous other cases leading to George Floyd today), then I think I’m happy to leave your position as self-discrediting.
So, you begin your comment with two direct accusations against me, the first of which, “hijacking”, is clearly intended to imply that my comments are inappropriate in this forum, and the second, “racist views”, is these days a very serious and inflammatory accusation, given the grossly intolerant climate in regard to such dissent. That kind of accusation in most forums would result in censorship or banning, and out in the real world people are losing their jobs daily over such accusations. When I respond with a detailed and substantive comment addressing the content of your post, you simply ignore it all.
You seem to be trying to imply that the paragraph you mis-describe as your “first” is the only part of your post that should be responded to, and your actual first paragraph together with the other four are somehow side issues. Well, I don’t interpret it that way, and if you are not prepared to engage on the substantive issues you raised, I’m happy to leave the exchange standing as it is.
bcjhsdbcjjdbcsbj
BLM protests helped the lockdown sceptic case – there’s still no second wave after all.
Perhaps we should stay on-topic more and keep the off-topic remarks to a minimum? This is after all lockdown sceptics, it would be a shame to see it overtaken by BLM divisions.
Bob, You’ve been misled about deaths in interactions with police in USA (deliberately by BLM and others I suspect). White people are slightly more likely to die than black people in clashes with police when they are armed. According to Washington Post 10 unarmed black people were killed by police in 2019 in the whole USA. Even in that small number some used vehicles and other means to attack police. Unfortunately black people are more likely to be involved in crime in USA. USA is a heavily armed and quite violent society (homicide, suicide, drug, vehicle deaths all considerably higher). There is a great deal of information available on this topic from reliable sources if you care to do some research. Good luck with the building company. I’ve lived and worked in Caribbean and elsewhere and worked in the construction industry for 45+ years. No shortage of hard working people of all skin colours in my experience.
I’m pleased you differentiate between the United States and Europe (from which I assume you’re referring the UK also) regarding racism. One of the problems we have in the UK is that our race relations industry imports and repeats verbatim American anti-racism opinions and research. This is of course aimed at American problems (which as you point out, are very real), and is not necessarily relevant to problems here. BLM is very relevant to the American situation (whether or not correctly is another debate), but much less so to the UK.
As Trevor Philips, former head of the UK’s Equalities Commission and himself of Guyanan descent, has pointed out, blaming all the BAME communities’ problems on racism does not address some fundamental issues. This includes disproportionate wrongdoing and imprisonment. The easy way is to blame this on racism; if this were so, we would have no white people in prison at all. Most of those in prison are male – vastly so – are the world’s legal systems fundamentally misandrist? Somehow I doubt it.
The “white privilege” that you suggest we ought to forget and exchange for hard work is an invention of the American anti-racist lobby.An often overlooked fact about the UK itself (rather than its empire, which came later) is that we had a form of slavery here, whether serfdom in England, or a type of chattel slavery practised by the Celtic countries. Those on the enslaved end of the scale were all white.
Making “Britain great again”, to borrow your phrase, can only happen if we are all pulling in the same general direction. Organisations such as BLM are, I’m afraid to say, divisive and are turning the clock *back* for race relations in this country.
#AllLivesMatter, such an innocuous, obvious and even-handed thing to say is presently lambasted as “racist” by many who, in the same breath, pledge support for organisations such as BLM, Antifa, and others in a similar vein. Either all lives matter, or none do.
I fully agree with your comments regarding education.
I was going to say something about the white farmers in South Africa and all the injustices around the world with a racial element, but I can’t be bothered
I’m not sure your use of the word “hijack” is accurate. As others have pointed out, the person who organises and pays for this site has himself chosen to comment on BLM and associated issues on numerous occasions. He seems to believe, as do others who have posted here in the past on this same question, that there are significant links between issues around lockdown and issues around BLM. You’re more than welcome to say there’s no link, and argue your case.
We’re not on an aeroplane, and we have not been diverted lock stock and barrel, by force, to an airport not of our choosing.
You use the term “racist views”. The terms “racist” and “racism” are used by many people, it seems to me in quite different ways, so I think to have meaningful discussion you really need to tell us what you mean by the term, otherwise we’ll probably be talking at cross purposes.
I agree that education is very important, for all of us. It may interest you to know, given that the UK government monitors these things, that the lowest achieving group in schools now, on average, are white males. I don’t know exactly what you mean by “white privilege” – it would probably be helpful to further meaningful discussion if you could give us your definition of that term, perhaps with some examples of how it manifests.
Hi Bob, I don’t think discussing stuff makes us racists. Although there are plenty of racists in the world – and that is a two way street.
There are similarities between the BLM current goings on and the covid19 lockdown.
The theoretical modelling ‘group think’ scientist and the irrational hysteria of the masses arn’t letting the evidence based reality scientists have the ball.
In the BLM ‘debate’ the misinformation and hysteria of the croud is not letting reality in on the action.
In both cases one have asked the other side to bring their evidence to the table for a grown up conversation, and in both cases this has not happened.
I wanted to understand the BLM things a little better, and for a balanced view point I also listened to these gentlemen – posted in here a few days ago.
They do not come accross to me as racist (although they are clearly very brave not taking the easy options) and I found them very interesting….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT2rlJe9cuU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RMEiclpA7E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bt88SbZWmY
I take huge offence at being accused of racism and I don’t think it is how people should behave on this site. I’ve intervened both personally and professionally against racism in my life. I have loved members of my family who are Black. I’ve been to the Caribbean twice and had absolutely no problem with being in a society where the Police, shop owners, bank officials and political leaders are people of colour.
I’m not going to engage further with you as you are probably just an agent provocateur.
London ?
Dr John Lee’s statement above is brilliant.
But why……
We have known about the lethal effects of common cold nosocomial infections for some time (2017 and previous), even compared to influenza, within health institutions:
‘Unexpectedly Higher Morbidity and Mortality of Hospitalized Elderly Patients Associated with Rhinovirus Compared with Influenza Virus Respiratory Tract Infection’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5343795/
We have known about the seasonality of coronaviruses for some time (2018 and previous):
‘Coronaviral URIs manifest primarily in the winter and early spring.’
https://www.medscape.com/answers/302460-86798/what-are-the-seasonal-patterns-of-rhinoviral-coronaviral-enteroviral-and-adenoviral-upper-respiratory-tract-infections-uris
But the wrongheadedness amongst broadcasters persists.
Besides broadcasting consensus regarding the apocalyptic nature of covid 19, on what else do they all agree, to find some kind of pattern, explanation….?
Oh! There is also consensus regarding the U.S. President……..and it’s a U.S. Presidential election year……..follow the money…….you know the rest……
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/growth-covid-19-united-states-peak/
Interesting maps of the spread in the US comparing the different states. It seems that the so called warmer states in the South and the West now have the maximum of the disease. They have also done maps of the maximum deaths superimposed. The Northern states is now in a much similar situation as in Europe. Spreading the disease over countries with enormous land masses like US, Brazil and Russia will always be different from the European countries.
I wonder if that has anything to do with the widespread use of air conditioning in the warmer states?
Another 33. That number keeps on popping up!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-australia-idUSKBN23W09J
I saw that film with all the 33s…what is that all about? The only thing I can think, is that it is some kind of pre-arranged ‘signal’ to others involved in whatever conspiracy is going on.. Wonder if Andrew from ‘Peerless Reads’ on youtube has picked this up, as he is a ‘numbers’ man – I will have to look!
It is the most significant number in Freemasonry:
https://youtu.be/wE9-atGcjis
Had heard that, but what does it (that number) mean in Freemasonry? Are freemasons signalling something by this, as i hinted above?
It does seem to crop up to many times to be a coincidence so potentially yes I guess. Anyone know any Level 33 masons we can ask!?
Try this study of humans’propensity to give meaning to coincidence:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-26300-7_9
And Google cognitive biases on Wikipedia.
I’ve no idea if this is right or not, but the number 33 is said to represent the 33% of angels who were cast out of heaven and who are said to have descended at 33N 33E latitude in Syria, Those who are born with a “33 name” in numerology are propped up in the world (yes, back to Bill Gates again!) . The number 33 can also be a coded signal that they are behind a certain event or psyop.
As I say, I don’t know if this is just conspiracy theory . . . but as we are fast learning, not all conspiracies are just theories . , , ,
One of their mottos is “order out of chaos”. Their order. Their new laws and regulations, new normal. Heard that before?
In numerology the master number 33 is an expression of or a representation of pure love/the divine. So that would be pretty ironic then if they are using it as a coded signal.
An article looking at the numbers 11, 13 & 33:
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_illuminati_14.htm
That is scary, if interesting..
Quasi religious groups (and of course religious groups) are obsessed with 33 because it’s the age Jesus was crucified. – Hence it was the magic number ascribed to ‘middle age’ for many many years (before life expectancy rose beyond all reasonable…. expectation
) and took on a sort of defining ‘crossroads’ symbolism in many quarters.
Oh dear St Jacinta seems to have failed after all in keeping New Zealand Rona free . Another 3 last night … She should have taken history at university or even primary school and she might have read about King Canute.
I think she’s naive to think she could remain coronavirus free. The virus will remain with us and herd immunity will prevail. It’s nature’s way.
In seasonal terms, it’s December there, very nearly January. Look at northern hemisphere numbers for January. Hope I’m wrong, fear I’m right.
Once a virus is in your country, it’s going to run its course.
Collins Construction tested staff, family and subcontractors for antibodies and found that 53% were positive: https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2020/06/24/contractor-covid-tests-show-53-have-had-virus/.
The director of health and safety said that “Most cases showed no symptoms and people were unaware they had it.”
If this is replicated across the country then the lockdown needs to end now.
It feels appropriate to repost this.
Yes, but unlike Johnson, the real Kim has a Korea for life!
Interesting… Civitas report blames the Whitehall blob
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/25/whitehall-blob-blame-coronavirus-failures-says-report/
Is it about an overweight blond blob?
That report is spot on though I think the title might put off a few lockdownistas from reading it
Just received this email from the Wallace Collection. Suffice to say I won’t be visiting until this insanity is over:
Our Doors Are Opening Once Again
Today the Wallace Collection celebrates its birthday. It has been 120 years since we first opened our doors to the public on 25 June 1900. Since then, we have only closed three times – once during each of the world wars, and again on 18 March this year to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Following the UK government’s recent announcement that museums can open from July, we are delighted to announce that we will be reopening to the public on Wednesday 15 July.
In order to keep everyone safe, things will work a little differently when we reopen. We will only be open from 11am to 3pm, in order to protect our visitors and staff from travel during rush hours. Free, timed tickets must be booked in advance on the Wallace Collection website – these are available today for Members and from Monday for non-members. A one-way fixed route will be in operation to visit the galleries, and while the café and cloakroom will be closed, the shop has been enlarged to allow greater space for social distancing. Measures will in place to ensure social distancing is maintained at all times, and these arrangements will be continually monitored and evaluated with the hope that opening hours can be extended in the near future.
You can find out more about coming back to visit us on our Visiting Safely page.
We look forward to welcoming you back to the Collection very soon.
With best wishes
Everyone at the Wallace Collection
https://www.wallacecollection.org/visiting-safely/
It’s funny how these places seem to be able to manage to operate their gift shops “safely”, but everything else is too dangerous. At our local wildlife park, kids are allowed to rummage around in the shop, picking things up and putting things down without any sort of ridiculous quarantine system, but the (free) outdoor playground still remains closed…
I think they’re trying to make as much money as they can since they didn’t have an income for 3 months and I don’t think they can hold events yet such as talks and conferences where some of their revenue comes from. I don’t think they realise that this won’t necessarily work.
I understand they need to make money somehow, and really sympathise with all the difficulties this is causing them. I just find it a bit nonsensical that nothing else can be “made safe” as well…
I understand and sympathise too, but if we’re to win this ‘war’ we have to boycott the lot, even if we have friends with businesses that are struggling. Boycott the phoney football, boycott the BBC (get rid of your licence), boycott face masks by avoiding public transport if you can (or create a medical condition) boycott the humiliating hairdressers. I’m sure there are traders who can who will go underground. We need to provide a support network for them. I’m desperate to go for a drink with friends, but if my local exercises these petty restrictions I won’t be going. If we buy into this we will have to live with it the rest of our lives.
Yep. Am in the process of drafting an email to them at this moment.
Agree. Looking at OKUK’s post above about Yorkshire Tea, looks like many people are fighting back.
Yep. That’s the one then they threw a hissy fit at someone who objected to their BLM post.
I’m not sure about staff salaries not being reduced but its very likely that they will be making people redundant.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been feeling that we are in a war, possibly a global war, World War III perhaps?
The war is invisible, but the conflicts, the battles are real and visible. The casualties, real and conceptual, are mounting up.
The war is about power (always is), using ideology and chaos to gain ground.
The volunteer armies have been recruited, using personal values and identity politics, the endemic polarisation of society is the main recruiting sergeant.
The main weapons are the mass media, social media and health anxiety/fear.
I know which side I’m on, I just don’t know if it’s winnable or if I’ll live through it.
Yes, it’s the New Cold War. Maybe what we need is a New Solidarity? I had the honour of being a member of the original SoIidarity back in 1980, when I was young. I’m not young any more, but I’m ready to join the struggle against communism again.
This isn’t communism. It’s cultural marxism. And Russia has freedom from that today that we would envy.
I believe that cultural marxism is the same ideology under a new guise. And I didn’t mean Russia. It seems to me that we are now under attack from marxism from two directions: Chinese communism, and global Cultural Marxism.
Fair points.
Cheerful.
I could wax on at length about the logical fallacy of “taking sides” – dividing the world into “good” and “bad”, “right” and “wrong”, “win and “lose”, “happy” and “sad”, etc, but people just do not get it.
Of course, you will then tell me that “they” are the bad guys. Sure, they are. I don’t like them either, but by “taking sides” you give them the “polarisation” they want.
They want division – so you don’t play into their hands by taking sides. Their motto is, as the late Reverend Paisley would have said in the 1980s “No surrender!”.
You cannot argue with these people. They don’t want converts. So interact with them and beat them at their own game.
I’m not sure if you understood the nuance…
Well explain then … you’ve made the comment.
“I know which side I’m on, I just don’t know if it’s winnable”
If you’re not “taking a side”, you can’t “lose” can you?
It’s your task to make your communication clear to your readers.
And the problem with the written word is precisely that – nuances can be lost.
easy tiger
I really enjoy reading poetry, it has helped me get through some really shit times, and this situation is, for me, close to those time.
The beauty of poetry is that different people derive different meanings from it, based on their experiences, values, culture, identity etc. Nuance and emotion not explicit facts.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.”
An excerpt from one of my favourite poems and by one of my favourite poets.
Wonderful. Thank you.
I can come across as a bit combative at times, but I like to think that my bark is worse than my bite.
My anonymous troll must have stopped by … I guess you consider yourself clever giving me a downvote for that.
You’re not going to silence me.
“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.” By the same geezer I surmise
Yep
the nuisance from you isn’t lost on me pal. You’re as obvious as a kick in the balls. What a fucking rotter.
They call it a culture war…and, yes, this one is global. As with all wars, there are shifting alliances. People switch sides. Some allies are untrustworthy.
I’d say on one side you have an alliance of globalist billionaires (particularly in the tech sector), global media, the soft (in UK Blairite) Left, the ideological Marxist Left, Chinese Communist Government and Islam. It might sound like an odd assortment but they can unite around PC themes, racialised politics, mass immigration and (apart from the Marxists) free trade as all being things that advance, for each, their own particular cause.
On the other side I would say you have a populist alliance: the mass of people, nationalists, culturalists, traditionalists and free speech advocates. They don’t really have an organised political voice in most countries as yet but tend to support Trump, Farage and Conservative parties. However, they are definitely not of the right as such. People like Brendan O’Neil and Rod Liddle fall into this camp but are more of the Left.
I would deny that racists are part of the populist alliance, though of course the globalists love to suggest that is the case. Racism is really just another form of globalism in disguise and so is fundamentally at odds with populism. In any the Han Chinese are probably the most racist people on Earth and they are firmly in the globalist alliance.
Is this war winnable? Very difficult to say but we have seen countries like Poland and Hungary turn the tide aainst what a drift towards PC globalist government. In most countries the mass of people still oppose PC globalism.
Excellent summary – thank you.
I don’t think we are far apart on most of what you write there, but I do think you need to be more careful on the issue of “racism” and “racists”. When you use the term simplistically as you do here, you play into the hands of the other side.
As I have noted here, “racism” is abused by the other side in a form of “motte and bailey fallacy”, whereby they use one meaning of the term that is widely inclusive and another that is thoroughly nasty, and switch between the two in order to allow them to use the term as a political smear.
You and I are “racists”, as we were directly accused here by BobT last night, because we oppose BLM. This is a very common usage atm. Another usage would define racist as someone who hates people of other races, and there are all kinds of definitions in between.
The reality is that racism is inherently just a political position, or a range of political positions, and either racism is profoundly nasty and there are very few racists (a lot of them organising BLM demos and actions), or racism is very widespread and is not actually particularly bad, or necessarily bad at all. A lot of our current problems of intolerance and active suppression of dissent arose because we allowed that particular area of politics to be demonised and a vast industry of people to grow up dependent on this demonisation for their incomes, power and status.
Return to reason, liberty and tolerance will be very difficult, but we have to start somewhere.
I came to the conclusion a couple of weeks ago that assertions regarding race were more assertions of allegiance to a particular tribe than anything else.
I wrote out a simple table headed “black” and “white” on the top and “man” and “woman” at the side, to form a four box square. This formed four groups based on race and sex. “woke” ideology views “white man” as the most “privileged” (or “oppressive”) group and presumably “black woman” as the most oppressed.
But I was left wondering in what order they would put “black man” and “white woman”? Who would they consider the most “privileged”?
In their world does being black trump being a woman?
I don’t know if you saw the short film of young people in the US creating a “healing space” for people identifying as black. The irony that this was a kind of voluntary racial segregation seemed to be entirely lost on them!
Martin Luther King, jr must be turning in his grave!
If you are trying map out Woke ideology, you are going to need a lot more boxes, probably using 3d.
About seven and a half billion of them in fact, one for each person.
Don’t think so.
Doubtless, but I’m just playing with ideas on the subject at the moment.
The ironies created by identity politics are many and various, mostly resting on the fundamental conflict between their ostensible calls for “equality” balanced against their actual goal of specially favourable treatment for their own group.
Make no mistake, antiracism is merely a special case of the general problem of identity politics, which is basically what you were pointing to here by drawing together antiracism and feminism.
There’s nothing ostensible about calls for equal treatment by women, blacks, Dalits, Uighurs, et al, in a society where some other group has entrenched its own favourable treatment. These are actual demands for equal treatment. What is your problem with that?
We’re not at war bro, most of the public are just fucking dandy with what is happening. These dull insignificant tossers who’ve got no fucking spine are now in control and it’s folk like me they want to control. They themselves surrendered a long time ago and can’t bare people who don’t give two fucks for them, their petty conventions and rules. I’ve been at war with the mediocre all my days.
I agree with you in terms of most people surrendered a long time ago.
My fear is that we are at a crossroads and if we take the wrong path, there will be no turning back.
Mediocrity is the enemy.
Parler
I’ve been reading a lot recently about this new app. I use a PC for internet communications, not a mobile phone.
Guess why that might be a good idea these days? (Clue: contact tracing).
Anyway, I haven’t got a twitter account, but I thought I might try this parler thing out. I tried to sign up, but after signing up, I just ended up on a page with an endless loop.
Looked at the FAQ and saw a message with words to the effect of:
“We only support verification via our mobile app.”
Yeah. More tech stasi. That requirement is 100% unnecessary. If it’s just a matter of verification then maybe I could verify via a relative’s phone. Except that I’ve already used my own mobile phone number. (It’s not a “smart” phone, and no, I don’t want one, ever).
Any suggestions about how I might get a parler account? I’m not so bothered about interacting there, but I would like to read what people have to say, at least.
Can you only read pages on a phone? (If so, it’s not happening. Middle finger to you “parler”.)
I use a PC for internet communications too. I managed to sign up to Parler by very reluctantly giving them my mobile phone number. They then sent a text with a code that I had to enter somewhere to activate the account. At least, I thought it was to activate the account… I logged out of it after I’d had a look and the next day went to log in again and again was sent a text message with a code to access the site. I can’t be bothered to keep doing the text thing, so I haven’t looked at it again!
Did you get a code on your phone, via text? Also, the code is only valid for about 10 mins, I think, so if you didn’t use it quickly enough, you just have to go through the whole registering process again. You can use the same mobile phone number again though.
It’s all really very tedious.
Thanks Edna. No, no text message. It’s all so unnecessary. Maybe Parler will relent.
As I said though, I’m more interested in just hearing what people have to say rather than interacting. I once had a twitter account, but deleted it many years ago.I detest the twittermob so I’ve no desire to go back to it, but I still access the twitter accounts of some individuals on a regular basis.
Senator Rand Paul in the US – a dovish conservative friend of Trumps – has recently signed up to it, so it’s gaining traction.
Though I signed up to Twitter a few years ago, I’ve never used it until last month! I have 4 followers, all friends, and no desire for more. I have no desire at all to interact (except with Andrew Cotter of sports commentary fame and only because he has dogs!) but I find it fascinating to look at the things people post. I signed up to Parler last week and was bemused to find I had acquired lots of followers – I want to tell them all to go away, I shan’t be posting anything.
I think it might be worth perservering with Parler; as you say, it seems to be the ‘coming’ thing.
You could try Bluestacks – Android Emulator for your PC:
https://www.bluestacks.com/
Thanks.
My mum has managed to get an appointment at the hairdressers in a couple of weeks time.She has to wear a muzzle,not get there early as she won’t be let in,take as few personal belongings with her as possible,use sanitiser on entry,only a basic cut is on offer and will be done in the minimum time possible with no hair washing,colouring or anything fancy,there will be no refreshments of no use of the toilet,staff will be wearing masks and visors,only two clients will be in the salon at any time and staff will undertake intensive sanitisation between clients.
That sounds appealing,being treated like a germ,at a place my mum has being going for forty years.I don’t blame the owners though,they are not pleased at all,it has been forced on them by the government and their trade body.
Every last piece of enjoyment has been deliberately removed from every form of social interaction,it’s like one big game to the powers that be,how much can they inflict on us before we snap ?.Well I’ve snapped,I am doing my best to resist all of this,but I feel totally powerless,far too many people are not only following every diktat,some of them seem to be enjoying it.I’m tired of people telling me what the MSM has said and how it must be true and trying to get them to have a look at info from different sources as well and people who say to me ‘yes,it’s not good at the moment,but it is only temporary and things will be okay soon’,these people are completely blind to what is going on and I just cannot understand them.
This week I fell more despairing of the situation and much more pessimistic than I have so far.
I wouldn’t go
lol, I don’t need to go …
I’ll not be going under those conditions. I’ll let it grow. Back to the 70s for me.
Who’s your nurse Ratched?
When that film came out I had a discussion with a friend who couldn’t accept the metaphor that they (we) were all (bar Nicholson and ‘The Chief’) living willingly in an asylum where their (our) freedoms and choices were restricted. This was the mid seventies and I thought we were then, let alone now. Would love to get in touch with the friend and see how he feels now.
And they will keep their prices the same, doubtless. Although how they could possibly survive otherwise, I don’t know. They’ve been put in a totally unrealistic and unworkable situation.
Just a point on these establishments withdrawing their toilet facilities,what happens if someone is ill and are they also denying their employees access also?
Are you supposed to just let it go where you sit (much more hygienic than using the customer toilets, of course)? Or leave half way through and pop home?
I would guess the employees still have access. They don’t want them to be contaminated by the clients…
Oh, these loonies want to return us to the Middle Ages.
Let’s sort of hope someone ‘has an accident’ at a hairdresser’s and that it leads to a re-think!
Yes, I find despair comes in waves. Funny, really, all the current fuss about slavery whilst we are all being treated like slaves by ‘our’ own government. Where is Oliver Cromwell when we need him?
It makes you wonder if the irony is lost with our political and academic establishment.
Don’t worry everything gonna be alright sang Bob Marley and looked what happened to that dude.
To illustrate how fucked up the media is, in particular the BBC, the BBC have an item – a look back at government briefings. Are these something to celebrate, be nostalgic about? What the fuck planet are we on? Why would anyone on gods earth wish to look back at the these aside from a solicitor/genocide and investigator?
I tend to look back on good things, like comedy, football highlights, dramas I liked, not highlights of the daily government briefings. Jesus Christ, and were paying for this. I utterly despair.
They have a daily gap in their schedule to fill now, and they have not been able to make any new programmes for a while now!
I was surprised to find that Richard Madeley (of Richard and Judy fame) is a lockdown skeptic. He’s been trying to educate the sheeple in the Daily Express.
There seems to be plenty of lockdown skepticism around, but it seems to be non existent in official circles.
I wanted to post a link to this weeks London Calling podcast with our Toby Young and James Delingpole. I’m starting to think of them as the chalk and cheese of conservative thought. I understand that they are good friends, but listening to them you can see some interesting differences.
Both men admit to voting for Boris last December. I’m only glad I abstained.
Anyway, an excellent discussion as usual:
https://ricochet.com/podcast/london-calling/boris-derangement-syndrome/
Yes, how difficult it was to decide how to vote in the GE. Farage sadly stood down my local Brexit Party candidate and, hence, it was a toss-up between spoiling my vote or voting for the least toxic of the 3 local choices – which do you prefer: a) To be hanged; b) To be shot; or c) Cyanide?
The BBC pulling its sinister tricks again. This is today’s main headline:
Coronavirus: Antibody test lacks ‘proper assessment’https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53169618
Just in case anyone thinks that antibody testing is the ‘game changer’ that it was promoted as a couple of months back. The main thrust is now that antibody testing is an unnecessary burden on the NHS, and anyway it doesn’t show whether you’re immune or not.
A cynic might suspect that the aim is to promote the vaccine as the only solution, and also to suppress any evidence that Covid has infected a larger proportion of the population than the official narrative allows. They also wish to suppress evidence that most people are asymptomatic.
Of course, and it doesn’t show if you’ve seen off the virus by other means than producing specific antibodies. Leave it to individuals to seek the test if it’s important to them. Otherwise, it is just an unncessary burden. The NHS can conduct random testing to get a picture of how many people have the antibodies and in what localities.
I read somewhere that since the introduction of the flu vaccine, over the last five years, the number of Americans dying from flu or other lung infections had increased, not decreased. No citation for that I’m afraid but perhaps someone else is aware of the evidence…
I was all in on the antibody testing until I realised how dumb it is. I have form (according to the common antibodies I don’t have in my blood- something I share with 15% of the general population apparently) with ejecting bugs from my body without trace.
So by the logic of using the antibody test to confer freedom I could be quarantined forever despite being totally immune!
Exactly.
“antibody testing is an unnecessary burden on the NHS, and anyway it doesn’t show whether you’re immune or not.”
It shows precisely that. The presence of antibodies is an explicit sign that your body has been infected and has successfully fought off the infection. It means that you are immune.
I would be pleased then if you could elaborate on why you suggest that it does not show immunity.
I think it’s TPTB that are claiming it doesn’t necessarily imply immunity…
Oh, so it must be right then …
I suspect that you may have had a cold as a result of having been infected by a coronavirus, and that you successfully fought off the infection, and that some time later you again had a cold as a result of a coronavirus, and…
Colds aren’t caused by one virus, but by several. Coronaviruses (there are various types) account for about 15% of them. Try again.
There was no ‘proper assessment’ of the PCR tests either but that hasn’t been a problem for the coronanist fear porn enthusiasts. The inventor of the test (Kary Mullis, Chemistry Nobel) said that it was not an appropriate test for this purpose.
I’m quite glad if it means they give up on the awful immunity passport idea, to be honest!
They also wish to suppress evidence that most people are asymptomatic.
Unless it suits them to play the asymptomatic card (anyone could be carrying the virus, even if they appear to be totally healthy, therefore we all need to wear masks and stay 100m away from anyone else until the end of time, etc etc).
Pre-crime. Because they can’t be sure who is infected they will assume everyone is infected and treat them as such.
Exactly. They flip the argument on its head when it suits their agenda- often several times a day.
Everyone is infected asymptomtically! Oh no! Grandma is dead! To…. Nobody is infected asymptomatically, everyone has the very real potential of having terrible, long-lasting symptoms! Oh no!
Which is it? – Basically they use the grandma killing argument on those of us who aren’t afraid for our own personal safety. Emotional manipulation. You have a decent grasp of personal risk? Well, fuck you, you horrible person, you don’t care about grandma! !
The reality is that it matters little either way. Nobody gave a crap about the sniffles last year, whether or not they passed them onto their grandma and they developed into pneumonia. Why, suddenly, does everybody give a shit? Why is Corona completely different from any other seasonal bug?
Yes! And either it spreads really, really easily, which is why we’re all having to follow these ridiculous rules and regulations because you might catch it from a till receipt you know!, or it’s barely even got going and has only affected a very small proportion of the population and as soon we we unlock there will be a catastrophic second wave…
I wish I could work out why it’s being treated so differently from any other bug. I feel like there’s an enormous piece of the puzzle that I am still missing.
just seen BBC and Channel 4 news. Items about post office job losses (2000) and zoos receiving money so they dont euthenase animals (since when has euthenasia applied to animals)
What is really annoyings is that the standard mantra is that it is all because of “covid 19 pandemic”. It is not . It is because of the Lockdown. But they never say it is the lockdown.. Always the inference that it is a natural catastrophy … it was covid… Had we not had the prolonged and unnecessary lockdown people would still be speding money at zoos.
Yes, this is a very common method of reporting. As usual with our media I think it’s a combination of laziness, stupidity and mendacity. Some of the reporters know what they are going, some are just herd animals and some wouldn’t understand the distinction even if you pointed it out to them very slowly. For many pandemic and lockdown are entirely synonymous.
No one is that stupid.
If only that were true! Uptick, though, as it gave me a chuckle.
agreed …. it has been deliberate that Lockdown is just not mentioned … as the gullible public might just connect the removal of liberties and the economic catastrophe with a government policy being followed through and think “is this lockdown too much?” whereas they are so bought into the covid pandemic that they accept it without thinking. That has been the message for months and being actively pushed by BBC. C4 and others. So reporters are just following the herd.. but then BBC particularly do that .. they just regurgitate the message or reprint the press release.
I think its also denial – they can’t admit that the lockdown and its effects have killed far more people than the virus ever has.
And its now killing the essence of what makes us human.
Just thought I’d put this reminder up since a lot of posts are now about the dystopian return to a prison camp with enforced visors, sanitisers and the rest of the shit. Now tell me we haven’t been conned..Tell me we’re just fighting a virus rather than covert oppression. I never had much time for Alex Jones or David Icke thinking they were both over the top and and I dislike both their personalities, but now not so sure. The following is from June update of ‘Facts About Covid 19’ https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/#latest
‘It is sometimes argued that the rather low lethality was not known at the beginning of the pandemic. This is not entirely true, as data from South Korea, the cruise ships and even from Italy already showed in March that the risk to the general population is rather low.
Many health authorities also knew this, as leaked emails from Denmark in mid-March show: “The Danish Health Authority continues to consider that Covid-19 cannot be described as a generally dangerous disease, as it does not have either a usually serious course or a high mortality rate.” ‘ So why all this cautionary bulshit now? As someone said here a few days ago, it’s to break our spirit.
It’s just a power grab. It was on the 23rd March and it still is now.
Yep, I’m afraid so. So what to do?
Civil disobedience has worked in the past.
Many say it’s the only thing that works.
On 19 March the UK government downgraded the threat from the coronavirus, recognising that it is not a high consequence infectious disease. On 20 March, Boris started the roll out of the lockdown.
I’m wondering how the government intend to ‘spin’ that rather inconvenient little fact at the judicial review?
I’ve a suspicion that this was because of this
“
With a view to preventing the spread of—
(a)a notifiable disease, or
(b)a disease to which subsection (1) of section 23 of the [1955 c. 16 (4 & 5 Eliz. 2).] Food and Drugs Act 1955 applies,
the proper officer of the local authority for any district may by notice in writing request any person to discontinue Ms work.
(2)The local authority shall compensate a person who has suffered any loss in complying with a request under this section, and section 57(2), (3) and (4) below shall apply to any dispute arising under this subsection.“
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/22/section/20/enacted
Councils could be getting a lot of legal letters soon….hopefully
Yes. It’s to totally smash us psychologically to bits, an ongoing process that has been happening for the last 20 years. The systematic demoralisation, disempowerment and disenfranchisement of us all, setting us against each other. Divide and conquer. Order from chaos. The British public and the public around the world have been dumbed down to incredible levels. Behavioural psychology has shaped the way we think. Everything is propaganda designed to brainwash us. Everything. Soaps, adverts, news, documentaries, films, theatre.
Many groups are hitching their wagon on this beneficial fake crisis. I think its all about the global banking collapse and UN Agenda 2030 sustainable development goals. It’s also about “getting brexit done”, a counterfoil to the global communitarian dictatorship, fascism. Perhaps they know they have to operate like a totalitarian fascist state and manage every aspect of our lives through fear to micro manage us as society properly falls apart after Brexit.
Perhaps they saw this coming and realised the country needs to be put under tight control so as to be able to ride out the storm coming our way post brexit as the European project lashes out at us for defying them and damaging their survivability.
So no fuel powered vehicles by 2050, no more made after 2030. Carbon neutral status…How on earth would they manage to do that???
Fake a global pandemic.
The 1% ers have wanted to do this to us for a long time to forward their agenda. They needed a “major social catalyst” to force the changes they want to see. The woo-flu fits the bill.
Of course the 1% ers control both sides of the political paradigm and communitarianism is literally a hybrid of communism and fascism. It’s all a monstrous psy-op.
Just evil.
Why would society fall apart after Brexit? Most of the crap that’s happened in this country in my lifetime can be laid at the door of the EU. They’re the ones tinkering with society as they try to force diverse peoples into one polity.
Perhaps it is the pro remainers trying to smash the Tories by inciting them to go full lockdown, ruin their credability and destroy the country under their “leadership” so forcing Brexit of the rails. The Europeans hate us for wanting to leave and our exit could well trigger other European nations to Exit as well. That is the European project dead. They will not let that happen lightly.
This is nothing to do with remain. I voted Remain.
Okay?
Lockdown is the baby of Boris Johnson, one of the chief architects of Leave.
BTW, I would probably vote leave if asked now, but then so would Boris.
So, a request: please cut out the “remainers did it” bullshit.
Prof Ferguson is a passionate remainer, I am sure I read that. Its hard to say for sure what is bullshit these days and what isn’t. Its all bullshit. Nobody knows what the hell is going on. It’s all speculation right now.
It’s okay, chill.
OK, I voted remain too. I used to quite like the feeling of Europe. I can speak French pretty well and I used to really like France. I used to like the idea of living there until France went just as shit as the UK, perhaps worse in a number of ways.
the lockdown has fuck all to do with Boris. He’s being told by people we don’t know what to do. We are not a nation any more. We haven’t been since that Traitor John Major signed the Maastricht Bill. Britain as we knew her died in 1992 then in 1997 Blair finished her off. The whole world can see the hand at work across all these so called democratic governments and guess what, yours or my hand isn’t pulling the stings
Indeed – and one of the worst effects due to our being in the EUrinal is the appalling collapse in the standard of our politicians, who have become paper-stamping machines!
the only similarity with the Brexit debate is the authorities (and associates) refusal to accept the vote and the project fear that surrounded the possibility of leaving and the decision to leave. Most people now accept the vote and Brexit is going ahead.
The Covid con is far bigger than Brexit
Can someone explain this (quote from Wikipedia):
“On 22 June, Prime Minister Ardern [New Zealand] announced that the Government would be amending its health order to require people to test negative for COVID-19 before leaving quarantine.”
Maybe I’m missing something, but they are going to keep people in quarantine for 14 days and then test them? If negative – away you go. So why not test them in the first place, then if negative, no quarantine.
Perhaps the Wuhan flu virus isn’t picked up by testing in the early stages? Or perhaps the NZ government is as incompetent as ours? Or is there something else?
I’m going with incompetence. It appears to be the default setting for politicians worldwide. Until proven differently..
Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information, information can be added and edited by an army of contributors.
lol, it is if I edit it.
St Jacinta believes she is King Canute . The mass media have encouraged her in her idiocy.
It suggests they’re not confident enough about the testing.
yeah the people behind this want all civilised countries destroyed and the people at the top of each of these countries including ours work for the secret one world government. I’m not joking either. We are all fucked and in the end we’ll be faced with a choice, either mass poverty and constant house arrest or civil war. I’m praying for the civil war myself. Can’t wait.
You might not test positive at the beginning because you might have only just caught it. If you’re going to make everyone wait two weeks however there’s not much point in doing a test except perhaps for the entertainment of swabbing their frontal lobe with a cotton bud.
I think most people would test negative for having frontal lobes
I suppose everyone has seen this?
Police injured during illegal Brixton street party clashes.
Twenty-two police officers have been injured and their vehicles damaged during clashes at an illegal street party in south-west London.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53176472
Thank goodness it was largely peaceful.
The atmosphere at the moment does seem to be ‘febrile’. Cynics might observe that it’s rather predictable if you go locking people in their houses for 12 weeks, then encourage rioting and vandalism and praise it for its virtuousness while emphasising that the people doing it are above the law.
and dont forget the street party in moss side , manchester, at the weekend at which the police decided not to take any action and which then resulted in the deaths of two men.
And not wanting to take a broad brush approach but there is something coincidental about the demographics of Brixton and Moss Side
What might they be mjr?
Recalls Peter Hitchens’ comments linked here yesterday, that I think we discussed. There’s the obvious rowdiness of youths cooped up for too long, and there’s also a more profound damage inflicted by the response to covid:
“If you do this to a society then you unstring the lute. You make all kinds of things very different. You change the atmosphere, you change the way people behave and the way they think. If you impose mass house arrest as we’ve had in this country, if you compel people to stay away from work, if you put in as we have had in Britain huge numbers of people being paid basically a government pension for not doing anything and at the same time there’s a constant air of panic and fear, then it would be surprising if it didn’t have social effects.
…
I think that the governments which shut down their countries because of covid 19 destabilised their own countries. I don’t think most of them understood what they were doing at the time, but … there were several things that they did and they were very profound. They took people away from their regular routine, of working, in many cases of commuting to work, and they took people away from their normal sources of income, they interfered more greatly in the lives of their citizens than in most western countries any government’s ever done before, and they introduced into politics a great fear, fundamentally saying: here is a terrible plague which will kill us all if we don’t do the most drastic things, and in the course of that of course they assaulted personal liberty by compelling people to stay at home. I think they underestimated – I did too, I thought it was bad but I didn’t think it would be this bad – they underestimated the effect that this treatment would have on people’s minds. But I think it alienated people’s minds from their previous habits of thought. It made them think, it made them realise that the societies in which they live were not as stable or as safe as they had imagined. And it made many of them wonder if the lives that they had been compelled to cease having, of daily work and daily commuting and all the rest of it, it made them wonder if all those things would ever come back. I think there’s probably a great submerged insecurity among people who, although they don’t think about it much directly, must be aware that their future employment and prosperity is in many cases at risk…. so that has had a profound effect, and I think it’s created what we when we were, when I was a Marxist-Leninist used to call a revolutionary situation, in which the foundations of society, its general rules and institutions, are greatly weakened, and in which ideas which had previously been either minor or marginal or unacceptable, spread in a feverish way through society. So while the government may or may not – I don’t believe that it has – but while the governments may or may not have controlled covid19, they have unleashed a fever of mind in society, in which people are much more readily moved to … unconventional and even extreme action, and I think there is a connection between the two. I think…the failure of our government to get a grip on this crisis has hugely weakened its authority and I think it’s probably not going to last very much longer. I might give it a year.”
Peter Hitchens | Regime Change in Europe and the US
Seattle CHOP zone prompts lawsuit from businesses, residents: reports
Here’s my tentative prediction. The BLM movement might just have achieved what would have been regarded as almost impossible this time last year: it might have secured the reelection of Trump.
That might be just wishful thinking on my part, because just as the hugely imperfect Trump was nevertheless infinitely better than the actually dangerous Hilary Clinton and the Democrat machine, he is still infinitely better than the almost equally dangerous Biden (or whoever gets sneaked in as VP to take over when his health problems become too apparent) and, again, that poisonous Democrat machine.
What the BLM experience has done is remind people (of all races) just how dangerous anti-white racism can be for all when it is pandered to, and exposed the Democrat hierarchy and city governments as ineffectual panderers dancing around points of political zealotry while city centres burned. It’s also likely to concentrate the minds of the very divided Republican Party on the need to keep the Democrat machine out of the White House at all costs, which might result in the marginalisation of the inveterate Trump-haters in the Party hierarchy.
Trump has a mountain to climb, but thanks to BLM it’s now possible at least to see a route to that summit.
(And no, I don’t see any overriding conspiracy in this – the people at the top of BLM and the Democrats, as well as all the media and other organisations pushing and kowtowing to BLM genuinely hate Trump. They just are eaten up with hatred and with political zealotry and cannot help themselves. No need to ascribe to conspiracy what is adequately explained by hatred and stupidity.)
The problem will be postal votes – Dems bound to try and rig the election that way..
Here’s my email to the Wallace Collection regarding their reopening on 15 July:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I have just received an email from you regarding your plans to reopen on 15 July and having read the email and following the link to your website. I am dismayed at the measures you have put in place such as timed tickets, social distancing and one way systems. I am a fairly regular visitor and part of the joy of coming to your museum is having the ability to drop in when I am in the vicinity to view my favourite objects and paintings in the collection and the thrill of discovering something new. This will not be possible under the “safety” measures that you have put in place.
I strongly believe that the arts not only nourish our soul and reinforces one of the aspects that makes us human but also encourages us to view the world through a different lens and question everything that we see and hear. It is sad that an august institution like the Wallace Collection have bought into this culture of fear and excessive safetyism without question.
While the Wallace Collection insists of treating me and other visitors like walking biohazards, I will be boycotting your museum until these “social distancing” regulations have been abolished.
Thank you and I look forward to your response.
Yours faithfully,
etc, etc…..
Have no idea how they will reply but I won’t be surprised if I’m fobbed off with a bog standard form email
Well put. What a load of tossers.
Sadly I think this is only the beginning and I won’t be surprised if I will receive the same email from other institutions.
Watching the news (as it is called) on the television this morning, with the
journalistsnewsreaderspresenters banging on about the importance of social distancing and following the rules lest there by a second wave of the terrible virus, I could not help but notice that three months of non-access to the services of a hair stylist had not made one whit of difference. They were just as well groomed as they had been before the lockdown. Not a hair out of place, not a hair a millimetre longer.These people are shameless hypocrites, professional liars, and destroyers of satire.
No one ever takes them to task about it. Funny that. Also, at the now-abandoned government press conferences, you’d have thought one of the journalists would have asked the talking heads how they managed to get their hair cut (Boris being the obvious one not to ask).
A week or so ago Piers Morgan (with a couple of others) attacked Boris Johnson for having scruffy hair. This is the same Piers Morgan who spent months calling people covidiots and accusing them of killing people for doing such things as sitting on a park bench or walking the dog.
and who then said that going on the first BLM protest was acceptable and tried to social distance. – and of course if you were his son
I don’t know why you bother with them Steve. Masochism’s not really my bag.
It is easier to critically evaluate the propaganda when you know what the propaganda is.
There’s a danger you will be influenced by it. Propaganda is insidious.
No, people are only influenced by propaganda when they consume it passively. You can easily test this for yourself. If you come across someone who has been influenced by the propaganda (as distinct from a propagandist), ask them some critical questions, along the lines of “how do you know…?” You soon see that they do not know. They are just repeating the sound bites, the headlines, the emotive rhetoric.
Got to be careful with tv, Steve. They were doing visual subliminals 50 years ago. Would they stop working in this area out of some sense of moral responsibility ?
When I point this out to people, as I have many times, they just look blank. They don’t even seem to have noticed, let alone put any thought into how these presenters, politicians and scientists have remained so well groomed…
It is not just them. The sports people, who are now back on our television screens, also seem to be remarkably well groomed. I have been watching the snooker and the players, officials and journalists have, with very few obvious exceptions, had access to hair stylists. Another point about the sports that is very striking is how we are told the sports have resumed now that they can observe social distancing, but of course they are not, which completely undermines the rationale for stopping sport in the first place. No matter where one looks in the responses to this virus, all one can see is inconsistencies, contradictions, empty rhetoric and hypocrisy.
I’m afraid you might need to add conspiracy, unfashionable as it still might be.
They do have a make-up department though, which does hair.
Hairdressing services are illegal. There are no legal exemptions. In fact, Piers Morgan claims that he has his wife style his hair (she obviously doesn’t) precisely for this reason.
‘Judy Mikovitz (Plandemic) is suing California Governor Gavin Newsome for the lockdowns of the well along with the sick, mandated masks, right to livelihood and free travel, and unconstitutional unilateral powers taken by the Governor. This could set a precedent for future lawsuits to come. The economy, suicides, freedom are ‘only’ at stake and Judy Mikovitz stresses health concerns with mandated mask wearing.’
https://www.freedomwatchusa.org/gov-gavin-newsom-sued-over-mask-and-home-imprisonment-ord
https://www.freedomwatchusa.org/pdf/200622-LK%20ComplaintCalorniaMartialLawAMENDED15.pdf
Wow good for her
Good news though as the establishment over there is really against her not much may come of it.
The Constitution makes such challenges more likely to succeed across the pond. There have been some already.
I’m salivating with anticipation to find out the result of Dolan’s case. It’s just the beginning of the lawfare against the totalitarians.
Anyone seen this? From the govt’s own literature:
There are some circumstances when wearing a face covering may be marginally beneficial as a precautionary measure. The evidence suggests that wearing a face covering does not protect you, but it may protect others if you are infected but have not developed symptoms.
It is important to know that the evidence of the benefit of using a face covering to protect others is weak and the effect is likely to be small, therefore face coverings are not a replacement for the other ways of managing risk…
Hardly grounds for making it compulsory, is it?
“It can’t hurt” is enough for some people to want it made into law.
But it can cause harm.
Ah but that’s good, precautionary, life-saving harm, you see.
the only thing i can think of for wearing a mask outside of doing engineering and painting is going down on a fat bird, but when that’s happening you’ve probably had ten beers and you don’t give a fuck so making compulsory won’t help
Ignore Biker and please don’t make this your last post!
Don’t go . . .I love your posts. I didn’t like the remark either but it’s just one post amongst many which are not like that at all. All of us are stretched to the limit at the moment, at screaming pitch, so we are angry and lashing out in all sorts of ways. Just walk on by if you can? We all have different morals, different ways of expressing ourselves and sometimes if I don’t like something someone has said, I just have to ignore and forget and remind myself that I support free speech even when I don’t like it! Please stay.
I have in the past, albeit 30 years ago. And I do understand, honestly. It gave me that oh so familiar clutch of fear in my stomach from years back. But we would hate to lose you because of one post . . . You’ve had a really rough few days. I hope Biker will come along and apologise, even if he cannot change the post now.
My wife, who’s a gynae nurse, laughed out loud at Biker’s post.
Different strokes…..
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
I would always, and have, placed myself in harms way to protect somebody who was unable to, or call out someone who was threatening to, I’m sure that Biker would too.
Things get on top of us all at the moment.
To be fair, I didn’t realise you’d been raped, it is the one of the worse crimes.
My wife has cared for women who’s been victims of rape and it is no laughing matter.
The famous quote draws attention to the fact that some people don’t share the same sense of humour, but they would protect people in a heartbeat.
Both me and my wife have worked in clinical education roles in the NHS, driving up quality and addressing poor care.
We have also been victims of incompetent clinicians too, we’ve never clapped
Don’t go, I love reading your posts! I don’t tend to reply to anything I find really offensive (not sure how I would reply to that one anyway!) and I’m sure others feel the same.
Anyone seen this? Dear God……..
“BRITAIN will pause for an “epic applause” on Sunday July 5 in what will mark a final clap for carers and other front-line workers who have helped the nation through the pandemic.
Broadcasters will suspend normal transmissions at 5pm as people across the country pause what they are doing to think of others as part of the biggest “thank you” the country has ever seen.”
They can f**k right off!
Good plan. I need to start thinking about activities that will keep me out of earshot of this b******t.
Liverpool v Villa, Mark, k.o. 16:30. Turn sound up, draw curtains.
Too painful! Not sure which would be worse tbh, out of mass collective bleating or your lot winning.
We’ll have won it by then Mark.
Chelski will do you guys tonight.
Hard to give a t**s atm, tbh. I can understand why it still matters to you – I’m honest enough to admit that if it were my side winning the title I’d still care…
For sure. I’m probably giving it a 20th of the attention I did prior to March.
Reckon you’ll start taking an interest in the CL later on though !
[Mumbles something and refuses to meet JohnB’s eyes]
Cool, i mean who doesn’t like to stand and clap like some fucking prisoner from North Korea in appreciation of the piss poor government run services and the piss poor lefty fat nurses and the ethnic doctors who can’t speak a word of english. Think i’ll get me a black lives are more important than my life t-shirt to wear while i stand clapping my own idiocy
I saw it and discarded that idea pretty pronto!
What a flimmin PSY-OP! People who lap this up are such fools. I am going to make sure I am out in the countryside for this one, miles away from any possible contact with the happy clappers. I launched a protest at the height of the clap-ins, I blasted Crass,BigA LittleA out of my window very very loud throughout the clap. I think that killed off the few remaining clapping die-hards near me. They didn’t clap again.
Nauseating nonsense!!!
No thanks. However it will be interesting to see who participates.
I’ll make sure I’m miles away, out in the middle of nowhere.
Count me out.
Fuck off
At least they’re trying to end it. I think this should be welcomed. People need some kind of ritual to snap them out of their religiose hypnosis.
Boris reads Brixton thugs the riot act: PM slams ‘appalling scenes’ and warns they ‘face full force of the law’ after video showed overpowered police fleeing as mob screaming ‘run them out!’ injure 22 officers – with two having FULL BODY scan
This is why it is not “harmless” to pander to race-baiting, resentment-mongering extremists. It is not mere harmless niceness to attend or support demos to oppose “nasty racism”. It does not placate thugs to “take the knee”, it empowers and encourages them, and it gives them an excuse for future thuggery.
The Met have made their own bed here, but unfortunately it is not just them who will suffer for it. They will bear the first brunt, but it is ordinary citizens who will bear the full force of the failure of authority and of law enforcement.
Just another excuse to bring martial law to the streets. It’s coming.
They’re going to need to build a very big militia very quickly if that’s their plan… I mean, there will be plenty of unemployed to recruit from, but I wouldn’t like to be confident where their loyalties and the loyalties of their leaders might end up. If they don’t build it, it will arise organically in response to the need for street level security.
Most likely things will settle down again, and we’ll just collectively get down to the hard grind of paying for the lockdown for the rest of most of our lives. but imo the worst case of a general collapse of order and authority cannot be entirely ruled out as implausible, as it could generally have been in the past.
I really don’t want to see a total collapse but unless they start to lose these petty restriction now put in place to allow people to start trading again I can see it coming. Granted they will need a very big militia but in the meantime there is the experience of Northern Ireland to fall back on. Maybe a dim memory for these days but I remember it well.
Yep, it’s all in Coronavirus Bill
https://www.propublica.org/article/fire-through-dry-grass-andrew-cuomo-saw-covid-19-threat-to-nursing-homes-then-he-risked-adding-to-it
Investigative journalism from New York about Gov Cuomo order to send infected patients back to nursing homes. Minimum 4500 deaths. Similar article about NHS repetition of the same policy?
The quotation below must get a medal for smartest cynicism
“Science will determine whether the spread in nursing homes came as a result of returning residents or from asymptomatic staff who were already there,” said Jonah Bruno, a spokesman for the New York Health Department.
It’s strange how most countries followed the same plan. Was it a deliberate attempt to kill off the elderly?
I don’t see why “they” would want to do that, stripping the assets from the elderly in care costs and pouring them into off-shore investment funds is very much a thing “they” like to do. I can’t imagine “them” cutting off that revenue stream through choice. However with the new “national care service” coming our way perhaps “they” needed to cut down on the the overheads before the buy-out.
Lets not forget that the elderly who “died of covid” probably would have died soon anyway so why bother trying to kill them three months earlier.
Similarly when “they” sell of the NHS perhaps a requirement is mass vaccination, again to keep the overheads down “going forward” for the new corporate owners.
I was referring more to the council run care homes. The private homes would obviously take good care of their fee paying guests. The less elderly there are the less pensions to pay and less NHS treatment required.
I think there is, or was, a generally agreed protocol that would be followed should such a situation arise. One thing that was not part of the protocol was lockdown of the entire populous.
No, it looks malicious but it’s just incompetence. You credit these people with enough intelligence to plan and legislate with forsight, they can’t do that, they couldn’t find their own arse with either hand. They just went into a flat spin.
The same with Boris. One thought he was a man of depths and perception, seeing the EU for what it was. But no, he was just a man who saw a winning ticket, one that’d get him into power and he rode it all the way. It was the courage of the people that carried us out of the EU and it’ll be the same resolute bloody mindedness that gets us out of this. Hang on in there, the ballsy always win out in the end.
“The seaside resort of Bournemouth in southern England has declared a major incident after thousands of people flocked to its beaches for the second day in a row.
The local council said visitors had “defied advice to stay away” from the town on one of the hottest days of the year – and it was now co-ordinating a “multi-agency emergency response” across the area.”
What we’ve come to – a hot day, people enjoying the beach (largely peacefully I believe, apart from littering which I despise but that’s a lost battle) and it requires a “multi-agency emergency response”.
I hate the idea that a council thinks it can tell people to “stay away”. It’s a free country, and we can all go where we like if it’s public land. That’s rather the point of living in a free country.
Petty authoritarians are absolutely in their element these days.
Yes, this whole Wuhan flu hysteria really brings out the worst in people.
In some people.
Indeed, and tourists in part pay their wages through their contribution to the local economy.
I found all the stuff during lockdown where people were told to stay away from beauty spots and not be selfish bloody irritating. I mean, where I live is lovely and yes I’d love everyone to stay away, but who’s being selfish here?
I always write to these councils. Cumbria was the last one I wrote to, offering a compromise: “You don’t tell me to stay away, and in return I promise to bring in every scrap of food I intend to eat and every drop I intend to drink. This way there is no face-to-face contact with your residents, and I get to keep all my money.”
“declared a major incident…… co-ordinating a “multi-agency emergency response””
Ye Gods!
(And the little fishes, as well!)
You’ve got to laugh at these local government parasites:
In other words, things got so bad that the parking Hitlers couldn’t issue tickets fast enough.
ridiculous. I’m ashamed to be British.
This kind of thing is perversity on steroids. Do these idiots really want to kill their towns? We were in a small High Peak town earlier and the Gauleiters have now banned all seats, however distanced, outside the poor, beleaguered cafes who are trying to make a fraction of their former living doing take-aways.
One cafe with fixed chairs and tables has been ordered to dig them up, leaving holes in the pavement. Brilliant! If they continue with this there will be no reason to visit as everything that isn’t already closed (and there are plenty of them) will have also gone bust and it will be a ghost town. It’s horrible!
I live just beside Southbourne beach and people have been coming down all week. Today looks to be extra special but nothing compared to what it can get like in normal times (think 3 miles of beach packed like sardines).
The only problem is people are sleeping on the beach and in their vans in the car parks. But what do you expect when they close all the hotels? There’s also growing litter and rubbish because there aren’t full services operational
I am actually really happy that people did this. Because if people are all mixing on the beach then how is it any different to get pubs and hotels back open. It looks like the penny might drop.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53175459
Coronavirus: ‘Very significant’ resurgences in Europe alarm WHO
They decline to name the countries in question, lest some awkward people want to check whether this statement is true. And the BBC piece offers no perspective or second check – just parrots out what the WHO are saying.
We will be lied to about Europe for as long as things are going OK there as it doesn’t fit the narrative.
This will be kept bubbling for quite some time I fear so they can invoke their authoritarian regs any time!
“The 11 countries were later identified by the WHO as Armenia, Sweden, Moldova, North Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Kosovo.”
They may have updated the page since you visited it.
Sweden I’m sure have stated that they have increased testing. Most of those other countries don’t look like they had much of a first wave.
Yes agree, was just looking at some of them. Many of these look like the places where the epidemic started later so they locked down “in time”. Now, predictably enough, they are having to come out and face the music.
Since when have Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan been in Europe?
‘Alarm WHO’? I’m sure they’re delighted – this is just the ticket to keep the fear going!
Oh joy! I have made a hair appointment for 2 weeks time my hairdresser will now work from her garage rather than come to me. I wont be allowed in her house and she’ll have to wear a visor, I said upfront I’m not wearing a mask. I’ll have to wash my hair before the appointment and she’ll dampen it before cutting and the price has risen by £2. I’m so desperate I’ll put up with this for the short term.
Ah well, with luck you may leave as Bellissima Donna!
LOL that’s the plan
As an act of civil disobedience, I suggest we boycott hair stylists until these draconian measures are ended.
I’ve been waiting 3 months and I’m desperate, I’ve been snipping away at it myself always a bad sign!
Steve Hayes are you wanting to cause a riot here in LS?
don’t do it, just let it grow wild like a mushroom
Oh no now I’ve finally got that appointment nothing is going to stop me!
I think most people have been mushrooming for the last 3 months.
i took mushrooms about thirty years ago and never came back to reality. It’s hard to say if it’s been a blessing or a curse.
I refused an appointment from my hairdresser because of these ridiculous restrictions – told her I don’t wear a mask. I’ve looked shite for a couple of months, a bit longer won’t hurt!
I’m not wearing a mask, she’s wearing a visor because she thinks it’s mandatory.
Lucky you! I hope she can see properly through the visor.
Rather than the usual chit chat you need to get into some serious talk with your hair dresser about the difference between guidance & legal requirement.
Besides you are not going to be talking about that lovely short break you had over the May bank holiday weekend, oh I forgot non of us normal had any sort of break.
Well it’s only you and her there, tell her she doesn’t have to.
i have 10 days to wait before i get my hair cut. first time since february so it needs it. my barber has the gear but will not use it. we did discuss how he would do my beard trim if i was wearing a mask
I think I must be very lucky with my hairdresser (but she has done my hair for 25 years
) – she messaged me as soon as they knew they could open and so I have one of her first appointments on 4th July for colour, cut and blow-dry – I am so excited!!! She didn’t say anything about a mask and if she’s doing a colour, then she’ll have to wash my hair.
I always knew there were advantages to being a SCRUFF.
Grow hair, tie back in ponytail, cut ends off if tail too long, job done.
I see those gits at the WHO have been at it again (from the DT):
So it’s a “very significant resurgence”. Would that be a slight increase in a few localities?
“new cumulative cases”
New cases excludes earlier cases. Cumulative cases includes earlier cases.Are these people illiterate or do they do it on purpose?
It’s a load of twaddle isn’t it?
They do it on purpose. Keep the fear going. Bastards. Just bastards.
Which 11 countries? And why don’t they ever mention increased testing?
Courtesy of guy153
Bastions of honest government and reliable reporting …
I think many of them are places that got the virus late (Kazakhstan isn’t generally as busy with international travellers as say London or New York) and therefore locked down early. So they are now going to have their epidemics.
It seems the WHO didn’t want to name the actual 11 countries at first to discourage fact checking and to be able to scare more people. Many people in the much more densely populated Western European countries will have read the headline and been left with an impression that a second wave was starting.
Those well-known European countries; Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and best of all – Kyrgyzstan.
‘honest government’ and ‘reliable reporting’ – packing in the oxymorons a bit there!
All countries that haven’t really had a first wave yet then…
Road closures seem to be the popular around here at the moment why couldn’t they have done them at the beginning of Lockdown?
They shutdown the road works near us at the start of the event.
Never saw the point of them stopping work as all the workers are in the cabs of their own trucks & excavators.
kh1485 to sorry to hear this.
Police should have much more important stuff to spend their time on, they are always saying they need more resources.
I suspect they have visited you because that is easier than investigating something which takes some effort.
Again sorry to hear that you have been targeted.
Folks, step back. Take a rest from the idiocies.
I went for a ride on my horse today. My horse is my greatest consolation, because throughout all this bollox she has behaved exactly like a horse, meaning that day by day she has displayed more and more superiority to the subhuman morons with which she has to share the planet.
Anyway, we went along the road overlooking the sea, along a shady track, across a flowery glade, and we had fun. Fun, FUN, FUN!!! (cackles madly).
And on the way home I saw lots more folks having FUN. Digging in the sand, bathing in the sea, eating ice cream and burgers, and generally doing all the things that sane people do at the seaside on a hot day.
Bugger the Abnormal. Have FUN, and imagine how the zombies hate it and you.
And think what miserable lives they lead. But better than that, forget them altogether and have FUN.
One of the places i go riding my motorcycle there are horses and i stop to speak to them and have a smoke. One old grey nag i’ve been giving an apple too is always good for a laugh. No matter where she is she trots over and takes the apple. I don’t know if i’m meant to feed her but what the hell. I wouldn’t want to ride her or any other horse for that. Big motorcycle no problem, four legs and a mind of it’s own., you’re a brave woman.
I like to live dangerously!
Horse’s top speed us considerably lower than your bike’s, though
Annie, I have reported you to PETA, the local authority, the police, and the RSPCA. Much as it upset me to do so, I felt I had to take a stand and denounce this dreadful mistreatment of our equine bothers/sisters.
In addition to the humiliation of being ridden (!) by mere humans, the WHO, CDC, and NHS all tell us that horses can catch covid19 ! Very irresponsible of you.
How on earth can we expect to defeat the dreadful killer virus with this sort of behaviour goodness only knows.
Horse lives matter !
PS What is this ‘FUN’ you speak of ? They didn’t mention it on our Common Purpose courses.
Ooh dear, I expect a black disabled transsexual BBC reporter will be calling soon to interview the horse, now sound asleep in her mare’s nest.
I had a minor success, the person I mentioned who was wearing a Reebok branded face covering has removed it.
He says he has taken it off because of the heat, I think it was the common sense after I explain the down sides to him.
First train journey since march today. Outward journey had a depressing level of muzzle compliance, the only others in defiance being a pair of fake-homeless scouring the seats for lost change.
However on the return journey the vast majority were muzzle-free. Really positive.
On another note had an idea about what to do when pubs reopen. When they ask for your contact details, fill in the details of your local MP. See how they like getting the self-isolate phone call.
Great idea re MP
Lloyd Russell-Moyle Is my local MP. I would refuse to drink anywhere that thought I might be him.
Very good point, but on the other hand I struggle to think of any other MP more deserving of perpetual isolation in the hell of his own echo chamber.
How about my MP?
http://cindex.camden.gov.uk/kb5/camden/cd/service.page?id=Uy4sad7KjwY
Encouraging! Would you be happy to say which region your journey was in?
It was in the Midlands. Commuter line. Mix of people ignoring the rules too but probably weighted on the younger side, which was somewhat surprising.
Thanks – interesting about the younger people. Maybe there’s some hope.
Brilliant idea.
Boris and Hang-cock will get zillions of calls, hee hee.
Re: The MP idea – Genius!
Worth checking in person, Dave. The website might be just for the benefit of the local authority safety inspectors, whereas the people on the ground give it little credence. Farming types are usually pretty robust.
JohnB good advice.
I will drive past and see if the actual experience is different to what the website says.
and then you can make a point of advising them that you do not want to make a purchase under those conditions and tell them you will never darken their doorstep again
Yep, name and shame.
Its not about naming and shaming, for me it is about a simple pleasure, go to get an ice cream, if visiting with someone else pass their ice cream to them , then get yours. Not about juggling multiple cones whilst trying to make card payment.
I am sure it does not need to be so difficult, stand in the queue in your family group etc.
Health & Safety types must be loving this.
BBC “fact checks” face muzzles being deadly https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53108405
I’m sure that there are articles showing that they are deadly. If anyone can post a link, I’ll do a futile but satisfying complaint to them .
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2020/05/14/neurosurgeon-says-face-masks-pose-serious-risk-to-healthy-people-n392431
I’m not sure that will work -the article now has a correction
Correction: Many in the medical field are disputing Dr. Blaylock’s claims and do not see wearing a mask as a serious risk to healthy people, although people who have breathing difficulties, such as those with COPD, smokers, etc., may be adversely affected. Nor do the masks weaken the immune system, according to these medical professionals. While most concede that hypercapnia is possible, they say it is highly unlikely, especially with cloth mask
Sorry, I bookmarked it sometime ago, without the update I presume.
Mind you, having investigated further it seems that article comes from AP and is linked to Facebook which is pushing government narrative. So it’s just a counter punch and I have no idea who is right. I do know I won’t wear one, period.
Snap! (on both counts :-))
Beware the Facebook ‘fact checkers’: MSM and SM is now ridden with them. For more information, watch this:
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/23/watch-who-will-fact-check-the-fact-checkers/
The only ‘evidence’ in ‘afurmo’s’ link is a quote from one person. No scientific studies are cited. It is true that the CDC and WHO have put out contradictory advice on masks in the last month or so. Surely not an example of ‘policy-based evidence making’?
No, and as you pointed out (think it was you) WHO changed their mind after UK changed mind about masks on public transport and UK is second largest donor to WHO.
I imagine smokers will be badly affected if they wear a mask while smoking.
“The BBC’s anti-disinformation team “. LOL! They’ve got to be joking, haven’t they? Virtually their entire BBC News output, bat flu or otherwise, is one colossal vomit of misinformation.
Yep
Hear, hear!
Just told them I won’t buy from them, though unlikely I was ever going to travel 300 miles for an ice cream
It is nice ice cream, I have been many times. Just not at the moment.
So far in 2020 in England and Wales
Only 15% of the the total deaths are from people with Covid
0.4% of total deaths are from people of any age with covid with no underlying health issues
0.09% of total deaths are from people under 40 with covid with no underlying health issues
What do you think BBC viewers answers would be?
For Londoners: TFL exemption badge is here (pdf):
https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/face-coverings#on-this-page-3
There’s a veritable army of bureaucrats drafting this nonsense, and we are paying them. And WHY do these clowns insist on referring to passengers as ‘customers’? It really irritates me.
Re: the ‘major incident at Bournemouth‘ (!). Here’s some feedback from the good people of the borough (Daily Telegraph):
F off the lot of you, and crawl back under your beds! I’ve never read so much B/S in my life (well, actually, I have, but you know what I mean). So a nice, balanced, report from The Telegraph then. They obviously didn’t speak to any sceptics.
So care homes can’t open because of people who will NEVER go within fifty miles of a care home in the next year?
OK.
So care homes have been closed since March because of people who were going to come and sit on the beach in June?!
Really, what else are they to do after being robbed of their humanity and worth* for 3 months?
Actually I can think of many things that I’d rather be doing but that’s beside the point.
*I’m assuming that a good proportion of those people are furloughed
Path in Bournemouth. You’ve got to laugh. One of the many problems with local government is that they think the entire population is as thick as they are.
Hahaha! If they’re really anxious about ‘the covid’ they could hurl themselves over the edge and do us all a favour!
Empowered idiots running everything now.
You can just see them can’t you?
I live in a coastal region plagued every summer by happy bathers/tourists. The locals just hate sharing their treasure with outsiders, they resent it much, even those dependent on it for trade. This covid twiddle has finally allowed them to openly express their bile, that’s likely it.
But as you say, it’s a love-hate thing. They hate the tourists while also depending on them. When the economic pain bites, most likely the tone will change.
Let us hope none of their relatives ever need to work in a different area. “What you doing here, stealing our jobs and spreading your germs? F off back to Bournemouth. Was ever the last resort…”
A slightly more balanced report here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/25/like-armageddon-bournemouth-beach-crowds-spark-fears-uks-staycation/
An extract:
Then again:
“Connor Burns, the MP for Bournemouth West, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday: “Today was the worst I’ve ever seen it. Pavements were blocked [on] both sides of the road. The fines need to be much higher.”
Trust an MP to be enthusiastically part of making any problem worse. Never forget. Never forgive.
“The illegal parking near the beach today was deeply irresponsible and dangerous. Emergency vehicles would struggle to get through.”
Then open the bloody car parks, you morons.
These sad killjoys remind me of a certain type of person from the Middle Ages. You know, the ones who used to carry a bible in one hand and a box of matches in the other.
Indeed. Or the ones (often the same, no doubt), who “hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators“.
Quite. This comment from the article amused me:
To which one response was:
…er medieval matches?
And medieval bibles were hand-written, on parchment, and were enormous. You’d need a very, very strong hand.
A letter to the Bishop of St David’s:
Dear Bishop Joanna
In the absolute certainty that the Covid Coward Church in Wales will accept the hell of the New Abnormal with exactly the same craven servility as it has accepted the purgatory of lockdown, I write to point out that all Christian documents will have to be completely re-written. Christianity is, in its essence, a generous reaching out to other people, in imitation of Our Lord, and that is the total antithesis of the New Abnormal.
In order that no time may be wasted in perverting the Scriptures as required, I hereby offer you a suitable rendition of St Luke 10:30-37:
A certain man went down from Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner, and fell among BML thugs, which beat him up, because he was white, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there cam down a certain Church of England rector that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise an NHS nurse, when she was near the place, looked on him, and saw he wore no face mask, and passed by on the other side.
But a certain human being, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
And went to him, and raised him up, and put him in his car, and drove him to A and E, and insisted that he be given treatment then and there.
And when he departed, he exhorted A and E, saying, Take care of him, and if he chance to die, see that ye say not that he died of Covid 19, for that would be a lie.
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, did right?
And they all answered, the rector and the nurse, for they observed social distancing, and acted in accordance with the New Normal.
Go, and do thou likewise, and forget all that ‘human being’ nonsense.
I gather that some discussion is now taking place in the diocese about the possibility of re-opening churches some time during the current millennium. It is clear that if churches do reopen, both members of the congregation and visitors are to be treated as lepers were in the time of Our Lord: as unclean, dangerously contaminated brutes who must be shunned at all costs.
Perhaps this is a good time to remind you that Our Lord did not treat human beings like lepers. He treated lepers like human beings.
Or have you already re-written the relevant sections of the Gospels so that Jesus, when encountering a leper, retreats to the other side of the town, puts on full PPE, and announces that treatment for leprosy has been suspended for an indefinite period in order to protect the Miracle Working Service?
Please do not trouble to answer this letter. I have no need or desire to hear homilies from representatives of a church that orients its moral compass on the bestialities of BLM and Woke.
Yours sincerely
[Annie]
I told the bishop I was copying the letter here!
I think you may be flogging a dead Church there, Annie….
No doubt, but I feel the better for it!
Absolutely fantastic letter Annie!
Great letter!!
[…] the regulator published on March 23rd, the same day the full lockdown was imposed. As I’ve written about before, this “guidance” has contributed to the suppression of dissenting views about Covid in […]
Brilliant
[…] The narrative of panic (rather than cunning plan) was also undermined by the fact that the Government got Ofcom to order the mainstream media not to report “contrary narratives”. The Free Speech Union is bringing a Judicial Review of this, which you can read about if you follow this link >>> https://dailysceptic.org/2020/06/23/latest-news-63/ […]
[…] The narrative of panic (rather than cunning plan) was also undermined by the fact that the Government got Ofcom to order the mainstream media not to report “contrary narratives”. The Free Speech Union is bringing a Judicial Review of this, which you can read about if you follow this link >>> https://dailysceptic.org/2020/06/23/latest-news-63/ […]