Teachers Urged to Give Up Part of Six-Week Summer Holiday
A cross-party group of former education ministers is urging teachers to give up some of their six-week summer holiday so schools can reopen in September, according to Sian Griffiths in the Sunday Times.
Five former education secretaries have backed a plan to get all children back to class in September, including a demand that teachers curtail their six-week summer holiday to deal with the “national emergency”.
Under the plan, put together by Lord Adonis, a former Labour minister for schools, the Government must confirm the social-distancing rules, appoint a national director of school operations to oversee safe reopening, and bring back teachers in August to get schools ready.
Hang on, I thought, when I read that. Haven’t we already got a “national director of school operations” in the form of Education Secretary Gavin Williamson? But as the Mail reports, he may be for the chop.
Mr Williamson’s soft approach with the teachers’ unions had damaged his reputation.
“Gavin played nicely with the unions in the hope that they would sign up, and they didn’t. People in there [Downing Street] know how you take on the teaching unions and beat them,” they said.
The swipe is a reference to No 10 chief Dominic Cummings’s previous role as an adviser to Michael Gove at the Department for Education, when he branded the teaching establishment “The Blob” and forced through reforms.
Needless to say, the proposal that teachers should cut short their holidays has not gone down well with the teaching unions.
Kevin Courtney, co-General Secretary of the National Education Union, said he supported much of the plan.
But in a sign of the resistance the Government faces he added: “I do not think that it is sensible asking people to give up their contractual holiday. Teachers have been working really hard in this period.”
In other words, he supports the plan apart from the bit that would make it work.
The teaching unions have won every battle they’ve engaged in so far during this crisis – one of the reasons Williamson is in trouble. As someone who has debated Kevin Courtney many times, I can confirm that he’s an agile, formidable opponent. The chances of schools reopening in full in September are slim.
In other news, Matt Hancock has hinted that pub customers will be expected to provide their contact details in an electronic register so that they can be traced if it emerges later that someone infected was in the venue. Customers will be advised to order using an app, stand as far apart as possible, face away from each other where they can, and prefer outside spaces.
Sounds like a barrel of laughs.
Where Does Coronavirus Rank in the Pandemic League Table?
Interesting table on Simon Dolan’s twitter feed showing how few people COVID-19 has killed compared to other killer viruses.
Of course, lockdown zealots will say, “Ah yes, but the reason Covid has killed so few people is because governments around the world very sensibly locked up their citizens at the height of the pandemic.”
But as we know, there’s little evidence the lockdowns have done anything to interrupt the progress of the pandemic, with infections rising and falling in each country according to the same pattern, regardless of whether or not that country locked down or how severely.
Disappointing not to see the influenza pandemic of 2017-18 in the table. In Germany, for instance, the coronavirus epidemic, which Angela Merkel described as the worst crisis to afflict the country since the Second World War, has killed less than a third of the people killed by seasonal flu in 2017-18.
Has the Epidemic Really Caused PTSD?
There’s a story in the Sunday Times this morning saying GPs are bracing themselves for a surge of patients suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The NHS faces a “huge surge” in Britons suffering anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the country’s top family doctor.
Months of isolation, economic devastation and the loss of relatives, friends and colleagues to the disease is wreaking havoc on the nation’s mental health, said Dr Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP).
More than 50,000 family doctors are being issued with guidance to help them detect post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) triggered by the pandemic. Dr Jonathan Leach, a retired colonel who has supported thousands of veterans, helped draw it up.
I can understand why being locked in your home for three months would cause some people to suffer from anxiety and depression, particularly for teenagers and elderly people and those living on their own. But PTSD? Isn’t that something soldiers experience after being involved in frontline battle for a sustained period of time? The Sunday Times thinks the “surge” in people presenting with PTSD will be caused by “the loss of relatives, friends and colleagues to the disease”. Really?
According to the ONS, ~53,000 have died from Covid to date. That’s less than 10% of the number of people who died in the UK in 2018 (616,000) and, as Neil Ferguson has conceded, up to two-thirds of the people who’ve succumbed to COVID-19 would have died anyway this year, so the total number of deaths in 2020 may not be much larger than it would have otherwise been. And worth reminding ourselves that the average age of those who’ve died from the virus in the UK is 80.
Last time I checked, the death of an elderly relative, friend or colleague is certainly very sad.
But it doesn’t cause PTSD.
Time for Racing to Resume in Full
There’s an excellent piece in the Telegraph today by racing correspondent Marcus Armytage, bemoaning the absurdity of the social distancing arrangements surrounding the sport.
I have to remind myself the reason owners (and racing correspondents) are not there is because, when Ascot started on Tuesday, we were only two weeks and a day into the resumption of racing and, as the first sport back, it has had no choice but to play it by the book adhering to every letter of every often-pointless rule.
The viewing figures on ITV have been excellent, pretty much double what they were last year; 1.5 million saw Stradivarius win a third Gold Cup though, incongruously, a prescient 1.8 million tuned in to see Hayley Turner win the Sandringham Stakes. Less a breakthrough for women’s sport, alas, that the fact that people were switching on early for the Chase.
But while it is better than no racing, behind closed doors is not sustainable. It is no one’s idea of a business model, it is expensive to run having people checked in and out of a racecourse, employing the traffic wardens of COVID-19, social distancing officers, and knocking up jockeys changing cubicles in what would otherwise be a 300-cover restaurant run by a Michelin-starred chef.
Maybe as an ex-jump jockey I am the wrong person to be talking about our risk-averse society. But never did irony hit me harder than watching this week’s five-furlong sprints when you have had 20 jockeys, eight-stone wet through, going at roughly 40mph down the course on an animal weighing 80 stone in a tight bunch, every sinew, equine and human, straining right on the edge of it.
My horse – Sceptical – came third in the Royal Ascot Diamond Stakes yesterday. (Apologies to any readers who acted on that tip!) But it’s time the Government started listening to this sceptical racing correspondent.
Worth reading in full.
London’s Deserted Transport Network
Got a good email from a reader in London on the pitiful state of the capital’s public transport network. It seems ‘Project Fear on Steroids’ has worked all too well.
On Thursday evening I travelled from Ladbroke Grove to Wandsworth Town for a bite with an old friend. Bus from Ladbroke Grove to High Street Ken; perhaps three others on board [it was a 452; usual capacity, if memory serves me correctly, is c.92, though that, of course, has been…..”trimmed“]. A recorded msg was played twice during the six or seven minutes that it took to reach the last stop on Ken Church St before High St Ken. Given that I was holding a handkerchief loosely to my mouth (but not my nose, through which I breathed), I wondered if they were for my benefit.
High St Ken Tube Station – shortly after 8pm: effectively deserted. One other person waiting for the Victoria-bound Circle Line. Further announcements that face-masks must be worn on public transport and in the station (which, as you may know, is refreshingly open to the elements). Three, perhaps four, perhaps five people, self included, on the Tube. Perhaps one or two more boarded before we reached Victoria, but successive stations were effectively deserted.
More announcements insisting that face-masks were compulsory on public transport and in the station greeted me at Victoria, which usually looks as though it’s about to feature in a documentary about global overpopulation. Deserted – bar perhaps half a dozen travellers, abundant masked staff and three prominent Plods (unmasked).
About five or six people on the train to Clapham Junction (which had something like a dozen carriages; it was one of those Victoria trains destined for the south coast). Remarkably, it had a guard on board – normally as a rare as rocking-horse shit. Yes, more recorded announcements about the necessity of wearing a face-mask. By this stage, I had a minimal, entirely pointless ‘mask’ on, which I wore on my chin, allowing me to breathe freely through mouth or nose as mood dictated.
Clapham Junction was, of course, as deliciously windswept as it always is. But that didn’t silence the inevitable recorded announcement that face-masks were to be worn on public transport and in the station. About half those waiting for a train – of whom there were perhaps twenty or thirty – complied. Very heartening to see that some of the staff had ditched theirs entirely; others opted to wear them around their throats, several inches beneath mouth or nose.
The whole absurd pattern was repeated on the train to Wandsworth Town.
At the end of the evening, I took an Uber home: £12 and 20 minutes. Why would anyone, other than the destitute, ever travel by public transport again?
Regrettably, I had to point out to this reader that face-masks are supposed to be mandatory on Uber too.
Why the Left Should Oppose Lockdowns
A reader in Australia called Phil Shannon has sent me a great piece about why the left should oppose lockdowns. It started out as a comment on “The Left-Wing Case Against Lockdown” by Alexis FitzGerald (see right-hand menu), but then blossomed into a fully-fledged blog post. Phil is a bona fide leftie – you can see his blog here, which is called “green left”. I’m sure a lot of other old-fashioned lefties are feeling the same.
Here’s a taster:
The ideological failings of the left on lockdown are accompanied by a pronounced tendency to behave in politically-revealing stylistic ways, including:
* Belligerence: Converse with most lockdown leftists and you will be struck by their hostility to sceptical views and their lack of respect for the holders of those views. Calm discussion of evidentiary and political differences on lockdown has been replaced by the left’s need to beat down lockdown apostates in heated argument, not with better ideas but with belligerence. In politics, as in fashion, ‘the style is the man’ and the lockdown/woke left’s antagonistic and intimidating behaviour reflects poorly on a political grouping that claims to value liberalism, tolerance and ‘diversity’.
* Straw Men: Say that lockdown doesn’t work and is worse than the disease and the sceptic will swiftly be accused of being a callous granny-killer, a moral monster who places ‘money’ ahead of ‘lives’, and profit over people (cf. the facile “No life is worth losing to add one more point to the Dow” of Joe Biden, or the rhetorical doing whatever it takes to “save just one life” homily of New York governor, Andrew Cuomo). Setting up straw men (lockdown sceptic = murderer) to knock down is so much easier than respectfully contesting an exchange of ideas or exploring strategies such as demographically-targeting the vulnerable for protection from the virus.
* Smear by association: Oppose the lockdown? Why, says the lockdown leftist, you must be one of those kooky 5G conspiracists or whatever. Case dismissed. Yes, it is true that some strange political life-forms attach themselves to the fringes of lockdown scepticism. But neither is the left free from a history of its own unwanted and unattractive political relatives, particularly the wild and fundamentally anti-democratic anarchists, up to and including the Antifa goons and Extinction Rebellion loons. Guilt-by-association is a tawdry debating gambit whether used by left or right. Neither the left nor the right can enforce an ideological purity test to control who marches under their banner. There is not much either can do about the loose threads in the great tapestry of political life.
* Virtue-signalling: Left lockdown lovers portray themselves, overtly or by implication, as a better class of person who is superior to the lockdown sceptic – intellectually superior to those they misrepresent as ‘Deniers’ of ‘the Science’ and morally superior to those whom they caricature as being more concerned with ‘the economy’ over health. We, say the left, may have lost a democratic national referendum or an election, but we are still better than the nativists, the xenophobes, the gap-toothed, knuckle-dragging deplorables and, now, the heartless lockdown sceptics who are prepared to cruelly cull society of its old geezers.
Antifa goons and Extinction Rebellion loons. Love it! I’m going to give this piece pride of place as a subpage of Alexis FitzGerald’s essay. Please do read it in full.
A Pilot Writes
Got an email from a commercial airline pilot currently taking some time off in Italy. Hard to disagree with any of this.
I think I’ve worked out why the Government is ending lockdown in such a prolonged and plodding way. I had assumed it was because it was being wet, timorous and generally sheepish but now believe it’s actually because it can’t end any aspect of lockdown without having written the appropriate tidal wave of new regulations, recommendations and procedures. It must be very frustrating for Whitehall officials that the virus is disappearing faster than they can write all this stuff.
I heard with despair this morning that social distancing might be reduced in restaurants next week allowing restaurants to open with perspex screens between tables. I managed to escape to Italy on June 3rd, the day it opened its borders. And yet here in Italy, which is supposedly only a week or two ahead of us, there are very few obvious rules in force. People are wearing face-masks to go into shops and are using the hand wash on the way in. Otherwise restaurants are laid out in the normal way, there are no screens, there isn’t tape all over the floors, and although social distancing is one metre life looks pretty normal. The Germans are now arriving in large numbers in my area on the east side of Lake Garda and I’m sure the locals will be welcoming them with huge relief. In the meantime our Government is still making up rules for the situation in the UK as if it was about two months ago.
Unfortunately, this points to a greater malaise in the UK which is our devotion to rules and procedure. We have fooled ourselves for many years that the red tape we suffer from is a result of the EU. But for a long time now we have known that we gold plate those regulations. As a pilot, it’s notable that the UK is the most draconian country with its security checks at airports on crew members. Some of the checks on us are more onerous than those on passengers. Other countries reassessed their policies years ago. And of course aviation has many rules and procedures, most of which are necessary, but with a few that are not. The trouble with having unnecessary regulations and procedures is that, not only are they inefficient and counter productive in themselves, they lead to workers, the public and officials imagining other procedures that don’t actually exist. These can then be justified on the basis of “safety” (or sometimes insurance) when really there is no justification at all. Our ‘SOPs’ (or Standard Operating Procedures) clearly contain a lot of procedures, but there is one which basically goes – “in extreme circumstances the Captain should disregard any of these procedures and do whatever he or she considers necessary to ensure the safe conduct of the flight”. This is very sensible. The worst case of mindless adherence to procedure I can think of was the Grenfell Tower fire where it seems the Fire Brigade bosses stuck slavishly to the “stay put” policy when the premise for that policy was clearly redundant from the moment they arrived on the scene. The fire was not “contained”.
Unfortunately, this type of procedural groupthink is very similar to the other types of left wing groupthink we’re now suffering from. The trouble is, this no risk, super safe, snowflake attitude is not just a product of left wing youth. It’s also a product of people sitting in offices producing unnecessary regulation and procedure simply to show that they’ve done something and to cover their backsides. Maybe that’s why productivity is so poor in the UK. We’ve lost the ability to be flexible and practical. Perhaps Toby, once you’ve got us properly out of lockdown, sorted out freedom of speech and won the current cultural revolution you could then start on ‘proceduralism’ in the UK!
It isn’t just Italy where life has returned pretty much to normal. Christina Lamb in the Sunday Times reports that Portugal is rather nice at this time of year too.
Unlocking the Welsh Dragon
Comedian and author Gryff Rhys Jones, who owns six holiday cottages in Wales, has added his voice to the chorus pleading with Mark Drakeford to reopen the country. According to the Sunday Times:
Like all holiday properties in Wales, the six cottages on Griff Rhys Jones’s Pembrokeshire farm have been closed since late March.
“Every now and again, there’s an outbreak of people saying: ‘Don’t come here.’ People get rather furious about the idea of visitors coming to Pembrokeshire, as if in some way it’s so beautiful it should be preserved only for the natives,” said the actor and writer, 66, who was born in Cardiff but lives in England.
“But the unavoidable truth is that the hospitality industry for outlying areas of Britain is vital to their successful economies. It needs to be recognised and it needs to be rebuilt.”
On Friday, the First Minister said Wales’s five-mile travel restriction will be scrapped on July 6th and “self-contained accommodation” will be allowed to reopen a week later.
Too little, too late, Drakeford.
Lord Gumption Speaks
Lord Sumption has another great piece out today, this one in the Mail on Sunday. The headline says it all: “These people have no idea what they’re doing.”
Here’s a taster:
Does the Government have a policy for coronavirus? Indeed it does. In fact, it has several. One for each month of the year, all mutually inconsistent and none of them properly thought through. Sometimes, governments have to change tack. It shows that they are attending closely to a changing situation. But this crisis has exposed something different and more disturbing: a dysfunctional Government with a deep-seated incoherence at the heart of its decision-making processes.
It’s glorious stuff. Definitely worth your time.
I’m going to start a petition demanding that Lord Gumption chair the public inquiry into the Government’s (mis)management of the crisis.
More on False Positives
A reader has got in touch following yesterday’s comment from a geneticist and data scientist about the unreliability of PCR tests.
Following the critique of PCR tests by the geneticist you mentioned in your update, I just thought I’d send you this announcement from Norway’s Institute of Public Health on May 25th in case you have’t seen it.
“Given today’s contagion situation in Norway, health professionals must test around 12,000 random people to find one positive case of COVID-19. In such a selection, there will be about 15 positive test responses, but 14 of these will be false positives.”
This is also interesting and begs the question of test accuracy in the UK and therefore a potential COVID-19 death toll adjustment.
Another Petition to Sign
Please sign this petition to save the statue of Thomas Guy, which is due to be removed from St Thomas’s Hospital because of his links to the slave trade. Some students have even started a petition calling for the hospital to be renamed the Desmond Tutu Hospital.
This is what the petitioner has to say:
These matters have been brought to the fore as a result of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the belief that Thomas Guy was involved in the slave trade and made his fortune from this. I am a consultant physician living and working in South London who trained as both a medical student and junior doctor at Thomas Guy’s Hospital and hold this belief to be untrue.
Thomas Guy was a devout Christian, bookseller, astute investor and MP for Tamworth. During his life he acquired a large number of shares in The South Sea Company ( SSC ) in exchange for government debt that he held, which he was required to do. The government paid SSC shareholders a dividend and the company was granted the right by Queen Anne to supply the Spanish colonies with slaves, a right that Britain acquired under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713). He sold his shares in 1720 just before the share price collapsed in a stock market bubble, thereby making a fortune which he largely reinvested in government bonds. As these events show, he was an investor at a time 300 years ago when ethical investing was a pipe dream. He did not own slaves, nor was he a slave trader, nor did he reinvest in the SSC which continued its activities for many years after.
Subsequently, he used his fortune to build and endow Guy’s Hospital for the relief of the poor and suffering of Southwark. As a consequence of his philanthropy, a world famous Hospital was created which for over 300 years has provided healthcare to South East London and has trained tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who have taken their skills and knowledge to care for the sick and needy all over the world irrespective of creed or colour. Such singular achievement should be recognised.
We ask that the absurd and shameful decision to remove his statue from public view be reversed and that any plans to rename the Guy’s campus be abandoned.
This one’s definitely worth signing.
Round-Up
And on to the round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘Prince Harry backs rugby move to kick out slavery song Swing Low, Sweet Chariot‘ – Quelle surprise
- ‘What’s REALLY Going On in Sweden (No Lockdown)‘ – Good YouTube video by Lana Blakely on life in Sweden during the crisis
- ‘The NHS coronavirus app was a vain attempt to take on Big Tech. No 10 was always going to lose that battle‘ – Rob Colville in the Sunday Times says the NHSX contact-tracing app was doomed from the start
- ‘David Attenborough steps in to save London Zoo from extinction‘ – The Blue Planet star highlights something that really is at risk of becoming extinct (for once)
- ‘“A Staggering Number”: Over $18 Trillion In Global Stimulus In 2020, 21% Of World GDP‘ – Report of the cost of the lockdowns in Zero Hedge, the right-of-centre website recently demonetised by those nice people at Google
- ‘Rishi Sunak plans emergency cut in VAT to rescue ailing economy‘ – It’s all hands to the pump as UK plc takes on water and begins to list ominously
Theme Tune Suggestions From Readers
Only one suggestion today: the theme from the Lives of Others, the cinematic masterpiece about life under the Stasi in East Germany.
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
A few weeks ago, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have reopened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have opened near you. Now that non-essential shops have reopened – or most of them, anyway – we’re now focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. Please visit the page and let us know about those brave folk who are doing their bit to get our country back on its feet. Dont worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Note to the Good Folks Below the Line
I enjoy reading all your comments and I’m glad I’ve created a “safe space” for lockdown sceptics to share their frustrations and keep each other’s spirits up. But please don’t copy and paste whole articles from papers that are behind paywalls in the comments. I work for some of those publications and if they don’t charge for premium content they won’t survive.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. It usually takes me several hours to do these daily updates, along with everything else, which doesn’t leave much time for other work. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. Alternatively, you can donate to the Free Speech Union’s litigation fund by clicking here or join the Free Speech Union here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. (Please don’t email me at any other address.)
And Finally…
I’ve got a piece in the Mail on Sunday today about Oxford in the 1980s. What was it about that university at that time that produced so many of the people who dominate public life today? The photographs of Boris and others taken by Dafydd Jones, my generation’s pre-eminent party photographer, are quite something.
Here’s how it begins.
The pink-faced young man at the dispatch box of the Oxford Union looked slightly bewildered.
He glanced up at the packed chamber, nervously fingering his mop of blond hair, as if he’d been transported there through a window in the space-time continuum.
This was in October of 1983 and it was a “freshers’ debate” , an opportunity for new arrivals to make a good impression on the senior members of the world-famous debating society. I was due to speak after this young man and had spent several days preparing.
“Can someone kindly remind me what the motion is?” he asked in an exaggerated, upper class accent. Who was this pantomime toff?
“This house would bring back capital punishment,” someone cried out.
“Oh yes, right, of course,” he said, ruffling his hair. Then he looked up, feigning surprise: “Crikey Moses. Capital punishment. Really? I’m not in favour of that!”
Then he ostentatiously crossed the floor, positioned himself at the other dispatch box and started denouncing the motion in what might be called the high Parliamentary style – half-serious, half-comic.
After a few minutes, as he happily demolished the case for capital punishment, the young orator interrupted himself mid-flow.
“No wait,” he said. “That’s actually a pretty good argument. I think I’m in favour of the motion after all!”
He then crossed the floor once again, and made an impassioned case for the other side.
The audience at the Union roared with laughter – and it was laughter of appreciation, not ridicule. There was something so winning about this befuddled yet charismatic 19 year-old that you couldn’t help warming to him.
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Just listened to the Graham Rowan meets the Monaco based entrepreneur Simon Dolan interview of around middle of May.
As we know Simon has mounted a legal challenge to the government’s enforced lockdown policy. Simon feels it is illegal, massively harmful to the economy and against our human rights. And lots of people agree with him! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilAy9bTYMvQ
‘Retailing will never be the same, it will be more working from home and doing business online. We had austerity the last 12 years and all that ‘savings’ were used up in the first 2 months of lockdown.’
I fear we have all the wrong people in our government
Piers Corbyn is protesting against the lockdown
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1269543296117936132.html
http://www.weatheraction.com/resource/data/wact1/docs/StandUpBreakLockdownV529May2020.pdf
posters
So Gavin Williamson might be fired, but maybe not quick enough, as at this rate schools will not be fully opened in September.
The Government is quick to push legislation through using backdoor tactics but cannot get children back to school. Pre-covid you were fined if you took your kids out of school for a few days holiday as the kids could not ‘afford to miss any day away from education. Huhh? Now they have been away for months and that is OK.
This has been gnawing at the back of my mind since the government response to the Dolan case on schools was published.
Presumably, if this was a request and not an instruction, the legislation is still in place that legally obliges schools to accept children, LEAs to provide education for those in their catchment and parents to send their children to school.
So, if you really want the schools to open, start enforcing the legislation. Schools and LEAs are punished if they remain closed and parents are fined if the school is open and they fail to send their children in.
Job done, surely?
More enforcement, of anything, is not what we need. Just makes busybodies happier. Better to declare the schools open, cut the pay of any teacher who won’t teach and let parents who don’t send their kids in suffer the consequences of having an uneducatec child. And while at it change the school curriclum so it actually teaches useful things, maths, science, programming, engineering, in detail, rather than wasting time on rote learning, wishy-washy stuff, and analysing Dickens novels.
It’s not more enforcement – it’s just the enforcement we would normally have. Schools have a legal obligation to be open during term time, parents have a legal obligation to send their children to school. I’m no fan of state intervention, but I think that enforcing the obligation to educate our children is a moral imperative.
Hmm, morals and the current ‘Conservative’ government? Nope, can’t see it!
No, fine. And I don’t know what Mr Cummings is currently telling them.but I’ve never believed that the British electorate need to be treated like children and have their whims pandered to and be talked down to. It’s been 30 years since we had any of these, but I still think that a politician who was prepared to make a strong public case for what they believed was the right thing to do and was prepared to stick to their guns (and had a brain and a convincing presentation) would do much better than we all seem to think they would.
That’s a big IF at the moment.
Regrettably,I think that was who we thought Boris was.
I think as long as the schools open up like normal schools that’s fine. As long as they want to impose social distancing, medical testing, etc on the children then I think parents should be able to keep their children home.
I’ds say there’s nothing moral about the social distancing straight jackets and “hygiene safety rules” that threaten to be imposed on our children.
Er… no. I think I’m suggesting they get rid of all that stuff.
Parents have a legal obligation to ensure their children are educated. Sending them to school is one option.
they haven’t analysed Dicken’s novels for years!
They only read American marxist texts from the last century
Whilst I would agree, what are the children going back to? To be more traumatised by being kept apart from their friends and having teachers in masks and constant handwashing? It will turn them into traumsatised hypochondriacs.
There should/should have been zero tolerance to any teacher refusing to work full time and any parent refusing to send their child to school. Clearly proviso for anyone with an underlying health conditions. Swab test any teacher with ‘symptoms’, and if negative, straight back to the classroom, no ifs or buts. We are in desperate times and that calls for desperate measures; holidays cancelled until further notice. I am truly sick of this spineless government. Whether the teaching union leaders are super debaters/negotiators or not, the riot act needs to be read. As you rightly point out, the statute book seems to be ultra flexible when the government decides it wants to do something so why not this.
The teaching unions (or is it union these days?) have a lot of power. I’m not sure that trying to twist their arms over this would be successful.
I don’t think they can threaten to dismiss huge numbers of teachers for failing to work while this is still ongoing.
Yes, the government caused this mess in the first place. But they must to better to reassure the teaching unions.
I think that the government is in a superb position to grab the moral high ground on this issue – if they choose to. And the teachers’ union(s) can resist if they want, but should lose the moral argument.
– we are reopening all schools, for every child, from September. We are opening them normally, and so very little extra preparation is required by the schools
– lay out the research that shows why the danger is nearly nonexistent for children, parents and teachers
– lay out the research that shows the damage caused by missing out on education
– state that it will be a legal requirement for teachers and for parents – as it always has been
– stick to guns
– ride out storm
Sadly, I don’t see them doing it, but it’s what I would do.
Maybe that’s why I’m not prime minister.
Too much common sense !
Many teachers have been working very hard during this mess. Granted, many have been doing the absolute minimum!
I’m concerned that some of the suggestions here call for draconian measures that would play into the government’s hands.
We simply need to demand a return to the old normal. The rest should sort itself without any more government intervention.
I agree, Cheezilla.
The ENTIRE situation would sort itself out if all the rubbish was chucked and the country went back to the old normal. And stayed there.
I fear that there will never be any return to the ‘old normal’. For example, companies have twigged that they don’t need to own or rent expensive office space. The City of London will see a huge reduction in the number of workers, which means that ancillary service industries – shops, cafes, pubs, restaurants – will be out of business. The area will die – if you don’t believe me, pay it a visit now.
Bullying people at large has turned out to be easy.
Standing up to unions is known to be difficult.
We must form a National Union of Human Beings. Limited membership no doubt, but lots of clout.
Easy solution – close all schools permanently, all education online. Looking at the AQA website the education after 12-14 years if pretty pathetic anyway. Let AI run it then there are no problems with unions, indoctrination and propaganda. Just an imparting of knowledge and thinking for yourself.
I remember what my teacher told me in the early 80s when I stared at a comprehensive – question everything, do your own research then make up your mind on what is truth.
Now it is listen to me, regurgitate what you are learnt, question nothing.
I was discussing something with a newly qualified I was put in charge of training and he said one day, after a discussion about global warming and I put him onto the wattsupwiththat website by a real scientist, “but my lecturer wouldn’t lie to me, what he said must be true”. Asked did he ever question he said “no” – and repeated the phrase but my lecturer wouldn’t lie to me.
No wonder the world is screwed.
Kids need to go to school to play with each other (and also to train their adaptive immune systems). I’m not convinced most of them actually learn anything much there in the way of education but this isn’t a huge problem nowadays.
What they no longer learn, though, is How to learn and How to think for themselves. That is a very big problem for the future (and, of course, for their mental growth).
I have a constant battle with my 8-year-old’s teacher, through my 8-year-old. “Daddy, coronavirus is nature’s way of healing itself!” “Right, son, let me tell you why Gaia theory is bollocks”.
And you may be right that everything they’re taught is crap, but that’s not really the point of school. The point of school (in order of priority) is: 1) to learn to deal with human beings of your own age on a regular basis (and authority figures, even if said authority figures are stupid); and 2) to get the qualifications that mean you can make enough money to live on in the future.
I know what you mean about a constant battle with the teachers and day-to-day idiocy at schools.
After years of banging heads with the education system when my son and daughter were at school the authority figures just have a standard answer “we are in charge so bog off”. Not allowed to question their authority and just teaches the kids to obey without questioning or else you get punished – had many an argument with school authorities over the years (including my own schools days) and have her respect for them.
Did win a fair amount of the battles though and was actually banned from parent’s evenings for asking too many awkward questions in front of other parents who then started questioning.
Now 8-10 years after they have left school and getting on with their chosen careers my kids agree – formal education did nothing for them as they question too much, all too often their contemporaries don’t and they can now see how futile it all as and how unquestioning the masses are.
As to qualifications, nowadays they just mean you could remember and regurgitate enough information to get a good grade in an exam. Nothing else.
Give me someone who is naturally intelligent, questioning and willing to learn and I can train them to do a better job than anyone coming from school/college/university with a bag full of A++++++ exams – I know this from experience as I’ve done it.
And to mingle with other’s their own age let them out and go climb a tree, fall out of it, ride a bike and so on. Get them away from the goggle box and games and so on which watching modern parents around em do not let their kids do and all the kids are shit scared to do anything or just play.
This.
Don’t forget the babysitting service schools provide now that one person’s wage doesn’t cover the cost of providing for a home and family.
That’s a very jaundiced view of academe!
Rather than close schools, bring back the educational standards of the 1950s and 60s!
I remember what my teacher told me in the early 80s when I stared at a comprehensive – question everything, do your own research then make up your mind on what is truth.
Now it is listen to me, regurgitate what you are learnt, question nothing.
I went to grammar schooll in the 60s. I left just before the introduction of comprehensives. We weren’t taught to question at all, just to regurgitate what we were taught in order to pass the exams.
My granddaughter, age 14, hasn’t a clue how to tackle a piece of rote learning. Some of the lockdown schoolwork she’s doing does seem to involve an element of reasoning though.
Sorry meant to italicise your quote but pressed the post button too soon!
Funnily enough according to one of UK column’s broadcasts (way back at the beginning of May) the government’s plan is for schools not ever to re-open…
If I could I’d sack them all. There isn’t one of them I’d keep on all have shown themselves to have poor judgement and no common sense. At a time when we needed calm heads we unfortunately got headless chickens syndrome.
Teacher’s pay should be adjusted because if they are only teaching a fraction of their class, they are only doing a fraction of the preparation and marking. The real problem is the teachers are on full pay, not even furloughed, so its one long holiday they are not going to give up easily.
“More than 50,000 family doctors are being issued with guidance to help them detect post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) triggered by the pandemic.”
I wonder ow much of my money they need to prepare and issue guidance to 50,000 doctors who clearly do not know enough about how to do their job already. Still I expect they will need additional funding to meet this public health crisis as soon as it can be created. Looks like the Health Service is getting back to normal!!,
Meanwhile, three cheers for Lord Sumption the voice of sanity in a mad world.
Why would you go to a useless GP if you were feeling depressed/sad/worried about all this nonsense/losing a loved one or losing your job/business/home? What would be the point as the useless one would only look a bit sad too to show you that she really really gave a shit. (And it’s almost always a she nowadays, probably covering for her colleague who is on maternity leave, and is part time anyway). Then, very promptly – within the five minutes allotted to your appointment – she’ll print out a prescription for some useless drug, probably without checking how said drug might react with any other drug she has prescribed for you in the past. (No one has any idea how multiple drugs interact within the body or what harm they might do, so probably no use her checking anyway). So again, why go to a GP? If you can even get an appointment in person what with this deadly virus giving them an excuse to do bugger all on the tax payers’ buck.
A friend was repeatedly refused a home visit for an elderly relative because of Covid.
Officious receptionists now seem to be wielding their put -off -patients powers.
Yes the receptionists are terrible, as if they think of themselves as gatekeepers to the absolute holy of holy – some wet behind the ears GP or some time-server who will hardly look up for her screen. I imagine you can guess that I loathe the nhs for many, many reasons, not least the fact that they allowed my mother to die in agony of an undiagnosed fracture hip. You only have to read the dietary advice they give to know how useless they are – eat more carbs! Carbs are essential, animal fats are bad! Eat cereal, eat fruit – eat, eat, eat and never ever go hungry because you don’t want to die of low blood sugar do you? They are making diabetics worse; they are giving the wrong advice to the over weight. They are absolutely useless.
With their treatment of my late mother (fractured hip) and my late sister (cancer) it will be a cold day in hell before I go anywhere near the NHS. Their treatment is set in the dark ages. They treat bodies as machines and never seem to understand any of the holistic approaches. Sadly I think that’s the influence of Pharma.
My aunt was actually dropped on the way into hospital by the ambulance crew and broke her hip. Because the crew did not report the incident, no-one in the hospital believed her or the fact that she was in agony. She died 10 days later from septicaemia.
The original reason for her admittance to hospital was a urinary infection!
Horrific.
Not unique, that’s certain.
The NHS clappers are devil-worshippers.
Great, so again what alternative do you propose?
Cynical but you nailed the points in this. I’ve got one of the original ‘family’ Dr GP. He (& now his daughter) have looked after my mother, me, babies, ailing husband over some 30 years. Due to holiday on March 14th in France I rang him & asked his advice. Should I go or should I stay? Which he gave in a measured and adult way that was proportional & empathetic. I know how lucky I am to have access to such a fantastic service. But he has had to fight off many attempts to ‘merge’ with polyclinic so far successfully and I dread that.
So what else can you do? Quietly take your own life?
which will then be counted as a COVID death
It will certainly be a lockdown death!
Have a good diet, get regular exercise. Limit social media. These things should be at least tried for 2 weeks before any drug is ever given out for mental health issues. It should be the default prescription before pharmaceuticals are even considered.
It’s all very well having a moan to let off a bit of steam, but what is your solution?
If going to your GP is not an option you would recommend, then what alternative would you propose instead?
I have actually been working on this very thing for a year before the damned virus hit. It’s simultaneously the most simple and the most complex thing.
It’s simple in that the best solution is not the medical one. People heal people, positive relationships, love, allowing people to be themselves and feel their emotions, to feel heard and validated. It’s really not that damned complicated.
And yet…. our culture is so exquisitely fucked up that you have a better chance of getting rain in the desert. Families are broken. We damage each other in the belief that there is a constant stream of fish in the sea to replace our lovers, friends and even our families. We have no space and time for one another. Throw in big pharma and the cult of individualism, corporatism…. and what chance do we have?
Incidentally, the possible solution I was putting forward for political policy was to move away from the model of sending people to their GPs and A&E and create a form of walk-in, no registration crisis centre. Organisations like Samaritans do a great job, but people actually need the body language and the mirroring in order to feel someone is empathising with them. A pat on the hand, squeeze on the shoulder, a hug…. these things are small but huge. They are intrinsically part of being human.That cuppa really does have an important place in our culture.
BUT…. Social distancing. I don’t think it’s getting off the ground now.
Mine actually looks stuff up on google in my presence; I kid you not. And to think the seals clapped for this lot for a month and a half!
I generally agree with everything you said Marion. With regard to depression, unfortunately, for someone who has dropped low enough without any support (such as the people they have been locked down from), they will be directed, guided and – quite frankly – bullied into going to the GP. It’s what you’re supposed to do, and someone feeling that low, by definition, is probably lacking the mental resources to cognitively weigh their options. If someone has gotten to the point that they are prepared to end their life and they are beyond that level of cognitive reasoning.
That said, PTSD is another beast entirely. Seeing and hearing shit that isn’t there. Having a metaphorical heart attack every time you hear the faintest noise. Not being able to sleep. Sweating and hyperventilating in fight/fight/freeze responses…. oh yeah, and some people regularly become paralysed. You’d probably be going to see your GP if it happened to you. Whether that’s truly advisable or not is another topic!! In my opinion, no, not under any circumstance. But it’s pretty terrifying and hard to blame someone for reaching out for help.
Many more than three cheers for Lord G.
In a sane world, he would be dunning the country. Instead, we get rubbish.
running, not dunning! Doh!
Somebody said they found an edit button? Where?
I think the ones currently in power are dunning the country!
Annie, it’s the little wheel icon that you’ll see on the bottom right of anything you post. Not sure when it first materialised, but it’s a godsend!
Thank you!!
Oh, yes. Excellent spot!!!
The wheel to edit comes and goes randomly!
Adds to the thrill of the experience?
I thought you’d all suffered enough, so I turned on the edit function. Be careful, though, it only works for 15 minutes or until somebody replies to you.
But GPs are currently operating from behind locked doors and certainly won’t let you in at the moment because you’re feeling a bit depressed… From my long experience, they don’t have a clue how to manage mental illness at the best of times.
Never mind, they can apparently auscultate your chest over the phone, so they must be well up with voodoo.
PS, found little wheel, yeah!
‘Having just read Lord Sumption‘s masterful analysis in the M o S, I wonder whether an administration which seems to have neither truly held convictions nor moral courage, will ever make full restitution for this awful mess.
They seem to be forever on the back foot, reacting unconvincingly after whichever event currently grabs the headlines- think BLM for starters and the statue wars.
The imposition of regulations rather than the guidance mentioned in the article is indicative of weakness and panic, rather than the candour and resolve which were badly needed.
And if this pathogen really was assumed to be the deadliest and latest , the top of the disease hierarchy, why wasn’t it dealt with on a unified UK basis, such that public health decisions were made to apply equally everywhere, rather than the fragmented and divisive devolved point scorings which we now endure.
Surely devolved sensibilities could have been put to one side for once, for the greatest good of the greatest number?
Sadly, I’ve now lost all faith in politicians ; whether this disaffection will be permanent remains to be seen.
Since health is a devolved issue, I think either Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster would all have had to agree to follow Westminster’s lead throughout (they did for the first few weeks) or Westminster would have had to rescind devolution. Can you imagine the fuss that Sturgeon would have made if they’d done that?
Sadly, yes I can.
And she would have spun it into yet another indydemandum, but, it would have been gratifying to witness some joined up thinking and while we were supposedly grappling with Black Death 2020.
I don’t think greatest good was every part of the agenda.
Some really good stuff here. Schools – I despair – and as for giving your contact details to go for a pint? Sinking the knife ever deeper into small businesses, is this really incompetence do we think?
Re: the pilot’s piece: ‘and yet here in Italy, which is supposedly only a week or two ahead of us, there are very few obvious rules in force. People are wearing face-masks to go into shops and are using the hand wash on the way in’
I wouldn’t call that normal and I would question why these measures are in place, anywhere. I will continue to resist them here in the UK and I will not willingly go anywhere that tries to enforce them.
hear! hear!
… bravo!
They’re just determined to track our movements…bollocks to that.
As long as showing official ID isn’t required, can’t we just use a fake name and address. Not Mickey Mouse etc. too obvious. But something credible, like Dave Walker from Gladstone St. etc. I’m sure the pubs won’t bother to check them.
It would be nice to think that no visitors would be using the T&T app to start with.
Yes. We must go forth and lie for our country.
Pay cash if possible – not traceable.
Difficult if you’re preordering via an app.
Funy how the govt is so useless at predicting outcomes unless it comes to stitching us up.
I went to my local vet simply to pick flea/tick treatment for my dog. I had to stand outside and ring the bell for several minutes before being allowed in to stand behind a line. I was told to put on a mask from a box; I refused . For a few seconds they were stumped, furtive whispering, but then said I could have the treatment. When I moved towards the terminal, two young women leapt back in alarm! I am 72 years old and apparently in far more danger than them. At times like that you wonder if you are the only sane one left alive.
This sh..t is getting more disgusting and people are getting more idotic hypocondriacs everyday..i just want to wake up..
Honestly, you’re not alone. The only way us other oldies can rationalise this chilling behaviour is that it is being done to them and they can’t see it. I challenged some youngsters who were cringing away from us today, telling them that just because we’re old doesn’t mean that we have The Virus and that anyway it has gone away. My husband said that one of the girls looked outraged that I’d spoken to them. Divide and rule – great isn’t it?
For years I’ve been signing into old social clubs with fake names so this will be second nature to me. You don’t actually expect the government to make a plan and stick to it do you? The best course of action is to laugh to yourself because Hancock et al are dreaming if they truly believe they have half of the power they think they have. These clowns couldn’t lead a conga
“More than 50,000 family doctors are being issued with guidance to help them detect post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) triggered by the pandemic.”
“traumatic stress” could be the effect of repeated rows with a spouse or even worse perhaps with children. Children could also be traumatised by witnessing parents rowing.
Being forced together by lockdown might be good for many families, but equally, I think it could be traumatic for others who are no longer able to get away from each other for any length of time.
There could be violence as well of course. Our culture doesn’t handle that well. Generally pointing fingers at perpetrators of violence (often men) while forgetting that it’s sometimes happening at the end point of bitter rows for which both parties are ultimately responsible.
In my opinion, this year has demonstrated very clearly that technologically advanced cultures are emotionally backward, unable to properly assess fear and risk and often totally unaware of their own emotional cues and triggers.
There are some ways of dealing with these traumas that don’t involve drugs, but I think each must find their own way of handling emotional crises.
Re the Pandemic League Table…
With only one exception in the last 500 years, no pandemic – almost least of all the current farce – has claimed over 1% of the world’s population. Indeed, the average cull in the last 500 years of wannabe plagues, excluding Spanish Flu, accounted for just 0.15% of humanity. COVID scores only 3% of that measly average. And we know now, in these illuminating (incendiary) if not enlightened times, that not all of those lives mattered anyway.
Why would anyone ever ‘listen to the science’. (Greta: tipping-point-greta-thunberg-hails-black-lives-matter-protests) again? Listen to the data!!
This child is clearly anorexic, hence the baggy clothes. Look at the black smudges under her eyes. She’s malnourished. So much for her vegan diet, she looks hideously unhealthy. Her parents should be prosecuted for abuse.
Actually I would suspect her actual condition is not Asperger’s but foetal alcohol syndrome – just google the effects of this. Her mother is known to drink a lot so this is not as crazy as it might sound. And if you google pictures of kids with the condition Greta looks just like them! She bears little resemblance to either parent…
https://healthjade.net/fasd/
I googled pics of Greta. She looked quite normal in her early teens.
Here’s an example. Don’t know the date of the pic but it clearly isn’t recent: https://www.dw.com/en/greta-thunberg-to-star-in-own-tv-series/a-52335278
There were legal moves in Sweden last year to examine her situation for possible abuse. I didn’t follow the story.
People on the left, with almost no exceptions, haven’t read or listened to any other information other than what is told to them by other left wingers. I could tell you what they believe no problem but if you ask them about Conservatism, Individualism, Free Trade etc they haven’t read or watched a single thing. These people are so virtuous that they needn’t bother with so called right wing people because right wing people, well, they’re nasty bigots aren’t they? Everyone knows that. This is their pathetic excuse for being wilfully ignorant of anything other than the smell of their own bullshit. It cracks me up the number of lefties upon getting older and more responsible that quietly let go of their belief in socialism, it cracks me up more to see anyone over the age of 40 still spouting socialism. These people can’t be helped and will always be a threat to humanity. It’s almost like lefties don’t want personal responsibility or personal freedom. They do it because they, to a man, do all the things they cause right wing people of. They are totally selfish and live by a i’m all right jack fuck you attitude. They, off course, keep this hidden and that’ where the virtue comes to the rescue for them. They can pretend to support every cause under the sun but unreality they’re snivelling lying wankers that wouldn’t lift a finger to help anyone, most of them not even themselves.
In. my small village the people who have offered me help with shopping are not the ones who have stood outside their houses virtue signalling on Thursday nights. The younger people next door put up a big moral posturing notice on their gate thanking everyone, NHS, delivery drivers etc, but have offered no help to older ones nearby.
That figures.
But it can be hard to give help, let alone get it. I gave my e-mail to two well-meaning village people at the start of this bollox, volunteering to walk dogs, bring shopping etc. Within a day, those people had become the channel for a never-ending stream of bad news, orders, prohibitions and threats from the Welsh Supreme Coviet via the servile county council. From that same day onwards I redirected all their e-mails straight into my junk folder. End of. And yet, as I said, the two villagers meant well.
No virtuous clapping round my way. No Christian charity either – not even a visit from any Witnesses.
The local Muslim community, on the other hand, came to ask if I needed to receive food parcels.
I’m 37 and embarrassed to say that I am a left wing person, although many of my friends are right wing and Libertarians, and I have always given credit where credit was due. Voted for the best person for the job – sometimes an independent right wing person. Your cutoff of 40 is interesting, because I’m starting to seriously question if I still identify as left wing. On paper, I still believe in these ideologies, but I can’t stand the hypocrisy. I’ve been aware of it (the hypocrisy) since about 2016 when I started to be able to discern who the left wing authoritarians were. (And the bloody social justice warriors). But now…. it’s freakin’ all of them!!!
Yes, however I think the lockdown left may be in for a shock. Whilst polls may not show it yet, many of the left’s voters tend to be younger and hit harder by lockdown. So much for challenging inequality – the left have thrown the self employed, entrepreneurial etc to the dogs by stopping their work and cancelling their social life. I do wonder if this might feed through into long term loss of support for left parties/ policies.
Apologies for posting this again – I posted it by mistake in yesterday’s (June 20) comment section, not realising the site had since been updated. (To anyone moderating, please feel free to delete my identical post on yesterday’s comment thread, and apologies for my mistake!)
Reading articles like Rod Liddle’s in the Times today ( https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/a-government-that-helps-people-in-a-crisis-doesnt-sound-so-bad-now-does-it-p3x8px2ts ) make me despair over whether this sort of pro-lockdown narrative – and in particular the idea of society being divided into virtuous, caring communitarians vs. irresponsible right-wing libertarians who only care about the economy – is ever going to be seriously challenged. (and “let the vulnerable die” seems to have happened widely here anyway, and in many other places like Belgium and NYC, thanks to care home and hospital infection. The term “protect and survive” also doesn’t really inspire much confidence if you think of its Cold War origins)
I do agree with Rod Liddle’s comments about the left and self-flagellating identity politics, though – I considered myself more or less a leftie until the recent media response to the BLM protests has made me unsure what, if any, side I’m on – but I don’t really want to talk about that here! (except in the context of the virus spreading – or not – as a result of non-distanced protests)
The BBC’s latest “second wave” article (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53113785), hasn’t helped my mood today either. (I mean the article’s scaremongering attitude based on the surely now discredited Spanish Flu comparison, and the fact that it will be taken as gospel by most readers – not the possibility or otherwise of a second wave!)
Another thing that kind of disturbs me is how the dexamethasone breakthrough is heralded as the first good news in the fight against Covid-19. It’s certainly great that severely affected people have a better chance of survival, but it seems like basically none of the last few month’s findings relating to lower IFR, low infectiousness of asymptomatic cases, high proportion of the latter, etc. seem to have even got through to the wider public consciousness, let alone regarded as good news.
The lack of any noticeable uptick due to the BLM protests also doesn’t seem to have been reported much, except by generally sceptical sources like the Spectactor.
It makes me sceptical that even if the recent research into T-cell immune responses giving a large percentage of the population some degree of immunity (see here for example: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/covid-19-t-cells/ ) were conclusively proven to be true, and reported in national news sources – would people still carry on regarding Covid-19 as an unprecedented existential threat? When I first read about the T-cell thing a couple of weeks ago, I really thought this – if the science turns out to be correct – could be the breakthrough that persuades people to get back to normal. But now I’m not so sure!
(Apologies for the long post BTW but this is the first time I’ve actually posted here,,, I’ve been following the Lockdown Sceptics blog for over a month and have found it a genuine lifeline knowing at least some other people feel the same way I do)
Welcome to the home of sanity! No zombies here! Be free along with us!
Welcome to the light side, Drawde!
Firstly, the entirely false distinction between concern for the economy and concern for lives is never going to go away, so I suggest you don’t spend too much time worrying about it any more than you would normally spend time worrying about old-style Marxist leftist ideals and/or new-style wokeist leftist ideals. At its core is a fairly childish failure to understand that indirect effects (increasing global wealth increases wealth for everyone, though not necessarily proportionately) are usually, if not almost always, more effective than direct state intervention (somebody must do something!). Global capitalism has done far more to lift people around the world out of poverty in the last 50 years than any stateist interventionist policy.
Secondly, worries about the second wave will go away when the second wave doesn’t happen. Which it won’t. It’s admittedly very worrying that the government is joining in with the BBC and the Guardian in trying to make us all terrified that it will, but I firmly believe that such a majority of the population is getting bored and thinking “bullshit” (even subconsciously) that the fear narrative will only fray more and more from here. In a few weeks, when Hancock appears on Marr sand starts talking about “second wave, second waaaaave!” Anyone who’s watching will switch off. I’d be amazed if even the press briefings last more than a few weeks longer (“nope, nobody died yesterday either. We still have a few infections though.” Not good television).
Finally on dexamethazone – nobody outside niche sites have been reporting on IFR, on likely infection rates, on potential non-antibody immunity at all. They won’t because it doesn’t fit the narrative. Once these studies start to be peer reviewed and published, they will increasingly start to be picked up and by that time, the narrative will be changing. In the meantime “it turns out that Covid isn’t all that deadly or infectious and most people who are ever going to get it have probably had it” would be an uncomfortable fit with the other stories being reported about the hugely overweight 38 year old from Bolton who had a nasty time in hospital and is lucky to be alive.
Thanks for your reply!
To be honest I’ve been on the “light side” for most of the last 3 months, more or less right from the beginning of lockdown. At the very least I thought the draconian “stay at home or else” rules were totally out of proportion, especially outside dense urban areas. From mid-April onwards my doubts crystallised into a horrible suspicion that it was all a mistake and that getting out of lockdown would be a lot harder than getting in.
It’s just that I discovered the Lockdown Sceptics blog only about a month ago! I still check on some news sources like the BBC as it can be informative, if sometimes depressing, what stories they choose to publish and how they’re reported.
Yeah I was going to mention that Liddle article. Dreadful! What’s happened to him? Does he want to be liked by Emily and the crew? And the way he tries to shoehorn in a class basis to it all – blaming the upper classes with their ski holidays bringing death to the proletariat. Ridiculous.
Yes, I saw Liddle’s piece – well below his usual standard. He tells us ex cathedra that the free market offers the ill nothing but death. No, ducky – that’s what the command economy gives out – in lousy hospitals and fly-blown care homes. The free market – were it allowed to operate in matters medical – would offer the sort of service they take for granted in Germany. The trouble with Liddle is a strange scuttle to the left when the chips are down. For him choice is a burden and the state is there to choose for you – hence his attitude to academies and free schools. True, he is holding out against the vile cant of “BLM” and on cultural issues he has been ahead of the curve. But like so many in the media, he isn’t to be relied upon. Too much socialilst nonsense swirls about that noddle.
I used to buy a copy of the Sun on Thursdays just for Liddles column. I enjoyed his style of criticism of stuff he found annoying. Then, depressingly, I found out he was pro-lockdown. So I stopped.
If Liddle was a stick of rock he would have a red bar all the way through the middle. His default mode in a crisis is to blame the well off even though he is one of them. Unfortunately its a lot more complicated than that…its the ideas that are important not the class one is born into. If we had had to rely on an NHS equivalent to be fed through the ‘pandemic’ we would all have starved to death!
Actually the BLM protests and lack of spikes thereafter may turn out to be useful extra ‘ammunition’ for Simon Dolan in challenging the government’s argument re the supposed infectiousness of the virus..!
First of all, thank you for the guidance on quoting articles behind a paywall Toby. I was wondering about that! Usually I just quote a few lines to show what the article is about, and then give the link, so I hope that’s ok?
Secondly – I feel a rant coming on here – what planet is Matt Hancock on?! His plans for pubs is just ludicrous and totally unnecessary, and as for blaming Apple for his shortcomings over the now notorious app, words fail. Thankfully Apple are big enough to take it I’m sure, and I trust them with the security of my iPhone far more than I do any government. For the record, Apple said they hadn’t even been approached by the government …. so that’s another Hancock lie then. He is way out of his depth and truly needs replacing.
PS – Oh I’ve found an edit button – yay!
The pub sign in sheet idea is just crazy. It makes no sense even within the senseless framework of the government’s coronavirus strategy. I thought the whole tracking and tracing thing was premised on the idea that those you spent 10 minutes or so within 2m or 1m or whatever number they land on, were the people who would be traced. What does some poor punter on the other side of the socially distanced bar or beer garden have to do with it? I waste my time reading this garbage that they churn out, and apparently Matt Hancock can’t be bothered to remember how it’s all meant to work from one week to the next. Agree about Apple too, I don’t see why it’s suddenly their job to do Matt’s homework.
How many Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse from Buckingham Palace will be in a pub at any one time?
Or Francis Uquart Johnson
I P Freely and Tyler Durden too
Hancock genuinely seems to think that the UK population is a class of 8-year-olds and he is the de facto Headmaster. Now we have to be marked off on the morning register before we can go and spend our money in the pub.
Possibly the government are realising that people are not going to download the tracing app in large enough numbers (or at all) and so are trying to find other ways of tracking people and harvesting their personal details without having to bother with legislation (as they now know that any legislation might be challenged in the courts)?
Well said!
I’ve just seen Lord Sumption’s assessment of Matt Hancock in last week’s Spectator: “With his lecturing manner, authoritarian assumptions and snarling threats, Mr Hancock has resembled nothing so much as the petulant headmaster of a third-rate school.”
Unfortunately he then goes on to be a little over-optimistic: “Only now that the public has stopped believing his exaggerated messages of doom is Hancock beginning to recognise the other dimension.” Definitely spoke too soon on that one!
PTSD? I’m sure the epidemic hasn’t caused it, except for perhaps a few nurses in the most ovrwhelmed of hospitals, oh wait none were actually overwhelmed, though some of the harder hit areas might well give tough working conditions. But the lockdown could easily have caused some: the effect of fear-porn propaganda on the populace; the hatred people receive when they enter what locals have decided is their “clean” patch; the threat of a thug in a police unfirom arresting you for exercising your rights, or merely exercising; the queueing and fear that the shops will have run out of what you want because the crowd has taken it first; the fears for those who don’t have a car that they can’t get anywhere as public transport has been so scaled back; the threat of an app to track your entire life; the threat of a cashless economy to interfere with your right to engage in spending what you want with who you want without thrid parties interfering or observong; the loss of jobs; the loss of income; the inability to visit loved ones, perhaps even loved ones dying of things like cancer who deserve you at their bedsides; government threatening that if people don’t all “behave” they’ll be even more illegally draconian… The lockdown can certainly cause PTSD for people who are on the receiving end of several of these forms of abuse.
P.S. That Pilot has great points. I remember my first visit to an EU country as an adult, went on a tour of some war museums in France, you really do see their efficiency and lack of rule and red-tape as compared to us. When there was a road crash in France, the local services had fully cleared the whole road in under 20 minutes. There weren’t health and safety signs warning of every little drop, trippable surface or pointy object. Crumbling old buildings were embraced as heritage, not fenced off with danger notices… I voted remain as I thought sticking with the EU could make us more like that. I’m genuinely shocked to see those european nations, usually so much more rational than us, having enacted such terrible lockdowns against their people. Britain needs to up its game, copy all the good parts of european life, stick with our allies, and at the same time give no place to draconiansim of any kind, stand up for europe’s people and call out the damage that other countries did with their lockdowns, as well as having the current UK government brought to trial for our own.
If only (esp the last sentence)!
Coronaberg Trials.
As Argus Filch says, ‘I want to see some PUNISHMENT!’
Corporeal punishment all of them. Mancub Handsoncock is the golden ticket for punishment, all of us want that one
Well said.
Also on the PTSD subject, PTSD is often related to the dread that terrible things may happen again. After you government has shown its ability, and the public’s willingness to aid it, in enforcing draconian abuses of human rights, anyone with sense will fea this could happen again. Now that it’s been done once the government could decide at any second to lock down for any reason, and they know that the marching morons will be supporting them. If this worry is surely going to strengthen the risk of PTSD amongst the rational people who recognise the lockdown was wrong then, and will be wrong at any future time.
Good to see some advice on PTSD from the RCGP . For your information most GP s sign up to this body for a year after taking the exam MRCGP and subsequently leave as the cost/ benefit ratio is rather limited.
Throughout this pandemic whilst the dentists enjoyed their payed holiday and the majority of hospital staff have been doing tik tok routine rehearsals ( some hospital trusts excluded ) at least GP s have been giving a sort of service.
Problems have arisen because the service offered has been limited to avoid patient contact . It may come as a surprise to the reader but an experienced GP ususally makes a diagnosis within 30 seconds of the patients arrival indeed the eyeballing of a patient is crucial .
With telephone consultations this is impossible and I am very aware that sadly mistakes have been made and I think they will vastly outnumber any fatalities from Covid in the under 45 age group.
There have been multiple problems in general practice for years and I think this ‘crisis’ has exacerbated them. Chief among them has been the loss of the concept of the ‘family doctor’. It used to be completely normal for a single GP to look after a patient for decades. They knew the history and they didn’t need to look at the records. That’s virtually gone now, through the expansion of practice sizes and the work to rule ethos of young medics. Post-Blair, junior doctors have been willing participants in the de-professionalisation of their own sector.
That said, GPs have indeed been working full time throughout – unlike many of their colleagues in specialist medicine and their cousins in dentistry – and have been forced to do so using limiting tools, so I personally don’t have them on my list of people who should be up against the wall come the revolution
I should add – I’m excluding you from any criticism of the profession above, Peter, because as far as I can tell, you sound like one of the good ones.
Yes, sorry Peter. I do have a rant about the NHS further down these threads, mainly because of the lack of care in hospitals for my late mother and late sister. It was appalling. I do absolutely agree that there are many good GPs out there struggling to do their best in a very difficult system, and you sound like one of those. Thank you for caring.
If you *already have* PTSD, particularly any that was caused by being overpowered, losing your freedom, being unable to get away, or trapped then I can see how lockdown would increase your PTSD, particularly if you are isolated. I can also see how if you had a very sick relative, and felt unable to be with them, or to comfort them, or follow all the rituals that allow us to process death, including a wake, that could make processing grief much, much harder. I would also imagine having to die in the dreadful circumstances we have created with this lockdown must have been terribly distressing and frightening for those surrounded by strangers, all dressed in PPE suits. Must have been awful.
But sitting at home watching netflix giving you PTSD, no chance. Not being able to see your girlfriend, or go to the gym, might make you anxious, but that’s not PTSD.
Trapped at home with an abusive partner, or a child abusing step dad, definitely. Watching everything you’ve worked for crumble in front of your eyes, and being unable to save yourself, your home, or feed your kids, for sure. People commit suicide over less.
I’m really concerned by the CQC suspension of inspections of residential homes for disabled young people (we all remember the abuse scandals) and the dreadful conditions some elderly people are being kept in, I would imagine their relatives are going out of their minds with worry, lots of parents cannot even know whether their severely disabled or autistic child is OK let alone see them, and many loved ones worry about their elderly relative’s distress but are helpless to intervene. I really, really feel for them, it must be such an anxious and frustrating time, feeling helpless.
PTSD is caused when someone (in fact their nervous system) is overwhelmed by stress, but their fight or flight instinct is thwarted, where they are helpless, or overpowered. Fight for flight (or freeze) is an incredibly powerful drive, it’s what surges through a mother’s body when she suddenly discovers the strength of ten men to life a car off her trapped child. When it’s got nowhere to go, that’s when you blow a circuit setting up PTSD. It’s when people instinctively needed to act, and they can not. It doesn’t need to be a necessarily horrific incident to create it (rape, or war say), just something where the fear and stress is overwhelming, but you cannot act to save yourself.
It cheapens this dreadful situation and the suffering of many people with PTSD and indeed the suffering of lockdown (domestic abuse, child abuse), to bandy it around like a buzzword, being a bit stressed and down, is not PTSD, it’s already a much misunderstood phenomenon. That said, I don’t doubt that lockdown has left many many adults and children absolutely crushed, I think we’ve not even heard the first of the horror stories.
(My brother is a trauma psychotherapist).
Looking once more at the defence offered by government lawyers to the Dolan action challenging lockdown measures, it contains some strange stuff:
‘…there is no dispute that it is highly contagious and particularly easily spread in gatherings of people.’
‘In that context, your letter makes no attempt to explain the basis for your client’s arbitrary suggestion that the only restriction he considers could be justified is in respect of gatherings of over 100 people.’
Arbitrary? This, from the government 19 March, prior to lockdown:
‘Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall)….’
‘In the UK, a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) is defined according to the following criteria:
‘As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.’
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid
Tim – that’s explosive, or it should be, at least.
‘…there is no dispute that it is highly contagious and particularly easily spread in gatherings of people.’
I distinctly remember, pre-lockdown, Whitty and Vallance assuring us that it was ok to go to an umpteen thousand-strong football match because it couldn’t couldn’t easily be caught there.
Yes, I heard that one. It was locking people up inside that was dangerous, they said.
At that time.
Sumption is masterly. It just goes to show that one might learn from anyone – even a Remainer given to bursts of snobbery. In this instance, he is no less than perfectly correct. In particular, he identifies an emotion at the heart of the chaos – a feeling frequently found there – and its name is panic. And the begetter of that panic is called Johnson. It is astonishing, in a way, that a leader who was able to mock the conventions of a venerable debating chamber such as the Oxford Union when he himself was young, should turn out such a spineless, lily livered ditherer; but look again at that earlier episode and you note the lack of gravity, the option for the easy laugh, above all the total failue to DECIDE. People say he’s a great speaker. Not so; he is a mere buffoon. It takes a wit of high art to observe the conventions and shine in spite of them. Anyone can get attention by breaking the conventions. And what, after all, did he add to the debate? Was anyone enlightened as to the business in hand? For years, Britain has suffered from a political class trained in nothing but the art of speech, as if we were a Greek Republic of the fifth century BC. In Johnson, this corruption has reached its seedy apogee in a faithless, cowardly rhetor who can’t even abide by the conventions of his training.
The emotion was panic, but the onlie begetter was not Johnson but Cummings. Who was seen running home from Downing Street? Who decided to bundle family into car and flee cross country to a safe haven late one evening? Not Mr Keep Calm and Carry On but Mr Panic and Bolt.
He had one reflective moment in the Rose Garden when asked if he’d made mistakes, and hesitated before saying he had. He knows that his worst was bad timing; too late into too harsh lockdown, and far too late out of it to avoid the catastrophic side effects, not limited to the economy. Johnson isn’t enough of a statesman and team player to take from an unstable personality what they can give you, and discard the dross. Being surrounded by a 10th rate team of yes men doesn’t help.
Quite so. But he can hardly escape blame for the team, he appointed them. As for Cummings – I can easily believe that the panic began with him. He insisted on this over-reaction, as if it were the catastrophe he has spent his life dreading and longing for. A reluctant, incompetent, sleepy government of sheep has been bulldozed into half-baked, misconceived action by a staring, freakish collie that should have been sent to the vet long ago. And Farmer Boris looks on bewildered, lumbering in the wake of his departing flock with pitiful cries of “Cripes!”
Cummings is a psychopath. I can see him orchestrating this and observing with interest and curiosity rather than concern for the outcome.
Indeed. His recent advert for jobs in government showed he was.
“ too late into too harsh lockdown”
So how early and how soft? I’ve seen nothing to suggest that the public encouragement to practice better hygiene and be a little wary up to and including 16th March would have produced any worse a result than what we have at the moment.
Guardian keep everyone alert. Was there a first wave in Oz?
High risk of coronavirus second wave as Australian shops and workplaces reopen, report says
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/21/high-risk-of-coronavirus-second-wave-as-australian-shops-and-workplaces-reopen-report-says
While the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has said Australia is pursuing a strategy of “suppression” and not “elimination” of the virus, the lead author of the Grattan report, health economist Stephen Duckett, said: “It’s really the states driving the public health response … and they’re going for zero”
No significant first wave I don’t think. They’re currently on 293 cases and 4 deaths per million, whereas most of Europe is in the thousands of cases per million – UK 4000-odd, Spain 6000-odd, for example, and well into the hundreds of deaths per million (UK on 628 for example). So it doesn’t look like the first Australian wave ever got very far…
However, it hasn’t stopped the Australian government from announcing the country will be closed until some undefined point in 2021 at the earliest. Basically nobody in, nobody out (apart from to and from New Zealand, and the usual exceptions).
I was hoping the likes of Qantas would contest this in the courts, but they probably don’t have much spare cash for that kind of thing right now.
Surely both Australia and NZ, by trying to eliminate the virus, leave themselves open to a “2nd wave” as they’ve not allowed it to work its way through the population. They’ll be looking over their shoulders for years to come.
Oh dear!
RIP THE KRANKIES
As it should, it looks like the uk government are going to refuse the scottish government / snp request to further extend the furloughing scheme beyond october.
As I said in a previous post, its finally time to hold the scottish government to account after 20 years of…..well not very much as it happens!
As wee nicola has repeatedly said, scotland has its own plan for managing the virus and clearly now has the monetary powers to do something different to further support tourism, etc.
With the next scottish elections in may, this winter will finally be the defining moment for the scottish government / snp.
Fan-dabi-dozi!
“…something so winning about this befuddled yet charismatic 19 year-old….”.
There is NOTHING winning about this buffoon, pretending he’s Winston Churchill during the Covid-19 farce. I never thought I was good enough for Cambridge or Oxford University – given certain high profile idiots who’ve been to either of them, how wrong I was.
DavidC
I had the best A Level results in my school, only the boys were invited to apply – I feel now I dodged a bullet!
The great achievement of Johnson is to promote equality by helping to eliminate positive discrimination in favour of people with Oxbridge degrees.
They are actually both good universities mostly full of smart people but in absolute terms the number of smart people who didn’t go to Oxbridge vastly exceeds the number who did. But this isn’t reflected in a lot of workplaces where basically Oxbridge types mostly only hire other Oxbridge types and it’s a somewhat unhealthy clique.
I think the Rhodes Must Fall mob has done a rather better job of putting people off Oxbridge than Boris.
I never applied to Oxbridge. I got into my first choice the University of Manchester.
Invited? Who invited them? Oxbridge colleges don’t invite people to apply and never have – people apply. If your school didn’t think it was worthwhile for a girl to apply to Oxbridge, that’s a problem with the school, not with the Oxbridge colleges.
I assumed she meant the school.
When I said I wanted to go to Cambridge, the response from my girls’ grammar school was “Oh we’re not geared up for that.”
True. I used to be involved in admissions. Cambridge colleges (can’t speak for Oxford) bend over backwards to encourage applicants from all kinds of schools.
There are two great problems. First, pigheaded head teachers who actively deter their pupils from applying, out of reverse snobbery.
Secondly, the sad fact that applicants from ‘disadvantaged’ schools may not get in because it’s obvious that they simply wouldn’t be capable of following the course. This is equally true of failing candidates from advantaged schools, but to the ‘disadvantaged’ it’s always proof that they have been unfairly treated.
Surely that’s an issue for your school – shame on them!
Regarding the piece above relating to Phil Shannon and
The same can be said about the “global warming” issue and the climate change fanatics failings (“the science is settled”). As this guy claims to be “green left” can he honestly say that he does not also have the same tendency to behave in the described stylistic ways to climate change sceptics.
Re the Reading murders. So the first victim has been revealed to be a white school teacher . Murdered by a Libyan muslim known to MI5 .
Having watched the footballers again take the knee today will the virtue signalling MSM and corporates now accept that All lives matter or will this incident, a white person murdered by a racist BAME person just be swept under the table like it usually is
Yes I believe it will. It’s time the government grew a pair & cracked down on all of this now!
I think the correct expression is “Bend the knee”.
No, the correct expression is ‘grovel.’
From reading what the co-HeadTeachers of his school said about him, I’m guessing he was at the BLM event.
This is clear it will need to be accelerated rather soon.
Lord Sumption has been reading the SAGE minutes:
Sage appears to have envisaged guidance rather than compulsion. ‘Citizens’, the behavioural scientists advised, ‘should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk.’ If this advice had been followed, it would have left almost all the economically active members of the population free to earn their livings and sustain the economy.
Wow!
However were the government not also advised to ramp up the sense of personal risk to health, in order to make them comply?
Agreed, but HMG might have asked the question that triggered that response. Does have the air of Cummings about it.
100% the UK Gov were advised to increase the sense of threat in individuals by the SAGE SPI-B group. Behavioural scientists. A non peer reviewed report authored by 2 ‘scientists’ and perhaps read by nine – from memory – the leaked document gives the precise detail.
Conspiring to ncrease the threat level in individuals – isn’t that an aim of terrorism?
Visit ukcolumn.org for an article which links to the leaked SPI-B report.
At last, non-zombies in Wales are realising that they can venture out without fear of instant arrest by the Gestapo. At seaside stall (no s.d., obligatory officious notice posted as inconspicuously as possible) got talking to a nice woman and we very quickly agreed that the l.d. had been totally unnecessary and was bollox. I think there are lots of closet sceptics about, who, not having discovered this site, still think they are the only sane person in the country – just as we all did at some time. Please, find them and bring them in.
Said stall, bless it, takes cash only. Two girls came up, had cards only, looked disappointed until a charming chap nearby said he’d pay for their coffee, which he did.
Human beings still exist. Look for them. They are precious.
Severely damaged four notices forbidding ‘social gatherings’. Could not destroy them totally, owing to lack of scissors, but next time…
We have never taken much notice of the ‘rules’ in our village, and have no notices apart from in the supermarkets.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/20/coronavirus-has-downgraded-tiger-wild-cat-could-die-without/
Coronavirus has downgraded from a “tiger to a wild cat” and could die out on its own without a vaccine, an infectious diseases specialist has claimed.
Prof Matteo Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at the Policlinico San Martino hospital in Italy, told The Telegraph that Covid-19 has been losing its virulence in the last month and patients who would have previously died are now recovering.
The expert in critical care said the plummeting number of cases could mean a vaccine is no longer needed as the virus might never return.
I also saw a similar claim the other day from a hospital in Birmingham, they’re finding that the percentage of patients needing ICU is now much lower than it was back in March/April – admittedly based on only a small number of patients.
It’s well known that viruses generally attenuate (become milder) over time. As far as I know this was never taken into account in any of the government’s apocalyptic models and predictions. Wouldn’t it be great if Hancock never gets to take credit for his rubbish vaccine?
“It’s well known that viruses generally attenuate (become milder) over time.”
Is that known for sure? Is it certain that it isn’t people gradually becoming more resistant or immune due to repeated low level doses being a form of inoculation, T-cell immunity building up and so on?
Before Covid I would have automatically assumed that what epidemiologists said was right, but I’m now no longer convinced. If they say it’s the virus becoming milder then I’m inclined to think it’s a better bet that it’s people’s resistance increasing. Remember, these are the people who still think that herd immunity requires >60% of the population to show antibodies even though we know this doesn’t fit the facts.
It’s pretty well established, and it’s not epidemiologists saying so. Viruses become more successful at reproducing by evolving to become less harmful, because the less you’re stopped from interacting with other potential carriers, the more opportunities the virus has to spread.
Epidemiologists don’t care about this, because the timescale of deadly virus becoming a mild virus is longer than the timescale of an epidemic.
“Viruses become more successful at reproducing by evolving to become less harmful”.
To me, this looks like a plausible story for an observed phenomenon – a ‘model’ if you will. But I think we are learning that epidemiologists delude themselves all the time. For them, an explosion of testing looks just like the start of an epidemic and they don’t stop to consider the possibility that there’s another story behind the data. So I’m still not wholly convinced…
But again, it’s not a theory of epidemiologists. If anything, it’s vIrologists, but it’s been established knowledge for such a long time that I’m not even sure that such a specialism existed then.
I suspect you may be arguing with someone who is convinced the theory of evolution is false.
In simplistic terms if a virus kills a host it’s less likely to spread thus making it’s demise more likely. Less virulent strains that don’t kill their host are more likely to spread and thus have a better chance of survival.
Just to add to this, it’s possible that the people who became ill enough to be hospitalised also had a particularly deadly strain which then spreads among the already sick and even healthy staff.
Yes, I understand the story/theory/model, but I also understand that the result can only be observed passively at population level. There is another equally plausible explanation: people’s susceptibility changes over time. Teasing the two apart is not obviously simple to do. As we have seen recently, virologists and immunologists have very little to say on what epidemiologists conjure up, and vice versa. There is received wisdom, and these people bend their findings to breaking point in order to fit the received wisdom.
Yes, the virus that adapts so it doesn’t kill its host is a good story. But that’s all it is, as far as I can tell.
It will be a combination of things but over time the result will either be everyone dies or the virus and host become symbiotic.
Both things are true.
On the one hand, a virus evolves quite rapidly because it’s a very simple little string of genetic material, compared to a human being (for example) and so comparatively small changes can have a big effect. This has been studied and it has been observed to be true. The phenomenon of different genetic mutations of a virus having greater or less great effects on the health of a person who is infected by it has been observed and recorded and is now a matter of fact. This has also been well recorded with SARS-CoV 2 by the way, despite the fact that it has only been around for a matter of months. It has also been a matter of specific genetic study of viruses (as well as virology theory) that less deadly strains of a virus become more prevalent over time. This piece is also a simple example of evolution theory, hence the easy story, but there have been multiple studies that have shown it to be the case across multiple viruses.
It is also true that human beings develop immunity to a virus through antibodies, having been exposed to a virus, which provide a certain degree of future immunity. How long this immunity lasts depends partly on how quickly and how much the virus mutates between exposures. The human immune system can also adapt to produce antibodies to a new virus to which it hasn’t previously been exposed. The degree to which and the speed at which this can happen depends partly on how similar the virus is to viruses the immune system has previously learned to deal with.
Bear in mind as well that the symptoms of a viral infection are in fact often the result of your immune system’s efforts to get rid of the virus, not so,etching that’s being done by the virus itself. All the virus is trying to do is use you as a platform to reproduce.
So human populations become more resistant to a virus over time _and_ viruses tend to become less lethal over time.
Yes, I think both will play a part too.
Viruses “don’t want to die” and “don’t want to kill their host”, if they were capable of having wants and needs. A virus will evolve to become less deadly to its host(s).
And the host doesn’t want to die so its immune system adapts to the latest developments in pathogens. It could be one or the other we’re seeing, or both.
I’m very interested in the idea of innate resistance, or immunity that doesn’t produce antibodies. The tale of the little virus that doesn’t want to die is the received wisdom. Innate resistance and adaptation in the host seems to be a newer, more controversial idea. That’s why I’m more interested in it.
Epidemiologists are not virologists.
In fact, many don’t seem to understand basic human biology.
“Last time I checked, the death of an elderly relative, friend or colleague is certainly very sad.
But it doesn’t cause PTSD.” It can do, if you’ve spent years looking after that person, and they end up dying an awful death in a hospital.
I guess the point is that they were always going to die an awful death in hospital – as are most of us.
Not necessarily. Death is a natural part of life. And it is not always traumatic. Some people die in their sleep. Others die peacefully and surrounded by their families.
Not me! Bloody awful places. Better to take yourself up a mountain (or similar).
Rubbish. No, it doesn’t. I thought I’d seen the last of this fearmongering.
Death is a natural part of life, as is grieving.
I wasn’t fearmongering. I was just trying to make the point that someone can suffer trauma (and its aftermath) as a result of the way someone (finally) dies in hospital (because it can take a long time, and a lot of different personnel, prods, pokes, etc., for someone to die). Just be thankful that (apparently) you’re not someone who’s gone to hell and come only half-way back, because the NHS is the sacred cow that it’s become in popular mythology. The longer I live, the more I realise the stories I have to tell are probably worth telling. (Like the paediatrician I dated who told me that holding babies was beneath him, and that he left that distasteful matter to the nurses.)
In Beijing it looked like coronavirus was gone. Now we’re living with a second wave
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/21/beijing-coronavirus-second-wave-virus-china
By 12 June, 36 cases linked to the Xinfadi market were discovered. Cases began to pop up elsewhere in the country, connected to Beijing. China’s vice-premier called the situation “grave”, prompting fears of more sweeping lockdowns.
Relatively speaking, it was a small outbreak. By comparison, New York City reported 292 new cases on 12 June alone. Nevertheless, Beijing was put in what health officials called “wartime mode” to contain the virus, mobilising medical workers like troops against an insurgency. But who it felt like “war” for, in this case, was determined by social class and geographic proximity.
36 cases does not a second wave make. Think I’ll file this article under fiction.
It’s unbelievable. Surely it must be obvious that this virus is endemic in China and pretty much everywhere else? The virus was already in France and Italy (at least) a month before the first lockdown of Wuhan.
It’s like they’ve been gearing up for all this and now that all these soldiers and tests and things are ready they’re determined to use them.
The only surprising thing is how few cases they are finding. It’s so low that many of them might be false positives. I guess the test isn’t that sensitive so they’re probably just not finding quite a lot of the real cases.
The virus may or may not be natural but the problem it poses is most certainly man made. The myth of the virus (or what it could do) is now more dangerous than the virus itself. If even one person has it then the whole world is apparently at risk.
We are now in the realms of pre-crime and a paradoxical loop. The virus will not be a threat in future because it will not be allowed to infect more than a handful of people before emergency measures are implemented. Regardless of the actual threat the virus poses in future.
The emergency measures won’t work. There’s no way China is going to eradicate this virus. Eventually they will get bored, declare victory and stop chasing their tails. Probably after forcing everyone in China to take their sketchy vaccine.
The question is how will our respective masters kill the monster they created?
Guardian specialises in hyperbolic fiction.
How many dissidents were rounded up and never to be seen again like in Wuhan? No-one in the lines in the videos look that ill.
How is preparing online lessons more tiring than most kinds of office work? Six weeks to recover? It strikes me that teachers will find they have lost considerable social status when this is all over.
I’m one of the admins on the UsForThem Facebook Page for Scotland and some of the stuff the teachers have to say about us…! Kinda like the NHS all over again. Some are lovely, others believe they’re a gift from the gods.
I’ve been mulling over the 1m rule today and I was thinking that when it is announced it might not have all the caveats attached,but no,no chance.I’ve avoided reading any kind of news all day and felt much better for it,why did I make the mistake of looking at the Daily Telegraph site ?.Once a week we used go to a small village restaurant to meet our friends and to us it was the highlight of our week,something to look forward to,our usual routine was a drink in the small lounge sat on the sofas for a pleasant catch up with our friends before going into the also small dining room to sit at adjacent two person tables for our meals.It may not seem very exciting but we all enjoy the food and especially the company and the friendly banter.
But ,government says no !,from what I read I think the new routine would be,wearing a muzzle ,no lounge for drinks (too small), perspex screen between tables (no conversation),no pristine white tablecloth and napkins (probably disposable ones instead),no cutlery on table until brought out with food,disposable menu,probably no iced jug of water on table,probably no salt and pepper shakers on table,limited interaction with waiting staff (we know the staff very well and enjoy our conversations with them) and probably every other lunatic idea to make a visit there abhorrent.Also the chance of a visit by Mr Plod to enforce the rules and being asked to put you details on an ‘electronic register’.
I don’t know whether to scream or cry !,I don’t want to be dramatic but I would sooner stick pins in my eyes than put up with all that to go out for a meal or drink.
We’re like you, satisfied with the simple joys of going for a drink and a meal and a catch up with friends. I’m not interesting in returning to a life of jet setting that I’ve never had. I just want to enjoy basic things. A trip to the gym, then a bite to eat with the Mrs before catching a film.
Fuck sake, we’re not asking for much, are we?
Yes, we are. We are asking to be free. We are asking to be human.
How can a bunch of zombie bullies even imagine things like that?
From now on, we don’t ask. We take.
I take your point, but I take issue with it too:
When this first started I wrote down on a piece of paper “you are free” and put that up on my wall. On another piece of paper I wrote, “the earth is my home”. That’s also on my wall.
You have no need to ask for what you already are. I want nothing from Boris Johnson. You never were not free. You never were not human.
A debate for philosophers. The Epicureans are said to have taught that a man could be happy on the rack. Could never find the idea convincing.
Most true, however, that we must not let slavery, OR DESPAIR, into our heads. That way lies zombification.
Holy cow. Just read the Lord Sumption article in the MOS.
Boris and the gov are fcked.
Coming from the former justice of the Supreme Court! Simon Dolans court case is going to be fun!
Some highlights.
“ Why was the PM so surprised? What did he expect to happen if he closed down the economy for several months and conducted a scorched-earth campaign against the rest of our national life?”
“ Sage appears to have envisaged guidance rather than compulsion. ‘Citizens’, the behavioural scientists advised, ‘should be treated as rational actors, capable of taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk.’”
“ I have had no political allegiance for many years. I have observed the coming and going of governments of one party or another……..You have to go back to the early 1930s to find a British Cabinet as devoid of talent as this one.“
I am very concerned that Simon Dolan may be denied the opportunity for a judicial review, like Robin Tilbrook..
Possibly, but we can only hope
I heard today that the bars in the House of Commons have been open all of the time that we have been suffering under this economic and social strangulation with our pubs anticipating jumping through I don’t know how many hoops just to start business. Can this be true?
I will now be doubly-disobedient and un-observant of the stupid rules around the now dead virus scare..
Have you any proof of that? It would dynamite.
Would be good for Simon Dolan’s case too – if the virus is not dangerous to MPs then why is it dangerous to the population at large? I somehow doubt there was much social distancing going on in that bar either!
Indeed it would.
Dynamite in the Houses of Parliament, where have I heard that before?
Come back, Guy, all is forgiven?
The café has certainly been open all along, because the cattle were complaining about slow service caused by social dis.
Where did you see this?
In the DT, the day Parliament reopened.
When the moronic MPs had a minute’s silence recently, there was no attempt at social distancing in the chamber.
MPs must be special people immune to viruses that will kill everyone else!
I thought that the MPs were all hiding in their mansions?
It actually applies to 1984 as well: the Inner Party had access to all kinds of forbidden pleasures.
You should know that The Palace of Westminster, seems to exist outside of UK law.
The Dutch anti-lock-down/corona policy demonstration was forbidden by the mayor of The Hague. One Twitter account showed this photo.
Apparently the local police had hired a tourist bus from a Dutch company to help out (no idea how/why) with the police. Now here is the irony: the text on the side of the bus states “Meer dan 200 touringcarbedrijven worden met uitsterven bedreigd” or “More than 200 tourist bus companies are threatened with extinction“. That’s a reference to the Dutch lock-down policy destroying the tourism industry.
So a bus which itself is protesting against the corona policies in the Netherlands is used to stop a demonstration against… the corona policies in the Netherlands! You couldn’t make it, could you?
(For the original: https://twitter.com/Poempieloempie/status/1274728585786425344)
Brilliant! Thanks.
Regarding the apps situation someone told me today that Android and iOS phones have already added the Covid19 app on your smartphone – i checked my android and was correct. It’s not switched ‘on’ yet but a quick update can force this.
To view on Android go to Settings, then Google Settings and “COVID 19 exposure notifications” is at the top. For iphone go to Settings, then Privacy, then Health. Click to view the info.
Bit sneaky to add this surreptitiously! Makes you wonder why the government ever bothered to try develop their own app and waste so much money since their track record in IT is appalling! Or just sheer arrogance and incompetence which this government seems to excel in!!!
“For iphone go to Settings, then Privacy, then Health. Click to view the info”
Not on my iPhone , and AFAIK I have installed the latest updates.
Can you delete it?
It’s not an app that’s been added, it’s the capability in the phone’s operating system to support a health tracking app. So, without such an app installed, the phone’s operating system – technically – doesn’t do anything different.
By default, the system setting is switched to “OFF”, but it can’t be deleted as it’s baked into the operating system.
God help us.
It seems to need bluetooth to be on in order to work
Teachers give up their holidays? Who said anything about children Bernard? Watch or read “The National Education Service” in the second season of Yes Prime Minister to understand their thinking.
About that letter from the pilot:
Ever since i came to the UK it all feels like someone a long time ago designed this mechanism that works pretty well and left all this documentation on how to run it. But all of the wisdom that created the mechanism has been lost, and the people in charge of it don’t really know what they’re doing, have no idea how to fix something when it breaks, and they’re basically monkeys pushing buttons.
It’s very odd to see the state of the UK today and realise that this is the same country that single handedly pushed the industrial revolution, and that played a pivotal part in WW2.
Your comment reminds me of the film City of Ember.
Ember is a city in eternal darkness, only kept light by its increasingly unreliable electric system. Other systems are falling apart as well, and stockpiles of food and essentials that have lasted hundreds of years are running out. The city was only meant to last 220 years, and now it has been 241. But the instructions the Builders left have been lost and forgotten.
Or
For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember’s once powerful generator is failing… and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city’s existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever.
Not to mention Idiocracy of course.
Germany coronavirus: Extra police enforce German tower block quarantine
Pretty draconian, enforcing house arrest for a broadly flu-level disease.
Safety uber alles.
Clearly Patrick Henry (a slave owner, apparently) got it wrong, the ringingest declaration is really:
“Give me safety or give me death!”
“If I cannot live forever then don’t let me live a life at all.” kind of sums up the mentality of some of our more foolish fellow citizens.
I often think the most hateful word in the current diseasing of our language is ‘safe’. Particularly in the repulsive phrase ‘stay safe’ (= ‘be a zombie’) and the phrase ‘until it’s 100% safe (= ‘I want to remain a zombie for the rest of my life, and force everybody else to do the same’).
It’s a trap word for us, because we can hardly retort ‘Don’t stay safe’. That’s why I counter with ‘Stay human.’
I noticed the same line of thinking during the brexit fiasco.
“we cannot proceed until the threat of no deal is off the table”
Another form of safetyism.
Stay sane!
Hey, there’s a film about that:
Struggling artist Mark (Lee Ross) wakes up in his flat one morning in the Southampton tower block where he lives to discover the windows and doors have been sealed shut, locking him inside. The bad day just gets worse when he discovers his neighbours – some of whom come breaking through the walls with sledgehammers – are in the same boat, and people in hazmat suits are enforcing a quarantine by any means necessary.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/10/containment-review-terror-in-a-tower-block
That’s appalling. Notice it says cases, not how many have symptoms.
I also notice that the problem at the meat plant must be due to “foreigners”.
Is this where HMG is hoping to lead us?
Greta Thunberg is, as the BBC is fond of reminding us, an Irrefutable Authority on all matters relating to science, politics and society. She tells us (via a helpful BBC audience with her) that the three great causes of BLM, corona lockdown and climtate change are all linked. Indeed they are. They provide a platform for an infinite accumulation of BS. Never mind that no Black person was killed by a Police officers in the the UK in the last year. Never mind that the lockdown has destroyed our economy. Never mind that not a single island anywhere in the world has sunk below the waves because of increased atmospheric CO2. Such inconsistencies are as nought.
Notice too how often some issues are framed as ones of “injustice” or “a need for justice”. The BBC, Sky and ITV have banded about “injustice” and “justice” in cavalier fashion while reporting on BLM (well not really “reporting on” more like “celebrating”). But when innocent people at their leisure in a park in one of our cities are murdered cruelly is there any talk of injustice? No. Because these lives are not weighed in the balance of justice for some reason. Some other measure is applied to them. Tragedy yes, but – as far as the media are concerned – their lost lives serve only to strengthen diversity and determination to make multiculturalism work. No calls for justice, no anger expressed – only sorrow and more sorrow and wonder at the “senselessness” of it all.
“the three great causes of BLM, corona lockdown and climtate change”
Someone on LS recently quoted the Sword of Honour trilogy (matt?). It seems apt here again:
“The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms.“
Yes, it’s a good and relevant quote. The fact that Great Greta, an isolated and inexperienced youth with severe mental health issues is considered to be preternaturally sagacious and perceptive is another sign of the times.
Has everyone seen this film, showing how completely inarticulate Greta is without a script to read from? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohBiFEHl7s
Compare her with the ‘German Greta’, Naomi Seibt, also a teenager (and on the other side of the argument) and you see just how immature and uniformed Greta really is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKET8Hs2aac
I have been amazed by the credence given to the platitudes of St. Greta – in some respects she seems to be regarded as a modern-day Joan of Arc.
I remember thinking that the progress of the human race would become exponential with the advent of the internet, but it seems that we have instead reverted to the fear and superstition of the Dark Ages. The veneer of civilzation is surprisingly thin, and the ‘lockdown’ is a prime example of this.
On a lighter note, Greta does make a great death metal vocalist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kD1zubg3cA
Very funny film, but I maintain (as below) that she is a puppet, because she cannot engage in a conversation without a script!
Grating Greta, the Eternal Teenage Anorak
And if those three don’t work, stand by for aliens on the White House lawn …
too right – those of you who also agree that global warming is BS go to this blog
and it is clear that for the MSM white lives dont matter..
I’m not sure global warming per se is entirely BS – the world probably has been warming slightly in recent decades – but upon that fact a whole mountain of BS has been produced, not least the claim that various places are sinking into the sea because of climate change. Whenever one investigates these claims you find they are rubbish – for instance Miami is built on porous limestone and the weight of human habitation is pressing down on the land, increasing the risk of flooding. Any part of the world is normally either rising or falling due to various factors e.g. Scotland is still rising from after the melting of the glaciers, causing Southern England to sink, if I remember that right.
Global warming is happening but by natural cyclical events. We have only just got out of the last mini ice age… mid 1800’s when the Thames froze every year… I’m all for reducing our impact on the environment but as a species we will never be able to stop a natural phenomenon.
Something has been bothering me about Germany. Attached is the FT graph of Germany’s excess deaths (from this link https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441).
Their average excess deaths have been pretty high in previous years thus potentially masking the current spike of coronavirus deaths.
Can only seem to attach one image so move onto the follow up…
You can see the faint lines in the above image showing quite high excess deaths in previous years. The current year looks like it’s well below at least 2 of the years.
This image is from the NYT (link here https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html) which shows a better image of the graph.
The question is why the sudden drop? I’m struggling to come up with an answer other than they’ve been fudging the data and hiding their death toll within a naturally higher average death rate over previous years. Anybody else got any ideas?
Well if they’ve had a couple of years with high excess deaths (maybe due to more localised conditions e.g. cold/wet winters or maybe migrants from a previous era reaching an age where they begin to die in numbers) then the pool of available victims, to succumb to Covid-19, might have been significantly reduced.
Sorry what I meant was the current excess deaths. The graph goes horizontally then drops suddenly. Other countries show a rapid increase before the drop, just seems odd to me.
Having said that Portugal, Austria and Norway have a similar trajectory.
Since March I’ve been reading that all cover-19 is doing is bringing forward those who would be dead in 3-9 months anyway. I think it was in Italy this was first noticed and I recall the number given was 85% of tend etas were in this category.
Once these poor souls are gone then there is no more “easy pickings” so to speak so the numbers of deaths drops until the numbers of vulnerable people with co-morbidities builds up again.
Now being noticed all over Europe and the USA.
I think it comes back to an ethical and moral argument on just because we can keep someone alive albeit with a very poor quality of life for an extra 10-40 years does it mean we should?
On a personal note I will go for quality of life and drop dead younger than quantity and spend the last10/20/30+ years of existence doped up on numerous drugs with nasty side-effects then dumped into a miserable home to await death for however long that takes.
Agree, but nonetheless, despite all governments *saying* they intended to protect the elderly, they mostly acted in such a way as to ensure these people would die anyway, often by neglect, but also by more deliberate decisions and actions. I do feel this was premeditated, as it happened disproportionately in countries with large numbers of elderly where it was clearly in the governments’ interests to ‘save money’ by reducing the amount of pensions they needed to pay.
My friend has a theory and I’m not sure about it but I’m having a think about it for sure:
In the small print of the equity release paperwork the interest is compounded and that the lifetime loan must be repaid on death or going into long-term care. Sometimes it’s if the 1st person “goes”, sometimes it’s not until both of the people go.
The bank’s get the money “free” from the Bank of England under the fractional reserve banking system. They give you very little of the value of your property then sit and wait adding on “interest” plus interest on interest until you pop your clogs then get your property for a fraction to it’s value or your family pays off the loan and added compounded interest and they make a lot of money for basically nothing.
I thought I’d see how much equity release – 2 of us, early and mid fifties, no mortgage. Equity release company offered us 15% of the property value but totting up the compounded interest and us living to the standard 3 score years and 10 the total “loan” was basically the open market value of the property as it stands now so I can see my friends point. They got told no chance.
After his experiences with his elderly parents and a care home getting them to equity release to pay for care then robbing them blind then almost killing them off he has more knowledge of how all this works than me.
Agree entirely. I believe in life before death, not a living death before death.
So Prince Harry wants to ban Swing Low Sweet Chariot from being sung at matches. How about we don’t? How about he fuck right off and get down on his knees and beg black people to forgive his family for taking stuff out out of Africa so they can put it on their chinless heads.
Nice one!
So I see a headline on the BBC web site:
Stonehenge: Neolithic monument found near sacred site
I’m a bit of an archaeology enthusiast so I would always be interested in anything like that. But I now find myself approaching the BBC article with trepidation. I am braced for some sort of political slant either from the writer or the archaeologists. Maybe the article will be written by someone who finds the idea of anything hinting at an ‘indigenous’ population as abhorrent. Maybe the original Brits will be smeared in some way – perhaps they used captured slaves to build the monument. Or maybe the find will be illustrated with an artist’s impression of a ‘diverse’ crowd with a female chief. Maybe there will be some gratuitous mention of climate change.
Years ago, I wasn’t so cynical. I could watch Time Team, for example, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t be gratuitously woke – it would often feature our own Guy de la Bédoyère for goodness sake.
you are not alone – in the early days of the interweb my home page was the BBC .. Accurate weather, good sports coverage, good news coverage.. and i used to listen to Today and PM. Now i would not treat any news item from BBC as being a purely impartial description of facts. Everything is now tainted with BBC slant. Unfortunately this also applies to other media .. Channel 4 is exactly the same editorial policy. ITV just go with the flow.
Anyway, are you not embarrassed about being associated with such a rightwing racist and mysoginistic paramilitary fascist group as the Trumpton fire brigade. Where is the diversity?
Strange how the BBC are now so interested in grooming
here
I thought it might be an idea to take a walk today in the extensive grounds of a local National Trust property.
Turns out you have to book in advance. Well they can get lost. Except I’m the fool for still paying membership.
I’m aware the National Trust has come in for flak on this site before – what were the conclusions? Just that they are useless busybodies?
Crawlers, cowards, traitors to the generous tradition they are supposed to maintain.
Cancel your membership, and tell them exactly why you are doing so.
Yes, we’re going to cancel and leave them in no doubt why.
There’s nothing like a spontaneous outing on a sunny afternoon.
Or driving past somewhere that looks interesting and deciding to call in …..
Spontaneity is evidently dead.
Yes, that’s it – there wouldn’t have been many people around, considering the size of the grounds, and maybe you feel like going out but maybe not. There are far too many people in our society who like telling others what to do.
22nd June 1984. Two weeks after protests in the UK and still no ‘second wave’ or ‘spike’ in infections, yet the Ministry of Truth still warns of a ‘second wave’ in order to keep the people in fear and subjugation. If people ever find out that the ‘first wave’ wasn’t as unprecedented as the Ministry made out and that lockdown caused more death and more harm than good there could be even more protests, so they’re keeping quiet about that.
Ah but there is always the possibility of the second wave which just about every paper loves to refer to. Sure there is a possibility -just as I might be struck by lightning or winning the lottery.
I’d be astounded if there isn’t a second wave sometime next January.
Although by wave I mean ripple, maybe another 5,000 deaths of the very old and frail.
I am dreading that the government responds with another lockdown.
What number ‘wave’ of influenza are we at now? As that reappears every winter…. we must be due influenza wave 100+ by now
Exactly. It’s simple semantics. Isn’t the ’68 flu still bubbling around?
The problem we’ve had with covid is that the general populace really don’t understand that a lot of people (mostly very old and frail) die, and die every day.
So when the ad starts banging on about it killing indiscriminately and the figures are up over 200 a day, well people thinks it’s the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of a cross section of society dropping put of the sky.
They’ve exploited that mercilessly and although people are wising up now I fear that with a bit of spin and some more of Catchphrase Cummings (IT’S MUTATED) handiwork they can get it going again.
And an average of 450 people die in the UK everyday from cancer. People die. In large numbers every single day, just as new people are born every single day in large numbers (over 2000). People are naturally parochial and are usually ignorant of the bigger picture.
They’re taking such great pains to prime us for a second wave to justify their blatant foot-dragging over ending lockdown.
Unfortunately, I’m sure a second wave can be easily fabricated.
As long as they and the MSM keep saying a positive test is a case there will be a manufactured 2nd wave.
A positive test only mean you have been found to have antibodies, does not mean you are suffering from the virus so why the panic everytime there are few positive tests in a little cluster? To keep the pretence and scam going.
Noticed how this is never explained in the MSM?
ways of circumventing the rules around gatherings of more than 8 people.
we have already identified that having a BLM march is a valid reason for ignoring the laws. the police will not take an action and it has Piers Morgan’s seal of approval
Now the police have confirmed that having a rave or a house party is now a valid reason and the police will take no action. Unfortunately this may lead to rapes and murders .
Rape and murder? That’s ok, it isn’t Covid, is it?
Safety in numbers! We need to get organised….
Yesterday saw the lifting of the state of alarm in Spain after 100 days. There were a lot of pieces in the press about the government’s handling of the Corona panic and most were not complimentary. Some called the government’s policy of house arrest “medieval” and “disproportionate” and pointed to the curtailment of the rights of Spanish citizens during the state of alarm. The legality of the measures has been questioned and there are currently no less than 43 legal challenges to the government’s actions. Hopefully the whole sorry lot will end up behind bars.
Hope so indeed.
Been looking at pix of Spain just now. Horrible. Rank on rank of faceless, muzzled non-persons.
I’d as soon visit the Devil in Hell as go to Spain just now.
Thoughts on this idea in the Mail? A member of SAGE has suggested that those still wanting to social distance wear a ribbon so that other people know to stay clear. I think I’m of the opinion that it’s a good idea if it releases the rest of us back into a proper normal life. Many folk out there are still scared witless, and if wearing a ribbon helps them in thinking others will stay away from them whilst they build up their confidence again, then that’s their right to do so.
Thoughts anyone?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8445717/Sage-adviser-suggests-elderly-people-wear-ribbons-indicate-social-distancing.html
By the way, I don’t agree with this SAGE member’s dismissal of travelling abroad this summer. I’m off to Greece next month to see my family and my little house there . . . If I don’t go now, I may never see one of my family members again due to cancer.
Me neither. Enjoy your holiday as best you can. Myself, I’m looking to get away somewhere in the UK (I usually holiday in the UK btw!) before summer’s end, but not holding my breath (this is by choice, not because I’ll start coughing and spluttering uncontrollably within ten seconds (apparently an urban myth)).
We should force the SAGE members to stay under their beds so the rest of us can get on with Life.
The comments section for that article point out the absurdity.The idea of them ringing bells shouting stay away did particularly amuse me.
Is it a portable version of ‘taking the knee’ or ‘clapping for carers’?
This is as good as an admission that social distancing no longer has anything to do with controlling infection rates, but everything to do with managing the fear level, isn’t it? The theory behind social distancing is that you’re breaking as many chains of transmission as possible by making it much more difficult for the virus to spread from one person to another across the whole of society. If you’re now saying that it need only apply to people who are terrified out of their minds, then it’s no longer a public health tool, it’s a psychological tool.
Yes exactly! Either it’s evidence based and necessary for all, or it’s a load of bilge!
Yes, if a bludgeon is a tool.
The nasty notices plastered everywhere are out of the same armoury. That’s why I tear them down, and feel so good after having done so.
A bludgeon is a tool. It’s a tool for bludgeoning people.
I don’t see why not either. If it’s free choice and not forced, then the rest of us can carry on more normally.
Wear a MAGA hat. Seems to work for me.
I think I should put such people in asylums and
throw away the key, I mean start to build up their confidence again really slowly, usingbig sticks and shocktherapy.If it gives them confidence to come out from under their beds and see people behaving normally, they could be cured without the need for big sticks.
It would help tremendously if the Beeb and the Grad were destroyed but we can’t have everything.
I think it would be a step in the right direction, but why label the elderly, not those who consider themselves vulnerable? That bit is weird – or dodgy, especially as it seems to be the least vulnerable who are the most afraid.
At least if it were offered universally, it reintroduces personal choice and a chance to be treated like an adult. If it removed the “need” for muzzle-wearing and other such silliness, I’d definitely support the idea.
Unfortunately, choice is empowering and I can’t see HMG going for it. Everything they’ve done so far has disempowered us.
Makes me wonder how the idea managed to escape – unless it’s yet another get hopes up then create an anticlimax ploy, so the sheep will accept some more euphemised subjugation.
Let them wear bells – the new lepers. Can’t they be given Greenland or something? Everything the government is doing is to my mind simply a placebo. The level of bedwetting freaks is astronomical and the government knows that if it suddenly said everything is all clear no one would believe them, plus the they’d probably be removed from power and imprisoned for high treason. Politically, they simply can’t call a halt to this, so they’re dragging it out making it look like Coronavirus is like something from The Stand, easing lockdown bit by pathetic bit to pacify the virus fearing zealots irrational fears. Hence masks, making the streets look like a Panini stciker album and 1m plus, whatever that is.
I think they should compartmentalise those like us and those like them. If people want to distance, wear some crap sign, colour or fuck off bell and head gear then let them but don’t pool us together as it simply can’t/won’t/hasn’t work/ed. Its splitting society and I have growing contempt for them which is already sky high. It will end in violence at some point.
A leper bell
We’re all bring treated as lepers right now.
I’d like the zombies to be required to intone ‘zombie, zombie, subhuman approaching’ at frequent intervals.
Lord Sumption has written a good piece in the DM.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8443747/LORD-JONATHAN-SUMPTION-people-no-idea-theyre-doing.html
We should be pushing for this man to lead the independent inquiry (even better, Royal Commission) into the current nonsense.
or lead the Country!
the dangers of mask wearing explained very easily to understand:
http://thehealthcoach1.com/?p=7598
I know it’s been on here before but the more articles that get into the open the more evidence there is to use against the wearing of masks.
Right, I’ve woken up from a Rip van Winkle type sleep and and the world was completely normal when my head hit the pillow.
What’s gone on on the last 3 months, concisely?
The lunatics are running the asylum.
Nope – you are just still stuck in a nightmare.
My husband has woken up, has already commented on a Telegraph article, and has declared that the world is still full of sh..
Liverpool are going to win the Premier League. Some other stuff happening too, I think.
I still don’t know where lieth those little things… with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment.
(Life of Brian)
I can see us heading towards a situation which last existed at the end of WW2. After several years of complete control of the population, the control freak government bureaucrats just couldn’t let go. Rules and regulation were their raison d’etre. Long after (9 years) the end of the war, blind to the rest of the world, they were still refusing to let the people go.
‘The end of the war saw additional cuts. Bread, which was never rationed during wartime, was put on the ration in July 1946. It was not until the early 1950s that most commodities came ‘off the ration’. Meat was the last item to be de-rationedand food rationing ended completely in 1954.’
They MUST be put back in their box, before it’s too late.
To the point made by the pilot in Toby’s blog post, we’re looking at a situation where, as the “measures are eased”, absolutely every detail of our lives, including all commercial and social interactions will be covered by detailed legislation and guidance. Even if and when most of this is rolled back, it’s hard to imagine that we will ever reach a stage when all of it has been. I personally think this has more to do with unintended consequences than anything else, but the way in which the government has approached the regulatory side of this makes for a fantastically complex tapestry to unpick.
Agree with all of the above. I think most people who post here and most lockdown sceptics are on the same page regarding this, but I think as we move from “lockdown” to the “new normal” it’s worth repeating incessantly that both are wrong, equally damaging, and one is continuation of the other.
I’m envisioning a situation where we live with a “50cm rule” for the rest of eternity. In effect, it will be meaningless almost all the time, but it will become a little tool in the back pocket of a policeman who’s looking for an excuse to make someone’s life more difficult
Policeman, Compliance Officer, Insurance Company etc etc.
Plus wartime ID cards were continued – until Clarence Henry Wilcock !
Agreed 100%. Many of the civil contingencies put in place in WW2 weren’t removed until the 1960s, others remain. (Anyone had a road or railway built through their house?)
That is why Simon Dolan’s court case against the Government is so important.
More on the government’s defence of the lockdown case in regard to the Dolan legal challenge. Government lawyers state:
‘In the end however, the first and dispositive ultimate point is a short one, however the claim is framed. The measures and decisions under challenge have all been taken to seek to protect society from the extremely serious effects of the virus. That has required restrictions on a number of freedoms. The nature, extent and duration of those restrictions has been dictated by a careful weighing, in the light of the scientific advice, of their impact against the public health imperative – a weighing that has been and continues to be kept under constant review. There have been and are no right answers, only judgements.’
Throughout, the government defence lawyers maintain that the effects of the virus on society is extremely serious. But no evidence is offered in support of this.
In fact, as we now know, covid 19 was removed from the UK list of high consequence infectious diseases prior to the lockdown, and a statement by the government Chief Medical Officer reinforced that message:
‘I’ll just repeat something I said right at the beginning because I think it’s worth reinforcing:
Most people, a significant proportion of people, will not get this virus at all, at any point of the epidemic which is going to go on for a long period of time.
Of those who do, some of them will get the virus without even knowing it, they will have the virus with no symptoms at all, asymptomatic carriage, and we know that happens.
Of those who get symptoms, the great majority, probably 80%, will have a mild or moderate disease. Might be bad enough for them to have to go to bed for a few days, not bad enough for them to have to go to the doctor.
An unfortunate minority will have to go as far as hospital, but the majority of those will just need oxygen and will then leave hospital.
And then a minority of those will end up having to go to severe end critical care and some of those sadly will die.
But that’s a minority, it’s 1% or possibly even less than 1% overall.
And even in the highest risk group this is significantly less than 20%, ie. the great majority of people, even the very highest groups, if they catch this virus, will not die.’
‘….extremely serious effects of the virus’…….or a bit like the effects of a common cold coronavirus?
Exactly!
Tim, I’d go one further. If the government decreed that this was serious, then blind blood tests using a microscope against a representative pure sample of Covid-19 would have been the standard test, to at least determine if someone “had” the virus. Since we are supposed to have world-class virologists and scientists that is following the science. i.e. independently demonstrating that the virus is present.
The next thing is obviously determining if it causes the effects it does.
But none of that was done. What the government did was abdicate responsbility to WHO.
Which means they failed the first test of verifiying that measures were safe. Try that with water safety. Try using an imported method as is without first trialing it and verifying it against common sense and scientific reasoning.
Thanks for quoting this.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/21/expanded-bubbles-can-reunite-grandparents-families/
Why the hell are we STILL talking about ‘social bubbles’?! Why do we have to be the guinea pigs for inhuman and bizarre experiments, at the behest of these, quite literally, ‘mad scientists’?
I can’t remember whether I saw it commented on here or another website but someone said that Cummings will be behind most of this and this is exactly the sort of ‘crisis’ he has been waiting for most of his life, something he can fiddle around with and observe with morbid curiosity to satiate his own esoteric obsession with ‘data’ and ‘science’. It’s a pity that most conversations around Cummings come back to Brexit and that if you don’t like Cummings, you’re automatically accused of being a ‘bitter Remainer’ and that some Brexiteers’ judgements of his character are clouded by the fact that he was the key driver in winning the referendum. I am actually quite ambivalent towards Brexit, it has been 4 years and I still can’t really make my mind up because I acknowledge there are strong arguments on both sides, but I have never been a fan of Cummings because he comes across as an arrogant man with grandiose delusions of his own misunderstood genius, when he really only has a superficial understanding of science and technology. His blog is, on the surface, impressive, but it really just reads as a stream of consciousness from someone who thinks he’s a lot cleverer than he actually is. To his credit he makes some good points about the civil service being bloated, incompetent, and unproductive but he has to go because I suspect he is behind a lot of the bizarre measures and over-reliance on science that we are living through right now, as well as the trite and dreadful slogans.
It will have been 3 months to the day tomorrow since this house arrest was imposed, and as far as I can see it’s all but finished where I live. People are well and truly fed up and although the MSM are trying to push the fear narrative as much as possible, I feel like the silent majority are coming through. I walk through the centre of my town and the green spaces are absolutely packed out with people. No-one swerves out of your way as they did in March/April anymore and mask wearers are still in a minority. Despite shops implementing all these arcane regulations and treating you like a diseased leper, once you get past that barrier things are pretty normal (although some shops do feel more ‘normal’ than others). It feels like we’re all just ‘playing a game’ and complying for the sake of appeasing these jobsworths now. I went to the supermarket with the bf yesterday and at some points I honestly forgot that we are supposedly in the ‘middle of a pandemic’ because save for the unsightly arrow decals on the floor, no-one was obeying the one-way system or keeping 2m apart. It felt like normal times.
However, one thing I am worried about is that muzzle wearing will become more widespread with this ‘one metre plus’ rule (what a ridiculous name, I am getting so tired of these slogans that treat the public like they’re stupid). I imagine that perhaps more people will wear muzzles but they will eventually be worn around necks/heads when people realise how impractical they are to daily activities like eating and talking in pubs/restaurants.
Brexit good. Cummings twat.
I should point out that a lot of the conversations I read about Cummings are from the Telegraph comments section which would explain the Brexit stance but I would be interested to hear the opinions on Cummings from those on this site, which we know is a bit of a broader church politically than the Telegraph…!
He’s a twat. Well done for wading through any of his bloated blog posts! I think you summed up his character very well.
Another problem with him is his shouty antagonistic style. Nobody who behaves like that ever gets anything useful done because everyone they work with hates them. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, you will not get far if nobody in your team would piss on you if you were on fire.
I would not assume either that the civil service are as incompetent as he makes out. He speaks as a disgruntled former employee. I certainly trust them more than I do him and his clique of upstarts (one of whom even he had to sack for being a racist).
“ Nobody who behaves like that ever gets anything useful done because everyone they work with hates them. ”
Interestingly, this doesn’t seem to be true of Cummings. Apparently one of the concerns when it looked like he might have to be sacked was that most of his team would have resigned. It happened before, during the Brexit campaign, evidently.
Cummings is a blunt b’st’d. He expects to work with other blunt b’st’ds. I know the type well and they usually fight tooth and nail for their own people.
and who would keep the Bojo ballon gassed up?
The civil service en masse is not as incompetent as is made out, but when you reach the upper echelons setting policy and instruction for the cs to follow, you meet an entirely different animal. This section, while not as politically aligned as Tony Blair tried to make it, is certainly more parasitical than not.
The main problem with the state sector in its entirety is its total lack of flexibility and adaptability. This lack has been demonstrated by the JCB-sized bucketload at each and every turn by the said state sector. And that includes the civil service.
As for Dom Cummings… I think he will be gone by or shortly after New Year.
Not a chance that Dom leaves, at least not without Boris’ government falling. If Boris folds on Dom it’ll show he has lost authority and credibility, and that’ll be the last of him.
Dom is a symbol – Boris has picked a fight to keep him. He can’t ever afford to lose now.
Boris wants Dom for Brexit. Dom himself has said he’ll be surprised to last the year.
I think that any Johnson government benefits in principle from having someone in the inner circle who is strong on detail and good at managing the political message, because Johnson is no good at this himself and has no interest in being that kind of prime minister. I think Cummings has been that person and if the whole bloody pandemic thing hadn’t happened, I think he probably still would be.
However, I completely agree with you that his personal amateur interest in epidemic management, along with his instincts for the mood of the British public, together with the over-reliance that Johnson has on his advice have been a big part of the problem. I think that without this, we probably never would have gone into lockdown in the first place – Cummings read the mood, that was calling for lockdown, was inclined in that direction anyway and together with the frightening numbers in the Imperial model, persuaded Johnson to panic.
The next problem has been that, while he’s very good at using behavioural science to convince people of something (remain teffiried. Question nothing. Stay home), it turns out he’s not so good at undoing the work later.
I don’t think he’s responsible for the social experiment we’re all now living in, directly, but he is responsible for the “we are led by the science” trap. This must have seemed like a strong PR statement early on and I certainly thought at the time that it was a good way to protect the government’s reputation in the face of a rising death toll, but it has become a ball and chain. Whenever the ‘easing of the measures’ looks like it might be varying from the most cautious advice, the opposition and the MSM jump on it as evidence that the government is “no longer following the science”, public mood turns against it (although I think this is happening more and more as people are just sick to the back teeth of it all) and the government either backs down or has to fight a long and tedious PR battle – and this is back to the populist tendencies of both Cummings and Johnson. Meanwhile, the scientists are doing what scientists do when faced with a large set of unknown variables and managing a long-term, very cautious experiment , because that’s the way that science establishes solid results.
And yes, Cummings has sociopathic (sociopath is just a polite word for psychopath – there really is no difference between the two) tendencies and I’m quite sure he finds this all very interesting in a detached way, but I’m absolutely certain that he’s too politically aware and too concerned with winning not to realise that we need to get out of this quickly to stand any chance of Johnson avoiding electoral disaster in 4 years’ time.
“I don’t think he’s responsible for the social experiment we’re all now living in, directly, but he is responsible for the “we are led by the science” trap.“
Depends what you mean specifically by “the social experiment we’re all now living in”. For me, if there is one specific decision that represents the whole problem, it is the decision to go into lockdown on 23rd March, and if there is one person most responsible for that decision being taken, I think there seems to be a good case for Cummings being that one person. In the sense of being the most influential of its most enthusiastic pushers and enablers.
That was the key point where we diverged irredeemably from Sweden and the path of reasonable moderation.
Granted, there were many lesser flawed decisions and policy choices, but that was the big one. And granted the bigger picture is the modern weakness in our society and in our population that allowed the destruction of the herd immunity policy, and the general inability to value reason above emotion, but those are much broader issues I think.
Well, to be clear, I do think he takes a large part of the responsibility for the lockdown being imposed in the first place, but I do not think he is the one driving the glacial pace of exiting. It’s the scientists doing that. You could certainly argue that it’s his fault though, because he _is_ the one, I reckon, who thought it was a good idea to be “led by the science “ (as opposed to being led by leaders).
I am not absolving Cummings of blame
OK I see your point. I just don’t separate the two issues as sharply as you do – for me those who took us into lockdown are wholly culpable for all the consequences of its unwarranted extension, whether or not they originally envisioned that or actually support it. So we both blame him for going into lockdown, but you think it’s significant that he possibly doesn’t like the continuing policy disaster that has resulted whereas I don’t.
A pretty nuanced disagreement of little real importance.
Johnson has no chance in 4 years. I’d be surprised if he lasts another year.
Does anyone know if this kind of ridiculous micro-managing of people’s lives is going on in other European countries?
Yes, to an extent. But it’s not especially relevant because most European countries don’t have the same cultural tendency to assume rules must be good and so follow them that we do.
Got it in one.
This goes back a long, ling way, in fact to the early Middle Ages when the English government, such as it was, was better at enforcing its laws than continental ones. The Normans took over and extended the system. People on the continent, often belonging in name to huge, amorphous entities such as the Holy Roman Empire, got into the habit of ignoring decrees, and kept the habit right into the EU era. Over there, what They say and what we do are two quite different things. The UK lacks that mindset.
I’ve obviously got a more continental sort of brain then!
Nourish it!
Yes, in many places. Among other things, here in Portugal people can now go to the beaches but are not allowed to stand within 3 m of each other. They have put barriers along the sand, and you can only access the beach through designated places. At these locations, there is a flag or semaphore which indicates whether or not you are allowed to enter the beach (it will turn red if there are too many people on the beach at that time).
i hope they’re not hoping to attract tourists anytime soon!
Can we organise special Jolly Zombie Holidays to Portugal? With one-way tickets?
I’m a committed, long term Brexit supporter (having been opposed to the EU project since before there was an EU – Maastricht Treaty), and I’m also a traditionalist conservative on most issues (as opposed to a “Conservative”), so I can absolutely understand the strong support and defensiveness towards Cummings. It’s the same basic mechanism as is involved with defenders of Trump in the US or Farage here. Those on my side of politics have been fighting a losing, rearguard action for decades as our society has become one in which all the main institutions are dominated by zealots for the other side – internationalism, and political correctness in all its forms. These are the manipulative and dishonest “elites” that are often mentioned but rarely actually confronted or defeated on any issue. They have been pretty much fully and enthusiastically behind the coronapanic as well as the evil BLM. Not necessarily an organised conspiracy, but sufficiently widespread as to have functionally the same effect.
It is a suffocating situation in which those who speak uncomfortable truths on any of these issues are routinely either just ignored, ridiculed or viciously suppressed. I expect that you won’t understand or believe this for most issues, but if you think about how impossible it has been to get a fair hearing for facts and opinions opposed to the coronapanic narrative, then this is how traditionalists have been treated on most social and political issues, for decades. This creates a strong loyalty towards anyone who manages to stand up to the bullies, and the louder and more aggressively they do so the better.
I loved it when people like Trump or Cummings said things that were outrageous to the suffocating elites, and normally I would have to support such damaged and dangerous individuals politically, faute de mieux. Individuals who are less willing to be offensive simply fail to stand up to political correctness and leftism, because they don’t want to seem rude or impolite and they often misinterpret the superficially noble goals and ideals of the aforementioned elites as indicating personal decency, so they get manipulated, or railroaded, or subverted, or destroyed by unexpected (to them) dishonesty and willingness to engage in cynical viciousness on the part of the elites. This has happened time and time again. So people like Cummings are one of the few ways to fight back. And victories against the odds like the Brexit referendum result or the election of Trump prove that the strategy is not useless or indefensible.
For me, Cummings’ apparent involvement in the pushing of the coronapanic was a step too far and is unforgivable. Many of those politically like me, however, are themselves victims (like most of the population) of the coronapanic and therefore they continue to defend Cummings against what they see as just another cynical and hypocritical elite attack on their (flawed, but necessary) champion.
I write this not in the expectation that you will agree with the opinions within it, but to explain the world-view that underlies the behaviour you asked about.
Absolute spot on, a very good analysis of what’s happening. The left believes in its own niceness and are just so horribly, horribly smug. That is why it was so dangerous and idiotic when Theresa May stood up at the Conservative party conference and talked about being thought of a the ‘nasty party’. How could a politician with any nous not know that all the left would hear is ‘we are the nasty party’ and laugh their smug blood socks off at her lunacy.
Yes, May’s a fine example of the disastrous consequences of naivety and acting as though these people are decent and can be compromised with. They are fanatical zealots who think that people who disagree with them are not just wrong but evil, and they absolutely will not stop until they have defeated and punished every sign of resistance to their zealotry.
Yes, indeed. I actually quite liked Theresa May in many ways, and she seemed more genuinely small-c conservative than the current PM (and she certainly lived more conservatively in her personal life). There are genuine conservatives who are able and willing to defend their positions with passion and logic, calmly but firmly, but none of them seem to be in politics.
Absolutely. There are two problems here.
First, being genuinely conservative in your personal life is not enough. Real conservatives are inherently inclined to mind their own business and to assume that if they don’t bother other people, they will receive the same courtesy in return. But the internationalist, antiracist, climate fanatic, progressivist zealots are not capable of minding their own business. Their whole raison d’etre is forcing others to comply with their own zealotries.
It’s not enough to have free trade and good relations, you have to be forced into a sovereignty destroying supranational union.
It’s not enough to be decent and tolerant in your personal life, you have to be forced to accept mass immigration to “rub the right’s noses in diversity”, and forced to kowtow to the destruction of your history and your liberty.
It’s not enough to accept the legalisation of sexual perversion, you have to actively approve of it.
It’s not enough to have people making their own minds up on climate change, they have to be forced to comply with the zealots’ desired policies.
It’s not enough to have people making their own minds upon coronavirus, they have to be forced to comply with the zealots’ desired policies.
Etc, etc, ad nauseam.
Second, being decent does not work in modern politics, which actively and overwhelmingly promotes dishonesty. Face to face, personal decency often comes across and can be persuasive. On TV, in news reports and on social media, it doesn’t at all, or rather, it’s much more easily faked, and the winners tend to be the better liars and the ones who can more skilfully and cynically misrepresent decency in their opponents as some kind of politically incorrect -ism or -phobia.
Sadly you may well be right. I thought there was at least a chance that the PM might have the necessary qualities – a more jovial version of Trump. Obviously not.
Maybe we could resuscitate Antonin Scalia.
I don’t know if Cummings has bought into all this current nonsense, or whether he’s driving it. He’ll certainly be looking for political advantage to be gained from it. I *do* know he was urging SAGE towards an earlier lockdown (remember the row in April about Cummings at the SAGE meetings).
Cummings also has an autistic child, who will be in one of the risk groups. At work, before the wheels fell off the bus so to speak, the people who were shouting loudest for shutting the plant down, for locking down the country, all lived with people (or were themselves) in one of those risk groups.
I’m personally ambivalent towards Cummings. But he’s not immune from criticism over the current andy-pandy-panic.
I would think an autistic child would be at huge risk from the lockdown and from new normal. I’m not aware of any increased risk to people on the autistic spectrum wrt covid-19 itself.
Fair enough, but was making the point for him, such as it was, than for me :o))
I’ve just tried to sign the Thomas Guy petition, and the change.org page that hosts it is not opening. I wonder if they’ve censored it because it’s anti-BLM.
Some petitions disappear and then Change.org fail to notify the ones that signed already. FYI Bill Gates is now a shareholder of Change.org
Yikes! Good to know, thanks
Didn’t know he’d weaselled himself in there as well…
Out of curiosity I decided to look up the R0 for seasonal flu as there’s plenty discussion about it and modelling for COVID-19 has been based around influenza pandemics in the past.
There’s not a lot I could find giving specifics, mainly studies and estimates. Here’s an example:
https://sph.umich.edu/pursuit/2020posts/how-scientists-quantify-outbreaks.html
In the above, there’s a table under this heading (my emphasis):
How many others will each sick person infect?The reproduction number, R0 for short, describes how many additional cases of a disease each infected person will cause during their infectious period. The numbers are a range, because they depend on a variety of factors that vary from situation to situation.
The impression I get is that much of “the science” is theoretical and is changed to fit with observations.
The problem is that definitive conclusions have been made and restrictions imposed on little more than theory and observation.
Somebody asked me back in March (when first raising scepticism about the lockdown about ten days before it was imposed) whether I agreed with the “science” that the “R number was 3”.
I told him science couldn’t possibly have given him an accurate R number because to know that you also needed to know a) the actual number of cases and b) the infectiousness of the disease.
At that point, we didn’t know either. Frankly, we still don’t.
The R number has been a great excuse to help the government to prevaricate. Most people don’t understand it and it’s another handy red herring number.
I forgot to mention that the R number for seaonal flu is between 0.9 to 2.1 (according to the table). Which brings me to why I wanted to find out what it was. At some point the R number for flu must be above 1 which means exponential growth. If that is so then why does the whole population not get infected every time it comes around? Why would modelling assume 80% infection or unfettered exponential growth for SARS-COV-2 if it never happens for flu?
The whole population doesn’t get infected whenever it comes around because there is a high level of previously acquired immunity. The assumption made with SARS-COV-2 was that because it was a new disease, there would be no immunity. An assumption which appears to be very wrong.
Which means that the restrictions imposed are based on theory and assumptions for outcomes that may or may not even be possible.
How the hell can any free thinking population allow themselves to be governed on such dubious reasoning.
Well, to be fair we are normally ok with dubious reasoning in government. The whole discipline of economics is dubious reasoning.
I don’t think there has ever been a time when government economic policy got it right, or where professional economists can genuinely prove whatever they suggested would be better. Their approach is to throw something, then argue about where it should have landed.
The only school of thought which has any credibility is the Austrians, and that’s only because they are basically anti-economists. Their sole policy is “just leave it alone and it’ll sort itself out”, which is probably true but also incredibly unhelpful. Whatever problem we want to solve, the Austrians say we’ll only make it worse, so just forget about it. Again; probably true but not helpful.
Anyway, my point here is that we run the whole of the world on dubious theories. The thing is that the really disastrous stuff happens on a long enough time line and enough unpredictable factors that it’s hard to say for certain what we could have or should have done, but we (the voters) insist on “something” so we do something, and by the time we see the impacts we’ve forgotten why we did it.
The main problem with lockdown is that the assumptions surrounding it are based on a self-defeating prophecy.
Don’t forget, economics never entered into the lockdown decisions.
You scare them to death first. That’s what was done; the MSM were carrying panic-mongering tales from January. It’s also not being pointed out that many countries in Europe have all but lifted their lockdowns, yet we’re still being threatened and bullied. The time is getting closer though. The safety valve is still screwed shut…
What free-thinking population? What thinking population?
There are a few. Some free-thinkers were drop on an opposing view from our own, some will drop onto our side.
We’ve wasted over £40B and counting on useless renewable energy, zero-carbon schemes and even had a zero carbon target voted in by politicians. All based on a tower of assumptions and no actual precise data.
That’s how.
This Covid-19 reaction appears to be itself a reaction to the lack of action taken for “climate change”. This was an opportunity to get society to all fall into line for the good of us all. To make us “safer”.
Well it might have looked reasonable four months ago but there’s so much more real evidence now that the foot-dragging looks/is downright suspicious.
Yes, the economy has struck the iceburgh, the furloughers are partying up on deck and the water is silently making its way up to the top of the bulk heads…..
You missed out the deckchairs. I wanna rearrange the deckchairs! I wanna! I wanna! Waaah!!
My husband and I (used to) play in an amateur orchestra which we love(d) and miss very much. We can hardly dare to hope we’ll be able to resume in the autumn. We get occasional emails from our conductor referring to the ‘awful’ virus.
Anyway the OH has been in correspondence with some players in his section about a technical matter. He put this at the bottom of the last email:
It would also be nice to think the powers that be might rethink their sociocidal policies some time soon but we’re afraid the behavioural insights team hasn’t finished with us yet. Who knows if we’ll meet again this year? As the virus disappears the screws seem to be turning tighter and we are supposed to be worried about historic slavery and BLM inc. instead.
He has only had one reply::
I don’t want to turn our friendly group into a forum for political debate, but feel
obliged to respond to some of the non [music] related comments you included.
A friend of mine has died from coronavirus this very week.
Also my partner and my son both have serious health conditions and would be in
extreme trouble if catching it. So I, for one am supportive of lockdown measures
and very nervous of further easing, but having got that off my chest I’ll totally
refrain from any further comment and look forward to seeing you all again in
happier times.
He’s a nice old dear who’s obviously terrified. But note the almost passive-aggressive nature of his reply.
The irony here is that since we are mostly old buggers, 4 members of the orchestra have died since last July. Only one was ‘before her time’ and all the deaths, although greeted with sadness, were seen in proportion. The OH, who is 71, has leukaemia, only receiving his Extremely Vulnerable letter 3 weeks after lock-up! He has carried on as normally as possible and is currently fit and well, almost certainly because he carried on going out, using PT, shopping and keeping fit by walking and cycling. Like me he will only be seen dead in a muzzle. His last checkup, due in March, was postponed, initially for 6 months.
He is wondering how to respond to his friend in a way that would help him. Any thoughts?
I don’t think he can engage on the lockdown topic. I would think that an email expressing condolences and concern for the health issues and staying completely neutral on anything else would be appropriate. If he can also talk about his own health issues and the approach he has taken to the lockdown, without it looking judgemental or critical, then maybe he could, but that would be a neat trick to pull off.
Thanks, Matt, for a considered and helpful response. I think OH is thinking along similar lines. It is particularly useful that he really is in the same boat as his friend but has taken a very different approach to risk.
There’s literally no point. Their confirmation bias is in place: a friend who died and their own health worries.
We’re trying to reason with people who have been inducted and brainwashed into a cult. It’s an extra-difficult psychological process to free them from it and they interpret any scrutiny of their “lifesaving lockdown” as a personal attack.
Hi Mark, thanks for this. We’ve just been out for a long walk and discussed this a lot. We agree with what you say as we now think our friend is not just threatened by a virus but by any discussion of the politics behind it. As you say, he and a frightening number of others need serious deprogramming but it’s not going to be on offer. It feels like Jonestown next stop.
Furious because I’m actually going to see a dentist this morning in Pembrokeshire (they are now allowed to see patients for non-drilling issues) and just got a call that I’m to wait in the car until fetched, then have to have my temperature taken. After sanitizing my hands I will have to wear a mask to walk the six paces through reception to the dentist’s room – then I’m allowed to remove the mask!!! – for the treatment. Mask has to be donned before the return journey and placed in their special bin. I told the receptionist I considered this a gross violation of privacy and she concurred but said her hands were tied. I will tell the dentist this morning that if this is going to be his “new normal” I will be seeking treatment elsewhere.
It strikes me that each of us has to make our voices heard loudly and clearly in these kinds of situations as the best way to make them change their ridiculous rules. Grrrrrrrrrr!
Greetings from the same county. If my dentist tries it on, I shall give him the same answer. Loud and clear.
But you won’t find another dentist. Their trade association has laid down these rules and they all have to obey or risk losing their licence.
Those ridiculous ‘precautions’ are country wide.
I wonder, if they end up with so few patients as to not make enough money to survive, what they will do then?
Play golf
Yes, my dentist is quite a rebel but has a similar ridiculous regime that definitely wouldn’t have come from him but from some professional body that has power over him.
Agree. Well done.
What is is with people? They receive regulations/guidelines from the Government, then outthink themselves to make it as onerous or non-sensical as possible.
Welcome to the world of Health & Safety!
For anyone in East Sussex –
https://webchat.novoville.com/?name=east_sussex_county_council_coronavirus_response
Done and done!
What a useless questionnaire. So typical of our tick-box society. I don’t care if schools reopen, they don’t learn anything anyway. Send them all on a massive beach party where they can learn to interact and maybe re-enact ‘Lord of the Flies.’ Only one opportunity on that questionnaire to express one’s utter dismay of how this has all been handled and no opportunity to express how thing’s might have been done better. .(Not that they’d give you enough space to write it if they had.) Typical crap produced by some officious toe-rag to demonstrate that something’s being done when in reality it’s tokenism writ large. BTW, nothing to p[event anyone anywhere in the country responding to them.
Re-enact Lord of the Flies? As flies, presumably?
re-enact ‘Lord of the Flies.’
I could think of a great substitute for the pig – certainly looks the part!
Beth Rigby?
Readers of LS are aware that Richard Horton the discredited editor of the Lancet whose far left views and hatred of the Tories and Brexit colours most of his judgements has been a popular interviewee for Sky and the BBC . Good to see a letter in the Lancet taking him down for his support for the genocidal policy of lockdown.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31422-7/fulltext
“Richard Horton the discredited editor of the Lancet whose far left views and hatred of the Tories and Brexit colours most of his judgements“
A classic example of the leftist “elites” whose existence is frequently pooh poohed by leftists any time their baleful influence on policy and on liberty comes up.
“The long march through the institutions? Common Purpose? Pah, conspiracy theories and exaggeration!”
Oh, really?
https://unherd.com/2020/06/why-heroes-should-wear-masks/
Just read this by Unherd’s Peter Franklin. I can’t think of anything polite to say about it.
Comments please, folks!
These will be the same sort of people who will shower 2+ times a day just so they can think they’re cleaner than everyone else. If they ever find out their neighbour showers twice a day too they will shower 3 times.
Oh dear, ‘A measure with almost no downside risk, but a potentially huge upside in terms of saving lives and shortening lockdown was not only not taken, but actively discouraged.’ Clearly he had his mask over his eyes when he wrote this. Would he have been paid for this article? It’s utter nonsense.
Unherd is a very mixed bag, it used to be quite interesting but articles like this that make me want to scream are becoming more common. Unherd tries to be the sensible grown up at the party, but is really just a bore, not knowing whether to be down with the kids or telling them off in its oh so reasonable, let’s all be nice and sensible tone. I prefer reading Taki Mag or even, if I really want to go down a rabbit hole, Unz.
a mixed bag I can respect
I normally switch off after ‘guesst-R-mation’ numbers are mentioned, but I struggled through until ”preventing an economically ruinous second wave”, then I threw in the towel.
My limited understanding from what I have learnt so far is that herd immunity amongst the healthy is the best way to protect the vulnerable – can’t see how masks help with allowing healthy immune systems to deal with viruses. Infact can’t masks inhibit healthy immune system, plus the other unintended consequenses that never get mentioned.
There’s also the the fact that people wearing masks while out and about look like knobs.
Quite so: knobs galore! it’s his use of the word heroes which I find most aggravating; I mean WTF does wearing a mask convey about heroism? if anything just the opposite, I should have thought.
Interesting that declaring mask-wearers as heroes is doublespeak.
Virtue-signallers, who knew the discomfort and the health-hazards involved, could regard themselves as heroes.
However the informed should know better and the uninformed are brainwashed wimps.
A pathetic piece of Black Swan Man (suspect that he may have ‘skin in the game’ with a ‘position’ in Big Pharma that he needs to ‘unwind’) fan fiction complete with a picture of a child (more likely to be struck by lightning and no danger to anybody). Oh for an anti-coronanist parents device.
Nope not biodegradable – our narrow little country lane is full of discarded masks and plastic gloves; also found in the sea. Nice!
Up here ,we see blokes like my creepy neighbour sporting the black bank robber chic mask, poor old blokes dolled up in dirty scarves, young cyclist types in the hospital type and vaguely disapproving middle class women swathed in Boden/Kidston material .
Yuk!!
tell her you’re hard of hearing and keep saying, ”pardon”.
Eventually she’d pull off the mask and shout down your ear.
This line says it all for me:
Which is why a masks-for-all policy is such a high-profile test of a government’s authority
He also says:
Personally, I’d be happy if masking-up while sick with a cold or the flu became a permanent norm
and then says:
For most of us, wearing a mask would be a temporary inconvenience for a lasting victory
What he doesn’t address is whether the objective he seeks of eradicting the virus can be done without the wearing of masks.
Studies on the effectiveness of masks are flawed anyway. How often do people sneeze in your face? Most people who sneeze cover their mouths and sneeze away or downwards. If they’re wearing a mask the air will simply be forced out the sides which if they’re naturally turning away is probably more likely to be directed at another person. The argument I always make for mask wearing is this:
If the effectiveness of mask wearing was clear cut there would be no argument.
I’ll confess that I’m prone to sneezing, but when out and about, I always use a hanky and look down.
Of course in the present climate of fear, a sneeze can be viewed as an antisocial act, so discretion is the greater part of valour!
I’ve got away with it so far though.
Open mouthed yawning and coughing are also just plain bad manners.
Sneezing with your mask on feels like shitting in your pants for your face.
Apologies
O too much information, but hey, another reason not to wear one!
When I sneeze or cough I bend over and splatter the ground, the splatter is limited to that short distance – this way my handsremain un-contaminated – although my toes may require a wipe
I think the objective is clear. Those comments you quote sound just like propaganda.
It definitely has the look of a propaganda piece and so do the positive comment below it. Demonising non-mask wearers seems to be the latest attack strategy. Sadly it will probably work.
Don’t know who this joker is but he’s clearly an idiot, as are all covid nutcases with a seeming lack of grasp of real life and human behaviour. The first thing is the papers he links to. Why do people such as him and other zealots seem to think that the papers they quote are so much more valid than those that contradict or challenge them? Its the same with the BBC today. Apparently the BBC have a misinformation department (stalinist if I’ve ever heard it) that is saying that the concept of masks being bad for you health is wrong, because we said so.
He also mentions mask wearers as hero’s. Replace hero with twats and it fits much better. If people cant think for themselves and challenge doctrine they deserve to have masks permanently sown onto their face. And a second wave? Like South Korea’s monumental double digit numbers? Again, more indoctrination based on what a paper or model says.
I certainly will never wear one. If it means no public transport, pubs or restaurants, shops, so be it. I’d happily wear one of the evidence was there, like taking paracetamol to ease pain or antibiotics to stop an infection. The fact that there are so many challenges to the benefits of masks and the problems they cause means this gits indoctrinating philosophy is utterly invalid.
How about a polite notice at the front door saying that because of covid19 there can be no more than 0 mask wearers in the shop at any one time, oreders for mask wearers should be made by phone, paid for by bank transfer, and will be brought to the door for collection – stay safe – stay sane
This is the kind of thing I would love to see becoming widespread, but I’d hesitate to encourage someone like kh to do it because it could involve real risks to her livelihood. Until we can collectively help and protect people who stand up openly in that way. I just think it’s dangerous to suggest it, though I accept that this is kind of a self fulfilling situation.
Nor do I mean to suggest that kh isn’t perfectly capable of making up her own mind on this – only she knows the full info about her own situation. Just pointing out that there are real risks for people in sending these kinds of signals.
My real point being that ideally we need to build some sort of protective organisation for people running small businesses who might suffer for making a stand on these issues. Toby’s FSU might be able to help in some of these situations, I suppose.
Do what you can while protecting your own position is the only option at the moment. It’s a judgement call for each of us.
(I would stay “stay safe” meaning look after your business first, but that phrase sticks in my throat now
).
Maybe a particularly officiladummy looking notice would have the virtuous mask wearers assuming the dictat was ‘the science’ backed and would unquestioningly obey, they might even take off their masks to enter the shop
I can’t think of anything polite to say about it either. Imposing his beliefs on other, he is free to wear a mask all the time if he wishes, but isn’t happy until it is compulsory. I wonder why on earth so many celebrities and politicians are changing their social media profiles to have them wearing masks (social conditioning by any chance?)
Being a cynic, I think it’s plain old halo polishing and publicity grabbing.
“Waiter! This is ridiculous. A chipolata on one side of the plate and a small dollop of potato on the other. Is this your idea of ‘Farm-Assured Bangers ‘n’ Mash?’”
“Sir, this food is socially-distanced as well as responsibly sourced. That will be £19.99, please. Contactless only.”
But the 2cm rule will be devastating to the peas industry. 1cm will allow twice as many peas on a plate.
I wish they bloody would
I suppose being presented with the bill, after eating and drinking, is the time to say “Sorry, I’ve only got cash. Didn’t realise.”.
Coronavirus: South Korea confirms second wave of infections
https://bbc.in/2zTAdpl
Health officials in South Korea believe the country is going through a second wave of coronavirus, despite recording relatively low numbers.
The country had been a success story in dealing with Covid-19, but now expects the pandemic to continue for months.
Officials on Monday said that over the last 24 hours, 17 new infections had been recorded, from different clusters in large offices and warehouses.
Dr Jeong said the recent resurgence had led her to conclude that the country was in the grip of a second wave of the virus, and that she expected it to continue.
The mayor of Seoul also warned that the capital may have to return to strict social distancing, should cases top 30 on average over the next three days and the bed occupancy rate of the city’s hospitals exceeds 70%.
17 new infections. At least they’re not planning to impose restrictions unless a threshold is breached.
Only 17 infections, it’s hardly a resurgence is it! The BBC does my head in with its fear mongering and fake news.
They didn’t bother with a first wave did they?
On a silly flippant note, does anyone remember the Mexican Wave?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDHh_Rjmf6o
In our new world of pre-crime a single case can now be considered a wave and treated as if it is a wave. All citizens must be masked as they have already been judged and sentenced as killers before they can get to the potential stage.
Exactly. Hardly anyone has been exposed to it there, so there is no immunity.
Seoul population 26 million. To induce a “second wave” takes 17 asymptomatic cases – WTF?!
As Major Panic pointed out, South Korea never had a first wave (or a lockdown). If they stay on top of things they can save 20,000 lives or so, and they do need to take action when they find small numbers of cases.
The farce is when places like the UK act like they’re in the same boat as South Korea. We’re either at herd immunity or close to it and the virus is endemic so there’s absolutely no point in chasing down small “outbreaks”.
But we know who the most vulnerable are now. instead of putting the non-vulnerable under siege, surely they can protect the vulnerable for a couple of weeks?
I don’t think they ever did have a lockdown in South Korea and aren’t planning one now. It is actually a viable option for them to keep things suppressed until they have a vaccine, especially given that they have managed to achieve that so far– it should get easier now that the prevalence is dropping everywhere else in the world. It’s still a long shot but if anyone has a chance of doing it it’s South Korea.
For the government it’s a question of which is easier– keep doing what they’re doing or switch to protecting the vulnerable. Both strategies come with considerable challenges.
It’s like Florida, panicking that lots of young people are now testing positive (no indication of how ill they are, or whether it’s yet more asymptomatic cases).
Second ripple
What is the official definition of a second wave? When is a first wave officially over? The media and governments are bandying these terms around but what do they actually mean? Surely in South Korea, like most other countries, the virus is endemic and therefore will circulate at a low level with occasional flare ups. It would be more interesting to know what % of these new cases end up being hospitalized. Why do they not release those figures?
I don’t think it is endemic in South Korea. They’re one of the few places that actually suppressed it.
The theory that the UK might have a second wave is based on the assumption that the ld + sd is holding the infection rate at an unnaturally low level, according to Fergie about 1/8 of what it should be. So if we lifted all the lockdowns we would experience a tsunami of death and destruction about 8x bigger than anything we have seen so far.
This is extremely unlikely. As you say what we will see in the UK is continual smouldering along with the disease also probably attenuating in severity. We will probably have a modest flare up every winter for ever.
Basically up to about 10% or 20% of the total number of people born every year will get Covid, most of those in the winter. Most of them will also be children (assuming they ever go back to school) and they will hardly even know they had it.
Following from Carrie’s suggestion that we thank stores that provide good customer service despite current situation, I emailed our local bakery (part of a small chain) last week:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to you to commend the staff in your Colindale Avenue branch, I’ve been visiting a few times and its been mine and my husband’s go to as a way to relieve the monotony of this lockdown due to the current situation. Every time I’ve been to the Colindale Avenue store, I have been treated with kindness, courtesy and good service that has been missing in many stores since the current crisis began.
Please send my best wishes to your staff and thank you for the branch’s excellent customer service.
Yours faithfully,
etc, etc
and today I received this reply:
Dear XXXX,
Thank you for getting in touch with us at Wenzels.
We appreciate all customer feedback and your kind comments have been passed onto Mr Wenzel, the senior management team and the Colindale store.
We are glad to hear the service you received has been satisfactory and to the standard we require at Wenzels.
As a gesture of good will, we would like to send you a booklet of offers to be used in any of our stores if you could please kindly provide us with your full postal address.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention and we hope you have a lovely week.
Kind Regards
The Wenzels team
Lovely. Good for you!
Thanks. They have been lovely throughout this – sure they have the perspex screens and face shields plus the obligatory signs but they have been courteous and flexible; definitely no Karens in this branch!
Something that isn’t being discussed – the UK isn’t in discussions with other countries about air bridges. They are just deciding which countries will be opened. They are not having discussions despite other countries sending continuous messages to the FCO. I don’t know why this is being reported this way.
because of the guidlines that demand all reporting should be thouroughly misleading
Have people seen this, on Simon Dolan’s Twitter feed? Re the nifty new way we will have to pretty much agree give a DNA sample if we want to travel.. https://twitter.com/simondolan/status/1274968663922282502
I had finger prints scanned on my last trip to Thailand, also on one recent trip to Spain, although they have sinse stopped this. Don’t mind them having my DNA on file, they’v got my image on my passport and driving licence – If they had all our DNA on a database then Sergeant Detective Officer Peter Pisspot might actually catch some criminals for the courts to set free.
I don’t want my DNA on file – they will find some way of ‘proving’ I am definitely going to get some illness or other and link that to the cost of any traveler life insurance, and in due course as to whether or not I should have my life terminated… and DNA is not totally infallible in the world of crime..
I’v changed my mind
Another ‘risk’ area with the government having one’s DNA is that it basically gives the government control over or ownership of your body. If a younger person, say, needs a transplant, and you are a match, then you could potentially be compelled to donate your organs.. Having a DNA database could remove the opt-out for post-death organ donation – you could even be euthanised prematurely if you happened to be a match for a number of people on a transplant list. You could of course potentially also be cloned!!!!!
The government has already upended the organ donation policy, i.e. you have to specifically opt out rather than opt in. If you don’t opt out, they can remove your organs upon death.
It’s the reverse of habeas corpus. The state owns your body.
Guess where this was first introduced? Wales. And guess who opted out on day 1? Me.
They will have neither my body nor my soul. Never, never, I swear it by Almighty God.
Not sure they’d bother cloning me – and all my organs are useful for is slicing up to show kids how important a healthy lifestyle is
Missed my opportunity to edit my comment above – I meant ‘travel or life insurance’!
The Twitter stuff links to a BBC article:
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200621-will-travel-be-safer-by-2022?
What utter bullshit (I hope). If this lot comes to pass most people will have no immunity to anything, since we’ll be living is a “sterile” world. Madness, beyond belief!
The risky part of travelling for me atm is not the near zero “risk” from getting a cold/flu-type disease like this coronavirus, it’s the very real risk that there will be some sudden panic and another stupid lockdown in one country or the other, resulting in major cost and inconvenience travelling between countries again, and being caught abroad with all kinds of hoops to jump through to get back.
no risk – no fun
Very true, not saying you shouldn’t go if it’s worth it for you. Just trying to put risks in perspective.
As usual, it’s not the disease that is harmful, but the response.
One for my fb page!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbGpIAtWoAAbAbP?format=jpg&name=small
There has been another attack article on Novak Djokovic in the Telegraph today – he appears to be the most hated man in sport as he thinks for himself and doesn’t do virtual signalling. He is a lockdown skeptic and always seems to attract a very vicious reaction in the comments section. Anyone who wonders why sportspeople act like sheep should see the reaction he gets from the media and fellow players. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2020/06/22/borna-coric-latest-tennis-player-catch-coronavirus-playing-novak/
And if you sound out his name you can almost get:
No vac, joke covid (!)
I’ve always liked both Fox and Djokovic and having been to Serbia, can confirm what an independently minded and very tough lot the Serbs are.
There seems to be a worldwide media campaign to get everyone thinking the same way about every issue and if anyone steps out of line it’s a full on social media attack. Life will be be incredible boring in a world of groupthink.
..which points to it all having been planned, rather than just us having an incompetent government…
I’d say rather that it points to a trans-national, globalist elite with largely shared cultural assumptions, that more or less dictates the commanding cultural heights in most states, and thereby the main political priorities Certainly everywhere that the global business and governance elite operates largely unchecked.
Yes, always a silver lining if one looks hard enough!
The Minority Report
I’ve mentioned pre-crime a few times now in some of my responses so thought I’d take the opportunity to show some of my thinking on this.
The idea of pre-crime is taken from the film Minority Report which is loosely based on a Philip K Dick book.
Details can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(film)
It is set primarily in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia in the year 2054, where PreCrime, a specialized police department, apprehends [Locks down and enforces mask wearing] criminals based on foreknowledge provided by psychics called “precogs” [Epidemiologists and their modelling].
My inclusions in parenthesis.
The film’s central theme is the question of free will versus determinism. It examines whether free will can exist if the future is set and known in advance. Other themes include the role of preventive government in protecting its citizenry, the role of media in a future state where technological advancements make its presence nearly boundless, the potential legality of an infallible prosecutor, and Spielberg’s repeated theme of broken families.
All sounding spookily like reality to me. Except in our reality the future is not set and known in advance, it is merely a possible future. Yet we are treated as if the possible future will definitely happen.
Interesting and in a similar vein, I can recommend the late Philip Kerr’s ‘A Philosophical Investigation’; one of the most remarkable novels I’ve read.
It concerns the use of brain scanning to predict criminal behaviour and the methods employed to weed out those identified as potentially dangerous.
Brilliant and thought provoking.
I’ve seen studies on brain scanning and also genetics to try and predict if people are likely to become criminals. I’ll check out the novel, thanks.
The future will be more like Blade Runner if you’re a Dick fan. I could easily rewrite Roy’s dying speech,
prophesying today:
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Whole countries locked in their houses, R numbers keeping people 2 metres apart, whole economies in flames on the word of Ferguson ….. the whole of lives lost, likes tears in the rain. Time to die. They will say ‘of Covid’”
I’m a bit unsure about openly admitting to be a Dick fan.
Absolutely agree. One of those fashionable and therefore perennially overrated authors.
Oh, hang on, maybe that’s not what you were getting at there …..
And, of course, it would have happened without Superman, Pre-cog-extraodinaire Ferguson!
Ha ha ha!
I remember seeing that when it was released and thinking how spooky it was to be tracked by face recognition as you shopped. Seems a long time ago now!
The wee Kwankie has announced no cv19 related deaths in Scotland yeterday – they are nodoubt hopeful that there will be some later on in the week to justify all the continuing nonesense….
Now that the lawyers cant rape our car insurance policies with fraudulent whiplash claims – maybe their is a new opening – no win no fee claims bacause of suffering from anxiety attacks from mandatory mask wearing
there – can’t make edit work
If you hover your mouse over one of your posted comments you should get a little virus-like symbol to bottom right – click on that. {Or maybe, I’m teaching my Grandma, as it were, and your device is not in tune with the app! In which case, apols!}
That works within a short time-frame, after which it tells you that you are too late to edit your post!
Ah – thanks for that correction. I stand (actually sit) corrected!
I think it’s editable until somebody posts a response. Need to confirm but it seems to be the case so from what I’ve noticed.
too quick- too late – story of my life
Wonder if Boris has received any letters from the ‘whiplash’ litigation factories.
He has got plenty of criticism on Twitter for his platitudes re the Reading incident..
And, heavens, why is it that the first thing said by all pols that I have seen talking about this is “If there are any lessons to be learnt …”?
Couldn’t be guilty consciences could it? No, of course not: silly thought!
soon
here’s the start of it…
https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/coronavirus-fca-test-case-business-interruption-insurance
and guess who the insurers are going to go after….
compulsory mask wearing and the unintended consequences may be next……
So now we can expect another Saving Lives for Scotland announcement,accompanied by delayed move to follow Wicked Westminster’s lockdown easing, thus bigging up the Braveheart to the rescue while taking an independent decision strategy.
Shoot Sturgeon. Save lives.
Wouldn’t it be great if she decided to thumb her nose at Boris by using the lack of deaths as an excuse to end lockdown immediately?
We can but dream ……
“But PTSD? Isn’t that something soldiers experience after being involved in frontline battle for a sustained period of time?”
But cancer? Isn’t that something that soldiers experienced after being exposed to nuclear bomb testing?
Just because extreme causes are “greater” than less extreme causes doesn’t mean that the same diagnosis can’t be the result. Your soldier’s PTSD may be a far more paralyzing form, but that doesn’t mean that milder forms don’t exist. And it might wind up having a very detrimental long term effect next winter when employee performance is imapcted by the fear of the people around them sniffling or coughing.
“Last time I checked, the death of an elderly relative, friend or colleague is certainly very sad.
“But it doesn’t cause PTSD.”
That’s minimizing what’s really going on here. As you yourself have noted, people are committing suicide over this in greater numbers than we typically see as a result of the normally expected deaths of loved ones. Why is that? Because this isn’t just about those deaths or not being able to go to the gym as one dismissive comment here has it.
It’s about Big Terror. That’s what the media and the other doom and gloom folks have become. For years now, they’ve honed the craft of terrifying the public to drum up votes and business.They do their best to make us sufficiently terrified of the boyeymen who are going to kill us if we don’t listen to what we’re told. And only THEY can help us. When “climate change” hadn’t terrified the people enough to take enough action, they re-termed it a “climage emergency”. And if they can’t scare the parents and grandparents enough, they terrify the children. Big Terror is very good at scaring children. What makes it work so well is that these stories come from authority figures; experts. The experts who disagree are vilified, marginalized, and funded by evil corporations, and if you believe them, you’re also a villain, to be publicly harrassed, shamed, ridiculed, and fired. Fear and anger are the fools of Big Terror and ironically, the scarier it is, the more people want to tune in. A bonus that terrified people get is a smug feeling of superiority for believing in “science”. Science is smart.
So people are being fed the most extreme of possible outcomes. And to them, these fears are confirmed by the fact that people “have” to stop working or any one of us can be the next one to die. We can’t go to restaurants or school. We can’t even hang out with people because they might kill us. Our own friends and children might kill us. The imagery of masks simply confirms the danger; it also has an insidious effect because it’s downright creepy. But it’s even creepier when people DON’T wear masks. I regularly have people cowering away from me as I walk outside, brandishing my breath like a sword that threatens to slaughter their loved ones..
We shouldn’t minimize the impact that these scaremongerers are having on generations of people. When (if) this is over, don’t be surprised if it takes a very long time for behaviors to normalize (whatever that will mean if rational voices are not heard). I suspect that this is going to have a lasting impact even in the unlikely event that we’re not threatened with COVID20. But it’s a lot bigger than that.
Yes, I quite agree. I may not have PTSD, but I certainly feel traumatised and, frequently, reduced to despair over the dark future that has been seeded – not so much for me (I’ll probably be dead before the dark turns black) but for the current youth and for the future of what used to be a Great Britain and is now being turned into Greta Britain!
Can you get PTSD from being forced to wear a face mask involuntarily?
Under the bridge, is that anywhere near Liverpool airport
https://twitter.com/WillowWyse/status/1274827962207133697?s=20
The idea that any of these people are meaningfully conservative is comical.
That is outrageous, and turns our law on its head! We do NOT have Napoleonic law here. I wonder from which meeting this quote comes? And who leaked it?
Memory of trip to Paris, a notice on a wall near Centre Pompidou in a spot popular with street performers ‘Animations Permis’.
permises … or has Covvie finally destroyed French gender?
Well spotted!
There’s no evidence to suggest that it’s actually a quote and it’s certainly not from any minutes.
Though I don’t doubt Wancock could actually have said this, it needs a lot more context before it can be taken seriously.
Agreed. Needs credible sourcing before it can be used against them as brutally as it should. It could easily be disinfo. Though like you I wouldn’t at all put it past Hancock, or any of them tbh.
I’d love to understand the timing of this, assuming it happened at all, because Hancock made the exact opposite point a few weeks ago at a press briefing.
The original ‘legislation’ (I’d love to be able to think of a more accurate word for it, because that’s not the right one) that came in to codify the lockdown did exactly what Hancock is saying was needed here. It basically said, “you are allowed to do absolutely nothing outside your house, except for this short list of things”.
At some point over the last few weeks, the bill was brought in that, instead, specifically codified what you’re _not_ allowed to do – this was the ridiculous law that, among other things, made it specifically illegal to have sex indoors with anyone you’re not married to.
Hancock crowed about this at the briefing, saying that it was a much more “British” way to do things.
Technically, he had a point. The basic assumption under the laws of England & Wales and of Scotland too, has always been “you’re allowed to do absolutely anything that isn’t specifically prohibited by law”. The outrage of it is that we currently have an actual law that bans HM’s subjects from doing things that are perfectly normal things for human beings to do and are unarguably well within our rights. The bureaucratic nightmare is that every single one of these things will have to be repealed. The very idea that parliament will at some point have to debate whether or not consenting adults should now be allowed to have sex indoors is as hilarious as it is offensive.
Classic 1984:’Nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws’ – but anything you did could land you in a concentration camp, or worse.
Another reader posted this on Simon Dolan’s Twitter:
https://twitter.com/KDBxxx/status/1274683283373199362
Nothing wrong with repeating a Tweet in full, I don’t think. People here need to know that Apple is an active enemy to most of us here. I personally don’t shop at Apple but there might be some here who might have considered it.
“A customer was refused entry into the Apple Store on Regent Street when he told them he can’t wear a mask due to asthma. He showed them his inhaler but they told him shop online.
Within your rights Apple, as is the right of everyone to choose to shop elsewhere. “
Great. Copied and will forward via other channels
Thanks for the link.
Against my better judgment I got talked into going to Cheshire Oaks shopping outlet this morning. I was prepared for all sorts of fights, but strangely, didn’t get any! I was offered a mask at one large store, politely turned it down, nothing was said and I was still allowed in. No other customers were wearing masks. There was a one way system which everyone was ignoring. Hand sanitizer everywhere by the gallon but that doesn’t worry me much as it’s choice. Allowed to handle all the clothes but not try on. Nice staff, doing their best under difficult circumstances. Chatty checkout girl who obviously thought the whole thing was nonsense. I said I couldn’t hear her very well behind a mask and a perspex screen, so immediately she took off her mask and leant slightly round the screen – bless her! Onto another well known handbag shop. Got told “just shop as normal” with a beaming smile! No masks. In fact of all the people milling around Cheshire Oaks today very few were using masks. A few orientals – ok, they are used to them – but very few British I would say. I didn’t get the chance to use any of my “why I’m not buying anything in your store today” notes
. The toilets were open, spotlessly clean and a small queue. But then there’s always a queue for the Ladies so that’s not new. Stores were imposing restrictions on the number of people allowed in at any one time, but I didn’t queue at those. I only went in ones where I could walk straight in.
Sadly nowhere to sit even outside and have a coffee or a sandwich. Or if there was I couldn’t find it. Benches marked with notices saying you mustn’t sit there and eat. So I came home.
My hands were sanitized to death by the time we left, but I didn’t feel harassed about muzzle wearing. And certainly nobody had a go at me for venturing into “their space” and getting too close. Unfortunately the atmosphere wasn’t what it usually is, a bit muted, but I can see that it may well come out of all this soon as more people simply ignore the guidelines. I did wait outside one store for it to open, but not in any particular queue, and everyone around me was saying how stupid it all is now and how all restrictions should be lifted and we get back to normal. I pointed them in the direction of Lockdownsceptics!
I may have to go again to take back what I bought today if it doesn’t fit – how stupid is that, I may as well buy online really if I can’t try on – but I have two months in which to return the items.
Slightly bemused that it wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared, although there’s room for a lot of improvement yet.
It’s not about buying stuff. It’s about the whole ghastly experience of not being allowed to make the experience vaguely pleasant. No sit down with a coffee & cake, no pub lunch – just the sterile exchange of goods & money, because Hancock won’t allow you anything better. God I wish we had something to look forward to at the next election. Or even before.
..plus all the ‘advice’ to shop alone..
Yes there’s that too, the shopping alone thing. Although I wasn’t alone – shock, horror, I had somebody from another household with me! – and we didn’t get asked to split up even though there was the occasional notice asking for one person only to go into the shop. It may have been because it was Monday morning and therefore not busy, but nobody seemed bothered.
Similar experience for myself and OH at our local Aldi today. No queue to get into the store, sanitizer spray and kitchen roll at the entrance to clean the trolley, but no one-way system inside, and no objection to us both going in together. Traffic on the road was heavier than previous weeks.
Apart from a plastic sheet near one checkout and the perspex screens, my local Aldi has stayed as sane as possible throughout. Happily accept cash too!
Ugh!
Hancock is the b’stard love child of a milk monitor knowitall junior school prefect (who everyone ignored) and a Dementor.
Mostly Dementor, from a long line of Dementors,, each more rotten than the last.
I know James, it’s so sad. Shopping at a large outlet like that should be about a day’s experience, with a long leisurely lunch involved. It’s rubbish. But air did feel sorry for the staff who were doing their very best to be bright and cheerful and polite under the circumstances. Well, their jobs depend on it of course, but they were making an effort. But it’s not a patch on the real thing, proper normal shopping. In normal times I not a huge shopper anyway, I only shop for clothes twice a year, but when I do I like it to be a pleasant experience. This was just odd.
I had vowed never to go to a shop again (supermarkets excepted) until the old normal is restored. This was after a visit to the garden centre a couple of weeks ago. However, I relented on Saturday and went to Teesside Park near Middlesbrough. The place was very busy, and at first sight you would have thought you’d gone back in time six months. No coffee shops open, of course, but all other shops were. Then one of the site operatives walked past and on the back of his high-vis jacket was the slogan “Maintain Social Distancing”. First, W H Smiths – a small branch. They were operating a one-in-one-out system, but I was straight in. The only issue was various obstacles to try and impose a one-way system, but it wasn’t working and just had the effect of forcing people to bunch up near the checkout. No problem if you dared to touch anything. Next, it was off to Next, an altogether different experience. A short queue to get in, then compulsory stinking gel for your hands. A one-way system, vast amounts of signs and plastic screens everywhere you looked, staff all wearing visors, toilets shut, card only payments, no changing rooms. Thoroughly miserable. Then it was Morrisons. No queue to get in (but sometimes there is). High vis-jacketed security guard to “greet” you as you entered, although they seem now to have dispensed with the creepy body cameras. Thereafter, apart from the plastic screens at the checkout, everything seemed back to normal: quite a lot of people in the store, no hectoring announcements about social distancing, staff not wearing any protective gear, not too many signs around the place, a few muzzled customers, but mostly no one falling over themselves to get out of your way. The staff were working and interacting with customers and each other as though the virus had never existed. In Morrisons at least, things seem to be slowly returning to normal. On the way home I noticed a colossal queue a the McDonalds drive-thru! Overall then, I slow return to the old normal, or am I being overly optimistic?
I think the old normal is making its’ way back Tenchy – at least I hope so. I guess it depends on each shop manager’s interpretation of the guidelines. I was careful to keep out of the way of anyone wearing a mask, but that was out of politeness in case they were terrified or very vulnerable. Everyone else was just milling about. If somebody is genuinely fearful I’d be happy if they wore a badge or something, so that I would know to keep away from them, and the rest of us could get back to normal. Proper normal. I suspect my experience flying next month is going to be very different though – you know how airports love their rules and regulations!
If the proper cafes are shut, crappy McD’s will be coining it in!
Ugh.
About the only advantage of the universal incarceration has been that I haven’t had to clear McD muck from our lane.
Still, I suppose junk food refuge is part of the old normal.
… few were using masks. A few orientals – ok, they are used to them …
I don’t want to be expected to get used to them!!!
Other than that, thanks for your account. Glad it was better than you anticipated.
However, if I can’t sit down to eat or drink at these places, I’m not going to drive there to meet a friend and spend a few hours on a girly window-shopping spree with impulse buys and lunch.
Shopping alone, except for necessities, has no appeal whatsoever, so I’m not going to be assisting economic recovery anytime soon I’m afraid.
A little bit off topic, but I see those racists and misandrists at the BBC are at it again.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53135022
Amongst other things they want the proportion of on-screen personnel to be 50% women; they’ll have to reduce it then, from whatever it is now.
At the BBC, the days of the straight white man are numbered, without a doubt.
And the ones primarily to blame for that are …. straight white men (which includes myself). Far too many of us more concerned about virtue signalling to see the dangers clearly and to stand up for threatened individuals and institutions and against interventionist rules and laws.
The irony is of course that if we were anything like we were portrayed (cynically and dishonestly) by the identity lobbyists, they would never have had a chance of doing what they have done to this society. If we were to act as an identity lobby ourselves, we could still overturn it, but there are too many zealots, naifs and virtue signalling collaborators in our own ranks for us to turn the enemy class’s weapons back against them effectively.
Though I believe that will ultimately be the result, because these people will not stop pushing until the end. Bu neither side will likely enjoy the outcome.
You are exactly right. It is, without a doubt, that straight white men are mostly to blame for this – Tony Hall is a classic example. Funnily enough, I remember a conversation with a colleague way back in 1995, when we were discussing feminism, and he said the same thing.
These are processes that have been underway for decades, and we are now seeing the culminations.
It’s called self-loathing and does appear to be a disease of middle class white males. Judges seem to be particularly prone to it.
There’s some self-loathing for sure, or the attempt to avoid self-loathing by trying to be more “virtuous”. I don’t think it is just males though – the middle class in general, below a certain age. Usually the more “intellectually” inclined, or the ones more interested in politics. And probably yes, mainly white people. But I think apathy, or cowardice, or the mistaken assumption that if the people with extreme opinions are humoured a bit, and we vote Tory, they will go away.
Speaking personally, I do not loathe myself. I feel fortunate to have been able to live in a largely peaceful country in a largely peaceful era (in the west, anyway) and to have been able to earn a decent living doing something I enjoy. I have worked hard, I like to think, but also must recognise I have had more opportunities that others. I think this recognition of good fortune leads some into what eventually becomes either self-loathing or some feeling that if others less fortunate than you seem to be blaming you for their troubles, it’s horrid to point out that life is unfair.
It would be nice to think that a consensus could be built around defending freedom of speech, moving away from identity politics, but I fear that it will just end up in a tribal war. I might not completely approve of the “side” I have to choose, but the alternative may end up being the destruction of a way of life that I believe has served us well (not perfectly, but better than the alternatives).
I agree.
What is it that all the privileged people are supposed to be keeping for themselves? Because it could just be an illusion.
Personally, I wouldn’t thank you for a Rolls Royce and a job on a company board, and I suspect that my modest, possibly ‘intellectual’ lifestyle would appal someone whose idea of a perfect existence is a mansion with a swimming pool and unlimited KFC. You could take everything I have from me, and it might fund that lifestyle for a couple of months, but then you’d be stuck. By taking away the relative peace and tranquility that I’ve created for myself through my modest lifestyle, and left me begging at the roadside (presumably your aim) you’d have lost use of the moderately scarce talents that I do have.
I come from a country and tradition where the vast majority of people aspire to a small house, and who, when they have their breakfast looking out onto their back garden, think of themselves as living a life indistinguishable from a millionaire’s at that moment. (I know I do). They don’t envy the rich, and they feel lucky to have what they have. They don’t do anyone else down. They’re not racist. They have little that can usefully be extracted from them by a person who thinks that privilege is a Ferrari. Privilege is, in fact, education, and the chance to live in a stable, peaceful country with the enlightenment tradition. And every British citizen could make use of those privileges if they chose to use them. If you never had that privilege when younger, then that is sad, and puts you at a disadvantage. But the way to solve it is not envy and destruction.
If you decide to sweep everything away – all the traditions, the certainty, the equilibrium, the cohesion, the enlightenment values, then after a couple of months of part-aaaying, you are effectively starting again from scratch. Good luck with that!
Happyness is contentment
There’s a Warren Buffett quote a long the lines of “if you gave everyone 1 million dollars, after six months you’d have the same proportion who were wealthy and those that are poor”
Wealth and keeping your money is a discipline and hard work, as you’ve pointed out
I agree. When Blair got into number Ten in 1997 I cringed when he spoke about starting at ‘year zero’. I immediately thought of Pol Pot. A peculiar tragedy of this Covid business is that we do have a leader who is highly educated and does know his history, yet keeps on making mistakes.
Women are 51% of the population. Just saying ….
They seem to have captured a disproportionate amount of the salary bill. Just saying …
The white men have? That will because they are better at the job, having mostly been apppointed on merit. Unlike in other cases, where many of the appointments will have been made to fill a quota, alongside the ‘tickbox’ mentality.
Examples please
Fiona Bruce. She might be alright on Antiques Roadshow, but Question Time? She only got that job because Matt Handcock, Culture Secretary at the time, essentially instructed the BBC to appoint a woman.
But why are there no fat women?!!!!!
Vanessa Feltz? Alison Hammond?
Boris Johnson?
lol!!!!
too fat
not fat enough
I meant ‘Hancock’ (why is there no edit facility on these discussion boards? Same at OffGuardian).
There is but you gotta be quick, apparently
Because it’s not a discussion board, it’s a comments section. This site needs a forum, as there is too much repetition, and you lose track of good threads.
Look for little wheel at bottom right when you click on your comment. That offers you ‘Edit’.
I was expecting a list of BBC men who were appointed on merit. Struggling to think of any!
or fat women
Naga Munchetty was but she’s lost a load now, Fern Britten was on Ready, Steady, Cook all those years ago, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock on the Sky at Night, and Bella Emberg and the Roly Poly’s on the Russ Abbot Show.
Straight white men? Ostensibly all of them, although I have to admit I don’t personally rate some of them as being good at the job. You’re struggling to think of any? Come on? How about Huw Edwards? I can think of women who are good at the job – Vicki Young comes to mind (Laura Kuenssberg doesn’t).
As a member of the FWB community I feel the whole world is out to get me, not only does Covid19 target and kill me but the whole of society is anti-me!!
I just don’t know what to do….
This is a cry for help!!!!!
FWB – Fat White Bloke?
nearly – fat white and bald
Friends with Benefits?
Yes. Look at Countryfile, for example (if you can bear it, I gave up months ago). . No matter if you know nothing about your subject snd care less, no matter if you have the ugliest voice in the world’s broadcast media, so long as you have the right skin colour and/or disability.
Equivalent pay is very difficult to establish for all organisations – the same job title very rarely means you’re doing the same job – but I would say especially for something like the BBC, when you have the added element of prominence or fame to add into the whole thing and in the media, prominence is a factor that adds a very difficult to determine value
If you take the example of Carrie Gracie, which was the case that brought the whole thing to the public eye back in 2018, on the face of it, the case was cut and dried – Carrie Gracie, as China Editor was paid significantly less than her male counterparts who, as “editors” for news from other major countries were clearly doing the same job. However, there were several differences. Gracie, for example, was actually in China occasionally, but based in the UK with her family, while her apparent peers had uprooted themselves (and in many cases, their families) and were based permanently in the countries for which they were editors for the duration of their jobs. This kind of lifestyle disruption is the kind of thing where you might expect an increase in pay.
There are many theories that explain the gender pay gap and few really boil down to discrimination. For example, apparently, men are more aggressive at demanding pay rises, so they get them. I’m not one of those, personally and it probably has been to my detriment. , but let’s take it as read that it’s true. What happens if someone in a key role demands a pay rise and you’re worried about losing him? Do you give him the pay rise and then tell everyone else with the same title that they’re getting the same? Or do you refuse the pay rise because you can’t afford to give it to everyone and let him walk away to a competitor? In my experience, companies will pay their people as little as they think they can get away with and still attract the people they need and get them to work. This isn’t discrimination, it’s a perfectly sensible way to run a profitable business. What I don’t know is how you balance that with the need to ensure parity of pay.
Is it significant that the male editors’ families had to be uprooted to meekly follow their men?
Maybe we should be cheering Carrie for not uprooting hers.
Maybe. Doesn’t change the disruption element though and it doesn’t change the fact the the jobs were in point of fact, not the same job.
There might also be something in relative location vs uprooting. Would Jon Sopel have relocated with his family to Beijing? Was Carrie Gracie offered the Washington DC job, and would she have taken that and relocated?
You are right, there are many theories that explain the gender pay gap, but few that stack up to statistical analysis, by which I mean a regression analysis of a specific dataset of independent variables such as prior experience, qualifications, third-party appraisal/ranking of the individual etc. In the case of the BBC, to what degree does the name of the institution moderate the effect of the supposed ‘star’. The more recent case (Samira Ahmed/Jeremy Vine) presented some fascinating evidence and legal opinion. In my view they are all overpaid, but I do believe that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
An old friend, long retired but very senior in The City, used to have an interesting response to the usual bonus time toy throwing. He made his staff write down what bonus they expected, and on what evidence they based their demands. He would call the bluff of those who threw a hissy fit on grounds that they had offers elsewhere. These are rarely the employees that are essential to your business. It’s back to another anecdote from a senior NY hedge fund guy; ‘if I underperform by 10% I get sacked. If I outperform by 10% I also get sacked’!
Some years ago Sir Roger Carr put his name to the 30% Club, founded by Helena Morrisey. I recall reading something along the lines that it wasn’t until his own daughter in her 20s told him exactly what happened to her and fellow professional women, that he realised there may be more than unconscious bias. You and I, Matt, both have lads, so I dare say they may not have to worry too much, because despite the grumblings of the OP, I do not see any wider evidence that male, white, middle class men have ceded their positions of power, influence, and pay. Nor do I think it is because there haven’t been women around them of comparable skills and attainments who have asked for pay rises and promotion, done the travelling overseas on demand, and all that goes with senior level jobs. That is not to say, of course, that there aren’t also women who have risen above what is deserved, or indeed, men who should be in more significant positions.
Well… touché.
Nothing you say is wrong and you’ve mostly put me in my place. But I will still say that I’m unconvinced that the problems are structurally to do with sexual discrimination – either conscious or not. There is more to it than that and while I can’t argue with the numbers, I don’t think that the numbers really tell as straightforward a story as they claim to. And I’m sorry to say that a father’s take on his 20-year-old daughter’s opinion doesn’t change my mind (fathers being famously critical of the opinions of their daughters and 20-year-olds being famously balanced and nuanced).
There is clearly something structural that needs to be addressed, by – anecdote being the singular of data – in my experience, it is not a deliberate systematic approach of sexual discrimination.
And by the way, I not too worried about my boys. They’re bright and they’re determined, and that’s 90% of what you’ll ever need. And at least one of them is very beautiful and very charming, so worst comes to worst, he can always marry a successful woman.
Gosh, I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t come across as ‘putting you in your place’, because that certainly wasn’t my intention. I agree, it is very complex, hence the need for a full analysis of specific datasets. From what I recall about Roger Carr, it was when his daughter – Oxbridge – was at a later stage of her career (late 20s) when she relayed her work experiences. There was a piece of analysis a few years ago that showed boards with fathers who had professional working daughters were more likely to promote equality of opportunity in their own firms.
My lads (18 and 20) are also bright and ambitious – elder one slightly on the spectrum, younger one with a sixth sense and hugely sociable. I want them to succeed, based on merit and the efforts they put into their careers, not because the system is weighted in their favour. My working class dad told me I could do whatever I wanted, and backed me all the way through school (I was always in trouble for questioning authority). I believed him, and set forth after college. Unfortunately, for my generation of women, the ‘discrepancies’ didn’t take long to creep in.
Don’t worry! No offence taken – you genuinely got me. I don’t actually know enough about the topic to have weighed in. We’re both in agreement that people should succeed on merit and I can agree that there are issues with pay inequality- and that the reasons are complex. There’s a tendency to break it down to being as simple as “discrimination, fix it!” but I think the truth is a lot more subtle than that, so it needs some thought, which is very difficult when everyone is shouting and oversimplifying (“everyone” isn’t intended to include you, by the way)
Why are you dividing the human race into men versus women? Why not divide it into people who are obsessed with money and those who aren’t? So statistically it turns out that more men are obsessed with money, power and ambition than women. So what? Their lives are empty. I’m not one of those men. If I pass one of them in the street we don’t have a secret sign we use just to feel superior to the women. In fact, he’ll despise me more than he does you.
And BBC salaries are your benchmark for fairness and justice? Bizarre. Completely disconnected from real life.
I don’t recall saying that BBC salaries are a benchmark for fairness and justice. They certainly are disconnected from real life, although I very much doubt that I am. As for the earlier part of your post, I think it is best left without a reply – perhaps seek the opinion of your wife or daughter.
I’ll have to get some of that – whats it called?
It should be mostly alcohol which is why it dries your hands out so badly. Some of the added scent is awful! I can’t tell you what my hands smelt like after this morning’s shopping with sanitizer at every doorway.
Did I misunderstand? Did she use her own handgel on top of handwashing?
Maybe you could put up a notice saying that soap destroys coronaviruses. Therefore, out of consideration for customers with allergy issues, customers wishing to use sanitiser gel are politely requested to do so outside the building.
A friend of mine told me his family (presumably a dictat from his Mrs) use shower gel because soap is unhygenic – Keh?….
(No idea how we got onto that subject – sign of the times…)
And hand gel kills the germs, but removes nothing, so you are left covered in sticky, dirty gunk crammed with dead germs.
Soap clings onto the germs so that they are washed away when you rinse your hands.
Can’t find it at the moment, but when I was writing exam papers on Health and Safety, I came across a study that claimed soap was more effective than hand gel.
Slightly more effective against coronavirus because of the ph, if I remember correctly. Detergent’s ok though, as it destroys the lipid sheath.
I use soap myself. However, soap is pretty revolting if left to slowly dissolve in a gloopy puddle. In hard water, it also leaves scummy residue on surfaces, so detergent is easier.
Shower gels are full of chemicals – all absorbed through your skin. Plastic containers a no no for the environment. Oh my what happened to reducing plastics agenda?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53138843
This is nothing short of criminal and both Vaughan Gething and the Welsh Government should be on trial for corporate manslaughter.
Gething is a criminal anyway. No virtue in him except, woke-wise, the colour of his skin.
He actually stated ( as reported in DT) that he had prioritised the safety of the people of Wales at the outset by closing down most NHS services, He actually said that.
And letters warning vulnerable people (e.g. ex-miners with silicosis) to take shelter were sent to the wrong addresses not once, but TWICE.
Hanging is too good. Waste of honest hemp.
Be fair: it is surely reusable and, spread over multiple candidates (no shortage of those), would probably provide decent value!
Isn’t it odd. All the countries, U.S. states, that are run by the Left had the same policy of sending hospital patients into care homes without testing them first, and all had serious outbreaks in care homes. What a coincidence. And i include our current government in that, as no one could reasonably mistake them for being right wing conservatives…
Well, of course, frail old people cost the state a lot of money and there’s always a shortage of places in ‘care’ homes…
And they call us sceptics granny-killers?
There’s no such thing as coincidence where governments are concerned
You are right.
“no one could reasonably mistake them for being right wing conservatives…”
Or even conservatives.
Sadly many sanitisers are full of bad chemicals. Very bad for people that are sensitive to some chemicals, ultra bad for people with skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis.
“ Surely soap and water would be just as effective”
Much more so, actually.
I remember reading at the start of all this that soap was more effective than sanitiser but that sanitiser would do if soap wasn’t available. I couldn’t find a link from the government but did find this one:
https://healthnewshub.org/health-news-hub/top-news/why-soap-and-water-is-more-effective-than-hand-sanitizer-against-covid-19/
Surgeons wash their hands prior to surgery, not not ‘hand sanitiser’.
Hope their hands fall off.
Can you find an alternative, less stinky product? Can you position it so that people don’t feel obliged to use it, but have to seek it out if they want it?
Soap would be much safer for many reasons. I suspect we’re in for a lot of knock-on problems caused by excessive chemical disinfection.
I’d say you don’t need soap AND sanitiser in your loo.
I realised that, thanks. Made a suggestion earlier:
Maybe you could put up a notice saying that soap destroys coronaviruses. Therefore, out of consideration for customers with allergy issues, customers wishing to also use sanitiser gel are politely requested to do so outside the building.
Dutch news: Unprecedented decline in household consumption in April 2020
So, you thought only the British numbers would be bad? Think again! Here are the most recent (published today) official Dutch figures on domestic household consumption. The month to the right in the graphic is April 2020, at -17,4% (March was -6,4%).
The numbers were compiled by the Dutch national office for statistics, the CBS, which wrote: “According to figures released by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), in April 2020 consumers spent 17.4 percent less than in April 2019. This is by far the largest contraction in domestic household consumption which has ever been recorded by CBS. Consumers mainly spent less on services, durable goods and motor fuels; on the other hand, they spent more on food, beverages and tobacco.”
The CBS also stated this: “This is the single largest decline in household consumption CBS has ever recorded. CBS has reported figures on household consumption as of 1922, except over the period 1940-1948. The current monthly time series has been available from 2000 onwards.”
And: “According to the CBS Household Consumption Radar, circumstances for household consumption in June are more unfavourable than in April. This is mainly due to the more negative mood among Dutch manufacturers regarding future employment growth within the company, as well as a significant trend reversal for the active labour force from positive to negative growth.”
Note that point about June: the numbers in the graph are only up to April! In other words, this is just the beginning, worse is to come…
Link to original English language article (with more graphs and such): https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2020/26/unprecedented-decline-in-household-consumption-in-april
So, rejoice, it is not just BoJo & Co. who turned out to be utterly incompetent, our Dutch overlords also know how to destroy an economy. Perhaps now would be the perfect time to start singing “Nearer, my God, to Thee”?
You don’t have to be an “expert” to have foreseen that outcome.
Apart from the loo roll fiasco and needing time to mobilise delivery workers after the short-notice u-turn, I bet supermarkets could have predicted that in March.
Unfortunately, government-paid “experts” don’t seem to live in the real world.
Funny you should mention toilet rolls, because indeed that one was up approx. 4%.
The rest however was down. Notice services: that’s also the middle classes and their jobs. And I think they were the most vocal ones when it came to demanding lock-down. Poetic justice? Almost funny if it hadn’t been so needlessly tragic.
Work from home, use own loo paper.
Work from home, drink more, use lots of loo paper.
Work from home, with kids at home, be amazed how much loo paper you can all get through in a week!
If only we could have a loo paper based economy. We would all be millionaires by now!
No, because the economists from Golgafrinchan would start burning loo rolls in order to control the money supply.
According to USC’s Dornsife poll, Americans age 18-39 think they have a 13% chance of dying of the covid-19. They’re only overestimating their actual risk by about 130x.
https://twitter.com/PostApolcalypto/status/1274841453462724608
Would love to see an equivalent for the UK
I suspect if you did, you might lose the will to live.
There is that
I think most people have. ‘Living’ has been replaced by a vague, shadowy existence, like that of the squeaking ghosts in Honer’s Odyssey.
“overestimating their actual risk by about 130x“
Surely that in itself is a pretty big exaggeration isn’t it (though I do appreciate the need to protect yourself by accepting easily established assumptions when making such an assertion)?
If they are overstating their risk by 130x, that would imply the risk is 0.1% rather than the 13% they believe, unless I’ve missed a decimal somewhere.
Even if we are talking about the risk once you’ve caught the disease (and thereby inherently increasing it substantially from the real risk), surely the ifr for 18-39 year olds must be far less than that?
Yes, it’s more likely that they’re overestimating the risk by at least 1000x. But people in general are not very good at statistics and understanding low probability events.
A hideous and senseless attack in Reading. Brought back horrific memories as I lost a very close friend in the Stockholm terror attack. I have nothing but sympathy and respect for the family, friends and school wanting to pay respect in the form of a minute’s silence for their teacher but ITV openly broadcast video and images of zero social distancing? Is paying respects now ok so therefore funerals etc. are fine?
OK, but surely the more images like this there are in the media, the better?
Yes, although people need to point out the lack of social distancing if comments are allowed. Some people are still ‘blind’ to the mixed messages..
Also reports say ‘more than 100’ children took part. The school has 240 pupils per year group which means under the current rules only 60 can be in school at a time. So it seems you can go to school to remember a teacher who has died, but not to actually learn.
luckily, in reality, no problem…..
Regarding Unlocking the Dragon. My dad who is 78 in very good health but not particularly bothered about the lockdown lives in North Wales a short distance from the English border. I live in England, 25 miles away from him. He cannot legally travel more than 5 miles from his home address but he can drive the short distance to the border, cross it and then I assume English Covid rules apply which mean that he could via various back roads without crossing back into his homeland make his way to see me.
He hasn’t visited me yet but I have visited him a number of times with the handy additional of some flour, beer and yeast just in case I get stopped by North Wales Police.
The whole thing is bizarre in that in Chester which is where I live there is an area called Saltney which directly abuts an area called Saltney which is in North Wales. On the road, Boiundary Lane which is one side in England and one side in Wales residents have to follow different rules although I suspect the vast majority are either ignoring them or following the English rules no matter where they live.
Big pharma EXPOSED by leaked conversation between Lancet and NEJM Editors-in-Chief
The BIG question: Does this leaked conversation reveal hydroxychloroquine was “trashed” for the sake of vaccine profits down the road?
Natural health advocates point out that smearing hydroxychloroquine as ineffective against COVID-19 leaves the field open for Big Pharma to ride to the rescue with its vaccine – incidentally, reaping hundreds of billions of dollars in profits while potentially costing hundreds of thousands of lives.
The truth is: both The Lancet and the NEJM are largely funded by the pharmaceutical giants. With a massive pocketbook for funding, Big Pharma can easily purchase fabricated data, stifle and censor criticism and maintain their virtual monopoly on science, media and advertising messaging.
https://www.naturalhealth365.com/leaked-conversation-corruption-3446.html
It was touch and go at one point. No I’m not talking about Boris:
Bank of England rescued government reveals governorAndrew Bailey has told Sky News that if the Bank had not intervened the government would have struggled to fund itself
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-governor-says-bank-of-england-saved-britain-from-effective-insolvency-12012369
Coincidentally I was just running through some of my past comments on BBC HYS. This is something I wrote on 8th April:
“The final cost of all this will be much higher likely lasting for years.
People will not be spending as before, cutting back to repair any damage done to them personally. A lot will still want to social distance. The economy will suffer as a consequence.
We’ll never really truly know what might have happened with different actions but we’ll be questioning and paying for this for years.”
I think I posted this a while back here but in case I didn’t or for those that didn’t see it.
A Proven Solution to Reverse Covid-19 Financial Armageddon
https://www.newchartistmovement.org.uk/articles/proven_solution_reverse_covid_financial_armageddon?c=general
Thank you for highlighting this.
Just done a search and found this by UK Column written in 2012
https://www.ukcolumn.org/bring-back-the-bradbury
And this in a FOI enquiry in 2014:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-bradbury-pound
And here is a PETITION to bring it back…
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/bring-back-the-bradbury-pound
A quick report from the High Peak. The Co-op was great, no muzzles, relaxed atmosphere and a large gang of teenagers outside not anti-social distancing. On the way down to Morrisons a large party was sitting outside his house with 3 bottles of wine. He greeted us with a positive barage of LS with which we were delighted to agree. He blames the media and we tried, not very successfully, to tell him there’s more to it.
But what has happened to Morrisons? The muzzle-wearing has increased about 4x from last week. Also, they have opened their cafe as a take-away (empty) so you have to negotiate a warren of tables and chairs to get to the loo, which is at least still open.
3 broad categories of the Muzzled: 1) terrified, ill-looking oldies who keep fingering them. 2) young blokes in those large sinister, black ones which appear to be proliferating and 3) Yummy Mummies in Cath-Kidson flowery designer ones. One of them even had her small child in one!! (OK, I know he might have health issues, in which case this will not be helping him anyway.)
We were really puzzled, why now? Then we watched today’s UK Column and saw the latest Behavioural Insights /NHS offering, attached. It really is like taking sweets off a baby, brain-washing the UK public, isn’t it? Never mind that supermarket workers have never not worked throughout this and it’s apparent that hardly any of them got the virus.
”I’m protecting shoppers and staff – and the climate and everything….”
We need to rip these down wherever possible!
That looks like a mugshot
cetainly looks like a mug
Your categories of the muzzled matches exactly with those I see in my town,strange coincidence ?,I told a couple of lads in the sinister black ones that they were idiots for wearing them last I week,I couldn’t tell what they said back to me !.
Was it “fmmm omm”?
“Your money or your life ?”
I wonder if there is some genetic difference between those of us who look at that poster and want to scream/hurt someone/tear it down, and those that rush out and buy a mask to wear at their very next shopping trip?
That’s one of the problems. It’s becoming trendy and fashionable. I don’t think the younger generation see the symbolism. What percentage have read 1984 or Brave New World?
…if the young muzzled start getting ill and get why then it might become less fashionable – we can always hope..
Given that they almost certainly are a fashion accessory and that most people haven’t a clue how to wear them hygienically, that’s a knocking bet!
what – more ill
me neither
Very few, I imagine! In our opinion there’s definitely a woke, virtue-signalling element to it for some under-40s. Even before this we observed the narcissistic, precious, perennially victimised attitudes of many millenials who seem to live in their SM echo-chambers.
Sadly the CV19 disaster is giving them the chance to star as victim/hero in their very own drama.
Hmm, but they ARE going to see the real thing!
My daughter gets cross when I go on about it. She says “Dad, it’s just a mask!”
I’m having to learn to keep my views to myself in my own house because apparently it “upsets” her. She is being taught the BLM stuff at (virtual) school as well.
Suggest you continue to challenge your daughter with facts even if she does not want to listen – its your job to protect her from these bad influences
I want to rush out, buy a big fat marker pen and change “protecting” to brainwashing.
“I’m a complete knobhead” more like.
Actually, “knobhead” is much more polite than the noun that popped into my head when I first saw it!
An excellent idea. I have a black permanent marker and it’s going to be my constant companion from now on.
Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence?
No, thats guilty!!
The lockdown is based on the premise that we are potentially “guilty” until “proven” (with a test) innocent.
I reported on my encounter with a black muzzle wearing young woman (actually, she might not have been that young – hard to tell really) yesterday.
To cut a longer story short she exhibited the sort of extreme religious zealotry of the woke.
The NHS muzzle poster is a religious icon. Saint Zombie.
World Health Organisation reports record increase in new COVID-19 cases in 24-hour period
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-world-health-organisation-reports-record-increase-in-new-covid-19-cases-in-24-hour-period-12012331
USA – “When you have 20,000-plus infections per day, how can you talk about a second wave?” said Dr Anthony Fauci, of the National Institutes of Health. “We’re in the first wave. Let’s get out of the first wave before you have a second wave.”
New Zealand – one of the first countries in the world to return to near pre-pandemic normality – there are nine new cases after it had none at all for three weeks earlier this month – I’m actually surprised the reporter didn’t say going from 3 to 9 cases was a 200% rise
South Korea – South Korea reported 17 new cases, the first time its daily increase fell to under 20 in nearly a month – Reduction in numbers, that’s good news surely?
Beijing – the increase was in single digits for the first time in eight days. It reported nine cases – Also down.
New Zealand hermetic sealed for ever more – good luck…
“ – I’m actually surprised the reporter didn’t say going from 3 to 9 cases was a 200% rise
”
The reporter couldn’t work the maths out
Yes and they will be living on tenderhooks for years.
Are they adjusting for increased testing?
they’re in denial
Doubt it – just trying to ramp up the fear…
Cases going up deaths not , more testing this is a good thing as the % mortality rate will continue to fall
Only good if they bother to report it. What are the odds?
deaths are a statistic of conveniance
Is NZ about to go exponential then? Just as well the rest of the world is now cut off!
A headline you won’t see “New Zealand’s R rate rockets to 8 . Isolation fails” (assumes 1 person infected 8 others to give 9 cases in total-other answers are possible)
The R rate was infinity when it went from zero to two cases. I’m shocked they let it get that high.
FFS ignore the R rate
The UK government currently is and they’re the only ones who ever took it seriously in the first place m
We should be more concerned about the BS rate. It’s been incredibly high since late February and shows no signs of diminishing. In fact, in some parts, e.g. Wales it seems to be increasing.
On James Delingpole’s Twitter he re-posted this: https://twitter.com/CllrBSilvester/status/1275055634157887492 showing loads of places all reporting 33 new cases – weird coincidence that so many places have exactly that number of new cases today?
Went out to buy some mango chutney (how hard can it be) to no avail and didn’t want to go to a large supermarket just for that so will go without. Lovely drive in the sunshine and the mighty Muse came on and the lyrics were so on the money:
Paranoia is in bloom
The PR transmissions will resume
They’ll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down
And hope that we will never see the truth around
So come on!
Another promise, another seed
Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined
So come on!
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious
So come on!
Interchanging mind control
Come, let the revolution take its toll
If you could flick the switch and open your third eye
You’d see that we should never be afraid to die
So come on!
Rise up and take the power back
It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack
You know that their time’s coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend
So come on!
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious
So come on!
Also sadly saw three cyclists with muzzles on.
The cyclists wearing masks makes me laugh. What do they think they’ll catch going past somebody for a split second at 20mph. Absolute maniacs.
I wonder how long, especially in the hot weather, before one passes out and God forbid falls in the path of a car or causes an accident? I hope of course that it never happens but sadly think it is a matter of time. I need all the oxygen I can get when riding.
I saw one the other day who had a mask on but no helmet. Obviously doesn’t care about protecting his brain, but I guess anybody who wears a mask whilst cycling has no brain in the first place.
Brilliant.
So ling as he kills or injures only himself, I don’t give a f…
Aren’t the cyclists wearing masks more for pollution than COVID-19?
Unless they’re queueing for a McDonald’s I was under the impression there’s a lot less traffic to make fumes right now.
I’ve got absolutely no idea why they are wearing them. If somebody said to me you have a choice of breathing in either fresh air or breathing in carbon dioxide and my own germs, I know which I’d pick.
Actually you’re right there was a fashion for that in London years ago. I’ve recently seen cyclists right out in the middle of nowhere with the things on.
Someone made a brilliant comment over the weekend (apologies, I forget who) to the effect that the stupid have never self identified before.
“Rise up and take the power back
It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack
You know that their time’s coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend”
cringe as fuck
Perhaps a bit cringe but I thought some poignant lyrics amidst the cringe.
People reading this article could be forgiven for thinking there is only one way to deal with this virus.
This is how China is preventing a second wave – and the UK must learn lessons
The UK was slow to learn and apply the lessons from the first wave in China – it shouldn’t make the same mistake for the second.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-this-is-how-china-is-preventing-a-second-wave-and-the-uk-must-learn-lessons-12012406
I saw ”sky news” so didn’t bother
This is the communist way – and we should never imitate communists in anything, ever!
luckily you can recognise them now – they wear masks
Bit late now.
Sounds a lot like a minor outbreak to me. A bit like calling the Plague of London in 1665 a “second wave”.
The first wave being the Black Death circa 1350?
I don’t think it’s even an outbreak. I find it very hard to believe that the virus is not endemic throughout China. They’re flogging a dead horse.
The Government are considering implementing a new mandatory dress code if people refuse to use face masks…
Bubble Boy is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Blair Hayes, starring Jake Gyllenhaal in the title role.
Born without an immune system, Jimmy Livingston is forced to live in a sterilized dome in his bedroom, earning him the nickname “Bubble Boy” by his neighbors.
There is a remake being planned with a working title of New Zealand.
And coming to a town near you!
There is no such nonsense in our town yet….
our council must must still nbe on furlough
cider
Fascinating ‘clarification’? Double typing due to too much of the inebriating liquid?
we are a little behind the times up our way
Probably they were listening intently to Boris on HS2 when he said that, when one is in a big hole, the best thing to do is to keep digging!
I believe that that statement of FatBoJo’s is a major clue to government strategy.
Anna Brees interviewing a member of the public about the way death certificates are being handled:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fic2dlKlhw
Especially 2:42 to 4:39
I have attempted to shop in a local DIY superstore twice since the lockdown began, once to buy a mini paint roller — exciting stuff), and today just to look at the size and price of something. I have shopped there regularly for many, many years.
The first time I went there, I was turned away at the entrance to the car park at 17:30 (even though the shop wasn’t due to shut until 18:00), on the grounds that there were too many people inside the shop. I communicated the fact that I was puzzled by this idea to the bloke supervising the arrangement of traffic cones as there was no queue outside the shop. Apart from anything else, he didn’t have an earpiece to know how many people were inside the shop.
Today, I wasn’t turned away, and there was no queue — getting excited, I was. I managed to get as far as the shop entrance this time, but! I was immediately challenged by an employee (a bloke) who clearly mistook me (‘little old lady’) for ‘the enemy’. He told me I HAD to get a trolley before I would be allowed to go into the shop. I explained that I’d only come to look at the size and price of something, and that I didn’t need a trolley. “You’ve got to take a trolley for social distancing, you can’t go in without one.” His manner was abrupt and unpleasant – completely inappropriate.
I told him that I’d been in half a dozen other shops today, and none of those had insisted I take a trolley. I told him I thought the idea that I should have to lug a trolley round with me in order to look at the price of something completely ridiculous, and, when he started taking issue with what I’d said, I asked to speak to the manager. He duly put out a secret-squirrel coded call for some sort of reinforcements, before continuing to blather on rudely in my general direction, so that I asked him (4 or 5 times) not to say anything more to me, explaining that the way he was speaking to me was completely out of order.
When he still carried on, I suggested he might like to call the police (it was clear that he hadn’t a clue that the 2m rule was not law, and the rozzers are based just a stone’s throw away from the ‘superstore’ in question). He said he would call the police, blah blah blah!
Well, another chap, wearing a visor, eventually sauntered to the entrance (I have absolutely no idea if he was the branch manager or not — suffice it to say I did wonder if he’d been put up to the job of dealing with difficult customers, purely because of the times we live in, and his apparent ethnicity in that context), and he also said (at the other bloke’s behest, if I remember rightly — I was pretty worked by that point), that if I didn’t take a trolley, I couldn’t go in. So I turned and left. For a second time. In disgust.
Earlier in the day, I’d declined to proceed across the threshold of another shop (a well-known fashion retailer), because this over-painted, podgy face with architectural eyebrows had suddenly loomed in front of me from nowhere and enquired in a very whiny voice, “Are you all right?” (as an over-30, I qualify for the you-must-have-dementia treatment), and, “There’s the sanitiser, if you’d like to use it?!” delivered as an instruction, and not as an option.
If the economy is to stand any chance of recovering, then these shops need to rein in the rottweilers and robots. And those of us who can remember when brains actually worked will need to breakfast on tranquilisers.
Next time, take a trolley, fill it with loads of things then leave it in the middle of the aisle and let them sort it out.
brilliant Idea!
Genius, see how many things you can get on it, like a challenge!
Yeah, that is a good idea. Sort of thing my son would do, though, not me.
Ironic because in the unlikely event that you were shedding a deadly virus smearing it all over the trolley handle is probably one of the best ways of passing it on during a shopping trip.
Amazon gets more appealing daily, I’m afraid.
Name and shame the superstore and location.
I’m guessing B&Q, from what others have posted.
Er, you could be exactly right about that!
I’ve actually stopped going to my local Waitrose (I’ve shopped there almost every day for 20-25 years) as a result of the way one of their ‘COVID chaperones’ saw fit to ‘process’ me. I go to another branch about 10 miles away, now, where things are done in a more civilised fashion. So far, so good — I haven’t been mistaken for an incoming missile. I did ask them how much longer they’d be continuing to prevent ‘ordinary’ customers from shopping there first thing in the morning, but (of course) they couldn’t say.
all you people hidng, sheilding, staying safe – please come out from hiding – come out – do stuff – buy stuff quick – cos we are officially FUCKED!!!!!!!!
welcome to the new normal
wash – rinse – repeat
Young people are up for it I think. It’s the middle aged who need to get a grip.
Excuse me? Get a grip how?
Speak for yourself.
Sorry, can’t agree with that. As a father to young people, they tell me their friends are being ridiculous about wanting to abide by the rules.
Quick snapshot:
I watched 3 young people – early 20s – hiring bikes at Glasgow Green. One of the young guys fastidiously wiped down the bike’s saddle and handle bars before riding it.
Most of the people I see wearing masks are young people, it’s almost like a fashion symbol, a symbol of being woke and caring.
People who’ve been shielding are now ALLOWED out again. The arrogance!
They probably won’t go out. They have been told for months that to do so is instant death. For some, the imprisonmmrnt may last for life. No need for stone walls and iron bars if the real prison is in your head.
I’m told that if you release a battery chicken, it will make frantic efforts to get back into its cage. Same effect.
For my sins, I work in an independent school. I often find myself thinking that everything about how the place is run is exactly like the way the ‘country’ (the UK) is run, i.e. all skirt, and no knickers.
Seen on an A road in Central London – a big road sign saying “essential travel only”. That’s not the current government message. Presumably it’s the TfL/Khan message. Why hasn’t the government put a stop to this?
Because they’d have to pull their heads out of their arses to know what’s going on?
i would consider it essential if i want a pint of milk from a shop 300 miles away to ride there and purchase it.
What difference does it make if you’re in a car? Control, control,control. Back at the beginning of this farce we were only supposed to buy ‘essential’ items. Why? There was no rationing and we weren’t at war. Control, control, control.
Still says “stay home save lives” at a bus stop near where I live.
The government has a clear policy of keeping people as scared as possible, so there’s no incentive for these sorts of signs to be removed.
You would love this: “Sadiq Khan (Mayor of London) has admitted that he has not always ‘provided proper leadership’ as he struggles with his mental health during lockdown’
Anybody else feel this? That the UK is/was a very stable, prosperous country, and that a crash of some kind is being engineered deliberately? I just don’t feel that there is a spontaneous ‘cry for change’. This ‘BLM’ sh*t is clearly being encouraged by the powers-that-be. And the Covid disaster has been an entirely fake ‘crisis’. We could just have been sailing serenely on if there hadn’t been a concerted effort to f*ck everything up.
I was watching the Academic Agent a couple of nights ago, and he said that although the temptation is to think that this ‘BLM’ lunacy is a revolution in the making, it is in fact a counter-revolution. The quiet, civilised revolution happened when the people disobeyed and voted for Brexit and Trump – a brief moment when the inexorable socialist progression was temporarily reversed. We are now being punished in no uncertain terms.
I totally agree. This seems more like spite to teach the little people a lesson.
I sometimes amuse myself by contemplating what a truly GREAT country Britain could be if only politicians would limit themselves to absolutely essential business!
I believe it is being engineered, most def. No logic, for instance, for wearing masks now when peak was end of March/beginning of April. except that it is an overt symbol of control and oppression. Not sure about punishment for Trump/Brexit since a huge amount of the current party in power wanted to leave EU. So who would be doing the punishing? I believe we are being engineered towards a totalitarian state though, we’re more or less a police state now.
Hmmm. Politicians professing something does not make it so !
I feel like shit almost every day. Working from home every day, my wife is working from home every day. I don’t go out apart from a hour a week to visit work and to train once a week.
I can’t take much more of this……
Worth going out a bit more, Winston. As well as the exercise, there’s nature, the weather, people with dogs, youth doing skateboard tricks, and the opportunity to rip down a lockdown poster or two.
The problem is JohnB, I’m so close to breaking point that I will hurt somebody.
I know exactly how you feel Winston. I have wondered whether there is any way we could find out if there are any fellow lds locally who could be ‘buddies’ in this sort of situation. I think it would really help. But I can’t think of any way to do it safely
This is why it would be very useful to have ways people could contact each other privately on this site. Having a “private message” system would allow networks of lockdown resistance to form. That would be easy to implement in a forum, but I don’t know if it is doable on this blog software.
Give me a bell if you want, Winston. 0 1 2 7 3 4 0 0 3 0 6.
There’s no doubt there was a co-ordinated pushback from the PC Globalists…it started even before Trump was elected and we know that we were subjected to an extreme, Government-approved Project Fear for months before the Referendum vote.
There is no doubt that the people who are most keen on Lockdown and a “rethink” on all policies following on Lockdown, are from the liberal-left PC globalist Remainiac side. I think the last thing they want is a self-confident, generous-hearted nation marching towards a bright future. They have to encourage doubt, despair, division and dependency – that’s the only way this country will back Marxist-Globalism, the new-old creed.
“that a crash of some kind is being engineered deliberately?”
no and why?
With respect I really tire of these narratives.
Yeah. I find it difficult to understand how someone can believe that this just accidentally happened and month after month the government is accidentally destroying everything and accidentally forcing us to comply with pointless but very symbolic rules like wearing masks etc. If you really do the research with an open mind there is so much that is a matter of public record pointing to this also. There has been a coup. The forces behind that coup may have been preparing over decades but they have now made their move and assumed total control. So far very few have even realised what has happened which does not bode well for us.
Some comentators from ukcolumn.org suggest there is a government of occupation in westminster. There is exceptional analysis and reasoning put forward by uk column.
Seems poor old R has outlived its usefulness……..
R rate at 0.9 in WalesMeanwhile the average number of people infected by each person who gets the virus is now 0.9 in Wales.
The R-number is up from 0.7.
But Welsh Government advisers suggested that as numbers of cases fall, the transmission rate (R) is less of a useful tool for looking at the progress of the virus.
The latest analysis from experts at the Technical Advisory Cell (Tac) said as the number of new cases drops to low levels, the R number “becomes very sensitive” to daily changes in cases found through testing and tracing, causing it to fluctuate weekly and that it “tends towards” 1.
If infections continue to fall, it says the number of new cases and GP reports will become “more important” than using the R number as a primary indicator.
Welsh Government advisers said there was no evidence it was “significantly different” in Wales and other UK nations but there was “greater uncertainty in the estimates” due to the smaller numbers of cases and deaths.
Surprisingly enlightened of them to admit that it “tends towards 1”. An admission that the virus is endemic.
If you were aiming for eradication (which is utterly ridiculous but that doesn’t stop politicians talking about it) the target would be 0.
Yep MSM journos were all quick to tell us today that R is pretty meaningless, now that the figure has risen above 2 in Germany! Nothing must undermine the narrative: Germany and Belgium represent all that is great in Europe as far as the PC media are concerned so they cannot be part of a bad narrative.
So the government’s Nando’s heat scale is pretty much pointless now? The one that uses R to dictate our every move? Brilliant…
Does anyone else think this could be really bad news, or a glimmer of hope for a minor u-turn?
From the Torygraph:
‘Covid-bill’ to help businesses to be introduced in House of Commons this weekFresh proposals to help businesses “adjust” while social distancing measures remain in place will come before MPs this week, Downing Street has confirmed.
Number 10 said the Business and Planning Bill – which has been dubbed the Covid Bill by officials – is set to be introduced in the House of Commons in the coming days.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “There is a Covid Bill which will look at new ways of working as the country recovers from the disruption caused by coronavirus and which is intended to help businesses through the summer months in particular.
“I would expect that Bill to be introduced this week.”
I read it the opposite way, unfortunately. I read it as the government providing more rules for businesses to follow – in case they were confused or thinking of doing their own thing and possibly risking making mistakes. And to prevent a spontaneous slide back to the Old Normal that might make the planned October lockdown more difficult to enforce.
Never forget Ronald Reagan’s nine most dangerous words in the English language!
Never heard of any American reject emergency Federal aid when a tornado rips through their city…
The Government has a role to play in disease control and in business stimulus after a traumatic event.
I’m from …..?
The only growth businesses at the moment are PPE, signs, yellow spray paint, 2M measuring devices & health and safety consultancies.
i am sure local authorities will have to expand to enforce all the new advice.
Our Northern Ireland government are now trying to push for compulsory masks on public transport and other venues where you can’t anti-socially distance. I have e-mailed them the following. A lot of good it will do but at least it got it off my chest.
Hello
I believe you are now pushing to make masks compulsory. Please see my previous e-mail showing that there is no evidence they work and, in fact, can cause health problems. I have now included another link which quite clearly states there are no studies at all that show masks will inhibit respiratory viruses and, in fact, prove that due to the size of virus particles, could never prevent infection.
http://ocla.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Rancourt-Masks-dont-work-review-science-re-COVID19-policy.pdf
You have said the medical officer and the scientific officer have said we should all wear masks. Could you please forward me the scientific papers they have studied that says masks have a significant impact on respiratory viruses.
Could you also confirm that a risk assessment has been carried out as to the possible adverse effects of wearing masks and could you please let me have a copy of that assessment.
Could you also confirm that an Equality Impact Assessment has been carried out and forward me the results.
Could you also let me know, so that I can let other members of the public know, who is to be held responsible and who to make a claims against when when people become ill due to them being made to wear masks, particularly as the risks of wearing masks are already well known.
Could you also let me know why this is being considered necessary now, when the virus has almost disappeared in this country but wasn’t considered necessary at the height of the crisis. If you genuinely believe, contrary to all the scientific evidence, that masks will help prevent the spread of covid 19 then it was surely negligent of the government not to introduce it at that time. I can only assume, therefore, that you thought at that point that masks would have no positive effect. Obviously the science hasn’t changed so why the change in policy?
Apart from the de-humanising effect it has on the wearer, it will clearly cause psychological problems for children who will now view every human being as a potential disease carrier and will have untold consequences on their mental health for years to come.
As health and safety issues should be based on a risk v benefit analysis and there are no benefits but plenty of risks there would appear to be no logical reason to pursue this policy, particularity as the wearing of masks actually increase the chances of being infected by the corona virus and make the symptoms worse for anyone already infected.
As this will effect every person in the country, I think transparency in the decision making process is absolutely essential and look forward to your replies to my questions.
Regards
Stephen McMurray
Very good message – so zero chance of reply. If only the MSM would push this type of problem with government policies!
Rail passengers are thrown down stairs and tackled to the ground for not wearing face masks as coronavirus rules are brutally enforced in Spain
This is what happens when you make stupid rules.
It’s Spain but not as we knew it: Brits return to find limited entry to bars, no party boats, enforced social distancing on the beach and obligatory masks
That’s fine though, he wasn’t black.
Obviously! I’m shocked you’d even suggest that laws would be enforced against a black person! That would be racist! This is Europe we are talking about, not the US where there is obviously an ongoing holocaust of black people at the hands of police.
The comments on that article are depressing. I have noticed that comments on daily mail articles seem to swing hard to either pro lockdown or anti lockdown. It makes my cynic wonder if perhaps this is the work of the 77th brigade and their current mission being to force mask compliance and the appearance of public demand for mask compliance.
I notice comments saying in spain there are tough fines for non mask compliance but you can do lots of things like go to a hairdresser. I would say while we are being forced to wear masks anywhere ‘lockdown’ is not over regardless of what we have been ‘permitted’ to for for now.
Daily mail comment sections are fair alive with the manky 77th.
In fact, I’d be very surprised if a few weren’t active on here.
I’m more shocked by the number of people supporting that kind of police behaviour under any circumstances. They could have killed that guy.
I suspect they are state actors(77th Brigade) more then real people. Yet another part of our state that urgently needs holding to account.
My assumption would be that in this case at least it’s mostly to do with the authoritarian tendency to reflexive support for police (and “police”) amongst the Daily mail readership.
Perhaps. The article they had about plans for people to register to visit pubs and pubs being patrolled by police had a very different set of opinions expressed. I think perhaps some articles they are more interested in testing the waters and getting feedback on peoples opinions and possible reactions and so they leave alone where as others they intend to use to try and shape peoples opinions and these are then heavily manipulated. Of course its difficult to know for sure to what extent this is actually occurring in any given instance but they have been quite clear that they intend to shape and control public opinion.
Can’t see Mark Urban surviving much longer on Newsnight. He just told us that one of the German Covid-19 outbreaks related to a communal party held by “refugees” during Ramadan …er, Emily could have told him that’s a schoolboy error…you don’t say things like that on Newsnight: all references to refugees and Ramadan must be relentlessly positive.
Urban’s not thick…perhaps he wants to released.
Which kind of ties in with the high rates of death seen in the main religious groups in the UK, compared to non-religious people. Muslims death rates were 2.5 times high than non-religious people, which is more than likely because collective worship was still continuing.
So this begs the question, why did the Police not do anything about this when multiple people were reporting this to them? From what I have seen and heard, the people being cautioned or arrested for this were those actually reporting the worship taking place.
Quite right too but everybody should have been allowed to continue with their religion, not just Muslims.
Interesting about the higher death rate. This will at least partly be due to the whole BAME/Covid/Vitamin D thing as a higher proportion of Muslims in the UK will be of Pakistani descent.
Most female UK Muslims are not super covered up but there have been studies showing all sorts of Vitamin D deficiency related issues in women in places where they are.
In Japan life still continued a country famous for ramming their commuters onto trains. Perhaps its not so much to do with the fact that they continued with their lives – which is something to commend in my opinion.
Mr. Urban is one of mi5s finest.
Doubt he’ll be going anywhere in the near future although his long term future will hopefully see him heading straight to chokey once the current gang of reprobates in charge are deposed and prosecuted.
Another good report from Deborah Cohen on Newsnight on how Covid-19 spreads within hospitals (likely that NHS staff socialising are the real cause of spread).
Colleague at work today said she was really missing her grandchildren, not been near them since some time in March.
i said why not go and visit them, non of you are ill or have pre existing conditions. Life is too short to miss out on the good stuff.
Her response but I may pass it to them.
This person is the only person I actually know who had a test, and following that test she was negative.
This person has been working as an essential worker all through the lockdown.
I do not think she will take my advice.
The fear created by our controllers has really wormed its way into some people.
It doesn’t make children sick.
No, but her attitude towards them might,
Burnley ‘strongly condemns’ banner flown above Etihad Stadium during Man City game
“Burnley says it “strongly condemns” those behind a banner reading ‘White Lives Matter Burnley’ that was towed by an aircraft over Etihad Stadium during Monday’s match against Manchester City.
The aircraft circled over the stadium just after kick-off in City’s 5-0 win.
Burnley and City players and staff had taken a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement moments earlier.
“Burnley strongly condemns the actions of those responsible for the aircraft and offensive banner,” said the club.”
So not only are there special exceptions to the rules about not using football for political propaganda for the evil BLM, but any refusal to kowtow fully, however implicitly reasonable (such as politely pointing out that “all lives matter”, or that “white lives matter” as well) is to be condemned.
Will be interesting to see if the insincere idiotic ideologues of the Premier League management (previously known more for their liking of shagging, cocaine and corrupt practices rather than militant African American Trotskyite politics) will keep up the BLM propaganda when the fans return. Somehow I doubt it. No club is going to want to be the want with 40,000 fans hissing their disapproval. I expect it will be quietly dropped at that point.
It is absolutely shameful that the Premier League have endorsed a violent, race-based, Marxist, totalitarian movement that wants to abolish property and institute an extreme form of Communism.
And where is the single MP who will condemn in resolute terms the Premier League for their fake activism and damaging racialisation of football?
Second “want” = “one”
It’ll prove to be the end of them.
Don’t know anyone who agrees with the players actions so there will be a backlash if it continues.
What’s ironic about this is that BLM want to defund or abolish the Police, yet as soon as they see something the don’t agree with it’s reported in mass numbers to the Police as a hate crime!
Indeed. Of course “abolishing the police” doesn’t mean creating an anarchist utopia. It means replacing them with politically controlled militias that can be more relied upon to enforce laws in ways that the leftists want and against the “right” people.
After the shocking murders in Reading how on earth is a banner stating white lives matter offensive? That statement should be called out by the Premier League officials or an MP
It was, I guess, somewhat provocative (as, of course, is BLM!). I’d have preferred ‘White Lives Matter TOO’ or ‘All Lives Matter’. Both of which would have strongly indicated hypocrisy on the part of anyone objecting.
The point is of course that it is, as the BLM scum and their advocates admitted, a “backlash” against the BLM. And that is one of the problems with pushing forward a race hate movement such as BLM, it creates a backlash.
There’s a reason why FIFA ban political slogans on football shirts and they should of had the courage of their conviction and over ruled the Premier League officials
Absolutely. The ban on political slogans and demonstrations at sporting events is a good idea, so long as it is universally enforced.
As soon as you start making exceptions for favoured political causes, the sport becomes a propaganda vehicle and you will have endless trouble. That’s the can of worms they have opened.
Burnley: 01282 472107
Should anyone wish to ask Lancs Plod why the banner ‘White lives matter’ is racist.
In defense of the PTSD stats, PTSD is caused by trauma, and normal life traumas (which can be from the death of a family member or illness) that do not get resolved through our natural, healing relationship with others is at high risk for becoming PTSD. For example, we may brush it off as not ‘that’ important, but the cultural process of funerals has a lot of importance in the grieving process. It will look different to different cultures, but the ceremony is important in helping us transition through the process of accepting the death. When processing that death is put on hold or something is amiss that doesn’t “make it real,” yes… the person is more likely to have PTSD from it. PTSD is also not something to really be thought of as a strictly isolated event that causes these symptoms. In the majority of cases, the person has already been exposed to trauma – perhaps chronically – and the there will be one event that is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Trauma is thought to have a kindling effect, like seizures, where rather than ‘toughening up’ over time with exposure, the person is actually worn down.
An excellent book on the subject is The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
It is my personal opinion that a lot of our mental health ‘problems’ at present at the result of two forces. The first is that culture dictates what is ‘normal’ and that band is getting narrower all the time, therefore more people are falling outside the acceptable band with each addition to the DSM. The second is that we are completely losing our abilities to empathise and soothe one another during the traumas of life. We are not there for each other, and we are not ‘all in this together.’ We were never meant to exist in these atomised lifestyles, and now it’s on steroids…. so yes…. the mental health wave is coming. And yes, the NHS will fuck it up and throw pill at imaginary chemical imbalances and balls up primum non nocere….. again.
“… there will be one event that is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Trauma is thought to have a kindling effect, like seizures, where rather than ‘toughening up’ over time with exposure, the person is actually worn down.” I’d say that was probably spot-on. I’ve not seen it put like that before.
In the absence in the UK of proper analysis of what’s going on, here’s a very good video from Tucker Carlson, a US commentator. Please take a look at it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxxHV5vu1Mo
This is relevant to the Lockdown since the lockdown ideologues are using social control to further their aims. Think of the people who love the Lockdown: Ash Sarkar, Owen Jones, David Lammy, Yvette Cooper…they love it for a reason.
Great video here of a guy trying to buy something in a Walmart without a face mask: https://twitter.com/CaliCoCo3/status/1274360580070092800
He is ejected by security. But he is a hero.
I think the major problem with the mask wearing rules is that they are a MASSIVE change in the law without going through the legislative process. Only dictators and fascists rule by decree.
what difference would going to Parliament to make the law for wearing facemarks when the people in there are all part of Common Purpose or some other sinister outfit? The days are gone where any of these people are actuating doing what they do for Britain, they do it for the global government. We are prisoners on our own island and these people ain’t going away. Many of them are just sitting there waiting to see if it’s them that make it to the top but make no mistake they are, mostly, in on it.
If the Government was truly wanting life to start to return to normal, they would stop the pointless daily briefings on television. It is well known that what you keep to the front of peoples’ thoughts, is what they fixate on. The constant daily drone of Hancock’s Half Hour with the relentless and now largely pointless daily figures is doing far more to destroy what little we have left of the country, than Covid itself. That is just keeping the terrified fixated on the virus rather than on living their lives. One would almost think the Government and the PTB want it this way …
I don’t watch television so I suspect it’s why I’ve stayed relatively free thinking over all this nonsense.
All this is deliberate by the government it has nothing to do with the virus but everything to do with breaking our spirit, changing our habits and way of life. By attacking our pubs and sport which are central to British lifestyles they are attacking us and people should stop watching live TV the constant brainwashing by pushing fear and anxiety is outrageous.
‘…everything to do with breaking our spirit.’ Hear, hear, that’s it in a nutshell. Seems so obvious to me. Stopping watching TV is a passive action though, we need to build resistance and rise up.
Yes, they need to remove Hancock from out TV screens, he is defiately the worst irritating cretin in a sea of irritating cretins…
And quite sadistic seems to enjoy announcing that we will not be allowed to hug anyone till.there is a vaccine! and the tosser did say that horrible slimy man detest him.
Thankfully I missed that. I’ve been hugging everyone who wants me to recently . . .
I bet he’d relish donning an SS uniform! Give someone a bit of power and watch their characters change.
Most of Hitler’s agents were nasty, talentless little nonentities who relished the power given to them to bully their betters. The best example is Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, who presided over millions of murders in his death factory without a qualm.
I used to think Britain could produce neither Hitlers nor Hoesses. I was wrong.
But Hoess was hanged in the end, just the same.
.
He hugged someone in the commons the other day!
The dim witted twit.
He has form on that one!
When did he say that? Somehow I missed it..
Agree with everyone’s comments here. Hancock is in his element at the moment and needs his wings clipping!
A vet might be found for that!
I think it’s a dead tie with the Frank Spencer imitator
Gavin Williamson comes a pretty close second?
Of course they want it that way. This is and always was more than about the damn virus. And I may be joining too many dots here – because my mental health is taking a hell of a lot of exercise these days – but it seems to me that the whole BLM thing is designed to steer our focus away from what is really happening. Why else would it not be policed? Why no random arrests last weekend when people were gathered in groups of more than six? Usually – no always – the police make random arrests if a ‘law’ is transgressed so can anyone who thinks I am way off the mark please explain to me why?
End of lockdown to be announced today by Boris Johnson – allegedly
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-shielding-pubs-schools-lockdown-2m-rule-support/
Well, not really, because we still have all the draconian guidelines in place but right now I’ll take what crumbs I can get. Air bridges have apparently been sorted out with some countries (dare I even hope that I can get to see my family and little home in Greece at last?) the 2 metre guideline will be cut to 1 metre, and pubs, galleries, cinemas, restaurants and hairdressers will be able to reopen from 4th July. Not really what I would call an Independence Day though.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think that all this was being rushed forward because of Simon Dolan’s judicial review on the near horizon . . . .
I agree Simon Dolans lawsuit may well have been the cause but Bozo continues to prove how out of touch he is with the way businesses run and why we need businessmen in government and less scientists.
Frankly I think all their scientists should be locked in a cupboard right now. But I suspect they will be set up to take the government’s fall.
Next time – and there WILL be a next time in early winter, as there always is – maybe it would be good to know which of the myriad teams of crystal-ball gazers has the closest model to what actually happened. Then consult them first, rather than the team that has always failed in the past. And it would be interesting to find out who and why Ferguson was taken on board again this time.
Problem has been from the outset, most of them are not ‘scientists’.
Hmm, with you, until that ‘rushed’!
Yes, I know – just my idea of a wry joke!
Well, you have to laugh – the alternative gets too depressing.
It sure does Ian!
A tweet by Simon Dolan reads
“Under a new 1 metre plan,Johnson will emphasise that people must remain two metres apart unless they are wearing a mask or there are mitigating reasons.Pubs are will be taking the names and details of customers and erecting screens between tables”
Hardly what I would call the end of lockdown! Just the next phase of destroying our former lives and livlihoods. They are not going to permit us to continue with our former way of life. These are tyrants that is not what they do. It does not look like the British people on the whole could care less anyway.
“Johnson will emphasise that people must remain two metres apart unless they are wearing a mask or there are mitigating reasons.Pubs are will be taking the names and details of customers and erecting screens between tables”
Johnson is such a f*****g buffoon!
Unfortunately ignoring it does not take into consideration the Stasi and their eager snitchers. .
Everyone in the pub hugs somebody. Let them try to snitch after that.
Johnson fails badly in the leadership department
Unless he’s auditioning for a junior tyrant role, in which case he’s doing pretty well. Most people don’t think of him as such, yet.
Indeed, a nice ‘halfway house’ measure that tries to please everyone – show that ‘lockdown is ending’ with the ‘reduction’ in 2m to allow businesses to ‘reopen’, but keep 2m relevant just to save all those ugly floor decals from going straight in the bin…!
And yet the bars in the Houses of Parliament have remained open, and doubt there has been a lot of social distancing – and very likely no masks either…
I’d like Boris or Hancock to show how we can have a drink whilst wearing a mask. Perhaps they show us at their next TV broadcast, a sort of modern day ‘Watch with Mother’ type of programme.
What could possibly go wrong ?
My name is Augustus Cholmondeley St John ffotherington-fforbes, of The Castle, Castleton, Blogshire, and I propose to visit your hostelry tonight, I trust you have correctly recorded these details…
To-day’s Matt cartoon from the Telegraph
https://twitter.com/MattCartoonist/status/1275104633908846593/photo/1
GDPR? Is that legal?
Reading the DT about the easing of lockdown on ‘super Saturday’ and it sounds like they already have their excuses at the ready when there’s no increase in infections:
‘Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, said that there was evidence that warm weather was helping to kill off the virus’
Obviously no mention that the virus may have been in decline before lockdown imposed.
http://freenations.net/dominic-cummings-press-lies-hypocrisy-and-the-anti-brexit-plot/
From that site:
““The left wing press have said over several weeks that Dominic Cummings:
Opposed Lockdown” – LIE. He had long advocated it – and written over several years about the dangers of a probable pandemic”
So whatever else is true, even this evident supporter of Cummings admits he was a lockdown supporter. In fact he suggests a good reason to believe other evidence suggesting Cummings might well have been a prime mover behind the government panic that got us into this disastrous mess.
Sack Cummings. Sack the lot of them.
Never forget. Never forgive.
Sacking is not enough. Arrest, seize all their communication, computers and other documentation and investigate for prosecution for their crimes against humanity.
You also need to seize assets and ‘follow the money’ to wherever it might take you.
I agree.
I agree with you completely on this, as a (soon to be ex) Tory voter and Brexiter. The architect of lockdown, not only breaking it if only in a technical sense, but the preposterous ‘Barnard Castle Defence’ read as it should be – to mock and take the pi.. out of each and every one of us. Deliberate, and designed to inflict maximum emotional damage. Surely a dangerous person to have in your team, let alone in such a prominent position. There are a group of people who seem to be overly impressed by the intellect of Cummings, Ferguson, Boris and various others. Put them up against Oxbridge contempories – the likes of Luke Johnson and Hugh Osmond – in a debate, and I know who I will be backing.
This seems to be a global agenda to abandon the elderly and those mentally impaired. Clap for the NHS? Never!
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/20/watch-the-nhs-pushing-dnrs-on-the-mildly-frail/
Wow: that really is scandalous.
Yes isn’t it yet our MSM remain silent on the matter.
And the people remain wilfully ignorant and turn a blind eye.
The response from my councillor last week sadly showed ignorance but certainly not wilfulness.
Presumably she’s typical of the rest of the council so it’s no wonder they are helping to make things worse. They genuinely believe they’re protecting us from a deadly plague.
Those of us who congregate here are very lucky to have been pointed to sources of accurate information.
The reason why I say they are willfully ignorant is because they have access to all the same information, the same facilities to do research but they choose not to do it.
No one pointed me to sources of accurate information. I felt this was an important matter to understand and did research to find accurate information. If I was a councillor who was making decisions that could have dramatic affects on peoples lives I would only consider it all the more important to do sufficient research before to find accurate information before reaching a conclusion regarding the virus and making any decisions.
So I will maintain they are willfully ignorant and in the case of your councillors I would go further and call them negligent and responsible for the harm they cause.
And isn’t new either.
https://youtu.be/AtddJr90Tg0
Clap the buggers in jail, I say.
Latest message from Simon Dolan. He has a court date of 2nd July before a High Court judge in his proceedings against the Government’s lockdown. Just two days before Boris allegedly “raises lockdown”. I’m sure it’s why the government are suddenly in such a hurry?
“”Our battle against the Government’s lockdown will go before a High Court judge on July 2.
The date – which will mark the 101st day since the UK was placed into lockdown – has been set aside for an application for permission to seek Judicial Review. This hearing is the important first step in the process and is the first official court date in our legal challenge. “”
Thanks. This challenge is super important to challenge, fight for our rights and liberties
I hope he kicks the government’s ar&e! It’s time someone did. I watched his interview on YouTube when he started these proceedings he was inundated with hate filled Twitter postings. Why would people do that?
Trauma-based mind control. Next question.
Promotion of provocative BLM race hatred inevitably leads to resistance – a “backlash”. Some of that resistance is reasonable,some will be unreasonably racist or even violent, in direct response to the menacing racism of BLM.
Both forms will be persecuted, as is admitted in the piece below, and the establishment response will of course be to “blame the victim”, rather than putting responsibility for all the consequences directly where it belongs – with BLM’s race baiting and its supporters and advocates in the media and throughout all our institutions who have made demonstrative submission to BLM’s evil.
Note that this backlash is exactly what the likes of BLM rely upon – they thrive upon racial confrontation, because that is their very raison d’etre. This kind of provocation inevitably promotes and empowers the extremists on both sides. The idea is to force people to take sides, knowing that the BLM racists have the authorities and the media on their side and will be able to use resistance acts of racism and violence as propaganda while also deploying a crackdown by the authorities against their political enemies, which will of course extend to reasonable opponents of BLM along with any unreasonably racist opponents.
This is what support for BLM means. The answer is not to avoid taking sides. There is clear right and wrong here – BLM are the provocateurs initiating racist aggression. Their founding claims are lies, there is no systematic racist killing of blacks in the US. The whole thing is another manipulative falsehood just like the fearmongering over coronavirus.
White Lives Matter banner ‘motivated by racism and a denial of equal rights’ as Raheem Sterling joins backlash
“The banner, which was associated with a small minority of Burnley supporters, was condemned by the club , with Burnley player Ben Mee saying he was ‘ashamed and embarrassed’ by the statement.
…
“The racist backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement across Europe is a trend we have seen and documented,” Fare’s executive director Piara Powar told the Press Association.
….
Lancashire Constabulary’s East Division Football Unit, responsible for policing Burnley games, tweeted that they were “aware of the incident” and “will be fully investigating.“”
And from the Telegraph:
“The pilot who flew a “White Lives Matter Burnley” banner over the Etihad Stadium is facing a police investigation after Burnley players and anti-discrimination campaigners condemned the “racist” stunt.
Lancashire Constabulary’s East Division Football Unit, which is responsible for policing Burnley games, said it “will be fully investigating”, while Burnley have vowed to issue lifetime bans to the supporters responsible for commissioning the flight.
Under recently introduced EU laws, the company, which failed to respond to calls from Telegraph Sport on Tuesday, would have been obliged to seek authorisation from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) before taking to the sky for what would have been classified as a “high-risk specialised operation”….”
Whether or not declaring “white lives matter” in response to a movement called “black lives matter” is “racist”, what it absolutely clearly is, is legitimate political debate. A country in which saying that, in whatever form, is illegal is not a politically free country.
Those are the real stakes here, and that is the issue of real concern.
I’d love someone on here to try and sell me a credible “third way”. As it stands I can’t see this ending well – there will be violent conflict, and the “silent majority” will be forced to pick a side, and neither side will be appealing, and it willl end in either defeat or victory – I don’t fancy defeat, but victory will probably not be that pleasant either.
The only answer imo is to stand up to BLM and its advocates now and try to stop its provocations from going too far and generating too much of a backlash.
There is a clear aggressor here. The BLM “movement” was based on a lie and on misrepresentation of events in a foreign country. It is not in any way honest or indigenous.
If it is allowed to go too far the the choice of sides will as you say be a lot more unpleasant for all, and the outcomes are all bad. It needs to be scotched now. Whether that is possible is doubtful perhaps, but the only right thing to do at this moment is to try that solution.
Dark times are ahead. We’ve been at peace (if you can call it that) for over 70 years plenty of time for the evil Left to infiltrate divide and destroy, the race card could well be the trigger that ignites the powder keg.
Dark times are possibly ahead.
It’s all in the mind. It really is.
“With our thoughts, we make the world.”.
And unfortunately, much of our world is currently under the influence of some disturbingly effective propaganda.
It has indeed been disturbingly effective on the majority. I cling to the belief it’s a quality thing more than a numbers thing.
Who does the standing? Anyone who visibly confronts the marches on the streets is dismissed as a far right racist thug, anyone who speaks out in public is censured, censored and deleted. No politician will risk being even a voice of moderation, for fear of being seen to be insufficiently pious. No other public figure will, because ditto.
I was going to say something in response to your first post in this thread (Mark) and then I realised that anything I had to say had either been said by you, or was so blindingly obviously true that there was no point in saying it.
A couple of weeks ago, I was prepared to dismiss this as mostly being about a bunch of kids who had been locked in the house for too long and just wanted to smash stuff up. When they started on the statues, I mostly decided that I didn’t have enough emotional energy left over after obsessing about lockdown. But now I’m getting increasingly concerned, and no – I can’t see how this ends well. When a minority start so aggressively imposing their opinions on society and when the government are too scared to resist that, then there will be a growing number of the majority who feel they have no choice but to find a way to make their frustration felt. This aeroplane stunt is just a tone early example of that.
I agree. A policeman I know well told me that the biggest nightmare for local policing is an Indian summer weekend (late September) when it is very sunny, and people have just been paid. They got very caught out a few years ago when there was an unusually hot and sunny end October weekend – much more voilence than they could manage. My fear is this time it will be triggered by a similar late summer/early autumn hot spell coinciding with redundancies. Old scores tend to get settled during those type of events. Not sure Boris and co have ever been in a situation like that in their own lives!
“Who does the standing? Anyone who visibly confronts the marches on the streets is dismissed as a far right racist thug, anyone who speaks out in public is censured, censored and deleted.”
Indeed. The very evident fact that it is dangerous to express opposition to this movement emphasizes the urgent need to do so. I am pretty confident you, for instance, could not openly express an opinion directly opposed to BLM without very real risk to your job and indeed to your entire future employability, and you have to prioritise providing for your family. We are not yet at the stage where that priority is overturned.
Clearly, we do not live in a free country, so resistance needs to recognise that fact and behave accordingly. The first stage is to recognise that unfreedom and whence it comes. The second is to resist it in ways that are appropriate to living in a unfree society.
The authorities do not deserve any respect in this area. Resistance should be achieved wherever it can be, indirectly if necessary. Silence rather than endorsement of antiracist Official Truth might be possible in some situations. Support for people you would not necessarily support otherwise might be necessary. Anonymous expressions of support for people harmed for open resistance can help. Vigorous support for movements that do not explicitly resist the antiracists themselves, but that in practice resist the oppression itself, such as free speech campaigns, and assistance campaigns for those charged under oppressive antiracist laws.
Vigorous opposition to those individuals and institutions that contribute to the problems by kowtowing to or enabling the antiracists, contempt for “taking the knee” etc, not necessarily with any open expression of why.
These are the kinds of things that even someone with too much to lose to come out openly can do.
Good stuff Mark, thanks.
“The only answer imo is to stand up to BLM”
That plays into their hands. They will label you the aggressor and the woke are much better at identity politics than you are.
My suggestion is to play them at their own game. Learn how identity politics works and turn the tables.
For example. “trans” people insist that only they have a right to define their own identity. Fine. I have some sympathy with that concept.
So if someone tries to tell you you are “sexist”, say. “I don’t identify as a sexist. How dare you label me in that way.”
Etcetera. That’s how to deal with it.
See my previous response on forms of direct opposition.
What you propose has its place. it can help to muddy the waters. But implicitly it accepts their world view, and so it can do as much harm as good in the end.
Well they’re not going to give up playing identity politics Mark – and you can’t force them to.
So, as I say, I think the solution is to get better at it than they are.
It’s not for sale.
I think that once the establishment did the ridiculous taking the knee bollox and fell over itself to apologise for the “slave traders” (slaves conveniently supplied via black African tribalism), any third way probably became impossible.
Yet again, the MSM has fanned the flames. If they had concertedly taken an adult response by declaring firmly that ALL lives matter and using that as a counter slogan, surely there would be less wind in the BLM sails?
Just refuse to acknowledge it or accept it.
This is so wrong. How can the people & the various authority figures not see that what they are saying is racist in it’s own way. This will end in big trouble.
They’ve been getting away with the antiracist lie, that the only racism is white racism, and with the cynical antiracism industry’s abuse of the ever-flexible smear term “racism” to promote their own interests, for decades.
Reminds me of that catchy little number ‘four legs good, two legs bad’ in some lesser known allegorical novel about the manipulation of power. (note to self: must read it again. Can’t remember if Mr. O told us how the chickens felt about that.)
those chickens that were not killed were ok as (spoiler alert) the mantra became “4 legs good 2 legs better”
There’s a heart-rending paragraph in which Clover, the gentle old mare, remembers how she once crooked her leg to make a safe nest for some little ducklings. She thought that after the Revolution, that sort of compassion would be extended to everyone, by everyone. Instead, what they get is terror, oppression and slaughter.
The big problem with the entire “equalities” industry in the UK is that its rhetoric and raison d’etre has been imported wholesale from the United States. The situation in the USA is different from that in the UK. Although the British Empire had slaves in the West Indies until 1833, the only slaves in any part of the UK were white ones, and none at all using the precise definition of slavery since at least the fourteenth century. The history is completely different, the racism displayed different, and the solutions in the UK were all presented long before the BLM movement began.
Yes, that is certainly the case, though we had our own form of it in the debates over mass immigration in the mid-C20th.
If Black Lives Matter isn’t considered racist then neither should White Lives Matter be. Its time we stopped being silent and stood up for ourselves before we are airbrushed into oblivion.
If White Lives Matter banner is declared illegal, I wonder what would happen if someone created a banner Yellow Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, etc… Orange Lives Matter – what about that? Good associations?
It remains to be seen whether they will openly prosecute it as racist speech (ie forbidden opinion). More likely they will use whatever regulatory laws are available to them (licensing and permission laws etc) to harass the owner of the plane and the perpetrators of this verboten expression of political opinion.
That way they can achieve their goal of suppressing dissent (because they would never bother vigorously enforcing these laws against someone flying a BLM banner) without having to openly address the hypocrisy of their own stance. The threat of a prosecution for verboten opinionating will most likely be used to enable further harassment (arrests, searches, costs etc), without actually taking the case to court.
That’s how these things have been done in the past. If they do take it to court that will signal a major escalation in their arrogant confidence in their powers to oppress.
I assume the pilot would have sussed the licensing/permission aspects pretty thoroughly. His/her living at the end of the day.
Maybe so, though if the new regs require a statement of what message will be displayed it seems unlikely they would have got permission for this flight if they told the truth. The Telegraph’s comment is a little ominous:
“Under recently introduced EU laws, the company, which failed to respond to calls from Telegraph Sport on Tuesday, would have been obliged to seek authorisation from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) before taking to the sky for what would have been classified as a “high-risk specialised operation”…”
More generally, in all walks of life there are petty regulations that are occasionally ignored or overlooked. Because we live in a massively over-regulated society. That gives lots of ammunition for persecution of people the authorities want to get at.
I expect they told the truth. Perhaps not the whole truth, but it was probably nothing but the truth.
Edit: So help me God.
“This is what support for BLM means. The answer is not to avoid taking sides. There is clear right and wrong here – BLM are the provocateurs initiating racist aggression.”
No, their position is side based. They have adopted a defensive position and seek to maintain that defensive position. If you try to conciliate then they just move the goalposts.
That is why the “woke” invented terms such as “microaggression” and “systemic racism”. These terms have been created to maintain the division. It’s as the late Reverend Paisley would have said, “no surrender!”
If you start to oppose them directly you play into their hands.
Their position is not defensive, except tactically. Not clear if you are agreeing on this or not. Objectively, they are the aggressors. They started this fight.
On the one hand you are correct in saying that conciliation is self-defeating. On the other, you say that if you oppose them directly you play into their hands
We are left with indirect opposition, which certainly has its place.
But there certainly can and absolutely should be direct opposition that does not play into their hands. The kinds of direct opposition that suit them are the defensively racist and violent kinds. But it’s perfectly possible to directly oppose them in ways that do not feed them in that way, by for instance pointing out the facts that contradict their founding lies.
The best opposition is to *completely ignore them*.
No, ignoring zealots just means they push further and harder, until eventually you simply cannot ignore them.
At the end of the day BLM are just another tool being used against us and are intended to distract us. Ideally we need to focus on the real issue, holding our MPs, their advisers, all the members of our police force that have brought what is meant to be an politically impartial organisation that enforces the law into disrepute by both politicising it and attempting to enforce laws that dont exist, etc.
Once we do that BLM(I doubt its actually possible) will be impotent. If we don’t do that BLM can serve its purpose of distracting us and then they to will be thrown under the bus when the time is right.
The antiracist threat to our liberty is far more longstanding than the coronapanic issue, “hate speech” laws and attitudes were brought in years ago and have been used to harass parties such as UKIP and any political causes resistant to internationalism for years. While coronapanic is more intense, antiracism is by far the better entrenched long term threat. There is an entire industry of people whose incomes, careers and power depend upon pushing antiracism. BLM is just the current manifestation. So long as the industry exists to indoctrinate people that their outcomes in life depend on their race, movements like BLM will have fertile recruiting grounds and plenty of dry tinder awaiting their torches.
I agree with what you are saying but I think the main driving forces behind the antiracism movement and the coronapanic are actually the same. Although the public faces of our institutions would be the starting point in holding people to account for what is happening my assumption is that if fully and honestly investigated this will lead others to be investigated and prosecuted and ultimately the forces that are behind the antiracism movement will be unearthed too. BLM itself without the backers, without those creating laws for them to abuse, without those turning a blind eye to their crimes would then be irrelevant.
Coronapanic is a big step but the road to here has been paved over many years, “hate speech” laws being one of the many bricks involved.
I believe that the BLM movement appearing *now* is meant as a distraction.
A distraction organised by whom? From what?
In the US, to try and bring Trump down and distract from the fact that Hillary Clinton and others will be back in court in a few months. In the UK, because the deadline for extending the Transition period is about to expire, to try and bring down the government, get Boris and Cummings out and force an extension… That is my take on it anyway..!
“racist” is a term of abuse that is too readily banded about. Remember support for Brexit was deemed to be racist. And the problem with this is that any views or questions that the left object to and they describe as racist dilutes the word and leads to real genuine racism being ignored.
And as mentioned above , it is always in terms of white racism. But everyone is racist. Will a pakistani allow his daughter to marry a white person (or a black or a chinese), No.
The original purpose of the racism slur in this country was as a weapon to use against resistance to mass immigration. After that striking success it has been taken up as a highly effective tool for suppression of dissent by numerous cause, including as you point out opponents of Brexit. And there is now a whole industry of people who make a living or gain power and position through “antiracism”. Those people rely on racism for their well-being.
The flexibility of the term racism is a major part of its utility. As I’ve explained before, it’s a form of what is known as a “motte and bailey fallacy“: they employ one meaning of the term and when challenged on it revert to another meaning that is more defensible.
i saw the end of the football and a Burnley player repeating some inarticulate mantra about their aims and ambitions.
But in effect, however one may see the sense in flying that banner, Burnley are saying that white lives don’t matter as they do not agree with the statement that “white lives matter”. How wise that is in a town that has had many issues with racial harmony and where their support is from the white working class will have to be seen. My thoughts are that the only supporter who agrees with the Burnley stance is Alistair Campbell (no further comment required).
Meanwhile in the real world, as well as three people being stabbed in Reading (white so apparently according to this logic, their lives don’t matter)
We also had a incident at an un-policed street party in Moss Side over the weekend where two men were killed. This is likely to have been a black on black murder. Very little media reporting.
If anyone remains in any doubt as to the right/wrong issue here –
any side with raheem sterling is wrong. Always. Indisputably.
There speaks a true Liverpool fan….
Ironically, I’m a Man City supporter and was always pretty positive towards Sterling in the inevitable arguments about his attitude etc, until he started endlessly playing the race card. He might always have done this, but I never really noticed it until the past couple of years, when those I was defending him against were repeatedly accused of being motivated by racism. For me, resistance to antiracism is a fundamental priority in modern US sphere nations.
Final straw was him kicking off against Joe Gomez.
#AllLivesMatterBurnley
If blacks in the uk are so oppressed, how is it that a police investigation is launched over a plane carrying a white lives matter banner but the same would never happen with a black lives matter banner
Update on slogans: How about “Our lives don’t matter. NOTHING TO LOSE”.
Low hanging fruit. will look good on the case solved statistics. Just don’t report a burglary.
Getting daily unsolicited emails from PPE companies etc. Really pissing me off but I would rather slide down a barbed wire banister into a bucket of alcohol than buy these to give to my clients.
They also offer a branded ‘Covid Key’ for opening doors without touching them!!
I went to Debenhams store and the girl on the checkout wore a visor as well as being behind a plastic screen I found it very difficult to understand her, talk about overkill LOL!
Poor things have been terrified into stupidity.
I thought Debenhams had gone into administration? Good if it has not!
You could have ”I am pathetic” printed on them and offer them free to any that are pathetic
My company just sent us all a pack of four masks, a transparent plastic ‘mask bag’, and a Covid key ! As well as the cost of all this shite, postage was £3.50.
Should I try asking the CEO for the money instead ?
Oh wonderful. Do make the mask-wearers work for their self-rightousness.
OMG the second wavers will be wetting themselves with joy https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1299748/Germany-coronavirus-lockdown-latest-North-Rhine-Westphalia-Guetersloh-restrictions-update
I wish all these reports of ‘spikes’ in cases would provide us with more details. Are they just people who have tested positive? Are they asymptomatic cases? Are they showing symptoms? Are they ill at home? Are they ill in hospital or are they in intensive care? There is a massive difference between testing positive and being in intensive care. I need to know how much panicking I need to do!!
The spikes are there for one reason that is to maintain anxiety levels.
It’s just more fear porn – perhaps the media’s favorite way of getting attention.
Sheep love it.
This outbreak in Germany is big news in Romania due to over 600 of the employees who have tested positive being Romanian migrant workers, a few of them have already tried to run back to Romania rather then be quarantined
What I have not seen reported in the western press are any details of the living conditions that migrant workers are often subjected to by German employers, they are usually provided with accommodation and meals as part for their contract.
The accommodation is usually crowded and dormitory style with shared bathrooms and kitchen facilities and meals are usually provided in a canteen environment
Cleanliness and sanitation is not generally great
In other words a perfect environment for spreading a virus but as we saw with the fruit pickers, when big business calls, all the rules everyone else has to live with go out of the window
Fortunately most migrant workers tend to be young and generally healthy so even if there is a large number of infections it should not be that dangerous
Indeed, Germany has an undistinguished history in how it treats “guest” workers.
There is no ‘spike’, see latest case numbers on :
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/
It’s fake news, remember?
Margaret, have a look at these graphs. They are based on official ONS and NHS numbers. Can you spot a recent spike?
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/06/23/week-23-graphs-from-christopher-bowyer/
With joy and fear. Amazing what improved testing will do!
According to the DS, this was solely due to a single outbreak in an abattoir. The effect on the ridiculous R number was noticeable because the overall number of cases in that area is so small.
Good article on the dangers of overuse of hand sanitiser:
https://phys.org/news/2020-04-heavy-sanitizer-boosts-antimicrobial-resistance.html
Great article.
Those businesses that provide and individuals that use antibacterial gels/soaps for the virus are really IDIOTS. As we know antibacterials do not kill viruses and will only make us more prone to become resistant to antibiotics when we need them.
Yes it’s called unintended consequences and is something this government should really think about before issuing diktats!
I just use Fairy Liquid and water. Works better than any antibacterial stuff.
What do esteemed readers of LDS think of this?
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf
It’s the UN’s ‘2030 Agenda For Sustainable Development’.
If ever we imagined we were an independent country among other independent countries, this makes it very clear we’re not. It has a lot of ambitious targets for ‘sustainability’, and is concerned with equality across countries, not just within them. ‘Children and young women and men are critical agents of change and will find in the new Goals a platform to channel their infinite capacities for activism into the creation of a better world.’
I don’t remember our commitment to this being emphasised very much to the electorate. Maybe it was a few years ago, and I would probably have yawned then – not any more.
Warp Speed COVID-19 Vaccine Makes Big Pharma Crooks Rich
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/06/23/moderna-vaccine-coronavirus.aspx
Its hard to understand how you would get ‘exceptionally healthy volunteers’ without misrepresenting the risks of both the vaccine and the virus.
Surely any vaccine or treatment should have a negative %age less than the IFR of any virus it is trying to protect against.
At some point the negative effects may be deemed mild enough to be acceptable but the above should be a reasonable baseline.
Is this what stock-ey types used to call “pump and dump”?
Names, Mark ? I feel inclined to send a begging letter.
I can’t read the whole story because they make you subscribe but there’s perhaps a little bit of alarmism in that report.
They test the vaccine at different doses in phase 1 and the people who had the severe reaction probably had the highest doses. Nobody is going to be vaccinating the entire global population anyway.
The 4th bullet point is absolutely valid, is the main worry with all the Covid-19 vaccine candidates, and it remains unknown whether this will happen on humans with any of the vaccines.
The last point is true in that this can happen with coronaviruses (FIPV in cats is the best-known example). But I don’t believe that is the effect that happens with SARS and MERS vaccine candidates, but something else, to do with immune system imbalance. I could be wrong of course.
No subscription, only input your email address to confirm you are not part of a spam factory. This website will never use or sell your data.
Why Forced Vaccination Is Rape
A Biological and Legal Systems of Systems Analysis with Options for Recourse
Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, MIT PhD
https://shiva4senate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Forced-Vaccination-Is-Rape.pdf
Our bodies belong to us we get to say what is injected in it not the government. I’ve had all the immunisation vaccines as a child. Now I’m older and wiser I’m not having any more, especially when I believe this man made crisis was unnecessary and the government is taking advantage of a fearful anxiety ridden nation. Its a monstrous attack on our civil liberties.
Boris just stated that England are proceeding based on guidance and not legislation.
What a liar. Obviously Simon Dolans Court case has them rattled, cue the back peddling. Is this why the police will be policing pub Gardens with their rulers or you’re not allowed on public transport without a mask? So it’s only advisory is it?
I can’t see many police forces thinking this would be a good use of police time.
Indeed, but this time last year I’d have said sending drones after people out walking in the Peak District and harassing old folk sitting on park benches wouldn’t be thought a good use of police time.
Turns out the police themselves have rather different ideas of their proper functions than do sensible people.
Yep, agreed. Some forces have less capable Chiefs Cons than others, mind.
I wonder if the government knows how many of us have dipped our hands into our pockets to help finance this?
For me, it’s done.
It’s ‘guidance’ and we can show common sense about the risks
I followed my own guidance this morning and enjoyed a lovely walk in North Wales.
I live in South Wales, but so far as I am entitled to do so, I say ‘Croeso, you’re welcome,”
As far as I can tell, when out and about in my corner of Wales, most people are doing whatever they want now. I’ve just been down to the OH’s factory, chatted to a couple of the lads, stopped in a couple of shops on the way home, chatted to a few people I know, came home. Roads are busy, lots of people out and about. Not a single face mask did I see. It was all about as normal as it could get.
Still a bit quieter on the north coast, but Flintshire is almost as busy now as it ever was.
I live in Flintshire, so I travelled a little further than the 5 miles Duck’s Arse recommends we travel. Your croeso is as welcomed as the spirit in which it was given :o))
Apart from the legislation to wear masks on public transport and in hospitals, and the legislation forbidding us from sleeping anywhere but in our own homes (or having sex with anyone we don’t live with), and the legislation making it illegal to see more than 5 people at any one time, and the legislation banning us from inviting family members into our own homes…
Etc etc etc.
What is he blathering on about?
To be fair, I’m not sure any of that is illegal, and if it is, how enforceable is it.
I will not wear a mask, if a pub, shop etc asked me to, so no money spent.
In time, I want to be shown the gun that was pointed at the back of his head, otherwise he is just an incompetent fool or a dictator.
The language was clearly kept vague, that helped me to remain slightly confident.
Sorry – I missed this post (the site’s acting strangely for me today and not showing me new posts) and started my own.
I took it to mean that the legislation would be going, to be replaced by guidelines.
I’m not sure I can see it happening, as it would mean everything that had been introduced would have to be repealed. It could be a quick process, but I find it hard to believe that any government would quickly and easily let go of so much legislation.
We’ll see, I suppose.
In terms of the “no sex please, we’re the British government” legislation, that presumably must already have been rolled back and been replaced, to account for bubbling (oo-er)?
The law they passed is set to last for 2 years, with 6 monthly reviews by Parliament – we cannot relax yet..
It is scary. However not sure how much money the magical money tree will provide to have another lockdown.
I think it’s just BS to reassure the zombies.
I sincerely hope it is BS
I agree Annie
I think that Toby Young’s Oxford union anecdote illustrates the main problem with Boris Johnson. He is a man to whom ideas and principles don’t matter. Who cares which side of a debate you speak on, or even what the debate is, if you can win it with flair and popularity! Be popular and get people to love you. He is the kind of leader who works out whichever way the crowd is generally going, and pushes in front. He is a master bluffer, not an original thinker, or a real leader.
Doesn’t mean he isn’t likeable and amusing. I’m sure he was brilliant at the Spectator and the Telegraph. But he is a crap leader, leading a party devoid of talent and vision.
Agreed!
Correct.This is a man who wrote 2 different telegraph columns.1 for remain and the other for leaving the E.U. before deciding that his career prospects were better for leave.
Toby mentions Boris’s Oxford Union debate.
“Can someone kindly remind me what the motion is?”
There was a Spectator article a few months back where Jeremy Vine wrote about his experiences of working with Boris as an after-dinner speaker. Boris turns up at the last minute.
‘JEREMY. Where exactly AM I?’
I said, ‘It is the Securitisation Awards, Boris.’
He said, ‘Right-o. And who is speaking?’
‘You are.’
‘Good God,’ he cried. ‘When?’ ‘Anyone got a pen?’ he said. ‘Quick!’
Boris delivers a brilliant speech barely connected with securitisation, and ends with a very funny joke.
Vine works with Boris again eighteen months later at the Institute of Chiropractors or similar, and clearly Boris has forgotten about their previous encounter. Again he is late and turns up with moments to spare.
‘Jeremy,’ he said, ‘what is this?’ I told him. Others at the table helped. Did they have a pen, paper?
Again, he writes the same words for the speech he is about to deliver on a napkin, then gets up and delivers the same speech ending with the same joke.
The fascinating bit is that he goes through the pen-and-napkin charade each time for the people he is working with, not the audience.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-boris-johnson-story
Ughh Jeremy Vine. So pompous
But a whole bunch of people voted for him in December, not me but I haven’t voted Tory since John Major.
That’s why he supported leaving the EU, because he thought if he went along with the Tory pack then he would simply be one among many remainer wets. But…if he took a gamble and came out for leave, and leave won…well he would be the man of the moment. (He probably had an idea about the anti EU mood of the general public as he is canny). All he wanted was to be PM, there was no principle involved, and now he is PM he hardly knows what to do, nowhere else to go but down. Well the further down he goes the better, all the way to hell.
I thought that all parks were now open?
You are a human being. Anybody who goes against your compassion is a soulless fiend who ought to be buried at a crossroads at midnight with a stake in his or her heart.
SCOTTISH HIGHLIGHT – BBC SCOTLAND TO AXE 60 JOBS
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53150295
Perhaps these individuals could now move on and get a job in journalism! and apply their previous lost skills of independent thought and critical thinking. Remember, its not just about repeating what the scottish government says! Also, I will miss those important sstories about the joys of baking bread over lockdown….
I wonder if asked how many of them would agree with the “saving lives whatever the cost” mantra.
‘whatever the cost’, so long as the cost is borne by somebody else.
“important ss-tories” : you missed a hyphen!
I am unfortunately tied through marriage to a cretin who works there so I’m hoping they are one of the sacked.
Major covid loonie so hell mend them I say.
Sad I know, but things are getting desperate.
and wales .. see Guido
and the fact that BBC is also spending £100 million to increase diversity and inclusiveness over next 3 years .
“From now on, people will be asked to follow guidance, instead of law.”
Boris, quoted in the Guardian, 12:44
It always was guidance, wasn’t it? Roll on this judicial review – it can’t come soon enough
I feel that this backpedalling is in preparation for Dolan’s case on the 2nd – guess the gov’s main defence will be that it’s not law, but guidance… despite the fact there have been periods of time throughout this lockdown during which the most bizarre rules have been enshrined in black letter law.
It feels to me that this was always the plan but they needed to keep up the pretence for as long as possible so as not to admit the catastrophic mistake of locking down.
But that’s just me being cynical.
I think I’ve caught your cynicism, have we been playing cricket tigether recently?
Real cynicism is thinking it not a catastrophic mistake, but a plan.
This government can plan?
Exactly, Poppy!
So all people that were fined could then expect those fines to be squashed.
All the court cases keep getting thrown out before they reach court.
Edit: Underlines what I said some time ago that rushed legislation is ALWAYS bad legislation.
Statement in The Guardian:
“Johnson says cricket cannot yet be allowed because of risk of ball spreading coronavirus”
Just when you thought the level of stupidity in The Establishment had peaked, we have this extreme bilge.
This is a joke, right?
I’m afraid not. Here’s the full quote:
A “covid-secure” cricket game, eh! the mind boggles.
lol, Johnson is a “natural vector” for extreme stupidity and incompetence.
I was wondering if they were maybe afraid that the deadly divoc might be spread by bowlers licking their balls before making a delivery.
I’ve seen dogs doing it but never bowlers.
Johnson needs sectioning,for the sake of the country,he is not mentally well at all,in fact a lot in the government aren’t,you can see it in their eyes,they seem to actually believe the delusional crap they talk.I played cricket at school and a few of my friends continued to after leaving and none of us ever caught anything from the ball,I’ve never heard such utter crap.The town cricket club is two fields from my house and I am pretty certain in the last 30 years no-one there has caught a deadly malaise from the ball,from some of the catering perhaps but not the ball !.
Johnson is under severe personal threat from others to follow orders.
What he thinks about it personally doesn’t come into it.
Fwiw, he knows it’s bullshit and he also knows there may be serious consequences to face at some point in the future.
I think you are right John. Nothing other than a severe threat of some sort explains this utter utter lunacy.
Not good enough. A good leader would have been able to lead properly. He failed spectacularly.
Is it Ferguson’s balls we’re talking about?
Hand sanitizer all round between deliveries? Everybody wearing wicket keeping gloves? As long as no sanitizer gets on the shiny side that might even help reverse swing.
Seriously now. I know I’ve repeatedly accused Johnson of buffoonery and stupidity, but in part that has been political hyperbole.
But this – this is actual moron-level stuff!
It’s no wonder that people keep saying that FatBoJo has lost his balls.
Lost his balls and lost his marbles!
I didn’t know he had any.
The cricketers have been extreme bubbling (sounds a bit kinky) in preparation. It doesn’t matter if they all get infected somehow as presumably they’ll be extreme bubbling for 14 days after games anyway.
Why can’t people just wash their hands after the game, if they’re worried?
What is a “natural vector” in plain English? I thought a vector was something in sums that had a quantity and direction.
Vector – a carrier of disease etc, coming from a latin root word meaning to carry.
Thanks for that -any idea why a cricket ball carries disease, please?
All it means is if somebody has the virus on their hands it can transfer to the ball then find it’s way to somebody else who touches the ball.
But the fact remains that the ‘Chinese Killer Virus’ has moved a long time ago.
This is, and always has been, NOT about heath or disease.
No, obviously you’d have to be a complete moron to think that cricket balls would be a significant disease vector in any plausible context.
But tennis courts near where I live are still open for the general public to use, and I have seen players there for over a month now… right…
SInce France have declared that they will not lock down again, and Boris and Macron seem to be best buddies, I’ve got some small hope that this is just bluffing and posturing to remind us that we’re still under the thumb, as well as an attempt to placate the terminally terrified who think we’re unlocking too soon…
I’m fairly certain that Micron’s threat to close the border to UK travellers was one reason BoJo and his Bozos were panicked into lockdown in the first place.
It’s exactly what you should have done. Lots of people are now to petrified to help other human beings any more – it’s one of the more worrying aspects of the fear pandemic, in my opinion. Helping old ladies across the road is definitely no longer allowed. And would you fancy your chances these days if you were taken ill out on the street? People would just carry on past, ensuring to give your inert body an extra-wide berth lest you be infected with the Dreaded. And as for CPR… forget it.
The only thing that puts me off helping others is the fear of being shouted at for invading someone else’s 2m personal space. I wonder if that’s part of the problem for other people too? We’re all scared of how other people will react. In the first few weeks of lockdown, when it was all being taken very seriously, a jogger had a go at me for stepping back behind a gate to let him past. I thought I was being polite. He thought I was endangering his life by not squashing myself far enough into the hedge…
Its best to move past them as close as possible
A ban on singing and using cricket balls…
This government has gone INSANE.
‘gone’?
“is insane”
I thought it was all guidance now…
Yes, I see that theatres and concert halls are ‘open’, but not for live performances… how does that work then?
Excellent article in the Spectator from Ross Clark.
“…for those who are inclined to see it that way, the graph of US Covid-19 cases is confirmation of the folly of reopening society far too soon…
But there is a little problem with this analysis: while the graph of cases in the US shows something which could be described as a second spike, the graph of deaths has stubbornly refused to follow suit….
Until the middle of May, the two graphs seemed to be coupled. …But then something strange happened. The fall in new cases began to falter and then to reverse. The number of deaths, on the other hand, carried on falling… How come? There are four possibilities -… more cases are being recorded, as a result of ramping-up of testing; the disease is becoming less virulent; we are getting better at treating it; or the disease has started infecting less vulnerable groups.”
This is something we have been suggesting for quite a while: that the emphasis of the government and media has moved away from deaths to cases or infections meaning that a ‘second spike’ may merely be a figment of more testing, and even if ‘real’ due to more interactions between healthy people may be harmless.
Focusing on infections means that we will never, ever be declared free of the disease. Particularly if they insist on counting all deaths “with” rather than “of”. And they can always ramp up the number of PCR cycles to get more positives.
Anyway, the number of new infections means precisely nothing unless they report it as a proportion of tests.
Infections? Define Infections? PCR tests are not a reliable method of identifying Infections.
The triplets born with ‘Covid-19’ have the scientists scratching their heads, maybe the tests are actually unreliable
Yes, yet another reason that they will be able to find positive cases until the end of time.
Yep
Exactly, thereby giving governments a reason to mandate vaccines, immunity passports, tracing etc…
There is a summary of all daily CV-related events in the US every morning on CNBC Squawk Box, with Dr Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Federal Drug Administration (at around 11.15 for anyone interested). He was talking about this supposed ‘second spike’ in the southern states last week. If I remember correctly, it appears that, yes there is certainly more testing (the more you look the more you find), but he said specifically that most cases turning up at hospitals now are in their 40s, and do not need ICU care. So, the very sickest are not so sick as to be at death’s door. It is difficult to say why this is, but evidence coming out of northern Italy suggests it is because the virus is weakening.
It could also be the low hanging fruit has been picked off and there’s not as much fruit left.
Yes, that is also likely to be a/the major factor
I saw somebody mention on Twitter that there may be a correlation between deaths/hospitalisation numbers and when countries/states started treating routine medical conditions again. The graphs seem to diverge around the same sort of time.
I’ve been mulling over the implications of “guidelines, not regulations”
Has anybody seen anything yet that lays out what is meant by this in practice? At the same time, has anybody seen any more detail on what is expected when it comes to the use of facemasks? And whether “guidelines, not regulations” means that whatever the statement, it’s not going to be mandated?
In theory, guidelines, should mean that the whole of the coronavirus legislation should be rolled back in pretty short order, but I did hear him mention facemasks continuing to be mandatory on public transport, at least that bit remains?
As usual, at least as many questions as answers.
I think what it all means is, look here, plebs, you have to do what we say, but, if it goes wrong, it’s not our fault!
Is this Boris’ Big Tuesday Announcement? I can’t bear to watch these things. What’s he been saying?
Basically everything reopening except gyms, nightclubs, soft play, water parks, on 4th July
2M rule binned in favour of ‘1m plus’, which seems to mean 1m if more isn’t possible, but your encouraged to use extra precautions (I.e. masks)
Two households (no more than 2) can meet indoors or outdoors, up to any number of people.
Three or more households up to 6 people can meet outdoors only (I think I’ve remembered that right).
And you can stay away overnight, including in hotels and B&Bs.
Pubs, restaurants etc will be “helping the test and trace” system by keeping the details of anyone who was there, in case of a confirmed case. I don’t like this one bit, but interesting that it seems to be being run by the venues, not with any kind of central system (good) and presumably, GDPR will mean the the records need to be destroyed after 2 weeks. I’ll need to look into this.
The most interesting bit was that these were going to be “guidelines, not regulations” so _presumably_ masks in places like shops and pubs won’t be mandatory, unless the premises themselves say they are.
I’m really not clear on what this means, so I’m interested to know if anyone has any thoughts.
I’m wondering whether, in effect, this is like the last week before lockdown, when pubs couldn’t claim on insurance because they’d been heavily hinted at to close, not instructed to close.
Or alternatively, is it an acknowledgement that the whole thing is completely impossible to police, so there’s no way to legislate for it?
Or is it that, with there being no rules left, only guidelines, by the time the Dolan case gets to court, does it avoid the embarrassing climb down of being forced to get rid of the rules?
And either way, where does this leave the idea that the police will be turning up at pubs with their measuring tapes? I can’t remember where that came from, but seem to recall it was slightly more official than just rumour
It feels like they can’t be bothered any more, to be honest!
I’ve just watched his speech and was distinctly unimpressed. Basically he seems to be saying no more legislation, everything he has announced today are “guidelines” – I imagine because they are now running scared of Simon Dolan & Co – and that they are relying on the good sense of the British people. So what he should have done instead of lockdown then.
However he does stress they will lockdown small outbreaks or even at a national level if necessary. He can go and run on that one!
Nothing on air bridges other than saying they still support quarantine. Which is a load of rubbish – they just don’t want to be seen backpeddling and are meanwhile destroying livelihoods and families with it.
I didn’t mean to give the impression I was impressed!
It’s ok Matt, you didn’t!
Just my phrasing. Sorry.
I just cannot believe they would lock down again with the economy in this state!
Is masks on public transport now a “guidelines” then?
My take on the guidelines is just take the usual precautions you would during flu season. If you’re ill stay at home and try not to cough/sneeze in people’s faces or their food.
In short try not to kill people by being alive as you or most of us have probably always done.
Just been to my local independent optician’s to have my eyes tested, in their second day of opening. Refused to wear a mask or gloves, as I’d already stated when booking the appointment. The staff, needless to say, were trussed up to the hilt in aprons, visors, masks and gloves. They were supposed to take my temperature before I entered, but forgot, and also forgot to provide me with my paper bag in which to put my diseased bag. Probably a good thing, as I wouldn’t have been impressed!
I got the impression they were struggling to keep up with everything they were required to do. Every pair of glasses I tried on had to be set aside for disinfection. The owner was wearing a mask far too small for his face, which kept slipping up over his chin and had to be tugged down repeatedly. The next customer, masked (and being considerably less awkward than me) was struggling with her glasses steaming up (it’s an optician’s FFS, how can they test people’s eyes if their glasses are all fogged up)? In fact, the lady testing my eyes confessed that it was much easier for me not to be wearing a mask, as otherwise they struggle with the test for that very reason.
It all seemed like a lot of silliness that no one really wanted to be part of. But what can they do? They can only see half the number of clients that they normally would, and I can’t see how they can survive under these conditions for long. Specsavers is all we’ll be left with.
Ah – at last, a glasses half-full comment! ;-}
As many as I possibly could!
My private dentist emailed me to remind me of an appointment due soon, and a long screed about various requirements that need to be observed.
I declined the appointment.
Yet something else that has not been thought through. You are an entrepreneur say, you were looking to expand until the lockdown stymied your plans. Would this statement from the government reassure you? Would you invest your savings, or borrow money, to finance an expansion that might be snipped off, to your detriment, at any moment?
Things ain’t getting better any time soon!
Can anyone tell me whether childrens’ playgrounds will be re-opened?
Great question. Can’t believe that they are still closed.
They are all closed around here in Kent. Infuriatingly so, with two small children to amuse!
Still no word on that yet, the one near my house is still chained up and looking sadly deserted.
According to the Spectator:
Establishments allowed to resume their activities from 4 July include hotels, campsites, places of worship, libraries, workplace canteens, bars, pubs, restaurants, outdoor playgrounds, cinemas, museums and galleries.
How interesting that the libraries are open g in July. On lockdown my library emailed me to say my library books had been redated to July!! Coincidence or planned
. Does this mean the library books will have to be sanitized every time someone picks one off the shelf? 
I would very much imagine that it will be done Waterstones-style, with an enormous bin into which every single book your 2-year-old manhandles will have to be dropped for sanitation. There won’t be many left on the shelves!
Comrade Duckbridge announced in May that Welsh libraries could reopen. Pembrokeshire County Council website still says our libraries are all closed ‘in accordance with government guidelines’.
Which, as I have pointed out to them, is a lie.
You have libraries?
The bit about places of worship seems unclear, given that as far as weddings are concerned you can only have 30 guests in the church and no singing… Does that mean that there is no singing allowed in normal church services either, and that no more than 30 people can attend a service? Do the government not know that many churches have far more than 30 members?????
Announced to be reopening from 4th June, along with outdoor gyms
lol, that might look a bit dodgy in todays climate.
I’m genuinely trying to understand why cricket is seen as some cesspit of filth and disease when football, which involves far higher levels of physical contact, is allowed to resume. As a big football fan I’m glad I can watch my team play again, but completely baffled by the whole ‘cricket balls may infect people’ argument.
Mind you, I’m baffled by almost everything this government says at the moment…
Well, perhaps :- football is globalist; cricket is a little-england (and the old commonwealth) sport!?
Try that line in Mumbai …
It is, as they say, the exception that proves the rule.
Yes me too. I would have thought that furry tennis balls are much harder to keep clean than “smooth” cricket balls but you can play tennis but not cricket!
But, isn’t only one person allowed to actually touch the tennis ball (or has that been dropped)?
According to the LTA website, you can play tennis with a different household-singles or doubles and have to clean all the equipment after use. It’s Scotland where you can’t handle someone else’s balls!
Well protected by the kilt?
So are you allowed to play cricket with a tennis ball? Actually I wonder how many thousands of times more likely you are to die from being hit on the head by the cricket ball than as a result of being infected by it.
And in cricket it would be considered bad form to hockle up a big greeny and gob it onto the pitch. In football, it’s considered cool.
That bafflement you are experiencing is entirely intential.
obviously the fact that it is covered in sweat and then rubbed in the groinal area to keep the shine is seen as perfect vector for all sorts of bugs!!
Less money to be made/lost from TV screening of cricket?
Still no relief for our friends in Scotland, Sturgeon has just announced that the two metre rule stays until at least 2nd July.
Ah the old carrot and stick…
Scottish schools could re-open full-time in August
https://bbc.in/37T7228
Scottish schools could re-open full-time with no physical distancing on 11 August if coronavirus continues to be suppressed
This would be contingent on the continued suppression of the virus through the summer, and other safeguards being put in place
Doubtless the same in Wales. Otherwise Duckbridge would look pretty silly, having plastered the country with nasty rude six-foot notices. Paid for, of course, with our money.
Tore down two of them today. About a million to go, probably, but you have to start somewhere.
They were being ignored anyway.
Good work.
We haven’t got any notices up here in N. Wales.; is this another sign of Cardiiffcentricity and should we feel aggrieved?
Just quote Boris who says “nobody should be penalised for doing the right thing”.
Not sure how effective this would be in Wales but it’s worth a try if you’re ever questioned.
Sorry I get mixed up with where people are.
How on earth can we tell what, in Zombieland, is thought to be the right thing?
Well, zombies can’t but we can. It’s what C.S. Lewis dubbed the Tao: the code of decent behaviour that almost every human society has, at one time, enshrined in its religion, legislation and ethics. Real people, whatever their creed, recognise it instinctively. Zombies don’t.
Yeah all fines will be squashed
Peter Hitchens | Regime Change in Europe and the US
An interesting interview of Peter Hitchens by an American.
I tend to agree with Peter on many issues, but on some I think he is incorrect and usually for reasons that I think I understand.
Here he fails to understand Trump, whereas I think the American interviewer has a much better handle on him.
Another area that I feel Hitchens gets wrong, that is generally relevant atm but didn’t really come up in this interview, is racism, because I think his views were formed in a time when these issues were very different, and from his position as a Trotskyite youth it is unsurprising that he formed his ideas of racism from the demonisation that was then very active of the opponents of mass immigration at the time. Those ideas were always intentionally distorted, but are far less relevant and in fact actively misleading in the very different context of today.
Another interesting point that was raised in this interview was the extent to which Christianity could protect against the ongoing dissolution. Peter is correct imo to recognise that Christianity has been effectively removed as a protective issue in this country, but I’m far from sure that is as true in the US, and Peter’s response of having a cheap dig at Trump really missed the point, sadly.
And here’s another interesting interview from that channel, this time giving the US neocon pov, from Victor Davis Hanson. Nicely explains the scale of what’s at stake in the US (as Hitchens pointed out, we are probably already lost, but the Americans might not be).
Victor Davis Hanson | Protests Are More French Revolution Than American
I’m getting pretty tired of Hitchens saying we’ve already lost. How does he know what people’s response will be?
Yes Hitchins can get a bit depressing, I still want to believe that the human spirit and need to be social creatures is strong enough to push back the darkness. I could be wrong but I’d rather take a positive view.
Peter, like me, is a conservative of a certain age, and we have spent a lifetime of watching continuous political surrender, retreat and defeat. It doesn’t encourage optimism.
I think the collapse into coronapanic and the evident utter bankruptcy of our cultural and political leadership probably suggests some of our criticisms of the way our society was going might have had some force, though.
Maybe, but nonetheless contemptible to tell us to give up.
Has he ever actually suggested giving up? Pointing out that we are probably doomed can as easily be interpreted as wanting people to understand the scale of the problem as encouraging people to give up, surely?
More or less. He says the country is finished. He then suggests that young people should leave. If anyone asks him for suggestions he says “if you don’t know, I can’t help you”.
Peter is very good in argument and I agree with much of what he says, but I’ve noticed he very rarely has a good word to say about any public figure.
Not always unreasonable, perhaps. But I agree that his defeatist attitude is unhelpful to those younger than he is. I’m middle aged, but what is the future for my niece’s generation?
I can’t find the video, but yes, he was asked once what we should do, and he said give up. Very annoying! I still like his analyses, of course.
It’s just his opinion, obviously. But as he himself points out, he does have a fair bit of experience of the world, having spent time in all kinds of historic trouble spots.
I respect his opinion, though obviously that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily going to be right in every prediction.
VDH: “I’m walking around my neighbourhood, I live on a 40 acre almond orchard, and what do I hear all of a sudden for the first time in my life from my Mexican-American neighbours, all over? Gunfire, all night long. Are they celebrating…? No, they’re out with target practice with their handguns. This last month there were 6 milllion gun sales, an all time record. That’s very regrettable but what I’m trying to suggest is that beneath MSNBC, and the radar at CNN and the New York Times there is an entire population across racial lines – and we see it sometimes with the polls of African-Americans who are very disturbed about some of this, that people are afraid, that they feel that the state either won’t or can’t provide security and doesn’t want to, and that somehow it’s going to pick and choose particular populations that need to be punished for historical sins”
VDH?
Victor Davis Hanson – two posts up/down.
The US neocon interviewed in the link I gave above. A very well known figure if you are into ancient Greek warfare, or modern US conservative politics, probably not so much otherwise….
Molon labe.
Yes, that is the intersection, right there! But VDH wrote an excellent and iirc quite controversial book on hoplite warfare a few years back which I enjoyed at the time, but has not necessarily stood the test of time all that well.
If they’ve only bought handguns, they’re not the sharpest tools in the box.
Well if they’ve got any sense they’ll have a pistol for easy carrying around, a shotgun for close household defence, and a rifle for neighbourhood defence.
Victor D Hanson is one of the best and most interesting speakers in the USA at the moment and a very great historian. I have been watching his YouTube talks and interviews for years now and he is always excellent. He won’t hear a word against President Trump, however, and although I would vote for Trump if I lived in the US I think Mr Hanson should be tiny bit more critical…that wall should be finished by now, after all….
In fairness to Trump, about whom I suppose you could describe me as ambivalent, he has faced an unprecedented degree of cynically dishonest and often hysterical resistance from his opponents combined with regular betrayals from within the Republican Party, with extensive judicial activist collaboration. In truth, even a truly great leader couldn’t have achieved much in four years given what Trump has faced.
If “community centres” can reopen on July 4th, does that mean all the local clubs and societies which use them can meet again? With what restrictions on numbers and the activities which may be carried out?
It may depend on the community centre and what measures they impose on clubs using the venue.
My guess is yes, depending on the activity. Capacity, I suppose, will be dependent on number of people who can be reasonably socially distanced (either 2M or 1m +masks or alternative idiocy) and also up to the venue.
I think this guidelines not rules thing is going to push an awful lot of potential liability onto an awful lot of small players, and so I think we’re going to see a good deal of hyper caution.
I believe I’m beginning to understand guidelines, not rules
Any idea anybody when local football and cricket will be able to start again?
Not sure about football but not any time soon for cricket. Our local league looks like it will be abandoned. The cricket ball is a corona exocet missile apparently.
I do wonder why there don’t seem to be two small cricket clubs in the whole of England that cannot (a) find each other and (b) arrange a game. Nobody loves cricket anymore ?
This crap really would not have washed 20 or 30 years ago.
Could we get up an eleven, and challenge off-guardian or someone ?
all FA controlled league football from League Division 1 down to Bogtown sunday under 9 league division 11 has been cancelled and the season is over . That doesnt mean that 5 asides etc cannot continue if facilities allow
My local park is buzzing with impromptu footy games. Good on ’em.
According to Pesto there will be no more daily briefings as of today.
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1275418938273398787?s=19
They were all a load of bull anyway, but obviously there is no problem with Covid19 anymore.
What we’ve been saying on LDS all the time.
Peston is right to point out that it’s awfully convenient that the daily briefings stop just as the economic consequences of lockdown start to bite, but on the bright side, hopefully the end of these meaningless daily updates will give the government and MSM less opportunity to keep the public on a drip of constant fear porn. No hanging onto ministers’ every word at 5pm anymore.
I cant imagine why anyone would subject themselves to such torture anyhow. Life is to short to listen to the ramblings of tyrants. However the MSM does not need to be given an opportunity to keep the public on a drip of constant fear porn and they will continue to do so.
Now if people would just ignore the MSM and turn to some more credible sites for their news that would be progress.
Easier said than done!
“No hanging onto ministers’ every word at 5pm anymore.”
lol, well I never did Poppy. I made a point of always avoiding their sermons.
That wasn’t irresponsibility. I simply didn’t recognise their authority.
This was my first ever post here, and it didn’t get approved. I made a reply to someone who had said that the weekend briefings wouldn’t be happening anymore:
But how will I know when to start drinking in the afternoon?
Anyway, not surprised really. They’ve clearly been losing interest in the last couple of weeks. It’s not even exciting anymore, with the death numbers so low.
You’ve a point there. Zombie people have been encouraged to develop a hellish taste for death in quantity – feeds and justifies their idiot terrors.
At least, during the world wars, people didn’t enjoy hearing the casualty figures. Those dead were real people – brothers, sons, fathers. Our dead are just a number, faceless corpses ticked off by the faceless undead.
You know things are changing when the daily death total becomes the weekly death total. And they even sound disappointed in that.
Good
I’m very pleased to hear it. I haven’t watched a single one but my impression is that “Hancock’s Half Hour” as someone here described it was having a profoundly negative effect on the nation’s mental health.
“I haven’t watched a single one”
You and me both guy!
I don’t know – with all due respect to my fellow commenters – I think some of you are gluttons for punishment for putting yourselves through this.
After all, journalists like our Toby are paid to watch this drivel.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.21.20132449v1
“Exposure to SARS-CoV-2 can induce virus-specific T cell responses without seroconversion. T cell responses may be more sensitive indicators of SARS-Co-V-2 exposure than antibodies. Our results indicate that epidemiological data relying only on the detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies may lead to a substantial underestimation of prior exposure to the virus”
Interesting newly published article. Exposed contacts reported Covid-19 like symptoms but did not develop antibodies. However, most of them developed virus specific T-cell response.
Testing just for antibodies is not enough if you want to check herdimmunity.
The general impression I’ve gotten out of all this is that the experts don’t really know very much at all other than theory and what they can learn from a book.
Well, you’ve learned something then Mr Nobody!
I think we find this in many walks of life. What most people refer to as “experts” I see as people who’ve spent a bit more time studying a subject than I have. There are always true experts in their field but generally most people are book experts with no more capability of applying their knowledge to the real world than you or I.
or have connections
And if they can learn it out of a book, then so can we.
That’s a brilliant spot. Many thanks.
Thanks for the link! Another reason for seroprevalence underestimating exposure is the fact that the antibody levels in mild cases start to drop off after only a few weeks (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.21.108308v1, I probably got this link from you).
Since we now know that Covid was around in Italy as early as December last year a sizeable number of people’s antibodies will have been and gone by the time anyone was ready with any test kits.
The reduction in antibodies is being reported irresponsibly in the media as indicating that people do not get lasting immunity to Covid-19, for example here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/immunity-covid-19-rapidly-declines-research-shows/.
Antibodies do not normally last forever, and there is nothing unusual about Covid-19 antibodies in this respect. The antibodies themselves might be considered an immune system “short term memory”.
The long-term memory comes from memory T and B cells. Some of those T cells kill infected cells directly (antibodies are not involved in this process). Others of them are there to activate the B cells whose primary job is to make antibodies (whose job is to neutralize or flag virus particles that haven’t entered cells yet).
These memory cells lasted for at least 17 years in the case of SARS1 (which was 17 years ago) as found in the Singapore study (https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.26.115832). There is no reason to think Covid-19 immunity would be any different and not be for life. Lack of lifetime immunity is usually because the virus mutates, but coronaviruses have a much lower mutation rate than influenza viruses.
Very interesting and informative post. Thank you.
A moron speaks
This should be played as a loop anywhere anyone tries to suggest Johnson should ever be taken seriously on anything.
This has been preying on my mind, perhaps unnecessarily so. But it means that someone had a serious discussion about the hypothetical possibility of a cricketer with covid touching the ball, and somehow getting the virus on the ball (bearing in mind that it would be easy to outlaw spitting on it), and then another cricketer handling the ball and spreading the virus to his own hand, and then presumably him touching his own face before washing his hand even though there would presumably be strict advice against this, etc etc.
And somebody at the top levels of government solemnly nodded and agreed that yes, we couldn’t absolutely rule out the possibility of that happening at some point if enough cricket matches were played. And then from that these highly paid idiots drew the conclusion that banning cricket matches (even without onlookers, presumably) is a necessary public health measure.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I mean, this is exactly the kind of “hyper-rational” delusion talked about in Freddie Attenborough’s piece posted here weeks ago.
Seriously, it beggars belief!
Why doesn’t everyone use their own cricket ball and if the bat ever makes contact, spray with anti viral, and those catching balls could wear gloves, if they don’t already?
Ball-touching stops play. Ballboy rushes on, disinfects ball, play continues …
Mark, it applies to children training too. And cones at 2 metres so they dont get too close to each other, that are then wiped down after every ‘bubble’ of children training. And only one bowler in the net (can’t play the two nets side by side if you have them) , no field practice cos the children can’t catch another child’s ball. It is unbelievable. And all done in the name of science?
“It is unbelievable.”
It is literally so. If you had written a novel a year ago describing such things you’d have been told it was just too implausible to be taken seriously.
How is the effing idiot out of short trousers let alone effing Prime Minister?
Eton, sir? That’ll do nicely …
Underlines the paucity of talent in our establishment. Time for new one.
Wow, maybe a well-bowled cricket ball would knock some sense into the scientists?
Interesting, obviously beware of confirmation bias but this supports a lot of the stuff we’ve been discussing.
Initial COVID-19 infection rate may be 80 times greater than originally reportedNew research studies early stages of coronavirus outbreak to re-evaluate rate of initial spread in U.S.
https://news.psu.edu/story/623797/2020/06/22/research/initial-covid-19-infection-rate-may-be-80-times-greater-originally
“Our results suggest that the overwhelming effects of COVID-19 may have less to do with the virus’ lethality and more to do with how quickly it was able to spread through communities initially,” Silverman explained. “A lower fatality rate coupled with a higher prevalence of disease and rapid growth of regional epidemics provides an alternative explanation to the large number of deaths and overcrowding of hospitals we have seen in certain areas of the world.”
Another excellent piece of evidence.
no shit Sherlock
Taking this, along with swedenborg’s above, combined with the growing evidence that the bug has been kicking around since well before Christmas anyway, the whole thing seems to add up to “there never has been any point, because virtually anybody who was ever going to get it had already had it well before 23rd March anyway”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or go on a rampage
Uzeeeee nine millimeeeterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Even better my fav Jesse Ventura bit. Would be great
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MWq2QvvPw68
Might this explain the new outbreak in Germany, at the meat-processing place?
Told a work colleague today that his Reebok branded face covering would neither protect him or anyone else from cv19.
In reply I was told that it is four layers and my wife, who is a nurse, said it will offer protection.
How are we to get these people back, or is it too late?
Just like splash proof clothing stops you from getting wet in heavy rain.
Like non iron shirts. Marketing pish
All my shirts are non-iron. I don’t bother ironing them.
I bought a shell for rock climbing once. It was ‘water resistant’. I asked if they had anything similar that was waterproof . They guy replied no, but your skin is.
The only way is when they see we aren’t dropping dead in the street.
Beyond redemption unless the beeb finally changes sides, which would require a huge climbdown after it’s recent mendacious mask-championing.
Beyond hope. Move on. They’ll either wake up when they see everyone else behaving normally – or they won’t.
Recent Tweet from Simon Dolan. Thoughts anyone?
“”Misconduct in public office is an offence which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. It is an offence committed when the office holder acts in a way that constitutes a breach of the duties of that office.
@BorisJohnson @MattHancock
Case to answer….? “”
Open and shut, surely….
I think our Simon shouldn’t push his luck. He has a date for his judicial review. I have no objection to a witch hunt, but I think we should get the constitutional issue out the way first, make sure the enquiry asks the right questions next, and only start lighting the bonfires after that.
I would think Simon is getting some good advice. He seems pretty clued up. I think he’s right to keep the pressure on them.
Why stop at those two? Nearly every other MP and senior civil servant is complicit in this atrocity.
Zero likelihood of happening. I’ve more chance of catching cv/Ebola
That particular law looks like a licence for lawyers to print money.
No clarity on what constitutes public office and no clarity on how to define abuse of the public’s trust.
The public office holder must have acted without reasonable excuse or justification.
With so many other governments acting the same way, does that particular charge really have legs?
https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2016/09/cp229_misconduct_in_public_office_summary.pdf
The ‘hospital clearances’ and the over ten thousand collateral deaths that followed must surely be the biggest scandal and relatives, rightly, are in the process of suing the government on that account. As is generally the way with these things, once a part of the wall crumbles, a great deal more quickly comes tumbling down.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/873927/19.03.2020_NHSE-I__HMG_Letter_-_Hospital_Discharge_Guidance_V3.pdf
Go for it Simon
I nominate Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Screwfix, b and q, Homebase and HSBC
the co-op have been terrible round my way so i will never use them again Asda on the other hand have been as good as you could expect. Can’t fault them in any way.
Agree the Co-op has lost the plot
Not in my area. It has been the only shop without fearsome concentration camp guards at the entrance, and no queuing at all. Apart from lines, and messages over the tannoy, there have been few restrictions. It has been a pleasure to shop there.
It proves these aren’t rules but down to the individual store managers.
Co-op was ok until someone complained that due to floor space they should not allow more than ten people in at any one time. Now people are standing out in the rain waiting to get in.
if you want to join that queue you are welcome, I will not be joining.
Pity they didn’t just make the complainer stay outside till the shop was nearly empty.
With the chain stores, I think it comes down to the individual store. My Sainsbury’s has been pretty good throughout and most of the staff have been really helpful and friendly. The lady in my local Works is great, too – I reckon she is also a sceptic.
My Morrisons excellent -no arrows, no one claiming that you got within 1.99m of another customer. Checkout staff all agreeing it’s a nonsense .Sainsburys on the other hand -one of the small stores allows about 3 people in at once -that’s one per 1.5 aisles.
We have had a similar experience as @arfurmo Morrison’s OK, Sainsbury’s run and hide we are all going to die.
Waitrose tut tutting, when you go the wrong way in the one way system.
Definitely B&Q, never going back there.
Some Waitrose’s are shite too.
Never going back to local garden centre, Perrywood
There are two garden centres locally. Both are owned by the rudest people I have met. I prefer to travel to one miles away than patronise their establishments.
I’d have put HSBC in long before lockdown!
Telegraph columnists rightly underwhelmed by relaxations:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/23/boris-johnson-relaxes-lockdown-telegraph-experts-give-verdicts/
The country is coming to its own conclusions now: it is not just being obtuse, or bloody-minded, or irresponsible. It is telling the authorities the plain truth: it is not possible to go on living like this. If the Government refuses to understand that, the people will simply dismantle the lockdown themselves – and that will mean a collapse of government authority and a fatal loss of credibility for the prime minister.
Doris still has some shreds of credibility among Torygraph readers but hopefully the journalists are finally starting to point out the truth.
I think you’re being bit unfair on the Telegraph Cheezilla.
The “Torygraph” label is an old joke and the paper stands almost alone in calling this farce for what it is.
And they have done so from the start. Particularly impressive given that it is a Tory government in office.
Half agree. The Saturday telegraph is 99% Following the gov narrative. They do have the odd article but it’s hardly stood out from the herd.
I would argue that the Mail, of all rags, started the criticism before the DT.
Sherelle Jacobs has been consistently outstanding but otherwise I mostly see the ‘Party Line’ regurgitated. Disappointingly so from Charles Moore who I’d expected would be rather more vexed about the assault on freedom.
Until very recently, the paper was unashamedly and uncritically pro-Tory Cabinet.
The recent articles in the DT are encouraging but wading through the comments can be a depressing experience. So much middle class smugness and pro-Boris sycophancy.
Having said that, there was some lively debate after Allison’s article tonight, with many correspondents calling the lockdown for the unnecessary disaster it’s been.
I will not be happy till all the coronavirus legislation has been revoked by Parliament!
From the press briefing, it’s pretty clear that muzzles are not being mandated, except on public transport. They’re part of a range of recommended “mitigations” where you can’t keep to 2M, but so are things as simple as not sitting face to face. That is genuinely encouraging.
No doubt that certain shops (Apple…) will be insisting on them, but it looks like nobody is going to have to
We hope…
We hope. But I think it’s a bit late now, to be honest. The press briefing is being done away with. The relaxations have been announced 11 days in advance. There’s clarity that there will be local lockdowns if judged necessary (bad) and national if necessary (worse). I just don’t see how they could now turn around and impose masks. I don’t think they have the platform, the mechanism or the opportunity, short of the other side of another lockdown (god help us all)
Or we’ll all be sitting watching Love Island, the screens will go blank and Boris will pop up with an important “public announcement”.
Boris: Today the R number reached 1.0000000000000000000001 which means we are back in the exponential growth phase. Please be prepared for emergency panic measures. Do not be alarmed…
Relaxed just in time for Simon Dolan’s case…
How will “local lockdowns” work?
Does it literally mean putting up road blocks and barbed wire fences overnight to isolate a town or district?
In which case, isn’t everyone just going to keep watching the case numbers broken down by local authority and make a run for it as soon as they see numbers in their area start to go up?
The police have already said local lockdowns are completely unenforceable. Think it was on TV:AM with Piers yesterday
If not mandated elsewhere, then why even on public transport?
Well they’ve only just brought in that rule, so they’ll have to let it run for a couple of weeks to save face …..
I seem to remember it was either Dr Wolfgang Wodarg (who first turned me into a lockdown sceptic all those months ago) or Dr Sucharit Bhakdi saying that every type of infection or disease needs to have a clinical manifestation in the form of particular symptoms. The problem with Covid19 is that its symptoms are not really distinguishable from those of a lot of other respiratory/vascular diseases (scientists are still not sure if covid is one or the other or both)
The other thing I remember is Wodarg showing graphs of tests done by Glasgow University between 2005 and 2013 showing that out of all the viruses for which they had tests, coronaviruses always accounted for between 7 and 15% of the viruses in circulation each year.
Djokovic and his family don’t seem to have any symptoms. They just have traces of the virus within them.
Infections are increasing of that there is no doubt but deaths are not,doctors from italy,usa and england have all said the same thing group of tennis players test positive no symptons meat packing plants in germany and england lots of cases but few people with symptoms surely something Is changing maybe it’s not that deadly after all.
It never was. They’re just doing more tests and finding small numbers of cases.
It is also possible that the virus itself is “attenuating” (evolving to become less severe) and treatments are improving a bit but it’s hard to disentangle these factors.
An outbreak in a meat factory or any workplace would always have been expected to result in approximately zero deaths because the IFR for anyone of working age is extremely low. It’s the outbreaks in care homes you need to worry about.
“It’s the outbreaks in care homes you need to worry about.”
guy, can I just add, “If you’re a care home resident.”
Or related to one. Must be a nightmare beyond imagining.
It never was “that” deadly, but always a little deadly. The new outbreaks are taking place in the working age population, who never really had to worry anyway.
You beat me to it matt
Just kills them a little bit until teatime?
Joking aside, I think it is telling that these new “outbreaks” are in workplaces such as food processing plants. If I managed one of these places, I’m pretty certain I’d want to ensure my workforce are healthy and might be tempted to conduct testing. Perhaps the increased availability – and uptake – of testing has something to do with these “spikes”?
It would be nice to think that normal hygiene measures in food processing plants would naturally prevent a health problem…….
“Infections are increasing of that there is no doubt”
Well I doubt it. Prove what you are saying.
I agree more testing etc but it proves the virus is less deadly so more infections but less deaths is a good thing.
I’m quite certain they are. And they are because the virus is currently going through countries like Brazil, which has a huge population who in large part lives on top of one another. I’m much less sure it’s something we need to worry about (in fact I’m fairly sue it isn’t). Increased testing explains it in countries where it’s been kicking around for a while, but a country needs to have a first wave before it doesn’t have a second.
Brazil has a large population, allowing the MSM to salivate at the big numbers of infections and sadly deaths. The inappropriateness leaves a bad taste in my mouth and always has. However, looking at infections and deaths per million, as with the USA last month, does show a slightly different picture…
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
‘Infections are increasing of that there is no doubt’ – untrue
Positive PCR tests are increasing, the more you test, the more positive tests there are.
How many are false positives?
Test have increased, therefore more cases will be reported. However, most seem to be asymptomatic.
Chris Whitty just now at the press conference (paraphrasing) – we’re in this for the long haul. Probably still got restrictions this time next year.
I don’t know why you listen to them. I don’t need to know what these idiots say.
He cant stand to loose his 5 mins of fame.
And go back to his pre covid boring existence.
Restrictions round his wind pipe
Isn’t Whitty the guy who went through a slideshow showing how dangerous the virus ISN’T?
Yes. More than once I believe!
Yes, a couple of times he’s pointed at data that is in the public domain. I think both him & the CSO have been throttled & must toe the party line. I had a good deal of respect for both of them early on but soon discovered they were only lap dogs!
Obviously waiting for the vaccine. So pathetic! Economy on its knees, small businesses closing, people made redundant. Uggh
I thought Boris has just said it’s all guidance now… They don’t have a clue what they’re saying!
Isn’t Whitty moving to a job with the WHO soon?
Used to work for GSK I believe?
I think that’s Vallance.
Can we just draw a line under the whole thing, please? Pretty please if that helps. All these rules to do this and do that. Boris needs to make a statement along the lines of “see everything i’ve been saying, forget it and lets just get back to exactly the same way as it was before i make a pigs ear of everything”. Possibly adding “and if any fucker wants to take down any more statues we’re gonna set the Alsatians on them, the BBC will be closed down after Friday’s episode of the Antique Road Trip and Piers Morgan will be locked in a glass box and suspended over the River Thames until he starves to death” Then i may forgive him..
Huzzah!!!!
Vote for that
Billion-dollar investment firm leaving Seattle amid ‘unrest’
Voting with their feet. Not for the first time, with regard to US/UK cities.
Welcome to leftist zealotry, welcome to poverty.
The retreat is welcome but weirdly arbitrary.
I find it incredible that Bloris stands there telling us that swimming pools aren’t safe to open and he’s following “The Holy Science” while flanked by his CSA and the CMO.
Surely they must know that the awful stench that pervades spas and swimming baths is due to chlorine, which is put in the water to destroy pathogens, including viruses?
If they don’t, it would explain a helluva lot – though I doubt that would be the real explanation.
A dip in a correctly chlorinated pool must be one of the safest pass times.
pastimes
p*sstimes?
Risk of dying from the 30% piss content in the pools must be stratospheric
A few quotes from Boris parliament speech today:
Our principle is to trust the British public to use their common sense in the full knowledge of the risks.
From now on we will ask people to follow guidance on social contact instead of legislation.
It would be great if this actually meant that we now have our freedom to assess the risks and act accordingly, but I suspect he didn’t actually mean that.
E.g. Is compulsory face masks on public transport now just guidance?
Yes – and what about businesses? Can they act as they choose?
Again, it will depend who has authority over them. The government has just abdicated theirs but we’re at the mercy of the local and professional bodies now.
That’s what worries me,this could well be a false dawn,local councils have been loving this situation,it was the excuse they’d been waiting for to throw their weight about,I can’t see them giving in easily.
It’s government guidance but the businesses can set their own rules.
I hope so, though the social distancing has just been guidance anyway, but certainly most businesses have been compelled to set up their shops (etc) accordingly, if only due to their insurers.
My comment sent int op Boris today:
Perspex screens? War masks? Following the science? 1m+? Still listening to Bill gates financed “scientists”? Councils throwing there weight round above the law? Still guidance which is not law, has no force of law nor is enforceable? Book tickets to museums etc in advance? Get stuffed Boris et al if you the think this will get the economy moving.Everyday more and more independent evidence comes out that your are not following the science but following agenda so again, get stuffed.
Will he listen? Fucking doubt it.
Your determination and resilience in response to leaden officialdom deserves an OBE! An example to us all – well, me anyway.
And me. I love awkward gits.
My wife was paying in Boyes on Monday,she handed the sour faced woman at the till a crisp new £20 and without saying a word the woman tapped the counter sternly with her finger,she wouldn’t take it directly from my wife !.I said to my wife that she should have asked for her money back and told the woman to stick the shopping somewhere.
‘Obnoxious’? Because give some people a bit of power and they turn into wannabe Hitler’s.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.15.20117747v1.full.pdf
We have heard about the detection of viral Covid-19 in sewage water in Italy and Spain occurring earlier that the reported outbreaks. This study is from Massachusetts, USA. Very interesting. They tested sewage water from batches from January and onwards. In January and February no Covid-19 could be found but already on 3rd March, Covid-19 was detected. It then increased exponentially March and April and then a steady decline
The most interesting information is that when the first sewage water tested positive 3rd March, only 2 patients had been diagnosed with Covid-19 in Massachusetts. It is highly unlikely that only two persons could contaminate the sewage water at that scale and the most likely explanations was that far more people was already infected 3rd March. Many reports now of massive infection in multiple populations even before we started to detect cases in certain countries. Our detected cases are only the tip of the iceberg, and this together with massive amount of asymptomatic infection makes the use of R factor, based on detected cases, almost useless.
Though this sounds great, they use PCR testing to “measure” the virus. So there is every likelihood that the same attiributions are being done as with “cases” in hospitals
These tests are not reliable
Contracted the disease through not anti-social distancing and is fine. Thus providing an excellent service to humanity by assisting with herd immunity. Thanks to Mr Djokovic, the human race will continue to survive at least a little longer.
Wife reported local Lidl was very laid back on a recent visit, no guard on the door, straight in and to the business of shopping.
How can they be certain where he caught it? Contact tracing?
Unemployment, race riots & cowering fools.
How very different it was 14 weeks ago.
We are out of austerity, we can look forward to a bright future.
Wait till unemployment hits 6 + MILLION in a year time that’s when the real riots will start
I am not sure the British people are capable of much more then begging government to save them and of course taking the knee or clapping on command.
Agreed, I am very disappointed in my fellow Brits.
I’m not sure if that is sarcasm or ostrich-dom!
So i can go to a pub on the 4th July, but still can’t play badminton, table tennis or any other indoor sport. Boris is just following the science I guess. This virus must be lethal if you stand on a badminton court 5 metres away from anybody else.
I have to say my mental health has certainly suffered, especially since my dog severely injured himself in an accident at the start of May. I’ve been in watching over him to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself, he’s not allowed walks, and in Wales we are not allowed to travel. If I come out of this with any shreds of sanity left I will be mightily thankful. If it wasn’t that I go to the local shop every day I’d have seen no-one for nearly two months apart from the vet. My job’s gone as well.
Sorry to hear. A lot more of this to come. What makes me angry is that most of it was avoidable.
This was all avoidable and if the NHS had not gone insane and started discharging sick people to care homes and refusing treatment to many then far fewer would have died. This was all entirely unnecessary.
I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve had such a difficult time.
So sorry to hear that. So hard to see a loved one suffer. Hope doggy feels better soon.
You are not insane, it’s those supposed to be leading and informing us. They dont know what they are doing. Hope things start to improve little by little.
Sadly, I think some of them do know what they are doing – they are psychopaths.
It’s like the solitary confinement scenes in Colditz (TV series). They soon got back to normal once they were back with the other prisoners. Same with this.
“Back with the other prisoners?” Is that really the best example I could think of?
Scary thought.
Gosh, Peter, I am so sorry. Please keep posting – you are among friends and we all look out for each other.
Sorry to hear that Peter. Lockdown has been miserable for many but your worry for your dog must make it all extra hard for you.
My dog sends wags to your dog and hopes he’ll be completely better soon. xxxxx
If you want to travel, then travel. My local (Welsh) beach was busy today and if all the people there came from five miles around, I’ll eat my hat. ( It’s a riding hat and would be tough going, even stewed.)
What the MSM don’t tell you – a positive test does not mean you have the disease, only detectable antibodies.
Yet more crap getting it wrong from the MSM.
B&Q.
At the till you have to leave your purchases there and ‘step back!’ into the yellow box, while the s/he in B&Q Riot Gear bleeps them, then ‘step forward!’ to ping your card at arms length, then ‘back!’, before it is permissable to grab your stuff and flee. If you want the receipt you’ll need to catch it.
Good dose of stupidity
When we got son’s feet measured at Clarkes, a man at the door (wearing what looked like a welders mask) told us when it was safe to enter the empty store. We then walked carefully to the end of the shop (not contaminating any of the displays), and the assistant wheeled out a 3 sided glass screen all freshley sprayed and positioned it in front of son. It was then safe for the masked lady to bend down and measure the feet, with arms out stretched, and standing well back, as if the feet may burst into flames at any moment.
All very strange, like Gordan Brittas takes over s show shop, but also funny.
Sounds disturbing! I hope your son found it funny too.
I’ve heard a lot of dire reports about B&Q, including from my son and a friend who live at different ends of the country.
I think I’d be inclined to step back at the first bark, then march out of the shop, leaving them to put the trolley-full of stuff back on the shelves.
My other son had a good experience in the local Wickes last weekend.
I’ve always liked my local Screwfix and they’re doing click and collect at the moment. Depends what you need to buy of course!
It’s a bit like the Sainsbury’s self-service tills where, as soon as you’ve paid, tell you to please take your purchases and f*ck off.
No Vaccine Needed
There are 135 vaccines in development. However, none are needed. We do not need a vaccine for what is treatable by safer, more effective means. Even the regular flu vaccines are not effective enough to prevent people from dying of that.
The Who says 650,000 die annually from the common flu. In future years, because of Covid-19, doctors will be able to reduce these high death rates from other viruses from what they have learned in this pandemic.
Modern medicine has never quarantined populations for readily treated conditions, and there is no reason to do so now. The present pandemic has only been a problem for one reason. It is because a small group of health officials decided months beforehand precisely what they were going to do. They still pretend there is no treatment and that everything depends on rushing a vaccine to the public, which they will make mandatory.
https://drsircus.com/general/all-clear-siren-or-lock-them-up-again/
Seen posts today that there is likely to be an inhalable Covid vaccine – so ‘ideal’ for schoolchildren to be given in September, I would guess..? And inhalable so as to ‘help’ enhance take-up levels, because it is not an actual injection????
I don’t suppose they can hide a nanochip in there, or can they?
Hopefully the kids will only end up snorting salt solution while the real deal is being properly tested – for the next 100 years!
It’s just occurred to me that sticking a needle in someone constitutes assault if permission isn’t given.
Would that apply to forcing someone to inhale or ingest something?
I’m going to go on record here and invite my fellow sceptics to demolish what I am saying, because it’s always good to test your thinking. Before I do, I just want to say that I didn’t think there was a corner of the internet left where a group of people with differing views (albeit common purpose) could have a sensible debate and stay civil and it’s refreshing that I was wrong.
Anyway, I’m upbeat this evening, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there’s an easing of the measures on the cards that actually makes some kind of sense. There is a prospect that, from July, we will be something more than 50% back towards normal. Secondly, the best thing about it was the undercurrent of the message, which was – “we won’t be policing, we won’t be putting into law, we won’t be mandating “face coverings”, mostly we are now prepared to trust the British public to exercise common sense and to avoid catching the virus in much the same way as they would normally avoid catching the ‘flu.” If this attitude had been taken in the first place, plus some sensible measures around the old, the sick and the vulnerable, none of this catastrophe would have been necessary. Still – it’s nice to be back to being treated as we should always have been treated.
However, it isn’t over.
* Based on dubious advice and speculative “science” the government of the United Kingdom made a decision on 23rd March to place the entire nation under house arrest. They may, finally, be releasing us in a little over two weeks time, but restitution shouldn’t grant absolution
* these weird, inhuman distancing rules are still in place in the guidance. My mother can come to stay in a couple of weeks’ time and see her grandchildren for the first time in half a year (She lives 250 miles away and hasn’t been here since Christmas). But in theory, she’s not allowed to hug them. Nonsense
* We have a duty to educate businesses that people will not give them their business is they insist on making it an unpleasant experience. Boycott, email, send letters. Most importantly, email and send letters and encourage others you know to do the same thing – make sure that it’s understood that people aren’t too scared to shop or go to the pub, but they find this kind of shopping too miserable and inconvenient to want to do it.
* the government must also be held to account for the fear in society. I can accept that propaganda is necessary in wartime and I might even accept that it was felt we needed to be shocked into compliance at the beginning. But I can’t accept that it is acceptable for any government to wage psychological war on their own population for 3 months. Again, the government must be held to account
Most importantly, this must be taken through the courts. We cannot allow the precedent to stand that HMG can decide to imprison the population, close schools and shut down the economy under any circumstances.
So. My view is – it’s a good day, and there haven’t been very many of those lately. But I don’t think we can get bored and walk away.
It’s not over by a long way for all the reasons you state, and more. The Coronavirus Act needs to go.
Yes, a small bounce back (but from what a deep chasm). Whether it will last or turn into a dead cat bounce, I am less sure.
I think the hard part starts now. They were always going to relax the rules at some point but until every trace of this ridiculous nonsense we’ve had to endure since March is completely removed then none of us will be happy.
All the Patronising/obnoxious signs, one way systems, hand sanitizers in shops, wearing of face masks, covid doormen and meaningless slogans need to be consigned to history and never seen again, plus :
No quarantining for travellers
All kids back in schools properly
Crowds allowed again at sporting events, concerts etc
The BBC shut down
I’m sure there is loads more. But the above would be a start
Leisure centres etc
Sport in schools etc
Clubs etc e.g. scouts
Offices where everyone is currently working from home
Nightclubs etc
No restrictions on freedom of movement and who can be in your home
Universities 100% open
Dance studios and dance competitions back with no anti social distancing.
Churches open with LOTS of singing.
I’m hoping that businesses will spend the time before July 4th destroying the 2m signs and assessing how close to normal their overseers will allow them to go.
The bit where Boris claimed dentists were operating as normal just shows he hasn’t a clue!
I will not be happy until those responsible are being prosecuted for the harm and injury they have inflicted on ~60 million people. Much of that harm and injury is yet to be felt even if they returned everything to normal today but they have not.
They have tested the water and found that we the public are more malleable than they ever dreamt. There is no way that can be considered anything but total lose.
Yes, and this has, I fear, softened us up for the consequences of the loony zero carbon policy to be thrust on us.
That’s just for starters.
“I don’t think we can get bored and walk away.”
I wish.
I’m very very wary of allowing my mood to be dictated by the actions of Boris and his cabal. This is the problem – it’s not their place to make you feel anything.
They are there to legislate. Make sensible amendments to existing laws. It’s not their place to stand up at lecterns, preaching at us for our own good. He’s not the fucking Pope. He’s a fucking politician. Pond life. Not to be trusted.
I can see him standing up at one of these lecterns in three years time telling us all earnestly that we can go out to vote. Just so long as we are all good little boys and girls and vote for the Conservative candidate.
Then we can all live happily ever after in Boris’ Cloud Cuckoo Land.
We must remain vigilant.
The MSM are as culpable as the government for the utter horseshit broadcast and printed as “fact”. Right from the start of this virus, there has been a concerted effort to browbeat and terrify the population. If the government was complicit in this right from the start, I do not know. (But why? What’s the reason for that? We must find out.)
I do NOT accept the population had to be shocked into compliance. There was no need for the lockdown at all, and this was fairly obvious at the time, it is not a hindsight comment.
We have been asked to surrender our freedom to walk where we wish, drive where we wish, and holiday where we wish, certainly within the UK. Thousands of small businesses are probably destroyed for no good reason and normal human interpersonal relationships suspended in the most inhumane manner imaginable. Hitler behaved like this towards those imprisoned in concentration camps.
You are right that this must be pursued through the courts. The first step is Dolan’s judicial review. Let us first establish whether or not the government behaved legally in imprisoning the healthy in their homes or not.
We shall take it from there.
One thing to do to remain vigilant is to keep a close eye on Mason Mills Twitter and Parler accounts (I hear he is saying more on Parler now than on Twitter, but can’t verify this as I do not have a Parler account). He gives advance information on what is planned/to be expected – he tweeted way back on 3rd April that the mask advice would be changing – we should maybe have planned how to react then, since we had advance warning..I am now watching even more closely to see what he writes will be happening next!
The government paid the MSM to run its propaganda “to replace lost advertising”. Therefore definitely complicit.
I think it’s obvious the money has run out, hence the way journalists are suddenly finding their teeth
Great comment! The legislation must be repealed, and soon – because there is a lot in there that they have not (yet) tried to enforce and may yet might, eg compulsory vaccination. They also changed the abortion law without Parliament even getting a debate on it…
Can’t disagree with any of that. And I’m generally reputed to be an argumentative bastard who could start a fight in a convent.
‘Truly, we have reached a surreal point in our history when a Conservative leader gives the people back small portions of their freedom with the proviso that they must be good boys and girls’. Allison Pearson just posted in the Telegraph:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/lockdown-lift-off-wants-live-new-normal/
Sums it up pretty well!
Yes, but would you have preferred “here are all the ways in which we expect you be good boys and girls, and here’s how I have instructed the constabulary to enforce that you are”? We’re a long way from where we should be, but we’re nearer than I feared we might be.
I think we’ve been here before. Was it London Calling last week where they said they’d heard from someone with connections to the government that they’re planning another lockdown in October? I think we’re just guinea pigs in a giant psychological experiment.
We heard that from a ‘connection’ also, and had to abandon our plan to get our sheepdog mated because the pups would be ready in October just in time for the next lockdown.
It was James Delingpole that had heard it last week – where did you hear it from, out of interest?
They’ll need a really good reason for that. We have until then to organise and prepare.
Its not like they had a good reason last time.
There’s no evidence of any political opposition to another lockdown, so they would really be staring at a “people vs the government” situation if they tried to enforce it. With enforcement by Police supported by Army – has Dominic really thought that one through?
They are the servants of the people and we pay them through our taxes. We delegate various responsibilities to them, and expect them to fulfil their role in the public interest. Don’t show them an inch of gratitude as they seek to absolve their sins!
Don’t mistake my reaction for gratitude. I’m not grateful for today’s announcement and I haven’t been grateful for any of the relaxations that have happened, and I refuse to be grateful for having my rights gradually returned to me.
I am pleased, however, that the way it’s been done is not through another raft of legislation, but by saying “here’s our advice, please go and be sensible.” Its not what I expected. It’s not great, but it’s more progress than I expected to see today.
I’ve not had my rights returned to me. They are where they always were, with me. If they aren’t rights, then it’s time to fight for them. This is why I’ve supported – morally and financially – Dolan’s case against the government. How the judges find will determine my next course.
It does.
I don’t like ad-hominem, it’s crude and artless, but he’s a bloody moron.
Don’t think compliments count as ad hominem do they?
Many more will read the Telegraph than this site – Alison Pearson is a ray of light amid the gloom, and I hope that many will read her article and agree.
That said, the hoped-for ‘many’ seem depressingly few among my (hitherto rational) acquaintances.
It’s got over 800 comments already, and only been on the system for a couple of hours. This is second most popular comment:
‘Great article Allison, and encompasses what most of us older people are thinking. It is a great pity that Boris chose a cabinet of young and inexperienced schoolboys and did not include some senior MPs of ability and rational thought, such as Owen Patterson or IDS, who have experienced life and could have brought some sceptical and analytical views to the table, instead of meekly accepting the mad scientists lunatic hypotheses. Mrs Thatcher, an Oxford University scientist, would not have given Ferguson and his ilk a free ride like this one.’
I agree completely with that comment, and I am especially disappointed that Dr Therese Coffey, an Oxford chemist (even ex-Somerville), could not bring herself to break ranks.
It’s because they have no idea how businesses work.
And they seem to be so out of touch with how normal people function, it makes me wonder where they’ve been all their lives!
Most, but not all, have lived in their own ‘social bubble’. From prep school, to boarding school, to Oxford college, to either nice traditional journalist job, City or civil service. In many cases the only women they have ever come across were mothers/sisters, their secretary, then a woman to marry from a similar female ‘social bubble’.
I got shouted at the other day for daring to find Allison Pearson’s column funny about all the things the government are insisting we do. Free speech has obviously vanished.
Probably a set up… we all know PCR testing is a load of bollocks
Boris in his speech said he wouldent hesitate to lock down again if we flouted the rules.
In your dreams ! There is no way I’m going through this crap again I won t close my business again I won t obey the stupid rules and il go to jail if needs be .
Like you say… he is dreaming. He fucked up the big one so has no chance with this ‘aftercare’ bollocks. Hancock wins the prize for most delusional idiot however. He is like a kids a sweet shop wielding his imaginary power
Hancock is the typical bully. Not for much longer, with luck.
Jails are going to be pretty full. Hope I’ll be in the same one as you. We’ll sing duets, very loudly.
Can I join you too?
No money left. Magic money tree is dead
There is always more fiat money the question is will there be anything left to buy with it.
He will lock down again once he has ‘seen off’ Simon Dolan’s court case…!
This comment in The Telegraph made me laugh:
“Hairstylists will be told to cut down on the small talk” – best laugh I’ve had in ages.
You couldn’t make it up. Enjoy these moments everyone because I don’t think we’ll see such stupidity again in my lifetime
Let’s hope not, at least!
I can only hope you’re right Tenchy.
Churches open but no singing. Heard that one today. May be true, may not but the fact that non-sceptics are seeing the absurdity of it all warms my cockles
Yeah, a couple of weeks ago a minister said that singing is problematic in terms of the virus since it involves exhalation! I find inhaling and exhaling pretty fundamental for breathing! The lunatics are running the asylum.
So funny. What virus? We are all healthy
*********** go to the top of the class!
That is the essential point that is always forgotten. Our oppressors have succeeded in convincing the zombies that everybody except themselves is a contaminated death trap.
WE ARE NOT, NOT, NOT.
Its not stupidity its totalitarianism. A government that thinks its appropriate to dictate every aspect of your life even down to the level of conversation you should have with your hairstylist. An effective one party state. It only gets worse from here as long as we continue to comply.
A disabled woman and a mother of a child with a rare neurological disorder have launched this crowdfunding to campaign for the end of mandatory face coverings on public transport:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/face-masks/
Done. Happy to support such a good case.
I’m taking time off from commenting here but I thought this should be shared.
Hope all is ok Bart, and that you will be back soon.
Done
Done. Go it – for the disabled, for the deaf, for all of us.
I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon in the world of football.
The footballers and managers greet each other with the prescribed elbow-to-elbow touch but then, after having scrupulously avoided touching, they go and ruin it all by laying their hands on the other guy and patting them all over – head, back, shoulders, arms…anywhere that takes their fancy!!
How effing absurd is that?
Proof that in the modern era virtue signalling, whether it be taking the knee or touching the elbow, is more important than good sense.
Friends in Scotland, is this true:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/23/scottish-schools-fully-reopen-august-11-mother-father-snp-climbdowns/
And with no social distancing, according to the article?
Yes with the caveat “if the virus is sufficiently suppressed”
Ok, thanks. So it will be based on whatever orders Professor Devi Sridhar and her handlers impart on Ms Sturgeon!
My take is that all the threats of making things mandatory, be good or we’ll go back into lockdown etc have been empty threats.
The virus could well have died out naturally by then and they probably know this. They are only saying things to make it look like they’re in control.
I could be wrong of course but that’s my perspective on things.
*Empty threats designed to induce compliance.
I attended the demonstration in The Hague last sunday against the new covid19 laws in the Netherlands. The thing that struck me most is that none of the police officers present (and there were a lot!) kept one and a half meters distance of their collegues. Nor were they wearing facemasks…funny a virus that makes exeptions for certain people