In my latest Spectator column, I say how pleased I was to see the pictures of Michael Gove enjoying himself on a night out in Aberdeen. It will make it that much harder for him to resume his advocacy of vaccine passports.
Scotland, after all, is experiencing a record number of coronavirus cases following the reopening of schools a few weeks ago, yet the minister was perfectly happy to visit several hospitality venues in Aberdeen without having to certify his Covid status. The implication of Gove’s night of revelry is that, like many of us, he’s decided to say good riddance to the restrictions that have been crippling the economy and wreaking havoc with people’s mental health and learned to live with the virus. The pictures of him posing for selfies, arm in arm with total strangers, his face and shirt pouring with sweat, were particularly refreshing.
Admittedly, the influential cabinet minister may not have intended to send a message that it’s time to get back to normal. This was a night out in Aberdeen, after all, not a Downing Street press conference. But the fact that he let his hair down in this way will make it harder for him to resume his position as the government’s finger-wagger-in-chief when it comes to restrictions on our freedoms.
It’s widely predicted that cases in England will start to surge as a result of our schools reopening – and will accelerate even more when university students go back — and no doubt the usual chorus of scientific advisers, public health panjandrums and NHS bosses will be clamouring for another lockdown. Before this, they could have counted on Gove as their closest cabinet ally. Now they may have to look elsewhere. For the minister to call for vaccine passports and other containment measures in England when he didn’t modify his behaviour in response to a case surge in Scotland will leave him vulnerable to the charge he cares more about protecting lives in England than in Scotland.
Worth reading in full.
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Imagine how much money we could save and output we could improve if we got rid of both the civil service and Royal Air Force.
Would we miss them?
To your list of organisations for abolition, it is with a heavy heart that I would add the RNLI for its enthusiastic (and presumably paid) complicity in illegal immigration and the National Trust for abject wokeism.
In both cases their sensible and laudable founding principles would be better served by County or area based organisations that could focus on the core job in hand and be less susceptible to being hi-jacked by National political Dogma.
5G Consistent pattern of adverse effects
latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
Your neighbours must really be getting fed up with all the rubbish you are stuffing through their letterboxes.
I hope it is rubbish ! Imagine if the 5G could actually damage health , it’s reassuring that at least you are here to tell us that’s it’s nothing to worry about , phew
We can also live in the confident belief that the BBC and HMG would investigate objectively and tell us fairly if there were any risks from G5. Neither of them would be influenced by the big business lobbyists nor by the sunk costs narrative.
Two more of the FEMALE terrorists released as part of the prison exchange deal. Yes, I guess it’s an actual fact that they do indeed exist, and to deny reality just makes one look very, very silly indeed. I think Israel needs to take tips from Egypt on how to reinforce their barrier after having people like this now freed and living next door;
”Part of the exchange today to free 2 year old Aviv Asher involved having to exchange Hamas terrorist Asraa Jabes.
The 38 year old Palestinian woman detonated a car bomb back in 2015 attempting to kill Israelis.”
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1728222214011453515
”In exchange for the release of Israeli hostages like 5 year old Emilia Aloni today,, Israel had to exchange Palestinian prisoners, as part of the deal
One of the prisoners sent back to Palestine today was Shorouq Dwaiat.
In 2015 she went on a stabbing spree, stabbing 1 Israeli man and attempting to stab another.
She received a 16 year sentence.
While Israeli hostages are simply innocent civilians the Palestinian prisoners being exchanged are terrorists.”
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1728221322625356207
Hopefully the Israeli’s managed to attach miniature satellite trackers to the terrorists and will get them in the next airstrike.
Yeah, this must be true ‘cos there’s no way the virus could spread as far as 1,000 miles. Stands to reason dunnit?
Er.
Those bloody scheming bats, they’ve clearly been planning this for millions of years in those caves in China. Clever barstewards…
At last, their cunning plan is being put into action! Today, the cave, tomorrow, the whole cave system!
Why the hell don’t we just keep the f#@k away from them? They politely stay in deep dark caves all day, then when we’re asleep the come out to eat, surely they are doing their bit to keep away from us! Why don’t we do the same for them?
If this is true (and there are lots of reasons to doubt it – it’s had 4 years minimum to spread to other bats FFS), then maybe it’s not a “freak” mutation after all. Perhaps it’s fairly common and not actually something world-ending to panic about.
The ‘freak’ mutation they’re talking about is a particular sequence which is often used in laboratory constructed genetic material. It’s presence in the Covid bug was part of what drove the lab-created-leak theory – as distinct from the naturally evolved bug leaked from the lab or the ‘wet market zoonosis theory. The sequence hadn’t been seen in nature so finding it was a bit like finding a zipper in a leather jacket and saying it evolved in a natural animal skin.
Given that the other theories on the origin of Covid require a bug that evolved in another animal to make the leap to humans and given that the Covid bug has changed over time (Original, Alpha, Delta, Omicron etc etc ad nauseam), it does not seem impossible that a lab-created Covid bug spreading through mankind (considerably further than 1,000 miles) might not cross the species barrier from humans to bats and continue to evolve there – complete with its man-made ‘zipper’ (OK the analogy does break down there).
Not entirely sure what the bat story is trying to prove.
Finding a bat with a virus 1000 km from Wuhan.
How funny…
“Compared with birds, bats are relatively short-distance migrators, with maximum migration distances being <2000 km”
I think the point of the story is the fact that the virus was genetically very similar to Covid and this is meant to be proof that it didn’t leak from a lab. It’s theoretically possible that someone from Wuhan caught covid from a bat while on holiday and returned home before becoming ill. Obviously the evidence in favour of a lab leak is still far stronger than the evidence for a natural origin.
It’s a red herring, in my view, designed to bring the Covid story back to what they originally said it was and take blame away from any pesky little lab just innocently GoF’ing its little way towards designing better and nastier viruses. In fact, in honour of Prince Philip, since it was his wish, I feel we should call the next ‘virus’ Philip so people can claim a mild does of the ‘Philips’ or ‘I’ve been Philiped’ etc.
Knowing the way that China deals with its perceived problems I can imagine a bat eradication plan…similar to how they dealt with the little birds eating the grain in the ‘Great Leap
ForwardsBackwards’. It’s a peculiarly Chinese govt thing which is to blame everyone and everything for the myopic shortcomings of their paranoid grip on power.Are you sure you meant 2000 Km range?
Laden or unladen?
Laden with a coconut, like the swallows!
Which bit of “stop messing about with bat coronaviruses” don’t they understand from last time? Leave it alone.
I haven’t seen any news outlet prioritise the horrific stabbing of little children in Ireland as the story. It’s all about the riot. Yet if it was a gunman in America shooting little kids at school it would be front page news.
He was an Algerian immigrant, what more reason do you want for the lack of media attention.
Was he far right? Or was it all caused by systemic racism and colonialism and not his fault at all?
Mental health problems! The go to get out clause for embarrassed governments!
“Yet if it was a gunman in America shooting little kids at school it would be front page news.”
Unless the shooter was black or a muzzie.
“An about-turn on tobacco” It’s interesting to look at the whole Tobacco story. Tobacco was a herb much revered by the Native American Indians and other indigenous peoples. It is considered the ‘master teacher’ plant in fact and for reasons more to do with spiritual and shamanic uses. It was never meant to be a plant to be abused the way it has been but of course the fact that it contained a highly addictive substance, just like caffeine did for coffee and tea and sugar also, meant that it was the perfect consumer drug with a ready, willing and addicted clientele. I used to be one of them and back in the day loved nothing more than a ‘roll up’ and a cup of coffee or a pint. They just seemed to go so well together! During Native American ceremonies, Tobacco is used but not a pack of Marlboro or Camels, but a rawer purer version that hasn’t been adulterated with chemicals to make it burn better and faster .
Of course, tobacco became a huge industry and the marketing of tobacco was one of the success stories all the way through to the eighties or whenever it was banned. I do remember going into a pub, aptly named The Blue Flame, near Bristol but out in the sticks, sometime in the early 2000s to smoke in a pub legally for the last time. Nowadays, I can’t stand the smell of commercial tobacco but sacred raw tobacco is different. It is stronger and you don’t take the smoke into your lungs but only into your throat – don’t ask! Conversely, it is also one of the most powerful shamanic purification tools, the smoke being blown over people to dispel bad energies. And if you think about it, it does dispel gnats and other flying biting mites. Anyway, just thought I’d share that with you on this murky November morning…
In “The Cosmic Serpent”, anthropologist Jeremy Narby comments that Amazonian tobacco can contain up to 18x the nicotine of tobacco used for industrial cigarettes and is not contaminated by chemical fertilizers or the added ingredients. It’s considered a remedy and cancer rates amongst Shaman that use copious quantities of the Amazonian variety were non-existent.
Very interesting – thanks for sharing…
We need an “about turn” on all the other drugs too: “save our youth! End Prohibition!”
Just as the alcohol prohibition gave rise to Al Capone, so the continued drug prohibition has given rise to mobsters like Escobar in Colombia and Guzman in Mexico.
Since then, they have suborned police and all institutions of government, drug money has corrupted all the banks and gangsters have infiltrated corporations until all the power sources in America have devolved to criminals. Thus has America become a Mafiosi state.