Finally, the Lockdown Skeptics shop is here! Yes, click on this link and you will be taken to the all-singing, all-dancing Lockdown Sceptics shop. I’ve also included a link in the top right-hand corner of every page.
No need to wear a mask and no social distancing required!
In addition to this splendid mug, we have T-shirts in all different colours, hoodies and tote bags. More merchandise will follow…
The central motif – a British bulldog muzzled by a face mask – was designed by my 16 year-old daughter and turned into a proper logo by a professional illustrator. I’ve promised Sasha 10% of the profits so she can enjoy the summer after a miserable three months being under house arrest at our home in Acton. So please get your shopping trolleys out and go bananas.
Help me turn the muzzled bulldog into this summer’s must-have brand.
YouTube Shadow-Bans Peter Hichens
YouTube is at it again. Today, the company has been caught red-handed “shadow banning” an interview Peter Hitchens did on the Triggernometry channel entitled “Lockdown is a catastrophe“. The interview was published at 6pm yesterday, but if you search for for “triggernometry Peter Hitchens” on YouTube or search for “triggernometry YouTube Peter Hitchens” on Google the video doesn’t appear in the results. That’s no accident. On the contrary, it’s a tried-and-tested way for YouTube – and its parent company Google – to suppress traffic to an interview they deem suspect. The two comedians who host Triggernometry, Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster, have made a video (on YouTube) to illustrate the problem.
Shadow-banning is a particularly insidious form of censorship because it’s impossible to appeal against. When I was notified by YouTube last week that my video entitled “The Case Against Lockdowns” had been removed because it violated the company’s “community standards”, I was given the option to appeal, something I’m intending to do. But in this case, the censorship is unofficial – YouTube hasn’t notified Triggernometry that it’s suppressed the interview with Hitchens. It’s censorship on the sly.
Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster are both members of the Free Speech Union’s Advisory Council and the FSU will be doing what it can to help. Six months ago, YouTube removed an interview they did with the feminist campaigner Posie Parker for the Triggernomentry channel, claiming it contained “hate speech that promotes or encourages violence against vulnerable groups”. Parker’s sin, apparently, was to say she didn’t believe transwomen are women. Kisin and Foster appealed the decision and also kicked up a stink on social media and the video was reinstated. Needless to say, YouTube didn’t even bother to respond to their appeal.
Shadow-banning is a form of “deceptive blocking” which was referred to in Trump’s executive order last week aimed at removing the legal protections currently enjoyed by social media companies like YouTube so that henceforth they can be sued by users if they censor their content, whether directly or indirectly.
Let’s hope Trump’s Executive Order, as well as the threat of legislation, forces YouTube and other social media companies to be less censorious. Given their increasingly important role as forums for public debate, their terms of service and content moderation policies should be politically neutral, not designed to promote a narrow range of woke orthodoxies.
Stop Press: The WHO has changed its mind about wearing masks and now recommends against dong so. Let’s hope it doesn’t post its new guidance on YouTube because the company may be forced to remove it on the grounds that it contravenes the recommendations of… the WHO.
Mothers Threaten Gavin Williamson With Legal Action if Schools Don’t Abandon “Draconian” Social Distancing Rules
#NotOK, the lobby group set up by three mothers to campaign for the reopening of schools, has threatened the Government with a law suit for breaching children’s human rights if schools don’t remove the absurdly restrictive social distancing rules they’ve brought in, supposedly following official guidance.
According to a story in today’s Mail:
Three mothers are considering suing the Government over school closures – amid claims they may have breached children’s human rights and pupils are being “treated like they’re germs”.
The women have also written to the Secretary of State Gavin Williamson to ask whether the “long term physical and mental welfare” of pupils has been considered, and to raise concerns about social distancing.
Campaigner Christine Brett, who has two children, said: “These are healthy children who have been quarantined for 12 weeks – they shouldn’t be treated like they’re germs, disinfected on entry and separated on to individual tables.”
“Us and Them” campaign group founders Molly Kingsley, 41, Liz Morris, 46, and Mrs Brett, 48, all from Cambridgeshire, have one child each returning to school and another still stuck at home.
Regular readers won’t need reminding that Christine Brett is a contributor to Lockdown Sceptics. She wrote a piece for the site arguing for the reopening of schools on May 17th that you can read here.
It’s not just the fact that some primary age children still can’t return to school that #NotOK objects to. It’s also the draconian social distancing measures that children as young as four will be expected to observe once they return to school. It is that, rather than fear of infection, that is prompting a lot of parents to keep children at home – 50% of those eligible to return today, according to the Times. Christine told the Mail: “Children are social beings and it’s really worrying that instead of going back to a supportive environment where they can actually recover from what’s happened, they’re going to be further damaged.”
If you want to sign up to the campaign, you can do so here.
Scotland Becomes More Like North Korea Every Day
Nicola Sturgeon has today threatened to pass draconian new laws to force the Scottish people to observe the country’s social distancing rules following a number of breaches over the weekend. On Saturday, for instance, Police Scotland dispersed 797 gatherings and car traffic trebled at some beauty spots like Loch Lomond and Glen Coe.
At present, the social distancing rules in Scotland are guidelines and don’t have the force of law. But that will change, the First Minister said, if people continue to flout them.
“It’s worth being clear that if there is continued evidence of even a minority not abiding by these guidelines and travelling unnecessarily, or meeting up in larger groups, we will have to put these restrictions on group size and travel distance into law,” she said. “We will not hesitate to do that if it is necessary for the collective wellbeing of society.”
That last phrase has an ominously authoritarian ring to it, suggesting Scotland is fast-becoming a one-party state. Guy de la Bédoyère, a regular contributor to Lockdown Sceptics, is unimpressed:
Just as I said the other week: the state always travels in the direction of totalitarianism unless someone stops the process. When do we ever hear from anyone in Scotland except Sturgeon? It’s a one-woman state so she proceeds unchecked. Furious that anyone has dared to challenge her edicts by travelling around at the weekend she cannot, like any tinpot totalitarian, resist the temptation to elevate the threat of punitive recriminations, believing that that’s the way to rule.
Perhaps this talk of bringing in more laws is Sturgeon’s version of a “dead cat”, hoping to deflect attention from the number of care home deaths in Scotland. According to the National Records of Scotland website, 46% of Covid deaths in Scotland since the beginning of the year have been in care homes, considerably more than England (37.4%). In an interview with Sophy Ridge on Sky News yesterday, Sturgeon made two dubious claims in her own defence.
First, she said she thought care home deaths in England had been under-counted. But while that may or may not be true, there’s no reason to think deaths in care homes are more likely to have been under-counted than deaths in hospitals or the community, thereby altering the total percentage of deaths that have occurred in care homes. It’s still going to be higher in Scotland.
Second, she said that when the Scottish Government passed the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act on April 7th, empowering councils to move elderly adults with no symptoms of the disease from hospitals to care homes, she didn’t know that carriers of the virus could be asymptomatic. If true, that would reveal an astonishing depth of ignorance about the disease on the part of the First Minister. Was she living on another planet between mid-January, when the large number of asymptomatic carriers was first discussed by SAGE, and April 7th?
As the Times points out today:
- At a public briefing on February 25th, Dr Bruce Aylward, a senior adviser to the WHO Director General, said: “The iceberg is you’ve got critical cases, you’ve got severe cases, you’ve got mild cases and a bit of asymptomatic transmission probably at the bottom. That seems to be what it looks like.”
- On February 28th, the WHO published a study from China entitled: “A familial cluster of COVID-19 indicating virus can be transmitted by asymptomatic carriers.”
- At a briefing on April 1st, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the Imperial College academic, said: “We know that… the transmission of this virus is driven by people who are asymptomatic.”
- The following day, the WHO issued a COVID-19 situation report that stated: “Asymptomatic cases have been reported as part of contact-tracing efforts in some countries.”
- At the WHO briefing on April 3rd, Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said: “There is always the possibility of asymptomatic transmission.”
- On April 4th, Sir Harry Burns, the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland when Ms Sturgeon was Health Secretary, told the Times: “There may be tens of thousands of people out there with the virus but no symptoms, and they are liable to spread it.”
Tony Banks, founder of the Balhousie Care Group which operates 26 care homes across Scotland with about 940 residents, accused Scottish ministers of a “disgusting” attempt to deflect attention from their own “missed opportunities” yesterday.
Let’s hope Mr Banks appears as a witness in Scotland’s public inquiry.
Keep Britain Free
Simon Dolan has launched a spiffy new website and given a name to his campaign to hold the Government to account – “Keep Britain Free”. You can check it out here. He’s also given an interview to Spiked that you can read here.
Could this be the beginning of a new political movement? Numerous people have contacted me, on the left as well as the right, urging me to found a new political party devoted to defending our ancient liberties. Not a libertarian party, since it wouldn’t be campaigning to strip the role of the state back to that of a night-watchman. Rather, a party that campaigned for our Common Law rights as freeborn Englishmen to be restored – not just those suspended during the lockdown, but those that have been gradually eroded since the Second World War, such as our right to free speech. The Common Law Rights Party… although with a snappier name.
Watch this space.
Chris Whitty Opposed Airport Screening in 2018
A reader has got in touch to flag up this 2018 lecture by Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer of England, in which he says that screening at airports and banning travel is utterly useless when it comes to preventing pandemics spreading. Could this be why the NERVTAG meeting on January 21st, attended by Chris Whitty, recommended against port-of-entry screening? As I pointed out yesterday, those countries that introduced it in early January have some of the lowest Covid death counts in the world.
How High Are Excess Deaths in the US?
Nobel laureate Michael Levitt has compared excess deaths in the 2019/20 Flu + COVID-19 season in the US with excess deaths in the 2017/18 flu season and estimated that there have been 185,315 in 2019/20 compared to 136,313 in 2017/18. So a difference of 49,002, or an increase of 36%. This is a much smaller estimate than that made by the Yale School of Public Health and published in the Washington Post on Saturday, although even the Post says, based on Yale’s state-by-state analysis, that excess deaths have been higher in those states that have imposed the strictest lockdowns and haven’t yet eased them. “For the most part, the states that continue to maintain especially restrictive social distancing rules are those that suffered the largest numbers of excess deaths,” the Post writes.
The number of excess deaths during the pandemic compared to the number of excess deaths from seasonal flu in recent years will be a big debating point as the post-mortems get underway, as will the number of excess deaths caused directly by COVID-19 compared to the number caused indirectly, e.g. as a result of the lockdowns.
In Germany, for instance, the number of directly caused COVID-19 deaths to date (8,605) is about a third of the number who died of seasonal influenza in 2017/18 (25,100). Angela Merkel initially described the pandemic as the worst crisis to afflict the country since the Second World War. She may come to regret those words…
Readers’ Dispatches from Singapore and Albuquerque
I’ve published two more “postcards” from people in different countries, describing what it’s like to be locked down in their parts of the world – one from Singapore and one from Albuquerque. The latter is by a severely disabled person called Kaatje van der Gaarden who’s found that the lack of support for people like her has made the lockdown particularly hard to navigate. Here’s an extract in which she points out that the cost of the lockdown in her state is likely to be greater than any benefit:
Studies show that prolonged stay-at-home orders aggravate mental health disorders, decrease our immune systems, and may prevent herd immunity. Most worryingly, the lockdown is destroying our societal and global fabric. Segregate and protect the elderly and those at risk, maintain voluntary distancing and use masks and gloves as needed, and let people decide whether or not they want to risk going to a store. Being alive comes with all sorts of risks that we normally accept, yet COVID-19 scared politicians and the media into a panic which they turned into propaganda.
Both postcards are worth reading in full.
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:
- ‘Covid-19 – a case for medical detectives‘ – Interesting article by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a German physician and former public health officer in Schleswig-Holstein. He believes treating patients of African ancestry with hydroxychloroquine is dangerous
- ‘The world panicked with ineffective lockdowns‘ – Daniel Hannan in the Washington Examiner says the Italian Government panicked after its plan to just lock down northern Italy leaked and people started travelling south, so it locked down the whole country and then other European countries followed suit
- ‘Coronavirus quarantine will destroy travel firms, bosses warn‘ – The backlash against quarantining arrivals in Britain from June 8th continues, with airline and travel industry bosses warning it will be catastrophic
- ‘Italy opens up its monuments and beaches to tourists‘ – Meanwhile, Italy has scrapped its two-week quarantine rule for visitors
- ‘How Middlesbrough’s “baptism of fire” reveals the risk to post-industrial towns‘ – Latest figures reveal that Britain’s top four hot spots for transmission are all in the north-east: Sunderland, Gateshead, South Tyneside and Middlesbrough
- ‘Covid has exposed America as a failed state‘ – Hard-hitting piece in UnHerd by Aris Roussinos
- ‘So where did the virus come from?‘ – Matt Ridley discusses the latest evidence that SARS-CoV-2 didn’t originate in a wet market in Wuhan
- ‘The NHS is letting down thousands of patients‘ – Max Pemberton, the Spectator‘s resident doctor, assesses the mounting death toll from the lockdown
- ‘Meet The Left Wing Pro-Lockdown Hypocrites Who Broke Lockdown Rules‘ – YouTuber Mahyar Tousi tots up what is becoming quite a long list
- ‘“Lockdown rules unenforceable and public will do what they want,” warn police‘ – The Telegraph has some bad news for Nicola Sturgeon
- ‘The real enemy? Infectious disease “experts”‘ – Hard-hitting piece in Conservative Woman by Donald S Siegel and Robert M Sauer
- ‘NHS has become the cause, not the cure‘ – Another great piece in Conservative Woman, this one by Richard North
- ‘Contact tracers claim they have no work in “shambolic” system‘ – Cue Benny Hill music
- ‘Lockdown: did it make a difference?‘ – Good piece in the Cyprus Mail about a a Cypriot epidemiologist who’s concluded that more than half of all infections have occurred inside people’s homes. This one is well worth reading
- ‘“It’s all Bullsh*t” – 3 Leaks that Sink the Covid Narrative‘ – Good round-up in Off-Guardian of public officials who’ve inadvertently revealed the truth about coronavirus
Theme Tune Suggestions From Readers
Some more suggestions for theme songs from readers: “Culturecide” by Primal Scream, “F**k Off Get Free” by the Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra and “Police and Thieves” by the Clash.
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. 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.
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 takes me about nine hours a day which doesn’t leave much time for other work. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. Alternatively, you can support the site by going to our shop and buying a T-shirt or a mug. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here.
No Update Tomorrow
I won’t be filing a daily update tomorrow as I’ve got to write my Spectator column, attend a Zoom meeting to discuss the decline of academic free speech, and prepare the papers for the forthcoming Free Speech Union board meeting. Normal service will resume on Wednesday.
And Finally…
This image appeared on the BBC’s website yesterday to accompany a story entitled: “The mystery of asymptomatic ‘silent spreaders’.” Even by the BBC’s scare-mongering standards, it’s quite something. Bear in mind that: (a) there isn’t a single case anywhere in the world of the virus being spread by footwear; and (b) the evidence that the virus can remain contagious on surfaces other than the human body is threadbare, at best.
There’s another consideration, too, which is the fact that ‘silent spreaders’ are responsible for so much infection – 10% of carriers account for 80% of cases, according to some estimates – is a good thing, not a bad thing, as Justin Fox points out in Bloomberg. It means far fewer people are infectious than previously thought and if we can identify these spreaders we’ll be well on our way to controlling the pandemic. But no. According to this BBC article, it’s one more reason to remain under our beds until we have a vaccine.
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Apologies, I haven’t read today’s article, but please tell me this is a joke…
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sex-your-house-person-another-22117105.amp?__twitter_impression=true
The police cannot enforce it: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/police-cant-burst-your-bedroom-22119909
The police don’t have the power to enter homes to break up two people bonking – they can still only enter if they suspect that ‘serious criminal activity’ is taking place, something which is enshrined under another existing law anyway.
It definitely seems odd that this law has been brought in now, when things are meant to be easing. It was always part of the government guidance but why explicitly legislate for it now? Commenters on the previous update reckoned it was a curfew in all but name to make the ‘tracking and tracing’ (already unenforceable) slightly easier, but I wonder if the government foresaw that the MSM would blow this up as the ‘sex law’ and end up scaring people into compliance. It almost feels as if they’re trolling us now.
Even if it is an unenforceable legal technicality, it is one which should never, ever be on our statute books.
They can go hang! Boris being a libertarian must be an April Fools joke!
He’s not a libertarian, he’s a populist.
He’s a libertine, not a libertarian.
And by means of a SI drawn the day before Parliament returns. I am hoping that one or more MPs kick up a fuss, if not a Lord Sumption. Enforceable or not, and it is the case I believe from what other posters have already said on the earlier thread, an SI is less water-tight than the Act it adjoins to, this government has taken away all our civil liberties, including now, the right to form relationships and pro-create. This is very scary!
It is scary, and it is surprising that this is even possible. I hope that in time we will have some constitutional protections which limit the authority of any Parliament. Ideally throughout the Union, but perhaps more than likely – just protecting England and Wales. Our constitutional situation is complicated, but I thought we already had such protections.
The lockdown is completely unconstitutional in America, yet it has still happened.
Constitutional protections, though, are only effective if the courts will enforce them. And as we have seen with the Dolan challenge, if the courts are with the government (rather than, as Hitchens pointed out the other day, in political sympathy with the challenge as with the anti-Brexit cases) then they can easily string any challenge out until most of the damage has been done.
Totally screws the hotel/camping businesses too..
Does it mean Antonia Staats (Ferguson’s girlfriend) or Ferguson himself can be prosecuted?
No, he’s different 😉
My son’s mate was having a ‘zoom party’ at his flat in Hebden Bridge, He was alone but the ‘party’ was quite loud. He got a knock on his door, plod had been called because it was reported that he was having a party with ‘real’ human beings…. Apparently a neighbour had snitched on him.
I hope the neighour gets some kind of police harrassment in retribution for wasting their time – besides being a complete arsehole.
Well serious criminal activity will take place tomorrow between two old women seeing each other for the first time in three months and catching up over a cup of tea.
The police can’t enforce any of this drivel.
It does say you can stay at somebody else’s house if you are providing “Emergency assistance” which is vague and open to
interpretation. Stay wherever you want and just make up something that you thought was an emergency if somehow you get asked why.
This is just embarassing. The whole world must be laughing.
There was a play that ran in the West End for years called ‘No sex please, we’re British.’ I thought it was a comedy, not a dystopian drama.
Damn! I’ll just have to tell all those women who’ve been waiting patiently in the queue outside my house to go home then. And they’ve all been so good – all keeping two metres apart.
Seriously speaking, the government can just f*ck off.
*with apologies to Toby and those of a sensitive disposition for the bad language.
Your language shows great restraint under the circumstances, though it was an ironic choice of verb!
According to a human rights lawyer he says if the woman is a prostitute it’s OK because its her job!
probably done with a view to combating prostitution in a post covid world
Hahaha…there is NO WAY that I am giving up sex with my girlfriend, it’s too good. But if plod want to come along & watch….that’s fine with me.
Seriously, this is ludicrous, I showed my girlfriend this article yesterday & she was like seriously???
Lockdown is meant to be easing up, but you can’t have sex with your partner????….The UK is fast turning into the laughing stock of the world.
What next? Be arrested for farting?
Here is a question though, would Mr Cummings abide by this silly rule?….lol.
What next? Be arrested for farting?
Wear a mask over your bum?
Aside from the lockdown, the way regulations have been multiplying over the years I have wondered how long it will be before we have to purchase an annual licence to fart.
If you hadn’t realised by now this has nothing to do with the virus it’s all about control. All those with smartphones better make sure have them turned off. Big brother is here! So much for Libertarianism!
“Downing Street today insisted police would show “discretion” and “common sense“.”
Because we’ve seen a lot of that, haven’t we?
This is a sure sign of really bad legislation; it leaves significant matters to the “discretion” (or lack thereof) of the individuals involved. This means you can never know if you’re breaking the law, leading to an increase in general anxiety, and you can never know if Dominic Cummings broke the law, even if you had an accurate account of his actions.
In other words, the establishment uses bad laws to leave themselves an escape from having to keep the laws they impose on the rest of us.
Law by regulation is not law but tyranny. The Sheriff of Nottingham is alive and well and calling it in to Westminster on Zoom every day.
I’d buy one if it weren’t sourced from China!
Staffordshire pottery Toby?
Aye. The bulldog looks a bit sad as well. I’d have preferred to see one punching ‘Prof’ Ferguson, with Witty, van Dam, Hancock et al queuing up behind….
Yes, yes, yes please to a new political movement to restore our Common Law rights.
The following three words in Toby’s update today have made me rather happy –
‘Watch this space.’
Yep, something good has to come from this pantomime
Absolutely. None of the current main parties offer any meaningful choice to the current policies of imposing whatever the UN has mandated.
As Tucker Carlson (who should run for President in 2024, as he’s having to tell Trump what to do) said last night, we’re seeing a class war play out, but one imposed upon and against the working classes.
I wonder how long it would take the establishment to attack such an alternative party, to label them as “extremists” or “far right”?
Today I wrote my third and final response to my MP. I feel I have pushed things as far as I can with her but she’s still not listening. Here’s what I wrote in full: Dear Munira, Thank you for replying. This will be my final e-mail I will send to you on the subject, as I feel we have reached a stalemate – especially on the subject of social distancing. I note that in your response you say, “public health and safety is [your] primary concern”. Given that this is your view, may I ask why the government does not: 1) Ban all traffic on UK roads with immediate effect? (we suffer 40,000 U.K. deaths from air pollution alone; 25,000 serious injuries and 1,750 deaths from road traffic incidents annually). 2) Ban the sale and consumption of alcohol? (7,500 alcohol related deaths per year). 3) Ban the sale of cigarettes and all forms of smoking? (78,000 deaths from smoking each year in the U.K.) In these above examples, it is commonly accepted that all of them involve an element of risk, and will inevitably lead to some loss of life as a direct result of allowing them to continue.… Read more »
Great letter.
Good stuff! Would be nice to think that a politician reading that would feel at least some sense of personal shame.
Some will now probably – I imagine at least some already know all this is nonsense but don’t have the guts to say so.
Some will in due time.
And I guess some will carry on the rest of their lives thinking they did good.
If they don’t know it’s contradictory nonsense they shouldn’t be an MP. Spineless, all 650 of them.
Yup, not a single one has done anything so far that would save them in my eyes.
Steve Baker gets a stay of execution while we string the rest of them up. If he’s slipped up by the time we’ve done 649, he can go last.
But sadly they don’t care, that’s one less vote for the other guy.
I’m sure many will jump on it if the public mood changes. They’ll then make up some lame excuse as to why they had to wait before they took up the cause.
As the guy below said you can’t tell them you won’t vote as they can still be voted in if only one person votes. You need to tell them You will vote for someone else.
A virus impacting your business, would be some of your staff being off sick.
“I’m sorry if the virus has impacted on your business”.
I’m sorry if blowing up your house may have caused you some personal inconvenience.
There are some people yet to be impacted by this. Still making money. Working from home. Drinking in the garden. Thinking that it is a bit of a shame that their foreign holiday will be postponed. I would’ve thought, that MPs may at least be aware of the level of destruction.. It is shameful, the lack of any sort of opposition to the most extreme policies we have seen in modern times.
What are the consequences of being caught serving tea outside?
Good for you.
This is what I meant the other day when I said you should bend when necessary for you and your business to survive. We should all regard ourselves as under foreign occupation, and obey the rules or pay lip-service to them when necessary, while seeking to evade and undermine them at every other opportunity. There might be occasions for open defiance, but not when the inevitable result would be closure of your business.
I would be straight into that shop!👍
Most of the MPs are the ones very happily drinking in their gardens and not having to meet their constituents in the supermarket. Many won’t witness what’s been going on, especially as the MSM don’t seem too keen to show it. Worse still, MPs have been paid a huge wodge of dosh to enjoy their gardens.
The recent story about Jamie Stone is a good example. If he can’t physically get back to Parliament because he needs to care for his wife, he should resign his MP-ship and be her carer for £66 per week. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/02/flora-needs-me-mp-caring-for-wife-hits-out-at-jacob-rees-moggs-plan
She isn’t called Priti Patel by any chance?
Besides, it wasn’t the virus that’s impacted on your business, it’s the stupid lockdown.
Excellent e-mail!
As no moderately intelligent and sane person could argue with your reasoning, I am awaiting, with bated breath, news of your MP’s complete capitulation and determined intent to campaign as an active Lockdown sceptic.
‘moderately intelligent and sane’ does not appear to describe any political figure, great or small, at the moment.
A very fine letter indeed.
Well said. Let’s hope that this will give your MP food for thought.
RDawg: brilliant! Might I suggest – and I would value other contributors’ opinions on this suggestion- that you slightly tweak this email, taking out the references to your previous correspondence with your MP and inserting a more general introduction in order to produce a template? Then as many as possible of us who value this website could send the templated version to our own MPs. I would certainly send to my own MP, a Conservative. I suspect such emails would have more impact on Tory MPs.
Why not tweak it yourself, and send it to yours if RDawg doesn’t mind!
Well, I could, but that feels a bit like plagiarism, and RDawg not only deserves the credit, but also clearly has a way with words, and might be able to produce an attention-grabbing introduction.
My MP is Tory and has ignored all my emails, first one sent many weeks ago. Won’t be getting my vote next time around.
Me too!
I have now had a reply, to ONE of the emails I sent. The email was PARTLY about Cummings (who I don’t care much about either way, personally) but that was really a ruse to get her to respond to the other part, about indefinite social distancing. She answered the Cummings part and ignored the rest.
That tells me all I need to know about her.
Career politicians. They don’t think. They’re told what to think.
I loved Peter Hitchen’s comment the other day, about politics being like “showbiz for the ugly”. To look and to feel important, but not to lead.
Yes indeed. Even regarding the Cummings part, she wasn’t actually answering my point, she just saw the word “Cummings” and took her boilerplate email on the subject and put my name at the top.
Should be sent to all MPs!
Hi Aremen,
I’ve written three different letters to my MP now. I’ve posted all of them in the comments section on this site (although I can’t remember on which dates!)
I am very happy for anyone to use the wording to contact their respective MP. I’m not concerned at all about “plagiarism” or being credited – it is far more important that as many people as possible are contacting their local MPs and speaking out about the madness we are living through.
So by all means, if you find it helpful, please use the wording and share it far and wide. And of course, feel free to tweak the wording as necessary. Good luck! 👍🏼😀
Ok. Thanks. I’ll take that as your consent. I was hoping that we could have identically worded letters from afficionadoes of this site to lots of MPs, especially Tories, to produce maximum impact, hence my suggestion, but I’ll let it rest now. I’ll send a version of your letter to my MP.
It might be worth suggesting to Toby that he puts a MP letter template on his website? I’m not a professional journalist, so with Toby’s power of prose, he could spruce it up and give it some va va voom, as Thierry Henry might say.
I’ve now sent the letter to my MP, slightly modified by taking out personal references and adding a couple of my own grievances and views, but generally the same wording.
Nice work!
I’ve a Tory MP and he’s conspicuous by his absence in Parliamentary debates (what little there has been) and non-replies of any correspondence.
Maybe he thinks just because he has a 25000 majority he doesn’t have to bother.
A survey was done just before the election last year and a list of all 600+ MPs was produced, ranked by how much work they’d done for their constituents over the previous 3 years, based on Hansard and interaction with constituents. (I wish I’d kept the link.)
It was very noticeable that Labour MPs were predominant in the top half and Tories became much more numerous in the bottom half.
Our Labour MP, who had only done one term, was about a third of the way down the list, so one who worked hard for her constituents. She’d replaced a Tory slimeball who only does anything if there’s a photo op. Unfortunately he was voted back in and hasn’t been heard from since
I’d welcome such a template. My MP is the Minister for Local Government. He has ignored my somewhat lengthy email of several weeks ago. It dealt with the covid19 adjustments to the 1984 (yes I know) health act, and some other early covid concerns i.e. Bill Gates et al. Would like to credit RDawg.
Brilliant!
I sent a version of Rdawgs letter to my MP and received this reply:
Paul,
Thank you. I won’t give an extensive reply as I am one of a minority of MP’s who agree with you and if you review the articles and speeches I’ve made at http://www.andrewgriffithmp.com you will see that as a consistent theme.
Thank you for writing and let’s hope we can release the lock down quickly now.
Kind regards,
Andrew
Wow, seems you’ve got a good one!
Wowsers!
Fantastic! Nice work Paul. Now we just need to convince the other 649 😉
Ha ha, no but seriously, the more we collectively lobby our MPs, the greater we can effect real, positive change.
Well done for writing to your MP.
Well done!!!
Hmm. A quick look at the website and Twitter feed was somewhat underwhelming. Some stuff about air bridges, opening things up quicker, but no real opposition to what has been and done and what is planned.
I may be asking too much, but some really need to tell it like it is – this has been a monstrous mistake and must stop now.
Careful, you might just get a knock on the door in the early hours…..
Wow, that’s a really good letter. Thank you!
Just an aside…
It is not common knowledge although some claim even the apparently straight forward and simple action of writing a letter to your mp is enough to earn you a file within one of the many security and intelligence agencies that thrive in this country.
Just passing it on…
Whilst that may be true it serves to discourage people from writing to their mps
That letter is powerful. I hope as many fuckwit mps read it (or a variant).
Enough is enough.
*as possible
Posting on here even more so. 🙂
I would die ashamed not to be in their filing system somewhere.
Nice one. Question: What is difference between smoking and Covid 19? A: Tax revenues. If they could monetise it we’d out of lockdown like the proverbial off a shovel 🙂
They are monetising cv19, the vaccine will be the money making element.
Do you mind if I heavily crib this in my letter to my MP?
Of course. That’s why I shared it. Please feel free to use.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news RDawg, but I suspect the Rt Honorable Member for Twickenham will be keeping you waiting for a response after receiving your fantastic letter; perhaps indefinitely. The reason being, how can you cut through such plain logic and good common sense without outing yourself as a risk-averse, bed-wetting hypochondriac? How can you defend such draconian curtailments of our civil liberties in the face of overwhelming evidence that this course of action is quickly killing more people than it is supposed to save? How can you continue to defend a government that is wilfully vandalising its own economy, consigning millions to a bleak future of poverty and unemployment, all in the name of a routine virus that THEY KNOW has a survival rate of 99%? We are witnessing the greatest failure in modern political history – the doubling down of this bizarre and hysterical response to a disease no worse than a bad strain of seasonal flu. Boris and Co. are unforgivably flying in the face of many decorated experts who are shouting “fire!” but this cowardly government – being spurred on by a mendacious, unhinged media, are carrying on like a Kamikaze pilot… Read more »
100% agree with you.
One interesting observation about the 3 examples of risky behaviour you cite. What do they have in common? The govt profits from taxing them all… so, if we pay Covid tax we should be fine to get on with life!
And your MP will not listen to you because you are all selfish self centred assholes. You call people who choose to wear masks bed wetting idiots. You are just as bad at dook and gloom as the BBC and the government are. And you think you are the good guys?!?……..fuck you, Lockdown Sceptics are just as bad!
Ha ha. The troll is back again. Oh how we’ve missed you “Anoymous”! 😘
‘dook and gloom’ I like – ok if I use it, anoymous ?
Youth same anonymous? Did you watch the link I posted for you further down?
Have taken sections of this and sent it to Rishi, my MP.- thank you RDawg. I actually believe that he doesn’t agree with lockdown.
From the “Conservative Woman” linked article:
“Current mandatory social distancing measures promoted by infectious disease experts throughout the West are highly reminiscent of the Soviet and Chinese experience with Lysenkoism. This type of policy response to the pandemic has many pseudo-scientific elements and has led to the establishment of a new, destructive, and even deviant state-sponsored religion.”
Absolutely. There are various ways to describe “Social Distancing”, including:
PSEUDOSCIENCE • QUACKERY • WOO • BULLSHIT • FAIRYTALE
Here’s the challenge for the Government’s witchdoctors-masquerading-as-scientists:
“Please provide EVIDENCE from REPUTABLE PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH, citing ALL RELEVANT JOURNAL REFERENCES, which support the concept of “Social Distancing” as a scientifically valid way of reducing the effects of a pandemic.”
And then, perhaps, wait for the sound of crickets…..
This pseudoscience should be repeatedly called out for what it is, unless such evidence is forthcoming.
IMHO “Social Distancing” is probably nothing more than a mechanism to inconvenience people as much as possible, so that one of the Holy Grails of this whole pantomime – “THE VACCINE, THE VACCINE, THE VACCINE” – will be enthusiastically accepted by the population even if said vaccine has been inadequately tested.
For a few weeks I changed my facebook profile picture to a black circle with “2+2=5” written in it because I’ve seen from the start that virtually everything about this social engineering experiment has been designed to break society – the people that make it up – to the point where they’ll accept and go along with whatever our rulers put in front of us. Whether that’s contact tracing apps, health passports or an un-tested vaccine.
“There always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that 2+2=4 is punished with death”.
Albert Camus. The Plague.
‘… but the real question is still whether two and two do, or do not, make four’.
If you ask that question of an accountant his likely response is, “what do you want it to be?”!
Not just the vaccine – can track people more easily if they are not too close to each other. Interested to know when it became mandatory to own a smartphone and carry it on you at all time…
They’ve just about succeeded in abolishing the use of cash. Cards will be next and we’ll all have to use phone pay………
Or more worryingly, chip in the wrist..
Aaaargh!!
It’s another thing we can do – always pay in cash where not explicitly prohibited.
Well said. The more we use cash, the less they control us
I agree.
Very valid point!
Delingpole’s latest guest, Dr. John Lee is well worth listening to for reason and logic.
A few weeks ago I watched the Unherd interview with the Swedish expert Dr Gieseke . At the time a comment I noted was he felt that the imposition of lockdown was the easy part ,the difficult part would be getting back to normal. This gentleman has been a voice of sanity in this period of hysteria. Unlike our ” SAGE ” members who appear to be the sort of characters you see on railway station platforms recording numbers in their little note books , this gentleman appears rather academic but normal.
How I thought possibly would the reduction in lockdown and getting back to normal be difficult. Well now we know. In schools we are seeing the antics of the unions, twatterati and left media using all means at their disposal to try and sabatage the return to school . In my local hospital despite there being no covid cases staff are very reluctant to go back to routine work because of ” safety concerns.”
At this rate we will still be locked down until 2021.
The “new normal” is the continuation of lockdown by any other means.
Got an email from my hair salon – compulsory mask wearing when they reopen by customers and staff. I expect they will all be like that. I will become a hippy or buy one of those DIY razors and become a skinhead. Save a bit of money.
The dentist is trickier – can’t treat my own teeth, or check them. Compulsory masks, temperature checks, no waiting room, compulsory hand washing, no toilet, limited appointments due to extra cleaning, £25 covid-19 surchage to pay for extra PPE, other prices going up too, no doubt to cover the fact that they will see fewer patients, from 8th June until further notice no routine work (so fixing all the teeth that went rotten in the last 3 months due to the lockdown). I expect they will be like that too. Maybe a dental holiday to eastern Europe every 6 months for hygienist and checkup, check out some nice beers.
Hair salon …is that your local barber ?
Dentists during this whole shambles have been the biggest bed wetters imaginable. The pandemic was at its peak in March yet I dont recall many dentists amongst the covid martyrs .
Used to go to a barber, then I guess I must have ended up with more money than sense 🙂
I expect the barbers will have to fall into line, though I am sure there will be a good number of barbers and hairdressers happy to visit homes without all this nonsense. Round my way the young men who all came out to play this weekend often had suspiciously smart, fresh looking fades.
They weren’t allowed to open!
Private dentists could have worked and a very few did ( The ones who did work throughout deserve a medal ) . They could even do drilling and filling with PPE.
NHS dentists unfortunately were led by the hopeless CDO Sara Hurley who was content to throw dentistry back to the age of barber dentists.
Wouldn’t surprise me if it were an insurance problem.
This article supports: 1) masks are ineffective 2) Dentists’ own respiratory immune systems are good at making antibodies against respiratory diseases
https://www.oralhealthgroup.com/features/face-masks-dont-work-revealing-review/
The section titled “Respiratory System Defences” confirms my belief that our immune systems are the best snowflakes of all. The slightest insult triggers them. A vast #MeToo movement of epithelial and infiltrating immune cells ready to descend in fury on anything that invades their safe spaces. But you’re not allowed to mention natural immunity these days, even though it has kept us all alive till the present
I wish we could go back to normal normal, but I think we have to put up with even more interesting times.
My school motto was “forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit” which was translated for us as “someday even these things will be a pleasure to remember”. I have to keep persuading myself that it’s true, if only in comparison to what’s coming next…
Thank goodness for like-minded people speaking out on websites like this 😀
Given that the WHO has now decided that masks are unnecessary and INCREASE the risks from coronavirus, perhaps the numpty pseudoscientists advising our numpty Government could explain why hairdressers and customers need to wear them. There is no “aerosol” risk such as that applying to dentists.
Dentists BTW are experts in infection control and therefore could have stayed open throughout. They did so in Germany.
Whilst many forms of healthcare here in Sweden have moved to various types of distance contact (video consultations where possible), our dentists have remained accessible. No reports here of mass deaths amongst dentists!
Not only that but also mask wearing can lead to long term health problems with breathing and possible issues with the brain (as there is no oxygen coming in, its all CO2) as well as weaken a person’s immune system.
The fact that dentists have closed is a travesty. I was lucky that I managed to complete my treatment before lockdown but am now due for a check up this month. Looks like that will have to wait for awhile now.
Hi, do you have a link to the WHO’s u-turn on mask wearing? There are about a million people I’d like to send this to.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks
It’s not an explicit u turn, they just changed their guidelines on when to wear one. Only healthcare workers and those exhibiting symptoms. I was listening to the No Agenda podcast and they have gone barmy over masks in America.
It takes a while to filter through to policy practice. Many methods and treatments have been challenged by more recent studies but nothing changes.
if the hair salon I go to insists on masks, I shan’t be going. A few weeks’ ago I managed to cut my own hair by brutally hacking through it – OK its crooked but its fairly decent and it seems to have settled down now.
I think they all will, at least to start with.
I was always told and it has turned out to be correct the difference between a bad haircut and a good haircut is a week
Well i think they must have made those rules up! My hairdresser has told me what the guidance says and it’s not much- they don’t need masks and just have to be sensible! Time to change your hairdresser methinks!!
Whenever I have a choice I will vote with my feet and my wallet. Tougher if your kids go the local school and it has been turned part-time and into some revolting social distancing experiment, or if your offices insists you go into a perspex cubicle.
Maybe health care workers whose main concern is safety are in the wrong profession.
Their own safety, that is.
You’re right Annie. Didn’t make that clear.
Irony of calling the pop up hospitals ‘Nightingale’ should not be lost on anyone.
When discussing comparisons with flu numbers, it bares repeating, we have had over 40k flu deaths in 2020. When you hear the usual hysterical shrieking of ‘this isn’t the flu!’. They are quite right, the flu is worse. And far more indiscriminate, many more children have died from the flu for instance. These hysterical mothers should prioritise their irrational fears, when complaining of the dangers of sending their kids back to school.
So, sorry to sound a bit thick, I fear that I am! 40k flu deaths as well as the with/ of Covid this year?
Yes, if you go to the ONS weekly breakdowns they have a separate section for influenza and pneumonia explicitly not including Covid.
Over here in Sweden cases and deaths are falling, slowly but surely. About a week and a half ago the number of people in intensive care dropped under 400 for a number of days in a row, giving cause for optimism (even in the MSM here) – now it is close to 300 and will soon drop under that.
Our sixth forms, universities and adult ed are to open as of 15th June, which is kind of neither here nor there, because by then they are all technically on summer break, but it does mean planning for the autumn can be done, admissions sorted etc.
It is completely crazy that the UK is moving in a totally opposite direction and *adding* new rules, where everywhere else is relaxing or abandoning them…
Unfortunately our gov’ts have always been obsessed with rules and regulation – and control.
When Napoleon referred to us as a nation of shopkeepers it would have been more appropriate to describe us as a nation of bureaucrats (or jobsworths).
“This isn’t the flu!”
No – it’s a common cold that goes very wrong for a tiny minority of people.
Really? And I thought the flu had taken a year’s sabbatical. So they’re keeping that quiet aren’t they? So hang on – brain slowly grinding into gear – if they’re not making a song and dance over something that is as bad as, or even worse, as CV19 then we really are in hidden agenda/conspiracy territory aren’t we?
Apparently the BBC had one article stating that flu numbers were over 30k, but basically nothing. Please go to the ONS weekly breakdowns and check for yourself. People will not believe you when you tell them. They just won’t accept it.
I see that odious woman in Scotland has taken a leaf out of Gruber’s book, speaking to the people as though they are children. Today she threatened the entire nation with further draconian restrictions if they don’t behave themselves. BTW, Scotland reported 18 new cases today (yes, 18, not 1800 or 18,000), and one death. So basically the bat flu has gone from Scotland.
In April she actually said “it’s time to have an adult conversation”. I thought, “wasn’t that what we should have been having all along?”
She’s a desperate woman right now, prepared to desperate things to protect her image. And while she may have hoards of adoring worshippers who have bought into her cult, deep down she must be petrified that the same forces that threw Salmond under the bus will do the same to her over the care home genocide she helped create.
And who is keeping her hair cut and coloured under lockdown, I wonder..? No one in the public arena seems to be having a problem getting their hair done…
I have noticed that.
Actually it might be Salmond who throws her under the bus, which is probably one of the reasons she doesn’t want lockdown to end.
The Monday cases tend to be very low in Scotland because of the way the weekend figures are compiled so I would expect them to be higher tomorrow. However they will almost certainly be sufficiently low as to suggest that this virus is pretty much history in Scotland. Figures this low do suggest that Sturgeon is blatantly breaching human rights legislation as the massive restrictions on basic freedoms in Scotland are way beyond any proportionate response to the low level threat from the virus.
Greater Glasgow has a population of around 1.8 million. The virus is so dangerous here that there are currently SEVEN people in ICU. Out of 1.8 million. Meanwhile all of the region’s hospital’s remained closed to breast, bowel and cervix cancer test, screenings and treatments and the £43 million SEC hospital conversion has been empty since its grand opening.
You’re spot on regarding the figures for deaths given on Sundays and Mondays but the figures for positive tests over the weekend do give some cause for optimism.
There were 36 positive tests over the past weekend (30-31 May) compared to 115 the previous weekend and 147 the weekend before that. Tracking even further back we get weekend figures of 232, 339, 470 and 630 (19-20 April).
The most recent figures are less than 6% of positive tests at their height.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/world/asia/japan-coronavirus.html
Testing Is Key to Beating Coronavirus, Right? Japan Has Other Ideas
Another interpretation, an absolute anathema to those who wish to exploit this disease to indulge their innate desire to exert controls over their fellow human beings, is that covid-19 in Japan – and everywhere else, simply took its own course and did what it was going to do, regardless of governments and so-called scientists.
My guess is that, compared with many western countries, the Japanese already had large-scale immunity to this disease. I don’t see this possibility talked about much though. I wonder why not?
“Super spreader” <definition>: A person who plays a major role during a pandemic by creating population immunity so that the vulnerable can then emerge safely into the world and resume their normal lives. Example: “Super spreaders stood ready early in 2020 to solve the coronavirus pandemic, but unfortunately the government took the alternative option of destroying the country instead.”
As someone commented somewhere, “Boris has found a wasps nest in the loft and his tactic for getting rid of it is to burn down the house”.
The version I heard was the spider in the kitchen!
BBC News: Social distancing: A practical guide to how to socialise now
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52848793
4. Food and cutleryIn terms of bringing your own cutlery, it’s difficult. Everyone through these sets of guidelines is going to have to determine how much risk they’re prepared to accept.
If you think you’ve had coronavirus and/or you’re low risk, meaning you’re young, you’re slim, you’re female – those are the main variables – your behaviour at a picnic is probably going to be much more relaxed with regards to things like sharing the potato salad and using other people’s cutlery. But of course you need to be doing everything you can to stop yourself being a carrier and making other people ill.
If you are a man who’s older and overweight and don’t think you’ve had the virus, I would say bring your own cutlery and bring your own coleslaw.
What they didn’t say was, “If you’re an elderly, portly, black man, you might just wanna stay inside and eat the coleslaw on your own”……… Can’t be racist now can we
OK bought a mug for my sister as a test. Will definitely come back for some more merch in due course. The option to have it delivered direct to someone else is one I think I might be making more use of.
Thanks to those who have already signed my petition end social distancing.
In case you missed this on yesterday’s page, here is the link again https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/320079
Signed it. Thanks for setting it up. If you haven’t already, suggest you could try to interest some of the more “followed” sceptics like Peter Hitchens, Toby Young, Simon Dolan to give this the publicity it deserves.
I’ve emailed Toby already so hopefully he will give it a mention. I don’t have email addresses for Peter and Simon. Not sure if they can be contacted directly somehow (maybe via twitter – sorry I don’t use it). If any other sceptics can contact Peter and Simon directly, please go ahead and let them know about the petition. Thanks.
I don’t have those email addresses, nor am I on Twitter. Hitchens can be written to at the Mail on Sunday. Dolan could probably be contacted via his company.
You might get hold of Simon at http://www.keepbritainfree.com
Thanks kh1485. Sending email to Peter now. And no worries about your earlier post – the more publicity the better!
Signed 🙂
Well done the current leading constituencies – Midlothian, Stockport, Kingston-upon-Hull, Anglesey, Bootle, Clwyd South, Bromsgroe, Henley, and Torbay.
Leaders currently are Caithness & Sutherland, Anglesey, and Bromsgrove !
Last time I checked it was Bury South, Kingston upon Hull North and Kessle, and Bromsgrove leading the way.
Grrr. Kingston upon Hull West and Kessle
Bromsgrove, Bury South, and Banbury leading.
Followed by Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch, and Strathspey;
then Milton Keynes North, Rochford and Southend East, and Christchurch.
“We must fight YouTube’s outrageous censoring of lockdown sceptics Social media forums cannot pretend to be impartial while meddling in our democracy”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/01/must-fight-youtubes-outrageous-censoring-lockdown-sceptics/
“Tech companies cannot pretend to be neutral forums and enjoy the benefits that brings while banning, hiding and undermining content and opinions they don’t like.”
Good to see this longstanding issue coming out front and centre, now the censorship is no longer just affecting dissidents with the standard taboo opinions that offend against traditional political correctness.
“President Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at revising these exemptions and investigating allegations of bias and censorship.”
Once again Trump, for all his undoubted faults, right on the button here.
Not just YouTube, just tried too play some music on Apple Music to relieve the boredom. Got a message saying that #TheShowMustBePaused #BlackLivesMatter and unable to choose my own music!
I am always suspicious when public bodies change datasets, or the way they report data. Interestingly, gov.uk states:
‘From 1st June we will stop publishing a separate count of deaths in hospital as our daily count now provides a count of deaths in all settings’.
How convenient – not related to it being in double digits? If I am reading the spreadsheet for NHS England correctly, there were 13 hospital deaths yesterday. I know the data gets adjusted after a weekend, but bearing in mind the numbers in ICU is running at less that 9% of capacity, we are at levels last seen on 11/12 March. I will await the adjustments tomorrow.
Tune – has anyone suggested ‘Banana Republic’, by the Boomtown Rats ?
We are not alone.
One of my favourite US podcasters, Tom Woods, has a new free eBook called “Your Facebook Friends Are Wrong About The Lockdown”.
https://www.tomwoods.com/
It’s a US-centric read, but it’s well worth a look if you’ve an inquisitive mind.
If you’ve never heard of him but you’re a grown-up interested in the topic of more freedom and less enslavement to the government, he’s a good guy.
Tom is a History PhD, distinguished libertarian author and podcaster. It’s not tinfoil hat freeman on the land rubbish. He’s a godly, educated man and his podcasts are family friendly.
Whilst the ludicrous anti-social distancing rules remain in place, the economy will never recover. If you are a small or medium business with limited space in your working environment it will only be possible to comply if you only allow a certain percentage of your workforce to attend. Whilst the government are paying for them to stay at home that’s fine but when the furlough scheme ends what company is going to pay for 30 or 40 percent to stay at home every day. They will have to be paid off and then you probably won’t have enough staff to function anyway.
The government must realise this. Are they deliberately trying to kill off small business so we will end up with just multinationals run by their rich elitist ‘friends’ who actually run the country behind the scenes? Is there any sign of the anti-social distancing 2 metre rule being scrapped anytime soon?
Goodness knows what is going through their heads. It may be better not to know – like those scifi films where people who can hear others’ thoughts are driven insane by it.
As I posted elsewhere, my dentist are increasing their charges. Every business that depends on a public presence will need to charge more, or go out of business. Only the upper middle class and above will be able to afford a lot of things that are now more accessible to most.
Public transport – just can’t see how it will work. Where are the journalists who should be asking these questions? Bloody shower. No-one is holding these nincompoops to account.
It doesn’t take a genius to work this stuff out – it’s bloody obvious.
When people start loosing there jobs that is when all this crap will stop people have been shielded from the economic cost but that wont last for much longer not that I want anyone to loose their job by the way
Job losses will lead to mortgage defaults and general debt delinquancy. It’s the main reason why the government have been so willing to fund the furlough scheme and equivalent for the self employed.
Then the government needs to drop the nonsensical distancing rules and get everyone back while they still have jobs.
I know I’m preaching to the converted here but I do wonder why the need to distance is still being promoted by official sources and the press. I can’t agree with Hitchens that it’s just to save face because they’ve made a monumental mistake.
Because the mobile phone system used for tracking and tracing requires a minimum separation distance of 6 ft if I have read the technical documents correctly, preferably 10 ft, between phones or it can get confused and give strange results.
I have said this as well. Attitudes will only change when folk start realising their jobs have gone. Banker guy in The Times a few days ago thought 3.5 million unemployed within a few months was optimistic. Apparently, worst unemployment rate in last 50 years has been 12% – until now, that is. If you add in numbers who are now furloughed, the figure is around 35% of UK workforce being supported by govt. How many of those furloughed will still have jobs in a few months remains to be seen.
I used these figures to do a highly unscientific sum in my head and I think unemployment is gonna peak at around 20%. And that’s me erring on the optimistic side.
But will people be able to break away from the belief that a virus was the cause and not government interventions?
Ges, I keep reading that weasel phrase ’caused by the virus’. None of this mayhem has been caused by the virus.
People who believe in the “caused by the virus” mantra are basically saying there was no other option.
The purpose of the furlough scheme was to preserve jobs. If redundancies go ahead, this money will have been wasted and raises the question can the government ask for money back if employers make staff redundant.
If large numbers of people loose their jobs at the same time, this will place strain on the benefits system. Imagine having to claim universal credit which is unpleasant enough under normal circumstances when loads of other people are trying to claim it at the same time.
I’m still trying to work out how partner dancing will ever take place again unless the 2m role is removed.
My ballroom teachers have already stated that when they start back in July it will be “socially distanced” 2m apart and wearing masks. Yeugh.
Thankfully my latin teachers are as sceptical as me and we’ve already started lessons again outside as normal.
Even large businesses will struggle with the 2m rule.
Partner dancing will have to go underground, for a while. Like Christianity in China – meet in front rooms.
How are you supposed to do ballroom dancing with a partner at all, if you and your partner have to be 2 metres apart – no one’s arms are that long?
I’ve absolutely no idea and it’s one of the areas of the leisure industry that has been conveniently forgotten about by HMG.
Maybe broom handles might work though dance competitions could get interesting.
They might have to combine with a martial arts class.
There’s a new business you could set up – arm extensions for ballroom dancers.
The end of the Argentine Tango.
Fwiw, I recall there was a case of “superspreading” at a latin dance class in, iirc, Korea. I suppose dancing close for sustained contact is likely to spread it if it’s there to be spread. (Two of my daughters are latin-style dance teachers, which is why I noticed).
Mind, I’m not using that as justification for effectively banning proper dancing – if there’s no active epidemic spread then there’s no excuse whatsoever for imposing these kinds of measures anyway. It’s the usual complete absence of any sense of proportion and common sense.
once the penny drops that Strictly Come Dancing isn’t coming back soon that might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back with public support for the lock down
We can live in hope. Something has to wake them up and hopefully it will be less painful than financial ruin.
Its not only SMEs that are at risk but also hospitality, tourism, arts and culture, entertainment, museums and heritage. You can’t do “social distancing” at a museum or a concert – limiting the number of people won’t make money and defeats the purpose of broadening access as well as the principle national collection belong to the people.
There’s also the 14 quarantine. Talk about bolting the stable after the horse has bolted.
The short answer is:
No.
It does look suspiciously like the systematic destruction of the independent business sector.
It looks suspiciously like totalitarianism because it is totalitarianism.
There are various theories as to purpose of the lockdown. A theory is to destroy small businesses so that big businesses have a monopoly and can buy the assets of bankrupt business. The lockdown is a perfect way of achieving this. Unlike big businesses small businesses don’t have the financial reserves to survive long periods without trading. Under lockdown regulations, a shop only selling clothes could not open but a supermarket can sell clothes as they sell food. An effective way of hitting small businesses is to stop them trading during their busiest periods. Many small businesses eg b & bs, tour operators depend on the summer tourist trade. A summer lockdown is a perfect way of killing tourist dependent businesses. A lockdown has a knock on effect on business allowed to operate. Taxi firms are a good example of this. If high streets have no shoppers due to closed shops, people being unable to use pubs or restaurants and fewer people travelling on trains and getting off at train stations, this takes trade away from taxi firms.
I think we’re being run by psychopaths, basically.
I predict that they’ll reduce it in due course but only after dragging it out long enough for people to be begging for the torture to end.
Don’t forget that they have advice on the psychological dark arts to maximise the impact and thus influence desired responses for all their actions.
Yep, the SPI-B dudes should definitely be on our lists.
Look at this amazingness!
Man raps STRAIGHT FIRE about Coronabollox!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kIjqoHPJrE
“FUCK THE MEDIA
No really I’m getting sick of it
You get in a car crash and die on impact
And still get covid on your death certificate
I could choke on a piece of steak fat
And suffocate to death on my fucking sofa
The coroner could look at his colleagues and be like
Hey watch this….
RONA!”
It’s June, and we’re still in lockdown. During March, I honestly though this would be completely lifted by the middle/end of May at the very latest. Wuhan’s lockdown was around 2 months, so ours would be the same, right? All western democracies modelled their approach on China anyway with their lockdowns. Back in early April the idea of being under virtual house arrest until June just seemed totally unbearable – but here we are. It feels like it’s never ending and it’s absolutely f***ing horrendous. I’m so angry and worked up all the time, it’s starting to affect my physical health, giving me massive headaches and nausea, as well as breathlessness and chest pains. I know that sounds totally ridiculous and a lot of people would just advise me to not get so worked up because ‘there’s nothing we can do’ – but that’s why I’m so furious, because there’s nothing I CAN do. I am an unemployed 21 year old (desperately looking and applying for jobs but to no avail), whose partner is 100 miles away, watching my life and everything that made it worth living get tossed in the bin, and I am getting very bored of… Read more »
Totally get where you’re coming from Poppy and I’m very very lucky and still working but I have friends who as dance teachers literally lost their jobs overnight.
What scares me is that whilst they’re obviously not happy about having no work they don’t seem interested in speaking out against the narrative.
Personally I hate the lack of freedom and so will try to figjt even if the only way is writing to my MP.
I think we all have to keep going forward and just keep pushing for the normal way of life.
It will end, or at least improve sufficiently that you can feel happier. It’s moving in the right direction. Europe is paving the way.
And you have good sense. No-one can ever take that away from you.
I feel for you, I have moments when I feel the same. But the truth will come out, even if it’s slower that we would like. And you have to look at people’s behaviour. So many people are fucking off the rules, it’s ridiculous. It’s all falling apart.
Poppy, I can understand why you feel like exploding with frustration.
They said we’d to lockdown to “flatten the sombrero”. Well it’s been almost as flat as a pancake for weeks, while they have systematically taken a steamroller to the economy and our social structures.
Obviously there’s no excuse now other than some weirdly sinister agenda that you’d have to be a psychopath yourself to understand.
My best friend phoned this morning and arranged to come over tomorrow so we can hang out and have a proper catchup – no sex involved. I haven’t seen her since March and it’s bad enough that we won’t be able to hang out in our favourite little cafe.
Then I read about the new legal tweak. Unbelievable!
Needless to say “I know nothing about the new rule.” 😉
I feel exactly the same you are not the only one iv started taking antidepressants
For the first time in my life and I’m 55 but things will improve I’m sure of that .
I can relate and I wish I could recommend your comment more than once. What really angers me is the deafening silence from the leading names in my sector – museums and heritage. I don’t think they really realise how this lockdown and the social distancing will be the death of our sector or if they do they’re simply burying their heads in the sand and think it will all be OK.
We can only carry on what we’re doing and I believe that the truth will set us free. I also think the tide is turning and if more and more people continue to push back then we can still salvage what’s left of our country.
I work in the arts sector, and basically it’s just running on reserves now, if it has any left. The office will probably go. The whole thing is madness.
We are as well. My workplace has been lucky that it was able to capitalise on the last 8 years where they have put up successful exhibitions and events hence why they have a war chest which is being used to pay us. What is worrying is how we will replenish that if the government insist on this social distancing nightmare. And even with that gone, people will tighten their belts due to the looming recession which means we won’t get as many visitors as during the good days.
Agree with you, the furlough scheme together with the good weather is lulling people into a false sense of security and I seriously doubt that many people are prepared for the fallout once this is all over.
I’m technically on annual leave which is pointless and I’m angry that I have wasted time being cooped up in my own home and in a not so good neighbourhood which makes going out even more depressing than it is. That’s why I have not bothered to request a meeting with my line manager, as much as she is good and will listen I do not want to say anything that I will regret as I know that the situation is beyond her control.
I am sure the board room tables will be feeling very much like you are, they are simply too scared of publicly say that. Imagine a museum openly saying this is bollocks – they’d be screwed by the media. It’s why we are in this mess for the foreseeable. The overwhelming and growing evidence just doesn’t matter.
I was having back and forth with someone on Facebook today he replied ‘how does lockdown cost lives’, when I provided some links to estimates of cancer deaths etc he simply didn’t reply. That is usual. Fact is ignored and fear is celebrated.
My husband said the same thing – TPTB in the museums and heritage sector think this is all bollocks but they’re cowed into silence because of the media mob. Its the same with orchestras and other cultural institutions.
And you’re right about feelings trumping facts. Try to argue that the lockdown and social distancing has been bad for the economy and society, you’ll be hit back with banal slogans like “people before profit”
I don’t have any problem with having a friend round to my house, even if they have to park around the back. What’s dispiriting is that nobody seems to want to flout the rules.
Agree. I’m really disappointed with my friends attitudes but am lucky that two friends are ignoring the rules and I’ll be visiting one at her home tomorrow.
The odd thing is, it is the three of us who are most at risk. One is 80, one is 70, pre-diabetic and has Stage 3 kidney disease while I have HBP and an autoimmune condition, Limited Systemic Scleroderma.
My other friends who are terrified by the disease are healthy and range in age from 40 to 60. I can’t even talk to them about it anymore for fear of saying something and destroying good relationships.
I understand how poppy feels. It feels that the lockdown is a brutal collective punishment. When you examine the lockdown it is a form of mental torture. Everything is taken away from you. Many people can’t run their business and many are not allowed to work if their business is not allowed to operate. Initially you couldn’t meet friends or relatives outside your household and now you can only meet them outdoors. It is impossible for single people to form new relationships. Leisure activities such as pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, nightclubs and travelling have been taken away from us.
And yet so many don’t care. It amazes me how (and I know this from my working environment) people talk at great length about the mental harm caused by “microaggressions” – yet willingly submit to their lives being cancelled for an indefinite period.
Those will be the people who read Susan Cain and obsess over their oppressed status as an introvert in a world of extroverts. They’ll be thinking and loving the supposed fact that their time has come.
You’re absolutely right to be outraged by it. The MSM are starting to shift gears however with a lot of anti-lockdown opinion appearing in the Telegraph.
It’s all starting to look less planned now and like the government are just flailing around perhaps genuinely worried about a second wave.
But there won’t be a second wave and this will become more and more obvious as other countries lift their lockdowns. Even our pathetic and incompetent government will eventually tag along, copying every move as it happens in the rest of the western Europe that they claim to despise so much.
“…there won’t be a second wave”.
A second wave can easily be engineered. Continual ramping up of testing and tweaking of the rules for registering deaths can see to that.
As was observed a couple of weeks ago, the emphasis is now changing from deaths to ‘infections’ or ‘cases’, and even if the newly-discovered infections are among the young and healthy resulting in no symptoms, then to an unthinking person it looks like “Second wave. Told you so….”
Ironically, the government seems desperate for this to happen. Even though it makes them look incompetent to the unthinking person, they must have worked out that it’s better to look incompetent in the face of a disastrous epidemic than to have created a catastrophe from a mild cold virus (for the vast majority of people).
The bastards have already been padding the figures (“with” vs “from”). When the untreated cancer, etc. patients start dying, I suspect that a lot of those will be deemed to have died “with”. There’s your second wave, neat as could be.
Unfortunately, unthinking people are in the majority and are very easily led.
Yeah, it’s tough Poppy, particularly for someone of your age. Try to see what might be positive. I’ve taken to a lot of meditation, but I’m used to solitude as I’ve worked for myself on my own most of my life. But there’s still got to be something there for you. I’m minded of the story of the two children, one stuck in a room stuffed to the rafters with gorgeous toys and another stuck in a room full of horseshit. The first kid sat and did nothing and cried and when asked why said ‘With all these beautiful toys I’m bound to break one so don’t want to play with any of them.’ The second kid was happily shovelling horse dung all over the place. When asked why he/she said ‘With all this shit there’s bound to be a pony in here somewhere.’
Hi Poppy, I am hearing you and I totally appreciate your anger and all the physical pains you describe. It’s your body’s response to a constant surge of adrenaline, which manifests itself in physical symptoms.
For the sake of your sanity, I really advise doing some form of intensive aerobic exercise every day. For me, I go running every other day. My best mate is letting me use his weights at his physio clinic in the evenings.
Really important you do try and take a break from thinking about this mad situation, otherwise it will eat you up and consume you. The frustration has battered me my mental health, and I realised I had to come off all social media and avoid watching/reading the news. You‘ll feel so much better for it.
And later on, when you feel ready, you need to forgive yourself for going onto social media in the first place. 🙂
Excellent advice, if I may say so. I suggest also getting out into the natural world if possible. Exposure to green vegetation (especially trees) has been shown to be good for the psyche; and when you see the birds and bees going about their daily lives unmasked, ungloved, and without a whiff of sanitiser, you are reminded of and reassured by a reality that has nothing to do with Downing Street. Moreover: observe any living thing, or any natural process, and you can hardly fail to be impressed by how wonderful it is compared with the clumsy, vainglorious and ignorant achievements of men. An excerpt from a novel: Then one day last week, walking with her in the countryside near her house, he had been struck by the fact that the natural world was beautiful. Astonishing as it seemed, this had simply never occurred to him before. Nor had he given any thought to how intricate and right it all was. None of the colours clashed, however unexpectedly they were aligned; everything was proportionate and fitted together at every scale from the atomic to the galactic. It did not matter whether or not science could establish the… Read more »
What a wise and lovely post.
Dear Poppy, you are terrific, but you need a rest from MSM, and even from us.
Take a complete day iff, avoid hotbeds of Covhysteria, and think cheerful.
Personally I find that listening to Jonathan Cecil reading Jeeves stories on Audible is one good tonic. I laugh out loud and feel much better. But there are a thousand other remedies.
The whole stupid shebang will stop pretty soon anyway, whatever the bedwetting media say.
“The fact that some public servant, in what is meant to be a western democracy, sat down and drafted the words…”
I was thinking exactly this as I read some of the new laws yesterday. The most annoying, terrifying aspect is that they had been put together without debate or accountability, by anonymous people. They talk about the “emergency period” but we know that they have arbitrary powers to decide when – or if – that ends, too.
Sometimes it really does feel to me that our lives are pretty much over. But then I also try to remind myself that billions of people would swap with me in a heartbeat if they could. The main problem is the not knowing when, or if, it will end.
You might have thought that any government would balance the negatives with hope, positivity, inspiration, but not our lot. It all feeds the suspicion that they are covering up for their catastrophic mistake by dragging this out for as long as possible to make it look as bad as possible. They are also feeding the media the headlines to maintain the charade. I really, truly despise the lot of them.
Poppy – just deliberately break the rules. It will make you feel better. Worked for me! From Day One.
And look for the ludicrous, the stupid, the insane. And have a good laugh about it. There’s a plethora of material all around us.
And yes, the truth will come out in the end. It already is. There will be no hiding place for the charlatans who have done this.
Poppy,
Exercise releases the feeling of helplessness; you must take some time, outside, away from this madness each day.
Also, I think the tide is turning rapidly. The Below the Line comments on the BBC website yesterday (under a piece about Hancock’s gov’t presentation) were almost all negative.
Poppy, I really feel for you as I am feeling just as frustrated. Your posts on this site have been brilliant. You are obviously an intelligent person with a very good grasp of ridiculous situation that we are experiencing. The announcements from this government are becoming increasing more ridiculous. Clearly, they are so totally incompetent, arrogant, disconnected from reality (close to psychopathic) yet realising that they have massively screwed up. They are perpetuating this disproportionate lockdown and removal of our civil liberties to give the pretence that what they did or did not do earlier was actually justified. I am self employed professional contractor. I have worked in 6 different countries often working in conditions that civil servants and local government employees would never in their wildest nightmares accept. e.g. 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for 18 months with only 15 days off. Or being away from my loved ones for months at a time. Why? Because I have always been prepared to work hard and make sacrifices to provide the best that I can for my family. At the start of the year the work in my sector dropped off due to changes to UK tax… Read more »
I’m really sorry you’re feeling like this. You’re right, it’s not easy and it’s not fair, but you’re made to feel like a whiner if you voice that. Especially by those pro-lockdown sat at home on their furlough money. I’m 30, with a mortgage to pay, not eligible for any government support because I don’t have 3 years of accounts, not eligible for other benefits, and can’t work in lockdown because of the type of job I have. I haven’t had a penny come in since early March. I’m tearing through my savings – that I’ve lived frugally for years to accumulate – to pay the bills, and the amount of concern or support from “friends” is non-existent. Most of them are teachers, and they’re quite happy basking in the sun all day drinking wine getting paid a full time wage. They drone on about the inevitable second wave and how deadly the virus is. At the end of the day, this whole episode has shown me that people believe what they want to believe, to justify whatever benefits them. I’ve spoken to many, many people about this, and there’s a staggering divide in opinion on how deadly the virus… Read more »
My father was captured at the fall of Singapore and spent his 23rd birthday in a godown on the docks wondering what would happen next. It was 3+ years up and down the jungle camps along the Death Railway. Get a grip.
Unnecessary and unhelpful Bruno. If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all.
Seconded.
Do you really think anyone is going to obey this diktat? Nothing in human history has ever been allowed to get in the way of copulation. Nor will this.
But the thought of two Covizombies trying to do it while wearing face masks does maje me goggle slightly.
Hello Poppy. First of all I applaud your well thought out post. As someone much older I feel you’re pain and sense of despair of this utter risk averse idiocy which has been inflicted on us. The important thing is not to become consumed by it. I’ve probably broken most of the rules simply because I’m not going to waste the last few remaining healthy years of my life by sitting at home wrapped in cotton wool. I had planned to climb Snowdon and Ben Nevis this year and am furious this is unlikely to happen. I’m still going to work in a front line service and don’t know anyone who has contacted Corvid -19. I would urge you to ignore the nay sayers, get on with you’re life as much as you can and don’t download the ridiculous NHS tracing app.
I understand why young people want to smash everything and riot, if I was 20 I would be doing it too.
Norman Lamont throwing his two pence worth:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8374891/Former-Chancellor-NORMAN-LAMONT-Ditch-two-metre-rule-rescue-economy.html
Good article. I had not realised that Priti Patel had said that ‘Social distancing is here to stay’…. for how long is she thinking, I wonder? As one commenter wrote under the article, as yet no supermarket has yet had to shut due to vast numbers of their staff being infected, and they work in close contact with large numbers of people, day after day…
Yes, she said that ages ago: https://www.itv.com/goodmorningbritain/articles/social-distancing-is-here-to-stay-says-home-secretary-priti-patel
It’s probably wrong to say she is evil, but the idea is evil
She is proving to be a great disappointment – look at the policing over the weekend. Black lives Matter – no social distancing, no real policing. Protest against lockdown – heavy police presence and intervention. And why are Brits under curfew and restrictions, and visitors to the country quarantined, when every day boatloads of people come in on dinghies and are free to move about as they wish..?
A very great disappointment. I emailed my MP about the double standards to which you refer.
Well she will have to do a U turn when the crime rate goes up as more and more people lose their jobs or become bankrupt.
Socially distanced rioting will indeed be an interesting development. The corona panic will be forgotten when people realise they won’t be able to feed their families.
Exactly. When people can no longer put food on the table and keep the roof over their heads, things can turn nasty indeed. The State ignores this at their own peril.
20,000 troops …..
50million+ pissed off uk citizens.
It can stay for her as long as she wants, not for me though. People can have hugs a plenty from me. Take that Patel! (no not a hug for you, you devious *$£$**)
Yes, it’s a good sign, though he concedes 1 metre, sort of, which ultimately needs to be consigned to the dustbin too.
I read a couple of the comments, one of the first claimed a mortality rate of 2%. Some people shouldn’t be allowed out of the house without a responsible adult.
1 metre is a good transition before its abolished. I find it odd that while the WHO recommends 1 metre and many other countries have it, we have 2 metres which is bonkers.
The explanation they gave was simply patronising and offensive.
Lamont mentions that Priti Patel stated that social distancin[g] could be here to stay. Have I passed through a wormhole into a parallel universe?
Is Patel here to stay?
What’s the betting?
In employment terms [the hospitality industry] is bigger than the financial services industry or the automotive, aerospace and pharmaceutical industries combined.
Wow, yet the government is doggedly determined to destroy it?!
Exactly. The mind boggles – if the hospitality industry is destroyed, it would definitely sink London for sure.
How is this poor showing by Ms Sturgeon going to impact the chances of Scotland gaining political independence from the rest of the UK?
I think she has made a dismal showing as do my friends but it is very difficult to know whether the country is waking up to how much of a clueless tyrant she is. There is currently no effective opposition in Scotland while she gets her daily show on television. However she has been very much “bought and sold for English gold” as her Government could not afford the furlough. It would be interesting to see her try to make the economic case for independence now as she daily destroys what is left of our economy. Personally I doubt if she will last more than a few months after lockdown ends as troubles will rapidly escalate out of control for her – economic destruction, Nike coronavirus cover up, care home scandal, Alex Salmond, etc.
By her decision to destroy Scotland’s financial and economic independence while the indie golden goose of oil and gas lies gasping for air in the corner? She’s got no hope. The Scottish finance minister is bleating about furlough ending, I assume because the SNP’s plan is to keep Scotland locked up for as long as possible. Sturgeon says it’s a concern and she’s looking for Scotland to be able to borrow more money. Keyword being “borrow”. It’ll need to be paid back.
I’ve said it before, but a devolved Scotland has less freedom than England.
Friends, especially in Scotland, this is a must-read from the highly respected Hugh Pennington:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/01/no-evidence-suggest-coronavirus-second-wave-coming/
Professor Pennington gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament to say he was sceptical about a second wave, and he was criticised by Ms Sturgeon. In a very clever way, he then points out that he started his virological career under the tutelage of the discoverer of human coronaviruses.
Truly, Saint Nicola’s talents know no bounds. The gullible might have given credence to the opinion of a man widely regarded as the leading scientist in Scotland. Thank goodness the Dear Leader was on hand to save us from this reckless evidence-based optimism…
Hold aloft her judgements. Praise on high her guidance. All fall before the thrown of her Stay at Home podium.
He does say at the end that we should be striving to eradicate the virus which to some people (NS for example or those advising her) could be reason to maintain a lockdown as long as needed to achieve this.
I thought that could be misconstrued – or it was a cunning bit of misquoting by the reporter.
I’m looking forward to hearing more about the new ‘freedom’ party Toby.
There is ample room to to frighten the two main political party’s with a ‘Brexit Party‘ style of approach and change the political narrative.
I believe it would be wise to choose candidates that have had some success in life, whether it be in business, finance, teaching, union representative, supermarket manager or whatever. Maybe a minimum age of 50 or so should be considered too as this would mean they could offer constituents a real alternative to the PPE graduates who dominate politics these days. I strongly believe many of the political problems of today are caused by MP’s who have had no proper job in life since leaving university other that politics. This means they are totally removed from the real world problems and it’s one of the reasons most MP’s misread the Brexit mood so badly last year.
Thank you for giving me, and I know many other people (when they eventually hear about it) some hope.
Re the stop press on masks , I’ve found https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd/index.html
Any other offers?
I sent the WHO’s recommendations to my MP several weeks ago.
His loyal “man-friday” replied to say that Mr XXXX was not a member of the government and declined to comment.
(Hence my outraged e-mail of last week that I reproduced here a few days ago).
WHO link is here
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks
Like many, I was shocked to learn about the number of deaths caused in the US by the 2017/18 flu. I lived in NYC at the time and though I recall getting my annual flu shot (I’m in my 70s) I don’t recall anything else about that awful visitation of just 2-3 years ago. I don’t think I even had the sniffles during that flu season. And yet many thousands died–and many children. But not to worry about the disparity of media coverage any longer. From now on, every flu season will be covered with the same fears and alarms. CNN will have a minute-by-minute countdown display of the mounting cases and fatalities. Every seasonal flu starting this year will be given a name–as hurricanes are–and we will hear constantly that Flu Harold or Flu Katrina is deadlier than COVID-19 and suddenly according to WHO seasonal flu can be far worse than a pandemic.
My humble prediction is that the Coronavirus will prove to be merely the dress rehearsal for the next stages of the media’s daily Theatre of Fear.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52876999 I wonder how many people realised when the lock down was imposed that cancer treatment as well as other treatments would be suspended
My initial estimate would be at least 2M people.
All just doing their bit to protect the NHS, I’m sure they will understand how important that is!
It’s interesting to note that Sky News are running a series of programmes entitled “After the Pandemic Our New World”.
Seems as if they’re saying the pandemic is as good as over.
Well, our New World is!
The collective wellbeing of Scotland would be vastly improved if the barren Sturgeon just fucked off.
Pity she’s barren.The roe of the sturgeon is said to be delicious.
In her case, the Japanese Puffer Fish would probably be a closer match!
In reflection on the current troubles in America, the William Burroughs “A Thanksgiving Prayer” comes to mind for our current “Covid-19 Crisis” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLSveRGmpIE Coronavirus Prayer For King John of England, In hope he is still listening in. Thanks for weeks of never-ending bbqs, destined to be shit out through feeble british guts Thanks for a lost spring of memories never to be recaptured Thanks for nightingale hospitals providing little filled beds Thanks for vast public spending, leaving the future economy to rot Thanks for fines for meeting with friends Thanks for STAY AT HOME, PROTECT THE NHS, SAVE LIVES to vulgarly save the face of the nhs whilst leaving care homes to wither Thanks for epidemiologists feeding their models of doom, for sage members with their mean, pinched, bitter public health advice Thanks for “two metres apart” posters Thanks for a laboratory or human stimulated virus (China) Thanks for the Coronavirus Act and all its dictates Thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business Thanks for a nation of finks Yes, Thanks for all the memories of the last 10 weeks… all right, let’s see your masks and gloves… Social media always was a headache… Read more »
Meh. The Declaration of Rights came after Magna Carta, I believe. And was far greater.
Wasn’t British. Was specifically anti-British.
Never mind. The point is that people in this country have striven, however imperfectly, for a thousand years to create a system of rights, only to have it swept away literally overnight.
We nursed the pinion for the Yanks, Annie. 🙂
1688 Declaration of Rights.
1689 Bill of Rights.
Worth minding about, and definitely worth a read !
The original point was incorrect is claiming the Magna Carta was the latest and greatest, that’s all.
I stand corrected!
No problem Annie. 🙂
You wouldn’t believe the grief I had with the kids’ secondary school history department, who were ignorant of the existence and the importance of the Glorious Revolution.
And thank you, dear NHS, for neglecting sufferers from every condition except one, and for lying about the deaths of those allegedly suffering from that one disease.