No “lockdown” in Sweden
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52076293
Uh-oh…
“The scientist whose calculations about the potentially devastating impact of the coronavirus directly led to the countrywide lockdown has been criticised in the past for flawed research.”
“Professor Neil Ferguson, of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College in London, produced a paper predicting that Britain was on course to lose 250,000 people during the coronavirus epidemic unless stringent measures were taken. His research is said to have convinced Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his advisors to introduce the lockdown.”
“However, it has now emerged that Ferguson has been criticised in the past for making predictions based on allegedly faulty assumptions which nevertheless shaped government strategies and impacted the UK economy…”
[Daily Telegraph]
Swedish scientists are sceptical about the Imperial College research that predicted 250,000 deaths in the UK:
HS2 disaster steams on
I have no idea why Chris Packham used to block me when I had a Twitter account (maybe afraid of the Jew lobby that eventually had me expelled), but I wish him well in blocking this disgusting and pointless HS2 project, which is just corporate vandalism.
As in respect of so many things in the UK, I have to say that British people are very patient, almost superhumanly so. Little sabotage, no violence, no “action directe”…
Meanwhile, more from Derbyshire’s poundland KGB plods…
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-police-ruin-uk-blue-21773701
If only Derbyshire Police were as efficient in dealing with actual real crime as they are in stopping the harmless pleasure of the local people who pay for their jobs, or in acting like a poundland KGB (as with the way in which they have repeatedly treated the satirical singer-singwriter Alison Chabloz).
“Local resident Alex John Desmond wrote on Facebook: “This is a joke, the way this force is acting is not representative of policing by consent which is the way the UK is meant to be governed. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You have taken something beautiful and damaged it.” [Daily Mirror]
UK unready for Coronavirus
“Hate to point out the obvious, but UK has not embarked on the testing campaign because it would rapidly become apparent that we do not have the capacity. That would then lead to awkward questions about the wisdom of running down a country’s health service.
Far better to divert with Dunkirk, mass volunteer campaigns and hand clapping nonsense. Meanwhile our loved ones that work in the NHS are being sent like lambs to the slaughter without protective gear.” [Guardian reader’s comment]
Scotland: SNP rides high(er)
Note how the Conservative Party vote in Scotland is unchanged in both parts of the poll. The SNP’s yet-again increased and unchallenged supremacy is by default: the Conservatives cannot increase their Scottish vote at a time when their decade-long neglect of the NHS has been highlighted by Coronavirus; at the same time, the terminal decline of Labour and the LibDems continues, as it does South of Hadrian’s Wall.
I refuse to believe that (as I privately predicted would happen) the recent acquittal of Alex Salmond on sex crime charges was not a purely political act of loyalty by SNP partisans.
Tweets about over-zealous police
“Boris Johnson did nothing”
Seems that the lady in Iran was not the only one let down by Boris-idiot when he was (disastrously) Foreign Secretary:
Coronavirus deaths decline
Yesterday, UK “COVID-19” deaths were fewer than in the day before, 20% fewer. I notice that BBC TV News had that as “deaths increase by 209 from the day before”, which is true as regards the total but gives a completely false impression.
In Italy too, the daily total is falling, in their case for the second consecutive day.
It looks as though the virus situation is plateauing across Europe, including the UK. We shall have to see what happens in the next week, but there again, as has been remarked upon, someone who dies with Coronavirus (and may have other serious conditions) is being marked down as having died from Coronavirus. The fact is that rather few people die from this virus alone.
“In the next few days and weeks, we must continue to look critically and dispassionately at the Covid-19 evidence as it comes in. Above all else, we must keep an open mind — and look for what is, not for what we fear might be.” [John Lee, former NHS consultant in pathology, and professor in pathology, in the Spectator]
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think
The fact is that, arguably for the best of reasons, the people of the UK have been put into house arrest for an indefinite period. I do not think that it can last for very long. It will last so long as people feel both afraid of the virus and willing to do what they are told is “the right thing”. The police cannot enforce these dictatorial restrictions by their own power, but only so long as people, or the people, tolerate them.
Late night music
“You see, my son, here time turns into space!”
Ian Robert Millard 
I already hated British police since I watched Mark Collett’s excellent video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZa_7o6vX7w
Now I hate them even more. The problem is, as you said, British people are TOO nice, polite and obedient,
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Claudius:
I have no animus against the police when they do their *proper* job reasonably. I do oppose them when they act as a poundland KGB. You may have seen my blog post re. my own experience of that: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/when-i-was-a-victim-of-a-malicious-zionist-complaint/
I am interested to see from the msm and Twitter that the most officious and stupid UK police force so far in this Coronavirus panic has been that of Derbyshire, the very one that has treated Alison Chabloz so badly, worse even than the Metropolitan Police. Also, one of the least efficient at their “day job” of protecting the public of their area.
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Normally, I would advocate this country investing in its police forces and employing more police officers as it seems to me that the most effective way to tackle rising crime from looking at the evidence provided by foreign countries is to enlarge the possibility of criminals being detected and arrested rather than merely increasing the severity of sentencing but if the stupid globalist Tory government continues to import people from the most violent cultural backgrounds around the planet and still puts the police under PC constraints then there is no point doing that.
After all, PC’s don’t come cheap since Mrs Thatcher increased their salaries so that today they don’t earn too bad wages. The Poundland KGB tendency needs to die a death.
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I completely agree, M’Lord of Essex.
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That poll suggests the SNP will probably gain an overall majority once again and that will be mainly due to the workings of the electoral system. Holyrood uses the Additional Member System of Proportional Representation (AMS) but unlike in Germany the regional lists are NOT linked together so you have to obtain about 6% of the vote WITHIN a region to get any seats rather than 5% ACROSS Scotland as a whole and, unlike Germany, the ‘top-up’ regional Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) comprise about 43% of the parliament rather than 50% as in the Bundestag.
These two features of the system in Scotland detract from a higher degree of proportionality so that means a party doesn’t need to win about 50% of the regional ‘top-up’ vote to gain an overall majority.
Holyrood’s system is, of course, a lot fairer than the archaic and unfair rubbish of Westminster’s First Past The Post but it also shows that the way the PR list vote is counted and the level of the ‘top-up’ members are important factors in determining how proportional these Additional Member/Mixed-Member systems of PR can be or not.
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Meanwhile, the Welsh Assembly’s electoral system can only really be described as a form of SEMI Proportional Representation since the Assembly consists of 60 members in total but the regional ‘top-up’ members comprise only 20 of them ie 33.3% of the body with the other 40 AMs elected by the First Past The Post part of the system at 66.6% of it. The lists, as in Scotland, are not linked as well.
One of the problems with these Additional Member/Mixed-Member systems is that to gain a decent level of Proportional Representation the ‘top-up’ ratio of members have to be at a decent level to counteract the high level of disproportionality created by the single-member constituencies.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additional_member_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation
https://en.wikipedia.org/Electoral_system_of_Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_German_federal_election
https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk
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Sadly, the SNP will do well in 2021 mainly because it isn’t a ‘normal’ political party but more of a zombie-like cult whereby its supporters ignore its failures in office. The party has been in office since 2007 yet it’s handling of the health service isn’t too impressive and their sway over the education brief can only be described as disastrous. Scotland used to have the best education system in the United Kingdom and one of the most impressive worldwide yet that has gone to pot under SNP misrule. This education situation in particular is very sad.
The Tories will do quite well as that poll indicates because they are now the strongest unionist party and their stance is clear. Labour’s position on that subject is wishy-washy compared to the Tories and that partly explains their poor poll ratings.
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Yes. I do not purport to know much about Scottish politics but I think that it is clear that the SNP (which after all was almost a joke party until 2015, with 6 MPs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_National_Party#House_of_Commons_2 ) is in a good position electorally almost by default.
The Conservatives are moribund up there, esp. since the departure of Ruth Davidson (for whom I have little time, but that’s a separate issue). Labour is as good as dead in Scotland. LibDems too, more so! So the SNP is largely unchallenged.
The SNP is of course not in any serious way “nationalist” but the tartan overcoat certainly helps the presentation…
The SNP, as you say, has a poor record on almost everything, but it knows how to make populist gestures that voters like: free parking in hospitals, free prescriptions for all (both good policies, imo…). Nature abhors a vacuum. The SNP has filled the political vacuum left by the decline of the former “three main parties”.
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Tragically, the Labour Party in Scotland as its proposals of federalism show thinks such a stance can help them appear to be more nationalist than the SNP. That is a miscalculation. It is impossible to outflank the SNP as it is an outright separatist party.
In the 1990’s George Robinson thought that having devolution would, “kill independence stone dead”. How did that idea work out? Not very well on the electoral evidence so far! Devolution has effectively killed-off the Scottish Labour Party. Devolution has only emboldened the SNP and provided a “slippery slope to separation” as even John Major managed to work out.
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You mistyped. It was George *Robertson*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Robertson,_Baron_Robertson_of_Port_Ellen
A foolish man.
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