A word to my blog readers. I have a computer problem which may take a few days to fix, so please do not be concerned that I have Coronavirus or whatever. I may be offline for a few days. We shall see.
Matt Hancock, government “rules” and the law
I blogged a week or two ago to the effect that “little Matt Hancock seems out of his depth” as Health Secretary in the Coronovirus crisis. I think that that statement can now be said to have been justified. Today the little blot was on TV bleating about people “flouting the rules” (about not going out etc).
What struck me about Hancock today was, firstly, the extent to which he uses cliches and hackneyed phrases. “Shoulders to the wheel” etc. His thought-world seems very limited (which does not surprise, though, after his having been seen on TV and in front-line politics for some years; just the level of it).
Secondly, Hancock seems to conflate his or the Government’s “rules” with the law itself. What a minister says or wants is not law in this country. Not yet anyway. We may be travelling down that road, but, as former Law Lord (Supreme Court justice), Jonathan Sumption, said recently, this is or is supposed to be a country under law.
The wishes of government ministers are not law.
I looked at the new Coronavirus Act last week, admittedly not in detail. I saw nothing about sunbathing there. Yet here we are today, and little Matt Hancock, trying to sound all serious and authoritative in the absence of his “Prime Minister”, Boris-idiot, was claiming that sunbathing was “against the rules” and so illegal. That is, as far as I can see, plain wrong.
I see that, in the latest news, the government “rules” have not been changed. They stay the same as they were.
There are several points coming out of this:
- Matt Hancock seems to be using people sunbathing etc as a distraction technique, distracting people from the realization that this government has not handled well the present Coronavirus crisis;
- Leaving aside laws and rules and what they may or may not say, there is no real reason why people should not sunbathe, even in urban parks, even within the “social distancing” rules. They cannot infect anyone by so doing.
- Likewise, driving around in a car does not of itself carry any risk of infection; neither does someone walking in a deserted area; or, indeed, a couple or family group walking or exercizing in an area where there are few or no others.
- “Rules” about people staying home, only going out to exercize once daily, only going shopping “infrequently” etc, are only enforceable if most people comply, i.e. do not need to be forced. I am not sure that little Matt Hancock, suited thug, understands that.
I saw on BBC TV News today a report about a care home in Dorset. The quite nice-seeming ladies in charge were getting really quite excited and even hysterical about having seen people in cars on the road and other people walking down roads.
For one thing, those people (especially those in cars) were not endangering anyone, but apart from that there is the point that the British people have been placed under a kind of house arrest, and need some fresh air in order not to get “cabin fever” or to go “stir-crazy”. It is all very well for people in large residences or on country estates (such as the Queen) to stay “indoors” (a meaningless term when it means Windsor Castle or Sandringham House), but British people are already among the most “cribbed, cabin’d and confined” in Europe.
As I predicted, even the quite compliant British people are beginning to chafe under the restrictions, all the more so when it is clear that some do not make much sense and/or have been badly-drafted, and when Cabinet ministers (albeit of a joke “government”) seem not to know the difference between rules laid down by ministers (which may have little or no legal effect) and the law itself.
These are not just petty squabbles about whether some bimbo can sunbathe in Regent’s Park, or whether a family can drive to a national park and then go for a (harmless) walk without being shouted at by self-important police constables. This goes to the root of what we mean by “a society under law” and also that much-used word “democracy” and its meaning (and its limits).
It disturbs me that so many people want to, not help the nation in this time of crisis, as such, but to conform to authority, however pointless such conformity is.
As usual the “Twitterati” are out in force, imagining that their words carry weight. Here below, a nurse tweets something which carries genuine weight, based on her experience of her own recent days on duty, but a typical “Twitterite” sees fit to put in his meaningless comment, attacking people who want to sunbathe (something completely harmless and which infects no-one with this virus). What makes his “contribution” even more silly is that his Twitter profile says that “The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence from it is the greatest crime.”
The lack of self-awareness, though stunning, is in fact typical of the Twitterati. (His profile also says “À bas la charogne stalinienne” meaning “Down with Stalinist carrion“!).
Here’s another “me-too” conformist:
Is there any evidence at all that sunbathing in a park spreads “Coronavirus”? If so, I myself have not heard or seen it. Of course, I am saying that on the basis that people are not too close together when sunbathing, walking, or pretending that they are free citizens etc.
Perhaps I should add that not only have I myself not been “sunbathing in a park” today, but have in fact spent the entire day at my now-humble home, mostly sleeping.
The Queen
Saw the first few minutes of the TV broadcast by the Queen. I am sure that she means well, but the fact is that her intervention means little to most people. In a sense, it shows how out of touch Westminster and the msm are, that they think that Her Majesty’s broadcast will bolster the “lockdown”. It may, to a very slight degree, but not much.
Age discrimination
Now that I myself am 63, I do not think that I can be described, plausibly, as discriminating against people of a certain age. The fact is that, while exceptions exist, this virus does kill, mainly, aged people. The older you are, the smaller the chance that you will avoid symptoms, severe symptoms, or death from the virus. The “young”, and particularly the under-30s, in general, face little risk from Coronavirus in terms of serious illness or death.
Poundland KGB and Toytown police
Saw a tweet from the police about how they stopped a lone motorcyclist on the otherwise deserted M27. Why did they? He was neither spreading Coronavirus nor in danger from being infected.
At the same time, I saw a tweet showing Richmond-on-Thames packed with strolling crowds! Perhaps those people were being either selfish or foolish, but the police cannot stop those crowds, unless they were to unleash the riot squad (which I believe is called the Territorial Support Group…very English!) on them.
In the end, policing of a quasi-democratic society can only be done by consent. So far, the people, as a whole, have complied, willingly or reluctantly, with the “house arrest” rules and law (as said earlier, different things…), but that willing compliance will not last forever; it will not last, in my view, beyond the end of May and it may not last beyond the end of April. There may be mass defiance, there may be political pressure too. No doubt suited thug Hancock would like to be able to tell people what to do, but his real power is limited, not by the British Constitution, not by whatever is actually in the Coronavirus Act, but by what the British people, as a group, will tolerate.
Tweet by well-known Jewish “human rights” barrister:
Labour’s new leader
Keir Starmer says that he wants to “tear anti-semitism out by the roots”. He is an enemy of the British people. He has now appointed Lisa Nandy, Rachel Reeves etc to the Shadow Cabinet. All members of Labour Friends of Israel.
“They” want their pound of flesh…
Palm Sunday
This is what some Jewess in Israel thought appropriate to tweet today, Palm Sunday:
[the above was retweeted by the ghastly “Mark Lewis Lawyer”, by the way].
(in case anyone is interested, though, I do not believe that Jews use the blood of Christian babies in their cuisine!).
Some other tweets seen today
Hitchens is making a good point. This government’s action is destroying, to a large extent, our economy (just wait…), an action which may kill far greater numbers than Coronavirus, in the medium term. Come to think of it, the past ten years have seen the Conservative Party as a whole, and some more directly (Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, Esther McVey, the jew “lord” Freud etc) kill tens of thousands via the unnecessary and deliberate “austerity” policies, particularly the equally unnecessary and incompetent DWP “reforms”.
Lest my republishing some of his tweets leads some readers to the incorrect view that I am uncritical of Peter Hitchens, I post again my assessment of him from last year:
https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/peter-hitchens-and-his-views/
Scare stories
You see time and again msm (i.e. Jewish) stories of how terrible were some aspects of the Third Reich (made worse by the exaggerations). More rarely —by far— some of the terrible aspects of the Soviet Union under Stalin are noted. Scarcely at all are the atrocities of the United States shown on TV etc. No, I am not talking only about those committed overseas, such as the perversities of Abu Ghraib and Bagram (etc), but of those committed in the USA itself and against US citizens.
I happened to see a few minutes of one of those paranormal investigation shows, but what struck me was the locus, a place called Moundsville, West Virginia, which was apparently one of the most violent and oppressive prisons in the USA, now shut down. One detail alone: prisoners were frequently lashed with a thick leather strap soaked in vinegar or sometimes salt water. Many died. The “land of freedom”…?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_Penitentiary
Some music to make life better…
Ian Robert Millard 
Yes, they have been doing too little too late as we both argued WEEKS AGO. I see that the Tory morons still haven’t instituted any real restrictions at our borders like many other countries have been doing even those which are islands like New Zealand and Australia.! Plus ca change, plus la meme chose (the more things change the more they remain the same) as the French would say!
Yes, under Priti Vacant/Priti Useless and the government she is a part of globalism and open-borders comes first even at the expense of people dying!🤬😡🙄
This CON Party government is truly criminally irresponsible.
We might beat the virus and then an infected passenger will come in from abroad and infect us once again.😡🤬
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Not sure about your last sentence, M’Lord of Essex. There is little evidence that people can be re-infected with the virus. If most people have been infected then recovered (perhaps all without ever having known it) then a stray foreigner or returning expat will not infect (re-infect) them.
This is a wave: it comes through, reaching a peak, which then subsides. What should be happening is *proper* planning for *next* time, which may be in a decade, or five years, or next year.
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The Queen is pointless as is her family. To be honest, they always have been though this is not a fault of theirs but our ‘democratic’ politicians down the ages who stripped the Monarchy of any real power and now not only do they not possess actual constitutional powers but have little persuasive authority either because of how many perceive them. Meghan and Prince Harry’s disgraceful behaviour has made this worse and also helped to turn the House of Windsor into a total worldwide laughing stock. The Queen has acted in regard to the ‘gruesome twosome’ but hasn’t done enough.She needs to cut out the cancerous branch of the ‘Royal’ Family tree that is Harry and Meghan entirely by formally expelling them and removing their titles. That saga has gone on far far too long and needs to be brought to a definitive conclusion.
I’m increasingly wondering whether or not we should become a Republic. If we are going to continue to have a Monarchy then give them some real powers like the Prince of Liechtenstein has or make sure they understand that their role is to be a real link to the nation’s past history by marrying appropriately. If they can’t even be bothered to do that then we may as well have an elected President.
Prince Harry is a disgrace for marrying somebody who is so inappropriate on so many levels and has done huge damage to the Institution which could be terminal.
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M’Lord of Essex:
I have always said that sometimes a monarchy (absolute or constitutional) is right for a country, sometimes a republic (of whatever sort) is. I feel that the time for monarchy in the UK is going, perhaps has already gone.
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A semi-constitutional Monarchy like Liechtenstein’s is best whereby the Royal House doesn’t interfere in politics generally-speaking but does have some real ‘reserve’ powers to use at their discretion in ‘emergency’ situations ie the sort of authority you would wield once in every fifty or hundred years or so. Either that or an elected President with the same sort of powers to ‘reign in’ a bad government.
It would have been good if the House of Windsor could have put a stop to Bliar’s war in Iraq by exercising a Royal veto over her armed forces being misused in that disgraceful manner.
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It is bad enough we have surplus numbers of PC globalist ‘woke’ politicians without a Monarchy having characters like that too. Japan’s Monarchy isn’t ‘woke’ and ours shouldn’t be either so I say to the House of Windsor pull your bootstraps up and act moe like Emperor Naruhito and company.
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Many within the police forces of this country are enjoying the potential of acting like ‘mini Hitlers’ (well, it is a long-established fact that the police have attracted people of a highly authoritarian disposition since time began) and Matt Hancock does as well but at least we are not yet at the stage of the Philippines where their President has openly called for quarantine and lock down violators to be shot!
By the way, have you seen the cringe fest one police ‘force’ (I think it is Cheshire’s) has made where their officers are dancing (rather badly) to Staying Alive by the Bee Gees?
Yes, under Priti Vacant/Priti Useless and Boris The Buffoon criminals are so scared of the police – NOT!
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No, M’Lord of Essex, I have *not* seen that Bee Gees police video. The police now are really a joke. The factor that makes that worse is that we in the UK are not permitted armed defence.
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When I was a young teenager I saw a crime being committed whilst staying at my Uncle’s and contacted the police to inform them of this. I went to the police station and they took a witness statement from me and I may have had to go to court to back that up but I wasn’t asked in the end. I was quite proud to help the police to apprehend a criminal but now I really don’t think I would bother.
Ever since that MacPherson Report came out in 1999 the police have been on a downward slope though the rot no doubt started under Thatcher with her blatant politicisation of the police during the Miners’ Strike and passing of the tyrannical Public Order Act 1986 and the situation has become worse ever since.
There is no doubt the police forces of this country are no longer the truly impartial and politically neutral upholders of the ‘Queen’s Peace’ they once were and the whole country has suffered from that with their being, consequently, ever more inefficient at tackling REAL criminals because of more and more ordinary law-abiding citizens being estranged from them.
Sadly, this downward slope isn’t going to be changed by Priti Vacant. Only a government not formed by the Lib/Lab/Con globalist party will give us a brighter future in that regard.
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M’Lord of Essex:
I have to agree. Meanwhile, the police have given up much of their former “help the public” stuff, one example being lost property, which ceased to be a police responsibility in most forces last year. I happened to see what turned out to be a purse (in the English sense), actually a kind of purse-wallet, on the ground of a car park overlooking the Channel, where I had halted the car for a few minutes, quite early one Summer morning. It was only just light. Inside, I found £40 (maybe £45) in cash. Also, a student railcard issued at Brockenhurst Railway Station, nearby which there is a large 6th form college. I gave it in to the police (actually a civilian desk person) at a police station a few miles away, open in the day only. I hope that the girl who owned it was reunited with it.
If the above happened now, the police would not accept the lost property. I should have to try to track down the owner myself. Difficult, and I should quite likely be thought some sort of “stalker”! I suppose that, the way of the world being what it is, I should probably just keep the money, failing any easy way to be honest and turn it in…
(I prefer not to speculate how the girl’s purse found its way onto the ground of a car park overlooking the romantic sea, and probably after dark…)
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Why doesn’t the Labour Party grow a spine for god’s sake and tell those vicious lying scumbags, Jew Zionist extremist zealots and supporters of the quasi-fascist regime in Jerusalem to kindly eff off or are basic Anglo-Saxon sayings foreign to them as well as gentile British ways?🙄
God, I wonder where that mysterious disease called ‘anti-Semitism’ just ever so suddenly appears from?🙄
There are plenty of airports in Britain and even at the present time they haven’t shut entirely so what are the CAA waiting for? Bon Voyage to Israel!
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“Starmer” – what’s the origin of the name – Scottish? Something more exotic?
http://tapnewswire.com/2020/04/man-who-saved-jimmy-savile-is-now-leader-of-the-labour-party/
– mainly for the comments. Didn’t Saville address the Knesset at some point? If so his influence, and therefore his protection, ran deep.
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Wigger:
English, rather than Scottish, it seems:
https://www.houseofnames.com/starmer-family-crest
Keir is *now* a Scottish first name, Keir Hardie having been, of course, the main founder of the Labour Party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Hardie
but “Keir” was the *surname* of Hardie’s mother, which he kept as part of *his* surname, only later using it as a first name.
Starmer’s parents named him after Keir Hardie:
“Keir Rodney Starmer was born in Southwark, London, on 2 September 1962[5][6] and grew up in the small town of Oxted in Surrey.[7][8][9] He was one of five children of Josephine (née Baker), a nurse, and Rodney Starmer, a toolmaker.[9][10] His mother had Still’s disease.[11][12] His parents were both firm Labour Party supporters, and named him after the first Labour Party MP, Keir Hardie.” [Wikipedia]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Starmer
*Note*:
“Personal life
Starmer married Victoria Alexander, a solicitor, in 2007. The couple’s son and a daughter are being brought up in the Jewish faith of their mother.[12][61]”
[Wikipedia]
There you have it: wife Jewish, and children therefore half-Jewish, and according to Jewish religious practice, simply “Jewish” (and being brought up as Jewish).
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The Queen’s speech turned out to be the stupid gibberish that I expected. How irrelevant and insincere these people are! They live in obscene luxury and splendour and have the cheek to speak as if they really care for the masses. How funny she used the word “us” as if she/the royal family, lived in the same world or dimension inhabited by the rest of the people.
That reminds me of a story: The Lone Ranger and his Indian side-kick Tonto were surrounded by hostile Indians. The Lone Ranger said, “We are in trouble, my friend!” and Tonto replied “We? What are you talking about, white man?”
Good luck with your computer Ian. Take care and “don’t sunbathe” LOL
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Claudius:
Thank you for the Lone Ranger story. Ironic though: the “enemy” is an enemy but the “traitor” is anathema.
As you say, it is all very well for the Queen and her several hangers-on to tell the people to stay in their hovels. “Staying inside” Windsor Castle is rather easier!
In fact, the broadcast (which I did not hear throughout) was, understandably but rather underwhelmingly, aimed at the Queen’s own age group. I don’t think that Vera Lynn and “We’ll Meet Again” means much to the young, or really anyone at or below my own age [b. 1956] anyway.
It is a given that a monarch —or other head of state, to some extent— lives apart from the life of the people (see the stories about princes who disguise themselves to visit the lives of the masses: Solomon was one example), but this pretence that the UK is still “one nation” is really stretching reality to breaking point.
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Thank you for your comments, Ian.
Yes, the Lone Ranger story had a double meaning in this situation. On the one hand, I wanted to make an analogy with the use of “us/we” by the queen and its use by the Lone Ranger. On the other hand, the original meaning of the story is to highlight the phoniness of the concept of “we are all the same” when we are dealing with different races. In moments of crisis, people show their true colours and instinctively and naturally will associate with their own.
In fact, non-whites don’t need a crisis to show their preference for their own kind. In the case of England, almost all the time we can see false is the label of “British” that Asians, Arabs or Africans like to wear and how quickly they ditch it when is convenient to them.
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Claudius:
The Jews, too!
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They have a difficult balancing act to perform. On the one hand, they can’t be too stand-offish and aloof from the people but on the other hand they also can’t be too familiar, and ‘in with the plebs’ which some of the younger ones are, occasionally, prone to acting like ie Prince Harry with his entirely inappropriate choice (if indeed it WAS his choice and he wasn’t forced into it by a gormless PC Tory minister/Royal Courtier)of spouse.
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Buckingham Palace is a pretty modest affair as far as Royal palaces go. I’ve been outside it a few times though I haven’t visited the interior and to be honest I think the Royal Palace in Madrid is much more impressive externally though Buck House has a better interior.
Many foreigners, particularly Americans, think the Royal Family own all these properties that they have but that is only the case for Sandringham House, Balmoral Castle, and the late Queen Mother’s Castle of Mey in Scotland.
Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are basically glorified council houses (what we in Britain call social housing) in that they are owned by the British state and can’t be sold by the Windsor clan. They are held in trust by the government here for whoever becomes the Monarch.
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Buckingham Palace does look bigger from above, or behind, compared to the front elevation, M’Lord of Essex. I once belonged to a small organization funded mainly by the FCO, and which had an office and library overlooking the grounds of the Palace from Grosvenor Place, i.e, from the rear of the Palace.
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