The Coronavirus “crisis” has brought out into plain view not only the inadequacies of the Government, MPs, the whole political system, the police etc, but those of the general public, which has shown itself to be little better than the volatile mob of plebs in ancient Rome.
The recent descendants of those who braved bombs and privations in WW2 lurk on full or nearly full pay in their houses, having food and wine delivered, and until recently obediently clapping outside their houses weekly, as ordered by Government or by social pressure (leaving aside my view that the war with the German Reich need never have been declared in 1939, continued after mid-1940, or further continued to the bitter end).
The descendants of that wartime generation (again, leaving aside the fact that much of what people think about those times is now inaccurate myth) do not measure up. Apart from virtue-signalling by clapping or by posting conformist messages on Twitter, Facebook etc, they now all intend to obey the “authorities” by wandering around shops masked.
The scientific case for masks (for the general population) is not made out, certainly not proven beyond doubt. The imposition of masks on the public is an arbitrary misuse of political power. Predictably, the “communitarian” Twitterati are going mad supporting mask-wearing, or muzzle-wearing, despite the fact that the Coronavirus wave has all but passed.
When you see how eager are the “usual suspects” to wear masks and impose them on everyone else, you understand why it is that the self-described “Left” (not a term I myself use, in general) has no understanding or political power. These people are infantile, and desperate to be told what to do: by government, by “experts” (stand up, “800,000 deaths” Professor Ferguson and “SAGE”), by the EU Commission, by the decision-makers of Twitter, Facebook, the NHS etc.
Needless to say, I shall not be wearing a mask except (because there is little choice) to visit Waitrose, which visits I shall cut down to about 2 times per week). I shall visit other shops even less often than I do at present.
This imposition makes me angry, but it seems that about half the population actually want to have this imposed on themselves and everyone.
This is, to state the obvious, not the nation of the English Civil War, of HMS Victory, of Waterloo, of the great struggles of the armies, trade unions and others in the late 19th Century, of the two great wars of the 20th Century. A mixed, chaotic mass of multikulti plebs, either a conformist mass or a volatile but cowardly mob.
I do not expect any mass protests against the facemasks, but simply a sad yet angry population refusing (even more) to go out, to spend money in shops, to visit pubs or restaurants. Most of the latter might as well pack up and go home, to cower in their caves with the rest of the population of this “nation” that is no longer a nation.
Tweets seen
https://twitter.com/annembee/status/1282323087598530560?s=20
Not only is the British population to be forced to wear masks as of 24 July 2020, but there is no date set, even notionally, for when this nonsense will cease to be mandatory; no sunset date, or month, or even year…
This will kill off the retail sector, what part of it might have survived the existing “virus” panic and “lockdown”/shutdown. Yes, there will always be a few diehards who will go to their usual pub or restaurant even if required to wear a muzzle until (or even when?) seated, and who will obediently spend their money in shops even when forced to pretend that they are shopping in an Ebola virus intensive care ward. Not many, though.
“OBR: UK facing worst slump in 300 years. Newsflash: The UK economy is on track for its worst year in three centuries, and its biggest ever budget deficit in peacetime. That’s according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, Britain’s independent fiscal watchdog. In a new report, the OBR outlines three scenarios for the future — and all three show the worst recession in 300 years, and a massive spike in borrowing.” [The Guardian]
As I predicted, the “recovery” from the “virus” panic is now not projected to be “V-shaped” but something else (I suggested “L-shaped”…).
I am, of course, interested in the political effects of this madness. So far, the calm before the storm, thanks to “furlough” payments, “working from home” etc. What about in 6 months’ time?
This is the best opportunity social nationalism will ever have in the UK. So far, no party or movement (credible party or movement) exists to exploit it.
White Lives Matter
Britain’s modest answer to the Vision of Fatima?
Interesting Sussex tale: https://anthropopper.com/2020/07/14/a-vision-of-christ-in-firle/
Tweets seen
The tweeter “@kaiserlibero” sounds like those silly people who say “well of course there were ‘gas chambers’ in the early 1940s, because….because…I saw a Hollywood film from the 1980s, based on a novel by an Australian, all about it!…” (etc)…
Ha ha! Boris-idiot’s long-running am-dram reprise of Churchill is looking pretty thin now…I have little time for Churchill, despise much about him, and think that his “war with Germany” policies were mad and in fact evil, but Churchill was a titan compared to Boris Johnson.
Looks like somewhere in the USA. Over there, they call events like that a “chimp-out”.
“America, land of freedom”…(not).
The toytown police and poundland KGB (again). Wasting time on a perfectly OK T-shirt while London slides into multikulti chaos.
Midnight music
Ian Robert Millard 
So Boris-Idiot is, at last, doing the right thing but SEVERAL MONTHS later than action should have taken when it would have been more effective.🙄🙄🙄
I must admit I can understand why people don’t like wearing these masks. My cousin’s girlfriend works in a care home and smuggled out three of them for my family members to use. I went shopping in Brentwood the other week and tried to wear the small fabric one we had been supplied with but I had to take it off after a while as I became too hot to wear it in the shop even though the outside temperature wasn’t that warm that day. What made it worse was the fact I wear glasses for my short sightedness and they steamed-up which is intensely annoying 😡and the shops don’t help because they don’t have air conditioning.😡
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M’Lord of Essex:
I shall only wear such a mask by compulsion and because I need to visit Waitrose or other such place a couple of times per week. I could switch to online, I suppose. I feel angry about all this. As you know, I disagree with this. The scientists and doctors are divided on the issue, btw.
The fact is that the wave of Coronavirus peaked in mid or even early April.
This will kill any joy in life, shopping etc (not that I myself am a shopper anyway). There’s something more behind this.
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In other news, Boris-Idiot is trying to act the hard man with China by banning huge Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei from building our 5g network. Someone needs to tell Boris they will just laugh at that and the Chines government will still ignore everything his pathetic administration says about Hong Kong especially now he has recklessly annoyed them by saying he will give British citizenship to 3 MILLION PLUS HK Chinese thereby not only breaking EXPLICIT Tory promises that date back as long ago to Edward Heath’s 1970 election manifesto that there would be no more primary immigration into Britain from our remaining colonies but also not doing anything in a practical and realistic sense to help the HG Chinese with regard to their situation re the mainland’s government.
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M’Lord of Essex:
While the Chinese government will obviously not want Hong Kong to be depopulated (and moving mainland Chinese in will be seen as a poor option), it *might* just be that a huge influx to the UK will be seen as an opportunity for China, strategically. 4 million (more) Chinese in the UK would be a very big socio-political influencer, not to mention the espionage possibilities.
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I don’t really care how this affects China or Hong Kong. My concern is how this proposed MASSIVE INFLUX affects the view of the British people as to what little sense they still have about their national identity, how it affects future crime rates not so much from criminality from the Hong Kong Chinese ie Triad Gangs but how it will further loosen the social bonds British people feel which is an excellent breeding ground for future criminals to grow up in.
Also, the environmental damage this will inevitably cause: National Parks like the intensely beautiful Lake District, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty eg the quintessentially English area of The Cotswolds, Green Belt areas like mine in Tory Brentwood, Essex will be safe from the housebuilders or the new By passes to by passes, motorways, dual carriageways that will come with the new towns/cities/villages
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As Huawei is one of the very few companies that has the expertise to build 5g networks who is going to build ours now that this company is banned from doing it? Presumably, we ARE going to get a 5g network built eventually, are we?🙄🙄🙄
Or are we going to damage our economy, miss out on opportunities to work from home and do all the other exciting possibilities this new technology offers by not having our networks updated to 5g?
If the Tories and Labour hadn’t run down the British economy from the war onwards we might have had a British company do this work!🙄😡🤬☹️😞
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In my area of Tory run Brentwood, Essex, some of us have been waiting for the council to enable 4G masts to be built so we can obtain reliable 4G connections to our mobiles let alone the fancy new luxury of 5g! Here we will be waiting for centuries for that even if Huawei were allowed to be involved!🙄😞☹️
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M’Lord of Essex, I had a mobile telephone from 1993, when they were still slightly novel. A Motorola that weighed about the same as half a brick. People would stare if I used it, sometimes. They are useful for barristers, as I then was. Now, I have no mobile telephone. I rarely even use the landline. I am not far from being a recluse, from both inclination (disgust at the way things are) and events (“lockdown” etc, and the fact that I now have no paid occupation).
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A smartphone from that marvellous ‘pride of South Korea’ company called Samsung with all the bells and whistles like multiple cameras on BOTH the back for landscape and ‘normal’ shots and the front for taking wide-angle ‘selfies’, 4G/5G, an electronic pencil for taking notes etc is what you need mate!😂😄👌😎😆😁😂😎😎
A Samsung Note 10 is the thing though the Note 20 will be coming out in August!😎👌😃
Go out and splurge several hundred pounds and more on one and make Samsung and South Korea even richer than they already are 😂whilst worsening our disturbing balance of payments deficit!😞☹️
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I prefer to be cut off from UK society, the way things are, m’Lord of Essex.
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They have advanced a bit since then! 😂🤣😂Now, you can get a smartphone from that marvellous ‘pride of South Korea’ company called Samsung which has bells and whistles on it such as multiple cameras on both the front for ‘wide-angled’ selfies, on the back for ‘wide-angled’ landscapes, zoom photos and ‘normal’ shots, stereo speakers, 4G/5G, an electronic pencil for taking notes on its high definition screen etc.😎
This is the Samsung Note 10 though the Note 20 will be out in August!🤣
Get yourself down to your local mobile phone shop mate and splurge several hundred pounds or even a thousand pounds on one and make the already obscenely wealthy Samsung even richer, strengthen South Korea’s very technologically advanced and booming economy to a greater extent than it already is 😎👌😁😀whilst worsening our disturbing balance of payments deficit further!😞☹️
You can’t be without a decent smartphone nowdays, mate!😎😂😂😂😎😎😎👌👌👌
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If you still have it it might not work today such has been the advancement in technology since then. That reminds me that my present mobile phone is getting seriously out of date even if it was bought just four years ago! 😀I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus which was the latest and greatest but now most definitely is not.
I have to make do with a miserly single non wide angle camera on the front and back 😂😂😂 and now even many cheaper non ‘flagship’ models have several cameras on the front and back let alone the stereo speakers, ultra fast chargers, huge amounts of internal memory which can be up to 1 TB in some flagships etc!😎😂👌
Make Samsung and South Korea even richer again!
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M’Lord of Essex:
I no longer have it.
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The Tories have long had a total obsession with transport FOR ONLY ONE MODE ie the private motor car. Even the more left wing John Major who you would have thought would have been more sympathetic to other forms of transport like trains, buses than Mrs Thatcher was carried on with her transport policies of building ever more motorways, dual carriageways, by passes ie the infamous M3 extension in Hampshire, the Newbury By Pass etc.
Allowing in 3 MILLION plus HK Chinese gives them the perfect excuse to go on a new, massive, road building spree. Where is eco warrior of the 1990’s,Swampy, when you need him, eh?
This country could do with a sensible ‘conservative green’ party like Germany has. Their main Green Party is like ours ie PC, globalist and massively supportive of huge immigration but they also have a much more sensible ‘Right-wing’ conservative green party as well called the Ecological Democratic Party.
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This Hong Kong Chinese immigration issue is the perfect illustration of the failures of First Past The Post voting.
Can anyone really blame the Tories for blatantly ignoring and treating our feelings on this with the utmost contempt when they know that we have an electoral system that in December THREW AWAY INTO THE NEAREST DUSTBIN a massive total of 45% of ALL THE VOTES CAST in that ‘election’ in the sense that ALL those votes had ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT WHATEVER at electing MPS?🙄🙄🙄
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The Tories are arrogant bastards at the best of times but this wholly undeserved 80 seat overall majority they ‘gained’ in December using their intensely childish slogan of ‘getting Brexit done’ has gone straight to their heads.
A pathetic and very marginal 1% vote share increase over Teresa May’s total got them loads of extra seats and a ‘landslide’ majority.
Developing arrogance in government is often a natural by product of ‘landslide’ majorities gifted by the workings of an archaic electoral system. Labour governments with those kind of majorities have also displayed the symptoms as well but Tories seem to be particularly prone to it.
I did think that even with this huge majority the Tories would wait a decent period of time before showing huge arrogance levels but I didn’t factor in Boris Idiot and this Hong Kong Immigration issue is the inevitable result of that arrogance produced by the undeserved and essentially artificial majority produced by our crooked electoral system.
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In my view, a TRUE concern for the environment and its protection belongs much more naturally on the traditional, ‘nationalist’ Right of politics than it does on the globalist, liberal, open borders supporting Left.
I think our Green Party would be a lot more electorally successful if they dropped their globalist, open borders policies and had a hardline anti- immigration, anti mostly fake ‘asylum seekers’ stance.
Green CONSERVATISM is much more sensible.
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I can only agree, m’Lord of Essex. In fact, I have expressed similar views here and on Twitter in the past.
https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/social-nationalism-and-green-politics/
The Green Party will never get anywhere so long as it continues to support mass immigration (especially). After its early success in the 1980s’ Euro elections, the Greens in the UK have bumped along the bottom getting about 1% or 2% in elections, with the sole exception of Caroline Lucas in Brighton, a success brought about mainly by the 4-way vote split in whenever it was (2010, I think).
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Labour and most disgracefully the fake CONServative Party get elected still even though both parties are fanatical globalist parties and support wide open borders but then they have legions of senile idiots that vote for them out of pure habit like the moronic geriatric old Tory voters who still think Winston Churchill or the half-decent Neville Chamberlain is the leader of their party instead of the unkempt monkey from London Zoo who is the present leader or the equally idiotic and senile old Labour voters who believe Clement Attlee is still with us.
Having a crooked and fundamentally undemocratic electoral system to prop them up also massively helps of course!🙄🙄🙄😡😡😡🤬🤬
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I agree. Many people in this country ARE concerned about the environment/quality of life issues and this ISN’T confined to the ranks of the ‘Left’.
How a party which is supposed to have as its main issue the environment and its protection can square that with having a very open door stance towards mass immigration and the resultant huge increase in Britain’s population which is going to inevitably degrade the environment is beyond me.
Yes, Caroline Lucas got elected mainly because of the very split vote share in that seat. I believe she only received about 31% of the vote in that election which was one of the lowest winning shares and only bettered by a few results including that of a Lib Dem in Norwich South with just 29% of the vote.
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It is lucky for the Greens that the Alternative Vote (AV) voting system they campaigned for in that farcical, waste of time, bad tempered, the real issue with the archaic, profoundly undemocratic crap of First Past The Post ignoring, referendum of 2011 didn’t win as if it had done so then the ‘bar’ to winning any constituency seat in the United Kingdom would have been raised to 50% of the vote plus one in every seat in the country and there is a considerable doubt as to whether the pretty able politician of Caroline Lucas would have been able to achieve that even in a seat like Brighton Pavilion. She would most likely have lost her seat in 2015.
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She got re-elected in the next general election in 2015 but that just illustrates how crap First Past The Post is in that her party the Greens got only a tiny percentage of the votes across the country as a whole whilst UKIP who got a pretty decent score of 12% of the vote STILL only got ONE MP (the SAME NUMBER as Caroline’s party) elected in Clacton Upon Sea.
First Past The Post is an electoral system which only rewards ‘lumpy’ support in individual seats rather than good votes for a party geographically evenly spaced out in the country as a whole.
There is a truely desperate basic INEQUALITY in the value of people’s votes here!😡🤬🙄🙄🙄🙄
UKIP in 2015 got ONE MP for 12% of the national vote whilst Germany’s excellent Alternative For Germany party got 94 MPs for around the same percentage of the national Germany-wide vote in their general election of 2017 under the good system of Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP).
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You have to hand it to the undemocratic Tories that they played a blinder with that nonsensical referendum as they deliberately restricted our ‘choice’ to either endorsing the archaic First Past The Post or the Alternative Vote (AV) system which IS NOT A SYSTEM OF PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION and NEVER HAS BEEN OR WILL EVER BE thereby ignoring the problem that most people have with First Past The Post elections ie the distinct lack of a close relationship between votes cast and seats gained in parliament.
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Yes, Caroline Lucas received just 31.3% of the vote to win the constituency of Brighton Pavilion in the election of 2010:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Pavillon_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat, Simon Wright, got an even lower winning share of 29.4% in the seat of Norwich South in that election:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich_South_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Those very low winning shares of the vote starkly illustrate what can happen under the archaic First Past The Post electoral system when a third party like the Liberal Democrats get a good share of the NATIONAL vote share as they did in 2010 ie 23%.
What happens is that the third party effectively has a large proportion of its national vote totally ‘wasted’ in individual seats by racking-up good shares of the vote but not winning them or having to win them on very low shares in the individual seats which only happens in very divided seats like Brighton Pavilion or Norwich South were in 2010.
Many votes are totally ‘wasted’ in that the votes don’t contribute to electing MPs in any way because each seat only elects ONE MP.
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Having an electoral system based PURELY on single-member constituencies ie one MP per seat is very unwise if you want your politics to not just have a geographical link to communities ie the fabled ‘constituency link’ but also have a grounding in PARTY politics which is effectively what modern politics is about unless you live in a multimillionaires’ tax haven like Jersey or Guernsey where they elect only individuals and not parties.
Single member constituencies are a perfect recipe for wasting HUGE numbers of votes ie in the sense these votes have ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT WHATEVER in electing representatives ie Members of Parliament.
The most serious charge against First Past The Post is this massive, INBUILT, ‘vote wasting’ effect.
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This INBUILT effect of the system is only really lessened by having JUST TWO CANDIDATES standing in each individual seat just like in many constituencies during the ‘good old days’ of the 1950’s, eh, Tories and Labour!🙄🙄🙄🙄 OR by the candidates of national third, fourth, fifth parties only scoring very low shares of the vote in the individual seats.
First Past The Post is really a HUGE vote wasting machine and should only ever be used as a part of a mixed, hybrid, overall PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION system like in Germany or like how it is used in Japan’s admittedly rather strange Parallel system:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_voting
Such is its HUGE vote wasting effect in this way A GRAND TOTAL of 45% OF ALL VOTES CAST in December’s general election were basically dumped into the nearest waste paper basket and had NO EFECT WHATEVER on the result.
Personally, I think an electoral system that acts in this way has some pretty serious charges against it and it needs to be looked at to see if it is still appropriate for us!🙄
It is even not much good at a local council level though perhaps a bit more acceptable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
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https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk
Perhaps that organisation should change its name to Make MANY MORE VOTES Matter (MMMVM) as that gets to the heart of the main problem with the archaic First Past The Post system.
and the fact SOME people’s votes ie in the ‘marginal’ seats DO indeed matter and MATTER TOO MUCH compared to the poor, old sods who live in ultra-safe seats like mine in Brentwood and Ongar!
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https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk
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Mixed Member Proportional Representation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation
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First Past The Post is amongst the most flawed electoral systems of all with the only exception being, possibly, the NON- PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION Alternative Vote (AV) system we had the referendum on in 2011.
Out of the various other systems, those I think have some merit to them are Germany’s Mixed-Member Proportional Representation, Ireland’s Single Transferable Vote (STV) though I am not keen on its use of a ranked ballot and Japan’s SEMI Proportional Representation system of Parallel Voting.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-proportional_representation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Representatives_(Japan)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Diet
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Churchill should never have got anywhere near No. 10 Downing Street. HIs accession to the Premiership in May 1940 was an unmitigated national disaster which we are still paying for now and he wasn’t even totally British but a half-Yank alien.🤬😡😞☹️ We should have had either a continuation of the wholly British and more level headed Neville Chamberlain in office, Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax (Edward Wood) or Sir Oswald Mosley as the next PM.
That Boris Idiot is a big admirer of Churchill should have rung alarm bells before now both in his party who very sensibly mostly despised Churchill and in the wider public.
As you say though Churchill for all of his many faults was a titan compared to the pound shop version and at least Churchill had a decent hairdresser and looked presentable on the world stage!🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
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(@IanR. your ‘Interesting Sussex tale’ link above just gives me a wordpress login not a substantive article…)
The Greens are the Water Melon Party, green on the outside and red on the inside – they won’t touch the money question just like the rest of the players in the political Kabuki Theatre.
As for the man in the irony mask, I do recall Boris looking somewhat chastened since his alleged hospital stay. Perhaps they showed him the celebrated and unedited Zapruder film or something similar but more recent.
Keeping an eye on recent Youtube and old books uploads reveals some well-trodden paths of ‘alternative analysis’:
The Truth Behind The Mask
– I don’t particularly buy the Masonic/other group initiation thesis though an argument based on de-oxygenation is better since among other things it reputedly can lead to induced panic sensations and disorientation which is just what HMG appears to want to prolong the chaos in the public space:
MX6 VS MASK | It Suffocates You Essentially
I haven’t had time but you can probably also trace more insights on mask wearing back to the Behavioural Insights Team which the Delmer Unit have been mentioning quite a lot in the recent ‘Troubles’.
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Wigger:
Try this link https://anthropopper.com/2020/07/14/a-vision-of-christ-in-firle/
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Thank you. That worked.
As for the apparation of Christ, even if it were real, why in terms so coy? Or was it consisent with his saying in the Sermon on the Mount “resist not evil” rather than actually doing something against it? All winks and nudges…
Douglas Reed in All Our Tomorrows (1942):
” Another newspaper, knowing that its readers like to see the sporting results and the state of the Stock Exchange, checked-up on the dividends yielded by two National Days of Prayer, one on May 26th, 1940, and the other on March 23rd, 1941. The first, it reported, had produced the miracle of Dunkirk; the second, the miracle of Yugoslavia.
For myself, I deeply dislike the conception of prayer as a form of insurance, carrying frequent material bonuses. It seems much too easy. If sloth and stupidity can always be saved from their fate at the last moment, by prayer, why should any man trouble to be other than slothful and stupid?”
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Wigger:
Yes, Douglas Reed. An unusual writer. I read Insanity Fair once. Once famous, now pretty much forgotten even in the UK. Anti-Hitler but also qite anti-Jew in thr 1930s. Inconsistent ideologically. Typicalperhaps of the times.
As to that vision in Sussex, I make no claims for it, but thought it interesting enough to reproduce. It may even have been “black propaganda”/”dark arts”, who knows?
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Onto another country I admire apart from Japan ie South Korea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea
A very technologically advanced country with high graduate rates IN REAL subjects NOT ‘Micky Mouse’ degrees as in Britain, fast broadband rates and VERY widespread adoption of it, innovation in science and technology so much so it is ranked amongst the most innovative countries in the world and a country with high rates of social mobility.👌👌👌😎😎😎
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M’Lord of Essex:
Korea (north/south) is an interesting laboratory specimen. As are other “divided” countries such as the formerly divided 1948-1989 Germany. While I, of course, accept that “race is the root, culture is the flower”, the ideology beneath that over-arching fact is still very significant. “Capitalism” may be flawed in many senses, but old-style “socialism” is even more flawed.
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I agree. There are quite a few different kinds of capitalism. South Korea and Japan practice a nationalistic form of capitalism whilst the ever stupid Tories here have adopted since the 1970’s onwards a very liberal, free market obsessed, globalist, libertarian form of it which has meant we wasted our oil money and have virtually nothing in the way of a BRITISH OWNED manufacturing base left.🙄🙄🙄😡😡🤬🤬🤬☹️☹️☹️😞😞
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South Korea was once a severely backward country and was one of the world’s poorest as recently as the 1960’s until a military dictatorship came to power then and started the foundations for its huge economic rise now known as the ‘Miracle On The Han River’.
Since then they have had decades of often double digit growth in their national GDP figures and their economy, like Japan’s earlier and still today, is based-upon export-led growth and the sending overseas of high-quality and technologically advanced manufactured goods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Korea
The pride of South Korea are their massive conglomerates such as the Samsung Group and LG:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Corporation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Electronics
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Indeed, m’Lord of Essex. One fact not much known is that, until about 1970, North Korea’s economy was in a better place than was that of South Korea.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Electronics
The country even has a decent police force that concentrates on apprehending
REAL criminals 👌👌👌😎😎😎😎😀😀😀instead of arresting non-PC thought crime political dissidents as in loony-left PC globalist ‘Tory’ Nowhere Land (formerly known as Great Britain).🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Police_Agency_(South_Korea)
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South Korea has had a weird electoral system for ages but since the latest reforms of last year it has become what is now probably the strangest in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_South_Korean_legislative_election
A mixture of the Mixed-Member Proportional Representation of Germany AND the Parallel System (sometimes called the Supplementary Member (SM) system):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_South_Korean_legislative_election
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South Korea has long had Japan’s rather strange Parallel Voting system but since the electoral reforms of last year they have now made it stranger still. Today, South Korea has what is now probably the most weird electoral system in the entire world with it being a mixture of Japan’s Parallel Voting system ( sometimes called the Supplementary Member (SM) system) AND the Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP) of Germany:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_South_Korean_legislative_election
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M’Lord of Essex,
Politically-oriented people such as you and me are interested in voting systems etc.The people are not. They just want politics to work for them in the overall sense.
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Yes, I know that but it is precisely because of our rubbish electoral system that we GET bad politics and politicians who HATE our country and its native people.
FPTP systematically excludes vast numbers of people’s votes from EVER affecting election results!
FPTP has meant in the past and continues to mean new political parties are effectively strangled at birth and don’t grow because the system prevents them from gaining seats where it matters IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS and therefore building a following from which they can start to grow and influence the country’s political direction.
FPTP is the such a bad electoral system we may as well go back to the divine rule of Kings and Queens and become an absolute Monarchy again under the direct rule of the House of Windsor.
If Germany used our decrepit system it is very unlikely their excellent national-conservative party of the Alternative For Germany (AfD) would have a SINGLE MP!
I say it is high time Britain became a REAL democracy at long last and LET THE PEOPLE IN to the so-called House of Commons and not systematically exclude us from it by this medieval electoral system!
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That referendum we had on the Alternative Vote (AV) NON-Proportional Representation system in 2011 was, of course, a very bad-tempered, expensive, waste of time that contemptuously dismissed the real reason that many people in this country have long wished to dump our stand-alone First Past The Post electoral system as it only offered us the ‘choice’ of either retaining FPTP or adopting the NON PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION Alternative Vote (AV) system which if we did have it would still have led to seats in the House of Commons being markedly out of line with votes in the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Voting_referendum
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David Cameron and company in that referendum offered us a system that was NON PROPORTIONAL and would STILL have led to seats being markedly out of line with the vote share of parties thereby ignoring totally what most people who want reform see as FPTP’s main fault and ensuring most people would take very little interest in the referendum and there would be very little risk of the referendum not producing a win for First Past The Post.
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That was very clever but the REAL GENIUS of Cameron and company was not just ‘offering’ us a fake ‘choice’ that ignored the real issue but the fact that his mates in the Tory press called the AV system by THAT name rather than its other names of Preference Voting (PV) or Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) which illustrate by THEIR VERY NAMES the REAL nature of that system and the fact it IS NOT A FORM of PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION but PREFERENTIAL voting.
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David Cameron and company offered us a ‘choice’ between either retaining First Past The Post with its markedly disproportional results and a system (AV) that would STILL have produced election results that would have ensured that seats in the House of Commons would have remained very much out of line with the vote share of parties in the country.
In effect, it was a con and a ‘choice’ which ignored the real reason why many want to dump First Past The Post.
Thus, he ensured most people would take little interest in the referendum and that his favoured system of First Past The Post would have very little chance of losing.
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David Cameron’s evil GENIUS with that referendum was not just to restrict our ‘choice’ to two systems which are NOT PROPORTIONAL but to get his Tory mates in the Tory media to label that Alternative Vote (AV) system as AV instead of calling it by its other names ie PREFERENTIAL VOTING (PV) or INSTANT RUN OFF VOTING (IRV) which starkly illustrate the REALITY of what the system IS and how general election results would be affected by it.
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Here the Alternative Voting (AV) voting system is described by a much more descriptive name of the several it is called by and one that the Tory press and Cameron very cleverly avoided using:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
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Hello Ian: Just a question: How much is the license fee charged by the BBC? (Britain’s Bolshevik Corporation)
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Claudius:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom
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Thus, even now we have many people writing tweets to both the Make Votes Matter Twitter account and Electoral Reform Society twitter accounts saying stop moaning about FPTP because the country voted against Proportional Representation (PR) voting in that AV referendum back in 2011!
These people are unaware of the FACT that NO British government in history let alone David Cameron’s Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition one has EVER allowed the British people to choose a system of PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (PR)!😡🤬😞☹️
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This is the process we should have followed in 2011 if the undemocratic mobsters of the Conservative Party had allowed us to!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform_in_New_Zealand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_on_the_Electoral_System
https://en.wikipedia.org/Electoral_system_of_New_Zealand
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There, Tories, our cousins down in New Zealand had a mature, sensible, calm debate about various electoral systems and had some REAL CHOICES on offer in their referendum so WHY were you so afraid to offer the British people a similar choice?
Please don’t tell me you regard even Kiwis many of whom are still of British descent and even still have ‘our Liz’ of Buck House, London, as their Head of State as strange ‘Jonny Foreigners’ with weird ways that are not suitable for the people of New Zealand’s ‘Motherland’?🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
If Proportional Representation is good enough for New Zealand it is surely good enough for Britain!
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Most people in Britain think we abolished the death penalty in 1965. Not so! What actually happened was that the Labour government of Harold Wilson allowed time in parliament for Jewish Labour backbencher, Sidney Silverman, to present his Private Member’s Bill to parliament to SUSPEND it for five years as a trial period to monitor the effect of abolishing capital punishment.
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M’Lord of Essex,
If I am not mistaken, there was an earlier period of experimental suspension of the death penalty in the UK or maybe just in England; 1950s or early 1960s, for months or maybe a year.
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I don’t think that was the case even within the common jurisdiction for law of England and Wales (Scotland, of course has always had a separate law system).
However, it was the TORIES who made the first moves to abolish the death penalty with their passing of the Homicide Act of 1957 which introduced the concept of degrees of murder and made some murders capital ones for which you could still be hanged such as the murder of a police officer during the execution of his/her duties and others non capital crimes where you no longer received a death sentence. Previously, if you were convicted by a court of the crime of wilful murder the judge put on his black cap and the law MANDATED him or her to sentence you to be hung by the neck until you were dead.
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M’Lord of Essex:
you may be right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_Kingdom#Reform
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I believe I am correct in stating that the abolishment of capital punishment got through the House of Commons in a very Labour Party dominated House in 1948 perhaps as an amendment to the Labour government’s Criminal Justice Act of that year but the House of Lords with its large inbuilt Tory majority prevented it from coming into effect.
I don’t think there was a formal moratorium though some Home Secretaries were more inclined to grant reprieves to the condemned.
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Many people both inside and outside of parliament and not just traditional Tories thought his idea of suspending the use of hanging even for a trial period of a few years to monitor its effects was a dangerous experiment too far and was extremely unwise but MPs decided to give the trial period up to 1969 a go and then capital punishment was formally abolished for murder in 1969 and has remained abolished ever since.
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My purpose in relating this to readers of this blog? Well, I say why do we not give a Proportional Representation voting system a trial period of fifteen to twenty odd years or so to see whether we can make PR work for Britain.
If the Germans can make it work for their country then there is no reason why it can’t do so for us as well. Are we any less capable or intelligent than they are? I don’t think we are when push comes to shove and if we never even give PR a trial we will never know.
If it doesn’t work out we can easily revert to using FPTP or use another majoritarian and non-PR system.
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Why do I relate this tale to the blog’s readers? Well, I say why do we not give a Proportional Representation voting system a trial period of fifteen to twenty years or so to see whether we can make it work for Britain?
If the Germans can make a PR voting system perform well and work for their country then there is no reason why it can’t do that for us!
Are they more innately intelligent or capable than we are? When push comes to shove I don’t think they are.
If we can’t get PR to work for us then at the end of the trial period we can easily revert to using First Past The Post again or use some other non-PR voting system.
But if we don’t trial it we will never find out if it would have worked for us, will we?
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