“You carry in your blood the holy inheritance of your fathers and forefathers. You do not know those who have vanished in endless ranks into the darkness of the past. But they all live in you and walk in your blood upon the earth that consumed them in battle and toil and in which their bodies have long decayed.
Your blood is therefore something holy. In it your parents gave you not only a body, but your nature. To deny your blood is to deny yourself. No one canchange it. But each decides to grow the good that one has inherited and suppress the bad. Each is also given will and courage.
You do not have only the right, but also the duty to pass your blood on to your children, for you are a member of the chain of generations that reaches from the past into eternity, and this link of the chain that you represent must do its part so that the chain is never broken.
But if your blood has traits that will make your children unhappy and burdens to the state, then you have the heroic duty to be the last. The blood is the carrier of life. You carry in it the secret of creation itself. Your blood is holy, for in it God’s will lives.”
[SS Verlag: material for instruction of the Hitlerjugend]
True, the slogan was vulgar, but not such as to constitute an offence such as “insulting behaviour”, particularly as it was presumably not meant to cause distress etc to Boris Johnson (who was in any case not present!). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_harassment,_alarm_or_distress
When I had a Twitter account, Eric Joyce, then still an MP, was rather rude to me once or twice. On another occasion, his wife or fiancee (I think the latter), the newspaper scribbler and novelist India Knight, was also rather rude to me, in her case in a very condescending way. My tweet was about MPs who cheat and freeload on the expenses system. At the time, I had no idea that Joyce was one of the worst of such embezzlers, nor that India Knight was living with him (or vice versa).
Well, I suppose one should not kick people when they are down. What I wonder is what drove someone who was once an officer, and later an MP, to do such a nasty and stupid thing (I mean his latest offence).
I had thought that Joyce had been an officer in the Black Watch. In fact, he was a private soldier at first, and his commission was in the Educational Corps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Joyce. He was asked to resign his commission in 1999, having engaged in public politics contrary to Queen’s Regulations. He became an MP in 2000, having been employed in the interim period at the Commission for Racial Equality. Black mark…
That is just abuse @deb_cohen, which has nothing to do with the point under discussion. You’re supposed to be a professional specialist, but you badly misread my tweet, then, when your error was pointed out, chose not to admit it but switched to personal rudeness. Not very good. https://t.co/hkbDhr1AWP
I am just sick of the bloody BBC: entitled, biased, a government mouthpiece, with terrible standards in recent years, an ideology of treachery etc. The BBC management even had to ask staff not to wear their “Black Lives Matter” badges (!) on air! They’re all just a bunch of traitors. Many are (((you know who))), too…
Twitter just suspended 50+ accounts for violating TOS around white nationalism & hate speech.
Among those who were suspended was Martin Sellner, the leader of Austria's Identitarian Movement, as well as members of Generation Identity.https://t.co/amJctzpkXe
The purge on dissent, and on free speech, continues. Once all peaceful means of socio-political expression are cut off, what, I wonder, will the people of Europe then do? Those who clap the campaign of repression may find themselves in a bad place, somewhere down the line…
@jamesd03433770.No, they are not. Despite an admitted blunder over care homes, similar to that in the UK, Sweden’s deaths per million are below the levels of several countries, including the U.K., which had severe shutdowns. Easy to check. https://t.co/s1N8K1j7zI
Leading @KingsCollegeLon academic makes the case for regulation of social media citing landmark conviction of Alison Chabloz brought about by CAAhttps://t.co/rDV9JGC19V
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) June 23, 2020
[above: David Icke, not the so-called “leading academic”]
The “CAA” describes Allington’s piece in the Sun “newspaper” as an “op-ed“, meaning a piece of opinion commissioned by the newspaper (sometimes unpaid). The term was first in use, I believe, in the Jew-infested New York Times (“all the news that fits”…), and the New York Times “op-ed” page was once described by Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan as the “Amen Corner” of the newspaper, because the scribblers were all Jew-Zionist neo-cons pushing the Israel First interventionist foreign policy line.
This is yet another attempt by what one might call “ZOG” and/or the Jewish lobby to destroy free speech, both online and offline. (((They))) have been pushing this for 60 years now, at first (of course) re. print media, now re. Internet publishing too.
As for the Sun “newspaper”, Rupert Murdoch has always been even more pro-Israel than most Jews (he himself is said to be part-Jew), and the Sun “newspaper” is and always has been slavishly pro-Israel and pro-Jewish lobby.
It is beyond ironic that Allington got his nonsense printed only in the Sun, long notorious for its invented “news reports” and other trash. There again, perhaps Allington simply does not quite “get” irony…
Some tweets seen
I would not normally repost anything from the unpleasant “Hope Not Hate” Jewish lobby group, but this is worth brief perusal:
I could have written 10,000 words on every section of Freddy Vachha's CV, but had to limit myself to a blog format. Truly incredible stuff.https://t.co/xeKUkvBmKF
So UKIP goes from bad to worse. The quite large quasi-System party “controlled opposition” of years ago has slid inexorably into Monster Raving Loony territory. There was an “interim leader”, some lady called Pat Mountain, and who was (as UKIP leaders since Farage have all been) as thick as two short planks; now this. An Indian with a faked-up CV, who is “libertarian”, and who wants to work against “Nazi” ideas and against “holocaust” “denial” (historical re-examination and revision). Just mad.
UKIP was always a bit of a joke, and was never social-national, but this surely takes the biscuit! I don’t know why the “Hope Not Hate” snoopers are making fun of this Vachha person, though. He sounds not so far from them in some ways, ideologically. Maybe he will join them.
A Joseph Rowntree report. Possibly worth reading:
The Conservatives are no longer the party of the rich while Labour is no longer the party of the poor. Both parties have inverted their traditional base of support. Our new JRF report on low-income voters is out todayhttps://t.co/XwOyspU5ez
We often underestimate what even one human being can achieve over time. It has been said that many people overestimate what they can achieve in a year, yet underestimate what they can achieve in 10 years. Look at Adolf Hitler. In his first year as political leader, he achieved comparatively little. Even nine years later, in 1928, his party received only 2.6% of the national vote. However, by 1932, that had increased to 33%; the following year, the vote was 44% and he was able to take on full powers of rulership.
[makes you think…]
Tom Watson
Well, as I predicted last year would happen, the Jewish lobby has found a well-paid sinecure for former Labour Party deputy leader, Tom Watson, who was notoriously in the pocket of the Jewish lobby, as well as being a relentless expenses cheat (until the system was slightly reformed, he was even blagging £500 a month on expenses —without fail— for foodalone!)
Now I read that Watson has been appointed Chair of UK Music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Music. Another “Labour” ex-MP entirely controlled by the Jewish lobby, Michael Dugher, was CEO until recently. Dugher is now the head of another body, to wit, Chief Executive of the Betting and Gaming Council (((BGC))).
In fact, I just discovered that, several years ago, around 2013, Tom Watson was “personally involved” with the (20 years younger) Stephanie Peacock, who was at the time trying to become a Labour Party MP. I do not know whether the affair continued, or continues. She failed in her first attempt to get into the MP racket, in 2015, but succeeded in her second, at the 2017 General Election, having been selected (by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, i.e. not by the local party) only a week before the election, for the —then— safe seat of Barnsley East. Oh, and guess who was, back in 2013, Chairman of the Labour Party NEC? That’s right…Tom Watson.
Now, Stephanie Peacock retweets posts by the Jewish lobby “Hope Not Hate” crowd. Once you start digging through the compost, you see that it is all (((connected))).
More tweets seen
#NewNormal is utterly monstrous! Having artificially suppressed a respiratory virus, flare ups & autumn 2nd wave are inevitable, so this freedom-stealing, culture-wrecking madness won't end. Unless people find a bit of courage & force the elite to end it.https://t.co/8uGLn9D63p
[above: Daily Mail graphic. Note the mixed-race backpacking couple; the propaganda for what amounts to White Genocide never stops now, because time is running short for the NWO/ZOG conspiracy]
1/2 On the contrary, the dreary misery of shops, bars, restaurants, hairdressers etc in which everyone is festooned with plague masks, visors, aprons , gloves etc, and the ludicrous pretence that going to the pub is dangerous, is a fierce brake on any recovery @tom35618323tom https://t.co/tWO0bxzDFR
The first picture above is certainly accurate or at least plausible; I myself saw scenes like that (usually minus the lady) in Rhodesia, when I was there in 1977.
2 @tom35618323tom . How many times do I have to ask for (and not get from you) any evidence that muzzle-wearing in Japan is responsible for the different outcome there, given that proper research, such as https://t.co/OGiCb4109q says it isn't? Respond, or go away. https://t.co/B19g0FTVLL
The Japanese, while quite impressive in some ways, indulge in habits which may or may not be harmless but which we (as a “nation”) do not do: buying used schoolgirls’ panties from vending machines, overnighting in coffin-like transparent capsules, washing before getting into a bath etc. I put the wearing of facemasks into that sort of category.
Good luck. Today, in experiment wore my heavy-duty Warsaw Pact gasmask while riding Boris Bike from Paddington to Kensington. Got a small number of funny looks, but nothing *like* as many as I deserved. The New Abnormal. https://t.co/lY3veYxSkv
I noticed that long ago. Thus it is that the Twitter mob mostly favour “lockdown” as well as Remain; also, internet “regulation” (aka “censorship”), harsh laws against any expression of freedom re. the migration-invasion, “holocaust” “denial”, and so on.
You be a submissive mouthless serf if you want, @bamayorgo. I was brought up not to be. If I wear a muzzle, it won't save London from anything. Govt says so: ' 'The evidence of the benefit of using a face covering to protect others is weak & the effect is likely to be small'. https://t.co/KHFL17M8la
The young hero who organized the recent “White Lives Matter” aerial banner has been sacked from his job at a factory. “Long live freedom”. Not in the UK!
There is little or no real freedom left in this country. The young man’s girlfriend has also been sacked. Guilt by association? True, we are not yet shot or chucked into labour camps in the Stalinist way, but the slope is there and getting slippery.
“Things are looking bleak”, they say, for that little pissant, Robert Jenrick, who has a Jewish lawyer wife and who is a complete doormat for the Jewish/Israel lobby.
Here's my piece from last week saying Jenrick's position untenable (and much else besides). Only Covid has prevented Westferry from boiling over so far – however, national media (and trade press) clearly scent blood. Looking bleak for Jenrick.https://t.co/ForiPCsmQE
Oh, and here is part-Jew “prime minister” Boris-idiot with the same Jew businessman, who seems to be sporting an Eton tie (lefthand photo below), though he did not attend Eton (he went to a local authority school in North London: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ%27s_College,_Finchley#Notable_former_pupils). Boris Johnson (who did attend Eton) is not wearing an Eton or OE tie).
The tories refused to allow the BBC to use these photos yesterday. Nothing says ‘innocent’ like threatening public service broadcasters with legal action. https://t.co/brNEz2S5mk
Now why would Keir Starmer, new leader of the “Labour” Party, be so unwilling to attack the behaviour of pissant Robert Jenrick of the “Conservative” Party? Could it because both are in the pocket of the Jewish-Zionist-Israel lobby, both have Jewish wives (both of which are lawyers, too!), and both have half-Jewish children that both are bringing up as Jewish? Answers on a postcard…
Oh, and the Conservative Party donor and businessman (property vulture, publisher of porn etc) involved, and who gained £40 million by Jenrick’s corruption, is a Jew. What a shock. Not.
Reading, Brum. If you're living in one of these Ground Zero killing zones, get the hell out. Especially in the USA, bit Britain's heading the same way. They hate you. You know it. They know you know it. This won't end well.#YourKidsLivesMatterhttps://t.co/OoO6Xjw1pV
"The old lion was tired and just wanted to be left alone. But the two silly, cruel boys and the spoilt, spiteful little girl kept shouting insults and poking him with their sticks. Finally, one day, the lion….." You know how that story ends. The only question is when…. pic.twitter.com/EalxBhyIVK
A cop with some self-respect and sense of right and wrong. And who has just given up the chance of promotion by refusing to kow-tow to the Mob and its behind-the-scenes elite masters. pic.twitter.com/8UbD6JcnDi
The ones who are kneeling are craven traitors and/or careerists.
I would say that the evil Indian woman noted by Nick Griffin, below, an academic at Churchill College of Cambridge University, is another “traitor”, were she British, but of course she is not. She is an enemy of the British people, living here and spewing poison against us.
This clever clever academic has all sorts of explanations for why this isn't hate speech. She must know less intellectually brilliant BLM thugs simply take such things at face value. They see an academic condemning white lives out of hand. And will act accordingly. #incitementhttps://t.co/lBm9cVkzZj
Obviously, in a better world, a U.S. President unaware that his major NATO ally (the UK) is a nuclear power, or that Finland is an independent state, could not exist. Sadly, in a world where the least-equipped to be heads of government often are in such positions, this latest raft of Trump revelation is scarcely news.
We often assume, that is to say that many people often assume, that the wealthiest, or most powerful, or famous, individuals are in that position because they somehow merit it, or are more intelligent, skilled, educated than the average Joe. Often not so.
Back in the mid-1980s, I used to have a beer now and then with two brothers at the now-defunct Cafe Munchen (a London pub/cafe at St. Giles’ Circus, with marble tables and floors, and Bavarian beers on tap). One brother worked at Citibank. I asked him what Walter Wriston (then a major world financial figure and with whom that brother had worked) was like. He replied “just an ordinary boring American businessman”. [not a very nice person: “…in 1966, he married lawyer and businesswoman Kathryn Dineen. Together Walter and Kathryn attempted to exploit the financial circumstances of their neighbors in attempts to acquire properties for below market value.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Wriston].
The British Royal Family prove the above contention in trumps (no pun intended). Charles is supposed to be the intellectual of the family, because he can and does read a few books, and takes an interest in a few things that do not involve shooting, fishing, riding, racing (of various kinds) or hunting foxes.
One would have to be kinder than I probably am to describe the royal princes and princelings as anything other than uncultured idiots: Edward, Andrew, Anne, William, Harry. And that’s before I even start on the “Royal Mulatta”!
So now we have Trump, but before we British laugh too loud at him, we should look a little closer home, at the Boris-idiot government. “Boris” may be marginally more glossy than Trump, thanks to Eton and Oxford, but he is just as much of a bad joke as a head of government; and that is before one even looks at the rest of the Cabinet.
The economic tsunami gathering
Seems that Boris-idiot and the Cabinet of fools are starting to understand what a storm is coming, a storm their policies have caused, at least in large measure. They do not, however, have any clue what to do about that storm; they have no idea how to deal with the problem. “Boris” now talks about “tough times ahead” but is trying to make it appear that events, i.e. Coronavirus, have caused the tough times, rather than his own misgovernment, notably the unnecessary shutdown of the economy.
First thick tweet of the day comes from someone calling herself “Gina Antifa”/Saffiya Khan :
Hitchens was looking for attention and got it. The protesters were perfectly peaceful.
Isn’t this our hard fought for and much prized ‘freedom of speech’ at its best, in action ? https://t.co/JIJIxHvh4v
— Gina 😷 SARS2 is Airborne 💚 (@Saffiya_Khan1) June 18, 2020
Note first the “cultural appropriation”, as a person of unspecified origin (Pakistani? Mixed?) living in the UK talks about “our hard fought for and much prized freedom of speech“, the freedom of speech generations of British people fought for. Secondly, she cannot distinguish between “free speech” and a mob howling in a hostile manner at a lone person in the street. Also, how is it “peaceful” for a mob to follow one person down a street, howling imprecations against him? The aim is intimidation.
Second thick tweet of the day comes via faux-revolutionary scribbler and money-scrabbler (a part-Jew), Owen Jones:
An absolutely sensational victory for the #RhodesMustFall campaigners.
Cecil Rhodes was a white supremacist mass murderer who deserves his place in history books as a monster, not someone venerated as a public statue at a prestigious Oxford college. https://t.co/aCaDkWgdeO
Cecil Rhodes was a “mass murderer”, says Jones. In fact, Rhodes was not a “mass murderer”. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Rhodes. The hypocrisy is that Jones is himself favourably-disposed to several real mass murderers; not least, Lenin.
The irony is that the native peoples and animals of Africa would have been so much better off today had Rhodes achieved his goal of bringing that continent, or much of it, under British control “from Cairo to the Cape”. Of course, none of the “Black Lives Matter” idiots even think about any of that; for them, the “whites” simply “exploited” the “blacks” until the “blacks” were “liberated” after WW2. A cartoon view of 19th and 20th Century history.
Of course, the Rhodes statue is symbolic for the “protesters”. Their real target is not Rhodes but you and me as white British people.
Thinking about the above, though, it seems to me that not only the “antifa” idiots and the black mobs but also the “pro-statue” defenders have been sidetracked. The major battle is and will be over the society as a whole, not about the statues that adorn the squares and buildings. The artworks are ofsymbolic importance, though.
Vera Lynn
The death, at 103, of Vera Lynn, brings thoughts of WW2, of course, and of the sentimentality common to all sides in that terrible conflict. Vera Lynn herself was famous for several songs, but none more so than The White Cliffs of Dover, released in 1942:
The Germans also had such songs, of which the best known, I suppose, is Lili Marlene, which in fact predated the war (1939), but only became popular (with both English and German soldiers) in 1941 and 1942, after it had been translated into English and then initially broadcast by German radio station Soldatensender Belgrad, the former Radio Belgrade.
I was interested to see, reading about it today on Wikipedia, that Lili Marlene was translated into English by renegade British officer Norman Baillie-Stewart (ne Wright), who was put on trial after the war ended, and was lucky to avoid either being hanged by the British or shot by Soviet forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Marleen
Baillie-Stewart wrote an interesting memoir just before his death (in 1967, in Dublin), a copy of which I had in my (now-lost) library. Entitled The Officer in the Tower, the title refers to Baillie-Stewart’s pre-war trial on charges of espionage for Germany (he was convicted and served 5 years, being released in 1937). He was the last British subject to be a prisoner in the Tower on serious charges, other than those held there in transit (eg the Kray twins, when National Service abscondees in the 1950s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Baillie-Stewart
Cranes,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuravli , first performed in 1969 and here sung by the great and quite recently-deceased singer Khvovostovsky, was a latter-day nostalgia piece which is still popular today:
Facebook and Trump
I am scarcely pro-Trump, but things have become quite out of hand when a private-enterprise quasi-monopoly can simply censor the U.S. President! In fact, there must be some ways put into place to prevent such censorship happening to anyone, not just heads of state.
I have been blogging, tweeting (before the Jews had me expelled from there), and speaking (at the London Forum in 2017) about this issue, i.e. the privatization of public space, for several years.
The major spheres of society (1.economic, 2.political and rights, 3.spiritual inc. education, religion etc) have to work in concord, without (as in this case) the economic sphere controlling or attempting to control one or both of the others (in this case, attempting to exercise control over both the political area and that of rights (freedom of expression): see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_threefolding
Tweets seen
What happened in George Sq tonight was largely without precedent. There are refugee/asylum seeker solidarity demos in Glasgow all the time. They have never, until tonight, been opposed – let alone by hundreds of young men who were desperate for a fight.
Needless to say, the white demonstrators (formerly known as “Scottish”) in Glasgow have been “condemned” by stupid Sturgeon and by one Humza Yousaf (incredibly, he seems to be Justice Secretary of the devolved Scottish administration). In fact, I have just looked up, on Wikipedia, that one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humza_Yousaf
Offspring of immigrants, who was educated privately, in part, and who has never had a non-political job, or any profession. Good luck, Scotland, especially if you ever have (supposed) “Independence”, with government ministers of that sort. Couldn’t the SNP find a real Scotsman to be Justice Secretary? The SNP is little more than a fake; controlled opposition.
Oh, and here we have Sky News instigating more hatred of white English and Scottish people:
The slave trade was vital to the economy of the British Empire for decades. So why do we know so little about it?
To find out about the history of Britain's slave trade, click below 👇
That’s right…give the blacks more “reason” to blame white English people for why most blacks don’t have country estates, swimming pools, stables and wealth, not to mention white women and fast cars.
It seems to me very irresponsible for Sky News to fan the flames in that way; there again, this is no accident…it is part of the propaganda around the Great Replacement, aka White Genocide.
By the way, have my readers noticed that there is now a TV advertizing campaign for police recruitment? Guess what kind of people the police want to hire? That’s right…there are more black than white faces in that ad. The Great Replacement in action…
So while the liberals & professional ethnics keep blaming 'racism' for high BAME deaths, the simple darker skin vitamin e shortage keeps killing them. They call ME 'racist' while their egalitarian dogma kills black & Asian health workers.https://t.co/h2IWRVXdIA
#EnglandRugby fans face persecution for singing Swing Low. Celtic fans sing Grace & other Irish Republican songs (really well) and that's fine for them. But the English & loyalists get censored. Which isn't fine at all.https://t.co/KHVj7OJdpL
Surprise, surprise! Governments are creating universal surveillance regimes to 'fight' virus that overwhelmingly only kills those who can't & don't travel.
I was going to talk about the mob rule which is being nourished and encouraged in the UK, but I have already said a lot about that (yesterday and also the day before), so I am going to talk about something else.
Several years ago, there was a plague of flying ants where I lived. They were the kind of fairly large insects that seem to emerge from cracks in walls etc, crawl for a while, then later take to the air. They bite (or sting) too, sometimes. They bit or stung our cats, I seem to remember.
There were, at first, thousands of them. An army of insects.
I hate killing things, for ethical or spiritual reasons, and also because I am not by nature violent, callous, cruel or bloodthirsty.
Had there been some way of capturing, and later releasing, the insects, I should have taken that path. As it was, there was no alternative. They had to go. They had to be eliminated. They were. It was not pleasant, but it had to be done. It was done. My modest residence was saved from being taken over by the creatures.
Well, there it is. An anecdote, perhaps not very interesting, but one which I wanted to relate, because those events happened at this time of year.
I suppose that those events were in my mind because of that, meaning because they happened at the same time of year, in early Summer…
More censorship…
“ Little Britain has been removed from Netflix, BBC iPlayer and BritBox amid concerns that the use of blackface characters on the series is no longer acceptable.” [Daily Mail]
I am not very familiar with Little Britain, mainly because I was living mostly in France when it was popular on TV (also because I am not a big watcher of comedy), but there is nothing wrong with so-called “blackface” anyway!
Where will this self-flagellating nonsense end?
Something like The Black and White Minstrel Show is now regarded as bad or even evil! In fact, it is just lighthearted entertainment. It might not be my own favourite kind of TV show, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with it!
This is not an isolated act. It is part of a global plot by sinister forces:
“I’m going to bring down the U.S.A. by funding B.L.M. We’ll put them into a mental trap & make them blame the white people. The B.L.M. community is the easiest to manipulate.” – George Soros, September 2014.
Now add to that “and subvert the cultural and historical foundations of their society...” (and, in the UK, the police force!)
Coronavirus
At last, some reality from a Government spokesperson: “a child has as much chance of dying from Coronavirus as of being struck by lightning.” Quite. Until now, there has been the lie officially spread that “everyone can get it”, which, though true in itself, is disingenuous, inasmuch as a child certainly might get infected but if so will almost certainly be entirely unaware of it, completely asymptomatic, whereas a 90-year-old has at least some chance of requiring hospital treatment and possibly even dying, especially if he or she has “co-morbidities” (other health problems).
Bristolian and other statues
In fact, I do have one thing to add.
Happened to see a brief minute or two of some dim black woman, apparently the founder of “Black Lives Matter” in the UK, being interviewed by Kay Burley on Sky News this morning. It was asked as to whether she thought that it would be OK to leave controversial statues but put an explanatory plaque nearby. The black woman answered that it might be better to remove the statues but still have a plaque. So have a plaque explaining a statue which is not even there…
When you see many black people interviewed, or just talking, you realize why black-ruled countries are always in a state of complete chaos. They just cannot organize their thoughts properly, in almost all cases.
So the censorship gathers pace. Superficially, the discontent of some blacks may seem to be at the root of it, but in reality the Jewish element, or part of it, is behind this.
If you still think the government or its cowardly bully cops are on our side in the ongoing anti-British revolution, take a look at this last night:
House of Commons minute's silence for George Floyd.
'Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost'. The New Statesman (!) finally says about universities ( and exam inflation in general) what I have been saying for decades, and have been denounced as a reactionary brute for saying: https://t.co/pmlGQwoFF6
“This summer, a department at the University of Sheffield sent an email to students. A group of them had complained about their marks for an end-of-year essay. While a few had received Firsts, these students were given 2:2s and Thirds. “Thank you for raising the issue,” began the email, “and thank you also for your patience.” After reflection, the head of department and the director of “learning and teaching” had decided that, “our normal procedures… failed us. For this we apologise unreservedly”. The department had decided to “uplift all the marks… less at the top and more at the bottom”. The poorly performing students had their marks raised by nearly 40 per cent. The few who had done well saw their marks barely change. “Again, our apologies,” the message concluded, “but we hope that this is a satisfactory resolution.”
What happened at Sheffield is one part of a national story: the great university con…” [The New Statesman]
Well worth reading. This has been a developing scandal for over 20 years, if not 30 years. Huge numbers going to “uni” (often to the Uni of Nowhere), racking up student debt which will, in most cases, never be repaid, wasting national economic resources, the proud graduates then often being unable to find jobs beyond the most basic.
“The proportion of students getting “good honours” – a First or 2:1 – has leapt from 47 to 79 per cent: at 13 universities, more than 90 per cent of students were given at least a 2:1 last year. And Oxbridge is leading the charge: 96 to 99 per cent of its English, history and languages students get “good honours”.“[The New Statesman]
Those are inflated grades fromalready-inflated grades. As recently as the 1980s, it was the norm for most students to get a 2:2. Tony Blair did…
Among the most culpable? Tony and indeed Cherie Blair, who promoted all this by making it easy to get McDegrees.
“This supposed university miracle can only have happened in one of three ways. The first is that schools have, over the past 30 years, supplied universities with students of a far higher calibre than in the recent past. This would be a notable achievement, as the university students of the past were the select few –In the 1970s and 1980s between 8 and 19 per cent of young British adults went on to higher education, whereas 50 per cent now do. The second is that universities have taken historically indifferent students and turned them into unusually capable graduates. And the third is the reality: the university miracle is a mirage.” [The New Statesman]
And see here:
“As schools have become ever more rigid and exam-driven, the contagion has spread. As one Russell Group professor, wary of being named, puts it: “In schools now, students are being virtually spoon-fed, and that is feeding through.”
“Students are not taught to read, quickly and critically, and to communicate their ideas,” seconds Jones. “These most fundamental things are not being taught in schools. When we ask them to write, they are incredibly disorientated. And the students who are prepared are incredibly frustrated.” [The New Statesman]
and
““Ideas that students readily understood ten to 15 years ago, they struggle to understand today,” Peter Dorey, professor of British politics at the University of Cardiff, told the Commons inquiry in 2009. “Many of them are semi-literate.” Dorey described seminars in which students sat listlessly, waiting to be told how to “pass our exams”. “They will brazenly admit to having read nothing…” [The New Statesman]
You see that on Twitter, in the outpourings of the younger “journalists” even in mainstream newspapers, on TV too and in the legal profession as well: people unable to think, who just want to be told, for example, “This is Good, That is Bad, and Ian Millard is a ‘Neo-Nazi’ who (therefore…) is Very Bad.” And so on. I noticed it after I was disbarred for socio-political reasons in 2016: the tweets from ignorant little law student and pupil-barrister wannabees, all wanting to be seen to be condemning me. In fact, all that they have done is to condemn themselves.
“According to their study, one in five graduates in England could not handle literacy tasks more complicated than understanding the instructions on a packet of aspirin, while the numeracy level of 28 per cent was limited to estimating the fuel left on a petrol gauge.” [The New Statesman]
I doubt that this terrible situation will be sorted out any time soon. It suits too many people:
the students (“she is a straight-A student who got a First from Oxford”…not so impressive when you know that 50% of all the students get “Firsts” and 95%+ get either Firsts or Upper Seconds…) (and I deplore the “straight-A” Americanism, but that too is legion, now);
the parents;
the schools from which the students have come (“X% of our students go on to university”…);
the universities themselves (which can —and do— pretend that their results and standards are ever-improving);
the government (“our policies are working in education! 101% of students are now getting First-class degrees!”…etc).
Scandal, and the country is the poorer for it.
Aye @BenIrvineAuthor and where are most supposed 'conservatives' now it is clear that Johnson made a disastrous mistake? Still sipping Waitrose Chablis in their gardens, giggling. Yet the real character of the mistake, making possibe an actual revolution, grows clearer by the day https://t.co/G8gauT4YFY
The word ‘ Please’ has disappeared already from railway station notices urging the wearing of muzzles, though not legally required till Monday. pic.twitter.com/kDet7ew5G9
I see that Rory Stewart is trending on Twitter (not that that means much). I blogged about him over a year ago. I started off rather impressed, but (see all the updates) my view of Stewart became less and less approving the more I discovered about him. Read below about the journey on which I embarked:
Absolutely fantastic to see a double page spread in the Mail on Sunday on how garden centres/nurseries CAN safely reopen. Alan Titchmarsh once more showing great leadership in speaking up for our industry, along with Boyd Douglas Davies of the HTA, @choyp16#saveournurseriespic.twitter.com/IXdPtAHR9n
— 🇺🇦 Constance CraigSmith 🇮🇱 (@Concraigsmith) April 19, 2020
This is a fascinating interview with an epidemiologist defending the Swedish policy, and doing so quite persuasively. Only time will tell if he's right or wrong. https://t.co/9hvK1xdlMe
Troopers of the Royal Scots Greys (2nd Dragoons) regiment with swords drawn mount a charge during a training exercise over Long Valley #Aldershot as the last horse mounted cavalry regiment in the British Army on 18 October 1937 pic.twitter.com/B4keKpDtmT
— Aldershot Military History (@Aldershot_Past) April 18, 2020
1937, and the British Army thinks that it is 1837…
Fraser Nelson on the crisis: 'Of the 91,000 available beds in the NHS, 37,000 lay empty as of last weekend' . This is four times more empty beds than is normal for this time of year.https://t.co/TEgS2NsthM
That is my feeling. The toytown police state brought into being by the Coronavirus Act can be continued, extended, or resurrected almost at will, either by extending the “sunset” of the Act itself, or by passing a new Mickey Mouse “virus” Act…
A good point, that last. Personally, I believe that Boris-idiot is hiding out until the air has cleared and the virus wave effectively over, so that he can emerge as “wounded-in-action and conquering hero (clown) returns”. As I predicted long ago, Boris-idiot is useless in a crisis. As for the headless chicken now posing as a government, its “Cabinet ministers” are a mediocre stupid lot, unwilling to take responsibility or the obvious necessary step of ending the “lockdown” now.
WE all know that it is vital, if felled by a stroke or heart attack, to get help and act as quickly as possible. This shutdown is like a heart attack and a stroke combined, for the economy and our society. We cannot waste another second, if we want to avoid permanent deep damage.
I have been told that, eg “hairdressers and butchers are suffering”.
I’m sure, but people offering personal services in perpetual demand, such as barbers, will be the first to recover. People need their services, such businesses do not require much capital to restock with anything, and they get paid in cash or via immediate card payment.
Small shops such as butchers or whatever may be in deeper trouble, because they need to buy stock and (like most hairdressers etc) are still, during the “lockdown”, paying at least rent, if not also business rates, in most cases.
The obvious result of the present nonsense is that many closed-down shops will not reopen, or be open for long,while new entrants to the “High Street” retail landscape will be few. This really could spell the end of the High Street, or something very close to it.
I have seen tweets saying that some publicans are still paying rent of as much as £2,000 a week to landlords (usually breweries), despite being closed and thus having no or almost no income (a few are delivering food and drink to clients, in small quantities).
Fortunately, the inn where I often based myself when in the UK from France, the Royal Oak at Dunsford, near Dartmoor, is owned by its proprietors. I urge people to go there when this nonsense is over. It’s a great place, deserves support, and the village of Dunsford itself is (as I used to think of it when I was there) “a blessed plot”.
Returning to the less-happy facts of the overall UK economic situation, many people have been either made redundant, or “furloughed”. Even those on furlough may not be getting their full pay, nor even the 80% of it guaranteed by the Government. It is capped at £2,500 per month. Cold comfort for those (formerly) making more than average pay.
After furlough? How many will even have jobs to which they can return?
I imagine that, once we are into the Summer and Autumn, there will be a personal/family crisis for many. Rents, mortgages etc may become unsustainable. The buy to let parasite market may well crash. Not that I care about the landlords, but those who cannot pay rent will mostly be ejected and become homeless. Will those houses become empty indictments of our whole system?
The idea being put forward by the present government, as well as by the “experts” who have been so wrong so many times before, i.e. that the economy will “bounce back” in a “V”-shaped recovery, sounds to me like pie in the sky.
People in the UK will, many of them, have no money, be maxed-out on credit cards, have had to remortgage houses (when or if they can). Demand in the economy will be low, not only in the UK, but Europe-wide and, to a lesser extent, worldwide. From where will that “bounce-back” come?
I see today that the price of oil is so low that it is only just worth producing. Bad for oil-producing states, including Russia. I have not looked at gas, but I presume that the same is true. At least it should mean the end of the fracking nonsense in England. An end to part-Jew Osborne’s con-trick propaganda.
More tweets
The government cannot continue to drift, offering no hope of release from house arrest and economic disaster. Inaction is not a solution. If the country drifts, it drifts towards the rocks. Politicians and media who have so far been complacent have a civic *duty* to dissent.
Oh, I agree @mrupertdermody. The steady accustoming of a once-free society to humiliating servility, where they live by permission of the police, is terrifying and miserable to watch. But many don't miss liberty they seldom exercised. They'll miss their former standard of living. https://t.co/OhB6bOPyjn
How right you are, @PeterMcC66. In our newly subjugated society thinking is not encouraged, and may actually come to hurt those who try it. As so often, Huxley's Brave New World , drugged society, entertained to death with trivial distraction, takes shape in our midst https://t.co/oWAkNTJlth
I do not much like Ms Symond’s choice of life-partner (and I rather disparage behind-the-scenes “kitchen Cabinets” and the like), but if she can use her influence to help the animals or the environment, then good:
The bastards will even eat koalas. They sold live koalas in the Wuhan market, for locals to buy, kill, cook and eat. Koalas! What kind of untermenschen could do that?…
[above: Australian cyclists help a koala in a drought zone by giving water]
The “British” Press
I read that the newspapers, at least as print entities, face closure or at least significant cutbacks. Specialized or niche newspapers, such as the Jewish Chronicle, have already folded, though still publishing at time of writing. The larger or national newspapers are making huge losses. Am I worried on their behalf? No. In fact, I am laughing.
The “free press” of the UK, infested by Jewish-Zionist influence, has rarely been a positive influence in British life, even before WW2. In fact, with a few exceptions, as when the Daily Telegraph broke open the MPs’ expenses scandal, and thus exposed many MPs as a pack of squalid, thieving, cheating, freeloading, embezzling evildoers, I can think of few really good things that the “free Press” has done.
Come to that, while the Telegraph did break the expenses scandal in the latter part of the 2005-2009 Parliament, many of the worst expenses cheats and freeloaders are still MPs! One or two have even been promoted to the Cabinet! A few names? Yvette Cooper, Nadine Dorries, Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, Michael Gove. There are many more. All or almost all are members of Labour or Conservative Friends of Israel.
No, I shall not be crying when the “national Press” (Lugenpresse, Judenpresse) goes down. I shall welcome the downfall, especially if the scribblers and others face well-merited ruin.
[caption: “get down there, you unclean spirit, where you wanted to send me!“]
End “lockdown” now!
End “lockdown” NOW!!
At last! . I think Lord Sumption may share some of your position. Will you or others now challenge this imposition in the courts? https://t.co/m4kKQU1RzE
No, only caused the destruction of our economy and our way of life. When people wake up from their netflix induced slumbers they will see the devastating effects this has had, and the lives and livelihoods that have been destroyed will outweigh those saved by these house arrests
Majorities are so often wrong it's hardly worth stating @johnward_runner (The vast majority once thought A.Blair was a great leader, for instance). They also change. When the cost of this becomes clear, I think it may be others who are found to have believed the earth was flat. https://t.co/JzffzvNaV0
The “lockdown” is destroying everything: economy, society, confidence in the police, belief that this is a “democracy”, any belief left in the government, any belief in the future. Was that the hidden agenda?
I happened to see the second tweet below, the one showcasing an opinion poll from November 1947:
Nov 1947: “Comparing the present with your situation just before the war, in 1939, which would you choose, if you had to make a choice?” Present 31%, Pre-war 62%, No opinion 7%
You see, here we are 73 years later, and the Jewish lobby with the compliant msm are constantly putting forward the idea that the 1930s were backward, poor, basically terrible, but that “the war” changed all that. In reality, the latter part of the 1930s was a time of general economic and social advance.
Looking mainly at the UK, the second part of the 1930s was a time when, at least in the South and Midlands, there were job opportunities, new towns and roads being constructed, air routes being laid out, both across Europe and, via Imperial Airways etc, worldwide, using safe and comfortable flying boats.
Across the South of England, people were moving into the detached and semi-detached suburban housing still considered desirable property today, 80-90 years later.
More than that. Advanced thinkers were already laying the intellectual foundations for the Welfare State: decent public housing, a National Health Service etc.
Then came the war. It has been said that, under strict WW2 rationing, perhaps as much as a quarter of the UK population was actually better-fed than it had been in the 1930s, an indication of the social inequality rampant before the war. However, in general, the war impoverished the whole nation (how could it not?). Britain suffered under rationing of various types until the mid-1950s! There is no doubt that poverty and indeed inequality would overall have been ameliorated quicker had the war not “frozen” the social situation.
Before 1939, Britain was taking steps to grant independence to the colonies. The White colonies had already achieved Dominion status. The colonies of black Africa and elsewhere might have been given independence later but on a more secure basis, after sufficient Africans (etc) had achieved the stature capable of running advanced societies and economies. Sadly, that never happened.
“The War”, as UK people still call WW2, was disastrous for most of the peoples, animals, birds etc of the world. Environmental degradation today continues apace, a result, ultimately, of the corruption and inefficiency of the “independent” states formed after WW2.
The peoples of the former colonies have suffered wars, civil wars, banditry, rapacious officialdom, you name it. All because of premature decolonization. Not only in the former British Empire, which attained its greatest territorial extent after the First World War, in 1918. About a third of the world was under British control at that time. Also, there were the colonies of the other European states in Africa and elsewhere, those of France, Portugal, Spain, Belgium and the former German colonies (South West Africa, Tanganyika).
How much better a world would we now have were those formerly colonized lands still under European rule, or ruled in collaboration with a large enough and cultured enough African elite built up by the colonial powers over time …Look at Rhodesia up to 1979, and then its decrepit successor-state, Zimbabwe…
This is not just a question for the UK. It is a problem, historical and contemporary, for the world.
In Europe, the UK (and France) might have not given the Poles the worthless “guarantees” of 1939, which led the Poles to imagine that Britain and France would actually fight for Poland. Never happened.
Likewise, after the Fall of France in 1940, Britain might have secured an honourable armistice with the German Reich, so saving the peoples of Western and Central Europe from the massive destruction caused, mainly, by the Allied and Soviet forces during, again mainly, 1941-45. It would also have meant no Soviet takeover of the East and most of the Centre of Europe by Stalin’s Soviet Union in the mid-1940s.
We hear much (much too much) of the Jews, who were, prior to WW2, being allowed to emigrate from Germany and its allied or vassal states. Indeed, the Germans were glad to be rid of them. Well, had there been an armistice in 1940, that emigration would have continued: to the USA, Australia, Palestine etc.
Terrorism after WW2 was a product of the terrorists or “guerrillas” during that war, both those trained and funded by the shambolic British organization, SOE, and by the Soviet Union (the “partisans”). Most postwar “terrorism” from 1945 through to recent times can be traced back readily enough to British, American and Soviet sources.
Had “the War” (in the West) never happened, or been stopped in its tracks in 1940, the Soviet Union would probably have collapsed by 1942, there would have been no massive destruction by Soviet forces (or by the UK/USA air fleets) in the Europe of 1941-45, no Cold War, no Berlin Wall, no East-West proxy wars. The Israeli state and the arrogant Arab and Iranian oil states would have all either been strangled at birth, or kept on a tight rein.
In Britain itself, the neglected historian Correlli Barnett [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlli_Barnett] has made the point that, because of Britain’s having been bled dry by the War, it could not do more than one, or at most two, of its three main policy aims after 1945:
keep the Empire;
regenerate UK industry and commerce;
introduce a Welfare state.
In the end, Britain tried to do all three, but could not fully succeed in any, eventually almost abandoning the Empire and its remnants.
If only there had been no “War”, or a war lasting only a year…
BBC Radio 4 Today Programme drone pushing the “lockdown saves lives” rubbish, when in fact, taken overall, far more will die because of “lockdown”. They will die of everything except Coronavirus.
Looks as if the UK government (ZOG regime) is intent on keeping the “Coronavirus crisis” going as long as possible. In fact, the regime may well be quite content that, in care homes and private homes, the very elderly and unwell are dying “quietly”, out of the public eye. It solves for the regime the care crisis that it itself has created via spending cuts since 2010.
Conspiracy theory? I think not (ask Dominic Cummings and his “weirdos and misfits”).
#r4today Tory Cabinet Minister Therese Coffey coming up. She has the welfare brief! No seriously – she’s in charge of our welfare! pic.twitter.com/X1seg7yF8h
Therese Coffey is parroting lines not answering the questions & not showing any empathy for residents or workers. This is simply not good enough. #CareHomeCrisis#COVID2019https://t.co/bNPoyNpnHv
— Simon Gosden. Esq. #fbpe 3.5% 🇪🇺🐟🇬🇧🏴☠️🦠💙 (@g_gosden) April 14, 2020
Therese Coffey “entirely happy” with the Govt’s response to the c19 crisis. #BBCBreakfast UK deaths now 167 per million of population (excluding those who have died outside hospital) Germany deaths now 38 per million.
But the Tories are happy with that. 🤬
— NE man lost at sea 🇪🇺🇬🇧🏴 (@nemanlostatsea) April 14, 2020
This government of fools (illegitimate ZOG regime) is lost without its part-Jew public entertainer, Boris-idiot (who apparently has now been tested for Coronavirus and shows no sign of it, oddly, despite his supposedly having been almost dying from it for two weeks; surely he would show “antibodies”? Perhaps either I, or the commentator, more likely, need to understand better the situation, the virus, the testing procedure or the language used.
Looks like I was right to blog about Therese Coffey as a “deadhead MP”!
— Mirror Breaking News (@MirrorBreaking_) April 14, 2020
Either Sky News or the useless “Office of Budget Responsibility” is looking for pie in the sky (Sky?). The near-collapse of the UK economy is already happening in reality, and the Government is now unlikely to finish this nonsense of “lockdown” any time soon, mainly because the Cabinet is now, in the absence of the part-Jew public entertainer Boris-idiot, posing as Prime Minister, akin to a headless chicken.
As for a swift “bouncing back”, where does that idea originate? In the Conservative Party propaganda department? Half of the world is still not functioning economically. By Autumn, the Coronavirus crisis/scare/whatever will be over, presumably, but in Europe (still our main trading area, despite Brexit) demand will be at rock-bottom. The same will be true of the USA/North America, our second most important area.
Domestic demand will be very weak too, in a situation where millions will be unemployed and where the “self-employed” (5 million people) will often be making little money. Pay generally is likely to be low. So from where does the “bounce-back” come?
Perhaps what is meant is that there will be a huge fall in activity, but then followed by an increase on that low figure.
NEW OBR will publish noon today illustrative scenarios on pandemic hit to UK GDP/deficit… we reported last week internally Gov looking at bigger end of Q2 hit ranging from independent forecasts of -7.5% to -24% GDP -average -14% -no precedent since 1921 https://t.co/ClDw86Z444
Lack of PPE is a symptom of general permanent failings in an NHS which (whisper it ) is often well short of perfect. Testing is a diversion. https://t.co/YG2qrUOEPT
Causation is easily demonstrated with seat-belts. Also, you cannot, if you examine all countries' experience of covid-19 outbreaks, identify any consistent correlation between *any* state action and the level of deaths, let alone causation. @veritasherehttps://t.co/k6jNo2m9qr
How have I moved them? Why should I do so? My argument has remained the same from the start. The government's actions are damaging, threaten lives, freedom and prosperity and are not proportionate to the problem.This is still the case. @raulmurryhttps://t.co/q8FxoMgFWd
People want to believe what they're told @jwdlewis. Fear's a great unifier, and tends to make those who are afraid more trusting towards, and reliant upon, power. Govt and much of the media released this force and now, like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, they can't control it. https://t.co/mdMRAOlwLc
A kind word about me on Twitter. Rare, now that Twitter has been ethnically and politically “cleansed” by the Jew-Zionist element and its malicious and concerted campaign of “complaints” and “reports”…
(the tweeters below are discussing the self-publicizing solicitor, now an Israeli citizen, and who calls himself “Mark Lewis Lawyer”)
Oh yes, especially after the disciplinary action against him, well detailed in Ian Millard's blog. I am probably not of the correct ethnic category to expect his help.
Incidentally, I still see people tweeting the 2016 report about me in the Independent. The report was one-sided but at least partly-accurate. I disliked as much, or more, the accompanying headless photograph, presented as if me, but which was of some other barrister.
I do not smoke, have never been a cigarette smoker, and had far better shoes than the barrister in that Independent photo! The Independent also seemed ignorant of the fact that “to practise law” is written thus, and not “to practice law”, which is only the correct usage in the USA. A small but telling point, symptomatic of the crashing standards in the terminally-sick UK Press (Lugenpresse; Judenpresse…).
My blog
I had a pleasing spike in blog hits yesterday: 435 views from 286 individual visitors. Far above the usual range.
The madness gets madder (something I keep thinking impossible, and then am proven wrong…)
I do not blame “Bootstrap Cook”, aka Jack Monroe, for using the unpleasant “Mark Lewis Lawyer” in her libel case against the commentator, Katie Hopkins, and it worked out for the Bootstrap Cook, though as a one-time practising barrister I can say with absolute certainty that a precocious child could have won that case against Katie Hopkins, who was evidently either badly-advised or not advised (I do not know whether she was “her own lawyer”, which is usually a mistake).
I have to say that, of the few of her recipes seen by me via her Twitter profile, I have not been enthusiastic about many, but I admit that I have never actually made (or tasted) any of them (they may well be pleasant in actuality). However, I think that this person is performing a public service.
We see in Britain how many people are living on peanuts (sometimes literally), the result of Britain’s economic and social decline combined with —mostly— Conservative Party government policies which have made tough times worse for so many, while the wealthy and very wealthy have thrived in the past 10-20 years especially. Anything that helps people both to survive, and survive without unnecessary pain, must be good.
Many people in the UK cook little, and eat far too many takeways etc, which may be not only unhealthy if taken in excess, but relatively expensive if indulged in frequently. That becomes even more true for those on very low incomes. Often one sees TV reports about people living on pennies getting Chinese takeaways, Indian curry, or fish and chips, and spending their little money on that. Fish and chips ?£5-£10 per head, an Indian or Chinese even more; the Indian place, in a nearby town, and that I use occasionally for takeaway (it’s also a restaurant), is very good but works out at about £15 a head.
I do not forget that sometimes people living in a poor way need something that just briefly seems to make life worth living, even if it is not the most healthy option. George Orwell wrote about that in one of his essays.
I am not merely opining de haut en bas here. I have been down there a few times… especially in — and for several months— 1998, when I had to learn to live in London on plain rice, one piece of fruit per day, bits and pieces (I even ate fruit abandoned by traders at street markets and left in empty boxes by the stalls!).
I had to be “creative” with the Underground (I expect that their technology would defeat me these days) and otherwise had to walk everywhere, trudging morosely past places formerly frequented as a customer, such as Julie’s restaurant in Holland Park, Raoul’s cafe in Little Venice (where I had formerly breakfasted daily in the early/mid 1990s) and other places barred to me by lack of cash such as the once-lovely River Room at the Savoy Hotel (I believe much changed since those days), where I always ate and drank the same thing: “Atlantic Platter” of fish and shellfish, washed down by pretty much the best Chablis I ever had.
[above: The River Room at the Savoy. Actually not looking completely different to how it was c.1994, if memory serves, but the tables are ugly square things now; they used to have beautiful big round tables, even for two people; also, there is a less opulent look somehow, the tables now without full heavy white tablecloths]
Silver lining: I lost rather a lot of weight on my enforced diet with enforced exercise; in fact everyone told me how well I was looking!
“Shocking footage shows a man brandishing a stick after being confronted by a furious local after he ignored the coronavirus lockdown to go camping in Wales. The video was posted on social media after the camper was confronted by a group of locals who asked him to leave the site at Llyn Cowlyd near Trefriw on Saturday.”
“The daughter of the 60-year-old in the footage told North Wales Live : “My dad was with the owner of the land and all they did was ask them to leave and said that the police were on their way.”
“Then the man threatened to hit my dad in the head with the stick. She added: “When the police arrived, the campers said they were from Hull. The officers were mortified.”
“”They were fined and they traced the number plate to make sure they returned home.”
Her dad added: “It was unbelievable that they travelled all the way from Hull to the top of a mountain to camp when the whole country is on lockdown and the government clearly has instructed everyone to stay home unless necessary.” [Daily Mirror]
Well, for me the lunacy is on the part of those locals. What possible harm in terms of spreading the virus can two people do, camping on a remote mountain? It seems that they left a mess. Well, fine them for that.
It just shows how quickly the masses have internalized the “we are slaves of the State and will do what the government says (even if very silly)” propaganda, given strength by the virus-“fear” aspect…Actually, what is borderline frightening is how easily supposedly rational individuals (as a mass) can be manipulated and controlled.
As for the locals, the story put me in mind, perhaps unfairly, of this:
The shutdown of the economy
Was just looking at the latest companies to actually go into administration. They are unlikely ever to return to active trading. Oasis, Warehouse and Debenhams. About 25,000 employees, currently on furlough, have nowhere to go when the stupid “lockdown” finishes. Their furlough money ends in June.
More tweets recently seen
Struck by change of tone on major TV news bulletins this evening. ITV leading on unemployment threat, BBC lead critical on care homes (as was C4, and second lead the huge problems facing economy.
My feelings about China are torn: I hate the way the Chinese as a group abuse the natural world and especially the animals. In some ways they are very backward as a people. Also, the sheer numbers are an existential danger not only to Europe but to the whole planet. On the other hand, who could fail to be impressed by a display such as this?
The world is not without kind people [Russian saying]
Nice story:
“This photo is from Paris Match, 1958. The Algerian donkey was starving to death, so a soldier from the 13th brigade of the French Foreign Legion carried it back to base where it became a regimental mascot named “Bambi””
Coronavirus
“Police across the country are wielding powers they do not have – with vanishingly little public scrutiny”
“Italy has announced plans for ending its lockdown after the coronavirus-ravaged country today recorded its lowest daily death toll for more than two weeks.
Rome recorded another 525 deaths, taking its total to 15,887 – the highest of any country in the world – however, this marked its lowest daily increase since the 427 registered on March 19.
Furthermore, the number of people in intensive care (3,977), fell by 17 since Friday, and the number of cases rose to 128,948 from yesterday’s 124,632, a lower increase than the day before.
It comes amid growing signs that Spain’s strict coronavirus lockdown may be working, as the country records its lowest death toll for a third consecutive day.” [Daily Mail]
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.
Keir 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: Starmer’s wife is Jewish, and his children are therefore half-Jewish (according to ordinary genetics), and simply “Jewish” according to Jewish religious practice, as well as being brought up as culturally Jewish.
So far, Starmer has appointed members of Labour Friends of Israel to Shadow Cabinet: Rachel Reeves and Lisa Nandy. Emily Thornberry is to stay in Shadow Cabinet.
[above: Emily Thornberry at a Zionist dinner in London, photographed with her husband —a half-Jewish High Court judge— and —in central position— Mark Regev, the Israeli Ambassador]
I think that we can write off the Labour Party now.
Ghetto life in Israel
The Israeli state is considering sealing off “ultra-Orthodox” areas, thus creating quasi-ghetto zones within the Jewish state. Who would have predicted that?!
The Guardian article also makes the point that the Orthodox Jewish areas in London may also have been major incubators for Coronavirus. The boroughs of Barnet and Harrow, as well as Brent, are in the top half-dozen Coronavirus “hotspots” not just in London but in the whole of the UK.
Coronavirus— the exit strategy
Or to put it another way, what exit strategy? It is one thing to say to people, “stay inside except for a few closely-defined outings for a few weeks“, and quite another to say “stay inside your homes for several months, and if you dare to come out even to spend an hour walking in a national park, or on the beach, or sunbathing harmlessly in a largely empty park, or driving on an empty motorway, the police will stop you, question you, fine you and may fine you as much as £1,000“…
How long is this “lockdown” going to be sustainable? I see that even the msm outlets are beginning to ask the question now.
If someone has a country estate, or even a sizeable ordinary detached suburban or smaller rural house, perhaps with gardens, a swimming pool, a tennis court, an orangerie, a vegetable garden, “staying home” is not so hard to do. For the majority of the population, stuck in small houses, flats etc, perhaps with children or bored teenagers, this “lockdown” is a house arrest which cannot continue indefinitely. At some point, before long, the Government is going to have to announce a relaxation and then an end, before people start to ignore the restrictions.
Good points by Lewis Goodall of BBC TV Newsnight (ex-Sky News):
One of the most unappealing aspects of the current crisis is the judgmental censoriousness we’re seeing on here and in more everyday life. I went past several parks today. Everyone I saw was enjoying them responsibly. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a big house and garden.
Little Matt Hancock and others may threaten more severe restrictions, but without public consent, even the present restrictions cannot be enforced widely. The present conditions are holding because the public has been persuaded or stampeded into compliance. I think that we are just approaching 2 weeks of “lockdown”. Can the UK sustain 2 months? That would be five times as long.
The economic damage is already huge.
Tweets:
That’s what the German government thought in 1914. But it always catches up on you one way or another. Inflation is the nemesis for spending hubris. https://t.co/Xe4W9PavT1
Generally the government and the media don't put much effort into scaring you about the flu. TV does not show sad scenes in ICUs. Yet many thousands die of flu complications each year. No, I have not said the two are the same, as I will now be falsely accused of doing. https://t.co/UH6oaPgY6u
Yes, @ogilvie_cj, sweetie, because I have seen no evidence that it achieves its stated aim, and plenty (piling up daily) that it is wrecking an already fragile economy. Crashing the economy and stifling liberty won't provide better PPE for medical staff. Rather the opposite. https://t.co/7N5QeYzgUa
1/2 What is the use of a Leader of the Opposition who immediately backs the crassest actions of the government, such as threatening to ban outdoor exercise, supposedly in an attempt to protect national health? https://t.co/bmoLYvb7Lz
Anyone who believes that Keir Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet is anything more than a nominal “Opposition” is very naive. In 2015, the Jewish-Zionist lobby lost control of one of the previously-controlled two main System parties. After nearly 5 years, that lobby now has regained control. The Jews as a group care only that the (sort-of) “anti-Zionist” Corbyn has been removed. Hardly any Jews have voted Labour for many years.
Yup @robinbull1. And do you realise how rare this is among its sufferers,&how much the same could be said of influenza complications, which kill thousands every year without a shutdown of the economy? Disease is bad. Who doubts it? Destroying the economy doesn't stop or cure it. https://t.co/kCM11l7K8A
2/2 Mike Graham @lromg . Speech is still free in this country. It's hardly the job of a radio host to tell people to 'shut up'. I'll wager you haven't the guts to have me on your programme and give me an unfettered, fair chance to make my case. https://t.co/GXGbU9N1yc
What is the significance of recorded cases, @shivmalik, when in fact we have no idea of how many unrecorded cases there have been, and probably never will? The nightly 'infections' figure is virtually meaningless. Many infected will have mild symptoms or none. https://t.co/h78SRpvveC
Lord Sumption https://t.co/NUSIEw3uqi '…as soon as the scientists start talking about a month or even three or six months, we are entering a realm of sinister fantasy in which the cure has taken over as the biggest threat to our society.'
Quite. Unreasoning fear is all around. Shoppers at Waitrose stand about 10 feet apart before they are allowed to have a trolley and enter the store, but inside they shop sometimes only a couple of feet from one another!
Likewise, the usual type of Twitter virtue-signallers continue to tweet on silly hashtags demonizing (of all targets!) people doing completely harmless things, such as walking along largely-empty beaches, almost deserted national park moorlands and forest trails etc, driving or motorbiking on almost-empty roads and motorways to places (or simply around, just to get a change of view and some fresh air).
If I had to say what unites the majority of the “Twitterati”, it would be their love of conformity, their obedience to authority, and their love of the largely-failed “multikulti” society. I suppose that is why Twitter was mainly pro-EU…
Here is a typical example, from someone calling himself “@sychodefender”:
You see the mentality. Any dissent from the “authorized” version of the truth is to be suppressed, and anyone not going along with the official narrative is “murdering” those unfortunate enough to die from Coronavirus. Who then is “murdering” those who, by reason of the “lockdown” (house arrest of the British people), cannot access lifesaving operations or other medical help for many other life-threatening conditions which (unlike Coronavirus) can be treated? Coronavirus can only be managed, via ventilation, not “treated” or “cured”. Who is “murdering” those people? No-one? The Government? Conformist tweeters such as “@sychodefender”/Simon Burgess? The first thing being murdered is the truth; after that, the English language.
and more news
Some hopeful news:
In Northern Italy, 60 volunteers who thought they'd never suffered COVID-19 gave blood. 40 of them tested positive for antibodies to the virus.
We URGENTLY need randomized testing to see how representative this finding is.https://t.co/JGqNX5EtQS
Heartbreaking report on BBC TV news this evening from Italy. People spending the last few coins of their savings, no work, an economy paralysed. Has this extraordinary gamble of a policy been worth it? Is there any evidence it has achieved anything? Yet on it goes.
About that hancock denial.. Times: ‘Treasury pushing for more detail but said it was not a “personal” issue: “There’s a real question of whether we will have an economy to come back to at the end of this. We have got to get clarity on the exit strategy”’https://t.co/AVaiIghfPP
It seems to me that the thing SIS/MI6 is best at is bolstering its own reputation (not by its own successful product or analysis, but via self-serving propaganda or public relations). That, and providing fairly well-paid careers for often rather mediocre members of the Oxbridge-educated middle classes.
Let’s think of a few of the less ancient SIS/MI6 failures:
the invasion of the Falklands; failure to warn HMG;
failure to warn HMG about the likely fall of the Shah of Iran;
failure to warn of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe…to name but three very large-scale events.
What about SIS/MI6 successes in the past 50 years? The Gordievsky defection, I suppose, but that is or was “spy game” or “spy wars” stuff, rather than large-scale success in forecasting. The same might be said of the “Viktor Suvorov” defection from the GRU or that of Oleg Lyalin (KGB). Those were, in essence, “walk-ins”, of course, though Gordievsky “walked in” having been cultivated for some time (in Copenhagen).
Of course, it can always be said that “the successes must be kept secret”. Perhaps, but I have little doubt that many failures are also kept secret (aka “covered up”).
At some point, SIS/MI6 must be reorganized to provide useful information to government, especially on the strategic level. That might mean using more open-source material as a percentage of the whole.
Naturally, anyone who —like me— is not a member or former member of such an organization is commenting somewhat in the dark, but it is surely clear that this is not a properly-functioning organization.
Now this…
Good grief!
“The Army is so desperate to fill its ranks that it is signing up recruits with a reading age as young as five. Normally, its rules bar hiring anyone with a reading age below ‘entry level two’ – equivalent to that of a child aged seven to nine.” [Daily Mail]
“Last year, the Army was roundly mocked for recruitment advertisements stating ‘Your country needs you’ to ‘snowflakes, phone zombies, binge gamers, selfie addicts, and me, me, millennials’. Now it appears that some potential recruits would not even have been able to under stand the adverts – even as warfare become increasingly computerised.” [Daily Mail]
“A police officer uses a megaphone at Southwark Park, to announce sunbathing is not allowed, but exercise is” [Daily Mail].
How absolutely stupid! The Coronavirus is spread via water in air, so is far more likely to be spread via exercise than via sunbathing!
“...there are concerns that public confidence could be lost if those in power with gardens and ample living space tell those who live in crowded conditions they cannot go to the park or exercise outdoors.” [Daily Mail]
This is becoming very silly (which is why 90% of “Twitterati” support the “lockdown” in an extreme way…).
If the Government and police don’t stand down these restrictions pretty soon, there will be disobedience and perhaps actual disorder. At the very least, much of the public will “just say no”, or perhaps more likely “yes repeat no”, i.e, apparent compliance but followed by the opposite as soon as the police or other busybodies go away.
The rest of Europe is already starting to exit “lockdown”…
The British government is headed by a pack of idiots that have no real idea what they are doing. Look at little Matt Hancock! His only pre-political job was “making tea” (not quite, but he was very junior) for a year at the Bank of England. Now he is a Cabinet minister! It’s mad. The present government is mad or stupid or both.
Has it peaked in the UK too?
“England, Scotland and Wales have declared 434 more deaths caused by the coronavirus today, taking the UK’s total to 5,368.
England accounted for 403 of the fatalities while Scotland and Wales independently declared 31 more deaths in the past 24 hours.
The statistics are a ray of hope as the daily death count has fallen for the second day in a row and was today the lowest it has been since March 31, when it was 381.
Today’s number is a 30 per cent drop from the 621 fatalities recorded yesterday, and a 39 per cent fall from Saturday, which was the worst day so far with 708.” [Daily Mail]
“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:
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…
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]
“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]
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.
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]
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.
We are told that the Coronavirus COVID-19 started spontaneously in a seafood and live animal market in Wuhan, China, a country where people, or some people, treat animals appallingly, and where many eat strange things such as bats.
That may be true. I cannot say that it is untrue. There are, however, dissenting voices, that is to say voices dissenting from the official narrative. I was sent this:
I was at first inclined to accept the official narrative as most likely correct. Now? Not sure.
What interests me more are the socio-political effects of the Coronavirus on the world and particularly the UK. In particular, I noted that the near-dictatorial powers which the Government of the UK has taken on are not designed to last for a few weeks, a few months. No…they are drafted to last for TWO YEARS. I think that we are entitled to ask why that is so.
True, the powers taken by the UK Government can be removed again by Commons vote (every 6 months or, in constitutional principle, at any time), but this government, with its 80-strong majority, can push through extensions easily, if it wants.
Boris-idiot, posing as PM, has shown little or no leadership, but that has not prevented “Conservative” scribblers from behaving like the most sycophantic Stalinists in the Soviet Writers’ Union (of about 1948). Look at this creature:
An assured performance by @borisjohnson who was speaking like the head of a wartime government. ‘We are all enlisted,’ he said.
Most people are natural followers. Few like to have to think for themselves. In this case, spurred by natural feelings of fear, anxiety etc, most people want to “do the right thing” and that can include thinking the “right” thing.
Despite the above, a minority is beginning to question the origin of Coronavirus, the fairly draconian measures now being taken by the UK government and, even leaving all that aside, whether the economic stimulus is being done in the right way.
Peter Hitchens has tweeted scornfully about the situation
Then they are complacent fools, who do not deserve the liberty they inherited, and so will lose it for themselves and their children. Shaming. https://t.co/WtpSz8uCvP
They're exaggerating its importance, and sliding over the fact that people who die *with* coronavirus did not necessarily die *of* it. Average number of flu deaths in England for last 5 seasons was 17,000 deaths annually. Ranged from 1,692 deaths (2018/19) to 28,330 in 2014/15. https://t.co/LxOPcBBfvL
Prepare for an outbreak of informing. The Johnson house arrest scheme is an ideal opportunity for the spiteful and the vengeful, to report neighbours for what would have been legal on Monday. Ugh.
So humiliating to have to confess to foreign admirers of British freedom that our liberties were suppressed by a clown, and the British people rolled over and accepted it. Lots of national songs now need to be rewritten.
Twaddle. Until tonight I was free to leave my home whenever I chose for whatever purpose I chose for as long as I chose, and go wherever I chose, a freedom I used to the full. Now all those freedoms have been extinguished. And by a clown. https://t.co/70O0TDeoO2
Well, almost no dissenting voices. But those who *do* dissent can be guaranteed to receive a slime-storm of abuse and calls for them to be silenced. https://t.co/QZ8U3ly0t5
Perhaps they felt the advice was oppressive and disproportionate ( as it was) . Until today they were free to do so. Now they live in a comic-opera police state Please watch https://t.co/Q9FmTDybIDhttps://t.co/kEt0T4D0J0
Because @KD_dono the danger is gravely over-rated, and the measures proposed unproven, damaging disproportionate and most unlikely to succeed. Listen to a real expert here https://t.co/Q9FmTDybIDhttps://t.co/chyC4T4ngU
Al Johnson's brilliant plan: like a doctor treating a pneumonia victim by amputating his leg. AS a result, the man has one leg, and still has pneumonia. When the sufferer eventually recovers from pneumonia, Johnson will say he has cured him. But he will still only have one leg.
Now listening to 'debate' in Commons on major stifling of personal liberty. One can only assume that there is now a stringent test to prevent intelligent people from becoming MPs. A rare government success if so.
Clown puts country under house arrest. Country doesn't care. So perishes one of the freest societies ever to exist in human history, amid giggles and bad science. And suckers who believe state propaganda. Govt has no idea what it is doing: https://t.co/Q9FmTDybID
Anyone else out there still have any regard for liberty? It is striking that the country of Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, and the Bill of Rights should be put under house arrest by a clown. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a giggle.
But what is interesting is how many people attack me for attacking this blatant assault upon liberty. This is how you can tell the country is finished. And people used to ask me, they really did, why I urged them to get out while they could.
I'm partly mocking Alexander Johnson's ridiculous, sinister government because I'm worried that tomorrow night he'll come on TV to tell me I am not allowed to mock the government. Unthinkable you say? How unthinkable was national house arrest a week ago?
Ridiculous and Sinister – the policy of the Johnson government. The man who crashed the economy and put the nation under house arrest while he was doing it.
I do not agree with everything written or said by Hitchens, who is also, in fact, not the great champion of freedom he likes to present as (he blocked me on Twitter a few years ago when he discovered a. that I could match his erudition and b. that the Jewish lobby trolls were hostile to me; I presumed that he did not want to lose his lucrative msm work), but his tweets here are important, because they go against both an almost hysterical official narrative and also an unthinking public.
Hitchens is on to something here, and makes a few valid points for sure. He is not alone.
Others have noted unreported factors or strange anomalies in the present government policy:
The economy was due to crash anyway, this virus is the patsy. Also allows them to bring in draconian laws that will be used to control the masses of unemployed in the near future
Just spoke to my friend who is cabin crew on a BA A380. About 45 minutes ago he landed at Heathrow from HKONG and disembarked over 300 British Chinese. Why ffs?
Heathrow arrivals tomorrow morning. Business as usual. In the meantime, I can't leave the house. pic.twitter.com/3hH0ARk9lE
— Randy Twinkler, Lawyer, MMC, MA ,R&C (@ChangePolitics5) March 23, 2020
The “lockdown” relies on people self-censoring, “doing the right thing” if you like. I am not opposed to that as matters stand with “the virus”, but I am very uneasy with where this is all leading.
I am presently blogging separately about where UK society and economy will be in a while. We are approaching a massive change across the world, particularly across Europe. 2022 will bring change on a scale not seen since socialism in all forms collapsed in and after 1989. It’s a 33-year cycle which has interested me for a long time.
We must be clear. These restrictions can only work if the general population goes along with them. I don’t mean “work” in terms of suppressing Coronavirus infections. The restrictions may or may not work in that sense. I do not know. No, what I mean is “will the restrictions work in terms of enforcement?”
Most people will no doubt go along with the restrictions for a few weeks. If this situation continues for longer, probably not. It has been reported that the police have been told to expect 6 months of this! I cannot see the population sitting still indefinitely.
The head of the Police Federation has now said that officers
are unsure how to enforce the new “lockdown” measures;
are already ignoring crime because prioritizing the enforcement of “lockdown”.
I cannot see how the two above statements can be easily reconciled, but the law was ever “a ass…a idiot”, as one character from Dickens expostulates.
At this stage, it is clear that the portentous announcement, by a clownish Prime Minister, of “lockdown”, is a kind of sleight of hand, or if you prefer, confidence trick. The State, as matters stand, cannot actually enforce these strictures. It is reliant on the population agreeing with them and playing ball.
I suppose that the police could impose road blocks between towns or even within towns, but the police officers would have no way of checking whether any one motorist is on a legitimate mission of mercy, of shopping for supplies, of commuting to a “essential” job, or whether that motorist is going to a house party (banned under the regs) or simply driving around because bored. If that last, why shouldn’t he, really? Someone in a car is not going to infect anyone by reason of simply driving around.
It is hard to escape the view that at least part of all of this is designed to create an atmosphere in which a fearful population submits to State orders. Of course, behind that is, also, the real threat from Coronavirus.
Despite the plaudits heaped upon Rishi Sunak for opening the gates of the money dam, I wonder what the outcome will be, a year or two down the line. Not good, I think. However, I shall examine that more in my (not yet published) blog on the socio-economic aspects of the virus crisis.
As blogged about previously, the police in the UK are gradually abandoning the population, especially the white English population. The police, behaving as a Poundland KGB, prefer to concentrate on political or socio-political “crime” such as “racist” tweets etc. Or now, “prioritizing lockdown”.
Another absurdly ambiguous Govt. press conference. Zero clarity re whether people should go to work or not, what constitutes 'essential' etc. Why can't they get their damn messaging right? Health Secretary @MattHancock says 'it's crystal clear'. It's NOT!
Went out not long before darkness fell. Intended to visit a chemist’s, only to find it shut by reason of truncated opening hours. Nuisance. Drove to small village shop a few miles further on. Near to its new 1800 closing time. No bread, but bought a little milk and some local asparagus. I noticed that some dry pasta was available. I myself have no need for any more, but it was heartening to see that not all had sold, even if only basic spaghetti. At least the shelves were not bare, except for the bread shelf (and even that had a sad and solitary roll still on sale).
As for other people: a few couples walking in the country lanes, a few solitary dog walkers too in the semi-suburbanized villages, a few bicyclists. No one at the little shop noted above. Roads very quiet, even the nearest rural A-road. No sign of police activity of any kind, even in the local town. General impression of an almost-closed-down society.
Poignant, but what struck me was the “two degrees” bit. Why does someone with two degrees work in a pub (for years)? The answer —unless the degrees were only completed out of interest— must be that, from the strictly vocational/job point of view, “degrees” (an outdated mediaeval concept anyway) are now next to worthless on the open jobs market (even though quite ordinary jobs now “require” a “degree”). When everyone and his dog has a degree, what is a degree worth? Not much.
The corollary to the above is that one must ask why the State should subsidize those educational qualifications that are valueless, in direct terms, to the State and society.
“A police officer uses a megaphone at Southwark Park, to announce sunbathing is not allowed, but exercise is” [Daily Mail].
Ian Robert Millard 