16 months later, I believe that the article is even more relevant, now that Coronavirus/Covid-19 has concentrated minds (and leaving aside the fact that the Chinese virus is overblown and also being used by the System to bluff people into becoming members of police states across Europe and beyond).
I was just reading again about “Doggerland”, which is not a gonzo-literature novel about some of the leisure activities of a sub-set of the English pleb-dom, but a large territory that once existed between the area now designated as “UK”, and those of present-day “Denmark”, “Germany”, “Netherlands” etc.
[By Francis Lima – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49850020] It can be seen that, at its greatest extent, what is now called “Doggerland” (a term invented only in the 1990s), together with similar areas in the Atlantic off (mainly) the present-day coasts of the UK and Ireland (the ancient land of Lyonesse, of Arthurian legend), was larger in extent than the present-day UK.
Consideration of these matters gives perspective.
Videos about the above matters:
and while looking at those Doggerland videos, I also saw this one (below)
Fascinating, though possibly not a good idea even if do-able.. How about starting with something smaller, such as the Irish Sea? (only, sort-of, joking…).
In fact, large-scale projects are not always a poor idea. One which has interested many is that of creating a canal from the Mediterranean to the Qattara Depression in the Western Desert of Egypt, then using gravity to move seawater the 40 miles to the Depression.
The Qattara Depression is on average 200 ft (60m) below sea level, though the lowest part is 440 ft (134m) below sea level. No-one lives there, though the very isolated oasis of Qara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qara_Oasis lies near the Western edge of the Depression, some 47 miles (75km) North-East of the nearest larger oasis, Siwa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siwa_Oasis
I myself stayed in Siwa for a month, in early 1998, out of three months spent in Egypt (on that trip).
Siwa is 189 miles (305km) from the Mediterranean Sea coast. British or American people tend to think of an oasis as being a small lake with a fringe of palm trees, but Siwa is, at greatest extent, 50 miles long and 12 miles wide, and has a total population of some 30,000 (though when you are there —admittedly I was there over 20 years ago— the place does not seem in any way heavily populated, rather the reverse). It has about 350 freshwater springs (the water of which is exported to Alexandria and Cairo in plastic bottles), 300,000 date palms, 70,000 olive trees (and some fruit trees, too).
Reverting to Qattara, the Depression is 190 miles (300km) long by 84 miles (135km) wide. Area: 7,570 square miles, about the same as mainland Wales.
A project to flood the Depression would be hugely beneficial. Fish would flood in with the water, it would change the regional climate for the better, and it would enable hydropower as well.
It may be that, by using hydropower and solar power, new eco-cities or towns, even horticultural areas, could be created and maintained, supplied with fresh water via desalination.
In Iran, not long before the Islamic Revolution unseated the Shah , there was a government programme to replace sand dunes and semi-desert with forest. Of course, the backward mullahs did not continue with it. I read about the project in the National Geographic. Brilliant.
First, the sand dunes were coated with a very thin layer of crude oil, sprayed from tanked vehicles. Secondly, seeds of the tamarisk tree (salt-resistant and heat-resistant) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarix were spread over the oil layer.
The thin oil layer prevented the seeds from being blown away by wind, and anchored the tiny shoots when germinated. The climate had enough moisture for their survival. The tiny growing shoots and trees (within a few years about 4 feet high) were protected from goats and their owners, if any, by fences and a ranger force.
Once the trees were mature (some of the 60 types of tamarisk grow as high as 60ft/18m), the idea was that the climate and ecology would be markedly improved.
Under the Shah, there was to have been a roll-out across Iran. It never happened. Sad.
There have been and still are many large-scale projects of great value, both engineering projects and more obviously “environmental” ones. Most founder on the rocks of politics and/or finance.
astonished that the PM said there would be no checks and now it’s clear there will be checks https://t.co/XYQqvNfKv4
— Friend of Deep State 🐋 (@PickardJE) May 13, 2020
Why would you be surprised that a psychopathic liar and part-Jew public entertainer (merely posing as “Prime Minister”) would…lie? It’s what he does.
Well, who would have thought it, #BorisJohnson has #Lied about something else. Now border checks on goods moving over the Irish sea. Add that to a long, long list……. probably longer that can be comfortably fitted on the side of a bus. OR…… What is Dom trying to deflect?
Customs in the Irish Sea will lead rapidly to a united Ireland. Which might well lead to Scotland separating from the UK. Johnston’s lies might have significant historic impact. https://t.co/jeMRMgeVNj
— David Miller T.O. (@iamdavidmiller) May 14, 2020
…particularly when, only yesterday, the UK Supreme Court quashed the convictions of Gerry Adams. Do we see where this is going? I think that we do.
Indeed, it now seems that Boris-idiot secretly agreed to the “border in the Irish Sea” as long ago as October 2019!
The “Communist” campaign of subversion that started as an adjunct to Soviet Intelligence and was noted by such as Golitsyn (albeit over-valued by him, and to some extent distorted), became so-called “Cultural Marxism”, infecting society from the 1960s. It was particularly powerful in infecting students across Europe, North America, Australasia (and, to a lesser extent, South Africa).
Those students became prime ministers, Cabinet ministers, judges, heads of TV stations, radio current affairs programmes, as well as journalists and talking heads etc. A few names from the UK? Tony Blair, Cherie Blair, Alistair Darling, Jack Dromey, Jack Straw, and many many others. Few if any were “Soviet agents” (as far as I know, not even ghastly Jack Dromey, later a Blairite “Labour” MP, who attended the 1970s mercenaries’ “trial” in Angola as a kind of “socialist” vulture, sub nom “observer”).
Few of those then-young people were even pro-Soviet, not least because “Cultural Marxism” broke free from its conspiratorial Soviet origins as the Soviet Union started to slowly decay and eventually collapse.
It could be said that what is called, inter alia, “Cultural Marxism”, is now just another NWO cultural current. It has little or nothing to do with any form of “socialism”, that’s for sure.
Where Golitsyn went wrong was in assuming that the “headwaters” of “Cultural Marxism” lay in Sovietism, when in fact they lay on higher ground, in the groups that developed (and named) the “New World Order” or NWO. Those same groups were those who fostered the Soviet Union under Lenin in the first place.
In other words, the former secret operatives who helped to collapse Soviet and Eastern European socialism (in the Soviet Union, Romania, Poland etc) were not communists disguising themselves as something else, but a metamorphosis of communists or socialists turning into something else, while still coming under the overall and yet covert control of the NWO powers on the grand scale.
Russia is not in control of the play as it is acted out; neither is the USA, as such. The NWO is pulling the strings, often through “Zionist Occupation Governments” [“ZOG”].
The aim is to form a one-world regime, composed mainly of raceless, cultureless serfs, ruled over by ZOG and, beyond ZOG, the NWO powers. Below the ruling levels, a mass of untermenschen is promoted by the “governments” and the contaminated msm, drowning out the true voices of Europe’s future.
Tweets seen
Seems that some Americans have never heard of “tax” and, in particular, “income tax”. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet is very dry in its humour…
If only there were some public fund billionaires could pay into along with everyone else that helps fund our infrastructure, hospitals, and public systems all at once.
It could even be a modest % of what they earn every year. We could have an agency collect it and everything https://t.co/g0vI45xnYG
Unfortunately, while in principle it is far more efficient for tax monies to go into one fund, or what in the UK are usually termed “central funds”, in practice this has flaws and drawbacks. It tends to mean that governments decide to use some of the tax monies gathered for all sorts of misconceived projects and grandiose ideas, while the foundations of society are ill-funded. It also means that those who pay tax (one way or another, and to some extent, everyone) lose any feeling of connection between what they pay in tax and what they see being funded and/or underfunded.
It might well be worth the loss of a certain amount of notional fiscal efficiency to both tie and be seen to tie tax monies raised to specific expenditures. For example, “Road Tax”, or “Vehicle Tax” is raised from motorists and others on the misleading basis (apart from it being compulsory) that the monies raised will pay for roads. Well, some may go to that, but probably less than is raised. The rest? To “central funds”.
“National Insurance” is another and similar example.
I am sure that people would more readily accept taxation if they knew that X% was going to go to the NHS directly, perhaps by taking X% off income tax and having a new “NHS Tax” at X% (or whatever).
The above proposal would also make more rational the election-time arguments about money, taxes, and services.
There is a limit to how far funding of NHS, roads etc can or should be localized, however. There is always the danger that poorer areas will be hugely impoverished if dependent only on a local tax base. However, a degree of localism is, in my view, good. It enables people to relate easier to what needs funding and to the sources of funding.
Why get rid of the one channel that’s dedicated to culture, art, history etc? Quality educational programming is so important and should be funded just as much (if not more) then entertainment. What a shame..
…and to “balance” all the sensible opinions (with which I agree), let’s have the obligatory dim SNP tweet of the day:
I don’t watch BBC, ITV, SKY……..all foreign media to us in Scotland!
— KizzieWiz@KizzieWiz..ALBA Party (@KizzieWiz) May 14, 2020
Ah, yes, UK/English TV is “foreign” to a dim SNP partisan. Funny how these Scottish “nationalists” have (certainly Sturgeon’s SNP leadership have) no objection to the Jewish/Zionist lobby, no objection to mass immigration of non-Europeans into the UK (or even Scotland itself), no objection to Scotland being ruled or partly-ruled by the EU, NATO, the USA/NWO, “international” banks and financial institutions etc…Fake “nationalism”.
Lord Reith laid down his famous dictum for the BBC: “Inform, educate, and entertain“, presumably in that order. That dictum has been watered down to the extent that the BBC usually now fails to inform, or deliberately misinforms; it scarcely “educates” at all, even on BBC2, though it does —to some extent— on apparently-doomed BBC Four. As for “entertain”, it still tries to do that, mostly unsuccessfully, as far as I am concerned. Lowest common denominator.
The fact that opinionated football idiot Gary Lineker is (as I read) paid nearly £2 million a year makes the BBC worse than a mere absurdity.
The BBC pays millions to unpleasant “comedians” who trash everything worthwhile: Jo Brand, Jimmy Carr, David Baddiel; and many others.
The BBC is a negative force in national life now, in every respect. This latest insult to those of its viewers (and “licence”-payers) who have a mentality above gutter-level proves that it should now be shut down. It is not true “public service broadcasting” now, is an expensive anachronism and also a nest of anti-British propaganda.
Tweets by Peter Hitchens re. “the current situation”
Am I, @mwqa_limited? Have to read the Coronavirus Act? Did you note that it was passed without a vote? Do you not see that opposition to the government has been marginalised? How do you think freedom dies in a formerly free country? https://t.co/HV8DBOvURx
Excellent from @Sherelle_E_J Sherelle Jacobs @Telegraph: https://t.co/tMXOC7WcfT 'BBC has …pumped out No10's basic pro-lockdown propaganda message without question,genuinely convinced that they're holding the Government to account by spinning news items about a "No10 shambles".
I also very much doubt it it sweetie. That’s why I use my freedom to mock the powerful while I still can. @mwqa_limited I sense free speech hasn’t long to go. https://t.co/7god0jUEXu
Seems very likely that Covid-19 was present in Western Europe at least as early as December 2019 (one such case has been identified with certainty in France) and has since been quietly following the normal bell curve of such things, regardless of state panics. https://t.co/6RTupUvoCi
“A team of international researchers say mouthwash could destroy the outermost layer or ‘envelope’ of the virus, preventing its replication in the mouth and throat.” [Daily Mail]
“Spending time in the fresh air and sunshine can reduce someone’s risk of catching the coronavirus, a scientific adviser to the Government has said…Professor Alan Penn, a member of SAGE, the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, reassured that those who flock to the parks that the risk of catching the virus outside is lower…He said: ‘The science suggests that being outside in sunlight, with good ventilation, are both highly protective against transmission of the virus.’ Other scientists say they ‘totally agree’ with Professor Penn and advocate spending more time outdoors, where the virus is less likely to survive.”
So much for the “Stay at home, Protect the NHS, Save lives” nonsense-propaganda that has been pumped out by idiots to idiots for months now…
I wonder how many virtue-signalling serfs will be out “clapping for the NHS” this evening? Where I live, not many; I have only ever seen one or two clapping. We now know that in fact NHS staff face little if any more risk from Coronavirus than do the general population. The risky jobs seem to be those done by care staff, taxi drivers and, oddest of all, security guards.
Evening foray
Needed a few things from Waitrose. Far more traffic on the roads than seen for maybe 6-8 weeks. In Waitrose itself, still the ludicrous “social distancing”, which seems to have been ingrained in many; a couple of people jumped clear as I, carrier of the Plague (as it might be) approached. One vacant-looking woman was wearing a —clearly home-made– facemask.
In fact, there were few shoppers and no obvious shortage of any goods. One “interesting” event occurred. I was there just before closing, and got stuck behind a woman buying a mountain of shopping while also having an extended conversation about trivia with the cashier. While standing waiting for my turn to be dealt with, an announcement over the PA system: “Waitrose closes at 8 pm, at which time all staff will stop what they are doing and clap for our carers”! In other words, what started as a genuine and spontaneous gesture in a few places has become a socially-mandated, Government-promoted and corporately-enforced and compelled act.
As a matter of fact, I left the Waitrose building a minute before 2000 hrs, and was still in the car park when the designated clap-time arrived. I noticed that only the black-clad Waitrose marshals, two of them (I call them Handmaid’s Tale militia) actually stood outside the main doors and clapped for 10 seconds or so. I also heard a police or ambulance siren, which was probably not co-incidental.
En route back to Schloss Millard a minute or two later, I saw one family of 5 standing outside a house, having presumably clapped. I later heard that some idiot let off some fireworks somewhere in the area.
Das ist’s. Time to dispense with the “clapathon”, I think.
Any fatality from cancer, coronavirus or any illness is tragic, but we've become so obsessed with the fight against Coronavirus we've neglected these other patients.
This simply has to change or it will cost countless more lives.
— Professor Karol Sikora (@ProfKarolSikora) May 14, 2020
Lionel Shriver excellent here. Yet the Spectator still teeters on the edge of full-scale resistance. Where are you @douglaskmurray? If this isn't the madness of crowds, what is? . https://t.co/5CW12fxPU3 via @spectator
Something else worth noting is that below, about “social distancing” being “here to stay” (or so says thick Ugandan Asian Priti Patel, the inept would-be spy for Israel who is now, laughably, a Cabinet minister for the second time)…
Entirely believable, alas @sallycopper. As I have said, unless the government can be made to admit its policy was wrong, we are stuck with this forever. https://t.co/VXEUAOT0aD
It will be seen from the above chart that the UK is in 4th place for death from Coronavirus, expressed in proportion to population. Belgium, Spain and Italy, all of which had strict “lockdown” regimes, have fared worse than has the UK. Some countries which have implemented only light regulation, such as Sweden, have fared better than the UK.
There are many variables, based on lifestyles, the way deaths are counted, when the virus really emerged in a particular country etc, so people can argue endlessly over which country has the worst or best record and why. However, it seems clear that whether a country has strict “lockdown”, less strict, or none at all, is almost irrelevant to the spread and effect of the Coronavirus, taken over a couple of months.
It will be seen, also, that Coronavirus has killed (taking the statistics as provided) about 500 people for every million in the UK. One out of every 2,000. That is unfortunate, but is hardly the Black Death (which is said to have killed about 1 out of 3 people across Europe, in other words about 700x the rate of Coronavirus in the UK (so far).
I notice that the political Twitterati have not disappointed me. They always get it wrong. They are on the wrong side of pretty much any argument. They predict every election or referendum inaccurately. In this case, they (most of them) want an extension of the UK “lockdown” nonsense; many want it even more strictly enforced, and with even fewer services and facilities open for business.
You cannot really talk or debate (not that I wish to) with that unthinking and self-righteous Twitter mob. They are the bookburners, the proponents of heresy laws etc.
As things stand, people in the UK are under loose house arrest, en bloc. It seems that some restrictions are going to be eased next week. All the same, and more importantly, the British people cannot do all manner of normal things at present, some of which are very necessary. Examples include accessing dental services, getting hair cut, sending their children to school.
This farce has to end. The cost is enormous. Vast numbers of people (at last count, over —uh-oh, that number again!— six million) were “furloughed” on 80% pay (capped at £2,500 per month). I have to admit that a wry smile may have been seen on my face at the sight of those who, many of them, cheered on Dunce Duncan Smith and others from both main System parties as they marginalized and demonized the poor and especially the not-employed poor, now themselves staring down the barrel of destitution.
Apart from that, the fact is that the “lockdown” is killing people every day in various ways: deferred consultations, cancelled operations etc.
At some point soon, all the “emergency” measures will have to end. Many prefer to stay away from boring jobs for a while, given that they are “furloughed” on 80% of their pay (and when you take off costs such as transport, it might even add up to 100% of net pay in reality). However, this will not be sustainable for much longer.
Having scared the people out of their skins, the government of fools is now preparing to crack the whip to get those same people out of their houses, by reducing the furlough cap to (probably) £2,000 from £2,500, by reducing the amount anyone can get to 60% of pay rather than 80%.
I wonder what the unemployment figure will be by Christmas. 3 million? 5 million?
Latest news (only 1 hour old at time of writing):
Debenhams is to shut five stores after failing to reach agreement with its landlords over rent, resulting in 1,000 job losses https://t.co/414K3gDR57
Those calling for “lockdown” to continue almost indefinitely, and certainly for months more, have no interest in or understanding of the effects on the UK economy. They seem to think that people can be subsidized indefinitely to stay in their homes while commerce and industry die on the vine.
As usual, the Twitter mob, all but irrelevant to the real course of events, rant at those (in this case) calling for an end to the “lockdown” nonsense, calling them “stupid” etc. Those Twitter drones have evidently not thought through all the implications of a continuing “lockdown”. Apart from which, it occurs to me that the present times are characterized, at least in part, by unthinking selfishness disguised as concern for society.
I favour Basic Income, but that can only work where society (and the economy) is open for business. If not, then the monies expended are merely dead outflows, fuelling inflation eventually.
Notting Hill Carnival
The Notting Hill Carnival has been cancelled, a rare bonus from the Coronavirus situation. The blacks may or may not riot as a consequence in August, when the heat builds and the tom-toms drum incessantly in the darkening (urban) jungle. For the local population, this will come as a blessed relief.
Notting Hill was already being gentrified when the Carnival (the white would-be ethnics drop the “the”) started to become a really major event in the 1970s, having started in 1966. In the 1960s and 1950s, Notting Hill had been known as an “edgy” neighbourhood wedged among other, more expensive, areas (Kensington, Holland Park etc).
I myself was familiar with Notting Hill in the 1980s. I would fairly often visit the wonderful art-nouveau Electric Cinema in Portobello Road, which sometimes showed Soviet films such as Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears; I was trying to improve my Russian at the time.
The Soviet diplomatic presence was not far away, near Notting Hill Gate (Consulate) and Kensington Palace Gardens (Embassy). The Czech Consulate was also at Notting Hill Gate.
Some of the films were very odd at first sight:
Other films (especially the ones from the Caucasus) seemed almost impenetrable. I remember this one, which I think was shown with Russian subtitles:
I visited the actual Portobello Road Market, specifically, a few times in the 1980s and early 1990s. It sold everything from apples to antiques and expensive fur coats (some valued at thousands of pounds, with provenance doubtful).
As for the Carnival, I did go once, out of curiosity. That would have been mid-1980s. Ghastly. Non-stop drumming “music”, dubious palm wine bought from an African in the street, fried plantains (not unpleasant but very over-priced) and, everywhere, huge numbers of people (by no means all non-whites, though blacks were by far the majority, as I suppose they soon will be in all of London, if they are not already). A hot day, too. I stayed for an hour or so. To return to real London was not easy. All Underground stations in the vicinity were closed because of the crush. I ended up walking all the way home, in the hot sun, to Little Venice, which was blessedly quiet and leafy by comparison with the streets of “Carnival”.
The present-day residents of Notting Hill (where houses now sell for millions) mostly barricade themselves in for a few days, or lock their houses up as securely as they can, and then go away for a few days. I imagine that they must be (secretly?) celebrating the cancellation this year.
Errrrr…Vitamin D deficiency anyone? Not exactly cutting edge science, but surely worth a mention, BBC? Don’t worry, no-one sane will think you’re being anything-ist. https://t.co/DivDMA6Toh
I start with one, the poster of which evidently imagines itself very clever:
#Iceland are doing brilliantly vs #CoronaVirus, confirming no new #COVID19 cases. Currently, just 3 patients hospitalised. It's only suffered 10 fatalities
Or…just maybe…because Iceland, unlike the UK, is not a multikulti, globalized, overcrowded dustbin of peoples…
Something better:
I think the best way of describing Dear Leader Kim Jong Al's approach to the Covid-19 epidemic is that he is like a man who sets fire to his own pyjamas to cure himself of the hiccoughs. And then says it worked because, lo, the hiccoughs have gone.
Much worse than that @emilyjanecrews. Champagne Trotskyist. Almost nobody can cope with the undoubted facts in this article, so everyone ignores it: https://t.co/ZlYmwTZQeHhttps://t.co/7hxeC6qr2g
Hitchens of course glosses over the fact that most important Communists in the UK, from the 1920s up to the effective end of the socialist/Communist movement in 1989, were Jews.
In fact, Hitchens’ own Daily Mail article (an inset of) refers to Karl Marx simply as “German“, and not the more correct “Jew“, presumably because Marx was born in Germany and spoke German as well as other languages. If I had been born in China, would I be Chinese? Of course not (though some of the madder Twitterati would probably and defiantly answer in the affirmative!).
Thank you @ben_crocket , l hope so. I think the shift is among people working for themselves who really cannot afford to stay at home any longer. https://t.co/ZLsCOh3AZs
I disagree @jayfab69. I think the dangers of Covid-19 to healthy people of any age are gravely exaggerated by a government which wishes to distil fear into power. https://t.co/RytrTjvWTo
I'm sorry @steventomboots. I don't regard testing as a practical or useful response to the prob. The only thing that really needs to be tested is the intelligence of the government, a test they'd fail if properly applied, so requiring them to hand over to somebody sensible. https://t.co/FjGkOQY9xN
Deaths peaked on 8th April. French scientists have found evidence that Covid-19 was in Europe in December. Imperial College's modelling, which caused this panic, is increasingly under question. Expect – and demand – a major rethink soon. https://t.co/XFymlyxqGN
2/2 @johnnyclithero As a result I think the level of fear spread by government propaganda is wholly disproportionate to the problem, as is the policy of throttling the economy and mass house arrest, which do not seem to me to be effective. Happy to discuss further, if you wish. https://t.co/dGUWhKLKyA
Heard one whilst out on my bike Tuesday; can't remember the last time I heard one before then.
— Lee E Collins | Could do better (@Lee_E_Collins) May 7, 2020
Quite, it has been ages, 30 years, I'd guess, since before I went to live in Moscow in 1990. I have put it down the chemical warfare known as modern farming which has led to many British birds moving to the suburbs to find food. https://t.co/KDYr9rijGo
I cannot recall when I last heard a cuckoo. Perhaps in a deeply-wooded part of Surrey, c.1985, aged about 28, when I would go trekking every week for several hours with a well-organized group of elderly persons (all 70+), some of whom, like my parents’ then neighbour, Edward, had been officers of Special Operations Executive (SOE) and/or other organizations during the Second World War.
They would trek on a pre-planned route along rural footpaths (very rural— we never met another soul), wooded, with ferns pressing in at time, and always ending up at the country pub where we had started (and where a ploughman’s lunch and a pint of beer would await). Those old people were resilient! I myself, 50 years their junior (and at the time a student of Taekwando, who also could swim 2 miles or more) always fell asleep on the way home in Edward’s car! That was a tough generation.
More tweets:
This,ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of thing complete strangers,such as @taggio72 here, feel entitled to say to me because I dissent from the official view(this tweet is part of a larger mob troll attack).I regard it with contempt, but others might be scared from speaking out. https://t.co/IVMNX09iHW
I am rather surprised that Hitchens even bothers with Twitter, let alone little twerps such as his “interlocutor” there, “@taggio72″. I myself am banned from Twitter anyway, because a group of Jews organized a campaign of complaints against me in 2018. I do not know whether my 3,000 followers miss my tweets. I followed only about 50 accounts, I believe, and most of those were organizations.
Twitter is basically a waste of time. I do read tweets from a few people (Hitchens being one), but Twitter is basically an echo-chamber and outrage-chamber where the agenda changes almost daily. When you add to that the fact that the more interesting tweeters (like me) have been systematically removed over the last few years, the net result is that Twitter is almost useless, though it is a way of identifying some “enemies of the people”. The bias in Twitter is such that it is almost useless as a way of gauging public opinion. Maybe if you see the Twitter mood, the best idea is to then take the reverse view as being the view of most people.
More tweets
The government have done something that weak, incompetent and insecure rulers often do. They sought to distil power from fear. In this case the spirit is too strong. The fear is so great they are trapped by it. https://t.co/fgR0bw95HD
Failure to protect care homes, plus very loose definitions of who died from rather than of the virus, which have enlarged the figures. https://t.co/4RGDGcgN22
Nope @F59man Powell was a fastidious man of great intellect and education. He knew that terms such as 'grinning piccaninnies' and 'whip hand' were the weapons of the rabble rouser. yet he deliberately used them in a speech calculated to boost his political 'career'. No excuse. https://t.co/U0yOznlyV7
Hitchens is against Powell on various bases, including Powell’s alliance with what is now called “racism” (before about 1989, most people would have used the word “racialist”, though that was not so often heard. The politically-correct mob had not yet quite stormed the citadel (under their paramount chief, Blair).
My own view about Powell is that he was a Conservative, so I am not on the same page as him. When he made his famous or “infamous” speech, I was only 11 and living in Australia.
The ITV News piece below is of course multikulti-biased; still…
The fact is that, overall, Enoch Powell was right. Is the Tiber “foaming with much blood”? Not in the cartoon sense, but look at the violent crime in the large cities, the knife crime, the gangs etc. Look at the direction of travel. It is getting worse.
As to Powell himself, one of the true stars of postwar British politics. He was a Conservative, which I am not. He hunted the fox, which I deplore. Still, a real mind amid, even then, the mediocrity. Look at that clip again. Both of the other MPs featured are very slight as compared to Powell.
The first, Paul Uppal, a Sikh, was Conservative Party MP for Powell’s old seat, though only from 2010-2015. Prior to that, supposedly “ran his own business”, the nature of which was not disclosed even on his own website, except that it apparently had no employees other than himself… (#bullshitklaxon…)
As for Ian Austin, MP for Dudley North 2005-2019, he was a press officer in the Labour Party prior to becoming an MP. A total mediocrity, as well as being one of the worst expenses cheats in the Commons and a doormat for the Jewish lobby and Israel.
Austin was finally removed from Parliament in 2019, having stepped down to avoid losing his seat. He was not popular, and caused scandal by apparently wanting the law against pornography featuring bestiality to be repealed. He too has now been given a government sinecure. He is unmarried (I do not know whether he has a pet or companion animal; I hope not!).
Powell, a former Professor of Ancient Greek (Sydney University), who had been born into very modest circumstances in the UK, was multilingual, an academic star student who, after leaving his Sydney academic post, joined the British Army as a private soldier in 1939. He ended the war in 1945 as a brigadier.
I imagine that Powell would have been appalled at the MPs now sitting in the Westminster monkeyhouse. As for Twitter, I cannot see him having an account or bothering with the tidal wave of ignorance, though the brevity taught by his mastery of Greek epigrams and proverbs might have assisted him, if he were to have a Twitter account.
I oppose Powell in that he was very pro war with Germany, even before Hitler took power! Also, he did not say much about black and brown immigration into the UK until the late 1960s. To that extent, Hitchens is right. Powell did try to, as people now say, “weaponize” the race issue for his own political benefit. However, that resonated with millions of British people who even then suspected that the System was betraying them.
Why did Powell never really get anywhere politically after 1968? My view is that, as someone who was basically a Conservative and reactionary, he could not see himself as “national revolutionary”, leading a social-national party.
“A February 1969 Gallup poll showed Powell the “most admired person” in British public opinion.” [Wikipedia]
Had Powell started his own party, even if Conservative-nationalist, he probably would have won several seats and perhaps attracted a few Conservative Party MPs too. It has to be borne in mind that, in the 1970 General Election, over 97% of the votes went to LibLabCon, just under 90% to Labour and Conservative. Powell probably simply thought that new parties fail…
So it was that, in 1974, Powell abandoned the Conservative Party and joined the Ulster Unionists. Why? Again, my own view is that Powell had in mind the bloc of Irish MPs (I think about 90) that Parnell had once led, in the 19thC, though Powell was not the leader of the UUP (which was also few in number at Westminster, I think about 11 MPs).
It may be that, in the end, Powell over-valued Parliament, Parliamentary procedures etc. It was alien to him to start a new party, despite his surely knowing that he had all the talents necessary to lead one: public profile, public support (up to a point), a fine mind, public speaking skills of a high order, administrative skills etc.
Imagine if Powell had had the initiative to start a new party immediately after the “Rivers of Blood” speech. He could have recruited thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. He might have been able to get a bloc of MPs and, from there, who knows?
As for Hitchens, where I part company with him is that he is a kind of “small-c” conservative or quasi-conservative. The race question is as nothing to him, the Jewish Question is as nothing to him. As a result, he inevitably gets things wrong at times even when, often, he is on the right track.
Why are they not dealing with that gorilla, even if it requires a taser (or a Glock)? I have no idea what the situation was, though. The black may simply have been sunbathing. God knows.
A tweet about the pathetic Question Time rubbish now fronted, poorly, by ludicrously-overpaid BBC face Fiona Bruce:
People who are “conservative” nationialists can never see that the UK is not being flooded by non-whites by some kind of accident! Question Time, The Pledge etc are not full of ignorant blacks such as Afua Hirsch or “Femi” by “accident“! Au contraire. This is part of the Great Replacement. It is not a “conspiracy theory”. It is real and it is all around you. Just open your eyes.
Well, that’s enough for today. I may not like the Chinese attitude to animals, but they can put on a parade!
End of the day…
Afterthought: the officially-mandated “clap” nonsense, which has been conspicuous by near-absence around where I live, was briefly in evidence this evening, at 2000 hrs. Some fireworks went off in the distance, then I heard one person loudly clapping, unseen but not far away. Maybe a drunk.
I think 3 of my neighbours clapped for 30 seconds this week! 😂😂#NHSclap When it started almost the entire street was out. They have to stop this nonsense.
Well, I went out two evenings running, early evening. Only to Waitrose, though. On the main road (a rural or semi-rural A-road), some traffic, more than before (again). It is clear that the “lockdown”, put in place by a frightened and indeed panicked government of fools, is fraying at the edges.
Waitrose was slightly busier than yesterday, but on both days no queue to get in, and I have noticed that the black-clad Handmaid’s Tale militia (Waitrose marshals) have slackened off over the weeks. Still there, still going through the motions, but not as officiously as (one or two were) a few weeks ago.
Actually, I do not think that many people have died of Coronavirus in this part of southern England. I have seen two cases reported in the local Press since the scare began. That is in a population of 15,000 locally and, in a town about 12 miles away, another 20,000. Other small population centres as well. I have not been told personally about anyone at all who has even (knowingly) had “the virus”, let alone been hospitalized with it or died from it.
I saw a few idiots wearing what looked like home-made face-masks. Three, in fact. One ancient woman shopping with her husband (sans mask), one thin, brittle and unpleasant-looking woman aged around 60 (that’s youthful around here), and one typical male Guardian-reader, about 40 at a guess, complete with tote-bag. Yes, I am assuming wildly; I blame the “lockdown”…
As for panic buying, that seems to be yesterday’s news. Some types of pasta not available, and the flour shelf looked depleted, but the other most-scooped-up items, such as bleach, loo paper, kitchen roll etc were all in good supply. As for bread, over-supply, with many loaves on sale reduced to as little as 10p. What a difference a month makes.
As a matter of fact, I wonder how many (older) people remember the absurd sugar panic of (?) sometime in the late 1970s. It only lasted a week, had (as far as I can recall) no obvious cause, but had shoppers lining up to buy a dozen bags of sugar at a time. There were even a few scuffles or arguments in the aisles, I think. The “madness of crowds”.
1974. Earlier than I thought. Memory, even mine, is fallible. At least I did not “remember” having been gassed (6 times, in one case!), like some “holocaust” fakes!
“Selected patients for experimental operations with a high risk of death…”? Most of the criticisms of medicine and psychiatry in the Reich (sometimes justified criticisms) could be applied with as much or greater justice to the UK or USA. Fact. But Germany lost the War. Das ist’s…
Not sure that I believe the anecdotes in the first paragraph, but I suppose that I could be wrong.
On the way back to Schloss Millard, called in for a small amount of fuel at the (only) filling station. I saw an unmarked police car, a white Jeep-like vehicle with dark windows, akin to a Hummer (I never would have taken that to be a police vehicle) suddenly roar along the by-then empty main road, blue lights flashing (including a Kojak-style magnetic one on the roof).
What was that all about? A big undercover police operation in the area? A pensioner seen sitting on a clifftop bench, or walking along the pebbly shore, in defiance of “lockdown” “advice”? Maybe a dangerous “neo-Nazi” had been seen in the neighbourhood…In fact, Kojak‘s car light was red, but you get my meaning
After my shopping expedition, I sat down to watch the excellent Reilly, Ace of Spies on the nostalgia channel. I used to have it on DVD and, before that, on video. On this occasion, I was 15 minutes too early, so watched the ending of a marginally amusing “reality” show called Celebrity Dinner Date. What can I say? The “celebrity” (of whom I had never heard and whose name I have already forgotten) turned out to be a simian person of mixed race. He is apparently featured on the “Year of the Sex Olympics” show called Love Island, which I have never seen but understand to be a competition in which various instant “celebrities” have it off with each other somewhere in the tropics or subtropics.
The three girls who entertained the “celebrity” in turn were all English. The Germans have a word for it (as usual): Rassenschande.
Tweets seen
-Sweden has no lockdown -Sweden's spread rate has been under 1 for weeks -Meaning Sweden's deaths per day are reducing -The UK doesn't need a lockdown to reduce deaths
She wants “full, policed lockdown, with clear orders…” I wonder whether she might be more at home somewhere like China, or North Korea? She has obviously no respect for what we English people used to call “civil rights”…
I was so struck by that tweet (though there are now many like it) and by the apparent fact that this Indian woman is (she claims— I had never heard of her) a regular face or voice on Sky and BBC, that I looked up her Wikipedia entry:
Looks like “Bidisha” peaked over a decade ago in career terms but is still making a good living (?) in the msm/literary milieu, while arguing for even more immigration into the UK…
As a matter of fact, “journalists” and other scribblers not only often fail to report the truth, or report untruth, but do not seem even to know it when it should be within the ambit of their own lived experience! Look at the blog post, below, by Anna Blundy, who was, at the end of the 1990s, the Bureau Chief in Moscow for the London Times.
Ms. Blundy, who was (she says) part-basis for the fictional character Bridget Jones, writes this:
“I was born in 1970 and grew up on my own with my mum while dad flew around the world to wars and summits. It was odd in those days, when most people didn’t go abroad, to be watching the news (in black and white) and taking it personally.”
“When most people didn’t go abroad“? In (what must have been, at earliest) the late 1970s?! I can assure her that many many people, maybe even most people, in the UK did “go abroad” in the late 1970s! Maybe not to El Salvador, true…Do many go there even now? And she watched the TV news in black and white? In 1975 or 1980? Come on…
What a country we live in. People can dress up in all sorts of appalling ways so long as they are on an “LGBT” march or the Notting Hill Carnival, and anyone objecting can FO, but one man or woman dressing like a 17thC “plague doctor” (presumably to satirize the present “lockdown” nonsense and/or Coronavirus scare) and the police are out seeking to find him to lecture him, in case he “scares” anyone. After the population has been scared out of its skin by its own government! You couldn’t make it up!
Happened to see this
If there is a mass exodus from the criminal bar then the first victims will be those without independent wealth.
For those of us that dedicate our time to social mobility and mentoring – it’s gut wrenching to think it will have all been for nothing.
All I can say is that when I was first appearing, as a “second six pupil” (green, newly-qualified, barrister), in the County Courts and magistrates’ courts in London in 1993, the lower criminal and family courts especially were awash with black barristers. I did some criminal work, but not family. If I am honest, in the next few years I saw not one black (or brown) barrister who was anything other than incompetent. Maybe I was unlucky…I even saw an appalling creature (with teeth sawn to points, like a cannibal) at the High Court in 1994, where he was (thanks to his friends on scandal-hit Lambeth Council) defending a judicial review application. I could say more, but what’s the point?
Only for one brief period in my life did I any baking of bread; in the early 1980s. It lasted a few weeks. I got some excellent recipes from a book by the now-forgotten Robert Carrier (famous in the 1960s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Carrier_(chef)
My first attempt and several others were all successful. It was only then that I went a bridge too far, making from Carrier’s book something called (if memory serves) Old English Spice Bread, which ended up the size, consistency and —almost— weight of a cannonball. It was not that I could not eat it, but that I could not even cut it! I tried to break it open by casting it down, with force, on a pavement. Result? a clunk, as if a piece of concrete had been dropped.
The cost was tremendous. A large amount of double cream, and various other ingredients. All for something half the size of a football and weighing a ton.
Turns out that Professor Ferguson broke his own lockdown in order to meet with his girlfriend (whose husband must be un mari complaisant). Ferguson has now resigned because of that trivia, not because his flawed advice (that there could be 250,000 deaths from Coronavirus in the UK) has led to the shutdown of most of the economy, to the imposition of a “police state-lite”, and maybe to the end of the UK as we have known it.
I knew as soon as I saw that bastard Ferguson that there was something wrong about him. I thought maybe drugs, but it seems that his craving lies elsewhere. It has to be admitted, though, that his girlfriend is not unattractive, on the face of it…
My mother, who endured the bombing, was a good deal less worried about bombs than a lot of people seem, to be today about a virus. 'If it's got your name on it…' was what she and all her friends used to say. And I promise you, bombs had a much higher CFR than Covid-19. https://t.co/O0Ed2RbCRh
Question's one of proportion @jacquip537 . My parents both went through the war, my mother in the Liverpool Blitz, my father on the Russian convoys. They would have laughed at us cringing at a virus, and been appalled at us giving up the freedom they defended. https://t.co/lMp0XHvNaL
Why make excuses for Imperial's wild and damaging over-estimate of mortality? Surely @maajidnawaz scientists should wait for tested facts before proposing plans to deal with problems they have yet to measure? Especially when those plans are so devastating. https://t.co/mJrUoxnRM2
Indeed. The Johnson government, the Cabinet of None of the Talents, drifts in the current, unable to admit error or to stop the haemorrhage of national wealth it has caused, threatening not just the sacred NHS but life and health in general. https://t.co/9WEnk6k6yq
Important news: 'the absence of a link with China and the lack of recent travel suggest that the disease [Covid-19] was already spreading among the French population at the end of December, 2019.' https://t.co/NJnfecDEdf
1/2 It was when Al Johnson was Foreign Secretary (Boris is a stage name designed to suggest a cuddly bear, which he is not) that his deep lack of actual knowledge or experience was demonstrated beyond doubt. But apart from the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe most did not notice. https://t.co/y2b91O1Cjq
2/2 By the time Winston Churchill was Al Johnson's age, he had been in battle and under fire many times, had been captured, held as a PoW and escaped, and had held I think seven major ministerial posts. https://t.co/y2b91O1Cjq
Melanie Phillips is desperately trying to boost Boris-idiot by applauding his crazed “lockdown” nonsense. That has put Hitchens off her. I have to say, though, that his perspicacity fails him at times, as here below:
Well, @Melanielatest ( along with a number of other surprising people) took a major step when she supported the Iraq war. I am glad I had the sense not to do so, because look where it leads https://t.co/OWwFmFLyLk
Was it really so surprising that a Jewess who is fanatically pro-Israel supported the war by which the major Western powers defeated one of the two or three greatest threats to Israel, i.e. Iraq under Saddam Hussein? Thus doing Israel’s dirty work. For which Israel paid not a shekel.
Anyway, back to the virus scare and the “lockdown” nonsense:
The dental blockade is astonishing. There never was a country that needed dentists so badly. https://t.co/1Fjwh6Ro4d
It's not an analogy @yoycation. It's a comparison: 1940- British people calm in the face of the Blitz, and determined to defend their freedom. 2020 – British people panic in the face of a virus, and uninterested in defending their freedom. https://t.co/1ARLLlpzkA
Hitchens has a long series of altercations with some Jew called Margulies, a lecturer in politics at the University of Essex, no less. The tweet below, is at or near the end of the exchange, as Margulies is put back in his box…
Are you really unaware of the alarmist forecasts of deaths which were made and did not come true? You are becoming increasingly incoherent and uninteresting, and also seem to be startlingly ill-informed. I think you may have to go now @chequeredfuture. https://t.co/VyVMC21miX
Nope. Plenty of scientists, doctors, epidemiologists dissent from the policy. Check my blog, you can find out all about it. You really do need to stop swallowing govt propaganda and range a bit wider, @chequeredfuture, sweetie, but you do have to go now. You're wasting my time. https://t.co/oMRgnyy3B0
Good to see that the reputation of the University of Essex is being, er, maintained!
Johannes Leak in ‘The Australian’ suggests the reaction to Covid-19 might be a little out of proportion. Has any cartoonist been so subversive of conventional wisdom? pic.twitter.com/yhDMtecxMb
Soros and the Great Replacement of populations in Europe
The New World Order [NWO], imposed through Zionist Occupation Governments [ZOG] does not need real Europeans. It is replacing us with lesser types. One has to ask the question, is Coronavirus connected with all this manipulation?
Back to tweets seen
ALEX BRUMMER in the Daily Mail : the nation is heading for a slump, a surge of insolvencies and levels of unemployment almost certainly not seen in our lifetimes. Madness to keep under-45s from work while economy burns https://t.co/qrCs7IM9XI via @MailOnline
“We are not just condemning a generation of young people to long-term joblessness, we are also encumbering the country with levels of debt which it will take decades to pay off and could even linger into the 22nd century. (Remember, the debts incurred as a result of World War II were only finally paid off by Gordon Brown in 2006.” [Daily Mail]
The Jamaican singer, Millie (Millie Small) has died. 73 years old. So I must have been only 7 when her one UK hit came out and was frequently on the radio and TV. I remember it well, maybe partly because “Millie/Millard”— similarity of names.
West Indians were then (1964) few in the UK, incredibly (despite what the msm propaganda would have people believe now). In the early to mid 1960s, I cannot remember ever seeing one —one!—, even in the poorer parts of Reading, let alone where my family lived, on the border of South Oxfordshire), until my family returned to the UK in late 1969, after nearly three years in Australia.
My first thoughts about Stewart (at the time, as potential Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister) underwent change as I discovered more about him. Now, my judgment is far less favourable than it was a year ago.
Responsible not only for instituting a poundland KGB attitude to the public under the “lockdown” nonsense, but also in respect of the Alison Chabloz case. His “officers” (toytown police woodentops) behaved disgracefully on several occasions.
Now let’s hope that the Derbyshire voters also get rid of the “Police and Crime Commissioner” for that force, a dim Sikh who is in the pocket of the Jewish lobby.
“Lockdown” nonsense may start to be removed next week
About time. If I see much more of the (endlessly-repeated on radio and TV) braindead slogan “Stay at home; Protect the NHS; Save lives“, I myself may require immediate help as my blood-pressure goes into orbit.
Stray thoughts
Was he wrong? I would have agreed with his sentiment even a year ago. Now? [sighs]…millions of rabbits under house arrest, scared of their own shadows, lining up six feet apart; then there are the bookburners who think that books written by those they and their sort call “Nazi” should be burned, destroyed etc….and the bookburners include crazed women in academia, “professors” of third-rate universities, writers, journalists…the very people who, even 30 years ago would mostly have supported at least basic intellectual freedom. And so on.
Tomorrow the rabbits and their police zookeepers will all be clapping on command (according to the msm lie machines, anyway…in fact, I suspect that relatively few are boring the pants off the rest of us…not much clapping is happening where I live).
The general level of quality is shockingly low now in the UK, from government and Parliament to the Press and TV “journalists”, to teachers and exams, to the “learned professions” (certainly the Bar and the solicitors’ profession), to the degraded “universities” and their fake “professors”, to the police (now on the lowest level imaginable).
So, while I feel that “never say never”, on this occasion Enoch Powell may not be right…not in the exact terms, anyway.
Tweets
Denying what, @nastylucas? When have you or anyone else produced a speck of *evidence* that throttling the economy and confining people in their homes for weeks have in fact saved a single life? What is it? Where? You've nothing but pathetic blind faith in what Johnson tells you. https://t.co/QbuJhyMMOF
Are they, James @james_macintyre? I've been surprised at how *little* coverage this event has had in the liberal zone. The Guardian's headline must be one of the dullest ever written. And the BBC! They hate it. But the coming*economic* catastrophe is inadequately covered. https://t.co/H4yvcKjbJu
Well, as you can't even spell my *name* "@janetvolpe2, I don't expect you could manage the other thing either. Best not get involve din things you know nothing about. https://t.co/r5ystdpa2T
Thank you @seantubegaming. but it reminds me of what anyone with any serious case to argue is up against, and gives me an opportunity to mute lots of silly puppets so I need never be troubled with them again. https://t.co/TWMhu9S0uU
I was also interested to see that the Twitterati went mad today because a photograph of Michael Gove‘s bookshelves (rather less impressive than was my one-time library of 2,000+ books…) showed that he had a volume by that excellent and now-pilloried historian, David Irving, sitting there.
Well, regular readers will know what I think of Gove, that expenses cheat, fraud, drunk, cocaine abuser and (worst of all) doormat for Israel, but it makes me laugh to see him attacked by the pseudo-socialist “antifa” idiots (“useful idiots” for the Jew-Zionist lobby)!
Some of those idiots really are (far more than the Germans of the 1930s ever were) the bookburners of our times. What is shocking, though, is that some are well-known journalists, other scribblers, established academics etc. All commending censorship…
I shall probably blog about all that (and witchfinder-general Owen Jones, the fake “revolutionary” and “System-licensed Bolshevik”) another time; maybe soon, but not today. In any case, I have previously blogged about Owen Jones: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/a-brief-word-about-owen-jones/
Coronavirus
268 deaths in the UK “from” or “with” Coronavirus today, a huge fall. The government of fools has made a huge mistake in putting the population under house arrest.
What almost interests me more is how very supine and compliant most of “my fellow citizens” (I prefer to think of them as obedient rabbits) have been and continue to be. They might, the more disorderly of them, have a drunken fight or catfight (in “normal” times) on a Friday night, but when push comes to crunch there they are, the rabbits, all lining up 6 feet apart to buy bread and milk, and only going out at all when the toytown police give them the nod. Pathetic.
In related news, the London “Nightingale” instant hospital has been “stood down”, having only received a few dozen patients out of the 4,000 expected. The other similar hospitals across the country have also been closed or are being closed; some never opened at all!
The Boris-idiot government is now going to pretend to be still somehow in control, which it very obviously is not. Before long, there will be an effective lifting of the “lockdown”, but disguised by pointless “testing”, by fake “trial runs” in places that don’t matter very much, like the Isle of Wight, etc.
Meanwhile, the UK economy is spinning into a terminal decline. Worse, the plebs (including affluent suburbanites and “country”-dwellers, by the way) have been scared out of their skins, and actually are now afraid to leave their houses! Except to clap on command (“for the NHS” which, for whatever reason, is now very far from offering the best medical service in Europe).
Jesus Christ! These are the descendants, 80% of them anyway, of the contemporaries of Nelson, Wellington, Drake, Hood…
******* sad.
Stray thought
The more I see of those who rule, or pretend to rule, the UK, as well as those who pretend to comment intelligently on various current affairs, the more I realize that I, and people who agree with me, should be seated at the head of those affairs.
That would work better @danieljhannan, if the govt hadn't made such a huge propaganda song and dance over those hospitals. A competent government in what was once our tradition would have made quiet, effective preparations. This lot sought the praise, must now take the criticism. https://t.co/qpXNKu6BAb
Everybody has always hoped that unshut Sweden would survive without too many Covid deaths, haven’t they? Well, Sweden tames its ‘R number’ without lockdown https://t.co/KVNqf0iAP3 via @spectator
Yes, and our political leaders are less well-educated, less experienced and face no serious opposition. Our media, once adversarial, are consensual and in many cases co-opted into a sort of semi-official Al Ahram role. 1968 wasn’t all bad @harrypaye. https://t.co/M3BavK3TdK
Well, I would disagree with Fraser when he says Sweden 'tamed' anything. There is no evidence that any action (except handwashing and general common sense) inhibits the spread of the virus, which appears largely to follow its own course. https://t.co/HJvuKqbsP7
Re. the above tweet, exactly what I was blogging, nearly 2 months ago. I may not be an “expert” (virologist, epidemiologist etc…and btw any doctor or nurse who is neither of those really knows little if anything more about Coronavirus than me…), but looks like I was right and the “experts”, Downing Street loony “advisers”, MPs, Cabinet ministers and msm scribblers were, almost without exception, wrong.
Even the wild gamblers at Rishi Sunak's Treasury now see that the cost of the Panic Policy is unsustainable (as I have pointed out for several wasted weeks). How are we protecting the NHS by emptying the national bank account? https://t.co/8gweMek8mL
Well, the Coronavirus continues to decline (in reality), but the “this is a war, Boris-idiot is our great leader and we are all in it together to defeat the virus” nonsense is, if anything, being promoted even harder, though there is an obviously-growing dissent as well.
[above: police nuisance harasses and lectures a young couple minding their own business in Greenwich Park][Daily Telegraph]
Boris-idiot himself is back posing as Prime Minister and, predictably, has taken the easy road of continuing to impose the “lockdown”. No matter the economic damage. No matter the social damage both to individuals and to institutions. No matter the evidence against it.
The police are still enforcing ridiculous so-called “rules” that make no sense:
“Ken Marsh, chair of the Met Police Federation, said the force need clearer guidance over what is and isn’t allowed during the lockdown. He told The Sun : “Why is it OK to queue with hundreds outside a B&Q but not to sit on a blanket in a park well away from other people?” [Daily Mirror]
The decision to open the temporary “Nightingale” hospitals was probably the right one, and the results in terms of construction and fitting-out were impressive for such a brief time, meaning the short time between the decision having been made and the places being ready. However, they now stand as proof that the Coronavirus situation has peaked in the UK.
The London Nightingale, with capacity for 4,000 patients at once, has only admitted about 40 patients altogether, over 3 weeks, and is said to have only about 20 left now, most having recovered and been discharged.
Several other Nightingales have either not been opened officially because of lack of demand, or have closed after having opened with much fanfare.
The death rate in the UK from the virus (supposedly) has fallen sharply, as it has across Europe. The deaths being seen now are probably mostly of people infected as long ago as February.
Boris Johnson: “the nation is starting to “wrestle” the “invisible mugger” that is Covid-19 “to the floor” – adding: “We are beginning to turn the tide“. [Mirror]
Boris-idiot is clueless. An Israeli expert who seems to know a great deal more than those advising the hopeless UK government has said that measures taken in various countries have varied, but that the virus travels through a cycle or wave lasting about 70 days, whatever measures are taken.
The UK government has half-trashed the economy already, and for what?
Schools are shut despite the fact that hardly any children under 10 get infected or at least show any symptoms; children and young people are generally little affected;
Very few people under 40 are affected badly enough to need medical help (example: Carrie Symonds, Boris Johnson’s fiancee);
“Professor Keith Neal, an expert in Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at the University of Nottingham, explains coronavirus doesn’t appear to affect children under 10 – so they might be first to return. He also explains evidence has not actually revealed kids pose a spreading risk.” [Daily Mirror] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/what-new-normal-could-look-21935648
“Lockdown” has had, in reality, little effect: “So it looks like the virus had a fairly wide spread in Great Britain very, very early in this epidemic.“
The 2 metre/6ft “social distancing” mandated is a purely arbitrary distance decided upon by civil servants.
What do we know about protection from Coronavirus?
Speaking in practical terms, that
Frequent washing of hands and lower forearms with soap and water (or gel, if in transit) gives quite good protection, and anyway the best protection available;
Avoid hot crowded places where people breathe or sneeze etc over each other;
Avoid incubator-places such as London Underground trains and stations; nightclubs and pubs too (now closed anyway);
“Social distancing” is pointless beyond a few feet distance; 3 feet is OK in most instances;
Face masks are only useful for doctors, nurses, dentists, barbers etc;
Preventing people from sunbathing, walking, driving around in cars etc is just silly and has no effect on Coronavirus.
Peter Hitchens
Peter Hitchens’ blog republishes his recent Mail on Sunday column. I think that it is worth copying some of it to this page:
“I have come to hate this beautiful weather, the loveliest spring for 50 years. I long to wake up to a filthy morning of dirty grey skies and miserable rain, like the one Tennyson described when he wrote ‘ghastly, thro’ the drizzling rain, on the bald street, breaks the blank day’. This is because I think the British people are lost in an unreal, sunshiny dreamtime of delusion, seeing the current crisis as a sort of holiday after which they can all amble off back to the world.
They once knew a world that died forever some time ago. I am reminded of John Wyndham’s terrifying science fiction novel The Day Of The Triffids, in which everyone is captivated by an amazing, spectacular meteor shower – and all those who watch it late into the night, oohing and aahing with delight, wake up the next morning permanently blind.
Except, in this case, we will all be permanently less free and permanently poorer. And that will, of course, include the sacred NHS, which the nation love-bombs every Thursday night but which is already so threadbare that it cannot properly equip its doctors and nurses. Just wait and see how much worse this gets in the coming era of post-shutdown austerity.
Not to mention all the various zealots and fanatics who already see this new world as an opportunity to impose their various dogmas and fads on us. I won’t dwell yet again on the damage the Government has already done, and which deepens every day. I only say that without serious and angry opposition, this will only get worse. This clueless Cabinet is motivated only by fear.
People who strove all their lives for office now have no idea what to do with the powers they thought they wanted, and are terrified of the responsibilities that came with them. They do not understand what they are doing and are not in charge of their own destiny.
And until they are afraid of the wrath of the voters, or perhaps of the courts, they will continue to hide in their bunker, biting their nails and wondering how to get out of the mess they panicked themselves into a month ago. They cannot admit they gravely overestimated the danger of the virus, and gravely underestimated the damage they would do to the economy.”
This chart is devastating for shutdown advocates. If it is correct, and deaths peaked on April 8, then the shutdown cannot be the cause of the decline in deaths. It came far too late to influence them. Please listen to 1st item https://t.co/Mp7a5BDgPbhttps://t.co/DbySlKztnD
Animals and birds are being helped by the fall-off in human activities;
Seas are being polluted less, for the moment;
Little Greta Nut has been pushed into irrelevance and off the front pages, in fact out of the news altogether.
Can’t think of anything else…
The clueless Government (and Opposition)
The Government should have kept most shops, businesses, schools and recycling centres open. It should not have prevented people doing things that certainly have no effect on transmission: walking in parks, on beaches etc; driving or riding around.
The results of the extreme “lockdown” will not become fully apparent until later in the year. Huge dole queues, businesses going bust all over the place, an even greater rollout of the poverty caused by “Conservative” governments (mainly) over the past decade or so. Also, the increase in deaths from other serious conditions.
I have blogged before about those “alt-Right” wastes of space: “Prison Planet” Watson, “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin; Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson too. Pro-Israel, pro-Jew lobby etc. Just completely pointless politically and ideologically.
Back, inevitably, to the Coronavirus…
It is true that poor Belgium's plight, which just does not fit the 'shutdown will save us' dogma, gets little attention. https://t.co/E1OVz7PzEF
The tweet by “Sharon”, below, is of interest, mainly because it typifies the unthinking Twitterati, the “people should drive at 10 mph; it’s worth it, if it saves even one life” bleat. The bleat can be made more emoting (not emotional…emoting) yet by saying “child’s life” or “mother and child” (fill in other possibilities and tick box…).
2/2 @spq400 It is my supposed great age and resulting vulnerability to *you* , not *my* limited power to infect you with a disease which in most cases has no symptoms, which is the supposed cause for this. You should read the thread before barging in, in my view. https://t.co/mkqzNL0iCK
In fact, it is instructive to read some of the tweets by the extreme pro-“lockdown” Twitterati. Apart from calling those with dissident views “morons”, “c*nts” etc, these types have obviously not really thought it through: they accept the official narrative, including the “lockdown saves lives” nonsense. They no doubt all “clap for the NHS” without really thinking why that is necessary or even desirable, and they imagine that the UK can simply shut down and live more or less normally “off its hump” for months or even years.
Twitter is, of course, now the home of the terminally out-of-touch. Twitter thought that Hillary Clinton would beat Trump, and that the Remain side would win the 2016 EU Referendum (easily), to name just two prediction errors. Now, Twitter thinks that Coronavirus affects everyone equally (patently not the case), that “lockdown” is essential, as is “clapping for the NHS” (which must be worshipped, whether in success or failure) and not leaving your home until Boris-idiot says so.
Actually, one of the most amazing aspects to all this is to see how compliant are the pseudo-socialists on Twitter. They are willing to say that the Government should have spent more on the NHS since 2010 (despite the fact that funding is by no means the only problem in the NHS), but are unwilling to say that the present Government has made an egregious and massive over-reactive error in dealing with this virus.
For persons who prefer reason and proportion to panic and exit-free policy bungles, this website offers key comparisons which enable you to make sense of the figures much bandied about by panic-mongers: https://t.co/fdusp3eULW
And even if you cannot demonstrate it @brexitguard? And there is no evidence for it? I've tried you late and I've tried you early, old chap, but there is nothing in you. I'm afraid you have to go now. The door is over there. https://t.co/zlUSZKSJP4
Another aspect is that the extreme Twitterati say that anyone who has seen through the “lockdown” scam is so evil that they, if suffering from Coronavirus (or anything else?) should not be afforded medical help. The same sort of thinking that leads some (even some doctors in the NHS!) to say that smokers and drinkers or the very fat should not be helped by the NHS, because their sufferings might have been “self-inflicted”. Strange, they never say that about, say, HIV/AIDS “volunteers”, blacks and browns carrying more traditional sexual diseases, or even drug abusers seeking “rehab”…
Thank you @TandT_SEO. I think this spiteful 'Toe the line or be deprived of a medical service you've paid for all your life for the benefit of others' line is actually disgusting. If I were left-wing, I'd call it 'fascist' As I'm not, I'll stick to 'disgusting'. @miket_pops. https://t.co/ptCZpbwXzl
In fact, those Twitterati who want people to obey every word of Boris-idiot, Raab or little Matt Hancock are by and large the same sort that voted Remain in 2016 because Big Parent EU can look after (they foolishly imagine) their civil rights, workplace rights etc. It is a kind of socio-political infantilism.
Talking about little Matt Hancock, he was totally thrown by the not-difficult questions from the public at the news conference on Tuesday. Like a rabbit in the headlights. He just gabbled nonsense and fell back on the pathetic slogan of these times, “Stay at home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives”. Wrongheaded nonsense.
More tweets
There is incompetence, @RobotLong. But the policy is also mistaken. Duff predictions, disproportionate, ill-timed, despotic, economically disastrous, ineffectual, founded on fear which was then uncontrollable, and then ….no exit. https://t.co/CwORkDmt5H
1/2 Al Johnson's wholly unrepentant statement https://t.co/XqWfj4oJkj shows why it is so important to argue and establish that the Govt's policy has been wrong from the start. Or it will drag on for a dismal year of ruin and confinement.
One of the most striking aspects of the “lockdown” nonsense has been to notice how very enthusiastically many members of the public have “collaborated” with the police by fingering their neighbours and others.
We were told for years about how,”had Germany invaded”, the British would have not only “fought on the beaches” but later engaged in a sabotage and terror/guerrilla war spearheaded by a stay-behind secret army and supported by the whole nation. Complete and utter fantasy.
I have no idea whether the fantasy of a WW2 Britain fighting secretly after German invasion sprang from the febrile mind of Churchill alone, or whether lower-ranking figures had the idea. People such as Ian Fleming, who was appointed as male PA to the Director of Naval Intelligence, and then “commissioned” as a naval officer (before long, Lt. Commander) without ever having had any naval training. Neither had Fleming any experience or knowledge of intelligence work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming#Education_and_early_life
George Orwell noted that the British might have collaborated obediently under German rule, and that was certainly the case, overall, in the occupied Channel Islands during 1940-45, as was also the case in France (despite the ahistorical propaganda now put out about the “Resistance”).
[above: Parisian gendarme salutes German officer by the Arc de Triomphe, 1941]
[above: a Parisienne talks to a German soldier during the Occupation]
[above: German Luftwaffe officer talks to local policeman, St. Helier, Jersey, Sept. 1940]
In fact, in Germany itself, the Gestapo, which was in fact rather a small organization, contrary to the popular view, had only a few staff in most cities and towns. Records often did not survive the war, but those that did indicate a small staff, reliant on a fairly small paid-informer contingent, and secret or not-secret denunciation by members of the public. e.g. the Lower Rhine area, with 4 million inhabitants, had 281 staff in all. Quite large cities such as Frankfurt had only 20: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo#Population_ratios,_methods_and_effectiveness
The Gestapo was often overwhelmed by the amount of unsolicited denunciation it received. I was interested to read recently that several UK police forces during the Coronavirus situation have had the same problem: hundreds or thousands of denunciations, as in “my neighbours go sunbathing locally”…
Incidentally, the amateur secret army Churchill set up in 1940 would have lasted, probably, about a year before its active members were all shot or deported East.
Final thought: the whole discussion about whether or not there would ever have been a “British Resistance” (I doubt it) and as to how long it might survive if it ever had existed (a year, at maximum, is my guess), is anyway a pointless one. There never was a serious plan to invade mainland Britain. “Operation Sealion” (Unternehmen Seelöwe) was a typically detailed OKW (German Army High Command) contingency plan which was never going to happen, if only because the Germans lacked serious carrying capacity (barges, landing craft, ships).
“British secret army”: “Service in the Auxiliary Units was expected to be highly dangerous, with a projected life expectancy of just twelve days for its members.”
"Usually there are around 700,000 planned and elective operations per month. So over three months, that is a total of 2.1 million operations that will not take place,”
Yes! I dread the thought of the deaths and economic destruction lying in wait if we are locked down any longer. And the restrictions on our liberty which will probably never be lifted, also the new distaste for the police in the law-abiding middle classes.
— Julia Stephenson🇬🇧SaveOurTreesAndHedges🌲 (@Vernia) April 28, 2020
Incredibly, the above plainly deluded tweet came from an official police Twitter account! “Diversity” at the centre of “an ever improving society”! Absolutely off the wall! Simply mad.
Who writes this stuff? Some civilian employed by the police? A student working part-time? I hope not an actual police officer…
Well, here we are on the evening of St. George’s Day, scarcely an auspicious day this year, with the compliant rabbit-pleb population begging to be kept in “lockdown” for “as long as it takes”, meaning until Coronavirus is no more. They can then (in a year or so) emerge from their dwellings to contemplate the complete destruction of the UK’s economy and society.
Actually, the above is somewhat hyperbolic. For one thing, at least as far as where I am situated is concerned, there was no visible or audible State-mandated clapathon this evening. Yay! Not a single “locked-down” serf-citizen (in my area) appeared to clap, bang, set off fireworks or virtue-signal. So that’s one dead propaganda campaign (I hope)…
Secondly, people are starting to revolt, gradually, against the wrongheaded and tyrannical “lockdown” nonsense.
It’s a very British revolt. For one thing, very slow! All the same, in a typically Brit “yes, repeat no” way, people are starting to ignore the “lockdown”. There would be a great deal more of this quiet revolt were shops open. As it is, there is nowhere much to go anyway. However, there are still parks, beaches, national parks, lakes (those not yet poisoned by Derbyshire police woodentops) etc.
The msm continues to parrot System propaganda, though. Look, below, at the Daily Mail today, calling people “covidiots” simply because they decided to walk in a park, sunbathe alone in a park or on a beach, drive around for a change of view and air, all activities which do not spread the Chinese virus; neither do any of these people have any chance of getting the virus from their walking, sunbathing or driving.
Not that that stops Twitter’s “me-too” online mob of serfs and virtue-signallers from attacking these innocent people and their harmless behaviours. As for the toytown police that now infest the country, they love lecturing decent citizens doing completely harmless activities.
“Despite government pleas and warnings of strong fines from police for breaching lockdown rules, beaches were packed up and down the country, with covidiots sunbathing and enjoying the high temperatures.” [Daily Mail]
[above: police idiots “move on” a harmless elderly/middleaged couple sitting having a drink from a Thermos flask. Why? Why?]
“In Edinburgh, a couple were moved on by police after they were spotted enjoying some tea on a park bench.” [Daily Mail]. Again, why? It is senseless, quite senseless.
[above: it pleases Daily Mail scribblers Danny Hussain and Jordan King to call this harmless young woman, sunbathing in her sky-blue bikini at Highgate, a “covidiot”… Why? She is not spreading the bloody virus; she is not in danger of infection, and even if she did get it, she is young enough to have, probably, few if any symptoms. Oh, and the Daily Mail “newspaper” scribblers might care to note that sunbathing is not unlawful anyway, whatever little Matt Hancock might like to pretend]
[above: another young woman, alone in the sun on Primrose Hill. Harmless. Why call people like her “covidiots”? So that the Twitterati and other online mobs, ignorant and brainwashed, can chuck virtual rotten tomato at her?]
[above: further misuse of police resources and unnecessary intrusion into the lives of citizens: the motorist was bored and decided to drive around Cornwall. So? Mind your own business, Plod!].
“Devon and Cornwall Police said today they have carried out over 200 stops in the Penzance area alone in the past week. A driver pulled over for going on a 70-mile tour of Cornwall’s roads said ‘No reason for doing it really – I was just bored.’ It is the latest sign of the country getting back to normal life – despite ongoing lockdown rules.” [Daily Mail]
[above: customers crowding together at a large takeaway food outlet in Edinburgh. This is within the “rules” as laid down! It’s all a nonsense!]
[above: the Central Line in East London. All within the “rules”, yet a wonderful incubator for bacteria and also viruses]…
According to the Daily Mail, people can now be fined if “caught” sunbathing in public, but not if exercizing in public, despite the fact that the latter is far more likely to lead to random infection! It’s all just nonsense! That’s assuming that the Daily Mail has the law right, which I doubt (I speak of the law, not whatever little Matt Hancock tries to pretend is the law).
Twitter full tonight of idiots engaged in the State Clapathon. Go away…thankfully, few if any around here. Once again, one sees that Twitter is the home of the natural serfs and virtue-signallers. Most unable to think for themselves.
Not that I do not appreciate the doctors, nurses and other staff in the NHS. Most are great. However, State-encouraged mass signalling is not to be pandered to. It also tends to kill thought (and dissent) about this whole Coronavirus thing and the government policy of putting the population under pointless house arrest.
Also, the NHS is badly-administered, to an almost absurd extent, and that is apart from any funding questions. “Clapping for NHS” tends to says “there are no serious problems in the NHS”. Again, this clapping coercion tends to kill thought and dissent.
An exception, as previously noted, has been Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah on Twitter):
Crises such as the present one are for political leaders or at least pretend leaders to run with, not advisers, however supposedly eminent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Whitty
Advisers such as this Whitty character need to be put back in their box. It is always dangerous to, in effect, give power to such people.
I like this (from @TonyGreyMan)…
Tyranny has arrived. Only the sovereign people can save us now. However, the English being a martial race only await their chieftain to emerge.
I think this is very likely. New data showing actual deaths peaked on April 8th tends to support this, also suggests shutdown probably not responsible for declining death rate,as doesn’t fit with incubation period. https://t.co/oePoWPA6j5
I am sorry this has happened to you but it is becoming a very common experience. When will people wake up and realise this isn’t just a long holiday? They’re stealing our standard of living. And for what? https://t.co/plRik6skWA
Not that most Twitter virtue-signallers care much (yet) about the economy collapsing. Most of that section of the Twitterati are public service people (NHS, police, fire brigade, local council staff, other public sector staff) who assume (wrongly) that their pay, conditions and employment are outside the wider “marketplace”, or they are people not working anyway (either retired or otherwise “economically inactive”). Then there are the BBC and other msm drones, entertainers etc, as well as the online soi-disant “film critics”, “writers” (who have written one or two sunk-without-trace books in the past 5+ years), “journalists” etc (untrained and on tiny online “newspapers”; see also “Mike Stuchbery”), people who talk on BBC local radio once or twice a month etc etc and put themselves forward as “academics”, “historians” etc, on the strength of a pathetic doctorate from some multikulti degree mill.
Finally managed to watch this https://t.co/rphL4qa4Wo astonishing interview with Swedish epidemiologist Johan Giesecke, an expert on viruses if ever there was one. Interviewer Freddie Sayers is perpetually astonished, as this sort of calm sense is virtually unknown in the UK.
Here is what the government's policy is costing: https://t.co/irhpjrgNzR . THus means lost lives, ruined health, wrecked education, poorer public health and housing, for years to come.
When I lived in Little Venice, on and off until 24 years ago, there was a large houseboat, where Branson was said to have lived once. Beyond Blomfield Road.
[above: Branson’s former boat at Little Venice, or one very similar; I think the same]
I was told that that he owned a house right by where that houseboat was berthed.
[above: the Regent’s Canal at Little Venice, not far from where I once lived; also not very far from where the previous photo was taken]
Virgin Australia, and other Branson-founded businesses, are also said to be teetering on the edge of insolvency.
I have no particular animus against Branson. He certainly seems no worse than other big businessmen, and in some ways seems better than others in the public eye. His courage cannot be questioned, after his ballooning exploits, and he is certainly willing to try new things in business. I do not particularly like some of his socio-political attitudes, and he is obviously mainly interested in making as much money as possible; that is, however, scarcely unusual in the business world.
At one time, 1989-1993, I was a fairly regular flyer on Virgin Atlantic, flying from the UK to Newark Airport in New Jersey. Not bad (for an Economy ticket), and more convenient for me than Kennedy Airport (which I also used, when other airlines had cheap tickets), because I then lived in Middlesex County, New Jersey, about half an hour by car from Newark Airport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex_County,_New_Jersey
I was rather surprised to see that Branson’s enterprises employ as many as 70,000 people all over the world. I do not know how many of those are in the UK.
I do not see why the UK Government should give his airline £500M, even as a loan. Airlines are going to be a drug on the market (almost worthless) for some time into the future. Any loan to Virgin Atlantic would probably be money thrown away. Admittedly, that is true of most of the money now being pumped out by the present government of fools, but why add more? Also, it seems that Branson himself has not paid tax in the UK for 14 years. Not exactly an incentive for a government looking at public reaction.
Coronavirus: an interesting view from Israel
“A similar pattern – rapid increase in infections to a peak in the sixth week, and decline from the eighth week – is common everywhere, regardless of response policies“
That would be more or less forever. I don't think people will put up with that. The government needs to understand that there is a limit on how long it can impose severe restrictions on personal freedom and normal economic activity. https://t.co/bJjRreGiyP
I understand the government cannot admit its mistake or immediately end the throttling of the economy and the stifling of personal liberty. But nor can it drift vaguely onwards, offering no hope of an end. There is a limit to how long people will put up with such things.
Hitchens has come to the same or a similar view to my own: this government of incompetents, advised by complete idiots, is starting to understand what it has done, i.e. pretty much killed, already, the UK’s economy (not to mention civil rights and the proper rule of law) but cannot, politically, simply whine that it got it wrong.
So comes the idea that there has to be an “exit strategy“, rather than the UK just resuming what is left of normal life overnight (by far the best idea). The Government (from its own standpoint) needs to pretend to be authoritative, in charge (and not, well, a bunch of idiotic mediocrities advised by similar ones).
Maybe so. I don't in any way suggest Sweden is a perfect nation. There is no such place. But I think its Covid-19 policy is better suited to a mature, free, law-governed nation than the schemes adopted here by Al Johnson and his committee of mediocrities. https://t.co/dQSNuuCOhy
I can think of several sane reasons for not doing such a thing, one of them being that it will soon be forced on us by the same people who accidentally wrecked the economy and left civil liberty lying unconscious on the ground. https://t.co/11DqwcMenq
I can think of one reason why a citizen (though perhaps not a very good citizen) might wear a surgical mask if required by the cretinous “authorities” of this poor country: it would be an excellent way in which those who commit crimes could stay undetected. I do not say that criminals, from shoplifters to bank robbers, will not still be detected and arrested (though, I hazard, in fewer numbers), but it will be harder for the prosecutors to get convictions in situations where not only have the accused allegedly been wearing masks but also where all other people at the alleged locus or loci were wearing similar masks! Eyewitness and cctv evidence will be almost worthless.
Below, Peter Hitchens teaches a little logic and commonsense to a lady evidently devoid of both:
Where did you read that and on what research was it based and how much protection did it say it gives? Locking yourself in the bathroom for the rest of your life would also stop you spreading the virus, but one must ask what the proportionality of such an action would be. https://t.co/VOZiybfYKu
I can't quite work this into a coherent thought, but Richard Branson pleading for state subsidies, the same Richard Branson who sued the NHS in 2016, right now, as people are being encouraged to donate to the NHS as if it were a charity and not a state health service, is… wild.
Not sure that I agree entirely with the last tweet, above. If Branson were to be allowed financial assistance for his companies in return for stumping up some sum in lieu of taxes previously avoided, it would be analogous to an individual not paying, say, car insurance and then, after an accident, being allowed to pay some money and then be treated as if he had paid previously.
Branson is a union buster. He’s paid no personal income tax to exchequer since moving to the Virgin Islands 14yrs ago. He sued the NHS. Virgin Healthcare paid 0 corporation tax while being handed £2bn worth of NHS & local authority deals. He deserves 0 sympathy. He’s a parasite. https://t.co/zPOY6t9cEs
Very interesting analysis of virus panic by Australian TV commentator Andrew Bolt. Brief, carefully-argued, powerful (and as far as I know, no equivalent in the UK) https://t.co/MjTSoMak3p
Why can't the government admit its mistake and immediately end the throttling of the economy and the stifling of personal liberty? Pride? Stupidity? Please enlighten us @ClarkeMicah
My latest conversation with Mike Graham of TalkRadio on the Covid-19 crisis : the damage to the police from this episode is irrevocable. https://t.co/R1emla9AAr
Yes, if the speaker or interviewee is a dissident (I mean a real dissident, not a faux-“revolutionary” joke like Owen Jones or Ash Sarkar), a radio or TV station faces “sanctions” (i.e. punishment for not self-censoring), or may even be shut down.
Did you really believe that we live in a (mythical) “free country”?
More Coronavirus nonsense exploded…
“The UK has today announced 449 more coronavirus deaths – the fewest for a fortnight – taking Britain’s total death toll to 16,509.
England declared 429 deaths and a further 20 were confirmed across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. And 4,676 more people have tested positive for the virus, taking the total number of patients to 124,743.
The day’s death toll is a fall on the 596 fatalities announced yesterday, Sunday, and half as many as the day before that (888). It is the lowest number for a fortnight, since April 6 when 439 victims were confirmed.
Although the statistics are known to drop after a weekend, the sharp fall adds to evidence that the peak of the UK’s epidemic has blown over.” [Daily Mail]
“It comes as a leading expert at the University of Oxford has argued the peak was actually about a month ago, a week before lockdown started on March 23, and that the draconian measures people are now living with were unnecessary.
Professor Carl Heneghan claims data shows infection rates halved after the Government launched a public information campaign on March 16 urging people to wash their hands and keep two metres (6’6″) away from others.” [Daily Mail]
Looks like I was right…all the way along, in fact…
The government of fools
As I blogged before, it is clear the pack of mediocrities and idiots now in government are afraid to take the decision to end the toytown police state called UK “lockdown”. They are avoiding having to take responsibility. The same is true of Boris-idiot, who (surely obviously now?) is hiding out at Chequers until the “crisis” he himself has partly manufactured is over or seen to be almost over. He can then reappear as clown “conquering hero”…
Unexpected? Maybe not
Britain was [X] to vote to leave the European Union:
Looks as if people are now unsure (at least more of them than previously) as to whether the EU was a “good thing” for the UK. Hard to say. Presumably, 13% are “Don’t Knows” or similar. On the other hand, in the actual EU Referendum of 2016, while there was just the binary choice to Leave or Remain, 27.8% failed to vote. Were they “Don’t Knows”?
Is anyone listening out there?
UK announces 449 more coronavirus deaths – the fewest for a fortnight as leading expert argues Britain's crisis peaked BEFORE lockdown and claims fatality rate could be as low as 0.1% You don't say https://t.co/w0oMiJmvKD
https://t.co/812hTfz5SX Carl Heneghan at Oxford has called for liberation of the people asap
— Alexei Romanov #NotABot – In a Castle on a Cloud (@AlexeiRomanov13) April 20, 2020
The question as always is whether the result is proportionate to the action. If you wore a goldfish bowl over your head at all times @_rp_77 , I am sure a lot of people would benefit. But is that a good enough reason for you to be made to do so? I think not. https://t.co/GkjaFiSRDp
@notacunnigplan, I’m not a Tory or a contrarian. I disagree with innocent people being treated like convicted prisoners because I was brought up in a free country,not out of ideology or a futile desire to make mischief. I disagree with needless economic ruin because it is stupid. https://t.co/VeZThbbMyX
Urgent question now is not rows over who messed up over the virus in the past. It is that people can't be expected to put up with this level of restriction & this amount of economic damage, indefinitely & without hope of an end. There's a limit. Drift will bring us to that limit.
Very interesting analysis of virus panic by Australian TV commentator Andrew Bolt. Brief, carefully-argued, powerful (and as far as I know, no equivalent in the UK) https://t.co/MjTSoMak3p
People may ask of me, “if you think that the government-mandated lockdown is a poorly-conceived and petty-tyrannical measure, and likely to half-wipe out the UK economy as well, why do you yourself obey it?”
My reply? “I am broadly going along with the lockdown nonsense because:
I find talking with (let alone being lectured by) the police (most of whom are poorly educated and as thick as two short planks) a bore, so I want to minimize the chance of being stopped on the local roads (mainly semi-rural or rural) around here, or on visits to the nearby small local town;
Almost nothing is open anyway, and I am not a partygoer, public (or private) sunbather, team sports enthusiast or general rambler on foot (these days).
On that basis, I may as well only make occasional shopping forays.”
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…
Listening to Radio 4 Today Programme, as I write. An elderly lady was called by her GP and more or less forced to agree to forgo treatment if she became unwell by reason of bloody Coronavirus! So much for the NHS! All the rabbits “clapping for the NHS” are zombies as far as I am concerned. Yes, the NHS is a very good idea, yes many of the staff —not all— are also very good, but the NHS is not only underfunded but maladministered, and seems to have the corporate attitude “like it or lump it”.
We (i.e. as a society) have had to accept (though many prefer their illusions) that the NHS is actually not better than the health services available to people in most other European countries…Indeed, it is often nowhere near as good.
What is happening in the UK is that all of our cherished illusions about our own society are being tested to destruction. Bluntly, the NHS is letting people suffering from anything other than Coronavirus die, while prioritizing (some of…) those suffering from the virus, which people however cannot actually be cured or even treated (except by administration of oxygen or air).
Other institutions in the UK have also been found wanting. The police, in particular. We have had Derbyshire police using drones, spying on elderly fell walkers and then “shaming” them on Twitter. We have had the police of various forces, including Devon and Cornwall, setting up road blocks to snoop on whether the journeys of motorists are “necessary”. We have even had one particular “muppet”, the Chief Constable of Northamptonshire, saying that his “officers” (police woodentops) may start to rummage through the shopping trolleys of people leaving supermarkets to “check” whether this or that item bought is “essential”! This is not only the behaviour of a police state, but of one that has lost its mind! A Toytown police state and a poundland KGB.
“In the South West, Chief Superintendent Ian Drummond-Smith, police commander for Cornwall, warned non-residents to stay away from the area.
He said: ‘Our officers will be patrolling this weekend, firstly on the M5 and A30 in an attempt to prevent visitors from entering the force area, and then locally to enforce the restrictions.
‘We will do so in a fair and balanced manner, but travelling down to the West Country is a serious breach of these restrictions and those doing so can expect to receive a fine.‘”
[Daily Mail]
So how long before we need “internal passports”, in the manner of the Soviet Union?
The police are now making up the law, making up their own powers, as they go along. Lord Sumption, former Supreme Court justice, has now remarked about this unlawful arrogation of power by the police.
I was talking a few days ago to a lady of my acquaintance, aged about 90. She likes to drive her little car to a coastal car park, usually (on weekdays) containing about 3 cars, elderly couples sitting in them and gazing at the view, or strolling on the grassy clifftop. Well, now the local council has taped off that car park, and the police have put some kind of stupid “Stay at home, Protect the NHS” bs notice there. Does that in any way stop the spread or supposed spread of the virus? No. So why do it? Petty jobsworth zombie behaviour.
Other long-cherished British illusions have also been cruelly exposed as illusory or exagerrated. One is that the UK is “a society under law”. Courts are either closed or operating as “virtual” courts, in which the justice available is also often “virtual”, meaning more apparent than real. Some district judges (paid magistrates) have been behaving like poundland Judge Jeffreys clones.
Government too. It seems like they too are making it up as they go along. Floundering idiots posing as “statesmen”
There’s a massive scare campaign going on. I myself thought, at first, that Coronavirus was a huge threat to Europe and the world. I have been on a journey (one which most, it seems, have yet to make). I now have a very different view.
Let us look at the deaths from Coronavirus in the UK: so far, about 8,000. That is out of about 70 million inhabitants. In other words, about one person out of every nine thousand, so far.
Coronavirus does not affect all people equally, despite what the government is saying in what amounts to a propaganda campaign. In the 1980s, when AIDS first emerged, the System claimed that it, too, was a threat to “everyone”, when in fact HIV/AIDS was almost entirely confined to a few groups: gays engaging in anal sex, sub-Saharan Africans, persons given contaminated blood, to a lesser extent other blacks and browns. It was thought impolitic to speak the truth, that heterosexual European (white) people, especially persons of Northern European race/ethnicity, were almost certainly not going to get HIV/AIDS no matter what they did in bed or elsewhere (so long as they avoided the groups already mentioned).
At this time of year, in the UK, about 10,000-11,000 people die every week as a norm. Coronavirus has increased that by about 500. In other words the increase, i.e. increase on the norm for this month’s average over the past 5 years, has been —is— about 5%.
The Today Programme had some “expert” on, talking about the “risk” to certain age groups. However, that was the risk of being infected, not the risk of serious illness, let alone death. Most people infected with Coronavirus are unaware of being infected with anything, or have mild symptoms commonly also suffered via other conditions, or have distinct symptoms but recover after a week or two without any medical intervention at all.
At present the risk of being killed in the UK by (or with…) Coronavirus is about 1 in 9,000. For anyone under 70, bar a relative few with particular and serious pre-existing health conditions, the real risk is nearer to 1 in 40,000, if that. For those under 40, the risk of death is vanishingly small. For anyone under 20, we are talking about one chance in a million, or several million. Lightning-strike territory.
Incidentally, the Radio 4 Today Programme bimbo who did its superficial little piece about Oberammergau this morning made a few schoolgirl errors:
While the “Black Death” was a form of Plague, and basically bubonic plague [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death], it was current in the mid-14th Century, peaking around 1347-1351;
the Oberammergau Passion Play dates from an outbreak of plague in Bavaria in 1634 and was not, as such, the “Black Death”. Also,
contrary to what the Today Programme bimbo said (and so thinks), 1634 was not in the “mediaeval” period!
The international Jew lobby forced the people of Oberammergau (I think around 1990) to take out from the Passion Play the bit of the Gospel text where the Jews choose the robber zealot Barabbas to be granted clemency (instead of Jesus Christ), they then crying out to Pontius Pilate, “let His Blood be on us and upon our children!”
[above: Adolf Hitler says hello to a couple of local young children at Oberammergau, in 1934]
“Lockdown”?
Look at this graph:
The West has shut down its economy to try to flatten the curve, but it is arguable what effect this has had on the medical or health situation. The effect on the economic situation, however, is more easily determined. Dire…
As can be seen, the UK will be one of the hardest-hit economies, down by about 27%. Interestingly, Germany is forecast to do even worse. Our time is coming. We’re back!
In fact, even the medical or public health questions are not straightforward:
PLEASE, When studying figures of Covid-19 deaths, PLEASE note words of Deputy CMO Jenny Harries at govT briefing 5th April (11 mins 16 secs) 'for the UK these are Covid ASSOCIATED deaths, they are all sad events, THEY WOULD NOT ALL BE A DEATH AS A *RESULT* OF COVID (my emphases.
@ClarkeMicah There are around 165,000 cancer deaths in the UK every year, that's around 450 every day (2015-2017). Doctors are concerned that early stage cancer diagnosis is failing during lockdown.https://t.co/GbNTMqPWX9
Please always remember. Imperial College, whose work is the basis of UK govt’s destruction of the economy and attack on personal Liberty, are not universally regarded as infallible. pic.twitter.com/xlBx1zauxJ
It's not just me. Even the supine government broadcaster reports that catastrophe is coming( just doesn't put it on the big TV bulletins). What do people think will happen to the NHS under these conditions? https://t.co/VPjUIvs7Rp
No doubt the rabbits and zombies will keep on “clapping for the NHS” as it falls to pieces. Anyone not clapping will be noted and subjected to online “shaming”…
Paranoid? Maybe, but who would have predicted that, in 2020, UK police would be intimidating citizens walking in their own gardens, or in local parks, or stopping people taking a harmless drive or motorbike ride on an early Summer day? Who would have predicted the the police would use loudhailers and/or drones to bully sunbathing girls in parks or on empty beaches, old ladies resting on park benches, middleaged couples walking on deserted moors? Who would have predicted that police would threaten to check people’s shopping to snoop on whether, in the opinion of the police “officer”, the items just bought are “essential”?
You are hereby forbidden to read my columns and books in future, as you plainly haven't understood a word @shmaob49. And please stop being a 'big fan'. I don't want you. I'd so much rather have you as a foe. 'Back to normal'! I wish. What you think of as normal is over for good. https://t.co/AYbcRNd2cF
There is a difference, @lordruncibald, between taking something seriously, as we all do, and assuming that the government's policy of crashing the economy and impoverishing the country( and the NHS) is wise. Do at least try to *appear* to think before you tweet. https://t.co/KBK3HiW6Mf
I have no idea. Difference is that I admit it, and the government(which also has no idea) thinks the best thing to do is to crash the economy for decades to come, and shout at people when they leave their homes. I do wish people grasped what a crashed economy is going to be like. https://t.co/emHl9bbU4z
It is natural, though mistaken, to assume that those “working in the NHS” know better than, say, me about Coronavirus etc. Mistaken because, though not a medic, health specialist or scientist, I have recently at least read things written or said by leading (real) experts in virology, epidemiology etc, which most people, inc. most NHS people, have not. About 2 million UK residents work “in the NHS”. Everything from lawyers and accountants to cleaners and porters, as well as, obviously, doctors and nurses.
Most of those people, though mostly no doubt competent in their own work, know as little –or less– about “Coronavirus” than I do. The few who have a better claim are the tiny handful who are virologists, epidemiologists and genuine experts in allied fields.
I am not going to be shouted down, either by “me-too” conformists, whether they be the usual Twitter mob or others, or by “people who work in the NHS” (unless, as aforesaid, genuine experts— and who in any case hold differing opinions inter se).
Britain in the political near future
I do not have the means to start a new political-social movement, in fact I have fewer means than almost anyone in the UK in financial terms, but it must be done, and soon. Before very long, by the coming winter, the time will be right, the situation ripe. It will spread like a wildfire once started.
Peter Hitchens is ahead of the curve here. He sees that [what we think of as] “normal” is over, probably permanently. Europe (not just the EU) is heading for a massive depression. In 1945 the USA was able to regenerate Europe in economic terms, using the Marshall Plan, but now the USA may well hit the economic buffers as hard as Europe and so be unable to help (and probably unwilling, to boot).
By the way, many people think that the reason that Germany (West Germany) pulled ahead of the UK after WW2, at least after about 1956, is because Germany had Marshall Plan money and the UK did not. This is, in fact, yet another myth of the period. A very convenient myth for many in the UK.
In fact, the UK not only did have Marshall Plan aid but had more of it than Germany. The greatly undervalued historian Corelli Barnett examined that, inter alia, in his works:
Barnett has made the point that Britain post-1945 had a choice:
To maintain its Empire; or
To regenerate its industry and economy generally; or
To create a Welfare State.
Barnett’s view is that the UK had the possibility to do one or perhaps two of those things immediately, but not all three. Britain tried to do all three things simultaneously…
One might cavil that a welfare state could only be maintained by a functioning economy anyway. True, but what is a “functioning” economy ? What is a “welfare state”, indeed? Present-day Cuba has at least the bare bones of a welfare state despite being economically a “basket case”. Wriggle room exists. There are questions of definition.
A few more tweets seen:
They may be in for a shock, in that case @pmcalver. There is *no* part of this country that will be immune from the crisis Rishi Sunak is stoking. No job, no salary, no savings, no pension, in public or private sector, is now safe. Check out 1931. https://t.co/vs3T7DVD6v
My father was a career naval officer, not a conscript, @zxcallum cleverclogs. But I think most of his ship's company would have agreed with him that they were fighting for Britain as a free independent country. Not a place where you need police permission to leave your house. https://t.co/ExtyFtj0bN
Precisely. Man gets chicken pox. Dr says : 'This is incredibly serious. To cure it I must cut off your leg'. Patient 'Well, if you say so, doc'. Dr amputates leg. Patient recovers. Dr claims to have cured chicken pox, demands huge fee. Patient is left with one leg, and bankrupt. https://t.co/OEUvhn1HA2
2/2 @RPBlackburn. Should we have trusted the government (for example) over the blood transfusion scandal, the Iraq and Libyan wars, the handling of the Foot and Mouth outbreak? This serf-like complacency is not just weak. It's irresponsible and lazy. https://t.co/KEZBnExSp6
Public attitudes and government decisions can be simply mad, deluded…
Yes, I am talking about the Coronavirus situation (“crisis”, “scare”, “scam”, “emergency”…you choose).
However, this has happened at various times in human history and not only in relation to “pandemics”. Take the First World War. It is common knowledge (and so probably wrong) to say that WW1 started because, once one empire started to mobilize, the others had to follow suit or be rolled over. Trite. There are elements of truth in that view, to be sure, but when we ask why the war both started and then continued for over 4 years, the answers are absent.
If you read the books of the period, such as the John Buchan stories, Greenmantle etc, you see that there was a panic, an absence of reflection, as well as a moral certainty that the British (or, in their countries, Germans, or Russians) had the moral high ground.
In fact, the First World War need not ever have happened, had people really thought.
Now look at the Coronavirus situation, eg in the UK. No-one knows much about the virus, though scientists are learning now. We know that it is transmitted in water droplets, eg if someone sneezes or even breathes. It is not transmitted in air, as such, so people sunbathing in parks or walking in the Peak District are not going to get it that way, or give it to anyone. Likewise, no-one can transmit the virus by driving around alone or riding a motorcycle. Has that knowledge changed government advice or police actions? Not a jot.
On the other hand, it is known that the UK “lockdown” (same elsewhere) is going to depress the economy and all but kill it for years, decades. Does that change the mind of this government? Not a jot…
So…what has happened is that the well-known bakery shop chain has been given the right to draw on £150 million of public funds over a year. Despite it being merely a retail outlet. Despite it having closed all 2,050 of its shops.
Almost all the 24,900 staff have been placed on “furlough”, meaning that the government (and taxpayers) will be paying 80% of their pre-furlough pay; Greggs is allowed to pay the other 20% of their previous pay level but in most cases will not be doing so.
What about the head of the organization, oneRoger Whiteside? Oh, he’s OK, because he is of course not being “furloughed”… and has decided to take 80% of his usual pay of £1,503,440, i.e. £1,202,752! Coronavirus Britain, 2020…
Stanley Johnson tried to get elected as MP, for the second time, in a new constituency, Teignbridge (Devon), in 2005, but failed (he came in a poor second). Voters described his appearance at a hustings with “Boris” as “a couple of public entertainers”, and unimpressive.
Talking of “unimpressive”, news now of that horrible little pissant, Robert Jenrick:
I suppose that the person most pleased that Boris-idiot is recovering is his fiancee. I am sure that her main concern was and is personal, but it must have occurred to her that, should Boris die (from any cause), she would be left dependent on her own resources, though I believe that her father is wealthy anyway.
In fact, Ms. Symond’s situation is a cautionary tale for other young women who, pregnant or not, are not married to what was once termed their “significant other”. Indeed, “Boris” is still, as I write, married to Marina Wheeler (his second wife), I believe, though divorce proceedings were instituted some time ago.
Had Boris Johnson died from Coronavirus his week, Ms. Symonds would have been entitled to not a penny of his estate, unless Boris has made a will in her favour, or a codicil to an existing valid will. In fact, Ms. Symonds would not even be allowed to stay at Downing Street and would be removed fairly swiftly.
I note the above not because I feel sorry for Ms. Symonds, who has wealthy connections and at least some monies of her own, but to caution others who are in similar non-marital relations (perhaps quasi-marital, so be it) and who are poorer than this lady.
When I was at the Bar, though I did almost no directly family law-related work (and in fact never even studied Family Law at university or Bar school), I did encounter the occasional similar story. I even met one lady, aged 40, who had been in a relationship for 20 years, had two or three children and lived with her quasi-husband in a house bought many years before via a mortgage. A married life in all but name (they did marry a few years later) but, had the husband died before the actual marriage, there would have been some headaches, especially financial, for the lady in question.
Priti Patel
“Downing Street is under growing pressure to explain the continued absence of Priti Patel from the government’s daily coronavirus press conferences.” [Daily Mail]
It is quite obvious why her colleagues do not want Priti Patel there. She is as thick as two short planks and, unlike some others (eg Iain Dunce Duncan Smith), unable to conceal the fact.
Police “muppets”, version 2, 3, 4, whatever…
Coronavirus: Cambridge Police checks no one is in non-essential aisles at supermarket https://t.co/ixe3frfuOs
Now Cambridgeshire Police have had to “clarify” why one of their officers “checked” supermarket aisles to see whether the slaves of finance-capitalism, oh, sorry, no wait….the citizens of the UK’s “free country” had been buying “non-essential” items (which, btw, is not unlawful anyway., not even in the new Coronavirus Police State…). The woodentop even tweeted about it! Dumb police woodentop klaxon…
My thoughts about this latest unpleasant absurdity from our uniformed zookeepers…I mean the police:
Why is a policeman wasting his time on duty “checking” anything lawful on private shop premises?
Why is that police narcissist tweeting about his activities?
Does the woodentop actually know any of the law(s) that he is supposed to be enforcing?
Does the woodentop in question know that he cannot simply make up laws and his own (in this case, non-existent) powers as a police constable?
Why does Cambridgeshire Police employ someone as a constable (I presume constable…God, could he be a sergeant?!) who a. seems devoid of common sense and b. seems to be power-mad?
Cambridgeshire Police say that the “officer” was “over-exuberant” and “has been spoken to”. Really?…So why are you, you police “muppets”, even employing an “over-exuberant” idiot who also seems to have no idea of a. the law, b. the limits of the law, c. the limits of his own powers as a police employee? Has the “muppet” recently come back from a taxpayer-funded “Common Purpose” course where he was told to “lead beyond authority“?
“Common Purpose is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1989 that develops leaders who can cross boundaries. This enables them to solve complex problems both in organizations and in cities.”
I think that a few things will need to happen down the line. First thing? Find a suitable wall…(make that “walls”…there are 85,000 Common Purpose “alumni” worldwide, many of them in the UK).
I’m not a great one for sharing FB screenshots, but the Cambridge Police tweet fits nicely with this post. If I’m doing my weekly food shop and decide to buy some non-essential plant pots and seeds to calm me the fuck down, I don’t see that that’s a disaster. pic.twitter.com/glMenZAtgm
So glad that Cambridge Police are checking that people aren't buying non essentials, that must mean every rape, murder and burglary is solved and you've got fuck all better to do, right fellas?
…and look at this ridiculous police bimbo! [from South Yorkshire Police] [link to video to see said policewoman]
After Cambridge Police searching supermarket aisles for non-essential shoppers this morning, South Yorkshire police have outdone them by threatening people in their front gardens.
Something has gone seriously wrong with the entire police approach here. https://t.co/St3K2bqR73
— Lineal Conker Champion of the World (@NUFC_OurClub) April 10, 2020
INSANE.
First, this ‘policing’ defies minimal expectations of common sense.
Second, the nation is under house arrest – we’re restricted to our homes *including gardens obviously* and this is crystal clear in the regs.@syptweet will you apologise?
Not only does this (more or less) female police “muppet” from South Yorkshire Police argue with and try to bully people standing in their own garden (!) but approaches them, shouting in their faces, behaviour which really might spread Coronavirus…and yet the idiotic policewoman tries to lecture the householders (incorrectly, at that!) about the virus! One of the householders is standing inside the doorway of his own house!
Watch that too [above]. Stunning. Toytown police, this time from Wales. Three police “muppets” harassing a man out walking his dog in a deserted park. The policewoman (who is leading this farce) tries to claim that the man (fully clothed) is “sunbathing” (which he is not, and that that is illegal (it is not).
It does not help that the Home Secretary Pritti Patel has gone AWOL. No leadership for the police nationally although with her record perhaps it’s just as well she is silent because she’s authoritarian & not very bright. But someone needs to lay out police powers clearly now.
It occurs to me (usually after a beer) that this Coronavirus thing is being used as an experiment to see how far the public will wear being told to stay in their little boxes and spin…
Another conspiracy theory
The Chinese government started the Coronavirus pandemic in order that the West would shut down its economy. After shutting down one province for a while, China then re-emerges, to take over much of the crippled world.
I suppose that the flaw in the above theory is that, without Western nations to which to export, China’s own economy will fall flat… In other words, China would be cutting its own throat.
Twisting the theory again though, one recalls that someone (Pat Nixon?) asked Chou-en-Lai what he thought of the French Revolution. Answer: “it is too early to say“. Could Pat Nixon really have asked such a question? The point, though, is that, of all peoples in the world, the Chinese take the long view.
As with most conspiracy theories, one ends up in a wilderness of mirrors…
Q&A session, Daily Telegraph:
“Fly fishing is a solitary pastime. Am I allowed to partake of this as part of my exercise regime? I have to drive half an hour to get to the river but once there, I will not see any other people.”
Daily Telegraph: “No. It is not exercise and you have to drive to get there. The Government has been clear that it does not want people to drive anywhere to spend time outdoors.”
Is there no-one in government, police, or the msm with the nous and courage to stand up and say “THIS IS BULLSHIT! DRIVING SOMEWHERE DOES NOT SPREAD ANY VIRUS. FISHING ALONE DOES NOT SPREAD ANY VIRUS! SUNBATHING ON UNCROWDED LAWNS OR BEACHES DOES NOT SPREAD ANY VIRUS!”? Apparently not. We are no more free now than Soviet citizens were, it seems, and there is no “free Press” or radio or TV worth a plugged nickel. Temporary, of course. Or is it?
As for the police, I do not know what is more irritating, the fact that some police are exposing themselves as petty and power-mad bullies, or the fact that Britain’s police (including their commanders or top brass) seem so utterly stupid and devoid of commonsense.
Latest government bs
They are talking about extending the “lockdown” bs for another three weeks! Maybe even longer! I hope that the zombies and rabbits, all clapping etc, think to blame themselves and also this government of incompetents, when they emerge blinking into the sunlight in May, June or July, for the fact that they have lost their jobs and maybe homes because of the unproven “lockdown” policy. I was not completely against it for a brief period, a week or two, but it is now going to destroy the UK economy, society and any remaining civil rights.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/maps/doggerland/
[By Francis Lima – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49850020] It can be seen that, at its greatest extent, what is now called “Doggerland” (a term invented only in the 1990s), together with similar areas in the Atlantic off (mainly) the present-day coasts of the UK and Ireland (the ancient land of Lyonesse, of Arthurian legend), was larger in extent than the present-day UK.
By AlwaysUnite – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17865159]
[above: tamarisk tree in the Negev Desert, Israel. CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=293521]
The West has shut down its economy to try to flatten the curve, but it is arguable what effect this has had on the medical or health situation. The effect on the economic situation, however, is more easily determined. Dire…
Ian Robert Millard 