Isn’t it remarkable how unimpressive Mr Johnson is once the funny jokes stop? I am increasingly persuaded that he really doesn’t know very much, or understand the world very well. https://t.co/FaU8IaP6kC
More from the minor academic enablers of the new UK toytown police state
“Keeping the over-50s in isolation longer and requiring people to prove their age when out and about is ‘the safest way out of lockdown’, researchers claim.
A Warwick University study found that a ‘rolling age-release strategy’ was the best option to end the lockdown introduced to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
The strategy proposed by researchers is based on the fact that death rates from COVID-19 among 50-year-olds are 20 times higher than deaths among 20-year-olds.
Study authors wrote that that police officers would have to be given the power to fine those caught breaking the age rule to ensure it was followed.“
The sheer cheek of the bastards! Everyone over 50 to be placed under house arrest “for their own good”, supposedly! It’s about time for there to be a national revolution in this country, to recover proper civil rights for British people, not the fake version peddled for 30 years. First up against the wall to be fake “experts” and minor official bullies but, even before these, those who make careers and money out of pretending to have the right to rule.
If anything like the measures proposed in the Warwick University study were implemented, the present government of idiots would do what Lenin, Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Margaret Thatcher failed to do, i.e. rouse the British people from their torpor, get them up on their feet and away from their (increasingly-Soviet style) TV boredom, and onto the streets.
Oh, look! The toytown police are at it again!
“An impromptu classical orchestra was shut down after police feared it would cause quarantined neighbours to flout lockdown measures amid the coronavirus outbreak.”
The UK is about to hit an economic reef that will knock the stuffing out of the present system. Millions on the dole, millions in unsustainable mortgage debt and, very likely and before long, a house price crash and millions of mortgage-holders in negative equity.
I apprehend that, before very long, even the compliant serf-mob “clapping for the NHS” etc will be rooting out their pitchforks.
Tweets seen
Which, being translated means :'How dare you dissent from the official view? Shut up before we shut you up! ' Not surprising that the symbol of this era is the face mask, covering the mouth and turning the wearer into a dumb submissive serf. @samuraislack https://t.co/JmHSylntLr
Because properly-fitted high quality masks are useful in hospitals, a completely different question from whether cheap unfitted scraps of cloth are effective on a bus. https://t.co/8wIjfmEt96
Perhaps I should (not for the first time) explain why I have been republishing so many of the tweets of Peter Hitchens. I do not agree with everything that he tweets or writes, especially about society generally, but as far as the Coronavirus situation, “crisis” and panic is concerned, he has been and is overwhelmingly right, in my view. It is therefore easier to republish his tweets than to write effectively the same views anew.
If anyone wants to see my assessment of Hitchens generally, here is my blog post from a year ago:
Another chart. When observing that the US has gone from 7 million to 38 million unemployed in 7 weeks, it should be remembered that it was apparently done to stop a virus with a case fatality rate of max 0.5%, as the NYC Governor admitted:https://t.co/RhEOXhZ9mdpic.twitter.com/yG8FqaLrI0
38 MILLION unemployed in the USA! Already. Here in the UK, the policy is not identical. We have the “kick the can down the road” “furlough” policy. That ends in June. Will the government continue it? The costs are enormous. However, many of those furloughed will find, in all likelihood, that they have no jobs to which to return once the wrongheaded “lockdown” is lifted. The same will be true of the very small business operators.
Bloomberg and other organizations say that UK unemployment will exceed the 12% that the Thatcher government achieved or suffered in 1984. The money received by (and by any other word) dole claimants in 2020 is far less in real terms than it was in 1984, thanks to Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, the Jew “lord” Freud etc. One sees huge discontent ahead.
As I predicted about 2 months ago, the “recovery” will not be the “V” type predicted by the pathetic Office of Budget Responsibility but more like an “L”-shaped non-recovery. Britain’s biggest trading partner is Germany, followed by the USA, as far as I am aware. Both are being badly hit economically.
[above: biggest trading partners in geographical Europe. See how many have Germany as their biggest partner; over 20 countries]
More tweets
No doubt @haguepaddy. AS it happens, I know of no evidence of *any* consistent relationship between shutdowns(or the lack of them) and the numbers of deaths. This is actually my point. Then there's the problem of the reliability of the death stats themselves. https://t.co/dCjXzTqv98
But Sweden did *not* copy the UK by adopting home imprisonment or crashing its economy. Britain did so in the fear of suffering 250,000 deaths. Pro-rata to population that would presumably mean that by not following UK, Sweden risked just under 40,000 deaths. https://t.co/HWspMZ1Heu
All those people who bizarrely place faith in 'testing' as the solution to the Covid problem might like to read this (wonder how long it will be before Capita is involved too) : https://t.co/FGuk9wdLKw
I think all these people saying that "lockdown" works might have a point. I mean, just look at how Sweden tops this chart of 14 countries.
Oh whoops … no that's Belgium, which has been on strict "lockdown" since 18th March. Oh and Sweden seems to be doing better than the UK. pic.twitter.com/ZzjIy9Qnyb
Mr Hitchens to you. We don’t know that because for almost all healthy younger people, Covid ranges between no symptoms and very mild ones. So why are we acting as if it was a rerun of 1918? https://t.co/3B32dJqcgl
Wearing facemasks or scarves impacts little on the transmission of “the virus”, though it may protect the odd person from being sneezed on; that’s true. As against that, again we see huge disproportion (as with the “lockdown”): millions forced to do something with the supposed aim of protecting a few, despite little evidence that it works. Steamroller going over any reasonable idea of civil or individual rights, too.
As I blogged before, the criminals will love this! Perfect cover and disguise. Eyewitness evidence even less reliable than usual; cctv far less useful to police and prosecutors. Not only because the alleged perpetrators will have been wearing masks or scarves but because everyone else in the area will have been! Perfect conditions for “reasonable doubt” (assuming that the police can identify a plausible defendant in the first place).
David Icke
I have never met David Icke, though I heard him speak once (at Wigmore Hall, Marylebone, sometime in the early 1990s, I think). He used to follow my Twitter account, before the Jews had me expelled, and he follows very few people, so he cannot be bad! Anyway, (((they))) are trying to shut him up by taking away his online platforms. Facebook has now censored Icke permanently. See the tweet by Jewish Zionist Rachel Riley, below:
The hate preacher was banned from Australia. Big arenas have rejected him, yet social media orgs allow him a megaphone (& pocket the profits).
Facebook have finally deleted him today!!
He needs the same treatment as Alex (Sandyhook is a hoax) Jones – across the board rejection. pic.twitter.com/bCqgEeh2hQ
Much worse than that. They symbolise the gagging of dissent which has accompanied this frenzy of fear-mongering and state worship. https://t.co/slrRSOpkmX
WE don't know because Covid-19, in most cases, has few symptoms. Sometimes, in fact quite often, it has none at all. This @blakmark55, might give you a hint as to why this fuss is out of all proportion to the threat. https://t.co/1UiovDQaCn
This (below) is also very true, but is far less amusing…
A few late tweets by Hitchens with which I agree
No, since 1989 the Left has lost its nerve, and increasingly sides and identifies with the state. This is one of the reasons for the rapid decline of dissent .. https://t.co/IKwRRp3uaX
Where is the evidence that crashing the economy and stifling personal liberty has saved a single life? Covid deaths peaked in England on 8th April. Most unlikely this was brought about by the March 23 Johnson panic. https://t.co/mFfVNoUtt1
There is no war, @mikekingwriter. Just a disease. It’s not Hitler. Quarantining the healthy is unprecedented. House arrest likewise. The crashing of the economy crazy and counterproductive on its own terms. Seldom has freedom of speech been more badly needed, and less exercised https://t.co/o9r0gTmY1q
“Private hospitals are empty and up to 40,000 NHS beds lie unused amid mounting fury over the handling of non coronavirus treatment as thousands of operations are cancelled and cancers go undetected.
Figures suggest that up to four times the number of beds are free than normal for this time of year after a huge slowdown in non Covid-19 admissions as health bosses aim their focus at the pandemic response.
Hospitals have cancelled ‘thousands’ of their non-urgent surgeries – like hip and knee operations and IVF treatment – to free up space for infected patients, and operating theatres, equipped with oxygen supplies, have been turned into coronavirus wards.
Nightingale hospitals, built for the expected surge in coronavirus victims, are also largely empty, and private hospitals taken over by the NHS at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds are also barely being used.” [Daily Mail]
“Medics say up to 2,700 cancers are being missed every week as the numbers being referred by doctors for urgent hospital appointments or checks had dropped by 75 per cent. Professor Karol Sikora, a cancer specialist, has warned that the impact of the coronavirus outbreak could result in 50,000 cancer deaths.
Meanwhile NHS staff have been accused of making a ‘mockery’ of the health service as they faced a barrage of criticism for posting ‘tone deaf’ and ‘disrespectful’ videos of dance routines on coronavirus wards while seriously ill patients have their medical treatment delayed.” [Daily Mail]
[above: “NHS staff at the Tavistock Day Case Theatre in West Devon were forced to apologise after they filmed themselves performing a traditional Maori chant“—Daily Mail]
“Clap for the NHS”? Nein danke. The NHS is a very good thing, in principle, but the fact is that maladministration is a major problem, as well as underfunding. I have no time for virtue-signalling, nor for de facto enforced “community-ism”.
“NIGHTINGALES COULD BE RE-PURPOSED
It emerged today that NHS Nightingale hospitals could be ‘re-purposed’ to treat non-coronavirus patients to clear a mounting backlog of cancelled operations and other treatments.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace yesterday said empty beds at the seven Nightingales around the country may be used for cases including cancer sufferers or ‘stepdown’ patients on the road to recovery.
It came as the Nightingales remain largely empty despite having the capacity for up to 11,000 patients.
The first of the seven major sites in England to open at the ExCel Centre in East London has so far treated just 41 patients despite already having a capacity of 500.
And the transfer of more than 30 patients to the hospital which opened on April 3 was allegedly ‘cancelled due to staffing shortages’, according to NHS documents.
Of the 41 patients treated in London, four have died, seven have been discharged to a less critical level of care and the other 30 are still having treatment there.
There have since been three more Nightingales open – in Birmingham on April 16, in Manchester the following day and in Harrogate in North Yorkshire on Tuesday.
The NHS has not yet provided data on how many people have been treated by any of these three, although the figure is believed to be dozens at best. This means the total number of patients treated at the four sites could be under 100.” [Daily Mail]
So, after all the hullabaloo around the huge instant “Nightingale” hospitals, at least one (on Tyneside) never opened for patients at all, and the others outside London have had few if any patients. The London one, capacity 500, which was supposed to be treating “thousands” of critically-ill patients has in fact received only 41!
Of those 41, 7 have been discharged, 30 are still there, and 4 have died. So, with known infection rates in London falling quite fast now, it looks as though the London Nightingale will soon be redundant unless repurposed, but it is a “hospital” good for only one thing— keeping patients alive who need ventilation or oxygen. It has no operating theatres or other usual hospital facilities, so it looks as if Ben Wallace is talking out of his ****.
Sweden, Britain, washing hands and other questions
It has been obvious to the non-brainwashed since the beginning of the Coronavirus situation that the only known way to stop its spread is widespread washing of hands, thoroughly, with soap and water. As I blogged almost two months ago, the survey of 2015, showing the levels of personal hygiene across Europe, exposed the fact that Italy, Spain and France were the least hygienic, the very countries where the pro rata infection rates have been highest.
Likewise, the only other really useful measures to help stop the infection on a mass basis are closure of or avoidance of crowded, hot, places where many excited people gather: popular concerts and dances, nightclubs, underground and other trains. Preventing people from walking, sunbathing, sitting on beaches or park benches are useless wastes of time.
Coverage of Sweden's rational approach to Covid-19 is perhaps becoming less hostile as the weeks go by https://t.co/BCQ6CG2sKI
Countries that avoided hard shutdowns have had fewer deaths per million – Japan (1.2 coronavirus deaths per million), South Korea (4.3), Singapore (1.8) and Taiwan (0.3) – than those that imposed most severe rules – Spain (397.6), Italy (358.2), France (256.3) and the UK (193.5). https://t.co/nxdci442Y2
A recent Cambridge graduate, who is accused of writing online that extermination was the "best option" for Jewish people, has appeared at the Old Bailey charged with a terrorism offence
It seems a strange idea at first blush. After all, we are brought up to believe that diseases generally attack people on an equal-opportunity basis. Whites, blacks, whatever. However, that is, like much of what people are told to believe, not actually true.
It is well known that some diseases attack, or conditions affect, only blacks: sickle-cell anaemia is one (showing that blacks do not belong in Northern climes). Likewise, though NHS and other propaganda concealed it or tried to conceal it, HIV/AIDS was much more easily contracted by blacks, half-caste blacks etc than by Europeans, especially those from North-West Europe or with family origins there.
Now we see Coronavirus affecting, in the UK for example, people of all racial origins, yes, but so called BAME people (including Jews) far worse than those of what might be called “Aryan” or more accurately “post-Aryan” origins.
Age is obviously the most important demographic factor in Coronavirus infection, symptomatics and mortality, but after that the racial aspect is obviously significant, though the importance is blurred by social factors such as modes of life, ways of life and living, housing etc.
I was struck by the Boris Johnson case. Here you have someone aged 55, of not only European but also Turkish and Jewish origins. He gets the virus and, it seems, was lucky not to die from it. His fiancee, Carrie Symonds, apparently European, and only 32 years old, showed symptoms and tested positive but suffered no more than slight discomfort before swiftly recovering. Makes you think…
Recent tweets
1/2 Government ought to be alarmed by Daily Mail editorial today :'This national paralysis must end soon. The Government simply must not, whatever its top scientist blithely warns, let the shutdown drag on for a year…
2/2 '…The cataclysmic harm inflicted upon the economy, society and the nation's well-being would be irreparable….Ministers must begin an adult conversation about their plan for ending this torment'.
I had to go out in late afternoon (Friday afternoon) on an errand even the new UK bully police would certify as “essential”, so was able to observe how many people were out and about in my corner of Southern England. In fact, quite a few.
I remember when the “lockdown” nonsense started, a few weeks ago (though it seems far longer). The roads were empty. Now, today, I should say that, though the traffic has not built up to the Friday or any weekday norm, there was rather a lot of traffic around. Private cars as well as delivery vehicles. Quite a few people on bicycles, too.
A police car saw me as I passed in the opposite direction. The police car had cars ahead of and behind it. It slowed. I wondered whether the driver wanted to check me out, but was unable to do so because of the road situation. In fact, he would have been wasting his time. My car has valid MOT, is properly registered, as well as fully insured and so on; my UK licence is up to date and without “points”. In short, and in those senses only, I am “kosher”!
As I blogged yesterday, there is a “yes, repeat no” thing going on. No-one in the UK is rioting about this nonsense of the whole population being placed under conditional house arrest; no-one is even protesting loudly in the streets. Yet, with the weather warm, people are just taking their chances of being hassled by the toytown police, in the knowledge that the relatively few police around cannot, despite being more in evidence than pre-Coronavirus, arrest, ticket, or even talk to every motorist, every walking couple, every sunbathing young lady…
It reminds me of what happened in 1989. In 1988, I crossed the “East German” (DDR) border by car from Poland, then the next day into the then West Germany (Bundesrepublik). The border was rather fearsome in a quiet way, despite the fact that I crossed at a little-used and rural crossing-point in the south of the DDR.
Yet, only a year later, triggered by an announcement from a government minister (seemingly unintended), thousands of DDR citizens built up at the Berlin Wall and just started to cross. The Grenzpolizei (border police, aka Grepos) did not know what to do…so did nothing. One illegal crosser— shoot him; a thousand? Ten thousand. Impossible.
That, in minor key, is the situation the UK police are in now. They can throw their weight around when only a small number of (harmless, law-abiding English) people are involved, but when a thousand or a million people decide that they have had enough of the misconceived (and in any case pointless) “lockdown” petty tyranny, the police are powerless to stop those people from doing things such as driving around, visiting beaches, walking in parks or even —what wickedness!— sunbathing…
Musical interlude
A few tweets
Covid-19 related hospital fatalities in England by date of death:
Many people evidently have taken the “lockdown” at face value. This was an attempt by the global self-styled “elite” power club to see how far they can go in turning notionally “free” people into obedient, compliant, and above all unaware and bamboozled, serfs, clapping their own house arrest, in effect. Look at Cressida Dick, Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Common Purpose “alumna”, right there in the forefront. I was thinking that this was the result of stupidity [cf. the view of @ClarkeMicah/Peter Hitchens] but I veer now to conspiracy.
The plebs are easily manipulated…
“A woman says she was “named and shamed” by neighbours after she fell asleep and missed the weekly clap for carers tribute to NHS staff and key workers.
The mother said had been tired after “a rough night” with her son, and inadvertently failed to take part in the event despite having done so in previous weeks.” [Sky News]
If people actively wish to applaud the NHS, then that is their business and good for them. But any sort of compulsion or shaming directed against anyone who does not join in is totalitarian in nature. Applause that is not voluntary and spontaneous is worthless. https://t.co/qm8ChHxwXN
“The woman went on to write: “I just feel like I’m a total outcast on my previously friendly street now even though only one person posted it and only two others agreed
“It’s really disturbing how quickly people are ready to turn on each other and ‘report’ each other.”” [Sky News]
What many of the unthinking plebs would love would be a kind of “Nuremberg Trial” or kangaroo court every month (or week), with dissidents suitably “named and shamed” and then put in virtual or actual stocks so that the mob can throw things at anyone not going along with the official line.
Some “dissident” tweets
Sweden is taking the rational, considered approach any grown-up government would take. You need to ask, why is the UK government acting like a collection of hysterical prep-school boys? https://t.co/A0Z15KMTT1
This is just the abuse of power by petty authority for its own sake. There is no reason to it. Exercise will *protect* people, especially older people, from illness and so reduce the general pressure on the NHS. People exercising have no major risk of breaking distancing rules. https://t.co/bgvKRUlbTv
Again, as Hitchens says, or implies, the little penpushers, the toytown police and poundland KGB are finding new ways to fill their time, new “rules” to “enforce”.
Yes @Barristerblog, but with much reluctance, and not because there's anything wrong with juries as such. It's egalitarian, PC societies that can't sustain them. https://t.co/b7wvZBL41e
Like most barristers (in my case, “ex”, since late 2016) who have done criminal trials, I am thoroughly in favour of juries, not because they are educated, intelligent, logical, or have any knowledge of the law beyond what the judge chooses to share with them (direct them as to), for mostly those qualities do not apply. No, the value of the jury is in the “sense of justice” within that small conclave. That may go against “the law” as written, against the evidence in some cases. It is a mystery, a mystery which worries the neat and little minds of some.
I can think of a few cases from my pupillage and later my own Bar experience (though I stopped doing most criminal work after a year or two, around 1995); other cases I have in mind were far more serious trials where the State was obviously thought, by the jury, to have gone “too far”.
The problem that we now have is that juries are so brainwashed by State and/or politically-correct propaganda that the accused might often actually be better off being tried by a “Diplock Court” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplock_court].
Care homes are a separate issue @dermotmcgrath. The government, especially after observing Italy, should have quarantined them. But it preferred to pretend (I think it still does) that Covid-19 was equally dangerous to everybody, and to make grandiose gestures. https://t.co/lKwT60MjEe
not sure why people are questioning the independence of SAGE when its lead by the eminent Professor of eugenics and population cull Dr Dominic Cummings pic.twitter.com/Y9nAARmbKY
Remarkable story from The Guardian. Cummings' place on SAGE must considerably lessen the authority of Downing St "guided by the science" line, given we now know, that to some extent at least, that scientific advice has been influenced by well, Downing St. https://t.co/XgwJQpyWCv
Have just spoken to Sir Bob Kerslake, former Head of the Civil Service. He told me that if Cummings is a full member of SAGE: “it’s both surprising and concerning. The risk is the government is leading the science when it’s supposed to be the other way round.”
If anyone wonders why so many of the tweets here, and in recent days on this blog, are those of the scribbler Peter Hitchens, it is because, as far as the “Coronavirus” situation is concerned, he has been (and still is) one of the few well-known people to speak up publicly against the UK “lockdown” nonsense, the mad thinking behind it, and about the likely results of it.
Also, against the extraordinary power grab by the organs of the State (especially the police) and the supine response of most British people at being turned into serfs confined to their dwellings or shouted at —for inoffensive and completely harmless acts such as taking walks, driving a car, or sitting on a beach— all at the whim of police “officers” and/or “democratic” (incompetent and idiotic) politicians such as little Matt Hancock.
For those interested, I have previously blogged about Hitchens himself:
A small point, which illustrates how gullible people can be. Normally, government and NHS would strive to keep media and TV crews out of ICUs, especially during the NHS's regular winter crises. Now coverage appears to be actively welcome. Why would that be? https://t.co/gCsGejljXS
Oh, I don't know at @hijacked222. If you read of a mediaeval king who forced his subjects to stay in their homes and forbade them to work, forcing them to become his debtors while their crops rotted in the fields, you'd think he was a tyrant. https://t.co/D8n5SAGS97
2/2 Am I right to guess you are or were a police officer @fitchandy? Your contemptuous, abusive attitude towards me is certainly all too typical of that formerly-respected profession, as we have all seen over the past few weeks. They have forgotten who and what they serve. https://t.co/1yyW9XQLoc
1/2 On the contrary, @fitchandy, a prat like me is utterly uninterested in response time. A police officer(unless he or she can do first aid) can do little for you *after* a crime.HYe can't unburgle, unmug or unstab you. His job is to prevent crime through visible presence. https://t.co/1yyW9XQLoc
Puzzled as to why a political elite that can't get schools to teach children to read (after 30 years of trying) or get the police to do preventive foot patrols( after 40 years of promising 'more bobbies on the beat') thinks it can control a *virus*. Or why anyone thinks it could.
Eloquent, reasoned, persuasive and packed with thought and consideration, like so much from the pro 'smash the economy, strangle liberty' side of the argument. https://t.co/2r1WlfSAcO
Have you actually considered how you trace the contacts of a bus or suburban train commuter, especially when there appears to be no reliable test? All this testing stuff is a diversion from the real issue: Is it worth wrecking our prosperity and stifling our freedom? https://t.co/ursp03YNVr
Interested to know what measures you would support, @DrMMcDermott: Compulsory Detention of suspected carriers? Armed militia patrols? House searches? Active encouragement of neighbour denunciation with rewards? Public humiliation of offenders? https://t.co/KsfP1Vr71Y
Interested to know what measures you would support, @DrMMcDermott: Compulsory Detention of suspected carriers? Armed militia patrols? House searches? Active encouragement of neighbour denunciation with rewards? Public humiliation of offenders? https://t.co/KsfP1Vr71Y
'Good-sized regions from Utah to Sweden to much of East Asia have avoided harsh lockdowns without being overrun by Covid-19'. Interesting research undermining the near-universal presumption that shutdowns are effective: https://t.co/TAgl3LWBdT
Getting things in proportion. Some careful, thoughtful consideration of current Covid-19 statistics, set against past experience and events in other countries – the only way to make sense of them : https://t.co/fdusp3eULW
Oh, good heavens, yes @murdo_mcghie , I think these measures are grossly disproportionate to the problem, dangerous to civilisation and freedom – and will in time kill many, many thousands who would otherwise have remained heathy and happy. https://t.co/QVFv7TIZ1r
1/2 In general, yes, though I suspect the disease has almost certainly *done* most of its spreading (hence the current deaths) and find it a struggle to believe I take much risk by passing within less than six feet of a person on a street or in a park. https://t.co/qXsR61o6hk
The reason why I have republished these tweets, mostly from Hitchens, is because these are the cogent points which have not been seen in the msm. The “British” TV, radio, Press have mostly been engaged in an exercise of scaring the bejesus out of the British people, aka (as shown all too clearly during this “crisis”) a mob of frightened rabbit-like plebs.
In fact, looking at the way in which the British people have meekly complied with, not only the new repressive “Coronavirus” law but also the expressed wishes of mostly pretty stupid government ministers (little Matt Hancock and others), which wishes are not law, it is clear that most British people do not want to be “free” or anything like it. That is why the British people have stood still while mass immigration trashed their society, land and culture. That is why there were so few protests when Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, the jew “lord” Freud and others trashed much of the Welfare State, and that is why few cared much as even the sainted NHS was cut back (and maladministered) for a decade or more.
Napoleon said that the English were “a nation of shopkeepers”. A lot of truth in that, psychologically, but today the shops are almost all shut by government decree (advised so by “experts” who at first predicted 500,000 Coronavirus deaths, then 250,000, then 5,000, and now whatever seems plausible on the basis of a few days’ massaged “statistics”).
Today, the English, Scots, Welsh are, visibly, nations of scared unthinking rabbits. Plebs. In fact, to call any of them “nations” seems rather to stretch it…
So we see that the rabbits believe almost everything the msm tells them about the (almost non-existent) “danger” of walking in parks, or on beaches, or on Welsh or Peak District hills. The same rabbits, many of them, will all be out at a certain hour today (I believe) and “clapping for the NHS”, a meaningless and State-encouraged “loyalty show” akin to something from the now-defunct (except in North Korea) socialist world.
In fact, those most keen to do as the Government of fools wishes (and who want ever-stricter “lockdown”) are precisely the pseudo-socialists, as seen on Twitter.
Clapathon
I thought that the latest State-mandated “clap fest” was this evening. Maybe not. At any rate, there was no clapping, or banging frying pans, around here. Maybe the idea has petered out.
Basic income
The SNP has called for Basic Income, something that I have favoured for years. An idea whose time has 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 went out shopping for the first time in 2 days yesterday evening. Waitrose not crowded, in fact almost empty, but a few things caught my attention. The first was an odd-looking thin woman hovering around, inter alia, the (empty) dry pasta shelves, a scarf round her mouth (well, if she keeps it that way at home, I’m sure that her husband is grateful!). On approaching other shoppers, even 20 feet away, she held the scarf up to her mouth, tightly, as if in a plague zone (in a dystopian sci-fi film). Funny people. It’s hard not to hold silly people of her sort in contempt.
As for shortages, only —as before— dry pasta, flour and, to a lesser extent, rice. They are good for years, so I suppose that people are stockpiling in case civil war or complete disorder reigns. It could happen, so I find it hard to condemn the “selfishness” out of hand, even though I myself am not stockpiling (in any case, I now live in a humble little place and would scarcely have the storage space). All the other goods which were the object of the panic-buyers recently are in good supply: loo paper, kitchen roll, bottled water, pasta sauce, tinned fish. I bought a couple of cans of tinned red salmon, together with ready-made poppadums, Madras curry paste, fruit, vegetables (mainly carrots for juicing, on sale for only 25p a large bag— cheap), kefir etc. Only thing apart from flour and dry pasta completely unavailable seems to be bleach.
Strange…or is it?
I became a NHS volunteer when the call went out, and have now been "available on duty" for 390 hours. NOT ONE SINGLE CALL. Why can't I use my car to gone and collect what's needed??
The tweeter, one Millard (unrelated to me, incidentally), is perplexed. Well-meaning no doubt, volunteered for “Coronavirus” duty, to help NHS etc. Ignored. Why?
That tweeter has been the dupe of a propaganda campaign.
We have seen how the new “instant hospitals” set up to receive huge numbers of “Coronavirus” victims (patients) are not even necessary (though setting them up may have been the right decision, and the speed with which they were set up was impressive).
The largest such “Nightingale” hospital, in London, has only handled about 20 or 30 patients out of its maximum capacity of 4,000. Others, in other parts of the UK, have handled few —or no— patients. The one planned for Tyne and Wear is not even going to be opened now.
As I have blogged before, the Government took the Coronavirus crisis as an existential threat to the whole society, as not only a “national emergency” (as its panic-stricken TV ads aver), but also as a national emergency which might kill a quarter of a million or even a half-million people in the UK. In that, they were misled by their “experts” from Imperial College and elsewhere. Those “experts” more recently changed tack and projected a UK death toll of 5,700, but now seem to be unable to think of a suitably-credible new figure. In short, they are like racing tipsters who have lost all credibility and are simply tipping the favourite for the remaining races on the card.
The Government (perhaps with the right intentions, though many think not) took a “maximalist” approach to the virus situation. They closed down our society, closed down our economy, instituted police state rules and regulations. In short, they thought that a tsunami was coming, but when it came, it turned out to be only a larger than usual but not devastating wave.
Now the Goverment, as I wrote yesterday and the day before, has painted itself into a corner, unable to say to the people “well, thank God the expected disaster never happened, so lockdown is over and see you all at work and play tomorrow…”
That cannot happen, not for medical or public health reasons, but for political ones.
The peak has almost certainly passed in the UK, as it has in most if not all of Europe. Even in the USA, we see how deaths have levelled-off and then dropped in terms of daily totals in New York City.
Other parts of Europe have mostly decided to finish this “lockdown” stuff, but Britain is stubbornly refusing, no doubt because of the fear that the Government will look stupid. In reality, this regime is a headless chicken without Boris-idiot in place.
One is a multi millionaire snowflake (Sam Smith) sitting outside his house crying because he’s in self-isolation and the other is a 99yr old war veteran raising money for the NHS. I know who I want on my side when the Shite hits the fan. pic.twitter.com/LrDSc535fX
While I resist the System propaganda around “Coronavirus”, the fact is that there is now a generation or two of pretty useless people, for whom all that matters is what people say about them on pathetic “social media” platforms. Many have so much, but they see only their own “suffering”, most of which is in their own empty heads. You only have to look at the TV they have spawned, such as “reality” TV (fake “real life” in Essex etc) and game shows involving such emptyheads screwing each other on islands etc.
I do not want to be too sweeping, but we are mainly talking about the under-40s and often the under-30s.
Sometimes I think that only a real chistka will get rid of them.
Some cheerful music for hard times
History moves on. The German Reich was the superior force, but not in terms of outward force, sadly. Thesis-antithesis-synthesis. We propose, oppose, but later move forward in a way neither of the opposed forces could have predicted. Slava!
The same is true of the oft-mentioned dichotomy, National Socialism v. Anthroposophy. Synthesis is coming even there. National Socialism was not 100% “correct” or “right” in all things and for all time; the same is certainly the case with Anthroposophy. The future waves of History will select what is worthy of survival from both.
Interesting
An interesting tweet by Andrew Neil:
According to research by Deep Knowledge Group (DKG), a Hong Kong venture capital group specialising in medicines, Germany is the second safest country in the world during Covid-19 pandemic, with Israel in the top spot. Britain is not in the Top 40 safest.
I suppose that Israel is the safest place because…well, some would say because Israel has a strong medical and pharmaceutical sector (which is no surprise, with all the Jewish doctors in the world); others might respond that, if someone rolls a boulder from the top of a hill where 100 people are standing at various heights, and, as it gathers speed, various people are injured or killed by the boulder on its downhill course, then who is in the safest position of all? Surely the one who set the boulder moving from his place at the top of the hill…
The truth is that I do not know what really started this worldwide pandemic; few people do. It is, however, obviously being used for political and possibly geopolitical purposes.
Returning to Neil’s tweet, Britain is not even in the top-40 of “safest countries”. We really are down in the hole these days. Terrible.
Breakdown of Coronavirus ICU admissions in the USA (to mid-March):
Only 10% were under 45 years of age. It would be interesting to see what proportion of the under-45s then went on to survive. Probably almost all.
America, “land of freedom”…
Dozens of homeless people sleeping in taped boxes on a concrete parking lot beneath $100M empty Las Vegas hotels. pic.twitter.com/DIsJ2R0wWo
Here’s one [below], from a plainly stupid woman who just wants to be told what to do and think.
#LauraKuenssberg Do you hear different words to us at the daily briefing? WTF are you asking when the lockdown will ease?? He’s told us – when the science and evidence tells us. I have to turn off as soon as the journalists start asking their ridiculous questions.
Here’s another similar one (there are hundreds like her on Twitter), who does not want to be a free citizen, but just an obedient and compliant serf:
#bbcnews Typical / first question by #LauraKuenssberg – when can we start going out? …. ask a question, but not a bloody stupid one … you were just told it was lockdown for another 3 weeks – you want to spoil it all?
Most of the “willing slaves” seem to be women, but not all. At least Laura Kuenssberg and other journalists are starting to question the stupid “lockdown” policy which may well give the coup de grace to Britain’s faltering economy and society (and to what is left of civil rights in this country).
As for listening to the ludicrously-named “SAGE” “experts”, these are the same people who initially said that 250,000 (or even 500,000) would die from Coronavirus in the UK. At present about 12,000 people have died from “Coronavirus-related” conditions. In the same period, about 100,000 other people have died in the UK, and from all sorts of other conditions, diseases and events.
Many of the tweets seen today (and on every day) make one wonder whether it is even worth pretending to be a “democracy”, when so many people incapable of thinking, or whose attempts to think are crippled by their own neuroses, have the vote, the same vote that you and I have. Many are so easily manipulated. Worse, they want to be told “do this, don’t do that“. Societal masochism.
I might not always agree with Peter Hitchens, but most of his tweets are a blessed relief from the “me too”, “clap for victory” serfs on Twitter.
Is this an attempt to be insulting @RichardHRbenyon? Perhaps you'd care to explain what is crazy about objecting to the rapid transformation of this country into a banana republic. It'll be dark glasses and epaulettes next. https://t.co/HhUsuFi0cp
Please do @NadineDorries . The time will come when it will be a collector's item. I'd say send it to me at The Mail on Sunday, but the office is closed and the postal service seems to have collapsed. Mind you, there's no rush. https://t.co/zl3k3FlumS
Nadine Dorries seems to imagine that a vaccine can be developed and rolled out in weeks! Or maybe she thinks that “lockdown” can just continue ad infinitum. What an idiot that stupid woman really is!
1/2 . For the second time @ret_ward . Neither. I have seen no consistent evidence (in the many countries involved) of any reliable connection between crashing the economy and lower Covid-19 deaths, or between not crashing the economy and lower deaths. https://t.co/HRgfOatmut
2/2 @ret_ward . But there is a clear connection between crashing the economy and grave economic and long-term health consequences, and between attacking personal liberty and being less free. Your obtuse, irrelevant question shows you have made no effort to grasp my position. https://t.co/HRgfOatmut
“In 2005, Ferguson said that up to 200 million people could be killed from bird flu. He told the Guardian that ‘around 40 million people died in 1918 Spanish flu outbreak… There are six times more people on the planet now so you could scale it up to around 200 million people probably.’ In the end, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.” [The Spectator]
“In 2009, Ferguson and his Imperial team predicted that swine flu had a case fatality rate 0.3 per cent to 1.5 per cent. His most likely estimate was that the mortality rate was 0.4 per cent. A government estimate, based on Ferguson’s advice, said a ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ was that the disease would lead to 65,000 UK deaths. In the end swine flu killed 457 people in the UK and had a death rate of just 0.026 per cent in those infected. Why did the Imperial team overestimate the fatality of the disease? Or to borrow Robinson’s words to Hancock this morning: ‘that prediction wasn’t just nonsense was it? It was dangerous nonsense.‘” [The Spectator]
Well, what about that? This is the man (see above) who is, with others, advising little Matt Hancock and the other Government clowns. This is the man whose opinions those (mostly women) tweeters want to go unquestioned by Laura Kuenssberg et al.
At least he is now saying that the Government needs an “exit strategy”. He looks like a drug addict or something (I do not suppose that he actually is a drug addict but he does look rather odd). This country is very sick, and the sickness is worst at the centre of power and influence.
As a matter of fact, I (not a scientist, not a medic, but not devoid of sense either) disagree with Ferguson re. “exit strategy”. No, what the government needs to do is to end the “lockdown”, right now but keep advising people strongly via the msm re. washing hands (the only really effective way to prevent getting the virus) and reasonable social distancing (i.e. avoiding crowded places, places where there are hot and excited people etc).
I don't want anyone pilloried @stevecageauthor. Talented people often make well-intentioned errors for which they should if at all possible be forgiven, lest their talents are lost to us. But I do want the country saved from any further economic destruction or attacks on liberty. https://t.co/xNWxCPfU5Z
I really think it's time that 'Rule Britannia!' , along with 'Land of Hope and Glory' was retired. The British people's supine submission in the face of unprecedented govt invasion of their private lives has deprived them of any right to sing noisy songs about how free they are. https://t.co/E5Q97NWPCY
Dr Max Pemberton in the Daily Mail: 'I read, with a growing sense of outrage, a leaked report this week claiming that over the Easter weekend just 19 patients were treated at the newly-created 4,000-bed Nightingale Hospital in East London.' https://t.co/FlhEeAkPVg
Peter Hitchens seems to be agreeing with my view, expressed in the past day or two:
I think a huge U-turn is under way, but it has to be made without openly admitting that the initial policy was a panic-driven error of judgement. I suppose I shall have to be patient with them, as it would be even worse if they carried on regardless. @Juliajoyhttps://t.co/MOeUk6x5NG
The Government knows that it has done a Sorcerer’s Apprentice over Coronavirus, and wants to stop it before the entire economy is wasted, but it cannot, politically, say it like that. There “has” to be, therefore, some fake “exit strategy” in unnecessary stages…
What worries me is that the public, or at least much of it, has now been brainwashed into thinking that the plague is abroad…only the Coronavirus church (NHS and Government) and Coronavirus saints, whether NHS staff, large donors, 100-year-old retired officers raising charitable funds for NHS, or elderly survivors, can redeem the people…
The public will now be unable to accept any simple honest statement from Downing Street which says “It’s over. We went too far. Coronavirus is a risk but a manageable one. You may now walk, drive, shop, go to work etc as you please, to extent that you did until we started this mass panic.”
I should think that what is gripping the present government of clowns is the fear that the public will see through them…
Clap clap…
This evening, for the first time, I actually saw people engaging in the Daily Hate…oh, no, wait, that was in Nineteen Eighty-Four, not in our wonderful caring society. I mean the regular “clap for [whoever]”. Two women (one dressed in what, on a cursory look, seemed to be pyjamas and a housecoat) and a small child, the latter banging on something like a frying pan. If you see the Government’s TV ads (propaganda) you think that millions are doing this, but these are the only people I have seen join in (if that is the bon mot when they were the only ones doing it), in several weeks.
Britain’s experiment in becoming a police state continues
I doubt that I am the only person disturbed by this: 2000 hrs, Westminster Bridge. The police lead the “Weekly Clap”:
Reports of a jogger stopped to take a breather on a bench near Westminster bridge. pic.twitter.com/4Ehli8GVxi
Beyond the State’s Westminster propaganda display, a dark and fearful city where the inhabitants are under house arrest.
Not everyone is impressed:
Anyone else want to see their family? Invite them to Westminster Bridge on a Thursday night. Dear @metpoliceuk, this is a shambles!!!! pic.twitter.com/o9T7pMHAuD
An example of the dissonant idiocy into which this brainless government of fools has led us.
Willing slaves?
The people of Britain have been turned into scared rabbits.
“Britain is not ready for the coronavirus lockdown to be lifted even if the government wanted to, a poll revealed today.
Research for MailOnline found 80 per cent would not feel safe going back to everyday life at the moment, with nearly 60 per cent saying they are not comfortable leaving the house.
Around half are now resigned to the draconian ‘social distancing’ curbs being in place into June – and 37 per cent say they will keep obeying the rules indefinitely if the government believes it is necessary.“
[Daily Mail]
“Government advisers have admitted to being surprised by the extent to which Britons have been obeying the regime, with politicians increasingly alarmed at the huge consequences for the economy and Treasury finances.” [Daily Mail]
Maybe this pathetic collapse of the national psychology is a logical consequence of 30 years of pervasive political correctness, “control” of thoughts and expression, scurrying semi-human (((creatures))) “reporting” and denouncing to police, employers, Twitter etc anyone expressing dissident thoughts or feelings.
Who would have thought it? Homo Sovieticus has been reincarnated in the UK…
Ian Robert Millard 