Coronavirus
Re. our medical and scientific progress, look at this news item from 1918, prior to the arrival in New York of the worldwide “Spanish Flu”, which eventually killed millions.
“Soap and water” (and “fresh air”). Progress? What progress?
China
Conspiracy theories aside, we should not let China off the hook as far as this ghastly virus event and siruation is concerned. For years, decades, China has been destroying the wildlife of the planet, and brutally mistreating animals in China itself. The Coronavirus “COVID-19” is said to have started in a “seafood market” in Wuhan where not only were live animals (including dogs and cats) on sale, but where some were whipped or otherwise deliberately subjected to painful treatment before being killed. Some were (and in other parts of China are) being boiled alive.
https://twitter.com/satanglyy/status/1249239585927782400?s=20
China may be impressive in some ways, both in terms of its history and its technological and allied activity today, but in other ways it is very very backward. The Coronavirus situation is the fault of China. Now it appears that the Chinese official response in Wuhan may have saved the Chinese from suffering more, but misled the West as to the peril faced by reason of the virus.
In both world wars, there were consequences, rightly or wrongly, for the losing side. Reparations were demanded. Are there to be no consequences for a China which has plunged the rest of the world into turmoil?
Present situation
The above graph shows deaths, not all confirmed cases, but is interesting in that the surveys done in previous years re. personal hygiene in various countries showed that the least hygienic countries of Europe in terms of handwashing etc were…wait for it…Italy, then Spain, then France and Netherlands…
Washing hands frequently with soap and water really is by far the best way to protect yourself from Coronavirus, in fact almost the only way, followed by avoidance of places where crowds of people are hot, excited and active.
Light relief
Watched an episode of the property show Place in the Sun, filmed several years ago in and around Lucca, in Tuscany. What made me shake head is that there were the potential buyers, a couple from Rotherham (South Yorkshire), eager to buy a holiday home and perhaps a place to which (in about 10-20 years) they might retire, but they had obviously not really thought through the matter..
The potential buyers had visited Lucca a number of times, but there was no indication that they spoke Italian, beyond the usual cafe phrases. It is one thing to visit a country, quite another to live there and perhaps be fully domiciled there. A visit to the USA will probably be pleasant and untaxing; living there is something else entirely, despite the (supposedly) common language. The same is true of many parts of the world.
Alok Sharma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alok_Sharma
Alok Sharma, Business Secretary, is the latest unfortunate member of the Cabinet to be put into the stocks to have rotten fruit and vegetables thrown at him. Twitter and even the msm have not been kind to him.
An Indian, born in Agra (where the Taj Mahal is situated), Sharma was educated partly at the same school as me: https://www.rbcs.org.uk/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Blue_Coat_School, but about a decade after I was there (there were no Indians there when I was a pupil, though I was slightly acquainted with two half-Indian brothers who attended and who in fact lived not very far from me).
Looks as if Sharma, like other Cabinet ministers in this joke of a government, is basically nbg (no bloody good)…
The natives are getting restless
It can be seen that, after three weeks of the mishandled “lockdown”, and despite general compliance, people are getting pretty fed up with it. They are being kept in line mainly by the constant propaganda, much of it untrue, or only partly true:
- “anyone can get it” (true, but most people either do not get it, or are completely asymptomatic, and so unaware that they have been infected);
- also, only a tiny handful under 20 or even 40 are both getting it and require medical attention for it;
- only those over 60 are likely to require medical attention (there are, of course, always exceptions to every general rule);
- only those over 70 who get it are likely to require hospitalization;
- most people who are aware that they have the Coronavirus are mildly affected, mildly in that they require no medical attention and just a couple of weeks of rest (though of course it is unpleasant for them all the same);
- the relative few (perhaps 1 person in every few hundred of the population) who do require medical attention in hospital are usually in and out of hospital in about 2 weeks;
- so far, about 1 person out of every 8,000 of the general population has died with (though not necessarily of) Coronavirus.
The risible police activity around the “lockdown” has only slightly reinforced the main propaganda message, the puerile “Save lives/Save the NHS” stuff. In countries with still-properly-functioning public health systems (Germany, France etc) they do not use such kneejerk propaganda campaigns, but just do (and have the means to do) the job.
Luckily for the government, most of the population prefer not to think for themselves. If they did, they would realize that most people, and certainly those under 30, are at little risk of anything serious anyway. The “lockdown” would then not so much lock down as break down.
British housing conditions
“Fears are growing that coronavirus could be ripping through some of the poorest and most overcrowded parts of Britain’s cities as new research suggests cramped living conditions might be accelerating the spread of the virus” [The Guardian]
Mass immigration is a big factor, and is often rejoiced in by “refugees welcome” idiots…
Here’s one of the most egregious of such idiots on Twitter:
Britain had about 50 or 55 million people living in it when I was born (1956). Now it is about 70 million. Far too many even in strict numerical terms, and an increasing proportion of the population is black, brown, other non-European, or of mixed race. What future does that give the white people of the UK (or the non-whites, in fact)?
[above: a non-European family living in one room in London. No good for them, no good for Britain’s future. The man delivers pizzas. Britain must move to a high-education, high-skillset national model. What use is it having a man delivering pizzas, his non-working wife looking after three —so far— children, the family dependent largely on State benefits?]
Economics
It had to happen: the time has come when I can agree on something with Matthew Parris:
So far, only a few msm creatures and talking heads have turned their minds and pens to what happens after Coronavirus. I have, though:
https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2020/03/29/when-coronavirus-is-over/
Peter Hitchens has been one of the few to think, so far:
Unfortunately, much of the public is basically unthinking. They are so brainwashed that they imagine that the “lockdown” is “saving lives, protecting the NHS” etc (which if true, is only marginally so), and that “everyone” must “Clap for the NHS”, North Korea-style. Actually, where I live, no-one seems to be clapping on command, though a couple of weeks ago, i.e. the first time the clapping was “ordered”, I did see one firework (a large rocket).
When one examines the economic damage done by “lockdown”, one is in the world of conjecture. However, only a few oddities have dared assert that “lockdown” (even so far) has not had a negative economic effect (if it did not have such an effect, we might as well keep most of the population on holiday most of the year!).
So let us say that the UK “lockdown” is ended in June, which seems to be the most likely time.
The “furlough” money paid to laid off workers will end in June, or at the end of June, as matters stand.
The UK private economic sector will be on its knees. Manufacturing will be at a low level. Many factories will not see activity again. The same is true of much of the existing retail sector. The employees in those areas of the economy will be made redundant in their millions.
Many msm/System talking heads and scribblers are opining that the economy will somehow “bounce back” in the Summer or Autumn. How would that work? Demand will remain low, both domestically and outside the UK, because few individual consumers will have both money to spend and the confidence to spend or invest.
There are about 5 million self-employed or freelance people in the UK now. Few are still working. After “lockdown” finishes, there may be only a slow uptick.
I foresee a very slow restart of economic life. In fact, if (when) government largesse (“furlough” money, business loans etc) ends, the economy may go into freefall, quite possible the pound’s exchange rate too. Millions will be officially unemployed or requiring “Universal Credit”.
There will possibly be a kind of 1930s-style “National Government”, either declared as such or de facto. It will become obvious that there is no real (approved) Opposition. Why else would the quasi-dictatorial Coronavirus Act be expressed as going to last for up to 2 years? During that time, Boris-idiot has the option of simply deferring elections! As far as general elections are concerned, that changes nothing, because the misnamed “Conservatives” have until 2024 anyway, but perhaps that Act will be renewed or “reincarnated”. Who knows…
Soon will be the right time to launch either a social-national party or a movement which may or may not contest the rigged System elections (my view is that “all roads lead to Rome”, so one should not dismiss a partly-electoral route out of hand).
Anything will become possible, in a UK where millions are unemployed, where businesses are failing right, left and centre, and where both Government and official Opposition are seen as complicit.
Something other than Coronavirus (from the days before viruses were weapons of war and/or politically causative…)
One of the better films of its type, bearing in mind the inevitable ideological bias in all such films.
[below, a quite interesting film about the German advance on Moscow in late 1941. Some footage that I had not seen. When I was driven past the place of furthest advance, about 14 miles NW of Moscow, in 1993, my young driver, Pasha, made it to (close to) the Kremlin in little more than 15 minutes. How close German forces came to taking Moscow in 1941! History would have been changed beyond recognition, as would the world we know today].
The “electoral road”?
Below, tweets from typical “antifa” idiots:
https://twitter.com/AntiFashWitch/status/1249313405309202432?s=20
(I do not know about whom they tweet, neither does it matter)
Having said that “@antifashwitch” (Roanna Carleton-Taylor) does have a point, albeit not entirely accurate (as one would expect).
Tony Blair set up the Electoral Commission in 2001 with the aim of repressing democracy (whatever the reasons officially given). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_Commission_(United_Kingdom)
Martin Bell, the war reporter and one-term Independent MP for Tatton [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bell], in a memoir, wrote that the 1998 Act of Parliament which required registration of parties contesting UK elections, which Act preceded the 2000 Act which established the Electoral Commission, was “profoundly undemocratic”.
The problem is not that a party will not be registered, but that later (meaning if the “wrong sort of party” finds electoral success), the Electoral Commission or other bodies will “find” cause to interfere with its campaigns and staff. The BNP, UKIP and now the Labour Party (via the “Equality and Human Rights Commission”) have all been targets.
“Democracy” in the UK is very limited once you dig beneath the surface. The funny thing is that the quasi-“socialist” types that used to be rather rebellious and anti-Establishment decades ago have given way to System slaves (slaves even in their own minds), begging the System to crack down on “fascists” and “Nazis” (i.e. people with whom they disagree politically).
All roads lead to Rome. A political party is good, but may only be part of a multi-headed movement.
MSM sycophancy
One example, arguably the most egregious, of the sycophantic scribblers in the contemporary popular prints: Dan Hodges, faux-proletarian, who lives with his family and mother, the famous actress and one-time Labour MP, Glenda Jackson, in a large house in not very proleterian Blackheath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenda_Jackson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Hodges
At one time, Hodges was supposedly a Labour Party (Blair-Labour) member and supporter. Now he writes for the Mail on Sunday and his sycophancy would not be out of place in Stalin’s Russia. His mother, a woman of principle, must be spinning (or whatever)!
I personally doubt that this “we are at war”, “Boris is the second Churchill” (second time as farce?), White Cliffs of the NHS stuff is really believed or followed by most people, despite the frankly pathetic (though no doubt well-meaning on the part of many) “Clap for the NHS” Schauspielen.
Coronavirus deaths in the UK have peaked
This is not in fact because of, or even mainly because of, the “lockdown”, however. The government seems to be intent on pretending that it is, though. Fine, but now would be the time to end the “lockdown”, either completely —at once— or in stages over, say, two weeks. The fact that this incompetent government seems intent on keeping the “lockdown” going for weeks more, maybe even to the end of June, is incredible. Massive commercial and industrial damage all over the UK and more deaths from causes other than Coronavirus.
London may recover before too long (economically) because of the financial services industry and (after a while) tourism, but the rest of Britain? The “left behind” areas and regions? The North? I think not.
Every week longer that passes under the lockdown nonsense now puts the UK deeper into a hole which it may struggle to exit.
Tweets
Interesting graph
Interesting and informative, but the government and msm will turn a Nelsonian eye on it, and hope that most members of the public do not see it (or understand it, simple though it be)…
More tweets
That last tweet is important, because it makes the points that matter about UK MPs (most of them, in fact almost all) and ministers, including Cabinet ministers. In Britain and especially in England, the holding of an office does tend to confer often unmerited respect. So we see “Cokehead” Gove and even little Matt Hancock treated with risible deference by the msm.
The most absurd msm sycophancy also lands at the feet of Boris-idiot, at least now that he is not going to snuff it from Coronavirus. He has not just had an unpleasant infection from which he has recovered (thanks in part to nurses whose pay he voted to freeze only a couple of years ago), but is a great war leader who has won a “battle for Britain” (at least in the tiny minds of Sun, Mail on Sunday and Daily Telegraph scribblers).
Most MPs in the UK now struggle, not for greatness, not for great intelligence, erudition, charisma or empathy, but for mediocrity. Many fail to make it even that high. That is why I decided to start my Deadhead MPs series on this blog.
End of the day music
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…
“A police officer uses a megaphone at Southwark Park, to announce sunbathing is not allowed, but exercise is” [Daily Mail].
[above
Ian Robert Millard 