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Quite a short update today I’m afraid. It was my youngest son’s 12th birthday yesterday and being with him and making sure he’s having a nice time have kept me busy. Longer one tomorrow, I hope.
Moral Relativism and the Collapse of the Rule of Law
This is a blog post I wrote for the Telegraph in the immediate aftermath of the riots that engulfed many of England’s cities for four days in the summer of 2011. It was published on 11th August 2011. I thought I’d post it today, given the disturbances we witnessed in London yesterday.
Towards the beginning of Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s masterpiece about a group of teenage boys marooned on a desert island, a scene takes place in which the most vicious of the boys, Roger, throws stones at a younger boy whose sandcastle he’s just knocked down:
Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger’s arm was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.
Rupert Myers, a barrister, quotes this passage in an interesting article about the riots in the Lawyer. He makes the point that the law cannot be upheld by the naked exercise of state power alone. To a great extent it depends upon consent. There is a whole network of feelings and beliefs, some of them conscious, others not, reinforced by conventions and taboos, that underpins the rule of law. Once these constraints fall away, the whole edifice becomes much more fragile. If the sole bulwark against anarchy is fear of getting caught – fear of the police and the punishment the lawbreakers will receive if they’re hauled before the courts – then the centre cannot hold.
It was this fear that evaporated in some of England’s cities on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. Among crowds of young people, the collective belief in the power of the state collapsed and, to paraphrase Yeats, the blood-dimmed tide was loosed. There was a kind of mass realisation, reinforced by the television coverage, that if enough people broke the law simultaneously the police were powerless to do anything about it.
It’s tempting when assessing the causes of these riots to blame the police and the courts for being too soft – and, by extension, the social liberalism of politicians on both side of the divide, with their concern for human rights and reluctance to appear too authoritarian. (See John McTernan’s column in today’s Telegraph for a powerful expression of this view.) Certainly, the immediate remedy is to strengthen police numbers, give them the license to respond to outbreaks of disorder more robustly and instruct the courts to hand out tougher sentences. Who knows, these changes may even become permanent as public opinion on law and order takes a hard Right turn. In light of recent events, Kenneth Clarke’s proposed reforms of the criminal justice system and the Government’s cuts to the police seem completely idiotic – a gold embossed invitation to criminals to run riot. The Sun and the Daily Mail had it right.
But in the long term we’ll have to address the deeper causes of these riots. Fear of getting caught will never be enough – the rule of law depends upon consent. By “deeper causes” I don’t mean social deprivation or youth unemployment. The eye-opening revelation of the Court hearings today and yesterday is that there’s no such thing as a typical rioter, as Andrew Gilligan makes clear in his vivid account. So far, those arrested and charged include an 11-year-old girl, a 31-year-old primary school teacher and the 19-year-old daughter of a company director who is currently at Exeter University. The participation of those from relatively affluent backgrounds, either in full-time education or full-time employment, makes a nonsense of the knee-jerk responses of Ken Livingstone and Harriet Harman, blaming cuts to the Education Maintenance Allowance, among other things.
However, the fact that the rioters defy easy classification should also give conservatives pause for thought. In the House of Commons today, David Cameron said that tackling gang culture would be a “national priority”, but the 17-year-old ballerina who appeared in Westminster magistrates court for stealing two television sets from the Croydon branch of Richer Sounds isn’t a gang member. Some of the rioters in London were African-Carribean teenage boys, to be sure, but we don’t even know at this stage if they were in the majority and, judging from the television pictures, most of the rioters in Birmingham and Salford were white. It seems likely that those involved in the disturbances were not, predominantly, from one ethnic group or from any particular socio-economic background. The sickness that David Cameron referred to on the steps of Downing Street yesterday is endemic and all-pervasive.
The root of the problem is that the bonds of civilisation – the whole panoply of conventions and taboos that Golding refers to in the above passage – have become too weak. In our increasingly diverse and multicultural society, the only values that command anything like universal assent are procedural ones – ethics, rather than morality. We’ve been taught to value tolerance and mutual respect and to abhor racism and homophobia – essential conventions if all the different “communities” are to get along – without being asked to believe in anything substantial to anchor those conventions in. On the contrary, the prevailing orthodoxy that’s taught in our schools and universities is that one set of substantive moral values is no better than any other and to claim otherwise is to risk appearing racist or sexist. Indeed, there’s a widespread belief that the survival of the procedural conventions depends upon a general skepticism about anything deeper or more meaningful – that the one strengthens the other. In fact, as we witnessed in England’s cities earlier this week, moral relativism does not lead to peace, love and understanding but to a kind of Hobbesian nihilism. Far from propping up the procedural values we’ve come to depend on, moral relativism has left them fatally weakened. As Yeats observed in his prophetic poem, the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
This is what Angela Merkel had in mind when she talked about the failure of multiculturalism and what David Cameron meant when he said we had to reject the wishy-washy liberalism of the progressive Left in favour of something more muscular and robust. Where they’re both wrong is in thinking that the problem lies with ethnic or religious minorities who refuse to embrace our liberal democratic values and the framework or rights and responsibilities that goes with them. Clearly, that is a problem when it comes to certain sections of our Muslim populations, but the bigger challenge is how to persuade our indigenous peoples to embrace those values. As Daniel Hannan points out in a blog post today, the response of Tariq Jahon, a Muslim, to his son’s death in Birmingham on Monday night was more authentically British than the behaviour of the Caucasians who looted the Bullring. The same goes for members of other ethnic groups who stood up to the rioters:
The Turkish shopkeepers and restaurateurs who patrolled Dalston, the Sikhs who stood with drawn swords before their temple, are reacting as generations of British people reacted in similar circumstances. Rather than simply whining about the failure of the state, they took responsibility.
The problem with multiculturalism is not that different ethnic and religious groups can never peacefully co-exist, or that certain immigrant groups can never be persuaded to embrace our way of life. Rather, it’s the taboo it introduces against the teaching of substantive moral values to anyone, not just members of particular “communities”. It creates a general reluctance to promote any values other than procedural ones. The result is far too many people cast adrift, black and white alike, imagining they believe in something only to discover, when social order breaks down, that they believe in nothing.
Perhaps the root of the problem is the progressive Left’s conviction that mankind is essentially good. After all, if you think human beings are fundamentally benign and altruistic, then failing to teach them about right and wrong isn’t going to pose any major problems. They’ll just get along regardless. But the lesson of Lord of the Flies is that this is sentimental and naive. Released from the bonds of civilisation, human beings will quickly descend into cruel, atavistic creatures who pursue their own selfish interests at the expense of everyone else’s. Sigmund Freud got it right when he pointed out that men are not gentle creatures who just want to be loved. On the contrary, they are fundamentally territorial and aggressive:
As a result, their neighbour is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus. Who, in the face of all his experience of life and of history, will have the courage to dispute this assertion?
That’s what we witnessed during the four days of rioting – Homo homini lupus. It’s a mistake to see the rioters as belonging to a particular ethnic group or as being “outsiders”, as some local MPs claimed. They were just ordinary people who’ve been insufficiently socialised, members of all communities and none. What they lack isn’t material wealth or meaningful employment, but a moral framework that enables them to see that smashing shop windows and setting fire to cars – and stealing – is wrong.
For four nights, those precious six yards that protected the boy in Lord of the Flies were breached. Unless we reject the moral relativism that has led to this sickness, they’ll be breached again.
Professor Lockdown Blows Himself Up
Great column by Dan Hodges in today’s Mail on Sunday entitled “Professor Lockdown tried dropping a dirty bomb on Boris… and blew himself up“. It’s about Neil Ferguson’s attempt to blow up Boris when he testified before MPs on Wednesday by claiming half as many people would have died from COVID-19 if the UK had just locked down a week earlier. As Dan points out, Professor Ferguson wasn’t saying that in the run-up to lockdown in March, as the SAGE minutes make clear.
Shortly after the story broke about his study that triggered the Government into imposing full lockdown, Ferguson was asked if Ministers had been too late in safeguarding the nation.
“Overall, I think we have got the timing about right,” he responded. So whatever brought him to last week’s assessment that lockdown was too late, that wasn’t his view back in March, when it actually mattered.
But there is another major problem facing Ferguson and his fellow revisionists. For months the Government’s opponents have been demanding publication of the famous ‘SAGE Minutes’.
These tablets of stone would, we were told, finally reveal the truth about the extent to which Boris and his Ministers really were ‘following the science’, and how far the fight against COVID-19 had been undermined by political expediency.
And those opponents were right. When they were published a week ago – to little fanfare – they did reveal the truth.
Worth reading in full.
Latest Death Data, Deconstructed
A reader has been in touch to point out that today’s NHS England’s headline figure of 27 deaths only includes four that were recorded yesterday. The 27 were made up as follows:
- 11/4 – 1
- 1/5 – 1
- 28/5 – 1
- 10/6 – 2
- 11/6 – 3
- 12/6 – 15
- 13/6 – 4
The total for the whole of Britain today is 36, a 53% fall on last Sunday’s total of 77.
Is the Two-Metre Rule Heading For the Scrapheap?
Rishi Sunak appeared on Sophy Ridge this morning and gave the strong impression that the two-metre rule is not much longer for this world, given the drag it will impose on our economic recovery. He told the Sky presenter that the Government is “urgently” looking at whether the social distancing rules can be relaxed to boost shops and allow more pubs and restaurants to reopen.
Later in the day, Boris went on a walkabout in Westfield Stratford and talked to shopkeepers preparing for tomorrow’s reopening. He also gave the impression the two-metre rule will soon be ditched. He told reporters:
As we get the numbers down, so it becomes one-in-a-thousand, one-in-sixteen-hundred, maybe fewer, your chances of being, two metres, one metre or even a foot away from somebody who has the virus are obviously going down statistically, so you start to build some more margin for manoeuvre, and we’ll be looking at that and keeping it under constant review.
The tricky thing will be persuading the public that it’s safe to abandon the two-metre rule, given how successful “Project Fear on steroids” has been – a point made in this piece by the Telegraph’s Chief City Commentator Ben Marlow. A YouGov survey of almost 3,700 adults has found that 58% wanted to preserve the two-metre rule, with just 24% favouring a reduction to one metre and only 8% wanting it scrapped. Give me strength.
Powerful Critique of Epidemiological Modelling by Theoretical Physicist
Lockdown Sceptics has published an original article today entitled “Canaries in the Mine” by Dr Rudolph Kalveks, a retired executive with a PhD in theoretical physics. It’s a powerful critique of the models relied upon by Professor Neil Ferguson and others in trying to predict the course of the pandemic across a range of countries and argues that simpler, less sophisticated models provide a better fit with the data. This is his conclusion:
Countries across Europe have been easing their lockdowns since May 4th and, if only 10% of susceptible populations had been exposed to Covid, the potential for a subsequent sizeable second wave would be significant. However, no such signal has appeared amongst the fatality statistics to date. This in turn undermines the claims of the UK Government to be “following the science” when it persists with a lockdown and introduces travel quarantine measures (that would normally be associated with the early stages of an epidemic) at a time when a straightforward epidemiological analysis of the data indicates that the epidemic is substantially over.
I’ve created a permanent home for this piece in the right-hand menu as a subpage of “How Reliable is Imperial College’s Modelling?” Worth reading in full.
Can’t Get a Birth Certificate? Contact Your MP
The reader who got in touch a few weeks ago to say she wasn’t able to get a birth certificate for her newborn has been in touch to say she’s now managed to get one.
About two weeks ago I decided to email my local MP explaining that I couldn’t get my daughter’s birth certificate. Within a couple of days Lambeth were in touch with me and today the certificate arrived… annoyed I didn’t think to do this sooner and also very surprised it worked.
Any parents of newborns out there, you now know what to do.
Round-Up
And on to the round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘As the Left now controls every lever of power, we face nothing less than Regime Change‘ – Peter Hitchens with a typically gloomy analysis of our current situation in today’s Mail on Sunday
- ‘Anonymous Berkeley Professor Shreds BLM Injustice Narrative; Berkeley Responds‘ – Zero Hedge has reprinted the now withdraw letter about BLM purporting to be by a black history professor at UC Berkeley
- ‘Is There Still Room for Debate?‘ – Excellent column by Andrew Sullivan on the Maoist cultural revolution sweeping American journalism
- ‘The Tom Cotton Op-Ed and the Cultural Revolution‘ – Similar column on the same subject by Ross Douthat in the New York Times
- ‘The American Press Is Destroying Itself‘ – And a third piece on the same theme by Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi
- ‘Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police‘ – Rabble-rousing New York Times op ed that could well result in people becoming less safe – the pretext for getting rid of the editor who published the op ed by Tom Cotton. Don’t suppose anyone will lose their jobs over this one, though. Incidentally, the author, Mariame Kab, was a Soros Justice Fellow in 2016-17
- ‘On board the Diamond Princess: the coronavirus cruise from hell‘ – Sunday Times magazine piece based on interviews with the people on board
- ‘Inside the Swedish city that may prove the country’s strategy was right all along‘ – The Telegraph reports from a Swedish coastal city that’s been largely unaffected by the pandemic
- ‘No 10 tells it like it isn’t. So we make the rules‘ – Matthew Syed in the Sunday Times is becoming increasingly disillusioned by the Government’s handling of the crisis
- ‘Pub landlords in talks with officials for later last orders‘ – Every cloud, as they say
- ‘Primary schools told they can open fully with 15-pupil class size cap‘ – The Telegraph reports on what sounds like a concession by the Government on the reopening of primary schools, but isn’t, as far as I can tell. Few primaries can reopen in full if they have to observe the 15-pupil “protective bubbles” because they don’t have enough staff or classrooms
- ‘Let’s never have another shutdown‘ – Lockdown Sceptic Luke Johnson makes the case in the Sunday Times for avoiding another shutdown
- ‘iPads, sleep pods, wellness hubs – how NHS is spending Captain Tom’s charity donations‘ – Not sure I’d be happy about this if I’d contributed
- ‘Shoppers Brawl Over One-Way Arrows At Store‘ – Funny story in the Smoking Gun. Suggests that the arrows on shop floors may not be great at ensuring shoppers keep their distance from each other
Theme Tune Suggestions From Readers
Just the one suggestion today: “Time Loves a Hero” by Little Feet. Relevance? The lustre of heroes, including those we put up statues to, fades with time. Incidentally, the pollster Opinium has found that over half of UK adults (55%) say they disapprove of the protestors who pulled down Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol, versus only 25% who approved. Approval for the protestors is highest in London, at 42%.
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
A few weeks ago, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have reopened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have opened near you. Please visit the page and let us know about those brave folk who are doing their bit to get our country back on its feet.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. It takes me many hours every day, which doesn’t leave much time for other work. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. Alternatively, you can donate to the Free Speech Union’s litigation fund by clicking here, and join the Free Speech Union here. Incidentally, the Mail on Sunday has a good piece about Stu Peters, the Manx Radio DJ suspended for challenging the concept of “White Privilege” whom the Free Speech Union is defending. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here.
And Finally…
This video of Michael McIntyre visiting a fortune teller before lockdown is very funny. The first thing the fortune teller tells him, after gazing into his crystal ball, is that he won’t be working as a comedian soon, but as a substitute teacher and amateur hairdresser and the uniform he’ll be wearing to perform these jobs will be track suit bottoms and the T-shirt he slept in the night before. I know how he feels.
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Toby, thanks for making the effort today, happy birthday to the kid!
Curious to know if you have seen the governments 11th hour legal defense after being accused of closing schools illegally? They have said that they never ordered them shut, despite Boris being on video saying exactly that! Source: Simon Nolan’s Twitter today.
Dolan* sorry Simon!
BoJo has an habit of telling fibs, remember the £350M the NHS would get rather than sending the money to the EU.
Oh and Mr Cummins may have had a hand in that one as well.
I remember someone took him to court over that, suggesting it was a lie, and the judges, despite their tendency to back the Remainer cause, threw the case out, deciding it was a legitimate political argument. Meanwhile Remainer lies such as the suggestion that the EU has no plans for an EU army or that Cameron would stay on as PM if he lost the Referendum received no attention.
There was also the case of the bus adverts – gay vs. ex-gay. If I remember correctly, B. J. denied that he pulled the ex-gay ads, and that was also a lie.
hand up that one
Why do people like you continue to trot out the same fallacy about what was written on the side of ‘the bus’? If you’ve actually ever taken the time to read it you’ll know that it isn’t a promise, it’s a statement. Here it is again in case you’ve forgotten:
“We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead”
BTW, how much has Boris given to the NHS over the past few weeks? A lot more than £350 million!
The National Health Service has been replaced by the National Covid Service. The money that is thrown at Covid is whatever it takes to shoehorn in a Gated ‘partnership’ to the 4th reich of a biotech society. The usurping of a true governance operates fear of loss of control’ and protects and projects fear and chaos as the means to reinstate its claim to power. the centre that holds – is not the fear of pain of loss, but the heart and hub of a true support for the whole in all its parts. The abandonment of even a masking in the heart, is the normalisation of a post truth management and control system that offers the mask of a virtual identity within a bubble set in psycho-bio-technical incentivisations. That this is hollow and insane as a logical extension of insane premises doesn’t effect our ability to choose such an ‘identity’ by default to normals set over true nature. ‘NHS’ is being used as a symbolic trojan horse. As are terms like freedom and democracy. It is also used as a cash cow by Pharma cartels that operate a medical industrial complex no less operative as deep… Read more »
Thank you. Honestly wasnt aware of that.
In our MSM in Germany this “bus lie” was and is always used as THE example of how the Leavers lied to the country.
I consider myself an understanding remainer. Meaning: I would have liked to keep the UK in the EU so that there is one more conservative voice that prevents this institution from turning from what it originally was meant to be (an economic treaty that would work together for prosperity and peace on the continent) to the United States of Europe. Therefore: remainer. But understanding because I detest what the EU has become.
It was by the way listening to Nigel Farage that made me see a lot of things more ciritically and clearly. I still like him. Has he an outspoken opinion on Corona and the lockdowns? Would really like to know.
Cheers
Rather suspect rothschild told farage to remain schtum on corona and lockdown, for the moment at least.
I actually have no idea what farage’s opinion is as haven’t heard him recently. I did hear he was booted off lbc for criticising support for blm.
That would imply farage tended to support the “corona is really a major threat” narrative. Did anyone watch or listen to it?
They routinely lie. It is what the public guardians do. They do it so routinely they don’t even know they are doing it.
I hear that Prof Sikora will be on ITV at 8pm tomorrow – might be an interesting turning of the tide in MSM.
anyone who wants to preserve the two meter rule is insane and deserving of utter contempt.
Biker,
Look at the sad future…..https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/14/what-could-a-physically-distanced-uk-look-like-after-lockdown
I suspect that the trade off for going to one metre will be compulsory muzzles in shops and , God forbid, the open air.
It isn’t fact. It’s scaremongering speculation. If Grauniads want to live that way, let them.
Evidently they do. I’ve just come from a Graun article exhorting us to support the high streets and the first few comments are all screaming that it’s madness and will trigger a second spike.
Reading the article, which waffles on about how people will be nervous about going shopping but £millions have been (and will be) spent making sure it’s safe for us.
I think it’s obvious that the bedwetters will stay home anyway and those who aren’t scared don’t want to go shopping in a miserable gulag. This is not the way to reboot the economy!
BBC at it again this morning..
“2m distancing rule under review despite warnings from scientists”
I went to MacDonalds today, just to see if it was open and whether there was any normality about it.
I couldn’t see as I turned in that there were two cordoned lanes with no way of changing your mind to get out of the queue. I was there for the duration. It was drive through only.
Loads of notices about the usual BS of keeping all safe. Cash not accepted etc…
There was a young lad outside being vigilant making sure everyone crept forward bumper to bumper and wearing a muzzle. Outside for god’s sake.
I was stuck in my lane for 30 minutes before getting to the Order area. I don’t eat their food but as I was there and parched I ordered a water. It took another 7 mins to get out of the place.
All staff were muzzled. I asked if it was voluntary. That was a ‘no’ but the young woman I asked seemed ok about it. FFS.
AVOID MACDONALDS AT ALL COSTS!
I’ve been to Macca D’s a couple of times since they reopened. Last week on the first day of opening and this week. Week one, first day our ‘local’ one opened there was a young lad on a chair on the road outside telling everyone how long the wait would be. He didn’t have a face mask. This week no queues. All the staff inside wore face masks, we asked the girl giving us our food how she felt about the face masks and she said they were horrible but they were forced to wear them. It seems mad that no supermarket staff are wearing masks but the staff at Macca’s are forced to, despite the fact that the majority are under 25 and at almost zero risk from covid 19.
It’s so sad and frustrating that no one seems to be pushing back on the wearing of the muzzle – that f. symbol of oppression. It makes me feel sick at the thought of ever wearing one although I have no intention of doing so. I have absolutely no sense of humour about it, all I feel is an inner rage that if I was ever confronted or chastised (there’s a lot of chastisement from people at the moment, another bug bear) for not wearing one, I know the red mist would descend and then god help them. I did however laugh out loud at Fairnances comment the other day about wearing a skeleton balaclava (I think she said balaclava), and at Peter Hitchens proposal to wear a gas mask, so maybe I have retained a smidge of humour after all. I read somewhere recently that this continued lockdown with all the shit rules and obfuscation was for us to forget who we are and for us to get used to obeying so that they can drive through new laws without a whimper. Two words to that and one of them’s off. I can only think… Read more »
I am heartened to read that Liberty Tree Tavern in Elgin, Texas is NOT allowing the muzzle at his place.
I just tried ringing them to congratulate them but seems they may have closed for the day but I’m going to keep trying though and if I ever visit Elgin I’m popping in to tell them that TG there are people out there with common sense.
Exactly. Some seem to positively embrace the restrictions.
Thank goodness sanity prevails at my local Aldi!
I’m not helping anyone out if they’re making my experience unpleasant and that includes pubs which is the one thing I have missed in all this
It is mad!
Its a form of virtue signalling that seems to join in caring while actually joining in hate of fear that is not allowed to be openly shared and questioned – but only TOLD what to do – OR ELSE!
Hi Nel. I work at Mcdonalds. I’m a shift manager and all I can say is I have worked there for years under some very stressful times but nothing compares to the stress that we are working under now. As soon as we enter the building we have our temperature checked and we have to declare that we are healthy and we don’t know anyone that is ill. We all have to wear masks as the nature of work we do we are always less than 2 metres away from each other. They are awful, if you have a shift in kitchen with them on you are done for. Its hot enough already and with a mask on its 10 times worse. We have less staff working each shift, normally we would have about 9 folk in the kitchen, we have 5 now to try to keep us spaced apart. Another scary thing is the amount of young folk who actually believe that we are dealing with the plague and that we are all going to die. Alot of them are students who have had their exams trashed, their social life squashed, but they don’t care as they are doing… Read more »
It can’t possibly work.
My friend and I were discussing the logistics of buying clothes in a shopping mall. Queue for ages to be allowed in. You can’t try the clothes on, so have to buy an armful, then take them home to try on – which assumes you can afford to. Then you have to repeat the whole ghastly procedure to return the rejects for a refund.
People are queuing outside every shop, so antisocial-distancing becomes impossible – and forget window shopping and stopping for a coffee and a rest, especially if loos are off-limits!
Meanwhile, people are leaving the clothes shops with armsful of stock so, when you’ve finally got in, you’ll find there’s a limited choice remaining – and shops aren’t going to be able to afford tons of extra stock to cover this.
All this is to be policed by Jobsworths. Even people who aren’t scared are not going to go through such a gruesome experience. Amazon is going to have a bumper year.
If people choose online shopping instead of in store, then tracking our purchases becomes so easy, especially if it is all from Amazon. This is quite possibly of the goals of making in store shopping so miserable. Big brother is watching us ever closer.
I am so very sorry to hear what you are having to go through but confirms what I witnessed yesterday. If you are working in hot kitchens with less staff so more pressure and stress on you, and having to wear a muzzle then I’m surprised you can even breathe. I wonder if there is some H&S law that can be triggered that you are working in unsafe conditions. Any lawyers out there? It doesn’t surprise me sadly with the younger people as around where I live I’ve only seen younger people wearing them outside. Who are these people they keep polling who agree with it all? I think there are far more out there now who want this nonsense to stop. As someone said previously, a poll company can manipulate a poll however a company / government wants. Suspect that’s what’s happening. I can hope that eventually companies see sense particularly if their bottom line is at risk. Perhaps we should boycott MacDonalds for their unsafe working conditions? There was the McLibel case in the UK brought by Helen Steel and David Morris lasted an epic 10 years that although HS and DM didn’t… Read more »
Sorry should have said brought by MacDonalds against Helen Steel and David Morris.
Not just that. A couple of weeks ago, there were articles describing how residents were being told they couldn’t park outside their own homes because space had to be made for the cars queuing for MacDs.
Seriously? Then my comment above stands, we should boycott them
As I have never considered using them, I am feeling powerless here!
😉
However, it is noticeable to me that society is being sorted. Those who are willing to consciously accept what fear frames them in, are lockstepped to the idea of control as the power to deliver from fear. That it doesn’t actually deliver, is the ongoing control system that runs in place of the choice to align in the heart.
If we merely react from quantitative evaluations, then we protect our investments even if they are severely contracted and assigned new terms and conditions. So the opportunity is a re-evaluation of everything from a qualitative foundation.
Truth of love – and love of truth – is that without which nothing else works, makes sense, has meaning, can be shared, or even truly known. The apparent prospect of losing this or being locked down into a guarded hell by a coercive protection racket is an opportunity to release a false investment instead of going down another level.
We cannot ‘think’ our way through the release of a false investment or identity, we have to live it.
Absolutely!
If shopping becomes like in this little film from Primark, shops will find themselves with no customers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=XCo_IPMrQ9g&feature=emb_logo
Oh good god . . . that is appalling. That’s another shop on my list of places never to visit. I won’t be treated as a leper.
Another one that won’t be missed….
Gawd…..I’m beginning to sound like the Lord High Executioner from the Mikado!
If shops don’t resist this nonsense they deserve to go under.
What are they supposed to do? They are observing government restrictions, otherwise they get sued.
We really need to divide the country in two, 2 metre “new normal” supporters on one side of the border and people who want to return to the old normal now. And see how each group gets on. I’d be willing to bet most of the other lot would be clamouring to get in after a few months at most, having realised that it’s not really living.
And they’re all out of work
Indeed – the 2-metre crowd could all move to Krankieland: she’d make them feel most welcome!
You’re a genius. Problem solved – we’ll do them a swap for all the normal Scots.
They could just start by declaring “Real shops aren’t for wimps, they can stay home – they will anyway.” The rest of us could then get on with it as normal (OLD normal!). I’m sure it would catch on fast.
There’s a simple remedy. Carry a tape measure with you and regularly measure 2m between yourself and others, point at them and accuse them of potentially killing somebody.
They’ll think you’re crazy and you then simply say “crazy isn’t it?”
I’d go even further, and stand there and burst into tears, sobbing “I’ve just got to take my Granny’s shopping to her and now you’ve probably killed her!”. They will give you the “are you completely off your trolley” look, whereupon you can grin and say “Yup, stupid isn’t it.”. Exit stage left with a smile.
Great idea 😉
Indeed we are all being treated like bacilli. Because that’s what zombies see when they look at any other person than themselves.
Well, they won’t be seeing me in any of their poison shops.
Then return the sentiment kh. If they bark at you bark back. Same principle as with bullies – you have to stand up to them.
Easier said than done. They’re all drunk on the power they’ve newly acquired and will abuse it to have you kicked out. It’s the airport security phenomenon; introduced post 9/11 as a ‘temporary measure’ but still with us two decades on.
Pity they’d already got your money. I’d have relished leaving my would-be purchases and going elsewhere. Or, hopefully I’d have had the presence of mind (probably not) to demand a refund on the spot.
Toby,
It does not matter; it is a short version today. We all need our daily reality check!
Best regards
Mitesh
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-06-05/netherlands-coronavirus-lockdown-dutch-followed-the-rules
Dutch Cooperation Made an ‘Intelligent Lockdown’ a Success
Despite a largely laissez-faire attitude, the Netherlands has fared better than most.
When 511 Epidemiologists Expect to Fly, Hug and Do 18 Other Everyday Activities Again
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/08/upshot/when-epidemiologists-will-do-everyday-things-coronavirus.html
What a miserable mob of cowardly jerks. I wouldn’t go near any of them without a bargepole to keep their poison at a safe distance.
Well they can fuck off for a start (apologies to any epidemiologists, and their close family and friends, on the forum).
On a more serious note, I wonder if one cherry picked some of the juicier points from this, and published it, where there would be a few waverers who would start to realise what’s at stake here. I struggle to believe that, apathetic as many are, a majority would support the kind of long term madness that these apparently rather unusual scientists seem prepared to countenance.
It shows how utterly divorced from reality they are.
Well I’m hugging and I don’t care. Still here. By the way the hugging’s consensual. I’m not mugging anyone.
Makes you wonder if these people ever had social interests, active social lives…. or sexual partners pre-Covid.
The’re the ones you see lurking in lonely corners wearing hazmat suits.
Good grief, what a cowardly bunch of idiots. No wonder we’re in such a mess!
Thanks again, Mr Young. Hope you had a great day celebrating. On a more sombre note, I’ve just read the Peter Hitchens piece in full, with rapt attention. It is frightening but compelling. Where is the dissent? Where is the debate? None of the institutions which should guarantee such things are lifting a finger to help. But as Hitchens says, these evils are deeply rooted. And then there’s the Andrew Sullivan article – more appalling news. Both of them touch on something almost beyond institutional redress – that the whole of the intellectual class is seemingly under the thumb of the left, whether from fashion, fear or resentment. Somehow, we must organise and resist. I shall join your Free Speech Union for starters, but the forces ranged against us are daunting. And Johnson – that wretched, over promoted incompetent who has handed us back to the left just months after effecting a rescue! Does he have the slightest grasp of what he has done? In this world of intimidation, unfolding without the slightest hindrance from the Tories, one doesn’t know whom to trust any more. Who is speaking sincerely? Hitchens and Sullivan, yes; but the Telegraph with its new found… Read more »
Completely agree with all that – and this time it is the young (no, no, not you Toby) who will feel the full force of this unfolding catastrophe through the rest of their lives.
Vernon Coleman. UK Column
how about we swap 3 million productive hard working Hong Kon-ians with 3 million unprodective lefties – kill 2 birds with 1 stone
I do wonder how much black lives would matter to the CPC.
Otherwise, I’m in somewhat qualified agreement to the above.
brilliant idea.. the lefties still have such an admiration for china.. no protesting about hong kong, no protests about the interned muslims and tibet, no protests about their third world colonialism and slavery. Clearly it is a better place to live than the awful racist and fascist uk
Thanks for making the effort Toby. Happy hatch day to your youngling, May he grow up to know a life similar to our own childhood, rather than the current kafkaesque Era.
Perhaps more noise should be made of the governments response to Simon Dolan?
The sheer audacity!
But surely anticipated?
My first suggestion for a theme tune:
Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire
Does not need any explanation.
This from The Guardian:
?width=140&height=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=03204cab07e9bbaec24e28ad68d3420fLibby Brooks
Scotland: Schools likely to continue ‘blended learning’ until end of next school yea
Scotland’s education secretary John Swinney says that schools are likely to continue with the ‘blended learning’ model from August until the end of the next school year.
With pupils across Scotland expected to return on August 11 to a mixture of at-home and in-school learning, Swinney told Sunday Police Scotland that things were “unlikely” to return to normal before the end of the school year since social distancing will be required for some time yet.
Some councils have already made public plans that involve children being in school buildings for only two days out of every five.
He also said that, while he understands some parents will be nervous about sending their children back to school, it will be a legal requirement.
Teaching unions and parents groups area already expressing concerns that the new model with impact especially on poorer families and those parents who are unable to work from home.
Words fail me! WTF is ‘blended learning’? I think it’s probably an acronym for ‘shit education’.
Sorry – I meant ‘euphemism’. 🙂
“Blended learning”. Mealy mouthed wankers.
Someone is paid a fortune to come up with nonsense like that.
I wrote about this here a week or so ago, but my 15 year old daughter (who didn’t sit exams this year) needed feedback from her English teacher on an essay she’s been assigned. Rather than being able to, y’know, put her hand up in class and actually ask the teacher, she had to send an email. That went unanswered for 4 days, at which point my daughter mentioned her anguish to me. I rattled off a very strong message to the school, and got a reply fairly sharpish from the head of year teacher, who assured me my message had been passed onto the relevant English teacher. This was followed up by another email to let me know the English teacher had now responded to my daughter. So, yeah, this is what blended learning will be like. Kids having to chase teachers for help via email 3 days a week. I should add that my daughter is really bright, got all As in her prelim exams, always gets glowing reports etc. She takes her education very seriously and has a career path planned for herself. She was last week acccepted onto a social work apprenticeship which she should be… Read more »
Very best wishes to your daughter. She sounds like the sort of exam candidate whose work would be a pleasure to mark. ( I used to mark International GCSE English.)
Thought: there is a good deal of expertise in this site. Can we offer help to kids who are anxious to learn?
Honestly. I am so upset over the bollock fest thats come out of the Scottish government today. To be told after not being in school since March that when our kids go back in August it will be part time for the entire school year has nearly pushed me over the edge. If kids are not going to be in school full time for a whole school year, I would imagine that means no after school clubs, no sports clubs, no drama clubs or scouts, girl guides etc. All the fun stuff that kids love, helping to nurture them and build them into well rounded individuals all gone until God knows when. At a time when European countries are almost finished coming out of lockdown. Some even speeding things up. Many of them saying lockdown was a waste of time and they wouldn’t do it again, Nicola is insistent she is going to keep following the science. Where the f*** is she getting her science from. To cap it all when she did her speech today she still won’t say if we are moving into phase 2 this week. She’s “optimistic” but warned not everything she set forward for phase… Read more »
That’s pretty much a recipe for rioting – those people’s lives have been destroyed by this lockdown and I won’t blame them if they decide to take matters into their own hands.
My daughter and a few of her friends were chosen to go on a trip to Malawi to work with school children over there. They’ve raised the required fees (£1000s) and are due to travel next year. I have to wonder whether this, too, will be knocked on the head.
It’s interesting that that evil swine Swinney is threatening parents with legal action should they choose not to send their kids back to school. Seems he thinks it’s legal to shut the schools and also not legal to send kids to school when he and his nationalista counterparts believe it’s a requirement.
Can they not just declare they are home schooling? Plenty of parents do nowadays, although I have no idea how they go about declaring it.
You write a letter to the school stating your intention to home educate, effective immediately. We did it 10 years ago.
It’s interesting that, like you noticed, she may not give us everything outlined in Phase 2. But when you read phase 2 (it’s on page 37 of her “route map”) it’s not much of an improvement over Phase fucking 1.
All the while Scotland has had around 14 deaths “with COVID-19” in a week and there’s less than 20 people with it in ICU across the whole country.
I know, its disgusting to think she can play with peoples lives like a cat torments a mouse. She is just on a massive ego trip. I actually thought her coming out today, as know she normally takes weekends off, to speak it might of been something encouraging but no. I really can’t understand why she thinks children are better stuck at home with no social interaction with their friends. No sports or any extra curricular activities. My son belongs to boys brigade and swimming club. He’s missed a weekend camp with boys brigade something which he loved last year. Missed endless hours swimming, mixing with other kids not from his school but will be going to the same high school as him next year. He was a happy, out going kid who is slowly turning into a shell of his former self and its awful to see. All he wants to do is just be a kid and play. Academically I don’t know what is going to happen. He’s a bright kid. Loves Maths. Picks up new things easily but I really worry about kids who aren’t. Kids from socially deprived families, with maybe the threat of losing their… Read more »
I feel for you. My kids are younger than yours from the sounds of things and we’re south of the border, but what we’re doing to our children can only be described as evil. I truly hope that there’s time to fix it for them, but the people who did this must be held to account.
I don’t think Nic is a human being. Or Comrade Stalin Drakeford in Wales either. Or any of their henchpersons.
Indeed, if it wasn’t for this site I would start thinking that I was the only human being left in the country. Don’t you get that feeling at times?
At my worst times I find myself envying those who died before this horror began. And then I pray God through Jesus Christ to deliver us, because nobody else can.
And to the revolting ‘stay safe’ mantra, I always reply ‘stay human’.
Nicola. Human being?
Surely a real human doesn’t maintain an immaculate short hairstyle throughout a three-month ban on hairdressers?
Usforthem now has a Facebook group for the opening of Scottish schools.
Let me get this right. If they’re trying to protect people from a virus (ha ha what virus?) are the kids only going to school part time because the virus is only working part time? Bit like the virus has just taken a holiday the last two weeks but back on 15th so now everyone has to wear face masks on public transport. Fucking idle virus if I may say so. Sounds like a draft of a sketch comedy to me, not real life.
A shop near me has a list of opening times that ends with ‘Closed Sundays due to coronavirus’.
This virus sure does move in mysterious ways. Muzzle wearers feel “safe” to take it off while having a drink in a bar’s outside seating area, but put it back on when they leave. Are they protected by an invisible anti corona force field while they have a drink but are immediately attacked when they’ve finished. No logic or common sense with these morons.
Please, don’t call her Nicola and don’t call Johnson Boris.
It disturbs me that the row of salad potatoes I have planted is called Nicola. Scottish as well! Never mind, I’m sure their tuberous personalities will be much more amenable.
If I had kids I’d leave the country, honestly.
I’m considering it personally (depending on how the next six months go… notably I’m more scared of books being burnt in the streets than the continuation of Covysteria, because I think the former is looming and will get worse whereas the latter will, eventually, fade away) – but if I had kids….. I’d want them out of here. Seriously.
I’m seriously considering it.
Actually, that’s not true – I’m actively pursuing it. I have a job I’m looking at on the west coast of the states, which may or may not happen, but either way, my wife has an Irish passport and I could get one, so I’m looking at moving us to Germany. My work doesn’t care where I am, I speak the language and they’re just so damn sensible.
I could be seeing you there. I have family over there. Not so great with the language (somewhat ironically) but I’ll do 😉
Whatever you do, don’t come to Spain. Imagine if after the last election, Corbyn had been able to form a coalition with the Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru and persuaded Sinn Fein to take their seats. That nightmare scenario is Spain’s reality.
We can’t let this happen. My friend is a headteacher and word on the street for secondary schools is that they will only be in school for one day a week! Primaries will be in ‘bubbles’, Mon/Tues for one group, Thurs/Fri for the other. Allowing for deep cleaning on a Wednesday!!
Another letter on route to my MSP (Lib Dem), although so far he’s been useless. This madness has to stop.
It wouldn’t be so bad if there was proper socialising for the teenagers on the one day per week. It will just rub it in.
It already was.
Covid dictionary
Blended learning- a form of torture imposed upon parents and children, where children learn very little and parents can’t return to work.
social distancing- an anti social method of ensuring that people can no longer socialise like normal human beings.
2m rule-a random amount of space suggested to make life as difficult as possible for everyone.
lockdown- being imprisoned within your own home by a controlling government.
Furlough- to skip work and be paid for it, an opportunity for the government to entirely ruin our country while people lie in the sun and drink wine.
Happy Birthday to your son Toby and hope the family had a good day celebrating despite all this. Many thanks again for your tireless efforts on this blog!
Universities everywhere are concerned about a ‘virus,’ but not the one you think
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=15028
Amid racial tensions in the United States, colleges and universities across the country have a new favorite metaphor: comparing the “virus of racism” to the novel virus that has upended the country.
After George Floyd was killed while in Minneapolis police custody, the University of Michigan Engineering department called upon students to “help eradicate the virus of racism.”
“For over two months, we have been dealing with the coronavirus, a pandemic that has shaken the core of our institution and the world. It has been a lot to deal with; and has at times felt overwhelming. Yet during the past week, another virus reared its ugly head,” read the official university communication.
“This virus is called RACISM,” the statement adds.
“Racism has been in the fabric of the country since its inception. It is so tightly entwined in our socialization that it has been second nature in driving behavior,” the message continued.
Aren’t metaphors awful things?
I thought the consensus was that using the pathogen analogy in politics was a very dangerous business after a certain someone used it on many occasions in mid 20th century.central Europe.
Do they really want to live in the kind of world this is going to lead to? I doubt they’d do. Naked self interest I can sympathise with. Motiveless suicide is much harder to take.
As only one ethnic group can ever be guilty of racism, then it should be clear that group is the ‘virus’
Greetings Fellow Sceptics!
Today was my last day of my Ghost Town Capital Journeys and while it has been good for my mental and physical health, from tomorrow I begin my boycott of transport and the high street to protest at the compulsory muzzling, the dehumanising antisocial distancing measures and the lack of toilets.
Also visited a work colleague to drop off some plant cuttings from my husband and we spent a wonderful afternoon having a late lunch and chatting. She also thinks this is all ridiculous and is also boycotting shops except supermarkets and transport as she told me “I don’t want to endanger my health because I have to wear a useless mask” or words to that effect.
On my way home via the bus, the irritating face mask message kept coming up and this bloke who sat across me rolled his eyes as soon as it came up the nth time then he muttered loudly “bollocks!”
Indeed the tide is turning.
*boycotting shops (except supermarkets) and transport – DOH!!!
and for the over-60’s (about 17m of us in the UK when I last counted), a cloth mask won’t do – they have to be medical grade, according to the latest WHO U-turn:
https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1279750/retrieve
I think I now believe that the WHO is just saying stuff in a desperate attempt to make sure people don’t forget they exist.
I’ve stopped listening to the WHO – its all quack advice and have to agree with matt, this is all a ruse to stay in the news especially after the US has pulled the plug on funding them.
Then surely they would do a better job by saying masks are pointless, antisocial-distancing is no longer necessary and the sooner life returns to normal, the healthier we all will be. That should get them notices and earn them some brownie points to boot.
Exactly. Why they haven’t done that is a bleeding mystery.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/13/8-simple-steps-to-end-the-lockdown-say-yes-not-no/
8 Simple Steps To End The Lockdown: Say Yes, Not No
To those paying attention, the evidence about Covid-19 and the lockdown response is clear. We’ve been sold a pup.
The UK Government itself has confirmed several times that the virus is not serious to the majority of people who catch it. The lockdown was a panic-driven overreaction.
There was a clue 19th March
‘As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.’
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid
All the rest was politics….now about to become a feeding frenzy for lawyers…greatly to the taxpayers cost……but, surely, ultimately, to the cost of the politicians responsible and their coteries as well…..?
Over ten thousand dead before their time:
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1931
Hope Simon Dolan uses this in his court case!
Sold a pup?
A baby Tyrant-osaurus, rather. And it’s growing up fast.
https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1261253109558513664/photo/1
Interesting from Slovenia. They started the lockdown with no deaths and 20 cases per day.They lifted lockdown with 20 cases per day and 4 deaths per day the peak and they have now declared the pandemic over 3 weeks after lifting the lockdown. Seems a natural epidemic curve hardly affected by anything done.
I can’t believe we’re half way through June and instead of making any progress to getting back to normal, all that seems to be happening is more progress into the absurd.
The government need to stop the awful and pointless briefings. If people care about how many people have died then they can find the figures out themselves. I’m sure they wouldn’t bother though because the ones who care about the “covid” deaths obviously haven’t bothered to do any research into any of the numbers over the last 3 months. If they had then they wouldn’t be frightened to go outside.
Open everywhere back up properly, that’s schools, restaurants, pubs, sports centres, hairdressers etc. If people wanna voluntarily wear masks then let them. Nobody else should have to. If shops don’t want to reopen then that’s their choice.
Completely sick of it all.
I’m very concerned this could go on for years if I does then I will ask to.be euthanased and I mean it cant stand the daily stress of it. All
I just can’t get my head around what is actually going on. We are well and truly through the looking glass now. There is no need for any of it, but I unfortunately agree with you, I think this insanity is going to go on for a long time now. It’s looking very bleak. I want to go back to the 90s.
Take at least one of the bad guy with you, Nic …
Nic,
This will pass faster than you imagine – I recommend 48 hours away from social media and much sunshine (if you can get out and away, that is).
Your new shopping experience at Bluewater and Lakeside….Good Grief!!
https://youtu.be/6LFz5qFzwE0
Just watched that – horrific! Tracking people using heat sensors – hello? When did we agree to that? And the financial investment that the shopping centres have made for all this makes me suspicious that this is going to be temporary… And if as seems likely, the 2m guidance will be reduced to only 1m, then all their signage will have to be changed again… so a waste of time making all these signs..
See many centres closing if this goes on i will not be going until the old normal returns
Had to laugh the other day. Several local authorities were protesting that if the antisocial-distance was reduced, all their 2m sineage would be out of date.
Barnsley council smugly disclosed that its signs read “Keep your distance”.
They must be the only council with an iota of common sense in this godforsaken country.
Jesus Christ. How depressing. I hate shopping anyway, but if you did used to enjoy it then there is no way you’ll be going out shopping like that, not when you can order whatever you want online and have it delivered to your house the next day. You’d have to be insane or unable to shop online to go there.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of insane people out there. Still, not sure how long even the true covid zombies could tolerate this. Would love to see these shops go bust if they continue to gleefully embrace this insanity.
Insane for sure!
AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!
I went to Sainsbury’s for some petrol and free tyre-pressure check on Friday. I wasn’t keen on Sainsbury’s before lockdown, because they’d replaced most of the cashiers with robots. For food, Aldi and Abel&Cole have my total loyalty now. The petrol sales shop is the size of a Tesco Express but with fewer display shelves, so it has two really wide isles. There was an arrangement of barriers outside but, as it was 7pm and quiet, I went straight up to the door, like the person just in front of me. A very young Pakistani man politely asked me to please wait because only two customers were allowed in the shop at once. I asked him if someone was spending ages browsing the aisles full of chocolate, soda and general junk food, did that mean we couldn’t just go in, pay for our petrol and get out. He said yes. Can you imagine what that must be like at busy times?! I told him I wasn’t having a go at him because obviously he didn’t make the rules but didn’t he think it was bonkers? He nodded and said yes he did. I asked if he got… Read more »
That’s the problem, I sympathise with the shop workers as I work in a customer facing role myself and I know that we are also powerless against the tsunami of insane and illogical rules. What I take exceptions are those ones who channel their inner Nazi or Stalin.
Vote with your feet. Don’t go. You can get anything online these days. Except groceries Well you can if you can get a slot. Gold dust these days. I don’t have a car and always did my shopping online, no problems. Until this fiasco. Haven’t a hope of delivery because those with cars have nobbled the slots as they are too effing scared to go out!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/14/the-lancets-editor-the-uk-response-to-coronavirus-is-the-greatest-science-policy-failure-for-a-generation
The Lancet editor, a well-known China friend and admirer of the Chinese way of inventing lockdown in an interview in the Guardian. Because of the scandal with withdrawing of an article in The Lancet he is now pretending to disassociate himself with Big Pharma. But he forgets that Big Pharma is the prime factor behind the lockdown. He is now criticizing the UK response as the lockdown would have been effective earlier. This is now a common thing to say in line with Fergusson. Three weeks earlier lockdown and everything would have been a success.
I have just read the article in the Mail. My take is, and has been since the retracted HCQ paper, he is shitting himself and trying to get his rewritten narrative out ahead of an imminent (US) court case.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8419201/Lancet-editor-blasts-government-allowing-thousands-needless-coronavirus-deaths.html
I think you mentioned AIER the other day. This just posted on ZeroHedge is interesting about the modelling:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/modelers-thought-everything-except-reality
My husband uses agent based simulation in other settings (regulatory economics) and said from the outset it should never have been used in this situation. He replicated the Ferguson 250k mitigation outcome on a spreadsheet with a five variable formula, and 60K with Diamond Princess dataset.
The zerohedge article is spot on. The shocking thing is that WHO in 2019 and ECDC and every epidemiologist in the world before the Covid-19 pandemic, never even considered lockdown/quarantine the healthy as an option at all. No evidence that it would be effective and the feasibility was considered impossible. In fact, many social distancing measures have a very low evidence of working and apart from handwashing, even the evidence for school closures in influenza is rather weak but could be used. Masks were even more controversial. That was 2019. And the China lockdown was imported and lauded in 2020 by many leading epidemiologists, unfortunately sitting in government committees and many with dubious link with Big Pharma. The epidemiologists doing the experiment, never done before, were the ones importing the lockdown principle from a totalitarian country. The onus is on these people to prove that lockdown worked.
Agree. They need to make their case in front of a full coroner-type inquiry, led by the likes of Dr Andrew Walker (he took the Ministry of Defence apart in various inquests to military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan). We need all the evidence on the table, including all the email chatter and inter-departmental memos behind the sanitised SAGE minutes, and testimony from the scientists not deemed worthy of listening to by the government – Professors Sikora, Heneghan, Gupta, Spiegelhalter.
Please not Sikora. I know he’s a hero here, but let’s not forget, he was the specialist who said in 2009 that this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdelbaset_al-Megrahi
Had weeks to live and so should be returned to Libya (he lived till 2012). He is and always has been a self publicist.
You realize that Sikora was in favour of lockdown? He was on that side in the Oxford debate featuring Hitchens.
He does seem to change his tune.
https://www.aier.org/article/how-a-free-society-deals-with-pandemics-according-to-legendary-epidemiologist-and-smallpox-eradicator-donald-henderson/
In that article is the full text of Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza(Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science; Volume 4, Number 4, 2006)
By Thomas V. Inglesby, Jennifer B. Nuzzo, Tara O’Toole, and D.A. Henderson
It is not possible to get the full text free separately so you need to read this in the link above. I recommend everybody to read this fascinating article by the legendary Donald Henderson. It is almost chilling to read this in light was is going on now with Covid-19. It discusses every measure used in Covid-19. What a miss that we did not have these type of professionals in charge of Covid-19 reponse.
Thanks for this
He should be concerned about his safety, at the very least. Many people who’ve upset big pharma seem to commit suicide in ‘unusual’ ways.
I think there is a link between the collapse in both Christian belief and the requirement to respect Christian observances in British society, and the descent into barbarous behaviour in our cities: ultimately a failure of liberalism.
One aspect I’ve not seen a comment on so far, is that these events will be closely watched in societies which are actively defending their traditions (such as Poland and Hungary.) I imagine these events will strengthen and reinforce their drive to retain their traditional culture.
Hello Phil,
Although I am not religious I grew up in an era when church-going and Sunday school was still the norm, and my feeling is that these activities instilled a level of morality and self-discipline (even among the agnostics), which is somewhat lacking in society today. The decline of Christianity has left a vacuum, which is being filled by various forms of activism that manifest themselves most obviously in the holier-than-thou virtue-signalling of the ‘woke’ community – theirs is a religion in all but name.
Unfortunately, ‘love thy neighbour’ has turned into ‘cancel thy neighbour’. There is a good piece in The Telegraph today, by Calvin Robinson, pointing out that the support of ‘woke’ activists only extends to those on the left – you can’t be BAME and a Conservative, it seems:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/13/dare-left-say-cant-conservative-little-short-racism/
I wonder if anyone could answer this question that I have been mulling over today. As the 2m rule is guidance, and not enshrined in law, is there anything to stop a shop from operating as normal for those who want to shop as normal?
The trouble is most people have been gaslighted into thinking if you are closer than 2 metres you will be infected with a deadly virus and you will die. I really don’t want to wear a face mask in the surgery but am fearful of being denounced to the local ” committee of public safety “. ie the practice manager.
Likewise any shopkeeper not insisting on the 2 metres will get a hard time and wetpantyhose wearers will go to the local rag.
Asked this question myself no one sees to know
I think this issue here is many employers will be forced into complying with the 2m spacing by health and safety codes – that’s where the enforcement angle of this will come in. I do agree from what I see locally and on my travels that most people are ignoring the 2m thing in their personal lives.
Probably, their insurance contracts – and threats from local councils.
It seems to be threats from the council around here,particularly towards small businesses.
Local councils are not exactly renowned for making intelligent decisions.
However, the government has shunted millions to them in order to provide “safe” shopping spaces. They are maybe being audited for compliance.
The draconian leaning works from the top down but it’s the poor sods at the bottom who suffer for it, businesses and customers alike.
Good question!
If you’re receiving funding from the state or are connected with the state for some matter like certain museums and heritage sites then you are forced to comply, doesn’t matter if its guidance or not.
Well if you look at, for example, this link here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19/shops-and-branches it is very clearly guidance, not law. There are similar documents for other workplace categories. I am not aware that there is any law relating to this specifically – for example Health and Safety law, or anything in the recent restrictions. The restrictions related solely to whether those businesses were allowed to open at all. What I am not sure about is whether general health and safety laws are broad enough to allow them to be used against a business that had not done a covid-19 risk assessment, or had done one but concluded the risks were low because it’s simply not that dangerous. A small business that felt strongly about this could risk it, but a larger firm would probably want to get their lawyers onto it before going against the guidance.
It’s not all about the law, or how enforceable any of it is. You also have to take into account 1) the willingness of the workforce to return to work productively (you can oblige them to turn up or be fired, but you can’t oblige them not to be sullen and slow or not to complain to the media) 2) the risk of litigation (if you’ve followed the guidance to the letter and someone gets sick, it’s not your fault. If you haven’t, it could be) and 3) virtue signalling (we are a responsible employer. Your safety is our first concern).
Yes indeed. That’s why the guidance is so damaging.
Triple whammy!
Here’s the email I have sent to Waterstones: Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to you regarding your email below which outlines your protocols for Waterstones reopening tomorrow. As someone who has loyally supported your store since 2004 when I came to this country as a student, I am dismayed by the measures you have put in place in the name of “safety” due to this current crisis. I take exception especially to the following: queuing system hand sanitising “quarantine” for books that have been browsed by a customer for 72 hours lack of facilities Shopping is meant to be a pleasurable activity and one of the reasons why I continue to go to bookshops is the thrill of finding something to read by accident while browsing. These measures will take the joy out of book shopping, that moment when you find something that you’re not intending to read and buy but eventually do while browsing. Instead of what should be a positive experience, it will be re-enacting what shopping is like in the old USSR or East Germany. While your company persists in treating me and other customers as inconveniences and carriers of disease, I… Read more »
Hmm, I rather feel that about supermarkets too: I have little option but to use them, but, no, I shall not go to any other dehumanising stores.
Exactly. We have to put up with re-enacting the Soviet Union with supermarkets (thankfully my local Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and M&S have been fine) but I’m not going to stand for being treated like a leper by the high street.
If this accelerates their demise they will have no-one but themselves to blame.
In my town Morrisons have been pretty good but M&S and Sainbury’s have been awful,the worst of all for treating customers badly is B&Q.
It seems to vary from area to area. I’ve boycotted my local Tesco and Asda but mostly because of the long queues.
I’ve heard dreadful reports about B&Q.
Their website used to be crap, so if it’s still as bad, people will be looking for other sources.
B&Q’s customer service has always been awful. I’ve been avoiding them for years anyway.
Yep, I had a shocking experience at B&Q.
I won’t be going back.
If you think B and Q is bad. I would advise against visiting Wickes. Worst shopping experience I’ve ever had.
Well put Bart,they’ve lost me as a customer aswell,we can’t even have the simple pleasure of browsing a bookshop,not so long ago they were moaning about losing custom to Amazon etc and now they are doing this ?,there are no words really.
If Waterstones go under, they won’t get any sympathy from me – they have no-one to blame but themselves and their blaming Amazon won’t wash with me.
https://youtu.be/Yy_a8wpRAn0
Spare a thought for the retail staff who have to work there. Failure to comply with ‘safety’ measure will result in disciplinary procedures.
I am aware of this as I also work in a customer facing environment. However I object to being treated as subhuman and that is why I’m boycotting Waterstones and the rest of the high street.
Nightmare. Poor you!
Asthma. Breathing issues. Allergies. Select one.
They don’t seem to have thought through the H&S consequences of enforced masking.
Hear, hear Bart.
Happy birthday to your son!
Does anyone remember the great ash cloud crisis of 2010? Surely you do? Let’s not forget what happened. A volcano in Iceland erupted and almost instantly there was a total knee-jerk reaction that left hundreds of thousands of people suddenly stuck overseas with literally no way to get home. Governments and scientists dived in without thinking, panicked into believing there’d be aircraft falling out of the skies as volcanic particles destroyed the engines. Aviation ended just like that across northern Europe even though flying at lower altitude would have obviated much of the problem, albeit at elevated fuel consumption. I was stranded in Rome but moved extremely fast and got myself booked onto the sleeper to Paris. But over the 3 days I had to wait before leaving I saw people being skinned alive by greedy hoteliers, and real trauma and distress as people’s plans collapsed. Families, school trips, business people – all done up like kippers without any official solutions. When I made it back from Paris on the Eurostar I headed out to Heathrow to collect my car and found myself in an aircraft graveyard, just like the one there now. A personal friend and former… Read more »
I’d like to believe that the EVERYONE to whom you refer includes the main players in Parliament, but, then, I’d quite like to believe in Santa Claus!
I harked back to that time when it became clear to me, in early March, that this Coronavirus-panic was going to be another social engineering experiment, as the ash cloud – in my opinion – was.
Yes I remember the Iceland eruption well, as I was stuck in Portugal unable to arrange my father’s funeral.
BUT we who say “never again” may well see this again. We are a worryingly small minority here on this site.
When we get the next pandemic with a high IFR (like SARS1) the politicians have been given a clear route map as to how to manage the masses.
Swedenborg posted something at the end of the comments on yesterday’s page that mentioned we were “overdue” an influenza epidemic and a “Highly infectious” hepinavirus epidemic.
I looked up hepinavirus and my reaction was “holy crap!” I still think lockdown is a bad idea, but my god, I’d be taking that one more seriously.
Yep, we shouldn’t underestimate the pandemic threat. We should plan for something far worse than Coronavirus. Why don’t we have a Civil Defence Organisation like most countries? We used to. Looking at 9/11, Novichok, SARS, MERS, and now Covid-19 it’s clear our emergency planning has been lamentable. We need to put in a place a system that can deal with 500K casualties in a week if necessary – because that’s what you could get with many scenarios e.g. something like a meteorite impact.
But we should never again be put in a position where we lop off 25% of our GDP at the behest of a few weirdo academics for something no worse than a bad flu year.
Yes. You only have to look at the comments in the Grad and you’ll realise we’re the small voice of reason against the machine.
Thanks for the flashback to those heady days of 2011, seems a lifetime ago. I don’t think we are seeing a rebellion by multiculturalists today. The academy, media, and their youthful vanguard are generally intolerant authoritarians. This “woke” movement has been fed a very narrow view of the world, entirely built on a single dimension of the identitarian aggrieved (among the wealthy and upper middle classes) vs. everyone else. I do agree that they are nihilists however, as they really don’t believe their own rhetoric very profoundly, but it is a useful weapon to get what they want: public adoration and a stage from which to fling invective out on to the masses.
Another good video from sceptic Carl Vernon,the lunacy in this one has really wound me up,I think we have now well and truly fallen down Alice in Wonderlands’ rabbit hole,I no longer have any hope that this country will ever return to normal.The things being implemented in this video,in shopping centres,are very sinister and de-humanising and anyone that is prepared to be treated like this and spend money at these places really needs their head examining.Everthing has gone too far now,there is no going back,I know we are all trying to resist but the tsunami of madness is now overwhelming,I watched this video and I just ended up with my head in my hands,I just cannot see an end to this,everyday something else arises that crushes us even more and the majority of the population just meekly accepts,I am ashamed to be part of a species that is aiding in it’s own downfall. I just want to go out for a drink and a meal with our friends,I want to go the the barbers,I want to go the swimming pool,I want to go shopping without being treated like a piece of shit,surely that’s not much to ask ?,it’s not being… Read more »
UK Column News – NHS Eye Witnesseshttps://off-guardian.org/2020/06/14/watch-uk-column-news-nhs-eye-witnesses/
Mike Robinson and Brian Gerrish discuss the economic fallout of the Lockdown, the £300 million spent on track-and-trace and an interview with Piers Robinson discussing the Times’ renewed attacks on the academics researching Douma and the OPCW leaks (more on this coming soon).
Most striking in this segment are three first-hand accounts of patients in NHS hospitals which describe experiences we are already becoming familiar with from many other sources, and that are hard to reconcile with real-world pandemic prevention measures, especially given the acknowledged low level of threat posed by SARS-COV2.
Thanks so much for the update Toby. I don’t think it’s short at all, plenty of content to get our teeth into. Tomorrow will be a strange day of mixed emotions. I am finally seeing my boyfriend after exactly 3 months apart. I live alone and he is moving in with me likely for the rest of the summer, or until he needs to go back to university (God knows how long that will take). The only reason he didn’t move in with me before lockdown is because he expected the house arrest to last only a couple of weeks, but I knew deep down it would be far longer. My instincts tend to be accurate. These past 3 months have been unimaginably awful without him and not being able to see him has definitely been the absolute worst part of lockdown for me so that is a happy thing that will be happening tomorrow. However, shops also open tomorrow. Once that immediate physical/psychological need of human contact is satisfied, my mind will inevitably turn these ludicrous, hectoring measures we are expected to abide by when walking into shops. I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and… Read more »
I hope you have fun Poppy :o)
Enjoy your reunion and time together!! 🙂
The why is to connect all the dots up, quite frightening really when you look into it properly. Don’t for one minute think that the virus and the wokerati BLM riots etc. are a coincidence. They certainly aren’t!!! You know by now not to trust the MSM (especially BBC and Sky , god knows about ITV if anyone still watches it) and their fear mongering bias (shown up again during BLM I might add). In amongst it all you DO get clues from leftfield stories coming out of nowhere (ahem… McCann ? Prince Andrew stuff…hmm ??). Some of the more ‘right wing’ papers appear to be talking some sense (ie. The Spectator) but they are still a bit behind the curve although I am sure they know more. The UK being slower is not a coincidence, the imported riots worldwide for BLM from USA (also slow coming out) is not a coincidence (election year there isn’t it? No surprise). There is still brexit in the mix. So when you can’t trust the news that you see and know for the lunacy this whole situation is and you know what the hysterial overreactions and lies are, where do… Read more »
Fearmongering. – BBC showed tonight (and next two nights) a drama about the Salisbury poisonings. As the country is starting to come to its senses about lockdown, i wonder if the timing is just coincidental, or whether it is deliberately scheduled now to scare people again.
Ah…. wasn’t that supposed to be Russian involvement ? Ha… so is that the angle for the next stage of bullshit is it? Given that they’ve been trying to stitch Trump up with ‘Russian meddling in elections’ crap for ages.
Don’t be too surprised if they try resurrecting that shit.
I would actually pay more attention to the odd reappearance of the McCann stories oh and wasn’t there something to do with Prince Andrew too ? 😉
Go down the twitter rabbit hole and you’ll be amazed what you find in the dirt.
Funny enough, rapper icecube is very interesting one to see what he has posted
I can’t find rapper icecube on Twitter – do you know his exact username? I’m not very good with Twitter! 😄
Actually he is a bit of an outspoken BLMist so it won’t be palatable at all to a lot of people (but it is actually very subtle as he doesn’t support who most people think he does from his posts) but in amongst it all is a very interesting post of the George floyd ‘murder’ somewhere. Or better and more immediate is the Epoch Times, @GAFLCountryGirl has a VERY interesting post on the 13th June regarding the pictures of the police officer who allegedly killed George floyd
The smokescreen machine is gearing itself up for overtime.
Of cccccooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrsssssssssssseeeeeeee
I read a review and they were shoehorning Covid comparisons in every sentence. In one breath the bio-weapon peddlars are conspiracy theorists, in another, they feel justified in comparing a probably-released-by-mistake weird but ultimately mild common coldish virus to a bioweapon.
Lol – that did occur to me…but it seemed to be more about plucky feminist woman seeing off useless men and sorting everything out, so saving the nation. 🙂 Just some wires getting crossed there!
Twitter is a great source of information.
Cancel your TV licence.
I have.
Yep, took 5 seconds and I feel so much better (and 13 quid a month richer) too. Lets see them chase up the thousands who are doing likewise
Have fun with your reunion Poppy – you deserve it!
Watch U.S. Presidential politics. The left in the U.S., which includes almost all of the MSM, desperately wants Trump to lose. Prevailing wisdom is that an incumbent President will lose if the economy is in the toilet by the end of summer before the election. COVID has been more effective at economy-killing than anyone could’ve dreamed, and panic-mongering seems just as effective now as it was in March. Brexit is causing similar feelings in the U.K.
Will the election cure the virus? IDK, since so many are now heavily invested in not having been wrong. I personally hope Biden wins, partly because Trump is a goofball with no leadership skills, but mainly because if Trump is re-elected, I expect the mainstream media to treat us to another four years of manufactured chaos. Blackmail? Whatever, just as long as we are given back control of our own lives.
Oh no… you do NOT want biden to win trust me! Just think about it in terms of the MSM and who they have been attacking, they’ve been playing the same fearmongering game as our MSM here.
Just look down the rabbit hole on it. Unless you think MSM have been saintly and truthful that is
What a mess, the economy is wrecked over something only slightly more dangerous than the Flu. Up here in Scotland 26 people under the age of 45 have died as a result of Covid 19. Absolute joke. I have been at work since the early days, the other half is a teacher and has been providing online work for her class, and other classes throughout. In my work, non essential workers came back last week. Despite no cases in the company, and less than 100 cases in our entire region the returnees have imposed draconian policy throughout. Desks have Perspex shielding, limited occupancy of rooms, hourly cleaning schedules on touch points etc etc. Laughably when actually working on task (engineering) social distancing does not apply. Once task is complete, resume social distancing. The non essentials visit and provide ‘advice’ on how we should behave. The latest is a one way system through corridors and additional alcohol gels at every entrance. After all the procedures the tasks are still non distanced so in my eyes all of this is pointless nonsense. The latest problem on the horizon is childcare, with most spouses now heading back to work our childminder does not… Read more »
I do wonder if part time schooling is designed to make one partner give up work to look after children. What will single parent families do?
What a mess
It’s a mess. I think “designed” would be giving the government too much credit personally. They are making it up as they go along as far as I can see.
Today I spoke to some jobsworths at my local tube station (one of the main stations in London) about mask wearing. I asked them if they require a proof of medical exemption, and, if so, what kind of proof that might be. They didn’t know, but promised to ask someone higher up. For the time being, they said, if I tell them that I have medical reasons for exemption, they are going to take my word for it, and let me in without a mask. I pointed out that anyone could say that, and they’d have to let them in…
I’m thinking about obtaining a letter from my doctor, and wearing it on a string around my neck during any journeys on public transport. I hope my doctor can provide one.
Best wishes to all sceptics, and to Toby, and to his son on his birthday.
Are you sur they’re jobsworths? They sound pretty friendly to sceptics.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/13/lockdown-regime-deaths-the-true-cost-of-lokin-20/
Lockdown Regime Deaths: The True Cost of LOKIN-20
I’m still goggling at the fact that doctors can -are in fact told to – certify that death was due to the Covibug when they haven’t been anywhere the decedent/deceased.
In thenMiddle Ages, doctors seldom bothered visiting oatirnts. You sent the doctor a flask of your urine, he glanced at it, diagnosed your trouble, and most probably recommended a regime of bleeding and purging, governed by the rules of astrology.
It’s wonderful to think how medical science has progressed away from ignorance, arrogance and superstition.
And back again.
anywhere near