Latest News
Getting Schoolchildren to Wear Face Masks is Impractical
The Spectator has published a great piece by Calvin Robinson, the teacher who featured in a recent job advertisement put out by the Department for Education. He thinks it’s completely impractical to get schoolchildren to wear face muzzles.
Has anyone who is recommending the use of masks in schools ever spent any significant amount of time working with young people? It seems unlikely.
Children simply will not wear their masks correctly, if at all. Girls will constantly be adjusting them; boys will be flicking them across the room and pulling each others’ elastic bands. They’ll all be pulling them down to their necks at break time, resulting in pieces of food and drink being spilt inside. That, and the fact that they’ll be wearing them around their necks, mirroring the behaviour of adults they see on public transport, further trapping bacteria. If anything, face masks will be detrimental to the health of young people.
Of course, there is much to be debated about whether face masks are beneficial at all, with the deputy chief medical officer, Jenny Harries, recently announcing that they may, in fact, increase health risks. I’m not a medical expert; I’ll leave the science to the professionals. What I do know is that masks will not work in a school environment.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Camilla Tominey has written a good piece for the Telegraph about the Government’s hopelessly mixed messaging around school safety
Brazil – Not the Disaster We’ve Been Led to Believe
Today I’m publishing a great piece about Brazil, debunking the ‘disaster’ narrative in the international media. In fact, the lifecycle of the epidemic in Brazil has followed the same pattern as everywhere else, provided you break it down into different regions, and in spite of the high death toll it has experienced fewer deaths per million than many European countries, including the UK, and fewer deaths per capita than neighbouring Peru, which has had one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. It’s by the same person who wrote the “Postcard From Brazil“, one of our best international dispatches to date. This new piece is a must read. Here’s an extract:
People without a single clue between them talk like Bolsonaro could have locked down the country by decree and Brazilians would have obeyed passively like in Auckland, and we would have the same death toll as Denmark. These people have never been to Brazil. The effort it would have taken to suppress the unruly and increasingly desperate population of 207 million highly unequal people spread out from megacities to jungle tribes would have required full on martial law being reinstated in a country that was a military dictatorship until the 1960s. Even that might not have worked. Blood would have been shed for sure. Seriously, is this what the ‘progressives’ want? The subjugation of one of the most free spirited countries on Earth by the military? All to try, and surely fail, to snuff out a vírus so deadly you have to be tested to see if you have it? Has the world gone crazy?
Don’t answer that.
The author also makes a very good point about why Brazil’s public health advisors have generally been more sensible than their counterparts in the UK and the US.
Brazil has, without a doubt, some of the world’s best epidemiolgists, virologists, and infectologists, and it is a pleasure to read their non-ideological takes on things. Why? I’d speculate it is because they have actually had consistent, day-in, day-out, on the ground experience dealing with real epidemics (zika, dengue, yellow fever) instead of researching them from the ivory tower. Nobody here generalises about how things might go based on the progress of the Spanish Flu, but instead rely on observation of the unfolding epidemic as it takes place. I’ve even read them putting forward the heretical theory that BLM protests in US states with high levels of immunity (New York, New Jersey, etc.) probably didn’t contribute much to cases, while states that had ‘suppressed’ Covid at first (Florida, California) and had low levels of immunity saw surges as an obvious result of the massive superspreader protests. Refreshing to leave bizarro world for a while, isn’t it?
This piece is highly recommended. Worth reading in full.
Australian Rules Balls
A journalist friend of mine posted this on her Facebook account yesterday. Heartbreaking.
I just spoke to my ‘little’ brother (39) who (like the rest of my family) is Australian; he lives in Queensland. On Aug 1st our 81 year-old mother had a severe stroke. The only reason she survived is that, miraculously, my brother and his family happened to be visiting her at her home in NSW at the time; the difference between life and death. Last week she was discharged from hospital in Wagga and so having spent the previous few weeks packing/disposing of her belongings, my brother prepared to take her back home, where he and his family have rearranged their house to accommodate her.
In order to be allowed to cross the state border from NSW to QLD both my brother and mother had to have Covid tests and the appropriate paperwork — mostly electronic — in place.
However, at the border, after a drive of nearly 800 miles, whatever the paperwork was meant to be it was not sufficiently in order and as a result my brother and mother had to spend 3 days in a (quote/unquote) ‘shitty motel’ waiting for some jobsworths to join the dots. At no point was anybody able/willing to join those dots sufficiently to see that detaining an 81 (she’s 82 next week) year-old recovering stroke victim in a motel for several days was perhaps less than ideal, given that the alternative would simply have been to allow her to cross the border (this is a state border, remember, not another country) in a comfortable car with her son and be driven to the family home… 40 miles away.
The grotesque absurdity — not to mention irony —of forcing a frail octogenarian who had already tested negative for Covid to spend any time at all in a motel in order to protect… well, who precisely? (And from what? ‘Catching’ a stroke?)… is not lost on either me, my brother or indeed our mother. The only upside is that they weren’t attempting to travel out of Victoria, which is now effectively a police state. Anyway, they got home eventually and while they are currently forced to self-isolate for a fortnight, my mother (and my stoic/heroic little bro) are, somewhat against the odds, doing fine. The moral of this story: THERE ARE MANY OTHER (FAR MORE POTENTIALLY LETHAL) MEDICAL ISSUES FOR THE ELDERLY BEYOND COVID-19.
Manchester Police Break Up Party For Terminally Ill Child
There’s a shocking story in the Mirror about Manchester Police’s over-zealous enforcement of lockdown rules.
A police chief said “we can’t win” after officers were called to a terminally-ill child’s birthday party amid accusations of a heavy-handed approach to people breaking lockdown rules.
Chief Constable Ian Hopkins of Greater Manchester Police, used the case as an example of the tough decisions officers are facing each day during the coronavirus pandemic.
The incident was dealt with via “a quiet word”, but the Chief Constable has revealed the force has been compared to “a police state” over the way it has tried to enforce social distancing rules.
Actually, Chief Constable, there is one way you could “win”. You could exercise a little discretion in your enforcement of draconian lockdown rules – or simply ignore the rule breakers altogether.
Even NHS Test and Trace Admits Cases Are Falling
Good story in the Telegraph about case numbers falling. They weren’t going up according to the ONS infection survey, but now even NHS Test and Trace has conceded defeat.
The number of people testing positive for coronavirus has declined for the first time in six weeks – despite an increase in tests.
Only 6,115 positive cases were recorded by NHS Test and Trace across England between Aug 13 and 19, down from 6,616 in the previous week.
The figures were released on Thursday, as ministers decided whether to impose more local or regional lockdowns in order to suppress the virus.
Restrictions remain in place in Greater Manchester, parts of Lancashire, Leicester, Luton and Northampton.
Since the beginning of July, the statistics provided by Test and Trace had shown a steady weakly rise of positive results, outstripping the increase in the number of tests conducted.
They were used as evidence by some experts to argue for the reintroduction of lockdown measures.
Can the pointless local lockdowns now be lifted, please?
Free Speech Union is Looking For a Chief Legal Counsel
The Free Speech Union is looking for a full-time Chief Legal Counsel. Pay is £70,000 to £75,000. Please click on the job ad for more details – and if you know a lawyer who might be interested, please forward. Thanks.
Round-Up
- ‘Take the piss out of the Guardian at your peril‘ – The humourless woke newspaper is using copyright claims to go after satirical websites that mock its output
- Amusing Facebook post about cancel culture – This is worth a watch
- ‘Kansas Democrats’ Covid Chart Masks the Truth‘ – The Health Secretary of Kansas has been caught fiddling the stats to make it look as though the Governor’s mask order has been effective
- ‘Hazmat officials board Ryanair flight at Stansted and drag off Covid-infected passenger‘ – Talk about OTT!
- ‘Lockdowns and Mask Mandates Do Not Lead to Reduced COVID Transmission Rates or Deaths, New Study Suggests‘ – Good write up of the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper showing that lockdowns and mask orders don’t work
- ‘Europe is at last waking up to its lockdown folly‘ – Excellent column by the Telegraph‘s Sherelle Jacobs
- Ivor Cummins Explainer on the Cadedemic – Very good YouTube video by Ivor Cummins on the Casedemic
- ‘Yale prof: “Evidence overwhelming” for fighting COVID with hydroxychloroquine‘ – More evidence in favour of HCQ
- ‘Wahaca to shut a third of restaurants‘ – Another of my favourite restaurant chains is in trouble
- ‘Rolls-Royce loses £5.4bn in first six months of 2020‘ – Jesus Christ. Will there be any British companies left at the end of this?
- ‘Biggest cities deserted as only 17% of staff return to the office‘ – Project Fear on steroids has done its work. Depressing story in the Times
- ‘You are now 67 times more likely to die from something other than Covid‘ – And seven times more likely to die from pneumonia or flu (and it’s August)
- ‘Enough is Enough‘ – Good editorial in Monocle by Tyler Brulee
- ‘Good Hope Hospital’s Dr Ron Daniels says: “Don’t fear second wave – coronavirus is getting less angry”‘ – Birmingham NHS consultant says no need to worry about a second wave
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “Don’t Stop the Carnival” by Alan Price, “No Common Sense” by Yvonne, “Mixed Messages” by the Bangles, “Insult Your Intelligence” by One Inch Punch, “Brainwashed” by the Kinks and “Hook, Line and Sinker” by Frankie Swain
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums that are now open, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We’ve also just introduced a section where people can arrange to meet up for non-romantic purposes. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Small Businesses That Have Re-Opened
A few months 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 re-opened, 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.
Now that non-essential shops have re-opened – or most of them, anyway – we’re focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. As of July 4th, many of them have re-opened too, but not all (and some of them are at risk of having to close again). 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 – particularly if they’re not insisting on face masks! If they’ve made that clear to customers with a sign in the window or similar, so much the better. Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
I’ve created a permanent slot down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (now showing it will arrive between Oct 3rd to Oct 13th). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £3.99 from Etsy here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face nappies in shops here (now over 30,000).
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s a round-up of the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mask (threadbare at best).
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is a lot of work (although I have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending me stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. If you want me to link to something, don’t forget to include the HTML code, i.e. a link.
And Finally…
In my Spectator column today I take aim at the BBC. I wasn’t impressed by Tony Hall’s speech to the Edinburgh Television Festival.
Reading the speech Tony Hall gave to the Edinburgh Television Festival, I was struck by his upbeat, confident tone. The outgoing director-general of the BBC talked about how its reporting of the coronavirus crisis had brought its core mission as a public service broadcaster into sharper focus and boosted its popularity, particularly among 16- to 34-year-olds. He said his goal when he arrived at the BBC was to reach a global audience of 500 million by 2022, its centenary year, and this target has now been revised upwards to a billion by the end of the decade. “But it needs extra investment from government and that bid is with them right now,” he said.
Doesn’t Tony Hall realise that the BBC’s future is hanging by a thread? The corporation struck a deal with the government five years ago whereby it promised to cover the cost of providing free TV licences to the over-75s in return for hiking up the licence fee, and it has now reneged on that deal. As of this month, three million pensioners will have to fork out £157.50 a year if they want to watch television — not just the BBC, but any live TV at all. In response, Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, said the government would look seriously at decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee. If that happens, the BBC is toast. Who in their right mind is going to pay a voluntary fee to the BBC just for the privilege of owning a television set, particularly when they’re already subscribing to Sky, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Disney+ and God knows what else?
Doesn’t Tony Hall realise that the BBC’s future is hanging by a thread?
Seemingly oblivious to this iceberg hoving into view, the cheerful captain boasted about the £100 million he has ring-fenced in the commissioning budget to pay for ‘diverse and inclusive programming’ and the 20 per cent ‘diverse-talent target’ he’s put in place — as if that’s going to save the ship. When Hall talks about ‘diversity’ you can bet your bottom dollar he doesn’t mean commissioning more programmes from Brexit-supporting, Tory-voting global warming sceptics. Nor does he mean over-65s, with the exception of Sir David Attenborough. Nor, I suspect, will the BBC be including people who live in rural areas in its ‘diverse-talent target’, particularly if they hunt or shoot. No, he means more BAME people, even though they only make up 13 per cent of the population.
But, of course, the thing that’s done the greatest harm to the BBC’s reputation this year is its coverage of the coronavirus crisis.
The BBC has done colossal harm to its reputation since the beginning of the pandemic by faithfully regurgitating all the information it’s been fed by the public authorities, becoming little more than a propaganda arm of 10 Downing Street. A responsible public service broadcaster would have stepped into the breach after parliament was suspended, scrutinising the big government decisions such as clearing out hospital wards, cancelling all non-emergency surgery, suspending cancer screenings, shutting down GP practices and turning the NHS into a Covid-only service.
But instead of challenging this daft strategy, the BBC did everything it could to make it seem sensible, broadcasting story after story about patients battling with the virus, kept alive by selfless and exhausted NHS staff. We’ll be living with the consequences of that failure for years, with one eminent oncologist predicting we’ll see 30,000 preventable deaths from cancer alone in the next decade.
Worth reading in full.
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The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
First among equals…
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And the Covid mob saw the light and turned it back to darkness.
A commendable second…
I have just watched this video on PCR testing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yexcogLsK3U which is rather eye opening. Kaufman ends with the comment “there is a 100% error rate with this test.” Can anyone point to any research that comes to similar conclusions?
@guy153, we need your input here! I don’t think he’s saying it’s literally a 100% error rate, but that there’s no way to know that it isn’t. If you see what I mean.
Well a test with a 100% error rate is actually rather a good test– you just invert the result and now it has a 0% error rate.
The worst possible accuracy for a test is actually 50%. The well-known test for whether someone likes butter by holding a buttercup under their chin is 50% accurate. That particular test has no false negatives (it has no negatives at all) so is 100% sensitive. But it also has a 100% false positive rate, making the accuracy 50%.
If you flipped a coin to see if your friend liked butter instead, that test would also have an accuracy of 50%, but this time 50% sensitivity and 50% specificity.
I haven’t watched the video but I think it’s established beyond much doubt that a PCR test for SARS2 that’s done properly, and is testing for a couple of sequences, will be in the region of 70% sensitive and 99% specific at finding people who are actively infected.
I think it’s referring to a supposed outbreak of whooping cough a few years back. Turned out all those that tested positive didn’t actually have it. 100% error.
https://blog.plan99.net/pseudo-epidemics-7603b2da839
In Germany the Stiftung Corona Ausschuss ( Independent Corona Inquiry Foundation) has broadcast (on YouTube) an expert evidence collecting exercise and are now facilitating a Class Action (or group litigation) law suit against the manufactures of the PCR test which has been shown (and I believe can be demonstrated) not to do what the manufacturers claim it does.
Sounds promising.
Here’s another name: In_Sanity_We_Trust.
Anyone notice that people wearing muzzles when driving cars are shit drivers?
Lack of oxygen such as dizziness, could even pass out behind the wheel
As long as they plough into a lamp post or a wall, that’s fine. Let Darwinism take its course.
More chance of dying like that than from covid……
Along with a bus full of children! Insane. Are these diesel fueled buses?
The driver of the small school bus (mini) will now be wearing a mask. Needless to say child will not be on the bus.
Think there has been a case in the US where someone died in an auto crash because he was wearing a mask….
I believe that in the event of a road accident, all you need to allege is ” Offficer I saw the other party wearing a mask and appearing to slump behind the wheel”.
HSE defines the oxygen content behind a worn mask as an oxygen deficient atmosphere, so if you drive a car wearing a mask you are driving whilst impaired.
if you drive a car wearing a mask you are driving whilst impaired and terminally stupid….
What does MADD have to say about that?
Do you have any link for HSE defining oxygen content behind a mask ?
All I have is personal knowledge of what happens when you put a remote probe inside a mask on your face, oxygen contentndrops to about 18%.
Confined space entry requirements are that any less than atmospheric % of 20.9% is an oxygen deficient atmosphere.
Loads of HSE type info on net:
https://peoplesafe.co.uk/advice/safety-when-working-in-low-oxygen-environments/
Only thing needed really is verified evidence of atmospheric gases on inside of facemask.
Masks restrict periphery vision don’t they? See it all the time in supermarkets with folk fumbling for purses and wallets.
That was my experience when I tried it.
me too, I’m like a drunken sailor. For that reason I’m happy to wear it. Not sure other people agree
Anyone notice that there seems to be more morons wearing muzzles when outside IN THE F*CKING SUNSHINE…?
Yes, saw this phenomenon yesterday when I visited the Swannery at Abbotsbury. Anyone who has visited will know that even if there were 500 visitors and not the 50 per hour at the moment, there is more than enough space to keep more than 2m away from everyone. One of the wearers was a young boy sporting a bright red muzzle, neither of the adults or other children with him were muzzled. go figure!
Clearly, a throwback or a changeling.
I scowl at all of them. They are all scowl worthy. Sometime I mutter profane words in English. Most of them speak French.
Yes, that seems to be the case. Where I live most of these clearly deranged types are either the doddering very old, or are teenagers, usually the fashion conscious, but in all types, the brain dead variety.
It’s you who pinched the sunshine?!
Yes. Absolutely!
i have noticed changes in some drivers behaviour – more aggressive, less patient and no longer bothered about rights of way and such. I’ve wondered if its a hang over effect of the anonymity mask wearing apparenty confers…
Or they subconsciously want to get home and take the damn thing off – which they could do in their car, obviously, but that would require a conscious decision not to virtue signal…
Well that and the police are nowhere to be seen anymore…
Yes and they look absolutely pathetic like someone who believes if they don’t switch the lights on and off 10 times when they leave the room their family will die.
Also saw a tube driver wearing a muzzle. God almighty!!!
I would avoid going into a bus or car driven by someone wearing a muzzle.
Don’t worry. Nowadays the main job of the tube driver is to tell the robot driving the tube that he’s there, and press then”close doors” button.
I thought there was a dog with him.
Dogs job being to bite the driver if he tries to touch anything.
Every little helps—if not, it makes me feel better. Received yet another E-mail from the RHS asking me to re-join at a discounted membership fee. Here’s my reply sent this morning. Dear Mr Fountaine, Thank you for your invitation to re join the RHS. My wife and I so miss the garden visiting that we enjoyed prior to the Covid19 scare that first erupted in march. Unfortunately, we will not be taking up this offer due to the following reasons. *We have no desire to be herded around a garden at an appointed time, for a limited duration and with social distancing in place. *Even at the discounted price of £40 per annum it is not something I would consider. In fact, if I’m totally honest, I would not visit one of your gardens if you offered me FREE membership under the current restrictive, ridiculous and de humanising conditions that you have in place. Please refrain from sending me any further offers until and unless you get back to ‘normal’. And by ‘normal’ I mean the ‘old normal’ and not the cooked up ‘Dystopean normal’ that our government would have us accept. It’s well overdue that organisations like yourselves, the… Read more »
Brilliant!!!
Excellent. The response may be interesting!
Doubt very much if I’ll get one. I get E-mails from other organisations and hotels that I’ve stayed at in the past and I take great pleasure in firing off similar mails to this one. I had one from the Lakeside Hotel—Windermere just last week offering me a five day stay for the princely sum of £3000! They can offer this because I would virtually have the place to myself thus reducing the chances of catching Coroni. Now I don’t visit hotels with the prime reason to meet and socialise with strangers although I do like it when the opportunity arises. However,the thought of staying in a ‘ghost’ hotel with hardly anyone around is not my cup of tea. In fact, the Jack Nicholson film ‘The shining’ springs to mind and what a pleasure that would be!
Try Premier Inn if you want a break. I’ve just booked 3 nights in a central London hotel for less than £200! Other locations will be even cheaper.
I hope that all the hard hit businesses sue every government around the world.
Dear Mr Hopkins -Thank you for your letter of …. – YF – RHS
PS
I thought you would like to know that the £40 offer is being held open for another week, so please act quickly, to take advantage of its generous terms.
Brilliant. Should be sent to CEO of every single museum, gallery etc when they ask you to renew.
I’ll be sending something similar when my Royal Academy and Tate memberships come up for renewal.
Edward, The Tate and the British Museum were very sneaky and renewed my membership without the usual letter to inform me. I complained to both and they have offered to refund me. The Royal Palaces would not put my membership on hold, they offered me an additional time period for their closure when I renew next. I won’t be renewing again.
Well sone.These knock-kneed bedwetters need to be inundated with letters like this.
They do I have museums asking me to visit- I reply thanks but no thanks until it is back to normal- by that I mean the old one and not the dystopian one. Also tell them a visit to them is not a necessity.
That’s what I’ve been doing with my letters of boycott – telling them I won’t visit unless we return to how it was in early March.
This is so good it should be uploaded as a template we can use to send to organisations. I was enraged this morning to be charged full membership by my gym despite the fact i cant use half the equipment and the sauna, and the studio is classes only…
Maybe could set up a section of the site where people could load up template letters? They are often hard to find again among among the hundreds of daily posts unless one copies and saves them as soon as one reads them!
I know the feeling. My gym reopened a while back but my beloved basketball court was still closed. I asked for a discounted fee but was told take it or leave it.
Thankfully the courts reopened 3 weeks later!
I cancelled my RNLI subscription a couple of years ago, when they started heading down the PC route. I specifically asked for my details to be removed from their database, yet I STILL receive regular mailshots, mentioning my “Supporter Number”, so I wouldn’t hold out much hope…
Send them an email headed up Breach of GDPR asking for eactly what information they are still holding on you and repeating that you wish for this to be deleted as per your previous request and as part of your data subject rights. Usually works.
Good idea!
Haha brilliant would love to see their little faces when they read that good on ya sir
Loved the kind regards at the end of a hard hitting, succinct, no holds barred complaint.
Great response!! May I copy and paste this in case I get a similar email?
Be my guest 🙂
Great letter. Hope you don’t mind if I ‘borrow’ it?
Not at all, I’m chuffed that you should ask:-)
It’s a great point about Brazil having experts with actual experience of epidemics.
Imagine if during an Ebola outbreak somewhere in Africa the WHO came along and said “can’t we just get rid of it?”.
They’d be a laughing stock.
They are already a laughing stock
They should all be put in stocks. Tedros first.
Certainly wouldn’t want anyone to put me in the stocks tedros first.
The BBC yesterday published a picture within an article concerning masks in schools. The picture was of a young girl no older than 4 years old, wearing a pink, dotty mask.
Schoolchildren under 11 years old are exempt from wearing masks. So what are they playing at?
The company vista print are already pushing this , very disturbing and I’d call it child abuse.
Sent an email of complaint to vista print early last week complaining about that purile advert above ‘wearing a mask is freedom’ or some such bullshit. This was their reply:
“Dear valued customer,
Thank you for your email. This is an automated response to inform you that we have received your inquiry, and will respond within the next 24 hours.
If you need immediate assistance, you can visit our Help Page where you can find our self-service tools and other ways of contacting us.
We appreciate your business and thanks again for your message.
Sincerely,
Vistaprint Customer Care”
So totally will never use them!
Normalisation of an abnormal behaviour. I see kids all around wearing masks, in and out of shops. In fact people under 30 seem to be the most compliant. I have a student house household for neighbours, 4 lads under 30,they all wear masks from the minute they leave the house. They do have friends over, but they sit 2metres apart in the garden. They are so compliant. Yet they all smoke cannabis, a lot!
Cannabis is known to cause paranoia in many. Could explain why these lads are muzzling up. Scared shitless that the ‘rona is hovering in the air outside waiting to get them as soon as they leave the house!
My 16 yo son thinks masks are badass. He feels like Deadpool or something. He also likes the feeling of privacy they give!! FFS! I tell him it’s all BS and tell him he doesn’t have to put a mask on as we enter a shop. I have never worn one. His mother believes all the BS. I’m a joke!
The smaller kids do it because they want to be like grown ups. They get their way as it’s not as bad as letting them smoke… or is it?
The Lone Ranger wore a mask but it only covered his eyes.
That reminds me about the four government posters that were just put up last week showing four young people, one guy and one woman of colour, wearing full face masks. They were applauded for their solidarity, conviction, courage and respect. When I examined my photos yesterday I noticed a hashtag on one of the posters. It said #touscontreun. About an hour later it dawned on me that this was the motto of the Three Musketeers. All for one and one for all!
Frequent cannabis smoking tends to impair rational thinking.
I think your posts are pretty sensible on the whole, Cheese …
Thanks John. However, I saw the effects on my brother and his friends. Just commenting from my admittedly limited experience.
Damn, I wasn’t ironic enough.
🙂
I’m having a delayed brain day!
You’re not supposed to think when you smoke cannabis.
True. Maybe I should start smoking again …..
2m apart in the garden — well that’s how these horrible infectious diseases work, y’know… 1 1/2 metres and they think “hey yeah that’s my lot I’m giving up now!” 🙂
All people need to do is take a step back and think logically.
“Why do I have to wear a mask mummy?”
“Because if you don’t somebodys granny might die”
“Who’s granny mummy, do we know them?”
“You know that imaginary friend you have, it’s their granny”
“Oh, ok mummy”
Makes total sense.
You know we used to ‘stand out’ kids who caused trouble in primary school. They were told to stand next to the teacher monitoring the playground for the duration of play time. Always humiliating, an isolating experience you would say.
It had its effect. The temporary experience was harsh enough so that most returned the next day and behaved.
Now, we are effectively doing this to all kids, every day, for the duration. Or at least that is what they want in that school in Milton Keynes.
Surely nothing could go wrong.
Exactly! I can’t see any downsides…
“So what are they playing at?”
They’re evil
I posted on Sunday, that the BBC, again discussing masks, had their lead photo on their website of two children in school uniform (about 4 and 7) both masked.
I asked the BBC when and where the photo was taken and why were they showing children under the age of 11 in masks as they are exempt.
Still no reply!
Me again.
Can anybody point me towards an article (I know there are some. I think Toby picked up on one) showing how a X% drop in GPD causes a Y% drop in life expectancy etc?
Thanks
From the movie “the big short”
“Pitt’s Rickert chastises his colleagues for acting so happy and says: “Every 1 percent unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die. Did you know that?”
Is that 40,000 figure just Hollywood nonsense?”
https://nypost.com/2020/04/20/explaining-the-link-between-unemployment-deaths-amid-coronavirus/
Brainwashing!
They do this ALL the time. They are pushing the narrative and moving the Overton Window before it then becomes a thing to be discussed and later implemented.
Why can’t we organise a committee to question them as to how they decided to select images or write puff pieces and headlines? I screen grab stuff every day from the BBC website particularly headlines in the early days such as “When will I be able to meet my family again?” Rather than “Why can the government stop me from seeing my family?” This proves they are 100% supporting every aspect of this BS.
Rant endeth!
Worryingly they seem to have become a fashion accessory.
someone in today’s Daily Telegraph Comments warned against buying “fashion” masks lest they become the norm. They should always be seen as abnormal and wrong.
Fashion models will be wearing them one day on the catwalks.
Subliminal ‘advertising’ of the next stage of their plan…
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the next Davos World Forum is callled “The Great Reset”.
Brainwashing parents!
I’ve always been told that if you ‘get the children, you get the adults’. Hence, all the woke stuff in schools, because the idea is,nthe children persuade the parents. Same thinking will apply to masks.
I’ve given up even trying to remember the number of times I’ve had to re-educate my 8 year old because of some of the guff his teachers have told him at school (example: “daddy, the virus is nature’s way of healing itself by killing the humans”). Fortunately, he’s 8 and I’m his dad, so he still believes everything I tell him. Give it a few years…
My step-daughter is way past school, thank goodness, but she did start school in 1997, when Blair’s education policies took hold. All you can do is keep countering the lunacy & hope enough goes in to keep your son on the straight and narrow!
There was a large poster on the buses of Montreal around 8 years ago with the words of a child admonishing his/her mother about her drinking too much. We paid for that crap.
http://jvalue.co.uk/covid-19.php
“Applying the J-value derived Bristol Curve of population-average life-expectancy versus GDP suggests that the strategy of restriction followed by gradual relaxation is likely to result in a net cost, in terms of average human lives lost, that will be comparable with the UK’s sacrifice over the six years of World War Two. A policy of lockdown followed by gradual relaxation is likely to do much more harm to the nation’s health than good.”
This Bristol professor published very early in April about the cost and there are some updates
I listened to that at the time. Of course the BBC didn’t pursue that line!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CERoQOzH3Wk/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-vaccines/limited-legal-protection-for-covid-vaccine-makers-hampers-eu-deals-idUSKBN25M0RQ
At least some resistance to give a blanket cheque to vaccine manufacturers. Probably residual effects of the swine flu vaccine fiasco. Wait until Big Pharma instructs the MSM that we must rapidly get hold of vaccine just as in the US.
Excellent article in the DT: “Europe is at last waking up to its lockdown folly. As battening down the hatches fast loses favour, we can at least take this as a glimmer of hope”. There are a lot of very good comments below it. Ofcourse, it is what everyone on LS has been saying for months!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/27/europe-last-waking-lockdown-folly/
Just realised that Toby has this on his list above. I can recommend reading it and the comments.
Sherelle (and Allison Pearson) is one of the key reasons I keep my Telegraph subscription. In the last few days we have been subjected to a series of articles by what I would describe as middle class, yummy mummy, ‘progressives’ masquerading as journalists, promoting masks in school as the only way to assuage similarly hysterical parents. As my wonderfully acerbic next door neighbour, aged 95 (a northern woman who spent many years in colonial India) would say, ‘a good slap’ is what is needed. Thank God for Sherelle, who has been something of a lone voice in the MSM since March.
Another good journalist at the DT is Ross Clark, who recently has been writing some very sensible articles – thoroughly recommended!
Agree – and Alistair Heath, who I have followed since his days at CityAM. I was focusing specifically on the female journalists, because I migrated to the Telegraph from the Times due to ‘virtue and compassion fatigue’ after being subjected to the bilge from Rachel Sylvester, Jenni Russell and Alice Thomson!
The DT will shortly follow this article up with one stating that Europe’s Lockdown’s are not stringent enough and the 2nd wave will kill thousands. I gave up on the DT this week, cancelled the subscription, got sick of being gaslighted 5 times a day!
Whilst I disagree with the bed wetting articles, I don’t mind the Telegraph publishing them as long as they give both sides of the argument. It is the BBC and Guardian that deserve utter contempt because they never give an alternative point of view but simply churn out their bed wetting propaganda.
Just heard a trailer on the TV for a programme (wife was watching, I was reading).about recycling I think.
Female presenter :everyone know covid can survive on plastic packaging for 3 days’
Jesus, this shite is all pervasive…..
I know a lady from an oldies forum who ‘quarantines’ her grocery delivery for 72 hours before she will touch it. Goodness knows what happened in the heatwave!
I know someone who washes all packages before putting them away. I can only assume they later eat the packaging.
NO??!!
Our local B&Bs are ‘rotating’ their rooms to allow for the 72 hour window to pass. They have been ‘instructed’ by their booking agency. It is supposedly to allow the virus to ‘die’ on soft furnishings, bedding etc.
I’m sure that does a really good job of maintaining a profitable business, too.
Quite. Having lost the Spring trade & now subsequent trade is halved in some cases, it makes me wonder how long before I hear people saying it is no longer worth it.
Imagine how long it could survive on massive touch screens then – McDonalds. Or how long it could survive on chip & pin terminals! esp. since the WHO have said specifically, cash notes are “not considered” a main source of infection!
https://fxtcash.com/does-banknotes-carry-coronavirus/
This article mentions the poll that shows people in the UK overestimate covid deaths. This claim is fact checked on fullfact.com. Problem is, fullfact have lies in their fact check. They claim real deaths _from_ covid are at 0.1%, whereas the real stat is that deaths _with_ covid are just over half of that. They also simply invented a lie the first time they did the fact check, as per their correction: https://fullfact.org/health/why-poll-gives-misleading-view-how-many-people-public-think-covid-19-has-killed/
https://twitter.com/FrancescoLari/status/1298715477183565826
https://www.gazzetta.it/Ciclismo/25-08-2020/ciclismo-gatto-positivo-covid-bora-non-parte-ed-multata-ma-oscar-poi-negativo-forse-3801436735818.shtml
Cycling Tour de France. According to protocol daily testing of C-19.Problem one day positive next day negative. Farce.
to be fair the everyone on the Tour de France will test positive for something
Remember Lance Armstrong.
“It’s not cheating if everybody does it!” I wonder if he’s trademarked that, like the guy who used to do the boxing intros, “Let’s get ready to rumble.” Pretty sure the Lance Armstrong will become an acceptable option in the criminal court system… perhaps an alternative defence to the Shaggy defence; also known as “It wasn’t me.”
Yep. Happened in the football too in Scotland, 7 positives for covid-19. Hours later: oops the tests were wrong, 6 of those people were actually negative. St Mirren, if I recall correct.
Happened in the US too, with the American Football NFL – to big fanfare, “Horror as 77 players test positive, season in total jeopardy” to somewhat lesser fanfare, and distinctly not headline news a couple of days later: “Investigation as the NFL finds out it has 77 false positive test results…”
Too many…
…countries locking their healthy citizens indoors.
…conflicts-of-interest where treatment and healthcare are concerned.
…doctors and nurses afraid to stand together and speak up.
…news reports on the running total death-count when never doing the same for annual deaths from cancer, heart disease, suicide, domestic abuse, diabetes.
…people believing what they’re told without doing their own research, then blaming their neighbours for not wearing masks or for hosting a children’s birthday party.
…coincidences since last September’s Event 201 and the earlier patenting of coronaviruses.
…teacher union reps pushing the fear.
—
Skeptical in small-town Bangor, Northern Ireland.
Thank you to Toby and everyone commentating. It helps more than I can say.
Nice summary David.
Nice job David. w.r.t. coincidences, I would also add – listen to Trump’s speech at the World Economic forum, & then the riposte from Soros & others, directly referencing the 2020 election, being for all the marbles.
Also re: Trump – listen to his speech he gave to the UN, not long before the covid-19 just accidentally appeared…
It just gets worse – from The Telegraph live feed:
Spanish school children to wear masks in class from September
Spain’s government has announced that all schoolchildren from the age of six will have to wear face masks in class when the country’s schools reopen in September for the first time in six months.
This is the country that locked its children up entirely for weeks.
Child abuse has evidently replaced bullfighting as the national sport.
There is no other way to describe it. Child abuse it is.
My understanding of things in Spanish schooling is that teachers are exempt from DRB checks as they are known in this country because it’s upsets their teaching unions. Shocking. No protection for children and young people. Abuse in itself.
https://www.ddc.uk.net/
FFS that’s it then. The camels nose is under the tent. After suitable reassurance that the England won’t do this Boris will wait two weeks, do a “U Turn” and bang it’s mandatory.
And note it’s from the age of 6 in Spain – hence the earlier-mentioned picture of the young girl in the pink mask, clearly younger than 11 which is the age from which children in the UK have to wear masks…
Welcome back Franco
Franco wouldn’t have put up with this bollox.
Do you know why the media are obsessed on how the caring Jacinda is managing things in New Zealand? A 6 months lockdown that is destroying the country!
I wish I knew why anyone would think what’s happening in NZ is good in any way (other I suppose than low mortality from covid). I guess if you somehow think that the only important thing right now is “defeating” covid, then NZ is your poster child. Why anyone would think that “defeating” covid at all costs was sensible is beyond me, especially now that it’s obvious that it’s not that dangerous.
Sunk cost fallacy. If NZ “wins” then it will all have been worth it.
Wasn’t she giving s press conference this week at which she said ‘unless information comes from us, it’s not true’ (or something like that)?
Why are the people of NZ so gullible??
I’ll rephrase then. The people of NZ can’t be so gullible can they? I understand that Jacinda is set to win the next election (the one she recently postponed) by ‘a landslide’!!!
Same would apply in Scotland for Wee Krankie McFishface.
Thanks. She seems just a tad insane……I’d vote for her!
Have you seen this stuff on youtube about all the celebrities that are in hiding off the coast of NZ? Apparently due to the Epstein case…avoiding prosecution… https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=IezFkHL5wRI&feature=emb_logo
Two excellent articles not on the list.
https://thecritic.co.uk/face-masks-make-you-stupid/
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-coronavirus-immunity-riddle
This article by BrexitFacts4EU is very good. Thanks Toby for running with this.
https://facts4eu.org/news
The BBC is also notorious for being the biggest boosters for Nicola Krankie Sturgeon.
There is never any critical questioning of the bizarre and harmful decisions emanating from Edinburgh.
The BBC are like the faithful N Koreans following the dear leader.
It is sickening to see an allegedly independent broadcaster acting as the biggest cheerleader for a divisive bunch of 2nd raters in the hope it will damage the Tories.
I think you mean 3rd raters…
Possibly 4th would be even more accurate.
Questions the BBC memory holes.
1) Comparative performance of Scottish care homes.
2) Glasgow eco ferries.
3) Comparative performance of NHS in scotland.
4)Comparative performance of every other organ of state the Natzis have control of in Edinburgh.
Just found this after searching for information on Instant Gratification (another one of my random thoughts that I wanted to explore). It brings in the concept of an Instant Gratification Monkey that keeps people from making rational decisions. It seems a fairly reasonable explanation as to why governments around the world felt the need to do something, anything, just to make it seem as if they were in control. The idea of a panic monster seems quite apt too.
Why Procrastinators Procrastinate
https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html
pro-cras-ti-na-tion|prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən, prō-|
noun
the action of delaying or postponing something
Pretty normal, right? Now, let’s look at a procrastinator’s brain:
The fact is, the Instant Gratification Monkey is the last creature who should be in charge of decisions—he thinks only about the present, ignoring lessons from the past and disregarding the future altogether, and he concerns himself entirely with maximizing the ease and pleasure of the current moment.
It’s a mess. And with the monkey in charge, the procrastinator finds himself spending a lot of time in a place called the Dark Playground.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing#italy
I always thought that Italy was fiddling with its C-19 cases in July and Aug. They were quite low compared to Spain and the tourists returned somewhat in Bella Italia. If you look at the European countries and the surge of cases in July and Aug and the calculated CFR(case fatality rate) for the countries, i.e. Spain it was low, almost eq. to the IFR(Infection fatality rate) about 0.3%.Roughly the same in France etc but the exception was Italy with a much higher CFR 3%. And the explanation? They were testing much less than the other European countries. If you test less, the less cases.
The Italians, being one of the most intelligent people in the world combined with the most devious, must be laughing behind the back of the inept Spanish government starting mass testing. The result, not a star in the record book of Anglo-Saxon Big Pharma but quarantine and further ruining of their tourist industry. But Mutti Merkel is perhaps now holding the Mediterranean rascal by the ear, as Italy just recently started testing, and surprise, surprise, the cases are going up.
Yes, based on what Conte said about not being able to afford another lockdown and wanting to get tourism going again, I always thought they had deliberately not tested too much. I wonder what changed? Shame.
One more, admittedly trivial, anecdote from Sturgeon land: before the madness took hold, composting bags for recycling of food waste could be purchased at the library and the council offices.
The weekly collections are one of the few good ideas here; garden compost is produced from the food waste collections.
However, needless to say, the council offices have been closed for weeks and our library is operating a whacky safety first regime: pity the hapless staff, who are unfailingly friendly and do their best to supply us with books.
On my last visit to collect my Covid- free book allocation, I asked if I could buy some more food waste bags.
This is no longer possible, as staff cannot handle cash!
Result, another fall in council revenue, declining support for food waste collections, and no choice but to pay more for fewer bags at supermarket.
This might all seem decidedly trivial in view of the afflictions arising from Holyrood’s endless diktats, but it’s yet another example of how fundamentally silly all this is.
And the number of infections, world wide, from handling money is…
Nil ! Exactamundo!
Maybe time to start paying our rates via cash ?
Good idea!
http://tt.omni.se/allt-tydligare-att-barn-inte-sprider-smitta/a/qLz79z
“Finland tested 11 000 children 0-10 years in August and found 5 pos.4 below 5 and 1 in 5-10 year group.The disease always come from adults. The disease is not transmitted in day care etc. Every test cost 150 € not defensible to test in this group anymore.”
https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-08-26/major-coronavirus-study-in-spanish-summer-camps-shows-low-transmission-among-children.html
Six times lower transmission rates in children
Here’s a question for you British folks… Apparently, everything I know about England is shaped by my reading of Aubrey/Maturin, Chesterton, Lewis, Sherlock Holmes, and watching very old movies and tv shows… but … you’re always hearing some British person, faced with a tragedy of some sort, saying “stiff upper lip, and all that,” right? A cliche, but supposedly emblematic of the British mindset. You guys were a naval powerhouse at a time when warfare basically entailed the gunning down and complete blowing apart (disintegration by cannonball) of people 2 feet away from you, not to mention all the swords and hand-to-hand stuff of the middle ages. You dealt with the black death… you seem to have this funny notion of the upper class as being defined by its ability to tolerate discomfort, such that cream and sugar in tea is a lower class thing rather than a luxury… I was recently told that hot tubs (which are a luxury in the US) are actually a symbol of the lower class over there (presumably because they are comfortable). You lived in India for howevermany decades, you’re famous for living in perpetual dense fog or out in the country on cold… Read more »
Thanks for all the compliments, and good questions. I guess lots of things happened, but I think mainly globalisation, social media, and material comfort. We, like most others in rich countries, have become more risk averse, and feel we have more to lose.
During the world wars young men, even underage boys, volunteered to risk their lives to fight for something they thought was right.
Today, people compare themselves to that generation by saying running away from a virus and actively avoiding death is an equivalent sacrifice.
It’s a completely different mindset.
I have put it this way:
How many wars have we fought that were essentially the following situation – we would risk our very lives to preserve and protect our liberty. Today, we do the exact opposite. We voluntarily relinquish our liberty in exchange for the comfort of feeling that our lives are less at risk.
Or, more succinctly put: In the past, we would risk our lives to preserve liberty. Today, we relinquish our liberty to avoid risking our lives.
(the succinct version leaves out the fact that the “risk” we are avoiding is extremely minimal, and that the “safety” we gain is illusory, if not completely nonexistent)
It isn’t just a different mindset, it is the exact inverse of the mindset that made our nation great.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
— Benjamin Frankin
‘Give me freedom or give me death’ – Patrick Arnold (speaking as a Brit. Not Arnold, me. No fog here)
I think it’s one Tony b liar and his education education education mantra. We thought it meant a raising of educational attainment- he meant a horrible slow and steady poisoning of young minds.
Well that’s a whole big subject, RyanM. Like you, I’m sad about what happened. Where did it all go wrong? You could read what Christopher Booker has written on the decline and fall of Great Britain over the years. His most recent one, called ‘Groupthink’ (published posthumously), is a good contribution to the discussion.
I think that compared to Eastern Europeans, who spent many years getting up close and personal with dictatorships, cruelty, invasions, betrayals, poverty and deprivation ,we’ve become soft and softened.
Education is barely fit for purpose, a yawning gulf exists between the right on establishment and the disaffected electorate and we are constantly hectored and prodded by noisy shouty nutters who appear to have chucked the basic facts of life into the intersectional dustbin.
The onward march of political correctness ,with its assaults on rationality, humour, irreverence, stoicism, common sense and dissent, has created a blob, governed with outstanding ineptitude, by Mr Blobby and his pals.
The state of the union is pretty dire, challenged as it is by the endless effusions, grievances and sniping issuing from Holyrood , led, effectively I hate to admit, by Stirrin Sturgeon.
“I’d have expected you to laugh off the coronavirus and power through it like the Swedes, such that when Boris initially announced his “herd immunity” strategy, I applauded and thought “yep, thank God for the British.””
Well don’t feel too bad about it. I’m as English as they come, going back generations, and I had those kinds of illusions back in February as well. I knew things had gone downhill throughout the C20th and early C21st under the reign of those determined to destroy all the strengths you described, and were accelerating in that direction, but I hadn’t realised quite how bad they’d got. The coronapanic was an eyeopener for most of us, and not in a good way.
What in the hell happened? (or, I suppose it happened decades ago and I’m woefully ignorant)
The long triumph of the radical, anti-British, anti-religious left. Apart from the particularly harmful end of empire context, you can see much the same forces at work in the US states controlled by Democrats.
Consider yourself forewarned.
Boris is certainly not on ‘the right’ – he is a wet, metropolitan Liberal.
I just wanted to chime in to emphasise “wet”
By your reckoning I must be a member of Militant Tendency. After all, I am state school educated and hail from a line of miners and furness workers at the Consett Iron Company! But I have always voted Tory. Where do I fit in your categories?
Presumably you’d be a class traitor, and first up against the wall when The Revolution (TM) comes…
My Dad was a shop steward & always voted Conservative. He became a shop steward to make sure he didn’t get screwed by the union!
Brexit, and Margaret Thatcher whom you mention in the other reply, are best viewed as temporary, partial setbacks for the left, following over-reach on their part. Thatcher, in many ways more a liberal (in the British sense) than a conservative. stepped in when nationalisation and empowerment of trade union thugs brought the country to its knees in the 1970s, and made some relatively minor reversions which enabled the country to at least survive, but without rolling back much of the huge victories by the left in the C20th, from universal suffrage to the institutionalisation of the idea that pre-left Britain had been a force of evil in the world. Brexit, if it goes ahead was a narrow defeat for the rapid dissolution of Britain in the looming European superstate, but really doesn’t change much else, but there are no signs that the underlying elite beliefs in the essential evil of Britishness and the basic goodness of internationalism are much less dominant. Nor does the “Conservative” Party show any sign of wanting to overturn any of the left’s past impositions A party that thinks the NHS is something not just to be tolerated, but outright worshipped, is a party objectively of… Read more »
“I don’t think it’s constructive to keep imagining a cabal of liberal intellectuals preventing the Saxon peasant from earning a crust and espousing forthright views “
What, even when people actually are being sacked and even arrested for expressing forthright views…?
Really?
This is a broad and facinating question. There are lots of reasons why the culture of Britain has been changed so radically in a generation.
The only book I have read on the topic is “The Abolition of Britain” which mainly argues that it a result of a deliberate cultural revelation which has radically changed the attitudes and beliefs of many, and broken our attachment to the “traditional values” that you mention.
I’m planning to read “The Long March – How the left won the culture war and what to do about it” which is a free book published this year by NCF.
“What in the hell happened?” New Labour
Eejit.
Your post is profound. It can be addressed on two levels, one of which is similarly profound, but is likely to require a PhD in socio-economic/socio-political history to do it justice. To consider from the other extreme, it boils down to the fact that London is (was, if Alistair Heath’s article in the Telegraph is prophetic) outsized in terms of its wealth and political influence compared to the country it is housed in. London is no longer a British city, cast adrift from its hinterland that still, essentially, embodies what you have identified. London is populated by a liberal, globalist elite that dominates the airwave narrative as it feeds off an immigrant underclass, living in slave conditions, that serves the Pret coffees and cleans the bathrooms. I am a working class northerner, first person in my family to do A Levels and go to university. I lived in central London for many years, but it has become unrecognisable.
When I tell Latin Americans that I’m English, they often respond “Ah, you are from London?”
Whereupon I tell them that London is a different country from England.
Most capital cities are unrepresentative of their nations, but I think London has that tendency to a very high degree.
I’m not sure the current government and PM could have managed to persist wih the “herd immunity” strategy even if they wanted to. Even without overwhelmed hospitals as in Italy (which probably wouldn’t have happened here, given that infections peaked before lockdown), the BBC and similar media sources would have absolutely savaged them, blaming them for each and every death and damning them as the “nasty party” who put the economy before lives. They would have caved in sooner or later, probably mid-April when deaths were at their peak.
As it is, the government tried to turn the situation completely around and make themselves the saviours of the NHS, ensuring approval and compliance even from people who would never consider voting for them. As I and others have previously posted, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cummings was at least partly behind this propaganda success. It worked (for them) all too well at first, but will likely end up backfiring massively when more people wake up to the fact (and they’re starting to) that the NHS they were supposed to “protect” is now failing to do its job of “protecting” them from pretty much anything other than Covid.
The only bit of what you wrote there that I’d perhaps disagree with is that I actually think the government could have “won” on that, provided they had been strong and determined to hold out. I know, that’s a bit like saying some ordinary bloke could be world heavyweight champion if he were bigger, stronger, faster, braver, more skillful and more determined. But the point is that the government had a lot of things going for it. It had a solid majority, no election for four years, mechanisms for behavioural manipulation with direct channels into the BBC propaganda machine, and political connections with some of the mainstream media outlets. If the government and the “Conservative” Party had turned those resources firmly against the cowardly fearmongers and chosen to push the natural British line of “keep calm and carry on” as the noble response while shaming fearmongers, rather than doing the opposite – letting the left get away with destroying herd immunity by claiming it was “unacceptable” because it meant prioritising money over lives and having “an acceptable level of deaths”, and shaming those displaying fortitude, and if they had simply held the line, I think they could have done it.… Read more »
I agree with that. Had there been a collective spine, it would have delivered the optimal outcome. Instead, we have ended up in the worst of all positions – too many deaths, both from deliberate actions such as sending elderly back to care homes without testing, overuse of mechanical intubation, ‘grandads’ sacrificed to the ‘stay home, save the NHS’ mantra to die instead from heart attacks and strokes. Meanwhile we have trashed the economy and ruined the lives of many in the next generation. As you say, Mark, never forgive, never forget!
Preach it, sistah!
Great comment Mark, I wholeheartedly agree.
Exactly. They brainwashed the populace with fear and they had the means to easily do the opposite.
Most of our best people went to the USA hundreds of years ago.
(Can I have my $50 now please ?).
In years gone by if people fundamentally disagreed with the way their country was being run they would leave and create a new country.
Now that the spoils of the world have been divied up the only place to go is space.
Perhaps we can persuade Gates to try his vaccines there instead – broaden his horizons!?!?
🙂
I will admit that whenever I’m reading Patrick O’Brian and they discuss the Americans, I am filled with an almost childish sense of pride…
O’Brian is the man ! Always good to meet another fan.
Started reading them yet, Annie ?
Education is one of the root causes in my opinion. They don’t encourage competition, it’s very much getting a meddle for just turning up, especially in Primary school. Throw in safe spaces and you can be whatever you want to be, no effort or stoicism required, and this is where you end up. I try and push my two but there’s so little fight in them compared to me and my mates at the same age.
Eeee … when I were a lad, we ate dung for breakfast and built an empire before tea time!
Cow dung? You were looky. . .
The thing is that all the myths about British exceptionalism are just myths promulgated by its fortunate exceptionalism at a certain period in history.
Some of us who celebrate the real distinctiveness of our country never felt a need to believe the bullshit whilst ignoring uncomfortable facts such as that it’s much celebrated ‘democratic institutions’ have never really grown up sufficiently to embrace the idea of ‘citizenship’ (as opposed to ‘subjection’ to a monarch).
We’re now stuffing down the pudding and ‘proving’ it with a vengeance. Maybe it’s ‘Humble Pie’.
Mind you – not that the US’s much valued constitutional principles are holding up very well at present – but at least the British can’t gloat: the Channel hasn’t kept out the invading virus, demonstrated national grit, or created inspiring leadership this time round.
You’re right about the US. I have never been more disappointed in, and discouraged by, fellow Americans than I have been in the past several months. I had always believed that all of the craziness of the left was a vocal minority, but our willingness to accept subjugation out of fear has blown me away.
“The thing is that all the myths about British exceptionalism are just myths promulgated by its fortunate exceptionalism at a certain period in history.”
This idea that there are no meaningful differences between nations is pretty silly, on its face. The reality is that there self-evidently are such differences and they must surely affect how nations are governed and how they act internationally. They aren’t universal differences that apply to every individual in each nation, obviously, but they are differences that by definition apply to the majority, or at any rate to the bulk of the ruling elites, depending on the particular context.
The British historical achievement is truly unique and can absolutely be characterised as “great”. To try to dismiss any involvement in that for characteristics of the British is just, as previously noted, silly, and seems explicable only by some kind of personal ideological need to deny obvious reality in this regard.
Clearly, there are no shortage of ways in which British behaviour historically can be criticised, but the achievement nevertheless stands pretty much unmatched outside of a few other historically dominant powers and cultures. It is something that a healthy nation would be collectively proud of.
Oh wow, he called them myths twice. It must be true. Where’s my mask ?
Yes, he has certainly contributed to the moronification of society along with Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity etc.You see it with all the happy clappy, yaying adult children everywhere
Now that you say that……!
If we had proper regions in England, same powers as Sturgeon, but big areas – no more than 4 or 5 – to avoid the Andy Burnham characters, would one or two be stoically pressing on Sweden style? I’d like to think so.
You have a point.
The country is in desperate need of growing-up constitutionally on several fronts. Its exceptional centralism renders it very weak in democratic terms, and the devolution to Scotland, Wales and NI is a job not finished; there needs to be a return to much stronger local government and that today means regional government as the prime balance against the incestuous Westminster/Whitehall nexus.
The current patchy ‘city mayor’ nonsense is neither fish nor fowl – a half-cocked central idea with no democratic validity, and bolted onto the existing arrangements like bits on an old failing jalopy.
The scots surprise me, too… I’m a 3rd (I think?) generation American, but my Mom’s family came from Hungary in the 1920’s (roughly) and my Dad’s come from Scotland (much earlier). My dad is constantly saying that my anti-authoritarianism is because I’m Scottish… looking at Scotland, I’m seeing a lot less “William Wallace” and a lot more “emo rocker” than I’ve been led to believe should exist.
The present state of Scotland under the SNP is lamentable. The Holyrood Parliament, based in the former ‘Athens of the North’, is currently trying to abolish free speech via the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill.
It would seem that describing your own policies as ‘progressive’ renders even the most Orwellian measures beyond criticism in the largely sycophantic Scottish (and UK) media.
Considering the Common Purpose influence running through both national & local government, and the numerous organisations such as “The Global Covenant of Mayors”, I’m not sure it would make matters any better. We’ve seen plenty of examples of local councils using Covid as an excuse to close streets, or reduce their width to make cycle lanes, and frequent calls for a “Green Recovery”. I’m afraid they’re all as bad as one another! Look at this:
https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org/press/gcom-joins-effort-to-integrate-regional-and-local-contributions-into-national-governments-cop26-commitments/
You only need go to one of these organisation’s websites and look for “Our Partners” to see what an insidious, cancerous, web they form. This is part of “The Swamp” that Trump is having limited success draining, and we don’t have anyone like him to take on the bastards over here…
While not disagreeing with your assessment of Common purpose infiltration of all areas of govt, moving to a shire based system of as much govt as possible has the advantage of making a lot of govt part time.
The best form of govt found so far is the Swiss canton system.
Traditional British shires are analagous to the Cantons.
Keeping them small gives less anonymity to officials, encourages more part time elected officers and is true devolution.
Nope, Swiss system of cantons is very successful, closest analogy is to our shires. Any bigger than that & there are too many empire builders.
I’d like to think most ordinary Brits have been taken by surprise that their government and the BBC lies and manipulates them, and when they slowly come to their senses, there will be hell to pay. We’ll see…
What indeed? Right at the very beginning there was an admirable spirit abroad, of people mucking in with delivering food parcels, medicines, looking in on the old folks to see they were all right and so on. It may not have been especially British, but it felt like the kind of undemonstrative thing that we do (my family have been here since the Conquest). Not sure I buy TT’s analysis, although London did alter after 1986 to become far more of an oligarch and bankers’ playground, divorced from life elsewhere. But it always was a top heavy city state, full of Venetian bankers and assorted traders, even in Shakespeare’s day. And long before that. There may be something in the Westminster echo chamber effect though.
I think the generous furlough scheme has had a lot to do with prolonging the agony. Which comes back to why on earth this government did not stop it at the end of May. There was enough data out there by then, surely?
As for Scotland, land of the brave, medics, scientists, raw individualists, world explorers, canny and well educated – still can’t believe it.
What in hell happened?
We’ve been asking ourselves the same question, believe me. Shall never forget the ‘celebration’ of VE day amidst a shambles of gibbering zombies.
I think social media plays a huge role. People present their highest highs & their lowest lows. No one posts: ” just another boring day”, everyone wants to present their own soap opera. So here’s a perfect one, everyone gets to live through a dystopian movie with them in the lead role.
So very true.
Completely agree, social media is responsible for a large part of it. Those of us who grew up without it are so lucky. I feel sorry for today’s youth.
They’re not all obsessed with it. My 21yr old nephew’s on Facebook and very rarely posts anything. We just use it as an easy way to communicate.
Glad to hear, there’s still some hope then!
Wow, this caused some comments. I moved from Germany to GB over 20 years ago. I am so proud of a few million Germans protesting the political decisions and restrictions in Germany. Here in Britain, since the 90’s , people just want to be comfortable, holiday once a year in a cheap Mediterranean hotel, buy a house and get themselves into debt until they die, booze and eat fast food. As a young teenager, getting politically interested, I admired the miners, the bin men, the ambulance crews striking, people protesting against poll tax. These days, I despair at the young peoples’ attitudes. They spent more time on their phones and on FB during work than working. University students are more interested where to get cheap drinks than education. (Blame Blair). TV is still full of programmes about WW2, as they did so brilliantly there?! There is no Unity, the North against the South, the West against London, and of course Wales, NI, Scotland do their own thing. Most people I speak to say, well, lets hope it is over soon, until then we just have to do our bit. I guess it has to do to with the educations system,… Read more »
I trust you are aware of this:
https://notrickszone.com/2020/08/26/tyranny-in-the-fast-lane-berlin-bans-anti-corona-restrictions-demonstration-basic-rights-under-siege/
“What in the hell happened?”
I’d love to know the answer to that one too!!
With our thoughts we make the world.
Well, people are people, and always subject to the same flaws. But the British system undoubtedly ushered in an unprecedented period of wealth and freedom, and it spawned the United States, which took that banner and ran with it.
It would be false to deny the contributions that our countries have made and the great things that they have accomplished. But it is true that we, as people, have spent quite some time pretending that we can reject the ideals that brought us here and not suffer the consequences…
The ‘government’ and the media are all working for Bill Gates to enable him to stick dirty needles in everyone..
Good post and good replies as well. Late to the party but one theory I have is bad parenting and the immaturity of the populace. A well known clinical psychologist (whose name escapes me) coined the term kiddulthood which is made worse by university which means that people mature either later or not at all then they produce children. Not being mature and lacking the will to impose values and boundaries they end up producing the next generation who are unable to think critically, has a massive sense of entitlement and have a poor value system.
Social media and the ‘politically correct’ agenda of the mainstream media, combined with the ‘real time’ reporting of news, which demands attention-grabbing headlines and ‘click-bait’ for a public with a limited attention span.
Anyone, in the UK or anywhere else, could have worked out that the ‘lockdown’ was a knee-jerk reaction to hysterical media reports, but how many people bother to look beyond the headlines any more?
Last year, in this country, it was most fashionable to have cushions that were emblazoned with the legend “keep calm and carry on”.(from WW2) These were in all the “lower class” tat emporiums such as B & M and the Range used predominantly by Karens and their (4 kids by 5 different fathers) repulsive shrieking offspring. What happened to that sentiment? Have they forgotten their brightly coloured sloganned cushions? Or (as I suspect) could they not read read them and just liked the bright colouring and the “fashion” aspect? Cretins. If only they were sufficiently educated (unlikely given our current educational standards) to read and understand their cushions and signs etc. , we would be in a much better place now.
One thing I would disagree with in Sherelle Jacobs’ article:
routine mass testing that could genuinely quiet hysteria and avert new lockdowns
From the evidence (in the UK and elsewhere) I’d have said it was the exact opposite – increased testing finds more “cases”, fuelling the hysteria and justifying local lockdowns.
It’s EthicalSkeptics’ “lemming cycle” : https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/1298311509332852736/photo/1
That said, if “cases” were reported honestly taking into account (a) the increase in testing and (b) the false positive rate, they might have some value, as it is all they are is another tool for “project fear” and justifying the official narrative!
Agree. Do not get a test
As this is a Telegraph article and I do not subscribe I was not able to read it but I agree with your point that testing is fuelling the hysteria. What amazes me is that people have absolute 100% faith in the ‘TEST RESULT‘and think they know exactly what it means without ever checking it out. In my view PCR testing is a great technology and a very useful diagnostic tool but it is not suitable for making major public health policy decisions, it cannot differentiate between active and inactive RNA, used on a mass scale the false results can give quite large incorrect numbers leading to wrong decisions and then to think we are basing major policy decisions on tests taken at drive in tests centres in car parks and shopping centres where contamination is very possible, just beggars belief. I believe that we should be doing fewer tests but doing them really well with some profesional input before a +ve result is declared a case. Testing should be focussed on Hospitals, Care Homes and vulnerable people. I have tried in my own small way to suggest that we need a multi-disciplinary review of the SARS-Cov2 PCR test and… Read more »
And Jonathan Sumption.
She says in the article ‘The bizarre failure of politicians to explain to people the basic fact that “rising” cases could partly reflect an increase in testing is a scandal’, although she does promote testing to isolate the ‘localised spikes’ to ‘avert new lockdowns’.
Their DreamWorks World will become your unending nightmare.
Cheery stuff, Richard. 🙂
Anyone have any insight into what’s going on in France? Hospitalisations seem to be significantly higher there than here – around 4,600 according to something I’ve just be sent by a highly reliable source.
I heard something similar last week regarding hospitals in one State in the US.Turns out it was because hospitals were opening up again for general admissions but the increase in numbers were being spun as …covid. Might be the case in France, will do some digging and report back…
https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/dossiers/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-chiffres-cles-et-evolution-de-la-covid-19-en-france-et-dans-le-monde
4600 in hospital including 410 in intensive care.
Does seem high compared to UK as of 13 Aug, 599 in hospital, 56 in ventilator beds:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/08/Covid-Publication-13-08-2020.xlsx
Still the deaths are really low since May (around 10 per day, WITH Covid and non For Covid)
matt, have a look at the French graphs at tomwoods.com. Deaths really low. Another thought, my son returned from France 10 days ago, severe heatwave in some parts. Could that account for increase in deaths?
There’s been a lot of talk about spikes in cases in European countries.
But when we look more closely, we find something interesting.
There may be a lot of cases, but in this “second wave” of cases there are almost no deaths.
Here are the graphs for France, for example:
Thanks. I looked at the deaths and – as you say – they’re almost nothing. But the hospitalisations are running many multiples higher than ours for a population of a comparable size.
I don’t have enough knowledge of the relevant data sources to get a proper grip on it, but I’d like to – when you’ve been making the argument against a second wave by saying “no hospitalisations, no deaths” it starts to erode your point if you have to concede the hospitalisations.
Apologies, can’t get the links to work but I think you’ll get the gist….
https://twitter.com/JohnDStats/status/1299044285795520513/photo/1
According to news reports today hospitals were full of C-19 cases and ICUs full up in France according to MSM. Make your own judgement and watch the official figures above. The numbers could be correct as below comment but look at the curve
Perfect. Thanks Swedenborg
Compare and contrast:
The actual numbers (see below – from Swedenborg’s link, data to 1900 CET 27th Aug)
The French government’s response, as breathlessly reported by the BBC without any questioning:
“French Prime Minister Jean Castex has responded to a steep increase in infections with a series of measures including increased testing and compulsory face-coverings in Paris.
The number of “red zones” where the virus is in active circulation has risen from two to 21.
If France did not act fast, the spread could become “exponential”, he warned.
….
Mr Castex said Covid-19 was “gaining ground” across the country. There was an “undeniable resurgence of the epidemic”, he said.”
The police say they can’t win enforcing social distancing ? may I suggest they shouldn’t be trying to enforce it in the first place considering (aside from it being a load of bollocks) it’s not law and just a guideline. There’s probably someone being mugged somewhere do something fucking useful will you. Crikey …
SD has been invented as a tool for torturing.
And it works well as such.
But not against viruses, to the contrary.
One can’t be too careful wit this virus (from The Telegraph live feed):
Passenger removed from flight at Stansted after receiving text saying he had tested positive for Covid-19
A passenger was removed from a flight at Stansted Airport after receiving a text saying he had tested positive for coronavirus.
Horrified holidaymakers watched on Wednesday evening as airport staff in hazmat suits boarded the plane to remove the coronavirus-positive passenger and his companion.
After boarding the plane, the man, who has not been named, received a text saying he had tested positive for the virus. He alerted staff on the Ryanair flight to Pisa, who quickly ensured he was removed along with his companion.
Their seats were sanitised, and the overhead lockers wiped, and after a delay of over an hour the flight still took off.
After they were taken to an isolation area, they were put into the care of Public Health England.
It’s laughable, quite laughable!!
‘put in the care of Public Health England’
Surely a contradiction in terms
They’ll be lucky to survive that one, many thousands didn’t
And presumably all the recycled air was happily propagating through the plane for the next few hours. What could go wrong…?
Nothing
Not that anything would go wrong anyway, but there is a constant supply of fresh air into the cabin which is bled off from the engines, and the recirculated portion of the air goes through HEPA filters before being discharged back into the cabin.
but if he was on the plane, surely he cant have been showing any symptoms…. and therefore wasnt ill. And anyway, wouldnt he be wearing a mask as required on public transport. And we are told that masks are wonderful and will stop any pesky little viruses.
If it was me i would have just kept quiet. I cannot understand the logic of telling the plane staff. It was Ryan air .. they would charge him for extra baggage or carrying a pet . Clearly he was not one of us.
Sorry – it is all so ridiculous
The other thing is, if he been tested for COVID-19 he must’ve thought he had it, so shouldn’t he have been be self isolating anyway?
not if he was a contact of someone who had tested positive so wasnt aware
No. His text was to say he was positive. So he did take a test.
never said he didnt take a test…. he might have been in contact with someone who tested positive, so was traced and made to have a test himself. and the text was the result .. So he knew he had taken a test obviously but was not aware that he was positive, was not ill, had no symptoms and maybe even the person he was in contact with was also asymptomatic,
The passenger was so ill that he was off on his holiday with no symptoms whatsoever. Can’t make this shit up!
This is getting to be like a Children’s playground game of who has got the lurgy? Presumably this person knew they were going on a flight which begs the question of why on earth did he go and have one of these dodgy pillar 2 tests? Indeed unless their job demands it why does anyone have one of these tests. It is a bit like the old slogan ‘don’t vote it only encourages them’ except now it should be’ don’t get tested it only cranks up the hysteria machine’.
Absolutely, it has to have been staged. This is pure fear-porn. But you never know, it might just discourage the occasional person from having a pointless test. MW
Why on earth would you inform anyone? Too late by that point. Just sit tight and go home as normal. Try not to cough!
I’d heard the “Kansas mask graph” story before (think it was from El Gato Malo or another US sceptic on Twitter) but a couple of quotes from Dr. Norman made me laugh:
After being called out by the Kansas Policy Institute about his chart’s deceptions, Dr. Norman told reporters in Topeka: “I know that my graph was misunderstood and, in retrospect, I would redraw it different the next time” but “there’s no question the data is solid.”
The second line reminds me of Eric Morecambe’s “I’m playing the right notes, just not necessarily in the right order” (or words to that effect)
More seriously, the first line is pure duplicity, the data wasn’t “misunderstood”, but “misrepresented” (by him)!
Lots of issues with data in the US, certainly E coast states. Pennsylvania I believe is being sued in relation to how they handled the process with residents in Nursing homes (something like 70% of deaths or more, are linked to care homes). I doubt the lawsuit will get anywhere though, the Chief Health Officer is a Trans Woman & was once misgendered. Priorities priorities. PA definitely have been caught red handed fudging the figures:
https://www.westernjournal.com/pennsylvania-takes-hundreds-probable-covid-deaths-off-books-coroners-come-forward/
Me again.
Can anybody point me towards an article (I know there are some. I think Toby picked up on one) showing how a X% drop in GPD causes a Y% drop in life expectancy etc?
Thanks
There won’t be one, (or at least not one based on science) because it’s complete conjecture based upon assumptions that simple do not hold in the real world.
The obsession with GDP is one of the dangers of the current system. Clearly we can provision the nation without everybody rushing around doing busy work.
We haven’t even come to terms with what that means for a society, let alone coming up with an acceptable answer.
It’s slightly complicated because poverty costs lives, but as far as I recall the immediate effects of downturns tend to reduce deaths, mostly due to reduced driving and travelling activity.
I seem to recall this chap referred to some such calculation in the workings for this report. So if you dig out his study he will likely mention it or refer to where it can be found.
Britain faces ‘calamitous consequences’ as expert warns UK faces more deaths than in WW2
I believe a better one is unemployment rate versus drop in life expectancy. Whether it’s based on anything concrete though is debatable. In the movie the Big Short the quote was for every 1% increase in unemployment, 40,000 people die.
Which is probably: for every 1% increase in unemployment the reduction in quality of life years for the whole population is equivalent to 40,000 deaths using the average life span.
Try the New Economics Foundation. Sounds like their kinda thing.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-gdp-per-capita
Data sources for the chart can be found in the ‘Sources’ tab.
Also, a study on unemployment and mortality based on US data
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S027795361400269X
My son will be at school on Monday without a mask and upon being confronted by the school he’ll tell them that his father refuses to send a single penny on a mask. They can phone me if they want to check, he’ll also tell them he’ll wear the mask but will require a fresh one every time he takes the old one off an they’ll have to supply him. There is no way he’ll be wearing a contaminated mask. If anther child touches his mask, he’ll need another, if he drops it, he’ll need another. He’s to wear them between classes so that’s six a day. he’ll be needing thirty masks a week. I do hope they can cope.
They won’t be able to cope.
I am also really concerned for the bullying that may go on. There will be students with the latest ‘cool’ mask from whichever pathetic brand and there will be those with simple surgical masks. None are necessary but we have had the misfortune to go through horrible bullying with our youngest daughter who is independent and alternative, she would never wear any kind of branded mask and would undoubtedly be victimised for it. However, she will not be wearing one either way as a result of anxiety caused by the aforementioned bullying and is now worried that she will be targeted for not wearing a mask. Heartbreaking, she is terrified of going back to school when she had just got over the anxiety and was enjoying a new school again early in the year.
Please continue to encourage your daughter’s independence and alternative thinking! It is my fervent hope that her being maskless will give other students the right idea. I know I’d be envious of the girl who is able to speak clearly, breathe, smile, etc. All it takes is a few brave kids to lead the way and then others will start to think, “If xxx doesn’t have to wear a mask then why should I?”
I reckon that’s bang on.
It will be another variation of “My trainers are better than yours”…
Oh yes. There used to be fights over who had the best shoes.. someone had air Jordans chances are they had a mob lining up in the playground at school after them. Wonder if it will be the same kinda thing, if someone has a Transformers mask, or something? 🙂
Children and teenagers are cruel and agree about the bullying. I’ve come across many comments from people saying that one reason why they refuse to wear a mask is because of the trauma of being bullied.
Well done and keep up with your daughter’s independence and spirit – both will stand her in good stead.
Excellent tactic.
i’m more concerned for my sons welfare than any lefty muppet masquerading as a teacher so i’ll be sending an Email as well just to make sure they are doing the right thing, after all they promise to look after him while he’s there and i know they’ll want to make sure he is safe. There are over 1400 kids at his school they’ll need 42,000 masks a week. Wankers.
what I am most concerned about with respect to masks in schools in the US is something that our school (I love our private school, but we’re homeschooling the kids until the mask requirement is removed) said about masks. Namely, this: “we hope that we won’t have to enforce mask compliance through discipline, but with education.”
That really bothers me. How do you “educate” kids to wear masks? Well, one of two ways. Either you lie to them and convince them that they really do need to be wearing the masks in order to protect themselves and others (thus creating countless psychological issues and insecurities for these children), or you acknowledge that they are neither in danger, nor are they themselves a danger to others, but, well… the government has told you to do something, and so you had better do it! Is that really what we want to be teaching our kids?
Both of those things are flatly contradictory to what I have explicitly been telling my kids. You are not in danger, and you are not dangerous to others. And when governments exercise arbitrary authority, especially illegally, good citizens need to fight that.
Go on home schooling. Best thing.
You are 100% right — it’s a lose-lose argument. While my kids are older, I would absolutely do what you’re doing and keep mine at home. Good for you!
This is it. They tie themselves in knots trying to select the easiest argument that lets them feel like they are following the rules. But as soon as their illogical double bind is pointed out to them, their brains have to go to the next level. “A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, with one negating the other. In some circumstances (particularly families and relationships) this might be emotionally distressing. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other (and vice versa), so that the person will automatically be wrong regardless of response. The double bind occurs when the person cannot confront the inherent dilemma, and therefore can neither resolve it nor opt out of the situation. Double bind theory was first described by Gregory Bateson and his colleagues in the 1950s.[1]” If the school is so unsafe that these life saving masks are needed, they shouldn’t open. For if you take them off at any point or fail to replace after touching, surely we are operating in a death trap. “but it is safe, the… Read more »
In my kids’ school, the administrators don’t agree with the mask requirement, but the state mandates it.
Also, I’m a bit worried… the public schools are all “online only,” and have already declared that they will be online only for the rest of the school year!! We send our kids to a private school, and we were hoping that this madness would be over in time to have them back in the spring. But all of the parents who cannot stay home are now sending their kids to the handful of private schools, and they are overloaded. So now my kids are on a waitlist.
Our idiot governor has fucked this situation up beyond belief, and it is impacting virtually every area of our lives.
That’s awful. I think the parents will be a key catalyst for getting real change from this awful situation. They ate losing their minds. My eldest just started primary. No masks, normal classes, full time. No ridiculous rules. I know the principal personally and he has said the guidance is impossible and he’ll manage it as they go. If he sticks to his guns hell be getting a letter of hhuge thanks from me in month or so.
Great tactic.
Your son is my hero.
mine too
Surely the schools start on Tuesday, Monday is a bank holiday (not that we would notice)?
Not in Scotland. Bank Holiday here was 2 weeks ago – not that you’d have noticed.
Mine aren’t old enough for secondary school, but I often wonder what Mrs TJN and I would do if they were. Almost certainly we’d let them stay home if they wished – by that age they will have been taught to think for themselves and to assess risk rationally, and recognise bullshit.
But then again when it comes to the sort of dickheads who impose muzzles in schools I’m bloody minded and very spiteful. Your option of requiring the school to provide at least 30 rags a week, and probably more like 60 after allowing for touching and pissing about, would greatly appeal to me.
Plus I would insist on seeing their risk assessments for muzzles, and enjoy tearing it to pieces.
Then again, as grades are now awarded not on exam performance but teacher’s whim I guess I’d have to get my timing right.
Bloody brilliant!
Johan Giesecke interviewed on Sky News in Oz. Dated 23rd August but I’m not sure if this is the date of the interview or just when it was posted on YouTube. I’m not sure of the timeline because I’ve heard him say these things before. Regardless, even if it’s old it’s aged quite well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=32&v=OU88R05hvdc&feature=emb_logo
It was April 29th