News Round Up

• “MPs back extending Covid powers until September” – Katy Balls provides some analysis of yesterday’s vote in Parliament in the Spectator. “The fact that there is little substantial opposition to the plans,” she writes, “means the Government isn’t under much pressure to offer concessions”
• “Dismantling of Yorkshire’s Nightingale Hospital starts” – The BBC reports that work has begun to dismantle the 500-bed emergency hospital in Yorkshire. It has not treated a single patient
• “Panel of independent experts prepares audit for ‘every UK Covid death’” – A London Loves Business report on the Covid19 Assembly project overseen by Dr Clare Craig
• “We’re living in a pornstar’s world” – “Lockdown is creating an unjust, atomised and deeply inhuman society,” says Mary Harrington in UnHerd
• “The case against the UK’s lockdowns” – Since March 22nd, 2020, the country has spent more than five months under some form of lockdown. Was it worth it? Noah Carl thinks not
• “Old Mortality: How the Corona Coup Tortures the Elderly – and Everybody Else” – Michael Lesher in Off-Guardian on what Covid hysteria has done to the elderly
• “The political class have lost their taste for risk” – There’ll be “safety-first decisions on everything from foreign travel to hospitality rules”, says James Forsyth in the Times
• “Revealed: Government plan for Covid ‘pub passport’ app on phones that will show proof of jab, negative test or immunity” – The Daily Mail reports on plans for a Covid app with which people can prove they have either had the vaccine, a recent negative test or antibodies from having had COVID-19 before. Publicans says its ‘bonkers’
• “What is the point of vaccine passports?” – Laura Dodsworth asks a good question in Spiked. Is it another behavioural-psychology ‘nudge’?
• “Covid passport checks could be needed to go to work, the theatre or a sports event” – Psychological ‘nudging’ may be about to ramp up a notch, says the Telegraph
• “The practical problems with vaccine passports” – Ross Clark points out a few wrinkles in the plans for vaccine passports in the Spectator, at least what’s known of them to date
• “Vaccine passports, ethics and human rights” – Barrister Adam Wagner talks vaccine passports with a couple of guests from Essex University for the Better Human Podcast
• “Oddly reassuring, reassuringly odd” – Hospitality entrepreneur Hugh Osmond appears on the Telegraph‘s Planet Normal Podcast with some stern words for the business groups which didn’t defend business and the inside track on his legal campaign to accelerate the sector’s reopening
• “Baroness Stroud speaks out against the Coronavirus Act” – “Rather than rely on the values which we know to be true, that define the success and prosperity of this great nation, of personal responsibility and trust, of keeping calm, and respect,” she says, “we rather chose to follow the path of a more authoritarian regime”
• “Emmanuel Macron backs EU vaccine export ban” – Macron is stoking the vaccine trade wars, the Telegraph reports
• “EU attacks call into question AstraZeneca vaccine pricing, warns Oxford’s Sir John Bell” – AstraZeneca may rethink its decision not to profit from the vaccine if it’s going to attract so much ill will anyway, the Telegraph reports
• “Sweden clears AstraZeneca vaccine for use in over-65s” – Sweden is giving the AstraZeneca jab to the over-65s, according to the FT, but it remains on hold for younger age groups
• “Rutgers becomes first university to mandate ONLY vaccinated students will be allowed back this fall” – The Daily Mail reports the start of a ‘No Jab, No College’ rule in the US
• “How Lockdowns devastated the cruise Industry” – John Tammy looks at the fate of the cruise industry for AIER
• “Herd Immunity Is Near, Despite Fauci’s Denial” – Dr. Fauci is saying that the US will need a 70 – 85% vaccination rate to achieve herd immunity from COVID-19, but, as Martin Makery points out in the Wall Street Journal, he is ignoring those who have been infected and recovered from the disease
• “New Zealand hospitals in crisis after ‘biggest January, February on record’” – “Hospitals across the country have reached crisis point,” according to Radio New Zealand, “with several emergency departments at capacity.” Noteworthy that it doesn’t blame Covid
• “Bill Gates predicts that the world won’t return to normal until the end of 2022” – The Daily Mail reports that, in an interview with a Polish newspaper, Bill Gates has claimed the world will not return to normal until the end of 2022. Is the the ‘new normal’?
• “The Lockdowns, Their beneficiaries and consequences” – Looking at recent elections in Australia and New Zealand, Phil Shannon is forced to conclude in Quadrant that lockdowns are electoral gold. He takes hope in the thought that lockdowner politicians might get their Churchill 45 moment in the end
• “Gavin Newsom Goes Undercover With The Recall Gavin Newsom Campaign” – An animation from Babylon Bee in which Newsom discovers that the people of California might want to recall him because of the closure of business, education, and bans on gatherings
• “Remittances: Lockdowns slow the flow of money” – A feature from DW News on how lockdowns have slowed the flow of remittances sent by migrant workers home to third world countries with devastating effects

There were some good speeches made yesterday by the 78 MPs who voted against the extension of the Coronavirus act for a further six months.

They included Sir Graham Brady, who remarked that “This habit for coercion and control has gone too far”

The Liberal Democrats all voted against. Former leader Tim Farron said that for him the greatest concern is that “the Government’s default, knee-jerk attempt to seek these draconian powers for this lengthier period of time is now beginning to fit into a pattern”.

And Finally, Sir Desmond Swayne gave an absolute barnstormer of a speech, saying, “Tyranny is a habit and we haven’t quite kicked it.”