Care Minister Says New Year’s Eve Celebrations Could Be Cancelled

Concerned about the spread of the Omicron variant and a lack of understanding surrounding how dangerous the new strain is, Gillian Keegan, the Care Minister (the Minister of State responsible for mental health), has declared that New Year’s Eve festivities might have to be cancelled. In addition, Keegan mentioned that the Government was being lenient with the public in allowing Christmas to go ahead with the current restrictions in place, but that this leniency may end following Christmas Day. The Guardian has the story.

Plans for New Year’s Eve parties in England may have to be scrapped, a minister has admitted, as she said there remained uncertainty over the severity of illness caused by the Omicron variant of Covid.

Gillian Keegan, the Care Minister, refused to rule out lockdown measures being introduced in England shortly after Christmas and said 129 people had been hospitalised and 14 had died with Omicron in the U.K.

“There is uncertainty. So, if you can’t change your [New Year’s Eve] plans quickly, then maybe think about it. There is uncertainty. We can’t predict what the data is going to tell us before we’ve got the data,” she said.

She told LBC Radio that the Government’s approach in England had been to try to allow people to go ahead with Christmas plans, but that the same could not necessarily be said of the following holiday.

Boris Johnson has said no new measures will be put in place in England before Christmas Day, but the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales are introducing some new restrictions before and after the holiday.

Keegan told Sky News: “We do not have all the information that you would like to have at your fingertips, in particular… the severity of the disease. So it is a difficult balance but we think we’ve got the balance right. You know, saying to the country we wanted to lock down etc, when you’ve got those kind of figures wouldn’t look proportionate.”

She said the decision that was taken on further restrictions was “difficult”. Asked whether there was any chance a ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown might be avoided if the country continued on its current path, Keegan said: “We are waiting for data on the severity, we’ll still have to wait to see where we land on that, but we can’t really say, you know.

“What we’ve said is: up to Christmas, we’re fine, looking at the data, looking at the numbers we have at the moment. But, of course, we have to look at where this virus goes, where this variant goes, so we have to look at that data. I can’t tell you in advance of getting that data, but you should be cheerful because we’re doing a lot more than we could last year. We’re able to see our families.”

Keegan acknowledged that Johnson was refusing to act based on the same data that had led first ministers elsewhere in the U.K. to take preventive measures, but she claimed this was not a result of indecision or political calculation.

She was asked on Times Radio if the issue was not Johnson’s “own political judgment and that he doesn’t want to do anything with the data that all the leaders are seeing”.

Keegan said: “If we see large jumps in the data, large jumps in hospitalisation… then of course we’ll react. But we don’t actually have that yet. So what [Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon and Wales’s Mark Drakeford are] doing is… they’re looking at the risk and they’re coming up with a different answer.”

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: Lockdown zealot Mark Drakeford, Wales’s swivel-eyed First Minister, has banned New Year’s Eve celebrations and ordered pubs and restaurants to re-impose the rule of six from Boxing Day. MailOnline has more.

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DoctorCOxford
DoctorCOxford
4 years ago

Why say this? Simply say, “if things are getting out of control we will take actions that will not have any meaningful impact but make the MSM happy.” But all you do by saying things now sans data is harm then mental health of people.

Just encourage people to be smart and to act in alignment with their risk role tolerance, and then shut up. Saying less lowers your risk of being a total fool.

Arum
Arum
4 years ago
Reply to  DoctorCOxford

Their aim seems to be to harm our mental health

Rogerborg
4 years ago
Reply to  Arum

Demoralisation is the first and most important step in conquering a society.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9TviIuXPSE

Understanding the Political Scenario of INDIA,CANADA,JAPAN,CHINA,USA, FRANCE etc by Yuri Bezemov

Think Harder
Think Harder
4 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

Seems to be working on most people but just makes me angrier. Suspect most on here similar. Wonder what psychological group we fall into?

brachiopod
4 years ago
Reply to  DoctorCOxford

There isn’t yet a single government mouthpiece who hasn’t – in the words of Mark Twain – opened their mouth and left the listener in no doubt that they know nothing of which they speak.

Mark
4 years ago

This is what the panickers have been trying to structure our expectations towards. Pushing for pre-Christmas repression while the pretend resistance says “not before Christmas”, and everyone gets accustomed to the idea that there will be lockdowns after Christmas as a “compromise”.

Spinning and nudging – the modern Blairite way to do government.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

When the time comes, the pretend resistance and the weak sisters will abruptly switch sides, and the real resisters will be painted as “unreasonable” and “extreme”, in the context of a big ramping up of panic propaganda.

That was how the panickers’ winter offensive worked last year, as well. The weak and the fakers of the resistance caved that time, and we were dumped into a disastrous lockdown, mask-wearing “vaccine”-coercing Hell.

But it isn’t necessary that we should be defeated again. There’s still a fight to be fought. We lost last time, but we can win this time. Just don’t be fooled into thinking that “winning” over Christmas lockdown is the end of the battle. It’s just the first phase.

Think Harder
Think Harder
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

It’s all down to more waking up fast and I don’t think that will happen until too late. But … sometimes natural or world events can disrupt plans.

Think Harder
Think Harder
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

I wouldn’t be so bothered if it was to help us but it’s to help themselves to our rights, democracy, money and freedom!

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Totally – well put.

I am so sick now of the “we are facing challenging times after christmas” BS. Which roughly translates as “we will LET you have christmas but will lock you down afterwards. For the greater good.”

Davke
4 years ago

Who’s this now? Another one in a never ending pile of shite mongers trotting out pish.
Ignore and party like fuck!
Our collective mental health would be a lot better if you and your chums would leave us alone and stfu!

Naughtius Maximus
4 years ago

The one-two psyop punch, Christmas can go ahead but we’ll shit on New Year instead, just to show you who is boss. SPI-B really need to come up with some new material, their plays are becoming obvious.

three6t
three6t
4 years ago

“We can’t predict what the data is going to tell us before we’ve got the data”

Why not? You’ve been doing that for nigh on two years!

RW
RW
4 years ago
Reply to  three6t

Originally, they were supposed to have this data by now. Hence, it seems a fair guess that they do have it and it’s absolutely not to their liking. Consequently, the keep feigning ignorance and hope that some deus ex machina will come to the rescue.

CynicalRealist
4 years ago
Reply to  RW

Look at the recent ONS data and the data from South Africa too. They seem to have created a bit of a problem for themselves in that it’s going to be very difficult to spin this to their liking. That doesn’t mean they won’t try very hard to do so, of course.

RW
RW
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

Did already start when the brought back masks (or very shortly after that): But it’s so much more transmissible and so immunity escaping that it’ll still overwhelm the NHS!

Essentially, we’re back to March 2020 in this respect: Dangerous new coronavirus hits immunologically naive population except that it’s worse because it’s Really A Highly Transmissible Virus, Absolutely No Shit This Time[tm].

Hypatia
Hypatia
4 years ago

“Being lenient with the public”? Who the fuck do these people think they are??

Naughtius Maximus
4 years ago
Reply to  Hypatia

They think they are Mummy and Daddy, because so many children-in-adult-bodies in this country treat them as such.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago

The whole aim of politics has been to neotenise (pets and cattle have this trait) the general public to make them more herdable.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Hypatia

They’re not serving the public that’s for damn sure.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago

Someone’s woken up!

Rogerborg
4 years ago
Reply to  Hypatia

They think they are our owners, and that we are their chattels.

To put it in absolutely plain language.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

and they milk and slaughter the cattle for their benefit.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

They’re not wrong. 21 months seems to have proved that point.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Hypatia

They are the people who own you.
Everyone is afraid of going round to their house and sorting them out properly.
They will continue to own you, and you will do as they command.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

My Christmas wish is that all of the ministers would go away for christmas and leave us alone, we don’t need you or want you and in fact the majority are sick of the sight and sound of you

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

I’m sick of the daily “we wait with baited breath ” reportage about whether or not we will be “allowed” to have christmas.

CynicalRealist
4 years ago

In addition, Keegan mentioned that the Government was being lenient with the public in allowing Christmas to go ahead with the current restrictions in place, but that this leniency may end following Christmas Day.

There really is no end to their arrogance, is there? Carrying on as if ‘the public’ are a bunch of misbehaving infants who need to be kept under control.

Just fuck off and leave us alone, you bunch of sanctimonious, controlling cunts.

milesahead
milesahead
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

Funny, I thought that the public was being particularly lenient with the government! Not for much longer, I reckon!

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  milesahead

It’s a nice fantasy, but in reality the public, in their face masks and steamed-up glasses, will just continue to shuffle outside Tesco’s or Lidl and ‘sanitise’ their shopping trolleys and say things such as “The wind’s got a bit of a nip in it today, hasn’t it?”

How’s that Tesco’s boycott going? Remember? Santa and his vaxx pass? How many here have been into Tesco since?

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

I’ve been in occasionally, but have no plans to go in again. I’ve been going to Aldi, but I seem to remember that their Australian branch are practicing health discrimination. I suspect that none of the big chains are clean.

itoldyouiwasill
itoldyouiwasill
4 years ago

I actually hope they do this and cancel the lot. If this is what it takes to make the vaccinated realise they took their clotshots ALL FOR NOTHING then so be it.

Paul_Somerset
4 years ago

Won’t work that way. Instead the vaccinated will blame the unvaccinated for making vaccinations worthless.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul_Somerset

About time we had a good old-fashioned punch-up.
Well, when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘you’, obvs!

Major Panic in the jabby jabbys

she says the government can’t rule out further measures – politically this is a prudent position as all the moronics in the media, sage communists, opposition and media propaganda induced hysterically petrified public – are all screaming for more draconian measures to ‘stay safe’

the headline is designed to imply something more than was said

FrankFisher
4 years ago

Actually I think the public is being far too lenient with the government.

Free Lemming
4 years ago
Reply to  FrankFisher

100%. People have forgotten how a representative democracy is supposed to work.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  FrankFisher

should start a campaign to name lamp-posts and tree branches after local MPs

Emerald Fox
4 years ago

Wouldn’t you rather sign another on-line petition?

Free Lemming
4 years ago

Keegan mentioned that the Government was being lenient with the public in allowing Christmas to go ahead with the current restrictions in place, but that this leniency may end following Christmas Day”. Lenient? F*ckin lenient? Well will these tw*ts realise they are supposed to serve the public, not the other way round? I’ll tell you when, when we remove these dictators from office – by a show of force if necessary.

Boomer Bloke
4 years ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

Exactly, and the phrase that caught my eye the other day in the context of imposing further restrictions was ‘reserve the right’. What right? It’s the tail wagging the dog. I will not comply.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Boomer Bloke

Rights are restrictions on the state!
This is another sign of neo-marxists reversing the meanings of words.

wendy
wendy
4 years ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

Oh but please don’t let’s have Kier starmer. P L E A S E!!!

lorrinet
lorrinet
4 years ago
Reply to  wendy

Possibly worse, we could get Gove, the lockdown fanatic.

Black Flag
4 years ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
― H.L. Mencken

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Black Flag

Perhaps more apt?

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
― H.L. Mencken, In Defense Of Women

Black Flag
4 years ago

Complimentary. Yours defines the problem, mine offers the solution.

Boomer Bloke
4 years ago
Reply to  Black Flag

Every single day. Or at least every time I see or hear Three Jabs Javid stirring up division.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Boomer Bloke

And the Police still haven’t arrested him for Hate Speech and inciting division amongst British society?

kaddy89
4 years ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

Who the ‘eck does she think she is?? Lenient??? We are not on remand Gillian. I hope your foreign properties flood get ravaged by termites and other infestations and are then seized by the local governments. That should bring her down to size nicely.

The old bat
4 years ago

It’s the tone of this, isn’t it? We are being spoken to like a misbehaving school class who is allowed to join in with activities despite their behaviour. They are being ‘lenient’, we ‘should be cheerful’. Why not keep her attention seeking mouth shut because she is not saying anything that hasn’t been said before. Where do they get off actually speaking to us like that? As it is clearly obvious that the so called vaccines, masks and lockdowns do not have the slightest effect on the progress of what appears to be a cold, why bother any more? It is obvious there is a hidden agenda, but meantime, I am pretty sure that anyone who already has social plans for new year is not going to change them, and will ‘cheerfully’ give this stupid woman two fingers.

CynicalRealist
4 years ago
Reply to  The old bat

It might be best if they tried to ban large new year gatherings in city centres and loads of people did it anyway – plod doesn’t have enough numbers to stop this, and it would completely undermine the dictators.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

Once plod see the writing on the wall, the politicians stand in front of the walls.

1984imminent
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

I think there’s a very high chance this will happen, and the govt knows it.

Custerhaditcoming
Custerhaditcoming
4 years ago

Gillian Keegan,

sometimes it is better to keep quiet and let people think you are a complete cock, rather than open your mouth and prove it.

loopDloop
loopDloop
4 years ago

Comedies and tragedies are made of one alphabet.
-Francis Bacon

wendy
wendy
4 years ago

Lenient!!!! Oh I just love it that our Government shows clearly what it thinks of the public. We are just naughty, nasty people who they don’t want to show them up as not having sufficiently prepared the nations health service to provide for the needs of the people.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago

There’s going to be fireworks if they try!

Emerald Fox
4 years ago

They’ve already tried and succeeded. No fireworks. The nation is already on their 3rd ‘booster’, kids have been jabbed in schools and no-one stopped that, did they?

Victory Gin
4 years ago

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ― C. S. Lewis

Rogerborg
4 years ago

“Her father-in-law, Denis Keegan, was Conservative MP for Nottingham South.
Keegan is godmother to two of former Speaker John Bercow‘s children.
Keegan owns several properties and has homes in France and Spain.”

Robber-baron aristocracy. She views us as peasants, or mere animals.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

CINO John Bercow worst speaker in British history.

Annie
4 years ago

The cow is responsible for mental health and she wants to strip every vestige of joy from our lives.
It figures.

kaddy89
4 years ago

Gillian Keegan better have a Care that she and her boss are not cancelled soon

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  kaddy89

Do you have a plan?

Stephensceptic
Stephensceptic
4 years ago

She seems to relish having power.

Dreadful person.

kaddy89
4 years ago

Who is she anyway?

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

So it is true, ‘politicians ARE like diapers and should be changed frequently for the same reason’

CynicalRealist
4 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

The difference is that politicians start out full of shit right from the beginning!

huxleypiggles
4 years ago

129 people in hospital with Omicron. And what else are they in hospital with?

So we are going to shut everything down for 129 “cases?”

And we are supposed to believe this is about a virus? Oh do FO Keegan you lying bitch.

Spritof_GFawkes
4 years ago

‘being lenient’??? Why would you be lenient if you honestly believed that mankind was facing an existential crisis which could only be averted by locking down the population? Surely thoughts of ‘leniency’ would go out of the window in such circumstances and you’d say “my God, we must lock down now to save mankind”, not “oh, well, go on – have Christmas and then we’ll lock down”.
Clearly this person and the admninistration she is speaking for do not believe there is an existential crisis, they/she just want to experience the power of being able to lock people down, and they can live with putting it off for a week or two as long as they get their kicks eventually.

J4mes
4 years ago

Locking down a society was never deemed a sensible way to tackle a pandemic. You can’t stop airborne viruses from transmitting.

At best you’re going to prolong the situation by locking down, but everyone will catch it eventually, unless they’re deep in the Amazon or on a sunny desert island.

The only reason they will ‘cancel’ new year is to further confuse and demoralise the nation, making us more malleable and weak.

This has got nothing to do with a virus.

BS665
BS665
4 years ago

No new measures until 72 hours time. Hurrah!

Victory Gin
4 years ago

Care Minister Says New Year’s Eve Celebrations Could Be Cancelled

But government New Years ‘cheese and wine‘ celebrations will go ahead as usual.

Duppy Conqueror
Duppy Conqueror
4 years ago

The whole shitshow is falling apart. It might not look that way in this country but it really is if you take a panoramic view. For our civilisation so heavily dependent on corporate infrastructure this this signals a major schism. They think that they can release Omicron and switch it all off. No chance this situation has ignited the intelligence of many thinking people all over the world who are discovering each other on a level never before imagined.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago

Unfortunately, so far, these ‘intelligent’ people have not yet figured out a way in which to get rid of these awful governments in a peaceful manner.
During the Chinese ‘Cultural revolution’ they got rid of the ‘intelligent’ people first.

Hopeless
4 years ago

“Care Minister”? Some humdinger of an oxymoron there, from one of the band of halfwits who couldn’t care less for anything but themselves and their own interests.