News Round-Up
- “Bank of England staff in the office just one day a week” – Bank of England staff spend the majority of the week working from home despite ministers urging workers to go back to the office, the Telegraph reports.
- “Treasury civil servants warned: you’re being tracked to see if you’re really coming to work” – The Telegraph reports on a clampdown on working from home culture as staff attendance is monitored through office entry passes.
- “China’s Zero-Covid horror show is inspiring Taiwan to open up” – The Covid shackles are now coming off across Asia, writes Ian Williams in the Spectator.
- “‘Lockdown established a new caste system’” – Jay Bhattacharya lays out for Spiked‘s Brendan O’Neill the devastating consequences of lockdown for the world’s poorest.
- “COVID-19 Infection 1,000X More Likely from Air than from Solid Surface: University of Michigan Study” – TrialSite News reports that SARS-CoV-2 is 1,000 times more likely to spread from airborne transmission than from solid surfaces, according to the results of a two-year study conducted at University of Michigan.
- “Michelle Mone: first lady of lingerie embroiled in criminal investigation over £200m PPE contract” – A dozen unmarked police cars rolled into the Isle of Man’s capital as part of an investigation of a firm linked to the peer, reports the Times.
- “Voters won’t forgive self-righteous hypocrisy, Sir Keir” – “We were in the office to do work,” Sir Keir Starmer told TV interviewer Susanna Reid last Wednesday. Labour lied, and lied, and lied again, says Dan Hodges in the Mail.
- “Team Blue, Red or Orange? Who cares!” – Should you go Team Blue, Team Red, or Team Orange? Does it particularly matter – the same effluent will flow out the pipe of Government, writes Frederick Edward in Bournbrook.
- “Shielding instead of lockdowns would have been ‘catastrophic’” – A new study shows “even in the most optimistic shielding scenario there would have been tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths from Covid”, according to Michael Fitzpatrick in the Telegraph. The study is entirely based on modelling untroubled by empirical data, however, so can be safely ignored.
- “Increased deaths in England for the age-range given the spring booster dose of Covid vaccine” – Once again the rollout of a dose of vaccine has been associated with an increase in excess deaths, writes Amanuensis on Bartram’s Folly.
- “Woman goes blind in one eye after appointments cancelled due to Covid” – Janet Harris, 80, had attended three appointments to monitor her eye pressure in 2019 before the pandemic cancelled follow ups – which she says led to the loss of sight in the eye, the Mail reports.
- “The Bangladesh Mask study: a Bayesian perspective” – Professor Norman Fenton says the Bangladeshi mask study, which claimed to find a statistically significant reduction in infections for surgical masks, should be corrected or retracted as its conclusions misrepresent the data and are statistically invalid.
- “Pilots Injured by Covid Vaccines Speak Out: ‘I Will Probably Never Fly Again’” – Pilots injured by COVID-19 vaccines said despite a “culture of fear and intimidation” they are compelled to speak out against vaccine mandates that rob pilots of their careers – and in some cases their lives, according to the Epoch Times.
- “If 2022” – An amusing and cynical re-write of Kipling’s classic in honour of the MPs who’ve failed us all during the pandemic. “If you can bear to hear the safety-speak you’ve spoken / Exposed as coercive, pointless rules, / Or watch the things commoners gave their lives to, broken, / And stoop and smash ’em up again with new-found tools.”
- “Participate in the SurfaceStations Project – Version 2” – Anthony Watts in Watts Up With That? on his new project to check-up on the suitability of the location of the U.S. surface temperature measurement stations.
- “Why is Extinction Rebellion protesting against gender-critical feminists?” – Eco-warriors seem determined to alienate as many people from their cause as possible, says Paul Stott in Spiked.
- “Decolonise your ears as Mozart’s works may be an instrument of Empire, students told” – Undergraduates on a University of Cambridge music course are taught to view classical works as an “imperial phenomenon”, according to the Telegraph.
- “If only hunchbacks can play Richard III, why stop there?” – In modern theatre, it seems no dramatic instruction can be taken too literally, writes Zoe Strimpel in the Telegraph.
- “Petition: Do not sign any WHO Pandemic Treaty unless it is approved via public referendum” – Tony Hinton promotes the U.K. petition trying to stop the global lockdown treaty.
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““Walid says that he did not have in depth knowledge about the conflict, but he felt that action was necessary. “Not everything is black and white, but what we saw was large scale aggression,” he said.” He does not have in depth knowledge of the conflict. He admits that. And yet he’s going to go there, armed, potentially kill people – it turns out he killed no-one – but, potentially to kill people, in a conflict that you have no in depth knowledge of. Does that sound like a smart thing to do? Or the right thing to do? No. But this is what western media turn people into, the people who are receptive to it, and the people who don’t question it. This is what ends up happening, they become a danger to themselves and others.” Traditionally, foreign “volunteers” and mercenaries are often especially hated by those they fight against, and for good reason. “It’s a war of machines” This seems like US sphere soldiers coming up against what they are used to dishing out to third world militaries and irregulars without getting it back, and not liking it. Canadian “Super Soldier” Wali Goes Home – Tells Tale of… Read more »
It’s hard to empathise with his disappointment, which does seem to be primarily with the lack of professionalism of the Ukrainians and the presence of professionalism in the Russians.
Seems to me such disillusionment is inevitable if you allow yourself to be deceived by the illusions put about by the US sphere media. He’s kind of a more pro-active equivalent of MTF here.
It’s not called the Empire of Lies for nothing.
As Corporal Jones of Dad’s Army might have said, “They don’t like it up ’em.”
Thanks for the link to ‘The New Atlas’ – it’s excellent and accurate ‘Western’ analysis for a change, and strong, militarily. His graphics are dreadful, however. If anyone wants to see a daily run through from a Ukrainian / Russian guy in Florida, with superb satellite mapping of the entire territory, try to find Canya Vo Floridye on You Tube, be patient – the maps are amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh_knp-dLtk
The difference in approach when you have contract soldiers rather than conscripts. Ishchenko is a former Ukrainian diplomat who moved to Russia after the 2014 coup and became a media commentator. Basically, if you have conscripts you can just throw them at the enemy WW2-style, and replace them easily by drafting a few more factory workers, as long as your people believe the war is justified (ideally, existential). If you lose that support, as with the US in Vietnam or the Soviets in Afghanistan, then losses can cause devastating political disruption. The solution for fighting wars of choice, is contract soldiers – a professional military as the US sphere countries went to decades ago. But as Ishchenko points out, with contract soldiers, although you don’t have to worry so much about the impact on opinion back home, you still have to be careful with them because they are not easily replaced on a short timescale. It’s an interesting and important observation, that I hadn’t particularly thought about in relation to Russia’s SMO in the Ukraine. (The context of the piece, by the way, seems to be responding to domestic political criticism of the Russian leadership for not fighting the war… Read more »
There are some Russian conscripts fighting in this conflict, although not many.
How many of them volunteered? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s at least half.
Another interesting piece of information would be where they have been sent. It might be mainly Luhansk and Donetsk.
It’s strange to have conscription and then keep conscripts out of the sharp end of the fighting when there’s a war on. An army is a war-fighting machine.
In 1960 the “Ruperts” in the British army were relieved that conscription was over, a few years after Suez and as the war in Malaya was coming to an end.
My understanding is that in Russian law it is prohibited to use conscripts abroad without a formal legal declaration of some kind, which they have not made and currently state they have no intention to make. I’m not sure of the Russian legal details, but Putin made reference to this in a talk session he had a few weeks back. I think this is one of the reasons they are calling it a “special military operation” and not a war.
While there have been claims of a few conscripts caught in the Ukraine in the early days, this seems to have been administrative errors.
That said, a large part of the ground fighting has been carried out by the Donbass militias, which I believe has conscription as well as volunteers, but they are probably very highly motivated as a result of their experiences at the hands of the Ukrainian regime over the past 8 years.
“It’s strange to have conscription and then keep conscripts out of the sharp end of the fighting when there’s a war on. An army is a war-fighting machine.”
Makes sense in particular circumstances, as Ishchenko points out.
From the PoW interviews, it seems the Ukranian “voulenteers” initially sign on for something akin to our Territorial Army for training etc. (pre-SMO) but were then encouraged to sign a 3yr contract. There were scenes in the “Roses Have Thorns” series showing mothers protesting at barrack gates trying to get their sons out when they were sent to
fightdie in the Donbas.Another (much shorter) German documentry from 2015 showed Ukranian units defecting to the LPR/DPR with all their kit and armour, which contradicts all the noise about “Russian Backed” early on.
Ukrainian Agony – The Concealed War (Documentary 2015) [english subs]
https://www.brighteon.com/9dccde21-2810-4fb9-b5e0-5772832d3b12
It’s clear that they are increasingly fighting against what is left of the Ukrainian forces, with a call-up now in place for reservists aged up to sixty.
The Russians are also fighting under the command of those who understand that warfare is not primarily about heroic gestures and the presentation of stories of dering-do (like “the ghost of Kiev”).
It’s about logistics and strategy; knowing when to take a step back and when to advance, when to hold a position and when to withdraw in good order.
Will the Collective West accept defeat or will they escalate?
There is madness in the West – and we see it principally in public figures at the heads of governments. Led by the US, I believe that they will escalate until they are forced to stop.
As the economic consequences continue to bite, the protests will increase. How effective they might be, we can’t know.
I am hoping (a little desperately) that there are cooler heads somewhere, who will point out that facts cannot be ignored indefinitely.
“There is madness in the West”
You see this when you provide an alternative point of view and are accused of being from “the 77th” !
“…provide an alternative point of view…”
That’s an interesting way of describing your incitement to brick former Ministers like Hancock.
Cool heads are forbidden in NATO countries.
Jacob Dreizin is not optimistic on this score: “Poland itching to move into the Ukraine (All humans are urged to finalize their wills, “get right with God”, etc. etc.) Considering the following factors….. Poland’s president recently promised that “there will be no more borders” between Poland and the Ukraine. Poland’s military mobilization and its joint training with U.S. forces/instructors continues to accelerate to a very high degree. The media “prep work” (a.k.a. brainwashing of the masses) and most recently also the polling has been done; it is clear that Poland’s public is now favorably disposed to intervention in the Ukraine. Due to repeated Russian cruise missile strikes on key infrastructure, the U.S. hegemonic bloc’s ability to deliver heavy weaponry to the Ukraine (by rail) is strained, and will totally collapse this month without the activation of NATO country air defenses over western Ukraine. …..It is clear that Poland strongly intends to move its most combat-capable forces (approximately one division) into northwest Ukraine. For Polish interests specifically, this would be an imperial move to restore Poland’s historical dominance over western Ukraine, pure opportunism, nothing about saving the Ukraine. (I won’t guess at a timeline, but it could be this month.) Uncle Sam was clearly hesitant… Read more »
Having watched today’s Victory Day parade (marking the 77th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany), I believe I have seen men – many, many young men – who are willing to die for Russia. I saw pride in themselves, and pride in their country. For those who haven’t already watched, this is the Tass edit of Putin’s speech: “Unlike the West, the Russian people will never give up their love for the country, faith and traditional values, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a Victory Day parade on Moscow’s Red Square on Monday. “We will never give up our love for the country, faith, traditional values, ancestral customs and respect for all peoples and cultures. As for the West, it seems to be determined to cancel these millennia-old values,” he noted. “This moral degradation paved the way for cynical falsifications of the history of World War II, attempts to incite Russophobia, glorify traitors, mock the memory of their victims and wipe out the bravery of those who fought and suffered for the Victory,” the head of state stressed. Putin pointed out that the United States, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, “started talking about its exceptionalism, which… Read more »
And if anyone is interested in the unedited version:
President Putin of Russia: speech on Red Square Victory Parade | The Vineyard of the Saker
Russia has massive escalation dominance. NATO only has nukes if it wants to make a difference and that difference will likely be the death of all of us.
It’s about logistics and strategy. Yes – the current strategy seems to be mainly based on lulling the Ukrainians into a false sense that they might win against the odds. Who would have thought of these clever moves:
Park a 40 mile convey of armour and support vehicles on the road to Kiev for three days, let the Ukrainians pick off a few of them so they waste ammunition and get a false sense of security, then drive what’s left back to the border.
Set fire to and sink your flagship. That way the Ukrainians might forget they haven’t got a navy.
Sacrifice 12 generals – thus increasing promotion prospects and motivating the rank a file.
Genius!
You really do swallow anything the mainstream chugs down your throat, don’t you!
So which of these are false?
There was a 40 mile convoy that went nowhere for three days, took some casualties, and then returned.
That the flagship caught fire and sank.
That twelve Russian generals have died in the war – sorry special military operation.
“There was a 40 mile convoy that went nowhere for three days, took some casualties, and then returned.” So what? The significant point about that, militarily, was that the Russians were so relaxed about their air supremacy that they were prepared to operate in that way – and their evidently relaxed attitude was entirely justified since the Ukrainians basically completely failed to do anything much about it despite the full satellite recon data they were getting in real time from their US patrons. “That the flagship caught fire and sank.” A 40 year old ship sank for some reason in a military operation. Bad news, but that’s what happens in a military operation. “That twelve Russian generals have died in the war – sorry special military operation.” So you believe because the established liars of the Ukrainian regime and their US sponsors tell you so. But most likely in due course we’ll find out the truth is less, as it has been in so many of the claims made by said liars, from the Ghost of Kiev to the Snake Island nonsense. The point is that you look at a colossal military operation on a scale you can probably barely… Read more »
And you believe what Putin tells you, Putin whose entire regime is based on lies.
I treat Putin like any other official source of information – with scepticism. If what he says make sense and is plausible, then I’ll accept it, provisionally. But all such acceptance is rebuttable.
The people who have been pushing us to confrontation and war in the US sphere, in contrast, have lied so many times and so consistently, from “WMD”, to faked “humanitarian” justifications for war and transparently absurd accusations of supposed “war crimes” and “poisonings” supposedly perpetrated by their intended targets, to manufacture hatred and consent for confrontation and war, that the default presumption when they produce something that pushes in those directions must be to question it.
I treat Putin like any other official source of information – with scepticism. If what he says make sense and is plausible, then I’ll accept it, provisionally. But all such acceptance is rebuttable.
I tend to start from the premise that official sources are dodgy: inclined to push us in particular directions.
I then find that I am naturally inclined to resist those directions, if only because they are so obvious and yet disturbingly effective (witness the earnest hatred of Putin we see even here).
The moment I knew I was required to believe that Putin was the devil incarnate, I was suspicious.
I neither believe nor disbelieve anything he says; but I have come to the conclusion that he is highly intelligent and unusually self-contained.
In summary, I made three points that suggest the Russian military is not so brilliant. You accuse me of swallowing propaganda – then it turns out you accept two of them are true and that the third might be. However, these are just specific incidents and, as you say, it is a big war (I think I am as capable of imagining the scale as you are) and bad things happen in wars. So look at the broad picture, the Russian military is a great deal larger, and meant to be far better equipped, than the Ukrainian army (although there seem to be some doubts about how much of the new stuff works as specified). Two and a half months after the war started Russia controls less territory than it did after the first week and the war drags on with neither side making much progress. Kherson fell quickly. The only other major city to fall is effectively Mariupol but this was only achieved by pretty much destroying it. Having said that, I guess this will end up with Russia grabbing some part of Ukraine (the West must give him an off-ramp). It is just a question of how much.… Read more »
“In summary, I made three points that suggest the Russian military is not so brilliant. You accuse me of swallowing propaganda – then it turns out you accept two of them are true and that the third might be.” This is why I regard you as dishonest. Your original post implied that the Russian military is characterised by incompetence because of a few incidents that have been blown out of all proportion and/or misrepresented by the Ukrainian/US sphere media, with propagandist intent (“the current strategy seems to be mainly based on lulling the Ukrainians into a false sense that they might win against the odds. Who would have thought of these clever moves“). That, of course, is precisely the patently dishonest propaganda line pushed so systematically and dishonestly by the US sphere media from the start. Now you try to backtrack and pretend you were merely “suggesting the Russian military is not so brilliant”, when nobody here had suggested “brilliance”, but rather basic professional competence, which is obviously born out by the situation in the Ukraine, in which huge advances have been made by the Russians in a colossal military operation, against a NATO-trained and equipped and numerically far superior… Read more »
I will ignore the personal side of your e-mail and jump straight to the big point.
Russia is fighting a desperate war for survival against a US sphere that is an established military aggressor and motivated by a fanatical universalist ideology (woke globaiism) that allows for no exceptions.
This is sheer fantasy – although it is a fantasy encouraged by Putin. Russia has a massive military and more nuclear warheads than any other country. At no time since the second world war has any Western power attempted to take an inch of Russian territory or threatened to do so (the only country I can remember getting into a shooting war over the Russian border is China back in Maoist times). It has unbelievable natural resources. No way is it in a desperate war for survival. It could hardly be more secure.
“This is sheer fantasy“ That’s what you believe because you (evidently) have not been paying attention to global events beyond sucking up what is provided to you by the same elites and mainstream media that has been so dishonest about so many other similar issues. Others have been watching global events in Yugoslavia, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Belarus and so many other places that have felt the impact of the kind of aggression, military, economic and social, that I wrote about, and that the Russians have watched happen over the past three decades. You do not have the basic knowledge even to begin to discuss these matters, you merely think you do because you have read about it in the newspapers and watched some of it on TV. And you believe the mainstream drivel you are systematically fed, even when it is patently ridiculous and requires you to implicitly believe that the enemies of the elites who rule you act in obviously self-harming ways for no plausible reason beyond sheer stupidity and evilness. That’s not how the world works. “No way is it in a desperate war for survival. It could hardly be more secure.“ Again, is this wilful misunderstanding… Read more »
Clearly and obviously my reference to “war for survival” was metaphorical.
It wasn’t clear to me . So exactly what is the threat and how does invading Ukraine help avert it?
“It wasn’t clear to me“
Should have been, since Russia obviously hasn’t been under direct military attack.
“So exactly what is the threat and how does invading Ukraine help avert it?“
Already pointed out to you. Seems a waste of time repeating or expanding on stuff you have no intention of doing anything but ignoring.
At root, all you have to do is throw off your Official Truth manipulated perceptions of US sphere wars and subversive interference as supposedly well intentioned, and begin to look at them with clear eyes and see how they appear from another perspective.
Already pointed out to you. Seems a waste of time repeating or expanding on stuff you have no intention of doing anything but ignoring. I am sorry if I missed something. Looking back through the dialogue, I found these three passages which give some kind of guidance as to what you think is the threat to Russia. That would have put a fully armed, de facto NATO Ukraine run by Russia-haters, looming over Crimea and pushing into the heart of Russia, with the established military aggressors and regime changers of the US free to get up to all the tricks we’ve watched them use around the world over the past three decades. This says nothing about what the tricks are and specifically how they might apply to Russia. Others have been watching global events in Yugoslavia, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Belarus and so many other places that have felt the impact of the kind of aggression, military, economic and social, that I wrote about, and that the Russians have watched happen over the past three decades. These situations are all very different and the US and Russian roles have been different. So again it is hard to know what is… Read more »
Still desperately trying to elicit specifics that you can try to score points on, I see.
I prefer not to play those games with people like you, mostly. Here is the situation:
The US is the globally dominant military and economic power, with an established track record of military aggression and subversion.
It, and the countries within its sphere of control and influence, are in the grip of an aggressively universalist ideology that views all dissent as evil and brooks no limits to its extension, and are run by elites with an established track record of telling lies to promote hatred of Russia.
Those facts are more than sufficient to establish that Russia faces a clear and existential threat. The details depend on what tactics the aforementioned aggressors choose to use in the future, and what opportunities arise for them.
Yes – I am trying to elicit specifics because I cannot see any plausible threat to Russia that is eliminated or even reduced by invading Ukraine. It appears you are unable to describe such a threat either.
I have described the threat perfectly adequately. You just refuse to admit it..
The most detailed description I can find is the third one above:
Many, perhaps most of the states attacked by the US sphere have not been subjected to open military attack, initially at least, but subverted into a “colour revolution” or similar regime change.
This is an adequate description of the threat to Russia? If others find it obvious how invading Ukraine reduces this threat let them explain – I am totally flummoxed.
Nonsense. The US has a military budget of $738 billion and the Russians $61.7 billion.
Active personnel: USA 1,385,727 Russia: 1,154,000
Reserve personnel: USA 849,450 Russia: 2,000,000
Available for military: USA 73,270,043 Russia: 34,765,736
Amongst others the nuclear non-proliferation agreement restricts both Russia and the USA to around 6,500 warheads with about 1,600 deployed each.
Pretty intimidating being surrounded by NATO bases across your western front (see map). You might want to find a map of Russian bases near the USA.
I sometimes wonder if English is your first language – your responses seem to have such tenuous links to what I write.
Russia does have a massive military budget (4th largest in the world). This remains true even though the US budget is ten times larger.
It is true that at no time since the second world war has any Western power attempted to take an inch of Russian territory or threatened to do so, even though there are lot of NATO bases in Europe.
The big point is that it would be crazy to imagine that any country, even the USA, would attack a nation with over a thousand deployed nuclear warheads. Surely you must accept that? Whatever threat NATO poses to Russia it is not a straightforward military attack.
Superbly done.
A 40 mile enemy convoy going nowhere would have been totally destroyed by any nation with a functioning army and airforce. It was a sitting duck.
That it wasn’t really ought to ring a few bells.
I think the Ukrainian armed forces had quite a lot to think about at the time. Destroying a column that was going nowhere may not have been their top priority.
You really do swallow Kremlin propaganda in your gaslighting.
Of course, it’s easy to accuse, just as those doubting the covid nonsense were accused of falling for “antivax” or “far right” propaganda, and those doubting the BLM nonsense were accused of falling for “white supremacist” propaganda.
But the fact is that our mainstream media is overwhelmingly the main purveyor of propaganda today on all these issues, and the hard part is finding ways to see past the Official Truth on any of these issues – covid, BLM, climate, Ukraine.
OK, St Greta, you’ve won
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/ok-st-greta-youve-won/
I KNOW one person who will be just loving this Cost of Living Crisis, and that person is Greta Thunberg. You remember St Greta, dear reader? Of course you do, how could you forget her? She is the climate change activist that British politicians were falling over themselves to get to back in 2019, when she was 16. She came to Britain to trash our energy policy, and I tell you the MPs just could not get enough of her.
Laura Perrins
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Haven’t heard Christo at Talkradio for a while. Did they put him on the break re Ukraine?
I believe they’ve moved him to the early slot at the weekend, when nobody is listening?
Today he did the early Max slot, followed by JHB. He’ll be back on at the weekend, I think they said. Plenty of technical gremlins on there this morning, though.
It’s become almost unlistenable for me since they went to simultaneous TV broadcast. One horse, two riders; not working particularly well at the moment. Early days though, I guess?
The full doc is out on Bitchute if anyone is interested in how bent the US elections were.
2000 Mules by Dinesh D’Souza (Documentary) (bitchute.com)
TLDR: pretty bent, lots of evidence.
With all the political BS swirling around lately, I’m left with wondering if we’ll ever get a leader capable of actually leading, a real government “for the people”, Business too, I get that, but not at the expense of “The People”.
It truely is an empire of lies, regardless of the political colours.
Frederick Edward (in the Bournbrook piece) doesn’t go far enough, the whole political class, and their media minions, remain as convincing as the Zimbabwean space programme.
The Telegraph piece by one Dr. Fitzpatrick is complete, drivelling nonsense, and written by someone either too stupid to see what is in front of his eyes, or deviously wishing to justify previous views on lockdowns etc. Perhaps both.
It is heartening to read the comments below it, which seem to be about 99% in accord with my view above. I expect the one or two dissenters are the usual “plants”.
The DT is now just a compliant rag, publishing government propaganda and stuff from people who are in support of it. They don’t produce anything worth reading, and certainly not on government, Covid and related topics, nor do they have fun articles like The Sunday Sport (bombers on the moon etc.).
I used to get the Daily Telegraph for the crossword, but no longer because every morning it comes wrapped in garbage.
And they have taken the Gates Foundation shilling.
No, the rubbish from Fitzpatrick can’t be ignored, it shouldn’t be ignored, it should be destroyed, refuted, shown to be the work of fantasy masquerading poorly as science then it should be flushed down the cludgie.
I quite agree, but how can this be done by “the layman”. I suppose I could write to the DT, but even if my vitriolic pen could be kept in check, I doubt they’d publish or take note. I’m afraid that, like pretty much everything else in this benighted country, journalistic and editorial standards have, as you nicely put it, been “flushed down the cludgie”.
A layman can point out that lockdown is mediaeval superstition and correctly abandoned centuries ago as policy.
A layman can point out that doctatorship, which lockdown is, is not scientific, it is totalitarian, the moral and practical equivalent of eugenics and Lysenkoism.
A layman can point out that modelling is fiction, not fact, it is purposefully absurd fantasy, beginning with false assumptions that are then extrapolated into apocalyptic fantasies that cannot possibly happen in reality.
It feels to me as if we’re paying people to spend our taxes on just about anything as long as it makes no sense and delivers pain. Have we all become masochists? Is it cyclical?
I do wish they’d stop harping on about working from home. If any organisation is measuring productivity simply by presence in the office then they have far more serious problems than people working from home.
I work in a sector where productivity is measured very exactly. They have seen that productivity is significantly lesser in people that work from home. I’m not saying that applies to everyone in every role, but the uncomfortable truth is that a good proportion of people take the piss at home, in a way that would not be tolerated with witnesses about.
Interesting. That has not been my experience, overall. I would think that people taking the piss should be relatively easy to spot and deal with if the right productivity measures are in place, and if they are not able to be dealt with then they should be replaced with people who don’t take the piss, or forced to go to the office. I guess I am just lazy, but I don’t see why I should travel for three hours a day so I can babysit the odd slacker who is getting paid a professional salary.
A 3 hour per day commute? Ouch. Assuming you were office-based when you took the job, why on earth would you have ever tolerated such an evil commute?
That is probably the lot of most of the people who work in London, TBP… I recall that when I was doing it from Haslemere to Waterloo, then the ‘drain’ to Bank, with the drive too and from the station and a fifteen minute walk to the office, probably took a bit more than 2 hours each way.
Yup, 90 mins each way for me. Among my colleagues, some of whom live in London and many outside, that’s probably average. I guess for same reasons as most people – certain jobs are concentrated in London (more variety, more availability, better pay and conditions, more interesting work, more career opportunities) and living next to your office is super expensive and also may not be what you want if you like green space and lower crime rates. TBH I never hated the commute, just read books, but I wouldn’t go back to it by choice. But I’m old. Maybe if I were younger I would feel differently, though plenty of my young colleagues are happy to be at home too. We’re able to choose between 0 and 5 days per week in the office, completely free format.
That’s less to do with the quality of the workforce and more to do with the quality of the management
Has ANYONE not been to Ukraine for their press opportunity? ANYONE?Meghan Thee (three) Stallions?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8KcTziCZLg
Katie Hopkins OFFICIAL
Surely it’s time to send Megastar Keir Starmer to Ukraine. He must be at least as brave as Bono and Bojo combined
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Yellow Boards
Junction Long Hill Road,
New Forest Ride & A329 London Rd
(near Mercedes Benz)
Bracknell RG12 9FR
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens
Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Here is some news. I have now tried to buy art prints from two different suppliers in Germany, and they have both told me with regret that they don’t ship to “the UK” any more, except to customers in Northern Ireland. Here is a copy of the email from the second one: Dear [***]Thank you very much for your enquiry![***]Due to the numerous problems that occurred after Brexit in the movement of goods between UK and EU we have decided with a heavy heart to stop temporarily delivering to the UK (except for Northern Ireland).We much regret this development especially since we had a lot of customers in the UK but the movement of goods between the UK and the EU has become a real nuisance. We kindly ask for your understanding.Kind Regards They have removed Britain from the list of countries they can deal with. North Korea, however, remains on the list. In this case, it seems easier to send something from Germany to NORTH KOREA than to Britain. This is not an action by the German government. This is not any kind of nasty action by the company involved either. They are not anti-British. They would like to sell items to… Read more »
Well they can f*** off, then.
Sovereignty and national existence, such as remain of them, come far, far ahead of transient convenience.
Good Lord – I never in my life imagined that there would be a positive benefit to living in Northern Ireland!
Ordinarily it is the opposite – the small print often says “we ship everywhere except to Northern Ireland”.
Fitzpatrick in the Telegraph has been a huge disappointment during the pandemic. He uncritically repeats whatever is the bien-pensants’ opinion of the day. He shows no sign of independent thought at all.
He’s also got an absurd chip on his shoulder. He wrote “My Irish mother used to complain, when people referred to me as Mike or Mick, that this was a manifestation of English anti-Irish prejudice”. Yup, no English person is ever addressed as Mike. Completely unheard of. What a twerp.
President Putin – what a “loony”, with all his pomp and magnificence:
No, wait a moment…
Let’s give Putin his due. He doesn’t claim to be head of a church, and he doesn’t get offered gold, frankincense, and myrrh at a ceremony held each year at Epiphany in a Chapel Royal.