The brevity of this post is out of proportion to the enormous importance of the subject. But I want to let you know I am thinking and working on it.
It is a recognised pattern for dictatorship to commence with emergency measures designed to combat a threat. Those emergency measures then become normalised and people exercising arbitrary power find it addictive. A new threat is then found to justify the continuation
It is by no means clear to me that it is a rational response to covid-19 to tear up all of the civil liberties which were won by the people against authority through centuries of struggle, and for which people died. To say that is not to minimise the threat of covid-19. It is also worth pointing out that a coronavirus pandemic was a widely foreseen eventuality. People keep sending me links to various TV shows or movies based on a coronavirus pandemic, generally claiming this proves it is a man-made event. No, that just proves it is a widely foreseen event. Which it is.
The lack of contingency preparedness is completely indefensible. It is partly a result of the stupidity of Tory austerity that has the NHS permanently operating at 100% capacity with no contingency, and partly the result of the crazed just-in time thinking that permeates management in all spheres and eliminates the holding of stock.
It is incredible to me that the UK is willing to throw away some £220 billion and rising on Trident against a war scenario nobody can sensibly define, but was not willing to spend a few million on holding stock of protective clothing for the NHS against the much more likely contingency of a pandemic. What does that say about our society?
Anyway, we are where we are. Nobody knows how deadly this virus is. There have not been, anywhere, sufficient reliable large general population samples to know what percentage of people who get the virus will die. We just do not know how many people in the UK have had it and not got seriously ill. My suspicion is that in a couple of years time it will be discovered the mortality rate was under 1%. But I do not know, and I do not blame the government for making worst assumptions in the absence of reliable scientific evidence. Personally, I am obeying lockdown and would advise others to do so too until the situation is clearer. But I do not want to see the police harassing people for going on a long walk or posting a letter. It really is a problem to have police empowered to stop and question a citizen for just walking in the street. It is also a problem that Peter Hitchens is being reviled for saying, in essence, little more than that. When you can’t criticise restrictions on liberty, you know society has entered a very dark phase indeed.
I would feel much more comfortable if they were open about what they do not know. All the excuses for not testing people rather than admit they did not have the tests rather rattles trust. The ability of the rich and well-connected to access tests also rattles trust.
But none of this justifies rule by fiat – if Parliament cannot sit, I personally believe it would benefit the nations of the UK to have no new laws for a while. There are too many laws already. It does not justify banning political gathering. I don’t recommend anyone to gather, and I don’t imagine they would gather, but the evil of banning political activity is much more serious than the danger of four lonely people in Solihull getting together to talk about coronavirus restrictions.
It certainly does not justify banning jury trials, which the Scottish government has just dropped from today’s Bill after a revolt led by Joanna Cherry. The bill still weakens the defence in trials by allowing pre-taped video evidence and dispensing with the right to cross-examine. If the accusers had been allowed to get away with their lies in the Alex Salmond trial without cross-examination, the result might have been very different. For God’s sake, if you cannot do justice, suspend it. Do not dispense rough justice.
This article is entirely free to reproduce and publish, including in translation, and I very much hope people will do so actively. Truth shall set us free.
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The unstoppable force meets the immovable object…
Yes, I agree that the risk to civil liberties is severe, but the risk from CoVID-19 is also severe. People must minimise contact to slow the spread of the infection, but there will always be a minority who will not do so without enforcement.
The solution is to recognise that we the people hold the power, if enough of us are prepared to stand up together and take it.
We must be ready to use direct action and civil disobedience to take back our civil liberties, after the initial infection waves have past. In the meantime, organise and prepare.
Clark
The problem here is that this government has been trying to prioritize political and economic solutions to a public health problem. SociaL distancing is not enough. It borders on criminal to just ask people with mild symptoms to self isolate with their loved ones. Its a sort of incubator for the disease. What should happen is that all mild cases are tested and quarantined in a safe place without any contacys, to prevent further cases. But this means planning and logistics. Boris’ concentration on ventilators is the wrong thing, his priority should be prevention. Half the people who get ventilated die and it is only a holding measure.
Testing and quarantine and contact tracing, that is what you do to stop the epidemic. But I think the government has not abandoned their herd immunity stance, just stopped talking about it.
Clark – ” …but the risk from CoVID-19 is also severe”
Off Guardian has got quite a few alternative views on the response to Covid19. One of which is from this professor of epidemiology and public health who argues that more data is needed to enable fact based approaches to covid19.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/29/watch-perspectives-on-the-pandemic/
I had not caught up with the news that Joanna Cherry had spiked Sturgeon’s plan to stop Jury trials. Well done her – it just shows that Sturgeon and her supporters are a real threat to Scottish values and the SNP needs to get itself a new leadership team. It should never have been suggested in the first place and the close proximity of the suggestion to the acquittal of Alex Salmond just stinks. I don’t subscribe to the conspiracy theories that are put forward by some commenters on this blog but this move by Sturgeon was just breathtaking. Apart from being just plain wrong it will send warning signals to all those not convinced by the arguments for Scottish independence and worried about the way in which the SNP behaves.
Please .qualify with, in my opinion.
Perhaps this might bring some information to your notice. One piece on information that may serve to give credence to their arguments is that they predicted the financial crash almost to the day and subsequently made a lot of money from it. Whether you like that or not it makes me think they know a lot more than most people about what is going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVBDUpgtY1k&t=2738s
They did not predict, they helped to organise it,
“One piece on information that may serve to give credence to their arguments is that they predicted the financial crash almost to the day and subsequently made a lot of money from it”.
Funny, that – just as after 9/11.
“Take Back Control”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/19/take-back-control-slogan-left-power-right-state-intervention
Now we know what it means.
The statistics for “Outcome of Cases (Recovery or Death)” in the UK and Germany are polar opposites. In the UK, the death rate is currently 92.98% and getting worse. In Germany it is 4.59% and has been relatively stable for over a week
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Part of the explanation is that Germany does far more testing but is that the whole story? What can be said with complete certainty is that the UK statistics are grossly understating the number of cases and the number of deaths. As such they are completely unreliable and utterly misleading.
Could perhaps the Germans be recording the causes of death correctly – unlike the Italians, the Spanish and now the UK?
No they do not. If you die without bring tested or anautopsy dereminig what it was that killed you, you will not be part of the Covid stats.
J Galt – yep, I think you are right. The Italian Health Institute has since published correct stats and analysis and concluded that only 12% of recorded CV-19 deaths are actually due to CV-19. Therefore, 88% of those deaths attributed to CV-19 are due to comorbid conditions and the frail elderly.
One way to get some idea of the overall infection rate within the UK population would be to multiply the officially Reported UK Infection number, and then multiply this by the following factor: the UK Death Rate divided by the German Death rate.
The above is justified by the fact the Germans are testing a far larger and therefore more representative cross section of their population. A few days ago the ratio of UK to German death rates was a factor of 7.
This multiplication factor may reduce once the German Health Resources hit their full ultilisation capacity and their patients start to get turned away.
The higher the perceived Infection Rate, the more precautions people will take. Underestimating the Rate will lull people into a false sense of security and lead to a greater number of infections and deaths.
Colin, I can’t see any data on the % of UK deaths on your source. Would you be able to tell me where it is or tell me how you may have calculated it. 02.98% is incredibly high, much higher than the overall world death rate of around 5%
, Which in itself is an overestimate as it is calculated from the number of deaths and the number of reported cases. There are far more cases that are unreported because they are mild, very mild, or asymptomatic.
https://www.ft.com/content/f3796baf-e4f0-4862-8887-d09c7f706553
The Germans test widely and not only selectively hospital cases at the sicker end of the spectrum I believe. If we tested and found many mild cases, our mortality would drop.
Colin, I strongly suspect the UK are grossly over-estimating the number of cases and the number of deaths. You are right though either way they are completely unreliable and misleading – being used to enforce unofficial martial law.
According to the UK figures on Worldometers, the number of recoveries has been stuck at 135 for a week, while the number of recorded cases has exploded.
Another odd thing: the number of “serious, critical” cases each day is far less than the following day’s “deaths”. So either a whole lot of people are dying of the virus every day who were not diagnosed as serious or critical the day before – or the statistics are worthless.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
“I do not blame the government for making worst assumptions in the absence of reliable scientific evidence.” I would blame them though for basing their response on a patently false claim made by Professor Neil Ferguson that coronavirus is “a virus with comparable lethality to H1N1 influenza in 1918” especially when their own Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens had stated prior to the lockdown that “As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) in the UK.”
HCIDs have a much higher mortality rate than even the worst estimates for Covid-19. Ebola has a mortality of over 80% and Sars and others around 15-20%. Overall mortality from Covid-19 is less than 5% overall. The HCID classification would mean that we can only treat patients in a very limited number of facilities using Hazmat type space suits, which would really not be feasible.
Well, it was classified as HCID from January- something must have changed. Were patients only treated in HCID hospitals before 19th March? I don’t think so- the original risk status was low. The full rational is given here:
Status of COVID-19
As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK.
The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as an HCID. This was based on consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus and the disease with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.
The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID.
The need to have a national, coordinated response remains, but this is being met by the government’s COVID-19 response.
Cases of COVID-19 are no longer managed by HCID treatment centres only. All healthcare workers managing possible and confirmed cases should follow the updated national infection and prevention (IPC) guidance for COVID-19, which supersedes all previous IPC guidance for COVID-19. This guidance includes instructions about different personal protective equipment (PPE) ensembles that are appropriate for different clinical scenarios.
“The HCID classification would mean that we can only treat patients in a very limited number of facilities using Hazmat type space suits, which would really not be feasible”.
And there you have it. By Sir Humphrey’s logic, if it would not be feasible it cannot be allowed to happen. Therefore Covid-19 cannot be an HCID.
Been keeping a track of Covid-19 attributed fatalities in Scotland as a factor of total UK fatalities. (UK total) x 0.08 / (Scottish total). The Scottish figure bumps along at around half the UK figure. If a London only figure were available presumably the Scottish figure would be a third or quarter of that index.
Curiously the Welsh figure is out to the UK figure by 1.3 rather than 2. Lots of SE based Anglos running to their Welsh holiday homes?
1) “Criticism” of the government is being channelled into ideas that the government WANTS people to have, such as:
a) the authorities should have done exactly what they’re doing but faster
b) the authorities should do what they plan to do but sooner, namely test and vaccinate
c) there’s a big problem from anti-social elements.
The thinking person needs to call all three of these ideas bullsh*t.
2) Ever more draconian “next steps” may include:
a) compulsory tests
b) compulsory vaccination
c) food shortages
d) power cuts
e) no availability of cash from bank machines and bank branches
f) a strain that kills many younger people including children
g) proper rationing – i.e. each person allowed e.g. 1 loaf per week and no company is allowed to sell a loaf without stamping a ration card (to be done digitally of course)
h) a vicious clampdown against those who have not been tested or vaccinated, to include imprisonment and the denial of ration cards, i.e. denial of food – resisters will basically be called antisocial killers fit only to be starved and hunted. (Tory heaven!)
Remember that list.
3) These are some facts that say a lot:
a) government and media are deliberately confusing dying WITH CV19 with dying OF it
b) the vast majority of those who have died with CV19 would have died soon anyway
c) the idea that the authorities and big business don’t know roughly how many people have got CV19, and roughly how many have had it (and therefore have the antibodies), is an obvious lie. You do NOT have to test millions of people to get that information.
4) My advice is as follows:
a) hoard food (I have been advising this for some time)
b) prepare to resist testing and vaccination
c) spread knowledge of the above points
5) Listen up
Many like to think that “black swan events” (to use Nassim Taleb’s terminology) are what they always thought might happen. This is usually utter rubbish, and leftwingers such as myself who were predicting a breakdown were an extremely small minority.
@Craig – I believe you once called me “delusional” here for predicting a widespread breakdown. (I couldn’t find the source.) One is now underway.
6) Biological warfare, the United States, and the cull
a) China, Taiwan and both Korean regimes have long been far stronger in BW defence than the US. To be strong in BW defence you need effective internal centralisation which the US has not got. China has a major strategic advantage over the US.
b) Donald Trump is deliberately trying to overstate the number of deaths so as to appear the hero when it turns out to be lower. But soon all of that discourse will be swept away. Donald who? He is unlikely to be re-elected and probably will not even be the Republican candidate.
c) A cull was coming anyway. Almost all of the world’s serious elites want it.
d) Nutshell: BW is far more similar to psychological warfare than CW and NW are, even if it can be at least as deadly as CW and NW and indeed more so.
7) Climate loons
…are keeping remarkably quiet. Ask why. This situation will at some point change when those among the cultists who aren’t dead poke their heads out again.
– “A cull was coming anyway. Almost all of the world’s serious elites want it”
Your Gravatar should read “Conspiracy Theorist” rather than “Marxist”. You have learned nothing from Marx, who taught that the wealth of the ‘elite’ is parasitical upon the labour of the majority. The parasite will not intentionally kill its host.
@ Clark April 1, 2020 at 14:34
You know the answer to that – automation has made and increases to make more and more people surplus to the work force. Oldies are classed as ‘Useless Eaters’ (except among the PTB’s own ranks).
c) food shortages
d) power cuts
e) no availability of cash from bank machines and bank branches
Are the three things which I expect and which I’ve been trying to prepare for. Money not so much of a problem since there’ll be nowhere to spend it with food shortages but I’m as prepared for these three things as much as I can be.
f) censorship
N. In relation to your point E, about unavailability of cash. Just been to put petrol in the car…Card Payments Only. Cashless society to protect us from dirty money, here we come. Not quite near rationing yet as such, but visited Aldi yesterday, only 40 persons allowed in store at any one time, one out, one in. The queue stretched around the car park, with everyone silently standing 10 feet apart.
@ Pyewacket April 1, 2020 at 16:12
Same situation with my local supermarket, Waitrose, just outside the City – only difference the queue was six feet instead of ten apart.
“government and media are deliberately confusing dying WITH CV19 with dying OF it”
CRAP of the worst kind due to total ignorance.
No SA, it is a correct statement.
“Many like to think that “black swan events” (to use Nassim Taleb’s terminology) are what they always thought might happen”.
Au contraire, that would be a “white swan”.
A black swan, by definition, is something thought to be impossible – until it happens.
As manuals of logic admit, if something happens it must be possible.
The one thing that troubles me the most about all of this is the ease at which the government followed advice from the serial doom mongers and cock up artists otherwise known as Imperial College London. There isn’t anything they have predicted in the last 25 years that turned out true, everything from SARS to vCJD has been grossly overstated by them, the government should have known better. In fact the whole academic landscape from climate to health has been populated with non job soothsayers, with those making the most apocalyptic claims getting the most funding.
In the last few days most of the UK’s media failed to report ICL’s prophet in chief, Neil Ferguson, massively backtracking on the claims of doom made that got the government to remove everyone’s liberty at a stroke. His claimed projected deaths have just been downpedalled from 500,000 to 20,000, then to 6000. So, if the government listened to his claims to enable a lockdown, why aren’t they listening now and ending this disgraceful legislation with immediate effect?
The biggest medical error in history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yvhmf38vOg
Stop peddling rubbish Spencer. I take it you are qualified to make such sweeping statements. If you study what Ferguson says you will know that what you have just stated is nonsense. But of course you wouldn’t know would you. The hospitals are just full of people who heard of the virus and just happened to pass by a hospital and suddenly found themselves strapped to a ventilator. They died and then someone just said that they had Covid-19 but they actually only had the flu!
Spencer is right- Ferguson clearly backtracked. You have to remember that the mad professor in his report which was the basis off the government response compared coronavirius to the 1918 flu. He also claimed the shutdown would have to continue for 18 months until a vaccine was discovered although he wasn’t sure a vaccine would work(it wouldn’t). It didn’t take much to back down from this loony positions and he has duly done so. Try to inform yourself before launching yourself in attack mode
Ferguson did not backtrack. He was being interviewed live I believe and the point he was making was that there were early signs that social distancing was working and that this may mean fewer deaths. He did qualify this by saying it was too early to tell. I don’t usually quote the Telegraph but they have a good summary of the projections.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/terrifying-data-behind-government-coronavirus-lockdown/
But all these are projections, including adherence to social distancing for 18 months. We do have real life experiences in China and South Korea. In China the disease was suppressed and now there are very few cases. But one of the measures that has been effective in China but does not seem to be applied here is proper quarantine of even mildly infected cases whereas here we call it home quarantining but it is not a proper quarantine, because it allows members of the family to get infected.
One of the big problems is that the longer you take wishy washy measures the longer you will prolong the agony. Again to look at China, the whole gamut of measures, including a proper curfew, not letting people shop, but organising deliveries, and non of this ambiguous exercising in the countryside, a proper total curfew or lockdown. Our half hearted measures will take longer to impact and need to be kept longer. Having said all that we need to wait to see whether there is a resurgence of the disease in China after the lockdown is lifted.
SA Spencer is right. I think you will find the hospitals are pretty much empty given all elective surgery has been cancelled. And yes, CV-19 is a flu virus only the deaths from it are far lower than the 28,000 people who died in the UK in 2013/2014 flu epidemic – none of this draconian shit was implemented then was it? Have we run out of ventilators, No. Are ICU beds overwhelmed with CV-19 patients – No. They are taken up by people who have had massive strokes, massive brain trauma through car accidents or other accidents, are in persistent vegetative states and other conditions require ICU. Can you not see the hype, the hysteria and the fake news being put out by the MSM for what it is? You need to ask yourself why all this hype and hysteria and propaganda is being spewed out daily for what amounts to a flu virus that kills a small percentage of the frail elderly who already have very short life expectancies due to comorbid serious long term conditions. Take a look at official government stats from the past 5 years. You will find the mortality rate now is no higher than the average national mortality rate. You will also find that at this same point, 5 years ago, there were only 166 less deaths than there are this month. Killer virus that is no longer an HCID? Do please start thinking and researching.
Rep to Spencer Eagle.
Interesting that the prof’s figure dropped to 20,000. In the 2018/19 winter there were 23,000 excess deaths, which was itself a lower figure than the winter of 2017/18 when the winter excess death figure was 49,400. Respiratory diseases are the main cause of excess winter deaths. I would expect somewhere like London to have a higher rate of EWD because of the poor air quality.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2018to2019provisionaland2017to2018final
Off-Guardian.org were a lone voice of reason on the coronavirus from day one and continue to do some of the best fact-based reporting. This highlights the fact 2020 has substantially lower mortality rates than the previous three years, which of course questions the entire basis of the ‘unparalleled emergency’ narrative. Why don’t the uncontrollable deaths reported emotively in the media show up in the stats, before or after lockdown?
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/30/covid19-yet-to-impact-europes-overall-mortality/
MLS. The European MOMO was an eye opener to me too. Particularly the maps showing comparison with previous recent years, and the excess deaths in 2017 across the whole of the UK.
Off guardian have become worthless. Their analyses are cherry picked. They think the know better than experts. Oh yes, its only the flu, and the fact that all these people are dying is just that they would have died anyway. To tell you how low off guardian has sunk, just read their comments. They are extremely childish. I would urge the mods to remove your post..
SA you don’t happen to be a Tory M P do you? Propaganda was made for people such as you. Quantify all the people that are dying, quantify the allegedly overworked hospitals, quantify your comments with stats not emotive mumbo jumbo.
Exactly Jo
I have pointed out to the doomsayers from the start about mortality due to seasonal viruses and lower numbers as far this year..to be greeted with emotional vitriol by an age group that seems to have just grasped that they are not immortal. And the imperial college boffins ignored the asian data in the lancet jan 24th. No one likes facing mortality but the reaction has been an arse covering exercise of late. And with deaths being recorded as covid caused with no post mortem or test performed they will have spun some cloth to cover the emperor bojos naked body
“I would urge the mods to remove your post..”
Which is why Off-Guardian started.
off-guardian.org is one of the sanest outlets we still have. Numerous stores and even ‘mom and pop’ cafes and takeaways refusing cash since a week round my way! People accepting voluntary lockdown(lockup, rather) and social distancing. Craig has seen some tyrrany first hand, but what we have here now in UK outstrips much of that, so far. Tell me I’m wrong, please!
This lockdown is a joke. You are allowed to go out shopping. You are allowed to go out walking in the countryside. A proper lockdown was practiced in Wuhan and the virus transmission was suppressed. The writers in OG are cherry picking and think they are clever. The comments verge on downright loony. Just go and look at what is happening in your local hospital, and listen to the news coming out of Italy and Spain and tell that that nothing out of the ordinary is happening.
SA I think you will find the lockdown in Wuhan was not as draconian as this one. The Italian Health Institute has published proper stats and figures and the death rate from CV-19 is nothing as previously reported. Spain are telling the same story I know because I am Spanish and all my relatives live there. What is happening that is out of the ordinary is the mass hysteria, the propaganda over drive, the MSM fake news and plenty of it too. They say truth is the first casualty of war. Well here you have a living breathing example of that.
“Just go and look at what is happening in your local hospital”
During a lockdown?
Exactly the point George. Neat way of suppressing truthful information isn’t it? Locked in = can’t get out to verify for youself. Fortunately I have to take my elderly neighbour to hospital appointments so I can get out and I can see.
@ SA April 1, 2020 at 19:05
I went to the London Hospital for a fairly invasive procedure just last week – the place was nearly empty (obviously the wards may well have had people in them). Barely any public walking in the corridors, no one whatsover (except a surprised-looking nurse receptionist) in the reception area I had to attend (normally it is at least half-full), after the nurse checked that I did have an appointment, I was rapidly approached by another nurse who stuck a thermometer in my ear, then I eventually got dealt with. I think over the whole two or three hours I was there, I only saw about five other people in that department for treatment. I quipped to a nurse in a corridor the place was like a ghost town – she said ‘Yes, it is’.
No speeding nurses pushing trolleys down corridors holding IV’s, no wailing sirens of ambulances, no clatter of the Air Ambulance.
But I’m not for a moment saying that can’t rapidly change, just reporting what I experienced.
Streets and Underground very sparsely populated.
Regarding the state of liberty in the nations of the UK even before coronavirus came a-calling, consider this account by John Pilger of a visit to Julian Assange in HMP Belmarsh: https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/29/john-pilger-visiting-britains-political-prisoner/
I’m not even referring primarily to the nature of the case being prosecuted against Assange, or to the fact that he is simply held on remand rather than being a convicted anything – those are just aggravating factors.
Rather it’s the whole panoply of abuses and arbitrary contempt that any visitor to Belmarsh must undergo. Ask yourself whether a state that felt obliged to treat its citizens according to civilized norms, or with any more respect than it happened to find pleasing to it at a given time or place, could routinely behave so with impunity.
If you don’t want to consider it now, then do so when travel resumes and you are being prodded and stripped at the airport.
The final whistle on this match blew a long time ago.
Toby Young – the Tory eugenics fan who is a friend of Boris Johnson – is openly calling for a cull:
“(S)pending £350 billion to prolong the lives of a few hundred thousand mostly elderly people is an irresponsible use of taxpayers’ money.”
The differences between his ideas and those of his father Michael Young have been exaggerated. Tthose who seek a deeper understanding should look at Michael Young’s maternal grandfather too.
Toby has the virus, by the way. What a shame, eh? Here’s what he says:
“But if the Government follows my advice, and it turns out that by the time I require urgent care the NHS cannot accommodate me, I won’t regret writing this.”
That is similar to what Nazi medical propagandists said when they started the mass slaughter of disabled people. They basically said “If I too was one of these poor people, I too would want to be killed.”
Can what remains of the left please call this what it is.
Young is one, Cummings is another. The latter has been banging on for at least 15 years about how an aging population will “sink” Britain and fantasizing about eugenic solutions.
https://mobile.twitter.com/profdanhicks/status/1244038289306390528
The hero of Brexit viewed this pandemic hungrily as his longed for opportunity for a mass cull of the elderly. I have yet to hear the views of elderly Tory Brexiteers on the herd immunity policy and whether they would have happily sacrificed themselves – as economically unproductive spongers, in Cummings’ view – in order to boost Britain’s economic competitiveness. Cummings is their man after all.
Dom unfortunately, they will happily be aided and abetted by the NHS who also publicly, categorically and unequivocally share this view of the elderly.
“…economically unproductive spongers, in Cummings’ view…”
It would be interesting to know if Mr Cummings has ever done anything “economically useful”.
No, wait, that sounds like a euphemism for “making money”.
It would be interesting to know if Mr Cummings has ever done anything useful.
There’s going to be a cull in the Number of seats held by the Tories at the next general election (if there is one).
“Toby Young – the Tory eugenics fan…”
Curious, when people like him would be the first to be eliminated by any eugenics program.
No there won’t be. Two months before the election, there’ll be tax cuts, along with some made-up story about whoever is Labour leader at that point.
An outrageous abuse of our rights and civil liberties.we see a return to the witch trials of old.the irony is Nicola sturgeon , the great emancipator , witch finder tactics. The tactic of the oppressor.if an accuser cannot be cross examined then we have conditions fit for a reichsprosecutor Roland Frieseler style.
A timely piece from Craig. The coronavirus is clearly some kind of trojan horse, being used to humiliate and divide the British public, enrich the supermarket cartel, promote the CIA’s retailer Amazon by crushing the opposition, set the stage for more bank bailouts, crash asset prices, and create antagonism and less cooperation among nations. There are clear parallels with Brexit.
The global nature of it all is very sinister but will perhaps also be its undoing: Once one people start boycotting the restrictions, rioting or storming palaces and parliaments, the rest will fall follow. In a few months, the banking and military elite, and their stooge leaders around the world, will wish they had never heard of the word ‘coronavirus’.
There is one single legal principle that would stop all this nonsense in its tracks, permanently. I urge any sane, rational governing body to enshrine it. It is this:
“No new law without dissolution of old law.”
As a mechanism for social control the virus is perfect,there is no other way this clampdown would have been slowed to happen. Dissolving the Devolution Act will,I am sure be on the cards.
Reducing the burden of proof in a criminal trial is the stage before abandoning the need for a trial.
Deemed guilty. That is what murderous dictatorships do.That is what he Nazis did. They just came and arrested p, incarnated and then terminated those deemed guilty of being the wrong race, creed, persuasion or whatever.
At least Alex Salmond had stitch up sham charges levied against him. Unfortunately, sham trials will now be easier to usecsuccesfullyvagainst political opponents of the establishment.
Many of the Jews in Germany walked into their deaths not believing that the Nazi regime could do what it ultimately did. People here are making the same mistake. Alex Salmonds trial, and the harrying of a free press is just the start.
Emergency powers – watch them grow.
One of the groups under huge threat in Britain at the moment is the homeless. Matt Downie, director of policy and external affairs at Crisis, sums it up well: “the normal sources of food have gone”. Councils have been told to house the homeless, but many are still sleeping on the streets, and some who are not British are being refused help. Travelodge threw many homeless people onto the street last Tuesday. I wonder how many have died.
“It certainly does not justify banning jury trials, which the Scottish government has just dropped from today’s Bill after a revolt led by Joanna Cherry.”
There was opposition from other political parties in Scotland, from the Scottish criminal bar and the Law Society of Scotland, and from British cabinet ministers.
Did any other SNP MSPs oppose the Sturgeon gang’s effort on this score other than Joanna Cherry?
It is good to learn that Coronavirus does not justify the banning of political gatherings. Consider some facts:
On March 2nd the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention advised European Governments to cancel all mass gatherings of people so as to limit the transmission of the virus.
On March 3rd the Spanish government ordered that all soccer and basketball matches in Spain be played behind closed doors without spectators so as to limit the transmission of Coronavirus
On March 8th hundreds of thousands of people took part in up to 75 marches in towns and cities across Spain to protest the patriarchal structure of Spanish society. These marches were attended by various political figures including the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Ministers wife and the Prime Ministers Mother together with the wife of the leader of Podemos. All of whom have subsequently tested positive for Coronavirus.
To date in excess of 9,000 have died in Spain as a consequence of Coronavirus and the current daily death toll is averaging over than 800.
Some of the attendees of these marches were holding placards than declared that the Patriarchy kills more people than Coronavirus. For this to have been true on March 8th then the bearers of these placards must know how many people are killed by the patriarchy and therefore must be able to advise the people as to how many people need to be killed by Coronavirus so as to balance the scales.
Interestingly, or perhaps not, Coronavirus is currently killing far more men than women.
My guess is that people do not respond well to the deaths of their friends and relatives. So, if your aim is to further destabilize society and foster and cosset internecine hatreds then a successful way of doing so is to encourage further political gatherings.
Loony you are gullible to fake news aren’t you.
There is no need to abandon jury trials. All it needs is some physical rearranging of a court to ensure safety.
Pre recorded video testimony evidence is a disgrace – this happened in the Salmond trial. I cannot see why a live feed that allows for remote cross examination cannot be facilitated. I mean people are Zoomiing all over the place.
I don’t really think people realise the extent of the danger..
SA you mean the danger of the introduction of Eugenics, the Fascist Totalitarian State and the Police State I take it you mean? Read Lord Sumption’s interview. These are dangerous times indeed
The key point is that this pandemic was well telegraphed. Anyone who thought about anything knew that it would come, and that its spread would be rapid and wide. All governments wee inundated by reports internal and otherwise, warning of the necessity of putting defence measures in place.
The problem was that to do so would have been costly-not Trident costly, not Pentagon costly but costly enough to constitute the low hanging political fruit available for the Merchants of Austerity (and Death). A famous case in point is the situation in Ontario, where, in 2003 a wide ranging and thorough enquiry into the response to the Sars threat led to the recommendation that masks and ventilators be stored and stockpiled. Some 55 million of the masks that are now unavailable were purchased, stored and, in 2017 disposed of. Nor do the ventilators appear to be available.
And then there is the human element: the real defence required is a reserve capacity in the personnel available for nursing and other medical duties. This involves Cuban style training schemes to produce nurse practitioners in large numbers, trained to deal with both seasonal epidemics and the pandemics into which they often develop. Instead most governments collude with the Medical Professions and restrict both the number of practitioners trained and their licensing: in order to maintain the living standards of a favoured few, medical schools are made difficult to access, the number of physicians licensed is restricted and the training of ‘rival’ practitioners discouraged. Finally- there ought to be no need to mention the scandalous privatisation of the NHS, there is the use of state power over the sector to enforce and maintain austerity living standards: the pay of both NHS employees and the crucial cleaners and manual workers who are contracto workers, is kept at a minimum. Nursing is no longer an attractive profession for young people to enter. Or a prestigious skill for the young to acquire.,
And the days when the Transport workers could threaten to strike in support of the nurses pay demands are long gone: the jigsaw of Thatcherism/Blairism, Austerity, anti-unionism, privatisation, PFI and the ideology of selfishness fits together into a picture in which society is exposed to pandemics precisely as we are being exposed, because neo-liberal governments have no more concern for the public welfare than their Liberal philosophical grandparents did for the millions who regularly died in the (utterly predictable) famines in India, the Potato Blight in Ireland or the steady carnage of the slums, where colds, flu and bronchial problems swept away hundreds of thousands annually.
“The lack of contingency preparedness [for the coronavirus} is completely indefensible.” Someone was obviously very well prepared. They had a ready to go three hundred and twenty page Bill to exploit the situation and introduce a police state. A Bill which parliament passed without scrutiny or division, and then promptly voted to suspend itself indefinitely (Yes, I know April 21 is pencilled in, but it is subject to review, depending on whether or not someone or other judges it to be safe). The Coronavirus Act 2020 is our equivalent of the Enabling Act 1933. But unlike Germany in 1933, there is virtually no opposition to this imposition of fascism.
I am confused when/if the Coronavirus legislation is to be reviewed now.
‘The Civil Contingencies Act of 2004 requires previously legislated emergency powers to be re-newed every 21 days once they are triggered, but the MoS has learnt this provision may be amended due to the elongated nature of this crisis.’
About 14 March:
https://expressdigest.com/dr-harold-shipman-laws-are-put-on-hold-to-help-gps-cope-with-growing-coronavirus-death-toll/
There were some backbench objections:
However, ‘David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, will table an amendment calling for the legisla-tion to expire after one’, and ‘Labour MP Christ Bryant said he would try to amend the bill in order to force parliament to vote on the legislation every 90 days.’
From Mail, 21 March:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8137057/Tory-backbenchers-plan-rebellion-against-Boris-Johnsons-plans.html
Sandra, the Act states that a national authority may by regulation alter the expiry date. It also says that a national authority may by regulation alter any power. Part 2 Section 90. A national authority is a minister of the Crown. The Act gives government ministers the power to do whatever they wish, for as long as they wish.
I see what you mean. Ouch! Two years of having something like this on the books was bad enough. Have they foreknowledge that COVID-19 is going to cause a continual plague or something?
Sandra It is not a matter of knowledge about this particular virus. Pandemics happen. They have happened before and doubtless will happen again. So the state prepared for a pandemic (any pandemic or even epidemic) by drafting legislation that would give the state unlimited, arbitrary power, which could be rolled out at a moment’s notice. The government has chosen to exploit the outbreak of this virus.
I am thinking that the app for contact tracing can also be used to see if infected people isolate themselves after testing positive. And provisions in Schedule 21 of the Coronavirus Act could be used to ensure that they:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/schedule/21/enacted
I understand that the public should be protected from intentional spreaders of this virus, but I am concerned that the introduction of this type of tracking/surveillance could be continued for other uses after this crisis and abused by authorities – it could be so useful for them.
We have a virtually invisible government, with emergency powers who are deliberately shutting down our economy and making it impossible for us to meet and discuss what is going on and why! It begins to smell very bad to me. Especially when this statistician sees things so differently
https://youtu.be/Yq99LJyluTA
What do you mean impossible to meet? Here is Jitsi, open source and end-to-end encrypted:
https://meet.jit.si/
The truth about all corona statistics is this one:
1. We don’t have enough data.
1a) We can’t tell who died from corona because we don’t test all corpses.
1b) We can’t tell who died from corona because not all have died yet – aka you might know who died from corona after the corona crisis is over. But you can’t tell how many have died from corona while the corona crisis is still going on.
1c) We can’t tell the death rate which is the ratio of (infected) vs (death from infection) because we don’t know how many are infected and we don’t know who died from corona and who will die from corona. It ain’t over yet.
2. All those who calculate the rate of infections or the death rate are trying to make estimations about something they don’t know much about.
3. In all countries which were hit by corona there is a shortage of ventilators. That is bad. That hasn’t happened before with influenca. When there is a bad case of influenca in some years then hospitals didn’t run out of ventilators. Now they do.
4. There is medication against influenca. It is provided when somebody has a really severe case of influenca. But there is no medication against corona. They are looking for one but they don’t have one yet.
Hello, I would like to give you some honest(ly bad) news from Germany. It seems the English and US-American media reports very positively about Germany and claims that Germans were more clean and had organised everything better.
That is sooooo untrue.
1. You can’t really get tested. Because you can only get tested if a) you have been in a known Corona-area (Italy, Switzerland) or if b) you know you had contact with somebody who has been tested positive for Corona.
The fact is that most people don’t know if they are infected or not and that is why the infection is spreading rapidly in Germany.
2. Our local government health offices (Gesundheitsämter) are supposed to report the numbers of Corona infections to the Robert-Koch-Institute who is supposed to collect and evaluate these numbers. Well, they are lagging behind. Sometimes the numbers from local gov health offices are up to two weeks late. That means the officially recognised numbers of infections and deathes as published by the Robert Koch Institute are likely wrong -> aka they are too low. That might explain why according to statistics[!] Germany has only one tenth / one seventh of the death numbers of France or Spain although Germany has nearly as many infected people as France or Spain.
Oh, and dead corpses aren’t tested for Corona even if they might have died from Corona because it is cheaper to not test them. [sic(k)!]. Apparently it doesn’t matter if they might have infected other parties while they were still alive.
https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Im-Blindflug-durch-die-Pandemie-4693285.html
3. Germany doesn’t have enough masks nor enough medical ventilators. You can’t even buy surgical face masks any more let alone those precious FPP3 masks and even desinfection was sold out for weeks.
4. Every day German officials claim the opposite of the truth which was true three days ago. *LOL* Here is a summary:
a) First, around the beginning of february, Germany was well prepared allegedly and face masks were not necessary and there was no need for a shut down of schools and such. And no need to stay at home and if you feel ill then go see your doctor. The German health minister presented himself as competent. The Robert Koch Institute claimed Corona was just about as bad as the flu.
b) Then the German government advised people to stay at home and doctors reported there were no face masks nor desinfection for sale any more.
c) Then Germany said you could get tested … but do call your doctor first. Don’t go to see your doctor. The truth was and is: you can only get tested if you had contact with a infected person (proven infection) of if you had been in a corona-area. Still no need to wear a mask according to officials who claimed that masks didn’t help at all.
d) Then there were reports that people didn’t manage to get tested for days despite having been in a corona-area or having had contact with people who were infected proven.
e) The German government said there was no need for hamster shopping (buying large quantities of daily goods). Well, three of my local supermarkets didn’t have flour nor noodles nor salt nor rice nor yeast for three weeks. Now they do have flour but only the most basic kind. Plenty of shelves for essential goods are still empty.
A new measure was introduced: Contact to people other than those from your household is forbidden. Meeting people is forbidden. You are allowed to go out only for work, shopping or to see a doctor. Now the Robert Koch Institute says that Corona is bad and that people are going to die.
f) The German health minister is dancing around questions regarding the lack of medical supplies. Germany tries to get some more medical ventilators by making non-medical engineering companies build ventilators.
Merkel self-quarantines because she had contact with an infected doctor who gave her a vaccination for pneumococcus (causes pneumonia). I guess she received the advice for that pneumokokken vaccination because that vaccination sort of helps against corona. Because if you get a corona infection then your immune system is weakened and it might be a pneumococcus infection aka pneumonia that kills your lungs.
Needless to say that Merkel didn’t share this advice with her electorate.
g) The Robert Koch Institute claims that wearing masks might be sensible. Even home-made cloth masks might help slowing down the spreading of the infection. Many people will die. Merkel isn’t seen nor heard of for days.
h) Plenty of people in a retirement home in Wolfsburg did die – apparently from corona. The nurses in retirement homes don’t have enough medical supplies, btw.
The Robert Koch Institute receives the annonymised mobile phone data from mobile phone companies. They are supposed to evaluate if people do generally stick to the lockdown.
i) The government wants to allow / to enforce an individual tracking app for mobile phones. They want to find out where the infected people had been for the last 2 weeks and who they might have met. Same kind of tracking for credit cards: where did infected people buy their groceries and who else bought groceries there at the same time?
The protection of your personal data (Datenschutz) is one of our most important rigths. Our rights which are guaranteed in the German Constitution (Grundgesetz – basic law, founding law) are slowly eroding. Our government tries to get more and more rights and powers.
j) The German health minister isn’t seen much and doesn’t seem to be effective at all.
Merkel is tested negatively and resurfaces and gives a speech about … usual crap.
https://www.thelocal.de/20200329/merkel-is-back-coronavirus-crisis-boosts-german-chancellor
k) Merkel is against wearing face masks.
https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/coronavirus-merkel-warnt-vor-pflicht-zum-tragen-von-mundschutz-masken-69775950.bild.html
” … BILD erfuhr: Intern warnte die Kanzlerin davor, dass ein möglicher Maskenzwang zu übermäßiger Sorglosigkeit beim Abstandhalten zwischen den Menschen führen könnte. …”
The “Bild” is a very trashy tabloid and can be compared to the Daily Mail except that the latter has longer texts ;-P
Translation: “… Bild came to know: The chancelloress warned her closest advisors that a potential legal compulsion to wear face masks might lead to careless behaviour regarding the required distance between people…”
So Merkel is “worried” that if people wear masks they no longer keep their distance to other people because they might feel save due to the masks. Also damp and wet face masks made from cloth might be like a corona virus spreading catapult.
Yep, that is Merkel’s type of logic.
More likely there aren’t enough masks and Merkel doesn’t want to admit she failed to storage enough masks. She doesn’t want people to try to buy masks because the medical professions need them more urgently. She is trying to hide her incompetence. Meanwhile lots of people start sewing their own masks though you don’t see them wearing them in public as of yet. Though there are plenty of people who wear gloves in supermarkets.
I don’t quite see why there is no recommendation to wear a home-made mask or a shawl but that is Merkel.
The German minister for health (Spahn) and the German Governor of North-Rhine-Westphalia (Laschet) do consider wearing face masks as not necessary. No explanation why it ain’t necessary.
https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Spahn-und-Laschet-gegen-Maskenpflicht-article21682840.html
Spahn is trying to introduce digital prescriptions … makes it easier to control who prescribed what to whom. That won’t help against corona but in times of crisis politicians try to pass laws that give them more power and more money from business donors, for example from online pharmacies.
https://www.deutsche-apotheker-zeitung.de/news/artikel/2020/04/01/spahn-will-die-e-rezept-pflicht-ab-2022-einfuehren
l) I supposed that data protection will be eroded.
m) The German minister for business and economics tries to “help” German businesses by providing credits. Apparently this won’t help small businesses but only big ones but he is trying to improve that.
https://www.oldenburger-onlinezeitung.de/nachrichten/altmaier-plant-weitere-verbesserungen-bei-kfw-krisenkrediten-38046.html
German minister for business and for economics and for handing over lots of money to big companies as “corona crisis credits” – he forsees problems with the supply chains.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-economy/coronavirus-to-hit-german-supply-chains-in-coming-weeks-altmaier-idUSKBN20X1ZH
n) Big businesses like Addidas refuse to pay rent for their shops.
To put it in a nutshell:
Same bu*****t over here.
Very familar german girl
At least you 3x ventilators per head of population as uk so have a better chance of keeping patients alive.
Given that the UK Parliament is a puppet parliament at the moment anyway, I’m not sure why it would matter whether they’re sitting or not. As for juries, if it were me I’d rather have the judge.
Martinned – well, I’d rather have the jury. If you get the judge, you’re more likely to be banged up for something you didn’t do.
Take (for example) the Salmond trial. 9 of the jury were Edinburgh ladies, probably from Morningside (or somewhere like that) i.e. very proper and very anti-independence, every reason to believe that they didn’t like Salmond at all. But the prosecution simply didn’t come up with sufficient evidence – so they aquitted him.
Take Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – on trial for bombing. Of course, we all would like to see whoever did this brought to justice and banged up for a very long time. But the evidence was very flimsy, yet the Scottish Law Lords decided to bang him up anyway, just to please the American colleagues.
Actually, if you live in a make-believe world, then you probably could convince yourself that there was enough evidence – this is why it is important to bring your `average Joe’ in off the street to sit on a jury. They often have good common sense, which hasn’t been eroded by fancy intellectual study.
OTOH, the judge has to explain in a judgment which evidence they did or did not find credible, and why. Even if (for some reason) that can’t be appealed, it’s still the kind of transparency that is the best disinfectant against all sorts of mischief.
Martinned – well, unfortunately I don’t see it. If I were before the judge, I’d prefer the jury of 15 ordinary people off the street to the judge. This seems to me the best `disinfectant’ against a system where the judges lose connection with reality in a puff of legalese. In the case of al-Megrahi I very much doubt that 15 ordinary people would have found the evidence strong enough to convict.
It is a system that has worked well for centuries.
Martinned@April 1 2020 at 15:05
“As for juries, if it were me I’d rather have the judge.”
If it were you, so would we all-especially if it was a judge of the Diplock, Baraitser, Bick-Moore variety!
Craig,
I was just wondering whether you have met Peter Hitchens? I’ve been reading your respective blogs for some time and though you frequently cover similar ground I don’t recall either of you mentioning the other before. Kudos to you both, as well as MD from Private Eye and the various experts who contest those doing the bowing and scraping at court just now. I find the following website a useful hub for the latter btw https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
I don’t think we have met. We exchange friendly emails from time to time.
Peter Hitchens seems to be the target of the week right now.
Of course it is a reaction to the OPCW whistle blower story on which he in the Daily Mail was the only English language main media reporting (and one Italian paper being the other).
Not necessarily true. PH can be right on a political matter like the OPCW but very badly off the mark on a medical scientific matter. The problem with the Covid-19 epidemic is it has polarised people who usually are more discerning. Pundits including PH would like to preserve their anti-establishment credentials by taking this sort of line. But second guessing the WHO, various experts and the experience of various countries such as China and Italy, in order to ignore facts, is not clever, it is very stupid. The US in just 20 days will have 1.5 million cases if the current trend does not slow down, and there are no signs it is slowing down.
Why aren’t the media destroying the government over their handling of this? Government say plenty of ppe but problems with distribution…bullshit..
Most of the population not working and yet they cannot get people to deliver stuff ? And how many soldiers do we still have ?
“Why aren’t the media destroying the government over their handling of this?”
It seems you have not heard that everyone who matters in the “mainstream media” are effectively on the government payroll. It makes perfect sense when you think it through. Media organizations have always had great difficulty even breaking even. But governments have all the money they care to print. And government do care about what people think, so if they get a chance to decide what people think, they go for it.
That’s why Paul Craig Roberts calls the MSM “presstitutes”.
Please educate yourself about Covid-19
So the deaths may seem low now, but that is not the full picture.
Many (most?) of those who recover will have some degree of “lung scarring” (pulmonary fibrosis).
Those with “lung scaring” are at risk of dying from complications. Most victims of “lung scarring” die within 5 years.
!!