Only Nice People On Social Media! by Les May

WHEN Boris Johnson said that he was going to ensure that social media companies will be compelled to remove ‘racist’ material from their sites under threat of losing 10% of the revenue stream generated in the UK, I have no doubt that he meant it, at least when he said it. But as the saying goes ‘the devil is in the detail’.

As was pointed out on this blog only recently, racial discrimination involves an individual, a group or a state treating individuals or groups of individuals differently based upon their race, colour or origin. It should be noted that this includes both preferential and prejudicial treatment, and requires some identifiable action to be taken by the individual, group or state. By contrast ‘racism’ is an ideological stance adopted by some people and people holding this view may or may not involve themselves in any action which constitutes racial discrimination. In other words it is an idea which some people have in their heads. Johnson’s problem is going to be whether he wants to be a politician who tries to legislate against ideas.

Here’s a little test. You come across the following seven separate posts on social media; at what point does the needle on your ‘outrage meter’ move into the red zone and you start to demand that that the offending post be removed.

‘You took that penalty like you were wearing carpet slippers! You played like a big girl! Where your boot laces tied together you big queer? An open goal and you missed, are you blind or something? I’ve seen cripples play better! Lazy bastards like you shouldn’t be in the team! Get back where you belong you white/black/brown bastard!’

All of these are things that someone might have said after watching eleven millionaires chasing a ball. None of them involve any action against another individual or group. The perpetrator’s only action was to type something, press a button and hey presto! Any individual reading any one of these might take exception to it on the grounds that they find it abusive. If they want to exaggerate they will call it ‘hate speech’.

And that’s another problem Johnson will face. Will a law tailored to satisfy the demands of those who feel outraged by recent events open the flood gates for other groups to expect that a law be enacted to satisfy their specific demands?

On the NV blog a year ago, 29 June 2020, I said that having read some of the abusive posts directed at Priyamvada Gopal, who had posted a ‘tweet’ which said “I’ll say it again. White Lives Don’t Matter. As white lives”, I thought you would meet nicer turds in a slurry pit. But being unpleasant to other people isn’t a crime, nor should it be made one.

The assumption that those who seek legislation make is that if only we can pass the right laws we can make people be nice to each other or at least stop them being unpleasant. Does anyone really believe that?

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Labour’s Scottish Problem. by Les May

IN the early 1970s I worked on an island in the Outer Hebrides. The people who lived there were not the ‘Industrial Proletariat’ so beloved by those of a romantic turn of mind, but small scale ‘entrepreneurs’ who made their living working on their family ‘croft’ and organised into ‘townships’ which annually allocated to each crofter strips of Machair land on which was grown a mixture of rye and black-oats which was cut in late summer to provide winter forage for a few cattle. With sheep summered on the poorer land on the east of the island and wintered on the land close to the house which had been used for hay in summer it provided a living, but not a very luxurious one. My two closest neighbours lived in two room, single story houses with a roof of thatch made from Marram Grass. One had carpets laid on the bare earth floor. Both got water from a tap outside their house

I’ve been back a few times since and, as well as paying my respects at the graves of some of the people I knew, I’ve seen the much greater prosperity enjoyed by the Islanders. The single track road with passing places has gone, there’s a causeway linking six of the islands, there are jobs for women and the two room thatched houses are museum pieces. No wonder Scots voted to stay in the EU. (Incidentally you will see the same improved infra-structure on the islands of Madeira and Tenerife.)

At the time the Scottish Nationalists were described as ‘Tartan Tories’ and the constituency returned a Labour MP. Now it returns both a Scottish Nationalist MSP to Holyrood and an MP to London . The SNP has morphed into, what is in many respects, a social democratic party. Is it possible that Labour and the SNP are fighting over much the same political territory in Scotland, and the SNP is winning? Perhaps Labour should start asking why the SNP has been so successful at invading its territory in Scotland.

Is it possible that the SNP is drawing significant support not for enthusiasm for a ‘go it alone Scotland’, but for the party’s domestic policies? Tory governments in particular have tried to force on Scotland domestic policies which have been less than popular over the border, e.g. water privatisation and the introduction of the Poll Tax a year before it was forced on England. Repeated attempts were made by the Tories to find a way of privatising Caledonian MacBrayne, the ferry service which serves as a lifeline to 22 Scottish Islands. It is now a subsidiary of holding company owned by the Scottish Government.

Social care is funded differently in Scotland than in England. If you think that’s because we English are paying for it, think again. All governments have a limited amount of money to spend; Holyrood just makes choices which are different to those made in London. That does not mean everything is rosy over the border, education and health are areas which have drawn criticism.

At some time in the not too distant future Labour is going to have to confront the fact that the Scottish Parliament may vote to hold a second referendum on independence. It has a choice, it can fly the ‘Union’ flag along with the Tories and oppose a second vote or it can support it and risk there being a ‘Yes’ vote, Scotland becoming independent and no more Scottish MPs in the House of Commons which would effectively seal a succession of Tory government for the rest of time.

Johnson is a chancer. At present he is doing all he can to bypass the Scottish Parliament by means of a veto on its scope for action and by taking on powers which rightly belong with the Scots. The signs are that he is hoping that he can block a second referendum by legal means. He may think this will ‘save the Union’, but if he does he will kill it because it will no longer be a union by consent.

It has been estimated that about a third of Scots actively support independence, a third actively oppose it and the remainder are more ambivalent. Even if these estimates are not very close to the true figures it does suggest that there is some scope for persuading more of the electorate to vote to remain part of the UK. That persuading can only be done by Labour, if only for the selfish reason I alluded to above.

It was a Labour government that in 1998 introduced the Scotland Act which led to the setting up of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Why then is Labour apparently doing so little to oppose Johnson’s power grab? By doing little or nothing it risks being tarred with the same brush as the Tories in the minds of the Scottish electorate. Labour could work with SNP MPs in the House of Commons to form a government. Without the Union and the Scottish MPs it brings there seems to me little chance that we will ever have anything but a succession of Tory governments.

Nicola Sturgeon is a demonstrably competent woman which suggests she is no fool. She must be aware that an ‘independent’ Scotland will face all sorts of difficulties; a long land border with England and the question of what currency it would adopt are just two obvious ones. There’s also the fact that much though she may say she wants to be part of the EU, it’s not a ‘done deal’ and its an aspiration for the future. Perhaps a greater degree of independence within the Union could begin to look a more attractive option. There’s an opening for Labour there.

https://theferret.scot/scottish-water-public-ownership/

NV can no longer embed links in the text of articles. To use this link copy the full text of the link into your browser (Startpage, DuckDuckGo or Google) and search in the usual way.

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Making sense of the elections by Brian Bamford

IN THIS weekend's editorial in the Financial Times the editor writes:

'An old rule of politics is that British governments tend to lose midterm by-elections. That makes the resounding defeat of Labour in the centre-left stronghold of Hartlepool by the Conservative party in power for 11 years all the more extraordidary... Extrapolating too much from a town that is the 10th most economically deprived and one of the most pro-Brexit in England is unwise. Yet coupled with the early signs that Labour lost ground to the Tories in council votes too, Thursday's elections in England have provided a boost to the government - and left the oppostion searching questions.'

One thing that is odd in this context is that while in the North Boris Johnson is so popular in places like Hartlepool in the North East and yet he is almost persona non-grata north of the border in Scotland. I know an anarcho-syndicalist retired miner from the North East who voted Tory at the last General Election because of his support for Brexit. Yet in Scotland there are reports that some Tories voted tactically for Labour to try to keep the SNP out.

The 'i' newspaper had an article by its political editor, Nigel Morris, titled 'Labour in turmoil: "shattering" results plunge party into crisis' arguing 'The poor showing reopened wounds within Labour ranks as the party as the left blamed Sir Keir's lack of policy direction for its slump in support, while leadership loyalists said the party was still suffering an overhang from Jeremy Corbyn's time in charge.'

The Labour Party last 'Super Thursday' seemed to lack a serious strategy depending on sneers about sleeze and the claims about a 'chumochracy'; this led John McDonnell to write a post-election column in the 'i' entitled 'No wonder we lost: there was a vacuum instead of a vision'.

The FT editorial I referred to earlier suggests:

'Confounding Labour's urgings that it is time for a change after a decade of Toryism, many voters perceive this as a new government. Johnson has not just disassociated himself from the Cameron and May admisitrations but the Thatcherite past ....[and] has shifted Tory politics away from its former devotion to the free market.'

The conclusion is that there has been demographic shifts in politics and not just in England, Scotland, and elsewhere in the UK. Currently the expections of the centre-left in Germany now depend on the Greens more than the Social Democrats. Some like Boris Johnson are managing to combine right-wing popularism with the offer of more public spending. In this way the Johnson government appears to offer a breach with the past. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out in the long term.

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Salvaging something in the Wreckage. by Les May

THERE’s an understatement!

Last Thursday was not a good day for Labour. I’ve heard three explanations so far; Mandleson ‘It was a hangover of Jeremy Corbyn’, Starmer ‘We lost the trust of working people’, my wife ‘Labour should have focussed on Tory stinginess towards the NHS workers’.

I have a different view. My guess is that what scuppered Labour under Starmer is what scuppered Labour under Corbyn. It’s called Brexit. The people who wanted it in 2019 still want it in 2021. They associate the Tories with Brexit, Labour with being at best lukewarm about it and at worst against it. Whether its downside will have become apparent by 2024 or 2029 is unknown. Perhaps the older Brexiteers will have fallen off their perch or the young ones begun to wonder what all the fuss was about. For the moment Labour is stuck with Starmer and we are all stuck with Boris.

So what can be salvaged. Starmer is probably feeling safe for the moment because the rest of the front bench is so unprepossessing. It’s just possible that Starmer will come to realise that eventually he has to reconnect with those supporters who gave the Labour party a distinct ‘buzz’ under Corbyn and are now leaving or just drifting away from it, though I doubt it. Many of these will be the people who went out ‘on the knocker’ at election time to drum up support from Labour. They won’t be doing that in 2024.

And what about chancer in chief Boris? As we are stuck with the Tories for at least three more years what can we make of this? Curiously enough the results may have an upside. Remember all those particularly nasty sounding Tories who had such a lot to say during the Brexit debate? Remember how Boris had to find a new Chancellor who was more amenable to spending money to fund furlough during the pandemic? Waiting in the wings are a lot of ‘small state’, low public spending zealots. For the moment at least they are unlikely to be able to eject Boris.

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Sleaze And Dynamic Alternatives. by Les May

MY Dad was born in Walsden, which is hardly deepest Yorkshire, and moved west at the age of two to spend all his life in Lancashire. But he liked to parade his ‘Yorkshireness’ by quoting what he claimed was the county motto of I’ tha’ dos owt’ for nowt, do it fo’ thi’ sen. Not exactly an ennobling aspiration, but a reminder that when anyone hands favours in cash or kind to a politician or their party, something is expected in return.

Boris Johnson may be telling the truth that he (eventually) paid for his change of décor, but if it is found that he initially approached someone else to foot the bill, there will be a quest to find out what favours Johnson bestowed in return. And irrespective of what emerges the aura of sleaze will envelope Johnson for the rest of his time in public life.

But even if those ‘favours’ turn out to be on an epic scale, will it be enough to tarnish the Tories enough to lead to the start of that long slide in public distrust which led to the demise of the John Major government’s support and his election defeat in 1997?

Speaking on Saturday’s BBC programme, Dateline London, the political commentator Steve Richards pointed out that in 1997 there was what he called a ‘dynamic alternative’ to Major and the Tories in the shape of Tony Blair.

Given what we now know about Blair it is easy to forget the enthusiasm and hope with which Labour people greeted his becoming Prime Minister with a huge mandate for change in the shape of his parliamentary majority. Whether you like Blair or not, Richard’s analysis is spot on.

So ultimately whether Johnson’s present little difficulties represent the beginning of the end for the Tories may depend on one thing; ‘Is Labour under Keir Starmer a dynamic alternative?’ Answers on a postage stamp please.

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The Joys Of The Freemarket by Les May

MY interest in football peaked when I was eleven in 1953 and has been declining ever since. If professional football vanished from the face of the Earth I would not miss it. But I cannot help observing that the proposed formation of a European Superleague is just the logical conclusion of the ‘greedfest’ which led to the formation of the Premier League in 1992. Domestic and international television rights generates about £2 billion a year for the Premier League which is a corporation in which member clubs act as shareholders. A nice little earner one might say.

Clearly the owners of the six UK clubs which want to become founder members of the European Superleague can see the cash registers continuing to roll and even more money finding its way into their coffers. The remaining Premier League members now seem to be crying foul having themselves done much the same thing to the old Football League almost thirty years ago.

And who has stepped in to see fair play? It’s our free enterprise worshipping Prime Minister. Boris has suddenly discovered that markets sometimes need to be managed to bring about socially desirable outcomes. Though quite what he can do to block the European Superleague is still unclear.

Question: If Boris Johnson can find time to think up ways of taming the excesses of this particular market, why can’t he find time to bring some sanity to the housing market which continues to leave families homeless or living in very substandard housing while paying exorbitant rents a what is euphemistically called ‘the market rate’.

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Our Prime Minister is Public Enemy Number One!

by Cliff Jones

ON TODAY's date in 1998 we had the Good Friday Agreement. Have you heard of that Prime Minister? Does it mean anything to you? Might you, perhaps, ask us to stand on our front door steps and clap for it?

I do not believe that you have the remotest notion of the harmfulness of your lack of concern. Your entire life has been a self-indulgent one. For you Brexit was a jolly jape. Telling big lies and getting away with it was so much fun.

Covid 19? You gleefully told us that you shook hands with it. Have you been on the phone to the prime minister of New Zealand to ask her the number of their dead?

You keep waving the Union Flag as the Union disintegrates. In other words, the more disunity that you create the louder you shout about unity. We are, most definitely, not all in it together. The privileges of your life are unknown to the vast majority.

As for Ireland, I suppose that to you it is no more than a slight irritant. I mean, does the Republic have Trident submarines? Can't be taken seriously then.

The Telegraph paid you £275k p.a. for a weekly column that I believe you said took one and a half hours to knock up (what a phrase) on a Sunday morning. You told us that was 'chicken feed'.

You, Prime Minister, are an irrelevance, a dangerous irrelevance!

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130 imams and scholars urge PM to condemn Batley school teacher

By

5Pillars (RMS) - 2 months ago

Over 130 imams and Islamic scholars have written to the Prime Minister urging him to condemn the showing of blasphemous cartoons to Muslim children at Batley Grammar School.

In an open letter to Boris Johnson, the imams and scholars say the incident was an attempt to incite hatred and Islamophobia whilst pushing forward extremist white supremacist ideology.

So far three teachers have been suspended over the incident which has led to widespread outrage within the Muslim community. On the other hand, right-wing media, politicians and civil society commentators have supported the actions of the teacher.

The letter was organised by the Muslim Action Forum. Below is the letter and list of signatories in full:

Dear Prime Minister,

We the undersigned British Muslim citizens and scholars are writing to express our unequivocal condemnation of the depiction of the caricature of our Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, by the RE teacher at Batley Grammar School. It is inconceivable that such a depiction in an RE lesson can be based on the notion of discussing “freedom of speech” or even a critique of the personality of the Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. It was prima facie, based on the usual attempt of inciting hatred and Islamophobia whilst pushing forward extremist white supremacist ideology, which inevitably creates chaos and anarchy.

The hallmark of any civilised society cannot be the freedom to abuse and provoke certain members of society. Current legal proscription of xenophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and other language of incitement of violence, ensures that we all remain in the realm of civil society. Why is it then that hatred against Muslims and Islamophobia is so widely defended and accepted? Surely, in sowing such seeds of hatred, we only advance the vested agenda of a tiny minority of extremists on all sides, that seek to gain from any form of chaos and anarchy. Depicting the caricatures of the Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, will inevitably offend and provoke the feelings of 1.6 billion Muslims on this planet, and this cannot be unintentional or an act of a civilised member of society.

There are some who stand in solidarity with the teacher, guided by their blind hatred of the Muslim community in our country. They fail to understand how the love of the Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him means more to every Muslim than everything else that is dear to them. In a world where many are self-centred, egotistical, and selfish members of society, they fail to understand how a man who lived over 1400 years ago can be more meaningful to over 1.6 billion Muslims than their own dear lives.

The global coronavirus pandemic has taught us that there are issues within society in which we are one, we must care for each other otherwise we end up dying together. We need to cling onto those issues that help us to learn to live together and uphold common values to ensure a civilised society. The outcomes of the heinous acts of the teacher inevitably lead to shaking the fabrics of our society, greatly damaging social cohesion and harmony. We invite you as Prime Minister, the political head of our country, and as our fellow British citizen, to stand with British Muslims in the condemnation of such divisive actions. The reprehensible actions of the teacher are a call to action to all civilised members of our society to unequivocally condemn such intentional behaviour.

We welcome the actions of the governors of the Batley Grammar School to suspend not only the teacher in question, but also the other co-conspirators, who designed this attack on our civilised society. The whole of the British Muslim community shall critically observe the next steps that the school takes to ensure that justice is done.

Kind regards,

Shaykh Faiz Siddiqi, Muslim Action Forum

Imam Adil Shahzad, Bradford

Imam Khalid Hussain, Leicester

Shaikh Tauqir Ishaq, Nuneaton

Shaykh Zain Siddiqi, Birmingham

Shaykh Noor Siddiqi, Coventry

Shaykh Waseem Ahmed, Manchester

Mufti Wajid Iqbal, Bradford

Shaykh Mohsin Haveliwala, Bolton

Mufti Nizamuddin Misbahi, Blackburn

Mufti Muhammad Qasim Zia, Sheffield

Shaykh Shabaz Ahmed, Ashton-under-Lyne

Shaykh Zahid Sharif, Ashton-under-Lyne

Imam Muhammad Anis, Birmingham

Imam Husnain Yaqoob, Nottingham

Imam Muhammad Amir, Stoke-on-Trent

Imam Abdul Rasool Alwari, Preston

Maulana Muhammad Kaleem, Bolton

Mufti Muhammad Naseerullah Naqshabandi, Bolton

Shaykh Sayyid Muhammad Irfany, Bolton

Sayyid Muhammad Hamdani, Bolton

Shaykh Sayyid Muhammad Samdani, Bolton

Shaykh Sayyid Muhammad Zarkani, Bolton

Professor Muhammad Masood Hazarvi, Luton

Imam Mohammed Bilal, Peterborough

Imam Sudagar Hussain, Bradford

Imam Adeel Attari, Bradford

Imam Muhammad Adeeb, Stoke-on-Trent

Imam Qari Muhammad Ayub, Stoke-on-Trent

Maulana Atif Jabbar Haidary, Birmingham

Shaykh Muhammad Farooq Nazami, Birmingham

Imam Hafiz Muhammad Bashir, Birmingham

Imam Barkat Ahmed, Birmingham

Imam Hafiz Akhtar Ali, Southampton

Shaykh Sufi Arshad Mahmood, Leeds

Imam Hafiz Muhammad Ali, Southampton

Mufti Muhammad Saqib Qadri, Oldham

Mohammed Shafiq, Ramadhan Foundation, Rochdale

Imam Muhammad Qasim Qadri, Nottingham

Shaykh Naveed Jameel, Nottingham

Imam Muhammad Asrar, Nottingham

Shaykh Muhammad Naveed Ashrafi, Blackburn

Imam Hafiz Muhammad Ali, Warrington

Imam Hafiz Amjad Mahmood, Bury

Shaykh Qari Mohammad Tayyab, Manchester

Mufti Muhammad Qasim, Manchester

Imam Muhammad Ilyas, Manchester

Mufti Muhammad Rubel, Manchester

Imam Hafiz Muhammad Ozair, Manchester

Imam Hafiz Muhammad Omair, Manchester

Imam Hafiz Muhammad Yasin, Manchester

Imam Hafiz Muhammad Fahim, Manchester

Allama Hafiz Muhammad Zia, Birmingham

Maulana Muhammad Umar, Birmingham

Maulana Muhammad Zahoor, Birmingham

Syed Muhammad Riaz Barkati, Accrington

Imam Mobashir Iqbal, Manchester

Shaykh Muhammad Din Sialvi, Nelson

Hafiz Niaz Ahmad Siddiqee, Birmingham

Mufti Wali Raza Rizvi, Worcester

Imam Hassnain Raza Siddiqee, Birmingham

Imam Hafiz Faisal Javed, Birmingham

Imam Abbas Ashra, Newcastle

Shaykh Muhammad Yaseen, Birmingham

Imam Hafiz Zulkarnain, Leicester

Imam Muhammad Maruf, Eccles

Imam Hafiz Muhammad Iftikhar, Manchester

Shaykh Syed Munawar Hussain Shah Bukhari, Blackburn

Shaykh Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah Bukhari, Blackburn

Syed Talha Bukhari, Blackburn

Syed Usama Bukhari, Blackburn

Allama Nawaz Hazarvi, Peterborough

Shaykh Mufti Ansar ul Qadri, Bradford

Syed Muhammad Zafarullah Shah, Birmingham

Mufti Fazl Ahmed Qadri, Derby

Shaykh Pir Mohammad Dilshad Hussain al-Qadri, Leeds

Shaykh Pir Tayyab-Ur-Rehman, Birmingham

Allama Qari Mahmood Ul Hassan Farashwi, Walthamstow

Allama Nabeel Afzal Qadri, Coventry

Allama Mohammed Zahoor, Oldham

Imam Hafiz Ghulam Rasool, Black Country

Shaykha Rukia Bi Mahmood, Stoke-on-Trent

Ustadha Nz Shahid, Sandwell

Ustadha Tahira, Oldbury

Ustadha Shazia, Smethwick

Ustadha Zaib, Oldbury

Ustadha Naila, West Bromwich

Ustadha Ghazala, Tipton

Ustadha Nasrin, Tipton

Imam Muhammad Hafeez, Tyseley

Imam Sajid Mahmood, Walsall

Imam Hashmi, Dudley

Imam Hafiz Akram, Dudley

Imam Hafiz Shafiq, Tividale

Imam Hafiz Yaqub, West Bromwich

Imam Syed Nazir Shah, West Bromwich

Qari Muhammad Yunus, Tipton

Imam Hafiz Siddique, Oldbury

Imam Hafiz Muzammil, Tipton

Imam Hafiz Rayharn, Sandwell

Imam Hafiz Abdul Qadir, Blackheath

Imam Hafiz Abdulla Sultani, Erdington

Imam Hafiz Dilpazir, Erdington

Imam Hafiz Abdul Ghafoor Chisti, Birmingham

Imam Hafiz Allah Baksh, Birmingham

Imam Hafiz Muhammad Miyan, Manchester

Imam Hafiz Shabraz, Wolverhampton

Imam Yusuf Qamar, Lye, West Midlands

Imam Maulana Munawwar, Smethwick

Imam Qadhi Sajid Zaffar, Birmingham

Shaykh Mohammad Arshad Misbahi, Manchester

Imam Abdul Hafeez Aziz, Bradford

Molana Muhammad Islam, Birmingham

Imam Asim Hussain, Bradford

Mufti Qari Saeed, Newcastle

Allama Ayub Chishti, Blackburn

Allama Masood Qadri, Bolton

Allama Muhammad Husein Qadri, Bolton

Imam Subhanoor Chowdhury, Leicester

Allama Zafar Mahmood Farashwi, Manchester

Imam Qari Muhammad Aurangzeb, Manchester

Shaykh Sabir Ali, Bolton

Mufti Tahir Ali, Bolton

Imam Tayyub Ali, Bolton

Imam Azhar Ali, Bolton

Shaykh Syed Ghulam Dastgir Shah, Halifax

Sahibzada Junaid Akhtar, Birmingham

Allama Sajjad Razwi, Halifax

Syed Usman Ali al-Qadri, Bradford

Imam Hafiz Mohammed Razvi al-Qadri, Leicester

Nadir Muhammad, Centre for Muslim Policy Research, London

Imam Hafiz Uthman, Birmingham

Shoaib Malik, Muslim Action Forum – National Co-ordinator, Warrington

Boris Johnson started International Women's Week by claiming he's a feminist !

by Andy Wastling

(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang [1] by Andrew Wastling

THREE days after International Women's Day and the night before Mothers Day his police are directed to brutally attack peaceful female protestors. Johnson's actions seem to be totally out of step with his alleged aspirations or intentions?

This week parliament will vote on Priti Patel's new policing law, effectively destroying the right to protest.Our democracy ( such that it is !) is being gradually eroded as this rogue and toxic Westminster cabal drives towards an increasingly neo-fascist and authoritarian state. This is an existential struggle between the forces of progress and the sinister forces of reaction. One the British working class seem destined to lose if we do not rise from our political torpor and apathy. In Greece , Spain , Italy , Germany and France the workers have been on the streets in force for many months. Governments should be afraid of their people not the other way round.

A peaceful vigil in Manchester by the Emmeline Pankhurst statue passed entirely without incident (despite the background presence of two police vans full of overtime eager GMP officers). The women behind Right To Walk MCR had originally also hoped to hold a covid safe vigil but following conversations with Manchester City Council and GMP were told that they would also receive fines if it went ahead. Despite GMP's dicktact telling protestors that they were unable to proceed with a vigil for Sarah Everard and #ReclaimTheseStreets as well as a virtual online event .The restricted and entirely peaceful , disciplined and socially distanced vigil took place as indeed also happened in Nottingham, and Birmingham, as they did elsewhere outside of the capital with no police harassment or intimidation whatsoever.Right to Walk Manchester have published an Open Letter online demanding an : Everard's Law. From stricter punishments for harassment and catcalling, to better lighting and increased security cameras, our ambition is to create safer communities so that women are more protected. Can be signed at : Petition · An Open Letter for Everard's Law · Change.org

A demonstration has been called at 5pm, tomorrow ( 15 March ), Parliament Square , London And no doubt further national and local vigils and protests are being organised this weekend Cressida Dick, speaking about Sarah’s murder days ago, expressed her shock and said our job is to patrol the streets and to protect people. But at this vigil, her officers did the exact opposite. A petition calling for her to go can be signed below.

https://r.ippl.es/cressida-dick-resign/

APPENDIX:

(1). (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang was written by Heaven 17 members Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn Gregory and included on their 1981 debut album Penthouse and Pavement. It was the first single released by the band. In the lyrics fascism and racism are described in an ironic fashion, using the lexicon of funk music.

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A Bolt Hole For Trump? by Les May

LAST weekend the Sunday Post newspaper carried a piece about how a request had been made for a US military plane to be allowed to land at Prestwich airport on the day before the swearing in of Joe Biden as the next US president. There has been speculation that Donald Trump will be on that plane.

Boris Johnson has condemned what he called the "disgraceful scenes" in the US, after supporters of Donald Trump stormed Congress and clashed with police. The Senate minority leader has placed responsibility for what happened on Trump

.

Is it too much to ask that Johnson should refuse to allow Trump to use the UK as a bolt hole in a fortnight’s time?

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Is Trump Expendable? by Les May

I’VE never bought into the idea that Labour losing last year’s General Election was because a Corbyn led government’s policies made it ‘unelectable’. I think a more plausible explanation is that Labour’s so called ‘Red Wall’ crumbled because those voters wanted ‘Brexit’ and knew that Johnson would deliver it, but Corbyn couldn’t be guaranteed to. The intervention of a Brexit party candidate in my constituency effectively helped to defeat Labour.

Those who voted Tory at the last election came from two ‘tribes’, each of which spoke their own language, had their own values and were incomprehensible to each other. One was the tribe which always voted Tory; the other was the tribe made up of those who usually voted Labour, or not at all, but who for their own reasons simply wanted to leave the EU.

Britain will leave the EU on the last day of the year. Job done! Why vote Tory next time? Boris Johnson knows this, that’s why he is so eager to push his ‘levelling up’ agenda which seems to me no more than a rebranding of the old ‘trickle down’ economics of Margaret Thatcher.

Donald Trump’s sojourn at the White House came about because two ‘tribes’, incomprehensible to each other, put him there in 2016. One tribe was drawn from Americans whose livelihoods were threatened because the industries they worked for were losing ground to cheaper foreign imports or were simply past their sell by dates like coal production, the inhabitants of the so called ‘rust bucket states’. The other tribe was composed of socially conservative, for which read abhors homosexuals, same sex marriage and abortion, devout, Bible immersed, fundamentalist Christians. Trump knew exactly what he was doing selecting Mike Pence to be his Vice-President. Pence is the real deal. At the end of the first meeting between the two he suggested they hold hands for a short prayer.

Trump now faces the same problem as Boris Johnson. He’s delivered a Supreme Court bench with a built in conservative majority which could last for the next thirty or forty years which his Bible bashing supporters can reasonably expect to deliver the sort of socially conservative rulings they want to hear. Job done! Why vote for an ersatz vulgarian like Donald Trump when you can have the real deal in the shape of someone like Pence in four years time?

The smart money is on Trump still being a major force in the Republican party in the next four years. I’m not so sure.

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Covid 19: Pandemic Or Endemic? by Les May

THIS morning a ‘Lidl Weekly’ brochure dropped through my door telling me all the wonderful offers available in Lidl stores between 15 and 21 October. It’s just the most recent of a line of similar brochures from different retailers stretching back to long before the world had heard of Covid 19 or Donald Trump. In every case the intention of whoever promoted it, was to shape, change, manipulate, choose your favourite epithet, my behaviour so that I would spend some money with them. Before every election what drops through my door are leaflets, not asking me to spend money, but to buy into the policies promoted by one or other of the parties. So it would seem that our politicians realise that if you want to influence someone’s behaviour mailshots are quite an effective way of doing so. Or do they?

Yesterday morning I watched Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government, being asked about the new ‘Three Tier’ restrictions proposed by the Government which it hopes will suppress the dangerous rise in new infections, hospital admissions and deaths resulting from the Covid pandemic. How are we to find out which ‘tier’ we are in? Go to www.gov.uk says Mr Jenrick, and find out for yourself!

One of the things we have learned in recent months is that there has been a decline in the willingness of some people to comply with what is expected of them. Only one fifth to one quarter of people who are told they should self isolate after being in contact with an infected person, actually do so. It’s not clear that everyone even knows what ‘self isolate’ actually means.

A frequent excuse for non-compliance with this and other restrictions is that people don’t know what the ‘rules’ are. Personally I put much more reliance on the World Health Organisation’s common sense rules like meeting as few people as possible, keeping as far away as possible from anyone I do meet and disinfecting anything anyone else might have touched, to protect my wife and myself, rather than anything the government tells me. But common sense seems to be in short supply in some quarters

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Unless the government makes an effort to cut through the fog of confusion and excuses the new ‘Three Tier’ system will not work. Restrictions like those proposed will be viewed as a massive inconvenience to many people, perhaps especially to those who feel they are a least risk of picking up the virus or becoming seriously ill if they do get it. So why expect them to go out of their way to find out for themselves just how much freedom of action they are about to lose?

My understanding, gleaned from news reports is that Rochdale, as part of Greater Manchester, is in ‘Tier Two’. Telling people to find out for themselves what the new restrictions are by visiting the web sites of national and local government seems to me a recipe for failure. Some people cannot and some people will not do it.

Since March my criticism of the government’s strategy of been restrained, not because I particularly like what it has been doing, but because I am sceptical that anyone else would have been able to do much better.

But all along it seems to have been ‘penny wise and pound foolish’. It has relied too much on technology because it appears to be a cheap short cut to getting things done. We’ve had the fiasco of the ‘world beating app’, when the money might have been better spent on old fashioned shoe leather and door to door methods of tracing contacts. Telling people to go to a website to find out the rules in their area is just another example of this.

Starmer and Johnson may spar across the floor of the Commons, each claiming they know how to cut down the number of new infections. Neither seems to have paused to reflect upon the fact that this virus is not going to go away. It is going to be with us for the foreseeable future and possibly forever. If that pessimistic assessment is correct then we have to learn to live with it by changing our behaviour to accommodate that fact.

If we are to live anything like a normal life again we have to make doing the things that will keep the virus in check, and ourselves and others safe, second nature. By not doing this we have squandered all the effort and inconvenience that was needed in Spring to get the virus under control.

As I pointed out in an article on the NV blog on 16 August the number of cases was already beginning to rise again. Instead of delaying taking action until something as drastic as a ‘circuit breaker lockdown’ was needed, the time could have been better spent in reminding everyone that public health measures like physical distancing, mixing with as few people as possible, wearing a face mask when inside buildings with people not of your household and scrupulous hand washing, were still important.

The virus is apolitical; Labour or Tory it can kill you if you become infected. Starmer and Johnson need to stop playing politics and start to look at how we can avoid once more squandering the effort and inconvenience which will be needed to bring the virus under control

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Though I take much the same view as the economist J. K. Galbraith, that advertising is just another way of boosting consumption, hence profits, by creating demand where none would otherwise exist, it may be just what the government needs to turn to, to get the public health message across.

Seven weeks ago on 27 August I wrote something on the NV blog with specific reference to Rochdale Council, but the same applies to the government:

‘These are irksome things to do for most of us. We’ve a devil dancing on our shoulder telling us to just get on with our lives. We need constant reminders as to why these things are important. It’s got to be Education, Education, Education! A nd this is where I think Rochdale Council has failed miserably because it is "just going through the motions". Where are the large notices on every lamp post and every shop window and every billboard, reminding people of what they need to do to beat the virus? Non-existent so far as I can tell.’

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Don’t Blame Tories For This One! by Les May

EARLIER this year the Northern Voices carried an article which drew attention to the fact that the average daily number of new Covid 19 infections was beginning to rise, ('The Fat Lady Still Isn’t Singing' 16 August). Later in the month a second article drew attention to the fact that the increase in the daily number of new infections was continuing and that it could not be accounted for by the increase in testing, (Don’t You Know There’s A War On? 27 August).

Prior to the second article the daily number of new infections had been increasing slowly; it took some 50 days for the average number of new infections each day to double from 550 to 1100. After 27 August the number of new cases each day doubled from 1100 to 2200 in only thirteen days, and it doubled yet again in the next 15 days. In other words the pandemic in the UK had entered the ‘exponential phase’ with the daily number new infections doubling about every fortnight.

In the last week or so the picture has changed considerably. The time taken for the number of new infections to double has fallen to about nine days. This 5 day decrease in the time taken for the daily number of new infections to double might not seem very significant, but it is!

The average number of new infections over the past seven days is 10,500. In one month, 28 days, the daily number of new infections would double twice, first to 21,000 after a fortnight then to 42,000 after a month if the doubling time were still 14 days. With a doubling time of 9 days the number of new infections would double three times; first to 21,000 after nine days, to 42,000 after 18 days and to 84,000 after 27 days. This is NOT a prediction that there will be 80,000 cases a day in one month’s time: it is what COULD happen unless something is done to slow down or preferably halt the spread of the virus.

The ‘Track and Trace’ system may be shambolic as is the failure in the last few days to accurately report the number of new cases, but these are not in themselves the reason we are seeing 10,000+ new cases a day. I am a lifelong Labour voter, but I am not going to blame Johnson for the fact that the time taken for the number of new cases each day to double has shortened in the past week or so. The only way to halt the spread of the virus is to meet as few people as possible, wear a mask in any indoor space, physically distance yourself from other people wherever you are and decontaminate your hands, and anything that other people may have touched, by washing. Neither Johnson nor any other Tory in the land can do this for us. It is up to us.

Appendix

The figures for doubling time for new cases and daily deaths were obtained from the daily figures published by the Government. The method used was first to calculate each day the average number of new cases during the past seven days. This is commonly known as the ‘rolling average’. This eliminates the weekend effect where reported numbers are lower on Saturday and Sunday, then higher the following Monday.

The doubling time can be found by counting the number of days for the number of new infections to double directly from the rolling average. I prefer to calculate the logarithm to the base two of the rolling average. That way every time the number before the decimal point (the characteristic) increases by ‘1’, we know the number of infections each day has doubled.

How We Can Keep the ‘r’ As Low As Possible?

by Les May

WHILST talking on Sky News about the rallies being held in London today the presenter managed to convey the impression, inadvertently I hope, that we should vary our behaviour in accordance with the ‘r’ number, the average number of people that a person infected with the virus causing Covid 19 will themselves go on to infect.

This is a classic case of ‘putting the cart before the horse’ because it is OUR behaviour which will influence the ‘r’ value.  It is what WE do which will determine whether the number of infections will continue to fall or grows exponentially.  Exponential growth will follow even if the ‘r’ number only just creeps above 1.0.

For example if the ‘r’ number is only very slightly higher at 1.01 over a period of two months 1,000 infected people will result in more than eleven thousand new infections, but if it is very slightly lower at 0.99 the number of new infections each week will decline. If you have difficulty in appreciating how small is the difference between these two numbers think of having 99p in your pocket and having £1.01p.  Smaller ‘r’ values will result in fewer new infections and a more rapid decline in the numbers.  In the north-west of England we are balanced on such a knife edge because the ‘r’ value is estimated to be about 1.01.

Based on an analysis of about 20,000 people in 9,000 households it is estimated that in the two week period 17-30^th May, one in one thousand people (0.1%) in the non-hospitalised population were infected with the virus and potentially able to infect others.   In the previous fourteen day period 3-16^th May the estimate was 0.25% of the population.  We can interpret these figures to mean that if we meet one thousand people we can expect at least one of them to be infectious. But there is a ‘gotcha’ in viewing it like this.  We do not know if the infected person will be the first, second…. person we meet, or if we are that one infected person.

Keeping the ‘r’ number below 1.0, and preferably well below this figure, is a job for us. It cannot be palmed off onto Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, Matt Hancock or anyone else, as someone who was billed as the shadow minister for health tried to imply in an interview with Sky News.

So what can we do to get and keep the reinfection rate below 1.0? Quite a lot if few are willing to make the effort. For the moment ‘making the effort’ means

not just sanitising hands and surfaces regularly, but also ensuring that we meet up with as few people as possible. That means anyone who we do not share a house with. If we are forced to come into contact with people we don’t live with then we can physically distance ourselves from them so that any spittle that comes from the mouth as they talk will not land on us and we can avoid eating, drinking or sharing utensils with them. Just in case we are the ‘one in a thousand’ who is infected and shedding virus particles we can wear a face covering. Even a home made mask will be effective in preventing your spittle reaching anyone nearby.  To steal a phrase I first heard used by the biologist Jared Diamond, we need to behave with ‘constructive paranoia’ in mind.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-to-make-cloth-face-covering.html

Step by step instructions for making a cloth face mask can be found here:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-to-make-cloth-face-covering.html

The survey results for 17-30^th May, and earlier, can be found at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/latest#number-of-people-in-england-who-had-covid-19

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A Scots Take On The Johnson Cummings Love In

by Les May

BELOW are some extracts from an article by Mandy Rhodes the editor of Holyrood Magazine which appeared in The Sunday Post today.

‘Just over two months ago, we forged a very special agreement with our government when we signed away our freedoms.  Such was the trust that we invested in the democratically elected powers-that-be, that we did as we were told.  We complied, like sheep, on the understanding that the sacrifice was for the greater good.

'But Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s closest aide, has made us out to be fools.  He has humiliated us and opened my son’s eyes to the debasement of democracy and etched something into his brain about the ugliness of political motivation that will never heal.

'He has seen for himself the way the truth gets twisted, how easily elected politician are prepared to eschew honour, how government ministers willingly operate as sock puppets and he has seen a government prepared to mock its own people for their servility.  Cummings’ circumstance were not exceptional, they were ordinary.  He (Cummings) was blind to the fact that in this pandemic, his situation was no different, no more ‘tricky’ or ‘complicated that it is for the rest of us.’

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The Johnson Cummings Love-In

by Les May

WHEN the Tory party handed the keys of 10 Downing Street to Boris Johnson his first instinct was to avoid the scrutiny of Parliament by proroguing it.  This behaviour eventually found its way into the courts and Johnson was judged to have been a very naughty boy.

When the story emerged that an unelected ‘special adviser’ had driven someone suffering from Covid19 some 400km to another part of the country, when such actions were expressly forbidden by a law passed by his own government, Johnson’s first instinct was to behave in a way that would make it very difficult for any police force to investigate this matter, determine whether it was ‘reasonable travel’ and if necessary issue fines to both the driver and his passenger.  It is not for Johnson to decide whether Dominic Cummings’ actions fell within the definition of ‘reasonable travel’.

My understanding is that the Daily Mirror and the Guardian newspapers had approached Downing Street for comment before the story was published. The pair of them had plenty of time to ‘get their stories straight’.  First Johnson sought to exonerate Cummings by standing in front of the television cameras and saying that he ‘did not mark him down’.*   

Meanwhile Cummings was given to opportunity to get into ‘post facto rationalisation’ mode and prepare a long statement which he was then allowed to present to the assembled media over a 70 minute period in the Rose Garden of Number 10 Downing Street.  Take your pick of the excuses he gave for moving his Covid19 infected wife across the country; he was just being a good husband and father, he and his infected wife were likely to be ‘harassed’ if they quarantined themselves at their home address, it was all a ‘media plot’ anyhow.

What we are seeing here is Johnson using his power to subtly influence how the law operates. It will take a very strong minded senior police officer to insist on asking Dominic Cummings some pointed questions.  Fortunately they still exist. Johnson is not alone in this endeavour, Michael Gove tried to tell us that at the time the law was different from what the rest of us understood it to be.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/26/durham-police-open-investigation-into-dominic-cummings

The media have decided to concentrate on the ‘human story’ side of all this with accounts of spouses and children unable to be beside the bedside of a relative who died.   If the political parties take this line Johnson’s subtle abuse of power will go unnoticed and unchecked. Johnson and Cummings are well matched.  Spot the video clip where Cummings is using his thick black notebook to waft away the gaggle of reporters who are trying to ask him questions.   It rather reminded me of Hastings Banda and his fly whisk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Banda

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Johnson blamed for ‘criminal negligence’ & ‘social murder’

item supplied by Joe Bailey

A TOP SAFETY law academic has accused prime minister Boris Johnson of criminality and ‘social murder’ after he called for an early return to work. Steve Tombs, professor in social policy and criminality at the Open University, said “the government must know that construction workers are exposed to and unwitting carriers of coronavirus. In my view this is criminal negligence, it’s manslaughter, it’s social murder.”  Professor Tombs was commenting in a Reel News online criticism of the government’s policy, featuring construction workers and their family members and construction, legal and safety experts. 

The video was produced by the grassroots Shut The Sites campaign, which is calling for the closure of all non-essential building sites and for all workers to be paid irrespective of whether they are employees, self-employed or agency workers. It says the same day the government urged all construction workers to return to work, Office of National Statistics figures showed “keeping sites open has led to three times as many deaths of construction workers as healthcare professionals.  Hundreds more will die if this appalling policy is allowed to continue - so Shut The Sites are calling for collective organisation to stop the carnage.”  It added:  “Construction workers on site are being encouraged to join a union and take action collectively to protect themselves and their families, alongside demonstrations by members of local communities at sites near them.”

It said all non-essential work should stop and any critical works must only continue “with the highest level of health and safety possible to protect workers.”  This week the government said local planning authorities were now expected to support the extension of site operating hours to 9pm in residential areas.  The ONS figures showed ‘Low-skilled workers in construction’ had a Covid-19 death rate of 25.9 per 100,000 males compared to the general working age population, five times the rate for ‘professionals’.
Reel News. Shut the Sites blog. Deaths in England and Wales related to Covid-19 by occupation, ONS, 11 May 2020.
The Guardian. Good Morning Britain. Construction Enquirer.

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Nothing new about neglecting old folk

 by Brian Bamford

ON the 28th, April, Milton Pena placed the following comment on this NV Blog:

'It’s Gerineglicide Derek, it has been happening for more than a decade and it has worsened by the Pandemic.

'I read that the life span of the elderly have been shortened by TWELVE years as a result of becoming ill with this virus and dying of it.'

On the 29th, April, Blanco Posnet posted:  

'I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I'm beginning to wonder if that Bunteresque Johnson, and his sidekick, Dom Cummings, aren't exploiting this national emergency to kill off the elderly and the baby-boomer generation in order to cut the social security/pension bill. It may be a kind of “Shock Therapy”, disaster capitalism, approach to cutting public expenditure.'

Social Care is a poor relation! 

YET, what is happening in the social care sector is not new.  For donkey's years under different governments social care has been the poor relation of the welfare sector. You can call it 'Gerineglicide' if you like.  Or as I would prefer 'constructive manslaughter'.  
It is 'constructive manslaughter' and not murder, since the intent is not to kill the victim, the mens rea required for murder does not exist because the act is not aimed at any one person.  Rather it is systemic in that it is built into the procedure for looking after the people at the end of their lives.
Most government including the current one under Boris have promised to resolve the problems of tackling social care, but have yet to come up with a satisfactory plan.  The public have allowed this to happen partly because they are confused and think that their end of life care will be tackled by the NHS.

Clean plate club & one step nearer the grave!

People are closing their eyes to what's happening, and have been for ages.

Alan Bennett in his diary entry in 1995 describes events at a care home his mother was in, in Somerset:

'The turnover of residents is quite rapid since whoever is quartered in this room is generally in the late staged of dementia.  But that is not what they die of.  None of theses women can feed herself and to feed them properly, to spoon in sufficient mince and mashed carrot topped off with rhubarb and custard to keep them going, demands personal attention of a helper per person.  Lacking such one-to-one care, these helpless creatures slowly and respectably starve to death.'

A neighbour of Mr. Bennett's mother has some difficulty:

'Joined the clean plate club, Lily,' says the girl who is feeding Hilda, her neighbour.    'Aren't you a good girl?'

Mr. Bennett says Hilda doesn't want her sweet and 'it is left congealing on her the tray while tea in lidded plastic beakers is taken round, which goes untouched also.'  And he adds:  'So another mealtime passes and Hilda is quite caring and with no malice or cruelty at all pushed one step nearer the grave.'

Whose fault is it?

Not the government's surely?

 Alan Bennett says:  'Her own a little.  Her relatives, if she has relatives.  And the staff's of course.  But whereas a newspaper might make a horror story out of it, I can't.'

What would Milton Pena or Blanco Posnet do?  Or, come to think of it, Charles Charalambous and those who signed his Woke Manifesto for trade unionists and other lefties, do about this?**

Alan Bennett concludes:  'Demented or not, if Hilda were a child there would be a story to tell and blame attaching.  But Hilda is at the end of her life not the beginning.  Even so, were she a Nobel Prize winner, or not a widow from Darwen but the last survivor of Bloomsbury, yes, then an effort might be made.  As it is she is gradually slipping away, which is what this place is for.'

We need something better than slogans, rhetoric and virtue signalling to tackle these complicated questions.  Essentially the problem in this country with regard to elderly people is a largely cultural one, as Alan Bennett's considerations suggest.*  Milton Pena is a Chilean-born surgeon who arrived in Britain with his family in 1974 after being forced to flee General Pinochet’s brutal regime.  Being Chilean he will probably have found it hard to understand the English attitude to old people as expressed by Alan Bennett and all too deeply embedded in our Anglo-saxon attitudes.

* 'Untold Stories' [2005] by Alan Bennett 

** www.northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com Virtue Signalling & Petitioning Governments?

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Vital medical equipment is being shipped abroad despite NHS shortages!

Medical Equipment Being Exported Abroad Despite NHS Shortages

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I'm beginning to wonder if that Bunteresque Johnson, and his sidekick, Dom Cummings, aren't exploiting this national emergency to kill off the elderly and the baby-boomer generation in order to cut the social security/pension bill. It may be a kind of “Shock Therapy”, disaster capitalism, approach to cutting public expenditure.


Dominic Cummings is on record as saying  it's "too bad" if the elderly die of the virus, – he later denied saying this - and how else can you explain, the cack-handed way the Government have gone about dealing with this crises?


Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, told us on 23^rd January, that Professor Christopher John MacRae Whitty, the Chief Public Health Officer for England, had revised the risk of the UK population getting the coronavirus from "low to very low" and said that the country was well prepared and well equipped to deal with it.


Since then, tens of thousands of people have died of the virus (a thousand in one day), and NHS staff are complaining of a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), and their difficulty in getting tested. There is also a shortage of respiratory equipment.


A week ago, Bill Gardner, of the DailyTelegraph, wrote that millions of pieces of PPE were being shipped from Britain to Europe despite the NHS shortages. He wrote:


“Last week five million surgical masks and more than a million respirators were packed onto EU-registered Lorries by one UK wholesaler …and shipped from British warehouses to Germany, Spain, and Italy, despite severe shortages in the UK.”


According to Gardner, UK firms had told him that they had “no choice” but to keep selling lifesaving gear abroad because their efforts of help had been repeatedly ignored by the British government.


Milton Pena, who was an orthopaedic surgeon at Tameside Hospital, for 17-years, told me recently that the failure to do widespread testing and not to count coronavirus deaths in the community was 'premeditated', i.e. deliberate government policy. According to MailOnline, No 10 abandoned widespread testing more than a month ago, so the true scale of Britain's outbreak is a mystery. And why is this country still exporting PPE to other countries, when NHS staff, are complaining of a shortage of it, which is putting their lives at risk?


What's also curious is why 15,000 air passengers a day, are still flying into British airports even from high-risk countries, and aren't being screened or quarantined or even observing rules on social-distancing. They just walk onto the streets of Britain, after being given a leaflet, advising them to self-isolate for two weeks, if they feel I'll after landing.


Public Health England have said that screening  is ineffective and the Foreign Office, maintains that there is no evidence that closing borders or travel bans, would have any effect on the spread of infection. Yet, many other countries have done the very opposite. Professor Gabriel Scally, of the Royal Society of Medicine, told the Financial Times:

"The UK is an outlier. It is very hard to understand why it (the British government), persists in having the open border policy. It is most peculiar."


And while this is going on, we're being told to stay at home, keep three metres apart, and risk fines and prosecution, if we infringe lock-down restrictions, much of which is of dubious legality. You couldn't make it up; it's like something out of a comic opera.

Quarantine measures may be introduced at UK airports?

John Holland -Kaye Boss of Heathrow Airport

John Holland, -Kaye, the boss of Heathrow airport, is urging the Government to introduce mass screenings for passengers - temperature checks, antibody tests, and a requirement that passengers carry health passports to "prove they're medically fit." He thinks that British airports are coming under unfair criticism over the Government's decision not to test.


At a time when British citizens are being advised to stay at home and to keep three metres apart and face prosecution and fines for violating lock-down restrictions, you might find it astonishing, that a government source has said, "More than 15,000 people arrive in the UK each day from virus-hit countries."

Incredibly, passengers are just given a leaflet at British airports and told to self-isolate for two-weeks if they feel ill after landing, and walking unchecked, onto the streets of Britain. Officials have admitted that there is no way of enforcing this.


Yet, the screening of passenger arrivals at UK airports, has been ruled out as 'ineffective' by Public Health England. While other countries have introduced screening for passengers at airports, have closed borders, and have restricted air travel, the British Foreign Office have said:


"There is no evidence that interventions like closing borders or travel bans would have any effect on the spread of the infection."


Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has said that the flow of people coming into the country would not make a significant difference as the virus is already widespread and that screening of passengers at UK airports isn't happening because the number of people has "dropped very dramatically."


On 23 January, Hancock told the House of Commons that the Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Christopher John MacRae Whitty, had revised the risk (of contracting Covid-19) to the UK population from low to very low and that;

"While there is an increased likelihood that cases may arise in this country, we are well prepared and well equipped to deal with them. The UK is one of the first countries to have developed a world leading test for the new coronavirus  and the NHS is ready to respond to any cases that emerge... the public can be assured that the whole of the UK is always prepared for these types of outbreaks and will remain vigilant and keep our response under constant review in the light of emerging scientific evidence."

Since the Health Secretary made this statement in January, saying that there was a very low risk to the UK population, and that the Health system was well prepared and well equipped to deal with it, tens of thousands of people in the UK have died of the virus, including many elderly people in care homes, and even Hancock, now admits, that the virus is 'widespread', throughout the UK.

Despite his assurances to the public that the government had everything under control, hospital's across England have reported a lack of personal protective equipment for front-line NHS staff - which is necessary to treat people with the virus, such as surgical gowns, face masks, visors - and a failure to test doctor's and nurses, to see if they're infected. There is also a shortage of respiratory equipment.

The Health Secretary's blase attitude towards this Covid-19 epidemic may well cost thousand of more British lives, and it is questionable, whether Boris Johnson and his government, have really abandoned their initial strategy of letting the coranavirus run its course, a kind of shock therapy, that is to be imposed on most of us.

VIP's, like Johnson, Hancock, and the Prince of Wales, have all had the virus and were tested very quickly and received first class medical treatment. For the rest of us, the hoi polloi, - who've been thrown under a bus, by Johnson, it is 'herd immunity'.