Zelo Street: March 2020

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

Toby Young Goes Full Nazi

While most of the UK understands the very real risks of contracting Coronavirus, and moreover of passing on the virus to others, those out there on the libertarian fringe, now cast adrift by broadcasters who have belatedly realised the value of pundits who actually know what they are talking about, have begun jostling for position in the quest for More And Bigger Attention Seeking Gestures For Themselves Personally Now.

There are many variously undeserving contenders for Most Off The Wall Libertarian Idiocy, with the likes of Peter Hitchens, James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, and of course Brendan O’Neill of Spiked, so called because it should have been many years ago, but upstaging them all today has been the loathsome Toby Young, going full Logan’s Run and declaring that, in order to preserve the economy, the old and vulnerable must die.

Tobes has accomplished his full-on Nazi eugenicist excursion in an article written for, and to its shame published by, The Critic, titled “Has the Government overreacted to the Coronavirus crisis?” QTWTAIN. But we do not need the link, as Tobes has set out his arguments, lame though they be, in a tediously long Twitter thread.

He wants to end the lockdown “on April 14th, the day after Easter Monday. Or if the Government must extend, by the following Monday so children can return to school after the Easter holidays” and goes on to tell “I make three main arguments. First, that the cost of the economic bailout Rishi Sunack [sic] has proposed is too high. Spending that kind of money to extend the lives of a few hundred thousand mostly elderly people with underlying health problems by one or two years is a mistake”. So spoke Tobes 94.

We are talking hundreds of thousands condemned to die a slow, agonising and painful death not unlike drowning - and we can see from available information that many of them will not be elderly. Moreover, the “one or two years” is bullshit. Many would continue to serve their country, and contribute to its economy, for decades to come. But do go on.

“Second, this isn't a trade-off between public health and economic health, but between saving lives now and saving them in the future. When economies contract, life expectancy declines, due to, among other things, a rise in poverty, violent crime and suicide. During the global financial crisis of 2007–09, the suicide rate in Europe increased by 6.5% according to the [WHO]”. Why is Tobes assuming continued economic contraction? Plus, 650 deaths by suicide in the UK versus hundreds of thousands by Covid-19. Ri-i-i-ight.

But more significant is his third argument. “There's growing evidence the [Imperial College] team over-estimated the demand for hospital care and under-estimated the surge capacity of the NHS. According to Sunetra Gupta and her team at [the University of Oxford], 50% of the UK population has already been infected. That means the demand for hospital care will be far lower than anticipated”. No. Just no. This is a total non sequitur.

Saying “I found some other research which says something different to the research the Government is following” does not mean there is “growing evidence” of anything. What it does show is that there are some out there on the right so desperate to polish their own specialist turds that they will say anything, no matter how outrageous, as a result.

The stupid is strong with this one. No change there, then.

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Spain Urged To Lock Down Completely

While some on the fringes of UK media and politics try and advance the idea that the lockdown response to the Coronavirus pandemic should be eased or even lifted completely, the situation in mainland Europe suggests the opposite: that existing lockdowns may not be sufficient, and should therefore be tightened.

Italy has been locked down for some weeks now, and in Spain, which entered lockdown over the weekend of the 14th of March, another record daily death toll from Covid-19 has been posted: 849 poor souls lost their lives there in the past 24 hours. There will be no easing of the lockdown; indeed, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has already extended that period from the 29th of March to the 12th of April.

Moreover, I am now told that the Spanish lockdown will continue at least until the end of April, maybe beyond. Its conditions are more severe than those in the UK, as AS has reported: “Spain's lockdown bans its residents from leaving the house for all but essential reasons, such as buying food and medical supplies, or travelling to work or to hospital. Other countries that have adopted such measures, for example the UK, allow their citizens to go out for limited exercise - but this is not the case in Spain”.

So it was no surprise to also read “Among those to fall foul of the authorities was Real Valladolid footballer Pedro Porro: the on-loan Manchester City player was fined 600 euros this week after driving 15km from his home to go shopping in the centre of Valladolid”. Anyone feeling hard done by at being stopped by the Police from driving to see relatives, or head for the nearest beauty spot, should take note.

Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid

Now, a letter to the Lancet has suggested that the Spanish lockdown should be tightened. Having modelled the potential spread of the virus, a group of experts has concluded “The model suggests that the actions taken to date … will be insufficient to prevent hospitals and intensive care units from being overwhelmed over the coming weeks. The foreseen collapse of the health system, along with the age distribution of the Spanish population (ie, 18% of people aged ≥65 years), suggests a potentially high mortality rate associated with COVID-19 in the country”. So what action do they advocate?

“According to our models, the current state is associated with a very high risk of saturation of our health system, which is expected to last from March 26 to April 24, 2020 … Therefore, we urge the Spanish Government to implement, as swiftly as possible, more drastic measures to minimise the impact of the pandemic on the Spanish population”.

This means “For example, type A areas (≥100 cases per 10 [to the power 5] inhabitants in the past 7 days) implement a complete shutdown of the region and citizen lockdown, except for essential services (eg, hospitals, health care, and research centres) for a minimum period of 15–21 days”. These areas would include Madrid and Catalonia.

For all those expats hosting barbecues - charcoal is selling well in parts of Spain right now, which is a bit of a giveaway - things could be about to get properly serious. And they could give Brits a hint as to what awaits them - if they don’t follow the lockdown rules.

Coronavirus is not just something other people catch. Now behave yourselves.

Left’s Virus Response Spooks The Right

Those out there on the right have been on a hair trigger for some days now, fearful of what the left might do in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Even the benign suggestion from Labour Party chair Ian Lavery that members should get involved in community organising, to best help the most vulnerable in those communities, precipitated a howl of protest from the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog.

Charlotte Gill ...

So it should surprise no-one that Charlotte Gill, now for some reason gifted a berth at Conservative Home, has gone OTT in no style at all at the prospect of ordinary people and their representatives taking the opportunity to organise and advocate for workers to get a better deal, including having the audacity to demand compensation, including sick pay, for those facing poverty, having been forced to accept zero hours contracts.

Ms Gill, demonstrating why she should be in the vanguard of those emptied out of the think tanks and comment factories and sent to help get in the harvest - given that the EU migrant workers have gone home, just as the Brexiteer right wing wanted, and there is an impending labour shortage in that area - has told her remaining readers “How the Left is exploiting the Coronavirus for political gain”. Which the right isn’t, oh no.

So it must have been a figment of the imagination to read all those calls for the lockdown to be lifted on the pretext of getting the economy going, from people as diverse as the Sun’s lie-peddler emeritus Trevor Kavanagh, and Dan, Dan The Oratory Man. The calls from the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance for greater austerity after the crisis passes - meaning those at the bottom of the pile suffer yet more - must have been a mirage.

Still, on ploughs Ms Gill, asking plaintively “Will the Left try to exploit the Coronavirus to advance a political agenda? There are increasing signs that this is the case”, citing the Fawkes massive as an authoritative source (er, no) and whining about Lavery’s call for Labour members to volunteer within their communities.

... and her new hero

Especially taxing to Ms Gill is The World Transformed, and its promotional literature telling “As the impacts of the Coronavirus crisis continue to ramp up in the UK and beyond, it’s becoming clearer day by day that we cannot rely on Boris Johnson and this Tory government … there is still huge scope for traditional workplace organising and tactics such as strikes to be successful”. Why does this spook her and her pals?

Even in the dark days of World War 2, strike action was not uncommon, and remains the weapon of last resort for organised labour. But Ms Gill does not consider that, instead getting herself terribly worked up because Grace Blakeley talked about a deepening of democracy in a future where more organisations may come under state control. Because they would have to be bailed out by … well, We The People.

The problem the right has here is that, when faced with a crisis of this scale, and seeing their usual solution - free market capitalism - unable to provide the solution, they become defensive and dig out the “Red Scare” tactics so beloved of the paranoid tradition in the US right in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Ms Gill is unable to otherwise explain why a few left-wingers using social media is going to bring about a collapse in society.

If Conservatives can’t provide the answers to our problems, what is the point of them?

Monday, 30 March 2020

EU Must Now Expel Hungary

When the EU, in its formative years, was merely the EEC, and consisted of only six countries - France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy and the then West Germany, it bordered a whole host of totalitarian states. To the east lay Soviet satellite countries, significantly the remaining, Eastern, part of Germany. To the south could be found the dictatorships in Greece, Spain and Portugal.

And although all those countries have now been welcomed into the enlarged EU, it is with the certainty of night following day that the DDR led by Erich Honecker, Romania under the Ceausescu régime, Greece under the boot of the colonels, Spain ruled over by Falangist Generalissimo Francisco Franco, and the Estado Novo of António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal, would not have been let in the door, and still would not today.

So why Hungary has managed to maintain its member state status has been a test of the remaining EU states, and a problem that they have so far been unable to tackle. That inability has now been exploited by Viktor Orbán, taking advantage of the Coronavirus pandemic to become the EU’s very own Great Dictator.

The leader of the nationalist Fidesz party had already signalled his intention: as the Guardian has reported, “Viktor Orbán … has taken the political maxim ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ and run with it … This week he will almost certainly acquire dictatorial powers. The Hungarian parliament, dominated by his Fidesz party, is expected to rubber-stamp the ‘protecting against the coronavirus’ law, ushering in an indefinite period of what amounts to one-man rule in an EU member state”. A sort of enabling law, perhaps.

There is more. “The new law allows Mr Orbán to rule by decree, alone and unchallenged. The prime minister will be able to override all existing legislation. Elections will not take place. Information on government actions will be provided to the speaker of the Hungarian parliament and the leaders of parliamentary groups. The spreading of ‘false’ information … will become a crime punishable by a lengthy prison sentence”. Decided by whom?

It gets worse. “The decision as to when the current emergency is over will be in the hands of Mr Orbán’s Fidesz MPs. A compliant parliament may eventually choose to make permanent some of the arrangements introduced in the context of a global health crisis. ‘Emergency’ measures introduced in 2016 to restrict the rights of asylum seekers are still in place”. The article concludes “This will be another bad week for Hungarian democracy”.

And so it has proved, as NPR has reported today. “The nationalist government in Hungary passed a law Monday granting sweeping emergency powers that Prime Minister Viktor Orban says are necessary to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Those powers include sidelining parliament and giving Orban the power to rule by decree indefinitely”.

Orbán’s excuse? “This law gives the government the power and means to defend Hungary”, wrapping himself up in the flag, while promising “When this emergency ends, we will give back all powers, without exception”. Like he didn’t with asylum seekers.

Viktor Orbán may be more Chaplin than Hitler. But if the values of the EU are to mean anything, the Union cannot permit a dictatorship within its club. So expel the SOB.

Tories Ventilating Supporter Cronyism?

The BBC was one of those media outlets hailing one well-known name for his contribution to tackling the Coronavirus pandemic, reporting last week that “The government has ordered 10,000 ventilators from Dyson to help deal with the coronavirus crisis. The firm, headed by British inventor Sir James Dyson, said it had designed a new type of ventilator in response to a call on behalf of the NHS”. And there was more.

“The order is still subject to the devices passing stringent medical tests but that is expected to happen quickly. Dyson has had hundreds of engineers working round the clock to design the ventilators from scratch … It hopes to build the ventilators at scale from its UK base in Wiltshire - using aircraft hangars that were used to stuff parachutes in the World War Two”. But something was missing from the report.

Back in 2016, Forbes ran a feature on “Dyson, a longtime Conservative Party member”. This matters: the Independent has now reported that “A British-based manufacturer says that they have been told by the government not to produce much-needed ventilators less than a week after being asked to help make thousands of the machines, the company’s chief executive has said”. And which manufacturer might this have been?

“Nick Grey, chief executive of Gtech, told … that he had been advised by the government on 26 March not to continue making ventilators, despite his company answering the government’s call for help in producing more than 30,000 of the machines just two weeks prior … It’s not clear why the government allegedly told the company to stop producing the ventilators, particularly seeing as the machines are key to keeping people alive who have trouble breathing because of coronavirus”. This could have been a coincidence, though.

Or rather, it could have been a coincidence until Stoke on Trent Live told readers this morning “Dozens of JCB employees to return to work - to help with national coronavirus relief effort”. Doing what, perchance? “Around 50 of them are set to return to work at the company's Uttoxeter factory within days to make steel parts to be fitted to models of a ventilator being designed by Dyson”. Well, well. Another coincidence. Do go on.

“It comes almost two weeks after the closure of the Uttoxeter factory and follows Prime Minister Boris Johnson's direct appeal for JCB to help plug the national ventilator shortage … A research and engineering team was set up to see how JCB could help and the first prototypes of the steel housing have been sent to Dyson … It is hoped that mass production of the housings can start within days”. And there is a Tory connection here.

As the Guardian reported last January, “JCB has a long track record of working closely with top Tories to further the Conservative cause … The Bamford family, which was said to be worth £3.6bn in last year’s Sunday Times Rich List, along with JCB have handed over almost £10m in political donations since 2001, according to records held by the Electoral Commission”. The Bamfords are also believed to have chipped in to fund the TPA.

So that’s two firms with links to the Tories who appear well set to do good business out of the Coronavirus pandemic. Which begs the question, as Private Eye Magazine might have put it, “I wonder if the two are in any way related? I think we should be told”.

Perhaps one of those political editors will ask the question. But don’t hold your breath.

Sun Pundit Lies About Covid-19 Deaths

After the news yesterday that the current lockdown of the UK, ordered in an effort to slow the spread of the Coronavirus, could last another six months, has come the sadly predictable contrarian response. It’s not necessary, the public won’t wear it, it’s heavy handed, lots of people would have died anyway, and why oh why won’t anyone think of the economy? And why won’t they keep on buying their newspapers?

Much of the contrarian drivel is relatively harmless, but that emanating from the Murdoch press most certainly is not. That, though, has not stopped faithful enforcer Trevor Kavanagh doing what he has done with such lack of style for so many years: talking well, but lying badly. Kav has only one responsibility, and that is to Creepy Uncle Rupe.

He kicks off by lying about flu deaths in 2017-18: “JUST two years ago, in the Beast From The East winter of 2017-18, a flu epidemic prematurely claimed the lives of more than 50,000 frail and elderly victims”. Not true: an article in the BMJ cites this conclusion. “a total of 3,454 ICU/HDU admissions of confirmed influenza were reported across the UK from week 40 2017 to week 15 2018, including 372 deaths, based on combined data from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland”. Then Kav lies a little more.

And this time, it’s a big one. “The coronavirus death toll has topped 1,200 and, according to expert Prof Neil Ferguson, it could all be over in weeks with a final tally of ‘less than 7,000’”. Do go on. “That’s a big drop from the Prof’s terrifying forecast two weeks ago of up to half a million dead and perhaps 18 months’ lockdown”. But there is a problem.

As the BBC has reported, “A paper released on Friday projected that fewer than 7,000 people would die of coronavirus in the UK in total. This figure is much lower than that in the modelling used by government … So where did they get their numbers from? To get to these projections, Prof Tom Pike used the trajectory of death numbers in China to predict the progress of the UK and other countries' outbreaks. But experts in viruses and epidemics have cautioned against assuming that countries will follow the same trajectory, even if there are similarities in early figures from each country”. Also, “could”. Not “will”.

The Beeb also cautions “Prof Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, who developed the modelling used by the government, says it takes time before any measures, such as social distancing, have an effect”. That has, surprise, surprise, been ignored by Kavanagh.

So off he goes: “We MUST protect the economy - industry, commerce, retail and financial businesses without whose taxes our precious NHS will shrivel, not grow. The cost of this lockdown on schools, sport, gyms, pools, golf and civil liberty is incalculable - and not just in hard cash … We are building a colossal national debt which will take our children’s and grandchildren’s lifetimes to pay off”. And his point is what, exactly?

Simples. What this irresponsible and dishonest rant really means is that the Murdoch press is losing print sales at a frightening rate. As the Guardian reported last Friday, “National print newspaper sales have fallen by as much as 30% since the start of the government-ordered coronavirus lockdown”. So Kav lies through his teeth in order to try and get everyone back to work - and stuff the death toll.

That’s how much the Murdoch mafiosi care about their readers. Don’t buy the Sun.

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Sunday, 29 March 2020

Boris Facebook Bot Army BUSTED

For someone out there, the idea of the Tories enjoying a 52% poll rating, or alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson enjoying yet higher approval ratings for his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, are just not enough. No opportunity for shameless propaganda can be allowed to go to waste, no matter how obvious.

So it was that a number of Facebook groups, often community groups, saw the appearance of pro-Bozo messages the other day. The problem for whoever is propagating them is that not only are the messages poorly punctuated and ungrammatical, but that they are uniformly so. The message was the same. Only the groups varied.

Bedworth’s Community Page … Upton [Upon Severn] Parish Notice Board … Sandbach Sarcastic Society … The Modern Barbers … and Memory Lane UK. A diverse selection of groups, but the same message. That concludes Bozo is doing A Very Good Job.

Here’s the text. “This is Boris. I never voted for him, in fact I actively vilified him. What I've seen over the past 2 weeks is a man who is clearly working exceptionally long hard hours. A man who is facing something that no nations [sic] leader has had to deal with in living memory. A man who has found out this job is far more than waving a plastic flag and hiding in a fridge. The babbling buffoon act has been dropped for something far more serious”.

There is more. “And hes [sic] doing well.... in fact I think hes [sic] doing a pretty fucking bang up job if I'm honest. He takes hard and real questions every night and answers what he knows and refers to people who know better when needed. He holds it together like a leader should and is there every day telling you what the best thing to do is to protect and save the people you love”. And more, as the real grovelling begins.

“Listen to the man in charge. Hes [sic] our Prime Minister. Might not be the one we wanted, but might well just be the one we need. And let's not forget he got us HS2. Peace & stay healthy x”. Got us HS2 in the same way he got Londoners Crossrail - by managing not to cancel something that had already been started by someone else.

Some Facebook groups seem to have removed the text, while others are still propagating it, or having it propagated. But every time it appears, it’s the same text, with the same mistakes, and the Cummings key word “babbling”. All of which begs one question.

If Bozo is doing so well, and is so popular, why is there any need for crude and ungrammatical propaganda to be posted all over social media? A variant has even appeared on Twitter. Someone feels awfully insecure right now.

Or perhaps that someone knows things are about to get a lot worse. Just a thought.

Fruit & Veg Picking Labour Shortage SOLVED

At a time when the UK will need, more than ever, to rely on what it can grow and harvest itself, the warnings have already started. Today’s Observer has brought the news “Charter flights to bring in agricultural workers from eastern Europe are needed as a matter of urgency, otherwise fruit and vegetables will be left unpicked in Britain’s fields, the government is being warned”. We need fruit and veg pickers! And there is more.

(c) Guardian Media Group 2020

“Some large farms have already been chartering planes to bring in labour from eastern Europe. But farming organisations and recruitment agencies say that, in the face of massive disruption to the agricultural sector caused by the spread of the coronavirus, the government needs to step in and help organise more flights. Some 90,000 positions need to be filled, many in just a few weeks’ time”. What to do?

“Some farms were struggling even before the crisis hit. A tightening of the labour market, a combination of Brexit and the booming domestic economies of eastern Europe proving more attractive to seasonal workers, had seen a decline in the number of fruit and vegetable pickers coming to the UK … British growers have been contacting companies in the hospitality sector to recruit laid-off staff”. We need someone to set an example here.

Who might be best placed to do that? Well, what is needed is someone showing willing, getting out of the big cities, going to Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Kent or the West Country, and able to make some noise about it, be comfortable in front of the cameras, get the message across. Someone who can make the unattractive look good.

Come on Dazzer, bit of supply and demand practical for you ...

And with the Coronavirus crisis cutting down the numbers of talking heads required by broadcasters, those broadcasters looking to give real experts more airtime, the press focusing on the pandemic so not needing all those Astroturf lobby groups and their press releases to fill column inches, there are plenty of fit and healthy young people with time on their hands and nothing else to do. These can be our example setters.

People like Darren Grimes, always willing to shoot his mouth off about nothing in particular, who can now have a purpose in life and become economically productive for once. Guido Fawkes teaboy Tom Harwood, too. And to prove this isn’t a male-only gig, there are also the likes of Charlotte Gill from ConHome and Sherelle Jacobs from the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph.

... and your economically unproductive pals

They can now cheerlead for the 21st Century “Dig For Britain”, along with the inmates of all those think tank bunkers, the TPA, ASI, CPS, IEA, Policy Exchange and IoD. Not to mention all those underemployed young people at the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine: now, Doug Murray The K can get first-hand experience of what it’s like when you banish all those Rotten Foreigners™ from dear old Blighty.

With these upstanding exemplars in the vanguard, the recruitment drive for fruit and veg pickers can only succeed. By showing the law of supply and demand in action, the right-wing punditerati can not only live the life they are so happy to wish on others, they can, by accepting the pay rates on offer, demonstrate that these are enough to live on.

And they can become even fitter and healthier as they work. What’s not to like?

Mail On Sunday Says EU Done It

With Brexit day passing at the end of January, one of our free and fearless press’ most overused bogeymen had gone. There were no MEPs any more, so there could be no more demonisation of the European Parliament. But there were still negotiations around future trade arrangements between the UK and the EU, and today this has been cynically exploited by the increasingly wayward Mail On Sunday.

In a double-page spread requiring four individuals to compile it, the MoS asks “Did Barnier Infect BoJo?” QTWTAIN. But do go on. “EU negotiator might be the ‘Patient Zero’ who brought virus to No 10”. And he most likely was not. But there is more. A lot more.

“COULD this be the ultimate revenge for Brexit? [No] The Coronavirus that has laid Boris Johnson low may have passed into Westminster’s inner circle via the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, according to one theory”. Not even “a source”, or “an insider”.

But enough: this is nothing more than crude bigotry, reinforced by a further double-page spread kicking the Chinese titled “CHINA FACES ‘RECKONING’", the latter replete with the only slightly racist “We must stop kow-towing to these despots” by Iain Duncan Cough.

Tanja Bueltmann had seen enough. “This is from tomorrow’s Mail on Sunday … it’s the EU’s fault - that [Covid-19] came to No. 10. That’s it: no more bottom to scrape. Utterly despicable … we’re in the middle of a pandemic that has seen 1000s die already and more will, and this is what the MoS concluded is the best thing to go with ... While EU doctors and nurses in the NHS battle, with their colleagues, to protect us”.

Richard Chambers concluded “There's irresponsible journalism and then there's this”, which was more or less the conclusion reached by Annette Dittert, London bureau chief for German broadcaster ARD. Edwin Hayward added “The Mail on Sunday has *2 double page splashes* deflecting blame for the coronavirus onto foreigners and stirring up xenophobia … Target 1: the EU … Target 2: China … The reality is, Boris Johnson bungled this crisis very, very badly. He zigged when the rest of the world zagged”. Quite.

Our free and fearless press knows that the crisis response from alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was hesitant, slow - and late. He knew what was unfolding in Italy, the actions that were being taken in China, the mass testing that was being enacted in Germany, and he knew more needed to be done to properly equip the NHS for the onslaught of sick and indeed dying patients. He dithered and delayed.

So it is left to the shock troops of the Fourth Estate to make sure the public does not blame Bozo The Clown for his own inaction. Sadly for the MoS, they got their attack very wrong. Wrong enough for Martin Rowson to respond “Holy fuck. Honestly, if the Daily Mail were a dog it would be in a jar in a Wyoming franchise of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: ‘Roll Up Roll Up! See the Mutt with an Asshole for a Head! Actually Howled n Shat AT THE SAME TIME for 5 days til clubbed to death by nuns! Over 60s only’”. Cruel. Cruel but fair.

The Mail on Sunday is indeed like a dog. A sick one awaiting humane termination.

Top Six - March 29

So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, I have more domestic stuff to do later. So there.

6 Isabel Oakeshott Private School Fail Rich people whining about having to keep on paying school fees while most other folks have more pressing problems. No. Just no.

5 Fawkes Lavery Hit Job BEYOND A DISGRACE Attacking the Labour Party chair for advocating for volunteering and community organising is out of order. Once more.

4 Brexiteer Says EU Gave Him Coronavirus David Bull claims he got it in January and fell ill in March. Or maybe he’s just attention seeking.

3 Dominic Cummings - The Fan Hits The Shit Polecat Dom’s reported claim that “if a few pensioners die, so be it” was horribly revealing. And shows he shouldn’t be in Downing Street. Or anywhere else in politics.

2 Dan Wootton Blames Meghan For Crisis The Duchess of Sussex got a Disney voiceover gig - so there had to be another bitter tantrum, followed by the usual punishment beating.

1 Tim Martin - Still A Selfish Bastard The Spoons boss failed to keep his pubs open - so he then failed to commit to paying his 40,000 staff, and suggested they apply to Tesco.

And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!