Good News, Lab Rats - Some Of You Will Die

And so, in an effort to keep those poll numbers ahead of all opposition, alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his new Health Secretary Sajid Javid told an expectant nation what had already been trailed extensively in blatant breach of rules recently reiterated by new Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle. All Covid-19 related restrictions would be lifted on July 19 - subject to confirmation next week.

The reasoning was exceptionally lame: the best Bozo could manage, given that new infections were running at over 25,000 a day and hospital admissions for June 29 had exceeded 350, was to mumble that if there could not be unlocking in Summer, then when could there be? The thought that some prudent level of caution might be the best way forward, that this may become the new normal, was not allowed to enter.

Even the morning after the announcement, Javid is conceding that some may choose to keep wearing face coverings in shops and other enclosed spaces, and on public transport. Thus it all becomes muddled: wearing a face covering protects others, and the instinct of the intolerant right, those who obsess over their FREEM, will be to ditch them. And who will stop them? Thus the vulnerable will have their protection against Covid eroded.

Infections, he and Bozo concede, are likely to hit 50,000 a day. Other predictions show estimates over 100,000. Even our free and fearless press has figured out that Bozo is taking a gamble. Government advisors are not enthusiastic, as Steve Richards noted: “P Vallance and C Whitty looking on warily as they announce rising hospitalisations..and both making clear they will continue to wear masks in several situations”.

The admission of increased risk did not impress Jessica Simor: “I agree that summer is the time to unlock at least for a bit. But to remove mandatory masks on transport, in shops and theatres is nuts. Why risk lives for this small sacrifice? How can they knowingly allow us to risk killing each other in this way?” A little over-dramatic? Maybe not.

Jason Hunter observed “[Boris Johnson] says that we can expect 50,000 new infections per day by the 19th July, increased hospitalisations and ‘unfortunately’ more deaths from Covid”. Richard Murphy added “Johnson has asked ‘if we can’t unlock now when can we go back to normal?’ Maybe we can’t. Maybe there has been irreversible change. And we need to get used to that. It may also be true of climate change”. Point.

As for the “if not now, when?” argument, Mikey Smith mused “Look, I know there is some risk attached to scrapping all road speed limits, but if we can’t do it at 4 in the morning, when the roads are quiet, when can we?” And for the FREEM lovers, Owen Jones had this observation: “Wearing a bit of cloth on a train or in a supermarket doesn't mean you're a prisoner in a Gulag, find yourself a real injustice to suffer from!”

Moreover, the idea that Bozo is a committed libertarian was given short shrift by Paul Bernal: “If he were libertarian we wouldn’t have the most authoritarian policing bill outside wartime, the biggest crackdown on internet free speech ever in the U.K. in the Online Safety Bill, let alone the Voter ID proposal. This is about money, not freedom”.

It is also that Bozo wants to be loved. This will get him positive headlines, maintain his poll ratings. So a few more of the lower orders will die? That’s where voting Tory gets you.

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Covid Makes You Free

The heavily gaslighted journey of an often unsuspecting population through the looking glass has continued over the weekend, after Sajid Javid, someone who knows all about money but very little about health care, and diddly squat about virus transmission, made his first major pronouncement on the subject of Covid pandemic restrictions.

These, he declared to the increasingly wayward Mail on Sunday, were to be relaxed on July 19. This move, he asserted, would make the nation healthier. Yes, increasing the transmission of a potentially deadly virus would make us all feel better. Ignorance is strength. This may have impressed our free and fearless press, because they wanted to hear it. But for those not swimming in cash, and the more vulnerable, it was anything but.

One look at the data - and alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson claims to be guided by data, and not dates - shows the UK is experiencing an alarming rise in Covid infections. From being ahead of the pack in early May, we are seeing cases soar, as other European nations, the USA, and indeed India, are seeing reductions.

The level of new infections is now running at three times that when the Government decided to delay the ending of restrictions for four weeks. Comparison with the rest of Europe is a devastating indictment of Government ineptitude: people in Spain and Portugal think their Covid numbers are bad; the UK’s are of a magnitude worse.

Javid’s first assertion was enough to set alarm bells ringing: “We are going to have to learn to live with Covid and find ways to cope with it - just as we already do with flu”. Covid is not, repeat is not, REPEAT IS NOT, flu. At least a million - that’s a one with six zeroes, Saj - suffering from Long Covid is testament to that. Few were impressed by that line.

Zubaida Haque, who you can tell as she’s a doctor, responded “Someone needs to explain to Health Sec Sajid Javid, that THE REASON we have had long lockdowns is because his govt have repeatedly failed in suppressing the virus and taking action early. And letting the virus rip & cases rise will mean MORE lockdowns and restrictions; not less”.

Lay people were also less than impressed, and Richard Murphy was one of them: “We have a new Health Secretary whose plan is to actively encourage the spread of a massively contagious disease that causes considerable harm to many who are not vaccinated against it, most of whom are children. What sort of insanity is this?”

Some journalists were also not swallowing the MoS line: the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr mused “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Health is the deliberate mass infection of an entire nation’s children with a novel & mutating virus with unknown long term consequences”. Jon Worth, a Brit in Germany, looked on with horror.

“This approach genuinely scares me. Life is steadily returning to some sort of normal in Germany, but conscious of the risks and some restrictions continue. Javid and Frost are saying to hell with deaths and impact of long COVID. Open up anyway. Extraordinary”.

Meanwhile, politicians who are not Tories could see where Javid was heading, even if he couldn’t: Caroline Lucas concluded “Government approach to Covid is now to abandon all measures to control it & *leave it up to individuals* … Other public health & safety measures aren't left up to individuals so why is Covid? This isn't *restoring freedom* - it's ministers washing their hands of any responsibility”. So what was to be done?

From the North West, Andy Burnham tried a gentle hint to Bozo, Saj and their press cheerleaders: “I struggle to see how Ministers can drop the requirement to wear masks on public transport without causing real problems for some people who are dependent on it. Those more vulnerable to infection or anxious about it will be put in a very unfair position. Rethink needed?” The Government is supposed to be driven by data, and not dates.

If they want the decision to be, to quote Bozo’s chosen phrase, a terminus point, to be irreversible, then caution has to be the watchword. We are not in a lockdown, but merely subject to some restrictions, like table service in pubs and bars, wearing face coverings on buses and trains, and a cap on the numbers allowed in shops and supermarkets. None of these presages the end of the world, and nor do they remove our freedom.

What does remove our freedom is turning the UK into Plague Island and having the rest of Europe banning our nationals from going there. And shackling more of the population with Long Covid. This may not trouble Bozo and Saj, or indeed their backers in the press, as they have the means to be chauffeured everywhere, kept away from the hoi polloi.

So they are so divorced from reality that they make the worst of bad decisions, for which everyone else has to suffer. Don’t do it, Saj - this time the voters will not forgive you.

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Stupid Tory MP Is Predictably Stupid

Whenever there is a Tory MP needed to trot out a reliably right-wing rent-a-quote response, the name of Andrew Bridgen is always somewhere near the top of broadcasters’ call lists. And when LBC wanted him to comment on concerns raised by the BMA over ending restrictions like the wearing of face coverings in two weeks’ time, off he went.

Don't forget, HS2 nicked his beer

What LBC also knew was that Bridgen had opened mouth and inserted boot in no style at all with his reply, so they quoted it with a suitable caveat. “The British Medical Association could be lobbied by the PPE industry to advocate for continued use of face masks after July 19, Tory MP Andrew Bridgen suggests”. Bridgen himself had no such qualms.

“Who can argue that the BMA are not ‘hand in glove‘ with the PPE manufacturers?” he asserted, somehow unaware that the correct answer is “nobody, because they aren’t”. This is what he told host Matt Frei: “I really would like, in the interests of transparency, for the BMA to declare what lobbying they’ve been put under”. Would he now? There was more.

“By the manufacturers of PPE, who’ve clearly got a financial interest in people continuing to wear these masks”. He repeated this, even after Frei intervened. David Wrigley, who you can tell as he’s a doctor, was unimpressed. “The accusation from [Andrew Bridgen] about [the BMA] should be withdrawn immediately & an apology issued. I’ve been part of the leadership of BMA throughout the pandemic & we’ve fought hard to get PPE to our colleagues fighting this deadly virus. BMA has NO affiliations with PPE companies”.

Ram Moorthy, who is an ENT surgeon, added “Fascinating that despite the wealth of stories regarding the awarding of contracts and issues of cronyism I have not seen any about NHS or doctor leaders being involved?”. Stuart Sutton, a GP and clinical director, put it more bluntly. “This is a truly shocking lie… I was incredibly concerned about our ability to provide sufficient #PPE to colleagues at the start of the pandemic. Consecutive Govts (including yours) failed to prepare & stockpile leading to dodgy contracts & failed flights to #Turkey I recall?” Our Government, it is true, has had some rocky moments.

Then came an intervention from the official BMA Twitter feed, and it was not good news for Bridgen. “This is wholly untrue and defamatory. The BMA has no commercial relationships with any PPE suppliers and our view that mask-wearing can reduce the spread of COVID-19 is based on the best available science. You should withdraw these irresponsible claims immediately”. They tagged the Government chief whip for good measure.

Seriously, this is a truly abysmal attempt at deflection, by smearing the very people who have done their best, despite the cronyism and general ineptitude of alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his pals. Or as Julie Tyler put it, “Bridgen worries about lobbying and cronies - and irony dies right in front of our eyes”.

Meanwhile, also on LBC, Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project was telling James O’Brien that “the latest [PPE] contract is ‘much much much worse’ than those he's seen before” and adding “Everybody within the orbit of the Conservative Party seems to have been rewarded with these enormously lucrative PPE contracts”.

What would be the sensible course of action here? What would a sensible person have done? What would Nietzsche have done? That’s right, Andrew Bridgen - apologise.

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GB News Goes Full Far Right

As its ratings continue their downward trend, so new broadcast entrant GB News has pressed the far-right panic button and embraced the kinds of interviewees that not even Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse) will go anywhere near. And with the certainty of night following day, those urging advertisers to pull their placements from the station are right behind. Andrew Neil’s no-hate claim looks more ragged by the day.

First, it was merely the kinds of liars and shameless propagandists that pop up all over right wing media: after the self-promoting Julia Hartley Dooda had given a platform to agent provocateur Andy Ngo on her TalkRADIO show - and conspicuously failed to interrogate her source - the deeply unsavoury Dan Wootton did likewise on GB News.

Colin Brazier

This was after Ngo had been praised by Wootton’s fellow host Neil Oliver, a Tweet that was Retweeted by another GB News presenter, Colin Brazier. And it was Brazier who went one worse than Wootton, as he gave his remaining viewers the dubious benefit of an interview with Rebel Media co-founder Ezra Levant. You heard that right.

Ezra Levant

Ezra Levant, of whom Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes said “I was never recognised before The Rebel”. The Proud Boys is a neo-fascist organisation that has been designated a terrorist group in McInnes’ native Canada. McInnes contributes to Taki’s Mag, published by Taki Theodoracopulos, whose columns in the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine have included praise for Golden Dawn in Greece, and Hitler’s Wehrmacht.

Ezra Levant, who worked with pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins (since banned by Twitter, to the great relief of all those who wished it had happened rather earlier). Ezra Levant, who worked rather more extensively with Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson (Lennon, McInnes and man-baby Milo Yiannopoulos had planned a speaking tour of Australia, only to fail the country’s “character test” and be denied visas).

So did Colin Brazier go where Ms Hartley Dooda had failed with Andy Ngo, and interrogate his source? Sadly, he did not, merely introducing Levant as a “political activist and broadcaster”. Peter Walker of the Guardian did not agree. “This is a really big mis-step by [GB News]. Ezra Levant isn’t a ‘political activist and broadcaster’, he’s a far right activist and very close ally of Tommy Robinson. Astonishing he’s allowed anywhere near the TV”.

Peter Jukes of Byline Media was equally unimpressed. “Shame on you [Colin Brazier] - you’re amplifying far right Ezra Levant who worked with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka ‘Tommy Robinson’), Katie Hopkins and others to spread hateful, inciting and dangerous Islamophobia. What a falling off from broadcast standards”. Indeed.

So it was no surprise to see campaign group Stop Funding Hate quoting Walker as they listed some of this week’s GB News’ advertisers. Elsewhere, it was just plain old misinformation, with ex-ITV has-been Alastair Stewart telling GB News viewers “The coronavirus, which was never a threat to children's wellbeing, has made them victims”.

As Greg Travis has pointed out, “For children, COVID is four hundred+ times more deadly than influenza”. Misinformation, lies - and desperately embracing the far right for clicks.

GB News has not yet reached the end of the road. But you can see it from there.

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Vine/Gove - Will The Story Be Told?

After her column last Sunday in the increasingly wayward Mail on Sunday had thrown a whole barrel of fuel on the fire of speculation, unappealing self-promotion specialist Sarah “Vain” Vine returned to the news yesterday afternoon as it was confirmed that she and Michael “Oiky” Gove had “agreed to separate” and were “finalising their divorce”.

As the BBC has reported, the couple - most conveniently - were able to call on one of those “close friends” to tell “This is a difficult and sad decision for Michael and Sarah after 20 years of marriage … It is an entirely amicable separation and there is no-one else involved … They have drifted apart over the past couple of years but they remain friends … Their absolute priority is the children”. So that’s it, is it? Well, maybe not.

As so often in these situations, the opposition comes riding to your rescue, and the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have come galloping, with the most glaring of giveaways as they tried just a little too hard to tell the world that they had an exclusive inside track when it came to “Oiky”.

All it took was one line: “Guido is told this news is not pre-emptive of a story in tomorrow’s papers”. Ever since Staines employed the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole as his tame gofer, the stupid has been strong with this one. No, Fawkes brainboxes, it’s not about today’s papers. But that statement does not rule out tomorrow’s papers - the Sundays.

What the Sundays might reveal has been hinted at by the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, elevating Vine/Gove to lead status and telling “A Source close to Mr Gove dismissed any rumours about his private life as ‘utter nonsense’ and ‘made up’ … A spokesman for Mr Gove … denied that the divorce announcement was a pre-emptive strike before compromising news breaks about him”. No legal threats, then.

While the rest of today’s papers cover the story - with the exception of the Murdoch titles and the Daily Mail - it is the Sundays that will be scrabbling to unearth - or maybe that should be stand up - the story behind the split. And I have to tell The Great Guido and their pal Gove that one title had a well-known hack on the case yesterday afternoon.

That title is the Mail on Sunday. Yes, the same Mail on Sunday for which Ms Vine penned her Message To Oiky last weekend. Moreover, if the MoS is sniffing around, what price the Murdoch Sun keeping schtum if there is the possibility of sales and clicks to be scored? What happens if the story is broken by new media, outside of the press’ control?

As to what the MoS may have on Gove, we need look no further than Ms Vine’s column from last weekend, which told “The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade. She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that”.

This could be no more than a brief snark. But it could also be construed as meaning “I know the story, and so does my paper, which come next weekend is going to shit on you from a considerable height”. Which is correct? We may not have to wait long to find out.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Especially if she has a Mail on Sunday column.

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Spectator National Trust Lies BUSTED

The tsunami of exaggeration and invention that is the mostly confected “culture war”, and indeed the “war on woke”, has thus far had the unswerving support of one publication above all others, and that is the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine. Sad to say, though, in being thus supportive, a few of those expedient exaggerations have slipped out.

Moore and bigger whoppers by Himself Personally Now

Which brings us to the sad decline of one Charles Hilary Moore, an alleged peer of the realm, and a former editor of the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, its Sunday sister paper, and indeed the Speccy, whose National Trust hatchet job in the latter publication has caused his trousers to spontaneously combust in no style at all.

“According to a current National Trust employee, who naturally remains anonymous: ‘At interviews people are asked how they voted in the Brexit referendum, and rejected out of hand if they voted to leave’” he claims. The “source” continues “There is an atmosphere of fear and bullying - not, as the upper echelons in the Trust would like to believe, among downtrodden minorities, but among anyone who holds a view opposed to the neo-Marxist model prevalent in the organisation”. How convenient for the Speccy. And there is more.

“Since the Trust’s ‘Prejudice and Pride’ initiative [an (sic) campaign to ‘showcase’ gay connections with the Trust], they have been in cahoots with Stonewall, whereby ‘LGBTQ allies’ are recruited to spy on and weed out anyone who thinks, speaks or acts in an ‘unacceptable’ way”. And then there is Moore’s moderately wacko summing up.

“In studying how wokery took over the Trust (and many other cultural bodies, notably museums), I think the key to it lies in staff recruitment and HR. It is the 2020s equivalent of the hard-left penetration of trade unions in the 1970s”. The NT, having perused Moore’s drivel, has concluded “This isn't correct. These allegations are without evidence or foundation, and some are plain ludicrous. We’ve asked for a retraction from the Spectator”.

But after Jim Pickard of the FT had observed “of all that things that have never happened this has to be quite high up”, Evan Harris, who you can tell as he’s a doctor, had bad news: “Pointless exercise … Because IPSO is a press lapdog, not watchdog, and is run by a former Tory minister. It takes months to find a loop-hole for the publication or organise a tiny ‘buried’ correction with no apology”. IPSO will do next to nothing. As usual.

The only way to gain redress would be to instruct lawyers, but here a problem enters. The National Trust does not have the wherewithal to splash its cash on lawsuits, and this is factored into Moore’s trotting out yet another Spectator whopper. It’s why charitable organisations are such a favourite target for less principled organs of the press.

Indeed, such is the Speccy’s alt-right mindset that their Twitter feed recently quoted Lionel Shriver (an immigrant) telling “This is purely anecdotal, but in my formerly white, working-class neighbourhood of south London, the proportion of Africans on the streets is high. In the 11 years we’ve lived there, that proportion has palpably risen”.

Sam Freedman observed “The Spectator actually deleted this nasty bit of racism (though the article containing it remains on their site). Maybe developing a tiny bit of shame at the bilge they're now pumping out on a daily basis”. If only. Like so much of our free and fearless press, dog-whistling and lying for clicks is de rigueur. If they can get away with it.

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George Galloway Protests Too Much

Anyone who has been involved with campaigning for the Labour Party knows that canvassing is not the end of it: there is then GOTV - Get Out The Vote - on polling day. So it was in the Batley and Spen constituency, where the party threw everything at persuading every last voter to mark their cross alongside the name of Kim Leadbeater. This got her over the win line, to the clear dismay of the Tory challenger.

He lost ...

But at least Ryan Stephenson and his team accepted the result with good grace, something that could not be said for George Galloway, who won more than 8,000 votes, but still came only third. Galloway, who had previously decreed that he was done with speaking to the mainstream media, announced his latest move live, er, right there.

Speaking to Sky News (“first for breaking wind”), he declared “On multiple grounds, we will apply to the courts for this election result to be set aside. You’ll be hearing much more of this, from me, directly, from the horse’s mouth, over the next hours and days”. A successful challenge would, it is true, excuse Galloway from having to eat his hat.

... and she didn't

Earlier in the campaign, he had told Owen Jones “Let me break it to you gently: Labour are going to be third in this by-election … 100%. I’ll eat my hat in your presence. I’ll eat my hat if they’re not third”. Well, they’re not. He is. And, as for that legal challenge, well.

Galloway has been proclaiming the arrival of legal challenges all the way through the Batley and Spen campaign, most notably over Kirklees Council (which covers the Huddersfield and Dewsbury area, as well as Batley) removing swathes of election posters promoting The Great Man - as the BBC reported the other day.

“Kirklees Council said the adverts broke election rules but Mr Galloway accused the Labour-run authority of a ‘blatantly partisan move’ … James Giles, Mr Galloway's campaign manager, said it had instructed lawyers and reported the removal to West Yorkshire Police and the Electoral Commission”. No legal challenge as yet.

And those with longer memories may recall the last time that Galloway defended a seat that he had won in a by-election: that would be Bradford West, in 2015. The BBC again: “Former MP George Galloway has announced he has started legal proceedings to challenge his general election defeat. Mr Galloway, leader of the Respect Party, lost his Bradford West seat to Labour's Naz Shah, who he has alleged made ‘false statements’ during the campaign to affect the result. He also claimed ‘widespread malpractice’ involving postal voting meant the result must be ‘set aside’”. Didn’t happen.

What did happen after the Batley and Spen result was declared, though, quite apart from widespread agreement that Kim Leadbeater was extremely brave to stand in the constituency where her sister Jo Cox was murdered outside her constituency office in 2016, was Labour MPs who know Galloway of old saying what they thought of him.

After David Lammy told “I said it in 2005 and I’ll say it again. George Galloway is a carpetbagger who whips up racial tensions. The people of Batley and Spen have rightly rejected him”, Rupa Huq added “poisonous Galloway is champion carpetbagger as a young David Lammy points out here: Once again conquest has fallen flat, he needs to crawl back under his rock now”. You lost, George. Stuff your indefatigability.

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