I can’t remember the last time I bought a newspaper. A couple of friends still have a broadsheet delivered seven days a week, which is evident in conversations, but I put that down to lockdown and not being able to get out much these days. Another friend still buys the one that self-describes as a ‘middle market newspaper’, whatever that is supposed to mean, as well as an evening paper. Retired and living alone without the benefit of modern technology with the exception of satellite TV, those are his only sources of news, although even he now ignores the main news channels because as he tell me he’s heartily sick of all the Covid doom and gloom and has had more than enough of the two doctors of death and Hancock, and as far as Boris is concerned his views would be unprintable in a platform such as this.
Speaking to another friend this week, he had the same opinion, that this government is useless, achieved very little and made a complete mess of managing the Covid outbreak, both think the way the country has been divided into ‘them and us’, with the public sector being looked after because ‘we’ are all in this together, is a disgrace, although to be fair, both live in areas and have relations that are or were employed in small businesses and they are fortunate – or not – depending on your view, not to live in Audi Avenue. Far from it in fact, but it seems for some unfathomable reason the Conservative Party seems intent on following the views of pundits in the media rather than actually looking and listening to the views of the electorate, particularly in the so called ‘red wall’.
Not that this seems to interest the mainstream media, who these days seem to be in a race to the bottom of integrity standards and investigation. Make no mistake, the popularity of the alternative media is growing exponentially as we are all supposed to say these days, although I’m not sure if most users of the term actually understand what it means.
Don’t think I’m knocking these upstarts. The thing about alternative media, in theory at least, is that it’s one of the last bastions of ‘free speech’, although just how long that will last is anyone’s guess, as governments seek to impose their ideas of what is acceptable or appropriate to be talked about, never mind written about, in our new version of normal and not-so-free.
Fall foul of the algorithms, controlling what is acceptable to the media giants controlling the popular on-line platforms, and it’s hard not to see where we are going. Some sort of global utopia where thought and speech can be controlled by closing down discussion that is deemed either not appropriate or acceptable (two weasel words, often used these days by figures in most publicly-funded organisations). I’m sure you get the picture and it’s not 1984; it’s something far worse than that, and the United Kingdom is leading the world.
What started as CCTV surveillance of football crowds during the 1970s in an effort to stem violence, and in public places because of the real threat of terrorism grew, thanks to local and central government politicians, to nation-wide surveillance systems. As police were withdrawn from traditional policing (in the UK at least), CCTV was seen as a win-win solution for politicians looking to be seen to be doing something to combat all forms of crime, that worked well then did it not.
Surveillance has now spread to all aspects of life in the UK. It is no longer a case of you can do anything you want if it’s not against the law. It is now the much more authoritarian European system of you can do something only if the law says you can, which is something quite different but is apparently lost on most people.
It surprised many at the start of the Covid panic how easily this government, on what now seems the most spurious and unreliable advice from ‘experts’, legislated to bring in ‘laws, restrictions and guidelines’, along with draconian penalties without any great pushback by the public. In fact, the opposite was quite often true. These pronouncements by people often working for previously unknown government departments or quangos with absolutely no risk to themselves financially or otherwise and without any consultation took decisions (for our own good of course), spending taxpayers’ money as if it were going out of fashion, with virtually no comment by locally accountable politicians who preferred to hide behind the ‘professional opinion’ of paid officers.
We can now see how that is playing out with the hi-viz 21st century equivalent of Mr. Hodges from ‘Dads Army’ enjoying their clipboard-given authority, backed by a curtain twitching army of people encouraged by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, no less, happy to maintain a ‘snitch line’ for the reporting of mostly minor infringements of the Covid regulations – again a modern equivalent of Mr. Hodges and “put that light out”.
One could be forgiven for thinking that all this has got out of hand. Thousands still locked in their homes terrified to go out into the big dangerous wide world, hanging on each announcement from the BBC in particular and the mainstream media in general, which pretends that ‘the science’ is set in stone, which it is certainly not, and that anyone who questions the statistical relevance of figures issued by government sources, the relevance of often confusing ‘guidelines’, tiers and lockdowns, the cost and effectiveness of our 20-something million mass testing and track and trace shambles, or the safety of the miracle cure ‘vaccines’ is reported again in the mainstream broadcast and print media as tin foil hat, conspiracy theory nutters, pilloried as ‘deniers’ or ‘anti vaxxers’, oddly often by people who think parading around in the open air or driving alone in their own vehicle wearing a flimsy face covering mask is going to save them from catching or passing on (according to a latest NHS cartoon) ‘Covid particles’. You could not, as they say, make this up.
We now have artificial borders being created between the nations of the United Kingdom and assembly members acting for all the world as if the United Kingdom has turned overnight into a ‘federal state’, while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland pontificates about green issues and climate change. (Nero and Rome burning comes to mind.)
Somebody should tell the Prime Minister that his ‘hi-viz’ jacket and hard hat does nothing for his standing in areas away from his particular bubble and in any case hi-viz, particularly yellow as worn by police forces, is now thanks to their actions during peaceful protests in the last few months very passé and so last year. One would have thought that he would have noticed but perhaps he’s not been able to get out as much as usual even when the ‘new normal’ yellow jacketed police are selectively policing citizens protesting peacefully their rights to assembly, protest and movement which have been arbitrarily constrained by cabinet decisions of which he is the leader.
One would have thought that, given the seriousness of the situation, he would have donned hard hat and prime ministerial yellow hi-viz and emulated his predecessor Winston Churchill at the siege of Sydney Street and put in an appearance with the troops in Whitehall.
He would then have seen for himself the amount of feeling against his legislation. No wonder the latest opinion polls put his ratings at an all-time low, and this is just one year since the last election when he was given a clear mandate and the good wishes of much of the electorate.
From boom to bust in one year that must be some sort of record. Perhaps his new media communications guru could come up with a new slogan; how about ‘disappointment and U turns are us’.
In this world of instant experts and communication professionals, does not anyone in the mass ranks of the cabinet office look at the world in which we find ourselves, where style mostly trumps substance? Don’t they learn anything from the Sunday glossies or TV advertisements?
Nightmare on Downing Street – part 2 will be published here tomorrow
Norman’s article is absolutely RIGHT to say the alternative media is a BASTION of FREE SPEECH.
He is also right to point out that it is being attacked.
Well before the Covid pandemic I noticed that E.U. regulations were insisting on getting my private details from me before I could access any information from the internet.
This has become noticeably worse this year and the rate of increase gets faster and faster. (Is that the meaning of exponential?)
I suspect now that it is driven by the panic driven track and trace mania and other aspects of what I regard as a Covid Dictatorship.
Of course there is also the matter of M.S.M. wishing to suppress competition from ‘alternative’ sources of information but that has to be a relatively minor consideration. It should just be competition in a free market but is it?
I don’t think it is. I don’t understand Norman’s algorithms but I am convinced that there is something very worrying going on.
Access to the internet is being monitored, in order to build a data base, of every person’s actions, interests, opinions, financial status and medical records.
That’s how it looks to me anyway and that is an attack on our fundamental liberties.
Norman is also right to point out that we have moved from the age old English principle, of ‘everything is allowed unless forbidden by law,’ to the Napoleonic, EU principle that ‘it is forbidden unless allowed by law’.
I know it sounds trite…….but all of our ‘problems’ began when pupils started calling teachers by their first names…….when women wanted to be the same as men, and when we rid the halls of power, the HofC in particular, of humble people and replaced them with a majority of ‘professional’ politicians.
You know what? We deserve everything we get!
I am unable to comprehend, let alone accept the attitude of a lot of “sheep” in their blind obedience to whatever BJ and his mate Handcock thinks of, to further bu**er up people’s lives, livelihoods and freedoms. How can people accept without question the interference and more or less governance of their Grimer Wormtongue so called advisors who openly enjoy and exploit their newly found “powers?”
I will never again spend money on any so called main stream media or tv channel. My tv is on only to watch videos and “new tube” as I choose. The blatant and obvious attacks on our leisure pursuits and our need to socialise must surely be filtering through the ignorance of the sheep and even penetrate the fear that fills their minds. I fear that there will not be any pubs open in twelve months time thanks to the leaders of the UK and devolved governments. One can only dream and keep hope alive that some day the penny will drop and the sheep will realise how much they have been led to slaughter. The Bible warns us of false prophets and I think that put most of us can name them now, who have slithered into our everyday lives and cause havoc.
All sensible folk who read this newsletter, please keep up the good work. Hassle their lazy stay at home MPs and fill their inboxes.
The background of MSM “experts” can be verified.
The countless “experts” on the “Alternative Media” often.can’t.
The trouble is, we have a generation who mostly have never experienced hardship. On the internet they can find an “expert” to tell them what you want to hear, regardless of the truth. This they seize on as “proof” nothing bad is happening. They never think to research the background of their chosen oracle. The internet gives equal weight to true experts and the charlatans.
This is the snow flake generation.
Thus, in their little world, the covid virus is a hoax, jihadis are not a threat, the UK economy is not headed for disaster.
I think a lot of people are in for a rude awakening in the next twelve months.
I agree with everything you say Harryagain, right up to the last paragraph. Of course there is a virus (which has an effective treatment if caught early), Jihadis are most definitely a threat and should be treated as so with vigour (no illegal immigration should be allowed), the UK economy is a busted flush but it can be mended if all those currently making things up as they go along are removed. I have a dream……..
It is you who is in for a rude awakening when you find out the CV19 Plandemic is orchestrated, that you cannot catch a virus, they are not contagions and that you’ve been lied to repeatedly about cases, numbers et al. Your arrogance is quite amusing.
Oh jaimie. Have you never had the common cold then?
Contagions I believe are transmitted by touch. So you may be right there. Err cold sores are transmitted by touch spreading the herpes simplex VIRUS.
The Common cold is a corona virus mainly transmitted via water droplets through the air. (And probably responsible for much of the positive readings being traced IMHO.)