Sir Keir Starmer – the new darling of ‘Our MSM’

I don’t know about you, but for me, the worry about the state of our society post-CV19 is increasing. That is because the indoctrination of our people by ‘Our MSM’ seems to be working nicely. There’s not just the weekly clapathon on Thursday evenings, there are the frankly astonishing opinion pieces slowly percolating through the broadsheets, namely that now, with Sir Keir Starmer at Labour’s helm, there’s finally an ‘alternative’: to Johnson, to Brexit, to how “we” would have beaten that virus if only … and never mind Labour’s anti-semitism! 

The good news is that Johnson will be back on Monday (link) – ‘good’ not least because there’s ‘disquiet’ in the Cabinet about the Lockdown, as the report helpfully points out. There’s also a soppy article about Dominic Cummings and how ill he was (link). The gloves will be off on Monday, I bet, because it really must have irked ‘Our MSM’ not to have been able to blame Cummings for anything at all these past weeks.

My interpretation of  how ‘Our MSM’ are trying to make Labour palatable is of course based on my reading between the lines. The relevant articles are paywalled. Here’s the headline in the DT: “Keir Starmer shows promise in holding the Government to account over coronavirus” (paywalled link), while The Times writes:

“Starmer has certainly introduced a new urgency and professionalism to Labour’s operations that has been lacking since at least 2015, and arguably since 2010 when the last generation of the party’s big beasts faded away. The re-emergence of an opposition party capable of punishing the government means an end to the era when the Tories periodically making a mess of things could rely on the ineptitude of the far left to rescue them. This should worry them, because right now they are a shambles.” (link, paywalled)

The mask has dropped: Starmer and Labour must ‘punish the Tories’, taking over from ‘Our MSM’ which have been trying their best. It’s not about ‘holding government to account, perish the thought! It’s about ‘punishment’ … Are some Westminster journalistic pundits trying to insinuate a historical parallel to 1945 when Churchill was voted out and Labour, under Attlee, was voted in? Most of those pundits have ridiculed Johnson for having dared to regard Churchill as his political hero – but is Starmer even remotely comparable to Clement Attlee? 

Now that ‘Our MSM’ have elevated themselves to the position of ‘opposition’, their only task being to ‘punish’, ahem: ‘scrutinise’ Johnson and his Cabinet, we can guess where this will end. Even so-called ‘conservative writers are now softly pushing socialist ‘themes’ such as proposing an ‘on-off wealth tax’ on people’s assets, like this one in The Times: ”Has the time come for a one-off wealth tax? Capital levies are the nuclear button of economics but might be just what Britain needs now” (link, paywalled). scrapping DfId’s £15Bn in ‘aid doesn’t occur to them …

In addition, the ‘tracking app’ is being praised as solution to get us out of Lockdown, even if “The technology is riddled with flaws but it could help government make the case for returning to normal​” (paywalled link). do it anyway, and never mind that anecdotal reports about that Thursday clapathon suggests that there’ll be too many little blockwarts only too happy to see that everybody toes the line. 

Onwards with the attacks by ‘Our MSM’ on all and every government initiative. There’s for example a report on who should get ‘the vaccine’:

“Matt Hancock has insisted Britons must be first in the queue for any UK-developed coronavirus vaccine amid a growing row in the Government over the issue. Downing Street and its scientific advisers are refusing to make any promises over the UK distribution of a British-made vaccine, partly to hedge their bets in case another country produces one first.” (link)

We don’t even have a vaccine yet, but “Downing Street” (read: Whitehall Mandarins) had to put their spoke into this particular wheel:

“Number 10, however, is sensitive to accusations of protectionism and also wants to ensure that Britain can get supplies of vaccine if another country develops one first. A number of ministers are concerned that a “Britain first”attitude could go down badly with other countries and put the UK at the back of the queue for vaccines developed abroad.” (link)

‘Accusations’ by whom? And who are those ‘Ministers’? Would ‘another country’ not use their vaccine on their people first but rather sell it to others?  Of course, our funding to this entity cannot possibly mean that we’ll be able to get a vaccine should this consortium develop one:

“As well as funding the two UK research projects, Britain has contributed £250 million to a coordinated international effort to develop a vaccine through the Oslo-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).” (link)

Meanwhile, there are reports which throw a glaring light on the MSM’s numbers game, showing the reporters and journalists up for their innumeracy. See this quote from an article in The Times:

“Widespread fears of disproportionate coronavirus infection rates in Britain’s ethnic minority communities have not yet been confirmed by statistical evidence.” (link, paywalled)

Yes, you read that correctly: there is no statistical evidence, but never mind, The Times had to go with this headline anyway: “Black coronavirus patients are dying at double the rate of white in hospitals” (link, paywalled). As of yet ‘white doctors’ haven’t been accused of racism, but I’m sure nice Sir Keir Starmer will have an eye on it, statistical evidence or not. The sub-header though is intriguing:

“New analysis has prompted calls to speed up a review into who is most at risk from the coronavirus” (link, paywalled)

Wouldn’t this mean that, just like all over-70s, black citizens, being ‘most at risk’, should also be kept under prolonged house arrest? Or would that be racist? After all, there’s no statistical evidence as of yet …

However and regardless – ‘Our MSM’ are happy to fill their pages with ‘news’ about what might help, e.g. this report on French doctors thinking that smokers have a lower risk of infection but once infected will do worse (link, paywalled), based on a study of 480 patients. That’s a pretty small number … but let’s get it out there anyway, just like a study from New York doctors – on a somewhat larger scale – showing that

“Little more than a tenth of Covid-19 patients who have been put on ventilators survive, according to the largest and most comprehensive study of sufferers in the United States who were admitted to hospital.” (link, paywalled)

Some doctors have explained that, at the early stage of hospitals being overwhelmed by sick patients, they followed the advice from China because Chinese doctors had more experience with this new virus about which not much was known in the West. But let’s not blame China, they’re so willing to help:

“The coronavirus pandemic has brought Britain and China closer together, Beijing’s ambassador to London claimed today. Liu Xiaoming hailed the unprecedented dialogue and “very close work” between the two countries on finding a vaccine. His comments came amid warnings that Britain should rethink the relationship in the light of issues raised by the pandemic, in particular the reliance on Chinese technology. […]“Our two countries are sharing information and experience, conducting joint scientific research . . . President Xi and Boris Johnson expressed support for the scientists of the two countries to work together on this very important area.” Each country’s search for a vaccine is separate but Mr Liu hailed co-operation during the pandemic as the model for a relationship.” (link, paywalled)

Well, we’ve already experienced some of that ‘cooperation’, with contaminated test kits and useless PPE stuff being reported from a whole host of EU and other countries … but now we should trust China if they come out with ‘the best vaccine’? Hm …

We must also follow the WHO with their latest ‘test-track-trace’ advice. Opinion writers are now pushing this solution without mentioning the WHO while at the same time blaming Britain for being ‘behind the curve’ (paywalled link). This is a general ‘curve’, you understand, relating to tests and vaccines, no other country being mentioned. However, you can recognise the drift, e.g.:

“The World Health Organisation has identified remdesivir, used to treat Ebola, as a potentially effective treatment.” (paywalled link)

‘Do as the (discredited, but never mind that!) WHO says’ is the underlying mantra of ‘Our MSM’, and don’t disrespect China!

I leave you with a report in the DT, about an Israeli professor who has published his CV-19 analysis (link). Sniffily the DT writes that this wasn’t ‘peer-reviewed’ – as if all the ‘analyses’ ‘Our MSM’ are firing at us breathlessly, every day, were peer-reviewed! Here’s the professor’s take-home message, garnished with his amazing pedigree:

“Prof Isaac Ben-Israel, head of the Security Studies program at Tel Aviv University and the chairman of the National Council for Research and Development, claims that his analysis proves Covid-19 peaks at 40 days before rapidly declining. Major General Ben-Israel, who was also head of the Analysis and Assessment Division of the Israeli Air Force Intelligence Directorate and former chief Cybernetics adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claims shutting down major economies is having devastating consequences for little gain. His calculations show that the pattern of the daily new infections as a percentage of accumulated number of infections, starts at around 30 per cent, but decreases to 10 per cent after six weeks, and ultimately reached a level of less than 5 per cent a week later.” (link)

Take note of that ‘level of less than 5%’ – this is what Prof Ferguson noticed, as we reported yesterday. Do read the whole DT article, there’s also a pretty convincing graph in it! Somehow I cannot help but think that this Israeli professor has a better grip on ‘numbers’ than our modelling Professor.

Enjoy the sunshine – I bet it’ll rain from the day the Lockdown restrictions will be lifted. Sorry about my bleak mood – blame government, blame ‘Our MSM’, blame ‘Our NHS’ and especially blame COVID-19! Still, and regardless, it’s

KBO!

Photo by UK Parliament