The ‘New Normal’ in the HoC: covid trumps democracy
Christmas has been done and dusted, regardless of tiers and regardless of the Brexit Deal. The MSM were wonderfully quiet as their ‘sources’ were all celebrating with their families, inside their Christmas bubbles, one hopes, and observing all the covid rules they’ve imposed on us. MPs were hopefully studying the 1,200+ pages of that Deal on which they’ll vote in two days – so what fresh disaster could there possibly have concocted? Well, there’s still covid – and there’s yet another example for our peacocks abandoning their duty.
Let’s first look at covid. The fabulous Oxford/Astra Zeneca jab will be rolled out early next year – on Monday the 4th of January, that is. We’re told that thousands of ‘vaccinators’ have been trained and are poised to produce one million jabs by the middle of January (e.g. paywalled link). The latest, highly scientific (not!) notion pondered in Whitehall is to lengthen the time span between 1st and 2nd jab from three or four weeks to twelve. It’s what a certain Mr Blair proposed before Christmas.
The reason? “Everybody will (or must?) get a jab” – and right now there aren’t enough doses to go around. It’s apparently irrelevant that Pfizer said in their application that one dose would provide ‘80% protection’, clearly meaning people could still become ill and need to be hospitalised. It’s about politics. “We”, i.e. the health czars, are in a race to get everybody vaccinated as quickly as possible – not to get the economy going, nor to get ‘back to normal’, but too look good on the international stage.
Meanwhile, NHS doctors are crying yet again that ‘hospitals resemble a war zone, according to the Times:
“Doctors in London said that their hospitals were beginning to resemble a “war zone” and those in Wales put out an urgent call for anyone with experience working in intensive care to come forward to help.” (link, paywalled)
The ‘solution’? Tier 4 to be extended to the whole country, of course! It’s now customary find the antidote in Lockdown Sceptics’ Newsletter. They report this morning that ICU occupation in England is no higher than in 2019, pointing out that this was a ‘mild flu’ year and providing graphics showing that there are actually more ICU beds available than in 2019 (link).
It’s a well-known phenomenon that tyrants are unwilling to relinquish even a tittle of their power, so expect ‘moar lockdown’ to be on the menu, with a decision to be made on the 30th of December – the day when ‘that vote’ on the Brexit Deal will also take place. The vote on that issue means it’s a good day for ‘hiding bad news’, isn’t it!
As for ‘that’ vote – well! Nothing shows better the disdain the MPs we elected have for us, nothing illustrates better the deterioration of our democracy than the news that there won’t be a proper parliamentary debate in the HoC Chamber. Some Tory Brexiteers will have their say, that must suffice. Their scrutiny of the the Treaty text is still ongoing and Sir John Redwood writes in his Diary this morning that he is awaiting ‘the legal judgement of the ERG lawyers committee’ who are studying this right now (link).
This most important debate will be held by Zoom because: “Covid!!!”, representations by Tory MPs to the Speaker notwithstanding:
“Tory Brexiteers have pleaded for a guarantee that they will be able to speak in the Commons and not their living rooms during the “historic” Brexit trade deal debate this week, after the Speaker urged MPs to stay at home due to coronavirus. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, wrote to parliamentarians encouraging them to participate remotely via Zoom when the legislation comes before the House on Wednesday.” (paywalled link)
MPs on both benches have taken the Speaker’s advice to heart though. They’ll simply not come to covid-infested London, not during the sacred Christmas Recess, be the vote ever so historical. After all, didn’t the Speaker ‘urge’ them “not to come in unless “absolutely necessary”? Covid trumps democratic procedures:
“Coronavirus restrictions permit only 50 people to be present in the chamber at any one time. Since this includes the Speaker, the clerks, the Serjeant at Arms, the Speaker’s secretary and the Commons doorkeepers, there is space for only about 35 MPs, including ministers.” (paywalled link)
Our peacocks must be kept safe from the raging virus, especially since London is in tier 4. Their health trumps parliamentary procedures and they can all participate by zoom anyway, can’t they. Those who will brave covid-infested London can speak from their London offices. They’ll mostly vote by proxy though, assuring Johnson of getting the Bill though in record time:
“The most recent data, from mid-December, indicates that just over 75 per cent of MPs have registered for proxy votes. Stuart Andrew, the Tory deputy chief whip, holds 269 proxy votes, allowing him to cast ballots for three quarters of Conservative MPs, including Boris Johnson and several other cabinet ministers. Chris Elmore, the Labour whip, is in charge of 140 proxy votes, 70 per cent of his party’s MPs. Patrick O’Grady, the Scottish National Party’s chief whip in Westminster, holds proxy votes for 44 of its 47 MPs. Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP for Streatham and an ally of Jeremy Corbyn, holds proxy votes for 16 MPs on the party’s left.” (link, paywalled)
This is how low the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ has sunk: handing the decision on important legislature to the party leaders by using proxy votes. It also means that all those who’ve handed their proxy vote to their whips don’t have to waste their precious time – time we pay them for! – on reading those 1,200+ pages of the Treaty Text.
Moreover the proposal of ‘several Tory MPs’ to give provisional assent to the Treaty Bill and then scrutinise it in more detail in January (link, paywalled) shows that they’ve accepted as ‘new normal’ the way ministers are forcing legislature through Parliament by instituting the ‘law’ first and then, afterwards, permitting the hapless MPs to have a little debate about it when it’s too late.
Forgive me if I find it unacceptable and highly alarming that and how our elected government has turned Parliament into a British copy of the EU Parliament where the elected representatives are given the opportunity to ‘have a say’ after everything has already been decided.
This is a true, huge scandal, and unless MPs find the round objects dangling between their legs we can thank covid for the most profound change in our governance – a change in which none of us peasants who pay for this lot have had any say whatsoever.
Meanwhile, on top of the demands by the usual suspects for ‘moat tier 4’, prepare for ‘moar winter’. The weather forecast for the next two weeks, according to The Express, is for snow and ice and ‘plunging’ temperatures’ (link). How all those vaccinators will be able to give ‘the vulnerable’ that jab when precisely that group will stay at home because of the weather is anybody’s guess.
Still, even as hibernation looks like a good option, we’ll
KBO!
Photo by UK Parliament 
Tyrants are unwilling to relinquish even a little of their power.
Quite.
Boris was recently quoted as saying that a lot of coronavirus transmission was by people who do not have symptoms at the time. Well he’s obviously following the science, though strangley he fails to quote sources, with his use of that technically precise phrase “a lot.”
Then there is a Government/NHS full page ad on back of today’s Telegraph repeating the same, that around 1 in 3 people with the virus have no symptoms, but can still pass it on. So stay home and save lives; don’t you dare party on New Year’s eve, peasants.
And yet courtesy of Lockdown Sceptics we know this to be a grand lie based on no scientific evidence.
Dr Clare Craig FRCPath and Jonathan Engler MBChB LLB, tried in vain to find evidence and after extensive research concluded:
“The existence of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from asymptomatic individuals has become an accepted truth but the evidence for this phenomenon being anything other than mistaken interpretation of false positive test results is weak. Examination of the underlying data from the most frequently-cited such meta-analyses reveals that the conclusions are based on a surprisingly small number of cases (six in total globally) and, moreover, the possibility that they are all coincidental contacts with false positive results cannot be ruled out.” They also stay that: “Transmission which is pre-symptomatic is rare and represents a negligible risk to the population.”
80 % what ? Effective ? What % effective was lockdown ? % value of Tier 4 / lockdown or any other idiot number ? I think we must be talking populations here ? Although we could be talking 80 % effect on individuals ? Blah, blah, blah, ?
No wonder Sweden opted to not notice .
80 % of UKIP nec is now actually ( instead of secretly ) conservative, And its’ touted manifesto the same as everybody else’s. ( Wake up Colin )
Anyway What ‘re the odds that Boris will announce the Astr wotsit vaccine begins on new years day..
TG Spokes…..dear oh dear, I spoke too soon. There was me praising you up for not mentioning UKIP and NEC’s etc in Daily News comments, and you’ve done it here instead and mentioned my name as well. So you’re trying to goad me into replying, well, you have succeeded there, I really cant let you get away with it, but it is obviously down to the whiskey, oatcakes and waking up half way up a mountainside to the sound of out of tune bagpipes and those sheep. Let me get one thing straight, I resigned from UKIP in May 2019 and have never been on its NEC, but every party worth its salt needs a governing body made up of elected members. By the way, I know you were searching for the words but. couldn’t do so through having all that Single Malt Whisky, but its Astra Zeneka……………
Then every-one is going to have to learn something new then, or die ignorant like UKIP.
One dose instead of two :
Why would it be a bad idea to vaccinate 2,000,000 people at 80% effectiveness rather than 1,000,000 at 95% effectiveness ?
Surely a 2nd dose could be given later in the year once everyone had had the first dose ?
The sooner the Govt stops deciding whether a business is “necessary” the better.
Looks like King Boris and his advisors/handlers have managed to keep us tied inside the EU. All smoke and mirrors. The maybot surrender treaty and Boris deal is not leaving just stepping outside for a smoke.
You sound surprised.
https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/anti-mask-hero-woman-takes-stand-at-target-im-done-im-healthy-im-not-wearing-it-anymore/
So! We don’t need masks and never have!
I recall right when this nonsense started heat guns were immediately pressed into service on public transport in Taiwan to identify the infected. When the dreaded lurgy began its spread they had one of the lowest uptakes of the Chinese Communist Party Virus on record.
Re single dose strategy: their “thinking” is no doubt that the frightened populace will emerge back into the economy once they’ve had a Covid “vaccine”, no matter how ineffective it is as it is only a singular dose (or anyway.). Great news peeps, we’ve tweaked it so you only need one dose now! More the merrier. The real solution as ever is Just. Stop. Testing.