I’m stunned yet again by the antics of ‘Our MSM’. I know – I shouldn’t be, but even so one would have thought that, given their constant warfare against the Johnson government, they’d have made more of a song-and-dance about the staggering figures relating to our economy. Instead, the broadsheets published one report apiece, hidden away in their business sections, and one comment apiece – paywalled, of course. More on that below.

What they did waste space on is a “report” on how the Chief Nursing Officer was ‘dropped’ from appearing on the Hancock Hour on June 1st because, as a ‘senior NHS source’ alleged, she wasn’t going to take the government’s ‘Cummings-line’. Oh the horror! Both the DT and The Times copied this earth-shattering ‘news’ from The Independent. Here’s the DT;

“The Independent reports that before the briefing with Ms May was due to start a special adviser asked her how she would respond if she were asked about Mr Cummings’s trip. A senior NHS source said: “A Number 10 spad asked her directly how she would answer the Dominic Cummings question and she refused to play along and told them she would answer the same way as Jonathan Van-Tam. “She was dropped immediately from the press briefing.” (link)

Oh – Johnson muzzled her! Off with his head! The Times has an interesting detail:

“She had been due to appear alongside Matt Hancock, the health secretary, at a briefing on June 1. However, The Times understands that during practice questions earlier in the day she was asked her views on Mr Cummings, who appeared to break lockdown rules by driving to Durham with his family to stay on his parents’ land at the height of the pandemic. Ms May, whose last appearance at a press conference was on April 10, … [see the DT quote above]. “She was dropped immediately from the press briefing,” a senior NHS source told The Independent news website.” (link, paywalled)

This is hot news! “Muzzled” for the June-1st Hancock Show and we’re only told now? I think we can infer from this that Ms May (not Theresa!) isn’t that important a figure in the scheme of things if her last appearance was on April 10th! We can also infer that none of those intrepid reporters seem to have asked Ms May (not Theresa!) directly. Funny that this ‘senior NHS source’ isn’t keen to stand up and be named …

At the end of the Times ‘report’ there’s another item which has nothing to do with Ms May (not Theresa!) but is another ‘shock-horror’ bombshell, this time diligently copied by RemainCentral from the Daily Mail (does The Times not have their own reporters?):

“Yesterday it emerged that the prime minister scrapped a cabinet committee tasked with protecting Britain from a pandemic six months before the coronavirus hit. The Daily Mail reported that the Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee, was disbanded by Boris Johnson as part of his drive to streamline the government.” (link, paywalled)

Omigawd! It ‘emerged’ that Johnson hasn’t got the gift of predicting the future! He didn’t predict that Pandemic six months before it happened! He definitely must go! You will agree that these shattering news are far more important than our economy, the data having been published yesterday by the ONS:

“The economy shrank in April at its fastest pace on record as the lockdown came into full effect, official figures show. GDP fell by 20.4 per cent, the biggest monthly fall since the Office for National Statistics began recording the figures in 1997. It came after a 5.8 per cent contraction in March and a 0.2 per cent drop in February. […] The economy is 25 per cent smaller than it was at its peak in February. This eclipses the 6 per cent peak-to-trough decline recorded during the 2008-09 recession. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, accepted that the lockdown was having “a severe impact”.” (link, paywalled)

Oh look – there’s mention of Rishi Sunak! The only other important ‘economy’  figure quoted, the Director of the Bank of England, said that he’ll do all he can to get the economy going again – with more ‘quantitative easing’. Here’s the DT with some more grisly details:

“The lockdown crippled almost every part of the economy, the Office for National Statistics said. […] The biggest chunk of the drop in services came from wholesale, retail and vehicle servicing as the high street was locked down. Several sectors were crushed to just a tenth of their usual size, including air transport, tourism and travel, accommodation and food, and car manufacturing. The pandemic also stifled Britain’s trade with the rest of the world. Imports and exports of cars, fuels, works of art and clothing were particularly badly hit.” (link)

That comes under “what did you expect?”.  It’s the price for ‘Protecting Our NHS’ and ‘Saving Lives’, innit! It’s what you lot in the MSM wanted, innit! I seem to remember that ‘our MSM’, driving Johnson into Lockdown, were scathing of anyone who dared mention possible economic consequences. Of course, some surprising ‘results’ were left out by ‘Our MSM’ – you have to read what the unsurpassed Sir John Redwood writes in his Diary today to learn about those. 

Lives, we were told, are more important than money. Everybody is wise after the event, and John Longworth is no exception in his comment in the DT:

“I recently said on these pages that a future inquiry into the coronavirus crisis should not ask the question “why did we not lockdown earlier” but instead should ask  “why did the government introduce lockdown at all?” The introduction of an economic incentive – furloughing – to make people stay at home rather than to go to work has contributed substantially to the twenty percent hit when the incentive should have been for those at little risk to work and keep the economy going.” (paywalled link)

Given the ongoing Fear&Hysteria campaign driving Johnson into Lockdown, alleviated by Sunak’s ‘economic incentive’ for people to stay at home, surely demonstrates that publicly demanding ‘No Lockdown’ would have been a death sentence in the court of public opinion. Remember the outrage about that ‘herd immunity’ proposal? I do not expect ‘Our MMS’ to come forward and acknowledge that their campaign was the cause for this economic disaster now becoming manifest.

However, in his opinion piece in today’s Times Matthew Parris shows that there might be hope yet – just. His piece has the title “If scientists are wrong about Covid, they must be held to account – If the economic damage caused by lockdown turns out to have been needless, it’s not just politicians who’ll be to blame” (link, paywalled)

Blame the scientists? Oh dear! That cannot be right – that would surely come under ‘fake news’ and ‘conspirationalism’! The first paragraph in Parris’ essay obliquely refers to the MSM, so I’ll quote it in full:

“The world has panicked and the British government has panicked worse than most. We scared ourselves and our fellow citizens out of rational thought. By losing our sense of proportion I submit we have crashed our economy, crashed our education system, our performing arts, our tourist and travel industry, and blighted the life chances of a whole generation. Before too long, commentators, politicians and scientists may be blushing at the mess we made of our national response to the coronavirus pandemic. Commentators will duck. Politicians will be blamed for everything, and who can doubt that political leadership has been a shambles?” (link, paywalled)

Indeed commentators will duck, as will the ‘science writers in ‘Our MSM’! That’s their modus operandi. Will any of them acknowledge that they themselves created the climate in which ‘political leadership’ was forced to become a shambles? Somehow I don’t think so! I also note that Johnson’s severe CV-19 illness is never mentioned any longer: even though he was in the ICU everything was and is his fault alone. Dominic Raab who stood in for him has vanished from the pages of the MSM, as has Rishi Sunak who seems to be above criticism. 

One person not above criticism is Priti Patel – which should be astonishing in today’s climate of BLM protests. In their drive to discredit Johnson and his government, The Times has published an extraordinary report about chief constables being outraged at her ‘interference’:

“Police chiefs have accused Priti Patel of “absolutely disgraceful” interference after she demanded a clampdown on Black Lives Matter protests. One chief constable said that the home secretary’s call amounted to a “chilling abuse of power” amid concerns that the anti-racism demonstrations have badly damaged relations between Tories and police.” (link, paywalled)

This spat is about Ms Patel rebuking Bristol’s chief police officer for not stopping the disgraceful toppling of that statue. Other chiefs said that ‘stopping protesters risked widespread disorder’. It’s all of a piece with the London Mayor’s decision to box up Churchill’s and other statues for fear of more ‘disorder’. However, apparently Ms Patel is not ‘condemned’ across the whole police force:

“Ms Patel has firmly aligned herself with the police federation, which believes that rank-and-file officers are being placed in jeopardy and are at risk of violence because their senior colleagues will not allow them to intercept protesters at an earlier stage.” (link, paywalled)

Perhaps someone might ask all those police chiefs if it’s not actually they themselves who’ve brought politics into this, by their orders to their rank-and-file to be lenient.

I leave you with news about Ed Davey’s (Libdem) Private Bill which aimed to force Johnson to beg the EU for an extension to the transition period. It should have had the 2nd reading yesterday, but alas, alas – that, together with all other pending bills, was postponed to July.

You might like to read Ed Davey’s wail about this dastardly decision here. You couldn’t better it for doomy-gloomy and horror predictions. It is however true that by July his Bill will have become moot because the deadline to beg for an extension is June 30th.

Johnson will meet – virtually – Ms vdLeyen on Monday, and given that Mr Gove has made it crystal clear that there won’t be an extension, we can look forward to a renewed production of the David-and-Goliath (in his mind!) Barnier show over the summer, with guest appearances by a certain wannabe Napoleon. 

Enjoy the weekend and 

KBO!