“I don’t believe it!”

 

I felt like Victor Meldrew when I checked today’s headlines, wanting to growl and scream his catch phrase! As ‘Our MSM’ are still trying to keep their ‘CV-19 Project Panic’ going it’s about quarantine for people coming back from France – and like lemmings those Brits who’ve had the money to travel there on holidays are rushing back home to beat the deadline. Terrible, innit!

So let’s look at France. The DT has a graph which is astounding. If you can open this link (I can’t reproduce the graphs for copyright reasons) and scroll to the middle of that article you’ll find first a graph showing ‘daily cases’ where the numbers seem to go through the roof – worse than at the height of the outbreak.

How can this be, given France’s draconian anti-CV-19 measures? Might it have something to do with testing? Toggle the graph to look at ‘Known Deaths’:  there don’t seem to be any since August. I’ll just point out that in January nobody was testing the dead for CV-19 so that’s how you get that pristine line until March this year. 

Only Toby Young who created Lockdown Sceptics is pointing out some harsh truths in his paywalled opinion piece in the DT, writing that in France, the test rules changed and from July 25th anyone could get a free test:

“Not surprisingly, the number of people getting tested jumped – more than 600,000 people in the past week – and case numbers duly increased. We’ve seen exactly the same pattern in parts of the UK: community testing increases and there’s a corresponding rise in recorded infections. A half-way competent government would look at the testing data and contextualise it. You don’t need a degree in maths to compare the rise in the number of cases with the rise in the number of tests. Is the percentage in both cases the same? If so, you probably don’t have much to worry about. Unfortunately, the geniuses at the head of our Government seem unable to do this. Instead, they apparently look at the raw case data and fly into a blind panic.” (paywalled link)

Just so! There’s more though. For example, it’s noteworthy that SAGE is now engaged in a fine balancing act, to show on the one hand how ‘sage’ they were while on the other busily trying to wash their hands so as not to be implicated in any government decision:

“Government was told by scientists two months ago that testing travellers could help avoid a blanket quarantine. Minutes from the Sage scientific advisory group show that it asked Public Health England (PHE) to consider a double-testing policy that would involve travellers being checked at the border and again five to eight days later. The plan would have allowed people to finish quarantine within one week, but although the Government indicated to The Telegraph that it was considering reducing quarantine to 10 days, no action on testing had been taken.” (paywalled link)

Terrible, innit! Two months ago, was it? But wasn’t it only a week or so ago that we were told about this double-testing strategy? Note that SAGE points the finger at PHE. Above all, note that SAGE seems to think government must jump when they tell them too. Why do ‘Our MSM’ never ask ‘do we have enough people who can do these tests?’, or if sufficient test kits are available.

There’s more – again making me scream like Victor Meldrew. Please keep this quote because it shows how the government dog is being wagged while ‘Our MSM’ insist that everything is the government’s fault:

“Holidaymakers were originally due to have until 4am on Sunday to make it back to the UK (see video below), but Scotland, backed by Wales and Northern Ireland, pushed for that deadline to be brought forward to 4am on Saturday.” (paywalled link)

I wonder if all those MSM hacks now rushing back to Blighty, full of wails and anger, actually know this! Was the government told by the Celtic Fringe to impose this quarantine or they would close their ‘borders’ with England? Where are ‘sources’ when we need them!

Meanwhile, the boss of PHE has undertaken a tearful tour of ‘Our MSM’, written up by The Times. It’s another indication that we’re now in the ‘CYA’ exercise where everybody blames government while desperately trying to whitewash themselves:

“The Times understands that PHE is now likely to cease to exist as an independent agency. Downing Street is considering a merger with NHS Test and Trace, which although much narrower in focus has a budget 35 times larger, to create a body with scientific expertise and national reach in contact tracing. Ministers want to have a new approach ready for the winter. […] PHE’s leaders have privately accepted that it is unlikely to survive as it is. But they have been hurt and frustrated by the criticism.” (link, paywalled)

It wasn’t them, guv, nor was it anybody else, guv, except Government – and God forbid that ‘Our MSM’ wonder about the money being spent! Next, see this:

“In line with the pandemic plan, we moved to targeted contact tracing in March when the government decided to move to the delay phase, recognising that community transmission was widespread,” Mr Selbie [head of PHE] said. Even though that plan was quickly superseded by a new one emphasising the importance of testing and tracing, Professor Whitty now says there was no practical alternative given how many cases the country had.” (link, paywalled)

Hm. I seem to remember that the world was told by the WHO to ‘test, test test’  at that time, changing government policy. But – back to reporting with perfect hindsight, leading inevitably to the infamous ‘Tory cuts’:

“One Whitehall source says: “Contact tracing stopped because we didn’t have the capacity. But why didn’t we have the capacity? Why wasn’t it being ramped up all through February?” […] But as part of George Osborne’s strategy of funnelling as much of health funding as possible into the NHS, PHE’s budget has since been cut by 40 per cent to £287 million. “Our net cost to taxpayers is about half the cost of one hospital,” Mr Selbie says, and others at the agency argue that with just £87 million to spend on infectious disease it was not resourced for pandemic planning, formally the responsibility of the Department of Health.” (link, paywalled)

‘Funnelling money’ into the NHS? Bad Tories – how could they! Must the whole budget of our Nation be ‘funnelled’ into the NHS and their adjacent entities like PHE, no questions asked? Must our Nation now become the fiefdom of faceless bureaucrats, ‘health bureaucrats’ at that?

Is our future, Brexit or not, going to be like that of New Zealand where their PM, lauded across the globe for having kept NZ  free of CV-19 is now showing her true colours? Don’t’ ask how these ‘imported cases slipped through the fabulous NZ quarantine net. Auckland is kept in lockdown with roads closed by police. And still ‘the virus escaped’!

We’re talking of 30 cases here, according to ‘Our MSM’. Ms Ardern, the PM is for very strict measures. There’s a video circulating on the internet where she actually threatened people not willing to be tested with being quarantined “in facilities” until they comply, and there’s more:

“Ms Ardern will make a decision this weekend on whether to postpone the general election on September 19. “ (link, paywalled)

Yeah – who needs elections when that virus must be fought! No outcry about this in ‘Our MSM’ – but then, why should they cry out! After all, our local elections in May were also cancelled. I leave you with quoting Toby Young:

“At the beginning of this crisis, those of us who believed the Government was over-reacting were in a tiny minority. But as its decision-making loses all touch with reality, and the economic impact of the restrictions becomes clear, that number is growing. Once it climbs above a certain threshold, it will be impossible for the authorities to enforce their ridiculous, arbitrary rules. How many of the thousands of Britons returning from France will tell the officials insisting they quarantine to take a running jump? How many “spot checks” can be realistically conducted? We’ve been treated like lobotomised sheep for long enough. It’s time to take back control.” (paywalled link)

Indeed. But, given the ongoing muzzle tyranny, I wonder if the lobotomised sheep won’t be in the majority by now. I wonder if we’ve become so beaten down by this ongoing madness that we’re simply going to give up and retreat into the Lockdown to which we’ve now become accustomed. 

Let me finish with another outrage, perpetrated by the BBC: “BBC ditches Kipling poem from VJ Day celebrations over cultural sensitivity”, reports The Times, writing:

“Rudyard Kipling’s Mandalay has been removed from commemorations of the 75th anniversary of VJ Day after the opera singer Sir Willard White, who was born in Jamaica, complained of its “cultural superiority”. The musical version, which is synonymous with veterans of the Second World War campaign in Burma, was expected to be a highlight of tonight’s BBC broadcast of the commemorations.” (link, paywalled)

This poem – read it here – was written in 1890. The commemorations are for a campaign that took place 75 years ago. One black Jamaican opera singer born in 1946 complains – and that’s that. ‘Woke’ reigns supreme:

“Mike Kipling, a relative of Sir Rudyard and honorary secretary of the Kipling Society, said: “If Sir Willard could find alternative words which would scan we would not object to the change to allow it to be performed.” (link, paywalled)

Yay! Alter the text of poems because of ‘woke sensibilities’! Ever heard of ‘thin edge’ and ‘wedge’? Can we now expect ‘Our MSM’ to demand these veterans to apologise to the Japanese? That campaign surely was racist, in retrospect! 

Have a lovely weekend – I shall shun looking at ‘Our MSM’ to keep a faltering rip on my sanity and read some Kipling instead. ‘Kim’ is pretty good …

 

KBO!

 

Photo by Niecieden

Print Friendly, PDF & Email