Will there still be more of this?

Today the government will decide on a ‘Lockdown Exit strategy’. It’s all going to be ‘science based’, you’ll be pleased to hear. There’s also a predictable critique on President Trump’s decision to stop paying the WHO for the next six months – and the Trade Negotiations have resumed. ‘Our MSM’ however couldn’t be bothered to report the announcement that our government won’t ask for an extension.

Starting with Brexit and the negotiations, we’ll have to make do with this report from Joe Barnes in Brussels, according to which:

“Boris Johnson’s lead negotiator has ordered the European Commission not to share a number of draft legal texts with member states amid fears they could be leaked. David Frost has tabled a preliminary free-trade agreement, including chapters on nuclear and aviation cooperation, but has instructed Michel Barnier to keep the details amongst his team of negotiators. However, EU diplomats have expressed fears of allowing negotiations to progress while their capitals are blocked from scrutinising the UK’s trade offer.” (link)

It seems that EU diplomats are somewhat miffed that they can’t put their oars in with multitudes of ‘special requests’, to keep dragging on the negotiations. After all, they are still hoping that we’ll beg for an extension:

“Brussels expects the UK to eventually to request a delay, which would trigger a negotiation over the payment for continued access to the single market and customs union. […] But sources are adamant that the bloc is ready to continue with negotiations based on Mr Johnson’s timetable, insisting the deadline “is the only certainty we have in these negotiations”. EU diplomats have ruled out any ‘pay-as-you-go” extension that would allow Britain to prolong the transition on a monthly basis while trade talks are still ongoing.” (link)

Doesn’t it look as if the EU is preparing well to force us into an extension rather than negotiate on our proposals? Given the dire economic situation threatening the whole of the EU thanks to COVID-19, why not tie us into yet another year of paying Danegeld to  Brussels!

Mr Frost, having talked to government ministers, has been told to keep to the timetable – but this little warning means he and we must not take our eyes off the Brexit Ball as Remain still hopes for an extension:

“However, some ministers suggested the bloc could still request its own delay, which would be hard for Britain to turn down in the spirit of being good neighbours.”(link)

You might like to read the article our friends at facts4eu have published on those negotiations. They describe Mr Frost and our team as being optimistic and upbeat, making some excellent proposals, e.g. reducing the negotiating teams to four on each side. They also published the timetable for the negotiations. Do read that article!

As expected, President Trump has been criticised for his decision to embargo US payments to the WHO. The main argument from the international MSM is that this would allow China to take over. Well, China has already taken over, as far as I can see, so why not let them shoulder the monetary burden? They surely have the $500mn to replace the US contribution, no? Meanwhile, our dear government is already giving more money to the WHO, money we don’t have:

“Britain unveiled an additional donation of £65 million for the organisation, part of a £200 million package of international aid. The Department for International Development said that the aid was necessary “to prevent a second wave of coronavirus coming to the UK by slowing its spread in the most vulnerable countries”. (link, paywalled)

Why a ‘second wave’ of CV-19 coming to the UK would be prevented because we give money to those countries is DfID’s secret. Common sense would tell them that simply closing our borders and stopping international flights until the Pandemic is over would be more effective. After all, that ‘new outbreak’ in China is, we’re told, due to ‘travellers’ crossing the Chinese borders, and open borders á là EU was the main factor for the outbreak in Italy. But no – that would be racist, just as it would be racist to intern all those ‘refugees’ crossing the Channel from war-torn France.

Then there’s today’s SAGE meeting on which our government will base their decisions about the Lockdown and ‘exit strategies’. ‘Our MSM’ are pondering what such ‘exit strategy’ should look like, perhaps going for ‘segmenting society’ and ‘cocooning’ the elderly as being the ‘most vulnerable’ while arguing that this cannot be about ‘saving lives’ v ‘saving the economy (paywalled links here and here), even as the NHS has shown that it won’t be ‘overwhelmed’ any longer now that, apparently, ‘the peak’ of infections has passed (link, paywalled).

However, as if to show that we’re still in thrall to ‘scientific experts’, there’s a report on what some of them have got up to, trawling the international advice for governments. They’ve come up with some jaw-dropping pieces of recommendations for ‘after Lockdown’ – such as keeping cats indoors and bringing your own tongs to pick up stuff when going shopping (link). Yes, really!

Meanwhile, ‘Our MSM’ still crack on with their focus on care homes (link). On the one hand all those care home managers are clamouring for government help, getting protective clothing and having all of their workers tested. On the other hand they say that it’s madness to discharge the elderly from hospital while they may still have that virus.

It’s amazing, isn’t it, how suddenly ‘our’ care homes have moved into the spotlight – something none of ‘Our MSM’ have been interested in before, while advocating at the same time to keep the elderly in hospitals. That, in pre-CV-19 times, was called ‘bed-blocking’ and was a terrible thing. Now it’s apparently ok …

There’s a now sadly usual report on how PHE still isn’t working with private industry. Yet another firm says they could provide 100,000 tests a day but haven’t heard from PHE. Testing, you recall, is the best cure against CV-19. Government seems to be so in thrall to ‘Our Sacred Cow’ that Mr Hancock cannot bring himself to criticise the quango PHE (link).

Not all is lost. There’s an opinion piece in the DT where the author compares different health systems and remarks:

“The most notable characteristic of the British system is that it is the most top-down, centralised one of any advanced country. In contrast, in Germany, 132 different laboratories – publicly-owned and private – got testing quickly. Their system is based on compulsory, individual health insurance which everyone has. It is diverse in its organisation and ownership. This diversity has endowed it with a flexibility and readiness to innovate that is not so easy in our command and control system.”  (paywalled link) 

Remember that when you read about how well Germany has been doing, moaning that ‘we’ should be more like ‘them.’ Also don’t forget that their pathologists are doing post-mortems which show that people died only ‘with’, not ‘because of’ CV-19.

However, don’t expect the national reverence for ‘Our NHS’ to abate. Yes, A&E departments are nearly empty at the moment, yes the ICUs are not heaving with CV-19 patients at death’s door – but I bet that there will be a ‘new wave’ of demanding to ‘protect Our NHS’, just as in Wuhan where patients with other illnesses are now able to go to hospitals – overwhelming them (link).

Finally, in an extraordinary revelation, we learn that none – that is: not one! – of the SAGE experts is an economist:

“Professor Openshaw [one member of SAGE] told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “That is really something which is done more at the level of the politicians. So the scientific advisers are advising generally on the medical, the scientific, the virological, the immunological aspects and what is done with that information is very much a political decision. We don’t decide, we only advise on the matters that we can advise on.”(link)

Doesn’t it look as if that SAGE group is perfectly fine with washing their hands in innocence! They ‘only’ advise, and their advice will surely feed back into ‘Our MSM’ who’ll use anything to keep Project Hysteria going to bash Johnson and his cabinet, regardless of government following or not following the SAGE advice. After all, ‘Our NHS’ needs to be protected and surely the money trees in the Treasury’s garden will provide – who needs the economy, who needs people going back to work!

I look forward to tomorrow’s renewed ‘Bash the Government’ campaign in ‘Our MSM’. They already demand that government ‘reveal’ their Lockdown Exit plans, trying to get their ‘retaliation’, ahem: criticism in first:

“Dominic Raab, the acting prime minister, is expected to announce on Thursday that social restrictions will stay in place for another three weeks, but will face fresh accusations that the Government does not trust the British public enough to tell them when and how the measures will start to be lifted.” (link)

Oh for those faithful ‘defenders’ of the ‘British public’! Do they ever ask themselves if it’s not about the government not trusting us peasants but about us peasants not trusting the government – although we have accepted and understood their Lockdown rationale so far? And that it’s about us peasants not trusting ‘Our MSM’? Business as usual in MSM-land then …

Keep well, keep off the MSM, and

KBO!