Frosty – back with a vengeance!

 

Something happened that had all the MSM ‘court reporters’ aflutter. The political gurus were certainly caught off-guard. So far there was not one opinion piece about ‘what this all means’. I’m talking about the new appointment of Lord Frosty to the Cabinet, clipping Gove’s wings. More on that below.

In the inevitable covid news, the PM has found another PR slogan to keep us lockdowned. It’s about data, not dates – who knew! Of course, we all know by now that ‘data’ are the most unreliable item in this covid-lockdown strategy since they’ve been manipulated from the start. We’ll never know how bad it is or was, not when the current fall in ‘infectiousness’, formerly: ‘case numbers’, is being played down in our covid MSM.

Both the DT and The Times report that ‘experts’ have demanded government should give them proper data for an exit strategy, that drifting into ‘Zero Covid’ is a dangerous and indeed foolish undertaking (paywalled link). Instead there are the latest ‘proposals’, for example that parents must test their secondary-school kids twice a week. Yeah, that’ll help, especially when our scientifically illiterate MSM authors use an American study – on 65 US basketball players – to ‘prove’ that the Kent mutant is making people sick for longer (link, paywalled): 13 days instead of eight days. Now “we” must all be properly scared – 56 patients are such a huge number!

Why did The Times even publish this? Is it to support the drive to get everybody testing-testing-testing? Is it to justify the proposal that local lockdowns might be justified, depending on the ‘data’? I suggest you look at today’s Newsletter in Lockdown Sceptics (link) where all these latest covid ‘news’ are documented.

These ‘announcements’ are clearly leaked to the covid MSM in order to prepare us for BJ’s ‘exit strategy’ – the one he’s now having to produce next week. It’s a government technique which those of us who are no longer teens know full well. This ‘strategy’ is of course meant to keep the covid politburo’s grip on power.

Perhaps it’s a hopeful sign that even the Editor of The Times, a strong lockdownian, is showing some sort of exasperation when he demands in his editorial today that ‘ministers must commit to restoring our freedoms soon’ (link, paywalled). Summer holidays are a must, after all – and how can one enjoy one’s deserved sojourn on some sunny beaches when that is followed by imprisonment in ‘Hotel Quarantine’! 

There’s one other aspect to all this: we know that medics generally don’t trust their patients to describe properly what ails them – thus all those tests, for everything. These are in the doctors’ hands. So how come the covid government is now going to trust all of us peasants to faithfully do our own covid tests? How come we’re now told that we ought to stay at home and not go to work when we have sniffles?

Does this mean we’re supposed to turn into a nation of hypochondriacs – or perhaps into one of skivers because ‘the test’ says ‘you’re a leper’? Suspicious old cynic that I am I think this is a hidden way of keeping us all under ever tighter control, with smartphones and apps becoming the only ‘way of life’. These tests will certainly provide ‘data’ for the covid politburo!

However, should the ‘daily test’ regime come into being, I would like to know what the ‘expert advice’ is for all those stricken down by ‘tests’: go to hospital? Or that our GPs should prescribe drugs which have shown to work prophylactically, like Ivermectin? Will they be told to hand out VitaminD tablets? Or will our GPs go back to telling us to take some paracetamol and call back in a week? Surely we should be told! After all, haven’t we become a nation of ‘guidance takers’ who can’t do one single step without ‘guidance’?

But enough of all these WuFlu ‘news’! Let’s look at Frosty instead. He has been made a cabinet minister and is replacing Gove in all things EU and Brexit and especially in the NI negotiations. I cannot help but discern in the reports a secret gloating emanating from ‘Whitehall’, about Gove having got his comeuppance. See for example this from the DT:

“Lord Frost, who led negotiations over a Brexit trade deal, was made a Government minister and will now chair the two critical committees dealing with UK-EU relations. With talks over Northern Ireland expected to intensify, multiple Whitehall sources said the switch was made because Mr Johnson wanted a harder stance with Brussels. One Government minister told The Telegraph that the Prime Minister wanted a “punchier” approach to be adopted. An ally of Lord Frost said he is “a tougher negotiator” than Mr Gove.” (paywalled link)

Heh – who’d ever doubt that Frosty is though! Isn’t he the Barnier-slayer’?There’s more, again from the DT:

“The 55-year-old will lead talks with Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission’s vice-president, once he is in post on March 1 and will regularly answer questions in the House of Lords.The two committees he will now chair are at the very centre of Britain’s relationship with the EU now the UK is formally outside of the bloc.” (paywalled link)

Poor M Sefcovic … he better dress up warm now that he’s exposed to Frost! Next, this comes under “he would say that”:

“Both Lord Frost and allies of Mr Gove moved to play down any suggestions of a rift. […] A Gove ally claimed that Mr Gove had always wanted Lord Frost to eventually lead the negotiations. He was leading one of the committees only on a temporary basis. However, murmurings of discontent in Number 10 over how Mr Gove had been handling tensions with Brussels about the post-Brexit setup in Northern Ireland could be heard on Wednesday night.” (paywalled link)

I am enjoying this hugely, especially when I read what The Times had dug up. Not only do the reporters write outright that this amounts to a ‘side-lining’ of Gove, also quoting a ‘source’ saying that Gove ‘wasn’t thrilled’ about this decision, they also found this:

“Brexit was key to Gove’s brief as Cabinet Office minister. He chaired the Brexit operations committee, which is now likely to fall to Frost, 55. Gove will continue to be in charge of civil service reform and liaising with the devolved administrations. The prime minister has put him in charge of a committee to address NHS waiting times, backlogs in the courts and other effects of the pandemic on public services.” (link, paywalled)

Is this a sly warning to Hunt? Nice! Anyway, the various ‘sources’ were having a field day, demonstrating that No 10 and Whitehall are indeed more akin to a court than an actual government, with another hidden warning for Matt H.:

“It has also caused unease among officials in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office because Frost’s new role includes “co-ordinating relations” with the 27 EU states. […] Another source suggested that the move would be followed by a reshuffle this year in which Gove would move to a department such as the Home Office or the Department of Health. An opponent of Gove added: “Gove would get a grip on the Home Office, which Boris needs. And it’s a department where things go wrong, so it may help ease him out of the cabinet too.” (link, paywalled)

Are we getting back to actual government politics? That would be a welcome relief from the dealings of the covid politburo – or is this only about infighting between Gove and Johnson ‘allies’:

“Other insiders saw the appointment as a sign of Gove’s waning influence in Downing Street. “Fundamentally his relationship with Boris is still scarred by the 2016 leadership election,” a source said. “The PM just doesn’t trust him.” This is denied by Gove’s allies.” (link, paywalled)

Looking at the interpretation in the DM it really seems that we’ve had a little ‘palace revolution’ on our hands. First there’s this:

“But insiders revealed the move was linked to an internal dispute over other recent key changes in the Prime Minister’s Downing Street inner circle, involving personal and political allies of his partner Carrie Symonds. They claimed that Lord Frost, 55, had been opposed to Mr Johnson’s decision last week both to appoint Baroness Finn as deputy to new No.10 chief of staff Dan Rosenfield – and to appoint the ex-Gove aide, Henry Newman as her assistant.” (link)

This being the DM, a snippet about ‘relationships’ was included which does show a rather incestuous relationship in the No 10 ‘support’ staff – and the pernicious influence of a certain Miss Symonds:

“Both Baroness Finn and Mr Newman are close friends of Miss Symonds.The pair were in Mr Gove’s team when he famously betrayed Mr Johnson in the 2016 Tory leadership contest. Baroness Finn and Mr Gove were an item when they left university. She also hosted Miss Symonds’s 30th birthday party in 2018, which was attended by both the Prime Minister and Mr Gove, while Miss Symonds, Baroness Finn and Mr Newman campaigned together in the 2019 election in Wales.” (link)

And now the positively last quote from ‘a source’! It has a ring of truth to it and makes me hopeful that this Frosty appointment means that Lord Frost will be a very tough presence in the cabinet, never mind that he might also serve as BJ’s spine-stiffener:

“According to one source, Mr Johnson’s decision to give Lord Frost a Cabinet post was designed in part to stop him leaving Downing Street altogether. An ally of Lord Frost told the Daily Mail: ‘There was a real danger that Lord Frost would walk.” (link)

It seems that in certain political areas BJ still knows which side his bread is buttered on. Losing Frost would have been a political catastrophe.

I leave you with news that all those ancient owners of terraced and semi-detached homes were unjustly derided for planting their privet~ or cotoneaster~hedges in their front gardens. They actually were ‘early greens’! According to the Royal Horticultural society, these hedges ‘soak up and filtered out’ toxic substances from traffic pollution (link, paywalled).

So the anti-bourgeois modern town architects, these arbiters of good taste, were totally wrong when they ripped out those hedges for aesthetic reasons. Funny how again the old saying, of ‘granny (not: nanny!) knows best has been proven right. I wonder if next we’ll get a study about the environmental value of having lace curtains. Meanwhile, having a privet hedge is a sure sign of being ‘green’ – so be nice to yours and

 

KBO!

 

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