More Post-Covid Madness!

 

Every time I think that surely the Post-Covid Madness can’t get worse, government comes up with another idiocy. Today it’s ‘we pay you for doing the ‘right’ thing’. More on that below. There are also the first signs that ‘Our NHS’, Teachers’ unions, farmers and of course the BC are gearing up to demand more money. 

After all, ‘Our Rishi’ is working on that Covid Autumn Budget, thus claims for more of our money must be made in time. Here’ s the first idiocy: 

“Coronavirus sufferers and their contacts will be paid to quarantine themselves amid signs that increasing numbers are refusing to self-isolate because of financial worries. People on low incomes who test positive for Covid-19 will be paid £132 for their 10-day isolation period, while people who have come into contact with them will receive £182 for 14 days of isolation.” (paywalled link)

This announcement is reported in The Times under this headline: “Coronavirus: £182 for those on lowest incomes forced to isolate” (link, paywalled). ‘Quarantine’ is now labelled ‘forced isolation’, as if big bad government is doing unspeakable things to the people! Now look on whose patch this ‘income support scheme’ has been grown and cultivated – it suddenly makes sense:

“NHS Test and Trace bosses have pressed the Treasury to increase support after acknowledging that financial problems mean some people are not isolating as requested. The system relies on call centres largely run by Serco, which insisted it had a “very, very high success rate” despite reaching only 71 per cent of the contacts of people known to have coronavirus earlier this month.” (link, paywalled)

This will only apply to ‘local lockdown blackspots’ Up North, as the DT reports, and will be rolled out from Sept.1st. It’s solely because ‘some people are refusing to self-isolate if they will be out of pocket for doing so.” (paywalled link). Well, that’s alright then – it’s only for ‘some people’. 

It has of course not occurred to the Hancocks of this world, to Serco and ‘Our NHS’  that this might be a perfect way of getting more people to rush to get a test, hopefully a ‘positive’ one, so they can stay at home. Nobody would do such a thing, would they!

I’m also puzzled why none of them wonder about that rise in cases. After all – muzzle-wearing became mandatory in England on July 24th, so why do these numbers rise? Don’t muzzles work? Never mind – “we” must shell out for those unfortunates, and it’s only fair because all those who sit at home on full income are not affected, after all.

Meanwhile ‘Our MSM’ are wailing about the empty cities and towns. Yes, that was totally unforeseeable, especially since the public service is adamant that people must not be forced to come back to their offices:

“Whitehall sources say that only one in ten officials in two of the most senior government departments has returned to the workplace after resistance from the unions. Ministers are pushing for occupancy levels in the Cabinet Office and the Treasury to rise to 30 per cent by October but there is little expectation that there will be a full return to work this year.” (link, paywalled)

Here’s a statement by a civil service union official who told the Times yesterday that

“A lot of departments have been quite clear — regardless of the politics, they will not see people coming back to offices that are not Covid-secure. They’re definitely not going to get back this year.” (link, paywalled)

What use are any government and SAGE ‘guidances’ when trade unionists won’t accept them, simply stomping their little feet, having fully signed up to the fear and hysteria campaign of ‘Our MSM’? It’s not just civil serpents though – see this:

“Most big businesses are refusing to make people come back and many leading employers have said that staff can work from home indefinitely. PWC, the accountancy firm, has said that most of its 22,000 workers in Britain will never return to the office full-time.” (link, paywalled)

And which huge employer is missing from that list? Yes – ‘Our Sacred Cow’. They are meanwhile gearing up to demand even more money because there’s this huge backlog:

“The official waiting list, which stands at 3.9 million, shows how many patients are yet to have their first hospital appointment after a GP referral.However, the total number who are on hospital books in England and need appointments is not collated centrally. A new calculation, based on freedom of information requests to NHS trusts and seen by The Times, puts the figure at 15.3 million.” (link, paywalled)

Ah – but wait! This calculation is based on a survey of NHS trusts. Only one in seven replied, so this figure was ‘extrapolated (link, paywalled). Doesn’t this manipulation of ‘scare figures’ sound familiar? Obviously, this huge backlog was not at all the fault of ‘Our NHS’! They couldn’t and cannot be expected to try and see patients when there’s still this virus hanging about – just look at all those new ‘infections’.  Anyway, it’s the fault of patients for not “seeing” their GPs …

So more money will definitely be needed – just as teachers need more money for ‘extra work’ because yet another ‘survey’, carried out by yet another obscure group (‘Edurio’) has published a report that 99% of teachers believe children need ‘extra help’ to make up for ‘lost ground’. The Times quotes from that survey, dazzling with numbers and percentages – but never a word of the actual number of teachers participating in that survey. Still – ‘it’ll cost you, gov’ will be the cry of the Teachers Unions.

Staying with education – another Mandarin head has rolled. Never mind that the permanent secretary, Mr John Slater, was going to go in May 2021. Instead he’s leaving next week, after 35 years ‘in office’. Surely he won’t be suffering any hardship! Here’s what we need to know about Mr Slater:

“Before joining the civil service in 2001, Mr Slater was deputy chief executive and director of education for Islington borough council. He spent four years heading the No 10 delivery unit under Tony Blair. He was appointed permanent secretary of the education department in 2016.” (link, paywalled)

Oh dear! However, ‘Our MSM’ are in full support of the Civil Service Trade Unions who blame the government, naturally. The headline in the Times demonstrates this perfectly: “No 10 forces out top schools mandarin Jonathan Slater after exams fiasco”. Then they quote the head of one of those civil serpents trade unions who said the government ‘uses civil servants as scapegoats’, shielding ministers from responsibility, at a time when:

“the country needs the civil service like never before, the government is happy to dash its reputation and throw away years of expertise without hesitation.” (link, paywalled)

Do we really need the civil service ‘as never before’ when they are not willing to go back to work? When their Trade Unions say that they cannot be forced to go back to ‘unsafe offices’? When they’re not even willing to man or woman the Cabinet Office, perhaps not even going back ‘ever’? 

These mandarin trade unionists believe that it’s ministers who should have to go, not they themselves. That clearly indicates who is ruling our country – Whitehall mandarins are, and ministers should do as they’re told. Their political programme is irrelevant, their role is to carry the can for civil service incompetence.

Meanwhile the BC’s Proms decision is still littering ‘Our MSM’. That Finnish conductor has now sent out her ‘friends’ to explain that she never meant it, that it wasn’t her, that it was the BBC who made that decision (paywalled link). The poor dear! A former BC chairman, Lord Grade, told the audience of Radio4 that this was ‘a ghastly mistake’ (paywalled link).

No, this was long in the making, as anyone who has watched BC programmes this century knows full well. There’s no way around it: BC heads grasped the covid-restrictions with both hands to push through their agenda of getting rid of the flag-waving patriots, to get out of having to broadcast the “offensive” words of those songs once and for all. It’s about creating a precedent. Btw – these words are now no longer offensive because: ‘slavery’, they’re offensive because: ‘colonialism!’, all the excellent historical explanations of the text of ‘Rule Britannia’ notwithstanding. 

The outgoing director-general of the BC has meanwhile come up with a very novel proposal for replacing the licence fee:

“The licence fee could be replaced by a compulsory “household tax” that requires richer people to pay more, the outgoing BBC director-general has said. Lord Hall […] said that progressive alternatives to the TV licence were “interesting” and “should be looked at”. He suggested that the annual levy could be collected as an additional charge on existing household bills such as council tax or broadband, meaning the corporation would waste less money tracking down evaders.” (link, paywalled)

This proposal is ‘progressive’ because “The Rich” would pay more – and the poor BC would save money because they don’t have to chase TV-Tax evaders. Stop spluttering on the back benches!

It’s a BC poll tax, pure and simple –  but a poll tax for the BC is miraculously aceptable. It’s similar to the scheme in Germany which the Germans loathe. But we must learn from Germany, mustn’t we – especially in these hard times when Ms Merkel is now extending their form of ‘furlough to run until the end of 2021 (link, paywalled). 

Isn’t it wonderful to see how magic money trees are flourishing here and in Germany! Am I too naive or too economically illiterate to wonder how taxes can flood into treasury coffers when people aren’t working, when people won’t shop because they have no money, especially when we’ll have to pay more for staples because farmers are saying the wheat harvest will be the worst in decades and thus the price of bread will rise (link, paywalled)? Shall we eat more cake then? Oh wait – the price of flour will also rise! I can already hear the cries for food price subsidies from the government, ‘for the poor’.

This autumn will show how bad things really are, economically. It doesn’t seem to worry the Westminster Coalition who insist on keeping the covid fear and hysteria going, knowing full well they’ll be compensated from the Treasury coffers – into which we, the peasants, will have to pay, for years to come. 

 

KBO!

 

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