It’s his fault, again, no matter what!

 

There used to be a time when reporters reported and editors and selected authors wrote opinion pieces. No longer. There used to be a time, not that long ago, when the MSM tried to present ‘balanced’ news, giving space to both sides of an argument. No longer. These days, especially these past weeks, ‘news’ must be looked at through the lens of ‘racism’, and when that doesn’t quite fit ‘the narrative’ of ‘Johnson bad’, good old CV-19 comes to the rescue. 

First is the excellent news that the ‘cash machine in the sky’, DfID, has been dissolved and will be merged with the Foreign Office. Of course the creator of that entity, a certain Mr T. Blair, as well as the PMs following him in office, said this was a huge mistake. The current leader of the Labour Party said this was ‘a distraction’ during the CV-19 crisis. They would say that, wouldn’t they!

But don’t be too happy about this decision. After all, Johnson said that the law of allocating 0.7% of GDP would not be changed. Moreover, it remains to be seen if the government will follow recommendations expected in a review later this year. I found it interesting to note that our ministers and mandarins weren’t actually deciding how and where we spend our foreign aid money:

“A review of aid spending, led by Prof John Bew, a member of the No10 policy unit, is expected to recommend abandoning the rules on aid spending set by the OECD, a membership group of 37 wealthy nations. They dictate the countries to which aid can be given, how it can and cannot be spent, and what proportion of money should go to countries with differing levels of poverty. Even within the current rules, the Government has leeway to spend more money on countries that are strategically important.” (link)

Obviously, having ‘leeway’ in how we spend our money as opposed to deciding ourselves if we want to spend our money at all is much to be preferred! ‘Eliminating poverty’ abroad is much more important than doing so at home.

There’s another fly in the ointment. If you thought the DfID personnel would now be sacked, think again. Just because the FO Secretary is now sitting at the top doesn’t mean the DfID mandarins have gone. They’ll keep pushing their favourite spending objectives. I’m just waiting for the usual suspects to come to the fore, pointing out that this re-organisation has to be racist … and naturally, CV-19 had to be mentioned:

“The move, which will appeal to the Tory grassroots, comes at a time when Mr Johnson is facing criticism from many of his MPs over the handling of the coronavirus crisis.” (link)

By now, we’re all heartily sick of the constant barraging of the PM in the MSM, regarding measures dealing with the Pandemic. Mind you, some of that is well deserved, for example when I read that government is planning to ‘release’ the super-shielded from their prison at the end of July:

“According to the Health Service Journal, food parcels and medicine deliveries will cease from August when members of the public who are shielding are released from the measures. However, they will still retain priority for online food deliveries and will remain on a Government list in case they are asked to shield again if a second wave of the virus hits next winter.” (link)

Once one’s on a government list there’s no getting off … Next, there will be a decision about that 2 metre ‘rule’ and those ‘air bridges’ at the end of next week, according to ‘sources’. That’s getting close to that magic date of 100-days-of-Lockdown.

There are however some bad news from ‘Our NHS’. It seems that CV-19 has become a vehicle for NHS Empire building, to ‘keep the  NHS safe’ and forget about patients:

“People who break an arm or leg will need to book a slot to attend casualty departments for an x-ray, to keep services safe, MPs were told yesterday. […] Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said A&Es had previously had “elastic walls”, not turning anyone away, a situation that is no longer viable with the coronavirus in circulation.” […] She said booked appointments for A&E care — the system in some Scandinavian countries — was likely to be the answer, with a beefed-up 111 service with greater input from clinicians acting as a triage centre.” (link, paywalled)

‘Our NHS’ has turned into ‘Our CV-19 NHS’ and should remain so because of a 2nd spike, or indeed a flu epidemic:

“At the same hearing, Professor Derek Alderson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS), said […] the capacity of the private sector would be needed “for the foreseeable future” and that it would be “no bad thing” to retain the capacity created by the Nightingale hospitals for the winter months, in case of a second wave, or a flu epidemic.” (link, paywalled)

Interesting – the private sector hospitals should stay under full NHS control: socialist health care for all, finally. However, if these ‘capacities’ are being retained, why would one need to book an A & E appointment just in case one breaks a bone? Not being a doctor I don’t understand … I’m also not sure if one needs an appointment in case of a stroke or heart attack. Best not to become ill, innit! 

Meanwhile, PHE has published the long-awaited addendum to its report on more BAME people dying of CV-19 than Whites. Yes, as expected, it’s because of ‘racism’:

“Its report is based on submissions from and meetings with 4,000 people, and said “historic racism and poorer experiences of healthcare or at work” meant people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities were less likely to seek care. As NHS staff, it may also mean they are discriminated against when it comes to the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), or are less likely to speak up when they find themselves at risk, it said.” (link, paywalled)

A comment poster asked if BAME people might be less likely to speak out because of language difficulties – but that’s of course a racist question! The report isn’t sufficiently accusatory though. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the BMA Council, lays it on in an opinion piece in The Times:

“As a bare minimum, every healthcare worker must have an occupational risk assessment and employers must make appropriate adjustments to protect vulnerable individuals. NHS England has directed all hospitals and NHS providers to risk assess their staff, yet a recent BMA survey found that 40 per cent of doctors weren’t aware that they should be assessed.” (link, paywalled)

Don’t ask why 40% of doctors (we’re not told if they’re all BAME) were unaware of needing that risk assessment. It has to be due to ‘institutionalised racism’, and more bureaucracy (‘risk assessments’) is the answer. There’s more – the good doctor is now taking on our ‘racist’ society:

“People from deprived areas are twice as likely to die as those who are more affluent, and poverty rates are twice as high among BAME communities. We are faced with a unique opportunity to address fundamental inequalities in our society and in public health, and we must seize it.” (link, paywalled)

Yes, doctors feel now called upon to ‘prescribe’ socialist policies because they’re ‘experts’! There’s more:

“A higher proportion of key workers — such as taxi drivers, shopkeepers, supermarket staff and bus drivers — are from BAME backgrounds, and have been exposed to the virus often without being able to practise strict social distancing or having access to personal protective equipment. The mortality rate among minority communities is in part the result of racial inequalities that prevent BAME people from accessing career opportunities on an equal basis.” (link, paywalled)

It’s odd that I’m not aware of any reports in the MSM, not even at the height of the Fear & Hysteria times, that taxi drivers, supermarket staff etc were hospitalised with CV-19 in their thousands. Surely, had such thing happened, we’d have been told! Perhaps ‘Our MSM’ didn’t report because they’re also racist?

There are good news though: a ‘simple drug might have reduced the risk of death’, according to reports on clinical trials just out.The DT – not paywalled so you can read the article – reports:

“[…] a 10-day course of dexamethasone lowers the risk of death for people on ventilators by one third. Currently, 40 percent of patients with the most severe form of Covid-19 die. That means that, for every eight patients placed on ventilators, three will lose their lives. With the steroid, two will now die. The drug, which can be taken orally or as an injection, also cuts the death rate of people needing oxygen by one fifth.” (link)

That is good news for those so ill they need to go on a ventilator. But see this claim about ‘deaths’, reported in The Times:

“Oxford University researchers said that up to 5,000 deaths could have been prevented in Britain if doctors had been aware of its potential and it had been used from the start of the pandemic.” (link, paywalled)

How could doctors have been ‘aware’ of this steroid’s potential in March? Isn’t the fact that trials were undertaken a sign that doctors, in March, didn’t know, that nobody knew? Isn’t it standard practice to run clinical trials in order to find what works and what doesn’t? Isn’t this why and how this discovery came to light?

I am now waiting for new accusations that, because doctors were ‘not aware’, they are therefore somehow culpable in the deaths of BAME patients. This is what happens when timelines and data are muddled up by our valiant MSM, purposely or due to ignorance, in order to score political points. This is what happens when such muddled reports are being regurgitated by politicians who are as ignorant and as keen to score their political points.

Frankly, there are days when I despair.

 

KBO!

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email