Today is the Spring Equinox, the beginning of Spring. To celebrate this event (not!) we’re now in Lockdown. It’s only for pubs, clubs and other places where people congregate. As of yet, Police and Army are not patrolling our streets and people are not yet told to stay indoors for the duration, needing permission to leave. It’s to protect us and “Our NHS” (link), according to the headlines reporting on yesterday’s announcements by Johnson and Sunak. 

While Johnson apologised for taking away our freedom to meet in pubs and clubs, he also said that this measure would be re-examined in six months. As for the costs, see this:

“Boris Johnson promised to underwrite the entire nation’s wage bill as he ordered a total shutdown of pubs, restaurants and leisure facilities to save “thousands” of lives. Anyone who cannot work because of the coronavirus pandemic will be paid 80 per cent of their salary by the Government, capped at £2,500 per month, under an unlimited rescue package “unprecedented in the history of the British state”.” (paywalled link)

Unprecedented it certainly is – and not so generous for the self-employed who’ll only get statutory sick pay which is, I believe, £94 per week. There’s more:

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, said the country had reached “a generation-defining moment” as he told businesses he would pick up the bill for anyone “furloughed” by the crisis to remove the need for companies to lay people off. The Chancellor said it was an open-ended commitment and admitted he had no idea how much it would cost.” (paywalled link)

That, frankly, is more frightening than the pandemic itself. We are allowed to ask where that money is going to come from, how this will be financed, aren’t we!

The ‘reason’ for this lockdown, the enforced ‘social distancing’, is based on a computer model. I would have thought that the scenes in the supermarkets up and down the country where shelves were cleaned out within minutes, where people fought over bog rolls, would have been a good argument, but no: that’s not scientific!

Moreover, according to that scientific computer model on which Johnson and Sunak based their measures, this ‘lockdown’ may need to be in place for 12 months (here, paywalled here and here). If these reports aren’t going to make more people go and panic-buy, especially as so many of them are now ‘working from home’ and have time on their hands, then I dunno! It is, after all, reasonable to assume that food, especially fresh food, will become an issue should that lockdown continue for a year. And who knows if government may not take the next step and issue ration books.

As we all know, ‘bad laws’ will be broken, engendering increased disrespect for the Law. In a society which is more about ‘MeMeMe’, and where the old have been blamed for everything for years it’s not surprising that people disregard even that “Silver Hour” now promoted by so many ‘nice’ supermarkets. Excuse me, but weren’t all those elderly supposed to stay at home in splendid self-isolation? So why are they allowed out, shopping? 

Never mind – it’s not about joined-up policies, it’s about ‘doing something’, and lo and behold, this has actually been factored into that scientific model on which these measures are based. The Times reports:

“Finally, the public demand for something to be done was a key consideration. Behavioural scientists concluded that if a section of the public thought the government’s actions were incompetent, there was a danger that they might ignore more effective measures. “Acting in a way that does not meet expectations poses a risk that a section of the public will view government actions as incompetent or not in the public’s best interests,” they said.” (link, paywalled)

Remember that this ‘public demand’, these ‘expectations’ were driven by weeks of irresponsible, hysterical articles plastered all over the MSM! Now to the numbers and to the memory loss of ‘Our MSM’.  In an article in the DT about that epidemiologic model we read:

“They were onto the outbreak in Wuhan as soon as it was first reported in late December, correctly modelling both the transmissibility of the virus and its virulence. “It is likely that the Wuhan outbreak of a novel coronavirus has caused substantially more cases of moderate or severe respiratory illness than currently reported”, they told Whitehall on January 17. “Self-sustaining human-to-human transmission should not be ruled out.” (paywalled link)

Interesting, isn’t it, that the epidemiologists refer to late December last year as the date from which they first started modelling. Not having seen these early models I wonder how alarming they really were. After all, China disguised their case numbers at that time, with the WHO remaining steadfast in their announcements well into last month, that it wasn’t even an epidemic yet. ‘Our MSM’ played this down until the virus arrived in Italy, China being a far away country.

At first, as the quote above shows, it was even thought that the virus wasn’t spread human-to-human until China couldn’t hide that fact. Not that they tried, with suppressing whistleblowers who noticed something going on in early December. Remember that when vested interests start howling about ‘why weren’t we prepared’! How can one prepare for something when warnings were being denigrated because they weren’t coming from ‘official’ sources like the WHO or China – until it was too late?

For the sake of all our health I’ll refrain from mentioning the pernicious role played by the EU according to whose ‘principle’ open borders had to be maintained, people from infection hotspot countries like China or Iran had to be allowed to land unhindered. Now the Italian PM points out that:

“The European Union faces being killed off by eurosceptics if the bloc fails to convince citizens it can respond to the coronavirus crisis, the Italian prime minister has warned. Giuseppe Conte said nationalist politicians across the continent would soon grow in popularity as voters turn their back on Brussels – unless there is a robust and unified response to the global pandemic.” (link)

That’s right: fighting the virus is necessary to stop ‘eurosceptic populists’ from gaining power, an argument illustrating yet again that for politicians everywhere this isn’t about ‘saving lives’ but about being seen to do something so they can keep their jobs.

According to a report from Germany (paywalled link, in German), it’s not those ‘populists’ who will kill off the EU – it’s China: Italy is now celebrating the ‘help’ given them by China. That the warmhearted ‘gifts’ are all labelled as coming from the Chinese government even if they come from NGOs like the Chinese Red Cross – forget it. Don’t ask why the Italians must be grateful to receive help from the country which has actually kicked off this pandemic. Never ask if we can trust the numbers published by that communist government. The article points to the irony that China, the culprit in this pandemic, is now trying to posture as benign helper on the world stage – because they desperately want to lose their image of ‘Corona scoundrel’.

And therefore we’re now  in ‘lockdown’, with truly unprecedented measures, listening to scientists who believe this may have to last for 12 months. There is a glimmer of hope though – not because ‘we may find a vaccine’ or ‘a treatment’, nor because ‘we are going to test ever more people’, but because some MPs are going to rebel:

“David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, is planning to table an amendment calling for the legislation to expire after a year. He said that the powers are so extensive that they need an “absolute, brick-wall stop”. […] Mr Davis told The Times: “There is nobody who can scrutinise a 300-page bill in one day. The government itself will have made mistakes, it’s a fact of life. We need an absolute, brick-wall stop on this legislation at 12 months.” (link, paywalled)

Go for it, Mr Davis – this little quote from the legislation made my blood run cold, especially as we’re all poised to pay new, raised council taxes next month:

“The laws also allow local authorities to lower care standards so they can prioritise resources, streamline funerals and make it easier for people to be detained under the Mental Health Act.” (link, paywalled)

Lowering ‘care standards’, especially those for the elderly when they will need it more than ever? Yeah right … Labour is also planning an amendment, and I hope that this will also go through:

“Chris Bryant, the Labour MP, said he would try to amend the bill to force parliament to vote on the legislation every 90 days. He told BBC Wales: “The government undoubtedly needs additional powers to be able to tackle coronavirus in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. I don’t think it’s right they should have those powers for two full years without ever coming back to parliament for further approval.” He said his amendment would ensure that “powers are still needed and still have the approval of parliament”. (link, paywalled)

At the end of this week we can now make some comments about this pandemic which are not flattering – not for us as ‘nation’, not for the politicians and most certainly not for ‘Our MSM’. “Saving lives” is the virtue-signalling label under which politicians hide their desire to keep their job, under which we’re asked to sacrifice our liberties to save the national holy cow that is “Our NHS”.

Moreover, as politicians and journalists are desperately trying to evoke “the Blitz Spirit”, they have obviously forgotten that this nation has changed fundamentally. Remember the lefty slogan, dinned into us by politicians and MSM, that ‘Diversity is our strength’? We’ve seen that ‘diversity’ in action in the videos from the ‘supermarket frontline’, which some papers have published. Of course, we cannot mention in polite society what we saw!

Those of us though who are ‘veterans’ in battling the Climate Change ‘scientific data’, who are ‘veterans’ in battling the Project Fear pronunciations during the EU Referendum now have the leisure to get our teeth into the ‘science’ driving the political measures which rob us of our liberties in the name of ‘protecting’ us, of ‘saving’ our lives. Go for it!

So – apart from washing your hands, of course – stay vigilant, believe nothing coming from “That Lot”, and above all

KBO!