Stay indoors: rain, snow – no difference!

 

Where would our MSM be if there were no footie to write about! Today, anybody who has been shivering indoors with no telly during last week’s ‘freeze’, unable to commute because of strikes, can pick up a paper this morning and learn that Argentina has won the World Cup, beating the Frogs. Oh, there are also headlines about ‘moar strikes’ and how it’s all the fault of ‘cold-hearted Tory’ because, as the Mirror declares, bad Barclay, Health Minister, ‘won’t talk’ to the angels in blue. You can find all that in the usual place, lovingly compilated by Auntie B (link).

‘Lives are at risk’, we’re told, and so are the ‘Christmas get-aways’ where there will be havoc on the roads and at airports. Oh dear. Plans are drawn up according to which passengers ‘could be held’ in airplanes to prevent overcrowding in airports: the horror! Shouldn’t we hear from our greenie NetZeroists that actually not flying would save the planet? Still, we’re being reassured that ‘teh government’ is doing something (my emphasis):

“Military reservists could be called up to cover for striking workers under government plans to lessen reliance on the Armed Forces. Under a new resilience framework, to be published Monday, full-time servicemen and women will only be brought in to help out during national emergencies as a last resort. Instead, more of the country’s 25,000 reservists will be used to deal with events such as floods, pandemics and strikes. The move, part of plans expected to be implemented between 2025 and 2030, could mean employees are asked to give reservists time off at short notice.” (paywalled link)

How a plan to be implemented by the next government, from 2025 onwards, is going to help this week: well, one’s gotta be a civil serpent to think such proposal would reassure us plebs now! Interestingly, I’ve not heard a squeak from the Left, ever so concerned about workers’ rights, about rising the stipends for soldiers … There’s another move afoot: 

“Hospitals were ordered on Friday to send home as many patients as possible in an attempt to prevent overcrowding in A&E departments, but there are concerns that the industrial action will affect the discharge of some patients who would otherwise be sent home to spend Christmas with their families. A senior NHS source warned: “There’s a risk with the strikes that problems with discharges will be accentuated, and therefore there is a risk that some elderly people end up in hospital over Christmas.” (paywalled link)

Gawd, the bureaucratese is painful! Let’s weep for the ‘stuck’ patients because it’s Christmas, and never mind that getting ‘discharged’ was always problematical. Anyone who has had relatives in hospital or who has had the pleasure to have been a NHS hospital inmate knows this full well. Being a patient in hospital means one is being infantilised, it means one has to accept that nothing can be permitted to happen unless each and every box has been ticked. So nothing new there then. The only time discharges were rapid was when the elderly were sent back to care homes or wherever at the start of the covid lockdowns. We remember what happened next …

There were two other ‘gems’ I found inside our brilliant MSM this morning. The Times saw fit to report on a ‘study’ by a think tank, about ‘immigration’, according to which “Britain could welcome a million migrants a year to help fill jobs” . The report baldly states that “The study by the Social Market Foundation said an ageing population and skills shortages meant the country had a continuing demand for workers.” (link, paywalled).

Why is it that all those clever Lefties, hell-bent on ‘diversity’ and on denouncing anyone who questions unlimited and illegal immigration, never see that this policy is nothing more than a modern way of ‘colonisation’? A way of off-shoring and outsourcing skills which ought to be taught here at home? Like, e.g. nursing? Where’s the Left’s outcry about taking away skilled workers from former colonies? Isn’t that akin to, ahem, slavery? Apparently not:

[The author of the report] recommended “skills partnerships” with countries to support the training of workers who could then bring their talents. “The UK should focus on helping to strategically shape migration,” he said. The report said immigrant workers should be shown to be “supplementing, not supplanting”, (link, paywalled)

Why ought we to ‘support the training’ of those workers in their countries but not support, never mind demand, the training of our own native workforce? Surely that would be more cost-effective and less burdensome on our crumbling infrastructure? Also note the weaselwords about ‘supplementing, not supplanting’ the native UK workforce. It’s meant to reassure all us racist peasants: migration is only a temporary measure, innit. Let’s forget all the ‘human rights’ demands about permitting family members to follow those migrants! Gramps and gran have to come, and so do uncles and cousins, it’s only fair! Also, savour this:

“The report also urged Britain to strike a “meaningful deal” with France to curb the Channel crisis. [The author] said: “The UK should accept that France has no obligation and little incentive to help Britain on asylum, particularly during times when France has received asylum applications at roughly three times the UK rate and accepts a greater number of refugees than the UK does.” (link, paywalled)

Yes, let’s be fair to the Frogs and let’s not use the words ‘illegal migrants’ or ‘people traffickers’! Certainly, a proper taxi service would be cheaper than having Border Force, RNLI and the RN to fulfil that role, correct? Why the RN and the RNLI have to pick up those dinghy people is a question better not asked in polite Westminster circles. One might be cancelled from their dinners and Christmas card list.

And so, as certain groups of people ‘celebrate’ the footie world cup in their own way with riots (link), and as the weather switches from freezing to ‘warm and rain’ and therefore flooding (link), I leave you with EU ‘News’, or rather ‘news from Qatar’. In the wake of the bribery scandal, “MEPs voted to suspend legislative work on a visa liberalisation deal with Qatar and banned all Qatari officials or business representatives from the European parliament.” (link, paywalled). A bit sanctimonious, that, and akin to the ‘stable door – bolted – horse’ scenario. The Quataris are having none of this, saying they weren’t the only ones, reminding Brussels of a little fact of life:

“Qatar has warned European countries, especially Belgium, which is investigating the scandal, to remember that the emirate is an important source of energy supplies for Europe. […] In a warning to Belgium, and other European countries, Qatar reminded Brussels that the Qataris are increasingly important suppliers of LNG. Qatar is “an important supplier of LNG to Belgium”, the statement said.” (link, paywalled)

Sanctions cutting both ways? What will Ms vdL say to that? What will Germany do, having concluded a nice little LNG ‘treaty’ with Qatar, never mind human rights and bribery? ‘Gas before principles’? Who knew!

And finally, to round up the sanctimonious ‘news’, we’re told that ArchBish Welby has “lamented how unforgiving society has become with people being “crucified” if they make a mistake”, that “Cancel culture is crucifying people, […]” (link, paywalled). So cancel culture is unchristian then, is it, ArchBish? Shouldn’t you have noticed this much earlier and perhaps stopped your flock, i.e. your vicars and bishops, from being cancel-culture proponents? Too late now – your wail won’t fill your churches at the coming Christmas weekend. 

Meanwhile, I’m pondering if we ought to be happy that we’re not going to freeze over Christmas. The race-mongers certainly ought to be happy that there won’t be snow this weekend: dreaming of a White Christmas surely is racist! And shouldn’t a rainy Christmas be a good thing, to be welcomed by the NetZeroists ”because: green”?

Anyway, just like the freeze last week, it’s ‘only weather’, innit like, nothing to do with ‘climate catastrophe’. Being British, we surely are used to ‘non-white’ Christmases, aren’t we!