Stay indoors! There’ll be life-threatening sleet, sez the Met Office

 

 

Firstly: thank you all for your kind wishes! ‘Twas only the start of another bout of the lurgy which felled me. My trusted herbal remedies are taking care of it but they don’t work instantaneously. No medicine does.

And so, with somewhat of a renewed interest, I opened the various online pages this morning – and what did I find? A big nothingburger, a huge yawn-feast. See for yourselves in the customary daily collection (link).

Why good old ‘staff’ felt inclined to pen this headline “Newspaper headlines: Foreign workers drive and Lilibet becomes princess” I simply cannot fathom, especially not since the very first front page to which they gave pride of first place was screeching that the ‘immigration bill’ will damage Brexit. Of course it will …

Lineker’s ‘fate’ was equally important – a whiff of some kind of populism, surely? And the daughter of Aitch and Em being christened – how old is she now? – being riveting news: strewth! We really needed to know that.

I checked out the Lockdown Files because they are still gracing the top of the DT’s online front page. Here’s the strange thing: suddenly, the cries for Simon Case’s head have vanished. How odd … What I really want to know but haven’t found in yon ‘files’ is this: are there really no WhatsApp messages from Mr Sedwill? He was the top mandarin in those months and ran the Cabinet Office before retiring, Mr Case taking over in September 2020. Did Hancock not whatsapp him? Very odd, isn’t it!

Still, the Westminster swamp dwellers are apparently keeping their hands in, stirring the usual brown stuff, again attacking Raab. This is a perfect example for malicious gossip. Firstly, we’re informed that

“Boris Johnson privately warned Dominic Raab about his conduct and has given evidence to the bullying investigation into his former cabinet colleague, The Telegraph can reveal. The former prime minister has been interviewed by Adam Tolley KC, the independent lawyer who is looking into formal complaints made against Mr Raab about his treatment of staff. It is highly unusual for a former prime minister to be involved in an investigation launched by Downing Street.” (paywalled link)

However, this earth-shattering ‘revelation’ is dashed to the ground in a sentence further down (this and following emphases are mine):

“The duration of Mr Johnson’s interview with Mr Tolley and the full contents of what was discussed are not known. But the revelation that Mr Johnson warned Mr Raab about his conduct is a major development in the investigation, indicating there was concern at the very top of the Government.” (paywalled link)

So nothing is known about the ‘content’ of this interview but that Johnson gave this warning is known? Is this the latest journalistic method of presenting smears by cleverly twisting some pronouncement from some lawyer’s interview which looks to keep well within privacy laws while mentioning something that was reported weeks ago? Aren’t our Westminster MSM glorious!

And then there’s our friend, Remain Central, with a hair-raising leading article. More on that in a jiffy.  For background information, recall that on the 15th March, i.e. next Wednesday, Mr Hunt will ‘reveal’ the Budget. It’s odd, isn’t it, that our ever so busy and ‘connected’ Westminster ‘correspondents’ have managed to keep that fact out of their headlines. There’s not even a whiff about ‘backbench Tory revolts’ regarding too much taxes.

Mr Wallace however got a whole article to himself where we read that he is “reviewing the decision to cut the size of the British Army to 73,000 troops.” (link, paywalled). He is ‘in talks with the Treasury’, meaning Hunt will have to shell out, meaning: ‘forget about lowering taxes’.

And so to Remain Central’s leading article, reporting that our wonderful Sacred Cow is aiming to spend more of our money – not on nurses and doctors but on ‘prevention’. They are serious – and the implications for our courtly are serious:

“Millions of people could be offered a new generation of weight-loss drugs under plans to turn the tide on obesity and get benefit claimants back to work. After the approval of a “game-changing” weight-loss jab yesterday, health officials believe that obesity drugs could ultimately be offered to up to 12 million people. With even more effective appetite-suppressing drugs likely to gain regulatory approval soon, officials are drawing up plans to make drug companies bid for multibillion-pound contracts to provide treatment much more widely.” (link, paywalled)

Well, celebrities and film stars have been using this drug so it’s presumably safe for us plebs. The utter tactlessness of ‘officials’ – is this the latest synonym of ‘senior sources’? –  to ‘draw up ‘multibillion pound contracts’, after the ongoing covid vaxx scandal, is simply beyond belief. Still, if it gets obese people back to work Hunt will surely agree:

“Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is increasingly concerned that a rise in long-term sickness is holding back economic growth, with half a million more people reporting persistent ill health than before the pandemic, adding almost £4 billion to the benefits bill this year alone. […] Some senior health officials believe that, in the longer term, this class of medicines will become a form of “statins for slimming” as a routine preventive treatment for those who struggle to control their weight.”(link, paywalled)

‘Preventive’ as in ‘give it to all who want to have a beach-ready body’? The mindset of the ‘officials’ promoting this scheme is mind-boggling. In order to push this and other slimming drugs they argue that it would save money for obesity treatment and also get people into work. Surely a good thing, no? Surely easier than addressing the huge junk-food producing ‘Food Industry’ with their lucrative lobby!

Given the memories of the covid years, resurrected by the Lockdown Files it’s easy to see that ‘officials’ are on the brink of yet another coercion scheme. It’s a small step from ‘care for the obese to ‘save’ the NHS’ to ’take the drug and get back to work or your bennies will be scrapped’.

The covid government did just this with their vaxx schemes where you had to have a vaxx ‘passport’ to participate in social life after lockdown. Obviously, we need more productive workers because their work and taxes are needed to pay for the NHS.

I leave you with weather news: “UK weather alert: Warning of risk to life as blizzards strike – Sleet and snow fall in the south with travel warnings across the country.” (link, paywalled). It’s lovely clickbait and another one of those fear propaganda pieces. The hapless ‘correspondent’ who wrote that piece ought to’ve looked up ‘blizzard’. This isn’t what some stretches of the country will experience – or is it? The DM was in full ‘catastrophe!’ mood in their piece yesterday afternoon and updated for this morning (link).

Well, it’s what the Met Office had to say, so surely we’ll all cower in our huts today. After all, the poor drivers of ‘EVs’ – that’s ‘electric vehicles’ for us ignorant hut dwellers – were warned that “​​Electric cars with fully charged battery lose up to third of range in cold” (link, paywalled). ‘Net Zero’ beaten by actual ‘Zero’, zero temperatures, that is? Oh my … Perhaps we ought to get on our bikes then, a truly wonderful experience at zero temperatures, especially in a ‘blizzard’. Still, we can all WFH now, can’t we.

That’s all I have for today. Remember: it’s the ‘news’ not written about, all of a sudden, which are important. Strange, isn’t it, how we don’t read about Labour proposals about drugs for all, to ‘save the NHS’ while getting the economy going, making workers go back to work. Have a good day.



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