Check your smartphone – government is exhorting you by text message!

 

I am appalled. I am fewmin’, swinging from my non-existing chandeliers in fury, about such an abuse of power by Javid that my blood is still boiling.

This is why: on Boxing Day all – and I mean all – smartphones in this country, from John O’Groats to Landsend, from Fishguard to Lowestoft received a text message from the NHS, telling each and every phone owner to get boostered.

Firstly, for background, look at this lovely graph, showing that, depending on age groups, there are more smartphone holders than covid vaccinated, with nearly 99% of the 16 -34 old owning one. Secondly, also for background, the announcement that Javid was going to do this hardly made any waves in our beloved MSM. There was one report in the DT, paywalled here, published in the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Later that afternoon WalesOnline published their report, providing the text to be sent out:

“The message will read: “Get boosted now. Every adult needs a Covid-19 booster vaccine to protect against Omicron. Get your Covid-19 vaccine or booster. See NHS website for details.” (link)

To me, these two reports – there weren’t any others, as far as I could ascertain – look like targeted leaks to willing MSM editors, in order to gauge the public response to this plan. I’m saying this because the actual government press release came only out on Boxing Day, without the actual text. If your local paper has published such article on Christmas Eve, please tell us in a comment post.

Except for some irate comment posts under the DT article, there was no general uproar. That’s not surprising because surely even a lowly civil serpent must have known that the afternoon of Christmas Eve would be a perfect time to ‘hide’ bad news. 

And so, faithfully following a certain M Juncker’s advice, of announcing something and then pressing ahead if nobody moans, the actual government press release was published on Boxing Day, the day this blanket booster text message was sent out. That press release is hair-raising, it is shameless and I urge you to read the whole thing hereThe most concerning sentences are these:

“In partnership with UK phone networks, the UK Government will send out SMS texts on Boxing Day urging people to get a booster […] HMG would like to thank the Mobile Network Operators for their assistance in helping deliver the vitally important Get Boosted Now message.” (link)

Government ‘demands’ and the giant telecom networks not only comply but ‘help’ because ‘our NHS’ couldn’t do it on its own, for which there are good reasons! Reading the rest of that government press release demonstrates that this exercise was a covid booster campaign message, to make this country look like a ’winner’ in the international jabbing competition. It was not an ’emergency call’!

Truly infuriating however is the unprecedented invasion by government of our privacy. How dare they text us with a campaign text! I’ve done a bit of my own research and have asked friends and family if they’d got this thing. Some had to look especially, they’d not even seen this text, and were most upset once they found it. They’d not noticed it before I asked: what a resounding success for that Javid campaign! 

The anger in some emails I received was palpable. One lady was hopping mad because she had two texts, one telling her she needed the two ’ordinary’ jabs first. A gentleman was bemused because he’d first received a text message giving him an appointment for receiving that booster and then getting this blanket appeal.

Some pointed out that this sort of texting by government went against government GDPR laws. Others said they’d binned it straightway. Some comment posters in the DT wrote that this message should be sent back, marked ‘spam’. 

Apparently, this exercise comes under ‘emergency news’ which give government the right to send out a blanket text message covering the whole smartphone nation. That’s why I called this an ‘abuse of power’ because there are no ‘overwhelmed’ hospitals, there’s only a spike in +ve tests, because it’s a ‘national emergency’ only in the minds of the covid government.

However, given the pitiful response this texting achieved, they better think again about abusing their power and invading our privacy under the pretext of ‘emergency’. I say ‘pitiful response’ advisedly because not even the most booster~ and covid~obsessed report can hide the fact that only about 25,000 boosters were handed out on Boxing Day.

Not even NHS England in their stomach-churning report about hundreds of thousands of live-saving jabs given out in their “Jingle Jabs” (yes, really!) campaign can get away from the actual numbers (link) which the DM helpfully picked up yesterday (link).

They are totally blind to cause-and-effect, disregarding the fact that many hastened to get ‘that’ jab so they would be able to go to pubs, clubs, and New Year’s Eve festivities. Instead we read that Javid is ‘proud’ because 214,000 people got jabbed over the Christmas holidays! We also read that there are still 1.3 million appointments ‘available’ to get boostered.

Just look at those numbers: in order to get rid of 1.3 jabs, all 55 million smartphone holders got a blanket text, in a blatant abuse of government emergency powers. Let that sink in! Do not accept the facile ‘explanation’ that this was no spam, no invasion of privacy, no breaking of GDPR legislation because it was about ‘saving lives’!

We’re no longer in the same situation as in March 2020 when government sent out such blanket text message (e.g. here). It was truly an emergency then, and while using this instrument was acceptable albeit questionable at that time, this time it most emphatically it is not.

However, since government has now abused this system for a campaign message, with no outcry it must be obvious that they can and will do so again. Nobody howled, some people did go and get jabbed, so it’s hi-fives all round in the DHSC. Other Whitehall departments and Johnson’s covid cabinet will have taken note: they can get away with this abuse.

The point of this ‘exercise’ wasn’t just to ‘sell more boosters to save lives’. It was to gauge people’s reactions to be texted and exhorted by government – a government which decides unchallenged what is and is not an ‘emergency’, a government which has created a precedent to abuse emergency powers in order to push a campaign.

I wonder if the spineless amoebas disgracing the famous green benches were even aware of this despicable stunt – not that they’d have said anything to stop it had they been told. You are of course free to make your anger known to them, by text and email. Why not ask if they also had this blanket text message, if they liked being texted by the NHS who now presumably has their private phone number?

I can’t even begin to describe how furious, how sickened I am, especially when I see that smirking face of this PM who graciously ‘permits’ us to enjoy New Year’s Eve after having permitted one of his ministers to trample all over our privacy during the Christmas Holidays.

Nowhere are we safe from unwanted government interference. Privacy Laws which we must adhere to can be trampled by government and nobody says a word. And some still believe this is all fine because we must protect you-know-what, that Sacred Cow which came up with “Jingle Jabs”!

Words stil fail me …