Tuesday 7 April: Wanted – someone who gets things done, to make a crisis exit possible

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/04/06/letterswanted-someone-gets-things-done-make-crisis-exit-possible/

797 thoughts on “Tuesday 7 April: Wanted – someone who gets things done, to make a crisis exit possible”

  1. Good morning, Gentlefolk, I did warn you that some of these old jokes had become smutty with the passage of time. For example:

    Two guys are in a pub discussing their sex lives.
    One guy says to the other, “How’s your sex life, mate?”

    The other guy answers, “Not too good. Every time the missus and I have sex, she loses interest halfway through. It’s very frustrating.”

    The first guy says, “Yeah, I know what you mean. I used to have the same problem, but I found a cure. I hid a starter pistol under the bed. When she started to run out of steam, I simply fired the starter pistol. It gave her such a fright that she got all excited, and couldn’t get enough. I wish I’d done it years ago!”

    The other guy says, “Hmmm… I think I’ll try that.”

    The next day they are back in the pub again.

    The first guy says, “How did you get on with the starter pistol?”

    The other guy says, “Don’t talk to me about starter pistols! Last night we were having a little 69. As usual, she lost interest half way through, so I fired the bloody starter pistol, just like you said.”

    The first guy says, “So??? What happened?”

    The other guy says, “So… she bit my cock, shat on my face, and a naked man came out of the wardrobe with his hands up!”

      1. It is suggesting that the Government does not have a clue which route to take to get the country through the Corona Virus pandemic. This is neither true nor helpful; it merely causes fear and panic in the general population and deserves to be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

  5. A post from The Black Swan,not a Bayeux,but it still deserves a wider audience

    Years ago I would have though it pretty cynical and even unfair to suggest
    that the corporate media would be salivating over the prospect of a
    Prime Minister being ill enough that he could potentially die. Yet now,
    not only do I find it unsurprising but I have come to expect them to do precisely that and wonder how I can ever have been so naive to think they would behave otherwise.

    It’s not about delivering news or reporting on serious events to provide a
    truly valuable service to the public, not anymore, despite any faux
    solemnity they might display, if some of them can even manage that (and
    let’s face it, many of them can probably barely contain their glee).
    Quite simply, it’s all about them, the ‘personalities’ in the
    media, satisfying their outsized, over-privileged egos, making
    themselves seem relevant and interesting, whilst retaining their
    absurdly inflated salaries of course.

    They’re much like the
    virtue-signalling celebs, politicians, academics and interest groups who
    claim that they ‘really care’ when in fact they’re stirring up hatred
    and division where it doesn’t already exist, just so they can seem
    important, special, enlightened, angelic, virtuous types. Their lives
    are evidently so devoid of meaning that this is what they place value
    on. The only difference is that the corporate media hacks do it under
    the guise of ‘news’ and ‘don’t you dare question us, we’re impartial
    broadcasters don’t you know’ and ‘we’re trustworthy because we’re so
    well-established, don’t listen to unreliable hateful alt-media
    naysayers’ etc.

    Plus of course they can indulge their pathetic
    Leftist fantasies that magically the government will fold and it will
    next be PM Keir and everything will be Narnia and unicorns.

    They are utter vermin whose downfall can’t come soon enough. If there’s
    something positive that comes from the coronavirus, it might be that it
    puts some more of them out of work due to the overall drop in revenues.

    Get well soon Boris… then be sure to stick the knife into the BBC, Channel 4, et al. when you’re back and fighting fit.

    1. Problem is, Rik – the obvious lack of intellect amongst those who hate Boris means that they always play the man and not the ball. So much easier for them, and the media thrives on bad headlines on this basis. They are indeed “utter vermin”.

      1. I think this post bears repetition:-

        I think that this is a prime indication of how emotionally tied up The Left become to their ideas and causes.
        Because their response is almost entirely emotional, they lack the ability to take that mental step back from their emotions and accept that people can legitimately have differing opinions.

        They also lack the ability to coldly, dispassionately and pragmatically look at their ideas & those of their opponents to try and see what the differences really are.

        There are a couple of Latin phrases they would do well to study:-
        In utramque partem disputare “In both sides of the Dispute”
        A means of coming to terms with and better understanding an opposing argument is to learn to “argue the opposite case”, thus being better armed to dismantle your opponent’s arguments.

        “Audi alteram partem” “listen to the other side”, sometimes quoted as “Audiatur et altera pars” “let the other side be heard as well”
        Give your opponent the chance to put their case. By doing so you can examine their arguments, identify the weak points and better develop your own arguments.

        Of course it is entirely possible that, by taking note of and listening to their opponents arguments, they might actually realise the fallacies of their own argument, but that, of course, is a sign of maturing into adulthood.

        1. What’s the source of the article, please?

          As you say though, if the Left examined their arguments they would be forced to realise they are utterly full of holes and completely non-sensical. Thus they don’t sully themselves with facts, evidence and data but just do everything they can to shut down debate, discussion and reason.

  6. May Boris and Britain get through this battle
    CHARLES MOORE – 6 APRIL 2020 • 8:00PM

    One detects an ill-suppressed excitement in some quarters at the deterioration of Boris Johnson’s health. At yesterday’s press conference, the pack of lobby journalists fastened greedily on the subject. In the morning, Lord Kerslake – falsely introduced as a former Cabinet Secretary – was wheeled on by BBC Radio 4 as a constitutional expert (which he is not) on what might happen if the Prime Minister had to “step back”. He did not correct his interviewer on her accidental exaggeration of his CV.

    Although he is a former civil servant, Lord Kerslake is not impartial. Last year, he declared that a Boris premiership would be “an opportunity for disaster”. He was an adviser to Jeremy Corbyn on how to prepare for government. If Boris was ill for much longer, Lord Kerslake told the BBC, the Prime Minister would “have to reflect” on his position.

    Obviously, it is worrying when a prime minister is ill in a crisis. Boris Johnson is neither old nor weak, but, as I know from several infected friends, this virus can hit some healthy people surprisingly hard. It is just silly (or mischievous) to suggest, however, that government cannot be properly carried on if the leader has a period of illness.

    In December 1941, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had a mild heart attack when staying at the White House just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In February 1943, after the long air journey returning to London from the Casablanca Conference, he went down with pneumonia – always a serious illness. He was ill from early February till the beginning of March.

    In August 1944, Churchill got pneumonia again after a flight from Naples to Rabat in Morocco. His condition worsened on the ensuing flight to RAF Northolt the next day. He got off the plane with a temperature of 103. The trouble persisted for more than a fortnight. He was, of course, an immensely tiresome patient and never stopped working entirely; but he mostly stayed in bed, his flow of paper greatly reduced and the government did not lose focus. We won the war in Europe in May the following year.

    In August 1944, Churchill was nearly 70: Boris Johnson is 55. Medicine is three quarters of a century better. Boris does not smoke cigars or drink whisky at breakfast. I think both Britain and Boris have a stronger constitution than Lord Kerslake allows.

    *

    It has rightly and often been pointed out that there is a deep gulf at present between those in the country or suburbs with large gardens and those in small urban flats. The coronavirus is also widening another gulf – that between the public and private sector.

    Very few public-sector workers have suffered financial loss or job insecurity from the crisis. Millions of private-sector ones already have. Yet if we are to achieve the economic recovery required to pay for our health and other public services, it is the private sector that will do most of the work. This will be the modern version of the “two nations” which often trouble us.

    *

    One can already see that the lockdown will end by degrees, not all at once. These will need much calibration and cautious experiment.

    An example comes to mind. At present, the roads are full of potholes because of the atrociously wet winter. They are unprecedentedly empty of traffic. So this is a good moment to be getting to work on them.

    Would it really be impossible to devise ways in which workers could start on the more modest of these repairs, at least in rural districts? It could be tried out in only a couple of areas to start with. I bet there would be a rush of well-trained volunteers.

    *

    Here are some tips from a friend who, with her entire family, is only just recovering from the virus. They sound useful.

    Check temperature and pulse regularly if you feel ill.

    Monitor how much water you drink. If you get weak with fever, you may lose your appetite. Don’t forget the water.

    It really is all right to call an ambulance or, in the first instance, a doctor. If you’re really ill, no amount of stoicism will make you better.

    The danger signals are not necessarily cough or breathing difficulties. My friend’s husband, who got it badly, did not have these symptoms. He was very weak and not making much sense and breathing slightly faster than usual.

    Sit up in bed – less likely to get a lung infection than if you lie down.

    The virus may weaken your immune system, so you are more likely to get secondary, bacterial infections. This happened to my friend, whose secondary infection was quickly banished by antibiotics (a course she normally abhors).

    “The virus can make you withdrawn, emotional and selfish,” even a week after the symptoms have gone. Rows broke out between her normally sweet-natured children. You may find yourself sobbing a lot as you get better.

    Do NOT rush back into vigorous physical exercise as soon as you can. It could set back your recovery.

    *

    In Israel, doctors in masks and visors are sticking pictures of their faces on the front of their overalls so that patients can work out who they are. This must be good psychology. It is alarming to be treated for a serious illness like Covid-19 by unidentifiable and therefore interchangeable people. It should happen here.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/06/prime-minister-coronavirus-setback-not-crisis/
    No comments

    1. Spot on as always! Charles Moore and Normal Tebbit are the only parts of the Tellygraff that I miss. But on their own, they are not enough to tempt me to pay the subscription, and be annoyed by a welter of Bryonies, Radhikas and Ophelias.

    2. Well said, Charles Moore. And in the process he has, perhaps inadvertently, listed precisely why the wretched Kerslake was invited by R4 for interview in the first place. I’m glad I missed it because my radio would have been at risk upon hearing such basic ‘errors’. The BBC no longer cares how many nails it adds to its own coffin, but the day of reckoning approaches and I sincerely hope that Boris is around to ensure that it happens.

      ‘Morning, Citroen.

  7. SIR – Listening to the Queen on Sunday night made me proud to be British and even more grateful that we have a real First Lady, not merely the wife of an elected politician.

    Bernard Kerrison
    London SW4

  8. SIR – What Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s former chief medical officer, was “truly sorry” for was being caught out.

    Kevin Leece
    Gravesend, Kent

    1. Quite so, Kevin Leece.  And Sturgeon’s stupid and clumsy attempt to retain Calderwood has damaged her in the process.  There will have been at least one deputy, but otherwise she could have called upon her equivalent in London if Calderwood really was such a terrible loss.  Poor political judgement by Sturgeon, instead of the smack of firm leadership in a completely indefensible situation.

  9. SIR – Huge gratitude is due to the village shops, local greengrocers, butchers and farm shops.

    These were the businesses that lost out to the supermarkets. Now they are developing delivery rounds to those of us who are self-isolating, working long hours but still bringing smiles.

    We must remember them when this emergency is over.

    Pat Weaver
    Heathfield, East Sussex

    A thousand times ‘Aye’.

  10. SIR – As a retired teacher, I would like to offer Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, a word of advice. If one child in the class is messing about, the way to deal with the problem is not to punish everyone else.

    To threaten all British people with a full lockdown, just because a small minority are not co-operating, will create immense bad feeling at the very least.

    Since the transgressors can so easily be identified, why can’t the authorities just target them more effectively?

    Peter Baker
    Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex

    1. Well, Peter Baker, in threatening the entire population he imagines that this somehow enhances his position, whereas the opposite is true. Going after the transgressors requires time, effort and skill.

    2. Handycock is the ineffectual deputy head prefect who tried to tip you out to play in the rain.

    3. Well, Peter Baker, in threatening the entire population he imagines that this somehow enhances his position, whereas the opposite is true. Going after the transgressors requires time, effort and skill.

    4. Because that would undermine societal cohesion, or sommat like that.

      ‘Afternoon, Citroen

  11. Food can be eaten for up to six months after the best-before date, Which? Finds.
    6 April 2020 • 4:32pm.

    Food can be eaten for up to six months after the best-before date and weeks beyond its use-by date, according to consumer watchdogs.

    Morning everyone. Useful information here for those still topping up their larders for the coming Apocalypse or seeking advice when sifting for something edible in garbage dumps!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/06/food-can-eaten-six-months-best-before-date-finds/

    1. Morning Minty – Are Which trying to finish us off? I always understood that one could tell if food was no longer safe to eat by its smell or taste. A classic diagnosis for Corvid19 is the loss of a sense of smell and taste …..makes one think…..

    2. It depends. I had some ham that was 10 days past good and it was ok in the arctic of my fridge, but if a chicken were slightly off I’d bin it. Having had proper food poisoning I really don’t want it again.

    3. We tend to act on this principle in my family. However, nobody has forgotten the famous bag of crisps, given to us by an elderly grandparent. My children opened it in the car, and we had to open all the windows to get rid of the smell.

    4. I’m no stickler for sticking to BB dates – as long as it looks ok, smells ok and passes the lick test, it’s ok- but the above needs to be qualified with the word ‘most’, or at least ‘some’.

      1. Read the report of the Which? report in yesterday’s Telegraph and you will see that it is a misleading headline (natch). The report is full of the caveats you mention.

  12. ‘Morning All

    “The Government will look for a refund for millions of coronavirus tests ordered from China after scientists found they were too unreliable to be used by the public.

    Ministers will attempt to recoup taxpayers’ money spent on the

    fingerprick tests after an Oxford University trial found they returned

    inaccurate results.

    The failure is a significant setback because it had been hoped the

    antibody tests would show who had already built up immunity, therefore offering a swifter route out of lockdown.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/06/government-seeks-refund-millions-coronavirus-antibody-tests/
    “Look” “Attempt” are you flucking kidding???
    How about “Demand” alongside triple the cost as compensation for the delay and inconvenience
    Someone grow a set for heavens sake

    1. If they are as successful as buyers trying to get refunds from ‘New Chic’, ‘ZuLily’ and other Chinese front companies, then that refund will arrive on 12th. of Never.

      1. Roughly the same time as the purchases, then?

        They are a swindle – but that that’s what the Chinese do.

        Afternoon Anne.

      2. Roughly the same time as the purchases, then?

        They are a swindle – but that that’s what the Chinese do.

        Afternoon Anne.

    2. There are no failure standards in government contracts. There never have been. The idea of facing a panelty for their incompetence is anathema.

      However, in their defence – how could they know? If I buy a resin kit from China and it arrives in small bits of lumped, molten goo instead of the structural elements what can I do? It is only goodwill that has the seller return my money. Most don’t.

    3. When it comes to any future trading with China we should cut them off at the knees. If every Covid country did this then reparation might just follow. A pariah state deserves nothing less. Knowing successive governments however, we will probably end up including them in the Overseas Aid budget!

      1. My feelings exactly.
        However, if – preferably when – we repatriate manufacturing, where do we get the equipment to set up our factories?
        Even the roof slates being renewed on Victorian houses now come from China.

    1. I wonder which gravy train they will be riding for the rest of their lives, especially now that the EU route favoured by previous Labour leaders (advantage: it fits your whole family!) is no longer available.
      Perhaps a nice international charity, creaming taxpayers’ money off? The House of Lords is a small perk for that lot, they are going to have to think a lot bigger!
      The one thing they will manage for the rest of their lives is to maintain their 100% record of never doing an honest day’s work.

      1. I seem to remember Lord Kinnock was agin the House of Lords … until he miraculously wasn’t.

  14. Are we all authoritarians now? Spiked. 7 April 2020.

    Such an insidious assault on civil liberties by the Chinese state, under the guise of protecting social stability, was roundly and rightly condemned in the UK as authoritarian, illiberal and staunchly un-British. Britain firmly believes in the autonomy of the individual and the right to free movement, it was said. The Chinese Communist Party’s dictatorial actions were held up as exemplary evidence of the differences between our two countries and our two systems.

    The truth is that there is now very little difference in the ways that governments regard their citizens. It is the method not the morality that varies. China has a long history of massive bloodshed and brutal repression so its government doesn’t quibble when it senses trouble. The UK on the other hand maintains an unrivalled system of deceit and surveillance more suited to its democratic past and the expectations of its people.

    This said we are all now in the Post Democratic age where the struggle is not that between ideologies but economic power blocks. In this New World China is an autonomous player by virtue of its size and manufacturing base. The UK on the other hand is a finance centre in hock to the United States and its freedom of movement greatly limited by that relationship.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/07/are-we-all-authoritarians-now/

  15. REBELLION !!

    Vicars have been told they can ignore guidelines urging them to not

    to carry out live streaming of Easter services from their own churches, the Telegraph has learned.

    The Rt Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, Bishop of London and a former chief

    nurse, has written to all the clergy in her Diocese telling them they

    can conduct services in their own church because the building matters as

    a sacred space to people.

    Her advice is in direct contradiction with Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury,

    who told clergy they must film services “from our own homes” when the

    Prime Minister announced a nationwide lockdown on March 23.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/06/vicars-told-ignore-guidelines-banning-churches-ahead-easter/
    WooHoo,maybe Geoff can ring her up for a dispensation to pop over and stream some uplifting live organ music??

    1. My father-in-law was a chartered pharmacist and church organist. He was kept alive for longer than nature intended by the NHS and was fortunate enough to see his third grandchild who could visit him regularly in the local nursing home.

      He chose this organ piece for his funeral because he never had a hope in hell of playing it:

      https://youtu.be/qLXUYJdhVLY

    2. Good Lord! Has Welby been skulking in his bedroom since 23rd. March?
      Even C19 has its upside.

    3. Wrong diocese, I’m afraid… Latest guidelines say we have to lock up the churchyard*, tending graves is prohibited, and we’ve had to “furlough” the gardener. And changing, adjusting, maintaining or winding the clock is an “unnecessary risk”.
      (*ours has a public footpath running through it, so we can’t, legally). Oh – and no flags. Bugger that; the St George’s flag is ready for Easter Sunday, and the Union Flag waiting in the wings, lest it needs to be flown at half mast. Let’s hope not.

    4. My mother’s local vicar does tremendous work going to see people who are alone or vulnerable.

      It must be exhausting (as I know how difficult it is to speak to my mother, let alone 40 odd others like them). For these people especially this mess is really difficult.

  16. Having watched this vid it looks as though once you have been found have been infected by the COVID virus (identified by a test for presence of its RNA sequence) then, if you subsequently survive, the pathogen itself can survive in your body as long as you body can support it.

    Medical professionals know that you require an antibody so that your body’s immune system can suppress the virus’s replication after which it is thought the virus is no longer active in your body.

    However it is emerging that the virus can remain undetectable in a body but subsequently become sufficiently active to pass the RNA detection test at a later date.

    An RNA lab detection test looks as though it can be done now in hours rather than days but it still takes path labs with appropriate reagents to get an answer.

    The rapid detector recently promoted as speeding up the identification of antibodies (https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d87a87b00aa6fdcc228f379c02a68e935e8458d11d80f0fdd05b0a2e772180f.jpg)
    is recognised as an indicator of an activated immune system but does not have the certainty of the lab test in detecting the presence of the RNA virus.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8kY4YsACLqw

  17. Harry and Meghan to launch new charity named Archewell. Tue 7 Apr 2020 00.18 BST.

    Prince Harry and Meghan said they “look forward” to launching the foundation, which will replace their Sussex Royal brand, with plans reported to include their own charity as well as a website.

    Lol!. All the people who run these foundations are enormously enriched by them the Clintons being the best example. Their finances are usually tax dodging mechanisms. The real beneficiaries of this one will be Harry and Meghan.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/07/harry-and-meghan-to-launch-new-charitable-outfit

      1. Which of the gruesome twosome would you choose to be carted round the world in a coffin?

    3. “Before SussexRoyal, came the idea of ‘Arche’ – the Greek word meaning ‘source of action’.”

      ‘Course it did.

      1. Perhaps they were inspired by the late George Harrison, whose own company was called “Harrisongs”.

  19. The BBC website has an article on the recent drop in petrol prices and touches on why price drops don’t totally mirror the fall in price of crude oil. Strangely for an organisation that tells us its “News that you can trust”, it doesn’t mention once in the article that fuel duty is a major fixed component of the price and cannot vary with the movement of the price of crude oil. In the UK fuel duty is currently 57.95 pence per litre for petrol and diesel. Neither does it mention that there is on top VAT at 20% on the price paid at the pump.

    2. Don’t forget, you aren’t allowed to work front-line at the BBC unless you can proudly boast on air that you were useless at maths at school.

      Half of them (especially the Radio 4 crowd) are probably whizzes at classical Greek, but can’t count past 5 on their fingers, because that would mean changing hands and that’s a bit technical.

    3. ‘Morning, Stephen, by the same token, it only takes a small rise in the price of crude for prices at the pump to rocket immediately. In WW2 it would have been called profiteering.

    4. When a tank of fuel is £.1.05, and 70p of that is tax there must be people thinking ‘I can’t afford to work. getting there is too expensive’.

    1. Rules are for the little people, Peddy. Calderwood was another subscriber to this view.

    2. He should be fined and fired once they find a replacement. The so called ‘elite’ (including celebrities) are constantly demonstrating how much they look down on us plebs. It is not going unnoticed though and I think there will be a massive change in the general attitude of us plebs before this crisis is over.

      1. Replacement is easy. The Scottish appointees have no relevant experience. The key points are crisis management, and logistics. Obstetrics not so much

    1. Good morning Bill, as an infrequent visitor these days I missed why you took a ‘break’ from NTTL. It was poorer without you and I am very happy to see you back on these pages. Cheers 🍷🍷🥃

  23. OPCW report set to blame Syria chemical attacks on Bashar al-Assad. 6 Apr 2020 17.32 BST

    The UN’s chemical weapons watchdog is expected to release its first report explicitly blaming Bashar al-Assad for sarin and chlorine gas attacks on civilians in Syria as efforts to establish accountability for the use of chemical agents in the nine-year-old conflict gain momentum.

    Since the OPCW was given new powers specifically for this purpose it is unsurprising that they have done so. To do otherwise would have been to build a kennel without having a dog to put in it. Their seems little doubt that Assad is innocent of these charges and that the incidents were manufactured by the Wests intelligence services primarily Mi6.

    Like every other International or UN body the OPCW has been corrupted to serve some faction rather than its mandate. It is useless to look to any of them for neutral advice or information.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/06/report-set-to-blame-syria-chemical-attacks-on-bashar-al-assad

    1. ‘Morning Minty

      “A fourth OPCW whistleblower has emerged

      to defend the two veteran inspectors who challenged a cover-up of the

      chemical weapons probe in Douma, Syria. The new whistleblower lamented

      that other staffers have been “frightened into silence.”

      By Aaron Mate

      A new Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) whistleblower has surfaced in response to a factually flawed attack by OPCW leadership on two veteran inspectors who challenged the official story of an alleged chemical attack by the Syrian government in Douma.

      In a statement provided to The Grayzone,

      the new OPCW whistleblower described being “horrified” by the “abhorrent

      … mistreatment” of the inspectors. The new whistleblower also warned of

      a climate of intimidation designed to keep other staffers “frightened

      into silence.”

      https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/12/opcw-whistleblower-mistreatment-douma-investigators/
      That horse has long since bolted

      1. Morning Rik. To the informed observer there is no doubt where the blame lies for these attacks and it isn’t with Assad. This change in the OPCW’s mandate is almost a confession of responsibility!

        1. Anything vaguely UN connected, makes Scottish politics seem like a vicar’s tea party.

    1. Interesting point. Does the gene that makes Africans susceptible to SCA, also make them susceptible to C19?

      2. If it does, then Africans are better off in Africa, as apparently the C 19 virus doesn’t thrive in higher temperatures.

    1. 317911+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      You are surely flying in the face of monies needed and given to fund overseas space programs, and replacement limo’s.

  26. Morning all 😊
    Starmer has appointed Lammy as shadow justice secretary.
    There’s a laugh, now you’ll need to get yer chips balance Dave. Labour don’t really know what justice means.
    I suppose it good news as it decreases labour’s chances of being elected.

      3. Another sham shadow cabinet.

        They are just like plastic Lego people .. rigid with their politics, and a party for one class of people only, they are incapable of embracing the proper workers, the hard grafters, the tax payers , the loyal bods who fight hard for the values of Britain ..

        They smell of spliff politics, they have a perpetual whine in their voices , they are the perfunctory sniff that Corbyn mastered so well , they are also the voice that encourages anarchy ..they will never change .. they are far too scared of upsetting the shuffling patois speaking core voters that are the back bone of Labour .

        1. They use to represent the working classes.
          And it came to pass that most of the people who vote labour don’t work don’t contribute to the economy and have no intention of working for a living.
          Minister of Post it noteseems, “there is no money left in the kitty”.
          Circa 2000 journo to one of Blair’s many home secretaries, Q. “how many people have arrived in Britain since you have been in office Mr Blunkett” ?
          A. “We have absolutely no idea” !
          But just think of all the votes labour will get by handing out tax payers cash for doing absolutely nothing.

          1. Well now, all those crops ain’t going to pick themselves. This would be labelled by socialists as slavery.

          3. Well now, all those crops ain’t going to pick themselves. This would be labelled by socialists as slavery.

        2. …and they hate this country and everything it stands for.

          ‘Morning, Belle.

      4. I do wonder how his white wife takes all this.
        Is she brain washed or cowed? Do they have children? If so, how do they take their mother’s ethnicity being trashed?

      5. Lenny Henry on diversity – there aren’t enough blik crims….oops, hang on a mo…

      1. He has a white wife – I wonder what her life must be like being married to such a vehement anti-white racist

      2. Morning uncle Bill how’s it going with you and your OH ?
        Youm back in thart Narfolk ?

        1. Indeed – the MR was out of quarantine yesterday – and we went shopping. I drove and was “locked in” the car.

          Thank the Lord for the garden and greenhouse. How people in tower blocks manage is beyond me.

          1. Good to hear. Our neighbours are locked down in rural France. They were due back 3 weeks ago. I reckon that they are better off. She works from home mainly anyway.

          2. If the removal men had not turned up (they did, bless them – and Abels of Watton) we would have had to face months of living in an empty house (all the furniture had gone) and being trapped. We managed to get away and back to Blighty. But it was a harrowing two weeks before departure day.

            The one redeeming feature was that our fantastic buyers – having paid and taken ownership – said, “In the circumstances, you mus just stay here as long as you want….”

          3. If the removal men had not turned up (they did, bless them – and Abels of Watton) we would have had to face months of living in an empty house (all the furniture had gone) and being trapped. We managed to get away and back to Blighty. But it was a harrowing two weeks before departure day.

            The one redeeming feature was that our fantastic buyers – having paid and taken ownership – said, “In the circumstances, you mus just stay here as long as you want….”

          4. We moved house about three miles to the other side of our small town a few years ago, and it was so bad, I swore never to move again, ever in my life. I cannot imagine how moving across the Channel, in the middle of a coronavirus lockdown must have been in comparison. You surely deserve a nice, peaceful summer after this!

          5. One of my sisters and BiL moved back from Spain in February. Because of weight not volume, the removal people had to use two trucks. €€€
            They use to live in Watton.
            But moved to Lincolnshire near his sister.
            We were going to have a family get together at HPB Barnham Broome, 5 golfers in the family. But had to call it all off.

          6. As I write this Caroline is giving a lesson to a group of Sixth Formers.

            I am still rather pissed off with the DT. I wrote an article about how we are coping with running residential French courses in France when our students are not allowed to come to France but the DT has not even deigned to reply

          7. I feel for you both. Unless you have set up a business and worked for your self, most people think being self employed is a doddle.
            Our media don’t appear to like being subjected to what appears to be an obvious problem. Especially when they haven’t thought of it themselves.
            I spoke to our neighbours window cleaner this morning, who was on their extension roof. There’s a car on the drive as a relative collected it from Stansted long stay. But he didn’t like it when I told he wouldn’t be paid today.
            In these circumstances I’m quite glad I’m no longer in self employment. And our son’s are all in management positions working from home but fairly busy.
            I deliberately steered them away from building and construction.
            The country is now filled with unqualified men from eastern Europe many working for cash. And taking the money home and out of our economy.

          9. I feel like this as our garden gives us plenty of space in which to potter about and amuse ourselves. I haven’t left home for over three weeks and the only irksome thing is not being able to go out even if I am quite happy not to do so. We would certainly invite our friends to come over – but we are not allowed to do so.

  27. Marianne Faithfull is being treated in a London hospital after contracting coronavirus.
    The singer, who also has pneumonia, is “stable and responding to treatment”, according to her agent. (The Independent0

    1. Best wishes to her. She isn’t in her first flush of youth and her past may have left her rather frail.
      But then she’s probably had more fun in her life than us ‘sensible’ ones.

    2. i.e. MF has been admitted to hospital with coronavirus.

      By the way, she also has pneumonia, but that wasn’t enough for her to be hospitalised.

      or

      MF was in hospital with pneumonia, when she contacted coronavirus.

      Or what?

      ‘Morning Stephenroi.

    1. 317911+ up ticks,
      Morning Db,
      A worthwhile hobby during lockin, what size canvas ?

    2. Great idea! Then you can watch the paint dry!
      If that gets boring, you can try watching the grass growing on your lawn instead. Hours of wholesome government-approved family entertainment…

  29. Last night, I watched a telly programme that actually kept me so riveted, I did nothing else for the hour it was running.
    “Terror in Paradise” was absolutely heart stopping. You watched the CCTV films of the bombers, and realised there is a mind set that is impossible to comprehend; so evil and incapable of reason or empathy in its thinking that the same treatment as is meted out to mad dogs or elephants is the only way to manage these people.

    2. Brainwashing. Stockholm syndrome, George Town massacre and many other examples. If started at birth, it is called culture and when mixed with religion, the individual is almost zombified.

    3. I’m surprised they showed it on tv, and even more surprised they made the documentary in the first place.
      I didn’t see it, but will check it out on catchup.

      1. For once, it was both moving and horrifying. The CCTV of these men wandering around was, with hindsight, spine chilling. How many people, for instance, go down to a hotel breakfast carrying a back pack? We’re not talking about hostels, but upmarket hotels that genuine back packers wouldn’t be able to afford.
        I very rarely just watch TV, I’m usually doing something else as well, but this really caught my attention. I found myself holding my breath, even though I knew the outcome.

  30. The news that Boris is in ICU is shocking , poor Boris .

    That man has become a lion like symbol for Britain .. He and our Queen are our strength and our identity .

    Boris STEPPED up to the mark and manned up , he tried to deliver . His sunny optimistic nature is so refreshing .. no matter what .

    Where are our God serving dog collared religious leaders, they are rather silent , aren’t they , even our ancient churches are closed .. those places that survived plagues and pestilence are now denying access to many of us .

    Strange that off licences selling destructive anti family booze are open , yet God slots and garden centres are closed .

    Funny old times these are , aren’t they.

      1. It’s all over for Britain thanks to decades of madness. The only open question is exactly when the curtains will close forever on what was British civilization.

    2. I believe the government banned sermons on mounts as part of the lock-down.

      People were judged as ignoring social distancing restrictions when photographed using a long focal length lens.

  31. On ‘Social distancing’. It’ll be interesting in 8-9 months time to see if the birth rate has dropped.

      2. Yes. Will the mothers be arrested for breaking the 6 foot rule?
        Or will their ‘partners’ be boasting?

  32. I never listen to the Toady Prog – but the MR is an addict. She has just told me that the woman presenter was completely flummoxed by the Chief of the Defence Staff answering questions honestly and quickly. Sh didn’t know what to do.

    1. Me too, Bill. Short answers frequently confuse Toady interviewers, although Sgt Bilko suffers less than the others in this respect. As for short questions…many interviewers use long questions as a means of demonstrating (they think) a knowledge of a subject, along with their own prejudices woven in. For me, Toady has been a no-go area for some time now, and I can’t see that changing.

      1. Peston last might wandered from Dan to Beersheba with his ‘question’. Basically, he was playing Kuenssberg’s game but with less concision.
        Then all the little attack dogs were let loose to snap at ankles.

    3. I would like to have heard that Bill. It’s almost impossible to grasp!

    4. I heard The Chief of Defence Staff and he was impressive too but Michael Heseltine was on and his comments on Boris were not too flattering or sympathetic.

      1. Heseltine is one of the most supremely unpleasant snakes in a nest of serpents.

          2. Yes indeed. However I do think some of our old has-beens and haven’t-been sound more credible – not what they were saying but didn’t sound like little pip squeaks. They sounded as if they knew what they were talking about even if you didn’t agree with them.

          1. Like Benn …. dangerously illogical in his political cure for society’s failings.
            But witty and intelligent.
            (Comes over all nostalgic.)

          2. “The Right Hon Member for Heseltine” – haven’t heard that one before, but it’s spot on!

    5. Good morning Bill

      We abandoned the Toady programme some time ago. We now wake up to Radio Suisse Classique

    1. I am still seething about the treatment that repulsive harpy Maitlis tried to dole out to the Hungarian minister who said quite rightly that Hungarian immigration policy was Hungary’s concern and not hers.

      She was so full of venom and hatred that she lost all objectivity. It is this complete lack of objectivity and their complete bias which has rendered the likes of Kuenssberg, Newman, Peston and many others completely incompetent as journalists. They should all be sacked and replaced by proper journalists who want to explore both sides of an argument.

        1. “And now we go to Norman Smith, deputy political editor, at his home in North London.”
          Quelle, bloody, surprise.

      2. Are the likes of Maitlis true believers, and by extension people who hate their country, or are they adopting a stance that they know is the complete opposite of what the majority wants purely to please their employers/controllers? Has Maitlis ever been truthful and expressed her desire for mass immigration and her reasons for so doing? Unlikely.
        If she did explain her reasons for supporting the slow destruction of her country she would be being honest and her position could be understood, if not agreed with. However, if she is merely performing to keep her well paid sinecure then she is nothing but a fraud. Of the two positions I cannot decide which is the most reprehensible.

      3. The media seem to be begging to be censored.
        Could it be because they’d be paid the same for recycling approved government statements as having to actually ferret out news for themselves or – gasp – have to think for themselves?

    2. I thought a nice car on the drive elevated me from the rif raf, but now I have to rush to Argos to get a 3D printer before panic buying sets in.

        1. After reading the tweet I did a quick search and was surprised at how inexpensive some 3D printers are.

          3. It always amazes me how quickly new, and initially expensive, technology becomes affordable.

          4. It’s because of the Chinese. In a former life, a business associate who used to visit Hong Kong regularly told me that he could give a prototype to his Chinese suppliers and be the day after, they’d have a copy ready for him to test. Several thousand took a couple of days longer.

          6. You know those photographs of pretty young gels’ bottoms that you like to post on this ‘ere blog? If you print them out they are 2-D. A 3-D printer means you get the whole rubber doll for your distraction and delight.

    1. “Because I said so, and you don’t expect me to go back on my word, do you?”

    2. I know two people who live on the continent who are confined to wheelchairs.
      Fortunately they have a garden, but if they were living in Blighty , would they be allowed to quietly enjoy the sunshine in a public park?

  36. 317911+ up ticks,
    “Wanted, someone who gets things done to make a crisis exit possible”
    Surely we had a party once that got things done & made an exit possible
    and it was, via treachery ongoing, kicked into touch.
    How many bloody exit doors are there?

    What many of the peoples want is to continue with the same voting pattern ie party before Country that has been anything but a success year on year,as seen in the real light of day by the shortages and neglect owing to doing in many respects the EUs bidding.

    Corner stones of the Anti GB political brigade, b liar, brown, the wretch cameron, treachery on stilettos mayday, leg over clegg, shining examples of failure and still in with a shout whilst decent folk are castigated.

    Up until the 24/6/2016 we were, as a nation governed alternately by an eu asset, much of that has not changed.

    2. Now some may consider me unduly cynical but the UK banned export of Chloroquine on the 26th of Feb,it was about that time I first saw internet reports of its efficacy against the virus,as it required no prescription I went to a few online pharmacies to check availability. All sold out
      Now why would we be banning exports of something that doesn’t work??
      Why did stocks suddenly vanish??
      Why are some doctors squeaking how “dangerous” it is when it was the standard malaria prophalatic and treatment used by millions (including myself) for over 50 years??
      Something smells and it ain’t a bed of roses…………….
      Edit
      As someone pointed out on another blog,don’t the large numbers of patients using it for Lupus and Rheumatoid arthritis provide a current control to show it’s safe??

      1. Chloroquine is only dangerous if you’re the husband of a Democrat donor who wants to divorce you and just happens to have fish-tank cleaner that contains chloroquine phosphate as one of its ingredients….

        Edit: Addendum: no, you’re not unduly cynical. Just observant.

      2. The article published here yesterday or the day before was in line with my thought experiments. We know, because they have said so, that the NHS cannot cure coronavirus. The very sick may be kept alive by the use of oxygen and paracetamol, then ventilators, until they generate enough antibodies to quell the virus. it is literally a race against death. Most people on ventilators lose this race.
        The article says that coronovirus destroys haemoglobin thereby starving the vital organs of oxygen. The use of hydroxychloroquinine blocks the attack on haemoglobin by coronavirus. It cures nothing, the individuals immune system has to overcome the virus, but the lungs, brain, heart etc still get supplied with oxygen, so it is a more favourable struggle.

      3. It was interesting that they banned export of it on that date, yet didn’t encourage the manufacturers to increase production.

    3. The report seems to imply that Trump will stand to profit from the manufacture of hydroxychloroquine (Paquenil) by the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi. Hydroxychloroquine has been out of patent for years. Which means that any pharmaceutical company, not just the one making it under the brand name of Paquenil, can manufacture it.

        1. I should add, Stephen, that the drug is currently being produced by other drug companies around the world. Sanofi does not profit from sales of the generic drug by those other companies, even though it paid for the original research and development.

        1. I don’t know if your post is directed at me or at the journalist of the New York Times.

  38. Sadly ironic to me that the man expected to be a hands-off, not-into-every-detail, Prime Minister has so damaged his health by working himself into the ground. Boris, if you make it, the country needs you to take a month off, some of it fairly isolated in a warm sunny place, without red boxes and preferably with zero or minimal contact with No. 10 – the British flexibility of Constitution is remarkable by world standards – take advantage of it.

  39. “A leading charity that specialises in end of life care is facing
    closure unless it can raise £12 million in the next three months to
    cover a funding gap caused by the coronavirus restrictions.

    Sue Ryder, the national healthcare charity, is launching an emergency
    appeal to save its services after the closure of its shops and
    restrictions on fundraising events denuded it of two thirds of its
    funding.

    Before the coronavirus struck, statutory funding only covered
    approximately one third of the costs involved in running the charity’s
    end of life care. Sue Ryder bridged that gap with fundraising efforts
    and income from its 450 shops nationwide.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/06/sue-ryder-hospices-charity-warns-faces-closure-unless-can-raise/
    Woking Hospice is one of the very few charities I still support,the hospice movement generally is one of the sucess stories in the charity sector,to hear that these operations that alleviate so much pain and suffering are in financial trouble due to the virus is simply unacceptable
    There are ample funds available,a tiny fraction of the bloated Foreign Aid budget will do the trick,time our taxes were spent on our own!!

    3. ‘Morning, Lewis, apropos Far-Eastern manufactured goods, it is all reminiscent of early Japanese manufactured goods in the 1970s. Do we remember the saying, “You lie, like a cheap Japanese watch”? The first Datsun cars imported into the USA, that were so under-powered that they had a hard time getting off the ‘on’ ramp to join speeding traffic on the Freeway?

      Well, I think the same applies to current Chinese tat unless, as the Japanese did, they improve their manufacturing processes, relying less on sweated labour – complete with ‘I don’t care, churn it out’ attitude and turn to automated production lines with a consistent quality output.

      With a vast, hungry and discontented work-force, I doubt that China will make a great (manufacturing) leap forward.

      1. Yet I’d like to see a more empirical test. A set amount of air pressure both in and out to see what happens with, say coloured smoke.

        If the Chinese masks stop particles, fair enough but if they don’t, then they’re useless.

        It’s ironic that now the Japanese produce far better things than the UK does, in higher quantity.

    4. So, not content with their biological warfare to annihilate the economies of western Europe, they then send useless masks….

  41. And this might explain the panic.

    Covid-19 was responsible for almost one in 20 of all deaths in the week ending March 27, according to the Office for National Statistics.
    The ONS figures are based on the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate as “deaths involving Covid-19”.

    When the authorities demand it be mentioned, no matter how tenuous the link, is it any wonder that Covid-19 is deemed to be so lethal?

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-deaths-linked-ons-data-a4408801.html

    1. Of or with?
      But asking such questions makes me a Covid Denier. Booo …. hiss ……

      1. One disturbing thing about this is that we don’t even know if any of those who died actually had Covid-19, merely that they may have had symptoms which could equally have come from any number of other illnesses.

        Essentially they are making up the figures as they go along; possibly to justify the lockdown and destruction of the economy.

  42. Further to my earlier post about seeing a Cherman bomber airliner – I am delighted to say that the Royal Air Force sent up its plane and has seen the varmint orf.

  45. Quelle Surprise…………….. didn’t take him long to join the Quango Tango

    “In November, he stood down from his West

    Midlands seat, shortly before it fell to the Tories. If he’d had a shred

    of decency, he would have slithered away under whichever stone he

    emerged from and stayed there.

    Instead,

    he stepped up a shameless campaign of self-promotion beneath the guise

    of promoting a novel and a diet plan, detailing how he managed to shed

    eight stone. And he still fancies his chances of copping a peerage.

    Now,

    incredibly, he has been appointed chairman of UK Music, the umbrella

    organisation which represents everyone from songwriters and musicians to

    record companies and publishers.

    The

    news was sneaked out last week under cover of the coronavirus crisis and

    has gone largely unreported in the mainstream media until today.

    Many

    appalled members of UK Music only learned of it via email or word of

    mouth. Watson’s appointment, which is believed to pay around £60,000 for

    a two-day week, has been greeted with incredulity and disgust.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8194253/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-qualifies-Tom-Watson-new-role-chairman-UK-Music.html

    1. “To be honest, it’s difficult to think of anyone less suited to the job. I stick with my assessment of Watson as one of the most malevolent, malignant individuals ever to soil British politics.”

    2. ‘morning Rik, I used to know quite a few people in the music industry. The majority definitely leaned to the Left when it came to politics. I suspect that all of them will not be amused that this evil slime ball is now to be associated with their industry and As Chairman of one of the most important organisation in that industry.

      It does demonstrate, yet again, how the Leftist ‘elites’ do manage to reward each other with cushy sinecures time and time again. The “magic sinecure roundabout”.

  46. With Boris incapacitated the government needs a strong personality to step up to the plate, they used to have heavyweight party chairpersons in the past that fulfilled that role.
    Apart from Duncan Smith they all seemed to be in a state of shock last night.

    1. Gove will be champing at the bit to take over, but that is not the same as being a good leader.
      Let’s see how Raab does over the next couple of days.

        1. So do I, in the absence of evidence to the contrary. We’ll see if he manages to keep Gove at bay. Also, Cummings was said to have the virus, but we haven’t heard anything from him since. I do hope he is better. Perhaps he is wise enough to take a back seat during this crisis.

          1. If BoJo succumbs I somehow doubt that Cummings will survive. He is a maverick who worked for a similarly maverick boss. I can’t see him and Raab hitting it off. Hope I’m proved wrong.

            ‘Morning, bb2.

          2. If BoJo succumbs I somehow doubt that Cummings will survive. He is a maverick who worked for a similarly maverick boss. I can’t see him and Raab hitting it off. Hope I’m proved wrong.

            ‘Morning, bb2.

          3. Morning. Cummings is the only factor that might persuade me to vote Conservative again, right now, so I hope that doesn’t happen. Get well soon, Boris!

          4. 317911+ up ticks,
            Morning BB2,
            I want the best in place not necessarily from the toxic trio (my personal view of governance parties) a person of proven leadership qualities.
            Like it or not ALL those in the running IMO fall short & a great deal of hope and not a lot of trust is in play and has been for a great deal of time.
            Party first before Country has NEVER been a winner.

    2. Strong personalities are prevented from becoming MPs. Only the subservient and followers pass the code of conduct and selection tests.

    3. 317911+ up ticks,
      Morning B3,
      What was the piers morgan saying this morning along the lines of “we should take into account the ex PMs views bliar,mayday, brown, the wretch cameron” the very corner stones of sh!te governance.

      Houston we have a problem, the UK has surely gone of it’s collective rocker.

  47. We do not get told the facts. The facts are in the numbers.
    Fill in the blanks:
    Number of available NHS beds 7th April 2019 xxxx
    Number of available NHS beds 7th April 2020 yyyy
    Number of NHS staff available for duty 7th April 2019 aaaa
    Number of NHS staff available for duty 7th April 2020 zzzz

    That would be a start.

    1. Aren’t certain people permitted to say the opposite of what they believe if that advances their purpose ?

      1. If you read the messages, some of them give a strong impression of doing exactly that. But Khan’s comes across as genuine. When’s the next Mayor election coming up again? 🙂

    2. We can deduce that Jenrick is not old enough to have collected many books.

    3. Shelves that have space for more books are not good. They’re a sign the person doesn’t have enough books.

      When we moved to the farm the one thing I wanted was a proper library. No more double stacking, no more piles of books (I made a desk out of them once). Did I get it? Yes. Then she got a horse.

      1. I’d love to get rid of double stacking, but our cottage is so tiny, I’d have to have bookshelves on the ceiling to manage that 🙁

    1. 317911+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Telling the truth is a revolutionary act in times of universal deceit.
      Good old George.

  51. Britain is virtually the only country in the West where the medical profession isn’t allowed to debate the subject of Hydroxychloroquine

    In other countries the debate continues energetically and openly with much information coming to light.

    But in socialized med care Britain, not a word is allowed in contradiction of the official line, or you risk losing your job.

    3. How is sunbathing with safe separation banned as being not mobile enough when graffitti that was obviously not done while on the move is fine?

  53. Another banal crop of letters today. Is the DT really not receiving correspondence about anything else?

    This is the only one that stood out

    SIR – Kate Humble (Travel, April 4) quotes Bill Bryson, who wrote: “To connect with our own parts of the world, to see them with fresh eyes, to notice small joys.”
    I take my daily walk in the evening and I have been overwhelmed by the profound silence, the clear sky with its myriad stars, Venus in the west and the Moon rising.
    Is it selfish to say that I am loath for this part of our current situation to end?
    Christine Whild

    1. She’ll be out foraging all day long if things really go titsup, like the rest of the survivors.

    2. The answer, Ms. Whild, is ‘yes’.
      There are people out there who need to earn a living. Who need human contact.

    3. Yesterday man and dog laid on the grass watching the moon rise.

      I’m fairly sure he had no idea what I was talking about but plonked in that park, with almost no traffic at all it rather felt like we were the only people alive.

      On that note – is anyone else *deliberately* not walking out with family members? Before when a carfull would gradually drop people off – wife to work, junior to school Mongo and I would then go for our walk before I waddled in to work and then we’d do it again in reverse order.

      Now with her at home all the time we need time apart. Last time we walked together was practically a route march!

  54. Morning all

    SIR – The mass testing, contact tracing and isolation of relevant individuals in Singapore and South Korea enabled the maintenance of economic activity and the control of coronavirus, which resulted in the death rate in those countries being a tenth of that here.

    We missed that boat coming into the crisis; we should not miss it in enabling our exit.

    Testing for having Covid-19, and antibody tests, will be key to restarting the economy and limiting parallel non-Covid deaths and sickness.

    Academic expertise in epidemiology will not deliver this. It needs different skills, of project management, supply chain assembly and swift decision-making that does not let pursuit of the perfect prevent delivery of the good.

    We are in danger of repeating the entry errors unless we put people with those skills in charge of delivering mass testing.

    Sir John Oldham

    Adjunct Professor in Global Health Innovation

    Imperial College, London

    Advertisement

    SIR – I am 75, my husband 81. Professor Sam Shuster (Letters, April 6) is right. The Government should isolate the over-70s and the compromised, and let everyone else return to normal life.

    It is vital for the economy that most people go back to work.

    Mary Evans

    Repton, Derbyshire

    SIR – Perhaps if, instead of the phrase “herd immunity”, we used “societal immunity” or “general population immunity” it would make the concept more acceptable to politicians and the majority of people who prefer not to be compared to wildebeest.

    Robert Barlow

    Little Bookham, Surrey

    SIR – This lockdown is a severe curfew, if only one hour a day is allowed outside one’s home to exercise.

    Even in the two world wars we could socially interact, which is what being human is about.

    We have only been in this lockdown for two weeks. It is envisaged for much longer. Many more people who live in small flats with no garden, who have young children or live on their own will go insane.

    If the Government persists with this course, civil disobedience and complete economic collapse will ensue, both of which will cause problems worse than the pandemic.

    Dr Michael A P Spencer

    Adstock, Buckinghamshire

    1. Mass testing? So far not all NHS workers have been tested once. The necessary weekly testing will never happen, even if the NHS manage to procure Covid-19 specific test kits that work and set up suffiicient laboratories to process the tests.

    2. Dr Spencer. Where did this ‘one hour a day’ nonsense come from? I’ve seen it referred to several times on these pages in recent days also.

      In France they have a ‘one hour per day, one kilometre from home’ restriction I believe, but in the UK the equivalent is one period of exercise per day, such as walking, jogging or cycling’ with no defined constraint on time or distance.

      Why do people search for further restrictions where none exist? Isn’t life bad enough without gold-plating the lock-down?

      1. I believe the Poluce instruction is 1 hr / day, and no loitering or solitary sunbathing.

        1. “I’m not sunbathing, Officer. I’m letting the UV radiation from the Sun kill off any Coronavirus present on my skin and clothing”.

        2. No loitering or sunbathing, but one hour has never been mentioned.

          Walking for an hour is just a stroll, not exercise, and I’m a brisk walker. Boris said one period of exercise per day. He didn’t stipulate a timescale. The police seem to like to make up stuff on the hoof.

          2. If I wait while Spartie has a lengthy sniff of a nettle clump, will I be banged up for sunbathing?

      2. The govt instructions I have seen have been not to go out except for essentials including exercise. I don’t recall seeing it limited to one exercise period, let alone one hour.

      1. Why use existing words when he can make up entirely new ones or replace a single syllable with 4 or even 7?

        He displays much that is wrong with our world today. Prat.

        1. And on that point, Mr Chairman, what the heck is an Adjunct Professor in Global Health Innovation?

          2. ‘Morning, Bill, a made-up title for a made-up job to employ some sort of plastic person.

  55. Morning again

    SIR – Listening to the Queen on Sunday night made me proud to be British and even more grateful that we have a real First Lady, not merely the wife of an elected politician.

    Bernard Kerrison

    London SW4

    SIR – In 1978, Philip Larkin wrote these lines to commemorate the Queen’s Jubilee:

    In times when nothing stood

    but worsened, or grew strange,

    there was one constant good:

    she did not change.

    Mary Barrett

    Prestwich, Lancashire

    1. I have to admit that I felt Brenda was going through the motions. But then she is 93 and has a helluva lot going on in her life besides the current shenanigans. She must be be mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted.
      And her speech writers should have avoided the WWII allusions.

      1. I was afraid she would over-egg the WW2 allusions, but I think she was just reminding people that previous generations lived though the war, which was far worse, but it ended and so will this.

      2. Morning Anne – The Chief of Defence staff supported the Queen s allusion to WW2 on BBC Radio 4 this morning much to the presenter’s disappointment. I didn’t hear the Queen’s speech but was pleased she obliquely referred to another WW2 heroine of mine,103 year old Vera Lynn and her classic song “we’ll meet again”

    2. When did HMQ say one word to contradict government ?

      I’d believe the hype if she’d take on the creepy crawlies and destroyers but she never does.

      She’ll always go along with the garbage until the house falls down.

  56. SIR – What Dr Catherine Calderwood, Scotland’s former chief medical officer, was “truly sorry” for was being caught out.

    Kevin Leece

    Gravesend, Kent

    SIR – Dr Calderwood has the intelligence to understand that what she did, while deeply embarrassing, posed only a very small risk.

    Others, however, seem to believe that 5G masts can spread coronavirus.

    Graham Chapman

    Glastonbury, Somerset

    1. Oh, Mr Chapman, you have it all wrong. Those previously infected with CV can be controlled through 5G and turned into zombies.

    2. Multiply that ‘small risk’ by tens of thousands who will see fit to flout the rules and that will really screw up the NHS.

    3. This man has an IQ that prevents his learning to tie his shoe laces.
      Calderwood appeared in the official Scottish Government adverts exhorting us to obey the rules. Had she not appeared on TV a number of times as a Government official and official spokesperson then she might have got away with it. (She would have as far as the police were concerned, of course.)
      Her failure was political as much as “criminal”. It was a PR disaster for the Scottish Government, and much more so for the First Minister whose incompetence was revealed as by the rays of a midsummer sun.

  57. ‘No change’ in Boris Johnson’s condition today as he remains near a ventilator in intensive care after struggling for breath and needing oxygen last night. 7 April 2020.

    In a round of broadcast interviews this morning, Cabinet minister Michael Gove said the PM was getting the ‘best care’.

    ‘As we speak the PM is in intensive care being looked after,’ he told BBC Breakfast.

    Mr Gove played down concerns that the government will be paralysed with the leader out of action.

    The Cabinet is the supreme decision making body,’ he said.

    The government is Gove’s real concern of course. He’s Westminster’s Greatest Living Rodent. The rest is probably lies as well. I think it significant that Trump was actually asking people to pray for Boris yesterday which indicated to me that he had more accurate information about Boris’s condition than was being given out here. I bear the Prime Minister no personal animosity but fear the worst!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8193359/Boris-Johnson-taken-intensive-care.html

    1. Why not give him Hydroxy or Remdesivir to improve his chances ?

      Oh, can’t do that. Witless says no.

      1. We don’t actually know what they are doing. To my mind there’s considerable deception going on!

      2. Well Polly he’s getting the clapp tonight what else would you expect.
        But I guess It’s worth repeating, things such as this never seem to happen to be world’s many AHs. Does it ?
        The devil looks after his own.

  58. Did we ever refer to a ‘designated survivor’ in this country before the TV programme of the same name, or is that yet another Septic infiltration into our language and mores?

    1. Have you noticed how perfectly adequate words now need to be preceded by a left wing approved word in the modern media?

      “Social distancing”
      “Self isolation”

      Incidentally, I’ve discovered a new sport to while away the long hours of lockdown – Guardian bingo. Everyone gets a list of left wing favourite words and phrases, and the winner is the first person who can find a page on the Guardian website that doesn’t include one of the words!

      1. That’s unfair. No one would win.

        Rather you could play a sort of ‘Cards Against Humanity’ by coming up with the most hate filled, bile dripping bovine assault on common sense made from Guardian articles.

  59. Good Morning from a Saxon Queen

    I think the way the press are behaving over our Prime Minister becoming very ill is somewhat
    macabre, he’s a human being as well as a figurehead.
    Raab isn’t deputy Deputy Prime Minister, we don’t have one. Cameron made Clegg Deputy PM
    to keep the Lib Dems happy thats all. Raab is merely second in command ( kind of )
    for when the prime minister is otherwise engaged, not necessarily sick as it’s currently.

    Get well Boris, you can beat this,remember that Churchill Spirit you admire.

    Thoughts and prayers x

    1. Boris may have his faults (we all have those) but he stands up for this country instead of selling us down the river at every opportunity. He was surpassed only by Mrs T, but given time I reckon they would be pretty much equal.

      ‘Morning, Ethel.

      2. Mrs. T’s weakness was – like Good Queen Bess – a fancy for a lightweight with a handsome face. Fortunately, again like GQB, she counterbalanced that failing by installing colourless but intelligent men in key roles.
        Her other weakness was the ghastly Mark, rather than his more redoubtable sister Carole. Maybe she was too much like her mother for them to have an easy relationship.

      4. Net zero and HS2, plus Huawei and 5G

        Having said that, it’s extremely worrying and I hope he gets better.

  61. Can’t linger – the MR has instructed me that we were to set the rest of the potatoes.

    Back later.

  62. Vladimir Putin wishes Boris Johnson speedy coronavirus recovery insisting his ‘sense of humour’ will help him defeat bug. The Sun.7 Apr 2020, 12:14.

    “Dear Prime Minister, I would like to express my sincere support to you during this difficult time.

    “I am certain that your energy, optimism and sense of humour will help to defeat the illness.

    “I sincerely wish you a speedy and complete recovery.

    “Respectfully yours, Vladimir Putin.”

    P.S. Keep off the Novichok!

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11345476/vladimir-putin-wishes-boris-johnson-recovery-coronavirus/#comments

  63. Hmm

    “It’s actually quite hard to tell. The UK does not publish information about
    foreign bondholders and the Chinese banks who buy UK debt are under no
    obligation to write about it.

    In 2018, about 27% of UK debt was overseas-owned, and China was the
    largest single country in that figure. That suggests that China might
    own about 15% of UK debt — so about 267 billion.

    ‘Owe China’, of course, is not a very useful expression — if it means ‘owe
    to China-registered institutions, then 15% is my guess, but if it means
    ‘owe to the Chinese state and central bank’ then the figure would be
    smaller.”
    267 Billion eh,that’ll make a nice start on the damages they owe us,only a Trillion more and we’d be getting somewhere
    They MUST pay this time around

    2. I like cuddly amusing Boris and I hope he gets better soon.

      I think his policies though are worth Net Zero !

      1. I would be a hypocrite if I said I trusted and approved of him. However, I do hope he makes a full recovery from this odious plague and gets back to his job. I have even less faith in the alternatives.

  64. 317911+ up ticks,
    The wretch cameron the two faced treacherous twat is talking of a governance of national unity what he is really asking for is legality to be
    given to the lab/lib/con coalition that has been in place for decades.The political sh!tehawks are circling, b liar, milliband, brown, osbourne, etc, all
    being given a platform for their poisonous, odious input.
    The saddest thing is they would still find support / votes via the party first voting pattern.

        1. Climb every Plantain
          Search high and low
          Follow every byway
          Every path you know
          Climb every Plantain
          Ford every stream
          Follow every rainbow
          ‘Till you find your dream
          A dream that will need
          All the love you can give
          Every day of your life
          For as long as you live
          Climb every Plantain
          Ford every stream
          Follow every rainbow
          ‘Till you find your dream
          Climb every Plantain
          Ford every stream
          Follow every rainbow
          ‘Till you find your dream.

        2. I’ve seen that photo before.

          It was taken when Miliband was trying to tempt David Lammy down from the canopy over the Speaker’s Chair, from which he was swinging and screeching because he was hungry.

  67. Latest from the BBC on Boris.

    Prime Minister Boris Johnson is “in
    good spirits” after spending the night in intensive care being treated
    for coronavirus, No 10 has said.

    A spokesman said Mr Johnson, 55, was stable overnight, is being given oxygen and is not on a ventilator.

  68. Further from the dissapointed BBC.

    In a statement on Tuesday, a Downing Street spokesman said: “The
    prime minister has been stable overnight and remains in good spirits. He
    is receiving standard oxygen treatment and is breathing without any
    other assistance.

    “He has not required mechanical ventilation or non-invasive respiratory support.”

    A ventilator takes over the body’s breathing process when disease has caused the lungs to fail.

    Mr Johnson does not have pneumonia, Downing Street added.

    Dr
    Jon Bennett, president of the British Thoracic Society, said it was
    “heartening” the PM was receiving “standard oxygen treatment” – through
    his nose or via a face mask – because in more serious cases it would be
    delivered through mechanical support, such as continuous positive airway
    pressure, high flow nasal oxygen or more invasive ventilators.

    The
    spokesman said that the mood in government is “determined”, and
    ministers have a very clear plan set out by Mr Johnson for responding to
    the pandemic.

    The prime minister’s weekly audience with the Queen
    will not go ahead, although she will be kept regularly informed about
    his condition, the spokesman added.

    Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s
    Today programme, Mr Gove pledged that if there is any change in his
    condition “No 10 will ensure the country is updated”.

    1. I tried to send him a greeting , as suggested on the Telegraph site, but their autocensor rejects ‘Keep your pecker up, Bojo’… It doesn’t understand English as she is spoke…

  69. This is disgraceful. Medicine was never like this.

    SIR – My oncologist called it a radical course of treatment, having earlier told me that my cancer was terminal, but he “could make it easier for six months or so”. I had rejected his prognosis and asked him to throw everything at a cure – take risks and beat the odds.

    We won the battle together after months of struggle. Fellow cancer patients will recognise those knife-edge moments – the body is not strong enough to tolerate the next course of chemotherapy, the radiotherapy is draining all energy – but finally the will prevails, just.

    The coronavirus pandemic has provoked many medical and moral dilemmas, but surely the greatest is postponing cancer patients’ life-saving treatments, while they are left to cling to hopes of survival.

    Chris Wakefield

    London W12

    1. Doctors round here are immensely frustrated; their lists have been cancelled, yet there are very few Coronavirus cases.

    2. Last night on Look East, there was a man whose operation for a brain tumour had been cancelled because of the dangers of C19. His operation would have been yesterday and he was informed on the Friday.
      His surgeon had been confident that he could remove the vast majority, and probably the whole of the tumour. Instead, the patient had been offered radiotherapy to give him a few more months.
      One of those rare news items that just really hit home.

      1. That is unutterably disgraceful. Why shouldn’t the operation go ahead? Are the hospitals really that swamped with CV patients??

        1. I think they can swerve round that by citing the dangers of infecting the patient.

          1. If they follow proper infection-control procedures, as they should normal do anyway, then it shouldn’t be a problem.

          3. Actually, not so much any more.
            All patients are tested to see if they have MRSA before they’re admitted for elective surgery. The NHS is very aware of MRSA infections and take measures to prevent outbreaks, but a significant portion of the population (I can’t remember the exact figure, posse around a third) carry it naturally without symptoms. It’s when it gets into wounds that it’s a problem. It will be brought in by visitors, etc, even if the patients are free of it. It’s an ongoing problem, and I’ve seen a microbiologist department swamped by swab testing during an outbreak, where every surface on a ward is tested and checked, staff checked, and a deep clean done before patients will be admitted to that ward.

          1. They’re not. Being blunt about it, the NHS is simply not fit for purpose.

            It is unresponsive, inefficient, expensive and wasteful.

          2. Absolutely.
            His family should threaten to sue whoever it is that made the decision not to operate (Matt Hancock??)
            It seems to me that they’re using the virus as a convenient excuse. I wonder how many cancer deaths there’ll be as a result of suspending treatment.

  70. SIR – Has the Rev David Ackerman, who intends to open his church on Good Friday, not seen the suffering Covid-19 causes, and the selfless work of those in the essential services? Has he not read in the Gospel of the humility of Jesus?

    Pilate at least washed his hands.

    Rev Margaret Hayward

    Weston-super-Mare, Somerset

    SIR – Patrick Williams (Letters, April 2) is right: if supermarkets can open, so too can churches.

    On a recent Sunday before the closedown, there were just three of us in our beloved church (normally there are around 200), but about 50 people shopping in the local Marks and Spencer.

    Geoff Dickman

    Maldon, Essex

    Why open off-licences but close garden centres?

    Customers are desperate for garden centres to reopen now that the weather is improving

    Customers are desperate for garden centres to reopen now that the weather is improving CREDIT: Dan Mullan/Getty Images

    SIR – I am no great gardener (Letters, April 6), and I like a pint as much as anyone, but I think it is wrong that off-licences are currently on the list of essential businesses and garden centres are not.

    Come on Government – let the many people who now have unexpected time on their hands plant some flowers.

    Malcolm Anderson

    Whitley Bay, Northumberland

      1. It’s perfectly possible to pray or even hold a service, while maintaining distance.
        Supermarkets can manage it, but apparently churches can’t? rubbish!

        1. Even under normal circumstances, our congregation could keep 6′ apart. It’s a large church (16th century).

  71. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f985c8cc8cbcf77e4beee72c1e7edabc46fe05cdb775466ff2cfa85b1a7b046.jpg

    Post coronavirus – quo vadis Caledonia?

    The eminent veterinarian and deer-whisperer, Professor Shuggie Campbell FRCVS, has warned of a new prion disease which he fears may break out in the Autumn.

    Cervine Spongiform Encephalopathy, a disease of the brain which is widespread amongst the red deer in Scotland, may be acquired by eating venison from infected animals and causes severe brain damage in humans, leading to their voting SNP. Early symptoms of the disease include feeling horny and being overcome by a desire to head-butt strangers.

    A spokesperson for the Scottish Govanment at Holyrood, today assured the public that there is no need for alarm but in a further statement blaming Westminster for the ongoing coronavirus crisis – and any future crises that may arise – Jeane Freeman, Cabinet Secretary for Health, speaking by video-link from self-isolation at her holiday home on Ailsa Craig, has warned that a TOTAL lockdown may be necessary until the people of Scotland demonstrate that they have come to their senses and obey the First Minister’s instruction to vote “YES” in a second referendum on independence.

    2. So totally barmy is our current state of affairs, that the first two sentences were perfectly believable.

    3. I think I spent many years going through the early symptoms.

      In fact, they’ve not completely passed.

        1. Not yet. That’s the eventual outcome. I am also socially-distanced by about 40 miles from the nearest source of SNP, so I’m isolated.

          ‘Early symptoms of the disease include feeling horny and being overcome by a desire to head-butt strangers.’

    4. Monarch of the Glen, a proud Scots stag in the Highlands … painted by a cockney sassenach! :•)

      Morning, Duncan.

      1. Ironically, Sassenach is a Teuchter corruption of Saxon and refers equally to the Lowland Scots as much as the English.

        2. I see. Could that be why the lowland Scots teamed up with the English under Cumberland in order to rout Charles Edward Stuart at the battle of Culloden?

          1. ♫ “Now on the barren heath they lie
            Their funeral dirge, the eagle’s cry
            Mountain breezes o’er them sigh
            Wha fought an’ died for Charlie

            No more we’ll see such deeds again
            Deserted is each Highland glen
            And lonely cairns are o’er the men
            Wha fought an’ died for Charlie” ♫

            :¬(

          2. Billy Connolly must be a lowlander; he couldn’t stand all the idolatry foisted on the “Bonnie Prince”. He called him a “Shrivelled Italian Dwarf”.

          3. Possibly. The Jacobites were not that popular in several parts of Scotland. As Burns put it,

            Ye Jacobites by name,
            Ye’ faults I will proclaim,
            And ye’ doctrines I maun blame….

          4. That would be Rabbi Burns the customs officer.
            Though I do find the Jacobite ‘romanticism’ very tedious.

  72. Gosh – shock, horror. Just seen an aeroplane. Luftwaffe – Dublin to Franfurt. Rare birds these days.

  73. My wife was telling me that Kay Burley had a bit of a disaster this morning.

    When we’re being told we aren’t allowed to drive for 10 minutes to our local beach or moor for a mile or two of social distancing in case we have a mishap that overwhelms the emergency services on the way, Kay and her crew decamped on an unneccessary journey to stand outside 10 Downing Street so she could stand and talk to a camera. Don’t they have phones to keep up to date?

    She went to a video link with a doctor somewhere, who then gave her the worst possible news that she could hope for.

    KB. ‘What about PPE (don’t journos love stumbling across new jargon that they then use incessantly to sound clever?), do you have plenty or are you suffering from shortages?’

    Dr. ‘Oh, we’re OK on that score Kay and I hope that other hospitals are too. We have a separate room before ICU where our PPE is arranged for the staff so that we are all well protected before we go into IC and even on the other virus ward there is also plenty of protective equipment so that our staff are fully covered when they go in to treat the patients.’

    KB. ‘(Hmmm) Well, Doctor, how is morale at your hospital?’

    Dr. ‘It’s fine Kay, we are all digging in and working as a team, it’s like pulling together as a family’.

    Dr. I must add that there’s also less pressure on A&E as people are less inclined to attend. I should tell them that if they have a need to attend A&E we are there 24/7 for them’

    (Off camera Kay Burley screams to the heavens and kicks the Downing Street cat).

    2. Not many other nhs pastimes offer a higher salary than that non job.
      Interesting that English language is required. Isn’t that discrimination?

      1. How else would one get spoken Woke across to the native population without a good knowledge of English….?

          2. Under £27,000 I believe, but this hides a multitude of differences.

            The median is almost £31,000

    5. “There really has never been a more exciting time to join us; University
      Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust and Weston Area Health NHS Trust
      joined together as one organisation on 1st April 2020” – was it an April Fool spoof?

    2. That copper isn’t recognising the 2 metre rule – they ought to toss him off

  77. Didn’t sleep so well last night and spent some time listening to LBC alongside scoffing two weetabix, toast with ginger preserve, and some hot tea (Waitrose Gold – without milk, as I’ve done for the last 60 years) …. forgive the digression … but I heard a good response by Darren Whatsit to a number of conspiracy posts re. BJ’s illness …. He said, reckoning they all came from anonymously from the same poster “It must be really exhausting to face life every day being that stupid”.

    1. I didn’t sleep well either. I’m very worried for Boris – he has been overworked and neglected his own health. I fear he may have left it too late for the ICU. I hope I’m wrong.

      1. I didn’t sleep well, either, but it had nothing to do with worrying about Boris; my dog, for some reason, had one of his restless nights and kept asking to go downstairs (for a drink, for a snack, to go out) at regular intervals. The annoying thing was, he settled in his bed and fell fast asleep while I couldn’t drop off again.

    1. Good Heavens. It never occurred to me that he hadn’t done this when he set up the company.
      So much in better in Europe.

      1. You would be proud of this evasion of the Mods,Anne

        “Branson
        is a traitor and deserves nothing. If he cannot afford to run his
        airline then revoke his licence and find someone who can and do his long
        suffering employees a favour!

        He’s an odious materfamilial fornicator.”
        Respect to James Palmer !

  79. Is the UK testing hydroxychloroquine and other drugs as potential C-19 treatments in conjunction with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ?

    This Gates Foundation press release suggests that the UK might be doing so……

    ”At least 40,000 participants in Asia and Europe will be randomized to receive either chloroquine (East Asian countries), hydroxychloroquine (United Kingdom and Europe), or a matched film-coated placebo as daily prophylaxis for three months. The one-year project, known as COPCOV, aims to determine definitively whether these drugs can prevent COVID-19 and thus protect the vital health care workforce. Participant enrollment will begin in April and initial results will be available by the end of the year”.

    https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2020/03/COVID-19-Therapeutics-Accelerator-Awards-$20-Million-in-Initial-Grants-to-Fund-Clinical-Trials

    Initial results are not forecast to be available until the end of 2020 so look likely to be of no use in this pandemic.

    Is this the reason why the UK, apparently against the wishes of many UK medical professionals, currently prohibits the use of hydroxychloroquine for C-19 sufferers ?

    The UK appears to be virtually the only country in the West where the medical profession is prohibited to debate the subject of hydroxychloroquine and other drugs in connection with C-19. In other countries the debate continues energetically and openly with much information coming to light. But in socialized med care Britain, apparently barely a word is allowed in contradiction of the official line, or medical professionals risk losing their position.

    This Long Island doctor reports ”very good results” in his experimental hydroxychloroquine treatments, interestingly using antibiotic doxycycline alongside in place of the more customary azithromycin due to heart rhythm concerns….

    https://nypost.com/2020/04/04/long-island-doctor-tries-new-hydroxychloroquine-for-covid-19-patients/

    So my question is, why aren’t the British innovating in a similar manner and using all the tools at their disposal instead of bureaucratically waiting a long period for large scale testing results which look likely to be far too late for thousands of C-19 patients ?

    1. Even New York mayor Andrew Cuomo has been positive about the use of Hydroxychloroquine in covid patients.

        1. It’s not about medical qualifications. It is about crisis management. About making management decisions and taking chances to save lives. Everything we have done in the UK is about managing the number who get sick at the same time. We cannot cure any of the sick. We can treat some symptoms, but when that solely mechanical treatment is initiated the patient is usually going to die.

          1. They do seem to leave it too late before admitting the seriously ill patients – so that the outcome is generally that they die.

          2. The instructions are quite clear. We are being told to leave it late, very late. Then try making contact. good luck with that.
            Not that it matters. If we get a bad dose, we die.

    2. I have three letters to answer your question regarding bureaucratic inertia and slow response times:

      The N. H . S

  83. A message from my friend in Nebraska.
    I learned today that 70% of those who have died of a virus in our major cities have been black people due to obesity diabetes smoking and heart problems but the real cause of their deaths it’s not lack of personal responsibility but white racism

    1. I’m beginning to notice ,but I could be wrong here , that the majority of reported deaths of the various NHS clinicians seem to fall to the non-indiginous groups , this may be of course that the majority of NHS clinicians are those we’ve stolen from abroad.

      1. Or, a habit of gathering together, indoors or out, despite instruction to the opposite?

      2. There has been a piece on Look East about a midwife in her 50s who has died of C19.
        This evening, it was admitted that she had asthma and a bad back. Still an equally sad and premature death, but earlier reports gave no indication that she had ‘underlying conditions’.

    2. They must be racists themselves to bother keeping such statistics.

      It seems that the Americans are always seeing race in everything. We were in the YS during some of their primaries and even thers results were being g broken down along race lines.

      1. I suppose a bit like some people break down the UK along class lines. Class lines are invisible compared to race.

  84. I see that Glove is self-isolating. The bad news is that he is continuing to work – plotting. He has but one interest, aim and ambition – the furtherance of Glove.

    1. You can see through him. I can see through him. He must be the most transparently treacherous person in the Conservative Party. Why can’t everybody see through him?

      He reminds me of the great debate in Pandemonium in Paradise Lost where the fallen angels are plotting vain empires.

    2. If it looks like a toad, sounds like a toad and has all the allure of a toad then it’s certainly a Gove ( does not apply to Bufonidphiles )

  85. Dr Calderwood sometime appointee of the Scottish Government personifies the arrogance frequently met in the medical profession.
    The medical profession in the UK has refused to consider the use of hydroxychloroquine and similar in the treatment of coronavirus. This is despite the fact that current “treatment” has no effect on the virus. The “treatment” is solely mechanical in order to keep the patient alive long enough for their own antibodies to win the battle with the virus before their organs are destroyed by lack of oxygen.
    The virus destroys haemoglobin in the blood. As haemoglobin is what carries oxygen around the body, the vital organs are starved of oxygen and the patient dies.
    If this summary is questioned it is very easily tested. Examination of blood samples taken from a patient at 2-hourly intervals should provide a clear picture if this is the case. If so then what can be done? Well, hydroxychlorophine intervenes to prevent the haemoglobin being destroyed. The patient then has a good chance that their immune system will win the battle before their organs fail from lack of oxygen. Blood transfusion from people with antibodies (having had the virus) will greatly assist.
    Will the medical profession continue on their current path of presiding over the deaths of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, when these deaths could be prevented by a little humility and actual tests? Or the quinine based route could be disproven, of course, but not if it is not tested.

    1. As I have said for weeks the denial of antimalarials is negligent and those responsible for its restriction deserve punishment.

  86. Afternoon all.

    Bowlegged Man

    A woman was out shopping one day with her son.

    The boy spotted a man who was bowlegged.

    The boy pulled on Mom’s hand and said, “Momma, look at the bowlegged man!”

    Mom was mortified, and told her son that it was not polite to point to a person and make that sort of comment.

    For punishment, the boy had to read a play by Shakespeare. He couldn’t go shopping again until he finished reading the play.

    Finally, he finished, and his mom took him once again to the mall.

    Again, he spied a bowlegged man, but remembered what happened the last time..

    So he pulled on his mother’s hand and said, “Lo, what manner of men are these, who wear their balls in parentheses?”

  87. Afternoon, all. Been a glorious day here; sky as blue as the one I’m used to in Aix en Provence. Worked in the garden, then lazed on the chaise longue (I could get used to this!). Did hear a chopper while I was out ambling the animal. No chance of it seeing me through the trees, though – na, na, na, NAH, na!

  88. Oh dear. Interviewees are not going along with Carrie Gracie’s gloomy, the dog-has-just-died presentation of the news.
    How very dare they be so bloody chirpy?

  90. That’s me gone. Might risk a glass in the garden as it is so sunny.

    A demain – and have a jolly evening sticking pins in models of Glove.

  91. Toby Young
    Britain needs Boris, the extraordinary man I’ve known for 35 years
    7 April 2020, 2:29pm

    As I write, Boris Johnson is in intensive care at St Thomas’ Hospital, battling with coronavirus. For someone with such an unwavering belief in his own destiny, this must be profoundly difficult. He is a man who’s beaten the odds over and over: to become mayor of London in a Labour city, to lead the Leave campaign to victory in the teeth of overwhelming opposition, to become prime minister in spite of all his personal baggage, and then to win the largest Conservative majority since 1987. Here is a man who cannot stare into the jaws of defeat without grabbing hold of victory with both hands. Yet the odds of him triumphing in this case keep narrowing. Of those who’ve caught the virus aged 50 to 59 (Boris is 55), their chances of requiring hospitalisation are only one in ten, and just 12 per cent of that fraction end up in intensive care. A hundred to one against and he’s still drawn the short straw. Once a Covid-19 patient has been admitted to intensive care, their chances of coming out are close to 50-50.

    It’s his sense of public duty that has landed him in this hole. People who don’t know him, and even some who do, talk disapprovingly of his arrogance and vaulting ambition. But the man I’ve known for more than 35 years contains multitudes, of which Richard III is only one. Henry V is also in there, one of his better angels. He cannot resist the pull of obligation to his country, the need to be of service. I remember cornering him at a Spectator party shortly after he’d announced his intention to become an MP and asking him why he was bothering with politics when he was so clearly destined for the top in journalism. Surely being the editor of the Telegraph would be much more fun than shinning up the greasy pole in Westminster? A career in journalism suited his mischievous, Rabelaisian personality, whereas he’d have to rein all that in if he wanted to succeed in politics. He looked embarrassed — he hates being asked personal questions — and muttered something about ‘public service’. It took me a while to realise he was being serious.

    That must be the reason he refused to take it easy after being diagnosed with coronavirus. In spite of having a fever, he carried on chairing the daily 9.15 a.m. Covid meeting and continued going through his red boxes. Some people have criticised him for not handing over to Dominic Raab earlier, as if remaining at the helm was irresponsible. But it would have gone against everything in Boris’s nature to hand over the wheel when navigating such a difficult passage, at least while he still had any strength left. It’s not a case of refusing to acknowledge his own vulnerability because of some misplaced sense of exceptionalism, but of carrying on regardless out of sheer bloody-minded duty. Willpower and resilience will have just kicked in automatically. I don’t suppose he gave it a second thought.

    I’ve often wondered what it must be like for him to be prime minister during his country’s darkest hour since the second world war. As I got to know him, it became clear that he saw himself as having a historic role to play in our island story. In politics, that doesn’t make him particularly unusual — you’d be amazed how many obscure backbench MPs entertain fantasies of becoming prime minister. Much rarer is Boris’s ability to inspire others with this belief. Even those who disliked him, who thought he was over-rated, could never completely write him off. And those of us who’ve been closely following his career, watching him fulfil his destiny, came to believe it was all wrapped up with Brexit. That winning the EU referendum, then the leadership, then the election, had all led inexorably to the role he was born for. This was the pivotal moment in Britain’s history where he would bend events to his will and shape our future for decades to come. And yet we were wrong, or at least not entirely right. That may still be his most important contribution, but in the meantime providence has something else in mind, something even more challenging.

    I am not a man of faith, but at moments like this you realise you’re still animated by certain core, irrational beliefs. One of those is a kind of mystical belief in Britain’s greatness and her ability to occasionally bring forth remarkable individuals — ordinary men and women of extraordinary ability, to paraphrase Bagehot — who can serve her at critical junctures. I’ve always thought of Boris as one of those people — not just suspected it, but known it in my bones. And in spite of his shrinking odds of survival, I still cannot bring myself to doubt. Britain isn’t finished with you yet, Boris. You will come back to us, full of strength and vigour, larger than life like never before. You must.

    1. “sheer bloody-minded duty”

      Duty, a concept lost on the me,me,me generation.

  92. Mail to a Conservative MP………

    May I just explore this subject a little further please as it looks increasingly political ?

    As there is to be a control group in Britain for the Gates Foundation hydroxychloroquine testing, it suggests that perhaps the UK is relying on the Gates testing regime instead of doing it themselves. After all, it’s hardly likely there would be two separate control groups in the UK.

    If that’s true, then the views of Bill Gates look very relevant. He says……

    ”Finally, we need a data-based approach to developing treatments and a vaccine. Scientists are working full speed on both; in the meantime, leaders can help by not stoking rumors or panic buying. Long before the drug hydroxychloroquine was approved as an emergency treatment for covid-19, people started hoarding it, making it hard to find for lupus patients who need it to survive.

    We should stick with the process that works: Run rapid trials involving various candidates and inform the public when the results are in. Once we have a safe and effective treatment, we’ll need to ensure that the first doses go to the people who need them most.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how-to-make-up-for-lost-time-on-covid-19/2020/03/31/ab5c3cf2-738c-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html

    So that means the UK might, in effect, have outsourced the decision to prohibit the use of hydroxychloroquine to Gates. That’s why I asked those questions yesterday.

    If the foregoing is true, it would explain why the UK authorities are so against deploying this drug immediately, against the wishes of so many UK professionals, and I think it would be a very strange place for the UK to be in bearing in mind the emergency and the appalling rate of fatalities.

    Everything that can be done should surely be done now, and not waiting any longer. The UK has thousands of medical professionals, they should surely be freed from bureaucracy immediately to do their best for their patients.

    Polly

    1. If that is correct it follows that UK citizens are dying in their hundreds because the UK Government has chosen not to interrupt an experiment by Bill Gates?

  93. Local Sth West news.
    Farmers are wasting gallons of milk. Why can’t they make cheese…?

    2. They’ve listened to your Linnet and confused it with the siren song of Rennet?

    1. Applaud might have been a better word than Clap with its connotations of an STD….

    2. Much as my thoughts go out to Boris and I wish him a swift recovery, there is no way I will be standing on a doorstep clapping for someone who can’t hear me because he’s in a closed room 300 miles away.

      And even if he could hear me, clapping ain’t going to kill a single germ.

      Gesture signalling mumbo-jumbo.

        1. Too few opportunities in Africa and Asia for brain surgeons, architects, entrepreneurs, bankers and all the other highly skilled talents they bring us.

      2. They’re just trying to shorten the distribution line for our overseas aid.

        Instead of us sending money to Africa and elsewhere to be spent on Mercedes limos and Kalashnikovs, the world is coming here to pick their free gifts up to save on transport costs.

      3. Yet if we want to go to Africa we are called Imperialists…unless of course one is Chinese…

    2. ……and onward to the United Kingdom. There’s going to be trouble ahead.

  100. We fought the good fight but we were over run.

    The castle after taking many trebuchet has fallen to the enemy.

    The drawbridge was taken and we are now prisoners.

    The last bastion breached.

          5. She thought Wan King was a place in China until she discovered Vodka corona-mouthwash.

          8. She thought Wan King was a place in China until she discovered Vodka corona-mouthwash.

    2. Never understood why castle defenders didn’t build their own trebuchets – after all prior to any assault they could have worked out the range from any point within the castle grounds and ‘grapeshot” would have travelled much further than heavy stone required to demolish castle walls…

      2. Have you heard of ravening hordes? Busier than a supermarket with a sale on bog rolls.

      3. Trebuchets are bloody big and require a large space in which to operate. I imagine that the average castle compound would not have the spare space to keep a whacking great piece of machinery there. There are other items of siege machinery that I believe were used by castle defenders.

    1. “And he says he’s been tanning niggers out in Timbuktu, so we’ve got him for a racially motivated hate-crime too.”

  104. A view from Sweden from J Ward’s SLOG.

    ReluctantSwede on April 7, 2020 at 3:05 pm
    I’m sure you have all read the “horror” stories about the way Sweden is tackling this issue.
    As a Brit living in Sweden I have been impressed with the way most people here have handled the situation and equally disgusted at the attempts of the media to bully, shame and accuse the Swedish government of playing “Russian roulette” with Swedish people’s lives.
    Much of this is occurring in the UK media, some of it is in Sweden but nowhere near as much and you also see some reports about the other Nordic countries being upset with Sweden’s approach.
    If you were to believe the UK press, Swedes are meeting up and having big parties, mingling with everyone and spending all their time in packed bars drinking.
    I can assure people that is not the case, most companies have taken the step of having as many people working at home as possible.
    When you do go out, you see people in the shops but it is nothing like normal, very few people are going out if unnecessary and in shops they are encouraging social distancing with floor markings etc. (many Swedes take care of this themselves but there are a few who need reminding).
    On the whole people are trying to get on with their lives as best they can but taking the precautions seriously.
    One thing you see in Swedish society is that if the government issues a directive, most people follow it, there is no need for fines and police interaction (at least not yet anyway), and I believe this is why the government has not enforced stricter measures yet.
    But what I can see coming, reading different reports, is that they are being bullied to try to make them change course.
    Why could this be one wonders?
    Well – could it be that having a country adopt a different approach that turns out to be more successful or at least not worse than countries having restrictive lockdowns would be “embarrassing” to say the least for those other countries.
    I am no medical expert, the thought of a serious illness for my family, friends, or anybody for that matter is not one I want to come to reality.
    But who knows yet which approach is best?
    Will Sweden suffer many more deaths this way than with a lockdown? – will it not? – who knows?
    Will other countries experience a resurgence of the virus when the people in lockdown emerge, blinking into the light to try and get back to some semblance of normality – who knows?
    I certainly don’t.
    But as things stand now I’d rather take my chances with the way Sweden is approaching this, if the (unspoken) tactic is to obtain this so called “herd immunity” rather than pushing the problem to a later period maybe that works, maybe not.
    But in the meantime, it would be great if Sweden was left alone to follow its’ path, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Swedish government has received calls “advising” them to change its approach.
    As one of my colleagues said to me today “strange times we live in”

  105. 317911+ up ticks,
    The breitbart posting that “nige” is saying we may have to accept the 5g
    deal on accepting medical aid from the chinese chappies.
    For an ex trader to have such a view could be the reason for being an ex trader.
    I have a very strong feeling the size of brown envelopes would give an
    alligator a problem swallowing.

    1. We already apparently had to accept 5G in the face of Chinese threats in relation to our exports to them.

      The Chinese are corrupt, they are immoral and they are totally untrustworthy. (Edit: mind you IMO the rest of governments are largely behaving the same way)

      Why some of our businesses want to sell to them, and jeopardise the whole country, is a matter of greedy corporates who want NWO, and their useful idiots (in government, etc.). . So what chance have we got, realistically?

      1. 317911+ up ticks,
        Evening HL,
        My personal view is much of our problems are brought about by people power refusing to acknowledge that continuing the same vote in to keep out voting pattern have brought us nothing but mass woe, deceit, treachery and a Country no longer recognisable to what once was, 4 decades ago.
        No radical change in the polling booth means no change in society, in point of fact these Isles are
        ripening / building for a take over.

      2. You would think that the 5G rollout is not such an immediate need. Develop the thing in house and avoid depending on foreigners.

        Maybe Britland can learn from the fun Canada is having with the US. When the chips are down, those trade deals and shared values go right out of the door.

        Just a shame that PM gutless is such a wimp, apparently the material used in those face masks is a specialist paper made in Canada but rather than telling Trump no masks, no paper, boy wonder has said that we will not retaliate.

        1. The lack of spheres in the vast majority of world leaders (with notable exceptions which can be counted on the fingers of one hand) is truly remarkable. Perhaps China has been putting a gormless-inducing concoction in the atmosphere of the West for the last 50 years or so.

  106. One bit of good news.

    My excellent neighbour (former soldier for whom the word “impossible” does not exist), and who works for the NHS, offered her services to the health service as a volunteer – turned down flat.

    Then the Army asked her to be a planning director for the new BMH in London and the other ones in the pipeline. No faffing about. Her record in Iraq and Afghanistan was known; she is an excellent administrator, as well as a thoroughly nice person. We were so pleased for her.

    She – and another ex-service neighbour have been keeping an eye on us and doing the odd bits of shopping we needed while we were in quarantine.

    1. Well, if she’s efficient, has a can-do attitude and doesn’t suffer fools gladly, it’s no wonder the NHS couldn’t cope with her! 🙂

  109. A very interesting analysis of the requirements of the lock-down regulations and what we (and the police) can and cannot do within the framework of the law.

    There are a lot of people going or attempting to go beyond the bounds of that law, encouraged no doubt by rantings in the media, and they aren’t necessarily the ones who wear civvies to work.

    I recommend taking 5 minutes to read it.

    https://planninglawblog.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-rule-of-law-policing-restrictions.html?m=1

      1. He did make an error when he wrote about the status of the Blue Hole, but he acknowledged that in the comments when it was drawn to his attention.

        The point is that the law is the law, not what some journo, pc, or even minister would like it to be.

  110. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/07/boris-johnsons-absence-dominic-raab-good-gets/

    Good one, I think:

    “Standing in for Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab could well prove his doubters wrong

    Stewart Jackson”

    “I declare at the outset, that I’m a fan of Dom Raab: We have something in common,
    having both served as Chief of Staff to David Davis – and it was
    typical of the man that he offered me the role of Chief of Staff when he
    became Brexit Secretary on Mr Davis’ resignation, even though it would
    ruffle feathers in 10 Downing Street. Ultimately, it wasn’t to be and he
    lasted just four months in the job anyway.
    Who is Dominic Rennie Raab? Where did he come from and how did he end up as our putative national leader and de facto acting Prime Minister deputising for a stricken Boris Johnson as First Secretary of State?
    In many respects, at this unprecedented historical juncture with invocations of the war on Covid-19
    and a call to remember the Blitz spirit, Raab is arguably the Clem
    Attlee to Boris’ Churchill: The latter is rumbustious, ebullient,
    emotional, charismatic and flamboyant, driven by gut instincts and self
    belief and historical allusions. He leaves details and minutiae to
    others and relishes his role as cheerleader and chief national morale
    booster. Boris believes, rightly, that he is “walking with destiny”, to
    quote historian Andrew Roberts’ magnificent biography of Churchill.
    By contrast, Raab is in many ways the anti-Boris but, like Attlee, has a
    rich hinterland – very clever, self-assured and even tempered yet also
    cautious, managerial, unsentimental and taciturn. As his former Chief of
    Staff Nick du Bois has described him, a man who exhibits an unflagging
    stubborn optimism and who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
    Above all, he is a consummate lawyer and Ralph Waldo Emerson could
    have been thinking of the Foreign Secretary when describing the legal
    tribe thus:
    “The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and
    angle of contingency and qualifies all his qualifications but one who
    throws himself on your part so heartily that he can get you out of a scrape.”
    Essentially, Raab passes the trench test: You want him next to you on
    the battle lines when the going gets tough and when you encounter
    circumstances hitherto never experienced, such as a terrifying
    healthcare emergency and a once in a century global pandemic which
    compels the government to euthanise the economy in order to save
    thousands of lives – and to do it under the harshest media spotlight. He
    has, I would venture, the character and skills which will now allow him
    to rise to the occasion and disprove the naysayers from last year who
    viewed him as too dry, humourless and lacking in a commanding presence
    to lead the Conservative Party and the country.
    It’s only in the white heat of this international crisis that the attributes of
    this serious and competent politician will be really tested and where
    Dominic Raab can and will excel.
    Firstly, he has a forensic brain, as befits the winner of the
    prestigious Clive Parry Prize for international law at Cambridge
    University. Few people could have read the draft EU Withdrawal Agreement
    running to hundred of pages in less than an hour and spotted its flaws
    and bear traps, but Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab could and did. He’s a
    details man, and the war on the Covid 19 requires both a strategic mind
    and someone comfortable with technical and granular information.
    Secondly, he’s mentally and physically tough. Everyone knows about
    his karate prowess but few realise that the discipline and commitment
    needed to train week in and week out for success in such a competitive
    field, requires huge reserves of stamina and self-belief. Raab possesses
    them.
    Thirdly,
    as the battle against the virus develops and necessitates much more
    cooperation not just across Europe but the rest of the world, Raab’s
    knowledge, experience and contacts as an international lawyer and
    Foreign Secretary will be invaluable.
    Fourthly, he is unflappable and unemotional, which is what is needed
    in this current imbroglio – just as he was at the General Election when
    his Remain-leaning Esher and Walton seat was targeted ruthlessly by the
    Liberal Democrats in their latest (unsuccessful) “decapitation
    strategy”. He showed no signs of panic at the electoral onslaught.
    Despite huge pressure and his own worries and self doubt, he will
    present a cool and professional front of house operation, not just in
    the daily press conferences but in Cabinet too. He understands
    the unique spatchcock British constitutional apparatus, (we have no
    newfangled written arrangements for an incapacitated Prime Minister and
    his “ designated survivor”) and will be, after all, primus inter pares, first
    amongst equals and will understand the imperative of bringing his
    colleagues with him and seeking a consensus both within the government
    and in working with opposition parties.
    Finally,Raab is a man of principle – someone who will not take the path of least
    resistance if the occasion merits a strong lead and at times,
    unpopularity. He was right to point out Theresa May’s seeming obsession
    with promoting identity politics even though in so doing it garnered
    negative comment and spiteful briefing from the more socially
    liberal rump the Parliamentary Conservative Party. Raab was unfazed.
    In February 2011, at the robust urging of his former boss David
    Davis, Raab who was recuperating at home after a difficult and painful
    operation on his hip, made his way into the Commons to speak and vote on
    a backbench motion on giving votes to convicted prisoners. The result
    was never in question and the motion – against – passed by over two
    hundred votes but it was a matter of principle and duty for Raab. He not
    only attended on crutches and voted in the lobby but gave a brilliant
    speech in which he quoted King Alfred and his translation from the
    original Latin of the “Consolidation of Philosophy” and the nature of
    free will. Very far from a boilerplate rabble-rousing peroration.In most respects, Dominic Raab is not your normal politician and is
    very far from a “hail fellow well met” backslapper so prevalent in
    Parliament but in extremis and in the absence of our unique
    Prime Minister, for whom we offer thoughts and prayers for a swift
    recovery, he’s about as good as it gets.
    “

    1. That reminds me; I picked up Bojo’s biog of Churchill a while ago and haven’t read it yet. Time to seek it out, I think.

      1. It is a good read. I never realised what a dare-devilling, hell-raising character he was. Bonkers by today’s standards in his youth.

        1. What many people forget or don’t realise is that Churchill learned to fly and earned his RAF wings.

    1. Wouldn’t the guilty one risk catching covid19? Surely unsafe and risking the prisoners health.

  113. HAPPY HOUR – Nurse Plum to the rescue…..!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c8b8a43828f7382f7decd9e4bca28951d1f5537f7fe67cb504dbcb3dadc12a58.jpg

    I spent most of the afternoon rescuing a fledgling blackbird from the rose border. Too young to fend for himself I finally
    caught him in a soft cloth and safely placed him in a willow basket. I searched for an old Victorian birdcage which previously housed a young thrush who flew into a window pane and appeared concussed. He recovered after a few days of intensive care via moi then released into the woodland garden.
    I gave the blackbird mealworms, a mashed hard boiled egg, water and left him to settle in his new surroundings in the garden.
    Shortly after a female blackbird arrived and perched in a nearby hedge eyeing up her recalcitrant offspring. Making sure all was safe she flew into the rose garden and after several minutes returned with a fresh worm which she dropped through the slats of the wicker basket…..

    1. Well done you!

      We had one concuss itself after flying against a window.
      When it came round we placed it on a wire fence, which it grabbed; birds claws close and have to be released to fly off.

      The parent soon appeared and it flew away.

    1. So the whole question of if this treatment works for not has come down to a political battle between left and right.

      How damned pathetic that they are all playing games, the left for rejecting it out of of hand and the right for pushing it as a wonder drug.

      Needless to say Canadas lefty administration is refusing to allow it, waiting for results of trials.

      1. How many of our Covid19 dead tried it? Between none and zero, I’d guess.

    2. Sorry to wake you after just three hours’ sleep, Peddy, but I wanted to wish you a good night’s sleep. (You can go back to sleep now.) :-))

    3. Sorry to wake you after just three hours’ sleep, Peddy, but I wanted to wish you a good night’s sleep. (You can go back to sleep now.) :-))

      1. My point is not about the participants, but the title. The globalists seek one world on their terms.
        They are happy that dupes, and fellow travellers go along this path. The idea of “one world” is going to be used to get us familiar and comfortable with it. That is how propaganda and brain-washing work.
        Next year the “One World Olympics”?

  118. As ever Trump has nailed the problem viz. the failure of the WHO to pick up on the seriousness of this pandemic. The WHO swallowed Chinese lies whole. Trump has put a halt on funding the WHO and quite justifiably so. It is no longer fit for purpose, having been taken over by Africans and an assortment of charlatans, rather like the UN.

    1. Don’t worry, our pretendy PM Trudeau will probably offer to pick up the pieces, after all he is still out touting himself for a security council role.

      There are times that even the cynical canadians think that he is doing the right thing.

    2. I used to deliver beer to the OMS in Geneva, when it was a decent organisation looking out for people’s health. How things change.

    3. Good morning.
      A slight correction, if you do not mind:-

      ….taken over by Africans and an assortment of charlatans, rather like the REST OF THE UN.

    4. He is right, but there will be a slew of headlines in the Guardian about how Trump is killing millions of people by cutting off funding to the WHO. They’re just a bigger version of Public Health England as far as I can see – they’ve got all the inessentials covered.

  119. Is the UK testing hydroxychloroquine and other drugs as potential C-19 treatments in conjunction with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ?

    This Gates Foundation press release suggests that the UK might be doing so……

    ”At least 40,000 participants in Asia and Europe will be randomized to receive either chloroquine (East Asian countries), hydroxychloroquine (United Kingdom and Europe), or a matched film-coated placebo as daily prophylaxis for three months. The one-year project, known as COPCOV, aims to determine definitively whether these drugs can prevent COVID-19 and thus protect the vital health care workforce. Participant enrollment will begin in April and initial results will be available by the end of the year”.

    https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2020/03/COVID-19-Therapeutics-Accelerator-Awards-$20-Million-in-Initial-Grants-to-Fund-Clinical-Trials

    Initial results are not forecast to be available until the end of 2020 so look likely to be of no use in this pandemic.

    Is this the reason why the UK, apparently against the wishes of many UK medical professionals, currently prohibits the use of hydroxychloroquine for C-19 sufferers, because Bill Gates doesn’t want it until after his research program ?

    I wonder who authorized Gates to research in the UK ?

    Could it be the same guy who worked on his $40 million Africa malaria project ?

    1. Wasn’t William the man who brought the World ‘The Blue screen of Death’?

  120. Given that I am aged 67 and my wife 64 we decided to self isolate. I have had pneumonia and pulmonary embolisms in the past and my wife is asthmatic.

    We find it impossible to book home delivery slots from Waitrose, Sainsbury and Tesco, despite having used all three in the recent past. Unless the home delivery supply chain is sorted many will be deprived.

    We have no difficulty so far in obtaining wine from local wine suppliers nor meat as we have an excellent local butcher who drops stuff off on a weekly order basis. We are hoping to obtain fresh vegetables and fruit from a local farm shop and will have to collect but that is no problem for us once we are notified.

    I constantly wonder whether there is any joined up thinking in Downing Street and Whitehall. If we are all to stay at home, especially vulnerable folk like us, where is the supply chain for home deliveries?

    1. Hi corimmobile

      The lockdown has instantly isolated us from normal supply chains the origins of which are commercial warehouses.
      I responded to a plea on Look East from an East Anglian fish supplier for help in shifting their fresh and frozen fish which they normally only distribute to registered businesses. I contacted their answerphone orderline and they came back to me saying that they were now making plans for their van fleet to deliver direct to the public in our region.

      They need time however to revamp their ordering procedure.

      I have also been in touch with local farm producers some of whom are inundated with local requests for deliveries but deprived of more regional market access due to public distancing measures.

      The whole food supply chain needs to be reconfigured to deal with new trading arrangements and local authorities are providing assistance to identified vulnerable people. However it is not easy as we are constrained by distancing rules being enforced by the police.

      In times of emergency central government usually devolves its powers to the regions and that is already starting to happen.

    2. I did get an occasion to see my GP again when our dog was steadily going down hill and we were desperately trying to find out how to save him. He was regularly collapsing in the rear end and being a Newfoundland was proving difficult to lift in and of the car.

      Combined with overseas family issues requiring MOH to travel to Swizerland to help out I was left by myself to decide what to do with MOH’s dog which had really become attached to me. I went to the vet with him to get a quote to euthanase him and return his ashes in a box.

      MOH came back and found me in state. She fixed an appointment for me to see the GP again. I went to the surgery by myself but asked to see the manager instead to explain my previous experience and adverse reaction to an ACE inhibitor.

      She flatly refused to concede that I had possibly suffered such a reaction saying it was a chance of one in a million.

      I was naturally furious and I guess she must have labelled me as a non-compliant patient for withdrawing from my earlier prescribed medication.
      I walked out of her office with as much control as I could muster.

      By the time I had got home the surgery had been in touch with MOH and I was referred to the community psychiatric team after the GP came to see me at home.

      That’s where another chapter begins.

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