Tuesday 5 May: Let the working population get on with life, and let those at risk choose

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be blacklisted.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/05/04/letterslet-working-population-get-life-let-risk-choose/

925 thoughts on “Tuesday 5 May: Let the working population get on with life, and let those at risk choose”

  2. More than 130 people bid to reach UK in 24 hours. 4 May 2020.

    The Home Office said the Border Force intercepted a small boat containing 16 suspected migrants off the Kent coast on Monday morning.

    Hours earlier, French officials had collected 39 suspected migrants from three small vessels near Boulogne.

    On Sunday, 49 people were intercepted in UK waters as well as another 31 in France.

    Morning everyone. The English Channel has provided protection for the people of these islands from 1066 onwards. It has seen off some of the world’s worst tyrants and many of the most unwanted aspects of Europe. Yet here we are day after day unable to prevent people crossing it as if it were the Serpentine on a Sunday. Why is this? The first thing I think is not to be misled by the talk of interceptions. The ones caught by the Border Farce are simply ferried in greater comfort to the UK while those taken by the French are not returned to Iraq or Iran or wherever. Like Mexican migrants in the US they are simply returned to their starting point to try again, and it is not unreasonable to assume from this, that many, perhaps 50% of those who do make it across are on their second or third try. In effect this means that they are guaranteed entry to the UK.

    These are of course simply the mechanics of the process, to fully understand what is happening we have to look behind the scenes. The regularity of the supply would suggest a highly organised pipeline (these are not the desperate and destitute people from the Calais camps) of limited numbers who have paid their fares or had them paid by others and which we know from alternative sources is in the many thousands of pounds per person. Since people do not part with such sums or risk their children’s lives without considerable caution we must assume that they have been given assurances and guarantees of their eventual safe arrival. Who could issue such warranties that these people would believe? Well the only answer to that is their co-religionists. What we have here is an Islamic Comet Line. A method of smuggling muslims into the UK paid for and organised from British soil. It’s immunity from interdiction or prosecution would suggest powerful political protection and when one remembers Priti Patel’s reception at the Home Office when she attempted to do so we can see just how powerful it is!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-52527734

    1. 318887+ up ticks,
      Morning As,
      The party top ups is running smoothly
      is evident.

      1. It’s blinkin obvious they are! The main reason why I refuse to vote Conservative.

        1. Vote for the others and they will build a new Chunnel just for them, so they do not have to queue for a train al la continent

          1. I refuse to vote for either of them. Why should I vote for destruction simply because the other lot will destroy us faster?

          2. ‘Morning, BB2, your voting dilemma is one shared by many on here and boils down to there not being one single party that upholds the values voiced here and, I suspect throughout the country.

            The Conservative Party got its large majority simply because it was seen as the lesser of many evils and offered a chance for us to escape the clutches of the evil Empire-Builders in Brussels.

            Unless, and until, parties such as UKIP clean their Augean Stables, rid themselves of their corrupt NEC and publish a Manifesto similar to Batten’s, there is NO alternative. I’m not doing an ‘Ogga’ here because I hold NO brief for UKIP until they demonstrate that they may be a viable party, probably with a new name that expresses Britain’s desires – they have just over 4 years to rebuild the strength they had in 2014.

            I can only hope to see such a party arise to clean out the political sewer that currently inhabits Westminster, in what little is left of my life.

          3. More or less my opinion too.
            There are a lot of good people in UKIP and various other groups, but too fractured at the moment.

            After what Cameron, May and now Johnson are doing, they should be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act for calling themselves Conservative.
            Marriage is possibly the strongest single building block of a stable society. I will never vote for the party of marriage-wreckers. Full stop.

          5. Not just gay “marriage” but the no fault divorce bill that makes it easier to leave a marriage contract than to get out of a contract to buy a sofa. No worth investing much in the meaningless bit of paper that the Conservatives have turned marriage into.

            Marriage is a contract with the aim of protecting children conceived from heterosexual sex, by ensuring that their father will stick around long enough to raise them.
            Gay couples won’t conceive children if they are sexually unfaithful, whereas there are vanishingly few heterosexual couples for whom a child can’t be conceived if one or the other partner is unfaithful.
            The concept of sexual fidelity can’t even be defined under law for gay couples.
            Marriage as a legal contract isn’t relevant to gay couples for these reasons. Male gay relationships are statistically more likely to be sexually open, making a mockery of trying to shoehorn them into marriage – they need a tailormade contract suited to gay relationships.

            All other aspects, like partners inheriting in the case that one dies, can be covered by other contracts.
            Love, romance, feelings etc are twentieth century western fluff, not to be confused with marriage as the cornerstone of a stable society.

            The current situation of trying to squash all kinds of different relationships into “marriage” is a logical farce. If it was software, it wouldn’t compile. You of all people should appreciate that.

            Gay “marriage” is not the end of the story, next goals will be multi-partner marriage to placate the muslims, inter-generational marriage to please the PIE followers, and “marriage” between family members for inheritance purposes. There is no reason not to allow two brothers to “marry” as they can’t have children, so the genetic protection of offspring is not relevant.

          6. I think marriage has moved on a lot from that.

            Blokes generally do want to stick around, and most of us remain quite faithful. Blokes are also scared a bit of marriage particularly because of how divorce courts always favour the woman, and nearly always give automatic custody of children to the woman.

            A woman might go into a marriage thinking I’ve got him now, we’re bonded tightly we can now have children, but a bloke is thinking if this goes wrong what’s it going to cost me? She’ll get the house, the car, the kids, spousal maintenance, child maintenance and she’ll get all that as long as she doesn’t move another bloke in and if she does all she’ll lose is the spousal payment.

            I think that’s largely why men are not eager to jump into marriage, and why the modern marriage is simply cohabiting. I’m not married. I call her the wife, we’ve been together for 22 years. My daughter turns 21 in 2 weeks. Had we split up then I’d have been happy to pay towards my child’s upkeep but why should I pay for her upkeep?

            Marriage now is about the fluff. I’m fine with that for those that want it, but it was women and divorce courts that make men shy away from the bonding of marriage. I’m also fine with gay marriage, because marriage these days is about the fluff.

            Most relationships don’t last for life nowadays. The modern woman is always looking to ‘change’ her man. The control freakery gets even worse once children appear. If that’s the case why did she marry him?

            I am the child of an unhappy marriage. My mum and dad argued so much half the time they forgot they had kids to feed and clothe. We were supposed to be seen and not heard. They are still together today, but can’t spend more than five minutes in each other’s company without an argument starting. I wouldn’t wish being in a relationship like that on anyone and it’s a totally toxic environment for kids. Yet they have stayed married, because like you they believe it to be the cornerstone of a stable society. Dad is a shadow of his former self and mum is a bitter, vindictive, twisted woman.

            Perhaps I am jaded towards marriage because of the things I have experienced.

          7. Your daughter is one of the lucky 5% or so whose parents didn’t marry but stayed together until she was grown up then. Congratulations.

            The unfair divorce laws were another of the left’s attacks on marriage. I agree with you on that – as my 18 year old son put it “You’d have to be insane to get married these days.” Ever since the society-wrecking, tradition-wrecking movement got going, marriage was the first target in their sights. Gay unions and no fault divorce are just the last bullets in the dying corpse.

            I would change the law to assume 50-50 financial responsibility for children after any divorce, no matter how rich or poor the parents are. People (statistically mostly women) might think twice about divorcing for stupid reasons then. No maintenance for kept spouses either.

            The need for marriage stays the same as it always has – the only thing that has “moved on” is the marriage-destroying laws passed by society wreckers.

            Apologies if this is too personal a comment, but your parents argue because they want to argue, and they aren’t considering the feelings of you, their child. Divorce is not the only solution to an arguing couple, they could also just put their egos aside and get on with trying to build a better marriage!
            Divorce has devastating life-long effects on children – the statistics of lower educational achievement, higher divorce rates etc are well known. A single parent family is no substitute for a family with a mother and a father. The parent can work as hard as they like to try and be a father and a mother, but they will never manage it. Nobody can provide both a male and female role model, or be in two places at once. All this guff about “families come in all shapes and sizes” is a nonsensical fantasy from the same decade that produced PIE and other undesirable outcomes of the sexual revolution.

          8. Is it really only 5% of relationships like mine that last the full childhood of a child? Out of interest do you know the stats for married folk?

            My parents argue because they hate each other. They always have done. Dad can’t keep it in his pants and tbh I don’t blame him because he could go months between nice words and lucid days with my mum. Mum had a nervous breakdown shortly after leaving the NHS and hasn’t been right since. She lives in her own fantasy world. It’s sad to see. I can’t spend more than about 5 minutes in her company before she starts a fight.

            They’ve had plenty of opportunities to split up and move on yet they haven’t even though they actually do hate each other. It’s like they stay together out of some twisted duty to each other, there’s no love there.

          9. Sometimes breaking the status quo is harder than putting up with it. Nobody ever notices or applauds the people who make efforts not to argue.
            The original Daily Telegraph article is now behind a paywall. I’m not sure if this DM article is about the same study: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1244699/Only-3-couples-stay-child-16-unmarried-study-reveals.html
            You have to be careful how you interpret the data though – IIRC, the original headline was something like “95%(?) of couples that stay together until their eldest child is 16 are married”
            So the headline percentage was percentage of all couples that stay together, not all unmarried couples.
            Anyway, married or not, it is an achievement that I am sure your daughter appreciates. The adverse effects of living in a single parent family have been deliberately played down by socialists. There isn’t a day goes by that our family doesn’t hurt from not having a father around.

          11. I am doing something, I am withholding my vote.
            Voting for the Conservatives doesn’t count as doing anything, unfortunately.

            “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.”

          12. By all means withhold your vote, it’s still a mainly free country, but ensure that you attend the polling station and spoil your ballot. The returning officers have to count spoiled ballots, no-shows make life easier for them and have far less impact as a show of disdain for the one party state.

          13. One day I might stand as the “NONE OF THE ABOVE” candidate. Bet I’d win!

          14. There is also specific guidance on how to spoil your ballot paper as”None of the Above”.

      2. 318887+ up ticks,
        Morning Tb,
        Been running smoothly for years in different forms, we are witnessing the marine side of the invasion.
        The b liar triggered it, ( lab) the tories accepted the passed baton and the influx campaign
        has been running unhindered,
        with NO interference from the polling booth since.

      1. 318887+ up ticks,
        Morning Bob,
        A mini burka, thin edge of
        compulsory burka wearing wedge, coming soon methinks.

        1. ‘Morning Hugh

          You appended that to a Bob of Bonsall posting who appended his to a Minty posting which had nothing to do with the Fashion pages of the telltaletit-graff. Are we all digitally challenged this morning? Thank you for your greetings anyway.

    4. The Home Office said the Border Force intercepted a small boat
      containing 16 suspected migrants off the Kent coast on Monday morning.

      Suspected migrants?

      They mean illegal immigrants.

    1. Morning Michael et al. If the DT ever returns to serious journalism I might consider subscribing but until then they can whistle.

      1. I only persist because all the other blatts are worserer. It’s a source of the occasional worthy posting on this blog which is really where I get my news when NoTTLers provide links to other interesting stuff.

      2. There is no need to subscribe to read Premium.

        Select your chosen Premium article. As the page loads, tap esc a few times.. and the paywall is defeated.

        1. But that approach would be cheating. A practice amongst the wealthiest which I believe you find distasteful.

          1. Then please make all Nottlers aware of your views..

            ..because many of them tap esc very happily to read the news !

      3. Your wealth is safe for the forseeable, methinks.

        ‘Morning, Stephen.

    2. It was the utter stupidity of the fashion pages that was the final straw on the DT for me.
      “Hijabs in fashion this year” or somehting like that.

  8. SIR – The name Wilfred is a most appropriate name for the Johnson baby, who has a striking head of hair. I wonder whether his parents were mindful of a medieval namesake, the great Catalan warrior Wilfred the Hairy “a man of deep piety and unsurpassable valour”?

    As Count of Barcelona, though, Wilfred the Hairy had to pay homage to Emperor Charles the Bald.

    Caroline Seller Manzo
    London SW2

    Who should NoTTLers revere as a modern day Wilfred the Hairy? Answers on a postcard please (No, Uncle Bill..you are not allowed to vote for yourself)

      2. I would rather you didn’t, Peddy. That nasty little wierdo has been silent of late, and I would like it to remain that way!

    2. I thought it was Wilfred the Shaggy? He is so named by Patrick O’Brian in one of his books and O’Brian was an expert on Catalonia!

    3. All of us if the barbers aren’t allowed to open until August, as I have seen reported.

  9. How to reopen society using medical science and logic. 5 May 2020.

    The basis of reassuring the public about re-entry is repeating the facts about the threat and who it targets. By now, studies from Europe and the U.S. all suggest that the overall fatality rate is far lower than early estimates. And we know who to protect, because this disease – by the evidence – is not equally dangerous across the population. In Michigan’s Oakland County, 75 percent of deaths were in those over 70 years old; 91 percent were in people over 60, similar to what was noted in New York. And younger, healthier people have virtually zero risk of death and little risk of serious disease; as I have noted before, under one percent of New York City’s hospitalizations have been patients under 18 years of age, and less than one percent of deaths at any age are in the absence of underlying conditions.

    I think Nottlers are well ahead of you here chum. The only reason the PTB keep on with the present regimen is that to accept this will reveal them to have over reacted in accepting that moron Ferguson’s advice. The general lockdown should be abandoned and help should be targeted on the elderly.

    https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/495833-how-to-open-society-using-medical-science-and-logic?fbclid=IwAR2nEYTdayVhhU47mmrIZ9FawIw9M6I2yTtOAyKhNvv0wLdSv_R4Xw6vhFI

    1. I find it very odd and somewhat disconcerting that at a time when it is apparently impossible for the authorities to prevent illegal immigration to the UK, the same authorities appear to be supporting the notion of the necessity for the population to be vaccinated (in due course) for Covid-Sars2, to be in possession of a mobile phone with a ‘contact tracing app’ with an implied threat that unless one conforms one will not be allowed to travel.

      1. Agreed, Stephen…and I refuse to have any sort of iPhone thingy…they are really, really dangerous…Matt Damon or Helen Mirren or someone like that can use the signal to steer their drone and target a hellfire missile at you and then you’re in really deep sh!t. I’ve seen it on the BBC.

    1. 318887+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Is that what that far right racist
      Gerard Batten has been warning of rhetorically & in book form since 2005.

    2. Good morning, Ogga.

      Have you watched TR’s interview, from yesterday evening?
      Very hard hitting at our ‘Christian Clergy.’

      1. 318887+ up ticks,
        Morning G,
        Must watch, it was in my mail.
        That is TR the far right racist, the
        same one who has more establishment stitches in his makeup than Frankenstein, that one ?
        The “beginning” will have a very
        urgent call for, as with Tommy Atkins, the Tommy Robinson’s of these Isles, methinks, and it won’t be long in coming.

      1. ‘Morning, Bob, too right you’re being Islamophobic, as am I, they scare the living shits out of me and the plans, identified many times on here, are coming nearer to fruition, unless and until some positive action to stamp it out is taken by those elected so to do.

        1. Morning, Tom.

          It’s not as if the plans are any kind of secret – like the EU “Ever closer union” – not a secret, just some won’t see what’s in front of their eyes.

          1. Pretty Polly is not far off the mark either. When like-minded people work in concert towards a common end it often works. Calling it a conspiracy, is to discredit and marginalise it and those who warn against it, and hence allow it greater freedom to succeed.

  11. Why are the government Hotspotting the virus on the Isle of Wight , when they should be hotspotting in BAME areas of London and the Midlands and of course Dover!

    1. Maybe the government thought it was spelled Isle of White.
      All in the cause of community cohesion, doncha know.
      Morning, Belle.

    2. Perhaps the authorities believe that the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight would be more compliant than those in the areas where, as you correctly point out, the hotspots are occurring?

  12. NHS Nightingale hospital to stop admitting patients this week. Gareth Davies – The Telegraph – 04 May 2020.

    The NHS Nightingale hospital in London is to stop admitting patients.

    In a message from the Nightingale CEO Charles Knight, he said that once the current patients leave the hospital at the ExCeL site, the pop-up wards will be put on standby.

    The memo, sent to staff who worked at the hospital, revealed that the facility had not had to expand beyond one ward.

    These things are monuments to government incompetence and the criminal assertions of that fraudster Ferguson!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/04/coronavirus-nhs-nightingale-london-stop-admitting-patients/

    1. I suspect government was at a loss what to do, and Ferguson & his team provided suggestions “backed by the science” – and if it goes right, politicians are praised for “following the science”, and if it goes wrong, well, they “took the best advice there was”. So, win-win.
      (Incidentally, Win Win is a shipping agent based in Jakarta… I’ll get me sou’wester)

    2. A heavy, fast, over the top is the best and only successful response to a crisis. The “Nightingale ” hospitals were a correct response, in the circumstances. The circumstances being the long standing and insane policy of big all purpose hospitals, the abject failure of the Government to respond immediately in a manner appropriate to an outbreak of plague, failure to close the borders to all movement of people into the country, failure to initiate contact tracing, and failure to get a grip on the required treatment. The decision to impose lockdown was also a failure in that if it was the correct decision, it was two months late, rendering it less effective.
      The correct response will always mean that there will be some superfluous effort visible in hindsight.

  13. This is a Public Service posting – I don’t agree with several of CM’s assertions.

    Public opinion is no obstacle to lifting lockdown
    CHARLES MOORE – 5 MAY 2020 • 6:00AM

    Polls show not a love of lockdown but rather a willingness to follow the Prime Minister’s lead

    Much has been made of the fact that the public tell opinion polls they don’t want lockdown to end. Only 11 per cent, for example, are ready for pubs and restaurants to reopen; only eight per cent want to allow mass gatherings straightaway. From this it is concluded that Boris Johnson will find it hard to persuade people to lift restrictions.

    That is surely a false conclusion. It is more likely that people are simply following the logic of public policy. Since the middle of March, in the most concentrated public messaging campaign ever, people have been told that they must stay at home to save lives. After a bit of grumbling at first, they decided to do so. Even if it does later turn out that the policy was wrong, it was rational to comply.

    Since then, the statistics have appeared to reinforce the original message. Only in very recent days have hospital death rates started to fall, and the late arrival of care-home death figures has added a new dimension of anxiety. It feels as if the crisis continues.

    You change your mind only if presented with clear information and argument from those in authority. No such information has yet been furnished by experts and no such argument has yet been made by ministers. Returning from his own hospitalisation due to the coronavirus, Boris Johnson went out of his way to say that the Covid “mugger” had not yet been wrestled to the ground.

    What the polls show, then, is not that the Prime Minister is confronting a terrified populace who won’t do what he wants. It is that the populace has followed his lead so far. If people are shown clear evidence that the situation on the ground is changing, then their attitudes will change too. They will almost certainly follow his lead again.

    If the statistics continue their present trends, the public will be ready for change surprisingly soon.

    A change of heart on Brexit?
    Universities, which are now suffering so badly from the lockdown, should reconsider their almost unanimous hostility to Brexit. Under EU membership, students from other EU countries were allowed to study in Britain at the same rates as British students (and vice versa). They were also entitled to British government-backed student loans.

    For the time being, these arrangements remain in place, but they will soon come up for review, and they should change.

    The policy has meant that EU students have escaped the much higher fees which are chargeable to other foreign students. This in turn means that universities which fill up with students from the EU forego the financial benefit that would accrue if non-EU foreign students could take up their places.

    There were 139,000 EU students in the United Kingdom in 2017-18. If they were now to be replaced by non-EU students and by EU students paying the full whack, much more money would come in; and there would still be a decent amount of space to give places to larger numbers of British students.

    The Government would benefit too: in 2018-19 it handed out £532 million in loans to EU students. It is quite likely that most of that enormous figure will be lost, because EU states tend not to enforce repayment, since it is not their money at stake.

    Of course it might turn out that our least successful universities would not be able to find enough replacements to survive. To put it brutally, that too would be a bonus.

    Behind the mask
    It may be well, in terms of health, that we should all wear masks as we increasingly venture out to shop, but if I were a retailer, I would have a simple anxiety.

    As has often been discussed in relation to wearing the burqa, having your face visible is a fairly basic part of the mutual trust necessary for successful citizenship. If your shop is full of people wearing masks, how do you identify a shoplifter?

    Open-air shopping
    Given that it is more or less summer, could there not be more experiment with selling things outdoors? Obviously, social distancing remains a problem, but grocers’ shops have managed to make it work, so I do not see why much larger spaces should not do so too as we start easing restrictions.

    One factor which helps is that such large spaces are temporarily available. These are otherwise known as station car-parks. Although some trains are running, the station car-parks I have seen are operating at about two per cent of normal capacity.

    It would be a good moment to try out farmers’ markets and/or car-boot sales on the deserted tarmac. Many of the stations have enough room to provide room for controlled parking as well as market stalls.

    Testing times for enterprising clergy
    Last week, this column proposed VE Day as an opportunity for church leaderships to show some return to life after the virus. There is still not much sign of episcopal activity, but the grass-roots are stirring to get round the bureaucracy.

    It was planned to ring church bells 75 times in honour of the 75 years that have passed since May 1945. But of course we are not allowed peals of bells, thanks to Covid-19. Under the rules, bells may not be rung except for the purpose of testing them. An enterprising vicar known to me has therefore arranged for the bells in the churches under his care to be “tested” 75 times this Friday.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/public-opinion-no-obstacle-lifting-lockdown/

    1. If the statistics continue their present trends, the public will be ready for change surprisingly soon.

      The statistics are fake as several of the below the line comments make clear. Moore is helping get the government off the hook here. The Lockdown is disintegrating and they need a cover for abandoning it!

    2. IDS’s piece is more to my liking

      It’s time to unlock the lockdown and trust the common sense of the British people
      IAIN DUNCAN SMITH – 4 MAY 2020 • 9:39PM

      I wrote some three weeks ago that we were fast approaching the moment when we would have to begin unlocking.

      Already back then it was clear that the British people had imbibed the message of staying at home to protect the NHS and save lives to such a degree that adherence to the lockdown had been more effective than many had believed possible.

      This response bought time for the NHS to build extra capacity and the resilience it desperately needed. No one understands that more than the Prime Minister who, since his own illness, has movingly articulated the desperate fear so many have felt. Yet he also knows time and tide wait for no man and he now faces perhaps the biggest decision of all – whether to unlock now, and how.

      Confronting him is the fact that at the present rate of government expenditure, the UK is likely to end this year with a fiscal deficit of almost 15 per cent of GDP, far worse than the economic crisis in 2008.

      Public debt is set to rise above 100 per cent of national income, an all-time high in peacetime, and it’s also becoming clear that a quarter of companies have already stopped, while others are in danger of following.

      Because this has been a global shutdown, the UK’s economic output will almost certainly drop by around a third during the second quarter.

      That is why, although I welcome the Government’s statement that they will present a blueprint, I am still concerned about the possibility of further delay, perhaps because polling shows that nearly a third of the public say they don’t want to leave lockdown at all and two thirds confess they are worried about leaving home.

      This fear has in part been shaped by the strong message and the false idea that we face a choice between saving lives and saving the economy. In reality a strong economy also saves lives and we need to think about both – perhaps we should publish the bankruptcy and unemployment figures at the daily conference to help inform people.

      Yet the recent behaviour of the public should give us confidence about unlocking because it has shown they are more than capable of understanding a clearly explained message. This means we could proceed with ideas such as the plan put forward by the economists Prof Paul Ormerod and Dr Gerard Lyons to unlock different sectors at different rates to restore economic activity while reducing the risk of a second wave.

      This is why for some weeks I have asked the Government to take the British people into its confidence and to explain the balance of risks. Instead, it has proceeded with the idea that to do so would confuse people and jeopardise the lockdown.

      A phased approach is the right one, but it needs to be governed not just by medical advice but by behavioural science and economics as well. Several countries are worth looking at, such as Sweden which did not lock down to the same level as the UK.

      There is also a need to test, track and trace. I note the talk of an app in development, but we must be careful not to damage the economy further by insisting we cannot unlock until such an app is ready. The critical component as we go forward is a clear path that people understand. This would allow them to support the focus on maintaining social distancing and public hygiene.

      After six weeks of lockdown, we mustn’t lose sight of how vital a functioning economy is to our health and wellbeing. Perhaps we should remember President Roosevelt’s wise words in a time of crisis: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

      That’s why, with determination tempered by care, and by trusting the common sense of the British people, we should start the process of ending the lockdown.

      Sir Iain Duncan Smith is a former leader of the Conservative Party

    3. If the statistics continue their present trends, the public will be ready for change surprisingly soon.

      The statistics are fake as several of the below the line comments make clear. Moore is helping get the government off the hook here. The Lockdown is disintegrating and they need a cover for abandoning it!

      1. Morning Minty!
        YouGov ask, “Would you rather be shot at dawn or stay in lockdown”?

        1. Morning Sue. YouGov once asked me to be a part of their survey base but when my views became clear to them I was abandoned. No reliance can be placed on any opinion poll in the UK!

          1. Yup. When I belonged, once they knew I was a Conservative, they confined their questionnaires to day-glo orange juice and men’s toiletries.
            I stopped bothering.

      2. Morning Minty and I very much agree with thee. I think I’m getting better at seeing through the Ferguson Fog and HMG’s continual juggling of statistics.

    4. IDS’s piece is more to my liking

      It’s time to unlock the lockdown and trust the common sense of the British people
      IAIN DUNCAN SMITH – 4 MAY 2020 • 9:39PM

      I wrote some three weeks ago that we were fast approaching the moment when we would have to begin unlocking.

      Already back then it was clear that the British people had imbibed the message of staying at home to protect the NHS and save lives to such a degree that adherence to the lockdown had been more effective than many had believed possible.

      This response bought time for the NHS to build extra capacity and the resilience it desperately needed. No one understands that more than the Prime Minister who, since his own illness, has movingly articulated the desperate fear so many have felt. Yet he also knows time and tide wait for no man and he now faces perhaps the biggest decision of all – whether to unlock now, and how.

      Confronting him is the fact that at the present rate of government expenditure, the UK is likely to end this year with a fiscal deficit of almost 15 per cent of GDP, far worse than the economic crisis in 2008.

      Public debt is set to rise above 100 per cent of national income, an all-time high in peacetime, and it’s also becoming clear that a quarter of companies have already stopped, while others are in danger of following.

      Because this has been a global shutdown, the UK’s economic output will almost certainly drop by around a third during the second quarter.

      That is why, although I welcome the Government’s statement that they will present a blueprint, I am still concerned about the possibility of further delay, perhaps because polling shows that nearly a third of the public say they don’t want to leave lockdown at all and two thirds confess they are worried about leaving home.

      This fear has in part been shaped by the strong message and the false idea that we face a choice between saving lives and saving the economy. In reality a strong economy also saves lives and we need to think about both – perhaps we should publish the bankruptcy and unemployment figures at the daily conference to help inform people.

      Yet the recent behaviour of the public should give us confidence about unlocking because it has shown they are more than capable of understanding a clearly explained message. This means we could proceed with ideas such as the plan put forward by the economists Prof Paul Ormerod and Dr Gerard Lyons to unlock different sectors at different rates to restore economic activity while reducing the risk of a second wave.

      This is why for some weeks I have asked the Government to take the British people into its confidence and to explain the balance of risks. Instead, it has proceeded with the idea that to do so would confuse people and jeopardise the lockdown.

      A phased approach is the right one, but it needs to be governed not just by medical advice but by behavioural science and economics as well. Several countries are worth looking at, such as Sweden which did not lock down to the same level as the UK.

      There is also a need to test, track and trace. I note the talk of an app in development, but we must be careful not to damage the economy further by insisting we cannot unlock until such an app is ready. The critical component as we go forward is a clear path that people understand. This would allow them to support the focus on maintaining social distancing and public hygiene.

      After six weeks of lockdown, we mustn’t lose sight of how vital a functioning economy is to our health and wellbeing. Perhaps we should remember President Roosevelt’s wise words in a time of crisis: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

      That’s why, with determination tempered by care, and by trusting the common sense of the British people, we should start the process of ending the lockdown.

      Sir Iain Duncan Smith is a former leader of the Conservative Party

      2. Cut off the 80% pay bribe. Put all non-working public servants on basic unemployment pay.
        Like hanging, that would concentrate minds.

          1. Time to get creative. Obviously, we would have to check that lampposts were H&S compliant. Don’t want any nasty injuries.

    5. “The Government would benefit too: in 2018-19 it handed out £532 million in loans to EU students. It is quite likely that most of that enormous figure will be lost, because EU states tend not to enforce repayment, since it is not their money at stake.”

      Good grief, I had no idea that we seem to have been educating most visiting EU students at OUR expense.

      2. Yes Hugh…’undreds of farsands of foreigners….the Vice Chancellors (or more precisely, the Headhunters who broker the appointments) make sure that part of their ‘incentive package’ is tied to the Gross Revenue of the distinguished seat of learning. Emissaries are then sent forth to recruit as many foreign students as quotas permit, funding arrangements are put in place, the Vice Chancellor gets a huge bonus as the University records income, and when the students default on their debt, no penalty accrues to the institution’s P&L of the V.C.’s bonus pool. HM Treasury (= the poor bloody taxpayer) has to eat the loss.

        1. Blimey, it’s even easier than setting up a banknote printing press in my garage!

      3. Colour me surprised.
        A chum who was a lecturer at Essex Uni was sent off on trawling expeditions to China.

      4. There are bizarre anomalies. Students coming from NI and England to Scottish Universities have to pay fees themselves. Students from Eire don’t pay the fees, we do. Just as we pay the fees for all EU students.
        The Universities love students from non-EU countries as the fees are paid in advance. PhD students are particularly loved as the fees are high, they require little space and almost no staff time.

    6. ‘Morning, Michael, I confess to not having read it all but I’m sure that the thrust is that there is no chance of people wanting to go back to work while they’re being paid to be idle. 80% of salary and no travel involved means that most are just as well-off by staying at home.

      The minute the Treasury decides that they cannot pay any more, they will all flood back to work

      1. It’s not only 80%.

        It is 80% plus their pension contributions, plus their NI contributions.

      1. Morning, Sir. I am extremely fit and well. I am angry that the gov and media have terrified a substantial portion of the population. When I walk the dog in the forest there are those who on seeing me approaching walk 20 yards into the forest to avoid being near me. Very sad.

        1. At its height, that behaviour was actually freaking out my dog. He is a sociable little chap and couldn’t understand people’s lack of communication; dogs read body language far more acutely than we do.
          I now have to psych myself up to take him for walks because it has become such an unpleasant experience.

          1. That’s not good, Anne. Poor wee chap. Animals can be quite sensitive to humans – our cats get a hang-cat expression and demeanour when they get told off, they know they are disapproved of, so I can understand your hound being upset at people avoiding him, with fearful body language.

  15. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    She has a point:

    “Conservative peer Baroness Altmann said that the elderly will “rebel and risk prison” should they face a longer lockdown that the rest of the public.

    “Of course it’s age discrimination, there’s no other way to look at it,” she said.”

    “The reality is more BAME people, sadly, are falling victim to this than others. But somehow it’s not OK to discriminate on grounds of gender or obesity or colour of skin, but everybody is saying let’s think about somehow discriminating on the basis of age,” the Baroness added.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/05/04/medical-professionals-urge-uk-govt-ease-lockdown-elderly-people/

    1. One can imagine the left exploding if the rules changed to whites being allowed out and non-whites not being allowed out.

      2. It could certainly reduce the amount of stabbings in London, and that’s surely what Mr Khan wants?

    2. Accommodation supplied at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.
      No heating costs. Three meals a day. Bed. Library and other educational facilities.
      It’s a wonder that millions of pensioners aren’t roaming the streets looking for a Plod to assault.

      1. I’ll get me baseball bat but there’s not too many Plod in or around Flowton.

        1. They seem to be avoiding our leafy suburb as well.
          No …. I tell a lie ….. I saw a police car last Wednesday week … or was it Thursday?

          1. Very happy with the woman I assigned myself to thank you. 😂😂😂😇😇

  16. Why has the British government just globalized the medical response to coronavirus and agreed to put British people in a long international queue for treatment ?

      1. Not only the past: areas of London, Birmingham, Manchester etc. etc. are other countries now. We’re all the stronger for that, aren’t we?👿

        Morning, Anne.

  18. The use of face masks

    SIR – There is no evidence that wearing a face mask (report, May 4) will lower the risk of infection to the wearer, and there is only weak evidence that, if the wearer is shedding virus, it protects others.

    I’ve observed supermarket shoppers in masks: many frequently adjust them for comfort, lift them off to talk to staff or scratch their faces, or wear them around their necks. Handling the masks, other than by the ear loops or head straps, is likely to transfer any virus trapped on it to the hands, from where it will be spread liberally over food and surfaces.

    Without rigorous mask hygiene, any benefits from wearing one will be more than offset by transmission from contaminated hands. After touching a mask, standard hand-washing or sanitising should be carried out, otherwise wearing it is merely a cosmetic exercise.

    Dr Andrew Hopkirk FRCP

    Midhurst, West Sussex

    1. Our doctor, a lovely woman called Françoise, agrees entirely with Doctor Hopkirk. She would add that wearing gloves is equally ineffective for the same reasons.

      1. Andrew is an old colleague of mine from our days as juniors in the RAF. He ended up as a chest physician. Will ring him to see what he thinks of hydroxychloroquine.

  19. SIR – The Government is basing policy on Professor Neil Ferguson’s modelling, which assumes an exponential growth if a disease is left unchecked. Though cases have increased, exponential growth has not occurred.

    The Nobel laureate Prof Michael Levitt and Prof John P A Ioannidis, both of Stanford University, argue that Professor Ferguson’s calculations may be out by a factor of 10, and other experts have said that the slowing in numbers occurred before lockdown could have had an effect.

    Minutes of the meetings of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) should be released so that the conversation can be more open. Currently, we are all told to accept lockdown and there is no debate. One group’s opinion should not be blindly accepted. If authorities such as Prof Ioannidis and Prof Levitt are wrong, we need to be told why.

    Paul Sanderson FRCS

    Hexham, Northumberland

    1. Ferguson is a member of SAGE so there must have been some disagreements at the meeting!

  20. Making a Living

    A young couple were experiencing financial difficulties, i.e., they were stony broke.

    “There’s nothing else for it, Mary,” said the husband, “we need money FAST or we’ll lose the house. You’ll have to get out there and sell your body, sinful as it may sound. God will forgive you.”

    Mary, who happened to be a God-fearing busty blonde agreed. “How much should I charge?”

    “Never having actually paid for sex, I don’t know,” replied the husband, “but I’m sure your clients, scum that they are, will know the right price. Let them do the talking.”

    So, next evening, dressed in her most revealing dress, off she went into the night.

    Early next morning she returned to the house, looking like she’d had a very busy night, and emptied her purse onto the kitchen table. The total came to one hundred and fifty pounds and seventy-five pence.

    “Seventy-five pence?!” exclaimed her husband. “Who the hell gave you seventy-five pence?”

    To which she replied, “All of them!”

  21. So Gates maybe knows he needs a research base where the government would be sufficiently pliable to instigate a globalized sharing of new drugs and vaccines.

    A government which would not be fussy about putting the interests of it’s own country first and which has been “prepared” in advance..

  22. Article from DT by Matt Ridley.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/03/time-take-seriously-link-vitamin-d-deficiency-serious-covid/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    It is time to take seriously the link between Vitamin D deficiency and more serious Covid-19 symptoms

    A suggestive set of numbers was published online in April by a medical scientist in the Philippines, Dr Mark Alipio. Of 49 patients with mild symptoms of Covid-19 in three hospitals in southern Asian countries, only two had low levels of vitamin D; of 104 patients with critical or severe symptoms, only four did not have low levels of vitamin D. The more severe the symptoms, the more likely a patient was to be not just low but deficient in the vitamin. Could vitamin D deficiency make the difference between getting very ill or not?

    There has long been evidence that a sufficiency of vitamin D protects against viruses, especially respiratory ones, including the common cold. Vitamin D increases the production of antiviral proteins and decreases cytokines, the immune molecules that can cause a “storm” of dangerous inflammation. It has long been suspected that most people’s low vitamin D levels in late winter partly explain the seasonal peaking of flu epidemics, and rising vitamin D levels in spring partly explain their sudden ending. Vitamin D is made by ultraviolet light falling on the skin, so many people in northern climates have a deficiency by the end of winter. Eating fish and eggs helps, but it is hard to get enough of it in the diet.

    Here is a list of people who are more likely to be vitamin D deficient than the average: dark-skinned people (pigment blocks sunlight); obese people (the vitamin gets sequestered in fat cells); type-2 diabetics (vitamin D improves the body’s sensitivity to insulin); the elderly (they tend to avoid the sun and eat more frugally); city dwellers (they see less sunlight). Does that list ring any bells? All appear to be more likely to hospitalised with severe cases of Covid-19.

    In addition, men tend to have slightly lower levels of vitamin D than women in winter, but slightly higher in summer, though the difference is probably not enough to explain why men are much more likely to die of Covid-19.

    One recent study in Manchester found that average levels of vitamin D were 30 per cent higher in summer than in winter and three times as high at all times in white people as in South Asians. The latter had a median level of just 5.8 nanograms per millilitre in their blood in winter, way below the 20 that is regarded as sufficient. Surprisingly, despite guidelines from Public Health England, NHS GPs do not routinely check vitamin D levels or advise taking supplements.

    Might it not be a good idea to tell everybody to take vitamin D supplements at this time, just in case it helps? In a letter to the British Medical Journal last week urging attention to Dr Alipio’s results, a long list of doctors wrote as follows: “Vitamin D biology is a mature well-researched field, dating back 100 years. Doses, and risks, within clinical parameters, are established and well quantified. Governmental intake guidance exists. Vitamin D deficiency is a medically accepted condition, requiring treatment.”

    And for goodness sake, will somebody please tell the police to stop harassing sunbathers in parks?

    1. One of the most memorable images of this time for me was that of a police officer in a hi-vis vest with notebook in hand, standing over a sunbather in the middle of a park. “h’excuse me sir, his this h’essential sunbathing?”

      The chances of passing on the virus in a wide-open space are the square root of F-all. Surely we should be actively encouraged to get fresh air, sunshine, healthy exercise, a break from the four walls, for the good of our physical and mental health? But no, we should huddle fearfully inside and pop pills (ch-ching says Big Pharma!).

      Is there any common sense left amongst our public bodies?

      1. Morning Kuffar. It aids the transformation of the police from being a law enforcing body to that of Moral Guardians of the State.

        1. Morning Araminta, you are quite right. Sadly, I have come to the realisation that the police are not actually on the side of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. They have no interest in protecting us from muggers, rapists and burglars, they are simply there to police our behaviour and opinions.

          I have been naive!

          1. The PC has been transformed to CP….”Acting beyond Authority”….

          2. Morning to you

            Moh and I were on the recieving end of that just after Easter , when we were stopped 4 miles from home .. Yes, we are rural . 12 miles from Dorchester and 6 miles from Wareham.

            I shook with anxiety , and Moh was tight lipped with frustration.

            We weren’t drug dealers, poachers , burglars , or social misfits .. nor were we driving a flash car.. We just had the spaniels in their dog crate in the back of the car , and they had just had a good gallop , and we had enjoyed a brisk walk away from the village and the madding crowd!

            We were cautioned, and fortunately not fined .

          3. Next time, tell the police to do one, Maggie. They have no powers under the Act to order you home and you are not obliged to identify yourselves. Ask why you’ve been stopped, say you have no identification with you (you’re not obliged to carry any) and tell them to give you a “producer”.

            Interesting to see that it’s widely reported that due to the excessive and possibly unlawful behaviour of the police in harassing dog-walkers, sunbathers, motorists etc, and the unsound findings of the magistrates who convicted them, ALL convictions under the Coronavirus Act are being reviewed by the CPS (in England and Wales).

          5. ‘Morning, Duncan, while most of what you say is good sense, I’m baffled (thick or what) by what may be meant by a “producer”. Anything to do with film-making?

          7. One of the reasons I am against ID cards is that the law would soon be changed to make you carry one at all times and produce it on demand (as, I believe, is the case in France).

          8. And they know if you so much as have the temerity to question the lawfulness of their actions in all probability you will be “invited to continue the discussion down the station”.

          9. Yo T_B

            Once you are cocooned in your car and travelling, distance is immaterial, if on completion of your ‘dog walk’ you intend to return home.

            It perhaps would hav been appropriate, if you asked PWC (perlice W^naker Cu*tstable) how far can you drive and where is the law, giving that exact distance

          10. We were told to go back home and walk the dogs around the village like everyone else.. My dogs had sore paws , they are not used to pavement walking . Everyone walks their dogs around the village and the pavements are very narrow .

          11. I had something similar happen to me the day after lockdown started, We’d received our monthly delivery of our village magazine which we’d divvied up into a dozen or so sub-bundles and which I was delivering around the area. Like your neck of the woods, ours is also rural. I drove past a police car where there was one plod in a field playing with a very expensive-looking drone and another next to the car who pulled me over and quizzed me s to my intentions. Thinking on my feet, i told him I was delivering essential supplies to pensioners in the surrounding villages. He seemed to buy this and let me go on my way but even so, I felt quite aggrieved at this officious and unnecessary intrusion into my life. I also wondered to what purpose the drone was to be put.

            I was brought up with “If you’re in trouble, look for a policeman.” no longer.

          12. You should have asked for the Statutory Authority for their actions – Act of Parliament, section and subsection. If they can’t provide that it is only guidance. If you accepted a caution then you were admitting you were wrong. You, no doubt, had not broken any law.

          13. A development I’ve been watching for the past 20 + years.
            The police are now an army of occupation.

    2. I thought it was ludicrous at the start of the lockdown which coincided with the best sunny weather for six months that the public was ordered to stay locked away indoors when the sensible thing should have been to encourage everyone to get out in the sun.

      1. And, apparently, the dog walkers shamed by Derbyshire Police on Curbar Edge were a local couple from one of the villages below the Edge taking their dog on it’s usual walk.

      1. I take Cod Liver Oil from October to April.
        This year, I had to leave it off for a month before my operation, so I continued to take it well into the Spring just to build up reserves.

  23. Britain would be perfect.

    The facilities exist, the contacts exist, and the desire for globalization exists..

  24. Thanks to Soros, the ground in Britain for globalism at a price might already have been prepared.

    1. 318887+ up ticks,
      Morning Pp,
      Well and truly, ex PM brown will confirm that.

    1. Use the post the cameras are on for leg cocking, there’ll be a blind spot directly below them.

  26. ‘Morning, all. Found this in The Spectator, on the topic of the ever-encroaching surveillance society and the growth of the technology that enables it.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-perverse-world-of-immunity-passports

    This paragraph in particular caught my eye (my emphasis & underlining):

    That technology itself is interesting – facial recognition on mass populations is a largely unproven technology, shown in multiple peer-reviewed studies to have issues with significant numbers of false positives and difficulties around racial bias and recognition of non-white faces.

    It’s a personal vindication! At last, state-of-the-art technology confirms what I’ve always said ….. they all look the same.

    1. He probably meant “yous and me”.

      Actually, it makes me think of the lyrics of ‘The Best Things in Life are Free’

      The moon belongs to everyone
      The best things in life are free
      The stars belong to everyone
      They gleam there for you and for me
      The flowers in spring, the robins that sing
      The moonbeams that shine
      They’re yours, they’re mine

    1. Other than a VERY painful right hip that appears to be deteriorating rather more rapidly than I like, I’m in excellent health.
      I hope you are the same minus, of course, the painful right hip!

      1. Sorry to hear that, Bob. Was the tin more wriggly than expected…or some other misfortune?

        1. It’s been building up for a while and has gone from a nagging problem to a bloody annoying one.
          Because Ibuprofen is contraindicated with my other raft of tablets, I’m on paracetamol & codeine, though I try to keep dosage to a minimum.

  31. How Neil Ferguson was bankrolled by major pharmaceutical companies. May 4, 2020.

    NEIL FERGUSON, one of the Government’s senior scientific advisors on the coronavirus response was financed by the pharmaceutical industry in the run-up to the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic, unearthed reports reveal.

    Prof Ferguson has a history in working as an epidemiologist for over 20 years, though he began and finished his studies in the field of physics.

    Just as Prof Ferguson’s prediction models have proved decisive in the ongoing fight against coronavirus, so too were his models used as a precedent in the fight against Swine Flu (N1H1).

    His team at Imperial College predicted a scenario in which 65,000 people in the UK died – a significant benchmark in the WHO’s decision to issue a pandemic.

    In the end, the UK death toll from Swine Flu stood at 457.

    I cannot decide here whether the author is being a smartass, ironic or just plain stupid!

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1277632/coronavirus-uk-neil-ferguson-epidemiology-virus-covid-19-vaccine-boris-johnson-spt

    2. Think of a huge and very scary number.

      Propose some measures that Governments can easly implement, no matter the economic and psychological costs to the populace or those most directly affected.

      Claim your measures stopped your huge and very scary number from happening.

      Rinse and repeat.

    3. ‘Morning, George, there will always be detractors but I expect that was how he was shot-down and made PoW of the Germans, such that he had to have a spare leg dropped to him.

      As Michael says earlier about all the Nasties who had PoW camps on the Inner Hebrides.

  34. If the furlough bribe is “unsustainable” – should not the chap with his finger on the bank note John Bull printing press have thought about that before he splurged billions?

    Just asking.

    1. There is a school of thought that believes it can carry on and will probably tell you that the chancellor is mistaken.

      1. According to that renowned rag the Daily Mail, the left are threatening mass walkouts if a return to work is attempted so they obviously believe in the money tree.

        1. Didn’t the Left always believe in the magic money tree? Isn’t it the very basis of their economic policies??

    2. Question: “How did you go bankrupt?”
      Answer: “Slowly at first, then all at once…”

  35. AGA man finished and gone; plumber likewise.

    Isn’t it a delight when tradesmen come when they say; do the work without fuss and leave long before you thought they would!

    1. Wenn ich nicht bald einen Haarschnitt bekomme, werde ich mich umbringen!

      1. Beruhige dich, langes Haar wird bald sehr kühl sein, ein Pferdeschwanz ist schick. Oder?

  37. Morning all

    SIR – Now is the time for good sense instead of questionable science to prevail. We know what, uncontrolled, the virus can do. It so far has fewer attributed deaths in the United Kingdom than flu in a bad flu year.

    We could have better controlled it, like South Korea, say, or Iceland, Australia and Germany, but chose not to do so. The fox is in the hen house.

    We have no idea what proportion of the population have been infected and may have acquired immunity. We know the virus overwhelmingly kills the aged and infirm. We know there is no treatment, only palliative care, and no vaccine. We know the disease transmits by contact. Proof of transmission between persons in the open air is wanting.

    Let the disease run its course. Those most at risk, essentially the retired, must by now know that risk and can choose whether to expose themselves to it. They can keep isolated and avoid close contact inside with strangers in cars, trains, coaches, planes, lifts and crowds – and by not hugging their nearest and dearest. It’s their choice.

    The working population under 65 can then get on with their lives and businesses without further suffering being visited upon them by government diktat. The NHS can get back to treating the whole population, not just a tiny select proportion of it.

    Patrick Phillips

    Long Melford, Suffolk

    SIR – Remember the dire warnings of what would happen to Britain if it left the EU? Project Fear is still alive, and succeeding so well that now most of those locked in their homes for the past seven weeks are reluctant to return to a normal way of life.

    This fear of going out is becoming irrational. Let’s get this country moving again, for all our sakes.

    Elvina Parker

    Overton, Hampshire

    SIR – It is reported that 77 per cent of British people favour continuing lockdown. How many of these are public-sector worker whose incomes and pensions are guaranteed by the state? And how many are from the private sector, whose livelihoods are at risk from lockdown, but whose efforts provide the public sector with the resources to maintain itself?

    Peter Clery

    Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire

    SIR – My husband is in his 80s and I in my 70s, and we run a commercial bee farm. Our sales of honey are booming and fellow bee farmers – most of them past normal retirement age – report the same.

    If this group of people is incarcerated, simply on grounds of age, who will look after the nation’s bees?

    Dinny Reed

    Oakhanger, Hampshire

    1. Peter Clery makes a good point, but what he should have said is “It is reported that 77% of the people who were carefully selected to be asked favour continuing...” Certainly no one has asked anyone around here, as far as I am aware!

      1. I still don’t know anyone who’s had the lurgy.
        Other than numerous people who probably had it last winter.

        1. The former husband of my best friend’s wife had it about a month ago. He was seriously ill in Addenbrooke’s but made a full recovery.

        2. Morning Anne – The French are now saying that their outbreak started in December. BBC Radio 4 news this morning.

        3. Someone that I knew slightly was in hospital with it early in the lock down and he died in early April.

          I was told by my wife yesterday that here are three cases the local care home.

          A friend’s mother was in hospital with it. 88 years old and suffering from dementia. She recovered.

        4. Someone that I knew slightly was in hospital with it early in the lock down and he died in early April.

          I was told by my wife yesterday that here are three cases the local care home.

          A friend’s mother was in hospital with it. 88 years old and suffering from dementia. She recovered.

        5. Someone that I knew slightly was in hospital with it early in the lock down and he died in early April.

          I was told by my wife yesterday that here are three cases the local care home.

          A friend’s mother was in hospital with it. 88 years old and suffering from dementia. She recovered.

    2. Well Dinny the Dhimmi,

      you can’t have seen BBC’s lovely piece about Immigrant bee keepers.
      They showed lots of BAMEs being taught how to keep bees, being instructed by an immigrant a Syrian I believe..

  38. Morning again

    Access to open land

    SIR – Hilary McGrady, the director general of the National Trust, asks for government help (report, May 4) to meet £200 million in lost revenue, because “access to nature and fresh air is what the founders of the National Trust set out to achieve”.

    The National Trust closed all its buildings early in the pandemic, and soon also closed car parks giving access to open land in its care.

    English Heritage has extended the validity of its membership for three months, but the Trust has not.

    Roger Harrison

    West Clandon, Surrey

    SIR – Some landowners are playing fast and loose with the law by closing public footpaths “temporarily”, quoting the danger of coronavirus. This can be done legally only by the issuance of a Public Path Order.

    When lockdown is lifted, I hope that full public access will be restored.

    Charles Foster

    Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

  39. SIR – “Elderly would risk prison rather than self-isolate” (report, May 4).

    So the choice is – be locked down or be locked up?

    Dr James Nicholson

    Bournemouth, Dorset

  40. Particularly as the research for treatment is being carried out in Britain.

    Surely Britons should get priority instead of standing in line until Tedros and the WHO decide it’s Britain’s turn to have a few pills

  43. Delaying the availability of coronavirus treatment can only delay and jeopardize Britain’s return to work.

    So what’s up with the British government ?

  44. Regarding plans for children to begin returning to school, have any of these government bods been in a primary school classroom recently? If children were to sit 6′ apart, no class would contain more than about 6 pupils. They think young children could stick to ‘social distancing’? Siblings in the same class? SO poor beleaguered teachers will potentially have to teach several different levels of the curriculum? Imagine having to teach 4, 7, and 11 year olds together. I know that used to be the case in many small, rural schools but that was long before the National Curriculum.
    Primary school head Teachers are also asking if attendance will be made compulsory with the return to fines for non-attendance. I can see many parents turning to officially home-schooling.
    “Yesterday, it was revealed that schoolchildren will be told to sit 6ft apart with strict social distancing measures in place in playgrounds and canteens as they readjust to life after lockdown.”
    “They are expected to follow stringent new rules which will see children split into small groups with siblings in the same class.”

    1. It seems that the people proposing these ideas don’t follow the old rule – “engage brain before opening mouth” – a little common sense would go a long way! Are the teachers happy to return?

      1. Are the teachers happy to return?

        Are they fed up with being on full pay with no travel and hardly any lessons to prepare?

    2. They don’t need to keep their distance. Under 16s are at minimal risk, and research says that they also don’t pass any CV19 infection on to others.

      1. It’s about time the UK PTB follow the science, as they keep telling the rest of us.

    1. For the not exagerating 1,987,876 ( total using Covid19/Abbot system) time

      Everyone who wants Gimmegrants to come here, should have them living with them and financially support them for a year,

      If they fail to give the required support evict the Islingtonistas from their dwelling and give it to the Gimmegrant famaily

      QED

      1. She probably copied Emma Thompson and fled Italy just before the lockdown was implemented there.

    1. Morning, Belle.

      With around 100,000 arrivals weekly during lock-down the immigration figures for the first six months of the year are going to be closely scrutinised. If immigration is seen to have been continuing then I cannot see Patel surviving and the Tories will be exposed as lying to the electorate on this important matter. After both May’s and Cameron’s blatant lies on immigration if Johnson and Patel are seen to be following the same plan then I feel that a great deal of faith that Johnson has cultivated will evaporate.
      The pandemic has exposed that this small island really is vastly over-populated and the very idea that any government is going to continue importing close to a million people every two or three years will be seen as a betrayal.

      1. Morning KK

        Are we all wondering what on earth the full Aer Lingus flight from Belfast to Heathrow was all about.. I assumed we were all in lockdown and were these passengers tested .

        I feel very anxious that we are being taken as fools by Government policy. There is no consistency or logic any more.

    2. Good morning Maggiebelle

      Many of us would agree with this extract from above:

      “I had high hopes for Priti, as like me, Maggie Thatcher is her political Idol. However, she is not demonstrating Maggie’s true blue grit and determination. Priti is looking and sounding decidedly defeated. She needs to translate her promises of protecting borders into actions.”

      I remind myself of the lyrics of the songs I used to write when I was about 19 years old.

      “I’m trying to say something but I don’t know what to say
      And I wish I’d found some idols who have not got feet of clay
      And I wish I were original and gave and earned repect
      And I wish my mind was real and not a pseudo-intellect      .”

    3. Good morning Maggiebelle

      Many of us would agree with this extract from above:

      “I had high hopes for Priti, as like me, Maggie Thatcher is her political Idol. However, she is not demonstrating Maggie’s true blue grit and determination. Priti is looking and sounding decidedly defeated. She needs to translate her promises of protecting borders into actions.”

      I remind myself of the lyrics of the songs I used to write when I was about 19 years old.

      “I’m trying to say something but I don’t know what to say
      And I wish I’d found some idols who have not got feet of clay
      And I wish I were original and gave and earned repect
      And I wish my mind was real and not a pseudo-intellect      .”

        1. Less of the did – I still do!

          Guitar – one day I shall put my songs on line but they are all now rather out of date.

  47. It is interesting to note that the debate on the French channel BFMTV last night was:

    “Have we had enough of being treated like children?”

    NoTTLers are not alone.

    1. NANA! Pretty soon there will be a movement to ban us it will be known as BANNANA

      1. I think that stage has already arrived. “Over 70s stay home and die quietly”.

        1. Do not go gentle into “stayathome” plight,
          Old age should burn and rave at close of play;
          Rage, rage against the lying of the Might.

          Though wise men know a walk in the park is right,
          Because their words had forked no lightning they
          Do not go gentle into that lockdown plight.

          Good men, the last wave by, crying it’s my Right
          Their frail needs must have a dance on a sunny day,
          Rage, rage against the lying of the Might.

          With Apols to D. Thomas

          1. Perfect, I certainly will continue to, “Rage, rage against the lying of the Might.”

      2. ‘Morning, Stephen, this is why my pseudonym (since 2011 on here) has been ‘NoToNanny’.

        I’m old enough and ugly enough to know what is right and what not – I do not need a Nanny State trying to foist outmoded doings on me. I shall continue to make up my own mind as to what to do.

  48. One plausible explanation is the involvement of Bill Gates.

    Gates is carrying out part of the research in the US, but he knows success is likely to be subject to President Trump’s America First policy..

  49. Two DT articles (Not Premium) in today’s DT.

    Public opinion is no obstacle to lifting lockdown
    CHARLES MOORE

    More than half of all adults are now paid by the state
    “Sunak warns the cost of the furlough scheme is not sustainable after 6.3 million sign up.”
    TOM REES

    So the government has been so successful in convincing the public that lock down was the only solution that the public is now keen for Lock down to continue for ever. The Chancellor has worked out that furlough will bankrupt us and destroy the NHS.

    I am reminded of what Oliver Hardy said to Stan Laurel:

    “Another fine mess you’ve got us into.”

    2. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read that! I am sure that many adults are not worried about the cost of this lockdown because ‘the government will pay for it.’ They really don’t seem to understand that the only money government has is that raised in taxes, or borrowed at interest.

      Children! We are a nation of over-grown children…

  50. So Gates maybe knows he needs a research base where the government would be sufficiently pliable to instigate a globalized sharing of new drugs and vaccines.

    A government which would not be fussy about putting the interests of it’s own country first and which has been “prepared” in advance..

  52. Of course this is all speculation..

    ..but the jigsaw looks to fit around all the facts and coincidences so far, although there’s just one more thing….

    1. …there are just too many people who are one piece short of a jigsaw!

  53. This NYC doctor has an urgent message for bedside medics – are we treating the wrong disease?

    https://youtu.be/Eq6YEYfn2zw

    Note that the symptoms being presented are consistent with the sudden depressurisation of an aircraft.

    2. What this doctor is claiming, fits with reports we have heard over recent weeks that ventilators might be doing more harm than good, and could it explain the high death rate amongst those patients who are ventilated?

      1. I gather to use a ventilator, the patient is sedated and laid down (out follows later) on their front.
        A pipe is then put down the throat and oxygen pumped in.
        Sounds ideal for a ninety year old granny.

      1. Chief Scientific Adviser just been on BBC News at One with not onky bookcase but a picture on the wall and a chandalier hanging from the ceiling!

    1. 318887+ up ticks,
      Morning B3,
      That would be besmirching the
      Tommy Robingson name and do him real damage as a truth sayer NOT a
      truth manipulator.

    2. An ominous sign Bob. They’ll be fitting him up for something soon!

  55. I thought that Priti Awful was going to stop the illegals entering England via the Kent coast.

    Did I miss something?

      2. Silly me – I suppose she is too busy tricking herself out in new shalwar kameez for the summer.

  56. I see in the DT letter section today there is a Youtube clip entitled “Italians use snow canons to disinfect streets from coronavirus”.

    Presumably they are operated by White Friars.

  57. I am in quarantine. The AGA man arrived looking like a spaceman – with mask etc; followed by the plumber similarly attired.

    The good thing is that both of them know exactly what to do. And each is working in a different part of the house

    I shall confine myself to the crossword and a little NoTTLing.

    Jolly cold today, by the way. One notices it even more with the AGA off and the doors open!! Thank goodness for the (hush my mouth) woodburner.

    1. Will my dentist be able to do the same?. One of the old fillings he prodded about just before the lockdown fell off while I was eating an innocent apple…

      1. He is called Khan.

        The damned thing was here when bought the house in 1984. I couldn’t be arsed to go through the palaver of changing the whole heating system.

  58. Apropos the discussion, yesterday, on fried eggs. There are many ways to fry an egg and no way is ‘wrong’. Each to their own. I like mine soft-yolked, sunny-side-up, fried in bacon fat, with a crisp brown edging to the white. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but my preference.

    What is patently silly, though, is slapping a soft-yolked fried egg between two slices of bread and risking spilling all the yolk down ones shirt! When I make a fried egg sandwich I butter one slice of bread, then spread the soft yolk over the other slice, then add a little salt. I then place the rest of the egg on top, salt it, then finish by adding the other, buttered, slice of bread to complete the sandwich. It tastes exactly the same but is not anywhere near as messy.

    1. That’s why a fried egg sandwich is called a Banjo…

      Within the military, it is widely known as an ‘egg banjo’ because when
      it is eaten, egg yolk usually squirts onto the eater’s shirt/jacket,
      typically resulting in the person raising their sandwich out of the way,
      to approximately ear height, while they attempt to ‘strum’ the yolk
      mess from their shirt with their free hand.

      2. Yo fizz

        I first cane across an ‘Egg Banjo’ in Singapore, in the mid 1970’s

        Most road-side food stores (aka the MuckDonalds of toda) sold them

        1. Why does a Frenchman only ever has one egg for breakfast?
          Because un oeuf is un oeuf

          1. An Geordie in France was advising a fellow serviceman how to order eggs, because they only automatically give one.

            Tha asks for twa ooffs and the silly bint will bring you three.

            Give one back.

    3. That is why it’s called an egg banjo, you’re stood with the sandwich in one hand whilst frantically trying to wipe away the dripped egg from your shirt with the other hand.
      I like my own recipe “Egg Banjo Supreme”.
      Bottom slice coated with brown sauce
      Fried egg, with the yolk burst just before it comes out of the pan to avoid the banjo problem, placed on top,
      Thinly sliced cheese, preferably a decent mature cheddar, placed on the hot egg,
      Top slice of bread, fried on one side to a golden brown, placed fried side down on top of the egg & cheese.

      Occasional variation is thinly sliced onion between the cheese and friedbread.

          1. Porridge is the cure – or, at least, the great reducer. No sugar; no cream…

          2. Oh, come now, no sugar, no cream? What pray, is left other than unpleasant mush, supposedly a cure for lady’s problems ‘down there’?

          4. Eh? At one time plain yoghurt was reckoned to be the cure. A friend (NOT a euphemism for me) tried it. The results were …. um …. I don’t think she was impressed.

      2. Must be quite an operation to hold that ‘banjo’ in one hand whilst grasping your statutory PINT mug of tea in t’other! :•)

        1. In that case you balance the egg banjo on top of the mug of tea to free up the strumming hand.

      1. Only primitive people and disgusting savages eat with their fingers. I get my Butler to cut mine.

        Good morning.

          2. He dips his fingers in the soft yolk then licks them. It’s a fad all along the south coast, apparently. :•)

    6. Yo Grizzle

      is slapping a soft-yolked fried egg between two slices of bread and risking spilling all the yolk down ones shirt!

      You know very well, that is why God invented beards, even some ladies show that they like runny egg banjoes

      1. 318887+ up ticks,
        Morning Olt,
        Landlady,
        How do you like your eggs paddy?
        Paddy,
        In odd numbers, 5 or 7.

    7. Michel Roux Sr would deep fry his eggs. They came out globe shaped with a crispy outer layer.

  60. 318887+up ticks,
    May one ask,I only ask because I do believe it is getting near the time, and in view of the incoming armada does
    “taking matters into ones own hands” still apply ?
    How does the REAL law stand on citizens arrest when a felony is taking place ( a felony = an illegal action)
    Can such an arrest take place on a beach ? orchestrated by a large crowd of patriotic peoples ?

  61. Lagarde strikes again!!

    Matthew Lynn
    A German court has just plunged the eurozone into fresh crisis
    5 May 2020, 1:33pm

    An epidemic has been raging across the continent. The economy is in lockdown, and GDP is in freefall. But, hey, just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in the eurozone it now has a financial and currency crisis as well, and one that is being made worse by the week with the shambolic management of the European Central Bank by Christine Lagarde.

    Today, the German constitutional court has, at least in part, ruled against the ECB’s bond-buying programme, which allows the central bank to print money and effectively bail out Italy, Spain, and probably quite soon France as well. You need to be a German lawyer – not usually among the most interesting people on the planet – to unpick the finer points of the ruling.

    But, stripped of the finer points of the law, it basically boils down to this. The Bundesbank won’t be able to participate in the ECB’s bond-buying programme, at least not unless either the law or the treaties are changed. Sure, the ECB could carry on regardless, but the German central bank won’t be a part of it. And since that is where all the money in the eurozone comes from, good luck with that. It is as if the Bank of England couldn’t print any money unless it excluded London. The chances of success would be very slim.

    We will see how it works out from here. ‘The men and women on Germany’s Constitutional Court are neither daft nor tone-deaf and they know that they have just stepped on a political landmine,’ argued Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics in an analysis today. ‘In other words, they have not just put the ECB on the spot, but also Germany’s politicians. It’s not easy to change the constitution in Germany, but that may be what is required here.’ In other words, it’s a mess, and at a moment of maximum danger, no one knows anymore what the central bank can or can’t do anymore.

    In truth, that is the fault of its French President Christine Lagarde. A lawyer turned darling of the Davos set, she was a political appointment by France’s President Macron with no experience of how the financial markets work. She was a catastrophe at the IMF, where she presided over a deranged bail-out of Argentina that looks likely to end up in the worst losses in the fund’s history (Argentina is not great at repaying money – who knew?) and now she is plunging the ECB into crisis as well.

    Her predecessor, the wily Italian former banker Mario Draghi had enough financial chicanery up his sleeve to push through a massive programme of money printing without anyone being able to stop him. Lagarde does not have anything like the same skills. With lawyerly arrogance, she stumbles from one disaster to another. It is going to be very hard to bail out the zone any further – at a moment when it desperately needs rescuing.

    As well as the worst economic crisis in history, the eurozone has now added a financial and currency crisis into the mix as well. Great. It won’t necessarily mean the end of the euro. It is a resilient currency, with a huge amount of political capital invested in it. But it is going to make recovering from the crisis far harder – and for Italy and Spain tragically impossible.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-german-court-has-just-plunged-the-eurozone-into-fresh-crisis

    2. I think all Muslim Councillors and MP’s should be forensically investigated. But what does the Commission do? Go after Aaron Banks.

      1. I certainly believe that all postal votes should be examined far more rigourously and that the reasons to be granted one reduced substantially.

        2. You do have to prove that you exist now. But that doesn’t make up for years of the Labour party registering M Mouse.

    3. Seems that the Rasheed family gets everywhere with their dodgy brown envelopes. But we knew that on here years ago.

  63. 318887+ up ticks,
    Sos Sage,

    Sounds like one big pucking misleading porker to me,

    This rather invites the question: what was the point of voting Conservative in the last general election if the end result was for the country to be run by a committee largely comprising Corbynistas, Remainers, and other left-leaning ideologues?

    How many more bloody times “they are a coalition party”.

    1. “Like most people I support genuine asylum seekers…”

      I am not “most people”.

  65. Well, that’s made for a better day.
    Ironing up to date and while I ploughed on I watched the first tranche out of my box set of Friday Night Dinners.
    How on earth can I be terminally embarrassed and laugh like a drain at the same time?

  66. Just back from my government-permitted stroll. My first time out of the house for 10 days apart from a grocery shop last Thursday.

    It was even more boring than staying in.

    They’ve even managed to suck the joy out of a walk in the country on a pleasant spring day.

    1. I haven’t much felt like going out lately. Have you got that chilly north easterly blowing?

      1. There’s a breeze off the sea, but it’s light and the sun is more than enough for it.

        The high spot of the walk was when I sat amongst the marram grass on the dunes for a while, watching and listening at a briar bush for the sound of a grasshopper warbler that if it was there was in silent mode. The sun came out from behind one of the clouds and suddenly the air around me was filled with hawthorn flies, blundering around with their long legs dangling as they were encouraged from their rest by the warmth of the sun. They are great.

        1. The hawthorn flies were out in great numbers yesterday but not one to be seen today with a strong ESE wind and light rain. Just one cuckoo seen and heard.

          1. The reason I was sitting there was that I was watching one in that same bush a few weeks ago when they first came in. It was singing then, but from cover, only occasionally showing. I thought I’d give it a few days to settle on territory because then they are a bit more showy, singing from the tops of the bushes.

            I’ve probably left it too long. They go quiet again when they are on eggs until they have a second flush in the summer.

            This one was 27th April a couple of years ago. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb58b5c08ab6da98fc04be06d943de3234aff1224b7f7c679d1e8f8a454debf9.jpg

          2. Lovely photograph.

            River Warbler and Savi’s Warbler have a very similar song too.

          3. I’ve seen Savi’s in Spain on the Ebro Delta and one or two other places. The first time was totally unexpected. I was on a tower over a reedbed when two birds flew into the reeds front of me and started reeling. At first I took them for grasshopper warblers, but the habitat was a bit strange, the pitch of the song was slightly wrong and they are uncommon there. Then I looked up the song of Savi’s and all was explained.

            My only river warbler was one on migration in Turkey. I was driving slowly along country roads with the window open, watching and listening. I’d already had good views of red-footed falcons, a male Montagu’s harrier, a roller and was going on to see much more in the next hour; a hunting flock of lesser kestrels, three juvenile peregrines on a cliff being provided with a little bittern by their mother, a short toed eagle, an Eleonora’s falcon (all of these from the lesser kestrels to the Eleonoras from the same spot) and a steppe buzzard carrying a large green lizard.

            As I was passing a small clump of reeds I heard a river warbler only a few yards away. It jumped up into the open, flicked to another clump of reed and posed just long enough for me to see the bars on the undertail covets and for me to grab my camera.

            It vanished into cover just as the camera was coming into focus and I was about to press the trigger.

      2. Warm clothing needed. There is no such thing a bad weather just inappropriate clothing.

      1. I do, and It’s not hard to avoid others. I was out for an hour and a half and saw maybe 6 to 10 people in total.

        1. We go to the supermarkets most days and have a look round and buy what we need. We continue to shop little and often.

          1. Once a week for the supermarket for me.

            All the places I want to visit on foot are too far away and I’ve seen enough of the local sights. The interest pales.

          2. Walk backwards for a different view.

            *Note. Do not do this near a cliff.

    3. I’m very fortunate to have a lovely walk within a 5 minute amble of my front door, when the sun’s out it’s particularly lovely and a boost for my demeanor. I also have a good selection of wines, beers ( bottled natch) and spirits and a wife with a flair for innovative cooking, I’m coping well all things considered.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa8815f034ca97ce222c09a9d811554bdcfebfa1db5779f95603ec18fe9caa8a.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c189fd368138e8ed664467abae31e00eac7a7fb2af3ea25e38d2c339ee412a84.jpg

  67. I see that the unions, bereft of much of their power for many years are finding an opportunity to regain that power in insisting that people refuse to work unless it is ‘absolutely safe’.

    There is no such creature as ‘absolute safety’. They are onto a winner.

    Face masks for all is one of their demands, repeated by Kier Starmer, despite the fact that they are less than useless for the purpose to which they are being put, other than giving false assurance to the wearers.

    There is a rocky path ahead. 80% of wage was too fat a carrot.

    1. Most people could have limped along for a month on 50%. After that, minds would have been concentrated.

      1. The unions will be encouraging endless walk-outs while meetings ‘with mangement’ are held to discuss the level of absoluteness, then adjourned, reconvened, re-adjourned, etc, etc. And at the end the ‘cure’ will be a pay rise the impoverished employer cannot afford.

      2. The unions will be encouraging endless walk-outs while meetings ‘with mangement’ are held to discuss the level of absoluteness, then adjourned, reconvened, re-adjourned, etc, etc. And at the end the ‘cure’ will be a pay rise the impoverished employer cannot afford.

          1. I was just about to post the same thing. Increasingly I’m getting the feeling we’re back in the 70s. CameronMayJohnson = Heath, which means we’re shortly due Keir Callaghan.
            Unless Boris is Callaghan, and some new Thatcher will arise to save us….

    2. Are these people who will not work without face masks the same as the people demanding that pubs are alliwed to open? I assume that they will be wearing masks when having a drink.

      I tried wearing a mask when shopping yesterday. Have you ever tried opening one of those flimsy plastic bags without blowing into it or licking your fingers to get a better grip?

      1. Every time. I’ve never blown into them or licked my fingers no matter how frustrating the damned things are.

        Masks are just for cosmetic and reassurance purposes. They don’t do what everyone hopes that they will and when they get wet and soggy they harbour any germs on the breath just waiting for them to be transferred to something else by the careless touch of a hand.

    3. SIR Keir Starmer to you. Labour have gone upmarket (and I bet Lady Starmer shops in Waitrose, or via Ocado)

  68. Further to AnneA’s posting (08:33am) of the Matt Ridley article, this is from a very distinguished retired Fellow of the Royal something-or-other. I apologise for being coy about his name but I don’t have his permission for his advice to be put in any ‘public domain’.

    “I have posted a link below which is an article on “The 15 best supplements to boost your immune system now”

    The first 3 mentioned are the most important and I suspect that you are already taking them from all the information that there is available to protect yourself at this time.

    If you can get 5) Elderbrerry extract that would be even better.

    These are the doses which are recommended by my colleagues and which I take.

    1) Vitamin D3 2500IU daily minimum – 6 capsules minimum

    Most people are deficient in Vitamin D3 at the back end of winter due to lack of sunshine. However the sunshine should have given you a boost if you have been able to get out in it.

    2) Vitamin K2 150mcg daily – 1 capsule

    Vitamin D3 with Vitamin K2 is the single most important supplement to take together with Vitamin C. It is officially part of the treatment given in New York now, but it should be taken prophylactically as well.

    3) Vitamin C with a minimum dose of 500mgs daily, preferably take it twice daily – 2 capsules

    4) Zinc citrate 15 to 20mgs daily – 2 capsules

    5) Elderberry extract (Sambucus nigra) 150mgs daily – 1 capsule

    The article gives other suggestions. Curcumin which comes from Turmeric I think is a very good idea too.”

    I have not read this Healthline article yet….it seems to go on a bit about magic mushrooms

    https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/immune-boosting-supplements#615.-Other-supplements-with-immune-boosting-potential

    I get this sort of stuff from Metabolics – expensive but reliable.

    1. I don’t take any supplements – food should be sufficient. Vitamin C from a daily citrus fruit.

    2. 3) Vitamin C with a minimum dose of 500mgs daily, preferably take it twice daily – 2 capsules

      Sustained release tablets are better – far less wastage.

      I get my ‘stuff’ from Healthspan.

      1. I eat lots of oranges and tangerines… Mind you, that’s why my fillings fall out, all those fruit acids…

      2. The Doc believes that I get mine mostly from wine and whisky – hence the suggested supplements.

      3. I do too, on the whole, but I do take Vitamin D, having read that a startlingly high percentage of us lack it in the winter. Quite glad of that at the moment!

    2. Penetrated by sex toys?

      That’s no different from any alien abduction.

  70. If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have £49.00 today.

    If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you would have £33.00 today.

    If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you would have £0.00 today.

    If you had purchased £1,000 of shares in Northern Rock three years ago, you would have £0.00 today.

    But, if you had purchased £1,000 worth of beer one year ago at Tesco, drank all the beer, then taken the aluminium cans to the scrap metal dealer, you would have received a £214.00.

    Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily and recycle.

    A recent study found that the average Briton walks about 900 miles a year.

    Another study found that Britons drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.

    That means that, on average, Britons get about 41 miles to the gallon!

    Makes you proud to be British

    1. A fifth of the price of the can of beer is the scrap value of the aluminium?

      After tax, shop profit, transport costs etc, that doesn’t leave much for the beer.

      Something askew.

      NIce story though.

        1. Me too. One of the reasons I don’t drink beer at home.

          Beer away from a pub just doesn’t taste right.

          1. I can’t remember the last time I was in a pub. Four or five years ago, I suppose. I asked the girl behind the bar if they had “mild” . She pointed at one of the lager taps and said, “They say that is quite mild…”

            I do drink bottled beer – from yer Belgium.

          3. I buy decent bottles of ale which at least don’t the that metallic canned taint Bill mentions.

          6. When I was young and daft I used to drink Brown in the pubs and clubs, in the proper way, from a schooner, not from a pint or half pint glass. It was fine. My head wasn’t fine the next morning, but that’s what is called growing up. It was also served at cellar temperature, straight from the crate. 55°.

            When they pulled down the pub I used to start off at I had to start going to a club over the road. They were into the new-fangled chiller shelves there and they thought it was a good idea to put all their bottles on it, including the ales. I would be sold a bottle that had ice clinging to the base. It tasted foul. I soon learnt that the sour taste wasn’t because the beer was old or stale, but because it had been over-chilled and the bad taste didn’t go away even if the beer was left to get warmer. I cured that by asking for a bottle from the crate, not the shelf.

            Eventually I went off drinking it in favour of the real ale that was starting to be available and that’s what I prefer in a pub these days. About 1993 I was on a visit to the S&N Brewery (now demolished) at Newcastle. We went around the bottling plant, where there were thousands of bottles being filled, before going to the place we really wanted to be – the free bar.

            I asked our guide why, since it was a dark ale that should be served at cellar temperature why so many places chilled it, even to the extent that the lablels on the bottles now carried the to me blasphemous instruction ‘Serve chilled’.

            He shrugged his shoulders and said ‘Marketing’.

          8. ‘Stick wi’ yer da and you’ll be alright.’

            You got a headache just looking at a pint of that.

          9. “When they pulled down the pub I used to start off at….”

            The Grand, one presumes?
            My Uncle Bob used to be head barman there before he moved to Scarborough.

          10. The very same. A great loss.

            It came down in the summer of 73. Even while demolition was underway I had a forlorn hope that someone at the brewery would have a change of heart. I knew it was forlorn, beacuse the place was riddled with dry rot, but that didn’t matter.

            Then one night at about 23.30 as I got off the last bus home from my fiancee’s house my eyes were met with the sight of the building in flames and surrounded by firemen with hoses. I knew all was lost.

            I’ve been in the soul-less dungeon that replaced it once, maybe twice in the almost half century since.

          11. Yesterday after a bit of toil in the garden I rewarded myself with a cool bottle of St Austell’s Brewery Proper Job Cornish IPA 5.5%. Delicious bottle conditioned ale: plenty more out there to find and savour, both bottled and on tap.

    2. Emmmm, I would question that.
      I was, for over 15 years, in the habit of picking up, crushing and shoving aluminum cans littering the road between here & Cromford with the intention of weighing them in for scrap.
      When, in September last year, I took 3 builders bags full of the bloody things to be weighted in, the scrap price had collapsed to the point where the fuel I used to get to the scrappies cost me more than the £4.50 I received!

      1. We have to pay a 10 cent deposit on beer cans and bottle, our premier promised one dollar beer in his election manifesto (intro class about getting elected).

        So a $1,000 investment in tasteless beer would still be a poor investment

      2. I didn’t expect it to be true but thought it would lighten NoTTLers mood.

  71. Whilst on my tour of Tesco yesterday, I noticed on the garden products shelf, the stuff that is currently being plugged on TV, Miraclegro ‘Performance ORGANIC’ liquid feed. Being a sucker for a new product, I bought a bottle. It smells rather awful and stains foliage brown, whether it achieves good results is yet to be seen. I think it’s actually the same as Vitax Liquid Seaweed, but with Miraclegro’s ‘magic’ ingredient, that is, a bit of wetting agent in the mix.

    1. I’ve not been able to get down to the beach this spring for my real seaweed. The council has closed the car parks and even blocked the road to the beach I would normally use (handy access).

      My spuds are having to make do with chicken manure pellets.

      1. Plenty on the coast road up here following high tides and gales, people were carting lorry loads of the stuff away

      2. Don’t you have to keep it a long time outdoors to wash away the salt?

        1. I collect the stuff from the top of the beach, where it’s been dumped by earlier big seas and has been there long enough to have been rained on.

          The awkward bit is cutting it up into lengths short enough to turn in.

          One year I thought I’d bypass that by laying the spuds in a trench on top of a bed of the seaweed. Bad idea. When I came to harvest the spuds I discovered that the worms that came to feed on the seaweed didn’t even slow down when they got to a potato, they just kept on going.

        1. Quite possibly – he thought it would “burn” the shallow roots.

      2. Is that Cynthia on the left, one of the old hardy hybrids. I bought a number from Hydon nurseries at Godalming when I lived down south and moved some up here when I came back up. In those days they used to exhibit at Chelsea, but when Rhodos fell out of fashion, they stopped. I’m pleased to see they are still going and still, I think, run by Major (or was it Colonel ) George. It was fun wandering around the nursery, rarities ready to be dug up amongst the trees!

        1. The ones on the left were Woolworth’s specials. The one on the right is a 45 year old Pink Perfection – having been transplanted on four occasions the last time 35 years ago.

          4. Woolies used to do some good plants. One point, I see the ominous pale mauve at the back. Are you confident that this one hasn’t just reverted to the ponticum root stock?. When my parents bought this house, there was an enormous ponticum, with a few small white flowering branches on one side. I’ve managed to get rid of the rootstock branches now, and it’s back to a beautiful white, but every year I have to tear off new rootstock shoots.

          5. In the other bed I have a Rhodo by the name of Dragonfly which requires an annual prune of the rootstock branches to stop it reverting. The mauve ponticum is variegated and was sold as a fairly rare specimen when I bought it about 40 years ago.

      4. High nitroGin but no calcium, I don’t see why he should be horrified.

  72. I was never a fan of punk, I’m more of a prog rocker, but occasionally a track stood out for its musical and lyrical interest, and this is one such. So it was sad to read of the death of the man who wrote and stood out in it, Dave Greenfield, 71, of a covid 19 related illness:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWAsI3U2EaE

  73. Oh dear, just had a lettings rental statement for a property in from the estate agent, adding a small sum to my account. Unfortunately it is the mark of the beast £666.20…. Does the 20p make a difference do you think?

    1. Remove the decimal point and the £ sign, stick the letter ‘p’ at the end, then turn around on the spot three times with your eyes closed.

      You should get away with it if you’re quick.

    2. ‘666’ as we all know is the number of the beast, therefore possibly a bad omen.

      But take heart! The number ’20’ may not refer to pence, but to Revelations Chapter 20, the first three verses of which may afford you some comfort…
      ;¬)

      1. Tuesday is our weekly weigh-in, Dunc. This morning I was greeted by “666” on the scales.

        66.6 kg

  75. Ahem

    Is the rise of the Technocorporacratic State now unstoppable?

    As the start of

    returning to some kind of normal, the prime minister will join an

    international conference today, and describe the hunt for a vaccine as

    ‘the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes – it is humanity against the virus“, adding “only a mass-produced vaccine will defeat it”.

    So once Boris Johnson has – by talking utter claptrap – finally

    declared himself firmly on the globalist Big Pharma enforced vaccination

    team, I really do think it’s time to stop the data analysis paralysis

    and move on towards what active, thinking people can do to resist what’s

    coming next.

    It is a sad statement on BoJo that his opinion of ordinary people is

    so rock-bottom, he is sure they will believe that a coronavirus with a

    global death rate of 0.03% is about to become the agent fauchage of Homo sapiens. Even sadder is the reality that he is almost certainly correct.

    We have now reached that point in the history of the species where

    everything – global economics, insane debt levels, democracy, police

    powers, personal liberty, universal suffrage – is up for a rethink, and

    probably a reset. Some of what’s suggested will be a good thing, but

    most of it won’t.

    The unelected State has proved across the planet – at least to its own satisfaction – that you can

    fool most of the People all of the time. European élites have shown

    that they can get the citizenry to jump through hoops, keep them under

    house arrest, and achieve roughly 90% obedience. In both Britain and

    France, we have the political Executive in bed with GSK and Sanofi

    respectively – and daily increasing evidence that a corrupt technocracy

    is now firmly in control: Macron himself is an Enarque, and Sir Mark Sedwill is still there, our Martin Bormann waiting for a supine Hitler.

    What now?

    Rest Here,chilling

    https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2020/05/04/explosive-vaccination-economic-ruin-mark-sedwill-and-the-route-into-the-euro/

    1. Well do you recommend that each country just does it’s own thing, developing it’s own CV treatments and response in isolation?

      1. No, if what they were advocating made any sense. But I’m not convinced it does.

      2. If it increases the number of different treatments which in turn finds the most effective faster, why not?

    3. Is the rise of the Technocorporacratic State now unstoppable?

      Morning Rik. Pretty much I would think. Never mind; we on this blog have lived the days where freedom was still a real thing. Its memory will perish with us but at least it lived if only once.

      2. 318887+ up ticks,
        As,
        Surely we must leave the seeds of decency / integrity / common sense to germinate for future followers.
        First there has to be a period of
        abject poverty suffered brought about by years of polling booth abuse.
        A spell of head removing / stoning’s, living mummification
        by the new overseers then it will finally dawn on those left, “ere something is wrong”

      1. I’m sorry about the hole in her middle with no flowers. She was coming all over the path and I had to cut lots away to get her back under control.

  78. Happy days – a number of people I deal with online have given me “three months extra” of whatever for no charge, including the roadside assistance package for my car and my online sports events provider. Sadly the Government aren’t so generous, despite telling me I shouldn’t use my car; my vehicle tax reminder arrived today – no slack at all in that amount or date!!

    2. I taxed mine in time for the beginning of May in spite of the fact that my car has been trapped in lock-down in a body shop for minor repairs since 23rd March.

      My courtesy car stands idle outside our hose apart from 30 miles a week to do the shopping.

      1. 318887+ up ticks,
        Afternoon B,
        Should that be watering ? must have one hell of a garden.

  79. Darling of the Leftards…………..

    “New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the country will not
    have open borders with the rest of theworld for “a long time to come”.
    A meeting discussed a possible “trans-Tasman bubble”, where people could
    go between Australia and New Zealand freely, and without quarantine.

    But she said visitors from further afield were not possible any time soon.”
    How strange ,President Trump was called a “Fascist Racist”for wanting much milder policies implemented,I await Owen Jones’s frothing condemnation…………..
    Oh Wait…
    Still,at least we now know where the elites will flee when it all goes even more horribly wrong

    1. 318887+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      That would mean the political
      sh!te & run Odessa line would it ?

    2. Well that’s next years holiday scuppered then. We had been thinking of avoiding ths US and spending a month or so in the Melbourne area.

    1. Re the App, you’ve got to like the manner in which ministers e.g. Hancock are trying to sell the, ‘Trust us, it’s all above board and for your safety’s sake,’ idea. I have a basic mobile but if I had a fancy one I wouldn’t go near this piece of software. Is anyone surprised how quickly this app appeared when the Government’s record of software projects is taken into account?

        1. Do you think that Huewea will make the government app available for their phones?
          Will the Chinese help fight the virus or will they put a virus in their version of the virus app?

  81. According to the latest statistics “There are 512 confirmed cases in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, out of a local population of 568,210.”
    So roughly 0.1% or 1 in 1,000. Of course there will be more than that. I don’t see the possibility of any ‘herd immunity’ being gained with the present situation.

    3. 512 is a perfect multiple of the octal system.

      1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 etc. Does this mean they will soon double again to make a precise 1,024?

  82. I don’t believe it …..
    It’s taken me multiple attempts over the past three days to get back on the here.
    Morning all. 😉
    Not sure if I can access on the phone yet ?
    I have have finished my guitar, ill load some photos later, I’ve gardening to do now.

    1. Welcome back! I wondered where you’d got to. Thought you were busy with your guitar.

      1. I finished last Friday Ellie. I’m trying to get some photo’s of it posted for tomorrow. I’ve been having an absolute nightmare with logging in on nottlers.

        1. I never actually log out. Even if I have to shut down the laptop to get it to speed up a bit I find I’m still logged in. Normally I just close the lid and it goes to sleep. But it’s getting a bit full of stuff which probably slows it down. I have to keep facebook closed too as it uses so much bandwdth.

    2. Make the most of it – apparently next week (in Narfurk, anyway) is going to be reet awfully cold.

      Edited as a nod to regional accents!

      3. reet cold.

        am youse aloud to tork ‘Upnorfish’?

        Yous’ll be YamYam afore long

        1. ‘Afternoon, Spikey, I hope your Gretsch will be very happy with her Bigsby.

  84. Radio 4 Interview with Swedish government epidemilogy advisor on COVID.

    He says that washing hands and keeping apart has for centuries been the mantra for controlling epidemics.
    His advice to Swedish government to keep calm and carry on cautiously is based on his guess that there won’t be a COVID vaccine within six months.

    He admits that if he is wrong then the Swedes will have had their chips.

    2. Stop it, the excuse machine will be in full flight – population density, doomgoblin not at home . . .

      1. Oh the irony,our very own barking(in every sense) dog upvoted an article yesterday that pointed out most Swedes live in the cities………..
        Awkward

        1. I thought that they had recently compared Sweden to Norway and Finland , doing away with the but the UK is more crowded excuse.

    1. I am delighted to able able to report that I have never used Viagra because I have never needed it and I have coped very well without it. I am sure most of my fellow Nottlers are the same.

      2. Someone told me that you have to swallow it quickly or you will get a stiff neck.

      1. Is that perhaps a reference to the song which begins: “It took a coal miner….”?

        1. Maybe, sex is wot orficers get their coal and pot00000000s delivered in

          Somewhere, the must be room for pun about a Chinaman, who wants a General Election

  87. On this day 90 years ago Amy Johnson set off from London Croydon Airport on her record-breaking flight to Australia.
    The police are now trying to trace her surviving relatives so that they can lecture them about a non essential journey.

    1. Amy Johnson was an early member of the North Yorkshire Gliding Club at Sutton Bank.

  88. Supper tonight…..Tournedos Rossini, Porcini mushrooms and Madeira sauce with chips. 🙂

    2. Don’t forget to play the William Tell Overture while you’re dining. :•)

      1. Nah.

        I often get my meat from Donald Russel but i thought i should be supporting the local Butcher. He’s very good and has everything i want. I spent £130 this time round. Lots of Yessirring and right away Sir which i find a bit cringeworthy. But the quality is good and he doesn’t sell meat which has been tortured.

          3. I do like my steaks just past bleu. The trick is resting for 10 mins after frying. Then pour the blood into the sauce to thicken it.

          6. I’ve just had two rib-eye steaks, fried in olive oil and basted in butter, medium rare, with a fried egg atop each of them.

            The juices that ran out (which is not really blood, since all the blood was drained at the abbatoir) lay on the plate afterwards, mixed with the butter, just DARING me to lick the plate clean!

            😋

          10. I don’t enjoy them very rare, and I detest them well done. Medium rare, 55ºC internal, juicy and pink with a brown and crispy crust is perfection for me.

            A dollop of Maille Dijon, fried onions, mushrooms, peas, and a grilled tomato is just the ticket. [Chips are but a memory for the time being]

          11. You can’t beat Dijon. ‘Said the Frenchman’.

            #I quite like some of the German mustards too but i have never used them in cooking.

          12. Pretty much exactly what we had tonight, George – some reduced fillet I found in the freezer. Mind you, we did have chips!

          17. That doesn’t seem to matter.

            I remember, many many years ago, my former brother in law, who was huge, went on a diet of steak and fish mainly and lost a lot of weight. So much, that my ex, who had been in Germany ( a soldier) didn’t recognise him when he saw him at the pub.

          19. It’s better for you I think, but high protein, low carbs, does seem to shift the weight.

          20. Taking carbs out of the diet flattens the beer belly. Though after 3 weeks i was dreaming of mashed potatoes.

          21. I don’t pay too much attention to dietary requirements/fads.

            4 months in the pool tends to sort out most of my weight, fitness and psychological needs for the other 8 months..

          22. Me nivver. I don’t exercise except for walking Dolly and a game of chase around the garden.

      1. I’ll have salad with my Greeky Lamb chops tomorrow. Tonight the Montalcino is going to be sacrificed on the altar of good taste.

    4. Madeira sauce is a a key ingredient of Tournedos Rossini. Are you doing extra sauce for the chips? And what about the foie gras?

      1. I’m not using foie gras. I find it too rich for my taste. I’m using a course mushroom pate.

        Plenty of sauce. After it has reduced i put another splash of Madeira in to wake it up.

        2. Sounds really good. The best way to eat fillet steak IMHO. Malbec?

          1. Malbec is good but i have been saving a Brunello di Montalcino.

            I gave Dolly a small piece of the steak and pate. Chopped up fine. 4 Seconds then 10 mins licking the bowl.

        3. Not to mention the cruelty involved in producing foie gras. I wouldn’t eat it.

          1. I agree although i did try it once in Juan Les Pins. Wasn’t keen. I think there is a more humane way to do it now. A bit like Rose Veal.

      1. Why not? That “other universe” might have many more clowns running the place than we have.

      1. and, the potential passengers are stilling waiting for it to be fixed

    1. There was a very good prog on PBSAmerica the other day about the Spanish ‘flu in the States.

    2. Every generation there is a fresh batch of innocents idiots who vote Labour into office.

      1. 318887+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Ptv,
        You mean there is a better option currently, it could depend on how you like your treachery.

  95. “Government hides truth – really a million dead – and rising” Yer Daily Bugle.

  97. The new post-Brexit Europe needs its Eurosceptic visionaries and heroes

    LEE ROTHERHAM
    _____________________________________________________________________________

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f5ab769f9d04e3153c484032386ed71f7b84fe20dcf8d74b707743290eb78ad.jpg
    “What strange beings are these, Sir, who once inhabited our city? And what are the favours that they bear?”
    “They are the unclean who have been cleansed from the city and their dirty rags with them.”
    _____________________________________________________________________________

    Today is Europe Day. Or rather, today is one of the Europe Days. 5 May is the date celebrated by the intergovernmental Council of Europe; 9 May is the date celebrated by the supranational European Union. The discrepancy is in itself a telling metaphor, of the competitive tension between the two post-war models.

    The diary schizophrenia becomes more striking as you consider how the concept of a commemorative day was stolen from the former institution by the latter, two decades after its invention. Strasbourg’s more integrationist counterparts in Brussels, would not stop there. The EU’s flag used to be the Council’s. So did its anthem, Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth, though a cynic would suggest the start of Beethoven’s Fifth has a better Brexit ring. Even the CoE’s physical office space in Strasbourg has been part co-opted by the integrationist cuckoo.

    But one concept Team Brussels still had some problems with repackaging was the idea of the ‘Fathers of Europe’. The EEC built on the political links establishing the Council of Europe, so there was inevitably some crossover between the teams pushing for reconciliation and those then later driving towards greater integration. The players most cited in EU quarters tend to be Robert Schuman (one ‘n’ – not the composer) and Jean Monnet (two ‘n’s – not the painter), but there are several others. Brussels still tries to claim Churchill as one of its progenitors, on very shallow foundations: a little-known speech in Washington DC in 1949 to a fundraising dinner gala packed with spies proves quite revealing in this regard.

    Even the most ardent revisionist, however, could never co-opt into the EU’s all-star list the other Brit cited by the Council of Europe: Ernest Bevin. Attlee’s Foreign Secretary was robust in the limits of international cooperation, namely it should stay precisely that: international. The Brussels jackdaw might pilfer some of the iconography of ‘European construction’, but such discrepancies over vision and ambition from the time of its establishment have meant it never quite fully monopolised the founding narrative.

    With Brexit, Europe Day needs to be embraced. But the right one. Not the EU’s one, commemorating Schuman’s speech that led to the political machinery from which the UK has thankfully escaped. Just as the EU’s diplomats celebrate their vision by hosting festive events or lighting up the Empire State building in yellow and blue, so too do ours need to deploy the iconography and, yes, emotion associated with our own world vision.

    The UK is a global nation, yet conscious of its strong continental connections and history. Those connections are bonded with European peoples and states, not its political elites hunkered in a Belgian city. We do not need any longer to worship its idols, when there are far more suitable worthies to honour.

    In a forthcoming paper by think tank The Red Cell, we suggest a few names whose contributions to shaping this continent deserve far more credit than a Dutchman who invented the Common Agricultural Policy, or an Italian Communist who penned a federalist manifesto. Here I’ll suggest a name of someone who is not in that paper, but is as good a candidate as any to go on Trafalgar’s empty plinth.

    Knut Hoem is an unknown in Britain. He is better known across Scandinavia, where a decision he took in 1972 had a lasting impact. Not bad for someone whose previous career highpoint had been as a member of the Export Committee for Frozen Fish and Fillet.

    In 1971, he was brought into the Bratteli government in Norway as Oslo wrapped up its negotiations for entry into the EEC. As fisheries minister however, he realised that the EEC side had stitched up his department and that the four fish-rich countries applying to join (the UK, Ireland, Denmark and Norway) were being lined up to surrender these rich resources – and that their own governments had not just caved in but were now looking to cover things up.

    What Hoem did next was remarkable. He resigned. His action blew the whistle on what was to become the Common Fisheries Policy, and the egregious cost of accession to coastal communities. By that act alone he was probably responsible for keeping Norway out of the EEC in 1973; keeping it out again in 1994; and by both, keeping the Free Trade model alive as an alternative to the EU’s default of regulatory and customs union.

    Sadly in the UK, the approach taken was quite different. As Patrick Nicholls has reflected in another recent Red Cell paper, the Heath Government hid behind a derogation that masked the entry into force of the CFP, while consciously misinforming the Commons about what the agreed default was going to be after that.

    Would that Westminster back then had produced its own Knut Hoem. Let us instead today now hope our negotiators prove to be of equal tensile strength, as the Brexit fisheries talks draw imminently to their conclusion in June. New Europe post-Brexit needs its Eurosceptic visionaries and heroes. Perhaps the coming hour of testing will supply them.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/05/new-post-brexit-europe-needs-eurosceptic-visionaries-heroes/

    1. But, but Heath was a Knut – I think I may have misspelled the last word….

    2. “The UK is a global nation, yet conscious of its strong continental connections and history”. Fighting them off, you mean? We’ve fought the French, the Germans, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Italians, the Russians – not to mention one thousand years of annoying the French 🙂

  98. A package has just arrived form my elder son. 16 kg of strong white bread flour.

    How about that? Kids can sometimes make one go all peculiar.

    1. I am reliably informed by HG that they can make your eyes water when they arrive.

  99. Just noticed the DT Letters title:

    Tuesday 5 May: Let the working population get on with life, and let those at risk choose

    Choose to live in isolation or die, presumably? Let’s hope a vaccine is developed pronto or the virus dies out after 90 days (i.e. in a month’s time), which is what some professor claimed.

    1. He said it was definitely created in a Lab because it contained fragments of HIV. He also said it would die out in the wild.

    2. I doubt the virus will every die out but will mutate several times over the years. No scientific evidence from me but I’m sure Ferguson could come up with a number of explanations if there was enough money in it for him.

      1. There’s no reason at all why it would die out. As long as there’s a living host, it will be there somewhere.

        Mutation into other strains is much more likely, because that’s what viruses do, and those strains will likely be less virulent, because there’s no evolutionary benefit to a virus in becoming more dangerous. If a more dangerous strain were to develop it would come to a dead end through killing its host before it can be passed on enough to get going. Less dangerous equals more widespread and successful from the virus point of view.

        That’s why Ebola, Lasa fever and the rest, while deadly to those who get them aren’t particularly dangerous to the wider world. They flare up locally, then having done their bit they settle down again until the next time.

  100. We are watching the BBC1 news ..

    They are focussing on psychosis and social isolation . 3 to 4% of the population suffer from it . The news featured black people with the problem . Dare I say psychosis brought on by their fair share of spliffs?

  101. That’s me gone for today. I hope that there is no bitter east wind tomorrow. Cook (and Head Gardener) has a tricky job for me to do involving a step ladder.

    Have a spiffing evening – keeping your distance.

    A demain.

    1. When I took Spartie out, I was surprised how darn cold that wind was.
      Our garden is sheltered and the open fields came at quite a shock.

      1. I kept my coat and scarf on at the party but it was lovely and sunny – cloudless sky.

  102. 318887+ up ticks,
    That 5 o’clock briefing under Digit Dick is something else.
    Yet another bowel agitator.

  104. I have a small mystery that some more knowledgeable Nottlers may be able to solve:
    Last night, around 9:40, we went to up to bed, and before doing anything else, I looked out of our window at the garden lights (new solar ones), the moon, the clouds, and noticed a small light appear from behind the clouds, travelling West to East. It was about as bright as a star, but not the International Space Station. With binoculars, it had no flashing lights, like a high altitude plane, and it wasn’t dark enough to see regular satellites.
    The light was followed seconds later by a second one, and at an equal distance, by a third, all on the same trajectory, equidistant from each other.
    Any ideas??

      1. Definitely not meteorites. Too slow, too regular.
        I did spot a meteorite as it streaked briefly across the sky a couple of nights ago.

    5. 318887+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Ims2,
      Equal distance you say ?
      obvious, alien intelligence have heard about the virus.

    6. There is supposed to be a major meteorite storm early this month, that is why our skies were cloudy last month.

    7. As others have said, Elon Musk’s Starlink.
      When the latest set of satellites was launched some days ago I watcher the launch live on the internet and then went out to see it pass over Derbyshire. It was visible for about half a minute.

      1. “So far, the firm has deployed more than 300 satellites into space and is working towards a network of 12,000, with the aim of improving global internet coverage.”

        12,000

        Anyone else thinking, no place to hide???

      1. You too.
        None of you are being helpful. I was hoping for some knowledgeable suggestions.
        😕

    9. Little green men popping in to learn how not to deal with a flu outbreak?

      1. Ahh. Interesting. Could well be. I don’t keep up with such news, so I shall look into it. Thanks.

        1. 9.26pm tonight moving from the South West to the North East. Probably be cloudy.

    14. One of Elon Musk’s sky polluters. He’s set off on a programme to bring cheap internet to remote parts of the world. A laudible aim you’d think until you realise that it means launching literally tens of thousands of satellites. Astronomers are going mad.

  105. Completely and utterly off topic.

    I’ve been mowing in the longer grass today and picked up a tiny tick.

    The wretched thing was too small for the tire-tic to work and I could not extract it forlove nor money.

    What I did was to use a needle to create “free” blood around the little bugger.

    It disengaged my skin to slurp.

    GOTCHA!

    I caught it and crushed it, with a very satisfying crack!

    2. Nasty little things, those – when my OH used to do his butterfly surveys, he usuallly managed to pick up one ot two of those, especially on soft parts of the body.

      1. Right on the soft folds around my knee.

        Normally when I get bitten the ticks are larger and actually much easier to remove.

      2. We have daily tick patrol on the cats, twist them off with a “tick spanner”, and put them in a jar for later.

      1. I got bitten last year and there is still a residual mark left.

        Again I caught it early but it was large enough for the tire-tic to work.

        1. I heard ticks can give you Lime disease. This condition manifests itself by engendering in the sufferer a love of zither music and an irrepressible urge to wander through the sewers.

          It’s treated with injections of diluted penicillin.

          1. Bugger, I’ve used them in gin and tonic, no wonder I’m getting old.

          2. Do you remember, the last time we saw Ped on here, he had been very ill, possibly from Lyme disease? I haven’t seen him comment since then and that was months ago. I hope he’s ok.

        2. Sorry to reply so much later but it’s proton mail playing up (don’t ask me ask Alf).

          Are you able to post a picture of the tire-tic? I’ve never heard of them, don’t have animals, and would really like to know what they look like?

          2. That’s fascinating and very efficient. Thanks for posting. I’ve forwarded the link on to son and DIL, who have a cat but they have never mentioned one of these.

  106. Just back from the lockdown birthday party – there were eight of us there. No policemen came to break it up – and two more ladies arrived just before we left. We had two cakes, nibbles and two bottles of bubbly.

    1. Excellent. Us oldies make better rebels than the millennials. At least we know how to enjoy and entertain ourselves.

      1. ‘Us oldies.……..’

        Good evening, Phizzee,
        if you are old I am ancient Dear Boy!! :-))

        P.S. Anyone makes better rebels than the millennials,
        except, of course, the Lib-Dems.

  107. Meanwhile, in another part of town, the fruit and veg pickers one way transport operation expands its services, bringing in even more unwanted immigrants:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8288495/Wizz-Air-announces-launch-SIX-routes-serving-Luton-Airport-including-flights-Faro.html

    “Wizz Air announces launch of SIX new routes serving Luton Airport
    from next month days after resuming flights to European destinations for
    the first time since lockdown

    The budget airline said the new routes would include flights to Faro in Portugal”

  108. A guy walks into a dentist’s office and says, “I think I’m a moth.”
    The dentist replies “You should be seeing a psychiatrist not me.”
    The guys replies, “I am seeing a psychiatrist.”
    The dentist says, “Well then what are you doing here?”
    And the guy says, “Your light was on.

    1. I suspect they have all been checked for the virus, the Nightingale is now only on standby.
      “Pubs closed borders open” !
      A couple of youngish lads were spoken to by the police farce a couple of weeks ago when they mentioned that.

    2. Is that the same style of moustache that the nice Mr Hilter used to have?

      1. If he ever goes water skiing I hope he remembers to take a parachute pack.

          3. Gollox, with a tpoy

            Sorry OLT, there are times when I find you as obscure as Ogga1.
            Please translate?

          6. Sorry I (unsublety it seems) mispell Typo, as a pun, when I offer an alternative

          7. Yes….but he has a lovely nature!

            [ what does ‘tpoy’ mean?]

            Good evening, Sos.

          9. Do you remember his ‘journal entries’
            ….re. his Eyetalyun Holiday?

          10. No, sorry.
            His tintent entries are good, but I don’t recall that series.

            Assuming I have the right Nottler in mind

  113. All these people begging the government not to lift the lock down just shows how so many have lost the will to survive for themselves. They are spoilt people that cannot cope with anything that they have to manage for themselves. Let them hide away but not the rest of us . I will take the chances for myself as I have always done.

  114. GFY,yes that stands for what you suspect……………

    Everyone in Britain will be told to download an NHS app to save lives and get the country back to work.

    Ministers

    plan a nationwide campaign to persuade most of the country to use a

    track-and-trace smartphone app, which people on the Isle of Wight began to use in a trial last night.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/download-tracing-app-and-get-uk-back-to-work-l2t0ghkl9
    And the horse you rode in on……………

    3. My phone is an ancient Nokia . I cannot be bothered with a posh phone .

      Moh and son have their own, and Moh struggles with his !

      The Isle of Wight has Parkhurst prison .. hmmm, very interesting

      Moh has used his phone to pay for parking .. I say he shouldn’t .. it is just like tracking movements .

      2. It does not matter if you use it, I think. The locations can be traced.

        1. I thought you had to remove the sim card to stop it being traced even when turned off.

          1. Probably. That’s how I’d make them if I was planning World Domination.

      3. I’ve never used mine to pay for parking, but I do use my contactless card on the machine.

      4. J has an ancient PAYG but he hasn’t topped it up for years. I haven’t missed mine since it died in February.

      5. Every smartphone is a tracking device. I’ve mostly been leaving it at home when going out for walks since all this nonsense kicked off.

          1. That’s the plan per Gates. He’ll be able to decide when we are to hit the Big Blue Screen of Death.

        2. I have been leaving mine behind at home for years. I simply forget about it.

          1. “What if you miss a call?”

            “If it’s important they’ll ring back. If it isn’t important … who cares?”

          2. It just needs to be turned on. You can track a phone that’s been turned off but still has the battery in place too but that’s a lot harder for most but child’s play for an agency like the NSA/ MI5.

          3. The battery in mine is dead- it was a complete dud and never charged properly. That was in February and I find I don’t miss it. Might feel differently when we can get out and about again.

    4. The can track me;

      Just start at my home, pick up the wird and follow it

      (the wire is 1200 MILES long

    5. They will have to adapt any app so that I am able to download it to our landline telephone. It’s an old German model, very noir.

    6. GFY…in the past, I have used; “Think of a three word phrase containing a reflexive imperative.”

    7. And they’ve made such a success of everything else they’ve touched lately.

  115. Why has the UK government globalized their medical research and response to coronavirus, ceded control to a consortium of nations and the WHO, and apparently agreed to put British people in an international queue for any upcoming treatment ?

    Here’s the UK government’s globalist gush……

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-leads-way-as-nations-endorse-landmark-pledge-to-make-coronavirus-vaccines-and-treatments-available-to-all

    Here’s a hypothesis…..

    As the research for treatment is being carried out in Britain, surely Britons should get priority instead of waiting until the World Health Organization decides it’s the UK’s turn ?

    Delaying the availability of coronavirus treatment can only delay and jeopardize the UK’s return to work.

    So what’s up with the UK government ?

    One possible explanation is the involvement of globalist billionaire Bill Gates. Gates is carrying out part of his research in the US, but he probably knows success is likely to be subject to President Trump’s America First policy.

    Gates also carried out a globalized pandemic planning exercise in New York on October 19 2019 to which Britain may have signed up. A senior British medical official was meeting with the Gates Foundation in Nov/Dec 2019.

    https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/about

    So Gates perhaps is likely aware he also needs another research base where the government would be sufficiently pliable to permit his desire for a globalized sharing of new drugs and vaccines. A government which would not be too fussy about not putting the interests of it’s own people and country first and which has been “prepared” in advance..

    Gates has chosen the UK and the government has facilitated his research. The laboratories exist, the contacts exist, and the desire for globalization exists. British doctors have been prevented from re-purposing drugs themselves, and as a result drug stocks have probably been preserved. Quite possibly deliberately for the benefit of Gates.

    Of course there is some speculation here, but the jigsaw looks to fit around the facts and the coincidences so far, although there’s just one more thing..

    Perhaps thanks to apparent long association with Soros, the possible availability in the UK of policy and legislation at a price might just be routine.

    1. We are being run by the wealthy globalists. They are from the left no matter what they say. The want the big world state and people that do as they are told.

  116. I was never a fan of punk, I’m more of a prog rocker, but occasionally a track stood out for its musical and lyrical interest, and this is one such. So it was sad to read of the death of the man who wrote and stood out in it, Dave Greenfield, 71, of a covid 19 related illness, exacerbated by existing heart problems for which he was already hospitalised:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWAsI3U2EaE

  117. So, will the Pen Y Graig Co-op stabber be found to be suffering from mental delusions?

    Woman arrested and four hospitalised after ‘stabbing incident’ in Welsh village shop
    ‘Most of the people in our small, close-knit community of Pen Y Graig will be left feeling shocked after the news tonight of a serious incident, a violent incident in our local Co-op’, former plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood says

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/wales-village-attack-pen-y-graig-police-incident-latest-a9500071.html

    3. Nothing of significance on the local news (although a reporter was sent to the site to have the coop in the background).

    3. But not for being a scare-mongering incompetent, oh no, for being a hypocritical philanderer.

      A least this might now mean he’s not treated like God and that the world can examine his models properly.

      No??

      What a surprise.

      Bastard.

        1. I’m thinking about 6’6″ separation.
          “What attracted you to the well-developed Professor, Antonia?”

          2. There’s a very long queue to find out.

            Not because there are lots of people interested, social distancing!

        1. Silly sod has been caught out, not because he was flouting the rules, but because she was.

          Poetic justice.

    5. Perhaps he got caught out by the new ap?

      ha ha ha , deep breath, ha ha bloody ha!

      1. Resigned from SAGE because he broke the lockdown rules. How convenient…

    7. A comment just copied from the DM comments – I cannot vouch for its veracity but here goes:

      “More worryingly,her being a high profile member of Avaaz….her sphere of influence over this guy’s mindset could be seen as creating a clear con flict of professional interest on the country’s behalf.Check them out….been widely described as…”…that promotes global activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, animal rights, corr uption, poverty, and conflict.”…and “the globe’s largest and most pow erful online activist network”….Pow erful stuff and this guy’s mis tress is at the heart of it all.Make your own minds up but this revelation is of paramount importance in the debate.A bombshell by any means.”

    8. Does that mean we can return to common sense? On Friday I was due to read the Toast to the Nation (the tribute to the Millions who served in the forces and on the Home Front). It mentions that their sacrifice enables us to enjoy the peace and freedom we have today. Ironic doesn’t come close when we are locked down!

    2. Why did Prime Minister Johnson allow Bill Gates to dominate C-19 treatment research in the UK, and why were British doctors prevented from doing months ago what Gates is belatedly doing today ?

      Was Johnson paid off ?

  123. I have some great pictures etc, but cannot get them across to here, any (sensible ) idea anyone

    1. Save them as JPEGs and then use the second little “window” at bottom left

      2. Hi Bill,
        I also know who upset Susie W, though not what he did. His posts are good and don’t betray anything untoward. Strange isn’t it – and so sad about her mum.

        1. If I had an offline way of contacting you, Our Susan, I’d tell you the gist.

          In summary, very unpleasant, threatening bullying.

  124. Well let’s hope that:

    “I can’t keep off the job”

    Ferguson gets examined in huge detail and that his so-called models are taken apart.

    If it turns out they are picture perfect, fine.

    But if it turns out that they are GIGO writ large (as I suspet), let’s hope we never hear from him again.

        1. They don’t usually last long and references aren’t required. Russian windows can be very dangerous.

    2. ‘Well lets hope that; I can’t keep off the job……’

      Open goal, Sos, as you might remark! :-))

    1. Simply divine. My mother liked growing Amaryllis. She managed to get 16 flower heads on hers.

    4. We started with 1 Amaryllis a couple of decades ago which has divided to produce four separate plants. This year we had three of them produce flowers.

  127. Re Fer-gusset.
    Did anybody do any due diligence on the bloke?
    He’s shacked up with a screaming leftie, she supports Gawd only knows what anti British pressure groups and would probably be delighted if Britain tanked; and he’s our principal advisor.
    Brilliant.

    1. Avaaz, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization launched in January 2007, promotes global activism on issues such as climate change, human
      rights, animal rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict. The UK-based newspaper The Guardian considers it “the globe’s largest and most
      powerful online activist network”       ‘Nuff sed?

    2. We’ve been chatting about that for the last hour – where’ve you been?

      1. Munching a lovely veggie burger Mum made, and a super duper salad…

      1. The distancing App could indicate other interesting infections if suitably tweaked.

      2. Shame on you Sue.

        Which ‘clap’ would that be?:

        Yer clap at 20.00 on a Thursday evening?

        Or the sort I am too innocent to know about?

  132. So Fergusset is keen on lockdown and his married girlfriend is Ms Staats.
    How apt.

    Geheim Staats polizei?

        1. He’ll make a run for it now, along with other conspirators, a scatter plot.

      2. 318887+ up ticks,
        Evening M,
        So that’s that from staat to finish, seems apt.

    3. We snook back, just before lockdown, as we had been told we had to leave Spain.

      Did any Furriners get chucked out of UK (OK I know silly question)

      So if you get stopped, challenge the the Racial Hatred, towards you, when we are allowing Gimmegrants in andpaying them to stay

      2. Not being adhered to as obviously foreign students filmed in London today filled their many plastic shopping bags with free food bank products. Crowds of them standing very close to each other.
        No police issuing fines and warnings to be seen.

  135. This from DT. We still have no idea how many people died FROM coronavirus but now know how many died with Coronavirus present on death certificate.

    The plot to obfuscate and terrify the population continues.

    Lies, damned lies and bloody worthless statistics ( numbers).

        1. This is a good one

          David Weston

          5 May 2020 4:53PM

          – yet another pointless misleading uncontexted irresponsible scaremongering hysterical headline

          – the raw stats that are used to compare one country to another with widely differing population sizes, demographics, stats collection and measurement methods etc etc etc are meaningless

          – the media, incl the DT, seem obsessed and self satisfied in their ability to paint the UK in the worst possible light re both death stats and Covid handling competence

          – 12,500 people die on average every week in the UK, thats 100,000 every 2 months – the vast majority are over 70 and die of respiratory, dementia and cancer related illnesses. ….and are the EXACT SAME group of people whose deaths are being attributed to Covid

          – big picture Covid merely hastens the demise of those people who are already within a year or so of death’s door – i.e. look back in a years time and see how many more than 600,000 died in the UK as only then will it be possible to tell the actual impact of Covid on the national deaths stats

          – big picture Covid does not in itself kill anyone and especially those that are young or in good health – if it does then there will still be an underlying condition, such as a deficient immune system, which may not have been diagnosed before hand

          – the media are obsessed In finding exceptions to the above as if too prove we are all at risk of dying – this is total b/s

          – back to the real world I.e. beyond the roster of blinkered smug DT columnists, most of whom have never had any other career of note but still have the gall & conceit to judge, condemn and lecture others (something any old fool can do …and most fools do), its time to end the lockdown, get the people back to work and the economy up & running. …..else there will seriously be nothing left to come out of lockdown to do

    3. It’ll be the same with the app.

      All the app will say is that your phone has been close to another phone that may have been touched by someone who has reported that they have Coronavirus symptoms.

      What the Germans have found out is that far more people than 15% of a local population are likely to have antibodies and that the original UK Government plan to go for herd immunity was well founded. This does not however change the requirement for washing hands and distancing to prevent a national health system from being overloaded.

      A lot hinges on the timely development of a vaccine – possibility of a big pharma band wagon.

    1. The Professor Ferguson of his day.

      Put out enough scary messages and eventually you might be correct.

  137. AP isn’t saying much that hasn’t been said on here but I noticed this:
    “Other countries announce the number of their citizens who have recovered from the virus. Not the UK.”
    I don’t think that has been mentioned much.

    If the UK expires from this disease, the death certificate will record ‘Suicide by caution’…

    Is this a life worth living – or merely an existence?

    ALLISON PEARSON

    This week could be the beginning of the end or is it just the end of the beginning? On Sunday night, the Prime Minister will address the nation. Hungrily we await some crumbs of hope from him. Tomorrow, the extension to the original lockdown which Boris announced all those years ago, on the 23rd of March, runs out. Back then, I wrote that I could just about imagine staying in isolation until the end of the Spring Bank Holiday. Well, it looks like I was right. May the 26th is hotly tipped to be the date when some normal functioning in the UK is allowed to resume. Alas, the “new normal” features precious little of what makes us enjoy being alive.

    If you were being charitable you would describe the Government’s approach as cautious. Timorous is another word. Pant-wetting has been known to be used by the more exasperated critics. I have always supported the lockdown – no one could possibly take a gamble with so many lives – but getting out of it is a much bigger problem than it needed to be. Rational countries like Denmark, Germany and the Czech Republic are already doing so without all this fuss and bother. Unfortunately, having scared the public half to death to ensure compliance, ministers now fear the public who believed everything they were told.

    A staggering 70 per cent of Britons say they will be nervous to leave their homes even after lockdown is eased, vastly more than in any other country. What a bitter irony it is that, as we prepare to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, Brits are the Nervous Nellies of Europe. The Blitz could not destroy the spirit of the British people, but 24/7 bombardment by scaremongering news media has succeeded where the Luftwaffe failed.

    A shocking new YouGov poll found that 28pc of people don’t want the restrictions lifted at all. What, not even if the Government’s five strict tests for easing lockdown are met? Nope, not even then.

    Now, that really is terrifying. More than half of all adults are being paid by the state, according to a nervous Rishi Sunak. Our society will be back in the Victorian workhouse faster than you say epidemiologist if a quarter of its citizens seriously believe they can remain economically inactive.

    Don’t get me wrong; people have cause to be afraid. I just think they’re fearful of the wrong thing. This is like that moment on a beach in Sri Lanka when the ocean suddenly recedes. Families are still playing on the sand, children laughing, but the giant wave is building, gathering pace and strength. Soon it will overwhelm them, destroying everything in its path – human beings, houses, businesses, jobs, bars, hotels, hopes. The economic tsunami is coming, you can be sure of that, which is why the UK needs to get over its coronaphobia – and fast.

    Please can we at least try to keep fears about the virus in proportion? As I know from my own patients (well on the road to recovery, thanks) it’s a tenacious bugger of an illness. Fortunately, most get a manageable version and the young may not notice they have it at all. According to the Office for National Statistics, only 215 people under the age of 60 with no pre-existing conditions have died at NHS England hospitals with Covid-19. That’s 215 fatalities out of all fit younger and middle-aged people and virtually our entire workforce. (Remember we lose 450 souls every single day to cancer.)

    Most working-age people simply do not need the paraphernalia of protections being demanded by trade unions who seem happy to milk the crisis for all its worth. The vast majority could keep calm and carry on, and children return to school, so long as they observe sensible hygiene measures and avoid contact with vulnerable groups. Meanwhile, those who are in a higher-risk category can either continue to self-isolate or employ that endangered commodity which, thankfully, the older generation still possesses in abudance: common sense. As I know from your emails, many would rather live to the full such life as is left to them than wither and die in solitary confinement. People deserve to be given that choice.

    The people did as they were bidden by the Government. They stayed home and supported the NHS so it was never overwhelmed. Now, with many hospitals empty and a hugely expanded critical-care capacity, the NHS can support the people as they figure out how best to live with the virus.

    Am I the only one who is depressed by the lack of context and positive attitude? Other countries announce the number of their citizens who have recovered from the virus. Not the UK. When Sweden publishes its Covid deaths it includes age and pre-existing health conditions so Swedes are able to make informed decisions about their own personal risk. By contrast, we are treated like a class of mixed infants: “Shhhh, you don’t need to know that yet!”

    We don’t want to be patronised. We want honesty. If people have, by and large, been patient and cooperative it’s because we were told that staying at home was for the greater good. If it emerges that lockdown, the longer it goes on, causes more harm than benefit then that cooperation is terminated. We know that thousands of non-Covid patients are not being diagnosed or treated, storing up calamity for years to come. Pubs and cafes are on Death Row. Patience is wearing thin.

    At Sunday’s Number 10 Press briefing, Michael Gove said that we might not return to the old normal “until we have a vaccine”. I have huge respect for Mr Gove, but he has got to be kidding. The most optimistic estimate says that a vaccine could be ready in 12 to 18 months. Clinical trials almost never succeed. The record for developing an entirely new vaccine is four years. The only certainty about a Covid vaccine is is that there will be no economy left by the time one is manufactured and half the population will be alcoholics and the other half on antidepressants.

    Dismayingly, the Prime Minister seems to share Mr Gove’s view that only a mass-produced vaccine will defeat corona. “It is humanity against the virus,” he told an international conference on Monday.

    Perhaps, but what will be left of humanity if these inhuman restrictions persist for much longer? Does Boris of all people truly believe that humanity can survive for months, even years, without touching or dancing or kissing or flirting or making love or hugging grandchildren and friends or restaurants or weddings or holidays or concerts or theatre or cinema or stadiums roaring with fans? In Germany, hair salons, zoos, museums and churches have all been allowed to open with no surge in infections; soon, we should do the same.

    You know, if he were writing his old column in this newspaper today, I bet the PM would be quoting Benjamin Franklin at us: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

    I really hope that, in his speech on Sunday, one of our great libertarians trusts the British people, telling them to be cautious and kind, but not afraid. We can’t hide for ever from the dangers corona poses. In the past, our parents and grandparents lived with far worse, with polio, TB, smallpox; with bombs in the blackout too. Let the people choose for themselves. It is the best, most Conservative way out of this crisis.

    What is life worth if we’re not allowed to live it?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/briton-nervous-nelly-europe-need-deal-coronaphobia-fast/

    2. While we’re on the subject of coronapanic, one of my Canadian friends sent me this:

      Lockdown lingo – are you fully conversant with the new terminology?

      *Coronacoaster*

      The ups and downs of your mood during the pandemic. You’re loving lockdown one minute but suddenly weepy with anxiety the next. It truly is “an
      emotional coronacoaster”.

      *Quarantinis*

      Experimental cocktails mixed from whatever random ingredients you have left in the house. The boozy equivalent of a store cupboard supper. Southern Comfort and Ribena quarantini with a glacé cherry garnish, anyone? These are sipped at “locktail hour”, ie. wine o’clock during lockdown, which seems to be creeping earlier with each passing week.

      *Le Creuset wrist*

      It’s the new “avocado hand” – an aching arm after taking one’s best saucepan outside to bang during the weekly ‘Clap For Carers.’ It might be heavy
      but you’re keen to impress the neighbours with your high-quality kitchenware.

      *Coronials*

      As opposed to millennials, this refers to the future generation of babies conceived or born during coronavirus quarantine. They might also become
      known as “Generation C” or, more spookily, “Children of the Quarn”.

      *Furlough Merlot*

      Wine consumed in an attempt to relieve the frustration of not working. Also known as “bored-eaux” or “cabernet tedium”.

      *Coronadose*

      An overdose of bad news from consuming too much media during a time of crisis. Can result in a panicdemic.

      *The elephant in the Zoom*

      The glaring issue during a videoconferencing call that nobody feels able to mention. E.g. one participant has dramatically put on weight, suddenly
      sprouted terrible facial hair or has a worryingly messy house visible in the background.

      *Quentin Quarantino*

      An attention-seeker using their time in lockdown to make amateur films which they’re convinced are funnier and cleverer than they actually are.

      *Covidiot* or *Wuhan-ker*

      One who ignores public health advice or behaves with reckless disregard for the safety of others can be said to display “covidiocy” or be
      “covidiotic”. Also called a “lockclown” or even a “Wuhan-ker”.

      *Goutbreak*

      The sudden fear that you’ve consumed so much wine, cheese, home-made cake and Easter chocolate in lockdown that your ankles are swelling up like a medieval king’s.

      *Antisocial distancing*

      Using health precautions as an excuse for snubbing neighbours and generally ignoring people you find irritating.

      *Coughin’ dodger*

      Someone so alarmed by an innocuous splutter or throat-clear that they back away in terror.

      *Mask-ara*

      Extra make-up applied to “make one’s eyes pop” before venturing out in public wearing a face mask.

      *Covid-10*

      The 10lbs in weight that we’re all gaining from comfort-eating and comfort-drinking. Also known as “fattening the curve.

  138. 318887+ up ticks,
    The ferguson and his staats were well out of order, ott all the way, advising the government one one hand & not
    abiding by the new ruling that three is an unacceptable crowd on tother.

    1. Just shows what a total con it all is. Keep people frightend so you can control them and never remove all of the regulations. If he does not carry out his own regulations why should anyone.

      1. She has an ‘open marriage’. That’s a lefty way of saying open legs.

      2. 318887+ up ticks,
        Evening Jn,
        There is a serious ailment out there
        no doubt of that but these politico’s are, in my book working to a different agenda and it sure ain’t beneficial to the peoples.
        For instance “This plague MAY return” then surely first thing is check ALL legal incoming flights, and make sure ALL beaches are secure from incomers.
        Maybe the politico’s get a % of the
        smugglers fee, helps out with the
        price of rent boys & dope.
        The lab/lib/con coalition have been out of order for a long,long time.

  140. Evening, everyone. Been another lovely day here. I lay out in the sun, sheltered from the wind and succumbed to a bad case of CBA. I didn’t even bother to read the book I took out with me! Mind you, eventually I did stir myself to cut out the dead wood that I had missed on a few plants when I was pruning. The missing fridge freezer will be delivered on Thursday – yay!

    1. Evening, Conners. CBA is a virulent disease, ignored by the MSM. I have it in spades. Or subterranean void-enhancing implements, if you prefer.

        1. CBA is so debilitating. I speak from experience. It gets worse with every passing day.

      1. He has let the side down, boiking her

        I expected that the lhe lover was man, how unLunnun o’ centric

  145. I see the Scottish fish wife is banging on. I understand that health matters are devolved from Eng in Sco & Wa but it is rather odd that they have different approaches to a common problem. It is no more than political grandstanding and the leaders should have their heads knocked together.

    1. The same could be said for the EU, that geographical entity Europe, even every country in the WHO (plus Taiwan).
      Trouble is they have almost all adopted the same approach and many here would say that the approach is wrong.

    3. It shows how poor the ruling classes are now. Even with economies collapsing and people living in fear, the politicians are still fuffing about playing games and trying to spite the other side with no regard for the impact on the peasantry.

  148. I hear our wonderful police farce have been ‘having a word’ with Nigel Farage about his visit to Dover.
    apparently someone told him that hundreds, leading to thousands, of very illegal immigrants are still arriving in Kent every week, from…. well anywhere, via France. I suspect he like the vast majority, is wondering who is going to pay for their keep etc and if it’s really part of the Brexit ‘deal’.
    Oh well tomorrow is another day and perhaps a few dozen more rubber boats.
    Night all.

    1. Odd how other journalists get everywhere without question. On the murder in South Wales, the local tv chaps were sent up to the scene to have a coop sign in the background. They could have given the sketchy details that they had from the studio.

      1. The Mail has been sending people to Brighton and places like that on a daily basis until very recently for no other reason than to take photos with a long focal length lens of people going for a perfectly legal walk along the promenade.

        Examination of the photos shows that the people were all well over 2m apart other than obvious couple or family groups walking together, but this is only obvious to those who realise that telephoto lenses compress perspective and make overlapping objects look closer together than they actually are. The Mail has then branded these perfecty innocent people ‘Covidiots’ and accused them of ‘flouting social distancing’ regulations.

        It seems that its OK for a journalist to travel around producing lies and misleading photos of innocent people in order to reinforce the government’s position (and to sell copy) and invoke panic, while libelling the general public.

        It seems that it’s not OK for another journalist, who happens to be Nigel Farage, to travel to produce a factual report about criminals who are breaking the law of the land, not just allegedly ‘flouting’ some guidelines, while being ignored or even facilitated by those who are supposed to protect us..

    3. Yes, they cautioned him about travelling to Dover (or wherever) to make a video about the free movement of illegal immigrants. One has to think that if the police (and other public servants) were doing their job properly that there wouldn’t be any illegal immigrants. Or am I being naive?

      2. Technically, they didn’t caution him in the legal sense, but ‘had words’. It’s a way for Plod telling someone off but without actually having the law on their side. Occasionally it ends up with said Plod having to apologise for overstepping their authority, as in the case of that Plodette who spoke to someone who was legitimately playing football in their own front garden.

        1. I thought that ‘had words’ was code for trying to annoy someone to the point of them retaliating, at which point they nick thembfor threatening a PC.

      3. 318887+ up ticks,
        Evening Hk,
        I could never understand to this day why peoples continued support & vote for mass uncontrolled immigration parties over the decades.
        Why would a person want to destroy, up until the mid 70s a very decent Country to live in.
        Beyond my ken.

      4. And the news is the UK, predominately England. Now has the highest virus death rate in Europe. It’s also been mentioned as many times as possibly in our media, that people of ethnic origin are more likely to be victims. Probably because they are living in overcrowded situations have more than one spouse and are of lower socio-economic class. Blatantly often ignore the social distancing rules. Having up to11 children and living in a two bed council house is not ideal. I always add round 10 million to the figures on population. Around 80 million would be a good estimate.

    3. It’s been breaking my heart these past 6 weeks and more not to be close to our 5 year old granddaughter, whom we gratefully look after three days a week after school and for the same three full days when she’s off school. She is the light of my life, and great company.

      When we talk to her on the phone it’s obvious that she misses us equally.

      1. I’m green with envy, not yet having been blessed with grandchildren. Living in hope…..

        1. Until she came I was thinking I was seeing the end of the line.

          There’s always hope. Hang on. 🙂

        2. I have plenty I could share, Harry, but currently only available via Skype or Zoom.

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