General Chat

UK stares disaster in the face without a care despite deaths in the thousands each month and widespread hunger and destitution.

The aftershock of the Dom Cummings affair will rumble on all the way to the GE

Johnson stops Vallence, et al answering questions at 5pm presser as a "political" matter

Emily Maitland suspended for her opening Newsnight comments on Tuesday

In order to shift attention away from Dom Johnson has promulgated v unwise relaxations for groups, shopping

The TTI scheme to support this is pure fiction. It is in the unsafe hands of ex TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding

Despite Barnier offering a two year extension hard brexit 31 Dec will be confirmed end June
- Newsnight could not grasp that the airline biz is about far more than holidays or that the upcoming quarantine is purely political, it could have been useful Q1 2020. Now there is no scientific case as "R" and case load far too high for it to work.

Most, possibly all, of the drop in C-19 cases is down to the long period of dry warm weather more than anything else. The virus, on a warm dry surface, dries out and dies v quickly in the absence of moisture with a life poss measured in hours rather than days.

At some point it will rain and when it does long and hard. If my fears are right a sharp spike in C-19 will follow but it will be blamed on people not keeping to the rules.

Cummings is trying to push the line that criticism of govt corvida-19 policy is driven by anti-brexiters who want to accept the two year extension offered. Cummings prefers to follow his revolutionary "break and remake" policy which will usher in the worse peacetime disaster ina European capital since 1789.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isk-nraYumA
op cit Uzzi and her dogs

In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refuse to shine
People tell me there ain't no use in trying
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true
You'll be dead before your time is due
I know
Watch my daddy in bed and tired
Watch his hair been turning gray
He's been working and slaving his life away
Oh yes, I know it
He's been working so hard
I've been working too babe
Every night and day
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
We gotta get out of this place
If its the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
'Cause girl, there's a better life
For me and you
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true, yeah
You'll be dead before your time is due
I know it
Watch my daddy in bed and tired
Watch his hair been turning gray
He's been working and slaving his life away
I know
He's been working so hard
I've been working too babe
Every day baby
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
We gotta get out of this place
If its the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life
For me and you
Somewhere baby
Somehow I know it baby
We gotta get out of this place
If its the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life for me and you
Believe me baby
I know it baby
You know it too

You will also have noticed that both Chris whitty and Sir Patrick were quite adamant that no way would they answer anything that was so obviously a political matter. and why should they? and why do the media keep on about it when there are more important matters to discuss, they wasted time for good questions about the track and trace.

There is no more important matter than the web of lies omissions and deception which Johnson and Cummings have spun around corinavirus. Plenty of members of SAGE , some on the public payroll, have not hesitated to condemn not only Dom's behavious but Johnson support of it. Vallance was quite prepared to speak but was interrupted by Johnson. The matter is of utmost importance because effective corvida policy depends on the electorates consent. Judging by the increasingly crowded roads and beaches people are indeed "moving on" but not in the way that Johnson wants.

I would agree that these 5pm pressers are a complete waste of time. They are preferred by Johnson to appearing in the House where he has been unable to cope with Keith Starmer.

It is revealing that he refers to the population as " you" and not "we / us " . Behavioural scientists ( of which Mary Wakefield is one) emphasise that compliance with rules essential in a pandemic/epidemic relies on a sense of "we". But then apparently Johnson has more important matters to consider. All the undone homework from the years of austerity govt for instance.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-technology/chris-whitty-and-patrick-vallance-must-speak-out-against-dominic-cummings-durham-trip-sage-science-herd-immunity

In a word Johnson has lost it.

I found it reprehensible that when asked a medical question (re driving to test your eyes) neither Whitty nor Vallance was allowed the opportunity to answer the question because BJ refused to allow them. It was a medical question, so in their field of expertise, unlike the leading political question that had been put to them earlier.

Without one dissenting voice, friends I have spoken with this morning agree (as do I) that the two medical sidekicks looked distinctly uneasy last night when Boris was announcing easing some lockdown rules. We felt he had offered the public a sop to divert attention from the DC problem. We also thought Vallance and Whitty came so close to stating their unease by speech and stance that we wondered whether they'd had their fill of BJ.

Here, where the police have been more lenient than on the south coast, the unease and anger at the behaviour of DC and BJ is ongoing.

Our city MP is (and will almost certainly remain) Labour but BJ must know he's 'signed the death warrant' for his fellow MPs who took the Conservatives to victory for the first time ever in the area. He has sacrificed their jobs for someone who regards a lot of them as nonentities, in our opinion.

Reading how disparagingly DC spoke about Ian Duncan Smith leaves no room for doubt that he, himself thinks he is superior. Apart from allegedly inventing the Brexit slogan, DC's successes are thin on the ground so far. His only success as far as I can see seems to have been getting himself noticed for a variety of reasons - and putting our city on the map for behaving atrociously. His notoriety has eclipsed everything that Durham has to offer.

Now BJ's scientists are saying we have come out of lockdown too early & I have to agree. So now he is'nt following them! Will watch the news next couple of days & see what happens around the country with all this lovely weather, I am staying at home, would love to go for a ride somewhere really nice but too many people & too risky.

I agree with Hilary. We would maybe have gone for a drive with the dog, somewhere different for a change (not too far, and certainly not seaside) but a) it's a bit hot for the dog and b) we're a bit concerned about his health. He is a rescue and has some underlying health issues so we're extra cautious, social distancing at the vets next week I think :-(

Well, there's a turn-up for the book.

Van Tam asked to reply to a question put by The Guardian (I think) about Dom Cummings.

He said:

In my opinion, the rules are clear and have always been clear. They are for the benefit of all and apply to all.

Question-time then ended.

Good for him for speaking his mind.

Not sure whether Trump2 will allow him to share the podium again.

In my opinion he said a lot!

I thought he did too.

Brave man.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke