‘Stay alert’ – to the invisible? ‘Control’ the virus??
The Tories have changed their coronavirus slogan from ‘Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’ to ‘Stay alert, control the virus, save lives’. Boris Johnson is softening up the UK for a relaxation of the lock-down.
The new slogan, which has appeared on the front page of right-wing papers today, has been attacked as both meaningless and sinister – and as a cover for the next phase of Johnson’s ‘herd immunity’ plan, which never went away in spite of government claims to the contrary and was merely rebranded.
Leading left-wing Labour MP Richard Burgon was one of the first to point out the danger:
Medics echoed his conclusion:
Union leaders and political activists pointed out the nonsense of ‘staying alert’ for something nobody can see – or of ‘controlling’ it:
At the same time, there have been scenes of crowded parks during the bank holiday weekend after the Tories’ briefed the press to push the idea of imminent lock-down ‘freedom’:
‘Control the virus’ is clearly code for an intention to ‘allow the virus to continue spreading’ instead of doing anything to eliminate it as other countries have done – ‘herd immunity’ with yet another new brand.
With a complicit press helping Johnson prepare to lift restrictions, expect a new spike in deaths starting in a couple of weeks or so, pushing the UK to further depths of shame as the hardest-hit and most shoddily-governed major nation in the world by an even greater distance – and yet more government dishonesty to cover and distract from the consequences of their actions.
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Right!..this poor excuse for a Govt. has go to go…They haven’t got a clue have they?…Is there anyone out there that can say, hand on heart, that they have faith in anything they do or say…Come on now, be honest!..
There IS someone (waaaay out there) who thinks the Tory government is doing just brilliantly ! I can name that man, Patricia, – step forward the Sunday Mail’s completely barking, Dan Hodges !!! Go on, enjoy, worth breaking a lifetime’s practice and look at the Daily Mail online piece by Hodges. Completely bonkers stuff , denying the UK’s very high death total (the highest in the WORLD) and very high relative death rate per 100,000 population, compared to other nations, and also claiming that the NHS has coped just fine (despite the medical staff deaths, huge coronavirus patient deaths, and cancellation of most other, often vital, treatments to focus on coronavirus (that will produce thousands of extra deaths in the next year , from cancer untreated for instance). So all that social media stuff about ‘high death rates is just Leftie propagandas apparently ! Even the Daily Mail’s usually rabid right wing online commentators weren’t favourable to Dan’s madness (and given the average age of Daily Mail Readers, in the early 70’s, ie, the group targeted for the herd immunity mass death winnowing , not surprising !
SHAMBLES johnson. NEGLIGENT johnson. “CARE about nothing” Johnson. Employer of eugenicists johnson.
Cause of over 53,000 deaths johnson. Excluder of thousands of sick people from hospital johnson. Refuser of tests to patients and staff, johnson. Discharger of untested patients to care-homes johnson. ENDORSED by WMD TONY BLAIR johnson. EMPOWERED by Peter Mandelson johnson. PROTECTED by Kier Starmer & Jonathan Arseworthless johnson. That is only part of the sick story of Boris the full of piffle johnson.
‘Stay alert; stay awake & keep watching the skies’…….sounds like a strap line from invasion of the Body Snatchers. There is a moral dilemma; public health & safety or the economy stupid? Is the medicine also killing people? Now there is a credibility problem that the BBC is constantly seeking to address………to manufacture public consent when we know our leaders are complete idiots. Who do you trust?
The real message is what isn’t said like ‘Stay at Home’.
Stay @ home! Easy to say & do if you live in a ‘quality’ home in a green & pleasant district;; with a comfortable office job that allows you to work from home. This may be the ‘reality’ for most BBC employees, but the idealised bourgeois illusion is not reality for the low paid in the ‘gig’ economy, living in inner city areas. How dare a young couple,with a couple of kids spend a day in the sunshine, on a beach or a park & out of their cell; they are breaking the law, even though the family are social distancing. Blind obedience to the letter of the law will either get you killed or drive you insane. Observe social distancing is one slogan; stay locked in your cell to save NHS another. One offers protection & sanity, the other………….?
Yes, that’s correct – We have the ability to ‘control’ a virus that’s so small that on level teaspoonful could probably contain a few TRILLION viruses on it.
Oops, spilled a few…’My bad’ , as they say.
Agree completely – it’s ridiculous to ease up on lockdown until testing & tracing is fully up to speed and the system is ready to shut down again – hopefully in just a localised area if it looks like a minor outbreak.
On the “scenes of crowded parks” issue though, all the similar footage I’ve seen on the BBC has been shot with telephoto lenses.
Telephotos have a foreshortening effect – perspective is compressed and people spread across a landscape look far closer together than they really are.
Like those hackneyed shots of the evening horizon in Africa with an acacia tree silhouetted by the Moon and looking like they’re almost touching – it’s just a simple 2000mm telephoto shot.
The Tory Cummings johnson govt have seduced the public with lies “following the science” “phases” “plans” vague statements “if you can” “limit contact” ” “not right time for…” for screening at airports, testing, quarantining, lockdown, wearing masks etc etc etc.
Some swallow johnson’s bilge because they rightly cannot imagine anyone could be so negligent and callous and lie half as much as tony blair does. But johnson made a career out of lying. Strange lies. The one implicating his own God Father is quite weird as it was so unnecessary. He must lie for the fun of it.
WMD Blair on the other hand, lies to drop bombs and kill a million innocent children, women and men. Lies to get richer. WMD Blair was the FIRST PM to be INTERVIEWED UNDER CAUTION while in Downing St. Cannot remember what dodgy dealing scandal brought conviction so close to George Bush’s poodle turd. QUESTION: Which is worse, spaffer johnson or the poodle turd worm creature WMD tony blair???
Yes, the johnson is a pathological liar while WMD blair is a calculating liar. The WMD creature’s MANIC obsession is mainly money Money MONEY. Chase anyone with money, the Bushes, Sarkozy, Murdoch… he learnt the hard way that the creature is the definition of deceit…which also chased the F1 racing / tobacco guy, maybe Epstein too, any and every vile despot … they found the creature out hence its desperation to reinfect this country.
Yet still chasing the moneyed, no matter the source, WMD Blair STILL wants to be be worshiped … “Jesus complex” or a hyper ultra laser enhanced Casandra. hmmm I wish Clarissa Dickson-Wright were still alive. She would have lots of interesting corroborations. Plus I LOVE straight talking people…
Still, unsure which is worse. Best guess, the two spaffs are equally disgusting. But the johnson one is not 1/10 unbearably smarmy slimy yucky as the 45 minute WMD creature blair that endorsed the other.
Why don’t the likes of Starmer & Thornberry & WMD phoney Bliar tell their johnson to use TRIDENT on Covid-19??? Why don’t they???
They are the flag-wavers for USELESS Trident costing BILLIONS and USELESS johnson orchestrated thousands of deaths.
These thousands of deaths are due to the VISIONLESS flag-waving gutless protectors of the same old same old. Trident and everything stink in their ideology‼️‼️‼️
I could think of at least 100 of the policies in the manifesto which would have prevented these AVOIDABLE EXCESS TRAGIC loss of lives🌹🌹🌹
signpostnotwindchimes
We could start by electing a socialist as General Secretary of GMB
Now Tim ‘Trident’ Roache has gone
TOTALLY AGREE DOUG. Nothing else will do. Just wish more people will accept lukewarm won’t do‼️ Oneway compromises won’t do‼️ APPEASING will NEVER do‼️ It NEVER has‼️
You would think people realised that now. But no Doug. I kid you not, some are STILL banging on about theory. Seriously. Though already dripping with theories, they want more. But STARVED of practical basics ie the IMPLEMENTATION of their theories. It is avoidance Doug. That is how some escape reality and responsibility. An excuse is made to run away from meaningful action. Run away from challenging the parasites.
This is metropolitan elite land Doug. No real grasp of urgency. Read more books in the meantime. Have more polite social group talks where everyone agrees. Self soothe with never ending fetish of political theory, but not a gram of urgent need to regain control of our party. Extraordinary. Here entrenched “Left” people are waiting for an opportunity to just happen again by chance.
Some may wonder why my posts are so intense. You would be too if you saw the energy … the dedication put into running away. Perfectly able people with long experience, avoiding reality. You would be at your wits end too. You would see why the world is as it is. You would see why i suspect Tories have been gifted victories over decades, not just this last one.
I’m not giving up but it is a bigger challenge than i thought. Just read here on Skwawkbox how many people suggest running away from our party to form some other one. One where by some unknown potion, it will be immune from the same issues we face now … with the same human beings, the same MSM and the same Tories. I have never seen this culture so fully developed … deep-rooted .. entrenched elsewhere. It may definitely a culture monopolised by “Left” people. Just look at the “Greens”. Quite content for decades with one MP. Despite having a good foothold in the EU, they too did nothing to seize their chance. I do not share their EU position, but they allowed the LimpDims to win positions they should have won. It was not a total surprise as it mirrored the same culture i glimpsed years ago. Whenever someone disclosed they voted green or were a member, in every single case but one, the appeared totally content to be right on their own. No passion to persuade.
I say but one as through one of my very best friends, I got to know one person at the centre of the Green party. We actually had at least two holidays together with a group of friends. Now on reflection the intensity, passion and frustration I saw, mirrors mine.
Coming to think of it, the person lives abroad now, but must drop a line to say i now understand. And to ask for advice 🌹🌹🌹
Johnson continues to sabotage his own policies as he has done throughout. He desperately wants to earn badges from the Right wing of his party (less of a ‘wing’ perhaps more of a hard centre). He therefore gives out two messages; the Official one and the unofficial. Cummings appears to be leading a semi rival administration briefing the RW papers that the chains were to be cut – last Monday, Freedom Monday. Once the expectation was planted it was difficult even impossible to retrieve it. Those papers are buying into the panic in the corporate world that profits will suffer so it’s get the lazy bastards back to their machines – or we’ll sack them. With his new slogan Johnson hints that Cummings’ govt has it right and his Cabinet are wrong. They are such 3rd class characters they darent say anything at all. J and C chose these numpties to give them an easy ride to seize unprecedented power and now he’s stuck with them. All he can do is snipe at Govt policy, a strange stance for a PM.
Paul, many people with less than 2 years service have been sacked. Meanwhile Tory donors – millionaires and billionaires have been THE scroungers of the govt furlough BILLIONS‼️‼️‼️ And the GREEDY BASTARDS STILL want to send the poor back to life threatening conditions… starting with cleaners, who usually travel on public transport v early to clean the city offices. Yet the entrenched “experienced” “Left” paralyse the party with inaction, appeasement, one way compromise and burying heads in the sand waiting for favourable accidents. Waiting for decades then appease open saboteurs⁉️⁉️⁉️ It is culture more than being good or bad people. It is an inward focused self praising self soothing virtue signalling niche interest chasing confrontation misunderstanding persuasion averse eye rolling pathetic embarrassing culture.
Those are only my observations here in metropolitan elite land after close up ish involvement since the Open Selection branch vote meeting. That was my first ever political meeting anywhere. Looking back, these last weeks, it has been in mind that it was I who reached out to collect contacts to organise a group. It did not occur to me that they already had groups. They did not reach out.
The large numbers were amazing+++ The well read theoretical quotient was interesting. That the people were committed was palpable. Sadly though, what quickly struck me was how obsessed all the key people were, not to upset the media. Every single action that was needed, at the very first outing by anyone was met with a wet flannel of that would anger the media. Very odd. They thought that Chris Williamson was worth ditching. I kid you not. And horror of horrors, they disapprove STRONGLY of skwawkbox. The people who control our Jeremy supporting groups here feel that skwawkbox rocks the boat when that is PRECISELY what the “LEFT” needs.
I never knew of Jeremy till that leadership election. I never knew of Burgon till this last one. How so??? Maybe culture. When i suggested in 2019 that we needed to start searching out and preparing potential candidates for leadership elections, as “anything could happen at anytime” “beyond our control”, the suggestion was ridiculed by a particular pair of infiltrators or deadweights who only come alive to stifle action.
We can all see now what a failure to prepare has caused – a dull Dull DULL six faced toe-rag tool of the yet to be convicted war criminal, the despot chasing for money – Casandra. Who is the Casandra? The 45 minute WMD LIAR TONY BLAIR. The warmonger’s toe rag tool is “Sir” Kier Starmer saboteur coup collaborator who “worked night and day” to undermine Corbyn. Quote? Of course, the the 666 tongued viperous “Lord” Peter Mandelson.
You still haven’t told me who these ‘hostile presenters’ were/are signpost? And just out of curiousity, which CLP do you belong to….. I mean are the local members who attend meetings aware that you are continually trashing them on here and slagging them off, just as you do re Jeremy AND the left in general practically every single day. The amount of time you spend ‘composing’ and typing out your diatribes – albeit mostly endlessly repeating the same old same old – it must be a full-time job, eh?
I guess you just have a ‘jellied weakness’ for doing so, hmm!
PS And how old are you by the way?
Try the sanity of Johan Giesecke as an antidote :
https://youtu.be/2SdUmsMLW0o
Out-Trumping Trump is absurd!
Johan Giesecke: “What do you do for the next thirty years? Do you keep your borders closed?”
No.
You vaccinate.
Later this year or maybe next.
Unless you know different?
Why don’t you fuck off to Sweden then, you dolt?
I thought the Tories said they were going to learn from the experience of other nations who had started easing their lockdown restrictions..
“New coronavirus infections rose again in Germany at the end of last week, a few days after leaders loosened social restrictions, while the Chinese city of Wuhan announced it had detected its first case in weeks, helping to push the global total past 4m on Sunday.
On the eve of the UK starting to ease its lockdown on Monday, the new cases in Germany and China illustrated the difficulties governments will face over the next months as they attempt to reopen their societies without triggering a second wave of infections.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/10/global-report-covid-19-cases-rise-in-germany-as-wuhan-reports-first-infection-in-weeks
Covid-19 – Scotland Daily Briefing
Nicola Sturgeon says that the new UK government slogan is “vague and imprecise”.
This is scary. I’m Canadian and I have my tickets booked to visit my parents in July. I’m concerned by this because when Canada reopens the border, there’s no way they are going to let in people from the second worst hotspot in the world!
Talking about Canada, they closed much earlier, with far less cases. They acted textbook and they are well passed the peak, but yet the situation in one city, one city only in the second largest country in the world (Montréal), is far from being under control. Because of that, the opinion is that easing lockdown is still too early.
Ben – Disappointing though it may be for all of you I think you might have to consider postponing your plans for a number of reasons including.
Under the measures, which are expected to come into force in June, all passengers arriving at airports – including returning UK citizens – will have to provide an address where they will self-isolate for 14 days.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-uk-arrivals-face-fortnight-covid-19-quarantine-reports-11985548
Plus do you really want to take the risk of getting infected during the journey and passing that on to your (I presume) elderly parents.
Self-isolate……really?
Most people will try to do the right thing
But chances of isolating incomers is remote. Patel won’t have it and she’s in charge of Borders. Johnson doesn’t like it either. Fact it’s due by the end of the month gives plenty of lobbing opportunities for the airlines. There is no staff to really check people are where they say so it will be voluntary, just a token. If they test positive they still get on the tube to come into Central London and elsewhere before maybe isolating. Why wait until end of May when it should have been done in February.
https://youtu.be/BaS9bjifCzM
One element of the coronavirus pandemic that has led to disagreements and accusations of the UK government failing in its duty of care, is supplying enough protective clothing for hospitals and care home staff. With such a shortfall, many companies and individuals have turned to manufacturing hospital gowns. Iolo ap Dafydd reports from London.
Worrying reports today as two countries who had been doing well South Korea and Germany eased up a bit and number of cases there has risen and in SK was in their leisure industry area.
Johnson as a bit of a lert keeps saying we must do better re care homes, testing, tracing, PPE but its all fine talk from a very big lert when we need practical action and months of inaction and abysmal Tory Govt performance!
We have to put the health of citizens first ahead of profits and perhaps the Govt don’t like paying out furlough payments of 80% which may be reduced to 60% soon and the Govt have spent £200b on QE since the crisis began with a further £100b expected cos “They haven’t a clue what to do” (Streekt).
In my city a lot of workers come in from other towns and cities and vice versa but if you have no car (and offering lifts may not be wise) or bike what are you to do -walk bloody 30 miles if you can’t use public transport – recipe for absolute chaos and spikes!
Some choice starve or risk your life going to work where safety plans may not be in place and may not be enforced.
Same with not rushing back to schools and they should wait until the NEU union’s 5 test have been met (see NEU website).
Should learn from 1918 and ‘Spanish Flu’ which perhaps really should have been called ‘USA Flu’ (see Wikipedia) and malnutrition and poverty from post WW1 austerity as well as US soldiers in close quarters around the World turned a very serious flu into a killer so we tragically now pethaps have the Tory Austerity chickens coming home to roost to expose the unpreparedness.
In 1918 Philadelphia held a Liberty Bond ticker tape event with crowds of thousands because they thought they had turned the corner, and the next day there were 200,000 extra cases and 1,000 died.
A warning from history!
What you don’t do at the first sign of falling numbers is say “Phew! We survived – let’s party!”
What you do is use the respite to build more testing, tracing, PPE, ventilators etc. for the next peak.
You hire/train more health/care workers so exhausted heroes can get a break to renew themselves.
You restock your reserves of food and essentials for the next lockdown.
You service and maintain the essential infrastructure (power, water, waste etc.) so it won’t fail when you most need it and can’t fix it.
You ask what more you can do to aid the search for a vaccine.