Tory babbles and evades – but no regrets in spite of desperate plea from Sky News journalist
Boris Johnson refused at least twice during his appearance at this evening’s coronavirus press briefing to express any regret for the at least 25,000 needless deaths caused by his refusal to lock down the country properly.
A figure calculated by one of his own leading scientific advisers. Others say the number is far higher, as many as three quarters of the more than 60,000 UK deaths so far.
Sky’s Beth Rigby as good as pleaded with Johnson to at least show some sign of sorrow for his victims and their bereaved families, but Johnson simply dodged the question – twice – by babbling about data and claiming it was too early to assess whether decisions had been good or bad:
The Tories are notorious for their heartlessness, but Johnson is the Prime Psychopath.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Johnson is liar, charlatan, incompetent and being controlled by the hedge funds, Russian oligarchs and the oligarchs in the USA. However, let’s look at the figures 25,000 deaths he is accused of.
According to a recent graph and data produced by the NHS of the 25,000 approximately 95% died of primary illnesses, the vast majority were over the age of 60 and of those over 50% were 80+ years. In other words 5% died solely from Covid -19.
In addition, the fatalities average as measured by 8 countries including Austria is between 0..2 % to about 0.46%. The previous average for deaths in the U.K. over 29 years is approximately between 0.2% to about 0.6%. Moreover, the median age for the fatalities according to 8 countries including Austria is between 80 -86 years.
Now, Johnson deserves to be attacked for is mismanagement of the economy, the 4,000,000 children living in poverty, the 200,000 + homeless, the 950,000 dependant on food banks etc.
Yet, the agenda is to close down an economy, throw millions of people out of jobs and face the worst financial economic collapse since the Wall Street crash of 1929. All on hyperbole, frenzied frantic fear which does not stand up to factual data as produced by the NHS and many, many medical doctors, Professors, virologists plus medical organisations not dependent either directly or indirectly on the B&MGF, International Pharmaceutical corporations.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-3-June-2020-weekly-tables.xlsx
Yes, Johnson is a malicious malignant prat, all true, but it’s ironic that the accusation is made by Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson, a far from respected academic whose original model was as wrong as wrong could be.
Well, he was sacked by DEFA in 2001 because of wildly inaccurate estimates ( again) taken as gospel by the great and the good ( if he was a professional tipster and he continually made wildly inaccurate forecasting, he would be shown the door permanently).
On the basis of his estimates millions of cattle and sheep were unnecessarily slaughtered, thousands of farmers were declared bankrupt, some committed suicide and the beef industry was declared as a pariah status for many a year. Yet, he was reinstated a short time later.
The WHO decided his and Imperials forecasts over the next “ pandemic “ in 2009 were sacrosanct and billions were wasted on vaccines for numbers which were wildly inaccurate. The latest round of “ pandemic “ was again based on his and Imperials estimates which again have proved to be wildly inaccurate.
But it’s seems ineptitude was not a criteria for sacking him but breaking the rules which were based on his and Imperials Mystic Megs predictions. Someone is having a laugh!
Thanks brianbotou. As the people who invited Erik Armrest to join the 1%’s Trilateral Commission call him (Neil Ferguson), he’s a “useful tool”. A Swiss Army knife to the billionaires.
The Govt said when they U turned 16 -24 March it was on the basis of Ferguson’s report issued on the 12th saying half a million would die if there wasn’t a lockdown which the media said had ‘frightened the Cabinet’, was in reality the result of a phone call made by Macron to Johnson threatening to close the border if he didn’t get a grip. This was widely reported by French and British media that Friday morning and then suddenly it dropped from the UK agenda and at 4pm Johnson was indicating the U turn was coming by closing pubs and restaurants and warning there was more to come. Blaming Ferguson meant the highly embarrassing acceptance of Macron’s bad tempered instruction (not exactly taking back control weeks after the big exit) could be ignored (but never denied interestingly). The first mention I’ve seen of the phone call since midday Friday 16th was in the Dispatches film earlier this week. And still not denied. Within days the D Telegraph ran the story that Ferguson’s mistress had visited him at home, breaking lock down and he was disgraced and resigned, unlike others! Lucky break by the Telegraph, I wonder where they got the story from? Now he lacks ‘Tory creditability’ and can be vilified. One lesson: if you want to fall foul of this Govt don’t run a Mistress.
Exactly : too much of the general ‘left’ response to the real underlying issues has been so pathetically dozy as to illustrate why the last election was lost to an incompetent bunch of Spivs – whose fictional narrative they are now being endorsing !
Question : “Is the putative ‘left’ able to find it’s own arse if it can’t even add up and suss out a scam?”
His mates call him Pol Pot Johnson for v good reason. It’s not bungling but exactly what Cummings plans, let everybody who gets it, get it and get rid of the unproductive dross.
“… lock-down delay that killed min 25,000 people”
More rubbish heaped on the pile of garbage about the mild virus that is now well below epidemic levels.
The real sin of Johnson was to implement the totallly absurd nonsense of lock-up etc. He’s now trying to get out of shit creek and desperately searching for a paddle – which anyone with a bit of knowledge coupled with political nous would recognise.
No-one with any credible grasp of the data – now that infection is disappearing – supports the idea of lock-up doing anything useful. Even though this has been a year of higher than average infection and deaths, there has been *no* massive and unprecedented upsurge in mortality in the context of the last 25 years – this year is well down the list, and the curve of infection and deaths is following the usual pattern. But nobody is shouting that – instead, we have scary ghosty stories ad nauseam. Why?
Sweden did well you might say. No lockdown – pity about the unnecessary deaths! Or do you favour the Brazilian model?
Sweden has done better than Britain – and not junked its economy (although it, too, cocked up on the Care Home front). Japan better still. And Byelorus is scarcely a blip on the Covid spectrum. No analysis has found a correlation between such quarantine measures and level of infection/mortality.
The point is that the lock-up was unsupported by any evidence, and the course of the virus has been the same whatever the government measures. Differences between countries are clear – but the latest modelling from Karl Friston’s UCL group (which concentrates on causal relationships rather than Ferguson’s Mystic Mog nonsense) has lent support to what has always been most likely – the *irrelevance* of goverment measures in comparison with as yet population and environmental differences – the nature of which have yet to be explored.
Why pick Friston? Because his record is proven in terms of developing statistical Baysean methods to solve real world problems (he is internationally renown for providing the current basis for brain imaging). This contrasts starkly with Ferguson’s reputation only for error and crap computer code. It’s cutting edge against broken butter knife.
Johnson is paddling up stream to herd immunity. Why do you think he’s in ‘shit creek’ if you believe he’s done the right thing?
‘Herd immunity’ is simply a bad name for a natural phenomenon. It’s what vaccines try to achieve
On the ‘Off-Guardian’ issue : the articles on the site need to be assessed critically. The hobby-horses aren’t all gospel. But, on Covid-19, the site has been verifiably way ahead of SB’s blithe uncritical acceptance of the government narrative, which is way behind the curve of reality. The articles in OG have usually been well-referenced, with traceable sources.
On Johnson ‘doing the right thing’ – I can’t recall anyone suggesting that – except those echoing the Skwawkbox view that his problem was not depriving people of liberty and economic well-being more fiercely. But, there again – I’m a socialist who doesn’t believe in suppression and impoverishment of the people.
As to ‘virus denial’. It’s a phrase originating from the terminally hard of unerstanding. The opposition to the government narrative has nothing to do with the ‘anti-vaxxer’ stuff around MMR etc. It’s about a realistic understanding – based on actual data – of what has turned out to be a mild virus that has a limited impact on most of the population., and which in no way justifies a lot of the measures taken.
But … of course … if you refuse to contemplate all that … the Tories will love your gullibility. Your choice. Reality or frightened acceptance of Tory World?
“ Why” Hedge funds, banks, stock markets ( QE), B&MGF, International Pharmaceutical corporations, Welcome Trusts Etc plus other agendas.
Absolutely. Off-Guardian writes it up v well. Thought-provokingly at times: “Implicit in this is the possibility that these diseases were the actual cause of death, and that Covid19 played no direct role at all.”
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/09/report-over-95-of-uk-covid19-deaths-had-pre-existing-condition/
The trouble is Virus Denial all too easily morphs into very right wing conspiracy theories about ‘left wing media fraud’; doctors are ‘cooking the figures’ and ‘it’s no worse than a bad cold’. It is certainly giving the authoritarians opportunities but that’s not to say ‘it’s all made up’ as Off-Guardian has often claimed recently. They have become a cult although there are only 20 or so active; not a mass movement! If you have a contrary view then they won’t publish you now. That would be like SBox refusing to post RH- I wonder what he’d say about that?!
OffGuardian very early on in the saga took a stance of the virus was a hoax and then search widely for something to shore up that theory.They were one of my regular go to sites before that in spite of some of the loonies commenting below the line there,now I stay well clear as they cannot be trusted.Similarly The Duran were people I could go to knowing that whatever conclusions they might draw from them the facts were the facts there.Their frankly ridiculous reporting and commenting on the wave of demonstrations in the USA has put them on the wrong side of the truth as well.
John, stay above the line on Off Guardian. Ignore the comments, stick to the articles. Totally agree about the Duran, though!
Yes a Tory Onnishambles! Herding
Take it on the chin, late in lockdown, lax on PPE, testing, track and trace, allowing 18m people untested thru airports etc including 550 of the super rich on their private jets and many of these were from European Covid hotspots.
And abysmal on care homes including releasing older people from hospitals untested into care homes with other vulnerable people.
They say they followed the science but only when it suited them.
If was the Left including unions who fought and still are for a better response whilst the useless Right Wing Opposition with Starmer ‘Catch Up Keir’ were abysmal too.
With Right Wing Neo-Liberal Johnson giving out contracts to private companies who often contributed to the mess I am afraid with Mr J it seemed careless talk costs lives?
With a Corbyn Govt we would have put people before profit and state led public investment could have addressed the financial mess in a case of Let Us Face The Future but the establishment and their lackies the Tories and media plus Right Wing Labour robbed us of this.
The Tories, the rich and powerful, and the Labour Right I believe will be in the dock of history!
People were wondering today as to why boroughs in W London had such high death rates. The leafy suburb of Ealing for example has had more deaths than Manchester. As some said at the time there had to be a reason for that. That was me! On here! February when I pointed out people there were blaming the Piccadilly tube out of Heathrow. It now seems staggering that nothing whatsoever was done about the borders when every sensible nation (China, Korea, Australia, NZ, Singapore – even the US! and many others) was closing them. It can only have been a deliberate policy based on eugenics and herd immunity because an entire Administration can’t be that stupid – can they? Or are they so scared by Cummings?!
No political entity will admit to being wrong. It’s political suicide. No politician ever says sorry, they apologise.
Revolution came and went this week in the UK.
Off topic, thanks to the various twitter storms this week, I’ve discovered that 5 kids a day are disappearing in UK. Seems like one every 5 minutes across the globe…(whiskey tango foxtrot). You can use your search engine of choice if you doubt me.
Why isn’t anyone at all talking about this? The facts are there…
Paul, the “ virus deniers” include the NHS, the Chief medical officer of the UK, many many of the world’s prominent medical doctors, Professors, virologists and institutions not dependent either indirectly or directly from the B&MGF, International Pharmaceutical corporations etc.
Let’s look at what the U.K.chief medical officer said “ most people won’t have the virus, a small number will have have it and not even know they have it, a small number will have mild symptoms, an even smaller number will be hospitalised, and sadly a very small number will succumb to it.”.
Let’s look at what the NHS said on the 3rd of June of the 27,000 fatalities 95% had one or more previous illnesses. Only 5% died solely from Covid-19. This is approximately 1,300. Of these about 1100 were over the age of 60+ and more than 50% were over 80+. The vast majority of the the fatalities from the total number were over the age of 60+.
The average measured by 8 countries including Austria is between 0.2-0.46% for fatalities.
In the last 29 years the fatalities rate in the U.K. was between approximately 0.2+0.6%.
Has the governments, the people been “ Virus deniers “ all this time?
You say the NHS denies there is a virus?! Now I’ve heard it all!
Unfortunately, you have, as the MSM do, only read the first line of the post. It’s called selective quoting or quoting out of context. Distortion of the post is the phrase that comes to mind. No wonder you are a ” true believer”
Correction. …approximately 0.2-0.6%
John Thatcher, so the NHS data reproduced by the Off-Guardian is a hoax?
brianbotou , just what are you trying to achieve here brian ? Both you and RH , what exactly are you trying to prove , to what end , exactly ?
Here are some directives from the NHS and ONS about the reporting of Covid-19 as the cause of death
…..from now on, the ONS will also include Covid19 deaths “in the community” in their statistics. That “includes those not tested for Covid19” and where “suspected Covid19″ [our emphasis] is presumed to be a “contributory factor”.
Here are some of the relevant sections:
if before death the patient had symptoms typical of COVID19 infection, but the test result has not been received, it would be satisfactory to give ‘COVID-19’ as the cause of death, and then share the test result when it becomes available. In the circumstances of there being no swab, it is satisfactory to apply clinical judgement.
The government is telling doctors it is OK to list “Covid-19” as a cause of death when there is literally no evidence the deceased was infected. That means there are potentially huge numbers of “Covid19 deaths” that were never even tested for the disease.
Further, any possible mistakes will never be noticed or rectified, thanks to recent changes to the law.
Usually, any death attributed to a “notifiable disease” had to be referred to a coroner for a jury hearing.
Under UK law Covid19 is a “notifiable disease”, but the new Coronavirus Bill alters the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, to specifically exempt alleged Covid19 deaths from jury inquests.
Further, according to the office of the Chief Coroner, the Coronavirus Bill means that these deaths don’t have to be referred to a coroner at all, and that medical practitioners can sign off a cause of death for a body they have never even seen:
Any registered medical practitioner can sign an MCCD [Medical Certificate for Cause of Death], even if the deceased was not attended during their last illness and not seen after death, provided that they are able to state the cause of death to the best of their knowledge and belief.
Deaths “in the community” can be listed as Covid19 deaths without being tested for the disease, or even seen by a doctor at all. These deaths will not necessarily be referred to a coroner, and certainly not heard by a jury.
By enacting this legislation the UK government has not only made false reporting of Covid19 deaths more likely, they actively removed the safeguards designed to correct it. Recording accurate fatality numbers in this situation is borderline impossible.
Dr John Lee, a professor of pathology and retired consulting pathologist with the NHS, wrote in a column for the Spectator:
WHY COVID-19 DEATHS ARE A SUBSTANTIAL OVER-ESTIMATE
Many UK health spokespersons have been careful to repeatedly say that the numbers quoted in the UK indicate death with the virus, not death due to the virus – this matters.
[…]
This nuance is crucial – not just in understanding the disease, but for understanding the burden it might place on the health service in coming days. Unfortunately, nuance tends to be lost in the numbers quoted from the database being used to track Covid-19
[…]
This data is not standardised and so probably not comparable, yet this important caveat is seldom expressed by the (many) graphs we see. It risks exaggerating the quality of data that we have.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending20march2020
If you read these facts about :
A.How the criteria for Covid-19 is being determined not only in the U.K. but in many other countries around the world eg. Italy and Germany.
B. The actual numbers of fatalities SOLELY CAUSED BY COVID-19 .
C Look at the actual minute number of fatalities in the previous graphs from the NHS.
D. What have been the responses by governments to a “ pandemic “ ( closing down most of the economy, throwing millions out of jobs, causing an economic crisis approaching the collapse of the economy in line with the 1929 Wall Street Crash) as stated by the WHO based on estimates from the now discredited Professor Ferguson and Imperial College, who are along with the WHO are recipients of $400,000,000 in the former and $1,000,000,000s in the latter, you might begin to see the light.
To misquote Albert Camus who wrote a novel called The Plague. The only way to fight the plague is with the truth!!!
Lack of testing is crucial to this.you appear to be saying that if somebody isn’t tested before they die it “doesn’t count” despite a doctor believing the person had the virus. It’s a simple way of reducing the official death rate in the Uk
So once again brianbotou I ask
, just what are you trying to achieve here brian ? Both you and RH , what exactly are you trying to prove , to what end , exactly ?
Because your reply above consists mainly of cut and paste quotes of others and links to websites. I did not ask for a smokescreen of bluster but what YOU are trying to prove and why , what’s in it for you , to what end and purpose .
We can all surf and find plenty of data / info to support or counter the evidence.
You repeat yourself like a broken bot.
The government was playing down CV deaths, not inflating them.
The unspoken backdrop is to end lockdown and get the workers back to their machines to generate profit before the big Corporations go bust while ensuring that the old regime in the workplace retains its control of the workplace.
We’re just stating facts and citing reputable analysis as opposed to fiction, rob. We’re just pointing out that there is nothing about this virus that warrants the current hysteria and anti-social measures.
We’re about sanity rather than knicker-wetting belief in ghost stories.
We’ve both substantiated our case with extensive references, and I’ve done my own statistical analysis (nothing complicated – it doesn’t need to be). I’ve posted actual figures to show that this last year’s ‘infection season’ was nothing special in terms of mortality over the past quarter of a century.
What’s your evidence? Apart from stuff from the Tory media operation.
Or are you happy to stumble around, blindfolded and led by the nose by the Tory goverment’s latest porkies?
‘Socialist’ or ‘Shill’? That, bluntly, is the choice
Correction. ….discredited Professor Ferguson and Imperial College, who are along with W.H.O are recipients from the B&MGF of $ 400,000,000 in the former and $1,000,000,000s in the latter…
Paul, again you are using another MSM technique of extrapolation were no such thing was stated.
“ Any registered Medical practitioner can sign an MCC [ Medical Certificate for the Cause of Death], even if the deceased was not attended during their last illness and seen after death, provided they are able to state the cause of death to the best of their knowledge and belief.]
“ Deaths ‘in the community ‘ can be listed as Covid -19 without being tested for the disease, or being seen by a doctor at all. ..
“ WHY COVID-19 DEATHS ARE A SUBSTANTIAL OVERESTIMATE “
Many healthcare spokespersons have been careful to repeatedly say the numbers quoted in the U.K. indicate death from the virus, not death due to the virus. This matters…”
Dr John Lee said “ The data is not standardised and so probably not comparable, yet, this important caveat is seldom expressed by the (many ) graphs we see. It risks exaggerating the quality of the data we have…”
So again it’s not what “ I am saying but what professional practitioners such as Dr John Lee and many many more doctors, Professors, medical institutions both in the U.K. and around the world are saying. “ Covid-19 DEATHS ARE A SUBSTANTIAL OVERESTIMATE “
I was repeating word for word what you said in the first paragraph of your comment!
It is very, very strange to witness the spread of this utter conspiraloon nonsense, to the effect that ‘the coronavirus epidemic is a huge hoax perpetrated by the capitalist class and mass media’, to the comments sections on Skwawkbox, the Off-Guardian, and many other supposedly ‘Left’ blogs. It is easy to understand why the mad Right wing Troll, RH, does it – to feed the false , Big Business-originating, narrative so widespread in Trump’s USA, and also Brazil now, that will repeatedly deny and try to persuade us all to ignore the reality of coronavirus , and , as others have said, ‘get those worker drones back to the workplace to generate surplus value again’ ! But quite why supposed ‘Lefties , peddle this rubbish is a mystery. That Coronavirus does indeed kill mainly ( but by no means only) the old and others with pre-existing medical conditions, is somehow supposed to discount entirely the 60,000 or so already killed in the UK, prematurely, by many years in most cases, directly from the impact of coronavirus on their weaker than average bodies ? The completely , data mangling, nonsense – peddled by both Left and Right conspiraloons, that the Coronavirus epidemic is a hoax, and an excuse to lockdown democracy to enable some sort of military/ruling class coup (or the rule of the Illuminati ?), is simply childish fantasy. The lockdowns across the globe have halted the production of capitalism’s essential ‘lifeblood’, ie, profit , or surplus value, and produced a looming crisis of global profitability, on top of the pre-existing global crisis of profitability after the 2008 Financial Crash , which will leave the global capitalist system in a more fundamental crisis that that of the pre WW2 Great Slump, and the 2008 Financial Crash, by a large margin.
Capitalists don’t deliberately cause such disastrous disruptions to their already weak global system by choice, or to pursue some ‘institute a new globalist elite dictatorship plot’ . Anyone peddling the daft idea that they have has lost touch with reality. But then too many on the current ‘Left’ lost touch with reality many, many, years ago,— too often being rlddled instead with purely subjective, identity politics-based, moralistic, impressionistic, scatter-gun beliefs, rather than Marxist objective, socialist class-based, analysis.
They pose as Leftists but in truth are Alt Right, funded one imagines by big business who are/were afraid of Nationalisation if they don’t get their workers back to their stations ASAP. The ‘movement’ fails to recognise that at least in the UK people are keen to lockdown and keep healthy; in the US it’s different maybe and that is where this push back ideology comes from.
Paul I don’t think any of us know what is happening in the CV19 fiasco in the UK.We have a government out of control,but the virus and the pandemic is not.Here in Cambodia we have had not one single death reported and the main infections have been brought in by tourists….none of them have died and have recovered despite them being elderly like myself..We have had a strict adherence to lockdown and Care homes do not exist here and the elderly are cared for inside the family which is strong and respectful of them.Johnson’s regime murdered my two brothers in the care home catastrophe and deliberately herded the infected with the healthy….The threat from this government and the OPPOSITION is far more dangerous than C19 with the massive loss of jobs and civil liberty’s in a permanent basis .Money heaped on the elite and a health service trashed.and a Health warning must be given when across the world many country’s are using the virus for covert operations against the society’s that we live in…The Fear is happening and evil forces are taking the time to exploit the situation..We need to be vigilant regarding CV19 but even more about the government and its objectives of establishing a permanent nightmare for the oppressed working class.
A ‘strict adherence to Lockdown’ may have helped Cambodia? Did they close the border? I don’t know Cambodia; are there packed working class areas as in East London where BAME people live and work on the front line in transport, care homes and deliveries? Are there serious problems of pollution with diesel fumes? Govts will always take advantage of a crisis in every way possible but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a crisis in the first place?
Hi, Ha’Penny – Still pretending to be a saddo pretending to leadership of the Tooting Popular Front as a means of parodying the ‘left’
Apart from genuine Wolfie stupidity, your manifest twisted logic and plain ignorance can only otherwise be explained by links with the far right seen in your support for the Israel Lobby and anti-Corbyn rhetoric – aka ‘trolling’.
You certainly have piped up in support of the narrative of Tory and global corporate interests just as their narrative is falling apart.