Tuesday was a big day for demonstrations of the ‘revolving door’ between UK politics and big business that persistently blights and weakens this country.
Matt Hancock appointed Tory peer Dido Harding to run the new public health body after the Tories wound up Public Health England as a scapegoat for their own incompetence. Harding has no experience in public health except for the disastrous test-and-trace fiasco and went through no selection process.
Harding’s husband is Tory MP John Penrose, Boris Johnson’s ‘anti-corruption champion’. He and Harding reportedly met while both worked for McKinsey, the giant consulting firm with a long history of involvement in UK health privatisation.
On the same day, the media reported that Sajid Javid had returned to finance giant JP Morgan, where he worked before joining Deutsche Bank and then moving into politics. He will remain an MP, in spite of concerns over obvious risks of conflicts of interest. The firm, which Tony Blair also joined when he stepped down from Parliament, has not disclosed the salary he will receive.
Also on Tuesday, the news broke – largely ignored by the ‘mainstream’ media – that former Labour leadership challenger Owen Smith had returned to ‘Big Pharma’, as a lobbyist for drugs giant Bristol Myers Squibb.
In his leadership bid, Smith hired private health lobbyists to help his campaign – and this tactic was copied by Keir Starmer, who employed Ben Nunn and then dodged questions during the campaign about how he could defend the NHS when he employed those who had promoted its privatisation. Nunn is now Starmer’s communications head.
Nunn also worked for Heidi Alexander when the ex-MP was Shadow Health Secretary.
The revolving door is well and truly alive and well. Sadly, as it goes round and round and round and round, that is more than can be said for this country’s politics.
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They don’t care anymore, they are pigs at the trough and the only sufferers are ther british people. We have corruption to the right of us, corruption to the left and we are incapable of stemming the growth as our country is raped by the Establishment
Thanks Squawkbox you have just reaffirmed my belief that you cannot reform the unrrformable,and that’s why many of us decided that the establishment knight led Labour party was a step too far for reform just destruction..Hopefully for the long suffering public a Revolt against the establishment will come because there is no way with the Labour party.
I’m afraid I agree with Joseph.
For a few short years, we had a chink of light glowing through the shutters, but the elite, the media (every last bit of the print and broadcast press), the money men and women, the banks, the landowners, the rent-takers, could not stand by whilst the average man and woman were allowed their fair share. The politico-war machine rattles on. Money disappears into tax havens. 65,000 die unnecessarily. Children are denied a decent education, then an education at all, then sensible qualifications, whilst the NHS is lined up as the very last state asset that can be sold off.
Meanwhile, all is aided and abetted by the Labour Party. The LABOUR Party!!
The difference betwixt stammer and the toerags, anyone?
…Anyone? No?
No surprise at all.
So join a ‘there’s fuck all we can do, non working men’s club
‘Its the rich what get the pleasure, it’s the poor what get the blame, it’s the same the whole world over, ain’t it all a bleeding shame’
Pathetic and embarrassing
To those who have gone before us
How many times do I have to tell you, very shortly we the people will own everything, as the banks collapse and fall into our hands, that’s when our work begins
With a blank sheet of paper
Any ideas, you miserable bastards
Do you really think the banks will just”fall into our hands”?
You forgot the bit about the pitchforks and the molotovs. Any ideas about that?
Only one: you can’t burn anything down to the ground with a pitchfork.
Complete , historically ignorant, bollocks as usual, Doug. You obviously have the memory capacity of a goldfish. Most of the UK banks actually collapsed already before – during the 2008 Financial crisis under a Gordon Brown-led Labour government, Doug – and the government, under Labour, ended up owning a controlling interest of their share capital to bail them out . Did Labour properly nationalise them – as they could have done ? Even try to properly control them though new effective regulation framework (which the Blair/Brown government had pretty much dismantled) ? Stop the paying out of mega bonusses to the senior staff whose speculative chicanery had brought the crisis on ? NO to all those actions. In fact Labour left the banks to operate pretty much as before (to continue their speculative activities that were already bringing a new major financial crisis near – BEFORE the Coronavirus shock) . And under the Tories the government owned shares in the banks were sold back to private investors at well under their real value – at a huge loss to the taxpayer – and the banks sailed on as before. So Labour , under Starmer or any other Right Winger – or indeed that total posturing Left Faker John McDonnell too – will clearly NEVER take advantage of a profound capitalist crisis to even try to rein it in, never mind abolish it. The evidence is there , as it was with the (temporary as it turned out) top-down nationalisations of then bankrupt industries by the postwar Attlee government . Face it, Labour is, and always has been the Reserve Party of UKL capitalism , It’s intended saviour , NOT its potential gravedigger.
The ‘Revolving door’ as a symbol of a systemic crisis of careerism and other forms of corruption amongst the entire political class in the UK, is the real solidifying ‘glue’ that unites most politicians from all UK political parties . It is this generations long, nepotistic and crony-based corruption that explains the internal solidarity and ruthlessness of the Labour Right, at local council as well as national levels, (not some abstract ideological differences with the Left) when faced with a non-corrupt Left wing Leader like Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour Party is root and branch riddled with corruption, as are the other parties – for the Tories this is just ‘business as usual’, but for Labour it is an internal cancer that has had too many generations now to fester , for Labour ever to be winnable as a vehicle for pro working class politics and policies.
Verbal diarrhea as usual. You could’ve said all that in 7 words:
Everything’s fucked and I have no solutions!
Agreed JPenny……..but why all the nastiness?
So jpenney, what’s your suggested solution? A left wing dictatorship, brought about by violent revolution?
In a ‘free’ society, people have a choice which means they have the choice to make mistakes which could be detrimental to their future – self inficted harm which we have to accept. Even though we have to accept it, we cannot disinvent technology and social media which heavily influences those choices – whether it is to elect a right wing government or leave the EU, both bad decisions in my opinion. However, compared to the right and Dominic Cummings et al, the left has been slow to adapt and take advantage of this ‘right wing capitalist weapon’.
We cannot have our own little ‘Socialist’ revolution in the UK, we’ve seen how the right wing and the Israel Lobby combined their forces to snuff it out but one of the ways we could have exploited modern communications, is to join forces with our Socialist comrades in Europe. However, because sections of the left failed to grasp the Socialist nature of the EU, in so far as the richest countries put most into the common pot fpr the benefit of all, they would prefer us to be an island of never to be achieved Socialist dreams on the edge of Europe. I can sense your revulsion at the suggestion that there could be anything Socialist about the EU but you have to maintain that stance, as does Farage, for fear that it could damage the left and therefore the overall case for leaving.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/exclusive-leading-european-socialists-urge-corbyn-to-back-remain-and-reform-brexit-agenda_uk_5c87d47de4b038892f47b163?guccounter=1
And jpenney, just in case at the back of your angry mind there is a smidgen of a desire for forceful revolution, check this out:
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/03/the-more-violence-the-less-revolution/
competence ?? Labour are more competent at being tory than the tories. The media liked to describe Corbyn as a fence sitter when he was an effective opposition, NOW we have a —— Who is actually more like an old fence post, rotted at the base and swaying which ever way the wind blows but always with a more pronounced rightward lean.
On RT, Max Keiser yesterday predicted an imminent collapse of the banking system.& advised ‘the people’ to put all their Fiat money into Gold or Bitcoin……….perhaps Max could find me some money first? However, I do have have a lot of time for him as an astute economist & agree that there will be a reckoning & a ‘financial’ adjustment soon as the consequences of gov’t QE & money printing bare fruit. Zombie banks will struggle to survive & even the Central European Bank called to account. If Max Keiser is right & there will be a day of post pandemic reckoning, will the banks be allowed to fail or perhaps temporarily nationalised? We live in interesting times & Doug, I’m not miserable.
Anyone whose been following that wider debate, Steve, cannot fail to have picked up the alarming fact that even Capitalists (at least those who understand how it functions and operates systemically) have concluded that what we have is not Capitalism.
Not when ‘too big to fail’ banks are printing money by the shed load to give to CEO’s of ‘too big to fail’ companies to buy back their own stock to artificially inflate the share price and increase their multi -million/billion bonuses. Attempting, Canute like, to set in aspic the current arrangement in perpetuity which has stopped the Capitalist process of renewal first observed by Kondratiev.
They haven’t quite sussed out that this ‘rentier capitalism’ is actually neo-feudalism in disguise. But no doubt the more astute amongst them will get there eventually.
“We live in the era in which small independent firm-based free enterprise capitalism is long, long, gone.”
You mean the process cycle by which once small entrepreneurial enterprises using what was at the time new technology and processes have grown old and matured and are allowed to fail as they are periodically and cyclically replaced by new smaller entrepreneurial enterprises using current new technology; which themselves will mature over time and be allowed to go under and be replaced in the same way?
As observed by the Soviet era economist Kondratiev? (Which got him sent to the gulags and eventually executed by Stalin).
A process which has now stalled to be replaced by a system in which the Capitalist renewal cycle and process has been deliberately prevented from operating in favour of a vainglorious attempt to stop Capitalist history in favour of setting current arrangements in aspic?
Where monopoly power is handed to Corporate entities and their CEO’s (Ten of whom in the USA are now valued at a $Trillion) in the same way the Crown used to hand out monopoly powers to feudal Lords and Barons?
In which more and more of everything, from land, wealth, power, control, services and so on are concentrated in fewer and fewer sociopathic hands (regardless of what label you pin on them – CEO’s/Barons whatever) whilst the rest of us become serfs or, worse, surplus to requirements because AI can produce all the surplus value to be siphoned off?
Which is in all practical senses what I originally alluded to.
Max has been making bold predictions for years now, but I can’t remember one that’s been correct…yet!
Why the hysteria? I mentioned Max Keiser, but did not advocate him becoming anybody’s guru. Politically he is as far away from my own political beliefs as any ex -Wall Street Stock-Broker could be. He is not the Messiah, he’s just a right-wing economist who often presents an economic ideological pov that the BBC would never dream of giving air-time. It would appear that in the ‘Brave New World’ of globalist capitalism, the future will always be rose tinted & there will be no day of reckoning in gov’t controlled Public Service Broadcasting.
I am no apologist for Max Keiser, but he’s the only economist I know on television, who will draw attention to the fact that ‘Capitalism’ isn’t working because wages have been stagnating or falling over the past five decades. He believes in the Capitalist Free Market system & criticises the Federal Reserve for actively controlling the market. J.P.Morgan or Goldman Sachs,have become feudal lords controlling Western economies, as Wealth & Property is no longer owned & controlled by the one per cent; now it is the nought point one per cent. The system is still Capitalist because it is driven by capital for the benefit of those who own capital & not for the benefit of those who produce the wealth. The function of ‘croney’ capitalism is to eliminate competition, not promote it; much like Premier League Football. Does any other media economist question the finances of ‘zombie’ banks?
I mentioned Max Keiser because no other MSM economists dare question preferred dominant economic ideologies. There are no foreseeable consequences for the economic carnage orchestrated by Johnson & Trump; but don’t be surprised as the market collapse of 2008 was predicted by………..nobody (on MSM). Money printing & apartheid zero interest rates serves the interests of…………big companies who can borrow @ zero interest (you can’t) to buy their own shares & ‘capitalise’ the stock market. Why is the stock market not collapsing, a pandemic cannot be good for business?
I couldn’t care less about who buys Gold or Bit-Coin, but serious questions need to asked about the consequences of continually printing Fiat money. Stagflation will also destroy jobs. The international money-lenders are about to have a bonus….but then they always do. The dumbest questions are those who never asked.
Yes, I agree Steve , Max and Stacey Kaiser produce some very insightful views concerning the banks, the economy and fiat money etc. I would also add that it is well worth , reading , watching or listening to Michael Hudson an American economist, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, former Wall Street analyst, political consultant, commentator and journalist.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cCsxKy6Lbvg
Steve, one of the reasons the right and some on the left object to bitcoin and the other digital currencies is because of the block chain, it takes control of the money supply out of their hands.
Agreed Jack T but we did have our own Socialist Revolution here in UK, it was called ‘Corbynism’. It was strangled @ birth by reactionary forces. If you believe that the European Union will spread the Socialist message then I despair; the ‘Rich Man’s Globalist Club’ are only interested in ‘cheap labour’. No solidarity in the pandemic & the destruction of all southern economies in Greece; Spain & Italy to serve their German masters. Where are the Socialists in Europe?
Steve, you have a ‘talent’ for misdirection. I didn’t say the EU can be used to spread a Socialist message, I said we have wasted the opportunity to work with our Socialist comrades in Europe. As for where are they? I gave you a link to their letter to Corbyn which you obviously didn’t read.
Your mention of ‘cheap labour’ gives a clue to your real objection to the EU – anti immigration which Farage used to great effect!
You compare me with Farage & Yes Jack T, I object to Blair’s vision of globalism & mass immigration as the consequences are the ‘gig’ economy; self employment; zero hours contracts & a collapse in wages for the working class, aka cheap labour. You share Blair’s ideology of a globalist European Union; it may be acceptable in London, but in many industrial areas the people know better & like myself, take pride in the term the ‘Deplorables’ aka the ‘Left Behind’; the Downtrodden’. I have grown used to being accused of being racist & have nothing but contempt for the privileged bourgeoisie who so despise the working class.
It is a simple economic truth that when there is a surplus of labour, particularly in unskilled or semi skilled sectors of the economy, the price of labour collapses. The comfortable bourgeoisie have a win; win; win situation as manual labour costs collapse; social mobility remains stagnant & there is no threat to the middle-class professions such as solicitors or teachers. We don’t even have to train our own students to become doctors or nurses as we cherry pick the rest of the world. The liberal elite then claim this demonstrates how ‘liberal’ they are, but there are no career opportunities for the working class. I have taught these inner city students for many years; universities turn their backs on them, preferring foreign students. NO FUTURE….makes you proud! Tony Benn & Dennis Skinner knew what the EU is & who benefits. Not the poor.
Jeremy Corbyn had a plan to keep us close to Europe & within the single market. It seems Keir Starmer agrees with you as he ensured Jeremy’s plan could never be implemented, demanding a 2nd Referendum. That was insulting. Now enjoy the fruits of Starmer’s labour.
Steve, you’ve done it again :-). I mentioned Farage and immigration and you spun off into a massive virtue signalling rant about the ‘deplorables’ and the ‘left behind’. If you cared anything about the less well off, you’d realise they are going to be even less well off because of leaving the EU. It won’t be because of any flood of immigrants as Farage would have you believe, it will be because of job losses through loss of trade.
With regard to whose vision I share, it is certainly not that of Blair, Farage or Starmer. I do however share the vision of our European socialist comrades for the overriding benefit of the founding of the EU. In that it helped to bring an end to jingoism and nationalism which had separated countries, likely to cause conflict and wars. In short it meant that ordinary people could relax a little knowing that they were not going to be faced with a war within Europe. However this aspect has been totally lost in the fog of opposition, lies and obfuscation.
Pooling of some of our law making ability for the benefit of all does not appeal to the right wing because their MO is invariably divide and conquer, unity scuppers their plans. Nor does it appeal to some on the far left who, even if they don’t want violent revolution, they mistakenly see it as a restraint on the ability to implement Socialist ideals. Consequently, extremists never accepted our membership and with the compliance of the right wing media they made it their business to condition the public against it with false stories and lies. At a time when the Tory party was tearing itself apart, along came Farage and UKIP and answered the prayers of the far right and some of those on the left.
Dido Harding’s previous experience was with TalkTalk where she presided over a massive data breach & left in a hurry.
I thought her singing was better?
I knew her brother
Dickie
I like everything jpenny says except the bit about the estranged Snowden and the heavily tortured Assange. They deserve our humanity. jpenny is correct on everything else – especially the nonsense about the bitcoin and gold. These are nothing but tulip bulbs and southsea bubbles. If you want a proper set of economics for the Left learn MMT from Stephanie Kelton and Bill Mitchell. All based on the Masters, Wynne Godley, Keynes, Kalechi and Abba Lerner. jpenny is shockingly correct about J McDonnell, and unsurprisingly correct re Starmer. Corbyn should have replaced his”friend” long ago and sacked Starmer after bouncing the Conference with his remain campaign.
MMT
Magic Money Tree or Gold and Bitcoin
Which is hard money, there’s only one Gold Standard, Bitcoin is simply a ‘digital currency’ that cannot be printed, at moment like Gold it’s a store of value, in future it will replace fiat currencies
When we own the banks in this country, the first thing we will do is ‘debt relief’ press the restart button and wipe out current debt
Then we start again by setting minimum interest rates of 5% and capital/ lending ratios to match 1/5
Throw in some sound socialist values like salary caps and equal pay rises,
Competition in every sector, either with a government owned company to keep the fuckers honest or through regulation
3 strikes and your out of business
And so on and so forth with democracy, MSM and toilet papers, globalusm, monarchy, class system, clean out the stables
Like Covid19 every country will behave like a headless chicken, at end of day we want to look more like Sweden than USA
“The point is, the global capitalist empire (for whatever reasons, real or imagined) has turned on the MINDLESS HYSTERIA machine, and dialed it up as high as it goes. People are in full-blown headless chicken mode. No one (or hardly anyone) is thinking, or listening to dissenting opinions, or paying attention to official statistics, or common sense, or anything else that contradicts the War on Death narrative”.
From CJ Hopkins’ excellent piece The War on Death
https://consentfactory.org/2020/03/26/the-war-on-death/
Did you ever play rugby Dickie, sorry Doug?
Steve Richards
Definitely not,
What makes you ask 😎
Doug……the reason I asked if you ever played rugby is your reference to Dickie Dido.
jpenny, 10.39. It’s is not state capitalism but rather corporate socialism which has been in operation for a very long time even before the Bolshevik Revolution which was financed to a large extent by Wall Bankers. Moreover, the Federal Reserve act of 1913 ensured that bankers could now control the issuing of money plus interests rates thereby controlling the country which they have been doing ever since and de facto controlling much of the world’s economy. The Bank of International Settlements, the central bankers bank, was set up to aid with this process along with IMF and the World Bank after WW2.
In regards to the Russian Federation which was previously the USSR it had a rather curious relationship with the West Imperialists. On the one hand, the West denounced it as tyrannical which it was and supposedly sworn enemies on the other hand right from the outset it could only survive its embryonic beginnings with the aid of Western loans, technical know how and invitation plus technology transfer. In addition, very large sums were invested by the West in its infrastructure such as oil development etc. All the time of course in this curious relationship of the Reds under the bed menace the banks, such as Chase Manhattan and industrial companies were supplying the Soviet industrial military complex with loans and machines plus technology are making money hand over fist. Yet, simultaneously the Western Banks and arms manufacturers were also making money hand over fist from the “ Red Menace “ rather curious to say the least.
After the collapse of the USSR a new enemy was required, the “ War on terror” was the stop gap but now of course the new menace threatening our freedom, the peace of the planet is the old adversary, you’ve guessed it, Russia, with China to help jolly along the jingles of the cash registers of the banks plus armaments corporations and good jingoistic slogans with the build up of fear leading to hysteria.
The notion of a free market capitalism is a myth, and you are correct about that, but equally true is that the transnational financier class are against centrally controlled countries such as the former USSR, they are patiently not. Professor Michael Hudson summed it up , the name of the game is to transform economies into “ The Road to Debt Deflation, Debt Peonage and Neofeudalism” of a feudalistic debt bondage system which so far the plan is going very nicely.
http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_708.pdf
Correction: …technical know how and innovation….
Anyone who vomits out your ignorant nonsense claims that ‘corporate socialism’ is an apt description of the past or current global socio-economic system has supped far too heavily of the nonsense ‘coolade’ pumped out by the free market Libertarian RIGHT. And anyone who claims that ‘the Bolshevik Revolution was financed to a large extent by Wall Street ‘ is actually repeating a core tenet of fascist/Nazi histography ! Those ‘pesky Wall Street Jews again’ is it , brianbotou ? That toxic ‘Bolshevik/Banker Conspiracy’ poison which was a core Nazi excuse for The Holocaust !
I always thought you spouted dodgy nonsense, Brianbotou – but with this dire, but illuminating, post you have outed yourself as a spouter of very old fascist memes. Shameful stuff. You seem to have bundled together a wide range of self contradictory memes and conspiracy theories, mostly from the radical RIGHT, not Left, to form your rag bag personal philosophy , brianbotou. You need to do a bit more reading , and stop posting ignorant, sloganised nonsense. Still, your ignorance and rag bag set of contradictory ideas, laced with old anti-semitic memes, is what happens when socialist education which use to be widespread on the Left and within the trades union movemen, and WEA, falls into abeyance, and people fed up with the horrors of contemporary capitalism (that’s late stage over-mature globalised State monopoly CAPITALISM , Brianbotou, not some form of ‘feudalism !) pick up their ‘analysis’ from the conspiraloon internet sites, with no socialist understanding to guide them.
Oh dear, playing the A/S card now, eh? The last resort of a bankrupt argument. Get back to analysing your own backside, Trot scum.
Unfortunately, it’s always noticeable, and you are not alone in this, when some people are presented with an argument which challenges their pre conceived notions of the world and the official narrative for historical events, they descend into a crescendo of ad hominem flailing like a floundered whale on a beach unable to offer any rational argument to support their counter claim. It always seems to follow the same pattern of totally ignoring and dismissing the evidence without even examining it. It’s called by another name DOGMA.
I offered support plus evidence from an Economics, former US State Department Propaganda, Michael Hudson, here is the evidence concerning Wall Street financing and supporting the Bolshevik Revolution to quite a substantial degree.
Antony Cyril Sutton (February 14, 1925 – June 17, 2002) was a British and American economist, historian, professor, and writer.
Economics Professor at California State University Los Angeles
Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University, 1968 to 1973.
Rigorous in depth analysis of the involvement of western capital in the Russian Bolshevik revolution of 1917 in the form of support by Wall Street and London bankers – it could not have succeeded without them. The author makes copious reference to official US documents declassified after World War II.
the State Department Decimal File, particularly the 861.00 section, contains extensive documentation on the hypothesized link. When the evidence in these official papers is merged with nonofficial evidence from biographies, personal papers, and conventional histories, a truly fascinating story emerges.
We find there was a link between some New York international bankers and many revolutionaries, including Bolsheviks. These banking gentlemen — who are here identified — had a financial stake in, and were rooting for, the success of the Bolshevik Revolution. Who, why — and for how much — is the story in this book.
Antony C. Sutton
March 1974
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Wall_St_and_the_Bolshevik_Revolution.pdf
Oh yes, ranting is no substitute for rational argument and evidence!!!
Correction: …Economics, a former US state Department official, Professor Michael Hudson…
Despite some profound differences of opinion in these threads, I think it’spretty safe to state that the LP is fucked 🙂 Some are leaving, others argue for staying. If the leavers are setting up, or helping to establish something better, then great, I’ll support that too..
In the meantime, I intend to be a pain in the arse for the fascists in the LP. by asking pertinent questions and making political arguments. That is of course, if they ever open up the LP again. We all know the bastards would sooner rule by decree. It’s what fascists do.
Does anyone know why the British media aren’t reporting the bombings in Gaza for the past week?
A former BBC executive was asked the same question in different scenario why the BBC was so lenient, answer the Zionists lobby. As soon as any news article would come out to strongly criticize or attack the apartheid regime, they would be on the phone to the government, regardless if it was Tories or not, and the program would softened or pulled.
Careful brianbotou, you’ll have jpenney on your tail again!
I am afraid Jack, JPenny is a few farthings short on the coin and to obsessed by chasing his own tail.
Do you remember five months ago? Normally I wouldn’t ask, but the world is moving incredibly fast these days.
Do you remember that it was predicted that covid19 would kill literally millions of people?
Do you remember that hospitals were going to be over-run with patients and our struggling medical infrastructure was going to collapse under their weight?
Do you remember that locking down global society was the only way to prevent this disaster? That we had to do it, regardless of how much damage it did to the livelihoods and security of countless millions of people?
Final question – do you know how many people in the United Kingdom officially died with (not of) the coronavirus yesterday (Aug 17)
It’s 12.
Twelve people. You probably didn’t hear about that, because sometime in the last five weeks or so the media completely stopped using the word “deaths”, and started talking only about “cases”.
A “case” is anyone who tests positive for Sars-Cov-2, using the notoriously unreliable PCR tests which produce huge numbers of false positives.
Even supposing the positive test is real, the vast majority of “cases” are asymptomatic. Between false positives, unreliable tests and asymptomatic infection, a “case” count for sars-cov-2 is borderline meaningless.
Let’s say there are symptoms AND a positive test, and assume they’re not just a false positive who has a cold or the flu. Well, even the vast majority of the “symptomatic cases” will only ever be mildly ill. In fact of the 6 million active cases in the world, only 1% are considered severely ill. The majority of them will survive.
The CDC estimates the infection fatality ratio of Sars-Cov-2 to be about 0.26%. A number perfectly in line with severe flu seasons. Virtually every country in Europe is now reporting average, or even below average, mortality.
Broadly speaking, the vast majority of the world is, and will likely remain, absolutely fine.
But things aren’t going back to normal, are they? In fact, they are getting worse. The governments have got their foot in the door, and they have no intention of moving it.
Masks are now mandatory in the UK, and Australia, and New Zealand, and Germany and France. And many others. The Democrat’s nominee for President, Joe Biden, has said they should be mandatory in the US as well.
There’s talk of “local lockdown” in Birmingham, because of a “sudden increase in cases”, but we get no details on the numbers are, or if that’s translating into any kind illness, let alone deaths.
The same for Oldham, which is on the brink of a “catastrophic lockdown” thanks to its infection rate of 83 people per 100,000. (Oldham has a population of about 250,000, so that’s about 200 cases.)
Actually, over the last week the UK’s covid death count has reduced by over 5000, thanks to a review which removed duplicates and mistakes (which OffG predicted would happen months ago). The case count is bloated by at least 30,000 duplicates too.
In New Zealand, the patron saint of coronavirus Jacinda Ardern has just postponed next months general election. It’s only a month, for now. But what if there’s a “second wave” in October and they have to postpone it again? Regardless, the precedent is set.
New Zealand has had 1600 cases, total, in 5 months. They haven’t had a reported death since May. But their country is on lockdown and their democracy on hold.
Oh, and they’re shipping positive tests (and their families) off to “quarantine centres”, where if you refuse to be tested, you will be detained indefinitely.
Australia is locking down cities, even imposing curfews, based on 450 deaths.
Every day there are more and more articles discussing the need for mandatory vaccination, or something even worse.
And everywhere the language is changing. “The New Normal” was about beating Covid19, but now it’s about “covid19 and future pandemics”, or the “other colossal challenges facing humanity”….which can mean literally anything they want it to mean.
All this is based on the ever-increasing number of cases, without any reference to the fact deaths are falling.
All the way through those of us calling for a measured, proportional response were abused or ignored. The numbers have shown we were right, but that doesn’t matter now. They scared people into giving them the power, then they set the precedent for using that power, and there’s no reason to think they will ever stop.
It used to be about “deaths”, now it’s about “cases”. It used to be about coronavirus, next time it will be about something else.
Kit Knightly
Yes, my next door neighbor who is a nurse at a super sized hospital mentioned this about 3 weeks ago. He said there are many empty wards and the hysteria driven numbers never materialized.
This initial estimate was 3.4 %, which when revised down afterwards to 1%, now it stands at about 0.07,% a difference of 0.093% which means the numbers of deaths expected in multiples of 100,000s never materialized. actual figure about 42,000 which had to revised downwards again.
Moreover, as my neighbour pointed out, the overwhelming numbers of deaths were elderly people who had prior serious illnesses and were coming to the end of their life span which happens to everyone. Yet, the hysteria, fear and panic pumped up by the MSM and the W.H.O would have you believe that it was the new black death. It patiently wasn’t, in fact it the fear and the panic about the potential deaths was beginning to show that it was all hype. Next step on the ladder of propaganda and trying to continue installing fear in the populous. The new buzz word, mantra, slogan is CASES. They are spreading like wildfires, if you listen to the State Broadcaster and the other organs of propaganda. Meanwhile, many hospital wards lie empty untreated, undiagnosed diseases such as Cancer, heart disease, etc mushroom and deaths from them will multiply. On average 165 000 people of all ages die from cancer, and it’s not the biggest Medical Cause of Death, dementia is. Plus of course all the economic problems which will invariably lead to a huge leap in unemployment, homelessness, malnutrition and abject poverty. Cui Bono I think we have a very good idea which organizations and corporations plus companies that will be.
The usual establishment true believers and establishment propagandist will no doubt try and contest, smear or spin what Kit Knightly and others who are not swallowing the hype about the ” pandemic “.