On Sunday, Boris Johnson repeatedly insisted schools were safe and must remain open and boasted of keeping schools open for a long time in high-infection areas. One day later, he said they are ‘vectors’ for COVID to spread and must close. Watch the video below to see ‘Monday Johnson’ contradicting ‘Sunday Johnson’, who repeatedly insisted that there is no doubt schools are safe. The consequences of his arrogance and misleading continue to be deadly:
As well as insisting that ‘schools are safe’, Johnson also claimed there is very little risk to teachers. At least eight teachers died of COVID-19 in the last term – and the school ‘vectors’ have driven infection and death rates to horrific levels.
SAGE scientists, meanwhile, say they have known for a long time that school children are seven times more likely to spread coronavirus to their homes than any other cause.
Johnson should be in the dock, not in Downing Street.
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But there is no difference between him and Starmer! He was ‘no if’s, no buts’ until suddenly he U turned almost simultaneously with Johnson. He can’t last much longer. You can see in his face he knows it too. Labour front bench squirming with embarrassment when its pointed out he is no different. There is nothing they can say.
Bozo suffers from the same delusion as Trump. He believes that as long as whatever lie he announces is done with bombastic, hardfaced confidence, enough people will believe him to get away with it and he won’t be questioned by the sycophants in the media – it’s worked so far!
It seems to be Johnson pandering to the right wing media? Murdock Rules and has done since the 1990’s! All PM’s do as they’re told rather than the other way round.
He tells that many porkies he doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going. A bullshitter of enormous proportions. And ad Jack T said earlier so far he’s gotten away with it. As for that chocolate fireguard Starmer I hope you’re right Jack and bloody well quits.
Boasting about the mass vaccination (“best in the World’ etc) might undo him. My local GP’s surgery which is a busy West London practice was asked yesterday whether they had a 94 year old neighbour on the list. They said they were very sorry they didn’t because so far they’ve only had 7 (SEVEN) doses. The Windbag running the scheme doesn’t inspire confidence.
On Twitter clip of Peston telling someone that only Corbyn consistently called out Trump. She looks v uncomfortable. So she should.
Corbyn would have put money into a major internet upgrade for remote learning and working from home instead of bunging £22b to Serco. He would have devised big changes to education for the future, digitally based, not just for the duration but the future. He would have made sure money went to those in need and not big business. He would have clamped down on the blatant frauds that have been rampant. He would have acted sensibly about arrivals to the UK rather than dodging the issue for a year. He would have reformed Universal Credit and given pay rises to Nurses and others on the front line. Being in power at such a time would have been a great opportunity to start reform of many institutions such as Justice. The Govt and their supporters decided to do nothing except hang on to the status quo and share some of the money Sunak is borrowing with their pals. That’s just a few things for starters. We would have been in a very different place.
sure would have Paul .When will our politically illiterate electorate understand how much they have been conned by the right wing media.??
I can’t imagine they ever will. It will get worse. The RW has too much money and power to lose and will double down. The 80 seat majority will probably increase in ‘24 with Starmer in charge of ‘Labour’. It could go on until the 22nd Century because that IS England. The burst of anger in the US seen by Trump’s supporters is said to be inspired by resentment at a wealthy elite who screw them at every turn. It was that same resentment that fed Corbyn revolt in 2017 but that’s dead and buried now, kicked into touch by – the Labour Party!! In 100 years they’ll be musing over why the moment wasn’t seized, the chance of a Millenia.
At least when Strurmbannfuhrer Schtarmer says today that “It is” then tomorrow say “It isn’t”, he’s at least being forensic. isn’t he?
PAUL CERTAINLY given the complacency of the Brits and the continual harping back to 2 world war not much is likely to change for the present generation. However the young growing up are generally more internationalist also better educated , My generation and the v ones below me have to die out first. This will be around about 10 years I guess. Than the younger better educated will start to dominate. Things could than change quite rapidly, I hope, Maybe I am to optomistic.
V optimistic I fear. So far as I can see the young are suffering trauma and it’s unclear which way they’ll go. I5 could be to the Right as it appears the only opinion that is allowed. The ones I know simply can’t understand why Corbyn was so easily trashed and thrown on the dump. As for ‘better educated’ are you sure about that?
At least 8 teachers died OF Covid19 last term
Really
But hey ho let’s give it a go
How many teachers normally die each term
Where are schools in the league table for infections
As always happy to be educated by the facts and data
Shh. Stop it. What’s with the questions. Regards ☮️
And while you’re asking that, Duggie, ask how many died out of the blue – unexpectedly – each term – because that’s the case or the education authority, as the employer, would be aware of contributing co-morbidities.
An employer concealing co-morbidities, as I expect you’re about to suggest, would be stupid. Any compensation to the teacher’s family, even if a claim of negligence were successful, would be substantially reduced.
Frankly, “How many teachers normally die each term” and “Where are schools in the league table for infections” are just about the stupidest questions I’ve read here in a long time.
There are no snooker-football-juggling leagues because there’s no way to compare them – what other organisations of any kind could possibly be in the same league of any kind as schools – except other schools, Sherlock Minor?
As always, happy to oblige.
David, how do I contact the guy who runs this site? I’m fuming at WordPress not posting my comment to you about Mussolini and Hitler. It’s a classic case of censorship based on ignorance. The only other time this happened he looked and said there was nothing wrong with it and posted it. I’m sure he’d do the same here.
Paul, I’ve no hotline to Steve Walker, sorry. I vaguely remember referring to Hitler & Mussolini recently but once I’ve written something I’m done with it unless someone challenges it.
I assume you object to something so I’ll trawl back through all the recent comments to find it if it helps.
Thank you David
Paul these organisations think they are bigger than the president of the United States..and they are for now.I can remember when we wrote letters and we answered the phone..and sombody if it was really urgent sent a text .I can remember when the pope talked about religion and faith and didnt care about the MSM.The internet,has on balance been used to stop debate about things that really matter and Facebook and Twitter are bigger than Nations like China and the US.I don’t know what,how or why but this “Control” of peoples lives on the internet must be stopped.I look at the people around me here in Cambodia were they may live in a hut or a tin roof shack ,but they have still got what they call a smart phone and are on Facebook.I listened to a argument between two women in khmer language yesterday that was a holiday and heard one warn the other one about not saying anything about her and her husband cutting down a sixty foot palm tree,and mentioning it on Facebook.I despair at times and I support progress,but I somtimes wonder how we managed to rely so heavily on toys and games that govern even the most powerful nation on earth the USA and the World religion of Catholicism and no doubt Islam Buddism.I watched two Buddist Monks walking from shop to restraunt with a begging bowl for donations,with a little prayer for the shopkeeper and their families after making a small donation…his mate with the bowl managed to juggle the phone wedged in his ear and commented he’d just been unfriended..!Stop please I want to get off the magic roundabout,its a jungle out there don’t you know?.This was all meant to free us wasn’t it?
You are quite right. How extraordinary that these platforms impose censorship on opinion they don’t personally like.That is the beginning of serious political power – with no regulation or representation. WhatsApp is about to make its members agree a new rule that allows them to pass on your data to Facebook and Instagram. 2.9 million use it and frankly rely upon it for quick cheap communication, organising your family and friends to shift to another site isn’t easily done. They are ‘free’ but want your soul. Once we’re hooked on the ease and cheapness they’ve got you. It’s especially powerful right now with people so isolated. WordPress don’t ask S box if it’s a wrong un, they just ban it. Incidentally, I’ve been referring to Johnson as Pol Pot Johnson since last March with his herd immunity idea of ‘taking it on the chin’ but actually don’t know who that is most offensive to. ? Cheers!
David
My sister is a teacher, she has been isolating since this all kicked off, with full support from her union and school, I know whats been done to make schools safe, she knows when she goes back there are no guarantees, nothing in this world is 100%
I genuinely want to know what is unsafe, what isn’t happening
My view is if it can be done safely then get on with it, people will make their own judgement calls, we can count the number of granny killers on one hand
Hysteria doesn’t cut it, when do you think it will be safe
Well how many did? I had three teachers die during my schooldays. Whip round, applause etc. How many have died above the term mortality rate? My mum just passed from dementia. Only her assertiveness and knowledge prevented several slips of the pen. We shall see the certificate soon and are well up for the fight.
alexanderscottish, I’d imagine 3 teacher deaths would be rare in most people’s childhood experience. Some of my teachers were war veterans and I know of (or remember at least) no deaths.
I went to school in Blackpool, moved to Surrey and met a classmate living in the same tiny village. Later found myself working at the same place as another a few miles away. Bumped into a former form master shopping in a small town a few miles in the other direction – all three events within about 2 years.
The point is – statistics aren’t always of any use whatever.
Doug – “we can count the number of granny killers on one hand” – no, we can’t.
We haven’t the slightest clue how many grannies have died from a hug or a loving visit from a grandchild or child.
A Covid denier imputing hysteria to anyone is a bit rich – hysteria is mindless, excessive fear and there’s nothing mindless of fearful about me.
I’m analytical to a fault as my ex wife would tell you and I’ll walk into an oven at 180 degrees and rip out a tooth or a torn thumbnail with pliers as ex workmates would tell you.
I’m only stuck on my boat and not doing Covid volunteer work because I’ve been rejected for being 70 by youngsters I could probably still throw ten feet.
Newsnight just signed off with a panning shot of a massive stadium audience at the 2012 Olympics – just because it was roughly the same number of people as the 78.000 said to have died of Covid.
Kind of puts it in perspective actually seeing that mass of people.
It was a very effective shot. That’s a lot of people. It’s weird how nobody really knows who has died. They become anonymous. When a sewage works blew up killing 4 a few weeks ago the media detailed their names, photos, memories from friends and family. I still remember them, the 16 year old in his new job and the 60 year old who had been there most of his working life. That was how it used to be. Sure, they can’t do that for 1000 dead a day but – but they can’t just be wiped off the slate and forgotten? The papers just about managed it with soldiers in WW1 but not the 1918 flu epidemic. It’s interesting you don’t even get much mention of death from the 1918 flu in diaries or letters. Are we too scared to even think of it? It’s overwhelming when it happens and then when it’s over presumably bury the memory which makes it worse in a way. I wish I was on my boat!
David McNiven “I’ll walk into an oven at 180 degrees and rip out a tooth or a torn thumbnail with pliers” – whatever turns you on. I once dug a splinter out of my eye with a needle. It’s what you have to do when sailing across ithe Pacific with no hospital for thousands of miles. When it comes to the crunch sometimes you have to take your health and well-being into your own hands and make decisions logically.
Jack T – only once? I think every regular long time user of angle grinders gets used to scraping/digging tiny steel slivers out of their eyeballs all the time. Annoyingly you don’t notice them until they’re already scratching away at the inside of your eyelid.
LED head torch on the same cheek below the eye and a mirror with a condenser lens from an enlarger fixed to the front of it is the best technique I know if anyone’s interested.
Mirror doubles the lens magnification making it easy peasy – USB microscopes, endoscopes and camera phones have too much delay to be useful.
I prefer a Swann-Morton 10A scalpel blade in a number 7 holder to a needle for what it’s worth – steadier and more precise.
If your tongue’s long enough you can try licking it out – otherwise you’ll need a very good friend who isn’t squeamish – that’s one of Billy Connolly’s shipyard stories. I had a great uncle worked on the Clyde, my father was an engineer and so was I.
Eyeballs heal really quickly, which is lucky cos I’ve only got one good eye and a bow thruster tunnel to fit.
When you’re grinding or cutting with a grinder goggles or headshields mist up in cold weather – and you absolutely, positively must watch a cutting disc that’s only 1.2mm thick, so eyeball splinters are commonplace. Can’t be going to the doctor all the time for little things like that that hardly hurt at all.
If you don’t watch a cutting disc carefully it can break and the edge of a 5″ disc spinning at 11000 rpm is travelling at 164 mph.
Broken it would have enough energy to go through a rib cage.
You were lucky
When I were a lad
Try working from home? Doesn’t everybody?
Doug, don’t go there or you’ll have David McNiven telling us about the time he had to scale Blackpool Tower using only ropes and ladders and paint it from top to bottom and when he went home to the hole in the road where he lived for a nice cup of tea, tragedy struck – he’d run out of milk.
I love the the small storys about real life of the posters on here and it helps to defuse the anger of being trampled by the majority who are hoodwinked by the establishment system.Many thanks to Squawkbox for the highlighting the establishment propaganda that’s killing us all slowly but surely.Don’t get sucked into the TV socialist or the other lot to much..The word is much more effective.
I used to go out drinking with my teachers at age 15,
One of them was Secretary of the Newcastle United supporters club, so we travelled all over the country, in the 70’s
They were good times
Blimey Doug I wondered what you were going to tell us then?…carry on and get it off your chest comrade! You will feel better soon..!
Teachers buying children drinks is double-dodgy however you look at it.
Can’t imagine kids that age being that gullible.
We had a PE teacher who I thought spent more time than was strictly necessary making sure we 11/12 year olds were hurrying up and not dawdling in the communal shower & changing room after rugby, cross country etc. – but that was the only vaguely, possibly, homosexual thing I ever noticed in my boys only school.
No towel flicking, no pairs of boys suspiciously going to the toilets at the same time – nothing I ever noticed anyway.
Maybe it was a hotbed of illicit lust and nobody fancied me?
There was one lad once said nervously that he wished his curly hair would take a beatles style like mine (it really wasn’t) – I thought maybe somebody was bullying him but he said not – I was big for my age all through school.
Newsnight just signed off with a panning shot of a massive stadium audience at the 2012 Olympics – just because it was roughly the same number of people as the 78.000 said to have died of Covid.
Kind of puts it in perspective actually seeing that mass of people.
I’ve done nothing but put it into perspective to sceptics. I’d be best off trying to teach mice thermonuclear dynamics than get through to some of those imbeciles.
Figures released 07/01/2020
52.618 new cases. That’s a St James’ Park (Newcastle’s stadium) full to capacity, with a few to spare…Per DAY.
1162 deaths. Or about a DOZEN Hillsborough disasters…Per DAY.
People here just shrug their shoulders as if there’s nothing they can do about it, or as if it was ‘fait accompli’ for those victims.
Whereas Brisbane has ONE case of covid and immediately goes into lockdown.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-55582836
And the gobshite toby young-types will no doubt moan at them for doing so and tell everyone it’s a conspiracy.
100 Hillsborough’s a day gives a shocking perspective. The Toby Young’s are British Trumpians and while not so ugly or quite so fat as the Americans are much better integrated into our system, indeed lead it. Loved Emily M’s cross examination of Young the other night. Cool but cutting. . He was literally wordless.
The Toffee
We accept your figures, we know Respiratory disease and death is about as bad as it gets
We also accept the other side of the coin, deaths caused by Lockdown
When you become Prime Minister you are responsible for the 65 million not the 14 million, only Tories can afford to dumb down for their base
Same question what gets us out of this
You…who thinks it’s only flu, are the problem.
Brisbane… ONE case….total lockdown.
Blighty…60,000+ NEW cases. = Oh, ok. Well make sure that people wanting to enter the country have a negative covid test three days before…and that will start NEXT FUCKING WEEK.
And you ask what will get us out of this. Jesus wept. .
Doug – I wouldn’t deny that there have been deaths caused by lockdowns – but I’ve seen no numbers quoted and I don’t believe you have either.
There are said to have been suicides and that’s perfectly plausible – but a favourite of the Covid deniers was the word “co-morbidity” – and suicide probably has more ‘co-morbidity’ factors than any other cause of death, as a moment’s reflection will tell you.
So let’s all accept that there will definitely have been deaths caused solely by lockdown – but let’s not pretend they amount to anything like 1000 A FUCKING DAY, SHALL WE?
Paul things can change. The young compared with my generation and the ones below certainly seem to be more aware. At the last election I think it was 70% of those below age of 28 voted Labour While the over 60 s around 70% voted Tory. Does not mean of cause that they all would stay the same. Generally Education seems to be much wider than my generation,. Of cause it does not mean that it is always good education. Certainly a broader educational base would help regardless of quality, as it does bring more people able to at least be aware of what is happening in the UK and elseware. Maybe it is just a hope. But in my old age I got to hang onto something .Surely there must be some decency and humanity around even in the UK.
There is of course decency in England but it’s not allowed a voice anty longer after being torpedoed in 2019 by the Labour Party.
sure has I agree .Paul, But I have to try to hang to something .
The Tories are still going ahead with their NHS privatisation plans, check this out:
https://weownit.org.uk/blog/take-action-stop-our-nhs-being-disintegrated-year
Thanks Jack for that,I always thought that if the public understood what the torys were planning and we informed them that we could stop them in their tracks from dismantling the beloved NHS.I set up with other activists and union members The NHS defence campaign that concentrated on the East Surrey and Crawley area around Gatwick airport.This was 1995and the torys were planning wholsale dismantling of many public owned utilities and the Health system.OF course we won with a landslide victory 3years later because the public had been badly frightened by the Tory party plans and a young lawyer with a big smile and big promises,some of them true looked priministrial.We didn’t stop the Rot,but we at least pumped money into the NHS.Now look at what we face …How do we inform the public!,and how do we convince the public with a second rate lawyer with a title leading the Labour party?…I signed the petition and its wonderful that we still have people that will fight for the working-class people…and a National health service,but it’s even more difficult this time than the ninteys and even more difficult with a Labour party in free fall asleep on the job….good luck anyway and its nice to know that Britain still have decent people that will fight back against the establishment system.
Hey, hey ABJ! How many Brits died today?
The news that a Property Investment company has sent emails to GP surgeries offering staff £5000 for any ‘spare’ vaccines isn’t a surprise – the fact they did it by email is because a ‘quiet word’ is the more common way. They say it was an error. Will they be prosecuted? Seems not. Why not? In such a corrupt country if it isn’t stamped on it will soon be rife – if it isn’t already.
Private medicine exists – I’m surprised anyone’s surprised by this.
It’s a shitty immoral system but many doctors, particularly hospital consultants, work some hours for the NHS and some hours privately.
The Tories love private medicine – I reckon this property company is just the tip of the iceberg – probably thinks it’s an NHS benefactor offering five grand.
Why WOULDN’T rich people feel entitled to jump the queue? They do everywhere else.
Not waiting in pain for treatment like the hoi polloi have to wait is what private healthcare is all about.
Sure, we get all of that. Q is should they be prosecuted and with what? CEO is Godfather to one Archie Windsor so it might not be such an easy Q.