Tag: Coronavirus

Maskses, Vaxes and hypothetical hoaxes

Enough is enough!

One year ago today the UK went into lockdown. Yes, it was late. No, it wasn’t strict enough and didn’t last long enough. Absolutely we should’ve closed borders more quickly and deliberately encouraging ‘one last bash’ before the pubs and bars went silent certainly helped boost the infection rate. But forget all that for now. The government may never truly learn those lessons anyway, even though most of us have.

On that day, March 23rd 2020, way fewer than 1% of our current total had died because of Covid-19. We locked down with less than 1,000 deaths because we knew what was coming. We’d seen the devastation in parts of Italy and Spain and the government didn’t want to see the same thing happen here… allegedly. Whatever your views on the Brexiteer government’s intent (and there are many) most of the people took the lockdown seriously and the infection rate began to fall.

Since then advice has changed periodically. Advisors have come and gone. Alternative science groups have formed and court cases have been launched to hear cases relating to tory party profiteering, dodgy govt. deals and betrayals of both key workers and the vulnerable among us. But for now let’s forget all that too. I want to talk to you about something just as serious but far more current. Covid 19 deniers, anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. On the whole they’re the same people and they’re bloody dangerous.

In writing this post I’ve had a bit of a dilemma in tone. You see I’m a great advocate of human rights – including the right of people to avoid putting anything in their bodies that they don’t agree to. This should lead me to support anti-vax rights and choices. And indeed, it does. I do support anyone’s right to make an informed decision to refuse to accept vaccination. I know several people who have perfectly viable and sound reasons for refusing the vaccine, even religious reasons. Personally I consider religion irrational too but still support peoples’ right to follow and abide by it.

And then there are others whose decision is not informed or rational. They refuse based upon nonsense conspiracy theories involving technically impossible microchips and one world conspiracies led by George Soros and Bill Gates. This is where my support for anti-vaxxers tends to fall down a bit. If someone is fooled into acting against their own best interests, should we still support that decision and their right to make it.

And still I think the answer is ‘Yes’ – but with a heavy heart. The issue of rights and autonomy is too serious, too precious to give up, even in the face of imminent tragedy, but respecting someone’s right to choose doesn’t mean I have to respect their choice or even the person themselves. Enough is enough.

So here’s my take on this whole conspiracy theory driven debate…

There is no global conspiracy to stick microchips capable of technologically impossible ‘sneakaboutery’ in your bloodstream.

Refusing the vaccine and encouraging others to refuse too makes it harder to achieve herd immunity. This undoubtedly will mean more deaths later.

Refusing to wear a mask is an attack on others. Your personal risk is unchanged by mask-wearing. It’s to contain your breath, especially your coughs and sneezes. Your refusal puts the lives of others at risk because you believe that Covid is a hoax. Well… I believe that you are a fool to believe that. I believe that you are a dangerous fool who risks the lives of others, including my 83 year old mother.

So, even though you have my support for your anti-vax decision, I continue to disagree with you.

You have my sympathies for having been duped by Covid conspiracy theories.

You have my contempt for risking the lives of vulnerable others.

You may never have my forgiveness if your intellectually lazy refusal to research actual facts leads to the death of any of my friends or relatives.

Enough is enough!

An MP without original thought

What happens when your MP doesn’t know how to think?

How does a man who never had an original idea finds his way into parliament?

When MPs don’t understand politics or the issues of the day how can they maintain the illusion of competence?

That’s easy – they just toe the party line and pretend to be in control of the facts (not to mention their faculties). Vacuous back-benchers have followed this simple strategy for years, often quite successfully but only when their leaders aren’t just as clueless themselves.

That’s the unfortunate reality facing Mark Jenkinson MP. When Boris flip-flops and Jenky supports every pronouncement both before and after the U-turn he only highlights the incompetence of both himself and his boss.

Perhaps that’s why he’s more likely to insult and block interlocutors than engage with them. Perhaps he doesn’t know what to say. Perhaps he really is that stupid.

What do you think?

Covid: The story so far

When Covid19 first made it into the news I was as concerned as most people but not dismayed. I had faith in the government to do what’s right and in fact, didn’t criticise the shower of shit we have in Downing Street until April. I saw my role as a good citizen to get behind the government, propagate positive messages abut hand-washing, social distancing and generally support the national effort to keep people alive and not too worried.

I did criticize a bit but that was reserved not for Boris and his cabal of criminals but for hoarders and spivs. Not until April did I start openly criticizing the way the government was handling the pandemic, putting British lives at unnecessary risk by ignoring the advice from the rest of the world.

Even then though, my regular blog posts and videos were aimed more at ludicrous conspiracy theories about mobile ‘phone signals and unsubstantiated claims about Boris not really being unwell, after all. I’m still uncertain about that last one, mind. Then the Health Minister, Matt Hancock delivered a message that I’m afraid really did get up my nose. He claimed that the reason we hadn’t enough PPE to keep ourselves and our patients safe at work was because we were over-using it. The chance would have been a fine thing.

The reality was (and is) that 10 years of Conservative government failures to prepare for the inevitable contagion, a contagion that the government’s own exercise highlighted was not sufficiently prepared for, has left us woefully under-resourced to meet the challenge. My own MP, Mark Jenkinson (more about his spurious attempts to discredit nurses later) insisted there was no problem. As his more senior colleague (everyone’s more senior than Jenky), Matt Hancock had claimed it’s our fault, we nurses for actually using the stuff we’re given. Of course we’ll run out if we use it… and only once too! That’s what ‘disposable’ means, Matt. It’s to do with infection control, a rather important aspect of dealing with a pandemic like Covid19, as it happens.

A large part of the reason why we went into this crisis so unprepared is because of 10 years of conservative cuts on the health service.

A large part of the reason why we went into this crisis so understaffed is because the tories have spent the last 10 years abusing the workforce. A workforce that now, after risking their lives to care for the sick and the dying are expected to pay for the shortcomings of this despicable bunch of bastards. As if we haven’t given enough already.

A large part of the reason that we went into this crisis so under-resourced was because when everyone else was buying up PPE, ventilators and other equipment we were still being told to sing happy birthday by our Prime Minister who made a song and dance about shaking hands with hospitalised Covid-19 patients. What an example to set!

And now – Now – they tell us that we’ve plenty of ICU beds. If so, why is the government developing protocols that deny ICU care to older people?

Then, to add insult to injury, Jenky hired people to travel 35 miles during lockdown to go door to door posting his pointless propaganda like so many typhoid Maries merrily spreading the virus as they went. It seems that nothing can get in the way of a tory MP’s self-agrandisement – not even the risk of killing his own constituents!

Before we leave the actions of this rather obscure and ineffectual back-bencher it’s worth mentioning his vicious, victim-blaming attack on the Royal College of Nursing, my union, as it happens for daring to question Government rhetoric and, like Oliver Twist in the workhouse dare to ask for more PPE. It didn’t take too long to destroy his extremely superficial argument. It’s really easy to take down a man with the intellectual capacity of a warthog who’s spent the afternoon drinking ketamine and barbiturate cocktails. Perhaps that’s why he prefers to keep politics out of the public domain – unless he thinks he can spout his nonsense unopposed.

It’s very clear that from the outset that the whole government, not just Jenky, ignored scientific advice in favour of the eugenicist doctrines of Dominic Cummings.

And it was Dominic Cummings who stole the headlines in early June with his now infamous ‘Durham Dash’. Conservative MPs across the land frantically toed the party line, desperate to placate constituents with thinly disguised platitudes and non-sequeters, posted en masse without the slightest thought or apparent concern for the impact such patronising authoritarianism might have on their recipients.

Needing a distraction and still ignoring scientific advice the government began a new offensive. This time they were attacking the teachers, hoping to make them the next scapegoat because of their reluctance to return to over-crowded classrooms full of covid19. Unfortunately for them, the nation had already seen through the same tactic when Hancock tried to blame health care professionals and were having none of it. The clear message was that the government didn’t care a jot about children, despite their protestations. A decade of abandonment, not to mention their recent decision to cut off lone child refugees in Calais showed just how little concern they have for anyone’s children but their own (well, except boris who doesn’t even know how many kids he’s got). No, this was all about the money – about freeing up parents to get back to work and die of Covid just so long as they can keep their betters in profit.

And then the pubs opened! Oh dear! A group of scientifically illiterate arse-holes got gobby about refusing to wear facemasks – clearly the Darwin award judges will be selecting from a very strong field of candidates this year.

Links in chronological order

https://lefteyeview.com/2019/12/22/christmas-monsters/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/03/24/coronavirus-what-to-do-with-all-that-hand-sanitiser/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/03/nurses-arent-heroes/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/05/covid-19-and-the-eternal-now/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/05/whos-afraid-of-corona-virus/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/05/a-little-graph/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/06/covid-19-and-the-spivs/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/06/5g-stop-being-so-bloody-stupid/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/10/boris-and-the-nhs/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/11/how-dare-you-matt-hancock/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/12/the-great-ppe-swindle/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/13/mark-jenkinson-outlaw-mp/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/14/was-boris-really-in-icu/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/15/questions-for-my-mp/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/19/one-rule-for-one/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/21/tory-mp-attacks-the-royal-college-of-nursing/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/04/27/email-to-my-mp-about-sages-scientific-integrity/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/05/04/sage-ignoring-the-science/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/05/13/let-me-rephrase-that/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/05/23/social-media-politics/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/06/02/get-back-to-school-plebs/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/06/02/dear-constituents/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/06/13/stus-news-roundup-june-13th-2020/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/07/06/stus-news-best-of-british-edition/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/07/19/whos-to-blame/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/07/25/nomaskselfie-is-trending/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/08/23/my-mp-doesnt-care-for-democracy/

https://lefteyeview.com/2020/08/26/stus-news-august-26th-2020/

Who’s to blame?

From Brexit to Coronavirus, austerity to the global financial crash of 2008 some people seem to have very clear ideas about who’s responsible. So check out the new gameshow from Left Eye View to see if you know who to hold responsible.

Stu’s news roundup June 13th 2020

Is the Covid-19 getting tired from all that globetrotting?
Will Dominic Cummings pass his hearing test?
What’s going on with Priti Patel’s new name?
When will Boris step out of the fridge?
All this and more in this week’s round-up of Stu’s news.

Dear constituents

Two friends of mine received the exact same letter defending Dominic Cummings little lockdown jaunt from our Tory MP, Mark Jenkinson. That’s no big deal. The amount of complaints probably meant a job lot from the printer made sense.

What’s concerning, contemptuous, even is the way that the letter appears to have been written by two different people. It’s almost as though it was forwarded to constituency MPs from Tory HQ with the instruction to add a little personal information to make it look good.
Here we unpick that letter line by line. It’s not pretty, I’m afraid.

Get back to school, plebs!

Yesterday some men and women whose children won’t return to their private centres of education until September at the earliest, told the plebs to send their kids back to school. This is so that the plebs can return to work so that business owners can continue making money from the sweat of other peoples’ brows. Money for the wealthy is much more important than the lives of a few thousand oiks and chavs, after all.

One rule for one…

It’s one rule for one and another for another – or so it seems.

The whole country is in lockdown. Social distancing leaves us all queuing to get into shops for food and other essentials and once busy streets are now all but deserted. Police patrol our towns and countryside ensuring that nobody strays too far from home and even then only for essential purposes. Things like picnics in the park, leisurely games of bowls in the afternoon and even childrens’ final exams are prohibited. But travelling 35 miles to walk around strange towns spreading the virus from house to house is perfectly alright, apparently. At least it is if you’re authorised by Mark Jenkinson. A recently elected tory MP who clearly thinks that the law no longer applies to him.

LeafletterThis man was filmed delivering leaflets from door to door in Workington, Cumbria. That’s 35 miles from his office base in Carlisle.

This woman, also from Carlisle delivered the same leaflets to the same house about a week later. Watch closely, you’ll see that neither of them use gloves or hand sanitizer and even if they did they couldn’t possibly carry enough to change or re-sanitize after every drop.

In Netherton, a few miles up the coast, another of the same battalion of Coronavirus cannon-fodder leafletters, the modern day typhoid Marys of Cumbria reassured my confidant that it was all OK because he was wearing gloves – which, of course, he failed to change.

This is not an essential service. Nor are these door to door superspreaders observing any reasonable practice that would keep them or the occupants of the homes they visit safe. Mark Jenkinson MP claims to have arranged for “tens of thousands” of these leaflets to be delivered in this way. How many families, how many children or elderly residents is he putting at risk in the name of his own self-aggrandizement? He even boasted on his facebook page that his potential plague-bearers are targeting areas with high concentrations of elderly and vulnerable residents. Has he gone mad?