The BBC’s wish to avoid singing “Britons never never never shall be slaves” speaks volumes about how hostile to freedom many in the establishment have become.
There is nothing colonial nor racist in this iconic chorus. It is a paean to the liberty of the British, a reminder that we sided against continental tyrannies and opted for the course of freedom.
It records the success of the British against Spanish invasion and planned conquest, and against French expansions. Later we were to offer the same resistance to German attempts at the unification of Europe by military force.
Today our liberties are under pressure. Government in the name of tackling the pandemic has made unprecedented inroads into our personal freedoms for peace time.Now the threat is much reduced and medical understanding of the virus increased, it is time to relax the controls further and restore more dignity and judgement to us all.
Schools should make more of their own decisions about how to keep their staff and pupils safe, and not expect a detailed government blueprint about how and where they hold classes. Businesses need to set out their own approach to hygiene and safety, explaining it to customers who can decide whether to go there or not.
Local and national government places more and more restrictions on people getting about in cars in ways which sometimes make town and city centres more dangerous for all involved as well as more frustrating for pedestrians as well as drivers.
Government is in danger of taking too much to itself. Leaving more to a free people and their private and public sector institutions beyond central government is the right way forward. It will produce better answers, a more prosperous society and see off the threat of a new slavery.
August 26, 2020
Thee trouble is once intelligent newspapers are coming out with complete nonsense.
“August heatwave fuels rise in deaths, as Covid-19 fatalities fall to lowest level since before lockdown. Deaths involving coronavirus have been steadily falling
By Laura Donnelly, HEALTH EDITOR Daily Telegraph”
Our freedoms are being eroded for no obvious reasons.
Soon masks will be mandatory outside.
Soon tests will mandatory, even though testing looks like the best way to spread the disease. The tester gets close to you using the same gloves that have been used to test all the other people .
Next you will have to have a vaccine.
It never seems to end. I fear it never will.
According to Worldometers there were only 400 Covid deaths reported in Europe yesterday out of a population of 741.4 million.
There must other MPs waking up to this. I hope so.
August 26, 2020
Good to see Greta Thunberg back in school in mask free Sweden.
Did you ever think you’d see the day when Sweden would be Public Enemy Number One for the Guardianistas?
“Social Democrat” is now “far right” in the eyes of the Guardian.
August 26, 2020
Sweden’s government went their way.
They may yet be vindicated, but it’s simply too early to say.
They appeared to be taking risks which many scientists, following the Precautionary Principle as they all are bound, considered unacceptable, no more.
Your last line is complete nonsense.
August 26, 2020
Itās too early …. poor Martin. Opposing the first āfeministā pro-open borders Sweden.
I guess that is how Cromwell, a Royalist, felt when he had to cut off the Kings Head.
August 26, 2020
Well, you perhaps knew what you meant by that, but I have no idea.
August 26, 2020
They took the long view.
Other countries ran with the herd and took the short-sighted view. It was always the case that eventually they would have to come out of hiding and then, amid the ruins of their economies, they would have to face the Wuhan virus without a vaccine.
August 26, 2020
JR, your govt. has had ten years to sort out the BBC. Like All other policy issues strong on rhetoric and always fail to deliver.
Economy, the same.
Immigration the same.
Law and order, the same.
Criminal justice and punishment, the same.
Leave the EU, how many cancelled deadline dates.
All your blogs have the same theme, like your govt., all talk no action. A con to keep people on your side. The left looses elections but their policies are enacted!
August 26, 2020
There is no such thing as “the” precautionary principle.
August 26, 2020
Oh, some people seem to think that there is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
August 26, 2020
everything is denied, or challenged somewhere in the world – often in this diary!
August 26, 2020
You can take a precautionary “approach” but there is no single “principle”, set of rules whatever you want to call it.
August 26, 2020
Sweden is not imprisoning its children in useless masks. Their curve is completely flatten. They did not panic Captain Mainwaring.
Meanwhile in Lockdown Britain & Italy the Lunacy continues:
From the Telegraph:
“Italy fears ācatastrophe by Octoberā as tourists vanish”
“Travel news: UK to ‘lose Ā£22 billion’ from missing tourists”
” The Government has done what the German U-boats couldn’t ā it has stopped Cunard from sailing”
“Politics latest news: Government attacked for making U-turns ‘three days after Nicola Sturgeon’ by 1922 committee vice-chairman”
“The Government has done what the German U-boats couldn’t ā it has stopped Cunard from sailing2
August 26, 2020
The U.K. is in tourism deficit, we spend a lot more than 22 billion abroad. So keeping British people in the U.K. to holiday is financially beneficial.
August 26, 2020
Clearly, you’re no scientist (any more than the sociologists the BBC gets on air to parrot the term) or you’d know that the ‘precautionary principle’ relates to not intervening medically before proof is provided that it may cause more harm than the illness or infection it purports to treat.
For example, “a government may decide to limit or restrict the widespread release of a medicine or new technology until it has been thoroughly tested.”
August 26, 2020
Martin, You’ve got to admit that Stephen Priest has a point when he said: “Did you ever think youād see the day when Sweden would be Public Enemy Number One for the Guardianistas?”
And since you’ve spent the last months making didactic pronouncements about how wonderful other countries Covid19 responses have been, it’s really awkward for you that Sweden didn’t lock down and has protected its economy. Isn’t it?
August 26, 2020
Some people criticise the decision by the Swedish government, but there is the world of difference between that and their seeing them as “public enemy number one”.
I read the Guardian. I am as interested as you in the outcome of the Swedish government’s approach, but bereaved families there may be understandably aggrieved when they compare their position with people’s in Denmark, in Norway, and in Finland.
So no, the post is putting silly words into people’s mouths as ever.
August 26, 2020
Quite right too Martin.
And we must all follow that principle when we are offered a rushed, not fully tested vaccine.
Donāt you think?
August 26, 2020
Well, you must not be forced on that basis, certainly.
It would be for people to weigh up their own position against any risk.
August 26, 2020
No, scientists are not bound to follow a precautionary principle. They pursue truth by enquiring about the facts. To advocate something as ‘a precaution’ is not science. Whether a lockdown significantly alters the spread of a virus, or whether masks do, are questions to be investigated objectively, not with an agenda of ‘playing safe’.
August 26, 2020
What I mean is that they cannot advise a given course of action as low risk if it is not proven to be so by the scientific method.
September 4, 2020
Nobody is bound by any “precautionary principle”.
The idea is imaginary. There is certainly no “principle” that binds us to take disproportionate measures to mitigate false or exaggerated claims of harm.
Balancing risk is a matter of policy and personal judgement.
August 26, 2020
It you get a chance watch Dan Wootton from Talk Radio interview Denise Welch on YouTube
Title “Denise Welch I am not prepared to listen to the mainstream media narrative on coronavirus”
It should be a real eye opener
August 26, 2020
The powers, that apparently leave you a quivering heap, already exist and more, under Notifiable Diseases law, and have done for a very long time.
However, they are limited by the Human Rights Act.
Be rid of that if you like, eh?
August 26, 2020
Rubbish Martin in Cardiff – READ THE CORONAVIRUS ACT!!
zorro
August 26, 2020
I’ve never detected anyone in a quivering heap on here MARTIN. Frequently driven to repetitive nonsensical blame accusations yes, a few of you, but us quivering? Not on your life.
August 26, 2020
They are either waking up or totally complicit.
There can be no third way.
Children in masks!!!
My God…the connotations.
August 26, 2020
You apparently have no problem with their having been sent up chimneys and down coal mines at one time – Britain’s Glorious Past – so your self-provoked outrage over this protective measure seems a little odd.
August 26, 2020
And what can you do to prevent children going up chimneys in 1839, Martin?
August 26, 2020
You apparently have no problem with the state imposing complete control of its citizens.
See? It’s easy to write nonsense about other people.
August 26, 2020
“Complete” control?
You mean that we all lie there, paralysed in our beds, until activated by the Government?
What a funny thing to say.
August 26, 2020
Oh…you agree that the English have a huge and true claim to historic victimhood. Good.
Well we do not want to allow the mistakes of history to be repeated…do we?
Masks are unnecessary, psychologically damaging and no protection against anything except breathing properly.
Governments used to sweep children off the streets of London and sell them into slavery…now they want to terrify them into subservience.
August 26, 2020
What hysterical baloney.
August 26, 2020
Good to see that Marcus Fysh is telling Our Dear Leader that enough is enough re muzzling….. That does Surgeon have on Our Dear Leader, JR?
Why does vote Tory mean voting for SNP leadership in practice??
zorro
August 26, 2020
The BBCās wish to avoid singing āBritons never never never shall be slavesā speaks volumes about how hostile to freedom many in the establishment have become.
The bbc should remember who pays there wages, and itās not the easily lead leftist rent a mob brain washed snowflakes, if people donāt want to be patriotic and listen to it being sung then turn your bloody tele off , Iām sick to the back teeth of hearing the rantings of the young who sometimes donāt have a bloody clue why there protesting about but itās fun to be a part of it , but hopefully one day the penny will drop and theyāll come to there senses, but until then shut it
August 26, 2020
My wife listens to the Today programme in the morning. She hates the BBC so it must be like torture.
The small amount I hear consists the BBC reporters showing their unquestioning worship the new Covid God.
August 26, 2020
Well, if the BBC’s new god is Covid19 (and that seems very likely), then I say it’s an improvement on their previous gods of the EU and of CAGW.
It’s no wonder Barnier believes Boris will capitulate to the EU in the end, when he sees Boris capitulating to Covid19 hysteria on a daily basis.
August 26, 2020
I’m glad you didn’t use a full stop at the end of your post, Mick, as that would have offended a few more sjws and snowflakes!
You’ve saved me typing by your excellent post – thank you!
August 26, 2020
The lily-livered wet lettuces all appear to be on the Right these days Scrobs, turned into ashen-faced, quivering jellies, at the mere thought of wearing a bit of cloth on their faces in enclosed spaces, usually for an hour a day tops.
August 26, 2020
wet lettuces, infeasible, quivering ……been on a creative writing course, have we?
August 26, 2020
Martin, It’s not the “bit of cloth”, it’s the sheer pointlessness of it, the unnecessary nannying since Covid19 has died down, and the very disturbing authoritarianism. But then you are an authoritarian so it’s no wonder you won’t understand.
August 26, 2020
No, I’m not.
It’s just that I can tell the trivial from the materially important.
Like hearing “land of hope and glory” on the BBC is so trivial as to be utterly irrelevant, as is wearing a mask in a shop.
Losing the right, to be treated absolutely as an equal to the other citizens in twenty-seven other countries is an egregious loss of material standing in law on the other hand.
August 26, 2020
Gosh
How clever you are Martin
As you tell us with your posts
Many which start with
No I’m not..
I can do this or that
I am…
Maybe self assessment isn’t you’re strong suit,
August 26, 2020
Because we know the face masks are part of a lie and Boris has handed you yet another thing to beat us with.
(I’m having to wear one for a LOT more than an hour a day.)
August 26, 2020
True, where are CND now.
August 26, 2020
I am sick of the old who are permanently outraged by everything.
Genuinely, it is like you have all turned into Victor Meldrew or Basil Fawlty.
August 26, 2020
I’m 3 years old
August 26, 2020
Perhaps it is people like you who have made us that way. I know for certain, that even if (I say if) I am Victor Meldrew now, I certainly never was when I was in my forties. You have a 30 year head start on me.
August 26, 2020
Andy if anybody is Meldrew, with a daily whine, itās you! Apparently only you are blind to that! (PS Meldrew is a socialist too – maybe thatās enough to make anybody whine!)
August 26, 2020
Come on Andy.
I’m old.
I’m outraged by this degenerate government, and by the general niggardliness which led to the Leave vote, and by everything which followed from that.
I couldn’t care less about missing the out-of-date, embarrassing singalong, which thankfully won’t happen for once this year though.
August 26, 2020
It is easy to be generous with other people’s money – but honestly, I fail to see how you equate people who simply wish to be independent of the political EU with being niggardly.
Pray tell.
August 26, 2020
Martin, What “general niggardliness which led to the Leave vote”? Leave is based on the absolutely fundamental principles of liberty and self determination. We voted to regain British people’s sovereignty, and because the EU is a corrupt, hostile, vindictive, artificial foreign power.
Better to be poor and free, than rich slaves of the EU. Yet history shows that foregoing liberty in order to become rich results in neither liberty nor riches. Rejoice for our children’s sake that we are leaving the rotten EU empire.
August 26, 2020
What a load of woolly, undefinable waffle, of nostalgic, sentimental button-pushing for suckers.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
August 26, 2020
Yet you seem content with the Welsh assembly which was created with a tiny majority vote.
August 27, 2020
The creation of the Welsh Assembly gave people here additional democratic rights.
They can use them if they wish.
It did not deprive them of a whole raft of far-reaching ones.
August 27, 2020
I note as usual you dodged the actual issue.
The independent UK will also be more free and democratic.
It will regain power to govern itself.
The opportunities are endless.
For example laws will in future only be made by people voted in by UK voters not by the unelected EU Commissioners.
Decisions on budgets and spending will no longer have to be approved by the EU.
We can trade with any nation we like having made our own deals with them on terms which suit both parties.
The list is endless.
August 26, 2020
Andy – – we have all realised you ‘are sick of the old’ — many of us realise you are just sick.
August 26, 2020
I identify as a KFC and I’m 10 years old.
August 26, 2020
A much better exemplar for this site would be “Till Death Us Do Part”. Elderly patriarch Alf Garnett was a reactionary white working-class man who holds anti-socialist views.
BTW. Last evening number crunchers estimated that Boris has done at least eight, probably eleven policy U-turns so far, as he now appears to be following Nicola Sturgeon (NS) on virus control management.
So we have started a sweepstake on how many more U-turns, from today, he will make before he follows NS on Brexit.
August 26, 2020
Acorn, And a much better exemplar for you is Dave Spart.
August 26, 2020
Andy
Stop at “I am sick……” no need to waste space further.
August 26, 2020
Clearly your irony detection sensor needs replacing. The bloke who posts on here many times a day – constantly outraged by the government, the old, the Brexiteers, the Tories et al – is sick of the old who are permanently outraged by everything.
The words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ leap to mind.
August 26, 2020
Thank goodness Boris has ‘told’ the BBC that the words of Rule Britannia will be sung next year.
The argument that an empty Albert Hall this year would make singing the words ‘artistically difficult’ sounds phoney. Strong political leadership is required so that the BBC do not, this year, get away with their attempts to change years of tradition to satisfy their internal anti-patriotic sentiments.
August 26, 2020
Certainly the comment about making singing the words ‘artistically difficult’ is weird, given the 1000s of soloists who will have performed in the Albert Hall most successfully, but it appears that the hysteria over the ‘slave’ element was fomented by The Sunday Times and was then stupidly mishandled by the BBC in its response.
August 26, 2020
Yes the BBC are the servants of the people, not another tax collecting, unelected political arbiter of the lives of people.
August 26, 2020
Agricola, Hahaha – good one – the BBC are the servants of the people. Have you heard them explain why they keep us in the dark about the stuff of which they disapprove? Corrupt though the BBC is, I suppose they are less so than their idol the EU.
August 26, 2020
I’ve thought this through and have decided that at the next sign of BBC bias, or of its hatred for this country, I’ll be switching off my TV and cancelling my licence. My protest won’t be a long-term one – maybe a month or two – but its the only thing I can do to adequately convey my visceral hatred for the Beeb. This is my freedom. I am disappointed that the government has failed to act sooner.
August 26, 2020
You wonāt be missing much. Most TV is available for free on catch up services. There is less live sport on terrestrial TV now anyway.
So unless you like talent competitions, bakery shows, soap operas or reality TV, itās no great sacrifice. News is available elsewhere.
August 26, 2020
I identify as a KFC and I’m 10 years old. Cancelled mine right after the referendum. Couldn’t stand the constant remain bias.
August 26, 2020
Sea Warrior, Give it a couple of months, and you won’t go back. Why give the BBC over Ā£150 every year to undermine our country?
August 29, 2020
Plenty of subscription services via the net, which are not broadcast “over the air” simultaneously so you do not require a licence. Not just movies, but a vast treasure of information, less so freedom of expression.
August 26, 2020
I think that it was the BBC, which informed Johnson of the fact.
August 26, 2020
What? The BBC “informed” someone about something? Wonders will never cease!! Usually they just peddle propaganda: in favour of the EU, promoting the theory of CAGW, and whingeing about how terrible is Covid19. That’s when they’re not slagging off Trump and Leave voters, or slavishly promoting Merkel, Macron and Biden.
August 26, 2020
Tony Hall, Baron Hall of Birkenhead also suggested it was for āartisticā reasons who does he think is fooled by that? Not many. PPE Oxon chap yet again they get everywhere. An appalling choice for DG – almost as bad as when Cameron chose Lord Patton to chair the BBC trust. A decision that told us for sure that David Cameron was a pro EU, lefty, fake Tory.
August 26, 2020
Under Hall the BBC has become even more woke, more left wing, more pro EU, more one sided anti-Trump and more one sided climate alarmist more Marxist Black Lives Matter supporting. They are wrong on almost everything. They do not even produce decent programmes anymore perhaps just one or two once in a while. They are obsessed with diversity but have no diversity of politician opinions or on the above.
Andrew Roberts is surely right today in the Telegraph.
The woke war on British history must not be allowed to succeed
Tearing down the heroes of the past risks creating āØan atomised society that is more divided than ever
August 26, 2020
The BBC was always anti-British and pro-EU. Before WWII it kept Churchill off the airwaves (it had a monopoly at the time) for 28 consecutive months.
He had to go to a ship in the Channel to broadcast.
A leopard NEVER changes its spots.
Defund the BBC! Unilaterally. Stop paying.
If you pay, stop whining!
August 26, 2020
Interesting but not quite in agreement with āWho tried to silence Churchillās 1930s warnings about Nazi Germany?ā by Richard M. Langworth 05/06/2018 @ winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu
August 26, 2020
My source is correct. Norris McWhirter. He never got any detail wrong.
August 27, 2020
From which N.McWhirterās books did you get that? As far as I could see from his bibliography, he did not seem to register as a historian. But sometimes impressions might be wrong, so please provide the reference. Thanks in advance.
August 26, 2020
Hall told us the other day the BBC can represent us after Brexit! (As a way of getting more money out of us.)
August 26, 2020
It is all part of an agenda to tear down points of reference so that the subdued population looks to them for guidance and what to think….
zorro
August 26, 2020
I was invited to a Frank Sinatra concert at the Albert Hall. He had no difficulty, even aged 70, getting over any “artistic difficulties”.
August 26, 2020
Phoney in the same way that we were told Big Ben could not be rung to celebrate Brexit because of the cost. You call it phoney, I call it bull***t
August 26, 2020
Indeed
August 27, 2020
It was probably because it was in no CS’s job description, and the Tories would therefore have had to to organise it themselves.
That would have meant actually lifting a finger.
We can only surmise.
But you seem to care as if it affected your life, which is comical, really.
August 26, 2020
Boris the appeaser talks tough but in the end always caves in. This Government under his watch have done so many u-turns already, they are an embarrassment.
August 26, 2020
His next speech should contain the following phrase.
“U-turn if you want to. The gentleman has already turned.”
š
August 26, 2020
or ‘been turned’ as Frederick Forsyth might venture to say.
August 26, 2020
An 80 seat majority.
I dread to think what an appeaser he would have been without and how bad things are going to get.
August 26, 2020
The Government aren’t appeasing anyone.
As you say, they have an eighty-seat majority.
So they are doing what they want to do, and no one can make them do anything else. The U-turns are because they change their minds as to what that is.
Actually, usually to a less silly position than their first, to be fair.
They should perhaps carry on in that way.
August 26, 2020
My point wasn’t in defence of the government.
August 26, 2020
Plenty of time,
Four years until the next election.
Sir Neal Starmer is the ideal leader of a far left party with few policies.
August 26, 2020
JoolsB, Yes, it’s no wonder Barnier thinks Boris will cave in. We have nearly 50 years experience of capitulating to the EU. Given Boris’s U-turn track record, all Barnier has to to do is wait and issue dark warnings, and Boris will buckle.
August 26, 2020
āartistically difficultā .
What absolute claptrap……been in there listening to various types of singing without being aware of it being difficult.
August 26, 2020
Sir Issac Newton showed for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It appears one of the consequences of lockdown is 10 million people have got off the hamster wheel and are much happier working from home. You cannot socially distance on trains and I have spent many winters watching over half the train carriage coughing and sneezing. Offices and trains are perfect super spreader locations. The Government ānudge unitā is a perfect example of trying to achieve a goal without thinking of the consequences.
Now the public have seen a full scale revolution is the way we work is possible they will realise that large scale revolutionary capitalist driven changes are possible. The nudge unit turned out to be a revolutionary unit but not an authoritarian one as they hoped. The people will realise if 20th century ideas like commuting can be changed over night to every bodies benefit then the BBC can be removed to every bodies benefit. The BBC has followed the neo-Marxist agenda of fermenting revolution by undermining civil societies traditions. It is anti-Conservative.It is an authoritarian left wing propaganda broadcaster. It needs to go.
The nudge unit doesnāt just turn out to be the Department for Revolutions, it turns out to be the Department for Unintended Capitalist Revolutions.
If the entire 20th century railway commuting can be changed overnight then stopping the BBC licence paying funding is a minor change who consequence will be the return of Conservative values.
August 26, 2020
Agreed. Also we can get rid of the House of Lords, which no longer serves any function.
August 27, 2020
When did it? And to scrutinise the Bills many of us would think 20 varied experienced people would be fine.
August 26, 2020
Those who attempt to restrict the freedom of others should be detained themselves.
The BBC deserves sentencing to several days suspension on detention for each offence.
August 26, 2020
The nostalgia for Jaguar gave us so much fun yesterday and now we have to get back to reality again. Littlejohn in the DM sail it all yesterday on the BBC, a guest Finnish conductor and Rule Brittania. I wonder why all those foreigners who hate our partial history keep falling over themselves to come and live in the UK. What are we getting so right for them that we could put an end to and solve our immigrant problem.
Personal freedom is acceptable to the point where it limits the personal freedom of others. There is a positive/negative thought you can debate John. I do know that limiting peoples freedom for health and safety reasons encourages extreme reactions, like free climbing and base jumping. In the bad old days in mountain rescue it was the ill clad incompetent day trippers, not those who came to grief in our own sport, who used to piss us off. The extreme performers were only killing themselves. At the other end we have the freedom, given and taken by some cyclists that cause mayhem and death on our pavements and roads in large cities. That is the unacceptable aspect of freedom.
The great weakness in the UK is the total lack of anyone policing the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable freedom. I have been here six weeks and have yet to see a policeman. This contrasts very negatively with the sense of greater freedom where I live most of my time and the number of policemen I see by the hour.
In the UK the finger pointers reign. Ask for volunteers to run a radar trap and they fall out of the woodwork. In its official form they sift your garbbage to ensure it is all correctly positioned, then dump it all in landfill. Why are the “Its more than me jobsworths” such mindless idiots.
National governments are more interested in political infighting, they leave the interaction with the public to a lower level of control. Inevitably their concern is money grubbing at every opportunity, not the well being and freedom of those they are supposed to serve. I come back to my principal doctrine. Personal freedom is and always should be acceptable to the point where it limits another persons freedom.
August 26, 2020
I agree but lest us not forget our host was a loyal supporter of Thatcher who using sport as a political weapon pressurised the British Olympic Committee into not going to Moscow in 1980 albeit they bravely stood up to her with some concessions. My sport run by old colonial farts let its athletes down by not going.
That was a gross restriction of our freedoms that you now support, politics allowing you to face both ways.
It was a gross mistake because it denied the Russian people the opportunity to see 1000s of people from the west, joyous unthreatening etc allowing the Russian leadership through the press to categorise us as anti Russia, prostitutes, spivs etc and could have hastened the changes that came later. In fact it did the opposite of what was intended and reinforced the soviet bloc. They also won more medals against weakened teams again reinforcing their system. It was a gross act of political stubbornness.
As for singing, the BOA agreed that if we won gold a ridiculous European anthem dirge would be played. In fact on those occasions we sang the national anthem so lustily that we could be heard on the podium. The magnificent Daley Thomson heard it and turned to us and pretended to conduct.
When the Albert hall is full again no amount of BBC censorship will stop people singing. It only needs a few to start.
August 27, 2020
“The governments of the United Kingdom, France, and Australia supported the boycott, but left any final decision over the participation of their country’s athletes to their respective NOCs and the decision of their individual athletes. The United Kingdom and France sent a much smaller athletic delegation than would have originally been possible. The British associations that governed equestrian sports, hockey, and yachting completely boycotted the 1980 summer Olympics.” Wiki
August 26, 2020
I think the problematic line has more to do with Ā«Ā Rule, Britannia! rule the wavesĀ«Ā but the whole issue is a complete storm in a tea cup.
Thatās how the poem was written in the XVIII century (1740 ?).
August 26, 2020
The timing of it.
They are using CV19.
Wicked.
August 26, 2020
Rules the waves?? – -we can’t even stop RIBs from Calais !!! but then again our govt clearly do not want to. “Roll up Roll up – free houses, cash, healthcare and everything else – no work or contribution needed “.
August 26, 2020
Wrong – we can stop the RIBs we just choose not too
August 26, 2020
Bigneil, Just so. More empty promises from the government; then when the fury abates they roll out the welcome mat again.
August 26, 2020
The line is not in any way problematic. We English sing it, knowing full well that we are no longer a world power but we like to remind ourselves nevertheless of a time of unmitigated ambition which some of us believe can be regained by replacing self-doubt with a renewed confidence and sense of purpose. Obviously that will mean politics, the MSM and particularly the advertising industry will need to be deep cleansed of the enemy within before we can start to advance.
August 26, 2020
Defund the BBC.
It’s a quasi Marxist organisation and should be soley subscription.
It’s constant drip of bile against the government and ramming racism and global warming down our throat makes it unfit for purpose.
Putting the lefty Nicky Morgan in charge is absolutely diabolical.
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
Itās time that the BBC license fee payer had a say over how the corporation is run. It should be treated the same as a limited company where the shareholders get to vote on the appointment of the management, their pay and how it is run. What happened to no tax without representation? Making the BBC accountable to its viewers would soon end the wokist, leftist brigadeās indoctrination of the population. Our Government must put this in place immediately but I doubt they will do anything the majority of the population want. I often wonder who it is they think they work for. Heaven forbid Boris puts forward popular legislation.
August 26, 2020
Like always this and every government says they will have the debate at the time of charter renewal……ie please forget about it
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
The problem with Rule Britannia is not the chorus – the only bit any of us know anyway. It is the rest of it. It is actually a pretty grotty depiction of the worst aspects of Empire and colonialism. And it is important that we constantly reevaluate our past.
Britain has done some great things for the world. But we have also done some monstrous things too – and there really is nothing wrong with accepting both. Yes we were instrumental in the defeat of Hitler. But, yes, we also failed to act to mitigate terrible famine in India and we literally ran concentration camps and murdered people in Kenya. Both of these things in the lifetimes of many of you.
It is important we constantly evaluate our history warts and all – and the BBC is spot on to ask whether in this year, when people will not be in the Albert Hall anyway, it is time to think about these things in a more considered way. Though obviously it outrages those who are outraged by everything. But who, ironically, always accuse everyone else of being outraged.
I am not particularly offended by Rule Britannia. I am offended that even daring to talk about it creates a chorus of outrage from those who accuse everyone else of being woke or snowflakes.
You really all need to get better at debate and worse at outrage.
August 26, 2020
You are just a blatant liar! ā literally ran concentration camps and murdered people in Kenyaā
August 27, 2020
The British used the camps in the Boer war – its well documented and attested.
As are the dreadful atrocities during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the 1950s, for which some survivors were compensated in recent years.
Take off those silly pink-white-and-blue spectacles.
August 27, 2020
Versus 100 million killed by socialism in the 20th century.
August 26, 2020
Really?
The nations not so blest as thee
Must, in their turn, to tyrants fall,
While thou shalt flourish great and free:
The dread and envy of them all.
seems to be a description of the kind of problems that drives refugees our way.
The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coasts repair.
Blest isle! with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
seems almost prophetic about boat people.
August 26, 2020
I am less bothered about the temporary curbs on my freedoms to help fights the pandemic.
I am get more concerned about the mass of permanent freedoms this Brexit government has removed.
Until January I was free to choose which of 30 countries I wanted to live in. I can now choose just 1 – thanks to a failed government elected by a minority.
Removing our freedoms to try to appease an angry minority of mostly elderly white men.
August 26, 2020
What are you talking about – all over the world there are people of one nationality living in another country . Eg there are more Britons living in Australia than there are in the EU. You donāt need the UK to be in a political union in order to live in another country. Have you ever run into an American living in the U.K. eg?
August 26, 2020
He nearly always talks a load of bollocke.He could move to Scotland, Wales or NI. Even the 27 countries of the EU would accept him if he could fulfil their financial requirements. Aurevoir et bientot.
August 26, 2020
Richard1
But who wants to live in Australia or America? Only Europe will do for educated, cultured people.
August 26, 2020
oh thatās why the boat people from Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan are pouring into Europe! Because they are āeducated cultured peopleā!
August 26, 2020
What a silly comment.
And you can also go and live in Europe if you like, either in an EU country or a non-EU one. Just meet the criteria, as with anywhere else.
August 26, 2020
What a strange view.
Two wonderful countries with good standards of living.
They are high on the list for people who want to emigrate there.
Although there are some good places in Europe too.
August 26, 2020
Only Europe will do for partly educated, deluded people.
August 29, 2020
I hope you have not offended any Scottish person. You could be getting a knock on the door.
Freedom of speech means being offended sometimes. And you probably have.
August 26, 2020
One day maybe, you will actually write something truthful.
August 26, 2020
We can only hope that the one you choose to live in is not this one, the U.K.!
August 26, 2020
What makes you think that they are temporary? The WHO is already hinting that the ‘temporary’ measures must remain even if there is a vaccine. Do I need to remind you that there has been a flu vaccine for years but people still die of flu currently at six times the COVID rate…. They want muzzling FOREVER!
zorro
August 26, 2020
you’ve had years to follow your dream to live somewhere else. Missed the boat? Strange that.
August 26, 2020
Andy
I agree with you….it is very sad you can’t live in another country…most here would most probably assist your immediate departure with glee!
August 26, 2020
Andy. You are talking a load of codswallop AGAIN. Nobody is stopping you going to live in the E.U. Or anywhere else.
The further away the better as far as I’m concerned.
Signed VICTOR MELDREW MARK ‘X’
August 26, 2020
Andy, I lived and worked in Kitwe for 3 years and Doha for 20, I also owned property in Cyprus and worked in USA. Nothing to do with EU. membership all to do with my skills and willingness to travel.
Get your kids a decent apprenticeship and the worlds their oyster.
August 26, 2020
My husband went to live and work in Germany in the ā60ās, of course he is fluent in German and could lecture economics at Mainz University. He is now an āold white man of course, so attracts your daily abuse (#bekind; #chooselove). So if you are what Margaret calls āan educated cultured personā, many countries around the world Have always and always will compete for you.
Has no country invited you Andy? Are we stuck with you because you started here and we had no choice?
Surely you are not like Kohl and Heath and only speak your own language? How many languages do you speak? You internationalist children can give us all such a lead!
August 26, 2020
Andy, Your problem is that now those 27 countries have the right to reject you, which they didn’t have before. Are you afraid they will? Is that what this is all about but you’re too afraid to say?
August 26, 2020
Are you on some “do not fly” list?
August 26, 2020
Good morning.
The line is an act of defiance against tyranny. So no wonder the Marists loathe it !
I wonder what Auntie thinks of those poor people being made to work in sweatshops in the UK for below minimum wage ? But as usual, they will not go near it. Too embarrassing.
August 26, 2020
The Big Three oppressors of ordinary people are their employer, landlord and lender.
But the ZHC worker, sat on unpaid standby 24/365, waiting for his boss to call, to run scurrying at the drop of a hat – whatever else he might have been doing – to do a shift of any length anywhere need not worry.
John is campaigning for his FREEDOM. That is, to listen to generations out-of-date songs being sung on his television, broadcast by the BBC.
All is well with the world, and God is in His Heaven.
August 26, 2020
Mr Redwood often has to ask for no more than one contribution to his blog on any given day and of one paragraph preferably. Your patronising moral superiority means you ignore this. Please try learning some courtesy and politeness and cease the tiresome repetition of views and slurs about others who donāt share your world view.
August 26, 2020
Martin in Cardiff says,āthe big three oppressors of ordinary people…ā
I donāt know if you realise, Martin, this is exactly how Marx saw things; the oppressors and the oppressed.
Life is not black and white, there are many shades of grey.
August 26, 2020
Sharon – – oh he realises all right.
August 26, 2020
Right, well, how does a borrower oppress his lender, an employee his boss, and a tenant his landlord?
No, the wealthy don’t feel it as much as the poor, but let’s consider someone who does.
August 26, 2020
A borrower defaults and bankrupts his lender.
An employee withdraws Labour, works to rule etc etc
A tenant occupies property and refuses to pay rent. It costs Ā£5k and sometimes years to evict. The landlord has to continue paying mortgage etc or he loses te property and his investment.
August 26, 2020
Thanks – I needed a chuckle this morning.
It’s “Sir John”, by the way, or just “John” if you want to be more relaxed, as I was taught.
August 26, 2020
Martin, Has it ever occurred to you that you’re not entitled to decide how JR should be addressed? That the right belongs to JR and not you? Silly me – of course it hasn’t.
August 26, 2020
As I said, I was conveying *what I was taught*, nothing more.
August 26, 2020
Like the miners the Tories are now being urged by their voters to take on the BBC and defund it.
I expect we’ll end up paying for it through direct taxation but at least it won’t be able to hide from the fact that it’s a state broadcaster.
It will also expose the Tories and Boris for what they really are.
My employer is not my oppressor.
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
It appears from your many postings, MiC, that you would prefer a system in which there is only one Really Big Oppressor: the State.
August 26, 2020
I’d prefer NO oppressors.
August 26, 2020
So, Martin, you’ve finally decided to endorse our escape from the oppression of the EU? I am amazed.
August 26, 2020
I suppose that if you want to oppress people, but the European Union stops you from doing that, then in turn, from your personal perspective, you are being oppressed, yes.
And jolly good that is too.
August 26, 2020
Phew
No Lenders so no credit or mortgages
No Employers so no jobs
No Landlords so no home or shop
And that is preferable to having a job, having a home and paying it off over 25 years with a mortgage?
August 27, 2020
Like all socialists Martin has a fantasy of a benevolent great leader and fairness for everyone but it never happens.
It ends like it always has and always will.
100 million dead from the evils of socialism in the 20th century.
As Rod Liddle said, socialism starts with good intentions and ends with people having to eat their pets to survive.
August 27, 2020
It is the regulation of those relationships, which determines whether, under some circumstances, they can be unduly oppressive.
Tory rule loads the law heavily, further in favour of the already powerful.
It does so by restricting access to legal aid and to employment tribunals, by undermining contract law, by eroding security of tenure and so on.
August 27, 2020
Tory law you dislike is proposed in a published manifesto and then that party is elected by the voters to be a government.
Those laws are then debated and passed by a majority in Parliament into law.
Perhaps a majority don’t agree with you.
Like the last election.
It seems to be a common feature of your huge number of posts on here.
August 26, 2020
‘Out of date songs’.
It is tradition – do you want the Changing of the Guard and their 200 year old uniforms done away with in favour of khaki and Fidel Castro caps?
August 26, 2020
It is amazing that you still choose to live in Britain, MIC. If you detest our culture with its “out of date” songs and other musical events, why don’t you relocate elsewhere, an option that is open to any individual who is offended by all British culture, statues, songs, and so on? That option is freedom in itself….freedom to leave the country, rather than trying to bend it to fit what you want.
August 26, 2020
I don’t detest British culture at all. Much of it is marvellous, and we each have our own personal relationships with it. I find our humorists throughout the ages hard to beat, for instance.
However, I think that those particular songs are from another era, and reflect attitudes which most of us no longer have. As music they’re pretty mediocre too.
So they’re at the low end for me, and even though they don’t offend me, I won’t miss them.
August 26, 2020
Those particular songs are from another era, and reflect virtuous attitudes which a few no longer have. There, fixed it for you.
August 26, 2020
OK
But we *vote* on these things !
You don’t just abolish them or take them by force !
August 27, 2020
Nor can you compel people to sing or to listen to them by force.
August 27, 2020
No you can’t
It is what is known as freedom of choice.
I realise this is a completely alien concept to socialists.
August 26, 2020
They are old songs of tradition and form part of our history.
Like you might have a quiet liking for the Red Flag song which is chorused at every Labour party conference.
August 26, 2020
… the tune for which can be dated to the late 16th century, and came to widespread notice from the German carol O Tannenbaum, written in 1824.
August 26, 2020
you’d prefer that classy ‘keep the red flying here’ I suppose.
“Deutschland, Deutschland Ć¼ber alles, Ć¼ber alles in der Welt” ?
The Russian anthem praising the mass murderer Stalin?
August 26, 2020
Keep going Fred.
You’ll find one I like eventually.
Actually, as national anthems go, the Welsh one’s among the better, I think.
August 26, 2020
There’s lovely, wonderful to sing bach, isnit?
We can agree on that.
Also enjoy Bread of Heaven.
August 27, 2020
I’m English, Fred, but it’s a good enough tune.
I think that John likes it too.
August 27, 2020
but might have had trouble with the words….:-)
August 27, 2020
Martin the only zero-hours workers I have are those who asked me to be zero hours, not tied down to any weeks or any shifts, free to call me to offer their services when they are free and free to say no if they are busy. There are only three of them and they are retired, if I had to guarantee them weekly hours it wouldn’t suit them or I and their savings for their holidays would diminish. They get one days holiday for every nine days worked the same as anyone else too.
The freedom is the workers, if they don’t like the terms there are other jobs advertised, they could train and get other work.
August 26, 2020
Was it all a sort of exercise in seeing how far left leaning, international bodies via compliant national govts could push us? Theyād tried it before with swine flu, Ebola, SARS etc etc. I actually thought theyād given up! Very confusing.
By the by it has handed Scotland a unique lever…āWeāll breakup the Union, if you donāt impose this and this ….ā And with ODL it seems to work every time.
They have their answer…we can be pushed a long, long way with the help of the Left.
Johnson will not recover politically if he puts children in masks.
And why the Hell should he?
How cruel and destabilising this has all been.
August 26, 2020
And so it continues. The worst COVID figures in Europe, utter chaos in our schools, looming barriers to trade at all our ports in January and Northern Ireland split from GB, and you try to distract our attention with a phoney story about a song. Shameful, but no more than we have come to expect from Mr Cumings and his willing puppets
August 26, 2020
Belgium has a higher per capita death rate than us and Spain, Italy and Sweden have similar rates to ours.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/
Utter chaos in schools is down to lazy teachers, barriers to trade will be due to EU intransigence and NI can determine their own future democratically.
August 26, 2020
Tony Gee, No, the barriers – if any – will stay exactly the same for nearly 88% of our GDP. Shameful, but no more than we have come to expect from you Remains.
August 27, 2020
So you couldn’t care less about a whole twelve percent of GDP.
Why are you so bothered about the mere 0.7% which gets spent on overseas aid then?
August 26, 2020
Good Morning,
I do hope we will be able to rejoice in singing this hymn to freedom come 1st January 2021.
Our Laws, our land and waters, our future. Will it be so?
August 26, 2020
“Today our liberties are under pressure.”
Understatement of the decade….
Yes, government does need to roll back its reach – it has become intolerant, inward looking, defensive and now borders on irrational control of the masses at any cost.
Please remind the government that we are not cattle!
We also have to stop the following of those that claim ‘this is the new normal’ — Far from it – It is the normal that the Authoritarians want to impose on us.
TV adverts are also repeating that same message, effectively that we have to deny our own future, and do as the ‘experts’ demand!
August 26, 2020
Hear hear. Well said Bryan.
August 26, 2020
I agree. No to the false ‘New Normal”
August 26, 2020
Bryan, I agree: no lockdown; no face muzzles; and back to school without restrictions.
August 26, 2020
It was so refreshing to hear a little bit of the old Mr Johnson shine through yesterday, giving us a glimpse of the incisiveness and instinctive leadership qualities he appears to have had knocked out of him. Tellingly, he remarked that, “They’re trying to restrain me from saying this.” Who are “They”?
August 26, 2020
I agree with your post – for too long (the last 6 months) we have been lectured too and brow-beaten by the governmental equivalent of Middle Management guff and box tickers and it has been blooming depressing!
Much more is now known about this ākiller coldā virus and itās about time that Sir Johnsā colleagues get on the front foot and declare that everyone get on with their lives, save for those who should take the necessary precautions. This has gone on for far, far too long
Itās way beyond the point of sheer obstructionism, pessimism and annoyance
August 26, 2020
I agree with absolutely all you say, Mr Redwood.
Many more people are openly criticising the organisations BBC, NT etc for their Marxist/woke behaviours…even Nigel Farage used the word Marxist yesterday which heās never done before.
That said, why oh why are the government behaving in the same way as these woke organisations? Is it the mandarins, Permanent Secretaries encouraging it? But that doesnāt explain Borisā responses!
The latest response being the wearing of masks in schools – I really feel the world has gone bonkers!
What can be done for your suggestions of allowing schools and individuals and business to make their own decision?
I know if Boris told the country to sort itself out a lot would ākick offāā, but a bit of tough love needs to come into play, tell people,āyouāre an adult, I know you can work out for yourself what is best for your school/business/family.āAnd let them get on with it. And ignore the remainiacs who will undoubtedly ākick offā without hour by hour instructions.
August 26, 2020
I have just heard Gavin Williams on Talk Radio.
Wearing of masks in high school is only mandatory in schools in areas of lockdown! The rest of schools, it is up to headteachers to decide. That makes a world of difference, but shows the papers and news to be out of date.
August 26, 2020
How come, if they are sooo concerned about our health, govts have ignored and āburiedā terrorist attacks?
Their only concern being that the victims do not complain.
Why is it that being attacked randomly by people brought here by successive governments is not more concerning than a corona virus?
Why is there no need to āSave the NHSā from terrorism?
Iād rather catch the flu than be blown up!
August 26, 2020
Totally support your post, Sir John.
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
Well said! There needs to be collective effort from government and people of influence to get these messages across before the Country is ruined completely. Currently we seem helpless in the face of everything that’s going, we need to get a grip!
August 26, 2020
Time now for the usual silent majority to start speaking up and make their voice heard loud and clear me thinks.
The British people have been far too accommodating to the fake rage minority who have no sense or idea of our long history, for far too long.
Another u turn on masks in Schools after the BBC deliberately muddied the waters yesterday giving a huge amount of air time, and using some rather pathetic teachers non views to stir it up.
The BBC are winning at the moment John so beware !
August 26, 2020
Indeed the idiotic BBC do seem to be winning but then they have income greater than many small countries GDP do not have customers to serve and so can do whatever they like. They suffer from wrong headed group think on almost every single subject. Almost all the front line staff are dimmish lefty, art graduates in the Paul Mason, Andrew Marr or all the Newsnight presenters mode.
August 26, 2020
Do you seriously think, that the people who care about hearing this way out-of-date delusional nonsense on their TVs – like it affected their LIVES š – are a “majority” these days?
There might be enough of them for their votes to matter in marginals, but that is something else altogether.
August 26, 2020
So there is a hidden agenda behind the disease.
I don’t remember anyone winning an election on a manifesto to abolish our culture.
August 26, 2020
Let’s rewind a bit.
A foreign police officer killed a black man 4000 miles away and you use this to create great upheavals in our nation during a pandemic.
August 26, 2020
The trial of the US police officer has not started so it is not clear if Floyd was unlawfully killed or not. The PM findings and toxicology report have not been adequately discussed in the media (yet).
August 26, 2020
Any excuse to create chaos and a socialist dictatorship.
August 26, 2020
I think that you have shot off at a tangent, and at Escape Velocity, apparently.
August 26, 2020
Martin
A tangent ? Really ?
We wouldn’t be discussing Land of Hope and Glory were it not for the abuse of this incident.
August 26, 2020
You always react when the words hit home.
August 27, 2020
The Albert Hall will not be full of people singing because there will be no audience.
Nor will a massed choir be possible.
The job re the orchestra is hard enough.
The connection with BLM was made by the anti-BBC press and the mob who hang on their every word.
Before anyone else said anything, the BBC had already clarified that next year, assuming that restrictions were lifted, the programme would be exactly as it traditionally has been.
The whole thing is an utter non-story, cooked up to distract from the Tories complete shambles of governance.
August 27, 2020
There was a spontaneous reaction from many people.
Even the BBC were surprised at the reaction.
And they have now largely retracted their original position.
You keep on trying to blame “the Tories” and trying to create a conspiracy theory out of it is such a ridiculous clichĆ©.
August 26, 2020
Yes. Labour members, Momentum activists!
August 27, 2020
Just six percent of Labour’s half-a-million members are in Momentum.
August 27, 2020
Bigger percentage than the referendum gap.
You get very excited about that.
August 26, 2020
Sorry to disappoint you. But you are neither silent nor the majority.
The Faragists are a minority which is just very good a whinging.
August 26, 2020
Yet 52% (that’s a majority, Andy) endorsed Farage’s main policy. And Remains weren’t aware of it – so “silent majority” seems a pretty good description to me.
August 27, 2020
It is great the left think there is no such thing as the silent majority or that it only consists of few people.
I love their shock and disbelief when Boris got a huge majority and when the referendum result came in and when Trump got elected.
In November when Trump gets re elected for 4 more years it will hilarious to watch their reactions.
August 27, 2020
It’s the claim by apparently obsessed commenters, that seventeen million people are all as fixated and as extreme as they are, which is just a bit hard to swallow.
Most Leave voters that I know are thoroughly bored with the whole thing, have moved on, and want an end to all this nonsense in whatever way is least damaging to them and to the country generally.
August 27, 2020
Plainly if you switched the words leave and remain in your post it would then be 100% correct.
August 27, 2020
Sorry, are you claiming that seventeen million people obsess about this just as do commenters here, and want no accommodation whatsoever with the European Union, irrespective of the damage to them, to their families, communities, and the country?
You seem to suggest that – please clarify.
August 27, 2020
Clarify…the remain side have spent over four years trying to overturn a democratic referendum vote.
Using every means possible.
Still these fanatics try to stop a decision made by a majority of the voters.
You do it even now.
August 26, 2020
Do you read Guido Fawkes Alan, he has a blog post that says these BBC ‘teachers’ are also a left-wing Labour activist and a Socialist Worker writer.
August 26, 2020
correct
August 26, 2020
A tracy
Yes I do, but I am going from personal knowledge and experience, having had our own Children and Grandchildren go to a variety of Schools.
Also involved in PTA many years ago, although teachers were not so emboldened then.
August 26, 2020
Government has proved itself to be the biggest threat to life and liberty for the whole world. Far too many people refuse to see the danger in reliance on government because they lack any knowledge of history. Any critical examination of the past immediately shows that government is the cause of war, famine, genocide and repression. Central planning and public acquiesance to it are the prelude to disaster every single time it has ever been tried and we see that here in Britain. The country has seen a continuous decline in personal wealth disguised by women entered the workplace and hugely increased debt. In the 1970’s it was perfectly possible for a man to support a family and buy a house on the average wage. He could buy an ounce of gold easily with an average weeks wage. Neither are possible now. Central control has allowed the destruction of the currency’s value and the rise of finacial elites and this year it has allowed the removal of freedom on the largest scale in history based on a fraud. Government is the enemy of the people.
August 26, 2020
I agree with much of that.
Lawson’s economic “miracle” was to replace the confidence previously based on job security with that based on lax credit secured against the very property bubble which that created.
The precipitous plunge in the cost of electronic, electrical, other manufactured goods, and air travel, also concealed dreadful inflation when measured in the more consequential terms as you cite.
So what type of government has the UK mostly had since 1979 then?
August 26, 2020
what type?
Weak, indecisive, deceitful, duplicitous, inexperienced, full of ‘old boys’ even if relatively youthful.
Not sure Sir John who doesn’t fit with any of that will want to publish, but he knows it to be true.
August 26, 2020
That was the ERM. Lawson has repented!
August 26, 2020
Whether Labour or Tory seems to make little difference. One credit boom after another. Relentless increases in property prices making life very difficult for young people. In case you are trying to blame the Tories for everything … in 1997 the new Labour chacellor, Gordon Brown, said:
https://blogs.thisismoney.co.uk/2010/04/brown-i-will-not-allow-house-prices-to-get-out-of-control.html
We then had the dot com bust and interest rates slashed. Property prices boomed – and he did nothing to stop it. The debt bubble inflated and inflated and finally burst in 2008 after the run on Northern Rock who had been lending 110% mortgages bases on massive salary multiples. Labour, of course, tried to blame it on ‘America’ but our problems were grown here by a government that was so up itself it thought it had abolished boom and bust.
So, they are both as bad as each other.
August 26, 2020
I agree with that Mike
August 26, 2020
Mike W, Indeed so. In housing policy Conservatives and Labour are as bad as each other, as you say. So well said for that. But there are other policy areas where they do differ – hopefully leaving the EU will be one of them.
August 26, 2020
Yes, there are some fair points there, along with your own particular emphasis.
Interesting, that in 2010 Nigel Lawson said that the 2007/8 problems in the UK were an unintended consequence of “Big Bang” though, isn’t it?
August 26, 2020
Hear hear.
August 26, 2020
Well said, Jeff.
And, as a further general observation, it seems the bigger the government the more colossal their mistakes. Small is beautiful. Diversity of Governments, systems, opinions, cultures, languages, and ways of living make for an interesting world, and is an insurance against catastrophe.
No to globalism; no to the EU.
August 26, 2020
The slavery to the Main Stream Media is the most offensive.
It has managed to brainwash people to the extent that you can be beaten up in a pub for stating that you would vote for the side that actually won a referendum (Brexit) or an election (led by Mr Johnson or Mr Trump).
If the winners won, it is because they spoke for the views of the true majority.
If you don’t like democracy, go and live in an authoritarian state by all means, but please don’t turn the UK into one.
August 26, 2020
Did you notice Mrs Trump was censored last night, right across our media? If it had been Mrs Obama or Mrs Clinton addressing the American nation, it would have been widely shown and commented on. I suspect this means Mrs Trump did rather well.
August 26, 2020
Jack, it has already happened.
August 26, 2020
I don’t recall Owen Jones ever saying those things in the pub, according to reports.
Are you sure?
August 26, 2020
I wonder whom Mr Hutchinson was saving a victim of violence from.
August 26, 2020
Martin, Your mind is wandering almost as much as Bill Brown’s.
August 26, 2020
Martin’s mind is firmly fixated on an agenda.
Thought you might have noticed?
August 26, 2020
All I can say Sir John is that the draconian legislation under which we now live should be immediately repealed and all restrictions lifted. I see no other way of getting the country back to some sort of normality.
Allison Pearson in the telegraph is the most important read of the day. I doubt there will ever be a more shameful episode than this fraudulent, imo, pandemic.
August 26, 2020
Well using a billion year old phenomina called climate change for a series of political ends takes a bit of beating. I wonder how long before someone turns tidal movement into a political issue.
August 26, 2020
Surely the time has come to relax ALL the controls and restore ALL our dignity and judgement?
Muzzling our young people? Disgraceful and unhealthy on so many levels.
August 26, 2020
Get a grip.
August 26, 2020
Relax all controls??? NEVER say the govt. They want every person fully trackable (except themselves and their pals obviously). Microchipped will be coming soon. Unable to enter places unless your chip has the right signal. Already tracked by Credit or debit card use – – by mobile phone masts – – – ANPR – – – “Assist” on new cars which cannot be turned off because the car won’t work- – A cashless society – – TOTAL CONTROL – – – except for illegals from Calais of course.
August 26, 2020
Once power is conceded you have to fight like hell to get it back, unless of course it is too expensive to retain.
August 26, 2020
Society and the economy needs to be free to recover and this means being free of Hancock and Sunak. If Conservative MPs continue to support the P.M. whilst he has ministers actively destroying the country, and in Mr Sunak’s case pursuing unethical policies then the U.K.’s society and economy will be constrained in its recovery.
It is time to be free of Hancock and Sunak; every minute the P.M. continues with these people and their policies is (presumably knowingly) divisive and destructive.
August 26, 2020
My major objection to the deification of Sunak is that he is as fiscally incontinent as Johnson, is just another politician who thinks that any amount less than Ā£1 bn is small-change. My disgust with the un-Conservative Party is now so strong that I have had to re-join, to save it from itself!
August 26, 2020
If Sunak continues Ā£1bn will become small change.
I am a believer in HS2, I believe in UBI, I believe in a monetary not just fiscal part of a UBI, I believe in a progressive consumption tax, etc. there are many areas where I suspect I am very different to you Sea Warrior, but nonetheless I also conclude Mr Sunak is incontinent in the wind.
August 26, 2020
Wonderful the way the left have chosen this issue, it shows supposedly āmoderateā liberal leftists up for the far left cultural Marxists they really are.
I havenāt been to the last night of the proms and I havenāt watched it for many years. But lots of people get enjoyment out of it and the words of the songs celebrate freedom. The woke leftists at the BBC will turn it into another event by and for people like them. And the audience will plummet accordingly. It will become a sort of cultural newsnight.
The whole thing is another argument for the abolition of the license fee. First thing should be the Keynesian tax cutting measure of cutting it in half. Let the BBC sell itās services in the market place if they can. Otherwise let people spend their money on something else.
August 26, 2020
Last para, absolutely correct. However I suspect that our government are in effect the same genre as the BBC and will not kill off their own kith and kin. The one positive is that the government will become so divorced from their electorate that said electorate will revolt, as in the last Euro election. While government accumulate a deficit with the electorate Nigell will produce a credit agenda.
August 26, 2020
The Liberal Left establishment, with the BBC at its epicentre, detests our freedom. Its bigoted agenda cannot be sold to the British people through argument or persuasion, so it must be dictatorially imposed. No longer able to control us through its beloved totalitarian EU, it is now engaged in a war of attrition against everything that the British people hold dear. The Last Night Of The Proms diktat is only the latest sortie. There will be many more.
August 26, 2020
And they have been empowered by government to make us pay for it.
August 26, 2020
Cuibono, Unfortunately you are probably correct.
August 26, 2020
It is indeed a local responsibility for schools to decide on measures taken against CV alongside the help but not dictat of local public health managers, much as it would be in the event of any other infection.
August 26, 2020
It seems that masks are going to be mandated in school corridors based on WHO guidance. The P.M., Mr Hancock and Mr Williamson need to appreciate that WHO advice is not always context sensitive and does not always consider spillover effects.
In many schools it will be impossible for pupils to wash their hands for 20 seconds (or even correctly sanitise with alcohol) before putting on a mask and after taking it off, between every lesson change. Masks are likely to become less hygienic through the day, and most pupils, particularly those from low income families are unlikely to be able to provide a newly sanitised mask each day.
This is a bad move.
August 26, 2020
The last 0-19 age group CV19 death in England and Wales hospitals was 15th June. In the period from the first to last death (to date) there were 20 deaths in total over 90 days.
(There might be an argument for protecting older / vulnerable teachers in corridors during changeover, or indeed not having them present. There may also be an argument for teaching children to cough or sneeze into disposable tissues, and how to wash their hands.)
August 26, 2020
Caterpillar, Schools did not even provide soap in their toilets for pupils in the 1990s and 2000s. It was something I raised as an issue with the teachers when I saw them on parents’ evenings. I got nowhere.
August 26, 2020
1st world country?
(though I’m probably not allowed to use the term world).
August 26, 2020
Recently Boris has called people ānutsā, āstupidā and āwetā.
He needs to take a long hard look in the mirror.
August 26, 2020
If he did, then the man’s a fool for doing so. Because only a fool criticises his employer.
August 26, 2020
I just waiting for Boris to capitulate to the EU. I hope he won’t, but that is hope over experience. The UK has capitulated to the EU for nigh on half a century, and Boris must be dizzy with his U-turns.
August 26, 2020
I think he was looking at the green benches at the time.
August 26, 2020
“see off the threat of a new slavery.”
Mr. Johnson had no scientific qualifications to bring to bear on COVID-19, but he is well-known for his classical education. I imagine he is aware of the ancient Athenian practice of ostracism, whereby potential tyrants could be sent into exile in order to protect democracy. Now is the opportunity for Mr. Johnson to apply similar reasoning to the benefit of our nation by introducing term limits on the power to make “unprecedented inroads into our personal freedoms for peace time”.
August 26, 2020
JR: “Government is in danger of taking too much to itself.”
This has already happened. Who would have thought how easy it would be for a government to subjugate the population in peacetime? The last 6 months have seemed like living in a weird mixture of George Orwell’s 1984 and Alice in Wonderland given the removal of our liberties and the nonsensical reasons for so doing – not to mention the almost constant government U-turns but still infringing people’s liberty and freedom.
August 26, 2020
Labour and Conservative are two cheeks of the same arse and it’s sitting on my face.
August 26, 2020
Free from law and order?
I am concerned that the Govt seems to want the U.K. to be free from police patrols to prevent crime; the policy seems to be one of de-escalation, limiting stop and search etc. The Govt (and Ms Patel) should look very closely at what has happened in New York recently, with three decades of improvement thrown away in one month, though it has built towards this failure over a few years of reducing policing options.
Policing needs to be focussed on where criminal activity can and does take place, and they need to have teeth in these situations. The U.K. approach is to absolve some groups from responsibility and instead create new activities for the police (as we saw this year where sunbathing was a no-no, and are now seeing with the response to face coverings). I would suggest a focus on violence, weapons, drugs etc. is more important for people’s freedoms. These areas destroy individuals and communities (if a community is relatively homogeneous then obviously tackling the issue will not look proportionate in the statistics, but the silent majority will be better off).
The U.K. is clearly on teetering on the edge over which New York has fallen, the call for police to be able to release bodycam footage so as to get a fair public hearing shows the U.K. is about to fall.
The P.M. needs to stop his political waffle in this area and Ms Patel needs to begin to make a positive difference.
August 26, 2020
Let’s take a step back and ask ourselves: Are the words of ‘Rule Britannia’ still valid, and if they aren’t, can they truthfully be sung?
‘Britons never never never shall be slaves’
Really? Since March, Britons have accepted diktats that have deprived them of livelihoods and their children of the right to be properly educated, have deprived them of the freedom to go about their business as they please, to travel freely, to worship together, to wear or not wear what they please, deprived them of the right to vote, etc. etc. etc.
And Britons mostly don’t seem to mind too much, or so the polls say.
Maybe the BBC is just recognising the facts of where we are now?
August 26, 2020
Indeed.
The EU brought us ‘modern’ slavery.
August 26, 2020
Yes, workers need to be set free from the terrible bondage, of being entitled to refuse to work an average of more than forty-eight hours a week, or to return to work the next day after a break of fewer than eleven hours.
Their gratitude will know no bounds.
August 26, 2020
“You have nothing to lose but your chains !”
August 26, 2020
Your EU allows it.
August 27, 2020
If the workers wish it then of course it does.
August 27, 2020
You usually try to blame “the Tories” so I glad you accept this legislation is from your beloved EU.
The workers had no say in it.
August 27, 2020
I don’t think that you have understood either my post or the Working Time Directive, Ed.
August 27, 2020
I understand both thanks.
August 26, 2020
Not only does Rule Britannia celebrate our freedom from Continental tyranny, but the Navy which is being extolled was the very one which extended that liberty to others by stamping out the slave trade right across the Empire. Now the Empire has gone and Britannia no longer rules the waves, the slave trade is back in a big way.
The very people who are now censoring our songs used to be the sort of people who sneered at Thomas Bowdler. What they are doing now is a hundred times more philistine. There is no question of jingoism or imperialism being expressed. These sentiments went out with the 19th century, if they were ever as widespread as is now made out. The songs are period pieces, like the music. They are sung now with tongue in cheek. It is the same as with Gilbert and Sullivan. People are all too painfully aware that their navy has been drastically reduced.
August 26, 2020
Sir John, thankyou well stated and on message with the majority. Never give up the cause.
The BUT, is why doesn’t this Government understand that they themselves are the slaves to a leftish agenda and do what ever they can to enforce its tyranny.
August 26, 2020
Sir John itās possible we no longer have the right to sing āBritons never never will be slavesā. We were enslaved to the EU for 47 years (we had no control over our present or future) and now it is acknowledged that there are thousands of slaves in the U.K. a new phenomenon.
Perhaps before we can hold our heads up and sing again, we need to stop the slavery? Deal with the slavers? Bring our law-makers to heel?
August 26, 2020
Dear Mr. Redwood,
I sometimes wonder why the UK has so many intractable problems. After all, there are a few, very regular contributors to your blog who believe they have the answer to everything. Some of them posting up to 16 times a day in order to share their unique insight.
I often wonder what it is like to be so marvellously gifted that one is able to provide such commentary, with complete certainty of knowledge and total assurance, on such diverse subjects as the British car industry, the way in which the COVID pandemic is handled, the running of public services, not to mention children’s education, the UK’s place in Europe and the way in which banking and finance should work.
How wonderful it must be! And how gratifying it must be for them to know that so many readers of your blog look forward to their daily contributions.
August 26, 2020
Indeed. They must have their contribution stored in a Notepad file, ready to cut and paste ad nauseam.
August 26, 2020
You omitted to mention ‘green crap’ and the need for us to burn as much oil and coal as possible.
August 26, 2020
Mike W, Why burn “as much oil and coal as possible”? Why not just burn what is necessary? And with Gas as the prime source of energy for electricity generation that won’t be much. So coal and oil are only necessary for chemicals, plastics, and petrol.
August 26, 2020
Alan Joyce, So you know so much you can pronounce what other people are allowed to discuss? How amazing is your self regard.
August 26, 2020
Letās bring life back to normal by getting rid of the dangerous anti-social street barriers in Wokingham. Iāve witnessed an accident, and there have been others. What are they supposed to be achieving?
Reply I have asked the Council to save the money on hiring these.
August 26, 2020
Sir John, I absolutely share your sentiments on the overriding need to restore personal freedom in this country. However, let us not forgot who stole those freedoms without even a parliamentary vote, even overruling rights we supposedly had under Human Rights legislation and the Magna Carta. It was not, as many of your contributors suggest, an attack on freedom led by the liberal left or the MSM, It was an unpreecdented attack on freedom by an incompetent, right wing Tory government. Playing to the galleries with a populist comment to the press about supporting the singing of Rule Britannia does not negate that
August 26, 2020
Villaking, Your revisionist theory that it was all the howwid right wingers’ fault lacks all credibility. Typically it was avowed right wingers who have led the sceptical criticism of the authoritarian pandemic policies, and the hard and soft left who have called for more, and harsher, measures to restrict liberties. But then facts were never your strong point.
August 26, 2020
Thank you for this post. I had been worried about you going soft in recent months, along with most of the rest of the nation. We must get back our sense of proportion and resist the authoritarian policies being pursued, as well as the destructive and divisive progressive movement.
August 26, 2020
This is the product of the British establishment failing to defend our culture or history over BLM, their silence has encouraged these Maoist cultural revolution activists to come for more of our culture, rewrite more of our history and take offence at our existence. A bit of spine at the beginning would stopped all this, but all they found was decedent self loathing rot which encouraged them.
The offence taken against the lyrics of Rule Britannia center around ‘Britons will never be slaves’, the outrage that we aren’t being inclusive of others, odd that considering great offence was taken by the same people when it was felt ‘All lives should matter’ not just a small demographic. The essence of the whole spat though is not about a line in the lyrics, for that is just something they can hang their offence on, what they object to is an uplifting song about our country, that is their target.
Coming back to defending our country, we still await the outcome regarding the person who tried to burn the Union flag on the Cenotaph. We saw the outrage the British establishment heaped on the drunk fool caught short in Parliament square compared to the silence against the flag burner. Every year the British establishment make much play of saying ‘We will remember them’ , well we will see if this translates into action. I am not sure if the British establishment realise it but it’s not just the flag burner who is on trial.
August 26, 2020
Nature abhors a vacuum. It is the same with human nature and its prevailing ideology.
Last night, Melania Trump spoke so graciously to a nation bearing the same Seed: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-53914757
‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord’ (Psalm 33:12a).
August 26, 2020
This is complete nonsense, why do we continue to fund the BBC through a mandatory tax, they do some really great programmes but they should take a look at the BBC mission summarised by Lord Reith as to inform, educate, entertain…it doesn’t say to rewrite history, push a warped view of British history and culture at the audience and make people afraid to say anything which doesnt align with a narrow point of view espoused by the metropolitan left. The line in Land of Hope and Glory says “Britons never will be slaves” not white Britons – ALL BRITONS. Until the PC brigade at the BBC got involved I am pretty sure no-one other than maybe a few academics with a chip on their shoulder had any view that this was some sort of racist chant.
Reply Great contribution. I will encourage the PM to build from his recent statement about the BBC.
August 26, 2020
Reply to reply
I agree Sir John. Well said Pauline.
August 26, 2020
Lol !
A nice little civic nationalist lifeline ( worthy of Blair) to rescue JR from all this jingoism!
August 26, 2020
The BBC does not “wish”, it is individuals hiding behind aunties skirts who are the players in this farce.
I suggest that these individuals within the BBC be identified so their opinions and actions are clear to all and the public can choose to support and pay for such, or not.
If you wish the BBC to remain as an institution I suggest the fee be dropped, the organisation moved to a normal commercial subscription and control of the back catalogue move to a separate organisation. I also question whether the present anti-British organisation should really be allowed to retain the title “British”.
I wonder if the “British” Library ought to experience the same refreshment as well.
August 26, 2020
What more can you say about the BBC; its senior management is beyond dreadful and this government is as weak as its predecessors in not privatising it. Apparently 10% of all magistrates’ cases are for non payment of the tax.
August 26, 2020
Freedom is something which mustn’t be taken for granted and fought for everyday
If left alone it gets eroaded, weaken and manipulated
This government doesn’t/isn’t doing anything to build upon our freedom…..apart from taking – not good enough
August 26, 2020
So whoās in control of our freedom ā in pecking order
1. The Media
2. Lobby groups
3. The Scottish parliament
4. UK government
5. The EU
6. The UK indigenous people
August 26, 2020
Don’t forget the UN in that list.
August 26, 2020
Excellent post, today. I couldn’t believe what I was reading!
‘Today our liberties are under pressure. Government in the name of tackling the pandemic has made unprecedented inroads into our personal freedoms for peace time.Now the threat is much reduced and medical understanding of the virus increased, it is time to relax the controls further and restore more dignity and judgement to us all….
Government is in danger of taking too much to itself. Leaving more to a free people and their private and public sector institutions beyond central government is the right way forward. It will produce better answers, a more prosperous society and see off the threat of a new slavery.’
‘A new slavery’. Thank you, Sir John, for recognising where we are – a very important base from which to set out. (Have you been talking to Lord Sumption by any chance?). The question is what can we now do about it? It seems we need a new government, one with much more common sense, one that recognises that the cost of these measures (both financially, and healthwise) to see off a flu-like virus has been a disaster, and that we must go back to the ‘Old Normal’ immediately.
Are you, Sir John, going to advise the government to change track immediately; or to go, and good riddance? Can you and your colleagues bring about such a change?
[Note: a few days ago SAGE adviser Prof Mark Woolhouse has admitted Lockdown was a āpanic measureā but admitted it was the only option at the time because āwe couldnāt think of anything better to doā.
āLockdown was a panic measure and I believe history will say trying to control Covid-19 through lockdown was a monumental mistake on a global scale, the cure was worse than the disease.
I never want to see national lockdown again. It was always a temporary measure that simply delayed the stage of the epidemic we see now. It was never going to change anything fundamentally, however low we drove down the number of cases,…”]
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1320428/Coronavirus-news-lockdown-mistake-second-wave-Boris-Johnson
August 26, 2020
Yes absolutely and about time to – enough is enough.
Zorro
August 26, 2020
ācouldnāt think of anything better to doā…. well, they could have enacted the existing continuity plans to deal with such an occasion, and follow a more enlightened Swedish model. They didnāt even do a proper risk assessment of what they intended to do, which is criminal in itself and has led to far too many unnecessary deaths due to a lack of diagnostic/operational medicine being undertaken.
They always think that they need to do something when sometimes not doing it is the right answer.
Zorro
August 26, 2020
Agreed, Zorro.
More often than not, the best thing a government can do is to NOT interfere – to stay out of our lives.
August 26, 2020
+1 Zorro,
The other quote that shocked me was the suggestion to expand the committee to include other ‘experts’ in economics, education etc. Well these things were quite obviously not considered, but why neither the Chancellor nor Health Secretary didn’t have the gumption and morality to compare with the effect of the GFC on halting increases in life-expectancy – something that is common knowledge – is beyond me.
There is no need to expand a committee to more members; we have clear evidence that existing members who wish to serve on such committees cannot see past the end of their noses, this ability will not change by adding more people who cannot construe each others’ world model.
August 26, 2020
James Bertram, A thoroughly good comment.
August 26, 2020
Re-set the BBC to broadcast only the news; to do it briefly, objectively, modestly, at a few set times during the day, UK and World Service; and fund the small cost of this reformed BBC direct from HM Treasury. Abolish everything else: the potentially worth-while people, parts and programmes will be picked up by the private sector; the rest will not.
August 26, 2020
Good thinking Walt.
August 26, 2020
I think there would need to be a complete clear out of the editors and many of he journalists. The news is no longer news, but devoted to the BBC’s agenda, omitting anything it doesn’t want to talk about.
August 26, 2020
āBritons never never never shall be slavesā
We already are – WE have to work and pay taxes – which is then used to provide illegals with better lives for doing nothing. And you are doing NOTHING to stop them.
August 26, 2020
Actually I understood that line was related to Barbary “pirates” who captured Cornish fishermen and other vessels and enslaved them. Perhaps it’s both / all.
The woke lefties trying to get their way once again, even though not elected to much of anything.
Their modern approach seems to be: If you can’t get elected, get appointed.
And then shout loudly enough and get people to do what you want out of fear of reprisals.
August 26, 2020
The CORONAVIRUS ACT must be repealed immediately, there is no justification for it. I have previously mentioned the old crime of PRAEMUNIRE in relation to those who advocate the primacy of the EU over the UK. I am now convinced that there are people in government who are actively conspiring against this country to put it into subjugation of a foreign power which seeks to banish our freedom forever.
There is a march on 29/08 in London to protest against this outrage. Please do all you can to support the struggle to win back our freedom and banish authoritarian laws from this land.
zorro
zorro
August 26, 2020
There has been revolution since the mediaeval period, and it is no longer a crime to oppose HMG, fortunately.
Friendly, mutually-beneficial relations with other countries, cemented by treaties is not “subjugation” anyway.
You seem to have a few difficulties to me, Zorro.
August 26, 2020
Well how about simply respecting a vote when it doesn’t go your way ?
The idea of defunding the BBC is now well and truly mainstream.
August 26, 2020
Martin, Opposition to HMG is not a crime, but revolution is. As is treason. The EU is a legal entity in its own (self-appointed) right, but not a “country” (though it is technically an empire). Friendly, mutually-beneficial relations with other countries, cemented by treaties, is not subjugation, but being a sub-state of the EU is.
August 26, 2020
What a load of utter nonsense.
August 26, 2020
Quite right.
August 26, 2020
Yes, repealing the Coronavirus Act is essential. MPs will have the opportunity to vote to continue with this Act, or dump it, this September.
Make sure your MP knows your views on this matter ahead of the vote.
Make clear to them that they are either for Freedom, or for Tyranny.
There is no Third Way, sit on the fence, on this – a boot stamping on a human face forever.
August 26, 2020
No justification for lockdown or our freedom – but 16 people died out of a pop. of 68 million today….what more justification does this government need?
August 27, 2020
Excellent Stred, most people need to waken up to the UN Agendas which have been openly published for years,
August 27, 2020
Zorro,
You are right; those who oppose you are showing their true colours in supporting rule by the EU.
August 26, 2020
In your final paragraph you assert that central government too often accepts responsibility for outcomes that might otherwise be the responsibility of individuals, private companies or other public sector bodies. I agree with this. But to change this situation will be unpopular and will demand real courage on the part of ministers. Implicit in the concept of individual freedom is individual self-reliance: an acceptance that although central government may be able to offer help in times of need, it has no obligation to do so. Individuals are free to succeed but equally may fail.
I don’t think most voters are ready to accept this. It has become a cultural norm for people to complain to or to blame the government for bad outcomes. How often we hear people asking “what is the government going to do about it?”. Perhaps we are overdue a difficult national conversation about where the responsibility of central government stops and voters are on their own – for better or worse.
August 26, 2020
Ministers and the civil service seem to have been infiltrated by an alternative force which is taking the covid epidemic as an excuse to implement UN agendas, in which the population will be concentrated in cities and use public transport and bikes with cars summoned for communal use using robot driving.
When Grant Shapps told us to use cars to avoid infection instead of public transport, he also announced the spending of millions on so called temporary cycle lanes created by closing roads. Footpaths would also be widened. Councils which normally would have to consult on closures quickly claimed the money and closed main roads, in some cases out to the suburbs and in the busiest parts of cities.
I cycled into town in Brighton and along the sea front for a mile. Cyclists were continuing to use the old two way cycle path away from the queuing traffic and the new wide path taking up the inside lane of the A259 was empty.
We took twice as long to drive out West along the old A2 because of the cycle lane taking the inside carriageway and only half the vehicles being able to get through the many traffic lights. Councillors and officials ignore compliants and tell us to use bikes. Needless to say, there are hardly any bikes on the new path as they prefer the existing seaside path half a mile away.
How has a Conservative government allowed every green zealot in the councils to waste so much time and money while increasing pollution from idling engines?
August 26, 2020
Looking at the Google traffic map, the cycle lanes at 11.30 am have caused queues of traffic going back a mile up the now single lane towards London and half a mile East along the A259. I will have to use the back roads like most other drivers.
August 26, 2020
You are very right to bring this up. In one respect though, the BBC has done a good turn in making this error over Rule Britannia in that it has made itself look ridiculous even to some of its usual supporters.
The things I find most worrying are the and the inability of this apparent preference of a huge number of people for a nanny government, and the inability of this Government to stick by and justify any of its decisions when opposed, as we have seen with ‘A’ level sand GCSE and now face masks in schools. Or have these decisions been made without any thought or rationale in the first place?
August 26, 2020
Rule Britannia https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/rule-britannia-lyrics-composer/
I have read people tweet that it is jingoistic, I had to look up the meaning of this, I don’t understand how the song is extremely patriotic in the form of aggressive or warlike. Why are people trying to make being British/English is a bad thing?
Just look at Oliver Dowden’s twitter feed responses.
There is one person who said that ‘this proposal was put forward by a single journalist and absolutely no-one was seriously suggesting’ it.
August 26, 2020
I think that what these haughty tyrants who would have us take a knee really don’t like is the verse
Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
But work their woe and thy renown.
August 26, 2020
SJR,
Wow.. I think you ‘smashed this out the park’ today.
To be applauded, loudly.
We are currently watching (in real time) a totalitarian tip toe under the guise of Health and Safety.
Total Govt control of every aspect of peoples lives.
But.. the wheels are coming off the Covid 19(84) story, and it is actually embarrassing to watch sometimes. **Yet the pantomime continues**
If there is any members with honour in Parlmt, then they need to act.
And be pretty quick about it too.
Regardless of party politics or left/right leanings.
Best regards,
Tooley Stu
August 26, 2020
My thoughts exactly, TS
August 26, 2020
At last a member of parliament who is starting to question the government response to all of this. Please make your voice heard amongst fellow M.P.s and bring the government to account.
August 26, 2020
What an inspiring piece, JR. As usual your intelligent and reasoned analysis stands in stark contrast to the flapdoodle one reads elsewhere. Thank you.
August 26, 2020
He really should be a minister.
August 26, 2020
Frankly..he is the only one who should be!
August 26, 2020
Not surprised to see our comments get past the Mod!!!
August 26, 2020
PM
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
Absolutely.
August 26, 2020
+1
August 26, 2020
I have commented here previously that I want to see Conservative politicians start making a fuss of patriotism. I have said this because we won’t have a nation without both a sense of our history and a sense of pride in it; and because the dominant cultural ethos of our time is to treat this things with contempt.
I hope some in the Party now see the importance of doing this and are prepared to use their power to adjust this.
Stop providing funding for research into critical race theory at university
Change the charter of the BBC so it has to provide balance to commercial output – if commercial output is dreadfully woke, the BBC must commission output of the opposite slant (and indeed vice versa)
Make it much harder to sack people for saying things that the woke disagree with, particularly at university
Promote patriotism through schools – I heard kathy birbalsingh say her kids support whichever football team they consider to be “most black” (whatever that means) until she knocks some sense into them
And much else
If we don’t start doing these things whilst we’re in power, eventually the country will adopt this new woke line out of fear or out of ignorance of anything else and then we’ll never be in power again. Do it before it is too late.
August 26, 2020
Anthony, Well said.
August 27, 2020
Good post Anthony.
August 26, 2020
Sir John. Everything you say in today’s Diary is Right and True.
Our Government have used the ‘pandemic’ as an excuse to turn Britain into a DICTATORSHIP.
Every single one of the laws, diktats, regulations, or whatever they are, should be ended now. Let Britons or at least the English be FREE to make their own decisions and look after themselves.
As for the B.B.C. It has long been quite wrong that we should be forced to fund it in order to watch other channels. The Television Licence should be abolished A.S.A.P. Meanwhile, what happened to the promise to De – Criminalise non payment of the licence fee? It was promised early in B.J.’s administration and never done. If the BEEB were forced to go through Civil Courts for every ‘offence’ wouldn’t that make it ‘NOT worth their while’ to collect this ‘TAX’?
August 26, 2020
It is bizarre that we are forced on pain of imprisonment to pay for the right to watch any TV but the funds go entirely to one channel, the BBC. It is like being forced to buy the Guardian
before being allowed to read any other newspaper. Obviously this has to stop as the BBC is now run entirely for the satisfaction and benefit of a small cabal of woke pests, namely those who work for it. Just like all the failed nationalised industries of the past.
August 26, 2020
The muted Tony Abbott idea must be good it upsets Ms Thornberry,
August 26, 2020
Thereās a very good you-tube clip about freedom and covid-19 from Alan Jones Sky News Australiaā¦..well worth a watch 8mins long titled
āāthe public are waking up to āalarmist politicians’ā: Alan Jones
August 26, 2020
Absolutely right John. The present hysteria must end. All restrictions should be lifted and we should be treated like adults. The BBC keep ramping up the fear when the data is clearly indicating we can return to normal. The virus should now be treated like any other illness and the NHS should get their act together and urgently tackle the massive backlog of postponed operations and consultations.
August 26, 2020
OT, but very relevant right now. In the media, Huw Merriman, the Tory MP for Bexhill and Battle and chair of the transport select committee, said masks in schools would āfurther downgrade the learning environment. Like every other risk in our daily lives, we need to embed Covid and proportionately live with it.ā
The Tory backbencher Marcus Fysh said: āMasks should be banned in schools. The country should be getting back to normal not pandering to this scientifically illiterate guff,ā he said. āIt is time to end the fear. And keep it away from our kids thank you very much.ā
What do you say, Sir John?
August 26, 2020
Well done gents – over to you JR!
zorro
August 26, 2020
Freedom? It is being stolen, we are being intimidated by the Establishment.
I have just been informed that the British Library is requiring its staff to contribute money and provide other support to Black Lives Matter. Some may say its a worthy cause, others will say that is extremely doubtful and that it is an organisation which is politically and culturally revolutionary, but either way employers have no right to demand that staff bend to their will.
We must all resist and demand a withdrawal by the British Library.
August 27, 2020
BLM has the makings of a terrorist outfit and should be treated as such. History is sacrosanct and cannot be changed. We need to learn from it, not try the impossible task of changing it.
Perhaps BLM should consider who captured used and sold the slaves in the first place before selling them to the slave traders.
August 26, 2020
The BBC were at it again last night.
The One Show “The debate is raging about the racist names of pubs”
Well it wasn’t until the BBC put it on the agenda in its daily muck rake. And why now, in the middle of a pandemic ? And why keep pushing the Wisconsin incident ?
When are the Tories going to counter with how good our police are by comparison ?
When are we going to defund the BBC ?
August 26, 2020
Well, I won’t go in the White Hart. No way. As for the Black Boys Hotel – unbelievable. Why don’t they change their name? I’d shut them all down.
August 26, 2020
Anon
“When are we going to defund the BBC ?”
Doing so would require a patriot and man of his word in No 10.
I recall Boris Johnson some months ago saying that the licence fee would be abolished. We are still waiting.
August 26, 2020
Correction – Boris Johnson said he would decriminalise licence fee non payment.
But we are still waiting, or was it that he lied ?
August 26, 2020
The BBC is actively and knowingly and deliberately provocative and subversive and that will not change. It is actually becoming worse by the week.
Auntieās mask has slipped. The reptile revealed has no right to funding on the current model.
The time has come to face facts.
August 26, 2020
Let’s have a referendum on the BBC Licence.
August 26, 2020
Yes please
August 26, 2020
changed my mind….just realised it would take a further 5 years to impliment
August 26, 2020
Thank you for drawing attention to the unprecedented liberties which this government has taken with our liberty. Many of us are looking to parliament to put an end to this ‘Government of Occupation’. I am a teacher, but I will certainly refuse to teach in any classroom where the pupils wear masks. We appear to be living in a post scientific age where facts don’t matter.
August 26, 2020
Dr Walton
“Many of us are looking to parliament…”
Except that most people don’t have faith in Parliament either, given that the brexit fiasco exposed it as nothing short of traitorous, corrupt and downright cowardly.
Advice to anyone fed up with this government has to be ; ‘bide your time, wait until the next general election – then vote them out. It’s called democracy.
August 26, 2020
I canāt wait, bring it on, please.
Sometimes you just know that youāve bought a lemon. It has no chance of getting any better.
That is what I see and that is what I believe. Johnson is as irredeemable as Major, May, and Cameron.
August 26, 2020
Interesting piece Mr Redwood. Unfortunately you’re talking to the wrong people. You’d do better to be seen attacking the establishment you cite as robbing us of our freedoms and history.
You only appear to be saying what we’ve been saying for years. Action is what’s needed.
An example is Boris allegedly lambasting the BBC for dropping patriotism from the proms. What good does he suppose that will do ?
The BBC DG should be sacked immediately, the institution defunded and thoroughly purged.
Showman’s words are no good go us, as Boris risks finding out at the next election.
August 26, 2020
The Sun calls for defunding of the BBC today.
It’s a poisonous institution.
August 26, 2020
Great post today John.
August 26, 2020
+1, thank you
August 26, 2020
Face mask policy ā we just donāt believe you
5:10pm going through rail station almost everyone wearing mask, on the train almost no one wearing a mask
5:25pm walking down shopping centre no one wearing a mask, in one of the larger shops only about 20% wearing a mask
5:35pm just past two pubs with open front, no one wearing masks
So whats the point of this governments new regulation for school children ā quite ridicules and against the mood of the country
This government needs to grow a pair and realise that the covid-19 pandemic is over
All we need is the freedom to carry and use a handkerchief
August 26, 2020
It is merely trying to placate nervous teachers, and to remove union ‘why should we work at all’ complaints.
August 26, 2020
Hear hear
August 26, 2020
I have changed my mind about the BBC in recent months and the over-blown coverage of the Black Lives Movement and the furore over the traditional Last Night content have, for me and millions of others, been the final straw. If the Finnish conductor, Dalia Stasevska, didn’t want to respect the traditions of the event, she should have been replaced.
When compared with a Sky TV subscription, the BBC has always been an incredible bargain, however Netflix and to a lesser extent, Amazon, have proved that it is possible to produce high quality drama without all the left wing/Liberal dross that inevitably comes with an organisation like the BBC or Channel 4.
Government should act to reduce the public service broadcasting element of the BBC to just news and carefully monitored current affairs, with Offcom given a stronger remit to eliminate all bias. That would be inexpensive and should be funded from the Aid budget, as an add-on to the World Service, which is already funded by central government. Everything else the BBC does should be on voluntary subscription.
All the lefty, Guardian-reading luvvies can be made redundant and set up their own little production companies, bidding to make programmes that new subscription services might buy. What a delicious irony : overnight they will all become budding little capitalists !
August 26, 2020
‘When compared with a Sky TV subscription, the BBC has always been an incredible bargain’.
Not remotely true if you follow any sport, and wish to watch the rich number covered and the channels devoted to it – worldwide.
Lots of BBC airtime is purchased from various companies making the shows, the serials etc – – it is not produced by BBC employees.
August 27, 2020
Sorry, Fred, your assertion is wrong :
The basic packages on Sky are much more expensive. The BBC License fee is Ā£13.12 per month and the cheapest Sky package is Ā£25 per month. Almost double, and you have to put up with adverts!
Yes, if you want to waste lots of extra money on sport, you can do, but the cost is astronomical. To watch my preferred sport, Formula 1, the cost on Sky for that one sport alone is Ā£10.00 per month on top of the basic Ā£25. If you could buy the Sky F1 channel alone, forĀ£10 a month, it would be costing you more than 75% of the entire BBC licence fee !
I am afraid that other contributors here will draw an entirely different conclusion to you, Fred.
August 26, 2020
I don’t know about your theological views (maybe your PhD thesis would make them clear) but PRAISE GOD you’re saying it like it is. Why is the Telegraph telling us that sage is suggesting ANOTHER. NATIONAL.LOCKDOWN?? Are these people completely insane? Why is this even being suggested? Is the aim to completely destroy the country? Britain’s can no longer realistically sing, “we shall never be slaves”. Lockdown surely amounts to Salem witch trials on an international scale. “Those whom the gods wish to destroy…” Or far better still from a source that the country has, to it’s own detriment, rejected: Daniel 4:28-33!
August 30, 2020
ā Or far better still from a source that the country has, to itās own detriment, rejected: Daniel 4:28-33!
>
The nations are mad.
August 26, 2020
Censoring a factual post does not solve the situation. Other than burying your head in the sand what is your answer to such abuses of freedom. If they are not dealt with first time out they get repeated year on, as is the reality. Where are you after years of neglect when a political party offers the electorate solutions to the problem. All you can say is we did nothing.
August 26, 2020
Actually the original words were written by James Thomson in 1763 in a poem.
He was Scottish and was interested in the idea of a āBritonā.
The line about slaves is probably a reference to a play he wrote In 1730 āThe Tragedy of Sophonisbaā where the eponymous patriotic queen chose death rather than become a slave to the Romans.
ie..Thomsonās Britons would be like that…brave and patriotic.
Which of course by and large they are not.
So no panic..no scuttling under duvets. No racist intent.
August 27, 2020
āCensoring a factual post does not solve the situation. ā
He is not comfortable with certain factual posts. After a while you learn what they are.
I suppose it does prove the point that political correctness is effective in suppressing or shaping debate.
If you are expecting a completely open forum then you have come to the wrong place.
August 27, 2020
Might I enquire how this point of view went down with the Cabinet Office or other senior ministers when you floated it to them please Sir John?
August 27, 2020
This PC “madness” has to be stopped. It may appear to be a collective madness on the surface, but beneath it there is an evil intent to destroy life as we know (knew?) it.
People need to open their eyes and minds to the policies of the UN which seek to do just that, supported by the usual suspects with the wealth and sense of their own superiority to do it.
August 27, 2020
There are too many tiers of Government – currently five in number. Let’s review them:
The European Commission – fortunately we get rid of it on 1st January 2021. How about withdrawing recognition of the EC on that date and thenceforth dealing only with EU Member States individually.
National Government – necessary but incompetent (all parties that have been in power)
County Councils ) We need one Unity Authority of local government in each location.
District Councils ) But not both – e.g. the disaggregation of Berkshire
Parish Councils – no more necessary than parishes and the Church of England. If you have a good idea, just ask your District Council for permission and a grant.
So five tiers of Government can be reduced to two.
August 27, 2020
Yes, Lindsay : and do away with the parochial talking shops in Holyrood and Cardiff while you are at it !