Build back better

Build back better is a common phrase in modern politics, used by some on the centre right as well as by the many on the left. It is Biden’s campaign phrase that binds his left wing programme. The UK Build back better campaign is anti the rich and big companies, and shares a lot in common with the Biden platform. Presumably those on the centre right who use the phrase define it differently to these mainstream versions.

There are those who think there is a global conspiracy led by a billionaire or two who they think set the agenda. I do not post such work, as it is silly. The views and actions many of you dislike are far more widespread and complex than a simple case of undue influence by one individual or think tank. It is a systematic agenda and way of thinking that infuses most global institutions and many governments or main Oppositions in leading countries. What Joe Biden says is similar to the EU programme which is reflected in the IMF’s statements, the views of the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organisation, the UN, the G7 and many others. The members of a numerous well paid and much travelled global elite reinforce the same consensus everywhere they go. Some are senior elected politicians leading governments who need not accept this way of thinking if they did not agree with it.

The centre left version of the consensus sees CV 19 as a crisis full of opportunity. They usually agree that economic recovery should build back a different world. Their number one enemy is carbon dioxide, so the recovery will be led by massive public investment and subsidy for green power and green travel, partly paid for during transition by higher carbon taxes on those who do not embrace the revolution quickly enough.

It also welcomes the large expansion of state spending and intervention following WHO policies to combat the virus, and wishes to continue with policies of expanding the state workforce and spending more on state services. The IMF sees the NHS as a great model which others should adopt. Mr Biden wants to enrol a Public Health Corps and to extend Union rights to all public service employees, as well as expanding again public sector involvement in the affordable health care system pioneered by President Obama.

The politicians and political movements who disagree with some or all of this consensus are treated roughly by conventional media who by and large back the general view and protect it. So Mr Trump who went for cheap oil and gas and a big expansion of the energy sector to onshore oil and energy based industry was strongly attacked for his anti environment stance. He was then pilloried for his scepticism about long lock downs as a way of fighting the virus. Mr Bolsonaro in Brazil was slated for his casual approach to the pandemic . Even Sweden, once a poster country for the centre left, was criticised for being softer on lock down than the consensus.

In future blogs I will look at various policies that emerge from the Build Back better approach to see which ones could help and which will do harm.

387 Comments

  1. Stephen Priest
    October 10, 2020

    A simple question to write to your MP – ( it’s better than doing nothing)

    A couple of weeks ago Boris Johnson said a second lockdown would be a catastrophe for the British economy.

    Why then is he so keen to have one?

    His plan must be to bring a catastrophe to the British economy.

    1. Martin in Cardiff
      October 10, 2020

      John’s piece seems to me to stand the key fact on its head.

      In the UK and US, the media, mostly by far and away to the Right, repeat the views he expresses endlessly, and give politicians such as him a pretty free pass.

      In turn this does nothing whatsoever to dispel the myriads of groundless conspiracy theories circulating amongst the usefully gullible, whose votes they can harvest. Rather it sustains, perpetuates and amplifies them.

      It is utterly reckless, and everyone on this planet will pay a price for such folly.

      1. Edward2
        October 10, 2020

        New York Times, Washington Post, NBC ABC CNN and many others in the main stream media in America would not describe themselves as right wing.
        Neither would the Mirror Observer Guardian Independent BBC news, Channel 4 and 5 news and BBC radio 4.
        So to say the media is mostly by far and away to the right is complete nonsense.

        1. IanT
          October 10, 2020

          Of course it is nonsense Edward but if enough people (like Martin) keep repeating it – then some will believe it. I suspect MiC just enjoys coming here and ‘provoking’.

          I feel a little bit sorry for him. He clearly hasn’t got anything better to do. I would strongly urge him to get a Shed and find something useful to do in in (anything but post here) .

          Maybe ‘Shed’ is a good metaphor for Life? šŸ™‚

          1. Edward2
            October 10, 2020

            I agree.

      2. NickC
        October 10, 2020

        Martin, It is you who stands key facts on their heads. Almost every woke, hard left and cultural-marxist agenda is pushed by the UK (and global) media – from silly lgbtxyz obsessions (including the child abuse of teaching it to 3 year olds); to the abortion death industry; to BLM (“mostly peaceful” – haha) rioters; to one world government via odious organisations like the EU; etc.

        In turn this does nothing whatsoever to dispel the myriads of groundless conspiracy theories circulating amongst the usefully gullible, whose votes the globalists can harvest. Rather it sustains, perpetuates and amplifies them.

        It is utterly reckless, and everyone on this planet will pay a price for such folly, before sound virtues such as the traditional family and patriotism are re-established.

        1. Dennis Zoff
          October 10, 2020

          The far Left’s long-term agenda…destroy patriotism; the Nuclear family; normal education; strong economies; trust in government; historical culture; facts; truths and reasonable balanced discourse!

          Hence why we need real Conservatism back ASAP!

        2. Ed M
          October 12, 2020

          ‘sound virtues such as the traditional family and patriotism are re-established’

          – hear, hear.

          And this something that BOTH secular and religious Conservatives can rally around – as something concrete and real – and not the meaningless political language of spin / waffle. Most get – at both a gut and intellectual level – the importance of patriotism and family.

          And the secular Conservative world can revere these as virtues thanks to our Greco-Roman heritage. And the Conservative religious world can revere these as virtues as well thanks to our traditional Christian beliefs but also because of our Greco-Roman heritage (both the Greco-Roman and the traditional Judaeo-Christian overlap here in an important way).

          For God, Queen, Family and Country.

    2. steve
      October 10, 2020

      Stephen Priest

      “Why then is he so keen to have one? His plan must be to bring a catastrophe to the British economy.”

      Two reasons as far as I’m concerned:

      1) Trash the economy to make the case for reversing brexit.

      2) He now has no choice because he didn’t do as we said in the first place when this crisis kicked off.

      Take your pick, it’s one of the above.

    3. Peter Wood
      October 10, 2020

      BJ is a showman, he’s out of his depth when there’s no precedent to follow. (His only saving grace is he’s not quite as bad as Mrs May)

      The questions and comparison I’d like to have answered is, why are we not following Sweden’s example, and, separate the CV19 infections from everyone else in their own hospitals rather then handling them in A&E.

      1. Martin in Cardiff
        October 10, 2020

        Well, make up your minds.

        Are you going to start doing the simple, trivial thing of wearing a bit of cloth on your face in public places, and of keeping your distance from others?

        Or do you want another lockdown?

        Yes, I know, that would mean not walking about with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth if you’re a smoker, but is that really such a big deal too?

        1. Edward2
          October 10, 2020

          Other people find different freedoms important.
          Have a little empathy.

          1. bill brown
            October 10, 2020

            Edward 2

            Are you getting sentimental in your old age?

          2. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            I dont see how you think I was being sentimental bill.
            I was being critical of Martin’s repeated flippant attitude towards the State reducing people’s freedoms.

      2. turboterrier
        October 10, 2020

        Not quite Ć” bad ????????

        Come on now , let’s get real here

        1. Peter Wood
          October 10, 2020

          He re-named the May WA as his own and called it a ‘good deal’, with only minimal changes. Now he’s found out why the May deal was so terrible. So yes, almost as bad as May. All show and not much go.

    4. Bill B.
      October 10, 2020

      #whyaretheydoingthis?

      Always the right question.

    5. a-tracy
      October 10, 2020

      By the sounds of Johnā€™s post if the rest of the World (or these great thinkers in the UN, WHO, WTO and everybody else in the clique are told we should listen to) thinks its a good idea to lock down again for a fortnight we all must do it because group think is good, individual progress is bad and we need to get with the program.

      1. glen cullen
        October 10, 2020

        I was grown up to listen and obey my elders and betters….now that I’m an elder and better I’ve realised that most of them are quite thick….but most of all the has-beens who are employed by ngo’s and qango’s

        1. a-tracy
          October 10, 2020

          Lol šŸ˜‚.

        2. turboterrier
          October 10, 2020

          Brilliant

      2. Fred H
        October 10, 2020

        the sheep at the front runs into the wagon headed for the abattoir, the lemmings follow the idiot at the front, the rest of the deer chase across the road following the first.
        Do you see my theme developing here?

    6. Stephen Priest
      October 10, 2020

      Interesting read on Toby Young’s Lockdown Sceptics :

      Interview with an NHS Nurse: ā€œWhereā€™s the challenge? Whereā€™s the crisis? Whereā€™s this Covid?ā€

    7. glen cullen
      October 10, 2020

      Concur

    8. glen cullen
      October 10, 2020

      Yeah but do you also remember Cabinet Ministers saying ā€˜weā€™re all in it togetherā€™

      I donā€™t recall everyone getting a Ā£3.5k pay rise apart from MPs this week

      And the divide and disconnect just gets bigger

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 10, 2020

        As a gesture of goodwill, all cabinet members should opt for Ā£2,500 pm which was the max offered during lockdown – itā€™s since been reduced for those of us effectively still in lockdown. Refunding their income since March to pay off the National debt would be a start.

        1. glen cullen
          October 10, 2020

          Fully agree – the public would appreciate that gesture

        2. turboterrier
          October 10, 2020

          Lynn.
          You are having a laugh. Cabinet members with an ounce of goodwill? Give us a break

        3. bill brown
          October 10, 2020

          Lynn Atkinson,

          So how many people actually have AIDS in SOuth Africa?

          1. Edward2
            October 10, 2020

            You seem to be a few days behind everyone else bill.

      2. turboterrier
        October 10, 2020

        Gglen cullen

        So vividly it makes you weep

      3. Fred H
        October 10, 2020

        we are all going to be in it together ….shh..it.

    9. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      Stephen Priest, “We’ll pretend to work, if you pretend to pay us” was a well known aphorism in communist Europe. It signified that the people had been lied to so often by the establishment that they automatically disbelieved whatever they were told. But, for safety’s sake, usually hid it.

      Having been lied to by the Remain establishment for over four years, and now having the government trash the economy for not even valid scientific reasons, the government is viewed by many as inevitably lying – and we automatically expect it to be so.

      That is a dangerous position for any government. I do (and will) write to my Tory MP, but frankly he’s not that bright, and cannot see any of these dangers (just like he couldn’t see where Theresa May was going wrong in 2016).

      1. turboterrier
        October 10, 2020

        Yep spot on.

      2. Dennis Zoff
        October 10, 2020

        …..and one for our current Government’s approach to Brexit?

        “Better an open enemy than a false friend!”

    10. Mark B
      October 10, 2020

      The man is all over the place. He has no strong views on anything and so just goes where the wind / mood / polls take him.

      He’d be more use as a deckchair arranger on the Titanic.

      1. turboterrier
        October 10, 2020

        Totally correct. A captain not on the bridge with no rudder and control of the engines.

        1. glen cullen
          October 10, 2020

          I think he’s forgot what berth he’s at

  2. Lifelogic
    October 10, 2020

    Indeed. The war on “Carbon” actually a war on CO2 plant and tree food is absurd. The NHS state monopoly (despite employing many dedicated and excellent staff) is an appalling system of health care that kills tens of thousants and fails hundred of thousands every single year.

    I do hope Trump (for all his many faults) beats Biden. He is at least right on energy, CO2, climate alarmism and would be far better for the economy and indeed the environment (in terms of what matters cleaner air, water and the likes.

    More than 15million patients are currently waiting for treatment on the NHS’s ‘hidden waiting list’ – nearly four times higher than the official 3.9million, a report (Medefer) claimed recently. Doubless it is now even worse. I know for personal experience with my parents how they also to tricks to massage the waiting lists (with net negative results and even dangers for patients). For example a patient clearly needs a full knee replacement but just get given a rather pointless steroid injection or arthroscopy. This just to get them off the list for a while and they can then start to wait again.

    1. Lifelogic
      October 10, 2020

      Another person I know needed a back operation but was told by the NHS he could only have an injection as a temporary measure. This did nothing and thus in pain sitting in odd positions to limit the pain he developed a blood clot. Then he could not have an operation until this has been treated. So he was in pain for well over a year until he finally got the operation.

      He could easily have paid for the operation himself had the NHS just been honest with him at the outset. You need this op ate but you will have to pay for it as the NHS are rationing it and lots of other things too. We have you money already you see so that is what we do. Delay, rations and push from pillar to post. Next patient please.

    2. a-tracy
      October 10, 2020

      Every employer has fantastic staff, good staff, poor staff and the odd bad egg. The NHS doesnā€™t employ saints it employs real people. It is so difficult for HR to remove bad eggs they usually get moved around and promoted up and up so they donā€™t cause to much trouble at the front end in large organisations. I know people that work in the NHS and have so much time off with one thing and another Iā€™m amazed they survive in their position a smaller company just couldnā€™t survive with them.

      1. Alan Jutson
        October 10, 2020

        A-tracy

        A family member who in the past worked for the NHS has the same views as you.
        Trouble is the bad eggs eventually infect the good ones because they are often hidden within the management structure.

        1. a-tracy
          October 11, 2020

          Yes, I know Alan, absence infects departments, constantly covering and doing unpaid overtime to cover frequently absent colleagues for no extra reward or thanks and eventually the whole team gets infected. Resentment breeds in the team especially if they notice the colleagues social media full of photos…. then if one of those people get promoted over someone in the team that has been in all the time, covering working above and beyond!

    3. The Prangwizard
      October 10, 2020

      Another war starting up now is a war on alcohol. Another strand of the globalism which is walking all over us and encouraged by our leaders. Carried out under the covid camouflage and Stalinist thinking helping it all along.

      Just watch!

      1. a-tracy
        October 10, 2020

        Yes Prangwizard Iā€™ve noticed too about alcohol, just what is this all about? My husband and I donā€™t drink alcohol other than that forced on us at family celebrations – ooo youā€™ve got to toast the bride and groom etc. Just from personal choice donā€™t like the taste of it. However, this is starting to freak me out – it started when they encouraged the turning of pubs into mini-supermarkets controlled by the large supermarkets which starting putting all the self-employed corner shop owners out of business, causing a knock on effect on their wholesale suppliers and taking them nearly all out of the marketplace. More control for the big business owners who sup with the heads of government. Then we all end up with reduced choice, because they start putting other small local business owning shops out of business like the local butcher and baker.

        What on earth could the end game be with alcohol and cutting socialising off? I donā€™t even think Mr Weatherspoons has narked them that much.

    4. Richard
      October 10, 2020

      +1 Great Post highlighting the CO2 alarmist obvious nonsense – & the scandal of how the NHS is now being run.

      1. DavidJ
        October 10, 2020

        Indeed. The NHS might have been a good idea when it was created but it was always going to become unsustainable at some point (already well passed). The administration is a shambles and many staff are simply not up to the job.

        The many who are competent hard workers need to rise up against those who are not and give us the NHS that we need.

        1. Lifelogic
          October 10, 2020

          It is free at the point of use that is much of the problem it kill nearly all competition and gives the NHS an incentive to ration, delay, deter and ofen fail totally to deliver.

          So that is what they largely do.

    5. Martin in Cardiff
      October 10, 2020

      Yes, we know that CO2 is essential for photosynthesis, as is water.

      But no one wants flood water up to their necks.

      Your “plant food therefore a Good Thing whatever” trope is pretty daft, then.

      1. NickC
        October 10, 2020

        Martin, We would not be alive if it were not for CO2. We are a carbon based life form. Your ā€œCO2 therefore a Bad Thing, whateverā€ trope is pretty daft, then.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 10, 2020

        Donā€™t build in the flood plains then, which disperses floodwater so it is a matter of inches deep, and concentrate it in narrow channels, which means that it is ā€˜up to your neckā€™. The Severn Bore demonstrates the concept regularly.

        1. Edward2
          October 10, 2020

          And return to dredging rivers, clearing streams and ditches.

    6. zorro
      October 10, 2020

      I understand that some interesting emails may be about to see the light of day….

      zorro

    7. turboterrier
      October 10, 2020

      Lifelogic

      So sad but so true it is frightening

  3. David_Kent
    October 10, 2020

    To me the slogan ‘build back better’ is very strictly limited to ensuring that new houses are of better quality and appearance than is currently the practice. So many new estates are a blight on the countryside, no wonder people oppose them. The risk is that the judges of beauty will be the architects and planners who have a bad record of poor judgement. Better to give the citizens who must use the new buildings more freedom to judge what is beautiful.

    1. Everhopeful
      October 10, 2020

      The destruction of this country wrought by successive governments in pursuit of their disgusting policies is an affront to all.
      And that is no ā€œconspiracy theoryā€ nor is it ā€œsillyā€œ…because we all see the damage every single day.
      And the anger is mounting.

      1. Peter
        October 10, 2020

        ā€œThere are those who think there is a global conspiracy led by a billionaire or two who they think set the agenda. I do not post such work, as it is silly. ā€

        There are others who believe politics is increasingly rigged in favour of elites. That does not mean a billionaire or two.

        Any mention of certain global financial institutions also gets removed from this site.

        People also look at donors to the Conservative Party and reflect on what those donors may receive in return.

        1. Peter
          October 10, 2020

          ā€œItā€™s a big club and you ainā€™t in it.ā€

          George Carlin

          1. Anonymous
            October 10, 2020

            ā€œItā€™s a big club and you ainā€™t in it.ā€

            George Carlin

            ….
            The Left are just the play things of the satanists

        2. Lynn Atkinson
          October 10, 2020

          Itā€™s corporate business that colluded with politicians across the world – money for legal advantage. No individual Tory members.

        3. forthurst
          October 10, 2020

          I think you’ll find JR doesn’t want to be sued, that’s all, especially by organisations that specialise in acquiring great wealth without creating any added value.

      2. Robert McDonald
        October 10, 2020

        The damage I see is covid, almost certainly coming from a socialist state. Notice the word almost, I don’t pretend, as others do, to know the answer for certain. However I see, as others do, that the establishment, which is the core of any socialist society, decide what is best for us plebs. Led by the eurocracy. At least once we have fully left we will be able to say we don’t like what the then current government is doing and vote them out. I blame those in government who abdicated their responsibility and took us in and kept us in to the regulatory straight jacket of the eu, and that refers to both labour and tory governments.

      3. BOF
        October 10, 2020

        Spot on Everhopeful.

      4. M Davis
        October 10, 2020

        Totally agree, Everhopeful!

    2. Lifelogic
      October 10, 2020

      One thing that make new house far worse is the OTT, green crap building regulations that tend to mean small, pokey, nasty windows and low ceilings – as this is often the cheapest way to comply.

      1. dixie
        October 10, 2020

        Green regs have little to do wiith it. Developers have been shrinking plots, rooms, build quality and amenities for decades.

        The answer is plain greed.

      2. turboterrier
        October 10, 2020

        LL
        the whole concept of your “green crap” is like a noose and straight jacket combined. Nearly all our politicians are standing on the trap or lying on the floor

    3. a-tracy
      October 10, 2020

      Our new private estates built on Countryside next the roadside have metal spikes surrounding what I guess are sewerage or drainage tanks right at the front of the estate. What used to be grass fields are now just tarmac and brick, the landscaping is none existent, there is more and better landscaping and walking land on the large housing estates which are always left to go to rack and ruin and regularly overrun with litter, graffiti and damage. The affordable homes are built to such poor quality they just paint the bricks white, squeeze them together with very little land and not sufficient parking, most of the people have vans and theyā€™re just parked half up the pavements. If our government and local councils call that Building Back Better then god help us moving forward when there is less money printed.

      Another good trick is just to close the link road for three months, no good reason, all night and weekend just so the odd truck can turn in to the new estate for a couple of hours of the working day which is short now winter is setting in. Pathetic.

    4. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      David, People oppose the blight of these new estates not just because they’re a blight, but because England is overpopulated. Any country that cannot grow enough of its own food is, by definition, overpopulated (that is, food can still be imported to provide variety, but is not necessary in extremis). It is literally unsustainable. We should now aim for a net outflow of people, not net immigration, to rebalance the population.

      1. turboterrier
        October 10, 2020

        Nick

        Well said

      2. bill brown
        October 10, 2020

        NickC

        if you make such predictions the demographics will end up totally wrong, but I am sure you did not think of that one

        1. Edward2
          October 11, 2020

          Young people get old too.
          That’s something open borders fans never consider.
          Like a slow moving Ponzi scheme.

          1. bill brown
            October 11, 2020

            Edward 2

            Yes, but young people have more children

          2. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            Err yes and they get old too.
            Look up Ponzi scheme bill.

        2. NickC
          October 11, 2020

          Bill B, That wasn’t a “prediction”, it is a fact that England cannot feed itself – there are too many people and not enough food produced. Recovering our fishing grounds from the EU is a start, but we need to halt all immigration for two decades to allow natural emigration to reduce our population.

          1. bill brown
            October 11, 2020

            NickC

            this is an illusion in an open society and lots of naitons these days are not ableto feed themselves and still do fine.
            Lux, Bhutan , Belgium, Norway and so on

    5. Iain Moore
      October 10, 2020

      Looking at the list of new towns which have been built its had to find one that isn’t an eyesore. With the state turning out totalitarian blots on the landscape, the corporates don’t do much better, churning out their massed produced housing estaters barely improves on the State’s efforts at vandalising our countryside. When you look at a town that would be considered as pretty, more than likely it has built by people, over time, doing their own thing.

      If Dictator for the day I would outlaw land banks, any building to be done would be first led by auctioning off the land in parcels, allowing anybody to buy a plot , and so get to build their own home how ever they wanted. By doing this you would get variety and innovation, and may be some pretty towns and villages again.

      1. a-tracy
        October 10, 2020

        I donā€™t know about youā€™d get variety and innovation, we had a local plot of land sold off like that in small parcels of land, it took some people over ten years to even get the outlying house up and loads more time to finish them. The place looked a mess for years. Big housing estate designers donā€™t have to put box after box up but they do with tiny windows now, looking into each otherā€™s homes, no pavements and insufficient parking. Building on old flooded land which you just know is going to be a problem as it is now every time it rains a lot in a nearby town.

    6. Lynn Atkinson
      October 10, 2020

      ā€˜Build back betterā€™ is nothing to do with construction, or marginally. Itā€™s to do with the governance of the World and being ā€˜fairā€™, which means that the occupants of the First World have to cut their living standards to the ā€˜world averageā€™.

      1. a-tracy
        October 10, 2020

        And yet Lynn certain people like a well known footballer are allowed to build and build and build massive personal wealth as long as your talk the talk!

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          October 10, 2020

          Scapegoats are prized!

  4. Everhopeful
    October 10, 2020

    Well I am grateful that you have set us straight on that one!
    It is, however, strange that the ā€œglobal leadersā€ often use identical ( and odd) phrases and appear to share the same outlandish ideas. Does Mr Johnson have no original thoughts any more?
    After all, who talks about what will come after, when a crisis is in train? And a crisis so terrible that all other considerations and norms must be swept aside.
    Since (I suspect) many of us, can get no meaningful contact from our MPs or local councillors and since, even you must admit, times are bizarre beyond belief, is it any wonder that our imaginations run wild?

    1. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      Everhopeful, Yes the stock phrases are universally used by the global elite, which certainly implies consensus among them, even if conspiracy is not present. Phrases such as “the great reset”, “the fourth industrial revolution”, “”carbon” footprint”, even “build back better”. I am reminded of Hutber’s law: “Improvement means deterioration” which is, from experience, far more likely even if the global elite were benign (they’re not).

      1. hefner
        October 10, 2020

        And what about Schumpeter’s ‘creative destruction’?

        1. Edward2
          October 10, 2020

          Very clever hef.

          1. rose
            October 11, 2020

            Or “More means worse.”

        2. NickC
          October 11, 2020

          Hefner, I am a builder; I don’t go in for destruction.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 10, 2020

        They certainly are NOT ā€˜the eliteā€™, elitists possibly but way down the foodchain in reality.

        1. John C.
          October 10, 2020

          This is a simple truth, but treated as extreme wickedness by the so-called elite. Essentially, it’s only a matter of time before there is a total collapse of our way of life. It’s now inevitable.

    2. zorro
      October 10, 2020

      Indeed, I am pretty sure that I have seen a lot of these policies espoused in Our Dera Leader’s recent party speech!

      zorro

      1. glen cullen
        October 10, 2020

        Our Dear Supreme Leader – Boris

  5. No Longer Anonymous
    October 10, 2020

    Thanks

    A very good post.

    We are not allowed conservatism – even when we vote for it in overwhelming numbers.

    The People of Britain had the right idea on the environment when they decided to have smaller families and wanted the stabilisation/reduction of our population.

    Alas the politicians and the administrative class decided otherwise.

    Now the only solution to the problems this has caused (including the social fragmentation of our society) seems to resemble Communism. Bicycles and rice for the masses and high levels of corruption – alas we’re not getting any clampdown on street crime.

    O/T

    We hear that friends of friends supplying the NHS have not only bought a Ā£4m coastal house with cash but spent Ā£20k on sun loungers for the exterior deck. All on this year’s CV-19 bonanza. And this is not the first NHS supply (Lottery) winning couple I have encountered in this crisis in recent weeks. An early retiree explained to me how the NHS had bought up all the drugs his firm had at stupid prices.

    This on top of the Ā£26 billion that Dishi Rishi has allowed criminals to steal from us.

    The worst government and Prime Minister in British history I’d say.

    1. Lifelogic
      October 10, 2020

      Meanwhile NHS waiting list, cancelled operations, tests and treatments are at record levels and still deteriorating by the day.

    2. Simeon
      October 10, 2020

      Hang on. Where are these overwhelming numbers that voted for conservatism? If you’re talking about the last election, 42.4% voted for the Conservative Party (40% voted Labour). But the Conservative Party is not conservative, at least in the sense of being right wing, or even right of centre. Voting Conservative meant voting for bigger government, and therefore higher taxes and less freedom. The democratic consensus in this country is for more state intervention and less personal responsibility. The People have been infantilised. You shouldn’t mistake the majority of contributors to this blog as representative of a majority in the country.

      As for Sir John’s post, I agree with the implicit thrust, this being that the ‘conspiracy’ is not limited to one or two rogue billionaires, but in fact incorporates a sufficinecy of the mega rich. Of course, this is nothing new. Those with great wealth, and therefore great power, have always sought to exert control. What has changed in recent decades is, first; a collapse in theistic belief, meaning that those with great earthly power no longer fear judgement from a higher power, which acted as a brake on their behaviour, and second; technological progress, allowing the powerful to exert ever greater influence over the individual.

      The problem I have with Sir John’s post is that he gives no indication that he is aware that this government, together with the UK establishment, is up to their necks in this. He rightly suggests that Trump stands apart. But Blowers is not remotely Trumpian, at least in the ways relevant to these matters. And Cummings is in thrall to a really unhealthy degree with the most corrosive elements of modern technology. The one, small, mercy is that Cummings must surely be not long for the world of politics. But Blowers, as and when he is replaced, will not be missed, in the sense that his successor will simply be the next establishment stooge.

      1. No Longer Anonymous
        October 10, 2020

        80 seat majority. That’s what I’m talking about.

        Labour got stuffed.

      2. NickC
        October 10, 2020

        Simeon said: “[At] the last election, 42.4% voted for the Conservative Party (40% voted Labour)”. No, that was 2017. Of those who voted in December 2019 (the last election), 43.6% voted Tory and 32.1% voted Labour.

        1. Simeon
          October 10, 2020

          My apologies. But of course the point I was making still stands. 43.6% voted for bigger government, more taxes and less freedom. As indeed did the 32.1% that voted Labour, and whatever percentage voted Lib Dem, Green and SNP. Virtually no one voted for conservatism – if one is inclined to give the Brexit Party (RIP) the benefit of the doubt. Many may have believed, or hoped (with no basis in reality), they were doing so, but this is quite different.

    3. Richard
      October 10, 2020

      +1 Well said.

    4. Mitchel
      October 10, 2020

      And then there’s the c$5 bn of “loans” for Ukraine,the world’s most enduring,reform-resistant black hole,stepping in where even the IMF is increasingly fearful to tread.

      Someone on here yesterday wondered why the Ukraine “trade deal” hadn’t been mentioned as “good news”.It ain’t-it’s just the decrepit,equally reform-resistant British Establishment still trying to play The Great Game against Russia.

    5. Bill B.
      October 10, 2020

      Today 10th October is World Mental Health Day, I see.

      How about Boris gets a check-up?

      1. Edward2
        October 10, 2020

        Very poor bill.
        You can do much better than this slur.
        Mental health is a serious subject.

    6. glen cullen
      October 10, 2020

      I now understand why the councils and government have been busy the past couple of years building miles upon miles of cycle lanes, promoting the hiring of bicycles and providing grants for bicycle maintenanceā€¦..its to get us ready for the brave new communist state

      It all makes sense

  6. Everhopeful
    October 10, 2020

    When a fireman is tackling a blazing house fire…does he discuss plans for a new house with the distraught owner?
    No. His only concern is putting out the fire.

    1. Stephen Priest
      October 10, 2020

      When you call pest control to remove a wasp nest from your house, do they burn down the house?

      1. Everhopeful
        October 10, 2020

        Ah yes…a MUCH better analogy.
        And in the case of the wasp nest scenario there would most certainly be no discussion of how to build a replacement house.
        The householder would be too busy consulting their solicitor!

      2. matthu
        October 10, 2020

        Ah! But if you call your old mate the house builder when you discover a wasp nest …?

        1. Everhopeful
          October 10, 2020

          Hehe!
          Oh yes!
          Cut out the middle man?
          Would the builder demolish though?

    2. No Longer Anonymous
      October 10, 2020

      Well.

      To ‘build back better’ indicates complete demolition of what was there before.

      In so far as I’m aware CV-19 may have ravaged our economy but it hasn’t destroyed our power stations – one of the few miracles of this period is that the lights have stayed on !

      So I look at that bumbling loonatic of a PM (whom I could teach valuable lessons on how to raise kids, pay bills, take care of health and grooming) and wonder why the hell – at this time of grave national crisis – he wants to knock down the one thing that works and re build it with something that won’t !

      1. a-tracy
        October 10, 2020

        Like the…dad of the footballer who just got a gong. Sorry.

  7. Polly
    October 10, 2020

    There is so much to say in reply to your topic today that it is impossible to do it in one post because there is so much evidence to oppose your contentions.

    Firstly however, it is fascinating to know that Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party are “anti rich” and “anti big companies”.

    Boris Johnson and your Conservative Party must be left wing socialists just like Jeremy Corbyn!

    Build Back Better is your slogan, it’s rubbish and I can prove it!

    Polly

    1. Everhopeful
      October 10, 2020

      “We both believe that a malaria-free world has to be one of the highest global health priorities.”
      That is George Osborne and Bill Gates together at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 2016.
      UK has paid Ā£500 million for five years since then to fight against malaria.
      Wonder how that particular crusade is going in the face of the latest plague?
      Wonder if they ever tried ā€œlockdownā€ …most efficacious in every case, it is claimed!

      1. zorro
        October 10, 2020

        Indeed, polio is making a return in Northern Africa too, I wonder why?

        zorro

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 10, 2020

        What a grandstanding load of idiots! You just spray oil in the stagnant water to kill the mosquitos!

      3. Mark
        October 10, 2020

        The Scaffold song Lily the Pink does seem apposite…

        The saviour of the human race
        For she invented, medicinal compound
        Most efficacious in every case

        Old Ebenezer thought he was Julius Caesar
        And so they put him in a home
        Where they gave him medicinal compound
        And now he’s emperor of Rome

  8. Sakara Gold
    October 10, 2020

    Biden appears to be heading for the presidency because the American people have seen through the bluster and bullying of the Trump administration and Trump’s refusal to accept the science in many fields, including the clear, causal relationship between the increasing CO2 levels and the global rise in temperatures. And this during a time when our Sun is experiencing a solar minimum; we would normally expect colder temperatures at the bottom of the 11-year sunspot cycle.

    As the number of virus fatalities there now exceeds 210,000 the American public clearly blames Trump’s incoherent approach. The are concerned that should Trump win another term, the Affordable Care Act introduced by Barak Obama will be repealed and in the middle of an epidemic, they will be unable to obtain health care should they catch the virus. Little wonder that the polls seem to be giving Biden a clear advantage.

    The costs of energy produced by wind and solar farms, waste-to-energy plants, anerobic digestion of farm waste etc continue to fall. British construction companies have a grip on these new technologies and can now build plant here in the UK subsidy-free. Once we have solved the problem of energy storage to smooth-out renewable supply (and it is coming), we can phase out the primitive technology of burning carbon to produce our energy.

    Vested interests in the USA who wish to protect their investments in carbon-based energy production – the “cabal” as Churchill refered to them – supported Trump in the last election. However there are some who are now looking at green technologies as financial oportunities; American entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk are taking up the baton and moving with the times. Burning carbon is so last century, the planet now supports ~9 billion people, green energy is the way forward. To our advantage the UK is leading the world in offshore wind, solar power etc as once we led the world in nuclear energy.

    The pendulum is swinging away from the far right now, common sense and acceptance of the science appears to be driving the US election. You have many good ideas concerning the environment – as one who was amazed at breathing clean air during the lockdown, personally I hope the transition comes sooner rather than later.

    1. anon
      October 10, 2020

      Indeed green energy will force the cost of energy down. The government can enable this by directing uneeded capital investment in HS2 to infrastructure to support the energy change.

      Energy independent UK jobs growth, import reducing,export enabling of surplus energy or energy byproducts. Wind farms floating or not also provide protection for oceanlife from devastating industrial fishing. Enabling a more sustainable catch and more fish in the UK diet.

      Solar farms and other in conjunction with farming can enable greener growth with less subsidy.

      Again our “overseas aid” would be better spent developing these technologies and making them available to developing countries on license with “good democratic governance” rather than enabling other interests to capture them.

      The problem is local democracy has lost to global non-democratic interests.

    2. zorro
      October 10, 2020

      “As the number of virus fatalities there now exceeds 210,000” – They are deaths with COVID allegedly (not always proven) and we know that the vast majority had two or more comorbidities and were very old.

      zorro

    3. zorro
      October 10, 2020

      “The UK Build back better campaign is anti the rich and big companies and shares a lot in common with the Biden platform. Presumably, those on the centre-right who use the phrase define it differently to these mainstream versions.”

      Is the UK Build Back Better campaign that one led by Our Dear Leader? If so, who are the centre-right?

      “There are those who think there is a global conspiracy led by a billionaire or two who they think set the agenda. I do not post such work, as it is silly.”

      You are absolutely right, the conspiracy is far wider-reaching and includes many supranational bodies, it is grotesque, insidious, and pervasive as Japanese knotweed…..

      zorro

    4. dixie
      October 10, 2020

      If we “lead” in offshore wind and solar it is only as customers, we do not manufacture or build the units and systems.

      1. Sakara Gold
        October 10, 2020

        We do. There are plants all over the UK making turbine blades, generators, heavy electrical switchgear, anerobic digestors as well as companies involved in financing, building, installing and operating renewable energy systems, not to mention R&D

        During the summer this year offshore wind and solar were producing about 25% of the UK’s energy needs

        1. NickC
          October 11, 2020

          Sakara, Many of those plants are foreign owed using technology developed outside this country. Claiming “we” lead is therefore false – we are followers.

        2. dixie
          October 11, 2020

          Supplied by well known British companies such as Siemens, General Electric, Nordex-Acciona, Mitsubishi.

          Operated by well known British companies such as e.on, npower (now e.on), EDF, GruppoFalk ..

    5. M Davis
      October 10, 2020

      … causal relationship between the increasing CO2 levels and the global rise in temperatures …

      And? – Have you any idea of what you’re talking about? Any knowledge of water vapour, clouds, oceans, etc. etc. etc., for instance? There are some very good books out there for you to read but you may not have the ability to understand them, I don’t know.

      For starters – “The Real Inconvenient Truth (It’s Warming but not by CO2)” by M. J. Sangster PhD.

    6. Lynn Atkinson
      October 10, 2020

      Trump is winning, ergo the massive attempts to gerrymander the election. Some areas sending millions of ballot papers out with no possibility of voting for Trump on them!
      This day 2016 – ā€˜Hillary 14% ahead of Trumpā€™ – oh yeah!

      1. bill brown
        October 10, 2020

        Lynn Atkinson

        the pools seem to say soemthing very different to your predictions

    7. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      Sakara Gold said: “clear causal relationship between the increasing CO2 levels and the global rise in temperatures”. There isn’t one. Are you even aware that the CO2 absorption and emission of IR is mainly in three narrow bands, the principal one being c15 micron? The greater part of the IR spectrum is covered by water vapour. How are you going to control that?

      1. hefner
        October 10, 2020

        Oh, NickC, you’re improving, you start getting some bits of spectroscopy. Gee!
        OK, a puzzle now: CO2 is essentially a uniformly mixed gas (i.e., his concentration remains about the same over the vertical, and as the density of air (essentially N2, O2) decreases, that of CO2 varies in the same way. H2O has a much more varied vertical distribution being produced by evaporation at the surface of the ocean, being transported by winds, convection, condensing into liquid water/ice in clouds, precipitated as rain and snow. So what happens to CO2 in the 15 micron band say above the highest clouds where the presence of H2O is likely to be much reduced? Will it be or not overlapped by H2O absorption bands?
        What happens around 9.4 and 10.4 microns where absorption bands of CO2 are present but absorption by H2O is at a relative minimum? Will these CO2 bands make any potential contribution or not?
        Please tell me.

        1. NickC
          October 11, 2020

          Hefner, I’m “improving”? When I’ve explained about the relatively minor role played by CO2 before? You’re not paying attention.

          The claim by Boris, Prince Charles, Thunberg, Gore, et al, is that if humans continue to burn natural fuels at current rates we will all fry in a CAGW meltdown due to excess CO2. You apparently agree with them. I think it’s poppycock. It’s up to you to prove the proposition.

        2. forthurst
          October 11, 2020

          No they won’t. Apart from the fact that CO2 molecules represent less than 1 in 2k atmospheric molecules, once the all the radiation that CO2 can absorb has been which is after it has travelled a few metres through the atmosphere, no more radiation will be available for absorption irrespective of the concentration in the atmosphere. A total fraud propagated by non-scientists to their fellow non-scientists.

          1. hefner
            October 11, 2020

            So please tell me. When in the 1980s the chlorofluorocarbons (with concentrations at least a thousand times smaller than that of CO2, in ppb for CFCs, ppm for CO2, CH4) were shown to interact with ozone and destroying it over polar regions, was it also a fraud?

            I am wondering whether you know that the longwave radiation is radiation produced by excited molecules, so that any radiation absorbed by a molecule is likely to be later on emitted (the molecule moving from an ‘excited’ state to a background one).
            So your view of radiation being absorbed within a few meters is somewhat correct but it can be remitted practically right away.
            By the way that’s how satellites can see radiation from the top of the atmosphere and how they can with measurements in very narrow wave number channels spanning an absorption band from its ‘saturated’ centre to the so-called ‘wings’ (where absorption-emission is much weaker) translate these measurements into a temperature profile, and with satellites these profiles are available practically globally.

          2. hefner
            October 11, 2020

            re-emitted

          3. forthurst
            October 13, 2020

            The process of ozone depletion effected by some gases over and above that which would dissociate spontaneously because of its its weak bond is I presume catalysis. Yes, the process of absorption of infrared and re-emitting occurs almost immediately in Earth time.

    8. forthurst
      October 10, 2020

      According to your theory, we would also expect the coldest weather during the Winter solstice, not after. Did you ever study Physics?

      1. hefner
        October 19, 2020

        Ever heard of seasonal cycle of pretty much everything, annual cycle of solar radiation, of vegetation, of forming and melting of sea-ice, snow fall and its melting, the difference between the Arctic sea-ice and Antarctica land ice, …? All these processes have different time scales that contribute in complex ways to the lowest temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere (with more land masses than in the Southern one) not being synchronous with the solar radiation.

    9. Mark
      October 10, 2020

      Perhaps you can explain why electricity is so much more expensive in green California than Louisiana?

      Are you aware that National Grid expect about 2.5GWh of battery capacity by 2025 – enough to power the streetlights etc. overnight for about 8 minutes?

      Did you completely hide away from news about the rolling blackouts in California?

  9. Andy
    October 10, 2020

    Another day, another Tory outrage.

    Mr Sunak – sounding all generous – says he will pay 66% of the wages of workers his government is ordering not to go to work. Think of that for a moment. 66%.

    Will these workers only pay two thirds of their bills at the supermarket? Will their electricity company only charge them 66%? Will their landlords accept 66% of the rent? Of course not. These poor people are being ordered not to work and will take a huge financial hit.

    And, hereā€™s the thing. Many – if not most – of the workers in hospitality are younger. 20s, 30s, 40s. Even if they get the virus they are highly unlikely to die from it. So they are being asked to take a massive pay cut to protect the lives of other people. Which people are they protecting? People in their 60s and, particularly, their 70s and 80s.

    So what is the government asking people in their 70s and 80s to contribute to the financial effort? Diddly squat. Zilch.

    Young workers are being forced to take pay cuts to protect the health of the old. Perhaps the old should be forced to take pay cuts to protect the wealth of the young? Slash pensions immediately to 66% of their current value – so the people we are protecting, at last, start contributing to the cost of their own protection.

    1. steve
      October 10, 2020

      Andy

      “So what is the government asking people in their 70s and 80s to contribute to the financial effort? Diddly squat. Zilch.”

      Andy, we have 100 year old people doing their bit to help others, often involving strenuous exercise and dogged determination.

      Respected Mr Dabirul Islam Choudhury raised Ā£420,000 for Coronavirus relief.

      Captain Sir Tom Moore raised over Ā£32m.

      Also, Marcus Ashford gave up much of his salary and campaigned successfully to ensure children got School meals.

      May I ask, Andy, that since you are so keen to criticise and accuse others of contributing nothing…..WHAT EXACTLY HAVE YOU DONE FOR OTHER PEOPLE DURING THIS CRISIS ! ?

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 10, 2020

        Or even ever

    2. No Longer Anonymous
      October 10, 2020

      Blimey..

      It’s another +1 from me, Andy !

    3. Cheshire Girl
      October 10, 2020

      Andy:

      It wouldnt be a normal day, if there was no ā€˜ageist comment from you.

      I am old, and a taxpayer, and I fully expect to have to pay for some of this. Im sure taxes will go up, and so called ā€˜benefitsā€™ for the old will be slashed.

      Ive worked most of my life, and before the State Pensions, I have never claimed benefits. It is annoying in the extreme to get a daily lecture from you, as to how I am ā€˜stealingā€™ young peoples future.

      I am aware that is no good asking you to desist, you are obviously getting too much enjoyment from attacking the old. However, I am comforted by the thought that you will be old yourself one day, and what goes around, comes around.

    4. Old fellow
      October 10, 2020

      You’ll be old one day.what goes round comes round.

      1. Wonky Moral Compass
        October 10, 2020

        But will he be any wiser and deeply ashamed of his younger self?

    5. Bryan Harris
      October 10, 2020

      Another day – another dose of socialist feculence

    6. gregory martin
      October 10, 2020

      I would be delighted to receive 66% of average earnings as a State pension.Median weekly earnings for full-time employees reached Ā£585 in April 2019.

    7. a-tracy
      October 10, 2020

      Are your parents and grandparents still alive Andy? Are you close to them?
      How wealthy are they on your measure? Iā€™m not sure your outrage is even real and I hope people on here donā€™t rise to you today. I actually feel sorry for you, something is very wrong in your life or youā€™re doing it on purpose and its your job to antagonise a certain set of voters.

    8. graham1946
      October 10, 2020

      A very ‘decent’ – in your opinion contribution. Why not stop giving free board and lodging, phones, clothes allowance and 40 quid a week to freeloaders turning up uninvited on our beaches? At least the old have paid their whack which you have directly benefitted from – child allowances, education, health care and all the other provisions of society you benefit from. To hear the evil rubbish you spout every day you’d think it was the people who have paid all their taxes and still do who are the freeloaders. You need a serious re-think of your values and to stop an obviously poor parental (you don’t even talk to your mum, you say) upbringing forming such gross ideas.

      1. bill brown
        October 10, 2020

        Graham 1946

        Graham you got your answer on companies trading with the EU 200.000 and about 3 to 5 sub-suppliers involved on average in the delivery.

      2. Andy
        October 10, 2020

        The trouble is that many of you are freeloaders. Most of you paid into the system on the basis that you would get a state pension for 5 to 10 years.

        Many of you are living 10-20 years of retirement and you have not paid as much into the system as you now take out.

        Worse, those later years tend to be in poorer health. So as well as costing us in pensions, you cost us in NHS and social care too.

        As the richest demographic in the country the over 65s must pay their share of the bill for this economic crisis which is being imposed on the young to save the lives of the old.

        Yes, I get that you want to blame a few hundred foreigners in dinghies – a politically easier target than the 9 million pensioners. But pretty much a half of my taxes go on benefits for the elderly and next to nothing goes on asylum seekers.

        People of your children and grandchildrenā€™s generations are desperately worried about losing their jobs, their homes, wondering if they will ever work again. You lot are mostly mortgage free. Your homes are not at risk. Your income is guaranteed. You are moaning about staying inside for a few weeks whilst planning your next cruise. Genuinely – what an appalling generation you are.

        1. Edward2
          October 10, 2020

          No actuaries predicted the increasing life expectancy.
          Decades ago.
          You fail yet again Andy.

          1. Edward2
            October 10, 2020

            Please put a comma after No

        2. Fedupsoutherner
          October 10, 2020

          Andy I don’t think I’ve ever come across such a sad and ignorant person in my life as you. You are obviously not old enough to remember when mortgages were at 17%. Many of us oldies lost not only our jobs but our homes too. I know this from personal experience. We had no wealthy parents to help us out. We had to get out there and make things work. We downsized our home and sold our car for an old banger just to get to work. I had a 2 year old and no parents to babysit for free so I worked ftom 6pm to midnight to make ends meet. Please don’t insult our intelligence by making out life was easy for us. All generations face hardship at one time or another and somehow with guts and determination you get through. For goodness sake stop behaving lije a spoilt child.

          1. NickC
            October 11, 2020

            Andy is useful because he is so easy to contradict with facts and reason. That he is an ageist bigot and a Remain makes it all the easier.

    9. Jane
      October 10, 2020

      I am one of the not so young folk who happens to agree with you about the economy.

      If you are vulnerable through age or health you should take great care.
      This virus does not kill the healthy young unless you are in a risky BAME category.

      Everyone should get back to work to preserve what is left of our economy. Did you not see the dotted population graphic in the Sunday Times which put everything into perspective?

      The young are unaffected carriers so schools, universities and hospitality should all be back. If it is too dangerous to go out stay in, let people make their own decisions and above all wash hands.

      You must not kill the economy, see the Sunday Times graphic from a couple of weeks ago to put the death toll into perspective.

      No more lockdowns, it will do absolutely zilch. The death rate % is down so let the virus run through , it is anyway!
      If it was killing off the young twenty year olds, which happened in 1918 then we really would be in trouble. It is patently not so let us get back to work and all take care to wash hands and wear masks. What more can we do?

    10. Richard
      October 10, 2020

      The government has no money. There is only the money of other taxpayers.

      But you are right that this is the only time in human history that governments have chosen to lock up the healthy population.

      Apparently there is a 2010 Lockstep report that came up with this crazy idea.

    11. Lifelogic
      October 10, 2020

      ā€œMr Sunak ā€“ sounding all generous ā€“ says he will pay 66% of the wages of workers his government is ordering not to go to work.ā€

      If only Sunak would pay alas it will be tax payers rescuing tax payers (his wifeā€™s family is quite rick it seems so perhaps he could afford too!) This is like trying to help your finances by taking Ā£50 out of your left pocket, throwing away Ā£20 of it in admin costs then putting the Ā£30 back in you right pocket.

      It is not a very good plan unless you are in the parasitic admin. business as the government largely is.

      1. Lifelogic
        October 10, 2020

        Rich!

        1. Jim Whitehead
          October 10, 2020

          ‘Rick’ = Stack in a farmyard, so same thing probably.
          Your keyboard scratched an ‘H’ and substituted a stack in the form of a rick, so maybe our predictable text is smarter than we thought we’d bought.
          Your analogy of cash from one pocket to the other with an admin deduction is delightful. Surely it should be from Right pocket into Left, or have Johnson and Sunak rearranged that convention?

    12. bigneil(newercomp)
      October 10, 2020

      “So what is the government asking people in their 70s and 80s to contribute to the financial effort? Diddly squat. Zilch.” – and what are the govt asking the hundreds of freeloaders regularly setting off North from Calais to pay towards their hotels and keep after getting here. Pensioners here have worked and paid taxes for years – the freeloaders haven’t – and most likely have absolutely NO intention of ever doing so. Just before some of them were moved to the Folkestone barracks Brand new tvs were seen being delivered there. I am an English pensioner born and bred here – worked and paid in for over 40 years – when is MY free tv coming? Complete with no license fee, free electricity, free water, free housing, etc?

    13. MickN
      October 10, 2020

      Usual ageist twaddle from Tweedle Dee. I’m sure Tweedle Dum from Cardiff will be along shortly

    14. agricola
      October 10, 2020

      Another day, another Andy ageist rant, boring.

      1. Andy
        October 10, 2020

        It is not ageist at all to demand that everyone pay their share.

        And none of you are paying your share.

        This has had a negligible economic impact on the old.

        But it has a huge economic impact on the young.

        The young are being forced to sacrifice their wealth for your health.

        Just pay your share.

        1. Edward2
          October 10, 2020

          People over 60 and 70 and even over 80 still work.
          They pay taxes and national insurance.

          I paid into a private pension for over 30 years and paid over 30 years of National Insurance contributions whilst working.
          That is why I can have a pension.
          It isnt welfare.

        2. a-tracy
          October 10, 2020

          Iā€™m not retired and Iā€™m still contributing but I do not wish ill on the retired who have paid in their share and have had their pension age if theyā€™re women increased five years and now incrementing one year extra. Many were working from the age of 15 and 16 years of age. There were huge economic impacts in the past such as the 70ā€™s 3 day week, the blackouts, the dockers strikes, the miners strikes, recessions no-one was dolling out money then! In the past there wasnā€™t working tax credits, child tax credits, child benefit was insignificant, they didnā€™t pay the maternity leave and paternity leave they pay this generation. Where were you when there was 12 to 15% interest on mortgages when 1% interest made the difference between eating beans or egg on toast for a week. Our motherā€™s didnā€™t go to the State with their hands out for free school dinners we had sandwiches and a tuppawear reuseable beaker with water or juice if you were lucky. I think you are just a spoilt brat Andy.

        3. Lynn Atkinson
          October 10, 2020

          The young have no wealth. They live off the old!

          1. bill brown
            October 10, 2020

            Lynn Atkinson,

            If, you ahve to write as much as you do, there has to be a lot of nonsense coming out, most you ng people work ahrd and the 30 year olds have now been through two economic crises in thier life-time and losing their jobs.

          2. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            Exactly the same as the previous generation bill.
            We worked hard (and many of us are still working) and we went through economic crises where millions lost their jobs.

        4. M Davis
          October 10, 2020

          We have already paid our share, over and over, in the past. We cannot help it if, after bringing up a family and taking care of a husband, we can’t get a job after the age of fifty. Nobody wanted to employ us. I was told that I could not have a supermarket cleaning job because I would not be able to manage to push an electric polisher around – it would be too heavy, for goodness sake. Don’t blame us! And don’t forget about Karma, it may come and bite you in the posterior!

        5. NickC
          October 10, 2020

          Andy, The vast majority of those over 70 have already paid their share by a lifetime’s hard work and taxes. It’s the young (18-30) who have had a free ride for most of their lives.

          1. bill brown
            October 10, 2020

            NickC

            The 30 years old have been thorugh two economic crises and they are losing their jobs much more than the older generation. SO iam afraid I fudamentally disagre with your conclusion. SHAME ON YOU

          2. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            The pandemic is a big problem for everyone.
            Nick is correct.
            PS Older people went through economic crises and periods of mass unemployment.

          3. NickC
            October 11, 2020

            Don’t be silly, Bill, there have been economic crises throughout living memory – the 30s depression, WW2, Suez, the whole of the 1970s, ERM 1992, 2008 financial crash, and covid19. Crises go even further back of course. No one has been immune, though some are luckier than others. It remains the case that the majority born 20 years ago have had a free ride at their elders expense.

          4. bill brown
            October 11, 2020

            Nick,2

            You said 18 to 30 years of age make up your mind or is it changing again, and the crises of 2008 and and 2019 are deeper than most of teh one’s you mentioned

        6. steve
          October 10, 2020

          Andy

          You have not as I expected answered my question, most likely because you contribute nothing.

          Someone suggested that what goes around comes around and that you will find this out when you get old. Personally, I don’t see you reaching old age.

          I knew of an individual years ago who picked on a pensioner and ended up in IC with a fractured arm and skull and one cheek nearly ripped off……turned out the victim was a veteran Commando.

          I think that one of these days you’ll show your attitude to the wrong person and that will be your lot. Might not be a pensioner but anyone who takes offence at your childish nasty attitude…..but get yours, you surely will. Your kind always do.

    15. Man of Kent
      October 10, 2020

      Dear Andy ,
      As a late 80yo I ask for no special treatment.
      I am in the highest category of risk and believe it is up to me to reduce that risk .
      So I have just managed to get a flu jab and have my one and only pneumonia jab next Wednesday
      I use the NHS track and trace app and choose where to eat out ,preferably outside .
      I go to supermarkets, fill the car up and keep my distance from my student grandchildren, not because the odds Of catching Covid from them is other than vanishingly small but because if a stray droplet were to latch on and infect me I would not want them to feel responsible in any way.

      If I thought it would do any good at all I would willingly give up 66% of my pension but a more constructive approach is surely to allow as many as possible to go back to work and let them assess their own odds ?

      Not easy as the figures are distorted to fit the Whitty scenario ā€˜ See I was right all along – what we need are more lockdownsā€™ .
      Or even to cover up faults in the NHS where I read today that 25% of those in hospital were infected with Covid in hospital .
      Same old mistakes being repeated . For goodness sake please put Covid cases in Covid Hospitals. We used to call them isolation hospitals . They worked in that life went on as normal for everyone else.

    16. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      Andy, It’s you who wants more lockdown, not me. And not most elderly people either. Return to normal (until and unless the covid19 death toll rises significantly above that for pneumonia and influenza) and the young can get back to work. Problem solved.

    17. John Hatfield
      October 10, 2020

      On Ā£590 a month, pensioners need all their income to eat and stay warm Andy.

    18. anon
      October 10, 2020

      Cut the state pension likely that would just increase the benefits bill as income in retirement is very low?

      However abolishing national insurance would simplify things. The cost whilst large is well within the largess been thrown around.

      This including a UBI , would encourage betterement , part time working and education.

      The old who are “rich” are dwindling in number and are usually the higher tiers of “fat cat” % of final public sector salary. The very ones currently being paid in full for perhaps not a full day.

      The upper tiers of public sector pension provision should be moved to defined contributions only. They should experience the economic risk the private sector must take. It may even lift the quality of thinking and decisions.

    19. dixie
      October 10, 2020

      Andy, you really are the most excellent poster child for the EU in attitude, tolerance and behaviour.

      No wonder our host keeps you around.

      Keep it up.

  10. Adam
    October 10, 2020

    Crises are full of opportunity. The US campaign words are key to spurring support: envisioning the offer, and attracting like-minded supporters who want to be in that picture

    Build Back has efficient properties but what built those words into the best-processed outcome? Maybe B: Because Build Back belongs to Biden.

    ā€˜Buildā€™ is usually positive, but some build obstacles, queues, rubbish, debts and worse.
    American synonyms are a mixed bag too: Assemble, Confect, Construct, Erect, Fabricate, Make up, Piece, Put up, Rear, Raise, Set up.

    Erect, fabricate and rear here make up a mixed gallery.

    Back is backward, so the notion of ā€˜Build Backā€™ does not build afresh. It bears the despair of constant repair. On the positive side, ā€˜Build Backā€™ is a contraction of ā€˜Build Blackā€™ and that may in itself garner loyal support from the majority who want better.

  11. Brian Tomkinson
    October 10, 2020

    JR: “It is a systematic agenda and way of thinking that infuses most global institutions and many governments or main Oppositions in leading countries.”
    The question is, if we live in a democracy, when were we informed that our political parties had signed up to adopt all of this agenda and when did they seek our approval for such action? We are moving inexorably to World government (dictatorship) where the views of the mass of the population are ignored and treated with disdain. The actions taken in dealing with CV19 are nothing short of criminal as they have caused premature deaths, delayed diagnoses and treatment of more life-threatening diseases, disrupted education, increased unemployment, trashed the economy and taken away much of our personal freedom and liberty.
    So far most MPs have sat back and drawn their good salaries and expenses (now to be significantly increased) and done nothing to arrest this move away from democracy to dictatorship. Are we to assume that they too are fully signed up to this “systematic agenda”? We really are living in the world of George Orwell’s 1984.

    1. James Bertram
      October 10, 2020

      Good post, Brian

  12. steve
    October 10, 2020

    JR

    “Mr Biden wants to …….. extend Union rights to all public service employees”

    Same mistake that was made in our country.

    “The politicians and political movements who disagree with some or all of this consensus are treated roughly by conventional media”

    Media is politically biased, subversive, seditious and frankly perverse. Gov’t reluctance to shut down the likes of BBC, C4, Piers Morgan’s GMB etc simply tells me that government and media are having us over, they’re in the scam together up to their necks. Take the bstds off the air and we might start to have some trust.

  13. DOM
    October 10, 2020

    Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals. A tome that now dictates the very future of the USA. The preposterously termed Democrats have embraced a brutal authoritarian politics that knows no limits in how it should conduct itself

    I believe the US is on the edge of something terrible and Western politicians and many shadowy activist groups since the fall of Thatcher and Reagan are directly responsible

    While here in the UK we are following a similar path to the US.

    This is Labour’s politics. Revolutionary with intent to destroy and then harm. And the Tories haven’t got a clue how to respond to this brutal activism except give way to it by agreeing to its demands. That capitulation to guaranteed that our freedoms will suffer

  14. Andy
    October 10, 2020

    Our Dear Leader has appointed Allegra Stratton as his spokesperson to front daily press conferences. Ms Stratton, who will be paid for by the Conservative Party, is a former political editor of BBCā€™s Newsnight.

    She is also married to James Forsyth, political editor of The Spectator – overseen by Andrew Neil. Andrew Neil the former BBC political heavyweight interviewer who oversees a right wing magazine and is setting up a new right wing TV news channel. Apparently which will comply with Ofcom impartially rules. Straight from the BBC to Tory mouthpieces.

    Robbie Gibb – who ran the BBCā€™s political unit at the time of the referendum left the BBC shortly afterwards to work for the Conservative Party – in the number 10 comms team. He was following a trail blazed by Craig Oliver – former head of BBC Ten and Six news bulletins who moved to No10 to work for Cameron.

    And Today presenter, Nick Robinson, former BBC political editor, was head of the young Conservatives at university.

    Considering the BBC is run by all those lefties we keep hearing about – an awful lot of them seem to end working for the Conservative Party. Strange that.

    1. Martin in Cardiff
      October 10, 2020

      As Tony Benn used to say, the ruling elite in Britain, unlike in Russia, do not need anything like the KGB because they have the BBC.

      1. Fred H
        October 10, 2020

        very good – who has to keep a straight face while delivering deceipt – the BBC does it so well.

    2. Edward2
      October 10, 2020

      There are dozens of Blair’s pals in top jobs in the BBC alone.

    3. margaret howard
      October 10, 2020

      Andy

      “Considering the BBC is run by all those lefties we keep hearing about ā€“ an awful lot of them seem to end working for the Conservative Party. Strange that.”

      Methinks that it’s just another cunning Baldrick plan to fool the gullible.
      ==

      Incidentally according to a report in today’s FAZnet British banks have transferred more than 7500 jobs into the EU. Rats leaving the sinking ship?

      Brexit keeps on giving.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 10, 2020

        7,500 – well the EU needs every job it can get but even they must be disappointed. People like you promised them million of our jobs if we voted for Brexit.

        1. margaret howard
          October 10, 2020

          Lynn

          Millions of our jobs? I didn’t know we had that many bankers here.

          1. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            There are well over a million jobs in the UK financial sector.

    4. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      Andy, So what you’re saying is there are not many from the “right” at the BBC, and those that are, tend to escape. I thought as much. Certainly the BBC pushes cultural-marxism, abortion, BLM bigotry, Remainerism, the CAGW religion, child abuse (the politicalisation of gender to under 12s), an anti-family agenda, and all the usual woke claptrap whilst sneering at patriotism.

      1. bill brown
        October 10, 2020

        Nick C

        Do you actually know what cultural-marxism means?

        1. Edward2
          October 11, 2020

          Nick did give some examples. Did you not see them?

          1. bill brown
            October 11, 2020

            Edward 2

            You lost your half-brother on this one, bacause in this case he still does not know what he is talking about

          2. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            Please explain bill.
            Nick gave several examples of C-M.

  15. Wil Pretty
    October 10, 2020

    ā€˜Their number one enemy is Carbon Dioxideā€™.
    How can this be achieved?
    Since this is deemed an emergency requirement then the action that will achieve this is to get the major emitters to drastically cut their output. This is China and India.
    Why then has the UN accepted that these countries may expand their emissions without limit till 2030?
    Those wishing to respond to this emergency should be lobbying the UN to overturn this decision. Actions by other countries will be ineffectual until this nettle is grasped.

    1. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      Wil, Good point. And especially bad for Africa, because obstacles are put in the way of providing electricity to Africans (which would help provide fresh water) whilst the far richer China and India get away with not just high CO2 emissions, but high actual pollution.

    2. Anonymous
      October 10, 2020

      ā€˜Their number one enemy is Carbon Dioxideā€™.


      Life.

    3. a-tracy
      October 10, 2020

      How many windmills are the Chinese and Indians using for their fuel needs?

  16. Ginty
    October 10, 2020

    I don’t care much for global conspiracy theories. But I do wonder why a Tory government (allegedly) with an 80 seat majority is serving up stuff that wasn’t in its manifesto.

    As ever, yet another election winning Tory arriving in office and the first thing to say is “I need to think about the feelings of people who didn’t vote for me.”

    And the address to the ‘borrowed’ Red Wall voters was just that.

    A total cop out.

  17. Sharon
    October 10, 2020

    ā€œThe centre left version of the consensus sees CV 19 as a crisis full of opportunity. They usually agree that economic recovery should build back a different world.ā€

    Thatā€™s the crux of the matter isnā€™t it? Why was the world even shut down for a ā€˜pandemic ā€˜ which in our country was more or less over in May, and is being fanned by continuous lockdowns which are being decided upon on the back of dodgy PCR test results. From the start, the Covid deaths were exaggerated because even being run over by a bus was put down as Covid

    My, this virus was a stroke of luck to all the people you describe…. sure this wasnā€™t arson to claim on the insurance to re-build a house the ā€˜ownerā€™ didnā€™t like?!

    And typical woke like Trump sand Sweden will be cancelled if possible,,..

    Sorry, but Iā€™m still furious at these communist style approaches and what they are doing WITHOUT consulting the taxpayers of all these grandiose ideas!!!!! We were right after all in our conspiracy theories, but it isnā€™t individuals itā€™s group think…

  18. oldtimer
    October 10, 2020

    Group think rules.

  19. MPC
    October 10, 2020

    Itā€™s hard not to think that Conservatism is now dead in this country. The only vision the government has is build back better to a net zero world where California style energy blackouts are now a racing certainty and of course unreported in the mainstream media. Now we hear Mr Gove, a principal advocate of build back better etc saying a ā€˜dealā€™ with the EU is now suddenly 66% likely. Prepare for the late caving to come regarding the future relationship with the EU. Who would vote Conservative then?

    1. Jim Whitehead
      October 10, 2020

      Not me.
      I would vote in the way that would be most damaging to the undeserving treacherous party of frauds that has betrayed myself, my family, and my country.
      I have in the past always cast my vote for the party which offered me most of what I agreed with. That was for Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative Party. It was ‘the real thing’, and I donated to its success on several occasions
      I have never cast a ‘Tactical Vote’, and I voted for UKIP and for the Brexit Party when they best fitted with my views.
      Of course I would never vote for socialism.
      I look forward to helping to torpedo this disgraceful apology for a conservative Government at whichever election grants me that pleasure.
      Sir John, this is not personal, but it is visceral.
      Today’s column is, as usual, informed, balanced, and very much appreciated for its unique contribution by a serving politician.

  20. agricola
    October 10, 2020

    Your Centre Left description of policy is a bit of a give away, it being conservative policy as uttered by your leader and Cabinet. Just to remind you, more and more windmills and inadequate , dishonest, and expensive personal transport. Inadequate because it is only any good for going shopping. Dishonest because of it’s off piste environmental impact and the cost in all respects far too high. The very antithesis of Building back Better when there are much better alternatives. A confirmation that conservatism is no longer Conservative. I would remind you that Conservatives in the real world are up and running, just looking for a vehicle on which to hitch a ride.

    As to undue influence, take a look at Bieldeberg, they are not meeting for tea and cakes. They would subvert democracy to their way of thinking as does the EU throughout it’s domain.

    Medically the NHS is a caring dedicated service suffering from excessive and inadequate administration. It requires a lot of building back once the administration has been culled.

    As to Covid 19, we need effective check and trace to protect and ring fence the vulnerable, but allowing the economy to get back to a normal level of activity. Activity conducted in a different manner in many cases to pre covid days.

  21. Nivek
    October 10, 2020

    “The views and actions many of you dislike are far more widespread and complex than a simple case of undue influence by one individual or think tank.”

    I would also suggest that the situation in America is far more complex than what you address here under the label, “the Biden platform”. I believe it is important to be able to discuss that.

  22. DOM
    October 10, 2020

    The invention of the political weapon that is ‘hate crime’ equals the death of justice. It is the first time in British legislative history that perception has been embedded into the British law. Its aim? To destroy freedom and justice to protect and promote a political class rather than correct harmful human action

    Politicians like Biden, Khan, Dick, Lammy, May, Harman, Corbyn and others like them endorse this appalling legislation because it both promotes their politics and destroys opposition to their political agenda

    The UK is now utterly hollowed out from the inside. In the space of 23 years since 1997 the UK is now officially an authoritarian nation. And this is what people have unwittingly voted for by endorsing the two parties that are slowly dismantling our nation, its history and our civil freedoms

    I believe those above have only just started on their mission to destroy all that has gone before. Year Zero politics is nearly upon us unless we see the emergence of a new party that is able to protect our most precious of freedoms

    1. Martin in Cardiff
      October 10, 2020

      What is it that you want to do – that is so noble or necessary – that Hate Crime laws prevent you from doing?

      Please tell us.

      1. Edward2
        October 10, 2020

        It is difficult to say because a hate crime is anything the complainant says has caused them distress.

        1. bill brown
          October 11, 2020

          Edward 2

          In the case of Lynn Atkinson, if, he know about Europe, he wold know that Italy has a two chamber ssytem and Paliement has little power without the support of the Senate .
          And by the way it is not called Parliament, so stick to the facts or stop commenting with none factual nonsense

          1. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            Are you posting in the wrong place again bill?
            I cant work what you are trying to say.
            As I haven’t posted about Italy.

            PS
            I reckon Lynn is probably female so referring her as “he” is not correct.

      2. NickC
        October 10, 2020

        Martin, Let me give you an example – a friend quoted the dictionary definition of a word on facebook. He was visited by the police and cautioned. Another did not want to admit he supported UKIP because he would lose his job. Public property has been vandalised. Teachers have lost their jobs. There are a vast number of examples. You just don’t want to see.

        1. steve
          October 11, 2020

          Never mind hate crime, they’re already considering worse….soon it will be a criminal offence to ‘dislike’ someone.

          Like me or get fired and go to jail. You couldn’t make it up.

          Meanwhile Lord Frost and Boris offer little napoleon three years access to UK fishing, thereby losing the alleged conservatives the next general election.

        2. Martin in Cardiff
          October 11, 2020

          Your problem is with the police wrongly acting yet again then, not with the law.

          1. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            Read the legal definition of hate crime.
            And read the advice given by the CPS to senior Police officers.

          2. NickC
            October 11, 2020

            No, Martin, not just the police, it is state wide. Even saying that you support a traditional family and don’t want your child to be subject to gender propaganda can result in job loss. When even feminists like Rowling are targetted for merely saying women exist, even you should be able see what’s happening. For God’s sake wake up and stop relying on the BBC/Guardian for your news.

          3. steve
            October 11, 2020

            MiC

            Explain ?

  23. Oldwulf
    October 10, 2020

    Build back better.

    I understand that Italy has voted to reduce the size of its Parliament by a third.

    That would be a good start here.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54244025

    1. Jim Whitehead
      October 10, 2020

      Oldwulf, I must tell you that your short comment instantly warmed my heart, but imagine how my heart sank with dismay when I realised that you had written “by a third”, not, as I had misread, “to a third”.
      Good comment nonetheless, as many will agree, LL surely.

      1. Oldwulf
        October 10, 2020

        Jim Whitehead. It looks as though the number of MPs is to reduce from 634 to 400 – a reduction of 36.9%. The good news is this is more than one third. The bad news is that it is nowhere near two thirds.
        šŸ™‚

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        October 10, 2020

        Why has Italy got a MPs at all? It has no Parliament. It suffers direct rule from German Europe.

        1. oldwulf
          October 10, 2020

          Lynn Atkinson. Maybe the main purpose of any local Parliament is to maintain a potential escape route from German Europe ?

        2. bill brown
          October 10, 2020

          Lynn Atkinson,

          It shows you know little about Europe , least about Italy and Germany you really need to either learn their langugages or starting reding about what they are really about.

          1. NickC
            October 11, 2020

            Bill, Does the B actually stand for Biden rather than Brown? Your comments are vague, lacking both facts and logic, like his. The EU is not Europe. England is a European country. Moreover many of us here have recent forbears from the continent, and relations still there, so we do know what’s going on.

  24. beresford
    October 10, 2020

    So you (JR) are coming round to our point of view about the anti-democratic globalist movement, you just maintain that it came from nowhere rather than from a small group. You omitted the bit about mass migration being encouraged in order to break up the cohesion of Western nation states and prepare them for absorption. So are you in favour of all of this, as it does make Brexit a bit pointless if we are to be part of an amorphous labour pool for big corporations?

    Reply No I am not in favour! This blog offers alternative analysis and policy proposals to the damaging globalist ones.I was anti ERM, anti the EU legislative avalanche, and am offering different approaches top green policy and anti pandemic policy.

    1. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      Reply to reply: JR, thank you for that hard work. I am heartened by your indefatigability.

      1. bill brown
        October 10, 2020

        NIckC

        Sir JR,

        Does keep on going, it is just a pity he is not always right on the EU.

        1. Edward2
          October 11, 2020

          Seems to chime with the majority who voted in the referendum.

        2. NickC
          October 11, 2020

          Bill, Such as?

          1. bill brown
            October 11, 2020

            NickC

            on the Eu like you on Sweden, which will still take years before it is proven

          2. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            Only by you.
            I reckon you will never accept that the policies of Sweden have worked just as well as other nations who did the lockdowns

    2. Anonymous
      October 10, 2020

      Reply No I am not in favour! This blog offers alternative analysis and policy proposals to the damaging globalist ones.I was anti ERM, anti the EU legislative avalanche, and am offering different approaches top green policy and anti pandemic policy


      you voted for the Coronavirus Act, a pre planned globalist agenda.

      1. Anonymous
        October 10, 2020

        you voted for the Coronavirus Act, a pre planned globalist agenda.


        did you not hear Hancock said they had been working on it for 3 months? He said that March 22nd.

    3. Everhopeful
      October 10, 2020

      Reply to reply
      Thank goodness!

  25. gyges
    October 10, 2020

    Should we blame the incumbent government for the failings of the civil service?

    The miscounting of covid cases through inept use of excel software is entirely the fault of the civil service. The fact that there is no quality control in the information transmitted to the British public pertaining to covid is entirely the fault of the civil service.

    But the government is going to be blamed for it.

  26. Javelin
    October 10, 2020

    If Conservative MPs think that the thousands of wall-to-wall angry comments in the online right wing newspapers calling the Government ā€œauthoritarianā€, ā€œevilā€, ā€œmadā€, ā€œlunaticsā€ have nothing to do with them and are made my deluded people who are not socially responsible then they must ask themselves ā€œBoris, are we the baddies?ā€

    1. Fred H
      October 10, 2020

      When, because they certainly will be, the Conservatives are dumped, will they scratch heads like Boris, bleat on about SCIENCE not being funded in the UK, remind us trains are 15 mins quicker to Birmingham in about 10 years hence, we can’t grow oranges and pineapples in the UK, Westminster repairs bill has only gone up by Ā£2bn, and how COULD we elect Dianne to Chancellor!
      The party that is not going to do a phoenix in a generation.

    2. glen cullen
      October 10, 2020

      Good post

    3. Mark B
      October 11, 2020

      Well a Conservative (sic) MP once said that she was tired of being part of the, ‘Nasty Party’. I think what she really meant was that she was tired of those who had principles she disagreed with.

  27. Everhopeful
    October 10, 2020

    ā€˜ā€™Tis strange though, I still think, that every Covid measure taken by this ā€œ governmentā€ has the potential to dovetail very nicely with the internet-published aims of all these global bodies.
    Have some councils rather ā€œjumped the gunā€œ and given credence to nasty conspiracy theories by installing bollards and cycle lanes in town centres? ( eg Chichester).
    Certainly there seems proof that the NHS is refusing treatment for those who will not comply with Covid testing, lending credence to the vaccination passport theory.
    And as for pub closures, now speeding up apace, as the WHO says ( on its website for all to read) ā€œadopting policies to reduce and eliminate availability of illicit production, sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages as well as to regulate or control informal alcoholā€. And they also have a lot to say about pregnant women and alcohol…so we know where all that comes from!

  28. Bryan Harris
    October 10, 2020

    Impressive, and the best summary of the state of the world ever from a politician. Thank you for setting this out in print. If this had been a Youtube presentation it wouldn’t last long before being taken down — I suspect that very few of your colleagues would recognize the truth in your words.

    I especially like the phrase: “It is a systematic agenda and way of thinking that infuses most global institutions and many governments or main Oppositions in leading countries.” Spot on

    It’s hard to know which political leaders are a part of this agenda, and who are just being dragged along by it, but I truly wish more could wake up to this reality

  29. Fred H
    October 10, 2020

    Build back better – -a catchy phrase for demolishing the freedom of life as we’ve known it. Demolish all institutions, condemn rules and regulations that sought to promote morals, fairness, equality. Tax or force breakdown of public entertainment – no sport, theatre, cinemas, libraries, pubs, clubs, restaurants – even meetings of friends/relatives.
    A new order of communism, and anarchy – how will this social 1984 end up?

  30. majorfrustration
    October 10, 2020

    Lets keep saving the NHS, the last effort trashed the UK – what’s the definition of stupidity!

    1. glen cullen
      October 10, 2020

      Try, try and try again and if that fails try againā€¦..just keep on thrashing on the same old way, you never know it might just work one day

    2. Fred H
      October 11, 2020

      why save the largest employer in the country which only delivers anything to a tiny percentage of the people.? Break it down, and build something else – but better!

  31. Ed M
    October 10, 2020

    As a Conservative, I think the Labour leader’s ‘Family and Patriotism’ is the best snapshot manifesto phrase I’ve ever heard. The phrase is clear. ‘Build back better’ is meaningless nonsense / sophistry whether from left or right.

  32. William Long
    October 10, 2020

    I wish I could see any real sign that the present Government think very differently to Mr Biden.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 10, 2020

      +1

  33. Brexit Facts4EU.Org
    October 10, 2020

    “The views and actions many of you dislike are far more widespread and complex than a simple case of undue influence by one individual or think tank. It is a systematic agenda and way of thinking that infuses most global institutions and many governments or main Oppositions in leading countries.”

    Thank goodness for the voice of sanity that you represent so often. This is a real concern, expressed well, and this issues needs to be talked about.

  34. kenneth
    October 10, 2020

    I too am not a conspiracy theorist but what I do know is that the unelected and unwanted have always found a way to gain power by the back door.

    Many that were too ā€œredā€ for the Labour Party of the 70ā€™s and 80ā€™s drifted into education, the civil service and the BBC. Theses were the great power centres for the unelected.

    When Labour finally came to power in the Blair administration, the unelected were given a boost, with the creation and bolstering of many quangos and the installation of socialists into senior unelected positions.

    They wasted no time in pushing propaganda to the young through schools and further education and through the BBC. The youngsters grew up and so the infiltration multiplied ā€“ to other institutions such as the police and legal service.

    The U.S. faces the same problem: despite being rejected at the ballot box, the unelected wield great power.

    The government ā€“ while it still has a majority ā€“ should work quickly to purge us of this infiltration. The problem is that many Conservative are themselves infected and so time is running out.

  35. Chris S
    October 10, 2020

    The most fundamental question of all is, how equal should society be ?

    The ultimate aim of those on the left is a Star Trek-style Utopia where, although there is a very obvious hierarchy on the Enterprise, money plays no role. Here in the UK, so-called progressive policies are now in the mainstream, being pursued by all parties to a greater or lesser extent.

    The tax system is being manipulated in this direction, the measures adopted to deal with Covid 19 and the obsession with action on climate change are all designed to level society and punish the better off. Here, I don’t mean just the rich : even those who make a real effort to take their family on one decent holiday abroad a year are condemned by climate change activists and are financially penalised by our government who level ridiculous rates of air passenger duty on them.

    Meanwhile, the left, always looking to push communism disguised as socialism further, have moved on to the completely daft idea of a universal income. This is not confined to those like Corbyn who have never gotten anywhere near power, the SNP have been seriously discussing introducing a basic universal income in Scotland, presumably at the expense of English taxpayers, as usual.

    We cannot move society to a position where people have no incentive to work. We need motivation to develop society, one aspect of which is financial reward for excellence. To achieve this, society can never be truly equal. Voters understand this, I just wish the Left would as well.

    1. anon
      October 10, 2020

      UBI would encourage work & learning and earning. If implemented with a progressive simple tax system and without means testing.
      Currently we have a confusing hideously expensive to administer mish mash of benefits which usually work to prevent people bettering themselves. This leads political parties to entrench voting when they have captured the voting dependents.

      A UBI will not bring about equality but it could enable hope, mobility, opportunity, for those trapped by the current system

      The current system of means tested dependency well loved of the massive “cheap non-skilled labour” pro-immigration parties.

      1. Mark
        October 10, 2020

        UBI encourages indolence. If you want people to have incentives they must see that they can benefit from their own efforts, and that where others produce goods and services because they have the incentive to do so, the whole of society is enriched through the combination of wider choices and more production.

    2. beresfordī
      October 10, 2020

      Not convinced. Why would anyone want to do a job of high stress and responsibility for no reward? More like they’re aiming for a Metropolis style dystopia where the workers know their place and the elite live lives of idle luxury. Turning the clock back to those days before democracy. I would insert a quote from Solzhenitsyn but so much of what he said speaks directly to our current situation.

  36. Alan Paul Joyce
    October 10, 2020

    Dear Mr. Redwood,

    Apologies but I cannot help but comment on Brexit trade developments.

    As we are not privy to the talks, we are forced to rely on snippets of information from newspapers and other dubious sources of information. However, there does appear to be one common theme doing the rounds.

    It is said that Mr. Barnier will table a fisheries compromise whereby if the UK reciprocates on the so-called level playing field, Brussels will signal its willingness to budge on its fishing demands.

    One has to admire the EU negotiating tactics and despair at the UK’s! We concede on the level playing field (state aid) AND we continue to allow the EU to fish our waters albeit to a lesser extent. All so that we can have a free trade agreement that gives us a Ā£100 billion pound annual deficit. Will the Prime Minister walk away on 15th October? Not a chance!

    Looks like our negotiators are already in the ‘tunnel’. It’s dark in there and they have their blinkers on.

    1. Fred H
      October 10, 2020

      Sunday 11th in the morning – — the 15th is racing towards us.

    2. glen cullen
      October 10, 2020

      Sad but I agree with your comments

  37. Mike Cooper
    October 10, 2020

    Another very good diary page Sir John.
    The lunatic left, and they hide under such names as Liberal Democrats and Greens are blinkered and fixed focused to the extent all that does not fall within their field of view either does not exist, is wrong or doesn’t matter.
    There future is based on hypothesis. I guess its like gambling everything you have of a tip you received on a horse race from someone who escaped from the lunatic asylum.

  38. Iain Moore
    October 10, 2020

    Build back better is just a slogan, something this Government actually excels at , the slogans I mean, just like the ‘World beating track and trace’ , as for delivery..forget it. It all smacks of the nudge department’s work, some statist wheeze. I think we can all agree whatever is built is going to be garbage , if its homes they are going to be rabbit hutches, if its greenery stuff Boris is addicted to, then its going to be rationed energy supplies. If its ‘green’ jobs, they will be state subsidised jobs. (Not one of the top twenty wind turbine manufacturers are British) .

    I have a very bleak outlook for our country, we used to laugh at the Communist countries 5 year plans , but here we are with a 10 year plan to wreck our economy with climate change, and any chance to overcome the stupidity of our ruling classes will require a nation with some cohesion, but here our enlightened ones in the establishment have visited a racial and cultural war on us.

  39. a-tracy
    October 10, 2020

    All State workers are the biggest beneficiary of this global ā€˜Build Back Betterā€™ all their safe pensions and earnings fully protected whether they work or not right now (Oh and if theyā€™ve not worked since March its time to cut them because theyā€™re ā€˜not essentialā€™) and this includes local Council workers who will even have the front to top up their falling pension pots with our rates whilst telling us actual services are having to be cut. NO enough now. Weā€™re not topping up your pension this time like we did when all your daft investments in Icelandic banks went bad, youā€™ll have to take a hit like the rest of us. Your fund managers take a bad decision propping up another failing Country we rate payers all take a hit and then weā€™re told we should respect these decision makers in the IMF etc. Even when they get caught out they get away with their poor leadership and get promoted into another big job to screw up.

    Trump and his electors donā€™t want to follow this agenda and what happens he is absolutely lambasted at every turn, you say World leaders donā€™t have to follow this [ideal group think], But when World leaders donā€™t they are hammered, daily. We are told they have mental health problems – Trump should sue Pelosi for that smear. The only problem is theyā€™re making his fortitude, his standing up to the bullies, his resolve appear more attractive. As a man he lets his mouth run off far too easy, he is arrogant but are you really telling me Biden was the best of the American democrats to put up against him.

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      October 10, 2020

      +1

  40. Everhopeful
    October 10, 2020

    So is ā€œLa Pesteā€ Bidenā€™s main weapon against Trump?
    To convince Americans that The End is Nigh?
    And to ramp up ā€œTrump Derangement Syndromeā€œ.
    Plenty of scope to blame Mr Trump for everything.
    Election coming!
    A little ā€œhelpā€ for Biden from the UK madness?
    But Mr T has played a pretty good hand recently IMO.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 10, 2020

      Trump genuinely is the Leader of the Free World. We are lost without him.

  41. rose
    October 10, 2020

    Actually, I think Sweden escaped the demonisation meted out to our “Tory Genocide” government in early/mid March, and to Trump and Bolsanaro, precisely because it is a left wing government. It is hard for the Left to completely ignore Sweden’s approach while so many are talking of it, but they have had a jolly good try and continue so to do.

    1. rose
      October 10, 2020

      Can most lefties, for example, say the names of the men and women in the Swedish administration? Are they hate figures? Can most of them even say the name of the state epidemiologist, let alone use it as a term of abuse?

    2. Martin in Cardiff
      October 10, 2020

      Well, that’s not true, the Swedish government came in for pretty excoriating criticism from many quarters, including the Left in Sweden and in other countries.

      They seemed to be banking on the fact that they were trusted by the population, and could count on their following guidance rather than orders. To a fair extent they were vindicated – the Swedes self-imposed marked behavioural changes, which caused quite a blow to the economy as elsewhere.

      However, the unfavourable comparison with Norway, Denmark and Finland has caused quite a shift of position with them of late.

      1. Fred H
        October 10, 2020

        Another U turn Martin?

      2. Edward2
        October 10, 2020

        The Left love lockdown.
        But Sweden shows that a radically different approach has resulted in very little different results to other European nations like Spain Italy France Germany and the UK.
        With far less economic hurt.

        1. bill brown
          October 10, 2020

          Edward 2

          this is not yet proven and therefore there is nto final proof of your conclusions

          1. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            It is proven already.
            Sweden’s policies were different to ours.
            It can be seen that their economy has not been so hard hit and their cases and deaths are no worse than us.

            “Final proof to your particular and demanding definition may take years yet.

          2. NickC
            October 11, 2020

            Bill B, It is proven. Sweden’s economy shrank by 8.6% in the second quarter – significantly less than the hit to the economies of Spain Italy France Germany and the UK. As Edward2 said.

        2. bill brown
          October 11, 2020

          Edward 2

          “it make the elite rich”
          nonsense, prove it

          1. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            Not long ago you were on here telling us the rich have got richer and the poor poorer.
            Now you are telling me the elite in Europe are not wealthier now than years ago.

            Make your mind up.

  42. Ian Wragg
    October 10, 2020

    If Covid is the worst threat posed and the NHS is a great model then it’s time to change the medication.
    CO2 being plant food is insignificant in the scheme of things and is demonised to rob the many to enrich the few.
    Why do all these so called green initiatives always require massive public subsidy.
    O/T I see we are heading for a quasi lockdown based on the traffic light principle the leaflets for which were printed last month.
    Today in Nottingham there is reported 700 in 100,000 positive cases. Why do politicians like to flannel us with big numbers. Why cant they sa 0.07% have tested positive. The reason is of course it’s insignificant so it makes a mockery of shutting pubs and restaurants.
    Yesterday 81died within 28 days of testing positive.
    168 died of seasonal flu.
    Check the government graph for CV deaths and its almost flat lining.
    We’re being conned.

  43. RichardP
    October 10, 2020

    To ā€œbuild back betterā€ you will need a good foundation. By the time Johnson & Hancock realise their lockdown policy doesnā€™t stop the virus there will be nothing left to build on.

    Those fortunate enough to still have jobs to go to will find the batteries in their electric cars arenā€™t charged because the wind didnā€™t blow overnight.

    On the bright side there will be plenty of High Streets to bulldoze for new flats to fulfil the insatiable demands of the housing algorithm.

    It is difficult to know what the Conservative ā€˜visionā€™ really is. All we get are meaningless sound bites. I look forward to some clarity in your future posts.

    1. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      RichardP, There is no fuel being even planned for the electric cars which mostly don’t exist. There are nearly 40 million vehicles on UK roads. If Boris gets his way then from 2030 any new ones must be battery electric (or hydrogen). So from 2040 our transport will depend on the electricity grid (hydrogen needs electricity to produce it). Both fuel options are environmentally dangerous, with high CO2 emissions, and ruinously expensive.

    2. Martin in Cardiff
      October 10, 2020

      Yet again you muddle absolutes with relatives where the conversation should be in the latter terms.

      No one claimed that the lockdown alone would stop – as in completely eliminate – the virus.

      What it has done, however – here as elsewhere – is to restrict the deaths in the first year to tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands.

      If you want to eliminate it, then you need to study what has been done in Vietnam, in New Zealand, etc.

      1. RichardP
        October 10, 2020

        I prefer to study what they have done in Sweden.
        Whereā€™s the proof that lockdown has prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths?

      2. NickC
        October 11, 2020

        Martin, The cheek! You claimed – frequently – that harsher lockdowns (as practised in other countries, notably China) would “stamp out” the virus responsible for covid19!

        And your claim that the lockdown has “restrict[ed] the deaths in the first year to tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands” is not born out by the science which suggests the contrary – that in the UK fatal infections were reducing before the full lockdown was imposed.

  44. Annette
    October 10, 2020

    Now, if Boris had said “Build back British” instead on the UN inspired globalist mantra, we might be able to believe that he believes in an independent country in no way under the control of foreign powers & will deliver, fully, on the democratic decision to leave the EU.

    He didn’t. The destruction of our economy seems deliberate in order to satisfy the green agenda, to tax (launder) billions to ‘fix’ a problem over which we have no real control. It is a massive power grab by the State & has nothing to do with the health of the nation.

    I’m left wondering if there is a single ‘Conservative’ value left that the current Govt have not destroyed, apparently deliberately.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 10, 2020

      What a winning slogan yours is!

  45. Polly
    October 10, 2020

    This is the argument against the Conservative Party’s ”Build Back Better” energy program….

    Letā€™s take a look at Boris Johnsonā€™s December 2012 article in the ā€Telegraphā€ā€¦ā€¦ā€¦.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/9733518/Ignore-the-doom-merchants-Britain-should-get-fracking.html

    Not only does he rubbish renewables in favor of gas but he also rubbishes nuclear power tooā€¦ā€¦.

    ā€Our nukes are so high-maintenance that the cost of disposing of their spent fuel rods is put at about Ā£100 billion ā€“ more than the value of all the electricity they have produced since the Fifties.ā€

    So Johnson has completed two startling U turns because now he is in favor of wind power and nuclear energy including $100 billion ā€spent fuel rodsā€ as is apparent hereā€¦ā€¦ā€¦..

    https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK-premier-reiterates-support-for-nuclear

    Under Johnson’s new Net Zero plan, gas and fossil fuels cannot be used for back up which changes the entire argument and against investment in wind energy

    Admittedly costs have theoretically declined for wind energy since 2012, but the cost of providing back up for when there is no wind has clearly not been factored into the equation. In any case, if 100% nuclear back up is required, which it is, there is no point having wind energy at all !

    Boris Johnson has also been enthusiastic about nuclear fusion which is perfectly reasonable, but if fusion is to be a massive success as he claims it soon will be, then there is no point to wind energy either !

    So the reasoning behind Boris Johnsonā€™s decisions looks completely awry because he wants huge investment in offshore and deep water wind, irrespective of common sense and logic, which would be far better spent on new nuclear plants. Particularly in view of the vast additional capacity required for electric transport.

    In addition to which, the UK has chosen very troublesome nuclear technology for Hinkley Point which is entirely dependent on Chinese goodwill and Chinese expertise.

    So Build Back Better, Johnson style, simply doesn’t work and the UK’s energy program is not fit for purpose because of the wrong energy source, wind, and the wrong nuclear technology.

    Build Back Better should be changed to Better Start Again!

    Polly

    1. Stred
      October 10, 2020

      The plan adopted by the government will not include even replacing the existing nuclear power stations except for Hinkley Point and perhaps Sizewell. They are planning to use gas reforming to hydrogen as backup with expensive and untried carbon capture and storage.

    2. Mark B
      October 11, 2020

      Build Back Better should be changed to Better Start Again!

      I think that is what it really means, Polly. It is just they cannot say it like that.

  46. Norman
    October 10, 2020

    Thank you for your insightful analysis, Sir John, which is most re-assuring, especially concerning who or what is pulling the strings behind the scenes – although these minions certainly exist. Your own view of infusive influences among a global elite, championed by the media, is far more accurate, and discernibly so. I see it as a sort of zeitgeist, a rampant apostasy set on overturning the old order with something which is which is far, far worse, short-lived, and doomed to failure. But right now, there’s the blessed hope – so good to be on the winning side

    1. Anonymous
      October 10, 2020

      is a global conspiracy led by a billionaire or two


      conspiracy theorists are not usually so simple-minded, but you said yourself a few weeks back billionaires have influence, especially when the EU is backing the same agenda with their ‘Vaccinations for all’ Summit Sept 2019.

  47. BOF
    October 10, 2020

    What Joe Biden says is similar to the EU programme which is reflected in the IMFā€™s statements, the views of the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organisation, the UN, the G7 and many others. The members of a numerous well paid and much travelled global elite reinforce the same consensus everywhere they go. Some are senior elected politicians leading governments who need not accept this way of thinking if they did not agree with it.’

    Unfortunately for us and the world, these groups have all the same groupthink, all are right behind world government and the new world order. It is no longer the stuff of conspiracy, but is there for all to see. As for the massively damaging, Marxist led WHO, policies to combat the virus, nothing could have been designed to do more damage to western economies and societies with the only beneficiaries being Communist China! Our PM increased our contribution to WHO by 30%. Staggeringly stupid. He must agree with them.

    Sir John, please do an entry on The Great Barrington Declaration. It would surely be much appreciated.

    1. NickC
      October 11, 2020

      Don’t use Google to search for “The Great Barrington Declaration”, they’ve censored it by promoting those who oppose it (like the Guardian) above it.

  48. BOF
    October 10, 2020

    ‘It also welcomes the large expansion of state spending and intervention following WHO policies to combat the virus, and wishes to continue with policies of expanding the state workforce and spending more on state services. The IMF sees the NHS as a great model which others should adopt.’

    I sincerely hope, Sir John, that you do not agree with this. It is pure socialism/Marxism and the policies that will destroy the futures of generations to come!

  49. NickC
    October 10, 2020

    JR said: “It is a systematic agenda and way of thinking that infuses most global institutions and many governments or main Oppositions in leading countries.”

    It is indeed. It is the philosophy of the robber baron dressed up in woke greeny language to disguise it. The robber barons will retain their private planes and yachts and Ā£billions and high “carbon” footprints (because they’re more intelligent – they say) if only those pesky peasants didn’t keep wanting Brexit, and independence, and stable families, and their own homes. It is the return of medievalism.

  50. BOF
    October 10, 2020

    What will Monday bring I wonder? More lockdown it seems, to double down on all the lockdowns that have proved a failure so far.

    1. Fred H
      October 11, 2020

      and just possibly the start of the end of Government control, more disobedience in the streets, parks, shops, and homes. People have to believe in the control being justified. Old and vulnerable have been following common sense rather than hasty unenforceable rules. When will the younger, unemployed, or fearing for the future ability to hold a family together begin to throw off the controls? We will soon be at the tipping point between peace and rebellion.

  51. Jack Falstaff
    October 10, 2020

    I am afraid that anybody looking to Biden to “Build Back” will find themselves severely disappointed.
    There is nothing constructive about his strategy: it consists of a two-pronged negative and indecorous attack on both President Trump as a person and voters who don’t meet his prescriptions on morals. No actual meat or substance useful for voters’ daily lives.
    Any questions to Mr Biden about any course of definite action to match the sermonising on ideals will be either be dodged or those enquiring will basically be “told” his policies after he wins.
    As with the EU, he will show “there is a need to” act and then do nothing.
    He is reluctant to actually define and seems to think that the keys to the White House will magically fall into his lap by Divine Right; remember, oh dim-witted masses, that he has a hotline to the man upstairs.
    There is no tangibility or entity about Mr Biden either, beyond the role of ventriloquist’s dummy for Mr Obama, his anonymous pearly-gatekeeper.
    President Trump is hands-on, understands ordinary people who want food on their plates and sets out a clear path towards regenerating the economy. He really does care about them and will provide the “how” to do this.
    Once he has put the economic fire out, he is the man to tackle any genuine climate issues if (and this is a big “if”) these can be demonstrated by independent academics other than those are not desperately trying to sell books or save their careers in left-wing academia by producing PC research.
    If you can convince President Trump, I’m sure he will take the bull by the horns and address matters by flying to meet world leaders who matter and getting business done. I honestly can’t see Biden being taken seriously by the likes of Kim Jong-un, Putin or Xi.
    The long and short of it is that people realise they won’t get by on being fed morals by the Democrats/Establishment, and the blanket, media-driven “fire and brimstone” approach won’t wash any longer: the people want more action and a bit of respect for their intellect instead of condescending pi-jaw.
    Does Mr Biden convince you that he offers a future that is about the real people of the USA or the world and not just a privileged, mealy-mouthed Establishment? Seriously?

  52. Christine
    October 10, 2020

    To Build Back Better must mean the destruction of our previous way of life first. I, and many others, never asked for this change in our lifestyles. I worry about any political organisation that uses this slogan. I want to know why our Government has adopted it. Iā€™m expecting a great economic reset to befall us soon. The nonsense restrictions perpetrated in the name of Covid must have another purpose, as the policies being implemented certainly donā€™t follow the science. Look at the data. There is no second wave and never has been. We are being played and many commentators on here are waking up to this fact.

    1. Norman
      October 10, 2020

      Spot on, Christine!

    2. NickC
      October 10, 2020

      Christine, You are right – well said.

    3. Everhopeful
      October 10, 2020

      Purpose = to bring about the changes they want ( WHO wants?)
      Less or no travel = no offices, no shops, no schools or universities, no theatres, no churches, no trains, no cars, no buses, no planes.
      Mega cities probably of skyscrapers in which we will be under curfew and wildlife parks from which we will be excluded.
      5G which is being rolled out right now.
      Everything electric at the price they set.
      Smart meters.
      One World Religion..like French Rev ā€œSupreme Beingā€.
      Smart vaccines.
      An AIalgorithm led government.
      AI run hospitals.
      Our future is Hell.

    4. Annette
      October 10, 2020

      As Boris stated, this virus (survival rate 99.9%) is a ‘trigger’ for massive economic and social reform – that nobody voted for & wasn’t in any manifesto. The Cons were voted in, with a huge 80 seat majority, to do one thing. Fully finally implement the democratic decision over 4 years ago to leave the EU. Instead they are using their majority to wage psychological warfare on the people to impose policies that Corbyn would have been afraid to…

    5. Lynn Atkinson
      October 10, 2020

      +1

    6. John Waugh
      October 10, 2020

      I kept an article from the Daily Telegraph on 28th Sept. 2020 . It is a commentary by Ian Boyd of biology department of University of St. Andrews who is also a member of Sage .
      ” Humankind is a juggernaut , out of control and on a collision course with the limits of nature .”
      “True adaptation for future resilience in the 21st century is going to mean significant changes in what we value and how we live .”
      Only two of the thoughts to keep it brief . But you will get the picture and how our political leaders are being advised (controlled).
      So Christine ,looks like you have a good grasp of reality.

    7. Barbara
      October 10, 2020

      Exactly.

    8. The other Christine
      October 10, 2020

      You have summarised the situation perfectly. My very real concern is the irreparable damage this government has wrought on our country and unbelievably will continue to do on the issues of power, immigration and town planning. One thing is certain and that is that come the next election we will neither forgive nor forget.

    9. turboterrier
      October 10, 2020

      Christine

      +1

    10. Original Chris
      October 10, 2020

      +1.

      See the excellent video by Ivor Cummins which gives a rigorous scientific analysis of the data re Coronavirus. He asks the question which all MPs and the people of this country should demand an answer to: why are they doing this? The science certainly does not support the current policy.
      Ivor Cummins on youtube:
      URGENT UPDATE: Societal Damage from Bad Science, not the Virus? Why are they doing this?

      1. rose
        October 10, 2020

        Neil Oliver, the Stirling historian who also presents Coast, is interviewed on Talk Radio and has his theory about why all this alcohol curbing and pub shutting etc is going on in Scotland at the moment. Look it up.

    11. No longer Anonymous
      October 10, 2020

      Well… I said much the same but my name wasn’t Christine. It was No Longer Anonymous and the assumption being I was male… so not quite the same approval.

      Now.

      This is no criticism of Christine but I’m merely pointing out that people often pose as females or BAME (as several have admitted to doing so in the USA) in order to gain political advantage.

      So much for female/BAME disadvantage !

      1. Christine
        October 13, 2020

        I’m definitely female. I’m not sure if this statement is currently allowed.

        I doubt the approval is anything to do with my sex.

        I just think that commentators on here know that to get John’s attention on a point they give certain comments approval rather than repeating the same opinion.

    12. Mark B
      October 11, 2020

      I would like to add my name to this.

      Well said Christine.

  53. Mike Durrans
    October 10, 2020

    Andy , as a 75yyr old I must say your not protecting me, carry on with the life you want because I certainly am, Iā€™m not for cowering! So donā€™t blame me if your not man enough to step up and fight.
    By the way , 60% of nothing is nothing , so hereā€™s nothing!

    Better, is a non word used by those who really donā€™t have a solution for their perceived problem and as for so-called elite, even they need to wipe their own bottom!

    1. Mark B
      October 11, 2020

      Mike

      Do as I do – Don’t read the Trolls posts. Don’t comment on them. Ignore it ! It will either go away or, at the very least, cease to be a issue for many here.

      Cheers.

  54. Stred
    October 10, 2020

    The agenda that the Conservative Party under May and Johnson has been in accordance with the UN agendas, as has the policies of the EU. Trump rejected the Paris agreement to cut CO2 in the Western economies while allowing large increases in the others. For this, the security services in the US and with the help of their colleagues in the UK have worked to undermine him with the help of all institutions and the mainstream media.

    In the UK their is government by behavioural psychology where the civil service and the complicit politicians in the two party duopoly follow the same agendas of exporting industry and replacing carbon fuel and nuclear with low density renewables, which are already resulting in higher costs. These technologies will delivery a huge increase in profit for the green industrial companies and allow the gas producers to continue to supply an equal or greater quantity to back up the fluctuating wind and solar energy. The capture of CO2 liquification and storage in old oilfields will put more money into the pockets of the corporations.

    Politicians like Johnson have no ability to question the figures and practicality of the vested interests of the Climate Change Committee. Build back better is an opportunistic tool of the nudgers in the cabinet office intended to fool the public into supporting the renewable agendas.

    Professor MacKay summed it up before he passed away. He asked why they didn’t just build more nuclear and run them all the time. Even the oil rich Gulf states are doing as he suggested. But Boris thinks that building 15,000 wind turbines in the deep stormy sea is the way to transform the UK into prosperity.

    1. Original Chris
      October 10, 2020

      Very good post, Stred.

      1. Mark B
        October 11, 2020

        +1

    2. Stred
      October 11, 2020

      I forgot to mention that the Crown Estate is very keen on having as many windmills on the seabed as possible because it owns the rights and charges for permission. In effect it’s another way to put bills up and conceal the tax.
      No wonder Charles is so keen on it.

      1. dixie
        October 12, 2020

        You piqued my curiosity so I read around a bit, the Treasury control the estate (since 1760) and get it’s income, not the royals. Although the monarch is the nominal owner it is public property (sovereign public estate) neither the monarch nor the Treasury can sell it. Crown Estates present their accounts to Parliament every year.

        I guess you could view it as a sovereign wealth fund, valued at around Ā£14b in 2020.

        So I don’t think Price Charles has any pecuniary interest in it, perhaps it is more along the lines of making use of the asset.

  55. rose
    October 10, 2020

    On the subject of the media refraining from criticising left wing administrations, there is no more shameful example than the media’s adulation of the Sottish National Socialists and their Leaderene. But in the Aberdeenshire Effie Deans blog, there are plenty of links gathered together, which redress the balance. As she says, in any other country, all this would make a difference…

  56. Pieter C
    October 10, 2020

    The NHS is the opposite of an ideal model for providing effective health care efficiently. Evidence for this is the Ā£60bn of outstanding negligence claims, the fact that we have only 2 hospital beds per 100,000 of our population (Germany has 7 for instance) and a 2013 survey of health care systems across the European Economic Area which concluded that “10% of patients admitted to NHS hospitals in the UK are un-intentionally harmed”.

    1. ChrisS
      October 10, 2020

      A previously very fit and slim 73 year old friend of ours recently had a stroke which has left her unable to do much for herself as she has lost the use of the left side of her body. Less than 18 months ago she was feeling breathless and had many tests in hospital but the Doctors decided that nothing was wrong. Evidently her GP was advised by letter to monitor her afterwards but that never happened.

      She lived in a townhouse on three floors with the kitchen on the ground floor and the bedroom at the top. After a month, the hospital are keen to discharge her with indecent haste. They are seriously proposing to set up a hospital bed in her small lounge and have carers come in through the day and night. She would be forced to live in bed in the one room and in the event of a fire she would have no chance of escape.

      If this is the way the NHS treats people, it needs drastic reform.

      1. SM
        October 10, 2020

        There should of course be NHS convalescent homes, designed for cases just such as this, providing rehabilitation and preparation for return, if possible, to an independent life.

        The NHS abandoned convalescent homes decades ago – let’s all give it a big round of applause ……

      2. rose
        October 10, 2020

        The Germans have a localised, insurance based health service, devolved to the 16 Minister Presidents, and heavily intertwined with private enterprise and the advanced diagnostics industry. It is not free at the point of use to the whole wide world and his wife and children.

        If our politicians were to propose reforming the NHS to that system, they would be brought down. 1940s, bureaucratic, soviet style, free at the point of use for all is what we demand and what we get.

        1. Mark B
          October 11, 2020

          There speaks the truth.

          But a way round it is to bring in competition and let companies offer it to their employees as a tax free perk. Many, older mostly, would take up the opportunity.

          1. rose
            October 11, 2020

            I remember a trade union taking up the opportunity too.

      3. a-tracy
        October 11, 2020

        If she were my Mum and she owns the house Iā€™d persuade her to put the townhouse up for sale and a) either move in with me or b) find a retirement complex with independent living apartments and a restaurant and hairdresser and company on site to start a new life rather than just and existence.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      October 10, 2020

      +1

  57. anonymous3
    October 10, 2020

    And what about the annual Bilderberg conference- not held this year- unless it was held by Zoom- I suppose you think that such meetings behind closed doors led by billionaires, politicians, heads of state including a smattering of old war mongers never happens or is it a figment of our imagination and silly?

    But for a start let’s hope that Biden knocks the clown Trump off his perch and brings back some old fashioned decency to world politics- it would be a good beginning to 2021- then the only thing left to deal with then would be the horrible virus and of course our own man made disaster- the Brexit- God help us as if things weren’t bad enough?

    1. a-tracy
      October 11, 2020

      ā€˜decencyā€™ we saw European heads of State being bullies to Theresa May, isolating her, trying to make her feel foolish leaving child locks on cars and not opening the door for her. Ridiculing her.

  58. ian
    October 10, 2020

    I see a sea change coming in your attitude towards these global monsters john.

  59. mongoose
    October 10, 2020

    It is all very well to “build back better” but did you have any right to knock it down in the first place?

  60. DaveM
    October 10, 2020

    Thereā€™ll be nothing to build back if Boris and his team of weird scientists continue destroying our economy and way of life. His dubious policies are killing our country.

  61. ian
    October 10, 2020

    When they say build back better, what they really mean is for themselves, oversea holidays for the masses will end, out for a meal or drink for the few along with driving a car while on the flip side they will do more of these activities themself with their families.
    There are two things they have in common, one is greed and the other is living off the public taxes back up by QE most of them invest in the stock market and housing markets and use QE and government intervention to keep their assets going up and the more they take for themselves and families the less there is left for everyone else.
    It a typical communist attitude, treating people like dirt.

    1. Mark B
      October 11, 2020

      Yep !

      Those Dacha’s by the Black Sea don’t come cheap comrade šŸ™‚

  62. acorn
    October 10, 2020

    Have a look at what happened to Rishi’s newly created Pounds Sterling last quarter. Part 9 Fig 12. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/quarterlynationalaccounts/apriltojune2020#quarterly-sector-accounts

    The terms lending and borrowing are a misnomer. Lending means a surplus in a sector, borrowing means running a deficit. The government doesn’t borrow its own money from anyone; it doesn’t borrow Pounds Sterling from the rest of the world either. Where would the rest of the world get Sterling from other than from the UK Treasury; the monopoly supplier?

    Rishi’s big budget deficit went mostly straight into household savings and debt reduction, while non-financial corporations stashed their bit of cash for better times. The rest of the world got to save very little of Rishi’s new cash in exchange for the stuff they didn’t get to export to us this quarter.

    1. a-tracy
      October 11, 2020

      Isnā€™t it a good thing that they were paying down personal debt and credit card debt and increasing personal savings? Can you explain why this is a bad thing if less money was slurping out of the UK? Iā€™m genuinely interested.

    2. a-tracy
      October 11, 2020

      You see acorn I heard anecdotally that people were using money theyā€™d normally spend on holidays in Europe to replace driveways, build conservatories, decorate, refresh kitchens, replace windows and doors, the homes theyā€™d been forced to spend a lot of time indoors and they wanted to update their homes so they did. You canā€™t get work done people are so busy at the moment.

      1. acorn
        October 12, 2020

        a-tracy. When the Treasury injects more new money into the private sector economy, it needs the private sector to spend it and create demand and not save it, which is what happened in Q2.

        The more the private sector saves the slower the velocity of circulation of Rishi’s new money and the larger his budget deficit gets with no increase in GDP and what he can get back with taxation.

        Remember that what neoliberals call the “national debt” is to the penny the private sectors “national savings”.

        1. Edward2
          October 13, 2020

          When people save, that money is used by the banking sector to lend to others who do want to invest or spend.

          1. acorn
            October 14, 2020

            The Banks don’t lend customer deposits. They use them as capital reserves, the same as shareholder funds. That is why the government insures your deposits which you would otherwise lose if the Bank went bust.

  63. glen cullen
    October 10, 2020

    You go to the garage mechanic with a flat tyre and they say you need new tyres and a new exhaust ā€“ you tell them just to fix the puncture

    Your government goes to the saga group for advice on a virus and they say itā€™s the end of the world unless we close down all economies and liberties ā€“ your governments agrees to everything

    1. Mark B
      October 11, 2020

      In a nutshell.

      šŸ˜‰

  64. ian
    October 10, 2020

    I take it that Brexit will not happen the way the people voted for by the way you are writing john, the UK government is going to cave into the globalist institution called the EU but not because it wants to but because it globalist institution it’s self-run by globalist for the last 70 years which was set up by the USA and the UK after the second world war.

    1. Peter Parsons
      October 10, 2020

      There was no “way the people voted for” to vote for on the ballot paper. It was a question about “what”, not “how”. Anyone who claims that the vote was for any specific “how” does not, I would suggest, understand what they were being asked to vote on.

      1. Edward2
        October 10, 2020

        Taking back control of our laws money and borders.
        A constant slogan of the campaign.

        Even Cameron said many times we would be out of the single market the customs union and their courts.

        Every remainer wants to rewrite history.
        Telling the majority who voted leave they had no idea what leaving the EU entailed.

        Yes we did.

        1. Will in Hampshire
          October 10, 2020

          Err, no. Each of you individually had an idea. But it’s almost certain that those ideas were different.

          1. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            Err no.
            If you look at research which asked people why they voted to leave the EU in 2016 there was several reasons given in response.
            And they were control over our borders money and laws.

        2. Peter Parsons
          October 10, 2020

          And the likes of Gove (who was on the winning side) talked about remaining part of the single market.

          Sounds like the losers were closer to the truth than the winners were.

          1. Mark B
            October 11, 2020

            The loser did not know what EVER CLOSER UNION meant. It meant a single federal Europe. That is not what people were told before, during, or even now !

        3. bill brown
          October 10, 2020

          Edward 2

          but most of the world seem to disagree with you about the consequences of teh action we are no taking.
          Such as the OECD, IMF, Word bank, CBI , INsittute of Directors, etc.

          1. Edward2
            October 11, 2020

            They are and always have been fans of the EU.
            They love the EU it makes the elite rich.

          2. a-tracy
            October 11, 2020

            They are the few controlling the many. The 1% leading the 1% and trying to keep the 99% under control by fear that acorn alludes to below.

    2. Mark B
      October 11, 2020

      The Tory Wets, for that who is in charge, are Consensus Politicians by nature. They will seek to find a ‘consensus’. This is fine when the other side is similar but, they are not. Tory Wets will not stand up for this country, hence the sell out !

  65. Anonymous
    October 10, 2020

    The politicians and political movements who disagree with some or all of this consensus are treated roughly by conventional media

    ….
    yes, so it is a media-led grand conspiracy, as always.
    Bottomline John is 95 percent do not know.

  66. Lynn Atkinson
    October 10, 2020

    Sir John I appreciate your analysis and politics, but when you are reduced to saying ā€˜Presumably those on the centre right who use the phrase define it differently to these mainstream versions.ā€™ we know that is the best case scenario and the alternative is that they are not ā€˜centre rightā€™ at all, but frauds.
    Boris boasts of being a social socialist, so at least he is not a fraud. That is the best I can say.
    What he has done to the unfortunate people of the north is simply unforgivable, and it will not be forgiven.

  67. ukretired123
    October 10, 2020

    As slogans go I was rather surprised by the BBB mantra which may be a subtle hint to the BBC to raise its standards to AAA?
    BBB is ambiguous and I was heartened reading some of the comments questioning its implied assumptions e.g. It’s very foundations and better than what – esp better than what time frame before.? Or better buildings than before. Or better economy or healthcare or better cynically at giving money away?
    It is of course anything you want it to mean.
    But above all Boris the Builder must never waiver on his No 1 battle cry of leaving the EU (elite gravy train for the few) to become wobbly Me Blobby legacy of he chickens out with BRINO.

  68. Derek
    October 10, 2020

    You paint a grim picture of any Biden Administration and one that favours more EU. Let’s hope it never comes to pass.

  69. acorn
    October 10, 2020

    “Build Back Better”, it’s not going to happen. It can’t under the current model of UK plc’s management. The UK remains operating to a Darwinian Capitalist model that is basically, government of the 99%, by the 1%, for the 1%.

    Capitalist Social Darwinists believe that laissez-faire individualism and economic competition, will naturally lead to its preferred model that yields the ā€œsurvival of the fittestā€ and “natural inequality”. They believe that government should not interfere by subsidising the poor and incapacitated mentally or physically.

    1. Edward2
      October 10, 2020

      What is laissez- faire or Darwinist capitalist about a nation like the UK that is approaching 45% of spending by the state?

      And how do the 1% keep control when we have elections every few years?

      I’ve read some ridiculous posts from you acorn but this one beats the lot.

  70. Anonymous
    October 10, 2020

    The ONS STATS CLEARLY show the lockdown caused the phony pandemic, please study week 14 and the weeks prior where flu deaths remained well above Covid until the actual week the non resuscitation orders came into effect i.e state sanctioned euthenasia.

  71. Anonymous
    October 10, 2020

    I walked out the supermarket today after dumping all my shopping in a fit of rage. they have banned cash and are trying to humiliate you.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      October 10, 2020

      What supermarket? We all need to give them a wide berth.

  72. everyone knows
    October 10, 2020

    Worst PM we have ever had, a total puppet of globalists who want a Great Reset of our economy and the intentional destruction of businesses they do not like, with forced digital ID and vaccination as the end game.

    1. glen cullen
      October 10, 2020

      Not the Tory way

  73. Lindsay McDougall
    October 10, 2020

    Within the UK we can take down this establishment and cleanse the Augean stables. It’s just a matter of will power and trashing bad ideas. It taking down the international establishment, the key is to deny them money. Donald Trump has shown the way. We can do our bit.

    Do we need the IMF? Apart from parroting establishment propaganda, its main role is to persuade debtor nations not to default, even when defaulting would be in their interest? Salaries paid to UN staff are fabulously high. Can we not do something to curtail them? MEP expense allowances are high, as Nigel Farage has emphasised. At least we are saying goodbye to that by leaving the EU.

    1. beresford
      October 10, 2020

      I’d like to know how you intend to take down the Establishment, at least not without violence. We know that whoever you vote for you get the same policies, as once elected there is no compulsion to fulfil your manifesto. They control the police and if needs be the army. They can have you removed from your job, prevent you from telling the truth in the media, and they are indoctrinating any children you might have.

      ‘You can’t fool all of the people all the time but if you do it once it’s good for five years’. Richard Nixon

  74. Lionel
    October 10, 2020

    prior to the lockdown week the ONS chart shows “influenza” consistently higher EVERY week.

    1. Barbara
      October 10, 2020

      Good news! ONS have said they are now going to amalgamate flu and covid stats into one global figure, so you canā€™t tell the difference (and Iā€™m not even joking).
      Itā€™s a disgrace.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        October 10, 2020

        The govt is really afraid, obviously.

      2. Fred H
        October 11, 2020

        they will add cancer deaths later on.

  75. Anonymous
    October 10, 2020

    The ONS STATS CLEARLY show the lockdown caused the phony pandemic, please study week 14 and the weeks prior where flu deaths remained well above Covid until the actual week the non resuscitation orders came into effect i.e state-sanctioned euthanasia.

  76. glen cullen
    October 10, 2020

    Covid-19 virus size = 0.125 microns
    Ave mask protection = 0.3+ microns

    I doesnā€™t take a rocket scientist to realise the masks that everybody is wearing is a complete waste of time even if correctly fitted with no gaps ā€“ youā€™d need a self contained mask or a military type filter respirator mask
    source – usatoday.com fact check

    1. Fred H
      October 10, 2020

      walk past any lady with ‘nice’ perfume, a smelly van etc, a refuse vehicle – – you are aware of all of them.
      Couldn’t we introduce a smell to Covid – then we could run at first warning.

    2. Fedupsoutherner
      October 10, 2020

      I watched people going into supermarkets today. Most didn’t use hand sanitiser or clean the trolley handles. They then went around the store pulling at their masks to see properly and thereby were touching their faces rather a lot. This wouldn’t happen so much if no mask was worn. They are a complete waste of time.

      1. Not Bob
        October 11, 2020

        I watched people going into supermarkets today. Most didnā€™t use hand sanitiser or clean the trolley handles

        ….
        I also watched them and most did.

    3. Al
      October 11, 2020

      “I doesnā€™t take a rocket scientist to realise the masks that everybody is wearing is a complete waste of time even if correctly fitted with no gaps” – This is incorrect.

      Usatoday went on (in their article “Fact check: No, N95 filters are not too large to stop COVID-19 particles” on 11th October 2020) to confirm that the Covid-19 virus particle is always attached to a larger molecule, usually droplets or aerosols, which are always over 1 micron in size and so are stopped by masks.

      The “if worn correctly” is the major sticking point. I’ve seen them over mouths only, round necks, dangling off an ear, or even tied round a wrist as the lady argued that she was wearing a mask and therefore should be allowed on the bus.

      I wonder if older folk wearing them over their mouths but pulled down to leave the nose free, is the equivalent of teenagers wearing their jeans pulled down round their hips.

    4. henfer
      October 11, 2020

      Iā€™m also afraid it does not need a rocket scientist to figure out that Covid-19 virus specially when produced by a human sneezing or coughing are not likely to be on their own but much more likely to be attached to some bits of mucus, saliva. In which case the relevant dimension is that of the droplets of mucus, saliva.

      1. NickC
        October 11, 2020

        Henfer, And how many people wearing face masks have you seen sneezing or coughing? I have seen none.

        1. Al
          October 12, 2020

          “Henfer, And how many people wearing face masks have you seen sneezing or coughing? I have seen none.” – NickC

          The aerosol droplets are also produced by talking or breathing, and everyone I have seen wearing a mask is doing at least one of the two.

        2. hefner
          October 12, 2020

          Funny, I saw such people going into food stores with the inside temperature some degrees colder than the outside one. With fall been here and winter coming it might now be happening with people getting out of stores.

  77. beresfordī
    October 10, 2020

    Another unwelcome recent development is the politicisation of the police, who now see their job as pursuing opponents of the globalist agenda while ignoring the offences of globalist supporters. Perhaps the political function should be separated off as in the Third Reich in order to prevent those police who handle actual crime from being tarnished by association.

  78. Rhoddas
    October 10, 2020

    Vaccine or no vaccine, the new normal is far more working from home, releasing much office space – which should be repurposed for residential accommodation, along with brownfield sites made into green spaces, maximising the existing infrastructure, rather than building on fields. Capita is releasing 100 offices, QED.

    This repurposed office space shall INCLUDE government/council buildings, thus reducing their costs hugely –> less taxes required. Please make this policy.

    Building back better should include solar panels (the business case is clear) and more gardens/green spaces for the residents. The miniscule gardens/green spaces of modern developments are a damning testament to bad government/planning rules and governance over decades.

  79. Fred H
    October 10, 2020

    Is the Government moving towards FAHRENHEIT 451?
    I’ve a number of borrowed books but cannot return them, nearest libraries are closed.
    An interesting way to stop the masses reading subversive stuff?

    BBC report today:
    An overdue library book has been returned nearly 60 years late.
    It was left in Middlesbrough Central Library’s returns box this week but was due back in December, 1962. The copy of Geoffrey Faber’s poetry anthology The Buried Stream was still “pristine”, Middlesbrough Council said. The fine would have been more than Ā£500 but charges have been suspended during the pandemic and there would be “no questions asked”, a council spokesperson said.

  80. James Bertram
    October 10, 2020

    Sir John, thank you for the attempt to inform us of what is going on.

    You write: ‘There are those who think there is a global conspiracy led by a billionaire or two who they think set the agenda. I do not post such work, as it is silly. The views and actions many of you dislike are far more widespread and complex than a simple case of undue influence by one individual or think tank. It is a systematic agenda and way of thinking that infuses most global institutions and many governments or main Oppositions in leading countries’.
    I note you do not deny or confirm ‘global conspiracy’. You explain it as the groupthink or brotherhood of many elite actors, not of a few individuals. These actors are generally referred to as ‘Globalists’.

    You write: ‘The centre left version of the consensus sees CV 19 as a crisis full of opportunity.’
    Yes, it is a crisis full of opportunity, an opportunity to reset the economy and social policies of the world. However, the ‘conspiracy’ that is not mentioned, the elephant in the room, is that the CV19 crisis seems to be manufactured by the governments and media rather than being based on any evidential science – the crisis has been manufactured to provide the opportunity for change – the Great Reset.

    You write: ‘The politicians and political movements who disagree with some or all of this consensus are treated roughly by conventional media.’
    I take it that you mean you are one of these politicians – that you disagree with some or all of the Globalist’s agenda.

    It will be good to read more.

    Thank you.

  81. No longer Anonymous
    October 10, 2020

    Sir John

    Have you noticed the switch to my way of thinking on this blog ?

    By Summer Britain will be aflame and your government fighting for survival.

    It’s over, mate.

  82. Ian
    October 11, 2020

    Oh this so called tearable virus , I know of no person who has had this,
    Frankly I am sure it is a load of nonsense.
    With 8 Billion on this planet, and less than one million are supposed to have died from this terrible flu ? are We being had ladies and gentlemen , should we be asking questions.
    How many die of flu each month in the U.K.
    we should be questioning everything we are being told .
    I am of an age that is at risk .we must question everything our Government tells us.
    This is not a Government that inspirers confidence.
    I see nothing that that they are doing in any direction that is thought out.
    I am certainly not at ease with how Brexit is going, Boris will sell us , just like all those before
    These people are Globalists, they are not looking out for our Nation, quite the opposite.
    Why have we not stamped out the Illegal Migrants, why are the Chinese doing so much work here, has Boris sent any of them home, are they still doing our 5 G.
    Most of what they are doing can be done by us or others in the West.

    Sorry but I would not trust this bunch with a box of matches !

  83. The Great GREATReset
    October 11, 2020

    This will end with all MPs out of a job within 18 months.

  84. Anonymous
    October 11, 2020

    EU Global Vaccination Summit Sept 2019 (first ever)
    The parĀ­ticĀ­iĀ­pants at the vacĀ­ciĀ­naĀ­tion sumĀ­mit agreed on ten actions to vaccinate the entire world which involved ‘incentivizing’ the MSM.

    These include ensurĀ­ing all counĀ­tries have immuĀ­niĀ­saĀ­tions strateĀ­gies; using digĀ­iĀ­tal means to monĀ­iĀ­tor and improve the effecĀ­tiveĀ­ness of vacĀ­ciĀ­naĀ­tion proĀ­grammes; buying up vaccine stock in advance etc.

    I thought we left the EU?

  85. Sally
    October 11, 2020

    Are driving lessons and tests going to be cancelled again? Hospital appointments, mental health services for the vulnerable and services for the elderly? These areas are where the damage is being done.

    My poor baby 9 month old, must think he is only baby in the world.

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