Tag Archives: restrictions

#BorisJohnson to lift #Covid19 regulations in new threat to us all

Did he say it? That hardly matters now – Boris Johnson’s own behaviour shows he agrees with the sentiment.

With Covid-19 still causing as many deaths as a major commercial plane crash every day, Boris Johnson has decided to tell us the crisis is over, we should get back to normal – and is dropping all regulations that keep people in England safe.

The legal requirement to self-isolate if you have Covid-19 will be dropped within days as part of Johnson’s “Living with Covid” plan.

It’s misnamed. “Dying with Covid” would be more appropriate – or “Living with Covid deaths“. Johnson, we know, is happy to live with Covid deaths; he’s understood to have said, “Let the bodies pile up in their thousands” last year, and this new policy tends to confirm it.

Medical opinion is that Johnson’s plan is utterly insane.

Dr Chand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association, told the BBC: “You have at the moment more people dying, more people in the hospital, than you had before Plan B [restrictions] was introduced.

“It does appear as if the government is trying to pretend that Covid doesn’t exist in the day-to-day lives of so many people.”

He’s not alone in this opinion:

Also set to end is community testing, with free PCR tests for people with symptoms likely to stop, and Lateral Flow Tests set to follow – because Johnson doesn’t think it is worth spending £2 billion a month on them, just to keep UK citizens alive.

Also likely to feel this way are the UK’s billionaire business leaders, who want to get back to making money hand-over-fist and absolutely do not care if it happens amid a new slew of Covid deaths.

Ian Hodson is right. With the compulsion to self-isolate scrapped, firms will refuse to accept Covid-19 as a reason to be off work, and people who should be avoiding all human contact will instead be spreading the infection to all of their work colleagues.

This danger should also be linked with the danger to vulnerable people – that Johnson himself acknowledges is still clear and present. But his actions belie his claims that communities in the UK should remain cautious – as people who know what they’re talking about are making clear:

Schools have always been the engine room of Covid-19 in the UK, because Johnson was desperate to keep them open in order to get parents back into the workplace making money for Tory donor firms.

His government has never lifted a finger to reduce the spread of Covid-19 through schools.

And now teachers are reacting to his new plan with shock:

The callous insensitivity is highlighted when one contrasts the decision to spend £12 million on a book about the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee for primary school children, while refusing to spend even an equivalent amount on ventilation systems that could have prevented the spread of Covid:

Oh, and the Queen herself has now contracted the disease.

Johnson’s decision is unacceptable if we face the facts:

Even the BBC admits the figures are worse than that: “Some 34,377 Covid cases were recorded on Saturday, with another 128 deaths within 28 days of a positive test. It brings the total number of deaths by this measure to 160,507.” The report said five per cent – one in 20 – of English people had Covid-19 in the week ending February 12. That’s not a pandemic that is on its last legs!

But what are the biggest news stories?

And most people will swallow the anaesthetic offered by the Tory-supporting TV news channels gratefully – as the Covid they’ve contracted at work rages through their systems unrecognised and unchecked and they prepare to catch public transport to their job the next day, so they can infect even more unsuspecting victims of Boris Johnson’s genocidal ignorance.

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Number of #DowningStreetParties being investigated hits unlucky 13 for #BorisJohnson

Boris Johnson: his self-inflicted troubles are piling up.

The revelations are coming out thick and fast now, and all Boris Johnson can do now is react with an apology.

It’s the worst possible situation for him because he doesn’t know what’s coming next and cannot prepare; he can only take the rap and hope the public get outrage fatigue.

And we’re not getting tired of being angry at all.

The latest revelation is that the former head of the civil service Covid taskforce – the team responsible for drawing up Covid restrictions – held a leaving party during lockdown in 2020.

Kate Josephs, now chief executive of Sheffield City Council, has tweeted a statement in which she says she had drinks with colleagues on the evening of 17 December.

Here it is:

It does seem odd that she has decided to make this statement unilaterally.

Perhaps she feared the consequences if it came to light from another source.

While it doesn’t seem to involve Boris Johnson directly, it is still hugely damaging to his administration because it means the person who designed the lockdown restrictions that the rest of us had to observe or face the wrath of the law was happy to break them herself.

The implication is that this assumption runs across Johnson’s government; they all thought they could do what they liked.

That’s the kind of attitude that only spreads from the top downward.

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Music organisations are restoring visa-free touring in the EU. Dorries steals the credit

Nadine Dorries: she likes to take credit. Shame she doesn’t deserve it.

How do you like the nerve of the Culture Secretary?

Nadine Dorries (the people of Mid Bedfordshire must be so proud of her) has tried to take credit for the hard work of LIVE, the Association of British Orchestras and others who have been working hard to cut the red tape that her government has wrapped around musicians from the UK who want to perform in EU countries.

What motivates people like her to lie so brazenly?

Will she try to convince us that God told her to do it?

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Has the government announced that July 19 will be ‘Freedom Day’ to catch #LongCovid?

‘Covid Boris’: this satirical image was made when Johnson caught the virus in April 2020. He didn’t get Long Covid – and you can bet that he

According to the BBC’s Panorama, 33,000 children are suffering with Long Covid. Didn’t the government tell us children didn’t get Covid-19?

Wow. 33,000 children sentenced to lose an undetermined length of their life because the government they didn’t even elect is incompetent – or, worse, intended to harm them.

And some of you, reading this, will argue that it doesn’t even exist. It is this kind of ignorance that gives Boris Johnson the space to inflict the damage.

In fact, it does exist. It does harm people continually over a period of months and years. There is no established treatment for it because it is a new disease and the causes of the symptoms it produces are not known.

And thanks to more than 10 years of Tory defunding – because they want to privatise the NHS – the health service does not have the capacity to research Long Covid, let alone treat it.

According to Lucy Adams, in the programme, many thousands of people are likely to be off work for years, with a huge knock-on impact on the UK’s society, economy and culture.

Why does Boris Johnson want that?

Why has he decided to remove social distancing restrictions just as infections of a new, more virulent strain of Covid-19 are increasing exponentially?

He says he wants the country to get back to normal but the decision to end restrictions now is – according to the scientists from SAGE – definitely going to put more people in hospital, give more people Long Covid, and send more people to their graves.

And Johnson knows this.

He is deliberately crippling the UK for years to come.

Source: Long Covid: Will I ever get better? – BBC News

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Genocidal Johnson announces total end to lockdown laws as new and deadlier ‘Lambda variant’ arrives in UK

Back to Square One: Boris Johnson’s plan to end Covid-19 lockdown restrictions is a return to his very first idea – herd immunity. But you won’t hear him say it.

Timing is the secret to great tragedy, as well as comedy. Boris Johnson may soon discover that, to his cost.

The UK’s imbecile prime minister has announced that he will go ahead with his plan to lift all remaining lockdown restrictions in England on July 19, saying from then on it will be a personal choice whether we wear masks to keep our friends, neighbours and colleagues safe – or get rid of them and risk infecting them all.

And he has done it as news reaches us of a new and deadlier variant of Covid-19 – the “Lambda variant” – which is arriving in the UK from Peru.

We had plenty of warning that Johnson would do as he has done. It was mooted about on the mass media over the weekend and on the news shows early on July 5 – although the Tories could have chosen a better representative to get the message across.

Helen “I use private emails to do government business so you can’t see what I’m up to” Whately made a worse idiot of herself than Johnson would have. Asked whether she, personally, would take advantage of the rule change to ditch her own mask, she dissembled, as the following shows:

She just wouldn’t give a straight answer to a simple question, leading even the BBC’s Dan Walker to exasperation:

Johnson went ahead with his announcement in a press conference at 5pm:

He was undermined very quickly. For example, this morning (July 6), new Health Secretary Sajid Javid admitted that new Covid-19 infections could number 50,000 a day by July 19, the so-called “Freedom Day” when restrictions are expected to be lifted:

Some projections have put the increase in infections up to 100,000 per day over the summer. Freedom Day? #DangerDay is what I’d call it.

The backlash from thinking members of the public has been enormous.

On Facebook, one friend of This Writer wrote: “it appears the UK Government is officially insane, yesterday with case levels rising with the current restrictions they announce the removal of pretty much all covid related restrictions then today say they expect case levels to rise from the under 22,000 cases currently experienced to over 100,000 cases during the summer. Absolutely no person in their right mind would even consider this to be a good course of action. At best it is reckless and grossly negligent.”

Another wrote: “How many more people has our murderous Prime Minister just sentenced to death with his utterly irresponsible (and against scientific advice) stupid relaxation of all rules?”

And another came up with an entire alternative plan for easing restrictions, off the top of his head: “During today’s press conference, Johnson asked ‘If we don’t re-open now, then when will we do it…?’

“I don’t know, Boris… how about, say, announcing a phased reduction in Covid restrictions when we hit 75% of the adult population double-vaccinated? That’s a firm, acheivable target with a definable benefit in terms of restricting Covid.

“It also brings an additional positive incentive to get vaccinated which, combined with the societal pressures it would create, would very likely tip many of the ‘vaccine hesitant’ to get the bloody jabs.

“There. That took me five minutes to think of, and I’m not even the f***ing Prime Minister.”

It seems Johnson has gone back to his old idea of “herd immunity” yet again. Like a child with a single idea stuck in his head, he can’t seem to let it go, as this expert opinion suggests:

Medical experts have said Johnson’s plan is equivalent to building “variant factories” in the UK, providing an opportunity for new and deadlier versions of Covid-19 to take hold here, against which the vaccine will be useless.

Prof Susan Michie, the director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London, and another member of Sage’s behavioural science subcommittee, tweeted: “Allowing community transmission to surge is like building new ‘variant factories’ at a very fast rate.”

And of course we also have variants coming into the UK from abroad, because Johnson refused to protect us by closing the UK’s borders. We’ve already had the “Delta variant” from India; now here’s the “Lambda variant” from Peru:

Public reaction to Johnson’s plan has been one of horror:

But he’ll push ahead with it. He has to; he has now staked his political career on it.

Remember this: Covid-related deaths are rising again, in line with the number of infections. So ask yourself this:

How many more people aree you happy to see die, before you accept it is time to put a stop to Johnson’s genocidal rule?

What is Jenrick really saying by telling us masks may be a ‘personal choice’ after July 19?

Robert Jenrick: he announced the change in policy on Andrew Marr’s BBC show. That look on his face is known as ‘duper’s delight’ and indicates that he thinks he’s making fools of us all.

It seems to me that our slippery Tory government is trying to change the rules of its own lockdown easement – again.

Robert Jenrick has said England is going to move into a period where legal restrictions related to Covid-19 will be relaxed, meaning that decisions on whether to consider following them – like wearing masks – will become a matter of personal choice.

Does that seem like pre-emptive blame-shifting to you?

Boris Johnson is determined to lift social distancing restrictions on July 19 – and to make the changes irrevocable.

Logically, the only time at which such a choice is reasonable would be when the risk of contracting Covid has become negligible.

Jenrick’s comment suggests that this will not be the case. His suggestion that people will exercise “personal responsibility” in their choice of whether to wear a mask or note means the government is passing the buck.

If people remove their masks en masse and the number of Covid cases increases, then he, Johnson and all the other Tories will blame the rest of us, rather than admit that their own decision to lift lockdown was at fault.

It’s a low-down, dirty trick – and they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

If they lift the legal requirement to wear a face mask in public from July 19, then that must only mean that medical evidence dictates it is safe to do so…

… because I, for one, am desperate to get rid of the bloody masks and I know that most people feel the same way. If the government says it’s allowed, they’ll put the rags in the rubbish whether it’s safe or not.

So we need to make it clear:

If the government removes the requirement to wear a mask on July 19, then it must make it perfectly clear that it is because the government considers it safe to do so.

Any rise in Covid infections may then be – correctly – attributed to Tory policy.

Don’t let Jenrick or any other Tory stooge try to push responsibility for the pandemic onto you.

Source: Covid-19: Masks will become personal choice, says Robert Jenrick – BBC News

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Tories are preparing to delay lockdown end date after Covid infections skyrocketed

Jabber Johnson: Boris Johnson has invested everything in the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccinations – but a quarter of new infections are in people who have had both injections.

The weekend turned out to be a disaster for the Tories, after all their crowing about getting Covid infections and deaths down.

On Bank Holiday Monday the government recorded no Covid-19 deaths for the first time in more than a year – but the euphoria over that was short-lived.

It was a statistical blip caused by the fact that the people who record deaths had been on holiday.

Since then, with the arrival of the Indian delta variant in the UK due to Boris Johnson’s ridiculous insistence on keeping our borders open to anybody with the virus, infection rates have skyrocketed – on Saturday, 70 per cent more people were recorded to have contracted it than the previous Saturday.

The disease is being transmitted most commonly through secondary schools after Johnson said pupils there should take off their masks.

And now we discover that one in 25 people who have been infected with the new strain are supposed to be fully inoculated against it, having had both the required vaccination injections:

What a homicidal idiot Johnson is!

So now the Tories are having to backtrack on their plan to finish lifting lockdown restrictions on June 21:

Matt Hancock says 21 June is a “not before” date for ending England’s remaining restrictions.

They are going to extend the agony for all of us – and, incidentally, harm the economy that has been their “sacred cow” throughout the crisis, because they keep making the same damned stupid mistakes.

And they’re stupid enough to think that we haven’t noticed.

Are they right, though?

I fear they may be.

After all, they’re only in power because people were stupid enough to believe the Tories’ claims that Jeremy Corbyn would be worse. And now we know he couldn’t possibly have been.

Source: Covid-19: Government ‘open’ to delaying 21 June England lockdown end date – BBC News

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Sunak v the scientists over Covid-19 restrictions – and the wrong man is going to win

Rishi Sunak: he’s the UK’s favourite politician but look at that face. It seems he also has reason to be worried. Perhaps he has an agenda he hasn’t told us?

Rishi Sunak – the government minister who may be the only one with more Covid-19 related blood on his hands than Boris Johnson – is agitating to cause more deaths again.

Sunak, whose ‘Eat Out to Die Out’ wheeze contributed to reversing all the benefits of the first UK lockdown by encouraging people to congregate indoors in the middle of a pandemic, says he thinks scientists like Chris Whitty have changed their focus from protecting the NHS to keeping infections low and staying ‘Covid-free’.

What the blazes is wrong with him?

The trouble is that Sunak is said to be the most popular politician in the country, because his furlough scheme protected jobs. It wasn’t generous at all, but the fact that it made him popular simply demonstrates how badly demeaned the UK’s workforce has become after 40 years and more of Tory-style neoliberal economic policies.

Here’s Owen Jones to explain in detail what’s wrong with Rishi Sunak:

Many people have pinpointed ‘Eat Out to Kill Off’ as a reason to distrust Sunak’s instincts. Here’s a very good point:

But many people have highlighted his many other blunders:

And there’s a warning that his idea will bring on a deadly third wave of the virus:

But of course we should not forget that Sunak’s Tory government is doing what it can to harm us all, even after vaccines were developed against the virus.

The delays that the Tories are imposing on second doses of the vaccine are too long. People should be having the booster after three weeks, not three months.

It seems clear the government knows this, too – as super-rich people like Stanley Johnson have had both doses of the vaccine in the recommended period, suggesting that the Tories have imposed a two-tier vaccination system that leaves most of us behind.

It also gives the virus a chance to adapt, according to some:

Sadly, we live in a country run by liars. The Tories say they are guided by the science but we have seen them ignore good advice time after time because they were desperate to keep the economy ticking over. All the did was make matters worse.

Sunak will influence his Cabinet colleagues and make matters even worse. He is part of a government that cannot do anything right.

So perhaps we should be glad that it seems reactions to Sunak are changing. Let’s hope this will become the last word:

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Johnson knew about new Covid-19 strain in SEPTEMBER. Why did he delay action until now?

Incompetent, ill-equipped, indecisive: Boris Johnson simply isn’t intelligent enough to run a country in the middle of a pandemic contagion. He will dither, delay, bungle and blunder – and WE will be left to count the cost and pay the price.

Johnson dithered and now we must all take the damage.

It’s an all-too-familiar story since he became the UK’s prime minister last year.

It has become clear that the new strain of Covid-19, that Johnson is using as his excuse to ruin everybody’s Christmas with tighter movement and social gathering restrictions than he had promised, was identified in late September. Here‘s iNews:

The first case occurred in the South East in September and it has now spread to Scotland and Wales, with some cases also detected overseas

But the UK’s failed prime minister didn’t say a word about it when he announced his four-week lockdown covering most of November and the early days of December. We weren’t made aware of it and no special measures seem to have been imposed where it had been identified.

Indeed, it was during this time that he actually announced his plan to lift restrictions on social gatherings for a five-day period during Christmas:

He knew there was a new variant of the virus, faster-spreading if not more deadly, that had arisen in the southeast of England but he still announced this as a Christmas bonus for us all, almost a month before it was due to happen.

A lot can happen in a month, as we all know from our experiences in February and March. What a shame we didn’t all bear in mind the most serious lesson we learned then – that Boris Johnson is useless at making the right decision in even the least important matters, and a disaster when the safety of the entire country is at risk.

Some of us saw it coming:

But when Labour leader Keir Starmer challenged Johnson during the last Prime Minister’s Questions of the year, in Parliament on December 16, Johnson actually had the nerve to accuse the Opposition leader of wanting to “cancel Christmas”.

Isn’t it ironic that just three days later, as far as many are concerned, Johnson himself was the one cancelling everyone’s Christmas plans?

Meanwhile the November lockdown in England… failed. By December 18 – last Friday – news outlets were reporting a worse situation in terms of infections and deaths than the previous high point:

And despite the arrival of a hastily-approved vaccine, the outlook suggested restrictions would roll on well into 2021:

Only on Friday evening was the alarm raised – less than a week before Johnson had announced that a lifting of restrictions would take effect.

Needless to say, some were sceptical about the reasons for raising concern at this time:

But hospitals continued to report increasing cases – with those in southeast England, where the new strain was first detected, cancelling non-urgent treatments to divert services back to the virus.

Even so, Johnson was still signalling that any further lockdown would happen after Christmas, so the festive season could still be enjoyed.

It seems to This Writer that the new Covid strain was making itself felt. Johnson knew what was going on – he had been briefed. But just as he delayed his decision on any action after the arrival of the virus in the UK, from November 2019 until March this year, he dithered.

Meanwhile, the forecasts worsened…

… and scientists worked hard to establish proof of a causal link between the new Covid strain and the huge surge in cases. Did they believe this was necessary to prod bovine Boris Johnson in the right direction?

Hospital admissions continued to rise – most prominently in London and the southeast:

Then we started hearing that new restrictions could be on the way – before Christmas, implying that Johnson was going to renege on his promise to lift curbs on social gatherings.

It was a bit late for that! Bear in mind the quotation at the top of this article: the new strain has already spread to Scotland, Wales and abroad.

Worse, it created the potential for a panic-fuelled exodus from the Capital and the Home Counties – potential that was realised in very short order.

Early in the afternoon – just 12 hours after news outlets started reporting that he might be restricting travel over Christmas – Johnson announced that he would address the nation in a TV broadcast.

I think Clare Hepworth may have been hoping for too much there!

Before the telecast, it seems Johnson leaked details of his announcement to a journalist. But there was a problem…

The leaked details were tweeted by Sunday Times deputy political editor Caroline Wheeler. But look at the state of this:

Pogrund is the hack who published lies that This Writer was a Holocaust denier (the paper had to print a fulsome correction later), so if I had seen his comment on this, I would have treated it with extreme caution – which is exactly the opposite of what Johnson no doubt intended.

He eventually slouched onto our screens and made his announcement:

Notice that he said his decision was based on “early” evidence about the new Covid variant, of which he had been aware since September – nearly four months!

The response – as one might expect – was strong (even before Johnson himself turned up to tell us why we should be angry at all, it seems):

On Sunday morning, Matt Hancock turned up to tell Sophy Ridge a pack of lies:

Of course they knew! They were told in September, remember.

You may also remember This Writer mentioning, above, the potential for a panic-fuelled exodus from London after the papers reported that Johnson might impose a travel ban. Prediction fulfilled:

The response from the government was contradictory – to everybody who remembers its response to Dominic Cummings’s mad dash to Barnard Castle, back in the summer:

Oh, and the government’s response? Pointless:

Sunday was the day the UK’s cumulative Covid-19 death toll equalled the entire number of UK civilian casualties during World War II (1939-1945). Another achievement for Johnson and his Minister for Death, Matt Hancock:

Labour has tried to take advantage of the situation – but with limited success, considering the party’s own dire record on the coronavirus:

 

Of course, the announcement doesn’t just affect families; there is a knock-on effect on the economy:

And the casualties keep mounting up: as the UK faced the inevitability of a Christmas in lockdown, and millions tried to quit the capital for the country, taking their germs with them, the country faced the uncomfortable fact that the situation was worse than ever before.

And beyond our borders, other countries realised they had to take action:

This situation is changing constantly but as I write this, more than 30 countries have banned travel from the UK.

What conclusion can we draw from this?

Firstly: that Boris Johnson cannot cope with his responsibilities as prime minister. Faced with a hard decision, he will deny reality until it smacks him across the face – every time.

Secondly: that the UK has now become so tribal that people will join Johnson in denying reality, simply because they would rather support the Tories than admit they have failed.

Thirdly: that Boris Johnson will use any excuse to deflect responsibility for his mistakes away from him.

Fourthly: that, despite the efforts of his apologists, Johnson has lost the nation’s trust.

If you need some reasons for this phenomenon, here are 10:

Finally: that we’ve had enough of him, his dithering, his lies and his government.

The next few days are going to be difficult for all of us, because of Johnson and the stupid decisions made by him deliberately.

But that’s going to be nothing compared to the trouble we can give him over the next few weeks, months and – if necessary – years until we can finally kick him out for good. Remember that.

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New Covid threat – but government sticks to advice over Christmas ‘bubbles’

Not a Christmas decoration: but the fear is that people will be letting Covid-19 into their homes – possibly a new, more virulent strain – when families come together under restriction relaxations that are still being permitted by the government.

Boris Johnson’s Tory government is sticking to its advice about the five-day ‘bubbles’ into which families will be allowed to go while they celebrate Christmas.

But ministers are warning that people should do “the minimum that is possible” over the festive period.

What the hell does that mean?

Meanwhile, new threats are arising with the discovery of a new strain of the Coronavirus, most heavily concentrated in London and the South East.

Is it a coincidence that London and parts of Essex and Hertfordshire are going into Tier 3 restrictions from midnight today (December 15-16)?

The number of cases of the virus there has been found to have risen, even while cases elsewhere were falling during the English lockdown in November.

Up to three households will be permitted to meet – in ‘bubbles’ – for five days over Christmas. But the government is saying people will have to make their own judgements about the amount of contact they have.

And the matter will be kept under review.

The discovery of the new strain of the virus was announced by Death Health Secretary Matt Hancock:

He seems to think that although it is faster-spreading, it is no more harmful than the established strain and he expects the current vaccine to be effective against it.

Those are very large assumptions.

And there are concerns that ministers are divorced from the realities of the situation.

A Guardian leader article has warned that the government’s attitude to schools shows a failure to understand the ongoing threat:

Just last week the schools minister, Nick Gibb, wrote to the headteacher of a school in Ware, Hertfordshire, warning that the government could use its powers under the Coronavirus Act to prevent schools such as his from carrying out plans to send most pupils home before the end of term and switch to remote learning.

In a similar vein, suggestions from unions that schools might operate remotely at the start of next term, in order to decrease the chances that contacts over the festive period could lead to a spike in infections, were rebuffed.

Yet school leaders, and councils including Greenwich, that have asked headteachers to switch to remote learning for the final few days of term, appear more in touch than ministers with the realities – and risks – of the situation they have created, by promising the public that get-togethers of up to three families could go ahead over the festive period.

It remains unclear how Boris Johnson and his cabinet became convinced that closing schools for just the usual fortnight could be considered compatible with a plan to relax the pandemic restrictions below even the tier 1 level, under which gatherings of people who do not live together, and are not part of the same support bubble, are limited to six.

Throughout the Covid crisis, Hancock, his boss Boris Johnson, and their minions have been wrong – on an epic scale that has cost tens of thousands of lives.

They claimed their decisions were “based on the science” when in fact the underlying motive was the maintenance of a national economy that has been harmed more by their poor leadership than by the virus itself.

Now they stand poised to make another terrible mistake – and to make the rest of us pay the cost. Again.

Source: Covid: ‘Do minimum possible’ over Christmas, says UK minister | World news | The Guardian

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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