Wednesday 17 March 2021

Government Completely Off The Rails

Knowing our esteemed BTL crowd, I recognise that many of you have already formed the view that there is nothing to be expected from the present government.  Fair enough: like many others - millions, probably - when I voted for Johnson's party in GE2019 I had little hope of consistency or integrity.

But.  Drafting a Bill so that "putting at risk of serious annoyance" qualifies as "causing serious harm"; and making that a criminal offence?  OK, sometimes these things are included in a Bill at an early stage for the purpose of abandoning them later as a concession.

(The grotesque mis-use of the word "harm" is a very modern, essentially leftist gambit, exemplified by the insistence that to state trans women aren't actually women is to cause "literal harm".  Obviously enough, it's a malign attempt to co-opt the ethos of the physical HSE sphere, where all manner of things can readily be outlawed without further ado, leaving very little space for argument.)  

So, funnily enough, for the woke brigade this should be their ultimate wet dream: we know what runs the risk of "seriously annoying" them.  The only reason why they aren't piling in behind this is that for the time being it would be Pritti Patel calling the shots.  Put that putative legislation into woke hands, however, and it's the end for free speech: they are getting close to something similar in Scotland, too.  Hey, lots of things cause me serious annoyance too: but never introduce a dangerous weapon into a fray when it will promptly be turned upon yourself.

We know Boris is a populist clod; and Patel ... well what can we say without risking serious annoyance?  But - Not Being Corbyn only takes a government so far.  Can Tory MPs put a stop to this nonsense?

ND

PS: at the risk of causing further serious annoyance ... where are those feminists who used to say that if only we put women in charge of everything, the world would be a much nicer place?

27 comments:

Charlie said...

I read about this yesterday, and my assumption was that this was intended to be used against e.g. a rentamob turning up outside your house, protesting that you've misgendered someone, preventing you from leaving the house, making your life a misery etc, rather than to be used to curtail free speech.

Of course, this relies upon the police and judiciary applying the law in a reasonable way, which, given recent history, isn't a given.

I assume that your reference to Tory MPs doing something to upset the woke brigade was a joke? Because they seem to think that getting a good Brexit deal and doing a good job of vaccine rollout will win them an election in a few years time, when it's actually the bare minimum that is expected of a competent government.

Elby the Beserk said...

FUBAR. We're done for. Johnson is a complete charlatan who is no more a conservative than Steptoe Corbyn.

My end of days happening this week? Yesterday, hearing a female presented on R5 referring to "female women". Yes, that's right. "Female women".

Benedict option for us. There is nothing we can do do alter the tide of affairs, so we will just look after our own and turn our back on politics and the equally culpable eunuchs of the media.

**** the bloody lot of them.

YDG said...


"where are those feminists who used to say that if only we put women in charge of everything, the world would be a much nicer place?"

They must be busy protesting events in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, Banbury, ...

Anonymous said...

Bit out of topic, but has anyone noted the 9 cv19 deaths in a single Devon care home, all of whom were vaccinated in January but none of whom had been given the second jab as prescribed after 3 weeks? Several others ill, one in ITU

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-56366575

Either

a) the vaccine is crap or, more likely IMHO
b) the idiotic decision to leave 12 weeks between Pfizer jabs has claimed its first (known) victims

Anonymous said...

More care home deaths among the (once) vaccinated

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9364317/Covid-England-Police-investigate-outbreak-Devon-care-home-five-residents-died.html

Personally I would rather wait for the jab and make sure all the most vulnerable have had two. The research says that protection is only about 63% ten weeks after the first Pfizer jab - one in three is not good odds.

Anonymous said...

Johnson was never going to be our saviour, but at least outside of the EU we have the ability to make our own decisions, stupid though some may be - like this one.

andrew said...


PS: at the risk of causing further serious annoyance ... where are those feminists who used to say that if only we put women in charge of everything, the world would be a much nicer place?

They are off somewhere being annoyed they never had daughters.

Boys are much easier to raise than girls - and teenage girls are mean to each other in all the ways boys are and then also in other so so much more nasty and inventive ways.

If the world was run by women..
Different - yes, Better - maybe, Nicer - 50/50.



andrew said...


On this govt.
They seem to have forgotten what govt is for, never mind how to do govt competantly and so think the answer is to get the private sector in (Sunak / Hancock).

Despite evidence and experience.

Charlie said...

Re: O/T care home deaths

Isn't the Pfizer jab the one that needs to be kept at -70, lest it become useless?

Given that we are talking about isolated clusters of deaths post-vaccination, isn't it more likely that the residents in the affected care homes, who would all have been vaccinated at the same time, from the same batch, were given vaccine that had got a bit too warm at some point?

dearieme said...

Maybe the vaccinators let into a care home bring the virus with them. If they come from NHS hospitals that may be a non-negligible risk.

Anonymous said...

Not only do we have a Tory government, but we have a PM who had a reputation as a libertarian (remember the 'person I most admire is the mayor in Jaws because he refused to give into panic and close the beaches' article), and a Home Sec who had a reputation as being on the right of the party.


-- EC

lilith said...

Well, I never thought putting women in charge would fix the world, nor do I have the faintest idea what the patriarchy actually is but it seems to me that the women ARE in charge (wherever you look)....

Annoyed Feminist

Mark Wadsworth said...

As you say, bonkers.

Matt said...

Sticks & stones will break my bones and so will names (apparently).

E-K said...

If they just enforced the laws they had already properly...

And beat policing. That might make women feel safer.

It used to be the case that the Met would say "Nothing ever happens in the City." and dubbed my station (Snow Hill) Moonbase Alpha.

We were surrounded by the most violent Metropolitan police boroughs and yet that violence stopped at our boundary. There were plenty of Rolex/Cartier wearing targets - and uniformed patrols to deter any muggers.

Anonymous said...

When I first heard Andrew Breitbart state that politics is downstream of culture, I didn't fully grasp what this meant - this would have been back in 2009/10 - but has certainly become all too clear now.

The right has lost the culture war. For several decades cultural-Marxism has been taking over our institutions - it started with our universities, NGO's, media, Public sector and more recently the private sector.

The warning signs that it would take over the conservatives have been there - Cameron with his hug a hoodie campaign and turning the tories green were clearly red flags of where they would end up.

This bill just seems another step on the journey of on turning this country into a version of China

Elby the Beserk said...

@Anonymous 9:58am

Correct. We have a "Conservative" government which is anything but, but all our institutions, Quangos and NGOs were long infiltrated by the Left. That we have creepy groups such as Stonewall, Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence ALL over the public sector, with NO evidence for public support for this, indicated just how bad things have got.

Look after your own. Nobody else will.

andrew said...


Right is left, freedom is imprisonment, protest is silence.

BQ said cash will be gone by 2040 or before. Germans say "Bargeld ist Freiheit", both are probably correct.

The VAG sp is rising dramatically as someone noticed it is making electric cars, just as TSLA's starts to fall. Car production has been a fairly low profit and low growth industry for the last 20-30 years and as more people live in cities, that will become more true.

BTC / NFTs...

Letters in the local newspaper about children playing outside less than 2m apart. Letters in the local newspaper objecting to social housing and putting the point that they (...) would be better served by living in a (high density) high rise in central bristol.

The rise of china, the oppression and enslavement of Uighurs, the casual denial of evident truths (Trump)

The casual assertion of evident untruths that leaders know will cause their citizens unneeded deaths (that the AZ vaccine is no good for over 65s, causes blood clots, the uk is blocking exports, the eu is not blocking exports - all that is getting a bit wierd)

We do indeed seem to be in the middle of a singularity or phase change.

...

In terms of solutions, all I can say is that I have a lot of logs, coffee, tinned food, and wine and also long UK small caps.
(yes, contradictory - but in tune with the zeitgeist)



Anonymous said...

Tell me, ND, in your military career were you ever asked to read "Soul On Ice" or "The Female Eunuch"?

Here's the US Navy reading list for officers and those who want to be officers

https://www.navy.mil/CNO-Professional-Reading-Program/Sailors/

Nick Drew said...

Nope!

I had, however, read Female Eunuch already. And Soledad Brother, a very good read.

And I had a copy of the Thoughts of Chairman Mao - the long version. As beautifully produced on thin, high-quality paper as any prayer book or small gospel. Very dense going, though: I didn't fully get to grips with it until after I'd mastered NATO military doctrine

Anonymous said...

I still have my abridged copy, thin paper and red plastic cover, from the Student Union bookshop at a crazy price - 20p maybe? I assume the Chinese subsidised them heavily, just like all the Russian-printed works of Marx and Lenin.

Anonymous said...

I didn't fully get to grips with it until after I'd mastered NATO military doctrine

Had the pleasure of a fact-finding visit NATO in Brussels. Fantastic day and very enlightening. Perhaps another one of your reminisces.

As an aside, Brussels (the city) has a lot of very smart organisations, staffed by very smart people. Makes London (the city with a small c) look provincial.

Elby the Beserk said...

Anonymous said...

As an aside, Brussels (the city) has a lot of very smart organisations, staffed by very smart people. Makes London (the city with a small c) look provincial.

7:03 am
======================================================================

Smart people.

Not the EU, then.

Anonymous said...

Anon:"a) the vaccine is crap or, more likely IMHO"

No,the vaccine is crap. It's just a fig-leaf to cover government incompetence.

This whole disaster, lock-down destruction of viable businesses, imposition of socially corrosive mandates ( ineffective, probably counter productive masks, Social distancing between asymptomatic individuals (W.H.O. There is no evidence of asymptomatic spread of COVID later changed their position), massive inflationary printing to pay for the furlough - Just imagine the fraud on £35 billion, figures I've seen admit to £2bn). Destruction of the aviation industry, airports ancillary supply industries, all totally unnecessary.

Is all to cover up for Boris Johnson's spinelessness last year. They cannot admit it was a massive mistake.

The death rate spiked during the winter of 20 ( winter flu, anyone? ) has been declining since before the vaccine program had got started. So, we know declining death rate has nothing to do with the vaccine. More likely that virus has killed those old and vulnerable that it was going to kill anyway.

As soon as governments declared this a pandemic,they were obliged to buy vaccines from the pharma companies.

Bunker Jim said...

It’s all big Pharma.
I knew it!

They invented a fake disease then invented a fake cure.
And the entire world fell for the scam.
Suckers!

Scrobs. said...

Just remembered a line from a book on the wireless, years ago, where the author was trying to get a job with a big pharma company, Bunker...

(Managing Director to applicant) "Just remember, that this company exists to make profits, if anyone gets better, that's not our problem"!

APL said...

EUA - Emergency use authorization. Is not permitted if there is a safe effective treatment.

The COVID-19 vaccine is authorized under an EUA.

Invermectin is a safe effective treatment. But was buried and vilified along with Hydroxychloroquine + Zink suppliments.

How do you spell,SCAM ?