Advice to scrimp and be thrifty is gaslighting. We need a deeper policy, we need a nurture life policy platform.

"Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less." Oscar Wilde

This image is doing the rounds at the moment - for whose benefit is this being viralised?

How would you feel if someone advised you to eat less if you and your children were already eating less, due to poverty and speculation on necessary commodities driving prices up?

1. Asking people who, for the most part earn a low income (in order for corporations to pay high dividends to shareholders) to scrimp on Energy use in our homes, by 'raising consciousness' of the expense of daily use, with a tacit implication suggesting that if we made better 'informed' choices, we'd not face such intense bills is deliberate cruelty.
2. The price rises are entirely a matter of market speculation. UK generates 97% of it's own Energy needs. It has not become more expensive to drill, produce and ship oil. Speculation is all about using Wealth as an economic weapon.

Extreme inequality is a form of economic violence, where policies and political decisions that perpetuate the wealth and power of a privileged few result in direct harm to the vast majority of ordinary people across the world and the planet itself. 
3. Where's the chart for the energy costs of Tanks, Jets, Missiles, AirCraft Carriers, Mars Missions, Moon Missions, Yachts and Palaces? 
4. Where's the chart advising industry to be 'thrifty' with using energy?
Ordinary folk are responsible for at most, 25% of all Carbon emissions. USUK and EU populations are often presented as the biggest per capita Carbon emitters. Industry accounts for the most of carbon emission, with the US Military being the single biggest institutional carbon polluter on Earth. People point at China as the biggest polluter but ignore the population differences. If you combine Europe, UK and USA as one population it turns out that it is a population similar to that of China, and China's Per Capita Carbon Emissions are still below those of USUK and EU. Well below.

5. Carbon Footprint was initially designed as a tool to help us become more aware of the environmental costs of our day to day activity. Most ordinary carbon use is in getting to and from work, and in working for the Industrial Systems that refuse to pay the costs to prevent pollution and prevent environmental degradation. Because to do so would erase their profitability.

6. In it's great wisdom and benevolence, in 2004 BP recycled and popularised Personal Carbon Footprint as a way to make us ordinary people feel guilt, shame and hopeless hope (if we all did our little bit - which amounts to less than 10% of total) we could help save the planet) whist the Industrial Cult continued stomping on us all with their Carbon Wealth Extraction Boot Print. 

We little people were directed to obsess about our day to day use, so that BP, Shell, Exxon and their allies in Finance Markets could continue to obsess about Wealth Extraction in the 'most efficient' manner - by refusing to pay the costs of prevention of harm (pollution, disease casued by pollution and environmental degradation) and by speculating the price of energy fuels.

7. The Ukraine War is not causing Energy prices to rise - England produces 97% of it's energy needs from available domestic supplies.

So whose carbon foot print matters, and why?

https://toxicnews.org/2017/08/07/whose-carbon-footprint-matters/

"consumption and market exchange only represents a thin surface of our economy and its ecological consequences.

150 years ago, Karl Marx argued that the secret to profit, or what he called surplus value, laid in analyzing the “hidden abode” of production. 
We need a similar project to understand climate accountability in our carbon-based society. Of course, the most obvious producers of climate change are the fossil fuel producers themselves. 
A recent study suggests a mere 100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions since 1988 (in this case, it is important to remember that half of total historical emissions since the industrial revolution have come since that year of 1988).
Yet, fossil fuel companies are not the only ones profiting off carbon emissions. Energy-intensive industries like steel, chemicals, cement, and aluminum consume ungodly amounts of fossil fuels to power and materially feed their production. 
The cement industry alone is responsible for 5% of global carbon emissions. Fertilizer uses natural gas as a source of hydrogen to combine with atmospheric nitrogen to form ammonia (NH3). When they extract that hydrogen from methane (CH4) carbon dioxide is the main byproduct. 
A fertilizer plant I visited in southern Louisiana claimed to consume a staggering 9% of natural gas consumption in the entire state (a state that already hosts an enormous industry of natural gas consuming chemical factories). 
This single fertilizer plant has the highest carbon emissions in the entire chemical sector of the United States."
8. Calls to tax these companies are largely a way to distract attention from the hidden roots of all industrial profitability - the deep roots of Externalised Costs as the very foundation of industrial wealth extraction.

9. Nationalisation is a way to 'take back control' and set pricing according to the needs of the population, us little people, whose need for the utility of energy, water, transit systems, health care systems, education systems ect is a life need, it is not a luxury. Such a move would massively help to alleviate general poverty, and for that reason alone it must be done.

It is important to understand that such a policy is designed to not touch the sides of Externalised Costs.

10. Cost externalizing is a socioeconomic term describing how a business maximizes its profits by off-loading indirect costs and forcing negative effects to a third party. An externalized cost is known to economists as a negative externality.
"The corporation is an externalizing machine (moving its operating costs and risks to external organizations and people), in the same way that a shark is a killing machine." - Robert Monks (2003) Republican candidate for Senate from Maine and corporate governance adviser in the film "The Corporation". Moving industries to where cheaper workers can be sourced is an externalising procedure. It's sole purpose is wealth extraction efficiency.

What we need. Starting now.
In my opinion Nationalisation must be followed by legislation that demands that industry prevents harm, pays the costs they have externalised from the beginnings of the Industrial 'Revolution' - from material sourcing through processing, manufacturing, distribution through to point of sale, use, consumption and end of life disposal - as the most basic measure of industrial health and legitimacy.

We must challenge every attempt to place the burden for such deep change upon us little people, many of us on low incomes, many more well paid yet trapped in mortgage debt; diligent workers and so-called 'scroungers' struggling to stay financially afloat are not the problem here.

We must not pass our life jackets to the Industrial Giants who are throwing us off the ship, as they sail towards the destination of continued, maximised Wealth Extraction.

We must mutiny, we must peacably take the ship over, be the majority in our legislatures that we fund, and we must plot a new course towards a nurturant industrial economic system that abolishes poverty, regulates industry well, eschews warfare as a a tool, prevents pollution and nurtures human and environment as one. and is honest and transparent.
Kindest regards

Corneilius

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The Purpose of the Cummings Road Show - Engineering a Second Peak, Blame the People.

I have been watching the Dominic Cummings Road Show, and I have been wondering: why now, what is he trying to do, why is he so deliberately making himself a story in the public eye?

While we were overloaded with Cummings, this happened on Friday.

"People with cancer, liver disease or severe asthma have been dropped from the government’s coronavirus shielding list by text message before their doctors have been able to speak to them.

The decision to remove people with various health conditions from the shielding programme in England has caused upset. The text also informed people they would no longer qualify for government food parcels.

Many who received the messages last Friday believed they were fake. But the government has since confirmed the texts are correct and are official government communications".

Cummings is, by his own admission, a media strategist, among other things, and he is a master baiter. He studies the fish, works out their vulnerabilities, then he baits the hook, he dangles the hook, he watches them bite and then he pulls them in. Brexit was a grooming operation since the day Johnson started lobbing rocks over the wall at the Tory Party's glass house, taking delight in the power he felt as those rocks (lies in print) started arguments he could safely observe from afar. Both of these men are people who revel in distal disturbance, men who enjoy the feeling of power they gain as they observe the chaos they cause, from a safe, well paid, distance.

 Cummings grin, caught on camera, as he had that last drink of water, and walked away from the Downing Street Rose Garden Table spoke to me, and others, as 'Job done!'
Satisfied smirk.

Here, then is my review of some key aspects of the Corona Virus story that tries to join the dots, to see what Cummings intent really is. There are other aspects, to do with re-rigging economies and political power systems, opportunism and so forth that I will leave out of this analysis because that thread is not a public health thread, and it is the health of the people that I am most concerned with here.

I hope, sincerely, that I am wrong. I would - seriously - be delighted to be held in ridicule, to see the virus is eliminated from the UK population, by this Government, and to have my worries proven to be febrile fantasies of a feeble fool. I do have my doubts about these perceptions, about everything I write. That is why I question myself, and re-examine in the light of what evidence emerges. Opinion  and belief is never enough, never adequate for dealing with matters of the shared commons. That demands evidence based policy at every level.

I shall start at the beginning, with Johnson's UK Policy as he outlines it.

 3rd February - UK Corona Virus Policy Declared in Public

Hubris claims humility!

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-in-greenwich-3-february-2020

"And in that context, we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other.

And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role.

We are ready for the great multi-dimensional game of chess in which we engage in more than one negotiation at once and we are limbering up to use nerves and muscles and instincts that this country has not had to use for half a century."

Johnson lays out the policy - "Protect the hoard, let the herd take it on the chin!" Chess, political gaming. By January 31 the UK Government knew the virus and disease was in country.
Throughout February, as the global situation worsened, the  UK Government chose not to chase every case of known infection down. They chose not to pursue detailed contact trace, quarantine and provide treatment in isolation, of every case, in order to suppress the transmission of the virus. They asked people to self-isolate at home, rather than  provide isolation treatment facilities, which they knew were a critical part of the Chinese and Vietnamese responses. They chose not to test or quarantine incoming travellers. They chose not to alert the population, even as they were being alerted by epidemiologists nationally and internationally. All of these together would have been necessary in order to activate the non-shut down Korean style suppression of transmission, eradication of virus within the population - they chose a policy that was not medically rational; it was, as it turns out, medically irrational.

They chose this policy on a daily basis throughout February. Even as epidemics were developing at pace in Italy and Spain and elsewhere.

 5th March

Boris Johnson mentions herd immunity and dismisses the idea, or does he?

I suspect he was floating the idea, rather than dismissing it. A hint. Allowing room to manoeuvre in the future. To be able to draw back from such an idea, and present something that appears to address the situation, yet allows slow spread to continue.

13th March

Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Valance touts Herd Immunity. It's still on the books.


14th March

Professor john Edmund's, SAGE member : "Indeed, achieving Herd Immunity is the only way to stop this epidemic!"


14th March

UK Government suggests isolating elders in care homes, and shielding in place for people with chronic disease, everyone else carries on. Community transmission is in full flow, uncontrolled.

23rd March

UK Government orders shut down.  Does nothing to implement suppression of transmission beyond stay at home, work from home. No policy to stop the spread. Protect the NHS results in many elective hospital work cancelled. Instead of Fever Hospitals, they build intubation hospitals. The spread of the infection continues. Hospitals start to face surges, deaths start to rise rapidly.

We know what happened after that. It gets worse, and worse. The only action that is slowing the community transmission is the fact that the bulk of the British citizenry stay home, and they take the various pressures that staying at home has created, on their shoulders. They show considerable solidarity, compassion and kindness. Mutual aid groups spring up everywhere. They watch in horror and disbelief as the shortages of PPE become a defining narrative. They watch as the death toll mounts. They watch as the UK Government does nothing to stop the spread of infection and does everything to allow a slow spread, through bad policy, inadequate provision. They watch as Government ministers lie about the situation. They stay home. They are not fearful, they are concerned. Concerned citizens doing their bit, watch a their Government fail to do it's bit, recounted by a media that is inadequate to the task of holding Government to account.

The people are so much kinder, so much warmer, so much more concerned about each others welfare than the Government is about theirs.

The citizens hold the line. The are the ones who do most to slow the transmission. But they cannot do this on their own, indefinitely.

10th May

Johnson makes a televised speech to the nation, and issues vague instructions to ease the lock down, to 'restart the economy'. The Economy has not stopped, the stock exchange is still trading, furlough is providing income for 6 million workers to stay at home, and they are all buying food and other goods, on-line and in weekly shops. That money is going back into the economy, rents are being paid, bills are being paid. The transmission appears to be slowing down, but it is nowhere near suppressed.
Hospitalisations continue, deaths continue. The transmission is nowhere near being under control.
British citizens, in poll after poll, say 60% want to continue to stay at home until it is genuinely safe. The Government wants them to go to work. A power struggle ensues.

13th May

The government lifts the restriction on how far people can drive to reach the countryside and take exercise, but visits and overnight stays to second homes remain prohibited. This encourages reckless behaviour. That is the intent. A war of attrition against the 60%.

16th May

"Back to school! Protect the vulnerable children!"

I have written about Gavin Williamson's odious Education Briefing from 10 Downing Street, the day before Gove appears on Marr. Williamson uses deliberate tactics - conflating issues, emotional blackmailing and gaslighting to deliver a bullying speech, aimed at putting pressure on teachers, manipulating parents and workers, sotto voce. The pattern is clear, the intent is obvious. They are going to use every manipulative tactic they can to push the workers back to work.

17th May

Appearing on The Andrew Marr Show, Gove said: "The only way ever to ensure that you never catch coronavirus is to stay at home completely. There's always, always, always in any loosening of these restrictions a risk of people catching the coronavirus"
Here Gove is basically taking the piss, gas-lighting the genuine concerns of teachers, parents and children. He is bullying, brushing aside the risk, rather than governing in people's best interests.

 

May 26th

Democracy Now report on New Zealand explores what they did, and why they did what they did, and why it succeeded.

"New Zealand implemented one of the earliest lockdowns and has largely succeeded in eliminating the coronavirus under the leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Some of the country’s success has been attributed to her leadership, trust in science, and clear communication during the crisis. We get an update from Michael Baker, professor of public health at the University of Otago in Wellington, New Zealand. He is an epidemiologist and a member of the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s Technical Advisory Group. Baker has been advising the government on its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.2 

Their slogan is “Stay home, stay safe, and be kind.”

26th May

New Zealand's leading epidemiology advisor to the New Zealand Government speaks on Democracy Now.

"And I think across the Western world, there was this strange idea of complacent exceptionalism, that somehow the virus might behave differently when it hit the Western world compared with how it was in Asia. But, in fact, we looked to Asia for examples of a good approach, and — for example, the way China contained the virus, and other Asian countries were managing it — we realized that elimination was possible, so we changed direction very quickly."

As I have written elsewhere, those countries that were willing to learn from China, Korea, Taiwan and other East Asian countries and apply the protocols for suppression of community transmission to stop the spread (rather than merely to slow it) with a view to eliminating the virus from within their population have done and are doing a very good job indeed, and those who chose not to learn from others experience have stumbled and lurched; making matters worse they have lied, manipulated data and evidence and gaslighted their populations and there are dead bodies all over the place.

Funerals and cremations with no-one present to mourn them. A terrible price has and is being paid by the people.

Peaks and Waves.

Furthermore,  these states are facing multiple peaks within this first wave  - only because they refuse to learn from the East Asian experience. Why would they be so foolish?

They refuse to draw from the experience of New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Vietnam and others who have managed to suppress community transmission, and practically eliminate the virus from within their populations - their refusal to apply those lessons learned elsewhere is a deliberate choice, a political choice and an economic choice, not a public health choice.

It is important to understand that to prevent a second wave in the latter months of 2020 demands that the virus is eliminated from the local population in the first wave,  retaining an active and agile contact trace, quarantine and isolation treatment facility ready for new outbreaks within each jurisdiction. This is entirely reasonable since populations are organised across the Earth within defined jurisdictions, with structured borders that can be policed. That means that borders must become quarantined borders. This means that the security of all is the security of the most vulnerable.

And the choice being made, as outlined in Johnson's February 3rd speech is to choose allow movement through those borders, to prevent the closure of the borders by allowing herd immunity to achieve a kind of parity, the parity that a vaccine would create except for the fact that no such vaccine is available, and no such vaccine is on the horizon within meaningful time limit.

Herd immunity is this manner entails a soft form of mass murder - avoidable deaths are not avoided, they are simply slowed down, and that is a deliberate action, intentional.

Those involved must be held to account, and  we must understand that the lies and misleading narratives they used to protect themselves and their policy are damning evidence of intent.

The citizens of each of those countries have a stark choice in front of them.

We, the citizens of the UK, have a stark choice in front on us.

May 22nd - the Dominic Cummings Road Show is launched.

The Dominic Cummings road show was designed to break the 'stay at home to protect the vulnerable' dynamic of concerned citizens across the UK. It forms part of a general thrust since Boris Johnson's 10th May passive aggressive management instructions to the nation. That is the outcome of the road show. Behaviour, actions, outcomes, patterns speak the truth of history.

There has been a serious, concerted on-line campaign portraying the genuine concern of UK citizens who choose stay home stop the spread as an irrational fear, with the gas-lighting suggestion that this irrational fear is itself causing the damage to the economy. Their fear is the culprit.

If nurses are 'Heroes' walking to the 'front-line', what are those who dare not step out of their homes? If Doctors and Shop Assistants are 'Heroes' what are workers, furloughed in comfort, receiving tax payers money for doing nothing, who refuse to get out and get the economy up and running again. because they are frightened? That was a subtext that was allowed far too much space, that went unchallenged for far too long. Freedom of speech, and the right to hold an opinion trumping the evidence.

Whereas it was, and it remains Government policy on SARSVOC2 and COVID19 that is causing the most damage to the UK Economy.

Had they chosen the path New Zealand took, the economy would be looking so much better right now.

The patchy nature of furlough as it was rolled out, the inadequacy of self employment support, the inadequacy of rural and farming support, the blatant bail outs to corporations by comparison, and the inadequacy of PPE support across all care systems have caused immense difficulties, difficulties that could have been avoided with better thought out policies. There are other groups who are vulnerable such as hospitality staff, entertainment artists, technicians and workers, tourism operators and independent retail staff and others who are not afforded decent furlough, and this all adds to the pressure to get out there and be working - whereas if the Government funded them to stay home, and stop the spread, that pressure would be greatly reduced.

There are recent media campaigns to exploit domestic abuse, child abuse and other long standing social care issues as leverage points to get the economy going. The implication is that shut down has made all there problems exponentially worse - and there is some truth in this, yet the solution is to provide more support rather than get everyone back to work. Where were these concerns in the start of the lock down, where were they in April? They were not headlines. But as soon as get the economy going emerges, they become headline stories. This is not accident, this is no co-incidence.

 What if everyone gets back to work and there is no extra support for all these issues - support that is already lacking, even before the epidemic? What then? More spread. More pain, More abandonment.

The tune that has been playing in the background to the Cummings Road Show - "Get The Economy Moving, Get Back to Work!"

Cui Bono?

The Cummings Road Show in the media has created a groundswell of people who will not follow guidelines, as those were clearly abandoned by a senior Government figure, and "if it's one rule for them, and another for us, well stuff that!" which is both irrational and irresponsible. It amounts to "if they can be shits, I have the right to be a shit too!"

And what we hear and see is people in media nodding their heads, and going "Well, yes, totally get where you are coming from." Encouragement, rather than critique.

This all adds to the pressure to push teachers and others back to work, and it will intensify.

Gove maintains it is safe to return more children to school, the BMA and Teachers Unions point out that the evidence suggests quite clearly is that it is not.

This is insanity...

The transmission of the virus is not under any control within the UK. It is still largely invisible. We are still with more cases, and more hospitalisations and more deaths than when the lock down was called on 23rd of March.

The new NHS contact tracing program was launched 5 days earlier than planned,  and after one day it is already falling apart. The program is headed up by a Tory peer, Dido Harding, who was CEO of Talk Talk during a serious data hack, and who managed that situation quite dreadfully. She has no public health qualification or skills. They readily admit that it will not be properly functional until end of June. A month of enabling more community transmission without the resources to quell outbreaks, to quarantine contacts, to treat the symptomatic away from the community.

It will take three weeks to five to return to another climb towards a new peak; there is no policy to stop the spread, eliminate the virus from the the population.

A new surge is all but inevitable.

They have engineered a point of no return.

Herd immunity remains on the cards.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/herd-immunity-may-only-need-a-10-per-cent-infection-rate

"But today comes another challenge. A team led by Gabriela Gomes of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine argues that it is wrong to assume that herd immunity will only be achieved when 60 per cent of people have been infected. It is more likely, they argue, that the true figure lies between 10 and 20 per cent. The 60 per cent figure, they say, is based on the idea that we are all equally likely to contract the virus"

This article was 4th of May. It has not been debunked yet, it has not been dismissed. Everything that has happened since 10th of may suggests it is feeding into the decision making at 10 Downing Street.

https://judithcurry.com/2020/05/10/why-herd-immunity-to-covid-19-is-reached-much-earlier-than-thought/

"Incorporating, in a reasonable manner, inhomogeneity in susceptibility and infectivity in a standard SEIR epidemiological model, rather than assuming a homogeneous population, causes a very major reduction in the herd immunity threshold, and also in the ultimate infection level if the epidemic thereafter follows an unconstrained path. Therefore, the number of fatalities involved in achieving herd immunity is much lower than it would otherwise be.

In my view, the true herd immunity threshold probably lies somewhere between the 7% and 24% implied by the cases illustrated in Figures 4 and 5. If it were around 17%, which evidence from Stockholm County suggests the resulting fatalities from infections prior to the HIT being reached should be a very low proportion of the population."

This article was published May 10th. - Same day as Johnson's speech. Sweden's situation is not as positive as many have been asserting.

Both of these are modelling exercises, removed from the social material realities.

Everything the Government is doing is going to guarantee the spread of the infection, coupled with inadequate provision for contact tracing, quarantine and importantly no provision at all for isolation treatment of symptomatic cases at the earliest possible moment, away from the community - that is to say nothing approaching the utility of Fever Hospitals. The evidence is that Government rejected the idea of Fever Hospitals when it was mooted as a way to stop the spread within care homes.

I have addressed the efficacy of fever hospitals in a previous blog piece.

The logic is very clear and simple: it makes sense to send people who are symptomatic at the earliest possible moment away from main hospitals, away from care settings, away from peoples homes and shared apartment complexes where if symptomatic people remain to self treat they will absolutely guarantee more spread of infection with a higher viral load within the community! That is best avoided. But no, Government policy is to enable that spread with a higher viral load within the community.

This is insanity.

Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson, The Cabinet, The Behavioural Insights Team are behaving appallingly. Remember that Government text message sent out to vulnerable people, without reference to their doctors? 

"No more support, not for you." 

Go forth and multiply (the virus).
I say, again, that they need to be removed from office, indicted for misconduct and misfeasance, and that we the citizens of the United Kingdom, in all four Nations, and indeed in the Republic of Ireland with whom we share a border,  need a new UK government, a unity government, where the Majority Party works with all other parties, guided by epidemiology and the experience of New Zealand, Vietnam, China and others who have suppressed the transmission of the virus within their populations to do the same - to stop the spread of the virus, and eradicate it from the population.

As I like to put it, Stop the Spread, Spread the Love!

Both the people and the economy will benefit in equal measure.

Herd immunity is neither practical nor safe.

It is not economically sound either.

It is murder.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Cummings need not resign - they should all be arrested for gross misfeasance in public office.

Arrest them all to prevent future mass fatality.

~

A basic principle of good public health is to learn from the failures and the successes of others facing the same health problem in order to improve outcomes and avoid avoidable harms.

Learning from experience, from others failures and their successes.

A number of British and European Public Health professionals issued a report, published in The Lancet, on February 19.

This is what they said:

"We are public health scientists who have closely followed the emergence of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and are deeply concerned about its impact on global health and wellbeing. 

We have watched as the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China, in particular, have worked diligently and effectively to rapidly identify the pathogen behind this outbreak, put in place significant measures to reduce its impact, and share their results transparently with the global health community. 

This effort has been remarkable.

We sign this statement in solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China who continue to save lives and protect global health during the challenge of the COVID-19 outbreak. We are all in this together, with our Chinese counterparts in the forefront, against this new viral threat."

The WHO were in country in China, and were in the process of taking evidence for a final report on the Wuhan situation at the same time. They were in China between 14th and 24th of February, and this is from their final report.

"Achieving China’s exceptional coverage with and adherence to these containment measures has only been possible due to the deep commitment of the Chinese people to collective action in the face of this common threat.

At a community level this is reflected in the remarkable solidarity of provinces and cities in support of the most vulnerable populations and communities. Despite ongoing outbreaks in their own areas, Governors and Mayors have continued to send thousands of health care workers and tons of vital PPE supplies into Hubei province and Wuhan city.

At the individual level, the Chinese people have reacted to this outbreak with courage and conviction. They have accepted and adhered to the starkest of containment measures – whether the suspension of public gatherings, the month-long ‘stay at home’ advisories or prohibitions on travel. 

Throughout an intensive 9-days of site visits across China, in frank discussions from the level of local community mobilizers and frontline health care providers to top scientists, Governors and Mayors, the Joint Mission was struck by the sincerity and dedication that each brings to this COVID-19 response."

and

"China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic. A particularly compelling statistic is that on the first day of the advance team’s work there were 2478 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported in China. Two weeks later, on the final day of this Mission, China reported 409 newly confirmed cases. This decline in COVID-19 cases across China is real."

The evidence is unequivocal.

The Chinese Government and their health officials did the best possible job under the circumstances. They stopped the uncontrolled epidemic within China. South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong acted rapidly to prevent uncontrolled community transmission.

This begs the question - Why did the UK Government, SAGE and Public Health England ignore the experience and learning from real lived social and material data and the practical evidence from the Chinese handling of the epidemic? Why did they ignore the success of the early and rapid action of other East Asian States? Our bodies are biologically no different, our capitalist, urban consumer cultures are all similar.

Why did the UK Government try do the worst job possible under the circumstances, starting off with herd immunity, (which some are still touting as a reasonable possibility based on modelling, rather than the actual material experience) until that was objected to by independent health professionals within the UK,based on the impact it would have in terms of deaths of vulnerable people, and was publicly stood back from in response to the visceral reaction of the general public to that revelation, which was disgust?

Why then did they persist with policies that guaranteed a slow spread of the infection, and thus ensure a higher death toll upon UK Citizens, than if they had followed the experience of the Chinese, the Taiwanese, the South Koreans, the Vietnamese and why did they choose to not do as many other countries around the Earth have done?

This cannot be put down to incompetence.

The UK Government policy was and remains deliberate and intentional.

What irks me most about calls for the resignation of  Dominic Cummings over the past few days for his apparent breach of UK Government regulations is that they are a feeble, weak-kneed, cowardly response to the situation that he, SAGE, the Prime Minister Johnson, the Cabinet, the Behavioural Insights Teams, the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Advisor have deliberately created, as the directors of UK public policy on Corona Virus.

Arrest these people!

Really - think carefully about what they have done and are doing, and the adverse affects of their actions.

They have made a lethal mountain of an infectious mole hill.

They have lied.

They have misled the public.

They have used profoundly manipulative tactics to sway peoples attitudes, including emotional black mail, passive aggressive management tactics, bullying and gaslighting.

They have acted irresponsibly and caused untold, avoidable lethal harm to tens of thousands of UK citizens.

They have caused immense economic harm to millions of UK citizens.

The lies, the emotional blackmail, the gaslighting, the misleading statements, even the idiotic counting two gloves, or counting two parts of same test as two tests - all of these are abuses of their positions of power. All of these dishonesty's are signals of malign intent. Once or twice might be considered a reaction, but the fact is these are multiple occurrences, and clear and consistent pattern of dishonesty and the impact of the policies is extensive harm causation, avoidable deaths. That is criminal in essence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misfeasance_in_public_office

"Generally, a civil defendant will be liable for misfeasance if the defendant owed a duty of care toward the plaintiff, the defendant breached that duty of care by improperly performing a legal act, and the improper performance resulted in harm to the plaintiff."

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/misconduct-public-office

The courts have been reluctant to provide a detailed definition of a public officer. The case law contains an element of circularity, in that the cases tend to define a public officer as a person who carries out a public duty or has an office of trust. What may constitute a public duty or an office of trust must therefore be inferred from the facts of particular cases. 

The judgment of Lord Mansfield in R v Bembridge (1783) 3 Doug KB 32 refers to a public officer having: 

'… an office of trust concerning the public, especially if attended with profit ... by whomever and in whatever way the officer is appointed'. 

These. then, above and below, are among the many harms for which the UK Government and it's high officials are liable for, as individuals and as officials.

They have exacerbated many pre-existing health conditions and mental health issues for millions of UK citizens, in pursuit of a toxic mythical herd immunity policy. Slow the spread is not stop the spread of the infection.

By imposing a lock down, but without  providing any rational or effective measures at the grass roots level to carry out contact tracing, quarantining of those potentially exposed to the virus, let alone providing earliest possible isolated care and treatment for those who show any signs or symptoms, away from their homes, care homes or other shared accommodation where they would inevitably  spread the infection, in order to stop the community transmission of the infection and protect the larger population., the UK Government policy has caused many, many deaths, directly and indirectly.

Everything the UK Government have done has enabled a slow progression of the infection across the general population, and a rapid spread within care homes and other shared  residential settings.

I  say it again. It amounts to moving towards Herd Immunity by covert means.

The infection is still pretty much out of control, largely invisible.

Two and a half months into the campaign and the UK Government and their media allies are gas-lighting the NHS staff, pretending to provide adequate PPE, knowing they were not,  and are still not, meeting the needs of nursing and care staff across the country, all the while calling the front-line staff  'heroes', clapping weekly on a Thursday evening for 2 minutes to mask the cruelty of the imposition - they must continue to work with inadequate protection - even this weekend they are bullying workers and teachers and demanding they return to work in unsafe situations, with vague provisions for 'safety' that are not supported by science or epidemiology, and thus placing the entire community at greater risk than needs be, to 'get back to work'. They are encouraging people to go to beaches and beauty spots, and this is already impacting hospitals in such areas.

To what end?

Whilst there are doing all of that, whilst they are deliberately failing in their duty of care to the health and safety of the people,  as public paid officials, they are bailing out corporations under a cloak of secrecy , investing tax payers cash in unproven AI Health Surveillance, badly designed tracing apps, employing accountancy firms to run testing programs, they are protecting the Tax Havens where trillions of pounds of UK wealth lies beyond taxation reach, they are undermining British small farmers in favour of US style factory farming.

To what end?

Put the two together, and we have corruption and institutional cruelty on a par with the British Empire response to Famine in Ireland, and Famine in India in the mid to late 1800s.

Resign?

No.

They must be arrested for gross misfeasance in public office, leading to tens of thousands of, un-avoided, avoidable deaths of UK citizens. 

This situation is intolerable.

They must be placed on remand until we have resolved the situation - they cannot be granted immunity nor can they be allowed to do any more damage to the UK citizenry.

We must remove these corrupt bullies and charlatans, and install a government led by epidemiology, public health best practice, health and social care best practice and care for the ordinary citizens of this nation above all other considerations - the economy will be stronger when we have suppressed the virus, eliminated it from these islands, and when we can return to an open and safe society, albeit with tight, quarantined borders.

It is a global matter.

Each state must eliminate the virus from within it's population, and maintain quarantined borders until all states are free of the virus. All states have a duty of care to each other in this.

The call by the UN for a global ceasefire is eminently sensible, and reflects that shared duty of care. Trump says no! Johnson says 'I am in step with Trump!' Utterly arrogant war mongers.

Reduced international tourism as states maintain quarantined borders would have some benefits. We could all gain from holidays within our own countries, and learning to not litter the land we love, getting to know, love and nurture it would be a useful exercise in internal economics and international responsibility.

When we have resolved the epidemic,  let us hold another election, a clean election, open and free from the Machiavellian ministrations of  the likes of Cambridge Analytica, the alt-right anger factories of Steve Bannon and Lynton Crosby et al.

Let me also make my position clear. I do not support left or right. I am a-political.

I detest adversarial, bipolar politicking. I see it as a way to perpetuate bullying through artificial power disparities, and  I think it is wholly unsuited to the 21st Century where science, evidence, information access and social solidarity in matters concerning the shared spaces, the commons, are the now normal aspirations of all healthy people.

I am not left, nor am I right. That bird never flew for me. It is a fat, old, flea ridden walking Eagle, so to speak.

I detest bullying of any kind, I abhor emotional blackmail, I am disgusted by political grooming , and really, really dislike manipulation. I am an egalitarian. I have no skin in this situation related to left or right.

As an example of my distaste for manipulation, I coined the term 'political grooming gangs' to describe what I was observing.

More recently, I wrote a blog about Johnson's May 10th passive aggressive management speech.

I also took on Gavin Williamsons's odious Education briefing, where he tried to use emotional blackmail, in public.

----

I wrote a song about Boris Johnson's May 10th Speech :

 Be Alert!

I wrote another song about Jacinda Ardern vs Boris Johnson, Trump, Icke and Jones.

Jacinda and The Little Bugs..




I am a singer/songwriter and a lazy permaculture gardener, as well as a writer.

I suggest we all get up to date with trauma informed approaches, poly-vagal theory and conflict resolution, as well as understanding the tactical dynamics of bullying in politics.

We really have to put a stop to the polarisation tactics of powerful groups that are tearing our communities apart. It is an essential component of justice in all areas.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Thank you for reading this blog.

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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https://www.corneilius.net - Archive

Theresa May, Gaslighting: we gotta talk about manipulative behaviours.

Name the behaviour.

Theresa May responding to Jeremy Corbyn, in Parliament, on our taxes...

She rejects his point, she lies about the situation, then she gaslights Corbyn (and the opposition, and indeed the entire country) which is to say she switches from the direct question, disguises it with lies, and then blames the other for the problem...

And nobody comments, nobody stops her, nobody points out the lies,no says you are avoiding the question, no one points out the gas-lighting, the tactic of not only not answering the question directly, but of also implying the questioner is in the wrong!

This tactic is anti-democratic because it is abusive in intent. It is bullying, no less.

It is disruptive to good governance.

Parliament and the media alike must be challenged about these tactics...

We need to talk more about this kind of dynamic in public affairs....

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

It has to be us. Coup! Coup!

It has to be us.

Blair and Obama, Putin, Cameron: they all know very well why Sanders and Corbyn are emerging, and what the constituency represents. 

And they are way too scared of it to even mention it.

They cannot bring themselves to even attempt articulate it... in public.

In private they go over that emerging threat - our awakening -  with a microscope, and they plot, they plan, then they deceive, they execute, they legislate.

Cukoos. In our nest.

Coup! Coup!

They are flapping.

They fear his honesty, his integrity, his grace under fire. He does not play their game.

We see this.

They will not talk honestly or openly with Corbyn.

And just as he will not fall for their goading, they refuse to stand up to the plate of honesty, and play his game.

Our game. The game.

Prime Ministers Questions is in truth Prime Ministers Evasions and Insults.

Institutionalised professional Bullies such as Cameron, Gove or Duncan Smith know what they are doing, and they have enough 'intelligence' to understand what drives the movement,  or rather broader they are well aware of the the psycho-social awakening of which Corbyn is in some way a representative..... 'the growing political awakening' as Zebigniev Brezenski once said.

~

Blair and all people like him fear that above all else.

Their psychology and ideological mind-set regards the pain of others in a utilitarian manner.

They do not care for those the sensitivities and feelings and psyche they harm when they cause pain, or care about the collateral damage caused while they are pursuing their agenda.

They know they can use that pain, they understand that they can manipulate people who are fearful, confused, angry, hurt, isolated; they know they can reach them through their pain and trigger behaviour patterns.

They are bullies.

Those who rule, and those exert violence to maintain that status, they study the matter. It’s a science for those who rule; the carrot and the stick.

Gaslighting.

Grooming.

Seduction.

Charisma.

Charity.

Humanitarian action.

Leadership.

It’s not a ‘perfect science’ though that is the ultimate goal – the perfection of the techniques that allow a Government or other group, or an individual to exert psychological and material dominance over a people, and use those peoples work to retain, enhance and project their power.

That is partly why they cause so much pain.

And why they then dismiss others pain so easily.

And we pay their wages.

Neoliberalism.

It is the ideology and the lack of natural empathy for those they rule over.

That latter quality, the lack of empathy is what created the ideology.

We need to diagnose correctly the situation.

Our situation. A dire situation.

And we must, in recognising this, treat it as a diagnosis and seek a robust path of healing and importantly, prevention.

Prevention is the outcome of healing.

The abuse must cease. The harming must stop.

And that is a matter of the most urgent attention for all ordinary voting and non-voting tax payers and their kin.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.