Covid-19 and Commonsense 168


I am planning to travel to Spain at the weekend to give evidence in the criminal case against UC Global for spying on Julian Assange and his visitors (including me) in the Ecuadorean Embassy. It has taken me six solid hours so far to try to work out the logistics of this. I shall travel via Schiphol and I need numerous covid forms and certificates for British, Dutch and Spanish authorities, for the airports and for the airlines. I also need a covid-19 negative PCR test before the flights in both directions, which must be timed at less than 72 hours before the flight and before arrival.

As the test results take up to 48 hours for me to receive and test slots are heavily booked, this makes timing very tricky, especially as I intend to be in Spain less than 72 hours. You end up with a very narrow window. One of the things I have been trying to work out is whether my test for the return flight has to be taken in Spain, or could be taken in the UK just before I leave, will still be within 72 hours of my return. Several phone calls to government helplines later, nobody seems to know the answer to that one.

But I have after several phone calls confirmed the answer to this next one, and it is ludicrous.

In returning to Scotland, if I fly direct to Edinburgh I have to enter a quarantine hotel for ten days at a cost of £1750. If however, I fly to Heathrow and then get the train to Edinburgh, I don’t have to enter a quarantine hotel and I can self isolate at home for nothing. If I come up on the train from Heathrow I would only have to enter the quarantine hotel if I had flown to England from a “red list” country, which Spain is not.

This even seems to be true if I exit immigration at Heathrow from Spain and then immediately check in again on a flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh, though if I had been checked straight through and not exited immigration at Heathrow, I would then have to go into the quarantine hotel as “arriving directly” in Scotland.

These daft rules have the full force of law, and fines of up to £10,000 for non-compliance. This nonsense is not the consequence of Scotland and England having different policies. It would still be possible for the Scottish government to have a logically consistent policy that is different. For example, they could decree that anyone flying direct into Scotland would have to enter a quarantine hotel and that anyone arriving in Scotland from England would have to enter a quarantine hotel who had been outside the Common Travel Area (England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland) in the past ten days.

As it is, the fact that the quarantine hotel is so easily evaded shows that there is no real seriousness of purpose behind the quarantine hotel scheme; it is purely a bit of security theatre, designed to give the impression the government is doing something and protecting us. I assume almost everyone traveling to Scotland from a non “red list” country just enters via England. As there is plainly no seriousness behind the quarantine hotels, I shall certainly do so.

I shall, however, take seriously the self-isolation at home obligation, from the point of view of protecting others. But it would be a very great deal better for virus protection if I could just move to self-isolation at home after the five mile trip between Edinburgh Airport and my home, rather than be forced into a 400 mile journey by public transport.

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168 thoughts on “Covid-19 and Commonsense

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  • Robert

    Not quite everyone does this. I know someone who flew from Spain direct to Scotland for a 3-day business trip. He stayed in a quarantine hotel — his employer paid, of course!
    Myself I just returned to Scotland from Spain, of course, via England — I’m not crazy.

  • Xavi

    Well done for giving evidence against that crowd, at considerable risk and inconvenience and at a time when everyone would understand if you were completely preoccupied with your own affairs.

  • nyolci

    “As it is, the fact that the quarantine hotel is so easily evaded shows that there is no real seriousness of purpose behind the quarantine hotel scheme”

    You’ve very hastily drawn a conclusion from a not very well “crafted” rule. I can easily imagine that this loophole is result of the novelty of this situation. The authorities are underfunded and overwhelmed, and if something, this is the scandal. Furthermore you resemble more and more to a “Covid-denier” and “anti-vaxxer”.

    • craig Post author

      Given my very last article said I have had the vaccine, urged everyone to take it and said anti-vaxx is an immoral position, I would say you are a fuckwit.

      • Tom Welsh

        While I completely disagree that the vaccine is beneficial or even safe, I quite agree that nyolci is a fuckwit.

      • nyolci

        While I may be a fuckwit, you were arguing against universal and compulsory vaccination.

        • craig Post author

          Of course I am against compulsory vaccination. Nobody favours compulsory vaccination except mad fascists.

          • nyolci

            “Nobody favours compulsory vaccination except mad fascists.”

            Now you’re plainly wrong. Besides mad fascists, there are many-many more people who favour compulsory vaccination. And I’m not talking about “non-mad” fascists here. Universal and compulsory vaccination is one of the pillars of general public health. Average expected life span doubled in the 20th century due to vaccination, sanitation and the general improvement in _basic_ living conditions. Before that 3 out of 4 kids died before the age of 15 etc. If compulsory vaccination is mad fascism, anti vaxxer bullshiting is mass homicide.

          • Skip_NC

            Nyolci, there is a world of difference between universal vaccination and compulsory vaccination. One might be achieved voluntarily, the other will not.

            I do hope everyone who is not allergic will get a COVID vaccine, in much the same way as I wish everyone would get a flu vaccine every year.

          • Theophilus

            So Emmanuel Macron is a mad fascist. I knew I’d seen him somewhere before.
            When you come back, if you have five minutes, as a fellow journo, I beseech you to take up the total failure of the government to encourage early treatment and the use of cheap safe medicines. You can contact me on my e-mai if you want a full dossier. You will find that a lot of people have died unneccessarily. You can tell this is no B/S as the MSM are refusing to talk about it.
            Also talk to Dr Tess Lawrie an honest brave doctor if ever there is one and the champion of Ivermectin. With a name like that she has to be Scottish and most likely a descendant of Jenny Geddes. Like you, she is the stuff of which martyrs are made and could end up being Boris’s doom. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-get-lifesaving-drug-approved-for-covid19?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet

          • nyolci

            @Skip_NC
            “there is a world of difference between universal vaccination and compulsory vaccination”
            Yep. That’s why sane people want universal AND compulsory vaccination. (I don’t know why you have the impression I used these two terms as synonyms. I didn’t.)

          • David

            Quite right. None of my family will be taking these vaccines for at least five years. We’ll see what happens in the meantime…

            Heard of pandermix? I don’t think some people understand that most mass vaccination these days does more to line the pockets of pharma execs than anything else. Maybe another smallpox or polio will rear its head in future, but covid certainly ain’t that. I suppose fear of death produces lots of irrational behaviour. I can’t imagine the mindset where you’d want your neighbours forcibly vaccinated against covid. Utter madness.

          • Josh R

            “Mad fascists”

            ?? & again! Short & sweet.
            My day has been well & truly brightened.

          • Johny Conspiranoid

            “Average expected life span doubled in the 20th century due to vaccination, sanitation and the general improvement in _basic_ living conditions. “

            Is this vacine the same as those vacines and what do vacines have to do with sanitation and the general improvement in _basic_ living conditions?

          • nyolci

            @Johny Conspiranoid

            “Is this vacine the same as those vacines”

            I think we can safely regard this question as “silly”.

            “what do vacines have to do with sanitation and the general improvement in _basic_ living conditions?”

            Well, I have already given the answer to you. Reading comprehension, you should work on it. Again, slowly: these three (simple and cheap) things did the bulk for the “doubling” of life expectancy.

          • Bayard

            “Universal and compulsory vaccination is one of the pillars of general public health.”

            Sez you.

            “Average expected life span doubled in the 20th century due to vaccination, sanitation and the general improvement in basic living conditions. Before that 3 out of 4 kids died before the age of 15 etc.”

            Due to vaccination, yes, but not due to compulsory vaccination.
            1/10, must try harder.

          • Observer

            If Covid were far deadlier*, and the vaccine risk-free, it might be worth discussing the merits of compulsory vaccination.

            But in terms of QALY, flu is deadlier. Are we going to have compulsory flu vaccinations? If not, why not?

            And the SARS-COV-2 “vaccines” – both DNA and mRNA – are novel and none of them have been put through the trials that used to be considered necessary to establish they are safe.

            So, no, I won’t be supporting compulsory vaccination, thank you very much.

            *and if Covid were far deadlier, people would be correspondingly less vax-hesitant. So compulsion would be even less needed. As it is, the vast majority of people are desperate to be vaccinated, so – assuming the vaccines actually work- what’s the issue?

        • FlakBlag

          @nyolci

          Are you a hyperbolic troll? It’s hard to believe that anyone could sincerely argue for such a profound abuse of human rights and still think they’re one of the good guys. I guess even mad fascists think they are in the right. Perhaps that’s the defining feature of mad fascism: an overwhelming belief in the correctness of one’s own opinions such that any means to enforce those opinions on others is both justified and essential.

          I’ve refused the vaccine. While I’m not an anti-vaxxer I certainly don’t trust the sources of information that are telling me to get vaccinated. I’m conscious that our species is in ecological overshoot, if nature wants to devise a method to reduce our numbers that targets the old and sick then I don’t think I should stand in the way of that (for the sake of the children!). If I’m one of the people who gets sick and dies then so be it.

          Are you seriously suggesting that several burly authoritarian enforcers should come to my house, take me against my will to a place I don’t want to go, and hold me down while I’m injected with an experimental medicine against my explicit consent? Perhaps you would prefer that people who refuse are concentrated in secure camps to keep them apart from the right-thinking people who do what their superiors tell them to do without hesitation or question? Can you see why people are saying you’re a mad fascist?

          May I ask, where do you get the information you use to form your frightening opinions?

          • pretzelattack

            so how do we treat typhoid mary? was requiring kids at school to get vaccinated against polio an instance of fascism? how about laws against driving drunk? after all, that infringes on personal freedom in order to attain a common good.

          • FlakBlag

            @pretzelattack

            You raise a good point, and yes, there is a balance between individual freedom and the good of the mass. A line has to be drawn somewhere. I’m pretty sure forcibly injecting people with experimental medicines is on the undesirable side of that line by some margin.

            Typhoid Mary was a very different case, she was a lifelong asymptomatic carrier, as far as we know that doesn’t happen with covid.

            Were polio vaccines enforced? I don’t think so. It was a different time, modernist, people generally trusted in science and in progress. There were groups who refused the vaccine for religious reasons, in the instances I’m aware of they weren’t forcibly inoculated.

            I think most people would agree that drunk driving is wrong. Defining morality is a notoriously difficult thing to do. I find a useful place to start is: “An immoral act is one that involves the unwelcome imposition of one’s will upon another”. Getting drunk then driving is a willful act which risks major negative (and unwelcome) consequences for others.

            How about driving when not drunk? Sober people cause accidents too. Fossil fuel use is creating an existential crisis for our progeny. Air pollution kills as many people as smoking. Should we ban driving?

            In my own case I’m refusing to get vaccinated _for_ the greater good, because I believe that the longer we continue to evade nature’s attempts to return us to balance the worse it will be for us when that inevitable adjustment happens. This is a decision I’m making for myself, I’m not imposing it on anyone else.

            So yes, nothing is black and white. Perhaps what really riles me about nyolci’s position is the misplaced certainty. Where would you draw the line?

          • Squeeth

            If vaccination were to be forced, who would become legally liable for the consequences? The state, so there’s fat chance of it.

          • Johny Conspiranoid

            “If vaccination were to be forced, who would become legally liable for the consequences? The state, so there’s fat chance of it.”

            Laws have been made in many countries, including the UK, to exempt the manufacturers from liability. Is the mRNA ‘vaccine’ the same as being injected with cells of a disease, like smallpox or polio, with the intention of stimulating the immune system? Well they,re both injected. I’ve had mine so fingers crossed.

          • nyolci

            “Are you a hyperbolic troll?”

            No.

            “Perhaps that’s the defining feature of mad fascism: an overwhelming belief in the correctness of one’s own opinions”

            Well, I have an overwhelming belief in the correctness of the Pythagorean Theorem. Am I a mad fascist now? FYI you’re just ranting.

            “While I’m not an anti-vaxxer I certainly don’t trust the sources of information that are telling me to get vaccinated.”

            So you are an anti-vaxxer. You reject the opinion of experts (mostly doctors in this case) based on… what? Some social darwinist bullshit?

            “Are you seriously suggesting”

            Yes, exactly. In most of the EU skipping compulsory vaccination for children is considered child abuse with all the consequences for that. And for a good reason.

            “Perhaps you would prefer that people who refuse are concentrated in secure camps”

            No. I prefer they get vaccinated. A few extreme cases may be concentrated in psychiatric hospitals.

            “May I ask, where do you get the information you use to form your frightening opinions?”

            I read a lot. I can recommend it to you too. It’s still not late, you can try.

          • FlakBlag

            @nyolci

            I will take you at your word you’re not trolling, ie. you’re not taking an outrageous position in order to stimulate debate and/or for giggles. I had to ask, because to me your position _is_ outrageous on multiple levels.

            “Well, I have an overwhelming belief in the correctness of the Pythagorean Theorem. Am I a mad fascist now?”

            False equivalence. You are attempting to equate a belief in one of the fundamental mathematical properties of the universe with a complex and nuanced issue which you clearly don’t understand the breadth or implications of.

            Fascism is a commonly used word that can mean different things in different contexts and to different people. When I was a child I asked my (erudite) father what fascism is. He told me that a fascist is someone who is so convinced his own opinion is correct he feels both justified and compelled to force that opinion on others, using violence if needed. This is the definition I am using in this context, so yes, I think you are a fascist. For the sake of precision I will substitute the word “extreme” for “mad”. The simple fact that you cannot seem to comprehend the objection of those who believe in individual personal sovereignty and recognize that there may be differing opinions serves to underline your fanatical authoritarianism.

            As an adolescent I seriously (if somewhat naively) considered covert politically motivated violence based on my own ideology and assessment of who the bad people are (warmongers, corrupt politicians, uber-spivs and the like). I decided against this because I concluded that I could never be sufficiently certain of the correctness of my own opinions and conclusions to justify such actions. I stopped to think “what if I am wrong?” I highly recommend contemplating this.

            “FYI you’re just ranting.”

            Projection? I’m trying to engage, and to convince you that you are not in sole ownership of objective truth. I consider this a public service, for the greater good, because fascism is dangerous.

            “So you are an anti-vaxxer.”

            No, I’m not. My children were vaccinated against other diseases. Despite the fact my son is autistic I don’t buy into the “vaccines cause autism” theory. I make my son’s decisions for him and chose to accept the covid vaccine in his case, because my choice is a personal one I would not wish to force on others. Given the simplistic black-and-white thinking you have displayed thus far I expect you would like to seize on that as in instance of hypocrisy; it’s not, it’s nuance.

            “You reject the opinion of experts (mostly doctors in this case) based on… what?”

            I do not “reject the opinion of experts”, I consider expert opinions from multiple sources then come to my own conclusions based on what I learn and on my own experience. This is how actualized adults behave. As others have pointed out there are people who can be considered experts who dissent. My own doctor and her family have chosen not to get vaccinated, because the issues are not nearly as clear cut as you seem to think.

            It is certainly true that the mainstream media are amplifying certain views and suppressing and vilifying others. The mainstream media has lied about and misrepresented many things over the years, history has shown this to be the case. I have what I believe is a healthy distrust in this regard. I have heard it said for instance that vaccinating before the pandemic wanes naturally acts as an evolutionary driver for the virus, encouraging the emergence of more virulent vaccine-resistant strains. Have you considered that the fast-tracking of the virus may be politically or financially motivated and not warranted in an epidemiological context?

            “Some social darwinist bullshit?”

            A detailed rebuttal of this point would drag us off-topic. In short, it’s not social Darwinism, it’s entirely beyond society, it’s ecology. I would urge you to attempt to transcend mechanistic human-scale thinking from time to time. While I reject the left-right paradigm as so simplistic as to be useless, I suspect most would consider me firmly on the left.

            “Yes, exactly. In most of the EU skipping compulsory vaccination for children is considered child abuse with all the consequences for that. And for a good reason.”

            I believe this makes you a fascist, and fascists must be resisted.

            “No. I prefer they get vaccinated. A few extreme cases may be concentrated in psychiatric hospitals.”

            Are you aware of Michel Foucault? Are you saying that anyone who holds a view different to your own is insane?

            “I read a lot.”

            Perhaps you could have read my question more carefully. I asked “where”, not “how”.

            “I can recommend it to you too. It’s still not late, you can try.”

            Ad hominem attack. You have no information on how much or how little I may read. Again this attack displays your fundamental error. You are indicating you believe the only reason someone could possibly disagree with you is because they are ignorant. I would say that the reverse is more likely to be the case.

          • nyolci

            “You are attempting to equate a belief in one of the fundamental mathematical properties of the universe”

            Well, I wanted to show you there are things that we are simply sure of without being “fascists”. And a small correction, this theorem is actually independent of our (physical) universe, being a mathematical theorem.

            “Fascism is a commonly used word that can mean different things in different contexts and to different people.”

            Fascism is the state of capitalism when they don’t bother with “democracy” any longer. When the gloves come off. This is that simple. The ruling class quite openly oppresses the working class. Of course this has nothing to do with compulsory vaccination. You and Craig are just bullshiting with this word. FYI universal and compulsory vaccination was considered a serious achievement for the masses, and the ruling class had (and still have) objections to these things. In the broader context you have the quite regular attacks against the NHS, etc.

            “This is the definition I am using in this context, so yes, I think you are a fascist.”

            Ad hominem attack, beside being bullshit.

            “you cannot seem to comprehend the objection of those who believe in individual personal sovereignty and recognize that there may be differing opinions serves to underline your fanatical authoritarianism.”

            This is a scientific (medical) question, already settled cc 100 years ago, not a question of personal sovereignty, and more importantly this is not my belief. Even you should be able to grasp this. You can have objections just as you can have objections to the laws of quantum mechanics. Good luck for that.

            “I stopped to think “what if I am wrong?” I highly recommend contemplating this.”

            I stopped to think “what if the science is wrong?” No, I’m kidding, I didn’t do that. Science is not wrong. I’m talking about natural science where public health and vaccination belong to.

            “Projection?”

            No. You have a certain tendency and talent for lengthy bullshiting and ranting.

            “I’m trying to engage, and to convince you that you are not in sole ownership of objective truth.”

            I have never claimed that I’m in sole ownership of objective truth.

            “No, I’m not.”

            Yes, you are. Personal sovereignty in simple scientific matters is not a factor except for anti-vaxxers.

            “I do not “reject the opinion of experts”, I consider expert opinions from multiple sources”

            Yes, you do reject. In natural science you don’t really have a broad spectrum of opinions. Science is such. There’s dissent for sure but rare. Imagine dissent in Physics, for example.

            “it’s entirely beyond society, it’s ecology.”

            Tiring bullshit. Our real problem is capitalism not some poor guys in third world countries. ‘Cos this “reduce our numbers” is mostly meant to reduce the number of brown and black people.

            “I believe this makes you a fascist, and fascists must be resisted.”

            Ad hominem attack again. Gee, you are mean. You know almost every anti-vaxxer drive results in a few dead kids here in the EU. The direct cause is usually measles.

            “Are you saying that anyone who holds a view different to your own is insane?”

            No. What I’m saying is that there is a norm, a minimum, that should be met. If you shit on the table in McDonalds, you are probably insane. If you reject compulsory vaccination, you may be insane.

            “Perhaps you could have read my question more carefully. I asked “where”, not “how””

            No single sources. That’s why I wrote I read a lot.

            “You have no information on how much or how little I may read”

            Yes I do have. You displayed obvious ignorance about public health matters. Furthermore you seem to think that you can have dissenting opinion in natural scientific matters. This is a sure sign of scientific illiteracy. That’s why I recommended reading.

          • Observer

            Don’t feed the trolls, dude 🙂

            There are PLENTY of virologists and experts in vaccine development who are warning against taking these particular vaccines, though their videos and posts are immediately scrubbed from corporate social media. But you can find them on bitchute and rumble easily enough. So nyolci’s accusations that people who distrust the SARS-COV-2 “vaccines” – they’re not vaccines, BTW – are lacking in scientific literacy is just hogwash.

            Your father’s definition of fascist is a bit bare. Fascists are authoritarian collectivists (like genuine socialists) in that they put the (perceived) rights of the collective above those of the individual, but they’re in addition very nationalistic (or racist) and slightly more moderate than socialists economically in that they allow the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, albeit heavily regulated.

            Who knows what nyolci’s motivations are. S/He is following the Alynski-ite pretexts of holding people to their own rules, though, exploiting the fact that most people think it’s reasonable for governments to enforce drink-driving laws to make them agree it’s equally reasonable to force people to be injected with an untested gene therapy that is probably more harmful to the young than Covid is.

            Ask him why he hasn’t had every possible vaccination that would reduce the likelihood of him passing on some disease to other people. You can bet he hasn’t has all the HPV jabs, or gets the flu jab every year, or the various Hepatitis jabs…

            Hold the sophist to his own (non-existent) standards.

          • FlakBlag

            @Observer

            “Don’t feed the trolls, dude”

            Good advice, which I’ll follow. Thank you. Given the political stance alluded to in my nick, I often have an overwhelming urge to oppose authoritarians.

            “Your father’s definition of fascist is a bit bare.”

            In his defense I was probably not quite ten when I asked the question and his response was given in the context of a specific news item. I expect if an adult asked him for a general definition he’s probably have given something like the excellent one you have provided.

          • Clark

            Observer – “There are PLENTY of virologists and experts in vaccine development who are warning against taking these particular vaccines, though their videos and posts are immediately scrubbed from corporate social media. But you can find them on bitchute and rumble easily enough.”

            If their assertions have validity they should be in the scientific literature, because that is where they will be analysed, challenged, supported etc. by others with suitable understanding; people who know how to apply appropriate scrutiny and ask appropriate questions.

            If you’re having to resort to Bitchute because they’re bypassing the scientific literature and presenting directly to the public, there’s something wrong; they’re protecting their assertions from expert scrutiny.

          • Observer

            @Clark
            “If you’re having to resort to Bitchute because they’re bypassing the scientific literature and presenting directly to the public, there’s something wrong; they’re protecting their assertions from expert scrutiny.”

            Nice try, but *I’m* not having to resort to Bitchute; they are. And, as I pointed out, they are experts, so they’re not trying to avoid “expert scrutiny”. They’d welcome it, but they’re being silenced.

      • Josh R

        Craig,
        In so few words you have me pissing myself laughing, thank you ?? “fkwit” indeed ??
        Hope the case goes well, such an important part of the diabolical persecution of JA, I look forward to hearing your news on what happens.
        Might be nice for you to see justice in action, fingers crossed, after your cumulative experiences with the bewigged eejits in Britain this past few years.

    • Tom Welsh

      “The authorities are underfunded and overwhelmed, and if something, this is the scandal”.

      Were you born this week, or last week? “Underfunded”!!!

      “United Kingdom Tax Revenue was reported at 183.204 USD bn in Dec 2020”.
      https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-kingdom/tax-revenue

      And if they are “overwhelmed”, it is entirely their own fault. There is no health emergency, and there has not been one in the past 18 months.

      • nyolci

        “There is no health emergency, and there has not been one in the past 18 months.”

        Hm. Who is the fuckwit here…

        “And if they are “overwhelmed”, it is entirely their own fault”

        Anything that is not connected to the self preservation of the ruling class is treated as secondary. Including public health (for the masses). And you blame these people? Again, who is the fuckwit?

        “Were you born this week, or last week? “Underfunded”!!!”

        My guess is that you are American (you cited UK Tax Revenue in USD). Now have you ever seen a country that is under-funding nearly everything except for a few fields that are the playground of powerful lobbies? Like the military and oil? My guess is “yes” 🙂

        • Observer

          Yo! Exactly what percentage of GDP would enable the government to fund all its services to perfection?

          You do understand that the government could spend 100% of GDP on the NHS and people would still sicken and die.

          For someone who equates Covid with Smallpox and Polio, you’re very free with your insults, aren’t you?

          • nyolci

            “Yo! Exactly what percentage of GDP would enable the government to fund all its services to perfection?”

            Gee, a real fuckwit (Hey Craig, now you really have one!). Who was talking about perfection?

            “You do understand that the government could spend 100% of GDP on the NHS and people would still sicken and die.”

            ??? Who the hell claimed there would be no sick if we increased health spending?

            “For someone who equates Covid with Smallpox and Polio”

            Who the hell equated covid with these? Why do you think that only the lethality of the black death justifies vaccines?

      • Theophilus

        Tom Welsh – To be precise there has been an avoidable health emergency gravely exacerbated by NHS policy of stay at home take Paracetomol and hope for the best, supported by shysters and fuckwits from whatever College London and Oxford – funnily enough the biggest F/W of all has a Scottish name as well, maybe they all do. If you ever achieve independance please, please, take them all back to Scotland.
        I once saw a B movie about 50 years ago about a boy who fell down a well or something in small town America and there was an easy way to get him out but the crooked mayor was persuaded by a crooked journalist to do it the hard way and bring in fantastic rock drilling kit etc. If anyone knows the Title I would be very grateful if they would post it here. Was the journalist Spencer Tracy?

        • lysias

          I thought you were writing about Billy Wilder’s “Ace in the Hole”, which starred Kirk Douglas as the unscrupulous reporter, but in that movie the trapped person was a grown man, not a child. There was the real-life case of Kathy Fiscus, a young girl who fell into a well. If you look at her Wikipedia page, you can learn the names of other movies based on her case, but I don’t think Spencer Tracy was in any of them.

          • Theophilus

            Lysias – Well done!

            “The story is a biting examination of the seedy relationship between the press, the news it reports and the manner in which it reports it. The film also shows how a gullible public can be manipulated by the press.”

            It has been nagging me for months because of the very obvious similarity with what has been going on today with Covid, cheap safe medicines and vaccines.
            I got it all the details wrong but my excuse is that it was a 1951 film. It wasn’t even a B movie but Billy Wilder’s first solo effort. I have never forgotten it. I see it is now available on DVD.
            You’ll love it, Craig.

          • lysias

            Wilder had personal experience of corruption in the press while working as a reporter in Berlin as a young man.

            He also made a film version of “The Front Page,” which also has a cynical view of the press.

        • ginger ninja

          I think I saw that B movie. One hero died, another was defamed, the kids got out of the “well” and a meddling, narcissistic billionaire with a “fantastic mini-submarine” is still up to the same nonsense today thanks to crooked journalism, corruption and greed.

          In the sequel the defamed hero, backed by the rest of the world, attempted to take the billionaire to court, but amazingly was ruled against! Hmmm, now then, was the sequel called ‘Two Tier Justice’ or something like that? It’s hard to keep up, there’s been a rash of these movies lately.

      • J Galt

        Indeed!

        Underfunded! That’s a laugh.

        Every government prepared to go along with this nonsense (almost all of them) has been given an unlimited line of credit from God knows where.

        The amount of money (credit) sloshing about in their hands is obscene and is being royally wasted, there is literally no limit to the cash!

        • nyolci

          Ah, another Shrugging Atlas.

          “Every government […] has been given an unlimited line of credit from God knows where.”

          Where? 🙂

          • J Galt

            Yawn here we go again.

            Galt is a Scottish surname – not particularly common. It is my name, the J does not stand for John.

            I once managed to get a couple of hundred pages into ‘Shrugged, but not any further so far.

          • J Galt

            And as for the money they demonstrably have it, how otherwise could they spend £billions on a so far worthless “track and trace”?

            I don’t know where it’s coming from, but coming it is, in squillions.

          • pretzelattack

            it’s a fiat currency. they create it, just as they create the trillions to fund foreign wars and bail out banks that push sketchy financial instruments and nearly crash the economic system.

          • nyolci

            @pretzelattack

            “it’s a fiat currency. they create it, just as they create…”

            🙂 yeah, exactly. And when it comes to something useful like education they say we’ve got no money.

        • Theophilus

          J.Galt – not every government but especially rich western governments. Russia still has a debt to GDP ratio of around 20% I think.
          Algeria and Senegal used HCQ+A+Z from day one and have had few problems.

        • nyolci

          “Galt is a Scottish surname – not particularly common. It is my name, the J does not stand for John”

          I’m sorry, I read too much into your name.

          “how otherwise could they spend £billions on a so far worthless “track and trace”?”

          Modern capitalist government finance is so fxcked up we’d better avoid this topic 🙂 And my guess is that a sizeable portion of that money will go to line the pockets of a few pharmaceutical companies.

          • Shatnersrug

            This has been one of the funniest threads I’ve read on here for years. All thanks to Craig’s Fuckwit comment.

            Cheers. I wish I was going to Spain I’m sick of the UK

          • J Galt

            Don’t worry you’re not the first.

            I have no idea why Ayn Rand chose an obscure Scottish surname for her hero – maybe it’s an obscure Russian surname as well!

            I would certainly agree with your last sentence.

      • Natasha

        Tax is not revenue. And fiat currency in and of itself is also not the problem (in spite of Ayn’s pals and the gold bugs’ hold on some people’s imaginations). A currency issuing gov is never revenue constrained. As the HoL heard last week, treasury spending is only resource constrained i.e. to the limit of what’s for sale in the economy (since spread sheet space and entering numbers to record sales transactions are effectively unlimited). Focussing on tax as revenue misses that tax’s main role is to equalise wealth, thereby incentivise use / earning the currency, drain the money supply today so more can be spent by gov tomorrow, and affect other policy outcomes. There are no causal links nor accounting identities between gov tax collection and its ability to spend via normal central bank account entries. And central banks are NOT independent. For example, mainstream neo-liberal economists have been wrongly predicting the Bank of Japan’s massive gov bond holdings spells certain doom – except it hasn’t – as the Japanese economy has been demonstrating for decades.
        http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=47257

        • Observer

          So, what, there’s no limit to the amount of currency a government can create and spend?

          Doesn’t seem to have worked too well in Zimbabwe.

          • Natasha

            Observer, yes there are real world limits. Please ‘observe’ what I wrote more carefully :-

            “… treasury spending is only resource constrained i.e. to the limit of what’s for sale in the economy.”

            And Zimbabwe hyper inflation episodes are NOT an inevitable consequence of this.

            https://positivemoney.org/2015/12/hyperinflation-how-the-wrong-lessons-were-learned-from-weimar-and-zimbabwe-a-history-of-pqe-part-2-of-8/

            Even Tory Malcolm Offord (standing on the Lothian list for the Conservative Party in May’s Scottish Parliament election) published in this weeks Spectator confirms the self evident facts of how modern currency issuing government spending works:-
            http://www.progressivepulse.org/scotland/spectator-goes-anti-austerity-and-full-mmt

          • Observer

            “… treasury spending is only resource constrained i.e. to the limit of what’s for sale in the economy.”

            Uh huh, but what does that actually mean in practice? Most everything is for sale if you offer people enough currency for it, but that doesn’t mean that currency will retain its buying power if you create too much of it.

            There are literally scores of examples of currencies that failed when their respective governments created too much of them.

            Therereally is nothing novel about MMT. Ask John Law.

          • Observer

            .. and the fact that some tory is willing to bribe the electorate by stealing their purchasing power doesn’t lend your ideas any credence.

            Positive money are to be creditted with publicising the invidious nature of our current monetary system – I was actually involved with them when they started – but their solutions are bunk.

  • Tony Little

    The rules are absurd. But what I find totally unacceptable is forcing people (imagine this is a family with 2 kids) into a hotel at the (for me at least) hugely unrealistic cost of £1750 x 4. Who can realistically afford that? What exactly does this hotel offer for the price? I can stay at a top quality hotel in Europe for half that. Rip-off capitalism leeching off the back of a pandemic. (Or maybe I’m just not in the new real world of Scotland under CV-19 restrictions. It seems way off beam to me).

    • Tom Welsh

      Obviously, no one can realistically afford it.

      That’s why they are doing it. Essentially they are forbidding foreign travel, without risking the odium of doing so formally.

      Plausible deniability: it’s been the name of the game for a long time.

    • Stevie Boy

      I believe (?) that in these hotels you are confined to your room and only allowed out for solitary exercise/fresh air at a defined time and place. Very much like prison.

    • N_

      I don’t think before 2020 any regime in the world locked its own citizens up who were neither convicted nor accused of any offence, or even told they were suspected of having committed or thought to be at risk of committing an offence, and made them pay for the cost of their “accommodation”.

      And WTF is it anyway with the policy of red-listing black African countries that have hardly had any reported cases of Covid-19?

      There was a policy in Ohio in the US of prisoners being made to pay rent for their cells, but that was after they had been charged, prosecuted, and convicted. Also Stalin told families of some executed prisoners that if they wanted the body back they had to pay for the bullet. But what they’re doing right now in Britain, nope. Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong-Un – none of them went that far.

      • Bruce H

        > But what they’re doing right now in Britain, nope. Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong-Un – none of them went that far.

        A slight exaggeration don’t you think? Or are you joking?

      • Coldish

        N_ (20.39): “I don’t think before 2020 any regime in the world locked its own citizens up who were neither convicted nor accused of any offence, or even told they were suspected of having committed or thought to be at risk of committing an offence, and made them pay for the cost of their “accommodation”. I know Julian Assange is Australian, not British, but he was placed under effective house arrest in the London Ecuadorian embassy for years without having been either convicted or accused of any offence.

  • Tom Welsh

    If governments imposed these stringent restrictions and costs on travel, it would be sensible if they allowed evidence to be given remotely by Zoom or something of the kind. (As I believe Mr Murray did at his hearing for contempt of court).

    If they insist on witnesses attending in person, they should pay all the costs and smooth the process.

    As they do neither, I can only conclude that they are quite pleased that their “pandemic” nonsense gives them an excellent excuse for railroading accused persons and letting off those who have obviously committed serious crimes.

    • CasualObserver

      I’m sure the Virus and its attendant restrictions have been found to be useful by many spheres of interest.

  • Daisy Walker

    It also filters travellers through English airports, once again cutting Scotland off.

    • james

      so much for ”’independence”…. clearly some want it, but those in power don’t…

  • Stevie Boy

    Well done Craig for taking this arduous expedition. I fear Julian is slipping from the public consciousness – thanks to the UK and US Governments and their MSM poodles.
    Look forward to your report on this.
    Safe journey.

  • james

    thanks craig … i fully concur with you and your conclusion at bottom… one can see how covid is going to be used for all sorts of nefarious actions on the part of gov’ts moving forward here.. censorship on the internet is one thing.. censoring peoples movements appears to be the next move here, thanks covid …

  • Giyane

    The concept of a common rationality between citizen and government was surely lost a long time ago.

  • Tone

    Hm.

    We are effectively at war. One cannot expect emergency rules, by definitiion temporary, to be free from paradox.

    It would have been better had the UK government issued an updated Defence of the Realm act. One advantage would have been the clause making it a punishable offence to moan and pick holes, aka to ‘spread alarm and despondency ‘

    BTW, I for one am glad that Sturgeon will not lift the travel ban between Scotland. and England.
    Why? Because the per capita rate of Covid infection in Scotland is twice as high as in England, she is reducing my risk of catching the disease from a passing Scot.

    • Theophilus

      Tone – If we are at war why is the government stubbornly refusing to use cheap, safe highly effective Ivermectin to cure patients and avoid most of them going to hospital? They are not brave enough to say it does not work, that would be really crass. So they hide behind the bogus need for more trials. It has been taken by billions – no mistype – for 45 years. It is one of the safest medicines in the WHO 100 list if not the safest. What do you need more trials for? Do like we did in a real war in 1940 with M&B penicillin. Suck it and see. If it works, carry on. If it doesn’t, stop. There were no random, double blind up side down trials for penicillin. They tried it. It worked and millions of lives were saved.
      Ask me whay all the top medical bodies also call for more trials, I would reply find out for yourself as I don’t want to end up like Craig.

    • Theophilus

      Tone – Here is a clue. If there is an effective treatment, is it permissible to use vaccines under an emergency procedure or at all?

      • DWeller

        Exactly Theo! I would also urge those who are interested in the inexplicable and bizarre response of the medical profession to these treatment options in the Five Eyes. The World Medical Association’s Helsinki declaration may be viewed here.

        https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/

        I would draw attention to paragraph 37.

        “Unproven Interventions in Clinical Practice

        37. In the treatment of an individual patient, where proven interventions do not exist or other known interventions have been ineffective, the physician, after seeking expert advice, with informed consent from the patient or a legally authorised representative, may use an unproven intervention if in the physician’s judgement it offers hope of saving life, re-establishing health or alleviating suffering. This intervention should subsequently be made the object of research, designed to evaluate its safety and efficacy. In all cases, new information must be recorded and, where appropriate, made publicly available.”

        Given that Paul Marek, Pierre Korey would both be capable of giving expert advice on the treatment of this novel disease, why are physicians so reluctant to prescribe ivermectin and other potentially effective treatments? The answer lies with the academic gate-keepers who have disparaged the research and numerous anecdotal accounts of successful treatment. I have witnessed the campaign waged by so-called ‘academic’ doctors against practitioners who wish to treat their patients with ivermectin. Such practitioners have been appalled at the ‘do nothing and see if you need hospitalisation’ approach advocated by the professional bodies. It has even been suggested that physicians that prescribe ivermectin are ‘experimenting on patients’ and are ‘unethical’. Something is rotten in the state of healthcare and the schizophrenic attitude to the untested vaccines in contrast to extremely safe therapies is blatant.

        • Theophilus

          DWeller – If you go to Dr Tess Lawrie’s site you will find that the evidence that Ivermectin works is anecdotal but also strictly in accordance with the best medical research. She is one the NHS’s best researchers and a medical doctor. The last time I looked there were NINE meta-studies all showing Ivermectin as effective. But the conclusions of one of them was allegedly doctored by Unitaid who financed it at the last minute to say that more trials were needed. The accusation of fraud is based on the fact that these conclusions were not those of the researcher concerned at Liverpool University but his financial sponsor in the person of a leading French health official. Strictly against the rules. Where were the F/Ws from the Daily Express when that happened? Johnny foreigner interfering in our medical affairs!!!! The other EIGHT showed a huge advantage in using Ivermectin suitable for immediate use to save lives and keep hospital beds free. But the WHO, the EMA, the French health authorities and the NHS all pointed to the allegedly fraudulent meta-study and ignored the other eight that supported its use.
          They wouldn’t do that would they? Well yes they would because at the end of the day most of the deaths are at the normal life expectancy age so it’s all for the best really isn’t it and it does cut down on the cost of the NHS by getting rid of a few tens of thousands of old F/Ws. True there are one or two other problems but minor old chap, minor. And we get to be leaders in Biotech and Life Sciences.
          This interview is very revealing. Ignore the idiot dialogue of the interviewers and listen to the interviewee – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3u39moxStQ

    • Punguin

      There is no ban on people coming to Scotland from England. Murrell has put Scots under house arrest while allowing thousands of english Typhoid Mary’s to spread their disease every day. She’s a fraud and always has been.
      Enjoy your extra £30,000,000,000 covid spending off the back of Scottish taxpayers

    • nevermind

      pure Berlin cabaret Tone, should be on a stage later on this year, maybe in a sharp black suit.
      Very Brecht if I might add, thank you.
      I hope you get there and back in one piece Craig, thanks for speaking up for free journalism, relating the moves made, the sinister spying of each and everyone, in this, another Scharmuetzel in the battle to follow.

    • N_

      The interaction of the notions of war and public hygiene is a big topic. And consideration of it isn’t helped by making jokes about people of this or that ethnicity being more likely to be carriers of infection. We hear enough of that stuff from the BBC. For example this morning the BBC were saying that 5% of those who have been “offered” vaccination in Britain have refused; that residents of disadvantaged areas and members of ethnic minorities (meaning the poor, blacks, and Pakistanis) are especially likely to refuse; and that “enhanced tracing” is underway in the relevant areas. They were also saying that everyone aged 50+ has been offered vaccination. But unless that means that a message has been posted on a government website somewhere, that isn’t true. Certainly there are many aged 50+ who haven’t received any offer of vaccination through their letterbox or by phone or email.

      War is climbing out of its box. (Some would argue it’s never really been in a box.) Take Venezuela. Many of the conditions there have for a few years now been what you would expect after a war, or even geographically close to a war that is still going on, but no war has actually occurred.

      Meanwhile, today the Steinerite loony “Secretary General” of NATO tried to give an order to Russia : “Russia must end this military buildup in and around Ukraine, stop its provocations and de-escalate immediately,” the nutter declared.

      Is there a precedent for a NATO Secretary General talking like that about a non-NATO nuclear power, without the US President or Secretary of State saying it?

      Here’s an article from Steinerite Centrale in Switzerland: “Former Waldorf Pupil Heads NATO“: “The Norwegian, who has in the past demonstrated eurythmy sounds in a feature about him in the evening news on Norwegian broadcaster NRK, took up his office on 1 October. According to press reports, NATO members who supported Stoltenberg for the job included above all the USA, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

      Told you MI6 was dead. Can it really be in the interests of the security of any of those countries for a crazed member of a loony religious cult like Stoltenberg to be the civilian head of NATO, or indeed in the interests of human beings in general for such a nutcase to occupy a position of responsibility for the wellbeing of others? Would we feel safe if a Scientologist was doing the job?

    • Giyane

      Tone

      Allergy to penicillin was not taken seriously enough by medics, who were accustomed to it being a universal cure. My first mum in law had a catastrophic reaction to it but survived 17 years on steroids.

      I think the fact that my present parents in law who are 65 and 87 have just thankfully survived covid tells me that finding medicines that help the body survive and beat the virus naturally will be the eventual method. I suspect Chinese scientists are ahead of the curve when they tell us their sinovac is flawed.

      It couldn’t be that our Prime Minister is flawed, could it? Oh no, that could never be.

  • J Galt

    These daft rules are merely the culmination of a year long festival of stupidity.

    A theatre of the absurd in which we are all players, willing lockdown enthusiasts or otherwise.

      • J Galt

        A FOI request has finally wrested from the Scottish Government the figure for Covid 19 deaths without underlying conditions in Scotland – from March 2020 until the end of January 2021 – 596, about 6% of the official Covid 19 death figures in Scotland claimed by the authorities.

        596 extrapolated to the UK figure is around 6000.

        All deaths are regrettable, however death is a fact of life. Do you care about the deaths caused by lockdown, the cancer patients denied treatment, the suicides? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a lot more than 6000.

        • Stevie Boy

          Annual deaths in England from flu for the five years prior to Covid was approx. 20,000 per year (if my memory serves me well).
          No one ever commented on that figure.

          • Kempe

            What proportion of ‘flu deaths were to people who already had an existing condition? How many of these ‘existing conditions’ were actually life threatening or were being kept under control by medication? Just because somebody who died of or with Covid had an existing condition doesn’t automatically mean they were already under sentence of death.

      • CasualObserver

        In the US, the CDC recently revealed that of the American death roll figures, only 6% of the total died from covid alone. For the remaining 94% it was essentially the final straw upon already weakened backs. I dont think the UK has released similar statistics, so I’d have to think in the absence of official data, that similar percentages would be applicable to the UK death roll.

        Its an unfortunate fact that however much we may wish to avoid it, final exit will for most be a culmination of ailments.

        • CasualObserver

          Mr Galt beat me too it 😀

          Interesting though that both Scotland and the USA have that 6% figure.

        • pretzelattack

          do gunshot victims ever have preexisting health conditions do you think? how about people with defective hearts, or cancer. how many people die in perfect health except for the one thing that kills them, or is the primary cause of death?

          • pretzelattack

            feel free to point out why it is, casual. why do you have different standards for determinations of covid deaths alone?

          • CovidiousAlbion

            It’s not different standards. It’s a matter, in this case, of trying to understand the effect, upon the population, of CoViD-19.

            Something that is killing hoards of (otherwise) perfectly healthy people is much more serious than something finishing off loads of people who were about to die anyway. To compare diseases, it is simpler to focus on the healthy victims. This is not to devalue the lives of those with “underlying conditions”, of course.

            Say 70% of the population have no underlying conditions, and CoViD-19 kills 0.1% of them. Then, we can project that CoViD-19 would kill 0.1% of the entire population, if they were all healthy. If the death toll in the 30% who had underlying conditions is more than 0.1%, we can attribute the excess to these other conditions, collectively.

          • Clark

            “It’s a matter, in this case, of trying to understand the effect, upon the population, of CoViD-19.”

            Then consider how fast it spreads without social restrictions, and consider what should be done with the hundreds of thousands needing hospital simultaneously.

            So many are confusing themselves by being purely reductionist, without considering the encompassing system, the context. Statements are taken in isolation, such as “covid-19 kills 0.5% of those infected, nearly all being old and having pre-existing conditions”. Yes, but that’s 0.5% when all who need hospital treatment receive it. The number needing hospital is about 5% of infections detected. Of those, 90% are saved and 10% die.

            But what if there are no social restrictions, such that 5% of the population need hospital all in the same month? The hospitals fill and the vast majority cannot be treated. Under this condition, how many die? How many of these are old and have pre-existing conditions? Well take a look at Manaus and Bhopal to find out – far more of the young and healthy are dying there.

            And how do they die? At home, over the course of days, gasping, with no oxygen support or drugs to alleviate suffering? Or at the hospital security barrier, where they were prevented from getting in?

        • Clark

          CasualObserver – “only 6% of the total died from covid alone. For the remaining 94% it was essentially the final straw upon already weakened backs”

          Simple critical thinking should tell you that this is bunk – 6% had no existing problem, and the rest “it was essentially the final straw upon already weakened backs” – where is everyone in between?

          What the 6% really tells you is that there is a spectrum, and it runs all the way into perfectly healthy.

      • Bruce H

        Or quite a few others judging by this thread…. I am forcing myself to refrain from saying what a bunch of nutters though, that would be rude. Disappointing all the same as until now I had always found the comments on this blog of a better quality than the average.

        • Johny Conspiranoid

          ” I am forcing myself to refrain from saying what a bunch of nutters though, that would be rude.”

          Even though you haven’t refrained.

  • jake

    Don’t use a travel agent, use an estate agent and take advantage of the Stanley Johnson clause in the current travel restrictions.

  • 6033624

    The rules are there to look good to the likes of me but to ensure that people who are used to ‘better service’ can simply breeze through the rules as though they don’t apply – which they seem not to..

  • N_

    This even seems to be true if I exit immigration at Heathrow from Spain and then immediately check in again on a flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh, though if I had been checked straight through and not exited immigration at Heathrow, I would then have to go into the quarantine hotel as ‘arriving directly’ in Scotland.

    Be careful!

    Nicola Sturgeon on 8 July 2020:

    “(Y)ou cannot get round the requirement to quarantine in Scotland by flying to or from an airport in England. Public Health Scotland will have access to contact details for people staying in Scotland, regardless of whether an individual arrives in Glasgow, Manchester or London and it will carry out sample checks as you will have heard started yesterday.”

    • craig Post author

      Sturgeon may have said it, but it is simply not true, except for “red list” countries, which may have been what she was speaking about.

      • Giyane

        Craig

        Every journey is beset by irrational worries which disappear once you are on your way.
        As a child we were told about anti-ballistic missiles but they took many decades to become reality. We think the state is a spying machine, but unless one is in the cross hairs of a very serious and imminent crime investigation, which you most certainly aren’t, the system doesn’t have the resources to monitor anybody. Don’t worry.
        The wee tantrums of the Scottish government are tiddly little office politics.

        Relax and do your journey. Life and death are at stake in your mission. You are not going to beach bathe, eat octopus and dance flamenco. Your errand is work. Safe journey.

  • Theophilus

    Wait a minute aren’t all journalists doing their normal work excluded from all travel restrictions? They are in France.

  • Tim Glover

    I hope you have a good and successful trip; I am proud to tell people I follow your blog.

  • DunGroanin

    Isn’t ‘business’ travel exempt – as it has been all through the year?
    And these Formula 1 entourages boyncing around the planet every couple of weeks?

    Appearing at a Court certainly sounds like business.

  • Courtenay Barnett

    Craig,

    I don’t know – but – couldn’t you have given your evidence via computer link?

  • Harry

    Yet Filipino seaman can fly straight in from a red zoned country and join an offshore vessel in Aberdeen with no quarantine.

  • mark golding

    Interestingly there are exceptions to managed quarantine i.e. Children travelling to a boarding school from outside the UK.

    North hotels limited seems to be involved in the scheme controlled by an alderman in Northern Ireland…

  • Shams Pirani

    I’ve just had my fb account disabled for 30 days or I’d be on your page and a few others mentioning the following – in wandsworth and lambeth, both adjacent to clapham common, there’s a spike of this south african strain about 3 to 4 weeks after the ‘vigil’. i suspect that the event may well be a ‘superspreader’ event – many of the people ‘protesting’ on the common were indubitably rich south africans from the posh buildings nearby. anyway, i mention it to you because i can, thankfully, through your blog – also you’re more likely than the others, if my theory is correct, to accept the truth. the police were right, if this spread is in any way driven by that.

    • Giyane

      Sham Pirani

      You say there are a number of South Africans living in the area. Isn’t that a likely cause of the spike without mentioning vigils and demonstrations? The virus isn’t choosy about race so it’s best to remove theories down ethnic lines from our understanding of the disease. Otherwise we each of us commit the folly of accusing the goldfish of plotting against us.
      .

      • Shams Pirani

        just stop a minute and observe that clapham common is listed as being in “Wandsworth, Lambeth”
        and an event attended by 1000s of people illegally during lockdown, 4 weeks ago, occurred there
        and that there would have been many south africans in the population and others who may have travelled to and from there

        any other consideration on your part is foolish. it is not clear if the event of 1000s of people in lambeth and wandsworth a few weeks ago played any or a significant role in the new potential spike, but clearly to rule it out is unscientific. certainly in the interest of safety and caution that event shouldn’t have happened

        your words about ‘race’ are delusions from your own mind. i live here and this area has a VAST south african population, and so the arrival of the s. african strain here is naturally entirely related to travel from south africa to britain and vice versa by people who brought it here, many of whom are in wandsworth and lambeth and clapham.

        i find your attempt to not listen to science and reason and instead to attempt to label someone racist for, essentially, let’s face it, not being white, utterly contemptible. please do not continue to converse with me. cheers.

        the point, other readers, is this – 4 weeks ago an event involving a very large crowd happened on a common located in ‘lambeth and wandsworth’ – and now there is risk of a new surge, and it may now have already reached southwark. before long the whole city? and then the whole uk?

        the super-spreader event on clapham common was the sort of environment ideal for increasing spread and spreading variants. the population of this area which is south african is very large. that is a factor. it is absolutely relevant. obviously. anyone who lives in wandsworth knows that above all the south african population of wandsworth

        and south africans do come in many races, brown, black, white – i’ve met south africans of EVERY race, so to pretend that it’s a racial matter is just your typical western unintelligence, eh? hence giyane is not welcome to talk to me. you live once. waste as little as you can on fools.

        • CasualObserver

          Given that the SA variant is fairly common in Europe now, the idea that still relies upon travel from South Africa has long since been superseded ?

          Its worth remembering that so called ‘Blitz Testing’ was occurring in places as far flung as Huddersfield, and Woking, over a month ago, and that the results of said blitzes have yet to be made public ?

          The SA variant will replace the current Kent variant as the dominant strain, its almost inevitable, and it’ll have little to do with clusters of ex pat South Africans.

      • Shams Pirani

        amazing how quickly you managed to come up with racist stupidity, giyane, and completely miss the point.

        anyway, it is not clear yet whether that potential super-spreader event 4 weeks ago in lambeth/wandsworth is why there is now a surge of a variant in lambeth and wandsworth, spreading outwards, but i think it may be worth looking into, eh?

      • Shams Pirani

        as you admit giyane
        1. there are lots of south africans in the area
        as you try to deny giyane
        2. a massive super-spreader event occurred 4 weeks ago
        3. many many people attending the event were middle class or posh and lived in posh rich buildings around the common – those buildings are known to be inhabited by large numbers of south africans and others travelling to and from s africa (no race or gene or ethnicity involved – these are BLACk south africans, WHITE south africans, ASIAN south africans and no doubt others – also in both genders, before you say it’s because you’re a woman that i’m implying your intelligence is low)

        it doesn’t prove that the event contributed to the spread, but anyone who isn’t concerned that it may have is scientifically challenged.

        i’m going to listen to some quality music from north london to put your ignorance out of mind. i only came here to inform craig, since he is intellectually honest enough to question whether that event has had any impact on this sudden emergence

        the timeframe of 1 months may well fit.

        as for you – you are a virtue signaller who loves to talk giyane. that’s you. nothing you say, i’m sure, is worth reading, ever.

      • Shams Pirani

        seriously though

        there are LOTS OF SOUTH AFRICANS HERE
        and then 4 weeks ago there was a SUPER SPREADER EVENT

        what part of that are you too unintelligent, dishonest and incompetent to understand?

        imagine if they wanted to do another protest on the common right now – who, given the news of the s. african variant right here where that common is, would not say “hang on.”

        apparently you. which proves as i said that nothing you ever write is worth reading.

  • Smoke n mirrors

    Billions in bogus test n trace software contracts, hundreds of millions siphoned out of Greensil, uncontested PPE contracts, etc, etc. The proof is visually simple zahawi, jendrick & co are getting rotund by the day, only poor Hancock hasn’t yet had a chance to put his snout in the trough. For comparison, zahawi akin to obese goat barbecued African politicians vs the slim Iranian regime officials next to the Gulf Arabs feasted on camel hump biryani. Half the covid legislation, a smoke n mirrors show.

  • Crispa

    Perhaps the ambiguity of the guidance provides an escape route. I have gone through it quickly and as best I can and I agree it is very confusing. There is this on the Scottish Gov website.

    “Travelling to Scotland from abroad
    You should only travel to Scotland if you have an essential reason to do so. At the moment, holidays are not a legal reason to travel. If you do have an essential reason to travel from abroad, it is likely you will need to isolate in a hotel or at home in Scotland for at least 10 days after you arrive. What you need to do depends on whether your journey is directly to Scotland or not”.

    But I cannot find any guidance as to what circumstances allow you to self-isolate at home because there is no contingency anywhere for that or for a return trip from a short “reasonable excuse work” trip abroad (assuming this trip counts as such). A link takes you to the GB international travel advice which then links you back Scotland because of its own rules but that takes one only to the general Scotland coronavirus pages not about travel which does not help.
    So it may be that lurking somewhere is a get out clause that allows self – isolating at home possibly using the “test and release” option that is also mentioned. Otherwise why have it there in the first place?

    • Giyane

      Felicity Arbuthnot

      Mrna vaccines may be experimental, but the fatalities caused by doing nothing , like Brazil, is also experimental, because the theory of herd immunity put forward by some medics and politicians has never been tested, until Brazil , that is.

      Scientists are always reluctant to experiment with new techniques that are discovered but untested. Until that is , that the balance of risk is in favour of experimental.innovations. If the human race loses a few irreplaceable individuals in its scientific progress, is that more or less depressing than losing millions of them to a bat meets human coincidence in the Far East?

      If rats took over our houses, would we all just share our lives with them without trying to do something about it?

      • lysias

        The world has decades of experience with ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and Vitamin D. All perfectly safe.

        • Giyane

          Lysias

          Imho hydrochloroquine , if that is what I once took as a protection against malaria, may not be safe.
          Any substance can affect a small number of people e.g. nuts and coconut.

      • Clark

        Rats are a good analogy Giyane. If your house gets rats, you don’t try to reduce them to a tolerable number where people only get sick from the diseases they carry at a rate you can cope with. No. You stamp them out, or they will just breed back at the first opportunity. Same with fire; you don’t start a debate over whether it is worth damaging the furniture with water, and then eventually announce that you’ll start spraying water next week. You put the damn fire out as fast as possible, and you put it right out, not reduce it until there’s little enough smoke to be able to breathe.

        End Coronavirus

    • Crispa

      The link takes you to a fake news site distorting the facts to peddle its own quack panaceas. Ignore.

    • Clark

      Felicity Arbuthnot, just because they are on the VAERS database does not mean they were killed by a vaccine.

      “VAERS accepts reports of any adverse event following vaccination, even if it is not clear the vaccine caused the problem.”

      https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

      To make any meaningful comparison you have to consider how many people would be expected to die from all causes that might get reported to the database, out of at least 95 million people vaccinated. So of course it is “More than Total Vaccine Deaths for Past 13+ Years”, because vaccines are very safe.

  • Sarcophilus

    Actually, of all the places you want to go, you would probably be most likely to catch the bug at Heathrow. Happy travels.

  • Merkin Scot

    Very interesting : “World leaders believe – without evidence – that the way to mitigate the effects of the epidemic consists of imposing confinement measures, the generalized use of masks, restrictions on social activities, restrictions on mobility, business closures, curfews, school closures and more, including contact tracing and the quarantining of asymptomatic individuals. In the past the WHO established that the latter two measures should not be used under any circumstances (30).”

    https://www.pandata.org/a-critical-analysis-of-the-covid-response/

    • Clark

      Same old small but endlessly rehashed bunch:

      https://www.pandata.org/about/

      Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, and Jay Bhattacharya, Nobel laureate, Michael Levitt, and Scott Atlas, all of Stanford, Sucharit Bhakdi of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Ellen Townsend of the University of Nottingham, Michael Yeadon, former Vice President and Chief Scientist to Pfizer, Scott Jensen, medical doctor and former Minnesota State Senator , and Paul Peterson, of Harvard University

      Merkin Scot’s link repeats just about every false or distorted assertion I’ve seen about covid, so I’ll just take PCR and their denial of asymptomatic carriers passing infection. Look at daily infections and daily deaths; the UK will do:

      https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

      Note how the Daily Deaths curve, diagnosed largely by clinical symptoms, is the same shape as the Daily New Cases curve, determined largely by PCR test, but shifted right by two weeks. If PCR is mostly false positives as claimed, how can it give this characteristic curve, and how can it predict the deaths curve by two weeks? And if asymptomatic infection is not happening, where is this characteristic rise in infections coming from?

      The whole page is desperate bunk; an exercise in cherry-picking papers and misapplication of findings.

  • mark golding

    I am trying to leave no stone unturned in investigating quarantine hotels. Knowing Corporate
    Travel Management
    are administering the scheme. From Company House the managing director of CTM is a Jamie Michael PHEROUS, an Australian residing in Australia.

    Clearly if you are facing financial hardship and unable to pay the hotel package immediately a link ‘find more details here’ (not an anchor) redirects to the same web page thus offering no help and advice.

    Westminster it seems were slow in publishing the Quarantine hotel information and the whole scheme seems confusing at best and horrible, such I am investigating further to disclose what appears to be a riddle.

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