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Coronavirus: will there be Christmas in England?
December 18, 2020 in history | Tags: 2020, Bob Moran, Boris Johnson, cartoon, Chris Whitty, Christmas, Conservative Party, coronavirus, economy, England, Grant Shapps, history, Keir Starmer, Klaus Schwab, lockdown, London, Mark Harper, Matt Hancock, NHS, Peter Hitchens, pub, SAGE, Sir Patrick Vallance, Steve Barclay, Susan Michie, vaccine | 9 comments
As most of England is now in either Tier 2 or Tier 3, including London (in the latter), some scientists are clamouring for previously approved Christmas gatherings to be cancelled.
This is the exchange that took place on Wednesday, December 16, the day when London and surrounding areas entered Tier 3. Communist Susan Michie, a member of SAGE and independent SAGE, told Good Morning Britain that we should cancel Christmas this year and replace it with extra ‘bank holidays’ next year. She’s a smooth talker. Laura Perrins, an ex-barrister who co-edits Conservative Woman, saw right through this:
Oh the Communist wants to cancel Christmas. And replace it with public bank holiday.
This is pretty much what happened in Communist Russia.
Banned Christmas, bigged up New Year. https://t.co/qqWEVi7Nxs— Laura Perrins (@LPerrins) December 16, 2020
Well, London mayor Sadiq Khan has cancelled the capital’s New Year fireworks. The Tube will also stop running at 12:30 a.m. this year.
I imagine many of the pro-lockdown folk also disapprove of both the religious aspect of Christmas and the excess (lots of lovely food, alcohol and presents).
— Marshal Williams (@MarshalTheWill1) December 16, 2020
Laura Perrins had a lot to tweet on Wednesday from her article that day, ‘Matt Hancock wants to ruin your Christmas. It’s sheer cruelty’. Excerpts follow, emphases mine:
YOU’RE making your list, you’re checking it twice and Matt Hancock is deciding whether you’ve been naughty or nice. Yes, once again the government have decided to inflict more psychological damage on the population by putting in doubt the Christmas relaxation of rules which will ‘allow’ you to spend some time with your family. The anxiety that this causes, the dread, the cruelty: that is the point of this latest government move.
At the time of writing it looks as if (for once) Boris Johnson will hold his nerve and not hand over complete control to Matt Hancock and the ‘scientists’ who seem to run the country. All this anxiety has been triggered because the BMJ published an editorial saying that the rules ‘allowing’ you to see your family at Christmas are a ‘major error’ which would cause the health service to be overwhelmed. As usual you have to sacrifice your basic freedoms so that the NHS can do the job you pay them a great deal to do. All must be sacrificed, it seems, for ‘our’ NHS.
Even if Johnson does hold his nerve this time, it should be said every day that Matt Hancock is a dangerous man who has set out to destroy this country. Some people think I am too strong in my language. I am not.
What the government are doing is evil. You need to understand that. They are destroying thousands of businesses, thousands of jobs in arts and culture, they have closed pubs and restaurants as a way of crushing your spirit. Meeting your friends down the pub is uniquely British, speaking to them in the flesh, arguing with them over a pint; these are the small joys that ordinary people look forward to. This is something that the elite in the media and politics, and certainly the scientists, simply do not understand. They’re all right, Jack. What’s a trip to the pub anyway – that’s for the little people.
This tweet from Camilla Tominey caught my eye yesterday.
This is the reality of #Tier3 for pub owners. A landlord friend of mine in Herts had 4000 covers booked between now and NY amounting to a potential £92k in sales. That has just been wiped out in the blink of an eye. Please spare a thought for him, his family and employees.
— Camilla Tominey (@CamillaTominey) December 14, 2020
She is right – this landlord has had his business wiped out ‘in the blink of an eye’. Destroying the livelihoods of so many in the blink of an eye is something that used to happen only in communist Russia. It is not quite a knock on the door in the middle of the night, but it is not far off. Oh, but don’t worry, they will get compensation from the government, you tell me. That is not the point. This landlord runs a business, he wants to provide this service, I have no doubt he takes pride in providing this service, it’s not just the money he wants. It’s his sense of dignity in a job well done.
This is why I believe that any future legal cases should claim this entire Covid government strategy is a breach Article 3 of the Human Rights Act which states that no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Perrins ended her article with thoughts on Dickens’s A Christmas Carol:
In the great Christian story of redemption, A Christmas Carol, Scrooge famously did not observe Christmas. In addition, he hated anyone who did. He refused a generous invite to share the Christmas meal from his nephew. This was rightly seen as cruel, mean, mean-spirited and immoral. Scrooge was incapable of any joy or love. Matt Hancock wants to ruin your Christmas. He wants you to uninvite the relations you have invited to share your Christmas meal. Hancock, like Scrooge, is mean, mean-spirited and cruel. Ignore him. Keep Christmas as you will.
I wish you and yours every comfort and joy this Christmas. Know in the New Year that we at TCW will not rest until every last mask is burnt and 2m sign is peeled off the pavement. Anything less is defeat.
Excellent!
On Tuesday, December 15, she opined on the type of people who love lockdown. Someone from Scotland responds:
In Scotland it’s 40% of the working population, all in the public sector. Add the old Karens and Sturgeon lovers and it leaves 11% of us.
— Harry P (@paget_old) December 15, 2020
In case anyone thinks Labour would be any better on Christmas celebrations, their party leader Sir Keir Starmer also wants celebrations on the feast day of Christ’s birth scrapped:
Starmer Calls for Review of Christmas Lockdown Wind-Down https://t.co/kK1P5yyDws pic.twitter.com/hmGWIPfrum
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) December 15, 2020
This came up at Wednesday’s PMQs (Prime Minister’s Questions).
Fortunately, Prime Minister Boris Johnson echoed the words of one of his cabinet ministers, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay:
Government Emphasising ‘Personal Responsibility’ Over Christmas https://t.co/ItkD2r8oqj pic.twitter.com/5YzkojZXAb
— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) December 15, 2020
Guido Fawkes reported Steve Barclay told Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday that Britons should (emphases in the original):
“try and minimise their contacts” in the week before Christmas. Yet still sticking to the four nation, five day relaxation. For now…
Barclay also advised that when families gather they do so “in a way that isn’t the maximum of what the rules require but the minimum that they as a family need to do.”
That means that Transport Secretary Grant Shapps’s subsidy of public transport is still on …
Today I'm announcing £3million to provide up to 80k more seats on scheduled coach services 🚌 over the Christmas travel window (23-27 Dec) to get people to their Christmas bubble safely ✅. If you're travelling this Xmas plan carefully & BOOK AHEAD👉 https://t.co/qyXfl6DOPM
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) December 12, 2020
… and Conservative rebel MP Mark Harper — one of the good guys — can rest easy:
💬 The Christmas household rules were explicitly approved by the House of Commons.
So it is only right that, if the Govt were to seek to change them, that must also be approved by a vote in the House of Commons in advance – Parliament must not be bypassed👇 pic.twitter.com/X1MmXXHzmE
— Mark Harper (@Mark_J_Harper) December 15, 2020
Returning to public transport, anyone travelling to London will be greeted with Christmas cheer:
Happy Christmas pic.twitter.com/aJhT28YLhw
— Burnside (@BurnsideNotTosh) December 15, 2020
Bob Moran has been doing some great political cartoons for the Telegraph mocking lockdown. He’s found a fan in Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens:
Here we go . This sort of pressure always gets listened to. As Bob Moran showed in his brilliant cartoon, our release from shutdown was a phoney:, Coronavirus: Scrap Christmas easing or many more will die, warn medicshttps://t.co/TCrw14wxbK
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) December 15, 2020
I wish he wasn't. https://t.co/6r1qTdic8R
— Bob Moran (@bobscartoons) December 15, 2020
I hope that Bob Moran — and Peter Hitchens — have a happy Christmas.
Here’s Bob at work:
I finally got round to finishing 'MODELS' today.
Will post soon. pic.twitter.com/HRwUtlbjFL— Bob Moran (@bobscartoons) December 15, 2020
Here are the Models, mocking Chief Medical Officer Prof Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance:
And here they are.
If you are interested in buying the original of this, please email bob@bobmoran.co.uk
50% of the sale price will be donated to @LD_Sceptics pic.twitter.com/8MAbCOWyHU— Bob Moran (@bobscartoons) December 15, 2020
Jokes aside — and as necessary as they are right now — it is alarming to think about how a three-week lockdown turned into one that lasted over nine months.
I wrote a few weeks ago here that this is the wildest conspiracy ever. We’ve moved beyond ‘theory’. We’re living it:
Kind of with james here after the last few months. Is weird how everything the conspiracists stated have come true so far
— Heather Taylor (@Heachy_1979) December 15, 2020
As regular readers of mine know, my principal worry is the economy.
Here’s Klaus ‘Great Reset’ Schwab, the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, discussing the COVID-19 group that will address — and, in his mind, solve — all the problems of coronavirus and the world in general. Business, he says, will be a big part of this. Be afraid, be very afraid. This is what he’s actually saying:
One off the main objectives of the lockdowns is to BANKRUPT SMALL BUSINESS so we are dependent globalist corporations for our needs.
That’s where our friend Klaus comes in….these corporations will be used to implement ‘initiatives’ that governments are too afraid to touch! pic.twitter.com/C4gGof7gRm
— BeachMilk (@YellowCube7) December 15, 2020
In closing, let’s return to London.
Deaths are normal for this year. This is a five-year chart:
Simply put:
The number of people dying in London is bang on normal for the time of year.
Yet our capital is locked down.
We've inflicted an enormous wound on ourselves for nothing at all.
How come? https://t.co/zFq1V7fd9A
— Latimer Alder (@latimeralder) December 16, 2020
London’s hospitals are not overly burdened either, especially compared with 2018 and 2019:
Shutting down London was pointless and destructive https://t.co/8CxMviK3jo
— Luke Johnson (@LukeJohnsonRCP) December 16, 2020
And why do we not receive any information from the Department for Health and Social Care about a prophylaxis for COVID-19? Instead, we’re pushed into taking a vaccine with messenger RNA. Revolutionary, for sure, but can we be certain it will work and is safe?
Why in heaven's name would I take a vaccine that is 95% effective for a virus that my immune system is 99.8% effective against? Let alone one that will include synthetic mRNA, which is used in gene therapy? What in the hell makes you think that is a good idea?
— ZultanPhysics (@NoClutchTruth) December 15, 2020
One wonders what will happen next year.