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In case anyone missed them, here are Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of this series about the British public’s suspicion over the continuing coronavirus lockdown.
The June protests vexed Britons who were trying to do the right thing: staying at home and social distancing when outdoors.
All of a sudden, that flew out the window. Protesters had pride of place, yet, the rest of us still had to obey the social distancing guidelines.
That rankled, especially as we had been told we were selfish because we wanted to hug our loved ones who didn’t live with us. Think of grandparents and grandchildren.
What about people who just needed to get outdoors in the fresh air by themselves?
What about children who longed to see their friends? This former barrister and co-editor of Conservative Woman nails it:
And what about the people who freaked out over a very limited reopening of schools on Monday, June 1?
What about the average law-abiding person?
Yes, those people are ‘the problem’. We are made to feel guilty through no fault of our own.
The frustrating hypocrisy of it all:
Then we had Piers Morgan taking issue with Boris’s top adviser for trying to care for his little boy and with Labour MP Barry Gardiner for attending the demonstrations. Yet, Piers applauded his own son for taking part in the protests:
But I digress.
There was no social distancing during the protests. In fact, some police officers in London were assaulted.
However, even though Health Secretary Matt Hancock advised that the rules be kept in place over the weekend of June 6 and 7:
… the lack of social distancing was acceptable:
It was for a cause.
Health ‘experts’ said so — 1,200 of them, in fact:
Tucker Carlson had an excellent editorial on this on Friday, June 5. Anyone complaining about social distancing and protests is ‘the problem’, not the protesters and rioters. Well worth a watch. You could not make this up:
But what about the people told to leave London parks because they were sunbathing by themselves? What about Piers Corbyn who was arrested twice for advocating against lockdown? Where were the Metropolitan Police during the protests? On hand, but either taking a knee or standing by doing nothing:
Boris didn’t do anything, either. We have a Home Secretary. He could have got in touch with her.
This is what he issued on Saturday, June 6, the day of yet another protest in London over an American who died on home soil in Minneapolis, Minnesota:
‘The evils of fascism’. Don’t make me laugh, Prime Minister.
Things were no better in Northern Ireland …
… or Scotland, where thousands were expected to attend a protest on Glasgow Green:
The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, was a bit slow on the riots. Didn’t he know that American cities were being destroyed and shops across the country looted? President Trump never stopped peaceful assembly:
Anyway, there is some good news in all of this. More people in the public eye have noticed that continuing lockdown in the UK is a bad idea:
Unfortunately, a number of ‘senior figures’ from the NHS do not see it that way, primarily because of the close proximity of protesters in early June. That is not the fault of the British public and is likely to make them even angrier. They were not among the protesters. They are eager to get back to work.
In fact, said ‘senior figures’ will probably make the British public all the more suspicious about the protests. Were they timed to prevent lifting of lockdown? We’ll never know.
In any event, this concludes this series with a few key points to keep in mind:
It’s going to be a long, hot, tense summer here in the UK.
As we continue coronavirus lockdown in June 2020, Britain’s silent majority is becoming increasingly angry.
Fortunately, they are venting online rather than mobbing in the streets.
Below is a lengthy selection of tweets about coronavirus, lockdown, the riots and more.
One or two have salty language but most do not.
This was the state of play on Wednesday, June 3:
This lady comforted a young woman who, understandably, doesn’t know what to make of it all:
I fully agree with this perspective:
The protests spelled the end of social distancing for many of us:
We still obey it, largely out of consideration for our neighbours — and fear of a fine or worse:
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said we might be welcoming up to 3 million Hong Kong refugees soon:
It’s a great gesture but, first, something must be done about the boat people being escorted to our shores from France by our own Border Patrol:
On Thursday, June 4, Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg took a question from an MP who asked when hairdressers would reopen:
On Friday, June 5, Ipsos MORI published a poll showing that although we were pretty angry about Boris and the government’s handling of the pandemic, we still preferred him to the Labour’s new leader Keir Starmer:
The Global Vaccine Summit was held the day before, albeit virtually:
This is what concerns me about Boris now. Had you told me this at the beginning of the year, I would have said, ‘Never!’ Yet, here we are. He’s still better than Labour, though:
That day, the silent majority became restive.
We were deeply unhappy with London’s Metropolitan Police’s response to the riots:
We were angry when Health Secretary Matt Hancock told us in that afternoon’s coronavirus briefing we would have to wear masks or some type of face covering on public transport:
To be continued tomorrow.
As was true with coronavirus, Trump’s impeachment, Brexit and everything else, the media are driving their own narrative with the protests and riots concerning the death of George Floyd.
Let’s remember that the US Constitution has not changed. Here’s President Trump’s newish press secretary Kayleigh McEnany:
Oddly, the New York Times agrees:
Yet, in general, the media are standing up for, if not promoting, violence on streets across the United States:
Politely put.
In addition to the media, we have public officials, such as the Chair of New York City Council health committee. Here are a few of his tweets, which include coronavirus commentary:
Earlier in the year, he tweeted about Chinese New Year, in spite of the coronavirus threat, which he downplayed at the time:
The governor of North Carolina joined a local protest but had the gall to tell President Trump that, for social distancing purposes, he would have to downsize the already-booked Republican National Convention this summer:
Then there are those defending America — National Guardsmen — who feel compelled to take a knee for the protesters, so they can be left alone. Or is it that they would rather not be there?
And that sort of thing leads to this (too sad to post). It took place in London, encouraged by a mother who should know better.
I am glad someone posted about that video. He has a long thread about this and has added two more videos. Excerpts follow:
He drops a name in his thread, then continues:
He should have briefed them before they went out that day — and obeyed the rules himself.
Continuing with the thread:
Kneel before no one, especially when they might be lawbreakers:
Well said.
Perhaps you have seen scenes like this on the news during the past several days:
In fact, yes, someone did hurt a dog — a rescue puppy in Memphis. Unthinkable:
Some equally unbelievable things happened with regard to law enforcement and justice:
Active and retired policemen have been shot and, in some cases, killed in these riots.
I hope this officer recovers:
At least they made an arrest:
Sadly, this retired police captain from St Louis died. He was working in his friend’s pawn shop at the time:
Then there were the Catholic and Episcopal clergy upset with President Trump. I won’t go into the Episcopal side of things in this post, but the Catholic archbishop was outraged that the First Couple went to visit the Shrine of Pope John XXIII.
Such visits are normally booked well in advance for security reasons. It’s unlikely the Trumps just turned up.
But, there’s a little more to the archbishop’s story — hypocrisy:
As for the visit to St John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square, it turns out that the Pentagon advisor who resigned is a Democrat donor:
Tucker Carlson has called out the rest of the media for spinning these ‘protests’ like crazy when many of them turn into riots and looting:
Indeed.
Fortunately, the public are getting clued up:
Indeed, messaging will be key this year.
Meanwhile, let’s stop trusting our media outlets.
I’ll have more on the protests tomorrow.
On Saturday, May 16, 2020, a fractious protest against Britain’s coronavirus lockdown in Hyde Park ended with arrests.
Piers Corbyn, brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was one of the speakers:
Corbyn is well known in the UK for his subscription-only weather forecasts. He also believes that changes in the sun are responsible for climate change, not mankind.
He makes a convincing argument for it, too.
It seems he also makes a convincing argument for the rather odd 5G-coronavirus theory, because after he appeared in protest in Glastonbury recently, that town’s council voted down 5G. David Kurten is a Brexit Party councillor serving on the Greater London Assembly:
However, although Piers Corbyn supports Brexit — as does his brother, allegedly — he is not a conservative.
This is what he thinks about coronavirus:
A Press Association reporter filmed what happened on Saturday, May 16, near Speaker’s Corner:
The police were out in force (pun intended). Isn’t there any crime fighting to do?
This was the scene from the centre of operations:
They social distanced by holding on to each other’s vests.
Shoulder to shoulder distance was less clear:
The Guardian reported (emphases mine):
The brother of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was one of 19 protesters arrested on Saturday, as small demonstrations against the coronavirus lockdown took place across the country.
Protesters gathered on green spaces across the UK holding placards describing the lockdown rules as unlawful and claiming that the government measures were suppressing civil rights.
In Hyde Park, London, about 50 people defied social distancing guidelines to gather close together at Speakers’ Corner holding placards with slogans including “anti-vax deserves a voice” and “freedom over fear”.
Dozens of police officers, including some on horseback, patrolled the protest, issuing 10 on-the-spot fines and making 19 arrests.
Corbyn’s brother, Piers, was taken away after using a megaphone to declare that 5G and the coronavirus pandemic were linked and branding the pandemic as a “pack of lies to brainwash you and keep you in order”.
He also said “vaccination is not necessary” and that “5G towers will be installed everywhere”, adding: “5G enhances anyone who’s got illness from Covid, so they work together.”
The article gave the reason for Piers Corbyn’s and others’ arrests:
Corbyn was taken away after declining to leave when asked by a police officer and refusing to give his details when asked.
A flyer advertising the protest called for “no to mandatory vaccines, no to the new normal, and no to the unlawful lockdown” …
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor said: “With the easing of restrictions we fully expected open spaces to be busy this weekend.
“It was disappointing that a relatively small group in Hyde Park came together to protest the regulations in clear breach of the guidance, putting themselves and others at risk of infection.
“Officers once again took a measured approach and tried to engage the group to disperse.
“They clearly had no intention of doing so, and so it did result in 19 people being arrested, and a further 10 being issued with a fixed-penalty notice.”
The protest attracted a mixed social group:
David Samson, 50, a finance worker, who attended the protests told the Press Association news agency: “I never thought I’d see in my generation the suppressing of civil rights [over a] fake virus. This is nothing compared to what’s coming.”
There was a large round of boos whenever protesters were arrested, and repeated shouts of “jail Bill Gates”.
Another demonstrator, 62-year-old Catharine Harvey, said she was defying the rules to highlight the “devastation this lockdown has caused”.
The shop owner said: “Developing countries will have no trade, no tourism. I have had to close my shop on Columbia Road flower market. The effects of the lockdown are far, far worse than the virus – mental health, domestic violence, shops are closed, theatres, cinemas, restaurants. It’s unnecessary.”
Protests also took place on the southern coast of England in Southampton:
A separate protest in Southampton saw about a dozen protesters gather on Southampton Common, holding placards saying “Stop the Lies”, “Say no to tyranny” and “Fight 4 Freedom”.
One protester, Dee, who did not wish to give her surname, said her job in the hair and beauty industry had been hit by the crisis. She said: “I am here because I am worried about civil liberties being taken away.
“Reading the Coronavirus Act that has gone through parliament, it seems there are changes being made which infringe our freedom. And I am worried the media has run away with the Covid-19 thing and blown it all out of proportion.”
And in Belfast, where police monitored:
a crowd of about 20 people who had gathered in Ormeau Park to denounce the lockdown measures. Officers warned participants to socially distance and they complied. The gathering dispersed without incident after an hour.
Another took place in Glasgow:
… on Glasgow Green in Scotland, with estimates of about 40 to 50 people taking part. People at the event reportedly chanted “experts lie – people die”, “don’t listen to the media, listen to the people”, “Nicola Sturgeon is a traitor” and “we are not livestock”.
However, Britain was not the only European nation to see protests. They took place in other countries, too:
Demonstrations also took place across Europe. In Germany the death toll from the virus has been lower than most of its European neighbours with some lockdown measures already relaxed.
However, protests against the measures that Chancellor Angela Merkel insists are needed to slow down the outbreak have grown with demonstrations held for a second weekend.
I certainly hope that this is not the ‘new normal’.
Personally, I think it is a bit late to protest lockdown. We’re coming out of it now.
However, as it has often been said, attributed to Voltaire but probably more accurately to in Evelyn Beatrice Hall (pseud. S. G. Tallentyre) in the biography The Friends of Voltaire (1906):
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
By now, surely, with all the freedom of ‘lifestyle’ we currently have, we can still assemble to speak our minds when necessary?
Perhaps not, in the ‘new normal’. Heaven forfend.
Friday, May 8, 2020, was a national holiday in the UK to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day.
It’s a bittersweet commemoration.
The Allies fought for our freedom.
In the UK, we are still in lockdown for coronavirus.
Not a day has gone by when I haven’t considered that all those freedoms fought for were taken from us on the evening of Monday, March 23, 2020. All it took was an announcement from Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
This is where we are:
We await Boris’s announcement on Sunday, May 10, re lockdown.
This tweet is from the co-editor of Conservative Woman:
I find it hard to believe that Boris can credibly extend lockdown (which isn’t saying he won’t) …
… particularly in light of Prof Neil Ferguson’s bogus numbers …
… and resignation from SAGE for having his mistress over — twice:
Boris told us his was to be the People’s Government. I hope someone reminds him of that.
This was VE Day 2020, as Kathy Gyngell, the other co-editor of Conservative Woman, puts so aptly:
This letter to the editor comes from author Virginia Ironside, born a year before VE Day:
She nails it in the last paragraph.
The lockdown has shown there is an ‘us’ and a ‘them’. Ferguson’s lover said that lockdown was straining her marriage. Aww diddums. She lives in a £1.9m house. Imagine if she were living with an abusive husband on the 15th floor of a council block:
So, what hope have we?
I have never lost sight of this fact:
A German virologist agrees. (I’m ever thankful that peacetime brought Europe together.) I watched this interview, which is excellent:
Meanwhile, in Sweden:
And let’s not forget the economic impact, the worst since 1706:
These facts make watching the late afternoon daily coronavirus briefing all the more painful.
Dominic Raab, Boris’s First Secretary (deputy PM), was at the main lectern on Thursday, May 7:
One veteran of the Second World War, Captain Tom Moore, raised more than $28m for the NHS by walking around his garden 100 times. He uses a zimmerframe (walker), so this could not have been easy.
For his 100th birthday a few days ago, the Royal Air Force gave him his own personal flypast.
And now ITV made a documentary about his time in the war, which was shown on Friday:
God bless him. Many happy returns, Captain Tom!
It appears that crime in Nassau County, New York — Long Island — has plummeted during the coronavirus outbreak.
The NCPD, as they are known, have been acknowledging fund-raising events …
… and they have also been celebrating birthdays. A five-year-old was among that number:
… as was a Korean War veteran who turned 90. Many happy returns to young Eugene and to Herb Berger in these times when birthday parties are strictly, well, umm, verboten:
News of Mr Berger’s special birthday hit the White House too. Dan Scavino, President Trump’s Director of Social Media, also has a video.
Speaking of birthdays, congratulations to the Nassau County Police Department on their 95th anniversary:
Happy anniversary! Keep up the good work.
Didn’t their uniforms look smart back then?
Today’s coronavirus commentary comes from Twitter’s Guillotine sales and Repair, a Hoosier (Indiana resident).
‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin would have been so pleased with all the lockdowns in Western nations:
Believe it!
As Guillotine sales and Repair says (emphases mine):
Don’t delude yourself into thinking we’re protected by the Constitution right now. While that should always be the case, know that right now, we’re not.
He takes issue with a lawyer from Indianapolis. I’m not sure what the details are there, but the meme surely fits lockdown:
He discusses Americans’ God-given rights, enshrined by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution:
YET:
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits shot up stratospherically on April 2.
Please note what he says:
This is the very real result of lockdowns, not only in the United States but also in other countries:
Yes, how did they do that? In the US, Democrat governors began locking down their states long before Republican-governed states did. They just took that decision.
Police are out enforcing, and, in some cases, not in a nice way, either:
I’ll have more on the economic front tomorrow.
Last week I wrote about Derbyshire Police’s odd take on patrolling their local population.
By contrast, I am happy to report that policing is very different in the nation’s capital.
London’s Metropolitan Police are actually fighting crime.
With a convenient lockdown in place, criminals are easier to find. As of March 31, the Met made 803 arrests:
Furthermore, apart from the actions of police officers in Primrose Hill last Sunday, they are being nice to Londoners, striking up a conversation rather than confronting them:
London’s Commissioner Cressida Dick receives her share of criticism, but she is doing a fine job during the coronavirus outbreak:
Hats off to her and the Met! Great work, well done!
One has to hope that the WHO will be held to account for their early pronouncements on coronavirus.
In December 19, Taiwan tried to tell the WHO how dangerous it was but the organisation ignored the warnings:
The TownHall article says, in part (emphases mine):
Taiwanese officials said WHO’s failure to act early on has to do with its close ties to Chinese leadership, the Daily Caller reported …
One of Taiwan’s chief complaints is centered around the International Health Regulations (IHR)’s reporting website, which was established so countries around the world could share data about pandemics.
“While the IHR’s internal website provides a platform for all countries to share information on the epidemic and their response, none of the information shared by our country’s [Centers for Disease Control] is being put up there,” Taiwanese Vice President Chen Chien-Jen told the Financial Times. “The WHO could not obtain first-hand information to study and judge whether there was human-to-human transmission of COVID-10. This led it to announce human-to-human transmission with a delay, and an opportunity to raise the alert level both in China and the wider world was lost.”
Despite knowing what they did, the WHO continued to push communist China’s talking points, including the blatantly false claim that the virus is not spread through human-to-human transmission. This is something we know is the case, which is why the CDC has suggested people practice “social distancing” as much as possible. A few weeks later the WHO said it was unnecessary to restrict international air travel, which is what turned the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic into a pandemic.
The article states that Taiwan has not had any representation in international health organisations since 2016 because of pressure from the Chinese government.
Fortunately:
Taiwan isn’t that far from China yet the country has sustained very few cases. As of now, the country has 153 cases and all of them are occurring because of international travel, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, halfway around the world, in England, a video from the Derbyshire Police telling people not to walk in the Peak District has been going viral.
A little over a century ago, health experts deemed it a jolly good idea to go outside and get fresh air:
Derbyshire Police posted an explanatory thread, excerpted below:
However, one could make the case that such walks — done in isolation at the moment (watch the video) — are good for maintaining mental health, especially among people who live locally and are accustomed to such outings.
Furthermore, local residents going to the Peak District do not have to worry about the social distancing they would encounter in their own towns and villages:
To date — and this could change — the government has not imposed any restrictions on locals going for nature walks:
Another tweet, which won’t show up properly in my post, cites an article from the Guardian:
The police forces insist that members of the public should not be driving anywhere to walk their dogs or exercise. However, the Guardian checked with the Cabinet Office, which is overseeing the new restrictions on movement, and a spokeswoman confirmed that the guidelines do not prohibit driving somewhere for exercise or dog walking.
And to think we are likely to be on some sort of shutdown for the rest of the year. Unthinkable.
On February 21, 2019, the heretofore unknown actor Jussie (Empire) Smollett was charged with felony disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report in Chicago claiming he was the victim of a hate crime.
The charge came from the Cook County State’s Attorney office.
NBC News reported (emphases mine):
The state alleges Smollett filed a false report with Chicago police on Jan. 29, when he claimed he was assaulted by two masked men who hurled racist and homophobic slurs.
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, speaking at a press conference, skewered Smollett and false police reports generally. He said that while no violent crimes went uninvestigated as a result of Smollett’s claims, Johnson suggested that the hundreds of killings in Chicago represented a more serious problem deserving of national attention than a celebrity’s allegedly false police report.
Disorderly conduct is normally thought of as a low-level crime. In Illinois, however, making false reports to peace officers is actually a felony contained within the disorderly statute. A false report is a class four felony, punishable by up to three years in prison. The elements that make it such a felony are: any kind of transmission to a peace officer reporting a crime without reasonable grounds.
There is also the question of a hoax hate letter with his name on it that was sent to the set of Empire before the attack. That is potentially more serious, as the former sheriff of Milwaukee says:
For those who missed the running three-week saga, this is what happened. Click on the image to enlarge. Read the top three columns, then the bottom horizontal bar:
Sheriff Clarke tweeted more observations about this case:
On February 22, an editorial appeared in USA Today, ‘Hate crime hoaxes, like Jussie Smollett’s alleged attack, are more common than you think’.
The author is Wilfred Reilly:
an associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University, a historically Black institution located in Frankfort. He is the author of the upcoming book Hate Crime Hoax, as well as The $50,000,000 Question, a book dealing with how people value identity.
Reilly says:
The questions here are obvious. How many Trump supporters even exist in the downtown of a city that went 83% for Hillary Clinton — and how many of them watch “Empire?” How many guys looking for a fight carry rope and bottles of bleach around with them? Almost every normal citizen had questions like these about this incident, and we were justified in having them.
That this case turned out to be a hoax shouldn’t come as too big of a shock. A great many hate crime stories turn out to be hoaxes. Simply looking at what happened to the most widely reported hate crime stories over the past 4-5 years illustrates this: not only the Smollett case but also the Yasmin Seweid, Air Force Academy, Eastern Michigan, Wisconsin-Parkside, Kean College, Covington Catholic, and “Hopewell Baptist burning” racial scandals all turned out to be fakes. And, these cases are not isolated outliers.
He went on to describe research in this area:
Doing research for a book, Hate Crime Hoax, I was able to easily put together a data set of 409 confirmed hate hoaxes. An overlapping but substantially different list of 348 hoaxes exists at fakehatecrimes.org, and researcher Laird Wilcox put together another list of at least 300 in his still-contemporary book Crying Wolf. To put these numbers in context, a little over 7,000 hate crimes were reported by the FBI in 2017 and perhaps 8-10% of these are widely reported enough to catch the eye of a national researcher.
Therefore, of the 7,000 real hate crimes, a small number actually make a researcher’s list. In order to make the researcher’s list, they have to appear in the media.
Ironically, it would seem that we hear more about the hoaxes than the real hate crimes.
It is also important to note that most real hate crimes are not inter-racial:
84% of white murder victims and 93% of Black murder victims are killed by criminals of their own race, and the person most likely to kill you is your ex-wife or husband. When violent inter-racial crimes do occur, whites are at least as likely to be the targets as are minorities. Simply put, Klansmen armed with nooses are not lurking on Chicago street corners.
This seems to be a good point to let everyone know that the last time a lynching took place — and by a Klansman, no less — was in 1981 in Mobile, Alabama. Wikipedia records that the defendants received maximum sentences for the murder of Michael Donald, and the Klan went bankrupt:
Henry Hay executed in the electric chair. James Knowles and an accomplice sentenced to life in prison. Civil suit against United Klans of America caused their bankruptcy.
Reilly points out that hoaxes do a lot of harm to community relations as well as waste precious police time:
what hate hoaxers actually do is worsen generally good race relations, and distract attention from real problems. As Chicago’s disgusted top cop, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, pointed out yesterday, skilled police officers spent four weeks tracking down Smollett’s imaginary attackers — in a city that has seen 28 murders as of Feb. 9th, according to The Chicago Tribune. We all, media and citizens alike, would be better served to focus on real issues like gun violence and the opiate epidemic than on fairy tales like Jussie’s.
How true.
Hoax hate crimes have proliferated in recent years, especially since Donald Trump was elected president. You can read more about them in the articles below. There is some overlap, but not much:
‘Here are 50 campus hate-crime hoaxes The College Fix has covered since 2012’
‘Nolte: From Trayvon to Jussie — Poll Shows Media Hoaxes Killed Race Relations’ (Breitbart)
‘Here’s A List Of Hoax “Hate Crimes” In The Trump Era’ (The Daily Caller)
Were it not for a diligent citizen social media, Jussie Smollett’s hoax could have run for much longer and done irreparable damage to the fabric of America.
As it was, good people everywhere put their heads together across the country and pieced the puzzle together online.
This is yet another example of citizen media doing the job of supposedly legitimate media.
