Baffling Brexit Rules Threaten Export Chaos

Leading business groups have said that Ministers must restart trade negotiations with Brussels now to sort out the baffling array of post-Brexit rules and regulations that now threaten much of the UK’s export trade to the EU.

Amid rising excitement amongst UK firms at cross border conflict, they were told would not exist, British manufacturing and trade organisations met Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove in an emergency session on Thursday to address difficulties emerging from the deal struck by Boris Johnson with the EU before Christmas.

The Prime Minister had hailed what he alleged was a zero tariff and zero quotas agreement that would allow free and manageable access to the single market, but less than a month on, however, Britain’s EU departure seems to be anything but pain-free.

One leading person included in the discussions with Michael Gove describes the new rule book as a total shitshow. Another said Michael Gove appeared particularly concerned at hearing reports of difficulties, after a week in which Marks & Spencer was amongst leading companies to warn that more bureaucracy would raise costs.

The source continued that Michael Gove seemed to understand the full gravity of the situation that’s unfolding and about to get worse.

Michael Gove acknowledged on Friday that there would be significant additional disruption at UK borders as a consequence of Brexit customs changes in the coming weeks.

In the first week after the UK eventually left both the single market and customs union, the parcels firm DPD suspended some of its services, bookseller Waterstones halted sales to customers in the EU and UK fishermen warned they wouldn’t be able to sell their fresh produce into EU markets because of delays at borders.

There were also problems with consignments between Great Britain and Northern Ireland as new border checks caught numerous businesses unawares.

Luxury food store Fortnum & Mason also told customers on its website that they were temporarily unable to deliver to Northern Ireland or countries in the European Union, and Debenhams has temporarily shut its online business in Ireland.

Some of the problems are being blamed on a rush deal, and others on the sheer complexity of arrangements including rules of origin, some of which haven’t been conclusively determined.

Only goods made up mainly of parts that originate in the United Kingdom qualify as tariff-free.

Stephen Kelly, chief executive of the Northern Ireland business organisation Manufacturing NI said the reason why the United Kingdom and EU agreed that there would be an implementation period of 11 months was so that people could get their heads around what was needed and ensure their businesses were compliant, but they didn’t have that.

They had seven days before everyone had to be ready, and one of those was Christmas Day.

But it’s not like they weren’t warned that this would happen, but they decided to ignore experts and project fear.

So far, France has been pretty lenient, but wait until that all stops. But this is what Leavers wanted and I thought that they would be happy they’re going it alone!

And the view is pretty much like let the peasants live on potatoes and turnips, as long as they’re free to turn the country into a nefarious, third rate, banana republic who cares.

Add this to the rich UK elite that didn’t want their taxes scrutinised under the EU’s new Anti Tax Avoidance Directive and it’s inconceivable that the party that claims to serve the best interests of British businesses and commerce, could have left us in this mess, just goes to show, nothing good ever comes out of a lie.

Joe Biden Says Capitol Siege Domestic Terrorists Were Treated Too Leniently

Joe Biden said there was no question that the domestic terrorists who laid siege to the Capitol were treated more lightly than Black Lives Matter demonstrators as he placed the blame for one of the darkest days in the history of the country directly on President Trump.

The president-elect said the ease with which Donald Trump’s supporters had breached the Capitol’s defences and the relative lack of arrests portrayed an America in which two standards of justice were at work.

Presenting Merrick Garland, a prior Supreme Court candidate rejected by the Republicans, as his pick for attorney general, a palpably furious Joe Biden, 78, joined increasing criticism of the police response on Wednesday.

He said that no one could tell him that if it had been a pack of Black Lives Matter protesters on Thursday, they wouldn’t have been treated very differently from the mobs of hooligans that stormed the Capitol, and he continued that they all knew that was true and that it was unacceptable.

On Friday, Capitol police chief Steven Sund announced his resignation, effective on January 16, hours after the House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for his resignation, following strong rebukes for what many criticised as a lack of preparation.

Joe Biden said the attack on the Capitol was not a protest, it was chaos and he said they weren’t protesters, they were rioters, a mob. Domestic terrorists and that it was that basic and that simple.

And he said that he wished they could say they couldn’t see it coming, but that wasn’t true, they could, and that for the past four years they’ve had a President who’s made his contempt for their democracy, their constitution and the rule of law evident in everything that he’s done.

He said that he’s unleashed an all-out attack on the institutions of their democracy and that the riots were the culmination of that unrelenting onslaught.

In what may well have been an attempt to stave off mass resignations or invocation of the 25th amendment, Donald Trump unleashed a statement soon after congress certified Joe Biden’s victory on Thursday night that ultimately acknowledged that he wouldn’t have a second term, although it stopped short of concession.

In the statement published to Twitter by Dan Scavino, a social media aide, because Donald Trump was locked out of his account, the President said that even though he disagreed with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear him out, there would be an orderly transition on January 20th and that he said that they would continue to fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted.

But Joe Biden was right when he said there was no way that Black Lives Matter protestors would have been treated with kid gloves, and there have been some laughable comments online.

Can anyone explain the appeal of Donald Trump, I would just love to know what your thoughts are about him.

Is it because he’s got money – even more money now that he’s conned his followers out of millions, and he knew he had complete control over his supporters, just like cult leaders do, but seem to be too dense to realise – denser than the complete works of Shakespeare in hardback and braille.

Although social media has hypnotised the ordinary person into insane but genuine beliefs. Deep-rooted beliefs that aren’t based on reality, but genuine beliefs in things that just aren’t true, achieved through repeated lies, targeted at people, often with pre-existing preconceptions, and re-enforced in numerous different ways over time.

And psychological operations warfare levels of brainwashing have been discreetly used on ordinary people, everywhere, on social media and by various agents, which explains both Donald Trump and Brexit.

George Orwell knew about all of this but presumably couldn’t anticipate the mass effect of billions of micro-targeted social media messages and images brainwashing ordinary, sensible, and often otherwise respectable people.

What is shocking is the depth of belief that these innovative campaigns can quietly and discreetly infuse into people’s belief systems.

Not only simply changing views on things, but successfully implanting a false, but profound, and absolute belief, in the hearts of millions of innocent, manipulated social media users, and there’s no easy solution to this brilliant mass hypnotism of otherwise good people.

Parents Are Lying That They’re Key Workers

Parents have been accused of pretending to be key workers to get their children a place in class.

Under the Government’s harsh new restrictions, only vulnerable pupils and children of key workers can still go to school during the third national lockdown, while other children must remain at home for online learning.

Our Lady’s Bishop Eton School in south Liverpool said they were swamped with requests for key worker spaces when the lockdown was announced.

But they began receiving a considerable number of complaints from other parents when an online lesson allowed them to see which children were attending class in person.

The school said they did ask parents for as much information as possible on the key worker application forms, and conferred with the local authority, and the school said that could do no more, particularly when parents making such allegations do not supply the school with the information necessary to investigate them further.

Boris Johnson warned schools may serve as vectors for transmission when he announced pupils in school and colleges would learn remotely until mid-February during the lockdown.

But despite the more stringent measures, primary schools in England are still seeing an increased demand for places, with one heads union reporting some have had 70 per cent of their families requesting on-site provision.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the school leaders union NAHT, said that they were increasingly concerned about the sheer demand for key worker and vulnerable pupil places.

He said that members are telling them that the demand for places is much more elevated than it was during the first lockdown last spring and that they’ve heard reports of some schools having 50-70 per cent in.

He continued that this could seriously undermine the impact of lockdown measures, and may even run the risk of growing school closures.

In the Commons, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson confirmed only one parent needs to be a critical worker to access a school place during the lockdown.

Gavin Williamson also confirmed that children who don’t have access to technology are seen as vulnerable and can attend school.

Government guidance says that vulnerable children may include students who may have difficulty engaging with remote education at home, for example, due to a lack of devices or a quiet space to learn.

The problem is there’s a lot of non-essential employers still open, this then gives the employee no alternative if they have to go to work, and it’s not just NHS and care workers that are needed.

Supply chains need keeping open – distribution, manufacturing. Boilers still need fixing, cars still need repairs and there are a million and one non-essential roles that are essential – if your toilet packs up in the first week of lockdown you can’t wait 12 weeks for a plumber.

But there’s a simple solution to this, which would be to request proof of key worker, critical worker status and those children who need places for other reasons such as vulnerability, disability et cetera will already be known to the school and I can’t believe that this wasn’t done already.

Although I don’t understand why vulnerable children are in school and yet fit and healthy children are at home – why would you send your vulnerable child to school during this pandemic?

However, financial support has been truly bad for a huge number of the population and people need to support themselves and their families and have no option but to work, as well as getting their children looked after.

RED ALERT

A hospital has said that it may be forced to remove critical care as it became overwhelmed with COVID 19 patients.

Darent Valley Hospital, near Dartford in Kent, declared itself at critical 4 alert level, meaning patients could be denied life-saving care due to resource limitation.

The Health Service Journal reported that the incredibly rare alert levels were defined and that resources were crushed and that there was the chance of triage by resource, non-clinical refusal or withdrawal of critical care due to resource limitation.

The Health Service Journal also said that 173 per cent of the hospital’s critical care beds were in service this, operating overwhelmingly overcapacity.

The unit’s beds have also been in continuous use since January 1.

The Kent hospital has already been working way past its limit, with home births last week suspended as ambulance units were too busy to guarantee timely emergency transfers it needed.

An incredible ten other hospitals on the southeast are just one critical level below Darent Valley, which suggests they’re at full stretch.

It comes as NHS chief Sir Simon Stevens said there are now 50 per cent more inpatient coronavirus patients than at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic.

Speaking at a press conference alongside the Prime Minister, Sir Simon said that at the moment the amount of patients they have is the equivalent of filling 20 acute hospitals with additional patients.

And he added that numerous people had caught the virus between Christmas and New Year, warning that the pressures are real and increasing.

For weeks now, medics, especially in the southeast have been warning that hospitals are at breaking point as wards become swamped with coronavirus patients.

Over the weekend, a media outlet disclosed that critically ill coronavirus patients will be transferred from London and the South East to West County as wards continue to be swamped during the second wave.

The move was sparked following a spate of warnings from concerned doctors that some NHS hospitals can’t cope due to the new mutant strain, and on Monday, the nation was plunged into a new national lockdown and moved to alert level five as Boris Johnson warned the NHS could be swamped in just 21 days.

Alert level five means there’s a material threat of hospitals becoming swamped, and transmission is high and increasing which could eventually incapacitate healthcare services.

Loads of Nightingale hospitals were built for COVID patients, but are they being used? And who’s going to staff these Nightingale hospitals because our regular hospitals are understaffed as it is?

And it appears that they were pretty much a PR stunt, and the Department of Health would have known that they didn’t have the entourage to use them properly and at this stage, we would need a magic wand to conjure up experienced ICU nurses and doctors.

So, why can’t the army forces staff them? They would respond that they’re not trained, well, if that’s the case, then how on earth can they give vaccines to people if they’re not trained?

And it seems that now COVID is more important than any other illness. Lord, help the poor person that has a heart attack. “Sorry, I can see you’re having a heart attack, but that lady over there has a cough and we believe it’s COVID, perhaps even super COVID”.

I have the greatest regard for everyone on the frontline, but building hospitals specifically for it without investigating whether they have enough staff just doesn’t add up, but this does sum our Government up.

During wartime anyone with experience was called up to assist in any way possible, this is how things get done, but it appears that these days, people are too self-absorbed and precious to even consider it – you only have to see how adults have behaved in the 2020 grocery panic to see that.

Donald Trump Arrest Warrant: US President Faces The Death Penalty

Donald Trump has been issued an arrest warrant by an Iraqi court after being accused of premeditated murder, an offence punishable by the death penalty in the Middle East state.

The warrant was issued in relation to the killing of Iranian military general Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis last year.

The arrest warrant was issued today by a court in Baghdad.

He’s been accused of premeditated murder, which holds a death penalty in Iraq.

Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said they issued the warrant after the judge recorded the statements of the claimants from the family of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

The move follows a day of disorder in Washington when Donald Trump’s followers stormed the US Capitol in protest of the looming election result confirmation.

The chaos raged after Donald Trump gave his fans a jolt into action in a protest outside the White House and encouraged them to march to the Capitol.

As politicians from across the spectrum condemned Donald Trump in the aftermath, the president committed to an orderly transition on January 20 after Congress belatedly approved his Democratic challenger’s victory.

Iran’s president said it demonstrated the weakness of Western democracy while officials in China and Russia compared the storming to protests in Hong Kong and Ukraine.

Hassan Rouhani said in a televised address that what happened in America demonstrated what a failure Western democracy is and that a populist man damaged the prestige of his country.

It comes amid rising tensions between Iran and the West and the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab condemned a profound and damaging infringement of Iran’s nuclear agreement.

This week Iran began enriching uranium to levels unseen since the 2015 agreement which relieved embargoes in exchange for Tehran agreeing to impede its nuclear ambitions.

Dominic Raab said Tehran’s commencement of uranium enrichment up to 20 per cent risks compromising the important possibility for a return to diplomacy with a new US administration.

He said that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal has looked increasingly fragile since outgoing president Donald Trump yanked the United States out of it in 2018.

The United Kingdom, France and Germany, which along with China and Russia remain signed up to the deal, said Iran’s latest move was a clear breach of the deal.

But nevermind Iran, Donald Trump committed premeditated murder yesterday in his own Capitol.

He provoked the crowd to march on Capitol building and he vetoed the Mayor’s proposal to deploy the National Guard to protect it and he failed to condemn an attack on the symbol of American democracy and continued to reiterate his bare-faced lies in an endeavour to justify the behaviour of the crowd.

It was ultimately left to Vice President Pence to belatedly summon the deployment of the National Guard and I expect that investigation of the President’s communications since he lost the election will demonstrate his culpability in organising what was an endeavoured coup d’etat. Treason!

And as for the attempts to blame the Democrats, Black Lives Matter or Antifa for a disgrace riot, there’s just one word – tragic.

The Vice President and his colleagues need to invoke Amendment 25, dismiss him from office, and detain him while his numerous crimes are investigated thoroughly and then prosecute him.

But then again how many innocent Iraqi’s did George W Bush kill under the pretext of them having weapons of mass destruction, which he knew they didn’t have, yet nothing happened to him, and sadly nothing will happen to Donald Trump.

Boris Brings In The Army

Boris Johnson will unveil a new Army led plan to distribute Britain’s coronavirus jabs this evening as Number 10 scrambles to scale up the UK’s lagging immunisation drive.

The Prime Minister is expected to announce the new plan, drawn up by senior military battlefield planners, at a Downing Street press conference at 5 pm tonight.

It’s expected the new battle strategy will bolster the UK’s chances of delivering on Boris Johnson’s lofty pledge of vaccinating 13 million people and ending lockdown by March.

So far the country’s vaccination schedule has been plagued by supply and staffing shortages, logistical issues and bureaucratic impediments that have strangled its scale-up and it’s meant that only 1.3 million Brits across the United Kingdom have had the jab since it launched a month ago.

The figures revealed that the NHS in England has now managed to vaccinate nearly 1.1 million people since the mass immunisation drive started and the programme saw more than 300,000 doses dished out between December 8 and January 3 in the final week of the Pfizer only plan, which was 27 per cent more than the previous week.

Ministry of Defence chiefs were instructed to develop strategies to distribute the jab evenly to the most vulnerable within the Prime Minister’s target of getting them immunised by mid-February.

Government sources said troops aren’t being drafted in to assist at this stage, with military brass drafted only to assist with the strategy of the rollout. It comes despite pressure from prominent figures, including Labour peer Lord Blunkett, to get soldiers directly involved with the programme.

A source told a newspaper that the Prime Minister is approaching the vaccination roll out as a military process and that’s what we’ll see at tomorrow’s press conference.

It came after Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the military was standing ready to deliver as many as 100,000 doses a day, should it ever be called upon by the health service.

Boris Johnson is expected to be joined by Brigadier Phil Prosser, who will lay out the necessary plans, as well as Sir Simon Stevens.

The NHS England boss will probably encounter questions about a decision to tell GPs to stand down routine appointments so they can prioritise COVID vaccinations.

And it’s emerged that guidance had been sent to doctors explaining the jabs should be their top focus, with other non-essential activities deferred, potentially for weeks.

NHS England has already advised surgeries to concentrate on the delivery of the vaccine by prioritising jab appointments over anything else. So, it now seems that other patients with other serious conditions will get moved to the back of the line.

Who cares if you found a lump on your breast or you have cancer – they don’t have time for you right now and it’s awful, and now people will get their important appointments at the doctors and the hospitals withdrawn.

There have been people poorly for months, back and forth to A&E, being referred to hospital, but have had their appointments cancelled because they can’t do face to face appointments, so now there are loads of people off work sick, popping tablets.

DWP Busted Over ESA Cuts

The DWP just got busted over ESA cuts and its reaction was appalling.

As you will know if you’ve been following along and if you’re involved in ESA and in the Work-Related Activity Group, then you will know that a couple of years ago, our brilliant or not so brilliant Government voted to remove £29 a week from people’s claims, which means you would have lost £29 a week for nothing.

Lots of MPs voted for this, including a long list of Tories, which just reinstates just what the Government think of people in general, and the way they will just do whatever they want regardless of any consequences to the people that aren’t receiving that money anymore in the name of austerity and forcing people to get a job that are disabled.

And there is this alleged idea from people that lots of people on benefits are on benefits because they believe it’s not worth working, that they get far too much money, and that they should be working, whether they’re disabled or not.

People out there are also saying that there’s no motivation, and of course, this rubs off because it’s also the Government saying it, and of course, this is not completely accurate.

But now all those lovely people who voted Tory then had to claim Universal Credit in the summer because they were out of a job and then found out how little money people actually get on benefits, which is partly why the Government gave them an extra £20 a week.

Now let’s get back to the Work-Related Activity Group and you’ll see that the excuse is mind-boggling.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has just dug itself a gigantic hole and recent revelations forced it to alter official records, but its revised response made it look worse, and it left more questions than answers. Not least, what have people died for?

As the Canary reported, the DWP has been tying itself in knots over Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

In 2017, it cut the percentage of the money it gave claimants in the Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG). This was about £29 per week.

This group is for people who the DWP says should be moving back into work, but usually, these claimants live with illnesses or impairments.

At the time, the Tories and the DWP said the cut was to stop giving sick and disabled people financial incentives not to work.

The then chancellor George Osborne called these incentives perverse and the DWP also said cutting the WRAG would save money – this was when austerity was in full flow and its financial projection said cutting the WRAG rate would claw back just over £1 billion in four years, but it also declared it would plough in £330 million to support claimants into work.

Trampling over dead bodies. Sound perverse? It gets even more despicable.

The DWP cut WRAG money knowing death percentages in the group were soaring, and by 2016 after it completed the cut, claimants in WRAG died at a ratio of 7.7 per 1,000.

But then the Government do love stealing money from those at the bottom and giving it to those at the top for mass failure, no questions asked.

Now it’s raised its ugly head again, but this time the story has got even more hideous.

On the 20 January, DWP minister Justin Tomlinson answered an MPs question. It was about how much money the WRAG cut saved the DWP – he said there were no savings from trimming the WRAG rate.

He said there were no savings from the removal of the Employment and Support Allowance Work-Related Activity Component for new claims from April 2017.

This change allowed the department to recycle money into delivering practical support that would make a significant difference in the life chances of those in the Work-Related Activity Group.

He said that this change enabled the department to recycle money into delivering practical support and that they’d invested £330 million over 4 years with 100 million available in 2020/2021, that would support those with limited work capacity to move towards and into suitable employment.

The Canary spotted this, and they thought the answer was dodgy. This is because the DWP initially said the cut would save over £1 billion.

So, on Wednesday 22 January, they asked the DWP about this claim. It took until late Friday 24 January to get its act together and give an answer.

The DWP changed Tomlinson’s written response in the official records, and it went from no savings from the cut to this.

A mistake has been identified in the written answer given on the 20 January 2020 and the data requested on the savings accrued from the removal of the Work-Related Activity Component (WRAG) was not available.

It would incur an unnecessary expense to compute any actual net savings from the removal of the WRAG and that when the WRAG was removed, they made a clear commitment to instead deliver practical support that would make a significant difference to the life chances of those in the Work-Related Activity Group, and that they’d been investing an extra £330 million over 4 years to support those with limited work capacity to move towards and into suitable employment.

Then, the DWP gave the Canary a comment and said that this had nothing to do with the WRAG cut and that it was just more claims about how much cash it spends on sick and disabled people.

They said that they would spend £55 billion on benefits to help sick and disabled people and people with health needs.

This is up £10 billion in real terms since 2010 and is about 2.5 per cent of GDP, and over 6 per cent of Government spending.

Talk about lip service. But the DWP’s change to parliament’s records has opened a can of worms and its new answer poses numerous, worrying questions, such as how did Tomlinson make such a mistake about savings?

Why did the DWP forecast over £1 billion of savings from the WRAG cut? If it doesn’t know the savings now, how did it know in 2015/2016?

What made the DWP alter the wording on the £330 million savings?

Tomlinson first said it was invested from the recycled WRAG savings. It then changed to additional investment.

This gives the impression the money was not from the WRAG cut – so which is it?

If the £330 million wasn’t from the WRAG cut, where’s people’s £29 a week loss since April 2017 gone? What has the DWP done with the £1 billion of people’s money? And would have the DWP changed Tomlinson’s response if the Canary hadn’t caught them out?

Either Tomlinson and the DWP are oblivious or they both told an outright lie, but the DWP’s possible deception is not the worst of this.

The DWP has gone on official record to say it it doesn’t know how much money the WRAG cut saved and that if they believe it, then the fallout should be damning because what it’s actually saying is that it cut sick and disabled people’s money and that it cut their money in the name of austerity.

The DWP took money from people because let’s face it, they thought those people on benefits were scroungers, but now, it can’t say how much money was saved. So, what’s the point of austerity been? And why did the Tories cut public spending to save money if they then didn’t know if it had even saved anything?

By this logic, the DWP and Tories have put people through torture for no reason, and people have died against a backdrop of public finance penny pinching, and our vile politicians and civil servants can’t even do them the decency of saying if their dead bodies have saved money.

It’s an utter disgrace, stacked on top of a cliff of disgraces from this despicable department, but now all their wrongdoing has come out and this is just the beginning of exploring the truth for people that need assistance but are being forgotten by the Tory government, Boris Johnson and MPs alike.

So, Boris Johnson, where has all this money gone, and what was it spent on? And we shouldn’t be shocked because austerity isn’t about saving money, it never was, it’s just an excuse to do away with citizens whom the Government and others decide are not worthy.

They have a considerable number of people to do away with, at least a third of the population globally and they have all these shiny new playthings to try out just for that objective.

Austerity is just the method and excuse they use to confound people into believing it’s all a mishap. This is just a cover-up for wiping out what they believe are undesirables, and it really has very little to do with sorting out the finances of this country, and a whole lot more to do with the legal murder that they can hide in plain sight.

People Began Breaking COVID Rules When They Saw Those With Privilege Dismiss Them

We’ve heard repeatedly during the past year that until mass vaccination is achieved, the key to addressing the COVID 19 epidemic is controlling human behaviour. Yet as cases in the United Kingdom continue to spiral, with more stringent social constraints being enforced every few days, a key question remains, is anyone complying any more?

Compliance has been one of the most misconstrued and misrepresented concepts of this pandemic.

During the first wave of the virus back in the spring, there was concern that a prolonged lockdown would lead to behavioural fatigue and diminishing compliance with social constraints.

Behavioural fatigue was not a scientific concept but a political one, neither reinforced by research from prior epidemics nor by data that subsequently emerged from our lockdown (over 97 per cent showed good compliance with the rules, with no significant decline from March to May).

During emergencies, humans are primed to act in the collective interest, as we saw from the sacrifices made by people in the spring of 2020 across the United Kingdom.

It was only as the lockdown was eased that compliance started to decline, partly because people felt that the situation was safer, but other factors contributed too.

For many, the new rules were just too difficult to comprehend. While during lockdown 90 per cent of adults in the United Kingdom reported feeling they understood the rules, by August this figure was just 45 per cent in England.

Inconsistent rules across the UK nations, frequent modifications to rules, and confusion about dates of announcement, as opposed to dates of implementation, exacerbated the problem.

But the message from the Government about compliance also changed after the disclosures about the actions of Dominic Cummings, which were followed by a decline in adherence.

Returning to a single event might seem like bearing a grudge, but it was climactic for numerous reasons.

During the lockdown, the message on compliance was evident – restrictions were necessary to stop the spread of the virus, so everyone had to play their part, no excuses, no exemptions, but Dominic Cummings changed the tone – if you could find a loophole in the regulations, it somehow became acceptable and defensible to break them.

The enemy switched from being the virus itself to being the measures designed to impede the virus.

This shift in tone didn’t go unnoticed, as research at UCL showed.

The same sacrifices people had willingly made in the spring as part of a collective social responsibility suddenly seemed less necessary.

Goodwill turned to rage and resentment, largely targeted towards the Government that supported Dominic Cummings actions, and confidence in the Government to handle the pandemic took a quick downward turn in England, from which it’s never recovered since.

Trust is critical, as research has shown, it’s one of the biggest behavioural predictors of compliance during this pandemic – larger than mental health, belief in the health service or numerous other factors, and as humans, we need to trust our authorities if we’re to follow what they tell us to do.

Dominic Cummings certainly has a lot to answer for in undermining the very transparent messaging in the first lockdown.

The problem is the tier rules and the nuances of what is and is not acceptable have been quite confusing, altered far too often and have been badly worded.

And when one talks about privilege and violating the rules, the great straw that broke the camel’s back was Dominic Cummings with his breakdown of the lockdown rules, although there were others with privilege that did the same as well.

Also, all credibility and the support of the public was lost when Boris Johnson and his Government threw in their lot to defend Dominic Cummings breaking of the lockdown rules.

The Dominic Cummings moment is now recognised as the moment where the Government relinquished control of the messaging, and looking back now, it seems even more remarkable than it did at the time that Boris Johnson went to such heights to defend his man.

But it could have been so different, as other countries have proved.

Giving practical, honest, realistic information, the grounds for restrictions and the importance of working together and the possible outcomes would have set quite a different scene, and unfortunately once a scene is established it’s extremely difficult to change it.

Television Is Too White

The actor, Lenny Henry said streaming services such as Netflix are better than terrestrial channels at portraying Britain’s ethnic diversity.

It’s been the most talked-about show of the Christmas season, with black performers cast in leading roles in Regency-era England.

Now Bridgerton, the blockbuster period drama on Netflix, could find itself at the epicentre of a politically charged controversy about diversity and the fate of television.

Sir Lenny Henry has warned that the BBC and other terrestrial broadcasters risk losing black and Asian viewers to on-demand streaming services because they feel such services do a better job at portraying their lives.

The Comic Relief co-founder wrote that if British broadcasters didn’t tackle the diversity grey rhino now, they ran the risk of losing large parts of their audience permanently.

He said that one in five Britons would be from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background by 2031 and he added that investigation had shown this segment of society was watching on-demand streaming services more than others as they felt that shows do a better job at portraying their lives than terrestrial broadcasters such as The BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV.

The actor made the call for diversity in all facets of TV, on-screen and behind the camera, in his new book, ‘Access All Areas: The Diversity Manifesto for TV and Beyond’, which was co-written by Marcus Ryder, a media diversity specialist, and will be released on Thursday by Faber.

Recent examples of the streaming service Netflix has succeeded in casting a more eclectic range of actors than broadcasters such as ITV can be seen in its hit show Bridgerton, which is set in early 19th century London and held colour-blind casting calls.

The period drama, which was based on Julia Quinn’s best selling novels, follows the romance between Daphne Bridgerton, played by Phoebe Dynevor and Simon Basset played by Regé-Jean Page, a British-Zimbabwean performer and has been tipped to become the next Downton Abbey after it enjoyed a thriving takeoff on the streaming site this Christmas.

In the show King George III’s wife Queen Charlotte is black, played by British actress Golda Rosheuvel, 49, with Ms Quinn, the author, backing the colour conscious casting and adding that numerous historians believe Queen Charlotte had some African background.

Sir Lenny Henry appeared to take a swipe at the lack of diversity on ITV’s hit show Downton Abbey, which had a predominantly white cast, noting in his book that the nominee list at the Royal Television Society’s annual awards was like a Downton Abbey Christmas special.

If people are talented and funny enough they will get the breaks wherever they come from and whatever colour they are. Lenny Henry is a Sir, so he’s done rather well for himself – the same applies to all sportsmen and women.

However, people should be given the same education and opportunities to flourish and nobody should be given a position purely based on the colour of their skin, religion or who they’re related to.

If someone has the education, the work ethic and the personality, then they should be given the same opportunities as the next person, but is Sir Lenny Henry just trying to whip up conflict? And with his triumphant career, he doesn’t need to play the race card.

Perhaps he should just keep his mouth closed, after all, he’s done well for himself, so why ruffle feathers? And he’s been stealing a living for decades – I’ve had more comic toothaches.

COVID Vaccine Is Given To Over 1,000,000 Brits

With the vaccine roll out accelerating, the end is in sight and we will get through this together, Matt Hancock said in a tweet.

It comes as the rollout of the new Oxford and AstraZeneca jab is due to start on Monday after the United Kingdom was the first country in the world to approve it.

The roll-out of the Pfizer vaccine, which the United Kingdom was also first to approve, started nearly a month ago.

The Government has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford jab, enough to vaccinate 50 million people, nearly the whole UK adult population, as two doses are required.

And while ministers have insisted that the approval of the vaccines means COVID restrictions could be lifted by Spring, scientists and medics are less optimistic as the nation labours to fight off the second wave.

More than half a million doses of the Oxford jab will be available from next week, but that’s far short of the 30 million doses the Government originally said it would have accumulated by autumn.

And concerns are increasing over the rate of vaccinations achieved so far as the NHS manages with record numbers of hospital admissions driven by a new, more contagious strain of the virus.

Scientific advisers have estimated that at least two million vaccinations a week could be needed, as well as a lockdown that includes school closures, to avoid the pressure on intensive care surpassing the peak of the first wave.

Ministers have altered the strategy to give as many vulnerable people as possible the first dose, and the Government revealed this week that it will give both parts of the Oxford and Pfizer vaccines 12 weeks apart, having originally planned to leave 21 days between the Pfizer jabs.

However, the move has been criticised by GP leaders, with The British Medical Association saying cancelling patients booked in for their second doses was grossly unjust.

For the Oxford vaccine, the plan is consistent with a finding that waiting 12 weeks maximises protection against the virus, but the makers of the Pfizer jab said it had no data to indicate that protection after the first dose was sustained after 21 days.

The UK’s chief medical officers have supported the decision, saying the United Kingdom needs to urgently maximise the number of people who receive the jab and that the great majority of initial protection came from the first dose.

Even though it’s wonderful news that the jab is here, numerous people will believe that by getting the jab it will thoroughly protect them from getting coronavirus and passing it on.

It probably won’t, but at least the symptoms will be less if you do catch it, but at the moment we’re all acting like it’s some miracle cure.

The virus is so deadly that it only has a 99.9 per cent survival rate if caught.

99.98 per cent for the under 30’s, 99.97 per cent for under 50’s, 98.97 per cent for under 70’s and 94.5 per cent for over 80’s, assuming the person has no underlying health problems.

The average age of death from it is 82.

Sixteen hundred people die daily in the United Kingdom pre-COVID, but no hysteria and Pneumonia, Flu/Influenza et cetera can all cause long term secondary damage.

If your worried stay at home, lose weight, have your vaccine, which probably won’t stop the transmission and shut the hell up – basically, that’s what the Government are telling you to do.

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