Wales To Go Into National Two-Week Firebreak COVID Lockdown

The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has declared that a temporary national lockdown will be imposed in Wales.

The Welsh Government believes a two-week firebreak, from Friday at 6 pm until Monday 9 November is essential to help bring the virus under control.

Approximately 2.3 million people in Wales are already living under local lockdown rules, that’s fifteen of Wales’s 22 counties plus Bangor and Llanelli.

The Labour-led Welsh Government has also prohibited people from crossing into Wales from tier 2 and tier 3 areas in other parts of the United Kingdom, but the Government believes it needs to go further and it asserts that a sharp lockdown now will give it and the NHS in Wales breathing space ahead of a difficult winter.

Everyone in Wales will be required to remain at home and work from home wherever possible and workers in critical jobs and those for whom working from home isn’t feasible are allowed out.

Non-essential shops, tourism and hospitality industries will have to close, except for takeaways, along with community centres, libraries and places of worship, other than for funerals and weddings.

Drakeford said children were the Welsh Government’s top focus and he said childcare would remain open and primary and special schools would reopen as expected after the half term.

He said that secondary schools will reopen after the half term for children in years 7 and 8 and those taking exams, but that other pupils will continue their education from home for an additional week.

All gathering indoors and outdoors will be prohibited with people from other households – there will be an exception for people who live alone, who will be able to continue to join one other household.

Drakeford said the virus was spreading rapidly in every part of Wales and if action was not taken it would continue to accelerate, risking overwhelmingly to the NHS.

He said the firebreak is the shortest that they could make it, but that meant it would have to be intense and deep to have the maximum impact on the virus.

College students will study from home in the week starting 9 November and universities will continue to provide a blend of in-person and online learning.

Drakeford added that in the same way, they were asking everyone to remain at home and that if students have reading weeks or half term they will also need to remain at home in their university accommodation.

But will this not allow students to catch the train home, spend a fortnight carrying on as normal, then bring it back?

Hmm, a fortnight locked in a 12ft by 10ft room with zoom lessons or escape back to mum and dad, zoom lessons and home comforts, I know which I would prefer.

Oh dear, circuit breakers, almost as ridiculous as flattening the curve and masks don’t work from earlier.

Sure take a break, but it won’t stop the virus from spreading and all they’re doing is kicking the can down the road and if masks work, why have cases continued to rise exponentially in both Wales and England since their introduction?

That’s because masks are not 100 per cent effective, although nobody ever claimed they were – they only just mask the virus, pardon the pun.

Masks just reduce the probabilities of you getting coronavirus and that’s only by about 5 per cent, but unfortunately, delaying the spread of COVID into the winter will then overlap with other respiratory emergencies and create another predictable peak in excess winter deaths and this strategy is opposite of flattening the curve.

National Circuit Breaker Would Be Unfair, Voices Michael Gove

A national circuit breaker lockdown was ruled out by the Government after Labour said that several might be needed and each could last longer than three weeks.

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, left the door open for a regional variant of the policy, however, by criticising it only for imposing blanket restrictions on places where infection rates were lower.

He said that opposing stringent measures in the name of the economy was an erroneous argument because businesses would suffer if the virus was not brought under control.

We should say no to another lockdown and the figures revealed a 3 per cent increase in infection over seven days. What happened to the doubling of the infection every seven days and how do these figures warrant a national lockdown?

And our supposed experts can make as many crazy and assertive projections as they like because they’ll never be held accountable for any wrongs, and the most peculiar feature of the present situation is the refusal of Ministers to learn from experience.

If a full lockdown of several months didn’t work, either here in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, why does our Government imagine that lesser measures such as the Rule of Six, travel prohibitions, pub curfews or two-week circuit breakers will do any good.

The truth is we have no idea what our Government thinks its doing, and in the absence of answers to these somewhat apparent questions, we have to presume that Ministers have no idea what they’re doing either.

And eventually, there will be riots and Boris Johnson will be disposed, or leave from burnout and disrepute, felt throughout the entire country.

COVID is a revolution engine by people defying Government authority and this has been a disastrous response to a real disease misinterpreted by all.

Measures are not helping the slowing of the disease and if every single person followed to the letter of the law and article of guidance, there would probably still be a raging pandemic.

Furthermore, if natural or vaccine assisted herd immunity isn’t to be a cure-all, then the end game is that this COVID will be with us for an extremely long time – much longer than we first thought and we can’t economically or even healthily afford lockdowns that would accrue over that time.

This virus is going to be about for years and people must start to realise this, and short term measures aren’t going to help.

How many circuit breakers are we supposed to have over the next few years because it’s a good idea? This will cause more businesses to crumple which will mean more unemployment, which will feed us into a deeper recession.

What the Government and others should be doing is looking into endurable ways of diminishing the risk of spreading the virus without the Lame Stream media flogging people in all directions so that they can create issues which they can then report on.

Test and Trace, for example, is null and void now, it’s finished and total garbage and most people don’t even have the app on their phones and many people are doing the opposite of the guidance and the law for the guidance or the law to be useful.

And barely anyone stays two metres away from each other in the street and only two fifths, if that, wear masks in the street, and now, so much of it has become absurd and a mystery.

Whatever way we look at it, COVID is here to stay for a very long time, and there aren’t many viable solutions, and vaccines are interesting because when or if they do come up with one, two fifths or even a third of the population won’t take it.

French Police Raid Homes Of Dozens Of Radical Islamists

Police raided the homes of dozens of radical Islamists in Paris after a Chechen born teenager beheaded a teacher for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to students.

The operation followed directives from President Macron to crack down on radicals whose doctrines are blamed for provoking Abdullakh Anzorov, 18, to murder Samuel Paty, who taught at a secondary school on the outskirts of Paris.

Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, said that the targets of the raids were not suspected of involvement in the slaying but were known activities and that they had a clear intention of passing a message and that there wouldn’t be a minute’s rest for adversaries of the republic.

It’s simple really if they don’t like the cultural norms of the country they’re living in, then don’t stay and don’t go applying the sort of medieval punishment they found in their own country.

You know the saying, when in Rome and if these people don’t like our ways, then they should leave.

Europe has been infested by all kinds of terrorist minds, but it’s not they’re fault, we let them in – we greeted them with open arms and now we’re paying the price with blood.

It’s terrible what happened, but we must also remember not to tar everyone with the same brush. The problem is, the same brush seems to apply to a common reoccurring theme no matter how compassionate we might want to be and that’s the problem, and the majority of Muslims in France were born there.

And we have to remember that there are millions of Muslims in Europe and few have killed anyone and perhaps we have been too free with our bombs in other people’s countries, although I don’t condone this in any way.

What baffles me is, why was this teacher showing this kind of cartoon to school children?

There’s no problem with people having different beliefs, but that should never spill out onto other people, especially when it comes to slaying another person because of their beliefs, and this teacher could have shown his students some caricature of something else, perhaps President Macron – at least he wouldn’t have become headless.

Of course, this teacher didn’t deserve what he got and showing a cartoon as an educational tool doesn’t justify murder, and sometimes it’s better to keep quiet if you don’t know anything about a subject or topic, although he should have been able to discuss any faith openly and we should be able to caricature without fear of reprisals.

People come from different country’s all the time and settle in very well, however, some refuse to assimilate, and we can’t have people like this living in our country’s if they can’t be bothered to adhere to our laws and criteria.

Tesco launches enormous recruitment drive for Christmas

Supermarket colossus Tesco has launched a recruitment drive for Christmas, with 11,000 vacancies available across the United Kingdom.

The grocer said positions are available in Superstores, Tesco Extra branches and at warehouses, with jobs to start immediately.

The positions came amid hundreds of thousands of redundancies as a result of the pandemic, with the roles likely to provide a lifeline to many people who’ve been forced out of work.

Tesco said it’s looking for checkout staff, shelf stackers and pickers for online deliveries.

The jobs will be in place until January and see you working up to 36 hours a week, but Tesco said that after the seasonal period ends, there will be opportunities for permanent jobs in stores.

Tesco People Director Rachel Bushby said that once the seasonal period comes to an end, Christmas colleagues will be encouraged to apply for any permanent positions available in their stores and that successful candidates will be invited for an interview in store.

Tesco is almost certainly not the only supermarket looking for a helping hand over the festive period.

Last year Sainsbury’s was looking for 11,500 extra staff, while there have always been new jobs up for grabs at the likes of Royal Mail, Next, Boots and more.

Sadly, this is not always the case, as many people apply to Tesco for employment and they don’t even get an interview or a response and it’s extremely unfair and disrespectful not to get a response and they will also lay off people after the New Year like they do every year.

Prince Harry Snub As Charles Removes Collectable Named After Him From Highgrove

Royal fanatics can buy a ‘William’ teddy bear this Christmas from his father’s Highgrove House, but in the past, Highgrove Enterprises has sold three bears with royal names, William, Harry and Louis, but there will be no Harry’s this year.

The £125 alpaca haired bear features a gold embroidered Highgrove logo on its paw and comes in a presentation box with a certificate of authenticity and is billed as an outstanding piece of British heritage and a loyal companion to both adults and children alike.

It joins the Louis bear of which Merry believed made just 150 and it’s expected there will be more bears in forthcoming years with money raised going towards the Prince of Wale’s Charitable Fund.

Last year a limited edition Harry bear that was made from mohair from goats was withdrawn by Highgrove after concerns were raised about animal cruelty and now many people are furious about Harry and Meghan, saying that he made his choice and that he has to live with it, although the withdrawal of the bear had nothing to do with that.

However, Harry and Meghan appear to be enjoying life, although he always looks pretty miserable to me. Perhaps he’s missing some of his old life because it’s extremely difficult to turn your back on your family and friends.

Some of us though are not consumed by hatred the way some people are these days and to be fair, I don’t blame him. He wants to be happy with his wife and baby and I’m sure he’s old enough to make up his own mind, besides there’s been enough suffering in that family already and I don’t think that his father would want to stand in his way whatever his personal views were – anyhow, this is all about a souvenir teddy bear, it’s not like it’s life or death.

The Merry bears are a limited edition and only one is released at a time, it just so happens that it’s William’s turn since there was already a Harry bear not so long ago and the Harry bears weren’t removed because of how anyone feels about the royal situation, they were removed due to the accusations of animal cruelty around the mohair coat.

People should just leave the poor lad alone to live his life in peace and support him in whatever he wants to do. After all, there are enough royals to carry on with appearances and he clearly loves his wife and nobody has the strength or right to change that.

The Merry bears had nothing to do with Harry, but it’s so easy to trigger the gutter press readers and it’s extremely sad, but then I suppose it makes excellent news.

Being of royal blood, especially the queen of hearts, many people loathed him from day one, but then I suppose he doesn’t have to carry the burden of Prince Andrew around with him – only the burden of having a person of colour for a wife, at least they will live a colourful life and Harry knew that he would never have any noteworthy position inside the Royal Family.

He will always be Prince Harry to most people, but it was his choice to make, let’s face it, it’s not like most of the other royals have not been beyond reproach.

Powerful Voices Now Argue For A More Subtle And Less Distressing Way Of Learning To Live With The Virus

The steps now being imposed on large regions of the country would be severe and difficult to endure if we had grounds to believe that they would do any good. The problem is that we have no shred of tangible proof that they will help at all.

The vast illogical web of new rules, increasingly impossible to comprehend or follow, looks worryingly like an exasperated endeavour to penalise us for wanting to live ordinary lives and enjoy ourselves.

Go to the pub if you’re prepared to consume a large unhealthy meal with your drink, but not otherwise.

Go to the gym in Manchester but not in Liverpool.

Wear a mask while you walk to your restaurant table, but not while you sit down.

You can’t socialise in your parent’s social bubble, but you can meet them down the pub.

And by the time you’ve worked it all out and what they mean, the rules will have changed again.

The apparent scientific basis for this is feeble beyond belief, as Sir Keir Starmer pointed out before throwing all reason and logic aside, demanding more severe collective punishments, which would incidentally make even more people unemployed and 19 out of the 20 places already compelled to suffer under these authoritarian regimes, no benefit was observed.

And why should it be? When we were first lured into this new way of life by an appeal to our goodwill and benevolence and we were told that a few weeks of self-restraint would save the NHS from being overwhelmed.

Who could resist such a plea? And millions jovially sacrificed their treasured freedoms for the common good, believing they would soon get them back when the job was done.

The NHS was not overwhelmed, and it’s far from clear that it ever would have been, but the weeks passed, and what happened?

We had a serious case of mission creep and somehow the task had now become one never previously attempted or achieved by any society, the virtual suppression of the virus itself.

We were not free to return to our normal lives – on the contrary, every few days brought a new apparent alarm and a cranky and increasingly petulant Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, did not free us from our bonds.

Restrictions applied on the pretext of safety or security are notoriously difficult to get rid of, and these were of no exception and only after enormous harm had been done to the economy were we permitted to resume something like normal life.

Boris Johnson isn’t giving us any peace of mind. He just mutters out his own rules, and if this virus is as bad as he’s saying, why hasn’t he closed schools et cetera?

Our Government are just trying to control us until they’ve completed their little plan.

And it just makes me wonder if there’s ever going to be a vaccine or is this just money for him and the Government to gain from the pharmaceutical companies?

At the end of the day, we’re all being treated like children and it won’t be long before people start to retaliate back at him.

He can’t keep us all dangling on a string and expect everyone to obey his orders when all he’s telling us is more and more lies – all he wants is control and money and I think we all know now that he couldn’t care less about the British people.

For Young Rohingya Brides, Marriage Means a Dangerous, Deadly Crossing

Haresa measured the days by the moon, waxing and waning over the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Her days on the trawler, packed into a space so tight she couldn’t even stretch her legs, seeped into weeks, the weeks into months.

Haresa, 18, said of the other refugees on the boat that people struggled like they were fish flopping around – then they ceased moving.

Dozens of bodies were flung overboard, some beaten and some starved. Haresa’s aunt died, then her brother.

Six full moons after she boarded the fishing boat in Bangladesh with hopes that human traffickers would transport her to Malaysia for an arranged marriage – Haresa, who goes by one name and almost 300 other Rohingya refugees found refuge in Indonesia – her sister, 21, died two days after the boat anchored.

Exiled from their homes in Myanmar and packed into refugee settlements in neighbouring Bangladesh, thousands of Rohingya have taken the dangerous boat crossing to Malaysia, where many from the oppressed minority group struggle as undocumented workers – hundreds have died along the way.

Most of those now embarking on the trip, like Haresa, are girls and young women from refugee camps in Bangladesh whose parents have promised them in marriage to Rohingya men in Malaysia – two-thirds of those who anchored in Indonesia with Haresa were female.

Amira Bibi and her family fled their native Rakhine State, in Myanmar’s far west, as the military torched hundreds of Rohingya villages three years ago. The fourth of nine siblings, she said she knew her place in life.

She said that her parents were getting old and her brothers were with their own families, so how long were her parents going to endure the burden of her?

She said through the matchmaking of a cousin in Malaysia who worked as a grass cutter, her parents found a fiancee for her – she asked details about the man but none were provided, apart from his name.

After surviving more than six months at sea in a failed endeavour to contact him, she spoke from Indonesia with her fiancee a country away. The phone call lasted two minutes. She said he sounded young and that was the extent of what she knew about him.

Ms Bibi originally told staff from the United Nations refugee agency that she was 15 years old, but later amended her age to 18 – child marriage is common among the Rohingya, particularly in rural communities.

You only have to look at their faces to see that they’re terrified, traumatised and in various states of shock.

This is human trafficking, and yet it seems that it’s okay to traffick them because they’re female and it’s maddening and a nightmare with no end in sight.

This is awful and these innocent girls should be protected, although some might say that it’s none of our business and that their culture is not ours to meddle with, but in some cultures, they don’t have a choice in life.

Many of these children aren’t allowed to be children because they’re terrorised and then shipped off to marry a man that’s not of their choosing. However, many don’t want this kind of life, yet it’s forced upon them, especially if they don’t obey the rules – makes my discipline as a child of being sent to my room pale in comparison.

We should never be afraid of not having a choice in life, wondering what kind of life that will be – having all our power taken away.

We should all have the ability to choose, particularly women, but these young girls don’t have any rights or support from their families because they come from a different world entirely and the world needs to know about this.

Experts Argue Boris Johnson’s Thin EU Deal Will Provoke Major Economic Disorder

The former boss of the Brexit department has warned that the narrow EU deal sought by Boris Johnson will act as a deadweight on Britain’s capacity to trade, amid growing concerns that the country remains dangerously ill-prepared for such an outcome.

Negotiations with the EU remained stuck after Downing Street told EU intermediaries not to bother making a planned trip to London without offering a fundamental change of approach.

The Prime Minister stopped short of calling off talks, which will continue this week and in a sign of the severity of business unease, with more than 70 trade associations and professional bodies issuing an extraordinary joint plea to both sides to etch out a deal.

However, there are concerns within Government and industry that the alarming threat of a no-deal outcome has camouflaged the impact of a thin EU deal on trade. While a deal with remove tariffs on trade, significant non-tariff barriers will be imposed, adding weighty costs on manufacturers and practical hardships for hauliers, while the UK’s large services sector is also expected to be subject to new barriers, and Philip Rycroft, who ran the Brexit department until last year, said that intermediaries were hammering out the extent of new barriers to trade.

He said that no deal is worse than a deal, but that it was just worth remembering, customs declarations, security declarations, regulatory checks, rules of origin and compliance, all of the panoply of a border applies if they get a deal – either way, it’s a huge logistical challenge and an extremely pricey one.

He said that you have the short term impact, but then you have a dead weight on trade forever, because that’s the nature of being out of the EU’s single market and that it puts discord into our trading relationship with the EU and that disagreement equals cost and that it will transform the nature of the trade relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU.

Talks held last week between the Cabinet Office and industry figures saw both sides voice concerns over-eagerness for the change expected in January.

Industry disquiet also remains around the readiness of a new border computer system, as well as the impact on sectors such as financial, legal and business services.

Ben Fletcher, executive director of policy at Make UK, said even the best deal now on offer was a long way from the kind of deal that was being discussed as a starting point during Theresa May’s discussions, which itself was an extremely long way from the status quo.

We should never have left the EU because now we won’t have control over anything, but whatever happens now, we’re leaving and it’s about time everyone quit whining about it and looked forward before they get left behind so that we can get ready for our oven-ready chlorinated chickens.

Of course, no deal has, for numerous years been a considerable risk, and those that went that route will ultimately find out that it’s the EU’s strategic interest to make it rough for us in the United Kingdom, and in the event of a no-deal the EU will make an example of the United Kingdom, it’s not personal, it’s business.

Boris Johnson has single-handedly annihilated the British nation thanks to his mishandling of the coronavirus and Brexit discussions. We will never be as robust again and we will vanish into obscurity as the union gradually breaks up – he’s obliterated the United Kingdom and isolated us from long term allies and friends.

Corbynites Create Policy Group To Resist Sir Keir Starmer

A group of Labour MPs have established their own policy research operation amid rising left-wing opposition to the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer.

In a break with colleagues from the mainstream of the party, several supporters of Jeremy Corbyn are using parliamentary office expenses to finance the Socialist Parliamentary Research Group (SPRG).

The pooled research and writing service has motivated comparisons with the European Research Group that sustained generations of Conservative Brexiteers in their guerilla campaign to redirect the Tory position on Europe and ultimately brought about the ousting of Theresa May as Prime Minister.

Of course, it would be awesome if Sir Keir Starmer made a difference, but so far all he’s done is a big fat nothing and there are some people out there that still won’t stop for their comrade Jeremy Corbyn.

Jeremy Corbyn is finished, well for now anyhow, and to be fair, Sir Keir Starmer probably won’t do any better, and it’s doubtful he will ever lead this country.

Instead, we find ourselves with an inept Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, but what we really need is a credible leader with credible policies, and these people don’t really want to be in Government, they just want to taunt from the sidelines, but not deal with any decision making.

What we need now is a realistic and devoted Government, and it’s about time we had some opposition to the Tories, other than Labour.

Moment Grandmother Lets Her Grandchild Drop To The Floor

A video showing a grandmother faced with the most difficult of dilemmas, whether to save a glass of bubbles from falling to the floor or her young grandchild, has gone viral.

The solution for the lady in question, thought to be from the United States, was indeed at the base of the flute, and the laughable clip shows the baby hurtling floor-bound while the glass of fizz is saved, albeit with half of its contents gone.

The video, entitled ‘And Grandmother of the year award goes to…’ was posted to Imgur earlier this week, has already had more than six million views since it was also shared to Twitter.

On Twitter, opinion was divided over the lady’s actions, with many saying that the grandmother should have put the child first, others defended her, saying she could have contained a more serious accident by preventing the glass from breaking.

In the brief clip, the baby, sporting a navy striped onesie, reaches for his grandmother’s tall glass, which was perched on the coffee table.

When the woman notices, she moves quickly to take the glass out of the infant’s hand and becomes so consumed with rescuing its contents, she released her supporting hand from the baby’s waist.

The unavoidable ensues and the baby falls sideways to the floor before just his feet are visible in the picture.

@T54350877 wrote that she could have easily just picked up the baby instead of dropping the baby to save her half a glass of wine.

@Musmu1203 was among those defending the actions of the grandmother, saying that if the glass had fallen with the baby, it would have broken and the baby would have been hurt and that she did the right thing.

@Matt_Dean1994 added that as a parent, she should have let the baby fall, that babies bounce and that when they fall they’re okay almost every time. That the glass could have broken and the baby would have been at risk of cutting itself on the fragments of glass.

Of course, it’s an involuntary reaction to grab something that’s falling. It was an accident, and I’m sure she didn’t mean to let the baby fall, she just reacted, automatically.

Perhaps she did the right thing, otherwise, the child would have cut himself to shreds, and it seems that this has been made into a bigger thing than was needed, although it would have been a much bigger thing with the baby being rushed to the Emergency Room.

I would sooner my baby have a bruised bottom, than a fragment of glass in it from the smashed flute, and seeing as the child was already standing on the floor, they weren’t going to fall very far, although it does beggar belief why this child was allowed to walk around while there was glassware about.

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