Shamima Begum and Boris Johnson Both Violated The Law

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When she ran away to join an Islamic State in 2015, Shamima Begum violated the law.

A year earlier, then Home Secretary Theresa May had applied powers under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000, to make the death cult a proscribed organisation, and having anything to do with the group was punishable by up to 10 years in jail or a fine, and Shamima Begum, by all accounts was an intelligent girl and knew what she was doing.

But when Boris Johnson decided to impose Chris Grayling as chairman of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, he was in violation of section 1 (6) of the Justice and Security Act 2013, which says it’s not up to him, and he knew what he was doing as well.

There were uncorroborated reports of what Shamima Begum did during her time in Syria, good and bad.

All we know for sure is that at the age of 15 years old, she married a 23-year-old Dutch convert in a ceremony that would not be accepted as legitimate in Dutch or British law.

Ten days later, he was imprisoned by ISIS as a spy, but after his release, Shamima Begum had 3 children. Her first died of malnutrition, and a third of pneumonia in a refugee camp.

When Shamima Begum left the United Kingdom, police said she’d committed no crimes and would not be treated as a subversive, but after ISIS collapsed, the government stripped her of British citizenship under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, on the grounds she was not conducive to the public good.

That same law says a British citizen must not be declared stateless unless there are just grounds for believing that another country could take them, which was in this instance, her parent’s home country of Bangladesh, which was a place she’d never been.

Pregnant Shamima Begum was found by a media outlet and her first-ever interview was printed on February 13, 2019.

She said she didn’t regret her actions, and that seeing a severed head didn’t faze her at all, but that by the end she just couldn’t take any more, and all she wanted to do was to come home to Britain.

A day later Sajid Javid announced to the media that he’d stripped her of citizenship, but he didn’t sign the paperwork until later on, but when Shamima Begum gave birth to her third child, that child had automatic British citizenship, and two days after that, Bangladesh said she wouldn’t be permitted to enter the country.

Both factors meant, under the law, Shamima Begum must have her citizenship returned and it was not, and Sajid Javid told the Home Office Affairs Select Committee he would never remove citizenship if it made someone stateless.

He said that he hadn’t done that and he wasn’t knowledgeable that one of his predecessors had done that in a case where they knew a person only has one citizenship, as that would be violating international law.

A year later, Shamima Begum lost a bid to return to the United Kingdom and argue the case, but the ruling was overthrown by the Court of Appeal, but the Home Office has stated it will counter appeal, and that it may end up in the Supreme Court, in a year or more’s time.

In the 5 years since she joined ISIS, there’s been no obvious proof that Shamima Begum violated any other laws.

Shamima Begum was born in England and she was radicalised here and failed by our police and government and she is our responsibility, and when a friend of hers joined ISIS, Shamima Begum was questioned by counter-terrorism police without the knowledge of her parents, and according to the lawyers for the family, she was not referred to the Prevent anti-terror scheme, but both were criminal.

Parliament was told that when she left for Syria, it took 2 days for the Foreign Office to notify the Turkish government, by way of an overnight email.

It was 3 days before police arranged a BBC appeal, and four days for the information to be given to Interpol.

Several weeks later, evidence surfaced a Canadian man had helped the girls across into Syria, but because she was deemed a minor and a victim of international trafficking, grooming, and forced marriage, Shamima Begum should have been protected by international law, the United Nations, and the UK government.

In legislation written by the Coalition in 2014, Shamima Begum was a victim of child abuse and had a claim to lifelong anonymity, and whoever trafficked or coerced her into marriage overseas can be tried and imprisoned in the United Kingdom.

But it’s still reported the Foreign Office will spend no attempt to bring her home, although none of this means shes innocent. She’s blameworthy of at least one pretty serious wrong, but she appears to have done little damage with it.

Shamima Begum’s story is not of a glorious jihadi, but a pitiful follower, and she’s the antithesis of an advert for ISIS, and it’s a bit like crashing your car into a tree, failing to die, and then being charged with dangerous driving, and you have to question if it’s deserving of the paperwork.

Boris Johnson wasn’t born in England, but in New York and in the years since, the USA has allowed many thousands of its children to be slain by guns, and its citizens being drugged by CIA funded crack cocaine, and its people terrorised by white supremacists.

Boris Johnson didn’t relinquish his US citizenship until he was 52, but then, being American isn’t a felony, although last year, the Supreme Court ruled Boris Johnson wasn’t conducive to anything good either.

His determination to prorogue Parliament broke the law because it had the effect of preventing or hindering the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional duties.

Closing Parliament destroyed the lives and freedoms of 66 million people. The Supreme Court reinstated them quickly, but Boris Johnson’s acknowledgement that he deeply opposed damage trust and support for the judiciary, which superintends more than 2 million criminal and civil cases every year.

And his persistent bigotry, misogyny and other hate speech have never reached the threshold for prosecution because closing Parliament isn’t a violation, neither is breaking the Highway Code, delaying the Russia report, hunting headlines, lying to journalists, banishing someone to an unfamiliar land, imposing a committee chairman or misleading Parliament.

But they’re all extremely damaging to this country, and against our basic democratic values, and it’s extremely doubtful that the Secretary of State will be penalised for illegally stripping someone of citizenship for political reasons, or refusing to bring home a British victim of child molestation.

Politics and terrorism should be a long way apart, and it shouldn’t be possible to draw similarities between them. Yet here we have two people, who qualified for and lost citizenship in various ways, both of whom broke the rules.

One is being punished with severity greater than the harm she’s done, and the other isn’t being punished at all, and no matter how severe or insignificant the crimes are, if breaking the law carries no punishment, then there’s no law.

Shamima Begum should be returned to the United Kingdom and tried for the crimes she’s accused of perpetrating against us. Otherwise, what’s the point of outlawing ISIS? And the officials who allowed her to be groomed, trafficked and violated should face investigation, or they will make the same mistakes with other children.

And Boris Johnson, whose reach is far greater, and a listing of crimes far longer must be tried for his transgressions – for the 65,000 excess deaths, Parliamentary gerrymandering, deceptions, perversions, and damage to the institutions which are what stand between us and fear.

And possibly more than anything else, he must be judged for telling a child rape victim that she can find her own way home, so if she’s guilty, then so is he.

And Sir Keir Starmer needs to make a statement on his position on this. Does he support the Government in stopping her coming back, or not?

But it’s not about whether Boris Johnson should have supported Shamima Begum returning or not, he broke the law when he did what he did, and now he’s having to pay the price for her possible return – had he done what the law stated, she could have been removed from Britain legally and not permitted to return, but now he will wait to see which way the wind blows before he says anything on the matter.

It would be pleasing to believe that the people of the United Kingdom are understanding and liberally inclined, however, when it comes to Shamima Begum, words tend to fail me because she has on the numerous occasions that she’s been interviewed, failed to show one ounce of empathy for the innocent victims who were savagely butchered by the despicable cult she supported, and would presumably still be supporting had they not been defeated.

However, she was a British citizen at the time, and perhaps rather than extraditing her to another country, this government should have put her on trial, however, they couldn’t because she’d done nothing wrong, aside from supporting a vile faction.

There were tens of thousands of children living under the control of ISIS – children they actively recruited as their next crop of soldiers.

They teach them how to load and strip guns and how to be in the shooting position, and boys as young as 14 years old joined ISIS after they convinced them they were true Muslims. Children would then give everything to Islamic State’s victory because they believed it was being oppressed by everyone, and they told these children that they should give everything to them, and even sacrifice themselves.

And boys who’ve undergone ISIS training said that they’re also being shown something much more dangerous, and that in the religious military camps you learn something called listening and obeying, and that you must listen and obey even if you have to die.

ISIS called these children cubs of the caliphate, and children were being systematically recruited across ISIS.

It’s really difficult but the principal intention is to produce a new army of unquestioning, and what ISIS considers, ideologically pure fighters, and they’re making a new generation for the Caliphate to fight infidels, and there are countless children who had complete loyalty.

It’s that loyalty that ISIS was utilising for another horrifying purpose, and it began with showing children videos of suicide attacks. The scenes were repeated again and again, and when the child saw them, he then thought he wanted to do the same as them, so that they would go to ISIS and say they wanted to become a suicide bomber.

The youngest boy who wanted to be a suicide bomber was eight years old, just a child, and because he was a child, you would never be able to convince him to give up his beliefs.

But convincing young children to sacrifice their lives without issue needed intense brainwashing, and there were teachers who prepared girls as young as 10 years old for suicide attacks.

They pushed them into jihad and told these girls that they would all die martyrs and reach Heaven, all of them and that it was written in the Quran that they had to fight jihad, and they all had to join jihad for the sake of God and the Islamic State.

But that the most crucial thing to make them understand is that President Bashar’s state was infidel and that everyone should fight them, and that was God’s word, essentially indoctrinating children.

Children were trained to spy on their parents, who risked death if they objected to their children joining ISIS, and boys were routinely gathered in town squares, where they were given money and food to join ISIS and fed anti-western tirades.

And when they gathered the children, they would say for them to come and fight jihad in the name of God and they would enter Heaven. They said that they would enjoy it and that they would give them many things, and countless children followed.

The boys were made to assemble in front of large screens and made to watch videos of ISIS cruelty and propaganda movies, and they showed them how to kill President Bashar’s soldiers – sometimes they tried not to watch, but when they did watch they were frightened, and they were ordered to watch actual executions too.

But perhaps most disturbingly of all, ISIS released videos showing beheadings being carried out by boys themselves, and boys were told they would be executed if they didn’t join ISIS by 16.

But death was not the only punishment for refusing to join ISIS. ISIS fighters would capture young children and torture them into forcing them to join.

They would string them up and torture them for a month and a half, saying, why don’t they pledge allegiance to Islamic State? Why don’t you fight against the non-Muslims with us? Yet they were slaughtering Muslims.

Some refused to join and they were condemned to a horrifying punishment. Where they would gather people, fasten their hand and leg and put their hand on a wooden block and cut off their hand with a butcher’s knife, then cut off the foot and put them in front of them to see, and the price of resistance was consistent pain and depression.

Thousands of children have been born or raised in the Islamic State, and now the world’s governments have to decide how and whether to reintegrate them into their societies and as the militants retain only a small sliver of territory in Syria, Western countries are being compelled to grapple with how to deal with children who qualify for citizenship through their parents, including foreign fighters who carried out atrocities overseas.

And the plea from the British ISIS bride to return to the United Kingdom with her infant son demonstrates that problem.

British teenagers Kadiza Sultana, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum passed through the security barriers at Gatwick Airport near London as they began their mission to Syria in 2015 – Shamima Begum was age 15 at the time.

Her child is innocent and has every right to grow up in the peace and safety of this homeland, and while it’s not clear how far Shamima Begum’s association with ISIS went, she’s been cited as saying that she had no regrets about moving to Syria, and such remarks have triggered a debate in Britain about whether Shamima Begum could or should be rehabilitated back into society.

But under international law, countries are bound to allow their nationals to return home. However, European countries have been unwilling to take back homegrown fighters, and their families believe they’re safer outside of Europe.

Britain has even gone so far as to revoke the citizenship of more than 100 ISIS soldiers who had dual nationality, and minister Sajid Javid wrote in an opinion piece that while he felt compassion for any child born or brought into a battle zone, when analysing the repatriation of their parents who joined the Islamic State he had to consider the safety and security of children living in the United Kingdom.

But saying that, any country which chooses to penalise children for the misdeeds of their parents will be haunted by that choice in years to come, and it could be regarded as shortsightedness by governments because you can’t just leave small children in the desert, in the wilderness because they’re going to grow to be wild or feel the need or urge to exact retribution.

Only Russia has so far repatriated any children of Islamic State fighters. The children were aged between 4 and 13 years old.

The government have a legal and moral duty to help these children reintegrate, it’s not their fault that their fathers were murderers and their mothers were participants in the Islamic State.

And President Donald Trump had called on European countries to take back the captured ISIS fighters or risk them being released. He was also asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that were captured in Syria and to put them on trial.

France stated it would repatriate ISIS fighters on a case by case basis and Germany said that while citizens have the right to return home, it was difficult for the government to estimate how many German citizens had really been affected.

ISIS recruits who wanted to return home to the United Kingdom would have to go to a British Consulate in Iraq or Turkey and the same would apply for their children.

Couples living in the caliphate were urged to marry young and to have as many children as possible so the next generation could continue to carry the jihad banner, and countless ISIS fighters also married more than one woman.

Children would be forced to watch and participate in the execution of ISIS prisoners, and the motto of ISIS was that these children were never too young to start thinking about jihad and brainwashing children into violence was very much part of their ethos.

An ISIS math textbook that was acquired by a media outlet showing images of guns, bullets and tanks to better demonstrate basic math, while an English language workbook used drawings of bombs to teach them how to read the time and the working premise should be that the children of ISIS-linked parents are both vulnerable and dangerous.

Risk assessments would be needed on a case by case basis, with those closest to the age of 18 being more able of posing a substantial threat because some of these children have received bomb training.

This is what you call real child abuse, and this is a doctrine that makes innocent and adorable children into revolutionaries, and this is particularly disturbing because innocents are beautiful and we were all children once, so how can anyone do this to a child?

These are underprivileged children that ISIS turn into monsters, and indoctrination is the worst crime, not only for their victims but also for those around the victims and society.

And in a typical primary school, a pupil would learn A is for apple but children who have been brainwashed by ISIS, these children learn that A is for AK47, and many of these children will never see their adulthood, get married, leave home or even have children.

But this is a very difficult thing to reverse, although it is quite possible and those children could end up using their ability to help better the world. But if we do start to accept refugees, we need to start vetting people again.

Do Americans even vet Americans anymore? The thing is we’re creating terrorism everywhere, and America has been way worse than what other countries have been in recent years.

We keep reacting on hate, and then all we do is promote even more hate, and we’re starting to lose control of everything, but we have to help people if we can because real strength comes from striving for what’s right, and it’s right to help guide children to a better path.

These poor inexperienced children suffer from idiots because children think it’s a game, they don’t know it’s war.

Religion is the creation of spirituality into something that became the handmaiden of champions, and almost all religions were brought to people and forced on people by conquerors and used as the frame to dominate their thoughts.

But now religion is viewed by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as beneficial.

But now men can’t seem to take on armies, they would rather put their children into combat because they’re so desperate for a win they would rather endanger their children’s lives.

Brainwashing sticks to these children’s brains like superglue and might be difficult to remove, but ordinary people across the globe are being indoctrinated by media organisations, and they use everything to brainwash you, lyrics, songs, adverts and countless more.

Who are the real victims? And I’m not condoning or supporting ISIS for their actions, I’m simply wondering where all this hatred came from.

Remember these children didn’t all join the Islamic State, many of them were violated into doing so, and it now seems that humanity is the plague.

But just bear in mind that ISIS is ISIS and Islam is something entirely separate, and not all Muslims are ISIS. However, there are millions of communities, cultures and ethnicity in the world, all created by the human brain, seeking to demonstrate their point.

And as humans, we love the Game which has given birth to religions, and religion is a virus or a blessing and it all runs on how you want to believe it – sadly, there’s no reversing what happened to these children.

Confusion As Michael Gove Says …

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Face masks shouldn’t be made compulsory in England’s shops, that’s what Michael Gove said, but now Boris Johnson has now toughened up the rules on coverings and has made face coverings mandatory.

There are some people out there that chose to wear face coverings, there are others that don’t and there are many that can’t because of disabilities – perhaps we should just use common sense, which most people have been doing.

Although there has been some indication that face coverings reduce the spread of COVID 19 indoors, and now the United Kingdom and Scotland have made them mandatory in shops.

And they seem to prevent people from producing as many droplets when they breathe and talk, which supposedly could remain airborne for an hour without proper ventilation, but the Cabinet Office Minister appears to have guilt-tripped the public into wearing face coverings in stores, saying that it was basic good manners, respect and courtesy to wear a face mask in shops.

But he seemed to rule out making them compulsory, maintaining that it was always better to trust people’s common sense, and mixed messages from the government on this and is propagating uncertainty.

Society as a whole has overwhelmingly been doing the right thing, although there have been some that have been flouting the rules, so some manageable direction would be good for some people to comprehend, however, this inept government are precariously muddling messages.

The government should be encouraging people to wear face masks when they’re inside an environment where they’re likely to be mixing with others and where the ventilation may not be good, but on the whole, it’s best to trust people’s common sense.

Of course, the government should keep the policy under review and should be encouraging people to wear coverings in shops, rather than enforcing it, and there have been numerous people saying that if they have to wear them, they simply won’t go out – just another way to dampen the economy.

And it’s quite right that the government should treat the British people with the respect that their intelligence and their judgement deserves.

And if people can get to work by using other means, they should, such as walking or cycling, but sometimes public transport is the only way people can get to work, and of course, people should use public transport safely.

But again there’s this confounded confusion, and the people of this country now appear to be an inconvenience whilst the government fill their pockets. So do we don a mask as Boris Johnson said, or do we not wear one as Michael Gove said?

Do people go back to work? Because they are numerous government offices that have not reopened their doors to the public and have not gone back to work, so why should joe public go back to work?

Does the public go on holiday to Greece like Boris Johnson’s father has or do we simply accept that the holidays that we booked last December has been cancelled as travel between the United Kingdom and Greece has been forbidden by both countries?

And the price of masks will be increasing because remember this is Rip off Britain, and no doubt some Tory contributor will be making loads of money out of this disaster, and of course, there will be people out there that won’t want to listen to this shambolic, inadequate and immoral government anymore, and they’ll just do what they want and do the reverse and go with their gut instinct.

It looks like Michael Gove is repudiating his own Prime Minister who he’s the cabinet of, but they’re supposed to have a discussion they agree on before they commence handing out Government statements, and this government is a shambles.

And these MPs who are criticising must believe that the preponderance of the population are morons, when the central message to people here should be careful reflection and common sense.

The thing is with social distancing there are now long queues outside shops and supermarkets, and sometimes we just want to pop in and purchase a singular item, but end up spending more. Now, more people will put that on hold, so profits will hit and will continue to do so whilst all this madness plays out.

Of course, the pandemic isn’t nonsense, it’s real, and it’s happening right now and it’s deadly, and no country in the world actually knows how to best deal with it, and it could be said that the Tories don’t know what they’re doing, but they do.

That’s not to say that they’re not incompetent, they are because they’re seeking profit above all else and if that means planting confusion, chaos and destruction, then as far as the Tories are concerned, so be it.

This government can’t tell everyone to get back to work so that they can restart the city centres, and then make masks compulsory because people will just not bother going out, and it should be a person’s decision, not that of politicians who have turned the world upside down without the mandate to do so, and our government seems to speak with many forked tongues.

Boris Johnson said that he was going to make face masks compulsory when shopping – Michael Gove said that they’re not going to make them compulsory when shopping and that it was down to people to use their common sense, although it was good manners to wear one when out and about – this government clearly don’t have an ounce of common sense between them.

Clearly, our Prime Minister doesn’t actually talk to his cabinet, and clearly, the cabinet and Prime Minister don’t even know what one another have said to the public on a day to day basis.

No wonder the people of Great Britain are totally stumped as to what they can and can’t do, and maybe there should be a crowd mantra at our inept Prime Minister ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’ as they stroll past Downing Street.

At the end of the day, we simply need one representative who delivers the changes because at the moment it’s like doing the hokey pokey – you put your left leg in, put your right leg in, and then fall on your bum.

Then we have the exorbitant cost of face masks – four months ago they would have been between £5.00-7.99 for a pack of washable and reusable masks at the chemist, but after Boris Johnson said they had become mandatory they have now multiplied.

But this is all a load of bunkum anyhow. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that even if everyone wore a mask, they can only reduce the spread of the virus by about 5 per cent, as the virus can penetrate the body via any mucus membrane and a mask doesn’t cover your eyes.

I guess 5 per cent is better than 0 per cent, but then why introduce it now and not 4 months ago? That’s a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, and there appear to be too many people losing their jobs and too many MPs keeping theirs.

And politicians in this country seem to be terrified of making decisions, particularly if they don’t think they’ll be popular with the electorate when they should be studying the bigger picture and doing what’s needed to protect the people.

Frustrated In Essex

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Labelled as manicure Monday, bosses opened their doors to customers as the Government gave the green light to carry out specific treatments, but workers said they were not busy as customers were left feeling frustrated by the insufficient offering.

Nail treatments, leg and bikini waxing and massages are back on the menu, but treatments involving work directly in front of the face have been forbidden, and it now appears that salons are not flat out, but that’s probably due to several different reasons.

Salons can’t do face treatments and presumably, a few people have chosen to do their own nails now, and some customers are a tad concerned about going back, but you would think that salons would be busy when they reopened.

It seems that phones have not been ringing very much either, but it’s believed that as soon as the salons can do more treatments and people are feeling a bit more positive about going out, then business should improve.

And it’s frustrating that salons can’t do face treatments and their customers are a bit gutted about it as well, and salons also want to make a modest sum of money and they’re not going to while they’re limited as to what they can do.

They all have their personal protective equipment and are doing everything they can to get clients through the door.

Screens and barriers are in place between clients and staff on the premises, with enhanced surface sanitation and handwashing implemented.

The latest rules will further spell the end of spontaneous treatments in numerous salons, as businesses are urged to consider using appointment only booking systems to reduce the number of people on-site at one time.

There won’t be a cup of tea with the pedicure, as food and drink other than water is to be forbidden, and there will be more disposable supplies, and skin to skin contact will be circumvented where practicable.

Customers chairs will be spread out, which may reduce the number of appointments, and if two-metre distancing can’t be maintained, for instance, when giving treatments, the person giving the service should wear additional protection.

This may include a clear visor that covers the face, in addition to screens and gloves, and businesses will be asked to keep records of clients and staff to share with NHS Test and Trace if required.

So now, online shopping is taking over and the only thing left in the high streets will be restaurants, beauty parlours, nail salons, estate agents and perhaps betting shops, and even big brands aren’t immune from the rising force of economics, and now some are closing their physical doors.

And according to reports, the growth of the number of store counts has degenerated, and old traditional shopping no longer prevails.

Shopping is often essential, but can also be time consuming and inconvenient, and now the industry has started to develop and evolve with society becoming ever more digitalised, and there’s been a notable transformation in all walks of life and is now shifting from reality to the virtual world, and shopping is no different.

And with online wholesales offering financial and logistical capability, there’s less need to leave the house to shop. So, undoubtedly, high street shops are in decline, but will online shopping have the ability and obtain the popularity to make physical shops obsolete in the future?

Now, Amazon is leading the way for shopping originality.

Its innovation and continuous metamorphosis of the industry as a whole is quickly leaving high street shops behind, but the dilemma for physical shops isn’t just one company though – the threat is coming from the digitalisation of society in general.

It began with Blockbusters, a once-mighty firm – the growth of video streaming sites such as YouTube, and later Netflix, which gradually destroyed any shop whose sole premise was selling video’s, as consumers migrated to the more affordable and more suitable online equivalents.

Take bookmakers as another example – they’re in grave peril of being closed down for good, solely due to the precipitous rise in popularity of online gaming. After all, why would someone leave their house to hike to the bookmakers, lay a bet at whatever the odds are being offered to them and then go home, only to have to return to that shop to collect any winnings?

Instead, they can stay in the comfort of their own home. Shop around literally every bookmaker online to decide which ones give the best odds and lay a bet like that, meaning that they can withdraw winnings remotely as well.

Entertainment is another enterprise, associated to both gaming and streaming, that’s been massively affected by digitalisation, and looking at gaming respectively, developments such as virtual reality offering fully immersive experiences for all variety of games, are ensuring that the gaming industry remains fresh.

It’s still as popular as ever, yet high street gaming shops are struggling due to this online migration, with some stores offering a remote, online platform to buy games from, and the New Gen consoles are even phasing out the need for physical discs, with numerous games already ready to buy from online stores.

And for both consumers and producers, it’s hard to see how the growth of online shopping will be harmful, but of course, if shops aren’t prepared to adapt, they face being left behind.

High street versions of shops may close, but the online presence should still satisfy the demand from customers, should the firm welcome digital migration, and if firms do embrace the online transformation, they should simply retain most of their custom and outgoing expenses like employer salaries and shop maintenance will be diminished or even be eradicated.

For the customer, online gives a far more extensive experience, and not only are the commodities not restricted to what’s inside one store, but they also have an opportunity to shop around to find the most desirable price, and what’s more, this is all from the convenience of their own home.

Although these could also be shut down with apps like Just Eat where you can simply order food from the comfort of your own home, and there will be no need for social intercommunication with another person except if you go and visit them at their home because everything is now online with Facebook being at the vanguard of technology.

Online shopping will never fully replace high street shops, as there will also be a meagre demand for going into stores. However, if we’re talking about which will become the most prevalent form of shopping over the coming years, it’s difficult to see how shops can compete with their online counterparts.

Maybe the only way for high street shops to compete is to also embrace technology and design a shopping experience which will be different but superior to that which customers get online.

High Street Bloodbath

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Britain’s economic problem intensified as three large firms revealed their job losses bring the number to more than 150,000.

Boots, John Lewis and Burger King are axing their workers due to coronavirus, and Rishi Sunak’s meal deal recovery plan was not up to the task of saving thousands of high street businesses.

Rishi Sunak promised to put jobs at the centre of his economic recovery, but the reality of the task was laid bare with a high street bloodbath.

Just a day after the Chancellor’s mini-Budget promised discount meals for people to get Britain spending, three major firms unleased more suffering and uncertainty by announcing closures to shops and outlets.

Boots, John Lewis and Burger King followed the expanding stream of businesses axing thousands of jobs, which indicates the number of jobs lost in the wake of the coronavirus disaster has reached more than 150,000.

And there were concerns that the five-week wait for Universal Credit will plunge thousands into debt if they’re given the boot from work, and it’s believed the latest cuts are just the tip of the iceberg as the furlough scheme comes to an end.

Britain’s high streets are facing a horror show, and Rishi Sunak’s promise to offer cheap meals out during certain days in August is just a drop in the ocean, as more and more people are left with no jobs and others suffer pay cuts.

A 13-day meal deal is certainly not up to the task for saving tens of thousands of jobs on the high street and in hospitality, and the Chancellor’s announcement was a missed chance to give practical help to save jobs now through fightback fund sectors still in trouble.

Boots unveiled more than 4,000 job cuts to offset the significant impact of COVID 19, and the cull of about 7 per cent of its workforce, included redundancies at its Nottingham headquarters, stores and optician chains, where it’s closing 48 branches.

The retailer said sales fell 48 per cent over the past three months, despite branches being allowed to open, while optician sales plunged 72 per cent.

Boots UK managing director Sebastian James said that the proposals were decisive steps which enabled Boots to sustain its important role as part of the UK health system and to guarantee effective long term growth.

But shopworker’s union Usdaw national officer Daniel Adams added that after everything Boots workers have given to their communities and their country as key workers over the past few months, it was bitterly depressing news and a further blow to the high street.

Burger King UK chief executive Alasdair Murdoch warned the company could permanently close up to 10 per cent of its stores, and that only around 370 of the chain’s 530 UK outlets had reopened since lockdown.

Alasdair Murdoch said that they didn’t want to lose any jobs and that they strive really hard not to, but that one had to assume that somewhere between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of their restaurants might not be able to survive.

John Lewis confirmed eight shops have closed since the start of the coronavirus lockdown and would not reopen.

They include its flagship Grand Central store in Birmingham, which only opened in 2015, along with another full-size branch in Watford, and the worker-owned business has started deliberation with 1,300 of its workers.

Aircraft engine maker Rolls Royce said more than 3,000 British workers had applied for redundancy, with about 2,000 set to go, and approximately 17,000 possible job losses have been announced so far this month alone, on top of 75,000 last month.

Rishi Sunak had sought to stop a surge of redundancies by promising firms a £1,000 gratuity for keeping furloughed workers in employment until the end of January, but obviously to no avail.

The Chancellor, who visited the Worcester Bosh plant, had further sparked concerns of tax hikes and spending cuts to come later after his pandemic recovery fund hit £190 billion.

That would spoil Boris Johnson’s general election promise to end austerity and reimburse the trust of voters in Labour’s once-loyal red wall of northern seats who shifted to the Tories.

Amongst those hardest hit by job losses have been the lower-paid, usually with limited savings if any to fall back on, and that risks a million more people signing up for Universal Credit.

And a damaging report by The National Audit Office found that the five-week wait for Universal Credit payment after losing a job could increase claimants debt.

But the Government must end this five-week wait now because it’s creating unnecessary pressure and grief, and it clearly didn’t occur to Rishi Sunak that any simpleton can stand there and spew any twaddle.

And over the years, we’ve never seen such an inefficient government as this. U-turns every other day with so many so-called initiatives or not enough and always far too late, the entire thing is a Fawlty Towers parody.

Keir Starmer Accuses Boris Johnson Of Cruel Move

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Keir Starmer has blasted Boris Johnson for pulling the plug on free TV licences for over 75s.

The Labour leader attacked the Prime Minister of savagely admonishing pensioners who may have to choose between paying their TV licence and heating their homes.

The assault came as Boris Johnson dug his heels in, and said the BBC remained responsible for the perk, in spite of their Tory manifesto promise in 2017 to preserve it until at least 2022.

The BBC said up to 3.7 million homes will have to start paying the £157.50 annual payment, besides those getting Pension Credit.

The move reflects a deal imposed on the BBC by the Government in 2015.

Free licences for all over 75s would cost £745 million a year, as the Chancellor Rishi Sunak put aside £500 million for his meal deal discount for restaurant diners, and Sir Keir Starmer stated that it just wasn’t good enough for the Prime Minister to pass the buck and indict the BBC.

The Prime Minister is turning his back on hundreds of thousands who will struggle to pay this and could be forced to choose between paying their TV licence or their heating this winter.

TV has been crucial to numerous pensioners during coronavirus, and the idea that Boris Johnson can take away so many people’s connection to the outside world is brutal.

And in a statement from No 10, Boris Johnson stated that they were bitterly disappointed by the BBC’s decision not to prolong the concession past August but that the BBC continues to be responsible for the concession and for setting out what those affected will now need to do.

And he said the financially struggling corporation should now look urgently at how it can use its abundant licence fee revenue, and agitated OAPs organised by the Silver Voices campaign group are threatening to gum up the works of the licencing scheme.

It’s considering creative but legitimate ways to complicate payments and increase the cost of collection by stopping direct debits and standing orders in favour of cheques and cash, and a small number of over 75s have said they may intentionally break the law as a matter of principle, to express their disgust at the plan.

And it’s definitely not worth the money they’re asking – make it more affordable and people might not mind so much, but £157.50 they can bite me, and all pensioners should get their pitchforks out and make a stand by refusing to pay it.

Elton John Says He Was Surprised By Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Decision To Vacate Their Royal Responsibilities

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Sir Elton John was surprised by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s decision to vacate their senior royal responsibilities.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have become dear to the musician in recent years, having known Harry his entire life through his cherished bond with Princess Diana, and even lending the couple his French Riviera home and private plane.

The first that Sir Elton John learned of the details and timing of Harry and Meghan’s intentions were when the news went up on their Instagram.

But the bombshell decision that has shaken the royal family and threatened to widen the gulf between the Cambridges and Sussexes came as a surprise to him and was described as a rock to the royal rebels, with Sir Elton John defending the couple, following the backlash over their use of four private planes in 11 days, calling Princess Diana one of his dearest friends, whose family he felt a heartfelt sense of duty to defend.

A royal insider said that Sir Elton John talks to Harry and Meghan every day and that he’s an inspiration, an almost maternal figure, and that he was continuous support, particularly to Meghan, and is highly protective of them both.

He’s been their rock, but while he would never tell them what to do, he’s been a listening ear and support throughout.

Harry and Meghan’s plan to quit as senior Royal has broadened the gulf between the two siblings, with William understood to be incandescent over his brother’s blindsiding of the Family.

William said that he’s put his arm around his brother their entire lives and that he couldn’t do it anymore and that they were now separate entities.

William further talked of his disappointment that Harry was no longer part of the team by choosing to become financially independent, yet he hoped that there would come a time when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would be singing from the same page once again.

The Queen was also pictured ashen-faced behind the wheel of her Land Rover and is said to be concerned for the mental delicacy of her grandson Harry.

It also surfaced that the Duke of Sussex pulled the trigger on his abdication decision because he feared his wife, who had not settled well in the United Kingdom, was on the verge and could suffer a meltdown if she remained in the country permanently.

Anxious to circumvent intensifying an already tense situation, the Royal Family is keen to tread gingerly, and there’s no suggestion that they will be punished or stripped of their Royal titles or HRH standing, and that everyone wanted to attain a solution as quickly as possible.

It was said that Sir Elton John talks to Harry and Meghan every day but that he was surprised that he wasn’t told, well, some things are best left unsaid, and what has it got to do with him anyway?

Perhaps Sir Elton John was being extremely diplomatic because he must know that if he said anything, they would discard him because they have new friends with bigger homes, yachts and private jets.

We shouldn’t be surprised that Elton was surprised. Let’s face it, it was surprising news, which was surprisingly surprising.

Princess Diana had a no barred interview too when there were three in their marriage, and it gave her the divorce and the independence she needed.

She was also on a similar path as Harry is now. Her presence was worth a lot of money at charity functions in the US. Her dresses were auctioned and she also capitalised on her name.

Harry is following in his mother’s footsteps, so we should all stop the hostility and let him settle down and set out his own life.

At least he married for love and not just to produce an heir to the throne.

Sir Elton John needs to worry about his own life, and when did he stop being a pop star and then turned into some sort of social commentator?

The Queen has broken rules several times to make Meghan feel welcome and that’s absolutely magnificent, but sometimes the saying ‘where I lay my hat’ isn’t always true. Meghan must have been feeling extremely homesick and it was a huge adjustment for her.

However, Prince Harry will struggle with his new life, and he will also find life a bit challenging.

The couple and their baby Archie moved to Los Angeles after a few months in Canada, following their decision to step down as senior members of the Royal Family officially on March 31.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the trio left Canada for the States where Meghan’s mum Doria Ragland lives. But a royal source claimed that Harry is appearing to be thinking twice about his long term stay there and will not apply for a green card or US citizenship in the foreseeable future.

And there have been concerns over Prince Harry during the coronavirus crisis as he self isolates with Meghan, and there were concerns that Harry has no sense of purpose and no stabilising family influence during the crisis.

Harry is someone who’s really connected to his family, it’s all he’s ever known.

He had his life with his mum and dad and then he had his life with his mum and dad separately, then he lost his mum and so he was left with his dad and Prince William.

It was further reported Prince Harry would discontinue hunting as his wife Meghan didn’t like it, so that’s over for him as well, and he may struggle in Los Angeles without his friends around him. Meghan, however, has her mum on hand in California’s View Park, but that also compares to how Meghan must have felt in the United Kingdom.

It was also reported that Prince Harry and Meghan looked at a home in the same Californian community Princess Diana once intended to live, and the couple are said to be house hunting in the Malibu, Pacific Palisades and the Pacific Coast Highway corridor of Los Angeles.

However, Prince Harry might have lots more to keep him occupied in future if speculation about them having another baby proves to have any basis, and it was reported that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle would like to see their family progress as they navigate life after royalty.

A source told US Weekly that they want another child, but the couple is said to want to wait a few months first because they’re still enjoying precious days with their son Archie, but that they’ve committed to having another baby, but don’t want to put too much pressure on the situation.

Coronavirus Debt Will Take Decades To Pay Off

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The UK’s coronavirus debt will take decades to pay off as the country faces the most penetrating slump in its antiquity.

The esteemed Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank warned Chancellor Rishi Sunak that they will be forced to increase taxes as the nation’s £190 billion COVID 19 spree leads to a reckoning, and borrowing will hit its highest levels in 300 years aside from two world wars.

It came after Rishi Sunak declined to rule out long term tax increases and acknowledged there would be tough choices in future amid a particularly significant recession, and IFS Director Paul Johnson predicted no big tax rises this year or next.

This will be no ordinary recession, it will be the deepest in our history.

Last month the national debt topped the UK’s whole yearly GDP for the first time since 1963 as the Chancellor pumped cash into propping up the economy.

Ten billion has been spent on the NHS’s test and trace programme alone, and another £15 billion on protective equipment for frontline workers, and the debt will be much higher than expected, and £500 billion of borrowing this year and next won’t be a surprise.

And IFS Deputy Director Carl Emmerson said that we’re going to borrow more as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than we did at the peak of the financial disaster, and he said that while government borrowing is currently cheap, that could change.

He said, maintaining that elevated debt, and in particular the chance that the correlation between interest rates and economic growth turns out to be less advantageous than it is at the moment, will be a task for not just the current Chancellor but also many of his replacements.

Carl Emmerson said tax rises of about £35 billion a year – 1.5 per cent of GDP, might be required just to sustain the debt, adding it could be quite a chunky tax increase, but he added there was uncertainty around the figure, because the economy may end up permanently smaller.

Carl Emmerson stated the Chancellor also said in his address that over the medium term they must and they will put their public finances back on a sustainable foundation, and he believed that what that implied was that once they were through the emergency phase, once the economy had been established to its new normal, they were seemingly going to discover that the economy was not as big as what it would have been had the coronavirus never hit.

And if that was the case, it was highly likely the case, that revenues would still be depressed, and that if they wanted to try to bring the shortfall back to where it would have been absent the crisis, they would need to make some spending cuts, or given a decade of austerity, possibly some tax increases.

And delivering its decision on the Summer Economic Update, the IFS prophesied tax rises were inevitable.

Director Paul Johnson said that the second and subsequent acts were much more difficult to address and get right and that they needed to get the balance between preserving those sectors of the economy which have a long term future for helping the transition to a new normal.

And that they also need to actually deliver goods and services and change – that’s pretty different from just disbursing cash.

Mr Rishi Sunak indicated that there would be challenging choices ahead as the UK enters a rather significant recession, declining to rule out long term tax increases following the £30 billion mini-Budget caused spending on the pandemic to about £190 billion – he said that we need to make sure we have sustainable public finances.

And that he would distinguish in everything they do this year that is one-off and time-limited to help in the first instance to protect people’s jobs but also to protect the long term damage on the economy.

He said that over the medium term, people clearly couldn’t live like this and that we have to return our public finances to a sustainable position over a reasonable period of time and that was the right thing to do for the economy, and that he was not frightened to make whatever challenging decisions had to be made.

Sadly, it’s not only the United Kingdom that will take decades to pay off the debt by this disease, but it also appears to be a global problem – except for China who will benefit from a virus they released.

But why isn’t China paying for this? Why are they not being punished for lying about the outbreak at the start and essentially creating a situation where this virus could transfer to humans?

Let’s have a second wave of lockdowns so we can actually slaughter any promise of normal life under the guise of protecting people.

This is what the government wants because we are serfs, and it will happen in the UK because we enabled our government to take away our ability to resist oppression, and you will never convince the eternally afraid of everything, to live life like you could lose it at any time because they live for the government masters – Stockholm Syndrome for the common people and they can’t even see it.

And capitalism can’t be tinkered with and the gravy train has gone totally off the rails and no amount of amends can fix that, and it’s quite astounding the number of people who have viewed themselves on this matter and are actually siding yet again with the Tories.

Although astounding doesn’t truly hit the mark, rather, typical or even stereotypical would be more suitable. This country is done in and this society, ethically and morally is gradually fading.

Sadly, you can’t fix dumb because some people must love being under tyranny, being thankful for their little houses and a little scrap of lawn – there are only two types of Tory voters, the millionaires and the confused – to find out which one you are, simply look in your wallet.

And the government know how to help this country, but they won’t because of their deep-seated resentment for helping the working classes, and to improve the economy they’d have to support the working classes and they simply can’t bring themselves to do that.

How about our government endeavour to recoup damages from China, after all, they’re to blame for this and if they don’t cough up, pardon the pun, perhaps we should stop importing their goods completely, and make everything in the United Kingdom, that will soon create jobs.

It does make sense, however, making items in the United Kingdom would never happen because the prices would be incapacitating, but it certainly would be doable to make goods in the United Kingdom because the more we make, the more the prices would lower through competition and when stuff was made in the United Kingdom years ago, at least it was made to last.

We now appear to have such an expendable society and buying cheap is actually a false economy, and there are numerous stores out there like this.

The only way to protect our economy is to bring back British manufacturing and to stop importing and to give workers much better rights.

The trouble with our society is simplicity and ignorance, and only education can combat that. The problem is that over the years we have had the intentional dumbing down of education, which has been deliberate.

Dumbing down varied according to the subject matter, and generally involved the diminishment of critical thinking and by weakening intellectual standards, thus trivialising essential information, culture and academic standards.

And for the past few decades, our country’s educational system has seen both struggle and tremendous change, and our children are not prepared for the real world when they leave school.

The journey that takes most students through school before getting their exam results is already packed with complexities, and our struggling education system places scores from standardised testing at a greater value than the actual curriculum taught in the classroom.

This means that students are only learning how to take examinations, but are lacking in other learning opportunities to amplify their possible skills and knowledge.

Take that, along with performance gaps, persistent truancy, and discouraged educators, and students are already working with a built-in disadvantage leaving school.

And on the subject of higher education, a number of students just don’t complete college.

There is an abundance of factors to consider, socioeconomic status, individual and personal barriers, even immigrant status, and it must be understood that some students are going into college unprepared and already slipping behind their peers, and academic accomplishment will be a struggle if at all accomplished.

Countless years ago we began dumbing down educational requirements starting in junior schools and continuing through college, with numerous school graduates who can’t make change at a cash register if the machine doesn’t do it for them.

Public education has been a gradually declining disaster, and now it seems to be exporting to the rest of the globe, and at a United Nations conference 15 years ago, the world’s governments agreed on the goal of enrolling every child on the planet into primary school.

Admittedly they’ve almost succeeded but oddly, this grand scheme didn’t say anything about the quality of the schooling into which we have now forced more than 9 out of every 10 human children, and the plan was to get children into government-approved classrooms, despite what happens there.

But are the students who spend more time at school really learning more as a result? Has the goal of putting more children into the classroom really led to more children getting a decent education? There doesn’t appear to be any indication that children are learning more as a result.

And in almost all developing countries the levels of learning attainment are shockingly low and in numerous low-income countries pupils learn essentially nothing and end up functionally illiterate.

In fact, the situation is so severe in some regions that for it to be improved they would require a more frequent attendance of teachers, and we appeared to have been duped by a central illusion, a confusion between formal schooling and education in general.

And pledging to teach every child in every culture through primary schooling is a little like promising to clothes every child in every climate by giving them a parka.

In fact, until recently, nearly all children learned the necessary skills of life mostly outside of school, through watching and participating in with the activities of grown-ups.

Education is an enduring means of learning, and learning takes place not only in school but in all spheres of life, and when a child plays, or listens to parents or friends, or reads a paper, or works at a job, he or she is becoming educated.

If students in many schools are learning so little and leaving functionally illiterate, and if attendance doesn’t really provide real education. If teachers sometimes don’t bother to show up, then maybe the parents and the children feel that they would learn more outside of school than in.

The presence of this educational opportunity cost may help clarify why, despite all the subsidies and bonuses meant to help encourage children into the classroom, high dropout rates of children remain an impediment to universal primary schooling.

Children are going into school, they and their families are examining the results, and they and their families are deciding they’re better off elsewhere, but sadly, this important educational opportunity cost doesn’t appear to be on a global pedagogical philanthropists radar.

There’s no consensus on why so many poor children don’t attend school or the best way to boost participation, and if children’s labour becomes essential to the family’s well-being, it may prove quite difficult to entice more children to school, and there’s no mention of any education that might happen while the child is outside the classroom.

But for the moment, let’s go on the premise that only schooling is education and that no learning occurs outside of schools.

Under this assumption, not only do children’s minds profit nothing from a day spent at home, but most of the parents of the children in the developing world are themselves completely illiterate, benighted barbarians whose brains are packed with cobwebs.

Therefore, for altruistic pedagogical overlords, it could make sense to get children away from their parents and into schools as quickly as possible, even though in some countries, almost every phase of the schooling system is dangerously deficient, with support, teaching supplies, teacher availability and qualifications, lack of student assessments and lack of incentives for improving learning outcomes.

Over numerous decades a grand experiment engaging in social engineering has been unwaveringly working to homogenise the lowest common denominator product of sub-par mediocrity, producing crops of young people who can neither read nor write, nor think for themselves in any critical way.

And this centres on the myriad of ways in which the powers that be have been systematically dumbing down people as a society for a pretty long time, and all by meticulously calculated design.

Basically, the phrase dumbing down was used as a dialect idiom in 1933 by film screenwriters to mean revising the text so as to appeal to those of lower education or intelligence.

The most prominent example of how people have been dumbed down is through the failed public education system because at one time our education system ruled supreme, but over the last many decades while much of the rest of the world has been passing us by, it appears our insidious governments have had a plan that has been executed to condition and brainwash a population of mindless, robotic citizenry that just does what it’s told, and of course, brainwashing begins early in schools.

But prior to delving into the various ways we’ve been duped and dumbed down through the years, we should take a sharp hard look at the calamitous results, with doom and gloom predictions of imminent downfall.

The economy is struggling, still mired in recession, haggard and cut off from life support, and we’re suffocating, desperately caught in collateral damage, and we’ve become an unfortunate population that’s become prey of its own government’s oppression and tyranny, leaving its citizens vulnerable, following centuries of carefully choreographed design.

And oligarchs of the banking conspiracy have ultimately got what they’ve been planning and plotting. Globally imposing austerity and impoverishment, reducing life to near Third World status, and total control.

And the oligarchs were counting on a dumbed-down society too occupied and addicted to their video games or viewing sports or Kim Kardashian’s latest wardrobe malfunction to even see that the long time oligarch eugenics program was well underway.

But this unfortunate outcome has long been in the making on several fronts, and this is the planned system of a New World Order (NWO) highlighting a planned global economy and a planned global education system that’s been cultivated for well over a century.

Fury As Tories Set To Axe Free Hospital Car Parking For NHS Workers When Coronavirus Alleviates

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Tory ministers have sparked fury after saying free hospital car parking for NHS workers will be axed as coronavirus eases.

Councils and NHS trusts in England were given money by the government in March to waive fees for hospital workers during this unprecedented time. But health minister Edward Argar announced the support can’t continue indefinitely.

And the Department of Health and Social Care has now confirmed NHS workers will only benefit in certain circumstances in England once the pandemic eases.

While the government gave no timescale for free parking to end, and free parking will continue for some limited staff, unions, LibDems and Labour voiced their anger.

The British Medical Association said the policy had gone from Clap for Carers to Clamp for Carers.

Boris Johnson could now make yet another screeching U-turn after a Tory peer said axing free parking was strange and insisted it was not even on the table.

Baroness Nicky Morgan, a former Cabinet minister, stated stories based on the government’s statements had no basis and no decisions had been taken.

She informed Sky News that she was sure that it was something that will need to be looked at again and that it did seem quite strange given how hard our NHS and care workers had worked over the last few months.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced on March 25 that the Government would cover the costs of car parking for NHS workers who he stated were going above and beyond every day at hospitals in England.

But the Department of Health has said the free parking will continue only for key patient groups and NHS workers in some cases as the pandemic eases, although no further timeline had been given.

Health Minister Edward Argar said the support to make free parking accessible can’t continue indefinitely and continued that the Government was looking at how long it would need to go on.

And replying to a written inquiry from Labour’s Rachael Maskell, he stated the provisions of free parking for National Health Service workers by NHS Trusts had not ended and nothing has altered since the announcement on 25 March.

However, free parking for staff had only been made attainable by backing from local authorities and independent providers and this help couldn’t continue indefinitely. Yet teachers and police officers don’t have to pay to park at work, but nurses do, and this is an immoral practice.

And hospital trusts are making millions of pounds by charging hard-pressed nurses for parking at work, and NHS trusts in England made about £103 million from car park fees last year.

About £78 million was paid by visitors and patients, while £25 million came from staff, and according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the burden is growing, with motorists paying £5 million more than in the previous year, and a survey revealed that nurses thought the system was grossly discriminatory, and that nurses should be excluded from the charges.

Parking costs for NHS nurses and other healthcare workers across the United Kingdom should be abolished because, with the ever-rising expense of nursing registration and petrol costs, it’s insane that nurses should be required to pay for the pleasure of parking the vehicle they use for going to work.

Exactly how far does the government and the NHS expect our much less than inflation pay rise to stretch? But Trusts say charges are needed because of the huge cost of car park maintenance, and to stop hospital land being abused by commuters and shoppers.

But nurses aren’t impressed. If you’re a factory worker, you’re not expected to pay to park at work, so why should nurses have to pay? And it shows a genuine lack of regard for the nursing profession.

No healthcare worker should have to pay to park at work. Driving to work is not a perk of the job, it’s an essential requirement and charging for car parking is an added tax on working.

The concept of charging for car parking is at odds with the spirit of the NHS, which is still bound to postulates of humanity and universality.

Parking charges stimulate more than just annoyance at cost and inconvenience, and they seem to strike against people’s sense of justice and fairness, and steep charges in England and Northern Ireland are in clear contrast to those in the rest of the UK.

Wales ended hospital car parking fees for workers, outpatients and visitants at most hospitals, and Scotland capped the charges at £3 per day and has now gone further, and Nicola Sturgeon announced that charges would be scrapped at 14 hospitals across the country.

Nurses using three car parks operated by private finance initiative contractors were not met by the new rule but the Scottish Government said it expected staff charges to be limited or reduced.

Northern Ireland health minister Michael McGimpsey introduced free car parking for severely sick patients and their families. But neither Northern Ireland nor England had any plans to eliminate fees for staff.

They didn’t believe it was a practical use of insufficient resources to subsidise car parking at hospitals for everyone. In England, hospital care parking charges are determined by individual trusts to meet the cost of operating and managing a car park, with numerous people saying that parking charges that were to be scrapped in Wales and Scotland but not in the rest of the United Kingdom was wrong.

And it wasn’t right that a chief executive on a six-figure salary paid the same to park as a band 5 staff nurse.

It’s not just about paying the fees, it’s the amount staff have to pay, and the plight of nurses and all healthcare workers who have to pay exorbitant car parking charges, and because decisions on car parking fees are made by organisations, the charges nurses face alter wildly from trust to trust.

At Addenbrooke’s Hospital, members of staff pay £2 per day to park, so a nurse working four shifts a week has to find £32 a month.

Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which made £461,926 from staff parking in 2007-2008, charges workers £7.50 a month for a parking permit if they earn less than £13,750 a year, and £14 a month if they earn more.

Although permits are usually more affordable than paying a daily rate, staff are not automatically entitled to one and they can be difficult to get at some trusts, and even if they’re lucky enough to find one, it doesn’t guarantee them a free parking space.

And it’s been argued that free car parking at NHS hospitals in England would go against their environmental policies, and calls for free parking have been defined as environmentally negligent by public health organisations.

And it’s said that free car parking would effectively blight efforts to decrease the NHS carbon footprint from transport and would undermine efforts to get staff physically active, and it was recommended that NHS trusts make more effort to encourage staff, patients and visitors to use public transport, walk or cycle.

This argument may apply to those who have a choice in how they travel to work but it doesn’t take into account nurses for whom driving is the only way they can do their job, especially for those that reside in rural districts and have no alternative but to drive to work and there are no buses available so have to use a car, and it’s a pretty bad idea to punish people for driving to work when they have no alternative.

Especially when they’re working shift patterns and unsocial hours, it can make it difficult for nurses to use alternatives to the car.

Staff need to be able to travel to work 24/7 and public transport is not always accessible or reliable and is a non-starter in the more rural regions, and if trusts want staff to use other means of transportation, they have to provide more incentives.

And employers have a duty of care to look after the well-being of their workers, and it’s about putting staff safety first, and the strain on nurses is in contrast to the treatment of other key workers.

Under normal circumstances, police officers don’t pay to park at police stations, and spaces are reserved, where feasible, for those working shifts.

Teachers are also not expected to pay to park at schools, but NHS trusts are adamant that they don’t see parking charges as an easy way to make a profit, and that revenue from car parking is used for the maintenance of the car parks, and any profit is ploughed back into frontline services.

And a spokesperson for Addenbrooke’s Hospital added that if they didn’t charge for car parking, maintenance costs would come out of the patient care budget, but if trusts are looking solely at upkeep, charges should be costed properly and the amount people pay should be in proportion because numerous organisations are making a profit by charging extreme amounts.

And even though managers do have a tremendous problem juggling budgets, this argument is ethically weak, and making nurses pay to park at work jeopardises their safety.

Boris Johnson must have been so desperate to be Prime Minister – the other day he antagonised all care home workers and then he antagonised all NHS workers, who will he push away tomorrow?

But don’t worry, tomorrow he will frolic with tank top bum boys or pickaninny’s or women dressed at letterboxes, that will make him famous again with his core fan base.

Hospital parking charges are repugnant, and if this government had any sense of propriety they would scrap hospital parking fees for everyone, NHS staff, patients and people visiting their loved ones who are in hospital.

And it doesn’t come out of the NHS trusts budget – the hospital car parks are controlled by private companies and they take a huge chunk of the parking charges.

No one working for the NHS should have to pay a car parking charge on the premises of the hospital to go to work, and the charges for anyone parking at the hospital is sinful, corrupt and sickening.

And it’s evil and repugnant that people who go to work to look after people who are sick, save their lives and get them back on their feet have to pay to park their car at their place of work for the privilege of doing so, and pressing questions need to be demanded of Boris Johnson and his government because if Wales and Scotland have discarded hospital car park charges why can’t he do the same thing in England?

But then we shouldn’t be shocked, all Boris Johnson wants to do is get his fraudulent economy up and running, and it didn’t take them long, did it?

Their party song should be ‘money, money, money’, after all, it’s all the Tories worry about, and they’re never pleased until they get more.

Piers Morgan continually highlights the fact that NHS staff have to pay for parking and he made the government answerable, and it’s only because of him and his crusade that the government agreed to give free parking to NHS workers.

But now Boris Johnson is acting like the coronavirus no longer exists because of course, he wants to make money out of the NHS.

The sad thing is that because car parks have been privatised, there’s the middle man taking money from the whole sorry situation – this is Tory Britain at its worst.

It’s revolting that anyone who needs to go to the hospital has to spend absurd amounts in parking costs whether their there for treatment or someone visiting a loved one who’s in hospital, and it’s even more sickening that NHS workers have to pay to park.

The government can’t even claim that all parking charges help finance the NHS as the car parks are controlled by private companies and they take a huge chunk of the money, and this is just a slap in the face for NHS workers and it just confirms that Boris Johnson and the government’s recent praise of them was artificial and hypocritical.

And then the government are making NHS workers from abroad pay to use the NHS themselves should they get sick. Boris Johnson pledged to scrap that but there’s no indication of that happening yet.

Boris Johnson is a worthless, lying, sleaze bag and most people think of him and his clown followers as collaborators who in other times in history would be put against a wall and executed.

All in this together, I don’t think so and people in government are only there to line their own pockets, and this is sickening because we all support our NHS and this government goes back on its word.

The revolting Tories should be booted out because Boris Johnson doesn’t have a clue how to govern the country, and it seems like bumbling Boris Johnson is bestowing his appreciation to the NHS saving his life and he then goes and kicks them in the pocket.

And I hope that everyone who voted this repugnant party is proud of themselves. Doctors and nurses et cetera do an astonishing job and now this government have given them the two-finger gesture.

This must have caused alarm bells to ring in all departments, yet another slap in the face from this government for all our beloved NHS workers who’ve served so tirelessly during this frightful pandemic.

And our hearts should go out to every doctor, nurse and care worker and anyone else who works in the NHS under such a stressful time, but at least when the next general election comes around, you’ll know who not to give your vote to.

But the Tories are bound to triumph again in 2024 – the momentum will make sure of that at the next Labour conference, although it will depend on what their intentions are because it won’t be Brexit this time.

Free parking is the very least the government can do for NHS workers for all the wonderful work they’ve done in caring for people, and hospitals get less than a quarter of the car park revenue – the companies running the car parks make the most in running costs and expenses et cetera.

Of course, Boris Johnson was entitled to have his life saved the same as everybody else, but then he booted 30,000 elderly patients from NHS hospitals into care homes to free up beds for COVID 19 patients, and then he took up an NHS bed himself when he caught coronavirus, and he didn’t go to a private hospital which would have seemingly been better funded and better equipped.

Or would that have been a bad political decision to choose a private hospital instead of the NHS as that would confirm what the public already know, which is the NHS is massively underfunded?

And it might seem pleasing to see Boris Johnson clapping for the NHS, but it doesn’t actually prove that he cares, it’s merely a publicity stunt.

Face Coverings Must Cover Mouth And Nose

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No 10 has advised the public to wear face coverings correctly, covering up both the nose and the mouth to ensure they’re effective.

Face coverings have become a common sight in the United Kindom as people have sought to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but there’s debate on how effective they are.

Face coverings don’t protect the wearer, but it may protect others if people are contaminated but have not yet manifested the symptoms of the coronavirus. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that masks on their own will not protect from COVID 19.

But the government have been pretty clear about the advantages of people wearing face coverings. Stating that face coverings can better protect others and decrease the spread of the virus if people are contaminated but not presenting symptoms.

People have been urged to wear face coverings in confined places where they can’t keep a physical distance from people they would not ordinarily meet, such as in stores, but No 10 has not made it compulsory in England, except on public transport.

Highlighting the right way to wear a mask, the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said that COVID 19 is a respiratory disease, and if someone has the virus, droplets can leave the nose and mouth and contaminate others when someone breathes, speaks, sneezes, laughs or coughs.

Therefore, a face-covering should cover both the nose and mouth to decrease the spread of coronavirus droplets, helping to protect others.

The President of the Royal Society, Professor Venki Ramakrishnan said everyone should wear a face-covering in public to decrease the chance of a second wave of COVID 19 infections.

He said that people should wear a mask when they leave home, especially in confined indoor areas, but admitted that the public remains dubious about the benefits, but he said that not wearing them outside the home should be viewed as anti-social as drink driving, or failing to wear a seat belt.

It comes as two new reports on face coverings were published by the scientific body, including one which found the United Kingdom was more reluctant to take up wearing them compared with other countries.

The virus hasn’t been eliminated, so if we lift lockdown and people increasingly mix with each other, then we need to use every means we have to decrease the chance of a second wave of infection.

There are no silver bullets, but beside hand washing and physical distancing, we also need everyone to start wearing face coverings, especially indoors in confined public places where physical distancing is often not possible.

The United Kingdom is way behind other countries in wearing face coverings, but there’s been unclear messaging and contradictory guidance, and it’s led to people following their own decisions.

But whatever the motives, we need to subdue our reservations and wear face coverings whenever we’re around others in public.

It used to be completely normal to have a few drinks and drive home, and it used to be normal to drive without seat belts. Today both of these would be deemed anti-social and not wearing face coverings in public should be viewed in the same way.

And if all of us wear one, we protect each other and thereby ourselves in reducing transmission. But the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has previously stated that the evidence does not currently support the use of masks to protect the wearer in the general population.

But the group stated that if someone was contagious with COVID 19 symptoms, face coverings would decrease transmission.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has concluded that the use of medical masks could prevent the spread of droplets from an infected person.

It stated, however, that there’s currently no proof that wearing a mask, whether medical or other types by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, could prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID 19.

A report by the Royal Society’s Set-C (Science in Emergencies Tasking – COVID 19) group, published that they thought the behavioural factors in the public’s adherence to wearing face coverings.

The report, which hasn’t been subjected to formal peer review, found that, in late April, the uptake of wearing face coverings in the United Kingdom was about 25 per cent, compared with 83.4 per cent in Italy, 65.8 per cent in the United States and 63.8 per cent in Spain.

What is obvious is that it’s not the public’s fault for not wearing masks in the United Kingdom because public messaging has varied across England, Scotland and Wales, and now we require consistent management and effective public messaging which is essential.

A study, published from Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, found that cloth face coverings were effective in decreasing the spread of the virus, for both the wearer and those around them.

This pertains to homemade masks made with the right material, while loosely sewn materials such as scarves were shown to be less efficient.

The study further discovered that face masks were part of a policy package that needed to be seen together with other measures, such as social distancing and hand sanitation.

Authors of the second report said new evidence strongly encouraged the use of masks where physical distancing of more than one metre can’t be maintained, such as in stores and office buildings.

An update on an earlier publication from Data Evaluation and Learning for Viral Epidemics (DELVE), the report, which has not been subjected to formal peer inspection, references a study which implies that face coverings can also give protection to the wearer.

And there are people without symptoms going about their everyday affairs who are unknowingly breathing out droplets that are carrying the virus, but meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has decided that the use of a medical mask could limit the spread of droplets from an infected person.

However, that said, there is currently no proof that wearing a mask, whether medical or other types by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID 19 – so enough said, from now on people won’t be wanting to wear a face nappy.

The Prime Minister’s office stated that they were always clear about the use of masks – when was this? Was it when they were telling people there was no benefit from wearing one or when they were telling us that the science didn’t support the use of them?

It’s not the masks that are needed, it’s common sense which sadly many people don’t have, and we shouldn’t still be arguing this in July, it should have all been cleared up in March, then things could have opened up far more safely and swiftly.

And if we can’t formulate the mask + face = lower infections, then all hope is lost, and how on earth will they deal with the more obscure dilemmas that are destined to develop throughout the next few years?

Huawei Denies Ex-MI6 Spy’s Claim That China Recruits Brits As Useful Idiots For Company

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China has been accused of attempting to influence important people to support Hauwei’s assimilation into the UK’s 5G interface.

A questionable dossier reportedly assembled with the cooperation of former M16 spy Christopher Steele, claims high profile people were targeted to act as useful idiots for Beijing.

It was reported that the 86 page document stated politicians and academics were amongst those in the United Kingdom whose backing China endeavoured to obtain, and Huawei was said to be described as Beijing’s strategic asset in the report.

A spokesperson for the Chinese telecoms monster reported the accusations as groundless and stated they were part of a long-running US campaign against the company.

The spokesperson stated that they categorically denied the baseless accusations, which didn’t bear scrutiny and were regrettably the latest in the long-running US campaign against Huawei.

And that they were created to deliver maximum reputational damage to their business and have no foundation in fact, and it comes amid heightened tension on Boris Johnson from his own backbenchers to stop Huawei’s involvement over concerns that it presents a security risk.

The Prime Minister’s move to enable the company to set the Government at odds with the US, which had been repeatedly warned against the firm amid conflicts with China and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said that US embargoes on Huawei were expected to have a notable influence on the firm’s ability to play a part in the UK’s 5G network.

He said he had received a National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) report on the Chinese technology firm and would be discussing it with Boris Johnson and China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Liu Xiaoming, later tried to banish concerns that Huawei’s involvement allows the Chinese state back door access into mobile networks.

And during an online press conference, he also accused some British politicians regarding China as a threat or a hostile country.

And it stated that politicians, academics and other elites in the United Kingdom had been targeted by China in an effort to achieve their support for Huawei’s integration into Britains technology infrastructure, and here lies the dilemma.

Because the word elite has lost its significance, its meaning and its purpose and these people are nowhere near elite in the English language sense of the word. But the Huawei saga isn’t about security, it’s about money and more money and Donald Trump said Huawei could run their business in the US but that he wants them to pay his government a few billion dollars first – of course, Huawei declined and there lies its woes.

But none of this is new and the weakest component of security is the human factor and the reason classification needs invasive and extremely thorough examination by the security services, and for employees to have access – sex, money and extortion are the age-old enablers, and because useful idiots can be bribed.

But then once the UK 5G network is installed, it will be run by British personnel and not Chinese personnel. So, does that mean that all British engineers will not know where the data is being sent?

It sounds like James Bond stuff to me! Well, this is fantasy land but on the other hand, we do have some fairly serviceable idiots here as well – mind you, Christopher Steele is a bit of a fiction writer for hire.

And this has got to be the machinations of someone attempting to destroy and divide the United Kingdom – has China bought the BBC too?

At the end of the day, China is all about business but other nations want our soul and there’s nothing unusual about these revelations – this is simply basic recruitment tactics of industry.

However, these useful idiots seem to be a motif at the moment, and these people are often utilised by controlling or sociopathic people in domestic situations to slander, malign and destroy, but be observant and on the lookout peoples, they roam amongst us, hapless and uncomprehending but potentially extremely dangerous.

And we should be frightened because if it’s not the Chinese that is attacking us, it’s the US or the Russians – it looks like foreign governments are attacking us, but we’re also attacking them and it’s spycraft as usual.

Everybody is spying on everyone and has been since before computers were connected to networks. The only difference is that US spies are possibly the best ones in the world, getting in and out without being noticed most of the time.

Hacking around the world are overall American hackers who simply exceed those from other countries. They were just more innovative, they learned fast and pushed the boundaries of what could be done.

Hackers from other countries were exceptional at learning precisely what was taught to them but were not as great at discovering new ways to do something or at putting previous lessons together to create a new attack chain.

That said, hackers from many other nations also excelled, the United Kingdom, Poland and Bulgaria, to name three. Hackers from Bulgaria were particularly skilled at writing malware, as were Russian hackers, surprise, surprise.

But more important was the way Russian hackers looked at hacking as a business, because the Russians are great at combining legitimate business models and frameworks with malware writing and hacking.

They further excel at cracking and using encryption, presumably for the same reason.

Israel is a unique case, not only does it have exceptional hackers, but they’re apparently the best in the world at defence, and it’s no wonder that many if not most of the best defence concepts and companies have come out of Israel.

And when you look at the most current hacking innovations, there are only a few a year, everyone else is mimicking, and they most usually start with American hackers. Not the latest malware or hacking kit, we’re talking about who’s cooking up ideas that haven’t been considered before and lead in a completely new direction.

Over the course of 20 years of hacking history, the United States leads in discovery by a mile. This is probably due to various factors. One, the United States had led the computer revolution since shortly after it began, that is, after Alan Turing.

The United States began the mainframe and personal computer revolutions with some level of computer knowledge, along with a standard of living that allows access to a computer, which is now part of our culture.

But the true difference is the American entrepreneurial spirit, which wouldn’t take no for an answer because we’re taught to challenge everything, our parents, our bosses and our politicians.

This ultra-competitive behaviour carries over to hacking because Americans are always looking for a better way to do something, including breaking into areas electronically, although that’s not saying that other countries don’t have great hackers or come up with innovative hacking techniques, but if you’re looking for clever new lines of attack, you’d be remiss if you didn’t check out the US hacker scene first.

This isn’t conclusive, but the United States probably has the biggest offensive cyber capability in the world, and seemingly we have at least tens of thousands of hackers working for the US government and billions of dollars are spent on offensive hacking.

The most news you hear about in the United States is hacking linked to the National Security Agency (NSA), and in numerous leaked documents, you’ll discover a treasure trove of clever hacking tools.

There are catalogues from which spies can pick the latest gadget guaranteed to gain unrestricted, almost undetectable access – this is hacking innovation at its most extreme.

Outside the nefarious slip, you’ll seemingly never learn about a country, company, or person who’s been hacked by the US government, and if you think about it, billions are being spent on state-sponsored hacking, which apart from one NSA whistleblower’s disclosures, are practically never discovered or reported.

This is pretty scary and an unwarranted intrusion which is apparently happening millions of times a day, led by different parties throughout the world, but let’s quit pointing fingers and seeking to alarm people because one country is found spying on another country.

It’s being done by all sides, and in all probability, the United States is doing more of it better than anyone.

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