THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO

The UK Will Refuse To Delay Brexit Deadline

The UK will refuse to delay the Brexit deadline in any way despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Boris Johnson’s official spokesperson said that the UK will not ask to prolong the transition period beyond December 31 and even if EU chiefs ask for an expansion the UK will decline.

But angry pro-EU MPs branded the decision beyond reckless amid a killer virus outbreak and the transition period ends current trade, travel and data sharing rules with the EU coming to a standstill.

If the United Kingdom and EU agree a trade deal before New Year’s Eve that won’t be a problem, but the probability of that is looking less and less feasible due to coronavirus.

Both sides have until June to come up with some kind of fundamental agreement but numerous rounds of trade talks had to be paused and sources have reported to the Mirror that Boris Johnson wasn’t prepared to prolong the deadline, and even hardened Brexiteers said they would accept it due to COVID 19.

Since then, more than 13,000 have died in the United Kingdom and No 10 claimed that the United Kingdom needs the flexibility to make its own laws to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said that they would not ask to prolong the transition period and if the EU asks, they will say no and it was further stated that prolonging the transition would lengthen discussions, lengthen business uncertainty and pause the moment of control of our borders.

No 10 also said the government has no intentions on changing its immigration system after Brexit, despite concerns it will hurt the key workers honoured, thanks to coronavirus.

And when asked if there was a rethink for them, No 10 said that there would be no change to the Immigration Bill as recently published.

The plans tell firms they must stop their reliance on low skilled, in other words, low waged, workers from the EU as there will mostly be no route to bring them into the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister’s spokesperson added that there’s a specific NHS visa included in the new immigration system.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said that it was beyond reckless for the Tory government to impose a Brexit hard deadline in the middle of a global pandemic and economic crisis and that people, public services and businesses are already struggling to get by.

Imposing a Tory hard Brexit at the end of the year would deal another crushing blow, at a time when our economy will need all the help it can get to redeem itself.

While Britain formally left the EU on January 31, we immediately entered an 11-month period where the relationship with the EU remains largely unchanged and teams have until December 31 to agree a settlement on the new relationship and either side can walk away from talks in June.

The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said that they would not ask to prolong the transition period and even if the EU asks, they will say no. What they trying to do, get brownie points? It’s almost like saying, ‘my dad’s got a bigger one than yours’.

No 10 further claimed the United Kingdom needs the flexibility to makes its own laws to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. Seldom does one hear such unfettered blather from Downing Street, even under the reign of the King of claptrap.

This begs the question, what precisely is the EU stopping us from doing, and what if anything, are they forcing us to do against our will?

I’m puzzled by the entire Brexit matter, none of it makes any sense, but then does anybody know the answer? And has anyone heard from Boris Johnson, or is he still in the convalescing fridge at Chequers?

Our need for the EU is far greater than their need for us and only someone with dog litter for brains would disagree, but then again, dog litter would be an upgrade on what’s inside a Brexidiots head.

In a decades time, Boris Johnson will be looked back at as being the worst and most adverse Prime Minister we’ve ever had and Brexit and his handling of coronavirus will be amongst the testaments to that.

And now it looks as if the United Kingdom is finished. Brexit was almost certain to destroy the country before the virus even hit us, but now, the economic destruction the virus has caused, the UKs demise is guaranteed and Brexit will add massively to the pain of the economic fallout of coronavirus and we simply can’t afford it!

People’s lives versus money. Is Brexit that important compared to the survival of the economy? And like almost everything in this country, it’s foreign-owned, but of course, Tory political dogma whips pragmatism and common sense every time and we here in the United Kingdom are a ship of fools, but that’s diversity for you – or is that Austerity?

Way to go, Boris, who’s now on sick leave, roaming the grounds of Chequers, birdwatching, with a salary pouring in. So, actually, it is ‘way to go Boris’ because he’s marginally more useful staying away than staying in No 10 to mess things up further.

The economy will be in ruins by the time 2021 comes. Brexit will happen with everything at their worst, which just means more pain and more years of Austerity on top of what’s to come.

Thanks to this, Brexiteers are about to get the education of their lives over the course of the next five or ten years, and it’s time they had an education because it doesn’t look like they had much of one at school.

The world’s economy is spiralling into recession and some people believe that possibly the biggest social changes in our society for decades should be forced through irrespective of the consequences.

Boris Johnson seems to care more about trade deals with Donald Trump because it’s worth mega millions to him than he does about people dying from this virus – to him we are just cattle.

We’re going to be up to our necks in debt after taking out huge loans to finance the COVID 19 closedowns of businesses and payment of furloughed workers wages and yet these bungling nincompoops are still pushing for Brexit at the end of December.

And they have themselves calculated that this will bring on a lowering of income at a time when we need our companies to boost productivity, so clearly, someone in our government has a vested stake in killing the economy.

But did we ever expect anything different from Boris Johnson? He doesn’t appear to have a grain of humility for the people in this country, it’s just Brexit, Brexit, Brexit! But it does seem that he sadly he keeps millions of fools happy.

Tory MP Slammed For Sweary Video

A Tory MP has been branded self-indulgent for posting a sweary rap video in which she appears to complain that the coronavirus lockdown has left her bored.

Bishop Auckland MP Dehenna Davison posted a TikTok clip, lip-synching to “Bored in the House” by rapper Tyga.

The clip shows her doing her washing, talking to herself in the mirror, pouring a large glass of red wine and rapping “I’m bored in the mother f***in’ in the house bored”.

But the former Labour MP who Dehenna Davison replaced in December stated she’s been left to answer questions from Ms Davison’s constituents, who can’t get an acknowledgement from their MP.

Ex-MP Helen Goodman said she was startled and appalled by the video and that she’s had people get in touch with her with problems that she’s not resolved for them.

Nurses and doctors are busting a gut. People in care homes are busting a gut. People are doing community work and people in food banks are busting a gut and all these people are making a huge amount of effort, yet Dehenna Davison believes it’s okay to complain in public that she’s bored.

Dehenna Davison, 26, has since removed the video but she said that it was nothing more than adding a little light-hearted content that was being offered by millions to stay positive throughout the lockdown.

She said that we should be honouring the actions of 3.6 million people staying safe throughout the lockdown rather than disparaging them for keeping themselves and others amused whilst following government guidance to stay home, protect our NHS and save lives.

Dehenna Davison said the 3.6 million figure related to the number of TikTok users who had made videos using the same song and she added that this is the time when we should be coming together to build on what we have done so far, from helping many members of our community with food deliveries and access to medicine to getting people back home after being stranded abroad and that only together we can defeat this virus.

This lady can say and do whatever she wants and a little bit of light entertainment was the way to go in her case and at least she’s shown that she’s a human being. Come on government, let’s all have a little bit of humour going, at least they’ll be able to see that your real and not fake like everyone keeps saying you are.

Laughter is an incredible thing and it keeps communities together, working with each other. We know that in the current situation things are extremely grave indeed, there’s no getting away from that and even in wartime we had people singing to keep people’s spirits up, so why not now?

What because she’s an MP she shouldn’t have a sense of humour? Which must mean that all MPs and PMs are pretty dull and mundane.

We had unity throughout the war, so why not now? I know this isn’t a war and we should be taking this seriously as regards our well-being, but we don’t want to be out there slitting our throats either.

All MPs should be at home having some fun with their families, as well as saving the world and also showing the world that this isn’t the end of life as we know it and perhaps when this is all over and we’re all safe we should be having street parties to show that we can smile through this terrifying crisis.

The UK Missed Three Opportunities To Join EU Scheme

The UK missed three opportunities to be part of an EU scheme to bulk buy personal protective equipment (PPE) for health workers.

Britain reportedly failed to utilise opportunities to get things such as masks, gowns and gloves under an EU initiative and the availability of PPE has been a major problem in the coronavirus outbreak.

It comes as the Mirror started the “Protect Us” campaign on behalf of all those serving Britain at its time of need, demanding PPE for all NHS staff, carers, cleaners, porters, transport workers and anyone else at risk.

European medical workers are estimated to get the first of £1.3 billion worth of PPE within days or a culmination of two weeks under the EU scheme involving 25 nations.

But a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said that they were working around the clock with industry, the NHS, social care providers and the army to ensure the supply of PPE over the coming weeks and months will give the NHS and the social care sector everything they need to stop the pandemic, including working with countries around the globe.

It was further reported that they’re working with several firms to scale up production of existing UK ventilator manufacturers, as well as designing and manufacturing new products from scratch, and securing thousands of machines abroad.

They also said that they will continue to work with European countries and others to make sure that they can increase the capacity within the NHS and that they would consider joining in future EU joint procurement schemes based on public health requirements at the time.

And at the daily Downing Street briefing on the coronavirus emergency on Monday, First Secretary of State and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced the Government was working to give frontline workers reassurance over PPE.

The comments came amid concerns over a deficit of some supplies in parts of the country and Dominic Raab stated that the government recognised the significance of getting PPE to the frontline whether it’s care homes or the NHS.

He said that the most effective possible reassurance that they could give was that over the Bank Holiday weekend over 16 million items were delivered and that they were straining every muscle to roll them out even further and faster.

But the government ‘missed’ an open goal, that was bad luck. They ‘missed’ the bus, that was poor timing. They ‘missed’ because they weren’t looking because they were inattentive or did they ‘miss’ because they didn’t understand?

But it was none of these things. The government didn’t miss anything at all, they chose not to participate because it would expose the public to the utter madness of Brexit and it seems that political dogma and juvenile nativism have triumphed over common sense in this once magnificent country of ours.

The thing is, loads of people have admitted that they know full well they’ve been lied to by Boris Johnson and even his own family don’t trust him, but it’s a pretty strange country that we live in, yet people still vote for him and yet how does he get away with it?

And I don’t know what the government were thinking because everything they put in place was simply too late – all they did was ask people to wash their hands, yet they had the chance to clamp down on things much earlier and if nothing else, this country needs to learn from its mistakes and act faster when something like this arises again.

I’d like to hear a valid reason why Boris Johnson passed up the chance of PPE from the EU three times and until then I don’t want to hear Boris Johnson rambling on about how the NHS saved his life.

And this should topple Boris Johnson from his ivory tower of luxury where he’s up in Chequers getting waited on hand and foot while he allows this carnage to continue just because he doesn’t want anything from the EU.

And I’m afraid it’s this Brexiteer mentality that’s caused this ‘missed’ sharing of the necessary equipment that the EU has organised and now our NHS workers have to put up with the dire consequences of our Brexit government’s ineptitude.

And if this country doesn’t bring these charlatans – so-called politicians to account after the enormous mess they’ve made of this pandemic, once we get through it, then I’m afraid we only have ourselves to blame for this massacre.

The dire straits we’re in as a country isn’t the only highlight of PPE but the overall position of the government to not act, not just presently but in the past for the well-being of the United Kingdom in general.

There’s been a lack of response to emails received and lost which offered the opportunity to get more stocks of PPE from Europe and the government forever appear to be failing the NHS in someway – underfunding, staff, equipment and money.

With their slow response to act once the virus was acknowledged before reaching the UK and after and their extreme slowness to respond when PPE was offered, with lengthy delays and inadequate testing of infections, the list goes on.

As a nation, we will suffer because of their slowness and lack of forethought and provision. Innumerable lives have been lost needlessly and if you look at the headcount per population we will suffer much more than other countries.

I did wonder how long it would be before Brexit reared its hideous head in this crisis and it’s amazing with everything that’s going on that political ideology takes precedence over the welfare of the country.

Passport Office Workers Assigned To Process Universal Credit

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Passport Office workers who’ve been ordered to return to work are being seconded to process millions of new Universal Credit claims.

A huge 1.2 million claims have been made since lockdown started and an insider at HMPO in Glasgow has revealed workers are being given a five-day crash course in training to process them that would ordinarily take six weeks.

Passport Office workers said they were horrified to discover they would be responsible for being told they would be involved in sanctioning claimants as well as processing new claims and were distraught at the idea of leaving some vulnerable people without anything to live on for perhaps weeks at a time when they have precious little understanding of the system.

About 40,000 claims are being made a day, opposed to the 10,000 that would ordinarily be anticipated and over seven days since the COVID 19 crisis started, 5.8 million calls to the Universal Credit helpline were made.

Some of the 2,000 workers who are being ordered to go back to work will help process them and there are strategies to have 500 people in offices at any one time.

But the Home Office has been accused of a nonchalant approach after staff were reportedly told that 80 per cent of the population will get infected and we can’t hide away from it permanently.

The Home Office stated it was adhering to Public Health England’s guidance by managing social distancing at passport offices and added there was no advice saying that you should only go to work if you’re an essential or key worker.

On a conference call on Tuesday, staff were informed by the Home Office deputy scientific adviser, Rupert Shute, that 80 per cent of people would get COVID 19 in the end and according to a leaked transcript of a Zoom meeting, Rupert Shute stated that there was no more risk at the workplace as there would be in your home or at a supermarket and that it was about minimising it.

He further said that they were working on the assessment that 80 per cent of us, if we haven’t already, will get the virus and that we can’t hide away from it forever.

A Government spokesperson said that since the inception of the pandemic the whole of Government has looked at ways to support priority work and that staff will be thoroughly equipped to ensure that they can commence work on behalf of other government departments adequately so that the most vulnerable in society can access public services as promptly as possible.

And it’s understood the reason training has been cut to five days is that a streamlined package that only includes components explicit to the tasks needed will be delivered.

But the welfare system over the last decade has help to kill countless people and the assessments are farcical for the disabled, and the DWP have put claimants through weeks of stress doing Mandatory Reassessments before a claimant can go onto appeal their case.

Another hurdle the DWP put claimants through, creating more despair but then Universal Credit was done merely as a means for cuts and demeaning claimants in the process.

The DWP and their beloved Universal Credit are bursting at the seams, now drawing in staff that have had insufficient training and this is only the start of the real nightmare that all new claimants will suffer under Universal Credit and some are in for a rough ride.

The DWP and the government will never change for the better and it will only get worse once coronavirus is sorted out. Then it’s back to Austerity and people having to go on Universal Credit will be pressured into finding any job, otherwise, they will risk being sanctioned.

And it’s a cruel, ruthless draconian benefits system, created to make life as difficult as possible for potential claimants.

It’s A Load Of Bunk

We all agree that we cherish our NHS workers and that’s why people across the United Kingdom show their love for them every Thursday by cheering and hooting and whacking pans with spoons.

Yet the Government bestows its appreciation by giving them sod all equipment, so instead of protecting themselves with tedious items, they can have loads of pleasure making their own.

Because it was reported that nurses are being made to wear bin liners as there’s a deficit of aprons but this is how to make the pandemic fun and at last our nurses are being given a chance to wear something to get them noticed, instead of wearing those boring white gowns, that may protect them, but wouldn’t catch the eye of a Paris fashion designer.

Someone should bring Blue Peter back to BBC1 to make a special coronavirus show for NHS workers and then one of the presenters can say: “Hi, today we’re going to make protective equipment for doctors out of cornflake packets, dandelion leaves and a pair of your dad’s old pants.”

Medical staff say they’ve not received any long-sleeved gowns, making them more prone to catch the virus off patients but on the other hand, in this weather, they’ll get a nice tan for when they’re laid up for three weeks and with the same spirit of muddling through, there were barely any ventilators available for the crisis.

Perhaps doctors were supposed to preserve funds and give patients oxygen by breathing through the cardboard piece inside a toilet roll but sadly, they were all bought by stockpilers.

So, now they’ll be appealing for folk bands to perform in the ward, so anyone short of breath can put their mouth over the end of the accordion and numerous hospitals are running out of masks, so they’re also appealing to nail bars and hairdressers to see if they have any.

Hairdressers could also offer their hair dryers as extra ventilators so patients can get an extra supply of oxygen and a blow-dry for their lungs too and if this still doesn’t secure enough masks, the NHS could appeal to bank robbers and the IRA to give them their old ones.

Not only that, but according to an Intensive Care doctor on the BBC, protection face masks that they’re using at the moment have all been re-labelled with new best before end dates.

And several had three stickers on them, one with an expiry of 2009, the second sticker, expiry 2013, and the third sticker on the very top said 2021 but I’m sure it doesn’t matter if a mask that’s supposed to save your life is 11 years out of date because it appears that face masks are like wine, they get better with age.

Experienced nurses can sniff one and go: “Hmm, it’s got a pleasant scent of Swine flu, I’d say it’s a 2009 vintage.”

This government’s inaction has meant that the country has been caught with its pants around its ankles and now we’re heading for the biggest death toll in Europe.

Herd immunity indeed, a plan that had to be evacuated after the medical and scientific establishment told them it was crazy and would lead to mass destruction and the NHS wouldn’t be able to cope.

The United Kingdom considered a situation such as this not that many years ago, but as usual, did nothing to prepare, and cuts in the health service have not helped us either.

The NHS was in a desperate state before COVID 19 and it’s even worse now and our government should have been prepared for all eventualities and that’s not the sign of a stable government, one that’s scrambling around for help when the shit hits the fan.

And when this is all over and hopefully that will be pretty soon, questions need to be examined about the handling of this because apologies are no good when people are dying within the health service and outside the health service.

And when PPE is not available it beggars belief and it’s a national scandal and this government should be held responsible for this turmoil and now we should be slamming our so-called Government for the brave NHS staff that have so tragically died because the Government failed to provide proper PPE and still months later they’re still messing about.

Cabinet Minister Robert Jenrick Breaks Lockdown Rules

The Housing Secretary has been cited of ridiculing lockdown rules again after it appeared he travelled from his London home to his second home just days after urging the country to stay at home.

Robert Jenrick, who’s the Tory MP for Newark in Nottinghamshire, has defended escaping 150 miles from London to his £1.1 million mansion in Herefordshire, where his family are staying.

Robert Jenrick should be giving a pretty good reason as to why these excursions were needed and if he can’t, then he needs to consider his position, yet Downing Street stated it was confident that Robert Jenrick followed the rules.

And a source close to Robert Jenrick stated that he’d been residing at his family home in Herefordshire and working from there and that he’d been keeping up with his Westminster and constituency work from home where he’s done media and video work by video link.

The cabinet minister said he and his wife Michal Berkner, a partner at City law firm Cooley LLP, and the children consider the country retreat their family home and he had moved back there as he was no longer required in Westminster.

Robert Jenrick additionally boasts a £2.5 million townhouse less than a mile from the Houses of Parliament while also renting a £2,000 a month property in his constituency, which he bills to the taxpayer.

His official website doesn’t mention his Grade I listed country house at all. Instead, it simply states that he’s married to Michal, and together they have three young daughters and that they live in Southwell near Newark, in London.

He was further forced to justify why he’d been seen on his elderly parent’s front lawn in Shropshire at the weekend. He declared he was delivering medication and other supplies.

But this all came as a surprise after he advised others to stay at home for all but the most basic activities, and all travel to second homes was forbidden, and referring to him moving back to Herefordshire, Robert Jenrick stated that his family were there before any constraints on travel were declared.

He stated that he’d been working in London on ministerial duties, putting in place a system to shield the group most exposed to coronavirus and organising the response at a local level, but that once he was able to work from home, it was right that he went home to do so and be with his wife and also help care for his three young children.

He continued that he would be staying at the family home until Government advice changed or he was required in Westminster.

Robert Jenrick said he respected social distancing when he drove to his parent’s home who at 69 and 79 are extremely vulnerable to the virus.

He was spotted at the Shropshire residence, 40 miles from Herefordshire by a bystander who then notified The Guardian before it was reported. However, Government guidelines which were released on March 23, state that you shouldn’t visit anyone who lives outside your home, including ageing relatives, you are permitted to leave your home to support them, for instance by leaving shopping or medication at their door.

However, people should remain in their main residence and not taking these steps puts added stress on communities and services that are already at risk.

And tweeting a response, Robert Jenrick stated that for clarity his parents asked him to deliver some essentials, including medicines. That they were both self-isolating due to their age and his father’s medical condition and that he respected social distancing rules.

Going to work is allowed – if you can’t work from home. Medicine and food shopping is allowed and caring for others is allowed. There’s nothing to see here!

But what is going on here? This guy has a £1.1 million mansion and a 2.5 million pound home in London and he rents a £2,000 pad in London courtesy of the taxpayer, and this is our Housing Minister, who owns a couple of mansions, yet does nothing for those who need it, those that are living on the streets, but he’s okay because as far as he’s concerned, as long as I’m all right Jack!

This is just like WWIII and survival is the rule. During WWII, the powers that be got additional rations for their families, whilst the rest went without, so nothing has changed.

But having said that, this man was taking food and medication for his ageing parents, most people do it for their ageing parents every week, it’s allowed and it seems like he was within the guidelines, even though I’d rather not be on his side, considering he’s got three houses and one’s paid by the taxpayer, but it does sound like he’s within what was set out in the guidelines.

There must be hundreds of thousands of people transporting food and medicine to their ageing parents and if the house he’s at is the main residence, which appears to be the only grey area here, then he’s not done anything that violates the rules.

Mind you, many of us don’t even have a second home to move to, let alone a garden – yet we’re all in this together, I don’t think so!

And I wonder how much he will be earning to work from home, plenty, you can guarantee that, whilst other people are working from home getting a pittance and some can’t work at all.

And I don’t know why British taxpayers have to pay for their supplementary homes, well, I do understand, it’s called thieving and I can detect a whiff of hypocrisy in the air.

We Won’t Know When Lockdown Will End

The coronavirus lockdown will continue for numerous more weeks at the very least, and the government are seeking to give a more precise message that this isn’t going to end anytime soon.

The coronavirus will likely shadow over us until we have an effective vaccine, so we need to prepare ourselves for life to be isolated for a long time, and time has been shaped into two milestones, before and after coronavirus.

In our current existence, our loved ones suffocate to death in near-total solitude.

Outside of our hospitals, life has ground to a standstill, and we’re confined to our homes.

We’re losing our jobs, businesses are going to the wall and the global economy is wavering on the verge of collapse.

In Spain and Italy, intensive care units are failing under the number of dead and dying, and such is the scale of suffering, doctors are forced to decide between who should live and who should die, with the military assigned to manage the sheer amount of corpses, and soon, countless more countries will have their accounts of these stories.

It took only twelve weeks for the virus to bring the world to a standstill, to put our lives and societies on lockdown.

More than 40,000 people have now lost their lives, but this is just the grim initial act of the coronavirus crisis.

In the absence of a vaccine or any established treatments, it’s expected that COVID 19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is here to linger for at least the next year.

While the worst part of the outbreak is immediately ahead of us, it will be a long time before life returns to normal.

For the British government, this realisation came like a punch to the gut. From its botched communications in early March, it seems like officials were anticipating that COVID 19 would be a short, sharp, shock, tearing through the population until enough herd immunity was built up against the virus and that its velocity would be naturally suppressed.

If any traces of this approach remained, they were stamped out by March 16 when a report from the Imperial College London set out the cost of inaction over coronavirus.

Without a switch to much more comprehensive social distancing measures, the capacity of intensive care units would be surpassed eightfold and 250,000 people would die, and that was in a best-case scenario.

The same day, the Imperial report was published, and the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, urged everyone in the country to stay at home and avoid pubs, restaurants and theatres.

A week later this became a total lockdown with police being given the ability to fine people who were outside for anything other than a small list of state-sanctioned activities, which was exercise, shopping for food, travelling for essential work or assisting the vulnerable.

Overnight, the social framework in the United Kingdom had declined immeasurably.

How long will it all last? These were the words, in their many forms, which were fired at politicians and civil servants at the government’s daily press briefings, and the answers may spark more or less confidence depending on whom you listen to.

Boris Johnson’s initial register was positive arrogance, telling the people on March 19 that in twelves weeks that we could turn the tide on coronavirus and finally send it packing altogether.

Ten days later, the deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries struck a more serious tone, warning that social distancing measures might be in position for six months, and possibly even longer.

Each of these scenarios, twelve weeks or six months, will likely only encompass the beginning of the struggle against COVID 19.

And while there’s a faint belief that transmission could wither away altogether through the summer, it’s more probable that the threat of this disease and its disastrous impact on health and the treacherous undermining of our society is here to stay until we have a vaccine, and things are unlikely to be normal again for a long time.

The dilemma is that we don’t have a vaccine and the government can’t lock down the population indefinitely, and by the time the coronavirus ends we will be facing economic collapse and we will be just as prepared for that as we were the coronavirus outbreak.

Royal Mail Changes Its Delivery And Collections

Royal Mail has changed its delivery office depot opening and closing times amid the coronavirus crisis, as well as changing the way it makes deliveries.

The depot changes came into force on Monday and have been put in place to ensure a safe and reliable service for its patrons.

To protect workers and the public, Royal Mail has changed the opening times of Customer Services Points in local delivery offices.

The largest locations will now be open between 07.00-11.00am. All other Customer Service Points will be open between 07.00-09.00am.

All will be closed on Wednesday and Sunday.

To support the Government’s advice to stay at home and avoid non-essential journeys, bosses are asking customers to only visit Customer Service Points where necessary, and as a reminder, workers can also redeliver items for free.

To give patrons longer to collect or have their item redelivered, Royal Mail has provisionally prolonged the time it will keep parcels and post to 30 calendar days before the item is returned to the sender.

This applies to the following:

Items we’ve left a ‘Something for You’ card

Items that have a ‘Surcharge to Pay’

Items that have a ‘Customs Charge to Pay’

Local Collect items where the parcel is addressed to the Customer Service Point.

Due to increased absence levels, staff reviewed timed guarantees for Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9 am and 1 pm services and will make the subsequent changes:

For items posted from Tuesday 31 March 2020 onwards, guaranteed delivery for Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9.00 am the next working day will change by noon the next working day.

Guaranteed delivery for Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1.00 pm will change to by 9.00 pm the next working day*.
*existing postcode exceptions apply.

To protect both workers and patrons as much as possible, Royal Mail says it’s minimising contact during delivery.

Staff will not be handing over the hand-held devices to customers to obtain signatures but instead, log the name of the person receiving them. Additionally, for all customers where they need to deliver any item that won’t go through the letterbox, postmen and women will put the item at the door.

Having tapped on the door, they will then move away to a safe distance while you retrieve your item. This will guarantee your item is delivered securely rather than being left outside.

The Government has introduced measures to protect our most vulnerable groups, including those in residential care. These include restricting all but essential access to care homes for external contractors.

Royal Mail said it recognises post is important to the ageing, especially those away from their friends and families in care homes.

Hence, to support the effort to keep the post moving but stop the spread of coronavirus, workers have made arrangements to deliver to a central point, eg. reception, rather than specific locations within care homes from March 19.

These changes will serve to ensure the health, safety and well-being of staff and the vulnerable.

Staff will deliver unaddressed door to door advertising postings to consumers who are getting addressed letters or packages at the same time, wherever realistically feasible.

Door to door postings provides a really important service to small businesses and companies of all kinds as they endeavour to provide their goods and services.

Numerous small businesses require that support now more than ever. They want to send it, many consumers want to receive it.

Door to door postings also includes important communication from local government.

I would like to say that the Postal Service is doing a fabulous job because this is an indispensable service that’s needed more than ever in these times of self-isolation.

But in times like this, why is junk mail still being delivered, and why would people possibly want it at a time like this?

Gordon Brown And Tony Blair Call For Global Government To Tackle CoronaVirus

The Coronavirus pandemic can offer lessons about global coordination and that we should seek more join-up Global thinking on the subject according to a recent speech by Globalist politician Tony Blair.

Speaking at a live-streamed event that was hosted by the Progressive Policy Institute and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Tony Blair described the outbreak as a tough crisis that will damage countries health care systems economies.

Now in a shocking move, his co-creator of New Labour Gordon Brown has called for even more drastic action turning the Blairite project into reality.

Gordon Brown has asked world leaders to form a temporary form of global government to tackle the twin medical economic crisis caused by the COVID 19 pandemic.

He said there was a need for a task force comprising world leaders, health experts and the heads of the international organisations that would have executive powers to coordinate the response.

A virtual meeting of the G20 group of developed and developing countries, chaired by Saudi Arabia, will be held, but Gordon Brown stated it would have been better to have also included the UN security council.

This is not something that can be dealt with in one country, there has to be a harmonised global response.

Gordon Brown said the current crisis was different from that of 2008:

“That was an economic problem that had economic causes and had an economic solution.

This is first and foremost a medical emergency and there has to be joint action to deal with that. But the more you intervene to deal with the medical emergency, the more you put economies at risk.”

During the financial crisis, Gordon Brown persuaded other global leaders of the need to bail out the banks and then hosted a meeting of the G20 in London, which came up with a $1.1 trillion rescue package.

Gordon Brown said his Global Government would have two aims which were the effort to find a vaccine, and to organise production, purchasing and to stop profiteering.

Many countries have announced economic packages, but Gordon Brown said a task force could make sure the aims of central banks were coordinated, take measures to stop the record flight of capital from emerging market economies, and agree on a joint approach to the use of government spending to promote growth.

Gordon Brown said there had been resistance in 2008 to using the G20 as a means for tackling the financial crisis, but that it should be clear to world leaders that there was no chance of a go it alone approach working.

He said: “We need some sort of working executive. If I were doing it again, I would make the G20 a broader organisation because in the current circumstances you need to listen to the countries that are most affected, the countries that are making a difference and countries where there is the potential for a massive number of people to be affected – such as those in Africa.”

He maintains that The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund needed a huge improvement in their budgets to cope with the impact of the crisis on low and middle-class countries.

It seems as if they simply want to be seen as the hero’s but it would be the UK taxpayer that would be paying for this approach, and we will have enough to pay for, rather than attempting to save the rest of the world.

These two are rich millionaires living in the lap of luxury, and they want you to pay for the healthcare of other countries and then that will be handed down to your children and grandchildren.

Note they don’t say anything about the sick and dying here!

These are the globalist that we elected, then we pay their salaries, and it seems they only worry about people in other countries and they want your money to massage their ego and shine their moral compass at your expense – self-interest masquerading as Altruism.

Essex Deaths From Virus Fall To Zero

NHS England statistics reveal no deaths have been reported in Southend Hospital, Basildon Hospital, Broomfield Hospital, Colchester Hospital or the Princess Alexandra Hospital, in Harlow in the last 24 hours.

There were also no deaths in the trust which provides mental health care in Essex.

The latest figures comprise the period leading up to 5 pm yesterday which are issued every day by NHS England.

NHS England said 403 people, who tested positive for coronavirus have died in the last 24 hours taking the cumulative number of established reported deaths in hospitals in England to 4,897 – the patients were aged between 35 and 106 years old.

Bosses say 15 of the 403 patients, aged between 52 and 94 years old, had no known underlying health conditions, and in entirety, 66 people have lost their lives in Southend and Basildon hospitals after catching the virus.

At Basildon Hospital, 49 people with the virus have died, while 17 have lost their lives at Southend Hospital.

Elsewhere in Essex, 46 people have died at Princess Alexandra Hospital, in Harlow, while 15 have died at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.

According to NHS England, a total of 43 people who tested positive for coronavirus have lost their lives at the trust which runs Colchester Hospital, and while the number of deaths falling to zero is cause for optimism, it comes as more than 1,000 positive cases of the coronavirus have been established in Essex.

The latest figures reveal there are now 858 cases in the Essex County Council region, a further 118 positive cases in Southend and 120 in Thurrock.

The number of cases is an increase of 102 on the day before bringing the total to 1,096.

But what about those in care homes and deaths from the coronavirus? What about people that are dying at home of COVID 19? Or is it only NHS hospital deaths that are being calculated?

It appears that the UK daily death figures are only including those dying in hospital, so people who die at home or in care homes et cetera aren’t being calculated, so the UK figures are somewhat misleading because other nations are counting all deaths, and are we going to have to wait for the delay in admin before the real figures come out?

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