Chris Whitty warns UK heading into ‘worst point in the pandemic’ as he slams Covid-sceptics

Chris Whitty, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer, has warned that the UK’s heading into the worst point in the pandemic as he advised Britons to limit as much as possible in their social interactions with others outside their household.

Professor Chris Whitty joined Louise Minchin and Dan Walker on BBC Breakfast on Monday to answer questions from members of the public on the new lockdown rules that are in place in England to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The Chief Medical Officer gave the stark account as he used the opportunity to blast COVID disbelievers for spreading crazy ideas about the scale of the crisis facing the NHS this winter.

He said the situation was extremely serious and warned the country is heading into the worst weeks in terms of the pressure on the NHS of the whole pandemic.

Professor Chris Whitty said that he didn’t believe that the great preponderance of the British public, who are amazingly sensible, think this not happening and he believed that people understood that was a really serious dilemma.

He said that we will get through this and that we would get through this together, but that at this point, we were at the worst point in the pandemic for the United Kingdom, and that there were always going to be cries of people who come up with ridiculous ideas and suggestions of things that are either just not true or a misunderstanding of what’s going on.

He said that anybody who looks at some of the reports that the BBC and other news outlets have done from hospitals. Anyone who talks to a doctor or a nurse operating in the NHS. Anyone who reads any newspaper, they will know this is a really serious dilemma.

He continued that this was not a typical winter and that every winter has its difficulties, but that this was in a different league.

The remarks came as the UK wide death from COVID 19 exceeded 80,000 with infections climbing to more than three million.

Host Louise Minchin also read out a question sent in by Mike, who had asked when the UK would be able to return to life as normal.

In reply, Professor Chris Whitty said that he was confident that things would go back to how they were before and that was not in doubt.

People that have had the vaccine should be required to say at home for at least three weeks after they’ve had the jab, or at least until it’s known that it’s been effective, but it appears as if Boris Johnson is a puppet and someone’s got their hand up his bottom.

And do you think we will go back to what was normal? Of course not, they have us right where they want us and planned us to be, and it’s almost like modern-day slavery, and we should have closed our borders right from the onset of the virus, but then it seems that Great Britain welcomes everyone.

And what we should be having are stories about the people suffering from mental health problems during the lockdown and the people that have suffered as a result of that.

Let’s also have stories on people that have encountered bankruptcy because of the lockdowns, because SAGE unquestionably isn’t concerning themselves with these victims, but countless people suffer from severe mental health problems, which has been made more acute by the lockdown.

Numerous psychiatric doctors have either left or can’t work and the suffering are just left on their own and struggling and when they try to contact someone about it, it’s just blamed on COVID – it appears that COVID is the fall guy.

Woman, 50, Arrested For Sitting On Bench

A woman who has been arrested for supposedly sitting on a bench is a COVID conspirator who believes that the virus is no worse than getting the sniffles.

Tattoo artist Marcia Baker was videoed being arrested by three officers in a Bournemouth park on Saturday.

In the video, which was publicly shared online, she tells them that she was just sitting on a bench, but Marcia Baker, 50, is well known within the Bournemouth area for her resistance to the lockdown and had attended an anti lockdown demonstration in the town on Saturday, before her arrest.

One friend who fell out with her over her COVID conspiracy theories told a news outlet that she’d been into all kinds of conspiracy theories for quite a while but just became more neurotic when the pandemic started last year and that she was going around telling everyone that coronavirus was no more dangerous than getting the sniffles and that it was an attempt to control us all.

She said that she just couldn’t take it anymore and had to quit talking to her because she doesn’t think the virus exists and that it was crazy the stuff that she comes out with.

Marcia Baker works at the Black Pearl Tattoo studio in Bournemouth and is the mother of two daughters who are in their 20s.

Her friend maintained that if there’s a protest against the lockdown, Marcia is there and she said that her views were pretty wild but there was no debating with her because she’s convinced that COVID is one big conspiracy.

The footage, which has been shared extensively online, shows three police officers surrounding Marcia Baker in Bournemouth for supposedly leaving her house more than once in a day.

The clip then shows her being handcuffed and led away by officers as she repeatedly tells them that she was just sitting on a bench.

But Dorset Police announced the video was planned, staged-managed and recorded by members of an anti lockdown protest group.

Dorset Police’s Assistant Chief Constable Mark Callaghan said they believe the video was planned, stage-managed and recorded by members of the protest group who turned up in various areas, some of whom refused to engage and give their details.

He said that if people refuse to give their details in such circumstances, then it leaves officers with little option but to arrest until the details are confirmed.

It shouldn’t matter what this woman believes in. Police shouldn’t be arresting you for sitting on a bench on your own, and on Marcia Baker’s Facebook page, she posted a statement from organisers of Saturday’s demonstrations which said that they would be seeking legal advice after it was suggested that they staged the events.

There was video proof and similar things have been going on for months with the police over abusing their powers, and it appears to be the same everywhere, with police stopping people in their vehicles, asking if their journey is essential.

And what this woman believes in is irrelevant. I might believe the moon is made of cheese, but it doesn’t make it okay for me to be arrested for sitting on a bench.

What possible harm was she doing, sitting on a bench getting some fresh air? And it’s good for mental health to be outdoors and if anyone can prove that she was a danger to society sitting on a bench, then I’d love to hear your views.

It seems that we’re headed for communism and nobody appears to notice or care and it’s mind-blowing.

Every Social Media App And Website That Donald Trump Has Been Banned From So Far

Donald Trump’s ban from Twitter was perhaps the biggest and most significant social media suspension ever in the entire history of the United States presidency.

Donald Trump’s reliance on Twitter which he often used to share his spectators no matter how questionable they were was arguably his best means of communication, but following Wednesday’s riot in Washington DC, Twitter decided that they couldn’t risk any further provocations of violence and pulled the plug on @realDonaldTrump and his 57,000 tweets.

The Twitter embargo is just one of the many major platforms to either stop Donald Trump from using their apps or websites or impose major restrictions on any of his content.

To date, Donald Trump has been banned from 14 different websites and social media apps.

So without further ado, here are what websites and apps Donald Trump can no longer use.

Twitter banned Donald Trump on Friday 8th January over concerns that he would encourage more violence from his supporters on the US capital.

Facebook originally locked Donald Trump out of his account on their site on 6th January for only 24 hours but prolonged that ban to last for two weeks until there had been a peaceful transition of leadership to the Biden administration.

Instagram is owned by Facebook so the same prohibition pertains to Donald Trump on that app too. The ban was confirmed by the head of Instagram Adam Mosseri on 7th January.

Google was the first to raise concerns and ban the pro-Trump social media app Parler when it pulled the app from their Google Play store for failing to moderate those spread of threats of violence.

In a statement, a Google spokesperson said that to protect user safety on Google Play, their longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and implementation that extracts egregious content like posts that encourage violence.

Following Google’s lead, Apple also banned Parler from their app store, and in a lengthy statement, an Apple spokesperson cited that Parler had not upheld its commitment to moderate and eliminate harmful or dangerous content inciting violence and illegal activity and that it wasn’t in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.

Parler has also been banned from Amazon’s web hosting service after finding numerous posts that encouraged violence.

In a letter from Amazon Web Services to Parler published by NBC News, Amazon said that recently they’d seen a steady rise in this violent content on their website, all of which violated their terms and it was plain that Parler didn’t have an effective method to comply with the AWS terms of service.

YouTube, the video website, which is owned by Google, put out a long statement following the riots claiming that they’ve removed thousands of videos that spread misinformation about the election results including some shared by Donald Trump. They added that any channel continuing to share fraudulent information will now get a warning.

Donald Trump was banned from Snapchat following Wednesday’s riot. Speaking to Business Insider, a Snapchat spokesperson said that they were not currently promoting the president’s content on Snapchat’s Discover platform and that they would not amplify voices who encourage racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover.

They said that racial violence and injustice have no place in our society and that they stand together with all who seek peace, love, equality and justice in America.

Ironically Donald Trump has spent much of the year attempting to ban TikTok because of security interests encompassing the Chinese company. However, TikTok has turned the tables and confirmed that they will be removing any of Donald Trump’s speeches that they consider to have prompted any violence as well as hashtags such as #stormthecapitol and #patriotparty.

Twitch, the popular stream service, which is predominately used by gamers, also moved swiftly on Thursday to eliminate any threats of violence.

A Twitch spokesperson told Axios that in light of the shocking raid on the Capitol, they have disabled President Trump’s Twitch channel, and given the current unusual circumstances and the President’s inflammatory rhetoric, they believe this was a necessary step to protect the community and to prevent Twitch from being used to encourage further violence.

On Friday, Reddit reportedly banned the subreddit ‘r/Donald Trump, talking to Axios, Reddit added, Reddit’s site-wide policies prohibit content that advocates hate, or promotes, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence against groups of people or individuals.

Following this, they have been proactively reaching out to moderators to remind them of their policies and to offer support or resources as needed.

Even Donald Trump’s merchandise is getting pulled. Shopify has confirmed that both the Trump organisation and the president’s official merchandise store will no longer be on their services because of their zero tolerance towards violence policy.

Pinterest is the strangest one and the one that’s generated several jokes, but despite not having a Pinterest account, the site has been banning any pro-Trump topics from their service since November, after the election was confirmed for Joe Biden.

A spokesperson said that Pinterest wasn’t a place for threats, promotion of violence or offensive content and their team was continuing to monitor and remove objectionable content, including misinformation and conspiracy theories that might encourage violence.

A viral image from Fox News has suggested that Donald Trump is banned from Spotify too but there have been no announcements as to whether this is correct. Either way, Donald Trump is going to struggle to keep himself entertained on the internet now.

But this is what happens when content becomes charged with hatred and violence with plans to disrupt. However, these platforms regularly permit hate speech, and they openly allowed Donald Trump to do this until now.

And isn’t this just another nail in the coffin for free speech? And anyone that has a different view will be told to shut up, but then we might be giving people like Hitler a free pass if they don’t.

Baffling Brexit Rules Threaten Export Chaos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joe Biden Says Capitol Siege Domestic Terrorists Were Treated Too Leniently

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parents Are Lying That They’re Key Workers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RED ALERT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Donald Trump Arrest Warrant: US President Faces The Death Penalty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He said that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boris Brings In The Army

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DWP Busted Over ESA Cuts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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