Sage wants this madness to carry on… ‘forever’!
Professor Michie’s face-masks-forever views are cruel and oughtn’t to infest our Government for a moment longer.
Cartoon by Crid.
While the chattering classes are busy discussing whether lockdown will come to an end on June 21st, or will be extended by two weeks, a month or two months, those in positions of power are focussing on the ‘smaller’ aspects of the Government’s response to Covid. For how long, they wonder, should mask-wearing and ‘social’ distancing guidelines be imposed upon the public? 14 months clearly hasn’t been anywhere near long enough, and another year won’t be as good as another two years. Best just to tell people to continue distancing and covering their faces… forever.
This, at least, is the view of Professor Susan Michie, a leading member of the Government’s primary Covid advisory group, Sage, who also happens to be a long-time member of the Communist Party of Britain and was once nicknamed ‘Stalin’s nanny’, so committed was (is) she to the Marxist cause. (Just who you want to be advising a ‘Conservative’ Government!) These measures should remain in place, she says, not just because of Covid but to help ‘reduce other [diseases]’ in the future. (Read my report on this for Lockdown Sceptics here.)
In Professor Michie’s ‘New Normal’ Britain, wearing a face mask and keeping a distance from fellow humans will become as commonplace – as inherent – as wearing a car seatbelt and picking up dog poo. She told Channel 5 News on Wednesday:
‘When people see that there is a threat and there is something they can do [to protect] themselves, their loved ones and their communities, what we have seen over the last year is that people do that.’
‘What we’ve seen is that people do that…’ I’m reminded here by Professor Neil Ferguson’s admission that the Government realised it could ‘get away’ with locking the country down – which before had been an action only a ‘communist one-party state’ could do – after Italy ‘did it’. Professor Michie has realised that she – and the Government – can ‘get away with’ telling people to continue abiding by dehumanising Covid regulations. (After all, the majority of Brits are ‘worried’ about lockdown restrictions coming to an end, according to recent polling.)
Professor Michie really believes that this madness should not merely be tolerated but embraced – that is should become a part of who we are.
‘I think that we can just begin to adopt routines. When we go out of the house, we check that we’ve got our phone, we’ve got our keys, we’ve got tissues, we’ve got a face mask in case we need to use it. It’s not going to be a huge big deal, the kind of behaviours that we are talking about.’
Perhaps more frustrating than the fact that the Government listens to the advice of this woman is that, when she appeared on Channel 5 News, the programme made no attempt whatsoever to challenge her views. The presenter merely let out a friendly laugh when Professor Michie suggested that masks and distancing could last forever. The adviser’s co-panellist, a fellow UCL scientist, made no objection: ‘I think that Susan has made a very good point here…’ Perhaps her speakers were turned off.
Therefore, those who tuned into the programme – and who do not have access to, or are not aware of alternative news sources – were led to believe that the professor’s views are normal and are not worth debating.
This is far from the truth.
Professor Michie’s face-masks-forever views are – in fact – cruel and they oughtn’t to infest our Government for a moment longer.
