Bournbrook Live
Our commentary on the news as it comes in.
If you would like to contribute to Live, please email us at live@bournbrookmag.com
Is this delay about saving face?
Posted at 11.30am.
Posted at 11.30am UK time
Boris Johnson knows that at some stage there will be a full investigation into the government's handling of the pandemic. It therefore seems at least possible that the extreme caution on opening up is in part motivated by a desire to suppress deaths at any cost, so that when being grilled by a Parliamentary Special Committee, Johnson can say, "Look at deaths: these European countries did worse."
No green light to start vaccinating children, ministers to be told
Posted at 10am.
Posted at 10am UK time
The Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recently suggested that the decision on whether to vaccinate children against Covid would be left to the Prime Minister, since it is a ‘political matter.
Read my Daily News Digest for The Conservative Woman here.
Far, far too late
Posted at 11.30am.
Posted at 11.30am UK time
One of the most disappointing aspects of the lockdown argument were the number of conservatives and libertarians who sat on the lockdown fence whilst our freedoms and culture were systematically dismantled. Far, far too late now, Charles Moore.
Boris: ‘Possibility’ that lockdown could be extended past July 19th
Posted at 10am.
Posted at 10am UK time
It was a surprise to nobody that Boris Johnson announced a four-week extension to lockdown last night.
Read my Daily News Digest for The Conservative Woman here.
Never-ending story
Posted at 6.55pm.
Posted at 6.55pm UK time
Freedom day hasn’t just been delayed for a month. If a substantially vaccinated society can’t be re-opened, we’re witnessing a secular shift in risk tolerance from government. The danger in this approach is that it’s never-ending… new variants… new restrictions… ad infinitum.
Ministers considering delaying ‘Freedom Day’ by a month… To give businesses ‘certainty’
Posted at 4.45pm.
Posted at 4.45pm UK time
What an absolute joke - read my report for Lockdown Sceptics here.
What’s the aim of the knee takers?
Posted at 4pm.
Posted at 4pm UK time
What’s the aim of the knee takers? At what point do they achieve their goals & stop knee taking? If it’s until there are no individual racists then that’s not gonna happen. Bad people will always exist. If they think we’re all ‘unconsciously biased’ then you can’t get rid of racism
This is the problem. The campaign is so ambiguous and has literally no set aims. They can’t point to a set goal they want to achieve. There is no way of measuring the success or failure of the campaign. It can therefore go on forever.
Face masks should continue forever, says Sage scientist
Posted at 10am.
Posted at 10am UK time
A leading member of Sage – and committed Communist – has suggested that face masks and social distancing should become parts of our daily routines, lasting not just for a few more months but ‘forever’ – and not just for Covid but also to help ‘reduce other [diseases]’ in the future.
Read my Daily News Digest for The Conservative Woman here.
'The left simply makes up its positions as it goes along
Posted at 4.25pm.
Posted at 4.25pm UK time
The position of many of our self-appointed intellectual elite – who, by the way, said that Brexiteers were thick – seems to be that a 16 year old is wise and cognitively developed enough to vote, but a 20 year old is not ready to make an informed decision on whether to smoke a cigarette.
Meanwhile, we should tighten the laws related to smoking tobacco, but should significantly loosen the laws related to smoking marijuana. They’re just making it up as they go along, aren’t they?
No problem, kick them out
Posted at 11am.
Posted at 11am UK time
Oxford is back in the news again, this time after 150 lecturers have refused to teach at Oriel College after the latter decided not to remove the controversial Cecil Rhodes statue.
I do not see the problem here. Just kick them out. If they have this sort of worldview and attitude, it's likely that they would be doing more indoctrinating than teaching anyway.
AstraZeneca vaccine linked to another disorder
Posted at 10am.
Posted at 10am UK time
AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine has been linked to another rare bleeding disorder. Researchers say around one in 100,000 people given the jab will suffer idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP).
Read my Daily News Digest for The Conservative Woman here.
Teenagers should be allowed to make mistakes
Posted at 12pm.
Posted at 12pm UK time
As a society, we used to understand that young men did and said stupid, dangerous and indecorous things. Not anymore, it seems. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has suspended Ollie Robinson, the Sussex and (briefly) England cricketer, for racist and sexist Tweets he wrote as a teenager – before he had even signed his first professional contract to play cricket.
The Tweets were low-grade versions of the sort of thing one might hear at a bawdy stand-up show, and were definitely racist and sexist. However, it is highly unlikely Mr Robinson is either racist or sexist.
Young men say such things in their cack-handed, fumbling efforts to be bold, edgy and rebellious, not because they are bigots. It is part of the impulse to test the boundaries of society, stand out from the crowd, and one-up their mates – a process they undertake with no experience, little savvy and undeveloped impulse control.
This is also what gets them into fistfights over trifling issues. Why they pepper their language with swear words, take up extreme political causes, argue incessantly with their parents, and generally rail against authority. It is one reason they drink far too much, dress outrageously, and engage in risky sexual behaviour.
All this conduct is unacceptable, but society used to roll its collective eyes, dish out a proportional chastisement, and say, ‘You’ll learn.’ Now, we seek to ruin forever their means of earning money and success.
'Come to the theatre and arrest us,' says Andrew Lloyd Webber
Posted at 11am.
Posted at 11am UK time
Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber says his theatres will open later this month whether the Government sticks to its lockdown roadmap or not. If the Government demands a delay to the reopening, ‘we will say: come to the theatre and arrest us’.
This is exactly what we need – more business owners and cultural figures to defy the Government’s extended madness. To say ‘enough is enough’ and to force our return to normality. (It’s increasingly clear that this isn’t just going to be handed to us on a plate.)
The most telling line in The Daily Telegraph’s interview with Mr Lloyd Webber (whose brother, the extremely talented cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, I was lucky enough to meet in Birmingham before I was told to stay in my home) is this one:
'Unfortunately… the Government regards theatre as a nice thing to have rather than a necessity.’
This, for me, sums the whole sordid affair up. For the past 14 (almost 15!) months, the Government (aided by its chums in the media) has focussed on nothing but Covid. As well as ignoring the plight of education, employment, and, ironically, life-threatening diseases (especially cancer), the Government has effectively ignored the damage done by lockdown to mental health. An aspect of this has been the closing of areas where people socialise and enjoy life – theatres and, of course, pubs and restaurants, to name but a few.
Many people (especially those who live alone) believe that a life without live entertainment is a life not worth living. I completely understand where these people are coming from (I might even agree) – but the Government has no idea. And so we press on.
‘Some and mirrors’ reopening on the cards
Posted at 10am.
Posted at 10am UK time
Some MPs and industry figures fear that even if legal lockdown requirements are lifted on June 21, a web of stringent guidance could be put in its place, encouraging people to act as if in lockdown.
Read my Daily News Digest for The Conservative Woman here.
Quote of the Day #2: Sherelle Jacobs
Posted at 4.50pm.
Posted at 4.50pm UK time
The second ‘Quote of the Day’ award goes Sherelle Jacobs, Assistant Comment Editor at The Daily Telegraph.
On the eve of the G7 summit, held in Cornwall, she writes that:
‘The West cannot afford another 'forever war’ against Covid with deadly unforeseen consequences. It needs to end now.’
What a difference a day makes
Posted at 12.50pm.
Posted at 12.50pm UK time
What a difference a day makes. Just yesterday, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: '[It] still remains that there is nothing in the data currently to suggest step four [of the lockdown roadmap] can’t go ahead at the earliest date.’
Reports today are far more pessimistic.
According to one cabinet source, lockdown could be extended by “between two weeks and a month”.
I’ll offer no prizes for guessing who this is down to (since it certainly isn’t down to the data).
A ‘fairly grim’ briefing was given to ministers yesterday by Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.
I report on this for Lockdown Sceptics here.
Sad day for justice
Posted at 12pm.
Posted at 12pm UK time
The expected release of Colin Pitchfork - a man who murdered two children - is yet another sign of a soft criminal justice system, demoralised by years of liberalism by the 60s social revolutionaries.
A cowardly act
Posted at 11.50am.
Posted at 11.50am UK time
William Clouston comments on Ollie Robinson’s suspension from international cricket.
‘The Ollie Robinson saga reveals a sad truth. It’s simply easier for committees, boards, pundits etc to condemn a man than to have the grace and perspective to forgive teenage errors. Where public condemnation coincides with private sympathy we’re merely witnessing cowardice.’
Hospital admissions for Covid continue to fall in former variant ‘hotspot’ Bolton
Posted at 10.10am.
Posted at 10.10am UK time
Latest NHS figures show there were 42 people in hospital in the Royal Bolton Hospital with the virus on June 1, last Tuesday, down from 49 at the peak of the new variant scare a week earlier.
Read my Daily News Digest for The Conservative Woman here.
Vaccinating children: Arguments don’t hold water
Posted at 10.30am.
Posted at 10:30am UK time
When the argument for vaccinating children is shorn of its Government and teaching union spin, it does not hold water.
Start with two undisputable facts. First, children are hardly affected by Covid. Second, everybody in Britain who has a reasonable chance of getting seriously ill from Covid has been offered the vaccine. A very high proportion has accepted this offer, and polling suggests that many more will.
One must therefore assume that those who have not accepted the offer to be vaccinated are either unconcerned with catching Covid, or are worried, but for whatever reasons are even more fearful of the vaccine. From this, we can deduce two arguments for vaccinating children.
1. Children, who are hardly affected by Covid, should be vaccinated to protect those who are unconcerned with the effects of catching Covid.
2. Children, who are hardly affected by Covid, should be vaccinated to protect those who believe vaccines to be too risky to take themselves. That we are on the way to start vaccinating children suggests something has gone badly wrong with our thinking.