I’ve put off writing this blog post for a couple of days but something occurred yesterday that has made me pen this, well actually three things occurred yesterday, and another thing has occurred today that has made me decide I need to articulate.
The three things that occurred yesterday, and the thing today that spurred me on to writing this are:
- The Scottish Justice Minister has announced the intention to stop trials by Jury.
- The US President literally did an unboxing on behalf of a pharmaceutical company live to the USA and world.
- The German Government are issuing immunity cards once people confirm they have Covid antibodies due to their mass population testing.
- Michael Gove was caught lying about the reactive agents in the tests.
Let me make this clear, there are other lies out there, in fact there are hundreds, and each and every one of them reinforces my reasons for writing this down.
Firstly, and before I continue, let me express my deepest sympathies for anyone who has lost a loved one during this crisis.
Over the past 4 and a half months, the world has become aware that the viral outbreak (Covid-19) started spreading from Wuhan. Over the past 3 months, it really gained traction and countries started to pay attention. However, very few acted, Scotland included. This inaction has led us to the point where we currently stand, which is an almost complete lockdown of our entire economy, and now the foisting upon the population of emergency legislation, both in London and Edinburgh, that, if I am honest, frightens the s***t out of me. It doesn’t scare me because of what it will do today, it scares me because it is so extreme that I cannot help but feel there is something else going on because there are other solutions to our problems and they are being bluntly ignored.
The first case of Covid-19 has been traced to mid November 2019. China didn’t start its lockdown until mid-late December. That meant a whole month had passed by whilst the infection spread. Shortly after the lockdown in China, Iran and Italy became centres of the spread, all the while, both the Scottish Government and the UK Governments didn’t act. They were clearly of the view that we should just wait and see, suspiciously, I suspect it was because they didn’t want to suffer undue economic stress, that ultimately was going to occur anyway, and has done.
This morning, I read that Michael Gove stated that there isn’t enough testing because the reactive agent for the tests is in short supply. This is a lie as confirmed by the industry that creates this agent. They confirmed today that no one has asked them to increase production. Why? Why has no one, either in Holyrood or Westminster asked for them to increase production?
On top of this, emergency legislation is being debated today in Holyrood, and one of those elements is that removal of juries from trials. We were told, just last week, that the Scottish Government expects this pandemic to last until June, maybe less than that. June is exactly 2 months away. The Justice Secretaries argument for remove juries from trials is because its not fair to keep people locked up for another 2 months.
Its odd that he has that view given that we are all prisoners in our own homes and will be for the next 2 months. Given todays technology, where we are all being asked to work from home and using video conferencing etc, why is it that the Scottish Government cannot either
- Put technology in place to allow the continuation of juries, rather than resorting to draconian measures and ripping up the very cornerstone of our legal system, or
- Simply delay trials by jury for the next 2 months?
I suspect the answer to this is part of the bigger picture being played out. What’s more, we are being told we can go out for exercise, and go to the shops for essentials, but we must practise social distancing. Doesn’t the government trust people enough to be responsible if they are summoned for jury to be extra careful? Or couldn’t they propose that those summoned for jury are the only people allowed in the court room (along with other legal teams) and they must wear masks, sit more than 2 meters apart and be put into isolated accommodation during the trial? Instead of these other solutions, the notion is to get rid of juries altogether, and that is a scary prospect.
Along with the above, I watched the President of the United States of America, and arguably the leader of the free world unbox a Covid-19 test live to the world as if he were a Youtuber. He mentioned the name of the company producing them 3 times. The thing is, the stocks for that company are going to absolutely sky-rocket. Not only that but pretty much every pharmaceutical company around the world is hugely benefitting from this whilst everyday workers and business owners are collapsing under the stress. How is it that the POTUS can stand there and broadcast to the world him unboxing a product without a potential conflict of interest? Has anyone investigated his own financial links to this company?
Furthermore, as per the UK, the USA did not act on any of the measures advised by the WHO, nor did they pay attention to what was going on around the world, and instead, allowed the virus to spread to the point where the USA has more confirmed cases that anyone else and likely, very soon will have far more deaths, all the while the POTUS was telling people that it will disappear like a miracle and that its “just the flu”.
As with the above, flights are still landing in the UK (why not ban them before banning trials by jury)? We also have open internal borders (close them before banning trial by jury), we also have people going to the parks and shops (ban that before banning trial by jury), and all the while, Germany and arguably Sweden have taken an approach more akin with reality.
Germany has introduced proof of immunity based on the antibody tests. This allows people to go to work and keep things going. Why on earth is that not occurring here?
Surely it makes far more sense for the Scottish and UK Governments to spend billions on getting tests done on the population rather than on banks to lend to businesses. This on its own makes me very concerned that what we could be doing, to get back to a sense of normality and stabilise the economy is being roundly ignored, instead we are pushing through emergency legislation, both in Holyrood and Westminster that will strip away so much that we aren’t even aware of yet.
And why? No one is asking why we continually get mixed messages, no one is asking why the governments at home wont do the logical and obvious things, and no one is asking what the ultimate result of this is going to be on our society.
I don’t like the notion that there are powerful people doing dreadful and purposeful things during this pandemic, but the inaction of many is becoming clearly obvious. We are all sitting at home, trapped in our own houses, riddled with anxiety about what is going to happen, and on top of this, our governments are introducing legislation as a priority rather than seriously acting to beat the virus.
Locking down a population is only one step in containment. There is no mass testing, there is no ongoing heavily funded research on a national basis, NHS staff don’t have the right PPE, social distancing is a failure in larger cities and both governments are way in above their heads and decimating the economy and mental wellbeing of their citizens.
I am generally sceptical when it comes to politics – of all hues and passions – and here I am questioning why on earth all elected officials seem to be singing in unison on these islands, and our cousins in the US are copying us like for like, whilst other countries have tried and tested methods that are being ignored. Why?
The UK Government are testing 12,000 people a day. At that rate we will have tested all 68,000,000 of us in 5,666 days, or 15.5 years from now. Even just frontline NHS staff at that rate will take 108 days (approximately early August). By then the pandemic, according to most advisors will be over and the lock down lifted.
Surely I am not the only one with a calculator and a brain? And what about those that have been tested and confirmed as having the antibodies? Where are the immunity cards? Why cant some of them, surely some are business owners, reopen their businesses, or go back to their proper working environment? For the past month they have claimed to have tested some 5,000 – 10,000 per day. That’s between 150,000 and 300,000 people that could be back to work.
Why do we have £330,000,000,000 to give to 40 lenders to lend interest chargeable loans to business, but we don’t have £330,000,000,000 to fund a cure and mass test to get everyone back to work? Surely £330,000,000,000 spent on that would allow us to find the cure and test the whole population in a matter of weeks as each test costs £10.
Why is the government not pushing for mass testing and asking companies to test, test, test?
I know this might seem like a rant, but look at the whole picture. Everything seems scarily inept and this whole pandemic management is a fiasco from start to now with the responses from both Holyrood and Westminster being to blame the population and strip their liberties without giving due concern to their own failures in protecting us adequately.
We all deserve so much better than this. If the money is there for the banks, its there to test the population and save lives by getting the 4 countries of the UK all working again.
MacAlba 