Boris or Miriam's 'values'? UPDATE

UPDATE WITH COMMENTS

Last week The Daily Mail ran a ‘public outrage’ story on Miriam Margolyes. Apparently she doesn’t ‘share true British values.’ The Mail is owned by the 4th Viscount Rothermere whose great grandfather founded the Daily Mail and was quite keen on Hitler and Mussolini.

 

This is how the Mail reported her comments: “Asked by Channel 4 how she thought the government had responded to the coronavirus pandemic Miriam answered ‘appallingly’ and added that she ‘had difficulty not wanting Boris Johnson to die … Then I thought that will reflect badly on me, and I don’t want to be the sort of person who wants people to die. Miriam continued with another savage remark about the prime minister. She said: 'So then I wanted him to get better, which he did do, he did get better. But he didn't get better as a human being. And I really would prefer that. So, we're in the shit, basically, here.'"

 

What do you think? I think The Daily Mail has a long history of sharing those British values linked closely to hypocrisy and that we should be asking what ‘British values’ Boris Johnson and his government are sharing as the Covid-19 death toll in the UK breaks world records.

 

In the first 24 hours this blog got 17,000 hits on one Facebook page alone with hundreds of ‘shares’ and comments. Miriam is delighted as she has been receiving some vile messages which I will not repeat here except to report her own words … “I’ve had some VERY unpleasant remarks, incl being compared to Hitler-apparently I am WORSE. Oh well.”

Here are just a few of the hundreds of positive comments ..

 

Marc Lavelle She is a star in every sense of the word. She honestly tells the public the truth about this bloody awful Tory boy government. Three cheers for Miriam a truly best of Britain person.

 

Christine Harfleet All clear thinking compassionate people agree completely with Miriam . Love you Miriam For speaking the truth. If you don't agree with her then you are a warped personality

Sue Walker I love Miriam, she speaks the truth, too few people do that these days.

Geraldine Roper I think she was honestly reflecting what many feel today.

Jane Ingham I didn’t want him to die nor did I want the 32,000 plus have died including many working as key workers in the NHS, Care Homes, transport, etc. Miriam just says it as it is and she is right, he didn’t get better as a person. If the govt was a private company there would be a case for charging them with corporate manslaughter.

Margaret Lewin Miriam is a great person who speaks from the heart. I am with her completely for saying what many people felt but then in reality didn’t mean because we didn’t really want anyone to die. Sadly tens of thousands have died though and many need not have if the government had acted on the Cygnus report and then listened to WHO when they gave advice on the pandemic of testing. The PM leads the current government so as the saying goes, the buck stops there.

Joan Morris Salmond Miriam is a lady in every sense. She spoke out about a Bad PM and a Bad Government. Very many people in this Country I m sure feel the same. After all , where is the sympathy from the government for the health workings and the people who died . Boris won t make sure every front line worker is equipped properly, hence the large number of people dying that I m sure would still be alive today if we had a Government focused on the wellfare of the people and not the Billionaires profit margins.

Pauline Evans She says it like it is no matter what, calls a spade a spade and manages a pretty good fart. Job done. She gets my vote!

Liz Williams I love her and I love that she is using her position to say what we are thinking! I back her all the way and I will be happy when the daily fail stops production (and dies) ! The fail has attacked vulnerable people time and time again, it doesn’t speak for me and doesn’t represent my truth

Sheila White As previously stated: I love this woman! Intelligent, wise and says precisely what she likes and cares not a jot for the reaction of the right wing media and shit wankers currently running our Country. My Hero

Carol Marshall Brave woman, to say what so many were thinking, and feared being labelled 'unpatriotic'... forget patriotism.. let's concentrate on the the human race... I'm with Miriam.

Mal Fidler Miriam Margins is a national treasure. She is honest up front and be ery self effacing. She does not suffer fools or idiots..without telling them so. The Daily Mail..... gutter press, scaremongering dishonest...and two faced....and in bed literally (Gove/Vine) with the current government.

Jenny Bush Line me up on Miriam's side. Lovely woman and I know how she feels.

Vicky Palmer No one disses Miriam! She is like the Queen of straight talking, comm

Maggie Cowan This woman is a decent, honorable human being. Of course the Daily Mail are going to attempt to vilify her.

Julie Ann O'Maley She only said what a lot of people were thinking. I love Professor Sprout

Lynda Baldwin Gotta love this woman, fiesty, brave, humourous and absolutely only one face not two

Jacqueline Clement Miriam for Prime Minister. More sense in her little finger

Jim Doughty I’m very pleased that he got better - as you can’t send a dead man to the gallows.

****

Here is a Guardian interview with Miriam about her new Australian TV series, Almost Australian.  and here is a short video interview with her about it in The New Daily. 

 

 

 

“If you’re in Australia, or have chums there, please watch on ABC, starting May 19^th @8.30pm. It’s a 3 part series, 1 hour each.”

Boris Johnson 'on the downward slope'

 

Boris Johnson says we are 'past the peak’, ‘on the downward slope’, and have 'been through a long alpine tunnel’. (Government Press Conference, 30.04.2020).

In 2012 when skiing in the Italian Alps he ran over an eight year old boy. He followed this with the admission that, "In the course of a 35-year skiing career of relentless incompetence, I have been involved in some of the most epic prangs ever witnessed."

All very amusing except for that boy, but now the setting for his ‘relentless incompetence’ and ‘epic prangs’ are no longer ski slopes. A whole nation is there for him to tumble and fall about in. Worryingly the Alpine references remain.

Here is sanity from Richard Horton, Lancet Editor who tweets this today.

Daily UK deaths this week. 813, 413, 360, 586, 765, 674, 739. We may be ‘past the peak’ but the number of daily deaths is a human catastrophe. Many of these deaths were preventable. News headlines should not be about meeting the 100 K testing target. They should be about these deaths

Wash your hands and sing "God Save the Queen'

“The United Kingdom has an enviable reputation for resilience. In a rapidly changing world, we are at the forefront of embracing new opportunities and seeking innovative solutions to emerging problems.” Foreword to Cabinet Office National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies, 2017

 

In the three years since its publication let us examine the innovative solutions to the most recent ‘emerging problem', the COVID-19, Conoravirus outbreak.

 

VENTILATORS: These assist respiratory functions, pumping oxygen into the blood for vital organs. They are the main supportive treatment for critical stage COVID-19 patients.

 

Health Secretary, Matt Hancock said he could not make guarantees that everyone who requires a ventilator will get one, saying: “We don’t make guarantees in healthcare”.

 

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, Chairman of the British Medical Association says UK’s lack of ventilators “is a result of a decade of under-funding”.

 

Former NHS trust chairman Roy Lilley has said, “I mean we’ve seen this coming. It’s pretty obvious we were going to need more ventilators and somehow or other, either we’ve been left flat foot and haven’t started to buy them quickly enough or we’ve tried to buy them and they’re just not there.”

 

HOSPITAL BEDS: Dr Nagpaul, said the UK has about “a quarter of the critical care beds that Germany has and that the country’s “starting position unfortunately has been far worse than many other of our European nations”.

 

Europe is the third biggest manufactuer of hospital beds after New Zealand and the USA. Former NHS trust chairman Roy Lilley said “This is capital equipment and the hospitals won’t have been buying them”. He doubted European producers would sell to the UK now we are leaving the EU. 

 

PROTECTIVE CLOTHING: The Times reports that, “frontline hospital staff fear that doctors and nurses will die because of NHS guidance that they do not need to wear full protective equipment when caring for virus patients.”

 

TESTING: The World Health Organization has criticised the approach of countries like the UK that are not prioritising testing, with its director General, Tedros Adhanom, saying “you cannot fight a fire blindfolded … test, test, test”. The Guardian reports that a junior doctor in an emergency assessment unit has started a petition called “Test frontline NHS staff for Covid-19 as a priority”, which has so far attracted nearly 700,000 signatures.

 

The UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance was asked if the UK should have mass testing on the scale of South Korea which has tested more than 250,000 people out of a population of 51 million, and is bringing infections down. He replied, : “I think we need a big increase in testing. That’s what I’m pushing for very hard.”

 

PRIVATE HOSPITALS: Spain and Portugal have led the way by requisitioning private hospitals, their equipment and staff. The UK are going to pay £2.5 million a day to ‘buy in’ these facilities. 

LOSS OF EARNINGS: In the UK those who have lost their incomes are entitled to £94 a week. The Irish government is giving workers who have lost their incomes the Euro equivalent of £203 a week. The generous UK ‘scheme’ doesn’t even cover the many phony self-employed. Firms like DPD, a delivery company, is insisting that employees who self-isolate will still have to pay the costs of renting vans and equipment. And have I mentioned the homeless? It’s impossible to voluntarily self-isolate if you are sleeping on the street. The state should requisition hotels for the homeless. There they can be be fed, kept warm and offered medical assistance. 

 

CLOSING SCHOOLS: The government’s reason for keeping schools open is that working parents will be deprived of the free childcare they provide. Schools across Europe are closed. In Boris Johnson logic it is better for children to travel to school, mix with each other, come into close contact with dozens of adults and spread the virus.

 

If Jeremy Corbyn were PM today, millions would feel more secure. Even a journalist like Robert Peston, who spent years attacking him, is now making the case for something resembling a socialist response to the crisis.

 

“ ‘Community organising’ is one of the platitudes frequently offered when someone is bereft of political ideas. It is hard to do and often very dull. This time it is different.” As one Tory minister put it to Petson, these principles imply that Boris Johnson will almost certainly have to oversee a Government that for a good year or maybe longer will look quite socialist. The Minister added, 'We'll find ourselves implementing most of Jeremy Corbyn's programme'.

 

www.davidwilson.org.uk

The Joker

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE (17.03.2020)

Boris Johnson told business leaders on 16 March that the effort to manufacture more ventilators should be called “Last Gasp’. Meanwhile the company ready and willing to make millions of them has not received one order from the NHS. What a joker!

 

The ‘government’ is going to pay over £2.5 million a day to use private hospital beds. Meanwhile the Spanish have requisitioned them. This means the private health companies will make a profit out of the pandemic. Coincidence or planned?

Theatres are ‘advised’ to close but not ordered to. This means they cannot operate insurance cover and many smaller venues and theatre companies will go the wall, but hey a business opportunity for new property development. Coincidence or planned?

The UK is second from bottom in Europe for level of support to ill workers. In France, employees can exercise what is known as “the right of withdrawal” from work by walking off the job if they believe their health and safety are at risk, without having wages docked or facing punishment. In the UK no such luck with just £94.25 a week sick pay.

Meanwhile non-tax payer Richard ‘hold em to Ransom‘ Branson asks for £billions as airline ‘Coronavirus compensation’.

As the Italians say (who are increasingly on strike over all this) BASTA - Enough. My Jewish friends would add ‘Already’.

Keep well and don’t get upset - organise.

 

My regular blogs are here: www.davidwilson.org.uk

Need more information than you can get from MSN. Here are a few websites/ Facebooks for you. Twitter is also a useful source of information and debate

THE CANARY
https://www.thecanary.co/

NOVARA MEDIA
https://novaramedia.com/

WEAR RED
https://www.patreon.com/weearred

SKWAWKBOX
https://skwawkbox.org/

VOX POLITICAL
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/

EVOLVE POLITICS
https://evolvepolitics.com/

ANOTHER ANGRY VOICE

https://www.facebook.com/Another-Angry-Voice-185180654855189/

 

JOHN PILGER

http://johnpilger.com/

JONATHAN COOK

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/

 

and this US website

 

COUNTERPUNCH

https://www.counterpunch.org/

 

There are many more.

Finally there is ...

ARTIST TAXI DRIVER – a regular short and funny video‘take’ on the day's news.

https://twitter.com/chunkymark…

 

Protect the People

“Many more families are going to lose their loved ones before their time”, Boris Johnson

“This, without a doubt, is neoliberalism’s single most damaging legacy: the realization of its bleak vision has isolated us enough from one another that it became possible to convince us that we are not just incapable of self-preservation but fundamentally not worth saving.”
― Naomi Klein

Thank you Italy for leading the way against bleak visions

https://prruk.org/coronavirus-sparks-nationwide-strikes-in-italy/?fbclid=IwAR3dLkKhwFdcROatGIQ8FnxlOyi_QTagfyVwYkTo0hXaPGicYAI8PcZA6Uc

Now please consider signing up to ‘Protect The People’

https://www.protectthepeople.co.uk/?fbclid=IwAR0OLD8IftLhpb-zyw6h0HY-01bZhd1AO4wZBIUdrKCVhHMF1NkX976ZMdA

Thank you

David Wilson

further reading 

 

www.davidwilson.org.uk