Off Topic Coronavirus and NOTHING to do with football thread

Another face-slapping comment from an Establishment idiot - Lord Sumption appears to lack gumption.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...H4_3k6YIxcrWyKEFhf5v8dsPezO89AKKvRp0Tlue2LcN0

 

I realise that Lord Sumption was trying to justify an anti-lockdown argument and his comments need to be placed in context, but his views would not have seemed out of place in Nazi Germany. The Nazis promoted eugenics and encouraged people to place less value on some people's lives (such as those physically or intellectually disabled) than on others (as one of the comments underneath the article suggests).

 

Most of the posters in this thread

Run along Erik.

 

"I sympathise very very much, I understand their (fishermen) concerns, things have been exacerbated by the covid pandemic, the demand in restaurants on the continent for (happy) UK fish has not been what it was before the pandemic " Johnson.

This is total nonsense. I will take him to my supermarket and show him the queue that are going to cook their fish at home.

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How has it gone so wrong?

 

I suspect that figure would be even higher if the figures for NI, Scotland and Wales were removed, giving a clear indication of who, rather than how, went wrong.

 

Priti Patel fails to face MP questions regarding 'missing' police files, preferring to let a junior face the music.

She has certainly picked up a few of her leader's bad habits.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/westminster-news/labour-criticises-priti-patel-6913498

 

This debate is taking off in Germany as well BB. The position in relation to eg. employment law here is complicated. Can employers bring in a policy of compulsory vaccination ? Apparently not - this could only be done against the background of universal compulsory vaccination by law. At the present time an employer cannot use sanctions against an employee who refuses and must continue to prvide work for them according to their contract. The employee is also not required to answer as to whether they are vaccinated or not - apparently it is a private matter. In medical professions the employer has more powers in this regard and so vaccination can be seen in the same light as possession of a driving licence is for other professions. Apparently a normal employer can deny access to some areas of his premises eg. the canteen to non vaccinated persons. They can also offer bonuses and privileges to vaccinated workers - but that is as far as it goes. Personally I have absolutely no problem with the introduction of compulsory vaccination because for this whole thing to be successfull we need at least 60-70% of the population to take part - otherwise the whole thing is a non starter. Compulsory vaccination is nothing new - we all had it against Polio (and a list of other things) when we were at school in the 60s - I don't remember there being much choice in the matter.

 

We all practice eugenics Luther. Most people would place the life of a chimpanzee or a lion as being of higher value than that of a mosquito - yet do we have the right to place such a comparative value on life - of course not. The one woman who sprang to this idiots defence posed the question of, in the event of a fire, would you save an 8 year old or someone aged 80 ? Unfortunately these people always choose extreme examples to get their points over - the truth is that we have the resources to save both - but the question still remains. Save the first and you are potentially saving 70+ years of life, but the second ? All of us practice our own 'personalized' eugenics - I save myself first (not that my life is intrinsically of more value than yours), and then save my family and those close to me - and then that of a human as against an animal - and then we have our own hierarchy amongst the animal kingdom. This becomes confusing at times because in an emergency I would rescue a wolf rather than Nigel Farage I think it's pretty clear that Lord Sumption believes that some beings on this planet are more valuable than others - and he, presumably, also believes that Lords are higher on that list than the man on the Clapham Omnibus - I actually believe that the man on the Clapham Omnibus is more important and that anyone calling themselves a Lord must be descended from a robber (but then my own personal eugenics are taking over there ).

 

Children in France are not allowed to start school unless they have a series of vaccinations all recorded in a passport like document. The first thing my doctor wanted to know when I signed up with her, was when I had last had a tetanus injection. Because of the type I had received I didn't have to have another one, but Mme. did. The doctor made it clear that without one she wouldn't take us on. To my mind this is all about rights of the individual sometimes having to lose them for the common good. Is it so different to driving on the correct side of the road or paying NI contributions to maintain health services?
I have not believed strongly that flu jabs are entirely useful due to them being designed to deal with the strain that was known about last year that could have mutated into something different, However this year I did have one simply because I wanted the hospital, if I unfortunately finished up there, to be able to rule a bad dose of that out. This could be taken as wanting to help out an overstretched service, or making sure that I was looking out for myself. Also I see no real difference having to take a covid test if in the unlikely event that I wanted to leave the country and return home again.
I am not sure why so many here said that they didn't want the vaccine, although there was something some years ago about infected blood transfusions. Looking at the latest figures however it seems that the numbers prepared to have it are now rising.

 

Polio, measles, mumps, TB, diptheria, smallpox etc etc - I'm not sure whether they were all compulsory though. Even in the 50s and 60s there were community memories of the outrage that compulsory vaccination Act introduced in the late 19th century caused - riots in the streets, burning of effigies, protest groups followed by arrests/fines/jail sentences. Maybe strangely, the general population then had very little trust in either government or the medical profession and, then as now, many simply objected to being told what to do. Although at least back then they had good reason - the bulk of the medical profession were unqualified and little more than charlatans with some rather odd ideas about both what caused diseases and how they could be 'cured'. Routine smallpox vaccinations were discontinued around 1970 from memory - and had always been viewed with distrust in the UK, which to me suggests that many refused and it wasn't actually compulsory. On the other hand, polio vaccinations were introduced in the 50s (the Salk vaccine) and 60s (the Sabin vaccine) and neither were compulsory - in the 60s the government fell foul of public opinion by running out of the stuff, demand for it had taken them by surprise.
I'm wondering if your 60-70% uptake is a little low, or simply the required uptake for Covid. Measles, for example, requires a 95% uptake for success - around three years ago there were fears that the drop in annual uptake to 91% in England had the potential to cause a public health crisis.

 

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Europe's largest fish market in Peterhead. Built to deal with 10,000 boxes a day it is like a ghost town now. Boats tied up because they cannot work their way through the red tape imposed by a government that doesn't actually care for them.

 

To me that is normal - I couldn't imagine anyone wishing to rescue him.

As for Lord Sumption - my main suspicion of him is the whiff of corruption over his appointment as a Justice of the Supreme Court by David Cameron. He was appointed having never been a judge, which may have ruffled a few judical wigs - he may well have been a worthy barrister, but his opinions on this issue make that contestable for me.

 

To be honest the figure of 60-70% was just one of many estimates I have heard BB - other go as high as 90%. People need to realize that we are living at the tail end of a safety bubble going back about 50 years - during that time things like epidemics, famine and war have been events which occurred elsewhere. But those 50 years have been the exception not the norm - and that safety bubble was based upon vaccinations, anti biotics and clean water.

 

The government doesn't just not care for them, they actually straight out lied to them.
This is a video of Jimmy Buchan, chief executive of the Scottish Seafood Association, telling the community prior to the 2019 GE of the assurances he had received from Johnson. A former rabid Tory himself (a Tory Westminster candidate in this constituency in 2010), he has been largely responsible for the fishing industry here voting Tory. Thankfully, he has now done a 180 degree turn - earlier this month he was interviewed on BBC Scotland radio and reminded about this video - his reply nearly melted the airwaves.

JB-BJ on Vimeo

 

Just been on-line to book a vaccination, and there is a very heavy demand against all reports otherwise. No appointments are still available this week at our local centre, so try again tomorrow for next weeks service.

 

Nothing unusual really - there's anger here every time such a convoy crosses the border - but I wonder how they can justify this as 'essential'?

 

Some really good news coming out of Scotland today.

Researchers at the Centre for MND Research at Edinburgh University have found a way to reverse the damage caused to nerve cells by MND.

 

I would not describe putting more value on the lives of your family than on the life of a stranger as eugenics. The definition of eugenics is more complex. However, I think that we can agree that all of us were appalled by Lord Sumption's remarks.