Boris, don’t be bullied into second lockdown by wet Whitty – take a stand like the Swedes
I HAVE no doubt Chris Whitty is a well-meaning bloke who spends every waking hour gripped by a sinking feeling that he’s going to shoulder a large portion of the blame for our early Covid response.
But for our Chief Medical Officer to even whisper that locking down the entire country for a further two weeks because of a virus that is killing one-tenth the number of folk dying from pneumonia and influenza is insanity of the highest order.
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Don’t be bullied into this, Boris. Don’t even think about it. The future of this country — and your Prime Ministership — is at stake.
Whitty is making his decisions in a Covid bubble, ignoring the excess deaths that will come from a ticking cancer time- bomb, an explosion in mental health issues and the forth- coming poverty pandemic, with the furlough scheme to be wrapped up next month.
If he is too haunted by his decision to give Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance a “telling-off” in early March — when he suggested a full national lockdown that could, in hindsight, have prevented many deaths — as newly released emails revealed this week, then sadly he should resign.
And if the CMO refuses to come up with a better strategy than locking us in our houses again, then he must be sacked.
If former libertarian Boris fails to do so, he is accepting a scary creep towards authoritarian rule — a land where mingling in the street is illegal and folk are being encouraged to snitch on their neighbours for inviting S Club 7 around.
Even in the medium term, this is a scenario we simply cannot countenance.
Make no mistake, with the imminent introduc-tion of curfews, part-time schooling and an order to work from home again, we are lurching towards a second lockdown in all but name.
ZERO COVID IS A DELUSION
As our civil liberties and freedoms continue to be curtailed on an almost weekly basis, I keep thinking there is a more fundamental question we need to answer: What type of world do we want to be living in?
Is not being able to freely travel internationally for years to come acceptable?
Is it worth not being allowed to host more than five people for a barbecue?
Do we sign up to being banned from the pub after 10pm?
The answer for me is a big fat no way — and more people are coming around to my way of thinking as each day passes, including Boris’s loyal base of Brexiteers.
We must look to Sweden, a European country proving it is possible to LIVE with Covid responsibly, rather than letting society be controlled by and terrified of the virus.
Zero Covid — the idea of complete elimination being trialled by New Zealand — is a delusion.
The borders of my homeland are shut to all foreigners and could remain so for years to come, destroying an economy reliant on tourism.
By contrast, Sweden’s infection rates are now so low — because of the degree of herd immunity achieved by avoiding a draconian lock-down — that they have been granted a precious air bridge by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, meaning we can visit the home of Abba and avoid a 14-day quarantine.
Boris has been incredibly brave when it comes to holding firm on Brexit, staring down the hysteri-cal establishment and bullying EU.
Now the time has come for him to stand up to his hysterical health and science advisers — whose predictions have been largely wrong every step of the way in this pandemic — in the same way.
So right about rabid Left
LEFTIES reacted with pearl-clutching indignation this week when Grayson Perry, one of their own, said they were far less nice than folk on the Right.
Speaking before the launch of his new series Big American Road Trip, the artist said: “The Left is more venal and has more antipathy to the opposition than the other way round. I would say the Right, on average, are friendlier and more open.”
Then, with hilarious predictability, they proved Grayson’s point within 24 hours.
First, hate-filled Lefties launched a sickening #RIPJKRowling campaign online after claims her new novel is transphobic. (It’s not).
Then, an intelligent rising star of the Right, Calvin Robinson, who happens to be black, was pilloried and abused in the most racist manner for daring to go on Good Morning Britain and criticise the Black Lives Matter movement.
The deranged Left are in the grip of a tyranny of intolerance and they’re blind to the hatred they spread.
Wootton’s week
United nannies’ hot air
WHEN did the United Nations morph into Extinction Rebellion? This week it garnered publicity for a report warning the world will be destroyed if we don’t all become vegan plant-munchers.
I seem to remember a time when I was growing up that this once- respected international body focused on genuine causes of global co-operation.
Now it’s driven by whatever trendy culture-war cause the woke warriors care about, whether it be banning “offensive” words such as mankind and husband (yup, really) or inviting Korean pop stars BTS to talk about their insecurities.
I don’t think it has thought through its latest plant-based missive, however.
It would financially decimate many countries around the world whose economies are focused on farming.
And just imagine what it would do to the health of the global population.
Every vegan I know is unhealthy, prone to fainting and has bad skin.
Every former vegan I know now admits their body was desperately craving animal products during their meat-free days.
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I get that privileged Westerners should maybe cut down the red meat consumption a little.
But the UN risks irrelevance if it keeps trying to become an international version of the Nanny State, telling us what to put in our mouths.
It’s none of the UN’s goddamn business.
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