So now it's Javid's turn to fake Covid19 infection

[JLR2]

The guy has been in office for what amounts to a matter of days and already, seeing the bad news that's heading his way due to Johnson's gamble with reopening England to more Covid19 infection and probably more dangerous mutations of the virus, Javid's decided to hide himself away from any prying media he doesn't feel friendly enough by following the tried and tested, 'Oh I've tested positive' or 'I've got Covid19' fairy tale used by his predecessor and by freezer loving PM Johnson.

Convenient is it not that Javid should test positive for Covid19 just as Johnson's "Freedom Day" arrives?  For a supposedly intelligent man who will have witnessed already what has allegedly happened to both Johnson and Hancock so far as catching Covid19 goes one might have expected him, given his new position as "Secretary of State for Health", to be hyper careful not to become infected. Not only for the sake of his family and his own health but for the millions in England who are suffering him as their SoS for Health.

Naw it is, I suspect, another lie from a government which would not recognise the truth if it bit them on the ar..backside.

[Sunny Clouds]

I think you're entirely correct in thinking that he'd be prepared to do something fake to stay out of the public eye, but I remain open as to whether this is faked or whether it's genuine and happened to occur at the right time to save him finding a different excuse.

I don't like how I feel about this, because a bit of me hopes that this is genuine and that it leaves him with a very nasty case of long covid.  I don't like it when I realise I'm wishing nasty things on people.  On the other hand, I'm just wishing Johnson & his mob would die, not, as they are, out there actually killing people.  

Sadly, I think that the government wants lots of 'vulnerable' people to die, because it wants lots of 'expensive' people to die.  Look how much could be cut off the benefits budget if loads of 'benny scroungers' (substitute your preferred nasty slur) dropped dead.  And more to the point, look how much more profitable a privatised, insurance-based NHS would be with fewer elders and disabled people expecting lots of care.

Ah, but long covid.  Gosh, they've been slow off the mark with branding it 'all in the mind' etc.  You know, the stuff they fling at people with ME/CFS.  They're going to have to get their act together on that one to keep the private companies taking over the NHS happy.

[JLR2]

Sunny, how dare you!!!   you're well on your way to giving me nightmares     As I was reading your posting there I had an 'orrible thought cross my mind, 'What would happen if Johnson decided to kill two birds with the same stone by moving 'The Smirk' from the Home Office to run the DWP with IDS as her assistant?  One of the first fitness to work assessment tests she would introduce would be a full blown Royal Marine Commando assault course to be completed before any claimant were to be allowed to make a claim, the next test would be on ability to swim with failing to reach the French coast indicating failure (note no rescue craft would be provided and water wings would be only optional).

I've posted as I have there as I've read somewhere that the government, maybe the DWP, are disputing the seriousness of long Covid19 so far as entitlement to welfare benefits goes. Basically they are refusing to recognise it as an illness of concern so far as welfare benefit qualification is involved. Perhaps they were simply expecting anyone in employment who suffered long covid to get back to work as if they were suffering a heavy cold.

[Sunny Clouds]

The Smirk?  Would that be preta Patel?  Oh, hang on, I'm getting my languages mixed up.  She wouldn't be a deceased evil spirit, would she?  Er, second thoughts, maybe I haven't forgotten all my Hindi...

[JLR2]

Yes that would be to whom I am referring.

   I just lost a posting I had written.

My comments were regarding the transmitting of Covid19 from those fully vaccinated. We have been being drip fed stories or comments from be it scientists of government politicians about how they are aware of some folk still able to pass on the virus even though vaccinated. It feels a bit like gaslighting. On one hand the government announces that those fully vaccinated can travel to much of Europe without the requirement to quarantine on our return but then that hardly sits well with the changed to the rules covering France. In the case of France it appears that the B variant of the virus is virtually unaffected by, to date, the Astra Zenica vaccine, odd that this was never mentioned when the B variant was discovered, we even had the Delta variant here before any stories/news of the resistance of the B variant to the AstraZenica were to be heard being made and even then neither the scientists nor any government official or minister felt it of any great importance or at least not so important that they should show or intimate any concern about any apparent issues with the vaccine, are they hiding something?

[JLR2]

From the web pages of the Guardian, looks like my suspicions might not be so far from the truth regarding these alleged Covid19 infections.

"Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak will not isolate after being ‘pinged’, says No 10"

[Sunny Clouds]

When I think  of what's going on, I just keep calling to mind the famous story of Boris' schooldays when he had a role in a play and couldn't be bothered to learn his lines, so wrote them out and stuck them on surfaces like pillars so he could read them off.

He, like so many politicians, is an odd mixture of careful planning and chance-taking.  Think of how many poorly planned, poorly thought out projects he's fronted, such as the Garden Bridge, Boris Buses etc.  Sometimes someone else picks up the plan and sorts it when he's gone, sometimes no one does.  In the meantime, his friends benefit from big fees for advising etc. and a future career for him with well-paid 'consultancies' and being in with the power crowd is guaranteed.

So if Boris is a risk-taker, why wouldn't he think it's just fine to take risks with sars-cov-2?  He's known for not having bothered to attend Cobra meetings early in the pandemic.  What else hasn't he 'learnt his lines' from?

That being said, not for nothing did the term 'lies, damned lies, and statistics' become embedded in the English language.  For instance, the 'average' person hasn't a clue about the different sorts of 'average'.  And there are other things people don't take on, not because they don't want to, but because people don't explain.  For instance, how many people actually get the gist of how it takes time to get to know a new virus?  Whilst Boris can't be bothered to learn his lines, many people out there don't even realise there are lines to learn.

No wonder there's so much scepticism about vaccines when not only have we still got the after-effects of the Wakefield MMR scandal  still frightening people (I wonder if he's yet worked out the difference between correlation and causation?) but many people, I think, don't understand that a vaccination can be partially effective.  But don't expect our government to push that message home.

I'm psyching myself up to go on a binge shop for basics.  I've already done one a couple of days ago.  Yup, stockpiling so I can keep my head low and be very picky when and where I go after 'Freedom to Endanger Others' day.

[lankou]

From the web pages of the Guardian, looks like my suspicions might not be so far from the truth regarding these alleged Covid19 infections.

"Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak will not isolate after being ‘pinged’, says No 10"

They have both now backed down due to the very angry response.

[oldtone27]

I despair these people are supposed to be professional politicians yet they completely misread the situation. Not once, not twice, but continuously. They couldn't run a piss up in a brewery.

The other lot continuously criticise them, justifiably, but don't offer credible alternative policies. Just vague mumbles.

Pox on all their houses.

[Sunny Clouds]

They are professional politicians.

Politics is a competitive business.  Getting elected is, I believe, more like winning a beauty or entertainment contest than being technically competent.

Is it always the singers with the best voices and best songs that hit the charts?  How much is down to the fashion of the time, good PR, and chance?

I could wonder how decent people ever get elected, but chance can sometimes go their way as well.

Declaration of interest - I utterly loathe Johnson and his cabinet plus other neoliberal politicians.  To me what sums up their attitude is the two-child benefits rule, which created a new offence of failing to choose the right parents, with an age of criminal responsibility of zero minus nine months, the punishment for which is the withholding of basics such as food, toiletries, clothing etc.  Murderers and rapists and terrorists don't have to rely on foodbanks.

I try to balance by deep fear of what is happening politically with a hope that people, of a range of circumstances such as social class, gender, ethnicity, age, education etc. can somehow pull together to survive.

[JLR2]

"They have both now backed down due to the very angry response"

I think they backed down because they were caught. As I've hinted previously, if not said outright, I do not believe Javid's claim to be suffering Covid19 rather it is just far more preferable to his thinking and that of the Johnson/Sunak's to hide from the media and what better excuse could they use but the same one Johnson used previously get into hiding from the media and greater British public when seeking to avoid scrutiny, the excuse being alleged Covid19 infection.

Johnson and Sunak didn't stop to think for a moment about self quarantine as they would have known of the plan to break a story (a fictional one) claiming allegedly that Javid had tested positive for Covid19 and this being so they would have known they had no need to quarantine themselves but following the reaction from the public, as you were saying Lankou, they decided it'd look better if they at least appeared to be going into quarantine. In truth all they are doing is blocking hostile media from putting them on the spot about the carnage that is going to follow over the next few weeks as "Freedum Day" opens up our hospitals to more pressure from Covid19 cases and in the course of time stretches the funeral service sector as more and more people die as a result of Johnson's gamble with the lives of the people of England. 

[Sunny Clouds]

Personally, I don't think whether any of the ministers have the virus or not is what matters, because I believe that they'd be equally willing to fake it or, if real, take advantage of it or not as suits them.  In other words, some think they faked it, I think I don't know, but I think what we can agree on is that they'd be prepared to lie about it if it suited them.

Analogy - when people take a view on Twin Towers, with the arguments between those that believe it was done by Al Qaeda and those that believe that it was done by the American government,  I take the view that who did it on whose authority and with who's instructions matters rather less than who would have been prepared to do it.

I believe that either side, at several levels of seniority, would have been prepared to do something involving that much death and destruction, and that belief matters more to me than the proof of who did it.

It's like when people talk about the pandemic as a 'plandemic'.  My attitude is "Why would they bother when they just had to wait for a genuine new virus outbreak to occur and take advantage of it?"  I've been very strongly influenced, I think, by Naomi Klein's book Disaster Capitalism, which I read a few years ago.  

Likewise my views on cabinet members and infection.  Since I believe that they'd be prepared to lie, whether that's saying they're not infected/in contact with an infected person or whether it's the reverse, I consider whether any of them actually is infected or incontact with an infected person is interesting but politically Likewise with our political leaders and who has or hasn't come into contact with someone infected by the virus, become infected by the virus or whatever.  I believe both that any and all members of our cabinet would be prepared to lie about it.  That includes also being prepared to lie and say they weren't infected when they were.  It works both ways.

And isolating being convenient?  Definitely. 

So I'm not saying "Oh, no, they're being truthful" I'm just saying that my beliefs that they'd be prepared to lie about this and that it's convenient don't lead me to conclude one way or another whether they're faking infection & infection-contact, or whether they're taking advantage of  it.

Thus I believe we're in general agreement.

[JLR2]

I'll believe Javid when his death certificate reads Covid19 as cause of death.

[Sunny Clouds]

I'll believe Javid when his death certificate reads Covid19 as cause of death.

A malicious thought went through my mind when I read that.  It goes along the  lines of "Wouldn't it be lovely if he'd lied about having the virus then found he'd actually got it and then ended up with long covid and a selection of yucky symptoms."

Well, it's not wishing even as much on him as he and his colleagues are doing.  Their political actions are killing people.  I'm not killing him, just wishing he'd die.

[Fiz]

I'm certain that he's tested positive for Covid. This conspiracy theory reads like the Daily Mail