“It is not simply scandalous that civil servants and advisers had fun while none of us could; it is scandalous that they were the ones who imposed those rules on us and are yet to apologise for them.”
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Samizdata quote of the dayJanuary 19th, 2022 |
 14 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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I don’t know about the UK, but in the USA, what the public health and education bureaucrats, especially blue state teachers’ unions, did to children with masking and school disruption was monstrous. The damage could very well be unfixable. It used to be said that children are resilient, but I wonder if that is true going forward.
Agreed.
The screams of “they did not obey their own rules!” distracts attention from the fact that the rules (whoever “suggested” them) were-and-are utterly insane.
Exasperated – I am torn on education. I agree with you that the there was no justification at all for the closing of in-person schools or for the masks – but then I remember the Collectivist ideology that most schools and the universities teach.
Even many private schools can not be trusted – especially many of the expensive ones.
The perceived risk is not the real risk
Quote from SAGE SPI-B minutes
Laura Dodsworth
https://lauradodsworth.substack.com/p/caught-between-the-great-back-pedal
You expect them to apologise? Get real. You have more chance of shagging the Pope than getting an apology.
So, the problem was that too many people were turning off in droves to the governments message of fear and dread, leaving them with only anecdotal evidence of friends and family, which in turn told them that few if any were actually seriously affected by COVID-19 and those that were tended to be older, fatter and sicker even before COVID-19 turned up on the scene.
If we’d ignored all this bullshit from the start it would have been the equivalent of an average to poor flu season.
Heads must roll, not for the parties, but for the policies and this must never happen again.
Millions of ordinary people disobeyed the Covid restrictions.
Why do some people expect civil servants to be especially obedient to rules and laws?
Civil servants are hired from the general population and can be expected to be as disobedient and criminal as the rest of us.
It was crass to hold parties, especially on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral and it was stupid of them to think they wouldnt be caught out. But then that’s the Civil Service for you.
@John Galt
Unlikely.
Look (for example) at Professor Pantsdown. Neil Ferguson has been a “useful idiot” for over twenty years, even though he’s got a proven track record as a serial offender. With a long string of woefully inaccurate scare stories (mathematical models).
1990’s Foot & Mouth (modelling used by MAFF/DEFRA to justify mass culling), 2005 Avian Flu and Tamiflu, and onwards
He gets trotted-out each time SAGE (and aliases) need a good scare story to keep us the sheeple afraid, acquiescent, and docile. Even if (as we know) he doesn’t believe his own models are the reality.
It’s not a coincidence, or a conspiracy, it’s policy.
I’m not sure “distracts” quite captures the issue. There is a mad sanity or a justified insanity, a productive madness or a disastrous justice, to the whole thing. (I summarise),
– “The PM had socially-distanced wine and cheese outside; he must resign!”, says Starmer.
– “The leader of the opposition is a hypocrite”, replies Boris. “He had un-distanced beer and pizza inside!”
– A civil servant is told to investigating this – but resigns after it emerges he had a louder, drunker party than either.
Obviously it is mad to treat these things as crimes – but they themselves made them so (on the instructions of Professor Neil Ferguson, who was then caught with his trousers down in every sense).
Obviously, it is absurd to tell pollsters you’re so angry at Boris’ party you’d vote for Starmer instead – but if the polls had not flipped then it would not be such a big deal in SW1. (I think many people see no other lever, even though that one is rotten. The very guy who took a picture through a curtained window of Starmer’s shindig – James Delingpole’s son IIRC – says he does not want that to take the heat off Boris.)
My optimism makes me think someone who could well articulate and focus the anger on our side of the aisle (as opposed to the anger of the Karens that the rules they love so were not always obeyed) could achieve something. But they’d be opposed by many SW1-ers who want one scapegoat so everyone else can be an even less-impeded we-make-rules-for-you phoney than before.
Ms. Le Conte’s article mentions an “elephant in the room”. But she didn’t mention one of my favorite elephants: whether the ChiComms created it or it formed naturally, they took advantage of the situation. Let it spread through the whole world while denying its existence. Sounds like a biological attack to me. And now they have good data on our response…for the next time. Only the next time will be a better engineered bug, possibly designed to overcome our ridiculously weak defenses. Why aren’t we talking about that threat? Seems bigger than any elephant.
And don’t just talk about the threat but start doing things now to mitigate it, e.g., cut off free travel in/out of China. When a traveler returns from China, require quarantine. And not some “on your honor” quarantine but a government “hotel” with locks, guards and guns. And the traveler pays all costs for the “hotel” before their trip. The justification is easy: the COVID pandemic (and previous ones that originated in China) and China’s response demonstrate beyond any doubt that China is not a first world nation when it comes to public health policy. Until they are, cut off travel. Hard for the ChiComms to counter that with propaganda–all non-Covidians will see the truth of it.
I remember when I also was not sure. That was about 12 months ago. You are way behind the curve if you think this is even still an open question lol.
I would vote for: The US wanted to work on this stuff, but it was quite problematic to do so here, on our soil, due to laws and regs and Congressional Orders and such, and so “we” fudged a bunch of money to some devious science schleps who took it overseas and made a deal with the lab and the lower-level officials – and maybe some other labs across the world – to work on it there, but “we” did a half-hearted job of quality-control due diligence in their processes and . . . oops.
(Those rumors about the the “U.S. funded bio-lab” having been seized and compromised in the Kazakhstan fun sure disappeared fast.)
I’m a bit of an outsider, and TBH here in the US if every politician and civil servant who broke their own rules (hey, even restrict it to breaking their own Covid rules) then there would be almost no politicians or civil servants left. (Everyone take a breath and think about how lovely that would be……)
But from what I hear the real problem was not the Covid hypocrisy, much as that is the pretext, but rather partying when one was supposed to be sad, reflective and respectful on the death of one of our betters. FWIW, I think the monarchy is a ridiculous pantomime, but of all of them I always had a soft spot for Phillip; him and Fergie. I always root for the rule breakers myself (except when they are hypocrites about it), and those two were a pair o’ wee scamps, as my mother would say. In a sense I find the fuss a bit ironic really.
“Politicians don’t obey their own rules!!!” Call me wise and insightful if you will, but this is not a surprise to me.