Showing posts with label UK POLITICS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK POLITICS. Show all posts

Thursday, 10 December 2020

BREXIT: BASED ON A FALSE PREMISE by Mel Cooper

 

WHY DO SERIAL LIAR BORIS & THE TORIES WANT TO
ISOLATE & BANKRUPT BRITAIN? 

BREXIT: BASED ON A FALSE PREMISE

 By Mel Cooper  - 10 December 2020. 

 Recently, Tim Stanley, an historian and journalist, who is a leader writer for the DAILY TELEGRAPH in London, UK, was talking about the wonders of Brexit on SKY News and how we would now get our sovereignty back at last. As a result, he stated, we would no longer be having laws imposed upon us by the EU.

 LAWS IMPOSED UPON US BY THE EU?!? I cried out, choking. I felt like screaming. “Listen, mate, we NEVER had one law imposed upon us.” Why, when people make these inane and illogical assertions does no one ever challenge them. For instance, can Tim Stanley name for me one law that was IMPOSED upon us? Can anyone?

 It cannot be done because we did not ever give up our sovereignty — we pooled it. Think about the difference. Surely it is not too subtle for you. Pooling Sovereignties! Which is, of course, the point of the EU. It is as much a collection of pooled sovereignties as the UK is a collection of four pooled sovereignties, so it is fairly rich that an intelligent, well-educated journalist and historian does not seem to see the parallels or get the drift.

 The UK had (and theoretically still has) the power to VETO all new EU policies and laws. Every EU law, every single one, was discussed, debated, and, guess what, sometimes we decided to compromise for good and sufficient reasons. Votes were taken in the EU parliament, just as they are in Westminster. Often we proposed the laws in the first place and even drafted them for the EU. We were as much part of the process, the third loudest voice, for 45 years as people in parliament who oppose a law, and then it gets passed by a majority, and then, hey presto, they do NOT consider that the law has been IMPOSED upon them! If so, then Brexit was imposed upon nearly 50% of this country and the people who voted against it should be allowed to exit the Brexit. 

How about we form a country within a country consisting of all the cities that voted not to leave the EU? Shall I start making the list?

 It is this kind of thinking and language as used by Tim Stanley on that program on SKY that is going to ruin this country completely in the end. It is this kind of illogical and lazy thinking that is a real danger for us all. Because of the insistence of Brexiteers that we somehow have given up our sovereignty by joining the EU, and because no one is questioning this nonsense properly, Brexit is based upon a total misinterpretation of and even a downright lie about how the system works. To take one example: we are about, for instance, to lose the whole freedom of movement for pets within the EU. That was a British initiative. That was something proposed by and fought for and then passed for the British! And the EU itself will continue to benefit from this idea for people travelling within its territories; but not the UK. It will not be so easy to take your mongrel or moggie to the South of France with you when you rent a summer cottage there. Indeed, it will not be so easy for you to travel within the EU any more either. Or for our kids to get educated at EU universities. And that is just a very tiny start to the changes we are about to have to live with. But hey, folks, that is what you voted for.

 What Brexit means to me, finally, is an act of betrayal. And do not kid yourself. It is not only that we are betraying the vision of a Europe united and at peace. Tim Stanley says that we should be relaxed because once we get our laws back inside our own country and are in total control of them, hey presto, no one wants to change any of the EU initiatives on better working hours, paternity and maternity leave, protection of workers’ rights, etc, etc. Really? Then why are we leaving the EU? Well, apart from demonizing the judiciary and trying to break international law in his internal market bill, PM Boris Johnson’s covert intelligence bill permits undercover agents to break the law. His use of statutory instruments allows him to evade parliamentary scrutiny. Boris Johnson wants to be the one to appoint judges, just like his idol Donald Trump; he is also setting up a review of the Human Rights Act. We are still waiting for Johnson to publish important things like vital independent reports, the Covid procurement contracts and the Brexit impact studies. Or have you not noticed any of these worrying examples, Tim Stanley? Boris and his cabinet are also fairly cavalier about appearing before various parliamentary scrutiny committees. However, maybe this has nothing to do with anything sinister. Maybe they are just all lazy.

 Brexit is not about the people or even about sovereignty. It is about authoritarian rule, unfettered government economic ambitions and isolating the UK from EU initiatives about offshore tax havens so that the UK can become the best, go-to place to launder international money.  Try reading a book called Britannia Unchained published in 2012 by Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Christ Skidmore and Liz Truss. Perhaps you should have read it before the 2016 Referendum? Are you actually aware of it? So here is a question: is Tim Brexit Stanley simply not aware of any of these activities; is he implicated in this effort of a Boris Takeover; or is he simply too naïve to notice? Personally I do not have a lot of hope in any of the members of the cabinet keeping the faith and not messing around with EU laws that protect workers and citizens’ rights.

I will tell you why. Firstly, because people like Jacob Rees Mogg have an already-declared agenda and are hoping precisely to erode the rights that they feel make them marginally less rich. And notably, we are all leaving the EU but Jacob has moved some of his headquarters to Singapore and Dublin; and Dublin is, emphatically, in the EU. Any thoughts about why? Are no alarm bells ringing?

For me the Brexit Project is about one simple thing: elitist authoritarian control by very far right Tories. And it was sold to voters for one simple reason. Take Back Control is a great slogan for people who feel deprived and challenged in various ways, who feel that they have been excluded. It was based on tweaking people’s feelings of xenophobia. And it feeds in to a strange Superiority Complex that still plagues the English and unthinking nationalists and would-be imperialists of all countries.

 I was very angry at Tim Stanley when I heard him spout the idea that, despite our powerful VETO, we have been having laws imposed upon us by the EU, but I am also very, very saddened that he cannot see how false that idea is. England has indeed been a great country in many ways over the centuries and produced some wonderful writers and scientists and actors and explorers and so forth. But it is now all in jeopardy. As is the whole EU project. And we were the ones to be in the vanguard of de-stabilising it. For centuries Europe has kept descending into wars because of countries that were looking out only for their own narrow and short-term interests and seeing themselves entirely as uncompromisingly at odds with all the other countries around them. So they formed alliances and reformed alliances and fought war after war after war. Whatever the flaws of the EU, the whole project was able for 45 years to avoid that mentality. And look what has happened since we, the UK, voted for Brexit? Right-Wing resurrections in Poland and Hungary and the Czech Republic; France and Marine Le Pen and the damned fisheries. It is all starting up again. And Britain is already slipping from 5th richest to 6th richest to 7th richest. And look at how badly our government, so in love with the authoritarian and centralized approach, has handled the whole pandemic?

 And so here we are, ready to leave the EU on 31 December 2020 as it turns into 2021. Even if we get a deal, it cannot be as good as the EU deal we have that we voted to abandon. Does that not say something important?

 And I suspect strongly that in the future, when the history of this low decade (dominated by Conservatism in this country and Donald Trump’s style of Republicanism in the USA) is written, that Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees Mogg, Dominic Cumming, Michael Gove, Priti Patel and the whole self-serving lot of them will be perceived as traitors to their country that they truly are, people who put their own narrow, blinkered interests before their country’s good; and people who betrayed the rest of Europe to boot - just as Putin and Trump want. They are Quislings, the lot of them, and they do not give any kind of damn for the less privileged citizens of their country.

 But I fear there is no point trying to debate with them or convince the average voter of any of this. You see, Brexit is based on that stupid, proud Superiority Complex of theirs and for the Ruling Elite of our country it is based on their Daily Telegraph approach to their own wealth. They do not give a damn about educating the country. And they do not, I think, speak sincerely or truthfully if it is going to go against their private wishes and secretive agendas. I am sure they are intelligent enough, some of them anyway, to work out the logic behind a false statement like “taking back our sovereignty”. They know perfectly well that every idea they sold you to get Brexit was ultimately based on the false premise that we had given up our sovereignty, not that we had pooled it, which is the truth of the matter. I am certain that they can figure out the difference between giving up sovereignty and pooling it for the common good of all concerned. So if we allow them that much intelligence, they are people totally and completely without integrity or any sense of idealism; and they are liars.

 Thus, my question is: does Tim Stanley believe what he says, has he fallen for it; or is he one of the liars too? And if they or he cannot see it, then they truly are too stupid and incompetent to be believed in any way. Mind you, there is nothing to say that these two things are mutually exclusive — the mind can hold two things at the same time. They can believe in the totally illogical and false while at the same time knowing that they are conning us.

 And so there seems to be nothing we can do, fellow citizens. If we scream, yell, or articulate any protests, all that happens is that the people who can see it agree, but the Make Britain Great Again-ers call what we are saying Project Fear to deflect from the fact that it is actually Project Due Diligence. And they will never change their minds any more than people who wanted to see Dreyfus go to Devil’s Island could be convinced, even after all the evidence that he was innocent was before them; or people who thought six months of Hitler in power would lead to cleaning up the country as he promised and then he could be got rid of. But do not kid yourself. Once people like Boris Johnson and his cohorts get the power, it is very hard to get rid of them. And once they start progressing towards their true, hidden goals that dare not be articulated properly, they go forward step by step eroding all that Britain has stood for democratically and intellectually for a good four hundred years. And so, as in so many things, we are following the USA and just lagging behind it. Think of our Conservative Party as becoming more and more like the Republicans or the Tea Party, in the USA. And think of Boris as being Donald Trump Light. And that is what this country voted for.

 So please tell me at last: what law was imposed on us? Give me one example in the last 45 years of a law that was imposed by the EU against our will, against our sovereignty? One example of a law made by the EU that we did not participate in considering, debating, formulating, voting on, passing and even writing up for the parliament of the EU to ratify? We had a VETO on every decision that impacted on Britain.

 Oh, and then there is the other important thing you might want to think about: that there was no real Opposition at the time of the Referendum. Because life-long-Leaver Jeremy Corbyn and his intellectually limp gang had control of the supposedly opposing party and undermined the campaign to maintain our membership in the EU. I blame Corbyn, his cohorts and that ineffably old fashioned dinosaur Len McCluskey (Labour’s flip side of the Dominic Cummings coin) as much as I blame Boris Johnson and his people.

 But right now I think I am going to go out and sing Christmas carols in the street and cheer myself up by hibernating, probably for up to a decade. When I re-emerge, we will see who was right about Brexit and immigration – me or Priti Patel.

********

11 DEC 2020 Letter to The Guardian:

The Guardian headline  “Johnson tells ministers to prepare for no-deal Brexit” 11 Dec 20, and your several commentaries forecasting 2% fall in GDP, “But we plucky Brits will get through it” are ridiculously optimistic. Prepare how? Prepare for what? They must be penned by people who have never built a business, marketed exports or financed a payroll. All respected global agencies from the Bank of England to Bloomberg have consistently warned of 8% drop in GDP and 15% - 20% fall in Sterling – for any Brexit. That translates to 5 to 7 million UK job losses or equivalent reduction of wages. 

Any Brexit, spurning our share of “The largest and richest market – ever” will bankrupt Britain. It is what Rees Mogg and chums in their tax-havens are betting on; they will blame the calamity on Covid-19 but Covid will have a V shaped recovery. Cafes, Pubs, Hairdressers, Nail bars, Theatres, Vacations etc. and other pleasures will quickly switch back on, accelerated by the Internet-Revolution. 

Basic, essential, serious agriculture, engineering and City of London services, our exports, sabotaged and fragmented by Brexit, will be swallowed whole by competing nations. Our only hope is to stop and abandon this idiotic, moronic, suicidal Brexit. – Noel Hodson, Oxford.

 Noel Hodson - Director

Tax Reconciliations, 16 Brookside, Oxford, OX3 7PJ UK,

From Tax-Havens to Safe Havens

Tel +44 1865 (0)760994 Mobile 07713 681216 

Noel Hodson Blog


Tuesday, 14 July 2020

BREXIT BANKRUPTING BRITAIN


WHERE IS THE PROMISED "BREXIT BONANZA"?
WHO IS FARAGE FOOLING NOW?
WHY ARE H.M.R.C. BLOCKED FROM TAXING OFFSHORE ASSETS?


LETTER To Andrew Marr, at The Andrew Marr Show; the UK's BBC TV Political Program.  

13 July 2020

Image

Dear Andrew Marr,

BREXIT BONANZA.  When you next interview an ardent Leaver such as Et Tu Gove, burbling incontinent Boris, our real PM slogan-writer sociopath Cummings, offshore billionaire Rees-Mogg,  or any of the other third rate Ministers or Shadow Ministers, would you please pin them to their chairs, for however many hours it may take, and insist on them answering in detail, with verifiable facts and figures: Where is the Brexit Bonanza? Where are the new trade deals? With whom? How much profit will the UK make? When will the deals be signed? How many extra jobs will they create? What additional products and services will we export? What additional City passporting rights will we obtain? …And why oh why are we “doing a Ratner” to our largest, most profitable export market? You should start by ascertaining if they or their family or colleagues own any of the £2 trillion UK assets tax-unpaid or paid in tax-havens – and if so, is tax-evasion their personal motive for Brexit?

I have 50 years active practical service as an accountant and business-planner. I find that all the experts and agencies, locally and globally, assert that we will lose 8% of GDP (in addition to Covid-19 impacts) , which translates to 7 million job losses or equivalent reduction in wages. Bloomberg said of Brexit, “It is the stupidest economic decision any country has ever made, ever”.  Please – please – on behalf of the whole nation – discover why our governors and Bullingdon Club betters are so utterly determined to bankrupt the UK and break up the Union. Or are they simply too stupid to do the business arithmetic and comprehend the consequences?

My CV link is in this address block.

I very much enjoy your History books.

Regards – (Mr) Noel Hodson

************

Saturday 11

Tax recovery could help fund spending

Using UK assets held in tax havens could help finance Rishi Sunak’s budget, says 
 Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, delivers his summer statement. Countries, such as Japan, manage with large debt and Tory backbenchers are wrong to worry about borrowing large sums to fund government investment, says Bernie Evans. Photograph: Jessica Taylor/AFP/Getty Images
Many ask how Rishi Sunak’s generous budget will be financed (
Of this, it is estimated that $3tn (£2.4tn) is from the UK. If Sunak spends $300bn (£237bn) of this UK hoard, it is only 10% of our tax-haven assets. So, long-term borrowing at near 0% rates is not likely to be a problem. We, the people, will pay the loans back to the tax havens in due course. If HMRC is empowered to levy back-tax and penalties as normal, it will approximately amount to the whole capital – $3tn – and spare the UK taxpayers.
 Sunak’s statement was the creation of a chancellor determined not “to scare Conservative backbenchers”, as your 


Noel Hodson - Director
Tax Reconciliations, Oxford UK,

MORE FROM MEL - EUROPEANS STEAL OUR JOBS


New Rules Rule Okay
By Mel Cooper




The announcement on 13 July 2020 of the new rules for what will win you points to immigrate into the UK and take a job seem to me to prove one thing: this government is either a bunch of fools, or they have hidden agendas more important to them than any promises or acts of common sense they have promised; and they are ultimately liars.

We weep for Coronavirus victims. We applaud the Care Workers – though, of course, it is probably all their fault for not following the rules properly.

But they did follow the rules as laid out by the government at that time – get everyone the hell out of hospitals as fast as you can, especially the elderly who must be sent back to their care homes without any testing. Testing? Masks? Forget it!

But, they still insist, when we leave the EU we have lined up for you the best trade deals ever, especially with the EU which is about to crumble and give us everything we want because they need us more than we need them. Unless, of course, they treat us badly and punish us and then it is all their fault if there is no trade deal.  

Of course, meantime, all the True Brits who have been so badly done down by all those horrid, greedy immigrants will be lining up for all the jobs that those horrid EU migrants have been taking from us – especially the ones where you get £6 an hour for wiping the bottoms of demented nonagenarians and treating them so that they feel loved and respected. I mean, Brits have been lining up for years to pick strawberries and plough fields and serve coffee in Costa Cafes and drive buses and sweep streets. And don’t kid yourself, they will very soon fill all the 120,000 unfilled care worker jobs and the many, many more that will be opening up when those horrid, ungrateful EU citizens go back to their own countries and stop trying to get into ours to take away those jobs and places in schools and all our housing. And meantime we are building, building, building, and clearly we will have enough housing for everyone in about, oh, say, six months.

Sadly, all the evidence is that so many migrant workers had their jobs because there were no British people able or willing to take them. Oh, but we only want the skilled workers! What skill is there in looking after the elderly or the ill or the mentally challenged? What skill is there is making people in a hotel feel looked after? And why would our kids want to go abroad and learn another language when they can stay right here and speak the best language in the world, the one we spread around the world through our Empire so that it is now the top language. People will definitely go on needing to talk English all over the Far East and Middle East. Especially while America remains so dominant.

As the Cheyenne tribes in the USA used to say of white government officials in the 19th century, I fear I have to say of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings and the entire cabinet and, sadly, most of the Conservative Party: they speak with forked tongue! And who, in this country, not bedazzled by their fake rhetoric and demagoguery, trusts them about anything much any more?

Including, of course, that Britain has made the right decision to leave the EU. Ah, well, there is nothing those of us who are sceptical about the future of the UK under Johnson, Brexit and a desire for a herd immunity that is illusory and dangerous, can do about it now. Is there?

So keep track of the new rules and then look back at the promises of 2016 that got you or someone you know to vote for Brexit, and see if you can find any similarity between them. Are the promises not being fulfilled? Shame on you if you think that. Use your common sense!

You can take the time to do this little exercise, if you wish to drive to or from the continent, while sitting in miles long queues or 40 acre parking lots near Dover, especially when you return to this country and find there is no red tape at all, no not any.

And then, please, do not ask any questions. Questions are a bad thing. Just swallow your doubts and carry on!

Mel Cooper, Oxford, UK 14 July 2020 

Tuesday, 3 March 2020

ARCTIC TEMPERATURE HITS 38C - 100F - PANDEMIC & PANIC

MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND!

JUNE 2020  Capital Weather Gang

Hottest Arctic temperature record probably set with 100-degree reading in Siberia - Washington Post


Record-shattering reading continues Siberia’s hot streak, foreshadows more heat elsewhere



MARCH 2020





89 scientists from 50 prestigious organisations analysed 26 ice surveys. They conclude that "Ice caps melting six times faster than in 1990's."  IPCC March 2020.




This gripping novel tracks Polar Meltdown, which causes Sea-Level-Rise, and the resulting Glacier-Flu, which is a global pandemic of the same type as evolved from H1N1 as Covid-19 or Coronavirus. The novel is far more dramatic than today's nasty, yet limited reality.

But it spells out what is terrifyingly possible if we, The Human Race, neglect to tackle these events. We must limit Global-Warming, or the sea-level will rise and swamp our coastal-margins - home to 5 billion people; and we must rapidly develop anti-flu vaccines. 

Bill Gates is now (March 2020) putting $100 million into testing thousands of molecules, currently used in other medicines, that could discover a fast route to a cure for Coronavirus. 

The whole world must act as one, to neutralise this invisible virus - and must continue to act as one to limit sea-level-rise. Both these deadly threats have no political or geographic boundaries. Regardless of our colour, creed, credit-rating, age, or location, we are all vulnerable. THE WISDOM OF ALICE WHITAKER, Alice, who is the prescient heroine of this tale, tells of eighty-percent of us dying. Alice and her brother find ways to survive the natural disasters, but Alice is hunted down and killed by the reactionary forces, who want to rebuild the world as it was. They want to re-create the systems that brought disaster and almost brought the human-race to extinction. 

Will Alice succeed to rescue sanity out of madness? We sincerely hope so. 




Do listen - Wash your hands - And insist on Green Energy. 

Links to Amazon Books - coming 6 March 2020.


CORONAVIRUS KILLS: Really worth watching and distributing – Noel





******

No self-professed, credible blogger on economics, politics and science can avoid commenting on the Coronavirus, Covid-19; which is an evolved type of influenza. It is of the H1N1 family (Avian Flu - Swine Flu  - etc) that circulates among animals and humans. It kills by causing pneumonia; it drowns our lungs from the inside. 

From the virus's emergence in China in the last quarter of 2019, and its so far tiny impact on the human population, of which it infects just 0.005% (5 persons in every 100,000) and dispatches to Heaven a mere 0.0007% (7 of us in every million), Coronavirus has a long way to go and to grow if it wants to be a significant epidemic or pandemic. Common Winter-Flu kills tens of thousands every year. 


So what's the fuss? Coronavirus is a new-flu (pnuemonic /lung) variant and is unknown. Will it become a major threat to the human race? Will it rival the greatest pandemic of modern times, Spanish Flu? 

SPANISH FLU:  ‘The largest ever pandemic in recorded history, when it is thought that up to fifty million people may have died, was caused by Spanish Flu’ in 1918/19 just as World War One was ending; so called because at first only Spain – which was a neutral country – reported the virus. In May 1918, in Spain, in that one month, eight million people caught the virus.’



‘Medical researchers now believe that this most notorious of all viruses originated in birds – in fact in the pigeons kept in the trenches for both food and for message carrying, then moved to chickens, ducks, geese and pigs, kept close to the war front in cramped pens to feed the troops, and then into the stabled horses, at the time still used in warfare, and onto cattle and into the human population. The cold and wet winter of 1918 and 1919 was a major contributory factor, as was the worldwide movement of troops – Britons, French, Germans, Russians, Americans, Australians, Canadians, Ghurkhas, other Indian regiments, Africans; and people from many other Commonwealth countries.’

‘The virus returned, though not nearly so lethally, in the winter of 1957, when seventy-thousand died in the United States…’ 
‘…and in 1968 when thirty-four-thousand Americans lost their lives.’  
Few extrapolated the 1957 and 1968 statistics to mean that globally about seven-million died of the virus in 1957 and another three and a half million died in 1968.

*******


Spanish Flu killed the largest number, but other pandemics were many times more lethal. The many visitations of The Black Death killed about 2/3rds of the world; and changed the feudal system forever. European Measles and our Sexually Transmitted Diseases killed 80% of South Americans. Thank you for visiting us, Christopher Columbus; do come again. 

Pandemics are dangerous and deadly.  Coronavirus containment is not working - the virus is breaking out all over. The most authoritative health institutions and medical scientist around the globe have only one remedy to stop the spread, "Sneeze into Tissues & Wash Your Hands." I find that advice to the populous very welcome - and it will reduce many common diseases caused by dirty habits. The human race must learn to wipe its own bottom and clean up its mess. 

Hand washing might reduce HORIZONTAL (person to person) infections, but if Prof. Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe and John Watkins are right, most of the infections are VERTICAL (from the upper-atmosphere); which explains why the virus manifests rapidly in diverse countries simultaneously. 

Viruses from Space:

Yesterday, I re-read Prof Fred Hoyle’s et al, 1978 book “Viruses from Space” i.e. from the upper atmosphere. Hoyle is world-famous for naming the Big-Bang theory. It argues and demonstrates that “acute-respiratory-tract-infections” e.g. flu’, coronavirus etc. and other epidemics are mostly caused by Vertical (falling from the sky) as opposed to Horizontal (person-to-person) transmission of viruses and thus pandemics.

In 1978, Hoyle’s team wrote “…especially regions lying downwind of the Himalayas, particularly China  and SE Asia.   …..making China the quickest and worst affected region of the Earth.” The book scientifically, statistically and credibly predicts that more viruses (some beneficial – most nasty) are swept by weather, topography, geography and the seasons to land in China, partly due to the Himalayas – and thus start pandemics.

The authors also show that earlier virus outbreaks occurred just south of the Alps, in northern Italy. Italy is now experiencing a coronavirus outbreak.

A chapter shows how viruses that fall onto deserts, where they are relatively inert, can be swept-up by sandstorms, to infect distant lands. This would apply to last week’s sandstorm from the Sahara to Tenerife.

Hoyle’s study questions the received and majority medical-science wisdom of 1978, and thus of now, “…once a false belief becomes established it is very difficult to get it out, essentially because the system invents supposed facts in order to support it.”

The puzzling global patterns of coronavirus outbreaks seem to be intelligently addressed and explained by Prof. Hoyle and his colleagues. It does not negate the urgent need to limit person-to-person transmission.  

TREATMENT - It seems that nations, even America, must provide good quality health-care to all citizens, regardless of class, colour, creed or credit rating. They might all follow Britain and create free National Health Services. The US has about 40 million impoverished souls without Health Insurance. That number of corpses left in the gutters outside hospitals will certainly cause more, and varied, pandemics - and a major pollution problem. 

ECONOMICS - What coronavirus will not do is crash the world economy. A mass pandemic will change economic drivers and necessities, but the task of surviving, curing and carrying on will immediately create new industries and activities. Pandemics won't destroy the electronic revolution and mass communications. Probably the reverse. In 1992, Gil Gordon (New Jersey) and I (London UK) wrote Teleworking Explained - how to utilise home-offices and work by wire. Teleworking /Telecommuting is now being recommended to help curb the pandemic. That, and the Wuhan-Kiss, i.e. greetings from 3 yards apart. The smart money will sell out of the affected industries (Travel? Crowd Activities?) and buy into the replacement industries (Amazon shopping? Genetic medicine? Telework?). For every business-model that goes down - 3 will spring up. There are 7 billion people to service. A new gold rush! Who will be first?  And we all still have to eat. 

My bets include Tesla, Vestas Wind, Orsted and all the emerging green energy products. I think Oil, Gas and Coal are in their end-game. Spot the winners. 

PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL ADVICE: 

                                          COVID-19 ADVICE
A note from Dr. James Robb:

"Dear Colleagues, as some of you may recall, when I was a professor of pathology at the University of California San Diego, I was one of the first molecular virologists in the world to work on coronaviruses (the 1970s). I was the first to demonstrate the number of genes the virus contained. Since then, I have kept up with the coronavirus field and its multiple clinical transfers into the human population (e.g., SARS, MERS), from different animal sources.
The current projections for its expansion in the US are only probable, due to continued insufficient worldwide data, but it is most likely to be widespread in the US by mid to late March and April.
Here is what I have done and the precautions that I take and will take. These are the same precautions I currently use during our influenza seasons, except for the mask and gloves:
1) NO HANDSHAKING! Use a fist bump, slight bow, elbow bump, etc.
2) Use ONLY your knuckle to touch [public] light switches. elevator buttons, etc.. Lift the gasoline dispenser with a paper towel or use a disposable glove.
3) Open doors with your closed fist or hip - do not grasp the handle with your hand, unless there is no other way to open the door. Especially important on bathroom and post office/commercial doors.
4) Use disinfectant wipes at the stores when they are available, including wiping the handle and child seat in grocery carts.
5) Wash your hands with soap for 10-20 seconds and/or use a greater than 60% alcohol-based hand sanitizer whenever you return home from ANY activity that involves locations where other people have been.
6) Keep a bottle of sanitizer available at each of your home's entrances. AND in your car for use after getting gas or touching other contaminated objects when you can't immediately wash your hands.
7) If possible, cough or sneeze into a disposable tissue and discard. Use your elbow only if you have to. The clothing on your elbow will contain infectious virus that can be passed on for up to a week or more!

What I have stocked in preparation for the pandemic spread to the US:
1)    Latex or nitrile latex disposable gloves for use when going shopping, using the gasoline pump, and all other outside activity when you come in contact with contaminated areas.
2)    Note: This virus is spread in large droplets by coughing and sneezing. This means that the air will not infect you! BUT all the surfaces where these droplets land are infectious for about a week on average - everything that is associated with infected people will be contaminated and potentially infectious. The virus is on surfaces and you will not be infected unless your unprotected face is directly coughed or sneezed upon. This virus only has cell receptors for lung cells (it only infects your lungs) The only way for the virus to infect you is through your nose or mouth via your hands or an infected cough or sneeze onto or into your nose or mouth.
2) Stock up now with disposable surgical masks and use them to prevent you from touching your nose and/or mouth (We touch our nose/mouth 90X/day without knowing it!). This is the only way this virus can infect you - it is lung-specific. The mask will not prevent the virus in a direct sneeze from getting into your nose or mouth - it is only to keep you from touching your nose or mouth.
3) Stock up now with hand sanitizers and latex/nitrile gloves (get the appropriate sizes for your family). The hand sanitizers must be alcohol-based and greater than 60% alcohol to be effective.
4) Stock up now with zinc lozenges. These lozenges have been proven to be effective in blocking coronavirus (and most other viruses) from multiplying in your throat and nasopharynx. Use as directed several times each day when you begin to feel ANY "cold-like" symptoms beginning. It is best to lie down and let the lozenge dissolve in the back of your throat and nasopharynx. Cold-Eeze lozenges is one brand available, but there are other brands available.

I, as many others do, hope that this pandemic will be reasonably contained, BUT I personally do not think it will be. Humans have never seen this snake-associated virus before and have no internal defense against it. Tremendous worldwide efforts are being made to understand the molecular and clinical virology of this virus. Unbelievable molecular knowledge about the genomics, structure, and virulence of this virus has already been achieved. BUT, there will be NO drugs or vaccines available this year to protect us or limit the infection within us. Only symptomatic support is available.
I hope these personal thoughts will be helpful during this potentially catastrophic pandemic. You are welcome to share this email. Good luck to all of us!"


Friday, 14 February 2020

BORIS'S GANGSTER GOVERNMENT


"YA DONNA SHOW ME NO RESPECT!"

True Boris. Because you lead a bunch of idiots, bankrupting the UK. You have been and still are too lazy and too stupid to analyse the economic consequences of your ill-conceived Brexit. When can we re-join the EU, the largest and richest market in the world? 

Are you, Boris, hiding away because it is slowly dawning on your limited, slug-like brain and incontinent nervous system that it is all a ghastly mistake? If you refuse to be cross-examined by ITV and the BBC on your crazy policies, then We the People might refuse to pay you any taxes. Bang go your huge salaries, cars and expenses. 

Do your bloody job for the nation Mr Johnson! And get your bloody hair cut like a serious grown-up.

Saturday, 11 March 2017



1h  28th Feb 2020
"Figures from a House of Commons library document puts the UK's net contribution to the EU and EC budget between 1973 and 2018 at around £163 billion ...
Brexit is estimated by Bloomberg to cost £200 billion by the end of the year."




Around the world, many politicians are adopting Mafia management strategies to escape legitimate curbs and public accountability. The same tactics set out in Mein Kampf, by the arch-fascist, Hitler, as he lied and bullied his way to power; rudely and violently disposing of all and any opposition and establishing concentration death camps for any who defied him. 

The new would-be fascists can be readily identified by their vicious attacks on "The Deep State". They undermine the media and, as their power increases, they shred the powers of the judiciary, and of the diplomatic and civil services that are the professional continuity managers of nations. These highly intelligent, usually mature, well balanced, non-partisan state-servants maintain stability through decades of political changes and turbulence. They are the reliable societal scaffolding of our civilisations. All crazed would-be dictators need the civil-services to implement policies; but they fear and resent their intelligence, influence and criticisms. 

In the UK, the greatest barrier to fascism is the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC. It is attacked decade after decade by politicians who desperately want to escape scrutiny and be free to unleash their social experiments and impose their over-inflated egos on the populace. Boris Johnson has forbidden Ministers from being interviewed on the BBC and other media. He fears that shining light on his activities might turn him into a pile of dust.  

Last night, on the Eve of Saint Valentine's Day, our unelected, immature Prime Minister and his creepy Familiar, Cummings, reshuffled the Top Cabinet posts, and appointed a bunch of third-rate, supine Ministers. It is dubbed This Revenge Reshuffle. All political appointees have to pledge obedience and unswerving craven loyalty to Cummings and Johnson. How very Al Capone. Ya gotta show me more respect - or else.

This gang are, of course, the dolts and criminals who believed the delusional, obsessed Farage and brought us BREXIT, sacrificing half, yes 50%, yes, fifty-percent, of all our exports. As Michael Bloomberg said "The supidest economic decision any nation has ever made." They promised us the easiest, quickest, best'est, biggest new trade-deals ever; taking us onto the "sunlit post-Brexit-uplands". Where are these new trade deals? Our economy is doomed. Gangsters do not create wealth; they gorge on the carcasses of the businesses they have destroyed. As Boris Johnson said last year "Fuck Business." 

In the USA, Trump is attempting to impose the same type of dictatorial control over America's "Deep State" and impose total compliance, through fear, over all elected politicians. Debate is OUT, cringing subservience is IN. And to hell with the Constitution. 

The earliest (Britain) and the largest (USA) Western democracies have become Gangster Nations, governed by bullying, fear and lies. The World slavishly follows their example. Fascism resurrects - and plague threatens. 

Welcome to 2020.  

Footnote: Hitler caused the deaths of 60 million people, bankrupted Germany - then committed suicide. Not very clever. Not a great advertisement for totalitarian regimes. 





Thursday, 23 January 2020

2020 - GET BREXIT DONE!

Update 26 March 2020 - by Mel Cooper:


26 Mar 20 
Dear Sienna Rodgers, 

Could you please discuss the following with Jeremy Corbyn on my behalf:

Since you say he is completely committed to the  "strength of a society that cares for each other” then why has Jeremy Corbyn been a Eurosceptic for so long and why did he do such a lousy job defending a Europe that works together and cares for each other? Are the nations of Europe not potentially a kind of society that cares for each other and works together for the common good? Or does he not think that the UK is actually a part of Europe? I admit the running of the EU has flaws. But when he said on national television that he supposed he would have to admit that he was 7 out of 10 for staying in the EU if someone pushed him to a wall and held a gun to his head, I believe that he not only lost the Referendum but that he was lying and really meant 3 out of 10. Frankly, the answer should have been 10 out of 10 for staying in and then 10 our of 10 for improving it. As with everything else, the man was prevaricating. He was also, it seems to me, lying. He basically wanted us out of Europe.

Also: If he is so keen to see Israel obey international laws, especially over their decidedly stupid and provocative building settlements in the so-called Occupied Territories, will he sit down with his “friends” in Hamas and Hezbollah and suggest that they might want to think about obeying the international laws of 1948 that established the state of Israel? or that the leaders who are crying death to Jews as their basic position might consider using some of the oil wealth of the Arab nations to do something positive for the living conditions of their “subjects”? Maybe the descendants of the 800,000 Jews who were kicked out of Arab nations in 1948 and taken in by Israel should now also, for the sake of parity and fairness, be given a Right of Return?

Frankly, I left the Labour party precisely because of the directions in which Jeremy Corbyn and his Acolytes have been taking it. I am disgusted by the narrowness , shallowness and ultimately racist attitudes in the party now (including that one race is always right and another is always wrong — you guess which ones I mean — and even the use of the term “race” and an implication of separate “races" when Jews and Arabs are actually all of the same race and Semites together).

And I am incensed also that the Labour Party is still, in the days of the coronavirus, not pointing out that after all this is over Europe is going to have the same kind of problems and challenges rebuilding as it did after World War II in terms of economic and social issues. Not only do we need to be thinking about how much better off we will be as part of the unified Europe trying to overcome the devastation of this virus, but also, frankly, what we can do to help. One thing missing from the entire debate about the EU has been the moral issue. It is not about what the EU does or does not do for us, but about what we should be doing for the EU, for all of Europe united. Instead we are permitting our feeble, intellectually challenged and totally lightweight government to make us a second rate nation and remove us from a forum where we have been leaders with influence well beyond our actual powers and position in the world. We could still return to a position of being leaders and influencers, but, of course, that would not in any way fit in with the adolescent and uncritical Marxism of Momentum or Jeremy Corbyn .

And by the way, he lost two elections in a row and cannot take credit for anything the government is doing now because that is all down to the coronavirus. If the Labour Party had any brains it would get rid of Corbyn and his people completely (I hate to think of him in his preferred role as Shadow Foreign Minister) and maybe get someone like Gordon Brown to become a top advisor. Otherwise, I think that the Labour Party is doomed.

23 January 2020.

Mel asks:- Can you explain to me again the advantages of leaving the EU?



Two septuagenarian experts, Brian and Noel, rise to the challenge. 

Noel writes: Brian puts it far more elegantly than I. But we agree in principle. 

Bumbling Boris and Cummings the Clown, with his baggy old trousers drooping off his bottom, must now globally renegotiate trade deals on the 70,000 items we buy and sell. They must win better terms than we have today with the EU.  They must make up the last 3 years of huge Brexit costs. So, I guess that England is doomed, doomed, doomed. AND - Where are the City’s Passporting Rights? Is The City of London also doomed? - Noel

******** 
Brian writes:

Dear Mel,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to list the advantages arising from the UK leaving the EU.  Here are my thoughts, in no particular order:

  • Foreigners really will “begin at Calais”.

  • We will be able to make “wonderful” trade deals, which will inevitably be inferior - certainly in terms of the quality of what we import - than those we already have.  This is inevitable because of the greater size and therefore bargaining power of the world’s larger, and therefore more significant, trading nations.

  • We will be able to re-establish new Governmental departments, at enormous cost, to negotiate and then monitor our new “wonderful” trade deals, establish our own food and other standards.  These, and many other new costs, will swamp any savings we make from leaving the EU.

  • It will be necessary for the UK to agree new trading and other arrangements with the EU, by far our largest current trading partner.  But, it will be equally necessary for the EU to ensure that post-Brexit Britain gets worse terms than it currently enjoys; anything else would result in the unravelling of the whole of the EU as its other members would be encouraged to leave so as to improve their own status vis-a-vis the EU.

  • If we want the best trading terms that the EU is likely to offer us, they will have to be on something other than an arms-length basis (i.e., along the Canadian, Swiss or Norwegian lines) and this arrangement will involve the UK in paying towards the EU’s ongoing costs, somewhat as we do now.  On the other hand, to avoid such costs, it will without doubt result in poorer trading terms with the EU, our most important, closest, and probably most empathetic neighbour (compare and contrast the USA, China and Russia in terms of empathy).

  • We will lose perhaps a very sizeable proportion of the most profitable “industries” we have: the financial, automobile and aerospace industries.

  • Brexit will result, almost inevitably, in the UK losing both Scotland and Northern Ireland, and, who knows, perhaps also Wales.  Oxford is sure to follow if they leave.  Using my constant desire to turn every thought into an anagram, the United Kingdom will become the Untied Kingdom.

  • The English language will no doubt over time cease to be the de-facto lingua franca of the EU.   One could expect the French to push for English to be replaced by their own lingua franca, and the Brits will be forced to learn languages - a great imposition.

  • When outside the warm embrace of the EU, the UK (in its then diminished, solitary, situation) will have to find new ways to impress other large nations to treat us as being significant on the World’s political stage.  Without Scotland and Northern Ireland, we will be a nation of about 60 million people, and have the clout of countries of like size, say Tanzania.

  • And this one’s for the historians.  In the whole history of Europe, England (or the UK) has never found itself in the opposite camp to a united France and Germany.   But note: for this to be true, the pedant would set aside the 16 years between the Treaty of Rome and the UK’s triumphal entry into the then European Communities.  Ignoring the pedant, as we should, I don’t know what this might entail, but it’s food for thought.

I find that a heavy heart is not conducive to creativity, and these are the only things I could come up with at short notice.  I’m sure if I left this to stew a little longer, I could imagine other, greater, benefits to come from the UK leaving the EU.

Best regards,


Brian
********

Noel responds to Mel. 

Of course. The advantage of pissing off 50% of our export customers is to crash sterling and make £46M or more, far more, for Rees-Mogg and his pals – offshore, tax free.


Sterling has gone from $1.51 to $1.30 dollars (-13.2%). 

This coming year, 2020, of non-deals and hopeless confusion will knock another 15% to 20% off sterling. Let’s sell the BBC and the NHS to the USA! Whoopee!

Jan 23 - 20 - 1 Pound sterling equals
1.31 United States Dollar
23 Jan, 10:56 UTC · $1.51  ‎30 Jan 2015

“UK trade deficit. A deficit of £139 billion on trade in goods” losing up to, say, 20% on sterling (with which we buy our imports) is $27.8bn (annually) which at the average wage of £25,000 is 1.1 million jobs – accumulating year after year. So, after 5 years of sterling at 20% down it is equivalent to 5.5 million lost jobs. BUT, a fantabulous, generous trade deal with Trump will make our exports soar, wipe out the deficit, put it all to rights and make us rich – rich – rich. Brilliant Brexit Bullshit!

Noel Hodson - Director
Tax Reconciliations, Oxford UK,


On 23 Jan 2020, Melvin Cooper wrote:

Can you explain to me again the advantages of leaving the EU? Mel


Cummings the Clown and Bumbling Boris said: Who needs experts? Nobody wants experts? Nobody reads long expert analysis. We do it all from sound-bites, by instinct. When we are seriously ill, we don't consult trained medics - we rely on shamans, prayers and lots of positive continual shagging. "GET BREXIT DONE and gambol into the Sunlit Uplands. Hurrah!" 

NOTE - Should you, contrary to Tory  promises, lose your job, assets or sanity in 2020 - these two representatives of the gang who brought us Brexit can be found at Number 10, Downing Street. They will personally compensate you, in full, for any financial losses.