I have just had my attention drawn to this Tweet:
And this morning’s prize for dick of the day goes to... https://t.co/BUefWHTWpR
— Sarah Vine (@WestminsterWAG) April 13, 2020
Sarah Vine is, of course, a Daily Mail columnist. And she is the wife of Michael Gove: hence her rather weird (if I might say so) twitter name which does, I think, permit me to make an association I might not otherwise think it appropriate to draw attention to.
Had she read my reasoning and concern for Johnson implicit in it? I doubt it.
Had she thought about the reaction to her claim that the second reply to her tweet induced:
Or do I instead think that she had ignored the favours her own family were also enjoying, oblivious to the privilege?
Actually, I simply doubt that the exceptionalism implicit in her comment occurred to her.
Instead I think that her tweet is about something else altogether, which is that the government is now really worried that it is becoming apparent that their policies are failing very badly, and the attack dogs (of whom Vine is one) are being unleashed.
They do not offer reason, as I did, for their commentary. They just want to suggest that I am a 'very nasty man', ignoring the fact that I am actually someone who cares about Johnson's health; who cares about the health of others; who cares about the rule of law, and who thinks that maybe the PM would be wise to follow his government's own advice if he wants everyone else to do so, as I would really rather that they did.
And let's forget the claim that the flat at No.11 is not suitable for recovery. It's the PM's home, for heaven's sake, and vastly better I am quite sure than that in which most people in this country live.
Do I feel like 'dick of the day' for making a sound argument in that case? No, not in the slightest.
But I am worried that we have a government that is very clearly out of control.
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That No11 Downing Street would be better than what most of the country have cannot be doubted. As someone classed as seriously vulnerable (18 months ago I had large tumours on each lung, and the intensive chemo used to treat my cancer has also left me with a damaged immune system) I am required to remain at home for 12 weeks (three down, nine to go), which I am able to do without huge difficulty because I have support on which to call. I recognize that both this and the fact that my bungalow has its own small garden in which I can sit out make me fortunate compared to many.
Go well Thomas
i hope you are ok thomas
I am fine, and being autistic I am well used to spending a lot of time in my own company, so I am probably finding this less tough than many.
It’s clear the government is doing terribly in terms of people suffering and dying and in terms of the economy from massive incompetence. It makes it hard to defend the tories so instead more attention is going into suppressing anything critical. Of course the government want people to self police their messages to prevent pointing out glaring hypocrisy.
I have also noticed an increase in people claiming they are cancelling payments to the guardian as well for example, which seems to be an attempt at reducing criticism. But holding this government to account is the only way of getting any action from them and they are still falling so far short.
The daily press briefings by Govt and its chosen representatives are unpleasant to watch and distressing as a father of a London hospital doctor. They have to continue in their propaganda as they are nothing without deceptions and self supporting stories. I’m sure they believe all of their propaganda is essential – it’s a war after all. Are the “journalists” questions vetted in advance or fed to the trusted ones. Laura and Robert have made careers on tweeting advance information and defending power at critical times.
Gove is a master of deception, he needs to be studied closely – he has a great skill.
To be dissed by Mrs Gove, Tim Montgomerie et al are signposts you are being listened to at the highest levels. Please keep up your essential journalistic work – talking truth and questioning.
Johnson could have been upfront where that he would recuperate – in Chequers. He is after all following in the footsteps of David Lloyd George who was absent after his Spanish flu disease and Churchill who suffered maladies at crucial times.
Mr Tony-B – I agree with your comments. & Campbell – noted that the 4th estate was failing in its DUTY to hold the gov to account. I have already posted one link to the article – hope it’s Ok to post again: https://www.thearticle.com/media-questions-at-no10-briefings-are-woeful-here-are-20-they-should-ask.
As for Vine – Richard – I would regard her comments as a badge of honour.
Bolton will be asking you back on Sky soon at this rate 🙂
Just treat Mrs Gove as you would any other spiteful person. And remember that at the bottom of Pandora’s Box, from which all spites originally emerged, there emerged Hope.
Westminster WAG failed to mention that it was Michael Gove who said
“But I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris can not provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.”
Now that was nasty
🙂
So, Boris thinks that the NHS is ‘the heart of the country’ eh?
Well OK then – repeal the 2012 Health & Social Care Act eh, Boris? Hmmm – let’s see shall we?
I’m sorry that I am not on Twitter as I’d say a thing or two as well.
Being called a dick by Sarah Vine should be seen as a right of passage and you should be proud.
🙂
Boris Johnson was the prat who deliberately boasted that he was shaking hands with medical staff and patients in a coronavirus unit. This following video link should be made compulsive viewing for all those dimwits who’ve criticised you for pointing out that the country’s idiot prime-minister is at it again spreading the coronavirus to Chequers as a possible continuing asymptomatic carrier or the staff accompanying him:-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-boris-johnson-positive-test-health-advice-shaking-hands-hospital-hancock-a9430231.html
The dimwits should also take note that at least Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer had a moral compass and resigned for visiting her second home:-
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/05/scotland-chief-medical-officer-seen-flouting-lockdown-advice-catherine-calderwood
At times it’s hard not to think this country has a massive low IQ problem!
Just to ram the message home to the prat who calls himself prime-minister and those who support him the WHO is reporting that some recovered Covid-19 patients are testing positive again:-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who/who-is-investigating-reports-of-recovered-covid-patients-testing-positive-again-idUSKCN21T0F1
One could be forgiven for thinking that the one objective, on which this clearly lamentable ‘government’ and its little helpers are concentrating, is producing ‘dead cats’, smoke-screens, bent figures and blame-shifting rhetoric. The daily Downing Street ‘briefings’ are reminiscent of nothing so much as the disinformation and obfuscation with which the MSM was smothered during the Iraq war. And small wonder. Johnson’s gang have presided over a slaughter of which they were warned in advance – years in advance – and which they did much to exacerbate by their own policies back along and have recently made worse by their bumbling inactions and multiple inadequacies…. So, let loose the smearing of anyone of significance – there are you happy, Richard – who calls attention to what is actually going on. Your perfectly correct fingering of Johnsons ludicrous flight to Chequers – let us call it for what it is – is not your perceived ‘crime’; it is but the opportunity to yell and holler. Your real ‘offence’ is most of what your excellent blog contains on the subject – on Sunak’s catastrophic failings, on Johnson’s insane hubris at Greenwich and, I suspect, giving your ‘stamp of approval’ to other useful cataloges of the government’s collective and misled failings – not least “The Byline Times” excellent time-line of their actions and inactions. You are getting through. Keep it up – and let a recovering Johnson cower in Chequers if he must.
Well, no publicity is bad publicity. And I’d rather be dick of the day than a sycophantic admirer of a bunch of criminals whose wilful negligence, wilful rejection of WHO advice, wilful lack of preparation, wilful refusal to learn from or cooperate with near neighbours has the UK heading for a disastrous toll of death that many of us will never forget or forgive.
And then in the Guardian there was a gut-wrenching piece of thoughtlessly uncritical celebration of Johnson in his holiday home: “Chequers, set at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, and 40 miles (65km) away from the hustle and bustle of the government base in Whitehall, is the perfect place to do so, with its views of fields of cattle and sheep. To aid his recuperation, he can swim gentle lengths in the heated indoor swimming pool housed in the orangery.
While in Downing Street, the prime minster was confined in his sealed-off flat with his meals left at the door between Nos 10 and 11. Chequers has its own kitchens, led by a head chef well used to providing formal dinners for a rich variety of VIPs…”
And only the other day they had a horrendous piece about people in houses of multiple occupancy, where one family of around 6 had one room and had to share the toilet with a number of other families and were worried sick.
Lucky Mr Johnson, no longer “confined in his sealed-off flat.”
And all those staff are exposed to his coronavirus because he’s still likely to be contagious
He tested negative before leaving hospital apparently: Standard practice apparently.
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-13/boris-johnson-prime-minister-tests-negative-coronavirus-continues-recovery-chequers/
There’s a government leaflet landed on my doorstep last week which says “Isolation ends if symptoms have stopped”
Johnson’s symptoms have stopped, and you’re saying that he’s still likely to be contagious.
I know you have a pretty good track record on medical advice, being married to a doctor and dealing with the inevitable cuts and coughs that growing children get, but are you quite sure on this one?
You know the WHO disagrees, don’t you?
It’s doctors who told me this when my symptoms stopped
I didn’t know that so I looked up the WHO’s guidance at
https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
It says
The risk of catching COVID-19 from someone with no symptoms at all is very low.
You’re saying the risk is likely, based on you saying that Johnson is likely still contagious at the time of your post. I know that the WHO have had an awful pandemic, almost as bad the traditional media and if forced to bet I’d bet on you being right on this and the WHO’s guidance being wrong or out of date. But are you quite sure that you’re right and that two major institutions are wrong?
The WHO having an awful pandemic is a story only common in the UK and USA
There may be a reason for that
You many have appears here as part of that misinformation dissemination process
The Chinese actually reported reinfected patients back in February, but this 2 days ago from South Korea. Why play roulette with peoples’ lives? https://www.msn.com/en-ca/health/medical/can-you-catch-coronavirus-twice-south-korea-reports-91-recovered-patients-tested-positive/ar-BB12sdIP
And yet, the Tories are soaring in opinion polls. This effect is puzzling, during the election campaign, Johnson was booed and hid in a fridge, pinched a journalist’s phone but ended up with an 80 seat majority!
My belief FWIW, is that a combination of gullible population, some meddling among postal votes and last but not least a sustained character assignation of Corbyn (whatever his qualities as a leader he was not guilty of the allegations).
How we exit this mess I know not.
The government has lost the argument – the day they adopted the applaud the nhs at 8pm. That was the end of privatisation of it – nobody who thought it wasn’t such a big deal during the election now knows Corbyns Labour was right. Even Fartage has tweeted more about it than brexit recently. A few days ago he was demanding the sacrificial lamb Hancock be sacrificed while Bozo escaped any censure – in fact got something like a prayer.
Which brings me to having lost on Brexit Done too. Both Fartage and bozo are one trick ponies – brexit brexit brexit! – once they can’t perform it they are just dumb asses. Both are keeping their gobs shut as every time they speak without their hobby horse rant people see and hear them for the donkeys they are! The spell depended on constant repetition and it is now broken.
When people can’t see their family in hospitals, die alone and the living can’t have a funeral – even if covid was not the cause – that cuts through the lot of the rabble roused beliefs.
The tories own this completely – they know it – only their reliance on the new powers used for brexit not covid will see their plan through – against public opinion.
Geopolitical economics is now working against their bluesky deepsea dreams too.
The US can’t save itself let alone the UK. They are piling orders into the Chinese for essentials. As is the EU. Which means a brave little britain can go to the end of the queue or hand over many businesses.
A few snippets from Global Times on that to finish.
It’s not just EU companies. The vast majority of foreign companies in the country have also resumed operations in recent weeks as the domestic epidemic waned. As of April 7, nearly 72 percent of the 8,776 major foreign-funded enterprises had resumed more than 70 percent of their operations in China, up five percentage points from the previous week, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said on Thursday.
[ more in this piece about Chinese desire to buy into foreign companies – the EU can resist , the UK less so].
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1185497.shtml
9:46 pm April 11
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son said Sat that SoftBank and China’s BYD reached an agreement to set up a mask production line for the production of 300m masks a month, including 100m N95 masks & 200m surgical masks, and start non-profit selling in Japan in May: report
3:18 pm April 11
US FDA issues emergency authorization for 8 mask manufacturers as of Wed, and within two days, the number was updated Fri to a total of 32, all are Chinese suppliers or manufacturers in China, showing the gap in demand for masks in the US has become larger.
7:00 pm April 10
From March 1 to April 4, China exported 10.2 billion yuan ($1.45 billion) worth of epidemic prevention supplies, including 3.86 billion masks, 37.52 million pieces of protective clothing, and 16,000 ventilators: CustomsÂ
6:46 pm April 10
In China, five vaccines are being developed simultaneously. The fast one is adenoviral vector vaccine, which has been delivered to human body test. The fully inactivate vaccines would also be soon delivered but it still needs 1-2 year It observation: top medical expert.
————-
Where are our billions of masks? Or test kits? Or gloves? Or meds or vaccines going to come from?
You are coming over as a fantasist if you are suggesting doctors have told you and you alone that a person is still contagious after testing negative. Your credibility across a wide range of subjects has been destroyed over the last few weeks.
Some medical papers now suggesting a person can be contagious for weeks after having coronavirus
I am reflecting that opinion
The WHO and 9ther countries think the UK has far too short an isolation period
Again I reflect that fact
All you offer is ad hominems
And for there record, I have been told my credibility has been shot on this blog for the last 13.75 years. 18.6 million reads have happened despite that. I hear your view, but suggest you might have other agendas in play
The danger is that millions of DM readers have heard of Sarah Vine, whereas millions of people haven’t heard of Richard Murphy – or, at least, he’s the one labelled as the author of Corbynomics, which is (in some quarters) like the recipe for a witch’s potion.
When Richard says something rational, some detractor will quote Sarah Vine and write “Ah, he’s the one Sarah Vine called dick of the day”. It doesn’t matter if you’re right. People don’t delve below the surface and are more concerned about a person’s reputation. That’s why Tony Blair can’t say anything without Iraq being mentioned. Keir Starmer has been labelled as the DPP who didn’t prosecute Jimmy Saville. Gordon Brown sold our gold, etc etc.
I really do despair about journalism and people’s understanding and ability to criticise what’s going on. Today I read somebody using Guido Fawkes as a serious source of information and having a credible plan! It’s not so much lions being led by donkeys, but donkeys being led by donkeys.
That’s life…..
I won’t be planning it to appease Sarah Vine
So Sarah Vine has bee stung by your Tweet Richard? Bravo!
Good things happen to those who speak out, well done.
But the vile Vine deserves all the stings she can get for her nasty writings.
People like her have no idea how much privilege they have and how much harm they do, so long as they can milk the crowds pretending they are journalists.