There is something awfully scary about this image from the Observer:
I have no doubt that the image was carefully chosen fro precisely this reason.
But it does provide a warning: even in the strange world into which we are now moving the questioning of leadership must be actively encouraged. We are not to all line upon in rows and take orders from those who appear before us, as I was expected to in primary school in the 60s.
Dissent is powerful, and must survive coronavirus.
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The missing caption – “I trust you’ve all washed your hands!”
Missing caption: “Big Brother Door-Matt Loves You”
I understand he is know in Whitehall as Matt Handjob.
Unkind? I leave that to the Observer article mentioned below, interesting how you can flay a government alive simply through a recitation of events
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/18/beware-a-new-wave-of-populism-born-out-of-coronavirus-induced-economic-inequity
Dissent will never die as long as people are disatisfied, which for many is a regular state of mind/being.
Here is an article every single person in the UK should read
Then we would all understand just how wicked Johnson and his government are
Coronavirus: 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster
https://archive.is/20200418182037/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-38-days-when-britain-sleepwalked-into-disaster-hq3b9tlgh
Thanks
I agree that it is essential reading
Yep read that
Who’d have thought that the Tories would end up looking like the rulers depicted in Orwell’s 1984!
No doubt when Boris is back, he’ll insist on using the screen to exhort the patients to get better and think of Britain as part of their treatment (is this one of those Nightingale hospitals – it looks like one to me?).
The first duty of any citizen is dissent.
I don’t find it scary,
I find it hilarious, is that a shot from the new Star Wars movie: The Empire Fucks Up?
it must require an enormous outstanding mortgage to motivate those people to turn up at work each day.
dissent can never die, as Obi Wan said: strike me down Vader.. and you’ll only make me stronger!
This might be the most important headline you’ve ever written! Seriously. While there are a growing number of what many might label ‘conspiracy theories’ relating to the current crisis (just Google ‘Lock-Step The Rockefeller Foundation 2010 Report’ – eugenicists are alive & well) I do believe the pandemic – whatever its origins – presents an opportunity to be exploited by those undemocratic forces that have always lurked close to the surface. That photo is simply Orwellian.
Jonathan Wolff warns: “I see two particular dangers. The first is the most obvious: the increase in Right-wing authoritarianism. But I’m also worried about a growing tendency on the Left: the idea that, in order to regain majority support, it’s necessary to adopt nationalist polices. This might be true, but it’s also playing with fire. Some, with roots in the traditional Labour movement, seem to think that, as long as they support trade unions and pro-poor policies, they are on the side of the righteous — whatever else they believe — and that this grants them moral immunity from criticism. But we have seen this combination of views before. It was the starting point for both Mussolini and Mosley, and possibly even for Hitler.” (https://aeon.co/essays/what-1930s-political-ideologies-can-teach-us-about-the-2020s)
COVID-19 has thrust us into potentially very dangerous times – the irony being more politically & economically than medically. Having little faith in the Labour Party, it will come down to the minority progressive parties in association with well organised grass roots actions to provide an effective bulwark against these overt fascist trends.
I’ll not say more other than to recommend that everyone critically assess what’s being done in the so-called ‘interests of the people’ and reach their own conclusions. IMO the warning signs are in plain sight.
I share your concerns
Dissent must survive coronarvirus.
Pity it doesn’t survive long in your comments section, where you block anyone who dares disagree with you or opint out the errors you make.
About 98% of comments make it here
The rest are abusive
People only get blocked when they troll – because that is intended to close down discussion
Yoru claim is false
100% of sycophantic comments make it here.
The ones that don’t you call abusive or trolling, but in the blogs of yours I’ve read this seems to be when people disagree with you, point out the stuff you have got wrong, the obvious contradictions you make all the time, show up your lack of understanding or simply ask you to answer questions without resorting to waffle and bluster.
Basically anyone who makes you look anything less than the “expert” you claim to be or who makes you look in any way stupid by showing up your many errors.
The only person who seems to shut down discussion is you, let’s face it. You do this because more often than not it is obvious you don’t know what you are talking about, but between your ego and that unique thin skin of yours, you don’t tolerate any dissent at all.
Far from it
I just don’t suffer fools well
You are clearly one of them
Just so happens that everyone who disagrees with you is a fool. How convenient for you.
Must be lovely living in your world, where you get to be the self-professed expert in almost everything, despite never having studied it or worked in the field. Never mind the years of accumulated human knowledge and experience – if you say it’s wrong, it’s wrong and you are right.
But let’s agree that it is totally hypocritical for you to say dissent must survive coronavirus when it doesn’t survive on this blog for any more time than it takes to make you look like a fool. So not long then, usually.
And so you prove the po9int as yo why I delete people
You keep reiterating a point which is false
That is trolling
And do you know what? I and my readers get bored of it
So very politely I will exercise that right which is given in a free society to an editor – which is to not publish
Maybe you haven’t heard of it?
You have now…
Si, what utter nonsense, Richard’s regular readers regularly disagree with various opinions he expresses. And yes, his readers do get really bored of moronic trolling.
Richard, I don’t know why you publish these comments at all – the ones that attack the person rather than argue the point in the article. If you were ever being hypocritical, which is never, then I just wouldn’t read any of your blog. As would any normal person. You do seem to get a more sophisticated level of troll on here though – they have to put in a lot more effort to get published I suspect – you keep them on their toes. I think you should up the standard and exclude any obvious personal attacks. It’s taxpayer money that pays their wages after all, we want them working for it 😉
🙂
Regarding the picture, Jacqui Smith (former Home Sec) is chair of the Relevant NHS Trust and says that the spacing was specifically done to keep the distancing correct.
Regarding the Times article the minutes of the Sage & Nervtag committees are available online & show the government followed their recommendations at all times.
Bit hypocritical, no?
You don’t encourage the “questioning of leadership” when it comes to people questioning you.
You just claim that everyone else is wrong, you are right and you know better than everyone else. Then you shut down any dissenting voices by blocking them posting.
You just got on
Which rather proves the crassness of your argument
And you may have noticed, this is a blog…..
It’s good when you let stuff like ‘Jack’ through from time to time of only to see the crap you have to deal with as blogger and no doubt as a campaigner too.
What sort of world do we live in? One where majority opinion (based on ignorance or benefit) rules or where facts dominate?
The cognitive maps of too many people are badly drawn. Facts treated as dissent? It’s like being at the court of Henry VII or even The Inquisition.
Too many of us have not come very far, have we Jack?
I agree the photo does remind us all of 1984, etc, compulsion, lack of power, no free will, etc. However, of course we know what that photo actually depicts. It’s the UK’s health spokesman (for what he’s worth), speaking remotely rather than in person to avoid spreading the virus, giving his report which the onlookers are listening to, while maintaining social distancing.
I find that a hell of a lot less scary than the photos coming from my home state of Michigan and now Texas as well, of people swarming over the State Capitol lawn carrying assault weapons, attempting to threaten leaders who are attempting to stop the spread of the virus by requiring lockdown and social distancing. These groups of people not only aren’t social distancing at all, but they’re deliberately accosting people in cars and ambulances, blocking traffic to and from hospitals in the area, etc. And they think this is quite a hoot. They’re all immune of course. (Not.)
That’s the kind of ‘dissent’ that resembles terrorism more than protest.
Give me self-regimented rows of people, who are being mindful of the welfare of themselves and others, in mind any day.
For all it’s faults, I’m glad I am now a UK citizen. And I’m even happier to be living in Scotland, where our leaders have been taking Covid-19 seriously from Day One. And where our First Minister does a televised briefing appearance every day–or her elected representative does, to give her an occasional day off. I feel very lucky to be here.
I share your feelings about the events in Michigan and other areas in the US, however I differ strongly in my opinions on the image. I agree that the image is showing people sensibly following social distancing guidelines, and I agree that this is better than the alternatives.
I do not though see just that.
I see a group of people respectfully listening to big brother as they stand in regimented lines (the reasons for doing this do not take away from what you yourself write is an image that reminds us of compulsion, lack of power, no free will, &c. ) This image is a piece of pure propaganda, it uncritically associates Hancock and the government with the creation of another Nightingale Hospital. Its purpose is to show the government getting things done. It does not remind us that it is only through this very governments inaction, and the tory parties 10 year war of attrition against the existence of the NHS that there is a need for these field hospitals.