July 19 was meant to be Freedom Day. Entirely rationally, given my age, I decided it was the exact opposite and as a result have increased my measures to reduce exposure to Covid as a result of the end of many restrictions. I know many who have done the same.
I now note that those of us doing so are not isolated examples. This is from the Politico email this morning (which is worth subscribing to):
There has been bafflement as to falling case numbers (which are now increasing again). Much of that looks to be down to reduced testing, motivated by the start of the English school holidays. But voluntary lockdown seems to be another factor to me. People are still, quite reasonably, isolating. They have more sense than this government, which is a cause for hope.
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I can say that at my place of work, people are increasingly now being tested positive for Covid and self isolations through contact are well up – leading to people being unavailable for work – it’s quite severe.
There’s no way I’m not wearing a mask or stopping washing/sanitising my hands.
Freedom Day? More like ‘Hope for the Best Day’.
How long before Covid mutates to where it can overcome AZ and the other jabs?
[…] By Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and a political economist. He has been described by the Guardian newspaper as an “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert”. He is Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London and Director of Tax Research UK. He is a non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics. He is a member of the Progressive Economy Forum. Originally published at Tax Research UK […]
One thing you can do to increase your own safety is to use a reusable (washable) FFP2 standard face mask, rather than the blue surgical type. This actually protects you to a good standard as well as others, though the increased breathing resistance is more noticeable.
I have used them for ages
I see that the Supreme Court refused to hear Craig Murray’s appeal against his contempt of court conviction as the first person in history to be jailed for “jigsaw identification” of persons unknown who were not identified. So Craig Murray goes into lockup for 8 months on a trumped up charge. Scotland and England’s legal systems can now be viewed globally as on a par with N Korea. A person who told the truth in a blog goes to jail.
For the first time I agree with your view that we are on the slippery slope to fascism.
I saw this today Phil, and I am horrified. Government has been bought and paid for for decades, and the media – perhaps with honourable exceptions – often capitulate to the Establishment, even on the putative Left.
Despite being an Establishment institution, the judiciary ought to be our last barrier to barbarism, and yet this decision seems baffling. The sentence is disproportionate, it takes no account of the health of the defendant, the reporter status of the defendant is long-standing, and his being an Indie supporter makes the suspicion of partisanship very hard to ignore. The intervention of the SC was urgent and necessary.
As someone about to move to Scotland from England partly because of deep anxiety about the rule of law in the latter, the imprisonment of a blogger is a terrifying reminder of the power and reach of those who ‘call the shots’ to use the law at will to punish those who defy or embarrass them.
I think that you might find the advice despatched on 19th July to people who are clinically extremely vulnerable to the virus illuminating. In essence it’s a total replay of the shielding exercises without any shields.
There has been some suggestions that there is jiggery pokery on the way in which cases of COVID are being counted; apparently anyone who has previously been recorded as having had COVID already some months before is excluded from the numbers. And, of course, we desperately need to know accurate data …
I am afraid the outrage about Craig Murray is confusing me. I have long held the opinion that, in the absence of formal constitutional protections, UK freedoms and democracy itself are enjoyed on sufferance of the elite. One can see this graphically with the new power to ban demonstrations that are deemed “annoying” and the plan to increase stop and search powers, for decades used for a racist agenda by the police. Nonetheless, Murray breached a court order designed to protect the identities of women giving evidence in a sexual abuse trial. I applaud the use of such orders and condemn anyone who breaches them. What am I missing here, please? In other words, I am not a blinkered reactionary, so I deserve an explanation as to why the protection of these women’s identities is not important.
I thought Murray at best very unwise
He is intelligent. Whatever he felt about the action against Salmond there was a bigger issue here and I would not have done what he did
That is why I am not seeing this as some do
He has indeed been convicted for that reason, but the evidence that his blogs led to the identification of those women is lacking. Respondents to a Survation poll who believed they had learned the women’s names through media reports largely identified the articles of a mainstream journalist called Dani Garavelli as their source. As a regular reader of his blog (albeit not very knowledgeable about women around Holyrood), I never felt that the identities of the women were becoming apparent either by design or accident. There is also the question of the proportionality of his sentence. It is half a century since the offence attracted such a sentence. I am sure Murray himself is questioning, with hindsight, what purpose some of his blogs on the case served, but hindsight is a pointless exercise.
The point of these orders is to prevent the release of information that COULD lead to identification and what Murray did COULD have done so. The fact that it did not is surely quite irrelevant, other than,possibly, as a mitigating argument. The right to anonymity is a pivotal factor in these trials.
Ed note:
I felt unable to publish this comment for fear of being in contempt of court
“I felt unable to publish this comment for fear of being in contempt of court”
I won’t quibble with that, and perhaps Paul (and others) can take note that any earnest questions about features of the Salmond case that set it apart from a bona-fide sexual offences trial cannot only be answered if a blogger is willing to accept the hefty risk of breaching the court’s anonymity criteria. I do not blame Richard or his editor for modifying their behaviour based on the chilling effect, but a chilling effect it is.
I will try once more to paste my comment, with redactions that could be said to offend the vague criteria. If the editor feels he or she still cannot publish it, then I hope this comment can be published before a new redacted comment, so that Paul can see that answers to his question do exist.
I am the editor
I suggest you don’t try again
I respect the right of women to privacy in such cases
I am not chilled by this case
Craig Murray got it wrong. Frankly I think he was foolish. I do not see it as some great attack on freedom. I am not saying the judicial process was right. I am simply saying Craig Murray chose the wrong argument. But I have never been a fan of his judgement. Sorry, but it has to be said. I am a radical but I respect women’s rights, and think there is a rule of law.
Yes there was a poll and most age groups were keeping up with many of the risk mitigations, and avoiding crowds and indoor activities including limiting visits with family and friends. IndieSAGE showed a graph on one of their slides yesterday that showed one measure of restriction and there was a small loosening, probably accounted for by a change in young people’s behaviour, understandably. Also there is still a majority of young people keeping up with restrictions. God love them. We have so fucked up their futures, I wouldn’t blame them for throwing us boomers to the wolves.
I also disagree with Craig Murray on some issues. The problem here seems to me that all journalists who write information that COULD lead to identification should be treated the same. Why weren’t the others prosecuted? This means there is one rule for MSM journalists and another for bloggers. Apparently the prosecution was less concerned about the identity of the women being revealed than they were about Craig Murray’s political stance.
I accept that point
It is the relevant one