I learned young to be wary of advice from friends which  could be spiteful or leading one down a doom laden track. In History advisors have played crucial roles. I have liked playing the 'eminence gris' role on occasion but it must  be used with very  great care. Let's give advisors the full Monty Res Hist once over jere...… and not only the very bad English ones... there must be others.

Priscilla, don't take "me" as adviser, if you don't want to end on the wrong track...if I may advise you...

Kind regards from Paul, born during WWII and never been in the Indian subcontinent in his life...

PS: Gandhi a good adviser?

Gandhi was a leader not an advisor - and I rather suspect he didn't take advice from anyone, either. Of course he  did advise people on how to make their opinion count through peaceful means

Being older than you, Paul ,of course I would not take advice from you if you have the wrong track in mind. Actually wrong tracks are sometimes better than the conventional ones. I have a small problem with conventional.

Priscilla wrote:

Gandhi was a leader not an advisor - and I rather suspect he didn't take advice from anyone, either. Of course he  did advise people on how to make their opinion count through peaceful means

Being older than you, Paul ,of course I would not take advice from you if you have the wrong track in mind. Actually wrong tracks are sometimes better than the conventional ones. I have a small problem with conventional.

Priscilla, thanks for the immediate reply. I was a bit absent from the computer as the granddaughter was talking to us from Zurich via I-pad with Face time...

Unconventional you said. No problem...in my old fashioned way from just after WWII, perhaps also an itsy bitsy unconventional in some "domains"...and certainly accustomed to the unconventional...as the whole family of my father's side is that way...

As usual kind regards from Paul.

Rasputin is trending on Twitter. Not a thread about the Russian chap, or the Boney M song, but about our very own Dominic Cummings. They're calling him Rasputin now -  apparently because our Dom has been attending the SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group For Emergencies) meetings and could be "interpreting" the science to suit himself. Now would he do that?!

But is calling Cummings the UK's Rasputin unfair to the latter? Didn't the Russian occasionally give some good advice to the Tsar? It's a pity posters from outside the UK would not have seen Brexit: The Uncivil War - superb bit of drama in which Cummings, the mastermind behind Brexit,  was played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Brilliant Eccentric or Evil Genius?

Francois Leclerc du Tremblay, confidant of Cardinal Richelieu, thanks to his grey Capuchin robes, the original eminence grise:

CWS should do his version of that one!

He certainly should!!!!

Yesterday some of us got a bit carried away over on the Spoof Art thread: a lively discussion of Cold War Steve's satires on the UK government - notably the doings of Dominic Cummings, Islington's  very own Tiresias, and his boss, Boris Johnson - took off. But as Cummings is an adviser, this is the more appropriate thread for our musings. I have MM's permission to reproduce part of a very interesting reply he gave to Priscilla. Perhaps the moment is past and we should, as the UK Prime Minister has urged us, "move on" from the topic  of Mr Cummings' recent odyssey, those peripatetic motorings which ended in a birthday idyll amongst the lovely bluebells in the woods near Barnard Castle. However, as one wit put it last night on a superb edition of Have I Got News For You: "We can't move on: you've told us we've got to stay put!"

MM wrote:

@Priscilla wrote:
To what end do you reckon all this scurrilous talent is to be directed?


I'm wondering about that too. In Johnson's case it doesn't seem to be out of any sense of public duty for the betterment of the country and its people as he doesn't seem to actually want to do the job: critical meetings skipped, deadlines missed, holidays taken when crises loom, PMQ only reluctantly attended, important briefings to the nation delegated to others, and by his own words "doesn't work weekends", and, as at yesterday's health briefing, just bluster, distraction and confusion, sacrificing people's health for the short-term benefit of deflecting scrutiny. I suspect what Johnson originally wanted was the badge, the title and honours of being PM - a bit like wanting to be head boy, or winning an Oxford debate - especially when his old university chum, Cameron, had already achieved it and secured his place in the history books. It's probably all just a game for him, boosted by the underlying arrogance and sense of privileged entitlement of someone who has never had to do any actual work to get where he is ... yet still believes he is somehow destined for the role, however incompetent he might actually be. But I really don't know. I certainly wouldn't want to be in his position, even if there weren't a pandemic, massive unemployment looming and the country facing the sort of social and financial difficulties that rarely occur outside of major wars. Maybe Johnson actually doesn't want the position now either ... but it was his choice and the rough times are a necessary part of the job. But at the end of the day Johnson is very wealthy in his own right so could quite happily live without ever working again ... and so, unlike the rest of us, he will not be particularly inconvenienced by any fallout resulting from his disastrous and incompetent (in)action.

As to what (or who - where is that report about illegal Russian influence in the 2016 referendum?) Cummings is working for ... well who can say? I don't think he actually shares much Tory ideology (he's not a Conservative Party member) but I doubt that really bothers him. I suspect for Cummings it's an interesting, intellectual exercise to see whether he really can subvert democratic process and deliver whatever result is asked of him. He seems to have no morals (in Temp's meaning of the word), no scruples and few limits. He too is wealthy (and his wife is genuine upper crust being the daughter of a baronet) but I don't think the prime driving force is just the acquisition of yet more money. Does anyone really know what's driving them? ... And that in itself is worrying.

On a side note, I see that Cumming's son - whose welfare was so important that it might yet bring down a government - is autistic. I wonder if Dominic is the same? It might explain some things - and I most certainly do not mean that pejoratively.

The bit I have highlighted really got me thinking, especially when followed by the mention of autism. What indeed does drive these people? What is the desired "end" for them? Do they themselves know, or is it something buried in their unconscious? Other words mentioned over on the Art thread were "narcissism" (used also in a couple of Guardian articles about Johnson and Cummings), and the really worrying "sociopath" - a word that is often used to mean "psychopath". Cameron once described Cummings as a "career psychopath". "Sociopath" was used yesterday by nordmann, not of Cummings, but of Johnson. These three conditions are all referred to in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the handbook used by clinicians and psychiatrists to diagnose psychiatric illnesses. The DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association. Various members of that body have taken the unusual step of publicly discussing the possibility that the present holder of the highest political office in the USA could meet some of the criteria for a diagnosis of the personality disorder of malignant narcissism - and possibly the criteria for other, even more dangerous, maladjustment.

These are random musings from me, but musings prompted by Priscilla' comments about why on earth would anyone seek high office in the first place - whether as top man or woman, or as an adviser to a top person - unless such awesome responsibility came, as in the old days, with an accident, an obligation, of birth? Neither Johnson nor Cummings was born great; and neither has had greatness "thrust upon them". They have gone after it. But why? Naked ambition, plus a dollop of the ill that usually attends such an impetus? Do you have to have a recognised personality disorder, or be on the spectrum for autism disorder, to want go for power these days? Is the old idea of
simple "service" a joke - was it always? More random musings, please.

PS Very interested in the Russian connection, MM. Cummings spent some time in Russia, didn't he? Absolutely agree it's a kind of intellectual game for him - he's like a teenager with a genius IQ, but one who remains at the emotional age of a wilful toddler. Outwitting the grown-ups is such fun! I have met a couple of those in my time. They are a nightmare.

PPS Another quotation from Elizabeth I - an extract from her brilliant Golden Speech. I should like to send it to both the PM and the adviser:

To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it. For myself I was never so much enticed with the glorious name of a King or royal authority of a Queen as delighted that God hath made me his instrument to maintain his truth and glory and to defend his kingdom as I said from peril, dishonour, tyranny and oppression. There will never Queen sit in my seat with more zeal to my country, care to my subjects and that will sooner with willingness venture her life for your good and safety than myself. For it is my desire to live nor reign no longer than my life and reign shall be for your good. And though you have had, and may have, many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had nor shall have, any that will be more careful and loving.

She had Cecil, of course, advising her. A good egg, or just a very shrewd and clever egg? John Guy describes him as "a spider"...

It's tough being an advisor. Even tougher to be an advisor to an advisor ...

Perhaps Cummings is, in part, Johnson's Zaphod Beeblebrox? Or maybe it's vice versa?

"The President in particular is very much a figurehead — he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had — he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud.” - Douglas Adams

All very curious. Now the man who said he saw Cummings a second time in the north has revealed that he only said it to raise a laugh and was not true...….. that he might bring an able man down is neither here nor there. Doing or saying things for a laugh - well we have all been there and regretted it.

Then it seems that all the protestors out side of his door and the loudest critics were  - as of course many had already guessed of the old stalwart Remainers Guild. The now resigned Labour whip who eventually owned up to trysts with her partner who is married and at the time locked down at home in April at the height of crisis.... but then she is not very high profile so I guess lees fuss will ensue and it matters not much if she stays or goes. Her integrity is not hanging on a line anywhere as yet for inspection. The Cummings and goings in our road throughout is not  up for inspection, either. 

But it has all been a delight for satirists - not that one is ever entirely comfortable with mockery, I think - at least I have never been so and am still undecided as to whether it is a negative or positive agent in the human pursuit of progress for all. 
And anyone who gives advice tippy toes through a minefield - never do it is my  game if asked for it - root out and perhaps discuss all the  all the options is the best tack  for me in that role. I wonder if Cummimgs has any heart left to sort out the Brexit problems for which he was called in to do. Is he playing Europe from  a weakened hand? Public outrage may well have guided its own hand to shoot itself in the foot...…. again.

Definitive proof that Priscilla doesn't live in Liverpool. The Sun newspaper isn't available there.

Some of the first high profile critics of Cummings demanding his resignation/sacking were prominent members of the so-called "ERG" who, I reckon, would not at all be pleased with you describing them as part of the "Remainers Guild".

This in particular tickled me ...

Priscilla wrote:

I wonder if Cummimgs has any heart left to sort out the Brexit problems for which he was called in to do.

To which I can only refer you to ...



Is satire just "mockery" by the way? Injudicious or indiscriminate mockery certainly hasn't much to recommend it as humour. But I suggest you check a dictionary (any language of your choice) and refresh your memory regarding what distinguishes satire from simply making fun of people's inadequacies for the sake of it. When the target is hubris, arrogance, hypocrisy and blatant dishonesty in public figures then, I am sure you will agree, "mockery" is not only a valid tool in exposing such traits but in fact a public service in its own right, and often a greater public service than that which the target purports or pretends to provide.

If the last fortnight has revealed anything of substance however, it is probably proof that as an "advisor" Dominic Cummings is woefully inadequate. It appears he has problems advising himself, let alone Prime Ministers. The Sun newspaper, no doubt, will disagree with me. But then it calls itself a newspaper.

I was surprised and not a little dismayed by your post, Priscilla, although I suspect you are playing devil's advocate in seeming to defend Cummings, whom, I was startled to note, you describe as "an able man".

The derision heaped upon Captain Dom this week was not because he was the target of some leftie Remainers' plot: the man has brought it all on himself. The Guardian (see link below) names 100 Tory MPs who have condemned Johnson's adviser: half of them are demanding his immediate resignation. Cummings should have offered to go the minute the storm broke; it is to his everlasting shame that he did not. Others, who, as you rightly point out, have acted just as foolishly and irresponsibly as he has done, resigned at once. But the whole sorry episode has gone from bad to worse: the hole he started digging for himself in Larry's garden must by now be nearing Australia. Cummings is a trained historian who prides himself on understanding all the cunning strategies devised by those who have gained and kept power. Yet he has broken Machiavelli's cardinal rule: be feared rather than loved by all means, but never, ever allow yourself to be hated. People may forgive necessary cruelty in a leader, when strength and resolve are needed; but they never forgive an arrogant leader who is careless enough to reveal that he has nothing but contempt for those whom he rules. What a prat the man is. This is a good article from Fintan O'Toole:


Contempt is Unwise


Is Dominic Cummings our very own Sejanus? I don't really know a lot about this character, as my knowledge of Roman history comes from I, Claudius and from Wiki, plus a bit from WW, but I believe this adviser of Tiberius was a nasty little shit, just like Cummings. Very dangerous man, though, especially when cornered.


Tory MPs Who Want Cummings To Go - Guardian


PS Re humour - Swift's saeva indignatio (savage indignation) is what we are witnessing. It's a healthy response - painful maybe, but better than a dagger in the back or a bullet through the head. Surprised Cummings, who fancies himself as an savvy social media expert, didn't foresee how the wits would react. They have had a field day indeed; it's been wonderful. This piece from David Mitchell, again from the Guardian, really did make me laugh:


What a Drama!


PPS I do agree with you about the mob outside the man's house though. Mobs - of the right or left -  who delight in harassment, are not to be tolerated.

One should also note that it was the Mail on Sunday that was whipping up the 'lefty remainer conspiracy against Cummings to thwart Brexit' line, while the Daily Mail had been leading the cries for him to be sacked for the past week. I know that the Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail have different editors, but they share the same Mail Online website and use the same journalists. So on Sunday, while the outraged defence of Cummings was the lead article online, the other articles calling for him to be sacked were all still there as well. They'd probably claim it was balanced reporting but it rather smacks of rank hypocrisy to me.

Interestingly I noticed late on Friday evening that the Daily Mail's website briefly had an 'exclusive' from an 'insider at No.10' saying that Cummings was considering resigning, possibly, maybe in about six months time, once the brexit that Johnson claims has been already been done, is really done. This scoop gathered over one thousand online comments in about 15mins, before it was suddenly taken down and all history that it had ever existed was removed (I had the web address in my PC's browser history, but it no longer worked). But then the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday will say absolutely anything if it gets more clicks and hence advertising revenue.

Meanwhile, despite all the outrage over the affair, from both sides, the salient point that Cummings did indeed break the lockdown rules that he was in part instrumental in devising, remains true: he himself stated it during his rose garden interview.

PS

Temperance wrote:

.... he has broken Machiavelli's cardinal rule: be feared rather than loved by all means, but never, ever allow yourself to be hated.

Also never, ever allow yourself to look ridiculous (such as by saying you took your wife and child for a drive to check your eye sight. That bit of comedy gold isn't going to be forgotten anytime soon).

Messed up my links - have corrected the "Contempt" one now, I hope. Sorry - careless of me. The Fintan O'Toole article is worth reading.

How the Mail loves stirring things up - as you say, lot of money in it for them.

MM wrote:

Temperance wrote:

.... he has broken Machiavelli's cardinal rule: be feared rather than loved by all means, but never, ever allow yourself to be hated.

Also never, ever allow yourself to be look ridiculous (such as by saying you took your wife and child for a drive to check your eye sight. That bit of comedy gold isn't going to be forgotten anytime soon).

Absolutely - he'll never recover from the eyesight nonsense. I liked the bit in the David Mitchell piece that picked up on it:

I look forward to Cummings’s future adventures whatever they’ll be. Cummings saying “lovely bluebells” when his eyesight goes weird again on the A1(M)...Cummings taking his wife and child on a 100mph circuit of Brands Hatch in order to safely check his tyre pressure.


Seriously, it is very interesting what you say about how the Daily Mail rewrites itself - mind you, Cummings edited his own blog to make it look as if he had, Nostradamus-like,  predicted the pandemic last year. Didn't he realise someone was bound to notice the alterations?

Priscilla's Sun article (whether she knew that was the source or not) merited a little fact-checking, so I've been delving in the twitter-world whence it originated.

The sequence, based on tweets (that which journalists call "sources" these days) apparently was:

1. Guy tweets that he's spotted Cummings in the Durham area, joining a "twitter storm" of several others who have also tweeted they saw him long after he'd allegedly passed his "eye test" and driven all the way back to London
2. Guy is approached by Daily Telegraph and offered a grand to retweet his own tweet with a specific date for his observation and the right to cite him as a "source". This runs as part of a story questioning the veracity of Cummings' explanation of his movements and therefore his right to retain his job
3. Telegraph withdraws its "story" after Cummings publicly denies the journey (via several MPs all tweeting identically worded rebuttals) and hints strongly that it will cost them dearly if they keep running it
4. Durham police say they are taking it seriously all the same, along with 16 other such tweets from others
5. Guy senses he may have got in too deep and offers several "papers" to admit as much publicly for a small price
6. The Sun coughs up three grand and runs the "story" of the "date change for a laugh" (presumably because they chickened out of actually printing the Telegraph's initial tactic as "news" in case it only drew unwanted attention to their own use of the same tactic)
7. The Sun gets a pro-Cummings story which will delight the knuckle-draggers (ie. readers) - and apparently unwitting "devil's advocates" and other sundry gullibles in rural Essex
8. The guy gets to tweet all the above to great amusement, outrage, etc - which all helps to raise his profile, his "likes", his "followers", and whatever else one gets that's worth having in twitterland
9. The guy also gets 4 thousand pounds (and counting - he's still looking to see if any more journalists want to pay him for his "take" on the Sun's story)

In the meantime Durham police release a statement that they are satisfied there is substance to these later "sightings" of Cummings (in other words the guy's original observation was actually true), but that absence of detail and corroboration as well as the alleged timing of this particular visit to Durham means there is nothing they can do to pursue the matter, so they won't.  The newsworthiness of Cummings' illicitly peripatetic sojourns evaporates. So we can add to the above:

10. Cummings gets away with another lie (which these days no longer means that one has told a lie everyone foolishly believes, but that one has persisted in telling the lie without recrimination for long enough to allow it to be replaced in the public eye by some other calumny).

nordmann wrote:

Definitive proof that Priscilla doesn't live in Liverpool. The Sun newspaper isn't available there.

Some of the first high profile critics of Cummings demanding his resignation/sacking were prominent members of the so-called "ERG" who, I reckon, would not at all be pleased with you describing them as part of the "Remainers Guild".

This in particular tickled me ...

Priscilla wrote:

I wonder if Cummimgs has any heart left to sort out the Brexit problems for which he was called in to do.

To which I can only refer you to ...



Is satire just "mockery" by the way? Injudicious or indiscriminate mockery certainly hasn't much to recommend it as humour. But I suggest you check a dictionary (any language of your choice) and refresh your memory regarding what distinguishes satire from simply making fun of people's inadequacies for the sake of it. When the target is hubris, arrogance, hypocrisy and blatant dishonesty in public figures then, I am sure you will agree, "mockery" is not only a valid tool in exposing such traits but in fact a public service in its own right, and often a greater public service than that which the target purports or pretends to provide.

If the last fortnight has revealed anything of substance however, it is probably proof that as an "advisor" Dominic Cummings is woefully inadequate. It appears he has problems advising himself, let alone Prime Ministers. The Sun newspaper, no doubt, will disagree with me. But then it calls itself a newspaper.

nordmann,

Sorry to display my ignorance but what has Liverpool to do with this matter?  Did the Liverpool Echo "break" the story about DC not maintaining the rules about quarantine/lockdown?  Liverpool's in the north-west and Co. Durham where DC went is in the north-east so I'm confused.

What grieving families woke up to in Liverpool just four days after the Hillsborough tragedy:



If you're a newsagent in Liverpool, even these days, you'd be a brave agent indeed to stick an edition of this glorified toilet paper on your shelves ....

Cummings was still only 18 at the time, so I doubt he had anything to do with this one (though I'd still like him to recall his exact movements in April 1989)

I have relatives from the Liverpool area - indeed some of them still live there - so I know that The Sun is held in disdain there.  I just didn't realise what it had to do with DC.

Ask Priscilla. She'll fill in the blanks for you.

It's alright, nordmann, it's not that important on a worldwide scale.

I have no idea what nord is on about, either. I have just written to Temps to say I really cannot be bothered to respond to nord's little trouser jibes. Me from rural Essex who had armed guards at the door for 20 years - home and work - I do know a thing or too about how people react to crisis because I have weathered a few hairy one in my time being responsible for many lives and having staff in all stages of cool courage to shit-scared jitters.

If getting through a crisis sometimes minute by minute is not bad enough one has to gird up to take on the follow up when things begin to trickle into normal. Actually it is fascinating. The extent people will go to in trying to cover their failed nerve or faulty opinion of what was done for them in good intent seems to follow a pattern. The witch hunt, group blood lust  will out somewhere. 

I was never a victim to that but I stood by someone who was - and can you believe am still doing so 20 years after the event because it still ripples on. Some who had fallen to bits had been   packed off abroad by their outfits to be well out of it whilst the rest of us experienced ones knew how it would pan and out and what to do weathered some shaky times. And still they witter on.

Just for the record, what really galls me is media - and others - using situations to hone  other agendas, bias and ingrained unshakable views on others who they accuse of much the same attributes as they themselves are party to.... intellectual arrogance, hubris - whatever. 

What is really fun is to see one load of media source being panned  by reference to another probably just as shaky.
And this dumb chick in rural Essex  who has actually moved in inner circles also knows a journalist or two - and where they are coming from - not always very nice, either.

While I am gabbing on, I recall there have been so many blood hunts that have destroyed people. Leon Brittain comes to mind. I never knew the man but always strongly suspected that it was false accusation - and it killed him. Destroying people is a circumspect dangerous and very unpleasant venture. 
I mentioned mockery  somewhere above - that is what is usually extracted from clever and useful satire by lesser minds. The subject   broaches into the web of very fine lines that mark out the games of life - there are more engaged in this than there are those who are trying to make a positive difference. We should have more time for those who try as opposed to the clever ones with the curled lip who did not have the courage to enter that world themselves. 

Let's hear it too about the whip who erred during lock down and who is not resigning her MP position  - but she has apologised, is humiliated etc etc about her secret meetings during  with the father of three whom she has, however, now snaffled to live with her. I wonder what good her apology will do for his children  and his abandoned wife?  Not really relevant but a sort of balance in the judgment of such things. In real, everyday life I was raised not to  judgmental. 

I hope I shall never be dismayed by the hunting down of any one or an policy that is evil but I really do not like to see others hounded with acid in the pen and  self righteous shriek in the voice.

Now back to my knitting. So. It is so good to be old and relaxed and a simple soul in my rural retreat in the sticks away from all the clever people who know so much.

Priscilla wrote:

I have no idea what nord is on about, either.

Hmmm ......

And it would seem that neither has he. Hmmmm?

Too much of that and some one here will get stung...… again. We 'ere in rural parts, do 'ee know, we know suppen  'bout stingers. An' we do   ' ave us a good larf at em down pub of them wot gets caught by  'em.

Your hmmmm is very different from my hmmmm. Mine deals with others' intellectual dishonesty whereas yours seemingly confirms the presence of same where it was suspected to be. Hmmmmm again.

But no matter. I'll wait until you drop another piece of Sun used toilet paper into the forum before I conclude that it's a problem requiring more urgent  address. In the meantime we'll forgive the odour - these things happen with the advent of "venerable hoariness", as my mother liked to phrase it.

Oi hev never read the Sun - but 'e don't know that do ' e?  

Which leads one to wonder how the insult works  re the bog, for those who only read source material   on line. Keep  attempts at verbal abuse moving on, if you please.  The trouble is that much of our info is seconf or third hand at best along with Chinese whispers.

As for anyone at all thinking they can survive unscathed  a group question time about anything it takes a really tricky dicky to do that - and an oh so glib tongue...….. and that alone makes them seem suspect. I have never had to stand trial or give evidence but I bet I would really make a mess of it 

  Which brings me back to wonder why on earth does anyone chose to try to lead when it is obvious that all the really clever, multi-tasking. able  people of total integrity are lining up with their following to bring you down. And with luck  they will destroy you for all time and also ensure that any perceived errors reverberate for the rest of your life - and later.  Perhaps that is just what anachists want... no one in charge at all.  I have never looked into what it is they are on about.
                                                       .

I allowed for a level of ignorance on your part about this earlier :

nordmann ages ago wrote:

Priscilla's Sun article (whether she knew that was the source or not) ...

So my advice to avoid further requirement to wash down the kip with disinfectant here after a visit by you is to check the source of the foul odour before traipsing it around this gaff.

Not sure about the rest of your assertions either - it seems to us outsiders that the only thing standing between you people in England (we'll leave the others out of this) and armageddon right now is a lot of very clever people quietly and selflessly doing their job as best they can despite the so-called "leaders".

"In spite of" does not in itself infer spite at all. But who am I to teach you English?

Oh you can try to teach me English - many have tried and failed. Dreadful language. Makes you want to be French. You suggest I leave a trail of shit when I post here? You seem to be closer to that topic than  have ever been - thinking of a few graphic posts you have made over the years. Ag well possibly I do. That's rural life for you - and even worse at our local beauty spots where the public toilets have not yet opened.

I wonder if any of the current govt - any party would have stood in this election if they had fully appreciated what top virus scientists have been highly nervous about for years. ….. and of the latter I got ages ago on very very good authority indeed.  
Since Noah I doubt anyone has known how to prepare for natural crisis of magnitude...…… no constitution covers it either, mmmmm? Oh Gawd, thin ice, again. Climate change legislation next, folks..... I doubt it. Rather like the manner in which I survive lock down muddling through as ever. 

Actually we are eating better than usual and the garden is magnificent, I have made enough stuff to keep  a section of  our Hospice shop going for an age and by not going out we seem to have saved money. The only fly so far in the ointment is agro on this site. And that doesn't bother me. either.

Priscilla wrote:

You suggest I leave a trail of shit when I post here?

I'll phrase this agriculturally in deference to your rural milieu and seeming ignorance of the perils of indiscriminate redistribution of Sun effluent; it's not the muckspreader that stinks, it's the muck (mind you, if you're in the pub when the muckspreader comes in for pint after a hard day's muckspreading it's wise to follow government social distancing guidelines, even without a pandemic).

And don't knock Noah's constitution! Given the amount of muck that man was faced with for forty days and forty diarrhoetic nights (allegedly) it must have been of the order of an ox (or even a pair of said oxen).

Regarding what virologists have been warning about - I agree, it's scary stuff, and any government worth its salt ignores the threat at its citizens peril. All the more reason why elected leaders follow their advice, and not that of a lying scumbag. (Just to pull the topic back on thread)

I wish I hadn't asked about the relevance of L'pool now.  I didn't want to bring dissent to the website.

Oh you two - just give it up, please.

However one spins the original story, it is basically all about the relationship between government and the people. The people vote for their choice for the controlling cabal and so are then expected to blindly trust the government to work for the people's best interests. And for that they, the government, get the mandate to rule and make decisions on the people's behalf and for the the good of all, and all that, ... as well as almost unlimited opportunities to make huge amounts of cash for themselves and their mates, of course. But sometimes, as is their right, they ask those to whom they have given power to act on their behalf, simply to justify themselves and their actions. What's wrong with that?

But that constitutional contract is now breaking down, as clearly, while we are all in it together, it's now do as I say, not do as I do; and it's one rule for us in power but another for you serfs. Perhaps 'twas ever thus but maybe now the people's expectations have changed, and they now expect more from their leaders.

However this is supposed to be a discussion site - although to be honest none of the most recent posts from either of the  combatative posts make any sense to me. So please, both of you, just drop your bickering.

Don't fret, LiR - these two love it.

I wish Private Eye had put Larry under the table. I bet he was well annoyed when he got taken back in and locked up for the afternoon.

Cummings does look as if he's selling raffle tickets, doesn't he?

Sorry, back to the thread now. Er - what can we safely talk about? Thomas Cromwell, or has he been done to death? Yes, he was - got too big for his boots! Note well, all you budding (or budded) advisers out there.

EDIT: Crossed post with MM.

The "fluh fluh fluh fluh" rapidly repeating noise that a feathered arrow makes as it goes through the air is called its "bicker", it ends when the projectile hits its mark. So on behalf of Priscilla also I'll take your comment as a compliment to the pair of us, MM.

By the way, wasn't the whole point of parliament originally that it was simply a bunch of advisors whose job it was to endlessly "bicker" about things until one poor sod amongst them then had to deliver the fruit of their verbiage into the ear of an in-bred, who promptly ignored it? Why can't England go back to that system? It has to be better than the current set-up (and all the ingredients are still there).

William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, Secretary of State to Elizabeth Tudor, responsible for English domestic and foreign policy in the last half of the 16th century. Pictured here with spymaster Francis Walsingham also in attendance:



His son, Robert, took over from him on his death and carried through the Accession of James Stuart in 1603.

My thoughts are that Mr Cummings didn't do himself any favours when he explained his journey.  He may be able to 'tough it out' - time will tell.

There can be something unsavoury (to my mind at least) about the British press (and it isn't always just the tabloids) when they act like a baying mob.  I remember the Glenn Hoddle drama twenty-something years ago when he lost the managership of the English football team.  Mr Hoddle was extremely silly.  He had become involved with some sort of woo-woo belief system and said something about thinking disadvantaged people such as the disabled might be being punished for wrongdoings in former lives.  Of course that went down like a lead balloon with the public but the press fanned the flames of the matter.  I remember there was a case of a newspaper interviewing a disabled boy who said (probably truly) that he had used to look up to GH and had been very hurt by the statement. When GH eventually lost that job I had remember passing a newspaper advert outside a shop where there was a cartoon of a parrot hanging upside down from a perch with GH's head imposed on top with the wording "Sack as a parrot".  GH had perhaps brought things on himself but there was a sense of some people rejoicing in his downfall which (to me at least) was unpleasant.

Maybe because I usually only watch news headlines and have done so for a while, I'm not really fully in the know about the controversy about the Duchess of Sussex but it does seem she rubs a lot of people up the wrong way.  Somebody who I would have thought would have acted with more sensibly was somewhat dismissive of me when I said she (the Duchess) didn't irritate me personally.  Apparently even being neutral on the subject annoys some folk.   My stance is that I don't know the lady personally so can't form a judgement as to whether her character is good, bad or indifferent but the media know that something about how manipulative the lady is will appeal to some of the population even if it's hearsay.

It doesn't apply to the news, and the programme concerned on a worldwide scale is lightweight but in the days when I did sometimes watch "The X Factor" it became obvious that some of the acts that should have been weeded out at the first round of trials were allowed to pass through to the next round solely for them to be demolished by Simon Cowell's cruel jibes.  There was something akin to captives fighting savage beasts in a Roman arena.  Obviously no blood was spilt but there was public humiliation, unnecessary public humiliation as the acts could and should have been weeded out earlier.

I always enjoy your messages LiR, especially such as this one.
Common sense they call it in my opinion, and that common sense comes many times from you, as I have seen during the years. The mob invigorated by a partisan press...and sometimes (not always!) with fake news...there was, I think it was on BBC world news, a whole page about fake news, even from government sources...

And I am not yet forgotten (and it was even during "our" BBC history messageboard time)...if one will give then the correct information...
Dr David Kelly and the weapons of mass destruction
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jul/16/david-kelly-death-10-years-on

Kind regards from Paul.

I read today in the teletext of a French language TV channel about what I found now also on BBC world:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52929916

I am a bit confused. 

From one side:

"An influential article that found hydroxychloroquine increases the risk of death in coronavirus patients has been retracted over data concerns
Three of the study's authors said they could not longer vouch for its veracity because Surgisphere, a healthcare firm behind the data, would not allow an independent review of its dataset.
Its findings led the WHO to suspend its testing on the anti-malaria drug.
But leaders including US President Donald Trump continue to tout its use.
Surgisphere chief executive Sapan Desai, the study's fourth author, told The Guardian newspaper he would co-operate with an independent audit but said transferring the data would "violate client agreements and confidentiality requirements"."

And from the other side:

"Research for the article, published last month in medical journal The Lancet, involved 96,000 coronavirus patients across 671 hospitals worldwide. Nearly 15,000 were given hydroxychloroquine - or a related form, chloroquine - either alone or with an antibiotic.
It concluded that the drug showed no benefits against coronavirus and increased the risk patients developing irregular heart rhythms and dying.Mandeep Mehra, a Harvard University professor who led the study, together with Frank Ruschitzka of the University Hospital Zurich and Amit Patel of the University of Utah, said in a statement that they had tried to arrange for a third-party peer review of the data, but Surgisphere had refused to co-operate."We deeply apologize to you, the editors, and the journal readership for any embarrassment or inconvenience that this may have caused," the group added".
 
My question:
As I read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgisphere
I can understand that the scientific researchers felt trapped and lurred into all this and that they now seek for new data about the effects of the hydroxychloroquine, but can't the Trump and Bolsonaro advisors now say: see that we were right to go on with the drug...? Or have they had no time yet to react on the news?

The specific research "paper" that fooled the Lancet etc was one that claimed hydroxychloroquine contributes to fatality in Covid-19 cases. This may or may not be wrong - the point was that the so-called "research" had never happened and the authors were simply lying.

However other research, including from "double blind" tests (the most reliable kind) published as recently as on Tuesday last by the WHO show that hydroxychloroquine contributes practically nothing as either preventative or ameliorative therapy in Covid-19 cases. It can reduce fever, which is not in itself a good thing as this potentially decreases antibody production. It is also a mild anti-inflammatory, which could be useful in extremely acute cases. However it has no suppressive effect whatsoever on antigen production within the body and other more effective drugs are readily available to reduce fever and inflammation anyway.

Even thicks like Trump & Co probably have realised how stupid their claims on its behalf were. Those actually pushing the drug have also probably realised there's not much point any longer in paying thicks like this to assist in flogging it. Scammers like to change the game every now and then - it keeps the money rolling in. But this one has seemingly played out.

I think it's a little unfair to simply blame the paper's authors. As I understand it they based their paper on data obtained from a small US data-handling company, Surgisphere, which had collated information obtained from hospitals and specialist clinics across the US. It is this data (things like patients' sex, age, ethnicity, occupation, where they lived etc) which has been shown to be erroneous in some cases. Once the authors of the paper discovered that their conclusions were based on anomalous data, it was they who requested that 'The Lancet' withdraw their paper in its entirety because, as they said, they could "no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources". What I'm not sure about is whether Surgisphere's data was just corrupted and unreliable, or had it been deliberately falsifed to get a required result? Anyway that's how I understand this situation to have occurred.

As you say Paul, Trump will probably hail this as vindication of his crackpot views, but then he's almost certifiable anyway. Meanwhile back in the real world, as Nord says, there are other studies being conducted and the results published which mostly show no benefits for the drug, the most recent one being that which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine just this week and which concluded that the drug is no more effective in protecting people exposed to the covid virus than a placebo. That's not to say that hydroxychloroquine isn't a useful drug. It is used, not just as a prophylactic against malaria, but also to treat auto-immune inflamatory conditions such as rheumatoid-arthiritis and lupus (systemic lupus erythematosus), but it has side-effects, sometimes severe and potentially life-shortening ones, so it's use for these conditions is a question of balancing the risks against the benefits.

Thank you very much MM and nordmann  for the immediate respons and the putting in perspective.

MM I was thinking along the same way as you and nordmann. Once the data challenged there will be other tests and studies based on more reliable sources than this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgisphere
as you both say.

I was a while thinking this morning that a Trump would restrict from comments, pro or contra, because it was an American firm involved in the deception, but as nordmann expressed it so colourful, even a Trump...

Kind regards to both, Paul.