Bournbrook Live
Our commentary on the news as it comes in.
If you would like to contribute to Live, please email us at live@bournbrookmag.com
Liberty for me but not for thee
Posted at 3.15pm.
Posted at 3.15pm UK time
According to today’s announcement by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the Pfizer vaccine is safe for use in 12-15 year olds, having previously only been approved for those 16 or older. It is now up to Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to advise whether the Government should actively adopt vaccination for this age group.
In my view, it is almost certain that vaccines for 12-15 year olds will become Government policy. It is a natural consequence, a product of unadulterated statism the pandemic has created. People are not seen as individuals to be governed and legislated for, but numbers on spreadsheets and graphs to be managed. (This author yearns for the day he isn’t subjected to spreadsheets, graphs and the 5pm briefings that come with them!) This statism is summed up by the horrible phrase of ‘getting jabs in arms’. Last time I checked I was more than just an arm.
But as we have seen repeatedly, this lack of humanity is not applied equally. If I do not get a vaccine for whatever reason or do not let my child have one (If I were a parent), I could be subjected to a ‘no jab, no job’ approach by a potential employer or refused access to public spaces if vaccine passports materialise. For Michael Gove MP, when he is informed he has come into contact with someone who has had a positive test for coronavirus after attending the Champions League final (which normally requires self-isolation), there is a ‘pilot scheme’ whereby he self-tests daily and avoids what the rest of us are subjected to. How lucky!
Yet again, ‘liberty for me but not for thee’.
Extending the furlough scheme: little short-term gain, much long-term pain
Posted 2pm.
Posted at 2pm UK time
For an elite driven by ‘equality’, it is mind-boggling that the inequality caused by the Government’s response goes unreported. A Royal Society of Public Health policy paper, “Disparity Begins at Home: how home working is impacting the public’s health”, starkly laid out the unequal impact of working in a lockdown age. The report showed that the response to the pandemic is literally hurting people. It found that those forced to work at home from their bedroom were more likely to report complaints of musculoskeletal problems than those able to work from a home office. The poor are literally having their health punished by restrictions.
Reports have indicated that part of the influence for open-mindedness on furlough is Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s insistence it be extended, and that she will make this case at a ‘four-nations summit’ later this week. The government’s approach to the pandemic seems to be ‘follow wherever she leads’ when it comes to coordinating with Scotland. But where will this kowtowing to Scotland on policy lead? The Scottish National Party at the recent Holyrood elections pledged that if they were elected they would push for assisted suicide if they were victorious. Now they have won, if Sturgeon makes good on that claim, should Westminster move to legalise it just because the SNP have?
It has been said often but still remains true: the government have an 80-seat majority, it is about time they use it to set us free, or they might just find that we will use our freedom to turf them out instead.
Critics of the foreign aid cut aren’t bothered about the policy, but the people they believe stand behind it
Posted 1.50pm UK time
The debate (it is remarkable we have to even consider so uncontroversial an issue as worthy of debate) over cutting foreign aid is simple to understand. It is not the policy that particularly bothers critics specifically, but the kind of people they believe stand behind such cuts.
Its supporters in the country, and their (largely) shared worldview are completely anathema to the establishment types who see themselves as the arbiters of progress and virtue, expressed in measures such as foreign aid targets.
The establishment is blinded by cognitive dissonance on this issue. No more so than Messrs Blair, Cameron, and the other ex-Prime Ministers who have expressed ‘regret’ at the Government’s decision.