Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Britain’ Category

“ Dialysis Machine Shortages Lay Bare Wider Threat From Covid-19” – Bombshell Story from the Financial Times, April 7 2020

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A bombshell story appears on the same day that most Mainstream Media Outlets Worldwide are Over-Blitzing readers about the British Prime Minister staying in hospital.

Leading London hospitals are running short of vital equipment in intensive care wards, including blood dialysis machines needed to treat patients suffering from coronavirus-related kidney failure, according to a leaked memo. The shortages, which go far beyond concerns about the lack of ventilators and protective equipment, emerged from a conference call of some 80 senior National Health Service doctors. They illustrate the way Covid-19 can damage much more than the lungs and respiratory system in patients who become seriously ill — affecting the kidneys, heart and occasionally even the brain. The 1,000-word memo, seen by the Financial Times, is written by Daniel Martin, head of intensive care for serious infectious diseases at the Royal Free Hospital. It paints a picture of doctors and nurses still scrambling to develop treatments for coronavirus as the shortages bite.

The Financial Times Uses Excellent Editorial Judgement – Covid-19 Can Trigger Multi-Organ Failure – Critical Shortage of Dialysis Machines in the British State – “Johnson remains in hospital” a minor story
Read the rest of this entry »

Ireland ‘squanders’ geographical advantage with different Covid-19 stances North and South – Scally

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Once Again, Professor Gabriel Scally points out that the British Government’s “let them die” Covid-19 policy does not stop at the border in Ireland.

Boris Johnson’s policy means unnecessary death and illness for hundreds and thousands of people.

https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/03/25/reality-catches-up-with-waterford-whispers-story-keep-calm-carry-on-johnson-tells-room-full-of-corpses-150000-people-to-die-in-britain/

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland public health specialist Dr Gabriel Scally, who was the author of a report on the CervicalCheck screening controversy, has warned that Ireland’s geographical advantage is being “squandered” by differing approaches to the public health crisis North and South.

“Historically islands have advantages when dealing with epidemics. For example, avoiding importation of new cases by controlling movement to and from the island is comparatively simple.

“However, in this coronavirus pandemic Ireland’s geographical advantage is being squandered by the adoption of very different approaches to dealing with the disease.

“The advice to someone in Lifford [Co Donegal] with symptoms of the disease is to self-isolate for a minimum of 14 days – a stone’s throw away in Strabane [Co Tyrone] the advice is isolation for seven days.”
— Read on www.irishtimes.com/news/health/ireland-squanders-geographical-advantage-with-different-covid-19-stances-north-and-south-scally-1.4216251

Professor Gabriel Scally

Waterford Whispers News Imagines Boris Johnson Inspecting Corpses

The complete Gabriel Scally Irish Times Article : Read the rest of this entry »

Bluebottle Alert – British Prime Minister Johnson and his Health Minister Hancock Have the CoVid-19 Pox – Schadenfreude Moments

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Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister, and Matt Hancock, British Health Minister, Got the Pox – “Ten Blue Bottles Sitting on a Wall; And if One Blue Bottle Should Accidentally Fall?; There’ll be Nine Blue Bottles Sitting on a Wall…”

New British Tory Party Logo

British Tory Bluebottle : “Bluebottles, like other flies, are often found on refuse tips, rotting animal matter, dirt and dustbins. They commute from filth to food and carry bacteria on their legs, feet and bodies.
Remedy
Keep dustbins clean, with tight lids and away from doors or windows.”

How did Johnson and Hancock become infected? A detective supplies a big clue

Shaking with Shock or Schadenfreude?

Schadenfreude :

Schadenfreude is a complex emotion, where rather than feeling sympathy towards someone’s misfortune, schadenfreude evokes joyful feelings that take pleasure from watching someone fail. This emotion is displayed more in children than adults. However, adults also experience schadenfreude, though generally concealed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude?wprov=sfti1

A Charming Photo

Prince Charles of Britain Has a Pox

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Mike Finn Sympathises

The Gaff of British Prince Charles

“Keep Calm & Carry On” Johnson Tells Room Full Of Corpses – Waterford Whispers News

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Close to British CoronaVirus Reality

Vampire 🧛‍♂️ Inspects Victims

EVOKING the daring-do of the great generation that survived World War II, but won’t survive him, Britain’s PM Boris Johnson delivered an impassioned speech to a room of corpses which contracted and subsequently died from Covid-19.

“Keep calm and carry on, ” Johnson bellowed, delighted with how the markets have ‘rallied’ and the pound has ‘jumped up’ in response to his government’s prioritising of profit over people these past two weeks.

Despite the cold and stark surroundings of a near capacity morgue, Johnson, encouraged by the lack of dissenting voices among his captive audience, continued his speech full of vim and vigour.

“We shall socialise on the beaches, we shall congregate en masse on the landing grounds, we shall get pissed in the fields and in the streets, we shall lie to the hilt; we shall never surrender to logic and the haunting pleas from kindhearted nations begging us to save our own people and not make the same mistakes they did.”
— Read on waterfordwhispersnews.com/2020/03/20/keep-calm-carry-on-johnson-tells-room-full-of-corpses/

The Boris Johnson/Arlene Foster CoronaVirus Inaction Strategy “Government tipping Britain towards huge death toll”

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Actions of the Dublin and Belfast Governments Confronting the CoronaVirus Health Crisis Diverge.

Phil Hearse’s attached article graphically explains the “death cult” plan of Prime Minister Johnson and his Adviser Dominic Cummings.

Here are the views of a genuine expert, Professor Gabriel Scally

The nonsense in England about the #publichealth concept of ‘herd immunity’ is shocking. The Government’s Chief Scientist is a former researcher in vascular biology and for over a decade has been working on R&D for a major pharmaceutical company. Where’s the public health voice?

https://mobile.twitter.com/GabrielScally/status/1238761911459733504?s=04

Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster is faithfully implementing the Johnson plan –

Serious Questions Arise Over Sinn Féin Participation in the Belfast Devolved Government.

TV journalist Robert Peston has summed up the government’s virus strategy as follows:
The strategy of the British government in minimising the impact of Covid-19 is to allow the virus to pass through the entire population so that we acquire herd immunity, but at a much delayed speed so that those who suffer the most acute symptoms are able to receive the medical support they need, and such that the health service is not overwhelmed and crushed by the sheer number of cases it has to treat at any one time.[1]

In other words, you’ve all got to get the virus, and then we’ll be OK. Except we won’t. Jeremy Rossman of Kent Universityestimates that the herd immunity strategy would require 70% of the population to get the disease, or 47 million people. He says:

Achieving herd immunity would require well over 47 million people to be infected in the UK. Current estimates are that COVID-19 has a 2.3% case-fatality rate and a 19% rate of severe disease. This means that achieving herd immunity to COVID-19 in the UK could result in the deaths of more a million people with a further eight million severe infections requiring critical care.[2]

This strategy, which the Financial Times attributes to Dominic Cummings, is an exercise in brutal eugenics. As Owen Jones argues, poorer people are much more likely to have underlying health conditions and weaker immune systems. He says:

A decade of austerity, and a social order that deprives millions of citizens of a comfortable existence, will mean many more deaths in the coming weeks and months that could have been avoided. The government’s determination to discover a vaccine for coronavirus must be accompanied by a renewed commitment to addressing poverty. Like every crisis, this one is likely to affect working-class and poor people worst. That is not inevitable. It’s a choice – and one within our power to stop, if only we had the will to do so.[3]

The Johnson/Cummings strategy is basically to let poor people and old people die. No wonder a Daily Telegraph journalist said that the virus might mean ‘an economically beneficial cull of over-80s’.[4]
— Read on www.timetomutiny.org/post/government-strategy-tipping-britain-towards-huge-death-toll

On Saturday March 14 Stormont Bosses Michelle O’Neill and Arlene Foster aired public policy differences

When asked about the different approaches being taken on the island, she said: “In terms of the co-operation I don’t think the co-operation could be any better between our chief medical officers, between our ministers of health and between the Government of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Executive.”

Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill repeated a call she made on Friday that Northern Ireland should follow the Republic’s lead and close schools.

She said: “People are taking decisions in advance of government and my own personal opinion is that schools should close now.

I think the fact that you can have two schools a mile apart and one school’s open and one school’s closed, that’s a very confusing picture and a very confusing message for the public.”

Mrs Foster said both governments had “very coherent messages” and that Stormont is taking advice from the Public Health Agency and the chief medical officer on when was the appropriate time to shut schools.

There are two different jurisdictions on this island and we may do things differently in terms of timing, but the tools are all the same in terms of what we are going to do to try and combat this virus,” she said.

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald, who was not at the meeting, said the UK’s response to coronavirus “should be rejected” and is “totally unacceptable in the north of Ireland”.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/five-new-covid-19-cases-in-the-north-mcdonald-says-uk-response-totally-unacceptable-in-ni-987981.html

Stormont, Lord Carson’s Crypt, Is Back to Normal – Time for Sinn Féin to Evacuate.

Renewable Heat Initiative at Stormont …where incompetence carries no sanction – Cash for Ash| Tommy McKearney

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In the North of Ireland the Chuckle-Sisters Foster and O’Neill (Democratic Unionist Party-Sinn Féin) Escape Sanction.

Renewable Heat Initiative – Arlene Foster Stormont First Minister Must Go

The minister in charge of the department responsible for the scheme was briefed of its flaws by whistleblower Janette O’Hagan as early as 2013. Nevertheless, in spite of this she remained oblivious to what thousands of others knew and exploited. Moreover,  having inexplicably failed to read the legislation she presented to the Assembly, Mrs Foster felt and continues to feel under no obligation to do the honourable thing and offer her resignation. On the contrary, the DUP leader has actually been rewarded and now acts as First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Across the corridor from Mrs Foster sits Michelle O’Neill who throughout the years of the ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal was Stormont’s Minister for Agriculture. Notwithstanding the fact that a majority of those installing biomass boilers were poultry farmers, the minister apparently remained blissfully unaware of the lucrative scheme that many of her constituents and supporters were availing of. However, as with Arlene Foster, this prolonged period of somnambulance has had no detrimental impact on Ms O’Neil’s career. She now holds the position of Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister

Foster and O’Neill the Stormont Chuckle-Sisters

— Read on http://www.tommymckearney.com/blog-/stormont-where-incompetence.html

Rebecca Long Bailey Would Let Luciana Berger *and* Alistair Campbell back into the British Labour Party: RLB Supporters in Melt-Down.

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British Labour Party Leadership Candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey lurches to the right – and she is supposed to be a left-winger! It is a dark day for the workers’ movement and all progressive forces in the British State.

Out of the Ashes…….

Thanks to Andrew Coates for the Information.

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Jeremy Corbyn the British Labour Party Leader with Leadership Candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey in Happier Times

Chris Williamson says RLB is “Bending over backwards to facilitate right-wing saboteurs, while simultaneously doubling down against anti-racist socialists, who’ve been smeared by those selfsame saboteurs, suggests Labour isn’t a home for socialists nor a vehicle to deliver a modest socialist programme.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Diary of a Corbyn Foot Soldier (February, 2020)

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Diary of a Corbyn Foot Soldier (February, 2020)

https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2020/03/09/diary-of-a-corbyn-foot-soldier-february-2020/
— Read on cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2020/03/09/diary-of-a-corbyn-foot-soldier-february-2020/

I highly recommend Michael Murray’s account – Days of Hope Started when Jeremy Corbyn was elected to the job of leading the British Labour Party.

The foot-soldier’s trek through a gloomy British political landscape ends on April 4 2020 when Jeremy Corbyn officially resigns from his leadership job, and Tony Blair style right-wingers take over the British Labour Party again.

Doctor Strangeloves are lining to press a nuclear button, and prepare the funeral rites of the British Labour Party, which has already lost its one-time electoral fortress in Scotland.

Dictionary definition of “foot soldier”:  “…a dedicated low level follower…” 

Contents:  

*The Labour leadership election;

*The Trump “Plan” – the end of the 2 State solution to the Israel-Palestine question?;

 *2020: 100 years of the Jewish Labour Movement/ Poele Zion.   

*The Labour leadership election Read the rest of this entry »

Coronavirus has sparked a perfect storm of nationalism and financial speculation – Yanis Varoufakis, Former SYRIZA Finance Minister in Greece – THE GUARDIAN

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Here is a fresh warning about the toxic combination of two different phenomenons – the CoVid-19 Health Crisis and a Financial Money Markets Storm, similar to the 2008 Crash.

The author is Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek Finance Minister sacked from a SYRIZA Government before it surrendered to the Austerians.

See also https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-is-not-responsible-for-the-fall-of-stock-prices-international-viewpoint-online-socialist-magazine/.

When the air is replete with inflammable materials, any given spark can cause a financial explosion, at any time.

Éric Toussaint of CADTM examines a worldwide stock market collapse.

Eric Toussaint is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the international spokesperson of the CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt) , and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France. 
He is the author of Debt System (2019), Bankocracy (2015); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago; “Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank, Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers”, Monthly Review Press, New York, 2010. He has published extensively in this field. He is a member of the Fourth International leadership.

Yanis Varoufakis, Former SYRIZA Finance Minister in Greece

Nationalism and speculation have seldom had a better opportunity to combine forces as the one riding today on the coattails of Covid-19, known as the coronavirus. When Covid-19 leapfrogged from China to Italy, even ardent Europeanists normally appreciative of open borders joined the deafening calls to end freedom of movement across Europe’s national borders – a longstanding demand of nationalists. Meanwhile, the money men speculating on government debt are performing a classic flight from Italian to German government bonds, seeking the financial safety that only the continent’s hegemon can offer during any crisis. As if in a bid to remind us of the great contradiction of our times, Covid-19 is illuminating gloriously the freedom of money to transcend a borderless financial universe while humans remain as fenced in as ever.

Coronavirus has sparked a perfect storm of nationalism and financial speculation – THE GUARDIAN

https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2020/03/09/coronavirus-has-sparked-a-perfect-storm-of-nationalism-and-financial-speculation-the-guardian/
— Read on www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2020/03/09/coronavirus-has-sparked-a-perfect-storm-of-nationalism-and-financial-speculation-the-guardian/