What Do You Think Today?

[wayfriend]

I 100% agree ~ we all could have managed COVID better (with the benefit of hindsight)

… but most governments followed the experts and most had the public interest at heart.

When the US Energy Department determined with "low confidence" that the COVID virus was probably from a lab, there was a lot of "Ah ha!" from certain quarters of the web. Mere weeks later, news that there is stronger evidence that the virus is tied to the racoon dogs in the market, these same folks are busy looking at other things and humming a distracted tune.

There's a very political angle to the disparagement of the pandemic response. It's no coincidence that all the same people blasted the response on the very first day - somehow knowing prophetically that it was wrong, and that they blamed it all on ulterior motives of the other political party, and that they never bother correcting any misinformation about it, and that they now are cherry-picking the facts to say "Ah ha!".

Don't get medical information from politicians and politicos.

[Avatar]

Yeah, I sorta agree with that. And I mean, especially the US these last few years, where you can't sneeze without being accused of making a political statement. (And it seems some quarters of the UK are following suit.)

Not that we aren't following a similar path here in some respects, but the political statements people are bing accused of making are on very different themes.

--A

[Skyweir]

True that ~ and it’s highly evident here also.

But why wouldn’t it be ~ globalisation enabled fast spread of all things ~ not just unwanted viruses either.

Attitudes, both positive and negative ~ technology, fashion, political viewpoints wherever they fall on the political spectrum.

Globalisation has a lot to do with the uptake of nationist populist spread throughout out Europe and beyond.

Stands to reason that conspiracy theories spread the same way.

[peter]

Mmm.....

I think both our politicians and the scientific community have questions to answer.

The Select Subcommittee on the Covid Pandemic hearings, held recently in Washington have demonstrated pretty conclusively that the origin of the virus was from the Wuhan Institute of Virology subsequent to gain of function research being carried out (and likely funded as it happens, by various branches of the American state, namely the NIH, the State Department, USAID and the DOD) on a batch of coronavirus.

Expert testimony given to the subcommittee by some of the key personnel involved, most notably Dr Robert Redfield former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the virus bore little relation to the earlier sars-1 or mere viruses which had never at any point achieved human to human transfer capabilities (the development of which had been the objective of the said gain of function research referred to above). The rapidity with which the cov 2 virus had achieved this capability was simply not consistent with a natural evolutionary pattern - a conclusion shared he said, by a group of eminent experts that had had conference with Dr Fauci, mere days before they had out of the blue, and in a further conference call to which he had not even been made aware was occurring, reversed their position and put forward the wet market origin theory that became the established narrative. He was, he said, undoubtedly excluded from this ongoing reversal of opinion because the group, under the direction of Dr Anthony Fauci, wanted to present a single front on the matter. The motivation for this reversal was he said (iirc) the likely desire of Dr Fauci to hide the American connection to the pandemic origin - to cover his own tracks since he himself had been party to the funding decisions - and in result, any further suggestion of a laboratory origin became subject to ridicule and accusations of being "conspiracy theory" material. Shortly thereafter a paper was released in the prestigious journal nature absolutely ruling out any possible source of the virus other than a natural one - a conclusion that four different interviewees at the subcommittee all said was presumptuous and completely unfounded given the state of knowledge of the virus at the time. The Committee on Oversight and Accountability wrap up, given in a press release published on March 8 2023, is entitled 'Facts, Science, Evidence, Point to a Wuhan Lab Leak.'

Sudden reversals of opinion, exclusions from the debate, ridicule of alternative opinion, presumptive release of unproven assumptions as fact? Is this how science is to progress from now on then? And these are the people you trust........?

[peter]

On March 20 2023 at 5.34am, Baghdad time, based on a spurious and now discredited bunch of reasons involving weapons of mass destruction and putative connections of the country to Al-Queda, the UK and USA invaded a sovereign nation and brought about the overthrow of its leadership and government.

Yesterday in the press and on the BBC, John Simpson, the BBC journalist who was at the vanguard of the Western forces as they marched into Iraq, said how he was now ashamed of his coverage and acknowledged that the invasion had been a disaster for the nation and the region more generally, the results of which it suffers from, to this day. The lives lost, the suffering caused in consequence of that illegal invasion, both at the time and going forward, are/is incalculable. Yet not one word of admonishment, not one statement of condemnation has been issued by the UN, not one individual involved in the duping of the public in the two aggressor nations into acceptance of the illegal invasion, has ever been brought to trial - on the contrary both Bush and Blair ride high on the kudos of their terms of office, Blair in particular still to this day appearing regularly on the world stage, using his platform to opine on this matter or that, and making untold fortunes in the process.

During the coverage of the now discredited Iraqi adventure on the news last night, the irony of the position we are now in with respect to our response to the Putin invasion of Ukraine was not lost on me.

We can easily, it seems, accommodate a degree of cognitive dissonance when it comes to the holding of double standards in respect of our opinion on the actions of others, as opposed to the actions of ourselves. And the same can, it seems, be said of the UN.

Or is it the case that wars are okay only if we say they are okay (and by we, I of course mean America - we only follow that great nation like a poodle)?

Nothing but nothing can justify Putin's actions in Ukraine. Nothing but nothing can justify what we did in Iraq. They are of a piece. In fact Putin has at least, the fact of a large minority Russian population living within Ukraine - and a population that has not by accounts, been well treated within the country, prior to the invasion (think the way we treated the Southern Irish in Northern Ireland as second class citizens) - to justify his actions (though it is of course, no justification for invading and levelling a country at all). We had not even that much of a connection.

No. When it comes to finger pointing and holding the moral high ground, we have little to no justification for patting ourselves on the back. Putin is a bastard for what he is doing, as were Bush and Blair before him.

And just maybe, if we cease to view our own contributions to the world order through these blinkered rose-tinted lenses, we might actually begin to understand why perhaps countries like China and Russia think that it's time for America to step back. That maybe there might be room for other countries of this world to have a say in the running of it. That maybe a world council that does not automatically rubber-stamp any decision to go to war made by 'the West' with approval, but castigate as an automatic response, any other country that makes this terrible decision, might be possible? That the time of the American hegemony is over and perhaps other countries may make an input, may make their voices count on the world stage?

The legacy of the West from the end of World War 1 stretching right the way forward to the present day is a questionable one. Right the way from the Middle East through to Europe and the far East, the fell hand of our foreign policy has exerted its influence and while we in the West have enjoyed the fruits of our success, too often it has been the case that others in far flung corners of the world have born the brunt of our ill-judged interventions.

Now we stand on the brink of repeating our past failures and once again pursuing a course that will lead only to further suffering and potentially disastrous consequences.

So I say this. If President Xi can, against all odds, sit down with Putin and Zelensky and thrash out a solution to this conflict, then let him. Don't intervene, don't pressure President Zelensky to ignore any overtures, don't pour scorn on the Chinese for at least trying to bring about a peace, where we seem only intent on continuation of hostilities. Certainly Xi will expect to come out of any successful result empowered thereby. So what? Are we still in the territory of the 'Project For the New American Century' that we could not tolerate such an end?

Before we start condemning the actions of others we had better start by acceptance of consequences of our own. "Why beholdest thou the mote in thy brothers eye but consider not the beam in thine own," asks the Bible and it is a question that we would do well to address to ourselves. If we don't start to begin acting with a little more humility, a little less self interest and inflexibility, then we are liable, by accident rather than intention, to unleash a holocaust that will leave none of us standing.

[Skyweir]

So is this brief statement the one you are feeding to?

Given by Redfield

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content ... ield88.pdf

He basically distinguishes potential COVID origins ~ whether it bea natural spillover event or it was a lab leak and suggests it should be rigorously investigated.

I think you may be conflating his statement to support one theory over another.

I agree investigation would be useful. That’s as far as that goes.

At a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing on March 8, [Jim] Jordan claimed Fauci pressured virologists Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research and Robert Garry of Tulane University to change their minds and support the theory that the virus transferred naturally from animals to humans, rather than originating in a lab. This claim of a quid pro quo has spread widely on social media.

Not only is there no evidence for this, but the timing of the grant is inconsistent with such a claim. Moreover, NIAID directors do not unilaterally decide who gets funding; groups of outside scientists review proposals and provide scores that are the primary determinants of funding.

[peter]

No Sky - the site I was accessing is found by googling house committee on the origins of the covid virus and then clicking on the oversight.house.gov result (should be second from the top) that reads Covid origins hearing wrap up....

If you can't get to it, most of the salient points are available to view on YouTube and shouldn't be hard to find. Makes for uneasy viewing I promise.

[wayfriend]

The Select Subcommittee on the Covid Pandemic hearings, held recently in Washington have demonstrated pretty conclusively that the origin of the virus was from the Wuhan Institute of Virology

No. They have not demonstrated this conclusively. As yet, no one can.

This is a political stunt. The conspiracy theories you outline really makes that obvious.

[peter]

Fair comment about the word demonstrated Wayfriend, but I have watched the salient parts of the session and think (for what that is worth) that the questions raised deserve to be addressed. If the facts were as the various interviewees described them - and these are all highly respected individuals - one imagines that a former Director of the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention in regular contact with The Chief Medical Officer for the US might know what he is talking about - then there was most definitely something rotten in the heart of Denmark and it is time to draw it out.

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Rishi Sunak is in pretty deep shit over the Windsor Framework an the so called Stormont Brake, not that you would know it from the pitiful coverage it has received in the legacy media.

Basically the DUP has come out and (as I predicted) said that it will not support the Framework as it currently stands, until they can be convinced that the aforementioned Brake actually has the teeth to prevent EU drawn up legislation from application in the province. There will be much more than this that they are unhappy with, not least the still included role of the ECJ in adjudication of disputes and transgressions of the terms of the Framework, but for the moment the NI party are doing there best not to sound too deliberately contrary following Rishi Sunak's hard won agreement.

But the decision made by a dozen party elders (rather than just the leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson) will seriously undermine support in the deal, not least in Westminster (where from the PM's point of view it really counts) because the hard Brexiteer factions of the parliamentary party, the ERG and the like, have said that they will take their lead from the DUP and support or otherwise, the framework according to this.

There is little chance that the Windsor Framework will fail to pass the House - both the Labour Party and the other represented parties in the House (with the exception of the DUP Westminster MPs) have said that they would back the government - but it is not a good look for a Tory PM to be reliant on opposition support to get through his legislation. In fact however, it probably isn't quite that bad - although a significant number of Tories will probably vote against their own government, probably not so many as that would have overturned the legislation had Labour not been supporting it.

But either way, it doesn't look good and Sunak knows it. More importantly for him, while the DUP remain in opposition to the Framework it is unlikely that they will return to the power sharing agreement in Stormont and so devolved government within the province will remain stymied. This will not be a good look to take with him to his meeting with Jo Biden later this week (I think it is - certainly pretty soon). The brexit trilemma was simply never going to be sorted out with the shake of a wand, and Sunak was a fool if he thought that it was. Boris Johnson may be appearing in the dock today over the partygate affair, but this is his true legacy to Sunak and the Tories. That he saddled them with a withdrawal agreement that almost certainly opened the door to the end of the Good Friday Agreement and quite probably the reunification of Ireland. Sunak will soldier on, but he is weakened: and the old divisions of the brexit era are starting to reopen and nothing will stop them from continuing to do so from this day on.

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On the issue of the Johnson hearings, today the blonde bombshell will sit for a four hour session in front of the Parliamentary privileges committee and deliver the performance that will save or end his political career.

He has prepared a dossier for the committee's consideration saying basically that he was advised that protocols were being followed within Downing Street and he had no reason to doubt that this was the case (despite being present in photographs of what appear to be boozy sessions within No 10).

There may have been some kind of bylaws exempting the premises from the covid restrictions, but as yet I have not heard this argument being mooted, but what has been suggested is that the privileges committee might have prejudiced itself in respect of the hearings by changing the goalposts half way through the game.

Basically, this centers around the fact that they changed the wording from the traditional, "Did this individual deliberately mislead parliament" to, "Did this individual recklessly mislead parliament. There is, you will note, a deliberate shifting away from intent in the second version, allowing a guilty verdict to be passed even on an individual who acted unknowingly to mislead parliament. In the second form it becomes the degree of misleading, rather than the knowledge of it, that becomes the deciding factor. I have to say that guilty as I believe Johnson to be (in terms of his knowing exactly what he was doing when he told the House that "no rules were broken"), I have some sympathy with the argument that changing the rules just because it doesn't look like you are going to be able to prove guilt (no matter that you might know it to be the case) via the first wording, doesn't seem like fair play to me.

But going back to Sunak (who of course received his own fine for law breaking during the events in question), what will his take on all of this be? I have little doubt that he'd like to see Johnson found guilty. If the former PM were to be found so and drummed out of parliament in consequence, then it would remove a significant thorn from his side, if not an outright threat to his leadership. Johnson was, after all, the man who gave the Tories their stonking majority and in some sense it is still him that holds it. If the Windsor Framework side of affairs blows up in his (Sunak's) face and trouble starts mounting, then the last thing he wants is for a re-energised Johnson, enjoying his high profile and success from the partygate fight, stirring up additional trouble for him.

So he'd like to see Johnson kicked into the long grass for sure and be rid of him..... and for this reason alone, I tend to want the opposite. I have to say that I regard the Sunak/Braverman/Hunt administration as a really dangerous thing. I have little doubt that if Braverman were to ever become PM in some future manifestation of an extreme right wing Conservative government, I have little doubt that I'd be off to prison simply for what I have posted on these pages. I never would have believed it possible in this country, but things are very much different here than they have been in the past. Johnson for all his faults as an individual - and God knows he has enough of those - is not a hard right individual. He's a chancer, a political opportunist, and one that has allowed for a particularly nasty manifestation of the right wing element of the Tory Party to step into the breach left by himself, but he's not himself of that ilk. For this reason I'd prefer to have him around. Like it or not, he has a political clout that Sunak could only dream of. His presence will always be a draw, a pulling of the party back toward the centre ground and we really need that at present.

And besides. Despite his passing of the laws upon which he is now being hoisted, what was he really doing that a million people up and down the country were not. There is ample evidence that he was not happy with the lockdown policy from day one and that he held out from introducing it for as long as his cabinet would allow him. He, like the rest of us, knew that it would be ineffective in controlling the spread of the virus and he did, frankly, what other people were doing the length and breadth of the nation. He payed lip service to it in public and behind closed doors pretty much ignored it. Because you simply cannot legislate for people not to live their lives and expect them to follow it. They'll make the effort to put up a show of doing so, but behind the scenes life will go on. Johnson knew this and was not of the type that would buck against it. He was always going to run a completely inebriate type of administration - he ever was a party animal and being PM was not going to change this - and what went on in Downing Street was simply a manifestation of this. Had not he been surrounded by a lot of little traffic warden style thinking individuals in his cabinet - the Matt Hancock's and Dominic Raab's with their authoritarian leaning personalities - none of the restrictions would probably have ever happened anyway.

So yes. He's guilty as sin. Guilty of being a self interested bastard with no political ideology other than the Bank of Boris about him at all. Guilty of allowing a life to continue around him, of not weilding the authoritarian stick over those working for him (and they were working long hours under great pressure remember), of allowing them the freedom to let their hair down, to let off steam in the only way that he knew how, by partying like it was 1999. Guilty of many and varied things. But he's not guilty of being a dictator in the making. Not guilty of dreaming of other people much less fortunate than himself being shipped off to a country of which they know nothing, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Not guilty of relishing the idea, of basking in the power of holding people within their homes and punishing them with punitive fines if they transgressed. These things were anathema to him, despite what the Hancock's of this world wanted, and for this reason I say let him off. Extend the same gracious leniency towards him that he extended towards the people who were trying their hardest within Downing Street at the time in question. And if he misled parliament, then he misled parliament. He won't be the first and he won't be the last. And at least he will have done it for reasons that we can all understand; because he's a human being, a fallible individual who failed just as we all fail......so let him off..... because if all were judged according to their just desserts, which one of us would escape a whipping?

[Skyweir]

I agree ~ and can’t imagine him being professionally discredited ~ as that would be inappropriate.

There are a number of experts and Fauci is one of them who shares significant experience and knowledge base.

Alas the session I watched was politicised as folk seem won’t to do ~ I think Redfield raises the need to determine the virus origin.

So that we have a solid understanding of its beginnings and how to manage future significant health threats better.

[Skyweir]

In fact if there is a thing we’ve learned from COVID is how IT has been politicised ~ which thing aided no one ~ no one at the organisational level nor anyone suffering COVID.

[peter]

From the testimony I watched it seemed clear that some kind of pressure had been applied to individuals to reverse their opinion on the origins of the virus. The question of the rapidit, no - almost unprecedented degree with which the Covid-19 virus was able to 'hit the ground running' in terms of human to human transfer was raised by Dr Redfield and documents submitted by other workers in the field appear to corroborate that this question was by no means confined to him alone.

Other contributions, in the form of submitted documents, go deeper into the scientific aspects, such as the genetic sequencing found in the virus, which point towards a 'gain of function' origin for this capacity, research on which was known to be being carried out at the WIH, in particular by Dr Anthony Fauci because, by accounts, it was being in part funded by departments that came under his jurisdiction. It was advanced that Fauci had conspired to put pressure on scientists to "downplay" the laboratory origin theory in favour of the natural one.

Absolutely, there will be politicians who will seek to make political gains by these accusations - when do politicians do otherwise - but the questions raised still remain. Was the possibility of a lab leak downplayed, even covered up by inappropriate pressure applied to the scientific community? Was the origin of the virus natural as we were assured in the journal Nature, or was this conclusion as has been advanced, presumptuous? If it was how best should we proceed to rectify this 'mistake'? And finally, what does this tell us about the whole way in which our response to the pandemic was ordered, was prosecuted by those in power and the means by which it was done?

These are important questions that we need to answer in respect of dealing with future pandemics. In addition, if the virus origin is ultimately deemed to have been laboratory rather than natural in nature, a serious and significant review of safety (and licencing) procedures of such institutions might be the least of the responses we could expect.

[peter]

Lost another post today.

When I have gone to another page to read the papers and then try to come back to my half written post, I get a 'confirm form resubmission' page (whatever the frick that is) with no option to return to my half completed work. I have now ticked the 'remember me' box (as Av recommend me to do, but which I forgot) so hopefully this will work the oracle.

In the meantime, I watched the first half of the Johnson hearing yesterday before going to work. It was pretty standard stuff - much as you would have predicted, and I'm thinking that it is likely that he'll be found wanting. His performance was passable, full of bluster and promises as you would expect, but I'm thinking that the committee had probably pretty much come to it's verdict long before this sitting and nothing that came out yesterday is going to change it.

I have some sympathy with Johnson's argument. They were trying to administer the country through the worst crisis (albeit totally unnecessary as it was in my opinion) since WW2 and were working extraordinarily long hours in an old and often cramped building. Certainly rules were broken, even liberties taken, but the circumstances were extraordinary and while it might be well and good to pontificate from a distance about what should and should not be done, in the heat of the battle (as it were) things would have been much messier than the description of them might seem. The real world doesn't perform the way that those sitting at a distance would often have us believe it does - and the individuals so-called 'partying' at No 10 were very much living in the real world, not in some abstractly described bubble. And look at the photos for goodness sake? They don't look like any of the parties I've taken part in over the course of my life, and that's a fact. If this is a politicians idea of what partying is about then I suggest that they are seriously limited in their understanding of the concept. It looks about as much fun was being had as watching paint dry to me, but there you have it.

Elsewhere, the putative Tory rebellion against the Windsor Framework fizzled out (the Tory right wingers having decided to cut their losses and take the gains that they have made) and Rishi Sunak took the opportunity to slip out his tax return while all attention was diverted by the bigger shows in town. He made five million quid over and above his Westminster salary, and paid the minimum tax rate on most of it (because it was share price related and thus qualified as capital gains). Nice (not quite) work if you can get it.

[Avatar]

Just confirming the form resubmission should work, but clicking "back" on your browser should take you to the page with what you were typing still there.

--A

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Lost another post today.

When I have gone to another page to read the papers and then try to come back to my half written post, I get a 'confirm form resubmission' page (whatever the frick that is) with no option to return to my half completed work. …

[…]

Why not use the Save Draft function?



Save Draft function not available when using the Quick Reply postbox.

[Skyweir]

Clever

[peter]

Just typed a short response to your kind comments and saved the draft as recommended. Now can't find the saved draft.! Oh dear - methinks this newfangled technology is not for me. Hand me a quill and parchment any day!



Anyway. I'm going to get round it by posting a part written post which I can then edit at a later point, before navigating to a different page. If you ever come across suddenly terminating posts, you may assume that this is what I am currently doing. The reason I need to swap back and forth between pages is to reference the papers I or subject I'm commenting on, my memory being well......

Sorry - what was I talking about?



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When the political leaders (or their lackey press) start disparaging the judiciary and legal profession of their own country you can be sure that they are up to no good.

We saw it during the Brexit debacle when the Daily Mail branded the judges "Traitors!", for their ruling that parliament must be consulted befor Article 51 could be triggered,and we have heard Suella Braverman and numberless politicians berating the "lefty lawyers" over their attempts to prevent people from being deported to Rwanda via the government's relocation scheme for migrants who arrive on the small boats.

Now a new attack in today's press over the refusal of barristers to prosecute so-called 'eco-warriors' is being levelled against them.

You don't need me to tell you that an independent judiciary and strong legal establishment are key features of a working democracy and, if functioning properly, will be by necessity a thorn in the ruling polity's side, but this will ever be bucked against by those who feel that their hands are being tied by the process. But when a sustained and coordinated attack by both administration and media is seen to be being mounted, then warning bells should begin to ring.

We are pretty deep into this territory now and the more often we call this out the better. Unnecessary fears - quite possibly....but better safe than sorry.

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Suella Braverman, on her recent visit to Rwanda, was accompanied by an invited coterie of TV media and press journalists from outlets friendly to the current administration. Not included were journalists from the Mirror, the 'i', and other more independent and less sycophantic publications, who were actively proscribed from attendance.

During her visit she was shown some of the newly constructed accommodation that would be used for housing the trafficked refugees (for that's just what they will be - trafficked - never mind that it is our government that will be doing it) and gushed forth about the desirability of the housing.

It has "parking space for a car" in front of the property (she told us) and inside is decked out with "beige sofa's and pink curtains" (so 70's don't you know Suella) - and at one point laughingly turned to her accompanying retinue and asked if anyone could get her the name of the interior designer that had worked there as she could do with a little help in that direction!

So inviting did the Home Secretary make the place that I was almost sorry that I wasn't arriving on a small boat in order to be shipped off there immediately upon arrival.

I mean, blimey Suella - you are supposed to be discouraging the boat people, not encouraging them with a free pass to a new home in the sun (albeit after a couple of weeks in a nissen hut in Essex). I'm half tempted to sign up for a boat trip from Calais myself, never mind a refugee from war-torn Syria!

Besides which, not sure where a refugee from sub-saharan Africa who arrives with only the clothes on his back after a walk of many thousand miles is going to find a car for that parking space, but let that go.

But seriously, this was so ridiculous as to be almost insulting. It was reminiscent of ......no......I'm not even going to go down that route - Gary Lineker recently found what happens when you make that kind of comparison - but you can either get the historical comparison or you can't.

Either way, it's hard to believe that anyone is going to fall for this kind of bullshit - I can't actually think what Braverman was trying to achieve by such a silly propoganda stunt - was she trying to be deliberately provocative..... She surely didn't expect anyone to actually believe that this was the life lined up for a refugee sent preremptorily to Rwanda post arrival in the UK? Surely not? But if not, then what was it all about? The more I think about it the more confusing I find it. Perhaps that's exactly what is meant to be the case? Beats me.

[Skyweir]

[peter]

What we know s that in 2017, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn came close to winning the general election and becoming Prime minister of the UK.

What we also know is that large sums of money, donated to the campaign effort by Labour Party enthusiasts, was diverted by the central office of the Party (overseen by individuals hostile to the wing of the Party which Corbyn represented) and funneled toward individuals on the right of the Party who then went out onto the doorsteps and actively campaigned against their own leadership, in all likelihood costing Labour the election.

These are the very individuals who sit within and behind the current leadership (Corbyn and the left having been effectively and ruthlessly purged from the Party) and who, come the next election will ask you for your vote (and will happily take your money if you donate it) in support of themselves and Kier Stamer, to secure office following the the same.

What they did was unethical and immoral, and was a breach of trust in respect of the thousands hard working individuals who donated their money towards the cause five years ago. It is unprecedented in (to my mind) the campaigning of any other political campaign of any other party, past or present, and most certainly in the history of the Labour Party.

For this reason, there are no circumstances under which I will ever vote Labour again while under the current leadership. I will use my time over the forthcoming months to acquaint every person I can with the facts I have outlined, and if in doing so can make even the slightest dent in the voting intentions of a few individuals in my circle of contacts (and I speak to hundreds of people a day), then I will not consider my time wasted.

Such is my anger at what the current leadership have done, what they have quite possibly denied us - for make no mistake, had Corbyn won the history of our country would likely be a very different one to that we have experienced, we would be in a very different place indeed - that I would rather see Rishi Sunak lead another Conservative administration, than see Stamer take the election and become PM of this country.

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It was undoubtedly the sensible thing to do, to cancel the King's forthcoming visit to France, given the parlous state of order in the country as mobs of enraged citizens rampage through the streets in protest against the raising of the pension age from 62 to 64.

It will no doubt be a disappointment to King Charles as the visit was to be his first overseas tour since becoming King, and in addition was to be a visible declaration of the new rapprochement between the two countries after a number of fractious years post the referendum and Brexit. The Sunak administration will also be disappointed as it was to be a showcase - the finale if you like - to their cementing of the Windsor Framework, which despite the success of getting it through Parliament, does not look quite like the crowning achievement it was painted as being.

But back to the French and the cancelled visit, it is not quite clear how the decision was made. Initial reports yesterday said that Macron had phoned Charles personally to request the visit be rescheduled, but today the French are saying it was a joint decision. Some refutation of this has been suggested, with the Palace (if I'm correct) suggesting that this isn't quite correct. But hey - the decision was made by whatever means and it seems to me to be the correct one. The security issues with walkabouts and movements between properties would have been horrendous. And to cap it all, the State Banquet planned for the Palace of Versailles would have been inflammatory to the disgruntled population in the extreme. The optics of the French administrations sitting down with the British royal family in the very Palace where Louis the Sixteenth partied with Marie Antoinette while the French people starved, where the French revolution itself was born - it would have to have become a focal point for French anger and would likely have been stormed by the populace before it was over. Not good. Not good at all.

So yes - I think it was a sensible decision to call the visit off and postpone it to a later date. On the pension reform proposed by Macron (and pushed through by executive decree) I'm with the people.

It was the French who first introduced the idea of a pension so that "the people of France can enjoy at the end of their lives, some of the leisure that the aristocracy have enjoyed for the entirety of theirs". The practice was introduced in the UK following the Beveridge Report, but has been craw in the side of governments ever since. Introduced for men at the age of 65 and women upon reaching 60, the practice has been under seige ever since. First it was the age at which women would receive the payment that was raised from 60 to 65. Then the age for both from 65 to 66. In short order it will raised to 67 with plans for further increases, brought in incrementally in the future. Ultimately it will become almost pointless as people (who might be living longer, but are certainly still ageing at the same rate as they always have) will effectively be working until they drop.

In the UK, we are such a politically indolent bunch that the government can get away with this type of insult to the people and they just suck it up. In France not so: they are out tearing up the flagstones and burning town halls. Maybe a bit extreme to be sure, but they are certainly making their views be taken notice of. Whether Macron will back down - he says the country cannot any longer afford the cost of the pension payments - remains to be seen, but seventy percent of the population think that he should. I'm guessing that he won't have much choice; the pictures of batton wielding policemen weighing into people and being injured themselves as the people fight back is not a good look. And the protests show no sign of dying down.

But there you have it. Enjoy your day and be lucky.

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Just typed a short response to your kind comments and saved the draft as recommended. Now can't find the saved draft.! Oh dear - methinks this newfangled technology is not for me. Hand me a quill and parchment any day!

peter, once you've saved a draft, when you return to that topic and click "Post Reply," you'll see an additional button afterwards that says "Load Draft."

Click that, and the page will reload, showing you a list of saved drafts by topic name. Click the relevant topic name and your draft will re-appear in the box.

--A