I’ve been thinking about race, society, justice and our moral imperative to care for one another. I’ve been thinking about the scenes which shocked the world and exposed the faultlines which separate the thoughtful and caring from the self-obsessed and the myopic. And I have to say that if there’s another spike in infections then this lot must apologise and pay reparations to society. In the event of another spike the NHS must not regard itself as bound to treat anyone who contributed to it. Yep, them’s the rules.

Yesterday the government has imposed a mandatory 14-day quarantine on all arrivals into the UK – but not until the 8th June.

Today the government imposed a mandatory requirement on all public transport passengers to wear a face mask – but not until 15th June.

I’ve suspected for a while that the government’s advisors and the bureaucracy decided to use the Wuhan Flu to show up the government as inept, always half cocked and late to the party. What is the point of quarantining from next week, four months after such things should have been done, to travelers mostly arriving from countries with much lower infection rates?

A week in Benidorm means a fortnight’s quarantine on arrival, a week on the beach and another fortnight’s quarantine back home. Goodbye all holidays and the travel industry. The eggheads have always insisted that there is no evidence that face masks help reduce transmission. Now, for some reason, they must be worn on public transport. No such requirements exist for any other environments.

I’m beyond caring now. Either go for herd immunity and good luck to you, or have a proper lockdown, including airports, from the start and keep the thing out. But somehow we’ve achieved an economic lockdown which has smashed Our Economy and a half-social lockdown which has kept infections high. This is the thing: whatever you do, commit to it. Whatever you’ll end up doing anyway, start doing immediately. This government has done everything, but late and haphazardly. The result is a petri-dish headed into depression while everyone else is getting back on their feet.

Guest Post by Noel

My wife asked me yesterday how people know about George Floyd’s prior convictions. She was flabbergasted to hear that practically anyone in the US can discover the criminal past of practically anybody else (Americans will correct me if I’m wrong). In fact even the record of the smallest misdemeanours are available to the public.  It was, for example, thus immediately known – everywhere – that the lady driver who killed an Englishman outside a military base in England had a previous rap for dangerous driving.

In Germany, on the other hand, it has always been law and universal practice that the name of a suspect is announced and reported only by his first name and the initial of his last name. Josef K in Kafka’s “Trial” is probably the most famous figure.

More recently that protection of identity has rather bizarrely been extended also to those who have been legally convicted and those imprisoned. Full facial appearance is also not revealed.

The man who German authorities are now pretty certain murdered the girl Madeleine McCann in Portugal 13 years ago is currently in prison for raping an American woman in the Algarve about a year before Maddie went missing. Afterwards he was found guilty of several other crimes of sexual abuse of children, child pornography and a string of burglary and drug dealing offences.

Data confidentiality laws in Germany are much tougher than in most places, which is usually a good thing.  But it will turn the toughest gut to see such a nasty specimen still having his identity protected: where neither his name nor his full photo can be disclosed, and that’s the way it’s going to stay, no matter the horror of any new criminal convictions, until the day he dies.

These rules of course don’t apply in other countries, and while the BBC continues to respect the German practice, I must say I was pleased to come across this article with a bit more disclosure. It would be interesting to know how the DM got hold of his name.

New Madeleine McCann suspect discussed her in an online chatroom https://t.co/FBSy27JyBn via @MailOnline

— The Troll (@TheCityTroll) June 4, 2020

I start my day with a pot of coffee and the Press. I scan a couple of dozen publications and pick out what catches my eye to read. If you check my twitter feed you can what I’ve read that morning before I start my day by the first 10 articles I’ve tweeted.

One of the advantages of this is not just the stories I spend the time to read, but viewing that many publications across the spectrum I get a feel for the general spin of the day. There is a pattern that has amplified over the past 3 months, it’s been there for the past 4 years, but has intensified greatly over the past 3mths.

The left and the Democrats some how have the distinct impression that they are winning the battle for hearts and minds. It cracks me up.

The past 3 months have been a living hell for most Americans. They locked us in our homes, took away our ability to earn, took away our ability to visit family, to go to church, even go to the Park or Beach. They’ve arrested people for walking with their children, couples sitting together on a park bench, and even for going to church. All while allowing Animals out of Jail because they may catch a cold.

Then these same Officials have allowed 10s of thousands of Animals to burn and pillage for an entire week.

Yet if you scan the headlines the Majority of the press blame Trump. You also see a constant flow of headlines about his losing pol numbers, who in his own administration think he’s wrong, and a 100 other little tidbits of how horrible everything is and how it’s all Trumps fault.

It’s a nice narrative, but that’s all it is a narrative. There is no meat in it.

The majority of Americans A) Want to get back to work, B) Don’t blame Trump for the Lockdown, and C) Blame the Democrats for the Riots. Yet the Democrats and the Press think they are winning.

I make no predictions about the coming election, I just can’t wait though till the day after. I got a feeling the results are going to be Interesting.

May you live in Interesting Times.

It is a fact that sometime you don’t really know how much you miss something,  until it isn’t there any more. For the past fourteen years, I have based myself at my family home in Durham. The one constant, the one thing which has certainly been an invisible companion is a noise. It is the sound of children. Young children, who come virtually every weekday to their school, a school whose grassed play area abuts onto my garden. For all that time, when school has been in session, I look forward to the sounds which tell me that life does go on. I hear the shrieks of laughter, the sounds of small people arguing, I hear the sounds of children at play: and what could be more innocent than that? The past weeks, when the world has virtually shut down, those voices have been missed so much more because the silence has spread beyond those gates, and on into  the wide world.

However, there have been certain sounds which I have not missed, mainly because they are the sounds of Celebrities incessantly yammering on about areas of life of which they know so little; but because they  are famous, and because they feel the need to keep their ‘profiles’ to the foreground: they speak, and speak; on, and on, and on.

A comparative newcomer to this field is the actress, and now the slightly-miffed former Senior Royal, the Duchess of Sussex; a.k.a. Meghan. After having got her pussy-whipped Prince so thoroughly attuned to her needs, and after realising that she didn’t like having to do the things which being part of our Royal Family entails; instead of doing exactly what she wanted, she grabs Harry by the scrotum, and departs for Canada, baby son in tow. After being told, bluntly, by Canada that free full security protection wasn’t on the cards, she skipped out by her favourite transport; someone else’s private jet; and lands up in a gilded part of Los Angeles.

But, being Meghan, she inherited the idea that, because she was now doubly famous, being both a ‘Celeb’ and a Duchess, no matter how far removed for the real Royals; she ‘had to speak out’ about the death of a career criminal at the hands of a Minneapolis policeman.

She spoke of George Floyd, adding ‘life matters’. She also spoke of  Breonna Taylor, and Philando Castile, and Tamir Rice’ again adding the key phrase ‘life matters’.

All  of which is true, and apposite, and movingly spoken as well; well, as movingly as any actress who has had to learn to emote on schedule.

It seems to me that this woman missed out only one name from  that sad parade of death, but she omitted the name of Cody Holte from that litany of sadness. Why Cody’s name? He was the victim of three AK-47 bullets, fired by a career criminal who was being served with an eviction notice. I just wonder why Meghan didn’t feel the need to honour this man? Was it because he didn’t fit the profile: Black man killed by White cop; but instead filled the flip side of that profile: White cop killed by Black man?

Yesterday, in The Atlantic, retired USMC General and former Secretary of State lowered the boom on Trump.

To me, the criticism that resonated most was actually one that I have repeatedly made on these pages. That in Trump we have a president who has never sought to unite the American people, but who has always sought to divide them. for his personal purposes.

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society.

There is direct criticism of Trump’s use of the military to clear peaceful protesters, of the president’s talk of bringing in active duty troops to quell protests, perhaps both the peaceful and the riotous, from our cities.

Combat troops are hard men who are particularly unsuitable in temperament to deal with crowds of uncooperative civilians, some of whom will try to provoke them. Mattis knows this, Trump does not. You don’t want a Bloody Sunday or Tiananmen Square in this country.

An additional sharp sting is Mattis’ statement that we have been without ” mature leadership “.

Personal dememeanor, bearing is everything to a good military officer. And we saw no better example of an officer/retired officer’s comportment than we have seen in General Mattis. It has likely pained him to see the scatterbrained meanness, the lack of any manly dignity, the every day placing of ego and self over country that we have seen for three years.

Trump is already at it, saying that Mattis was an overrated general. This whopper, no one will believe. Tell it to the marines.

8 minutes of Fun

Ted Cruz roastin Rosenstein

Sen. @TedCruz GRILLS Rod Rosenstein pic.twitter.com/66EvNMGGml

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) June 3, 2020

David Dorn is a black man and a retired police captain. He was murdered in cold blood by a looter. Did his life matter? Will his name be as famous as George Floyd? Will Dem politicians attend his funeral? Will they apologize for fomenting the riots and causing his death?

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 3, 2020

And we know that the answers are “no, no, no, no I can’t hear you.” David Dorn was murdered because an urban primitive wanted to steal a TV. His name won’t ring out. No protests will be held in his memory. No celebs will proudly fund looters, criminals and terrorists. In fact social media will try to bury his name. Because his death cannot be rudely exploited for political and economic gain.