…is George Orwell spinning in his grave. What we have witnessed this past week or so is a government power grab that surprised even me with its far reaching powers.
I had always pegged Boris Johnson down as broadly on the side of liberty. His writing on the subject has always been well thought through. That said, his ban on alcohol consumption on the London Underground during his tenure as mayor gave us a peek underneath the mask. Now, it seems that mask has slipped.
This then, is the kind of thing we are seeing in response to a virus. A nasty virus, to be sure, but the over reaction is damaging not only to the economy, but also our civil liberties.
A man has become the first person in the UK to be jailed for visiting a hospital without a valid medical reason and then bragging about it on Facebook.
Kierran Stevenson, 32, took to Facebook on Monday to boast about using his daily exercise to visit Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
Okay, if you read the story and the screen-grab of his Farcebook post, the bloke is a monumental tit. He knew the rules and broke them, so got what was coming. However, what harm did he do? What harm was he likely to do? In what kind of dystopian nightmare do we jail people for walking into a hospital grounds without actually being ill?
Well, for a start he didn’t walk into the hospital grounds as you say, according to the Mirror piece, but entered the building and walked around inside. A weapons grade pillock who bought it all on himself.
Also, as you say, the virus is real and its not about death rates but speed of infection. Like it or not these restrictions have been written into law, though I see that its the Police egged on by sensationalist media that have extended it. We are not that hardly done to when you think:
I can still drive wherever I like, as long as I don’t stop to talk to people or get out of the car. I am also free to go for a ride. There are only guidelines which people have taken at their most literal, since those new regulations do not specify where I am allowed to go or how long I am allowed out of the house. I am also allowed to drive to an open space for exercise.
I can visit people, since it is allowed to have a group of two. Observing social distancing, of course.
There is no regulation which says how many times in a day I am allowed to leave the house. Neither is there any regulation forcing me to give information to the Police as to a reason for being out of the house.
These public service announcements from the CMO (or would that be Clement Freud?) are just guidelines, not laws.
It doesn’t really matter whether these rules are seen as guidelines if the police decide to treat them as laws.
Of course it matters.. a lot. The public in general, from what I can see, don’t know the difference between guidelines and laws and that gives the Police free reign. The public has to wake up to this before we’re all living in East Germany mkII. People blame the government but its the Police that need taking on, they are not fit for purpose. And that doesn’t mean wandering aimlessly around hospitals. Best to stick to what we have been requested to do and apply a bit of common sense at the same time. That’s the way I’ll play it – if the Police are taking what we can’t do to the extreme, I will do the same with what I can do.
It seems to me from this week’s events that the public are far more in tune with what is law and what is advice than many of the fuckwits who clearly inhabit our Police Forces.
I did make the point in the OP that the bloke is an idiot. That’s not my concern though. Nothing he did warrants a jail sentence. That it has resulted in this should worry us all.
Jailed for exposing the truth imo
What harm was he likely to do? In what kind of dystopian nightmare do we jail people for walking into a hospital grounds without actually being ill?
Harm: Zero
Anger Stasi: 11/10
Walking: School I attended was across road from city centre hospital and Uni inc Med School, we and lots of public walked through every day. An aside: school also had highest percentage enrolling in Med degrees
Guidelines, not laws. Should not Must. Advised not Must
Hospital staff so overworked, exhausted, blah they happily give lengthy standing whining interviews to BBC, C4 etc looking fresh and relaxed
done
Pcar, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, we have plod with the unlawful roadblocks and fining people for walking in countryside. On the other hand, we have some loony who wasn’t in the hospital grounds, he had been wandering around inside the hospital, even paying a visit to ICU. What does he expect – a VIP guided bloody tour?
Other things to consider, where is his evidence – did he whip out the old phone and get it all on video? Sounds to me like the kind of chap who set out to gather evidence. I’ve seen no video and cannot find any. Secondly, remember that the press are generally lying, manipulating scum. Especially the BBC and C4.
Finally, he talks about the virus being real and then proceeds to tell us all about it, as though he took a crash course in biotech overnight. Reminds me a lot of Robert Peston getting his arse handed to him by the DCMO a couple of days ago.
If they dig George Orwell up, wrap him in copper wire and rebury him between two magnets, you will have a pollution free source of electrical power which will be more reliable than windmills.
The Police are WAY out of control and have been for a long time. Only now when the entire population is having their collective nose rubbed in it are they noticing.