Hugging isn’t something I do, so this hasn’t really affected me, but that’s by the by. What matters here is just how far along the authoritarian road we have travelled.
Family and friends in England will be allowed to hug each other again next month in the first major relaxation of social distancing restrictions in more than a year, according to a report.
What kind of insanity is it where the government dictates at such a micro level? Who gave these scumbags the authority to tell us whether or not we can hug our family or friends? By what authority do they get to “allow” us to hug? Yet people think this is okay. I despair, really I do. Had I been the kind of person to hug, I would have been doing so throughout this year in open defiance of this authoritarian nonsense. I certainly didn’t let the insanity prevent me from going into peoples’ houses when visiting. I was going to be damned if, having travelled a hundred miles, I was about to remain outdoors in the garden in the middle of winter and I was not going to be dictated to by the government whether I could see just my father or also see two of my sisters and niece. All of which I did in defiance of these insane rules. None of us got sick because as we all recognised, the likelihood was always going to be low.
The Times reported on Friday that ministers were expected to move forward with Step 3 of the Covid-19 lockdown roadmap from 17 May, with approval for people to have physical contact with friends and family from other households.
I don’t need your approval because I never granted you the right to approve in the first place. I do not agree to be dictated to, I did not vote for this and I will not comply. This was nothing more than a blatant power grab and I will not go along with it. I don’t wear a mask, I don’t anti-social distance and I visit who I want, when I want and if inclined I’ll damned well hug. I do not need the government’s permission because it is not in their purview to allow or disallow. None of this is any of their damned business.
Yup, they can stick their permission where the sun doesn’t shine, preferably bone dry.
Ever since this farce started i’ve been shaking hands with various friends and colleagues, most usually the east europeans who unlike so many natives of the place haven’t swallowed this cobblers wholesale.
I don’t hug other chaps and the good lady would probably get a bit arsey if i started hugging other fair ladies, not as i get many (any) offers from strange fair ladies for the hugging of any more.
As an aside, a Polish friend of mine mentioned something a while ago which resonated, along the lines of the British haven’t been occupied/invaded for many hundreds of years, which might partly explain why so many British are happy to surrender their freedoms without even a whisper of complaint, whilst others from countries that know what a totalitarian state really looks like feel somewhat different, he might have a point.
He does have a point. It’s one I’ve heard before.
Now that I have official government permission, does that mean that I can hug my daughter’s rather buxom housemate? Or will I have to get my government hug permit countersigned by my wife, my daughter and presumably said housemate as well? Sadly it’s not going to happen.
On the more serious side, the presumption is astonishing. These people are so far up their ivory towers they have lost touch with reality.
Think England’s bad?
Have a look at Scotland’s Tier Zero – No Freedom Ever
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-protection-levels/pages/protection-level-0/
Huggging: Like @LR, not my style. However, if mum(81) or anyone else I know wanted a hug/cuddle I obliged, risk in tiny and Covid-19 no worse than Flu
BTW: India fear mongering: pop is x20 UK, 27,000 die every day. If India has 400 with Covid deaths, it’s same as UK has 20 Covid deaths
Don’t fall for the fake news fear propaganda to keep us in lockdown
Same here. I wasn’t raised by emotionally incontinent parents so tend to recoil when people slobber over strangers.
Re India: I’ve been trying to make the same point (with no success) to our friends and acquaintances, who are almost all Other Half’s fellow church mice. They are catastrophilic to a man – no market for the Good News Bible here! I used to think illiteracy/semi-literacy was one of our biggest problems but now I’m more worried by innumeracy – few of even the allegedly educated seem to have any feel for numbers.
India is ripe for this kind of disease at the best of times. High levels of poverty affecting immune response combined with multi-generational households all crammed together, so any airborne pathogen will sweep through them fairly easily. But, again, as stated here, the press are not doing a proper like-for-like comparison, preferring the scary headline figures.
IIRC c1000 die of TB every day and a similar number of diarrhoea. Hardly surprising when over half the population practice public defecation. The place is a literal shithole.
Quite. But the headline figures make for nice scary reading if the context is left out.
Update:
“The BBC ‘never offers any context about the daily death toll from Covid in India‘”
Toby Young appeared on Kevin O’Sullivan’s show on talkRADIO to point out a key failing in the mainstream media’s coverage of the Covid situation in India
https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1388204844436103173
Was hugging ever ‘verboten’? I never knew. I’ve hugged and kissed all members of my rather extended family and they have responded in kind with never any hesitation. Of course, not one of us ever takes any notice whatsoever of the bovine excreta which is promulgated in ever growing quantity by TPTB.
I’d guess forbidden by Guidelines, not Law. However, we know police enforce Guidelines as Law and assault, arrest, fine, FPN…
Given Boris & Hancock’s repeated proclamations that vaccinated can hug each other from June 21(?) who knows what is allowed
What we do know is sex with someone outside household Is ILLEGAL
BTW: Visited mum (81) today, when leaving she wanted a kiss & hug – I obliged