Scotland’s “Sinister” Covid19 Response – Suspend Trial by Jury
Coronavirus (Scotland) Bill removes and undermines hard-won legal protections
The new legal powers sought by Scotland’s devolved law-makers undermine ideas of justice in place for hundreds of years, according to the Scottish Criminal Bar Association.
The new Coronavirus (Scotland) Bill grants sweeping powers to Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Parliament, and makes dramatic changes to the criminal justice system.
Among a long list of changes, the Bill seeks to:
- Replace trial by jury with bench trials, presided over by a Judge or local Sheriff
- Remove the maximum time of 140 days an accused can await trial
- Relax hearsay evidence law, allowing judges to hear pre-recorded witness statements that are not open to cross-examination
The new rules, unlike similar Diplock rules used in Northern Ireland in 1970s, do not guarantee an automatic right of appeal.
The Scottish Judiciary claims these powers are vital to protecting people from potential coronavirus infections, whilst following the European Convention on Human Rights requirements for an “effective justice system”.
But the Scottish Criminal Bar Association strongly disagrees.
In a statement on their website, SCBA President Ronnie Renucci QC wrote:
The SCBA believes that these draconian measures seeking to bring about seismic changes to our system of justice are premature, disproportionate and ill-advised. They are at best a knee-jerk reaction to an as yet unquantified problem instigated by panic or at worst, something far more sinister.
A long-form response, going point-by-point through the bill is available here.
Will other countries follow Scotland’s example? It remains to be seen. We will no doubt be discussing this unsettling development more in the future.
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I think I’d almost define this proposed bill as “the mother of all outrages” – a set of measures that would amount to bringing the Scottish legal system back into the Middle Ages – I’m surprised they don’t think they need the stocks, public hangings and the ducking stool as well, though I think I’ll stop there, as I wouldn’t want to give them any more ideas.
I’m tempted to ask where is Braveheart/William Wallace when we need him?
And I think that it’s worth pointing out to those in power, his like may return, if they keep trying to abuse the public like this, aping the behaviour of the bought Scottish Lords who were paid off with bribes and privileges by the English Kings or Queens of old to keep their own people down.
But I’m not going to waste my time expressing my outrage, but would merely point out that firstly, there are alternatives – which they apparently aren’t trying very hard to find – to dealing with a backlog of trials (their justification) using kangaroo courts and medieval standards of “justice.”
Firstly, if trials may take years even to come to court, then they can simply electronic tag all those concerned, and keep them under house arrest, and only detain them if they break their curfew, bearing in mind most of the population now is under house arrest anyway, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
But the really sane alternative to more or less abandoning legal rights is to scream blue murder at the maniacs who are shutting down our countries and societies and tell them the damage this lockdown is doing is far outweighing the possible saving of lives.
And if anything more likely to lead to a massive increase in crime afterwards, when the millions of newly jobless and those having lost businesses, are forced to resorted to crime or fraud simply to get the money they need that they formerly got by mostly honest work.
But as I don’t think anybody in authority right now is much capable of listening to reason, instead I want to address the readers and hopefully author here. By firstly pointing out that none of these Draconian measures restricting freedom and human rights and legal rights also now, if this bill passes, would be being taken if we had competent and wise leadership. And above all leadership that holds above all the democratic principle in mind, that in a democracy elected representatives are supposed to serve the people, do what the people want, and not mass imprison, repress and terrorise them and take away all their human and legal rights.
So clearly we do not have those kinds of politicians and leaders now, so what is to be done about this?
What can we – the citizens – do about our out of control and unrepresentative leaders?
And I don’t care how boring this suggestion sounds in light of the real life disaster movie wild and scary events of the present, because if people sober up sooner or later they’ll realise it’s the only one.
We need to reform our electoral system such that we are able to select and elect persons who are competent, wise, sensible, properly sane (meaning they aren’t driven by wild personal ambitions and hunger for power, at the public expense), and we can achieve that only in two main ways.
Firstly, we have to get control over electoral candidate lists. Because at the moment, all we get is a choice between unrepresentative self-serving despot A, B or C, from the 3 or so main parties, all of whom have been well shown to let us down, including in most cases abusing public money such as in the MP expenses scandal.
Because the truth is, if we could choose from all the citizens of our local and nation for persons to effectively rule over and represent us, we wouldn’t choose hardly any of our elected MPs in a million years.
But we get no choice in the matter, because we never get any near controlling who is on the candidate lists – usually people who are already “bought” by some rich elite body or special interest group, so once elected they serve whoever put them on the list, and not the public in general.
And equally, we need full PR. Note how it’s funny isn’t it, that dedicated Europhiles like Nicola Sturgeon never mention that.
As in the Euro elections, most of Europe uses PR in their domestic elections, which is why parties like the Greens can get much more influence and MPs there.
Whereas in the UK generally, no new or minority party or independent candidate can get anywhere near Westminster, because even if several millions support and vote for them nationally, they lose in every first past the post seat – the UK for example has one Green MP in Brighton, even though it has around a million voters at each election, about 2.7% of the votes, which under full PR would get it 17 or 18 MPs.
So that means the 3 party system (plus the SNP in Scotland and DUP in N Ireland) continues to rule and dominate the whole UK, and the 3 parties seems little different.
But as we can now see, they are all united in their apparent support for mass imprisonment of the public and tyranny generally. And it appears the SNP is just as bad or worse, for failing to oppose and condemn this outrage upon justice and freedom – rest assured with the kind of changes they are proposing, countless people will be wrongly imprisoned, and possibly even for life.
Frankly, only a justice system that is already rotten to the core would even be suggesting these measures, and I have a deep suspicion that the relaxing of the hearsay evidence proposal is to do with getting men convicted of rape (who under these measures, will be so in their thousands unjustly) on the mere say so of women accusers (who even of course already enjoy anonymity, whereas the accused men don’t), which false accusations we appear to have seen already in the Alex Salmond case.
Indeed the shamelessness of trying to use this COVID-19 crisis, to try to rush through these thoroughly despotic and unjust measures, again points to the barrel full of rotten apples who are residing both in our legal system and government.
So I am well aware electoral reform may sound dull and boring, but it’s the only way to start getting these tyrants who don’t actually represent or care about us much, out of power, and replacing them with those who do.
And you’ll note how the current parties who dominate UK politics, including the SNP, who for now more or less are a dictatorship in Scotland, are all united against electoral reform, against full PR in particular, because they know it would put a near instant end to their undemocratic power grab
It’s worth bearing in mind that the Scottish people did not really ever vote for the SNP on merit as individuals – they just voted for an idea of Scottish independence, they just expressed their anger against the main Westminster parties, and like someone who rushes into a marriage “on the rebound” from a failed relationship, they then wake up to the fact that maybe they made a rash mistake.
It may interest readers to know, lest they think I express hate of the SNP, I am actually in favour of Scottish independence (and against the EU), but not necessarily in favour of the SNP in its current formation.
But I am also in favour of democracy, so it is up to Scotland to decide if they want that, but note that nobody is now getting offered a referendum on these current lockdown measures or deprivation of their legal rights, which I think says it all.
Juries are a two-edged sword in times of dunbed-down education, wall-to-wall MSM propaganda, and violent polarisation exacerbated by social media.
It’s worth remembering that every single decision in the Salmond case was a majority one. That means that on every single charge there were jurors wanting to convict him of sexual assault or attempted rape. This, for example:
“Yeah but no but ten years ago I was in the car with him for a two-minute trip to the station and he put his hand on my leg and yeah but no but it’s true that there was a big fixed arm rest between us and yeah but no but yeah my husband was in the front passenger seat at the time and yeah but no but the driver too and yeah but no but neither of them noticed anything and yeah but no but I didn’t mention it to my husband at the time or at any time during the next ten years either and that’s why he’s not giving evidence for the prosecution but hey who cares let’s lynch the rapist anyway…”
There were people on that jury who were willing to convict Salmond for sexual assault based on that fucking bullshit.
You read the posts from some of the Jockanese Cringemongers above and realise that there are plenty of people out there who didn’t give a shit whether Salmond was guilty or not – they were going to convict him anyway, because hate.
Sanctimony and faux outrage have always been prominent traits among Scottish elites, and a factor in its not being able to attain nation state status historically. With the presbyterian fanatics Salmond and Sturgeon in charge nothing has changed.
Now replay the court case of Alex Salmond, with these new measures in place.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/03/jaccuse-2/
What’s not to like?
Jury trials have already been stopped in England and Wales. This happened (on March 24th) just days after the government decided on the basis of a review of all the evidence that the coronavirus is not a high consequence infectious disease (March 19th). Yet the Lord Chief Justice justified the cancellation of the right to trial by jury on the ground that the coronavirus presented a serious public health problem.
My understanding is the trials have been put on hold in England and Wales, not replaced by an alternative, inferior, system. However, I just read that the proposal to abandon jury trials in Scotland – has been abandoned. Good news!
Alan Tench I said jury trials, not trials. But it is not just jury trials, it is juries. So inquests will all be held without juries.
My personal view on trial by jury is that it is actually a very effective way for the elite to keep the peace, over time.
When you remove it, you remove the block to folks feeling they were fitted up by an Establishment, which of course in the absence of trial by ones peers may lead some to taking up arms and taking more criminal direct action.
If I were to be 100% sure that an Establishment had fitted me up and put me in jail, when I got out i would have few qualms about hiring a professional assassin to take out a few corrupt jobsworths.
But only because the traditional, non-violent means of clearing ones name had been removed from the range of possibilities.
Interesting observation from The Telegraph’s Jeremy Warner:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/01/tele-a01.html
Jeremy Warner is an absolute tool saying this. There were plenty of small businesses, hundreds of thousands, in fact, being profitably run, anything but zombie like, that simply cannot survive a 6 month lock down.
All this will do is ensure that cartels of TNCs, operating quasi-independently from the rule of law, will see their honest smaller competition wiped out for no better reason than the billionaire funders of Jeremy Warner et al fancy creating a two-tier world with them and the plebs.
Well exactly. I think that is the whole strategy they are using.
Jon Rappoport was interviewed on the Richie Allen Radio Show on Monday. The interview starts about 50 minutes into the show and lasts about 50 minutes. It’s on Youtube and Podomatic
I listened to that Ed, twice… I thought Jon sounded tired…
I’m a 4-year follower of Rappoport, and much of what he said I’m already aware of… What caught my attention was, when discussing possible vaccines, Jon mentioned 2 experimental drugs currently in the pipeline…
I paraphrase, ‘1 DNA based (which, if ingested, would change one’s DNA forever), and 1 RNA based (which MAY cause one’s immune system to attack itself)’…
I’d love some expert input from professional researchers or lab rats on this…
So we in our little peasant dwellings now await the stern pronouncement from on high as to where, or even if, we will be assigned a position in this brave new world that is being assembled for us. Perhaps they shall announce a whole new holy book with a different god declaring the creation of an entirely different realm.
What people need to do is not take out the leaders but their mouthpieces. Journalists are mostly cowards, after all.
Not one of them would last five minutes if a mob went to burn their houses down.
It’s amazing how,in the space of two weeks, we seemto have moved from the 21st century to the 12th. Everyone pretty much restricted to theor own little communities, goods becoming scarcer. And a new “witch hunt” mentality with the peasants eager to accuse each other of transgression.
neo-feudalism
Internet does beat pidgeon mail though…
Thus kind of planning by elites has no doubt been on the table for years waiting the appropriate timing for implementation. Just like the mammoth “Patriot Act” was here in the U.S. There is nothing “spontaneous” about the creation of such draconian measures.
They clearly had their “contagion” manuals ready. They probably planned these measures when the other health scares happened (bird flu, etc), but didn’t get a chance to implement them until this time.
The warning of the proposed scam went out in 2011 when they produced the film “Contagion”. take a look at it, and tell me where the present fiasco deviates from that script..
Agreed, expect a whole new world order, Folks. It’s already started as one only has to look at the hearing Julian Assange has recently been put through at HMP Belmarsh. His hearing was conducted by a Judge sitting alone without the checks and balances of a jury. The decisions meted out to him by an unaccountable Judge at his hearing and his denial to bail was in stark contrast to the treatment Mrs Radcliffe received from the prison authorities in Iran.
Assange isn’t the first in England to be denied a jury and I’m going back a few years, regardless of whether theres a jury or not these people would lift you off the streets for questioning their authority and you wake up in Broadmoor or similar with a chemical cosh for breakfast. I stopped commenting online too much a few years back after watching my comments disappear within seconds of posting, apparently the truth concerning Syria wasn’t what the govt of the day wanted people to see before welcoming the jihadis to the country with open arms for services rendered to Western states.
Even before this draconian law in Scotland:
After Craig Murray’s “J’Accuse” towards Mi5, the SNP top and the UK MSN he got Daily Record’s political editor Paul Hutcheon harrasing him for starters..
I agree with Murray on a range of matters, but on a personal level I now dislike him greatly.
He is a biased figure. There are few – if any – commenters in the alternative media who actively campaign for the breakup of countries as he does.
I used to support Scottish Independence, but after being subjected to his endless bitter ranting I have gone back to sitting on the fence on the matter.
There is nothing wrong with him being biased. Every politician on earth is. I disagree with him about quite a few things, but I do defend to the end his right to express his opinions forthrightly, freely, even occasionally in a gobby manner.
I disagree with him about climate change, the Union, the EU and I agree with him about the current state of the SNP, the way Labour betrayed its working class roots.
He has some hang ups, like everyone does. Some are around Tories, public schools and Westminster. I tend to disagree with him about those whilst understanding where he is coming from.
Just because he is not a Scottish Gandhi does not make him a bad man.
More from your favourite family doctor…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV72c3l_0jo
Who is not in fact a doctor, but is a government propaganda agent.
MI5, MI6? does it really matter? They are all criminal psychos who need to be locked up.
Well he sure talks the talk. I reckon that doctor speak is about to take over from lawyer speak as the new language of obfuscation. And I love the way he lays out the 101 vicitims. “One hundred and one – that’s ONE – OH – ONE!” But what kind of residential home is he talking about?
Next phase: report from a mortuary: “There is only one custodian left alive and 5,000 dead!”
Is that all in one room?
The new Coronavirus Scotland bill makes a mockery of the criminal justice system.
I wouldn’t be surprised if other Western court systems adopt similar procedures, seizing the coronavirus as a way to implement judicial restrictions which they were thinking about putting into practice when everything was peachy dandy and everyone was in the best of health.
The US judicial system, or shall I say “injustice system” is a warehouse for minorities, the poor, the mentally ill, and a bunch of political prisoners. The US has the largest prison population on the planet. It warehouses more than two million. The increase in the prison population is directly related to smiley Bill Clinton the first “black president.” Bill’s privatization of prisons became all the rage–literally and figuratively. This was compounded by a cash bail system creating detention centers swelling with occupants who never actually were convicted of crimes. They were just too indigent to post bail. By the time Trump took office private prison stocks went through the roof.
That being said, the revisions cited in the new coronavirus Scotland bill violates several US Constitutional Amendments. Replacing a jury trial with bench trials is eliminating a defendant’s right to be tried by a jury of his peers and is violating the Sixth Amendment.
Removing the maximum time of 140 days is eradicating the right to a speedy trial. And once again, is violating the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. … A violation of the speedy trial rule means that any conviction and sentence must be wiped out, and the charges must be dismissed if the case has not reached trial.
Relaxing hearsay evidence is abolishing habeas corpus and violating the Fourth Amendment. A defendant is entitled to recourse under the law. Namely a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the prison official holding the accused bring the prisoner to court, to determine whether the detention is lawful. This would be done by presenting evidence and NOT hearsay.
That being said, over the last three months the “Left” has been fully invested in advancing the panic pandemic believing they could use this crisis for their own political expediency. Surprisingly, the Left has learned nothing. Political crises rarely result in progressive headway. Quite the contrary, the most reactionary elements within society always seize on a crisis to implement greater restrictions. The powerful usually get their way.
Just look at how “liberals” foolishly pursued Russiagate thinking it would somehow end the Buffoons presidency. And in the end, the orangeman was more popular than ever. The only thing Russiagate succeeded in doing was to heighten internet censorship. Now the security state can use the pretext of Russian bots causing discord or influencing US elections to further censor the internet. Come to think of it, it must have been Russian bots rigging every Democratic primary in 2020. They even had the gall to use an app with the dubious name “Shadow.”
Be that as it may, many others have their antennas up and can sense what’s on the way. Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is one such person and his two recent articles discuss how the security state jumps at the chance to use a crisis to enhance their own power. The first article is
entitled: “Global COVID-19 Pandemic, This Is a Test: How Will the Constitution Fare During a Nationwide Lockdown?” In this article Whitehead states: “Whatever the so-called threat to the nation—whether it’s civil unrest, school shootings, alleged acts of terrorism, or the threat of a global pandemic in the case of COVID-19—the government has a tendency to capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state.”
In John Whitehead’s subsequent March 24th article entitled:
“Suspending the US Constitution: Police State Uses Crises to Expand Its Lockdown Powers” he says:
“You can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured.
This coronavirus pandemic is no exception.
Not only are the federal and state governments unraveling the constitutional fabric of the nation with lockdown mandates that are sending the economy into a tailspin and wreaking havoc with our liberties, but they are also rendering the citizenry fully dependent on the government for financial handouts, medical intervention, protection and sustenance.
Unless we find some way to rein in the government’s power grabs, the fall-out will be epic.
Everything I have warned about for years—government overreach, invasive surveillance, martial law, abuse of powers, militarized police, weaponized technology used to track and control the citizenry, and
so on—has coalesced into this present moment.”
In other words, “Be careful what you set your heart upon–for it will surely be yours.” James Baldwin
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-constitution-fare-during-nationwide-lockdown/5706172
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/suspending_the_constitution_police_state_uses_crise
the revisions cited in the new coronavirus Scotland bill violates several US Constitutional Amendments.
I’m curious — how do you imagine that it is possible for a law passed in Scotland to violate the US constitution?
Are you one of those idiots that imagines that the US legal system has universal jurisdiction over the entire world?
(Joke) Well, as Trump, with a Scottish mother, would qualify as a Scotsman, perhaps he plans to take a little retirement role as President in the new Scottish republic and import the US constitution …
It was a hypothetical statement.
IF a similar law was enacted in the US it would violate the US constitution. I mistakenly thought that was understood.
It was understood, as was your (correct) point…
Just to second SteveEss: You made your points perfectly Charlotte, and they were understood (by some of us, at least).
That this pandemic was so eagerly seized on to bring in in such curtailment of all rights should have been a warning sign. Surely there must be a growing number of people who are becoming more and more suspicious when various hastily implemented laws are swiftly applied on the basis of “this unprecedented catastrophe in the making”. For one thing, it is clear that these “adjustments” will not have a temporary existence. But surely that will lead many to question how this can be justified on the basis of a virus that is supposedly temporary.
Governments worldwide are all too eager to test their power. Let’s see how populations react when draconian measures are dragged on for months.
What I fear is that by the time the vast majority start to just about get that vague feeling that they have been set up, it will be too late to do anything because the military checkpoints will be everywhere.
As happened after 23rd March 1933.
The Coronavirus Act, 2020 (probably the first of many) could be seen as our very own Enabling Act.
That’s always the problem….all we can do is keep spreading the word encouraging people to be critical thinkers.
Yeah, then the ignorant call you a conspiracy nut.
The “so-called” ignorant who accuse everyone of being conspiratorists are either guilty of the crime, or refuse to accept the bleakness of the truth.
Look around you, George… Do you see “many” batting an eyebrow over the recent loss of any civil liberties…?
Not trying to be facetious, my friend, but I can’t even see their faces to tell, as their heads are all bowed in submission…
Not yet. But how long can people follow the way we are all being treated like naughty infants sent up to their room? Of course, once the squaddies are in position, you may no longer have any choice at all.
And covered in masks or scarves.
Next stop for the feminazi maenads running the SNP will be doing away with ‘double jeopardy’ so they can haul Alex Salmond back into court and succeed, that time, in properly lynching him.
I had to google “maenads”…
LoL!>>>>>>>>>>
Their name literally translates as “raving ones”.
Off-topic: Toby Young in The Critic:
Has the government overreacted to the Coronavirus Crisis?
As for Scotland, it had its chance to secede, become independent, and make its own laws but didn’t because it wanted to remain enslaved to the European Union. Now it wants to secede because it wants to remain enslaved to the European Union. I find this funny.
Look, I voted to come out of the EU, but we all knew that it would COULD never happen…
The prediction…kick the can, kick the can, kick the can…Then the pretext, “this is not the right time to leave the EU”.
Boris Johnson ‘an epic Europhile’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10772851/Boris-Johnson-an-epic-Europhile-claims-Louise-Mensch.html
But, indeed the SNP are risible…
Since “Nationalism” is an anathema to the very heart of the EU, it’s reason for being.
Virtually everyone I know hates the SNP.
The fault is not that WE all vote SNP here, they only get around 25% of the vote. The fault is that they have kept their support, solid while labour and tory have collapsed.
That is changing…even the avaerage amadan SNP voter is at last realising that freedom is not forthcoming. The last thing that Nicola wants is an actual referenDumb.
We the silent majority will come out and AGAIN and shoot that goose!
Female political leaders in Australia have almost all been fecking disasters, that have, almost, made the males look sane and decent. The one example of a better type that I can think of is Carmen Lawrence, but a MSM/Liberal Party conspiracy, a villainous and rigged Royal Commission, and treachery from her male ‘colleagues’ saw her off. Yet you see females in public life who are admirable, and at work etc, there are more that I have met who are non-deranged than the men.What does political life in ‘liberal democracies’ do to women? How does it wean out the good and promote the ghastly?
Ireland is another one with SinnFein.
Irish patriots struggle for hundreds of years to evict the Brits from Ireland.
Only to exchange those absentee English landlords for the grey bueaucrats of Brussels.
Indeed…
Tatooed Snowflakes.
For “vote” in my original post, read “electorate”.
There is no reason to think that trial by jury is better than a trial by a bench of judges. Quite the reverse in fact in any multi-ethnic nation, or any nation split badly on political topics.
1 judge is easy to lean on/ blackmail / bribe.
15 jurors is 15 x harder.
Bibi’s Rule, is it?
I’d look forward to be trialed by a bench of Jihadi judges. They’re learned, empathetic, objective, reasonable human beings.
Even if found guilty by them I would look forward to my punishment in a comfortable place with adequate food, exercise, entertainment and possibility for rehabilitation into society.
The full blown police state has now been rolled out in a number of countries (by that I mean ’emergency’ laws introduced and the complete suspension of all democracy), including of course Spain, France, the UK and Italy, and countries like Norway and Finland. The USA has been a full blown police state ever since 9/11 (don’t you just love that ’emergency beacon’ they’ve now put on top of the Empire State building).
There’s never been such a breathtaking power grab in all of human history.
Ah, but it’s all for your own good, R.
Here is something I wrote on my blog last night:
April Fool’s Day cancelled
Hi, everyone who reads this.
Normally on the first of April I post some kind of April Fool article, often a fairly complex one. But this time I won’t post any.
I won’t post any because nothing I could write would ever measure up to the colossal April Fool governments around the world and their corporate owners are inflicting on us with their Great Big Coronavirus Panic. This Covfefevirus is probably the biggest, most blatant con game ever played. And like victims of any other con game who resolutely refuse to believe that they’ve been tricked, most at the receiving end are determined to be True Believers till the end. They’re turning in their neighbours, they’re demanding to be imprisoned even further, they’re even more afraid than they’re asked to be.
I couldn’t top that if I tried. Nobody could. The lunacy on display makes April Fool impossible to pull off, and I suggest we just rename April Fool’s Day this year as Moronavirus Day.
So if I write and post anything tomorrow you can be certain that it’s meant to be serious.
Sorry about that.
JC… What’s your blog called… I typed in that article heading and my search just came up with MSM stuff, thanks..
I’ve just seen this on Reuters:
“Countries threaten jail for April Fools’ Day jokes about coronavirus”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-april-fools/countries-threaten-jail-for-april-fools-day-jokes-about-coronavirus-idUSKBN21I2QH
Err, Thailand, and one state in India.
I’ve told them a million times …
It’s designed to get the proles properly prepared for the Great Clash of Civilizations War with China. I know that I have often expressed bewilderment that the rabid, Sinophobic, Right could ever get more deranged in their hatred, but now you have crazed loons on Murdoch’s TV sewer demanding that Chinese owned assets in Australia be seized as ‘compensation’. That this would destroy our so-called ‘economy’ as Chinese tourists, students, imports of raw materials and further investment dried up, doesn’t seem to penetrate their thick skulls. Similar psychopaths on FoxNews (Congress critters)are similarly demanding abrogation of US Treasuries held by China.
That’s old normal thinking, Richard. Covid19 is a bid to replace wars between nation states with another form of global management. Global government in fact.
We can’t avoid the fact Russia and China are as much behind this as the West. All major governments clearly had legislation written and ready to go for this event, which has probably been months or years in the planning.
Things are moving very fast, we need to be moving at the same speed, keeping up, discarding old paradigms that no longer fit the facts, or we aren’t going to have even basic tools to defend ourselves.
what about the children we have to save them
sorry
what about granny we have to save them old folks from the con novel short story virus
There has never been such a crisis (not CoVid 19)in human history either.
Well not since Ghengis and his posse jumped on their ponies and headed West.
You might prefer your freedom not to give a damn, spread disease and have people die from avoidable infection, but most rational humans understand that restrictions on movement and congregation in countries which are not adequately prepared for pandemics is a reasonable action to take, exceptionally. Prolonged or repeated lockdowns would be a totally different mater, of course. We need to see how this pans out.
I’m confused though, I thought the far left supported totalitarianism.
“You might prefer your freedom not to give a damn, spread disease and have people die from avoidable infection”
YUP!
Perhaps we should ban smoking to prevent avoidable disease too.
“We need to see how this pans out”
You really are bereft of any electrical activity in the cranial department. Do you want to speculate how it will turn out? Go on, give it a shot.
You’re a genius, knowing that 190 countries different to the UK will neverthless end up with the same Police State outcomes as we do as a result of COVID19. I really wish I had your brainpower, I’m in awe of you Reg.
Good citizen. Now bend over, citizen. Take this shot, citizen.
Alex a newly tweeted accusation has come to light, afraid it will be a bench trial, newly appointed Judge McManhateepsychobribetaker will give a fair trial.
“Replace trial by jury with bench trials, presided over by a Judge or local Sheriff”.
As an example, it will get the rape convictions up, and will thus be seen as an improvement by the fanatic feminists. They’ll campaign long and hard for it to become permanent.
A most dangerous situation if ever there was one.
The SNP are a complete nonsense; they always have been: a fiction of the British security state.
Instigated by panic or at worst something far more sinister
Wow that is strong
Losing the Salmond ‘show trial’ after blanket MSM demonisation of the prospective victim has over-excited the SNP maenads, now lusting for vengeance and blood.
Wasn’t exactly a “show trial” was it – as he won. Or perhaps you would prefer a retrial?
It was intended to be a show trial, a judicial lynching, but the conspirators were so slack, confident that the MSM demonisation would suffice, that they didn’t cover their tracks or suborn all the witnesses who refute perjurous testimony. Heads should roll, and Salmond must sue the conspirators, but I expect a prosecution appeal first.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/life-expectancy-going-backwards-many-parts-scotland-report-finds-1400063
Whether it is health, economics or due legal process.
On its way to the Third World.
What does Scotland produce these days apart from Whisky?
Haggis
Neeps and tatties.
Deep-fried Mars bars.
Very little.
Oil you moron.
Don’t the SNP want to keep it ‘in the ground’?
….and if they don’t, aren’t they excluding themselves from the progressive kumbaya alliance?
They certainly seem to. They’ve raped the Scottish lowlands with those wretched electric windmills.
Not for much longer at $20 a barrel.
Orange Woks?
You could ask Google your question instead of asking it here and perhaps you would be surprised at the many things that are produced and manufactured in Scotland
“On its way to the Third World.”
Some would say it never left …
It’s okay, I’m half Scottish.
Aka Jockanese Cringemonger
Hot air, judging by their performance(s) in the Westminster Parliament.
Scotland has become a banana republic in so many ways since Blair and Cameron recklessly devolved powers to local idiots in order to buy themselves a short term period where they delusionally claimed to have ‘saved the union’ (i.e. made an inconvenient problem they never understood go away). We now pay the price of being administered by second-rate chancers, sex pests and incompetents with no principles.
Philpot, Please don’t tell me you think it would be any different if Westminster was in charge! 😀
You have a good point there Judyj, however the bigger pool in Westminster means that there is always the chance of some better quality and more honesty – a Kate Hoey or two, perhaps. The police and other services have been centralised and crony appointments are the norm across all agencies, hence well connected dullards head the state teams…
This will become ever more apparent once the economy collapses. Crony and nepotistic appointments were vividly exposed in Ireland in the wake of 2008. Hopefully the same will happen here.
Salmond’s trial has also shone a torch on the workings of the higher echelons of the civil service working hand in hand with MSPs and their spivs on 6 figure salaries.
The most principled individual in Westminster, Corbyn, was destroyed by a campaign of subversion, back-stabbing, hysterical lies by the Jewish Establishment, its Sabbat Goy cronies and the Israeli State, and blanket MSM vilification. That’s what you get for moral decency in the UK.
I had to tell my local MSP that I was a 16 year old boy before I could get into His surgery.
Sex pests?
Looks like the coordinated fabricated allegations against Salmond weren’t completely in vain.
An absolute miracle he wasn’t falsely convicted in my opinion.
The conspirators thought that the MSM vilification campaign would be enough, as with Corbyn, and were lazy and careless, leaving a trail of exculpatory evidence behind them, and numerous confounding witnesses uncorrupted. Hence their rage so clearly evident in these vicious proposals.
Or maybe Scottish justice used to be a good thing.
Diplock in the north still exists. The case of one Tony Taylor from Derry is proof of this!
There are other changes not listed above.
The judges are to replace their wigs and gowns with kangaroo outfits.
Big pouches for the extra esatablishment moolah they will get.
Being a cynic, I see that this could result in a lot less work for barristers (on top of the loss of judicial safeguards). Perhaps THAT might motivate some people to take a harder look at the coronahype.
I would say they are, like many other developing matters, a hugely opportunistic reaction to a conveniently unquantified problem whose quantification will be indefinitely prolonged.
Well put George.
I will take ‘sinister’ for $500, Alex.
Indeed. Sir Humphrey couldn’t have put it better.