November 5, 2021 - 10:15am
Two developments on vaccines in the NHS in quick succession. First, the news that the Government intends to force NHS staff to have both a Covid vaccine and a flu jab or risk losing their jobs. Then, the announcement that it won’t kick in until… April!
At first sight, this simply seems like bad and nonsensical policy.
It has the potential to wreak havoc on an already stretched service. Despite a record uptake, around 25% of NHS staff did not have a flu jab last year; add to that the 116,000 NHS workers who have not yet had a Covid jab, and this has the potential to affect hundreds of thousands of employees.
There has been little discussion about why healthcare workers may be declining vaccination and barely any consideration as to what their motives may be. For those declining the Covid jab, there is also little analysis of whether they have previously been infected. Estimates vary on how many NHS staff have caught Covid (accurate figures are not produced), but it is likely to be in the order of hundreds of thousands.
Even if it was to be brought in instantly, there are many practical reasons as to why a Covid and Flu vaccine mandate would be flawed: it risks discriminating against BAME employees and it can even make the vaccine hesitant less likely to be vaccinated. The common claim that such a requirement would be equivalent to Hep B vaccines is also incorrect, as I outlined here before.
But the fact that its introduction is being delayed until April makes it stranger still. Repeatedly, we have been told that the NHS is on the cusp of its busiest winter ever. And yet, this vaccine mandate only kicks in from April onwards, months after the busiest period. So if the argument is that the vaccine mandate is needed to make the NHS safe, then why is it not necessary it over our busiest winter? And if it is not needed, why coerce staff into getting the vaccine in the first place?
There is, of course, another explanation. Rather like the vaccine passports in settings like nightclubs, that were due to be brought in at the end of September but were then abandoned last minute, the timetabling of these measures gives the Government the chance — the hope, for some cabinet ministers — that it never need actually happen. If the Covid situation is better by then, coercive measures like these can be set aside. In the meantime, it acts as yet another “nudge”, a distant threat to try to get more NHS employees vaccinated.
I’m not a fan of “nudging” as it is coercive, dishonest, goes against basic principles of public health, and risks seriously damaging our trust in authorities. However in this case I’m hoping that’s what it ends up being. The alternative, stripping away the rights of the staff of an organisation that already suffers from a toxic culture, in which a quarter of the staff say they have already been bullied and harassed and three quarters have already said they are considering leaving, is too self-destructive to contemplate.
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Subscribe“….Vladimir Putin lectured that “the conviction of Marine Le Pen has violated democratic norms.”” Yeah, because if I want someone to give me advice on the finer points of democracy, Putin is the guy I would turn to.
Western European powers can hardly claim to be sentinels of democracy while aping the methods of despots to get political opponents off the ballot.
Well, Putin has spent the last few years being lectured about aggression by the architects of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, so….
I think this is some premier league Europe-trolling from Putin.
You know it’s bad when even Putin is making this sort of claim, even if it is trolling.
Yeah, Putin wouldn’t go to all this bother. If Le Pen was his political opponent, he would have just given her the Navalny treatment.
Both can be true: Putin is hypocritical, and Putin’s comment is correct.
Are you saying Macron should have just taken a leaf out of Putin’s book, and simply murdered Le Pen?
The conviction isn’t the issue – although it beggars belief to think the practice is not widespread across all political parties. The sentence is the issue. Clearly a misguided attempt to derail yet another populist party. We all know how this will end though – even greater support for the RN.
Can’t but agree. France is as febrile as the UK, perhaps moreso after Macron’s hissy fit, the snap election, and its intractable denouement. She’s now a martyr for the populust cause, and claims of 2 tier justice prevalent this morning (with Christine Lagarde getting honourable mentions).
I gather France is proposing to incorporate a banana into the national flag
The expression you’re looking for might be “two tier justice” …
[apologies Susan, just noticed you’d already said that]
Bit unfortunate for her – after all ‘Presidents’ in France usually face brazen corruption charges during or after they finish their term(s).
Lawfare kicks in when a party is finished electorally. What went for the Democrats, goes for Macron’s party.
Macron is the party – i can’t even remember what trite name he gave it.
It’ll end when his political career ends.
Edit: it was En Marche! And now it’s April, and he’s the fool.
They changed the name of the party from En Marche! to La République En Marche! and then now to Renaissance. It seems the original name was a play on E. M., the same initials as Emmanuel Macron. You are right, the party is just Emmanuel Macron.
Coming increasingly clear that the right have to retaliate with lawfare of their own as much as possible and whenever possible.
“Is this the end of Marine Le Pen?”
Je le doute. Ne jamais dire jamais ; ça va continuer encore et encore.
And the losers are: the French political establishment.
In a near asymptotic rate of decline, much of Europe is devolving into an unrecognizable tyrannical collection of failed states. France, Germany, Britain, Belgium, and more are morphing into Anarcho Tyrannies, alien to anything to do with civil just societies. The transparent lawfare against Mdm. Le Pen is not even the most egregious. It will not be surprising to see the United States in effect knock the dust off its sandals and move on. What a pathetic clown show Europe is becoming.
The United States is starting down that path too. The Trump administration is a clown show with Elon Musk, JD Vance, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, Bobby Kennedy, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rubio and Pam Bondi being the clowns. Just pathetic.
John,
You are 100% wrong. Your view is how the anarcho tyrants win.
How so? The American officials I named trample all over the people using law and authority no one ever gave them. Look at this latest example. A man was deported to the notorious jail in El Salvador by mistake and now the government can’t get him back. Oops . . . too late.
Elon Musk is the leader of a lynch mob who goes around executing (figuratively) people and things without authority based on their own judgment. But once you kill something you can’t bring it back.
Donald Trump needs to stop with the shock and awe, and send Elon Musk packing. And Congress needs to step up and do its job. Put the anarcho tyrants out of business.
Please explain how removing DEI, defending state media, deporting criminal and enemy aliens, ending government propaganda, and transparently exposing corruption has * anything* to do eith Euro-tyranny. By the way with no disrespect you have no idea how Musk is doing his work. He is completely authorized under law and the Constitution to represent the President.
…..*defunding state media*….*not*”defending”….
Donald Trump has done some good things, but he has also done some bad things. He shut down the USAID and FBCP without Congress’s approval. He fires people without reason and in the most brutal way possible. He deported people without giving them the due process and free speech rights they have under the Constitution. He refuses to let law firms he dislikes do business with the federal government. He took over the Kennedy Center just for spite. He insults and ridicules people including other world leaders. He even renamed the Gulf of Mexico on a whim and punishes people who call it by its real name.
The good things that Donald Trump does get eclipsed by the bad. And Elon Musk makes it worse. He doesn’t take serious things seriously. He clowns around in the Oval Office, holding a press conference in casual clothes with his son playing on his shoulders and then picking his nose on camera. He shows up casually clothed at a cabinet meeting and uses authority that no person not confirmed by the Senate can assume. He mocks and threatens judges and elected officials. All while he uses his power in ways that benefit both himself and the three powerful companies he continues to lead while in the government’s employ.
This is not funny. This is what clowns do. Marco Rubio thinks he can deport anyone he wants to. Pete Hegseth thinks he can treat top-secret information however he pleases. Kristi Noem goes to El Salvador to do a fashion shoot in a notorious prison where we had just condemned hundreds of men to life sentences without any proof that they deserved it. Bobby Kennedy tells senators that he will not change the vaccine schedule and then when he gets in office he prepares to do exactly that.
There’s nothing wrong with an unconventional style. But I think Donald Trump and his minions take it so far they become good examples of what you call arnacho tyrants. They flout the law and take power they were not given and no one is able to stop them. I, for one, am sick of it.
Nope. Anarcho tyrants practice…tyranny. Anarcho tyrants impose censorship, not end it. They increase, not uncover, corruption. Foreign invaders don’t get civil rights. And invaders who lie to get a visa also get deported.
Surely they were just working from home?
“The key point to understand…is she and her 24 National Rally (RN) colleagues in the dock were found guilty on all charges.”
No, the key point is: when the Left, which has been in control of government since WW II, is threatened, it now resorts to lawfare because it is increasingly devoid of answers to modern problems that resonate with the electorate. Corruption is equally distributed across party lines but is deployed against the Right because the judicial apparatus is an exclusive weapon of the Left. The Right cannot similarly attack the Left in the courts because it has no ideological friends in the judiciary to serve its interests.
“Man is not a replaceable and interchangeable consumer product”: An Interview with Renaud Camus
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/interviews/interview-with-renaud-camus_tec32/
The creation of the EEC is the creation of a collectivist state where the interests of the individual are subordinate to that of the state. Civil servants run the EEC so individuals are subordinate to the civil servants. Judges are civil servants. What the EU has become is a collectivist clerisy. A similar state of affairs occurred when the Mandarins ran China, Brahmins ran Hindu India and the priests ran Europe in the Middle Ages.
Le Pen challenged the clerisy so her sins were punished while those who did not challenge the clerisy were unpunished.