And while you were looking the other way…

By TruePublica: There was a Herculean effort to drag Brexit across the line in 2016. It involved the efforts and money of billionaires, hedge fund managers, corporate leaders and some seriously dodgy Russian characters. It involved front charities, think tanks and dark money from America. It involved military perfected systems designed for the battlefield to win ‘hearts and minds’, specific technologies, algorithms and the world’s largest social media giant to wage a war against British democracy.

Billions of micro-ads were targeted at swing voters and a propaganda campaign was launched on an unprecedented scale. Much of it is now in the hands of the police for investigation, as it is by the National Crime Agency and Electoral Commission who have been overwhelmed with complaints. Parliament is now questioning how this all came about. Our Prime Minister is at the heart of one of those campaigns that has already been found to have broken the law. The true scale of this campaign to pull the undecided over the finishing line is still unravelling to this day.

And yet, our government, in the face of a true crisis hasn’t run a single advert about coronavirus from its official Facebook or Instagram accounts. Or the PM’s official account. Or Boris Johnson’s personal account.

And this is despite being offered millions in free ad credits by Facebook. The herd immunity programme has not really been abandoned, has it?

 

Shooting ourselves in the foot

Having made workers from the EU so uncomfortable over the last few years with Brexit, it turns out that University students are among those who have been urged to join the farming and food industry to help feed the nation during the crisis.

Farmers now need as many as 70,000 workers to cover the jobs usually carried out by seasonal migrants, according to the British Growers’ Association.

These ‘key workers’ as they like to call them now will still adhere to social distancing rules in the fields.

The National Farmer’s Union (NFU) said temporary workers would “contribute to the health of the nation”.

Farmers voted in greater numbers to leave the EU than the national average at 58 per cent (with an additional 11 per cent undecided).

 

And then the other one

In the meantime, we have all read and heard stories about how medics on the Covid frontline are complaining constantly about a shortage or complete lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).

The Chair of Doctors Association UK, Dr Rinesh Palmer – has been on the Victoria Derbyshire BBC programme to complain about it himself, stating quite clearly that many of his colleagues are worried about these very evident PPE shortages. Dr Parmer reports that NHS medics are being sent substandard equipment not in accordance with WHO or UK government guidelines. He confirms that there is not enough PPE in the supply chain even though the Health Secretary Matt Hancock has assured them nationally that there is. Parmer even said that we have all seen Matt Hancock on the news loading boxes of PPE onto trucks as if to make the point that there is a fully adequate supply – and yet, Palmer reports that members have resorted to using bin liners and going to ScrewFix to buy facemasks.

At the same time, the interview has Pam Parker making an appearance. She is the MD of PPS manufacturers that make personal safety equipment for clients and governments all over the world. She confirms that her company can supply 500,000 face masks in one day but has not only not been asked to supply, but when they inquired if they could assist – were denied by the British government. ‘We offered our services to the British govt at the start, but our offer wasn’t taken up. We can get our hands between 200,000 to 500,000 masks in one day.. but the UK, we were told, is plentiful.’

In the meantime, PPS supplies at the request of other governments with no problem.

 

 

In another story – Christina Patterson (writer for Sunday Times, Guardian and broadcaster for Sky News) reports that Andrew Farmery, a Professor of Anaesthetics at the University of Oxford assembled a team of design experts who worked around the clock for a week and designed a ventilator where 20,000 could be constructed and delivered in one week. On the 24th March, they presented their prototype to the Tory Cabinet Office. Since then, they’ve heard nothing back – while manufacturers like Rolls Royce and Dyson have been tasked with the project, which as Farmery says – “knows sod all about ventilators.”

The country still lacks thousands of ventilators and Farmery and his team have heard nothing at all when the units could by now be halfway to being delivered.

 

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