Category Archives: COVID

COVID Con-Sumption

Jonathan Sumption’s life is an extraordinary litany of high achievement; Eton, Magdalen, and then a stellar legal career. He has devoted his life to a belief that the Judiciary is one of the essential three pillars (along with the executive and the legislature) of a stable and equitable society.

He got a first in History, which is creditable, but this hardly seems to qualify him for opining widely on epidemiology, which he has chosen to do frequently recently. In October, he argued for the approach set out in the Great Barrington Declaration, which has promoted an entirely hypothetical reliance on ‘herd immunity’. He cites as support for his argument that 35,000 ‘experts’ signed the declaration as somehow lending it credibility.

These experts included “Mr Banana Rama”, “Dr Johnny Fartpants”, “Dr Person Fakename, “Professor Notaf Uckingclue”, and “Prof Cominic Dummings”, along with numerous homeopaths, physiotherapists, massage therapists, and a performer of Mongolian overtone singing. Perhaps he thought that Professor Uckingclue was better qualified than the Chief Medical Officer for England, Chris Whitty.

However, the point of this entry is to note that having said that he knew no-one who intended to follow the Governments edicts (and he presumably did not intend to do so himself) and posed the question, “why on earth should they?”. This is an extraordinary statement from a ex Supreme Court member. The answer is surely that unless and until Statutory Instrument 350/2020 is struck down by that same court he was a member of as ultra vires (which he claims) it is the law.

Picking and choosing which laws one follows on the basis of whether you agree with them or not is a formula for anarchy. Such folk can be seen any day on motorways as they overtake at 100mph in their BMW 750is. Let’s hope that Sumption does not come into contact with a mugger who doesn’t agree with restrictions on violent robbery.

But where are the howls of establishment indignation on this incitement to break the law? Leftie vultures sought to fry Dominic Cumins for ignoring the rules, but when this libertarian geriatric advocates exactly that, not a squeak.

Virus realities

Politicians of different persuasions, academics (both reputable and not so) and journalistic hacks are weighing in on their perspective of the only way to deal with reducing the spread of COVID. Not only can they not all be right (many of the views are diametrically positioned between the extreme isolation and herd approaches), the simple fact is that none of them can be right; they can hypothesize, but epidemiology is actually irrelevant. Most of them know it, but cannot mention the very large elephant in the room – peoples’ behaviour.

The current lockdown (November 2020) is based, as have been previous attempts, to seek to reduce transmission by minimising disjoint incidents of personal contact, to drop the key R ratio below 1. However, the plan is predicated on the populace at large actually complying with the procedures and restrictions and it’s patently clear to them that this has not (and probably will not) happen. Boris and chums just have to bite their tongues and take flak.

The Daily Mail frequently print pictures (see above as an example) of drunken, maskless young people (often students), not socially distancing, willfully violating governmental edicts seeking to protect the populate in general. Although that is the case (and partially driven by the fact that they perceive the risk from COVID to them is low), they nevertheless are potentially likely to transmit this to more vulnerable members of society that they come in to contract with.

However, Grumpy understands their hormonally driven dismissal of the pandemic, but there is another driver; that is that they see all levels of the establishment, ‘celebs’ and others choosing to demonstrate their disagreement with the ‘reduce R’ approach. At the top of this list (ignoring the deranged Peter Hitchens), in Grumpy’s mind, is the selfish, arrogant, geriatric Lord Sumption. As Grumpy pointed out elsewhere, somebody has to drive the bus and make decisions, and everyone else is a passenger. What Sumption has chosen to ignore when he excoriates the Executive (in a manner which is extreme hyperbole) is that they were elected as the bus driver.