NOTE – If anyone would like an electronic copy of the complete book, I should be pleased to email a free PDF on request to: [email protected].
One website about the UK is always worth reading because the author, Dr Richard North, is an experienced health professional and provides useful information on a daily basis. http://eureferendum.com/
Britain, in common with many other countries (except Sweden and Iceland), is facing a very uncertain future. The only difference is that we have ‘Bungling Boris’ as our leader, albeit with good intentions, which we all know, line the road to Hell. We are not there yet but we are one of many communities to be suffering the extremes of economic and social failure, having little inherent resilience in UK, unlike other well-resourced countries such as Australia, America and China.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/17/boris-johnson-plan-for-return-to-normality
And so, in his inimitable style, Boris assures us that all will be well by Christmas and the plague will have shown us its heels as long as we ‘mask-up’ and obey his dictates. I for one will not conform and yesterday (mask day) I had no trouble in the shops – I was never challenged in common with others. I trust few are fooled; more to come next week.
Now, more ‘crazy’, I am informed that the masks recommended by our government have a warning on their packaging that the mask offers no protection from COVID-19! “Anything other than tight-fitting, surgical-grade masks is utterly pointless.” Read on:
https://summit.news/2020/07/15/face-masks-mandated-by-uk-government-specifically-say-they-dont-protect-against-covid-19/ Yet more evidence for my law case – yippee, bring it on!
My friend Gerry Brady, (a medical doctor of obvious credibility and author of the weekly BOOM report) puts it so well in his latest missive about this ‘Scamdemic’:
“BOOM corresponds with many readers around the world and a common theme from them is best summarized with this commonly used phrase — “the world has gone mad”. The apparent “madness” in response to Covid 19 may just be the latest iteration of a global disease that BOOM has noted for some years, best described as ‘The Disease of Magical Thinking.” https://boomfinanceandeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/07/19/boom-as-at-19th-july-2020/
PLUS even more ‘crazy’: “It is a central tenet of Credit Bubble Analysis that things turn “Crazy” near the end of cycles. And with the thesis that we’re in the concluding (“Terminal”) phase of a multi-decade, super-cycle global Bubble, there’s been every reason to foresee Utmost Craziness.”
http://worldoutofwhack.com/2020/07/12/utmost-crazy/
Britain is not doing so well trying to unlock the economy. All the evidence reveals that demand for retail slowed after an initial reopening rush. New figures have shown that UK retail footfall dropped by 56% year-on-year in June compared to a fall of 73% in May.
The data from Springboard indicates that the number of people visiting high streets and shopping centres declined by 65% and 62% respectively. Meanwhile, retail parks saw footfall drop by 32%.
The first week of reopening shops in England and Northern Ireland, following the Covid-19 lockdown, marked a turning point with footfall increasing by 40% in the UK from the previous week. However, there was a significant slowdown in the subsequent two weeks.
Diane Wehrle, Springboard insights director, said: “The pent up anticipation to shop after more than three months of closure resulted in a huge spike in footfall in the week of reopening, however footfall in the subsequent two weeks slowed considerably, from +6.6% in the first week after reopening to +2.4% in the second week.
“Long queues coupled with a restricted shopping experience due to social distancing could be the contributing factors to this sudden drop off in footfall. This is concerning for the economic recovery path of bricks and mortar retail who are heavily reliant on the customer experience.”
The failure of businesses to reopen properly may be due to the consumer increasing their savings. In periods of extreme uncertainty, consumers have a high propensity to save government one-off transfers and grants/loans unless they perceive them as a permanent change to their income and cashflow; this is known as the ‘Permanent Income Hypothesis’ defined by Investopedia as:
“The permanent income hypothesis is a theory of consumer spending stating that people will spend money at a level consistent with their expected long-term average income. The level of expected long-term income then becomes thought of as the level of “permanent” income that can be safely spent. A worker will save only if his or her current income is higher than the anticipated level of permanent income, in order to guard against future declines in income.”
Moreover, unless the transfer payments are spent on the purchase of goods and services, either by consumers or the business sector, they do not register in economic growth. We know that the UK GDP figures, in common with many others, are distorted, false and no true measure of prosperity, so I guess it really doesn’t matter. The acid test is how the crisis is playing out on the ground and, if London is anything to go by as a measure of UK generally, the current results so far are not encouraging.
Here are some examples from London. This is the true scale of London’s economic meltdown as the capital faces a crisis which has not been seen for generations:
- 50,000 West End jobs at risk
- 88% of people are uncomfortable using public transport
- 96% drop in foreign bookings to the UK for July
- 11 London branches of ‘Pret’ shut down
- Just 7,000 out of 120,000 back at work in Canary Wharf
According to reports, the Prime Minister and Chancellor Rishi Sunak were “aghast” at the impact the “stay-at-home” message has had on Britain’s city centres. But owners of many hard-hit restaurants, bars, hotels and shops in central London’s bustling but fragile economic eco-system are concerned that the government’s change of heart could have come too late to save them.
Recent polling suggests commuters are still reluctant to get on trains. One survey revealed 88% were saying they would not be comfortable returning to public transport in 2020. It is also feared that the latest package of emergency measures announced by Mr Sunak to help hospitality and the arts, though welcome, will benefit central London less than other regions as it is so dependent on tourists and commuters.
Many businesses dependent on office worker and tourist spending are warning that they have never known a downturn of the severity of the current slump and central London’s £200 billion economy — about 10% of Britain’s entire GDP — is at grave risk.
The foreign visitors who are the other lifeblood of central London’s vitality are almost completely absent. A combination of the government’s quarantine requirements — now partially lifted — and travel restrictions in many of London’s most lucrative markets, including America and China, means that tourist arrivals over the summer will be a tiny fraction of last year’s six million.
Offices in the West End, the City and Docklands remain largely deserted with occupancy running at little more than 5-10%. Latest figures from Canary Wharf suggest only about 7,000 of the 120,000 people who usually work there is back at their desks, although the total is rising.
One major challenge troubling bosses in the City and Docklands is how to get staff up and down tall buildings when only a tiny number can enter lifts to maintain social distancing. One told the Standard it could take an hour to get the normal number of workers to their floors.
The huge surplus of office space could spell disaster for London’s vast commercial property sector. Doug McWilliams, deputy chairman of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said he expected prices to fall by up to 30%. “Bearing in mind the fact that almost no one is paying rent at the moment – this is a huge hit.”
“Our main concern is that central London is doing very poorly at the moment. Footfall is way lower than in other European cities. Most cities are facing an absence of tourists, but only in London has the government and mayor actively advised the public not to use public transport and for office workers to work from home. In France and Germany 30-40% of workers are back in offices; in London it is more like 3-4%.”
Luxury hotels are also suffering – one said to have reopened with just a single room occupied. The five-star Corinthia London in Whitehall reopened on 4th July with about 90 of its usual 280 rooms available and only 70 out of the normal 220 staff. About three-quarters of its guests are from abroad, about half of whom are American. Managing director Thomas Kochs said he expects 10-15% occupancy this month compared with a usual 90%.
Lohan Presencer, of the ‘Ministry of Sound’ nightclub, said: “Social distancing doesn’t work in nightclubs. Covid is a club killer unless the government steps in.” Business leaders say new, higher congestion charges, in the evening and at the weekend came at exactly the wrong time.
Simon Thomas, of the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square, said: “The mayor’s punitive new late night and weekend congestion charge is indicative of a disregard for jobs, business and tourism, on top of a campaign to stop people using public transport.
During brighter days, the mayor is the first to declare the West End a world renowned success and, by inference, claim its glory as his. It will be interesting to see if he is just as keen to shoulder the blame for its slow death through his actions.” Full details:
Now that UK has left EUROPE I will comment on relevant EU – UK events as they arise:
BREXIT “No-Deal” Plan unfolds and it’s not pretty. Systems are being put in place to stop trucks with incorrect paperwork and to prevent traffic jams. It relies on a system called the ‘Goods Vehicle Movement System’ – which so far has not been tested – either in place or time. The UK government is aiming for July of next year to go live but in the meantime, hauliers still need permission from the government before moving goods across the UK/EU border.
And this week’s EU announcement of a massive coronavirus bailout (US$ 1Trillion) – featuring the first-ever “common” bond issuance – marks the birth of this new integrated Europe, in which all future debt is de facto German rather than French, Greek, etc.
It also marks the end of any hope that the euro will survive the next decade. Think about it: Italy, Greece, Portugal and the rest no longer have any need to control their spending and borrowing, since Germany is officially on the hook for the EU’s future interest payments; and UK would have been had it not been for Brexit.
Somewhere along the road to total integration, the European project is revealed as futile because no form of government, centralized or decentralized, dictatorship or democracy, can survive with this much debt and no integrated political structure.
Each successive EU summit will be more contentious and the results less believable until everyone simply gives up, goes back to their original currencies (after massive devaluations), and tries to forget that they ever viewed integration as a cure for socialism.
https://www.dollarcollapse.com/europe-bails-out-failed-states-common-bonds/
To be continued next week.
The obvious solution to the crisis in Olde Blighty is to have the government import moar Negroes and Muslims. Lots moar.
Enoch Powell was right.
Eek, Auntie, we have plenty already, in London at least, please don’t wish us more! 🙂 We live, in South West England, there are very few blacks, Asians or Muslims. They do tend to congregate in urban centres which we avoid like the plague. London had a population of 8,173,941. Of this number 44.9% were White British. 37% of the population were born outside the UK, including 24.5% born outside of Europe.
“According to the 2011 Census, the total population of England and Wales was 56.1 million, and 86.0% of the population was White
People from Asian ethnic groups made up the second largest percentage of the population (at 7.5%), followed by Black ethnic groups (at 3.3%), Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups (at 2.2%) and Other ethnic groups (at 1.0%)
Among the specific ethnic groups, people from the White British ethnic group made up the largest percentage of the population (at 80.5%), followed by Other White (4.4%) and Indian (2.5%)
From 2001 to 2011, the percentage of the population of England and Wales that was White British decreased from 87.4% to 80.5%, while the Other White group saw the largest increase in their share of the population, from 2.6% to 4.4%. The percentage of the population from a Black African background doubled from 0.9% in 2001 to 1.8% in 2011
Wish USA had great demographics like that.
Thoughts, Peter?
Thanks nkit, and you are right to raise this issue because it goes to the heart of the Labour Party as constructed by Jeremy Corbyn when he became leader and the crushing defeat he faced at the last election. His appointment was a ‘coup’ engineered by Momentum, the Marxist extreme left wingers who had taken over control of the party.
The moderate centrists used the ‘antisemitism’ label to beat the Corbynites and get rid of the leader before the election in December 2019 which they knew they would lose but they failed. The article you quote was written just before this. Kier Starmer now leads the moderate centre left in the Labour party, promising to clean up the antisemitism issue, and the Marxists have gone to ground.
The upshot has been a law case, the outcome of which has just been released. I think that because of Labour’s implied support of the Palestinian cause the Jewish camp here in UK have used their extreme influence to discredit anyone hinting at criticism of Israel as it pursues a policy of illegal settlements in the West Bank. You won’t read any comment about this in the MSM because it is suppressed by the British Establishment.
This article describes the latest outcome of the controversy which may help to clarify the injustices perpetrated on the long suffering Palestinians:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/22/labour-pays-out-six-figure-sum-and-apologises-in-antisemitism-row
Thanks for the update Austrian Peter.
You’re welcome VV – nice to see you 🙂