Free Republic

Prime Minister Johnson offered an oblique defence of U.S. President Joe Biden when asked if he thought he was “woke”, saying there was “nothing wrong” with that. Prime Minister Johnson, a notionally conservative politician, made the comments after Lisa Nandy, shadow foreign secretary for the opposition Labour party, had praised Mr Biden, 78, as “a woke guy”.

Infections higher after lockdown went into place.. Infectious diseases expert Professor Steven Riley says current data shows that the national lockdown in the United Kingdom is not working. Riley, who is professor of infectious disease dynamics at Imperial College London, cited a React study which shows “the prevalence of infection increased between 6 and 15 January,” after the national lockdown was announced on January 4. “It’s long enough that, were the lockdown working effectively, we would certainly have hoped to have seen a decline,” said Riley. The professor added that current research “certainly doesn’t support the conclusion that lockdown is...

21 Jan 2021 The United Kingdom is resisting a demand from the European Union that it grant full diplomatic status to the bloc’s ambassador in London, causing a row between the recently divorced parties that spilled out into the open on Thursday. The UK, an EU member for 47 years, voted to quit in 2016 and completed its tortuous journey out of the bloc on December 31, when Brexit fully took effect. The BBC reported that the Foreign Office was refusing to grant the same diplomatic status and privileges to EU ambassador Joao Vale de Almeida and his team as...

Coronavirus infections did not slow down and may have increased instead in the first days of the latest national lockdown, a major ongoing study has found. Researchers also said it will be weeks before the vaccine rollout has a substantial effect. The study from REACT-1 at Imperial College in London said: "During the initial 10 days of the third COVID-19 lockdown… prevalence of COVID-19 was very high with no evidence of decline." Programme director Professor Paul Elliot went further, saying: "Our data are showing worrying suggestions of a recent uptick in infections which we will continue to monitor closely." The...

The evidence that the second dose can be delayed for three months looks shaky - not even the manufacturers recommend it. Vaccines have to work in the real world, not in the artificial bubble of a clinical trial. So the findings from Israel's impressively-rapid rollout of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are troubling. They suggest the UK's decision to delay the second dose exposes the elderly and vulnerable to a significantly higher risk of infection than we were told by the government's vaccines advisers. But the stats from Israel suggests that the efficacy of one dose is just 33%. The Israeli scientists...

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has confirmed the government is looking at scrapping some EU labour laws now it is no longer bound by the bloc's rules. Measures under consideration include relaxing the working time directive which enshrines a 48-hour week. ..."So even by just following that we are way above the average European standard and I want to maintain that. I think we can be a high-wage, high-employment economy, a very successful economy, and that's what we should be aiming for."

Europe’s biggest fish market has been turned into a ghost town by Brexit, an industry head has said. James Withers, chief executive of Scotland Food and Drink, said that even during the height of the pandemic, thousands of boxes a day were being landed at Peterhead fish market in Aberdeenshire – but that this has dwindled significantly since the UK left the EU. He tweeted pictures of the “sad sight” of the fish market hall lying mostly empty apart from a few crates and said that exporters are being “crippled” by the situation. It comes after seafood hauliers protested...

icture the scene: a young bride is alone with her new husband on their wedding night. They make love. But then comes a disturbing test of their union. He examines the bedsheets for drops of blood to prove she had preserved her sexual purity for him. As part of this traditional process, the sheet is placed on a cushion and put outside the bedroom door where it can be examined by the couple’s waiting families. Once they are satisfied with the proof of blood – showing that the bride’s hymen broke on her wedding night and that she was a...

While more than 23.5 million people in the U.S. have been infected with COVID-19 and over 392,000 of them have died, a variant of the novel coronavirus that's even more contagious has been found in at least 15 states and might lead to a further rise in the number of cases and deaths, according to health officials. “I want to stress that we are deeply concerned that this strain is more transmissible and can accelerate outbreaks in the U.S. in the coming weeks,” The New York Times quoted Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the Centers for...

At least 10 state health departments in the United States have detected the highly contagious B.1.1.7 variant of COVD-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, according to a new report. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in an update on Jan. 15, said that a “more highly transmissible variant of SARS-CoV-2, B.1.1.7, has been detected in 10 U.S. states.” SARS-CoV-2 is another name for the coronavirus that is believed to have emerged in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Health officials warned that models have shown the B.1.1.7 strain of the virus has the...

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam has predicted people may “choose” to mask up forever, as well as regular rounds of vaccination, as the coronavirus “is likely to be with us probably for the foreseeable future”. “The pandemic has changed a lot of things,” the technocrat said in response to a question put to him by The Sun newspaper. “We all carry hand sanitiser around now, we all expect in most of the places we go into that hand sanitiser is provided at the door,” he said by way of example.

The chief constable of Dorset Police has urged lockdown protesters to accept that “now is really not the time” for freedom of speech and the right to assembly. Chief Constable James Vaughan was speaking after the controversial arrest of two women for, seemingly, being recorded leaving home more than once and “sitting on a bench”, in an incident the police now allege was “stage-managed” by lockdown protesters, as one of the women is a Covid sceptic — although she denies any pre-planning. “We appealed to them [the protesters] last weekend to say: ‘Look guys, we respect your right to freedom...

Peter McAleese was recruited by a rival Colombian cartel to take out Escobar.A new documentary about Pablo Escobar will focus on the Scottish mercenary hired to kill the world’s most notorious drug baron. Ex-SAS operative Peter McAleese was recruited by a rival Colombian cartel to take out Escobar in 1989. Now a documentary will tell the story in McAleese’s own words and will show never-seen-before footage of his mission – which was ultimately unsuccessful. Killing Escobar, produced by Glasgow-based Two Rivers Media and Salon Pictures, will also reveal how McAleese’s violent upbringing in Glasgow, SAS training and experience as a...

HSBC has issued a warning to customers as retailers step up coronavirus safety measures amid a further 1,243 deaths. The lender - which also owns First Direct and Marks & Spencer bank - said customers who break the law could forfeit their bank account. Speaking to The Mirror, a spokesman said face masks are mandatory in all branches as per government guidelines. Those who refuse to comply will be refused service and could have their bank accounts withdrawn. Jackie Uhi, head of branch network, HSBC UK said: "Our branch colleagues are key workers, continuing to go to work in our...

Chartwells, the firm which supplied the parcel, has apologised. The education secretary said schools will be able to offer vouchers rather than food parcels from next week. Food parcels have been sent to pupils in England who would normally be eligible for free school meals while schools are closed during the coronavirus lockdown. A row broke out after the mother, using the online name Roadside Mum, posted a photo on Twitter of two carrots, two potatoes, a tin of baked beans and a small range of other food items, which she calculated to have cost about £5. The post prompted...

LONDON (AP) — The British government is increasingly troubled by soccer players hugging and kissing in celebrations, risking coronavirus infections and the sport’s ability to be allowed to continue during the latest lockdown. Outbreaks at Premier League teams, forcing the postponement of matches, have heightened concerns about the avoidable and very visible close contact between players.

Amazon, Apple, and Google have all acted to shut Parler down supposedly because it hosts calls for violence, but a simple search of Twitter shows that it regularly allows such calls itself.Twitter hosts a #KillTrump hashtag. In all of the glorious English language there is no clearer, plainer, or shorter way to call for violence than the word kill followed by someone’s name. But there it is. One of these tweets reads “#ArrestTrump not enough #KillTrump.” And this isn’t new, back in June the hashtag #AssassinateTrump was bouncing around the website with gems like “Someone take this clown out NOW.”...

Police will be quicker to enforce coronavirus rules during England's latest national lockdown due to the "severe" crisis the country faces, the crime and policing minister has told Sky News. Kit Malthouse said he hoped there wouldn't be an increase in the number of fines or arrests due to COVID rule-breaching, but he added it was up to the public to abide by restrictions. During the coronavirus crisis, police have been pursuing a "four Es" strategy, by engaging, explaining, encouraging and then, as a last step, enforcing lockdown measures. With England now in the second week of a third national...

He wants to cancel cancel culture. “Mr. Bean” and “Johnny English” actor Rowan Atkinson is the latest comedian to take a swipe at cancel culture, equating social justice warriors to a “medieval mob.” The comic dropped the bombshell in a lengthy interview with the UK’s Radio Times. “It’s important that we’re exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion, but what we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob, roaming the streets looking for someone to burn,” the “Blackadder” series creator lamented. “So it is scary for anyone who’s a victim of that mob, and it fills me...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel considers it “problematic” that Twitter would toss President Trump off its social media platform, saying through a spokesmen Monday that the president’s ability to express his opinion is a fundamental right of “elementary significance.” “This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators — not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms,” Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin. “Seen from this angle, the chancellor considers it problematic that the accounts of the U.S. president have now been permanently blocked,” he...