PLATELL’S PEOPLE: Don’t dare try to force us into another lockdown nightmare
My blood doesn’t often boil. But when Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty declared he would plunge us into another lockdown if there was a new virus like Covid, it came close.
He announced this even as he acknowledged that, because of the lockdowns we have already suffered, the nation faces a ‘prolonged period’ of excess deaths — there have been some 30,000 from heart disease alone already, along with a shocking number of undetected cancer cases.
Sorry, Chris, but if you think the millions of us who endured those two deeply traumatising lockdown years will go through it again, you’ve got another think coming.
You can arrest me, throw me in prison, do whatever you like. But I will never again accept a situation where the state imprisons me in my own home.
It’s not just the loss of freedom. The damage wrought by lockdowns is incalculable.
We were told they were to protect the NHS. But waiting lists are now at an all-time high, ambulances have given up and GPs won’t see patients. In fact, we have never been so poorly served by our health service.
PLATELL’S PEOPLE: My blood doesn’t often boil. But when Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty declared he would plunge us into another lockdown if there was a new virus like Covid, it came close
Sorry, Chris, but if you think the millions of us who endured those two deeply traumatising lockdown years will go through it again, you’ve got another think coming
You can arrest me, throw me in prison, do whatever you like. But I will never again accept a situation where the state imprisons me in my own home
Schoolchildren everywhere are still trying to catch up after the mess lockdowns made of their education. Many continue to suffer from serious mental health problems.
Meanwhile, the billions poured into furlough schemes have all but bankrupted the country and engendered a work-from-home mentality that has changed the dynamism of our get-go economy for ever.
The new work — or lack-of-work — ethic has virtually destroyed the state sector, which can no longer be relied on to provide even such basic services as renewing driving licences and passports.
The legacy of lockdown is everywhere to see. And, most perniciously, it has given our politicians and civil servants such as Dr Whitty a taste for powers that no citizens in a free country should ever condone.
Whitty and the others even denied many people the right to say a final farewell at a loved one’s funeral, to comfort a suffering parent in a care home, visit the ill in hospital or attend the birth of their own child.
Lockdowns were an outrageous deprivation of our civil liberties. Millions of us who did the right thing at the time, by accepting them for the public good, now know the truth — and we will never endure them again.
Lockdowns were an outrageous deprivation of our civil liberties. Millions of us who did the right thing at the time, by accepting them for the public good, now know the truth — and we will never endure them again
It’s not just the loss of freedom. The damage wrought by lockdowns is incalculable
Good news at last from the World Cup: Germany and Denmark have been kicked out.
Now all we need is for France, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal and Spain to be eliminated and our lions have a fighting chance of football finally coming home.
Strikers’ excuses
Sad news that ambulance staff have voted to strike — although when my elderly neighbour fell over in the street and bashed her head, I gave up calling 999 after three failed attempts and drove her to A&E myself.
Meanwhile, nurses planning to walk out claim they are doing so for patient safety, as they have ‘had enough of . . . being unable to provide the care patients deserve’.
Strike if you must but don’t dare say you’re doing it for those you’re abandoning.
Face it, Simon, you look a fright
Simon Cowell launches the next series of Britain’s Got Talent looking unrecognisable.
Is that an eye-lift? Whatever, he says he doesn’t use Botox any more because it made him like ‘something out of a horror movie’.
As he turns into Frankenstein, it’s odd that Botox had the opposite effect on his pouty co-judge Amanda Holden.
Simon Cowell launches the next series of Britain’s Got Talent looking unrecognisable. As he turns into Frankenstein, it’s odd that Botox had the opposite effect on his pouty co-judge Amanda Holden
As it’s revealed that less than half of all Brits now identify as Christians, why is the Archbishop of Canterbury virtue-signalling in Ukraine?
Seeing how faith works, perhaps, as 87 per cent of Ukrainians are Christians.
You’d think hand-wringing liberal Justin Welby would be busy gathering up the lost lambs of his dwindling flock back home.
In his first television interview since hitting Oscars host Chris Rock, Will Smith blamed historic ‘bottled-up’ rage: ‘It was the little boy that watched his father beat up his mother, you know?’
Clearly the anger therapy hasn’t worked, Will. But if there were Oscars for TV performances, you’d have another one now.
Flattering that King Charles is among 60 global figures nominated to be Time magazine’s Person of the Year (Donald Trump and Rishi Sunak are among the others shortlisted).
But shouldn’t Charles have withdrawn to endorse the man who really deserves to win, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky?
Cashing in on Whitney
Whitney Houston’s final years were dogged by money woes.
Now her family — brother Michael who introduced her to drugs, estranged mother Cissy and others — are set to cash in with a Whitney-themed film, Broadway show and even a cosmetics range.
How trashy to make money out of a dead loved one’s lippy.
Following the death of Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie, many people said the band’s haunting songs were the soundtrack to their younger lives. I was envious.
In 1970s Australia, we had to make do with Rolf Harris’s Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport or Two Little Boys — neither playable now, as he’s a convicted sex offender.
Helen’s sallying forth
After BBC insiders said they want an ‘inclusive, non-white final’ (if that’s not a contradiction) for Strictly, Helen Skelton danced to Mein Herr, from Cabaret.
The iconic musical’s tragic alcoholic heroine, Sally Bowles, has an abortion, is dumped by her boyfriend and the Nazis kill her friend’s dog.
If anyone can overcome those kind of odds with a brilliant dance, it is Helen.
No wonder so many have been voting for her.
Royal watch
- In his Netflix trailer, Harry insists he had to leave the royals to ‘protect his family’ — a tragedy, since he has now lost the respect of his father and brother and, possibly, his and his wife’s royal titles. Not such a sacrifice for Meghan, as she had barely any family to lose except her mum.
- Those ‘intimate’ pictures, taken by their personal photographer, of H&M kissing in Frogmore Cottage before Megxit, and the ones snapped on safari in Africa in 2016 even before their engagement in 2017, tempt me to think Meghan had a plan to use, then abuse the Royal Family all along.
- A reminder that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Far from Harry and Meghan upstaging William and Kate’s Earthshot Prize trip to the U.S., their venge-fest has catapulted the Waleses and their environmental work onto the front page of every newspaper in the world.
Since the row over Lady Susan repeatedly asking ‘where are you from?’, Ngozi Fulani hasn’t stopped talking about the abuse she suffered.
What a shame the founder of a charity supporting African and Caribbean-heritage domestic abuse survivors didn’t use her platform to highlight their plight instead.
Film-maker Louis Theroux hopes that, even though she is divorced from his cousin Justin, Jennifer Aniston will take part in his intrusive interview series.
What, our Jen baring all for him? Despite her never saying a word about that praying mantis Angelina Jolie, who stole her husband Brad Pitt? Despite always maintaining a dignified silence about her private life, whoever asks?
Louis has more chance of getting Marilyn Monroe on his show.
Westminster wars
As Boris Johnson announces he will stand as an MP at the next election, Ladbrokes reveal their latest odds, including Rishi Sunak 3/1 to be replaced in 2023. But setting most Tory hearts a-flutter is Boris, of course, on odds of 6/1 to be the next party leader.
Bet now, I would say.
After Matt Hancock left the Celebrity jungle, he asked his girlfriend Gina Coladangelo: ‘Was I authentically me?’
Indeed he was. Which could explain why, although he insists he’ll continue as the MP for West Suffolk, his constituents are plotting his deselection amid calls to ‘get him out of here’.
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