A Genteel Protest

[said]

Which is not to say they weren't angry. They were, but not with the “look-at-me, look-at-me” self aggrandising faux fury of the Extinction Rebellion class of protester.
No, this was the quiet fury of Britain's famous silent majority – the rump of us, perhaps the best of us, politicians fear the most. Because these protesters are not all sound and fury signifying nothing, these protesters weaponise the ballot box and remove administrations they disagree with.

They object to the new normal – to the supine acceptance of a very small number of not-necessarily very well informed people telling them whether they can work or not work, whether their kids can go to school or not go to school, whether they can stay out past 10pm and who they can and cannot see.
And they accuse the people at the top of actually enjoying this abuse of power.


In simple terms the people I spoke to today are against what they see as a disproportionate response from the powers that be – that “cure” the has a worse impact on people's lives than the virus.



<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/41/590x/Enough-is-enough-Middle-Britain-amassed-in-London-against-lockdown-erosion-of-liberties-1351854.webp?r=1603609942485" data-srcset="https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/41/590x/Enough-is-enough-Middle-Britain-amassed-in-London-against-lockdown-erosion-of-liberties-1351854.webp?r=1603609942485" style="transform: none;"></picture></p>Enough is enough: Middle Britain amassed in London against lockdown erosion of liberties (Image: PA)
Of course the crowd contained more than a smattering of shall we say “fringe” elements, the anti-vaxxers, the 5G mobile phone mast blamers, and the tin-foil hat brigade.
But overwhelmingly the protesters were nice, unassuming, salt of the earth Brits whose most antagonistic act of rebellion was to wave their masks at the assembled police.
And speaking of police I saw first hand again just how confused and conflicted our boys and girls in blue are.
Last night Commander Ade Adelekan warned the Rule of Six should be obeyed on the march and that officers would intervene if it was flouted.
In the event it was more a Rule of Six Thousand as all of us marched maskless, shoulder to shoulder.
And even the greenest copper knows that he might be able to corale six people but if 6,000 become refusniks it is wise to stand your men down.
Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock should take heed.
Britain is at a Covid crossroads – these protesters are the tip of a lockdown-weary, coronavirus cynical nation. And if these 6,000 refuseniks were to become 60millon refuseniks neither Boris Johnson nor any power on Earth could stop it. DAILY EXPRESS

There are thousands more all across the UK. You may see many people wearing masks in the Supermarket, these people do not like confrontation but most rip them off immediately on exiting the stores. Slowly we are returning back to normal as people realise that many restrictions have nothing to do with any virus,

[jamyramy]

Which is not to say they weren't angry. They were, but not with the “look-at-me, look-at-me” self aggrandising faux fury of the Extinction Rebellion class of protester.
No, this was the quiet fury of Britain's famous silent majority – the rump of us, perhaps the best of us, politicians fear the most. Because these protesters are not all sound and fury signifying nothing, these protesters weaponise the ballot box and remove administrations they disagree with.

They object to the new normal – to the supine acceptance of a very small number of not-necessarily very well informed people telling them whether they can work or not work, whether their kids can go to school or not go to school, whether they can stay out past 10pm and who they can and cannot see.
And they accuse the people at the top of actually enjoying this abuse of power.


In simple terms the people I spoke to today are against what they see as a disproportionate response from the powers that be – that “cure” the has a worse impact on people's lives than the virus.



<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/41/590x/Enough-is-enough-Middle-Britain-amassed-in-London-against-lockdown-erosion-of-liberties-1351854.webp?r=1603609942485" data-srcset="https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/41/590x/Enough-is-enough-Middle-Britain-amassed-in-London-against-lockdown-erosion-of-liberties-1351854.webp?r=1603609942485" style="transform: none;">Enough is enough: Middle Britain amassed in London against lockdown erosion of liberties (Image: PA)
Of course the crowd contained more than a smattering of shall we say “fringe” elements, the anti-vaxxers, the 5G mobile phone mast blamers, and the tin-foil hat brigade.
But overwhelmingly the protesters were nice, unassuming, salt of the earth Brits whose most antagonistic act of rebellion was to wave their masks at the assembled police.
And speaking of police I saw first hand again just how confused and conflicted our boys and girls in blue are.
Last night Commander Ade Adelekan warned the Rule of Six should be obeyed on the march and that officers would intervene if it was flouted.
In the event it was more a Rule of Six Thousand as all of us marched maskless, shoulder to shoulder.
And even the greenest copper knows that he might be able to corale six people but if 6,000 become refusniks it is wise to stand your men down.
Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock should take heed.
Britain is at a Covid crossroads – these protesters are the tip of a lockdown-weary, coronavirus cynical nation. And if these 6,000 refuseniks were to become 60millon refuseniks neither Boris Johnson nor any power on Earth could stop it. DAILY EXPRESS

There are thousands more all across the UK. You may see many people wearing masks in the Supermarket, these people do not like confrontation but most rip them off immediately on exiting the stores. Slowly we are returning back to normal as people realise that many restrictions have nothing to do with any virus,

yep at last the tides turning.caution and safety yes needed in times of unexperienced endemic threat.but also the resistance and upholdment , of truth against abuse of trust and agendered control with harmfull fear led diminishment of being must prevail,or were nought but a grain of sand in a desert .

[local]

Which is not to say they weren't angry. They were, but not with the “look-at-me, look-at-me” self aggrandising faux fury of the Extinction Rebellion class of protester.
No, this was the quiet fury of Britain's famous silent majority – the rump of us, perhaps the best of us, politicians fear the most. Because these protesters are not all sound and fury signifying nothing, these protesters weaponise the ballot box and remove administrations they disagree with.

They object to the new normal – to the supine acceptance of a very small number of not-necessarily very well informed people telling them whether they can work or not work, whether their kids can go to school or not go to school, whether they can stay out past 10pm and who they can and cannot see.
And they accuse the people at the top of actually enjoying this abuse of power.


In simple terms the people I spoke to today are against what they see as a disproportionate response from the powers that be – that “cure” the has a worse impact on people's lives than the virus.



<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/41/590x/Enough-is-enough-Middle-Britain-amassed-in-London-against-lockdown-erosion-of-liberties-1351854.webp?r=1603609942485" data-srcset="https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/41/590x/Enough-is-enough-Middle-Britain-amassed-in-London-against-lockdown-erosion-of-liberties-1351854.webp?r=1603609942485" style="transform: none;"></picture></p>Enough is enough: Middle Britain amassed in London against lockdown erosion of liberties (Image: PA)
Of course the crowd contained more than a smattering of shall we say “fringe” elements, the anti-vaxxers, the 5G mobile phone mast blamers, and the tin-foil hat brigade.
But overwhelmingly the protesters were nice, unassuming, salt of the earth Brits whose most antagonistic act of rebellion was to wave their masks at the assembled police.
And speaking of police I saw first hand again just how confused and conflicted our boys and girls in blue are.
Last night Commander Ade Adelekan warned the Rule of Six should be obeyed on the march and that officers would intervene if it was flouted.
In the event it was more a Rule of Six Thousand as all of us marched maskless, shoulder to shoulder.
And even the greenest copper knows that he might be able to corale six people but if 6,000 become refusniks it is wise to stand your men down.
Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock should take heed.
Britain is at a Covid crossroads – these protesters are the tip of a lockdown-weary, coronavirus cynical nation. And if these 6,000 refuseniks were to become 60millon refuseniks neither Boris Johnson nor any power on Earth could stop it. DAILY EXPRESS

There are thousands more all across the UK. You may see many people wearing masks in the Supermarket, these people do not like confrontation but most rip them off immediately on exiting the stores. Slowly we are returning back to normal as people realise that many restrictions have nothing to do with any virus,

The rather obvious flaw in your piece is that you are not in the majority by a long long way.

Supporting your argument with tales of people leaving a "mask" area and taking them off is akin to telling us people take their helmets off after riding a bike with some relief.

[gazaprop]

The rather obvious flaw in your piece is that you are not in the majority by a long long way.

Supporting your argument with tales of people leaving a "mask" area and taking them off is akin to telling us people take their helmets off after riding a bike with some relief.

Indeed, I recall taking my seatbelt off before exiting my car this morning - strange times.

[Grassroots.]

Indeed, I recall taking my seatbelt off before exiting my car this morning - strange times.

. Love it .

[local]

I have also seen surgeons removing their scrubs and masks with relief, welders doing the same with their masks and people relishing taking off their rubber gloves after washing up its a worrying phenomenon perhaps Said is right

[gsgsgs]

Which is not to say they weren't angry. They were, but not with the “look-at-me, look-at-me” self aggrandising faux fury of the Extinction Rebellion class of protester.
No, this was the quiet fury of Britain's famous silent majority – the rump of us, perhaps the best of us, politicians fear the most. Because these protesters are not all sound and fury signifying nothing, these protesters weaponise the ballot box and remove administrations they disagree with.

They object to the new normal – to the supine acceptance of a very small number of not-necessarily very well informed people telling them whether they can work or not work, whether their kids can go to school or not go to school, whether they can stay out past 10pm and who they can and cannot see.
And they accuse the people at the top of actually enjoying this abuse of power.


In simple terms the people I spoke to today are against what they see as a disproportionate response from the powers that be – that “cure” the has a worse impact on people's lives than the virus.



<source type="image/webp" srcset="https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/41/590x/Enough-is-enough-Middle-Britain-amassed-in-London-against-lockdown-erosion-of-liberties-1351854.webp?r=1603609942485" data-srcset="https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/41/590x/Enough-is-enough-Middle-Britain-amassed-in-London-against-lockdown-erosion-of-liberties-1351854.webp?r=1603609942485" style="transform: none;">Enough is enough: Middle Britain amassed in London against lockdown erosion of liberties (Image: PA)
Of course the crowd contained more than a smattering of shall we say “fringe” elements, the anti-vaxxers, the 5G mobile phone mast blamers, and the tin-foil hat brigade.
But overwhelmingly the protesters were nice, unassuming, salt of the earth Brits whose most antagonistic act of rebellion was to wave their masks at the assembled police.
And speaking of police I saw first hand again just how confused and conflicted our boys and girls in blue are.
Last night Commander Ade Adelekan warned the Rule of Six should be obeyed on the march and that officers would intervene if it was flouted.
In the event it was more a Rule of Six Thousand as all of us marched maskless, shoulder to shoulder.
And even the greenest copper knows that he might be able to corale six people but if 6,000 become refusniks it is wise to stand your men down.
Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock should take heed.
Britain is at a Covid crossroads – these protesters are the tip of a lockdown-weary, coronavirus cynical nation. And if these 6,000 refuseniks were to become 60millon refuseniks neither Boris Johnson nor any power on Earth could stop it. DAILY EXPRESS

There are thousands more all across the UK. You may see many people wearing masks in the Supermarket, these people do not like confrontation but most rip them off immediately on exiting the stores. Slowly we are returning back to normal as people realise that many restrictions have nothing to do with any virus,

Everyone I know removes their mask when leaving an area where they are compulsory, myself included as at the moment they aren't compulsory outdoors.

You say "rump of us, perhaps the best of us"

Rump - a small or unimportant remnant. Hopefully unimportant enough to go away quietly and reflect on their actions!

6000 covidiots who will go home and spread whatever they have caught and will pass it on to their loved ones, who will in turn pass it on to others and so on and so on, it's no wonder we are at the level we are and other parts of the UK are in total lockdown.

When the whole of the UK is locked down again I hope these morons will reflect on their actions and offer an apology to the rest of us who sit at home day in day out, night in night out often alone, lonely & fed up.

[Toodles McGinty]

Obviously people have a right to protest.

Perhaps a good idea is they all carry cards stating they are mask protesters, so that when they catch Covid, the NHS can refuse to treat them.

Surely dying at home fighting for their last breath, rather than wasting hospital time on a virus that's not as bad as the affect of fighting it, will really prove their point.

Somebody should start a register, just to let other people know how they feel.

"You may see many people wearing masks in the Supermarket, these people do not like confrontation but most rip them off immediately on exiting the stores."

Yes, it's that easy, isn't it? Wear one in the supermarket, rip it off as dramatically as you like when you go outside. You'll look a bit of a prick, when all you've done is cover up for 10 minutes rather than done 8 hours of heart surgery, but I'm sure you'll show exactly what kind of person you are. A big whining mask rebel. Passers by may even applaud.

[local]

Prof why don't you and your genteel mates offer yourselves for a herd immunity experiment ?

You could meet at Pontins in Ainsdale we would lock you in and observe.

It would be like an episode of the Walking Dead.

[Hamble]

Protesters are exempt from the rule of 6 as long as they social distance.

The police have powers to intervene if the rule is broken.

[joan ofarc]

One of the many worrying things about these strange times we live in is the growing conflation of health precautions with loss of liberty. (another wonderful import from the US of A where they are all batcr@p crazy).
All these so-called libertarians who find wearing a mask so tyrranical need to get there prioroties straight. With freedom comes responsibiity. It's the basis for forming decent societies where others can flourish as well as ourselves.
What worries me most is that such people are often coming from a standpoint of ignorance. They use their right to demonstrate to cover up the fact that wearing a mask is sometimes uncomfortable for your average person but they don't have the personal fortitude to do something even as minimal as that.
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.Isaac Asimov, who also said,
[U]“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

[Toodles McGinty]

Comment by Annabelle Sanderson, former advisor to Nigel Farage.

Says it all.

[said]

One of the many worrying things about these strange times we live in is the growing conflation of health precautions with loss of liberty. (another wonderful import from the US of A where they are all batcr@p crazy).
All these so-called libertarians who find wearing a mask so tyrranical need to get there prioroties straight. With freedom comes responsibiity. It's the basis for forming decent societies where others can flourish as well as ourselves.
What worries me most is that such people are often coming from a standpoint of ignorance. They use their right to demonstrate to cover up the fact that wearing a mask is sometimes uncomfortable for your average person but they don't have the personal fortitude to do something even as minimal as that.
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.Isaac Asimov, who also said,
[U]“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

Not sure I follow your argument here. Are you claiming that people are wearing masks because they want to? That argument is a fallacy based on A - Z psychology. The fact that mask wearing and freedom conflict, is that people were 'instructed' with a threat of monetary fines or under a guilt complex (that of harming others if you did not wear one) creating fear in people, which amounts to oppression.

Freedom is being confronted with a situation, being allowed to examine the facts and coming to one's own conclusions. If there was scientific support for wearing a mask then people would understand clearly and would act accordingly. But there is not. Due to the fact that safety advice has digressed well off topic, more and more people are questioning the reason behind it and are making their own independent decisions.

Although people have been and are still wearing masks, the numbers of influenza and cold cases - both air borne diseases - are increasing, while the number of Covid 19 cases are decreasing. If we are to believe the NHS statistics on their web page. How can this be if what we are told (by experts) is correct? Freedom does come with responsibility - the responsibility of transparency. Societies cannot form unless there is trust between one another. Where there is room for doubt there can be no cohesion.

Viruses were present long before Humans. The human body contains thousands of viruses as it also does bacteria. In fact humans could not survive without them. The human body is a marvellous machine which is constantly evolving through every generation. Humans have been subjected to a great number of epidemics and pandemics over thousand of years. I am sure that if face masks were necessary humans would have evolved with them, as it is our immune systems are far more superior.

Your last comment has no answer. Basically it refers to experts who have spent most of their lives researching and collating evidence to give them a broader outlook, are now considered equal by those who can find answers at their fingertips. The difference being that an expert has a full understanding of why that answer exists, while the latter has no understanding whatever. Democracy emerges from the action of the expert to give those less educated, a greater understanding.

An expert is far more than someone appearing in white lab coat, carrying a clip board and giving his own personal views to the press - a deeper in sight into public perceptions can be found from the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment.

[said]

I have also seen surgeons removing their scrubs and masks with relief, welders doing the same with their masks and people relishing taking off their rubber gloves after washing up its a worrying phenomenon perhaps Said is right

Let's see if we can get those little grey cells of yours moving a bit.

We are informed that there is a deadly pandemic across most of the Anglosphere. The numbers of cases are rising fast and massive numbers of people are dead and dying. So people are all wearing masks and keeping a distance to prevent further contagion. So it would not matter whether you were in a confined area or out in the air - you would still maintain safety measures, right?

When you are wearing masks for protection while carrying out a particularly hazardous task - what would be the necessity of continuing to wear that protection when you have completed that task?

But people have become wary of the restrictions we are all being asked to follow since they do not have any relevance to any virus. So why are we all being restricted in this way? Why are our freedoms being denied? When there is no logical answer, when there is no scientific basis for such restrictions? These are the questions many ordinary people have been asking themselves - the result is protests by large numbers of a mixed populace and the fact that only a few people are wearing the masks outside of shops. If people really felt threatened by a contagion - they would be wearing full HAZMAT suits, let alone the few wearing masks.

The big question is why all these restrictions? I have some ideas - but it would appear that such a discussion is not an option on this site.

[local]

Well just for you Prof I shuffled them up a bit, then again to make certain and despite all that agitation your post still doesn't make much sense.

The premise of your post (I think) is that masks don't work?


So I offer you another article from Nature magazine that you haven't caught up with yet;


Face masks: what the data say
The science supports that face coverings are saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, and yet the debate trundles on. How much evidence is enough?

To be clear, the science supports using masks, with recent studies suggesting that they could save lives in different ways: research shows that they cut down the chances of both transmitting and catching the coronavirus, and some studies hint that masks might reduce the severity of infection if people do contract the disease.


https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8

This is a recent article but if you and your strange bedfellow Mr Corbyn can come up with some better source I'm all ears