Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Remind me again who won the Cold War? The British police are urging ordinary people to inform on neighbours who breach Covid-19 lockdown rules.
UK Police: It’s Your ‘Civic Duty’ to Inform on Fellow Britons Breaching Lockdown
VICTORIA FRIEDMAN
31 Oct 2020A British police chief has said it is the public’s “civic duty” to inform on each other if they are suspected of having breached coronavirus lockdown laws.
Merseyside Chief Constable Andy Cooke also condemned the so-called “sneering culture” which disapproves of snitching.
“People are doing a civic duty in contacting us for the right reasons. The vast majority of people across the country are really concerned about this. Any information that you can give us in relation to breaches will save lives, and that’s why people are doing it,” Chief Constable Cooke said, according to The Mirror.
A number of government ministers in recent months have also told Britons that they should inform on people in their community over perceived social distancing violations, with forces reporting such a high increase in calls, they had to add more telephony shifts in their stations.
The remarks come after the Police and Crime Commissioners for Merseyside and the West Midlands said they would break up family Christmas gatherings if they contravened lockdown rules.
…
Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/10/31/uk-police-its-your-civic-duty-inform-britons-breaching-lockdown/
Boris Johnson to his credit has argued against such unhinged authoritarianism. Boris suggested people should try talking to their neighbours before taking any other action, only call the police for gross breaches of the rules. But pretty much everyone else in the British government seems to be ignoring him.
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It’s not just COVID. I saw a poster by Devon & Cornwall police last week encouraging drivers to use their dash cams to report other drivers. Arguably justifiable but it will attract the self righteous nutter and increase social mistrust.
I already had that several years ago.
Some !&(#($$ idiot called the British plod (of course on their mobile) after being overtaken by a “car on foreign plates”.
The stupid plod followed me for miles and miles trying to find fault with driving.
After repeatedly failing to find anything wrong…(yea right) tried to lecture me for driving very close to the kerb and moving to a position possible to see easily to overtake a lorry…
After stopping me, tried all manner of different ruses and stupid arrogant behaviour to
a/ find fault with the car (unsuccessfully)
b/ find fault with driving (also unsuccessfully…where I replied….hey have you ever tried to drive a LHD CAR in the UK??) No reply cos he never had!
c/ didn’t even attempt explain how someone could have rung them while clearly driving using a mobile phone to do it…and why they weren’t going after them instead!
What a load of plonkers!
They are all the same, Hillsborough, all of them arrogant pigs, and not the first time I have experienced their shit first hand!
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-shocking-truth-about-police-corruption-in-britain
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/policeman-accused-moving-arrested-man-17131243
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/policeman-accused-moving-arrested-man-17131243
UK POLICE ARE UNFIT FOR EMPLOYMENT.
I ordered a LH car in the UK and outside the obvious, i.e. drive thrus, overtaking… I actually prefer driving in the UK with LH. I have read an article on German news looking in to the accident statistics of LH driving in the UK and LH drivers do not have more accidents than RH drivers, so they do not drive less safe.
I have had many run-ins with Highway Police (Different branch) many times in the UK when I lived there. Such as “undertaking”, which really grinds my gears. If a driver is in one of the two OVERTAKING lanes, the middle and the outside lanes, and is below the speed limit, you CAN pass on the left, at the speed limit. It’s is not your problem. The law may have changed since I drove last in the UK (2003). I also have had the BS threat of an offense pulling out in to lane to see ahead to overtake. But also, overtaking. Drivers do so at the speed limit. Totally unsafe when trying to pass a semi. Do it quickly!
Yeah, had the cops pull me over many times in the UK, got off most when you can state the rules.
“British Police Urge the Public to Inform on Covid-19 Lockdown Breaches” Making police work easier this way, is taking the wrong path towards a police(d) state, the DDR for instance.
Perhaps their neighbours should report all the people going in and out of their local cop shop. They clearly aren’t obeying the ‘rule of 6’.
Dash cam evidence is not usable in court. It can be modified and has not been kept in a sterile, secure, place between the date of the supposed offence and court case.
At least in the US, as there is no “chain of custody”.
We creep ever closer to the Orwellian British ‘brave new world’ ; a mix of East Germany, North Korea & ‘1984’.
Yes and in UK we appear to have a large number of people who would have had no problem living in Hitler’s Germany.
I would argue that you are already there in old Britannia and the U.S. is in a forced march to catch up to your Orwellian Nightmare. Our governments have all but abandoned any pretense of individual liberties under the guise of abolishing second hand offenses which are mostly imaginary hobgoblins.
Here, across the pond, the faceless elite owners of you DC Swamp have finally figured out a work around to that Pesky Bill of Rights. They simply declare any individual freedoms to be harmful to your neighbors and particularly it is harmful to “The Children.” Ergo and henceforth we decree you can no longer do what you have been doing and keep in mind we are watching you and we have “The Childrens'” mother’s helping us watching you.
And as a measure of last resort, they will attempt to use local zoning and/or nuisance ordinances against you in a bid to intimidate you into doing what they want. The threat of lost time, court fees, and lawyer’s bills compels most people to comply. Which is a bad idea, because the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them, even if you get scuffed up a bit. They will think twice next time.
Plenty of uk agencies for decades have had ,hot lines, email contact forms, to snitch on your neibours ,
Decades of goodie goodies who have nothing better to do, who have been brainwashed into thinking thier ideology is government ideology, a philosophy of I’m all right jack, ideology driving a wedge between people,
No one put it better than C. S. Lewis:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
+10
May I also add, when a government takes away the ability to do for ones self, and enables a defunked work force to take over, we must remember the defunked work force is the victim of government policy.
A defunked workforce empowered by the rights taken away from the people ,is at best a snitch for self interest,
At worst a licence to rip off ( increasingly as the next generation has no experience)
Such is life in new service industries.
Defunked?? Does that mean they took showers?
defunct: no longer living, existing, or functioning
Emphasize “no longer functioning”.
It’s already been done here:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/04/04/la-mayor-enlists-citizen-snitches-to-tattle-on-neighbors-who-violate-stay-at-home-orders-n384599
https://www.independentsentinel.com/big-bro-cuomo-now-has-a-24-hour-turn-in-your-neighbor-tattletale-hotline/
Pick a large democrat run city and you will find some form of authoritarian socialism in play. That party has certainly come a long way, the wrong way, from the party of JFK.
Somebody should send in a tip about Cuomo …my guess is he is exempt from his own rules.
More examples from Los Angeles county:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-03/paddle-boarder-arrested-in-malibu-after-flouting-coronavirus-closures
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-29/surfer-fined-1-000-for-ignoring-coronavirus-closure-in-manhattan-beach
This is a great way to get back at neighbors who are noisy, have barking dogs, or who you just don’t like for any reason. It reminds me of Miss Gulch in the Wizard of Oz taking Dorothy’s little dog Toto to be put down, for barking at her, because it is a “menace to society”.
Germany is on the same way asking for denunciation in public TV.
Creation of GDR 2.0 on the way, waiting for the rebirth of the STASI
The totalitarian temptation has always been strong in Germany. Especially now when Merkel’s party (CPU/CSU) is in coalition with the Greens party. I bet the latter are licking their chops.
Happening on this side of the pond, of all places, Montana. However, we have (at least until January) a dictatorial Democrat Governor who believes he is King.
Cool thing about Montana, however. If you snitch on your neighbor about Covid “violations,” your name is a matter of public record. Folks in Billings have been putting up billboards with pictures of the snitches, so their neighbors will know who they are.
We had some years ago the little “Climate Detectives”, these were even asked to denunciate their parents in case of climate misbehaviour….
Kindergarten education at it’s best…..
All explained in detail by Yuri Bezmenov. Start here for an 8 minute introduction and gop from there:
https://youtu.be/pgCnpCBORyM
Stock up on weapons. You are ging to need them.
“huls November 2, 2020 at 10:34 am
Stock up on weapons. You are ging to need them.”
One of the reasons many countries, like Australia, the UK and New Zealand, have banned the population from owning certain types. The “ruling class” don’t want serfs defending themselves from state tyranny.
I guess it’s a good thing they aren’t doing another vote on Brexit right now. Half the population would report on the other half.
“Boris Johnson to his credit…”
Now that made me laugh. There is nothing about this man that deserves credit.
I had a poster all ready to go of a speech by Adam Sutler, except with Boris at the podium. But when I double checked he’s actually been urging restraint.
Shocking as it maybe, The oaf Johnson was close to doing something good by installing Charles Moore as BBC chairman and ex-Mail editor Paul Dacre as head of Ofcom. Sadly Moore cried off citing family reasons and as yet a new name has not come out. If he could put somebody other than leftwing liberal snivellers in these posts he won’t have been a 100% dick.
Boris put paid to Corbyn. The British owe him a profound debt of gratitude for that. Without his victory in December, the Corbynites would by now have embarked on their progroms and be well on their way to building and populating their gulags. Boris’ win was the first shoe dropping. The second was the Equalities Commission report last week, and the subsequent defenestration of Corbyn.
He saved Britain from a government consisting of a bunch of anti-semitic terrorist sympathizers who had taken over the Labour Party. Stalinists and Trotskyites, obsessed with the Middle East, some of them Holocaust deniers. Except that the Holocaust they denied was not the German, but the Soviet one.
Read the Equalities Commission report if you don’t believe this. And look at the pictures of Corbyn, wreath in hand, near a Black September memorial, present at the ceremony,but not involved, as he said. Boris sent all that lot packing. Whatever else he did, they owe him for that.
‘pogroms’, I think the word you wanted to use is ‘pogrom’.
Don’t tell them your name, Pike!
Who the bleep do plod think they are?
And so the cycle continues-From serfdom, through enlightenment and back through dependence and apathy, returning to serfdom. The dobbing in neighbours (for a concocted crime) -where have we seen this before? Has it ever ended well?
To add insult to injury, it is based on a total fearmongering campaign-the hyping up of the seasonal flu being used as a feeble excuse to crash the entire system. This is the catalyst to reintroducing universal slavery on the pretext of equality.
Have we really outgrown irrational fear and superstition? Do we have the right to laugh at our forebears for being so gullible? Have we actually learned the lessons of history?
They want people to snitch on lockdown escapees who are not infected, but they refuse to tell us who or where the infected cases are in any useful detail.
Some people in the UK have used their “free” tests received in the post to swab house plants. The tests come back positive apparently.
They breached the rules????? “Off with their heads!” shouted the Red Queen. She dithered and bothered and wiggled and waddled and then, after looking at herself in the mirror, again shouted “Off with their heads!!!!”
Fortunately, Alice had left and the White Rabbit and the Caterpillar were sharing a hookah and didn’t really care what that old bat shouted.
Twas brilling and the slithy toves
Did gyer and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe…..
Grabe-ing should never have been outsourced.
I blame Mrs Thatcher.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
“Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
“O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
Many Jabberwocks, still to be slain, I fear.
A little uptight. They need to hear some good covid jokes to loosen them up a bit.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElQphBCX0AEHhTt?format=jpg
For Heavens sake, this is a really bad WUWT article. Equating the lockdown with some sort of east european stasi type controlling is ludicrous. Like it or not the lockdown rules (personally I’m against a lockdown), will have been passed in parliament by a government elected by an overwhelming majority one year ago. Asking people to inform the police of breaches is just the same as telling your police if you saw your neighbour pinching a car. For better or for worse this is the law. To equate it to a dictatorship is just ludicrous
Yes. Sadly democracy in most European countries has descended into tyranny of the majority. Informed leadership has been sadly lacking in all countries with possible exception of Sweden.
A majority must be window twitching snitchers who delight in preventing their more outgoing neighbors from living and base their authoritarian tendency on poor pseudo science.
Democracy ALWAYS descends into tyranny of the majority. That is why America’s Founding Fathers, in their infinite wisdom, created a different form of government. It is called many things depending on who is using the words, a representative democracy, a constitutional democracy, a constitutional republic and a representative republic. The fact remains that the Founding Fathers set up a system of government that has worked for over 233 years.
No, at least in the US, most of these “mandates” are NOT law. They are edicts which do NOT have the force of law, handed down by dictatorial governors.
Thank you
Exactly, here in Victoria less than 10% of people have actually paid their COVID fines.
The actual law does not have strong standing as each scenario has not been tested in court.
Example. So many people have told police they can’t wear mask because of health conditions but still got fine.
David, the only difference is that a year ago, there was no COVID. That is to say, the citizens did not know of the authoritarian nature of the government they elected. On the other hand, it’s truly pitiful that a “first-world country” stoops to a police state to enforce a lockdown. That is a concerning level of power for a government to possess.
Are you saying that no law can be tyrannical as long as it’s voted on, and that all such laws are just?
No, stop trying to put words into my mouth. I’m saying that a government minister ASKING citizens to tell the police about other citizens who break the law, does not equate to some sort of communist or fascist dictatorship. Furthermore when it is a temporary measure designed to combat what the government is acting in what it believes is the best way to protect it’s citizens, then that makes the article writers claims of dictatorship even more ludicrous.
Bojo urged restraint. When this is all over people will need to find a way to live with each other, I doubt neighbourhood disputes started by overzealous snitching will stop with a few hurt looks.
What David is not telling you is the latest covid laws UK will not be voted on till Wednesday.
Unlike the welsh who gave themselves powers to allow new laws within hours.
It’s the democractic, majority, or color (i.e. diversity) rule apology that has found common cause with the left of past and present. This is why, for example, the Constitution recognizes explicit limits of representative authority and positively affirms certain rights of “the People” and “our Posterity”. Americans recognize the faults of mortal gods, left-ward swings, and were proactive to mitigate their progress.
Except Lord SUMPTION has a totally different opinion from your bleating and has much better qualifications as well.
The restrictions in the UK are an unconstitutional arbitrary interference in personal freedom and very possibly illegal also.
At no time has the UK ever been ruled by decree, until now, not in 1914-18 nor in 1939-45.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8851059/LORD-SUMPTION-Im-meet-person-plans-obey-mixing-ban.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amDv2gk8aa0&feature=youtu.be
It’s a MUST SEE!
“and very possibly illegal also”
Now that should be illegal. 😉
One can only conclude you don’t live in the UK
The article is bang on the money.
It starts sedately enough. We have seen this situation several times. Jews in 1930’s Germany is just one such event.
Lockdown has not been passed by Parliament here in Australia. Instead it has been imposed by government fiat By state premiers (Premiers are the equivalent of governors, sort of, in the US). There is starting today a hearing in our High Court about whether these lockdowns are constitutional or not. I hope our judges have got more balls than our premiers but I’m not holding my breath. Meanwhile, under the guise of health, some lockdowns continue. But if health is the concern why is nothing being done about the massive increase in the rate of suicide due to mental health issues that have emerged as a consequence of the lockdown. Our public health officials are a joke.We have doctors here that assign petitions identifying that young kids are coming in for antidepressant medications because they’re scared and frightened because of the lockdown. What have we done to these children, in the name of protecting a bunch of the elderly that would probably have died from seasonal flu this year if it hadn’t been Covid. And I am in the vulnerable group but I think it’s my responsibility look after myself that my grandkids Go to work, for crying out loud
Quilter
I don’t have a problem with the government imposing restrictions.
But they must have a valid link to science and law.
Here are Melbourne, premier Dan Andrews banned fishing and golf but not horses racing.
He also set up a curfew of 7:00 pm.
Many of Dictator Dan’s rules have no scientific or legal standing.
“Quilter November 2, 2020 at 3:30 pm
Go to work, for crying out loud”
Many people can’t because companies have closed doors or have imposed restrictions and rotations. Where I work, teams were split across different floors. Then everyone was sent home. Now if you happen to sit at a desk identified as blue you can go to the office on certain days. Same with red desk but on an alternate day. It has been truly ridiculous.
Due to my personal circumstances, I volunteered to be part of a skeleton crew to “keep the lights on” at the office. It was actually wonderful. No-one at work, no-one on the streets and no-one on the trains.
As of today, Australian COVID-19 stats; 3 New cases (Nov 3) 240 Active cases 25116 Recovered 907 Deaths. The 12 months to September there have been 1107 deaths on roads in Australia. Eight Australians die every day by suicide, that’s more than double the road toll. 75% of those who take their own life are male (Mostly white divorcees). Over 65,000 Australians make a suicide attempt each year.
Puts things in to perspective dunnit!
Do you wish us to believe, that in all of the years of your parliamentary democracy, a tyrannic act has not been imposed by the majority? If this is true, you have been extraordinarily lucky up until now!
Not going to get into current issues, arguing over State run health care – but most of us remember many such acts passed here across the pond. You might want to look up the Fugitive Slave Act as one of the most heinous.
Enjoy your slavery to the State – until the State decides that you are either dangerous or surplus to its needs.
DG-J,
I would say that equating snitching on your neighbors for leaving their house with “telling your police if you saw your neighbour pinching a car” is equally if not more ludicrous.
“For better or for worse this is the law.” that’s just blinkered and obtuse. There are a lot of things that are “legal” but not moral or ethical or right. “Gee, I don’t personally agree with it, but it’s the law, so we must obey.”
If Biden gets in, the USA will be worse than Britain before long.
At least our politicians appear to regard it as a short term measure but the US Democrats see it as a long term management tool.
Just as our Corbyn led Labour Party did.
THE QUESTION IS AS THE MOVIE LINE GOES:
“I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE”
AS A NY RADIO GUY LIONEL ALWAYS SAID— L&L.
This is not in ‘isolation’, though it should be. Judge a man by the company he keeps – judge this encouragement by the other ‘offences ‘ the police are encouraging the public to report. How many ways to earn a ‘cool’ black armband are there now?
The virus, a flimsy excuse to govern like the USSR under the guise of public safety and civic duty. Isolation did not work during the plagues and even contributed to death due to neglect in Europe.
The communists are practicing their craft and seeing how much they can get away with without penalty while attempting to condition the public to their control.
The question is were here others involved with China in the spread of the virus.
BBC Radio 4 news @ur momisugly 13:00 14th Sept.
News reader: “The policing minister said we should report on others if we seem them breaking the rule of six. Would you ‘dob in’ next door?”
Random person: “If my next door neighbour I found out was a terrorist, then I would report them, because they are potentially a killer. Now Kovid 19 in my opinion is a killer, and therefore I think anybody who flouts the rules is basically the same as a terrorist walking down the road spraying a machine gun.”
This was a strange broadcast because it was just this nameless guy talking and the news item just rolled on with comment on this bizarre view point.
Just goes to show how people are too soft in the head to think critically.
It’s a shame we can’t edit our comments? I meant to say “… the news item just rolled on without comment on this bizarre view point.”
What’s next? Block Wardens?
Very likely.
Remind me again who won the Cold War?
The German Democratic Republic.
And now we are a nation of curtain-twitchers and snitchers – cameras can’t cover everything; yet. It’s amazing just how many latent tin-pot Hitlers there are are out there. But this attitude comes down the line.
As the Prime Minister arrived in Downing Street juggling a baby bottle, Dilyn the dog, his red box and a folder under his arm, policing minister Kit Malthouse told the morning media round that residents should “absolutely” call the police if they see neighbours holding gatherings of seven or more next door.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/kit-malthouse-police-neighbours-break-social-gathering-rules-a4546696.html
The latest from our de-facto police state is:
Ministers believe that the four-week coronavirus lockdown in England could continue until next year, with a short break for Christmas.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/11/02/englands-coronavirus-lockdown-could-last-until-next-year/
Who knew the Chinese virus celebrates Christmas?