Cummings again

Dominic Cummings.

I can understand his panic, the decisions he took, putting his child's welfare first. I'm not a parent, but I do understand. What he forgot was who he was. Hightailing it all the way to Durham, a 4-hour drive up the A1, to self-isolate on a private estate, in a secluded wood a few miles out of town.

How many other people will have faced a similar scenario, both parents falling ill, responsible for small children - but who don't have the facility of a distant hideaway. His argument for not staying at home in London, he didn't want to expose anyone to the virus, is flimsy and really doesn't hold water. To quote some of the journalists at the press conference, he drove a coach and horses through the lockdown policy of the government he advises.

Mr Cummings is a high-profile, high-ranking advisor, as I pointed out in my earlier post. He has failed to take his position into consideration when confronted with the coronavirus outbreak in his own situation. That is a failure which actually renders him unfit to hold the position he does. However, I am not so naive as to expect him to be sacked. He won't resign, knowing full well that his boss, Boris Johnson, is heavily reliant on him - and won't sack him.

The ugly side of politics.

One rule to ring them all

Here in the UK, people have broadly adhered to government guidelines regarding the coronavirus lockdown. From March 23rd, we stayed at home where possible, only to go out for essential reasons like going to work, getting food or seeking medical care. The economy has crashed, people are suffering hardship, including separation from family and friends, but if that what it took to minimise the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, we've mostly been good boys and girls and obeyed the rules.

Not everybody, though. The Prime Minister has an aide, named Dominic Cummings, who has been the prime mover and shaker behind things like the Brexit referendum 4 years ago, as well as the general election campaign that brought Boris Johnson into 10 Downing street. Mr Cummings hails from Durham, 260 miles north of London, 15 miles south of Newcastle upon Tyne. When he and his wife started to develop Covid-19 symptoms they hightailed it to Durham to self-isolate; rather than doing so in London. That's already bad enough; 260 miles is a 6 hour drive, so Mr C would have had to stop off here and there to take a break. After returning to London, he has since been sighted in Barnard Castle, 30 miles southwest of Durham.Went there for a jolly?

A furious backlash ensued over the weekend. One rule for the masses, and another rule for the ruling classes? Is anybody going to pay any attention to directives issued by Mr J et al? This is very serious, as it undermines the credibility and authority of government at a time of international crisis

Liberation Day 2020

Today is May 5th, Liberation Day in Holland. Back in 1945, the forces of Nazi Germany surrendered at Wageningen, ending five years of brutal and ruthless occupation. The Reichskommissar, leader of the occupation, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, was chiefly responsible for the establishment of a system of terror, the shooting of hostages, extortion, and the mass deportation of the great majority of Dutch Jews (approximately 120,000 people), mostly to Auschwitz. He was tried and executed as a war criminal at Nuremberg. His henchman, Anton Mussert, was also executed. The director of the Dutch central bank, Meinoud Rost van Tonningen, died in prison after jumping off a high balcony. His widow, who died in 2007, maintains he was pushed. She lived only half a mile from where I grew up, and would continue to espouse her late husband's ideology by posting neo-nazi promotional materials to people in the vicinity.

I list these names of infamy in Dutch history lest we forget. They are not widely known beyond the Netherlands. However odious their ideology and deeds, their names should be remembered as a warning. The ideology is still around.

Remembrance Day 2020

At 8pm tonight, the Netherlands will fall silent in remembrance of the Dead of the Second World War. Whether as a result of the Nazi German occupation, or the belligerent actions of the Empire of Japan. The worst losses, 105,000, comprised people professing the Jewish faith. They were carted off to extermination camps like Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen - and so many more names of infamy. The below photographs were taken by myself in the vicinity of Arnhem in Holland, most of them to do with summary and indiscriminate executions, reprisals. The Dutch word, represaille, is of course of French origin but sounds appropriately harsh and sounds like a burst of machine gun fire. I have annotated each picture with the story that lies behind it.


A cold afternoon in 2017. A Lord Mayor and an Alderman standing to attenetion at the memorial to the crew of a Lancaster bomber, brought down 7 miles north of Arnhem. They lie buried in a village cemetery nearby.


Stay for a while at this place. In the night of 15 June 1943, a Lancaster bomber crashed, in which 7 young aircrew were killed. Victims of other nearby aircrashes lie buried in the village cemetery.


Listing the names of ten men summarily executed in December 1944. Some came from near The Hague, 70 miles to the west, killed in reprisal for acts of resistance enacted here, near Arnhem.


An innocuous bench in the woods, commemorating the transfer of this area of woodlands to the Common Good Fund of the town of Velp, just northeast of Arnhem. Why list it here? Check the close-up in the next photograph.


See the white blotches in the stone inscription? That's where bullets hit when three men were mowed down in machine gun fire. They had been betrayed by a collaborating policeman for engaging in acts of resistance.


Mr Klaver, Mr Kuyper and Mr Mozes were executed on 26 October 1944 as active resistance fighters.


A memorial in the woods just north of Arnhem, listing the names of 19 factory workers. They had gone on strike in their steel works at Rheden, 8 miles away - and paid with their lives.


Along the south bank of the River Rhine, across from Oosterbeek. Here is where the remnants of the forces landed, who had just lost the Battle of Arnhem in September 1944. It would be another 7 months before Arnhem, or what was left of it, was liberated.


Further afield in 's-Heerenberg, 3 miles north of Emmerich in Germany. A monument to two clergymen from 's-Heerenberg, who were executed by Nazi Germany during World War II.

A shepherd will give his life for his flock.

We remember them all

 

Coronavirus - 29 April

A lovely day in Stornoway, another glorious April day. Not much happening out here, no visitors or tourists arriving or leaving at all. The fifty miles of sea between this island and the Scottish mainland is a very effective barrier. A few thousand miles to the west, the United States have logged their one millionth case of coronavirus. Attitudes over there will bring about a tragedy of some proportions, which contrasts sharply with New Zealand which has reported no new cases for quite some time now. In the US, there are differences between states - Georgia practically moving out of lockdown for instance - forgetting that this virus is not observant of boundaries. The innane utterances of the 45th president, Donald Trump, do not deserve repetition; noting them is only done to highlight the deleterious impact they are having on managing the pandemic in his country. Here in the Outer Hebrides, where Mr Trump's mother came into life a century ago, we have had no new cases for a fortnight or so. The Scottish Government will adopt the same policies as the UK government, at least they do acknowledge the virus's crossborder nature. We may need to don face coverings when going to our weekly shop.

The situation surrounding the pandemic causes much stress and anxiety, something I'm by no means immune to. I go out for the occasional walk, but due to the lack of public transport, I am constrained to the town of Stornoway and its immediate environs.

Coronavirus - 27 April

Today is the 53rd birthday of His Majesty, King Willem Alexander of the Netherlands. Ordinarily, HM would travel the country to attend festivities and parties up and down the land. Not in 2020. He too is in lockdown and all festivities are cancelled. People are encouraged to sing the national anthem at home and have a good time - at home.

This time of year is a busy one on the Dutch calendar, with the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War appearing next week. On May 4th, the Dead from WW2 will be remembered, with usually a mass event on Dam Square in Amsterdam. This year, it will be severely pared down, with only the King and Queen attending the ceremony.

On May 5th, 1945, Nazi German forces in the Netherlands signed the instrument of surrender at Wageningen. The celebrations on the 75th anniversary of this event are also off. We were released from the tiranny of Nazi Germany, we shall all be released from the terror of coronavirus.

Ingesting bleach

As part of my university course in the 1980s, I was taught modules on toxicology. You know, learn about poisons. We all have dangerous substances in our homes, and bleach is probably one of the nastier ones. To suggest that a corrosive substance like a solution of sodium hypochlorite be injected into the human body, or even better, inhaled into the lungs for the purposes of eradicating coronavirus is irresponsible. However, this level of stupidity is about par for the course for Donald John Trump, who exhorted this lunacy after dining with the manufacturers of a certain brand of disinfectant. It is bad enough to publicly endorse one of the less friendly medicines in the pharmacopoeia (hydroxychloroquine) as a miracle cure for coronavirus - people have died following that suggestion. To ingest bleach is almost suicidal. Do you want to know how many children are maimed and killed after ingesting household bleach after drinking from those brightly coloured bottles in mummy's kitchen cupboard?