"Professor Pantsdown" and the focus on Ferguson breaking lockdown regulations

[Fambo Number Mive]

We have the highest death toll from Coronavirus in Europe yet the media focus on the professor who broke lockdown regulations:

https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1257786455189065735
https://twitter.com/APDobbs/status/1257938208253448192

"Professor Pantsdown" is trending on Twitter by people ignoring the real news. This person was responsible for the UK lockdown which although not as effective as lockdowns elsewhere has reduced case spread and saved lives. OK, he shouldn't have broken lockdown but he deserves more than being sniggered at on the front pages.

[Barry Admin]

Can we instead please have this thread be specifically about this one interesting topical incident? There's already too many of these mega-threads tbh, and CaB is supposed to house indepth discussion rather than just collections of links and such :-)

(You do a great job starting threads in general btw, but there's a whole forum to be filled up here, and this would seem to be a pretty interesting and important story.)

Edit: thanks a lot! Sorry to butt in and be all demandy but these kinds of threads end up alienating me even more from much of the content on CaB.)

[idunnosomename]

Hahaha those boffins!!!

[Fambo Number Mive]

Can we instead please have this thread be specifically about this one interesting topical incident? There's already too many of these mega-threads tbh, and CaB is supposed to house indepth discussion rather than just collections of links and such :-)

Will do. I've edited the OP and thread title so it focuses specifically on the Ferguson incident.

[SpiderChrist]

seeing as how they seem to be setting him up as the fall guy for their cuntery, I imagine he was hoping to get caught. "Oh NO, I suppose I'm just going to have to resign now, aren't I? What a shame."

[jobotic]

How can he be the fall guy? Isn't it him that prevented them making us take it on the chin?

The scandal is the other government shills on SAGE happy to cover up government viciousness and lies and spin for them.

[Abnormal Palm]

I actually am disappointed because for some gonk tier amoebae, this adds fuel to the fire that 'science is bullshit' and 'their playin us for FOOLS'. Wouldn't be surprised if UK guv see this as justification that if Fergie don't give any fuck, we probely overreactin, let's get killd.

[SpiderChrist]

How can he be the fall guy? Isn't it him that prevented them making us take it on the chin?

The scandal is the other government shills on SAGE happy to cover up government viciousness and lies and shill for them.

In as much as this is what The Tories have always done - blame others for their fuck-ups. "We follow the science" so when it all goes to shit (like night following day) then they can point to the fact that they were following scientific guidance - the minutiae of this particular dude's stance will be disregarded and the discussion will be all about "why trust the experts when they don't follow their own advice?".

[Abnormal Palm]

Yep, this is absolute gold for the Cunners. Licence to Kill.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I don't think he had much alternative to resigning sadly - otherwise it would give the no lockdown crowd even more of a story to latch on to. He was silly for breaking lockdown rules.

Ferguson said:

"I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms.

We don't know for sure people who get coronavirus are then immune, do we?

[Zetetic]

How can he be the fall guy? Isn't it him that prevented them making us take it on the chin?

Helps push for an end to the lockdown.

See also:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/six-questions-that-neil-ferguson-should-be-asked

[Bently Sheds]

Funny how it apparently happened a month or so ago but only gets splashed on the front pages of the Tory press the day after the disastrous death toll was reported.

[SpiderChrist]

Funny how it apparently happened a month or so ago but only gets splashed on the front pages of the Tory press the day after the disastrous death toll was reported.

Inexplicable.

[EOLAN]

Is Mr Hancock giving out about the "Tone" of the coverage of this? Surely as a key member of the "Team" that helps with all the valuable "The Science" received they will be rallying around him to demonstrate the necessary "Team Spirit".

[jobotic]

He's been telling Kay Burley that the police need to get involved.

I think the police should be investigating the deaths that Hancock is responsible for.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Police to get involved and do what? The most they can do is fine him, and they could do that by post.

[Barry Admin]

This is all absolutely classic tabloid/government cuntery that shows we're rapidly approaching the (premature) end of lockdown; Ferguson is the human face plastered on the story who we are all supposed to blame.

It's not just a distraction from the figures, it's a way of totally undermining the science. Reading back in preview I see that I'm not really adding anything that Zetetic and other haven't already said, but I'm just staggered at how blatant and manipulative this shit is. It's always the same fucking tactics too, it's depressing how shit and malleable human beings are.

He's been telling Kay Burley that the police need to get involved.

Hancock suggests Prof Ferguson's lockdown breach could be matter for police
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has just started taking part in a Q&A on Sky News. And he started by escalating the criticism of Prof Neil Ferguson, suggesting there could be a case for the police getting involved.

Asked by the presenter Kay Burley if Ferguson should be prosecuted for breaking the lockdown rules, Hancock replied:

You can imagine what my views are.

It's a matter for the police. As a government minister, I'm not allowed to get involved in the operational decisions of police matters. But I think that the social distancing rules are very important and people should be followed.

Burley said that Dr Catherine Calderwood, the Scottish chief medical officer who resigned after it emerged she had visited her second home, had been issued with a warning by the police. Asked if he approved of what the police did in that situation, Hancock said:

Absolutely I back the police. I back the Scottish police, I would back the police here. They will take their decisions independently from ministers, that's quite right. It's always been like that.

And that's why, even though I've got a view as to what I think, as a minister the way we run the police is that they make their decisions like this. So I give them their space to make that decision. But I think he took the right decision to resign.

Hancock also said he was speechless when he heard what Ferguson had done. In his statement to the Daily Telegraph, which broke the story, Ferguson justified his decision to meet a lover who lived in another household on the grounds that he was acting on the basis that he was immune, because he had had coronavirus. But Hancock said that he had also had coronavirus and that he has specifically asked the chief medical officer if that meant he was at lower risk. Hancock said he had been told he still had to observe the social distancing rules.

Hancock could easily have dodged Burley's questions about police involvement, but he chose to answer in a way that clearly implied this was a case where the police might want to get involved.

However, in doing so, Hancock also suggested he is not fully familiar with the regulations imposing the lockdown rules on England - the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020, which Hancock himself introduced. These say that during the emergency period "no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse".

But, according to the Telegraph story, Ferguson did not leave him house to see his lover. She came to visit him. There might be grounds for saying that she has broken the regulations, but not Ferguson.

[EOLAN]

Haha. Love Hate the pretense that it isn't proper for a government minister to influence or get involved in the activities of the police while effectively mandating them to take action at the same time. And as stated; it won't be Prof Ferguson who should be charged anyway. Great team spirit Mr Hancock.

[ImmaculateClump]

Isn't this a heart-warming story of love against the odds?
He gambled everything, his career, his life. Nothing could keep them apart.

[Abnormal Palm]

I do find it staggering that someone in that unique position could fuck up quite so badly when millions of people have been suffering in their homes living off fuck all and trying to do what's necessary for the greater good. It does really really get on my tits, no matter how the cunts use this to further the death march agenda.

[The Crumb]

Suddenly treating myself on the clock while working from home feels positively virtuous.

[BlodwynPig]

Which tabloid cunt flouting the lockdown rules stalked his flat to find this out?

[Dr Trouser]

Don't forget that this is the chap who made a mess of the foot and mouth disease that bankrupted many farmers unnecessarily. Oh and the imperial modelling group was born out of a sexual harassment case at Oxford. Oh and yep his model for Sweden deaths seems to be out by a few hundred per cent.

Two aspects of this; firstly academics who get to a position where they can talk shite and the media lap it up even if they get it wrong (we have one of those). Secondly BoJo's woeful lack of judgement in keeping this chancer on and not getting another view (the competing oxford group's work seems more realistic).

[Zetetic]

Some of which is discussed here:

See also:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/six-questions-that-neil-ferguson-should-be-asked

(Although the timing is still interesting, I think, regardless of the content of the claims.)

[Huxleys Babkins]

I do find it staggering that someone in that unique position could fuck up quite so badly when millions of people have been suffering in their homes living off fuck all and trying to do what's necessary for the greater good.

I'd find it staggering too if he wasn't simply the latest in a depressingly long line of men to be undone by their inability to control their testicles.

[Johnny Yesno]

I do find it staggering that someone in that unique position could fuck up quite so badly when millions of people have been suffering in their homes living off fuck all and trying to do what's necessary for the greater good. It does really really get on my tits, no matter how the cunts use this to further the death march agenda.

What with this and your frequent pleas of CAN EVERYONE PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE HOW AHEAD OF THE CURVE I WAS DID YOU KNOW I USED TO LIVE IN CHINA, you're not keeping it very zen, Bosto.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I'd find it staggering too if he wasn't simply the latest in a depressingly long line of men to be undone by their inability to control their testicles.

He could have had a hand shandy to calm himself down if he was that on heat.

[Buelligan]

FWIW, nothing, I see it as a double-sided thing.  Undermine the lockdown idea - so's the economy can live, even if more must die - pretty obvious this is on the agenda and also, make sure the public are reminded that we've had enough of experts.  Anything the government did, they did because of fucking experts and now the bastard experts have stitched up the government and the people.  All their fault.  Scientists are as bad as judges.

I don't give a fuck about this man breaking the curfew or whatever it's called.  It's a quotidian event, nearly all humans think they know best.  Fucking hell, call the pigs.

I hate the way we run things so much, I can't really say anything legal about it.

[Captain Z]

Did I imagine it or did I read that several scientists on the SAGE panel were having talks to form a new independent advisory committee this week?

[Zetetic]

Something like that:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/publics-trust-in-science-at-risk-warns-former-no-10-adviser

Their YouTube channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqwC56XTP8F9zeEUCOttPQ