The Hill You Die On

In 1973 it became compulsory for motorcyclists in the UK to wear crash helmets. This was decried as a ‘gross infringement of personal liberty’ in Parliament, although almost 88% of motorcyclists in the country were wearing helmets anyway. My Dad wore one during the 1960s, when he owned a moped which was quaintly, if highly inappropriately, called an NSU Quickly (its top speed was just 25mph). The helmet saved his life when, in what must have been a bizarrely slow-motion event, he came off the bike and cracked his head on the kerb.

 

When the government brought in legislation in 1983 to make the wearing of seat belts in the front of cars compulsory, motorists protested that it removed their right to have their rib cages crushed by the steering wheel in the event of a collision, and the rights of their passengers to be hurled through the windscreen in similar circumstances. It was only in 1991 that it became mandatory for passengers in the rear of vehicles to wear seat belts. These passengers were more sanguine; few complained.

 

It’s now rare to see someone in a car not wearing a seatbelt, and rarer yet to see anyone on a motorbike not wearing a helmet; the protests about the laws that made them compulsory are now long forgotten. But now we have the controversy and opposition to the wearing of a face mask or other face covering in shops as of Friday, 24^th July 2020, to go with the requirement already in place to wear one on public transport.

Opponents of wearing face masks fall into a number of different camps. There are people who seem to believe that wearing a face mask will dangerously reduce oxygen levels in the wearer, potentially causing death by hypoxia. Were this the case, one would expect doctors, surgeons, other health care professionals, and those whose work environments require them to wear masks for long periods to have been dropping like flies over the years, but I cannot find any evidence to support this.

Some people feel that wearing a mask infringes their human rights, and while I haven’t gone into The Human Rights Act 1998 in detail, there are probably parts of that act which would support that argument. The rights we are afforded under the act may be restricted or withdrawn under certain circumstances however; to prevent disorder, or protect public safety or health for example. Relying on ‘rights’ may not be as watertight as many may think, and not just with regard to masks.

 

A woman in Hyde Park protesting against face masks last Sunday.

I have always believed that the individual has what might best be described as a contract with society. In exchange for the rights an individual has, they have responsibilities. Unfortunately, it seems that those who shout the loudest about their own rights are the most careless in considering the rights of others. In this case, the right not to wear a mask must be balanced against the responsibility to avoid potentially infecting others. And, if someone believes that they have a right not to wear a mask, it is only reasonable for them to respect the rights of shopkeepers not to admit them to their premises without one.

 

There is an argument that face masks do not offer a degree of protection that makes them worth wearing, and it’s true, wearing a mask is not going to categorically prevent the wearer from contracting coronavirus. It will, however, reduce the risk, and more importantly, it will significantly reduce the risk of the wearer transmitting the virus to others. In Vietnam, a country of 97 million people which has a land border with China, an early lockdown and the compulsory wearing of facemasks has meant that the country has had a grand total of 382 cases of coronavirus and precisely no deaths whatsoever.

 

Ah, you might say, Vietnam is a one-party state, where the rule of the Communist Party will brook no opposition. The compulsory wearing of face masks (or muzzles as some commentators have tediously taken to dubbing them) in the UK would be just the first step on the road to totalitarianism (apparently). This train of thought must go hand in hand with the ‘plandemic’ theory that posits that Covid-19 is a hoax, part of a global conspiracy with population control at its heart. This sort of theory assumes a level of competence on the part of the UK government, and a degree of co-operation between governments the world over that frankly is not supported by even the most casual observation.

 

I wonder if those who subscribe to the idea that making us wear masks is part of a conspiracy to control us have ever considered that it is just as possible that they are being influenced into not wearing them as part of a plan to increase the rate of infection in pursuit of the dubious herd immunity theory?

 

Some say that people aren’t wearing face masks properly, thereby reducing their effectiveness, and there is truth in that. The idea is supported by Professor Susan Michie, a member of Government scientific advisory group Sage, who told the Evening Standard that she had seen people wearing masks that didn't cover their nose, or removing them by pulling on the front, rather than the straps. The idea that because people do not wear masks correctly there is no point in making anyone wear them is comparable to saying that because some drivers do not observe speed limits, we might as well abolish them. Better, as Professor Michie went on to say, to teach people how to wear masks correctly.

 

It has been said that making the wearing of masks mandatory now, some four months after lockdown began, and now that it is being relaxed, is the ultimate in shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted and is actually about ‘maintaining the fear factor.’ More likely, it is that had we been required to wear masks from 23^rd March when lockdown began, demand would have outstripped supply in the same way it did with toilet rolls, as we saw shelves in supermarkets stripped bare. And, as lockdown eases and people are being encouraged to return to the shops, to their normal place of work, and to use public transport more, social distancing becomes more difficult. As people spend more time in closer proximity to others, the need to wear masks becomes more important, not less.

 

Some opponents of face masks believe that making them compulsory will stop people from going to the shops, that it will be the death of the High Street. A more probable potential cause of the demise of the High Street is another lockdown if cases spike again; wearing masks is actually more likely to save the High Street than kill it.

Wearing masks is widespread and taken for granted in many countries but even during this pandemic, when in April, 83% of Italians and 63% of Spaniards wore them, just 25% of us Brits did. It makes me wonder if there is an element of British exceptionalism at work here.

I admit that in previous weeks I have worn a mask only rarely (it was required when I made a visit to the doctors’ surgery), but I have started wearing one to the shops recently, and I will wear one when shopping from Friday onwards.  I don’t feel that I am being coerced nor being turned into a ‘servile dehumanised automaton’ by doing so, not for the hour or so I spend in shops each week. I haven’t used public transport since March, and don’t have any immediate plans to do so, but I’ll happily wear a mask if and when I do.

 

The opposition and hysteria that surround mask wearing seem completely disproportionate, but for some people it seems to be the hill they are prepared to die on…perhaps literally.

 

 

 

 

 

"Illegal activity on your broadband account"

When lockdown began, I noticed a significant decrease in the number of unsolicited phone calls I was receiving. Like almost everyone else on the planet who owns a mobile phone or has a landline, I’ve become used to one or the other of them ringing from time to time and, upon answering it, being greeted by some opening remarks that can only preface a junk, or scam call. During lockdown, they stopped.

 

Now that lockdown has started to ease, the calls have started again; presumably the call centres where the calls originate from have begun reopening (no home working for their workers, obviously).

 

There is a fairly wide variety of scam, junk, fraud, or nuisance calls (call them what you will) in addition to the phishing emails and text messages that arrive periodically. A good many years ago I registered our home landline with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), which cuts out a lot of the cold calls, but not all of them. The TPS website can be found at https://www.tpsonline.org.uk/

 

At one point we were getting three or four calls a week, usually seemingly harmless calls purporting to be surveys. Without exception, there was an actual human being at the other end of the line, and I used to make it my business to so thoroughly piss them off that they would hang up before I did; on one occasion I was even accused of wasting their time. As I pointed out, it was they who had rung me, not the other way round.

 

I like to think that I am sufficiently sceptical to not be taken in by the scam callers, although as I recounted in a previous blog, I was once taken off guard by someone purporting to be from BT and revealed rather more personal information than was wise. That was a question of being hit at the right (or rather, wrong, time) and proved to me how easy it is to get scammed. Fortunately, no harm was done, and I still have no idea what the purpose of the call was. That call proved to me that when people blame victims of scams for their naivety, they may well be being unreasonable. It can happen to anyone.

 

Almost without exception, the calls I now get on my mobile are of the “We understand you have been involved in an accident that wasn’t your fault,” nature. These all start with a recorded introduction these days, and I refuse to engage with them, just hang up and block the caller’s number. I’m not sure that blocking numbers has any effect though, since all the calls seem to come from different numbers that have presumably been spoofed.

 

I know that there are apps to block calls from withheld numbers or numbers not in your phone’s contact list, but I do receive genuine calls from such numbers, so this would have the effect of me not getting calls I do want to receive.

 

Considering their apparent frequency, I have yet to receive either a call purporting to be from Windows/Microsoft telling me that my computer has some sort of virus, or one of the courier fraud calls. We did get one of the Amazon Prime scam calls recently. I was out of the house at the time, and Val took the call which works by telling the victim that a fraudster has impersonated them to sign up to Prime. The caller then claims that they need remote access to the victim’s computer to fix a security flaw. Val phoned me when she received the call, and I was sufficiently sceptical to tell her to hang up (I hadn’t heard of the specific type of fraud, but it just sounded wrong.) We had a further similar call a week or so later, so I hung up and touch wood, have not had any more.

 

Last week we started getting plagued by automated calls from a series of unusual numbers – and some withheld numbers – that start with a recorded message claiming that action is needed on our part to prevent our broadband from being disconnected within 24-48 hours due to illegal activity on the account. We had six of these calls in just two days, and by some bizarre coincidence, when the first one came in, our desktop computer decided to spontaneously shut down, which spooked Val sufficiently for her to give some credence to the call. Given that we get very, very few legitimate calls on our landline I turned the handset to silent. Genuine callers could leave a voicemail.

 

Clearly these calls are nothing more than a scam, designed to either obtain bank details, either by asking for a one-off payment to maintain your account, or aimed at gaining remote access to your computer. Either way, the most appropriate response is obviously simply to hang up. Enough people are sufficiently taken in or are scared enough to follow through on the call, and if you think it can’t happen to you, think again. You might not be taken in by this one, but at some point you may well get a call that catches you unaware, or as I was with the supposed call from BT years back, gets you just at the right time. In the same way that security services have to get it right all the time, and terrorists only need to get it right once, so it is with the scam calls.

 

 

Since scammers are now adept at spoofing telephone numbers, when your phone rings and the caller claims to be your bank, or your internet provider, or anyone with whom you have dealings, the number displayed that they are ringing from is no proof, nor even a guide, that that is the number calling you. I have long felt that just as your bank or internet provider require you to identify yourself when you call them, so they ought to have to confirm that they are who they say they are when they call you. If your bank calls you, it is normal practice for them to take you through security questions so they know that the person answering the phone is the account holder, but only by deliberately getting one wrong would you have any inkling that the caller wasn’t genuine. And, as I have found out, if you do so, they rightly won’t proceed with the call (although you do at least know it was genuine!)

 

What I would like to see is a system whereby when you set up telephone banking, or create an account with an internet service provider, or your mobile phone network, that along with the password and security questions that enable them to identify you, a reciprocal system is put in place where you give them a different password which, when they call you, they have to provide to prove that yes, it is your bank, or ISP, or whoever. It probably wouldn’t be fool proof, but it would be a lot better than nothing, which is what we have now.

 

The scam internet disconnection calls seem to have tailed off, either due to my reporting them on BT’s website (https://www.bt.com/consumer/edw/scams/) or through TPS kicking in. We’ve gone more than 24 hours without getting a call now (and our internet hasn’t been cut off), so perhaps I can take the phone off silent mode.

 

 

 

Counter Intuitive World

When Donald Trump used the phrase ‘far-left fascism’ in a speech at Mount Rushmore recently, my first instinct was to believe that he had misspoken. Left-wing fascism sounds like a contradiction in terms after all, what with fascism being normally defined as ‘far-right, authoritarian ultra-nationalism characterised by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition,’ and being principally associated with Nazi Germany, and Italy under Mussolini.

 

Having Googled it, I find it turns out that left-wing fascism is an actual thing. The term was coined by sociologists Jürgen Habermas and Irving Louis Horowitz, and identifies traits in left-wing politics more normally associated with the far-right, such as intolerance of political opponents, suppression of free speech, and a lack of respect for democratic principles.

 

Since Trump has previously railed against antifa, it’s probable that they were one of the groups he was referring to, and given the recent return to prominence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, it’s likely he was including them in his remarks as well.

 

The resurgence of the BLM movement, concomitant with the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, has not been without controversy. To some, BLM is a Marxist, anti-police, radical organisation, hell-bent (in the USA at least) on tearing the country down. To others, it stands as support for the concept of racial justice and opposition to police brutality, which is how it started in 2013 following the shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin, and the subsequent acquittal of the man who shot him.

 

Deliberately or misguidedly, there are many people on social media conflating the organisation – Black Lives Matter – with the principle – black lives matter.  Saying, “black lives matter” often gets met with “all lives matter” as though saying that black lives matter suggests that they matter more, which so far as I can see, no one is saying. As a rejoinder, “all lives matter” fails to acknowledge the prejudice and discrimination that many black people suffer, but there again, as even a cursory glance at social media (Twitter in particular) shows, there are plenty of people who believe that racism does not exist. Those who say “all lives matter” may think they are being inclusive, but it sounds dismissive of black lives having any value. And I’m sure that some who say it actually believe that they are in some way being discriminated against by the concept that black lives matter, that somehow it means that black people are being treated more favourably than they are.

 

There’s a perverse logic at work here that seems to say, give other people the same rights as me, and I am disadvantaged, my rights are diminished.

 

In fact, as a tweet I saw this week shows, there are people who believe that footballers taking the knee, and wearing the Black Live Matter logo on their shirts is racist in itself. That’s as obtuse as it would be if I stole your lunch every day, refused to accept that I was a thief for doing so, but accused you of being one on the day you took it back from me. But there again, complaining about racism is seen by some as worse than racism itself.

 

Amplified by social media, we now live in a world where no good deed goes unpunished, where good intentions are framed as offensive, where almost everything is counter-intuitive, and where two people can view the same event and reach diametrically opposite conclusions. You only have to look at the reactions to Prime Minister’s Questions to see proof of that.

 

Writing in The Spectator, author Anthony Horowitz explained why he has lost belief in the Conservatives: “What is the word for it when the entire country sees what is obviously true but is repeatedly told that it isn’t? And when the person telling you doesn’t really care?” That is the point we have reached, when a politician can say today that 2 + 2 = 4, but tomorrow says that 2 + 2 = 5, that 2 + 2 has never equalled 4, and they never said it did. This applies to most politicians but is amplified when it is the government doing it.

 

When found to be obfuscating, of covering up the truth, a politician’s immediate response will invariably be, “We have been perfectly clear and transparent,” despite having been anything but. Last Sunday, after Boris Johnson had said there would be no checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain, Michael Gove contradicted him on TV by saying that there would be. When pressed by interviewer Andrew Marr to say which of those statements was incorrect, Gove said “Let’s not be over semantic,” which is stretching the definition of semantics beyond breaking point.

 

How did we end up in a world where everything is found so offensive? I am not a great fan of Starbucks, although 30,000 stores serving 100 million customers across 78 markets prove their popularity, but I feel sorry for them as they appear to have managed to upset everyone on all sides of the black lives matter debate. When they banned employees from wearing t-shirts with ‘black lives matter’ on them, #BoycottStarbucks started trending. When one of their baristas gave a Muslim woman a drink with ‘ISIS’ written on it, #Boycott Starbucks trended again. And when they announced that they were printing 250,000 t-shirts with ‘black lives matter’ printed on them, #BoycottStarbucks trended once more. If you ask me, a more valid reason to boycott them is that the company is highly adept at avoiding paying tax; in 2018 they paid just £4m of tax in the UK, despite making £387m worth of sales.

 

Hand in hand with the boycott is cancel culture, the practice of withdrawing support for public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Similarly, there is no-platforming - the practice of refusing someone an opportunity to make their ideas or beliefs known publicly, because you think these beliefs are dangerous or unacceptable. Both of these practices are justified on the basis that it is wrong to give legitimacy to racism or fascism, but what was that definition of fascism again, the suppression of opposition, and of free speech?

 

The way in which we have traditionally defined people, – by gender, by political opinion, by race, by sexuality, or by any other single, or simple characteristic – has become inadequate, and in many instances, offensive to some. And as people increasingly become defined by multiple adjectives, and become split into smaller and smaller groups, rather like the multiplicity of Judean activist groups in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, so the opportunities to offend – and be offended – multiply.

 

The idea that everyone is entitled to an opinion is under threat. In the name of free speech, unpopular opinions are suppressed and it is no longer enough to disagree with a point of view, it is now necessary to be mortally offended by it and to discredit and vilify the person expressing it. Somehow, we have become so easily triggered that the idea of scrolling past something with which we disagree without commenting is impossible.

 

The world is becoming increasingly counter-intuitive, increasingly intolerant, and increasingly inclined to blame victims when they have the temerity to protest that they are being discriminated against, disadvantaged, or marginalised. The mantra, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” much repeated by our mothers and grandmothers in years gone by seems to have gone by the board, but the world would be a much better place if we returned to it.

 

Behind Closed Doors

Since the Premier League returned to action in mid-June, a month when the Football Association’s rules normally prohibit the game being played in England, I have only watched some brief moments of play from the live games that have been televised, and one episode of Match of The Day. It has been unusual, to say the least.

 

I saw some of was last Sunday’s encounter between Southampton and Manchester City. Saints were 1-0 up when I switched on just after half-time, and they somehow they retained that lead to record a slightly surprising victory against a City side that spent the entire second half camped just outside the home team’s penalty area. It was fascinating to watch, even if it did resemble an Attack v Defence training session.

Southampton take on Manchester City behind closed doors at St Marys. Picture: Reuters

The decision to play out the rest of the 2019-20 season, but without spectators, followed much discussion about the most appropriate method of putting the season to bed. Some options, null and void, leaving the table as it stood, calculating a final table on a Points Per Game (PPG) basis, all had their proponents and opponents. Actually playing the outstanding games was clearly the fairest option and you would have to have an extremely hard heart not to accept that Liverpool’s crowning as champions was merited, and authenticated, having been achieved on the pitch rather than a spreadsheet.

 

Every Premier League game since matches resumed is being televised, with Sky and BT Sports duopoly set aside. The BBC have screened games (the Southampton – Manchester City game was watched by 5.7 million viewers, the largest Premier League audience ever), and Sky have broadcast matches on their free-to-air channel, Pick, while Amazon Prime have also enabled non-subscribers to watch games on their channel. This has resulted in an even wider variety of kick-off times than usual (this coming Saturday there are games kicking off at 12.30pm, 3pm, 5.30pm, and 8pm).

 

The variety of kick-off times, along with the added crowd soundtrack, are just two of a number of features that are noticeably different about Premier League football during this time of coronavirus. In addition, the Premier League sanctioned a change to allow teams to make five substitutes from a bench of seven from the June restart, and drinks breaks half way through each half have been introduced in the name of player welfare.

Manchester City players take a drinks break.

Also noticeable has been the apparently spontaneous growth in the number of insignia on players’ shirts. Aside from their name on the back, the sponsors’ logos, and the club badge, teams are now sporting a Black Lives Matter logo (having initially had those words in place of players’ names), and one for the NHS. Those last two are obviously topical, and one would imagine, temporary due to the exceptional times in which we find ourselves, but temporary and exceptional changes have a habit of becoming the norm; how many of the changes that we have seen in the Premier League will become permanent, and how far down English football’s pyramid might they extend?

 

The International Football Association Board (IFAB) are expected to sanction the five substitutes rule for the 2020-21 season, a move already criticised by managers of the Premier League’s lesser lights on the basis that it favours the better sides, which inevitably it will. A permanent extension to five substitutions being allowable could mean those five selected from seven on the bench, or even from the whole of a team’s squad, as happens in the World Cup. Five substitutes is a change that I’d expect to see adopted permanently, and one that would probably filter down to the lower echelons of the game; opening up games to more players would be beneficial in keeping fringe players more engaged.

 

I am sure that drinks breaks are something that the broadcasters could get behind. Forty-five minutes is a long time for commercial networks to go without ad breaks and the idea of splitting games into thirds or quarters has raised its head in the past, so drinks breaks in Premier League, Championship, and FA Cup games that feature on TV are going to happen, even if some managers aren’t keen. Jurgen Klopp likes them, Frank Lampard and Pep Guardiola are less enthusiastic, but as we have seen before, it’s not really up to them, what with the broadcasters holding sway. Elsewhere in the game they are less likely to become commonplace, except on exceptionally hot days.

 

Flexible kick-off times, fixed solely for the benefit of broadcasters, have been a feature of top-flight football for many years. Now that even more flexibility has been introduced since those annoying spectators don’t have to be accommodated, expect that flexibility to extend as a permanent feature. While it’s unlikely that three o’clock kick offs on a Wednesday afternoon will become commonplace (Millwall are playing Middlesbrough in the Championship in a game that kicked off at that time as I write this), I would anticipate that increasing reliance on income from broadcasters will necessitate clubs accepting ever more extreme kick-off times. Broadcasters will probably also push for an end to the 3 o’clock blackout (no games can currently be televised on Saturday afternoons between 2.45 pm and 5.15 pm to avoid a detrimental effect on attendances elsewhere).

 

Although the Premier League and Championship have resumed for 2019-20, and the National League is scheduled to complete its play-offs in July and early August, there is no date set yet for the start of the 2020-21 season at any level. The prospect of non-League football being played without spectators has been ruled out, and I am sure that the Premier League would be reluctant to start the new season without fans, but guidance is presumably required from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The start of the Premier League season will be delayed as the current season will not end till August, but when it starts my guess would be that crowds will be limited to allow for social distancing, probably allowing home fans only, and possibly only home season ticket holders at that. While behind closed doors games are a necessary compromise to allow the season to finish, there won’t be an appetite to start a new season on that basis.  With limited crowds, and a slightly subdued atmosphere, perhaps piped cheers and applause are here to stay.

 

The socially distanced crowd at a game in Denmark.

Playing behind closed doors has been ruled out in non-League football, and with many clubs outside the Football League relying heavily on income from social activities and their bars, where the precautions and protocols adopted by pubs will be harder to replicate, non-League football is going to need all of the fans through the turnstiles that it can muster. Perhaps fortunately, the fact that at many non-League grounds even the best attendance of the season will represent perhaps only 30% of the ground capacity, this may not be an insurmountable problem.

 

I’m not sure whether to be reassured or worried by the lack of any proposed protocols that would cater for a second wave of coronavirus happening at some point during the 2020-21 season, whenever it may start. If none are in place when we kick off again in earnest, then we risk repeating the chaos and confusion that began in March when the season was suspended.