© The Daily Mail
No tailored propaganda here . . . .
Life comes at you fast, especially in the midst of a global pandemic, and nowhere was this more evident than the front pages of the
Daily Mail newspaper, which displayed a neck-breaking 180 in mood in less than 24 hours.
Thursday's front page was devoted to extolling the virtues of "New Tory star" Chancellor Rishi Sunak aka "Dr Feelgood" and his £30 billion cash economic stimulus package, dubbed a 'vaccination,' which would stave off the worst economic effects of the coronavirus.
"Cash for sick workers" and "Shops' taxes slashed" were the breathless (pardon the pun) yet genius solutions to the coronavirus threat to the economy thanks to the "biggest budget splurge in 30 years." A regrettable choice of words perhaps, given the scenes of panic-buying from across the world, as the global citizenry struggles to come to terms with the new reality in post-corona capitalism.
Comment: Johnson, not one to let an opportunity go wasted, has
postponed London's mayoral election in which liberal immigration advocate and political irritant Sadiq Khan, was up for re-election:
Voters in England were scheduled to go to the polls on May 7 — including for the London Mayoral contest — but just hours after the PM's spokesperson said they were "working to facilitate" the elections, they have now been taken off the 2020 political calendar.
Responding to the move, London Mayor - who was up for re-election - has taken to Twitter to insist that he "will continue to work with the Government and experts to help London manage coronavirus over the weeks and months ahead."
While Independent candidate for London Mayor Rory Stewart claimed that was the "right decision," adding that the government should be moving more quickly to "close gatherings and schools."
Johnson came in for some Twitter
mocking when he invoked the image of Dunkirk at a meeting of tech companies asking for help.
The meeting on Wednesday night in Downing Street saw around 30 different big tech firms in attendance, including Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon. Johnson reportedly used his speech - described as Churchillian by one guest - to try to encourage the tech industry in the UK to provide useful resources to contain the outbreak.
The description of Johnson's summit as a "digital Dunkirk" riled many on Twitter, who took issue with yet another war analogy to characterize the prime minister's approach to a major issue.
There were also sarcastic takes on the attendee evoking the War.
Other critics of the PM's meeting also took a swipe at reports that Dominic Cummings - Johnson's chief adviser - asked tech bosses what they could commit to in the fight against the deadly virus. "Have they tried all paying their taxes?"another cheekily asked.
It comes after Johnson emerged from a COBRA meeting to tell reporters assembled at No 10 on Wednesday afternoon that the Covid-19 pandemic is "the worst public health crisis for a generation" and warned Britain that the worst of the crisis is still weeks away.
Comment: The Iraqi military are warning that this rocket attack does not warrant a retaliation from the Americans. The attack apparently left several Iraqi air defense soldiers critically wounded. Such attacks have been a pretty regular occurrence since the assassination of Soleimani. They'll probably continue as long as the U.S. refuses to leave Iraq. They're there illegally now, after all, but that has never stopped them in the past.
- 15 rockets hit Iraqi base housing US troops in latest Soleimani revenge attack - UPDATE: 2 Yanks, 1 Brit killed
- 2 rockets hit Baghdad's Green Zone setting off sirens at US embassy
- US-led coalition military base 'impacted' after multiple rockets fired at Baghdad's Green Zone
- Kirkuk, Iraq: K-1 base hosting US troops struck by 2 rockets
The Americans had "retaliated" to the previous attack by attacking five sites that killed 3 Iraqi soldiers, two police and a civilian. These strikes are most likely revenge for those attacks. This comes after the U.S. military said that their "retaliation" would "have an effect on deterring ... future strikes of this nature." Right. It doesn't help that the positions they targeted weren't even Kataib Hezbollah, whom the Americans blamed for the previous rockets.