The BBC has issued some “expert” advice on how to hug your granny without killing her.

According to Catherine Noakes, “a specialist in airborne infections at the University of Leeds”, the secret is to “hug in moderation”, “turn your face away slightly”, and always bear in mind the risk you are taking because “you are very close to their breath at that moment.”

Professor Noakes has served as a member of the Boris Johnson administration’s SAGE advisory committee. As you might expect, she exhibits zero awareness of how absurd it is that an engineering professor from a second-tier university should be lecturing 66 million people on how and how not to hug their loved ones. Nor, of course, does the BBC.

She says:

You need to be a bit careful. It depends on who you are hugging. If it’s a grandparent hugging a grandchild and the grandparents are fully vaccinated, that’s probably quite a low risk activity most of the time.

“Most of the time.” What on earth was the need for that dripping wet qualification?

But it would worry me if we could advocate hugging all our friends every time we meet because that’s going to perpetuate an awful lot of additional close contact that could still spread the virus. Perhaps, you know, don’t hug everybody you know. Restrict to very small numbers of close family who really value a hug.

Just a quick reminder: this is a professor of engineering at a second-tier university deciding on your behalf who will benefit most from your hugs — and who is better off being excluded.

Don’t hug too frequently. Keep it short, not face to face. Turn your face away slightly.

So, she’s recommending one of those awkward “fellowship” hugs that you occasionally encounter in church services. She doesn’t want the experience to be in any way enjoyable or affectionate, let alone lingering. Does she actually understand what a proper hug entails? Evidently not.

And even wearing a mask could help.

This is getting silly now. No, wait. It was never not silly.

The reality is when you hug someone you are going to be very close to them. You are very close to their breath at that moment.

No, shit Sherlock! If only the rest of us had such insights — then maybe we too could be guiding government policy ruining lives and destroying the economy.

It’s not just the BBC which is playing this ridiculous game. Elsewhere, the bloated hysteria-monger Piers Morgan has declared in one of his witty tweets:

Some personal news: My own hugging ban will continue indefinitely past May 17.

And the feeble and terminally woke London freesheet the Evening Standard has commissioned one of its lifestyle journalists to produce 400 words of piffle about how she never liked hugging anyway:

Then, as we were saying goodbye, a friend leaned in and gave me a full-body hug. “I’m doing hugs! I’m double jabbed,” she announced. It’s not that I wasn’t glad that she wanted to give me a squeeze; it’s that I didn’t think we were at that stage yet and, if I’m honest, I’ve got used to just waving or miming some fabulous air kisses.

All of this serves an ulterior purpose, of course. It’s how the mainstream media conspires to push the government’s propaganda narrative in the guise of independent journalism.

The government message here is twofold. First, we are being told that whether or not you’re “allowed” to hug loved ones is now in the gift of the state, not something you can decide for yourself.

See, for example, Harry Cole’s breathless report for the Sun:

Loved ones will be able to hold each other for the first time in months after the Prime Minister confirms Covid-19 rates have sunk low enough to proceed to the next stage of lockdown lifting a week today.

Secondly, it is being made clear to us brainwashed proles that even though hugging is now allowed, it is ONLY being allowed on sufferance, but the government’s draconian policies aren’t fascistic at all and are entirely reasonable and proportionate.

Just don’t look at what’s happening in Texas and Florida, proles, that’s the important thing. Otherwise you might begin to wonder whether your government is being entirely honest with you.

James Delingpole is the host of the Delingpod podcast, which can be viewed here on Odysee.