Apologies for not filing an update yesterday. Been incredibly busy with Free Speech Union business for the last couple of days. As regular readers will know, we wrote to Ofcom at the beginning of June informing the broadcast watchdog that if it didn’t withdraw its coronavirus guidance, which cautions its licensees against broadcasting “statements that seek to question or undermine the advice of public health bodies on the Coronavirus, or otherwise undermine people’s trust in the advice of mainstream sources of information about the disease”, we would apply to the High Court to have that guidance struck down. It would be an exaggeration to say it has played a major role in suppressing public debate about the pandemic and the Government’s management of it. But it has undoubtedly been a factor. Anyway, Ofcom has dug its heels in so we’re pressing ahead.
We had to file all the papers by close of play today and, inevitably, it was a last-minute rush. Apart from me, the team consists of two members of the FSU’s Legal Advisory Council – Dan Tench and Paul Diamond, both working pro bono – and Peter Ainsworth, the FSU’s Case Management Director. We had to challenge the guidance within three months of it being published and since it was published on March 23rd, the same day the Government imposed a full lockdown, we had to file today.
That means we’ve been working flat out over the past 48 hours to pull together all the documents, including a 5,000-word witness statement from Dr John Lee, the retired pathologist who’s written a string of brilliant pieces about the virus for the Spectator. Here is a key section from John’s statement:
A key error that I would like to highlight is the characterisation of COVID-19 by the Government and also by the broadcast media.
As has been well publicised, COVID-19 is a disease caused by a novel coronavirus usually causing a respiratory infection. In some cases it can be directly fatal, or at least a strongly contributory cause of death. Many of the fundamental parameters of the disease were unknown when the outbreak first came significantly to public attention in February and March of this year, and are still the subject of much uncertainty. For example, its reproduction rate in various settings (that is the number of people who will catch the disease from one person who already has it), the mortality rate, the percentage of the population who may be susceptible to catching it, and how the passage of the disease may vary with climate and seasonal changes.
There are of course a large number of serious human infectious diseases many of which we have largely conquered through vaccination or other public health initiatives. But globally many diseases remain. In addition to the burden of chronic disease, recent figures estimate 1.5 million annual deaths from tuberculosis, 1.4 million from diarrhoeal diseases, 1 million deaths from AIDS, 400,000 from malaria. Lower respiratory tract diseases are estimated to cause 3 million deaths annually, of which the various forms of influenza may kill 28,000 or more people in the United Kingdom in a bad year. The question is where does COVID-19 rank in the panoply of other serious diseases?
The answer from Government and the media was that COVID-19 is a uniquely serious disease presenting a grave threat to human beings and to our society. In January, February and March 2020, the broadcast media repeatedly showed graphic images from, for example, China, Italy and New York, illustrating hospitals apparently overrun with COVID-19 patients. This inspired a Government response unprecedented in peacetime.
I believe that this characterisation of COVID-19 is highly questionable. It is certainly a contagious disease, though not obviously significantly more contagious than a typical influenza, and much less contagious than diseases such as measles. It is also true that in a small proportion of cases, particularly in elderly people with co-morbidities, it can be an extremely serious disease, and in a small fraction of those cases, it can lead to death. But the initial framing of this disease was seriously flawed. The infection fatality rate (the proportion of those who catch the disease and die) came down from an initial wild estimate from the World Health Organisation of 3.4% (which would indeed have been an emergency and crisis) to 0.9% by Imperial College London, to 0.67% also by ICL, to 0.2% by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and will probably finally be around 0.1% (very similar to influenza).
But even this fails to characterise the epidemic properly. Those under the age of 18 have a vanishingly low chance of being seriously ill with this disease or dying of it, those under 60 a very low chance, and even older patients into their eighties who are otherwise fit and well, a low chance of this disease significantly affecting their overall level of health or their lifespan.
I would not want to be misinterpreted. Because this is a new disease and therefore could potentially affect a large number of people, I believe that it was reasonable to believe at the inception of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom that it constituted a potentially important and serious public health challenge for the Government and other institutions such as the National Health Service.
However, I do not consider, from early on in the epidemic, that it could continue reasonably or rationally to be characterised as a threat out of all proportion to other commonly experienced public health challenges, including the annual contagion of influenza. (In Germany, for example, mortality in the seasonal influenza epidemic of 2017/18 was about 21,500, while to date Covid-19 mortality is less than 9,000.) The alarm raised by the potential for a dangerous epidemic was rapidly replaced by increasing information showing, to informed and unbiased assessment, that the highly probable outcome of the epidemic was well within the envelope experienced in many years of the last quarter-century. At the same time, clear harms from the un-assessed policy of lockdown became apparent very soon after its inception.
This alternative interpretation was suppressed to the extent that the narrative concerning the disease presented on the broadcast media still maintains unchallenged belief in the disproportionate severity of the Covid-19 epidemic, long after this has been untenable in the face of accumulating evidence.
If one studies datasets published by the Office for National Statistics, and calculates all cause mortality for winter/spring for the last 27 years corrected for population for each year, 2019/2020 ranks not first, second or third, but eighth. It is also clear that for several of the last six years there has been lower than usual mortality, meaning that, in the unavoidable cycles of nature, a year of excess mortality should have been expected.
It also turns out that a key early assumption is incorrect, namely that the entire population is vulnerable to the disease. A large proportion of the population (40–60%) show immunological evidence of immune responses to this virus without ever having been exposed to it. This is because as many as one in six respiratory infections in a normal winter are caused by other coronaviruses, and, perhaps not entirely surprisingly, these stimulate immune responses that cross-react with the new virus. Yet even now, the broadcast media continue to repeat the initial incorrect assumption, many weeks after something that seemed highly likely from the outset, namely that many of us have some immunity to the disease, has new clear data to support it.
It seems to me that the conceptualisation and contextualisation of the disease, designed to support the official narrative established in the earliest stages of the epidemic, has not been seriously scrutinised or challenged by the broadcast media to date. Particularly in the key months of February, March and April, I believe that this lack of challenge has been a major factor in the formulation of responses which have been inappropriate and caused major collateral damage.
In my statement, I focus less on the way the Government has exaggerated the contagiousness and deadliness of the disease and more on the wrong-headedness of Ofcom seeking to suppress dissent when there is so little scientific consensus about the disease and how best to minimise the harm it causes.
The right to free speech is one of our most precious liberties – perhaps the most precious of all – and the fact that we’re in the midst of a public health crisis is a reason to protect it, not curtail it. All of us, whether scientists, politicians or ordinary citizens, are doing our best to understand the threat posed by COVID-19 and how best to minimise the harm it causes, both directly and indirectly. There are, at present, no settled views about any of these issues, and there is certainly no consensus among scientists that can be described as “the science”.
That is obvious from the number of times public authorities, including the Government, have changed their mind about how best to minimise the damage wrought by the virus. To give just a few examples:
a. on January 14th the WHO tweeted that there was “no clear evidence of human to human transmission of the novel #coronavirus”; on March 12th it declared that the Covid-19 outbreak was a “global pandemic”;
b. the WHO and the UK Government initially advised that the wearing of face masks did not play a major role in protecting people from infection outside healthcare settings; on June 5th the WHO issued new guidance, recommending the wearing of face masks in community settings and the Government made the wearing of face masks mandatory on public transport on June 15th;
c. on January 29th the WHO’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, praised China’s policy of locking down the population of Wuhan, as well as those in surrounding areas, saying it “helped prevent the spread of coronavirus”; on April 29th, the WHO’s top emergencies expert, Dr Mike Ryan, praised the response to the pandemic of Sweden, which did not lock down its population, as a “model” for the rest of the world;
d. on April 2nd the WHO issued a Situation Report in which it warned that people infected with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic could infect others; on June 6th the WHO’s technical lead on the pandemic, Maria Van Kerkhove, said at a press conference that examples of asymptomatic people infecting others were “very rare”;
e. on March 5th Boris Johnson appeared on This Morning and told the presenters that stopping public gatherings in order to reduce the spread of the virus would be “quite draconian”, and that one theory being discussed, and which he appeared to endorse, was that the British population could “take it on the chin”, “take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures”; on March 23rd Boris announced that to prevent the NHS becoming overwhelmed (due in part to insufficient numbers of ventilators), the British public “must stay at home” and the Government was ordering all non-essential shops to close, as well as libraries, playgrounds, outdoor gyms and places of worship, and it was prohibiting gatherings of more than two people in public and stopping all social events, including weddings and baptisms;
f. on May 24th Boris Johnson announced that primary schools would reopen on June 1st, with secondaries reopening on 15 June, and expressed the hope that all primary school children would enjoy at least four weeks of school before the summer holidays; on June 8th Health Secretary Matt Hancock conceded at the daily Downing Street press briefing that all schools would not reopen until September “at the earliest”.
Reviewing the constantly changing policies of public authorities, particularly the UK Government, it is hard to disagree with the words of Lord Sumption in an article published in the Mail on Sunday on June 21st 2020: “Does the Government have a policy for coronavirus? Indeed it does. In fact, it has several. One for each month of the year, all mutually inconsistent and none of them properly thought through. Sometimes, Governments have to change tack. It shows that they are attending closely to a changing situation. But this crisis has exposed something different and more disturbing: a dysfunctional Government with a deep-seated incoherence at the heart of its decision-making processes.”
In light of this, it was wrong of Ofcom to issue guidance advising its licensees not to broadcast material likely to undermine people’s trust in the advice of public authorities on the grounds that doing so is potentially harmful. In fact, based on the current advice of the UK Government, ignoring huge swathes of its initial advice — “take it on the chin” — would have been sensible and prevented more harm than it caused. It now seems plain that the Government’s response to the crisis from month to month has indeed been deeply incoherent, with its advice and the advice of state agencies often changing radically from one week to the next. In such circumstances, the best way to protect the public from harm is to allow scientists, experts, journalists and others to vigorously challenge the Government and public authorities, without the threat of broadcasters being sanctioned by the state regulator if those views happen not to accord with the constantly-changing position of the Government or other public bodies.
Do John and I have evidence that broadcasters deliberately chose not to feature sceptical voices on the airwaves as a result of Ofcom’s coronavirus guidance? No direct evidence, no, but we share the impression of many people in the sceptical camp that the coverage of the crisis by national broadcasters has been heavily slanted in favour of the official narrative.
John cites the fact that he’s been asked to appear on American radio stations more often than on British ones:
I was informed by Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator, that my initial article was accessed online over a million times in the first couple of weeks. However, there was no response to it from broadcast media in the UK. While I was invited several times on to radio shows and television in the USA, including nationally syndicated programmes, there was no contact from the BBC, which in normal times would be extremely surprising given the importance of the topic and the profile of the article.
I, too, flag up that I’ve had far fewer invitations to appear on broadcast media than in normal times, and cite the popularity of Lockdown Sceptics as evidence that the public has an appetite for hearing sceptical views that the mainstream media hasn’t been feeding:
At the beginning of April, I set up a website called Lockdown Sceptics in which I publish original material by scientists and public health experts, as well as links to articles by scientists, experts and journalists who are critical of what Eamonn Holmes called the “state narrative”, and daily updates in which I comment on the news. As of June 22nd 2020, the site has had 1,652,739 page views. On just one day May 7th – it attracted 148,188 page views. The site attracts a lot of comments from users – more than 1,000 a day at its peak – and one of the most common complaints below the line is that the coverage of the crisis on broadcast media is hopelessly one-sided, uncritically echoing the views and advice of the authorities.
During normal times I am regularly invited to appear as a commentator or newspaper reviewer on news and current affairs programmes, including the BBC News Channel, ITV News, Channel 4 News, Sky News, the Today programme, Newsnight, Daily Politics and the Andrew Marr Show. But since I started expressing scepticism about the virulence and severity of COVID-19, as well as being critical of the lockdown policy, I have not been invited to appear on any of these programmes to discuss the coronavirus crisis, save for Newsnight which booked me, then cancelled when I told the producer my views. And while it’s hard to generalise from my own experience, other commentators with similar views about the virus have told me the same thing.
For instance, the hostility of broadcasters towards dissenting voices has been noticed by Karol Sikora, Professor of Medicine at the University of Buckingham and a former WHO advisor on cancer. He has written several articles in newspapers drawing attention to the collateral damage likely to be caused by the lockdown – such as the number of people who will die because cancer operations and cancer screening programmes have been suspended – and yet his voice has been largely unheard on the broadcast media. He told me: “I have been asked on to the Today programme, the World at One and Newsnight. But after I’ve accepted, I get dropped a few hours later probably as they’ve been told I might express the wrong views.”
That the coverage of the crisis has been completely one-sided, with very few genuinely critical voices being heard, is also the view of Robin Aitken MBE, a journalist who worked as a reporter for the BBC for 25 years, ending up on the Today programme. He told me: “The BBC very quickly bought in to the Government’s lockdown plans and thereafter very little real debate was allowed. Jonathan Sumption popped up a couple of times but, in the main, anti-lockdown voices, which had a perfectly respectable case to make, were simply not heard.”
We’re unlikely to come before a judge this side of September, unfortunately, so there isn’t much we can do to salvage the current situation. But if we’re successful, at least Ofcom will think twice before issuing equally censorious guidance next time there’s a public health emergency.
Even though our solicitor and barrister are working pro bono, there will inevitably be costs associated with this action – indeed, there have been some already. The FSU has set up a Fighting Fund to help pay for this and other attempts to stand up for free speech in the courts. If you feel like contributing, please click here. And if you’d like to join the FSU, please click here.
Round-Up
And on to the round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘What the new UK lockdown rules mean for you‘ – Telegraph summarises tonight’s easing of restrictions by the Prime Minister
- ‘Art galleries, museums and cinemas will reopen‘ – The Times reports on the grand reopening + staycations allowed from July 4th. Whoopee!
- ‘It’s lockdown lift-off – but who wants to live in this new normal?‘ – Allison Pearson is underwhelmed by today’s announcements
- ‘The NHS pushing DNRs on the “mildly frail”‘ – Scandalous story in Off-Guardian via Dr Vernon Coleman. What Dr Coleman’s YouTube video about this here
- ‘Questions for lockdown apologists‘ – Good post on Medium by John Pospichal that I missed last month. He shows that Covid deaths increased precipitously after lockdowns in Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, New York City and Ecuador
- ‘Police in Netherlands use water cannon against anti-lockdown protestors‘ – Didn’t see these being used against the BLM protestors
- ‘I dared to question the aims of Black Lives Matter – and got the worst racist abuse I’ve ever suffered‘ – Esther Krakue is a black Briton who doesn’t support the BLM agenda. When she voiced that opinion on Twitter, she was subject to vile racist abuse, much of it from white liberals
- ‘We Can’t Breathe‘ – Website created by the organisers of an anti-lockdown rally in Texas
- ‘There are 185 billion reasons why no politician should consider a lockdown again‘ – Russell Lynch, the Economics Editor of the Telegraph, reports on a paper by the former Bank of England rate-setter David Miles estimating that the cost of the lockdown is far greater than the cost of the years of life we have saved from imposing it, even if we accept Neil Ferguson’s apocalyptic modelling. Exactly the same argument I made back in March. More on this tomorrow
- ‘Scottish schools to fully reopen on August 11 in “mother and father” of SNP climbdowns‘ – If they can do this in Scotland, why not England and Wales?
- ‘COVID-19 deaths fall across every age group, new figures reveal‘ – Unlike the rest of us, the virus seems to have gone on holiday – and it’s not a staycation. Will it be permanent?
- ‘Allow gyms and leisure centres to reopen‘ – Petition on the UK Government website. It’s already got over 70,000 signatures
- ‘Has anyone found a mask that can handle hot flushes, especially while wearing glasses?‘ – Useful Reddit thread for women of a certain age
- ‘Premier League: Mystery over “professional” haircuts‘ – The plait thickens
Theme Tune Suggestions From Readers
Only one suggestion today: “Gaslighter” by the Dixie Chicks. After all, we’ve all been gaslighted by the authorities.
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
A few weeks ago, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have reopened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have opened near you. Now that non-essential shops have reopened – or most of them, anyway – we’re now focusing on pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants, as well as other social venues. Please visit the page and let us know about those brave folk who are doing their bit to get our country back on its feet. Don’t worry if your entries don’t show up immediately – we need to approve them once you’ve entered the data.
Note to the Good Folks Below the Line
I enjoy reading all your comments and I’m glad I’ve created a “safe space” for lockdown sceptics to share their frustrations and keep each other’s spirits up. But please don’t copy and paste whole articles from papers that are behind paywalls in the comments. I work for some of those publications and if they don’t charge for premium content they won’t survive.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. It usually takes me several hours to do these daily updates, along with everything else, which doesn’t leave much time for other work. If you feel like donating, however small the amount, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in future updates, email me here. Please don’t email me at any other address.
And Finally…
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
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Boris is such a sausage. If he truly believed his mumbo jumbo, he’d open the pubs on a Monday instead of aiming for his own little Poundland version of independence day
Tom,
Why not tomorrow?
I’d be in the boozer tomorrow given half a chance. Boris has clearly picked 4th July out for its connotations however.
Tom
Can’t wait for my pub breakfast/lunch!
Every time I walk past it .. …..
Not long now Hawk….
Tom
BUT Allison Pearson says…
“Using your pub app, ladies and gentlemen, please follow the bookings process and reserve a slot for a date after 4 July. On that day and no sooner, after donning your Hazmat suit (can’t be too careful!) or mask, go to the pub, register your details at the door, proceed to your table, sit down as safely as you can. Do NOT face your friend! Try to sit back to back. Try not to speak – droplets! Do not approach the bar. Place your drinks order using the bar-coded menu card on your table. The menu card will be destroyed after you have touched it.”
Too much hassle?
Wetherspoons apart, I don’t think any of this nonsense will be tolerated where I live.
One crumb of comfort is thinking how the old goat who owns Samuel Smith’s is coping with all this. Trying to ban mobile phones and tablets – Well how do you like those apples now that they are mandated by Herr Hancock?……
Samuel Smiths? I completely agree with him.
I have a 7 year old nokia and I often leave it at home when I go out. I use it mostly for taking photographs. If I do need to use it as a phone it has four hours free. It costs me £12 a month.
I hope never to own an i-phone.
I use my PC at home for the internet.
Heard a couple of comments re Samuel Smiths – can anyone advise what it’s about? Thanks
last year they banned mobile phones
Sounds a great idea.
Thanks
I thought we were all decent spotters of silly arbitrary rules on here? Pray tell, how can it be okay to read a newspaper or a book (as I’ve observed many times in a Sam Smith’s pub) but not read the news or a book on your phone? I was once ticked off for calling someone on my phone, inviting them TO THE PUB. I was in the beer garden too.
Riddle me that one my sceptical chums.
I have a phone so primitive that it can only be used for making phone calls, plus short text messages. And I leave it switched off when I’m out. No spies in my pocket!
My iPhone is pay as you go with no contract. Its mainly switched off and is for emergencies only.
Sam Smiths will not want to spend money on apps, disposable beer menus, hand sanitizer etc. It will put the cost of a pint of OBB up
Is this a joke?
Allison certainly summed up why it’s a less-that appealing outing.
It’s akin to being freed from prison but you’ll still have the ball and chain around your ankles, handcuffed and wearing a mask. Some independence eh?
I understood that, as far as Bojo’s concerned, masks are now optional.
Did I miss something?
On Public Transport masks are a requirement.
That’s now only at the discretion of the company involved, surely?
Is it?
It isn’t law but it could be a requirement for travel, determined by company policy. Hopefully it will soon be clarified.
If it isn’t law they can’t enforce it.
Not legally but they could possibly refuse to transport you. Let’s hope they see sense asap so it isn’t an issue.
They can refuse to let you on but can’t kick you off for it is how I read it.
Thank you Toby for all that you have done, YOU are a true leader and hopefully our next PM.
Seconded! With Peter Hitchens, David Starkey and Jonathan Sumption in the Cabinet. Or constituting the Cabinet.
Now there’s an idea 😊 – lock the current Cabinet in a cabinet and let people get on with their lives!
So proud of the work you’re doing Toby. Thank you, thank you. Has anyone seen any MSM articles about the “surprising” lack of COVID cases due to BLM protests? Or is it a non-story now because nothing has actually happened? I still feel we have an endless road ahead, but furlough ending will speed you any remainders of this massive public failure.
Larua,
You will like this one:
https://www.wired.com/story/what-minnesotas-protests-are-revealing-about-covid-19-spread/
What Minnesota’s Protests Are Revealing About Covid-19 Spread
and ….
‘Act with necessary force’: Greta Thunberg says BLM protests & ‘corona crisis’ give blueprint for climate change fight
https://www.rt.com/news/492475-greta-thunberg-black-lives-matter/
So I suppose that this little twerp can see the virus with the naked eye!
Yep BBC have been trying to revive her star career with an interview which was not an interview but really just a homage to some saintly demi-goddess.
Obviously her “team” have decided now is the time to relaunch the very lucrative brand and get her out in the media again.
But… I dunno…Joan of Arc got burnt at the stake for her career relaunch – I don’t think some non-journalist (Justin Rowlatt) genuflecting before her on BBC will cut it. There are new heroes now – BLMistas for instance…new fonts of wisdom…Marcus Rushford, Killer Mike, Raheem Stirling…
I think Greta may have just been retired at the rather young age of 17.
Not before time!
Her team are employed by Soros NGOs, same as the BLM are backed by Soros NGOs.
Now that is someone Id like to lock in cupboard and throw away the key! She’s so obnoxious I really cannot why sane people would listen to it!
The love child of Vladimir Lenin and Violet Elizabeth Bott.
And she maketh me want to thcream and thcream until I’m thick. (I can.)
She’s backed by our friend Bill, so has a huge PR machine behind her.
How dare you!!
🙂
I recommend everyone read the whole article.
At first it seems very pro-mask, then dithers about the medical “evidence”, which is full of don’t knows, not sures, it’s unclears etc.
This is how important decisions are made – by the clueless.
Three cheers for the stroppy residents of Oklahoma!
I hope Trump’s indoor rally for mask-wearers doesn’t strengthen the case for them.
One more linked to that as well:
https://justthenews.com/accountability/media-4
Media cites Trump rally for COVID-19 danger but raises no such concern for Brooklyn event
I get a news update on my phone every evening, not sure why or where from but clearly an American site. You can guarantee that it is always some screechy headline about rising ‘spikes’ or ‘surges’ within Republican States that have opened early. I followed up one report and the spikes were due to increased testing, not people queuing up to die. The whole thing stinks, the media and government must think we’re stupid
Of course they do, And thanks to the brain-killing terror campaign, most people are stupid.
Unfortunately, a lot of people are stupid!
Doesn’t fit the narrative, Laura, so is being ignored.
A bunch of medical “experts” are fretting about the “inevitable” 2nd wave:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/24/health-leaders-urge-review-of-uks-readiness-for-covid-19-second-wave
Clearly, this isn’t over yet.
Pull down nasty notices! Go up the down lane and down the up lane! Boycott shops that treat you like dirt! Tell them where to stuff their masks! Support Simon Dolan, he’s got the buggers on the run! Resist! Eschew zombiedom! Get close to real people! Live life!
And, in case you missed it, here’s a link to a worthy cause:
https://click.pstmrk.it/2sm/www.crowdjustice.com%2Fcase%2Fface-masks%2F/oD_P7Ag/UnpD/A3YuFvvscT/cGxlZGdlX2NvbmZpcm1hdGlvbg
I no longer look apologetic because some gimp in a facemask looks at me with disdain when I get too close to their safe space. I now just tut and shake my head – it’s worth it to see their wide eyed disbelief and horror..
Ha ha, yes I do too!
Also politely declined the smart scan app at Sainsbury’s this morning which was enthusiastically being promoted by a staff member walking up and down the queue. Pointed out that I’d rather talk to a human being at the checkout, and if everyone signed up the app, she’d be out of a job anyway. I also pointed out that the virus has all but disappeared so the queuing (which was also used as another reason to download the app – makes them move quicker apparently) should be disappearing soon too if common sense prevailed. (Not holding my breath on that one though).
Of course the one question nobody asks is, given that this virus is so deadly, why haven’t the bodies of supermarket workers been piling up since the start of this pantomime……
I was genuinely disappointed to see a supermarket worker who had up to now been mask free wearing one this evening when I popped in for some milk. Her colleagues were still unmasked, so it is clearly not mandatory for staff in that shop to wear them.
I thought about saying something to her along the lines of “I’m deeply disappointed in you”. (I had quite admired her up to that point.) But after my recent experience in a shop with a black mask clad female who wanted me hung drawn and quartered for daring to question her choice of attire, I thought better of it.
Yep, stay alert John, they’re mental!
Members of my family, daughter & son in law. Daughter in law work for 2 of the big 5 supermarkets. They all work in large, heavily populated stores. None has had anyone off work from Covid. At the start there were a lot of staff off with cold etc. having their 2 weeks off fully paid but since then nobody. Nobody has died of it & nobody has a relative who has.
I stopped using Sainsbury’s long before lockdown when they started providing an ominous number of self-scan machines.
And always pay with cash if you’re able to. Ushering in their cashless society “revolution” is one of the big trojan horses of this lockdown. How convenient it coincides with the negative interest rates they keep touting as “the new normal”.
I’m one of the admins for the Us for Them Scotland Facebook Group, which now has over 8,000 members and who’s voices gathered together just over a week ago to urge the Scottish Government to ditch its ridiculous “blended learning” model that would see children, such as my 15 year old daughter, being in school no more than 3 half days per week.
Of course, now that Swinney has announced his caveat-ridden 180, the teaching unions are going all militant. The same teaching unions that forced 15 years like me in the 1980s to spend several hours a week sitting in the school dining hall, teacher-less.
I need advice on how to counter the unions…anyone got any ideas?
Well, one of the reasons given elsewhere for teachers remaining in a union is to do with insurance – teaching always brings the risk of accusations, possibly as we have seen 20-30 years later but providing you stay with the union, the legal insurance policy continues to provide protection – so if the government was to provide insurance (at cost) to registered teachers so they didn’t need to depend on the union then the situation might change
Actually they have a point about protecting teachers against false accusations. I used to be a teacher (not unionised), and fear of malicious accusations from lying children, always taken seriously and ruinous for an innocent teacher’s entire career and reputation, hung round the staff room like a miasma..
Unions can do a noble job when they refrain from bullying, bragging and smashing. It’s such a pity some of them have poisoned themselves and their members.
Thatcher faced up to them. Nobody else has dared.
Yes that is correct. Insurance is my only reason I am in a union because the risk is significant. Trouble is they use the fees to hire a bunch of opinionated pen pushers. Would someone like to launch a teachers’ union which is just for insurance?
It makes me choke that we’re in this mess because Boris, Sturgeon et al were ‘following the science’ then the Unions ‘advised’ teachers not to return to work despite ‘the science’. Maybe you could ask them on what basis are they advising teachers, ask for a copy of their ‘risk assessments’
As long as HMG and the MSM keep screaming 2nd wave, 2nd wave, the unions will be able to keep making their point about it being potentially unsafe.
Perhaps you can see an opportunity for your situation in the folowing hypocrical sequence. It appears there has been a political instruction made to allow breaching of covid laws. You might get something out of that. Video of Police Scotland officer stating special Sturgeons office decree being followed by Police Scotland allowing lae breaking. https://mobile.twitter.com/craigy33?lang=en Scottish Police Federation trade union press release pointing out the difficulties coming from political messaging it is okay to break lockdown laws. https://twitter.com/ScotsPolFed/status/1273587406084530176?s=20 How dare you cries Anwar and others condeming the criticism by Scottish Police Federation – which was pointing out all protestors are currently breaking the law. https://www.thenational.scot/news/18527358.scottish-police-federation-blasted-comments-george-square-disorder/ Teaching Unions will be laced through with Common Purpose trained staff members who are linked directly into the network causing the social changes. This covid seems like it is the moment the Common Purpose ‘sleeper cells’ have been waiting for. You can see the unrelated to covid social and environmental changes across Scotland are happening. They will act in ways you perhaps might not anticipate. Know thy enemy. Cpexposed – see training manuals in resources, they are trained to go in very hard against opposition. They will seek to stop your momentum in any fashion… Read more »
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/19/media_begging_for_a_second_wave.html
Media Begging for a ‘Second Wave’
I’ll give them one. I’ll wave them ‘bye bye’.
With two fingers?
Absolutely!
I wish Toby and co luck with their FSU High Court action. It’s a no brainer for me but I would say that wouldn’t I? Strong and convincing pieces by Toby and Dr Lee. The lack of challenge of the standard narrative by the vast majority of the press has been shocking and surprising but perhaps more alarming is the lack of questioning by the public all over the world. It has shown leaders everywhere that their citizens are extremely easy to control – all you have to do is terrify them and they will comply with absolutely anything. I guess we knew this from history but to see it replayed in my lifetime….. I thought it was consigned to the history books. That scares me more than any virus or economic recession.
The Observer paper forces YouTube to again terminate The Iconoclast, doxes man behind it
https://www.rt.com/uk/492512-observer-gets-iconoclast-suspended/
It’s been a very clear demonstration of the power of propaganda.
Which reminds me: Does anyone have any sort of statistics on UK hospitals? I have not seen anything on how full the hospitals are, how many patients in the average hospital, etc. Nothing like that. All i see is people applauding the NHS for… something. Would really like to see some data, please.
Seconded.
This was mid April:
‘Figures from the national NHS operational dashboard, seen by HSJ, show that 40.9 percent of NHS general acute beds were unoccupied as of the weekend — 37,500 of the total 91,600 relevant beds recorded in the data. That is 4,500 more than the 33,000 the NHS said had been freed up on 27 March, and nearly four times the normal amount of free acute beds at this time of year.’
‘The clearout follows a huge ramping up of discharges from hospital in recent weeks in preparation for the covid-19 surge, with funding rules and checks scrapped, new facilities opened, and staff told to focus on discharge, change their thresholds, and be more directive about patients leaving hospital. The number of patients who have spent 21 days or more in hospital — so called “super stranded patients” — has reduced by 40 per cent, one source said.’
https://www.hsj.co.uk/acute-care/nhs-hospitals-have-four-times-more-empty-beds-than-normal/7027392.article
The Kings Fund is another source of info:
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/nhs-hospital-bed-numbers
I saw a post mentioning the 41% max occupied ICU beds, but thanks for the source.
I wonder when if ever 59% of ICU beds have ever been that empty!
And we know what happened to those ‘discharged’ patients.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-early-pandemic-paradox-deaths-months.html
The early pandemic paradox: Fewer deaths in the first 4 months of 2020 compared to the previous 5 years
So, in other words, the NHS is probably less busy than ever, what with them telling everyone to stay at home.
They’ll be busy soon with all the people they’ve neglected for the past 2 months….
Not if they decide to neglect them for another 2 months…
Ah yes, ‘Protect the NHS’ from the 2nd, 3rd, 4th wave…….
I had non socially distanced drinks last night with friends in the village including two hospital doctors who I know but have not seen since the beginning. Admitted I was a sceptic and they basically concurred and admitted their holiday is nearly over. They said it was real and had seen a few really ill patients but it was largely nosocomial, virtually zero risk to most and Govt had done just about everything wrong that they could.
A friend of ours works (admin) at one of Manchester’s largest hospitals. She says that Covid suspected patients are kept isolated in one wing with the rest of the hospital , in her words, has been like a ghost town from the very beginning of this charade
Same in Western General Edinburgh. Very quiet with staff reporting feeling humiliated/embarrassed by the clapping as in work with little to do.
They told you. Who else are they going to tell, and when?
Roll on the Coronaberg Trials.
One possibility: it mutated in Northern Italy and the mutation was magnified by poor hospital treatment and the lockdown, so that competing milder mutations did not get a look in (I do remember the pics of patients in Italy lined up in corridors and medical staff passing between them). Who really knows? I doubt we ever will know, but I am convinced that a lot of people were battling extremely stubborn viral infections from October of last year…
There’s two reasons why Northern Italy was heavily hit.
I call BS on that. Athens is also incredibly polluted. But Greece has one of the lowest Covid death rates in Europe. As for the one migrant theory, I don’t believe it. Northern Italy has a huge number of illegal work gangs with Chinese workers (many from the Wuhan region) working on fake papers. Some put the figure at 150,000. These workers will not have been known to the authorities and will have continued working on through any flu-like symptoms, because that’s what would be expected of them by their gang masters. Most of these gang workers will be relatively young and relatively fit, and probably with some natural immunity to the disease in many cases (as we see in China). They won’t have been collapsing and so would not be observed by the authorities. Spain also has lots of Chinese work gangs, which probably explains their severe outbreak. Greece does not. We do have Chinese work gangs as well and they may have played a part in spreading the virus as well. The pressure on a north London hospital (Northwick Park) could be an indication of that. But you will have noticed that the MSM has made virtually no… Read more »
I’m also thinking that Greece escaped the worst because their elderly tend to still live in the villages and Mitzotakis very sensibly stopped the usual mass-exodus from Athens over Orthodox Easter so the most vulnerable were fairly protected?
Not compared with the previous 10 – looks like any other year. Max and min shown with median. Image posting appears to have gone. Whether there are substantially fewer in the second half of 2020 is more interesting.
Hospital admission figures for covid 19 patients would be far more useful now than daily new infections. For example the outbreak at the chicken processing factory on Anglesey. Around 150 positive cases so far – but how many of those required hospital treatment? If infection rates increase but hospital admissions go down then that’s a good sign. Will we be informed if this is happening?
No Spingler
The press have a certain story they want to post
Good point. But no, we will not be informed. There is no desire to ease the feeling of panic within the population.
I was in Stratford upon Avon on Sunday. In the city centre there were signs informing people to maintain distance due to COVID-19. Why? Like anyone can forget this pandemic is going on. I also found it interesting how people made a conscious effort to maintain distance (and i say conscious because as soon as they lost focus, the separation went away), but not because they were afraid of the virus. It looked to me like everyone was doing it so as not to be seen to not be doing it, if that makes sense. One wonders what the government could achieve if it conducted similar campaigns against other, more real issues. Littering, illegal parking, etc.
I think a lot socially distance out of deference to others, assuming that they ought to do it, without really believing in it themselves. There are some fear-addicts who are genuinely scared, but most don’t seem too concerned about it in my experience.
The government have been successful with dog mess Cristi. That my dog-loving fellow Brits have been so willing to pick up their dogs excrement from the pavement has never ceased to amaze me. Too many, perhaps victims of dogshit-shoe syndrome in the 1970s and 1980s. Although I am fond of dogs I have never been sufficiently enamoured to actually own one myself.
Stepping in dog shit was a regular occurrence when I was a kid. We had to turn our shoes up when we got back to the house, in case the stinking stuff got on to the carpets.
I own a dog and I have no objection to picking up dog shit. Torn-down Covinotices make good scoops.
But with public loos closed, who us picking up the personshit?
Ours have just re-opened!
Yay!!
Peer pressure was a large part of the nudge unit’s policy.
This Twitter feed is useful for data analysis like that. Don’t think there’s any specifically for UK but I imagine the general trends are similar around the world.
https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic
Large swaths of the press and public do not seem to get this basic point: more infections and fewer hospitalizations is *good.* Testing positive is not a “case.” So many seem to be willfully stoopid.
Cabinet Office website slides and datasets for daily press conference has Excel spreadsheet showing admissions, ventilator occupancy, total in hospitals with Covid since early March.
Hospital data here:
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-uk-hospital-admissions/
I’ve asked the CEBM team if they could express the numbers in terms of percentages in order to gauge loading vs. capacity.
For many weeks, the daily government statistics included ICU numbers as a proportion of capacity. I was always dubious about the relevance, because there had been a huge surge in capacity (repurposing wards, nightingale hospitals), so it was impossible to tell either what was happening with the absolute numbers or whether the standard capacity would have been significantly overtopped. As I recall, pre ‘crisis’ there were around 4,000 ICU beds across the country and we ran at about 80% capacity.
There is a new update to those figures:
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-uk-hospital-admissions/
Great data, thank you.
I have seen the figures for the General hospitals in the county . As a primary care physician you might expect that we are given this data every week to at least keep us in the loop. However apparently it was a mistake that the statistics ended up in my e mail inbox because the NHS considers this top secret .
Anyway in a nutshell there are no covid patients on ITU within any hospital in my county and the number of covid patients on the general wards are outnumbered by hospital staff ” off sick ” in a ratio of 100 to 1.
I can’t give you precise data to go and look at, but I can give you information from two friends, both of whom are nurses working in Covid Intensive Care wards. At one large hospital in the NW at the start of the lockdown, they got 200 beds up and running in a short time and were never over subscribed. As long ago as 6 weeks they were down to 80 patients, again elderly and/or nosocomial. Both admittance to ordinary Covid wards and intensive care wards became very low, dropped away. Now in single numbers on intensive care and the hospital is starting to revert to “ordinary” care wards again. Throughout they were losing around 50% of intensive care patients, the vast majority of whom were elderly and/or had comorbidities. But this is an intensive care facility and in ordinary times they lose patients anyway – that’s the nature of that particular department sadly. My other friend had come back out of recent retirement to help out in another Covid intensive care at a different hospital. Unfortunately she caught Covid right at the beginning and was off work for a while isolating, although she was never very ill with it.… Read more »
It’s not just the hospitals. Our local paper this week reported that the 500 capacity morgue set up on the county showground had never been used and that the planned-for second morgue there had not even been built-all at an enormous cost to the taxpayer!
Second wave, second morgue, second BS.
Hospital I work at has 1 patient in ITU and 20 inpatients testing positive for Covid-19. They’re in for other diagnoses though…
As for Ofcom trying to suppress dissent… I’m not entirely convinced at this point that they’re doing it for the good of the population. For starters, no one knew how to approach this. So you’d expect the same behaviour as if you’d let loose a bunch of people in a pitch black room and told them to find the door: everyone would run off in a random direction. What we saw instead was a very coordinated effort in a specific direction: lockdown across the board. Secondly, even if it was herd instinct to go in one direction because no better option was available, why did no country turn back on that decision when the evidence started mounting up? Why did everyone stubbornly proceeded on initial assumptions even though those assumptions were proven false? I personally still believe that the response to this virus was a rehearsed and prepared action. I don’t know if the virus was deliberately let loose for this purpose or if it was a pre-made plan waiting for a trigger. Either way, everyone went from “nothing to worry, China is trustworthy” to “lock everything down immediately” extremely fast, and only after the virus already made it into… Read more »
I’m convinced in the US there is a desire to keep people locked in doors so that they have to resort to postal votes in November. The left can then ‘manipulate’ the outcome
Much as I have been conditioned like everyone else to feel embarrassed by drifting into conspiracy theories, I do think that the ‘controlled demolition’ of the debt mountain has a lot going for it as an idea. If the world’s economy really has become the unsustainable monster we have been told it is, then it could collapse at any moment, leading to all kinds of chaos.
Instead, what we have now is a precedent for locking people in their homes whenever the authorities demand it, and a ready-made excuse for redistribution of wealth and ‘starting again’. The population has bought into the Covid narrative so magnificently, that they will be almost begging the government to relieve them of their savings and raise taxes, just to help get life back to normal.
I don’t believe that last sentence. They will be begging the govt to relieve someone else of their savings and raise someone else’s taxes.
My son commented very early on that all countries were using exactly the same vocabulary as they each went into lockdown.
Yep orchestrated by WHO with their financial backers
I did send a complaint to OFCOM (copied to the FSU) about their censorship of 5G and how they effectively shutdown Eammon Holmes and David Icke’s freedom of speech when they questioned the “everything about 5G is safe” narrative when this has never been proved.
I did eventually find a link to OFCOM’s tactics of fining the presenter, the show and the production company if they broadcast anything other than either a pro-5G show or one that really slanders the host etc to make them look like a raving loon after they fined a local radio station for airing a question 5G show.
Can’t find the link now (been 404’d like a lot of links I’ve read over the past 6 months) but will keep looking.
As soon as I heard that the government had come up with a 365 page document on the ‘crisis’ in just a few days, I knew it was a ‘rehearsed and prepared action’.
I am aware of event 201 but have not wanted to scare myself too much by watching it all on youtube.. what was the end result or conclusion and are we currently following the same pattern as in event 201??
I think there is definitely some master plan behind it, though hope it is not all as bad as UK column say.
Mason Mills is clearly signalling the way ahead to some extent, so is worth keeping an eye on. He said the mask advice would change way back at the beginning of April – and here we are, he was right..
Clearly the government knows it created a complete catastrophe from the word go and now they wait in abject fear for the final reckoning in terms of avoidable deaths (including those from non-Covid19 patients denied hospitalisation ), massive increases in unemployment, bankruptcies, mental health issues, suicides, etc., and of course the national debt.
This explains their determination to come out of lockdown very slowly, thus advertising ongoing wise caution – otherwise cynical types (!) might entertain the notion that it was all totally unnecessary in the first place.
Murder will out!
This is also why they want to keep the people as panicked as possible. That way, when the economy is falling apart, everyone will just think: “But we had no choice. We couldn’t end the lockdown. It was scary to go out there.” No one will even think about questioning the government’s decisions. And if anyone does think about questioning it… well, that’s what Ofcom, Google, Twitter, and Facebook are for.
I watched in disbelief last week(?) when the PM of New Zealand did a press conference to announce TWO yes TWO new cases of the disease (they only tested positive). Anyone would think from the look on her face that she had just lost her whole family to some catastrophic and awful event
Project FEAR
She lost her mind to a catastrophic and awful ideology a long time ago.
I could be wrong, but didn’t “she” send the military to investigate? Wow, this must be the emergency, high-adrenaline use case which will send people flocking to the local recruitment agency … “Join the Military – Be Part of the Covid-19/20/21/22/23/24 Hunt-and-Subdue ‘Intervention Unit’ … Our Great Country Needs You!”
99 Red Balloons spring to mind …
At least New Zealanders can get on with dying from more acceptable causes now.
Have another laugh. In the FT (pay wall)
https://www.ft.com/content/255567d5-b7ec-4fbe-b8a9-833b3a23f665
French give cool reception to Covid-19 contact-tracing app
Fewer than 70 people have used it to report positive test results in 3 weeks since launch
France’s coronavirus-tracing app has failed to take off, with only 68 people using it to register a positive test result in the three weeks since its launch, despite 1.9m downloading it on their phones.
Olivier Blazy, a computer science professor at the University of Limoges, questioned whether the app would actually contribute to the public health effort. “Adoption has been derisory and the results are ridiculous,” he said. “There were more people involved in the creation of the app than people who have benefited from it.”
Well… maybe… only 68 people actually got the virus in France in the past 3 weeks…?
I think people suddenly realised that if they report it, their family and friends will all be locked down for two weeks.
Also that they will actively be stopping their friends from going to work..with obvious financial implications..
I’ll be discouraging people from reporting cases, ‘you know what will happen they will lock us down again and we will lose jobs and freedom, keep quiet’.
I’m an avid pub-goer — I rarely ever drink in the house under ordinary circumstances — but I simply WILL NOT be going if I have to give the owners my contact details. Surely there must be GDPR implications?? I hope no one plays the game until pubs realize they’ll go bust and some sense prevails. THIS IS NOT MY NEW NORMAL!!!
Oh god calm down, it’s all BS, my local landlord finds it all hilarious, it won’t last 20 minutes in most pubs. It’s all about keeping the minority of believers happy whilst the rest of us carry on with normal life.
Good for you; the landlords in my locals will take it seriously, and I will not countenance the ‘new normal’ by supporting them.
They will though when they start getting fined.
They’ll only get fined if the police can be arsed to enforce this bullshit.
Newflash: they can’t.
(In fact, I was talking to someone I went to school with who is now a local bobby in the area we grew up and he basically says the pubs have all been given the wink wink nod nod by the police to do whatever the hell they like – because most of the officers want to go and have a drink too!)
The landlord of my local local (so like, extremely local i.e. on my road) just told me this evening that he will be trying to guess who has been in the pub on any given night by taking note of the joke names on the ‘register’. Apparently I’m a Margot Channing or Joan Rivers type of faker. Very complimentary.
There are going to be a lot of Matt Hancocks I expect.
Omigod classic. One night I can be Matt Handjob. The next I can be Matt Handonhiscock. So many options!
I suspect that the attitude at pubs operated by national pub companies may well be quite different from local “free houses”.
I had a brief chat with the owner who runs the bar at our sailing club – he will re-open but will NOT collect actual contact details of punters. He will offer a “reward” for the most imaginative name and contact detail for anyone, if required to collect these details. I am going to be: “Fatty Fatty Boom Boom Dave.” So okay, I’ve indulged quite a bit in the last three months – I’m only (a binge drinking) human.
Lol that’s amaze
GDPR…. good point
You can get your ass sued off for mis use of that data!
Probably not. GDPR has never been there to benefit the population. GDPR is there to ensure that the public can only access services that store data in a way the government can access it and make use of it. As such, if it benefits the government, GDPR can be ignored.
As for GDPR, I’d assume that the expectation will be that the info will be destroyed after a reasonable time period – say 14-21 days. Bit of an admin nuisance for the pub though.
The pub might destroy the info but, if digital, it will already have been sent to HMG?
Well, from what I’ve seen, it’s the pub’s data. They can store it how they want, and there doesn’t seem to be any centralised reporting requirement. I assume there’s a requirement to give the info for that time period to the test track and trace lot if there’s a confirmed infection who’s been there in the last X days (which is why I say 14-21 days). How much that bothers you depends on 1) how much test track and trace bothers you and b) whether you’ve given your actual details in the first place.
or it might land in a bin and then retrieved by someone.
The pub wouldn’t last very long if that happens. There’s a _reason_ all companies were in a panic when GDPR was coming in.
Try being a landlord and not Gdpr proofing your tenants data and see how quick you get sued. Faster than you can say “no win no fee”
🤔
Oh, yes. That’s why I’m saying they’ll just destroy the data when they don’t need it anymore. You definitely don’t want the hassle of keeping it.
Is this details at the door policy an intended shocker to gauge reaction?
Maybe think about such outlandish overstretches into the lives of the people have a reason behind them.
The Nudge Unit or Behaviourial Insights Team (clandestine fuckers) may well find national discussion and outrage about such proposals helpful to their cause. What’s another u-turn? Simply another proof the dear government listens to you.
I’ll be going to pubs asking for details. I will not be entering. A customer on their threshold turning their back on their business.
I’ve said it before – they have realised it is harder than they thought to get people to download the tracing app, and with Simon Dolan challenging them in the courts, this is just a way to harvest personal data without needing to legislate for it and risk being taken to court again. They probably reckon people are so desperate to go to the pub that they will comply.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/lockdown-lift-off-wants-live-new-normal/
The comments!
Esp…….
Jane Wood
23 Jun 2020 7:50PM
A whole nation, paralysed by the prospect of premature death from a virus. A nation which happily uses cars and lorries and planes to go on holiday to countries with strange diseases, which has people who ski, race, swim and climb mountains. Who eat food prepared in kitchen they don’t see by people whose habits they don’t know and who smoke and drink alcohol even though they know it could eventually kill them. But a virus with a mortality rate of 1% or whatever it is means life has to grind to a standstill and everyone should not go near another human being regardless of their age, their health or anything else. What has happened to our perception of risk? And worst of all, why have we been robbed of personal responsibility and choice?
Could not agree more.
Well said!
Excellent comment but the IFR is probably 0.1% so it’s even more outrageous than she says.
Another excellent comment from the same article:
Johnny Patriot 24 Jun 2020 6:56AM
A brilliant article. Allison Pearson just gets better and better.
This
I suspect there is an element of the Government scrabbling save face, staving off the Corona Day of Judgement
I think sums it up and it would be better to get the inquiry and the inevitable condemnation out of the way as soon as possible to get the longest non-Covid run-up to the General Election. As to the actual nonsense of going to pub and then sitting opposite the person you went there with, if we all just ignore it, it will collapse. There just are not enough police officers to enforce it.
Toby, I keep saying it but I don’t know how you find the hours. Your passion, tenacity and mental resilience amazes me. A thousand times thank you for the great work you are doing against everything crazy that’s happening in 2020. It still doesn’t feel real to me; like we’re living in a science fiction movie in this crazy, warped dystopian future. Personally, I’m missing the gym most of all. As someone who’s suffered from regular bouts of depression and anxiety in my life, going to the gym has been a life-saver for me. Not just the physical and mental benefits, but also the social life I get from it. I’m gutted we don’t know when we’ll ever be allowed to go back. I am so angry right now with what Johnson, Cummings, Hancock, Gove et al are doing to our lives and I feel so powerless. I pray that karma comes around and Simon Dolan’s case is successful. This must never ever be allowed to happen again. Keep fighting the good fight. You are doing such important work and we are extremely grateful. Free speech; our civil liberties; the right for our children to be educated are all fundamental… Read more »
Add “establishment” to “government” and I’m with you 100%
I keep saying it but I don’t know how you find the hours. Your passion, tenacity and mental resilience amazes me.
Hear! Hear!
Many thanks also to your wife for tolerating your spending so many hours fighting for us all.
I’ve had Sky News on in the background pretty much every day since lockdown began. The bias in their reporting is so blatant. Every time they had a contrarian to the mainstream narrative on you could see the contempt in the questioning and the presenter would be dismissive of every answer often cutting them short.
I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that the media are more interested in making the news than reporting it now.
“I’ve had Sky News on in the background pretty much every day since lockdown began.”
Why?
Purely research purposes. I like to keep informed on the counter arguments.
That’s the only sensible excuse I could come up with.
I skim the Guardian headlines every morning, to ascertain the official narrative (no paywall!), but I wouldn’t dream of spending all day in there!
I don’t usually bother with any tv news, but during the coronapanic I’ve found Fox News relatively good. And it’s genuinely refreshing to hear people actually talking rationally about Trump rather than the kind of hysterical or cynical abuse you invariably get here. I just enjoyed this piece from today, which included Brandon Tatum, the former policeman who was so good on the BLM riots a few days ago, talking about the support for Trump in Arizona:
Border Wall progress: What’s been built so far?
I can’t get Fox anymore on my Sky package, they removed it for some reason. TV is going in the bin now anyway.
I only watch the news vids on t’internet.
get an amazon firestick and download some apps and stop paying for sky
Bin it!
You’ll feel so much better.
After a bit you’ll wonder how on earth you ever watched the wretched thing
I’m watching and listening to less and less news…and I was a total news junkie once. Probably dates from around the height of Project Fear 2 post referendum when the news on BBC, Sky and ITV became so off the scale biased with the anti-Brexit fear propaganda (none of which has yet materialised – at least I don’t remember them predicting a global pandemic caused by Brexit).
I briefly returned to intensive news watching when the virus story became big, initially being very open-minded about it all…but then one began to see all the contradictions: hang on, why are we in Europe having total national lockdowns but no one is in the Far East?…hang on, why is the virus so bad in Italy but not Greece…hang on why do all the extreme lockdown countries have the worst death rates…hang on why is Sweden doing better than us even though they don’t have a lockdown? Once the contradictions began to stack up, the wall to wall propaganda of the mainstream media once again became totally unbearable and of course for many weeks there was only one story: Coronavirus.
They predicted an epidemic of ‘Super’ Gonorrhea due to a shortage of medications. So….. nearly.
The moral is: if you are going to construct a Project Fear then make it general!
Not “sandwiches” or “gonorrhea” but “food” and “deadly infections”.
Yes, specificity is too enjoyable for them and therefore too transparent 😉
Been no MSM in my house since January.
Good on ya
To my mind It’s called fake news and its been going on forever.We have literally been programmed)
Sorry to repost this; I attended the demonstration in The Hague last sunday (left before the watercanons though as I was there with my 12 y.o. son). Until some (hired?) hooligans destroyed the peace there was a good understanding between protesters and the police. Funny thing though: none of the police officers present (and there were a lot!) respected the one and a half meters distance between their collegues. Nor were they wearing facemasks…funny, isn’t it? A virus that makes exeptions for police people… 😉
Yep, hired (or ‘on duty’) troublemakers have been a standard tactic for decades, Michel.
“A virus that makes exceptions for police people”
Indeed, as the following video Toby linked to a few days back made clear, it’s a remarkably selective virus:
The Corona Virus Doesn’t Spread in Gatherings I Support
The police have never followed the rules they’ve been enforcing.
No social distancing.
No PPE.
No respecting of said social distancing when ‘handling’ members of the public.
Nobbing around in massive groups and dancing on TikTok.
Having fun when nobody else is allowed to.
And the latest, most galling addition: Cracking the heads of ‘far-right’ lockdown protestors who happen to mostly be old blokes waving signs, whilst, a few weeks later, literally bowing down before the violent mob as it defaces and destroys our town centres. In letting *some* *special* people break the rules with impunity when it serves a political agenda they once again break their own rules by extension.
I think that’s what we call fair and accurate reportage. Nothing false in what you write there!
To describe them as “bowing down” shows remarkable restraint. I considered it to be grovelling.
We are again being forced to consider the way the world of football operates now the sport is being revived…
I’ve noticed that the players and managers, conscious of social distancing, are very careful to avoid the traditional handshake. Instead they do the elbow-to-elbow thing…only problem is that then, immediately afterwards, they pat each other all over, wherever they fancy: head, shoulders, face, arms or back!
How thick are footballers and their managers, eh?
It confirms a truth of the modern world: that virtue signalling, whether it be taking the knee or touching elbows, is far more important than good sense or reality.
No doubt these newly virtuous footballers are still shagging prostitutes, using racial epithets among themselves, indulging in huge quantities of Class A drugs, investing in dodgy tax avoidance schemes and throwing matches for money, just as they have always done.
And there must always be a plane flying overhead immediately before a match to provide political balance.
TBH I’d not been aware of the OfCom guidance* but now I am it explains a lot about why the media have been so single-minded in promoting the dangers of Covid and so resistant to exposing us to anyone with a non-approved view. It might even explain the soft and useless questioning by “top journalists” on the daily briefing – but their general incompetence and lack of statistical skills is a pretty good explanation in itself.
Anyway, thank you Toby for all your efforts on this site and FSU and thank God that you are there to bring the two together.
* PS: There’s that word “guidance” again, much as in 2 metres. If it’s “guidance” do the media have to follow it? Or when it comes from OfCom, is “guidance” actually like the laws of the Medes and Persians? I’m sick of “guidance” that is mandatory until the Government or other agency decides it suits it not to be (cf school closures).
If it’s guidance, it can’t be mandatory, because if it is mandatory it’s an instruction.
The journalists weren’t bowing to Ofcom, they’d been bought by HMG. The reason we’re currently seeing some dissenting articles is because the bribe ran out – check the nauseating begging letters in the Guardian for confirmation.
Anyone been to Waterstones since they reopened? What’s it like now – touch a book and it immediately gets carted off for quarantine?
Presumably if you have their back to them it won’t…
Don’t see the logic of this. You then go from Waterstones to the supermarket where each item has probably been fingered by 20 people in the last 72 hours.
i always fondle my mangos at Aldi to make sure they are not too ripe. And i havent washed my hands!!
IT’S MANGO MADNESS screams the Mail. “Brit boffins find mango fondlers are super-spreading virus. MP calls for their indefinite internment”
Intern the mangoes! Mangoes are super-spreaders!
Actually the funniest ‘touching’ story I heard was of a shop in Germany where people were rummaging through a pile of face masks, picking them up, trying them on and throwing them back on the pile.
Your dentist has to disinfect every surface your bum merely grazes, and yet you can go into Sainsburys and literally lick unwrapped loose vegetables before putting them back on display.
You have some strange shopping practices.
You can’t, actually. You will be sent to jail, just like the people licking ice creams last year.
A friend who went to Waterstones last week mentioned that she saw the trolley for the books to be quarantined. But she has no idea if they’re used since she was the only customer in there.
I won’t be surprised if they barely have anyone come through the door since they reopened.
All-bad Goodall on Newsnight tonight using smoke and mirrors on excess deaths.
Firstly, there is no acknowledgement that lockdown – depriving confused elderly people in care homes of contact with their loving family members might well have hastened the deaths of people who had the Covid 19 infection (but probably a lot of other pathogens as well in their lungs).
Secondly, not admitting that lockdown can directly cause deaths through many routes including failure to seek or denial of medical treatment.
Yes, I notice there’s a definite attempt in the media, and by the “experts”, to blame the virus rather than the government for excess lockdown deaths.
Oh yeah! Of course we here are no doubt all of us wise to such strategems, but of course the average Joe or Jane won’t necessarily see through such scamming of the stats.
I noticed this trend starting maybe 3-4 weeks ago. Suddenly, every lockdown zealot on twitter was going on about “60,000” deaths as if it was guaranteed that each and every lockdown death had to be due to the Coronavirus. The BBC played their part with a “3 ways to measure Coronavirus deaths” article, the last being counting all the excess deaths as being due to Covid. Clearly, the word came down from on high and their lapdogs in the press ran with it. The irony is that even the official Covid-19 count itself is probably too high as many died “with” it rather than “of” it.
Exactly. Most people at the end of life have several significant loads of pathogens in their lungs (I seem to recall the figure of 14 as being an average). When you think about it that makes sense since the lungs are very much the gateway to the whole organism. So if the organism is weak owing to old age and illness, that is where you will find the multiple sites of infection (in that lovely warm and wet envirionment of the lungs).
Thankfully we can look at the overall figures for lung infection to keep track of that. There clearly has been a large excess of deaths – so far – but I fully expect the excess deaths figure for lung infections including Covid-19 to go negative over the next few weeks. By the end of the year, looking at figures for the whole year, it won’t look nearly so dramatic. But total excess deaths for the whole year might be very bad as we see the impact of denied medical treatment, undiscovered serious ill health, mental health effects, effects of unemployment and so on.
Here’s what I predict: deaths from all that undiagnosed/untreated cancer, heart disease etc. will start to increase. This will lead to shrieks of “SECOND WAVE!!!” and justify the promised October lockdown
UK deaths with only covid19 on the death certificate ? Around 1400.
Do you have a source for that JohnB?
Have a look at ‘Over 95% of Covid19 deaths had pre existing conditions’ at off-Guardian.org.
NHS England website. 95% had other causes
See here
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/
And also
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
This is the chat
Thanks all. Just off for a day trip to Rye. Will report back.
Have a great day – I hope the loos are open!
Thanks Cheezilla. After experiencing the worst ‘chat’ facility ever (courtesy of Rother District Council’s website (they weren’t answering the phone)), I was informed the disabled loo at Rye Harbour was open. Fantastic. Two miles being a tad far to walk, I’m afraid the bushes in Rye old town had to suffice.
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/06/23/week-23-graphs-from-christopher-bowyer/
Thank you so much Toby for all your hard work. You have been a lone voice in the wilderness and we are very grateful to you – we have been dismayed and disgusted by the actions of the government and the media from the beginning. I look forward every day to receiving your email to bring some sanity. I must be very naive but I had no idea that Ofcom were behaving so appallingly but I now know why there have been no dissenting arguments In the press – it also makes me understand why so many have been made to feel so terrified, Thank you again
In a local supermarket this evening…guy in front of me is wearing a face mask and may I say in quite an ostentatious way, as many do.
Just before he pays for his purchases his fingers go to his face mask to adjust it. I see his finger tips on the mouth part where all the pathogens will have been gathering in a lovely warm moist, sugary (with saliva) environment, perfect for growth.
He then takes his fingers off the mask and uses the card machine to pay, so putting his fingers in contact with surfaces that I then have to touch as the next customer in the queue.
The idea that face masks reduce infection is clearly utter nonsense. They encourage people to touch their facial area with their fingers – the surest way to passing infections both ways.
I have noticed the same thing
Cash is cleaner ! 🙂
The cash in my purse has normally only been handled by me in the last 48 hours or so. The card payment machines have been touched by goodness knows how many people in that time. Contactless isn’t always possible, especially when paying for larger amounts like petrol. I’ll stick with cash!
And sometimes contactless will either not work due to bad internet connection or for security reasons so you have to enter your PIN anyway.
In one of my local shops the cashier wearing gloves places a piece of clean clingfilm over the buttons, then removes and bins it after the transaction.
I mean, honestly, do people think the bloody thing enters and leaves the body through the skin? Behave as normal. When you’ve been touching dirty stuff lots of other people have been touching, wash your hands when you get home. Try not to suck your thumb, poke yourself in the eye or pick your nose. Y’know, just like any normal civilized person over the age of 6.
Ahh well saving the environment is no longer an issue.
Safer – for lots of non-medical reasons.
I’ve noticed that a lot too. Not to mention some of them emit harsh sounds when they breathe.
Coronavirus press conference: Teatime shows rejoice as Hancock’s half-hour ends
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-press-conference-teatime-shows-rejoice-as-hancocks-half-hour-ends-9l7zjrtbl
About time
Hi Toby, All I can really say is: Well done, and thank you. Really! Thank you! You’ve provided a respite to the insanity of main stream media, you’ve given me hope, clarity, inspiration and strength, at times when I’ve wobbled or stared into the abyss and contemplated jumping! Thank you! I cannot believe this government’s narrative – you couldn’t write a script with more comedic elements: Covid-19 tainted cricket balls, people roundabouts, hush order on hair-dressers, restrictions on promiscuity, dice-rolling as to which grand parents to visit … even David Brent couldn’t be this imaginative. Their icy tendrils of despair and apocalypse are everywhere. I am aghast, depressed, angry, shocked, disappointed, resigned and defiant every day, after a cursory glance at the media. There must be at least 20 stages of Covid-19-reality resistance. Jesus. My way through this maze of insanity is to a) write to my local MP (I know, futile, but worth doing and I’ve done thrice), b) not support businesses with dogmatic/draconian Covid-19 regulations (I know, we should be supporting local business, but it’s a difficult trade-off to embrace, and I’ve chosen my path, apologies) and c) embrace NORMAL behaviors such as shaking hands with a friend,… Read more »
Your boys have you! They’ll be fine!
Excellent posting today! You and Dr. Lee sum up the situation so well. Thanks as always for your continuing work on the skeptical cause. I’d have lost my mind months ago if I hadn’t found a community of equally baffled folks.
I feel the same Mimi. If it wasn’t for Toby’s regular updates and articles, and everybody’s comments here, I’d be further round the bend than I already am! This site has been like a shining beacon in the darkness.
Well done and thanks for all your hard work
Here’s a petition about contact tracing, although I would be totally against it.
https://www.esat.kuleuven.be/cosic/sites/contact-tracing-joint-statement/
Contact tracing is one of those things that sounds good in theory but the practice in a nation of 70 million with 100 plus different language communities, a huge population of illegal migrants, illegal and unofficial overcrowded housing, strong class, religious and racial divides, and contacts with all parts of the globe? It ain’t gonna work! Any fule can see that. It might work in a small city state like Singapore with a high level of law-abiding conduct. It might work in monoglot, monocultural, monoracial states like Japan, Taiwan and S Korea. It might work in a brutal totalitarian state like China. But it won’t work here.
It won’t work here for those reasons, plus awkward old sods like me. The moment that gunk is on my phone, my phone will stay at home. I have a PAYG 2G (honestly!) phone, with no provision for apps, which will come out with me instead for as long as the trace facism continues. It’s one thing when your phone watches you to work out your location (GPS), local time tides and distance walked, etc; quite another when it’s idiots like Hancock who are watching you.
Why is everyone so tied to their phones anyway? Why take them out at all? What/who is so important that a call from them must never ever be missed, no matter where or when. I have never in my life
taken a phone out with me (I’m 58) except when I have been staying away from home to let my husband know I’m ok. I have an iPhone, my husband insisted, but now I only use it at home to WhatsApp family. A neighbour used to come to my house bringing both her house phone and a mobile phone, she would never fail to answer either, no matter how rude – and it is rude to answer a phone and have the other person sit around trying not to listen while you waffle on and on about nowt. It’s one of the reasons why I am in no hurry to ask her back after the lockdown ends (she is strict about it, saying we should only meet in the garden.). Well, no. I do hate most people at the moment, very angry, very, very angry…
Your neighbour is such an extreme case she’s clearly beyond redemption.
Exposé the lies.
Ok… There is a huge game being played here. It really is amazing what you find when you start doing your own digging. The virus is a nonsense, we know that but everyone is double downed locked in on a path that is a cover for something much bigger. That’s still ongoing. There’s loads of things in the mix – Trump (main one – they want to bring him down), Brexit, immigration… Etc etc
What’s immediate is this sinister and wholly connected BLM Marxism madness that’s infected the world. That organisation and ANTIFA need to be discredited and crushed.
The George Floyd video was a hoax, fake.
Now look at what I found regarding that famous picture at one of the London riots…
Not for those who are a bit delicate for bad language but not only is it hilariously funny, it’s incredibly disturbing and shines a bright light on what’s going on…
https://youtu.be/5H6UP74cn8Y
Very amusing…
I tend to think things are 33% cock up, 33% conspiracy and 33% chance, with 1% weird. So I don’t leap to the conspiracy explanation.
But this definitely has an odd odour to it!
Falling over after being literally tapped on the head? It looked so fake. We are evolved to try and stay upright in such threatening circumstances. In genuine assault videos, you see people still trying to stay upright after severe blows to the head, not light smacks and taps.
The “victim” is an ex undercover police officer specialising in penetrating football hooligan gangs? Hmmm…
Rescued by a “peace maker” wearing assault gloves? Hmmm…
Photographers just happening to be concentrated at that point (if they were concentrated at that density throughout the protests there would have had to be 100k photographers present? Hmmm…
Yep, smells to high heaven.
Sadly I can’t view it as YouTube wants me to sign in first and I don’t have an account.
Try this:
http://nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=5H6UP74cn8Y
There’s the idea that this is a consequence of the Everything Bubble – not just increased leverage in the stock market,with QE and share buy backs to inflate prices with no capital investment, but that media has been stripped and simplified to the flimsiest low-resolution information. Any slight deviation causes a huge overblown response. The feedback loop of social media and its collective herding effect have resulted in a kind of drama addiction, that can be profitable and useful only if you are quick enough to ride it. It’s a bit like an extreme survival of the fittest, but the test will ultimately get too hard to pass. Like the The Bleep Test for sprinting. In Chaos Theory there is the concept of the Predator-Prey cycle where at times it looks like a prey has been made extinct only for it to revive. Classical continuous mathematics cannot explain it whereas iterative discrete mathematics often makes a better job. And the rules employed are often very simple. Just repeating the previous conditions with a slight adjustment. I think what we are starting to see is a break of this. On one hand we have the media and official narrative that 2… Read more »
Possibly… But the BLM hoax is begging to be exposed isn’t it? Then what else is there…🧐😉
That twonk Greta……
ianp, thought this video may interest you. It is long but raises some very interesting points in relation to the George Floyd death:
https://youtu.be/IdRcL6u2fZs
Quite honestly I don’t need to watch an overlong exposé of suspicious events for George Floyd but I might do later.
Just watch the original vid that has almost 3 million views on YouTube. Easy.
Watch the bit at the end where ‘the body’ is lifted onto the stretcher 😆
Then watch it again, carefully, watch the head – no one’s head wobbles like that if unconscious/dead and then BOOM…. Blink and you miss it, but the body on the stretcher has no legs!! Everyone who sees that cannot unsee it…
Go from there, loads of other stuff not right with the video.
Stay Alert indeed…
Watch it again, carefully. It’s an illusion cause by the side of the stretcher being raise higher at the feet.
Crikey, need to sign in to yuotube to watch it. Is it porn ? 🙂
Very clever
Do Tactical Gloves have knuckle dusters in them? Are knuckle dusters classed as an offensive weapon?
Not understanding why the hero is wearing gloves.
This seems like a good opportunity to sack most of the teachers and recruit some new ones. There’s plenty of time as we’ve got till September, apparently, and there must by now be a lot of unemployed people to recruit from. We could start by looking for teachers who might actually be prepared to go in to work.
They might also do a bit more actual teaching and a bit less inculcating children with leftist slogans to the extent that half of them don’t know the difference between Churchill and the Chuckle Brothers.
How much training would they need? A week should do it.
the problem is that in the state system a teacher must be a graduate with a PGCE. So any new teacher will have been through the existing teaching training process and so will be indoctrinated with the same liberal left woke attitudes. Note that private schools do not have that requirement hence they have come very fine “unqualified” teachers
Yes, but the law could be changed, couldn’t it?
I don’t know why I bothered to post that, really, since the government hasn’t the slightest inclination to do anything to sort things out. Otherwise the lockdown would have been ended fully by now. I have a friend who keeps saying they should do this or that. It’s just pie in the sky. And now I’ve started doing it myself!
If somebody articulates it, others think about it. That’s a beginning, surely?
In 1945 with the massive expansion of the education system, they even recruited teachers without a degree or relevant experience in their subject. Though I must point out that some of the problems with our current system do stem from that decision.
We just need to pull the pendulum back a little.
As expected, its good to see the 2nd wavers out in force this morning. BBC, Sky all headlining our health “leaders” outrage at the governments pitiful lifting of lockdown. You’d think we were liberated WW2 french rather than still imprisoned yet the god like presidents of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, Nursing, Physicians, and GPs all sign a letter exclaiming their outrage at our freedom. Aside from never having been swamped at the height of this epidemic, the medical fraternity must be worried they now have to do a bit of work, like helping all those people imminently to die and suffer from non covid morbidities that have been ignored for 3+months. Respect for the health service and everyone associated with it, obviously barring those who do a genuine, fantastic job, has like for teachers, never been lower.
I was talking about yesterday’s relaxation of restrictions with someone yesterday who supported lockdown strongly, and still does. Their point was that the daily infections are higher than they were before we locked down, so why are we easing up?
This seems to me an excellent question.
We’ve not had the 510,000 deaths predicted by Ferguson et al. Imperial recently praised themselves for saving lives. That I’m aware of, the government and SAGE have never publicly acknowledged any significant change in their assessment of how dangerous the virus is.
So what is the government justification for easing up? I can’t see one, from their “scientific” point of view.
Furthermore, if by say the end of July we are not seeing a very significant increase in hospital admissions for covid-19, how on earth will they explain that? Either their assessment of the dangers was wildly wrong, or whatever restrictions remain during July are more than sufficient to control or suppress the virus, meaning that the previous restrictions were not necessary.
This seems to me an incredibly powerful argument. I’ve not seen this asked by any TV news journalist, but maybe I have missed it.
“…if by say the end of July we are not seeing a very significant increase in hospital admissions for covid-19”
No doubt they will engineer a modest uptick – not too much, but just enough to take the sting out of the tail for either position.
I saw an interesting idea on WM Briggs’ site this morning:
They’re also pushing “hospitalizations.” After lockdowns eased, people started to go to the doc for complaints they’ve been waiting on. They get tested. Lo, coronavirus is found. And the cancer patient (or whatever) is now listed as a coronavirus hospitalization.
Right, we cannot detect infections. Infections are diagnosed clinically, not by a relatively inaccurate PCR test, and we know, albeit anecdotally, that some people have testing multiple times.
I really want everyone to understand that.
Also, even if the number of people who test possible, the rates of people who’ve died with Covid are almost nil, even though the numbers have been massaged.
I want to scream in people faces when they opine on something that they clearly know nothing about.
There’s a not-very subtle deliberate ambiguity in the government’s published strategy.
If you look at their official definition of the “Alert Levels”:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884352/slides_-_11_05_2020.pdf
Level 2 actually means “herd immunity, virus is endemic”, and the action is “No or minimal social distancing”. And at Level 3, which means “nearly at herd immunity”, the action is “gradual relaxing of measures”.
But then as a sop to the other side of the debate, they add Level 1 (which is just a fantasy) and “enhanced testing, tracing, monitoring, screening” to Level 2 as if we were doing a South Korea.
But if we were really doing a South Korea, Level 3 would be “extreme containment measures”, not “gradual relaxing of restrictions” and we wouldn’t come out of Level 3 into Level 2 until all the testing and tracing was actually ready.
Please don’t tell your lockdown-supporting friend about this but the government strategy is “herd immunity plus [a completely unnecessary, futile and enormously destructive lockdown]”
and i caught the last 15 minutes of BBC 24 from 5.45 before Breakfast Time started, and every item was a doom and gloom covid item. They seem to be scraping the barrel now
On a lighter note .. i see the police are taking no action against the Burnley plane. They must be so disappointed there is nothing to charge them with .
Reminds me of the old Not the Nine Oclock news sketch about arresting a west indian gentleman for wearing a loud shirt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teSPN8sVbFU
i am surprised that clip has not been pulled!!
If anybody had seriously suggested that the pilot had not informed the relevant authorities before flying over a major city that’s adjacent to a major airport before pulling this counter-message, then they don’t know what they’re talking about.
So glad they can’t make anything stick.
#AllLivesMatter
Yes – definitely the correct (though surely it should be unnecessary) slogan, even if, after occasionally watching a bit of BC or Sky News, I wonder if some exceptions would be in order!
I think some people in these positions – a little like German generals in April 1945 – have got terrified eyes turned towards the inevitable legal fallout once it is generally understood the establishment has committed a putsch against the British people.
I for one want to see heads on spikes (pun intended) for this lockdown.
Hung, drawn, and quartered and their several members displayed on the walls of the principal cities of the realm.
Punishment for high treason. Was on the statute book until quite recently. If now off, needs to go back on.
I think it was a Mr Blair who removed it. Can’t think why …
There will be glaciers in Hell before I feel any respect for the National Hell Servuce and its performing seals.
Again, thanks so much for the update Toby. You have been a true stalwart throughout this pantomime and as long as you keep fighting the good fight for us, we’ll keep supporting you. I had a lovely experience in an independent clothes retailer the other day. No useless placebo one-way system, no hectoring signs, no handgel at the door, and no limit on how many could enter the shop at one time, despite the fact that the shop itself was small and rails of clothes were packed tightly together. The only thing I could see was a perspex screen at the checkout but it was tiny and the shop owner kept leaning around it anyway to chat. He even let me try on clothes (shock horror)! He was a kind fellow, and he described opening up the shop as like ‘waking up from a long sleep and being disoriented’. He told us how worried he was for the future of his little shop and said ‘Next month, where will I be?’ I came away with an absolutely beautiful vintage 50s style dress, much nicer than the bland tat seen in chain retailers. I couldn’t not support his local business after… Read more »
The BBCs main story today is disgraceful. They are praying for a second wave, which won’t come, but will be reported as such when there is a localised flare up of infections. The only thing that saddens BBC and Guardian hacks about deaths over the last few months is the fact they are in decline. The localised flare ups in Germany and Anglesey were reported with an almost gleeful, celebratory tone.
Disgusting isn’t it? They’ve gone from daily deaths to weekly deaths and sound on the edge of frustration tears that they can’t even sex those up.
Yes I saw that as well, I think it’s absolutely disgusting how the MSM are lying to us. Yesterday was Johnson’s opportunity to properly level with the public about the true costs of the lockdown but instead he merely likened it to some sort of ‘hibernation’ (?!) and didn’t even rule out putting us under house arrest all over again. It is total madness and it’s quite sad how people probably won’t realise how bad lockdown really is until October, when furlough ends and NHS waiting lists are buckling under the strain of winter ailments as well as the cancelled backlog of treatments. By then the government will have nowhere to hide but it will be too late to reverse the damage.
I really can’t deal with this dreadful and dishonest second wave narrative, just as I was beginning to feel optimistic about coming out of this hell. It really makes me feel totally trapped and it’s clear that if they’re going to play the long game, then we will too and we shall never, ever give up fighting.
To be fair some people do really believe the virus is at unnaturally low levels because of the lockdown. If that is true there will be a correction.
I think all the evidence points against this but it is a non-zero possibility.
A second wave is not a good reason for a lockdown but the possibility of one should be enough for them to start doing the preparations they should have done in January for the first wave: figuring out how to protect the vulnerable and how to prevent nosocomial infections. I think this is what the authors of that open letter in the BMJ (that the second wave stories are reporting on) are really trying to say.
Even William Hague (well, some people still remember that non-entity) has said Lockdown must NEVER be repeated!
compared to conservative MPs and leaders over the last 10 years Hague is a political colossus
Oh dear!
Hague covered up child abuse in welsh ‘care’ homes
“To be fair some people do really believe the virus is at unnaturally low levels because of the lockdown”
Yes, this is why I can never be all that enthusiastic about arguments that say that Covid is no worse than a bad flu year, etc. The argument fails because it’s only true with a lockdown in place. It means that all arguments that rely on absolute figures are pointless. They knew what they were doing…
Except the lockdown didn’t slow infections. Inconvenient that.
The problem with that is that there seems to be no correlation between lockdown level and virus spread. There are countries that had no lockdown in place that did a brilliant job, and countries with heavy lockdowns and huge number of victims. So it is not entirely clear that the lockdown had any effect at all.
Your post suggests it had a negative effect. 🙂
We know that, but they always have excuses regardless. Look at Sweden. In the public’s mind, they had a lockdown in all but name. Other countries will have had airport screening. Others will have had mask wearing early on. And so on. There’s no clean proof of anything, so most people are just left to think that lockdowns are common sense.
Wait till unemployment hits ….
I agree. Those arguments however will carry their full weight when the lockdowns have been lifted and the deaths stay about the same. Anyone who thinks this is what’s going to happen needs to get their columns out early so that they can say we told you so 🙂
I believe deaths may rise a bit in some places after lockdowns are lifted, but the UK is not one of them.
If we were coming suddenly out of total lockdown there probably would be a jump in cases. But we’re not. Look at the numbers of people who’ve bern in parks or on beaches, not to mention the BLM wild beast shows. Second wave is a non-starter.But the zombies will go on believing in it until the bed falls on top of them and squashes them flat. And the sooner the better.
Johnson is a pathological liar. No way he’d ever level with us!
Had a similarly promising experience yesterday. Needed a pair of shorts so visited a few shops, and eventually noticed that one of them had their changing room open – tried the item and it fit, so I bought it.
I had assumed closed changing rooms were uniform. Clearly not! Begs the question as to why most shops have closed them given it is certainly costing them money (and, I suspect, doing sod all in preventing the spread).
Precisely – I presume shops’ refunds policy is still the same, so I could just go home, try the item on in my own house anyway, and then return it? Maybe they will have some ridiculous ‘quarantine’ rule where no-one touches returned clothes for 48 hours, but why don’t the jobsworths implement that ‘policy’ for clothes tried on in shops? No logic whatsoever.
Many shops have actually extended their dates. I bought a top on sale online and their return date was extended to 40 instead of the usual 28 days.
And when there’s no stock left in the shops because it’s all waiting to be returned ……….
I don’t think they ever thought of that or I won’t be surprised if they’re not following their own rules.
What’s the hygienic difference between trying it on in a shop and trying it on at home? You could have all sorts of lurgies and bubonic plague circulating in your home.
“Johnson is unprincipled, without
strongany leadership qualities”Just thought a small edit might be helpful!
Thank you! Agree.
Great news about your normal retailer. I’m sure a lot of small businesses will have already gone to the wall but the current situation will hopefully encourage people to make a point of supporting the survivors.