Tories Rebel and Labour Abstains
Parliament will vote today on the Government’s new tier system and Labour will abstain. The Independent has more.
Labour will abstain in a key vote on Boris Johnson’s new COVID-19 tiers. Speaking on Monday night, Sir Keir Starmer said his party was “acting in the national interest” by not opposing the regulations but he said that he had reservations about them. The move is significant because it represents the first time the opposition has failed to back the Government in a vote on COVID-19 regulations.
“Coronavirus remains a serious threat to the public’s health and that’s why Labour accept the need for continued restrictions. We will always act in the national interest, so we will not vote against these restrictions in Parliament tomorrow… However, I remain deeply concerned that Boris Johnson’s Government has failed to use this latest lockdown to put a credible health and economic plan in place. We still don’t have a functioning testing system, public health messaging is confused, and businesses across the country are crying out for more effective economic support to get them through the winter months. It is short-term Government incompetence that is causing long-term damage to the British economy.”
Don’t get too excited. With the Labour party abstaining, rather than voting no, the tier system will still pass. But with a prospect of up to 100 Tory MPs rebelling, the legitimacy of the new COVID-19 regime is shaky at best. How can you reasonably ask people to obey all the new draconian restrictions, particularly those that live in Tier 3 areas, if only a minority of MPs have voted for them?
In the hope of appeasing mutinous Tory backbenchers, Downing Street published a long-awaited ‘impact assessment’ yesterday, but it did little good. Details from the MailOnline:
The Government released its assessment of the economic and social effects of the pandemic and its response this evening. But the document made clear that it is not possible to say exactly how the tiers will hit local areas – a key demand of Conservative MPs. It also insisted there was no way of imposing looser curbs and instead merely argued that it would be “intolerable” to allow the NHS to be overwhelmed.
The assessment said it was “clear that restrictions to contain COVID-19 have had major impacts on the economy and public finances, even if it is not possible to forecast with confidence the precise impact of a specific change to a specific restriction”.
Tory rebel ringleader Mark Harper complained that the information was being released too late, just 24 hours before MPS are due to make their decision. “This information is what Ministers should have been insisting on before they make their decisions so it surely could have been made available earlier,” he said…
Mel Stride, the Tory Chairman of the Treasury Committee, criticised the documents, saying:
“On a number of occasions, I’ve requested from the Chancellor and Treasury officials that they publish an analysis of the economic impacts of the three tiers. With little over 24 hours until MPs vote on the new tiered system, this rehashed document offers very little further in economic terms other than that which the OBR published last week. It is frustrating that there is little here that sets out how the different tiers might impact on the specific sectors and regions across the country. Those looking for additional economic analysis of the new tiered system will struggle to find it in this document.”
Perhaps, in the rush, the Government did not give them the right file. The Times has discovered that the Government has in fact produced impact assessment that includes an analysis of the effect of various restrictions on different sectors of the economy. This gives the lie to the Government’s claim that such an analysis isn’t possible, due to the fiendish complexity of disentangling the effects of the restrictions from the effects of the pandemic. Couldn’t it just have released this internal assessment instead?
The Government has drawn up a secret dossier detailing the impact of COVID-19 on the economy, with a dozen sectors rated “red” and facing significant job cuts and revenue losses, the Times has been told.
The COVID-19 sectoral impacts dashboard, which is prepared by officials from across Whitehall and frequently updated, gives “granular” detail on the effect of coronavirus on nearly 40 areas of the economy.
Among the sectors with a red rating are aerospace, the automotive industry, retail, hospitality and tourism, arts and heritage, maritime, including ferries and cruises, and sport.
Worth reading in full.
At least MPs and decision makers are beginning to think about a cost-benefit analysis. Long-time readers may recall the COBR meeting of March 23rd, when Michael Gove, who was chairing, surprised those present by announcing the Government was planning the country into a national lockdown, effective immediately.
Only Jesse Norman, a Treasury minister, raised any doubts, asking whether there had been any cost-benefit analysis of the economic and health impacts of lockdown or consideration of less onerous alternatives. Around the room there were blank looks: the decision had been taken.
The absence of any such analysis was, notorious, confirmed by the last line of “the Lockdown Regulations”, a statutory instrument enacted at 1pm on March 26th by Matt Hancock:
No impact assessment has been prepared for these Regulations.
Stop Press: Christopher Snowden has done a good thread on the failings of the Government’s cost-benefit analysis document
The Astronomical Cost of Lockdown
For a much more robust assessment of the cost of the lockdown and associated restrictions, we recommend this new report by Tim Knox and Jim McConalogue for Civitas called The Cost of the Cure. The report is worth reading in full, but the short version is that the Government has spent a minimum of £96,000 for each QALY saved, which is over three times the figure that the NHS routinely uses of £30,000 when assessing whether a particular course of action is worthwhile.
Tim Knox has kindly written an 800-word article summarising the report for Lockdown Sceptics that you can read here. He is predictably scathing about the impact assessment published by the Government yesterday. Here is an extract.
If you wanted a chuckle, then imagine you had the job of the unfortunate civil servant who had been given the job of cobbling together this strange hotch-potch of information. The document is clearly a rushed job, published with the political aim of persuading the growing number of Conservative MPs who are sceptical about the need for tighter restrictions that they are, in fact, necessary. (There was once a time, not so long ago, when the Civil Service would have demurred from being involved in such a blatantly political operation.) A futile effort, for no self-respecting MP could be persuaded by such a flimsy document.
Take its estimates of additional deaths from other diseases. Table 9 of the report looks at the effect on morbidity and mortality of certain conditions – alcohol misuse, road injuries, depressive disorders, and the like. But instead of trying to estimate the actual numbers, the report simply uses up and down arrows to describe the general direction of change that social distancing measures might produce. Is that really the best that our Rolls Royce Civil Service can do?
Or take the report’s attempt to take a sectoral approach of the impact of lockdown on the economy. Here again in some cases, all the report does is provide a pre-COVID-19 assessment of Gross Value Added (GVA) output of each sector – it seems to be afraid of making any calculation of the likely impact. If estimates are made, they are drafted as general changes in GDP, not reported as actual costs on deeply impacted industries.
Very much worth reading in full.
Reviewing Michael Gove’s Dubious Lockdown Claims
Micheal Gove penned an essay in the Times over the weekend, seeking to win round Tory rebels. The Spectator‘s Steerpike has done a cracking fact-check:
Gove: The decision to implement the second lockdown was rushed.
Steerpike: Gove here confirms what has been reported elsewhere. On the Thursday, ministers had been told there might be a bit of tightening to the regime. Then, on Friday, they were blindsided by some supposedly terrifying new information suggesting that the virus was surging and lockdown was needed urgently. The Treasury later admitted it did not even have time to estimate the cost of the second lockdown that the scientific advisers were suddenly urging. So the decision to lockdown was rushed. Which makes it all the more important that scrutiny is applied now.
Gove: Infections were doubling fast. The number of days taken to see that increase was open to question. But the trend was not.
Steerpike: On the day Cabinet met to agree Lockdown 2.0 the seven-day average was just 2% higher week-on-week. It would not have been clear then but it’s hard to talk, now, about a ‘doubling’ rate.
Gove: Sweden, which has always places restrictions on its population, has found that even the battery of measures it adopted was not enough. Infections rose dramatically in October and early this month, and hospitalisations continue to rise as its government has, reluctantly but firmly, introduced new measures to keep households apart, restrict commerce, stop people visiting bars and restaurants and comprehensively reduce the social contact that spreads infection.
Steerpike: Yes, do let’s look at Sweden. Contrary to what Gove claims, it has placed hardly any “restrictions on its population”. The only law it “reluctantly but firmly” introduced was a rule of eight for public places and a 10 pm. limit on serving booze. No tiers. It has not “stopped people visiting bars and restaurants”. No “battery of measures,” just non-binding advice. Sweden believes that people, if treated like adults, tend to heed advice. Compulsion and lockdowns are not needed to control a virus in a mature democracy. Yes, Sweden has taken a similar COVID-19 hit to Britain. But its strategy always was to treat COVID-19 as a manageable risk while minimising collateral damage on society, personal liberty and the economy.
Worth reading in full.
The Mass Write-In
Many readers have taken up Peter Hitchens’s call to write to MPs. Herewith a small selection:
From James Delingpole to Chris Heaton Harris (Conservative):
Dear Chris,
I never imagined that I would have to write to my local Conservative MP politely asking him not to vote to destroy the economy, kill jobs and small businesses and impose unprecedented restrictions on liberty – all in the name of “defeating” a virus no deadlier than bad seasonal flu.
But this is where we are in 2020. Please don’t insult my intelligence by fobbing me off with the official Government line on coronavirus. We know it’s bunk. You’ll know it’s bunk too if, as I hope, you’ve done some rudimentary research on the work of Michael Yeadon, Carl Heneghan, Sunetra Gupta and the myriad other respected scientists around the world who are bemused and frustrated by the increasingly anti-science – and relentlessly anti-human and anti-prosperity – measures being pursued by your Government.
This is not why I voted Conservative. I hereby promise that if you vote for the tier system (Lockdown by any other name) I shall not vote for you in the next General Election. Nor will I vote Conservative on any other occasion. The policies being pursued by this Government are not remotely conservative.
If you believe in conservative values and the wellbeing and livelihoods of the people you represent, then this is the moment to take a principled stand.
Thanks for all the work you have done in the past as an excellent constituency MP.
All best,
James
And from another reader to Tom Hunt (Conservative):
Just a “short, sharp” email to urge you to vote against these farcical tier restrictions tomorrow.
Putting aside the monumental assault on our basic civil liberties, we now know that the number of lives lost as a direct result of these restrictions is far higher than the number of lives saved from dying “with” COVID-19.
I’m not going to even go into the absurdity of a Government pretending it can somehow control a sub-microscopic virus. It’s like the Government declaring that they can control the weather. Put simply, it’s pure science fiction. The data is in for all to see and there is no parallel that you can draw between the severity of a country’s lockdown and its overall death rate. None. So let’s stop it. Immediately.
I also hadn’t realised that being born a citizen of the UK meant that my fundamental freedoms are contingent on the smooth running of the NHS. We keep getting told that our freedoms have been removed to protect the NHS from becoming overwhelmed, as if it’s our national duty, and yet, the Government is spending billions on its “moonshot” testing program, enough to build 200 new hospitals. Surely, that would be a much better use of our money, and would prevent the hospitals getting overwhelmed, now and in the future?
And finally, sent to Angela Richardson (Conservative):
Thank you for your email in response to mine
I fully expect you to continue following the Government line and so in the spirit of the times I am moving you from Tier 1 (a candidate I could not possibly vote for) into Tier 2 (a candidate I shall actively campaign against).
Only Four English NHS Trusts Busier Now Than Last Winter
Given that protecting “our NHS” from being “overwhelmed” being one of the Government’s core justifications for continued restrictions, MailOnline has done an analysis showing that – contra Gove – only four hospitals in the whole of England are busier now than last winter:
NHS England figures show that there are thousands more hospital beds spare this year than last winter. On average, 77,942 out of 88,903 (87.7%) available beds were occupied across the country in the week ending November 22nd, which is the most recent snapshot. This figure does not take into account make-shift capacity at mothballed Nightingales, or the thousands of beds commandeered from the private sector.
For comparison, occupancy stood at 94.9%, on average, during the seven-day spell that ended December 8th in 2019, which is the most comparable data available for last winter, when around 91,733 out of all 96,675 available beds were full.
Just four trusts – Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust (FT), University College London Hospitals FT, Calderdale and Huddersfield FT, and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh FT – are busier now than they were a year ago.
Dr Karol Sikora, a consultant oncologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of Buckingham, said Downing Street was running a “brainwashing PR campaign” with “data that doesn’t stack up”. He told MailOnline: “We’ve gone back to how it started in March, with the Government claiming we need the measures to protect the NHS. The data you’ve shown me proves that it doesn’t need protecting. It’s dealing with COVID-19 very well indeed.
“What the data shows is that hospitals are not working at full capacity and they’ve still got some spare beds for COVID-19 if necessary. The public is being misled, the data doesn’t stack up. Fear and scaremongering is being used to keep people out of hospital.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Read the story of the NHS call handler who quit claiming she did “f*** all” during the pandemic apart from filming “empty” A&Es in London. Again from MailOnline.
The Vaccine is Not Compulsory but…
Nadhim Zahawi, the Minister recently appointed to oversee deployment of COVID-19 vaccines, gave an interview yesterday to BBC Radio 4’s World at One. The Guardian has more:
Nadhim Zahawi said that while having the vaccine would not be compulsory, businesses such as pubs and restaurants might require proof that people have been vaccinated before allowing them in.
Asked whether those who have been inoculated would get would get an immunity passport, Zahawi said: “We are looking at the technology. And, of course, a way of people being able to inform their GP that they have been vaccinated. But, also, I think you’ll probably find that restaurants and bars and cinemas and other venues, sports venues, will probably also use that system, as they have done with the Test-and-Trace app. I think that in many ways, the pressure will come from both ways. From service providers who’ll say, ‘Look, demonstrate to us that you have been vaccinated.’ But also we will make the technology as easy and as accessible as possible.”
The Minister said people would have to “make a decision” on whether to get vaccinated, and said if they chose not to they could face severe restrictions.
His remarks were echoed later in the day by Matt Hancock who, in a Downing Street press conference, said:
Firstly, we do not plan to mandate the vaccine. We think that by encouraging the uptake of the vaccine, we will get a very high proportion of the people in this country to take up the vaccine, because of course it protects you but it also helps to protect your loved ones and your community.
The question of mandatory vaccination, is, of course an old one, and it is worth noting that immunity passports are already used in some countries to see whether people have protection against yellow fever and polio. But politics and vaccinations do not mix well and these remarks will not sit well with the 36% of people who, according to research carried out by the British Academy, are either “uncertain” or “very unlikely” to be vaccinated against the virus.
The Guardian also carries a hint of the campaign that is in preparation to persuade people to take the jab.
Ministers and NHS England are drawing up a list of “very sensible” famous faces in the hope that their advice to get immunised would be widely trusted. Health chiefs are particularly worried about the number of people who are still undecided. “There will be a big national campaign,” said one source with knowledge of the plans. “NHS England are looking for famous faces, people who are known and loved. It could be celebrities who are very sensible and have done sensible stuff during the pandemic.”
NHS communications experts suggest privately that the footballer Marcus Rashford, who is widely admired for his child food poverty campaign… and members of the Royal Family. Politicians will not be used.
I wonder if Marcus Rashford and Prince William will go so far as to get vaccinated themselves and then let us monitor them for four weeks to see whether there are any ill effects?
Worth reading in full.
It may take an awful lot of “very sensible” celebrities to overcome some doubters’ uncertainties, and even more as kinks in the plans for the roll-out of the vaccines come to light. The appeal for vaccination volunteers who “under the supervision of healthcare professionals will be trained to deliver a vaccination to a patient” and who “will be ready to act if the patient has an adverse reaction”, prompted this reaction from Mike Yeadon on Twitter:
Stop Press: For more on the roll-out of vaccines, and the Government’s plans to quell vaccine dissent, watch Toby Young’s recent interview on TalkRADIO
Another Reader Arrested
We’ve been sent another account by a reader who was arrested during Saturday’s protest:
I knew that there would be a lot of police at the anti-lockdown demonstration in London last Saturday, but I wasn’t prepared for the levels of chaos and heavy-handedness on display. It was a style of policing that seemed deliberately designed to create disorder.
The first thing I saw when I got to Marble Arch were about 20 dark blue police vans marked “Territorial Support Group”. Slightly intimidating. I then saw the marchers crossing the road further down Park Lane, so I hurried down there to join in at the back. The march was already pretty busy and full of energy, with people singing and chanting “Freedom.” I waved the placard my daughter and I had drawn in the morning, which said “Freedom. Remember That?” My partner turned up on his bike and we walked along together.
We got as far as Grosvenor Square. At this point, masses of police suddenly surrounded us, running alongside the edge of the marchers and trying to box us in. This was the first of many attempts by the police to split up and separate the group. Whenever the police tried this it led to chaotic scenes – with marchers running around, shouting, and trying to stay together. We managed to regroup and started marching again, but this time quickly reached another police block. More shouting; the crowd suddenly turned back on themselves and down a narrow side street. This was a dead-end, and we were all syphoned down a narrow alleyway – hundreds of us being funnelled down a tiny conduit barely wide enough for two people to walk down.
We marched along another side street, which led us out onto Oxford Street. My partner and I breathed a sigh of relief, and said to each other that this was a better, and safer, place to be. Out in the open, overlooked by other members of the public – there were quite a few families and tourists out walking around, window-shopping. We marched past Bond Street Station, and the atmosphere was calm – the police had seemingly left us alone, and it felt more like a “normal” march. I started to daydream and chat to my partner.
Suddenly a female police officer was standing right in front of me, looking straight at me. “Turn round and go home now, or you risk being arrested”, she said. This took me aback. “No, I don’t think I’m going to turn round, I’m allowed to walk along here”, I said. “Turn around now or I will arrest you”, she said again. And within a couple of seconds two other officers, one on either side of me, took my arms around my back and put me in handcuffs.
I have never been arrested before and the whole thing was pretty rushed and surprising. I guess I didn’t really believe it was happening. It’s uncomfortable being cuffed, and I just stood there dumbly while my partner asked, “Why are you arresting her?” A reasonable question. “Do you want to be arrested too?” was the reply, as if that was a perfectly reasonable response, and then, “She’s an adult, she’ll be allowed a phone-call home.”
I was led off back down Oxford Street, and me, my arresting officer and another policewoman stood around outside Body Shop waiting for a police van to come and pick us up. The van came after about 10 minutes and I got in and sat in the back with one other protestor and six police officers – not the greatest way to travel. We got to King Charles Street, which I’d heard the police describe on their radios as the “Processing Centre”. We were told it was “full”, and sat there in the van for a while, waiting to be let in.
Finally, we walked in. King Charles Street was completely enclosed with makeshift corrugated iron barriers at either end. I joined a long line of “prisoners” who stood at one side, each one guarded by their arresting officer. I stood there for about an hour-and-a-half, during which time I was searched twice. Every now and then, a more senior officer would come along with a clipboard, and check my details, and explain what was going to happen. I’d get to the front, my details would be logged in the computer, and I’d receive a fine. Probably £200, reduced to £100 if I paid quickly.
And that is what happened. I reached the front of the ‘queue’, and my arresting officer was cued to deliver her speech to me: “I’m reporting you for breach of Coronavirus Regulations. You will receive a Fixed Penalty Notice by post in a few working days.” And that was it. I was walked to the corrugated iron gate at the other end of King Charles Street and sent on my way. I’d been arrested for walking down Oxford Street carrying a homemade placard with “freedom” written on it in felt-tipped pen.
If you’re in any doubt that Britain in 2020 has changed beyond all recognition, then you haven’t been paying attention.
We have put her in touch with Richard Parry, Piers Corbyn’s solicitor. When it comes to heavy-handed policing and vexatious arrests, he’s probably the world’s leading expert.
Infection Fatality Rate in Norway: Slightly Worse Than Influenza
Reader Katherine Jebsen Moore – author of the brilliant knitting trilogy in Quillette – has drawn our attention to the latest data on the infection fatality rate in Norway. It is good news.
“The lethality rate for COVID-19 in Norway is 0.12%,” says Norway’s National Institute for Public Health, according to Nettavisen. In its latest report, the Institute has attempted to map Covid-related illness in Norway in the past six months. 73,000 Norwegians had the virus between June 1st and November 30th. 0.12% of those died, while 0.15% needed intensive care, and 1% were admitted to hospital, according to the report. In comparison, the death rate for influenza is around 0.1%, and around 1.5% of patients need hospitalisation. The numbers from Norway, which has a population of 5.4 million, are considerably lower than the best estimates in the rest of the world, which are around 0.4-1 %. So far, almost 90% of deaths have occurred in the over 70s. For people over 80, the illness has a lethality of more than 5%. The country has so far had only 332 deaths from the virus.
Has Lockdown Affected Your Mental Health?
King’s College London is seeking volunteers for online study of personality and mental health in the COVID-19 pandemic. Personality profile for all and £10 expenses if you complete the follow-up. Sign up here at measureyourpersonality.com. The study code is 57894876.
Round-up
- “MPs who vote against draconian tiers will be on the right side of history” – Unarguable piece by Dan Wooton in the Sun
- “Lance Foreman: The whole political class has been tainted by 2020” – Something “desperately” has to be done, he tells Mike Graham on talkRADIO
- “Australia will pay people $300 after they get tested for COVID-19, another $1,500 if they test positive” – Hmmm. That one may have unintended consequences. From the India Times
- “Pubs in Wales to close by 6pm under new COVID-19 restrictions” – Looks like the Welsh “firebreak” didn’t do much good. What’s the response? Double down, of course
- “Viral impact in England. The empirical truth – Part 1” – Latest from the mighty Ivor Cummins on the Fat Emperor podcast featuring Lockdown Sceptic contributors Joel Smalley, Dr Clare Craig and Jonathan Engler
- “Chinese sociologist: ‘As long as 1.4 billion Chinese people eat and sleep every day we will drive the U.S. to its death’.” – A startling admission reported in the Blaze, in which a Chinese academic says Covid has been good for China, bad for the West
- “Mark Steyn takes on government officials flouting their own holiday orders” – Title says it all. From the Chestnut Post
- “Arcadia goes bust with 13,000 jobs at brands including TopShop and Burton on the line and a ‘£350m pension black hole’“– I never thought I’d feel sorry for Sir Phillip Green, but Covid makes for strange bedfellows
- “The big question about the new tier system: do ministers actually understand it themselves?” – Michael Deacon’s latest Parliamentary sketch in the Telegraph
- “The Laura Perrins interview – Peter Hitchens” – Two titans of lockdown scepticism meet. In the Conservative Woman
- “Were tiers working before lockdown?” – Ross Clark in the Spectator poses the same question Will Jones has been asking for weeks. No prizes for guessing the answer
- “Pictured: Rita Ora at her lavish lockdown-flaunting 30th birthday” – The Daily Mail has the low-down on Rita Ora’s 30th birthday. It cost her a £10,000 fine
- “We all break lockdown in France” – John Lewis-Stempel in UnHerd. Sounds like a good national sport
- “I’ve sold my wedding ring to provide for my late son’s kids” – Dan Wootton interviews Irene on talkRADIO. Heart-breaking. Starts at 2 hours, 6 minutes
- “The NHS isn’t my church and salvation” – MailOnline reports on Laurence Fox’s latest row on Twitter
- “Francis Hoar on Lockdown Legality” – The lawyer acting for Simon Dolan gives Unmasked Doco a legal overview of COVID-19 policy. A must watch
- And from the same filmmaker, Roger Bowles, who’s working on a definitive documentary about Covid, this heartbreaking interview with a nurse:
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “Two Pints of Lager and A Packet Of Crisps Please” by Splodgenessabounds, “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie, “I Won’t Back Down” by Johnny Cash and “Banned From The Pubs” by Peter and the Test Tube Babies.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Sharing Stories
Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics so you can share it. To do that, click on the headline of a particular story and a link symbol will appear on the right-hand side of the headline. Click on the link and the URL of your page will switch to the URL of that particular story. You can then copy that URL and either email it to your friends or post it on social media. Please do share the stories.
Social Media Accounts
You can follow Lockdown Sceptics on our social media accounts which are updated throughout the day. To follow us on Facebook, click here; to follow us on Twitter, click here; to follow us on Instagram, click here; to follow us on Parler, click here; and to follow us on MeWe, click here.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, from the Telegraph, the story of the students who want the adjective “black” expunged from textbooks and lectures:
University students have demanded the word “black” be banned from lectures and textbooks amid claims it symbolises “negative situations”. Undergraduates from the University of Manchester say the colour’s use as an adjective stems from our “colonial history”, which has become outdated in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Supporters are calling for commonly used phrases such as “black sheep” to be removed from lecture slides and books, while concerns have also been raised about “blackmail” and “black market” during an audit of racism concerns on campus.
The University said it is preparing to roll out new training and research in response to the unease in order to tackle “racist terminology” and “aggressions”.
In documents seen by the Telegraph, students called for: “The University to ban the use of these words listed above and any other use of the word ‘black’ as an adjective to express negative connotations”. This is because black is “linguistically and metaphorically associated with negative situations” and “used for bad and unsavoury situations or objects”.
This is part of an “accepted consciousness” of using colours as adjectives that is “situated in colonial history”, the student report stated.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The National Trust has hired strategic advisory firm Hanbury Strategy to help it de-woke-ify its image in the wake of the backlash which followed the report addressing its properties’ links with slavery and colonialism. The firm was co-founded by Paul Stephenson, who was formerly a Director of Vote Leave. MailOnline has the details.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (takes a while to arrive). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £1.99 from Etsy here. And, finally, if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face masks in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know you will not be insisting on face masks or asking them what their reasons for exemption are, you can download a friendly sign to stick in your window here.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.
Stop Press: Sometimes academic studies comes up with results that were obvious all along. Researchers from the University of Manchester have investigated the “Impacts of face coverings on communication: an indirect impact of COVID-19“. They conducted an online survey of 460 members of the public, oversampling people with hearing loss. The results, which were published in the International Journal of Audiology, are no great surprise:
With few exceptions, participants reported that face coverings negatively impact on hearing, understanding, engagement and feelings of connection with the speaker. Impacts were greatest when communicating in medical situations. People with hearing loss were significantly more impacted than those without hearing loss. Face coverings impacted communication content, interpersonal connectedness and willingness to engage in conversation. They increased anxiety and stress and made communication fatiguing, frustrating and embarrassing, both as a speaker wearing a face covering and when listening to someone else who is wearing one.
Their research is worth reading in full and the MailOnline has a report which is worth reading too.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched last month and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you Googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over 700,000 signatures.
Update: The authors of the GDB have expanded the FAQs to deal with some of the arguments and smears that have been made against their proposal. Worth reading in full.
Update 2: Many of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration are involved with new UK anti-lockdown campaign Recovery. Find out more and join here.
Update 3: You can watch Sunetra Gupta set out the case for “Focused Protection” here and Jay Bhattacharya make it here.
Update 4: The three GBD authors plus Prof Carl Heneghan of CEBM have launched a new website collateralglobal.org, “a global repository for research into the collateral effects of the COVID-19 lockdown measures”. Follow Collateral Global on Twitter here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many JRs being brought against the Government and its ministers, we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
First, there’s the Simon Dolan case. You can see all the latest updates and contribute to that cause here.
Then there’s the Robin Tilbrook case. You can read about that and contribute here.
Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.
There’s the GoodLawProject’s Judicial Review of the Government’s award of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.
The Night Time Industries Association has instructed lawyers to JR any further restrictions on restaurants, pubs and bars.
And last but not least there’s the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. You can read about that and make a donation here.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
Quotation Corner
We know they are lying. They know they are lying, They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie.
Alexander Solschenizyn
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Mark Twain
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
Charles Mackay
They who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions…
Ideology – that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get into the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man, who knows where it hurts, is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialist.
Sir Winston Churchill
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.
Richard Feynman
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis
The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.
Albert Camus
We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
Carl Sagan
Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Marcus Aurelius
Necessity is the plea for every restriction of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt the Younger
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here. (Don’t assume we’ll pick them up in the comments.)
And Finally…
Listen to the latest episode of London Calling with Toby and James Delingpole here. This week, the two curmudgeons discuss today’s Parliamentary vote, the attack on free speech at Eton, James’s stubborn insistence that Trump won the US Presidential election, the latest Free Speech Union victory and whether Rogue One is better than the last three Star Wars movies (spoiler alert: yes).
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
What about analysing the supposed benefits of lockdowns and the tier system?
I have just read the newspaper headlines. All the discussion is about the economic impacts of lockdowns and tier restrictions.
Very little mention of the physical and mental health aspects.
Absolutely nothing questioning whether there are any benefits from imposing these restrictions. Surely that must be made a big part of the debate – especially the repeated claims that the recent reduction in numbers is attributable to lockdown 2
Yeah, the report basically admits they have no evidence for lockdowns being good… But without them people might spend less because of voluntary social distancing (actually says this). Well, tell a lie – they do say lockdowns have reduced traffic so have saved lives from traffic accidents 😮 Can’t fault them on that, can we (rolls eyes)
Dear .
“Mistake” 1311 People POSITIVE Last Week 🤦♂️ My Faith Is GONE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fib7S9JVgdo
Keeps the common people from wrecking the planet by flying while saving the skies for special people.
Gives the Police time to practice using the new powers they will get next year.
Rips apart the evil alcohol pushing industry while leaving gastropubs open for the nice people down south.
Get the students to realise that getting taught in the built environment is ridiculous when it can all be done on Zoom.
The list goes on and on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AijNCV_JWMs
Ironically the Tories now have quite a few northern English seats, but this Victoria Wood clip from Thatcher’s time reveals their underlying attitudes.
Spot on. So many advantages. We are so blessed.
Numerous virtue-signalling celebrities, politicians, blue ticks – Caroline Lucas, Greta Thunberg, Tony Blair…. They’ll all be flying around the world in their zero carbon private jets and drinking champagne whilst shaming the working class for lighting a candle
I was a ‘green ‘ fuck them now..
Absolutely spot on. The rhetoric doesn’t seem to have moved on from the “lives v the economy” mantra, when in actual fact it is really “lives v lives” On the one hand, the restrictions are causing deaths directly and indirectly and will continue to do so. The deaths caused are just the tip of the iceberg (although massive in number) when compared to the immense suffering caused as evidenced by the nurse in the above testimony and the likely outcome of the upcoming economic devastation to name just two tangible effects. On the other hand, how many lives have the restrictions saved? Most people look at the number of deaths attributed to Covid (circa 60k?) but the actual amount saved could actually be as small as zero. Let us not forget, the lockdowns are designed to suppress the virus only, thereby pushing infections into the future NOT preventing them. The only lives saved are those saved if new therapies or vaccines arrive. The number saved would be very difficult to quantify but since the evidence suggests that the majority of susceptible patients have already succumbed to the disease, the figure is likely to be very low.
One often reported benefit is that a lockdown reduces atmospheric CO2. However it is not correct. I have personally tracked CO2 over the pandemic and the rate of annual increase was very similar to the last decade. I would have thought the massive reduction in transport should have shown up but it hasn’t. Perhaps more interesting is that the annual expected increase between Oct and Nov this year is twice that of last year despite the continuing reduction in transport emissions. (Last year it was 2.13ppm this year it is 4.21 ppm)
More people heating their homes throughout the day rather than sharing a heated office ……
That’s northern hemisphere only.
Presumably it would be aircon in the southern hemisphere, especially as latitudes tend to be lower….
Only really southern USA, Middle East. Little AC in africa, China, India, South America, Antipodes (due to small population) and far east. BUT heating and air conditioning are not the main source of anthropogenic CO2. Transport is the largest human caused source. My point related to that. Of course none of us knows the true reasn for a sudden doubling of the growth in atmospheric C02 but it’s odd that it occurred when the most prolific emitters drastically reduced emissions ,
Maybe air pollution blocks the carbon diioxide?
Massive increase in internet use. All those servers need powering somehow.
Man-made climate change skeptics have been pointing out for decades that, historically, a rise in temperature is followed by a rise in CO2, not the other way around.
Send this to Piers Corbyn. See what he thinks about it.
Those who commit crimes against humanity must conceal their crimes. That’s what’s happening in Ireland, whereby the Irish Gov’t has stopped recording suicides since lockdown began
It would help enormously if Lockdown Sceptics, Off-Guardian or any other journalist or publication was brave enough to list the names of all those ministers, MPs and others who stand to profit from lockdown, the vaccines and tech companies. Some are getting very rich from the track and trace scheme. The stone needs turning over in the sunshine
“List the names”!? WASTE OF TIME… They feel absolutely CONFIDENT that nothing will happen to them.
Until several Jedburgh’s actions aren’t executed nothing will change except the things the SRF & Billionaires via jesters want to CHANGE!
Good idea. Then send the results to all and sundry. Embarrass the heck out of them.
We just need to STOP COVID TYRANNY NOW.
An honest moment here. I had problems with mental illness last year and worked through severe anxiety with the help of an NHS backed CBT programme. My GP was obviously aware of the programme and I consented to the data and reports from the programme being shared. I have down days, but generally I do much better these days despite Covid. However, Between March and now not once has any health care professional been in contact with me to check my mental well-being. If that is being replicated across the country then………
2nd?
Good morning all, never been 3rd before!
Third the one with the hairy chest.
turd
No, Turd(geon) lives in Scotland and is too busy destroying the country to post here.
And so to reality – the section about vaccination is so worrying. I have an amazing and beautiful friend who’s gone down an anti-vaxx K-hole is what I can describe it and she’s absolutely terrified. I’m sceptical because how can we know side effects long term within 6 months or be assured our children’s children won’t be affected. I feel it’s so utterly irresponsible of the media to suggest cinemas, pubs and the like ‘could’ require proof when no vaccine has even been approved yet. It’s making my frightened friend lose sleep, go into a panic over how she can live her life, I don’t know how I can help her calm down. Any tips?
Yes – she should join the movement against the inhuman dictatorship.
Collective action with others – campaigns and demonstrations.
She should never forgive and never forget.
Do you think it will stretch to hospitals?
I’d been thinking that!
It should stretch from the hospitals.
I do not have a smartphone and certainly will not be getting one now and so I guess I would need a paper version like the Yellow Fever card you need to go to Africa. I am hoping that the vaccine system will follow the ‘World Beating’ track and trace system and I will be able to book a jab, not go, but get a card anyway. If that does not work surely you will be able to download a card somewhere?
If this vaccine only has an effect for a limited time period will the date need to be checked as well?
Based on evidence from how well things have gone this year! the administration and documentation of this vaccine hoo-haa seems to have the potential to collapse in chaos.
If you’ve watched any Bill Gates videos connected to this topic you’ll notice him rubbing his hands on behalf of all Pharma companies in anticipation of an indefinite future of guaranteed profits
There will be multiple vaccines to begin with (four, if I’m correct) followed by yearly boosters. Bill Gates seeks to replace natural immunity with his Microsoft business model
The tech companies who will run the immunity passports (Covid-Pass, Clear, ID-2020 etc) are also rubbing their hands and salivating over the prospect of endless guaranteed profits for their shareholders
Essentially humans are being held hostage for profits by Pharma and tech industries whilst governments get to control us more tightly. A win win for them. A lose lose for us
Bearing in mind that the vaccines will probably not provide sterilising immunity, these vaccine/health passports will be totally pointless in medical terms, as vaccinated people will still be able to pass on infection.
So why have them? To provide the basis for an electronic human control grid so the elites can herd their serfs more effectively. And to plum up Big Pharma balance sheets.
This needs to be resisted at all costs.
So that’s a “no” then. Same here.
Laurence Fox is offering some strong and well thought out resistance to the vaccine-digital monitoring dogma that even people who should know better, like Julia Hartley-Brewer, seem to have gone along with. The idea that digital passporting will stop at Covid vaccination and go no further is childishly naive. It will be gradually extended to all sorts of social control. With cash outlawed, you movements can effectively be monitored at all times, as you say buy a train ticket and it can be used to control access to the Internet and social media.
exactly – we all know that on here but the masses are so naive that they think if they get the vaccine then it will ‘all be back to normal’. As far as i can see and it has been alluded to in media channel the vaxx is just the start of the social control program – vaxx every year for flu etc, they will add other data information onto your “social profile” maybe driving points, your exercise (like a fitbit device to make sure you’re exercising enough) debts and other finance stuff, shopping items and the list goes on. All enabled by Big Data and technology and algorithms to calculate your social score based on which you will be allowed or denied access to society!! We are already being restricted to society through the tier system which if in tier 2/3 you bad people and can’t do this or that and this is only the beginning. If it was just about a one-off vaxx, albeit untested, i wouldn’t be so concerned – but this social scoring like they have in china, is what frankly frightens the shit out of me and so it should of everyone. It’s all about… Read more »
Do you have a link for Laurence Fox? Just went through a massive fight with my OH this morning exactly on this topic. His stance is “let’s cross this bridge when we get therein don’t worry about it”, which had me fly into a rage as surely that will be a little too late…
JHB is controlled opposition I suspect.. There are others too, such as James Melville who’ve campaigned against lockdown for months, but who’ve suddenly begun selling the vaccines. Is Quisling too strong a word?
Just say NO! from the word go.
It does need to be resisted, and it would help if you would get off your fat, lazy backside and create your own identity instead of willfully and presumably intentionally confusing things here by persisting in using an identical identity to one that was already in regular use when you got here.
Here, I’ll explain it again, since you’ve been too rude to bother responding previously (even when approached perfectly politely initially).
This is a blog comment system designed for small occasional discussions, being used instead for long term, in depth exchanges. It lacks a system (common in more substantial discussion forum software) for preventing duplicate identifications because that is not much needed for small numbers and occasional isolated exchanges.
For long term interactions, as here, it’s useful to get a feel for commenters’ wider opinions, to understand the nuances of their comments, and to sustain exchanges over multiple weeks and months of exchanges. That adds considerable value to discussions and allows the creation of a degree of community spirit, rather than the essential temporariness of occasional blog comments.
What you are doing gratuitously interferes with that benefit. It’s inconsiderate, rude and destructive.
Yes, you do have a point. I can understand you see it as a point of principle (and you are right), but maybe pragmatically it would simply be easiest to change your own ID to Mark X, Y, Z.
Pragmatically, I’ve decided just to respond to occasional comments by this inconsiderate new Mark where I feel I need to make it clear his views are not mine, and paste in the above after my rely. Not much effort since I’m here anyway, and saves me having to change my identity here just to accommodate his lack of basic courtesy.
If we take the vaccine makers at their word, then the vaccines will increase the risk of spreading infection. We are told the vaccines will only reduce the symptoms, but not the infectious nature of Covid-19, so it seems they will create the previously entirely mythical, asymptomatic super spreader.
Hence the incessant warning us about them!
I feel for her. I have felt very frightened. And have a friend who I had to talk down from a full scale panic attack when she heard Wancock say “mandatory vaccines couldn’t be ruled out.” Tell your friend that there is an ARMY out there, fighting for her rights. This includes very senior members of the judiciary and both Houses of Parliament. The UK is a signatory of the European Convention of Human Rights and it would extremely difficult, no matter what Bozzo and chums want, to change that. Medical treatment (including vaccination) by mandate OR coercion is ILLEGAL. This is a PR exercise and should be completely ignored. Just like most of us ignored the track and trace QR codes and the mask mandate. We cannot be forced to give up our liberty so easily, only tricked into it. Tell her to stand strong and ignore the playground bullies shouting in the corner that they are going to “MAKE” people do things. They can’t. That’s why they shout so loud! You are not “anti vax” if you refuse a vaccine that has not been trialled adequately and for a disease you are not at risk of dying from.… Read more »
Excellent post that I’m sure will be so helpful for this poor woman and others. I really like the phrases you have compiled so that people can refute the anti-vaxx slur.
Thanks for being the voice of reason here. It’s appreciated.
Well said. We should deploy language to our advantage – we are NOT “anti-vaxx” but “vaccine aware.” We support vaccines that have gone through proper rigorous testing and scrutiny, we support vaccines that are necessary and life saving.
We do NOT support vaccines that have been rushed, not been through proper testing & scrutiny and something for an illness that has a 99.9% survival rate.
No no, you are an anti-vaxxer and a Nazi bigot! The existence of The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in the U.S. is an urban myth, a conspiracy theory, and you are condemning Granny to death!
/s
Dr Judy Mikovits advocates a 5 year moratorium on children’s vaccines. Says they will all be much healthier. I suspect she is right.
Vaccine aware is a good term. Actually I don’t support the continued expansion of vaccination. Google on “Vaccine Centre + London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine” and you’ll see the ultimate plan is to have a vaccine for every infectious disease. The Imperial College nutjobs, Edmunds, Ferguson etc are all big supporters of the Vaccine Centre (a shadowy entity – no indication where it’s funding comes from, but you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes).
Is this wise? Is it good to interfere with our natural immunity system – the thing that keeps us all alive and without which we would be dead within a week? There is currently no way of answering those questions, which – for me – suggests we should apply the precautionary principle. That is especially so because since the number of vaccines has been increased hugely, the health of children young people has seen a precipitous decline eg with major increases in obesity, autism, asthma and allergies for instance.
VERY interesting! I will look into this. Yes, we must call for caution against excessive vaccination like we’ve managed to educate the public on the dangers of excessive antibiotic prescription. Vaccination should ONLY be considered for those who cannot develop immunity due to being compromised. Natural human immunity is always preferable to synthetic vaccination!
IMMUNE SYSTEM
HAS NO
SIDE EFFECTS
Right on!
THE cost of vaccinating a child according to the schedule has gone up by more than 100 times since the beginning of the millennium
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l5576/rr-4
which may go some way to explain why we can’t afford the hospital infrastructure to cope with a pandemic. Nor do they ever seem to have heard of the concept of over-medication: there’s always room for another one (the American term boondoggle comes to mind). Meanwhile, we are being submerged in chronic illness and neurological disorders. People think vaccines are common sense. Well, people are right that we don’t want the illnesses but the delusion is perhaps believing that there is no trade-off.
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4564/rapid-responses
And for these people it is just a beginning.
I posted this above, but it seems more relevant here.
Dr Judy Mikovits advocates a 5 year moratorium on children’s vaccines. Says they will all be much healthier. I suspect she is right.
Deploy language so as not to exclude people, please, Bart. I’m an anti-vaxxer.
It’s a bit naive to think that the present Supreme Court will protect our natural human rights. Lord Sumption is sadly a lone voice among the high judiciary (current or former) in speaking out forcibly in defence of our liberty.
can we try proactively to design a lanyard along the lines ‘Exempt from Pricks’?
Please ask her to lobby for Liberty 2019.
It means badgering your MP to answer the question: do you or do you not support a return of our civil liberties?
liberty2019.org displays all 650 MPs and you can find out whether your MP supports giving your civil liberties back or not.
Mine would probably say “Yes but we must save the NHS first.”
She is absolutely right to be worried sick. So am I.
The only way is to fight this and prevent an effective apartheid system being introduced.
And no, I am NOT an ‘anti-vaxxer’. I am against this (these) vaccine(s) on these conditions (indemnity for producers; ‘warp-speed’; low IFR for Covid).
I live outside UK, and am facing the prospect of no longer being able to get into the country (or only with great difficulty). This year I have had to scrap three trips to visit my 86-yr-old mother (who is just as sceptic as I am) because my flights have been cancelled.
But I will not be intimidated/blackmailed into having a dodgy vaccine.
Go on, Starmer, prosecute me.
I agree entirely.
Words of wisdom from Number 6:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNYjGVZSnQk
Tell her she isn’t alone. There are hundreds of thousands of us vocal about it, and millions of others who share her feelings.
We don’t know yet how this is going to be played out; and I can’t see how companies won’t want the custom of millions of people who don’t have a piece of paper or a picture on a smart phone.
The Covid-19 vaccines will be unnecessary, unlicensed and dangerous. Those who have kept a watch on Bill Gates will realise that the harmful nature of the vaccines could well be intentional.
Bill very publicly told us years ago, that he sees vaccines as the best way of obtaining a significant reduction in the global population, which he believes is absolutely vital for the sustainability of the planet and perhaps more likely, for maintaining his way of life.
Bill’s various “generous” vaccine trials in India and Africa have left a long trail of disability, and death behind them. No doubt though, these third world trials were useful and that the knowledge gained will have ensured that the plethora of Covid-19 vaccines will actually deliver the results that Bill and his cronies desire..
Any attempt to restrict people’s freedoms, if they refuse Covid-19 vaccines, will be illegal and must be challenged in the courts.
I don’t get his logic here. Why does he think vaccinations will reduce populations? people have lots of kids for all kinds of reasons, and pretty sure risk of COVID deaths in your 80s isn’t one of them
It depends what the pate is made of. Wuf wuf.
I’m not at all sure that you’ve understood my post, but here goes. Bill and his friends want most of us gone, for what they consider to be sound ecological reasons. The Covid-19 “pandemic” has been a long planned and carefully choreographed event, which all along been about getting one of Bill’s several special vaccines into our bodies. There is no real pandemic and we don’t need vaccinating, so what are the vaccines actually for? It’s not about the money, as Bill and his banker friends can literally print as much as they want.
I’d imagine people in poor countries would have fewer children if they didn’t lose them to diseases like polio and diphtheria.
Vaccines have been around for decades even in developing countries. Now instead of having 15 kids with the strongest two surviving, they have 12 survivors. The next generation will be 144 mouths to feed. I remember reading about efforts to get them to use birth control and the efforts failed miserably. Seems to me the best thing to do if you wanted to curb population growth in that case would be to NOT vaccinate them, and that overpopulation and hunger issue would fix itself very soon.
Unless you are a crazy psychopathic globalist who just wants the power to play God and decide who gets to live and reproduce. That’s my take on that.
It is important to understand here that the government is trying to have its cake and eat it. The government’s legal position on vaccination is dependent on informed consent ie apart from the legal obligation to gain fully informed consent for all medical interventions they need the decision to lie primarily with the citizen to protect themselves against liability. There are two problems (1) that in reality it is unlikely that they will fulfil the obligation which is absolute to inform people of the limitations and risks of the products and (2) they are stepping up various unpleasant and coercive pressures on the citizen to accept them. This not informed consent in any meaningful sense.
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3933/rapid-responses
Also, we are about to see these products rolled out without full publication of the data. Like so much else of what government does at the moment it is profoundly illegal. It is not a question of anti-vax or pro-vax, it is to do with the government’s fraudulent narrative and to do with systematically stripping us of all our rights.
Call for evidence – Committees – UK Parliament
You might like to respond with your concerns.
A campaign has been launched to pressure MPs to commit to restoring our civil liberties in full. It’s called Liberty 2019 as it demands a return of our civil liberties in full as we enjoyed them in 2019.
Please support it by badgering your MP until he gives an answer to the question: do you or do you not support a return of our 2019 civil liberties.
liberty2019.org
Please send to Toby et al. too to make a permanent link to the website.
Mind you, my MP, who I have written to 5 times for voting against restrictions has always “noted my strong views” and carried on supporting the government blind as a bat.
They will say..” we agree to returning to the full liberties once everyone is vaccinated and has handed over the right to choose for their body. OR: we agree to returning the liberties once the pandemic is over (never basically)…”.
Don’t believe a word of it. It’s just the beginning of worse to come.
We’re being made to suffer so that we surrender and accept the WEF’s new terms for living. To accept endless vaccines and immunity passports. There’s tons of money to be made indefinitely by Pharma and tech companies and some of the politicians pushing for lockdown have shares in the companies that stand to profit
Money corrupts
Predictable cowards way out by the Labour Party in todays commons vote. We can take it then that Labour MP’s are really voting for a continuation of this lunacy but haven’t got the guts to say so.
Once a party to voice the concern of real working class people (not the London elite), they are a bloody disgrace, in it for themselves people.
You aren’t missing something. Labour are.
Not something, actually. Everything.
This tactic is purely political. Labour wants any split in the Tories on this issue to be fully visible so they can exploit it at PMQs, etc.
It won’t help them unless they join the side going against the government.
And they won’t because Labour want harsher lockdowns compared to the rebels who are seeking to turn the clock back to 2019.
Is anyone else finding themselves politically homeless? I’ve voted conservative in the past but never again after the debacle of the last 9 months. I can’t now support Labour after this complete dereliction of duty, plus they’ve supported this fiasco from the start. There’s nothing on this earth that would persuade me to vote SNP and I don’t think the Lib Dems have uttered a peep since this all started. I’m hoping that Nigel Farage and Laurence Fox are working away behind the scenes and field candidates in Scotland because as things stand, they’ll get my vote.
The SDP are quite good. Annoyingly, they’ve become a bit soft on anti-lockdown/anti-SD recently. But, they’re not too bad otherwise.
soft on lockdown is an incompetent party.
Had a gander at the SDP. Looks a bit woke to me.
Yes, I’m in England but now politically homeless. If one of the new parties steps up and is the real deal, I can vote for them. Otherwise it’s a lifetime of spoiling my ballot paper. If you spoil the paper it has to be shown to the candidates. The incumbents with large majorities are likely to still win next time but we could maybe chip away at their confidence a little.
Quote “If you spoil the paper it has to be shown to the candidates.” It also has to be counted, declared and recorded by the returning officer, so in effect it should send a message to the parties/candidate’s of the voters feelings. However, with the thick skins parties/candidates have they will treat the voters with contempt and ignore.
What was that slogan in Brewster millions “none of the above”
The rules are that they have to be shown to the agents (though candidates can look if they wish). I would say that candidates never believe the messages are written for them; they’re always written for the other candidates, of course. No-one cares much at all about the spoilt papers, and that would only change if there were a much, much, MUCH higher number of them.
The only votes that ‘count’ are the ones that get the candidate over the line.
One has to be careful when spoiling one’s paper. 😉
There was a story from a previous election where the voter drew a ‘cock and balls’ in the space next to the Tory candidate’s name. He was awarded the vote ‘because the full cock and balls was drawn inside the box’; therefore, was counted as a mark against the candidate’s name, which is all that is required to show a choice has been made.
https://metro.co.uk/2015/05/09/voter-draws-massive-penis-on-ballot-paper-gets-counted-and-helps-elect-tory-mp-5188845/
Massive? Surely the box isn’t big enough for massive?
I am. I voted labour or SNP and I am now so ashamed I voted this lot in, this is giving me sleepless nights.
I will never vote for them again,ever and if someone started the raving loony party again, I would consider them because nothing can be worse than this lot.
I am now starting to wish I was English and lived in England as I’m also ashamed to be scottish right now and scared because of the mini Hitler we have in power and no one is doing anything to stop them.
I hear what you’re saying. I’m also contemplating moving south of the border.
Understand how you feel, also in Scotland and thinking of shipping out to England if independence comes about because I cannot bear the level of intolerance, the lack of dissent and the downright authoritarianism of Krankie. It’s not even one party rule any more, it’s one woman rule. England is bad, but at least there’s some level of public debate and some hope that a political movement against control, wokery, fear and cant could gain momentum. I love Scotland, but I just don’t see the seeds of that necessary assertion of freedom here.
Yes, I know the feeling. I agree about Farage and Fox and hope they stand in Scotland, too. I’ve studied populism and am not as hostile to it as others in my field. Populism is an essential ‘corrective’ in democracies when things get too heavily dominated by the establishment and disconnected from the people. I suspect we will see a lot more populism next year – if we are allowed to have elections!
“populism” is just the racists/*phobes/<insert deregatory term of choice here> voting the “wrong” way.
I was interested to hear Richard Madeley on the Planet Normal podcast tell Allison Pearson that he thought the voters would forget about all this debacle by the time the next general elaction came along in 2024 and just vote as they always had.
I thought it ruined a really great interview; I don’t think he could be any more wrong.
He’s assuming there will be elections!
Very fair point.
Madeley was an avid Boris Johnson supporter at heart and he still thinks the Bozo will come good in the fullness of time. Hmmm!
Yeah, sure. Boris is on our side but he doesn’t want to reveal this fact yet.
dePiffle is playing such a smart game. Appear, act and be the worst PM since Walpole…until he reveals he’s great.
…
Of course, he’s toast. He won’t get voted in again. He’ll be ditched before 2024. But what this once-naive llamasaur now realises: he’ll just be replaced by another shill (& will get rewarded handsomely for his service in “retirement”)…and the sham will continue. We ain’t got no democracy.
Mr Johnson is a stooge. Wait for him to become great and you will wait in vain.
The Reclaim party
NHS: National Hairytic(k) Society.
For me it’s either going to be some new party (maybe Fox or Farage) but with little hope of it being anything other than a protest vote. Or, more likely, spoiling the ballot paper with a big cross over the entire thing.
The Conservatives will reinvent themselves. They always do. Like Dr Who. The best chance to get a proper change is from inside existing power. It’s just that I don’t see leadership anywhere in them.
They have no intention of reinventing themselves. Their plan is to eliminate all opposition, quite literally.
Yes! This is exactly how I feel living in Scotland (Aberdeenshire) just now. I’ve always been a Torry voter to help keep the SNP at bay. When we next get an election I am going to have to think very hard about how I will vote, especially if there no new parties.
Labour’s stance doesn’t surprise me. They’ve sold out a long time ago and if you’re aware of their history they’ve always had a wing of the party that held the working class and their values in contempt. Which they kept hidden for years until the Blair years when the mask began to slip.
And “bigotgate” in 2010 laid bare to all what Labour really thought of their core vote.
It is beyond pathetic. I’ll actually have more respect for people who vote for it – at least they will have made a decision.
Labour are deliberately sinking the lifeboats which might save us.
Politicians are insulated against the suffering that lockdowns impose on everyone else
I’m depressed and frightened for the future. Is there even a future?
Before taking over at Labour Keir Starmer was approved by Conservative Central Office and more importantly by Bibi Netanyahu, so he is the real thing.
Anti semitic conspiracy theories undermine your entire credibility and argument.
Why? Corbyn was nudged out of the election by the anti-semitic smear campaign. Stank to high heaven at the time, no matter what your thoughts on Corbyn were.
Thank you for saving me the task of educating Ms Watson.
Netanyahu is a nasty piece of work.
Further to yesterdays contributor about Civil Servants getting a one off £100.00 bung, The Herald reports that the turdgeon is giving away £500.00 to all NHS Scotland and social care workers* as a ‘thank you’ and asking bozo to make it tax free.
*presumably that means State sector only
I really hope this doesn’t actually placate civil servants (I am one btw) – why on earth would anyone think it ok to sacrifice their liberty and all art, culture, sport and socialising, in order to receive a paltry amount of money as a bonus?
And asking rUK to fund it no doubt?
It really is time for all decent Scots to tell Nicola to do one.
She’s descended to actual bribery. As for it being tax-free, I thought the SNP supported higher taxes?
We’re doing our damdest but the voting system set up has seen the SNP win the last couple of elections despite more people voting for other parties.
I would say it’s state sector only. So all those carers employed in the private sector with zero hours contracts, who work some weeks 60+ hours a week for minimum wage and have worked right through this with crap PPE will not see a penny.
She’s also dishing out more money , where it’s coming from is questionable.
“The SNP leader also announced payments of £100 to households which are currently in receipt of free school meals, as part of a £100m fund to help low-income Scots this winter.
About a quarter of this is to be spent on winter grants to low income families, benefiting about 150,000 households.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55124729
She is going to give free school dinners to ALL primary children.
This is what I call buying votes.
There isn’t an election coming up in May by any chance, is there? 😉
Yes, know it’s off topic but that free dinners thing is incredibly annoying. Since when did it become the tax player’s responsibility to buy lunch and also breakfast I understand, when the vast majority of parents can feed their children without state assistance? What kind of parent sends the kids to school without sorting arrangements for their breakfasts? Do we want to promote such frankly pretty poor behaviour?
The current situation reminds me of the moment in Huis clos when the door to freedom is wide open, but all the inmates refuse to go through it.
The door to freedom in Britain is wide open.The English Gestapo and the Welsh KGB couldn’t do a thing if the population, or even a substantial fraction of it, simply disobeyed. (The Scots wouldn’t even see the door.) But apart from us, they won’t go through the door because they are cowards.
Cowardice is the strongest prison that could possibly be devised. And it has the power to imprison everybidy, not just the cowards themselves.
Plato thinks that the prisoners in the cave would be most unhappy if forced to leave it: the sun would hurt their eyes.
For me personally an irony of this current madness is that I may appear to other members of my university to be physically brave (or cavalier), because I continue to teach on campus, which my colleagues by and large regard as a plague zone. But it would be utterly bogus for me to posture in this way; I have zero physical courage, I’m really very risk averse. The point is that, as we all know, the risk to my health posed by teaching in person (even if my students were not all seated 2m apart) is trivial. There’s nothing physically brave about going to work as usual.
On the other hand, it does take some moral courage to plough such a solitary furrow. Thus
the major risk I face at work is the temptation to grandiosity. As I stride across campus, the only academic, it would appear, within several miles, I must quell the impulse to murmur, ‘l’universite, c’est moi…’
This is what is utterly beyond my comprehension. How have a vast majority of academics (and the professional class generally) become so totally irrational?
I’m also a university lecturer and am totally disgusted by what I’m seeing. While I’m not entirely surprised – the groupthink and lack of critical reasoning has been a problem for some time (hence the ‘woke’ culture) – I was not expecting it to be so bad in the ‘hard’ sciences. I’m currently in political science, which was infiltrated by the woke some time ago (though they should recognise authoritarianism when they see it), but I was in the biological sciences years ago, and it wasn’t so bad back then. It’s so discouraging. These people will be the first to be imprisoned if things go hardcore authoritarian and they can’t even see it.
My in-laws were both academics and left-wing. I have no idea how they’ll sit with the woke culture of today but I can imagine that they will be on board with it, if not 100% but at least 95% of it.
Although I didn’t finish my PhD due to financial reasons, I’m now thankful I didn’t and never ended up in academia. I can imagine I would be bullied and forced out for not going along with the groupthink.
Le symbole de la democratie c’est toi!
Congratulations Alethea, you will be remembered when this is all over, in a good way.
Very well put.
I mentioned the fact that cowardice never leads to anything good when I wrote to my MP on the anniversary of the national day of shame that was Munich. (Never got a reply of course.)
My wife is Czech; for Czech people Munich is one of the defining events of their identity and the source of a very healthy scepticism toward the ‘West’.
The health ID passes idea has also been floated (much more tentatively) in CR. Thankfully, the readers comments on the piece in mainstream idnes.cz were almost universally negative, scathingly so. Like all former Soviet-bloc countries, they (or many more of them) recognize totalitarianism when they see it. Sadly it seems many in the West do not.
All this is important, because the agenda is truly global. So it is vital that as many countries as possible stand up to it.
The EU (and Germany especially) is strongly behind the health ID passports.
I imagine that one of the four or five countries that Klaus Schwab states will lead things in his not so great reset is Germany. I wonder if most of the resistance to this nonsense is from the former East-side.
Merkel. Christian Democrat. Sure.
Great post. Thank you!
I’m not familiar with Huis Clos, but there is the Bunuel film The Exterminating Angel in which the characters are unable to leave a room although there is nothing physically stopping them.
Reading that cost benefit analysis from the government took me back to my GCSE years. I routinely made up surveys and their results in order to pad out and lend credence to pieces of coursework I had no desire to do properly. I’d forgotten about that for over quarter of a Century.
BBC R2 06.50 ‘Christmas tunes all day long’, community radio station for me then
Christmas tunes – systematic destruction of the population’s psyche, in other words.
THIS!! House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights calls for evidence!! THIS is an open call. All the material you’ve been sending to MPs… HERE is where it really makes a difference. All evidence is published (they will make it anonymous on request.) PLEASE, if you know anyone with a story of how their human rights have been abused (that includes every person in this country!!) get them to submit evidence. When you read the list of areas they are looking at, you can see how aware they are of how badly our human rights have been abused. Get writing!
(Love that they’ve coined the term “long lockdown”, perhaps in retaliation to “long covid”. There are politicians who care.)
https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/326/the-governments-response-to-covid19-human-rights-implications-of-long-lockdown/
I’ve just sent a version of the James Delingpole letter to my MP. I’d already sent one but another doesn’t hurt!
The comments show up the ignorance of people purporting to be intelligent.
What Yeadon,Gupta,Heneghan and others are advocating was accepted epidemic management right up to March of this year.It was official government policy until the decision to lock down.
It also shows naïveté in accepting what governments say at face value and forgetting that powerful men have always plotted in secret to further their own interests.
Nadhim Zahawi should join Johnson et al on the scaffold!
A bad egg – now on ‘the list’
Not a scotch egg?
Yep. There should be a space reserved for him in the Tower.
A truly nasty piece of work who lets a knew job title and a little bit of authority go to his head.
Don’t be concerned, CM. We know plenty of people have these views and that plenty of medics are true believers. It’s only Twatter.
The tem ‘conspiravy theorist’ has changed its meaning.
It now means somebody who deviates from orthodox opinion in any way whatsoever.
Indeed, and in this case “orthodox” has only become “orthodox” this year, when the Chinese decided, for reasons we may never know, to react as they did in Wuhan. In historical terms, the measures taken to “combat” the virus are UNorthodox and in almost every respect go against the standard (and this includes the WHO) playbook on how to deal with pandemics – almost every measure currently used is EXPLICITLY not recommended. What has been done this year is unpredecented, experimental and not evidence based. Never let anyone forget that.
Yes, absolutely. The term ‘conspiracy theorist’ is simply a form of abuse used to discredit opponents, and in particular protect the powerful from criticism.
Apparently, it was thought up by the CIA for this very purpose. But never has it been so widely deployed as this year. Saturation use in media all over the world.
Canadian PM Trudeau just called tramps like us Conspiracy Theorists. And he wasn’t smiling when he said it. He’s serious. He should resign. Or be removed by any means necessary.
Excellent piece in the AIER in response to NY Times article: “We Have Immune Systems, New York Times Reveals”
…”Just so we are clear, we are doing something to children that will affect their immune systems for the rest of their lives? That’s what these scholars say.
The article then continues and actually invokes the great taboo word of our age: exposure. It’s good. Exposure is good. It is necessary. It is needed. Not bad. Good. ” ….
“The above video is a webinar given by Dr Genevieve Briand, a lecturer in advanced economics and statistics at Johns Hopkins University. In her talk, Dr Briand claims that the “Covid19 pandemic” has resulted in marked declines in other causes of death, most particularly heart disease, the usual leading cause of death in the United States.Dr Briand reasons that deaths from other causes are being miscategorized as “Covid19”, and this is inflating the numbers and leading to misleading reporting of the “pandemic” situation.
Whether or not she is correct, there’s no denying this interpretation is possible – given the bizarrely loose definitions of “Covid death” being used around the world. It would also explain the inexplicable lack of influenza activity occurring this year. statistician WM Briggs has a good write-up on this video here.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/11/30/watch-covid-19-deaths-a-look-at-us-data/
Video at the link.
I found this today related to this. Study was published in the John Hopkins newsletter, then retracted. Apologies if posted before.
New note basically saying they didn’t want it used to spread the wrong information (we would call that a term we used to categorise as “the truth”)
https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19
And a link to a pdf of the (now retracted) opinion piece on the study in the text. It does show other deaths way down and COVID taking their place in my opinion.
People like David Icke warned that the government would coerce people into taking its vaccines months ago. Now we see the proof.
It seems now that anyone who dares to ask a question or believes in such archaic ideas as ‘informed consent’ is automatically smeared as an anti-vaxxer.
Notice that the government and its media mouthpieces have carefully avoid defining this term. That, like so many other things this year, is not accidental.
What is the difference between a ‘conspiracy theory’ and a ‘factual report’?
Date of publication.
I cannot vouch for this, but it turned up on the radar.
THE PCR TEST
External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results.
https://archive.is/KaROK
Dividing pubs, bars, gyms etc. into those which allow only the vaccinated and those which don’t care may not be such a bad idea. For some of us it would ensure much better quality company.
We’ll give the Collaborator’s Arms a miss and go to the Free Eagle instead!
I wonder if the government would allow this, as it would make a mockery of covid ideology by showing that humans mixing together is harmless.
Exactly. Otherwise, as pointed out, it is a great idea to make sure you are meeting normals rather than new normals.
It isn’t any of the government’s business, who we drink with etc etc etc.
Zombie-free zones, yay!
When you can’t win the arguments, you start smearing your opponents with labels like ‘conspiracy theorist’.
It’s an old totalitarian / deep state tactic.If nothing else, it shows that people like Yeadon and Gupta are right.
Otherwise they would not be attacked.
If an opponent uses the term ‘CS’ then respond by thanking them for acknowledging that they have lost the argument.
And this exclusive interview with Dr. Roger Hodkinson, the Canadian doctor who broke the internet when he spoke out. This is the BEST interview I’ve seen throughout this whole nightmare. Might be suitable to show to some doubters who need a little push to get them to see sense. It’s really, really good!
https://vimeo.com/485062851
Stuck in Wales – where the pubs are about to be dry. So I’m wondering whether the exact wording of this does preclude all drinking there. I think it’s written that drinks are not to “be served”. Okay – we’ll serve ourselves/by bringing our own with us and could maybe pay a voluntary donation to the landlord/lady as corkage.
Great thinking.
On BBC Breakfast this morning Michael Gove said that the purpose of the vaccine is to liberate people from their fears of the disease. He did not say that the purpose of the vaccine was to provide vaccinated individuals with immunity. A Freudian might well see this as proof that the vaccine is just another aspect of the government’s psychological operations against the people.
I see, so if you are already free from fear, then you don’t need the vaccine?
Very telling comment.
Yeah, ‘liberating’ people from the very fear that his regime created.
Gove is one of the worst UK bad actors.
He belongs behind bars – not in government.
I couldn’t agree more.
Gove is pure evil, but there are more than a few others on the government gravy train, who should also be in jail. Not least the Bozo, who is actually supposed to be in charge.
Penthouse in The Tower of London.
As if we need to be afraid of it.
Isn’t this the same reason Handjob gave about mask wearing-that it was to make people feel more confident about going shopping?
Johannesburg is known as the murder capital of the world but you wouldn’t want to visit there if you had to wear a bullet proof vest in order to do so, would you?
From where did this fear of the disease originate. Why didn’t we need to be liberated from our fear of the common cold last year.
Government – create the problem for the solution you wanted.
Problem, reaction, solution; of course.
i hope this means that the Government are going to use the vaccine rollout (none of the potential candidates claim to reduce transmission) to get themselves out of this hole. They can claim the diminishing cases are due to the vaccine.
I do feel that part of this is to test out what they can get away with, soon they will start trying to force us all to give up gas and oil boilers and go for a new green solution, the talk about electric cars masks the fact these will never be available for all and if they abolish petrol/diesel cars the age of personal car travel for all is finished. These seem to be coming and will be unpalatable and unpopular and they need to gauge how well they can get away with such stuff.
Remarkable similarity to the Nazis, in their approach of pushing against established values and normalising the most extreme measures. Similar kinds of people, too. Totally unprincipled and badly out of their depth, attempting to dig their way out of a pit. In fact, the German regime in late 1943 began literally digging holes for no apparent reason – basically as a displacement activity. The bad news is that even having reached that level they clung to power, and could have clung on indefinitely without external pressure from Stalin.
Our own regime was played out before the end of March. But it can carry on indefinitely like a zombie. Hence the Johnson smirk. A man who knows he has totally screwed up, and realised that it makes no political difference. They can do whatever they want, and Parliament will rubber stamp it. The media will report favourably. Reality counts for nothing. No wonder Johnson is taking the piss now.
Lots of psychopaths in the Nazi party. Starting from the top.
Interesting point made during the GP at the weekend, during the Romain Grosjean horror crash – that cars that are electric (or largely electric) seem to be a lot more volatile in the event of impact or damage to certain areas, like around the battery for example. ergo, seemingly a much higher chance of things going up in flames in the event of an accident or something going wrong.
I have been following Formula 1 since the early 60s. My brothers and I shared the victory Champagne with John Surtees and Graham Hill at the CanAm Race in Riverside, California in 1966 and I attended the first Montreal Canadian Grand Prix in 1978 when Gilles Villeneuve won, driving a Ferrari.
I detest the hybrid cars of the past six seasons. Lewis Hamilton virtue signalling, taking the knee and acting dictatorial with his fellow drivers was the last straw for me. Motor racing should have nothing to do with Political Correctness, Wokeness, the W.H.O. or all that other bullshit that Cultural Marxism has been insidiously imposing on us.
I was at one point thinking the government are doing all this deliberately to rile us all and get us on edge so that we were ready for a war or something.
They have been testing the boundaries since day one and in too many instances they haven’t found any.
If they wanted to “liberate people from their fears” they should not have so belligerently sown the fears in the first place. But then you can’t sell a product till you create a market for it!
The Government could easily liberate people from their fears (fears SAGE have deliberately stoked) by ending lockdown. Reducing restrictions gradually. Getting back to normal. It’s as easy as opening a door.
But they know it’s a scam which is why the likes of Neil Ferguson and numerous politicians are caught breaking the rules
It’s very careful use of language; from the assessment docushite:
Trying to spread the lie that the whole country is scared to be a ‘granny killer’.
It’s bullshit; but it’s very carefully worded bullshit, and it’s in a Government document and Gove is a high Government minister, so it must be true.
This is how the sheep think. 🙁
Good grief. It’s as if none of us has ever encountered illness or death before now.
Why should we believe a single word that comes out of these tossers’ masked mouths anymore? We’ve been constantly lied to since the very beginning of lockdown.
Second thought for the day being that if unvaccinated people are barred from going into venues – then I’d like to see two ordinary members of staff, for instance, try and keep out half a dozen burly men intent on enforcing their right to go into a venue. I think that sort of incident might soon teach venues a lesson about trying to bar us non-vaccinated people if repeated often enough until the message got through to the venues.
Obviously too – we’d name and shame venues that discriminate against us – Facebook groups, frequently updated lists of them put up in public places, etc.
And picket them
Well, we the unvaccinated, if we are not allowed into venues, will just have to build our own parallel social structures, where we will interract with each other like human beings.
Reconstructing human society from the ground up.
It may come to that.
It’s been done before.
It’s worked before.
It also caused the restrictions to be abandoned!
I’ve been pondering for quite a while on the possibility of parallel social structures sprouting up among those unwilling to be vaccinated or subjected to other authoritarian coercion. I foresee a quiet but powerful grassroots movement where, by word of mouth, there will be producers of food and other services that bypass mainstream society. Softly, softly, it will grow as more and more of us “proles” remove ourselves from under the raised boot and reclaim our freedoms.
Barter system?
Interesting. This was essentially what happened in Czechoslovakia in 70s/80s. And yes, as someone who has studied the period (translated books on it), I do think the comparison is in place. The situation is that bad.
That could work. I always felt I lived a parallel world to the zombies!
this has been my thinking for while – a new counter culture.
Now that’s an idea I could get behind!
Do we have a ‘right’ to enter someones private business against their will?
Perhaps if a business does not want your custom take it to a business that does. If that business does not exist then create it.
Am I the only one that is very relaxed about this prospect? I quite like the idea of going to a place that respects liberal values and places going under because they went a bit too Nazi
If that looks like the way it’s going, government will rig the game.
‘Alternative’ venues that don’t require masks, vaccinations etc will certainly not be allowed to operate legally and publicly. It will be an underground movement.
Annie mentioned below that the door to freedom is wide open and that it is only cowardice that stops people gong through that door.
Well, going through that door together with others of like mind is much easier.
They key to this is to form local groups of sceptics who can help each other walk through that door,
What they are most afraid of is people acting together. That is why they strive constantly to keep us divided and apart – literally apart.
Generally feel free. It is the door to the pub that is causing me issues.
These might help.
Freedom hubs: freeusnow@protomail.com
Truthpaper: http://www.lightpaper.co.uk
Genuinely one of the best things I’ve read all year. An outstanding piece.
Ivor Cummin’s latest video in today’s links is excellent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m121hAiREvc&feature=youtu.be
Joel Smalley’s data analysis is very high quality indeed.
I’ve always been a fan of analysing by date of occurrence of death rather than date of registration, and Joel has used that throughout including in ways I hadn’t thought possible.
He shows very clearly with data analysis how the lockdown measures had no effect on the epidemic curve.
His logarithmic graph at the end of growth of fatal ‘infections’ vs time with dates of intervention added in is simply stunning.
And I like the way he splits out major cities/towns in regions to show even within regions those places hit hardest in April were least hit in the Autumn, providing further evidence of community immunity in action.
I still have difficulty convincing people that in March the infection curve never grew exponentially, in fact the turning of the curve occurred at a very low number of deaths and preceeded any measures or even voluntary changes in behaviour. And so must be community immunity together with seasonality causing that to happen. Joel’s explanation of that is the best I have seen.
A must watch!
Indeed, the Ivor Cummins video is excellent and I think that Joel Smalleys last plot showing the Gompertz distribution of infections and highlighting key interventions and milestones is the single most important graph presented to show that lockdowns have absolutely no effect and that the virus is following a natural trajectory.
Unfortunately this is nothing new. Back in April and May I was tweeting my own analyses, @pfdgeologist, which showed exactly what Joel is showing now.
That means we knew from the very early days of the first lockdown that non-pharmaceutical interventions do not work.
What beggars belief is we have a scientific advisory group who are blind to this. In fact the data is so clear even an MP could understand it.
I think they knew precisely what they were doing and with the aid of MSM they deliberately lied to keep the fear factor going, it’s about controlling our lifestyles and destroying our pubs nothing to do with the virus. They really detest us.
Indeed. This was my own chart that I’ve been updating for months.
It shows clearly the growth was never exponential and the fall off the peak was completely natural and independent of interventions.
That’s really good!