London Threatened with Tier 3
While the news cycle is dominated by last-minute Brexit negotiations, The Telegraph reports that a “worrying” rise in cases in London may lead to the city being “plunged” into Tier 3 restrictions:
The Government must consider placing London in Tier 3 restrictions, scientists have said, after 21 out of the 32 boroughs showed worrying rises in cases.
The capital is now the second worst region in the country, just behind the West Midlands, with more than 15,000 people testing positive in the past week, a rate of 169.6 per 100,000 people, up from 150.9 a month ago.
It means London is now higher than many of the Tier 3 areas, such as the North East where case rates have halved from 330.2 per 100,000 to 160.4 since the beginning of November.
The case rate in the capital is higher than all but five of the current Tier 3 regions with the borough of Haringey seeing rises of 46% since last week, Bromley 40% and Kingston 33%.
Those “very worried” include Professor Paul Hunter at the University of East Anglia who said:
…it was “very worrying” that cases had continued to increase during the national lockdown and said a rise from Tier 2 must now be considered.
“There were more cases at the end of lockdown than at the start in London,” he said.
He did not offer an explanation why the recent national lockdown had failed to affect the case numbers or why, despite this, subjecting the capital to additional restrictions would be a wise course of action.
We Need to Talk About Sweden
The country which bucked the trend against the coercive measures we have come to loathe has been subject to an increasing amount of unfavourable coverage suggesting that its recent change of tack – bringing in greater restrictions – are proof of abject failure. The Daily Mail reports that “lockdowns loom” for the country:
Lockdown is finally looming in Sweden with coronavirus infection rates now more than double that of Britain, Germany or Spain and its death rate once again the highest among Nordic nations.
Some parts of Sweden have infection rates similar to the worst hotspots in Europe, and cases have yet to start falling after the second wave as they have in Britain, France and many other European countries.
After Sweden’s death rate fell to similar levels to Denmark, Norway and Finland over the summer, it is now once again the highest of the four, with 1,000 new deaths recorded in the last month.
After insisting that ‘cases’ are very high, and making invidious comparisons with Sweden’s Nordic neighbours , the article continues:
Sweden’s current average is 55 deaths per day, up from 12 only a month ago although still lower than the peak of 107 at the height of the crisis in April.
When adjusted for population, Sweden’s overall death rate is no worse than in the major countries of Western Europe such as Britain and France.
Not much is made of that last point, even though it essentially admits that there’s no correlation between economic shutdowns and death rates across Europe.
Ivor Cummins’s latest video update, “The Last Word on Sweden Viral Issue – Understanding the Reality“, digs deeper into the data. Despite avoiding draconian measures so far, the statistics still show nothing particularly remarkable going on in Swedish mortality rates:
Cummins also addresses the current plateau in ICU admissions as well as the ‘dry-tinder’ explanation for some of the variation in Nordic death rates – essentially those countries that suffered relatively low excess mortality during the last one or two winters were hit harder this time.
Kathy Gyngell at Conservative Woman today implored her readers to watch Ivor’s video, adding:
Ivor Cummins has produced another of his crystal-clear videos on lockdown, the science and the critics. This one… certainly ought to be the last word on evidence that neither lockdown nor testing mitigate Covid mortality rates.
That doesn’t mean it should be parked. The argument with the politicians is far from being won. It needs presenting and re-presenting until the whole country is made aware that the lockdown policies of Britain and many other Western countries have been based on a false premise. It is even more relevant now that we are being told the double lie that a vaccine is the key to ending the lockdown and the only way that we can return to a semblance of normality.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. A voluntary vaccine, if and when proved safe, might be a good thing. A vaccine in which vast swathes of the population understandably lack confidence, as the deus ex machina solution to the already misguided lockdown policy, is not. In answer to Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times, if you think a rushed-through vaccine about which there are credible doubts has vindicated the Government’s strategy, it is you who are not examining the evidence dispassionately. It is wishful thinking at best. And the idea that it might be made a condition of freedom surely should give you, once an open-minded critic of the intrusive and ever more authoritarian state, some serious doubts.
For confirmation that Sweden’s current death rate is nothing out of the ordinary, see Statista’s total mortality graph for the country for the last 10 years. It only runs up to November 27th of this year so far, but it seems implausible that in the remaining month and four days of this year it is likely to climb above normal levels.
Can you spot the pandemic?
Similarly, the Euromomo data show no excess deaths outside the initial peak, up to the end of November, with the rate for large parts of the year actually running near the lower end of the ‘normal’ range, and now on a downward curve, despite much more lax restrictions than most European countries even now.
Scottish Government Issues Cringeworthy Covid ‘Etiquette’ Guide
The Scottish Government has published an astonishingly patronising guide to avoiding “awkward situations” with fellow citizens. The eight-page document has prompted howls of derision, as reported in The Telegraph by Scottish Correspondent Daniel Sanderson:
Nicola Sturgeon said it was intended to be a “helpful” guide to dealing with awkward social situations brought about by the pandemic.
But Scotland’s First Minister has faced accusations that she is treating Scots like infants – while wasting taxpayers’ money – after SNP ministers published a coronavirus “etiquette guide” that was condemned as “the definition of patronising”.
Scots have been urged to frame remarks urging others to follow rules as “an offer rather than a request”, a tactic the guide states “will help to reduce tension or offence while still changing the outcome of an encounter”.
For example, if a stranger in a supermarket breaks two metre distancing, it suggests saying “I’ll step back and give you some space – it’s tricky in busy spaces to keep to two metres isn’t it?”
Meanwhile, if a friend attempts a hug, the ‘pandemic politeness’ guidelines suggest saying: “I so want to hug you! But I guess we have to wait until it’s safe. I don’t want to risk harming you or anyone else you are in contact with. I’m giving you a virtual hug.”
Nic Sturge-on, when quizzed about the document, stated that she did not know how much public money had been spent on it.
Back to Normal: Another Rallying Cry
After a positive response to his last announcement in Lockdown Sceptics several weeks ago, Geoff Cox from Back to Normal has got back in touch with a second call to arms, this one with the ambitious target of delivering one million leaflets through British letterboxes.
Staggered by the falsification of Covid data? Enraged by police bullying? Depressed by the loss of civil liberties? Frustrated that you can do little except rail and wail in your own bubble? Well, now you can do something – a little something, but something. Back to Normal is a well organised, public facing, grass roots organisation with the simple goal of delivering a folded postcard to people in the UK. The idea is that the postcard will:
- Dent the confidence of those who only get their news from the TV
- Convince those who are having their doubts about the Government message; and last but by no means least, it will
- Encourage sceptics to speak out who may currently feel they are alone or who have been “shamed” into silence
While we have a website and social media on MeWe and Facebook, they are purely back-ups for our main purpose of putting our case before the public. Our target is to distribute one million postcards and we have just gone past 80,000. We are also asking for volunteers to act as coordinators in their own constituency to ensure there is no overlap in deliveries and to bulk up orders. There is a proliferation of groups being set up in this country and all over the world to campaign against the current global madness. Back to Normal is just one of them. Therefore, we hope our coordinators will be joined by other like-minded sceptics from every campaign to act locally and as independently as they like. For more information about becoming a Back to Normal postman or a coordinator or both, please email me.
Welsh Border Pub Takes Dim View of Drakeford
A reader has sent us an exasperated mail-out from his favourite local pub, The Boat at Erbistock, situated just 50 yards from the border with England. Here is an excerpt:
We’re sorry to say that The Boat will be temporarily closing until further notice.
As a result of the frankly unfathomable, illogical latest set of rules laid down by a naïve, allegedly teetotal, Cardiff-centric, ex-social studies teacher – breathe and try not to use expletives! – staying open just isn’t financially viable. We had hoped to try and bridge the gap to Christmas as a quasi-riverside-café, open for food and soft drinks until 6pm, but by now making it legal for our Welsh customers to be able to visit pubs and restaurants in Cheshire and Shropshire for food and whatever they wish to drink until 10pm, understandably the vast majority of our regulars have, somewhat apologetically, told us that this is what they will be doing.
To be clear, we don’t think that open borders between the home nations is a problem – quite the reverse. That’s how it should be. The issue is the strategy of targeting hospitality as a whole when we have put so much time, money and emphasis on social distancing, sanitisation and supervision. The statistics and data quoted regarding transmission rates by sector vary hugely and are blatantly twisted depending on which body is trying to justify what point. But within our sector, which has proper Track and Trace, it is generally accepted they are significantly below most others sectors, like retail, offices, institutions and higher educational establishments.
The Welsh Government brought in restrictions last week which required pubs to close at 6pm and not serve any alcohol.
Stop Press: Just a month after the ‘fire-break’ lockdown in Wales, the Guardian reports that, extraordinarily, the Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething is considering yet another lockdown:
Describing the situation as “incredibly serious”, the Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, accepted more restrictions might be needed, possibly even before Christmas.
The figures come just a month after the end of a 17-day “firebreak” lockdown, which was believed at the time to have been successful and was expected to give the country a clear run up to the new year.
But the Welsh government has since conceded that it might have been better to bring in other curbs when the firebreak was lifted.
At a press conference on Monday, Gething said coronavirus cases were rising again across almost the whole of Wales. The country was the only part of the UK where infection rates were not falling at the end of November, he said.
Toby’s Interview with Unlocked
Lockdown Sceptics Editor Toby Young gave a wide-ranging interview to Martin Daubney at Unlocked that was broadcast yesterday, covering everything from the politicisation of the police to universities, cancel culture, the Free Speech Union, and of course, lockdowns.
Stop Press: Dr Arif Ahmed of Cambridge University spoke to Freddie Sayers at UnHerd about the current debate taking place about the university’s new academic free speech policy.
Poem from a Reader
A reader has sent in a short poem inspired by watching her granddaughter taking a Zoom dance lesson in the midst of Tier 3 restrictions, an experience she described as “heartbreaking”.
Chloe in Lockdown, aged 9
Chloe’s dancing in the kitchen,
lovely leaps and elegant toes.
Her teacher’s on the iPad screen,
and no-one sees the cancelled shows.Chloe’s writing at her small desk,
trying hard to solve her maths sheet.
Perhaps her teacher is at school
but doesn’t need or want to meet?Her desk is small but full of ‘things’.
Pens and pencils, Lego and toys.
She would swap these in a heartbeat
for hugs from everyone she knows.Chloe’s learning darker words now.
Furlough, COVID and Work From Home.
Keep Your Distance and Wear A Mask.
My dancing girl is still locked down.
Sick-Making Nativity Scene
A reader in one of the Gulf Islands has sent us a note about the above picture. She’s not happy.
Attached is a picture of a ‘Covid nativity scene’. This was erected on Mayne, off the coast of British Columbia.
You will see that one of the wise men has been replaced with our unelected health officer, Bonnie Henry. She has been elevated to quasi sainthood, and now takes her rightful position beside Jesus. This is the same woman who closed church services across my province.
I can’t even describe the disgust I feel right now.
Round-up
- “Technocracy and the Abolition of Man” – Lucy Wyatt in the Conservative Woman fears a sinister de-humanising future ahead
- “Why I fear the introduction of COVID-19 vaccination cards will lead seamlessly to us being forced to carry ‘immunity passports’” – Neil Clark in RT on the spectre of the ‘papers please’ scenario
- “Safety of in-person courses at Indiana University supported by new analysis” – American university finds fewer cases of infection among those that attended class in person than those that didn’t
- “The Coronavirus Wall of Shame: The World’s Biggest COVID-19 Hypocrites” – Author Anthony Colpo has compiled a detailed list of the most egregious examples of ‘do as I say and not as I do’ behaviour by various officials and politicians
- “Sky News’s Kay Burley apologises for 60th birthday party with workmates that ‘inadvertently’ flouted Tier 2 Covid restrictions” – And here’s an example of that very phenomenon
- “Down with the New Normal” – Sceptic stalwart Brendan O’Neill pulls no punches in spiked
- “Covid Dementia – The Real Virus: Our Diseased Thinking” – Lockdown Sceptics reader Omar S. Khan’s latest wide-ranging blog post
- “Live music loophole gets pubs round meal restrictions” – Pubs are getting creative in order to survive Tier 2, reports the Telegraph
- “The Tory Covid wars aren’t going away” – Isabel Hardman in the Spectator on the battles raging within the party
- “The Berlin authorities are waging war on Berliners” – Spiked‘s Germany Correspondent Sabine Beppler-Spahl on the mistrust growing between the citizens of the German capital and their leaders as draconian new restrictions are brought in
- “Britons back air travel ban for people who’ve not received coronavirus vaccine, poll suggests” – Sky News reports on another slightly implausible poll, the latest in a string of surveys apparently revealing public opinion as wildly in favour of more extreme restrictions
- “Pandemic Penitents” – John Tierney in City Journal compares lockdown strategies to the Flagellants of the Black Death and wonders why public health advice has avoided endorsing Vitamin D
- “Watch: vaccine minister rules out ‘immunity passports” – Nadhim Zahawi on Spectator TV promises ‘immunity passports’ won’t be brought in
- “Swiss stake slower, more cautious Covid vaccine path” – France 24 reports that in in Switzerland the authorities are in no hurry to approve a vaccine
- Roger Bowles, who’s making Unmasked, a sceptical documentary about the Corona catastrophe, has recorded a powerful interview with a care home worker
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “No Plans” by Novo Amor, “Poison Arrow” by ABC, “Have I the Right?” by The Honeycombs and “I Won’t Have It” by Pennywise.
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, we’re bringing you an extract from a piece about Eton by a recent graduate that appeared in the Mail on Sunday.
One of the teachers promoted under Mr Henderson was Hailz Osborne, Director of Inclusion Education, who is keen to point out that she spotted the early potential of a young Eddie Redmayne when he had a non-speaking role in a school production of The Madness Of George III.
She was chosen as the school’s new director of inclusion education, charged with appointing a committee of boys to shape school policy around issues ‘focused on, but not limited to, race, faith, sexuality, gender, disability, age and outreach’.
Hailz says her greatest achievement at Eton is how proud she is of seeing the Pride flag being flown on the official flag pole above the school’s gateway.
Interestingly, when asked about her career goals, Hailz once said she’d like to see the BLM flag flying over the college gateway, too. I’m gay and I can say with certainty that Hailz’s interventions on sexuality didn’t help me.
In my early years at Eton, being gay wasn’t a big deal. Then we became a ‘protected’ community, singled out for attention. By my final year, a kid four years younger than me was running around calling us all ‘fags’.
Realising I was gay at the age of 12 was terrifying. It’s not that my parents are conservative – one’s a therapist and one’s a musician – but like most boys on the cusp of their teens, I felt as if the world expected me to grow up and have a wife and family one day.
That dissolved when I went to Eton. I found the boys in my year were more open and more liberal than I could ever have expected. I never heard them say anything homophobic in my presence.
This gave me the courage to be honest about my sexuality and by the end of my first year, aged 14, I was ready to come out.
However, by then the headmaster’s progressive policies were embedding themselves in the school.
As this culture consolidated, with the notion of ‘protected groups’, gay people at Eton became seen not as individuals who happened to be gay, but as part of a monolithic community with the same aims, the same politics and the same beliefs.
It was as if people in general are defined by who they choose to sleep with. Being brilliant at rugby, or music, or debating, or computer coding all seemed to take second place to this ‘protected’ characteristic.
As a result of this shift, and a sense of being labelled or categorised, I no longer felt able to come out, and ultimately I spent another miserable year and a half in the closet.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: John Jolliffe, a member of the Free Speech Union’s Legal Advisory Council, has written a great piece for the Critic about the free speech row.
“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. See also the Swiss Doctor’s thorough review of the scientific evidence here.
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 in October 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 well 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.
Stop Press: The Free Speech Union’s permission hearing will take place at the High Court on Wednesday.
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 Solzhenitsyn
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.
Alexander 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
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
Joseph Goebbels (attributed)
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken
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…
YouTube comedian JP’s latest video, “Proof that Lockdowns are Working!”
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.
Oh, how nice to be first. Love the BoB cartoon!
Looking forward to 100 days of total maskage to save the Republic?
I don’t wear one. Never will.
Was banned from Costco last week for not having my bandana pulled over my nose. Long story…
What is wrong with Washington State (I think you once said that you were from there)? I lived in Seattle for a couple of years around 2001 and it was a bit strange, but I can’t believe what I’ve seen in news reports. Really, the whole West Coast looks dystopian.
Plus ca change!
Just the West Coast?
I know it’s more than the West Coast, but the Coronaparnoia seems to be somehow worse there. Perhaps too many ‘progressive’ people (or sheeple)….
Do you ever sleep Richard?
When McCartney is rolled out to promote the vaccine:
“We love you yeah yeah yeah,
We love you yeah yeah yeah,
With a jab like that,
You know you should be glad.“
An interesting article about the different vaccine regulators. I’d think anyone thinking of having it might wish to see what they all say as our approval was so rushed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/04/how-vaccine-approval-compares-between-the-uk-europe-and-the-us
Perhaps the Guardian is preparing to go vaccine sceptic since a good proportion of its paying readers will be women of child bearing age notably most of the teaching, nursing and care sectors.
The Grauniad doesn’t understand words like sceptical, rational, impartial, or human.
I wouldn’t even use that odious rag for kitty litter. How much does it get from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?
I don’t know exactly how much, but the Guardian has long taken the Gates “shilling” just like the Beeb.
Does the Guardian have a paying readership, beyond that subsection of society that a) can afford a live-in servant from overseas to launder their clothes every time they shit themselves with confected self-righteous rage; and b) need such a service?
That can’t be many people.
I do know one paying Guardian subscriber. He used to be right of Kenghis Khan, but now he’s left of Karl Marx and perhaps, even Boris Johnson.
let’s see how mumsnet reacts as well
With Horror and Alarm probably
I don’t see the Guardian as being remotely sceptical and the article is nothing more than a smokescreen trying to give cover for the indecent haste, with which the MHRA has acted. Basically Pfizer said we think it’s safe and any we don’t care that much, because we’ve got a no blame clause. The MHRA replied with, that’s okay, vaccine approved.
No way is the MHRA independent. Look at this:
https://youtu.be/6bfhAe8zVf0?t=2478
The Government offer no leadership, everybody out there says bozo has screwed up. The opposition offers no alternative except more of the same failed policies.
Who would vote for either of them ?
If the centre cannot stand it leaves the way open for extremists.
Nice one bozo.
Covid Fatigue
Local Live (mirror group news)
Article 1. A person dies of Covid in major regional hospital. One person is news ?
Article 2. Five more deaths in County attributed to Covid.
What in a day? A week ?
No, five random dates going back to mid November.
Total Covid articles today = 5 (2 about rule breakers)
Total football stories today = 7.
At least the anger of woman who received an undersized portion of rice with her £40.00 KFC Family Bargain Bucket has been driven off the most read pedestal.
It’s been a while since I ordered a bucket. I had no idea KFC now offered rice with this. They should stick to what they know best i.e. lab-grown pseudo-chicken lengths.
Despite this, KFC offers more leadership than the government.
Our cat offers more leadership than this government and we ain’t got one (government and cat)
The government offers you the inspired leadership of Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab and you only mock.
Schwab’s a snab.
There doesn’t seem to be a centre any longer. The Tories have drifted further and further left, out in Labour land, and people just drifted after them. Now all centre parties are gone, and the only alternative is Reform UK. I wouldn’t call them far right, but they’re definitely not centre. And as long as people are allowing the Tories to drift to the left, the right will only drift further right.
William Clouston’s SDP.
I did not realise that the SDP still existed. Apparently a group resisted the amalgamation with the Liberals in the ’90s and are effectively now the only centrist party .
I looked at some of their policies and find myself more in agreement with them than with the shambolic and increasingly authoritarian Conservative Govt which seems to have totally torn up the Human Rights Act in response to a flu epidemic which leaves virtually all the population under 80 unaffected.
Only £10 to become a SDP member, not going to rock the foundations of Westmister but, speaking as long life tory voter, an individual stand against tyranny.
Will depend however on their policies re: mandatory vaccination are they for it or against it?. .
Good feature on them (pre covid) https://unherd.com/2019/01/a-party-for-the-politically-homeless/
The rebranded flu epidemic , if it is even that, also leaves most of those over 80 unaffected. Mandatory vaccination will cause ructions and most likely this utterly rotten government will instead go down the blackmail path.
It is also possible to persuade the LibDems to take a stronger stance against lockdowns and they can win an election based on the ‘lone warrior fighting tyranny’ and ‘Complicit in Tyranny’ slogans (They voted against the renewal of the Coronavirus ‘Enabling’ Act 2020 and abstained from the vote for Tiers)
I think Ed Davey is a sceptic but is afraid of saying so to avoid controversy.
The Tories are now left of the CCP, never mind the useless Labour Party.
Ha.. Labour land is now led by a f*cking knight of the realm and a Trilateral Twat at that. Another Sir at the head of the Liberals. Somehow I think things have gone astray!
You are all like generals fighting the last war.This is no left and right anymore.The fight is between tyranny and freedom.All the major parties have chosen tyranny.Anyone who opposes this gets my vote,that is if we allowed to vote again.
It is possible to persuade the LibDems to take a stronger stance against lockdowns and they can win an election based on the ‘lone warrior fighting tyranny’ and ‘Complicit in Tyranny’ slogans (They voted against the renewal of the Coronavirus ‘Enabling’ Act 2020 and abstained from the vote for Tiers)
I think Ed Davey is a sceptic but is afraid of saying so to avoid controversy.
Rice with KFC? Heresy.
You get that combination in the Philippines.
Fair enough. Embarrassingly, I must admit that whenever I’m on my travels I tend to visit a McDonald’s to sample the regional variation on the menu in different countries! Only ever had one KFC in Asia though at Changi Airport.
It’s good though – both the chicken & the rice must be hot and if you somther both in gravy, delicious!!!
McDonald’s in the Philippines serves a fried chicken & rice combination or fried chicken & spaghetti.
Ok I’m convinced, if the world ever gets moving properly again I pledge to visit a KFC in the Phillipines and try it!
You’ll like it!
Filipino food is vastly superior to anything that McDo makes.
It’s accompanying Dail Mail sad face photo that I miss. Family sat round said small portion looking as if they’ve lost a pound and found a sixpenxe.
Oh they had that, camera pointing down to enhance the pathos of her sad face.
I’d love to know what defines “extreme” in comparison to our so-called “centrist” government and so-called “opposition” who are terrorising and literally killing people with their policies.
What is extreme now, was common sense 30 or 40 years ago. That’s how left the centre of politics has shifted. We don’t have a right of centre party any more. The Tories are a mess, Labour is ten times worse and the Illib Undems – words fail me.
The elderly as a group have the least effective immune systems in the country
Take the most susceptible of them and lock them away and isolate them for ten months further compromising their immune systems
Then, yes you guessed it inject them with a virus
What could possibly go wrong
Inject us with an experimental cocktail which artificially stimulates our immune system in response to said virus in ways never yet tested on humans.
A glorious victory is assured for one side or the other. Both will suffer grievous injuries in the process. This is all or nothing.
At this point i wouldn’t be surprised if the vaccine is just a small dose of virus.
“At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if the vaccine is just a small dose of virus.”
Or at least it contains something that will trigger the rigged PCR test. The vaccines will likely also contain something a lot more potent, which will kill many of us, a few months down the road. The deaths will be put down to a new mutated virus and so then yet more fake vaccine development will swing into gear, in order to be unleashed upon the survivors of the first mass cull.
They won’t get away with all this if there are too many refuseniks and so they will have to do everything they can so as to ensure a very high vaccine take up.
Why the hell should care home workers take it ? The manufacturer’s aren’t even claiming it stops you being infectious ?
Probably under pressure from their employers who themselves will be under pressure from local authorities and central government Social Services.
Who knows?! The BBCs explanation for why this might be the case is because you get the vaccination in your ARM and the virus lives in your NOSE. Not kidding, it was on the news! So maybe we should all be snorting it instead?!
Helpless old people are expendable.
Same as Jews in concentration camps. Use them for medical experiments.
And you can have lots of fun torturing them in the process.
And when you’ve finished with the trash, it can go to the gas chambers.
How nice to live in Auschwitz Britain under the rule of Boris Hoess and Matt Mengele.
We’re the new jew, the mask less. You know us not by the yellow star but by the free face.
unfortunately the initial reaction of a nervous giggle rapidly turns into a feeling of dread as you realise the truth in this statement
I’ve been thinking that a lot recently!
Adolf’s family name was Schickelgruber. Roald Dahl wrote a short story about his birth way back in the 1950s.
I’m not entirely sure the elderly do have the least effective immune systems – these elderly have only lived to be elderly BECAUSE they have great immune systems. Fantastic ones in fact. Those that didn’t succumbed to childhood illnesses.
Granted, their bodies are no longer strong enough to fight some illnesses and repair themselves but that’s not the same as immune response.
The group with the least effective immune systems is babies, because all they might have are the few antibodies passed on from their mother. And they seem to be largely unaffected by covid…
I’ve lived through the Asian flu of 1957/8 and the Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1967/8. I’ve lived through lord knows how many flu epidemics, and, through travel, have no doubt been exposed to all sorts of bugs, viruses etc. I’m probably more immune than my son and daughter. I also object strongly to the phraseology used by Hancock et al. “Don’t kill your granny” “hugging her may be the last thing she does” or some such. How DARE they? They can go to hell as far as I’m concerned – to make up for the hell they’ve put us through with their insane policies. I see Drakeford’s been banned from over 100 Welsh pubs -we need to do the same for every stupid MP or scientist who thinks by killing an entire economy they can remove this virus
Yes,Woodstock was in 68, not much ‘social distancing ‘ there methinks…
And a lot of rolling around in the mud.
I know a lady aged 100 who rarely gets colds and has never had flu. She takes the flu jab but never had it in her youth.
…and will they let old people go back to normal life and interactions after they’ve had their genetic update? No. Of course they won’t.
The genetic up date will be designed to kill them and they will be coming for the rest of us.
I worry that the elderly are being given a placebo to convince the rest of us it’s safe. After all, they won’t be around much longer anyway. The unemployed over-50’s are a different matter.
VERY good point; the history (including with the ‘flu virus) is that different batch numbers are used to identify where they are going to be used. The ‘flu vaccine is reputed to be much stronger for “the elderly”.
How very, very easy it would be to label everything with the same batch numbers but mix in ten percent of a hyper-adjuvanted version. So easy to claim is was “just a manufacturing error”, but with the effect of easy decimation of the target population.
Alternatively, “certain” batches get delivered to GPs in “certain” postcodes containing the less-desirables.
Pfizer’s so called vaccine does not contain the virus. They did not culture the virus. Instead they read the genetic code, which China had supplied to the World Health Organisation.
I was sent a YouGov survey yesterday. one question was “Are you concerned about the safety of the covid vaccine?” I selected “very concerned” from the list of answers. I’m worried about a friend who works in a care home being forced to have it or lose her job.At least I’m a lot further down the list by which time hopefully there will be more evidence to make a better informed choice
YouGov (which actually means WeGov) survey:
“Are you concerned about the safety of the Covid vaccine?”
Available answers: No/Don’t know.
Results: 85% of people know that the vaccine is safe and effective.
Oh well, all the polls in the world can’t magic safety into these innoculations, so I guess we will see.
I wonder if they even take notice of surveys if the answers go against their narrative…just a thought..
Well, to be honest,we don’t, do we?
True…on another note I was reading up on past and ongoing petitions to the government. Some of them were worrying especially the number of signatures . Some astonished by the high numbers others such low numbers.covid relatedcwas what I was looking for. I wonder how much public opinion has changed now…
The polls will say whatever they want them to.
And, of course, Mr Zahawi would know all about that, wouldn’t he?
If they try to get your friend to take the vaccine under threat of losing her job she can sue them. The day the Government tells us we must take this vaccine is the day they declare war and the day the revolution will start.
From the roundup Conservative Woman ‘technocracy and the abolition of man’
Some weeks ago I posted about a 20 year old documentary programme called
What happened to our dream of freedom
It’s all there, so much of what has happened this year and what looms on the horizon was foretold in that three part series.
Someone put back it up in YouTube 2 years ago. Episode one ‘The Trap’ is the key.
I think you’re talking about Adam Curtis’s documentaries. The fascinating thing is that they are/were on the BBC. At the time (in fact it was only 2007), it seemed perfectly normal for a BBC programme to suggest that governments and corporations were manipulating the population for their own ends using terrorism and health ’emergencies’ as the vehicles for this.
In its way, this was part of being ‘woke’ in 2007. But now, those programmes would be labelled subversive, ‘tin-foil hat’ and, according to the BBC and Guardian these days, ‘right-wing libertarian’.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PL4988545029EE748A
I have it. Just watched it a few months ago. A refresher course. There are 3 parts.
From yesterdays main piece.
Alex Belfied YouTube has
👏
Millwall FC has announced that it will no longer be taking the knee👟⚽️
Alex also has Madam Tussauds putting plastic bozo in a Val Doonican woolly jumper emblazoned with
‘Tis the season
To be Jolly
Careful’
The rubber dummy will be doing less harm than the real dummy.
The rubber dummy is being stashed in 10 Downing Street.
The away team at tonight’s game are though, another way to incite the crowd. I predict all future Millwall home games will be behind closed doors.
That might be fair enough for the fans. As a lifelong football fan, I suspect it was the American import of “taking the knee”, with all its US political connotations that grated. I don’t think many Millwall fans had slave owners in their ancestry and our police don’t routinely shoot unarmed blacks. A British display of simple support for equality without the politics might pass. Though why they feel the need to do it, goodness knows, elite professional football is probably the most equal employer there is looking at the race profile and salaries of the players.
Millwall and QPR players will link arms .
and wear “kick it out” logos on shirts. Still annoying virtue signalling but at least getting rid of the political BLM stuff.
If they are linking arms, they are not social distancing. Just saying!
pretty good analysis in Telegraph today (and paywall seems to be down)
“Kick it out”. They’re continually drawing attention to something that had just about gone already, thus ensuring that it is perpetuated. In fact, it is now not even racism: it’s self-professed, virtue signalling anti-racists versus anti-anti-racists who cannot stand being patronised and lectured to.
Is there anything more vomit-inducing than Lewis Hamilton’s virtue signalling these days? As has been pointed out, he was outed as very much not ‘woke’ a couple of years back, and he’s been desperately trying to atone for it ever since.
I actually eyeballed the photos of Premier League players on the PL website and counted 120 ‘black’ (non-white) out of 306 total (in squads, I presume). That’s 39%, at least three times as ‘inclusive’ as required, basis the society ‘we are’ (‘BAME’ 13%; but since almost all the non-white players are black, a community enjoying a 3% share of our population, the over-inclusion is nearer 12 or 13 times!!). Now this cannot be virtue signalling, since football like all sports is Darwinian; only the fittest survive, or clubs would not. All good then. Who cares? To then argue (as the twitter twits like Barnes, Lineker etc etc plus almost all the MSM do) that zero black managers annuls this over-representation of blackness in the ‘player community’ is nonsense. Appointing management by colour of skin would obviously be pure virtue signalling given the paucity of qualified black applicants. Crap would be forcibly raised to the top. This would be suicide by signalling.
Can they just not run out on to the pitch and play the fucking game? Who cares what the players of Millwall think about anything other than their performance on the pitch which i have paid my hard earned cash to watch. If i tuned into PMQ’s and fat Boris stated playing keep-ee-uppy i’d be stop that and explain to me why you’re destroying our country for a virus that kills almost exclusively people over 80.
As a lifelong Millwall supporter I think the club shat their pants as they were heading towards a full on civil war with the fans which they know they would loose, leaving the club destitute. Unlike the business like Man U or Arsenal ( which also play football) most of their income comes from the fans in the ground. Add to this the fact that if they have not done this there would be booing again and again …Just imagine them trying to pull this if there was 14.000 Millwall in the ground. .I predict a riot. Politic has NO space in football because BLM are now a registered political party in the Uk so what next week, everybody wearing a Kier Starmer Tshirt?
Always liked Millwall. I’ve always preferred the smaller clubs in the lower divisions. The atmosphere is always tense, the beer flows and the football is in your face and ready. Much more entertainment that watching Liverpool or man u or up here Rangers or Celtic.
Not everyone can appreciate the greatest football team the world has ever seen. 🙂 Though I agree the lower leagues are good too.
Not much foot in their football matches. Lots of theatrics, diving, panto style shuffles and the idiotic celebrations.
But that’s me, an unashamed rugger bugger, playing Gods favourite game
Watch out for that concussion, Chris. Seems to damage the ability to appreciate class. 🙂
“Everyone hates us, we don’t care”, sound familiar? Just got to love Millwall (speaking as a Leeds fan).
Uptick for you
I lived round that way for a while and developed a bit of a soft spot for the ‘Wall.
I should bloodywell think so!
Knowing the sexual peccadilloes of footballers they will be making a daisy chain…
Good for them.
18th…😉😁
Anyone seen Children of Men, start getting used to the idea…
Watched last week on recommendation of sceptical friend. very good.
The book, by PD James, is even better (with quite a different ending and less preaching about immigration).
That the one fillumed in Hastings?
Another day, another ludicrous article in the New York Times. This one: It’s time to scare people about Covid Opinion | It’s Time to Scare People About Covid – The New York Times (nytimes.com). With lots of idiotic postings like: I knew a 30 year old who died so everyone’s vulnerable, I knew a 4 year old who was really ill ……., blah, blah – no perspective, no sense. Meanwhile, back in the real world, I’ve had a look at the age-adjusted death rate for France to see the number of ‘excess’ deaths from this ‘horrific’ pandemic, having done the same previously for the UK. Using the latest available figures up to 16 November and annualising, a grand total of 20,491 for the whole year. And that includes all the people who’ve been scared out of their wits (like the NYT suggests is a good thing) and have died unnecessary deaths of cancer etc because they wouldn’t or couldn’t go to hospital. Pleased Macron saw fit to screw up the whole country because of that. Just like the ridiculous Boris did here. And as for the New York Times: grow up and learn some elementary maths ! (btw, the UK… Read more »
THE NYT missed a trick by not finding the unlucky woman who knows personally at least three people who have been reinfected twice.
Maybe they’re saving that for another brilliant article !
From the main article.
The Turdgeons Pandemic Politeness tips.
Note Top Tip 5
Please do not ask a Scottizombie to act like a human being, as a refusal often offends.
She is trying to indoctrinate the young, turning them into virtue signalling automotons. Very worrying. As said before, if there was a real pandemic on the loose we wouldn’t need these kind of pamphlets.
24 hour mind control.
I was young for quite a long time, bombarded at school with risible Public Information Films warning of the danger from smoking, alcohol, promiscuous sex and drugs.
They generally had the opposite effect. I made up my own mind about drugs since they spoiled the booze and the promiscuous sex.
Me too, more I’m told not to do something the more i do it, well apart from heroin and Morris dancing.
When I was a kid the PIFs were about not playing with matches (there’s one I saw in the 60s where a kid accidentally immolates himself, yikes!), not going with paedos (the excellent ‘Charlie Says’ series), not playing with abandoned fridges and properly scary stuff like this, voiced by Donald Pleasance no less.
In fact the next time Nic Sturge-Un goes for a paddle in a loch I really hope the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water is waiting nearby.
Drill some holes in the bottom of her boat before she leaves.
Reminds me of the “spies” program for children in 1984.
Jesus wept. Yet again another reason why I’m so glad to be out of the Looney place that is Scotland.
Exactly. I’m hoping to be out next year. The constant virtue signalling is beyond annoying. The SNP thinks it is the ‘Scottish Moral Superiority Party’, though public services are going down the toilet.
Scotland at one time had a world class education system now it’s so dumbed down that a million people voted for Sturgeon. During the referendum i asked SNP supporters to name a single policy of theirs apart from independence and id give them fifty quid and not a single one of them knew a single policy. These numb nuts don’t know what they are voting for and do what all SNP droogs do and blame England. They are depressing.
Yes, I can see the problems with Scottish schools on a regular basis as a university lecturer. Students can’t write basic essays or follow instructions. What’s worse is that they lack initiative and they constantly worry about everything. I really wonder what they’ve been subjected to in secondary school here.
Agree. During our last 2 years living in Edinburgh, we were noticing how the tone was changing especially after the referendum.
Every year we go visit my father-in-law we notice how so many things are changing and not for the better.
Looks like something out of Viz
No advice then about how to confront someone when you see them throwing their used face nappy on the ground. I’m more than happy to threaten to ram it down their throat.
Is that numbering f*cked up? 1, 2,4,3,5?
2+2=5
Maybe already posted but Richard Tice of the ‘Reform UK’ party set out very concisely and coherently the case against current government covid 19 restrictions, demolishing them (at 24.30).
The faces of the other participants are worth watching
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000q5xg/politics-live-07122020
This is the first time that I have seen any politician obliterate the government approach while hosted by the state broadcaster.
I thought it was excellent.
All they had was emotional blackmail and a daft Hancock-esque claim that lateral flow tests bring down the infection levels, pat on tbe back for us.
Tice’s response : “Yeah, exactly”
Tice’s was excellent – but it was like 4 versus 1…..as heard as they all tried he held his own and from my perspective won the argument. How the claim of ’60k excess deaths in the 1st wave’ wasnt ‘fact checked’ is beyond me
And so it begins; from the society that brought us Health & Safety rules so strict that children were banned from playing conkers, people are now queing up to be injected with snake oil in what must be the biggest public health gamble of all time?
I was going to reply to some posts below but then gave up; the reason I discuss things here is to counter the arguments of the covid zealots. But it now seems that all the covid zealots have now stuck their fingers in their ears and are chanting vaccine, vaccine, vaccine. I dread to think what happens if this gamble fails! but if they get away with it they will declare their policies were right all along and the lockdown sceptics were totally wrong and all our arguments rubbish.
However many arguments we put up, however much clear data we present; at present the powers that be and much of the country are vaccine obsessed and we have to wait and watch as the vaccination programme unrolls. I do not think they are going to relax anything until they feel they can declare ‘it was the vaccine what done it’.
They may have a simple solution all lined up.
Inject the snake oil.
Stop testing, or change the lie about the results to a positive one.
Stop lying about the causes of deaths.
Pandemic gone,
If course, they could do the last two any time, but that would be sensible and they don’t do sensible.
How I wish you are right, but seeing how every single Covid death is treated as a worse tragedy than anything else I’m afraid it will run and run
I’ve just heard on Radio 4 that next year people will be given (shouldn’t that be offered?) a mixture of TWO vaccines. This saga is going to get more and more elaborate and twisted.
I’m also losing the will to fight now. Maybe going to the Keep Britain Free meeting tonight will fire me up, it’s usually jam packed ….
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2020/09/23/covid-19-vaccine-protocols-reveal-that-trials-are-designed-to-succeed/?sh=616bdf375247
Very easy to read review in Forbes. Explains exactly what the vaccines do and don’t do, and how low the bar has been set for the trials to be effective.
Thanks for posting Marialta.
As you say, easy to understand and also in a publication that zealots would struggle to ignore. A useful link to send to people I think.
Best regards
Simon
If total infections, hospitalizations, and death are going to be ignored in the preliminary trials of the vaccines, then there must be phase four testing to monitor their safety and efficacy. This would be long term massive scale monitoring of the vaccine. There must be an indication that the authorized vaccines are reducing infection, hospitalization, and death, or else they will not be able to stop this pandemic.
I wish we had something locally I could attend like that. There is zero opposition to this stuff.
Check out the telegram protest everywhere goup.
They have lots of local groups. New ones being added all the time.You might find one near you.
https://t.me/ProtestEverywhere
Personally i’m looking forward to all them people who take the vaccine getting sick. Fucking good. I hope these fuckers suffer like we’re suffering under the tyranny. Your middle class Karen always talks the talk but when it comes to getting this new world order vaccine that will prevent women from getting pregnant i have my doubts she’ll go for it. We’ll see the first few days where the real fucking morons line up to to be tagged but after that no one will take it. How the child fuckers and faggots that run the country deal with that i don’t know but i’ll tell you this the only way they’re sticking a needle in my body is when it’s dead.
Er Karen tends to not be a middle class name, that would be Emily or Olivia!
fuck off tosser
Biker,
I mostly enjoy your comments (they often make me laugh, which is nice), I admire your refusal to be cowed, and I am glad you are on our side.
But, please, is it necessary to be so rude? KBuch only made a rather harmless comment.
Could someone tell me why the name Karen has acquired such a pejorative meaning?
This is a genuine enquiry; I would really like to know!
I don’t think the name matters it’s just the kind of person who thinks they know it all but it’s obvious they know fuck all. The Karen tends to over inflate their own value while anyone within earshot just she’s some dumb fucker demanding to see the manager because she’s not 100% satisfied at all times.
As everything else, came from USA. So let’s ask them.
Yes, see above.
It comes from misogyny, and also snobbery. The Karen meme is a portrayal of a (working class) woman who has the audacity to speak up about not being happy about something, and therefore must be abused and/or silenced until she remembers her place and shuts up.
You have heard of it before because the problem is as old as time.
Yes; loads of videos of “Karens” either demanding to “speak to the manager” over some imagined slight, or marching up to someone she has never met before and demanding that the other person conforms to some Karen-related opinion or action.
Think ideal Covid marshal material. Nothing to do with misogyny, Karens tend to be female because a man would get punched.
Emo Philips had a good joke referring to this concept; “I went to hire a car the other day. The clerk said “Prove to me that you’re a citizen of New York”. So I stabbed him…”
https://twitter.com/NickTriggle/status/1336201069685334019?s=20
So the last week or two I’ve been going into my local Tesco (the one at Enoch’s square in central Glasgow) without any mask. I never ever wore one to begin with (like I’d pay my own money for such Chinese plastic carcinogenic trash??). But I used to wear a Royal Stuart tartan scarf over my lower face. No longer will I deface such an ancient British symbol in the name of cringe to the false god of Covid. Absolutely no one has challenged me. Maybe I get filthy looks? I don’t really know or care because anyone in a mask to me is subhuman and I couldn’t give a flying French Connection UK what they think behind their slobbering wall of conformist shite. Thanks to all you guys for the positive thinking and inspiration! Knowing if some wee gobshite has a go, I can just report it back here and we can all have a wee laugh about it makes such a huge difference. No sceptic is alone. We all have each other’s backs and every transgression against their pish gives hope and inspiration to other sceptics. And so anyone still wearing the mark of the beast across your… Read more »
Great post.
Been walking around Fife since it started and never wore a mask, never washed my hands and never socially distanced. I’ve been confronted and i’ve laughed in the face of these fuckers. I don’t give a shit what anyone says. The very idea that such a useless fucker like Nicola Sturgeon can tell me that i need to block my airways is so insane as not to be worthy of me giving it a shit.
Excellent! Sturgeon is worse than useless.
I wash my hands, as I always have done. But I won’t use sanitiser that damages beneficial bacteria that we need to live healthy lives
Never yet worn a mask, it’s simply a show of submission and it only encourages the utterly corrupt government to further heights of folly.
Even after you’ve wiped your arse?
Well said and well done!!!
We sceptics need to support and encourage others.
So glad to hear this. I haven’t been to my Glasgow office since March. Stirling is fairly sane, fortunately.
People like you will lead us out of this madness. Thank you.
Giving you an enormous round of applause. Everything you say is 100% true.
Well said.
100% Every day I feel more empowered. No mask, walk straight, walk proud and SMILE, most people react so positively to seeing a REAL face. we might be in the minority but there’s an awful lot of sympathy towards us.
Keep battering on folks.
Arnie.
My eldest is 5 years old today, a welcome distraction from the cringeworthy “V Day” mass rollout of unlicensed, experimental vaccines.
I’ll be focusing on trying to remember the names of his favourite Pokemon rather than rage furiously at the latest pack of lies coming out of Matt Hancock’s mouth.
We all need to take a day off once in a while!
Enjoy!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55227325 90 year old is first to get vaccine.
Poor brainwashed lady, she says she feels very privileged.
Her only claim to fame in 90 years!
Look, I’m in the paper!
The clapping as she was wheelled back to ward was my moment to throw up. How many of those nurses are just doing that because they were told, knowing full well how much of a shambles this all is.
I guess if she dies within 3 months, which is likely, of natural causes, they will keep that very quiet!
Extraordinary and absolutely nauseating. Apparently, she said that she was taking the vaccine so that she would finally be able to see her family. Psychologically battered into submission by months of lockdown/isolation/media scaremongering. No way that is real consent.
Have been reading coverage of this in CH and CzR media, and it is generally very negative — because of speed of vaccine approval and decision to use elderly as guinea pigs. Many people viewing it as unethical (and dangerous).
So today is ‘V Day’ and frankly I’m feeling rather frightened about it. Our elderly population are taking part in a deeply unethical experiment and the government are taking a massive gamble with public health that could go either way. These are some of the weakest members in society who already struggle to mount an immune response to a wild virus, and there are still so many unknowns. This is completely new vaccine technology and we have no data on mass rollouts, only a very small sample in a clinical trial which is actually still ongoing. Full disclosure: I am pro-vaccine, I have had pretty much every jab going and even paid privately to have the flu jab this year but there is something about the Covid vaccine that makes me profoundly uneasy. Even if the vaccine is a ‘success’ and causes minimal injury or damage, that’s not the end of the story, because vaccines don’t obviate the devastating damage from lockdowns that have scarred societies and people across the world. They don’t justify lockdowns and they can’t undo the harmful new social habits that will take months/years to reverse, such as social distancing, masks, people scared to leave the… Read more »
The government responses have disproportionally penalised the elderly. The young have time and can recover and learn from their experiences. There’s no way back for tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of the elderly.
I agree, but they have also disproportionately affected the young. The young are not affected in any serious way by this virus but are being kicked before they’ve even started in life. Most of these folk haven’t even got careers or independence yet and will now find it much harder to do so, and when they do finally find work they will be paying for this folly for the rest of their lives. Children are also missing out on education which will have long lasting detrimental effects. I agree that these responses have been terrible for the elderly and never should have happened, but if countries spent more time investing in their young and allowing them a greater stake in our society, as they are our future, then lockdowns may not have even happened because govts would have acknowledged their disproportionate impact on the young, and lack of lockdown would have then in turn benefitted the elderly.
It is not a suffering olympics.Lockdowns are wrong for everyone.
Yes, I understand that the young have been very badly affected. Stuff like this always affects worst the most vulnerable people in society. What I was trying to say that is there are always difficulties in life for all generations (1950s baby-boomers perhaps being something of an exception), and that the young have time. Many of the old people dying in care homes alone and denied visits will have grown up during the war – my guess (and hope) is that will prove a tougher paper round than the covid-response aftermath. Time heals an awful lot, in ways that perhaps you don’t envisage or even imagine when young. Old people haven’t got time. I’m neither young nor old, but have children so of course think about what the world has in store for them. More frightening for me than economic difficulties is the prospect of the dystopian society that the covid-response has given us such a disturbing insight into, and what we can do to ensure it never becomes a permanent reality. One way I see this going, with all the economic pain yet to come, is society fracturing into competing groups: young v. old; property owning v. non.; white… Read more »
Completely agree Poppy. The damage done to the young who are at no risk from this virus is unforgivable. It is small things that add up over the months. Watching my daughter get more and more demoralised as every pleasure in live is removed or spoilt. But the young are the solution, if more of them could wake up and fight back the government would have no where to turn. This is why they closed schools and talked about asymptomatic spread and tried to blame and shame the young. We need the younger generation to revolt and seize back their futures.
Yes, quite right, depressing to see many of the young/youngish indulging in virtue-signalling (fancy masks and shaming sceptics on social media) rather than fighting back against this madness. I still hope there could be some kind of backlash on the way.
The responses have disproportionally penalised the young in relation to their risk though. They may have more time to recover but they may not even get the chance to live life with the freedoms that most have been able to take for granted. And economically they will be paying the price for decades. Lockdown is a tragedy for everyone but with the future that’s being lined up I’d much rather have had my life than be at the start of it.
Hi Achilles – please see my response to Poppy above, most of which I could just have easily written here. As I wrote, Time heals an awful lot.
My guess is that, rather than the young, it will be the economically inactive who will be most affected over the coming years and even decades. The young will better be able to ride the waves of change (bit clicheish I know, but can’t think of anything better right now) out of this
Establishment gotta punish them elderly Brexit voters somehow.
The government murdered thousands of elderly people by knowingly sending infected people into care homes and then denied them NHS care.They then used the pretext of protecting the elderly to keep everyone locked up.
Also some care home whistle-blowers cite removal of food, water, medicine protocols, hidden by lockdown rules that forbade relatives from visiting (witnessing)
Perhaps a repeat of the Liverpool Care Pathway scandal.
The evil on display via politicians, the media, friendly faces is beyond comprehension
I read Michael Yeadon/Wolfgang Wodarg’s concerns about the vaccine and had my concerns confirmed. Indemnification is enough of a red flag for me
To think that adequate levels of vitamin D, healthy diet, exercise, maintaining social connections, adequate sleep – and if succumbing to the ‘virus’ hydroxycholoquine and zinc as used around the world, is enough to protect someone and keep them healthy
But no – Pharma shareholders want the trough filling. This is the evil I cannot comprehend
I’m sure a lot of elderly people particularly those in nursing homes didn’t ask to be wrapped in cotton wool and basically had this forced upon them by an increasingly risk averse culture. The same people will ow have the vaccine forced upon them as will many people who work in the healthcare sector. I’m 60 and am furious about being defined as elderly. Prior to Covid I was enjoying being an agency worker in a housing project after spending more than a life sentence working in the NHS. My second job was trying to re establish a career as an artist. Yeah I know I’m too old but I studied art to degree level but due to being working class struggled to get a job in the creative industries. I was actually doing quite well until March and had shown work in a number of exhibitions. I also had plenty of agency work which helped fund my art practice. Sine the first lockdown exhibition opportunities have almost dried up and my hours with the agency have reduced to the bare minimum. I’ve lost the best part of a healthy year of my life where I’d planned to climb both… Read more »
My sympathies.
Keep making art!!
I think they’re culling the expensive useless eaters. With the avalanche of unemployment that will hit after furlough, many over-50s will find it hard to get jobs …..
The young will be controlled via debt.
You are absolutely right.
But for many elderly people this has not been done in their name. No one asked them and they would rather live their lives as they see fit rather than ‘be protected’ by self-appointed (and basically cruel) ‘protectors’.
My mother is 86 and she does not support any of this nonsense. Quite the contrary.
The failure of the Church to provide either effective spiritual or temporal leadership over the last ten months has often been remarked on recently.
But in my opinion that commentary has come nowhere near grasping the scale of that failure, or the consequences which are by now surely baked in the pie.
Closed churches??? Dear God.
I don’t know if anyone on here with memories of the 1980s alternative rock scene recalls an obscure little gem by a band called 10,000 Maniacs, ‘Planned Obsolescence’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sVc8lkTfrk
Nearly four decades later, the lyrics seem almost chillingly apposite:
Science is truth for life
Watch religion fall obsolete
Science Will be truth for life
Technology as nature
Science Truth for life
In Fortran tongue the Answer …
In fortran tongue the answer?
Wow. Very 1980s of natalie merchant. (I think she’s a bit of a lefty)
It was back in 1982!
Aren’t climate models still fortran megamesses? Just askin. . .
As pointed out by CS Lewis, Francis Schaeffer and others back in the 50’s, the rejection of the Sovereign God leads to a science led tyranny. In the words of Randy Stonehill:
I can’t keep from mourning for this topsy-turvy world
with all its strife and pain
Mourning for the lost and the desperate children who can’t remember their name
And I can feel it in my soul
How the end is getting near
I can hear the devil laughing
And it’s ringing in my ears
Long ago he chose us to inherit all His kingdom
And we were blessed with light
But wandering away we disobeyed Him in the garden
And stumbled into night
and I can feel it in my soul
Now the end is getting near
I can hear the angels weeping
And it’s ringing in my ears
We are all like foolish puppetsWho desiring to be kings
Now lie pitifully crippled
after cutting our own strings
http://www.elyrics.net/read/r/randy-stonehill-lyrics/puppet-strings-lyrics.html
Daniel Chapter 2:
44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%202&version=ESV
I have often been intrigued by your choice of name and I infer that you know at least some Greek. Would you care to join one of my New Testament Greek classes? I have three, Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced, so I think one of these would be appropriate, if I may say. Or do you run one yourself? Please get in touch via the form at http://www.eroumen.co.uk.
Done.
The church is finished. Even the Pope doesn’t believe the shite he talks. Science is the new religion and like the old religion is full of shite also. No difference between the two and both of these believers will force you to believe. The religious used to burn you at the stake but now they don’t so the fear of death from these people has gone so it’s dying , well the scientists will inject you with the fire against your will because they know best.
Science is the new religion and like the old religion is full of shite
Maybe they both had something useful to say until they were taken over by careerists.
I don’t know anything about religious careers, but science is driven by and almost entirely dependent on securing the next research grant. Hardly the path to truth and honesty.
That’s right. That goes for Junk Science as well.
Science has become corrupted by the gravity of Pharma and Bill Gates ‘funding’
See, Science Fictions, Exposing Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype in Science by Stuart Ritchie..there is no ‘objective’ science, I’m not sure there ever was.
Some months ago a clergyman at our local church who organises meetings for local house group leaders rang me up. After complimenting me on running a number of groups for New Testament Greek, saying that I was doing great job and so on, he then went on to the real topic. I had, a few weeks previous to that, attended the nine o’ clock service (half communion) without a mask face-nappy; no one had remarked on that at the time but apparently someone complained. Could I please wear a mask face-nappy next time? Naturally, I refused and pointed out there there WERE exemptions, something of which he was unaware. The conversation was not a meeting of minds. I pointed out (do bear in mind this was some months ago; the sins of the church hierarchy are now more numerous): The silence of church leaders (none of them, not just the Church of England, have been forthcoming) during this completely confected crisis has been total. I said we needed an Old Testament prophet like Amos, Zechariah or the like/ Where were they? It is no excuse to advance the argument that this is the law of the land; where would the… Read more »
Many churches are more like civil service or government departments. If they really believed, they would see something like Covid as negligible and hold their services.
I was baptised Catholic & went to Catholic schools but am not practising and somewhere along the line had lost my faith. However this is something that I would not readily admit in my home country because people there would react in horror. When I admitted that I never went to mass, never prayed the rosary, never observed any of the religious occasions, I was labelled an “atheist” (obviously didn’t know the real meaning of the word). The reaction of the churches to this crisis has been both a source of disappointment and not a surprise really. This was an opportunity for them to provide real leadership in matters of the spirit but no, they closed the churches and denied the sacraments and service to those who needed them. They have been active enforcers of the government’s insane diktats and when challenged can only offer weasel words by way of apology. Instead the CoE prefers to pontificate on the likes of slavery and matters pertaining to Caesar such as Brexit. The Catholic church have been no better as well. Christianity has come a long, long way from the heady days of the early Christians and stepping into the power vacuum… Read more »
Absolutely – Sweden disestablished its own state church in 2000 and I think Norway was going to do the same. I’m a member of the National Secular Society and oppose religious privilege. The bishops should have been removed from the Lords years ago; the only other country with this situation is Iran. It’s outrageous in a country that claims to be a democracy.
Exactly. That said there are other countries where despite the explicit separation between Church and State, the former holds a big influence – look at the Philippines as an example.
For a discussion about how the Church should respond to a hostile government see this video based on the Book of Daniel:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/LVDa8DD4WLnH/
Good points Stephanos, which beg for answers.
During the Black Death a disproportionally high number of priests died. The Christian ethic is/was supposed to be one of helping the needy, not running away from them.
I don’t see how after the last 10 months the Church can claim much legitimacy. Yes, the criticism has been very light. And isn’t that very telling? Does the Church actually matter much to society any more??
I’m not one for revealed religion myself. You won’t find me in a church as part of a congregation, but you just might find me sitting in one on my own somewhere out in the middle of nowhere.
I read of one at a protest in Germany.
They are fine with my mask exemption at my church but the vicar seems to talk as much about covid precautions as about God. I still enjoy church though and sing quietly in defiance of the regulations.
https://avftt.co.uk/index.php?threads/sweden.12041/
Fake news surely?
Word on the street. Peeps need to be aware of the general chit chat
Sweden might have been more free but they also overreacted from the start. Very disappointing that they haven’t allowed large crowds yet.
When Sturgeon was asked how much the government had spent on it and said she didn’t know what she meant was she didn’t care, after all she stole the money from my pocket and like ALL SOCIALISTS spends the stolen money like a council estate lottery winner.
I already despise all socialists more than i can express but Sturgeon is particularly nasty.
It is easy for Sturgeon. Socialism that somebody else is paying for.
Re the London issue… obviously all “cases” and Tiers are bs but I’m kinda thinking it’s a good thing as Option 1 – letting them stay in Tier 2 is only going to peak more Midlanders and Northerners into not giving a monkeys about restrictions anymore.
And Option 2 – putting them in Tier 3 is only going to peak more Southerners into not giving a monkeys about restrictions anymore. If London’s streets are no longer paved gold then it might wake a few more up too.
It’s almost like pitting different regions against each other might backfire…
No chance that London will go into tier 3. Khan will not allow it -and when Khan and St Nicola tell Boris to jump, he asks how high.
I lose track of what Khan wants. He’s such a flip flopper. I thought he wanted stricter restrictions?
In terms of peaking more people into civil disobedience Option 1 is prob better of the two evils. This will be the way out of this mess sooner or later, more and more people will just stop paying any attention.
Apropos care homes, this clip was aired on yesterday’s UK Column News:
https://youtu.be/BVU0kslHCCI?t=2621
Makes DNR look positively tempting.
Seen elsewhere;
”I live on the edge of Central London and no one I know whether friends or family has the virus and the same with them. We have doctors in the family and friends who are doctors.
The r rate is a theoretical construct which is flawed as are the tests. A few more deaths from respiratory infections are sad but this is what happens in winter. We cannot and must not lock up people to prevent deaths. The only way is to protect the vulnerable which the government seems unable to do. This country is run by halfwits.”
And populated with halfwits
Good stuff from California with Dave Rubin.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bO9SKPyD_G0
Tom Woods brilliant today. What a hero.
https://tomwoods.com/ep-1792-stanfords-jay-bhattacharya-on-the-lockdown-fiasco/
Liar in Chief lying on the Today Programme
Hancock’s quarter hour.
We have a new hero to worship, Margaret, the first person to be vaccinated🙈🙉🙊
Next thing they’ll be setting her up with Captain Tom to do a double act.
Has no one explained to this lady that she won’t be able to see her family in the new year?
”it’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year.”
doormat said ‘peak immunity comes 5 weeks after the first jab’ so sadly Margaret will be lonely this Xmas
Margaret is appealing to everyone to take the wonderful vaccine, BBC R4 news, bless.
Saint Margaret of ScotlandFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to searchSaint Margaret of Scotland Image of Saint Margaret in a window in Edinburgh Queen consort of ScotlandTenure1070–1093 Bornc. 1045 Kingdom of HungaryDied16 November 1093 Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Kingdom of ScotlandBurialDunfermline AbbeySpouseMalcolm III, King of ScotlandIssue more…Edmund, Bishop of Dunkeld Ethelred Edgar, King of Scotland Alexander I, King of Scotland David I, King of Scotland Matilda, Queen of England Mary, Countess of Boulogne HouseWessexFatherEdward the ExileMotherAgathaReligionCatholicismSaint MargaretQueen of ScotsVenerated inRoman Catholic Church and Anglican CommunionCanonized1250 by Pope Innocent IVMajor shrineDunfermline Abbey, Fife, ScotlandFeast16 NovemberAttributesreadingPatronageScotland, Dunfermline, Fife, Shetland, The Queen’s Ferry, and Anglo-Scottish relationsSaint Margaret of Scotland (Scots: Saunt Magret, c. 1045 – 16 November 1093), also known as Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess and a Scottish queen. Margaret was sometimes called “The Pearl of Scotland”.[1] Born in the Kingdom of Hungary to the expatriate English prince Edward the Exile, Margaret and her family returned to England in 1057. Following the death of king Harold II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, her brother Edgar Ætheling was elected as King of England but never crowned. After she and her family fled north, Margaret married Malcolm III of Scotland by… Read more »
Soon to be the Second Saint Margaret, blessed by Global Agent, Pope Francis.
Happy to say that almost every person I meet thinks this is totally bonkers now.
The Gov are just clinging on with the Vaccine.
That’ll all fall apart soon too.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
All fall down!
https://www.thecaterer.com/news/drinks-industry-makes-noise-hospodemo-protest
This is great but should have happened much sooner, ditto retail, entertainment, sport. They should all be hounding the govt en masse constantly.