Gavin Williamson U-Turns Over Primaries Reopening
In a last-minute change-of-plan, the Education Secretary has declared that all primary schools in London will remain closed on Monday, regardless of whether they’re located in Covid “hotspots” – prompting renewed calls from the teaching unions to close all schools across the country. MailOnline has more.
A teaching union has called for all schools across the country to be closed for the start of the new term after the government U-turned on its decision to keep some primaries in London open despite rising Covid cases.
The Government bowed to protests, legal pressure and scientific advice on New Year’s Day after it initially omitted a number of the capital’s boroughs from the forced closures.
But Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, questioned why the same restrictions are not being rolled out across the rest of the country where cases are also surging.
Gavin Williamson had this week released a list of London primary schools in coronavirus ‘hotspots’ that would stay shut for two weeks after the start of term next week.
The list did not include areas where Covid rates are high such as Haringey whose leaders said they would defy the Government and support schools that decided to close.
Under the Government’s initial plan, schools in the City of London and Kingston were set to reopen but those in 22 other London boroughs would have remained closed.
The leaders of Camden, Islington, Greenwich, Haringey, Harrow, Hackney and Lewisham boroughs, and the City of London, said in a letter to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson: ‘We ask in the strongest terms that your recommendation is urgently reviewed and our primary schools are added to the list of those advised to move learning online.’
The action prompted an emergency Cabinet Office meeting today where they decided to abandon the original plans and order the remaining area to close their primary schools.
The move is expected to see similar arrangements to the spring lockdown when schools continued to accept children from key worker families but moved to online learning for the vast majority of pupils.
The main argument against keeping primaries open in some London boroughs is that that Covid infection rates in those boroughs are no different to the rates in neighbouring areas where schools will remain closed.
“It never made sense that neighbouring boroughs were being instructed to have different arrangements despite having similar rates of infection,” said Caroline Kerr, leader of Kingston Council.
But if the only objection to the Government’s school closures policy was that it was inconsistent, that could just as easily have been addressed by opening more schools rather than closing more.
This is a disappointing development and suggests the so-called “hawks” in the Cabinet – lockdown zealots like Matt Hancock and Michael Gove – have prevailed in their ongoing power struggle with the “doves”.
Gavin Williamson’s stock has never been lower. Expect him to be exiled to Northern Ireland (or the back benches) in next week’s reshuffle.
Stop Press: When secondary schools reopen, pupils could be in for a nasty shock. According to Schools Week, the Government is considering making face masks mandatory in secondary school classrooms.
Doctors in Revolt Over Single-Jab Covid Strategy
The Telegraph‘s Paul Nuki has a story in today’s paper about the global debate over whether the UK Government’s decision to focus on maximising the number of people who’ve been given just one jab – at the expense of giving people two jabs – is sensible. Answer: Probably not.
Scientists across the world were locked in fierce debate on Friday over the wisdom or otherwise of the UK switching to a single dose strategy for COVID-19 vaccines.
White coats were flapping on social media after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) published its rationale for the move on Thursday night.
“The advice… is aimed at maximising protection in the population”, said the JVCI.
“Given the high level of protection afforded by the first dose, models suggest that initially vaccinating a greater number of people with a single dose will prevent more deaths and hospitalisations than vaccinating a smaller number of people with two doses”.
The move to prioritise first jabs of the vaccines was initially proposed by former prime minister Tony Blair. There is little doubt it is an innovation, though some prefer the word gamble.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Eric Topol, the American medic with a large social media following, isn’t a fan of the single-dose strategy.
New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square
One intrepid reader ventured into Central London on Thursday night to celebrate New Year’s Eve. She didn’t have much fun.
Last night I went to London. I live east of the city and drove in down the A11. Which, for those who don’t know, goes right past the Royal London Hospital, as mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter.
I could not resist a little drive round the block to go past the ambulance and A&E entrance of the hospital. Only one ambulance to be seen and no people. Pretty bloody unusual for 10pm on New Year’s Eve…
Carrying on, I parked in Covent Garden, which was deserted except for covid marshals. On the way, I took another detour over London Bridge to see the river. It was boarded up on the sides. Lots of ‘guards’ in high vis but there might have been fireworks set up on it.
Having parked, Covent Garden was like a ghost town. I got a Boris bike and went for a ride. Trafalgar Square was totally boarded up. Large police presence, not many people. Picadilly and Leicester Square were empty. Then I went down Whitehall towards Parliament Square – it was getting close to midnight by then. Loads of police, including the Tactical Support Group (TSG) and horses. A few hundred people waiting. Most people in very small groups or pairs, all very calm and well behaved. I did not see any sign of the protestors organised by Piers Corbyn but they might have been blending (no placards).
I stopped on the Embankment about 50 yards from Westminster Bridge. It was five to midnight according to my photo of Big Ben. Then, at about two minutes to midnight, the TSG decided to move everyone on…
That made the crowding bad as everyone was being shepherded in the same direction and there was a fair bit of traffic so people could not walk in the roads. Seemed a mad thing to do – to wait until so close to midnight.
One of the police horses was getting extremely fractious (I am a horse person for a living, I can tell) and it was between myself and the bike rack where I was going to return the bike, so I held my ground. A police woman told me to move along. I said no way while that horse is between me and the exit. Even she could see it was dangerous so she let me be and then the clock struck.
There was massive cheering, the fireworks went off across the river and then everyone did start dispersing, without being asked really as there was no real reason for staying.
As we left I found myself beside a young woman with a scooter. Turns out she was a nurse of 10 years experience at one on the large London hospitals. She said it was busy and hard work, everyone was doing 12 hour shifts, but no worse than usual for the time of year. She said she had decided to come (unmasked) because she had been working so hard she was treating herself to a night out because it was a historic night and you would never see London like this again on New year’s Eve.
She said people’s good will kept them all going at her hospital, but many of her colleagues felt as she did, that the measures were out of proportion to the risk and the NHS has been badly managed in preparation for this crisis. She said the staff shortages were being created by constant testing so many staff perfectly fit for work were sitting at home.
Is the London Nightingale Really Reopening?
Something a bit fishy going on. Matt Hancock did the rounds of the broadcast studios on December 30th claiming that the London Nightingale had been “reactivated”. But to date there isn’t any sign of the ExCel Centre being readied for new patients. And how does Hancock plan to overcome the staffing shortages we’ve heard so much about? The Telegraph has more.
Nightingale hospitals will not be able to come to the rescue of hospitals overwhelmed by Covid patients because there is no “magic pile” of nurses to staff them, health leaders have warned.
Consultants and nursing leaders said high levels of nursing vacancies, coupled with large numbers of staff off sick with coronavirus or stress will make it nearly impossible to use the Nightingale hospitals, which [were] built around the country at the start of the pandemic.
The makeshift hospitals were built at an estimated cost of £220 million, with sites in London, Manchester, Bristol, Sunderland, Harrogate, Exeter and Birmingham.
Of these, the Exeter site received its first Covid patients in November while Manchester, Bristol and Harrogate are currently in use for non-Covid patients.
London’s Nightingale has been “reactivated”, the NHS said earlier this week, while other sites currently not in use are being readied.
But Mike Adams, the Royal College of Nursing’s England director, said on Friday the expectation that the Nightingale hospitals could deliver a significant increase in capacity was “misplaced”.
He said: “I have real concerns that the expectation that this mass rollout in capacity can happen is misplaced because there aren’t the staff to do it. If we are having to cancel leave to staff these areas, the obvious question is where will the staff come from to open the Nightingales?
“Nursing is already stretched beyond capacity, so there is no magic pile of nurses we can call upon.”
The top doctor who provides Lockdown Sceptics with regular updates from inside the NHS says he thinks it’s unlikely the London Nightingale will be reactivated. “My understanding is that it will ‘reopen’ as a vaccination centre,” he tells me. “St John Ambulance people to redeploy there from Jan 11th for vaccination. Can’t see how it can reopen as an inpatient facility and none of my colleagues think it will either.”
Stop Press: MPs have branded the empty Nightingale Hospitals an “expensive PR stunt“.
Stop Press 2: Richard Tice paid a visit to the ExCel and found no evidence it’s about to be converted into a hospital again. Watch the video he made about his fact-finding mission on Twitter.
Deaths Don’t Add Up
The senior financial journalist who regularly writes snippets for Lockdown Sceptics has spotted that the number of people who’ve been recorded as having died of Covid sits a little uncomfortably with the actuarial data
I’ve been thinking about the data you linked to a couple of days ago stating that actuarially-adjusted deaths are only 6.9% above average this year.
From the ONS data to Dec 25th there have been 592,525 deaths in England and Wales year to date. If the estimate from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries is correct, then excess deaths are running at around 38,245.
Yet the ONS says that COVID-19 has been mentioned in 68,341 deaths. If we assume that every excess death has been caused by Covid, then reported Covid deaths exceed “excess deaths” by 30,096 (44% of total reported C-19 deaths).
This rough number-crunching appears to confirm the sainted Professor Neil Ferguson’s comment, from earlier in the year, that many of the Covid deaths would have occurred anyway within a few months.
N.B. Fraser Nelson in the DT piece you flagged up mentions that an old biddy in Switzerland died after being given a vaccine “but at the age of 91-years old with multiple illnesses”. Fair enough. But this comment might be applied equally to nearly half of C-19 reported deaths.
Van Tam’s Bingo Slip
There follows a guest post by Freddie Attenborough, a regular Lockdown Sceptics contributor.
On 28 December, the UK’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Van Tam, joined the Prime Minister for one of his now semi-regular Covid press conferences. According to Breitbart News, at one point, “The top doctor said people should not think, ‘after the second dose of your vaccine, it’s okay to behave with wild abandon and go off to the bingo halls and whatever you like and so forth’.”
Bingo halls. What a wonderful sliver of rhetorical spite. By this rhetoric doth the activist behind the ostensibly objective scientific façade reveal himself. The condescension for the working-class, Brexit voting scum couldn’t be any clearer, could it? Bingo halls. A place-holding metonym drawn from the realm of fish and chips, pubs, boozing, council estates, seaside holidays, nail bars, self-employment. All that toxic masculinity, all those “Karens.” Yuck.
Some of what’s happening with lockdown now is, to me at least, usefully considered as a visceral, psychological reaction to the lack of control these people were able to wield when it came to Brexit. Sounds over the top, doesn’t it? Until you peruse their Twitter pages. These are not happy people. There’s anger, but, perhaps most importantly, there’s an unmistakeable sense of anxiety too. “Tory Scum” got in the way of Corbyn’s utopian society; Trump got in the way of corporate friendly (sorry, I mean “migrant friendly”) global capitalism; Brexit got in the way of their beloved European research networks and funding opportunities.
Lack of control is arguably the root cause of a psychological dysfunctionality like anxiety. For four years they’ve had to live as part of a society that was doing something they didn’t like and that they couldn’t control. They’ve never forgiven the “Bingo Hall” povs for that. It makes them anxious. And what do anxious people really want most of all? Control.
But here’s the thing, because, when you think about it, what is anxiety? It’s simply a location on a wider psychological spectrum that has “desire for minimal control” at one end (e.g. the figure of the hedonist), and “desire for high levels of control” at the other (e.g. the figure of the neurotic). Generalised anxiety is towards the latter end, the right-hand end, of this spectrum. Some anxious people can of course get by in life simply by establishing minimal types of control over their own local environment (their house, their living room, their routines, etc). Some need to manage and regulate the behaviours of others too. Beyond that, and a little further along the spectrum, some need to control everything and everyone around them. And, as we move across towards the very extreme right-hand end of this spectrum of control, we get to sadism; that is, the need to completely control others and, further, to dole out harsh punishment or humiliation to those who can’t be controlled. Have some of our scientific bureaucrats started to slide out towards this end of the spectrum? Is it the peculiar constitutional and political positioning of SAGE – ostensibly just “advisory,” but, thanks to the power of media-relations and clandestine leaking, also a de facto executive body – that has allowed them to do so?
Put another way, is what’s happening now with our never-ending lockdown the biomedical equivalent of an occupying army sadistically razing a village that’s been found to have been aiding and abetting the resistance? It makes me wonder. After all, those villages aren’t destroyed solely because of psychopathic anger; there’s also the functional need to reassert control over what hitherto hadn’t been controlled adequately. It isn’t just “we will hurt you for your disobedience,” (punishment response) but also, and at the same time, “never again will we not know what you’re doing behind our backs” (reassertion of control response). It’s this combination that creates the peculiar phenomenon we term “sadism.”
I’m not a psychologist, but I’m struggling for psychological answers, because I don’t think what’s happening is analysable in any strictly political, social or economic way. J.G. Ballard is probably the greatest sociologist of lockdown, because he saw more clearly than most that it wouldn’t be the violence of the Marxian working-classes, but rather, the neuroses of the well-paid and cosseted middle classes who would in the end destroy western, liberal, capitalist societies. So when people like Van Tam let slip these odd little comments, I feel I’m more right than I am wrong. It’s also the type of analysis that would shed a little more light on Professor Ferguson’s otherwise curious “getting away with instigating lockdown” comment from his recent interview with The Times. Getting away with … well, what, precisely? Revenge? The reassertion of technocratic control over Parliamentary unpredictability? I ask simply because it isn’t a socially recognisable thing for someone to remark that they’re “getting away” with keeping people safe, or that they’re “getting away with” saving lives. Okay, maybe he meant, “getting away” with doing what’s right in order to keep the povvy Bingo players alive. But if that is indeed what he meant, then what would that statement imply? That he and his colleagues have been hoping to find an opportunity for reasserting technocratic control over the great unwashed and that they’d finally found one… which then leads us back to my psychological analysis of their motivations.
I’m not saying that they know at any literal, conscious level that this is what they’re doing. I’m sure they feel they’re acting for the best of reasons. In that sense, they’re no different to the rest of us, are they? Most social actions require most of us, most of the time, to lie to ourselves: e.g. “I’m happy at work!” “I cheated on my wife because she wasn’t making me happy, so, really, all of this is her fault!” “Money doesn’t buy happiness!” etc., etc. But at a social psychological level, somewhere between the unknowable unconscious and the rationality of the cerebellum, I wouldn’t be surprised if a literally “sadistic” need for control now drives people like Van Tam and Ferguson; a desire to re-establish control, and to do so overtly enough that he and his colleagues can convince themselves that, after four years in the wilderness, they finally have re-established control.
Half of Britons Think BBC Does Not Share Their Values
Almost half of Britons think the BBC no longer represents their values amid declining levels of trust in the broadcaster, down from 62% in 2016. The Times has more.
The results are understood to chime with the unpublished research recently conducted by the BBC which found that residents of well-off and diverse neighbourhoods held the broadcaster in higher esteem than people from poorer and less diverse communities.
The findings also tally with an Ofcom report in November which said that the BBC’s bedrock older middle-class audience was going off it. The report added that it was seen as the least impartial public service broadcaster, below ITV, Channel 4, Sky and Channel 5. Fifty-four per cent of adults believe that it provides impartial news.
The new research, by YouGov, found 44% of the public thought that the BBC represented their values badly. This was particularly true of older people, with 48% saying that the BBC did not adequately represent their views. In the north of England it was 51% and Scotland 47%. Among those who voted for Brexit, 58% were unhappy with the overall stance of the corporation.
Asked how their views of the BBC had changed over the year only 4% said that its values had become more like theirs while 33% said it had become less like theirs. Older male viewers outside London and the southeast were the most likely to be dissatisfied with the BBC’s perceived values.
The findings come before a government review on public sector broadcasting. Boris Johnson has made little secret of his desire to reform the BBC amid speculation that the licence fee in its present form could be scrapped.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Darren Grimes has added his 10 cents worth to the BBC’s expenditure of £1.5 million on a woke New Year’s Eve fireworks display.
Poetry Corner
Today, a poem composed by an NHS doctor. He calls it ‘Pandemic Polemic’.
Better hunker in your bunker, for Corona’s here today,
Do not try to take an aeroplane, they’ll turn you all away;
Wear a mask to catch the sneezes though not much good will it do,
And send a friend or neighbour for a cold compress or two.Better listen to the experts, they will tell you how to cope
Although as messages conflict you really haven’t got a hope,
So panic, panic, panic – try to remember why
If you sweat up in a fever you are surely going to die.If you’re pregnant try to miss out on the rush hour on the bus
For you do not want to run the risk of catching it from us;
And you cannot have the vaccine they’ve developed for the flu
For what it does to foetuses we haven’t got a clue.Do not come into Casualty with “query dose of flu”
As the last thing that the doctors want is catching it from you;
Wash your hands and smear them with that antiseptic goo;
Sneeze only in a tissue and then flush it down the loo.And stock up with provisions for a month or maybe three
(You can order them from Tesco, and delivery is free)
But for most of us, including the disabled and the old
The coronavirus symptoms won’t be
much
more
than
a
cold.
Round-up
- “Let’s admit what we got wrong in 2020, and shake things up in 2021” – Excellent leader in yesterday’s Telegraph
- “Word of the week: NERVTAG” – Andy Shaw continues to flesh out his seditious dictionary in Spectator LIFE
- “Trying to lock down until Covid is eradicated would be dangerous folly” – Prof Robert Dingwall in the Telegraph says we need an exit strategy
- “NHS staff fear speaking out over crisis in English hospitals” – Good piece in the Guardian – although it neglects to say that if the “speaking out” involves arguing for more restrictions there’s no price to be paid
- “Giving people false hope about the pandemic isn’t ‘balanced’ – it’s dangerous” – In an entirely predictable development, leftwing firebrand Owen Jones has appointed himself the Guardian‘s chief enforcer of Covid orthodoxy. Surely his column can’t be much longer for this world?
- “Drug Overdoses in San Francisco Have Killed Four Times as Many People as Covid” – Official figures out of San Francisco show that drug overdoses have killed almost four times more people than COVID-19 this year
- “New York mayor celebrates New Year in Times Square… after telling everyone else to stay home” – Hypocrite of the week?
- “France brings forward nightly curfew from 8pm to 6pm” – More bad news from across the Channel
- “First country bans ivermectin, a lifesaver for Covid – will the US be next?” – Ivermectin has been banned in South Africa. Bit odd, given that the WHO has just confirmed its effectiveness as a treatment for COVID-19
- “Locked-down California runs out of reasons for surprising surge” – More proof, if proof were needed, that lockdowns don’t work. California has some of the toughest restrictions in the US, yet infections are surging
- “Why 2021 could be the year of economic Armageddon” – Cheery piece by Chris Snowdon in the Spectator
- “Ignore the gaslighting – cancel culture is real” – Andrew Doyle in Spiked urges us to put a stop to the malicious vogue for shaming anyone who speaks out of turn in 2021
- Season 2 of the Real Normal Podcast is back with a letter from an actor who attended the Bristol protests
- “Nightingale closures, ‘defeating Covid’ and vaccine protection — a few niggling lockdown questions I’d like answered” – Rod Liddle’s column in the Sun in case you missed it
- “2020 in review: The year in 12 cartoons, by Matt” – The second best Telegraph cartoonist gives us some of his best cartoon of the year
- And the best Telegraph cartoonist gives us his (via Twitter)
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds, “Abandoned Luncheonette” by Daryl Hall and John Oates, “Why Am I Drinkin’” by Merle Haggard, “Only A Pawn in Their Game” by Bob Dylan
Stop Press: I spoke too soon when I said a reader had compiled a definitive list of all those pop songs with the word “Tears” in the title. Another reader has come forward with some additions. This one could run and run!
Tiers (Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grapelli)
Tiers and Pavan (The Strawbs)
Tiers of Rage (The Band)
Tiers Dry On Their Own (Amy Winehouse)
Tiers Are Not Enough (ABC)
A Little Bitty Tier (Burl Ives)
“No More Tiers (Enough is Enough)” (Barbara Streisand)
Drown In My Own Tiers (Aretha Franklin)One shouldn’t overlook the band – Tiers for Fears
Stop Press 2: This ditty about the year gone by sung to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is a corker.
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 as well as post comments below the line, 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, it’s the turn of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has just unveiled some new rules for the next Congressional term: the elimination of gendered terms, such as “father, mother, son, and daughter”. Breitbart News has more.
Within the proposals are the creation of the “Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth”, which would require Congress to “honour all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral”.
In clause 8(c)(3) of rule XXIII, gendered terms, such as “father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, grandson, or granddaughter” will be removed.
In their place, terms such as “parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling, first cousin, sibling’s child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, stepparent, stepchild, stepsibling, half-sibling, or grandchild” will be used, instead.
Something to look forward to next Christmas: being able to see your “parent’s sibling”, your “sibling’s child” and your “sibling-in-law”.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: RT celebrates the 10 anti-woke media heroes of 2020.
Stop Press 2: RealClear Politics has a list of the top 10 suppressed news stories in 2020.
“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. Another reader has created an Android app which displays “I am exempt from wearing a face mask” on your phone. Only 99p, and he’s even said he’ll donate half the money to Lockdown Sceptics, so everyone wins.
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.
Stop Press: Is the Government about to make face coverings mandatory in outdoor spaces? Yesterday’s edition of the World at One included an interview with Professor Catherine Noakes, who chairs the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours on SAGE and is supporting further measures. What SAGE wants, SAGE gets. Interview starts at 21m 10s.
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 my 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 three quarters of a million signatures.
Update: The authors of the GBD 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. Sign up to the newsletter here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many legal cases being brought against the Government and its ministers we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
The Simon Dolan case has now reached the end of the road.
The current lead case is the Robin Tilbrook case which challenges whether the Lockdown Regulations are constitutional. 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 and Runnymede Trust’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.
And last but not least there was the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. A High Court judge refused permission for the FSU’s judicial review on December 9th and the FSU has decided not to appeal the decision because Ofcom has conceded most of the points it was making. Check here for details.
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.
Stop Press: Read Oliver Kamm in the Times on how he overcame clinical depression. He has written a book on the subject that’s out next week.
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…
Yes Minister anticipated the Nightingale Hospitals fiasco over 30 years ago. Watch this clip on YouTube of Jim Hacker visiting an empty hospital.
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Happy New Year sceptics. I think it will get worse before it gets better.
Happy new year.
I’m afraid you’re probably right. My worry is that people will remain blind to the harm that lockdowns have caused even when the economy has crashed and war and starvation are blighting the developing world. We need to make sure they know it was government lockdowns that caused it, not a “pandemic”. Wouldn’t even qualify as one under the old definitions. We need to make sure they know that restrictions made little difference to the overall course of the virus, and that they know all about Belarus, Sweden, Brazil, Peru, Belgium. And even then some won’t listen. Propaganda is a powerful thing, big pharma hold the power.
An underground resistance, as one of the last comments for December 31st said!
Whenever anyone starts telling me how terrible everything is I agree with them but make it clear that it is lockdown that is the terrible thing.
I think it’s also the case that many people don’t feel comfortable admitting they have questions and concerns about reactions to covid such as lockdowns, masks and shop closures. The internet isn’t a great barometer of public feeling, but it does say something. I do read comments under news articles and on discussion forums – I even check some twitter threads occasionally too. The level of vitriol aimed at anyone sceptical of lockdowns and covid responses in general is severe. And it’s not just the level – it’s pretty relentless – almost like they are fighting a political battle. By contrast, the types of conversations you might have in real life – limited as the opportunities are – are much more reasonable. Putting an opinion across as an innocent question/statement such as: “I’m not sure we’ve got the right response to covid with these lockdowns and restrictions?” – and you more often get the response, me neither – and you can open the dialogue into more specific areas once you’ve established that you have some ‘concerns’. But the lockdown zealots are vocal and visible. Of course they have the support of most of the media who feel terribly important during… Read more »
Yes, to lock down until people get those “vaccines”, conveniently for big pharma.
A nonsense name, btw, fact checkers. Anyone could say they check facts, no one is likely to say “I’m telling you this but I don’t have any facts to back it up”. The important thing is their parameters. That and the conflicts of interest. The best way to get to the facts is free and frank discussion imo
The vaccine that isn’t a vaccine according to Google
Await the rewriting of that! As per the WHO ‘redefinition’ of herd immunity …..
Newspeak is alive and well
Facts About The Fact Checkers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjZR6Htma18&list=WL&index=162
AwakenWithJP
The vitriolic responses are so intense precisely because it’s a political and emotional battle, rather than a scientific one. Look how people argue against flat earthers. It’s painfully obvious to anyone that knows anything how wrong flat earthers are, but the arguments almost never get heated. In act, they’re mostly laughter inducing. That’s because there is established science one can resort to, and there is no ideological position at stake. But the argument for lockdowns is entirely emotional, so there is no surprise when it leads to emotional outbursts.
Very well said. It reminds me of a thought I had about our scepticism in general – if the pandemic truly was a pandemic – there wouldn’t be any scepticism or conspiracy theories.
That’s not true. Again, look at flat earthes.
You may be right – but I still see it differently. With the flat earthers, their opinions cause them to look like idiots but have little to no impact on anyone else in the world these days. I get the point that you’re making, conspiracy theories exist even when they are ridiculous and have no basis in fact, but whether we indulge them or not and how much attention they receive seems to be in proportion to their credibility. Were it the case that covid was so obviously an epoch-defining generational event that was killing significant percentages of all age groups – like the Spanish Flu or a Black Death style plague – scepticism would be much less prevalent. We would end up sounding like Monty Python characters: “It’s just a scratch!”, “It’s a flesh wound” “He’s not dead, he’s sleeping” and so on. But the evidence of the dead would be so overwhelming as to make a conspiracy theory and scepticism completely untenable. Where as the evidence of the dead isn’t overwhelming and the evidence for how effective lockdowns and various NPIs are is non-existent. I probably should have stated it with more qualification – if the pandemic was… Read more »
I think that your use of the term conspiracy theories defines you as a mainstreamed respectability. You maintain that by distancing from such contagions and masking in superior knowledge or virtue.
Such that even if you learned of Rockefeller initiatives and agendas and saw them enacted, you would still not see it.
the term itself is weaponised language.
I identify paranoia as delusional, but that people ally and align in self interest to seek gain at others loss by means of deceit is simply part of life since the playground.
Unawareness of danger is the most dangerous state, and so that which lures with protection takes your freedom and your wits unawares – while you think to gain thereby.
Weaponised viruses. Virology as weaponised and marketised biology.
Beneath science are superstitions rather than manipulation of superstitions. So pandemics evoke pandemonium (house of all demons) or panic as the loss of self to symbols of guilt as disease ‘retribution’ and atonement by bargains promises rituals.
In other words some hidden or masked ‘intent’ that gives rise to the ‘meaning’ of disease as pathology rather than healing.
‘ It’s painfully obvious by anyone who knows anything ‘ – nothing is obvious to me anymore- if someone told me that everything that happened last year was to stop the flat earthers getting definitive proof of their theories on the cruise which had to be cancelled (this part is true – it was of course cancelled) I’d say – it’s no less likely than any of the other nonsense which took place
Most people with half a brain are now aware that anything said on the internet can come back to haunt them years later.
The press and government make it perfectly clear that there is only one acceptable point of view so most would probably avoid posting anything that might have them hounded as a Covid denying troll or anti-vaxer.
So they all caterwaul things that, when sanity returns, will brand them as liars, tyrants, zombies and morons.
Goid.There will be no denials possible when the reckoning comes.
I don’t use such platforms as mumsnet, Twitter or Facebook but I imagine people feel safer going along with the crowd
“Burn the witch”.
Yes,fear causes people to lash out at anyone or anything that touches that fear.
Collective fear causes that too but is compounded by the additional fear of going against the perceived security of being with the mob;as you say, “Burn the witch”.
Still, we’re all witches and warlocks here.
I love being a witch.
Mumsnet is possibly the worst when it comes to lockdown zealotry. A friend has gone to the site to read what people there are saying and according to her, its all bonkers there.
There was one of us (LS) who had the courage to establish an account there a while back. It took a very short time before they were banned.
Any thoughts on why that is Bart? After all what have mothers and children got to fear from covid? Its completely irrelevant to them as was past flu years.
Bonkersnet.
You would think ‘mumsnet’ (which in itself sounds moronic) would be a little concerned about the destructive impact on their children’s education from lockdowns. Especially as children have zero to fear from covid and are one of the primary victims of this absurdity.
That’s also a very good point. It’s not quite cancel culture, but it’s close to it – it supresses opinions publicly so as to avoid work and personal relationship conflicts.
The bounds of acceptable opinion have been very carefully curated. Nevertheless, conversations under four eyes can very quickly turn sceptical. The level of true belief is far lower than we are being told. The situation we are in is very reminiscent of colonial regimes: the lies, the paper thin real support, the divide and rule and paranoia. It was a model that could utterly fuck up a society, but not create political stability.
Part of the problem is that the MSM have been “essential workers”. They can go out and about, they suffer none of the inconvenience of lockdown and are protected from it. They’ve never had much idea of what goes on in the real world.
They preach and harangue aided by the finger wagging “experts” and tv doctors. Three groups of people the population should turn on instead of being cowed like sheep.
Don’t kill granny.
Madness in Ireland too – Ivor Cummins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdKkZLqhmDM&list=WL&index=200
We have now entered a phase of further lockdown mania, even though vast majority of analyses show that lockdown does not move the mortality needle. Dr. Hope-Simpson’s stunning book
Mark Windows has described the mainstream media presenters as narcissistic actors, not journalists.
Proof That Lockdowns Are Working! – or not
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ_XFUYAV_A
AwakenWithJP
Back to Normal – is a rapidly growing group of ordinary folk delivering anti lockdown leaflets throughout the UK. We are well on our way (200,000) towards our goal of 1 million simply worded, factual postcards delivered. You can join locally organised groups of like-minded friends in approaching 100 constituencies covered and more added daily.
Take a look at our website and help us reach those who rely on the MSM for their ‘news’
Leave your keyboards and Rise up to stop this nonsense !
Happy New year from Wuhan
h/t Alex Belfied YouTube
There are a lot of memes going around from people very happy that 2020 is over. They think that the worst thing was having to stay inside. Just goes to show that most people today are completely clueless about how the economy works. Must be why socialism is so popular.
‘We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us’. Now they don’t even have to pretend to work.
And I’m not sure why these people think, that by some miracle, everything will magically go back to normal in 2021. Now that the West has decided that deaths from a virus are no longer acceptable and that facts don’t matter, how does the switch get flipped? Governments and NGOs got us into this but they sure as hell won’t be the ones to get us out of it. Only mass non-compliance and calling BS will effect change.
If people would only act as if everything had gone back to normal, everything would go back to normal. The totalitarian goons wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
Indeed but that would require the slumbering masses to wake up and start to do some critical thinking. I’m afraid I’m starting to despair whether this will ever happen.
Thats right ditch the muzzles and fuck off the anti social distancing and its all over instantly. I would be happy to do that and fight to the death with anyone who tried to force me to go back to it.
Yes.
Remember the role of the media. They pushed lockdown; this is their mess, and they know it. They are avoiding accountability just as deliberately as the state.
Yeah, but the sheeple egged them on.
I’ve always said that people, businesses, churches, venues, museums, etc should grow a backbone and just open up without any restrictions and “safety” measures.
It ain’t over until WE say its over.
Sorry down voted by accident! Totally agree.
Hey, that is a thought. Anybody prepared to kamikaze dive into 10 Downing Street?
Best if you can use an empty plane or all 150 deaths will be recorded as ‘from covid’.
Right on the money. How about running the country through Parliament and dispensing with the Cabinet – might make for more enlightened policy methinks!
How about unleashing a dozen Elephants?
Loudly trumpetting Elephants.
Now some white elephant helium balloons outside those covid testing centres might be an idea. Something similar was done by the campaign against a North East regional assembly
Or grab a parachute and jump.
Socialism is slavery for people who can’t do the maths.
Maybe we should adopt the Angry New Year greeting, as Peter Hitchens suggest, because it is only by getting angry that things are likely to change. I’ve been saying to people, “May you survive 2021.”
Unfortunately – easy to misinterpret your comment of “May you survive 2021” and translate it into “May you not get Covid” and that’s precisely what the sheeple will translate it into.
Happy No Fear – and I do hope you’re wrong….don’t know how much longer we can stand of all this nonsense (ie Lockdown).
Sadly I agree 100%
It’ll get worse before it gets even worse.
I think London’s New Year “celebrations” reported above show we’re in for a rough ride. They remind me of the London Olympics opening ceremony with it’s Covid-19 predictive programming: fawning over the NHS and showing vaccines and symbols of virus.
And of course we have the [B]olsheviks [B]roadcasting [C]ommunism typically throwing their full support behind it.
How about we consider a very positive new year resolution? I’d suggest removing your aerial, cancel your BBC direct debit and complete the short online form to declare you do not need a licence. It is so easy and I guarantee you’ll feel much healthier for it.
I ditched it years ago….I liked the BBC in the 1980s with Crimewatch UK and former great commedy like Porridge and the Likely Lads and Dads Army. I am not sure when it became poisonous but it was many years ago and I ditched the licence soon after. I have never looked back and I have saved a fortune. They came round once and I brought them in and showed that the aerial had been removed and tied up in a loop. I also told them I thought the BBC was no better than Soviet propaganda. They left with their tail between their legs.
I’m yet to be convinced about the getting better part…..
Happy New Year.
Wrong post by me
It’s all a load of Fuddle Duddle (a remark made by Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, in the Canadian House of Commons many moons ago)..
Saw this on offguardian. Seems like the way to go:- “I know this site is UK-based, and I’m not sure about the state of things in the UK courts, but I just wanted to share some info about a lawsuit happening in Ohio that might be of interest. Throughout the year, several thousand lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. against state governments. Many of the lawsuits have been based on the fact of constitutional rights being infringed upon (which of course is true), but in many cases, the states have responded with, ‘it’s an emergency’, and because a lot of states are granted additional powers under an emergency declaration (at least according to the law), the courts have often sided with the states in these cases. Conversely, the lawsuit in Ohio has taken a different tack – namely, challenging the emergency itself. This puts the onus on the courts to prove that there actually *is* an emergency, which of course they cannot do. While the lawsuit is ongoing, it does seem to have served to ‘rein in’ the state government of Ohio to some extent. Apparently, the state has been vehemently objecting to even entering into discovery, likely because,… Read more »
That’s a good idea. I wonder if it applies to the UK.
That would indeed be the way to go but I don’t think a State of Emergency has been declared in any part of the UK. The government have just passed numerous laws of dubious legality and issued regulations which may or may not be lawful.
One way or another the regulations have to be challenged. There is a clear need to crowd fund a top legal brain to advise on this matter. If only Reiner Fuellmich were British.
check out https://twitter.com/pcrclaims
the line of attack, just as with RF, is the misuse of the PCR test which has created a “casedemic” as opposed to a real emergency
State of things in UK – they can bring in new restrictions with less than a days notice. 3 minutes notice appears to be their new record. One thing we need going forward is strict rules regulating the use of emergency powers. The onus should be on the government to show there’s an emergency and they can’t just define it how they want. Vested interests must be kept clear of the process too.
It must be a shock to people stateside to find their costitutional rights can be suspended indefinitely.
At the very least there should be some sort of cost/benefit analysis…
Cost/benefit analysis appears to have gone out the window with the Government. There’s plenty money for all things Covid, there doesn’t appear to be any budget at all for this.
All of the government’s ludicrous restrictions are geared to ensuring a high take up of the potentially very suspect vaccines, that are now coming our way. This is not remotely about protecting people and it is very obvious that we are being got ready for something much more sinister.
Among other things, our lawsuit here in Canada makes the same charge — governments declared a state of emergency without demonstrating that there was, indeed, an emergency. When each province declared their states of emergency there had been only a handful of deaths. When our charter rights and freedoms are suspended, there must be proof beyond a reasonable doubt that it was necessary. Ultimately, that’s what our governments are going to have to demonstrate. They won’t be able to, but what they can do is keep kicking the can down the road, so who knows when they will respond to the charges given our barely functioning court system.
You know, it’s a wonder there isn’t a revolution, this must be making life difficult for an awful lot of people. Maybe there will be when enough people stop being scared…
Once the masses are vaccinated it will be too late.
Morning Lisa,
Thanks for your detailed reply (with the BMJ letter), to my question re vaccines yesterday – much appreciated 😊
Here in NSW lockdowns, closures of non essential shops etc etc have been issued under public health orders. Today the health minister has advised the mandatory wearing of face masks in all shopping centres, shops, cinemas, public transport etc. within the Sydney and greater Sydney area. At least we can walk the streets without wearing one but I guess that will only be a matter of time. I was interested to know if anyone has requested from their governments, UK, Canada, US etc a risk assessment on the mandatory mask wearing. I feel like writing to hazzardous Brad to ask him to provide me with the scientific evidence they are using to implement this measure together with any risk assessments which have been conducted to ensure the long term respiratory health of residents.
But isn’t Australia virus free because of all the lockdown -surely you aren’t saying it hasn’t worked ? How can that be?
That’s what the lockdown zealots like to tell us. My guess is it will return with a vengeance when they go into winter. It more or less disappeared in the UK during the summer.
All we’ve got in the UK are seasonal respiratory illnesses and it would be wrong to infer that it has returned here with a vengeance. We are clearly being scammed by a corrupt government, that is working to a very unsavoury external agenda.
bound to happen when we can have political parties funded by big pharmaceutical companies. (That is how it works, isn’t it?)
But so stubbornly blind to your experience in the UK, refuse to look at any other alternative except spout bonkers recommendations from the faceless scientific ‘experts’. We will be in the same situation in winter, I haveno doubt even with vaccines etc. What was that definition of stupidity again, repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Covid will occur where ever they want it to. There is nothing natural about any of this.
Aaaah, have you got two hours or ten Arfurmo? Total government incompetence. Mr Ad man, the prime minister who can’t/won’t sort out the bickering states and territories. The premiers who can’t stop pointing the finger at each other, closures of state borders at a whim, and NSW government incompetence not managing flight crews’ isolation effectively thus causing a new outbreak and then treating us like naughty children, repeat, repeat, repeat. Bear in mind, around 19 in hospital, Australia wide, none in ICU no deaths since the Victorian debacle. I just realised today I feel like I am living in an abusive relationship.
The statement of claim was filed in early July and then the Ontario government made masks mandatory later that month. There is a separate injunction against the mask mandate, but that also won’t be heard anytime soon. Most stores and businesses here will not respect the mask exemption, so our only recourse as citizens is to file a human rights complaint and/or sue the business in small claims court — neither of which is a quick process — so our only options are to comply or order everything online or for curbside pickup. I have chosen the latter as I will not wear a mask.
Bring back the Good Humor Man ice cream truck.
Thanks Lisa, it is all over social media this afternoon. The govt has prepped the stores on how to deal with the ‘covid deniers’ and people who claim their human rights are being abused by being forced to wear masks. It is just too outrageous for words. The govt has become so adept at shaming, people are complying just so they are not aggravated or hassled in store, not necessarily by police it has been said will adopt a softly, softly approach initially, but from members of the public.
Defund/Eliminate the Ministry of Public Health. Those people are crazy.
When draconian measures are introduced there must be proof beyond reasonable doubt to justify them. I will use an scenario I have used before regarding microwaves. Imagine there are endless stories in the media, the internet and government about microwaves catching fire. The government makes it illegal to use microwaves and microwaves must be sent away for testing and repair. It is illegal to sell microwaves. Microwaves spend months in repair centres. When microwaves can eventually return to owners, there are restrictions such as they can’t be used after a certain time, can’t be used on certain days, there are restrictions what foods can be placed in microwaves, and there is a time limit how long a microwave can cook food. In the above scenario, you would expect the following. There must be clear evidence of a problem which justifies the restrictions and the problemshould be evident without mentioning from external sources such as the media. Despite the constant barrage from the media, government and the internet, there is no evidence of a problem with microwaves catching fire. Virtually everyone owns a microwave. Nobody knows anyone whose microwave has caught fire. There are no fire damaged buildings everywhere. People who… Read more »
The above scenario is similar to what is happening with covid. We are bombarded with message by the internet, the media and governments we are in a deadly pandemic which justifies draconian laws. Despite this, we see no signs of this. Everybody around me is totally healthy, we don’t see huge numbers dying or surviving but falling very ill. Nobody seems to know anyone with covid. Without the hysteria from governments, the media and the internet, nobody would know we were in a pandemic. How can lockdowns be justified if there is real world evidence of a pandemic? Governments have a duty to provide evidence to justify lockdowns. When making FOI requests, government have consistently failed to do this. I asked for evidence from the NHS re asymptomatic transmission. The NHS couldn’t answer a single question. I asked the NHS for evidence how infectious people with Covid are. They couldn’t answer this question and I was told to send my request to another organization. I asked the NHS for information where positive covid tests are coming from. The NHS couldn’t answer this and I was told to pass it on to another organization who have not answered. How can lockdowns be justified if evidence for this justification can’t be given? Tests… Read more »
Excellent strategy – I’d highly recommend Pam Popper’s book “Covid Operation” too. Gets right to the heart of everything, especially the corruption.
If the constitution can be disregarded simply by declaring an “emergency”, it is worthless. I’m pretty sure the founding fathers didn’t intend for the constitution to be be disregarded every time there is a disease like Covid, which they would barely have noticed.
They make it look like the droplets are covering every inch of Earth. They harbor the same delusions about tobacco smoke.
Michael O’Bernicia is making this argument and seems to be getting somewhere with it. Challenging the fact that there is no emergency and that ministers have mislead parliament.
A brilliant approach – proving there’s really an emergency will take some doing
The Telegraph‘s Paul Nuki is one of the journalists allocated to the Global Health Security Team – the team funded by Bill and Melinda Gates. He was also the Chief Editor at NHS Choices.
Conflict of interest.
In early September BBC R4 Today Programme was discussing the recently announced August unemployment figures.
The TUC representative might have been expected to make a stirring plea on behalf of the working classes. The guy from the world of finance (Blackstone?) might have pleaded for the government to get the business world going again.
They both said ‘it’s the Covid innit’.
If they had been on telly I expect we would have seen them shrug their shoulders.
Absolute sellouts. The Labour party too. I wonder what Tony Benn or Bob Crowe would have made of it all?
Bob Crowe would have chowed it down like a chip butty. Benn might have done better.
I imagine Ed Milliband is finding it an easier chew than his bacon sandwich too.
RIP the Left…I used to be a member of the Labour Party in the 1980s…..just a party for middle class dinner party luvvies now.
Imagine being a teacher: “So… i get to stay at home… and get paid? Hell yeah, keep the schools closed!”
Why are we asking teachers if the schools should be closed or not? They’re teachers, not epidemiologists.
They could try asking the kids.
haha, that’s one thing they never do, just look at the secret family courts, (yes, I used to read the late, great Christopher Booker)
Demand every LEA and school publish their risk assessment for both Covid risk in school, AND for kids all staying alone at home during required school day. All parents can demand this. I speak as teacher.
They should be on furlough pay like the private sector, no favours.
They should be at work.
Almost no one should be on furlough. They should be working. Who is paying for furlough?
It’s easy to hate on teachers. I was a teacher for 10 years before it ruined my health. I’ve been in the army, a ship mechanic, engineer, researcher (Imperial), and teacher. Teaching was the hardest I have ever worked. It isn’t down to the teachers whether schools close. It’s down to the unions and school management. If a teacher is ill they still have to provide lessons for the time they are ill unless it is a serious illness. If schools are closed those teachers will be expected to provide lessons should the school make online lessons available – again a decision out of the hands of teachers. But without text books and such.. or kids with computers and with the cat away naughty mice will play.. there will be little learning in most comps.
I would prefer to be asleep at this time but struggling again with a disturbed nights sleep with anxious thoughts. Happy new year fellow sceptics I hope this year will see our day of reckoning and more and more waking up and fighting back….
A Glasgow local councillor, back in the days when that city was a one party state, apparently used to tell people with pride that letters from his constituents went straight in the bin. These days, politicians really shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. If your MP isn’t doing her job, make sure people in your town know about it.
Well pin up a poster outside her office or on lampposts around the town. Make sure her fellow party members defending a narrow majority in nearby areas feel the heat. There’s always something you can do… doesn’t have to be abusive, I wouldn’t be abusive myself (my own protest poster said “please leave space for emergency vehicles and pedestrians when parking” or something along those lines – it wasn’t to do with the lockdowns you understand, but you get the idea), just factual and to the point.
I waa very rude to the Dishonourable Wanker for Pembs. That got a response all right.
Do share Annie
Everybody should send her an automated response every day of the week and on weekends. Bug the heck out of her. Mercilessly.
“Dear [insert vaccine passport number of disease vector here to populate with name]. Thank you for your enquiry. I regret to inform you, however, that [input issue raised by disease vector here] is not currently part of my party’s policy agenda for [insert year here]. [Generic filler to be used at MPs discretion: Thank you for your continued support, and I look forward to building this country back better on behalf of all my constituents in [insert constituency name here] as and when covid-19 has been defeated]. [Generic statement to conclude all replies to disease vectors: Allow me to take this opportunity to thank our brave NHS staff on your behalf, and to remind you to continue pasteurising your lungs every night before bed]. Yours etc, [insert MPs name here].
We sent two detailed letters to our MP setting out our views and asking questions but we just got a one sentence vague response back!
Keep sending them back. Get your friends to join in.
It was brilliant KH, plus his one today as well. The humiliation part really struck a chord with me. Daily we have either our health minister, police minister and premier or all targeting some poor unfortunate miscreant who heaven forbid attempted to live their life as normal. Our area has been locked down for a couple of weeks, apart from Christmas eve, Christmas Day, Boxing day. We couldn’t leave but 10 people could come into our homes (go figure the rationale there). A few days later a poor girl who had already postponed her wedding twice and risked losing tens of thousands of dollars was arrested along with 20 other wedding guests for ‘breaking the rules’ and being out of the area. They were all fined $1,000 each and got a dressing down at the next daily press conference with the police minister stating he had ‘no sympathy’, and called it a ‘bastard act’ and the premier equally as spiteful. Guess what? Today, at midnight no more lockdown for the southern end of the northern beaches. I really do think that the general population are complying out of fear of being named, shamed and bullied. It is the most appalling… Read more »
Sorry, I think I put this under the wrong comment.
The contributor in the main article who went to Trafalgar Square didn’t miss much.
As young teens in the early 70’s we went there to climb onto the fountains. Made for a damp 4 mile walk home but so what after a few cans of lager.
On our third trip they had turned the fountains off and then boarded them all completely so we stopped going.
I remember those days.In the early 80’s everyone used to go to Trafalgar Square to see in the New Year. I even ended up in the fountains at one point. But even back then they actively discouraged people from coming into London on NYE. It’s was only when they had the Millennial fireworks, that they decided to continue, as other cities around the world were doing the same.
I’d like to publicly thank Toby and his team for creating and maintaining this website, which must be the best of it’s kind, it certainly helps me maintain some sanity here in South Cumbria, which has just been fast tracked into tier 4 in spite of generally falling ‘cases’ (down by 15% last week apparently)
I’d also like to thank Freddie Attenborough for his brilliant resume of the situation……it’s the first post in the comments on 31st December, and Toby used it yesterday as his leading article.
As soon as I saw it I printed it off for posterity……it really ought to be on giant hoardings across the country, or what’s left of it, to try to bring some sense back to the millions that seem to be lying down and accepting the lying!
I introduced a previously uninitiated friend to the site last night and he responded positively so I’m hoping for another convert……I do hope everyone here is trying to do the same.
Peter.
I have some relatives on holiday in Westmorland despite “tier 4”. They had already arrived on Wednesday when the news came out and it was decided it was better for them to stay where they were rather than try and go back home in the dark and icy conditions, and the authorities apparently don’t want a repeat of the recent exodus from London. So there they remain. Sadly they are the only ones in the hotel, all the others had cancelled with the way things were going. A lot of food will be wasted. the restaurants were closed but the owners left out canapes for them. There were some fireworks, but not the big display over the lake at midnight on new year’s day., so they’ll go for walks perhaps if it’s not too dangerous, with not much else to do. I worry what all this is going to do to the tourist industry and wonder when I’ll be able to properly go on holiday again.
Worry about the tourist industry? Don’t bother. For the last ten months, the tourist industry has been demanding that the government give it a nice big razor so that it can cut its own throat,
(but not my old normal b ‘n’ b in North Wales!)
I greatly honour the exceptions!
A rather sweeping comment. I can assure you the workers affected dont feel the same.
Yesterday somebody posted a link to an LS article from May by Freddie Attenborough.
It took 30 minutes to read early this morning but was very worthwhile. Everything he said then remains true today.
It was comparing the reaction to the 1957 Asian Flu outbreak to that of Covid.
More surging cases baloney. When will it end?
When Rishi’s magic money tree is finally chopped down?
They’ve spent hundreds of billions of pounds on this already haven’t they? And that’s just the UK. I don’t see how they can go on like this for another year. Mark my words, there’s going to be a crisis if this carries on for much longer.
Wrongspeak I’m afraid Hugh.
Last week a government person (Fallow ?) said they had ‘invested’ millions in the vaccine.
People usually expected a return on an investment but perhaps things have changed.
yes, a billion pounds is a crime, a trillion pounds invested in “vaccines” is a statistic…
Yes, how can pharmaceutical companies prosper if the rest of the economy is in ashes?
You know who is getting their ‘return on investment’.
Witless, valence and fergusob as shareholders, surely not?
Timber!
I know Katie Hopkins isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but she fights the good fight.
Here she shows a chart of available ITU beds in Cardiff for the past few months (pale blue).
For some reason they almost halved at the beginning of December so it’s little wonder that for a couple of weeks they were full.
I have spoken with someone who works in the Heath University Hospital Cardiff. The only hospital with ICU beds in Cardiff
The Heath had two two ICU wards at the start of December
One is full, they closed the other
The reason for the closure is lack of staff. Staff took leave, are off sick, self isolating, or allowed to stay at home because of stress
The latter group are not recorded anywhere and to all intents and purposes are ‘working’
So when they tell the press that the ICU is full in one sense they are telling the truth
I never liked Katie Hopkins before but now she seems to found an outlet for her outspokenness, and putting it to very good use. Her YT vids are short and very much to the point. Well worth watching.
Funnily enough a year ago old katie was a huge fan of ‘Boris’. Now she clearly hates him and he has become the ‘potato in a wig’! Does anyone know when the penny dropped for her?
I clicked the link through to the Rod Liddle column for the Sun. I wish I hadn’t bothered – the tone was pretty much paid up Government propaganda – and sneers of idiot Virus deniers – and vaccine supporting with ever such a slight questioning of Lockdown and Tiers. I’ve always liked him, I even went to one of his ‘In Conversation With’ events a year or two back. But to me I’d say he’s been sent ‘The Memo’……I got the same sense of ‘Stepford Wives’ conversion in recent articles by Charles Moore and Douglas Murray, two commentators I highly respect and I usually read nodding my head in agreement but recently not so. I would go so far as to say The Spectator has been got to – no surprise with the links to No. 10 – and as a consequence, as with The Telegraph, I’ve cancelled my subscription – there is just something too pat and samey now with their narrative . Thank goodness for Toby here and also the wonderful James Delingpole – still telling it as it is.
I felt the same reading Rods column. Same goes for the roundup Guardian link which is about NHS staff feeling unable to publicly complain about how terribly overworked they are because of the Covid.
NHS tiktokkers not complaining?That would be a first.
“Our list of allies grows thin” (Lord Of The Rings – I think). It’s the all pervasive censorship that gets me – whatever happened to freedom of speech (and a hundred other things for that matter)?
Not LotR – at least, not the book.
The philosophy of LotR is that if you are confronted with total evil, you fight it to the death, however great the odds stacked against you.You NEVER DESPAIR, because despair guarantees defeat.
‘Hope and memory shall live still in some hidden valley where the grass is green.” That is LotR.
Worth repeating::
You NEVER DESPAIR, because despair guarantees defeat.
Will have been the film, the book was better though.
I agree. The Spectator seems to have changed position.
Am not sure they are “got to” as such. Not formally,
But, the government is right now by far the biggest spender of click related advertising. Just look at the numerous pop up NHS ads that appear.
This is always bound to affect an editorial position.
The Sun article left a bad taste – I don’t see why Toby bothered to link it.
I like Rod Liddle but he has been very wishy washy when it has come to covid. An avid kockdown advocate until recently, now admitting they don’t work. However in his recent podcast for Spiked with Bredan Fraser, he admitted he liked lockdown as he didn’t have to meet people (strange). I found this statement pretty alarming, but just goes to show why we are in the shit that we are. Unfortunately for democracy, there are millions like Rod Little around the country, depressing stuff.
Well if he does not want to meet people he did not have to before lockdown. Just stay indoors or go out into the wilderness. But to support lockdown for that reason is really sick and selfish…I have gone right off him.
I suspect some of Liddle’s cowardice and fear is due to his own awful obesity and tendency to drinking and smoking. He said he would be ‘buggered’ if he ever got it. I also think Covid has destroyed that kind of ‘Right of Centre’ coalition based around Brexit and the Culture Wars. Certain members of this coalition has proved to be ‘controlled opposition’ to the cultural elites. Thinking here of Melanie Phillips,Rod Liddle,Dominic Lawson,Charles Moore,Douglas Murray,Julia Hartley Brewer and even to some extent Brendan O’Neil who cant wait for the vaccine and thinks the pandemic is the worse thing since the Spanish Flu. I suppose opposing a new global tyranny is a bit too much for some compared to dealing with a few over enthusiastic Remainers. They have been found wanting and have crumbled under pressure.
And Laura Perrins.
Woke gobbledygook
Perhaps I’m being picky but the offensive gendered term ‘first cousin’ is also listed as a preferred alternative.
I know not whether this stems from Breitbart or Nancy Pelosi.
We are all “Grandparent Killers ” now
‘Grandparent’ is ok being gender neutral.
but ageist
Proof That Lockdowns Are Working! (or not)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ_XFUYAV_A
AwakenWithJP
If opening back up the economy and society depends on everyone getting the jab, what is going to be the fate of refuseniks? We will become the new Kulaks.
Indeed, fhe Kulaks used their brains to make the best of a bad situation and maybe a bit of an annual profit only to be accused of trampling on their less successful fellow peasants who were, of course, only too willing to denounce them to the Cheka.
Are they the ones the Soviets destroyed because they had a cow and a bit of land? In the Ukraine or somewhere wasn’t it? (And that Armando Ianucci filum about Stalin was hilarious – and probably spot on too.
Just before he died Lenin instituted a New Economic Policy, NEF, which allowed small scale farming and urban market activity as the only way to get food and domestic goods produced.
At the start of Stalins 5 year Plans the moderately successful peasants and entrepreneurs (nefmen) were persecuted to mass death having outed themselves as being not amenable to collectivisation.
This applied throughout the Soviet Union but more harshly in Ukraine because Stalin was a racist, Lenin on his deathbed labelling him a Greater Russian Chauvinist despite him being Georgian.
The data on the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine is actually based on small numbers. But the data on the efficacy of those who got one jab only must be non-existent or at least vanishingly small. What evidence is there that one shot works at all? It’s hard to avoid the idea that either they are making this up as they go along or that that there is a sinister reason for them wanting as many people as possible to have something injected into them.
And surely vaccines normally take years to develop. I’d like to know how they have done it so quickly. Or perhaps that trillion pounds statistic has something to do with it. No wonder we’re not allowed to say anything against them…
Anyone got access to this ?
The abstract says: Severe allergy-like reactions in people who received the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech in December 2020 may be due to a compound in the packaging of the messenger RNA (mRNA) that forms the vaccine’s main ingredient, scientists say. A similar mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna also contains the compound, polyethylene glycol (PEG). PEG has never been used before in an approved vaccine, but it is found in many drugs, some of which have occasionally triggered anaphylaxis—a potentially life-threatening reaction. Some allergists and immunologists believe a small number of people previously exposed to PEG may have high levels of antibodies against it, putting them at risk of an anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine. Although some are skeptical of the link, the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Food and Drug Administration are taking the issue very seriously.
I think this was raised at least a month ago when the list of ingredients was published, and PEG was flagged as being problematic.
13 deaths have been reported from the Moderna vaccine, 6 from vaccine, 7 from the “control”. Internet searches now predictable say this is not true. Does anyone know anything about these deaths?
Thank you Felice
I would go with the latter. They never normally make such a big deal about the flu jabs. I will not go anywhere near this vaccine!
URGENT News about the Covid-19 Vaccine (brandnewtube.com)
Video from Dr Vernon Coleman about severe health impact events after vaccination – can expect 1.67 million people to be unable to do their daily activities; this is short term, not sure about long term
Not anti vaccine but pro choice and making an informed decision.
Distribute this video to all you know including journalists
Been posted before. Media jumped on it with swine flu but not now:
https://principia-scientific.com/the-bill-boris-show-sage-conflict-of-interest/
Questions must be asked at highest levels.
Great article. Shocking! Yes questions must be asked and these people must be removed from these positions
I note with horror the murmurings that are coming out about wearing face-masks out of doors. This seems to be totally based on the need to ensure everyone is prepared to signal that they are on board and in agreement with all this nonsense. I am unaware of any real evidence for facemasks and certainly not outside. As mentioned before I have throat problems related to agricultural and chemical dust exposure, we know that wearing masks only has a limited effect on such dusts, what you need to do is put in dust control on the process itself. Are they really going to expect farm workers, forestry and conservation workers and ramblers to wear masks while working in a howling gale miles from anywhere, here in the boondocks of North Devon? This could of course backfire on them, many people have limited their shopping time and so just slip on a grotty old mask to pop in the shop to buy their lunchtime pasty but otherwise avoid shops. If they try to force mask wearing everywhere outdoors in the hope of proving everyone buys into this rubbish they do run the risk of finding that everyone does not buy into… Read more »
Masks are the ultimate signifiers of consent. You cannot have one place with and one without.
That was the purpose of the article in the Bucks Herald I posted about a couple of days ago.
It purported to be about the good folk of Aylesbury being angry because anti lockdown protesters were not wearing masks in the market square.
Normalising al fresco maskurbation 🏝😷
People will just claim exemption under the Equalties Act.
Except they wont. Only we will and we mark ourselves out as different, in even more places.
I live in Slovakia where we have had mandatory face masks outside in urban areas since September. Outside the town/city “in nature” they are not required although many do still wear them re even. There are no personal exemptions like in the UK for health reasons- everyone has to wear them, and they do.We are the only people we know who do not wear masks outside. Compliance around Bratislava is close to 100%. Quite depressing and extraordinary since there are loads of times when you are nowhere near anyone else anyway on quiet streets and parks. And I have never seen or heard of any enforcement by police or anyone else outside (although if you try to get away without a mask inside anywhere you will soon be told to put one on).
Unreal. It’s depressing even. It’s clearly had zero impact.
And because Cases are a complete nonsense
It’s not entirely surprising, Slovaks can have a very depressing outlook on life. Especially when it seems that it is every citizen’s duty to tune into at least one hour-long evening MSM news program per day. I know some people who get home from work and watch two or three hours of it non-stop every day. These are news programs that usually have a male and female anchor who actually present the show in muzzles! Quite ridiculous. The quality of the content would make the Daily Star blush. Simple brainwashing.
Also the prime minister is an utter moron, even in comparison with Boris. He says inflammatory things similar to the “non-mask wearers have blood on their hands” nonsense with every breath. As much as it is hell with our clown democracy, it is much worse elsewhere.
I wonder what compliance is like in the little isolated villages, or what it is like in the Roma settlements.
Agreed Matovic is something else…
the small villages are more relaxed I’m sure, it’s very much a BA thing.
are you in BA? Would you like to get in touch? We don’t personally know many other real skeptics here.
gns64@protonmail.com
Sorry to be the harbinger of these rumours, seeing as I am personally affected.
https://global247news.com/2020/12/29/wales-possibly-set-to-go-hard-spanish-style-full-lockdown-according-to-government-sources/
DM: Demonstraters (some “maskless”) followed by the usual anti sceptic propaganda) harass doctor outside hospital.
Didn’t know that wearing a face nappy outside was compulsory.
Vaccine firms hit back at shortage claims: Pfizer and AstraZeneca reject government warnings of months-long supply gaps:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9105625/Pfizer-AstraZeneca-reject-government-warnings-months-long-supply-gaps.html
So endless lockdowns and economic destruction are the plan…
What a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive…
Well, at least there is potentially a good game to be played in 2021
Given that there are council and Scottish assembly elections 06 May
Given the political open goal that is the dodgy PCR test
And given the importance to the reputations of various politicians and political parties of the flawed PCR test confected ‘pandemic’ (15526 lorry drivers tested in Kent, 36 positives by a non PCR test) and their, frankly weird, response to it
Which will be the first elected and still serving mainstream high profile politician or political party to break ranks on the PCR test, weaponise it in pursuit of electoral glory?
Richard Tice has shown the way and, in Scotland, there is only one person who has anything to lose……..
The Politico article about California is awesome.
Just assumes that the evil lock down measures ought to work but naughty people are just not complying and letting their guard down.
How on earth does one let one’s guard down with respect to an invisible, microscopic virus that travels on the wind and that permeates any stupid cloth mask that you decide to wear?
Perhaps, Politico ought to consider one extra rationale: the virus does what it does and human agency will not radically alter that.
‘the virus does what it does and human agency will not radically alter that.’
I think this is the aspect that real annoys the powers that be and all the ‘experts’ they are control freaks but cannot control this virus, it is like the Viet-Cong running rings round the USA with a guerilla campaign that just does not follow their rules and expectations.
And to my mind that is why we are all suffering, they cannot, will not and do not have the courage to admit that we have to live with this virus and that it cannot be defeated.
This virus will roam about like the will of the wisp that it is until it decides to go, which I am hoping will be quite soon.
That war was run by the Americans by targets generated by computers, cf models.
To reach their targets troops resorted to killing prisoners and civilians yet still they lost.
That last point rings very true. I welcome the more virulent strain since it might demonstrate that there is nothing that can be done anyway.
And even if they manage to partially control it, as I believe was the case as numbers were diminishing after the wave peaked in the spring, all they end up doing is kicking the can down the road, into the winter, when immune systems are weaker and resolve with it. I know not everyone agrees with that reading of the situation but in terms of the efficacy of lockdown it makes little difference: either lockdown doesn’t work at all or, if it does succeed in partially “suppressing” the virus, it ends up making the situation worse and at the wrong time of year.
Maybe it will also knock off a few MPs and journalists.
I used to get the UK version of Politico’s daily ‘Playbook’ by email. Used to be excellent for summing up Brexit developments but ever since Covid it has transformed into total bedwettery – parroting daily ‘case’ and ‘death’ figures with no context, lauding the dreadful Imperial scientists and constantly wailing about how ‘grim’ the ‘pandemic’ is. Subscription cancelled.
Can’t you get your money back!
Wasted an afternoon a few days ago desperately scanning the news for advance info on the primary school situation. My daughter was really unhappy last lockdown. This is her final, wonderful year in primary now after being robbed of the whole second half of her penultimate year and the thought of having to tell her that it would be closed again was really keeping me up at night.
Finally got the all clear, only to be put right back on tenterhooks again today, while all the headlines and the unions scream their demand for national closure once more.
This is just too much.
As a Covid sceptic, I feel like I am failing in my duties as a parent to give my kid a good and happy life. I know it all not my fault, but this all feels so utterly hopeless and that we have to just accept it all, even when it comes to our own family.
Don’t beat yourself up Danny it’s not your decision to close the school.
I think you said above that you are a teacher, do the staff have any influence at all ?
Yes I am, of much older kids. But no, teachers and parents have zero impact on these decisions.
If my school is anything to go by, I’d say a majority of teachers have been and continue to be willing to come in, but there are a vocal minority (same with the parents) who push these demands, les by the unions
Delete
I have a daughter of the same age. She has struggled with going to school since the lockdown and has only been attending part time. She was having massive panic attacks each morning.
I’m really sorry to hear that. It further illustrates the divide between those affected and those not.
Such a difference (which I understand if not forgive in its selfishness) between somebody in the 30s, part of a couple, no kids, affluent, loves working from home anyway, gets everything online including food, who is basically untouched by lockdown, and, well, the rest of the world. Really hope your daughter is ok.
And, dare I say it, those that favour this nonsense are the engaged minority so their little darlings can extend their advantage over the povs while mummy and daddy don’t have to pay for it; and they can continue to signal their virtue about “divisive” private education. And then there are the real arseholes who are lockdown zealots and privately educate their children.
and of course, this is on top of the fearmongering that the kids will get when they do finally return to school and the educational establishment get back to scaring them about global warming (and how they will all drown anyway in 10 years time due to rising sea level etc etc ) and continuing to preach their woke diversity agenda .
i remember when the teaching professions job was to educate, not indoctrinate.
I do too…I used to do the job! No longer thank goodness.
And transgender story telling hour.
Agree the schools closing again mess has ruined my sleep again too.
My daughter will get her keyworker place and with two medical sceptic parents is in a strong psychological position. I am desperately unhappy watching the suffering of other children though.
I am really struggling with the uncertainty of the daily changing rules and regimes. I’m sure that’s the point of them doing this though.
As children of keyworkers have gone to school throughout, I wonder what the death rates of children and/or their parents have been? Sorry to sound macabre, but if they can teach some children successfully without stepping over the bodies on the way into school surely they could do it for all children?
If schools are closed, the children should protest in front of school gates
These people that close schools are evil – the damage to kids education and mental wellbeing is massive.
Never forget. When next election / local elections vote for any other party / independents but not for conservatives or labour (labour collaborated by failing to oppose). Do not deface voting forms, it is meaningless
Its not a bad idea, if we could get footage of police thugs baton charging children pinning them down and handcuffing them, a few sheep might wake up.
It won’t be enough to make a difference though.
I am a parent of an autistic child for whom lockdown has been a disaster given the already fragile relationship he had with school attendance. I am also a governor at a private school (I was also a governor of a state school for years). I also feel that sense of impotence and that I am failing my children. The reality is that schools are a microcosm of society…even as a sceptic with a reasonably sceptical head it is virtually impossible for a school to ignore or act contrary to guidelines, especially given the fact that every parent community has its zealots. I am angry at them but also recognise the powerful instincts at play as a parent and how the government and internet platforms have stoked and amplified their fear. I think the only hope is that enough people eventually have the virus or receive a positive result that eventually the fear dissipates.
every parent community has its zealots
so true – we have a doctor couple that at the first lockdown told us how overrun the NHS was etc. Also a very instructional type of approach, both are socially very akward
The NHS dashboard records that they carried out 420492 tests in one day and that they have carried out 52,058,247 tests in total.
I do not know about a pandemic? but we do seem to have a number-demic, it sort of makes you wonder where all these number are coming from?
Also, how much does each of these tests cost? if the Gov have now paid for over 52 million of them someone has ‘trousered’ a shed load of dosh!
It is now not clear what all these huge numbers are saying?
As John Lennon put it;
Ah I read the news today, oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I think I read somewhere it was £150 per test. But I can’t be certain. An eye watering amount if true.
Ivor Cummins on his PCR v antigen test says the PCR test costs $150 each, so yes £150. Also if they’re using the NHS supply chain then it could be more than that (price through NHS chain = 2-3 * price from Amazon)
400,000 tests a day at £150 a throw, that’s around £60m a day or £20B per annum. And as you say, it could be double that…
It really does beggar belief.
And the House of Commons.
‘Van Tams bingo slip’ was really interesting. The reasserting of power by a technocrat elite.
Chimes with what Delingpole has been saying
On a par with that woman on Radio 4 at least three times spouting
”we have to get them out of the pubs before they start falling all over each other”
Outrageous snobbery.
Doctor orders Number 10.
Two fat docs.
Van Tam’s white van moment.
Needs a straightjacket to go with it.
“62, Turn the Screw!” It’s happy hour at Van Tam Bingo!
New Year – Same farcical yet tragic situation.
Let’s further damage the education of the children of London and, even better, let’s try to wreck the education of the whole country ! After all, a relatively small number of mainly very old very sick people died last year.
The ‘reason’ for this slaughter of our kids’ education this time – the new variant COVID. Well, if you look at the graphs of Zoe infection rates compared to critical care and G&A bed occupancy up to 27/12 (latest figures available), as the infections go up, the occupancy rates don’t move. I can’t believe the government haven’t even bothered to do the math !
As many have speculated on these pages, the new variant although more infectious appears so far to be less harmful.
btw, can anyone tell me how to upload a graph to this comment section ?
There is no still no proof it is more infectious. Any rise in cases could be as easily explained by the drop in temperature as an increase in virulence.
There is a small icon in the bottom right hand corner of the comment box that allows you to insert images
Don’t you recognise the new variant is proven to be more transmissible?
Prof Axel Gandy said so on the BBC so it must be right.
Why would he,other scientists and doctors,the Government all be wrong and you right?
No, I am not 77th nor have I flipped sides but the above is what my wife and daughter gave to me last night when I pointed out the Prof was another Imperial College mathematician (why is it always Imperial?) and I might be more impressed if he were a virologist and not using modelling (I remember the days when that just reeferred to Airfix etc).
Deep joy in a household of fear.
Still, we carry on.
Long live the Resistance.
When Carl Heneghan uncovers the data that shows this strain of the virus is more transmissible I will believe it. Every time one of the corrupt scientists from Imperial comes out with a statement I believe the official narrative less.
Ask your wife and daughter if they’d follow everyone over a cliff – after all, how can the majority be wrong about anything?
Professor Montgomery
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12385829 information on Panthair
There are fewer patients in ICU’s now than there were in April.
They were probably more ill in March having been instructed to leave the NHS alone unless they failed to recover at home thus being denied early interventions.
Re rules on not travelling abroad from tier 4 areas for holidays etc. Say my family and I turn up at the airport having booked flights to a destination where there is little to do but be on holiday. Will the airline or other officials stop us boarding ? Or make our lives difficult on our return? Anyone have any experience of this? Given our young children have no school to go to, am thinking of better alternatives than being cooped up at home with nothing to do and failing to learn a damn thing.
I mentioned this last Sunday, but staying at the Sofitel, term 5 last Saturday as my husband returning to Qatar, it was relatively busy. The flight to Doha also busy, Doha being a transit hub. I am intending to fly to Doha a week Sunday, Qatar airways are still running multiple flights a day, so I assume people are still flying in significant numbers.
Fascinating piece by Freddie Attenborough in today’s post. I’ve been struggling towards these sorts of ideas myself for many months now, after back in April the thought popped into my head that we were going to suffer this collective national nervous breakdown sooner or later anyway, and that covid was just the vehicle, rather than the cause.
Covid has revealed that our political and social institutions are sick, and that the generation of managerialists who infest them are a primary part of the problem. In retrospect, as FA hints, the Establishment resistance to Brexit was perhaps only the first rumblings of a far greater storm to come. (Note: thus far the Establishment has lost that one.)
A thorough analysis of the thought processes and motivations of our managerial elites, the perpetrators of this crime, and how they gained positions of responsibility, will be essential to gaining an understanding of what has gone so wrong.
One for the psychologists, and historians used to studying motivation and agenda. As for me, as I’ve written here often before, I’m continually reminded of 17th-century witch hunting. Many of the psychological features appear to be the same, although this shitshow is on a far larger scale.
Doris tweeted about the Great Reset last night. Conclusion: 2021 will be the same or worse than 2020.
I predict diapers, LDs, massive data fraud, for all of 2021. Note the new messaging about the magic vaxx now – ‘not sure if it stops transmission’ the ‘scientists’ moan, well geniuses the flu vaxx never stops transmission it just reduces symptoms.
Not sure why Toby et al post nonsense links from the Guardian, with nurses crying about workloads. Ridiculous propaganda.
Many of them are ‘isolating’, not working and why are hospitals in mid Sussex and elsewhere not busy? We have had 2 deaths in 4 months from CV 19 here in mid-S yet here I am shuttered in our house, with the CV religious zealots wearing diapers whilst driving, walking and no doubt toiletting at home.
In our company (40.000 people), spread over half the world – not a single case of someone dying from CV 19. None. Yet it is a pandemic…..
Have you noticed that most health staff who are wheeled out to complain about being “exhausted” and to inflate the drama with stories of large scale death and destruction are either quite junior staff or those with a financial interest like Montgomery? Those of us who’ve been around a long time and are trying to keep our services running despite the diktats from above are certainly working harder than ever but as in every profession there are those who are less pragmatic and astute, and who are too junior to be able to undetstand the data, let alone look at it. I am constantly amazed that there are some doctors and nurses who have no basic grasp of this, and apparent tunnel vision in response to what they are told to do by non clinical managers. Reassuringly, I still estimate that 80% of the many colleagues I speak to are sceptical. We are convinced that working within the system to gradually overturn things is the best way to maintain and regain the services for patients with other conditions.
Indeed. I miss the days where aeroplanes were not a rare sight in the sky and I actually had a workload to moan about!
These people are unbelievable.
It really is interesting and aligns with my own instincts about this. The question about how these people attained their positions is also very interesting. I wonder how much of this was seeded by common purpose etc. I first encountered their slithering nearly 15 years ago, and their primary aim seemed to be ensuring that these woefully unsuitable psychological nutcases were promoted up the chain as fast as possible.
I first got a whiff of it back in the early to mid 90s, and of course the people getting their first promotions then are worked their way right up gravy train by now – with consequences that are all too apparent today.
Any budding authors out there care to do a rewrite of ‘The Crucible’ for modern times?
They have closed the theatres I know, but maybe Toby would serialise it in his daily briefings. I would enjoy reading that.
Well The Crucible was in part a depiction of McCarthyism, so can be read as an analogy to modern times.
I think a lot if this comes from overeducating a lot of middle class kids who, frankly, are a bit thick. What do you do with them? They become teachers who prefer sloganising to dealing with children. They become doctors who prefer PowerPoint slides to patients. They become bankers who are so ineffective and nondescript they go into politics. The gobby ones go into “the media “. And the mediocre ” academics” go into public health.
They are overprivileged for the work they do. At some level some of them recognise this, so they compensate for their privilege by being woke. But they all genuinely believe they are better than the hoipolloi and so can lecture us.
I call them the Louis Seizers and I hope they meet the same end.
Indeed
Yes, I’m surprised that this hasn’t been commented upon more often – all the same ingredients seem to be present.