What Happened to Hancock’s Promise of a “Great British Summer”?
Hard to believe it was only 11 days ago that Matt Hancock was telling Brits they could look forward to a “great British summer”. Yesterday, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps turned up on breakfast TV to pour icy water on that ember of hope and tell the country to hold off on their summer plans – and in the UK, too, not just abroad. The reason? Because we can’t go back to moving around the country until everyone is vaccinated. As for travelling abroad, that’s off the table until the whole world is vaccinated. The Independent has more.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Grant Shapps said travelling abroad would depend on “everybody having their vaccinations” in the UK – and potentially abroad.
He was speaking after the Government revealed plans for many arrivals to the UK to go into hotel quarantine, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison for people who fail to disclose a visit to Portugal or other “red-list” countries within the past 10 days.
The presenter, Louise Minchin, asked Mr Shapps: “There’s so much concern from many people, including of course the travel industry, about how you lift this – so what is the pathway, what needs to be the difference for this to change?”
“We’ll need to wait for other countries to catch up as well, in order to do that wider international unlock,” he added.
The Transport Secretary also told BBC Breakfast that jail terms of up to 10 years for people who lied on their passenger locator form was appropriate.
“I think the British public would expect pretty strong action,” he said.
In a move that will anger the travel industry, Mr Shapps warned prospective holidaymakers against making any plans.
“Further down the line I simply don’t know the answer to the question of where we’ll be up to this summer. It’s too early to be able to give you that information. You’d want to wait until that’s clear before booking anything.
“The best advice is: do nothing at this stage.”
He told BBC Today: “On the shrinking chance that there’s anybody listening to this interview at this stage and thinking of booking a holiday under the current circumstances, bear in mind you cannot legally do that at the moment.
“Until you know the result of a lockdown which we can’t know until we have more data, more information, more information on vaccines as well, please don’t go ahead and book holidays for something which at this stage it is illegal to actually go and do – whether it’s here or abroad.”
Surely, it isn’t technically illegal to book a summer holiday?!? Unwise, perhaps, but not illegal. Or is the Government planning to make that a criminal offence punishable by 10 years in jail?
It feels a lot like September all over again. Back then, the great optimistic opening up over the summer, which we’d been led to believe was a one-way process, was suddenly slammed into reverse as we headed into autumn. Now, the great promise of opening up through a lightning-fast vaccination programme has over the course of a couple of weeks warped into a threat of indefinite lockdown.
Allison Pearson hits the nail on the head as usual in the Telegraph.
Back at the beginning of January, the Prime Minister told us that – alas! – we must enter a third lockdown because the NHS was in danger of being overwhelmed again. Now, despite what you see on the TV news, that danger is receding fast.
In the last three weeks, there has been a massive reduction in beds occupied by Covid patients, a much steeper dropping-off in numbers than we saw back in May and June.
There is a slower fall in intensive care than across beds in general, but that’s because very sick people are being treated for longer and not dying, as they may well have done in the spring.
The UK vaccine rollout continues to astonish. At this rate, the top nine at-risk groups, currently linked to 99% of Covid deaths, will all be protected by March 23rd. Once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated, hospital admissions and deaths should plummet.
Make no mistake, this is tremendous news. Factor in that the weather will start to get warmer (spring is when all respiratory viruses retreat), and there really is no excuse for the Government not to provide a clear roadmap out of lockdown.
Yet, dismayingly, the reaction of members of SAGE and the even-more-Left-wing Independent SAGE, is to spread further fear and despondency.
Hear that loud trundling? It’s the sound of a World Cup of goalposts being moved by hatchet-faced mathematical modellers. Opening up by spring has somehow slipped to summer. It used to be that we could get our lives back once people over 70 had been vaccinated. Suddenly, it’s the over-50s.
“Vaccinating everyone over 50 doesn’t stop Covid spreading,” cautions Independent SAGE’s Professor Christina Pagel. True – but why would that matter when the risk is of a very mild or asymptomatic infection? By then, the chance of serious illness from Covid would be around the same as the fatality level of flu.
As free people, we should be allowed to run that small risk in order to enjoy a full and satisfying life, not the lonely, twilit existence of the past 10 months.
Not so long ago, relieving pressure on the NHS was the condition to be met before they gave us our freedom back. Now that we’ve almost cleared that bar, fools who think the virus can be extinguished are saying we can’t be released until we get down to 1,000 cases a day. If they test enough people, they’ll always find enough false positives to keep us in jail. Trapped forever, then.
“We risk suffering from the failure of so many experts to imagine a post-vaccine world, where COVID-19 ranks with other respiratory viruses in terms of risk,” says Professor Robert Dingwall, one of the most balanced and humane scientists during a period when humanity and proportion have been sorely lacking.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: A Lockdown Sceptics reader had a good dig through the SAGE minutes and found the likely source of the new extreme travel restrictions. In SAGE 77 minutes from January 21st we read:
Measures to reduce importations are most important when domestic prevalence (either overall or of a particular variant of concern) is low and when importation could lead to R>1. No intervention, other than a complete, pre-emptive closure of borders, or the mandatory quarantine of all visitors upon arrival in designated facilities, irrespective of testing history, can get close to fully prevent the importation of cases or new variants (moderate confidence, moderate evidence).
When will this recently discovered need to keep borders tightly sealed to “new variants of concern” end? The wise monkeys do not say.
“Existing Isn’t Living” – Sir Charles Walker MP on Radio 4’s World at One
Historian and Lockdown Sceptics regular Guy de la Bédoyère has written a new piece for us, complete with an edited transcript of Charles Walker’s inspiring turn on BBC Radio yesterday morning. Here’s how Guy begins.
I freely admit that of late I have tried to adopt a more conciliatory tone, frustrated by the polarisation of the debate about how to get out of this crisis and the apparent inability of people to listen to each other. But with the news getting worse every day, vaccines gradually diminishing as an escape as scientists reel back at the earth-shattering discovery that viruses mutate, and lockdowns turning into a permanent policy in the fantasy world of zero-Covid (now they are necessary to help the fight against mutations), I am close to the point of giving up.
Living in Britain in 2021 is like cowering in a submarine while enemy depth charges explode all around you. You daren’t rise to the surface and instead just sink lower and lower. The only difference is it’s our own Government dropping them.
I don’t mean to sound trite. I’m well aware what real despair and depression can do to people. I have seen it at first hand. But as things stand it’s getting more and more difficult to understand what the point of carrying on is, if the only vision of the future the Government and large swathes of the population have is of living in a country where we can’t do anything, can’t see anyone or go anywhere, and have nothing to look forward to except living in a police state to ‘keep us safe’. What the hell for?
We’ve now had the ever-wise-after-the-event expert, Professor Neil Ferguson, telling us social distancing and masks are probably here to stay for the rest of the year thanks to Government ministers’ negligence. One wonders just exactly what would satisfy him?
Today, I turned on the World at One on Radio 4, filled with almost total despair at the news of 10-year prison sentences being added to the list of reasons why this country is turning into a control freak’s paradise. It turned out to be better than I expected. An interview with Paul Hunter, professor of Medicine at UEA, included the helpful gem that “complete eradication is an unachievable goal” but he still wanted to worry about the extent to which restrictions should stay in place to protect those who haven’t been vaccinated. He rejected the idea that border restrictions could not have any “substantial, ongoing benefit after April… I hope they don’t last very long” but still seemed fairly obsessed with worries about mutated variants.
That was all nothing to what came next. I was overjoyed to hear the Voice of Reason from one of the heroes of the hour (it starts at 28m 45s into the show).
There was a priceless no-punches pulled interview with Sir Charles Walker MP, Vice-Chairman of the 1922 Committee. He strafed the most recent hapless Government double-act by Messrs. Shapps and Hancock like a rocket-firing Hawker Typhoon on a low-level raid in 1944. This is some of what he said. Sarah Montague kicked off with asking him what he felt about how things should be playing out in the next few weeks.
Charles Walker: Very disappointed. The Prime Minister has had a good few weeks where he seems to have been on top of things and then he is somewhat let down by both the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretary of State for Transport. First the Secretary of State for Health threatening to lock people up for 10 years… 10 years for crying out loud! And then we have the Secretary of State for Transport urging people not even to book domestic holidays. Now there’s a lot of people who will have seen a lot of hope evaporate at that… so, two really depressing interventions from two senior secretaries of state.
An extended exercise in almost studied and deliberate cruelty.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: A Lockdown Sceptics reader has uploaded Walker’s World At One interview to his YouTube channel.
Stop Press 2: Fraser Knight tweets about Charles Walker’s interview with Sky News here.
WHO Tugs Forelock and Toes Chinese Communist Party Line on Virus Origin
Following Tuesday’s perfunctory dismissal by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of the lab-leak hypothesis, Ian Birrell in UnHerd is dismayed by the WHO’s blatant kowtowing to China and apparent lack of curiosity about the facts.
So why is WHO so dismissive of a possible lab leak? After all, Peter Ben Embarek, the Danish food safety scientist leading its mission, explained that all the work to identify the origin of COVID-19 continues to point towards a natural viral reservoir in bats – but accepted they were unlikely to have been flying over Wuhan. He said his team held a “very long, frank, open discussion with the management and the staff” at Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), listened to their description of research carried out, accepted assurances that they did not posses Sars-Cov-2 in their virus banks, examined health data they were given, took the view such leaks are rare and then decided that microscopic pathogens could not escape from such a high-secure unit. “It was very unlikely that anything could escape from such a place,” he said firmly.
It is sweet these international scientists are so trusting of their Chinese colleagues, despite all the evidence of cover-up with the previous Sars epidemic soon after the turn of this century and then again in initial weeks of this pandemic. But this hardly sounds the most forensic, evidence-based approach given the seismic importance of their conclusions. We know the controlling nature of Chinese state repression. We know there have been many leaks before from labs, including 11 Sars infections from a top-security Beijing research centre in 2004. We know there were safety concerns since they were admitted by WIV’s head of security in a journal shortly before the outbreak. We know databases of unpublished viruses were hidden from outsiders. And we know that for all the WHO team’s faith in the WIV security, much of their Sars research was carried out at lower security labs in the city,
We also know scientists in Wuhan initially feared the novel coronavirus leaked from their lab. We know they were performing risky “gain of function” research that forces evolution of viruses, which some scientists have long feared might spark pandemic. We know they were combining snippets from different strains of bat coronaviruses and creating chimeric diseases using cloning techniques that display no sign of human manipulation. We know they were injecting viruses into “humanised mice” and trying to determine how bat diseases jump the barrier between species. We know also this new disease was well adapted to human transmission, possessing a mutation that allows its spike protein to bind to many human cells that is not found on similar types of coronaviruses. And we know two Chinese scientists in February claimed “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan” before their paper was hastily deleted.
Then there are the issues swirling around Shi Zhingli, Wuhan’s famed expert known as “Batwoman” for her sample-gathering trips in southern China, that have raised suspicions after being winkled out by Drastic, a group of researchers and scientists. Her actions include claiming three miners died of a fungal infection in 2012, when it later emerged they died from a respiratory disease similar to Covid that they caught clearing bat droppings in one of those caves. She obscured a link to their fatalities when publishing an influential Nature paper about the closest known relative to Sars-Cov-2 – and altered the name of this virus without mention of her action in that paper, widely taken as indication of natural transmission. Now she pushes ideas of transmission by mink and, yes, frozen food.
The episode, which exposes the extent to which the WHO has become supine before the Chinese Community Party, was “embarrassing”, writes Birrell.
That charade of a press conference – after 12 days wandering around Wuhan that included visiting a propaganda exhibition celebrating China’s recovery – was simply embarrassing. There is also a major flaw in the logic expressed at the event. The WHO stance is based on placing faith in China, despite all the evidence that this is a state that cannot be trusted – whether lying about its horrific treatment of minorities in Xinjiang, breaking a historic deal with Britain to protect freedom in Hong Kong or silencing noble doctors trying to alert the world to looming disaster. Yet if a leak was covered up, is it possible to trust such a Government? So if WHO is ruling out the likelihood of a laboratory accident, it must immediately release all data and evidence supporting its case.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Breitbart News reports that World Health Organization adviser Jamie Metzl told Fox News that “the actual investigation was done by Chinese authorities. And so, the WHO investigators were basically receiving reports from the Chinese officials”.
Stop Press 2: Freddie Sayers of UnHerd tweets that this is how Ian Birrell’s piece appears on Facebook.
Frustrations of a Volunteer Vaccinator
Today we’re publishing an original piece by a former nurse on her experience of stepping up to help with the vaccination programme after reading in Lockdown Sceptics that St John Ambulance was recruiting volunteers. The red tape she had to get through was unbelievably voluminous and, when she finally reported for duty, she found she wasn’t needed. Here’s an excerpt:
I arrived for the 2pm-8pm shift, and it immediately became obvious that volunteers were, by and large, superfluous to requirements: Despite our training and preparation, almost all St. John volunteers were assigned roles which could be generously described as ‘meet and greet’, but mainly involved giving out leaflets and standing at cold doors with nothing to do.
The place was full-to-bursting with NHS clinical staff. There were so many in fact that a good number were kicking their heels and just watching the proceedings. One nurse told me that they daren’t leave their vaccination posts for a break, as if they did so their tables would be snapped up by other staff with nothing to do.
As the second vaccination site had now become ‘live’ and was better positioned geographically for me (and located in a more rural area), I decided to change my shifts to volunteer at that site in the hope they might actually need volunteers!
The evening before my first shift (8am-2pm) I received an email to say the shift had been cancelled as the NHS didn’t require volunteers at this time. The following week was also cancelled, so I contacted St. John’s local team to find out what was going on.
I was told that the NHS team managing the site had informed them they currently had “no need for volunteers”. In addition, the original vaccination site (in the large city) now also didn’t require volunteer vaccinators, only ‘advocates’ and ‘carers’ (aka ‘meet and greeters’) so despite all our training, commitment, frustrations and efforts, there is at present nowhere in our region where a St. John Ambulance volunteer vaccinator (50 trained at present) can actually carry out vaccinations!
As well as being extremely frustrating, this is also very strange as we are constantly hearing how the NHS is at risk of being ‘overwhelmed’ and needs ‘protecting’, yet when given a perfect opportunity for volunteers to pick up the slack and do the bulk of work at mass vaccination centres, the NHS instead choose to divert hundreds of staff from hospitals into the mass-vaccination centres, turning down offers of help from perfectly capable volunteers.
Worth reading in full.
Prof Karol Sikora: Lockdowns Cause More Deaths Than They Prevent
Professor Karol Sikora and colleagues have a new article in a peer-reviewed journal evaluating lockdowns from a cost-benefit perspective in terms of life-years lost and saved. This is the abstract.
Every policy has direct and indirect effects of intended and unintended consequences. Policies that require people to stay at home to reduce the morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 will have effects beyond the virus. For example, they will adversely affect mental health and economic prospects for many. They will also affect people’s willingness and ability to access health and social services. This is likely to result in increases in morbidity and mortality from otherwise curable diseases, such as cancer, acute myocardial infarction and stroke. A comparison between COVID-19 deaths prevented and excess cancer deaths caused shows it is possible that preventing COVID-19 deaths through lockdowns might result in more life-years being lost than saved.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Great Barrington Declaration co-author Professor Martin Kulldorff and Professor Günter Kampf have a letter in the Lancet calling on Governments to carry out proper “benefit–risk evaluations of COVID-19 control measures”.
We think government lockdowns cause substantial collateral health damage. For example, hospital admissions in the USA for emergency treatment of acute ischaemic strokes have been substantially lower in February–March, 2020, than in February–March, 2019, resulting in delayed treatment. Compared with a historical baseline, UK nursing homes and hospices saw an increase in the number of deaths between February and June, 2020, associated with acute coronary syndrome (a 41% increase), stroke (a 39% increase), and heart failure (a 25% increase). The situation is similar for patients with cancer. In German hospitals, cancer cases decreased during the first national lockdown between March 12th and April 19th, 2020: by 13·9% for breast cancer, 16·5% for bladder cancer, 18·4% for gastric cancer, 19·8% for lung cancer, 22·3% for colon cancer, and 23·1% for prostate cancer, suggesting that cancers might have been undetected and untreated during this period. In England, hospital admissions for chemotherapy appointments have fallen by 60%, and urgent referrals for early diagnosis of suspected cancers have decreased by 76% compared with pre-COVID-19 levels, which could contribute to 6270 additional deaths within 1 year. Delayed diagnosis and treatment are expected to increase the numbers of deaths up to year 5 after diagnosis by 7·9–9·6% for breast cancer, 15·3–16·6% for colorectal cancer, 4·8–5·3% for lung cancer, and 5·8–6·0% for oesophageal cancer.
Government restrictions are disrupting traditional means of support between friends and family members. Physical distancing and contact reduction are causing severe stress to many people and might increase the risk of suicide. In a meta-analysis of the prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression among the general population during the COVID-19 pandemic,7 the prevalence of depression in the months of the pandemic up to May, 2020, was 33·7% (95% CI 27·5–40·6). Between April 22nd and May 11th, 2020, 795 (78·9%) of 1008 people aged 18–35 years in the USA reported symptoms of depression. Further and stronger restrictions on physical and social contact could lead to a further increase in the prevalence of depression.
Worth reading in full.
Sweden Smeared by Secretive Elite Facebook Group
Two Swedish investigating media groups have exposed an online cabal that deliberately smeared their own country in international media in an effort to discredit the Swedish light-touch Covid strategy. Sveriges Radio has the details.
– Ekot and Vetenskapsradion have gained insight into the activities of a hidden Facebook group.
– Very serious allegations are spread in a social media campaign.
– Experts in the field of information influence consider the tone and methods to be worrying.The closed Facebook group with just over 200 members includes academics, opinion leaders, researchers at Swedish universities and others who are upset about Sweden’s handling of the coronavirus.
The members are largely active in Sweden, but the dialogue is conducted in English. We have gained insight into the closed group, the posts and activities for a long time.
Members coordinate activities in the Facebook group and take the messages to the comment field, Twitter, Swedish and international media. They have placed their messages in Time, Science, Washington Post, among others.
Hanna Linderstål is an independent virtual analyst and works to strengthen the business community’s and authorities’ knowledge of the impact of information.
What we can see in this group’s activities that make it interesting is partly that they court international media where they present Sweden as both a failure and that the authorities in Sweden would have a hidden agenda about the country’s corona strategy, says Hanna Linderstål.
Hanna Linderstål thinks that the group’s processing of international and Swedish media is very worrying.
Among other things, other countries are urged not to let Swedes in, to protect the countries. And these are strong statements that are made about Sweden internationally, she says.
Johan Hellström tweets about it here.
Poetry Corner
12 year-old E. C. wrote this and sent it in at the encouragement of her mother.
Hands, face, space
Hands, face, space
Wreck your hands by washing them,
Strip them of all oil
End up with zombie skin
Turn water up to boil.
Cover your face – let’s suffocate
From the lack of air
Smell your breath wherever you go,
As if cloth will stop a virus!
Keep away from people
Possible? Nah
We all are on the same Earth;
Same air
The virus isn’t picky
Distance – doesn’t care!
Round-up
- “Boris Johnson sets out the new normal on vaccines” – We need to “get used to the idea of vaccinating and then revaccinating in the autumn, as we come to face these new variants”, says the PM, reports Katy Balls in the Spectator
- “Will this be a mandatory vaccine in all but name?” – Michael Curzon in Bournbrook smells another rotten promise
- “Family fury after 78-year-old woman with broken hip was left lying on a mattress on hospital floor days before she died after contracting Covid while on ward” – The Mail with a shocking story of neglect from a Scottish hospital, prompting a formal complaint from the family
- “Urgent warning re Covid-19 vaccine-related deaths in the elderly and Care Homes” – Open letter from the UK Medical Freedom Alliance to Government ministers flagging a possible concern similar to the one raised by Norway last month
- “A Few Covid Vaccine Recipients Developed a Rare Blood Disorder” – The New York Times reports on a potential vaccine side effect
- “Pfizer drops India vaccine application after regulator seeks local trial” – India asks for more evidence, and Pfizer says no, in a curious development reported by Reuters
- “How China Beat COVID-19 and Revived Its Economy” – More of the misplaced praise for China that got us into this mess in the first place from the New York Times
- “Smiles Matter” – The campaign invites you to “show your support, wear your badge”
- “Spain’s Government pinning hopes on a vaccination passport to help kick-start ailing tourism sector” – They edge ever closer, from El Pais
- “WHO backs Britain over Oxford jab for over-65s and delayed booster” – The Times reports on a boost for the Government and AstraZeneca against critics of the vaccine in Europe and elsewhere
- “CDC Estimates 83 Million U.S. COVID Infections. This Has Major Implications” – Alex Berezow in American Council on Science and Health says the figures cast new light on the true scale of population immunity in America
- “Why aren’t we taking these simple steps to help beat the virus?” – Epidemiologist Dr Laurence Villard in the Conservative Woman wonders why we’re not making better use of cheap and effective treatments
- “Nailing the Offenders” – From Kester Disability Rights – an organisation who can help if you are being given trouble over not wearing a mask for reasons of disability
- “I voted for lockdown. But the choice between saving lives and losing freedom is hard” – Dr Andrew Murrison MP writing in ConservativeHome attempts some perspective on Covid and lockdown, suggesting it is possible for people to shift their view
- “Ministers should have ‘learned lessons properly’ from first wave, adviser says” – For some reason Sky News goes to Professor Neil Ferguson for his thoughts, despite his atrocious track record of models and predictions. Isn’t the main lesson of the first wave not to listen to Neil Ferguson?
- “Common asthma treatment reduces need for hospitalisation in COVID-19 patients, study suggests” – Looks like we can add budesonide to the cheap treatments that reduce the severity and duration of the disease, according to a report from the University of Oxford
- “Liberty’s view on immunity passports” – The human rights organisation is finally starting to push back against some of the egregious infringements of basic liberties being perpetrated by Government during the crisis
- “The dangers of compulsory vaccination” – Barrister Adam King writes for UnHerd on the parallels between ‘No Jab, No Job’ and company-imposed free speech restrictions
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “All Around The World” by Oasis, “For Tomorrow” by Blur, “I Wanna Be Sedated” by the Ramones and “The Shape of Things to Come” by Headboys.
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 Lockdown Sceptics 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 news that Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is going full woke and erasing women from its maternity perinatal services department. The Mail has the story.
Critics have lambasted a hospital which told staff to use terms like “birthing parents” and “human milk” rather than just referring to “mothers” and “breast milk”.
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust unveiled a blizzard of “gender inclusive” phrases in a drive to stamp out “mainstream transphobia”.
Other changes include replacing the use of the word “woman” with the phrase “woman or person”, and the term “father” with “parent”, “co-parent” or “second biological parent”, depending on the circumstances.
But it has led to a backlash from critics today who have hit out at the new terminology, branding it “utter nonsense”.
This comes as a row erupted in Westminster over a special maternity bill referring to “pregnant people” rather than women.
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is the first in the country to formally implement such a radical overhaul for its maternity services department – which will now be known as “perinatal services”.
But author and film writer Dougie Brimson and editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, are among critics to hit out at the new terminology.
Mr Brimson tweeted: ‘”Chestfeeding’ and ‘human milk’… Someone within this trust is no doubt being paid a fortune to come up with this kind of utter nonsense. Think about that the next time you’re whining about the #NHS being underfunded.”
Speaking about the move on Good Morning Britain, Piers Morgan said today: “Midwives have been told to refer to chest-feeding rather than breastfeeding and replace the term mother with birthing parent.”
“Chan” wrote on Twitter: “I’m transgender myself and Morgan is completely correct. This isn’t what the majority of transpeople ask for and it hinders our rights, not helps us. That’s my point. I want transgender people to have respect and dignity and equality. I don’t think you get there by telling midwives to stop using the term breastfeeding because it may upset a few people when 99% of the people in there are breastfeeding.
“It’s nonsense and this kind of PC nonsense with the language, it has the opposite effect to what you think it does. It annoys people, it doesn’t bring them any inclusivity. It becomes exclusive and alienates people.”
Read it in full here.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to obtain a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card – because wearing a mask causes them “severe distress”, for instance. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and the Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. And 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.
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.
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 and Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson’s Spectator article about the Danish mask study here.
Stop Press: Warner Media in the US have teamed up with the CDC to produce a video with famous film characters such as Wonder Woman, Harry Potter and the hobbits wearing masks to encourage compliance. Is nothing sacred?
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched in October and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. In February, Facebook deleted the GBD’s page because it “goes against our community standards”. 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.
Scottish Church leaders from a range of Christian denominations have launched legal action, supported by the Christian Legal Centre against the Scottish Government’s attempt to close churches in Scotland for the first time since the the Stuart kings in the 17th century. The church leaders emphasised it is a disproportionate step, and one which has serious implications for freedom of religion.” Further information available here.
There’s the class action lawsuit being brought by Dr Reiner Fuellmich and his team in various countries against “the manufacturers and sellers of the defective product, PCR tests”. Dr Fuellmich explains the lawsuit in this video. Dr Fuellmich has also served cease and desist papers on Professor Christian Drosten, co-author of the Corman-Drosten paper which was the first and WHO-recommended PCR protocol for detection of SARS-CoV-2. That paper, which was pivotal to the roll out of mass PCR testing, was submitted to the journal Eurosurveillance on January 21st and accepted following peer review on January 22nd. The paper has been critically reviewed here by Pieter Borger and colleagues, who also submitted a retraction request, which was rejected in February.
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.
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Morning all!
Morning fellow insomniac!
Katie Hopkins: DO you REMEMBER giving politicians ALL this power?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKjFnI2xcz8
Mornin’
morning deplorables
What about running a simulation about how not to get stupid people in power, such as hancock, boris, grant, whitty, valance and so on. They are worse than the virus.
Agreed
Agreed, they are worse than the virus and the effects of their actions will be long lasting. However, you’ve got to admit their brainwashing and mind control strategies are working a treat. Current one seems to be the holiday quarantines. People have been complaining about the alleged upcoming vaccine passports. Now the ridiculous quarantine measures have been put into place, how long until the masses are asking, nay begging for an opt out? The kind government will obviously respond with some sort of “vaccine passport” and hey presto the captors become heros, again, at least in many people’s eyes. This has happened time and time again, starting with the Herd immunity strategy back in March 2020. Get a few (planted?) detractors to start complaining about it and the Great Brainwashed soon follow suit, it seems.
Its an object lesson in how to fool all the people…. but there is also an insidious creep of woke happening behind the curtain too. People acting like cats with the shiny object or laser light are missing what’s going on.
But you do have to wonder at how they have been using the carrot and stick principle that’s so obvious to all us on here but it just gets sucked up by the muggles. Inject me lord so I can become free…..
All you need is a political system where loyalty to party is more important than serving the people. Now how could we get that? Ohhhh ….
And a system where all political parties think the people belong to the state….
watch UKColumn for some background.
Not stupid, criminal.
“Covid-19 Vaccine” Adverse Reactions; Part One: Dropping Dead?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/10/mask-guidance-cdc-two-masks-close-fitting
FFS!
What’s next? Decapitation to stop the spread?
More likely suffocation. Clamping your knickers really hard on to your face stops air getting in, says the article.
That’s one way to kill some people off then…..
They’ll probably mandate mass hara-kiri soon to stop the spread of the virus.
To save the vaccine. No one can claim the vaccine (s) might be ineffective and/or harmful and a massive waste of money, if they’re dead. Problem solved! The regime saves face, and that’s all that matters.
Exactly. Plus they’ve achieved their target of Zero Covid and by extension Zero Carbon.
yes, ‘zero covid’ is Newspeak for ‘zero human life left on the planet’ – this is not about eradication of a virus, it is about genocide
Sadly seems genocide being committed in broad daylight and many just cant see it. It started with sending the frail back into the care homes last spring, the denial of medical treatment for far more serious illnesses and now some are being hurried along by an unsafe experimental vaccine.
Agree. But animals and plants also emit carbon so if we follow their perverse logic they should be exterminated as well.
And not one news organisation has noticed the link between the vaccinations and increased death numbers in care homes and amongst old folk. Poor old fuckers been kept indoors locked up away from family, managed to see off a whole year of infection and then the government murders them with an untested vaccine. Oh but look at us we are jabbing more than all those EU arsehats, all hail the fat pig dictator.
uk column have been reporting this and have had care home staff whistleblowing about what is happening in the care home sector
Yes everybody outside MSM reporting it, and Wankcock must be quite happy as that’s probably what they were planning.
The UK Column has been doing excellent research in this area over the last two weeks.
Why do you think they invented “new deadly strains” it’s code for “dodgy vaccines”!!!
I think that’s happening – people queuing up for the ‘frankenjab’. MW
How much are they PAYING these journalists. BTW, the SI section on face coverings states that the health minister must revise whether they are still necessary within SIX MONTHS (that period lapses in 23rd January). Also no sign of an impact assessment. Plenty of time to do that and look at all the harms… AND all FOI requests for evidence on face masks have been fobbed off. I’d say it is no longer law as far as I can see… let’s SPREAD that word!
SAGE: ‘The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.’ This was the first step. Then more and more lockdowns, no holidays, 10yrs for lying, tiers upon tiers, social distancing and other social experiments. All this because the populace accepted it all. From Great Britain to Gulag Britain!
“All this because the populace accepted it all.”
And even though most people are not really complying…
I think most people are largely complying simply because there isn’t much choice. I would like nothing more than to go to the pub (not for the booze but because I like going to pubs) but the option just isn’t there. I haven’t been in a pub since masks became mandatory in them. It was barely tolerable before that but that finished it for me.
People seem to be complying in public, such as while shopping or not openly protesting about everything being shut. But from what I can see while delivering groceries, most people (not all, there are still some covi-zealots about) seem to be ignoring the rules if they think they can get away with it. Lots of people visiting friends or family, multiple families walking together that sort of thing. Most people gave up on the distancing stuff while accepting their shopping ages ago and that hasn’t started up again despite the rhetoric from the govt. The general opinion is everyone just wants it to end.
Dave, you NEVER have to wear a mask because it causes you severe stress. You do NOT need to get a medical exemption. No one can question you on it or ask for proof. You just walk in and say “I’m legally exempt”. It’s the LAW!
This doesn’t work in Ireland, unfortunately. The Health Service Executive aren’t allowing anyone to have exemptions.
Not much compliance in my area either, I think alot of what is reported by the msm in just to encourage people to follow the “rules” by impling everyone else is.
They are complying, look at the masks when you go round any supermarket or get on a bus or train. Watch them queuing for the worthless tests or baring their arms for the lethal injections.
These people are complying big time and are condemning the rest of us, as well as themselves, to an early grave.
Sadly, you are right. The vast majority go for the quiet life, strung along by repeated promises that it will just be for a little bit longer. As long as Netflix and Amazon keep functioning.
Crank mad scientists need locking up.
It’s sad and demoralizing that apart from a few brave scientists most of them have let the people down. Their all know lockdown is bad science and now the data is in to show that without lockdown deaths would have been similar or if done properly less. Scientist keep these things to themselves publishing their views in obscure journals that only few people read. For example last year the BMJ published a study showing that the flu vaccine made you more vulnerable to respiratory infections like covid. No one in the media made us aware and instead encouraged us to get vaccinated. Why? Scientists need to get together and begin holding news conferences challenging the government and covidiots like Christopher Snowdon who believe only lockdown alters the rate of infection. If this was true the rate of infections would have exploded last summer when there were no lockdown or continue to rise until we had a lockdown. The reason why infections don’t continue rising and this as been known since the 19th century it’s called “fars law” is because as people get infected most recover creating herd immunity. Unfortunately we humans like dramatic stories ignoring what is real, the downside… Read more »
‘Hanging’ not locking up. Why should the taxpayer be responsible for keeping them?
Agree. Just commented above but I think the propaganda machine is quite worryingly shifting it’s predatory headlights on us now. Hard to believe that will not end in violence towards the unmasked in the street one day.
If anyone uses violence against me for being unmasked I shall make sure they seriously regret that.
It is not about masks, they are just a symbol of compliance with the tyrannical regime fronted by Boris Johnson. But yes it will all end in violence, but the violence will not be a one way street.
I’m don’t like violence. But if comes to that, who do you think will win? A zombie mob, drugged up, masked up, zero natural immunity, unable to function without Boris telling them what to do? Or us?
I think Great British Apathy makes such a scenario less likely than in some places I can think of.
And why us anybody listening to that useless prick professor pantsdown? They are having him on ever week to spout more crap as if ANYTHING he has said on any pandemic has been correct? “Oh if only the government acted sooner”, show me ANY evidence your lockdown has worked!! In case you did not notice we were in tier 3 which is lockdown in all the areas with high infection rates. And how did that help?
Ferguson is only making the imbecilic noises that the government wants to hear. That is his job.
Fear of the virus has been replaced by fear of the police and fear of neighbours.
We had my cousin and her husband over for lunch yesterday. She couldn’t get in the door fast enough for fear of being spotted by a curtain twitcher.
lock up the sage clowns
There will be many more to lock up, besides the imbeciles who make up SAGE.
As to volunteering to vaccinate; my excellent good hearted dentist applied ,and ,to date, has not had a response.
I would suggest there is a strong argument he should stick to his day job. Heck – even volunteer to dentist outside of hours. The need is certainly there.
I think he feels that he should offer his services, but I agree that the need for dentistry is growing, all thanks to the lockdown madness.
His experience though, shows what a disorganised farce all this is: volunteers encouraged to apply, only to be ignored or to find themselves with nothing to do once accepted.
Would that be Camus in your pic?
It is. Fortunately for me, ‘The Plague’ was the last book I read before this nonsense started. It helped provide me a fantastic grounding in lockdown scepticism.
I read it recently as well.
Nice. I could wax lyrical about it.
A very good book and I like Camus’ outlook on most things.
It’s a great book. Flawed, but great. From a man who truly did risk his life for freedom from Fascism.
I was recently dismayed to see a zero-Covid, double-masker nutter describe himself as a ‘modern day Dr Rieux’ in his Twitter bio. Which proves two people can read the same book and emerge from it with a totally different outlook.
He has the wrong outlook. Rieux is the voice of the Resistance.
Yep. Totally wide of the mark. I think the guy just thought ‘He was a doctor, I’m a doctor. That was a Plague, this is a Plague’. Either that, or he hasn’t read it at all.
I desperately need routine dental care (scale and polish stuff) but am too horrified by the Novichok regime they seem to have and the high bar to justify why you should be pestering them to try to go. I think this will lead to me losing all my teeth in the not too distant future. Those bastards in Govt.
Is it an NHS dentist? My practice is private – I had to go private because you can’t get an NHS dentist for love or money here in West Wales.
My practice has been great: no hassle, the same high standards of treatment, and the dentist is a not-very-crypto-sceptic. Worth every penny – and I am keeping my teeth.
I’m thinking of going private too. Its a case of finding a decent practice. I wish there was a ratings for dental practices.
Just a fyi anecdote – I’m in Scotland and had a regular dental check up three weeks ago and a small filling last week. Dentist and nurse had face covering and visor, otherwise as normal. I had my sunflower lanyard and no mask. Had no hassle. Much better experience than I had feared.
Dentists are working in both parts of Ireland, I believe. Is it possible for you to travel to Northern Ireland at the moment? I don’t know what the restrictions are.
I assume it’s because your dentist hasn’t had diversity training.
Yes I think you’re correct : I told him about the retired GP who was rejected for this very reason.
The fact that he’s had no response shows that they don’t need people as I suspect they’ve vaccinated everyone that they deemed part of that “vulnerable” age category.
I echo what others have said, why doesn’t he volunteer his services with regards his actual day job? I haven’t seen my dentist for nearly a year now.
What a greedy bastard
Someone has to point out that the flag in the sand castle is upside down so it might as well be me.
Intentional in a world turned upside down.
False flag 👀
Distress signal – it is in the appropriate orientation.
Flying the Union Jack upside down is a distress call.
Might as well be a white flag all the resistance that’s been put up. Was watching YouTube last night and a video came up about a soldier being held captive who was filmed saying I am being treated fairly. But at the same time he was blinking a message in morse code saying “being tortured”. The fat pig dictator blinks a lot do you think he is saying “free me from sage and Princess nut nut”?…..
This has been said before. John Waters, the Irish Lockdown Sceptic and commentator says Boris Johnson reminds him of someone who is being held hostage. Interesting . . .
Recognised sign of distress – so appropriate?
It makes sense as a coded signal since it’s hard to tell, otherwise a pretty crap distress signal equivalent in crapness to C-19 as a bio weapon. The accompanying psyop has however been brilliant.
Isn’t it just a sand castle on its holidays in Australia – at least that is how I took it.
Ivor Cummings has a brief (less than three minutes) video on YouTube in which he presents a visual representation of all cause mortality, coronavirus related deaths and the impact of lockdowns. It is so simple and makes so little demand on the intellectual ability of the viewer that I think even Hancock could understand it. I am not on Twitter, but if you are, perhaps you could provide Hancock with a link to it?
https://youtu.be/i8RFyHxUaYs
Done.
What kind of person is so safe that he never moves and never does anything?
A dead person.
Britain, the Land of the Dead, presided over by a legion of devils a thousand times worse than any conceived by the human imagination.
Vegetative state Annie; quiescence, apathy ,compliance, cognitive decline : the Brave New World awaits.
Lots and lots of Soma.
Huxley was ahead of his time.
We have loads of them sadly.
What was the ring of hell that Dante had for liars. Do we need a new special ring for the fat pig dictator and his cronies in sage and the whole of parliament (other than the 22?) then the TSG police, the bbc, the msm, the phe and nhs and a very special place of torture for prof pantsdown, something with two hot rock and a hot poker.
Plenty of zombie businesses now too, and that’s even official.
Annie – did you see this?
A bit theological, but good I thought
https://northamanglican.com/living-death-an-ecclesial-apostasy/
I’m sure the Civitas working paper on the cost of lockdown was linked to back in December, as the government was promising (!) to publish its own cost-benefit analysis, but I think it’s worth another look. This, for example: • There are some costs of lockdown which are of course unquantifiable and which are therefore not covered in this report: the impact on freedom, on the quality of life, on happiness, on the differential impact of lockdown on the poor and the young. These too should be considered in official analyses. • The report makes a simple observation: that the UK governments should publish their forecasts of the financial, economic and wider impact of the measures they have and are taking. These forecasts can then be assessed and scrutinised by Parliament, by future inquiries and by the wider public. Public sector net debt is expected to increase by £473 billion in 2020-21; GDP has fallen by 11.3% in 2020; Unemployment is expected to increase by between 450,000 and 2.45 million above pre- pandemic levels; The estimates of the cost per year of life saved (QALY) range from nearly three times more than what the NHS is usually prepared to pay… Read more »
I don’t understand how anyone can read about holidays being ‘illegal’. Travel around the UK is frowned upon for holidays.
That is until everyone gets a barely tested DNA altering vaccine where you are the literal test subject.
I don’t understand how the above and much more doesn’t spell out to these people that you are in fact human cattle to these people in control.
Illegal migrants are put up in four star hotels…meanwhile should you dare to go on holiday you will be put in a run down hotel and charged an enormous rate for the ‘privilege’. Oh and you will also have your own security guard.
WAKE UP! THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH A VIRUS!
The ‘great reset’ is increasingly being shown to be the goal out of this. Please also bear in mind that the origins of the virus have continually been said since the beginning to have come from a lab. So why aren’t we focusing on this? Probably because tptb want us all to be a bite more like China.
Incase you don’t know what I mean there is a simple word to describe it: Slave.
If even Laura Kuenssberg is waking up to dictatorship then we might have a chance.
The holiday announcements and the coming budget could shake the complacent middle class out of their slumber.
Not sure anything will wake up the masses JP. I keep seeing what should be trigger points and nothing happens. Let people go on holiday then take that country off the corridor. No, nothing?
You can eat out. Hooray, no you can’t and you have killed granny. No, nothing?
You can have five days for Christmas and families can mix and stay over hoorah! No it’s one day, you can’t stay over and bring your own knife and fork. No? Nothing.
All free after the vaccine all finished by March. Er no, we mean September and you can’t book a holiday you granny killing bastard. No, nothing.
We will keep granny alive even though she had survived a whole year of the virus with our life saving ground breaking experimental vaccine. No sorry she died of the, er, virus. No, nothing!
I keep waiting for the kickback, I have my torch and pitchfork ready but they just keep laying down and taking it?????
Frog boiling!
I spend a lot of time mulling this problem- what spark is needed to fire up the masses? I don’t have an answer, but I do have an observation. I note in all sceptical couples I know, it is often the female partner who seems the most vocal and she is the one who has driven their joint thinking. Whereas, if the female half of the partnership is timid and afraid then the male half will simply follow and agree, even support her insecurities. It seems to me that the sceptic argument might have a better chance if it is directed to and targetted for women, particularly mothers. At the moment many of them are protecting their families from the big bad virus. They need to be made to realise the government is the enemy. How to do that?
You have a point. When in town I nearly alway see the men masked up, trailing behind their unmasked women. I was chatting to our sceptical gas engineer some time ago – he really does see through all this but his missus is terrified so he goes along with her…for a quieter life, I presume. It must be really hard if you are not both on the same page. Ultimately it could destroy your relationship.
Infiltrate Mumsnet?
You know, joking apart…..??
I’m surrounded by people getting more bloody braindead by the day! They believe that daddy pig dictator really has their interests at heart, and I’m now a nut case and a danger to them. The psychological damage is deep now. They TRULY believe obedience and compliance will get them through this. They’ve lost sight of what it actually is to be free. Most will be too terrified to mix again socially anyway. And of course, it will be those who refuse the poison arrow WILL be blamed for all their eventual woes, not the government of course! They really are turning into such good little communitarians.
My tax adviser told me yesterday that she attended a seminar where the speaker forecasted the following tax changes for the upcoming budget: CGT allowance cut in half, CGT rates aligned with income taxes, entrepreneurs relief only once, capped and upon retirement, lifetime cap on CGT freesale of primary residence, no reset for CGT purposes on inherited assets.
So basically, 100% confiscation by stealth.
Klaus Schwab will be very happy with Rishi.
The British middle class, not so much.
Interesting how all the MOAR TAXES mob are completely ignoring historical evidence from Cowperthwaite of Hong Kong and Ludwig Erhard of W Germany that to get an economy going, you must reduce taxes and regulation.
Its almost as if ideology trumps historical evidence.
With all due respect LS, I have no interest in reading about the difficulties those who have offered their services to the vaccination campaign are experiencing. No interest whatsoever. In a similar way, I’m also not interested in reading about the logistical issues Nazi Germany ran into whilst procuring industrial quantities of Zyklon B – I’d rather focus on the egregious crimes, and perhaps the editorial team should too.
I disagree. That article suggests there’s not a rush for the vaccine. And the stuff about diversity training shows the limits of the mental acuity of our Overlords. They don’t have righteousness or reason on their side – just brute force (for the moment). Sic Semper Tyrannis
True enough, the zealots offering their services to the ‘overwhelmed’ NHS who are redirecting hundreds of their ‘overwhelmed’ dance video staff to the vaxx centres, are in the main full on retard for LDs, vaxx passports and the like. Just wondering when the military is going to be sent door to door to inject the ‘voluntary’ poison….
Many will die if they try that stunt.
Agree but this demonstrates the stupidity of the world we’re in now and shows that reality doesn’t match what the government propaganda churns out. If there was a genuine pandemic, they would not be bothering with diversity training and focus on getting volunteers to start ASAP.
It’s useful in the sense that it shows there are lots of medical staff around that could actually be doing their jobs – ie instead of giving people The Jab.
Many NHS staff have been relieved of their normal duties for the best part of a year. Those of them now involved in the ‘vaccination’ campaign are taking part in something that is very dubious. The old saying, that “the Devil makes work for idle hands” rings very true.
Well said Scotty
I thought the volunteers piece was a useful piece of revelation. The implications were the point.
We need to talk about Matt
Even to the untrained eye there is something going on in relation to the Aspergers/Autism spectrum
As my mother would say in what are now considered less enlightened times
“He’s a bit touched”
He’s a complete walloper. Which is exactly why he remains in situ.
I watched Boris yesterday during PMQ’s. First time in a while I had bothered to do that. The man looks haunted. No vigour, nothing, just going through the motions. In fact PMQ’s looks more like a scripted performance done by an amateur dramatic society than actual government mechanism in play. Truly odd to watch
And yet much of the general public think he and Hancock are wonderful and are our saviours from death, doom and destruction.
I don’t know. Most I know remain critical but only over detail. It is the underlying assumptions around the desirability of Lockdowns that remains fairly solid.
Says it all about the “general public”, don’t it?
Several non skeptical people I know think Hancock is deranged.
Shift the Ape in The Last Battle. He speaks the words that ‘wiser’ villains have put into his mouth.
Shift the Ape was eaten by the devil Tash with ‘one peck’. I look to the day.
Who’s Puzzle and who’s Shift?
Characters in The Last Battle. Ape and donkey. They are supposed to be friends, but Puzzle is more of a deluded, willing slave.
In the allegory, Shift is Antichrist.Puzzle supports him by dressing up as Aslan, Shift having convinced him that the real Aslan actually wants this to happen.
Puddleglum puts in a cameo appearance at the end, along with the other blessed souls in Paradise.
Great the lying must be getting to him
His hair is starting to fall out (too much peroxide?), he really should stop drinking it.
His hair has been thinning on the crown for a while, now; couple of years, at least. It’s the increasing ‘haggard-ness’, the hunted, haunted eyes, and general robotic lifelessness in his demeanour that are really telling.
Nut nut will be dumping him once he stands down and is of no use to her green tyranny plans.
He, Trump and Fauci all have the same problem. They are going bald and can’t accept it. They all have various style of ‘comb overs’
Cue (3 generations of) Baldy Man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gao6BwObC-o
Hung over.
See Kim Jong-Dan of Australia. Definitely something going on there.
The useful idiot for our times.
It’s not really being on the spectrum, it’s more like psychopathy. Single minded focus on nothing other than his own power and control. Covid and their response is the only thing they see. Nothing else matters.
sounds like someone from the 1930s who was single minded in his ambitions in europe! He was neurotic and deranged also.
As an autistic adult I disagree. He’s touched alright, but I doubt it’s autism, he doesn’t understand numbers enough for that 😃
I would suggest schizophrenia or psychopath/sociopath rather than autistic. Or maybe that’s just because I don’t want him associated with the highly logically minded autistic community which I’m part of.
Good point.
Also a person with austism would not be altering ‘rules’ and procedures on an almost weekly basis!
It’s the changing of rules that has affected me the most. Change is is a big issue for me, and having my whole world changed overnight has put me back years in my road to understanding my own mind.
My son is autistic too and a science geek (biochem/genetics). He finds the complete lack of evidence or logic in most of their measures the hardest to take.
I agree with you, as far as I can tell he is most likely to be personality disordered, ie psychopathic. I don’t know many autistic people who would put on a stage performance of crying, for example, but manipulation and sadism are behaviours in line with PD.
He’s definitely a bit “spectrum”. In the course of many years working in IT I came across a number of people like him. They just couldn’t be allowed to deal with the real world and its inhabitants so were kept in a corner, where they were good at what they did. It’s the country’s tragedy that he has been allowed out of the corner.
That said, I hear from people who knew him from childhood that he was always an ESS-AITCH-1-TEE. It is said that a takes the village to raise the child. In his case Farndon let us down! They should have chucked him in the Dee every day (with increasing ankle-weights) till he reformed.
Nope. Not autistic. I’m 99% certain he’s not autistic but probably a psychopath. Among other things autistic people don’t generally like to be in the limelight. We prefer to be behind the scenes. Psychopaths revel in the glory of their achievements.
I like your posts here Tree hugger. You make some excellent points. I concur sociopathic/psychopathic traits and agree autism is not what I see in Hancock – his brain is clearly a messy dump and not an ordered room filing cabinets. He relies on others for everything in his life, everything. Autism requires complete understanding on own terms – this leads to the wonderful logic and capacity for tenacious accuracy.
Hancock has a weird personal awkwardness – if you saw him sit back down after the dispatch box a few months ago it is one clear example of the strangeness I’m meaning to refer to. His facial expression and his speaking seem laboured in some way, he presents his forehead to the camera when interviewed. From the combination of his movement, speech and expression along with the content of his actions he does seem to be ‘touched’. I don’t see autism, but I do see something different from others.
Compare to Charles Walker for example a man who is natural in his delivery or Sumption. For all his smiling Hancock feels repressed/regressed. Sociopaths and psychopaths are supposed to blend right in, he is a failure at even that.
Thank you, I know all autistic people are individuals but if you watch the likes of Chris Packham it’s obvious that although he’s grown to somewhat enjoy his time in front of the camera he still feels the awkwardness of it. His deliverys are always very precise.
I do wonder if drugs don’t also play a part in Hancocks strangeness.
He’s a psychopath.
Vaccinations will be made mandatory. Just wait and see.
I’m those such as Bill and Melinda are rubbing their hands.
Can’t help but think that there’s a lot more truth to the reasons behind this than meets the eye.
IF YOU FOR ONE SECOND THINK THIS ECHELON WILL VACCINATE THEMSELVES OR THEIR CHILDREN THEN I HAVE A BRIDGE YOU CAN BUY.
If so then it’s the Mark of the beast.
This is why we need to mentally prepare for what may transpire. As Solzhenitsyn wrote:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
Pondering the recent hiccups – Covid connection, how about the following ailments:
tennis elbow, dandruff, flat feet, ingrowing toe nails, slipped discs, piles, bunions and repetitive strain injuries?
Shortly all will be attributed to the mighty Corona and treatments tailored accordingly.
….pimples…
My digestion problems yesterday were obviously Covid too – and there was me thinking it’s down to a friend? still owing me an apology for rudeness/phone slamming down (one I’m unlikely to get I know…..).
But – no – it must have been Covid – because everything is Covid these days – apparently….
I must have got it. I have frozen shoulder!
I sympathise! I’m troubled by persistent shoulder pain and stiffness but arnica gel and magnesium lotion are my remedies of choice.
I feel your pain. Mine was finally operated on (10 years ago) when we still had a sort of NHS.
You can see where Wankok is heading. It’s mask bullying over again. The jabbed will get big merit badges and be encouraged to blame the unjabbed for the cancellation of their two weeks in Benidorm – or Blackpool.
And what ever you do, do not talk about the khunts that reduced and continue to reduce NHS bed capacity.
How the Government can spin this out even longer: no jab, unless you’ve had diversity training. Assume you’re a disease vector and a racist.
Does anyone else feel the nastier tone this week? At a time when most of the vulnerable have had their damned vaccine, and the fabled “R” rate has dropped to levels not seen since prior to the latest lockdown, the rhetoric has been stepped up again.
Hancock and his 10 year prison terms for filling out a form wrong.
Shapps and his promise of no summer holidays.
Ferguson talking of masks and distancing for the next year at least.
VanTam coming to get our children next.
Added to that, the number of abusive encounters I’ve had in the street have risen back to levels not seen since March. People in shops confronting me over my lack of mask, people in the street throwing themselves into traffic to avoid even eye contact.
There is a growing gulf between the news and the response to that news which I find very puzzling. Any thoughts?
Yes, it is getting nastier. Maybe that’s because it’s all Hancock, SAGE and the rest of them can do – their only cards, which they delight in playing.
Or perhaps it’s to induce a high vaccine uptake. Maybe the uptake is not as high as they want? I don’t know.
But – surely, surely – eventually this level of hysteria has to spill over and break, and the bubble burst leaving not a rack behind.
God I hope so!
Whilst as we have often discussed here the data is no everything nonetheless when the figures get low people do find it difficult to keep this up. I live in Torridge N.Devon which for some while has had the lowest ‘covid’ rate in mainland UK, only the Orkney and Shetland Isles have lower rates than us, our local hospital Barnstaple has all of 8 ‘covid’ patients. I keep posting these figures on our village facebook site and I notice round the village that people are increasingly likely to stop and chat (no masks) in the street and get together for a walk with a friend. In the local woods nobody wears a mask and people now seem happy to stop and chat and seem generally less anxious.
Just a small sign but maybe just a glimmer of hope.
That’s good we need more of this
Steve, I live not too far from you in Mid Devon, a small place with many retired like myself. We walk a lot in the village and local paths etc, we see quite a few masketeers in the street, and a few swervers. We talk, but its always from a distance, and the overwhelming impression is still that “we are only weeks away from normal”. Apart from one friend who is over 90, I think I must be the only resident here who is a sceptic.
That is very disturbing to read. I feel lucky after reading your experiences that I haven’t had any problems so far; I don’t wear a mask and will not. Having said that i live in a town in the West Country of about 20,000 people and I shop at a few places where, over the years, I have got to know the staff well. They have all been excellent regarding me being sans mask and I have had no problems, none from other shoppers either, although behind my back they might be sticking pins in voodoo dolls. Street encounters though are as you describe, people walking into the road and so on, it just makes me laugh now; if they want to be hit by a bus then so be it. Something did happen that I was totally unprepared for a couple of weeks ago when we had heavy snow here on a Sunday. Everybody came out blinking into the light. No masks; kids building snowmen or toboganning with their parents, big groups of people gathering for a chat with nobody social distancing and lots of strangers cheerily saying hello and smiling. I took my camera out and a bloke,… Read more »
You have busses in a town of 20.000? Wow!
Yeah! They trundle around town empty most of the time!
I’ve also noticed more of the “sheeple throwing themselves into street” thing as I walk along pavements recently (and this is a quiet little Welsh town). It does seem to be in some sort of relationship with just how much the Government are getting at people with their fear propaganda/outrageous pronouncements. All these people glued to their news programmes have a lot to answer for. I’ve worked it out now that there’s a couple of hours of news around lunchtime 3 times a week on Welsh version of BBC and I do suspect that many round here are glued to their tv’s during that time. I wasn’t even aware of those “media blasts” until I found myself being shoved off the phone talking to one of the fearful at around that sort of time for an “important” reason – which only turned out to be them wanting another dose of propaganda.
Was it in Wayne’s World where they trolled everyone by saying something then following it up with ‘NOT!’ and laughing hysterically at their target?
eg. You’ll have a great British summer.
NOT!
and
It is totally safe.
NOT!
And so on…
Starring Pfeffel as Wayne, Wanksock as Garth and PNN as Cassandra.
Compendium of all UK Mask exempt related challenges
https://miriaf.webs.com/site-index
Download and save while it is still up
archive version
https://archive.vn/ckdjb
is this linked in the ATL right hand menu? If not it should be – can the admin add this please
Hopefully they will
https://freedomtaker.com/ has some excellent resources as well
Just need to manually replace USA for UK on the vaccine letters
Another great edition of Lockdown Sceptics. Thank you, Will.
Sir Charles Walker could have my vote for prime minister after this!
https://twitter.com/channel4news/status/1359615877394567169?s=21
He really is excellent, as is Sir Desmond Swayne. I appreciate their eloquence and their determination to speak out.
They might at well stand their ground and be even more vocal now. They’ve got a clear 8 month run at it before the numbers will rise again.
But to read the sadly deluded comments underneath??? Didn’t hear or read about people caring so much about NHS staff and people dying in hospitals from winter flu, or anything else for that matter, in previous years? Or clamouring to be locked up under house arrest for daring to talk to another human being. Tell that to those who lived under communist fascist rule in Poland during the Cold War.
If they are real then we must face the fact that a lot of our fellow countrymen are morons.
Those deluded comments will have been planted by the SS (77th) Brigade. Best ignore and post support for Walker & Swayne.
I suspect he’s too decent. He’s a genuine human being and not a sociopath – or worse.
Hancock gave me 10 years. I’m out in 3, for good behaviour – I took the diversity and climate change courses – and the pub’s still fucking closed!
NHS shake-up ‘to cut bureaucracy and improve care’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55985910
A couple of months ago, I posted here to ask whether this “second wave” was just the excuse the Tories needed to be able to reform the NHS, without being seen as the party which destroyed it.
It might help to explain why last summer was not spent in preparing for a winter surge in patients from the normal respiratory viruses and why the Nightingales were mothballed.
Hancock said before Christmas that the Nightingales were being re-commissioned. Does anyone know what’s happened to them?
The excel in London was decommissioned.Hancock then spoke in Parliament and said the Nightingales were ready so they hastily put 62 beds back.The excel is a huge space.
I believe it’s now being used as a vaccination centre.
And my guess it will also be used when people start falling ill after having the vaccines. Give it 3 months.
They went down the memory hole
Destroy the NHS to save the NHS
This endless see-sawing of the narrative is a clear sign of factional government.
A weak PM, and his witless sidekick/mouthpiece, blown hither and thither between hard headed commercial and liberal humanist pragmatism, the greater good of the greater number, of the Treasury and the self serving, hypochondriac, precautionary principle driven Cabinet office with its wonky MS DOS excel spreadsheet steam driven code operators.
The only thing that ever sorts this out is the ballot box, as exemplified by that ‘nice’ Mr Major’s government previously, and we all know how that ended…..
I wish I could agree, but instead I think it’s designed to destabilise the economy and the people. No one knows where they stand anymore, the rules are always changing. This is a hallmark of narcisisstic abuse. The Behavioural Insights Team know what this kind of messaging is doing to people, surely.
Exactly. Straight out of the text book. Constant gaslighting, push-pull, blame-shifting, projection, denial of accountability, zero empathy, triangulation. The BIT knows what it’s doing: evil bastards. Means to ends stuff.
This seems appropriate:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
H.L. Mencken
Not sure why he thought some hobgoblins to be real. 🙂 But he was a good lad, Mencken.
“There is a way out of this Covid response nightmare. Replace PCR with LFT and praise the vaccines.”
https://adapnation.io/the-covid-exit-strategy-lfd-test-pivot/
This is what’s happening now, isn’t it?
I had not realised that LFT testing had increased so much, it is sort of a positive step. The downside is that LFT makes testing more able to be routine, mind you if the LFT tests are self administered then maybe if you use enough mouthwash and nasal spray you can be guaranteed a negative result!
I washed my mouth and nose out with Colloidal Silver and my test came back negative; I know you were being facetious, but it may actually work!
In tbe SAGE Dec 74th meeting minutes they pretty much sound the bell to move to Lateral Flow. If you read between the lines in Alison Pearsons DT article referenced above, what she doesn’t realise is this shift has taken place in the NHS. Quietly and without any real scrutiny.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sage-73-minutes-coronavirus-covid-19-response-17-december-2020
So during January thre were bed blockers of people not being able to get a negative test due to PCR. No symptoms, their complaint seen to whatever it was but couldn’t be released as a positive case. Now they’ve switched, more people are released and quicker too. Less people are arriving for something else and testing positive for Covid, so admissions are falling too.
The clincher for me though is that ICU remains at high levels, not unmanageable but high. This is because this is harder to fudge, they are the true Covid patients largely.
The bait and switch on testing is a con. A hoodwink which covers up the self inflicted crisis of PCR staff shortages and 1/5 less beds over the winter. We are being taken for mugs again, and again, and again.
Can we stop having a post about these dumb volunteers desperate to administer the vaccine!
Volunteering to administer poison – I doubt a single one of these clowns could tell us what is in the vaxx, how it works, if it stops transmission, what the demerits might be, or why 99.7% effective immune systems need it?
Yes I think you will be right unfortunately!
I think part of the reason so many have been keen to volunteer is that you get a dose of the vaccine yourself on day 1. Easy way to jump the queue.
Yes, why would these people volunteer to do administer experimental jabs that has not yet been proven to work? Wonder if they understand the implications of future law suits due to adverse reactions?
I think you get paid for thism so it’s not volunteering as such. No jobs out there, so many are jumping at the chance of paid work.
After flicking through the DM’s headlines today its evident the game of forever moving the goalposts is alive and kicking, its just lies, more lies & damned lies, that’s it for me the last MSM outlet I took my daily propaganda news from is now officially on my shit list, from now on i’m going to get my daily updates from david icke, its more accurate! Seriously if you were in a relationship & your partner locked you up indoors, told you, you couldn’t work, couldn’t go out, couldn’t drink alcohol, couldn’t go abroad, couldn’t travel more than 5 miles, had to cover your face, couldn’t talk to casual acquaintances, couldn’t see friends or family, couldn’t stand closer than 2meters to another person & perpetually lied to you about when they may relax THEIR rules, what would you do? They would be locked up for a lot less longer than the 10 years, these abusers threaten too if you don’t confess where you’ve been. When are people going to wake up to this abuse, this isn’t democracy! No natural threat yet invented evolved warrants these sanctions on life. I’m not a covid denier, i just don’t believe the official narrative,… Read more »
They would be guilty of coercive control, and that is exactly where we are now. People even on this forum have said that they will take the vaccine now because they want to see family abroad and are anticipating vaccine passports which haven’t been made official let alone a legal requirement. People are lining up to be experimented on because they want freedom which they will not get. It’s all part of this messaging, the NLP, the nudges, the press. It’s the sign of a corrupt and totalitarian state using the press to control the masses. Goebbels would be pleased.
Yeah anyone on here who said they’d take it to end the restrictions must now, if they’ve any real integrity, will hold back. Because to agree anyway is ceding one of the only powers we have at the moment and that’s just to say no. Passively resist because they are lying and cannot be trusted.
Hi Anti_Socialist a good news out let is UK Column on Utube. It’s spot on and we haven’t watched or read MSM for a while and listen to that and also Talk Radio although at the moment they seem to be promoting the lockdown.
UK Column have been excellent throughout.They are exposing the link between increasing care home deaths and vaccine rollout.
Many whistleblowers are coming forward.The problem is communicating that to the masses while the MSM are bought and paid for.Lets hope the enablers realise that they and their families are going to have to live in the dystopia they are helping to build.
Yep I often link to UK column here, yesterday there was a good segment on Germany’s covid fraud UK Column News – 10th February 2021 hopefully the link starts at 53 minutes.
Talk radio had its moments but they are vaccine pushers. Their vaccine sycophancy is no better than any other mainstream outlet.
I think only really Dan Wootten was opposed to it on Talk Radio and he has gone. The rest are either flip flip flops or fifth columnists.
The Government is the Public’s Abuser . We have know this for a long time now
RT has its moments
also Jo Nova forums are quite fun https://joannenova.com.au/
although
Prof Judith Curry is also worth a read https://judithcurry.com/
I’ll be damned for suggesting this, but read what you described –
if you were in a relationship & your partner locked you up indoors, told you, you couldn’t work, couldn’t go out, couldn’t drink alcohol, couldn’t go abroad, couldn’t travel more than 5 miles, had to cover your face, couldn’t talk to casual acquaintances, couldn’t see friends or family, couldn’t stand closer than 2meters to another person & perpetually lied to you about when they may relax THEIR rules, what would you do?
– and then tell me that isn’t the way a certain religion of peace treats its women…! Uncanny!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14012162/fat-busting-jab-shed-2-5stone-in-a-year/
And here’s another weapon in the public health armoury.
Fat-busting jab to add to the covid-slayer
Fuck me you just know all the Fat CV Zealots will be queuing up for this one lol
Not being riddled with vaccines will soon become the mark of the sane. You won’t be allowed to do much but you’ll at least have your dignity.
Nope they will just gorge twice as much
DorisNutNut: Triple Diaper now. The science says.
VanTranny: Triple Distancing now. The science says.
Whitty-Shitty: Diapers, Distancing, Tests, Jabs for next 5 yrs. Science says.
The Muslim Vax Sultan: Vaxx now. All 3 of them. Science says.
Fergutard: Models – 2 trillion are going to die in next 5 yrs. Science says.
Wankock: Jail time for dissent or criticism. Science says.
SAGE: Send the military door to door so everyone can voluntarily test and Vaxx against the coming Mongolian and Ecuadorean variants. Science says.
Every flipping week, their messaging changes, becomes more hostile, fascistic, deranged.
And the Sheeple bleat: ‘more, more, more’.
Julia Hartley-Brewer is very, very good, isn’t she?
she’s very feisty. She has that knack of ‘controlled aggression’ that makes her a brilliant interrogator. but her views are sometimes a little incoherent.
Still banging on about the vaccines, is she?
I wish she wouldn’t spend most of the interview talking rather than listening.
We’ve listened enough.
It would be simple to make her world class – cut what she says by two thirds and cut out nasty references to those who have different political views are the key ones. Finally,but most importantly, challenge the narrative always, masks, vaccines, distancing!
ABSOLUTELY AND THEN SOME!!!
PS: And I’m a socialist remainer.