Parents Desperate for Schools to Reopen; Teaching Unions Desperate to Close Them Again
Children around the country this morning will be returning to the classroom – although most secondary school pupils won’t go back until later in the week – and for many it’ll be the first time they’ve seen it since the end of last year. According to a survey by the Institute of Fiscal studies, parents are strongly in favour of children going back to school. Here are the key findings:
Most parents support the return to school on March 8th. Nine in ten parents say they would send their child back on Monday even if the return were not compulsory. That compares with fewer than two-thirds of families during the staggered return to school last summer. Encouragingly, the differences between better-off and more disadvantaged families have also grown smaller – though gaps remain at secondary school.
Among parents who are still reluctant to return to in-person schooling, health concerns continue to be the most important reason. Nearly half of these parents say that the COVID-19 case rate is the key factor in whether they support a return to school. However, around 40% of reluctant parents cite factors that are directly under the control of policymakers (precautions taken at school such as lateral testing or mask-wearing, and progress in vaccinations).
Overall, 65% of primary school parents and 68% of those with secondary school children are concerned that their child has lost out on learning. While close to half of those whose child was in primary school think that their child will have recovered within a term, a third of concerned parents think that recovery will take a school year or more. At secondary school, 9% think that their child will never make up for the pandemic’s effect on their learning.
Support for catch-up policies is very high, with over 90% of parents in favour of at least some academic policies for catch-up and 83% in favour of policies to support pupil well-being. The most popular academic policy by some distance is tutoring, which over 80% of parents support. Parents are more divided in their priorities for supporting pupil well-being, but around four in ten would prioritise in-class activities such as arts or time outdoors.
Support for policies that would increase the amount of learning time is much lower, with around half of parents in favour of a longer school day and fewer than half in favour of an extended term or repeating school years. Support for these policies is also more divided, with parents in the most disadvantaged third around 10 percentage points less likely to support policies that would change the regular school schedule than those in the top third. The design of the recovery programme must explicitly consider not just what is likely to be effective, but also what is feasible for families and how to ensure that support actually reaches the students who need it most.
Teaching Unions, meanwhile, are risking finding themselves out of step with parents. The Telegraph reports that they are warning parents that the return to school might turn out to be temporary if not enough students wear masks. At least they have the wit to blame the schools’ insurance policies rather than the fears of their members.
Unions have warned parents that schools could close if not enough pupils wear face masks, raising the spectre that the long awaited return to classrooms could be short lived.
Schools across England reopen on Monday, in the first step in easing lockdown, but there are escalating tensions over the rules on pupils wearing face masks.
Government guidance now stipulates that masks should be worn in the classroom and anywhere indoors where it is impossible for secondary students to keep two metres apart, whereas previously when schools were open masks were only required in corridors.
This has caused an outcry among parents, MPs and health experts who fear that masks impede education and are uncomfortable for children, with insufficient evidence that they help to reduce transmission of the virus.
On Sunday night Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), the main union representing secondary heads, said a letter had been issued to members to send to parents who raise objections about their children wearing masks when they return to school.
The letter, seen by the Telegraph, says that if not enough pupils wear masks it could create “ramifications” for a school’s insurance.
It explains that masks are one of the recommended measures schools need to take to get “risk of infection to an acceptable level to enable them to remain open”.
On Sunday the chief inspector of schools added her voice to the chorus of concern about face masks. Amanda Spielman said she hoped that they will only be necessary for a “short time”, adding: “I love the idea of children being able to come back in summer term able to see everybody fully.”
Ministers have vowed to reconsider the advice at the end of this month after Public Health England analyses the impact of schools being open for three weeks.
Stop Press: Not all parents are happy to send their children back to school. The Telegraph has an interview with one mother who, sadly, is still very frightened.
Stop Press 2: A group of headteachers perform a Take That song to welcome pupils back. I’m guessing they’re not shop stewards in the National Education Union.
The NHS’s Six Million Strong Waiting List
We must protect “our NHS”. It was a core justification for the lockdown. By staying at home, we would reduce transmission, and “curtail the exponential growth of hospitalisations and deaths”, so that that the NHS could be there for us when we need it. Now, the NHS is pressured by a large backlog of patients and, according to analysis released yesterday by the NHS Confederation, the official number might only be scratching the surface. The Telegraph has the story:
The NHS is facing a “hidden backlog” of six million patients who have not come forward for treatment because of the pandemic, health leaders have warned.
Increasing numbers are likely to suffer with worsening conditions at home unless the Government produces a comprehensive plan to deal with the problem, according to new research by the NHS Confederation.
The body, which represents all parts of the health service, cited a 30% drop in GP referrals for non-urgent care last year.
They are particularly concerned about the reduction in referrals for orthopaedics and ophthalmology, both of which are clinical areas with conditions that can steadily worsen if left untreated.
The pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to NHS services, with elective treatment the hardest hit.
Despite caring for nearly a quarter of a million Covid patients in 2020, the health service still performed more than six million elective treatments.
However, there was a backlog of 4.52 million patients by the end of the year, 224,000 of whom had been waiting for more than a year for treatment.
This compared to 1,500 at the end of 2019.
The NHS Confederation today warns that without corrective action the unofficial backlog will be close to seven million by the end of 2021.
Danny Mortimer, its Chief Executive, said: “The NHS has worked tirelessly to support the country in response to the pandemic and while it has never been a Covid-only service, the disruption has been enormous, leading to a considerable number of people waiting far longer for treatment than the NHS would ever want.
“Health leaders are concerned that we may be scratching the surface of this waiting list if further referrals come through at a time when coronavirus pressures are still high, the workforce is in a very fragile state, and when capacity is still so constrained.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Liverpool Echo has a report on the backlog of cancer patients in Merseyside:
A worrying backlog of patients waiting more than 104 days for cancer treatment has built up in Merseyside over the latest lockdown. …
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LUHFT), which runs the Royal Liverpool, Aintree and Broadgreen hospitals, reported that cancer waiting lists “deteriorated” during the third surge after having improved over summer.
According to internal reports shared to the trust board, as of the end of February there were 199 patients waiting more than 104 days, including 154 without a decision on treatment.
In normal circumstances every patient waiting more than 104 days is considered a serious issue and the causes are investigated.
Health Service Journal reporter Lawrence Dunhill said the number of patients waiting more than 104 days had more than tripled in Merseyside and Cheshire, between February 2020 and February 2021,
Stop Press 2: CBC reports a rise in missed and cancelled appointments leading to undiagnosed colorectal cancer cases in Hamilton in Canada, attributed to a well-founded fear of catching COVID-19 in hospital.
Rangers Fans Ignore Nic Sturge-On’s Diktats
Nic Sturge-on was quick to condemn the celebrations that followed the Rangers’ confirmation as this season’s winners of the Scottish Premiership. MailOnline has the story.
Nicola Sturgeon warned Rangers fans they were “risking their lives” as they gathered in their thousands to celebrate their side’s first Scottish Premiership title in a decade.
The Gers clinched their 55th championship when rivals Celtic could only manage a 0-0 draw away at Dundee United.
Despite warnings from Saturday when they partied in the streets following a 3-0 home win over St Mirren, fans again broke lockdown rules and turned out in their droves to mark the occasion.
Scotland is currently under Tier 4 restrictions, which means mass gatherings are banned and the public is urged not to leave their homes amid the pandemic.
Many were seen not wearing face masks or following any kind of social distancing.
Groups were seen letting off flares outside their Ibrox ground and in George Square in the City Centre.
And in an attempt to urge people to stay home Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, tweeted to remind them of the ongoing lockdown.
She said: “I congratulate @RangersFC on the title win and recognise what a moment this is for fans.
“But gathering in crowds just now risks lives, and could delay exit from lockdown for everyone else.
“If those gathering care at all about the safety of others and the country, they will go home.”
Scottish Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf also condemned Rangers fans for their actions and warned they could face retrospective police action.
He added: “I’m certainly frustrated because it should not be up to Police Scotland to take enforcement action.
“Police have been putting themselves at risk over the last year, day in, day out, to keep us safe, and they should not have to be in a situation which can be completely avoidable.
“It’s not uncommon for action to be taken as a follow-up and that’s entirely up to Police Scotland to do.
“When things return to normal, I’m sure there will be an almighty party of all parties to celebrate what is likely to be a quite historic title victory, but until that moment you must respect the rules because you’re not only putting you own life at risk but also the community’s lives at risk, too.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: There was another illegal gathering in Manchester yesterday in response to the paltry pay rise proposed for NHS staff. The organiser, an NHS worker, was fined. The BBC has more.
The organiser of a protest against the Government’s controversial 1% pay rise plan for NHS staff in England has been fined £10,000 by police.
About 40 people attended a rally in Manchester city centre at midday, officers said.
Public gatherings are banned by coronavirus rules and police said most demonstrators dispersed after officers asked them to leave.
A woman who works for the NHS, aged 61, was fined for organising the protest.
Another NHS worker, aged 65, was arrested for failing to provide details after initially refusing to leave.
She was de-arrested and fined £200 after complying, police said.
PHE Chief Gazes into Crystal Ball, Predicts Doom
Dr Susan Hopkins of Public Health England used an appearance on the Andrew Marr Show show yesterday to warn that the UK may be in for a “difficult Autumn” and a “hard Winter” in the face of new variants of COVID-19 and a potential surge in other respiratory viruses. Sky News has more.
The UK should prepare for a “difficult autumn” due to the threat of new coronavirus variants emerging and a potential surge in other respiratory viruses, a senior health official has warned.
Dr Susan Hopkins, Public Health England’s Strategic Response Director for COVID-19, said the population may have less immunity to respiratory viruses such as flu due to the coronavirus pandemic.
She told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that it was “highly unlikely” that a new Covid variant would derail the plan to start easing England’s lockdown “for the next three to five weeks”.
But Dr Hopkins added: “We’ll need to monitor carefully as new strains come into the country from around the world.
“We’ll need to be very ready for an autumn that could be challenging as these variants are there.
“But we’re also very conscious of the fact that what happened last summer, in late summer and early September, could happen again and we need to prepare for that and hope that it doesn’t happen.”
Dr Hopkins said it was “really difficult to predict what’s going to happen in the future” but “we have to prepare for a hard winter”.
“Six months away is a long time,” she told Marr.
“We have to prepare for a hard winter – not only with coronavirus, but we’ve had a year of almost no respiratory viruses of any other type.
“That means potentially the population immunity to that is less.
“So we could see surges in flu, we could see surges in other respiratory viruses and other respiratory pathogens.
“It’s really important that we’re prepared from the NHS point of view, from public health and contact tracing, that we have everything ready to prepare for a difficult autumn.
“We hope that it won’t occur and it will be a normal winter for all of us.”
Dr Hopkins said she believed “we will all have our summer holidays” but her job is to prepare for “worst case scenarios”.
Worth reading in full.
Wasn’t PHE supposed to be abolished?!?
Guy de la Bédoyère Says He’s Not Actually in Favour of Vaccine Passports
Yesterday we published an original essay by an anonymous academic which made the case against vaccine passports. The author was prompted, in part, by a recent piece by our regular contributor, the historian Guy de la Bédoyère. Today we’re publishing Guy’s response. He was misunderstood, he says, if he was thought to be in favour of vaccine passports. In fact he has no particular view on the subject. Here are the opening paragraphs:
The other day I wrote a piece for Lockdown Sceptics in which I referred to my intention to have the vaccine, though in fact the piece was about the terrible prospect of governments chasing after Zero Covid.
That piece has now been responded to on this site by an anonymous academic who explained his/her belief that vaccine passports make a mockery of free consent, and that I was in error when comparing the choice to have a vaccine with whether or not to choose to have a driving licence.
The author also seemed to have concluded that I am in favour of vaccine passports. Indeed, it had never occurred to me that it might be read that way. Not only was I not talking about vaccine passports, but I also do not have a view on them, either pro or against, so I was completely bewildered by the piece. I am reserving that judgement for when and if they are introduced.
The author’s argument was that having a driving licence had nothing to do with being obliged to have a medical procedure. Really? That, I think, completely missed my point. I was talking about how we currently accept driving licences to protect us all from unqualified drivers or passports (not ‘vaccine passports’) to help protect us against murderous terrorists or other dangerous people coming into the country. It was simply an observation of a fact.
I was making two observations really. One is that, whether one likes it or not, every decision we make means losing out in some ways and gaining in others. Free choice is contingent on recognising that because that is what choice means, and so is free consent, otherwise how could we evaluate what we are choosing or consenting to? Life is not a bowl of cherries.
The other is that all human societies organise themselves in ways that inhibit personal freedom where individual actions or decisions are assessed, deemed, or imagined to have the power to damage others. We may not like that, especially when we as individuals are stopped from doing what we want to do. We may believe that in any one instance the inhibition of personal freedom on that basis is an outrage by refuting the reasons cited for limiting freedoms.
But that’s what happens and to a greater or lesser extent we collude in that and expect to be protected by the state when it matters to us. It’s one of the reasons we have a democratically elected Government, which is our best, albeit clunky, way of finding a balance that is best for most people most of the time.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Tim Harford addresses the ins and outs of vaccine passports on BBC Radio 4’s How To Vaccinate The World.
Do We Want to be Free?
A new essay for AIER by Ethan Yang asks one of the big questions: Do we still have the will to continue as a free society? It is addressed to an American audience, but the question is relevant to the UK as well. First, Yang looks at a speech by President Donald Tump, praising the Polish people for their indomitable spirit.
Trump noted that the Polish will to endure was seen as an inspiration for the NATO alliance and the Western World more generally. He hoped that the free world would continue to have the will to defend itself, both militarily and ideologically. Although we certainly have our problems, Trump’s speech put our civilization in context to the alternatives: Nazi Germany, Communism, the illiberal, authoritarian regimes of modern-day Russia and China, as well as the repressive regime created under ISIS. When speaking about Western civilization and the free world more generally, he noted,
“[w]e write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.
“We reward brilliance. We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honour God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.”
These are some of the hallmarks of Western civilisation, its allies, and the free society it fostered. Yes, we have our problems, and we should strive to correct them, but the core of what we have is worth defending. This is also what has been taken from us by lockdowns.
But what happens when our cherished freedoms are taken away by elected leaders with the apparent approval of our fellow citizens, asks Yang?
Today, America and Europe find themselves under brutal lockdown measures that, in addition to not actually stopping the virus, have completely subdued our societies economically, socially, culturally, and spiritually. Although many people support lockdowns because they believe they will help control the virus, others genuinely see them as a means to fundamentally change American society out of spite for our individualistic values. Look no further than the common narrative that selfish Americans won’t wear their masks and that’s why the virus is spreading. Not only are masks ineffective at stopping COVID-19 in the way they are advertised, but the United States actually has some of the highest reported mask wearing rates in North America and Europe. An article published by Forbes warned against “doing your own research” when it comes to COVID-19 and parroted the tired ‘listen to the experts line’. Not only is this an attack on the very notion of the scientific method as well as an informed citizenry, but such a strategy would have clearly led us down the road to technocracy, and a misinformed one at that.
Such uninformed hysteria around Covid sounds less like a concern for stopping the virus and more of a cultural wedge against traditional American ideas of individual liberty. Sadly, it seems that many members of the public are either afraid or apathetic when it comes to preserving and reclaiming the free society that is our birthright.
Poland is a shining example of a raw desire to exist as a coherent civilisation after being dismembered time and time again. Today that same question exists for America and the rest of the Western World more generally.
Do we have the will to continue to exist as a free and polite society, steeped in the ideas of liberty, reason, and justice? Or have we succumbed to a tragic case of civilisational fatigue where we are now disinterested in holding onto what we used to be? Without a serious commitment to reclaiming our freedom and prosperity, we put ourselves on the path towards becoming a washed-up, has-been civilisation, weighed down by an authoritarian boot of our own design.
Worth reading in full.
Round-up
- “Care home residents were hit worst by the cuts to non-Covid treatment during the pandemic, analysis shows” – The Daily Mail reports further evidence that lockdowns harmed the vulnerable most
- “Boris Johnson leaves door open to rethink on nurses’ pay rise” – A U-turn on NHS pay is imminent, says the Telegraph
- “Diary of a private investor: trouble’s ahead, here’s why I’m prepared to sell my shares” – James Bartholomew doesn’t like the look of the markets
- “Rishi Sunak’s tax on wealth… by stealth” – Further details of the financial fallout from the Daily Mail
- “Are you procrastinating more? Blame the pandemic” – Hang on, National Geographic. Don’t you mean the lockdown?
- “Pubs without beer gardens WILL be able to open on April 12th due to loophole in easing of Covid restrictions” – Good news according to MailOnline
- “Why are we forbidden the great outdoors?” – Vlod Barchuk asks a good question in the Conservative Woman
- “Fans and artists must have Covid vaccine before attending music festivals, say organisers” – It’s sex and vaccines and rock and roll, according to the Observer
- “Interview with Illana Rachel Daniel” – James Delingpole interviews an Israeli mother who has declined the vaccine
- “Austria suspends jabs with batch of Astra-Zeneca vaccine after one person died and another fell ill after taking the shots” – Adverse reactions prompt Austria to suspend the roll out of the Oxford vaccine, the Daily Mail reports
- “Switzerland to ban wearing of burqa and niqab in public places” – The Guardian covers another another case of people being told what they should and shouldn’t wear over their faces in public
- “Going anywhere: Australian mystery holidays are back from the 1990s” – A Guardian report on how the travel sector down under is adjusting to the new market conditions
- “The CDC’s Mask Mandate Study: Debunked” – Paul E. Alexander rebuts the recent mask publicity from the CDC for the AIER
- “Chinese Penetration Update” – A classic episode of the Mark Steyn Show
- “My Speakeasy Talk in California: COVID and the Two Americas” – Listen to Tom Woods lay out the roots of the division between Covid rationalists and Covid panickers
- “The UK variant B.1.1.7 is now dominant in Germany” – A tweet from Covid_clarity offers some perspective
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Fifteen today: “Follow Follow” by the Glasgow Rangers, “There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner” by Noel Coward, “You Shouldn’t Do That” by Hawkwind, “Look What They’ve Done” by Visage, “Rockin’ In The Free World” by Neil Young, “Nervous Breakdown” by Black Flag, “The World Lost Its Head” by the Go-Go’s, “We Will Not” by Bad Brains, “Can’t Do Right For Doing Wrong” by Lindisfarne, “Happier Times” by Joe Bonamassa, “No Comply” by Senser, “What about us?” by The Fall, “Oblivion” by Mudhoney, “Big Brother” by Subhumans and “Social Distancing” by Steve Stewart and Don Stewart.
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, we bring you a story from Columbia University in New York which has decided to segregate its virtual graduation ceremonies on the basis of race, sexual and gender identity, and income bracket.
Multicultural Graduation Ceremonies: Graduate Registration
Congratulations to you, the Class of 2021 in Columbia College, Columbia Engineering, General Studies and Barnard College! This registration page is for graduating seniors of our undergraduate schools who would like to participate as graduates in our virtual ceremonies.
Graduates must register by Sunday, March 21st in order to secure their multicultural graduation gift (e.g. stole, tassel, pin or other gift). The final deadline to register in order to be listed on the website and at the ceremonies is Wednesday, March 31st. …
GUESTS: Guests should register here to attend/view our virtual ceremonies.
Virtual Ceremony Schedule
Native Graduation: Sunday, April 25th at 4:00 p.m. EDT
Lavender Graduation (LGBTQIA+ community): Monday, April 26th at 4:00 p.m. EDT
Asian Graduation: Tuesday, April 27th at 10:00 a.m. EDT
FLI Graduation (First-generation and/or low income community): Tuesday, April 27th at 7:00 p.m. EDT
Latinx Graduation: Thursday, April 29th at 6:00 p.m. EDT
Black Graduation: Friday, April 30th at 4:00 p.m. EDT
Stop Press: In the Telegraph, Zoe Strimpel highlights a new report – Academic Freedom in Crisis – which suggests wokeness is becoming deeply entrenched in universities. She points out the irony of objecting to books by Dr. Seuss, but not to actual discrimination on campus suffered by Jews.
Stop Press 2: Worried about the fad for cancelling books? Don’t be. Babylon Bee reports a new study which has found that people who burn books “always stop with just a few obscure, third-tier books with a couple of problematic things, and their book-burning activities never go beyond that”.
Stop Press 3: The Free Speech Union has pulled together an open letter signed by more than 70 academics objecting to the decision to cancel a seminar by Professor Gregory Clark at Glasgow University’s Adam Smith Business School after over 100 Glasgow academics objected to it.
“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: Watch protesting parents and children burn face masks at a rally in Idaho. Yee-haw.
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, although that case, too, has been refused permission to proceed. There’s still one more thing that can be tried. You can read about that and contribute here.
The GoodLawProject and three MPs – Debbie Abrahams, Caroline Lucas and Layla Moran – brought a Judicial Review against Matt Hancock for failing to publish details of lucrative contracts awarded by his department and it was upheld. The Court ruled Hancock had acted unlawfully.
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.
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…
A Lockdown Sceptics reader spotted what looks like a symbol of Communist China on their self-test kit.
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Good morrning!
The updates are getting earlier by the day.
Good to see, contrary to some fears, we still have the BTL comments section.
If it wasn’t for BTL, a lot of us wouldn’t come here.
ATL has become just a regurgitation of numerous MSM articles.
They’re not on salaries to do this… Young etc have been fantastic doing it for a whole year. We should be researching and writing ourselves if we want more original stuff.
Yes indeed.
By contrast, ghastly people like the Head of NHS Providers are on large salaries. His tweets are nauseating.
People with principles tend not to prosper in large organisations. They’re likely to become whistle-blowers or just leave the place.
Unlike Toby or James Delingpole
XR also operate a lot of volunteer activism – as do cancel culture vultures. I don’t see that there has to be any personal praise or blame in addressing the nature of the content ATL. Birds of a feather flock together. So in my view the positioning IN the establishment MUST operate some form of captured opposition because it cannot and will not raise to question anything that seriously threatens its own protected status. I may also add that it is inconceivable to me that any such movement of dissent or critical challenge to a narrative dictate leveraging global economic, social and biological structure would not be closely watched and nudged, including infiltrations or disinformational engagement. My own responsibility is my discernment of truth, not judgement of the personae involved. I’m happy to offer my own perspectives BTL as I feel moved. Very few want, care for or understand ‘original stuff’. They want ammo and reinforcement for their currently active sense of self and world. Asking questions for presumed facts or ‘settled’ science seems original because it is alive rather than groupthink. Asking reasoned questions of the very root premise of these shenanigans is met by aggressive denials and ad-hom put-down.… Read more »
me too. I scrolled down in slight fear the comments section would not be here anymore.
So did I. In a panic
good to see everyone here. I did have a look at the forums last night-something I don’t normally do- interesting stuff there but didn’t recognise any familiar names.
Good morning! Does 7.06 Count?
Swiss vote to ban face coverings in public
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56314173
But apparently masks worn for health reasons excluded.
Ha Ha!! Buttering bread on both sides….. Wearing a mask for religious reasons is prohibited, but for medical reasons they are mandated. The mental gymnastics astonishes me.
Doublethink.The act of holding 2 contradictory thoughts in your head without acknowledging it.
Cognitive dissonance!
Pure racism. Nothing else.
Proven by simply considering this during a time of a mask mandate.
The Swiss have now lost it completely.
Wilhelm Tell Was already rotating in his grave since a year now.
How can you be racist towards a religion?
Not to mention carnival, when the Swiss dress up as Sheiks, Hulks or Apes…..
Health reasons or political control reasons?
that’s a moot point especially if you wear one outside when it’s raining!
Thats different because reasons!
Yeah that’s really odd. So those women who used the wear the niqab would just switch to face masks instead.
I always opposed banning veils as I think people should be free to choose. I oppose masks for the same reason.
I think you mean “I oppose mask mandates for the same reason”.
It is clear from the comments sections in the Swiss press that at least some people voted in favour ‘tactically’ (and maybe symbolically) against mask mandates, and not in favour of any ban on hiqabs. Probably, enough to have swung a fairly close result.
The wording of the people’s initiative (as opposed to a referendum, which are called to oppose an already proposed law) was specifically to ban covering one’s face (Verhulling). As this will now have to be written into the constitution, some are hoping that this will make it more difficult to impose any future long-term mask mandate. Whether they are right or not, remains to be seen. And hopefully, no one wants to impose a long-term mask mandate anyway.
To be clear, I am absolutely against telling people what they should or should not wear, hiqabs or muzzles. Much better to live and let live, but that is not where we seem to be.
No such word as “hiqab”.
The Muslim face veil is “niqab”, while “hijab” strictly speaking refers to the Islamic modest dress code in general, but is often loosely used to refer to a scarf covering the hair and neck but not the face.
Sorry, Thanks for correction.
Yes, indeed.
Some people are butt ugly tho and the mask can be a blessing
Agreed. I don’t like seeing women with their faces covered for religious reasons, but it’s their choice up to a point, though probably truer to say that it’s imposed by the culture to which they belong. Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean that I think it should be banned.
i thought banning masks ,was so excited
On the vaccination/passport: This kind of system will create global divisions between developed and undeveloped countries as roll out of vaccines is very slow in countries which don’t have magic money trees. These countries will also not be able to keep up with the chronic re-vaccination/testing needed to satisfy the Nanny states. I suppose it is one way of building a wall.
Of course you are right that this notion of vaccine passports will create divisions and perhaps it’s a feature rather than a bug. Children, pregnant women, people from developing countries, and of course those of us who for whatever reason will refuse it will all be marginalized.
The vaccine passport is medical apartheid and I will call it that every single time, just as I refer to the experimental gene therapy and refuse to call it a “vaccine.” Words matter, and if it makes people cringe to hear this harsh terminology then I say GOOD. Let’s not tread lightly around people who are advocating for this and let’s ask them point blank whether they are in favour of medical apartheid. They need to own it and I want to hear them say the words.
There was a discussion on here yesterday about the most appropriate terminology to adopt for the so-called ‘vaccine passports’.
For me, the best suggestions were Coronavirus Compliance Permit or simply Compliance Permit
Or The Grovel?
Agree with Lisa, the harsher the better. Medical apartheid papers? Eugenics compliance pass? Pro Forma death certificate?
As for the experimental jab, I always use unlicensed in my description as many people think that it is.
Someone suggested something like Apartheid Pass yesterday.
Think that was me, Apratheid Pass/Permit/Papers. No point sugar coating it. 🙂
I did not copy my original post from yesterday onto here. Was looking for a term that could be generally adopted by LS and others – with appropriate negative connotations but deliberately not so provocative that it only asks to be criticised
If I have to carry a vaccine passport I will wear a badge stating something like “HIV status is private”.
Good point. They expect mass migration due to climate change, so maybe this is a way of setting up infrastructure to control it.
Would a desire to end international tourism (and thus the CO2 emissions associated with mass air travel) be a likely unspoken motivation for the zero covid gang?
I don’t think many people realise yet that they’ve already had their last international holiday. The airlines have probably got the message though – they’ve gone ominously quiet haven’t they?
Many people have long wanted a return to the bad old days when international travel was only for the mega rich, politicians, royals and celebs. The green issue was a smokescreen.
It’s also to put us plebs back in our place.
But only for the common plebs. The elites will continue to fly their private planes to Morocco for coffee and to vail for skiing and Fiji for sunbathing
I bet a lot of plebs in such an environment would dream of shooting down one of those private planes!
Hopefully it means that those of us who don’t want the vaccine can go on holiday to those countries that don’t have the vaccine?
Any country that relies on tourism is going to have to think of a way of attracting visitors back!
I think the problem will be getting on a plane – not the destination
Maybe the countries that have national airlines will be okay if their governments tell them to allow unvaccinated travellers?
Step One- Understand who the “They” is. Step Two- Understand their motives. There is not now nor has there ever been an epidemiological or viral emergency event of any sort anywhere in the world in the year 2020. The manufactured perception that there was such an event is an artifact of mass media manipulation, behavioral conditioning techniques and social engineering. All of this made possible through institutional programming and accelerated media messaging disallowing basic cognitive processes and eliminating critical thinking possibilities. What we are in the midst of is a planned total economic collapse. This economic collapse was inevitable, Western governments are putting the security infrastructure into place, trying to proactively control the inevitable social disorder which will result from this collapse. To be followed by a global financial reset, after a period of hyperinflation, which destroys both the value of debt and the corresponding paper claims. The collapse started in 2008 and attempts to salvage this corrupt economic system only delayed the inevitable. In the Fall of 2019 the crisis began to rapidly unravel again. There was a dramatic decrease in industrial production which showed up in the banking crisis of August of 2019- the so-called Repo crisis when… Read more »
People must understand that around 97% of all money is created out of thin air. This is unsustainable, especially given the eye-watering amounts governments are continually spending. I agree, collapse is inevitable. Even the BBC now admit this.
https://mobile.twitter.com/FestiveJester/status/1368139281470984192
All money has always been created out of thin air. Gold is only of value because you believe it’s of value, in the same way a £ is only worth value if you believe it has a value. It’s not money that loses intrinsic value it’s belief by people like us in that value.
Surely there is more to it than that. Real wealth consists of items and technologies which deliver better standards of living. This wealth can be represented by tokens, ie money, but the money is always just a token of wealth. This is simplistic, but it is an attempt to develop the discussion.
The site can’t afford subs. It still does better than the Guardian on literals.
Money or currency is several related things. I used to make that point in the debate about the euro. It’s a medium of exchange (more convenient and flexible than barter, such as “I’ll fix your plumbing and you can give me some vegetables from your garden”), a store of value (because it gives me options to exchange it for whatever I may want in the future), and at the state level it’s an instrument of economic policy (aiming to achieve desired outcomes by adjusting the supply of money). When I was about 10 years old I discussed with a pal “Why doesn’t the government just print lots of pound notes, then we’d all be rich?” The example of Weimar Germany and others shows the flaw in that argument.
Just wanted to complement this all-time great comment.
You mean ‘compliment the writer’.
Copy paste from a recent offguardian article….
Same person. Maxwell is my user name at OG.
Stay focused.
Outstanding.
Brilliant explanation! Thank you!!
So how did ‘they’ get the Chinese to kick it all off?
Because China too recognizes the inevitability of it all, which is why the have stacked gold since 1983.
China + Russia have been buying gold like mad since 2008
The Chinese did not kick it all off. That is a fiction of certain factions of the Western controlled media. Look again at the timeline of how this began dating back to Fall 2019. This isn’t to say that China did not have a role but it is nominal. Understand that a US $ crash would weaken both US foreign policy and Chinese finances. US and China’s interests are currently entirely aligned. If Europeans were more clever they would not have adopted lockdowns. The EU is run by sold out bureaucrats who are unable to think let alone save the EU if that’s their intent- which it isn’t. China owns more, some say much more than 1 TRILLION $$ in US Treasury Bonds. China also wants to save the $. That’s why China has worked in lockstep with Wall Street to help facilitate a pandemic response to distract from the debt crisis of $ and allow massive amounts of further $ QE. Every Western War, every pandemic response, in the West, is about one thing only: saving the $. The emperor has no clothes but they don’t want us to see this as we would rise up against them. So,… Read more »
If you are correct, is there any way to protect my savings/pension? What would you recommend? or should I just go on a mad spending spree like a lottery winner?
Diversify your assets, Have Property, Land, gold/silver. Art, but don’t do it on credit.
Tangible things. Land and soil, small livestock if you can.
Stay away from bitcoin, art, gold/silver and any investments.
investments? So ISA investments are not safe?
Months? So how are we supposed to survive it?
I have enough food for a month.
Brilliant and the clearest explanation of the nonsense going on. I never thought that ‘covid’ was anything more than seasonal flu but what about the vaccines roll-out and the billions spent on them? Are they just saline solution or is this an opportunistic attempt to trial real mRNA jabs on an unsuspecting public? If the latter is the case, they will never let this come out because of the massive civil unrest that would ensue so it has to be repackaged as a totalitarian takeover. And talking of the billionaires hoovering up the world’s assets, would their combined wealth save the banking system? What can we do – are we inevitably going to lose our homes / property or will we be ‘allowed’ to live in them till we die?
That’s seemingly where the UBI comes in – you will be bailed out, but in return you will give up all you own.
But ‘give up’ in what sense? There are enough homes in this country for everyone to continue living where they live and all homeless people to be housed in the unoccupied homes kept empty by the uber rich so presumably the easiest thing would be to let people go on living where they already are? I just want to understand the ‘banality of evil’ as in what the world for us serfs will actually look like. This crap about ‘You will own nothing- you’ll hire stuff’ doesn’t make sense if you already own stuff and don’t need anything but food.
If you’re wiped out financially, whether you own your home or not, if your pension or income or whatever disappears, then what do you live on? UBI. Paid in credits presumably. But in return you forfeit your ownership rights to whereever you live. You may still be allowed to live in it, but no longer own it…..
Visions of us all trying to figure out when we were literally at deaths door – in order to send our houses up in flames JUST JUST before we no longer needed them to live in ourselves – “Steal that off me you wotnames if you can – and get a heap of charred ashes”.
These are real mRNA jabs for the most part. Hence the enormous damages being done.
None of these machinations are a fait accompli.
The banking system is not salvageable- it literally rests on a bed of air.
I wish I understood all this…
I wonder if my recent experience is anything to go by whether there is going to be an almighty mess when it comes to second ‘jabs’.
I received an invitation on 20 Feb to arrange an appointment for the jab. Yesterday the NHS website was offering appointments 3 weeks hence 52 miles from my home. The second jab was available at the same site or nearer sometime in June. I must have accepted these but it allowed me to make the booking without inputting any contact details. I neglected to note the booking reference. I am unable to cancel or change these appointments without the reference. 119 must have access to exactly the same website as they can do nothing without the reference. Their suggestion was to allow the booking to pass and to rebook.
Anecdotally my wife’s colleagues have been to the same centre on different dates and received both Pfizer and AZ. How will they ever co-ordinate the 2nd jab to be the same brand when the availability changes on a daily basis. This will get even worse when Moderna is available. Another example of it all not being how it seems in Hancock’s world.
But what about all the variants?
I mean, we can’t expect the bog standard vax to cover all the freaky, exotic variants from SA, Brazil, and Kent, can we?
I have several old uni pals, recently retired dentists ,doing unpaid voluntary vax at different centres around the country. They all report lots of no-shows and tipping leftover vials away each day. There is little effort to recruit walk-ins. Yet my friends in Greece tell me there, police are offered the unused doses each day.
The NHS has ever been a wasteful unjoined up juggernaut. If there was a sticker on each box of vax with the cost to the NHS on it , perhaps the admins might make more effort to not waste resources.
Great idea lets get the police having adverse reactions….would anyone sympathise….I wouldn’t!
Just hope these ‘tipping leftover vials’ do not get into the water supply
Yes really…what might this do? Nobody has any idea at all do they?
What about human sewage? With people emitting new genetic materiel, how will this interact with the environment.
Nobody knows do they?
Fingers crossed the new genetic material, never been seen before on the planet will do nothing.
Touch wood.
In Worcester the CEO of the County Council was given a shot which otherwise would have been thrown out and there was a lot of tut tutting about it (the centre is at County Hall).
Teachers and their unions the world over just love, love, love their permanent paid vacations!
I am waiting for the next communication from my union. If they do not support a return to school 100% then I will resign my membership.
Better get the letter drafted!
It will be brief.
Now which flavour of stuffing would you be recommending in that letter? Pure sage and onion to use for stuffing things is a tad boring LOL….
Basileus what do most of your pupils think of all this?
One or two seem prepared to acknowledge the scam, but most don’t. My view is that it all depends on what their parents say or think.
Resign and join the Workers of England Union https://www.workersofengland.co.uk – they are an affiliate of the Free Speech Union.
Thank you.
Affinity are pretty good too
Completely independent from the toxic TUC
https://workaffinity.co.uk/
Perhaps I’m tired as it’s late here, but does Guy de la Bedoyere not claim his position on vaccine passports has been mischaracterized and then go on to argue that they may be the only way to end government overreach? And how is it he has no opinion and is neither for nor against? This is not an issue about which one can be wishy washy — maybe the Nuremberg Code only applies sometimes? He seems more offended by being challenged by an “anonymous academic” than by the notion of forced medical experimentation.
I found it very patronizing coming from someone who has chosen to become a human guinea pig (which is his right) to tell the rest of us to calm down and not get our knickers in a knot until vaccine passports become a reality. They’re right around the corner FFS.
The man still thinks we have democratically elected governance. To say he’s deluded, would be a kindness, that’s if he’s not being downright disingenuous.
Hitchens has the same delusion.Hes still waiting for a public enquiry.Maybe they have put something in the vaccine that destroys critical thinking.
No sane, rational, person, would ever allow themselves to be injected, with an under-tested, experimental biological agent, which is authorised for emergency use, for those at severe risk (though the only risk I see, is the forthcoming world-wide bio-security corporo-fascist prison), and all for the small possibility, you somehow, might be allowed to again enjoy those things, which up until now, would have been inalienable rights.
Got it in a nutshell…my position exactly. Yet I hear this reason trotted out all the time by those who have had the ‘vaccine’. Two clients of mine last week had it and both had very bad reactions for several days…terrible headaches ,confined to bed, relentless shivering etc. Yet they both say they are glad they had it as they now wont have to spend 6 months with covid. They are both in their 50s and healthy and had no problems before having the jab.
Whether immediate, or over time, the genocide will become apparent, even to the poor wretches who swallowed the kool-aid.
And goodness knows what medical conditions they will develop in the future, months – but more probably several years down the line – that they would never have done without the experimental gene therapy. Highest risk appears to be an autoimmune condition.
Yes they seem very short term in their thinking. By the way they are both shropshire residents as am I! Where in shropshire are you? I am in ironbridge.
An experimental biological still in trial. Minimal safety and efficacy data. VAERS cdc adverse event records are looking more and more disturbing. May want to take a look.
We shouldn’t blame those bullied and deliberately misinformed by Government and NHS, separated from other people, frightened out of their wits, by psy ops led by a wealthy Communist though. The fault lies entirely with those they trust.
I used to say that, when I was laying on the floor, with my face busted, blood dripping, whilst my ex stuck the boot in. But I fixed up for my kids, because the harm being done to them was more important than the pathetic excuses I made for him!
Its very sad what has happened to Hitchens…I thought he looked very defeatist on the last Mike Graham interview. Maybe his ill fated ‘writing to MP’s’ strategy has permanently damaged him. I think much of the problem is that his understanding of the tyranny was so shallow to begin with (much as I admire his principled early opposition) and was limited to ‘good people making terrible mistakes’. When I heard him saying things like that a couple of months ago on a spiked podcast interview I knew he had lost it and began to see him as part of the problem rather than the solution. Sure enough soon after he capitulates.
His absurd, illogical stance on proper drug legislation, decriminalisation, and trying to connect cannabis use, to violent crime, and mental illness, and denying any possible medical benefit, whilst decrying any measures which would resolve it, put me off him years ago.
Yep. He took part in a debate here a decade or two ago, along with Norman Baker and a couple of others. As I recall, a close relative or friend had had a bad time with cannabis, and his response was a blanket condemnation.
Yeah, public enquiry on how quickly these scumbags can get their Knighthoods for the exemptional services to the country. There will never be a reckoning for this . There was never any proper one for the wars in Iraq and the clusterfuck in Afghanistan. BTW , off topic but has anybody saw the BBC documentary Afghanistan: Lions Last Roar? about the disaster that was that campaign. I was send a DVD by an old friend of mine because in one scene he said he clearly hears my voice swearing while in a gunfight. I checked the scene …and yes, that is me , you can see me briefly looking at the camera while reloading my gun. Funny, I completely forgot that there was a camera there at the moment. My wife said I look very skinny and tired..Funny how you brains erases certain memories.
Was thinking exactly the same Lisa when reading it! Also love your comment above. Vaccine apartheid is what it is, and I will be joining you in calling it out as such if they come in. My body, my choice! Would rather catch Covid and trust my own immune system. May already have the necessary antibodies and t-cells to recover naturally. Happy to stay at home if ill and not use NHS services at all. Will even sign something to that effect if needed.
I caught it in December 2019 whilst working with some researchers who had just arrived from China. Thought at the time -ooh this is a weird virus, never had anything like this before. Symptoms were as described (dry cough in throat, mild fever, headache, loss of taste and smell) but much milder than many common colds I have experienced in the past – apart from half a day spent sitting down reading I carried on working through it – as did the other researchers!
It made my child extremely ragingly sick for 2 miserable days, with the sort of classic symptoms that would have a modern day patent rushing out from some antibiotics. The rest of us got the sniffles, and then I got long covid before 2019 was even over. (Didn’t know what any of it was at that time).
Dragged on for months (breathlessness, tachycardia, pleurisy type pains, night sweats, hair loss on a massive scale), and I gained so much weight as it made me very insulin resistant. BUT I swear I have emerged healthier from it. And now I have a handy early warning system when new strains are circulating. I get a couple of night sweats, a pain in my ribs, spot of breathlessness and some deep tiredness, and I know I’ll be hearing about a new strain soon. And we do!!!
The cure? Lysine and Quercetin and it fixed within 48 hours. This is in no way comparable to glandular fever or childbirth for devastation.
Very interesting that you too are reporting a reaction to subsequent Covid infections that can be felt, but are fought off. Me too, and a friend who had it in December. I had it in March, then a few months later I had malaise – typical”Oh, I’m going down with something” feelings, then overwhelming tiredness, so that I had to go to bed in day time – I never do that. Slept for 18 hours then fine. I now know that mounting an antibody response is very tiring, taxing for the body, and obviously that would increase with age. But good to know the body is updating its immune defences. Keep hugging.
How do you know that you caught ‘it’ ?
Perhaps you looking at this in hindsight through ‘covid glasses’
Those symptoms are not particularly unique.
Its about like saying you ‘feel neutral’ about FGM.
This is one of the key problems of a site run by a public schoolboy – he sees another one with a fancy name – maybe family came over with the Normans – and publishes him regularly even though he never says anything. Guy Fawkes would be better, at least it sounds like he pays his round!
To be honest I’ve not read any of his articles since the first one. I think he talks rubbish.
No virus has ever been isolated or purified.
Vaccines are biological agents, not medicinal.
Please don’t get the death-jabs.
https://thefreedomarticles.com/no-virus-isolation-sars-variants-rest-on-big-assumption/
This confirms all of my research too. Dr Vernon Coleman’s latest video heads as “how many who have the Covid 19 jab will still be alive at Christmas”. This may sound extreme and I really hope it doesn’t happen but I do have a foreboding about next Autumn and Winter.
I’ve known it for two decades, and only came across “the old man in a chair” because of this shitshow. And he’s confirmed, along with thousands of other honest doctors and scientists, everything I suspected and could evidence. There are many parents or partners, convicted for murdering their babies, when the truth is, it’s the death-jabs that murdered the poor babies. But no-one even dares to even suggest that the cause of SIDS or SBS, could possibly be related to the death-jabs. I’ve prayed for decades for the truth to come out. Maybe now it will!
As an aside, Dr Coleman used to have a column in one of the Sundays (News of the World or People) on medical and other matters in the 1970s. He was very strong on animal rights as I recall and eventually left the paper due to his “controversial” views. As a child reading his column it was also disturbingly raunchy! He’s been around a long time and his integrity is unquestionable.
I came across Vernon Coleman after having caught the virus in December 2019 (working with some Chinese researchers who had just arrived in the UK) and even though I was recovering from cancer treatment, the symptoms were milder than most colds I have caught. When 3 months later in March 2020 there was this extraordinary reaction to the virus around the world I thought “what the hell is going on? This is all completely irrational and medical nonsense”. A friend shared one of VC’s videos and I thought – ahh this all makes sense now. (My family are in 2 different medical professions so I was already sceptical of the official narrative).
I get the feeling we’ll be seeing a repeat of the Swine Flu vaccine fiasco which resulted into some people developing nasty side effects and the vaccine being withdrawn.
I just found a petition about pledging to get a covid vaccine in my email. Safe. Effective. Live-saving. These words all describe the COVID-19 vaccine, now available in a variety of different forms and slowly being offered to people in the U.S. and throughout the world. It’s not an overstatement to say this vaccine will change the entire fate of the world, by saving hundreds of thousands of human lives — if not millions. Despite this irrefutable fact, some people are refusing to get the vaccine. In doing so, they’re endangering their entire communities by continuing to let the deadly coronavirus run rampant and claim lives. Not 1 single person has died as a result of taking these vaccines. Meanwhile, more than 515,203 people in the United States and 2,538,681 worldwide have perished from this contagious disease as of Tuesday, March 2, 202 I think saying Not 1 single person has died as a result of taking these vaccines is being economical with the truth not to mention it is not proven to prevent transmission and if it works what others do shouldn’t matter. And why should you pledge to undergo any medical procedure? Either you want/need it or you don’t. I am awaiting more study… Read more »
And a baseless prediction about ‘saving lives’ is described as an ‘irrefutable fact’. Big Brother and his Newspeak designers must be purring with satisfaction.
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel snakeoil.
Ah yes! What they actually died from is this new malady: ‘temporal association’ disorder. Fear not, they are working on a vaccine for that too.
Fact-free enticement.
So Barr thinks the proffered NHS pay rise is ‘paltry’.
Tell that to the millions who have NOTHING since the Fascist pigs destroyed their jobs or businesses.
No surprise that the media are “forgetting to tell the whole story but would have expected better here.
The headline figures are just wrong. NHS staff pay will not be going up by just 1% because the national figure is on top of staff’s progress within their pay band.
The three-year pay deal struck in 2018 gave over 1 million staff a pay rise of at least 6.5%, and some as much as 29%. A nurse with a year’s experience would have seen their pay go up 21% over three years.
That’s true to some extent. The people who benefited from the 2018 deal were those in the lower bands on agenda for change, particularly those at the top of their band.
For a band 5 registered nurse at the top of their band can find that nurses with less experience are getting paid the same. The only way for the top of band issue to be solved is if the person is moved into band 6. However, there is an issue within some hospitals and that is favouritism/nepotism/face fits; it doesn’t matter how good you are at your job if your face don’t fit you aren’t going anywhere.
To say they have had nothing is still not conveying the true nature of it. Vast numbers of people have had a NEGATIVE pay rise as their incomes collapsed. They also do not receive generous sick pay, annual leave and gold plated pension provision.
The problem is that NHS staff are starting to believe all the religious adulation about them. If you keep telling people they are heroes they start to believe it and demand commensurate remuneration.
I would support a decent pay rise for those at the lower end of the NHS pay scale and a fair one for the rest around what they have been offered. Its tempting to say what they love to often say to others…… ‘don’t you know there is a pandemic on’!
I wish people would stop misrepresenting what the last few years pay changes have meant for the NHS ( all NHS workers by the way, not just nurses). Not doctors though. The same scrutiny should be applied as we apply to everything Boris says. The new pay system, if anyone bothers to check, has actually removed the annual pay progression which meant each payscale was divided into 4 or 5 incremental steps. Now, staff stay on level pay for about 5 years, then, depending on how well they please the management, there is one increment they might get, to a level which they stay on till they die or get promoted to another job. No nurse got anywhere near 29%, this was a headline figure caused by the removal of Band 1 because it was under the minimum wage. Most people averaged 6% over the entire 5 year period, not 6% per year. I’m very disappointed at the lack of research from the LS community on this. We need to be robust and accurate and not just follow the general anti-NHS feeling when the facts don’t back it up.
here’s a self-funding solution to the deserving NHS heroes’ pay demand – cut teachers’ pay and give the dancing heroes a bung! There are around 1.1 million ‘front line’ NHS, average wage £27,000. So wage bill almost £30 billion. 10% – generous? – of that is say £3 billion. Now, there are 550,000 teachers in the UK, who, on average earn £31,000 and on average have been sitting on their ar$es for over a year. Their wage bill is around £17 billion.Finding the 10% NHS frontline ransom out of teachers’ pockets would require an 18% teachers’ wage cut. Maybe the teachers might remove their masks so we might judge their reaction to this fair proposal?
In contrast to the politicians and civil servants, above all.
Pity the NHS’s victims in Liverpool ( and elsewhere). As reported ATL:
as of the end of February there were 199 patients waiting more than 104 days, including 154 without a decision on treatment.
Imagine the miserable suspense of waiting for more than three months to discover whether or not the Hell Or Covid Service will bother to do anything about your potentially fatal cancer, which meanwhile is making free of your body.
More psychological torment to endure, poor souls.
My friend is terminal after a 5 month wait for urgent surgery. All due to this fiasco. She cannot even visit friends and family whilst still well enough to do so. This is genocide of the old, sick and vulnerable.
The neanderthals are living it up, while the rest look on in envy.
http://www.yourdestinationnow.com/2021/03/mississippians-go-wild-on-first-weekend.html?m=1
I was really annoyed by Biden’s comment. Recent research shows Neanderthals to have been bigger, stronger and healthier than modern humans and with similar cultural achievements. They interbred with modern humans and if you are a genetic European you will certainly have some of their genes.
Totally agree.
Though, remembering some whiskery elderly relatives in my early youth, I am reminded of Auden’s clerihew:
When Immanuel Kant
Was told to kiss his aunt
He obeyed the Categorical Must,
But only just.
Didn’t we all have at least one old relative like that? Put me off hugging for a very long time. Now I hug whom I want and when I want — I don’t ask permission. OK, maybe I ask permission of the person I’m hugging, but certainly not of the government.
On 19 March 2020, I wrote the following: “Call me when you are around. I’ll run you through my numbers. I thought I was going mad but it’s good to see there’s someone else out there who can add up. Did you write this or do you know who did ? Estimate of no of people in uk under 60 who would die if nothing were ever done: 4500” Further points to be discussed on the call were that the overall death toll from COVID would be no more than 0.2% of the population (at an extremely pessimistic view), around 135,000 people, but more likely to be half that. This was based on an evening’s analysis of the information available at the time, and was self-evident to anyone reasonably numerate who bothered to look at it. Since then, according to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, there were 54,600 excess deaths in England and Wales over the period from the start of the pandemic (taken as 14 March) to 1 January 2021, just under 0.1% of the population. Of those, around 5,000 were under 60. So the death toll was predictable from the beginning, and actually predicted. I have heard… Read more »
None of this is by accident, I’m afraid. You must begin to realise, there is a horrific hidden agenda.
Not incompetence unfortunately – all planned for several years.
Probably decades.
So true
Unfortunately Guy when you took the jab you moved passports ever closer. The system will only work if 80% of the adult population complies, therefore your surrender moves us ever closer to their introduction. The ‘nudge’ worked.
I agree. Of course it’s a personal choice and not for me to judge anyone but many are taking these jabs already and primarily for travel. In case anyone hasn’t noticed you can’t go anywhere right now and the goalposts will keep changing when the timing is convenient. So why not hold back a bit longer if you feel pressurised on this aspect and I realise it may be due to family overseas or work. Holding back increases the chances of this not happening, it can’t work if not enough people won’t be injected. And it won’t stop at one injection. It will be continuous and unless you are upto date you still won’t be able to travel. What will the continuous injection of harmful toxic rubbish do to even a healthy person’s immune system?
I agree. No business is going to turn away a majority of customers, so if the majority are not vaccinated, then things like foreign travel, cafes and cinemas will welcome back the business.That is the collective power that people like Peter Hitchens are undermining by accepting defeat so early.
Agree with you both,Suzyv and Danny Also a few companies already saying publicly they won’t go along with it and this may help those looking for jobs – which could become a lot more important to people once govt/state-sponsored furlough eventually comes to an end.
Don’t forget 77th are here as well with their “Oh well I had to get the jab – it’s the only way forward ” flim flam
See it on 4chan every day
This is exactly what I am doing. I won’t have these newer types of vaccines as I honestly feel they will be dangerous in the longer term. I do however need to fly regularly abroad for family reasons + I have a small home abroad I need to go to. But I’m waiting. The Novavax may change my mind – it’s a traditional type of vaccine I believe but not available yet? – or a nasal spray. However I don’t need any of them for health reasons. And I certainly don’t want vaccine passports. So I’m waiting to see what happens. Meanwhile my own immune system is just fine, helped by vitamin D, C, zinc and iodine.
Yes. I would think vaccine passports would be successfully challenged in court. Those who have had Covid provably have higher immunity, for example, and being forced to take experimental vaccines whose long term effects are unkown must be in breach of human rights legislation.
Agreed. Nudging is something we can resist when we recognise it and have the will.
But we all have a line somewhere and could be broken. That is what scares me – I wouldn’t put anything past this regime. How would I react if my children and grandchildren were targeted to force me into acquiescence? A mad idea? It’s not without precedent. I know I would have to acquiesce in order to give them a chance.
So,PHE says that we’ve had a year with virtually no other respiratory illnesses?
Really?
How much do we taxpayers pay these people?
Prepare for a new lockdown later this year?
Carry on “saving” the cult, sorry, I mean the NHS.
They are unable to say that as flu has been conflated with SARS-CoV-2. CoViD19 symptoms now include those for pretty much all upper respiratory tract infections. There’s no satisfactory differential diagnoses, if the symptom pattern matches CoViD19 then that is the diagnosis of choice, no alternatives are considered. Because people get tested because they have this “diagnosis” and the (somewhat discredited) RT-PCR is still considered the gold standard, the original diagnosis will be confirmed.
Have other respiratory infections disappeared? Almost certainly not.
Incredible isn’t it? All of those NPIs: masks, hand santising, social distancing etc etc, got rid of all the respiratory illnesses (allegedly), except Covid. Colour me amazed.
The wonderful NHS that is the envy of the world? So much so that no other country in the world has copied it for their own use.
Brazil did. Our SUS is based on the NHS, which might explain why most people here have private health insurance. We went into to lock-down to ease the pressure on SUS, which I know from personal experience was buggered long before Covid arrived.
“The evidence of the efficacy of the death-jabs, just keeps piling up. The latest data, which runs up to February 19 and was published on February 22, reveals a plethora of debilitating side-effects, but this has not alarmed officials at the MHRA who maintain that “no other new safety concerns have been identified from reports received to date.” They conclude from this that the “overall safety experience with both vaccines is so far as expected from the clinical trials.” The regulator doubled down on supporting the jabs, stating that the “expected benefits of the vaccines in preventing COVID-19 and serious complications associated with COVID-19 far outweigh any currently known side effects,” including deafness, blindness, and death. The MHRA justified this position by citing the passively analytical nature of recordings on the Yellow Card scheme: It is a self-reporting system. This means that none of the serious injuries, or even the deaths, are confirmed by a licensed doctor, giving the MHRA some leeway to declare that “the available evidence does not currently suggest that the vaccine caused the event.” Rather, the MHRA favors use of the term “temporally-related” to describe the succession of adverse events from injection with the vaccine, which… Read more »
It does make you wonder when some country, media outlet or high profile person is going to pick up on this and start raising it publicly? Ordinary people are posting about this on Twitter and in comments sections but they are sidelined.
Who will rid us of these noxious potions?
It seems to me that vaccine adverse reactions are getting a pretty good hearing on Twitter.
Why not on MSM? We have to be subjected to every minute detail of Harry and Megan’s situation, but when it comes to reporting adverse events of an experimental biological, not a word.
‘Bread and circuses’.
I took a you gov quick poll yesterday, there was a question, how interested are you in Megharry? 18% were not interested, 49% of them not at all.
Sadly on the bedwetters’ boards, they are loving their reactions because “it shows it’s working”! Trying to outdo each other with their symptoms. “I was in bed for a week!” “I had the worst migraine ever, for five days!” They are insane.
I get this too, oh it must be working. Anyone know a good way to counter that ‘argument’?
Yes, your body is attacking itself. Wooohooo! Chances are you’re sicker from the experimental gene therapy that you would have been from Covid. But mRNA is the gift that keeps on giving — once it’s turned on, it can’t be turned off.
Absolutely Lisa. Seems to me just as good a reason for feeling so bad is that your body is rejecting the ‘vaccine’. I have a friend who had the jab on Friday, the AZ one. I thought it was a bad idea and said so as she has early stage MS and is also bi-polar so on lots of meds but she was ‘advised’ it would be better to have the jab as she could be very ill if she got covid. She has felt dreadful since Saturday, stayed in bed a lot of the time, couldn’t go to work so lost her pay for that day (being self-employed). She managed a walk yesterday with the dogs but she’s feeling bad again today, said she just fell over this morning, feeling sick etc. She is really shocked at the reaction she’s had, definitely not wanting to have a second one. i really worry about what might happen if she is exposed to it again in the autumn. Another friend who has ME was in bed for 2 days after having the jab. I think both ME and MS are immune system problems so seems quite crazy that they should both… Read more »
“It must be working” is an admission, subconscious or otherwise, that they acknowledge the jab to be experimental and untested.
Please read CDC’s VAERS. We should be worried about experimental biological adverse events including over 1,000 deaths in USA post COVID “vaccine”. It is public record.
Teaching unions prepare for the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The pupils going over the top, with insufficient mask protection.
It’ll all be over by Christmas
🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😥😢😭😭😭😭
So unless enough children (and teachers) wear muzzles for 6 hours a day, ignoring the risks to mental health, restrictions on airways, recycling their own air, bacterial infections, possible gum disease, glasses steaming up to obscure vision, cross contamination of dirty fabric, etc etc etc, it will be deemed a health and safety risk and the schools will risk their insurance?
More through the looking glass. Clown planet.
Brilliantly put.
What would the Church be, if it had true Christian representation of the Christian faith, such as this pastor.
Instead we have the demonically-possessed, allowing the blasphemy of genetic-modification therapy, cultured using aborted foetal cells, to be injected into the wretched masses, whilst, in the very same buildings designed for spiritual counselling, healing and fellowship has been forbidden.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-judge-dismisses-bail-appeal-keeps-canadian-pastor-behind-bars?utm_source=featured&utm_campaign=standard
He’s in good company behind those bars.
Starting with St Paul.
The faithful need to turn up outside the prison, to hear his sermon and receive his blessings. They can’t stop him from speaking! I’d be shouting my sermon through any gap available. I caused a right ruckus in my time, literally and metaphorically, when I was unjustly imprisoned.
Thinking about this vaccine business and passports etc. I do feel that some of the pundits and commentators, as with the one in the newsletter above, are approaching this subject on an entirely ethical, philosophical and political stance and are guilty of ignoring the science. In my view, you do not have to be a genius scientist to conclude that these M-RNA potions are very different and new and move the whole vaccine debate into an entirely different area. If the first vaccines to come out and the ones they were now pushing were the more traditional types, Sinovac and Sinopharm which we are told may come out as nasal sprays, then I feel the whole debate would have been different. I would probably have said that I do not think I need it but just to keep the peace I would have probably had a spray, collected my ticket, like with a Yellow Fever pass and thought no more about it. But the difference with these M-RNA potions is so enormous so new and so unknown that it puts the issue into a different area of debate. And the fact that they are so keen to push these, even… Read more »
Well said.
Sinovac and Sinopharm are inactivated vaccines, not nasal sprays . Codagenix is the nasal spray. The first two are not likely to be available in the UK and the latter is not likely to come out until 2022.
IF it works, Covi-vac from Codagenix has the virtue of just being a speeded up version of the tried and tested way of vaccination. Being an inhaler, tested on animals and mass produced with Serum of India gives me some confidence it isn’t a ‘Gates-inspired’ monster. Although the BMGF is an indirect investor through Adjuvant Capital, and US Dept of Defense is a direct investor in Codagenix. Its almost impossible to find any bio company that hasn’t got these two as investors now.
The target date for trials/testing , including primates for ’emergency use, is only 48 days according to their site; having 2022 as a date is indicative of a problem or two.
Being resident of France, I am delighted at the snails pace of vaccination and the clear advice that you have to be WILLING to have it. I note that Sanofi are going to produce the Janssen product in France, and have attached the latest FDA note for this product. It can’t be more specific that it is NOT approved or licensed in common with all the others, ‘buyer beware’!
https://www.janssencovid19vaccine.com/
Forgot to mention -there is also https://inews.co.uk/news/health/valneva-vaccine-what-covid-vaccination-made-scotland-manufactured-uk-doses-852769
Codagenix sounds suspiciously DNA-altering!
Conformity v. Morality
How anyone can claim to be a lockdown sceptic and at the same time say they have an open mind on vaccine passports is beyond me
He says that freedom is not absolute, which is true in so far as things like murder are illegal and most people agree with that
If you argue vaccine passports are justified then IMO exactly the same arguments can be applied to lockdowns
I can just about see some extreme circumstances in which lockdowns and vaccine passports may be justifiable, but they are unlikely to happen in practice but more importantly we have now clearly seen that virtually no government on the planet can be trusted with this power – it has been grossly abused – which is in my view enough to rule out vaccine passports and lockdowns in all cases
I think many people like me have had a Yellow Fever jab and hold an international Vaccine card which you need to enter certain African countries. However, in my view it is very short sighted and naive to think that this Covid passport is just a simple extension to the Yellow fever card.
Have not come across this before. Somewhat concerning. Interview with Geert Vanden Bossche, who apparently knows his onions about vaccines.
He is saying that we should not be using prophylactic vaccines during a pandemic and that they will provoke
a very strong antibody response that overrides our existing response when we encounter a Coronavirus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJZxiNxYLpc
The possibility of a vaccine causing the a ‘cytokine storm’ at some stage in the future when the body meets a new wild coronavirus is a possibility. This is one reason why such vaccines normally have long term trials. I touched on the issue in my own blog some weeks ago
http://lizburton.co.uk/wordpress/health/covid-19-vaccine-the-biggest-public-health-disaster-ever/
Geert mentions ADE (antibody dependant enhancement) in the section around 26 mins 33 secs.
He seems to me (a non-expert) to be implying that there is no evidence of ADE so far in that the antibodies in the experimental vaccines are so far neutralising for subsequent SARS-C0V-2 infection. Given that the people in the vaccine trials who subsequently encountered the virus didn’t obviously show ADE affects, that seems reasonable. But he accepts that there is a risk of ADE in the future in that neutralising antibodies become no longer neutralising.
He then talks about something different which is the population issue of allowing immune escape. And at that point those who have vaccine mediated antibodies will have a damaged balance between their innate and adapative immune systems and will be susceptible to encountering the mutated virus.
So this population level issue is detrimental to the unvaccinated also, but at least the balance of their innate and adaptive immune system hasn’t been messed up by the vaccines.
Have i misunderstood him?
That’s how I understood it, too.
Thanks for posting that. Very interesting.
The bit starting around 11 minutes 50 seconds is an explanation of what has been happening with the experimental vaccinations, for example care home outbreaks just after vaccination.
I like how he differentiates between population level and individual level affects.
Very worrying. Has anyone been able to check his credentials? Real Joe Smalley retweeted him, so I hope he had time to check. If he is what he is said to be, and what he says is true about the vaccines over riding natural immune responses that is catastrophic news.
And news which would be too too late for many.
His credentials are solid – here’s his LinkedIn:
https://be.linkedin.com/in/geertvandenbossche
yes!
Pathogenic Priming — Another Significant Risk
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/26/covid-vaccine-side-effects.aspx
Journal of Translational Autoimmunity 2020; 3: 1000051
I was looking to see if anyone would post this. I’ve sent it to the editors as I feel that it should be shouted from the rooftops, and I’ve also sent it to my MP. It should either stop the madness now, or prove once and for all that this is NOT about the virus.
Experts and medical researchers like Sherri Tenpenny, Dolores Cahill, Zach Bush and many others have for over six months been warning of the dangers to vaccinated people encountering any wild coronavirus (including the common cold) in months to come. Here’s another article covering this point in depth.
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/coronapocalypse-big-pharmas-doomsday-vaccine-666/
Of course these experts have been censored and discredited as ‘conspiracy theorists’ and ‘anti-vaxxers’ so I doubt any other experts will be received any differently.
Let me get this correct the teachers don’t want to go to work in front of a few children (who to all intents and purposes do not catch or transmit Covid19) but are quite happy for supermarket workers to work all day face to face with thousands of adults to keep them supplied with hummus, chickpeas and Chardonnay.
Lockdown for me but not for thee
It’s an astonishing blind spot that lockdown supporters have
yes. its very selfish – ‘lock down everything except the people that directly serve me at home’
Please don’t tar all teachers with the same brush. I know a good few, plus neighbours are teachers & currently both sons are working in schools, most teachers are happy to be back today. It’s the noisy few who you are referring to, not the majority.
It’s the unions to blame really.
The sensible majority need to disown their unions loud and clear. I’m guessing membership of some union is advisable for legal backing should a misguided child accuse an innocent teacher of something but it shouldn’t stop teachers saying “no” to the unions over masking up children. And themselves, how on earth you can authoritatively manage a lesson through a double layer of fabric is beyond me, even ignoring the health issues of mask wearing.
Great idea.
Suggest the sensible teachers ditch these militant teachers unions and join the Workers of England Union https://www.workersofengland.co.uk – also affiliated with the Free Speech Union
I’m actually off to do that today. The NEU gets not a further penny of mine, and I’m about to request a refund.
Dr. Scott Jensen, WHO Confirm: ‘We’ve All Been Played’ on COVID-19
https://21stcenturywire.com/2021/03/07/dr-scott-jensen-who-confirm-weve-all-been-played-on-covid-19/
Love Dr. jensen
If anyone wishes to find out about the different vaccines used in the U.K. or needs a cure for insomnia try https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immunisation-against-infectious-disease-the-green-book.
‘How the depopulation vaccines will start working in 3-6 months time’. Dr Sherry Jensen.
https://twitter.com/redundantuk/status/1368656598072233989
Did they ever find the ‘Brazilian’?
Yes, turned up just near Mons Veneris.
Cressida Dick spotted him running in a London Underground station.
Funny how that’s disappeared from the news.