Having read Dominic Cummings’ twitter thread on the Government’s lack of preparedness for the pandemic – I had 10 hours to spare and thought, ‘Why not?’ – I began to suspect that Boris might be a lockdown sceptic. The central plank of Dom’s case against the PM in his thread is that he should have locked down earlier and the reason he didn’t is that he naively thought that a policy of shielding the elderly and vulnerable, and encouraging symptomatic people to quarantine at home, would mean ~60% of the population would become infected over the summer, thereby avoiding a second wave in the autumn/winter, when the NHS would have found it harder to cope due to the annual winter NHS crisis – the so-called ‘herd immunity’ strategy. Hmmm. Sounds pretty sensible to me – and to get an idea of how that would have worked out, we only have to look at Sweden, which avoided a hard lockdown throughout 2020 and had one of the lowest age-adjusted excess mortality rates in Europe.
Dom tries to swat this argument away in his thread, accusing “UK political pundits” of “spreading nonsense on Sweden/lockdowns”, and compares Sweden unfavourably with Denmark. A pretty feeble response, as we’ve pointed out numerous times on Lockdown Sceptics. (see Noah Carl’s piece on Monday for a comprehensive rebuttal of the “Yeah, but, Denmark” critique of Sweden’s approach.) No, the example of Sweden, which refused to lock down and whose health service never came close to being overwhelmed, remains a devastating riposte to the apocalyptic doom-mongering of people like Dom back in March of last year, who were screaming at the Prime Minister to lock everyone in their homes because… the NHS.
As I say, reading that thread, it seems pretty clear that Boris’s instincts were correct and the reason he switched tack in the week leading up to March 23rd was because he was surrounded by bed-wetting hysterics like Mr Cummings.
But today’s Daily Mail confirms it: Boris is a lockdown sceptic. I’ll let the Mail summarise the “explosive allegations”, which Dom has clearly leaked to them:
Boris Johnson referred to Covid as “Kung-Flu” and – before he was infected with the virus – offered to be injected with it live on TV to “show it’s nothing to be scared of”, Dominic Cummings will claim today.
They are among the explosive allegations that Mr Cummings, Mr Johnson’s former chief adviser, will make to MPs investigating the Government’s handling of the epidemic.
In an extraordinary claim, he will accuse the Prime Minister of being responsible for “thousands of deaths” by delaying a second lockdown when a second wave of the virus hit the U.K. in the winter. …
The Mail has learned that Mr Cummings will allege Mr Johnson:
* Argued against tough Covid curbs on the grounds that “it is only killing 80-year-olds”;
* Did say “no more f***ing lockdowns, let the bodies pile high in their thousands”.
* Said he regretted being “pushed” into ordering lockdowns because the “economic damage is more damaging than the loss of life”.
No doubt Boris could have expressed his scepticism more diplomatically – assuming Dom is telling the truth – but the substance of these points is correct: for those under 65 and with no underlying health conditions, the virus is nothing to be scared of; the average age of those who’ve died from COVID-19 in the UK is about 80; and the economic damage caused by the lockdowns will certainly outweigh the harms the lockdowns have prevented, if any.
Should anyone be in any doubt that Boris is a 64 carat lockdown sceptic, Dom has some more “devastating” points:
Mr Cummings will also say that before the decision, Mr Johnson vowed: “I’m going to be the mayor of Jaws, like I should have been in March (when the first lockdown was ordered).”
The Prime Minister has said that he regards the mayor in the Jaws movie – who refuses to close the resort’s beach even after a shark has killed tourists, for fear of damage to the local economy – as one of his “heroes”.
I must say, I take some comfort from this. Regular readers will know that until that fateful U-turn on March 23rd 2020 I was a huge fan of Boris’s and have struggled to reconcile the Rabelaisian, liberty-loving character I’ve known for the past 38 years with the furrowed-browed headmaster of the last 15 months. As I asked the journalist Quentin Letts in our recent Free Speech Union chat: How did Sid James become Hattie Jacques?
Turns out, Boris’s Jamesian side wasn’t entirely abandoned; it was just just kept in check by the Jacquists in 10 Downing Street.
Presumably, one reason Boris allowed himself to be pushed around by these chin-wobblers is because he was worried they’d accuse him of needlessly killing thousands of people if he didn’t do what they said. In which case, Dom’s suicide bomber routine is actually quite helpful. Boris allowed Dom to browbeat him into following his lockdown strategy and the disloyal bastard is still accusing him of being a mass murderer. So Boris has little to lose from ignoring these Cassandras from now on. They’ll turn on him whatever he does so there’s no point in trying to keep them on side.
It’s time to assert yourself, Prime Minister. At the next meeting of the Cabinet, announce that you’re going to reopen on June 21st come hell or high water and anyone who thinks that’s a bad idea should resign now or forever hold their peace. Thereafter, if the usual suspects start briefing against stage 4 of the Roadmap, including those snakes on SAGE, he should sack the bloody lot of them.
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It is bizarre reading all of this. It is like someone criticising Hannibal for his tactics at the Battle of Cannae.
Idiot.
Twat
It won’t take fifteen years at the rate Johnson and his minions are proceeding.
He still can’t be excused. Advisors advise, Ministers decide. And as Prime Minister, Johnson is ultimately responsible for this calamity. If he instinctively felt that the advice he was receiving was wrong then why didn’t he change his advisers, or at the very least seek broader counsel from the authors of The Great Barrington declaration for example? In fact, it makes the whole thing even more reprehensible if he knew it was wrong but did it anyway. He cannot and should not be forgiven, not least by the libertarian conservatives whose principles he has betrayed.
The British Establishment are now trying to save the only sellable product they have . Lawyers around the world are now presenting their Crimes against Humanity to International Criminal Courts. Those people are WHO, PHE, CDC, GAVI. Whitty, Valance, Fauci, Hancock, Johnson, Sedwill, are also being prosecuted personally along with members of CIA, MI5. All those who knew this was coming and facilitated it. Including the destruction of a legally elected President who wanted CCP investigated for gain of function and wanted HCQ with zinc available free to all who did contract this purposefully released flu virus, in order to bring down Western Governments and destroy certain populations. People need to join the dots.
Thank goodness it may not do the damage they were hoping for. Too many folk are now wise to the real purpose of creating hysteria in order to provide a deadly solution. Too many are now refusing to be injected. Too many are quietly turning away from the violence unleashed to intimidate us.
Eventually the Parliamentary Army tired of the “King’s evil counsellors” excuse and cut off the King’s head. And what, by the way, is Boris’s excuse for the mass death, I mean, vaccination programme?
Some members of The Great Barrington declaration did see Johnson which no difference to this panic stricken SNAFU
That was just a PR gesture on Boris’ part to try to shut the CRG up.
and it is hard to separate out “covid blunders”, if that is how they are to be viewed, (not by me I hasten to add) from the Great Reset agenda which the Toby cannot argue the PM is not fully behind and the two go hand in hand as one creates the conditions for the route march to the other – his government, his agenda.
I think you are correct.
Remember him trying to get the school kids to go back? He was met with a furore of protests from Unions and Parents despite the clear facts that children are safest from Covid.
And of course the polarisation of the ‘press …
Maybe this ridiculous delay in opening up is to squash the lockdowners once and for all…
This assumes he has no backbone. He is the PM, it’s not a personality contest, he has to make the tough choices. Bumbling Boris routine doesn’t wash. What the Government has done, with him at the helm, is criminal.
Boris is a lockdown sceptic?
The pig dictator?
The fat f..k?
The worst prime minister in history?.
The leader of the worst government in British history?
The destroyer of freedom, of happiness, of hope, of youth, of everything that makes life worth living?
The creature that presided while old people were tortured and murdered, and children incarcerated and crushed?
The lying, whoring, posturing, soulless, conscienceless blob of putrid grease?
Is. one. of. us?
Obviously I haven’t woken up yet. I’m dreaming somebody said Boris was a ….
Alas he is all of that and more.
And DC is showing that book smart doesn’t always convert into real world smart.
It’s the only way Cummings can throw him under the bus. Hancock too. To be replaced by who? Gove? I don’t believe a word of it, Boris is a dangerous tit. So is Cummings. So are the rest of them, Has anyone heard from the CRG recently?
Don’t be daft, he actually joins a long line of incompetents we have been enduring since WW2, everyone as bad as the one before!
🤣👏👏
Not a fan then, Annie !
Not exactly, no.
I knew TY would get no support for those thoughts, and with a smile I pressed “comments”. Thanks Annie
Toby , c’mon this is getting silly.
You know that this country is a signatory to the WHO IHR.
You know that means this country is legally bound to follow the direction from the WHO and implement the national ppp when the WHO declares a “pandemic “
You know that the ppp is already a certified and approved (by WHO) process way before the “pandemic” is declared.
so what’s all this garbage about “good ole Boris “ being recycled for again ??
For you, and people around you, and people you care about and even people you don’t know,
I urge you to watch this video of “the 5 Doctors” it’s from a few days ago.
it’s only an hour or so long.
https://rumble.com/vhiltf-follow-up-to-the-5-doctors-discussion-of-the-covid-shots-as-bioweapons.html
watch it , do your own research, but in the dark of the night know this, you are in a position to share real truth to people .
You know Boris is a fraud, you must have serious misgivings about what is going on.
are you going to stand for real truth or just peddle the lines you’re told.
Time is running out.
Yes, the vaccine is the reason for the lockdowns and not the other way round.
Why were we mucking about for months while these jabs were being developed, in that case? I agree with you to the extent that TPTB appear fixated on getting the needle into anything that breathes.
Is it your argument that the snake oil was there all the time and enough deaths had to happen/be made to LOOK as though they happened, to conjure up a perceived need?
And they are coming for your children with the gene treatment. Twelve year-olds. What its the justification for this crime?
And Boris is just a duffer?
Absolutely spot on! All this Cummings bollocks is part of the propaganda being peddled to confuse the public and gain sympathy for the devil!
“Lockdown is President Obama’s Responsibility I have previously called for some investigation into the decision by President Obama to use PDD2 (Presidential Decision Directive no.2) to transfer massive power to WHO just 4 days before President Trump won the election in 2016. I have also, by mistake, previously believed and propagated a lie published by The ECDC in Sweden, as it is found on their website, falsely explaining the background to their conference proceedings of 2017. These were the first ECDC conference proceedings where a new protocol of “social distancing” was introduced, pre-determining from that point on that any future WHO declaration of any pandemic would make it European policy to lockdown. The ECDC lie states these new protocols, as found on the website in their introduction to the publication of their conference proceedings, were the result of WHO’s response to The Ebola crisis in Africa 2014-2016. The truth is, for which further investigation is required, and should be assumed from the precise timing of President Obama’s decision to transfer such big powers 4 days before a pro-Brexit American president Trump was elected, that the thinking behind them is nothing to do with Ebola. I propose that investigators will be… Read more »
Useful to know, so we have to cease being signatories to the WHO IHR. Step one.
Well Sandra, this is old news unfortunately no one wants to talk about it To examine the reason they don’t talk about any of this please research the TNI “trusted news initiative” Most people need to wake up, and soon, to the fact that this country like all countries has no autonomy of action, it’s all “Hollywood”. The World has been systematically manoeuvred into a central control agenda without anyone bothering to explain it to the people. People like Boris may or may not be “libertarians”, the problem is that they have ALL be co-opted into the grand global govt scheme either by coercion or ideology sympathy. There is a grand vision for the coming changes and the end result is painted as a fantastic Utopia, unfortunately we have to get from here to there and some of the populations just aren’t going to make the cut. This generation of world leaders, everyone from Boris, Macron, Castro’s son over in Canada, Jacinda, Morrison Modi etc etc are fully determined to “build back better”, they are hand picked and placed to carry out the agendas. This is a joke, it isn’t a muddled misunderstanding,it isn’t going to sort itself out once… Read more »
Hard to swallow, Toby. See your point, but as the formula goes, if it sounds like a cretinous fanatical lockdowner, looks like a cretinous fanatical lockdowner and walks like a cretinous… you get my drift.
Toby isn’t the brightest button on the beach…. either that or he just can’t shake his shackles. Boris MAY have been a lockdown sceptic in the beginning. But even that I doubt. Too much other evidence e.g. Hanock’s earlier meetings with Klaus Schwab. But also.. this: Boris’ Greenwich speech in early February where he talked about how a wholly disproportionate response to a virus could create global order. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-in-greenwich-3-february-2020 And in that context, we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other. And here in Greenwich in the first week… Read more »
Hi Chaos – If Toby is not one of the brightest buttons on the beach, then I’m completely invisible. So feel free to disregard this comment. But doesn’t your quote here from Boris’s speech at Greenwich make Toby’s point for him? Here is Boris in full borisflow talking about opening up trade and taking up our seat at the WTO etc and resisting the panic that coronavirus may trigger and resisting going beyond what is medically rational? I agree he caved in a month or so later, but what could he have done with the cabinet, the public sector, the msm all hysterically demanding that “something must be done”? We don’t have a presidential system in this country – and I don’t want one.
If that is your intepretation, fine. Just isn’t logical. This speech was made well before lockdown. It reads like a plan. Because it was the plan. He wasn’t talking about resisting it.. here I could suspect you are just 77th. How could you possibly reach that conclusion?
Perhaps like most people you also think John Lennon’s Imagine is about a lovely world where everyone loves one another.. no possessions, no borders.. and no-one owns anything but is happy (sound familiar?). Lennon essentially put the communist manifesto to music. Intentionally sugar coated it.
Was it well known at the time that marxism had killed 100 million?
Boris should’ve made may-day a day to remember the victims of marxism.
I just don’t get this – Boris is saying there is talk of corona virus and countries closing borders etc and he is saying he will stand up against it. He didn’t of course, but that’s another matter.
Resigned.
He definitely appears to be signalling the introduction of the ‘4th Industrial Revolution’ in that speech, it’s almost like the WEF wrote his script!
If Johnson is a secret Lockdown Sceptic, then shouldn’t we ask why, how and by whom he was made to inflict Lockdown on us?
I humbly suggest that crying ‘it was Cummings’ isn’t good enough. There are too many players with vested interests who’ve influenced the PM. Just look at the ‘big earners’ from this “pandemic’ …
and if the PM REALLY was a secret Lockdown Sceptic then he could at any time he wanted have changed course and done Sweden
If Johnson really is a sceptic, he would have no use for vaccine passports. Instead he puts Gove on the case.
If he is or was a secret sceptic, he’s an especially cowardly one, apt to bend to others l rather quickly on important matters – these qualities are not really what you want or expect from a PM with a massive majority and 5 years left on your term.
Also doing what you know is wrong is more reprehensible in some ways than doing what you think is right.
Let’s for a moment suppose he is a sceptic, surrounded by zealots. He has had umpteen chances to get us out of this, to dial down the fear, the nonsense, the propaganda, the testing, the last of which has been the cover afforded by having a jab rolled out to the vulnerable. Even if he didn’t feel he could come out and say it was all bollocks, he could have steered things slowly but surely towards a bit more normality a bit sooner – that’s what politicians do.
For the use of the SPI-B alone he deserves unqualified condemnation.
“For the use of the SPI-B alone he deserves unqualified condemnation”
Nail on the head.
Yes. Go back a generation or so. Think Attlee and Churchill – either side of a real political spectrum, whatever your personal views. Both can sustain the charge of being wrong at various times – but co-operated in running a country with a much more severe situation to face.
But would either of them have needed this sort of cringing defense and ‘cowardice’ as an excuse? Would either have acted like Johnson (and Starmer)?
I would never have been of Johnson’s political persuasion – but his unsuitability for any significant office is nothing to do with any alleged ‘view’ that he might take (according to wind direction in relation to his own short-term interests).
Absolutely not, Toby. This man chose to be Prime Minister. He takes the ultimate decision and the responsibility. And he has ruined the country for an exagerrated virus…and he is still so doing. Johnson even deserves no praise if he releases us from incarceration because he was the PM who signed off this totalitarian disaster.
Toby, clearly the pain of being wrong about your old Oxford mucker being a cad is too much for you. You are in denial. The answer you want is that Boris is good underneath and was misled, so you desperately work your way from from that axiom to construct your own truth.
To be fair, Toby Young has been heroic since the beginning. The guy is very short of sleep as a result.
Long story short. If Boris had any Churchillian qualities at all, he would have taken control of the situation and said NO. He would have bought in a variety of scientists and he would have refused to work with a modelling failure known to have caused misery and heartache since 2003. In short he would have supported the real Churchillian leader, President Trump.
WOW what a combination that would have been for the successful future of the West and indeed Brexit,
I did laugh at your piece, MP’s ‘investigating ‘ , the useless nodding dogs have not the brains to put two and two together.
Boris is a useless, self-interest c*nt! He and his “team” should all be in front of a Nuremburg style inquiry. This “good old Boris” line makes me want to puke.
Bring back Albert and his noose.
Boris Johnson a lockdown sceptic?
Lockdown sceptic, my arse!!
What a great piece.
So Boris is a libertarian but without the backbone to stand up for his beliefs! Not the sort of person to be leading a once great country.
After 14 months of lockdown and other restrictions, I think it can be safely said that Johnson is either a) NOT a lockdown sceptic, or b) a lockdown scpetic without the courage of his convictions and thus a liar and a coward who is prepared to sacrifice people’s lives and livelihood for appearance sake. Also, is it not more likely that Johnson will look to continue some restrictions from 21st June in an effort to counter Cummings’ narrative?
Possibly to counter Cummings’ narrative but more likely to keep us subjugated, confused and in fear, pressurising us to submit to vaccines and therefore vaccine passports (and thus control) as that seems to be the ultimate agenda in which Bumbling Boris is playing a role.
Cummings loyal to the end (or like a dog returning to his vomit) trying to paint Johnson in a not quite so bad light.
Ha – interesting take!
Toby may well be correct here. Johnson may well be a Lockdown sceptic at heart. I say that as a vociferous critic of Johnson over the last year.
Trouble is, being Prime Minister means taking responsibility. And for a Prime Minister taking responsibility means acting against those who you think are giving you wrong advice. It can be sustained by taking advice from wider circles, to include voices sympathetic with your views.
Johnson appears to have done none of this. And let it not be forgotten, he appears to have been a supporter of vaccine passports. If he wanted to stop this abhorrent policy, as well as the evil of vaccinating children, he could do so at the blink of an eye.
But the remains silent. Sorry Toby, much as you want it otherwise, Johnson is fully culpable for this shitshow, and continues to be the architect of an even worse one.
Agreed. What the débacle demonstrates is how awful the Government is, and has failed to provide proper services to us. While it’s not unusual (to some of us who’ve been around for a while) to come across a degree of bureaucratic over reaction to major incidents – not just health issues – what is on display now is how bad that lot can be to lots of us. Intelligent politicians need to be sceptical to the likes of Vallance and make their own mind up to some extent; we’ll see what happens later on, no doubt.
Hi TJN – If Boris is a sceptic then he didn’t have sufficient authority / personality / brains whatever to keep us out of lockdown. Fair enough. But we don’t know what was said at cabinet when the msm was in full flow, people were talking as though the horses of the apocalypse were at the door. I suspect, Boris was simply outvoted as many of the cabinet would not have wanted to be on the wrong side of this, had it really been a major killer and they had done nothing. I suspect Boris was met with 20 or more threats of cabinet resignations. I disagree with lockdown of course, but could I have stood up to all that? I doubt it.
Whether you could have stood up to that is not the point. You didn’t set out to be PM. If the scenario you suggest is true, he could either have attempted to impose his will point blank, or resigned, denouncing the madness, or carried on but steered a more sane course than has been done. He did none of those things so is unfit to be leader.
Resign and you are history with no way of averting the madness. Then people would have criticised him for running away when the going got tough.
All I’m saying is we just don’t know – hopefully the truth will out.
Well he could have stayed and fought and called their bluff publicly and refused to resign, and forced them to push him out, and been a spokesman for sceptics.
Or he could have stayed and kept quiet but steered a more sensible course.
He did neither, and neither did he avert the madness.
I think it’s a stretch to use the “only following orders” defence for a PM with a massive majority and 5 years to run on his term.
And the use of the SPI-B, the propaganda, the lies, the doubling down, the gaslighting, cannot be excused.
“running away when the going got tough”
Well – according to the Toby Young’s revisionist theory – that’s precisely what he did do!
Quelle surprise.
He’s not a Lockdown Sceptic, he’s a very naughty boy.
Rubbish, Kim Jong Johnson is a lockdown enthusiast, judging by his policies and pronouncements.
So if Johnson was swayed by the people around him…who swayed them? I seem to recall that the first I heard of the mass hysteria was in the media – not from our leaders. And they claimed to be reflecting the public mood – but were they? From what I remember, Boris told us to stay home if we could – so we did. And then sensible people tried to maintain their physical and mental health by walking and meeting outside (which by any measure of common sense was risk free) and the papers went mental – printing all these inflammatory stories with misleading photos to attempt to shame these poor people. The hysteria went media > public > politicians.
The book by Laura Dodsworth, The State of Fear, analyses this very well.
It is excellent, depressing but excellent!!
“Is Boris a Lockdown Sceptic?”
No
He’s a quivering, easily manipulated lump of lard.
I suspect that Johnson is typical of his class of people in that he has the view that life must go on. A view also common in so-called lower classes, too- it’s only the middle classes who believe life should be hung on to even IF everything else goes to hell with their religious fanaticism for safety above all.
SO, yes, I can believe he didn’t want lockdown.
BUT…he has a fatal weakness in that he likes to be popular and will be swayed by this.
So that means he is simply not trustworthy.
No balls, no testicles. He’s had a year to rid the cabinet of the hysterical morons and yet they’re all still in place. A weak prime minister is no prime minister at all.
His balls are in Princess Nut Nits purse next to her biodegradable tampons
Feeling TY is gaslighting us now.
I don’t think that’s his style. I think he either truly believes this, or wants to, or maybe he thinks the PM reads this, or will hear about it, and wants to offer encouragement.
I disagree with what TY is saying, but don’t doubt his (in this case misplaced) good faith.
Maybe he just wanted to start a bit of a fire…
I think it’s more hope and desperation – if you’ve had some faith in some of the political class, and politics/political journalism is your business, it must be devastating to see that faith was evidently misplaced. I know quite a few sceptics who go for the “poor old Boris, he had no choice” line.
… or to be liked by his erstwhile dodgy friends.
hard to avoid thinking TY just trying to curry favour – “I have my little LDS site but really, I do my very best to stick up for you when I can”
“it takes a strong fish to swim against the tide. Even a dead one can float with it”
John Crowe
Johnson is a minnow.
https://vimeo.com/179639133 in which Toby plays Maxwell Smart to Boris’s Simon the Likeable.