A row has broken out over a question Richard Madeley asked Professor Susan Michie on Good Morning Britain. After she’d questioned the wisdom of lifting the mask mandate on July 19th, he asked her whether her judgment might be influenced by her membership of the Communist Party, given the top-down, big state authoritarianism of Communist regimes, or whether her views were purely based on “the science”. An excellent question, but she rather testily refused to answer, saying she’d been invited on to the programme in her capacity as a professor of psychology and wasn’t there to talk about politics.
You can watch the exchange on YouTube from the 14m 29s moment, but here is a transcript:
Richard Madeley: There’s a point I really have to put to you and you’ll be aware of this because there’s been a lot of commentary about this in the British media about you and it’s to do with your politics and you know what I’m going to ask you. You’ve been a member of the Communist Party for about 40 years now, you’re still a member, and we know that they’re statist. We look at Communist countries around the world and we see that they are tremendously top down dominant and controlled societies that they rule over. I just wonder – and I’m putting this question on behalf of those who wonder about your politics – if your politics actually informs your sense of control? It’s not just the medical arguments, but you have a kind of a political bent to want the state to tell people what to do?
Susan Michie: I’ve come on your programme as a scientist, as do all people who come on to your programme as scientists. They come on to talk about the evidence, relevant theories, how we approach our scientific disciplines, and you don’t ask other scientists about politics so I’m very happy to speak about science which is what my job is and to limit it to that.
RM: So you’re saying that your politics doesn’t inform your opinion on this subject?
SM: I’m saying that I agreed to come on this programme as a scientist and I’m very happy to talk to you about the issues that you’re raising as a scientist which is the same for other scientists that you invite on to the programme.
Madeleley moved on at that point, letting Michie wriggle off the hook, but good on him for asking the question. He’s been one of the few journalists in the mainstream media to ask tough questions of Government ministers and advisors about their management of the coronavirus crisis.
Needless to say, not everyone saw it that way. According to the Independent, Twitter users strongly disapproved.
Viewers of the show were unimpressed by Madeley’s line of questioning, accusing the presenter of taking “cheap shots” at Michie.
“If you missed Richard Madeley’s McCarthyite questioning of Professor Susan Michie, around 7.25am, do try to find it on catch up TV. It may scare the hell out of you,” one viewer commented.
“I try not to use profanity on here, struggling now as I have just witnessed the most pompous pathetic & rude Richard Madeley talking to a medical expert & equate her science knowledge with her politics,” another wrote.
One Twitter user posted: “That ‘question’ from Richard Madeley was basically to challenge Susan Michie’s scientific credentials and accuse her of wanting to live in a dictatorship, she put him in his place, he is a dangerous man.”
But my Twitter feed told a different story. Michael Senger, a longstanding lockdown sceptic, tweeted: “Susan Michie expresses outrage when asked if her 40-year membership in the Community Party might inform her policies. Apparently, it’s ok to be a communist, but not to ask if this migth be connected to her open endorsement of communist China’s policies.”
Tracey Follows then came up with an amusing reply to Michael’s tweet: “Well that’s the first psychologist/behavioural scientist I’ve heard not wanting to promote the notion of (unconscious bias) on the media for a very long time.”
The row rumbled on, with another “scientific expert” and masking zealot – Deepti Gurdasani – claiming it was “misogynistic” of Madeley to ask Michie about her politics – eh? – and demanding GMB issue an apology as a condition of her ever appearing on the programme again.
I really don’t get why it was “misogynistic” of Madeley to ask Susan Michie whether her hard left politics have affected her position on mask mandates. Of course they have! After all, forcing people to wear masks as a condition of participating in certain activities is a flagrant breach of their liberty and the reason Michie doesn’t care about that and thinks public health concerns should take priority (even though there’s precious little evidence that masks reduce transmission of the virus) must in part be because she’s a communist, who famously don’t put much value on individual freedom. And the reason Madeley hasn’t put the same question to other members of SAGE is not because Miche’s a woman, but because she’s the only one who’s been a member of the Communist Party for the past 40 years.
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Twitter is becoming even more of a parody of itself.
It’s such a putrid hole of a place. You outlaw long form discussion, reducing interaction to short sharp snipes, add in followers (people who are either looking to catch you out or who hang on your every word, so polar opposites with an agenda), ban a few conservatives and light the touch paper on humanity.
Twitter has now become so woke it’s practically impossible to tell parody from nonsense.
Twitter is also riddled with bots and fake accounts established to push narratives in certain directions and overwhelm any push back against Covid fairytale. Add to that algorithm manipulation, shadow bans and T&Cs as nebulous as fog and it’s really just a tool of the burgeoning technocracy.
Amazing, that one slipped past me, not the communist nut bar but that someone finally called her out on it.
How is this bonkers person a ‘scientist?’ shes a behavioural psychologist when I last looked, lets have some real scientists on the MSM, it would make a refreshing change..
Psychology is not a Science. But if a group of psychologists set up a group called the British Psychological Society, this group bestows all these Dr and PhD’s and anything you want. Hence the BPS exists because Psychologists exist because BPS exists Psychologists exist and so on and so forth.
Communists get a lot of stick. I read once that in the 1960s in Indonesia, when the Army moved on Communists insurgents, one General proclaimed on the radio something like ‘Do not shoot the Communists, bullets are too good for them, use knives!‘. So please show some understanding.
They should get a lot of stick. Their ‘policies’ have killed 100,000,000 people and counting. Vile creatures.
Suspiciously round number but I take your point. It is instructive to look at the populations of the United States of America and Russia in 1900, and then compare them with today’s populations and see how they have diverged.
Rounded down and counting as annicx says.
It’s not a suspiciously round number, it’s an approximation, as the true number is unknown. When one person dies, it’s a tragedy, when it’s millions, it’s just statistics. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, or in this case, millions of people.
The reason the population of the U.S. has increased so much has been down to immigration, i.e. 100 million in the past sixty years, and still going up thanks to the Democrats open-door immigration policy.
and by implication because people want to go there – rather than leave.
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression used the same method as Simon Wiesenthal Centre calculating Nazi deaths of 27 million.
Problem is like Nazis the Chinese and Soviets didn’t keep good records and will not share info.
Communism murdered 100 million people (and still counting) to enforce a system that never worked, and never will.
Well done Richard Madeley.
I bet Piers Morgan wouldn’t have asked that question. The fact that he hadn’t in any of the time he was on GMB proves that. The question should have been asked months ago. Good on RM.
We need to spell it out – Michie is evil and should be a global pariah. Under no circumstances should she or any of her fellow vile authoritarians be anywhere near any sort of ‘committee’. And she should never be described as a ‘scientist’ and always as a political activist.
Communism, an extremist, totalitarian ideology responsible for millions of deaths, including up to the present time, has indeed had a bad press.
Now let’s put it the other way round. Suppose instead of a communist woman, the government was taking advice from a far right man who claimed that for scientific reasons people from India should be restricted from coming into Britain, and a journalist mentioned his politics. Would these same people crying foul suggest an agenda against men? Or say it was unfair to mention politics?
I would tentatively suggest that some people are seeing what they want to in the Michie incident. In any case, politics and big business pollute scientific discourse far too much.
Oh dear! They have no answer except boycott, misogyny and witch hunt. How about answering the question truthfully?
George Cross fro Richard Madeley.
Well done Toby and I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusions.
At the start of the transcript “unconscious bias” came immediately to mind. However, let us not confuse some barmy socio / psychological theory with obvious facts. We have a millionaire, proselytising communist, promoting continuing restrictions and yet her communist principles have NO bearing whatsoever on this viewpoint. Clearly this oxygen thief has a very Pravda-esque view of unconscious bias – it doesn’t apply to her – as well as very Orwellian views on “the science” as well as logic and history.
I have never really been a fan of Madeley but he is putting the MSM to shame in his twilight years. His cover of the Mike Graham show some months ago was equally disruptive and made for fine viewing / listening.
Probably Madeley has made enough that he doesn’t worry if he doesn’t work again but he is all the better for it.
Good for Richard Madeley because Michie really needs burying. Evil cow.
F’ing hypocritical scumbags wouldn’t hesitate to hound out of government anyone with the most remote potential connection to politics of which they disapprove – “fascist” or “racist”.
The reality is that when you are in government or directly advising government your politics do matter. Of course they matter -only a moron or a liar would try to pretend they don’t.
The really revealing aspect of this, though, is that it has never been a problem for any member of our supposedly “Conservative” government that they have let an open actual communist influence policy, and in the most dangerous area possible (after arguably security and policing) to let a communist have influence – the manipulation and propagandising of the population.
That’s because they fundamentally don’t disagree with her much, on most broad social issues.
A communist liar? Surely not!
All she needs is the Gestapo uniform. Horrible wench.
Agree – but at least the Gestapo wore a uniform so you knew who they were and which side you were on – these fiends are much more cleverer than that – they dress as we do and will speak in the same terms as we do but underneath they are still the same cruel and repressive monsters as their tyrannical predecessors.
They are more like the old East Germany ‘mitarbeiter’ that happen to live next door, etc.
This has been known about for many months – so why the tough questions now?
I think the game is up – the covid house of cards is about to fall and we’re going to witness all those responsible for this colossal mess fight each other like rats in a sack.
It was the media that enabled the government and fake scientists to prolong our agony, and it should be the media that puts the scamdemic to the sword!
If only!
If she was invited on the program as a psychologist how comes she thinks that qualifies her to pronounce on medical matters?
They don’t like it up ’em!
But they do like panic! (we’re all doomed)
It would have been even better if he’d asked her why she thinks anyone should listen to a fucking psychologist let alone a communist cunt on medical matters.
I was going to say that but thought it was a bit rude 😂 😂
She’s not a medical expert. She’s a behaviourist.
And her calling herself a scientist is stretching it a bit. Same goes for all those alleged scientists coming up with their wildly inaccurate models. I think we need a better definition of “scientist” that precludes all these greedy frauds that we’ve been subjected to over the last 15 months.
Didn’t certain 20th century dictatorships try and persuade psychologists to declare that people who disagreed with their regime must be suffering from a psychological condition? A long (and continuing) history of “science” and lies.
Reminds me of the BT advert with Maureen Lipman “you’ve got an ‘ology, you’re a scientist”
I think we need to make distinctions between three types of scientists. 1: Those engaged in the hard science of testing hypotheses and making observations. 2: Social scientists who influence the behaviour of their research material. 3: Those engaged in the abstract sciences such as mathematical modelling and theoretical physics, whose ideas depend on assumptions rather than empirical evidence.
The second category should be subject to ethical scrutiny before we even think about letting them anywhere near public policy. The third category should be subject to scrutiny by the first category.
Great comment.
A bit too subtle for the masses perhaps, and would require journalists to get off their arses and start working for a living for the idea to gain traction.
Yep- and far too much of modern life is regulated by people from 2 & 3, with absolutely zero practical knowledge or experience outside a classroom or a lab. In so many areas you have spotty faced kids with fresh bits of paper upending years of practical and empirical knowledge because it says so in theory.
And wants us to behave in a way that is repellent to us all
Lefties live and breathe politics – its all they ever think about – its in their blood in their genes – they are fanatics – I read somewhere once that those who considered themselves to be conservatives were quite willing to have left-wing friends regardless of their opposite views whereas lefties/communists etc said that they could never have friends who were on the conservative right of the political spectrum – this is how single-minded they are where their politics is concerned. So for Michie not to be influenced by her communists beliefs would be about as likely as covid19 being transmitted by someone without symptoms … practically zero.
“I read somewhere once that those who considered themselves to be conservatives were quite willing to have left-wing friends regardless of their opposite views whereas lefties/communists etc said that they could never have friends who were on the conservative right of the political spectrum“
As a lifelong conservative (not “Conservative”), that certainly fit me – until this coronapanic.
I’ve had friends, associates and relatives who were unilateral disarmament naifs, hippies, pacifists, climate panickers, communists, feminists, globalists, anti-white racists, radical atheists, anti-British globalists, anti-English nationalsts, and the same on the other side – militarists, anti-black racists, anti-islam obsessives, antisemites,…. The politics never troubled me enough to not tolerate them even while disagreeing with them sometimes profoundly.
But I genuinely struggle to tolerate covid panickers. The harm they have done and the falsehoods they have based it on are just too profound, too intrusive, to overlook.
Indeed.
I agree with you — it has been shattering to see ones friends fold and be unable to look at anything but the BBC and read the MSM – but worse to actually want children to be jabbed with an experimental jab in order to make them ‘feel safe’. I too genuinely struggle to come to terms that they are so brainwashed
Me too. One of the practical difficulties is that there has been very little else to talk about.
Very well said Mark, same here……our household in now down to the bare minimum of “friends”, (and it suits us).
Well, it’s out there now, hopefully awakening many more as what she’s about, well done to RM. Doesn’t matter she didn’t answer, but got all butt hurt and offended as did the Twatter sycophants. Excellent. Shows her up for what she is, and as for the strawman-like arguement…?
That was one nice house that Communist had. I guess she is thinks she is one of the Communist elite who is more equal than everyone else.
Of course. Communism, like socialism, is all about lecturing others about how they should be losing more, not about actually sacrificing your own luxuries to help people (unless there’s a nice opportunity to get some cheap virtue signalling done).
Britain has a very strong, very old tradition of “champagne socialism”.
Absolutely. It’s very easy easy to be a Communist in a western democracy where you’ll never have to face the gulags, the death marches etc etc, especially when you’re one of the nomenklatura.
Hypocritical bitch
That is what I always throw at their faces – they’re disgustingly fake, hypocritical champagne sociaIists. As I was unfortunate to have been born behind the old iron curtain I know everything about communism.
As ugly on the outside as she is on the inside.
This was very clever questioning by Richard Madeley. He boxed her in from the start and she knew it. All he asked, in the politest of ways was “given your lifelong membership of the communist party can you tell us how this has influenced your work on SAGE?” In order to defend her position without declaring her hypocrisy she would have to at least undermine her communist principles and thus reveal her completely sham stance.
Michie of course swerved round the question and headed for the (im)moral high ground by claiming to be a scientist – which she clearly is not.
Quickly, surgically and neatly Richard Madeley blew this Gates whore out of the water.
A clinical demolition.
Well done Richard Madeley.
McCarthy like it was not. The problem with a lot of the loons who skulk on twitter is their total lack of general knowledge, aided by a consequent lack of historical context.
Very true- try telling them that Hitler was a socialist- they fairly explode in indignant rage! Quite funny really…
Isn’t the whole country infatuated with communism [the whole west, in fact] The EU, The BBC, all sorts of Leftists champing at the bit. Not just the usual suspects, but the Chinese government is heavily invested in the UK: nuclear power plants; wind farms; battery storage facilities and a massive chunk of the UK electricity networks. CCP could cause mayhem in this country, if it took their fancy. What are those huge Amazon warehouses, in principle, if not based on the Chinese system, something similar? Most billionaires and corporate hegemonies, are using some form of CCP type operations, or would like to be; they’re an absolute force to be reckoned with.And I’m pretty sure theirs is the blueprint for most ambitious world government types looking to be super competitive.. Free speech being kicked into touch. Censorship in abundance; big tech kicking arse and taking names…Australia, Canada, New Bigotry, The democrats in the states, and shitloads of existing left wing and communist countries all around the Globe bolting punters in their houses and screaming for harder lockdowns [and plenty of them], and you got yourselves a hard core totalitarian, predominantly socialist/communist regime to look forward to. It’s been happening for years… Read more »
All sad but true. Years ago I had an argument with my son’s history teacher after he came home asking me why I was always telling him what a good PM Mrs T had been when, he had been taught, she had caused the winter of discontent and awful hardships that divided society? He really had been told this as fact, not opinion so I went to the school to complain- pointing out that I was actually there at the time and in fact it was the winter of discontent that brought about the election in 1979, but was told that they were teaching ‘established principles’ and that the belief was that it was the far right that undermined society and sowed the seeds of discontent…so objective facts mean absolutely nothing to these people.
Teachers are the most depressingly brainwashed people on the planet (I became one several years ago, later in life and immediately left in utter disgust). My son was kicked out of an A level Economics class a couple of years ago for making a comment in support of Brexit. Never mind that it was his right to hold that opinion; never mind that Sixth Formers are supposed to be exercising critical thinking and challenging what they read etc, he had committed sacrilege by opposing the pro-EU cult peddled by all schools and needed to be punished. He’s now in the army, refusing to have the covid jab which makes us enormously proud, but extremely sad as his career will suffer for his stance.
“Sixth Formers are supposed to be exercising critical thinking and challenging what they read etc“
Aah, it’s nice to hear these quaint, old fashioned recollections of what our society used to be like….
I would laugh, but it’s too serious….😒😒
“I laugh because I must not cry”
You’re right!🤪
Nowadays its OK for men to cry Mark, just get in touch with your feminine side 🤣🤣
Call me old fashioned….
Universities were once the centres for excellence, now they are brainwashing factories.
Absolutely! Only one of ours went to university; guess who is the vegetarian, animal rights defending, BLM supporting member of the family…..??🙄🙄
You should be proud of him- he has our gratitude for serving his country and protecting us.
Thank you. That’s why he signed up – shame they won’t let him do it properly because he won’t drink the Kool-Aid…..
“saying she’d been invited on to the programme in her capacity as a professor of psychology and wasn’t there to talk about politics.”
I thought everything was political from that world view?
How is she a scientist? How is what she does science?
She’s not.
Isn’t psychology notorious for quackery? Don’t certain things get reclassified as not a psychological disorder (or vice versa for all I know) for political reasons? (And then there’s computer modelling…)
Absolutely.
“In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed the diagnosis of “homosexuality” from the second edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). This resulted after comparing competing theories, those that pathologized homosexuality and those that viewed it as normal.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4695779/
Other mental conditions have been in and out of the DSM like bouncing balls.
“I really don’t get why it was “misogynistic” of Madeley to ask Susan Michie whether her hard left politics have affected her position on mask mandates” Of course it wasn’t but there’s nothing to get. Simple case of losing the argument or being put on the spot and playing the victim to deflect attention away from your weak arguments. Michie and her ilk will be livid about dropping mask mandates – they can see their power ebbing way – and will get plenty of support. BBC news website says a backlash has started about the masks = BBC wants to keep them.
It wasn’t misogynistic but this is how things go these days. Don’t dare question anything unless it has approval by the self appointed Commisariat.
The problem is that Michie is continually wheeled out as if she is some sort of expert on public health or viruses or something actually relevant to the control of a pandemic. She has no expertise in virology, epidemiology, virology, disease transmission or the effectiveness of RPE. Her opinion on the effectiveness of masks is worthless. She is there to advise the government on how to manipulate the population into doing what they are told. Her very presence on Sage is extremely worrying.
She describes herself as a ‘scientist’. How about the next protest being outside her house?
For a ‘Communist’, one devoted to sharing, she certainly seems to have a big, and probably expensive, house. Looks like she’s a Capitalist when it comes to her own money.
She is a millionaire – descended wealth.
Wrong, Toby, she didn’t mention that she was a psychologist – merely that she was a scientist. Madeley’s fault was that he failed to follow up on this fact and failed to reveal that she was on Sage as a predictor and manipulator of public opinion …. therefore his question was entirely relevant. Unfortunately, like you, he failed to prepare his ground sufficiently thoroughly. However, you can easily be forgiven. Madeley will perhaps remain a slightly tragic figure in this debacle.
Indeed, she and her SAGE colleagues, many without medical knowledge but are advisers of all sorts, who met in the meetings in April and May 2020 are dubbed “the nudge unit”.
About time that Professor Michie was called out. She is clearly a communist fifth columnist and, as such, ought to be interned until the current crisis is over. Conscious Bias runs through her public pronouncements like the writing in a dodgy stick of rock.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/health-psychology/people/michie/contact.htm
“Scientist” has become an almost meaningless term. It seems to be a word that people use to give themselves status or to give their arguments more credibility but don’t for the life of me really know what it means any more.
see also “engineers”.
See, especially, “artists”.
Twitter is a cess pit used by Governments, politicians and other states to bombard their particular world view through mass tweets from centrally controlled operations. It should at
worst totally ignored and at best shut down. It has been allowed to have too great an influence on the life of this country’s people and not from a point of benefit. If all the politicos, businesses, and media outlets stopped using it, it would soon destroy itself through its bile and hate
Susan Michie is NOT a scientist/expert as far as viruses, transmission, immunity is concerned!! The mistakes are a) having her and fellow behavourial qucks on ANY committee and b) giving her airtime full stop
She’s a behavioural pyschologist and a lot of the ‘qualifications’ are ones you can buy
She’s not there to address illness. She’s there to manipulate opinion and behaviour.
Granted, a supposedly democratic government should not be doing that at all,but given that’s what this “Conservative” government intended to do, a communist psychologist is probably the perfect adviser for the task.