Laurence Fox Launches Political Party to Fight the Culture War
The Sunday Telegraph has quite the scoop this morning: Laurence Fox is launching a new political party.
The actor Laurence Fox is launching a political party to fight the culture wars after raising over £1 million, including substantial sums from former Tory donors, the Telegraph can disclose.
Fox hopes to stand dozens of candidates for his new party at the next General Election to provide a political movement for people who are “tired of being told that we represent the very thing we have, in history, stood together against”.
His aims include reforming publicly-funded institutions, likely to include the BBC, and celebrating Britain’s history and global contribution.
The new party (provisionally called “Reclaim”) could launch as soon as next month. The party’s name is subject to approval by the Electoral Commission. Papers are due to be submitted to the electoral regulator in the middle of this week.
In a statement to the Telegraph, Fox said: “Over many years it has become clear that our politicians have lost touch with the people they represent and govern.
“Moreover, our public institutions now work to an agenda beyond their main purpose. Our modern United Kingdom was borne out of the respectful inclusion of so many individual voices.
“It is steeped in the innate values of families and communities, diverse in the truest sense but united in the want and need to call this island home.
“The people of the United Kingdom are tired of being told that we represent the very thing we have, in history, stood together against.
“We are all privileged to be the custodians of our shared heritage. We can reclaim a respectful nation where all are included and none are ashamed to have somewhere to call home.
“I have been so encouraged by the support I have received by those wishing to add their voices to this reclamation of our values.
“Our country is now in desperate need of a new political movement which promises to make our future a shared endeavour, not a divisive one. This is now my endeavour.”
I’m a big fan of Laurence’s and take my hat off to him. This is an exciting development. But I note he hasn’t said anything critical about the Government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. So not an anti-lockdown party, but an anti-woke, pro-British party.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
Conservative Government Suddenly Grows a Pair
Coincidence? On the day the Sunday Telegraph breaks the story of Fox’s new party – described by one Westminster source as the UKIP of the culture wars – Downing Street has announced two significant appointments: ex-Telegraph editor Charles Moore is in the frame to become the Chairman of the BBC and ex-Mail editor Paul Dacre is being lined up to become the next Chairman of Ofcom. The Sunday Times has the story.
Boris Johnson is ushering in a revolution at the top of British broadcasting by offering two of the top jobs in television to outspoken critics of the BBC.
Paul Dacre, the former editor of the Daily Mail, is the prime minister’s choice to become chairman of Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, replacing Lord Burns, who is due to leave before the end of the year.
Lord Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, who has condemned the criminalisation of those who refuse to pay the licence fee, has been asked by the prime minister to take up the post of BBC chairman.
The potential appointments of two right-wing Brexiteers will send shockwaves through the broadcasting establishment.
Charles Moore will make a great Chairman of the BBC, but the more significant of the two appointments, to my mind, is Paul Dacre’s. Under its current Chairman Lord Burns, Ofcom has had little regard for freedom of expression – a case in point being its “coronavirus guidance” which means lockdown sceptics are rarely featured on the BBC and which the Free Speech Union is hoping to challenge in the High Court. (Please donate to our Ofcom case fundraiser here). But Dacre has long been a staunch champion of press freedom, as he made clear in this speech to the Society of Editors in 2018. If Ofcom’s regulatory remit is to be extended to include the Internet, as seems likely, it’s essential that the new Chairman understands the importance of free speech.
Stop Press: Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, has warned museums and galleries to stop removing statues and other artefacts or risk losing government subsidies, and the Department for Education has issued guidance to teachers saying they should teach children that woke “cancel culture” and “no-platforming” is an attack on free speech and has no place in British society. Is the Conservative Party finally going into battle in the culture war?
The Rising Tide of Lockdown Scepticism
Hugo Gye has written a good piece in the i about the rising tide of lockdown scepticism.
When the Government starting locking down the UK in March, ministers were surprised by just how easy it all was. Polls showed 90 to 95 per cent of the public supported the strict curbs on everyday life, with little outcry from MPs or the courts, and – unlike in America – no street protests against the measures.
That appears to be changing. There is still broad support for tough action to stop the spread of COVID-19, but it is much less universal than it was: a survey for i by Redfield & Wilton Strategies this week found 57% believe the Government was right to introduce new measures such as a pubs curfew while 17% were against.
A growing number of Conservative MPs, led by Sir Graham Brady, are speaking out at the way Parliament has been sidelined throughout the crisis. And legal figures have criticised ministers for sneaking out changes to the law in the dead of night, sometimes just minutes before they come into force, meaning that neither Parliament, nor the police, nor citizens can scrutinise the incoming regulations or correct potential errors and loopholes.
Gye distinguishes between four different groups of sceptics.
Legal Eagles
One group expressing concern about how the Government imposes ever-changing rules comes from the legal community. Retired Supreme Court justice Lord Sumption has been a persistent critic and this week he was joined by former colleague Baroness Hale, who wrote: “My plea is that we get back to a properly functioning constitution as soon as we possibly can.”
One complaint many lawyers have is that, while changes to the rules are often announced publicly several days in advance through speeches and press conferences, the legislation putting them into effect via statutory instruments is not made available until hours or in some case minutes before it becomes law.
Judges would be able to impose life sentences with no prospect of release on 18-year-olds in exceptionally serious cases under Government plans. Ministers will publish proposals to change the law that prevented the accomplice in the Manchester Arena bombing from getting a whole life order.
There are worries about the legal status of lockdown rules. Human rights barrister of Adam Wagner, of Doughty Street Chambers, told i he supports the principle of the lockdown rules but added: “Now for six months the Government has imposed new laws using an emergency procedure. There is not really any longer a good reason why those regulations can’t be put before Parliament and debated. It is just not justifiable and it is not a good way to make laws.”He said it was understandable for ministers to use emergency measures in the early stage of the crisis, when they were forced to act at extreme pace, but argued that the failure to implement a more regular procedure had created “a permanent sense of essay crisis” at the top of the Government.
Backbench Battlers
After staying supportive of the Government during the height of the lockdown, increasing numbers of Conservative MPs are demanding a change in direction. Many believe the strategy has been tilted too far towards Covid-19 suppression at the expense of economic concerns and long-term health issues – ex-Cabinet minister Mel Stride, chair of the Treasury select committee, told Boris Johnson: “We should listen very carefully to the epidemiologists, but we must also listen very carefully to the Treasury, to businesses and to economists.”
More than 40 Tory backbenchers have subscribed to a cross-party amendment which could come to a vote on Wednesday, demanding that all changes to the rules are approved in advance by Parliament unless there is a genuine emergency. It is unclear whether Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle will accept the amendment, but the rebels hope the Government will nonetheless cave in advance and agree to their demands.
Outright Opponents
One of the first public figures to speak out against the idea of using lockdown to control Covid-19 was journalist Toby Young, who set up a Lockdown Sceptics website in mid-April. “At the very beginning, there were not very many people who were opposed to the lockdown,” he told i. “I think most people gave the Government the benefit of the doubt.”
Now, he claims, he has much more support – although not the “critical mass” needed to push the Government into a U-turn. He said: “Gradually people are waking up to the fact that the NHS has been failing to provide critical care, because of a diktat from on high… People can see with their own eyes the impact of the lockdown on the high street.”
Businessman Simon Dolan is masterminding a legal challenge to the coronavirus rules which will be heard in the Court of Appeal next month, after losing in the High Court. He insists he understood why the Government initially locked the country down but added: “What I think was catastrophic was to carry on with it when it was evident that the peak had gone, that the NHS wasn’t overwhelmed.”
Both men, although Brexiteers who consider themselves on the right of politics, are adamant that opposing the lockdown is not a right-wing position. Mr Dolan said: “I’ve found myself agreeing with people that I usually disagree with vehemently on almost everything else.” Mr Young added: “The people who are suffering the most as a result of the restrictions the Government has imposed are the most disadvantaged.”
A Government spokesperson said: “During this unprecedented global pandemic we’ve kept all measures under constant review. It’s essential we’re able to take urgent action when necessary to stop the virus spreading, protect the NHS and care sector from a second wave and save lives.
“Both houses have had opportunities to debate and scrutinise all lockdown regulations, and members will continue to have opportunities to scrutinise future regulations.”
Hardcore Conspiracists
The most visible opponents of lockdowns are possibly the least representative: the conspiracy theorists who believe Covid-19 is a total hoax, or caused by 5G networks, or no worse than the common cold.
Leaders of this group include Jeremy Corbyn’s brother Piers and David Icke, the showman who accuses the royal family of being lizards. The two men are the headline speakers at a two-day rally in central London this weekend which aims to attract at least 35,000 protesters.
More mainstream sceptics tend to be sceptical of these outliers. Simon Dolan said: “I don’t believe particularly in the demonstrations, I think they’re far too easy to hijack and I don’t actually think they make any difference.”
But Toby Young suggested that they helped the cause by highlighting just how strict some of the regulations are: Mr Corbyn was fined £10,000 over a previous protest which broke the official guidelines.
The period of the lockdown seems to have encouraged some conspiracy theories to thrive, such as the 5G claims and the “QAnon” movement which sees the world being under the control of a paedophile cult. Experts have suggested that the dislocation caused by the pandemic may have encouraged some people to seek solace in unlikely places.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The police decided to break up a peaceful anti-lockdown demonstration in Trafalgar Square yesterday, injuring several people in the process, including a middle-aged woman. As Douglas Murray says in this week’s Spectator, all protests are not equal in the eyes of the police.
A reader who attended the protest describes what happened.
Despite the good general mood, at the end things got a little ugly. People were peacefully dispersing and suddenly a group of police with helmets moved in and started blocking stairways out of the square. We ended up scrambling over a wall to get out after a copper pushed me on the stairs and yelled “move!” It was ridiculous, completely unwarranted behaviour – everyone was already leaving anyway. On the way home we saw some MSM reports about the police having to pen people in to disperse the crowd (not sure how that quite works) and there being injuries. I can honestly say that if they hadn’t turned up, people would have just left. There is stuff on the BBC about the demo having to be broken up, but that is nonsense. It just ended at 3pm. Very sad that a group broadly supportive of the job the police do, and one that showed respect for them by observing a minute’s silence for the police officer killed on Friday, was treated so badly (while police take the knee to BLM who want them defunded). You just couldn’t make it up.
Growing Tory Rebellion
Tim Shipman has a piece in the Sunday Times in which he describes the growing discontent in the Parliamentary Conservative Party with Boris Johnson’s leadership. He describes five groups and ranks each one according to how dangerous it is.
Common sense group
MPs: Around 50
Leading lights: Right-wingers such as Iain Duncan Smith and “red wall” MPs such as Lee Anderson
Grievances: Disgruntled with the new tighter measures to control COVID-19, they also want tougher action to curb cross-channel migration and hate plans for tax rises
Trouble rating: Four stars – The new backbench awkward squadThe Brady bunch
MPs: 12
Leading lights: Sir Graham Brady and the other members of the 1922 committee executive
Grievances: The shop steward of Tory backbenchers usually helps to enforce discipline. Instead he is leading the rebellion over Covid
Trouble rating: Five star – If you’ve lost the 22, it’s often the endRemainder remainers
MPs: Around 20
Leading light: Bob Neill
Grievances: Enraged that the Government was prepared to break international law over Brexit, they have already forced a U-turn so MPs would have to vote on that first
Trouble rating: Three starsEuropean Research Group
MPs: 80
Leading lights: Steve Baker, John Redwood and Bill Cash
Grievances: Will cry foul if Johnson does not pursue a hard enough Brexit
Trouble rating: Two stars – Dormant, but potentially deadlyThe dispossessed
MPs: Dozens and rising
Leading light: Sajid Javid
Grievances: Everyone who has lost/not been given a ministerial job
Trouble rating: Two stars
Stop Press: A new opinion poll puts Labour ahead of the Conservatives for the first time since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister.
Students Plot the Great Escape
Channel 4 News carried a report yesterday evening, relating how students across the United Kingdom have effectively been placed in lockdown, with some of them unable to leave their halls of residence.
Numerous readers have sent in reports, describing how miserable life is for their children. Here’s one from a parent of two kids at Edinburgh:
My children are out of their halls of residence and staying in an Airbnb to avoid an expected clampdown in Pollock Halls, the resident blocks for 1,900 first year undergraduates. We hope to terminate their contracts with the Halls and move them into a house in the city. Students have been fleeing Pollock in droves, my daughter says. Police squads together with wardens are patrolling the Pollock campus. Young people, many of them away from home for the first time in their lives, have been told they may be banned from returning to their families for Christmas. Snarling wardens called students trying to socialise “disgusting” and all seating in outside spaces has been removed. All students have been banned from pubs. In the canteen, students are shown to seats so cannot choose where to sit. They each sit at single desks facing in the same direction. They receive directives by email from the university, hectoring them about “the rules in Scotland” in a tone that is patronising towards foreigners south of the border. A few nights ago a warden ordered my daughter, who was outside her hall at 10pm, to “go to bed now”. My daughter is 20 next month. It appears the only way to respond is to leave Pollock Halls and find accommodation in the city. Then again, if you cannot meet other students and since all teaching has gone online, why stay in Edinburgh at all?
Another reader reports that his neighbour’s 18 year-old is dreading leaving home and going to university:
Our neighbour’s son is about to head to York tomorrow. His mother reports he is so terrified now, he had a panic attack. What a contrast with how it should be – the most exciting time of a young adult’s life turned into the prospect of doing a stretch in a high security prison, and in solitary confinement too.
Stop Press: Robert Halfon, the Chair of the Education Select Committee, has said locked-down students should receive refunds on their tuition fees.
Staggering Cost of Glasgow’s Nightingale Hospital
A reader has done some digging about the cost of the Nightingale Hospital in Glasgow that is shutting its doors. Eye watering!
Further to your story today on the decommissioning contract for the NHS Louisa Jordan facility at the SEC in Glasgow, I had a quick look into the costs involved with this empty COVID-19 hospital.
The contracts page you provided a link that shows it’s costing £429,877.48 for a contract merely to appoint a “Lead Advisor consultant to support the decommissioning of the NHS Louisa Jordan temporary field hospital at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) in Glasgow”.
The minutes of the NHS Louisa Jordan Governance Board on May 21st state that total decommissioning costs were estimated at over £4 million, so there’s considerably more to come.
A Scottish Government FOI release published on July 22nd shows that no patients were treated at the facility.
This recent spreadsheet from September 10th shows that the final build cost was £30.9 million and monthly running costs have been £2.4 million.
The Herald featured these figures in a story on September 11th.
The Daily Record ran a story on the costs on September 20th, stating that the hospital with no Covid patients will cost taxpayers £67 million.
But, all is not lost – it has been used to provide healthcare training.
And it may have hosted some orthopaedic outpatient consults.
Multiply these staggering sums of cash across all of the standby Covid facilities, and there’s a colossal bill to be paid by taxpayers.
And for what in return?
NHS Track-and-Trace App Plumbs New Depths
The NHS track-and-trace app is the gift that keeps on giving – to lockdown sceptics. I honestly didn’t think this fiasco could become even more embarrassing for the Government, but it has. The latest cock-up is that anyone who’s got a test result back from NHS hospitals or Public Health England can’t actually share their results via the app.
The Telegraph has the details:
Officials were forced to urgently remove a major blindspot in the Government’s COVID-19 app yesterday which meant that more than a third of daily tests were being excluded from the system.
On Saturday morning, it emerged that those who tested positive for the virus in NHS hospitals and Public Health England (PHE) labs were unable to share their result using the official contact-tracing app for the first 48 hours after its introduction on Thursday.
The Department of Health said it had worked “urgently” fix the problem.
Tests carried out by the NHS and PHE make up one in three of those carried out each day, and their exclusion would have meant that casual contacts of a large proportion of medics who tested positive for the virus would not have received automatic notifications asking them to isolate.
As does the Mail:
More than 60,000 Britons are unable to tell the long-awaited NHS Test and Trace app whether they have tested positive for coronavirus, the Government has admitted in the latest fiasco to engulf the UK’s ‘world-leading’ testing system.
Results from swabs examined by NHS hospitals and Public Health England – more than 70,000 a day – cannot be entered into the app as they are not supplied with a test code, the Department of Health has confirmed.
The oversight means sufferers are unable to send out alerts to people they have been near to advise them to self-isolate to curb the spread of coronavirus.
As does the Sunday Times – although the Times points out that it isn’t just results obtained from NHS hospitals and PHE that can’t be entered in the new app. It’s also results received via the ONS infection survey.
On Friday, the day after the app launched, at least 61,000 people tested in England were unable to enter their results. As a result, thousands of other people who had been in close proximity to those with positive results will never be notified.
The NHS Test and Trace website said: “If your test took place in a Public Health England lab or NHS hospital, or as part of national surveillance testing conducted by the Office for National Statistics, test results cannot currently be linked with the app whether they’re positive or negative. We are working to make this available as soon as possible.”
😂 😂 😂
As usual, I turned to Lockdown Sceptics’ dedicated track-and-trace app correspondent to explain what’s going on.
It only took three days for the NHS COVID-19 app to acquire a litany of problems.
Users cannot report negative test results because the app asks for a result code and negative tests don’t have a code. If you reported symptoms to the app when booking that test then your self isolation counter continues to count, even though you have a negative test.
How about positive tests? According to the @NHSCOVID19app twitter account responding to complaints: “If your test took place in a Public Health England lab or NHS hospital, or as part of national surveillance testing conducted by the Office for National Statistics, test results cannot currently be linked with the app whether they’re positive or negative.” This shouldn’t be a surprise to the team building the app as they told us about it in their own documentation. But as this tweet from an incredulous user points out: “So if I get symptoms, and as an NHS nurse, get a test through work (because that’s the only way you can get a test these days), then if I am positive the app will not automatically alert my contacts? Same for a patient with a positive test?” That’s right, if you have your test done in an NHS hospital you cannot tell the NHS app about it.
The ludicrous levels of optimism around this app are evident in the twitter stream: “For every 1 to 2 people who download the app, an infection could be prevented.” Really? Could we see “the science” behind that please?
Meanwhile the venue check-in function doesn’t have a way of telling it when you leave a venue. That’s by design apparently: “You do not need to check out of a venue. Your phone will register when you check into somewhere new, and it will automatically check you out of your last venue at midnight.” So if I visit a venue for a few minutes at 9pm, then go home, and someone who later tests positive visits that venue at 10pm, I will be alerted and asked to isolate. No prizes for seeing the problem with that.
Presumably this level of incompetence is all part of the new normal?
Et Tu, Sainsbury’s?
A reader is disappointed to find his local Sainsbury’s becoming more zealous in its enforcement of the rules.
Sainsbury’s has now moved into enforcement mode. See yesterday’s message from their Chief Executive below.
“Greeters will be on hand outside all supermarkets and busy convenience stores to remind customers to wear face coverings when they enter stores. If you do not have a face covering when you arrive at a store, our colleagues will help you find one.”
Tannoy announcements to be ramped up.
How sad. Our local store at Chertsey was an oasis of common sense before this.
The message has the line: “If you think there is anything else we should be doing that would make your shopping experience easier or better then please do get in touch with me.” It is, of course, a ‘no reply’ email and there is no obvious way on Sainsbury’s website to communicate about anything more than being overcharged for Activia yoghurts.
Stuart Wheeler’s Farewell Party During Lockdown
JP Floru, author of The Sun Tyrant: A Nightmare Called North Korea, is working on a book about the lockdown policy and has written an original essay for Lockdown Sceptics on the folly of governments removing people’s right to choose when it comes to what risks to take in their lives – what he calls the “nationalisation of risk”. You can read the full essay here, but the final section, in which he describes the last request of Stuart Wheeler, is below.
By all means, let us hear from the experts and the scientists! We should not return to a pre-scientific society based on superstition and prejudice.
But Instead of supplanting people’s individual risk/benefit calculation by central diktat, the Government could have made sure that its citizens had better information to take their own decisions. They could have put more emphasis on how contagious COVID-19 was; and what to do to avoid it. They could have suggested who might want to shield, instead of ordering it. They should have advised, but not dictated.
Some more people might have died. But perhaps they would not have been alone in their final months and weeks and days. Perhaps fewer people would have felt so hopeless that they killed themselves. Perhaps fewer people would have become poor, because they would still have had their jobs. Perhaps fewer people would be angry or in despair. Perhaps fewer people would have seen their quality of life tank so dramatically.
I want to end this with a real story. One of the most interesting characters I have met was Stuart Wheeler. He made his money with spread betting and went on to be tremendously influential in British politics by financing the Conservative Party, UKIP, and assorted Eurosceptic causes. He was a jovial man who hosted everybody of note and potential note at his Elizabethan Castle in Kent, which is often featured in period dramas and other Agatha Christie films.
One day during the lockdown, his friends found this e-mail in their inbox:
“As many of you know, I have cancer and my doctors do not expect me to live more than about six months. So what would I prefer – to never see again my and my daughters’ friends? Or to see them, taking the very slight risk of catching the virus from them, which might shorten my life by a few months? The answer is crystal clear to me…”
“No one who, for my sake, declines an invitation to visit us at the castle, is doing me a favour,” he wrote. “On the contrary, by depriving me of their company, they are doing me a great disfavour.”
Worth reading in full.
Postcard From Rome
Long time contributor to Lockdown Sceptics Guy de la Bédoyère has just returned from a trip to Rome which he found surprisingly life-enhancing. He has written a postcard for us, describing the whole blissful experience. Here is an extract:
In the famous H.G. Wells story The Time Machine the remote future is a dystopian world. After a horrific war humanity divided into two: those who took shelter underground and those who took their chances in the sun. By the time Wells’s Time Traveller arrives they have evolved into two species. Those who stayed on the surface have become the passive and indolent cattle known as the Eloi. They are farmed by the hideous troglodyte Morlocks who lurk in their caverns with machines they use for processing the Eloi whom they harvest and eat.
This all came back to me as we wandered in a blissfully quiet Rome, but in a reverse form. In our dystopian future the Morlocks are those who cower at home, by choice or under the government heel, while the rest of us enjoy the sunlit uplands. In short, in a really strange sort of way all the Covid precautions have made life better for those prepared to take their chances and live a little. Perhaps we should keep them on after all.
We have been visiting Rome since 1975 and never before have we walked straight into St Peter’s with no more than a cursory bag check. The great basilica was no busier than a large parish church in a country town on a desolate weekday afternoon. We had Michelangelo’s Pieta to ourselves. It was busy around the Colosseum but not by normal standards. We spent a day in the ruined Roman port at Ostia Antica, wandering around the remains of streets, apartment blocks, houses and temples. I suppose we must have seen a couple of dozen other people but that was all. The Spanish Steps had almost no-one on them. We were only in Rome for three days so didn’t bother with museums as that would have meant more time wearing masks. But I don’t doubt that they are equally empty.
Worth reading in full.
Round-Up
- “The making of Britain’s Covid catastrophe” – Magisterial essay by Dr John Lee in Spiked
- “The truth about Sweden’s voluntary lockdown” – Interesting piece in the Spectator by Dr Rachel Irwin pointing out that the Swedish Government had not choice but to impose a voluntary lockdown because the constitution prevented it from suspending civil liberties
- “The source of our Covid paranoia? Modern society has forgotten that life is a lottery” – Simon Heffer is on fire in the Sunday Telegraph
- “People are losing patience with radical theory’s takeover of public discourse” – Juliet Samuel is sick of the left’s relentless culture war
- “MPs have a moral duty to challenge the suspension of our liberties” – Janet Daley continues to beat the sceptics’ drum
- “Parliament must take back control of Covid laws” – Steve Baker MP says its time Parliament took back control
- “Tory rebels face ‘nuclear’ option on Covid measures” – Go on, Sir Graham. Press the button
- “Boris’ great idea? Burn down the house TWICE to get rid of a wasps’ nest, then stand in the ruins and blame everyone but himself for this futile catastrophe” – The headline says it all in Peter Hitchens’s latest column in the Mail on Sunday
- “Democracy muzzled” – Peter Hitchens on the horrors of face masks in the October issue of the Critic
- “Exclusive poll: Two-thirds of Britons think coronavirus restrictions do not go far enough” – The Telegraph reports that 63% of Britons think the restrictions imposed last week don’t go far enough!
- “More voters are now worried about the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the economy than over the health of the nation” – A Mail on Sunday poll, by contrast, finds that 51% of Britons think the health of the economy is the biggest problem facing the country next year, with 43% worried about the effects of the pandemic
- “What can we learn about lockdowns from the country whose dictator told them to fight Covid by drinking vodka?” – Ian Birrell visits Belarus for the Mail on Sunday to see what lessons we can learn
- “How liberals made the world nuts” – An extract from Piers Morgan’s new pro-free speech book, Wake Up, proving that the GMB presenter isn’t wrong about everything
- “Why are scientific experts so stiflingly prone to erring on the side of caution?” – Dan Hannan in the Telegraph says Boris must stop listening to doom-mongering scientists
- “Death Toll From Covid-19 Pandemic Extends Far Beyond Virus Victims” – The Wall St Journalist reports that more Americans are dying from heart attacks and other health issues as a result of the shut downs than they are from the virus
- “German Minister: Lockdown Will Kill More Than COVID-19 Does” – Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Muller, also believes lockdown measures will end up killing more people than the virus itself
- “‘Toxic and undemocratic’: The damning findings of an official report into the ultra-woke students’ union in Durham” – A damning report into Durham Students Union has been leaked to the Mail
- “SAGE scientists suggested a plan for EVERYONE over the age of 45 to shield at home” – How about all SAGE scientists shield at home?
- “Governor Ron DeSantis Holds Virtual Roundtable with Leading Public Health Experts” – For once, the “experts” really are experts. They include Michael Levitt, Jay Battacharya and Martin Kulldorff
- “EasyJet ‘hanging by a thread’, says union official” – Yikes! Sleazy Jet is about to crash and burn
- “Tackling the virus” – A bracing bout of scepticism from John Redwood MP
- “UK set to become biggest country donor to World Health Organisation, Boris Johnson to announce” – That’s it. He has to go
- “The Huffington Post Got it Wrong” – Another rebuttal of the Huffington Post’s cack-handed attempt to pooh-pooh the false positive problem, this one by Martin Sharman
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Two today: “Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and “Sitting in the Corner Blues” by Rab Noakes.
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, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Woke Gobbledegook
Today I bring you the Free Speech Union‘s latest attempt to protect our members from woke gobbledegook.
Many of our members have asked us what to do if they find themselves at odds with their employers about how best to tackle prejudice and discrimination in the workplace. As some of you will be aware, employers, as well as schools and universities, have introduced a raft of new “anti-racism” initiatives in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, from circulating suggested reading lists (Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race) to introducing mandatory unconscious bias training. Is there a way of expressing your reservations about these initiatives that means your employer cannot legally punish you for doing so? What are the limits on what an employer can do to force you to assent to the “woke” orthodoxy on this issue?
Because we were getting so many questions along those lines, and dealing with so many cases of people who are being punished for dissenting from the BLM narrative, we thought it would be helpful to publish some Frequently Asked Questions on this topic. You can read them here. We did a good deal of research in the course of compiling this first set of FAQs, and one of the people who helped with that research, a journalist called Carrie Clark, has written up her findings in the form of a briefing paper. Carrie looked specifically at the Implicit Association Test, a diagnostic tool that sits at the heart of most forms of diversity training. It’s worth reading in full, but the short version is that this test has been almost completely discredited in the scientific literature since it was first devised in 1998. You can read a summary of Carrie’s paper here.
Of course, if you’re concerned about being punished by your employer or your university for being insufficiently woke, the best thing you can do is join the Free Speech Union.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (takes a while to arrive). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £1.99 from Etsy here. And, finally, if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face nappies in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s a round-up of the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mask (threadbare at best).
Stop Press: A reader says his local cafe owner is now insisting customers follow absurd, arbitrary mask-wearing rules, following last week’s tightening of restrictions.
A clearly nervous cafe owner tells us that she will risk being closed down if her customers don’t follow the new rules. So we have to put on a mask to walk the three paces from the street door to a table. Then we can sit for as long as we want without a mask to eat or drink, but had to put one back on if we stood up to walk the two steps to look at the cakes or when we wanted to leave. What madness! Why is it OK to sit in a small cafe for an hour without a mask, but the two seconds needed to enter or exit is so deadly a mask is needed? Perhaps the virus is more deadly at a height of 6 foot than it is at at a height of 3 foot?
Mask Extra: The Telegraph has discovered that anti-mask activists are urging people to buy “mask exempt” lanyards to avoid wearing face nappies. Ooh mother! Whatever next?
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email [email protected] 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.
And Finally…
Matt Lucas wheels out his Boris impression to promote the next series of Bake Off. Quite funny, particularly the first bit.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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If only students (and their parents) realised how much power they potentially hold.
Why is it that whenever we see anyone being interviewed on bbc about the impact of local Covid restrictions on them personally, they always seem to be smiling or even laughing?
The best thing for the country and everyone living in it is:-
1. Stop testing
2. End all coronavirus restrictions
3. Stop all mask propaganda
4. Provide free counselling for people who are afraid of Covid19
We will then get back to normal.
Need a bit of help here.
My wife is exempt from wearing a face covering, but is often harassed by the security staff at Heathrow airport. They are always demanding ‘proof’, until a phone call to their manager makes them quietly back down.
What is the relevant legislation preventing them from asking her for ‘proof’ of her condition?
Killer question in the ‘realnormalpodcast’
“”Herd immunity is only 8% in the U.K.? Bollox. How does he think the virus killed so few in SE Asia if T-cell immunity from SARS and previous Corona viruses didn’t provide protection?”
Worth a listen:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1268768
“Top scientists” advising crazed Nazi Government to lockdown all over 45s (in addition to all students, almost the entire Midlands, North East) and advising people to work from home wherever possible. That should prevent needing to have a full lockdown. Wankers.
They have absolutely lost the plot.
Here’s a link:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12774862/scientists-over-45-shield/
Wankers indeed – of the most extreme variety. One has to question the sanity of anyone suggesting such a catastrophic idea.
I’m amazed at the police resources available to deal with lockdown protests compared with what is normally available to deal with petty crime or anti social behaviour!
What do they do with the TSG when there are no peaceful demonstrations to attack? They must keep them somewhere secure, surely? A prison, or somewhere?
Speaking with my sister in law paramedic.
She revealed new advice from her superiors by email. Outside of their work they are told not to attend weddings, family events or any event where social distancing is difficult. Basically, work, go home, cover yourself in sanitiser, have sex with your mask on if you have to, then back to work. Nothing else.
This was after 4 colleagues from another ward tests positive following a golf event. No guidance broken, it happens.
It’s the new thing: people are being ‘encouraged’ to sign new employment contracts, agreeing not to go anywhere you can’t socially distance, nor travel to anywhere not on the official travel corridor. If you want to keep your job, you sign.
Good night, friends all, God bless, I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Every new day, whatever its trials, brings us one day nearer to the Liberation.
Magna est veritas et praevalebit.
Great us Truth, and it will prevail.
night hope tomorrow goes better for you.
Here is a little story, I went down the canal for a cycle today, down to a little bridge over the canal way out of town with a foot path running over it. All very nice, I supped some ale and watched the world go by, I met a guy who I am sure was a hobbit with a Scottish accent we had a little chat. A cheery coupl on bikes went past the guy saw my ale and said “That looks like a good idea mate !” as they whizzed past under the bridge.
A few more walkers go past, then this guys wanders up. The bridge is off the tow path and leads to nowhere but he climbed up and was standing there looking around, it’s an interesting feature and is inviting to climb up. He was a bit lost looking. We got talking.
I noticed immediately this guy had a enormous cranium, he was like a Meekon. Almost alien like. A proper boffin I thought. Turns out he was at Southampton University doing data science working with airlines to make their things more efficient using errr efficient data processes, or something. Fascinating.
Then I said,” well I… Read more »
I often wondered how very intelligent people can be so.. stupid. There’s a good explanation on the Corona Circus website:
if he believes air travel is ever going to be the again, he need a wake up call.
I hope the IPA was good
I’ve had the email asking me to download the app. I replied thus:
“I’d rather catch coronavirus while giving Matt Hancock a blow job than download your poxy App. But nevertheless, thanks for asking.”
I just deleted it. I don’t want that kind of shit on my phone. Or the app.
Could we replace Hancock with sticking your head in the jaws of a rather large alligator, the former is just too grotesque.
If we have a problem in the UK with false pos, the situation in the US could be worse. This is farcial and just illustrates the multiple different testing kits around are dangerous and not up to standard
“This is my favorite US example of false (+). “The NFL had 77 ‘positive’ COVID-19 tests from 11 teams re-examined by a New Jersey lab after false positives, and ALL those tests came back NEGATIVE.”
https://apnews.com/article/5d15429433051c78f2ca42fc08fbf835
Same thing happened with 2 Scottish football teams. Players and staff tested positive (I believe at a private clinic) and subsequently all tested negative via an NHS test.
I’m sure there have been numerous other incidences of individuals in sports that are hard to keep a track of.
Any data yet on what proportion of the population has download the track and trace app?
Hancock twitter said 10 million so far. But no evidence cited.
AHH but is that gross or net ? Close relative and partner came for tea, proudly showed off app on phone. Told them that that was quick way to get told to isolate for 14 days. Stunned silence, then one after another ‘ oh shit, going to delete it right now’.
Having nearly vomited at the advert on BBC I’m proud to say I will never ever under any circumstances download that. And I suspect my family / friends and loved ones will be just fine. Fuck you very much.
Comments about Korean paper below
“It can´t be track & trace that has ended the epidemic in South Korea, they missed >90% of the infections.”
https://twitter.com/FrankfurtZack/status/1310289124327403520
but also
“The sample is too small to take any conclusion out of it. But we don’t need to find South Korea to fail at it to know that TETRIS does not work. Straight from our unpublished manuscript:” (worth reading abstract from that manuscript in the twitter
https://twitter.com/federicolois/status/1310296289494663172
In conclusion Test and Trace can not work after the first few hundered infections and is impossible to use in a disease with so vague symptoms often and not deadly symptoms like EBOLA.Hunt,Hague and Blair mad scheme with mass testing will never work.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7384903/
“The estimated seroprevalence was 7.6% (95% confidence interval, 4.3%–12.2%) with 15 positive cases. Among them, only one had a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-confirmed case among their close contacts and 13 did not experience COVID-19-related symptoms.”
“Our study suggested that the number of undiagnosed missing cases was substantial even with the stringent strategy adopted in Korea, similar to that of other countries”
Does the idea that we can trace a virus that is quite infectious but in many cases benign strike anyone else as incredibly arrogant? I’ve never understood it.
Yep, I can’t see how test and trace can work in a country of 70 million, with many different migrant cultures and language groups, maybe a million illegal migrants, and, as you say, so many asymptomatic cases. Maybe somewhere like Singapore it can work. The best you could achieve with T n T in the UK is a slowing down of spread – totally pointless now, just prolonging the agony.
Liam Gallagher
@liamgallagher
Over 45s now gotta stay in fuck rite off I’m of out with my mask on what you gonna do bout mother fucker LG x
Think he means without his mask on. Liam’s part of the turned tide.
Or does it mean that he’s over 45 and will not stay in? But is going out with a mask on?
I typed all that without saying fuck.
I think he means fuck em. Masks and over 45 bullshit. Hes off out not giving a fuck. I supposed choon in to the next tweets, i can’t see Liam being into masks, but i am no expert. The attitude of fuck em tells me he made an error in rant. Fuck em describes have nothing at all to do with their bs, not a half way ferret around the edges.
I think Liam was pro mask and his brother Noel is the one who won’t wear one. Maybe they have opposing viewpoints just to spite each other.
Wow, i am surprise if that is the case, I just set down my naive take on it under bluemoons. World is crazier that I thought if fuck em means I’m off out in my mask!
Here we go:
https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/liam-gallagher/gives-stance-wearing-face-masks-gotta-be-done/
Liam Gallagher
@liamgallagher
Don’t like but it’s gotta be done think it’s a crime to hide this face
Thanks, I am really surprised as weasely use of fuck em, I understand nothing of popular culture! I see the announcement is July so has pop moved on since then?
Knowing them that probably is the case
I was wrong. It is the case. I even looked at LG twitter, not easy! Sceptical views, yet he is wearing a mask.
I wonder if known faces may appreciate the opportunity to hide?
Amazing
Not so fast! It might not be, there appears some doubt in my assumption liam has balls! He may in fact be a ninny.
D’oh I can’t read – I thought he said ‘without my mask’
It caught me out too, I presumed a typo. But it was my error to assume.
Clarification of a Covid patient from Senior Analytical lead NHS
” This would include any patient with a positive test in the last 14 days no matter what they were admitted for ”
So even Hospital admissions are being manipulated
It’s a load of b*llocks isn’t it?
Thanks for finding this out. I thought they were being creative with the statistics.
Many nursing home residents are now tested weekly…..though in theory they will not be a ‘new case’ in the care home if they tested positive two weeks ago and then again today, as double counting of cases is not allowed I hope….but does anyone please know….will they count as a Covid Patient in a hospital if they are admitted today please?
Yes they would, probably also re tested I would guess
Really annoying that Sainsbury’s is now pandering to the masked lot, instead of giving people the choice without making it a bad experience for those who cant be muzzled another shopper lost. The fuss over trolley cleaning, hand sanitiser’s is a joke when you think how so many in the world have to live, and idiots here complain because their trolley hasnt been cleaned. Pathetic
Bizarre ,,, Garden Centre today we had to queue , some random youth then proceeded to pre-scan all the items in our trolleys …presumably touching everything in our trolley with same manky gloves he did everyone else’s with as he didnt change them.
I merrily stood mask free in a sea of zombies
also the cleaning of tables and chairs with the same cloth and slap dash attitude, not that I blame them, they must know its all a farce and going along with it, it really is a pathetic OTT business to keep up the scare mongering, wonder if they are sanitising everywhere in the shanty towns of the world etc. LOL
Hi mate, first-time poster, long-time lurker! (old fashioned leftie, remainer & green voter – so I know all about the Guardian and it’s despicable turn since the angle grinder episode). The thing with the shortage of PPE argument, is that it makes no sense when one considers the Government and local authorities were advising you could simply cut up an old T-shirt to make one. Unless there was a mass shortage of cotton in the spring. Cheers
Remember that the Groan comments are shaped to fit the overall editorial agenda. They exclude comments that go against it – same old ‘community standards’ shite.
Dr Vernon Coleman on form
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/revealed-how-the-bbc-is-deliberately-suppressing-the-truth_SD2GfN7EMIjUkSD.html
Not sure of the viewing figures of the BBC now, but the young dont watch it, probably why most are not scared witless and still going out to pubs etc. Boris has the right idea about the replacement for the top job
I tend to disagree on that.
Changing the man at the top is laudable, but will make no difference.
The first thing to do is to decriminalise non payment of the license fee, then move to a subscription model.
The BBC will not change its spots, although Mr Moore could help most by not opposing decriminalisation, then encouraging a subscription service.
Well hopefully that’s the way it’ll go, no place for state funded tv now.
I heard that the BBC was heavily protected by police yesterday when the Trafalgar Square demo was on.
Which tells you a lot about how the BBC perceives its role. .
Pressure building:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/27/defy-tory-lockdown-rebels-expect-certain-defeat-boris-johnson/
‘David Davis: ‘Any Tory Govt that ignores an amendment tabled by the chairman of the 1922 Committee is off its rocker’
It will be an interesting week. I think there will be resignations this week – possibly even from Cabinet.
Lets hope so!
Spot the catch:
Sir Graham’s amendment to the Act proposes that future restrictions proposed under the Act should be debated and voted on by Parliament if they affect the whole of England or the whole of the UK, rather than ministers being able to bypass the Commons as is currently the case.
Given that they are currently locking down the nation a bit at a time, could this still mean government by diktat?
I can’t speak to the situation in the UK, but what’s happened here has been quite insidious. For example, the Ontario premier opted not to invoke a provincial mask mandate and left it up to each city/region — and they fell like dominoes. So to legally challenge mask mandates instead of just suing the provincial government, you must take action against each municipality. So as long as they all work in lockstep they get the same result — draconian measures introduced a bit at a time, not at the same time, and with slight variations. And our premier’s extension of his emergency powers, while “debated” sort of, was a done deal with a majority government. Only one MP voted against the extension and is no longer a party member as a result. The provinces really have carte blanche do do whatever they like, whereas our federal government is a minority government but is not likely to be challenged by the other parties for the same reason Labour hasn’t challenged in the UK — they are all for the mandates and often argue they haven’t gone far enough. Your situation sounds slightly more promising than ours.
Reminiscent of 1930’s Germany. Who says we never learn from history.
We’re not federal – yet.
There are plans to decentralise, but not in a good way.
I hope so!
I want to believe it will succeed but after months of the dictatorial regime it almost feels too good to be true.
In the spirit of pressure building Patrick 21st Century Wire Henningsen gave this appraisal earlier, he is a good analyst on UK Column also:
1h
A deluge is coming.
If #CoronaVirus Act is not renewed, then public backlash vs #BorisJohnson & #MattHancock will be immense, they wont survive past Xmas. They, along w/their #COVID ‘crisis’ will go down in history as biggest fraud ever perpetrated in name of “health & safety”
https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1310318557398532099?s=20
Makes me feel concerned to be ready for the extension to happen. It’s a good prinicple to hope for the best and plan for the worst.
Great reply: “The 2nd wave will be a popular tsunami wiping them [Piffle, Handycock and Sunak] off the political map forever.” I admire the spirit.
Seems that huge sums of money have been scammed from the Covid business loans as well. Seems that the government is terminally incompetent
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54187581
Not as much though as our corrupt regime has pocketed. Ten billion for track and trace?
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3037
Carl Vernon on being “selfish”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK8oiHrVTCk
Live in Ten minutes, (21:30GMT) Mark Windows, Windows on the World
https://windowsontheworld.net/live-shows/
With live chat
Personally one of my concerns is that because masks are so symbolic and contentious, people end up focusing on this. Meanwhile, they’re printing money like there’s no tomorrow, introducing laws by diktat without parliamentary scrutiny, proposing negative interest rates etc. etc.
The focus on masks could end up taking focus away from these other important issues, which ultimately lets them get away with it.
I’m fully guilty of getting sucked in to the masks thing though, so I don’t have an easy solution in mind!
Masks are a diversion. Which is why they were mandated when they were mandated, rather than in March or April. Most who wear them do so under duress, whatever we think of them.
Public Health Scotland have produced figures the local rag claims show nearly half of current ‘infections*’ are among teenagers.
Where do teenagers hang out? That’s right they are press ganged for nearly all of their teenage life into education settings – where ‘buubles’ and ‘masks’ and ‘hand stripper’ and teachers behind perspex is off the charts insane.
Aside from the incovenient truth that teenagers do not die from covid these figures show clearly the junk science and witch craft measures are useless. Before every LS and their skeptical dog says PCR tests are junk anyway, I know, but these cattle, sorry teenage people, must have a symptom to be put forward for the old meangingless false positive in the first place.
*’infections’, picking up a slight trend to use ‘infections’ now rather than ‘cases’. Neither are accurate but tge switch may be a deliberate muddying of the waters to yet futher confuse the public. What they in fact mean is the person likely returned a false positive PCR test, nothing more.
Raised temperature? Cough? Individually these symptoms have a low specificity for CoViD19, even together their specificity is not much higher.
I seem to recall that years ago, come September/October all the children went back to school and got colds and chicken pox and students went back to college and got glandular fever and nobody bothered much about it.
Covid 19 seems to cause fewer problems than chicken pox or glandular fever, what is all the fuss about?
Bear in mind glandular fever has symptoms similar to CoViD19 as mentioned in the flu like illnesses from the other day on here.
It’s a lot more serious for young people mind. One guy I knew was pretty much out for a year with it.
I’ve known people take a year to recover from glandular fever.
Glandular fever can drag on for quite some time, much like long Covid
This is great news. As we all knew it would (and despite the silly measures), immunity is building in this population, helping build a protective shield for the old/vulnerable.
A lady has reported on twitter that a pub asked her to complete a form stating why she is exempt from wearing a face mask;
https://twitter.com/northerness/status/1310191395941031936
A year ago this would have seemed outrageous but these days it seems that such actions are just a part of living in the ‘Covid world’. All our rights and protections seem to have flown out of the window, life is now a bit like living in East Germany in the 1950s.
East Germans could go and have a drink in peace without being asked for their papers before they entered a bar.
It’s illegal to ask for patient data. The pub has no means of storing that data. The pub has no place to feed that data into. Tgere is a defect with the landlord’s thinking, if true.
Dat be illegal
That’s illegal, that sort of information is confidential as it will contain data that can identify the person and medical details. That breaks data protection, GDPR and medical records legislation.
It may well be illegal but i am not sure that counts for much in covid world? Much of our rights and legal protections have been swept away in the interest of beating the virus.
They haven’t, but most people don’t know the law and the people who do know aren’t doing anything about it.
It’s all too rushed there’s no training for managers and staff to explain the law and what you can and can’t do. I had to tell explain quite a bit of this stuff to members of staff at our store.
Forgive me taking up space with what we all know, but how much ‘staff training’ is needed to understand this?
Those who have an age, health or disability reason for not wearing a face covering should not be routinely asked to give any written evidence of this, this includes exemption cards. No person needs to seek advice or request a letter from a medical professional about their reason for not wearing a face covering.
Some people may feel more comfortable showing something that says they do not have to wear a face covering. This could be in the form of an exemption card, badge or even a home-made sign.
This is a personal choice and is not necessary in law.
A couple of paras of plain English. Here is a sample script for a ‘training session’:
“Don’t challenge people who are exempt. They do not need a badge or anything. That’s it”.
So many ‘officials’ have not seen the official guidance *at all*.
Exactly. It seems that most of the staff (including supervisors) haven’t read any of the guidance, I don’t think they’ve even read the email the company sent out (or if they did it went in one ear and out the other). I hate those online training modules, but they do make you read everything and understand it.
It will come.
Andto be hated by Grauniad zombies is a guarantee of being human.
This is good. Really interesting analysis of modelling Sweden vs UK. Not new news for us but well presented.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpu87AHIILA
Rather strange things in Spain,see quote below.Can explain why many patients admitted but also many discharged quickly in their daily statistics. Also post the best update of the situation in Spain, which seems to have peaked and coming down.
“In case this article is of interest… Average age has dropped to 38, people are on average not as sick and – interestingly – are going to hospital quicker. It’s not clear if this is due to the system being less saturated or the earlier, older demographic being more ‘obedient”
https://twitter.com/longcovidspain/status/1310155121708408832/photo/1
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6mk4465ewjcb6ln/SPAIN%20-%20Second%20Wave%20Monitoring-25Sept2020.pdf?dl=0