Boris Panicked and U-Turned Over Lockdown After Seeing Neil Ferguson’s Projections
The Mail on Sunday is serialising an explosive new biography of Boris by Tom Bower that claims Boris was panicked into imposing a full national lockdown after Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance were presented with Neil Ferguson’s apocalyptic predictions at a meeting of SAGE.
Bower tells how a critical meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) on February 25th was presented with the ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ from Professor Ferguson under which 80% of Britons would be infected and the death-toll would be 510,000 people.
The author writes: “This was an improvement on Ferguson’s earlier assessment that between 2% and 3% would die – up to 1.5 million deaths. Even with mitigation measures, he said, the death toll could be 250,000 and the existing intensive care units would be overwhelmed eight times over.
“Neither Vallance nor Whitty outrightly challenged Ferguson’s model or predictions. By contrast, in a series of messages from Michael Levitt, a Stanford University professor who would correctly predict the pandemic’s initial trajectory, Ferguson was warned that he had overestimated the potential death toll by ‘ten to 12 times’….
The book reveals how shortly before the national lockdown, on March 16th, Ferguson forecast that one third of the over-80s who were infected would be hospitalised, of which 71% would need intensive care using ventilators.
This exaggerated prediction – that hospitals would be overwhelmed by at least eight times the usual admittance rate – made the lockdown all but inevitable.
Worth reminding people again that Professor Ferguson’s estimates of the impact of previous viral outbreaks have been almost comically inaccurate. In 2001, he predicted that foot and mouth disease could kill up to 50,000 people. It ended up killing less than 200. In 2005, he told the Guardian that up to 200 million people could die from bird flu. The final death toll from avian flu strain A/H5N1 was 440. And in 2009, a Government estimate based on one of Ferguson’s models estimated the likely death toll from swine flu at 65,000. In fact, it was 457.
Why did Boris take the predictions of this serial doom-monger so seriously?
BBC Not Telling Us Full Story About Covid – Matthew Parris
Lockdown sceptic Matthew Parris has written an excellent column in the Times today in which he berates the BBC for not doing its job properly in covering the coronavirus crisis.
“Coronavirus: GP letter was like a ‘death warrant from grim reaper’ ” (BBC News); “One death every 80 seconds: Brazil reaches a grim milestone as it becomes the third worst-hit country…” (BBC News); “Grim milestone as virus cases top 25m globally” (BBC News).
Grim, grim, grim. There has been a lip-smacking quality, not only in headlines but in the reports that follow from the world’s news media. All of us should be more rigorous in resisting the appeal of a ghoulish turn of phrase. But the BBC has been a serial offender.
In what follows I’m aware that, when it comes to panic-spreading, our state broadcasting corporation is only one of many miscreants among print and broadcast media. But that’s because I look to the BBC to help set standards. The corporation has a particular duty to stand a little back from the noise and introduce a note of quiet balance into the national conversation.
When our politicians try to use science as propaganda, broadcasters should be rock-solid in resisting the hype. Instead, they’ve swallowed the government’s line that “the science” is clear and unquestioned, and that the prospects, should we fail to “follow” the science, are apocalyptic.
Both are highly disputable. Science is divided. The most apocalyptic, however, are getting the loudest shout. Neither on how, nor where, nor when the virus spreads most virulently is there consensus among epidemiologists; and even if that consensus existed, broadcasters and journalists would still have a duty to remind politicians and the public that combating an illness should not elbow from national attention the equally honourable goal of saving livelihoods as well as lives.
Worth reading in full.
Unfortunately, Parris neglects to mention Ofcom’s “coronavirus guidance” – published on March 23rd, the same day the full lockdown was imposed – cautioning the BBC and its other licensees to treat with extreme caution anyone criticising the advice of the “public health authorities”, i.e. the NHS, the DHSC, PHE, Witless and Unbalanced and the Government more generally. I don’t think this is the major cause of the BBC’s dereliction of duty, but it was one factor among the others – laziness, innumeracy, group think and a deeply misguided belief that it was their public duty to amplify Downing Street’s scaremongering in order to frighten people into observing the rules because that would save lives.
I don’t need to remind readers of Lockdown Sceptics that the Free Speech Union is seeking the permission of the High Court to Judicially Review Ofcom’s “coronavirus guidance” in the hope of having it declared an unlawful interference in free speech. You can donate to the FSU’s “fighting fund” here.
Stop Press: Charles Moore has ruled himself out of running for the role of BBC Chairman for personal reasons. Shame.
Lord Gumption Says Boris is Behaving Like an Authoritarian Dictator
Jonathan Sumption wrote a blistering attack on Boris and his ‘strongman’ Government in the Telegraph yesterday.
Behind the spat about Parliamentary control over the Government’s Covid measures, there is an older and more fundamental divide. It is the divide between an authoritarian model of government and a more deliberative and democratic model.
The authoritarians believe in the “strongman”: the boss who gets things done with the aid of a team of technicians, who surmounts crises by intervening swiftly and decisively, without wasting time in argument or debate. The alternative, according to this view of the world, is a bunch of squabbling politicians picking over the entrails while the sand runs through the hourglass.
There has always been a strand of political masochism in Britain which likes this idea: the sort of people who admire dictators because they make the trains run on time. From time to time there is a more widespread move towards authoritarian government. We are experiencing one of those times now.
Worth reading in full.
Grant Shapps Gets His Sums Wrong
A sharp-eyed reader has spotted a mathematical error in Grant Shapps’s attempt to defend sticking Poland on the quarantine list.
I don’t know whether you picked up on Grant Shapps claiming that Poland had to be put back on the quarantine list because their “test positivity has nearly doubled, increasing from 3.9% to 5.8%”. That is, of course, an increase of only 50%, not 100%.
I believe that Mr Shapps, who was formerly the Chairman of the APPG for General Aviation, still holds a Pilot’s Licence. Let’s hope his navigational skills are as good as his maths and the next time he goes for a flight he gets lost and we never have to see him again. If he could take Mad Boris and Nanny Hancock with him, so much the better!
BBC Reality Check Loses Touch With Reality
There’s a snarky piece about Julia Hartley-Brewer under the BBC’s “Reality Check” banner claiming she got her facts wrong about the False Positive Rate. In fact, the BBC journalists who’ve written the hatchet job – Simon Maybin and Josephine Casserly – are the ones who’ve got their facts wrong.
Julia’s sin was to claim that nine out of 10 “cases” could be false positives. The journalists say that is categorically untrue.
Could it be true that 90% of positive results from tests in the community – that means tests not carried out in hospitals – are false? The answer is “no” – there is no way that so-called false positives have had such an impact on the figures.
Actually, there is a way “so-called false positives” could have had that impact. Suppose the true community case rate is eight in 10,000. If the false positive rate is 0.8% – as estimated by this paper submitted to SAGE – then if you test 10,000 people, you’ll get 88 positive results, of which 80 are false positives and eight are true positives. Perhaps the true community case rate is now slightly higher than eight in 10,000 – the latest ONS infection study puts it at 21 in 10,000 – but even so there is certainly a plausible scenario in which 90% of the positive results from tests in the community are false.
The extraordinary thing is that these reality-checking sleuths then go on to admit this.
If you tested 1,000 people at random for COVID-19 in early September, for example, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) infection study suggests you should have expected one of them to actually have the virus.
With a false positive rate of 0.8% – a figure used by Ms Hartley-Brewer and within the broad range of what we think might be the actual rate for community testing – you would get eight false positives. So in that context, it’s true that roughly 90% of positives would be false.
But having admitted that there is a scenario in which 90% of positives could be false, they then go on to say that it’s no longer plausible because the people volunteering for community testing, as opposed to the people being sampled at random by the ONS, are much more likely to have the virus – the same point made by Tom Chivers in UnHerd and which James Ferguson comprehensively rebutted on Lockdown Sceptics.
Here’s what the reality checkers think is their killer point:
Figures for late September from Public Health England show that 7% of community tests were positive. That means if 1,000 people were tested with a false positive rate of 0.8%, eight would be false positives, but 70 would be true positives – the vast majority.
But hang on. They’re assuming that PHE’s 7% positive rate doesn’t include any false positives – hence their claim that if you test 1,000 people 70 would be true positives. But given that they’ve accepted there’s a false positive rate of 0.8%, it’s more likely that PHE is counting the false positives alongside the true positives when estimating the current rate of infection. That means that of the 70 people who test positive, eight are false positives, leaving 62 true positives.
Come on, reality checkers. If you’re going to chastise another journalist for not getting her facts right – even though she did – you need to get the facts straight yourself.
Stop Press: There’s an excellent letter in the Lancet by three doctors raising the alarm about false positives. I look forward to the BBC’s reality checkers doing a number on them.
Teeth Deteriorate as Dentists Struggle to Reopen
The lockdown has caused a backlog of 15 million dental appointments, leaving many patients suffering badly. The Sunday Times has more.
Patients may have to wait until next year for dental treatment because 15 million appointments have been delayed by the coronavirus.
With restrictions still in place, some dentists can see only emergency cases and are not doing routine checkups. Many are carrying out only serious procedures on patients whose teeth have deteriorated from problems “stored up” for months during the lockdown.
“I’ve taken more teeth out from the average patient in the past three months than at any point in my career,” said Mark Green, 49, a dentist in Whitby, North Yorkshire, who has been treating patients for 22 years.
“It’s like going back in time. I saw someone the other day in his twenties who needs 12 teeth out. I’ve removed those that are [causing] the most pain and then we’re going to try and get him in again [for another appointment].”
Though surgeries were able to reopen in June, strict infection-control measures imposed by Public Health England (PHE) mean many dentists can see only a few patients a day. Before the pandemic they would see about 30 a day.
Worth reading in full.
Are Some Muslim Deaths Being Falsely Attributed to Coronavirus?
A reader has an interesting theory about why a higher percentage of Muslims have supposedly died of Covid than non-Muslims.
I was speaking with a work colleague who is a Muslim this week and he was telling me about his 85-year-old neighbour who died. His neighbour had congestive heart disease and wasn’t a well man. He caught a cold and thus had to have a COVID-19 test which came back negative. A few weeks later the man died, but the Doctor wanted to perform an autopsy which would take weeks. As per the Muslim faith, his family weren’t happy with this as the burial needs to occur within 24 hours, so the Doctor put COVID-19 on the death certificate so that the man could be buried without his having to do an autopsy even though he had not tested positive.
Now I remember looking back at the COVID-19 deaths by Religious group from the ONS and the COVID-19 deaths for Muslims was significantly higher than any other based on population percentage.
So, could this need for quick burial as required by the Muslim faith, and thus COVID-19 being put down as a cause of death, be an influencing factor into why BAME COVID-19 deaths are considered to be so high?
Sixty-Six GPs Urge Hancock to Do No (More) Harm
We’ve seen a number of anti-lockdown letters signed by doctors and medical professionals, such as this one in the US and this one in Belgium. But as far as I’m aware we haven’t seen one in the UK – until now, that is. Sixty-six GPs have written to Matt Hancock urging him to consider the collateral damage being done by the ongoing restrictions, listing the tens of thousands of non-Covid excess deaths in private homes since March, the spike in cardiovascular deaths, the rise in child suicides and the problems besetting the elderly – depression, anxiety and loneliness. It’s not as forthrightly sceptical as I’d like – the docs say they supported the first lockdown – but the reasonableness of its tone may end making it more effective. And the message is clear: the harm the restrictions are doing to the public’s health outweighs the harm they are supposedly preventing. full text of the letter below.
And Now For the Less Admirable GPs…
A reader was prompted by a recent GP horror story on Lockdown Sceptics to provide an anecdote of her own.
My GP surgery is based in a North Wales coastal town. A pharmacy is adjacent to it. I called in to collect a prescription but noticed a queue of six rather dispirited – young and old – people waiting outside the surgery. It was raining, cold and windy. The surgery insists that you don’t turn up for your appointment nowadays until exactly the appointed time. Well, shame on these people for being too punctual. The surgery has two large waiting areas where they could wait seated probably 12 feet apart with no problems whatsoever.
Whilst I was in the pharmacy a member of surgery staff came in, I asked why these poor people were waiting outside in these conditions. She said: “That’s the way it has to be at the moment.” I asked what was going to happen in the winter. Her reply: “They’ll have to get better clothing.” Then she returned to the surgery, and presumably remained snug and dry in her little office.
Disgraceful.
Tory Constituencies Are Being Spared Second Lockdowns
The Sunday Times says that leaked emails between health officials reveal that Tory areas, such as the newly-won Red Wall seats, are less likely to have second lockdowns inflicted on them than Labour areas.
Wealthy areas, including the chancellor Rishi Sunak’s parliamentary seat, are avoiding lockdown despite having higher COVID-19 rates than poorer areas that are subject to restrictions, according to leaked emails between health officials.
The Government is under growing pressure to explain why it has placed large parts of the north and Midlands under local lockdowns while overlooking areas with similar infection rates. Asked why the northwest is “treated differently” from areas such as his own seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip in west London, Boris Johnson said on Friday: “I appreciate… people want to see an iron consistency applied across the whole country.”
Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, decides which areas to place in lockdown during weekly “gold” meetings with advisers. Yesterday, 50 councils were subject to measures such as bans on household mixing. However, there is no official COVID-19 infection rate that triggers a local lockdown.
The Sunday Times has put together a list that illustrates the scandal:
- NO LOCKDOWN
- West Lancashire 137 cases per 100,000
- Barrow-in-Furness 112
- Darlington 110
- Craven 109
- Newark and Sherwood 84
- IN LOCKDOWN
- Chorley 73 cases per 100,000
- Wyre 71
- Lancaster 66
- Oadby and Wigston 63
- Wolverhampton 56
Worth reading in full.
Round-Up
- “Confusion reigns over the state of President Trump’s health after contracting coronavirus” – The Telegraph says Trump was given oxygen on Friday because, according to a White House staffer, his vitals were “very concerning”
- “Where’s the opposition?” – William Clouston, the leader of the SDP, asks where the political opposition is to the disastrous “stop-go” lockdown
- “Northern Lockdown Might Get Tougher” – The Mail reports that the revelation that 770 students have tested positive at a university in Newcastle may mean harsher measures are imposed, even though 692 of them are asymptomatic
- “MSNBC’s Joy Reid sparks fury by suggesting Trump is faking his COVID diagnosis” – A new conspiracy theory about Covid takes root, but don’t expect this one to be banned by YouTube
- “Why I’m shorting search for coronavirus cure” – Latest from Barry Norris, the fund manager and vaccine sceptic
- “The case for lockdowns is littered with dangerous logical fallacies” – Janet Daley in the Telegraph is as robustly sceptical as ever
- “Establish a peoples scientific and medical panel” – New petition calling for a new scientific and medical panel to be elected by the British people to scrutinise the scientific and medical advice being given to the Government
- “Government versus the people?” – Staunchly libertarian piece in the Salisbury Review by Dr Niall McCrae who was at the anti-lockdown demo in Westminster that was shut down by the riot police
- “More proportion and balance is needed in the Covid debate” – Sensible piece in Bournbrook by James Black
- “Covid, lockdown and the economics of valuing lives” – Good piece in the Spectator by Simon Wood arguing that the cost of the lockdown in terms of Quality-Adjusted Life Years is far greater than the lives it has saved, even if you take the Government’s most generous, self-congratulatory estimate
- “Leicester no longer in England’s top 50 areas for coronavirus infections” – The Leicester Mercury breaks the good news
- “Authorities are using COVID-19 as a smokescreen to stifle the legitimate right to protest” – Good article by Marco Peronlini in euronews
- “COVID-19 tears through mink population in Denmark: Up to 1 million to be culled as human transmission panic grows” – Alarming story out of Denmark
- “Are the conspiracy cranks a little bit right?” – Interesting piece by Gavin Haynes in UnHerd
- “COVID-19’s Crushing Impact On International Tourism” – Chart by Statista showing tourism is down by -65% across the world if you compare June 2020 with June 2019
- “This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic” – A long article in the Atlantic says it’s not the R number that’s the key to how the virus spreads, but another variable called K
- “Ensuring Uptake of Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2” – Alarming piece in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr Mike Yeadon says it is a severe assault on the rights of individuals to consent, or not, to what are essentially experimental medical interventions
- “Crimes Against Humanity” – Sceptical German lawyer Dr Reiner Fuellmich is planning to sue the WHO for Covid fraud, which he describes as “the greatest crime against humanity ever committed”
- “Cinema giant Cineworld to shut after 007 fiasco” – Cineworld is shuttering its 128 theatres in the UK after the news that the release date of the new Bond film has been pushed back to next year
- “Police to get £30m to help enforce new coronavirus regulations” – The Telegraph reveals the Government is planning to make £60 million available to police and local authorities so they can do more to ensure the Covid rules are being observed
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.
Update: Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics. The answer used to be to first click on “Latest News”, then click on the links that came up beside the headline of each story. But we’ve changed that so the links now come up beside the headlines whether you’ve clicked on “Latest News” or you’re just on the Lockdown Sceptics home page. Please do share the stories with your friends and on social media.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, I want to draw your attention to an excellent piece in UnHerd by Helen Pluckrose entitled “Is Critical Race Theory Racist?” Helen is the co-author of Cynical Theories with James Lyndsay, an excellent primer on the woke cult. The whole piece is worth reading, but here’s an extract in which she discusses the ideas of Robin DiAngelo, author of the bestselling White Fragility.
Robin DiAngelo takes a thoroughly postmodern approach. Her belief is that white people are unavoidably racist because of the ways in which they have been socialised in white supremacist countries. DiAngelo identifies America as just such a country but also much of Europe, including the UK.
For DiAngelo, “whiteness” is a system that whites perpetuate with everything they do. In White Fragility, she describes whiteness as a “constellation of processes and practices” consisting of “basic rights, values, beliefs, perspectives and experiences purported to be commonly shared by all but which are actually only consistently afforded to white people”. For DiAngelo these processes are “dynamic, relational, and operating at all times and on myriad levels”.
Elsewhere, she sets out a tenet of anti-racism, stating that “The question is not ‘Did racism occur?’ but ‘How did racism manifest in that situation?’” There is no possibility of not being racist and DiAngelo’s training aims to get white people to accept that they are racist — as the Trump memo claims.
“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 with a Down Syndrome child had a bad experience when visiting the audiologists.
On Thursday my 15 year-old daughter had her long-awaited audiology appointment. She has Down Syndrome and the fact that all the faces are covered is deeply distressing to her – so she was quite stressed by the time we got to the waiting area. Passing through the main entrance we were greeted by a young man who detected our un-masked status (I was wearing my lanyard with the mask-exempt card). He helpfully dipped his hand into a box and extended his hand with two masks, saying, “Can I give you these?” I’m polite, I took them, and thanked him, as my daughter looked from my lanyard to my face with a puzzled expression. I put the masks in my bag. As we walked to the right department, I began to wonder whether the lunacy has extended to the audiologists – they who know that facial expressions as well as lip-reading are vital cues for those of us who are hard of hearing. It had. At least the loudspeaker which was used for one part of the test wasn’t muzzled!
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…
Danielle Matthews, aka the Bin Singer, has written a song about being stuck in Melbourne that’s worth a watch. Some of her complaints will resonate with people still locked down in other parts of the world.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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There are many of scientists and experts the disagree with WHO. This is a huge law case! However my country, Denmark, seems to suppress this case, this case seems to be suppressed in most countries, it does not run on mainstream news – the fact that one of Europes most famous layers is suing WHOs leader, the inventor of the corona test, and the author of the panic paper – this fact has not even been mentioned in our media, not tv, not newspapers or their websites. It is also very difficult to find through Google or Youtube, unless a friend tells you. Youtube deleted Fuellmichs video the 21 October (however now another video is up on his channel). With such an important possible world corruption case going on, how is this possible! Some people are going through allot of effort to hide this case and its important details from the general population.
These are the three main promoters of the “corona panic” that are being sued for “Crimes Against Humanity” by lawyer Fuellmich – and these people and their networks, are the people that our governments are basing their lockdown decisions on! (note: all text is taken from… Read more »
https://youtu.be/y5c7pHfnIno
A song. A protest.
Lets get out there and stop believing the mainstream media where the virus thrives. In 2012 “pandemic” was redefined to count cases not deaths. Death rates not case rates are dropping. The flu season is here not the coroneye
“Why did Boris take the predictions of this serial doom-monger so seriously?”
For the same reason that Germany took Professor Drosten seriously despite a dodgy track record and refused to listen to any other scenarios posed by eminent scientists?
Dr Reiner Fuellmich’s video is well worth the time it takes to listen to.
Fear most the unmasked 7th person who dares to wander after 10pm for he is the king of Covidiots!
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EPISODE 10 THE 1984 SPECIAL IS LIVE ON THE REAL NORMAL PODCAST!
We’re getting more and more listeners – this week we talk about George Orwells 1984 and how the themes in the book manifest themselves in today’s lockdown society…plus we have a bit of a laugh along the way!
https://therealnormalpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
Enjoy! Please subscribe to us. We’re in talks with Tobes and the great team at Lockdown Sceptics about having a link to our pod in the round up. That’ll save us having to spam here!
Dr Rainer Fuellmich’s crimes against humanity video outline of the case for class actionhas been given extensive coverage on UK Column today. Alex Thompson does a good job of reducing it down for central point discussion. LSs had emailed the UKC the video link.
Also Tobias Ellwood was emailed by a UKC viewer sounding to be of a similarly well informed and articulate nature as MR A Git. Ellwood’s reply is remarkabl for its low quailty feeble utterance. A guilty man might reply with similar diversion and derision.
Also the often forgotten but outstanding Mike Robinson says “hello” to 77 brigade.
I missed an tiny but important detail. In the Ellwood email exchange on UKC today Ellwood explicitly writes that vaccines will not be mandatory, they will be voluntary. His precise wording is seen on screen.
Nice bit of BASE64 code!
It would be great if everyone could post this video to their Facebook account:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UQLqWJJ8AY
Waitrose is the worst of all the supermarkets – horrible for guards that are either not trained or trained to trample over the mask exempt’s rights. I do to challenge these door guards but decided that they do not need my money ever again. Now happy with Ocado deliveries and topping up at Morrisons.
I raise you a Doris
At least Simon Dolan is presenting a challenge to the lockdown – if he’s ever allowed to get it to court:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/lockdownlegalchallenge/
Everyone should read the government’s own words regarding the possibility of their dodgy vaccine becoming mandatory.
In reply to:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/323442
Their words are chilling:
There are currently no plans to introduce a Covid-19 vaccine in a way that penalises those who do not take up the vaccine. However, the Government will carefully consider all options to improve vaccination rates, should that be necessary.
Hail Johnson!
Hail the ultimate victory over Covid!
Hands! Space! Face!
Tell us which Waitrose it was so we can test it, because I have a tenner here that says the management will side with him on the quiet and tell him to carry on, private.
https://unherd.com/2020/10/covid-experts-there-is-another-way/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3
More sense from epidemiologists who are not called Ferguson!
Of course ignoring all the models, graphs and stats this just seems like common sense.
Excellent stuff, thanks!
This is another lovely bit of legislation going through at the moment. Short story, we’ll have to abide by criminal law, but agents of the state won’t. I love this bit:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9012/
So the state can now authorise the assassination of dissidents?
One could read it like that, yes.
Not just the state but the food standards agency
Any employee of any public body could fall under “certain other public authorities”. Covid Marshals could be given powers of summary execution and it would be legal.
LOL!!!
The establishment have always killed off dissidents so it just makes it official. The police have always been a law unto themselves, you only need to look how they unlawfully infiltrated the environmentalist movement, they have started doing the same with the anti-lockdown movement. The scary part is all the parts of government the powers now extend to – it is a massive authoritarian power grab.
Correct. Here’s some of the wording.
“…there are some controversial features of the regime that the Bill would provide for. These include:
That it places no specific limitations on the type of criminal activity that may be authorised”
“It would introduce a power in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to authorise conduct by officials and agents of the security and intelligence services, law enforcement, and certain other public authorities, which would otherwise constitute criminality.”
Blimey, they really are taking the gloves off now. This makes all wrongdoing by agents of the state up to and including murder perfectly legal.
A very, very chilling read.
An extract (my emphasis):
This short Bill raises “one of the most profound issues which can face a democratic society governed by the rule of law”, in the words of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. It would introduce a power in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to authorise conduct by officials and agents of the security and intelligence services, law enforcement, and certain other public authorities, which would otherwise constitute criminality.
That it places no specific limitations on the type of criminal activity that may be authorised
By contrast with recent legislation governing the use of other investigatory powers, authorisations are given internally, without judicial approval
The Bill would limit redress for victims by preventing civil claims for injury or other harm
So just about anyone in any form of government or the Establishment, can break the law! It’s makes you want to puke up!
And yet, the proles and sheep are expected, under pain of state-sanctioned punishment, to abide by the law of the land to the letter: Don’t wear a face nappy – £200 fine. Serve a takeaway order at four minutes past 10 – £1000 fine. Meet seven people £can’t remember… Read more »
Sounds like the Shoot to Kill policy that was used in Northern Ireland
This may be related to the ongoing push to convict ex British operatives for actions in Northern Ireland during the troubles. This has been bubbling for a very long time and many instances of collusion between state forces and paramilitaries have come to light.
Thats if the law is retrospective. This is just my speculation
It’s also pretty chilling to see which Government bodies they intend this to apply to:
Nothing odd about that list at all is there.
I’d like to say it beggars belief, but with the mafia criminal gang running this country, it really is no surprise at all. We can kill you, but if you don’t wear a mask when we tell you to you can be fined.
Brilliant – any double ‘agents of the state’ in here can assassinate Doris and Itchycock quite legally!!
Does that allow BLM to do *anything* they want?
Maybe I’ve missed it in the deluge, but the most sickening thing I’ve seen in the last day or so was yesterday’s report in the Telegraph that people are being sent to the back of ever growing NHS waiting lists.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/04/everypatient-nhs-hospital-waiting-lists-reassessed-lockdown/
Every patient on NHS hospital waiting lists will be reassessed, under a national review, with many who have already endured long waits sent to the back of the queue, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
Medics have been told to brace themselves for “anger and distress” when they contact more than 4 million patients waiting for surgery, in a bid to ensure the most urgent cases are prioritised.
Health chiefs will embark on the programme amid fears thousands of patients have seen their health deteriorate because of NHS delays during lockdown.
It follows warnings that far too many patients – including those with advanced cancer – have been left “in limbo” after their treatment was put on hold during the pandemic.
Since lockdown, the number of people forced to wait more than a year for treatment has risen more than 50-fold, with 83,203 such waits in July, compared with 1,613 in February.
I can imagine the horror of having a lump, and being told that the 26 weeks you… Read more »
I doubt any of this will make any difference to the zombies. But it might awaken a handful of the compliant “go along to get along” crowd.
Our numbers might literally double from 1% to 2% of the population!
Here immunity is very appropriate under the current circumstances!
I saw that this morning. Disgusting!
Prof H has gone quiet
Wonder what he’s working on?
Preparing his expert witness statement for court
Hope so
Rishi just got cut off mid-flow – no doubt Dildo is in charge of that as well
Back on again, wonder what we missed
Presumably they use Excel as a word processor too, like most beginners. Unless they’ve gone all posh and use Word for memos, statutory instruments etc., you know with all the text centred, and bold, underlined and italic all at once, and using six different fonts. Like you do.
I particularly like the 15 different colour variations used as a private system of classification. Purple, red text, yellow text on blue background, etc.
Crikey, people may start wonder why no one is dying????
Q – Trumpy
Just seen the graph showing recoveries, increasing just below the admissions line yet again showing 99% of people who go in come out again. Also compared to beginning when recoveries were a smaller portion of them and didn’t increase linearly in regards to admissions, this is what should be the focus. Nothing like the first wave, just usual winter illness.
I’ve got to say that it did get me a bit worried when they are saying hospital admissions up to a few hundred a day now, because they never mention that people are also leaving. It is portrayed as if we are constantly filling a bucket up and nothing comes out, whereas as it is more like a bath with an overflow, can deal with large numbers as long as there is no monumental increase in admissions (which of course there won’t be as there is no evidence to suggest this could happen).
The government figures no longer differentiate between those admitted to hospital with Covid, and those already in hospital with something else who consequently test positive. This changed on September 10th.
https://principia-scientific.com/scoop-govt-scientist-exposes-covid19-hospital-beds-scam/
I’ve not yet double-checked the claims.
Note that the ‘best’ it ever gets is the rule of 6, compulsory masks and 10 pm curfew – those would seem to be permanent????
“Rare Covid-19 complication sees patients suffer psychosis and become suicidal, expert says”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rare-covid-19-complication-sees-22780402.amp
Interesting new twist to the propaganda. Its not lockdown and all its affects that are driving people to mental illness and suicide – its a complication of covid !
Great If u work in the civil service you could be off for years on full pay.
Miraculously I imagine the self employed will be immune to long covid.
As soon as they list Long Covid as an illness that’s guaranteed
All of our woes are caused directly by covid. Nothing to see here, move along.
Yes, read carefully… It does not actually say that a) the rise in this type of mental health problem is for Covid patients, although b) it infers it in the first sentence. However, as I have previously mentioned, it is well-known that this type of reaction to ICU treatment is common. So there is not necessarily any link to Covid per se. It is actually very lazy journalism – not clear what it is trying to say at all.
Senior Project Manager
Employer:
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board
Department:
Project Manager
Location:
Ynysmeurig House, Abercynon
Salary:
£38,890 – £44,503 per annum
Programme Manage the COVID Mass Vaccination Programme for Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board. Working with a range of partners, the key aim of the programme is to vaccinate the entire population of Cwm Taf Morgannwg including all its health care workers as a key part of our response to the COVID pandemic. The programme will encompass the development and delivery of all aspects of a Mass Vaccination plan including: the patient journey, assets and infrastructure, workforce, vaccination programme, ICT, communication and engagement, all controlled within a robust programme management governance structure.
https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/xi/vacancy/916207927?fbclid=IwAR09LTshOBoU0IZAhxc56a-opQuUAmlR6piGiR8dnLStlEPw7NFTXcfBlHU
“journey”, “assets”, “engagement”, “robust”. Corporate, consultancy bullshit.
And what bloody vaccine are they talking about?
Why Ambush and Triumph of course!
Silly me, of course. “Ambush” – you’ve got to laugh!
They won’t be triumphantly ambushing me!
I prefer ‘Death’ and ‘Destruction’
Or Wreak ‘n’ Havoc?
Still sound like Apprentice teams.
“Your task is to sell as many vaccines as you can.”
Don’t hold your breath, Tenchy!
This is why they are trying to pass a law allowing the use of unlicensed vaccines.
If you do a search on NHS jobs there are other vaccine ones, including one in London carrying trials of another Covid vaccine..
The good news is
1) The majority of public sector projects end up getting canned anyway. They don’t care because it’s not their money and there is zero accountability.
2) No project manager who’d get out of bed for that money is going to be capable of delivering a damned thing.
Relax, it’ll come to nothing.
I could purchase all the houses in Abercynon for that sort of money
Just been listening to a snip of BBC R4, a program about a guy who “rates” benches on instagram. He likes memorial benches and types some old sentimental twaddle about the person who the bench was dedicated to. All this to a back drop of single piano notes, poing….poignant point… punctuated with the piano note….poing….
It’s like ooohhh how wierd is life?? oooohhh had sad that people die and get a bench dedicated to themselves….Oooohhh he met his partner on line and how they helped each other with mental health issues….What the hell is wrong with people?
Piong……More mind fuckery from the BBC.
This isn’t new… you made a mistake the moment you let the BBC into your sensory organs.
Was in my local hotel last night imbibing a couple of glasses of wine. There was a golfing party in of about 15 blokes aged 30-60. All dutifully dinking in the (large) bar in groups of six (ha ha): once it got to seven or more they sat a few feet away from the next group. The bar was four to five yards from where they sat and I witnessed the absurdity of them rising from their seats, donning their masks, to order another round and then going back to drink after discarding their masks temporarily on the not so clean tables (since they had been dripping beer on them) as they drank. Not one of them even attempted to play loose with the ‘rules’. I got so incensed with this unquestioning obedience that, on their way back from the restaurant for more beer after the evening meal all trooping along happily masked, I asked one of them why they conformed so literally. Nice enough guy I think (couldn’t see his face) and he listened to my arguments and riposted with the fact that it was the law. I said ‘mandatory’ isn’t backed up by law but he didn’t get it. When… Read more »
So sad. Most people do not think.
As well, they are under the impression that face coverings prevent them from breathing in virus, even if the official message (lots of cringy adverts, yes, I watched MSM yesterday) is that facer coverings should prevent you breathing it into the atmosphere in the unlikely event that you are an infectious carrier.
There’s a quote, could be Nietzsche, sounds like him:
“In history there are two kinds of people, those who do things and those who have things done to them”
The “I just want an easy life” brigade are in for the shock of their lives. I have far less respect for them than the leadership who are imposing the new normal.
If the vaccine contains the cocktail of shite I am expecting, they will not be having grandchildren.
Every cloud…
Joint winners for the 2020 Darwin Award are the entirety of the “I just want an easy life” brigade.
“If I had presented that as evidence to these guys they would have still shrugged”
I fear that you are absolutely correct. This is the problem we face with countering brainwashing on this scale.
Sad isn’t it, I suppose I can understand why these people conform for a quiet life and an illusion of normality, you are tight are they prepared to do it for the rest of their days, their children and their children’s children, maybe that is what we should asking.
As an aside, I’ve just had an Amazon delivery, the driver was just about to walk away as I got to the door, on opening the door he pulled up a snood over his face and handed me the package….just in case by split second timing I breathed on him. At least it wasn’t a disgusting blue mask.
It is really worrying, and why I get irritated with simplistic ‘they’re stupid’ stuff. (Which doesn’t preclude the fact that a lot are also that 🙂 )
I was astounded when a close member of my family – moderately sceptical said that he would accept the snake-oil vaccine ‘just to get back to normality’.
That’s the problem. There are all sorts of motivations rattling around that lead ultimately to compliance :
It’s not just one thing, and it’s no good simply getting arsey – although I’m as guilty of that as the next.
The tragedy is that people cannot see they are making exactly the same mistakes, using identically feeble justifications, that led to the worst authoritarian systems in history.
All of them will find out soon enough that they are never getting back any of the freedoms that they so enthusiastically relinquished.
Have they finally silenced Toby?
Beginning to wonder!
I was beginning to wonder that..
Or is he c o n t r o l l e d opposition and maybe thinks we are uncovering and disseminating too much information?
No, he isn’t.
Toby is doing good work.
We need people coming at this from all angles.
I really hope you are right!
He’s is doing good work, but he IS controlled opposition… Toby seems to have an aversion to pulling the trigger on the kill-shot. Probably because he’s chums with a lot of the sort of people that are responsible for all this, and his wife would divorce him and take the kids if he ruined their charmed London life any more than his previous cancellations already have.
Doubt he wants his kids vaxxed either, and that might be the price demanded to not rock the boat too much?
Oh indeed – especially since they’ll need it to be allowed through the school gates, and onward to Oxford…
Hope they’ve got our details somewhere so we can get back together if something like that does happen.
Producing constant detailed updates with masses of new information and graphics when you’ve got a young family and bills to pay isn’t that easy.
the longer the wait – the greater the reward (hopefully)
The current post is from yesterday.
IMO Waitrose have been by far the worst in enforcing restrictions. I’ve told them so.
If I had to guess, I’d say that if you conducted a survey of 10,000 people who all prefer different supermarkets, you’d find the highest proportion of pro-mask, pro-lockdown, virtue-signalling zealots amongst the Waitrose demographic, which would mean they are playing to their base as the politicos say.