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Boris Self-Isolating After Fellow MP Tests Positive

The Prime Minister was self-isolating last night after Lee Anderson, a Conservative MP with whom Boris had a 35-minute meeting, tested positive. But why has he got to self-isolate, given that he had COVID-19 less than six months ago and even the BMJ admits that T-Cell immunity lasts at least six months? The MailOnline has an explanation.

It is possible to contract COVID-19 twice, with five confirmed cases of reinfection reported globally as of last month.

Tests have shown that many people who recover from COVID-19 do have antibodies which can produce future immunity.

But not enough is known about whether protection is long-term as the virus has only been known to science for less than a year.

Even if a patient is asymptomatic, they may still be able to pass on the virus to people they are in close contact with.

But hang on. If having had COVID-19 less than six months ago doesn’t give you immunity, what hope is there for a vaccine? The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine is already a two-parter. Will we be expected to have a booster every few months as well?

As the MailOnline points out, the telephone call from NHS Test and Trace couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Prime Minister who is hoping to relaunch his Government this week after the recent upheavals among his staff at Number 10.

Stop Press: Dan Hodges didn’t pull his punches in his Mail on Sunday column yesterday. It was headlined: “If the future is now all about wind farms, trans rights and wokery, Boris Johnson is doomed.

Stop Press 2: The Sun’s political editor Harry Cole has posted the WhatsApp message Boris sent to Conservative MPs last night on Twitter.

Labour Calls For Censorship of Anti-Vaxx ‘Misinformation’ on Social Media

The Labour Party has demanded the Government do more to force social media companies to remove “dangerous anti-vax content”. Sky News has more.

Anti-vaccination content on social media is “poison” and “garbage” and should be “stamped out”, Labour has said.

With hopes rising of a COVID-19 jab being rolled out by the end of the year, the opposition has called for emergency legislation to remove “dangerous anti-vax content”, such as posts against the use of vaccines.

The party wants the government to bring forward laws that would include financial and criminal penalties for companies that fail to act against such content.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday that “dangerous nonsense” is being spread on social media by people who are against inoculations and it “erodes trust” in vaccines.

There is “poison, garbage (and) conspiracy theories” online and “it’s all nonsense”, he added.

Mr Ashworth said Labour wanted to work with the government to tackle the issue.

This is alarming. First the Royal Society and the British Academy call for disseminating anti-vaxxing ‘misinformation’ to become a criminal offence, and now the Labour Party wants the Government to impose financial and criminal penalties on social media companies that fail to censor anti-vaxxing content. (It shows how out of touch the Labour Party is if it genuinely believes social media companies aren’t doing enough to suppress Covid dissent.)

If the Labour Party wants people to trust public health authorities on vaccines, why not call for a more honest and transparent presentation of scientific data about every aspect of this crisis? It’s not anti-vaxxers who are eroding public trust, but the Government which deliberately misled the public about the risk rising cases posed to the NHS in order to secure the consent of the House of Commons to the second lockdown. To rebuild public trust, we need more openness not more censorship.

It’s true that a significant minority of people are wary of taking the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. But if your aim is to reassure those people that the vaccine is safe and effective, with minimal side effects, censoring anti-vaxxers won’t help. On the contrary, they will conclude that their concerns are well-founded. After all, if they were easily rebutted, why not engage with the anti-vaxxers in the public square? If the pro-vaxxers are relying on censoring their opponents to win the argument, that will make the fence-sitters more nervous, not less.

As the Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Stop Press: Ex-BBC journalist Anna Brees has been told by Facebook that there are certain issues – such as vaccinations – that she is no longer allowed to discuss on her page. Find out more here. As she says: “Censorship removes trust in vaccination whereas debate brings about trust.”

Stop Press 2: A group of NHS workers – doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers – have formed an anti-vax group on Facebook. I look forward to Jon Ashworth calling for their arrest and imprisonment.

How Many People Are Catching Covid in Hospital?

Credit: The Spectator

Yesterday, the doctor who writes regularly for Lockdown Sceptics posed the question, “How many patients caught Covid while in hospital having been admitted for other reasons?” Shortly afterwards, Professor Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson addressed that issue in the Spectator.

NHS England publishes a daily Covid ‘situation report’ that gives the number of new hospital cases and breaks down how many came from care homes and how many are from wider society, which they term the ‘community’. In line with NHS England guidance, patients who test positive after seven days or more in hospital are considered probable healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs).

We noticed that in some of the larger hospital trusts, the amount of absentee staff for COVID-19 has been steady throughout the summer and autumn, indicating likely low-level transmission among staff. But, among patients it is a different story. The current rate of infections in a healthcare setting is hovering at around 20%, up from 12% in October.

Big problem, in other words. They conclude:

We must assess whether the use of dedicated areas and the other measures will be sufficient. If they are not, the only way to control these outbreaks is to separate hospitals.

Worth reading in full.

“A Whole Industry Waiting For a Pandemic to Occur”

Credit: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

A reader has drawn my attention to an interview Tom Jefferson did with the German news weekly Der Spiegel in 2009. The subject was Swine Flu, but his remarks anticipated the current pandemic.

Spiegel: Do you consider the swine flu to be particularly worrisome?

Jefferson: It’s true that influenza viruses are unpredictable, so it does call for a certain degree of caution. But one of the extraordinary features of this influenza – and the whole influenza saga – is that there are some people who make predictions year after year, and they get worse and worse. None of them so far have come about, and these people are still there making these predictions. For example, what happened with the bird flu, which was supposed to kill us all? Nothing. But that doesn’t stop these people from always making their predictions. Sometimes you get the feeling that there is a whole industry almost waiting for a pandemic to occur.

Spiegel: Who do you mean? The World Health Organization (WHO)?

Jefferson: The WHO and public health officials, virologists and the pharmaceutical companies. They’ve built this machine around the impending pandemic. And there’s a lot of money involved, and influence, and careers, and entire institutions! And all it took was one of these influenza viruses to mutate to start the machine grinding.

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: In 2010, Der Spiegel produced a good overview of what it called “The Swine Flu Panic of 2009“.

Brave Boys in Blue Break Up Baptism

Police officers stood at the entrance to the church’s Mount Zion Hall building, stopping people from entering

Heroic Metropolitan Police Officers put themselves in the line of fire yesterday to… break up a baptism. BBC News has more.

Police halted a baptism service after about 30 worshippers gathered in breach of national lockdown restrictions.

Regan King, lead pastor at The Angel Church, Islington, defended his decision to hold the service, saying it served “the greater good”.

The pastor agreed to hold a brief “socially distanced outdoor gathering in the church courtyard” after officers halted the service.

Four officers stood at the entrance stopping people from entering.

Under current restrictions weddings and baptisms are not allowed in England. Funerals can be attended by a maximum of 30 people.Mr King, 28, said he wanted to hold the baptism as it was providing “an essential service”.

He said: “We were told not to have a baptism and police began to block people from entering the church, so we decided to make other arrangements.”

Asked why he had decided to breach the restrictions, Mr King said: “Because I believe we serve a greater good.

“This is an essential service that we provide.

“It’s about loving our neighbour, and you can talk with a number of people here who are extremely vulnerable, homeless or on the verge of being very isolated.”

Two police vans and a police car parked outside the church’s hall.

A 22-year-old attendee said: “While the restrictions allow people to go to the supermarket to get food, I think there needs to be consideration for spiritual food as well.”

On Friday, more than 100 church leaders launched a judicial review of the decision to ban people from worshipping together.

A Met spokesman said officers spoke with the pastor following reports he intended to hold a “baptism and an in-person service”.

The spokesman said: “Officers explained that due to COVID-19, restrictions are in place preventing gatherings and that financial penalties can be applied if they are breached.”

Thank God for the police. While most of us run away from danger, they run towards it. They didn’t even know whether the baby was armed!

Where would we be without them?

AIDS and Covid: A Tale of Two Health Scares

We’re publishing an original piece today by Nick Macleod, a former insurance actuary, who sees plenty of parallels between the panicky, over-reaction to the Covid pandemic back in March and the initial reaction to the AIDs pandemic.

AIDS entered the public consciousness in the mid-1980s. At that time, I was working in the USA as an actuary at a large multiline insurer. To my surprise, I was given the rather broad-brush assignment Assess the effect of AIDS on the health insurance industry in North America.

I spent the next several months developing mathematical models of the spread of infection, and applying them to official health statistics, which were provided under free subscription by the Centers for Disease Control in their Weekly Surveillance Report. And, like anyone who has worked with epidemiological models during an emerging infection, I came to understand that early-stage projections are not neutral; they have an intrinsic and marked tendency towards exaggeration of whatever threat they’re applied to.

The reason is that with any new health condition, early infections and deaths naturally occur among the most susceptible parts of the population. With AIDS, there were clearly-defined and relatively small groups of people who were at very high risk, and almost all of the early cases were among members of those groups. As the disease spread to the much larger lower-risk parts of the population, overall rates of infection and death fell significantly.

When unrepresentative infection and death rates derived from early data are projected into the far future their effects are greatly amplified, just as a rifle fired at a distant target will turn a tiny error in aim into a miss by miles. And once the projected rates have been translated into numbers of deaths for a population of millions we end up with apocalyptic forecasts that can’t help but induce panic.

Many scientists spend their careers searching for eye-catching results, and it must be extremely difficult to choose to tone down the few that do occur, especially when they apply to a novel and high-profile disease. The temptation to believe you’ve discovered a genuinely awful and important truth is a powerful one. The Royal College of Nursing certainly couldn’t resist: in 1985, they predicted that one million people in Britain would have AIDS within six years. But by 1990, the cumulative total was less than 5,000.

Worth reading in full.

Fewer than 0.4% of Scousers Have Covid

According to the BBC, 90,000 Liverpudlians have now been tested after one week of mass testing using the lateral flow test and only 336 of them tested positive, i.e. fewer than 0.4%. And, as Dr Clare Craig pointed out, almost all of these will be false positives. After all, the lateral flow test has a false positive rate of 0.4%. This is in stark contrast to the latest ONS infection survey (w/e November 6th), which estimated that 2.2% of people in the North-West are positive.

This could mean one of two things. Either the lateral flow test is more accurate than the PCR test – in which case Liverpool should be released from lockdown tomorrow – or it’s not fit for purpose. Hard to see the Government reaching the latter conclusion, given that it’s spent £40 billion on mass testing so far. But anything’s possible.

Stop Press: The number of coronavirus patients being treated in Liverpool’s hospitals fell by 15% the week before lockdown, according to figures released by NHS England.

Stop Press 2: Channel 4’s Dispatches has an undercover report from one of Britain’s biggest COVID-19 testing labs this evening, where evidence of serious failings have been uncovered.

Covid Poses Almost No Threat to Healthy Under 70s in Scotland

A reader has found the above table in the latest update (w/e November 11th) to the National Records of Scotland’s Covid dashboard. It says that 88% of those who’ve died of Covid in Scotland so far are aged 70 or above and the total number of people who’ve succumbed to Covid with no underlying health condition is 563 (8% of the total). And the reader points out that this number would be even lower if obesity was classed as an underlying condition. In other words, if you’re under 70 and healthy, Covid poses almost no risk.

No surprise, then, that the Scottish Government has introduced a Byzantine, incomprehensible series of restrictions.

Here is the reader’s attempt to summarise what restrictions are planned for the coming weeks:

Level 4 on Tuesday. Councils are being briefed by the Scottish Government this morning on what to expect.

All other areas will stay at their current levels except for the North East moving to Level 3.

West and Central Scotland Level 4 for a minimum of four weeks. If figures are good, they will return to Level 3 mid-December.

All Level 3 areas will remain in that band until January 5th.

If the R Number (R) is estimated to be between 0.6-1.0 at Christmas, there will be a 48hr relaxation on 25th and 26th of December for home visits for those living in Level 3 and 4 areas, which will temporarily be downgraded to Level 2.

If figures are reduced, the Executive is hoping much of Scotland will return to Level 2 on January 5th when footfall for the hospitality sector is traditionally at its lowest.

If you’re planning on visiting anyone in Scotland over Christmas, you cannot arrive until one minute after midnight on December 25th at the earliest (bad luck Santa) and you’ll have to depart at one minute before midnight on December 26th.

Portuguese Appeals Court Deems PCR tests unreliable

A Portuguese professor and lockdown sceptic has sent me a long and informative email about a recent ruling by the Portuguese Court of Appeal which casts doubt on the reliability of the PCR test. It is a great tribute to the integrity of the Portuguese legal system that the Court seems to understand in considerable detail the shortcomings of the PCR test as a diagnostic tool, particularly when not used in combination with a clinical diagnosis. I think this is the best news I’ve had all week. What follows is not the whole email. The professor doesn’t want to be identified, so I’m only publishing an extract.

With Spain and Greece, Portugal is one of the few countries in the so-called West where enough people are still alive to know what a dictatorship looks like. Our numbers are dwindling, as you have to be at least 60 to have experienced the 1974 revolution in any meaningful manner. I was a teenager at the time, and I remember very well what daily life was like under censorship, massively lying mass media, police brutality, arbitrary detention in the name of the “national interest”, etc. — all those things that I hoped never again have to experience but that the current Covid climate has brought very, very vividly to the fore. Yet, it may well be exactly because of such things having happened in living memory that our Government has been less heavy-handed about the pandemic than most others in Europe. And, now to the point, maybe that’s also why our high courts have issued rulings of potentially devastating consequences for the current Covid narrative. Portugal is a small country but is part of the EU and so what happens here still is of some international significance. That’s why I thought you’d be interested in learning about some recent developments.

In a recent decision, dated November 11, 2020, a Portuguese appeal court ruled against the Azores Regional Health Authority concerning a lower court decision to declare unlawful the quarantining of four persons. Of these, one had tested positive for Covid using a PCR test; the other three were deemed to have undergone a high risk of exposure. Consequently, the Regional Health Authority decided that all four were infectious and a health hazard, which required that they go into isolation. The lower court had ruled against the Health Authority, and the appeal court upheld that ruling with arguments that explicitly endorse the scientific case for the lack of reliability of the PCR tests (e.g., as extensively explained in Lockdown Skeptics by Dr. Mike Yeadon, Dr. Clare Craig and others).

The court’s ruling is a long text. I provide below a summary of the key passage.

The court’s main points are as follows:

  • A medical diagnosis is a medical act that only a physician is legally qualified to undertake and for which such physician will be solely and entirely responsible. No other person or institution, including government agencies or the courts, has such an authority. It is not up to the Azores Regional Health Authority to declare someone ill, or a health hazard. Only a physician can do that. No one can be declared ill or a health hazard by decree or law, nor as the automatic, administrative consequence of the outcome of a laboratory test, no matter which.
  • From the above, the court concludes that “if carried out with no prior medical observation of the patient, with no participation of a physician certified by the Ordem dos Médicos who would have assessed symptoms and requested the tests/exams deemed necessary, any act of diagnosis, or any act of public health vigilance (such as determining whether a viral infection or a high risk of exposure exist, which the aforementioned concepts subsume) will violate [a number of laws and regulations] and may configure a crime of usurpação de funções [unlawful practice of a profession] in the case said acts are carried out or dictated by someone devoid of the capacity to do so, i.e., by someone who is not a certified physician [to practice medicine in Portugal a degree is not enough, you need to be accepted as qualified to practice medicine by undergoing examination with the Ordem dos Médicos, roughly our equivalent of the UK’s Royal College of Physicians].”
  • In addition, the court rules that the Azores Health Authority violated article 6 of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, as it failed to provide evidence that the informed consent mandated by said Declaration had been given by the PCR-tested persons who had complained against the forced quarantine measures imposed on them.
  • From the facts presented to the court, it concluded that no evidentiary proof or even indication existed that the four persons in question had been seen by a doctor, either before or after undertaking the test.

The above would suffice to deem the forced quarantine of the four persons unlawful. The court thought it necessary, however, to add some very interesting considerations about the PCR tests:

  • “Based on the currently available scientific evidence this test [the RT-PCR test] is in and of itself unable to determine beyond reasonable doubt that positivity in fact corresponds to infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, for several reasons, among which two are paramount (to which one would need to add the issue of the gold standard, which, due to that issue’s specificity, will not be considered here): the test’s reliability depends on the number of cycles used; the test’s reliability depends on the viral load present.”
  • Citing Jaafar et al. (2020;), the court concludes that “if someone is tested by PCR as positive when a threshold of 35 cycles or higher is used (as is the rule in most laboratories in Europe and the US), the probability that said person is infected is <3%, and the probability that said result is a false positive is 97%.” The court further notes that the cycle threshold used for the PCR tests currently being made in Portugal is unknown [N.B. – I know from acquaintances that in at least some Portuguese labs the threshold is 35 cycles].
  • Citing Surkova et al. (2020)), the court further states that any diagnostic test must be interpreted in the context of the actual probability of disease as assessed prior to the undertaking of the test itself, and expresses the opinion that “in the current epidemiological landscape of the United Kingdom, the likelihood is increasing that Covid 19 tests are returning false positives, with major implications for individuals, the health system and society.”

The court’s summary of the case to rule against the Regional Health Authority’s appeal reads as follows:

  • “Given how much scientific doubt exists — as voiced by experts, i.e., those who matter — about the reliability of the PCR tests, given the lack of information concerning the tests’ analytical parameters, and in the absence of a physician’s diagnosis supporting the existence of infection or risk, there is no way this court would ever be able to determine whether C was indeed a carrier of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, or whether A, B and D had been at a high risk of exposure to it.”

I anticipate this ruling to have massive legal implications in my country. Note that it comes in the back of a previous ruling by the Constitutional Court, our highest court, declaring as an unlawful deprivation of liberty a decision by the Regional Government of the Azores to force into a 14-day quarantine every passenger landing in an airport of the territory.

Stop Press: A reader has got in touch to say he’s looked at the NHS definitions for the terms used in the monthly data analysed by my doctor friend yesterday and uncovered the following gem:

For all relevant data items: a confirmed COVID-19 patient is any patient admitted to the trust who has recently (ie in the last 14 days) tested positive for COVID-19 following a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.

Patients who have been diagnosed via X-ray and assessment rather than a positive test should be counted as suspected (and not confirmed) COVID-19 patients.

So patients that have a test but no diagnosis are confirmed COVID patients. Anyone with a firm clinical diagnosis but no positive test are “suspected”.

Boris’s 12 Days of Christmas

Can’t claim to have written this one. Not sure who did. But it’s pretty darn good.

On the 12th day of Christmas Boris gave to me
12 sanitizers
11 plastic visors
10pm curfew
9 months in lockdown
8 swabbing test kits
7 frigging face masks
6 people only
5 TOILET ROLLSSS
4 isolations
3 tier system
2 metre distance
AND A USELESS TRACK AND TRACE APPPP

Round-Up

Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers

Just one today: “Carrie” by Cliff Richard.

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.

Sharing stories: 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 link now comes up beside the headline 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’m reproducing a helpful list of the characteristics of white supremacy, as compiled by some American educators.

“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 masks in shops here.

A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.

If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know you want be insisting on face masks or asking them what their reasons for exemption are, you can download a friendly sign to stick in your window here.

And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.

Mask Censorship: The Swiss Doctor has translated the article in a Danish newspaper about the suppressed Danish mask study. Largest RCT on the effectiveness of masks ever carried out. Rejected by three top scientific journals so far.

The Great Barrington Declaration

Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya

The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched last month and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you Googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and my Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)

You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over 650,000 signatures.

Update: The authors of the GDB have expanded the FAQs to deal with some of the arguments and smears that have been made against their proposal. Worth reading in full.

Update 2: Many of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration are involved with new UK anti-lockdown campaign Recovery. Find out more and join here.

Update 3: You can watch Sunetra Gupta set out the case for “Focused Protection” here and Jay Bhattacharya make it here.

Update 4: The three GBD authors plus Prof Carl Heneghan of CEBM have launched a new website collateralglobal.org, “a global repository for research into the collateral effects of the COVID-19 lockdown measures”.

Judicial Reviews Against the Government

There are now so many JRs being brought against the Government and its ministers, we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.

First, there’s the Simon Dolan case. You can see all the latest updates and contribute to that cause here.

Then there’s the Robin Tilbrook case. You can read about that and contribute here.

Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.

There’s the GoodLawProject’s Judicial Review of the Government’s award of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.

The Night Time Industries Association has instructed lawyers to JR any further restrictions on restaurants, pubs and bars.

Christian Concern and over 100 church leaders are JR-ing the Government over its insistence on closing churches during the lockdowns. Read about it here.

And last but not least there’s the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. You can read about that and make a donation here.

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.

Quotation Corner

It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.

Mark Twain

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.

Charles Mackay

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions…

Ideology – that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get into the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man, who knows where it hurts, is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialist.

Sir Winston Churchill

If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.

Richard Feynman

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C.S. Lewis

The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.

Albert Camus

We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

Carl Sagan

We’re Hiring

Lockdown Sceptics is looking to hire someone to help us write the daily update. This will involve producing a daily update yourself two or three times a week – so a page exactly like this one – under your own byline. The ideal candidate will have some journalistic background, be able to work quickly under pressure and know their way around WordPress. We can pay you £75 for each update. If you’re interested, email us here and put “Job Application” in the subject line.

Shameless Begging Bit

Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here. (Don’t assume we’ll pick them up in the comments.)

And Finally…

Nick Newman’s latest photobubble in the Sunday Times

Comments

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BERNHARD DOBOVICNIK,
BERNHARD DOBOVICNIK,
5 years ago

am a retired Canadian primary care/ER physician and have spent considerable effort to gather accurate info on this “pandemic” and recently signed “The Great Barrington Declaration”.
There is a serious lack of scientific rigor from one end of this debacle/catastrophe to the other.
The C19 “pandemic” could not have been declared,had the WHO not altered their definition of the term in 2009.
:From their own website:
Bulletin of the World Health Organization

Bulletin Past issues Information for contributors Editorial members How to order About the Bulletin Disclaimer The elusive definition of pandemic influenzaPeter Doshi aa. Program in History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue (E51-070), Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States of America.
Correspondence to Peter Doshi (e-mail: [email protected]).
(Submitted: 13 January 2011 – Revised version received: 30 March 2011 – Accepted: 31 March 2011.)
Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2011;89:532-538. doi: 10.2471/BLT.11.086173
IntroductionIn 2009, governments throughout the world mounted large and costly responses to the H1N1 influenza outbreak. These efforts were largely justified on the premise that H1N1 influenza and seasonal influenza required different management, a premise reinforced by the decision on the part of the World Health Organization (WHO) to label the H1N1 influenza outbreak… Read more »

Neil
Neil
5 years ago

https://off-guardian.org/2020/11/17/covid19-evidence-of-global-fraud/

As thousands (more) declared from the start of this debacle, SARS COV-2 is a computer generated fiction, from the WHO.

Mr_Mayhem
Mr_Mayhem
5 years ago

This Portuguese court ruling against PCR testing would get much wider publication across the alt-conservative landscape if you can link to a PDF of the court ruling in question, even if it’s in Portuguese. Even better with a full English translation. Without citing the document showing the ruling, the rest of us think it’s echo-chamber material and are reluctant to amplify it. Link to the PDF please…

Bob
Bob
5 years ago

Now it takes Courts to decide what is has already been settled by science? Even the inventeorof the PCR test said this.

HarryJ
HarryJ
5 years ago

So, some NHS workers have formed a gorup to oppose a probably perfectly safe vaccine, where were they when we needed them to oppose a demonstratably utterly unsafe lockdown? There’s plenty of us who are pro-vaxx and anti-lockdown, I can understand that also some people may have concerns about this vaccine AND oppose lockdown, but I can’t see how one could worry about the vaccine but not oppose lockdown. We needed those workers’ help fighting off the attacks on our basic liberties, supposedly made for the NHS’s sake, why do they only unite now to quibble about something so, comparatively, petty as a vaccine?

A. Contrarian
A. Contrarian
5 years ago

https://mobile.twitter.com/TiceRichard/status/1328666061848375317

Breaking news: lateral flow tests in Liverpool show 80% fewer cases than PCR.

PowerCorrupts
PowerCorrupts
5 years ago

In response to the government’s mass vaccination plan the MRHA has issued an extremely urgent tender for a covid19 vaccine Adverse Reactions AI system which states their current system will not be able to handle the volume of adverse and unforeseen reactions they expect, quote (emphases added):

‘It is not possible to retrofit the MHRA’s legacy systems to handle the volume of ADRs that will be generated by a Covid-19 vaccine. Therefore, if the MHRA does not implement the AI tool, it will be unable to process these ADRs effectively. This will hinder its ability to rapidly identify any potential safety issues with the Covid-19 vaccine and represents a direct threat to patient life and public health.’

Safety testing is thus going to be done via observation of the mass vaccinated population. The government has removed liability from vaccine producers and administrators by emergency legislation. The government’s maximum payout for injury is £120K. Government ministers, advisers, media and big tech state experimental vaccines are safe and risk-free, not consistent with the MRHA’s expectations.

https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:506291-2020:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0

ArjayD
ArjayD
5 years ago

Labour calls for anti vaxx censorship . . .

“But if your aim is to reassure those people that the vaccine is safe and effective, with minimal side effects, censoring anti-vaxxers won’t help. On the contrary, they will conclude that their concerns are well-founded. After all, if they were easily rebutted, why not engage with the anti-vaxxers in the public square? If the pro-vaxxers are relying on censoring their opponents to win the argument, that will make the fence-sitters more nervous, not less.”

I couldn’t agree more 👏👏👏

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago

👸🥜🥜 ❓

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago

Local Live
Quiet day for covid news, 12 items about cases rising and spreading, numerous school classes self isolating.

Deaths ? Just the one elderly person in hospital with ‘underlying conditions’ which is somewhat low for the time of year.

Yesterday’s lead item was about a 24 year old murder
Still Not Solved.

Horatio Hornblower
Horatio Hornblower
5 years ago

Switzerland has stopped reporting their deaths by age group in the last week. I wonder why……

The last time when such data was available on 12th November there had been a grand total of 7 deaths reported in the 40-49 year age group. A total of 14 people had died under the age of 50. Total ‘Covid’ deaths currently number 3158. As of last week more than 97% of deaths were in persons sixty years-old or older!

…….This information cannot be allowed to get out to the general public.

Nobody2021
Nobody2021
5 years ago

Creating vaccines that are 90%+ effective seems a little too easy to me.

Whilst some may look at it as a miracle I would tend to err more on the side of it not actually being necessary. It won’t surprise me in the slightest if more vaccine candidates subsequently come out with equally high efficacy claims.

It’s not exactly a miracle if everyone and their dog can do them.

Barney McGrew
Barney McGrew
5 years ago
Reply to  Nobody2021

Especially if one of the conditions is: “It is essential that all mutations of the virus from now on are prevented. This includes animal species that could host a mutated version of the virus that could jump to humans. These must be exterminated until there are none left on the Earth. Forever.”

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago

AMERICASTASIDE

The antidote to the BBC’s so called “podcast”, really an exercise in Goebbles-style strict censorship and Big Lies…

1. Don’t know if they’ve broken cover but so far from all I’ve seen the BBC and their media mates are simply pretending Trump’s legal team haven’t filed any evidence of fraud with the courts , despite there being hundreds of pages of sworn affadavits from witnesses that have been submitted. The lying BBC seem to be doing whatever lying CNN do.

2. Liar Sopel is also hiding the evidence on his twitter account.

3. The key will be I think whether the Trump Team can prove malpractice by the Democrat controlled Dominion-Smartmatics vote-counting system. I think the malpractice is there…but can they prove it?

4. Never underestimate Trump and his team, They are currently directing your attention to the courts but this election could be put right in the Republican controlled legislatures within the swing states.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

Never underestimate Trump and his team”

Impossible to do!

BobT
BobT
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

 “The key will be I think whether the Trump Team can prove malpractice by the Democrat controlled Dominion-Smartmatics vote-counting system. I think the malpractice is there…but can they prove it?” 
These vote counting systems are the same as last time so how come Hilary did not win then?
“this election could be put right in the Republican controlled legislatures within the swing states”.
I think that you are suggesting here that the states could put forward electors to the electoral college who would vote against the popular vote in their states against the will of the people. If this were to happen democracy in the US is finished and it would become no more than a Banana Republic.

John P
John P
5 years ago

I don’t know if this has already been posted here, but it is really shocking.

There was some footage of a man being manhandled and arrested by police a couple of days ago. In particular it was posted on Peter Hitchens’ twitter feed. Although shocked, he declined to pass judgment as he didn’t know the reason for the arrest.

On the link below you can see what happened before the man was arrested. His companion, a woman, stopped to ask the police why they were apparently arresting a man outside a pub. The woman then realised that she was going to receive similar treatment so began to walk away with the man who was later manhandled.

Despite her protestations the masked-up militia followed them and would not leave them alone. I think it’s possibly one of the worst things I’ve seen – really appalling. The link below shows the footage made by his companion before the arrest:

https://twitter.com/UtdJXK/status/1327986090070974469

Chicot
Chicot
5 years ago
Reply to  John P

I think they arrested them because the woman made the mistake of mentioning the protest. That tipped them off that they were probably on their way there. Obviously no excuse but this sort of thing is happening all over the country now. Today’s UKColumn had a story about a 19 year-old girl arrested and held for 24 hours for speaking at a protest.

https://www.ukcolumn.org/

leggy
leggy
5 years ago
Reply to  John P

Disgusting.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  John P

1. When putting the chap down imagine how much worse the police might have behaved had they not known they were on camera.

2. The woman is retreating yet the police repeatedly approach yelling ‘two metres’ when it is clearly themselves invading her space.

Profound
Profound
5 years ago

Regarding the moderna test. How did they confirm the positive results. If it was via PCR, why weren’t more than 5 tests out of 15000 positive given the PCR false positive rate?
Would appreciate thoughts.

andrew
andrew
5 years ago

Hancock is a twat. Good night.

John K
John K
5 years ago
Reply to  andrew

You forgot the operative word MASSIVE just after ‘a’ and before ‘twat’

peter
peter
5 years ago
Reply to  andrew

My dad just cannot fathom why he still has a pulse.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  andrew

Seconded. Good morning

OKUKbe
5 years ago

NEWSNIGHT REVIEW

Tim Harford enjoying a soft ball interview from Oor Kirsty. A Wark in the park you might call it. None of that “interrupting every third word” she reserves for Tory MPs and anyone to the right of Angela Eagle.

Harford (FT) is a globalist par excellence but he’s not very honest about it. For most of the pandemic he has been posing as an objective and disinterested observer looking at the facts and figures.

But now he’s finally come out as being on board the Big Bus. His latest lie fest on Radio 4 is called uncompromisingly:

“How to Vaccinate the World”.

BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
5 years ago

Mike Yeardon looking to run a lateral flow mass test on a couple of villages to prove their is no second wave given Liverpools 90,000 threw up 0.5%

https://twitter.com/MichaelYeadon3/status/1328113211632209922

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago

I like Yeardon. He’s said lots of good stuff that makes a lot of sense. But to say there is no second wave from the lateral flow test results when you have a detected infection rate of 0.5% seems odd to me.

Over a month in a city of 500,000 that could amount to 10,000…Across the country that could be 140,000 people. And remember because the testing is voluntary it will include a higher proporion of “worried well” while a lot of people who feel unwell but have no personal transport are going to stay under the duvet rather than brave the elements to get tested.

My view, based on Henneghan and others is that there is a second wave and it’s a seasonal wave but with areas that escaped a real pasting first time round getting a bad run now (eg Liverpool) whereas parts that were struck badly I the Spring like London seem less affected now

James
James
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

Or maybe none of this of matters and we should have our civil liberties and lives back

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago
Reply to  James

Well quite! If these liberties we had can be do easily taken from us they are not liberties.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

They were not taken, we lent them.

Mark
Mark
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

I think he distinguishes between a “second wave” and a seasonal increase for a now endemic seasonal virus.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark

As predicted here 6 months ago.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

CEBM has taken apart the notion of a general ‘second wave’ for viral infections. Heneghan is certainly no advocate of the idea.

What is visible in mortality figures is a totally unexceptional, gentle rise, consonant with what happens every year at this time. It’s not a ‘wave’ in any terms but a fevered imagination. Even in the bent PCR terms, SARS-CoV-2 is a small part of that mortality – not a driver.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

Not happening in the SW which had it easy first time around too.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago

CEBM has taken apart the notion of a general ‘second wave’ for viral infections. Heneghan is certainly no advocate of the idea.

What is visible in mortality figures is a totally unexceptional, gentle rise, consonant with what happens every year at this time. It’s not a ‘wave’ in any terms but a fevered imagination. Even in the bent PCR terms, SARS-CoV-2 is a small prt of that mortality – not a driver.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

India having their third wave already apparently despite their mortality bring insignificant given the total population.

CGL
CGL
5 years ago

Sorry – bit pedantic I know – no R in Yeadon.

BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
5 years ago

Preprint regarding the testing approach in elite sport, NBA. PCR used but second tests after two days. on + players indicate whether the viral load is increasing or decreasing.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.21.20217042v1

While it might seem to support such approaches in tightly controlled environments, it demonstrates that its simply not possible to use double testing on mass populations. Again. Mass screening is impossible

Basics
Basics
5 years ago

Hancock pictured with schwab. Tweeted by hancock celebrating closer working with WEF

https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/956851034797891584?s=20

Ps what a fucking joke. LS now with adverts say “protect the NHS wear a mask” picture of two collaborators in black masks Tamboola. Suggest not bright or clever to be advertising such a product – LS going to be advertising Moderna Vaccine next? Have some moral fibre.

Liam
Liam
5 years ago
Reply to  Basics

The ads are generated by big tech algorithms, it’s not Toby’s fault.

BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
5 years ago
Reply to  Basics

Yeha the adds are nothing to do with LS

Tenchy
Tenchy
5 years ago
Reply to  Basics

AdBlock gets rid of ’em, and lots of other annoyances as well.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  Basics

Just click on one or two to earn Toby some pennies. It doesn’t cost you anything.

PastImperfect
PastImperfect
5 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

“It doesn’t cost you anything.” Yet.

NickR
NickR
5 years ago

Looks like Boris may make it illegal to say the vaccine is dangerous. Well, I don’t hear people saying it’s dangerous without any evidence but I do hear a lot of people saying it’s safe….. without the evidence.

James
James
5 years ago
Reply to  NickR

If it’s safe, then there’s no need for indemnity for the manufacturers.

They can’t have it both ways.

Ovis
Ovis
5 years ago
Reply to  James

But it can be made illegal to point that out.

The country is truly fucked, and Boris is enjoying it.

James007
James007
5 years ago
Reply to  NickR

“Illegal to say that…”

Terrifying words. It may be illegal to have a contrary opinion and to speak it.
BTW, what is the definition of an “anti-vaxer”? I think that vaccinations should be on the basis of informed concent. Does that make me an “anti-vaxer”?

The worst Prime Minister we have ever had. FACT!

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago
Reply to  NickR

On Newsnight there was a bogus academic who told the viewers the newlu announced vaccines (that have never been properly tested), were both “very safe” and “quite safe”. I was just waiting for her say “almost safe” .

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

Mostly safe

Nsklent
Nsklent
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

I would say to these people, so would you drive a car where the breaks are deemed as quite or sort of functioning, or would you then be anti-car.

Cheezilla
Cheezilla
5 years ago

Good comment BTL in the mail:

Think you’ll find people are not anti-vaccine per se. Our puppet government, fronted by its ‘butcher’s dog’, may have shot itself in the paw. Its lockdown agenda has allowed people more than adequate time to research its contradictory conduct throughout and many have simply decided not to risk any vaccine marketed via such an outfit. Nothing to stop you taking it though Squigzo – have mine as well if you want!

richard riewer
richard riewer
5 years ago

Cheezilla
1 hour ago

On the Richie Allen show today Dr Vernon Coleman read from a Moderna White Paper that freely admitted that their vaccine will change your DNA. Check it out.

Cheezilla
Cheezilla
5 years ago
Reply to  richard riewer

Thanks I will!

Two-Six
Two-Six
5 years ago
Reply to  richard riewer

listening to that now

Tenchy
Tenchy
5 years ago
Reply to  richard riewer

Emm, wonder if that will shaft the police with their DNA raping?

Nic
Nic
5 years ago

I was in Halifax today , it was pretty busy considering most of the shops were shut , but the market was open and people were buying g their meat veg etc.
So people are s lot less fearful now . The government now this and have ramped up the scare tactics via Hancock today.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel boris is scared and has gone in to hiding the inner circle have gone in to melt down, and many Tory Mps are against continuing the lockdown.
It’s up to us to continue with passive resistance . Continue to meet up with friends , visit relatives etc get out and about . But most of all remain positive they will crack eventually.

James
James
5 years ago
Reply to  Nic

It makes no difference. If every politician is replaced, the orders to lockdown and to impose restrictions will keep coming from the same source. Every country is under occupation.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  James

Ben Bradshaw on lockdown 2. “Too little too late”

James
James
5 years ago

comment image

leggy
leggy
5 years ago
Reply to  James

It’s not a conspiracy theory if they’re telling you.

String
String
5 years ago
Reply to  leggy

Yep. like in the US, Pelosi saying some time ago “whatever the count is” Biden is the next Pres!

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago
Reply to  String

And Biden said the Dems were running the biggest voting fraud ever in America. 🙂

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago
Reply to  James

Got to be one of the most disturbing photos ever.

Arnie
Arnie
5 years ago

31 minutes of pure unadulterated clarity and optimism:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=RPd5l2ekdu4

If you’re having a crap day or feeling browse beaten by all the small minded nonsense please have a look.
10/10

Arnie.

leggy
leggy
5 years ago
Reply to  Arnie

We will win.

CGL
CGL
5 years ago
Reply to  Arnie

This one is really doing the rounds – I’ve watched the last 10 uplifting minutes as recommended by someone earlier I think. Thanks Arnie.

Darryl
Darryl
5 years ago

The controlled media keeps on talking up the mandatory vaccine (no doubt they enjoying their part in Boris Johnsons ‘war’ effort as propagandists). I suspect it is just more fear mongering to make people feel powerless and submissive. Why consume their products, we know they are used against us? Don’t let them wear us down.

If their vaccine is so wonderful why are they doing this –

UK EXPECTS ‘HIGH VOLUME’ OF COVID VACCINE ADVERSE REACTIONS
The UK is preparing for a mass Covid vaccination campaign, anticipating the injection of millions of citizens with the experimental vaccine. As the date approaches to launch this unprecedented measure, the UK’s top health body, the MHRA, makes a shocking, urgent request which begs the question: ‘Is the Covid Vaccine safe?
https://www.bitchute.com/video/SVv28Aga5M4C/

JHuntz
JHuntz
5 years ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54937713
Working from home could lead to more prejudice, report warns
What a load of utter bollocks from our national broadcaster. You would think getting all those ‘racist’ white people to work from home would be a good thing aswell.

James007
James007
5 years ago
Reply to  JHuntz

Sometimes the BBC looks more like a student publication rather than a serious news organisation.

Working from home does have some consequences. I started a new job last week and insisted on working in the office, as I have a children at home and I would get nothing done. I am sitting alone in an office which must have a hundred or so empty desks on my floor. It is so hard to get to know people, or ask for help. No spontaneous chats in the kitchen or people passing the desk to say hello.
I’m sceptical that there would be any productivity improvement overall from working from home.

JHuntz
JHuntz
5 years ago
Reply to  James007

There isn’t, I do the absolute bare minimum working from home. It doesn’t help though that I have absolutely no means of a social outlet at the moment. Saturdays feel no different to a Monday.

The Filthy Engineer
The Filthy Engineer
5 years ago
Reply to  JHuntz

That’s exactly the problem I have. Same four walls day in day out. No travel to client sites. I could just as easily be retired and the only difference would be that I wouldn’t have any work shit around me and I would have my personal space back.

James007
James007
5 years ago
Reply to  JHuntz

I completely understand that about the days feeling the same. I had absolutely no idea how simple things – like being able to go to a concert or go to dinner with a friend were so important to me.

The innane emails from HR, posters and announcements about “hands, face and space” and “keeping safe” like I am a child don’t lift the spirits.

CGL
CGL
5 years ago
Reply to  James007

Mine has now sunk completely

Ian
Ian
5 years ago

I’m feeling pretty low tonight. I had thought it was looking better, their figures had been proved to be crap and even mainstream papers questioning the egregious use of data. But the pressure has been ramped up. Heneghan dismissed, vaccine welcomed, alternative perspectives derided. I thought I had detected that the public had finally seen through it. But I’m in despair now. I keep thinking about everything we’ve lost, too much to mention, but the govt keep piling it on. There is no mainstream narrative building against it, even
Sweden seems to have been cobbled. I have never felt so impotent, angry and frankly ill as I do now.

captainbeefheart
captainbeefheart
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian

Reasons to be cheerful:

  • Boris has gone into hiding
  • High profile government advisors have resigned
  • The more hysterical the government wants to make people, the clearly more rattled they are.
  • They have no choice but to do this because the alternative is for them to be spending a long time in prison
dommo
dommo
5 years ago

let’s just get straight to the long time in prison bit shall we?

Voz 0db
Voz 0db
5 years ago
Reply to  dommo

That’s a nice dream… But that scoundrel MUST remain in office until the next G7 gather where he must transmit the ORDERS he received from Bill Gates and Friends (other Billionaires and the SRF).

If he can’t handle the pressure then Bill Gates will have to return to DS10 again to transmit the ORDERS to the new jester in office.

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago
Reply to  Voz 0db

Seems a bit old fashioned transmitting ORDERS in person. What’s wrong with unhackable encrypted both ends communication?

Voz 0db
Voz 0db
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

They do not care about fashions… Just efficacy and efficiency.

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago
Reply to  Voz 0db

Your English isn’t very good.

James007
James007
5 years ago

I feel like lockdown scepticism is still placed in the “conspiracy theory” category by most. This enables it to be dismissed without having to have any arguments or examine the evidence. However there are now several high profile sceptics, including some who supported the first lockdown. I think Lawrence Fox is working on a proper launch of his party, which I hope will be strongly pro-freedom and anti-lockdown. I think there are some signs of hope.

I was pleased to see that even the Guardian has run some stories about the effect of lockdown on the vulnerable, (including a story with OFSTED evidence of how some children have significantly regressed).
The penny hasn’t dropped that lockdowns are an insane waste of life, but hopefully there are signs that people are realising the scale of what has happened.
I am still depressed most days though.

Lili
Lili
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian

Remember that it’s always darkest just before dawn. Keep the faith.

CGL
CGL
5 years ago
Reply to  Lili

It does just seem to keep getting darker though, he’s not wrong.

DRW
DRW
5 years ago
Reply to  CGL

It might still only be late evening…

CGL
CGL
5 years ago
Reply to  DRW

I try not to get too pessimistic on here because of the people such as yourself, and others who are having such a tough time.
It’s not easy for any of us, but it is always true that there is someone who is suffering more.
I am not a natural optimist – but when I see your posts, I have to try to say something that I hope might help in some way.
Please ignore this one DRW – it wasn’t for you.

Ossettian
Ossettian
5 years ago
Reply to  Lili

But it isn’t: it’s quite light just before dawn, as I observed when I walked my dog this morning.

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago
Reply to  Lili

Indeed. But I do think this is going to be a tougher fight than ever I expected.

It’s become clearer and clearer by the weeks that this is all wrapped up in a much, much bigger battle. As Delingpole says, it’s not a conspiracy if they tell you what they are planning.

The big battle is populism v elite-controlled politics.

We need to migrate en masse from Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems to whatever is an effective populist vehicle. As things stand that is likely to be the Reform Party (note: the pro-globalist Electoral Commission is deliberately dragging its heels on a simple name change).

I predict if the Reform Party puts together a freedom platform – We will end the lockdown, give you back your pubs, let you meet your family, let you decide about a vaccine, let you decide what car you buy, defend free speech – they will rapidly climb to a lead in the polls.

Arnie
Arnie
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

Totally agree OKUK.
Arnie.

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago
Reply to  Arnie

The First Past the Post system is an impediment to smaller parties but in a situation where a populist party can get to 30% , then all bets are off. If it was a concentrated vote, that could deliver a thumping parliamentary majority.

The new factor now I think is GPD – General Political Disillusionment.

We’ve been put through Hell in such a careless fashion by our political elite that as soon as the virus is “over” (like the war in 1945) there will be a real hunger for change – real change for the better.

TheBluePill
TheBluePill
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

Yeah, you are right. Populism is kryptonite to this scum, it’s what they fear most. That’s if they let us vote again, without using tactics like we have just seen in the US.

OKUK
OKUK
5 years ago
Reply to  TheBluePill

Exactly. Wholesale electoral fraud is more difficult in the UK bug they might try ploys like deregistering parties a couple of months before a General Election on spurious grounds.

Nsklent
Nsklent
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

Trouble is, I have a negative gut feeling about Farage. I must admit I have my prejudices after the way the Brexit party recruitment was handled and the ‘surrender’, as I see it at the end, a very similar format to UKIP. Reading his comments in the DT today, his attitude to lockdown, vaccine, virus facts is very much on the narrative. For someone who espoused the tenets of freedom and sovereignty as the purpose of Brexit, he seems very luke warm on those in this current situation. I was once an avid Farage fan, but this just smacks of the same format as the Brexit campaign, and I now don’t trust him, particularly as he is relatively on board with the current barrative.
I remember the time I went off Boris, years ago, but proved to be right. It was when he was editing the Spectator, and he called those opposing the invasion of Iraq as ‘Saddamites’. Ended my subscription that day, never to be renewed and my view of him then has now been proven.

Banjones
Banjones
5 years ago
Reply to  OKUK

Absolutely! Trouble is – will this bunch ever ”allow” a proper election to take place? If they do, they’ll have to use Dominion software (you know – the stuff they’re using now to produce the ”infection cases”).

BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
5 years ago
Reply to  Lili

This is true. I feel it gets darker given how pathetic the politicians seem to be. Even the so called sceptics. The sceptic analysts are just angry now. The see the importance of strong protest now. The data is in. They know its a hoodwink.

However, if any sceptic politician had a similar attitude they’d join a protest. David Kurten was at the London one over tne weekend, but Desmond Swayne surely must feel in his bones that he must make a move to the streets now. Parliament rolls back and forth between sceptical speeches from some to eerie quiet.

It needs to go up a level soon. Its building but if we could get something like the Portuguese Court decision in tbe UK it would be a massive boost.

Banjones
Banjones
5 years ago

I still can’t get over the hypocrisy of our MP, who voted FOR this lockdown, then immediately joined the ”rebels”!

Bella
Bella
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian

It is looking better. More people are out on the streets in more countries, the official data is now so obviously bogus. As someone said here yesterday has anyone heard of asymptomatic flu, or asymptomatic pneumonia? If you’re not ill, you haven’t got it. And in Liverpool where they are going mental with their testing only 004% have been positive, and most of them will be false. They can’t keep the bulshit going for much longer. And now there are at least 70 (mostly) Tory MPs against further lockdowns. Where I live no-one’s taking any notice anyway. Went for a walk in a popular forest last Friday, scores of people, cars and dogs. Never saw a soul out in May/June..

Ossettian
Ossettian
5 years ago
Reply to  Bella

“Never saw a soul out in May/June.”

Same here, but met lots of people this afdternoon.

Sylvie
Sylvie
5 years ago
Reply to  Bella

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6518513/#:~:text=Among%20respiratory%20viruses%2C%20the%20role,infection%20%5B15%2C%2016%5D.
Actually some 75% of people found to test positive for flu have no symptoms. The real question, as with CV19, is whether they’re infectious to others. Probably not.

Ianric
Ianric
5 years ago
Reply to  Bella

If people have to resort to telling healthy asymptomatic people they are carrying Covid, doesn’t this reek of desperation as there are very few people actually sick with Covid symptoms and this falls under you wouldn’t need to resort to this in a real pandemic category.

Banjones
Banjones
5 years ago
Reply to  Bella

I went to the local NT property last week (before my membership runs out, not to be renewed until they change their agenda). Far more cars than usual, even at weekends, and a young man said that people were driving in individually and joining up for a walk. I’m glad that people are finding a way around silly rules, even in a minor way. It’s a start.

Cranmer
Cranmer
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian

Be strong. The narrative is breaking down. Eg, if they are trying to pretend that Boris has been re-infected, then that means ‘the vaccine’ is no good. There seem to be a lot of internal problems in number ten. If, as is being predicted by some, a Brexit betrayal takes place, that is going to make the government even less popular.

BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian

There continues to be a rising number of doctors officially speaking up

Ireland Recovery Group have launched their white paper.

https://covidrecovery.ie/

James
James
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian

Protesting Danes stopped their fascist politicians from implementing a proposed vaccine law. The politicians who proposed it should be sacked in my opinion, but it’s still a victory.

TheBluePill
TheBluePill
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian

I am feeling the same today. Hearing Handjob getting away with clear lies (first on talk radio and then in the “briefing”) has depressed me thoroughly. He has become more brazen recently and will now actually commit to calling people like Heneghan a liar.

The only silver lining in this shit-show is that I can take comfort in having passed the test confirming that I cannot be corrupted. You can torture as much as you like but I will never pretend to believe something that I know to be a lie. And I am never taking your dubious, unnecessary, untested, extortionate experimental vaccine. Go fuck yourselves.

The only way I can see out of this is the hope that someone will cockup. It will happen. Just a stray unauthorized question from a meeja taking head in the conference today would have done it. “So Mr Hancock, given that you have detected 700 cases in Liverpool and you have just told us that the new test is so accurate that only 500 of them will be false positives, doesn’t that mean that approximately ¾ of cases are false positives”. If this ever ends I will be devoting every spare effort into… Read more »

A. Contrarian
A. Contrarian
5 years ago
Reply to  Ian

The more hysterical Hancock becomes, the more obvious his lies, the sooner he will be exposed.

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