If Lockdown Was a Drug, Would We Use It?
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On Thursday I asked why lockdowns aren’t subject to the same rigorous safety and efficacy protocols as drugs and vaccines despite their huge collateral harms for questionable pay-offs. Today we’re publishing an original piece by three scientific researchers that looks at exactly this question.
The authors are Dr Kerry Nield, Dr Juergen Dobmeyer and Dr David Cook, who between them have over 60 years’ experience in the field of drug development and clinical research. So they know what they’re talking about when they say: if Lockdown was a drug, we would not use it. From the introduction:
One of the central tenets of healthcare provision is that all patients have the right to expect equal treatment. Unfortunately, much as we might wish to offer the best treatments to all, there are only finite resources available and so it is necessary to balance the needs of different patients to ensure their fairest distribution. This is a difficult balancing act, but over the years we have developed approaches to ensure such judgements are as objective and as equitable as possible. In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is responsible for doing this, but the approaches taken by NICE are not unique and similar methods are used by healthcare systems around the world.
Non-pharmaceutical interventions such as the imposition of societal restrictions, ‘lockdowns’, aim to have clinical outcomes i.e., a reduction in COVID-19 cases and deaths. However, unlike almost all other medical inventions these have not been subjected to the normal assessments used to test their effectiveness and worth.
So, what if lockdowns were a new treatment, ‘Lockdown™’, would we use it?
Three important areas are considered by authorities before a new therapeutic is recommended for use:
1. Efficacy and cost effectiveness
2. Safety and the Benefit/Risk profile
3. Lost opportunity cost
This is a thorough, professional analysis of the question by specialists in the field and is not to be missed. We’ve given it a permanent home on the right-hand menu and you can read it in full here.
Covid Crazy: How One Man’s White Lie Locked Down a State
What follows is a guest post by Lockdown Sceptics regular Guy de la Bédoyère on the farce going on down-under.
I can’t be alone in feeling a mild sense of panic that we are being engulfed in a form of lockdown madness. It’s everywhere now. Northern Ireland gets out of one lockdown and throws itself straight back into another. SAGE ‘experts’ have even dreamed up a bizarre form of punitive transactional lockdowns for England: one day off, five days of flagellation back in the clink as retribution for “giving Granny Covid for Xmas”. Christ, it’s like some dystopian vision of public schools.
It seems a thousand years since Imperial College’s infamous 500,000-deaths report from March conceded that it was ‘not at all certain suppression will succeed long-term’ and that attempting measures with such disruptive consequences had never been tried before. Looking back now, Neil Ferguson and his Hole in the Wall Gang sound like lockdown sceptics. Almost.
But now lockdown has become a way of life and government policy. Indeed, in some places it’s the only government policy (apart from not accepting responsibility for anything). In an astonishing development, it turns out South Australia’s instant overnight lockdown was triggered by a lie. A pizza restaurant worker claimed to have caught the virus after a single visit to the pizzeria, not mentioning that he worked there. State officials knew that another employee had tested positive and assumed the strain in question must be incredibly virulent if this young man had become infected after one visit. In a moment of frantic overreaction, the government of South Australia ordered an instant shutdown, throwing businesses back into turmoil and ensuring the masses would immediately pile into their cars to buy life-saving toilet paper in industrial quantities. That’s how a nuclear war could get started.
It’s our version of the 1518 dancing mania that broke out in Strasbourg, a mass psychogenic illness, triggered by a young woman who started spontaneously dancing in public. Sounds familiar? With nerves frayed to the bare bone, people crippled with anxiety provoked by razor brains like Professor Andrew Hayward of SAGE the other day, and stress afflicting everyone from politicians to the residents suffering from dementia in care homes, the conditions are ripe for panic-stricken lockdowns ranging from state sponsored hysteria to individual self-imposed gibbering behind locked front doors.
Even though the vaccine has hoved into view on the horizon, I rather think we’d better grit our teeth and prepare for more of this mania in the last few weeks and months of Lockdown World. South Australia won’t be the last place to go bonkers.
To define true madness, what is’t but to be nothing else but mad? (Hamlet 2.2)
Stop Press: Guy has a piece in the Telegraph reflecting on how “our ancestors would be baffled by our hysterical response to this modern plague“.
Covid Infections Continue to Drop
The latest ONS infection survey published yesterday shows new infections in England continuing to fall. Matt Hancock predictably tried to claim it was the lockdown wot dunnit, despite the ONS concurring with ICL’s REACT study and KCL’s ZOE App that infections were falling before lockdown began on November 5th.
Professor Neil Ferguson was at large again yesterday warning that we now must keep lockdowns in place to avoid a third wave.
We now have clear evidence that Tier 3 measures were working to bring down infection rates in some areas. Tier 2 was also having an impact, but a smaller one. The decision is a political one, but if we don’t want to see infection levels rebound from December 3rd my assessment is that measures between Tier 2 and Tier 3 will be necessary in the great majority of locations.
Clear evidence Tier 3 works? Right, let’s have a look shall we. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of places where positive “cases” peaked and began to fall before Tier 3 (or in some cases Tier 2) was imposed:
- Liverpool was placed in Tier 3 on October 14th but positive cases had been declining since October 8th, six days earlier.
- West Lancashire was placed in Tier 3 on October 17th but positive cases had been declining since October 13th, four days earlier.
- Manchester was placed in Tier 3 on October 23rd but positive cases had been declining since October 1st, 22 days earlier.
- Sheffield was placed in Tier 3 on October 24th but positive cases had been declining since October 8th, 16 days earlier.
- Warrington was placed in Tier 3 on October 29th but positive cases had been declining since October 27th, two days earlier.
- Nottingham was placed in Tier 3 on October 29th but positive cases had been declining since October 9th, 20 days earlier.
- Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire was placed in Tier 3 on October 30th but positive cases had been declining since October 20th, 10 days earlier.
It’s that pernicious myth again, put about by Ferguson and the SAGE modellers, that COVID-19 epidemics only peak and decline once restrictions they’ve recommended are introduced. Yet in Sweden infections declined in April without any new restrictions, and in Switzerland infections are currently declining despite no new restrictions being imposed.
WHO Europe director Hans Kluge has warned that Europe faces a “tough six months” waiting for a vaccine, noting that Switzerland in particular has intensive care units operating at 95% capacity. However, the “Swiss Doctor” Covid fact site has pointed out that this doesn’t take into account all Swiss intensive care beds, and that the high occupancy level is not unusual for winter.
Recently, a lot has been reported internationally about the utilization of Swiss intensive care units. The fact is: the certified intensive care beds are used to almost 100%, the currently available intensive care beds to 79% , and the maximum available intensive care beds to approx. 56%.
Occupancy rates between 85-100% are the norm in winter, and overloads in Swiss intensive care units, including postponing operations and moving patients, are also common during strong flu waves. In 2015, the price watchdog criticized the fact that Swiss hospitals were underutilised with an average of 80% occupancy.
Switzerland’s spring wave never produced above average mortality so the strength of this autumn surge is likely to be in part a delay of the first wave. And in any case, the epidemic appears already to be on the decline with no lockdown necessary.
In England we see from ONS data that regions have tended to go into decline before they reach 2.5% infection rate, sometimes well before. This appears to be independent of the varied restrictions imposed on them, and in many local areas (Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, etc.) occurred prior to new restrictions coming in.
These are not the patterns of a viral epidemic being kept under control primarily by lockdowns but rather by natural limitations such as the availability of susceptible hosts. The evidence is clear that local restrictions are no more necessary to cause a COVID-19 epidemic to peak and decline than national restrictions are, whatever Hancock and Ferguson may say.
Stop Press: Camilla Tominey has put together a great short video in the Telegraph rubbishing the government’s data for Lockdown II and showing all the ways it was wrong. Unfortunately, she then argues the tier system was working, but don’t let that put you off because the skewering of Witless and Unbalanced’s dodgy dossier is beautiful.
Bang Pots and Pans to Protest Lockdown
Two Lockdown Sceptics readers emailed us today independently with the same idea. Maybe there’s something in it.
The first reader pointed out that in Denmark during the nine-day protests that overturned the law mandating the vaccine for some groups they banged pots and pans. “If everyone came out of their front door, say, every Friday at 7pm and banged pots and pans to show we don’t consent might it catch on?”
The second reader wrote:
I am trying to get something off the ground for those like me disabled and not able to get to protests, plus everybody around the country. The plan would be on Sunday December 27th and Sunday January 3rd everyone should get out on their doorsteps with a saucepan and bang for an end to this Covid nonsense and freedom. The police could do nothing to stop it and if it was publicised by all those supporting getting out of what the Government is doing to us now it really could be big. Maybe I am dreaming but who knows.
Friday or Sunday, weekly or one off? Time to put it out there on social media and see if it flies: #PotsPansProtest.
Escape YouTube Censorship
An executive from odysee.com got in touch to say there is an alternative to the petty censors at Google.
With the Anna Brees situation I figured I’d check-in. All anyone needs to do is sign up at odysee.com and we can copy an entire YouTube channel over, on an ongoing basis. It takes just a minute.
What’s going on is absolutely awful and we’re extremely committed to keeping this content safe and available. Anything you can do to spread the word would be greatly appreciated.
Stop Press: Maybe Unlocked – the anti-lockdown embryonic TV channel – should move its YouTube channel to odysee, following the social media company’s decision to censor its interview with Dr Mike Yeadon yesterday. Happily, Facebook hasn’t yet followed suit and you can watch the video here.
Devil’s Dictionary
More entries have come in for the Covid version of the Devil’s Dictionary. (You can see the first set here, the second set here and the third set here.)
Contrarian, n. Someone who disagrees with one’s opinion. (qv controversialist).
Libertarian, n. A selfish person who cares more about themselves than others (qv Granny killer)
Free speech, n. Hate speech; misinformation; fake news.
Civil liberties, n. Antiquated “freedoms” beloved of granny-killing libertarians, based on rose-tinted and historically illiterate misinterpretations of English historical events such as the signing of the Magna Carta, the glorious revolution of 1688, etc.
Protest, n. (1) Pejorative: The propagation of misinformation and conspiracy theories, sometimes accompanied by the defiance of social distancing by granny-killing libertarians and believers in the old normal. (2) Complimentary: The courageous and laudable advocacy of certain approved causes related to environmentalism and anti-racism.
Fact check, n. The replacement of an inconvenient set of contested statements and opinions with a convenient set of contested statements and opinions.
Expert, n. Credentialled scientist/researcher/academic whose opinion one agrees with. (qv “The science”).
Pseudo-expert, n. Credentialled scientist/researcher/academic whose opinion one does not agree with. (qv charlatan/outlier/controversialist).
Death with covid, n. Unacceptable, tragic, entirely avoidable cessation of life which must be be prevented at absolutely any cost whatsoever.
Death from other cause, n. The human condition.
Flatten the curve, v. Archaic. The original meaning of this phrase has been lost to history (qv squash the sombrero).
Herd immunity, n. (1) Scientific myth peddled by pseudo-experts and charlatans, based on the discredited notion that the human immune system can, without unprecedented societal transformation and the advent of a vaccine, cope with a virus without suffering a calamitous collapse. (2) Genocidal strategy proposed by granny-killing libertarians in order to kill as many grannies as possible.
Round-Up
- “What they DON’T tell you about Covid: Fewer beds taken up than last year, deaths a fraction of the grim forecasts, 95% of fatalities had underlying causes… and how the facts can be twisted to strike fear in our hearts” – Fantastic up-to-date myth-buster by Ross Clark in the Daily Mail
- “Anti-Lockdown Protests All Across Europe” – The OffGuardian offers a guided tour of Europe’s anti-lockdown direct action
- “Irish police enforce ban on Mass, threaten priests with jail” – All is not well in not-so-Catholic Ireland, reports LifeSiteNews
- “The Heneghan Jefferson Plan” – New episode of the Real Normal Podcast discussing the ideas coming out of CEBM, PCR cock-ups, vaccines and more
- “People with antibodies ‘ARE protected against reinfection’” – The Mail reports on the PHE research that shows antibodies protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection (which we knew anyway, but it’s nice when the Government finally admits it)
- “Public sector workers whingeing about a pay freeze may change their tune when reality kicks in” – Ross Clark in the Telegraph on public sector workers’ sudden discovery that maybe the economy does matter, observing while you “can print money, you can’t print resources”
- “NI to face new lockdown measures from next Friday” – So much for Arlene Foster being a sceptic. She even blamed a “careless minority” for flouting public health guidance, according to the BBC. This is despite reported “cases” falling in NI for nearly a month – so much for a short sharp early circuit breaker
- “GCHQ spies join Downing Street ‘cell’ to give Boris Johnson minute-by-minute intelligence on people’s movements to see if public is complying with lockdown” – Big Brother is most definitely watching you, in the Mail
- “All adults could get Covid vaccine by Easter, NHS believes” – Times report that might have been encouraging (if you fancy the risk of a rushed vaccine for a mild virus) if we didn’t suspect that “could” should read “must”
- “The Great Reset Is Not a Conspiracy Theory” – James Delingpole on Breitbart on how the globalists are gaslighting those who complain about the WEF’s publicly stated agenda
- “The Great Reset is the latest conspiracy fantasy – it will not be the last” – For an alternative view, read Oliver Kamm in CapX
- “Govt. lockdowns push educational standards further down the drain” – Michael Curzon in Bournbrook on the deleterious impact on university entry requirements
- “Given new data we must downgrade the severity of this pandemic” – Good piece by Sanjeev Sabhlok in Times of India noting that Sweden will have around 2,400 extra deaths this year compared with 2018. But in 2019 it had 3,419 fewer deaths than in 2018 because of a mild flu season. “Most of these 3,419 were going to die in 2020 anyway”
- Comedian Simon Evans Performs at the Free Speech Union’s comedy night – Very funny bit about how few celebrities have died of Covid from Simon Evans’s recent set. Warning: contains profanity
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “Freedom come freedom go” by the Fortunes, “C*nts are still running the world” by Jarvis Cocker, “We’re All Criminals” by Right Said Fred and “Can’t Stop Christmas” by Robbie Williams.
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, the BBC’s diversity drive. From the Times.
The views of white men must not be allowed to dominate decisions about the BBC’s news coverage, according to a senior executive.
Jonathan Munro, head of newsgathering, said that the corporation’s diversity drive was necessary because too many senior editorial positions had been held by Caucasian males.
Mr Munro also admitted that the national broadcaster and other news organisations were blindsided by the failings that led to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 because so few journalists had grown up on housing estates.
Tim Davie, the new BBC director-general, has made diversity one of his priorities, promising to transform the corporation into a “50/20/12 organisation” – with a workforce that is 50% female, at least 20% black, Asian and minority ethnic, and 12% disabled. Recruitment policies are also being rewritten so that bosses hire fewer people with private-school educations and Oxbridge degrees to address perceptions that it is dominated by upper middle-class graduates.
Mr Munro said that when he joined from ITN in 2014 every editor in BBC newsgathering was a white man. The only woman at that level, Stephanie Flanders, the economics editor, had just left to join JP Morgan. “I don’t think anybody can possibly think that that’s right [or] justifiable,” said Mr Munro, who is white.
Creating a “pipeline” of diverse young staff who could be trained to take leadership roles had “changed the complexion of what we do on air for the better. We don’t want all our editorial meetings to be dominated by what white people think. We don’t want any single group in society to dominate our editorial thinking, because we are not being diverse in our thought process.”
Racial stereotypes and pigeon-holing, obsession with people having the right skin colour, patronising, anti-meritocratic recruitment policies, and an underlying hostility and delegitimising of one racial group because of their skin colour. What century is this again? And one thing the BBC can hardly be accused of is not going on about race enough.
You can listen to the Media Masters podcast in which Jonathan Munro made these remarks here. Funnily enough, he didn’t end his interview by announcing he would stand aside in favour of a woman of colour.
“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.
The Great Barrington Declaration
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 approaching 700,000 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
Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Marcus Aurelius
Necessity is the plea for every restriction of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt the Younger, House of Commons 18 November 1783
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…
Toby appeared on talkRADIO yesterday to talk about the extreme Covid censorship being perpetrated by technology companies online and now the Labour Party is joining in. Watch him here.
Stop Press: Professor Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson’s Spectator piece summarising the findings of the Danish mask study was censored by Facebook yesterday because it was supposedly “false information”. Carl tweeted: “Here’s what happened when I posted our latest @spectator article to Facebook – I’m aware this is happening to others – what has happened to academic freedom and freedom of speech? There is nothing in this article that is ‘false'”. This is extraordinary overreach on the part of Facebook, presuming to tell an Oxford professor writing in a mainstream magazine about a peer-reviewed study that he is wrong and may not write about it on their site. Who do they think they are?
Discussion
Comments
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This article may well promote the likes of Simon Dolan, who is ‘supposedly’ taking the govt to court, as a step in the right direction but people should realise that these plans have long been in place, all eventualities have been factored in including the publics reactions, protests and court actions. That is why it is important for people to look at people who are supposedly fighting the govt, leading protests etc their background, the links they have to govts and industry, etc etc. No surprise to find that many involved in the fightback are playing a role. They expect protests so they control who leads them and where they go, which is nowhere. They have the ability to control all areas of any fightback. it has already been established in the UK that Mark Steele has been shown to be on the payroll, many more are also linked to the faux fightbacks they lead. Protests are co-opted and have a purpose for them. https://www.vigiliae.org/mark-steele-is-controlled-opposition/
Yesterday, in the late afternoon on an extremely wet and muddy walk along a bridleway in the countryside, we witnessed possibly the worst case of Cov-hysteria we’ve seen since March. Possibly it was beaten back in June by the woman who leapt off the kerb into the path of a speeding car rather than pass us on a reasonably wide footpath but this came very close:
We were on a very wide bit of this path and up ahead, we could see a bloke about our age (late 60s-ish), lurking in the grass several feet away from the path.. As we approached, he turned his back on us. I’m afraid I couldn’t help it; I developed a coughing fit – as an asthmatic, I can do this to order – whereupon the individual clapped his gloved hand over his face and stumbled through the undergrowth in an attempt to run away from us and rejoin the path in the other direction. At no point were we nearer than about 12 feet from him. This was surely serious mental illness and very distressing to witness.
The funny bit was that, as we got onto the road and headed up a hill,… Read more »
Just saw the Tucker Carlson row-back, following the previous day’s unwarranted attack on Sidney Powell. He’s like some yellow-bellied Marine crouched at the foot of a hill saying “If one of my compatriots can get up that hill and take out that machine gun nest I’ll be rooting for the guy all the way but there’s no way I’m going to do it myself.
Carlson’s making a poor pathetic clown of himself. All his own doing, no one else’s.
As far as I’m aware there is no specification on the actual conformity of a ‘mask’. I have therefore made a mask from the orange nylon covering that you get when buying onions or indeed oranges.
It’s going to be hilarious to watch multiple heads explode when confronted with my home made effort.
Sometimes one has to be coming from the leftfield.
Why not just go without?
Oh I do, I’ve never worn a ‘proper’ mask ever but it’s worth the reaction on hospital staff/GP staff and anyone else to see their reaction.
If you can’t have fun in the current dystopia then you’re missing the point.
By pointing out the fallacy in their argument you reduce them to gibbering wreaks. I like to take the piss. Ok by you?
The singer Lana Del Rey was criticised for wearing just such a thing (hers looks a bit more expensive than vegetable netting though).
Just heard from a friend they’ve got a power cut in Liverpool. Someone mentioned our friendly neighbourhood Bond villain Klaus Schwab was predicting such events quite recently. Paranoia or reasonable observation? You decide.
I believe power cuts are another cudgel that will be used on the populace, starting in Marxist-controlled areas.
Perils of paranoia – apparently it was the fuse in their house went, not a power cut! Lol Still, if Klaus says it’s gonna happen best we stay on our toes!
lbry://@iceagefarmer#42/next-crisis-bigger-than-covid-power-grid#8
https://www.bitchute.com/video/7jdzaIvviv0x/
I’m not a huge fan of Steve Baker, but in response to Herr Johnson’s latest lockdown lunacy he has been making some encouraging noises. From twitter:
“Today, the lockdown cure prescribed runs the very real risk of being worse than the disease.
We are especially concerned about outside sport, the 10pm curfew, closure of non-essential retail, gyms and personal care businesses, restrictions on worship, care home visits, hospitality and the inclusion of children under 12 in the “Rule of 6”.
In these areas, we need to be assured of the evidence of their effectiveness, whether a mandatory approach produces better outcomes than a voluntary one.
Where harms are certain but benefits uncertain – such as closing schools – an intervention should not be used. The burden is on the Government to demonstrate the necessity and proportionality of each restriction.”
Hopefully Baker and the other Tory rebels will have some clout.
Better than nothing but too weak, There is no evidence for the benefits of mask wearing and mask wearing was never mandated in L1. That should be their first target – once masks are removed people won’t even recall there is a supposedly deadly virus around…because in reality there isn’t.
This is the problem with Baker – he’s a bit thick. It kind of worked with in-out Brexit but this is much more subtle stuff. Antis should work their way back. First remove the national lockdown, then the mask mandate, then the tiers. Of course they should keep going beyond that: remove the enabling acts, ensure there is a judicial inquiry and ensure nothing like this can ever happen again. ,
Here in the US there is quite a high level of non-compliance with the stay home orders on the highways.
The shopping centers I passed through today were also quite busy.
The road manners were unusually good. I believe the ones staying at home in fear tend to be poor drivers.
Sadly, we are still saddled with face nappies to enter most places.
Can you not claim to be Exempt?
Of wearing a mask?
Yes. We can in the UK, but some US states maybe not.
I never wear one. Most people don’t say anything. It’s just sad how many people voluntarily comply. It’s 100% true that if the mask mandates were lifted, people would forget all about this “pandemic.”
You may not like it but Trump’s fight is our fight. It’s simply an objective reality as when Stalin’s fightback against invasion, or De Gaulle’s resistance, were objectively in the UK’s interests.
Anyway the good news this weekend is that more and more fine detail is emerging about how the steal was effected using the Dominion-Smartmatics systems. It’s fairly complex stuff but looks like algorithmic ratios were being deployed and then distributed hierarchically through layers of precincts. Also in one state at least it looks like third party votes were being kept to a max of 2.1% and then any surpluses were being distributed to other candidates, the presumption being mostly to Biden.
If you google on Smoking Gun and rumble.com you may be able to access some of the videos.
The evidence is that Trump won by a huge, huge landslide but the election was stolen through a combination of traditional Democrat fraud (dead voters and all that – nothing new there ) , innovative postal vote fraud and Dominion-Smartmatics algorithmic fraud.
I mentioned in an earlier post that a number of people you might expect to reserve judgement until the courts had given their opinion… Read more »
Thank you OKUK for all your research on this and keeping us updated.
I, like you, have despaired when I see commentators I’ve trusted seeming to go against type. My fingers are crossed that this travesty of an election is shown for what it is, a lot rides on Trump staying in power. It’s a shame more people can’t see what’s going on there and how it’s dictating what happens here and worldwide.
For me the media-approved election results never passed the smell test. Trump taking Florida but having difficulty in Georgia, Getting huge support in Ohio but not in neighbouring and similar PA. Biden more popular than Obama and Clinton in so many crucial places!
I have to admit, I do feel a little “Help me Obi Trump Kenobi, you’re my only hope” sometimes.
There’s risk in the far left head fit prediction – that could turn out to be one of 2020’s most accurate ones. But I think a lot of American’s would prefer seeing a little bit of their country torched over finding out what buildbackbetter.com entails. Thanks for the update.
The Left consistently underestimate Trump. You might have thought he should have been out front with the American people, making his case in person from 4 November instead of playing golf… I would have been tempted to do that. But this guy is a ju jitsu expert. If he’s played it right he’s now got a whole load of his enemies – all the Democrats of course, the MSM (now including smoked-out Fox as well as the whole of the BBC reporting corps), and all the fake RINO Republicans – totally exposed, as stating there has been no fraud and that Biden is the legitimate President.
I think he is fully prepared for a violent reaction if courts find in his favour.
The next seven days are going to be of huge historic importance…this is like a Stalingrad of our times.
The Left underestimate Trump because they equate his brusque, salt-of-the Earth manner with a lack of intelligence.
Trump would not have made it this far in life if the Leftist assumption was true.
That said, I am really surprised he’s not holding more rallies.
I agree with him not exiting the vehicle at the Million MAGA March – Antifa could have had dozens of plants in the crowd.
Clearly the Democrats do and would likely go down the road of civil strife in order to try and achieve it, indeed it appears they’ve done a few miles already. Unless it can be clearly demonstrated that the election was fair and honest, America is finished. I agree that we’ve been holding hands for too long to not feel the effects here,fear is being weaponised everywhere you look. Douglas might have got this one only half right.
Maybe so, but in a serious red vs blue conflict, there would only be one winner.
Invoking the Insurrection Act would provide the legal justification necessary for patriots to renew Columbia’s Republic by watering the Tree of Liberty.
The issue goes beyond Trump –
Free and fair elections go to the heart of the American ideal and affect everyone in the country and many around the world.
Everyone who supports the American ideal should want to see this resolved honestly and fairly.
On the flip side, the program offered by the Deep State looks like some form of biotech totalitarianism straight out of a bad sci-fi film.
I don’t love Trump, but I don’t hate him either. There are many things he could have done better.
The far-left would be filled full of holes faster than you can say Rumpelstiltskin.
The left can only burn America to the ground if they are unopposed. The moment that the centre/right ordinary citizens declare, ‘that’s enough’ then the left will not hold.
80 million people armed and ready to defend themselves and their family/neighbours are going to put a massive slug into the heads of the juvenile, sub-intelligent, child like ‘warriors’ of antifa and the blm.
I don’t believe that the freedom loving, family centric, righteous people of the USA will allow the ‘children’ of the Gramsci left free reign to obliterate their nation.
Concede this election to the democrats and we can kiss all our freedoms goodbye in perpetuity.
Interesting discussion on internet censorship with Jimmy Dore and Glenn Greenwald:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uHbXMPP0pc&feature=emb_logo
I like Jimmy Dore, he sees through a lot of the shite. Wish he was more sceptical of the covid stuff though.
I agree. I haven’t listened to him for ages. No mention of covid in this one though.
Evening everyone – thank goodness this site exists and I am so grateful to the people who run and research it.
Something didn’t feel right a long time ago – the lightbulb moment to explain why was reading mike Yeadon’s article on 16th October and then listening to his excellent podcast on a long drive up to Scotland (now banned!).
It’s very reassuring to know that we needn’t be as terrified as the government wants us to be.
But it’s incredibly frustrating not knowing what we can actually do to change things.
I have written to my MP (Redwood – to be fair he voted against) and also Brady who chairs the 1922.
I spread the word when I can and point fellow sceptics (there are a lot) to this page.
If I take one crumb of comfort it’s that the court of public opinion seems far from convinced – Using the daily mail comments voting as a barometer of national sentiment suggests that many others have now simply had enough.
In the meantime I intend to do all I can to help and support vulnerable and lonely people nearby who feel utterly despondent. Even if we are all angry… Read more »
We will all have our views on how to tackle things. I tend more to the revolutionary defeatism model… we should not engage with the lie machine, we should not welcome any of their cynical relaxations in lockdown measures and we should not express support for vaccination as a route out of our captivity (this is not a pro or anti vaccination point, it’s about how you deal with lying propaganda).
I certainly agree it’s not worth rationally engaging with an entirely irrational set of rules. Vaccination – my view is that if I don’t think I need it then I won’t be choosing to have it. And no MSM that doesn’t make me: anti vax / a covid denier / any other patronising spin you want to aim in my direction
This is a strait jacket. Everybody should be made to wear one on the off chance thay they are unknowingly a danger to somebody else. We cannot know the actual risk but it is almost certainly higher than zero. Better safe than sorry folks.
Remember, my strait jacket protects you, your strait jacket protects me.
And I’m quite sure that some would wear them if they were told to by Johnson!
Yes buddy yes!! This is the kind of smart ass sarcasm I love. I’m going to make my own meme for Instagram if you don’t mind!
I don’t like your tone. I suspect you may want people to die from wholly preventable psychopathic spree killings.
I could have countered with madness is not contageous but i’m not so sure about that now.
Best solution is a collective suicide of the GLOBAL HERD of moron humans!
Robert F. Kennedy
Tomorrow I’m going to go to the station, unmasked, and travel by train, unmasked, to the coast. I’ll buy lunch from a takeaway (unmasked) and probably some chocolate from a supermarket (unmasked). After an afternoon walking by the sea and visiting my favourite colony of cormorants, I shall travel home, unmasked. Every other person in the station, trains, cafes and supermarket will be wearing a piece of paper or fabric strung across their face. By not wearing such an object, I will be either breaking the law or acting according to a legal exemption (this is an ambiguous point).
By going unmasked all day tomorrow (as every day), I will be engaging in an act of political resistance. It does feel like a very tiny ripple of hope indeed. I always look out for other people with faces, hoping for a ripple to reach me wherever I am.
It’s very hard to believe what I’ve just written. Remember, say, November 2019, or even February 2020. How has this happened? How have we come to this?
You’re brave Alethea. Keep making those ripples. I hope our ripples cross and help to build a current 🙂 stay sane. We’ll win.
OK
Sad news my friends. I hold my head in shame as my community has finally been nailed with an all mask indoor mandate. There’s no exemptions unless you’re unable to put one on yourself. I’ve taken part in the satanic ritual a few times since Friday.
I noticed bandanas in 7/11 many weeks ago so I bought a couple 3 packs and prepared for hell on earth as a zombie. Now, if you fold a bandana up nicely it covers your face but there’s no seal below the nose, and this is what I’ve done. No trouble at all breathing in fresh air and exhaling my waste out in the same fashion. All look and no function whatsoever…perfection!
I feel like a moron as soon as I put the damn thing on so my behaviour in stores has also taken on a moronic style. I walk around like a madman randomly saying “masks suck!!” at a good loud volume. Or I break into a verse of Media Bear’s Safety Mask while I’m walking past a line up or whatever. As soon as I leave a store I rip the thing off and yell “MASKS SUCK!!” one more time for good… Read more »
“Sad news my friends. I hold my head in shame as my community has finally been nailed with an all mask indoor mandate.”
Where is this? How are they going to enforce it?
Solidarity brother – no shame on you. Fight it however you can.
Insert face masks into toilet rolls in public facilities …that will give people a nasty surprise and create the right association in their minds.
oh good idea
You might be on to something there. I don’t want to stoop to govt levels of psychology and I detest littering, but maybe we should make a point of leaving disgusting, soiled masks in prominent places where they’ll be seen. Sow some seeds of doubt.
We see too many of those filthy face diapers thrown away everywhere. On walkways, in parking lots, in shrubbery, at store entrances. People are disgusting.
‘wearing it makes me dead inside’: I deeply sympathise. I have worn a mask once, for about two minutes. It was at the hairdresser’s, at the beginning of the mask madness, when I didn’t know yet that I could refuse to comply in business premises (I wasn’t sure the legal exemption covered private property). I put it on and felt that everything was over, my world had ended. I felt that I might disappear from myself, and that it wouldn’t matter because I was nothing. In the mirror, my face had gone and there were just my eyes, and I was frightened by how frightened they were. I felt that I might as well die.
Hang in there, Eddie. Every time you have to wear it, think about us. Think about the funniest thing you’ve read here recently. At low moments in the supermarket (never masked, but sometimes feeling the isolation very badly), I like to summon up the bons mots of Cecil B.
Hi, Eddie!
First time poster, but I wanted to correct something, assuming it’s mistaken. I believe you’re in Vancouver, no? This is what Bonnie Henry said yesterday:
The mask mandate applies to indoor public spaces and retail environments, where customers and employees alike are required to cover their faces.
Henry noted there is an exemption for children under the age of two and anyone who is unable to wear a mask.
“We know that there are people with certain conditions and disabilities that, in some ways, would make mask-wearing challenging,” she said. “And we need to be aware that some people’s disabilities or inability to wear a mask may not be readily apparent.”
So, there seems to be no change in provincial exemptions. Whether overzealous retailers believe differently is, of course, another matter.
Issue 3 of The Light Paper is out – worth a look.
The nightmare never ends
A needless and vicious attack on UK civil liberties. Freedom is at the mercy of PCR tests
https://twitter.com/NeilClark66/status/1330287230473166849?s=20
Oh, another thing that turns out not to be a conspiracy theory after all.
Who said it was?
Not us I guess.
How can they do this? How will they be allowed to? Does the law not have any say at all?
Maybe it’s how they get to use this new law to best effect.
OMG, this is terrible.
There is no point in living anymore
The psychopaths at SAGE are terrorising us. I’m hoping that I die in my sleep
F* * * every single person who’s called for lockdown
My Government is breaking me
Not so. You can choose whether or not you allow it to get to you.
Toby provides a link to the Samaritans. 116 123. Phone them. I have done so myself many times over the years.
Don’t let these fuckers win.
Oh please. Testing us all once a year is beyond them. The idea of testing 40 million-odd people twice a week is just fantasy.
To say nothing of the fact that they would have to force it on people like me.
I point blank refuse to be tested.
a most encouraging comment, thanks!
REMEMBER THAT MUZZLES ARE REALLY REALLY EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING PANDEMIC WAVES!
Good graphs Voz! I think we can all agree there is no rational case for masking and it is all about social control.
REMEMBER THAT MUZZLES ARE REALLY REALLY EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING PANDEMIC WAVES!
Yes, I think we got the point …
You think!?!?! Look around…
REMEMBER THAT MUZZLES ARE REALLY REALLY EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING PANDEMIC WAVES!
REMEMBER THAT MUZZLES ARE REALLY REALLY EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING PANDEMIC WAVES!
REMEMBER THAT MUZZLES ARE REALLY REALLY EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING PANDEMIC WAVES!
REMEMBER THAT MUZZLES ARE REALLY REALLY EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING PANDEMIC WAVES!
REMEMBER THAT MUZZLES ARE REALLY REALLY EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING PANDEMIC WAVES!
REMEMBER THAT MUZZLES ARE REALLY REALLY EFFECTIVE IN PREVENTING PANDEMIC WAVES!
Daily Mail: PETER HITCHENS: It doesn’t matter how you vote… the Greens always win.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8973423/PETER-HITCHENS-doesnt-matter-vote-Greens-win.html
I notice you can’t comment on it…..now I wonder why 🤔
You can only comment when one of his blog pieces I think
If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens click here 🙂
“As Labour leader Keir Starmer discovered in his Trotskyist 20s, a moralising, self-righteous alleged concern for the planet is the new Marxism.”
Indeed. Marxism was just one form that radicalism took, which dominated for a century and more. Greenism is another form of the same approach to life.
Radicalism is the idea that human ideologies can understand the world, diagnose its ills, and if the existing order can just be sufficiently torn apart then the acolytes of the particular form of radicalism can and will build it back better.
It invariably ends in disaster when it is allowed free rein, as in Russia, Cambodia, China. As has been pointed out before, there is no more certain way to create a living Hell than to try to create Heaven on Earth.
Those past Hells created by radicals came to an end, in large part because there was always somewhere outside them to resist and to show that there was another way, and a better way. Will that be the case now, if and when the radicals once establish a global misrule, de facto or de jure? I doubt it, myself. I foresee an endless tyranny, with nowhere outside to hide or… Read more »
Remember when scientists used to say when the facts they change their mind?
Yes, but they’re trying to change the facts to change our minds!
Not all scientist are like that.
Good thing you’re around to tell us these things John.
“Us?” We are all entitled to speak our minds here.
Free speech means that everyone is entitled to a voice. Even you and I.
I didn’t like the comment, but I didn’t try to insult you, did I?
I guess that’s why you downvoted my comment because you are a champion of free speech.
Davos is missing a letter..
Once again our Government make major news announcement at 10.30 Saturday night. At this rate Sir Lindsay Hoyle will be voting against the Govt.
What the fucking hell are these morons aiming for ? This takes the piss. Leave people alone on the weekend. It’s fucking bad enough being locked up for zero ZERO reason. “Tougher” why ? Seriously. Why ? What am I missing ???
Someone please arrest these wankers.
Dripping out “tougher” restrictions on a Saturday. Tougher how, we can’t see our friends ? Nope that’s already in place. Can’t take out our kids anywhere ? Nope that’s already in place. Can’t go to the cinema / pubs / restaurants / anywhere nice ? Nope that’s already in place. Just fuck off you utter utter pricks.
There’s no point even pretending we’re not in a totalitarian dictatorship now.
So apparently if the plebs can see the new Bond film they will all shut up until spring, even though it will still be illegal to visit their own families and friends.
And our efforts during lockdown have apparently eased pressures on the NHS. According to the govt’s own admissions data, this remains much the same as it did pre-lockdown so WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?
And Tier 3 will be a lot tighter than it was before? So full lockdown will continue for half the country then?
Oh for God’s sake Boris just shut up. We will not comply. End of.
What have they said – I darent look
Tougher post lockdown measures than pre lockdown. Don’t know how the hell it’s going to be “tougher”. Maybe they are going to gimp mask everyone outside the house ?
and an extra hour to finish your drinks
I’ve got a horrible feeling you might be right. If they feel they’re losing control of the narrative, that might be how they ratchet it back. Plus the added benefit of making lots of people ill through wearing manky bits of cloth on their face in winter. Push up the numbers a bit. Cynic? Moi?
Quite apart from this dreadful habit of briefing the BBC ahead of the official announcement, can these FUDS not even leave us in peace on a Saturday evening?
Another lockdown by any other name. but likely not time limited and no idea or challenge as to why an area has been allocated to a given tier. Or how it gets out of it.
Surely the CRG cannot accept this. If Pubs and restaurants can’t trade anywhere near normal in the run up to Christmas, many just will not survive.
Police in Paris following on from the Italians and removing their riot helmets in solidarity with the protesters.
https://t.me/JackDawkins/8598
Thank you, that gives me hope.
I don’t believe this for a second. It’s a tactic to diffuse tensions when outnumbered by protestors. How is removing a helmet going to end totalitarianism?
Prof Francois Balloux just tweeted that he’s been going through some old articles. I was late to the party so hadn’t seen this particular one from 2nd Feb 2020. Some of it seems eerily familiar:
China’s reaction to the coronavirus outbreak violates human rights
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/02/chinas-reaction-to-the-coronavirus-outbreak-violates-human-rights?CMP=share_btn_tw
Sounds like Europe, Canada, Australia…
I was looking at the human rights and declaration when this post came up. It does seem to me that all this talk about whether we can have Christmas or not or the need to have a pass to move around runs completely counter to Human Rights. It is staggering that in such a short space of time we are discussing degrees to which we will ignore the Human rights Act rather than whether we should infringe it at all. After 9 months and with current data so normal, there is no emergency, if we are going to continue with lockdown restrictions we should be formally renouncing the Declaration of Human Rights and rescinding the Human Rights Act.
The idea of implementing Public Health by legal dictat is unprecedented in my lifetime and is a complete anathema to all the freedoms that I hold dear, how so many can so easily and so readily throw them away is shocking. It is Sunday tomorrow and so a quote from the good book maybe in order;
Jeremiah 5-21
Hear this, you foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear:
All this for a relatively mild disease. Imagine what they would do for something far worse.