Border Chaos Continues
The list of countries restricting or banning travel from the UK today grew to over 40, including much of continental Europe. The international responses to the new ‘variant’ of the virus range from outright bans to new self-isolation requirements regardless of a negative PCR test (as in the case of Greece). The border closures are not all limited to UK travellers either. Sweden has banned visitors from Denmark as well as the UK, and Saudi Arabia has slammed its borders shut completely. The knee-jerk actions are reminiscent of the early phase of the pandemic, where country after country copied each other’s panicky lockdowns. It deals yet another blow to the ailing travel and airline industries, as cancelled flights out of the UK number in the hundreds and climbing.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a press conference yesterday and scarcely mentioned the unfolding travel bans. Instead, he focused on the ongoing issues at the Dover-Calais crossing, insisting that the blockade would be resolved in a matter of hours after a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes in today’s Telegraph, closing the UK-France border is just another exercise in closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Emmanuel Macron’s ban on lorries entering France wins the prize for the most pointless political gesture since the onset of this pandemic. The mutant strain B.1.1.7 is already all over Europe.
British scientists spotted it early and have tracked it in real-time because the UK has carried out almost as much genome sequencing of COVID-19 as the rest of the world combined. Harvard epidemiologist William Hanage says the UK has the most advanced genomic monitoring regime on the planet.
Denmark is one of the few other states in Europe that also does extensive and rapid sequencing. Lo and behold, the Danes have found the same mutation. Many countries do little or no genomic sequencing at all.
It stretches credulity to imagine that a variant picked up in samples as far back as September is not already rampant in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and indeed France. It had months to run when borders were wide open, long before the second lockdowns.
He goes on to quote the German virologist Christian Drosten whose somewhat sceptical comments in a German radio interview were also picked up by the Daily Mail.
Christian Drosten, Angela’s Merkel’s pandemic guru, says the mutation is almost certainly spreading in Germany already and he is sceptical about the data interpretation by Prof Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial. “I am not particularly worried,” he told Deutschlandfunk, taking a gentle swipe at headline bio-hysteria.
Prof Drosten is careful not to violate scientific etiquette but he came as close as you can to rebuking the British Government – and by implication the modellers on the NERVTAG committee – for pushing a conclusion beyond the known evidence.
He questions the pseudo-quantification behind claims that the new strain is 70% more transmissible. “There are too many unknown strains to say something like that,” he told Covid reporter Kai Kupferschmidt.
Interesting that Christian Drosten, the lead author on the paper that wrote the rules on mass PCR testing that is currently being challenged by Dr Mike Yeadon and others, is a “mutant strain” sceptic.
Another expert to add a note of moderation was the microbiologist Dr Hugh Pennington, whose comments yesterday were reported in the Press and Journal.
The Aberdeen University Professor said: “The big issue with the variant is that it’s no nastier than the first one that came in March.
“It doesn’t kill people more readily or make them any more unwell but it’s said to be more transmissible. However, that’s what we’re being told. We have not seen any evidence to back that claim up.
“We haven’t seen any data that shows the increase in England is down to the new variant rather than people just not behaving themselves. Politicians won’t want to say that.
“If this virus has mutated to become more transmissible that would be a scientific novelty.
“It could be a coincidence with it getting commoner as the infection rate goes up.”
He said the only way to be sure, ahead of waiting on retrospective studies, would be to find out if the variant is more transmissible by checking what the infected dose is of one person to compare.
Mr Pennington added: “Is it more transmissible because you only have to breathe in a smaller dose of it? Or does somebody infected with it breathe out more virus?
“That’s what they need to find out.
The only other way to find out if people were more susceptible to this variant was through a volunteer study where you’d “pump the virus” into a room full of people… “and that’s unethical”, he added.
“It’s very hard to prove whether something is more transmissible or less. I’m not saying it’s not possible… but I would like to see more evidence.”
The Telegraph also reports that the ‘variant’ was spotted in Brazil eight months ago, adding weight to the idea that the strain has been circulating much longer than was thought to be the case – much like the ‘original’ strain for which patients in Italy had developed antibodies as early as September 2019, months before there was an official case recorded anywhere.
It’s even possible that the increased transmissibility could be a good thing, and an inevitable step in the well-established evolutionary process by which viruses become more infectious and less deadly, as the long-standing sceptic and retired NHS Consultant Dr John Lee writes in The Daily Mail.
Mutation of this (and every other virus) is inevitable – and, in fact, it needn’t always be a bad thing.
As new strains of a virus emerge, they naturally evolve towards variants that may be more transmissible but which cause mild or no disease.
Why should this be so? Because it actually benefits the virus – it is more likely to survive, reproduce and spread to ever increasing numbers of individuals if it doesn’t kill its hosts.
Crucially for us, if the new strain isn’t as virulent, its spread among Britain’s healthy populace could even be advantageous.
Exposure to it would stimulate the immune system to produce a response against it, so providing future protection as we move to a general level of immunity in the population.
So why don’t Johnson or Hancock publicly acknowledge this? Why do they persist instead with terrifying rhetoric of a ‘mutant’ virus spreading out of control?
Dr Lee’s piece is worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Regular Lockdown Sceptics contributor Dr Clare Craig gave a comprehensive interview to talkRADIO yesterday morning with Mark Dolan, covering topics including the new ‘variant’. Worth watching.
Stop Press 2: At the time of writing, the complete list of 42 countries which has banned travel from the UK is: Belgium, Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Hungary, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, South Africa, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, France, Malta, Sweden, Turkey, Hong Kong, Canada, India, Russia, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan, El Salvador, Ireland, Czech Republic, Colombia, Morocco, Chile, Finland and Argentina.
Stop Press 3: Boris Johnson has agreed to set up testing facilities to allow stranded hauliers to enter France, conditional on a negative test.
Scientific Advisers Clamouring for New National Lockdown
The Government’s scientific advisers have been clamouring for even more restrictions – Tiers 5, 6 and 7. The Guardian has more.
Andrew Hayward, a Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at University College London and a member of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said the new variant had the potential to spread around the UK and overseas.
“I recognise that we have restricted travel from the Tier 4 areas… but this transmission is not only in those Tier 4 areas, it’s there at some level across the country,” he said. “We’re just entering a really critical phase of this pandemic, and it makes absolute sense… to act decisively I would say across the country, as many other countries have done, despite them not as far as we know being affected by this strain.”
Asked if it would be advisable to have a national lockdown, Hayward said: “Personally, I think it’s clearer to give a consistent national message because although the levels of risk are different in different parts of the country, they’re still there and they’re still substantial.”
Personally?!? Does that mean he doesn’t mean “objectively” – it’s just his opinion? Rare candour, if so.
Hayward was not the only SAGE member to do an impression of a headless chicken.
Robert West, a Professor of Health psychology at University College London’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health, who sits on the advisory group on behavioural science for SAGE, said his personal opinion was that the current system was “unlikely” to contain the spread of the virus.
He said: “We need to reset our strategy and move rapidly to a zero Covid strategy of the kind that many have been proposing. This will involve stricter but more rational social distancing rules across the country, and finally doing what we should have done from the start – to build the kind of test, travel, isolate and support programmes they have in countries in the far east.
“It sounds expensive but the alternative could well be a catastrophic collapse in confidence in the country’s ability to control the virus and the economic, human and social disaster that would follow.”
Human and social disaster?!? If the Government is hearing this kind of hyperbolic language from its scientific advisors on a daily basis, it’s no wonder Boris is constantly being bounced into ever more hysterical policy announcements.
CDC Reports on Post-Vaccine Health Outcomes
The CDC has produced a document documenting the side effects of the mRNA Covid vaccines. Infrequent cases of anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction) have been reported already. However, a more interesting figure is to be found further down in the presentation, in a table entitled “V-Safe Active Surveillance for COVID-19 Vaccines”.
Out of the 112,807 doses administered, 3,150 experienced a “Health Impact Event”, described above by the CDC as “unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional”. That’s about 2.8% of recipients, although it does not mention the severity or duration of those events. If the UK Government’s declared target of vaccinating approximately 25 million people in “priority groups” is met, and the proportion remains stable, that could mean around 700,000 people potentially requiring some kind of medical care post-vaccination.
Isn’t mass vaccination supposed to protect the NHS?
Ferguson: Forgotten But Not Gone
In a development we mentioned in passing yesterday, which will raise the hackles of any sceptic who has kept a close eye on developments since March, the man behind the notorious model which panicked governments into lockdowns at the beginning of the year, and stepped down from SAGE after flouting his own rules, is back in the Strangelove hot seat.
Robert Mendick in The Telegraph has more.
Professor Lockdown is back. Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist widely credited as the architect of the first national lockdown in the spring, has emerged once again as the most influential adviser to the Government during the current coronavirus wave.
For more than six months, Prof Ferguson has remained largely in the shadows, the result of his own indiscretion that forced him to take a backseat.
He continues:
Now, it has emerged Prof Ferguson – if he did go away – wasn’t gone all that long. His name appears on the list of 15 members of NERVTAG who met for two hours on Friday December 18th – between 11am and 1pm – that concluded the new variant of COVID-19, named VUI 2020 12/01 “demonstrates a substantial increase in transmissibility compared to other variants”.
A day later, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared on television to perform a spectacular U-turn, effectively cancelling Christmas for millions of people across London and the South East caused by the rise in infections by the COVID-19 mutation.
The Spectator‘s gossip columnist Steerpike also picked up on the indefatigable professor’s reappearance.
In sum, it appears that far from quitting following his lockdown breach, the Professor stopped his membership of NERVTAG for fewer than two months, and became a regular advisor once again in August.
Mr S would not, of course, be in favour of anyone being driven out of public life for a single transgression. But it is worth noting that Prof Ferguson was happy to receive praise in May for quickly stepping down to protect the Government’s credibility during lockdown. If these minutes are correct, it appears that his sacrifice was rather smaller than the public were led to believe. It also calls into question the Government’s own assertions in May that Ferguson had stepped down from his NERVTAG role. The Department for Health has been contacted for comment.
Ferguson himself told MPs in June that he was still a member of the SPI-M group, which advises the Government on coronavirus modelling, but did not mention returning to NERVTAG. Ferguson added that he was only attending other meetings on an “ad hoc” basis.
Since then, those “ad hoc” meetings appear to have morphed into full-time membership of another committee.
To Mr Steerpike at least, it looks very much like Neil Ferguson never stopped being a Government advisor, after all…
Correction: Excess Deaths in the US
Yesterday’s item in Lockdown Sceptics about the retraction by the Johns Hopkins News-Letter of Genevieve Briand’s suggestion that Covid wasn’t causing any excess deaths in the US contained some bad sums from a commenter we quoted. Our own Will Jones took another look at the CDC Data and figured out that at the current rate there would indeed be higher mortality this year than last – and more than the 1.2% increase in mortality that typically happens year-on-year. Although, as ever, how much of that can be attributed to the disease itself is an unanswered question. There have been concerns about lockdown-induced deaths in the US for months, not least from drug overdoses as the existing opioid crisis was worsened during lockdowns.
Using the data available here, Will concluded that the increase in total deaths this year compared to last year would be about 12.6%.
However, a reader who wrote in to prompt us about our maths slip-up also pointed out that the figures contain evidence of the so-called ‘Dry Tinder’ effect since the percentage increases for 2018 and 2019 (0.91% and 0.56% respectively) were low compared to previous years, suggesting mild flu seasons.
In case you’re not familiar with the ‘Dry Tinder’ effect, this article in the AIER discusses it in relation to Sweden and the Nordics and Ivor Cummins’ has produced several videos on the topic.
Bob Moran Gets It
Our favourite political cartoonist Bob Moran composed a reassuring tweet thread about the realistic risks of Christmas gatherings (though they could equally apply to any social occasion). Unfortunately, Twitter’s thought-police decided to delete the first tweet on the grounds that it “violated their rules”, though the meaning is still clear. Reproduced in full here, minus the offending first tweet:
First of all, given that you have no symptoms, what are the chances that you are infected with SARS-CoV-2? The ONS estimates this to be 1 in 115, or 0.87%.
Now, imagining you are infected, but you don’t have any symptoms, what is the probability that you will infect somebody else with SARS-CoV-2? Recent studies show this is around 0.7%.
If we multiply the probability of these two events, we can calculate the likelihood of you a) being infected & b) passing that infection on without symptoms. This gives a figure of 0.006%.
To put that figure in context, it’s roughly the same as your chance of dying in a car crash over the course of any given year.
But if you infect someone, this doesn’t mean that they are going to end up dying of Covid pneumonia. Far from it, in fact. There is a lot of debate regarding the IFR of SARS-CoV-2, but the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine puts it at roughly 0.5%.
Now, if we multiply the chance of infecting another person (without symptoms) by the fatality rate, we can estimate that the risk of “killing” one of your relatives is roughly 0.00003%, or 1 in 3 million.
Obviously there are a lot of caveats. If one of your relatives is very old and very ill, then the IFR is going to be higher. If they are relatively healthy, it’s going to be lower.
But there’s another caveat. PCR tests. The first number we used (the number of infected individuals in the UK) is based on positive PCR results. It is possible that only 3% of these positive results are accurate.
Which means that the risk of a person “killing” a relative without any discernible coronavirus symptoms may well be as low as 1 in 30 million – the same sort of likelihood of you winning the National Lottery.
Clearly, it is for individuals to assess risks for themselves and make decisions accordingly. But they should do so in the knowledge of how big those risks actually are. And nobody should be calling others “irresponsible” for taking a risk this minuscule.
Finally, this risk isn’t just the justification for ‘cancelling Christmas’, it’s the justification for all of it. Lockdowns, masks, school closures, undiagnosed cancers, suicides, stillbirths, unemployment. All done because we were told this specific risk was just too high.
Hear, hear, Bob.
Statisticians Ask Questions of Government
Quantitative Analyst Joel Smalley and Statistician Marie Oldfield have produced a new document containing a series of clincher questions for the UK Government. Smalley commented, upon its publication:
Updated report on England COVID. Focused on clinical data and classical surveillance systems. It’s pretty conclusive that the epidemic was over in Spring, probably made worse by interventions, and most of Autumn COVID is wrongly attributed. Can the Government disprove any of this?
It is 19 pages long, replete with graphs of official data, and might even be worth sending to your MP. The full document can be found here.
How to Defeat Cancel Culture
Check out Toby’s conversation with Angelo Isidorou of The Post-Millennial on cancel culture and how to defeat it. Toby talks about being on the receiving end of the social media mob, as well as the efforts of the Free Speech Union to protect other people who find themselves in the same predicament.
Stop Press: Listen to Toby and James Delingpole have their usual argument about whether the Covid crisis is cock up or conspiracy in the latest episode of London Calling.
Round-up
- “There’s more to life than avoiding Covid” – Blistering anti-lockdown piece in spiked by Emily Hill
- “The British blockade: another self-inflicted catastrophe” – Another good piece in spiked by Assistant Editor Fraser Myers on the UK’s border chaos
- “Be ‘sleek and silent’: how China censored coronavirus news at home” – Sydney Morning Herald article about the tight manipulation of information by the Chinese Communist Party at the beginning of the pandemic
- “There are thousands of Covid strains, so this new scare is NOT a big deal, but politicians just love their new authoritarianism” – Science journalist Peter Andrews writes in RT about the fearmongering over the new strain
- “London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks to be replaced by live TV show of 2020 highlights” – Brace yourself for a nauseating celebration of our ‘Blitz Spirit’. Expect lots of NHS rainbow pictures
- “Why Many Bosses Won’t Require Workers to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine” – Not quite as simple as it sounds, as the Wall Street Journal reports
- “Piers Morgan’s son Spencer reveals he escaped ‘cancelled Xmas’ in Tier 4 by travelling to family’s Tier 2 Sussex home” – The junior Morgan, a lockdown sceptic, is not taking after his father
- “Covid infections caught in hospital rise by a third in one week” – The HSJ reports that around one in four cases are now caught in healthcare settings
- Students were better at following rules than general public – Surprise finding by the ONS
- “Inflation basket must reflect drastic changes wrought by pandemic” – Philip Aldrick in The Times on changes needed to way inflation is calculated
- “Covid: Wuhan scientist would ‘welcome’ visit probing lab leak theory” – John Sudworth at the BBC with a long and fascinating story centring on the mysterious and controversial origins of SARS-CoV-2
- “January school closures considered as fears grow over new Covid strain’s spread among children” – Children’s education may be headed for another setback, reports The Telegraph
- “Is the mutant virus really out of control?” – Prof David Livermore, regular Lockdown Sceptics contributor, says we’re over-reacting to the new strain
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chris Rea, “On the Border” by Al Stewart, “I‘ll Be Home for Christmas” by Bing Crosby, and “Trust Me I’m a Doctor” by The Blizzards.
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 so you can share it. To do that, click on the headline of a particular story and a link symbol will appear on the right-hand side of the headline. Click on the link and the URL of your page will switch to the URL of that particular story. You can then copy that URL and either email it to your friends or post it on social media. Please do share the stories.
Social Media Accounts
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Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, we bring you the heartwarming news that singer Sam Smith has announced that they wants [sic] to “be a mummy” by the age of 35. The Mirror has more.
Broody Sam Smith “wants to be a mummy” and have children by the age of 35.
The music superstar has opened up about their desire to become a parent in the years ahead.
Sam is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns – and can’t wait to start a family.
The 28-year-old, though, admits the struggle to find a boyfriend is real – and joked that that special someone is nowhere to be found in London.
Time is on Sam’s side of course and they said in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that kids are a must in the future.
Sam said: “I want kids. I want all of it. I want all of it. I want to have kids.”
“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. Another reader has created an Android app which displays “I am exempt from wearing a face mask” on your phone. Only 99p, and he’s even said he’ll donate half the money to Lockdown Sceptics, so everyone wins.
If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know you will not 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. See also the Swiss Doctor’s thorough review of the scientific evidence here.
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 in October 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 Toby’s 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 three quarters of a million 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”. Follow Collateral Global on Twitter here.
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. Alas, he’s now reached the end of the road, with the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear his appeal. Dolan has no regrets. “We forced SAGE to produce its minutes, got the Government to concede it had not lawfully shut schools, and lit the fire on scrutinizing data and information,” he says. “We also believe our findings and evidence, while not considered properly by the judges, will be of use in the inevitable public inquires which will follow and will help history judge the PM, Matt Hancock and their advisers in the light that they deserve.”
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.
And last but not least there’s the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. A High Court judge refused permission for the FSU’s judicial review in December and the FSU has decided not to appeal the decision because Ofcom has conceded most of the points it was making. Check here for details.
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
We know they are lying. They know they are lying, They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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 would give up essential liberty to purchase 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.
Alexander 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
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
Joseph Goebbels (attributed)
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken
I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
Thomas Paine
Shameless Begging Bit
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And Finally…
Trapped abroad or stuck in Tier 4 over Christmas? We may have found just the thing to ease your homesickness.
Bottles of fresh air from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales are being marketed as the perfect gift for homesick Britons living overseas this Christmas. Relocation website My Baggage is offering fresh air bottled from the four home nations for £25 each and claim the bottles are already being snapped up by families with loved ones living abroad – in a bid to remind them of home and possibly tempt them back to our shores.
The company is also offering special limited edition bottles featuring air captured on the London Underground and air from the inside of a busy Norfolk fish and chip shop. Each 500ml of air comes with a cork stopper so the owners can open for a moment, take a breath and quickly close again, allowing many weeks or even months of use. My Baggage is also willing to fulfil special customer requests by bottling air from any UK location, and have already fulfilled an order of air from the misty summit of Snowdonia for a homesick Welshman living down under.
Sounds made up, but it’s actually real. For £25, residents of Tier 4 areas can get an authentic blast of what it smells like to be outside the home you’re imprisoned in.
Alternatively, you could donate to Lockdown Sceptics.
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Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
https://thefatemperor.com/published-papers-and-data-on-lockdown-weak-efficacy-and-lockdown-huge-harms/
Good news is that French legislation, due to be introduced into parliament today and which would have provided for health passport scheme, denial of services to the non-vaccination people (plus internment and consfication of assets) has been postponed ‘until the crisis is over’ due to massive political opposition. It would be nice to see our Leader of the Opposition doing some actual opposing.
When large numbers of negative results are needed (for sending undergraduates home for the holidays or returning lorry drivers to the continent) the liquid flow tests are rolled out. The rest of the time it’s the same old PCR shit (sorry I meant ‘gold standard’) with the false negatives, processed incompetently.
This is pure hypocrisy
Mr Big:
I feel like I’m being mentally ‘kettled’ – every time I try to find some hope, some escape, some rationale my thoughts rush forward and close in on the truly despotic nature of the situation. Punished under house arrest because humans are catching a cold. And the awful inevitability of the dystopian future that awaits. It’s like a bereavement and the stages of grief – I’ve experienced anger, frustration, screaming, moaning, sadness, hopelessness, loneliness, numbness and sometimes even calm acceptance. Mostly now I’m just going through the motions with a huge weight of sadness in my heart. For us and our children, the memories we have and the futures they won’t have.
Very eloquently put. Severe lack of sleep has been a persistent feature for me since March 2020. Every time I attempt to sleep I keep seeing all the nonsense over and over again in my mind’s eye. Goodness knows how many years this is taking off my life.
Thank you Richard and same here. I try so hard to distract and tire myself out in the day but to no avail – once my head hits the pillow, often 3, 4, 5am the horror comes flooding back and I feel like I’m pleading a case for sanity in front of a jury of not my peers. But this site helps to know we’re not alone.
I find I need youtube on.. podcasts.. voices.. to sleep.
There are people who can help. But you won’t be interested, will you?
Yes, you’re always on here. Do you ever sleep?
I went to bed last night with your conspiratorial garbage and misanthropy bouncing around my cranium and I come on here this morning to find that you’re still on here.
I could probably help you Richard O, but you’re probably beyond redemption.
The future does not exist. It only exists in your imagination.
All you actually have is here and now.
Scary new chart.
Prize for who guesses what it shows
(Clue is in the first line)
New Green Measles outbreak?
Where the Lockdown Sceptics contributors live?
Oh, fuck off you stupid man.
Ok I’ll tell you
Location of scary new mutant Covid cases.
Well we very clearly need a new national lockdown in that case.
Thank goodness Fact Checkers trashed the claims in the ‘Canada Memo’, otherwise we might conspiratorially theorise that this scary new strain was all part of the plan 🤫
Captain Beefheart
Link to http://www.beefheart.com/
Krankie on front page of the sun for not abiding by own rules. Pictures caught. Krankie is too soft a word to use but after todays trolling in the comments I’ll stick at that. The comparison is known to get under her skin.
https://twitter.com/AgentP22/status/1341512239375900679?s=20
Yes sturgeon has been caught rools for thee not for me. Resign fire rid us of the shit-heel.
Link direct to Sun
https://twitter.com/ScottishSun/status/1341512841698799616?s=20
Breaking her own law.
Should break her own jaw
Proves two things:
a. She knows it’s all bollox (but we knew that).
b. She’s sick and tired of having to wear the bluddy things.
Heh! Heh! Petard etc.
So for the 24th, 25th, 26th December if you live north of Narrabeen Bridge you cannot leave the area at all but may have 5 people in your home from the same area. If you live south of the Narrabeen Bridge you cannot leave the area but can have 10 people from greater Sydney travel to your home. How does this even make sense. Gladys took great pains to tell us she was looking forward to seeing her mum and dad on Christmas day. How bloody nice for her.
I have long since given up trying to interpret any regulations within a rational framework. Basically the message is: “You are a threat to public health, do not leave your household unless it is absolutely necessary“.
The fear mongering here is mad.
Thanks NN, you are one up on me. I’ve never been on a board in my life. Too scared of bitey things that could take your toes off. Surprisingly, one activity that hasn’t been banned, surfing, but woe betide you if you think of taking a dip in the sea pool.
“Build Back Better” Compilation – “The Great Reset” Montage – YouTube
Absolutely brilliant!
Nope, no grand conspiracy here folks, move along.
Well I don’t believe the conspiracy bollocks. You believe it if you want to though.
I believe in evidence and facts.
Vaccine mandatory in all but name and digital health passport to come soon
I think you are right.
Clueless.
https://www.facebook.com/keepournhspublic/videos/558020178233457/?t=3
You don’t believe the people in those videos said those things in those videos? Do you work for the BBC ?!?
Nauseating 🤮
Wow. Not a conspiracy though?
“We are all in this together” – but I suspect we aren’t included in the “We”.
The whole country in Tier 4 by Boxing Day will not be enough for the traitorous MSM pigs. Within a couple of weeks they will be baying for full national lockdown, and campaigning for it to be enforced more strictly than ever. Once this regime is in place (as it will be), the only way out of it will be the vaccine. Then it is over to the people.
Our enemy is lying to us of course. The lockdown will be permanent, with multiple mandatory vaccinations per year until enough of us are dead.
Tier 4 is lockdown.The new mutant strain is the end game.Lock the whole country down and only release it when it accepts the vaccine.
Time to resist
Not quite, it doesn’t include the closure of schools and the once per day only excursion from your household. I expect the new version to be even tighter than back in March/April, with much more vigorous enforcement (up to and including military force).
Not enough police and not enough soldiers.
Armed enforcement will only be required in a few select areas. What were once called “pockets of resistance” in Iraq in 2003.
Most of the country will willingly submit without so much as a whimper.
Iraq did not willingly submit.
They allowed the invasion and then mounted a very effective insurgency. Don’t forget they had withstood an absolute hammering back in 1991 followed by 12 years of brutal sanctions (not to mention having to survive under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein).
lol, don’t encourage him.
I need no encouragement! And I agree that much of my stuff on here is off the beaten track. So is our current direction of travel as a society. Desperate times and all that.
Feels the same from where I’m living
Masks will become compulsory everywhere, I fear.
“Time to resist”
Fucking hell, the time to start resisting was way back in March.
“The new mutant strain is the end game.”
What? No, I think it’s just propaganda designed to scare people. Backfired though didn’t it?
The mutant strain is the excuse to lock us up as saving the NHS has lost its power.Of course it is propaganda to scare people.And the time to resist is rapidly running out,but in your world our incompetent leaders will realise the error of their ways and we will all go back to normal.
I actually agree the mutant strain scare backfired as it has shattered the illusion of competence the government had.
It’s globalism versus populism. The whole of BBC, ITV and Sky are totally onside with the globalists. The UK MSM keep on calling for more severe lockdowns because it’s helping Biden defeat Trump and because it’s helping defeat populism in the UK .
In reality what’s the difference? – between NL and Tier 4 ? Smoke snd mirrors.
I know this is nothing to do with the Rona but The Who are the best band ever and Roger Daltrey should be the King. (I may have been drinking and watching YouTube videos).
I too have been drinking incapable of focussing on a vid,but probably maybe perhaps agree.
I remember a few months ago, his response when being told everyone needs to stay in: ‘Go f** yourselves, no way can we wrap everybody in cotton wool!’
Nope, the alcohol has given you superpower hearing. The Who at their best are the best. Won’t Get Fooled Again is our anthem! Lol
Well, I for one won’t get fooled again.
Complaint made to the ICC. Don’t know much about the guy behind this but some excellent points made
https://mobile.twitter.com/joeyjojojunior_/status/1341496123807199236
https://www.thebernician.net/covid-1984-pcp-update-prima-facie-evidence-of-pandemic-fraud/
long detailed update
Still think this is so impenetrable. Hopefully he’s not completely crackers. The points in Dolans case are good I have to say.
Toby, I heard your London Calling podcast with JD. There’s one aspect of your cock-up-not-conspiracy argument that bothers me: Johnson in his conference speech a couple of months back used the pointedly globalist phrase ‘Build Back Better’, against a backdrop bearing that slogan, and was at pains to stress that we simply couldn’t go back to normal because ‘we had sacrificed too much’ and other such BS. My nerves have still not settled since then. Where does this speech fit into your theory of innocent cock-up and incompetence?
Toby is wilfully ignorant.Incompetence stopped being a viable explanation after Leicester local lockdown.
Toby disagrees with you. As do I.
Toby doesn’t want to be cast into the wilderness.I don’t blame him but the evidence is stacking up.
Pretty much what I said. We’re not out to ruin Toby’s life but as others have found out, their lives (their social lives, if not their deep and authentic interior lives) do get ruined when they speak the truth. It’s how the elites have kept power through the ages. We just have a different elite in power now. I think we can all see Toby the truth teller is conflicted with Toby the socialite. We all all have our conflicts and I am not judging him. It’s enough he gives us this forum of sanity in the midst of an epidemic of unreason.
You simply assert that BJ is “responsible” . Yes of course, he is – legally, personally and philosophically responsible – but that has no bearing on whether or not he is advocating the WEF Great Reset policy in this country – a policy which has absolutely nothing to do with anything identifiable as “conservative”. So, logically you then have to address the issue of how come a “conservative” is advocating anti-conservative policies. You might call it the “John McCain” question.
You are asking a very pertinent question but I am not sure that Toby can really handle it. I am sure we all love Toby here not least for providing this oasis of scepticism but he lives within a sub-bubble of the Big Bubble in London and if he were to go down that road of admitting there is something deeply weird going on here, his Bubble Membership would be cancelled. It would be asking too much of him to sacrifice all that. Most of us here have nothing to lose in tellung the truth.
https://www.facebook.com/keepournhspublic/videos/558020178233457/?t=3
PM Boris Johnson: Philanderer in Chief. Presently stuck with Princess N N.
As a wise man once said:
“Boris Johnson is fucking cunt, he’s a fucking cunt, he’s a fucking cunt, Boris Johnson is a fucking cunt, he’s a fucking cunt, yes, he’s fucking cunt.”
He’s probably wanking off to Petronella as soon as she’s off to one of her “Save the Pwitty Little Animals” meetings.
I want to put something out there that. I’m sorry but I actually think now, after 9 months of this shit that, even it this isn’t the one that means we’re captured, China will learn and release another virus. Their mistake this time was not having a vaccine already in place.
What do you think?
What is your thesis?
Has a virus been isolated?
How serious was the virus – if isolated?
Are you saying that this was an attack?
Where’s the evidence for that`?
It’s not evidence based but based on cynacism about China. They want (and don’t deny) world domination: look at Belt and Road, what’s hapened in Africa and now Itay and Europe – all being bought up. Also, Bejing-Biden.
Meantime, supposedly, life in China is back to normal whilst the Western World is in meltdown and our economies trashed.
As you imply, China was ‘winning the peace’.
If you are ‘winning the peace’, why change the strategy?
Makes no sense.
Since China was inevitably, on the trends pre-covid, going on to assume a hegemonic position, why change that?
In fact, it would make more sense for those who wish to derail China’s rise to put a spanner in the works.
It’s very slow and expensive. There’s a really good book by Niall Fergussaon (the historian, not the bad guy). China’s debt is huge because of all of the commitments they’ve made worldwide, including at home where they’ve built cities that have no inhabitants but are a “showcase” of their supremacy to the world.
BTW – I’m throwing it out there as a hyposthsis because we here like to try to rationalise what the hell is going on.
China’s debt is balanced by its assets, the productive capacity which it has financed with that debt – factories, infrastructure, the skills and knowledge of engineers.
The eEst, in particular the US and the UK are in a much more precarious position, because their debt has financed consumption, not production.
But aren’t we then now in an even more precarious position?
Yes – I think so.
In my opinion this crisis has probably been globally manufactured in order to carry through a currency reset or something equivalent, because the present monetary system is past its sell-by date.
The measures we are confronted with are intended to provide the authorities with the social control necessary in order to try and ensure the supply of essentials such as food, medicine and fuel, as well as to maintain public order in the possible chaos as this monetary system comes to an end.
This is because the hyperinflation/reset in front of us will very likely cause global trade to grind to a halt.
I share your cynicism about China, but am extremely doubtful about a virus attack.
I consider it entirely plausible that some sort of pollution inident occurred in Wuhan and that China spun the story to try and cover that up.
Look at the extremely high concentration of Chinese deaths in Wuhan, although restrictions were first implemented a full two months after the epidemic is supposed to have started.
Not credible.
I hope you’re right. I also believe that the Chinese leaders are utterly ruthless. My very grave concern is that they learn. I don’ know and I really hope I’m just feeling bad today. As I said, I’m sorry for the negativity.
All leaders are ruthless. Otherwise, they don’t get to be leaders.
China owns enormous tracts of land in North America as well.
They also own a significant percentage of US pork production.
It may be man-made. We’ll never know. But at least the Chinese don’t exaggerate ‘cases’ by defining them as people who fail PCR tests.
Well, has ‘it’ been isolated?
The argument against a bio-weapon:
It is very unpredictable once released. You no longer have it under control once released, whereas the control of a fake pandemic is much easier, as the authorities determine both the number of ‘cases’ and which deaths count.
They can dial the ‘pandemic’ up and down as necessary.
Life seems to pretty much normal in China at the moment. Even at the height on really Wuhan was locked down.
If this was some deadly virus let loose by China perhaps someone could explain that its only really some European countries that are affected. Whatever happened back in April and I’m not ruling out that there was a virus ended in May or June at the latest.
What we have now since the flu season started is a massive ramping up of the ‘agenda’ whatever that is based on a false positive rate and media / govt scaremongering. Without that and the masks life would be as normal for most people now.
I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation for the disappearance of influenza in 2020 closely aligning with the appearance of SARS-CoV-2.
I think it’s easy enough to figure out.
Latest narrative being pushed by China, and its armies of social media commenters, is that the virus originated ‘somewhere else’, and was merely detected in Wuhan.
All things considered that could well be the truth. In my opinion C-19 has likely been around for several years, likely diagnosed as flu and largely the same IFR as flu.
Agreed. I keep making this point, China has never had a total national lockdown. Neither has Japan, Taiwan or S Korea,
You’re probably right. The really frightening thing is that this may have been a weapon aimed at non-chinese. Damage to China and to neighbouring countries, eg Vietnam and Thailand, where there is a significant amount of specifically Chinese DNA in the populace, has been only a small fraction of what has happened in Europe and the Americas.
From the headless chicken reactions of the World’s leaders, and most of the populations, if China wants world domination, they can safely bin their nuclear arsenal, develop another virus, vaccinate their population, release it, and walk in.
Exactly. Or any other terrorits organisation.
But the virus is no threat to anything.
It is comparable to the flu.
But it is. To our lives, lifestyles, economies etc. And any organisation that has a vaccine can take control.
I’m not saying this is what’s happening. It’s a late night hypothesis that I hope is wrong; dearly.
These effects are due to the complete overreaction – not to the virus itself.
We don’t need a vaccine.
What if covid19 is just the practice run before the real thing after they have seen how ineffective, if ruinous, our ‘defences’ are ?
Given my position that the purpose of covid has been to allow our governments to take emergency powers with minimal resistance has already worked, that would not be necessary.
And what if it isn’t?
I don’t think they released this one, so no, I disagree.
Soros has been on the blower. “OK George, I’ll see what I can do…”
I trudge through this deluge of insanity every day like many people here. Increasingly, I am not surprised by most things but occasionally something throws me into overdrive. This is my example today from the BBC. I’m struggling to understand how this can have happened. How the hell did we get here? Watch the video if you can face it and convince me, if you can, that we haven’t landed on a suicidal alien planet.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-55414707
Appalling, which is why I have not visited the BBC website for months. Thanks for taking the pain on our behalf, it’s important to know what is being broadcast by the Beast.
I hope the giant asteroid gets here soon.
The arresting thing for me about such items is that they proceed in what seems to me to be perfect good faith. The people who made this film, and who appear in it, really do believe that we are facing a public health crisis of existential proportions. If you really do believe that, virtually everything that drives us (here) crazy follows quite naturally for all but the most robust libertarians (of which I don’t think there are very many in this country). If the choice is piles of corpses – as a friend put it to me, again in good faith, this evening, ‘the eradication of a whole generation’ – OR singing in a mask, almost any conservative/liberal/progressive would choose singing in a mask.
A great result for lateral flow vs PCR. I see light at the end of the tunnel.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55418565
Phew.
Sure it’s not another train?
Probably…but PCR needs to die. This is another nail in the coffin. Have a good Xmas DRW by the way. I like your posts!
The train bringing the vaccine?!
Thus formalising testing to leave the country.
A strikingly odd juxtaposition:
“We really worry that you might become unhealthy through drinking sugary drinks…”
Yet the very same people are, in effect, saying:
“We don’t give a toss if you die of untreated cancer or suicidal despair or being trapped in a crummy flat 24 hours a day”.
Psychopaths.
Which is a bit like: “I would never go near GMO foods” but also “I can’t wait to get the GMO vaccine”.
A GMO ingredient was listed in the flu jab the school nurse wanted to administer to my 9 year old child last month. One of the reasons I declined the offer.
”We’ve cancelled your life saving cancer treatment – stay safe!”
Dear moderators – please take action. There are a small number of very abusive and juvenile posters on here who are making this site a very unpleasant place to spend time on. Free speech – yes. Personal abuse – no.
Agreed, some of the insults are schoolyard banter and it’s getting out of hand.
Tough.
I’ve generally found this to be one of the most civilised online forums out there. I think this is why low quality contributions such as the ones you refer to are so conspicuous.
Incidentally a warm welcome to the new daily update author Conor Chaplin (I think today is his first entry).
Given that Toby Young is one of the leading advocates of free speech in the UK my guess is that censoring speech that “godowneasy” doesn’t like is not going to be on his list of priorities.
Report from the day’s festivities:
Went to see The Muppet Christmas Carol at the cinema earlier. Depressingly only a few groups of people there (even with the socially distanced seating arrangements). Of course the film was great but I was disheartened to go to the toilet to see the taps blocked off and the instruction to use hand sanitiser instead. I have an eczema outbreak on my hand so hand sanitiser is a huge no no from me – I used the taps and soap regardless of course.
Then I went to have tea at a Turkish restaurant. Delighted to see no NHS T&T QR codes as well as the main waiter having his mask below his mouth. A couple of other restaurant staff wore lanyards the whole time which was similarly great news.
Please remind me, is a cinema like a big netflix?
It’s a place people used to go on the outside. We aren’t supposed to go to the outside. It isn’t safe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3mgapAcVdU
The Animals, 1966.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k29corrrL0
please make this the xmas number one song….
Dr Marcus de Brun on Richie Allen today. Plus Hayden Hewitt.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/6442097/nicola-sturgeon-sorry-mask-covid-breach/
One rule for us…
So sick of this now. Funny how every person in the public eye just says they forgot. She made the rules but couldn’t remember them apparently.
Why should anyone else give a fuck?
Could be a tricky presidential briefing tomorrow for Nicola. I wonder what the excuse will be?
And this days after threatening to bring in laws that effectively make it illegal to leave your home.
Absolute scum.
somebody on here mentioned Wings over Scotland on here a few weeks back. I have been visiting their site and she is not popular even among the indie crowd.
I’ll have a look.
Her latest independence speech (in the middle of the biggest crisis in Scotland since WWII), seems to have lost the moderates within the SNP. Now isn’t the time, is the feeling I am getting from my Indy friends, and this latest debacle of putting the North of Scotland into Tier 4 (and maybe even the threatened Tier 5) has upset the highlanders and the fishing ports.
My area has anything between 0 and 15 ‘cases’ per day and we are being placed in a lockdown akin to March. People up here are seeing their economy collapse over a disease less prevalent than chicken pox. More people up here have scurvy than coronavirus FFS.
I have a Scottish friend who wants independence from Nicola Sturgeon
Exactly. A compendium of all the infractions of the rules by public figures this year would make a perfect Xmas present. Not a single one of them will be getting the vaccine either.
They’ll get a photo op “vaccine” but I’ll be my last dollar it won’t be the vaccine the plebes are getting.
The mutant virus is everywhere, they say; so we must lock down harder, they say.
Not waving, but drowning. Not mad, but evil.
Here’s the petition link again. Now over 10,000.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/564421
”Recall Parliament now to scrutinise new Christmas coronavirus restrictionsMinisters must urgently request that the Speaker recall Parliament, due to the overwhelming public interest in MPs scrutinising, debating and voting on the Government’s new coronavirus restrictions that criminalise family contact over the Christmas period.”
Well done for your efforts in tirelessly promoting this.
Gee – thanks! I’ll stop now. I’m becoming a bore!
You carry on. I didn’t know of this petition till I read your post above. The more you promote something the better your chances of reaching people who may have missed it earlier. I’ve signed it now and it’s at 10,775.
This geezer exposes the Covid fundamentalists in devastating fashion:
https://youtu.be/erAYITZRdJk