Fraser Nelson has been a somewhat fickle friend of sceptics. Broadly sceptical until the autumn, the Spectator editor and Telegraph columnist backed the third lockdown and the Spectator‘s output has been noticeably more pro-lockdown since, though with some welcome exceptions (such as Rod Liddle, who travelled the other way, and Lionel Shriver. And of course, Toby).
His column in today’s Telegraph, though, is a cracker, and more reminiscent of the Nelson of old.
Boris Johnson, he writes, is a man with regrets. He has “started to tell friends that he was let down by his own liberal instincts. That he hoped for too long that Britain could, like Sweden, fight the virus through consent rather than diktat – getting through this without abolishing basic freedoms. His fear at the time was irreversibility. If sacred principles were jettisoned in an emergency, would they ever be restored? Might he end up unleashing something he’d struggle to control?”
Fraser notes that Covid levels are now so low in Britain that the Prime Minister could have declared the emergency over already. Instead, we have the renewal of the Government’s emergency powers in the Coronavirus Act for another six months.
It’s no good looking to Labour for opposition. Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is more keen on the new restrictions than the Tories (though it was good to see a few Labour MPs defying the party whip and voting against the extension yesterday, alongside the Lib Dems).
The Government won the vote easily. But in biosecurity Britain, who’s really in charge? Increasingly it seems the scientists, and then only those willing to parrot the Official Narrative. Even ones we thought were discredited, like Neil Ferguson, seem to retain their place at the table. Fraser writes:
Big announcements continue to come via people like Prof Neil Ferguson, who still seems to have a Rasputin-like hold over the Government. Earlier this week, he said he thought it may be unwise to book any foreign holidays this summer. This is big news, because what he thinks today tends to become Matt Hancock’s policy tomorrow. “We’re run by scientist groupthink,” says one minister. “But that won’t change until the polls change.”
Ah, the polls. Scourge of the sceptics’ cause, the rock on which all our carefully crafted arguments founder. Boris Johnson this week was heard speaking in disturbingly demagogical terms about public sentiment on lockdowns, as though people are doing anything other than reflecting back the fear instilled into them by a year of unremitting pro-lockdown propaganda orchestrated by the Government. He told MPs:
My impression is that there is a huge wisdom in the public’s feeling about this. Human beings instinctively recognise when something is dangerous and nasty to them. They can see, collectively, that Covid is a threat. They want us, as their Government – and me as the Prime Minister – to take all the actions I can to protect them.
These are words that should haunt all who love liberty and who cling desperately to the belief that we still live in a liberal state whose laws safeguard our basic freedoms from Government overreach.
Noting the announcement this week of the creation of a distinctly illiberal sounding “Health Security Agency”, Fraser comments:
Until recently, no Government would have thought it was expected to control a virus. The wildest of the pandemic plans did not involve lockdown. But Wuhan showed what public health figures could “get away with” as Prof Ferguson put it – which changed everything. The definition of what Government can “get away with” is being expanded week after week.
With the “fundamentals of a biosecurity state” now under construction, he says, “the old inalienable rights – freedom of assembly, of protest, of school education, to leave the country” have become “privileges to be removed or restored as ministers see fit”. One idea being floated in Whitehall, he says, is citizens sending their temperature in everyday using the NHS app. Good grief.
We are now in serious danger of becoming like Communist China, where citizens are given a colour code for their health status that determines how freely they can move. In January, Matt Hancock said: “We are not a papers-carrying country”. In that case, why is Michael Gove working on vaccine passports, and the Prime Minister saying we may need one to go to the pub or get a job?
We are facing the prospect of liberal Britain becoming the most serious casualty of the pandemic. The frightening truth is that, as Boris Johnson is all too aware, opinion polls show consistently high public support for vaccine passports, curfews, border closures, all of it. Perhaps this support, expressed to a telephone interviewer or on a website, is just lip service, and people’s true feelings or at least their personal behaviour are dissonant with that. If so, the Government clearly does not concur.
Thus we see what Fraser call perhaps the “biggest shift”, the one which explains why this is happening despite negligible infection levels and soaring vaccination rates.
Once Government would need to demonstrate – beyond reasonable doubt – that a threat is big enough to justify depriving people of their liberty. Now, the burden of proof has flipped. It’s argued that a new variant might escape the vaccine. Until this can be disproved, it seems, nobody leaves the country.
This is the “precautionary principle”, perhaps the most influential idea of our times. It transforms the relationship between the individual and the state. It means all kinds of costs can be incurred – and freedoms suspended – just in case. There need be no real plausibility test, no balance of risk. In this black-box democracy, decisions are taken without transparency, Parliament is not consulted and the Cabinet told to get in line.
Alarmingly, given the central role that science plays in justifying the new biosecurity state, “even those inside the magic circle of Government scientific advisers have been threatened with dismissal for questioning the pro-lockdown consensus”, Fraser says. Government stooges like Neil O’Brien are despatched to smear eminent academics like Carl Heneghan because they don’t buy into the Government’s lockdownism. Those invested in this catastrophic narrative are closing ranks and threatening those who think the evidence is pointing in the other direction with loss of position and earnings. This kind of enforced ideological monoculture is as fatal to good governance as it is to good science – bad ideas cannot be challenged and corrected before they do untold damage.
What happened, wonders Fraser, to the liberal Boris who was elected in December 2019? We need him back.
Worth reading in full.
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Don’t believe a word of it, just a bit more good cop, bad cop bullshit fed to the media to assuage fears. They all want this, every single one of them.
They tend to talk tough and then wimp out when it matters. Still perhaps better than Starmer and his party of useless turds.
“The Opposition” will support it no doubt.
Indeed, Baker will blubber about it, then go ahead and vote for it, or for another permanent extension of the temporary state of emergency.
I’m hoping this is the issue that forces Tory MP’s to wake up and realise just how far Johnson has pushed the envelope of overreach. This is an existential crisis. They must ask themselves: Are we Conservatives or Communists?
Medical apartheid, a biosecurity state cannot be permitted. Period
Most of them are, first and foremost, party animals. They will vote for whatever puts the most swill in their trough.
All of them, not most; if they weren’t they wouldn’t be MPs because the sheeple cannot think for themselves and are incapable of assessing the worth of independent candidates. As things are, with unqualified universal suffrage, membership of one of the big parties is a sine qua non for a political career, unless you wish to represent Brighton and Hove.
Snout trough
They are Globalists following the WEF agenda.
Dream on
Yes it’s all bollox regardless of what they want I want a fight a nasty one with lots of fucking claret !
I want trials for treason or misconduct in office or something else we can hang them for, lots of them, with lots of executions.
It’s shocking it’s only 50 MPs
There’s always a cabinet rift, but the all rubber stamp the ongoing tyranny
NHS made secret pandemic plan to deny care to elderly
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/30/nhs-made-secret-pandemic-plan-deny-care-elderly/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
More horrifying Corona Committee hearing revelations here:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Ru1LgeeTkZBI/
Fkinhell, here’s the FDA document from October 2020 where they already knew what the serious adverse events from the vaccine would be before the rollout. Is this for real?
https://www.fda.gov/media/143557/download
Thank you for posting, prod-s. Still gobsmacked!
Courtesy of Victoria from her link on Today’s Update
https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/covid-19-response/using-the-nhs-covid-pass/#exemptions
Not more of this shit – the fucking lanyards were bad enough!
The people who vote for this will eventually be regarded and judged by history in the same vein as those who voted for the Jim Crow laws and for the Ermaechtigungsgesetz in 1933 or the Nuremberg Rassengesetz in 1935.
Their descendants will be ashamed of them forever.
A pity that only 50 Tories have any grasp of history and/or an intact moral compass.
You’re right. In days to be, membership of the abject Covid parliament will be considered a mark of shame and criminality, comparable to membership of the SS.
Though one wonders why Piffle doesn’t have a grasp of history.
Why just “history” – his grasp of most things is being manipulated by his appalling wife…
BIG BLUBBER is a spoilt brat grown big. The only thing he needs to understand is how to get what he is entitled to and what fuss to make when he doesn’t.
He does.
I hope that you’re right, given that history is written by the victors.
What if this time they do get communism right? I.e. make it stick.
To paraphrase Churchill, history will think well of them because they will write it. History is what historians say it is and not an incontrovertibly factual record of the past.
Assuming this is true, which seems quite plausible, we know there are some in the cabinet who are not complete COVID lunatics. I think we can guess who. It’s a very small crumb of comfort, but it’s something
The interesting thing is that all pretence that any of what they are doing is now “following the science” has gone out of the window. The debate is purely political. Of course we know it has been political since the start
CDC study shows 74% of people infected in Massachusetts Covid outbreak were fully vaccinated. Vaccinations are ineffective and unsafe. Vaccine passports serve no purpose when the vaccinated are the main carriers of covid.https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/30/cdc-study-shows-74percent-of-people-infected-in-massachusetts-covid-outbreak-were-fully-vaccinated.html
But still they say that Delta affects the unvaccinated worse even though 74% are vaccinated. I think we can be more than fairly sure that the spokesperson is talking utter bollocks.
Wont be long before the twice injected turn on the once injected and then the thrice injected turn on the twice injected etc………Classic divide and rule.
Not too sure whether the thrice vaccinated will be in any condition to turn on anybody.
Quite a number of the twice vaccinated near to us, seem to developing a host of new ailments. Just a coincidence, of course!
i hear that. I know more injected people who have had a range of side effects including a death from the thing than those who have had it but currently seem ok
The future number 1 one cause of death: coincidence.
Reminds me of the classic line from Casablanca.
‘I came here for the waters’
We have all been misinformed.
hard to believe that a low mortality virus/pandemic has created such utter madness. Johnson should ignore what the segregation team are proposing, its not British
Johnson is the problem, not the solution.
Just been researching the vax passport exemptions. It’s wide open. You can self-declare your exemption and no one is allowed to ask for proof. Same as the masks.
It’s bizarre.
Some questions arise:
Does this thereby extend to tests, as it should, and if so, which ones (not)?
What are the international/travelling implications (tests, quarantines, inbound, outbound, acceptance of health passport abroad vs non acceptance of UK exemption abroad)?
Does this provide a way out from ‘no jab, no job’?
Does this provide a way out for care workers and all others where vaccination was or might still be mandated by a separate law?
If the health passport isn’t demanded as proof but the vaccination (document) itself, as likely in the case of private employers, does the same self-exemption option apply (as with masks, otherwise they’d have to formulate their own exemption rules, which must not run foul of the disability act)?
Is it in danger of becoming abolished and changed, or is this watertight for good, due to being based upon and due to common law?
I am sure that there is more, but certainly, this is the best news in quite a while.
I doubt that it will be left as open as the masks thing, especially for international travel and abroad, but even if it is, we’re not safe and we cannot rest until the whole concept and the Big Lie that is behind it is exposed for the evil nonsense it is.
Ideally, people whether they are vaxxed or unvaxxed should simply refuse to take part in any such arrangements. But I can understand people who do, for personal reasons – it won’t be easy for all to opt out.
You’re right – I note that self declaration is available only until the digital framework is available on the NHS Covid Pass App
…however, those without smartphones would surely have to rely on self-declaration otherwise large parts of society would be prohibited.
Can you share that research? Which form of VaxPaz? As far as I’m aware we’re only using it for international travel at the moment, without exemptions.
It might be this:
https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/covid-19-response/using-the-nhs-covid-pass/
But just as with the masks, it’ll create a nasty, confrontational atmosphere which causes people to just think ‘fuck it’ and not bother to go to places where they might get challenged. And it’ll be the same as masks with jobsworths demanding “proof”.
Hi have you got a link(s)
Dominic Raab wrote a book in 2009 called The Assault on Liberty. I shan’t be reading it.
No point, it’s being played out right in from of us.
The script for what is happening now?
Let’s look at real the World affects of an “Investigatory” emergency use prophylactic:
https://gab.com/vaccineregrets
The narrative is changing. The question is why?
At some point there will be a realisation amongst the big money people, that bigger money can be made out of the absence of a “pandemic” than can be made out of the ongoing presence of one, and then it will all be over.
Big Pharma, Amazon, laptop suppliers, and assorted other multinationals have done very well indeed out of the past 18 months – they won’t be in any hurry for this to end.
Doublethink has a specific purpose: it destroys the ability to think rationally.
The CDC is actually up to triplethink now:
Vaccine passports are needed to segregate the diseased from the pure.
and
Vaccines protect the pure from the diseased.
and
Muzzles are needed to protect the pure from the pure.
If you can believe all those things are true at once, then your social credit score will remain intact, for now. If you feel a twinge of cognitive dissonance, best keep it to yourself.
“Another added: “My concern is that this is destabilising the party. A carrot approach is far better than a stick approach. We shouldn’t be taking people’s liberties away, we should be encouraging them.”
So in short:
And there we have it. The gaping moral vacuum at the heart of the Conservative Party.
Not that the Labour Party is any better.
We need the old Establishment to be dissolved, preferably with nitric acid, and a new Establishment put in its place. One that serves the country, not itself.
“The biggest concern of Conservative MPs is the wellbeing of the Conservative Party, not the wellbeing of the country.”
Yep. same with Labour MP’s, by and large too, as you say. Toe the party line, be good boys & girls, because they’re thinking about their long term political future. Now there is an inherit flaw in this method, which may be worth reminding your MP of because I feel many will have overlooked — the flaw is, it depends upon the party remaining in existence long enough, so that said spineless waste of space MP can realize their future vision!
Hydrofluoric acid would be even better, it is toxic and even dissolves glass.
The peasants are revolting!
When the AFP/Guardian are reporting over 200000 are on the streets of France, you know its more than 2million. When they say the protests are growing, you know they are becoming scared!
And when they try to say that out of that under 15000 were in Paris, you know they are lying and are becoming very scared!
Perhaps Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric would like to stay in Polynesia.
Today Albi, tomorrow Toulouse. Next week Gaillac and Graulhet ( that is where I will be).
Liberté, égalité, fraternité!
The French protesters are our best hope – they can bring down the regime and that will be the first domino to fall.
There were at least 1.2 million in France today. Possibly more, but that’s a safe figure
Facts and data, not narrative and Nudge Unit Psyops.
I see our glorious leader is doing his bit for climate change and the problem of overpopulation by producing yet another sprog. More, do as I say, not as I do from the fat controller.
She’s a scrubber.
He’s old fat and ill
It’s not his.
So if you get your vaccine you can get a free pizza. You’ll still be able to spread it and get it but you’ll have a pizza
Yep. Not sure what the stats are in the UK, but the US CDC says the overwhelming majority (over 75%) of people who were hospitalized or died from covid, were classified as obese… but here, have a donut, taco, king size cheeseburger, pizza, as you say, with your vaxxine — and contribute to rising obesity levels!
What a sad shambles of a government. Here they are, talking about forcing people to undergo unwanted and unnecessary medical procedures, and all the Tories could muster were 50 dissenters… wow…
Speaking of which, imagine the precedent. Imagine if instead of a vaccine we were talking about double D cup sizes. “The Prime Minister has announced today that all women must now have at least a double D cup size in order to qualify for the new boob passport. The PM has further encouraged all large venues, as well as pubs and restaurants, to check everyone’s boob passport and not allow any woman on the premises with a cup size smaller than a double D.” I wonder if people would still be like: “Look, a boob job is harmless. Besides, no one is forcing you to do it. It’s your choice that you don’t want to be allowed into pubs or restaurants…”
“Look, nobody forced you to be homosexual. You could have chosen not to be at any point. Now put on this pink triangle and get in the cattle truck. It’s OK, we passed a law.”
I would support this 100% tbh
Coerced “vaccination” is akin to rape within a relationship, this being a relationship with the government. Those forcing this are no better than rapists.
It doesn’t bother Boris anyway – he knows Labour will support it so the party rebels are worthless.
The complete and utter lack of *any* formal opposition party means he can do whatever the hell he wants.
If those 50MPs felt strongly enough the one thing they could do that would force Boris into listening would be send a letter to the 1922 asking for a leadership contest.
They wont though – they don’t want to lose the cushy job and perks.
Who would take over as leader? Be careful what you wish for. A lot would depend on who the rank and file thought was most electable. Unlikely to be a sceptic. And the PM may well win any such contest.
It would make a shit they are all cunts
I am more optimistic than you Splattt. I bet a fair few letters have gone in already and the trickle will become a flood if BJ and Gove try to push a vaccine passport through Parliament
Its the Covid social credit pass hokey cokey.
We will, we won’t we will, we won’t . All part of the Johnson regime strategy to play with our heads, they won’t stop until they have pleased their Chinese and billionaire masters.
Too much money at stake
This is all theatre. There are no opposition to this. Its a ploy to get people thinking there is hope.
Irrelevant, now that Sir Forensic has slithered off the fence onto the side of Social Credit Score Apps. His position is that they are necessary but not sufficient, and he also wants the biosurveillance to reveal whether we have been tested for the Chinese Virus recently.
They’re coming, chaps, all that remains to be decided is the final name. I’m guessing something nicely newspeak like CitPass or FreeCert.
Raab and Shapps should be taken to the court of Human Rights for their illegal actions
https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/over-100k-breakthrough-cases-kept-quiet-cdc-says-vaxed-can-spread-infection-same-as-unvaxed/
Just watched the health minister of NewSouth Wales going through a ‘scare-um’ list of cases, hospitalisations, intensive care admissions, and ventilated patients, he ended up with the admission that all except one were double vaccinated, the one was only single vaccinated.
All those double vaccinated would get a uk vaccine passport.
Not only that but where breakthrough cases are identified by rtPCR tests ct is <20 so the have high viral load a.k.a. they are highly infectious.
The only reason to give a health passport is if it indicates the holder is not infectious.
I can’t be the only one whose eyes skip over the words ‘Tory Rebellion’, or similar, in just the way my ears mute the muzak in supermarkets?
Hah – trick question. It is, of course, (c) Carrie-on.
“There are concerns across the cabinet about denying people their freedoms.”
Really?! What just ‘concerns’?! And just ‘freedoms’?! How about health and lives and livelihoods and humanity and security and and and.