A Lockdown Sceptics reader has emailed all the anti-lockdown candidates in the London mayoral election with a questionnaire, trying to work out just how “anti” they are. They all come out pretty well, although some are more sound than others. Here, for instance, are the answers of Steve Kelleher, the SDP candidate.
Should London be opening quicker than the current roadmap?
Yes. On the data there is no reason why we can’t open the economy and society in general immediately. This country has lent immense trust to the Government during this pandemic. That trust is beginning to fray.What changes would you like to see immediately?
London’s economic and social institutions should be reopened. The vaccine programme has successfully protected the overwhelming number of vulnerable citizens. If the Government genuinely backs the vaccine it should re-open society and the economy.What do you think have been the biggest mistakes of the lockdown?
A total failure by the Government to properly assess the social and economic costs of the suppression measures. From the start the Government has failed to acknowledge the cost-benefit trade-offs associated with its lockdown measures. Like Tony Blair and Iraq – this Government will never acknowledge its staggering mistake.Do you support vaccine passports for international travel?
The SDP is not keen on vaccine passports in principle. However, I believe the market will decide. Vaccine passports will emerge for international travel irrespective of UK public policy because airlines, some nation states and other organisations will mandate it. You can’t gain entry to Ghana without a yellow fever certificate.Do you support vaccine passports for domestic use?
In general, a strong no. The idea of having to produce a vaccine certificate to obtain goods and services or to enter public facilities is totally wrong, in principle, in a free society.When do you think Londoners should return to the office?
As soon as possible. Let’s get London buzzing again.When should international travel be restored?
The Government should be very careful in permitting unlimited travel to known pandemic hotspots this summer. Many states in continental Europe are suffering steepening viral curves and while that is the case the UK should act cautiously. It is far better to prioritise and re-open the domestic UK economy than to prioritise international travel.
Read the responses from Lawrence Fox (Reclaim), Dr Peter Gammons (UKIP), Piers Corbyn (Let London Live), Brian Rose (London Real Party) and David Kurten (Heritage) here.
Worth reading in full.
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Can’t help thinking that this writing is a perfect example of narcissism. Pretentious and only very slightly accurate.
Using classical words to describe an ‘original’ observation is a tried and trusted way to establish your ‘authority’ over the subject because anyone who does not follow what you are saying (because it’s either rubbish or non existent) can be regarded as stupid or at least in need of instruction from the new priesthood of which the author is Chief.
Coincidentally I was just watching a film on one of my favourite YouTube channels, The Ushanka Show which is hosted by a very ordinary former citizen of the Soviet Union.
In it he responds to the question
‘Was life better during the Soviet Regime or after it?”
Instead of using political theory dressed up as science he compares it to living life in the shallow end of a swimming pool with very strict bodyguards. Fascinating and illuminating stuff.
To clarify, by the word ‘you’ I mean the author of the article, my opening remarks were not directed at ‘you’, Ron Carlin.
The use of ‘special language’ by specialists is a problem that doesn’t seem to go away. I suppose the specialists feel that if they used normal language then any old person would have a chance of understanding what they were saying and perhaps realise it wasn’t that difficult at all. It also marks out ‘the club’ — if people only use normal language then it marks them out as a non-specialist and thus they can be safely ignored, and perhaps belittled if they don’t go away.
In general, you should always at least try to write at a level that the intended readership can understand.
Beyond this, I have a feeling that people with truly complex considerations to get across often try to explain using simple language and logical progression of the argument (perhaps fail, but try), and they’ll usually try to do it in as short a piece as possible… whereas people with a very simple message will often stick to specialist language and even pad things out a bit to get things longer. I’m not entirely sure why this should be the case, but it does seem to be a common theme.
Chris Hitchins and Sir Roger Scruton did not have to resort to linguistic obfuscation to hide the shallowness of their ideas.
You mean that Hitchen’s and Scruton’s ideas were shallow? You might mean the opposite, but your statement is a bit ambiguous. Can you clarify?
Apologies, written under the influence of meds.
. . . whose ideas were not shallow yet did not resort to linguistic obfuscation to express them.
I read this earlier (link on right-hand side) & wished to comment but wasn’t available at the time, I had more to say then, but having thought about it, It’s everything that’s wrong with academia & intellectuals. There is no nice totalitarianism, everyone’s selfish & socialism is one of the most selfish acts available.
What’s happening in the covid era isn’t anything new, it’s the same old subjective emotive story repeated through history. Coming from the same people (liberal middle-class) & the same old direction, academia. Even our own contrarian TY spends much time defending his position, by debating the “science”. What’s happening has nothing to do with science & everything to do with natural competition between 2 rival factions battling for the direction of our species.
I hate to tell you we are losing, mostly because we are trying to keep to Queensbury Rules, whilst the other side cheat, lie & hit below the belt.
My thoughts exactly. I think modern comfortable life and technology has to an extent enabled the particular way in which covid has been used as a cover for a power grab, but a power grab it remains and humans have been doing that since the dawn of time and will continue to do so probably until the end of time.
Ten years, I was sarcastically commenting on how it’s almost as if we were slowly enticed & tricked into adopting the internet & mobile phones by a covert establishment operation, so they could control us. Little did I know how right I was & being right doesn’t give me any satisfaction.
“Coming from the same people (liberal middle-class) & the same old direction, academia.”
Which is why it isn’t the rich that needs taxing. It’s the Guardian Class – who have enough money that they don’t have to worry about material survival and can instead go around telling everybody else what they can and can’t do.
We need to drop them down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Perhaps not as far as acquisition of oxygen, however tempting that may be.
People tend to require some sort of “spiritual” aspect to their lives. The decline of popular organised religion, particularly Christianity, has left a vacuum which has been filled by a plethora of other belief systems and communities. This is but one. There are plenty of others from supporting a football team (innocuous) to embracing fear of catastrophes like covid and climate change (highly dangerous). And let’s not forget the deification of the NHS.
Is politician’s weaponization, no one really believes it, it’s just gaslighting. It’s BS!
Increasingly becoming the Nazi Health Service.
IMPORTANT NEWS
There is serious illness now in the vaccinated in Israel.
“they seem to have gone through immune erosion.. 83 dead in the past month…15 seriously sick….we have no data to learn from…no other country has vaccinated to this extent…”
They also complain that the Health Ministry is being secretive ands not sharing data with the public
https://www.bitchute.com/video/eosnwyX7qNUT/
Israel appears to be in serious trouble.
Oddly, there’s evidently open discussion on TV.
The professor is asked if he has a clear position on boosters.
He replies that the rationale for boosters is not found anywhere in Pfizer’s clinical dossiers.
He says that there’s no good scientific rationale for a 3rd dose or for mass vaccination of the population.
But they’ll mandate a fourth dose anyway.
As Israel is roughly 2 months ahead of us in mass stabbing this could be aa early sign of ADE as warned by those in the Vax business.
Watch this space….
https://www.bitchute.com/video/vea4oV9dhJ9j/
REINER FUELLMICH SPEAKS TO PSYCHOLOGIST ON WHY SO MANY FOLLOW THE COVID/VAXX NARRATIVE
This is a useful discussion even though it covers many previously known points as it is clear about the mental state of those still unawake, and may help those of us who have family and friends still in this condition.
If anyone here has experience of dealing with sociopathic people (as I have) you will know that when under stress they lie more.
So I expect our governments to use the increase in sickness (in the vaxxed) to increase the assault on the UN-vaxxed.
My experience is that once you have exposed one lie, you are met with many more, but as these people are degraded and inadequate individuals, their lies become increasingly unbelievable to the normal people they think they can delude. They are essentially truncated and inadequate people.
These sociopaths do not realise that they are losing credibility with the normals, as their own personality deficiency prevents them from understanding this.
I think more and more people will wake up, confronted with stratospheric levels of fantasy and corruption from our rulers
Given that the DS site is (presumably) hoping to attract a broad based readership, I would venture to suggest that the mere title of this article is as likely to appeal to many potential readers as the promise of a red hot poker in the eye, or any other body orifice.
Just my opinion of course.
Pretentious twaddle my mum would have called it.
And, as we know, Mums always know best! (Just in case that is mis-interpreted, I am not being sarcastic).
I suspect my mum would have said much the same.
Toby: “Worth reading in full” links to a different article.
Probably just as well!
I can’t imagine many people bothering to follow it, frankly.
IMO there are obvious parallels to our times re. ‘Gnosticism’, just not at all related to the above piece.
I’d think that most people that have heard of Gnosticism link it with the genocide of Cathars in southern France by the Catholic church in the 13th century. I note that:
It looks to me like humanity has a problem with people being whipped into a frenzy and making decisions that end up being terrible for everyone apart from a very select few.
There lies the problem I think.
I imagine more people would have full knowledge about the price of fish.
I had heard of Gnosticism knowing it to be related to Christianity but it’s an old memory that you have rekindled of events going back to the early medieval.
Funnily enough it is an old memory for me — stupid knowledge about useless subjects is the realm of the young male, be it dinosaurs, steam trains, astronomy or medieval history.
I think I should state that unlike our leaders/politicians, I have had training and a career in science, and don’t have a degree in ancient history or a PPE from Oxford.
That’s good to know,
I can imagine however, that Bozo would probably enjoy a pompous debate about the rather pointless topic of this article – which it is pointless in relation to the real world today.
I doubt Bozo even attended a science lesson if he could help it.
I can’t agree that knowledge of steam trains, medieval history and astronomy is useless if:
You’re driving a steam train.
You don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
You want to provide warning of an astronomical event that can affect the planet.
Hmm. The covidians are the Gnostics. And they were and remain a threat.
Read Norman Cohen’s ‘Pursuit of the Millennium’. Sometimes heretics need persecuting…
They’ve had free reign for decades and now this.
The article’s gone down like a lead balloon! It’s a bit baggy, to be sure, but the situation is new and weird and hard to capture. A better and more concise synthesis (sorry) will be made.
Other commenters seem to prefer a one dimensional explanation, like ‘evil’. I sympathise with, and like, the frame-shift from a ragbag of secular motives (financial, political, class prejudice, nihilism) into one transcendent one (‘demonic’). That urge to simplify doesn’t make it so though. But even if it isn’t so, doesn’t mean a shift to a religious response isn’t the best. I’m as confused as anyone else.
Anyhow, what we do have is the convergence of conventional power strategies, like centre+periphery against middle, and a nihilistic art movement, and a set of very gloomy objective facts about energy and resources. All of this is in this essay, but it does need to be sloganised better. Zero cult is quite good, because it has zero use for most of its devotees.
“the frame-shift from a ragbag of secular motives (financial, political, class prejudice, nihilism) into one transcendent one (‘demonic’).”
Well, what is the seeking of financial gain, political power etc at the expense of others, using deception if it’s not evil?
Some of the routes and methods and tendencies might be novel, but what underlies it is eternal.
The reading in full link points to the previous article.
Correct one: https://dailysceptic.org/narcissistic-gnosticism-a-21st-century-political-religion/
Interesting read.
Misuses the term narcissm, though. This comes from the antique legend of Narcissus who was a young men so much obsessed with his own beauty that he did nothing but watch his own mirror image in a lake. It really means being obsessively in love with oneself. What the article refers to would be more aptly called vanity, ie a desire to impress others with oneself.
I also think that this common criticism of the social media universe is in itself more than a bit driven by envy. The idea that the main motivation behind communication is not – well – communication but transmitting a favorable image of oneself to others comes from some fairly modern US bullshit called signalling theory. It’s based on the observation that many animals signal their reproduction worthiness by optical means, eg, peacocks. A desire to impress is then ascribed to these animals which makes absolutely no sense as they act instinctively. It’s then assumed that the main reason humans communicate is because of the same desire to impress. This is really just another justification for ignoring the content of other people’s statement in favour of constructing an improper ad hominem, something Schopenhauer (Eristische Dialect) would have called an ad personam argument. Ie, a personal attack in lieu of an argument.
I’m not sure I understand what the article is going on about
The link takes you to a different piece