One of the most reliable and informative sources of mortality data over the past year has been the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ weekly mortality monitor report. It shows weekly and cumulative mortality for the year, and unlike the ONS, adjusts for population size and age so we get a truer reflection of how the current trends compare with the past.
Last week the report showed that the trend of deaths in 2021 has been so low since mid-March that all the excess deaths in January and February had been almost cancelled out and cumulative standardised mortality stood at just 1.1% above the 10-year average (see graph below).
At Lockdown Sceptics we were waiting for the moment when, at some point in the next few weeks, this figure would hit 0% so we could announce that, despite the winter Covid surge, 2021 was now officially a low mortality year with below average age-standardised mortality.
However, it appears that moment now may never come, as unexpectedly this week the Institute changed the baseline on its key chart. The 10-year baseline is gone, and in its place is a straight comparison to 2019.
The important thing to know about 2019 is it is the year with the lowest age-standardised mortality ever (see below).
So now, rather than mortality in 2021 being around 1% above the 10-year average, it is suddenly “4.6% above 2019” (see graph below). The 10-year average line is gone completely so no comparison can be made with it at all.
This major change in baseline – which is a big deal when producing statistics for keeping track of trends – is not acknowledged. A sign that the change may have been made without due care can perhaps be seen in the stray “the” left in the heading from when it was edited, so that in place of “compared to the 2011-2020 average” it reads “compared to the 2019”.
The only explanation we are given is: “We use 2019 as the comparator as this is consistent with the excess deaths calculation above.” It’s true that throughout the pandemic period the mortality monitor team have used 2019 for their excess deaths calculation, yet nonetheless they’ve used the 10-year average in the cumulative mortality chart. Why the sudden change? If they wanted now to show the cumulative trends relative to 2019, why not produce charts showing both?
It is frustrating that this change has been made just as their figures were poised to show 2021 heading into negative territory compared to the 10-year average. Even more frustrating is that the baseline is now the least deadly year in history.
They explain in previous reports that they use 2019 for their excess death calculation because they consider it to be the most accurate comparator for deaths “in the absence of a pandemic”, since “2019 and 2020 had similar mortality experience for weeks one to 12”. However, that doesn’t allow for the fact that 2019 was anomalously low even for recent years, not least because of a very mild winter flu season. It also doesn’t explain why they have suddenly changed the baseline in one of their key charts, making it impossible to continue keeping track of the trend against the last decade.
Lockdown Sceptics has contacted the Institute to query the reasons for the change and ask for the original baseline to be reinstated. I will update this post if we get a reply.
UPDATE: The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFA) has responded to our enquiry and said: “The CMI [Continuous Mortality Investigation] has added the rationale for the change to Chart 3 to its website.” They add: “The CMI intends to continue to use the version of the chart relative to the 10-year average in its quarterly mortality monitors, the next of which is due on July 13th 2021.” So we’ll have to wait until mid-July to get an update against the 10-year average.
In their explanation they say:
We recently became aware that some commentators were treating the 10-year average as a benchmark for current mortality, or indeed the CMI’s implied view of what mortality rates would have been in 2020 and 2021 if the pandemic had not occurred. This is not the case. Age-standardised mortality rates tend to reduce over time, and mortality rates in 2020 and 2021 would very likely have been below the 10-year average in the absence of the pandemic.
This raises the question of why they were including the 10-year average at all if not as a kind of benchmark, and why they continue to use it in their quarterly reports if it is so misleading. Their rationale is also incorrect. Looking at the chart of age-standardised mortality above, it’s clear that while the rate declined until 2011, since then it has been largely flat, and 2019 was unusually low. This means the assumption that 2020 and 2021 would, in the absence of pandemic, have resumed decline, rather than potentially see an uptick following a mild year, has no basis. Furthermore, 2020 was obviously not the first year in history to see a pandemic, yet after previous pandemics age-standardised mortality continued its long term decline (despite not having vaccines). The mistaken assumption that pandemics are anomalous rather than part of the normal (if irregular) ebb and flow of annual morality – as though they should therefore be excluded from trends and baselines – is exactly the kind of historically blinkered thinking that got us into this mess. This change from the IFA only reinforces that erroneous strand of thinking.
Here’s their response in full:
This note describes the rationale for a change in the format of Chart 3 of the summary pandemic mortality monitor, with effect from week 19 of 2021.
Chart 3 of the week 19 monitor shows mortality rates compared to 2019. This is consistent with the calculation of excess deaths in the pandemic mortality monitor.
Previous versions of the pandemic mortality monitor, showed rates relative to an average of the previous 10 complete calendar years. This is consistent with the regular quarterly mortality monitors we have produced since Q4 of 2018.
We consider the choice of comparator in this chart to be relatively unimportant, as the aim of the chart is to allow comparisons between cumulative standardised mortality rates in different years. The use of relative rates makes that comparison easier. We have shown the current year and each of the last 10 years, compared against the average of those 10 years. This results in charts that allow the relative mortality for each year to be seen clearly.
We recently became aware that some commentators were treating the 10-year average as a benchmark for current mortality, or indeed the CMI’s implied view of what mortality rates would have been in 2020 and 2021 if the pandemic had not occurred. This is not the case. Age-standardised mortality rates tend to reduce over time, and mortality rates in 2020 and 2021 would very likely have been below the 10-year average in the absence of the pandemic. This is especially true for 2021, as the 10-year average includes the exceptional mortality since the second quarter of 2020.
As our pandemic monitors are aimed at users who wish to understand how mortality during the pandemic compares to what might otherwise have been expected, we are now showing how the current year and each recent year compares to 2019.
As we have noted since the start of the pandemic, mortality in the first 12 weeks of 2020 was similar to mortality in the first 12 weeks of 2019, so we regard mortality in 2019 as a better benchmark of “normal” mortality. Changing the format of Chart 3 means that it is now consistent with the calculation of excess deaths in the pandemic mortality monitor.
We intend to continue to use the version of the chart relative to the 10-year average in our quarterly mortality monitors, the next of which is due on July 13th 2021.
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Well said sir
What possible good can it serve society if fellas can invade women only safe spaces like refuges, crush women in their own sport and force expensive, irreversible medical
interventions on vulnerable children?
Post modernism has a lot to answer for – what began as ‘can a urinal be a work of art?’ has morphed into ‘any dude can identify as a chick and you’re a bigot for suggesting otherwise.
Well on the topic of women’s rights, one of the major problems that is dead obvious to all here, is the fact that this is all being enabled ( at least to a large degree ) by women. We literally have a Clown World reality now of women shafting other women. The suffragettes will be spinning in their graves at what they fought for and endured just to allow the enabling of the erasing of women in society today. It’s just a gross farce, but I won’t drone on. Spoilt for choice of examples online everywhere but apparently this man is worthy of a ‘female’ award because he wears women’s clothes, and no doubt he was awarded that by an actual stupid bloody woman! Talk about rubbing our faces in it..
*To clarify; had that award said ”Trans person” I wouldn’t have an issue but it literally says ”female” on it, which is just utterly preposterous. If you’re proud to be trans and wish to be acknowledged as that then have an award that is factually correct. Do not pretend you’re female!
”A trans-identified male who works for a UK-based charity to provide “diversity training” has been honored with the Outstanding Female LGBTQIA+ Champion 2023 award. Katie Neeves, formerly Martin, has previously prompted criticism for stating during a training session that he used to steal his sister’s underwear.
The Outstanding Female LGBTQIA+ Champion award given to Neeves was presented at the at the East and West Midlands Women’s Awards on September 22. According to its official website, the purpose of the Women’s Awards is “to raise awareness, recognize and honor the hard work and valuable contribution women of all cultures, communities, races, and beliefs, in all sectors make.” Among the event’s sponsors are Loughborough University and the University of Leicester School of Business.
In 2020, Neeves published an open letter to J.K. Rowling in response to her essay expressing concern at the clash between gender ideology and women’s rights. He accused the renowned author of “peddling anti-trans misinformation” and made an unfounded claim that her “diatribe directly caused some trans children to self-harm and others to attempt suicide.”
https://reduxx.info/uk-male-trans-ambassador-presented-with-outstanding-female-prize-at-womens-awards-gala/
Even by Orwellian standards this is scraping the barrel.
So how does one name and shame Katie Neeves [formerly Martin] Loughborough University and the University of Leicester School of Business and especially named people at those organisations who are responsible for doing this crap? Where can this be done? How does it work? How do you beat them at their own game?
By doing what you just did: using the “formerly” word next to their name. It would be difficult for the subject to complain because the practice has been established with ‘X, formerly known as Twitter’.
…same here Graham..during Convid, I was convinced that people in Showbusiness..the arts…writers…performers..media ‘shakers and movers’, old rockers, young rockers…would all protest with us and throw themselves behind the
people to counter the nonsense…the lies..loss of freedoms and basic human rights…and..!!!
other than a few who were brilliant….. we all know how that turned out….
I could never imagine before the last few years how naked those same people would become in my eyes….stripped of every bit of admiration I might ever held for any of them…
…they will never regain it, either…..
same here am completely disillusioned aside from a very few like right said fred
Same. I thought RyanAir would announce they would start flying again, Tim Martin would open the doors of all the Wetherspoons…
I visited Krakow one time and went to various of the museums and historical areas. I saw pictures from the 70s and 80s in the communist era. There’s something off about all the images. You can sense the repression. I remembered those images when walking around during the scamdemic because that’s what it seemed like.
We’re being taught to live with the boot of the state grinding into our faces.
“Those actors – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – deserve to be remembered as symbols of the most remarkable arrogance, cowardice and ingratitude.”
And the rest of them that attended the Harry Potter re-union without the Author which was treacherous.
She was invited but refused. Her public reason was that it was about the films and not the books. She may have actually wanted to avoid embarrassing meetings after such a public spat but that is only conjecture. In any case I see no treachery,
3 words to describe Linehan’s comment about Radcliffe and co.
Harsh but fair.
Graham Linehan is a hero. He has lost so much standing up for women against this insanity and yet he is steadfastly holding the line. The pressure on him must be enormous and yet he hasn’t buckled. Amazing man. Truly courageous. I applaud him and thank him wholeheartedly on behalf of all the nobody women out here in the sane world.
How about helping Graham Lineham? “…. it was only a matter of time before they would fly to my aid, … those I’d made famous with the TV sitcoms ….. I thought they’d be along any minute. But to my astonishment, no one turned up.”
How does one become an anti-luny activist? There are more anti-lunies than lunies.
How do you cancel Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint for their lunacy? So how does one name and shame Great Ormond Street Hospital, The Royal Academy of Dance, The General Medical Council, Loughborough University, the University of Leicester School of Business?
And most especially named people there who are responsible for doing this crap? Where can this be done? How does it work? How do you beat them at their own game.
Where do I sign up to actually do something instead of bleating on about it here?
“How do you cancel Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint for their lunacy?“
Why do you want to support cancel culture, unless it’s something you are in favour of? Are you?
See my reply to your post below:
godknowsimgood
Sadly you are wrong.
I do not support cancel culture but I do support the social values of fairness and equality of treatment. Those who do wrong should be prepared to accept the same treatment they give to those they have wronged.
Those who play the cancel culture game should be prepared to accept being cancelled themselves.
It is not the same as indiscriminately cancelling anyone [like Graham Lineham] for holding perfectly respectable legitimate views which they and he has a human and legal right to hold and express.
If people want to destroy our social values they should expect fair and equitable punishment. That is fair specific and equitable and not unfair unspecific and general against anyone and everyone.
See my reply to your reply below.
So you “do not support cancel culture” but you want to know “How do you cancel Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint for their lunacy?”
If you want to “cancel Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint”, then you support cancel culture. At least admit it, instead of contradicting yourself.
Oh dear godknowsimgood.
I should have guessed the clue is in the name. This looks like a religious type crusade of attacking anything looking remotely like ‘cancel culture’.
Supporting the cancellation of people who engage in cancel culture is not supporting cancel culture – it is fighting it and it is just reward for those who engage in it.
Cancel culture is about cancelling people who do not agree with the issues cancel culture is used to enforce whereas fighting cancel culture by cancelling people is about cancelling cancel culture and those who engage in it.
It is not about cancelling people in general who express views others do not agree with – that is cancel culture. It is about cancelling cancel culture and those who engage and espouse it.
I think you should change your name to “inoseimgood” and learn to drop a bad point instead of obsessively pursuing it.
Can you not have a good argument without resorting to an attempt at personal insult?
You guessed wrong, my username is not religious, I chose it because I’m a David Bowie fan and some people find it humorous, and some people misconstrue it, which is also humorous:
https://youtu.be/k409Tpjj6Fs?si=fRVYo-wSS8V0r4Sj
I have a good case let alone a good argument.
The problem is you cannot accept a different point of view to your own.
There is no insult personal or otherwise.
You have said your piece and I have said mine.
As this further example shows, you pursue bad points IMHO obsessively. When are you going to drop this? Or are you going to continue and annoy everyone else because you lack the tolerance to accept others have different views to you?
Just because I’m arguing against something doesn’t mean I “cannot accept a different point of view”. That’s ludicrous, that would apply to everyone who argues and isn’t persuaded to change their mind by weak arguments to the contrary!
As for annoying people, I don’t give a shit if my arguments annoy anyone or not. If they’re annoyed, that’s their problem, not mine, I’m not going to let snowflakes stop me from arguing against something I disagree with. They should stop reading what I say – boycott my posts – if I annoy them that much! As long as I’m not cancelled by the Daily Sceptic, I’m quite happy!
If that is the case then let me have my view and you can have yours and go away.
We don’t agree.
You are trying to make some grand philosophical case that cancelling the cancellers is destroying our social values. To me that is bonkers and nonsense.
You have my perspective more than once and you just keep on banging and banging your drum and ignoring the fact other people do not agree with you.
In the same way that the woke morons want me dead id I refuse to agree with them , I want them dead.
Except of course that if instead of wishing for death, someone kills unlawfully then instead of in response killing them unlawfully, they can get a trial and a prison term.
Until we can get prison terms for cancel culture loons we should cancel them if we can.
I wasn’t hoping for murder, but an untreatable cancer or heart failure.
That’s fine as long as you don’t try to kill them!
So if cancel culture was made illegal you would say that is wrong and the cancellers should not be sent to jail.
Give over.
Take a day off will you.
Give it a rest.
etc etc
Succinctly put Graham , every word you said there will stand the test of time ! You are on the unarguable side of history my Good Sir , stick with it , puff out your chest , look the Lilly Livered sell outs in the eye & continue to highlight the truth on our behalf
How does one become an anti-luny activist? There are more anti-lunies than lunies.
Where do I sign up to actually do something instead of bleating on about it here?
He is right they are lunies. “The beliefs of the other side were so insane I thought my friends would quickly realise how crazy it all was and start lending a hand.”
How do you cancel Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint for their lunacy? How do you cancel the rest of them? Is there a website and forum with advice on how to do this?
How does one become an anti-luny activist? There are more anti-lunies than lunies.
Great Ormond Street Hospital [GOSH] now denies the gender identity of 99.99% of all children by banning the words ‘boy’ and ‘girl’.
So how does one name and shame GOSH and especially named people there who are responsible for doing this crap? Where can this be done? How does it work? How do you beat them at their own game.
The same applies to the UK General Medical Council removing ‘mother’ from staff guidance on maternity.
So how does one name and shame the GMC and especially named people there who are responsible for doing this crap? Where can this be done? How does it work? How do you beat them at their own game.
And what about The Royal Academy of Dance who cancelled Rev Calvin Robinson who complained about drag queen story-telling to little children?
So how does one name and shame The Royal Academy of Dance and especially named people there who are responsible for doing this crap? Where can this be done? How does it work? How do you beat them at their own game
Did you vote for any of this? Did you like me miss the debate in the UK Parliament? Did you miss the vote too?
Do you know who the trans activists are we so often hear about but never see nor hear their names? Do you know their names? Do you have pictures of them?
So how does one name and shame them and especially named people there who are responsible for doing this crap? Where can this be done? How does it work? How do you beat them at their own game.
I never voted for any of this. When was the UK version debated in the UK Parliament? I seem to have missed that and the vote.
Who are the trans activists we so often hear about but never see nor hear their names? What are their names? Lets see pictures of them.
What I do understand is none of this is about human rights, equality, diversity or human dignity – it is especially against human dignity.
It is all about a relentless destruction of social values to undermine social cohesion in our societies – it is like the preliminary shelling to ‘soften up’ and confuse the defenders before a ground assault in war – a war which is not about gender identity of LGBTQI++ rights – they are the pretext to attack and bombard us to confuse and so destroy social cohesion and thus opposition.
Gender identity, ‘trans rights’ etc are a pretext for this softening up funded by dark money and pursued by anonymous ‘activists’ working against the interests of the majority.
The ground assault will be the removal of all our cherished freedoms and rights that have been hard fought for and won over centuries with the blood and lives of many sacrificed for them.
“How do you cancel Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint for their lunacy? How do you cancel the rest of them? Is there a website and forum with advice on how to do this?“
I totally disagree with cancelling anyone. If people want to employ Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson or Rupert Grint, or want to go and watch a film or play starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson or Rupert Grint, what gives you the right to try to prevent people freely choosing what they want to do? Do you think you should have the right to control what other people legitimately want to do, but other people should not have the right to control what you legitimately want to do?
To try to fight against the ‘relentless destruction of social values’ by joining in with the ‘destruction of social values’ is self-defeating.
If you mean boycotting, that’s an entirely different matter. The difference is that boycotting is a person’s own personal choice whereas cancelling is preventing other people from making their own personal choice. For example, you’re free to boycott a Daniel Radcliffe or Graham Linehan film or play or other event or product, but cancelling them prevents other people from exercising their free choice.
godknowsimgood
Sadly you are wrong.
To try to fight against the ‘relentless destruction of social values’ by joining in with the ‘destruction of social values’ is self-defeating.
That is a loaded statement lacking a sensible rational basis. There is nothing self-defeating about preventing the destruction of social values nor with what I advocate.
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint took part in cancelling Graham Lineham.
Meting out to them the same treatment they gave to Graham Lineham is equitable. It is a legitimate approach to fighting the destruction of social values and is not destroying those social values.
Fairness and equity is a social value found in many if not most societies around the world.
To fight for social values by cancelling the people who are destroying them by cancel culture is a sound approach.
And the main approach I was advocating was naming and shaming. But I will continue addressing your argument.
Cancelling them for interfering with the right of Graham Lineham to free speech is not the same as cancelling them for objecting to the latest gender identity nonsense.
The former is specific, fair and proportionate whereas the latter is general broadbrush and offensive to widely held social values like the right to free speech which is so important.
“cancelling them prevents other people from exercising their free choice”
There are plenty of actors other people can watch. Their free choice would be prevented if say Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint retired from acting, took up another occupation, fell ill, died.
And they would have the free choice to complain about them being cancelled.
There is very little difference between boycotts and cancellation particularly when a boycott is carried out by a majority – they have the same effect.
What is different here is that specific organisations have become infected with gender ideology which has not been democratically agreed and they use their resources – often from public funds – to engage in cancellation at the behest of a tiny number of gender identity activists against the interests of the majority.
So one must fight fire with fire but for different purposes and to different effect.
You say “There is very little difference between boycotts and cancellation”. What part of this do you not understand:
“The difference is that boycotting is a person’s own personal choice whereas cancelling is preventing other people from making their own personal choice. For example, you’re free to boycott a Daniel Radcliffe or Graham Linehan film or play or other event or product, but cancelling them prevents other people from exercising their free choice.”
Would you like to answer this question:
Do you think you should have the right to control what other people legitimately want to do, but other people should not have the right to control what you legitimately want to do?
Cancel culture is not legitimate. If you believe it is you are wrong. And your question is not very sensible.
I want to be free to express my views on the gender identity loons but I am not free to do so outside DS.
You are now trolling. You are disrupting this thread and you are going to annoy people who don’t want to keep reading your views. You just cannot accept I can have a valid alternative view to yours so you keep on and on about it.
And I repeat the response I have given you elsewhere on DS:
“Oh dear godknowsimgood.
I should have guessed the clue is in the name.
This looks like a religious type crusade of attacking anything looking remotely like ‘cancel culture’.
Supporting the cancellation of people who engage in cancel culture is not supporting cancel culture – it is fighting it and it is just reward for those who engage in it.
Cancel culture is about cancelling people who do not agree with the issues cancel culture is used to enforce whereas fighting cancel culture by cancelling people is about cancelling cancel culture and those who engage in it.
It is not about cancelling people in general who express views others do not agree with – that is cancel culture. It is about cancelling cancel culture and those who engage and espouse it.
I think you should change your name to “inoseimgood” and learn to drop a bad point instead of obsessively pursuing it.”
“Cancel culture is not legitimate. If you believe it is you are wrong. And your question is not very sensible.”
I never said or suggested that cancel culture is legitimate. Where on earth did you get that idea from? I said I disagree with cancel culture, I disagree with preventing people from doing what they legitimately want to do – whether it’s preventing them from seeing a play starring Daniel Radcliffe or a comedy show written my Graham Lenihan. Once you go down the road of cancelling people, and try to justify it, where does cancelling end?
Here is exactly what I said, and you still haven’t answered it:
“Do you think you should have the right to control what other people legitimately want to do, but other people should not have the right to control what you legitimately want to do?”
Cancel culture prevents people, for example, from attending events they want to attend, it’s controlling what people can be allowed to do. Why do you think you should have the right to control what other people can do, but other people should not have the same right to control what you can do?
Reply to godknowsimgood
Good grief. You simply cannot accept a different point of view to yours.
You are saying it is wrong to cancel people who are cancelling me and people who think like me when that is about the only way to deal with them. It is the only means of stopping them.
And even if it was not the only means it remains a legitimate means.
It is not cancelling them for their legitimate personal beliefs – it is not doing what they are doing – which is objectionable.
It is cancelling them because what they are doing is not legitimate or moral or right.
If cancel culture was a criminal offence we could send them to prison but it is not [yet].
Go away godknowsimgood.
It is well overdue that you stopped commenting.
God knows you are not good.
IMHO you pursue your view obsessively to the exclusion of any other view and there is copious evidence of that in your comments here.
“…children shouldn’t be undergoing experimental treatments with no evidence base”
Doesn’t that sound familiar!
I don’t know – experimentation on Venables and Thompson would have had a lot of popular support.
Living in Bizarro World
The point of Bizarro World is to make the real world appear so chaotic, so dangerous, so uninhabitable, that we will happily give ourselves over to the Technocrats who promise to make it all better.
THIS IS A VERY INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE WHICH HAS A RESONANCE REGARDING THE PURPOSE OF AND THE PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND THE WAY OUR SOCIAL VALUES AND STRUCTURES ARE BEING BROKEN DOWN WITH WOKISM, GENDER ID, LGBTQI+++ ETC:
It is truly shocking that, as Graham highlights, that all this is being done in the name of kindness. Almost as shocking as the weaponisation of personal pronouns.
The nonsense will stop when the entire female British Olympic Team resigns and refuses to compete; when parents refuse to enrol their daughters in female sports teams; when a male trans-woman attacks and rapes the daughter of a high-profile MP/Minister.
And when the Great British public REFUSES to go along with the nonsense. That is starting to happen. The Women’s Angling Team recently refused to participate with a male former rugby player. We now need the female Olympic Team to step up. Get on with it ladies.
My response has been to make sure I never watch anything they have been involved in since HP, nor to purchase anything Emma Thingy advertises.
(There are others I’m shunning as well, e.g George Clooney and Schwarzenegger for their support for Vax mandates – the list is a long one!)
He’s talking about a group of young people of distinctly average intellect (except Watson, who really is thick as mince, and whose fame rests on her having been a photogenic child with well connected parents), and with no other skill than playing pretend – they know that if they don’t toe the line, their one route to the continuing fame that they crave will be removed (none of them will have to worry about money)
I am definitely a supporter of J K Rowling on this but what a shame to focus on a largely irrelevant vicious personal attack on those who disagree with her. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint may be wrong (I think they are) and may make unjustified comments about her, but that doesn’t justify making unjustified comments about them – it only turns a debate about policy into a debate about personalities and reduces the chances of persuading them they are wrong. If the three actors genuinely believe in what they are saying then they are not arrogant, cowardly and ungrateful – they are just wrong. Acting in a film of a book does not commit you to upholding the political views of the author! It is also unreasonable and childish to say they have never shown any ability to act past the pre-pubescent level. I have never seen a Harry Potter film but Daniel Radcliffe in particular has had a very distinguished career so far in a variety of roles.
The low-lives in question have thrown JKR under the bus to maintain their fame and fortune
Glinner is not nearly harsh enough,
What is your evidence that they did to maintain their fame and fortune?
I did a bit of research and it appears that none of three made any personal comments about Rowling. They just said they disagreed. Does every dispute have to degenerate into attacks on personalities?
Graham Linehan didn’t say they made “personal comments” about JK Rowling, he said they betrayed her and insinuated that she’s a bigot. Do you not think that’s what they did?
Graham Linehan didn’t say they made “personal comments” about JK Rowling
No. But Linehan made some extremely personal comments about them. He is taking the debate to a personal level which they did not.
he said they betrayed her and insinuated that she’s a bigot
I don’t think they betrayed her. As I said above, acting in a film of a book doesn’t mean you are committed to never disagreeing with the author of the book about politics. That would be absurd. And she was invited to the reunion. It was her choice not to come.
What makes you think they insinuated she was a bigot? From what I have read they only talk about policy. They don’t appear to insinuate anything about her as a person.
I have no problem defending Rowling regarding free speech, but not sure if she would’ve defended mine in the men’s rights scene a few years beck, before the Global Palace Coupe made things more pressing. I went through a few Twitter accounts arguing with feminazis like her back then. Before the trans lobby targeted her, I don’t remember her being an advocate for free speech. Careful who you ‘save’, they may not be grateful.
Do you remember her not being an advocate for free speech?
Not everyone with whom you disagree is a bad person. I’m sure you must have some friends with whom you disagree on various issues including feminist issues.
Let’s just say she was part of the liberal elite, so yes, I am hedging my bet on that one. My memory is vague on the matter but do remember her dishing it out.
Ron Smith
Interesting perspective.
Thanks.
[NB. Don’t feed the troll.]
Who is the troll, I admitted to going through a few Twitter accounts, but I’m sure you are aware before Musk took over, it was all about how Woke is the moderator.
Its not you.