We’re publishing an original piece today by Bella Wallersteiner, a Senior Parliamentary Assistant, about why Boris must stop listening to the Cassandras on SAGE – who have nothing to lose from delaying the unlocking and everything to gain – and trust his instincts. Here is an extract:
The fully inoculated Prime Minister is now under growing pressure to delay the lifting England’s remaining Covid restrictions on June 21st. By maintaining a tiered system with varying lockdown levels in different regions, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, is likely to have created a template to be adopted by the whole of the United Kingdom (only the Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles have moved to Level 0). Throughout the pandemic, The First Minister has repeatedly made cautious decisions which Downing Street has slavishly followed.
Now that 75% of adults in the U.K. have received their first jab and more than half the adult population has been fully vaccinated against Covid, the Prime Minister should act independently from Scotland and trust his libertarian instincts. Boris Johnson should ignore Sturgeon’s scheming North of the Border and challenge the Cassandras of SAGE who assert that the U.K. is still at risk from a third wave. Instead, the Government must now do what is right for the economy and prioritise the wellbeing and mental health of the population of England. The willingness to comply may be stretched to breaking point if the Government continues to take on the role of U.K. super-nanny by limiting our freedoms after June 21st.
For most, a delay in the unlocking roadmap would be an inconvenience, but for hospitality, travel and entertainment, the decision could be terminal. I can understand the anguish felt by those working in sectors not yet viable due to Covid restrictions. My brother is a musician and has not been able to play a gig for over 15 months. Worse still, is the feeling of lassitude, torpor and obsolescence which comes with being furloughed as ‘economically unproductive’ during a global pandemic.
Worth reading in full.
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His libertarian instincts?
HAHAHAHAHA!!!
It’s the way Toby tells them.
Lol. It’s right up there with “The war on the motorist is over” and “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”.
It was at that very point I stopped reading this tosh.
banned booze on the tube, and that was years ago
Came here to make exactly the comment you’ve just made. Curse you! But yes, “libertarian instincts”? Why do we keep seeing these words in connection with Boris Johnson?
Stop calling him Boris
He is not our mate
He is the Prime Minister of the UK (the worst in history, BTW)
Delays in the roadmap are not an “inconvenience”, they are just indicative of some uncertainty in how to keep the frogs from knowing they are being boiled, exactly how much normality to reinstate until more lockdowns in the Autumn
The basic, crazy, evil narrative that covid was an unprecedented public health emergency that required extraordinary measures, that lockdowns work, and that poorly tested emergency vaccines are required for the whole population, including children, that mass testing and border closures and track and trace are money well spent, is 100% intact among the general population and in mainstream discourse
Until that narrative is thoroughly exposed for the Big Lie that it is, this country and the world in general is in Big Trouble, because truth has been replaced by mad, groupthink consensus, and science is dead
What bits of some stupid roadmap get done, when, is profoundly unimportant
Agree entirely – and yes, this ‘Boris‘ arse-licking is unconsciable.
Johnson = cock, but not the cockney version
Both Johnson and Toby are part of the Spectator crowd and probably dine together more than once a year. Nothing wrong with that except I think it skews Toby’s judgement. Johnson still appears to him as a friend.
I don’t mind admitting that I was a “Boris” fan once – whilst recognising his faults and limitations. I stopped calling him “Boris” soon after he made mask wearing compulsory. No friend of mine thereafter. I also felt he let everyone down by falling ill with Covid. He could no longer make balanced judgments after near death experience.
Call him the sperm donor?
Call him Boris Corbyn since he has been implementing the agenda of Jeremy Corbyn.
Small point. ‘why Boris must stop listening to the Cassandras on SAGE‘?
I thought that Cassandra was from the Illiad and was gifted with foresight but cursed with not being believed?
Sage are a type of anti-Cassandras. They have completely imperfect foresight and their every word is believed without question.
Yes, we have repeatedly been shown to be the Cassandras and have, so far, suffered the same fate.
Strange downtick: so do you think we have been wrong all along, or perhaps you think the world at large has listened to our comments? Or maybe you just clicked the wrong ticker?
In one fell swoop, this discussion is demonstrating that the average intellectual calibre of amongst sceptics is extremely high. I’m sure there was a study recently about anti-maskers that found, (shock) that rather than being stubborn ignoramuses, they were well-informed and intelligent people.
That’s because we do our research before we commit to something so outrageous and audacious as what the government and their flawed ‘advisers’ are telling us. Then, to cap it all, the heinous Blair opens his detested gob – then we know for sure we’re being told porkies.
Good points!
I think it was Steve Baker who said there should be a “blue” team whose job was to challenge everything SAGE came out with . Why does it not exist?
It’s a good question, but what’s to say that this team would not just go along with SAGE? “Independent” SAGE generally tried to out-SAGE SAGE. I think the issue is having a special group whose job it is to deal with emergencies. They will tend to think the emergency ought to continue forever. It’s really up to politicians to see through that by asking the obvious questions – something the PM failed to do.
Although the public might believe that SAGE is tight knit group of scientists briefing the government about the finer points of virology and epidemiology, the huge size of SAGE, and its domination by non-specialists (modellers, psychologists, civil servants etc.) is a reflection of how the government wishes them to operate. Similarly, the way that individual members of SAGE are allowed to brief the press, rather than adopt the usual protocols of insisting that all communications should be routed through the official channels, suggests that these briefings have the government’s tacit approval Let’s face it, as the government has so many ways to prevent dissemination of views it regards as “unhelpful”, we have no option other than to accept they are doing precisely what the government wants from them.
Good points
However I do wonder if the government have created a monster they can’t control
Let’s say the PM decided to open up after March 2020 – do you really think SAGE would have remained silent?
The PM should have been prepared to argue his case but he’s too much of a lightweight (or he actually believes the crap he spouts)
He’s probably best described as an actor who needs a good script, and positioning himself as the “leading man” in the Brexit show provided him with access to many great scripts. Now, having fallen out with Cummings, his performances are increasingly reliant on Gove and Carrie, and it shows….
Yes I agree – that’s pretty much my point above (below?)
SAGE was modelled on the IPCC.
If the PM had the political will he could sort this out in a trice – set up a SAGE equivalent for lockdown negative impacts including on health and pack it with lockdown sceptics. Then create a super-SAGE to consider advice from both bodies. Meanwhile appoint a few disruptive elements on to SAGE.
All of these alleged “leaders” are really just “followers.” Florida’s governor is the only exception I’ve seen in American politics.
The Governor of South Dakota seems to be from the same mould.
Honourable mention for Governor Abbott of Texas – he removed the mask mandate in March. No longer any legal requirement though there is medical advice from the State promoting mask wearing in certain circumstances.
“While concerns about vaccine-resistant variants are understandable”
No they’re not. They’re imaginings for the gullible.
Just let them stay at home hiding behind the sofa while the rest of us get back to running the country, educating children (properly), and having fun. The frightened idiots would have welcomed the Third Reich with open arms – our grandparents must be rolling in their graves with such momentum I am surprised we haven’t felt the ground rumbling.
Anyone who wants this charade to carry on and who continues to comply is an absolute disgrace to the human race.
Yep, as prefigured in that leak from a few months ago, variants have been weaponised as part of the war of fear on the public.
If the editors of this website prohibited the use of the word ‘Boris’ and stopped publishing pictures of arms being attacked by syringes, they would be rendering a great service to the readership.
Deenan Pillay – PART OF THE PROBLEM. This SAGE Stooge was on the TV last night gunning for more lockdown. This is an example of the kind of filth we have to remove from positions of influence.
Uh oh…… I just found this I have not watched yet but here is a video of this SAGE good for nothing driving and promoting the Covid terrorism being interviewed by fellow Covid fanatic Owen Jones. Covidians to the core. A threat to us all.
Are We Heading For A Fourth Lockdown?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok4COUcCako
SAGE stooge Deenan Pillay retweeted : “Human behavior was instrumental in causing COVID-19, and changing it has been vital to tackling the pandemic.
Susan Michie and @robertjwest from @ucl argue that more research on sustained behaviour change is needed to tackle #COVID-19 and future pandemics”
https://twitter.com/deenandpillay?lang=en
I’m assuming that the human behaviour she felt we needed to change was the kind, caring, compassionate, loving, living breathing kind?
Owen Jones is 100% delusional. He is flat out spouting mistruths in this video which I thik he believes. This has to end.
I couldn’t watch that. I’d smash my screen.
I hear you but it is important that we understand what these freaks are up to
There are thousands of them, aren’t there? I wonder where they all came from. A massive network of liberal/leftish bureaucrats, commentators and academics. They retweet each other all the time. None of them has any purchase on social and economic reality.
Only way to solve this would be to start a petition for politicians and journalists to not be paid a salary whenever the U.K. is in some form of lockdown. You could bet your last penny that if this were the case all restrictions would be lifted pretty dam quick never to be seen again.
Also university staff and NHS staff
Delay’s could be terminal, isint that what they appear to be going for, ruining the hospitality and travel industry for the plebs. Keeping us ‘controlled’, while they use the planet as if it was made specially for them and we’ve been messing it up. The carbon footprint of one rich globalist must be equal to millions of ordinary people
G7 meeting is a prime example of this. They will not be discussing anything that could not have been discussed over a zoom call
Trust his instincts? His only instinct is for self – Toby you really have lost the plot!
Yes – it’s not for the weak-kneed seekers of approval this pursuit of truth in a time of scam.
I tend to think TY still believes the PM’s heart is in the right place, or that he can/should be saved. I’ve got friends who just refuse to condemn the PM even though they think the lockdowns are wrong. I would have expected TY to have thoroughly recanted by now but he either knows something we don’t (seems unlikely) or it’s denial. Realising the world has gone mad is quite a shock.
I – obviously – come from a different political perspective, so have no sentimental connection with Johnson, who I have always despised as a shallow narcissist (and I have in my time worked perfectly equably with Tory politicians; it’s not just prejudice).
But I do understand the difficulty of relinquishing illusions about individuals. And there is some parallel in the Labour Party, with the recognition of leadership being placed in the hands of a shallow establishment shill with funny hair and no personality!
I think it is denial.
Yes, denial. I am on the political right (though not a Tory) but don’t hold the PM in very high esteem (though he has been worse than I thought he would be). I think it’s dangerous to invest too much in the powerful, rich and famous. They usually disappoint. I struggle to name too many major leaders of any political stripe that I could honestly say I admired.
I have friends and colleagues who are unashamedly lefty liberals, but even they are going along with the PM (for whose party they’d never have voted, by the way). As far as I can see, they genuinely believe the disgraceful rubbish they’ve been fed about the so called dangers, and seem to think that everyone would put aside their differences in the face of the monster so they can join forces to fight it. It genuinely does not seem to cross their minds that anyone in power would deliberately mislead them, or be working for their own ends behind the scenes – they think they wouldn’t be so devious, so they don’t expect it of others. It’ll take some serious evidence, or a proper leader, to get them to change their minds.
“in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”
Adolf Hitler
Very appropriate to the issue.
Yesterday, I was having a rambling discussion about where we’re at with one of the sceptics who has been prominent in putting over the case on the media.
We touched on the issue of how the reactions seem to be coming from deeply ingrained socio-psychological traits that flow from ancestral days when automatic obedience to leadership diktat was necessary for the health of the tribe.
It’s bizarre. The sort of people who hate Johnson’s guts and accuse him of been a liar, untrustworthy and incompetent on other issues such as Brexit believe everything he utters about Covid and are happy to blindly hand him control of all aspects of their lives.
Precisely.
“It genuinely does not seem to cross their minds that anyone in power would deliberately mislead them, or be working for their own ends behind the scenes”
You are absolutely right. This ‘Daddy wouldn’t abuse me’ syndrome is very deeply embedded. It’s beyond rational analysis and totally divorced from individual histories.
I have come to the conclusion over the year that the weird brainlessness of some on the claimed left isn’t primarily about an attempt at simple political advantage – it genuinely is about the relationship of fear and deep emotional patterns. As I’ve said many times, this whole catastrophe is beyond ‘traditional’ politics – it’s why I get scathing about those banging on about it in totally outmoded terms.
All of the covid Cult who are aiding and abetting poverty and starvation around the world (WHO), are thrashing around now, to continue the lies and propaganda. They don’t seem to relate any of it to themselves, family or friends.
To be honest, a lot of the SAGE sociopathic types may not have many friends. A lot of them remind me of the poor little sods, ignored and breeding resentment in a corner of the playground suddenly having a spotlight to play to.
Colin Todhunter has a piece in today’s “Off-guardian” which effectively demolishes the case made above by Ms Wallersteiner.
The ‘poor Bozo’ crap is just that – CRAP. Bozo is no more running the country than I am.
We are at WAR and the global elites are taking our world from us.
Have you a link?
I am sorry I don’t know how to post links on here.
Go to Off-guardian – tremendous journalism.
Is it called ‘old normal vs new normal ‘?
Colin Todhunter’s piece is Marxist balderdash.
Perhaps you could trouble us with a more in-depth analysis of said article rather than this lazy put-down.
If he had brains and balls, he would so do so indeed.
Sadly, he only has an ego.
Some British billionaire should sponsor getting Ron DeSantis over, preferably in a swap.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M31ETSpY64E
Keith Cuntabout’s take on it/him.
That’s more like it, Toby.
It’d help of he didn’t blame immigrants for the non-existent problem of covid. Hardly a sceptical line.
I agree.
But I think he did it to take a piss out of the thugs in his audience.
He did it before.
Cassandra’s not the allusion you want. Poor cursed woman prophesied truth and was never believed. Apate is your deceiver, who the Romans called Fraus.
I think removing financial support would raise the complacent and kick the lockdowns out of the way pretty quickly. Weren’t there 3.5 million of us who weren’t allowed to work and didn’t get any financial support from the beginning?
I can confirm that being kicked out of a job, losing social interaction, probably losing your home does lead to mental health issues, but there is a path out of that – get rid of the lockdowns. They are political and don’t appear to save any lives.
I fear the only way forward is for all the disparate groups of sceptics to somehow coalesce around one ‘banner’. Maybe along the lines of Trump’s MAGA slogan. At the moment we have no ‘brand’ with which to gain recognition, traction and ultimately power.
Yes, needs someone with vision and/or charisma and/or lots of money (many millions) and/or existing networks/political reach to get it moving in that direction. I think it will happen, eventually.
Just so long as it doesn’t involve Trump or Farage. They are complete liabilities and untrustworthy to boot.
Trump was for lockdown before he was against it.
Kristi Noem 2024
This whole thing has been at least 50 years in the making, from the time of the Frankfurt School and Nixon taking the USD off the gold standard, creating the opportunity for everything to be financialised.
More recently I remember vividly going to a few Labour Party conferences as a Director of a Company to listen to the ‘mood music’ and try to influence. It was just after Blair had given them power after years in the doldrums. They hated him with a vengeance. They wanted the power, but they knew what he was peddling. Every PM since then has just continued the same policy direction.
I would commend reading the linked article in Off Guardian, it doesn’t say anything new, and some may get hung up on ‘names’ , but its a succinct description of what we all face.
Unless someone like DeSantis is allowed to get the reigns of power in the US I find it fifficult to see how this is going to end well.
Most of us just have to ‘tack’ around problems and try to find the best of a series of ‘worst’ solutions. It is difficult to identify a ‘DeSantis’ character in the whole of Europe, certainly not in the UK.
https://off-guardian.org/2021/06/05/old-normal-vs-new-from-1980s-neoliberalism-to-the-great-reset/
Since the nhs has had a winter crisis that has threatened to overwhelm it, according to guardian headlines, for the past decade, why is the government doing precisely fuck all, once again, to prepare the nhs for this winter?
Looking forward to living the same winter this year as last year. So utterly predictable. Then it’ll be the perfect excuse to lock down again… lockdown forever.
“why is the government doing precisely fuck all, once again, to prepare the nhs for this winter” And why are the TV and press and opposition not ALL OVER THAT QUESTION because it’s BLOODY OBVIOUS?
Because… drum roll…
PROBLEM, REACTION, SOLUTION.
I can go back over 20 years, during which the issue of NHS beds has been a political issue. It was live when I was on the then CHC and when I was also involved in the physical planning aspects of a new general hospital (under the Blair government), and has been live ever since.
The motives are obvious – any bed crisis, if honestly admitted, can clearly be laid at the door of Westminster and Whitehall and both main parties. It blows their credibility as ultimate managers out of the water.
In defence of Toby
I don’t know Toby and I have never met him
I have read The Spectator for that past twenty years before cancelling my subscription mid 2020 because of their lack of scepticism
Toby knows the cancel culture well having been cancelled himself
I agree the ATL articles are bland, but if Tony wrote like we do BTL I suspect the site would be taken down
Perhaps there is method in the madness
The message gets out there that’s the most important thing
I don’t know much about TY but he has IMO made a huge contribution to the campaign against lockdowns. But he believes in freedom of speech and as such I would accord him the respect of offering well-meant constructive criticism because he is man enough to take it and either take it on board or dismiss it.
I don’t necessarily agree that the site would get taken down if the views were more outspoken – other sites are more outspoken and they still exist e.g. UK Column.
I think he still believes the govt can be brought round, which I think is a bit wishful thinking – but he knows them better than I do. They’ve not spoken out against the jabs much, but that might be because they don’t want to be labelled anti-vax or because they hoped the vax rollout would end this all or because they actually think they are a good idea – they’ve not made it clear.
I don’t see what an article like this can do in any meaningful way to break lockdown/restrictions. All I see here is outdated perceptions of poor old Boris fumbling along, misguided and weak.
They are starting a mass campaign of injecting children with dangerous gene therapy. They are soon going to turn the screw on those of us who don’t want to be jabbed.
Where is the outrage? Why is Bella Wallersteiner celebrating that ‘75% of adults in the U.K. have received their first jab and more than half the adult population has been fully vaccinated against Covid‘?
FFS, the gene therapy will NOT bring back the old normal!
The state now has no legitimacy left, for some good and civilization and law and order has become chaotic and corrupt. It must be overthrown and the balance restored.
Nicola Ceausescu has not made cautious decisions, lockdown is not cautious, restrictions are not cautious.
Bella Wallersteiner, related to the Stowe School headmaster (near Buckingham) Wallersteiner, and now, despite the competition from other highly qualified applicants, the Parliamentary assistant to the new MP for Buckingham. Congratulations.
Wonder what her angle is? Her second vapid article to be printed here. Lame doesn’t quite do it justice.
I doubt she has any interest in the prospects of hospitality workers or anyone else who actually grafts for a living and suffers from these continuing absurdities.
We hear little enough from the MP for Buckingham himself.