This is a guest post by Mike Hearn, a software engineer who between 2006-2014 worked at Google in roles involving data analysis.
The Daily Sceptic has for some time been reporting on the apparent negative vaccine effectiveness visible in raw U.K. health data. Despite some age ranges now showing that the vaccinated are more than twice as likely to get Covid as the unvaccinated, this is routinely adjusted out, leading UKHSA to un-intuitively claim that the vaccines are still highly effective even against symptomatic disease. A recent post by new contributor Amaneunsis explains the Test Negative Case Control approach (TNCC) used by authorities and researchers to adjust the data, and demonstrates that while a theoretically powerful way to remove some possible confounders, it rests on an initially reasonable-sounding assumption that vaccines don’t make your susceptibility to infection worse:
A situation where this assumption may be violated is the presence of viral interference, where vaccinated individuals may be more likely to be infected by alternative pathogens.
Chua et al, Epidemiology, 2020
Amanuensis then compares results between the two different statistical approaches in a Qatari study to explore whether violation of this assumption is a realistic possibility and concludes that the multi-variate logistic regression found in their appendix supports the idea that viral interference can start happening a few months after initial vaccination.
What other angles can we explore this idea through? One way is to read the literature on prior epidemics.
H1N1
Between 2009-2010 there was a pandemic of H1N1 influenza, better known as Swine Flu. In April 2009 a small outbreak was detected in northern British Columbia. Researchers from Canada’s public health agencies researched the outbreak by doing interviews, testing and sero-surveys of the affected population. They were especially interested in the question of how effectively the routine trivalent influenza vaccine (TIV) was protecting people against H1N1.
The effect they saw was unexpected and previously unknown: people who had taken the flu vaccine had a more than doubled chance of getting sick with flu during the H1N1 outbreak:
We present the first observation of an unexpected association between prior seasonal influenza vaccination and pH1N1 illness … participants reporting pH1N1-related ILI during the period 1 April through 5 June 2009 were more than twice as likely to report having previously received seasonal influenza vaccine.
Janjua et al, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2010
This result was shocking to the researchers. They were well aware of the impact these results could have on public support for the influenza vaccine programme and thus they didn’t merely double check their results, or request another team replicate their findings. They waited a year and a half, until six different investigations were all saying the same thing:
Canadian investigators thus embarked on a series of confirmatory studies… these showed 1.4–2.5- fold increased risk of medically attended, laboratory-confirmed pH1N1 illness among prior 2008–2009 TIV recipients… 6 observational studies based on different methods and settings, including the current outbreak investigation, consistently showed increased risk of pH1N1 illness during the spring and summer of 2009 associated with prior receipt of the 2008–2009 TIV
After the sixth study they seem to have accepted that the effect they were seeing was real.
One reason for their hesitation was that studies reported in other countries were inconclusive. Some suggested protective effects; nearly as many suggested no effect at all, and one other report showed increased risk. However, there was a very real risk of the so-called ‘file drawer’ problem, where inconvenient research simply doesn’t get published at all, and the Canadians had by this point made an enormous effort to make the conclusions go away via further research. The follow-up investigations left them with a high degree of confidence in what they were seeing, thus they explained contradictory foreign studies as being likely a result of either Canada-specific factors or flawed studies:
Findings of pH1N1 risk associated with TIV – consistent in Canada but conflicting elsewhere – may have been due to methodological differences and/or unrecognised flaws, differences in immunisation programs or population immunity, or a specific mechanistic effect of Canadian TIV. High rates of immunisation and the use of a single domestic manufacturer to supply >75% of the TIV in Canada may have enhanced the power within Canada to detect a vaccine-specific effect.
Quality analysis
How robust is this research? This is an epidemiological study and by now it’s worth being extremely sceptical of such papers, even if they run counter-narrative. Surprisingly, this paper seems quite good. It’s not written by epidemiologists and bears little resemblence to the sort of modelling papers that now dominate policy making. In particular, it:
- Makes no predictions, only studies past events to learn from them.
- Puts actual boots on the ground to gather the data they need.
- Correlates self-reported symptoms with a sero-survey.
- Makes restrained use of statistical methods (the primary results are a standard logistic regression).
- Controls for age, chronic conditions, Aboriginal status and household density, a selection which looks reasonable (the epidemic affected an Aboriginal reserve and they differ from the normal Canadian population health wise in several aspects).
- Stratifies by age. Note that Swine Flu was the opposite of COVID: it affected the young worse than the elderly.
- Honestly discusses the weaknesses of their study, which are primarily due to the small size of the epidemic rather than anything they could have addressed.
If there are errors in this work they are of a type that aren’t easily spotted by outsiders. Although we should give a tip of the hat to this team, after reading so many absurd public health papers over the past two years it’s nonetheless hard to escape the feeling that when researchers are about to violate some tenet of vaccine dogma they suddenly become model scientists, presumably in the hope that by applying higher standards they’ll find a reason why their results are wrong.
Other investigations
In 2018 Rikin et al published a study in the journal Vaccine designed to solve “the misperception that inactivated vaccine can cause influenza” which was acting as “a barrier to influenza vaccination“. They concluded that the folk intuition they were fighting wasn’t actually wrong in any meaningful way, due to the presence of viral interference:
Among children there was an increase in the hazard of [acute respiratory illness] caused by non-influenza respiratory pathogens post-influenza vaccination compared to unvaccinated children during the same period. Potential mechanisms for this association warrant further investigation. Future research could investigate whether medical decision-making surrounding influenza vaccination may be improved by acknowledging patient experiences, counseling regarding different types of ARI, and correcting the misperception that all ARI occurring after vaccination are caused by influenza.
Rikin et al, Vaccine, 2018
Although the paper claims that the mechanisms warrant further investigation, in reality at least one mechanism had been hypothesised as far back as 1960. In a seminal paper Thomas Francis Jr. coined the term “original antigen sin” to describe the way the immune system appears to prefer re-manufacturing antibodies for antigens similar to those it’s seen before, versus developing new antibodies customised for a slightly different invader. The odd name may be due to Francis Jr. having a Presbyterian priest as a father, thus OAS is sometimes summarised as “the first flu is forever”. This imprinting process can cause the immune system to misfire when challenged with a similar but different virus.
Some evidence for this comes from a 2017 review paper in the Journal of Infectious Diseases titled “The Doctrine of Original Antigenic Sin”, which stated:
Approximately 40 years ago, it was observed that sequential influenza vaccination might lead to reduced vaccine effectiveness (VE). This conclusion was largely dismissed after an experimental study involving sequential administration of then-standard influenza vaccines. Recent observations have provided convincing evidence that reduced VE after sequential influenza vaccination is a real phenomenon.
Monto et al, Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2017
Amusingly, the paper also states that, “Hoskins et al concluded at that time that prior infection is more effective than vaccination in preventing subsequent infection, an observation that remains undisputed.” How times change.
Speculating for a moment, viral interference might explain why despite influenza vaccines being advertised as having positive efficacy multiple studies have failed to find any impact on mortality at the population level (effectiveness). For example, in 2004 a U.S. government study concluded that they “could not correlate increasing vaccination coverage after 1980 with declining mortality rates in any age group” and “observational studies substantially overestimate vaccination benefit”. This is difficult to reconcile with trials and studies showing efficacy at sizes smaller than overall population, but could be explained if vaccines merely redirect immune resources towards one pathogen away from equally dangerous variants. The same phenomenon was found in Italy.
There are also counter-studies. By 2018 awareness was growing of the problem of viral interference and the impact it can have on TNCC effectiveness metrics. In 2020 Wolff published a study of flu outbreaks in the U.S. military. It opens by confirming the problem highlighted by Amanuensis:
The virus interference phenomenon goes against the basic assumption of the test-negative vaccine effectiveness study that vaccination does not change the risk of infection with other respiratory illness, thus potentially biasing vaccine effectiveness results in the positive direction.
Wolff, Vaccine, 2020
This time “receipt of influenza vaccination was not associated with virus interference among our population”. However the results of this study are rather contradictory and confusing, e.g. it also says “Examining non-influenza viruses specifically, the odds of both coronavirus and human metapneumovirus in vaccinated individuals were significantly higher when compared to unvaccinated individuals (OR = 1.36 and 1.51, respectively)”. Overall, Wolff seems to have found a mixed bag of effects in which the vaccines worked against influenza, but made some other viruses easier to catch and still others harder.
Analysis
Despite the institutional pedigree of the Canadian public health researchers reporting the problem, other researchers have struggled to accept it. They are subject to the same systematic social conditioning as everyone else, which is why the HSA’s explanation of why they use the TNCC methodology starts by simply saying “vaccines work”, even though their raw data actually shows the exact opposite – for the original definition of “work”, at least.
As a consequence researchers sometimes hide this problem when it arises by deleting negative effectiveness from data sets or models. Recently UCL modellers responded to the changing UK data by simply imposing a zero lower bound. No justification was given for this, and as the above papers show, presumably no literature survey was done to sanity-check this “fix”. The Qatari study initially also did this, and thus their key results (see table 2) vary wildly between initial and final versions. Fortunately, they realised that this was not scientific and changed their approach before publication.
The problem seems to go like this: everyone knows vaccines work, thus data showing they don’t must be in error and in need of fixing. Different adjustments are tried for confounders (sometimes real, sometimes hypothetical) until the data comes good, at which point the results are published and the idea that vaccines work is reinforced, leading to a greater propensity to view opposing data as flawed and in need of correction… ad infinitum.
The raw data now departs so seriously from the conclusions drawn from it that it would require a staggeringly huge behavioural change between the two camps to explain, one which stretches credulity past breaking point. The argument that the data requires adjustment/replacement due to speculated behavioural differences has another problem: that’s a sword that cuts in both directions. UKHSA is keen to stress that its raw data shows some effectiveness against hospitalisation. But that data is hopelessly confounded at this point by the fact that vaccine recipients are being told, in no uncertain terms, that while they might well get sick with Covid after taking it, the vaccine means their case won’t be “severe” and they definitely won’t need to go to hospital. “Severe” is a vague standard. Because Covid has a wide range of severities there will be many borderline cases where going to hospital is effectively a choice that could go either way.
Opinion polling shows consistently that governments and media have catastrophically failed to educate the population about Covid correctly: people routinely estimate that the unvaccinated infection:fatality ratio is orders of magnitude higher than it really is. In a recent French survey the population estimated the IFR at an astounding 16% (the true level is closer to 0.1%-0.3%) and their understanding of severity has got worse over time. If you previously believed that you had a 16% chance of dying if you got Covid, you were very likely to rush to hospital immediately on presentation of more or less any Covid-like symptoms. If you now believe that the vaccine reduces this risk to negligible levels then you’re very unlikely to bother unless you become quite seriously sick indeed, because to do so would effectively be a repudiation of the advice of government, scientific and medical authority. And if there’s one behavioural difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated that is more plausible than any other, it’s that the vaccinated are self-selecting for strong faith in scientific claims by authority figures. I’ve not yet seen any recognition by public health that this confounder exists – they are literally telling people what to do, and then declaring victory when people do it. If hospitalisation was 100% a force of nature that involved no element free will this wouldn’t matter, but the 50% drop in A&E admissions at the start of lockdown showed quite clearly that it’s not.
Conclusions
Negative effectiveness is important because if a vaccine halves your risk of getting one virus but doubles your risk of getting a closely related virus, you can end up back at square one. In fact, you’d end up in a worse position than when you started because vaccination programmes aren’t free: they consume enormous resources, both financially and in terms of public health staffing, and cause collateral damage via vaccine injuries (hence why vaccine manufacturers refuse to accept liability for harm caused by their products). It’s therefore of critical importance to understand the gestalt effect of vaccination on the immune system, and not merely on the specific variant of a virus that was originally targeted.
The fact that papers published as recently as 2018 are talking about negative vaccine effectiveness as a new, not really understood effect should give governments serious pause for thought. Most people in public health are clearly unfamiliar with this phenomenon – as indeed we all are – and are thus tempted to either ignore it, delete it from their data, or try to convince the public that it must be a statistical artefact and anyone talking about it is guilty of spreading “misinformation”. The reports in these papers provide recent evidence that vaccines making epidemics worse is in fact a real phenomenon and that it has been previously detected by serious researchers who took every effort to avoid that conclusion.
Nonetheless, despite my harsh words about IFR education above, we must acknowledge that the UKHSA is so far standing by the basic moral and foundational principles of public statistics. Their answer to the confounders and denominators debate is clearly written, straightforward, reasonable and ends by saying:
We believe that transparency – coupled with explanation – remains the best way to deal with misinformation.
That’s absolutely true. The deep exploration of obscure but important topics by independent parties is possible in the U.K. largely because the HSA is not only publishing statistics in both raw and processed forms, but has continued to do so even in the face of pressure tactics from organisations like Full Fact and the so-called Office for Statistical Regulation (whose contribution to these matters has so far been quite worthless). England is one of the very few countries in the world in which this level of conversation is possible, as most public health agencies have long ago decided not to trust the population with raw data in useful form. While the outcomes may or may not be “increasing vaccine confidence in this country and worldwide”, as the HSA goes on to say, there are actually things more important than vaccines that people need confidence in – like government and society itself. Trustworthy and rigorously debated government statistics are a fundamental pillar on which democratic legitimacy and thus social stability rests. Other parts of the world should learn from the British government’s example.
Many questions now lie open:
- To what extent does negative effectiveness require viruses to be different? For example, is the difference between H1N1 and the flu strains targeted by the Canadian TIV bigger, smaller or the same as the gap between COVID Alpha and COVID Delta, as perceived by the immune system?
- Although highly suggestive, is this genuinely happening with COVID vaccines, or is raw negative effectiveness due to something else, e.g. a temporal artefact caused by splitting waves into two overlapping waves as effectiveness wears off, or indeed, due to lack of adjustments for factors that TNCC fixes even though it may introduce other problems?
- Should this cause health authorities to abandon TNCC as a methodology, despite its speed and cost advantages?
The fact that TNCC can artificially make vaccines appear more effective than they really are, and that this would actually have happened during the Swine Flu pandemic, should really be addressed at the highest levels before anyone uses terms like “misinformation” again.
Thanks to Amanuensis and Will Jones for their review.
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https://watsonjack351.substack.com/p/breaking-labour-win-election
It’s very important that we receive the views of the non voting elite.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13604919/BORIS-JOHNSON-Starmers-majority-built-sand-mile-wide-inch-deep-ten-point-guide-bashing-Labour-getting-power.html
Traitor.
Foxtrot Oscar Johnson.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/05/britain-has-entered-a-new-era-of-sectarian-politics/
A point I have been making these last few weeks.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13603707/Moment-furious-Labour-MP-Jess-Phillips-takes-pro-Palestinian-mob-booed-beat-independent.html
Suck it up you scruffy sod. Reality bites.
https://x.com/GMB/status/1809114873894228261
Well why on earth did you want to be an MP in the first place? Nobody forced you. What a bloody insult to the electorate.
Useless failure. Any skeletons Steve?
Steve Baker is a good man. Please remember that he was almost alone in Parliament (honorable mentions to Mark Harper, Desmond Swayne, Charles Walker and Christopher Chope) in articulating the case against lockdowns and against mandatory vaccination.
Yes, he dropped the ball on the rushed vaccines, and took it himself, and is a bit too ‘Church of England’ on the alphabet people and woke issues, but he was done vastly more for our side in Parliament than almost anybody else.
He was also the leader of the Brexit “Spartans” during May’s miserable tenure as Prime Minister.
Bridgen is a particular case and was late to the party.
The case of Andrew Bridgen shows me how hopeless the situation is.
He got beaten very badly and lost his seat, despite the fact that he stood up bravely to denounce the horror perpetrated on the public with the covid jabs.
The establishment obviously chewed him up and spat him out. That is to be expected, that is what this disgusting system does with anyone who confronts it.
But the really hopeless part is that the public who he stood up for have rejected him so completely. We have a population that has lost its ability to distinguish good from bad. Or perhaps worse doesn’t care.
The British public don’t deserve him.
To me however he stands with people I consider hero’s. Ed Snowden, Assange and the many others who perhaps in less public ways stand up against the tyranny of the system, at great expense to themselves and more often than not get no thanks for it.
I wish Mr Bridgen the best.
The support was fake and state sponsored? Or perhaps it was real but actually quite small – just because there seems to be strong support, on the scale of the population it is quite small.
I’m no longer surprised at how dumb people are. One poster yesterday referred to me as a “nasty lefty”, which then got a load of up-votes. I honestly couldn’t make this sh*t up. I used to believe that most people are are just asleep, and once woken will demand real change, but that’s not true. It’s so much simpler. Most people are simply thick as f*ck.
Nice strategy. Anyone who doesn’t agree with you is thick. I am not sure how thick “f*ck” is, so your analogy is lost on me.
‘Thick’ isn’t very precise, but nevertheless the quality of the electorate is the major issue of this country, and in virtually all countries.
In due course I expect there will be a global separation.
I don’t have a strategy on here, I just say what I believe to be true. My opinions are just that – opinions. You may agree or disagree, I really don’t care tbh. So there’s that. My reference to “thick as f*ck”, and it seems that this may surprise you, really wasn’t intended to be a meaningful analogy; it’s just a saying. And I was saying that about the type of people who believed, and still do, all the Covid nonsense and the type of person that doesn’t understand the difference between right and left, right and wrong. I doubt you’re one of those people.
Well, it was a criticism of one poster and those who agreed. It was also undoubtedly an opinion, which is what every comment is on here is.
I’m struggling to understand why you’re struggling to understand. The comment was about me being left-wing, which is factually incorrect. Not an opinion in any way at all. Anyone that reads my comments and construes them to be left-wing are, yes, thick as f*ck.
Ah, not seeing your original comment I assumed, clearly wrongly, that you were a leftist and that you were having a pop at those of us here who are not. My apologies.
As adequately demonstrated from the scamdemic years, can’t blame the MSM propaganda for all this stupidity, has taken me a few years to fully understand just how thick the general population are…..sigh
It was disappointing that the Reform party didn’t embrace him. Tice is behind that, no doubt, although Bridgen’s somewhat colourful personal history won’t have helped.
When it comes down to it, the Reform party’s manifesto called for a full investigation of vaccine harms, so in practical terms not that different from what Bridgen has advocated.
It was also frustrating that Bridge was not given credit for his role in uncovering the Post Office scandal, having first raised the issue ten years before the BBC programme.
It seems it wasn’t Richard Tice, but Lee Anderson who put the kibosh on Bridgen joining Reform, after Lee walked over to the restaurant table where Andrew and a Scotsman friend were discussing politics, and told them he took umbrage at Andrew’s comments. When the Scotsman leapt to Andrew’s defence in a heated exchange, Lee Anderson called him “grandad”, and challenged him to step outside to settle things. The Scot replied in the historical manner “Pistols or Claymores?” 🙂
It’s too bad Lee and Andrew couldn’t have been persuaded to patch things up for the sake of the nation.
Sad but true.
Headline on the Daily Mail this morning about Starmer: “Now he must deliver”. Sums it up for me. The Mail presumably endorsed the Tories or Reform, and they want Starmer to “deliver”. Deliver what? I hope they deliver nothing. The less the better.
I imagine they mean Labours pledge regarding immigration control.
But I see it all as part of the gaslighting operation making the public think elections decide things.
Maybe, but they can’t possibly believe that Labour will reduce any kind of immigration, surely?
Not for a minute. They are surely just setting it up so that when they don’t they can criticise them and do their job as Team As propaganda arm.
Seconded 👍
Wind Can’t Power Toasters & Kettles – latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, your new MP, your local vicar, online media and friends online. We have over 200 leaflet ideas on the link on the leaflet.
https://www.severreal.org/a/vrag-prikryvaetsya-blagimi-namereniyami-deputaty-i-svyaschenniki-boryutsya-s-satanizmom/33017607.html
What’s really going on?
‘This week, the State Duma held a round table on the topic of ‘On counteracting the spread of Satanism and other destructive phenomena in the media-culture space of Russia’
‘The round table (is) chaired by General Vladimir Shamanov (sic)…..under the auspices of the State Duma Committee on the Development of Civil Society, Public and Religious Associations.’
‘Deputies, political scientists, priests and state propagandists seriously discussed ways to fight Satan and his minions. In which, as you might guess, they included LGBT people, childfree supporters, abortion rights defenders, eco-activists and even children who have fun playing furries…….
Deputies have nothing better to do? Definitely. But the problem is that what was said at this event was not just hot air.’
Shortly before launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin claimed that “the hegemony of the West is aimed at a complete denial of faith, acquiring features of Satanism.”
Kremlin-backed propaganda immediately picked up on this new moniker for Europeans, adding it to old tropes about “Nazis” and “sodomites.”
In other words, any opponent of the current regime becomes a “Satanist” in the language of propaganda.
‘The head of the committee for the development of civil society, issues of public and religious associations, Olga Timofeeva, said that it is necessary “not just to adhere to traditional values, but also to actively defend them, opposing destructive ideology,” since “we are confronted by fascists, Satanists, Nazis, who consciously rely on the forces of evil.’
Putin’s negotiators will be eating loads of garlic.
Top Tip for Trump’s negotiators: Don’t forget the parsley…….
Another barrel-scraping comment. Just for balance Sever.real is based in Prague and rates at around the 11,000th most viewed media website in Russia.
The JX Fund conducted a study of Russian media outlets in exile. According to this study, the combined monthly Russian audience of media in exile today is about 10 million people.
I presume you are talking to me, and not talking to yourself. That statistic says nothing about Sever.real. Stop using squirrels.
… it is necessary “not just to adhere to traditional values, but also to actively defend them, opposing destructive ideology” …
It depends naturally on what traditional values are but this statement could equally apply to European countries suffering from open borders – unless you are a globalist.
… we are confronted by fascists, Satanists, Nazis, who consciously rely on the forces of evil …
Was it only yesterday that Ukraine fired British Storm Shadow missiles at Sevastopol, missiles presumably configured by UK personnel using either US or UK intelligence information? And that only recently after US ATACMS missiles were fired in the same direction, killing and maiming children and other civilians enjoying a relaxing Sunday on the beach?
‘Satanists’ is perhaps slightly old fashioned, otherwise fascists and Nazis (apparently the Azov battalion is being reconstituted) certainly fits to these attacks on innocent civilians by Ukraine, which is unfortunately nothing new, using weapons and money supplied by us, western tax payers.
And then you had the Ukrainian deputy something-or-other who claimed that the civilians killed in the Sevastopol attack deserved to die because they were “Occupiers”, contradicting the otherwise typical Ukrainian claim that Crimeans are victims of Russian occupation.
The “Occupier” statement came from Mikhail Podoliak, adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, who “controls the entire information policy of the Office of the President and advises Volodymyr Zelensky directly” (Wikipedia).
The problem with Crimea is that Russia has explicitly breached the Geneva Convention.
The Fourth Geneva Convention specifically prohibits the transfer of the population of an occupying power into the territory it occupies.
I’m not quite sure why Ukraine would need any assistance with targeting information for static targets on its own territory. It also receives targeting information from Atesh.
If you have reliable evidence that Ukraine is receiving targeting information from third parties, you should present it. Without it, your comments lack credibility.
I am not quite sure why you are quoting the Fourth Geneva Convention, of which there are apparently 159 articles: civilians are to be protected from murder, torture or brutality, and from discrimination on the basis of race, nationality, religion or political opinion.
Civilians are to be protected from murder … and from discrimination on the basis of race: both these main points were breached by, firstly, Ukraine’s missile attack and, secondly, Podoliak’s comment.
I wrote “presumably configured”: the https://www.youtube.com/@judgingfreedom channel has repeatedly reported that ATACMS missiles can only be configured and operated by US personnel, and indicated the same applies to the British (and French) missiles. I think the idea one can type in a simple latitude and longitude and press ‘Fire’ to operate these missiles is rather too simplistic since they are “guided by a combination of GPS, terrain-matching and infrared imaging”.
Every time an election is held the next day people lament the voting system this country has. And quite rightly so.
A result of this system is that a lot of people are not represented and unheard.
And it is not in the interest of the ruling party to change the system.
My opinion is that we need a party whose sole aim is to change the voting system. We need to think outside the box to work out a system that gives the best possible representation of people’s views on the whole.
If we can get this party into power, they would change the system and then call a re-election.
Daft idea?
Worth a try?
If you’re interested in a relatively local experiment – Wales – have a look at this one: https://www.gov.wales/senedd-reform No doubt the Permanent Secretary and others in Westminster will be watching that!
At any rate, the Welsh outcome would most likely be used as part of any revised system in England. Not sure what would happen in Scotland & NI.
Having done a little homework on it, all the UK regions that do some kind of proportional voting – including the London Assembly – use a “Modified d’Hondt Formula”. No doubt there would be arguments about the geographical structure nationally to achieve that. E.g. the London one is some kind of hybrid between FPTP & d’Hondt. https://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/counting-votes
To achieve an equivalent without expanding the size of the House of Commons and maintaining constituency allocations would need some sort of geographical set up with larger constituencies spread across them.
Changing the voting system is something the public can do without waiting 5 years and voting for an ineffectual Party. The government promotes this elsewhere.
80% of those who voted gave their support to parties of the globalist left. The public had the chance to vote for Andrew Bridgen. He came virtually last. The problem is not the voting system, it’s the voters. I think that is the sad truth we have to face. We need to win people over with our ideas, but I think we will fail and things will have to collapse completely before enough people wake up. I will probably get lots of downvotes for being so pessimistic. But to be clear, just because I think the situation is bleak doesn’t stop me from trying.
I only partly agree.
With the current system people vote strategically and often negative.
There is no party or candidate even close to expressing their views with a chance of a parliamentary seat, so they either don’t vote, spoil their ballot paper, protest vote or vote for the least bad option.
A more representative democracy would at least engage more people in a positive way.
I guess it might make some
marginal difference.
Which views do you think are not represented among the choices on offer?
Good question. The current offering is bland. All parties worried by loss of votes if they really have a distinct vision.
I grew up with a PR system, with a lot of different parties.Problem with straight PR is that the rural vote gets lost (most people live in cities). Maybe a combination of PR within slightly larger constituencies, each providing 5 MPs might work?
Or active participatory democracy with a direct line between the voting public and their representatives?
The Swiss system?
Reform on paper looked fairly unbland to me
Heritage, Freedom Alliance and Alliance for Freedom and Democracy and Bridgen didn’t look bland to me. Nobody voted for them.
You are right about the rural vote, because I read that the only reason Macron defeated Le Pen at the last election was that France does not have an electoral college. So even though all of the Indigenous French in rural areas and small towns voted for Le Pen, all the 3rd World Invaders and their Communist Enablers in the big cities voted for Macron, so he won.
If I remember correctly, the article said that was the whole reason the American Founding Fathers created the electoral college, because they realised very early on that the big cities would dominate every election, elbowing out the rural areas and small towns.
And that’s why the Globalist Traitors encourage the 3rd World Invaders to concentrate their settlement in the big cities of the West.
There is nothing pessimistic in facing facts. The situation, as I have posted more than once, is grim.
But we won’t let them grind us down
“No one anticipated how many pro-Gaza independents would be elected to Parliament”
Alongside the pro-Israel MP’s that we’re not supposed to draw attention to. Parliament seems more a representation of the Middle East at the expense and to the detriment of the nations it is supposed to represent.
https://labour.org.uk/change/mission-driven-government/
Oh Beggar!
And there everyone was thinking it was ‘Working From Home’ that was causing the productivity problems within public sector bureaucracies…..
Nope!
Its the new wonks wet dream that, unsurprisingly, is making government wonky.
‘Mission Driven Government’?
What The Dickens?
Don’t Worry. It’s from the same people who brought us ‘The Precautionary Principle’, you know, the one that tried to kill everyone in 2020.
Disaster……..Starmer Space Station day one:
‘Mission-driven government means raising our sights as a nation and focusing on ambitious, measurable, long-term objectives that provide a driving sense of purpose for the country.’
This is really why we are so comprehensively fecked as a country
‘The organization I visited did a great job of defining and tracking goals. Few of those goals, however, connected to a broader sense of purpose. Yes, reaching goals could bring a greater bonus, and, yes, reaching goals could lead to promotions and salary bumps. Chasing goals day after day, week after week, however, did not bring engagement to the organization. It brought the sense of living on an endless treadmill.’
As the great Lord Botham might have said: ‘They forgot the leadership!’
Mission driven anything doesn’t work with drivers. It only works with leaders.
But ‘mission driven management’ has redefined leadership!
‘….a third model of leadership is embedded in what we might call mission-based management. When grounded in a mission, all members of an organization–from top to bottom–are both leaders and followers.’
We’re all leaders…….and followers……
No more ‘How shall we feck off, Lord?’. Plenty of ‘Feck off yourself, Lord!’
‘…mission-based management…..is directive guidance in the service of transcendent aims.’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettsteenbarger/2015/07/19/mission-based-management-the-leadership-of-purpose/
Got that? Right, off we go….
Mission based manage this:
Oh for heavens sake! Earth to Starmer space station:
‘Can we all feck off at the next stop, Lord?’
Steve Baker always spoke well but watching that, you know he generally held back. Osborne in particular was without reply. The succinct truth hurts
The “17 years ago” dismissal of his motivations gives a glimpse of the political mindset that thinks events like Hillsborough, infected blood, Horizon etc. will disappear without consequence. It was refreshing to hear mention of extraordinary rendition: a reminder that our freedom promoting governments considered kidnap and torture acceptable.
“some migrants near Dunkirk have welcomed Starmer’s victory and say they’ll make the journey across the channel as soon as they can.”
Hold your foot up just a minute lads, why take the risk of a small boat? After all, the uber rnli is finding it difficult to cope with all the extra custom.
Starmer will send Luxury ferries to come and pick you all up! Just try to be patient 😌
Too true!
“Labour election result most distorted in history”
If one hundred people can vote, but only one does, then its a landslide for the winner!
Starmer’s Government of service. Am I alone in thinking the Kneeler sounded exactly like a vicar preaching at a church service; that lowering of the voice at the end of the sentence?
I was amused to read it had been written by former speech writer to Justin Welby!
“How long until the ‘Joe must go’ faction prevails?”
Biden’s plan was always to step aside for the Ethnic African/Indian woman, as he said when he first chose her as his Vice President: “I’m just a place-holder for disadvantaged ethnic minorities”, he said.
It could well be that he’s not even senile, but just acting out his part in order to “nudge” the public to accept the woman they NEVER would have voted for.