• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Whatever You Do, Don’t Think of the Children

by Toby Young
29 November 2021 4:11 PM

There follows a guest post by Dr. David McGrogan, a Professor at Northumbria Law School and Daily Sceptic regular. He has just been notified of another round of utterly pointless restrictions on what children and their parents are able to do in the coming weeks and months because of the super-scary moronic omicron variant.

Like most parents across the land, I received a letter from the local council’s Director of Public Health this morning (forwarded by the school in an email) explaining that they have “advised [sic] schools that parents/carers/other visitors are not invited” to nativity plays this year. Not the end of the world in the grand scheme of things, of course – just another depressing example in the long litany of examples of children’s priorities being cast under a bus due to adult panic during the course of this pandemic.

Much more concerning, because of what it said about the mindset of the Director of Public Health in question, was this alarmingly blithe justification for continued restrictions in schools, buried in the body of the letter:

Much as we would all like it to be, the pandemic is not over. Whilst it is clear that the vaccination programme is effective in preventing serious disease and deaths, the vaccine is never going to stop all transmission, and resultant harm, on its own. [Emphasis added]

You couldn’t get a starker admission than this that we long ago moved beyond “flattening the curve” or staving off a dire public health emergency in a once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-repeated year. No: we are now in a different place altogether – one in which we must stop transmission “and resultant harm” for its own sake, forever. For how else are we supposed to interpret this statement? On what grounds will parents ever be allowed back into schools to watch nativity plays (or even properly meet their children’s teachers), if the requirement is for “all transmission and resultant harm” to end? We will never be in that position. So in what circumstance does the Director of Public Health envisage there ever will be a return to normal schooling? Ought this not to be made clear to local parents?

More broadly, this incident raises the question of how it is that something so fundamental – children’s schooling – has ended up beholden to the whim of unelected, largely unaccountable, public officials such as this. The local Director of Public Health in any given local authority cannot be voted out. They are not challenged by probing interviews in prominent media outlets. The means by which they are appointed is entirely opaque. And their policy positions, political backgrounds, and motivations are subject to essentially no public scrutiny. Yet they possess the power, at the sweep of a pen, to disrupt the lives of literally tens of thousands of people within their bailiwicks, with the only possible avenue of challenge being a prohibitively expensive and time-consuming claim for judicial review. This ought to be intolerable in a free society. Yet it is the position in which we find ourselves.

Once again, the Covid pandemic and its response have shone a harsh light on British democracy, and revealed it to be in a dilapidated state indeed.

Tags: Children's WelfareNativity PlaysOmicron Variant

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Christmas Work Parties Cancelled Over Omicron Variant Fears

Next Post

JCVI Recommends That All Adults Should Receive Booster Jabs – And Approves Use of The Pfizer Jab For 12 to 15 Year-Olds

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

77 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

Special Episode of the Sceptic: Charles Cornish-Dale on Testosterone Decline, How the Modern World Is Making Us Sick and How to Save the West

by Richard Eldred
11 July 2025
2

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Emmanuel Macron Tells Bereaved Parents to Stop Dwelling on Their Stabbed Children and Focus on Saving the Planet

15 July 2025
by Steven Tucker

Friedrich Merz is the Most Incompetent Chancellor Germany Has Ever Seen

14 July 2025
by Eugyppius

News Round-Up

15 July 2025
by Richard Eldred

What’s the Truth About POTS?

14 July 2025
by Jane Walkington

A School Excluding a 12 Year-Old Girl for Wearing a Union Jack Dress Must be a Wake-Up Call

15 July 2025
by C.J. Strachan

A School Excluding a 12 Year-Old Girl for Wearing a Union Jack Dress Must be a Wake-Up Call

39

News Round-Up

36

Labour to Reintroduce Grants for Electric Cars to ‘Bribe’ Motorists

25

Emmanuel Macron Tells Bereaved Parents to Stop Dwelling on Their Stabbed Children and Focus on Saving the Planet

24

Friedrich Merz is the Most Incompetent Chancellor Germany Has Ever Seen

24

A School Excluding a 12 Year-Old Girl for Wearing a Union Jack Dress Must be a Wake-Up Call

15 July 2025
by C.J. Strachan

The Deadline for Countries to Exempt Themselves From the New Pandemic International Health Regulations is This Week

15 July 2025
by Dr David Bell

Emmanuel Macron Tells Bereaved Parents to Stop Dwelling on Their Stabbed Children and Focus on Saving the Planet

15 July 2025
by Steven Tucker

Friedrich Merz is the Most Incompetent Chancellor Germany Has Ever Seen

14 July 2025
by Eugyppius

What’s the Truth About POTS?

14 July 2025
by Jane Walkington

POSTS BY DATE

November 2021
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  
« Oct   Dec »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

POSTS BY DATE

November 2021
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  
« Oct   Dec »

DONATE

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Emmanuel Macron Tells Bereaved Parents to Stop Dwelling on Their Stabbed Children and Focus on Saving the Planet

15 July 2025
by Steven Tucker

Friedrich Merz is the Most Incompetent Chancellor Germany Has Ever Seen

14 July 2025
by Eugyppius

News Round-Up

15 July 2025
by Richard Eldred

What’s the Truth About POTS?

14 July 2025
by Jane Walkington

A School Excluding a 12 Year-Old Girl for Wearing a Union Jack Dress Must be a Wake-Up Call

15 July 2025
by C.J. Strachan

A School Excluding a 12 Year-Old Girl for Wearing a Union Jack Dress Must be a Wake-Up Call

39

News Round-Up

36

Labour to Reintroduce Grants for Electric Cars to ‘Bribe’ Motorists

25

Emmanuel Macron Tells Bereaved Parents to Stop Dwelling on Their Stabbed Children and Focus on Saving the Planet

24

Friedrich Merz is the Most Incompetent Chancellor Germany Has Ever Seen

24

A School Excluding a 12 Year-Old Girl for Wearing a Union Jack Dress Must be a Wake-Up Call

15 July 2025
by C.J. Strachan

The Deadline for Countries to Exempt Themselves From the New Pandemic International Health Regulations is This Week

15 July 2025
by Dr David Bell

Emmanuel Macron Tells Bereaved Parents to Stop Dwelling on Their Stabbed Children and Focus on Saving the Planet

15 July 2025
by Steven Tucker

Friedrich Merz is the Most Incompetent Chancellor Germany Has Ever Seen

14 July 2025
by Eugyppius

What’s the Truth About POTS?

14 July 2025
by Jane Walkington

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment