In the Christmas issue of the Spectator, Lionel Shriver has thanked her anti-lockdown allies in the media and elsewhere for helping her to “maintain my sanity and my faith in humanity”. In particular, Shriver has applauded the Daily Sceptic – and has an unbreakable habit of combing through our daily newsletter during her morning routine.
Beginning the second week of the U.K.’s original lockdown, our own Toby Young has doggedly put out a free daily newsletter, which is still the first thing I read when I get up. Lockdown Sceptics has now morphed into the more broad-based the Daily Sceptic, but under both titles the newsletter has encapsulated new scientific studies at odds with stock narratives, excerpted dissenting articles and provided a forum for isolated prisoners of quasi-police states like Australia. The bulletin has furnished hyperlinks to thousands of blogs, interviews, podcasts and essays that collectively reassure us not everyone is a robot or an idiot, and civilisation isn’t, or not completely, kaput. That newsletter is meaty enough to last through a large, strong coffee and compelling enough that some mornings the coffee gets cold.
Shriver has also heaped plenty of praise on the Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast, former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption, Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, the Spiked team, and many others.
On the Telegraph podcast Planet Normal, Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan have managed a beguiling balance of hard-hitting commentary and jocular repartee. They’ve never let up on NHS neglect of non-Covid patients and disappearing face-to-face GP appointments. Through my headphones in the kitchen, their congenial company has seen me through mounds of chopped onions, bulbs of peeled garlic and bags of individually shelled pistachios, even during the long months when asking friends over to help me eat all this stuff was against the law.
Former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption has tirelessly advanced the case that subjugating democracy to public health tyranny puts the West in a grave political danger bound to persist beyond the pandemic. Ever temperate, articulate and urbane, Sumption bears a faint resemblance to my husband, who never twigs that I mean the comparison as a big compliment.
Every week, professional curmudgeon Peter Hitchens has given grumpy, disgusted and deliciously disdainful interviews on Talkradio. He’s even appeared in legacy media, in the rare instances a discouraging word about illiberal, epidemiologically inane Government policy is allowed on mainstream shows. Hitchens’s primary shortcoming is a belligerent conviction that he’s the only person standing up to the new authoritarianism. Look around you, Peter. You may spurn the helping hand, but you have confederates.
The crew at Spiked, among them Brendan O’Neill, Fraser Myers and Tom Slater, have remorselessly produced Covid content against the grain; ditto the faux-naïf self-styled nerds at Triggernometry. True to its name, UnHerd has consistently run pieces that contest received coronavirus wisdom, and I’d particularly commend terrific recent essays by Paul Kingsnorth (‘How Fear Fuels the Vaccine Wars’) and Matthew Crawford (‘The New Public Health Despotism’). Along with many other freelancers, Ross Clark, Matt Ridley and Douglas Murray have swum against an exhausting tide of ideological uniformity.
The oncologist Karol Sikora has warned about the dire consequences of blinkered obsession with Covid for cancer patients. Epidemiologists such as Sunetra Gupta and Carl Heneghan have put reputations on the line to interrogate ‘known facts’ in their profession. Shockers, even a handful of British politicians have stuck up for their constituencies’ civil rights, including MPs Steve Baker and Sir Desmond Swayne (“Masks are about sending a message — well I don’t like the message!”).
Worth reading in full.
Discussion
Comments
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My fear is that they will soon start to close down all opposition “opinion” as in China. What do we do then?
Meet locally!
Lionel Shriver is a top man – I just wish he would stop the silly ‘dressing as a woman’ routine.
Totally agree .. I am very appreciative of Toby and his team for all the work they do, it has certainly helped me. Also I found a local ‘Stand in the Park’ group and recommend this to anyone .. it’s good to meet and talk to like minded .. find if there is a stand near you ..
https://www.astandinthepark.org/
If you want clear, up to date covid data please sign into Steve Kirsch’s Substack account. It doesn’t get any clearer. Today’s news includes an outstanding 51 page paper from the Canadian doctors alliance. It is a must read. Pfizer highlighted. It’s trial examined. Fascinating data.
And new to the party – GB News
Their evening shows getting stronger with every passing day – almost like they have found their niche in the market
Lionel Shriver has identified the majority of the people worthy of praise. Not a sceptic at first, I was persuaded that these policies were wrong by listening to independent minded scientists on lockdown TV. What alarmed me was this fanatical faith in the idea that a cold like virus, however virulent, could be controlled by asking the middle classes to stay in their homes and restricting access to medical services. The battle is not over and we have Toby Young and his team to thank for putting together in one place the arguments needed to debunk the increasingly absurd ‘lines to take’ in much of the media on how to keep the great panicdemic alive.
I commented on Facebook about S/Dennis Swaynes short speech against vaccine passports and other measures and recommended people listen to it. My comment was removed as it was against Facebook rules. So recommending listening to an MP saying something in Parliment is considered not suitable. Nuts or what
Also a shout out for Neil Oliver (Times and GB news) as well as Joanna Blythman who writes a Saturday column in the The (Scottish) Herald and is roundly criticised by many readers but is definitely on our side. I’m Scottish and under the rule of Nicoliar as many call her so to read either of the above lifts my spirits.
Ditto here. I imagine many of us start our day with a strong coffee and a scroll through DS. It has been brilliant, as have the other sources Shriver mentions. I also greatly appreciate the comments – so many dry, hilarious observations, anecdotes, and links to useful sources – a really community in fact. One organisation I only recently became aware of is astandinthepark.org – These are local groups of dissenters/sceptics, all over the country who hang out in local parks on a Sunday morning ready for a chat. Worth checking out if any readers are feeling a bit isolated.
Well said that woman! Daily Sceptic is the first thing I read after breakfast and some days I’m sitting reading it for hours. It keeps me sane, surrounded as I am by vaccinated believers and well-meaning relatives who are trying to get me to be vaccinated. I always read her columns whenever I come across them – she and many of the others she mentions. Long may they all continue as this madness shows no signs of abating.
Yes, Lionel, the Sceptic has been a live-saver for us, too, retirees who sit up in bed with a morning cuppa and this essential tonic to counter all the panic, gloom and doom on MSM.
I have read the daily update even before I have got up, with a strong cup of tea in bed. When my book comes out (if ever) there will be an awful lot of stuff gleaned from the site. Carro on!
We’re with you, Lionel, we’re all here. BRAVO for your work. We are so much more together. We will wake up many more, until the politicians get it. It will be too late for many, but we work in their memory.
Great writer with a penchant for common sense.
As an update to my post earlier today, I just looked at the Telegraph’s ‘reporting of today’s COVID ‘information’, and aside from the usual scaremongering headlines, they also falsely said in the ticker feed that the number of deaths (146) is ‘up’ 30%.
That is either a grave error or an outright LIE. Taking every possible but reasonable measurement:
7 day rolling average would have fallen as the number who died ‘with’ COVID on 9th Dec was 115, today’s figure is also 115 (to the decimal is it slightly lower). The day-to-day comparisons, both 7 days ago to today (148 > 146) and yesterday to day are also falls (165 > 146).
I cannot think of any other metric to properly evaluate the figures other than them.
Totally agree .. I am very appreciative of Tony and his team for all the work they do, it has certainly helped me. Also I found a local ‘Stand in the Park’ group and recommend this to anyone .. it’s good to meet and talk to like minded .. find if there is a stand near you ..
https://www.astandinthepark.org/
Whoops .. obviously mean Toby !!
I’m a big fan of Shriver’s writing and for a while her column (and Liddle of course) were the only reasons that I kept on paying for the Spectator…unfortunately the tone of the magazine got more and more conformist as the pandemic proceeded, and I’ve now cancelled my subscription.
Off Guardian, TCW, The Corbett Report, Mark Passio, Whitney Webb, Alan Watt are amongst the thousands of people who should be given credit above the Establishment figures such as Peter Hitchens and Lord Sumption who are just there to soften up the moderate sceptics into surrender. Peter Hitchens surrendered close to a year ago, if he was even genuine opposition in the first place.
Hitchens was jabbed at the first opportunity. I gave up on him when he did that.
Yes – and said he did it so he could travel freely! How’s that going, Peter?
This is unfair. Peter Hitchens continues to speak out quite regularly on the subject. You don’t need to be anti-vaccination to oppose these restrictions. Of course people should not be discriminated against for refusing to take the jab but hard line approaches only reduces the number of potential allies whose support we need in order to bring this madness to an end.
A kindred spirit. The Daily Sceptic has been a lifeline for me. I knew at the start that my, already fragile, mental health was at risk and worked hard at putting things in place to help protect myself. Discovering DS was wonderful!
Remember: we are the sane ones.
Sanity is not statistical.
Spiked has been largely shilling the vax and the establishment clinical show-trials, while rubbishing early treatment. Not good.
I agree.
Actually, Brendan O’Neill put out a piece a couple of months ago titled:
“Why shouldn’t residential care home workers face mandatory vaccination?”
That was it, the last straw and I cancelled my subscription immediately.
Look into how they are funded. There is a good reason they say nothing remotely controversial. They support mandatory vaccinations and are constantly attacking ‘anti vaxxers’ which means anyone who doesn’t want the jab by their definition. Also any one who mentions the obvious shadowy influence of Bill Gates, The World Economic Forum and Rockefeller Foundation is a conspiracy theorist.
Voted democrat. Just saying.
I thought her columns agonizing about how to vote were quite interesting
It’s very uplifting to hear 🙂 Sadly, several of these heroes are jabbed…commiserations!
Shame about the vast majority of the rest of teh telegraph’s output, especially on the Pandemic.
Bear in mind, like The Grauniad, The Telegraph has a ‘special’ section that now ‘reports’ on the Pandemic (headed up by Paul Nuki) that has previously been funded (2017 I think – more than enough to cover costs for 5+ years) by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundadtion to the tune of $3M+.
Why do you think that the paper still is mainly behind the government response and the fearmongering (the word ‘surge’ appears so often now) whilst pretending to be on our side in a few parts of the paper – likely just to placate readers who are increasingly being censored.
I know many (I’m a former subscriber of 20 years, getting out 18 months ago)wish to (at the end of their annual subscription) or will (rolling monthly subs) leave very soone because they are increasingly peed off at the coverage and general tone of the paper.
That the paper is making it very hard to cancel (I must’ve been lucky) whilst simultaneously offering a rolling programme of bribes, ahem, I mean financial incentives to stay or join show that they are starting… Read more »
The DT receives £3.5 million to ‘advocate’ Gates’ World Health Policies ( sic) from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – you are paying for and reading Gates advertorial propaganda in every edition.
I have thankfully broken the habit and feel better for it!
A good number of readers can’t get away from the traditional ‘format’ of the newspapers (a bit like the ‘reports everything’ media outlet like a dept store) and know that all the other papers are as bad and much more expensive (like the Times) or worse (more sensationalist) like the tabloids.
Many people are lazy and just want all their news from one newspaper and the rest from one TV outlet.
That’s also why you are rarely, if at all, allowed to comment on Nuki’s articles.
Yep, rather like all the woke articles or those about US politics.
IMHO the hatred for Trump within the paper, esp. from the US news desk is palpable, where they will, in my view publish practically anything to push the MAGA lot out of US politics and get the GOP back under full ctronl by the Establishment – even if that means Biden and his nutty, useless, crocked and creepy lot ruining that nation in just a year.
That the paper also seems (to me and it appears many here) to do the bidding of the Globalist cabal from the WEF whilst silencing reader dissent is very sinister indeed.
“maintain my sanity and my faith in humanity”? Hmm, I’m not sure that those two are compatible.
She obviously doesn’t look in the “Forums” (not comments) here then.
Just as well really.
I have just had the most horrible experience whilst out shopping. I was in Aldi, without a mask. I went to one fixture and there was an elderly couple all masked up. The husband said come away he’s not wearing a mask, taking a step back. They asked why I wasn’t wearing a mask, I said nothing at that point. Further down the aisle I said I was exempt, the wife asked where my lanyard was, I said I didn’t need one, she said that I did. My parting question was whether she wanted me to wear a yellow star, she said whatever you want.
you should have complained to the management that you were being harrassed and pointed them out, LOUDLY
or tell them they have qualified for the role of Blokleiter and congratulations!
Actually there was a shop worker refilling shelves who was also not wearing a mask. In fact there were several working maskless
Had a similar scrap in a store last year. I was able to end it with “If you’re going around telling people to wear masks, pull your one up over your nose first”.
The line is always “Why do I need one? Doesn’t yours work?”. That generally throws them off balance.
And if they come back go with “Well wouldn’t you be well advised to get one that does work? FFP3 masks are available. Stop being so tight”.
And if they talk about outbound then go with “So you’re infected then. Why are you outside infecting people rather than home in bed?”.
It’s good practice for when the Jehovah’s Witnesses come round.
Your exemption, which is in itself a declaration of past medical problems is nobody else’s business.
Depending on the challenge my response will be firm but rude.
NHS staff are the worst – duckin awful some of them.
I sat in an empty GP’s waiting room earlier this week. I was there 15 minutes before the receptionist noticed i wasn’t wearing a mask (neither was she behind her plexiglass) When I said I’m exempt she asked where my badge or lanyard was. My response was to ask if she was a Nazi, as they liked to stick badges on people too.
Excellent .
Just tell them it’s none of their business and ask them to fuck off. Don’t be silent, this will come accross submissive and plagued by a bad conscience. Don’t be polite, either. It is none of their business and if they don’t know this yet, they’ll have to learn it.
I agree with Lionel.
from Guido
“The first and currently only hospital patient to die with Omicron was unvaccinated, according to a close relative appearing on LBC this morning. Speaking to Nick Ferrari, the stepson of the man who died earlier this week claimed that he had been taken in by “conspiracy theories”, and refused to take the vaccine despite being in his early 70s:
According to the latest figures, there are currently 15 people in hospital with Omicron, an increase of 5 since Tuesday…
”
70s. not Omicron but old age
He’s unnamed so it means nothing, no sad faces, what are we supposed to believe these days, when a vaccinated person dies, its cause of death unknown in many cases
Not old age, that cannot be a cause of death in anyone under 80. There has to be other reasons, unfortunately CoViD19 can appear.
You mean be invented by fake PCR tests?
How well did LBC check the relationship? A man who said he was the stepson of…
Indeed – more Omicron BS on the way! Take cover!
I knew a man who talked to a man who claimed to know the Omnicorpse….
I most certainly don’t believe the corpse was unvaccinated. If it had been, Bozo, Witless and the rest would be screaming the fact from the rooftops.
I think we can safely put this story into the “Propaganda” bucket.
Even if that’s true, did he have any other conditions? If someone is suffering from a terminal illness then being spiked isn’t going to make them immortal.
Yes… it’s been a lifeline for me too!
I’m a Spectator subscriber. In the early months of ‘this’, when even Rod Liddle had swallowed it whole, you, Lionel, were the first chink of light. Thank you.
Even Rod Liddle lol.
Liddle was a real pantywaist at the beginning of the covid apocalypse