We’re publishing today a new piece by Dr. Gary Sidley, a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of the Smile Free campaign. Dr. Sidley is glad to see the mask mandates being lifted, but worries that without a clear admission from leaders that imposing face masks was unethical, ineffective and harmful, and ought never to be done again, the measure will quickly resurface next time a threat from a similar contagious disease is perceived. Here’s the introduction:
For those of us at the Smile Free campaign – and the many other people campaigning to remove all mask mandates – it has been a positive few weeks. On January 20th, secondary school children in England were liberated from the requirement to wear face coverings in the classroom, followed, a week later, by the removal of all mask mandates in England. A similar easing of mask restrictions was announced by Nicola Sturgeon on February 22nd (although this reprieve for the Scottish people will not happen until March 21st). And even London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has conceded that masks will no longer be a condition of carriage on the capital’s transport system. Although this news is all very welcome, it is not good enough for our politicians to claim that these measures are being relaxed solely because of the currently reduced risk of harm associated with the Omicron variant; such a rationale means that masking the healthy, the most insidious of all the COVID-19 restrictions, will be imposed again at the first hint of another viral threat. What we require is a clear and unambiguous acknowledgement that our political leaders, with support of Government scientists, inflicted an intervention on the British people that was unethical, ineffective and harmful and – importantly – their commitment never to do so again.
This is a big ask. Those seeking to retain power over us rarely admit to mistakes. However, the likelihood of such an occurrence would increase if more of us could recognise that mask diktats were introduced for reasons other than viral control. In a previous article, I made the case for masks primarily being imposed as a compliance device, a means of keeping the British public responsive to any restrictions (current or future) the Government might wish to enforce in pursuit of its agenda, whatever that might be. To highlight further the evidence consistent with this assertion, I posed some questions I would like to ask Professor Chris Whitty (England’s Chief Medical Officer) about the reasons for his U-turn in spring 2020 from mask sceptic to mask advocate. The bulk of responses to this article were supportive, but a few of the comments raised objections – three in total – that I will now address.
Worth reading in full.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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.
For this alone this man should be shot. Not medicine, nor science from counterpart Valance, just plain criminal manipulation. A gift to the totalitarians, men utter bereft of sense or compassion. History will judge them, we won’t get the chance.
Looking at both the House of Commons and House of Lords, most members are now, thankfully maskless, but the clerks and other staff are fully muzzled. Are our legislators adopting one rule for them and another for their poor staff?
I was watching a medical drama on TV last night and wondering how they were ever going to be dramatised in future, if the whole time the characters will be masked, as in the current NHS, last redoubt of the mask Nazis. My dentist wears one of the sophisticated masks that might filter viruses but most people in the NHS, as do the patients, wear the loose fitting ones, which can have no practical effect. The latter demonstrated by Covid infection spread in hospitals being always extensive.
My stepdaughter is in the middle of her nurse training. When we go out, she dutifully dons a muzzle in restaurants, shops, etc. I refrain from asking her WHY for the sake of our good relationship. But it’s a struggle.
Can we get rid of all mask mandates in NI and the fact that they’re “strongly recommended”. The need to go in all areas of life – hospitals, schools, colleges, universities, doctors’ surgeries – I could go on.
What I would like to know is why, if masks are, as we all believe a complete nonsense, the medical profession still persist in wearing them? I have since restrictions were lifted had to visit my doctor, my dentist and my optician, all of which were still operating in full masked up gear as if the scamdemic was still at its height!
I visited my dentist yesterday. It was even more theatrical than it was six months ago. Not allowed through the door unless you phone them from the car park. (All very well if you have a mobile phone.) Some officious muzzled teenager asking me if I had a mask (”No, I don’t wear one.”) Then holding up a huge bottle of gunk to spray on my hands. (”No, I don’t use it.”) Then asking ”Any vaccinations?” (”No.”) Then ”Have you had covid?” (”Probably a few weeks ago but didn’t test.”) Then ”Have you got any symptoms?” (”No.” Beginning to spit with frustration.)
She then took what looked like a Derringer from the side table and pointed it at my forehead. It didn’t go off so I presume it was a thermometer.
Then on to the waiting room where seats had signs ”Seat Ready To Be Used”, where she handed me a pen and clipboard. ”I hope you sanitised these” I said. Immune to irony she said ”Of course, AND the seats.”
Fortunately the hygienist and dentist seemed normal, if muzzled. When I left, I refused the gunk again, so the door had to be opened for me.
For crying out… Read more »
Brilliant! I know exactly what you mean! 🙂 That was more or less the same experience!! As you say FFS!!
Paying to be humiliated.
I cannot understand why my doctor, dentist and my wife’s podiatrist insist on wearing masks and insist that we do. I don’t wish to lie as I do not have an exception- how do we stop this madness if these professionals cannot understand that masks don’t work?
“The war against masking, this most insidious of all the COVID-19 restrictions, is not yet won.”
Correct and it’s not just people still wearing the abominations. Shops still have those stupid STOP! signs put up by local government plastered all over their windows. I have now taken to walking in and politely asking why they still have them when it is no longer mandatory. The response has been quite good especially when I have volunteered to take them down on their behalf.The latest was yesterday at my hairdresser. “Oh” said the lady “I’ve been meaning to take that down but keep on forgetting”. Trouble is the more people see these the more it seeps into their brains that it’s normal and here to stay and thus the more people will carry on wearing them. THE SIGNS HAVE TO GO. Think I’ve been into about 20/30 shops so far but plenty more to do. Please do the same.
It would be nice to have a list of all those who snitched to the Police on people ‘breaking the rules’ during lockdowns. Names and addresses printed out and stuck up in all shop windows, bus stops, at the library, etc!
Yes, indeed. If I see a small shop now with ”Please wear a mask” on the door, I walk inside and tell them (politely) they’ve just lost my custom because I will NOT ”wear a mask” just to please THEM.
Take down the signs yourself, either sneakily or boldly rip them off and hand them to the shopkeeper saying “this is not lawful now”.
The WHO itself (spit) made the statement very openly back in the summer of 2020 that masks are ineffective but ‘serve to remind people to obey the rules’.
I wish I’d kept the link.
What disturbs me most is that the voluntary wearing these paper nappies is fast becoming a permanent feature of our lives. This is the direct result of saturation propaganda through the mainstream media. I do not believe an admission now by Chris Whitty of the ineffectiveness of masks would be enough. We are becoming a nation of germ obsessed neurotics. I think Peter Hitchens got it right when early on in the panicdemic, he threatened to wear his Warsaw Pact gas mask. A campaign of open mockery of mask wearers may be the most effective way of getting at least some of them to come to their senses.Cruel perhaps but necessary for the greater public good.
How would you do it? Point and start laughing?
On the 5th of March I was walking in a beautiful country park in Leicestershire with my dog and a friend and her dog.The weather was windy and there were a lot of people enjoying the freedom. No masks to be seen other than, yes five Chinese visitors in a clutch masked up to the eyebrows. Some people wll never give them up.
Working as supply teacher at local school (Norfolk); started feeling crappy yesterday, so did an LFT and yes, positive, so had to go home. Did the test in a school classroom where a teacher happened to be working (at the other end of the room). As I left, he asked if I had a mask. “Why would I have a mask?” I asked, “The school dropped the requirement three weeks ago. Besides, as a science teacher [for the young fellow was a science teacher], you must know that masks are pretty much useless, right? I can show you many respected forms of evidence…” Shock and bewilderment; he looked ready to call for Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General. “But wearing one is a common courtesy!” “‘common courtesy’?”, I replied, “So as a science teacher you’ve implied that you agree that masks are useless, and as a teacher I presume you undertand that the psychological harm done, especially to CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS, is considerable, right? Every class I’ve been with in this school includes at least a couple of kids who are terrified when not wearing a mask. I’ve tried to coax them out of the damn things many times. Clearly, the net… Read more »
Now what would have happened if you hadn’t tested yourself… with a test kit Made in China known for producing unreliable results?
I was thinking the same. Why test? Why not just do what we all used to do – go home, take a Lemsip and a toddy and go to bed for a while? If anyone had asked ”where is she?” the answer could be loosely the truth ”She had a pain in the neck”.
They are muzzles, not masks. Muzzles to keep the compliant afraid and judgemental of others. Muzzles to signify that there is ‘danger’ in the environment. Muzzles to identify the ‘ virtuous’ and the ‘ selfish’. I was at a theatre last night: still approx. 10% of the audience were gimped up, as were all staff. If one is so wary of catching or spreading a viral disease, surely the safest tactic is to stay at home, hiding behind the sofa? Leave living to the rest of us, an increasingly sceptical population.
Interesting reading for me as a Scot living under the regime of the Scottish Government. Our mask wearing requirements have been extended.as they’re making such a difference. Apparently…
Sometimes I believe I’m living in a mirror world. I read all these articles about the harms of lockdown, masks, vaccinations and watch videos made by intelligent, sensible people out to find the truth then see politicians doing more of the same. Worse still is seeing people agree with them.
I despair. I really do.
One thing the last two years has taught me is that there are a lot of not very bright people around with common sense re: the uslessness and in fact dangers of mask wearing. And in this camp I include people whom I previously thought were bright but fear has meddled with their minds.
I have regarded the last two years as a mass continuous IQ and due diligence test which, I’m sad to say, the overwhelming majority have failed.
Propaganda rules OK
On the other hand…. If they start doing facial recognition software, a mask might be just the thing when worn with a generic baseball cap.
Then it will be illegal to wear one. And dark glasses. And a hoodie or any other form of head gear. I wonder how they’ll deal with the hijab, niqab and burka afficianadoes.
It brings to mind for me a memoir of Laurens van de Post about growing up in South Africa. He was taught to hate and despise the hyena and his mind was fixed in such a state until one night as he was walking home he saw a hyena skulking home to its den. He said that he gazed at it and it had the saddest and loneliest eyes that he had ever seen and from that moment on he had profound pity for the hyena. This is how I feel about Whitty. Of course there are questions to be asked about how we as a society allowed such figures to achieve such sway and prominence.The machinery was in place beforehand. They even acted out drills that were in the public domain about how they would manage the situation. You are dealing with a level of warfare that sees our petty critique as utterly laughable.
Wittery spoke sense on 11 May 2020 – but it seems he was given a stiff talking to because he was never quite the same again. I suppose a sweetener has helped.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adj8MCsZKlg
Without a repeatable lab experiment which reliably causes infection, no real research about what does and doesn’t prevent infections can be done. Hence, all of these masking studies are nothing but a waste of time. The same is essentially true for all post-March-2020 so-called infection control measures. They’re all just impositions someone really believes to be sensible and someone’s unsubstantiated beliefs should never justify any imposition.
Even when this was different, there’s still the question which kind of ends would justify which kinds of impositions. Whitty’s strongest pro-mask statement (I remember) was that these may prevent up to 10% of all infection events. The first thing to note here is the may. This implies may as well not. Obviously, when our so-called expert advisors aren’t even themselves convinced that their advice makes any sense, one shouldn’t act upon it.
When assuming there was a will instead of a may in this sentence, this would mean that everybody will still get infected but that the peak number of concurrently ill people (assuming that all infections will eventually lead to actual sickness, something that’s known to be wrong) would be 1/10 less than without masks. Surely, if the health systems would… Read more »
With Fauci/ Faustus being in witness protection according to the DeSantis clip below at 1.36, how long before we extend the same to Witless, Unbalanced,Panasonic Handycock etc etc
https://youtu.be/5bnkIqQRjbg
Never forget folks. Bring the likes of Whitty to justice and make them explain themselves under oath.
A lot of it’s about virtue signalling, isn’t it? Masks are now yesterday’s virtue signal because it’s been replaced with a new one – housing Ukrainian refugees. Call me cynical but is this the UK government trying to get back the workforce it lost after Brexit? Will these people be housed according to their skill sets? How about if these do-gooders were asked to take a ‘boat person’ instead? They would probably throw up their hands in horror. Person displaced by war in the Ukriane; good. Person displaced by war in the middle east; bad.
I also find it very sad that people wear masks simply so no-one ‘tells them off’. Honestly, how do these people manage their lives if they are so terminally wet?
It does make you wonder- in fact I wonder how we’ve survived this long as a species…
Reasons for the mask-mantra must be speculative in such a secretive propaganda state as ours, but probably America is the place to look for clues, Whitty and Co being beholden to the US. In particular the Fauci/Gates axis is adequate to explain whatever happened.
Fauci changed his position around mid April, just as US cases/deaths began to drop. And the WHO “under political pressure” (which surely means from its two greatest paymasters, the USA and BMGF) did so in June, as US deaths reached their lowest. The same pattern was occurring in northern latitudes elsewhere, but “When America sneezes, the world catches a cold,” or it does until the dollar collapses any time soon, so was the main PR market.
The decline in the pandemic would surely produce hope and “complacency” amongst the US public, long before the intended vaccines were ready to market, so something had to be done to keep fear going long enough to ramp up demand for the Product. Masks were a universal billboard for danger, as were visors, cloth masks, mufflers or anything visibly “on yer face.”
I suspect the NHS is pushing masks even harder (a special reminder sent from our GP only last… Read more »
Sharing the scaring is how I’d term face coverings.
I would lose my job for far less
I think that this being overthought.
The politicians and the ‘elite’ employed the ‘scientists’ as a human shield. To do their lying for them. To validate their lies.
Politicians lie routinely. The old adage has been proven over and over again.
The ‘Scientists’ have been shown to have been corrupted by their paymasters. The adage now applies to them as well.
Never forget.
Nothing can justify any of it, not just Whitty but the whole establishment in the UK and globally.
“What we require is a clear and unambiguous acknowledgement that our political leaders, with support of Government scientists, inflicted an intervention on the British people that was unethical, ineffective and harmful”
It will never happen. The government chose to wage undeclared psychological warfare on the citizens they are supposed to serve as their strategy for achieving compliance with their flawed policies. The lies they told could not possibly be walked back now or ever, it would be too damaging for too many, too senior officials, and would provoke widespread outrage.
The Government has used (unnecessary) Emergency Powers to behave with questionable legality throughout – they have neutered the Met Police in Hammersmith and blocked their enquiry into serious criminal offences alleged committed by those in High Places and have now made their behaviour the ‘new normal’ and yet not one single High Court or Supreme Court judge has stood up to defend the ancient Civil and Human Rights of the British people and called on the need to investigate what could be the most serious of crimes against them.
The Elite have sold us out to Gates and Schwab.
Johnson is sprawling over and trashing 1,000 years of British Constitutional history and our Common Law freedoms and heritage and not a single element of our British Establishment has said a word.
The Globalist Techno – Financial and Medical Fascism they so eagerly embrace will not be pleasant for all those left ‘below the line’ of privilege.
But then we have a stealth ‘population policy’ as well – don’t we?
What did Gates say again? Wasn’t it something like “Vaccines” will help us bring it down by 10- 15%?
Whatever did he mean?
Writing’s been on the wall since Arch Tyrant Blair abolished Double Jeopardy to wage lawfare on some politically useful drug gang footsoldiers..
This is something I find frightening. I know no-one who has died of covid. However, I now know two people who have died before their time. Both gone in their sleep, but nothing really wrong with them other than getting on a bit (early 70s). No-one really seems to know what they died of, other than their hearts just stopped! Now today, another. Late 60’s and previously fit and healthy, diagnosed with lung cancer in the past few weeks, now in hospital with pneumonia and tested positive for covid also, not expected to survive. All these people are triple jabbed. I also have a similarly jabbed friend whose health has deteriorated so badly in the last twelve months I don’t expect her to go on much longer. Previously she was fit, healthy, active travelling abroad three times a year etc.
Why can’t TPTB see this, when others can?
The father of a family firm I employed recently has gone blind following his vaccine. (Blood clots in optic nerve) He is now suicidal, previously fit and healthy and running a successful business.
The Powers That Be are only interested in quaffing champagne, stuffing their faces with vol au vents, and picking up knighthoods so that people have to call them ‘Sir’ and ‘Lady’ – what do they care that plebs are dying of heart attacks from the vaccines?
Plenty more cheap labour washing up on the beaches every day!
I guess because they’re not interested.
They will bring masks back when the ‘second wave’ of their Medical Assault on the population is introduced- Gates has been warning of more Nasty Viruses and when has achieved compliance of the major powers in handing over their national health policy to his Tedros WHO he will try to see the UN to use sanctions and force to achieve it..
Johnson has already rolled over !
Sad to see how many traumatised children now think masks are ‘normal’ and wear them anyway – I suppose that was the idea!
Now we have the war in Ukraine they fermented by provoking Russia as a second front and an excuse to wreck world trade, make out lives a total misery with 20% inflation o the way, freezing homes and manufactured food shortages – the perfect time to impose rationing and digital currency !
Meanwhile Johnson, Patel, Raab Dorries and Javid work on pushing thorough their legislative plans to take away more of our freedoms and Human Rights with no opposition form “Trilateral Commission” ( founded by Kissinger and Rockefeller) Globalist Starmer..
Dutch Government gives itself the power to ‘sequester’ (seize) private property to house Ukrainian “refugees”. Get ready to… Read more »
Indeed…The Bill of Rights was put in place to stop that very thing.
To be scrapped ( or rather simply ignored) by Raab.
No 1688, no “Seven Judges” we can trust this time!
In fact not one currently in service and only one ‘retired’.
“Will people ever wake up?”
‘You can’t put a quart in a pint pot’. It’s not about ‘waking up’ it’s about the ability to be able to think for yourself, and a good percentage obviously can’t.
So, no, they are not going to ‘wake up’. They will continue to do as they are told.
Anyway, even if people ‘woke up’ what are they going to do? “Inciting insurrection” is not an option. Back to Parliament Square to meet friends, have a jolly time and wave a placard?
Then there’s joining the Guardians300 if you fancy pretending to be a ‘Common Law Constable’ or the Alpha Male Assemble if you feel tough enough to kick empty cardboard boxes.
“Back to Parliament Square to meet friends, have a jolly time and wave a placard?”
Are you jealous you weren’t able to do that in Finland? Our “jolly time” seems to have got us further than your strategy over there.
Not at all – you are only ‘enjoying’ what the Government has ‘generously’ given back.
At no time were any Government ministers of members of SAGE quaking in their wellies.
As you still see in Wales & Scotland where wrinkly Drakeford and Queen Nicola are still cracking the whip.
I completed a masters in Behavioural Economics. . Our focus was economics of health and during the first year I noticed a shift in how we addressed evidence. Our professors (who had previously emphasised destructively testing every bit of data),cooled on confronting the Covid consensus. They discouraged us from touching Covid data or questioning the efficacy of research. Some of us suspected that was because the Covid funding taps were turned on and suddenly being critical of lockdowns, masking or social distancing, was off the agenda. It was “too early and there was too much noise”. We were told. But if you wanted to do a PHD saying how masking and social distancing were a great idea. ‘Fill your boots” . Lots of wannabe BIT hacks will be making their way into academia as a result. These people are uncritical, have no minds if their own and are at best competent number crunchers as we all were, however they all drunk the cool aid. We used the odious health messaging of Michie and Reicher and it was quite clear they were promoting masks and other measures as a compliance tool. When I suggested this was authoritarian and highly questionable one… Read more »
Excellent informed comment – how refreshing !
On another Covid Front, see See Tess Lawrie’s interview with Andre Hill for the truth about the deliberate suppression of Ivermectin use and the influence of GAVI in the unjustified decision
Nothing was allowed to stop the forcing of the mRNA Gene Therapies on the world.
I have witnessed the social emotional and development damage mask have done to school children. In my school it is like the elephant in the room, nobody talks about it although it clearly has affected our students, some now want to wear them as they can hide emotionally behind them!!!!
I have tried to introduce this damage narrative in a polite information way to senior management but to no avail and colleagues are demonstrably tight lipped!
Therefore it is not enough for Witty and those responsible to admit this catastrophic diktat, I will never be at ease unless there more serious due process consequences. I have also been damaged emotionally as I have had to watch and experience this criminal act against children and us, whilst trying to pick up the pieces for these students. Exhausted
I’m currently on a train to London and there’s just been an announcement:
“As a courtesy to others please wear a face covering, if possible.”
🤦♂️
…..don’t fart?
…question everything, stay sane, live free?”
‘Moral blackmail’ – guilt trippiing- one of the many psyop methods they use!
HM the Queen was told to say that people refusing the jabs were “selfish”- remember?
( Gove had said the same earlier in the week – what a coincidence!)
It’s messaging like this that tell you this is NOTHING to do with health but everything to do with changing society’s behaviour and pushing the “common good”. It doesn’t even say “…if you are ill”! And your average unthinking normie will just go along with it, already brainwashed after two years of conditioning. Look at the reform to the Human Rights Act to be slipped quietly through, with the new meaning which is something like “do as you will as long it benefits the greater good! ” We are in very dangerous waters.
Might as well also have messages about smelly farts.
As a courtesy to others if you had a curry last night please travel on the overgound.
lol – my son flew to the States recently. The woman in the seat next to him took up two seats and had an apparently bottomless bag of delicacies that she munched on through the entire journey, including dried fish… some people just don’t do ‘courtesy’!
LOL Perhaps “she” was Eddie Murphy in a fat-suit method acting for a new film?
Nothing wrong with dried fish. One of the most heinous crimes committed by the EU was to put the mockers on one of my favourite curry accompaniments, the dried bummalo fish, known as Bombay Duck.
There is, however, a time and place for everything, including the consumption of such delicacies, and an aircraft cabin isn’t one of them.
Some of the rail companies really don’t want to let this go – they were consistently bad through the whole shitdhow and really took to the whole authoritarian, lecturing, bullying approach (and sneering over the tannoy in some cases about people who didn’t ‘understand’ what only using the window seats meant). They must also have provided considerable income to the manufacturers or stripey tape.
TFL are certainly guilty of that and Mr Bart & I have complained about a particularly nasty driver who repeatedly made very passive-aggressive, patronising and clearly offensive announcements.
It’s constant on trains and platforms, posters all over the place. It’s always about courtesy, respect, protecting others, etc.- you are never mentioned. I was told to wear one so as not to ‘upset’ others or ‘make them anxious’- as if they needed any help with this. I refused, pointing out that I am not responsible for other people’s irrational fears. I was not popular.
They’re not all like that now. The other day I went to the Glos Warwickshire Railway between Cheltenham Race Course and Broadway, and almost no one used them. Just one of the ticket inspectors on a train, and one of the volunteers in one of their cafės, and that was about it, and there were reasonable numbers of people there on family days out. I guess if you look at the Races at Cheltenham this week, there won’t be any.
Whitty works for Globalism, Tedros and Gates at the WHO -not the British people – he had an agenda.
This has just come in on Steve Kirsch’s substack.
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/pathologist-ryan-cole-on-the-mysterious?s=r
Pathologist Ryan Cole on the mysterious blood clots
I interviewed Dr. Ryan Cole on the mystery blood clots that are seen in up to 93% of embalmer cases. He received tissue samples from the embalmers.
Bottom line: Dr. Cole had no other explanation for these clots which can kill people other than the vaccine. It didn’t happen during COVID at all.
Silence from the CDC on all of this (as you’d expect).
You’d think with this affecting up to 93% of cases, the CDC might be just a little interested? No chance.
You might think the mainstream press would cover this? No chance.
McCullough and others have shown samples from the Mayo Clinic in recent months, same evidence.
I have contacted my GP to see if they will instigate a D-Dimer test screening for all their patients who are jabbed. Denied in a telecon – so now I am going to put that in writing to the senior partner and await his written response; they have trumpeted these jabs, now lets see if they will deal with the consequences.
I absolutely hate masks, I hate that they’re dehumanising, and I hate the way they’ve been used to signal virtue and make people compliant.
I’ve tended to avoid places that require them, but more recently I just claimed exemption all the time, with no real problems.
I’ve only worn one twice, both under duress.
The first was when getting tested for Covid after coming down with a nasty case of the bug (Delta version). I was hoping to get through the entire ‘pandemic’ without being tested, but in this case it was needed so I could tell my employer I’d got the bug/
The second was when going for an MRI scan at a private hospital and being forced to wear one, as they wouldn’t let me have the scan without it.
45 minutes stuck in a scanner with a mask on my face…
I almost walked out, but I needed the scan.
By contrast when I had an eye problem the NHS eye casualty department were fine with me claiming exemption.
My wife is going for a hospital checkup today and she’s claiming exemption as the hospitals still insist on the Covid theatre. She had a lot of hassle… Read more »