- “A third of Covid deaths now not actually due to the virus” – ONS data show that 34% of Covid deaths in England last month – all fatalities where Covid is written on the death certificate – were not primarily caused by the virus, reports the Mail.
- “Covid inquiry called out for ‘disgraceful’ omission of disabled people” – Labour MP Marsha De Cordova says she was assured the inquiry would look at the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on ill and disabled people, but the terms of reference include no mention of it, according to the Telegraph.
- “China may be facing its greatest Covid crisis yet” – The coronavirus is spreading through Hong Kong, Shenzhen and other cities in China like a bush fire; tens of millions of Chinese are locked down again, but it won’t work, says Matt Ridley in the Spectator.
- “Ep 43. Too stupid to browse the web? – The Real Normal Podcast” – The guys talk the Online Harms Bill, the end of SAGE and the lifting of restrictions, and the ‘EU aid’ for Ukraine. Also, an extra episode this week – a new interview with Tanya, Alex and Dimar to talk about life in the city of Kyiv, Ukraine, during the Russia Ukrainian war.
- “Lockdown was bad enough, but this one crazy rule could have made it even worse” – If you think Britain’s restrictions were claustrophobic and nonsensical, then spare a thought for those who spent the pandemic in Panama, where men and women were given different days they could leave the house, writes Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
- “New COVID-19 Variant Surges in Israel” – TrialSite News reports that there’s been yet another surge in COVID-19 cases in highly vaccinated Israel, this time linked to the BA.2 Omicron variant – prompting talk by the Israeli Health Ministry of possibly reinstating the ‘Green Pass’ vaccine passport programme.
- “The Origins of COVID-19 – Free Speech Champions Online Drop-In” – Watch the Free Speech Champions‘ recent event with Matt Ridley on the Origins of COVID-19: Science, Scepticism, and Free Speech.
- “Airline CEOs Send King Biden a Letter Asking Him To Remove Useless Mask Mandates” – The CEOs of American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and other major carriers sent a letter to Joe Biden urging him to end federal mask mandates on aeroplanes as well as international pre-departure testing requirements, reports 100PerCentFedUp.
- “Why can’t some scientists just admit they were wrong about Covid?” – Dreadful article in the Guardian from constantly wrong anthropologist Devi Sridhar claiming epidemiologist John Ioannidis, who got it right, is stubbornly refusing to admit it he got it wrong. It’s like walking through the looking glass.
- “Pandemic Police State: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the U.K.” – Watch the documentary from Big Brother Watch, examining how the coronavirus pandemic led to the most draconian emergency powers in the U.K.’s history.
- “New York City Exempts Performers, Athletes From COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate” – Epoch Times reports that New York City has exempted all performers and athletes from its private business COVID-19 vaccine mandate, but has kept it in place for everyone else, in the latest nonsensical policy based on ‘The Science’.
- “Why Nicola Sturgeon’s approach to Covid may have done little but damage our economy” – It is something of a contradiction that as we finally lose the great majority of our Covid restrictions this week, our case rates are at record levels, writes MSP Murdo Fraser in the Scotsman.
- “Covid Heart, Covid Brain, Covid Diabetes?” – The latest on Covid disease, Long Covid, and Covid treatment from the Swiss Doctor.
- “Govt plans to increase North Sea oil production” – Chief Secretary to the Treasury Simon Clarke told BBC’s Newsnight that more oil and gas will form part of the Government’s strategic energy strategy which is due to be released next week, according to the Mail.
- “Britain could become a tidal energy superpower” – Our uniquely high tides provide a huge opportunity for inward investment, writes David Green in the Telegraph.
- “Nuclear power is the future – let’s seize it” – The UK’s plans for new nuclear plants need to be far more ambitious, argues Zion Lights in Spiked.
- “Debunked, the great renewables delusion” – Patrick Benham-Crosswell on the flaws in renewable energy in TCW Defending Freedom.
- “Dishonesty, hypocrisy, and why the decision not to remove memorial to 17th century benefactor Tobias Rustat over slave trade links from my old Cambridge college must inspire an anti-woke revolution” – For Jesus College the case has been an embarrassment: the college’s leadership have wasted tens of thousands of pounds in a case they deserved to lose, writes Dominic Sandbrook in the Mail.
- “‘It’s a culture war that’s totally out of control’: Margaret Atwood calls book bans in school ‘woke snowflakery’ while Art Spiegelman brands society ‘Orwellian’ amid publishing’s sensitivity crisis” – American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who penned the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus about the Holocaust, said society has become “Orwellian” while Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood said: “They’re playing woke snowflakery back: [by saying] ‘This might upset people’”, reports the Mail.
- “Philip Pullman could be ‘cancelled’ over support for Kate Clanchy in ‘racist’ stereotyping row” – Telegraph report that Pullman could be sacked as President of the Society of Authors after defending Clanchy’s acclaimed memoir of life as a school teacher in the latest instance of the revolution eating its own children.
- “Are beauty brands too ‘woke’ for consumers?” – Research shows 68% of consumers are uneasy about health and beauty brands promoting social causes, reports Cosmetics Business.
- “Time to end the grievance-industrial complex” – The U.K. Government’s official response to last year’s Sewell report on race and ethnic disparities tells us one thing – Britain’s grievance industry is not going to have it all its way, writes Rakib Ehsan in the Critic.
- “Government rejects making ‘robust’ and ‘rigorous’ gender change system easier” – The Women and Equalities Committee had recommended that the process of obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate should be simplified, but the Government has rejected this move, reports the Telegraph.
- “NHS trans guidelines are straight from 1984” – Why are once sedate, conservative organisations like Putney Lawn Tennis Club colluding with this modish erasure of women, asks Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
- “Understanding India” – To the puzzlement and disappointment of many Westerners, India has abstained on several UN votes rather than join the vociferous chorus of condemnations of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, writes Ramesh Thakur in Spectator Australia.
- “Michael Grade, critic of the ‘woke brigade’, named Ofcom chairman” – Former ITV and Channel 4 chief has branded the £159 licence fee a “regressive tax”, reports the Telegraph.
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The G changing sides! Perhaps they’ve looked at their balance sheet – it might be interesting to see if there are fewer subscribers now than a couple of years ago. They had some enthusiastic pro-lockdown columnists, after all.
I very much doubt it, their readers are about as free-thinking as a lemon. I have a brother who reads the trash, and he’s completely unable to think for himself; every social issue, literally EVERY social issue, he just parrots what the Grandian have told him. I’ve tried breaking him out of his hypnotic state, but it’s impossible. This is a lad who grew up with the same working class parents I had, on the same rough estate, and with many of the same friends. He then went to University, married a leftie, started reading the Grandian, and that was that. No longer able to think, only able to repeat. These people are truly lost causes.
I used to read it until about 3 years ago.
Their response to covid awakened me!
Same here.
Good for you. Maybe there is a glimmer of hope.
Grauniad??
The Guardian sellouts. On the wrong side of history again (and belatedly rowing back. Slightly).
The writing is on the wall for the Covid hysterics and some of the brighter ones are slowly starting to imperceptibly wriggle out of their position while there’s a window of opportunity.
They obviously see that public are worn out, nobody’s wearing masks anymore and no one is listening to the die hards trying to drum up another bout of winter Covid hysteria.
With the alarming excess deaths they know they’ve got blood on their hands, not that that will bother them in the slightest as that’s simply justified as collateral damage from being ‘saved’ from a cold. No, the only thing they’ll regret is that they were wrong, clearly wrong and the one thing these people hate, is being wrong, even though they’re experts at it by now.
“By early 2020, the Johnson government already had form for seeing democracy as a gadfly to be swatted away, having tried, and failed – thanks to the Supreme Court – to shut down Parliament for weeks to ram through a Brexit deal. When the pandemic hit, it is no surprise that it took the same approach to involving parliament in the most consequential decisions and laws in living memory.”
What a crock, trying to blame it on the undemocratic Tories. Anyway, Parliament was deliberately ignoring the referendum result. All other parties voted for this crap and most pressed for more restrictions.
“I am not suggesting that emergency law-making would ever be straightforward and neat, following all the processes of ordinary legislation. During public emergencies, events move swiftly and mercilessly.”
There was no emergency you utter moron.
The parliament of the UK has absolutely every right to ignore an advisory referendum some Tory government chose to hold. This may not be the wisest move wrt getting reelected when the next election comes but that’s something which will be decided then.
The referendum was approved by all the major parties, not just the Tories, and clear intention was that the result would be binding. Technically maybe they had the right, morally not so sure.
The remainers in Parliament didn’t think they would lose.
The referendum you’re presumably referring to was clearly billed as advisory and there are no moral questions here: Parliament is sovereign. Hence, it can enact a law today that asks for a binding referendum on whatever topic. And two days after the outcome is known, parliament can legislate that it is to be ignored. If the government is unhappy with that, it can hold a general election. And if the people are also unhappy with that, the general election ought to have an outcome more to the liking of the people in government. That’s all just a matter of following proper procedures, no other considerations involved.
“The referendum you’re presumably referring to was clearly billed as advisory”
Not really, no. The stated intention was to respect the result and act on it in some fairly decisive fashion. Yes Parliament is sovereign and governments are free to break all of their promises, but that doesn’t mean that’s what they should be doing. Anyway, this is an fairly irrelevant side argument. My point was that as an attempt to show a pattern of behaviour of the Tories uniquely acting undemocratically and implying other parties are not like that, it was pretty weak. Apart from anything else, the referendum was a democratic vote.
A democratic vote where people from all over the globe with temporary leave to enter the UK where allowed to vote if legally resident taxpayers in England ought to be declared illegal aliens. And duly, they were declared illegal aliens.
As this example of – as my ancestors would have called – truly English duplicity was only a somewhat unintentional side effect of this glorious votorandom, its real effect and the cause of it deserves to be mentioned explicitly: The Brexit vote was won – by a very narrow margin – due to the votes of lots of people from India and Pakistan (of any nationality) who were, in no uncertain terms, told beforehand (by their leaders) that it was really about Less immigration from white European people => More immigration opportunities for our people! Whether or not the insanely rich expatriate bazillionaires who are the only ones who can realistically expect to profit from it actually bussed some of the former in to achieve the desired outcome is unknown. But it was certainly well within their means and had been entirely legal. This makes England the so far only European nation where the erstwhile population majority as formally abolished itself. Congratulations.
BTW, the reason your foot hurts is because you pointed a loaded gun at it and pulled the trigger.
“The parliament of the UK has absolutely every right to ignore an advisory referendum …”
And that’s the bloody point! It doesn’t matter what promises are made by those parking their lazy arses in Westminster prior to elections once they get their feet under the table it’s F. You, as they do exactly what they want. Which is exactly what has happened since the Referendum result.
By the way Truss has just signed the UK up to a European army.
Brexit? There was never any intention to make it a reality.
Germany has a written constitution. According to an article of said written constitution, everybody has an unconditional right to practice his religion. That didn’t stop the German federal and state governments from abolishing religious practice overnight and didn’t stop the German parliament from voting through a blanket Everything the governments already did was completely ok and legal law when a democractic figleaf was considered necessary somewhat later on.
That argument misses the point and doesn’t address the issue fully.
Governments violate laws just.like companies and individuals do. A constitution is a set of laws that have to be followed and are of course sometimes broken
But if you have a constitution you at least have a legal recourse, an avenue to challenge the government.
In Spain the constitutional court eventually ruled the lockdowns unconstitutional. Yes, it only did so after they happened. But now the ruling ensures the government won’t try it again.
No such guarantee exists in the UK where no rule exists and where in any case an rule of any kind and be changed with a simple parliamentary majority.
Constitutions aren’t perfect but they are a useful mechanism for defending the rights of the people especially against the state and the government.
Constitutions are only as good as the people in and with power (judges) are willing to uphold it and its spirit.
Sadly, the plandemic responses showed that these people are now thoroughly corrupted authoritarians, with very, very few exceptions, like Ron DeSantis.
And the few German judges who ruled against the government all got tax investigations or search warrants afterwards.
The most recent case where Germany is expecting it is the one of the military judge ruling against a mandate in the military.
People have legally challenged the government in the UK. Hence, a written constitution is no necessary precondition for that.
The article of the German constitution I mentioned is one of the few (if not the only one) where a right is unconditionally granted, ie, not subject to a set of laws about its implementation. Hence, in order to abolish religious practice in Germany, the government would theoretically have needed to change the constitution with a 2/3 majority vote in the Bundestag. Yet, the government said Scheiß drauf! (German phrase for [emphatically] Who cares?, literally, Let’s shit on it!) and abolished it nevertheless. And later on, this was pseudo-legitimized with a simple majority vote in parliament.
The gut of that is that a piece of paper with some nice-sounding phrases on it won’t protect anyone from a government that went rogue. This should have been obvious prior to 2020 because of plenty of historical examples for that (eg, the putting of US citizens of Japanese descent into concentration camps in the USA during WWII). 2020 made it plainly obvious that so-called liberal, western democracies (with written constitutions) are absolutely no different from the manifold predecessors in this respect.
In the end, the only somewhat effective recourse is a right to bear arms. No wonder this has been almost universally abolished in Europe.
SAGE Tories Labour all the parties JCVI Imperial ONS MHRA NHS Wellcome Oxford Uni Ofcom supermarkets ITV BBC C4 ‘newspapers’ Journals BMJ Lancet Royal Society Royal Colleges Churches were all happy to waterboard us on the Soros / Gates KoolAid cocktail.
We choked and spluttered and not an insignificant number of us died or were ruined or lost loved ones or got depressed or went bust or all these combined. And none of them gave a toss.
They’ve been given permission to slowly start letting some of the pressure out. We are at a curious moment when the rats are thinking they maybe got away with it and the ship is theirs. Let’s see.
I have a feeling one of our newer posters is going to jump on this thread to tell us we are all hypnotised conspiracy theorists.
I see you have mentioned brigade 77 in a couple of posts. Never heard of it so looked it up.
You think that some army intelligence unit has infiltrated the Daily Skeptic to push a cover story from a fictional Paramedic who says that the whole thing was an episode of Mass Psychosis, to cover for some global elite so they can get on with their reset?
There’s one big problem to all that and that I’ve been saying the same thing on The Times since February/ March 2020 (you can see if you want).
Also I have had not a SINGLE person agree with my hypothesis in the last 2.5 years, so as a covert ‘spreading’ of disinformation campaign by Brigade 77, it ain’t working very well!
Yes. It was sheer dystopia. I doubted my sanity: the jumping off pavements, the accusatory looks over the mask, the repulsive self-righteousness and othering. I have lived through a lot of propaganda. This took the biscuit.
I loved the country I was born in. No more. Maybe some.
And they still won’t let me comment.
Bastards.
I think the one that got me banned was whereby I said Vallance was lying and or an idiot when he said on the BBC that vaccines were the only route to salvation because, bad news, research showed that antibody levels fell after infection.
How to scare people who, understandably to a degree, know zero about basic immunity.
Your immune system has memory.
That’s why we’re still here.
Well, until the mRNA gene therapies get to work…
On the assumption that he was intelligent, he can’t have been an idiot, which leads us to the alternative. And he might take a risk that people don’t understand how our systems work (even if he does). We’d be full of junk it we hung on to antibodies after half a century having survived loads of infections!
Would the alternative have something to do with £600,000 shares in GSK?
I rather enjoy reading the on-line version on occasions, usually when a search takes me there. It is very considerate of them to tell me how many times I have read it without contributing to their coffers (as if I ever would!). It is up to 87 now.
Guess you’re referring to the Grauniad?!!
So, perhaps two years to come of twisting the narrative to ‘Tory lockdown’ that used bad science to con Labour into supporting it…
No doubt The Guardian will now be banned by Twitter and Facebook.
Too little. Too late!
You attacked us with no holds barred.You called us idiots. Murderers even.
We have the receipts, we can replay your so-called opinions during the dark days.
So you must acknowlege and be prepared to refute the argument(s) you used to traduce me (us)
Hindsight doesn’t apply. You planted your flag. No weaselling out. Stay on the hook. I wish you to squirm.
Just think if Boris hadn’t panicked like his handlers wanted him to, and simply held the line. The UK would have been like Sweden.
“The Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984” just sounds so Orwellian, lol.
Has the Guardian apologised yet for saying that Hitler would NEVER invade Poland?
I wrote two first class recorded delivery letters to my Labour MP urging her to oppose lockdowns. I haven’t even had an acknowledgement yet.
My SNP MSP told me he did not recognise the world I lived in and to stop writing to him. He had no idea an entire P2 class in his constituency had been sent home because of one infection.
If you want to get really depressed, start reading the comments below the Guardian article. The set of assumptions and the “facts” these commentators generally adhere to will make you realise just what an uphill battle we face to see justice done regarding covid and to protect our civil liberties. They all seem to think it was the “evil Tories” not locking down soon enough and then when they did were not strict enough in enforcing it. There is no hope that this generation of Guardianistas will ever come on side.
Look at the comments on the OpEd though…they still live amongst us.
There’s been quite a lot of lockdown/jabbing enthusiasts stepping back recently.
The Guardian has seen a trend and, very belatedly, decided to join it rather than be left high and dry when the tide recedes.
That’s all.
Do they really think we’ll forget that it was primarily the lefties screaming for more lockdowns; more restrictions; more destruction of basic civil liberties and human rights; more enforced jabbing and …. by default …. more destruction of the economy?
Et tu Grauniadista? Then fall House of CoVid.
The comments on the guardian article are full of the predictable middle class bubble handwringing about how lockdown wasn’t done soon enough or strictly enough. But in fairness to the Guardian, the tories should be subjected to more criticism and scrutiny than Labour, not just because they are in power, but also because they have betrayed every single principle of conservatism, and not just when it comes to Covid and lockdowns. Labour are clear that they want a bigger and more intrusive state, and every tighter restrictions on the free market and individual liberty. The tories mouth platitudes about the free market and individual liberty, but when push comes to shove always capitulate to the sacred NHS, the overpaid layer upon layer of senior public sector managers, regulatory capture by giant corporations, and the myths of the known science of climate change, white privilege, gender identity, and so on.