In a watershed moment for lockdown sceptics, Prime Minister candidate Rishi Sunak has said his opposition to lockdown is a reason that Conservative members should vote for him to lead the country.
In an interview with Andrew Marr on LBC, the former Chancellor said that last December he cut short an overseas trip and flew back to London to intervene and “stop us sleepwalking into a national lockdown”.
“We were hours away from a press conference that was going to lock this country down again because of Omicron,” he said. “And I came back and fought very hard against the system, because I believe that would be the wrong thing for this country, with all the damage it would have done to businesses, to children’s education, to people’s lives.”
It is the first time a leading politician, whether from the Government or opposition, has suggested that being opposed to lockdown is a reason to vote for him or favour him for office. It is indicative of a significant shift in public opinion about Covid restrictions, particularly that he felt able to be so bold in trumpeting his opposition to lockdown and his role in defeating it without a need to couch it in careful language about taking the virus seriously and being cautious. That his interviewer, Andrew Marr, didn’t challenge him on it is further indication of how opinion has changed. This is despite a number of recent high profile calls for restrictions to be reintroduced, most recently by the editors of the BMJ and HSJ.
It offers hope that the future lies with politicians willing to turn their back on the ruinous and illiberal restrictions of 2020 and 2021.
Here is what Rishi said in full.
I’ll tell you what I was doing in December, though, because I still remember it quite vividly. You know what I did in December was fly back from a Government trip I was on overseas and I flew back to this country to stop us sleepwalking into a national lockdown. Because we were hours away from a press conference that was going to lock this country down again because of Omicron. And I came back and fought very hard against the system, because I believe that would be the wrong thing for this country, with all the damage it would have done to businesses, to children’s education, to people’s lives.
That’s really important in December Andrew because we were hours away, we were hours away from a national lockdown, but I came back and challenged the system, and said this is not right and we don’t need to do this and I’m glad I won the argument. But it should give people some confidence that in the same way I stood up for Brexit, in the same way I did that, I am prepared to push hard and fight for the things that I believe in even when that’s difficult.
Watch it here (from 28:45).
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Could’ve just used half a brain cell, utilised some of your excellent numerical abilities from the start to see it was just the flu, and not endorsed BS Lockdowns in the first place, Rishi my boy.
And come to think of it, not pissed all our money up Big Pharma’s wall.
Colour me sceptical.
Stalinist revisionism. It was the backbenchers who stayed Johnson’s hand.
Well, the backbenchers played a huge part, but I remember reading at the time that there were several unnamed senior cabinet members who opposed further Omicron measures, and have since read that the PM and Javid wanted to lock down. Sunak from the start has always struck me as someone going along with the party line/path of least resistance rather than a cult covidian. That doesn’t mean I completely believe him or that his part in this shitshow is excused, but given that I have zero influence over who is the next PM, if it’s someone who opposed a lockdown last winter and is prepared to make that a campaigning point now, that’s preferable to an obvious covidian.
We need a clear out. Guy Fawkes.
Whatever people say now, our entire political class (and their international counterparts) followed without question the recommended response to Covid of the Chinese dictatorship. The very people who spread the virus in the first place. What Richie Sunak is really saying is that he did not act quite as much like a braindead idiot as many of his colleagues but it is only a matter of degree,
Yes, but there were some more reasonable politicians in other places, e.g. Sweden, and a handful of US states which we know about. However, as with many things now, it was made in China.
He’s being a politician and saying what he thinks will get him into power.
The DS article nails it. All he is revealing is rhe current mood of the country.
Put a different way, if this leadership contest was happening exactlt one year ago, would he be coming out so vehemently as anti lockdown? Not a chance. He would have come.out with the usual, well we have to keep all options on the table, my first priority is the health and security of the British people. That was the mood at the time so that is what he would have said.
Standing against lockdowns is a safe spot now.
Fauci developed the virus gain of function using US taxpayers money given to Brit Peter Dazack and his organisation Eco health Alliance working with Chinese in Wuhan lab.
Let’s not forget that even Saint Boris was arguing against lockdown in March 2020, until he weakly caved, U-turned, and decided that being liked was more important to him. He could have been the hero he always wanted to be, if he had resisted, instead of following the rest of the world, like a sheep. Baa. “I stopped lockdown,” Rishi says. Now will he destroy lockdown as a concept, stand at his podium, look us in the eyes, acknowledge the multiple harms of lockdown, especially to children, and swear that he will never lock the country down again, which Saint Boris refused to promise this, or even admit to the harm to children?
Money says no. He will wheedle his way out of it somehow, at least to avoid having to pay damages to the victims.
He is complicit in the madness/evil and not having opposed it from the start is inexcusable, but even if there is only modicum of truth in what he’s saying (and as I’ve posted elsewhere in this section I read at the time that there were cabinet ministers who told Johnson not to lock down last winter) and he’s making it a campaigning point then it’s a step in the right direction.
This may also partially explain why Swayne is supporting him – a decision that otherwise seemed very odd, from a man whose judgement has been sounder than most.
He’s a WEFfer.
He pissed over £450 billion against the wall, f##ked the economy on WEF orders, pushed killer injections, contributed to the miseries of a generation of children, shows not the remotest idea how to deal with all the problems he was instrumental in creating and expects us to believe he ‘fought’ against lockdowns.
Lying bastard.
Go F##k yourself Sunak.
Never forget. Never forgive.
Hear! Hear!
A “w – something else -er” too maybe?
So the “Conservative” party have a choice between Sino Sunak and liberal Liz? I suppose the members were never going to get a real choice, and anyone who was thinking of joining or voting for that party has less reason too now. I haven’t entirely given up up on democratic politics yet, and these closed shops can be and have been broken, but this does look bad. Really bad.
Indeed. Sadly, as I often repeat – our salvation will not arrive via the ballot box.
All the very valid points made in the comments notwithstanding, it is valuable to have somebody remind us that lockdown happened, especially if that somebody casts it in a negative light, given that most of the political class are pretending that it hasn’t happened*.
The reality is that we don’t have a very good understanding of what these people really think, and how they really behaved in office. Not that I have a voice in the Tory contest, but if I did it would be rational for me to support whomever Steve Baker supports.
*For this reason, it may be worth having ‘I saved England’ Hancock around making a fool of himself for a bit longer. I’m reminded of what Gandalf said about Gollum: ‘I suspect he may yet have a role to play’.
Its very interesting. He’s obviously taking a gamble on the Conservative members. Would he have done the same in a general election? Would like to think so. Could also see that Mr Johnson was coerced because of the ‘Science’ and the possibility of thousands of ‘covid’ deaths on his head if he didnt obey.
The implication is that Truss didn’t. But then Truss wasn’t in the Quad (Johnson, Gove, Sunak and Handcock/Javid) who were deciding on the restrictions. The wider Cabinet had very little influence.
There won’t be another lockdown because the country can’t afford it and won’t comply.
And Truss knows that just as Sunak does.
Meanwhile, Sunak has still wrecked the economy; presided over an appalling level of Furlough Fraud and says he won’t change tax or spending policies in the face of a cost of living crisis.
No change = no hope.
Well I just checked and he very definitely did not vote against the Covid passes, which I believe was what stopped any further measures.
Senior cabinet members always vote with the government.
No they don’t.
Ok, maybe not always but nearly always, and pretty much always in important votes. For all practical purposes a vote with the government from a senior cabinet member just means that whatever it is they are voting for is not something they disagree with so strongly that they are prepared to get sacked from the cabinet over it.
Loving the downvote for simply stating a fact.
For the hard of understanding, the obvious implication of my observation is that you can’t read much into someone’s real opinion from how they voted if they are a member of the cabinet. Which doesn’t excuse his complicity in this crap, from the start, as I’ve stated elsewhere.
Lol, 4 downvotes in total now, for stating a simple fact!
Right. So at the eleventh hour when he is clearly going to loose to that moron Truss, he decides to try and flaunt his liberal (classical) credentials. I get why this seems like a good indicator of mood change from above but I think it won’t save him and in fact could be given as a reason he lost in retrospect, merely making the argument that those who favoured lockdowns win.
Do we believe Sunak on this? Even if we do, his wife’s company is connected with the WEF and Sunak is apparently very likely to bring Dominic Cummings back in some advisory capacity. Do we really want this? Not that we have any choice!
It’s good that he’s recognised that lockdown isn’t a politically popular strategy but the credit for Britain avoiding lockdown last Christmas was nothing to do with him and everything to do with Lord Frost’s resignation and the resistance of a large group of Conservative backbenchers who finally stood up to the totalitarianism being promoted by the media and the COVID “public health” lobby.
You can never trust anyone who works with the WEF. They are fundamentally traitors to their country. Sunack = CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency). = Social credit scores.
Patronising, selective, abusive – the vaccine propaganda machine at its worst
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/patronising-selective-abusive-the-vaccine-propaganda-machine-at-its-worst/
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If he did so, my hunch is that he did it because he did not want to be the one responsible for adding another £200bln in debt to the £400bln he already squandered, thereby tarnishing his legacy and leadership chances even more. Certainly not because he became a sudden believer in inalienable individual rights and feedom or read and embraced the GBD&co.
Politicians will always politician. That said, this is certainly the most positive political announcement since 2020, even admitting that lockdown brought a great many harms with it which were absolutely not inevitable because of the novel coronavirus. This is also literally the first time someone in a political position of some importance stood openly up to the international Corona establishment which is still very much alive and kicking in the UK, too, but so far unable to come out of its playpen to wreak large-scale havoc on the country and its population again.
Well said:
“Although Neo-Feudalism is also called Neo-Liberalism and is more commonly still known by the euphemism ‘Democracy’, it is run on the base profit motive, known by the euphemism ‘Monetarism’. It is certainly not Democracy because political parties are controlled by ultra-wealthy ‘donors’ and ‘lobbies’, that is, by the Oligarchy. This is why Democracy is also unfairly called ‘Demonocracy’, the choice for voters between a moron and a cretin. Very sadly, judging by recent leaders of the US/UK/EU, perhaps that is not so unfair, for most Western leaders are indeed oligarchs (Bush, Trump), or else the puppets of oligarchs (Macron, Draghi). The Oligarchy’s aim is always to preserve its elitist privileges.”
https://thesaker.is/oligarchy-or-patriarchy-rule-by-the-few-or-rule-for-the-many/