Lord Sumption has written a piece for the Sunday Times about the lockdown policy that could be called ‘I Told You So’ – or, since some anger is surely justified, ‘I F***ing Told You So’. Here is an extract:
It was always obvious that you could not close down a country for months on end without serious consequences. The shocking thing that emerges from Sunak’s interview is that the government refused to take them into account. There was no assessment of the likely collateral costs of lockdown. There was no cost-benefit analysis. There was no planning. In government the issues were not even discussed. Sunak’s own attempts to raise them hit a brick wall. Ministers took refuge in evasive buck-passing, claiming to be “following the science”.
Yet the critical question was never a scientific one. It was a political question, in which the likely hospital admissions and deaths from Covid were just one element. The scientists said it was not their job to think about the social or economic implications of their advice. They were right about that. The problem was it turned out to be no one else’s job.
We are still paying for this negligence, and our children and grandchildren will be paying for it for decades to come. In 2020, U.K. GDP fell by nearly a tenth, the biggest hit to the economy for at least a century. According to Treasury estimates, 460,000 people left the workforce never to return. The policy took a wrecking ball to the public finances. The IMF estimates that government spending rose by more than £400 billion, or about £6,000 for every man, woman and child. Most of this was unproductive spending. It went on paying people for not working and supporting businesses forced to cease operations. At one point, in the spring of 2020, the government was spending about twice as much on compensating for the lockdown as it was on the NHS. Borrowing rose to £330 billion, a peacetime record.
Then there are the non-financial costs. Other mortal conditions went undiagnosed and untreated. In October 2020, after four months of lockdown, the Office for National Statistics reported more than 25,000 excess deaths at home from conditions such as cancer, heart disease and dementia. A year after the last lockdown ended, the NHS still has a vast backlog. Excess deaths, 95% of them due to conditions other than Covid, are running at about 1,000 a week. There has been a huge impact on mental health, with children and the poor worst affected.
Children lost two terms of face-to-face schooling. The closure of schools, training establishments and universities slowed the accumulation of skills, reducing productivity. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has estimated the cost to the economy at somewhere between £90 billion and £350 billion. The best-off, with plenty of resources at home, will probably recover. Those who are already disadvantaged will be permanently damaged. Existing inequalities will grow a lot worse.
The lockdown was an experiment in authoritarian government unmatched in our history even in wartime. Not only did the government assume powers over the lives of citizens that it had never previously claimed. In government, decision-making was concentrated in the hands of the prime minister, a man with notoriously poor judgment and little taste for detail. The cabinet was kept out of the loop until near the end. Discussion of fundamental issues was ruled out in the name of collective responsibility.
Sunak blames the government’s hysterical public messaging for aggravating the economic impact of the lockdown. Other countries did not stoke public fear in this irresponsible way. It has, he says, contributed to making the U.K.’s recovery the slowest in Europe. That is no doubt true. But there is a more serious criticism. Throughout history, fear has been the chief instrument of authoritarian rule. During the lockdown it was what enabled the government to silence dissent and inhibit discussion.
Worth reading in full.
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.
It’s easy to understand why the political left adores Hamas. They both want a totalitarian society.
I think that secretly the Left admires Hamas and similar terrorist organizations. “Oh, if only we could be as brave, brutal and ruthless as they are!”, they think. “Those guys aren’t held back by bourgeois hangups like us! They don’t hesitate chopping off heads and even play football with them. We wish we could be like them!”
That’s the reason behind their support. Wherever the Left took power, the one common feature was one form of totalitarianism or another.
The “noble causes” that these movements use is just pure propaganda to entice the useful idiots and fool the masses. Hamas cares as much about the population of Palestine as Stalin cared about the workers or Adolph about the German people.
How can whatever is already corrupt – the “Left” – be corrupted? That’s like saying the liquification of water.
Water can be liquified.
Frozen water can be unfrozen.
Vaporous water can be condensed.
Can the Left be uncorrupted? The evidence is lacking at present.
Well written.
It was fascinating to see James Schneider, Corbyn’s former advisor, on GBNews yesterday. He again made the claim that the Palestinians are the innocent victims of Israeli genocide, which is always a weird statement given the population increase in Gaza. He went on to say that the Israelis had ethnically cleansed Arabs from Israel in both 1948 and 1967. I always love this revisionist amendment to history and don’t know if he knows he is lying or just that he has never been taught the truth. In 1948, the Israelis offered all Arabs a life of equality in the new state but the Arab League, shamefully supported by many in our government and civil service, ordered Arabs to leave or be wiped out along with the Jews. Many left and created the eternal refugee camps in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank but many of the children of those that stayed are now judges, MPs and even serve in the IDF. Of course, 1967 was another attack on Israel from which they defended themselves (too well in the left’s view) securing their borders and creating massive buffer lands in the territories of the countries that were trying to invade them, but hey, committed socialists always love a rewrite of history to suit their garbage.
Any chance we can have a critical article about Israel and Zionism.. No didn’t think so, just more Zionist propaganda for the unSceptics to regurgitate at a later date..
The D.S. “Question everything”. Lol.
That said we who question Israeli propaganda can still comment on here, albeit often with abuse.
Makes for interesting reading,
It would be good though to have comments on other topics from people who think lockdowns, “vaccines”, net zero etc. are a good idea/for the common good.
For example, was it MXT or MTF or similar, who was very much in favour of the jabs sadly no longer comments?
Also I did enjoy Mr. Ron’s Ukraine will win articles….
We can never learn if we cannot properly consider other viewpoints, aka a descent into an echo chamber.
The D.S. have admitted they have an editorial bias and that is why they don’t give air time to pro Palestinian articles.
My inbox for decades is full of geopolitical analysts who promote the Palestinian cause.
The D.S. prefers to link to endless articles from the The Daily Mail and Telegraph for establishment Zionist views.
It is worth £5 a month just to ridicule these articles and the D.S. Zionist bias.
I am getting very pissed off with the daily Torygraph round-up.
I more than do my bit by seeking out alternative news sources and posting here but the News Round-up is a bloody joke, even Guido does a better job.
Quite agree.
Why link to the main stream media who are an abject failure when it comes to the truth.
It was the msm who promoted lockdowns and vaccines when we were here from the beginning when we had The Lockdown Sceptics.
Much appreciated.
The Daily Sceptic is becoming the “best of the MSM.”
CRAP!
Write it. Or, at least spell out your arguments in the comments section. Here’s my take:
On the morning of Oct 7th 2023 there was not a ‘war’ going on. There had been wars at various times over the past 75 years but on Oct 7th 2023 there was relative peace.
The pogrom was not an ‘act of war’, it was a criminal act of murder, rape, kidnap.
The perpetrators were not carrying out acts of war, they were carrying out acts of murder, rape & kidnap.
Hamas planned this to force Israel to attack, which would lead, inevitably to civilian deaths in Gaza.
Hamas could at any time, free the hostages, & hand over the kidnappers the murderers, & the rapists.
Responsibility for the ongoing conflict rests with Hamas.
Now, explain where I’m wrong.
Zionist regurgitation..
So far off I wouldn’t waste my time with such naiveism
The usual asinine reply of an ignorant and unthinking bigot.
It’s all been said big boy
He’s way too late to the party..
I suggest, he and you watch the link above… If you dare..
Mind you, it is on YouTube.. 🤣
Bye bye gullible one
Watch the link above and at least try to wake up
I am trying to answer your questions but the DS censors are giving me a hard time. Let me try the following (I think they are sensitive about Israeli political ‘influence’ but I am not sure).
On 7th October, Palestinians broke out of their prison, which is called the Gaza Strip. Gaza is a prison because it is surrounded by a fence, the inhabitants/prisoners are not allowed out unless they have applied for, and received, permission. There are watch towers along the fence with automatic machine-guns remotely controlled by the IDF – by generally female members of the IDF who were attacked and killed, or taken hostage, by the Hamas fighters.
One must be aware that it is no fun being born or brought up inside a prison. There are such prisons in North Korea, for example, but Gaza is another such example. And the IDF will happily arrest anyone they wish in Gaza, and they have always arrested them indiscriminately and often, even children. Anyone dragged off to an Israeli prison will be beaten up, possibly raped, possibly killed: the Israelis do not care and the Palestinians have no voice.
I am sure Hamas expected a relentless pursuit from the Israelis but I do not imagine they expected such total destruction.
But now you please explain how any other country would react if they had some terrorist group take a large number of hostages: would they drop bombs all over the place or set up negotiations? You write that Hamas could free the hostages: what would then happen? And please note that Israel has assassinated (twice or three times?) Hamas’ chief negotiators – after 7th Otober – i.e. Israel clearly has no interest in a cease-fire or granting anything in any negotiations.
If you are interested in learning something other than what Israeli propaganda offers, I recommend the following websites: https://www.youtube.com/@judgingfreedom, https://antiwar.com/, https://electronicintifada.net/, https://thegrayzone.com/, https://www.youtube.com/@DoubleDownNews, https://www.youtube.com/@DemocracyNow.
Sorry, I am trying to answer but the DS censors are deleting all my replies – I do not know why.
Let me try. On 7th October, Palestinians broke out of their prison, which is called the Gaza Strip. Gaza is a prison because it is surrounded by a fence, the inhabitants/prisoners are not allowed out unless they have applied for, and received, permission. There are watch towers along the fence with automatic machine-guns remotely controlled by the IDF – by generally female members of the IDF who were attacked and killed, or taken hostage, by the Hamas fighters.
One must be aware that it is no fun being born or brought up inside a prison. There are such prisons in North Korea, for example, but Gaza is another such example. And the IDF will happily arrest anyone they wish in Gaza, and they have always arrested them indiscriminately and often, even children. Anyone dragged off to an Israeli prison will be beaten up, possibly raped, possibly killed: the Israelis do not care and the Palestinians have no voice.
Why do you only hear Israel’s side to the story? Netanyahu recently spoke for 50 minutes to the US Congress and was interrupted with frenzied applause every minute, culminating in a standing ovation. No US President has ever experienced anything similar. As Scott Ritter stated, every single Congress member present was paid to behave so. Google ‘AIPAC’.
I am sure Hamas expected a relentless pursuit from the Israelis but I do not imagine they expected such total destruction.
But now you please explain how any other country would react if they had some terrorist group take a large number of hostages: would they drop bombs all over the place or set up negotiations? You write that Hamas could free the hostages: what would then happen? And please note that Israel has assassinated (twice or three times?) Hamas’ chief negotiators – after 7th Otober – i.e. Israel clearly has no interest in a cease-fire or granting anything in any negotiations.
If you are interested in learning something other than what the mainstream media (including DS) offers, on YouTube look up JudgingFreedom, DoubleDownNews, DemocracyNow or (not YouTube) antiwar.com, electronicintifada.net, and grayzone.com.
My apologies for the multiple inputs. I kept getting the message “Comment awaiting approval” (or similar) and then my input would disappear. So I kept trying by removing pieces of text that I thought may be causing offence. It appears that DS sometimes needs time to assess URLs.
I question the propaganda spewed by imperialist Iran, their fascist dictatorship ideologues in Gaza and Lebanon and their useful idiots of the bourgeois ‘left’ here in the West. Is that sceptical enough for you? Or does scepticism only count when it’s something you agree with?
Your lack of self awareness is astounding. Insurrectionist, my arse.
Yes, understanding Hamas, Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive …
Why would anyone, let alone a leading queer theorist, say something like that, about an organisation that would gladly throw her off the top of a tall building?
Creatures like Butler are nihilists, and are subject to an ideological possession which springs from a death wish.
Correct. The death wish is a completely logical psychological response to the underlying nihilism.
From a Christian point of view the analysis would be: as a result of demonic possession individuals start loathing themselves so much that they would rather cease to exist.
Yawn.
Arabs are quite willing to share their land with moderate leftist Jews.
Unfortunately, most Israelis are now rabid Zionists who have signed their own death warrant as Israel will no longer exist and they do not deserve to exist in its current form.
Extermination and genocide of the indigenous population is not a good look and you don’t need to be a leftist to understand this.
The left have always supported a just cause.
Good grief.
And once Israel is wiped off the map what next for Christianity?
There are plenty of Christians in the Middle East who live side by side with Muslim Arabs.
Like where?
The stories I heard are more in line of Christians being intimidated, terrorized or killed by Islamic fighters.
Nigeria, Coptic churches in Egypt.
Also in several Muslim countries owning a Bible is actually illegal and apostasy is punishable by death.
Christianity and muzzies are incompatible.
End of.
Mini clip of the always excellent Douglas Murray;
“What Israel has been up against is not just a people of death, but a cult of death which wishes to annihilate an entire race. And which after dealing with that race, has made very clear what it wants to do with Christians.”
https://x.com/VividProwess/status/1847850228696703318
They’ve never been shy about sharing their intentions though, and even admit their faith isn’t compatible with the culture of the West;
”A British Islamic cleric explains the Ummah, the idea of a Muslim nation, where they do not identify with the host nation.
Basically Islam trumps any patriotism & belonging to the country they live in.
He says you can’t be British & a Muslim.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1847918390838481087
Spot on Mogs. 👍
Is there not something in the bible that says you shall only worship me and no other god than me? All religions are basically the same. Some peoples are perhaps (emphasis on ‘perhaps’) more open to the ways of the outside world.
Few days ago I posted a comment asking whether the Wests foreign polices did not help the mass immigration that we, including me despise so much.. (it was ridiculed on here as expected.).
There’s 1 million on the move from Lebanon right now.. . Heading firsty into Turkey then Europe.
Exellent conversation here with Col Douglas McGregor..
I say Exellent because it seems to cover much of what’s important… Immigration, wars, the financial collapse of the West, BRICs and Gold backed digital currancy that will end the Wests reign..
Well done to you all.. For supporting your own demise…
Far too indoctrinated to step over to the other side..
https://youtu.be/_svubfy57yg?si=dkKFtZRnnwifhWhQ
Oh.. I forget, yes that’s right, “it’s on YouTube so has zero credibility”..before one of you retards retorts…
Anyway, it’s been far from a pleasure to come across so many adults that really don’t have a clue whats really going on in the world.. My subs will run out shortly and I need to regain my mental health as you lot of naive gullible fools who are happy to regurgitate Zionist propaganda day in day out have left me drained.
And BTW.. You’re supporting the same people that have your demise in complete control… No thanks to you..
The irony is beyond comprehension.
Europa – The Last Battle… On Bitchute.. Watch it while you can.. And learn who is controlling global narratives and the way YOU think.
Bye now..
Oh.. And a big thank you to those few on here who can think out the box and good luck…
Here you go.. Here’s part one..
Wakey Wakey
https://www.bitchute.com/video/VEe7q4a89DED
We’ve all been lied to… The bankers, Hitler.. World wars, why mass immigration occurring…
QUESTION EVERYTHING..
Good luck in your future endeavours. Your comments were always to the point, with a very sharp knife!
I wonder if any on here will look at the the above YouTube and “Europa-the last battle”.
It’s a shame, because you may actually learn and question something. I would really like to hear any coherent arguments against what is said.
What I will hear though will be a deafening silence or the usual rants.
We’re all here mainly because we mistrust the MSM, but when it comes to Israel….. –
Who, pray, is killing whom in Israel?
Nazis, pogrom, … all those wonderful terms to link Palestinians with Nazis. But which race in Israel is calling which race ‘Animals’? Which race has mistreated and imprisoned which race inside their own country for almost 80 years? Which race has been accused by the ICJ, with very good reason, of genocide? Which race is repeatedly bombing which race with 2-ton bombs? Which race is bombing hospitals, schools and universities belonging to the other race?
Hamas terrorists strove to murder, torture, and humiliate as many Jews as they could get their hands on: really? Or did they take as many hostages as possible so as to force the Israelis to discuss better living conditions because Israelis have always refused to negotiate any improvements for their Palestinian prisoners?
So, deliberately targeting Israeli civilians, that is not terrorism? Certainly, targeting civilians is terrorism and that is all Israel has done this last year, not only in Israel but now also in Lebanon.
Here are your courageous Israeli soldiers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEo813rYm8g. Look at them enjoying every minute of killing innocent men, women and children. Enjoy them showing themselves off wearing female underwear, mocking the nation they are trying to wipe out, dancing to music celebrating burning villages, destroying countless buildings, their snipers practising headshots on children. And they obviously enjoy the support of their IDF superiors because they upload everything on to social media and nobody reprimands them, nobody disciplines them, nobody tells them to take their disgraceful uploads down. Can you imagine the British army behaving in such a manner? I hope not.
Even Israel admits to the application of their Hannibal directive on 7th October, directly causing the death of numerous hostages as well as a large proportion of the victims on that day. But now count how many Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Here are the latest official numbers from the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics:
43,194 so-called ‘Martyrs’, i.e. killed by direct Israeli fire, 105,496 injured, 2 million displaced, 16,300 imprisoned, 360,000 damaged housing units.
But these data do not include the thousands of bodies lying under rubble or the thousands of citizens dying from disease and malnutrition. Estimates range from anything up to 300,000 dead Palestinians.
So where are the Daily Sceptic articles written from the Palestinian side? Where is the discussion of proportionality? Where is there any attempt whatsoever at solving this ongoing problem because it is hardly new: it did not start on 7th October 2023, it started well over 80 years ago.
When will the overwhelming Israeli propaganda end? Always, always is Israel never to blame, always is Israel the sufferer, always is Israel acting in self-defence, even when well outside the country’s borders.
Let us have some scepticism against western press reports because it is only the West that unconditionally supports Israel and its actions.
The level of control Islam exerts over its people and the level of control Marxists exert (or would like to) are very similar.
It’s all about control.
‘Unlike the Nazis, who went to great lengths to conceal their Final Solution plan for the Jews at the notorious Wannsee Conference in January 1942.’
There must have been a leak. The result of the Wannsee conference was announced in German Newspapers, headline ‘Jews to be Exterminated’. Hitler had stated this intention in Mein Kampf, and had reiterated it in the run-up to WW2. The seventeen million Germans who voted, under no compulsion, for the Nazis in March 1933 knew what Hitler’s programme contained. Unthinkable today, it was a truism in 1945 that the Holocaust could not have happened without the acquiescence of the German people, over two million of whom, either as SS personnel or as railway workers, participated directly in the mass murdering.
Almost the entire German population were involved directly in the persecution and murder of Jewish people and others:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/question/how-did-german-professionals-and-civil-leaders-contribute-to-the-persecution-of-jews-and-other-groups?series=191
Yes, but that was 80 and more years ago. Who is now committing genocide against whom? Who is now calling the one race “Animals” while turning off their electricity, their water supply and denying them food and medicines? The Nazis have long gone (except in Ukraine).
I have written it many times. Thousands upon thousands of innocent women and children are being murdered – by Jews/Israelis.
The tables have turned and there is no denying that is the case.
“Yes, but that was 80 and more years ago”
What has the passage of time got to do with it?
80 years ago a minority peaceful non-threatening part of the German citizenship was singled out for exermination and the vast majority were murdered on an industrial scale by the majority of other Germans.
What exists today are citizens of a small nation who are decendents of many of those murdered 80 years ago surrounded by enemies and fighting literally for their lives. And that situation has existed ever since the state of Israel first came into existence.
It is most unfortunately war. But this is a war by armed groups inspired by a religion which historically has engaged in conquering and murdering peoples of other religions including even now in different parts of the world and who are at present bent on the destruction of a much smaller group who historically by religion or politics had not threatened them back in kind.
The smaller group does not share the murderous genocidal politics nor intent of those who seek their destruction 80 years later:
And Hamas deliberately used the Palestinian people throughout Gaza as human shields to create the situation we see today whereby the UK’s Far Left choose to ignore the wrongs on one side in favour of the wrongs on the other side.
Shockingly the Far Left in the UK in large organised well funded groups with expensive professionally manufactured signs and banners and in at least one instance expensive laser projection equipment and who march around calling for the genocide of the citizens of Israel ‘from the river to the sea‘.
Hamas set out to create a situation in which Gazans would be caught in a deadly crossfire – supposedly ‘their own people’. But no other arabic/muslim nations want the Gazans on their territory so whose people are the Gazans?
They clearly are not Hamas’ people or else Hamas and Hamas’ backers would not allow them to be used in such a manner.
Almost the entire German population were involved directly in the persecution and murder of Jewish people and others:
Trivially, a pretty large part of the German population had absolutely no time for this as they were busy fighting a war against a numerically far superior enemy.
Apart from that, your text means mostly that “the entire German population” was required to obey whatever laws had been put into place by the people ruling Germany at that time. A splendid truism. Even more splendid when taking into account that the regime absolutely wouldn’t shrink back from incarcerating, torturing and killing anyone who opposed it it could lay its hands on.
Dietrich Bonhöfer (for instance) essentially let himself be incarcerated for his convictions but most people aren’t solitary heroes.
The fact is that the vast majority of Germans joined in and actively supported what was done. There is nothing trivial about it.
It’s a good idea to avoid replying to texts one didn’t understand. Millions of German men were conscripts in the German army and fighting an increasingly desperate war on 2 – 3 fronts. Hence, they won’t have participated in whatever was happening in the territories behind the front lines because they simply weren’t there and thus, had no chance to.
This means your statement about “almost the entire German population” is trivially wrong because there’s a counterexample.
You mentioned civil servants, lawyers, jurists, physicians, university professors and business leaders. Together, these make up small minority of German population. A sizable part of the German population will have been pensioners, women and children who didn’t fall into any of these groups. There were also workers in industy and agriculture, another large group of people occupied with critically important other tasks. I could continue this enumeration for a while, but much simpler ending is
Not that long ago, almost the entire population of the angloshpere supported putting The Unvaccinated into concentration camps, through endless torture rituals and excluding them from both work and social life. Calls for them to be killed outright (“poison their tea”) or to be treated much more harshly — suchs as Vernichtung durch Behandlungsverweigerung — extermination by holding back medical treatement — were regularly made and not the least bit disapproved of.
That should have taught you two things
Your motormouth repetition of greatly exaggerated anti-German propaganda has thus become really stale. The Unvaccinated in God’s own country – Israeal, obviously, and not the USA – fared no better than The Unvaccinated elsewhere.
It is a good idea not to lecture others on matters one does not understand and especially when one is unencumbered by the facts of history.
It is also a good idea to not engage in disparagement: “avoid replying to texts one didn’t understand” and to avoid abuse of one’s opponent – “motormouth“.
That always indicates a lost argument with the facts being against you.
And preaching ‘lessons‘ to others who seem a tad better informed is embarrassing, but not to the seemingly better informed intended recipients.
SOME FACTS
German went to war 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland.
Hitler came to power on 30 January 1933 – six years earlier.
But before that everyone could see for well over a decade and more what Germany’s national socialist party were about.
The Brownshirts, the Sturmabteilung, were formed by Hitler in Munich in 1921.
That was 12 years before Hitler came to power and 18 years before the invasion of Poland.
Kristallnacht was also before WW2 started. It was on November 9–10, 1938 when German Nazis attacked Jewish people and property.
So there was lots and lots of time for the population of Germany to know very well what the Nazis stood for well before they gained power and well before a single soldier was recruited and conscripted for WW2.
The Sturmabteilung were also recruited from violent anti-leftist and anti-democratic former soldiers for the Nazi Party like a private army to intimidate opponents.
So the majority of the soldiers who invaded Poland had 18 years to know the activities and policies of the German national socialist party.
It was also not a ‘desperate’ war when Poland was invaded. It only became a lost war towards the end of 1943 as a consequence of: the Nazis biting off more than they could chew; ignorance of the lessons of history; and ambitiousness for too rapid world domination – which few Germans were objecting to but supported.
And thanks for your ‘lessons’ because you also thereby implicitly claim that just because Israel has for the moment the upper hand in the current dreadful war does not mean that their opponents are blameless but far from it with clear genocidal intentions against every man woman and child in Israel.
It is a “a war by armed groups inspired by a religion which historically has engaged in conquering and murdering peoples of other religions including even now in different parts of the world and who are at present bent on the destruction of a much smaller group who historically by religion or politics had not threatened them back in kind.”
So thanks for backing up unintentionally part of what I wrote.
Correction to typo:
“Germany went to war 1 September 1939“
Here’s an extremely abridged rendering of the Wannsee Konferenz document:
In order to get the territories of the Reich free of Jews, it’s principally desired that they end up emigrating elsewhere. They’re collectively responsible for paying for this, ie, rich Jews and Jewish organisations are expected to pay for the emigration of Jews lacking the means to do so. Alternatively, they could be evacuated to the east and put to work there¹. Jews over 65 and those with higher war decorations (EKI, Iron Cross first class) are exempt from evacuation and will be housed in some old-age ghetto instead. Theresienstadt would suggest itself.
¹ If the situation during WWII was anything like the situation during WWI, which is very likely, one of the crucial problems of keeping the war effort going was the shortage of workers which resulted from the overwhelming majority of able-bodied men serving as conscripts in the armed forces. It was therefore critically important to put absolutely everyone to work who could work and wasn’t a soldier for some reason.
This is unfortunately wrong in an important aspect. The text actually says that so far, emigration was the only way to deal with the issue but that, due to problems with emigration in war time and the possibilities of the east, this has now been prohibited. Instead, evacuation the east for forced labour is to be utilized.
I tend to agree with some of the criticisms here of the Round-Up section and its over-reliance on the Telegraph and the Mail, with only a sprinkling of one or two others – but I’m thinking that perhaps this has been inevitable to some degree, according to subject matter. What I mean is that in the case of something as cut & dry as Climate Change, for instance, hoping to find anything criticizing the ‘official narrative’ is very difficult, other than in the pages of the Telegraph and one or two others. The same goes for material sceptical of the official line on transgenderism, both these subjects being matters of objective truth.
In the case of something as complex and subject to interpretation as the Israel/Palestine question or the US elections, however, surely some views from elsewhere would be welcome – useful even. Personally speaking I’m by instinct pro-Israel and pro-Trump, but reading one or two comments here, I’m inclined at the very least to look for more and ever more information to enable me not to rely entirely on my ‘instinct’. Reading Guardian articles on trannyism and Climate Change generally pains me so much that I just never do – or extremely rarely; but in the case of Israel and the US elections it would surely be reasonable at least to refer to non-Telegraph/Mail sources now and then, as possibly providing a respectable counter-view. Besides, trusting the Telegraph isn’t particularly easy, since witnessing its failure, like that of every other media outlet, to express the slightest scepticism of government codswallop during Covid. It certainly seems to have got its mojo back, but is that just because Gates/Soros etc aren’t coming up with the readies anymore? Who knows.
As far as the apparent disappearance of commenters like “MTF” – who commented on climate matter, I think? – is concerned, wouldn’t that just be because the argument is now conclusively won, and that defending an obvious scam just isn’t worth the candle? Not sure. MTF, is you’re out there, let us know.