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“We Should Be Aiming for Zero Infections”: New Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Woeful Record on Lockdowns

by Will Jones
14 October 2022 6:37 PM

The new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has in recent months been rebranding himself as a lockdown sceptic, winning Esther McVey’s support in the leadership contest and pledging, according to McVey, never to impose “full lockdowns or damaging restrictions” again. However, prior to the post-Omicron political wind-change, Hunt was an eager supporter of the extreme Zero Covid position, advocating elimination of the disease, criticising the lifting of restrictions, voting for vaccine passports and praising the Chinese example of police-enforced quarantine.

In May, the Spectator collected together some of Hunt’s most pro-lockdown quotes. Such as the time, in July 2020, when he spoke to the pro-restriction group Independent SAGE and pledged his allegiance to the Zero Covid creed:

I very much agree… that we should be aiming for zero infection and elimination of the disease because that is basically the approach taken in countries which have a SARS strategy as opposed to a flu strategy and those are the countries that have overwhelmingly been the most successful in tackling coronavirus. My sister lives in Beijing and she flew back to Beijing in the middle of lockdown. Just to give you an idea of the contrast, she was escorted from the airport in Beijing to her home by Ministry of Health officials and then put into her home for two weeks’ quarantine. The door was sealed and she had a police car sitting outside her house periodically. Now I’m not saying that we go that far in this country but I just think it’s an indication of how serious they are, in the countries that have had to deal with SARS, about stopping, at the route, every possible source of infection.

Hunt was a leading critic of Boris Johnson for not locking down quicker in March 2020, as joint Chair of a parliamentary committee that released a report on the matter, hyperbolically calling it “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”. In early 2021 he insisted restrictions must stay until reported infections were below 1,000 a day and in late 2021 he voted for ‘Plan B’ restrictions and vaccine passports.

In February 2021, as his colleague Mark Harper was leading the Covid Recovery Group in demanding the removal of pandemic restrictions, Hunt was insisting that they stay until cases were below 1,000 a day. In October, Hunt welcomed a report by a joint parliamentary committee into Covid on which he sat as one of two chairs. The report itself said that the delay to impose a first lockdown last spring was “one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”.

Asked on Good Morning Britain about whether the U.K. should have locked down sooner he replied: “That’s what we conclude in the report, that we should have gone earlier.” And then, in December that same year, the one-time Health Minister also voted with the Government on ‘Plan B’ and was not one of the 128 MPs who defied Boris Johnson’s ‘vaccine passport’ scheme.

This doesn’t sound like a person I’d like to be making decisions next time the world panics over a nasty cold.

Tags: COVID-19Esther McVeyIndependent SAGEJeremy HuntLockdownVaccine PassportsZero Covid

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62 Comments
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Monro
Monro
2 years ago

Private Fraser knew a thing or two.

50
0
wokeman
wokeman
2 years ago

This is the biggest FU to everyone possible. The ultimate Manchurian candidate and uber creep hunt. I actually laughed when I saw the appointment he only wanted to weld ppl in their homes over a flu. The Tory wets are essentially filth.

Last edited 2 years ago by wokeman
268
0
Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

Spot on 😤

80
0
stewart
stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

Our democracy is a joke.

Oligarchs and their institutions run the show.

They let the “democratic process” run its course. After that it’s pretty simple. The elected official can either toe the line and do what’s expected of them or be relentlessly undermined by rigged financial markets combined with relentless media pressure until they either do “the right thing” or lose their job.

Why anyone would bother to vote in an election is really beyond me. It’s so completely and utterly pointless.

135
0
TJN
TJN
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

The elected official can either toe the line and do what’s expected of them or be relentlessly undermined by rigged financial markets combined with relentless media pressure until they either do “the right thing” or lose their job.

That’s a horrific statement, but I’m afraid it’s spot on.

64
0
Shirespeed
Shirespeed
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Unless of course, you make the break from voting for either team red or team blue.

22
0
D J
D J
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

I turn up and spoil my ballot. For me it us about saying:’I am here. I am not alone. If you are wise you learn to fear me and my kind.’
It is the sort of idea that Thomas Jefferson had in mind.

Last edited 2 years ago by D J
10
0
stewart
stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  D J

I doubt few things will get them to fear our kind more than a significant majority simply not turning up at all to participate in their quadrennial democracy charade.

6
0
Smudger
Smudger
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

The whole party is ‘wet’ and has been for the last 30 years. They allow Redwood, Davis, Davies, Patel, Mcvey, Baker and others to talk tough on immigration, freedom of speech, law and order etc but it’s all designed to fool the credulous centre Right voter to give the Party their vote at election time. Those Tory MPs who identify as centre Right haven’t made jot of difference in halting the big state, globalist liberal Left drift of the Party. These MPs have carved a very comfortable little niche for themselves in the Party machine with far too many suckers buying into this ruse.

5
0
Sue
Sue
2 years ago
Reply to  Smudger

I would like to register the fact that Labour is even worse.
I will not be voting Tory ever again. Whichever of the none mainstream parties has the nouse to put up a candidate in my area will get my vote, though presumably the global blob is busily extinguishing resistance and none compliance everywhere. I do believe we are heading that way, and I don’t believe enough people understand what is going on to help prevent it happening. They’ve been very carefully groomed for several decades.

7
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
2 years ago

Nasty piece of work, that Hunt is. A proper little weasel.

If I am ever to vote Tory again (i.e. vote), the party had better rid itself of people like this, never mind not have people like this in positions of any power, let alone goddamn Chancellor!

But then, I know, people who want and get power are all the same…

“Eliminate COVID”… FFS it’d be easier to eliminate oxygen.

Last edited 2 years ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
202
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

You may have a long wait.

4
0
jeepybee
jeepybee
2 years ago

What a big Hunt he is.

115
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Bella Donna
Bella Donna
2 years ago
Reply to  jeepybee

Difficult to find a bigger one!

65
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  jeepybee

If Typhoo put the T in Britain who put the —— in Scunthorpe?

4
0
Smudger
Smudger
2 years ago
Reply to  jeepybee

He is a hunt in a House of Hunts.

5
0
Bella Donna
Bella Donna
2 years ago

Elimination is very much on my mind too and its not Covid!

Last edited 2 years ago by Bella Donna
87
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A Y M
A Y M
2 years ago

Acts like a Hunt, looks like a Hunt, must be a Hunt.
Roll on with the collapse of GB into the arms of the Globalists.
Can we please have a revolution now?

148
-1
Sforzesca
Sforzesca
2 years ago

I hope he rots in Hell.

I believe he ranks just behind Blair and Trudeau.
Mind you, there’s a bloody long list of the bastards.

172
-1
DomH75
DomH75
2 years ago

As far as I’m concerned, the appointment of Hunt means Truss has been deposed. The Tories can’t afford another leadership contest, so they’ve left her as PM in name only, but no longer having any power.

Hunt is the worst choice imaginable for government. He’s another Matt Hancock-in-waiting. His presence in No11 terrifies me. It also settles me on not voting Tory at the next election.

The lockdowns pretty much already had done that, with the risk of a Lab-SNP pact being the threat that kept me onside, but I’d rather have an opponent to fight against than a party sitting ‘in power’ that pretends to be on ‘my side’ when it hates me and pursues much the same type of policy as Labour.

The Tory party is dead. God help us all.

218
-1
JayBee
JayBee
2 years ago
Reply to  DomH75

Voting is now irrelevant, certainly in the UK, where Labour was and is already running the country anyway- if DeSantis runs and wins in 2 years, that might be the exception.
The LeftGreen Authoritarian Nihilist Globalist Civil Service Bloaters are and will fight dirty to remain in power. Everywhere.
They made this very clear with their successful attack on the UK, Kwarteng and Truss.

110
-2
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

After getting rid of Boris, there was little chance of a progressive conservative policy getting very far. The rest of the G7 is regressing, and all this talk of growth and energy independence was too far for the people who really run the country to allow to continue.

63
-2
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

Well said

14
-1
Covid-1984
Covid-1984
2 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

Remember that ALL tyranies fall in the end. You will never defeat the people

29
0
Sue
Sue
2 years ago
Reply to  Covid-1984

It took over 40 years for the Iron Curtain to fall. At 77 I’ll not see the fall of an equivalent tyranny on that time scale. Please can we have the counter-revolution soon? I’m good at making tea and polishing pikestaffs. 🇬🇧

9
0
ellie-em
ellie-em
2 years ago
Reply to  DomH75

After all the death and destruction caused by the Tories, particularly since March 2020, are you saying you would have still voted for them until yesterday when Chunt was elevated to Chancellor? Really?

I detest Starmer’s ‘inner channeling of Blair’ Labour and the flippy-floppy LibDems, with a vengeance. The Greens are nothing to praise, either. There is no decent opposition to the charlatans currently in power. Indeed, the ‘opposition’ share the responsibility for the wanton destruction and havoc caused by the Tories tyrannical policies, voting with, spurring them on and supporting them in the Great Lie of Covid.

However, ultimately the Tories / Conservative Party are the ones who have been and currently remain in power with a greater number of seats in the Palace of Lies – the House of Commons – and as such, they alone bear the ultimate responsibility for what has happened irrespective of the aiding and abetting by the ‘opposition’.

I am shocked that anyone would contemplate voting for the Conservatives ever again. Totally shocked.

45
0
MichaelM
MichaelM
2 years ago
Reply to  ellie-em

Surely it is illogical to use “the death and destruction … since March 2020” as the very reason to vote for Labour when we know that they would have (at best) done the same as the Tories did on lockdowns, vaccines, testing, furlough, etc. In all likelihood, lockdowns under Labour would have been longer and with “more generous” publicly-funded subsidies, giving rise to an even worse outcome in terms of inflation and the country’s financial state.

12
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  ellie-em

But there are no Conservatives to vote for.

8
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  DomH75

The Tory Party died on 22 November 1990.

4
0
Freddy Boy
Freddy Boy
2 years ago

Bas tards !!!…

48
0
A Heretic
A Heretic
2 years ago

This doesn’t sound like a person I’d like to be making decisions next time the world panics over a nasty cold.

This doesn’t sound like a person who should be out unsupervised in public.

120
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  A Heretic

Too right. Hunt is a dangerous furqhar.

77
-4
TJN
TJN
2 years ago

Today has been a very dark day in British politics, and in British history.

Although we may like to think the covid crimes are history, my gut tells me there’s a very long way to get out of this, and much blood to be spilt along the way.

Batten down the storm hatches, and weather it through, if you can.

130
-1
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
2 years ago

Thank goodness he’s only in charge of the Economy…

35
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

For now

34
0
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
2 years ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

My tongue is firmly in my cheek…

39
0
Less government
Less government
2 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

The economy is already screwed by the idiocy of Net Zero….

15
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Since there is so little left if it, it doesn’t matter.

3
0
Quizzical
Quizzical
2 years ago

Just says it all about Truss’ total incompetence to appoint yet another total failure in a previous ministerial job as Chancellor

39
0
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
2 years ago
Reply to  Quizzical

I don’t think Truss has appointed him. I think she is now working within some strong guidelines provided by the Powers That Be. Thats the penalty for going off-piste and trying to advance the country and its prospects.

84
-1
Less government
Less government
2 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Agreed. Seems clear that she’s no longer got hands on the steering wheel ( if she ever did) and rather like the demented Biden, globalist powers behind the scenes are pulling the levers.

28
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago
Reply to  Quizzical

Like hire like kind so as not to feel challenged.

1
0
True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
2 years ago

Zero COVID makes about as much sense as Zero Flu. Ain’t gonna happen, as that train left the station nearly three years ago.

43
0
BurlingtonBertie
BurlingtonBertie
2 years ago

Bob Moran’s take on this appointment….

photo_2022-10-14_23-27-57.jpg
49
0
Epi
Epi
2 years ago
Reply to  BurlingtonBertie

He’s brilliant and a genius.

13
0
Woodburner
Woodburner
2 years ago
Reply to  Epi

I hope you mean Bob!

6
0
Judy Watson
Judy Watson
2 years ago

The mind boggles. A failed minister appointed to one of the most important positions in the government!!!!!

I fear for the direction of the UK, it does not bode well.

54
0
marebobowl
marebobowl
2 years ago

Despite ALL we know about the spread of COVID, what does Jeremy consider the right approach to covid now? Anyone else like to hear an apology from him for being part of the health officials and gov’t officials that have committed crimes against humanity. I am sure his sister in Bejing is very content living in a police state. If Jeremy thinks this is an ideal way to live, perhaps he would consider emigrating to China.

65
0
Epi
Epi
2 years ago
Reply to  marebobowl

“ If Jeremy thinks this is an ideal way to live, perhaps he would consider emigrating to China.”

Hear hear my friend!!!

23
0
WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
2 years ago

First link was prior to the Unt’s appt, but Alexander Mercouris called it on Thursday and gave a chilling view of dark times ahead, plus an update yesterday. The return of Sunak? https://rumble.com/v1ntqzi-regime-change-plot-in-uk.-dark-times-ahead.html https://rumble.com/v1nz2x0-kwarteng-gone.-elensky-curse-coming-for-truss.-sunak-next-in-line.html

11
0
JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago

How about modifying the heading – how about: “We should aim for bankruptcy”? It would go with the smiling image of him. He’ll get there.

13
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
2 years ago

“Statesman” – an individual within Government whose philosophy and actions put the welfare of the country at the heart of their decision making.
“Politician” – a hypocritical and self centred individual within government who will lie and cheat and climb up a pile of 5h1t to further their own personal interests even if their decisions damage the country.
Top of the pile of 5h1t? A certain J. Hnut. When Health Minister he failed to publish the report from Exercise Cygnus in 2016. This showed the country was woefully unprepared for a pandemic.
If the report had been published it would have been an embarrassment to Hnut and his oversight of the country’s health. It might also have better prepared us to cope with C19 and stopped all the hysterical over reaction seen since 2020.
So this politician, who was too stupid to see the potential problems identified by Exercise Cygnus is going to be in charge of the country’s piggy bank? I doubt he can even count without using his fingers and toes. Any chance of the negative attitudes of the Treasury Blob being changed have gone up in smoke and the chances of the tax and spend Labour lot taking over are an odds on certainty.
Bar Stewards, the lot of them. A plague on their houses.

22
0
Epi
Epi
2 years ago

“Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.”

But Hunt does rhyme with….

13
0
JohnK
JohnK
2 years ago
Reply to  Epi

And of course a certain presenter on GBN took special care at expressing his pronunciation of his name! Saying something without actually doing so is a skill in its own right.

8
0
Epi
Epi
2 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3_RnVmuBUw

2
0
Hester
Hester
2 years ago

A very worrying development, this is perhaps the most dangerous development to date, this creature will like Gollum be eyeing up the precious thing, that of the role of Prime Minister, once in position we will truly be under the control of the ccp and Wef. Lockdowns will look like happy times compared to what this man will visit on us.

33
0
Less government
Less government
2 years ago
Reply to  Hester

The Conservative Party really has become quite revolting.

12
0
Less government
Less government
2 years ago

We now have another dirty little WEF puppet as chancellor.

21
0
Woodburner
Woodburner
2 years ago

The higher they go…the harder they fall…

4
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago

The new Prime Minister.

What is the Zombie Truss creature’s new rôle?

Last edited 2 years ago by JXB
4
0
JXB
JXB
2 years ago

Just the man to deliver Zero Economy.

Poverty for all (aka equality) is going to be sooo… 2023.

7
0
Sue
Sue
2 years ago

My goodness, is there no photograph ever taken of this man when he doesn’t have that insane glint in his eyes. God help Britain!

9
0

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