A Treasury source has claimed that tax rises across the board are needed to plug the “£50 billion fiscal hole left by Liz Truss’s disastrous tenure”, reports Madeline Grant in the Telegraph. Hmm, so the country’s fiscal problems were all created in Truss’s brief few weeks in charge? The source continued: “After borrowing hundreds of billions of pounds through COVID-19, spending cuts alone won’t be enough.” That sounds more like it. Grant writes:
The prospect of tax hikes alarms most of us and terrifies the poorest households. But it’s scarcely surprising. If anything, I’m more surprised by the surprise. It’s reminiscent of that episode of Fawlty Towers when Basil argues with an unruly guest who’s been complaining about the view from her room. “May I ask you what you were expecting to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window?” he snaps. “Sydney Opera House perhaps, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?” May I ask what people expected to see after shuttering the entire economy for the thick end of two years, printing money to pay millions of people to stay at home?
During lockdown, the electorate was led to believe that we could borrow endlessly without consequence; that money-printing was nothing to worry about and someone else would foot the bill if necessary. The whole period didn’t just cross a Rubicon in what the state believed it could get away with, it irrevocably transformed how people viewed the state. There remains an odd amnesia about the whole period; a reluctance to deal with the lockdown hangover. It’s as if nobody wants to hear that their lengthy furlough now has to be paid for, or that you can’t repeatedly switch a sophisticated 21st-century society on and off like a computer without disastrous, unpredictable consequences.
And the fantasyland it seems continues, as a new poll finds large parts of the public clamouring for new restrictions this winter. As many as 42% back the return of social distancing, while 20% want to reimpose the Rule of Six immediately and over 60% want mask mandates back on public transport.
In fact, if the polls are to be believed, many of us would do it all over again. A YouGov survey this week shows the same lingering authoritarianism; and perhaps, some of that same naivety about trade-offs. When asked about the potential return of Covid measures, 42% of respondents supported the return of social distancing, while one in five wanted to reimpose the Rule of Six immediately. Over 60% wanted mask-mandates on public transport. Taking the tube to work, I see no more than one or two masked faces per week – so why don’t more of the public just wear them if it means that much to them? Perhaps it’s because the real attraction isn’t so much about reducing transmission, but controlling other people’s lives.
I can’t help noticing that many of those now railing against spending cuts are precisely the same people who shouted down anyone who warned of the economic consequences of lockdown or questioned the severity of the measures at the time. Similarly, many MPs and pundits, having vociferously opposed “irresponsible” uncosted tax cuts, now condemn planned spending cuts with equal vigour. There’s absolutely “no fat” left to trim in the public sector, they lament. Many are already pivoting from denouncing Trussonomics to reframing government spending, à la Gordon Brown, as necessary “investment” that will somehow boost growth – even if it is simply being poured into dysfunctional public services.
I know it’s a YouGov poll, so pinch of salt time, but even so the results are astounding: 75% want the return of mandatory isolation for the sick and 65% of mandatory testing for the symptomatic; 49% want masks enforced in all indoor spaces versus just 43% against. The vaccine programme remains popular as well, with 71% saying they’d be likely to take a booster if offered one this winter, including 63% of 25-49 year-olds (who aren’t being offered one). However, perhaps an indication of how skewed the poll is is that while 89% of over-65s say they are likely to get an autumn booster, the actual booster rate in the age group is flattening out at around 70%. That’s a big difference.
Worth reading in full.
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I think that survey is nonsense. Almost everyone I know and come into personal contact with was/is a covidian believer who think lockdowns were the right thing to do and the vaccines saved us. NONE of them have ever expressed any interest in bringing back restrictions and NONE of them wear masks. I can’t see how the survey is anything other than a big fat fabrication.
Agreed.
I come into contact with more who go silent whenever the issue of jabs arises, tho. Maybe they’re feeling guilty that they’re not up to date 😆
I know a few who are boosted and a few who have said for various reasons that they are stopping at 2, or 3. Better late than never. Sadly, I only personally know 4 people other than me who are definitely not vaxxed, and one of them is my Mrs.
Doesn’t it make you proud though? I’m so proud that none of my immediate family fell for it. Happy to be in that minority.
Not proud, just glad. Would prefer to be in an unvaxxed majority.
Relieved. And profoundly sad for the rest. Horrendous times.
2 people not “vaxxed” just where I work (and that’s from a small number of people total). Take heart, the sane are not evenly spread.
2 out of 70 where I work, me and someone else. There may be others undeclared, but not many. Most of them kept everyone else updated about their jabs.
Funnily – or strangely- enough, there doesn’t seem to be many ‘I’ve had my vaccine’ or ‘I’ve had my booster(s)’ picture profiles on ‘rsbook anymore.
I don’t do social media. People used to talk about it during work calls (we pretty much all work from home most of the time) – that has tailed off. They still tell everyone they have covid.
If you go to your local Stand in the Park on a Sunday morning, you’ll find a great many more people who are unjabbed. I only knew a couple of friends who, like me, had resisted the coercion ….. but I now have a wide range of SitP acquaintances, rapidly becoming friends, who refused the gunk.
Yes, we should probably do that. Thanks.
If they’re mandating student nurses to get jabbed are they mandating any other sectors, such as the military, I wonder? 🤔 And if student nurses why not others who come into contact with the exact same patients, such as paramedics, physios, occupational therapists etc…?
The so-called States mandated the military. No wonder Putin didn’t take them seriously.
I’ve read lots of posts from this substack account. If they are correct, then Russia mandated the military, too.
This is a random, recent post from Edvard Slavsquat:
https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/voluntary-compulsory-covid-vaccination?publication_id=520963&isFreemail=true
I’m sure that’s the case but they’re frightened to speak out. I recently almost brought a social event to a halt by saying I wasn’t having a booster – in fact I’d had no vaccinations. The silence was stunning… The subject was rapidly changed.
And yet there is a part of so many people that longs to be told what to do. I think a great many people (not ones like us) found comfort in being told to stay at home and limit their activities. It meant abdicating responsibility, and that’s a luxury for the weak-minded. Plus it gave them a sense of purpose: ‘protecting the vulnerable’ or whatever nonsense they told themselves they were doing it for. It meant being given a break from thinking, whilst for us it had precisely the opposite effect.
Yes I would agree but I think they’ve moved on, in the main. Obviously some haven’t, but I don’t think there’s anything like a majority who still think there’s a deadly pandemic. Most people are vaxxed and have had covid, usually more than once. The mystique, the fear, has evaporated.
First of all, I’ve got to say as soon as I read yougov survey I stopped reading – it’s basically doublespeak for “the government wants us to believe…”. After saying that, I think Crisis garden has a very important point – many people enjoy being told what to do; it absolves them of responsibility and makes them feel safer and happier. I do not believe that mindset can be “moved on” from – it’s a deeply inherent trait. And these people are the real danger. These are the people who will commit the worst kind of atrocities in the name of “the greater good”.
They would and they did but I don’t think they are crying out for restrictions
That’s the thing though, they will if they think it’s popular. A depressingly sad and unbelievably dangerous group.
Ah, yougov (another one who don’t deserve to be capitalised). No wonder. Lies, damned lies and yougov polls…
Maybe that’s it – the sort of people where I work are not the type to fill in these fatuous surveys, having quite enough to worry about with real life.
I think a lot of people are weak-minded and just want an easy life. I know a lot of people who got vaccinated so that they could go on holiday and continue to do so. Also people got vaccinated because it stopped them getting Covid – or so they thought. I have friends who still believe that and are fully up to date with whatever they’re supposed to have had. The more the merrier, said one friend about vaccinations. Better safe than sorry and all that.
I’m sure a lot of them would accept restrictions again because, as you say, it saves them having to think for themselves.
I’ve always felt a bit of an independent thinking alien but it’s good to know there are other sceptics out there, albeit hard to find!
Agree. I too think it’s a total crock and nothing more than another psychological tool to influence people’s thoughts and behaviour. I do not believe for 1 minute that almost 3 years in we on here are still in the minority. I mean, did all the data on the harms caused by the lockdowns etc just write itself, based on nothing factual at all? This poll is an insult to the public’s intelligence. OK, *most* of the public. I did meet someone today who said he needed to schedule his 5th clot shot. When I asked why, because he’d obviously been exposed to the scariant by now and they demonstrably didn’t work, he said because the letter told him he needed to.🤯 Some people really are that indoctrinated and will just keep going until they drop.
Some are going through the motions and testing themselves when they feel unwell and some are keen on the jabs but none of them are hiding at home.
(What is this testing business anyway? Do they really stick dodgy stuff up their nose and send their DNA to faceless corrupt corporations? Horrible history…).
I do suspect though that a majority can’t or won’t bring themselves to look honestly at the experience of places like Belarus and Sweden (and groups like the Amish),and even consider the obvious conclusion that the whole shambles was needless.
Ditto – am surrounded by raging multi-jabbed covidians but none wants a return to lockstep jail or face nappies. Its just another nudge from the Wefminster trolls.
I think you’re correct. Surely, ordinary people here do not want our country to become any more like the China portrayed in the video below..
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/woman-dragged-quarantine-camp-hazmat-28392632#
A couple of years ago I was invited to become a regular contribtuor to YouGov’s various online polls.
At that time, I still believed the company was engaged in genuine opinion polling and I felt that I wanted my views to be taken into account. However, after several months’ participaton, I realised that their polls were clearly targetted to produce the politically appropriate response that their paymasters (often the UK Government) required.
All too often, I found that it was impossible to respond to their leading questions with “none of the above” so, in order to compete the exercise, I was having to give an answer that I considered to be the least unacceptable. Now, I read almost anything published by YouGov with this in mind.
In this case, I assume that the poll would be commissioned by the UK Government or one of its public health proxies, and was designed from the outset to give an apparent democratic mandate for restrictions that the Government may want to introduce in due course.
I joined for the same reasons though never thought they were “genuine” in the sense of not having an agenda. Most of the time it’s possible to give the “wrong” answer (e.g. I don’t care about climate change) but sometimes the answers are all shades of the same thing, but I battle on. It’s interesting to see what they are pushing. I get some of the business ones, they are the same. So many leading questions on the same few subject with the same form of words across multiple surveys. The surveys are really crap too – poorly put together. I doubt the results are of any use to the people who pay for them. I soldier on. They at least pay people (not much though, but surveys they say will take 15 minutes take me about 2).
Agreed. You eventually come to appreciate that the primary purpose of the “surveys” is to allow YouGov’s customers to issue press releases extolling the popularity of their proposed policies.
I expect it’s partly that but also suspect YouGov has also been captured so they may well be pushing this stuff on customers, who are too afraid to say it’s all nonsense for fear of being thought of as Literally Hitler.
I joined YouGov about 10 years ago. When I completed the profile, I naively identified myself as a UKIP supporter.
I was NEVER invited to participate in a political survey; just consumer and social media related ones.
They are blatantly manipulative, which is what you’d expect since Zahawi created it.
Presumably the writer of the headline here believes the survey.
I’m sure Will Jones is pretty sceptical of anything coming from YouGov – perhaps it just makes for a good headline.
I hope I am not being falsely optimistic.
As is often the case, surveys are told what people think they want to hear, not what they actually think. If so many people want to see masks on buses, then wear them, I’m not stopping you. There are a couple I see waiting at the stop in the morning wearing masks in the open air – they’d probably be happy. It’s the same with the old cry “I’d pay more tax to help the NHS”. My response is always “Go ahead. Get the bank account details of your local hospital or doctor and set up a standing order.” Never heard of anyone actually doing so though.
The big problem with this survey is, in each of the questions asked, there is no conditional context provided – as in you would expect the answer to all of them to be dependent upon circumstances. But the questions are framed as if whether one supports mask mandates, for example, is not conditional upon circumstances, and to answer “strongly support” would be to state that you “strongly support” mask mandates purely as a matter of course, irrespective of the rate of hospitalizations and deaths (i.e. the impact of the winter surge in cases)!
This of course is nonsense, unless the “health” authorities are not particularly interested in circumstances in their bid to make these interventions an habitual end-unto-themselves, and they’ll find the circumstances at the time to justify implementing them, whether “flattening the curve”, “protecting the NHS and preventing its collapse”, or “personal responsibility”, blah blah blah.
BTW, does anybody know if YouGov surveys get “fact checked”? Perhaps there is no way of “fact checking” a survey. How easy it would be to plug in some bogus numbers into their published material; short of conducting a “counter-survey” their claims can never be falsified. Has anyone here ever taken part in or know anybody who’s taken part in a YouGov survey?
Yes. As I mentioned above, these surveys generally offeron pre-ordained multiple choice answers, and the questions are structured to lead you towards their favoured response. As I understand it, the opinion polling industry is largely self-regulating, so they can bat-away complaints relatively easily.
I believe it was Peter Hitchens who said the opinion polls aren’t used to gauge public opinion, they are used to shape them! I’d say YouGov is about as reliable and impartial as the BBC.
The other issue we have, and I say this with some trepidation, is that the general public on the whole, are quite thick. They simply don’t understand basic economics, nor do they have any useful grasp of cause and effect. The naive and loony hard left socialists believe the government can simply spend more money, whilst also creating magic money out of thin air. They can do this of course, using quantitative easing, however that is what’s causing much of the hyperinflation we are enduring today. So then the crazy unions demand more and more pay for their workers to keep pace with this hyperinflation, the government then spends more, prints more money, et voila – we have the vicious cycle.
The lunatics are officially running the asylum.
I’d love to know how many by now understand that interest rates ought to be higher than inflation.
If the poll is not heavily rigged, it’s just made clear to anyone with an IQ above room temperature that we are dealing with a genuine cult.
What else can there be left to say?
Room temperatures are dropping.
Significantly.
Yet another load of bullshit propaganda from those behind the nudge units.
How about a survey of the people who think surveys have been, are and will ever be accurate. Lol.
That said, I’m ashamed of the sheep of my generation (born in the 50’s). If it wasn’t enough for them to insist on children being used as human shields for their benefit re jabs, they also represent the bulk of those still wanting masks etc. to continue in order to preserve what is left of their miserable selfish lives.
Can they not see the harm that is done by mask mandates, social distancing and jab mandates to young children and babies trying to make sense of the world. It is harming them on every level.
If, or should I say when, mask mandates return, just, unmasked of course, smile at babies. Their faces light up. Do it for their sakes.
I will never comply.
I watched a short vid last night from a link provided, not sure who, Mogs, ebg?
A mother putting a mask on a child of about two years old. Mother puts mask on, young lad pulls it off. On and off the child, crying and utterly distraught, time and time again. It brought me to tears. Utterly horrific.
Never, please never again. Not the children.
What would you have done if you had been present (just out of interest)?
I would have stepped in, told the mother off in no uncertain terms and aimed for a scene.
Jolly good. And I hope to gooness I never have to witness such child abuse.
I would too, HP. Done with things like this. It’s child abuse pure and simple.
Just curious, but how many people on here have ever been asked their opinion on a YouGov poll, let alone any other poll? Do people willing to be polled volunteer themselves? I am deeply suspicious of any results like this because I think they still have the hand of government nudge units in them. The questions are generally loaded too (along the lines of ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’). Before the lockdown in March 2020, there were many calls on social media for ‘lockdown, NOW!’ which were more than likely regularly placed by government bots or trolls or whatever you want to call them, working to sway those who were indecisive (and they worked!). I have no doubt that similar operations are still in process. A great many people these days no longer seem to think for themselves – having opinions thrust upon them, ready formed, allows them to parrot ‘the current thing’ and express the government line as though it were their own.
You sign up to take part in YouGov surveys and get points for each one you complete which can then be cashed in when you reach a certain number.
The more you do the more you earn.
Points mean prizes.
Some of the other well known surveys offer similar incentives.
On another note, early in 2020 I signed up out of interest.
I played around with my responses. If I gave lots of positive agreements to lockdown, masks etc. etc. I got more requests to complete further surveys.
If I gave responses along the lines of not scared, don’t agree with lockdown, think the Government is bonkers in it’s response to Covid then my invitations to complete dwindled.
After my last lot of responses I haven’t had an invitation to complete a survey for several weeks.
So these surveys are self-selecting and reward “good behaviour”.
But I do amuse myself when completing them.
Perhaps more Sceptics should sign up.
Seriously, are there any serious objections to me taking up muttering to maskers: “a filthy habit” (rather than just sniggering)?
Feel free to do so. We live in a ‘free’ country don’t we? Answers on a postcard to number 10…
If 49% want masks enforced in all indoor spaces, and 61% want masks enforced on public transport, why aren’t 49%, or close to 49%, choosing to wear masks in all indoor spaces now, why aren’t 61%, or close to 61%, choosing to wear masks on public transport now?
I don’t know about the rest of the UK, but in Belfast where I live, and from what I see on television in other cities, it’s about 5% at most who are wearing masks, which is a long way from 49% and 61%. There’s something obviously not right about that YouGov poll.
Yes you’re right. A good test would be if a country didn’t bring any mask mandates in, no signage on shop doors or in trains even recommending them, then see who digs out a mask to wear of their own volition. If nobody is telling people to wear them I’d bet only a tiny fraction of hard-core masktards would don their magic face talismans. A good social experiment to see who’s now thinking independently and who’s an avid BBC ultra fan. People are surely well and truly wise to the charade by now and have moved on.
’covid’ policies are based on data frauds, and as Lord Denning famously declared in 1956, fraud vitiates everything it touches, so we need forensic audit of these kinds of ‘polls’ to critically assess their probity
Too right, Morgan!
I don’t believe or trust anything coming from government, especially this poll. This survey will be taken up by the media and there’ll be lots of ridiculous chat show hosts – like the queue-barger Scofield and Piers Morgan – clamouring for lockdowns and that’ll translate into a staged show of reluctance by the PM but then figures of so called infections will creep up and blah blah effin’ blah. You can see this narrative playing out. It won’t go away. We must resist (again) and not comply (always). Most people want to get on with their lives and live with the ‘virus’ or whatever it is (flu perhaps?), if we have another winter of lockdowns etc, a vast number of small to medium businesses will go to the wall. There is no way we could withstand this attack on our economy again – we’re already suffering from the last time. It would be nothing less than the death knell of society. Anyone demanding lockdowns can stay in their homes and basically stay away from the rest of us.
Beam me up Scottie…
Lies, damned lies ….. and YouGov surveys.
I live in a small west country town, where at the height of the restrictions, the population (which is overwhelmingly affluent and elderly) willingly complied with the lunacy.
Now there’s hardly anyone wearing a mask and increasingly people who had the first 2/3 jabs are saying “no more.”
I prefer the evidence of my own eyes to blatantly propagandising YouGov information.
The tax changes proposed by Liz Truss would have decreased the governments tax income by 5% and they were not due to be implemented until April next year. Although Truss sold her policy very poorly and declared its implementation far too soon it was the multinational companies and investment skivs that caused her downfall and a massive increase in interest and loss of confidence in the UK which would have only been temporary. The Bank of England and Bailey made it clear they were against the policy and deliberately did what they could to undermine it including a less than expected size in the raising of bank rate interest – 0.5% when 0.75% was expected and 1% would have been correct. This delay in dealing with interest properly has meant more extreme increases will be required now.
The financial problems we are in result from the flawed reaction to Covid such as lockdowns and other restrictions and also the furlough scheme introduced by Sunak without sufficient controls against fraud. That fraud from the scheme has cost this country billions and without any system within the way it was set up to recover it. After that Sunak has the nerve to blame our current dire financial problems on Truss when what he claims were her fault were the result of his concealed support downgrading the UK and undermining what she was trying to achieve.
The effective result of the downfall of Truss is that our corporation tax rate is increasing from 19% to 25% twice that of the Republic of Ireland. How will that encourage companies to invest in the UK and how many companies just getting by on tight margins will go bust as a result? Now we have Hunt as Chancellor, a supporter of the Chinese CCP and whose wife works for them and we effectively have Sunak as PM put in place by international big business rather than a democratic election. At least there was a partial election for Truss which Sunak rightly lost. Where has the UK’s democracy gone?
I believe what Truss tried to implement was right and was based on the conservative principles of the past that made our country a success and I think they would have worked if given a chance. Now we have an unelected, undemocratic government claiming a mandate they did not achieve and do not deserve. Nobody with any intelligence and belief in democracy and our country can vote Conservative after this stitch-up.
YouGov are a globalist propaganda network now. Co-founded by Nadhim Zahawi and owned by a range multi-billion pound global asset management companies, one of them being BlackRock.
I wouldn’t believe a word of this so-called poll. The next one will be ‘overwhelming support’ for a centralised digital currency and ‘convenient’ digital ID – guaranteed.
I do not know one person who wants to be locked down again, where masks, shut schools, close businesses, socially distance, attend a loved ones funeral,that allows on,y 30 people to attend, prevents family visiting their loved ones in hospital,or nursing homes. You gov got this one seriously wrong. Age 72.