- “Three-quarters of NHS hospitals are still treating fewer patients than pre-Covid, including one where half the number of routine ops like hip and knee are being carried out” – Nearly three quarters of all hospitals in the country are still performing nowhere near their pre-Covid levels despite the huge backlog and waiting lists, the Mail reports.
- “Astonishing 500 health fat cats are on £100,000-plus” – Sir Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, and Amanda Pritchard, boss of NHS England, are among the ‘fat cats’ earning more than the Prime Minister, who takes home around £160,000, the Mail reports.
- “Ridiculed plaque honouring key workers littered with grammatical errors” – A council is under fire after the inscription contained a spelling mistake, unnecessary capital letters and stated the pandemic began in March 2019, reports the Telegraph.
- “Republicans Need to Get Serious About the Genesis of Lockdowns if They Want Voters” – Michael Senger argues that politically the Republicans have a lot to gain from the response to COVID-19, but if they want voters to take the issue seriously, voters have to see Republicans taking it seriously themselves.
- “Mark Sharman condemns ‘biased and shady’ Times hatchet job on vaccine debate” – The seasoned film-maker writes to the author of a recent nasty Times smear piece to set the record straight.
- “Brain inflammation and the mRNA vaccines” – Case reports and a major new study raise troubling signals, writes Alex Berenson.
- “For mercy’s sake, how many more must suffer before the Covid jab is declared a danger?” – A plea from Neville Hodgkinson in TCW Defending Freedom.
- “Attractive students no longer earned higher grades in virtual class” – Adrian Mehic, a post-doctoral researcher at Lund University, analysed the scores of 300 male and female engineering students in Sweden before and after Covid hit to reveal the beauty bonus, reports the Mail.
- “Mike Tindall breached I’m A Celeb Covid rules by touching producer” – Mike Tindall breached ITV’s strict Covid regulations by playfully tackling an I’m A Celeb assistance producer, MailOnline reports. Yes, they are still requiring crew to stay 2m apart.
- “Covid Commemoration Consultation” – Respond to the consultation: “The U.K. Commission on Covid Commemoration has launched a consultation giving people across the U.K. the opportunity to say how they think the pandemic should be remembered and with possible suggestions including the adoption of a Remembrance Sunday-style symbol, dedicated memorials and reflective spaces.”
- “How False Narratives Are Protected” – Bill Rice Jr. writes that the experts and journalists imply we should remain silent as they feed us the ‘true narrative’ that ignores the evidence of early Covid spread before 2020.
- “Rishi Sunak rules out climate reparations amid ongoing COP27 row” – The PM claims the U.K. is “fulfilling our obligations” and said he would instead prioritise green investment that supports British jobs, according to the Telegraph, in the latest U-turn.
- “Hypocrisy of Eco-Loons’ Beverly Hills Bankrollers” – Guido Fawkes uncovers the jet-setting hypocrites funding the disruptive protestors.
- “Policing free speech: why jailing two Met officers for ‘offensive’ messages should worry us all ” – The state has no place criminally prosecuting people for their private correspondence, says Marc Glendening in CapX.
- “Outrage as police arrest reporters and photographers reporting” – A radio journalist has told how she was arrested by Hertfordshire Police handcuffed, DNA swabbed and thrown in a police cell for simply covering the story of the Just Stop Oil protests, reports the Mail.
- “Bid to get gay charity struck off is ‘homophobic’, tribunal hears” – Children’s transgender charity Mermaids has launched legal action arguing that the LGB Alliance should be stripped of its charitable status, alleging the organisation is merely a front for transphobia, and the alliance is fighting back in court, the Mail reports.
- “BBC Radio 4 Kemi Badenoch profile pulled after inaccuracy claims” – Women’s rights groups had criticised the programme for including claims that Ms Badenoch was “anti-trans” and accused it of being “disappointingly inaccurate”, reports the Mail.
- “Scottish Government back in court over definition of ‘woman’” – The Court of Session is hearing a fresh case about the Scottish Government’s definition of “woman”, reports BBC News.
- “Arts Council Splashes Taxpayer Cash on Wasteful Woke Projects” – As the Government prepares for a massive raid of everyone’s pockets in the autumn statement next week, the TaxPayers’ Alliance has uncovered the eye-watering sums still being poured into the Arts Council National Portfolio, reports Guido Fawkes.
- “Democracy Wasn’t On the Ballot, Extremism Was” – Behold the wisdom of crowds, says Michael Shellenberger.
- “Cancel culture at U.S. universities” – Noah Carl looks into which U.S. universities have the most cancel culture.
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“Disinformation is one of the gravest threats weighing on our democracies,” he says.
This is absolsutely true, but it is the Governments who are using it to push narrative and silence opposition. Ergo, the Governments are the gravest threats to our democracies.
I must say, I’ve had doubts about how far Musk will go in his ‘free speech’ campaign. I dont think it reasonable for him to withdraw from the EU, so I expect he will sail somewhere close to the line, without actually crossing it.
Withdrawing from the EU might get people’s attention, though most likely people would blame Musk not the EU.
Musk can’t take on the EU by himself.
If the population were ready to see him as a champion and rally behind him to fight for free speech, then obviously he could.
But we’ve seen how spineless the population is. Many of them have offered up their children as guinea pigs for untested jabs to appease a menacing state bureaucracy, so…
I think it would do more harm than good for him to take that step, yes.
There’s little support for freedom of speech, at least in the UK and Europe, among people I speak to. People will tell you they like the idea, but when you start quoting types of speech (“hate”, “misinformation”) and ask if they should be allowed they will tell you “no of course not”.
It would also probably be suicidal.
I don’t see Twitter’s withdrawal from the EU’s code of practice an empty gesture. It is a signal. Now, one can debate what the signal is.
It might just be to try to look good. Or it might be a signal of measured defiance which says – ok, you might be forcing me to comply by turning a code into law, but I will t least, with my gesture, show you I don’t agree with it or like it.
I don’t know how committed Musk really is to free speech. I doubt few do. But if one assumes he is, how he plays his cards is anything but simple. It would be fiendishly complicated to try to runTwitter as a free speech platform in today’s regulatory environment, if that was what one wanted to do, without being destroyed by the heavy hand of ever more oppressive and authoritarian states.
My guess is that he’s trying to do his best, but I am ready to be disappointed and discover I’ve been naive.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again – Musk doesn’t give a flying duck about Free Speech.
Surely Twitter need to replace the display of offending content with a message saying banned in the EU. If people are really interested they can use a VPN to avoid this. If enough people are annoyed then there will be push back.
The EU appears not to want Twitter being what it is but wants something else instead.
The EU should build its own ‘service’ as it wants it to be – I’m sure they could make it just as popular eventually.
I hope Elon has the power and the balls to withdraw Twitter from the EU territory.