- “World Health Organisation warns XBB.1.5 is the ‘most transmissible’ Covid variant yet as ‘the Kraken’ strain starts sweeping the U.K.” – It’s no more dangerous, though, reports the Mail. Which moron named it the ‘Kraken’?
- “Mark Harper, Tory who resisted Covid curbs, now advocates masks” – Transport Secretary Mark Harper, who was one of the Conservatives’ most prominent campaigners against lockdown restrictions, now faces criticism from his own MPs after backing masks and self-isolation for the unwell, the Times reports.
- “Novak Djokovic locked out of Indian Wells and Miami Open after U.S. extends Covid rules” – The decision by the U.S. not to relax its coronavirus requirements means Djokovic, who remains unvaccinated, cannot enter the country, reports the Telegraph.
- “Rishi Sunak: Covid-era approach of cancelling operations must never come back” – The Prime Minister says cancelling operations mustn’t return, according to the Telegraph – apparently oblivious to the fact that hospitals have been cancelling operations up and down the country this winter.
- “The ideology of lockdown lingers on” – We’re still being pressured to suspend our freedom for ‘the greater good’, writes Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
- “China’s Covid case ‘explosion’ not due to relaxed rules, WHO says, as first deaths reported since easing” – Flashback to a CBS News report from last month where the WHO made clear that China’s Covid policy changed because it was overwhelmed, it wasn’t overwhelmed because its policy changed, as most reporting implies.
- “If Britain were more numerate, we might not have had to endure three lockdowns” – Ross Clark writes in the Telegraph that better maths won’t solve all of the U.K.’s problems, but it’s a start, and it might have saved us from lockdown.
- “CDC Finally Released Its VAERS Safety Monitoring Analyses for Covid Vaccines via FOIA” – Now it’s clear why it tried to hide them, says Dr. Josh Guetzkow.
- “The CDC’s data on Covid vaccine safety signals” – Professors Norman Fenton and Martin Neil say that compared to all previous non-Covid vaccines there are many worrying signals in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
- “Wear a mask if you want – but understand it’s about fear and control, not health… the clamour for their return is a triumph of unreason and a blow to science” – Peter Hitchens writes in the Mail: “It is none of my business, and none of the Government’s business, what other people wear, on their faces or anywhere else. In return, I ask only that you do me the same favour.”
- “Vaccines and the suffering children of Samoa” – Paula Jardine in TCW takes a look at what was really behind the deadly measles outbreak in Samoa in late 2019, that led to a pre-Covid lockdown and emergency vaccination campaign.
- “A Celebration of Dissent with TCW Defending Freedom, hosted by Mark Dolan” – Book your ticket for the central London event on February 9th, featuring the U.K. premier of vaccine documentary Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion.
- “Tesla Fined by South Korea for Exaggerating Cold Weather Range” – Who could have guessed battery performance would plummet in cold weather, asks Eric Worrall in WUWT.
- “The New Pause lengthens: 100 Months with No Warming At All” – The cold weather on both sides of the Atlantic last month seems to have had its effect on temperature, which fell sharply compared with November, lengthening the New Pause to eight years four months, writes Christopher Monckton in WUWT.
- “The Net Zero death cult taking over ‘our’ NHS” – Stephen McMurray in TCW on the disturbing movement driven by Net Zero nihilism that believes “it is healthy to die” and we are “ultimately no more important than lizards or potatoes”.
- “What we learned in 2022” – Dr. Roger Watson reflects on the year gone by in the New Conservative.
- “Scottish primary school faces backlash after asking children under 12 if they identify as gay or transgender in bizarre questionnaire” – Merkinch Primary School in Inverness is asking young children attending its classes if they are transgender or gay in a controversial survey, according to the Mail.
- “Cambridge professor shortlisted to be Government’s new Free Speech Champion” – The role would give philosophy lecturer Prof. Arif Ahmed the authority to investigate free speech breaches at universities, the Telegraph reports.
- “The Campaign to Re-Educate Jordan Peterson” – For speaking his mind, the psychologist could lose his licence, says the Wall Street Journal in a leading article.
- “NHS axes targets on diversity and inclusion: Trusts are told to abandon goal on boosting BAME ‘disparity ratio’ in crackdown on wokery” – A slimmed down list of objectives for NHS trusts in England means they will no longer be held accountable for addreesing the service’s black, Asian and minority ethnic ‘disparity ratio’, reports the Mail. Well, it’s a start.
- “This is the Times leading article three days into 2023. How can this be real?” – Are they in some sort of bizarre propaganda timewarp, asks Edward Baran, as the Times calls for Britons to “lighten the load on the health service” by wearing a mask.
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He defended lockdown because it’s a weapon in their arsenal. They intend to use it again with even more destructive consequences.
The home testing and PCR industrial apparatus is a sign they aren’t even pretending “normal” is on the agenda.
Its still following the “Everything covid, only covid” and no acceptable that we just need to get on with life.
You’ll always be 1 test and trace visit away from having enforced 2 weeks off work and so on.
Lockdown is more sinister – it wasn’t done because nobody thought they’d get away with it.
Now they’ve done it and fine tuned the psychological tools to keep it applied indefinitely it’ll now be top of their list to “solve” anything, not bottom.
The first lockdown was hard. The rest are easy.
The first lockdown wasn’t hard. That’s the problem. People turned into zombies with such spineless ease that even the evil Pantsdown was astonished. From a free country to a concentration camp in twenty-four hours.
Is anybody participating in this twice weekly testing exercise, I am not aware of anybody among my friends who are being so neurotic.
After several texts and a letter from Ipsos Mori – I emailed them to explain I had no wish to participate in a test not fit for purpose. Also mentioned they did not inform of the Cycle Threshold – if high then also negating the validity of the test. So not Informed Consent.
They acknowledged by email without comment ….. !
Actually I’m feeling a bit miffed that I haven’t been sent a testing kit, not that I would use it but nevertheless I’m miffed anyway.
I put mine straight back in the post box, must be random as I’ve already made it clear to whoever rang about the jab, that it was a No.
He’s an opportunist who has no principles to guide his moral compass. To me he’s always been deeply inadequate; I don’t know what people saw in him.
I’d like people to stop with the lazy “remainers” label though. I voted remain for none of the reasons anyone ascribes to ‘our sort’. Lazy categorisation of individuals intended to disparage and dismiss their viewpoint has been a tactic of both sides for a long time now, but especially over the last year: “remoaners” (boo!) vs “brexiteers” (yay!), “covidiots”, “conspiracy theorists”, “covid deniers”, “anti-vax”. Dismiss the individual, put them in a box and safely ignore their views.
I have said for years that he is an opportunist liar.
And quite blatantly so.
I agree
Has the brilliant “When Politicians Panicked” by John Tamny been highlighted in LS? It has a recommendation blurb from Toby so I imagine it has. Tamny takes aim at lockdowns in particular.
Please, not another Boris apologist trying desperately to extricate the PM from a mess of his own making? Let us be clear, Johnson has been 100% complicit in every policy decision, every expert appointment, every ministerial decree, every wasted billion of taxpayer’s money on crony benefits. He is not suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, but a more rarefied form of Bullingdon Club arrogance in which money and power drive his every move. Lord Acton’s dictum could have been written on Johnson’s birth certificate.
This is no blundering buffoon PM in thrall to the experts, but a psychotically greedy individual driven by Acton’s ‘absolute power’ lust, with the resulting absolute corruption. He realises his limitations, and has long perfected the helpless wide eyed and innocent look. Whether it is Garden Bridges or illegal Water Cannon when Mayor, let alone CCHQ picking up the tab for his legal fees in the Arcuri scandal (and it IS a scandal) the wasting of other people’s money (especially taxpayers’) hardly registers with him. His current princess-in-tow follows the same path with her home decorating, as someone else will always pay the bill, and (again like her mentor) is endlessly plotting her optimum political path regardless of those that have to be sacrificed.
Yet up to this point not one politician or journalist has got close to laying a glove on Johnson, or dared to seriously call him out despite a trail of damage stretching back years. And with the country in economic ruins, hundreds (thousands?) dead from the combination of an experimental vaxx and the human consequences of lockdown (including missed NHS treatments and suicide) Toby (the great defender) has the gall to feature a simpering, naive, cringeworthy article like this that once again tries to paint Johnson as more sinned against than sinning.
Sorry, it just won’t do this time!
In what way is Kim Jong-Johnson presented as sinned against?
You read words that aren’t there.
Indeed. Weakness is not a positive trait and some of the worst authoritarians are extremely weak characters. I see no attempt to excuse our current PM in the article.
I guess the point is he isn’t just a “hostage” of the bad guys. He is one of them.
For whatever reason, the commentariat does not want to believe that bumbling, cuddly Boris is responsible for anything bad, he is being led astray.
It can be hard to believe that anybody so manifestly stupid could also be so utterly wicked. But the two can easily go together.
He projects the persona of bumbling amiability but since gaining some real political power, he’s clearly gone from sociopathic narcissist to pure evil psychopath. The article describes this latter condition very clearly.
The fact that he is so weak that a coven of witch doctators can push him around is a condemnation, not an excuse.
A beautifully written piece, Mr Finlayson. I think he can be both things though: an arrogant liar and under Ferguson’s spell. Boris has been, at least since Oxford, ruthlessly self-promoting, and has used charm and lies from a very early stage to get ahead and enjoy his pleasures. He had beauty – once – charm, immense verbal gifts, a brilliant education; perhaps others always seemed to him little people by comparison.
There was a time when his worst qualities were restrained by a group of sane advisors, but Covid has put Toad Hall into his single hands, and Ratty and Badger are ignored again.
Boris thinks it is in his interests to continue lying to the electorate: the polls and groups tell him so. Whether he fully understands the magnitude of what he is doing is uncertain – but certainly he doesn’t care. What he doesn’t see is that the long term consequences of his current actions will one day destroy him.
But also Boris believes he nearly died of Covid. I think that time helpless in hospital was the first time Boris realised he would die one day. The expertise of the NHS saved him, he believes. (Had he rested instead of arrogantly ignoring the illness, and received one of the early treatments, would this have been avoided?) His gratitude leads to the convenient belief that his own political interests and those of the electorate are one. It is good for us to be lied to. It is good for him to have absolute control.
Let’s not forget that Johnson, as a child, claimed that he wanted to be “King of the World” when he grew up.
He’s in a long list of those, not least of which is Tony Blair
He’s at the head of the list.
I doubt he came anywhere near close to dying – even that he was actually in hospital. It’s just as likely he was hidden away nursing a hangover, just like he hid during the severe flooding.
Don’t forget that last winter, dePiffle and key mockdown orchestrators announced further draconian measures, then promptly went into quarantine because they’d “been near someone who tested positive”.
The transparency is breathtakingly arrogant yet, somehow, the sheeple keep falling for it.
I’m glad someone has a grasp of the historical facts.
“Fairground chaos.” You obviously are unserious!
This man is not fit to lead this nation. He can’t even keep himself under control. He needs to be removed, along with his sidekick Hancock, and his minders Whitty, Vallance and Ferguson.
He has caused more trouble and strife to this nation than any other event or conflict in history (in just 12 months).
Not only should he be removed, he should be charged with treason and malfeasance.
And replaced by whom? I fear we are a rudderless world heading fast over edge and into the abyss.
Men and women who actually like this country and its people, and who honour our heritage, and who possess Common Sense and believe in Common Law – might be a good start.
“Common Sense” is not a good term. Most people who believe in the Covid stuff are using theirs!
I beg to differ. They have completely repressed and ignored it in favour of irrational belief.
Apart from a dearth of decent candidates, the very few who might have the qualities to lead this country out of this disaster are undoubtedly clever enough to realise that such a role is nothing more than a poison chalice. The Powell “all political lives…..end in failure” saw is all the more relevant, when whoever does get landed with this may have to account, not just for an economy and all other aspects of our society (education, health etc.) irretrievably screwed for ever, but the possible aftermath of stuffing the populace full of untested “vaccines”. I suspect that shadow will hang over the country, and the world, for a long time to come.
Meanwhile, the useless, amoral, evil buffoon primps his equally-disastrous “environmental” credentials; an attention-deflector, for which he clearly has as little interest or understanding as anything else. He is, as with Covid, weak, easily-led and interested only in how a posture may benefit him and his petticoat influences.
Put David Davis in as a temporary seat warmer but get that faker out of office!
Honestly? I think Ian Duncan Smith could fit that bill temporarily. He’s not charismatic, and no Teresa May either, but so far I’ve not disagreed with anything he’s said, especially lockdown and CV19.
Yes I’d agree with IDS, although any member of the CRG would do right now!
By any normal person
Don’t forget their common denominator, Blair
Excellent piece but nothing new to most of us. The idea of our current PM as a Patty Hearst figure is one that has been apparent for a while and only the fool that he is would keep on doing the bidding of mostly left leaning or far left “scientists”. The question is how to stop him and only the 1922 can do that. Will they before it really is too late?
I think the Conservative MPs secretly like the thought of an authoritarian government. What’s next – cancelling elections?
How did you guess?
So do the Left-wing MPs in Labour.
All of them seem to be competing to be the most like the dreadful Democrats in the U.S. right now, who see racism everywhere, hate their own country and fellow countrymen, and are doing their absolute best to destroy the country from within, its Constitution, legal system, and especially the voting system.
That image of poor helpless Bojo is the last fling of erstwhile supporters of this dangerous village idiot.
Let’s take to the streets of London tomorrow and let Boris know that not everyone is gullible.
It will be interesting to see how heavy handed the policing of the protest is tomorrow for ‘breaking covid rules’, when I think little if any policing went on for the mass gatherings this week against the new football league.
I would if I could but I can’t, but I’ll be there in spirit if not in body.
Boris disgusts me more and more. A weak minded, easily manipulated amoeba of a man. And to think I helped vote him in. He does more U turns than a dodgy sat nav.
Not that slimey Starmer would have been any better. What an unholy mess, and frankly, whilst the public follow this massively dangerous narrative, our freedoms are being removed daily. If people do not stand up soon, we are doomed to a future I dread.
He disgusted me with his cheap antics during his election campaign. I’m sorry to say he has far exceeded my expectations.
Mr Johnson always wants to be Mr Popular, bet he’s very popular among his globalist friends now
Boris was right to say that it wasn’t the vaccines that led to the reduction in positive tests, hospitalisations & deaths, the age groups of unvaccinated people fell at virtually the same rate as the vaccinated. But neither was it the lockdown. The virus did what viruses do.
Looking at the perspex boxes the Lords sit in to listen to each other, Covid obviously knows not to go any higher than a 30cm above their heads. Is perspex Green, we are perspexing the country. Is it a good investment?
It all depends on your perspective.
Good one
Don’t you just loathe that revolting Americanism ‘stay home’? I can see why they use it. It’s an aural punch delivered to the zombies, followed by an aural knock-out. And it’s revolting.
Please do not use the phrase “ the Troubles” it is an IRA phrase to soften the terrorism inflicted on innocent people .
We are faced with hollowed out person, whose behaviour (outputs) would be trivial to model. People are right to focus on the external influences (inputs). As for being “a man” if there is anything that is left it’s only a matter of time. Ironically all those “experts” have effectively killed him.
History lesson : There were two sides in the Irish terror campaign.
The photograph of Johnson said it all really before I even read the piece. Never in our history have we had a Prime Minister so completely out of his depth.
Johnson never wanted any of this, Hancock made him do it, honest
Johnson is in place precisely because he is weak and easily manipulated etc etc…Starmer too (Dunning Kruger effect) But even before these two dummies were elevated above and beyond their capabilities, the idea that we actually lived in a functioning democracy was a joke, the game was rigged…Bliar saw to that.
Surely any competent Tory MP can see its time to kick Boris out. His ability as a leader, decision maker or intelligent person with the ability to think for himself has gone if he ever had it. He once had Cummings and his team pulling his strings, but now they have gone its anyone he comes into contact with mostly left wing control freaks or his girl-friend who without any idea of the consequences is forcing him into an uneconomic green agenda. If he carries on as leader of the Tories they will be finished and be historically our worst government ever.
“If he carries on as leader of the Tories they will be finished.” Wishful thinking. They are well ahead in the polls. Partly because the opposition is so bad, but ahead they are.
“ and be historically our worst government ever” Indeed, by a long way. Except not many people have noticed.
The appalling opposition is a factor, but I fear that the key issue is the gullibility of the populace.
Not helped by a highly compromised media who are putting out what is little more than propaganda. Most don’t realise it, as they’re used to getting, or still expect to get unbiased news.
Oh dear – the right has been in power for 40 years – but it’s all the fault of ‘the left’.
Tony Blair wasn’t the right.
Yes he was – not the Tory right, but an advocate of the free market and global capital. Look at him now.
Look at the revolutionary BLM Marxist, Patrice Cullors, and her multiple new homes, all bought with donated money.
Not to mention the leaders of every far left government in countries across the world. They all preach equality for all, but that doesn’t mean them.
Rubbish. He was and is a socialist.
Free market Tony Blair exists only in your imagination
My household used to call him the Pink Tory.
our mps are having the easiest time of their lives, why would they want to stop the gravy train?
Excellent article Dr Bradshaw. Thank you!
This is far too easy on Johnson. It’s not the fake ‘experts’ – they have no executive power. It’s his government, and if his increasing absurdities are genuine utterances, then he needs to be removed to a padded cell.
“At present we can hardly be said to be in an epidemic”
We never have been, in terms of GP surveillance data as analysed by the CEBM!
Currently, we’re not even in a minor viral episode.
I still can’t decide if he is one of the people driving it or whether he is being driven. I don’t overly care, however – as you say, he has the executive power and the buck stops with him. Any PM who cannot deal with “experts” is unfit for office.
First sentence – for crying out loud, employ a proof reader! Learn how to use commas! And you mean ‘patsy’, right? Not Patty? Good grief. (Agree with what you’re trying to say though.)