When authorities in Britain and the U.S. took the unprecedented step of locking down the country in the spring of 2020, they assured us they were “following the science”. This was despite the fact that neither country’s pandemic preparedness plan made any mention of ‘lockdown’.
Indeed, the U.K.’s own plan clearly stated: “It will not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic influenza virus, and it would be a waste of public health resources and capacity to attempt to do so.” While several countries did manage to temporarily halt the spread of Covid, this was never a realistic option for Britain – much less a desirable one.
Indeed, the pre-2020 ‘science’ provided little if any justification for lockdown. A 2006 paper by four leading scientists described “large-scale quarantine” as something that “should be eliminated from serious consideration”. And a 2019 WHO report classified “quarantine of exposed individuals” as “not recommended under any circumstances”.
What were authorities doing when they locked down the country? “Following the Chinese Communist Party” would be a more accurate description.
Referring to China’s lockdown in January of 2020, Anthony Fauci stated, “that’s something that I don’t think we could possibly do in the United States, I can’t imagine shutting down New York or Los Angeles”. Mere months later, Fauci took part in a campaign to discredit scientists critical of lockdown.
In March of 2020, Sir Chris Whitty stressed the need to “minimise economic disruption”, while his counterpart, Sir Patrick Valence, talked about building up “herd immunity”. Both men subsequently backed the Government’s lockdown strategy, even though it was the exact opposite of the strategy they’d initially outlined.
Given all the above, you might expect the public to have become somewhat less trusting of the scientific community. So far, there’s no evidence of this in Britain. According to a survey carried out in June of 2021, over 30% of people trust scientists more than at the start of the pandemic, compared to under 10% who trust them less.
Americans, on the other hand, have become less trusting – at least since 2021. Here’s a chart showing the percentage who have “a great deal” of confidence in the scientific community, broken down by party identity. (The chart was brought to my attention by Twitter user ‘The Missing Data Depot’. It’s based on data from the General Social Survey.)
From 2021 to 2022, the percentage saying “a great deal” fell by 12 points among Democrats and 10 points among Republicans. However, it had previously increased among Democrats, so they’re back to where they were before the pandemic. Republicans, by contrast, have become consistently less confident over the last two waves of the survey.
(Note: these figures are not directly comparable with those I quoted above for the U.K. The British figures are for June of 2021, and the question was phrased differently.)
The trend among Democrats may simply represent a ‘return to baseline’ following a period of elevated confidence during the pandemic. The trend among Republicans reflects a dramatic and sustained loss of confidence. Between 1973 and 2018, the percentage of Republicans with “a great deal” of confidence never went below 35%. It has since plummeted to 22%.
And is it any wonder? Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to oppose lockdowns and mandates – in part due to basic differences in values (more emphasis on freedom, less on safety). Yet thanks to groupthink, deplatforming and biased media coverage, it seemed that the ‘scientific community’ was united against them.
This impression was reinforced when 1,000 “public health experts” signed a letter defending “anti-racism” protests in the middle of the pandemic on the grounds that “white supremacy is a lethal public health issue”.
Whatever else may be true, it can’t be healthy for one side in a democracy to have lost so much confidence in the scientific community. Winning back that confidence would require health authorities to admit to their mistakes – but I don’t see that on the horizon. Polarisation is here to stay.
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Invasion of the technocrats.
A macro version of cancelling local elections.
I suspect the French people won’t tolerate it.
‘Saving Democracy’. There might be a pattern here, but I am too stupid to see it.
Shows how much conviction they have in their arguments doesn’t it, that they feel the need to remove any opposition…
According to Mike Benz the “elites” have said we have to redefine democracy from being the will of the voters to being about the sanctity of “democratic institutions” – meaning US – the military, NATO, the IMF, the World Bank, the MSM, the NGOs….
His interview a year ago with Tucker Carlson is a revelation of how the current state of censorship evolved to what it has become today:
https://rumble.com/v4e8hof-tucker-carlson-on-x-episode-75-mike-benz-on-the-national-security-state.html
In order to save democracy, we have to burn democracy…Paraphrasing from ‘the village’.
I’ve no idea whether she is guilty of what she’s been convicted for and don’t much care. I think this is probably a good thing on the whole as it makes it more obvious to more people what’s going on.
Nice to see the Telegraph getting in a holier than thou dig at the apparently “toxic” brand of RN.
You could probably find embezzlement in every party at some point. Even on the BBC someone pointed out that it’s probably money for the party rather that for personal gain, like BLM.
SNP got away with it so why is RN considered so bad?
Just a cockup/coincidence
Through an unfortunate turn of events, I had to listen to the BBC’s brand of news this morning. They described RN as “Hard Right”. It made me think how, decades ago, parties would be described as “on the left” or “on the right”, leaving room for distinction between the mainstream parties and the extremists. Nowadays, the main broadcast media never talk about parties that are right of centre without feeling the need to add the adjectives “hard”, “far” or “extreme”. Even if they occupy the space left by the former Conservative party.
Something similar is true of many Wikipedia entries. TV stations, newspapers, journalists on the political left are never described as such – the distinction is only made for anyone on the “right”. The message is – there are reasonable people who can reasonably disagree within reason – and then there is the “right wing”.
And nobody defines Hard or Far or Extreme Right. These are epithets are used to imply Fascist or Nazi.
F A Hayek: Socialism, Fascism, National Socialism all share the same roots – elevation of the State over the individual; central economic planning and control.
That being so… hands up Starmer, Macron, whatever fool is now running Germany which of you is not Hard/Far/Extreme Right. And evidently Stalin and Mao were.
Based on previous prosecutions of French Presidents, corruption appears to be a requirement of the Office.
Romania, Germany, France – The Dark Hand of the Left descends across Europe.
Watch your back, Nigel.
As for Nigel, I think his attitude is, if you can’t beat them, join them. This is also similar to what happened to Imran Kahn, as soon as he had a meeting with Putin, he was removed.
Didn’t they try this on Farage already? I seem to remember an investigation or threatened investigation about misuse of EU funds.
This is the same EU which has never been able to get auditors to sign off on its accounts.
Still haven’t heard anymore of VDLs TXT messages to Albert Bourla. I remember that Romanian MEP holding blacked out documents, where is the justice!
If they don’t get them through the voters, they get them through the courts.
Shocking, not shocked.
Wow.
I’m stunned. I shouldn’t be. But I am.
I just thought that appearing to be too brazen would hold these people back.
Romania is one thing. But France? Really?
Clearly they no longer worry about appearances, so I’m not sure there is very much left to protect us from this horrid techno totalitarianism that reigns supreme in Europe now.
What might save us is exactly that brazenness. Overreach.
Maybe. Hopefully.
You’d think that tyranny eventually gets found out. And generally it does. But not always. The North Korea example freaks me out.
Well, North Korea has not been going that long, in relation to human history. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed. Communist China have cleverly allowed a mixed economy, to deliver the goods that keep people happy. But unpleasant if you have to live through it.
I don’t like those timescales. It’s hard for me to get enthusiastic about things that might happen after I’m long gone.
I don’t like them either, for the same reason. Meanwhile we keep buggering on as best we can.
Rona was about as brazen as it gets (utter lie, scamdemic, murder, destruction etc).
Micron et al will preach about their ‘thriving democracy’, where you put your enemies in jail or kill them.
They could declare a one party state and convince most of the sheeple that the dictatorship was a ‘thriving democracy’.
I wonder what they will do to Le Pen when she is in prison? Epsteined?
“Rona was about as brazen as it gets (utter lie, scamdemic, murder, destruction etc).”
I am still gobsmacked that they got away with it.
TCW — Germany’s mad rush to conscription’
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/germanys-mad-rush-to-conscription/
Obvious, I know. Still funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0dWo31hwpI
Thanks for posting that – yes still funny (and aren’t they skinny?)
Put a new RN candidate on the ballot (doesn’t matter who) and have Marine Le Pen stand behind them, silently, for every public appearance. And if the Powers That Be take further action against her then…
On GBN coverage of it all, the point was made that the appeal process is so sclerotic that she is, in effect, not capable of being a candidate at the next election, whatever the outcome of the appeal. So they will need another candidate – at least a physical one, if there is someone capable of taking over.
The process is the punishment
Fair point from Paul Weston, highlighting the corruption that is the EU and who the real crooks are. However, despite you guys no longer being part of the EU, we’ve seen what passes for ‘democracy’ these past years in the UK. This here makes me even less hopeful Reform will win the next election, in-fighting aside, because even if they are the front-runners leading up to the election, I don’t think they will be *allowed* to win. You just know some sort of shady shenanigans will go down nearer the time. I think polls can give a false perception and it’s rarely as black and white as whoever has the most votes wins.
”Barred from standing in the election. Fined, and jailed for two years (house arrest). Her crime? Threatening to win the French Election. This is Ursula von der Leyen’s dictatorship in action. And our Ursula is currently under investigation for real corruption, unlike the Lavrentiy Beria Lawfare waged against Le Pen. For those who don’t know, von der Leyen made an awful lot of money buying billions of euros worth of Covid-19 vaccines directly from Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla via SMS messages on her phone…. which she has now lost….”
https://x.com/PWestoff/status/1906692905177158074
When all else fails…
So now unaccountable Bureaucrats in the EU, using their provisional arm in the Judiciary, have decided that they have the authority to decide who may become a politician and be elected.
All those in UKIP pre 2016 who pointed out that there is nothing democratic about the EU are being completely vindicated.
I’ll be surprised if the French quietly put up with this despotism.
Governments and other powerful interests have been using a form of lawfare forever in the form of financial costs. Those with the deepest pockets get the best judicial outcomes. This is changing a bit where nefarious charges are brought against political opponents. The whole concept of a balanced and fair judiciary has always been questionable. It is just more overt now. This is openly revolutionary.
You have hit the nail squarely on the head! It is the Judiciary everywhere that is causing all the problems, either by giving a veneer of legitimacy to dictators trampling upon democracy, or by becoming dictatorial themselves, using “Judicial Overreach” and “Legislating from the Bench”, like that Communist Oaf de Moraes in Brazil.
All part of the Globalist dream of establishing a Global Kritocracy = Rule by Judges.
Le Pen should seek political asylum in the UK or USA and wage political war against Macron’s dictatorship.
I wish Navalny had done that, instead of walking straight into the jaws of the Lamprey Putin, now busy grinding up Slavs in the Meatgrinder War along with his secret friend the Lamprey Zelensky. Both of them happily massacring White Men in open genocide, trying to reduce the 7% down to 5% even faster.
Both Lampreys should be arrested and charged with Crimes Against Humanity.