In the hundreds of pages of statements submitted to the U.K. Covid Inquiry, important questions are being raised which Baroness Hallett shows little interest in answering, says Michael Simmons in the Spectator. Such as: was lockdown based on a false premise, conjured up by poorly drafted models? And why did the Government put out a ‘graph of doom’ to justify the second lockdown that it knew to be wrong?
On October 31st 2020, some 14 million British TV viewers sat down to watch an emergency press conference in which Boris Johnson, flanked by Sir Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty, announced a second lockdown. Sir Patrick presented a slideshow giving the data that justified the restrictions.
It was terrifying. The argument was summed up by a graph saying that if there were “no changes in policy or behaviour”, there could be up to 4,000 deaths a day, three times the number from the first wave in the spring. …
But the graph was wrong. It was out of date and based on flawed information, as was later pointed out by academics including Cambridge’s David Spiegelhalter and by the U.K. Statistics Authority itself. Might this have been a genuine mistake? In the rush and the panic – news of the lockdown had already leaked to the press – surely officials would have published a wrong graph only if they believed it to be right?
In his testimony, Warner remembers seeing a graph being circulated among scientists two days before lockdown that was “screen-shotted out of a SPI-M [the modelling group] working paper”. …
Angela McLean, now Chief Scientific Adviser but then at the Ministry of Defence, sounded the alarm. The graph had been based on a rate of virus growth – the R number – that was by then known to be incorrect. …
Warner testified that he went into the cabinet room to raise the alarm to the Prime Minister and his officials. The Covid peak might be half of that forecast, he said. Having flagged corrupt data, he thought the graph would be taken out of circulation. …
Only later did Warner find out that this graph had been shown on national television.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
“above baseless conspiracy theories”
Sigh.
Come on Tony, I know you’re trying a different tact this time, but you’re not fooling anyone here. Still, these articles always put a smile on my face.
Not a single mention of the BSV BLOCKCHAIN. Must do better.
Privately produced cryptos are actively suppressed and sabotaged. And that’s to be expected. The state has monopoly over the production of cash and has every intention of holding on to it. So they suppress private digital options while rushing to produce their own. The state isn’t about to allow the free market of money any time soon.
And as I’ve said repeatedly when commenting on the articles of this author, the idea that the state will not abuse this extra new power as it does all other powers it has is naive to say the very least.
Worse still, this expanded state power granted by CBDCs will be captured by powerful private oligarchal interests, as always happens.
The last thing the state needs is more power, regardless of what the theoretical benefits of granting it might have.
Exactly
There you go indulging in baseless conspiracy theories
…the idea that the state will not abuse this extra new power as it does all other powers it has is naive to say the very least…
-is being generous, when you consider that they’re already actively accessing and monitoring benefit claimant accounts ‘for fraud’ [sic], no doubt soon to be rolled out to state pensioners and then everyone else.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/dwp-confirms-every-bank-where-benefit-claimants-accounts-will-be-monitored/ar-AA1mZDHh
I recall this author trying to convince us that Up as Down, and Left was Right before.
Let me say it. For cashless to work requires absolute trust between bank and client, and a government that keeps itself out of our lives to the maximum extent…and that’s where the theory all goes wrong. Witness the Labour push on teeth cleaning for kids. Are we to be fined if toothpaste isn’t in our purchases this month.? Well that’s exactly the sort of authoritarian over-reach that CBDC will make all too easy. Will politicians be able to resist..? Of course not. Just like bankers wont be able to stop themselves ‘printing’ more money, and devaluing everything like they have for the last century.
Bank Closures are speeding up at an alarming rate !
All the profits Lloyds Bank make and they’re closing local branches at a fast pace. Something sinister is at play.
I have asked this question before;
What happens when there is a power outage? Also what about places with patchy/non-existent internet coverage? My Alaskan friend is frequently out of internet range as her works in very remote places.
Think also about the internet blackout in Gaza. What happens then.
What happens when there is a problem with the bank being overwhelmed with transactions? – this happened to a friend of mine paying by a ‘qr’ app.
Apart from minimal on-line shopping I always pay in cash.
Isn’t it strange how, over the past 3 years or so, the “baseless conspiracy theories” have one-by-one turned out to be accurate.
I don’t doubt that the “baseless conspiracy theories” about CBDCs, surveillance, a social credit system and time-limited tokens, instead of money, will also prove accurate. Give the authoritarians an inch and they will take a mile.
I use debit and credit cards but I am also withdrawing and using cash far more than I was, even four years ago. Most fairly small, in-person transactions are now done using cash.
Use it, or you’ll lose it – and then you’ll be completely at the mercy of the Banksters and the authoritarians in the Establishment.
Hear, hear.
Absolutely spot on. I always make a point of using cash in the supermarket for our weekly shop I also make sure we use the manual checkout. Unfortunately one doesn’t seem to be able to get away from debit/credit cards but I try and keep it to the minimum.
Yes and over the last three years or nearly four now so called conspiracy theories seemed to have become spoiler alerts!
Not having a smartphone/personal tracking device by which to enforce payments and/or biometric identification (being implemented for everything from libraries to banks to govt) should be a protected characteristic.
“We have been made aware of instances where consumers have been told by their bank that, for example, they will not be able to shop online or access their account without a smart phone. This is not acceptable.”
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/new-online-security-measures-what-if-you-dont-have-a-smartphone/
https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/sim-card-registration-laws/
“Has an Austrian or libertarian version of money been demonstrated to work anywhere? If not we are stuck with state and central bank backed currencies for now.” Crypto surely meets this criteria and is working despite the onslaught of the world’s govt’s! If it wasn’t working, then why attack it and why try to copy it?