England’s leg of the inquiry was full of character assassinations, effing and jeffing and flip-flops. Anything of note was lost when the PM’s phone was mysteriously wiped. If it hadn’t been for the Lockdown Files, we probably would have never learned that masks in schools were introduced to avoid an argument with Nicola.
But in Scotland, some of the decision-makers began to loosen their tongues: officials “froze” in the face of the evidence about the virus; Sturgeon let it be known that in wanting to be the person who drove Covid out of Scotland, she entered into direct Twitter messaging with Professor Sridhar. We also learnt that Sir Gregor Smith, Scotland’s CMO, deleted his WhatsApp messages “at the end of every day” and encouraged his colleagues to do so too.
We have already written that the Welsh First Minister considered lockdowns a failed experiment and that Welsh Government ministers were using disappearing messages. But all this pales into insignificance with the latest testimonies in Wales.
In testimony, Simon Hart, the Secretary of State for Wales during the pandemic, said the different rules were brought in for the “sake of it”.
Tom Poole, the KC to the Welsh Inquiry, asked:
Mr. Hart’s response is somewhat astonishing.
Tom Poole pushed the point further by asking:
Also on the stand was the most senior special adviser to the Welsh Government, Jane Runeckles. Runeckles was a member of three WhatsApp groups: ‘Drake Spads’, ‘coronavirus legal hotline’ and a group involving Welsh Government ministers.
As a special adviser, she was responsible for 14 other special advisers who supported the First Minister and individual Welsh ministers.
From January 1st 2020 to 31 May 2022, Runeckles used her personal mobile phone to send WhatsApp messages. The KC put it to her that she was prohibited from doing so:
Hallett intervened when Runeckles tried to obfuscate:
The Welsh Government Information Management and Governance Policy states: “Staff should be aware that when using their [Welsh Government] phones in this way they are in fact creating ‘public records’. Staff using private phones for [Welsh Government] business may also be creating public records.”
Runeckles was in a bind. She said she was aware of the policy but was then asked why she turned on disappearing messages.
Hallett waded in, as she was having none of it:
Runeckles was further on the hook when some retrieved messages revealed direct lockdown business was happening on WhatsApp.
The Welsh leg of the inquiry tells us pandemic business was taking place on WhatsApp; chat was how lockdown discussions were done and then deleted.
We have gleaned that lockdowns in Wales were implemented as an experiment and for the sake of it. However, over the three legs of the inquiry there has been no indication that any decision was based on evidence.
In the pandemic politics replaced public health: we wonder if the WhatsApp messages had been disclosed in full, whether they would have revealed the logic behind the decision-making was far worse or absent altogether.
This post will not self-destruct or self-delete; it isn’t an experiment, won’t flip-flop, and isn’t commercially sensitive. You will not incur a fixed penalty notice if you choose not to read it, and it isn’t written just for the sake of it.
Prof. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
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“Pride rainbow gets ‘inclusive’ makeover – but still not everyone is happy” –
Does anyone know which colour they’ve used for Heterosexual? Hard to claim ‘inclusivity’ when 90% of the population aren’t represented, isnt it..?
Ahhh, I’m just joking. Once you get beyond LGB, the activity represented should be a source of shame, not pride.
In conversation now I always respond to someone mentioning Trans-women as “Oh you mean a man pretending to be a woman”.
People don’t like it but WTF; let’s call a spade a spade.
Absolutely correct, and worth repeating that there is no right not to be offended.
“…the concept of [Gay] ‘Pride’ as something to be celebrated [is] rather odd. I wasn’t, and am still not, remotely proud, or indeed ashamed, of my sexual orientation. I consider it utterly unremarkable, and ideally, I’d like everybody else to feel that way too….”
Pride has become pompous, grotesque and intolerant.
GARETH ROBERTS8th June 2022
To hell with Pride Month – spiked (spiked-online.com)
The Israelites at least made a golden calf as object of worship which marks them as people with a very human inclination for culture and art. The rainbow crowd believes their entirely irrelevant selves are a worthy substitute for both and consequently, prefers to dance around themselves. I don’t want to be represented in this carnival of the airheads.
Pilots speak out about vaccine-induced injuries and deaths
https://www.newstarget.com/2022-06-21-pilots-speak-out-vaccine-induced-injuries-deaths.html
By Lance D Johnson
Stand for freedom & make friends with our
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Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
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South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
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“What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?” Of all the mind boggling things that have happened in the last two years, this is perhaps the boggliest. Whether, like most of the people on this site, you think that the response to the pandemic caused more harm than good, or you think that it was a deadly virus that merited the extraordinary measures applied, you should at the very least be curious about the origins and downright furious if it turns out to be man-made. But there is nothing in the media, just crickets. When you think of some of the media frenzies in the past over events that pale into significance compared to Covid, it really is very curious.
Does the Mail think that gonorrhoea is a viral disease? Unbelievable!
Pandemic Logic
Economic woes in the UK aren’t due to lockdowns because the whole world is experiencing similar woes.
That’s because countries all over the world locking down over the last 2 years had no effect on the rest of the world.
The fact that people seem to think that you can print as much money as you want with no consequence is a pretty sad commentary on the intelligence of the British public.
And the bleeding politicians.
I’m not an economist but I can understand that if you print money, inflation follows closely behind.
May RPI: 11.7%, up from 11.1% in April.
May annual rate 11.7%, compared with 11.1% annual rate in April
https://nyheder-tv2-dk.translate.goog/samfund/2022-06-22-set-i-bakspejlet-fik-vi-ikke-meget-ud-af-at-vaccinere-boernene-erkender-brostroem?_x_tr_sl=da&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
hope the link works, had to do it through Google translate!
Denmark….We have become wiser, and we would not do the same today, says Søren Brostrøm. Director General of the Danish Health Authority.
With the knowledge we have today, we did not get much out of having children vaccinated against coronavirus last year.
The director of the National Board of Health, Søren Brostrøm, acknowledged this on Wednesday, when the future Corona strategy has been presented.
Where we are……you couldn’t make it up!!?
https://nypost.com/2022/06/21/transgender-ex-neo-nazi-robber-donna-langan-to-receive-fast-tracked-gender-confirmation-surgeries/
Transgender ex-neo-Nazi robber to receive fast-tracked ‘gender confirmation surgeries’
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is hastening a transgender ex-neo-Nazi bank robber’s “gender confirmation surgeries” after the inmate filed a lawsuit against the federal agency claiming it denied previous requests for the surgery.In 1997, Donna Langan, born Peter Kevin Langan, was convicted to life in prison plus 35 years in two separate trials for robbing two banks using firearms and “a destructive device,” assaulting federal officers and further firearms charges, according to Ohio federal court documents.
Langan, 63, was part of a small, neo-Nazi group called the “Aryan Republican Army” (ARA) at the time of his crimes with the goal of funneling money from the banks he robbed to the ARA, according to court documents.
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry!!
“Why is anybody surprised? You can’t lock down an economy and a society, pay millions of people to do nothing, spend and borrow and print tens of billions of pounds, and expect there to be no consequences, no day of reckoning, no bill to pay.”
Excuse me where was this **** when the lockdowns were happening? Taking money from Bill Gates and going along with the narrative -that’s where.
The hypocrisy and cowardice of the Telegraph and it’s staff know no bounds.
Will, ONS data on death by vaccination status. You may want to have a shufty at it & at the graph. Very sad & incredibly depressing that the NHS & officialdom is still peddling this snake oil injection.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsbyvaccinationstatusengland
Please just stop!! It’s bad enough instilling so much fear that people still test. Friends 60th weekend – everyone has to show proof of LFT. Well least I get my weekend back.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/21/wrist-worn-trackers-can-detect-covid-before-symptoms-study-finds