The awful consequences which flowed from lockdowns are so deep and broad it is hard to know where to begin. I think they are the major cause of so many of our current problems.
At heart governments did the unthinkable. They deliberately broke the social contract on which society is founded. They imprisoned us for months on end – and all for nothing. Their draconian actions were unscientific, ineffective, irrational and wholly destructive. They completely undermined any belief that the powers that be act in a proportionate and considered manner: instead they panicked, and we lost our basic freedoms.
The rank stupidity of the authorities gave permission for ordinary citizens to do foolish and damaging things: to riot, to lose the work ethic, to drop out of school, to embrace hypochondria, to despair and even commit suicide.
All accepted norms were thrown out of the window. Instead of reassuring the public, the Government spent millions of pounds of our own money frightening us. Why bother with anything if the vast apparatus of the state behaves in such a demented way?
Lockdowns meant the economy was put into a sudden induced coma because of an exaggerated fear of disease. Unsurprisingly there were severe harms from such a drastic step. Terrible habits became ingrained. What could be more idiotic than paying people to sit at home and do nothing?
Civilisation is a more fragile construct than we like to believe. It depends on mutual trust and an expectation that the large majority of people are law abiding and have confidence in public bodies like Parliament, the civil service, the police, the education system, the national media, unions and public health experts. Institutions which have taken decades or even centuries to construct were exposed as hollow and led by cowards and sheep.
Most of the important things in life take time, balance and willpower. But lockdowns and public health monomania threw self-discipline and proportion on the bonfire.
Why care about any other disease except Covid? Why not just lock everyone up – even though it was crystal clear from February 2020 that Covid was largely only a serious risk to the elderly and frail? Who cares about education for millions of children? Why worry about squandering £400 billion of taxpayers’ money in Britain alone in less than two years, taking our national debt up to its highest level since World War Two?
Governments like those in Britain and America prostituted their nation’s creditworthiness to temporarily insulate the electorate from the sheer folly of lockdowns. But the bills are coming due – the absolute amount of Government debt keeps rising, and given much higher interest rates, the cost is becoming enormous.
I read an essay recently which described decivilisation – the decay of order, the advance of chaos, transience visible everywhere, and the absence of anything durable. This feels like the process we underwent during lockdowns. We are still picking up the pieces and attempting to deal with the aftermath.
The ruin imposed by lockdowns stretched from psychological abuse to educational impairments to economic devastation. It was social, cultural, career and institutional vandalism on an unprecedented scale.
The evil of inflation started in 2020 and accelerated in 2021 because of restrictions in production and supply bottlenecks – thanks to lockdowns. Millions of businesses were partly or wholly shut down, but demand for items did not necessarily diminish.
Indeed, in many cases demand rose – central banks inflamed conditions by lowering interest rates and printing money. People sat bored at home and bought goods online. After a brief hiatus, the value of assets like shares and property rose, with all the increased liquidity fueling prices. The rich got richer; the less well-off did not.
So of course the elite mostly thought lockdowns weren’t too bad after all. They sat snug, smug and safe in their nice homes, getting wealthier, while the ‘little people’ brought them things. Society became more divided – resentments grew.
By the time Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, inflation was firmly entrenched. The rise in the price of energy simply turbo-charged this trend. Inflation exploded and the cost of living crisis took hold. Falling living standards have swept through communities like a third Horseman of the Apocalypse – the first being Covid, and the second (and most awful) being lockdowns.
Lockdowns bolstered the pathetic concept that safety is all that matters and boosted a growing tendency towards risk aversion. But that way lies a life of fear and stagnation, and a world without innovation, ambition or progress. Once a culture loses its collective confidence and belief in a better future, then decline becomes inevitable.
If society feels like it is spinning out of control, then you would be right to blame lockdowns. They were unquestionably the stupidest Government intervention of our lifetimes. Anyone who still claims they were ‘worth it’ is in denial.
Luke Johnson is a Director of Skeptics Ltd, the company that publishes the Daily Sceptic.
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My cat helped Save the NHS.
Your cat clearly hates you and thinks you’re stupid now.
Funny, but more than a bit triggering!
Thanks DS99 and Valerie. But if you thought this cat was a bit of a Liberal wimp then have a look at my other cat which has turned even more climate activist than the BBC
Have you run this piece past Baroness Hallett? Without doubt, her “covid enquiry” will find that lockdowns were justified and that the disease would have wiped out millions of us without them (as Prof Fergusson’s model showed).
Furthermore, vaccines, face masks and social distancing obviously prevented further deaths from the nasty airborne virus and the government’s decisions were all measured and justified by The Science; every penny of taxpayers’ money was spent wisely and frugally and justified by cost / benefit analyses.
The Hallet enquiry will be worth every penny of the £100 million cost and I am eagerly looking forward to being enlightened by its conclusions.
£100 million and the rest. Government sponsored KC’s don’t come cheap especially when soul selling is part of the deal.
The lockdowns were not mere “stupid” interventions, they were pre-planned, coldly-calculated, globally-coordinated moves to do heinous deliberate harm to the global populace. Reiner Fuellmich and his colleagues figured this out back in 2022. For details search for:
Joel Smalley substack, Reiner Fuellmich’s Grand Jury Court of Public Opinion: Covid-19 Crimes Against Humanity (2022)
”If society feels like it is spinning out of control, then you would be right to blame lockdowns.”
Good article, Luke, and I agree with most everything that you say. But what I do disagree on is that lockdowns alone are to be the forever scapegoat of all the problems we’re now experiencing and witnessing in society. It’s over-simplistic, blinkered and like stating that we faced no problems prior to 2020. In fact, how much longer are we going to be harping on about lockdowns? Yes they were catastrophic for us all, but it doesn’t matter how many angles you want to come at this from or how many times you want to rake up the past it changes nothing, because the simple fact remains: *nobody* will ever be held to account. The government will never admit it was all one big mistake, they will never take responsibility for their actions ( aka human rights abuses ), the Covid Inquiry is a circus and there will never be justice for anyone. We can regurgitate all things ‘lockdown’ until the cows come home but nothing is achieved by this constant rehashing of things that we all already know. I just think constantly looking in the rear view mirror at this one spot means you’re unable to see and focus on the hazard that’s right in front of you.
Totally agree
The world has changed you can feel it!
Since late 2019 the very essence of modern life seems to be different and,as you say, it’s not all because of lockdowns but I rather think lockdowns were the test, the trigger, for greater changes while western eyes were off the ball!
Totally agree Mogwai. Hallett will obviously conclude that HMG, Whitty, Bunter, Cummings, Ferguso and all the rest were right – but that Kneel Starmer and all the Uniparty “Opposition” branch were even more right, wailing “Sooner!, Harsher!, Longer!!
But I can’t believe some of Luke’s claims. Inflation was deliberately exacerbated in 2020, but the sub-prime mortgage scam of 2008 had built enormous inflationary pressure, controlled only by very artificially low interest rates, and massive money printing.
Even more questionable is the claim that this “stupidity” (more likely at the top end with WEF, UN, Soros, Billy Gates and the other Billionaires- sheer bloody greed and malice), was the “worst”.
What about Glowbull Warming? What about “Climate”? What about “Thermageddon?” Note that many of the same barstewards featured in this Ur-Hoax going back to 1988! Note there is the identical Political Policy Based Evidence Making, based on fraudulent numbers running through Mega Computers running secret (but plainly incompetent) code? What is the fundemental difference between Michael Mann’s fraudulent “Hockey Stick” and Professor Pantsdown Ferguson’s magic Scare-Charts? Note the same refulal to show what is behind the curtain, the same refusal to give rational, genuine scientists “the oxygen of publicity” by debating the merits of previously accepted science over theit super scary prognoses.
If you have yet to realise that “Net Zero” is the hill upon which it is decreed that you and I will die, then just get ready.
I agree with the overall thrust of the article but would quibble over a few points. Most particularly:
Covid mostly brought forward the deaths of those who were already likely to die. The proportions of ‘elderly’ to other age groups among the dead remained normal throughout 2020. The hale elderly were not at increased risk of death.
It was 2021 and subsequently that saw a change in the proportions of elderly to other age groups among the dead – with the risk of death among younger people increasing beyond normal. I attribute this to lockdowns and vaccines.
In early 2020, Chris Witless – now sir / sewer – himself said the ‘virus’ was pretty harmless.
For some reason, he and his associates soon changed their minds…
One thing for certain happened, a staggering amount of money was spent / wasted on the scamdemic charade…
https://twitter.com/CharlotteEmmaUK/status/1356679458053361667
Obviously they think he was engaged in disinformation.
“Their draconian actions were unscientific, ineffective, irrational and wholly destructive. They completely undermined any belief that the powers that be act in a proportionate and considered manner: instead they panicked, and we lost our basic freedoms”
It wasn’t panic it was simply Lockstep and Johnson and the rest of his cowardly Cabinet were obeying orders from the One World Government in waiting. For people like Luke Johnson not to acknowledge this fact is negligent in the extreme and undermines what is largely a good article.
The anti Lockdown rhetoric must continue to be pushed in order to give us more chance to convince the sheep to resist when they try it again.
I don’t think they’ll try it again though. In fact, I’m 100% sure they won’t. Public opinion and general sentiment is coming across to the bent puppet politicians and their elite organ grinders. That’s partly why countries are going mental over increasing censorship. They’re losing control and social media, and other alt platforms are a huge threat to any totalitarian. The ongoing migration from the third world even plays a part, because there’s the future voters but it also serves to further cause social unrest and division. But once you’ve awakened, once you’ve seen how the magician’s tricks work, you can’t go back to being the docile sleepyhead you were in 2020.
Is it not telling that we’re hearing nothing of any scariants or the latest ‘must-have’ jab that’s been released? Not just Covid but all childhood vaccine uptake has gone down. Vaccines are being chucked in all countries due to them expiring. People are showing how distrusting and cautious they are, and that’s all based on a combination of their own lived experience, independently informing themselves and government overreach. People just aren’t scared anymore and recognise we’ve bigger threats facing us than a damn cold virus.
I know people were scared senseless by covid and not only enjoyed lockdowns and continue to have the vaccine but would do it all again “to be safe”.
Yep probably most of my friends and family would be sheeplike once again.
I hope you’re right and that the same distrust of government extends to the Net Zero malarky. The rot must be stopped.
Incredibly stupid; very much agree.
But worse, it felt like criminal behaviour by the government; fascism.
And, as with all totalitarian fascist governments, it brought out the very worst in the public.
The banging of pots and pans, the bullying of neighbours to participate in that bizarre, ridiculous activity, the stasi like informing on others…..what on earth….
And then the understanding, through cake eating and worse in Downing Street, that the rules, as, again, in all totalitarian states, were only for the little people.
That is the real reason why the Conservatives are being annihilated…..
And then, much of the public having finally rumbled the lockdown nonsense to stop a simple common cold coronavirus, it will be Labour’s turn to be annihilated……
Unless they confess their own lockdown sins and we know that will never happen…..
There are still plenty of people who will defend the first lockdown arguing that we just didn’t know the risk and so it was understandable.
In some ways I consider these people the worst. In their attempt to appear sensible they are revealing they are too stupid to understand what they are saying and the consequences of allowing such horrific, draconian action by government.
Probably the absolute worst of the lot are those who now realise how dumb they have been but simply aren’t big enough or honest enough to admit it.
I was going to say that many politicians would belong to that group….but it is more likely that most politicians really are far too dim…….
…and all but about 50 MPs kept voting for more lockdowns …
More than 100 MPs aren’t standing for re-election, I believe. I can’t make my mind up if that’s because they collectively achieved their purpose to breakdown society, job done, or they are yellow bellied, spineless shysters who lack moral courage to admit they were wrong and committed the unforgivable and are slinking away.
Then there are those who are hoping to remain as MPs…
Mine is standing down in Finchley because of the Muslim terror threat.
His explicit statement on that point is the most important thing he has ever done.
To be fair,he has been a good local MP and deserves a break after putting up with it for over a decade.
Morning Folks , you have beat me to it , as you say – decent article but the words Panic & Stupidity have no place in there ! Lockdowns were definitely done ON PURPOSE !!
I agree they were pushed by someone(s) on purpose but the people who executed it, like the moronic MPs that sit in our Parliament, our cretinous civil servants etc.., they were all taken in by panic, their boundless stupidity and off course their self interest, primarily the covering of their own arses.
I agree they were monumentally stupid. But all part of the plan.
However IMHO the fact that and the ways in which they managed to get about 80% of us “vaccinated” with a GMO product is beyond criminal. And it continues.
Oh, sorry I forget, they’re safe and effective.
Tick-tock…
Covid
Lockdown
Masking
Vaccination of the healthy
Vaccination of children
Vaccination passports
Coordinated messaging
MSM capture
Scientific consensus
Scapegoating of the non-compliant
CBDCs
Disappearing cash points
Mass immigration
Ukraine
Gaza
War, war, war
Climate
Trans
Drag queens in nurseries
Destruction of masculinity
Destruction of family
Destruction of nationalism
Destruction of hope
Divide and conquer, divide and conquer, divide and conquer, divide and conquer.
There never was ‘stupid’.
‘We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it’
You left out censorship. That’s what first alerted me that there was an agenda behind the whole C19 thing.
Luke is just about the best narrator on this topic and a number of others, such as net-zero. Thank you.
‘Coronavirus – act like you’ve got it’
Firstly thanks to Mr Johnson for backing DS.
Maybe a bit off topic but IMO related: FA Cup: Fair Game makes demands for reform after replays scrapped – BBC Sport
Some football pressure group is wanting the government to add some stuff to the “Football Governance Bill” (yes, that’s a thing) to regulate how the FA cup works. This is where we have got to – the government feels the need to “regulate” football, and people want the government to change football rules to suit their own point of view about how it should work. As long as this sort of thing is seen as the proper province of the state, we’re lost.
“I read an essay recently which described decivilisation – the decay of order, the advance of chaos, transience visible everywhere, and the absence of anything durable. This feels like the process we underwent during lockdowns. We are still picking up the pieces and attempting to deal with the aftermath.”
Perhaps all intentional?
“To produce a maximum of chaos in the culture of the enemy is our first most important step. Our fruits are grown in chaos, distrust, economic depression and scientific turmoil. At least a weary populace can seek peace only in our offered Communist State, at last only Communism can resolve the problems of the masses.”
L. Beria
All governments across the planet, with few exceptions, adopted unmedical and unscientific tyrannical measures to ‘fight’ a virus. For African countries it has been an economic disaster and because of lower life expectancy there they were the least affected by this virus. The ‘evidence’ for enacting tyrannical laws against society came from the CCP TV footage of: people falling down in the street; mass graves being dug; hospitals supposedly being built in a few days; large squads in full bio hazard gear spraying streets; people either being welded into their homes, or being forcibly dragged out; individuals being forcibly masked or publicly shamed for not wearing masks. The effect of this imagery was to prime large populations to demand their governments copy China. None of this evidence was scrutinized and all of the big thinkers such as B. Gates and those working in illustrious organisations like the WHO and UN urged the entire planet to follow China. The WEF published the book COVID-19: The Great Reset just 3 months after a global pandemic had been declared which implies the book with it’s dystopian conclusions was already ready to go. In the reply below are several choice quotes from this book, which reads as a charter for pathological control freaks that do not understand humanity. The question is are the general populace still primed to continue with the globalist agenda?
On the first page of the book ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset’ it begins:
“Since it made its entry on the world stage, COVID-19 has dramatically torn up the existing script of how to govern countries, live with others and take part in the global economy.”
Page 33 – Just to provide a broad and oversimplified example, the containment of the coronavirus pandemic will necessitate a global surveillance network capable of identifying new outbreaks as soon a s they arise…
Page 94 – As advocated by Joseph Stiglitz: The first priority is to (…) provide more funding for the public sector, especially for those parts of it that are designed to protect against the multitude of risks that a complex society faces, and to fund the advances in science and higher education, on which our future prosperity depends. These are areas in which productive jobs – researchers, teachers, and those who help run the institutions that support them -can be created quickly. Even as we emerge from this crisis, we should be aware that some other crisis surely lurks around the corner. We can’t predict what the next one will look like – other than it will look different from the last”
Page 95 The return of “big” government – Taxation will increase, particularly for the most privileged, because governments will need to strengthen their resilience capabilities and wish to invest more heavily in them. As advocated by Joseph Stiglitz: “The first priority is to provide more funding for the public sector, especially for those parts of it that are designed to protect against the multitude of risks that a complex society faces, and to fund the advances in science and higher-quality education, on which our future prosperity depends. These are areas in which productive jobs – researchers, teachers, and those who help run the institutions that support them – can be created quickly. Even as we emerge from this crisis, we should be aware that some other crisis surely lurks around the corner.
Page 102 – Youth activism is increasing worldwide, being revolutionized by social media that increases mobilization to an extent that would have been impossible before. It takes many different forms, ranging from non-institutionalized political participation to demonstrations and protests, and addresses issues as diverse as climate change, economic reforms, gender equality and LGBTQ rights. The young generation is firmly at the vanguard of social change. There is little doubt that it will be the catalysts for change and a source of critical momentum for the Great Reset.
Page 114 – Global Governance Put bluntly, we live in a world in which nobody is in charge.
(There is much here on the importance of global governance as opposed to national governance)
Page 142 – This brings us to the all-important question of whether the pandemic will eventually exercise a positive or negative effect on climate change policies. “A Great Reset is necessary to build a new social contract that honours the dignity of every human being,” added Schwab “The global health crisis has laid bare the unsustainability of our old system in terms of social cohesion, the lack of equal opportunities and inclusiveness. Nor can we turn our backs on the evils of racism and discrimination. We need to build into this new social contract our intergenerational responsibility to ensure that we live up to the expectations of young people.”
Page 153 – Technological Reset We will see how contact tracing has an unequalled capacity and a quasi-essential place in the armoury needed to combat COVID-19, while at the same time being positioned to become an enabler of mass surveillance.
Page 156 – Accelerating the digital transformation In one form or another, social and physical distancing measures are likely to persist after the pandemic itself subsides, justifying the decision in many companies from different industries to accelerate automation. After a while, the enduring concerns about technological unemployment will recede as societies emphasize the need to restructure the workplace in a way that minimizes close human contact. Indeed, automation technologies are particularly suited to a world in which human beings can’t get too close to each other or are willing to reduce their interactions.
Page 157 – In 2016, two academics from Oxford University came to the conclusion that up to 86% of jobs in restaurants, 75% of jobs in retail and 59% of jobs in entertainment could be automatized by 2035. These three industries are the most hardest hit by the pandemic and in which automating for reasons of hygiene and cleanliness will be a necessity...
Page 160 – The most effective form of tracking or tracing is obviously the one powered by technology: it not only allows backtracking all the contacts with whom the user of a mobile phone has been in touch, but also tracking the user’s real time movements, which in turn affords the possibility to better enforce a lockdown…
Page 165 – As the coronavirus crisis recedes and people
Page 165 – As the coronavirus crisis recedes and people start returning to the workplace, the corporate move will be towards greater surveillance; for better or worse, companies will be watching and sometimes recording what their workforce does. The trend could take many different forms, from measuring body temperatures with thermal cameras to monitoring via an app how employees comply with social distancing…
Page 173 – In short, a return to business as usual. This won’t happen because it can’t happen. For the most part “Business as usual” died from (or at the very least was infected by) COVID-19.
Page 174 – For some, like entertainment, travel or hospitality, a return to pre-pandemic environment is unimaginable in the foreseeable future (and maybe never in some cases…)…
Page 197 – The pandemic may increase our anxiety about sitting in an enclosed space with complete strangers, and many people may decide that staying at home to watch the latest movie or opera is the wisest option.
Page 247 – Conclusion – However, at a global level, if viewed in terms of the percentage of the global population effected, the corona crisis is (so far) one of the least deadly pandemics the world has experienced over the last 2000 years.
Also there is that BBC presenter that did a documentary on Anti-Vaxxers where she used ping pong balls to play un the ‘safety’ of the jabs. There was a documentary highlighted by UK Column with her a few years before the plandemic. It was based on a village and they used smartphones to track & trace people who had an unknown disease. Almost like a UK version of Event201.
One of the best analyses I have read of the covid pandemic mass psychosis that infected 80+ % of humanity. Even if the our normie friends were to read this they would still be in denial. This is why I read the Daily Sceptic, to remain in touch with reality. Thank you Luke Johnson.
Not so stupid got the political class, the self regarding elite. They increased their own power and demonstrated they can use tax payer funded mass psychology against the people any time they like AMX get away with it.
the media were supine as agents of the elite are supposed to be.
Supine? They were vicious hate-mongers. They were the ones howling most loudly for lockdowns and all the other crimes. They have killed more people with their lies than anyone else. And to this day they are at it with the hit pieces on any treatment that has been found to help the vaccine-injured. I think they want to see them commit suicide: “fewer useless eaters and less complaints.”
Obviously they were about something else and they didn’t even pretend otherwise. You could see what was happening in late 2019 until February 2020 in the economy in terms of a pending complete collapse. All of the measures make sense when you consider that it was an Anglo-American effort to buy time and to mop up the econopmy and transfer wealth upwards. And of course the perfect time to test and thrust upon the masses all sorts of experiments. They understood well that at that moment they had the best chance they would ever get. I don’t think that there is any mystery about this situation. I would advise following economic trends even if you find them boring because they have great predictive value.
Yes, but how do you explain China’s success also, and the fact it is a Marxist running the WHO and and Marxist running the UN and both organisations pushed lockdowns and ‘vaccines’? The OECD compared the % decline of a number of economies in the 2nd quarter of 2020. This was shown on Our World in Data but for some reason China was not shown by default and the user had to add it.
For those who find safety to be an enticing prospect I would say consider the idea of beauty and how it can’t really coexist with safety because beauty it always inherently dangerous. You could have a padded cell or three meals a day in soltary confinement and yet such a world would never allow beauty in. If you opt for safety then you rob yourself of the best and you become lukewarm.
The French Revolution used safety as a pretext for the horrors that were unleashed. And virtue.
Powerful article by Luke Johnson. I was particularly struck by these words:
“Civilisation is a more fragile construct than we like to believe. It depends on mutual trust…”
…which explains the Globalist obsession with opening the Gates of the West to millions of hostile alien men of military age. Somehow they were not “locked down”, nor prevented from swarming in, even at the height of the covid restrictions.
I couldn’t even be bothered to read this article: the word ‘stupidest’ in its title told me everything I needed to know about it and the author!
If you mean he still hasn’t “got it” that it was part of an evil agenda, rather than stupidity, I partly agree. But it doesn’t mean that article and author are to be dismissed.
Yes, that’s what I mean. I am not meaning to dismiss the author or his contention, though I am afraid I didn’t read this article much beyond the first few paragraphs – one has to have some criteria for ruling out articles as I simply have way too much to read/listen to/watch and can’t manage it all!! I make sure that I keep time (evenings, in particular) for reading proper books!
Only take exception to one statement in an otherwise good article.
Russia did not invade Ukraine in February 2022, they began the liberation of ethnic Russian’s in the Donbass region who were being targeted by a neo-Nazi Russian hating Ukraine government, run by a 2-bit actor/comedian dictator with delusions of grandeur. Aided and abetted by the insane Western leaders, via its proxy army NATO, in the insane belief that Russia should be defeated and forced to submit to so-called Western values.
Great article, Luke. Totally agree with you. Keep banging the drum. Don’t let the bastards think we’ve forgotten what they did.