- “JD Vance claims free speech ‘in retreat’ in Britain and across Europe” – In an address at the Munich Security Conference in Germany , the Vice-President has warned European leaders that the greatest threat to Europe doesn’t come from China or Russia but from within, reports the Mail.
- “Read: JD Vance’s full speech on the fall of Europe” – Here’s a full transcript of the speech that JD Vance gave at the Munich Security Conference yesterday afternoon, courtesy of the Spectator.
- “JD Vance is right: the anti-democratic West is no longer worth defending” – In the Telegraph, Poppy Coburn says JD Vance is right: if Europe doesn’t rediscover its Western inheritance, it won’t be worth defending.
- “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s promise to make vaccines safer is basically armageddon” – On her Substack, Rebekah Barnett writes about the hysterical reaction to RFK jr.’s confirmation.
- “What I Saw At Kennedy Karaoke” – For Persuasion, Brendan Ruberry reflects on the meaning of RJK Jr.’s confirmation.
- “Tulsi Gabbard told to crush UK’s Apple data grab” – America’s new intelligence director has been warned by senior lawmakers that the attempt by the UK authorities to gain access to Apple user’s data amounts to a “foreign cyberattack”, according to the Telegraph.
- “So much for the art of the deal. Trump’s Putin call threatens disaster for Western security” – It is one thing to make concessions to Russia during talks to end the war – but there is no case for making them in advance, writes Charles Moore in the Telegraph.
- “Ukraine claims Russian drone hits Chernobyl power plant” – According to Volodymyr Zelensky, a Russian attack drone with a high-explosive warhead struck the shelter protecting the world from radiation, says the Mail.
- “Rory Stewart, Turquoise Mountain and the fall of woke colonialism” – Why were American workers funding a British charity that taught Afghan women about Marcel Duchamp? asks Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
- “Reeves blows £8 billion hole in council budgets with tax raid” – The increases in the minimum wage and employers’ National Insurance contributions will blow an £8 billion hole in local authority budgets, according to the Telegraph.
- “Labour Britain is so broke we risk becoming a mere dependency of China” – This Government is poised to allow China to open its biggest embassy in Europe in the heart of London, warns Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph.
- “Badenoch tries to stop Rayner from cancelling local elections” – The Conservative Party leader is trying to stop Labour annulling local elections, says the Telegraph.
- “‘70% chance’ Reform and Tories will merge, says Conservative grandee” – Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh believes the odds of a deal being made between the Tories and Reform are “very high”, reports the Telegraph.
- “Boris Johnson eyeing up political comeback, allies claim” – the ex-PM is said to be “watching and waiting” to see how the fate of the Tories unfolds “to see if things drop into his lap”, reports the Telegraph.
- “Zimbabwean paedophile allowed to stay in UK because he would face ‘hostility’ back home” – An illegal immigrant cannot be deported because he’s a convicted paedophile, says the Telegraph, reporting on the latest insane decision by an immigration tribunal.
- “There should be no barriers to Britain taking back control of its borders” – We must end the abuse of our asylum system by judges who prefer activism to common sense, writes Guy Dampier in the Telegraph.
- “Ed Miliband only Cabinet minister to admit to having a heat pump” – The Government has been accused of “rank hypocrisy” for pushing heat pumps when Ed Miliband is the only member of the Cabinet who actually has one, reports the Telegraph.
- “Will Ed Miliband see sense and drill British gas?” – A little-known company has discovered 480 billion cubic metres worth of shale gas reserves, says Ross Clark in the Spectator.
- “Miliband vows to ban fracking permanently after huge UK gas field discovered” – The Energy Secretary’s shunning of shale gas means a decade’s worth of fuel risks staying underground, according to the Telegraph.
- “The entire net-zero edifice is crashing to the ground” – If we had a serious government, Ed Miliband would be campaigning in favour of drilling the gas under our feet – not blocking it, writes Andy Mayer in the Telegraph.
- “Thirteen more oil and gas licences could be cancelled after Rosebank court ruling” – Exclusive: Future of further projects uncertain after Rosebank and Jackdaw licences were found to have been unlawfully granted, reports the Guardian.
- “We’re all going to drown!” – In his latest column for the Conservative Woman, Paul Homewood says it’s not true that we’re all going to drown if we don’t reduce carbon emissions.
- “Reversing our economic decline is not easy, but it is simple” – Dan Hannan reviews Return to Growth by Jon Moynihan, saying it contains the blueprint for the UK’s economic revival.
- “‘I’ve had it’: JP Morgan boss rails against Gen Z in expletive-laden outburst” – A recording has been leaked of Jamie Dimon ranting against workshy young employees, says the Telegraph.
- “Pro-trans activists walk out of gender-critical author’s Oxford talk” – A group of trans rights activists staged a protest at event with Helen Joyce at Balliol College, according to the Telegraph.
- “Where is the love?” – On her Substack, Lara Dodsworth laments the decline of public manners and the rise of hostility on British transport.
- “Covid inquiry ‘silenced’ discussion of regulatory failings, witnesses and experts say” – The vaccine injured were not allowed to raise concerns at the official Covid inquiry, says the Epoch Times.
- “State of the Army ‘increasingly worrying’, senior military sources warn” – While the Government fails to give a timeline for raising defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, military sources say the figure is not enough in first place, reports the Telegraph.
- “Protesters disrupt gender critical discussion at Oxford” – The author Helen Joyce was left briefly speechless as pro-trans students held up signs and staged a walkout during the event at Balliol College
- “The Government’s latest attack on the countryside proves Labour hates our way of life” – Labour’s plan to ban trail hunting is class war pure and simple, says William Sitwell in the Telegraph.
- “Rupert Murdoch ‘collapsed during breakfast with Rebekah Brooks’ amid Succession-style legal turmoil” – The media mogul reportedly fainted during a 2023 meeting due to stress and jet lag, according to the Telegraph.
- “Private school closes after VAT on fees proves ‘final challenge’” – The decision by Bedstone College in Shropshire to close in the wake of the Government’s VAT raid has shocked parents, says the Times.
- “Birbalsingh versus the Blob” – Will Orr-Ewing reports on the spat between Katharine Birbalsingh and Bridget Phillipson in the Critic, declaring Birbalsingh the winner.
- “There’s no such thing as a free breakfast” – in CapX, David Smith says calling school meals for children “free” is a misnomer.
- “In Britain and across Europe free speech, I fear, is in retreat” – Sky News reports on JD Vance’s speech telling European leaders to stand up for free speech.
'In Britain and across Europe free speech, I fear, is in retreat'
— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 14, 2025
US Vice President JD Vance spoke at the Munich security conference and took a swipe at Brussels, Germany, Sweden and the UK.https://t.co/Ci0hPtWFvGSky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/X1aVj7aSSX
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“Once the dictators realize that their plans are failing, they will turn to purely destructive pursuits, both to save face and to exercise revenge on the social order that resisted their brilliance.”
What’s behind BoJo’s most recent lockdown endorsement and in store soon.
Ludwig van Mises from the latest piece by Jeffrey Tucker.
Alistair Cavendish would probably agree.
His piece is a must read.
I suspect it will be an alternating cycle now: vaccination drives to raise hopes of ending Lockdowns, leading to slight loosening and reopening, followed by thrashing the vaccines and discovering mutations to institute new Lockdowns.
The main and real driver and gauge will be hairdressers: How long will people keep quiet without having had the opportunity for a haircut.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/weasel-words-and-broken-promises-on-the-road-to-endless-lockdowns/
The most recent one on CW, very good too.
Excellent summary of this duplicitous governments behaviour over the past twelve months.
How they’re ‘nudging’ us into tyranny in CW is a vital read. Tavistock?
Like they ‘nudged’ us into buying diesel cars for twenty years even though they knew them to be carcinogenic (they discussed on Newsnight and such like at the time).
Then when their climate change priorities changed we were all accused of deliberately wanting to give cancer to children.
One interesting aspect is that they have pushed us to be hyper risk averse of covid – ‘if it saves one life’ and haven’t contextualised the data within normal deaths of other things – especially similar colds which take off 100,000 a year
And now they want us to contextualise vaccine deaths – ‘its only a few – for the greater good etc’
They can argue for zero covid deaths and I can argue for zero vaccine deaths. Given that covid deaths are an act of God and vaccine deaths are a man-made intervention you can be sued for – I think the latter argument is easier to make.
Your last paragraph might explain the unexpected notification that my GP Surgery will not be giving vaccines to 18-49s, the realisation that they might get sued in the event of misadventure.
I think its also why they want to coerce instead of force vaccinations on people.
They can always say ‘you knew it was only emergency licensed and you chose to take it’.
Although with vaccine passports etc the line between coercion and mandation becomes muddied. Add that to the lies about it being ‘safe and fully tested’ etc.
cf. ‘Nobody was forced to wear a mask, we provided plenty of options for self declared exemption so your mask induced respiratory disease is your own fault’.
yes – its almost like the whole pandemic has been designed by the lawyers to keep them in work for the next 50 years
This! Said it at the time, the guidance is so vague to cover Bozo’s arse.
I am pretty sure that there must be an important, not publicized, legal reason for the UK’s ‘soft’ mask mandate, or rather the unique self-exempt possibility and option and, obviously, for the strict acceptance of businesses of it due to the disability act.
They are an experimental medical intervention, not without side effects and, IMO, an assault on one’s bodily autonomy.
The same is true with regard to the gene therapies deliberately misleadingly called vaccines, which are even officially only approved temporarily and as experimental.
Mandating them would most certainly also assault and infringe upon one’s bodily autonomy, which is why it can’t and won’t be done by government even if/once fully approved.
The interim legal angle to prevent the outsourcing of the mandate and coercion from government to businesses is likely the experimental nature, certainly in the USA where that is already in front of the courts, brought on behalf of a teachers union.
It should though also be deemed illegal in general, as businesses simply have no right to infringe upon one’s bodily autonomy and as the possible restriction of access by businesses of the unvaxxed without a prior law being made falls foul of the disability act again, as with masks, and this principle should be deemed unacceptable anyway in a democracy- a country that accepts this, that businesses are above the law and can make their own ones in such matters, should abolish its then useless and superfluous legislature and judiciary as well.
I also think that any form of mandatory invasive testing, like oral or nasal swabs or blood tests, are an assault and infringement on one’s bodily autonomy and that they are also simply illegal- in particular again as the PCR and LFT tests are also only approved under emergency authorisation for another year as well, and as they are useless due to not being standardized, leading to arbitrary results and ‘punishments’ (the latter applies to non-invasive aka spit LFT tests as well).
As for the refusal or result then ensuing access denial by businesses, see above.
I am pretty sure that the government is fully aware of all this and just tries it anyway.
It is a scandal and indicative of an either corrupted or completely incompetent legal profession in the UK that no one has brought these cases and arguments to the courts yet.
Perhaps that is why the ‘vaccines’ are being given free of charge.
If we had to pay for them one might sue under the Trades Description Act since they are clearly not ‘vaccines’ at all.
I can never for the life of me understand why anyone without symptoms who feels well would even consider having a test let alone queuing up to have one.
‘The free world died of COVID 19’
‘Covid Mania has turned the world’s sovereign states into one tyranny after another.’
https://www.aier.org/article/the-free-world-died-of-covid-19/
And, not least, this sovereign state…….turned into a totalitarian fascist dictatorship run independently of parliament by the panjandrums of the NHS socialist enterprise.
This country and its health service is in more in need of fundamental reform now than at any time, arguably, since the reign of Charles I
‘Aneurin Bevan, the minister responsible for its creation, suffered from no such timidity. He described the National Health Service as “a piece of real socialism,” and spoke of how it stood “opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society.”
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/07/aneurin-bevan-on-the-socialist-ambitions-of-the-nhs
What has happened over the last twelve months in Britain has been a long time in the making….and now requires a swift and radical unmaking…..
“socialist enterprise”
Once again a moron strikes : “It’s all socialism!”
This sort of nonsense gives Johnson a run for his money in the rubbish stakes.
This is far too serious a situation for knuckle-draggers indulging in the games of the political playpen.
Indeed…. red pill v blue pill…. left v right….dem v rep… lab v con etc…etc when you get globalists such as Sir Kier Starmer and dear old Tony B…. its a bickering nonsense…
The following is an agenda list I can believe in:
Lockdowns, PPE and social distancing have never been shown to benefit the
course of any epidemic, yet they can have devastating effects on society. Such
diktats should be rendered unlawful:
1. Reassert freedom of speech, opinion and choice.
2. Restore open scientific debate.
3. Promote personal responsibility and accountability and the protection of
basic human liberties
4. Promote mutual respect with regards to feelings of fear and personal health
choices.
5. End quarantining of asymptomatic individuals.
6. Eliminate forced isolation of symptomatic individuals. Recommend resting
at home when experiencing flu-like symptoms for up to eight days from the
onset of symptoms and until the absence of fever for 24 hours.
7. Develop a public health awareness campaign to promote hand hygiene and
a healthy lifestyle consisting of healthy eating, plentiful exercise and adequate
exposure to the sun (or vitamin D supplements).
Not to be found on any May 6th canvassing materials…anywhere.
https://www.pandata.org/about/protocol-for-reopening-society/
“ bickering nonsense…”
Indeed. I suppose it keeps the knuckle-draggers happy, but an analysis in traditional one-dimensional political terms is just stupid axe-grinding – and pointless. I’m on the traditional ‘left’ – but I have no idea what the term ‘socialism’ actually means in accurate descriptive terms. But I do know that you have to be intellectually one slate short of a roof to think that this shit-show can be analysed in such a framework.
I’m sort of anarcho-conservative and don’t see lockdown etc as Socialist at all, more Corporatist in the style of Mussolini.
‘The State is everything and everything is The State’ (something like that from memory).
This is not complicated.
Most on here understand that the government is being directed by the National Health Service via SAGE.
The National Health Service is a socialist construct:
‘Placing its creation in the context of a broader social transformation aimed at empowering workers – and diminishing what Marx referred to as “the wages system” – Bevan describes the NHS as “the most revolutionary feature of the British Socialist programme.”
Reference above
The measures instigated by this NHS coup are buttressed by governmental diktat unsupervised by parliament and backed with draconian sanctions enforced by state security services.
Socialist fascism.
In offering the AZ vaccine to the under 60s, the UK has become a definite ‘outlier’.
Maybe we are right and everyone else is wrong – who knows? Maybe they are all risk averse or maybe we are a rogue state. Time will tell
“He’s probably concerned, as I am, about the scenes in London that we saw, for instance, of people enjoying the outside of the pubs and the crowded spaces,” Prof Harnden tells BBC Breakfast.
He probably felt like that long before the pandemic
They want to start getting a bit of CONSISTENCY into their message and pronouncements. That guy clearly hadn’t seen the advertisement being shown every night on TV showing the 2 middle class couples in their garden socialising SAFELY because they were OUTSIDE where the covid gets dispersed into the air – just like all the people outside the pubs in soho were – why is it ok for someone’s back garden and not for outside a pub in soho. Strewth. sorry, I am just so incredibly angry with all the handwringing health and safetyism.
The johnson mantra about the ‘vaccine cavalry being around the corner’ (filched from hancock) either turned into Custers last stand or somebody reminded HMP that shortly after their arrival 50-90% of First Americans died of European virus and other diseases.
Or by chopping and changing perhaps he is deliberately stoking feelings of chaos. Extract from a John le Carre interview shortly before his death.
‘And for the political class a disdain grows with the the years
“Politicians love chaos, don’t ever think otherwise. It gives them authority and it gives them power. It gives them profile.
The idea that they’ll fix it for you”.
He (le Carre) despairs about what he believes is absolutism on the political right and left, libertarian and Leninist with the same objective. To start again after the chaos”.
Or after the Great Reset ?
“Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s suggestion that lockdown has played a significant part in reducing coronavirus infection levels is backed up by the data, says Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician from the University of Cambridge.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It is the lockdown that has caused the major drop, of course, because we’ve seen that happen in the huge reduction in the people who haven’t been vaccinated.”
Spiegelhalter is just relying on the modelling of Ferguson which doesn’t explain the drops in countries that didn’t lock down. I expect he wants a knighthood and this is his price
Either that or he’s applied for a substantial grant from ‘The Foundation’.
The ever-changing position on how to tackle this very normal seasonal virus is to deliberately confuse the already mentally-tenderised population.
If the previously celebrated ‘vaccine’ programme was a success, that would mean the virus has been dealt with… [malfunction!] No, the vaccine is now only a tool in the cabinet to deal with this virus, we need to lockdown again. Of course this is completely at odds with Madcock crying on TV repeatedly about how the ‘vaccine’ is our way to freedom. The confusion puts the population into a state of constant panic, like a rabbit in the headlights waiting to be snuffed out by it’s impending doom.
This will never end until our society is totally unrecognisable and they’ve fully implemented the Great Reset.
The UK Lockdown was so successful it worked in Florida and Sweden too!
Does anyone know of a comparable website to this one which doesn’t promote the vaccine? I’ve had enough of the daily support it is showing towards a dangerous drug that is being used on healthy people.
This PANDA summary J4mes is one of the very best responses to the hysterical unscientific blatherings via the state approved Covidian Cultists within the UK – gargoyles like Eggwina Curry (standing for office again) – spew out:
https://www.pandata.org/a-critical-analysis-of-the-covid-response/
Many thanks, I’ll give it a look.
Bye. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Every time I’m just about to give up hope, you call me back, Lucan. Your predictable insults and general ad hominem is far too entertaining to leave!
““Why is Boris talking down Britain’s vaccine success again?“
Why reference this load of old tosh in Round Up? We can read similar in the Guardian any day.
Somebody seems to be busting a gut here on promoting ‘vaccines’ as the miracle they aren’t.
If they are editorialising as such then fair enough but I don’t think this is so, a round up of the news is fine by me. The figures do not support the vax or the lockdown and I suspect Toby and Will both know this. I’m hugely grateful for this site and it’s efforts over the last year. If there is a new conflict or pressure from a regulator, or they have simply decided the vax is our saviour (when clearly it is not), then they should declare as such and I’ll review my opinions accordingly.
The only place you’ll read anything different is on sites full of nutters. Fortunately this isn’t one of them.
Perhaps time to join James and go elsewhere? Then we can get the comment section back to rational discussions of risk based upon data.
Your own popularity suggests you’ve got a long way to go to get everyone agreeing with your pro-‘vaccine’ madness Lucan.
By next year this time, it could well hsve gone down in history as having been a Titanic success.