I belong to a privileged generation. Not that I was raised in affluence; far from it. Born in 1958, to a mother who worked all her life as a weaver in the textile industry and a father employed as a maintenance mechanic at the local factory, I lived on a council estate for the first decade of my life. Money was tight, holidays were basic and infrequent, and treats – in the form of confectionary – were rare, usually restricted to a Turkish Delight chocolate bar each Sunday evening. Although I never realised it until I was 62, I was, however, part of a cohort who possessed something sacrosanct, something so very precious and – deplorably – something future generations may never enjoy again: individual freedom.
To be clear, the world I have lived in has been far from perfect. My era has been one incorporating fundamental inequalities and injustices, widespread poverty, discrimination and – particularly in my young-adult years – a recurring risk of physical assault. But despite this context, each of us took for granted a range of basic human rights: to meet with whomever we wished; to leave our homes whenever we chose; to eat whatever we wanted; to express opinions others might not agree with; to take risks, make mistakes and learn sometimes painful lessons; to wear whatever we wanted; to work to improve our career prospects and earn more money to enhance our lives and those of our families; and to decide what drugs and other medical interventions to accept. When cheap flights emerged in the 1970s and 80s, the whole world became wonderfully accessible.
My perception (probably a naïve one) of successive Labour and Conservative Governments was that, although often inept and guilty of policy errors, they broadly sought to improve the lives of their citizens and could at least be relied upon to protect us against external malignant forces. Furthermore, it seemed that the life-spans of our elected politicians were dependent upon keeping us – their constituents – satisfied by acting primarily in the interests of U.K. citizens.
But 30 months ago, this illusion was shattered.
I knew something was awry as early as February 2020. By March the same year my early-warning detector would not rest. While the media, politicians and the science ‘experts’ informed us – incessantly – that a uniquely lethal pathogen was spreading carnage across the world, and unprecedented and draconian restrictions on our day-to-day lives were essential to prevent Armageddon, I wasn’t buying it. I formed the view that a momentous event, unparalleled in my lifetime, was unfolding, but it was not primarily about a virus.
Why, at that point in time, did I recognise that something sinister was underway while almost everyone else I met seemed to be swallowing the dominant narrative? It is a difficult question to answer. Perhaps my time in the early 1980s as a psychiatric charge nurse in an NHS hospital, occasionally interfacing with the ‘infection control’ department, gave me insight into how this professional group operate. Although well-meaning, their advice regarding how to minimise the spread of contagion on a ward often seemed impractical, revealing an apparent inability to see the bigger picture. Or maybe my in-depth knowledge of risk assessment (gleaned in my doctoral thesis during my time as a clinical psychologist) had impressed upon me how woefully inaccurate we are in gauging the relative threat levels posed by various hazards inherent in our environment. What I did know for sure was that Big Pharma – arguably the most corrupt industry in the world – would exploit the emerging ‘crisis’ for its own ends. And how right I was.
The list of state-driven human rights abuses we have endured under the pretence of ‘keeping us safe’ and the (ominous) ‘greater good’ is long: prohibition of travel; confinement in our homes; social isolation; closure of businesses; denial of access to leisure activities; de-humanising mask mandates; directives (scrawled on floors and walls) dictating which way to walk; an arbitrary ‘stay two metres apart’ rule; exclusion from the weddings and funerals of our loved ones; the seclusion and neglect of our elderly; school shutdowns; children’s playgrounds sealed off with yellow and black tape; muzzled children and toddlers; students denied both face-to-face tuition and a ‘rites-of-passage’ social life; and coerced experimental ‘vaccines’ that turned out to be more harmful and less effective than initially claimed. Equally egregious were the strategies deployed to lever compliance with these restrictions, namely psychological manipulation (‘nudging’), pervasive censorship across the media and academic journals and the cancellation and vilification of anyone brave enough to speak out against the dominant Covid narrative. All-in-all, a state-driven assault on the core of our shared humanity.
As the state-orchestrated infringement of our basic human rights continued, I felt compelled to act in ways that were far outside of my comfort zone. The 61-year-old man who had never been on a protest march until summer 2020, and who had innocently assumed that most of society’s leaders were decent people who tried to do what was right, had changed. I found myself walking with tens of thousands of others along Regent Street, London, screaming “Freedom!”. I pushed “Back to Normal” leaflets through the letterboxes of hundreds of my neighbours. I stood on the corner of our local shopping street with a placard held aloft stating, “Say No To Vaccine Passports”.
Throughout 2020 and 2021, I struggled to find reasons for the irrational, masochistic Covid restrictions and the ubiquitous infringement of our basic human rights. My explanations evolved. Initially I clung to the ‘panic and incompetence’ rationale, that our governments had been spooked by the images coming out of China – remember the videos of people falling dead in the streets – and the mono-focused, blinkered and catastrophic prophecies of our so-called epidemiological experts. As the atrocities persisted, this explanation was rendered inadequate, and it morphed into an ‘opportunistic agendas’ account where activists – promoting green aspirations, digitalised IDs, social credit systems, a cashless society, universal income, a biosecurity state – had exploited the anxieties associated with the emergence of a novel respiratory virus. By 2021 these conclusions, in turn, seemed insufficient to explain the persistence of the horrors we were enduring and it – belatedly – became clear that globalist and ‘deep state’ powers were at work, striving to realise their inhuman aspirations. My further reading about the activities of World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the European Union, the World Health Organisation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, Anthony Fauci and Big Pharma, and others, confirmed this emerging conclusion.
As the Covid event fades from media attention (replaced by a focus on similarly dehumanising and totalitarian responses to environmental threats, the war in Ukraine and the imminent cost-of-living crisis) it is intriguing to reflect upon its residual effects.
I continue to mourn what I have lost, a process associated with a complex mix of fluctuating emotions. For two years, our Government, aided and abetted by state-funded scientists, denied us opportunities for fun and human connection, stymied our freedoms and orchestrated a systematic campaign to coerce us to both accept experimental ‘vaccines’ and to slavishly cover our faces with cloth or plastic. Consequently, I feel anger and disgust towards many of our politicians, epidemiological ‘experts’ and behavioural scientists who were complicit with this shameful period in our history. And I now distrust all sources of information, whether it be the media, the ‘scientific’ world or public health experts. Without an anchor for truth, I float – incredulous – in an ocean of mainstream-generated misinformation.
My 60-plus years of naivety have been shattered. I believe only those few who have shown selfless integrity throughout the Covid debacle. Also, I am now sceptical about much of the green agenda: state-funded scientists lied to us about Covid so why wouldn’t they show the same self-serving dishonesty about the climate?
Closer to home, it is clear my life has changed. I feel disappointment and irritation towards many people who I previously respected and liked, such as friends who colluded with the catastrophically damaging Covid restrictions because of fear, ignorance or a desire to avoid hassle and condemnation. Many relationships are now more distant. On the rare occasions we meet there is often an ‘elephant in the room’, and when the Covid issue is touched upon I typically feel frustrated that many do not want to consider the implications of what has been inflicted upon us.
I feel similarly towards mental health colleagues who, for years, I had stood alongside and respected, collectively fighting the tyranny of biological psychiatry (its human rights infringements, coercion, overuse of drugs and vilification of those who questioned them) but who failed to recognise a much bigger tyranny when it emerged in 2020. While a handful of this anti-psychiatry lobby did soon recognise the totalitarian threat inherent to the Covid response, most bought into the dominant narrative. Heated disagreements ensued with a few, followed by ongoing mutual resentment; for most we just avoid each other.
But the residual effects of the Covid debacle are not all negative. New friendships have emerged with people from across the political spectrum. Based on a mutual respect, enduring bonds have formed with fellow sceptics both locally (through the Community Assembly and the Stand in the Park initiatives) and nationally via joint endeavours in HART, Smile Free, and PANDA. And it was uplifting to recently discover – via a chance meeting in the local pub – that the family I had lived across the road from for the last seven years, yet had rarely spoken to, had always been as sceptical as me about the dominant Covid narrative.
Furthermore, I have noticed that my behaviour has changed in subtle ways. I now make more of an effort to smile and gain eye contact with – unmasked – strangers. Similarly, when greeting acquaintances, I’m more inclined to hug or shake hands as compared to pre-2020 levels of bodily contact. (Non of that fist-bump and elbow-touch nonsense for me.) It’s as if I’m striving to compensate for the human connection deficit that we’ve accrued over the last 30 months. Or perhaps I’m making a defiant metaphorical one-finger salute to any onlookers who still adhere to the risk-averse and dehumanising dominant Covid narrative?
While we continue to drown in a sea of propaganda, censorship and coercion, who knows what the future might hold?
One thing is for sure: We must never forget what the political leaders and public health specialists inflicted upon us. Whether the reason was weakness, groupthink, conflict of interest or unadulterated corruption, the miscreants must all be held to account and pay a price for terrorising the people they are meant to serve. This assertion is not fuelled by a primitive desire for retribution – well, not primarily – but by an expectation that, if the guilty are not named and shamed, the same totalitarian impositions will be repeated again and again.
The conviction sheet is a long one. It includes political leaders at home (Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer, Nicola Sturgeon, Mark Drayford) and abroad (including Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden and Jacinda Ardern); Bill Gates and his various funding agencies; SAGE scientists who danced to the tune of their academic and political paymasters; the behavioural science ‘nudgers’ at the helm of the worldwide psychological manipulation strategy; the professional organisations that have manifestly colluded with the state-driven tyranny (including the British Medical Association and the British Psychological Society); the conflicted drug regulators (such as the MHRA); the powerful, profit-driven pharmaceutical companies, deploying their financial clout to influence health policy decisions; and the mainstream media, who have slavishly peddled the dominant Covid narrative while dismissing alternative viewpoints.
To successfully expose the wrongdoings of such powerful individuals and institutions is a big ask. Realistically, only bottom-up resistance and protests from millions of ordinary people could achieve this aim, and in this regard there are reasons for optimism. Truth will – eventually – reveal itself. Despite the ongoing censorship and manipulation, public dissent to the attempted imposition of a biosecurity state is becoming increasingly visible. Masking in the community is – at the time of writing – practised only by an eccentric minority. The net harms of Covid restrictions are more widely recognised. Ordinary citizens increasingly claim they will not be locked down and separated from their loved ones ever again. And – perhaps more importantly – the ‘safe and effective’ vaccine narrative is crumbling, as indicated by more and more people rejecting the jabs.
If we do not wish to live in a ‘transhuman’ society devoid of personal freedoms, where our day-to-day decisions – where we go, what we say, what we eat, how we spend our money, what drugs we ingest – are determined by the state’s version of the ‘greater good’, we must all continue to show visible dissent to the globalists’ new world order.
Together, I believe we can defeat the biggest threat to Western values witnessed in my lifetime. And even if we don’t succeed, history will show that at least we tried.
Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of the Smile Free campaign. He blogs at Coronababble, where this post first appeared.
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.
Your psychological analysis of the débacle seems wise to me. Similar age group to yourself, and I think the way certain organisations behave after various industrial disasters is quite similar. Perhaps that’s not a surprise. Most of my experience was in the railway industry. A lot of the issues were well described in a book called “Hidden Dangers” by Stanley Hall. Other industries had their troubles of course – shipping, oil refineries, power stations (especially nuclear reactor types), aviation and so on.
There has always been a tendency along the lines of “something must be done”, certain professional organisations looking a bit embarrassed to say the least, and as ever, money talks politically.
Aye to all that. Starting with incarceration for life for Hancock, for the manslaughter of hundreds and thousands of innocent elderly people
Hopefully all those insects he’s going to get close to will feel the same!
The very suggestion that people such as Midazolam Mat and plenty of others like him should be given an opportunity to gain a degree of redemption in return for making a public spectacle of themselves on television, in return for a nice fat fee, £350k apparently, is grotesque and insulting in the extreme.
Talk about rubbing our noses in it.
Well as I said above hopefully the creepy crawlies will get him.
I am willing to place a bet that if anyone mentions covid during his stay in the jungle it will only be to main either;
A. He didn’t lockdown soon enough
B. He didn’t fastidiously follow the rules.
Any takers?
With a bit of luck he’ll be seen off by a poisonous creature ‘down under’.
Nothing less than his being eaten by a crocodile will do.
So long as it is slow and lingering.
But why poison an innocent crocodile?
Interesting and reflective article thanks. A few comments:
Why, at that point in time, did I recognise that something sinister was underway while almost everyone else I met seemed to be swallowing the dominant narrative?
That’s easy for me – straight away, by March 2020, I was seeing parallels with 17th-century witch-hunting, especially the Bideford and Salem examples which some years before I’d read about widely. Also I’d previously read Charles Mackay’s Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions. These historical examples were playing out before my eyes, and the eyes of anyone who cared to look.
This assertion is not fuelled by a primitive desire for retribution – well, not primarily – but by an expectation that, if the guilty are not named and shamed, the same totalitarian impositions will be repeated again and again.
I agree with that. And I must admit that I am in part driven by a desire for retribution. No point in not being honest about it, I do want revenge. And anyway, as has been well said, an amnesty is just an invitation for the same thing to happen again.
The conviction sheet is a long one. It includes political leaders …
There’s a fundamental problem with this statement: it wasn’t just the leaders, it was practically the whole damned lot of our political class. All but a handful of our 650 MPs need to be held to account for their complicity in the crimes.
And – worse – it goes much further than that: everyone who went along with what – by any moral standards – were, unequivocally, moral crimes must take their fair share of the responsibility. And that’s about 90% of our fellow citizens. As a society, I don’t know how we come back from this.
Well said. None of this happened by accident. It wasn’t a mistake; it was deliberate. And I too want justice.
That’s pretty much my position.
And mine
Mine too!
Cracking comment. Sadly and frighteningly especially the last sentence.
During the recent poorly attended (by MPs) ‘debate’ about vaccine harms in the U.K., I was very disappointed to see that the shadow health minister – Labour – was praising the work of the MHRA. Although I know there was / is no decent opposition to the Tory tyrants and they were aided and abetted by the ‘opposition’, it was still a great disappointment to see the shadow minister’s response.
He may be just following the Labour party line – who are the greatest admirers of the Tory covid policies – but he has done himself a great disservice. I always thought he was a decent, honest, hard working individual. In fact, I used to admire him. That he has chosen to defend the indefensible shook me to the core. Shame on him.
I’d like to plead for a reduced sentence for the Lib Dems and anyone else who stood against the “vaccine” mandates.
Yes, have felt just as you have, Gary, since February 20, and forever changed by the events of the last two and a half years. I’ve petitioned, demonstrated, contributed financially to those helping, but you have done so much more and I thank you for it. And, yes, relationships have changed. I consciously and unconsciously seem to assess ‘friends’ as to what extent they swallowed it all, and to what extent they criticised, attacked those of us who, as you say, ‘didn’t buy it’. (I have a pretty good idea of who amongst my ‘friends’ would have supported having me forcibly injected or imprisoned. Sadly, the ‘elephant’ is always present ‘in the room’ when I see my son – I miss the closeness, the laughs, the honesty…but after some truly horrible disagreements, although we can still have a good time together socially, I don’t feel hopeful that we will ever be able to regain what we had. Hope is all we have – the hope that mainstream journalists, mainstream newspapers will start to report on the injuries caused by the injection – is there no way these newspapers can survive without Big Pharma/Gates money?
In Feb/Mar 2020 I told everyone I knew that I hoped I’d get it soon, that it was of no threat & that post infection I’d be effectively immune. I had a letter published in the local paper saying this. Everyone thought I was mad. It didn’t need a genius to see post Diamond Princess it was all nonsense.
Like you I feel my relationship with – in my case -my sons.
I feel the same. I look at people very differently now and assess where they stand on the Covid belief system spectrum. I feel my relationship with my sons will never be the same. They all got stabbed and I didn’t. There were conversations about my refusal behind my back and I was phoned by one of them who pleaded with me to get the vaccine. I know they were angry that I didn’t. I was appalled that my oldest son and his wife were fence-sitting with regards to vaccinating their children. My husband is double vaccinated and now has circulatory problems which made their appearance after he was vaccinated. Obviously I suspect the vaccine had something to do with it but it’s not a topic of conversation, It’s just bad luck in the ageing process according to the family. I feel quite alienated really.
Oh you poor thing. Well done for not giving in to the pressure and without meaning to sound too patronising I think you’re extremely brave, you can hold your head up high and be very proud of yourself. RESPECT!!!
PS Have you been going to your local SITP? It’s very therapeutic and extremely friendly.
Thank you for your support. It’s not an exaggeration to say that sites like this cheer me up as I know I’m not alone. Sadly we don’t have a SITP near us…
No problem it’s people like you that give us all hope. I agree Toby, UK Column, JD have all been an absolute godsend and stopped me from going totally mad! And I can assure you you’re definitely NOT alone. Pity about the SITP ever thought about starting one up? Just a thought.
In my experience, SITP (Edinburgh, but I see no sign that it’s unusual) have their own orthodoxies in relation to climate, covid, woke and its precursor(s), so is not a productive forum in which to explore any topics like these
Thank you so much for this Gary. I have been debating writing up my story but didn’t know how to start Your own story matches my own in so many ways, so if it’s ok, I’m going to use it as a basis for my own thoughts and writings.
We were all concerned about the virus in the first few days, but even then, I was far more concerned about those in power never releasing us from their control, which is sadly what happened. It was fairly obvious in the first few weeks (eg evidence from the Diamond Princess) that something much more sinister than a flu-type illness was going on. Why are some of us sceptical, but sadly so many more are blinkered. It’s inexplicable !!!!!
Thank you again – brilliantly written – and an almost 100% match to my own experiences.
Ditto
“Thank you again – brilliantly written – and an almost 100% match to my own experiences.”
Hear hear. Don’t know what’s making me more emotional reading this outstanding article or the comments, both equally moving.
I’m roughly the same age as Dr Sidley and it sounds like I had a similar upbringing. I had a happy “free-range” childhood which taught me the merits of responsibility and resilience through experience which I tried to pass onto my sons in the ’90s. They too had a “free-range” youth, albeit starting at an older age than I did (times had changed).
I too was sceptical from the outset and was “digging” on the internet long before Johnson ordered us to stay at home. I watched about 5 of the Daily Briefings and then told my son they weren’t putting anything into context so it was just propaganda. I switched off.
I stretched the restrictions to the nth degree, broke them quite a few times and generally lived life as close as possible to normal throughout the madness. I’m unjabbed.
Any trust in the British Authorities and the NHS has been irretrievably destroyed.
Many years ago, my history teacher told the class that when writing an essay we should follow Rudyard Kipling’s guide:
“I had six honest serving men
They taught me all I knew
Their names were What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who”
I’ve applied it ever since. And that’s why I never fell for the propaganda.
Spot on, Doctor.
I see the ‘narrative’ has shifted to ‘we didn’t know’ and we acted in the light of ignorance, with ‘best intentions’ so you can’t blame us for getting it wrong: forgive us.
Ignorance is no excuse for wrong-doing and acting precipitously out of ignorance risking Human life and wellbeing is criminal recklessness and negligence.
But they did know – there was a written Pandemic Plan and a century of knowledge and experience plus a virus from a family well known and studied since the 1960s.
The matter needs to be referred to criminal Court.
“The matter needs to be referred to criminal Court.”
Agreed trouble is the Courts are corrupt as well
They wanted the unjabbed to be excommunicated and isolated from society – that I will never forget nor forgive. I want Justice and the likes of Matt Hancock to be put on trial.
Edited. I will try again shortly.
I am a 100% in agreement.
The only further observation I have is that I don’t look at my fellow human beings in the same way…
I simply find it so hard to grasp why so many went along with it all, especially as the rules became more and more ridiculous and more and more inhumane.
I don’t look at *all* of my fellow humans in the same way. Most of them are to be pitied: they were scared out of their wits. They lacked, pitiably, a firm basis of doubt and scepticism. That’s not their fault. With some perspective, they may come to understand this.
*Some* of them are to be despised … I don’t know, maybe still pitied. They are in the grip of some conceit, despair, or disease that makes them morally blind.
Whatever, it has been a stunning revelation to me, how superficially I thought before about the people around me.
Excellent, brilliantly articulated, article. This, almost perfectly, captures my own path and resultant emotions. The only point where I may disagree is around our fellow humans; they have shown themselves to be nothing more than weak, naïve, peer-obsessed puppets – following the most popular narrative. At the moment, another truth is emerging, but as soon they make another ‘truth’ more popular the sheep will flock to their pen.
What kind of treatment to you expect from a bunch of people convinced that they are the chosen people of the mute god The Planet to bring this bothersome human pest under control to prevent the destruction of everything that’s more important than them, namely, everything? Add to that that they’re seriously pissed off that their influence on the most parts of the world, ie, all of them which are not directly controlled by the so-called western democracies whose inherent political weaknesses enabled them to be subverted is exactly zero. Greta Thunberg (or rather, her puppet masters) can rant and rave all the way they want, billions of Indians, Africans and Brazilians are just ignoring them. All they can really accomplish is to attempt the destruction of everything they do control like a giant toddler having a monstrous tantrum. Once they’ve thrown their broken toys ouf the pram, their political careers will simply be over.
Afterwards, we can see if we’re so lucky that there’s still something left which can be rebuilt.
Hope so . Our own rebuild or my grandchildren because it could take a while. But better late than never.
A wonderful article mirroring my own experience. If it wasn’t for this site and the UK Column, I would have lost my mind.
Hear hear to all of that!!!!
Thank you for writing this piece, Dr. Sidley. It sums up my own feelings but I’m ashamed to confess I fell partly, thankfully briefly, into line.
At the start of the Covid fandango I, like many others, were saying ‘sounds like a nasty cold. What’s the big deal?’. I recall tv and print news initially caveating and contextualising Covid deaths with ‘the patient was over 80 and had X comorbidity’. Even the BBC. Then they mysteriously stopped and switched overnight to the ‘oh mah GAAAHD!! We’re all gonna DIIIIIE!!!’ narrative. I got the whiff of rat then but, retaining a residue of trust in our leaders and ‘public health professionals’ went along with things for a couple of months. I too clapped like a trained seal at my front door, telling myself I was supporting my partner who works in social care. I stopped when he said, ‘oh yeah?’ and shrugged. I supported the initial call to wear masks voluntarily because I naively thought it was a means to tempt the terrified back into something approaching normal life but when the lockdown lingered and masks became mandatory, I abandoned all trust in the authorities and began to actively loathe them for what they were doing TO (not for) us. A naive Guardian reading soft leftie with faith in big state solutions, my politics changed 180 degrees when I saw what horrors the big state was capable of inflicting on us. Now my vote goes to the party most likely to stay the hell outta my life. The options are limited.
Things that happened to me personally that I’ll never forgive those in power for: I was forbidden from seeing my long term partner for months because we don’t live in the same home or town. I’d have happily flouted that law but he was literally terrified into compliance because of the propaganda (he’s happily come round to reality since). I’ll never forget that pr!ck Hancock and whichever nonentity was trotted out to say the same thing in Scotland, merrily instructing couples like us to make a snap decision to move in together (the location of our jobs prohibits that).
My mum and most of my family live in Canada where Covid totalitarianism was arguably worse than the UK. Mum’s partner had what turned out to be terminal brain cancer undiagnosed then misdiagnosed for months because his GP refused to see him in person (cos Covid!) and suffered unnecessarily before being placed in palliative care before he ended his life using Canada’s assisted dying law in May 2020 (I know this is controversial but it was his wish). Due to the machinations of the U.K., Scottish, Canadian and British Columbia governments, I was unable to fly to Canada to support my mother through possibly the most traumatic experience of her life.
I’m an academic and quickly saw how thin some colleagues’ commitment to empiricism really is. When mask mandates first began, I recall a staff meeting on zoom where a young, male colleague literally gloated about bullying an unmasked old woman in a supermarket. I’m pleased to say that, far from the affirmation he seemed to be expecting, an uncomfortable silence amongst others in attendance ensued. I alone spoke up to say, ‘c’mon, you’re surely not that guy. Please don’t be that guy!’. In summer 2021, when things had lightened up a bit, a full professor assigned to do my annual review suggested we meet to do it in a cafe. ‘Great! A human being!’ thought I. When we met, I extended my hand for him to shake whereupon he leapt back, exclaiming, ‘oh, no! I’m not doing that yet!’ … and then proceeded to sit unmasked with me in close conclave for an hour as we breathed in each other’s exhalations. This person holds the role of Director of Research in my department. A nice guy but … WTF?!?
Toto, we ain’t in Kansas anymore…
Bravo! And thankyou. I have been especially appalled at my unthinking healthcare colleagues.
My favourite peak idiocy observation came in the early winter of 2021 as I pedalled home in North London. Another cyclist crossed my path against a red signal on a busy road. He had no helmet, no lights…vut at least he was wearing a mask!
Risk assessment?
Hilarious! A vivid memory of mine was seeing what appeared to be a young, healthy guy walking down the street in a motorcycle helmet back in the early months when masks were in short supply … bloody clown.
Thank you for sharing “ I continue to mourn what I have lost”
So do I. !!
I shall look at ‘smile’. I empathise with a lot of what you say. I work in a high school of ASC and communication, I found it unbearable seeing the compliance and in my view the damage of it all.
I too have lost friends and of those left their us an elephant in the room with us. There are no networks near me of like minded people, I wish.
The price has been to heavy for me to forgive, that’s for God not me.
Every time I see a mention of the need to reduce my carbon imprint and the iniquity of fossil fuels, I mourn for the free world we have left. The green “save the planet” mantra is so overwhelming now with politicians forced to groupthink and accept the “settled science” that the parallels with the Covid Lockdown are obvious. Just to look at the BBC propaganda and seeing Sunak scuttling over to Cop27 to do his masters’ bidding is truly frightening.
Yes. Never forget who they are and what they did. Never.
Totally agree with every last word.
Glad those dodgy videos from China are on a link. I tried to find them and they’d all mysteriously disappeared…many people I mentioned them to thought I was making it up.
Wow, amen to all that. my feelings exactly. Sadly I haven’t found others who will admit to feeling this way.
I feel all social interactions are now guarded and superficial but having acknowledged that I can live with it on the rare occasions I go to things. I’m angry that people seem to be trying to pick up their lives where they left off in 2020 as if Covid restrictions never happened. I’m angry at how stupid people are in not seeing how their lives are closing in and still being closed in.
I won’t forget the people who advocated imprisoning people like me who weren’t stabbed and wanted us banned from any kind of life outside our homes.These fine upstanding members of society who stood in judgement of their fellows and who wouldn’t listen to any dissent were once my friends but are now just people I meet.
I live in Scotland and I’m amazed that people seem to accept that we can no longer just ‘pop into’ the opticians to have our glasses adjusted – we have to make an appointment and wear masks. We accept mask wearing and queues to go into local pharmacies. Sadly, I still feel very apprehensive that health passports will come to pass. I mourn what we have lost but no-one wants to talk honestly about it.
Thank you for an excellent article Dr. Sidley. Being born 11 years before you I think I was even more privileged. As the son of a single parent family, my Mother divorced my father when I was 11, I too was brought up in council estates. But I was lucky enough to pass the 11+, get into a grammar school and thence to university; where I graduated with a General Science degree – the lowest possible due to my enjoyment of the social aspects of Aberdeen!
However, there were two major differences between us. For the first 15 years after graduation I worked for Beecham Pharmaceuticals, at a time when the pharma industry was not the rapacious animal it now is. Also, having realised very early on that the ‘climate emergency’ was no more than a scam I was immediately suspicious of the ‘covid scam’. The use of that serial forecasting failure, Professor Ferguson and the ‘Diamond Princess’ hardened my views very early on. As a result I posted on a very early Lockdown Sceptic the quote from Joseph Goebbels about the ‘big lie’. Nothing that has happened since has got me to change my views.
Yes, it’s not nice being denigrated by my immediate family for my views but I’ve always held to the view that “If nothing else works, try honesty” so at least I can go to my grave knowing I was right.
Having posted in haste I’ve realised that the quote was wrong. Mea culpa
It should read “If all else fails try honesty”. The author is Robert Townsend, author of ‘Up the Organization’, an excellent book on how companies go wrong!
Also, in the spirit of true confession I have had 3 jabs. Even knowing that they were not vaccines in the true sense of the word. The reason was a simple one, our desire to be allowed to go on holiday, having missed 2 years of travel plans.
As we don’t smoke, gamble, drink to excess or have a Netflix subscription our reason for working is to go away to foreign climes. And if people want to disagree with our decisions then I’ll remind them that we don’t tell them how to spend their money. So butt out. However, I have declined the 4th jab in view of the increasing reports of side effects.
Unfortunately my wife won’t listen to me and will have a 4th jab
We will pray for you and your good lady.
That’s very kind of you Epi. As a fully paid up atheist the thought of prayers on my behalf makes me feel like a hypocrite but nevertheless I will accept your kind thoughts in the spirit they were given
Thank you Dr Sidley really enjoyed reading this article. Let us hope your honesty and sense of moral duty encourages others in the healthcare profession to follow your example in publishing their viewpoint.
Sadly so far the opposite seems to be true having had various altercations (re masks) in different medical settings whilst escorting my Partner to her appointments.
Thank you Dr Sidley an absolutely brilliant piece. Your description of posting leaflets through doors, going on Freedom marches and making new good friends at SiTP could well have been describing my experiences over the last 2 1/2 years. Sadly like you I too have lost friends and some family members along the way who refused to see anything wrong with what was and still is going on. Actually made me weep reading some of this. The good thing is there are millions of us around the world but we do need to get out there and spread the word so these evil evil b*****ds can be held to account.
Congratulations Gary for spelling out very clearly what these people have put us through. Fairly early in the extremes of Covid propaganda I did my research often helped by what was then Lockdown Sceptics and many other sources and could see from that there was little or no justification for the many restrictions we were subjected to. It was also clear in a number of cases the information given to the UK public by SAGE, Whitty, Vallance,Hancock, Johnson and others was biased and distorted in the way it was presented to generate fear in as many who believed what they heard and didn’t believe the very few with the courage to comment against it. I did comment against it and lost friends who thought I was a crackpot, some so damaged by the lockdown and other restrictions that they are too frightened even now to enter our house or allow us to enter theirs and have the social evenings we once used to enjoy.
There is no doubt the same thing by some of the same people is happening about climate change and the crazy attempts to acheive net zero. CO2 makes up 0.042% of our atmosphere and even with the amounts pumped out by China, the US, India and others (including the UK’s miniscule amount) humanity’s activities are adding less than 5%. I don’t deny we should be making reasonable attempts to reduce pollution of every sort, but its best our scientists should be working on how to do that without sending us back to the Stone Age. The problem now is once again the massive worldwide organisations are outputting propaganda with so much distortion and bias that well meaning people are trying to prevent us using fossil fuels which are the basis of the recent developments in our civilisation and saying CO2 is a pollutant when it is esential for life on our planet.
Excellent article and I can certainly identify with what you say. When this covid scam first broke out my inner alarm bells were ringing, something was off and I took to the internet to discover as much as I could and became an A1 Sceptic as a result. My husband and I remain unjabbed and whilst most of our friends and families have been jabbed we have noted their continual bouts of illnesses and despite some claims of never having another jab they’ve gone and taken the boosters along with the pneumonia and flu jab too. There is no hope for the stupid and we decided some time ago to let them get on with it as we are wasting oxygen talking to people who refuse to see what is in front of them. Our trust in the British Establishment has gone down the pan never to see light ever again.
“I feel disappointment and irritation towards many people who I previously respected and liked, such as friends who colluded with the catastrophically damaging Covid restrictions because of fear, ignorance or a desire to avoid hassle and condemnation.”
Mass delusion in the face of constant propaganda is, for me, forgivable to a large extent. Friends masking up or not socialising or taking the vaccines can be condemned as naive or gullible or stupid, but not as being morally reprehensible. But moral blame does for me attach to friends and family members who were supportive of many of the measures introduced purely because they bought into the “greater good” arguments. Keeping family members apart at the time of severe illness or death, or preventing attendance at funerals, was never ok. Vaccine mandates were never ok. Labelling those choosing not to take the vaccines as “granny-killers” or “selfish” or “a danger to society” was never ok, nor was seeking to punish us with fines or restricted access to healthcare.
So “disappointment” and “irritation” are in many cases not sufficient to capture my feelings. If a friend or family member reveals an inner fascism in their character, I feel a moral revulsion that cannot be forgiven, because I now see them for how they really are. Like integrity, once the inclination to accept moral evil is revealed, a claim to being morally good can’t be reasserted.
“If a friend or family member reveals an inner fascism in their character, I feel a moral revulsion that cannot be forgiven, because I now see them for how they really are. Like integrity, once the inclination to accept moral evil is revealed, a claim to being morally good can’t be reasserted.”
My stepson would not allow me into his father’s house despite being asked to do some gardening there, because I was (and still am) unjabbed. He was presumably under the misapprehension that I was going to kill his father with “Covid” who had just returned from hospital after an operation. I did point to him being double jabbed that he was probably more likely to infect his father and also as his father had already been double jabbed was presumably protected (this was August 2021) although we now know that to be untrue and probably did then. A few choice words were exchanged before I left, we haven’t spoken to this day. Don’t suppose he realised he was acting like a facist but they never do, do they?
Thank you Dr.Sidley. I agree with every word.
I recently came across this and posted it on here but I think it is worthwhile posting again.
“Do you remember?”
https://sheldonyakiwchuk.substack.com/p/do-you-remember?isFreemail=true
I remember it well. All of it.
Beautifully written article. Agree with everything. 58’er myself. The suppression of HCQ and Ivermectin still makes my blood boil. Vaccine damage is getting very nasty indeed. We went to school with children with Thalidomide. This is a hundred times worse.
Are they Clark’s shoes? Because Clark’s cares…