Laurence Fox Has Raised £5 Million From Tory Donors
According to a piece in the Mail yesterday, Laurence Fox hasn’t raised £1 million to support his new political party, as reported in the Sunday Telegraph. He’s raised £5 million!
Laurence Fox is launching a new political party to fight the culture wars named Reclaim, and he has already raised more than £5million.
The actor, 42, has received substantial sums from former Tory donors and hopes to stand dozens of candidates across the UK.
The Lewis star says he wants to provide a movement for people who are “tired of being told that we represent the very thing we have, in history, stood together against”.
It comes as Nigel Farage has also threatened to launch an anti-lockdown party after criticising Boris Johnson’s draconian measures to curb the rise in coronavirus cases.
For anyone interested in joining Reclaim, there’s an expression of interest form here.
Stop Press: Patrick O’Flynn, a former UKIP MEP, has some cautionary words for Laurence in the Telegraph. His advice: sign up Nigel ASAP.
National Union of Students Ignores Imprisonment of Students, Launches Campaign to “Decolonise Education”
You couldn’t make it up. At the very moment that tens of thousands of students across the United Kingdom are being imprisoned in their halls of residence and threatened with expulsion if they show the slightest sign of resistance – the worst treatment of students by university authorities since the Second World War – the National Union of Students has launched a campaign to “decolonise education”. You can read all about it on the NUS website:
At the roots of these movements are a deep hunger and determination to rebuild how things are done, and remove all the things that have led to racism, colonialism and imperialism. And in their place, the aim and vision of a world that is accountable for this violence and works towards restorative justice.
This would be done by working together towards cultural, psychological and economic freedom. Decolonisation as theory and practice is used to imagine this and create what this change would look like.
Decolonisation in practice is about bringing to light and taking apart colonialist power in all its forms. For this, we also need to understand that society as we know it is built upon this power.
This includes all the things that perpetuate and reproduce the legacy of colonialism in areas like education, housing, finance, policing, healthcare and many more.
For example, if we look at education, it is about paying attention to how our education system, our schools, colleges and universities, and ways of learning are built on colonial histories. They all put whiteness at the centre and as a neutral perspective to learn about our world.
Decolonising means providing students, staff and their local communities with the tools and language to critically identify the ways our schools, colleges and universities are built using the same colonial hierarchies. It also means empowering them to confront, challenge and reject the status quo. They would then be able to reimagine how things can be done differently and create alternatives that would benefit us all.
Currently, we do not trust schools, colleges and universities senior leadership teams in their effort to decolonise their institution. And this makes sense: they benefit from it as individuals and don’t want to lose the power they gained from it. This is why we are supporting the creation of alternative learning spaces, such as the Free Black University, who are outside of the current model.
If I was a student, I think I’d want my trade union to focus on more pressing matters.
The Sun has a harrowing report of the restrictions that students at Manchester Metropolitan University are facing. Signs in the windows read “Help us!” and another renamed the institution “HMP MMU”. Students were initially ordered by the University to take down these signs, but the authorities then sheepishly acknowledged that they couldn’t actually prevent students from communicating with the outside world.
Stop Press: A reader has pointed out that virtually no one under 25 has died from Covid in Scotland.
In Scotland for those aged under 25 there has been zero deaths – that is not just those with co-morbidities, that is everyone. No man under 45 has died since June 3rd, there have been 11 in total. The last woman under 45 died on May 2nd, there have been six in total.
Mad SAGE Scientist Warns of Third Wave
Professor Mark Woolhouse, a member of SAGE , has warned that Londoners could be a facing a “third wave”! The Evening Standard has more.
London is in a “difficult place” and facing a ban on mixing households, a Labour MP has warned, amid warnings that any lockdown will only delay a “possible” third wave.
David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, said local lockdown measures, such as preventing residents from visiting other people’s homes, were “likely” to hit the capital. It came as Professor Mark Woolhouse, a member of the SAGE scientific advisory group, warned that a third coronavirus wave of COVID-19 is “entirely possible”.
This is like a game of bedwetters’ top trumps. How long before Professor John Edmunds appears on the Today programme to warn of a “fourth wave”?
Riot Police Throw Woman in Her Fifties to Ground at Anti-Lockdown Protest
The footage of the police “dispersing” yesterday’s ant-lockdown protest in Trafalgar Square is pretty shocking. Kathy Gyngell has written an eye-witness account of what happened in the Conservative Woman.
As I reached the south-west corner of the Square I saw police by their motorbikes were donning helmets.
Heading on towards Pall Mall, I saw that grim faced masked police in vans were beginning to pull out from a side street parking. In my innocence I thought this over-manned convoy was off back to base because with no trouble and relatively few people they were just not needed.
How mistaken I turned out to be. It was not till I got home that I found to my horror from the news that far from going back to base this must have been the start of their mobilising against the crowd. Which indeed they did. Officers determined to disperse the crowd, penned it in. Protesters and police were hurt.
Why this clearly premeditated action? Who authorised it and on what grounds?
Who authorised them to pen the crowd in? There was no need – there was no overspill into surrounding streets. And why did the police not regard this crowd with the same tolerance they did with the recent BLM protests?
It has shocked me to the core. And now I see that Sky News instead of focusing on unjustifiable and provocative police action has chosen to relay selective vox pops of ‘conspiracy theorists’. So predictable!
I could have told Sky News that you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to question the legitimacy or the rationality of the current Emergency powers – or to want to publicly protest against them.
Depressingly nearly all the papers today reporting the ‘clashes’ and the violence that occurred seem to have taken the pro-government line that the police enforcement of the government’s covid rules was justified, that they had a right to silence public dissent against them. They did not report that the police storming of the crowd after two and half hours of standing by was unprovoked or that there was every indication that their action was premeditated and planned. What I had witnessed was them moving into action when the rally was entirely peaceful and causing no disruption.
As a friend who was there to the bitter end reported back to me: ‘It was an amazing day but so tarnished by the police at the end. I feel deeply shocked by the way they stormed in. It was totally unnecessary and quite worrying in our democracy that this is how a peaceful demonstration is treated. It’s made the whole situation all the more worrying, I feel. It did feel amazing however to be surrounded by people not willing to accept this so-called New Normal.’
Worth reading in full.
If the police continue to behave in this heavy-handed and arbitrary manner, it will undermine the rule of law and destroy policing by consent.
Stop Press: If anyone knows the well-dressed, middle-aged victim of this police brutality, please tell her to get in touch. Would love to tell her story.
Postcard From Stockholm
A reader has just returned from a short break in Stockholm. Highly recommended.
A short break outside of this sceptered isle in 2020 is not easy. Every week the options for those who have an employment contract with limited annual leave decreases; two weeks quarantine is not an option. When Sweden was removed by Schapps from the “list”, the choice of Stockholm was made.
What would it be like? Would there be piles of dead bodies in the streets waiting to be removed?
Happily I can confirm all the media generated negative press is very far from the truth. The moment you touch down in Stockholm you feel free. That sense of fear and hysteria is lifted and carried away.
It is truly liberating. Outside of the airport in Stockholm I can confirm that the vast majority get on with their lives without having to wear masks in shops or on the public transport. There is hand sanitiser at various locations and social distancing is observed but the restaurants and bars appeared pretty normal and they even accept cash in the shops.
Once in a while you see a masked-up person but they are invariably foreign tourists. I never had to give my details for any track and trace; maybe there is a system but it wasn’t very evident.
I found Stockholm to be much more interesting than I imagined and the waterfront is stunning. The centre is free from rubbish and graffiti – unlike Paris and Berlin. Highlights are the Royal Palace which was so empty you could sit on the throne if you wanted and of course the Vasa Museum, showing the 17th Century ship in all its glory.
Maybe this week Sweden will be back on the naughty step but dear reader don’t be put off because the absence of queues and crowding is a blessing. Final tip: make sure you book to return on Friday evening rather than Saturday for obvious reasons.
NHS Track and Trace Orders Nokia Owners to Download COVID-19 App
In a cock-up that will surprise absolutely no one, NHS Test and Trace is sending texts to ancient Nokia phones telling their owners to to download the COVID-19 app. Er, what? A reader has been in touch to tell me her 88 year-old mother got this message yesterday and was left feeling somewhat confused. She sent me a photo of her mum’s phone.
Round-Up
- “Coronavirus rule changes: What you can and can’t do in England from tomorrow” – A summary in the Mirror of the new rules that kicked in today. Most alarming is that anyone contacted by NHS Test and Trace is now legally obliged to self-isolate for 10 days and if you break the rules can be fined up to £10,000 – with the police carrying out spot checks to make sure you’re complying, according to the Mail. New regulations here
- “Correcting Britain’s Vitamin D deficiency could save thousands of lives” – Matt Ridley and David Davis point out that a groundbreaking new study shows regular does of Vitamin D can cut the mortality rate from COVID-19 by 50%
- “What kind of a country have we become when arrogant bullying is seen as the proper function of Ministers?” – Lord Sumption give Boris both barrels in the Mail on Sunday
- “Don’t fine students for partying – pay their fees instead” – Some common sense from the always dependable Prof Carl Heneghan
- “Schools in England told not to use anti-capitalist material in teaching” – The DfE has issued guidance advising schools not to use teaching resources from organisations that have expressed a desire to end capitalism, e.g. BLM. The Guardian has gone full mental jacket
- “BLM Co-Founder’s Ties to Pro-Communist China Group: Mike Gonzalez” – Interesting lecture by Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow of the Heritage Foundation, on the links between BLM and the Chinese Communist Party
- “Critical race theorists are ‘destroying the US’ from the inside” – Interview with Christopher Rufo for The Outsiders on Sky News Australia
- “Where is the voice of the left as ‘libertarians’ annex the COVID-19 debate?” – Kenan Malik in the Observer asks where the left-wing defenders of our civil liberties are in the lockdown debate. I agree with him, although he doesn’t appear to realise that judging from his opening paragraph
- “Warning of 50,000 Covid cases a day likely to be wrong, Oxford professor says” – In case you missed it, Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan interview Prof Sunetra Gupta for their Planet Normal podcast
- “Lowdown on the Lockdown” – A Canadian sceptic called Rod Fraser describes his small acts of rebellion during Ontario’s shutdown
- “Florida Re-opens” – Ron DeSantis for President. The Mail reports that bars and restaurants in Florida are now at full capacity
- “Some Travellers Miss Flying So Much, They’re Taking Planes to Nowhere” – Travellers have taken to getting in a place that takes off, flies around for a bit, then returns them to where they started
- “Pub curfews cause social distancing CHAOS as 1,000s spill on to streets at same time when bars shut at 10pm” – Who could have possible predicted that?
- “Coronavirus infections NOT rising as fast as ‘nightmare projection’ from Government’s chief scientists, data reveals” – The Sun crunches the numbers and finds that Whitty and Vallance’s predictions are not coming true. If we had started to follow the scientist’s feared trend, the country would have reached closer to 8-9,000 daily cases by now. But on Saturday only 6,024 new infections were reported
- “Beware of the stool pigeons” – Good piece by Luke Perry in Bournbrook magazine
- “Government faces ‘certain’ defeat on Coronavirus Act, says Steve Baker” – Shame. Couldn’t happen to a nicer Government
- “We must learn to live with coronavirus – just like Samuel Pepys lived with the Great Plague” – Sociology Prof and Sage member Robert Dingwall in the Mail
- “Writers and actors including Ian McEwan and Griff Rhys Jones rally around JK Rowling amid onslaught of social media abuse and deaths threats over ‘transphobia’ row” – Good to see JKR getting some much deserved solidarity
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Just two today: “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie and “Your Application’s Failed” by Roxy Music.
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today it’s the turn of the British Library which, according to chief librarian Liz Jolly, is absolutely neck deep in racism. The Telegraph has more.
The British Library’s chief librarian has claimed “racism is a creation of white people” and backed calls for major cultural change at the institution, the Telegraph can reveal.
Liz Jolly manages the vast collection of literary treasures held by the institution, and is supporting changes to displays and collections in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests. Reforms are being proposed by a “Decolonising Working Group”, which claims the British Library’s London building is an imperialism symbol because it resembles a battleship.
Staff being supported to decolonise the UK’s national library have also suggested that traditional puppet Mr Punch reflects “colonial violence”
The Telegraph has exclusively obtained documents revealing these claims, and a letter endorsed hundreds of employees which declared a racial “state of emergency” at the institution.
In response to this emergency, an internal report called for the removal of statues of the library’s founding fathers, replacing “Eurocentric” maps, and reviewing collections of western classical music which staff branded part of the “outdated notion” of Western Civilization.
The institution recently faced calls for defunding from MPs after the Telegraph revealed employees had urged colleagues to donate to Black Lives Matter and back the work of Labour MP Dianne Abbott.
The Telegraph can now reveal that Chief Librarian Ms Jolly has urged white staff to support the institution’s plans to purge the library of perceived racism.
In a video clip obtained by the Telegraph she tells colleagues: “I think, as I have said before, that we need to make sure some white colleagues are involved, because racism is a creation of white people.”
Ms Jolly receives between £120,000 and £125,000 per year for her work as Chief Librarian, a role she has held since 2018.
She has given her support to a broad “Anti-Racism Project” proposed in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, telling colleagues “particularly pressing” work was ongoing to review “artworks in the St Pancras building”.
Ms Jolly assured staff that the project is “about developing and delivering major cultural change”, and part of this would be ensuring the repository of literary treasures will “reflect the diversity of Britain today”.
This followed on from a letter declaring a “state of emergency” at the library, signed by 200 employees, demanding BAME staff should review any job cuts which might affect employees with “protected characteristics” to ensure continued diversity at the library, better treatment of these workers, and ensuring the BAME Network has a say in who is employed as Head of Collections.
To tackle the legacy of “colonial violence” at the library, the letter also demands a statue of founder Sir Hans Sloane be removed.
This recommended removal is echoed in a report by the Decolonising Working Group, which claims that the “physical space” of the British Library contains “manifestations of the institution’s racism” by glorifying the British Empire.
Staff claim in the report that: “This glorification is hard to miss in the structure of the building itself, designed as it is in the form of a battleship, by far the greatest symbol of British imperialism.”
The building was designed by architect and former naval officer Sir Colin Wilson, who added maritime references such as portholes to the building.
In the report aimed at reforming the British Library “as a space”, visual aspects including a portrait of Mr Punch which hangs in the institution is critiqued.
The character, popular at seaside shows is: “A theatrical figure from the heyday of Victorian imperialism who ‘entertained’ through an abuse of women and children that mirrored colonial Violence.”
Given that the British Library is guilty of promoting racism and glorifying colonial violence, shouldn’t it stop receiving money from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport? Oliver Dowden, time to wield the axe.
Stop Press: Free Speech Union Advisory Council member Zoe Strempel is not a fan of diversity training. Her latest Telegraph column on the subject is well worth a read.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (takes a while to arrive). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £1.49 from Etsy here. And, finally, if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face nappies in shops here.
Here’s a round-up of the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mask (threadbare at best).
And here’s a round-up from the good people at Law or Fiction on what constitutes a “reasonable excuse” for not wearing a mask.
Stop Press: A reader tells me about his day out on the Dorset coast over the weekend. He was shocked to see so many people wearing face nappies.
Yesterday my wife and I enjoyed a truly wonderful day out, in the sea air of the Dorset coast. We headed for Lulworth Cove, parked the car, and after coffee walked the the Coast Path until our knees told us to turn back and head for a crab sandwich lunch. The place was busy but not impossibly so, and in any event neither of us were seeking absolute solitude.
But oh dear me, the face nappies! Even by the clear blue sea, with God’s own fresh northerly breeze, they were everywhere. Stout parties of all ages, whose breathing one supposes would be laboured at the best of times, were determined to make life even more difficult for themselves. And plenty of fit youngsters in the same face gear – when they weren’t smoking. It was a real pleasure to chat to couples of our vintage whose attitudes matched our own. I was inclined to shout “take off your silly nappies and enjoy the air, you dummies”, but it will require far more than my exhortations to get this brainwashed nation to snap out of its daydream.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
Shameless Begging Bit
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And Finally…
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The only thing we have to fear is fear iteslf. And the fears of our fellow citizens, who seem to enjoy the new dystopia.
All my life (I am 79) I have wondered how the German people were persuaded to support Hitler’s plans to eliminate the Jewish people and why those persecuted did not rise up.
I have obviously been aware of the power of state run propaganda like the BBC and other left wing outlets around the world to poison the minds of the gullible – especially our schools.
This is the first time I have seen it in action with the tragic results reported here.
How whole populations are not capable of doing basic research into this Chinese flu planned demic beats me. But shows how propaganda works.
It does. It also shows that sadly, the vast majority of people are gullible and stupid.
Indeed. Some also even identify the Brenda and Phil the Greek loving and BBC as ‘left wing’!
Well I know we disagree on the BBC and whether it is “left wing”, partly I think because of the difficulty in pinning down meanings for such terms, especially at present, but leaving that aside I think the BBC’s pro-Royalness is not a sign in itself that it’s not “left wing”. I think they realise a lot of their viewers/listeners are older Royal-lovers and shy away from attacking them. I think there are things to be said for and against the monarchy but broadly they have been demonstrated as irrelevant by covid. I think the BBC people pushing agendas (consciously or sub consciously) realise the battle is not worth the effort.
Plus, most of the Royals seem to be woke, eco-lefties these days so would feel quite at home on the BBC…
While the idea of a Royal Family seems archaic and traditionalist, a lot of it seems like empty theatre and they have clearly adapted to modern trends, which is why they’ve not been attacked much.
The BBC is a Royal Charter organisation and as such is required to have a certain amount of deference for the institution of monarchy (in the same way as the Church of England, for example). I used to work for a Royal Chartered body myself and a certain amount of deference was expected there as well (eg, pictures of HMQ on the walls, Loyal Toast at formal events etc). It doesn’t mean the BBC is ‘pro-monarchy’.
I have felt shame at myself for not doing more to oppose during this terrible time. I expect many Germans living in the Nazi era felt that way too.
I have thought the same thing, and it’s chilling to know quite how easy it must have been isn’t it?
A few years ago myself and Mr Gum went to Berchtesgaden in Bavaria to visit Hitlers ‘Eagles Nest’. You have to park up and a bus takes you up, but before that you go to the Obersalzberg Documentation museum. There are literally millions of pieces of paper propaganda in there. I hadn’t quite realised how much of it there was, and how much saturation there must have been, In schools, at work, in buildings…just everywhere. Paper Psy-Ops on a grand scale!
Fear propaganda works sadly, and it is going to be very hard to undo the damage of the last 16 months.
And the big push for climate change idiocy is clearly in the pipeline.
Yes, it’s not CAS, Covid Anxiety Syndrome, it’s GAS, Government-inspired Anxiety Syndrome.
Can they not get some more propaganda to tell them it’s OK?
Ideally the government should start telling people that the risks from covid are very small even for people with underlying health conditions. Sadly this won’t happen as it would require them admitting that they’ve been lying for the last year and a half.
I wonder if the rise in anxiety is something the government should’ve foreseen but didn’t or was just one more effect of lockdown that they didn’t care about.
Everybody suffering from covid anxiety should be prescribed a daily dose of lockdown sceptics as the 1st part of their treatment, and should be regarded as victims of propaganda rather than hopeless bedwetters.
IMO this psychosis will be used by the government as justification for the continuation of restrictions after 19 July. ‘The public demands it’ etc.
How will they get pharmaceutical companies to pay for that? Or am I being too cynical?
No, cos we have more of the agenda to come. Fear will continue.
Those with CAS should Stay at Home Save The NHS and let the rest of us live our lives.
OK, bit harsh, but you get the point.
Or put another way, we should all be allowed to just get on with our lives so that those with CAS can see there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Exactly. Apparently (because I don’t have one) you should never overtly fuss over a dog during a thunderstorm because that teaches it that there IS something to fear. Instead just act normal around the dog so it knows there is nothing wrong and nothing to be afraid of. Same with people. Lead by example and let them see there is nothing externally to fear. But their psychosis is their problem to own and deal with, not ours.
Not in the least a ‘bit harsh’- these people are pathetic, hand wringing excuses for human beings. If they can’t tell it’s OK to go outside after 16 months of this, or that it’s actually healthier to go outside even, then they should stay indoors and out of the way. My contempt for grown adults behaving like frightened baby animals knows no bounds…it really is time to put your big boy trousers on people!
Yes. And when people you thought you’ve known well for many years start behaving like frightened children and accuse you of selfishness, perhaps it’s time to find new friends. But where? Where can I find a club for people like me?
Have you tried the ‘Stand in the Park’ groups that meet every Sunday across the UK? You can join your local one via the Telegram app.
“ We should be allowed” !! Get on with your life man, Its yours to live
Have no fear, Mike, my family and I haven’t stopped doing anything we normally do (travel, etc).
But I am not an island, I am not a rock – if everyone continues to comply, they will keep taking our freedoms – so really I am urging everyone I see to do as I do and as you suggest.
I agree.
It is widely recognised that it is unhelpful for others to go along with OCD (which is what this supposed “new” syndrome really is), as that just reinforces it and makes it worse. Indeed, one of the standard treatments for OCD is to encourage people suffeing from it to try not to engage in avoidance behaviour.
If people are afraid, they can stay at home and avoid contact. They can socially distance, they can walk, they can cycle, they can drive, they can order on line, they can work from home or change their job, they can compromise the future of their children, they can interact with the world through their little screens, but they have no right to expect the rest of the world to fit in with them. The Amish manage to coexist with the rest of the modern world and don’t insist that we all use horses and carts, let the Covid deranged isolate themselves.
So, 4-in-5 are not crippled by anxiety? That’s good news.
I sympathise with the 20%, as they are victims of a sustained psychological campaign.
And don’t forget there were a lot of people suffering mental health problems already.
The statistic that got me was that there was (pre-2020, mark you) a higher percentage of young women with some sort of mental health problem than of army veterans who had servedd in combat zones. Strangely, this never seemed to be a very big issue in the msm…
It was grossly irresponsible of the government to mount a campaign based on fear, and especially in these circumstances. Women and children first and helping damsels in distress may be old-fashioned, but for me it has been criminal of the government to apparently ignore this completely (and vaccine coercion of young and pregnant women was a good example).
Propaganda tactic used to guilt us back into lockdown
Surely, if we really want to help those with CAS, those of us who aren’t worried should be allowed to live free, lead by example, and demonstrate that there’s nothing to worry about.
Ah, but such a policy wouldn’t keep everyone enslaved, would it…?
I got the train into Brighton to watch the Cricket on Friday evening.
What was hugely encouraging for me is that the vast majority of young people were not wearing masks. In fact, they showed every sign of enjoying life and behaving ‘irresponsibly’ by cheerfully drinking, hugging each other, etc. As youngsters should.
This was the first time in months I’ve got the train and not felt like Charlton Heston in ‘The Omega Man’.
I’m hoping the tide is turning.
Here people are still mostly wearing masks in shops, but they are walking the “wrong way” round the supermarket quite a lot Small steps . . .
I too have noticed more freefacers lately. Not many, but certainly more than there were even just a month or two ago.
Bedwetters stay home!
Is fear the excuse for brutish authoritarian scum like this US doctor (former President of Planned Parenthood, apparently) given an uncritical platform on leftist mainstream media to advocate coerced experimental medication of dissenters?
https://twitter.com/lkw1051/status/1414352944628121603
“It needs to be hard for people to remain unvaccinated…..we need to make getting vaccinated the easy choice.”
I had an argument last year with a pro- abortion and pro-lockdown friend- I asked about ‘my body, my choice’ and she actually said that abortion doesn’t affect anyone else so it is different. I was not a little taken aback and asked her to repeat this, but she was bemused, wondering why…what can you say to that? I’m not against abortion specifically BTW, just wondered how she could hold both views.
Diddums.
God save us from these hysterical hypochondriacs. GET A GRIP.
Let’s get some focus here! Essentially, the anxiety is not due to release of lockdown. It is due to scaremongering about covid. Whether there is lockdown or not, this anxiety will remain until its causes are removed. Pandering to the causes is no way to remove this anxiety.
So important for halfwitted sheeples to get support.
Not like people in such pain that they yanked their own teeth out because the dentist was too cowardly to help them, then. Not like cancer patients during the first savage lockdown, then. Or old people in care home hell. Or people dying in solitude without the ‘support’ of their loved ones.
Diddums.
Nearly half, 46%, of those who have been vaccinated, say they are still concerned they will catch the virus.
Not surprising. That’s what they have repeatedly been told, as they clamp on their face knickers. For once, they have probably been told the truth. What they haven’t been told is hoe astronomically unlikely it is that the virus will do them any harm.
Some of us have been living in fear and anxiety for the last year and can’t wait to be able to sleep soundly again.
If anyone wants to check how psychological abuse can result in irrational fear and an acceptance into your incarceration and subservience to a fascist dictatorship, here’s one you can write to:
Room 347 Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology University College London 1-19 Torrington Place London, WC1E 7HB
+44 (0)20 7679 5930
s.michie@ucl.ac.uk
“If you want a picture of the present, imagine Susan Michie’s boot stamping on your face – forever.”
It would appear supporting your country’s Football team or enjoying others’ company in a hospitality setting override this anxiety.
It’s quite remarkable how many people seem to suffer from this anxiety at the thought of having to go back into an office (even part-time), but magically don’t suffer from it when it comes to their social lives…
Got it in one, CynicalRealist!
This is a “nudge” poll/report to try and get the those who aren’t anxious to modify their behaviour and pander to the fears of the anxious by voluntarily continuing to wear masks etc. And just to encourage is we have a new threat from Whitty that if we don’t “behave responsibly” a new lockdown may be required later in the year.
My personal belief is that those who aren’t Covid fearties need to demonstrate to the anxious that there is nothing to be scared of by behaving as close to old normal as possible. Which is what I’ve been doing all along.
Exactly. It’s been hard, all I have had from my colleagues and the strangers I see in the shops are evil glares, a handful of very nasty remarks and threats of violence, and accusations of being a science denier, conspiracy theorist, QAnon member, mentally instable, cold-hearted, callous etc.
Stay strong, RTSC.
To some people it is now a religion, and any questioning of “The Science” and its rituals, no matter how mild and reasonably-expressed, will cause them to take umbrage. Standard accusations are that anyone not fully bought-in is a “Covid-denier”, a “conspiracy theorist”, is “happy to let people die”, is a “science denier” (very ironic, that one!), and so on.It all goes to show how easily many people are influenced by propaganda.
40% of people avoided touching things outside before Covid-19. Its called hygiene. Using public conveniences when we knew most people didn’t wash their hands was another reason people used a clean tissue to simply open doors to leave…what’s new?
Even cash point machines were filthy, now they are clean…about time too.
Howard! I thought you’d gone?
Interesting poll in btl comments
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/reader-comments/p/comment/link/719002907
We shouldn’t be surprised. The government has bullied, frightened and coerced us all. We have all been affected in some way: it has certainly damaged my mental health. It was entirely foreseeable that for a proportion of the population the damage would manifest itself as a sort of Stockholm Syndrome.
What about therapy for those poor sods (us) who daily have to face the awful truth thqt the world has gone mad, global governments are mostly wicked, and we are likely to remain persecuted outcasts for decades?
Julian, I recommend you frequent or move to a “deprived” area and meet people who have been on the wrong side of authority all their lives. It’s very refreshing. For them this is nothing new – Business as Usual, in fact. People with “CAS” exist in my area, but they are few and far between. Masks in shops is still a thing, but yesterday and Saturday I saw a LOT more people not wearing them – possibly over one quarter.
Spot on. Sadly not long before covid I moved in precisely the other direction – and in many ways the move has been good, but from a covid point of view I would 100% agree – when I drive through shabby parts of North London on the way home from trips to the city, I see shops, cafes and restaurants with unmasked people behaving normally.
I hope you didn’t take out a big mortgage to support your move, Julian. Rates are low… currently.
Thanks for your concern, but we’re OK on that front, just surrounded by ultra-compliant people – in other ways a good thing (e.g. low crime, don’t meet too many edgy people – until they get drunk on Friday and Saturday night) but terrible if you’re in the middle of a scamdemic.
Glad to hear it, Julian. Stay sane.
I do NOT believe this crap, I have not heard one person talk like that, its been more of “ fuck why wait to the 19th we will drop it now ! “
Most people have realised they have been conned.
I wish you were right, but you clearly mix with more sensible people than I do. I know plenty of people who are worried, including the young and healthy.
My local pub is the same, Mike. I was in there Saturday evening. Not a mask in sight. Everyone behaving 100% normally, just as it was in the Before Covid Era. No stupid attempts to distance, no “COVID Dance”, everyone walking straight to the bar, paying cash, taking their own drinks away, sitting, standing, indoors, outdoors. TOTALLY NORMAL. And it was BUSY. Lovely!
Obviously there were QR codes stuck in many places, stickers on the floor saying “WAIT HERE, QUEUE HERE” etc., everywhere, but hey ho.
Oh, and from the little talk there was about all this sh*te, no one I spoke to is having the experimental gene therapy.
Wish I could find this pub you speak of.
You’re generalising from limited experience – as we all do to some extent.
However, over the last month, I’ve been in a number of places, from the south-west to northern Scotland. and sampled a cross-section of those mixing-points : motorway services and that great leveller – the public bog.
I have to say, mask-wearing was almost universal in these venues, in shops and restaurants/pubs, and in stop-overs. How deeply embedded, I don’t know. We’ll just have to see, but I was very much in a very small (vanishing) minority.
The Scots are more bullied and brainwashed than the Brits.
Same as a pub we frequent ,strange it has to be pointed out just how ‘normal’ this is…
This Gov will never be held to account for the damage they’ve caused with lockdowns. Nobody is even talking about it never mind questioning it.
I agree – the ‘calling-to-account fantasies’ are touching – but they are fantasies on current evidence.
How is this different from OCD? That can have a wide variety of manifestations, and this appears to be one of them – not sure why it justifies a separate categorisation.
Presumably it’s just the usual Covid-exceptionalism where everything relating to it has to be made out to be new and unprecedented?
“Presumably it’s just the usual Covid-exceptionalism where everything relating to it has to be made out to be new and unprecedented?”
Exactly. Just like when, in March 2020, daily death tolls were being piped to everyone’s digital indoctrination devices in their pockets.
Everyone I knew (apart from my family) thought that was because the death rates were exceptional. Pointing out the fact they were quite normal earned me the title of “conspiracy theorist.”
No. This is justified as an identified syndrome of induced hypochondria with its own aetiology. That’s not your average OCD illness.
The psy-op is as much an infective agent as something physical.
The deliberate creation of this climate of fear, with the consequent long-term damage to millions, has been one of the most egregious acts by this government (and the competition for egregious acts is stif)
We cannot continue to pander to the perennially petrified.
Ultimately they need to get a grip and finally grow up.
Yes indeed but I cannot see any way that’s going to happen. I think the number of perennially petrified is a consequence of very long term trends in the way people approach their lives, trends that have made the coronamadness possible, and obviously covid has accelerated that. It will take many decades, or possibly centuries to undo, and I see no major force that will assist that undoing currently. Quite the opposite.
looks a bit like PTSD: “constant attention to threat, worry, avoidance and excessive checking, that can keep people locked into a state of continuous anxiety and fear”
This is just part of the damage the fortune spent on government fear propaganda and dissemination of distorted statistics has done to our country. Too many naive people don’t do their own research and believe the government lies and distortions.
It’s time the mainstream media spent some effort correcting the damage they have done by repeating the government’s inaccurate information.
I give up! Today the BBC concentrating on Long Covid! So that’ll help the worried well and rest of the just plain scared witlsss prepare for see use with out masks!
It’s a standard fallback when deaths and hospitalisations fail them and they get bored with “cases”
My great grandmother was not much botheref by the blitz and never visited an air raid shelter throughout the war, but a passing electrical storm would turn her into a quivering wreck. The public are behaving in a similar way about Covid. There are many aspects of life that cause us anxiety. People need to get a bit of perspective. If you are scared of Covid wear a space suit.
boo f**king hoo
Is this true? I don’t trust polls or any information/propaganda coming out of the mainstream media.My own experience is that people have had enough and want it to end.
It obviously varies greatly. I know plenty of people who are either concerned for themselves or for the country as a whole.
I think you can take a baseline of the very worried as outdoor mask wearers – in my town around 10-15%. I think you can add some in for those who are not worried for themselves but think restrictions should continue in some form (IMO quite a lot of people), and those who hardly come out at all.
Outdoor mask wearing has certainly declined. But that means little in the face of the adherence to what might be called the ‘pub idiocy’ and continued con of pretending that fomite transmission and asymptomatic spread happen. Or that the isolation and vaccination of children is necessary.
I’m afraid belief still outweighs rationality and knowledge by a long chalk.
They may ‘want it to end’ – but that means the imagined virus, which they fully believe in.
What a nation of wet, spineless wimps the Brits have become. I’m ashamed to be British.
What does ‘British’ mean when all that is required to become British is to drift here on a rubber dinghy? I’m not British; I’m English.
Oh for goodness sake, quite frankly I don’t care. From the mountain of shit that has been showered on us for eighteen months I’m supposed to give a flying f**k because some people have actively talked themselves into a ‘syndrome’ of their own making?
sorry but I’m all out of F**ks to give, I’m way too busy giving them to the elderly who have died without their loved ones, and whose lives have been made an abject misery. I’m too busy giving them to all the people who have died because the National Covid Only Service didn’t get around to them, ditto those who are still on waiting lists. I’m too busy giving them to kids whose lives have been turned upside-down and whose schools have tortured them for the last year…..maybe sometime, (never!) I’ll get around to giving a shit about the poor little darlings!
It’s often difficult not to get horribly wrapped up in the semantics. As well as the outright propaganda: essentially this is a government editorial. They’re effectively writing this shit. We’re constantly bombarded with serious amounts of scheming, pernicious horror stories about what the public think; how they feel, and what they’d like to happen: supposedly sponsored by charities, polling organisations, NHS departments, etc. etc. It’s fucking Bollocks. Sage psychologists and government quangos write this crap and pretend it’s genuinely what everyone in their attics and cupboards- are actually saying. It’s fucking draining: and it’s supposed to be so !!
” Therapists Warn Of Rise in Anxiety over the Easing of Restrictions
By Michael Curzon “
Why do you report this? It this now the Lockdown Zealots Website?
Why can’t this website do something useful all upcoming lockdown events?