Big Brother Watch launched the Ministry of Truth report in the House of Commons last night. Speakers included David Davis MP, Gavin Millar KC, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Prof. Carl Heneghan.
Last summer, we worked with Big Brother Watch to determine the extent of the Government’s spying activities. As a result, Carl sent Freedom of Information requests to the Rapid Response Unit and the Counter Disinformation Unit (see the report for context).
The Rapid Response Unit (RRU) is part of the Cabinet Office and was tasked with “tackling a range of harmful narratives online” during the pandemic, “from purported ‘experts’ issuing dangerous misinformation to criminal fraudsters running phishing scams”.
The Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) was tasked to monitor what it deems to be disinformation and flag content to social media companies, sitting inside the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
We’ve previously written about “Censorships and their Antidotes in Covid Times“, pointing out that “academic and journalistic freedom requires individuals to pursue knowledge wherever it may lead without undue or unreasonable interference”.
In our article “Dissenters“, we learnt from Isabel Oakeshott that attacks were partly orchestrated by Hancock, who harnessed the full power of the state to silence ‘dissenters’.
This latest Big Brother Watch report, and the information obtained in Freedom of Information requests, shows the Government was spying on many individuals, including us.
All along, the Government was taking covert action to shout down what it considered was misinformation and disinformation: the Government thought it owned the truth. It didn’t like criticism of modelling and lockdown policies, particularly pointing out the collateral harms, any opposition to Covid passes, vaccine passports and evidence underpinning the vaccines.
So far, we have faced multiple complaints to our university, been censored on Facebook and Twitter and had Government ministers set up websites to discredit us. Furthermore, we faced academic attacks more akin to witch hunts, attempts by the Guardian to paint us as agents of disinformation, and the BBC largely ghosting us from 2021 onwards. Indeed, a Conservative MP who tried to humiliate us through his website was dubbed “witchfinder-general” by the Times. On the way, we lost several friends silenced by the stress of the attacks, the intimidation and the online cheerleaders who sought to close down the dissenters.
Apparently, the Government also used an Army Intelligence Unit called 77th Brigade, almost certainly a cover name for spooks who did some of the spying. If this is real and they are or were serving in HM Forces, they need reminding that obeying an unlawful order is no defence.
All for seeking evidence-based answers to policies enacted on a few people’s opinions, models or very poor quality evidence.
But now we find some of the attacks, the censorship and the smears might have been orchestrated at the heart of the Government through its active surveillance. With this latest revelation, the concerted nature of the attacks makes sense.
While speaking out, we have the right to keep working and hold on to academic posts that we have held for a long time and are qualified to hold. Specifically on respiratory viruses epidemiology and interventions to ameliorate their effects, a field in which we have scores of publications and 50 years of combined work experience.
We have the right not to be harassed, trolled or defamed for advocating viral challenge studies on humans, which, with due ethical safeguards, have been going on since Edward Jenner’s time. The right to investigate how a virus transmits and how interventions might prevent its transmission – to challenge the dogma. Finally, the right to lead productive lives devoid of intimidation to ourselves and our family and colleagues.
Somehow in all this, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights was forgotten, which protects the right to freedom of speech. As was Academic Freedom: the legal right “to question and test received wisdom and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or the privileges they may have”.
One of the key elements of an evidence-based approach is you’ll obtain the truth in the end. Many of the supported policy interventions, with the benefit of hindsight, now seem absurd. However, how many have been harmed in the battle to obtain the truth?
The Government’s experts and advisers claimed certainty when it didn’t exist; creating policies overnight, Government retrospectively used poor-quality evidence to justify the actions; it over-relied on modellers, opinions and poor science – in doing so, it had to defend itself with covert surveillance operations.
Most, if not all, of the main players setting the pandemic policies have moved on – some to better, more lucrative things. Yet, academics and journalists should be empowered to investigate and report on Government activities in the public interest. We are aware that many academics wanted to speak out but were scared off by the intimidation and the threats: the silencing of science is not in the best interests of a functioning democratic society.
The Government lost its way, as did many. In the frenzied fear of the pandemic, they forgot to follow the evidence. Society is all the better for those who seek to challenge the status quo and speak out. We salute those that did.
Dr. Carl Heneghan is the Oxford Professor of Evidence Based Medicine and Dr. Tom Jefferson is an epidemiologist based in Rome who works with Professor Heneghan on the Cochrane Collaboration. This article was first published on their Substack blog, Trust The Evidence, which you can subscribe to here.
Stop Press: Watch Big Brother Watch’s interview with a 77th Brigade whistleblower on YouTube here.
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Holy crap. What insanity from the mentally ill pervert crowd. How low do the flipping IQs go? Maybe the Eugenists have a point. Euthansiasts might also be on to something.
Most of these people don’t have children so in due course hopefully there will be less crazy in the gene pool.
Indeed, people that far out on the fringes are generally far less likely to procreate, so the problem is at least somewhat self-correcting.
Academic? Pah!
PhD in Feminist and Gender Studies? Complete Hogwash!
Professor? Don’t make me laugh!
Yet this idiot draws a wage, probably quite generous.
This is nothing more than narcissistic mental illness given far too much credence by the gullible and ‘caring’ who are unwilling/unable to call BS. They deserve zero publicity.
I may look like a middle aged white bloke but I’m actually a 12 y/o, black, one-legged, blind lesbian with autism. How dare you say I’m not.
Well, it’s just got really silly now, hasn’t it?
That’s all.
A piss take from Babylon Bee would have been less absurd. For some reason it made me think of this: THE FUTURE – Leonard Cohen – LETRAS.COM
….
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
And stuff it up the hole
In your culture
….
I’ve seen the future, brother
It is murder
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won’t be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
…..
Destroy another fetus now
We don’t like children anyhow
I’ve seen the future, baby
It is murder
Well speaking of amputations I am absolutely staggered as to how this is able to happen! And you know what the worst thing is? I used to work there.
Given the amount of checks that take place, first on the ward then down at theatre in the anaesthetic room before induction, I honestly cannot fathom this, because even if the surgeon was half asleep ( everybody’s worst nightmare ) the other staff wouldn’t be! Plus the surgeon or registrar always does a great big ‘X marks the spot’ on the ward prior, with marker pen, so there can be no misunderstanding. Totally bizarre. I see no mention of if the surgeon or anyone else from the team has been struck off though, with legal action taken by the patient. Strewth, the NHS really has gone massively Pete Tong in recent years hasn’t it?;
”A hospital has admitted to cutting six people’s limbs off by mistake in the past three years.
York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust confirmed six patients had limbs amputated due to medical mistakes over a three year period.
This is the highest number of any NHS trust across the UK.
Four amputations were performed in 2020 and another two were carried out in 2021 at the Yorkshire hospital.
All were results of medical negligence.
But they are not the only trust to have mistakenly carried out the operations.
FOI requests filed by Accident Claims revealed Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust performed two surgeries without needing to.
These types of incidents are referred to as ‘never events’ by the NHS and defined as ‘serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if healthcare providers have implemented existing national guidance or safety recommendations.’
A further five cases of amputations due to medical negligence were confirmed by Medway NHS Foundation Trust in Kent.”
https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/05/yorkshire-hospital-cuts-off-six-peoples-limbs-mistake-20403344/
I read recently that NHS England is considering abolishing or overhauling the national list of safety incidents / ‘never events’. Debatable whether the intent is to improve practice or to cover up incidents…
I’m not sure if the antics of the transableists mean they are brainless, brain dead or just sick in the head!
Ive had feelings like this myself. Like parts of my body didn’t really belong to me. I am not talking about genitalia and obviously I wouldn’t make a political point out of it. If you follow the right path you will learn why your body parts don’t fit and that begins a process of laughing at the state of your own ridiculousness. Buddha said that laughter is the only divine human trait. And then a lot of the blockages and difficulties within your body start to resolve themselves. Ultimately it lies in the breath which is much more subtle than we realise. If we had a deeper understanding of our existence and spirit and soul then all of this would become clear to us. We speak as diseased creatures casting scorn on the most visible manifestations of a malaise that we all share.
It is a fatal mistake in a time of trbulaton to allow the overseers to divide the population again and again. The nation state is far from perfect but it is tte best protection we have, If we are Brits we need to include everyone in our equation. In the 1930s homsexual behaviour became quite prevalent in British universities, Bohemianism along with strong traditionalism can co-exist. There is no preclusion in a strong state which looks after its own and this country has betrayed its own for so long that the people cannot attain a state of calm anymore. The whole aesthetic realm and the world of imagining has been disrupted. I would say that the first step is to bring this back. Regardless of the situation you can engender a mood among the people.
People from the far east say that westerners are ‘top heavy’. It is a description of physical movement and the western sense of the primacy of the head as the seat of the brain and consciousness. On a bodily level western martial arts tend to be very upper body reliant with this tendency increasing the further north you go. We learned a lot of things as Europeans during the ice age but we also forgot a few things. I can say honestly if you can develop upper and lower coordination it will be an example to others and many of the things that might’ve stressed you will disappear.A movement ot the drishti as it is called in Sanskrit, or the point of focus, this changes everything
VOMIT
You didn’t have to watch this nasty broadcast. Even in my twenties, when this came out, I saw it for what it was. Maybe you are late to the party it doesn’t matter. We aspire to something higher.
Dear God.
But wait, wouldn’t that be….disability appropriation?
Sorry, don’t have the stomach to read this but I am sure to some it is useful to know what goes on.