Andrew Bridgen, the former Conservative now Reclaim MP, finally secured a debate on excess deaths in the House of Commons, which took place on Friday afternoon. We provide here a full transcript of the debate, as found in Hansard. A full video of the debate can be found on X.
The speaker is Andrew Bridgen, unless otherwise stated.
We have experienced more excess deaths since July 2021 than in the whole of 2020. Unlike during the pandemic, however, those deaths are not disproportionately of the old. In other words, the excess deaths are striking down people in the prime of life, but no one seems to care. I fear that history will not judge this House kindly. Worse still, in a country supposedly committed to the free and frank exchange of views, it appears that no one cares that no one cares. Well, I care, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I credit those Members in attendance today, who also care. I thank the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl McCartney) for his support, and I am sorry that he could not attend the debate.
It has taken a lot of effort, and more than 20 rejections, to be allowed to raise this topic, but at last we are here to discuss the number of people dying. Nothing could be more serious. Numerous countries are currently gripped in a period of unexpected mortality, and no one wants to talk about it. It is quite normal for death numbers to fluctuate up and down by chance alone, but what we are seeing here is a pattern repeated across countries, and the rise has not let up.
Philip Davies: I commend the hon. Member for the tenacious way in which he has battled on this issue; I admire him for that. I wonder where he found the media were in all this. During the Covid pandemic, every day the media — particularly the BBC — could not wait to tell us how many people had died on that particular day, without any context for those figures whatsoever, but they seem to have gone strangely quiet over excess deaths now.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is absolutely right: the media have let the British public down badly. There will be a full press pack going out to all media outlets following my speech, with all the evidence to back up all the claims I will make, but I do not doubt that there will be no mention of it in the mainstream media.
One might think that a debate about excess deaths would be full of numbers, but this speech does not contain many numbers, because most of the important numbers are being kept hidden. Other data have been oddly presented in a distorted way, and concerned people seeking to highlight important findings and ask questions have found themselves inexplicably under attack.
Before debating excess deaths, it is important to understand how excess deaths are determined. To understand whether there is an excess, by definition, we need to estimate how many deaths would have been expected. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) uses 2015 to 2019 as a baseline, and the Government’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities uses a 2015 to 2019 baseline, modelled to allow for ageing. I have used those data here. Unforgivably, the Office for National Statistics has included deaths in 2021 as part of its baseline calculation for expected deaths, as if there was anything normal about the deaths in 2021. By exaggerating the number of deaths expected, the number of excess deaths can be minimised. Why would the ONS want to do that?
There is just too much that we do not know, and it is not good enough. The ONS publishes promptly each week the number of deaths registered. While that is commendable, it is not the data point that really matters. There is a total failure to collect, never mind publish, data on deaths that are referred for investigation to the coroner. Why does that matter? A referral means that it can be many months — or, given the backlog, many years — before a death is formally registered. Needing to investigate the cause of a death is fair enough, but failing to record when the death happened is not.
Because of that problem, we have no idea how many people died in 2021, even now. The problem is greatest for the younger age groups, where a higher proportion of deaths are investigated. This data failure is unacceptable and must change. There is nothing in a coroner’s report that can bring anyone back from the dead, and those deaths should be reported. The youngest age groups are important not only because they should have their whole lives ahead of them. If there is a new cause of excess mortality across the board, it would not be noticed so much in the older cohorts, because the extra deaths would be drowned out among the expected deaths. However, in the youngest cohorts, that is not the case.
There were nearly two extra deaths a day in the second half of 2021 among 15 to 19-year-old males, but potentially even more if those referred to the coroner were fully included. In a judicial review of the decision to vaccinate yet younger children, the ONS refused in court to give anonymised details about those deaths. It admitted that the data it was withholding were statistically significant. It said:
The ONS recognises that more work could be undertaken to examine the mortality rates of young people in 2021, and intends to do so once more reliable data are available.
How many more extra deaths in 15 to 19-year-olds will it take to trigger such work? Surely the ONS should be desperately keen to investigate deaths in young men. Why else do we have an independent body charged with examining mortality data? Surely the ONS has a responsibility to collect data from coroners to produce timely information.
Let us move on to old people. Most deaths in the old are registered promptly, and we have a better feel for how many older people are dying. Deaths from dementia and Alzheimer’s show what we ought to expect: there was a period of high mortality coinciding with Covid and lockdowns, but ever since, there have been fewer deaths than expected. After a period of high mortality, we expect and historically have seen a period of low mortality, because those who have sadly died cannot die again.
Those whose deaths were slightly premature because of Covid and lockdowns died earlier than they otherwise would have. That principle should hold true for every cause of death and every age group, but that is not what we are seeing. Even for the over-85-year-olds, according to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, there were 8,000 excess deaths — 4% above the expected levels — for the 12 months starting in July 2020. That includes all of the autumn 2020 wave of Covid when we had tiering and the second lockdown and all of the first Covid winter. However, for the year starting July 2022, there were more than 18,000 excess deaths in this age group — 9% above expected levels. That is more than twice as many in a period when there should have been a deficit and when deaths from diseases previously associated with old age were fewer than expected. I have raised my concerns about NG163 and the use of midazolam and morphine, which may have caused — and may still be causing — premature deaths in the vulnerable, but that is, sadly, a debate for another day.
There were just over 14,000 excess deaths in the under 65-year-olds before vaccination from April 2020 to the end of March 2021. However, since that time, there have been more than 21,000 excess deaths, ignoring the registration delay problem, and the majority of those deaths — 58% of them — were not attributed to Covid. We turned society upside down before vaccination for fear of excess deaths from Covid, but today we have substantially more excess deaths, and in younger people, and there is a complete eerie silence. The evidence is unequivocal. There was a clear stepwise increase in mortality following the vaccine rollout. There was a reprieve in the winter of 2021-22 because there were fewer than expected respiratory deaths, but otherwise the excess has been incessantly at this high level.
Ambulance data for England provide another clue. Ambulance calls for life-threatening emergencies were running at a steady 2,000 calls a day until the vaccine rollout. From then, they rose to 2,500 daily, and calls have stayed at that level since. The surveillance systems designed to spot a safety problem have all flashed red, but no one is looking. Claims for personal independence payments from people who have developed a disability and cannot work rocketed with the vaccine rollout and have continued to rise ever since. The same was seen in the U.S., which also started with the vaccine rollout, not with Covid. A study to determine the vaccination status of a sample of such claimants would be relatively quick and inexpensive to perform, yet nobody seems interested in ascertaining this vital information. Officials have chosen to turn a blind eye to this disturbing, irrefutable and frightening data, much like Nelson did — and for far less honourable reasons. He would be ashamed of us.
Furthermore, data that have been used to sing the praises of the vaccine are deeply flawed. Only one Covid-related death was prevented in each of the initial major trials that led to authorisation of the vaccines, and that is taking the data entirely at face value, whereas a growing number of inconsistencies and anomalies suggest that we ought not to do this. Extrapolating from that means that between 15,000 and 20,000 people had to be injected to prevent a single death from Covid. To prevent a single Covid hospitalisation, more than 1,500 people needed to be injected. The trial data showed that one in 800 injected people had a serious adverse event, meaning that they were hospitalised or had a life-threatening or life-changing condition. The risk of this was twice as high as the chance of preventing a Covid hospitalisation. We are harming one in 800 people to supposedly save one in 20,000. That is madness.
The strongest claims have too often been based on modelling carried out on the basis of flawed assumptions. Where observational studies have been carried out, researchers will correct for age and comorbidities to make the vaccines look better. However, they never correct for socioeconomic or ethnic differences as that would make vaccines look worse. That matters. For example, claims of higher mortality in less vaccinated regions of the United States took no account of the fact that this was the case before the vaccines were rolled out. That is why studies that claim to show that the vaccines prevented Covid deaths also showed a marked effect of them preventing non-Covid deaths. The prevention of non-Covid deaths was always a statistical illusion and claims of preventing Covid deaths should not be assumed when that illusion has not been corrected for. When it is corrected for, the claims of efficacy for the vaccines vanish with it.
Covid disproportionately killed people from ethnic minorities and lower socioeconomic groups during the pandemic. In 2020, deaths among the most deprived were up by 23% compared with 17% for the least deprived. However, since 2022 the pattern has reversed, with 5% excess mortality among the most deprived compared with 7% among the least deprived. These deaths are being caused by something different.
In 2020, the excess was highest in the oldest cohorts, and there were fewer than expected deaths among younger age groups. However, since 2022, the 50 to 64-year-old cohort has had the highest excess mortality. Even the youngest age groups are now seeing a substantial excess, with a 9% excess in the under-50s since 2022 compared with 5% in the over-75 group.
Despite London being a younger region, the excess in London is only 3%, whereas it is higher in every more heavily vaccinated region of the U.K. It should be noted that London is famously the least vaccinated region in the U.K. by some margin. Studies comparing regions on a larger scale show the same thing. Studies from the Netherlands, Germany and the whole world each show that the highest mortality after vaccination was seen in the most heavily vaccinated regions.
So we need to ask: what are people dying of? Since 2022, there has been an 11% excess in ischemic heart disease deaths and a 16% excess in heart failure deaths. In the meantime, cancer deaths are only 1% above expected levels, which is further evidence that this is not simply some other factor that affects deaths across the board, such as failing to account for an ageing population or a failing NHS. In fact, the excess itself has a seasonality, with a peak in the winter months. The fact that it returns to baseline levels in summer is a further indication that this is not due to some statistical error or an ageing population alone.
Dr. Clare Craig from HART — the Health Advisory & Recovery Team — first highlighted a stepwise increase in cardiac arrest calls after the vaccine rollout in May 2021. HART has repeatedly raised concerns about the increase in cardiac deaths, and it has every reason to be concerned. Four participants in the vaccine group of the Pfizer trial died from cardiac arrest compared with only one in the placebo group. Overall, there were 21 deaths in the vaccine group up to March 2021, compared with 17 in the placebo group. There are serious anomalies about the reporting of deaths in this trial, with the deaths in the vaccine group taking much longer to report than those in the placebo group. That is highly suggestive of a significant bias in what was supposed to be a blinded trial.
An Israeli study clearly showed that an increase in cardiac hospital attendances among 18 to 39-year-olds correlated with vaccination, not with Covid. There have now been several post-mortem studies demonstrating a causal link between vaccination and coronary artery disease leading to death up to four months after the last dose. We need to remember that the safety trial was cut short to only two months, so there is no evidence of any vaccine safety beyond that point. The decision to unblind the trials after two months and vaccinate the placebo group is nothing less than a public health scandal. Everyone involved failed in their duty to the truth, but no one cares.
The one place that can help us understand exactly what has caused this is Australia, which had almost no Covid when vaccines were first introduced, making it the perfect control group. The state of South Australia had only 1,000 cases of Covid across its whole population by December 2021, before Omicron arrived. What was the impact of vaccination there? For 15 to 44-year-olds, there were historically 1,300 emergency cardiac presentations a month. With the vaccine rollout to the under-50s, this rocketed to over 2,172 cases in November 2021 in this age group alone, which was 67% more than usual. Overall, 17,900 South Australians had a cardiac emergency in 2021 compared with only 13,250 in 2018, which is a 35% increase. The vaccine must clearly be the No. 1 suspect for this, and it cannot be dismissed as a coincidence. Australian mortality overall has increased from early 2021, and that increase is due to cardiac deaths.
These excess deaths are not due to an ageing population, because there are fewer deaths from the diseases of old age. These deaths are not an effect of Covid, because they have happened in places that Covid had not reached. They are not due to low statin prescriptions or undertreated hypertension, as Chris Whitty would suggest, because prescriptions did not change, and any effect would have taken many years and been very small. The prime suspect must be something that was introduced to the population as a whole, something novel. The prime hypothesis must be the experimental COVID-19 vaccines.
The ONS published a dataset of deaths by vaccinated and unvaccinated. At first glance, it appears to show that the vaccines are safe and effective. However, there were several huge problems with how it presented that data. One was that for the first three-week period after injection, the ONS claimed that there were only a tiny number of deaths — the number the ONS would normally predict to occur in a single week. Where were the deaths from the usual causes? When that was raised, the ONS claimed that the sickest people did not get vaccinated and therefore the people who were vaccinated were self-selecting for those least likely to die. Not only was that not the case in the real world, with even hospices heavily vaccinating their residents, but the ONS’s own data show that the proportion of sickest people was equal in the vaccinated and the unvaccinated groups. That inevitably raises serious questions about the ONS’s data presentation. There were so many problems with the methodology used by the ONS that the statistics regulator agreed that the ONS data could not be used to assess vaccine efficacy or safety. That tells us something about the ONS.
Consequently, HART asked the U.K. Health Security Agency to provide the data it had on people who had died and therefore needed to be removed from its vaccination dataset. That request has been repeatedly refused, with excuses given including the false claim that anonymising the data would be the equivalent of creating it even though there is case law that anonymisation is not considered the creation of new data. I believe that if these data were released, they would be damning.
Some claim that so many lives have been saved by mass vaccination that any amount of harm, suffering and death caused by the vaccines is a price worth paying. They are delusional. The claim of 20 million lives saved is based on now discredited models which assume that Covid waves do not peak without intervention. There have been numerous waves globally now that demonstrate that is not the case. It was also based on there having been more than half a million lives saved in the U.K. That is more than the worst-case scenario predicted at the beginning of the pandemic. For the claim to have been true, the rate at which Covid killed people would have had to take off dramatically at the beginning of 2021 in the absence of vaccination. That is ludicrous and it bears no relation to the truth.
In the real world, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea had a mortality rate of 400 deaths per million up to summer 2022 after they were first hit with Omicron. How does that compare? With the Wuhan strain, France and Europe as a whole had a mortality rate of under 400 deaths per million up to summer 2020. Australia, New Zealand and South Korea were all heavily vaccinated before infection, so tell me: where was the benefit? The UK had just over 800 deaths per million up to summer 2020, so twice as much, but we know Omicron is half as deadly as the Wuhan variant. The death rates per million are the same before and after vaccination, so where were the benefits of vaccination?
The regulators have failed in their duty to protect the public. They allowed these novel products to skip crucial safety testing by letting them be described as vaccines. They failed to insist on safety testing being done in the years since the first temporary emergency authorisation. Even now, no one can tell us how much spike protein is produced on vaccination and for how long — yet another example of where there is no data for me to share with the House.
When it comes to properly recording deaths due to vaccination, the system is broken. Not a single doctor registered a death from a rare brain clot before doctors in Scandinavia forced the issue and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency acknowledged the problem. Only then did these deaths start to be certified by doctors in the U.K. It turns out the doctors were waiting for permission from the regulator and the regulator was waiting to be alerted by the doctors. This is a lethal circularity. Furthermore, coroners have written regulation 28 reports highlighting deaths from vaccination to prevent further deaths, yet the MHRA said in response to a freedom of information request that it had not received any of them. The systems we have in place are clearly not functioning to protect the public.
The regulators also missed the fact that in the Pfizer trial, the vaccine was made for the trial participants in a highly controlled environment, in stark contrast to the manufacturing process used for the public rollout, which was based on a completely different technology. Just over 200 participants were given the same product that was given to the public, but not only was the data from these people never compared to those in the trial for efficacy and safety but the MHRA has admitted that it dropped the requirement to provide the data. That means that there was never a trial on the Pfizer product that was actually rolled out to the public, and that product has never been compared with the product that was actually trialled.
The vaccine mass production processes use vats of Escherichia coli and present a risk of contamination with DNA from the bacteria, as well as bacterial cell walls, which can cause dangerous reactions. This is not theoretical; this is now sound evidence that has been replicated by several labs across the world. The mRNA vaccines were contaminated by DNA, which far exceeded the usual permissible levels. Given that this DNA is enclosed in a lipid nanoparticle delivery system, it is arguable that even the permissible levels would have been far too high. These lipid nanoparticles are known to enter every organ of the body. As well as this potentially causing some of the acute adverse reactions that have been seen, there is a serious risk of this foreign bacterial DNA inserting itself into human DNA. Will anybody investigate? No, they won’t.
Danny Kruger: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; I am conscious that time is tight. I recognise that he is making a very powerful case. Does he agree that the Government should be looking at this properly and should commission a review into the excess deaths, partly so that we can reassure our constituents that the case he is making is not in fact valid and that the vaccines are not the cause behind these excess deaths?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support on this topic. Of course that is exactly what any responsible Government should do. I wrote to the Prime Minister on August 7th 2023 with all the evidence of this, but sadly I am still awaiting a response.
What will it take to stop these products? Their complete failure to stop infections was not enough; we all know plenty of vaccinated people who have caught and spread Covid. The mutation of the virus to a weaker variant — Omicron — was not enough, the increasing evidence of the serious harms to those of us who were vaccinated was not enough, and now the cardiac deaths and the deaths of young people are apparently not enough either.
It is high time that these experimental vaccines were suspended and a full investigation into the harms that they have caused was initiated. History will be a harsh judge if we do not start using evidence-based medicine. We need to return to basic science and basic ethics immediately, which means listening to all voices and investigating all concerns.
In conclusion, the experimental COVID-19 vaccines are not safe and are not effective. Despite there being only limited interest in the Chamber from colleagues — I am very grateful to those who have attended — we can see from the Public Gallery that there is considerable public interest. I implore all Members of the House, those who are present and those who are not, to support calls for a three-hour debate on this important issue. Mr. Deputy Speaker, this might be the first debate on excess deaths in our Parliament — indeed, it might be the first debate on excess deaths in the world — but, very sadly, I promise you it will not be the last.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Maria Caulfield:
I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) on securing this important debate. I only have five minutes of this 30-minute debate to respond. I will try to cover all the points if I can.
Can I start by acknowledging that the hon. Member is correct that we have seen an increase in excess deaths in the last year? However, I disagree with his analysis, because the causes that he refers to simply do not bear out the statistics that we have. There has been a combination of factors contributing to the increase in excess deaths, including, in the last year, high flu prevalence, the ongoing challenges of COVID-19, a strep A outbreak and conditions such as heart disease, which he touched on, diabetes and cancer. Because we had had virtually a lockdown of routine health services over a two-year period, many people are now coming forward with increased morbidity and mortality as a result.
I will start with winter flu. The number of positive tests last year peaked at 31.8%, the highest figure seen in the last six years. Interim analysis from the UKHSA indicates that the number of deaths in England associated with flu was far higher than pre-pandemic levels, so the excess deaths due to flu last winter are, sadly, part of the answer.
The hon. Member touched on the independent body, the ONS. Its figures show that the leading cause of death in England is still dementia, which accounts for about 10% of all deaths. It also looks at the cause of excess deaths. If we look at the figures as of June this year, the top three causes of excess deaths are respiratory illnesses, dementia and ischaemic heart disease, which is often caused by an increase in cholesterol, smoking or not having a blood pressure check. There are a number of reasons, and they are often chronic conditions that people have had for years, or in some cases for decades; they are not acute illnesses.
In the three minutes I have left to respond, I will touch on some of the points that the hon. Member made. First, on the importance of vaccination, it is very easy to say that there is a prevalence of high rates of Covid vaccination in people who have died. That is correct: when 93.6% of the population have had at least one dose of the vaccine, there will be a high rate of vaccination in excess deaths. That is different from causality. I completely agree with the hon. Member that there is a high prevalence rate, but that is not the same as saying that vaccination is the cause of those deaths.
The Office for National Statistics has looked at this, and those who have been vaccinated have generally had a lower all-cause mortality rate than unvaccinated people since the introduction of the booster in 2021. A recent study in Singapore looked at unvaccinated patients who had recovered from Covid, and showed that those patients had a 56% higher risk of cardiac complications a year later than those who were vaccinated. There are conflicting data on this issue, and I am not necessarily disagreeing with the hon. Member, but I think we need to have a robust conversation about it, not to assume that one side necessarily has all the answers.
I will touch on a couple of points that the hon. Member made about vaccine safety. The regulator has been taking account of those who report adverse events, and I encourage anyone who has had a side-effect from any of the vaccines to use the Yellow Card system and report it to their GP. When those side effects have been reported, the MHRA has taken action. In April 2021, the MHRA reacted to rare cases of concurrent thrombosis and thrombocytopenia following the AstraZeneca vaccine, which resulted in adults under 30 not being offered that vaccine. In May 2021, that was increased to adults under 40. With regard to the mRNA vaccine specifically, following reports of a link between Covid vaccines and myocarditis, the Commission on Human Medicines conducted an independent review in June 2021, which found that the incidence of that side-effect was rare: between one and two cases per 100,000. When there are concerns, we absolutely must investigate them. There is no doubt about that.
We had a debate earlier this afternoon about those who have experienced rare side effects from the vaccine. We do have the vaccine damage payment scheme, which offers a payment of £120,000 if that is shown to be—
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“Miliband vows to ban fracking permanently after huge UK gas field discovered”
I don’t know exactly what he said but if he said something like the above he is lying or showing his ignorance or deliberately misleading. Short of a change in our constitution, parliament cannot do anything “permanently”.
Since the changes Blair made to the constitution I’m not sure you are right.
so many decisions are in the hands of unaccountable but tax payer funded bodies which have left wing elites in charge and almost unsacksble. Parliament, the civil service and courts routinely put decisions and opinions of unelected international quangos above our needs or values.
Meanwhile all the above is virtually incapable of change because so many peers since Major all the way to Sunak are fully behind the new order.
If Reform does form a government there will be an enormous tussle between it and all the above. From the College of Policing to the Net Zero Committee there will be hostile opposition.
The HoL will almost certainly ignore the Salisbury convention. Gawain Towler was right to recently draw attention to the likely need for a thousand new peers not aligned with the swamp/blob/elites.
I don’t know what changes Blair made.
I can certainly see the HOL being a danger, yes.
As far as the rest goes, parliament is sovereign and can pass or repeal whatever laws it want, and sack whoever it wants – the question is, do they have the political will and capital and enough MPs with the bottle to do what is needed, in the face of an onslaught from the establishment? I hope we find out. Certainly Trump 2.0 has made a pretty decent attempt – think he learnt a lot from 1.0 – but then the US system allows that more than ours because the President always brings in a big staff of his own.
Blair destroyed the constitution, but apart from that he was a complete next Tuesday responsible for deaths of hundreds of thousands .
What exactly did he do to the constitution?
Exactly – it’ll come down to do they have the balls…
So much for the art of the deal. Trump’s Putin call threatens disaster for Western security
‘….what Mr Trump is doing now is not about money: it is about the totality of collective security which, until three years ago next week, prevented a major European war since 1945’
Hmmm…….
What do others think?
‘Trump knows very well that he personally cannot afford to have a chaotic collapse in Ukraine……(cannot) afford to see the [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy government overwhelmed, Putin take over, a complete humiliation for NATO, humiliation for the West’
Mr B. Johnson
‘I would tell Putin, if you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give him [Zelenskyy] a lot. We’re going to give [Ukraine] more than they ever got if we have to.’ … Trump might very well remove the Biden-eras constraints on arms transfers and give Ukraine the weapons it needs to win … If faced with the prospect of a costly military defeat, Putin may very well prefer negotiations’
‘I want everyone to stop dying.’
President Trump
‘The Biden Administration began in late 2022 to use the Ukrainian military to fight a proxy war to promote U.S. policy goals of weakening the Putin regime at home and destroying its military. It was not a strategy, but a hope based on emotion. It was not a plan for success…….I’m on the side of the Ukrainians. I helped train them. … We agree with President Trump and Col. Schlichter. America needs a new approach and a comprehensive strategy for the Ukraine War.’
“Sanctions are not the way to do it [deter Russia], they’re just going to blow off sanctions. We did the same thing in 2014 when they went into Crimea. We sanctioned them and it didn’t bother them at all.”
‘When you look at Putin, you can’t just say, ‘Well, stop the killing,’ because candidly, that’s not their mentality. That’s not how they do things…….So you have to approach a different way, and the president fits into that.’
‘The assessment that entering talks with Mr. Putin is futile and America must therefore pursue continuous indirect military engagement with Russia cannot be accepted by Americans as a feasible course of action from their commander in chief… If America can approach negotiations with Russia from a position of strength, such as enabling Ukraine to gain a significant tactical advantage on the battlefield and reestablishing credible U.S. deterrence, the U.S. can lead in moving this conflict toward resolution’
‘We cannot accept the consensus that peace talks are a sign of American defeat or that they are impossible while Russian President Vladimir Putin is in power.’
Lt Gen.(Retd.) Kellogg
Wanting everyone to stop dying is a great justification and explains why President Trump has already set out a large part of his negotiating position. Ukraine will never be in a position to join NATO for a very long time indeed. It will not meet the criteria for membership until all its border disputes are resolved.
The negotiations are worth a shot, a good shot but Bob Hope was the only real hope and he’s dead……
A pregnant pause is the best that is on offer.
Fortunately, in Vice President Vance, President Trump appears to have someone well capable of taking a strong America forward and, given the state of our own sorry and sordid little cabal in Whitehall/Westminster, Brussels, all Europe should be thankful for that.
While I agree wholeheartedly with much of what Vance says, the last quote from the article above, He delivered his speech at a moment of world peril, as the established world order is in danger of crumbling under Putin’s assault on Ukraine, is a bit of a joke.
Yes, the established world order, i.e. the ability of USA to stoke and start wars, is at last being challenged by other nations around the world. And, whereas a major European war may have been prevented since 1945 (depending on how you define ‘European’), USA with NATO tagging along has continually created sufficient devastation in other parts of the world.
So bring on multi-polarity because it will hopefully kill off the “We are the masters of the world” mentality, in particular with regard to your quotes and wishful thinking from retired military personnel.
Fighting and air strikes have inflicted over 40,000 civilian casualties, while 4 million people are internally displaced, and 6.8 million have fled Ukraine. 14.6 million people need humanitarian assistance.
At least 650,000 people who left Russia after it invaded Ukraine are still abroad.
43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 370,000 wounded and between 462,000 and 728,000 Russian soldiers killed or wounded since the start of the conflict.
Russian territorial gains in 2024 largely comprise fields and small settlements in Ukraine.
‘Putin sees changes in the international situation as an opportunity for a temporary pause. Such a break would be beneficial for a war criminal to consolidate gains, regroup, and then resume Russia’s colonial mission….’
Kaupo Rosin
Your statistics are laughable. Why would anyone pause when they are winning?
Russian territorial gains include a large part of Ukraine’s industrial base and mineral reserves.
Quoting obscure Estonians is not a good look.
One measure of the comparative losses is the numbers of fallen soldiers returned by each side, Most recently 45 Russian bodies were repatriated in exchange for 757 Ukrainian.
Agreed. I recommend to all DS readers that the only reliable source of information worth reading on Ukraine is Alexander Mercouris on You Tube. Plus The Duran. Expertly gathered geopolitical information and interpretation provided every day, free of charge. Outstanding.
Things are moving fast
‘The Trump administration has suggested to Ukraine that the United States be granted 50% ownership of the country’s rare earth minerals, and signalled an openness to deploying American troops there to guard them’
Now that is what I call a deal…..
Especially when a high proportion of the minerals are now in the Donbas area of Russia.
Just end the war. That’s it.
There is no end to this war, no happy ending; at best a pregnant pause, a new cold war, is on offer.
We have a choice between a cold war if we re-arm: honour or a hot war and dishonour if we do not.
That’s it.
“Russia is continuing to form new divisions, and former Russian Defense Minister and Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu announced in March 2023 that Russia aimed to stand up 14 new military divisions in the coming years.
Russia could wage a local war against a neighbouring state other than Ukraine within six months; Russia could credibly threaten NATO countries in the Baltic region in two years; and Russia could be prepared for a large-scale war in Europe, assuming NATO does not rearm at the same pace as Russia, in five years.
The Russian revival of the Moscow and Leningrad military districts, and the creation of long-term mechanisms to militarize and radicalize Russian society against Western ideals and values indicate that Russia is preparing for a future conflict with NATO.’
Honour, dishonour, hot war, cold war, arm, re-arm: just what century do you come from?
USA is washing its hands of Ukraine. Russia does not need to prepare for a future conflict with NATO because it is fighting NATO today: not only NATO, but all EU countries as well.
There will be an end to the war and it will involve the total capitulation of Ukraine, the election of a new government, removal of all foreign mercenaries and equipment, and most importantly peace.
But rest assured, wars will continue elsewhere: USA/Israel v. Iran, USA v. China, Turkey v. Kurds, Israel v. Turkey – your MIC will sadly always survive.
‘Society does need people, i.e., “protectors”, who choose to honour themselves by choosing to help others at any cost. Isn’t this what an ideal police force would be? Why are firefighters much more admired and not feared, compared to the police? How does a policeman tread the fine line of understanding the mentality of criminals while staying on the right side of the law as well as consistent with his own moral and ethical standards, i.e., his conscience?’
‘A quick ceasefire agreement today could eventually even help prolong the overall length of high-intensity warfare. Such a result would counter the security concerns that led to the start of negotiations in the first place. The Minsk Agreements did soothe the armed confrontation in 2014 and 2015. Yet they did not prevent the massive 2022 escalation and have arguably co-prepared it.”
Quite simply, it isn’t going to happen.
And that is bad news for Putin.
He just hadn’t realised it yet.
These are the guys Putin is relying on to get him to Kyiv.
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1890804288403689703?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
It may take some time.
“Boris Johnson eyeing up political comeback, allies claim”
Better lie low, De Pfeffel. If the International Criminal Court at The Hague won’t ever go after you for your leading role in expediting the iatrogenic response to the respiratory virus with an age-fatality profile that paralleled general mortality, among numerous other indictment options, screeching, “Get boosted…”
…Perhaps the International Criminal Court could instead haul you up for fanning the flames in Ukraine, two months into the conflict, by flying to Kyiv to scupper potential peace negotiations not dissimilar to what could soon appear on the table, three years of mass slaughter later.
Well done for fostering 21st century versions of those Greek Tragedies you got a 2.1 for reprising at South Midland Poly all those years ago.
He got a 2.1? I’m surprised he could find the Exam Hall….
A chaotic, blustering fool of the highest order, worth a veritable Starred 1st in Bullshittery
It’s always a mistake to equate political infamy with stupidity. Or alternatively, to confuse political success with college qualifications.
I remember as a house surgeon my consultant (over the operating table) berating the academic stupidity of Harold Wilson, only recently resigned as PM. I foolishly mentioned that he’d got a 1st at Oxford, which was taken (I think) as “malinformation,” ie truth my boss didn’t want to hear.
Wow !
Terrific and I wholeheartedly agree. Treasonous Next Tuesday.
“The biggest threat to Europe isn’t external — it’s internal. A retreat from its own fundamental values, values shared with the US.”
Got it in one, JD
Mr Vice-President taking the liberty of telling European misgovernments, discabinets and maladministrations, what they don’t want to hear.
The Spirit of 1776 lives on. Then only took Europe 13 years to get to 1789. Madame Guillotine stands ready and biding her time.
Let’s hope that Madame Guillotine doesn’t only sever the necks of the innocent wealthy, like she did last time…
Indeed. Revolutions have historical precedent and nasty habit of spiralling in all sorts of directions. After 1789 came Napoleon, after Kerensky came Lenin came Stalin, after the Berlin Wall came the mess Europe is now in.
Impossible to disagree. Straight to the point.
“Badenoch tries to stop Rayner from cancelling local elections”
Rayner claims that to allow the elections to go ahead:
It’s justifiable because the make up of a new Unitary authority should include many of the local representatives in office at the time of it being formed. I’d say that would make holding the elections justifiable and not a waste. Rayner is preventing the new authorities being representative – she predictably calls that a waste.
If the Tory leader is do against cancelling the elections why did she not tell the Tory councillors in Essex, Norfolk etc before they voted to keep themselves in office. As they have different democratic values to their leader are there not strong grounds for terminating their party memberships?
Her statement when it is too late is very convenient for the Tories who faced large scale losses in May, especially in the Counties mentioned. “Make me honest but not yet” comes to mind.
It turns out that, while Essex Tory councillors demanded the elections be cancelled so the reorganisation could be done quickly, they have no plans or proposals ready.
If the public are to be consulted, as we should be, the process of reorganisation will not be completed before the 2026 election date, or even 2027.
“the process of reorganisation will not be completed before the 2026 election date, or even 2027.”
I hope you are not suggesting that Labour are seeking to cancel the GE of 2029 owing to complications arising out of reorganisation. What on earth is our democracy coming to?
Given the virtually incalculable waste of the current administration to seek to hide behind the excuse of “waste” is frankly insulting in the extreme.
Spot the irony in J D Vance’s claim that free speech is in retreat on this side of the pond. Haven’t one or two American online firms had a few snags like that?
I don’t think the irony was lost on him.
Regarding the Laura Dodsworth piece above, about rudeness and aggression on public transport, I suspect this is more of a ‘big city’ thing, where the dreaded ‘diversity’ reigns supreme. I can’t imagine many people in this clip giving up their seat for an elderly passenger. And I’ve seen various clips like this so perhaps this is the new norm in big cities around the UK. Remember when it was considered quintessentially British to form an orderly queue?
”You may have seen the video of youths barging their way onto a bus in Birmingham. A follower relates a story when these thugs are challenged.
“Hi David, This is in reference to the “bunch of animals” comment you made in response to that tweet where loads of people were trying to pile on to the X13 bus here in Birmingham.
“I get the bus home from work each day. A couple of years ago, I was at the bus stop and got chatting to a guy I regularly saw there. We became friendly, and would sit next to each other on the bus where we would talk about all kinds of things from football to politics to our respective workplaces etc.
“He told me a story of how, a few months prior to our first chat, he was stood at the very same stop we meet at when a couple of young black men were at the same stop waiting to get on.
“At the same stop, an elderly white lady was also waiting for the bus. When the bus arrived, the two black guys went to get on the bus first. My friend said jovially, “come on lads, ladies first” and motioned for them to allow the lady on first.
“The guys turned and attacked him, leaving him needing treatment at hospital for a broken jaw, and badly shaken. They ran off and were never caught.
“There are many instances of such thuggery in Birmingham these days.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1890524887829123220
Up until a few years ago I had spent all my life living in London, most of it without a car, so I got a lot of public transport, cycled and walked. As the years went on, I encountered more and more conflict from all sides. One of the reasons I left London. When I last checked a few years ago, people still queue for buses in Muswell Hill, weirdly, but most bus stops I used to use were just a free for all and you had to be pretty firm otherwise you’d be at the stop all day because the buses were often full (not sure how it is post-lockdowns, but public transport definitely seems less madly busy in London than it used to be whenever I go down).
I always try to be fair so I must say that the more smartly dressed younger men on the Central Line often offer a seat to me wife and me. Regardless of race.
Proportionately fewer young women do it and very rarely the more scruffy, older passengers.
I would say it’s a reflection on a person’s upbringing as opposed to just race. In fact, race shouldn’t even come into it. You’re either a decent, considerate person or you aren’t. I think these video clips going round are all filmed in places where white people are now a minority, such as London and Birmingham, so of course the footage will feature predominantly non-white people. But maybe it’s more of a generation thing and young white people are just as guilty of behaving like this only there’s less of them.
) and I’m sure the vast majority of us don’t need signs on transport to prompt us or remind us what good manners are. Although I think the people who speak loudly on mobile phones ( always foreign language-speakers, in my experience ) or who put their feet up on the seats or take up an extra seat for their bags could certainly do with some reminders on how to behave.
It would be automatic for me to give my seat up for an elderly person or a woman who’s obviously pregnant ( you’ve got to be very confident on this one
“Boris Johnson eyeing up political comeback, allies claim” Boris, ever the comedian.
Man has a point;
”Who in their right mind wants to have children in England today? I imagine most young and intelligent English people who want to start/raise a family will take into account this is a three decade project, and will look to emigrate to a country that has a chance of remaining within the realm of Western civilisation circa 2050.
We really must accept the undeniable reality about Britain/England’s future, which will become increasingly dysfunctional and uninhabitable for the English. Only revolutionary politics can save us now. We must hope Reform turns out to be a genuinely revolutionary movement. I believe it could certainly be that, provided Rupert Lowe was the leader.
The greatest problem facing the English and the birth rate issue is this: Responsible English couples work very hard, pay a lot of tax, but cannot afford a decent house to raise a family. Meanwhile, a less responsible demographic does no work, resides in a house funded by the tax-paying English couple and claims ever more welfare for an ever-growing brood of children.
Dealing with this perverse reality should be Reform’s very first manifesto commitment.
If there were 10 million fewer people in England, house prices would be as affordable as they were to my parent’s generation – which/who averaged 3.5 children. Cheap housing and large (ish) families are not a mere coincidence. Mass repatriation is necessary before we can even think of upping the native birth rate. Women require a decent house before they even think about procreation. Especially so for intelligent, responsible women, who tragically are the main demographic NOT having children.” Paul Weston.
https://x.com/PWestoff/status/1890326751244439862
Actually mogs I think you’re only partially right about population numbers and house prices, and that the larger part of the problem is general asset price inflation caused by decades of debasement of the currency.
Not to mention insane planning and zoning rules, etcetera.
“Thirteen more oil and gas licences could be cancelled after Rosebank court ruling”
It’s an odd feeling – I agree with him. No wait…
That is indeed what the Labour and Conservative (and Lib Dem for that matter, but who cares?) ‘climate promises’ demand.
The obvious issue is that it was not what many voters considered at the election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtzNacxo0twd
Professor Carl Heneghan on the MHRA.
Well worth a listen.
“Zimbabwean paedophile allowed to stay in UK because he would face ‘hostility’ back home”
Well there you go, a massive legal advert to all foreigners trying to get into Britain, rape a child and you can stay!
Once ‘Great’ Britain is now a giant refugee camp for the whole of the third world plus a sanctuary for paedos and perverts. As nobody is getting booted out, only welcomed and given all the creature comforts, where is the deterrent? There are none, so expect more of the same and further fragmentation and deterioration of society for the foreseeable.
If “Diversity is our strength” were true, why do they need to repeat it ad nauseum? Why do the crime stats contradict this insane, blatantly untrue mantra?
If we wouldn’t marry a person that we had literally nothing in common with and expect the relationship to be a longterm success, why would we accept unlimited amounts of people into our countries that we also have nothing in common with and expect this to have positive results, magically translate into ‘social cohesion’ and somehow be of benefit to us? It’s all a nonsense and one big, disastrous failed experiment.
“Diversity is our strength.”
This is clever word use. Those spouting this nonsense are referring to “our” as “theirs.” The “our” does not belong to the British people. This play on words is intended to insult and belittle us.
So the guy who burnt a Koran outside the Turkish Embassy in London gets charged and remanded in custody ( I read elsewhere he’s pleaded ‘not guilty’) while the psycho with a knife who threatened him and kicked him gets bailed. Bet he gets a suspended sentence. The Koran-burner, who knows, in ‘two tier Britain’.
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2025-02-15/two-charged-after-man-attacked-having-burnt-koran-outside-turkish-consulate
We just received our Thames Water bill for next year starting in April.
38.5% increase.
We received a ‘heads-up’ letter in January saying the monthly charge was going to increase by around £19/mth but the DD is going up by £30.55… As the annual charge is paid by DD over 8 months that works out to an increase of £20.36 per month for the full year.
I look forward to receiving 38.5% better service. Ha!
Thames, Yorkshire and Northumbrian Water face £168 million penalty following sewage investigation
Well, they have to pay the £104m fine somehow. Thanks for looking after us Ofwat!
My Thames water bill increases over the previous year
2023 11.6%
2024 12.0%
2025 38.5%
87.7% increase since 2020.