NHS Refused to Treat Elderly Patients During Lockdown
A Sunday Times Insight investigation has revealed the extent to which the elderly were neglected by the NHS during the full lockdown.
As part of a three-month investigation into the Government’s handling of the crisis during the lockdown weeks, we have spoken to more than 50 witnesses, including doctors, paramedics, bereaved families, charities, care home workers, politicians and advisers to the government. Our inquiries have unearthed new documents and previously unpublished hospital data. Together, they show what happened while most of the country stayed at home.
There were 59,000 extra deaths in England and Wales compared with previous years during the first six months of the pandemic. This consisted of 26,000 excess fatalities in care homes and another 25,000 in people’s own homes.
Surprisingly, only 8,000 of those excess deaths were in hospital, even though 30,000 people died from the virus on the wards. This shows that many deaths that would normally have taken place in hospital had been displaced to people’s homes and the care homes.
This huge increase of deaths outside hospitals was a mixture of coronavirus cases – many of whom were never tested – and people who were not given treatment for other conditions that they would have had access to in normal times. Ambulance and admission teams were told to be more selective about who should be taken into hospital, with specific instructions to exclude many elderly people. GPs were asked to identify frail patients who were to be left at home even if they were seriously ill with the virus.
In some regions, care home residents dying of COVID-19 were denied access to hospitals even though their families believed their lives could have been saved.
The sheer scale of the resulting body count that piled up in the nation’s homes meant special body retrieval teams had to be formed by police and fire brigade to transfer corpses from houses to mortuaries. Some are said to have run out of body bags.
NHS data obtained by Insight shows that access to potentially life-saving intensive care was not made available to the vast majority of people who died with the virus. Only one in six COVID-19 patients who lost their lives in hospital during the first wave had been given intensive care. This suggests that of the 47,000 people who died of the virus inside and outside hospitals, just an estimated 5,000 – one in nine – received the highest critical care, despite the government claiming that intensive care capacity was never breached.
The Sunday Times points the finger at Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, as the architect of this policy.
The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, commissioned an age-based frailty score system that was circulated for consultation in the health service as a potential “triage tool” at the beginning of the crisis. It was never formally published.
It gave instructions that in the event of the NHS being overwhelmed, patients over the age of 80 should be denied access to intensive care and in effect excluded many people over the age of 60 from life-saving treatment. Testimony by doctors has confirmed that the tool was used by medics to prevent elderly patients blocking up intensive care beds.
Indeed, new data from the NHS shows that the proportion of over-60s with the coronavirus who received intensive care halved between the middle of March and the end of April as the pressure weighed heavily on hospitals during the height of the pandemic. The proportion of the elderly being admitted then increased again when the pressure was lifted off the NHS as COVID-19 cases fell in the summer months.
Is this the Government’s version of “Focused Protection”? Instead of using our national health service to shield the elderly, it shielded the NHS from the elderly.
Worth reading in full.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Professor Lockdown appeared on the Today Programme yesterday morning and was full of his usual good cheer. The MailOnline has more.
Professor Ferguson, whose modelling led to the original lockdown in March, said earlier today that schools may have to be closed to older pupils if restrictions on households mixing fail to stem the rise of infections, and that it will be a “political judgement” as to whether regulations are relaxed over the festive season.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “It risks some transmission and there will be consequences of that. Some people will die because of getting infected on that day.
“But if it is only one or two days the impact is likely to be limited. So that is really a political judgment about the cost versus the benefits.”
It follows the prospects for a family Christmas descending into further confusion yesterday, as Downing Street insisted that relatives should be able to gather – but a minister warned it will not be “normal”.
Professor Ferguson added: “That (banning households mixing) should have a significant effect but as yet we have been unable to see it definitively.
“If we go beyond that there is a limit to what we can do in terms of reducing contacts, short of starting to target, for instance, the older years in schools and sixth form colleges where we know older teenagers are able to transmit as adults.
“Of course nobody wants to start moving to virtual education and closing schools even partially. The challenge may be that we are not able to get on top of the transmission otherwise.”
So Christmas is cancelled and schools will have to close again if we want to “get on top” of transmission.
I guess no one has told Professor Ferguson that infections fell in almost half of England’s local authorities last week.
Meanwhile, Professor John Edmunds – the SAGE member who was passionately advocating for herd immunity back in March – has backed up Professor Lockdown.
The idea that “we can carry on as we are” and have a normal Christmas “is wishful thinking in the extreme”, a Government scientific adviser has said.
Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said “radical action” would be needed to stem the rise in coronavirus cases, particularly in regions with high incidence of the virus.
Prof Edmunds, who told MPs on Wednesday that tens of thousands of deaths could occur during this wave of the pandemic, said further measures are needed to bring cases down.
He said that a circuit-breaker is needed across the whole country or at least in areas where incidence is high.
“The only way that we can have a relatively safe and normal Christmas is if we take radical action now to reduce incidence – at the very least in high incidence areas – and keep the incidence low across the country by implementing a package of measures to reduce social contacts,” he said.
“The notion that we can carry on as we are and have a Christmas that we can celebrate normally with friends and family is wishful thinking in the extreme.”
Edmunds conforms to George Santayana’s definition of fanaticism – “redoubling your effort after you’ve forgotten your aim”.
Stop Press: Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell says it’s fine to make arrangements for Christmas celebrations with close family now that restrictions for the over-70s have been lifted. Answering a question on Swedish TV about recommendations for Christmas, he said: “A small family party with your children and grandchildren, especially if you can keep your distance from each other, won’t mean you’re taking much of a risk.”
Vaccine Guinea Pigs Revealed
According to the Mail on Sunday, NHS staff are due to start receiving a coronavirus vaccine within weeks.
An email sent by an NHS Trust chief to his staff, seen by the Mail on Sunday, reveals the Health Service is preparing for a national vaccination programme before Christmas.
It can also be disclosed that the Government has introduced new laws that would allow the UK to bypass the EU approval process if a safe and effective jab is ready before the end of the post-Brexit transition period on December 31st.
The move will boost optimism that a ‘game-changing’ vaccine will soon allow Boris Johnson to relax the social restrictions which have crippled the country since March.
In his memo to staff earlier this month, Glen Burley, chief executive of George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust in Warwickshire, wrote: “Our Trust, alongside NHS organisations nationally, has been told to be prepared to start a COVID-19 staff vaccine programme in early December.
“The latest intelligence states a coronavirus vaccine should be available this year with NHS staff prioritised prior to Christmas.”
So NHS staff will be given a vaccine that has bypassed the EU approval process and whose manufacturers will be exempt from any liability should there be any unforeseen side effects.
Let’s hope it’s not mandatory.
Riot Police Crush Anti-Lockdown Protest
The Territorial Support Group – the paramilitary wing of the Metropolitan Police – brutally dispersed a group of peaceful anti-lockdown protestors yesterday, much like they did in Trafalgar Square on September 26th. The MailOnline has more.
Armed police officers have dispersed large crowds of anti-lockdown protesters at Trafalgar Square following a march through central London on Saturday, which saw thousands gather against coronavirus restrictions.
Demonstrators called for an end to the ‘tyranny’ of pandemic restrictions and voiced their opposition to vaccines and paedophilia, playing Michael Jackson’s greatest hits via a PA system as they marched.
At least 10 people were led away in handcuffs by officers at Trafalgar Square, and Piers Corbyn, brother of former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, also attended the protest who once again joined demonstrators after appearing at court charged with flouting coronavirus rules.
Protesters refused to wear masks and wielded signs demanding an end to restrictions on personal freedom imposed as part of efforts to control COVID-19.
One banner being wielded by a protester on Oxford Street read: “Martial law coming, think it’s still about health?” while another depicted a mask with a cross through it alongside words which read, “love not fear” and “unite not divide”.
The anti-lockdown demonstrators also marched down Northumberland Avenue, while large crowds also gathered outside Buckingham Palace, prompting police to be deployed.
They should have worn BLM T-shirts.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: A reader has provided an eye-witness account of her encounter with TSG officers in Trafalgar Square yesterday.
At about 4.10 pm the Square was nearly empty of protestors, they having set off on another circuit of the streets about 15 minutes previously. The centre of the Square began to fill with uniformed people (all of them masked, not remotely social distancing) and I overheard a single voice set up a chant against the police – so I moved towards them but by the time I arrived the voice had already stopped.
Everything seemed very calm so I gently patted one of the flat capped men on the arm and said, “Hello.” He turned to me and I said, “I’m just saying a friendly hello.” Incomprehension on his face so I repeated myself. A couple of others were equally mystified by my words. The first drew over one of the others and we set up a conversation, but he spoke in very halting English, very heavily accented. I don’t remember what I said next but he didn’t understand me and in turn attracted the attention of a burly English policeman. He replied: “This isn’t the time for friendly hellos there’s an extremely dangerous global pandemic on and I can arrest you for not social distancing.” I replied: “That’s not true, there’s no dangerous pandemic.” He was thrusting his head towards me and repeating himself and I replied, “Please move further away from me. I don’t want your filthy air from your dirty disgusting mask all over me.” He said no he’s not moving away, and continued to threaten to arrest me for not social distancing and I continued to ask him to move further away until a calm bystander intervened.
I then surveyed the general scene, looking round at the uniformed people and realised that quite a few of the flat capped people were non-British. In Trafalgar Square. Against me. My head started to spin and I must have looked bad because I suddenly had three very concerned voices (proper British bobbies) all asking me if I was okay. I said I was having a panic attack, one of them asked if I’d like to be helped out of the square, so I thanked him and he gave me his arm and led me to safety in the most gentle and helpful way possible.
On the way, I tried to talk to him about the Common Law to no response – so then I said that if the British bobby and the British people find themselves on opposite sides then we are done for. At which point he looked round at me, eye to eye, and agreed.
Interesting about the TSG officers not being able to speak or understand English very well. Is the Met importing riot police from other countries? If anyone knows more about this, contact us here.
Two-Week ‘Circuit Breakers’ Don’t Work
Hugh Pennington, Emeritus Professor of Microbiology at Aberdeen University, says Scotland’s two-week ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown hasn’t worked, as is clear from Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to keep most of the ‘circuit breaker’ restrictions in place for the foreseeable future. The Telegraph has more.
Earlier this month Nicola Sturgeon promised her mini-circuit breaker would be a “short, sharp” shutdown of Scottish pubs and restaurants to bring coronavirus under control.
For only 16 days, the First Minister said, bars and restaurants would be restricted from serving alcohol inside and closed altogether across the country’s central belt, which includes Glasgow and Edinburgh and is home to 3.4 million people.
Little more than two weeks later, Ms Sturgeon announced a change of plan.
To the anger of the hospitality industry, she extended the restrictions for a further week. And on Thursday, she announced the measures would be replaced – rather than relaxed – with a new five-tier lockdown system under which thousands of pubs and restaurants face damaging restrictions for the foreseeable future.
The news was devastating for Scotland’s struggling pubs, already on their knees.
Emma McClarkin of the Scottish Beer & Pub Association, said: “We were told that these measures were to be ‘short’ and ‘sharp’ but now the Scottish Government have gone back on that, leaving operators feeling betrayed.
“Scotland’s pubs and bars have repeatedly been subject to some of the most penalising restrictions in the world, but without the evidence to back it up. The situation cannot continue.”
According to industry calculations, two-thirds of hospitality businesses could be mothballed or go under in the coming months, with more than 50 per cent of jobs lost…
Hugh Pennington, Emeritus Professor of Microbiology at Aberdeen University, said: “There’s the old argument that if we hadn’t done (the mini-circuit breaker), cases would have gone up faster. But that’s a guess, and the figures haven’t come tumbling down.
“They were always going to have difficulty in knowing how effective it was because the figures wouldn’t have come through to really give them an indication as to whether it was having any effect at all.”
Prof Pennington criticised Ms Sturgeon for claiming the restrictions would be in place for only 16 days, given the time-lag in recording positive cases, adding he suspected it had been cast as a short-term measure to avoid a major backlash from businesses.
“It’s got to be statistically significant, it’s the figures coming down that they’re looking for. To expect that would happen within 16 days was unrealistic. At a guess, I’d say her reason for saying that was so she could say ‘I’m going to make things tough, but it’s only for 16 days’, to get people to buy into it.
“If you close the pubs, you’re going to stop pub outbreaks. You’re addressing little bits of the transmission route, but not really getting at the fundamentals, which is making sure people who have the virus, and their contacts, are kept away from everybody else by self-isolating.
“They said it will be a couple of weeks and we’ll turn the corner. But many people have doubts about that, because as soon as you release from it, you go back to square one. There’s too much virus about for the effect to be so big that you really start driving the numbers down.”
Worth reading in full.
Public Confidence in Government at All Time Low
According to Opinium, approval of the Government’s handling of the pandemic has fallen to its lowest level since March. Half (50%) of UK adults now disapprove of the Government, while only 29% approve. The pollster went into more detail in an email:
The public are divided on the clarity of the new tier system. Only 50% think the system is clear and 44% think the measures are unclear. More significantly, a third (34%) of the UK aren’t confident that they know what the rules are in their area…
Half (50%) of those living in Greater Manchester approve of the way Andy Burnham is handling his job as Mayor. His net approval rating of +25% is significantly higher than Boris Johnson’s nationally at -14%.
Looking at how the various leaders have handled the crisis, 32% approve of how Boris Johnson has handled his role, 47% disapprove. Chancellor Rishi Sunak is seen more positively (46% approve, 26% disapprove) while Labour leader Keir Starmer is narrowly net positive with 35% approving and 29% disapproving. The worst marks are reserved for Health Secretary Matt Hancock, with only 26% approving of his performance through the crisis and 48% disapproving.
Hancock with an approval rating of -22%?
Who would have thunk it?
Dr John Lee Wins Lockdown Debate
Ivor Cummins has posted a video on his YouTube channel of Dr John Lee debating Dan O’Brien, an Irish journalist, and Tomas Ryan, a Professor of Neuroscience and advocate of ‘Covid Zero’, on RTE. Needless to say, Lee wins hands down. Cummins has provided some amusing subtitles when the neuroscientist is speaking.
Worth watching in full.
Stop Press: Another hero of lockdown, Dr Clare Craig, was on Julie Hartley-Brewer’s show on TalkRADIO on Friday. Also worth watching.
Postcard From Rhodes
Guy de la Bédoyère, a long-time contributor to Lockdown Sceptics, has sent us a “Postcard From Rhodes“, where he’s managed to get away for a week’s break. Sounds like a lot of fun.
Our hotel, picked at random from the tour company website, turned out to be largely filled with high-risk overweight Brits aged mainly 60 plus. Judging by their accents, I’d say most of them are Tier 2 and Tier 3 refugees who’ve clearly had enough of Covid misery. If they are going to die imminently as the tabloid apocalyptic-headline-competing members of SAGE keep telling us, they’re determined to expire in the sun, stuffed by the all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast and dinner. Loafing by the pool in 28 Celsius heat under a blazing sun, the sweat poured off them in rivulets. Three growing-old-disgracefully ladies in their late sixties went for a spot of topless sunbathing which must make quite a difference from the opportunities currently available in Liverpool or Cardiff.
Worth reading in full.
Round-Up
- “Public opinion is turning against lockdown and Labour’s cynical Covid opportunism” – Dan Hannan’s latest column in the Telegraph
- “Isolation for test and trace could be halved” – The 14-day isolation period for contacts of those infected with COVID-19 could be halved over fears about levels of compliance with the Test and Trace system
- “Seven-day Covid quarantine – and none for jet set” – According to the Sunday Times, if you arrive in the country by private jet and you’re a mover and a shaker in the business world, you won’t have to quarantine at all as part of plans to “promote global Britain”. That’ll go down well on the Labour benches
- “Government scientists have blown apart their own case for lockdown” – Janet Daley argues that the admission that even a vaccine won’t end this doom-loop ought to lead to a change of approach
- “Tory-backed group launches ‘Defund the BBC’ campaign” – A Tory-backed group has launched a campaign to ‘Defund the BBC’ by telling homeowners how to “legally cancel” their licence fee
- “Politicians’ reluctance to quantify Covid’s threat harms all” – Good piece in the FT by Graham Loomes, a Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, suggesting that if you compare the quality-adjusted life years lost as a result of another lockdown with the quality-adjusted life years saved, the game isn’t worth the candle
- “Backlash over Wales’ ban on buying ‘non-essential items’ in supermarkets” – Euronews reports that the Welsh are furious about ‘non-essential’ items being taken off sale in supermarkets, including books, children’s toys and Christmas cards
- “Why so many believe in the Covid Cult” – Karen Harradine analyses the “mass delusional psychosis” that has gripped the nation since March
- “The Nine Errors of Thinking identified in Factfulness” – Dr Hugh Willbourn writes about the light Hans Rosling’s book can throw on the current Covid madness
- “To say there’s no trade-off between health and the economy during lockdown is a convenient delusion” – Good hard-headed piece in the Times by Philip Aldrick
- “How the MEAN psychologists got us to comply with coronavirus restrictions” – A deep dive into the techniques of the Behavioural Insights Team by Gary Sidley in Coronababble
- “The world needs Jordan Peterson more than ever” – Douglas Murray praises the Canadian psychology professor in UnHerd
- “What Mary Whitehouse got right” – Louise Perry praises the original conservative cultural warrior
- “The armed wing of cancel culture” – On the Spiked podcast, the team discusses the beheading of Samuel Paty, the northern lockdown and Critical Race Theory
- “Hippocrates cancelled” – Professor Ramesh Thakur in Spectator Australia on how health bureaucrats and complicit doctors are now guilty of crimes against humanity
- “To Save People From Covid, Puerto Rico Shuts down 911 call centers” – From the “you couldn’t make it up” department
- “Epidemiologists Stray From the Covid Herd” – Interview with Prof Martin Kulldorff and Prof Jay Bhattacharya by Tunku Varadarajan in the Wall St Journal
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “The Penny Has Dropped” by Wim Oudijk, “Open Your Eyes” by Goldfinger, “I Saw the Light” by Tod Rundgren and “I Aint Gonna Stand For It” by Stevie Wonder.
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.
Sharing stories: Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics. The answer used to be to first click on “Latest News”, then click on the links that came up beside the headline of each story. But we’ve changed that so the link now comes up beside the headline whether you’ve clicked on “Latest News” or you’re just on the Lockdown Sceptics home page. Please do share the stories with your friends and on social media.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today we thought we’d highlight Simon Heffer’s column in today’s Sunday Telegraph, which is about the capture of the National Trust by the woke cult.
It has seemed for some years as though the National Trust has a death wish, as it dumbs down its properties and uses them more and more for publicity-seeking stunts. The fact that it has compiled a dossier of properties linked to “colonialism and slavery” appears to confirm my fear.
Apparently, the Trust’s “experts” – few of whom, on the basis of what this says about their expertise, would deserve even the lowest class of history degree from the worst imaginable university – say that around a third of its properties are associated with the “sometimes-uncomfortable role that Britain, and Britons, have played in global history”.
Yes, the good old National Trust – once the haven of well-preserved stately homes, woodland walks, and tea, jam and scones – is now determined to become part of that noisy elite minority that can’t let a day go by without engaging in an act of self-flagellation, and reminding us what a shocking country, and people, we supposedly are.
The Trust seems not to understand that its role is to conserve our historic houses, artefacts and landscapes: it is not the administrator of some nationwide re-education programme. The “list of shame” about slavery and colonialism is a typical example of the ignorance of those in charge. First, there seems to be some confusion of the two terms. Most British colonies, and almost all of those in Africa, were established after slavery was abolished. Once definitions of iniquity become so loose, it is easy to shovel the reputations of almost any historical figure you like into them.
So visitors to Bateman’s, Rudyard Kipling’s house in Sussex, will need to brace themselves for a description of the wickedness of the man who gave us the phrase “the White Man’s Burden”. One would never have thought that a man who was the most popular writer of his age, revered by millions in this country and around the world – and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature – would have to be placed at a bargepole’s length from the present generation.
But, inevitably, the focus of the outrage has been Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s country house in north Kent. Churchill, whose minor achievement of managing our victory in the Second World War seems to count for nothing today, is condemned because while he was trying to stop Hitler’s programme of genocide and near-apocalyptic destruction, he failed to respond adequately to the Bengal famine.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The headmistress of Benenden has apologised for using an “offensive” word in a school assembly. That word was “negro” and she used it when explaining that Black History Month began life in 1926 as Negro History Month. Did she really need to apologise for that?
“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 £1.99 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 masks in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched last week and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it. If you Googled it on Tuesday, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this hit job the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and my Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over 600,000 signatures.
Stop Press: A piece in the Science and Technology section of the Economist tries to summarise the debate between the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration and the John Snow Memorandum. It’s biased towards the latter, of course, but less so than most pieces in the mainstream media. Worth a read.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many JRs being brought against the Government and its ministers, we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
First, there’s the Simon Dolan case. You can see all the latest updates and contribute to that cause here.
Then there’s the Robin Tilbrook case. You can read about that and contribute here.
Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.
There’s the GoodLawProject’s Judicial Review of the Government’s award of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.
The Night Time Industries Association has instructed lawyers to JR any further restrictions on restaurants, pubs and bars.
And last but not least there’s the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. You can read about that and make a donation here.
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
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the past 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. Doing these daily updates is hard work (although we have help from lots of people, mainly in the form of readers sending us stories and links). If you feel like donating, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links we should include in future updates, email us here. (Don’t assume we’ll pick them up in the comments.)
Special thanks to graphic designer and Lockdown Sceptics reader Claire Whitten for designing our new logo. We think it’s ace. Find her work here.
And Finally…
Got a cracker for you today: Cassetteboy’s latest, a mash-up of Boris’s Covid nonsense set to the tune of “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick”. Must be a huge amount of work to put these together, but, boy, is it worth it. Cheered me up no end.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I wonder, when the dust settles, will it be the intellectuals or the conspiracy theorists who were closer to the mark?
Q: What is the difference between a Covid fact and a Covid conspiracy theory?
A: About 6 months
I think that should answer your question.
I do love that quote.. I’m using it all the time now. You can see people virtual head scratching.. thinking WTF is he on about..
Used to be 6 months, it’s about 6 weeks now
Conspiracy Realists?
Realists?
I’m astonished that the author seems to think that vax passes will exclude people from mainstream culture. I didn’t know that vax passes excluded anyone from using the Internet, streaming services, YouTube, etc.
Seriously, the only culture that vax passes are likely to exclude anyone from is *live* culture, live performances and live sports, etc.
The “live”/in person/”in the flesh” experience, like meat, is going to become increasingly, even more than it already is, a luxury-experience, restricted to the highly privileged.
“The people” must be prevented from accessing “the live” because it is dangerous radical stuff at this point, might distract/free people from the system, so must be restricted to those in power, and the “safest”, most indoctrinated, the vaxxed.
I expect that at some stage they could restrict usage of computer devices (including phones) to approved Apps only, especially that used to operated the CCP style Social Credit monstrosity.
It would seem that you will not feel the loss of losing access to live events, neither will I but in my youth they were all I lived for.
Sat at home with the telly was definitely the last resort.
I doubt that people would be restricted from accessing mainstream culture online, for exactly the reason that Gramski and the author argue, which is that it acts to manufacture consent of the masses, etc. But that is why I find the article’s position so naive, it seems to believe that excluding people from “live culture” will interfere with that process.
I think that, on the contrary, restricting the least indoctrinated to the internet/unlive etc it is likely to strengthen/maintain that consent-factory effect, especially now that Youtube, etc are controlling and censoring their content so heavily.
I have tended to find live culture too expensive, or too noisy, unreliably enjoyable, or inaccessible, and so yes, I wouldn’t/don’t miss it much. I miss travel though.
The trouble is, it doesn’t stop at “live, mainstream” commercially available culture which is often expensive and easily abandoned in favour of a night on the sofa with a book or the telly.
Amateur, local, participatory events are developing similar exclusionary tendencies. They may not (yet) be requiring a Covid pass but they are asking members only return to clubs/choirs/ music societies and possibly sports associations not to attend meetings and events if fully vaccinated.
This has happened to me.
Durham cathedral will only allow people into their Christmas services if they can provide evidence of vaccination (or a negative test) – some other places of worship are doing the same.
They believe they are Doing The Right Thing.
Cathedral renounces Christianity.
Old news now.
I’m no longer a Christian but I remember a parable about Christ not rejecting the lepers and the lesson that was supposed to teach.
That’s exactly the sort of thing I meant; anything “in the flesh”, “in person”, is being increasingly withdrawn from the majority of people, made difficult to access or participate in, because life for “the masses” is intended to be all online/inside the system, and the precious real-life in the flesh stuff will be a real luxury, reserved for the most powerful and the most obedient. And I meant everything, not just theatre, opera, ballet, big concerts, etc but as you say the small stuff; amateur dramatic societies, choirs, local bands and sports association events, etc, anything that exists independently of information technology.
I would urge everyone to watch the video They Need Your Children.. a new financial reset is imminent. This vid was on YouTube with over half a million views, but has now been taken down. This link is via Odysee..
The woman being interviewed, Melissa Cuimmei, explains what the real purpose of Vaccine Passports is, and why governments et al are so desperate to distribute them.
Well worth a watch. On a personal note, I’ve opened up a few eyes to what’s going on by recommending people to watch this video. For some reason, people seem to be able to link in more to this than the health explanations..
https://odysee.com/@Ognir:c/The-Irish-Inquiry—They-need-your-children!-A-new-financial-reset-is-imminent..temp:5
Note : for some reason this link is not working via this site DS. If you want to watch the video just type in a browser They Need Your Children.. a new financial reset is imminent odysee.
Have you checked out the prison camps in Northern Territory of Australia? They appear to be going a lot further than exclusion from Live events over there.
But a prison camp is unquestionably a live event.
There are some people in society that absolutely relish the idea of being left the fuck alone by “society”, I know how they feel.
The first thing I learned about Italian politics is why their governments were apparently so unstable; one never ending merrygoround of ministerial appointments up to and including the Prime Minister.
It’s because every time someone became a Government Minister they got a nice juicy pension for life. It was thus to everyone’s mutual benefit, no matter what Party, for as many as possible to take turns however brief their tenure.
Once again the Italian government ignores its people – they should remember what happened to Mussolini.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-parliament-pensions-idUSKBN1K22FO
The Swiss Italian based comedian party “emme-cinque-esse” managed to get rid of some of these historic pension costs in 2019 and now the senators have to serve a lot longer than a single day, to get paid. M5S is under heavy ‘abrasion’ from somewhere….
The ‘unstable’ coalition parliament that Italy is famous for, was allegedly designed after the WWII by the allies, to stop those annoying soviets from influencing Italian politics. Bologna & Torino have always been a bit marxist. Other countries were ‘given’ the same multiparty system, and Gladio.
Draghi, the unelected but popular PM is likely to be elected President in January, but Silvio Berlusconi is still alive after several covid episodes, and he’s suggesting himself as President. Italian politics is always fascinating…..covid has put a stop to much usual excitement, as billions in ‘structural funds’ are coming-in
(until recently, a supermarket nearby sold wine – quite nice rosso- with il Duce’s picture on the label, and I’ve seen Mussolini wall-calendars, similar to UK’s Cliff Richard calendar – so the country hasn’t forgotten yet)
Now they have been handed over to a Davos Banker and “politics” appears to have been closed down
“It is one of the more quixotic whims of the smug vaccinated classes to imagine that those whom they wish exiled from society, will simply lie down and cry themselves to death before the bin men come to take away their filthy, disease-ridden bodies”
Philosophy lecture this morning?
When’s the uprising?
My first thoughts for today:
1 – Christmas will be a sort of miserable one, with some families wondering if they should invite any ‘unvaccinated’ people, and asking for proof of a ‘negative’ test result. More tat from China will be purchased, thus supporting their economy even more.
2 – the 3rd ‘booster’ rollout will continue and the 5-11 year olds (and also the 0-4 year olds?) will get jabbed after Christmas and before Summer.
3 – international travel restrictions will continue throughout 2022 and, in fact, will never be lifted entirely – vaccine passes/proof of ‘negative’ test results will always have to be shown, and the Passenger Locator Form will be a permanent feature.
4 – Vaxx Passes to be introduced in England for domestic use in 2022. The Scots and Welsh didn’t stop them, did they?
Let’s see if I’m wrong.
“. . . those whom the wish exiled from society will simply lie down and cry . . .”
There is an alternative.
Although only ever on the margins of it (though choice) the drugs/rave/hippy hash crowd seemed to enjoy a perfectly satisfying counter culture despite running outside of or even against mainstream society.
Threats of Police interventions were mitigated by the simplest counter measures.
All finance through a substitute economy.
“Although only ever on the margins of it (though choice) the drugs/rave/hippy hash crowd seemed to enjoy a perfectly satisfying counter culture despite running outside of or even against mainstream society.
Threats of Police interventions were mitigated by the simplest counter measures.
All finance through a substitute economy.”
Hippies are all ‘Peace and Love, Man” until it comes to their own money.
I’m not into drugs and raves.
We’re on to this ‘alternative society’ / black market / ‘living off grid’ nonsense again, aren’t we? I don’t really want to end up having to steal someone’s turnips from the allotments and exchanging them for a bottle of olive oil round the back of the shops by the skips.
I’m not sure if I find it hard to believe that this ‘Covid fraud’ would have been allowed to continue as far as the end of 2021. Yet here we are.
in two short years we’ve gone from liberal democracy to full blown Brave New World.
They’re not kidding when they say things go much quicker these days.
Does this mean we can overthrow it quickly as well? The Soviet Union lasted for around 70 years – most of us haven’t got that long! But how long have we got anyway?
According to Max Keiser, the real environmental crisis (not the climate change carbon scam)- the poisoning of the earth, pollution, over-development, never ending deforesting and the destruction of the oceans, animal habitat and so many life forms – largely down to those same International Corporations, currently trying to steal our lives and our freedom, will make the place uninhabitable for us all much sooner than “Climate Change”. I suspect not before the magic year 2030 though.
I expect Schwab has his Space Suit ready to go and live ‘Off World’ ( sooner the better)
I’m going to a jealous member of the family this weekend who has asked for everybody to take a LFT. I was insulted and was going to say FO, but my wife has said just lie and say you were negative. The trouble is most of my family are zealots and are proud they have now been triple stabbed.
Seems to me its you who should be taking action to counter their spike protein shedding. Arrive in a hazmat suit and see how they like to be treated.
Yes establishing just what damage the vaxxed are doing with their spike protein shedding should be of the greatest concern – not much hard evidence yet.
Do the shedded spike proteins entering via the respiratory tract equate to contracting the ‘virus’ – or does this mean that the spike proteins thus acquired can enter the cells and reproduce in the same way the vaccine works?
Put simply, assuming that the “vaccine” is more dangerous than the virus” is shedding as dangerous as the ‘virus’ or the “vaccine”?
The FO option was the better one
Very interesting. I’ve been interested for a while now in how the NZ Gov (and a lot of others) thinks it can get away with alienating a small, yet significant proportion of the population. In NZ it’s got less to do with shutting people off from their culture – because that would be hard for a number of reasons
It has a lot to do with the current political mob not being aware of recent European history. They got all the way to the top of government without ever reading (let alone learning) about the protests in Eastern Europe that led to the downfall of communism.
Operating in the now, they think they’ve got all the answers and are genuinely puzzled that some people don’t agree with them.
They’ve got no idea that a relatively small group of citizens can derail the whole thing.
It’s the ignorance of a lot of the current leaders that I find so incredible. I know I shouldn’t be surprised – but I’m blown away
It occurred to me some weeks ago that being 72 years of age many of those making these ridiculous edicts have no worldly knowledge of life and are in fact brainwashed – that is the conclusion I’ve reached and the only one that makes sense of what we are experiencing.
It took five decades to derail the whole thing. And even then, it wasn’t the work of a small group of citizens – they got nowhere except Siberia. It was the United States electing Ronald Reagan that did it. If he hadn’t pulled the financial rug away, they’d still be there, propped up now by Chinese money.
BBC
The Rapists Dad
Appealing for people to be vaccinated, he added: “It is the best Christmas present you can give yourself and your family this year, and it’s not too dramatic to say that it’s an investment in making sure that you are here for a healthy and happy Christmas next year as well.”
So we know what this fucking cheapskate is getting his Mrs for Christmas. No wonder he is confined to a shed in the garden.
So if the Welsheeples don’t get their snake oil, they’ll be dead by this time next year?
Want to bet, Dungford?
it’s not a prediction it’s a threat.
Like when the German health minister said by the end of this winter people will be either vaccinated, recovered or dead. People took it as a clever prediction. I understood it as a very dark threat.
Stand proud pure bloods. The ‘authorities’ have clearly shown their hand; it is time to reject those who despise us and create a better way of living, something truly worth living for. In a nutshell, bypass them and start again. This actually is an opportunity, believe it or not. It may not seem like it at times, but it is.
Certainly. The state of Israel emerged from the Holocaust. But what a price.
Emerged, and started to create its own Holocaust.
If we have to live in parallel lifestyles then so be it.
Yeah, if your better way of life consists in involuntarily parting with all your material possessions (as mandated by the government fines imposed on you) and starting the enterprise of picking up cans off the street while sharing your revolutionary ideas with other like-minded bums, you’re welcome. Actually, if the government decides so, you might not be allowed this enterprise either, but at least you will be “completely free” because remember, we all agree that it after all it was “all your individual choice” to throw away the yoke of society.
Insidious, the devil you don’t know, deep state, thin end of the wedge etc. My fear is we are well down this path – Our opposition coopted into a big tech game of censorship – Guy Debord’s spectacle playing out over and over. The final para is the weak spot here – as is my comment and all commentary and that is whether we are not already playing a role in the tail eating structure – more fodder. How do you resist without creating neat oppositions that can be used to create more tension and feed the beast? That is what Adorno et al. struggled with. Go the Shaolin warriror path?
This ^^^^
exactly
It is within the scenarios of possibility that the unvaxxed end up more resistant to covid than the vaxxed. Certainly there are data which support this. HG Wells and his time machine may yet be prophetic, with the proposed unvaxxed untermenschen being, in fact, top dog.
Agree. A pint of my pure blood is now trading at $1,700 above book
The sperm bank are ringing day and night. Now trading at $1.2bn a litre and they cannot fill the orders
LOL!
Don’t tell me… you can supply a litre !!!!!
Much more than just a possibility, – unless the powers that be have managed to fundamentally alter the way virus/immunology behaves we the refuseniks will indeed be top dog.
And furthermore because I aim to be the last unstabbed I fully expect to be THE top dog.
Just imagine…the power I will have.
…or, there will be an attempt to exterminate the excommunicated, which seems more likely.
It’s not as if it hasn’t been tried before.
The same problems that Germans in the 1930s and 40s encountered with marginalising Jews will be encountered now and the range of possible solutions won’t be much different to what it was then.
Re Stratton, remember that nothing gets in the press unless it is officially sanctioned. There is no such thing as a leak
Hancock was done away with because they wanted a more polished front man
The Pig Dictator is a lazy fuck and I suspect he is not hitting his targets for pushing product
My money is on Raab he will do anything he’s told
I don’t know. Raab seems to be zigging a little bit. Has come out twice in the last two days once to denounce the effect of lockdowns on children and once to denounce any further restrictions.
I’ve interpreted it as him sniffing out early a mood change, sensing Boris Johnson is vulnerable and positioning himself according, like the weasel politician he is.
Raab has long had an eye on the dispatch box. Not sure where I stand with him, but at this stage I’d be happier with an old sock full of cat excrement than world-famous Churchill impersonator, Bojo Johnson.
Will the sock be one of yours?
The reason I ask is that if you intend to fill one of your own socks with cat poo that could leave you with a spare sock. In June (the 4th I think) I lost a sock on a beach in West Wales. This left me at a loss as to what to do with my spare sock
If you send me your spare sock I will have a pair
If the sock you intend to fill with cat poo is spare sock in the first instance then obviously all bets are off
Hancock was flushed into the Thames along with all the other turds because he had gone on the record in the Commons saying children would not be lined up for the dangerous gene therapy. When they decided to start injecting that into the children, they had to have a new guy to make it happen. It doesn’t matter. They’re all guilty of crimes against humanity and if they stop running, we’ll catch up with them.
Maybe Raaaab’s heritage might bring forth a hitherto unknown twinge of conscience re his adherence to the Great Reset.
My money is on Javid.
It doesn’t really matter who the front man is – everything seems going to plan….for now.
Ooh. Looks like that Christmas party story may just turn out to be consequential. I wonder if Raab’s mildly anti-government position statements of the last couple of days are connected in any way.
Putting the “bureaucratic entropy” explanation aside and presuming this whole mess is planned and directed, it’s important to point out to the directors that all they will achieve is the creation of a French resistance in every state, communicating with one another and expressing their dissatisfaction with the current totalitarian beatdown in very physically violent and unpleasant ways. You’d have thought the retards running this would have learnt this basic lesson from history. You cannot subjugate, humiliate, and segregate people and get away with it. Not ever.
Another lesson from history is that the French resistance didn’t defeat Germany. The Soviet and American war machines did. (Sorry, and British pluckiness…)
And you thought Escape from New York was fiction.
Texas Hippie coalition ‘Pissed off and Mad about it’. should be the Xmas #1
“… why have the Italian authorities done something – started to locking down the unvaccinated – that will almost certainly result in the alienation of vast swathes of the Italian population?”
It’s because they’re facists. The reason they’ve taken this extreme step is to do something that breaks the will of everyone – locked-down and non-locked down; jabbed and unjabbed alike – so that they can do exactly what they like afterwards. It’s another side of the same coin as scapegoating a part of society so everyone else feels part of the ‘programme’.
And here’s another post that changes the sex of someone (yesterday, Ms Frederiksen, Denmark’s statsminister was a ‘he’). It’s Antonio Gramsci; not Antonia.
The Long March through the Institutions continues in La belle France via our old favourite the PCR test. The test that just keeps on giving.. bullshit on steroids..
https://www.rt.com/news/542521-france-hit-new-covid-record/
“Alec Baldwin has killed more people than omicron”
Made me LOL
In The Real Antony Fauci book, they write that the manufacturers refused to produce these jabs unless every government in the world shielded them from liability, its a fascinating read about the pharma industry
Re the jolly hockey sticks press conference
It’s obvious that they think we are cunts
Perhaps we should show them that we are even bigger cunts than they think we are
I wonder if the unvaxxed could be given an area of Europe that we could make our own homeland, a bit like the creation of the nation state of Israel following WW2.
It would have a population of perhaps 40-80 million. We should we locate it??
how about north of the Isle of Wight across to the Lands End, up to the Cumbrian/Socialist Nation of Wee ‘Eck border (do not turn left into the Socialist Nation of Brains SA), follow Hadrians Wall east across to the south banks of the Tweed and back south to the swamps of Kent?
The Jabby Jabbies can relocate to the Isle of Man
You wonder why any government would want to alienate millions of their own people. because they think for themselves. CarrieAntoinette will need a GE in just over 2 years.
Most still think governments are benevolent entities and that they actually care about their health. They don’t want to see the numerous clues that they don’t.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Anthony-Fauci-Democracy-Childrens/dp/1510766804/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0
Annoying this perfect gift is unavailable
Yes, I had to wait a few weeks to get it from the US. But certainly worth the wait.
Quite so. And quite deliberate.
First create a minority, and then squeeze them so hard that some of them will react violently. Then use that as the excuse for draconian police and surveillance laws and more emergency powers.
It’s the standard playbook. Worked for Hitler.
About 20 years ago, most people believed that the government was there to serve them.
By now, we know that the government is here to rule us.
I did not think, however that governments around the world would start treating us as cattle, and enforce mandatory injections to ‘maintain the health of the herd’.
There MIGHT be a justification for such an action, if
1 – this disease was highly lethal (it is not)
2 – the vaccine would stop the disease spreading (it does not)
3 – there was no other way to treat the disease (there is)
4 – the vaccine had gone through comprehensive safety testing (it has not)
5 – the vaccine had comparable side effects to other commonly accepted vaccines (they are far worse, including permanent disability and death)
And, most importantly,
6 – we had had an informed and open discussion about the benefits and disadvantages of this course of action, and democratically agreed to it. But we have NOT…
All of which goes to show that the pseudopandemic based on lies and fearmongering, which was the excuse for the ‘vaccination’, which is the gateway drug for the ‘opportunity passport’, which is the Trojan horse for the biosurveillance, totalitarian society, has nothing whatsoever to do with public health.
Frankly when I have to go underground as a resister of fascism I won’t want to hear Freddie Attenborough’s kind of headturbating verbiage. I don’t want to hear it now either. Nobody takes Gramsci seriously, mate. (Edit: oh wait – Michael Gove does.) You have no idea how the majority of people in society live.
One reason I lean towards Klaus Schwab’s great reset is it’s a shorter, easier read.
Very interesting article – why alienate the masses when you need compliance?
Why do this when you have already brainwashed a sufficient number to impose your magic vaccines and scare/persuade people to keep asking for more jabs (even though the evidence is mounting that they do not work against the ‘virus’ and are responsible for many thousands of deaths worldwide – probably massively deliberately underestimated)?
Because you are relying on the vaccines to ‘take care of ‘ sufficient numbers in the coming months and years to do the job for you. As yet we can only speculate on the massive damage artificial covid spike proteins manufactured in all the cells of ther vaccinated will do to the immune system – but it looks as if it could be devastating.
Immune system destruction means vaccine dependency for survivors – forever – you need Pharma to keep you alive – if they so choose.
That’s why they need need “total vaccination” it means total control over life and death – and over who lives and dies- read Schwab and it all makes sense – a Schwabian “transhuman” controlled by vaccines will “own nothing and be a happy servant of the elites”….it is as dark as this!
Excellent article. Thank you.
Attenborough’s notion of an underground jab-Resistance in permanent antagonism to the compact jab-happy majority is naive. ‘No exceptions!’ is in their code. ‘They’ mean to eliminate the un-jabbed. (Why do we think there a mortuary and crematorium next door to HMP Wellingborough.). Who are ‘They’? Dr David Martin has named them, the entire orchestra of maniacs who have done this.