If you live in London and are in the habit of keeping abreast of the news, the city does everything it can to prevent you from doing it in the most traditional and, frankly, the best way possible – reading a standard national daily. And this is not just London, but increasingly across the U.K. and the West. But nowhere is it as disheartening and reprehensible as in the U.K., given our long-standing culture of newspaper reading and being home to some of the most respected broadsheets in the world. In recent years, residents of this country have been systematically deprived of free access to newspapers, not least by institutions that are meant to be guardians of intellectual fulfilment and nourishment of people – our universities and libraries.
When I took up membership at a public library in the borough of Bermondsey a couple of years ago, the staff told me they do not hold print copies of newspapers because they had halted deliveries during Covid in order to minimise the spread of the virus. It was a plausible explanation, I suppose, back when we were not fully sure that we had well and truly seen off the pandemic. But two years later, as fear of Covid has receded into history, the library in question has still not restored deliveries of newspapers. And it isn’t the only one not to do so. Many other public libraries in other boroughs give me the same reason for the absence of newspapers to this day.
Two years since the end of Covid, libraries across the city refuse to provide their patrons with access to the most basic offering of any library and cite Covid as the reason. At this stage, you know it is not a reason anymore. It is a pretext. A convenient excuse to explain away their reluctance to buy the newspapers for their users. Because when you ask them why they have still not resumed their subscription, they have no answer. “You can read them online,” they say. But what if I do not want to read them online? A library should give me a choice to read the newspaper digitally or in print.
And many people who support the trend of the decline of print newspapers tend to speak of getting the news online as though it were the same thing. That it is patently not is well-established, as is the superiority of print reading. As Mary Wakefield wrote in the Spectator recently: “You pick up a paper in pursuit of news and in the hope of understanding it… No one picks up their iPhone to grapple with complex geopolitical truths. We prod at them when we’re bored, like lab rats looking for treats.” Even reading the so-called e-versions of the standard dailies, I would venture, is not an acceptable substitute. Because picking up a smartphone or a laptop means that you are exposed to a myriad potential distractions on the internet that want your attention and won’t allow you a moment of in-depth concentration.
It is also argued that most people of this generation do not like to read newspapers in print and prefer to get their news online or on intellectually edifying sites like Instagram. And therefore, the libraries are merely adapting to the new status quo. It may well be true that younger people favour the internet to keep up to date, but that is no justification to do away with print newspapers completely. Firstly, the harmful implications of consulting social media for news is well-documented and public institutions have a moral duty to provide access to trustworthy sources of news. Just because people nowadays resort to social media excessively doesn’t mean that libraries and universities can wash their hands of their duty to provide access to more reliable platforms.
Secondly, while many young people these days do indeed get their news online, there is still a minority of us who favour print. And it behoves public institutions to cater to all of its audience, not just those who demand less of its resources. Finally, many of these centres are happy to see off print not because that is what people seem to want, but instead because the trend panders to their own lethargy. It is easier and cheaper for the libraries not to subscribe to print editions. Claiming that people are not into print anymore is a ready-made excuse for cancelling the subscriptions indefinitely. It is important to recognise, therefore, that such institutions are not innocuous actors merely adapting to changed circumstances, but are agents actively promoting the extinction of print for their own convenience.
And such agents include not just public libraries, but also universities, offices and other places that traditionally provided daily newspapers. In some cases, the quest to get one’s hands on a broadsheet is beset by incredible levels of absurdity. When I was a student at the London School of Economics (LSE) not too long ago, the library did not contain a print edition of the Financial Times newspaper. Why not? “Not since Covid.” Surprise surprise. And it remains that way. A PhD student studying economics in a famous university in Scotland laments that her library did not contain a copy of the FT, nor does her department, and was asked to get approval from her supervisor, which was denied. Because there was no justification why she wanted a print edition when the digital one was available. It is the same university that spent a pretty penny on erecting a highly modern academic building fitted with gender-neutral toilets.
In the eyes of many university administrations it seems as though students who prefer print are getting ideas beyond their station. How dare they desire what they are not entitled to! Another friend who works in the finance industry was told by his company that it has cancelled its subscription to a print business paper because its new essential supplies provider does not do newspapers. There is a queue for a digital subscription, however, would he like to join it?
This phenomenon is rather unique to the West. I found an institutional bias in favour of digital in other European countries including Germany and Ireland. But in places such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it would be laughable for a library or an office not to hold copies of all the standard newspapers. I recall the feeding frenzy I found myself in with some fellow students as we scrambled to get hold of the Hindu in the college library when I attended university in Delhi. It is ironic given Britain’s role in introducing modern-day journalism in these countries.
The erosion of print remains a pressing concern for the media industry, driving many to shift online and expand their digital footprint. While they must do it to attract an audience and stay relevant in a digital-savvy world, institutions have a responsibility to protect and promote print not just as a reliable source of information, but as a medium that does not impair the human ability to concentrate. To devote deep attention to something is a sublime human activity that the internet can cripple. Print newspapers encourage that activity and it must not be sacrificed at the altar of digital and social media. Institutions like libraries and universities whose task it is to promote intellectual enlightenment have failed us all in this regard and have connived to hasten the death of print.
Aditya is a writer with a Master’s in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE). Find him on on X.
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In plandemic review. Tsunami 4 (or 3 or 5,6 I’ve lost count), the Omygod not another variant threatens a sixth mass extinction event. In reaction to dwindling “vaccine.TM” protection from a more infectious cold bug, government has halted all health care to roll out another booster campaign, that 2 shots of the same “vaccine.TM” offered no protection to the Omygod not another variant!
Our scientists.corp have modelled possibly, maybe, perhaps, that Omygod not another variant might swamp our hospitals with a far less harmful disease, therefore to protect the NHS we must stop treating all other patients & conditions to keep covid alive. SAGNERVᛋᛋ , have determined to facilitate evolution of the awesome variant, we must top up everyone with “vaccine.TM” that is designed to make the victims immune system super sensitive to infection for up to 14 days after poisoning.
It is hoped by our politicians that this weakening of the populations immune system by mass “vaccine.TM”, will cause excess (unnecessary) illness (& they hope death) to coincide with the peak of the super duper over friendly Omygod not another variant, ensuring the covid1984 not such a pandemic after all, will continue for many years to come, protecting 100% immune pharmaceutical corporations, share prices.
I salute you.
Class.
Oh this is brilliant! From the Times:
Rishi Sunak may be forced to use the new health and social care levy to fund a £5 billion-a-year permanent programme for Covid-19 booster vaccines.
…
The latest crisis has led the Treasury to draw up plans to fund a booster programme in which adults will be given a jab every three to six months, possibly indefinitely, if dangerous mutations continue to appear.
No one’s vax pass will ever be valid!
Covid the gift that never stops!
And this business model can be used by big pharma against almost any disease. This is just getting started.
Beware of thinking this is about the central committee of Big Pharma only, as RFK Jr seems to think. It is about the central committee of the (ever more centralised) ruling class.
Who do you think holds the majority of shares in big pharma? Always follow the money.
The reason I don’t buy the depopulation narrative & environmentalism is the psychopaths that run things don’t care how many people there are or about the environment!
They can buy whatever they want! & control whom/what ever they like. If they control the money.
There are only two motives for their psychopathic drive, greed & ego.
symbiotic
When the government decide your health is it’s business expect to be looted of all your wealth.
It’s not permanent. Rushi Sunak, like the rest of them, know the economic order is about to come down. This is asset stripping before the fall (I think).
Hospitalisation rates, intensive care rates etc have hardly moved since October (whereas last year they shot up this time of year), and cases to tests ratio has remained virtually static since October as well (see below):
All experience from South Africa points to the new variant being much milder.
In short, nothing is happening other than in the fevered minds of the medical and government establishments, aided by a sycophantic media.
Meanwhile, cancer cases are soaring, babies are developing with massive cognitive, social and particularly facial recognition impairment, lives are becoming boring and featureless and depression is rising, families and countries are suffering hugely financially, and something like 120 million people have been thrown into poverty in the LEDCs, all because of the hideously misguided policies of our governments !
Are you attempting to bring actual facts to bear on this crisis? Whatever possessed you to do that?
Omicron Level 4 Alert. that’s all you need to know
Give it time – when they get into their stride with the orgy of pricks it’s likely that “Covid deaths” will rise…
And yet this is the time of year when the immune system is traditionaly depressed due the the reduction in natural vit D, making people more susceptible to respiratory illnesses of all types. This is Pros Angus Dalgliesh yesterday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKHYkHTRTnM
I was subjected to an angry conversation between two complete morons who seemed to be deliberately aiming their anger at me today in the office. A Covidian colleague spitting with anger about people who won’t take the vaccine and how they should be denied healthcare etc. And how he really hoped that vaccine passports were voted in this week. And how the heart attacks suffered by footballers on the pitch were probably caused, you guessed it, by covid. And how he couldn’t wait for his teenage son to get his booster. Quite extraordinary feats of cognitive dissonance. I sat there quietly, and let their sad nonsense wash over me, trying not to become emotional about it. It seems that without even being told to, the zealots are becoming militant, probably because religious style zealotry is now necessary to protect their understanding of the ‘pandemic’ in the face of what is rapidly becoming farcical nonsense. So I’m taking from this and other observations this week that there’s been a shift:
10-15% zealots: have become more hardcore.
60-80% get alongs: ever so slightly more cynical, pissed off and possibly smelling a rat.
10-15% sceptics: fear and despair; everything we’ve been saying was coming is indeed coming; it really is as bad as we thought it was.
Nah, it has potential to get a whole lot worse than we imagined.
These are the people who convinced themselves the Nazis were taking the Jews east to make shoes. They are beneath contempt.
Yes we are living through a very vivid demonstration of the way that fascism takes hold in societies. The colleagues I referred to would never in million years see themselves as fascists even when they inevitably see children dying at the alter of their new god.
Why did Omicron appear? Because it escaped the crappy vaccines that were built around ONE protein. The unvaccinated are building their immune systems around all 29.
Blame the vaccine.
Yes I blame the vaccine, the people who developed it, the grounds on which it was developed and everyone who has taken it. Their ignorance, credulity and lazy thinking has made us all victims.
I actually blame what you describe as the “get-alongs”. If more of them had, like us, done their research, we might not be in this position.
We are now in the midst of full blown societal insanity.
The annual cold and flu season which is getting started is being treated like an Ebola outbreak.
Typical annual occurrences such as the NHS running short of beds and frail people dying from respiratory diseases are being treated like rare catastrophes.
The reaction is to try to force everyone to have a coronavirus jab that doesn’t work, the same coronavirus jab that they have been trying to develop for decades and they never got to work.
Millions are taking this jab not because they fear these viruses but because they are terrified of what the most insane and aggressive within our society will do to them if they don’t.
“The annual cold and flu season which is getting started is being treated like an Ebola outbreak.
Typical annual occurrences such as the NHS running short of beds and frail people dying from respiratory diseases are being treated like rare catastrophes”
Yes – you are absolutely right, but only because that is being PUSHED by HMG, aided and abetted by the completely complicit MSM.
Single death, of someone, anyone, with no detail or drilling down whatsoever into any facts, “with” Omicron, and we have full blown mass psychosis.
I think the time has come to develop some kind of commune where us like minded people pool our skills and take ourselves out of this and band together – I mean it couldn’t be worse than THIS could it??
I salute you for coping with that crisisgarden. I would have found it hard to let that wash over me, but am in training for Christmas day where I will have to spend it in the company of covidzealots, and will have to try very hard to stay very silent while listening to the absolute drivel they talk about covid incessantly. Can see a lot of “bathroom breaks” being taken where I take myself ofski to avoid saying something.
At
lastleast one Omicron death in UK confirmedThat must be a fuckin relief for Bozo. I fear for the chap’s life if he came up without anything on his scoreboard. And poor Carrie left a widow at her age.
The report went on to say that a large, obese man was seen over the man hospitalised with omicron, holding a pillow in his hands. The killer had attempted to disguise himself by wearing a a yellow string mop on his head.
No one said it’s not going to kill people. Bojo. Flu and pneumonia killed 25,000 people in the UK in 2019. We didn’t put people in camps and burn their businesses down for that, did we?
But then no one had fired the starting gun for the NWO and GR then had they?
It was implicated in the death. I don’t think causality has been established.
did he rub his hands together gleefully, thinking phew, BG WILL be pleased I have delivered one at last.
The sort of people who frequent this site have been patiently explaining to morons throughout this ridiculous theatre that just about none of the totalitarian regulations unlawfully imposed on people are about a virus. In Australia, a man was recently tracked down at his home because the regime noted his iSlave had been in the same location as the iSlave belonging to someone who had the omicron (light cold) variant. He was dragged out of his home and sent to a “medihotel” without a window for two weeks, despite having had two doses of cell therapy and a negative test.
IT’S NOT ABOUT A VIRUS.
Maybe they should wear masks after all!
Just wait til they start with the mind reading technology to crack down on thought crimes…
if only someone could develop some kind of tinfoil hat or something which would block the technology…..
I’ve never owned a mobile telephone, but if you’re the proud owner of an iSlave, you might want to look into deactivating all the regime’s tracking devices and signing into places with a pencil and fake details.
Are “dumb phones” definitely safe then?
I take no chances – I have only a landline.
I can count on the fingers of my left hand the number of times I have thought to myself “I wish I had a mobile phone”
It is amazing how easy it is to live life without one.
You just make an arrangement and you stick to it.
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Entry toVenues and Events) (England) Regulations 2021 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2021/1416/pdfs/uksi_20211416_en.pdf)
Anyone reckon it will be expired “at the end of 26th January 2022”?
No, me neither.
Oops! Forgot to add the last line of that SI:
What a surprise!
Won’t the annual Winter respiratory deaths be peaking about then?
track and trace contracts being tendered for at moment to continue until 2025 according to FT
funny how that date 2025 keeps cropping up.
Sherelle Jacobs in the Torygraph:
Increasing interest rates would have “dampened the effects of price rises”, would it? Okayyyyy… Which planet is that on?
Telegraph’s a bit of a liberal paper. The Morning Post was a bit more Tory…
I think there used to be the notion that increasing interest rates would depress spending as people would be less inclined to borrow in particular plus have increased expenditure servicing existing loans. this would mean that, assuming inflation was caused by too much demand for too few goods, prices wouldn’t need to rise. This is very old style economics though, doubt if it would work today! Far too many other spin-off effects.
everything must be sacrificed to keep land affordability collapsing, which apparently is the core of the economy (not people actually working)!
Or is the economy rigged to keep the establishment super wealthy.
The mortal sin, a trifecta of URLs.
Dr. Peter McCullough | 5 Key Points to End the Pandemic
Dr. Reiner Fuellmich’s SESSION 82 with Dr. Shankara Chetty
Dr. Kevin Stillwagon – Medical freedom – innate immunity – how the jab destroys it!
If you have to choose, I recommend the 2nd link (2hrs but very informative). My own two personal COVID-19 truth heroes are:
Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi
Dr. Shankara Chetty
The likes of Yeadon took an odd tangent at some point & Ivor Cummins a bit of a disappointment, There many other Dr’s worth listening to, but the two listed cover everything you need to know.
“Police Scotland says rapists can self-identify as women” (GB News, Wooton’s show)
Like I say, men pretending to be women should not be allowed in women’s prisons.
It’s “Police Scotland” pretending to be police and do policing that’s a bigger problem
Peel will be spinning in his grave.
“Welby warns against trying to legislate good behaviour”.
More regulations seem to become inevitable in societies that become “Godless”. Belief in good and evil and divine law replaced by endless regulations. So you have to ban wolf whistling, you have to ban sexual staring and drinks on the tube and so on. The current lockdown shambles must be a textbook example (and I note the Amish, for example, didn’t particularly lock themselves down).
Yes. And this is the key difference between the Old Testament and the New.
The Old contained a detailed law covenant for the people of Israel to make them distinct… which they gradually ignored and did their own thing, causing them to lose their land twice.
The New was based on two simple laws – love God, and love your neighbour. The key word being love. It was enacted by someone who literally died to demonstrate that principle, in an act of voluntary self-sacrifice.
Human beings are not very good at following laws. But if you practice the law of love, then you are already most of the way there.
That… plus avoiding the QR mark, will go a long way I’d suggest
State censorship or self-censorship, it’s all social censorship. To understand the technocratic totalitarianism we’re headed to, you can’t go wrong with Ted Kaczynski’s 1995 Manifesto; Industrial Society and Its Future. I don’t condone what he did, but his essay is the closest you’ll get to an explanation of what’s happening.
The neoliberal class of career politicians all share the same ideology, indoctrinated by universities in the 90s. The human population’s management draws striking parallels to intensive agriculture & animal husbandry. Where livestock are medicated as a precautionary principle to control disease, with Vaccine technology mimicking GMO food production. To them, we are nothing more than a herd to be managed & harvested for the benefit of their elite corporate masters, the politicians are just farmers.
China is the model they wish to emulate, it is modern pseudo communism/corporate socialism. To achieve their goal, they have to eradicate Christian values (i’m not a Christian or religious) I share many of those values, my own truth & inspiration comes from the natural world, but these elite see nature as their enemy. Health & safety is just another method of control.
It’s all about maximising rent-seeking for an “elite” much like feudalism at the end of the day.
It’s always about money, don’t let anyone tell you any different.
“Medicine regulators knowingly administer most dangerous batches of covid ‘vaccine’ to children”.
Isn’t this called crimes against humanity?
If they don’t have those trials, they certainly ought to.
Mike Yeadon is trying, bless him.
So there ARE dangerous batches of vaxx then? And they don’t take them out of circulation but knowingly administer them to kids?
£5 billion per year permanent programme for ‘covid’ booster ‘vaccines’ ” (Times muppets).
Ah, so it is forever then. What a surprise.
And why do I have to pay for it anyway?
Yes, those who want it should be asked to pay for it
That would be a good rule for lockdowns and other NPIs too. We’d see how much people actually want them.
“Life-saving treatment neglected by government in favour of booster rollout”
I’m calling this out as criminal too, and especially in light of the recent bombshell revelation that there is “no reliable evidence that the ‘vaccines’ reduce all-cause mortality” (Prof. Fenton).
Roundup final item
Skynews person claims there are 10,000 inpatients in Wales (doesn’t say what with).
‘Statswales.gov.wales/nhs beds’ tells me that there are currently less than 9,000 NHS beds in Wales, reduced from just over 10k in 2018.
How’s that for Fact Checking folks?
There was a dubious story last year wasn’t there, about a children’s ward being full of “covid” patients (someone on 5 live?).
Quite a lot of the time, the media don’t seem to be very rigorous about these stories. I bet Devi “100% safe” Sridhar went unchallenged in that Newsround item.
I remember that, it was some nursey Karen in London but she got shouted down in the press by senior consultants out of sheer embarrassment I think.
Awake and in despair.
I’m not sleeping and I am ruminating over and over.
Every day we descent further into the madness.
There appears no way out.
Whereas I will resign my hospital consultant post rather than face the jab, my husband is going to have it and then face a lifetime of boosters at increasingly random intervals. He has already had Covid-19 which was a 48 hour mild illness for him.
What an unnecessary risk.
It gets easier to come to terms with when you realize the truth of what’s happening & what the future promises/threatens. It can be a long road. It’s one i’ve been travelling down for many years before covid!
The fact is, the who & the why are irrelevant, it’s what future you wish for that gives you the strength to fight it. And that’s the only solution, fight the f***ers with everything you have. Never surrender.
Hold the line!
I don’t know how you do it, go into hospital and face this madness day in and day out. I’m mostly at home so don’t come up against it in quite such an ‘in your face’ kind of way. The only thing I would say is that there are two equal and opposite forces here – one is the madness/darkness/let’s jab everyone for ever and the other is also the longer term expansion of consciousness that is running parallel to it. Humans are more powerful than they think.
Can you show him the research on actual infection rates (not biomarkers) that shows minimal extra benefit for previously recovered, the two Israeli studies https://dailysceptic.org/2021/12/10/another-study-finds-that-natural-immunity-protects-better-against-infection-than-the-pfizer-vaccine/ and a report from the
Danish CDC-equivalent https://twitter.com/TracyBethHoeg/status/1469705974776664069 (source document is https://files.ssi.dk/covid19/gennembrudsinfektion/rapport/gennembrudsinfektion-covid19-uge49-2021-ji88, page 11)
and the other studies that show much higher rate of adverse events for that group, typically around 3x for the mRNA vaxes:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2101667
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00224-3/fulltext (systemic side effects 2.9 times higher for Pfizer, and it made no difference how long ago the infection was)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/11/3/249
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2782821
a news report here too, AEs were so severe after boosters in previously recovered elderly patients that Quebec no longer recommends them:
https://westphaliantimes.com/canadian-province-stops-giving-boosters-to-elders-who-have-had-covid-in-the-past-due-to-severe-life-threatening-side-effects/
He knows the data. He really doesn’t want it. He loves his job though so if the mandate goes through, he will take the jab.
I won’t work for an organisation so hypocritical as to make me offer choice to patients whilst denying me the ability to make my own choices so it’s easier for me to remain unjabbed and walk away.
Re the Durham students, it is a complete mystery to me why uni students everywhere aren’t protesting about having to pay £9,000 a year fees for a minimal contact hours, limited access to the library (since Covid) and bugger all else.
Because they’ve got no balls. A generation of wussies.
Been that way for thirty years at least.
Well none of them has any expectation of earning enough to pay off their loans, so why should they bother.
Worth noting that the much maligned Full Fact picked up on this very quickly:
https://fullfact.org/health/Covid-19-patients-in-wales/?fbclid=IwAR1M8tsBlo-J-b1UrsWyrw2A0ZpsvLSTuzs3U5rGhAIveohKDu8DAOwZGy0
Posted in less detail about that 4 hours ago.
‘Number of NHS beds in Wales’, one click on Google, sorted.
Dr Ruth Hopkins just took an outdated figure for the total number of bed in Wales and pretended they were all full.
muppet at work and his wife, both in their 30s, rushed out to get their boosters yesterday.
Now both off sick.
<sigh>
BIL got boosted yesterday – not doing well at all – bad adverse reaction.
No surprise that the mightily offended Durham student is a champagne socialist. His smug face in the press says it all; like it needs to be re-arranged with a piece of 4 x 2
The MSM believe that climate change is being accelerated by the population increase and it will cause millions to die. If someone supports the abolition of bodily autonomy and forces me to be jabbed will they accept my right to demand the sterilisation of them, their children and their grandchildren with the same aim as “the Good of the Community” We can add it to the passport, no problem.
60,000 positive tests?
Are they digging up graveyards now?
Thousands of people queuing for hours for booster jabs!
Does anybody go to work these days?