The UKHSA declared last week that the number of measles cases in the West Midlands (216 confirmed and 103 probable since October) is a “national incident”. Many have blamed low vaccine take-up, laying the blame on online vaccine ‘misinformation’. But this doesn’t add up, says Toby in his Spectator column this week. Here’s an excerpt.
The main spreaders of health-related ‘misinformation’ over the past four years or so have not been vaccine sceptics, but official organisations like the World Health Organisation which, in the early phase of the pandemic, exaggerated the risk of COVID-19, particularly to children, leading to unnecessary school closures. We now know that the two-metre social distancing rule had no scientific basis, and the evidence underlying mask mandates is threadbare at best. We also have good reason to believe the cost of lockdown far outweighed the benefit. The example of Sweden, which never imposed a national lockdown, suggests there were very few benefits at all.
Surely it is this catalogue of errors, which caused incalculable social and economic harm, that has eroded people’s trust in the public health establishment, not the anti-vaxxers? Is it any wonder some parents are reluctant for their children to have the MMR, given how often they’ve been lied to about the benefits of this or that health measure over the past four years? I daresay a few of them can recall the government applying pressure on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to change its mind about recommending in December 2021 that five- to 11-year-olds shouldn’t be given the Covid jab. …
Toby cites a report by the Royal Society in 2022 entitled ‘The Online Information Environment: Understanding how the internet shapes people’s engagement with scientific information’, which recommended against “content removal” as a strategy for combatting misinformation as there’s no evidence it works and it may make things worse.
In any case, he suggests, “a more probable cause is the conversion of the NHS into a Covid-only service from March 2020 to July 2021, meaning lots of parents failed to get their kids jabbed. As with other recent health crises, the ‘national incident’ is a consequence of the government’s mismanagement of the pandemic.”
Worth reading in full.
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More delusional reporting about how the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer’s policies have a significant bearing on the cost of UK debt.
The UK is already bankrupt. Like most countries with a bloated overbearing state.
I’m not defending Rachel Reeves or any politician, but some minor policies which represent a drop in our ocean of debt is what wrecked our economy.
That should be “isn’t what wrecked our economy”
My take on the matter:
1.) Any reasonable market analyst or investor must have had strong suspicions about a Labour government anyway, as historically every single Labour government left the economy in worse shape than is had been before they took over.
2.) But they gave Starmer’s government the benefit of doubt. Maybe this time it will be different. You never know.
3.) By now they have realized that their suspicions were well founded, Labour haven’t got a clue and Rachel from Accounts is indeed incompetent.
4.) Borrowing cost up, pound devalued as a result.
Liz Truss may have been a careless driver but was never given a chance to improve. Whereas Rachel Reeves is totally reckless behind the wheel. Her licence to kill our economy should be immediately withdrawn with a life ban.
Rubbish.
Reeves is deliberately trashing the economy, targeting those who Labour hates.
Truss would have been the best Tory PM in 14 years, except she went too fast, too soon and was mugged by the blob. They couldn’t have her fracking, ending ECHR, moving our embassy to Jerusalem, lowering taxes.
Listen to her recent interviews and she, for my money, is leading the charge against the blob that is the real enemy within. She understands and explains how we need a people’s movement, properly led and focused on the 5th Column.
This naive reporting angers me, to be honest.
I agree. In fact this is typical pseudo-journalism. Kate Andrews seeks to make a thesis out of a very straightforward bit of politics, not economics just vicious politics.
Rachel from accounts is acting under orders and those orders are to destroy the British economy and its people. Andrews hasn’t worked this out yet and has sought a hi-brow explanation. The reality is she hasn’t got a scooby and is talking nonsense.
She works for Gove. That’s all you need to know.
Good point.
What was unknown at the time of the Truss budget was that the pensions industry had decided to play casino games with the money in the pension schemes by using LDIs. The Bank of England also neglected to inform Truss or Kwarteng that they selling off a tranche of QE bonds when the budget was announced in what could be seen as a deliberate act of sabotage.
Rachel from Accounts had fucked up all on her own and delivered mortgage rates higher than Truss did.
Let’s not forget that the “necessary intervention” to shore up the LDI pension scheme included the Bank of England’s own pension scheme.
I’m sure the “intervention” was completely necessary and nothing to do with that
That’s more like it.
Interesting (to me) that the thesis in the article alleges that ‘Rachel Reeves is Making the Same Mistake as Liz Truss‘
Surely a more valid comparison would be between Truss and Starmer – what with them both being PM? Or between Kwarteng and Reeves.
I think Starmer is being let off too lightly on the fiscal incompetence argument.
I do not believe there is “fiscal incompetence.” It is inconceivable that so many ministers and civil servants could be acting in a manner so patently fiscally incontinent. They are acting under orders and those orders are to destroy the economy and thus the nation. Nothing these days is as it seems.
I stopped my Spectator subscription because of this person. Needless to say I did not waste my time reading the article.
I suspect that the exchange rate plays more of a role than is discussed here. The govt wants to repay loans in pounds, but why would an investor want to have pounds? The govt is trashing the productive part of the economy, via unnecessary increases in energy prices, taxes, and regulations.
What use will a pound be in 5 years time?
Why would they want to “finance the transition” when “the transition£ is clearly going to destroy our economy since it’s intended to outsource all manufacturing and ensure we have the most expensive energy on the planet?
If the markets (in 22) were mainly reacting to the government’s plan to subsidise energy costs, why didn’t they react two weeks earlier when the announcement was actually made and why didn’t the enormous cost of lockdowns create any panic?
A very simplistic assessment.
Truss’ budget was a lukewarm centrist plan with a strong empirical basis. The energy subsidy was ill advised but despite her plan being thrown out the energy subsidy continued as did money printing and currency devaluation. Furthermore the continuing vast green energy subsidies still continue despite the high debt and low productivity of the UK. The article fails to grasp deeper problems.