- “Police must stop ‘intimidatory’ protests against MPs as threat level rises: Rishi Sunak” – The PM says that the police must make full use of their powers to protect politicians as pro-Palestinian demonstrations increase risk to members, reports the Telegraph.
- “Islamist denialism has reached crisis levels” – The ‘hate speech’ complaint against Lee Anderson reveals the censorious power of the charge of Islamophobia, says Fraser Myers in Spiked.
- “The Rochdale by-election has exposed the worst of British politics” – If the by-election in Rochdale is about anything other than Gaza, it is about the Labour Party, writes Jake Wallis Simons in the Spectator.
- “The Hallett Inquiry is back, but you wouldn’t know it” – Prof. Carl Heneghan and Dr. Tom Jefferson are back monitoring the Welsh leg of the Covid Inquiry.
- “Covid pandemic may have been started by scientists, professor tells UN” – Covid could have been created by a “research-related incident”, the UN has heard at the launch of a report calling for better regulation of experiments that could spark pandemics, according to the Telegraph.
- “The ‘boys will be boys’ of science” – Are citations and grants and fame really worth the risk of causing a pandemic and killing millions of people? asks Alex Washburne for the Brownstone Institute.
- “Chinese fire drill” – On Substack, Thomas Buckley compares the chaotic responses to COVID-19 to a mismanaged fire evacuation.
- “Human rights make a brief appearance in ‘bombshell’ COVID-19 vaccine ruling” – For the first time in Australia, a court has ruled mandatory COVID-19 vaccination unlawful, reports the Epoch Times.
- “Sokal cubed: is this the biggest academic publishing scandal of all time?” – On Substack, Dr. Raphael Lataster exposes a potentially massive scandal in academic publishing.
- “Doctorsaurus Rex and the rise of the ‘noctor’” – The Covid Physician takes aim at the current state of the NHS, focusing on the increasing influence of non-doctor healthcare practitioners and the decline of traditional medical practices.
- “Matt Hancock mocked by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg’s son for lockdown affair” – Matt Hancock was mocked by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg’s son over his lockdown affair after he’d taken a shot at his father as he addressed pupils on a visit to Eton, according to the Telegraph.
- “More than 616,000 foreign workers and dependents got U.K. visas in 2023” – Home Office data shows that the number of U.K. visas handed to foreign workers and their family members soared to more than 600,000 last year, reports the Mail.
- “The Tories have no excuse to whine about the Blob” – Blaming the levers of government for a lack of change is a poor argument that makes the Conservative Party weak and pointless, says John Oxley in the Spectator.
- “Britain is doomed to forever be America’s sick relation” – Without radical reform, the U.K. economy is destined to live in America’s shadow, argues Douglas McWilliams in the Telegraph.
- “‘I don’t like the term ‘impartial’” – News presenter Clive Myrie has said he dislikes the term ‘impartial’ and does not believe the BBC must provide balance on every topic, according to the Telegraph.
- “Unis ‘lying to themselves’ if they think free speech not an issue” – The Vice Chancellor of SOAS in London says higher education bosses have been guilty of a “failure to intervene” when people have been censored, reports the Mail.
- “Alastair Campbell (national treasure) on private schools” – On Substack, Mr. Chips takes aim at Alastair Campbell’s advocacy for VAT on private education to promote equality.
- “The sinister tactics of Hope Not Hate” – Hope Not Hate wishes to change the political weather in our country and has few qualms about how it does it, says Douglas Murray in the Spectator.
- “Putin makes direct threat to nuke the West” – Vladimir Putin has made a direct threat to nuke the West as he accused NATO and the U.S. of “preparing to strike” Russia in his annual address to the nation, reports the Mail.
- “The most terrifying thing about Putin is not that he’s delusional, but that he might be right” – Putin’s speech to the Federal Assembly reinforces his vision for a more assertive Russia, capitalising on what he sees as Western indecision, writes Jade McGlynn in the Telegraph.
- “How Hong Kong turned its back on capitalism – and paid a terrible price” – Under Xi’s tightening grip, Hong Kong’s days as a global deal-making hub are numbered, says Melissa Lawford in the Telegraph.
- “How collapsing energy use reveals Britain’s economic disaster” – In 2022, excluding the 2020 Covid lockdown, the U.K. used less energy than in any year since at least 1970, report Melissa Lawford and Jonathan Leake in the Telegraph.
- “Net Zero targets have hamstrung British prosperity” – To claim that Net Zero has sparked an industrial boom in Britain, you have to be pretty inventive with the figures, says the Spectator in a leading article.
- “The farce of Drax’s wood pellets” – When is the Government going to stop pretending that chopping down trees in North American forests and shipping them to burn in U.K. power stations is a zero-carbon form of energy? asks Ross Clark in the Spectator.
- “Six months on, Ulez is doing more harm than good” – With unfair fines, false advertising and a huge legal scandal, the Ulez scheme is a shambles… yet this is just the beginning, warns Ed Wiseman in the Telegraph.
- “Europe’s consensus on climate is crumbling” – With farmers in revolt and the far-Right surging, is Ursula von der Leyen about to wreck her own green agenda? wonders Wolfgang Münchau in the New Statesman.
- “Riding the backlash against climate policies ” – Pledges made at COP28 are being broken as politicians in the U.S. and across Europe backpedal on climate goals, writes Amanda Kolson Hurley for Bloomberg.
- “First drop in sales: honeymoon is over for Europe’s heat pump industry” – Europe’s heat pump industry has been forced to cut, or temporarily freeze, 3,000 jobs following investments into production capacity that overshot demand growth, according to Euractiv.
- “Toyota was right about hybrid cars all along” – Toyota’s slow-and-steady approach to EVs and hybrids is going well, despite years of criticism, says Nora Naughton in Business Insider.
- “EU lawmakers ‘outraged’ after states block landmark ESG law ” – An EU law designed to clean up corporate supply chains has been derailed by the bloc’s biggest member states, reports Bloomberg.
- “Trans women criminals must be recorded as men, says No.10” – Downing Street has told police to list offenders, such as ‘cat killer’ murderer Scarlet Blake, as male unless they have legally changed gender, reports the Telegraph.
- “BBC upholds complaint against Today presenter Justin Webb for saying trans women are males” – The BBC has upheld a complaint against the Today presenter Justin Webb after he said “trans women, in other words males”, says Press Gazette.
- “NHS issues urgent warning for discredited transgender clinic” – GPs have been warned not to work with the transgender clinic Gender GP after the NHS issued an urgent safety alert, reports the Telegraph.
- “Bud Light trans boycott hammers world’s biggest brewer” – A growing boycott of Bud Light over its partnership with a transgender influencer has hurt sales at parent group AB InBev, says the Telegraph.
- “Woke segregation arrives at the West End” – There is nothing ‘progressive’ about a black-only theatre performance, argues Thomas Osborne in Spiked.
- “Theatre’s obsession with ‘inclusivity’ has hit an embarrassing new low” – Organisers of a ‘Black Out’ night seem to think enjoyment of the arts must be determined by ‘lived experience’. They couldn’t be more wrong, says Ella Whelan in the Telegraph.
- “Having a pop at Mary” – In the New Conservative, Jack Watson gives his take on the recent reclassification of Mary Poppins from U to PG because it contains ‘discriminatory language’.
- “How to write a modern screenplay” – People do not want genuine drama these days, just validation of their asinine prejudices, says Rod Liddle in the Spectator.
- “New Zealand scraps its world-first cigarette ban” – New Zealand will repeal a world-first law banning tobacco sales for future generations, reports the Mail.
- “Gemini AI exposes the progressive playbook” – Google’s new AI app Gemini has caught the sanctimonious social engineers with their pants down, says Lionel Shriver in the Spectator.
- “Political corruption and taxpayer money behind Google disinformation and censorship” – The U.S. and Germany finance Google disinformation and censorship, claims Michael Shellenberger on the Public Substack.
- “Oprah Winfrey leaves Weight Watchers board after admitting use of weight-loss drugs” – Oprah Winfrey is standing down from Weight Watchers after admitting she has been using weight-loss drugs, according to the Telegraph.
- “‘He who pays the piper, calls the tune’” – Addressing the House of Lords, former Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth warns of the dangers of foreign states owning British newspapers.
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O, blast!
Good story bro
Apartheid AND prohibition.
What could possibly go right?
Starts in Russia – soon finds its way to UK.
I think that at most recent G20 mtg [where the discrimination against the unvaxxed must have been very high up the agenda] they took the decision to make it all look a lot less lock-step, so that they could trial one draconian measure [to nudge the unvaxxed] in one country and another draconian measure in another country. And then those draconian measures could, over time, migrate to other countries.
The way that Austria proposes to lockdown only the unvaxxed and Russia now posits the possibility that the unvaxxed cannot purchase alcohol. There is no “science” to support any of this – it is pure coercion – everywhere.
I think that you are correct. Foot off the gas in terms of blanket restriction, introduce focussed restrictions and then promulgate and introduce them one by one. In other words the ‘bacon slicer’ approach!
People on here need to prepare themselves mentally to engage in civil disobedience. It may be either that or just go quietly to our deaths.
I believe you are correct.
What do you mean ‘prepare to’? Just had a meet-up meal with a couple who’ve been ‘ordered’ to isolate and do the fairy dance because of the vague, symptom-less ‘Test & Trace’ nonsense.
We offered a collective V-sign in response and carried on regardless..
Spot on. There are cleverly staged experiments of what appear to be specific local restrictions being undertaken in different countries, in order to fool people that there is some organic national/regional thinking but all of which arrive at the end goal which is the elimination of the unjabbed, by directly or indirectly (by forcing them into financial hardship and homelessness) to have jabs or rounding them up and puting them in concentration camps (what is about to happen in Australia) and the introduction of their freedom licences.
The Nazis never really went away they just carried on developing technology to enslave and punish their enemies.
The great pity is the (currently defined as) jabbed think it’s all about others, not realising they are walking off a cliff themselves.
Ok, and when everyone is jabbed and keeps being jabbed, what happens then? Because it seems that the answer is “nothing” (based on several billions of people who are already well past it).
What happens is anybody’s guess… they find another thing for you to have to conform to, and again until you have nothing left. Maybe they ‘tweak’ the vaccines to have some intended effect…
Tell that to the millions already dead from vaccine damage. I’m keeping my fingers crossed my fingers crossed for you.
Coercion and science aren’t poles apart.
Can you believe the hypocrisy of the Austrian government? Two days ago, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, they officially opened a commemoration wall in Vienna to remember the Jewish people from Austria who were murdered by the Nazis. Then today the filthy chancellor, Count (I didn’t make that title up – can anyone think of a suitable variation?) Alexander Schallenberg says he wants a lockdown against the unvaccinated FROM MONDAY.
Unbelievable, the hypocrisy is mind blowing. But no doubt coming our way in the UK soon.For those who are not double jabbed and bostered, welcome to the ‘untermenshen’
Do I hear the sound of illicit vodka stills being dusted off? LOL
The oblast dutifully prepares to treat more blind methyl alcohol drinkers… No, wait, it’s Russia, they will not need any treatment, they can wrestle polar bears there.
Indeed, if you know anything of Russia you’ll realise this is just another obstacle to be gotten around; more of an inconvenience than an incentive.
Amazon.Ru?
Make the unvaccinated’s life so miserable they succumb. It’s so fuckin’ obvious now I laugh at peoples stupidity and hope the human race gets what it deserves. The majority of us are a bunch of clowns.
But will we succumb or just take every new squeeze as a resilience training exercise? Poor vaxxed have worse to look forward to because they think they’re safe…
An untimely death being the obvious one
Quite.
The vaxxed are effectively already dead meat.
Sometimes I wonder whether you believe all the bs you post, Rowan. But then I remember the humanity is a very “diverse” bunch.
A paid troll, like your 77th Brigade self, isn’t part of humanity.
And they don’t know it.
Until they link the bank cards to NHS r3cords we can buy online. Stock up now!
But I thought vodka cures COVID?
Technically it increases bullshit!
The German christmas markets will have separate, fenced off areas for drinking alcohol and only injected and recovered will be allowed. The rest of the market can be visited by tested people as well.
People not taking part in any of this farce, will not have the pleasure of spend their hard earned money on overpriced rubbish.
Although Hamburg is not charging fees for stall holders this year, as they did not have any markets last year and it helps the poor traders, they still have to pay for electricity, I guess that’s very expensive this year.
Wouldn’t it be horrid to put this up outside them?

I think only the most naive and loyal subjects will congregate in such places.
I wonder if they’ll pay a vaccinated person to buy it for them? Hmmm
Just get a fourteen year old to go in and buy for you, seems to work round here
I seriously do not see a way out for humanity in the developed world the way things are going. The situation deteriorates by the day.
If there is no serious civil uprising in Europe or the USA we are finished.
Deaths are going to explode in number and societies can therefore only implode.
Globocap have let loose a monster which will rapidly spin out of ALL control.
God help us.
Nah, it will fizzle out like every other pandemic has. Except all the morons will be attributing “victory” to their “measures” so as to justify all the wasted resources and avoid due punishment for what they have done. And certainly, they are going to get away with it. That’s the most frustrating part.
Whatever Covid really was, apart from the bullshit, it had fizzled out by May 2020. Funnily enough though, it came back with a vengeance along with the “vaccines”, but you know that already don’t you Corporal.
I don’t know, but the fact that the Jabmeister Bill Gates has admitted that the ‘vaccines’ are not good at stopping transmission and that new approaches might be needed suggests to me that he thinks that the shit is about to hit the fan big time when it comes to side effects and he is trying to extricate himself from this.
I’m predicting a war starting in 2023. Perfect opportunity for those in power to flatten their countries and wipe out any memory of this utter debacle. Oh and achieve all those COP 26 commitments of course.
Ted Kaczynski was right, wasn’t he!
I can’t condone his solutions, but I can’t condemn his manifesto.
Yes, it’s frightening how spot-on his essay is. Could have been written today, bar some dated language.
Yet another miss, I haven’t touched alcohol for 30 years, so keep trying motherfuckers, you ain’t going to coerce me into injecting the poison into my body.
Home brewing is very easy and can be a pleasant hobby.
Maybe. But – believe it or not – some people on this planet are actually singles and don’t meet other people unless they go out. And for this, home brewing is not a solution.
Build up sceptical networks now. There must be scope for a non vaxxed dating or supper club website or similar even if SITP doesn’t do it for everyone.
This is vital.
And why, pray tell, would you want to go out and risk meeting morons who believe in this “measures” bs?
If I was planning to object to any piece of random bullshit many people believe in, I wouldn’t have much time for something else.
I think you’ll find a lot of alcoholics are singles.
One of the most obvious signs that the people who claim to be motivated by fighting a dangerous pandemic are really utilizing a pretty harmless virus in order to get some traction for entirely unrelated (so-called) public health policies they already desired to implement ten years ago but couldn’t at that time.
Also in Scotland, BTW: A stated health goal of the Scottish government is to reduce consumption of alcoholic drinks by making them more expensive and less accessible. Enter the vaxx pass as requirement for entering venues selling drinks which accomplishes exactly that (and absolutely nothing wrt COVID).
I thought that many Russians brewed their own fairly lethal concoctions from potatoes or cabbage or something?
They’ll brew their own, I hope.
The vax manufacturers will eventually be regarded as we regard IG Farben: active enablers of evil..
Eventually?
Ekaterinburg was where the Tsar and his family were murdered.
That sort of place.
Nuremberg 2 is taking shale daily before our eyes.
No hiding the evidence.
52 year old New Brunswick doctor says he won’t cry at the funerals of the unvaccinated. Gets 3rd shot. Dies in his sleep two weeks later.
https://realclimatescience.com/2021/11/doctor-tells-the-truth/
The New Brunswick heart Centre is now looking for another heartless cardiologist. God moves in mysterious ways.
Ain’t that a shame?
One less to worry about.
Instant Karma
It’s probably not to my credit, but I LOLed at that.
So did I. Marvellous.
I have absolutely NO compassion for people such as this. A doctor? In that case it is a blessing to his patients that he has gone.
A GP who has had even one jab is a risk to their patients and therefore needs to be removed.
Thick, stupid idiot.
I was talking to one of my neighbours today over the fence, he said better not come too close as he and his wife had covid which they caught at the village carnival at the weekend. Was he ill? no was he bothered? no he looked and sounded fit, well and bright as a button. Which does rather beg the question, what the hell is all this about? I guess some might say that fact that he had covid but was perfectly fit and well is an indication that the vaccines work. But they clearly only work to, possibly, protect the individual from serious disease, they clearly have no impact on transmission.
In which case there is no logical justification for any of the vaccine pass mandates. Either the powers that be are stupid and ascribing powers to the vaccines that they cannot deliver or this is all about something far worse and far more sinister than that?
I suspect he had received a positive PCR and nothing more.
The current justification is that they need to force-protect the unvaccinated because the unvaccinated clog hospitals.
The stupid b*stard obviously doesn’t know what “Covid” means.
Be fair – the vast majority haven’t a f.ing clue.
The Russian people will just ignore the restrictions. It’s what they’ve done throughout. They have little respect for officialdom.
In Austria however…
https://www.rt.com/news/540099-austria-lockdown-for-unvaxxed/
Wasn’t it in the news a few years ago that there was a trend in Russia where they were drinking some kind of bath oil and a few people died? I don’t think this ban on the unvaccinated is going to help reduce alcohol consumption.
I think that they were also drinking antifreeze.
Ironic you linked to a Russia Today article.
RT is in general very fond of showing Russian people how bad the world outside Russia is. While they keep dying (unvaccinated) in droves in their own country.
Should be good business for the vendors of ethylene glycol, meths, moonshine and similar products.
This is what economic subventions look like in Mother Russia.
Things like this are what sometimes trigger revolutions.
Russia appears to be on the verge of going full-on Mark of the Beast.
https://www.rt.com/russia/540138-qr-code-mandate-draft-law/
Why am I not surprised?
Don’t forget, this is all unplanned and coincidental that countries around the world are gradually implementing vaxxpasses and QR codes. Nobody could have foretold all of this…
P.S. I’d give you an extra thumbs up if I could, for the screen name. It’s all going B5, ain’t it
South Africa did this and also banned the sale of cigarettes. The black market exploded as did the number of deaths caused by drinking illicit home-stilled alcohol.The government attempted to justify the restrictions by saying they would reduce domestic violence and therefore take the load off the health services. I am told the opposite happened. I think, but can’t be sure, that the bans have been rescinded now.
Scotland put up the price of alcohol, and the poor sods in dead end lives in the inner city swamps swapped to drugs. Massive drug problems in places like Dundee now. Law of unintended consequences.
Absolutely a classic case, as you point out, of the law of unintended consequence as a result of not doing a proper impact assessment.
No assessment needed. It was a consequence that was obvious to anyone with a brain. Entirely foreseeable.
“Impact assessment?”
Yawn.
Sorry.
Who says it was unintended?
No.
The rule of stupidity.
Same success story as US “war on drugs”.
The “war on drugs” was never meant to be won. Drugs make money, wars on drugs make even more money. CIA deals in drugs.
Nice source of unattributal funding.
Yeah, still not getting the vaxx. I even predicted this – purchased a book on making your own wine a year or so ago.
It seems to be all mights and maybes. Not worth bothering with.
…
Communists behaving like communists. Michie (Stalin’s Nanny) will be getting tyranny envy.
There is a method to this madness – not drinking alcohol would probably save more lives than all the corona measures taken together.
Oh, it probably would – if it were not a 100% certainty that people will simply brew and sell their own, much of which will probably cause even more damage than booze bought in a shop. I vaguely remember some place trying this before – didn’t that lead to a significant rise in organised crime or some such?
If not booze, then drugs, prescription meds, etc. People are people.
Yeah, catch-22.
”All I can say is that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.” Winston Churchill.
It won’t save a single life as everybody’s going to die. It would just cause people to die for different reasons.
“Restaurateur asks govt to introduce restrictions to stop him selling so much alcohol and so he can make less profit”.
I have heard it all now. Maybe the reduced profit has been balanced put by a nice injection of capital from the WEF?
The mafia loved prohibition in the US.
Today, they attend the WEF and COP26.
The Clintons will be overjoyed then.
Goodness knows where the Heil found that Sverdlovsk-specific story. A proposed law in Russia would require QR-code Covid passes across the entire country for entry into shops, cultural venues, cafes, and public transport until 1 June 2022 – with other types of place addable to the list by local administrations. Until the end of January, a negative PCR test would be sufficient. (Source: Russia Today.)
The one thing I don’t understand about all the corona bollocks, is why the Russians are playing along with it?
Maybe Putin’s a globalist puppet afterall. Won’t be the first time he was accused of it…
Could be. World politics is just one big pantomime, unless you’re a victim of one of the globalists wars.
Remember Remdesivir? Used extensively to treat Covid patients in US hospitals. Those of us that research already knew this.
A must watch!
https://youtu.be/xr60TFVxmOM
Sadly my lovely Dad died today but he taught me how to grow, dry and store tobacco and how to brew beer and make your own wine. He always insisted on being as independent as possible and keeping ones business away from prying eyes as much as possible!!!
A wise & sensible man, my condolences.
My condolences also <3
Thank you oliveTrees and anti socialist. I have a lot to be grateful to him! So glad he didn’t want his children to be reliant on anyone – it’s going to be needed in these current covid and climate madness times.
Very sad to hear.
Condolences.
Hospitals in USA and in first world countries are refusing life-saving Ivermectin treatment even with court orders. Big Pharma doing everything they can to jab us no matter what, while alternative COVID cures EXIST! There happens to be heavy censorship who are looking for these treatments. The Research Is Clear: Ivermectin Is a Safe, Effective Treatment for COVID. Get your Ivermectin today while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com
I had lost interest in Vern, he started sounding like David Icke, but he’s making sense again Vernon Coleman’s Wednesday Review – episode one
I had an interesting email swap with a MasterCard outlet today, which shows you where the digital pass/currency is going. I received an email telling me that the financial services regulator has made 2-step verification via a mobile phone notification compulsory for all online purchases.
I emailed back informing them I don’t have a mobile phone, so does this mean I can’t use my card, because MasterCard are discriminating against people without mobile phones?
As per usual with corporate support, the script doesn’t allow for tailored responses. The reply I got was, “you can still use your card, you only need phone verification for online purchases”.
I replied, so I can’t use my card online, if I don’t have a phone or a signal?
The response was, “if you don’t have a phone, you can make your online purchase, then phone us to verify it for you”
WHAT PART OF NO PHONE CONFUSES MasterCard?
It’s the future!
Wow. Who’d have thought the Russian state could be authoritarian?
The irony is, they’ll be lagging behind “freedom loving” places like Australia. I actually thought Russia was going to be an outlier in all this nonsense. I guess not.
How did they buy Putin, I thought he had some balls?
A few cheery songs to lift our spirits.
“Silent War” by Five Times August (Lyric Video) 2021
“I Will Not Be Leaving Quietly” by Five Times August (Music & Lyric Video) 2021
For all those Jordan Peterson followers, The Sad Truth I’ve Learned About COVID Policy (Pt. 1) | Jordan Peterson | POLITICS | Rubin Report I’m still not his biggest fan but.
Somebody’s obviously told Vlad and Co that alcohol kills germs.
How to create a black market in alcohol in one easy step.
Completely absurd! There’s no other words for it.
People, this is Russia, think like the worst parts of Mexico or Colombia in terms of respecting laws and compliance. I would really like to see Siberian police enforcing QR codes on vodka bottles while people are stealing 1000s of tonnes of oil from pipelines and operating illegal gold mines… without anybody even noticing. I mean there is no limit what one Russian super-policeman on 50 square miles can do! The law is a joke and it will fall apart like the best achievements of Soviet socialism. Russia already has the biggest grey economy in the world, of similar size as Mexico. With such silly ideas from the government it will just grow bigger. Even if they adopt QR codes, they are completely useless without ID, and so people will queue up with their IDs and QR codes to go to the mall? How about ordering all the stuff on WIldberies (Russian version of Amazon) instead? Unhackable system? For Russian hackers? Give me a break! And imagine the incredible misfortune of being caught by police… and paying a 50 dollar bribe.
Last winter, Russia had all kinds of silly restrictions such as masks, restaurant curfews blablabla… and after a month nobody gave a damn in my city, even the police didn’t bother. Russian people will figure out how to get around this new idiocy and government will face new humiliation, ending being despized even more.
Great!
Unvaccinated for now. Soon to be anyone who wants to buy alcohol. “You’ve exceeded your monthly allowance so we can’t serve you”. Soon to be in a Scotland near you!
People, this is Russia so it should be taken with a grain of salt. My wife in Siberia has been so far able to go anywhere without showing QR code to anybody, it is simply not enforced in spite of all the pompous arrogant government declarations. As with masks and lockdowns last winter there might be some enforcement enthusiasm in the coming weeks while unintended consequences (black market, boycott of shops and diminishing profits, public resentment, pensioners beating up security guards etc.) slowly pile up and then the good ol’ Russian inertia will simply prevail.
Russia is not Europe, Russia is more like the worst parts of Mexico (think Matamoros in Tamaulipas) and Central America in terms of respecting laws. The country has the biggest grey economy in the world. Criminal gangs are stealing 1000s of tonnes from oil pipelines and operating their own unlicensed goldmines… without anyone even noticing. Illegal logging is happening on such an industrial scale that it can be seen from space. Russian police cannot even detect and prevent these crimes and they will now miraculously enforce QR codes… of vodka buyers??
Non-hackable QR codes (in a country, notorious for hackers)… certificates of having a disease (in a country where doctors are routinely bribed to give fake psychiatric diagnoses to young draft dodgers)… oh well, this is going to be one fun winter.