Tories Rebel and Labour Abstains
Parliament will vote today on the Government’s new tier system and Labour will abstain. The Independent has more.
Labour will abstain in a key vote on Boris Johnson’s new COVID-19 tiers. Speaking on Monday night, Sir Keir Starmer said his party was “acting in the national interest” by not opposing the regulations but he said that he had reservations about them. The move is significant because it represents the first time the opposition has failed to back the Government in a vote on COVID-19 regulations.
“Coronavirus remains a serious threat to the public’s health and that’s why Labour accept the need for continued restrictions. We will always act in the national interest, so we will not vote against these restrictions in Parliament tomorrow… However, I remain deeply concerned that Boris Johnson’s Government has failed to use this latest lockdown to put a credible health and economic plan in place. We still don’t have a functioning testing system, public health messaging is confused, and businesses across the country are crying out for more effective economic support to get them through the winter months. It is short-term Government incompetence that is causing long-term damage to the British economy.”
Don’t get too excited. With the Labour party abstaining, rather than voting no, the tier system will still pass. But with a prospect of up to 100 Tory MPs rebelling, the legitimacy of the new COVID-19 regime is shaky at best. How can you reasonably ask people to obey all the new draconian restrictions, particularly those that live in Tier 3 areas, if only a minority of MPs have voted for them?
In the hope of appeasing mutinous Tory backbenchers, Downing Street published a long-awaited ‘impact assessment’ yesterday, but it did little good. Details from the MailOnline:
The Government released its assessment of the economic and social effects of the pandemic and its response this evening. But the document made clear that it is not possible to say exactly how the tiers will hit local areas – a key demand of Conservative MPs. It also insisted there was no way of imposing looser curbs and instead merely argued that it would be “intolerable” to allow the NHS to be overwhelmed.
The assessment said it was “clear that restrictions to contain COVID-19 have had major impacts on the economy and public finances, even if it is not possible to forecast with confidence the precise impact of a specific change to a specific restriction”.
Tory rebel ringleader Mark Harper complained that the information was being released too late, just 24 hours before MPS are due to make their decision. “This information is what Ministers should have been insisting on before they make their decisions so it surely could have been made available earlier,” he said…
Mel Stride, the Tory Chairman of the Treasury Committee, criticised the documents, saying:
“On a number of occasions, I’ve requested from the Chancellor and Treasury officials that they publish an analysis of the economic impacts of the three tiers. With little over 24 hours until MPs vote on the new tiered system, this rehashed document offers very little further in economic terms other than that which the OBR published last week. It is frustrating that there is little here that sets out how the different tiers might impact on the specific sectors and regions across the country. Those looking for additional economic analysis of the new tiered system will struggle to find it in this document.”
Perhaps, in the rush, the Government did not give them the right file. The Times has discovered that the Government has in fact produced impact assessment that includes an analysis of the effect of various restrictions on different sectors of the economy. This gives the lie to the Government’s claim that such an analysis isn’t possible, due to the fiendish complexity of disentangling the effects of the restrictions from the effects of the pandemic. Couldn’t it just have released this internal assessment instead?
The Government has drawn up a secret dossier detailing the impact of COVID-19 on the economy, with a dozen sectors rated “red” and facing significant job cuts and revenue losses, the Times has been told.
The COVID-19 sectoral impacts dashboard, which is prepared by officials from across Whitehall and frequently updated, gives “granular” detail on the effect of coronavirus on nearly 40 areas of the economy.
Among the sectors with a red rating are aerospace, the automotive industry, retail, hospitality and tourism, arts and heritage, maritime, including ferries and cruises, and sport.
Worth reading in full.
At least MPs and decision makers are beginning to think about a cost-benefit analysis. Long-time readers may recall the COBR meeting of March 23rd, when Michael Gove, who was chairing, surprised those present by announcing the Government was planning the country into a national lockdown, effective immediately.
Only Jesse Norman, a Treasury minister, raised any doubts, asking whether there had been any cost-benefit analysis of the economic and health impacts of lockdown or consideration of less onerous alternatives. Around the room there were blank looks: the decision had been taken.
The absence of any such analysis was, notorious, confirmed by the last line of “the Lockdown Regulations”, a statutory instrument enacted at 1pm on March 26th by Matt Hancock:
No impact assessment has been prepared for these Regulations.
Stop Press: Christopher Snowden has done a good thread on the failings of the Government’s cost-benefit analysis document
The Astronomical Cost of Lockdown
For a much more robust assessment of the cost of the lockdown and associated restrictions, we recommend this new report by Tim Knox and Jim McConalogue for Civitas called The Cost of the Cure. The report is worth reading in full, but the short version is that the Government has spent a minimum of £96,000 for each QALY saved, which is over three times the figure that the NHS routinely uses of £30,000 when assessing whether a particular course of action is worthwhile.
Tim Knox has kindly written an 800-word article summarising the report for Lockdown Sceptics that you can read here. He is predictably scathing about the impact assessment published by the Government yesterday. Here is an extract.
If you wanted a chuckle, then imagine you had the job of the unfortunate civil servant who had been given the job of cobbling together this strange hotch-potch of information. The document is clearly a rushed job, published with the political aim of persuading the growing number of Conservative MPs who are sceptical about the need for tighter restrictions that they are, in fact, necessary. (There was once a time, not so long ago, when the Civil Service would have demurred from being involved in such a blatantly political operation.) A futile effort, for no self-respecting MP could be persuaded by such a flimsy document.
Take its estimates of additional deaths from other diseases. Table 9 of the report looks at the effect on morbidity and mortality of certain conditions – alcohol misuse, road injuries, depressive disorders, and the like. But instead of trying to estimate the actual numbers, the report simply uses up and down arrows to describe the general direction of change that social distancing measures might produce. Is that really the best that our Rolls Royce Civil Service can do?
Or take the report’s attempt to take a sectoral approach of the impact of lockdown on the economy. Here again in some cases, all the report does is provide a pre-COVID-19 assessment of Gross Value Added (GVA) output of each sector – it seems to be afraid of making any calculation of the likely impact. If estimates are made, they are drafted as general changes in GDP, not reported as actual costs on deeply impacted industries.
Very much worth reading in full.
Reviewing Michael Gove’s Dubious Lockdown Claims
Micheal Gove penned an essay in the Times over the weekend, seeking to win round Tory rebels. The Spectator‘s Steerpike has done a cracking fact-check:
Gove: The decision to implement the second lockdown was rushed.
Steerpike: Gove here confirms what has been reported elsewhere. On the Thursday, ministers had been told there might be a bit of tightening to the regime. Then, on Friday, they were blindsided by some supposedly terrifying new information suggesting that the virus was surging and lockdown was needed urgently. The Treasury later admitted it did not even have time to estimate the cost of the second lockdown that the scientific advisers were suddenly urging. So the decision to lockdown was rushed. Which makes it all the more important that scrutiny is applied now.
Gove: Infections were doubling fast. The number of days taken to see that increase was open to question. But the trend was not.
Steerpike: On the day Cabinet met to agree Lockdown 2.0 the seven-day average was just 2% higher week-on-week. It would not have been clear then but it’s hard to talk, now, about a ‘doubling’ rate.
Gove: Sweden, which has always places restrictions on its population, has found that even the battery of measures it adopted was not enough. Infections rose dramatically in October and early this month, and hospitalisations continue to rise as its government has, reluctantly but firmly, introduced new measures to keep households apart, restrict commerce, stop people visiting bars and restaurants and comprehensively reduce the social contact that spreads infection.
Steerpike: Yes, do let’s look at Sweden. Contrary to what Gove claims, it has placed hardly any “restrictions on its population”. The only law it “reluctantly but firmly” introduced was a rule of eight for public places and a 10 pm. limit on serving booze. No tiers. It has not “stopped people visiting bars and restaurants”. No “battery of measures,” just non-binding advice. Sweden believes that people, if treated like adults, tend to heed advice. Compulsion and lockdowns are not needed to control a virus in a mature democracy. Yes, Sweden has taken a similar COVID-19 hit to Britain. But its strategy always was to treat COVID-19 as a manageable risk while minimising collateral damage on society, personal liberty and the economy.
Worth reading in full.
The Mass Write-In
Many readers have taken up Peter Hitchens’s call to write to MPs. Herewith a small selection:
From James Delingpole to Chris Heaton Harris (Conservative):
Dear Chris,
I never imagined that I would have to write to my local Conservative MP politely asking him not to vote to destroy the economy, kill jobs and small businesses and impose unprecedented restrictions on liberty – all in the name of “defeating” a virus no deadlier than bad seasonal flu.
But this is where we are in 2020. Please don’t insult my intelligence by fobbing me off with the official Government line on coronavirus. We know it’s bunk. You’ll know it’s bunk too if, as I hope, you’ve done some rudimentary research on the work of Michael Yeadon, Carl Heneghan, Sunetra Gupta and the myriad other respected scientists around the world who are bemused and frustrated by the increasingly anti-science – and relentlessly anti-human and anti-prosperity – measures being pursued by your Government.
This is not why I voted Conservative. I hereby promise that if you vote for the tier system (Lockdown by any other name) I shall not vote for you in the next General Election. Nor will I vote Conservative on any other occasion. The policies being pursued by this Government are not remotely conservative.
If you believe in conservative values and the wellbeing and livelihoods of the people you represent, then this is the moment to take a principled stand.
Thanks for all the work you have done in the past as an excellent constituency MP.
All best,
James
And from another reader to Tom Hunt (Conservative):
Just a “short, sharp” email to urge you to vote against these farcical tier restrictions tomorrow.
Putting aside the monumental assault on our basic civil liberties, we now know that the number of lives lost as a direct result of these restrictions is far higher than the number of lives saved from dying “with” COVID-19.
I’m not going to even go into the absurdity of a Government pretending it can somehow control a sub-microscopic virus. It’s like the Government declaring that they can control the weather. Put simply, it’s pure science fiction. The data is in for all to see and there is no parallel that you can draw between the severity of a country’s lockdown and its overall death rate. None. So let’s stop it. Immediately.
I also hadn’t realised that being born a citizen of the UK meant that my fundamental freedoms are contingent on the smooth running of the NHS. We keep getting told that our freedoms have been removed to protect the NHS from becoming overwhelmed, as if it’s our national duty, and yet, the Government is spending billions on its “moonshot” testing program, enough to build 200 new hospitals. Surely, that would be a much better use of our money, and would prevent the hospitals getting overwhelmed, now and in the future?
And finally, sent to Angela Richardson (Conservative):
Thank you for your email in response to mine
I fully expect you to continue following the Government line and so in the spirit of the times I am moving you from Tier 1 (a candidate I could not possibly vote for) into Tier 2 (a candidate I shall actively campaign against).
Only Four English NHS Trusts Busier Now Than Last Winter
Given that protecting “our NHS” from being “overwhelmed” being one of the Government’s core justifications for continued restrictions, MailOnline has done an analysis showing that – contra Gove – only four hospitals in the whole of England are busier now than last winter:
NHS England figures show that there are thousands more hospital beds spare this year than last winter. On average, 77,942 out of 88,903 (87.7%) available beds were occupied across the country in the week ending November 22nd, which is the most recent snapshot. This figure does not take into account make-shift capacity at mothballed Nightingales, or the thousands of beds commandeered from the private sector.
For comparison, occupancy stood at 94.9%, on average, during the seven-day spell that ended December 8th in 2019, which is the most comparable data available for last winter, when around 91,733 out of all 96,675 available beds were full.
Just four trusts – Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust (FT), University College London Hospitals FT, Calderdale and Huddersfield FT, and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh FT – are busier now than they were a year ago.
Dr Karol Sikora, a consultant oncologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of Buckingham, said Downing Street was running a “brainwashing PR campaign” with “data that doesn’t stack up”. He told MailOnline: “We’ve gone back to how it started in March, with the Government claiming we need the measures to protect the NHS. The data you’ve shown me proves that it doesn’t need protecting. It’s dealing with COVID-19 very well indeed.
“What the data shows is that hospitals are not working at full capacity and they’ve still got some spare beds for COVID-19 if necessary. The public is being misled, the data doesn’t stack up. Fear and scaremongering is being used to keep people out of hospital.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Read the story of the NHS call handler who quit claiming she did “f*** all” during the pandemic apart from filming “empty” A&Es in London. Again from MailOnline.
The Vaccine is Not Compulsory but…
Nadhim Zahawi, the Minister recently appointed to oversee deployment of COVID-19 vaccines, gave an interview yesterday to BBC Radio 4’s World at One. The Guardian has more:
Nadhim Zahawi said that while having the vaccine would not be compulsory, businesses such as pubs and restaurants might require proof that people have been vaccinated before allowing them in.
Asked whether those who have been inoculated would get would get an immunity passport, Zahawi said: “We are looking at the technology. And, of course, a way of people being able to inform their GP that they have been vaccinated. But, also, I think you’ll probably find that restaurants and bars and cinemas and other venues, sports venues, will probably also use that system, as they have done with the Test-and-Trace app. I think that in many ways, the pressure will come from both ways. From service providers who’ll say, ‘Look, demonstrate to us that you have been vaccinated.’ But also we will make the technology as easy and as accessible as possible.”
The Minister said people would have to “make a decision” on whether to get vaccinated, and said if they chose not to they could face severe restrictions.
His remarks were echoed later in the day by Matt Hancock who, in a Downing Street press conference, said:
Firstly, we do not plan to mandate the vaccine. We think that by encouraging the uptake of the vaccine, we will get a very high proportion of the people in this country to take up the vaccine, because of course it protects you but it also helps to protect your loved ones and your community.
The question of mandatory vaccination, is, of course an old one, and it is worth noting that immunity passports are already used in some countries to see whether people have protection against yellow fever and polio. But politics and vaccinations do not mix well and these remarks will not sit well with the 36% of people who, according to research carried out by the British Academy, are either “uncertain” or “very unlikely” to be vaccinated against the virus.
The Guardian also carries a hint of the campaign that is in preparation to persuade people to take the jab.
Ministers and NHS England are drawing up a list of “very sensible” famous faces in the hope that their advice to get immunised would be widely trusted. Health chiefs are particularly worried about the number of people who are still undecided. “There will be a big national campaign,” said one source with knowledge of the plans. “NHS England are looking for famous faces, people who are known and loved. It could be celebrities who are very sensible and have done sensible stuff during the pandemic.”
NHS communications experts suggest privately that the footballer Marcus Rashford, who is widely admired for his child food poverty campaign… and members of the Royal Family. Politicians will not be used.
I wonder if Marcus Rashford and Prince William will go so far as to get vaccinated themselves and then let us monitor them for four weeks to see whether there are any ill effects?
Worth reading in full.
It may take an awful lot of “very sensible” celebrities to overcome some doubters’ uncertainties, and even more as kinks in the plans for the roll-out of the vaccines come to light. The appeal for vaccination volunteers who “under the supervision of healthcare professionals will be trained to deliver a vaccination to a patient” and who “will be ready to act if the patient has an adverse reaction”, prompted this reaction from Mike Yeadon on Twitter:
Stop Press: For more on the roll-out of vaccines, and the Government’s plans to quell vaccine dissent, watch Toby Young’s recent interview on TalkRADIO
Another Reader Arrested
We’ve been sent another account by a reader who was arrested during Saturday’s protest:
I knew that there would be a lot of police at the anti-lockdown demonstration in London last Saturday, but I wasn’t prepared for the levels of chaos and heavy-handedness on display. It was a style of policing that seemed deliberately designed to create disorder.
The first thing I saw when I got to Marble Arch were about 20 dark blue police vans marked “Territorial Support Group”. Slightly intimidating. I then saw the marchers crossing the road further down Park Lane, so I hurried down there to join in at the back. The march was already pretty busy and full of energy, with people singing and chanting “Freedom.” I waved the placard my daughter and I had drawn in the morning, which said “Freedom. Remember That?” My partner turned up on his bike and we walked along together.
We got as far as Grosvenor Square. At this point, masses of police suddenly surrounded us, running alongside the edge of the marchers and trying to box us in. This was the first of many attempts by the police to split up and separate the group. Whenever the police tried this it led to chaotic scenes – with marchers running around, shouting, and trying to stay together. We managed to regroup and started marching again, but this time quickly reached another police block. More shouting; the crowd suddenly turned back on themselves and down a narrow side street. This was a dead-end, and we were all syphoned down a narrow alleyway – hundreds of us being funnelled down a tiny conduit barely wide enough for two people to walk down.
We marched along another side street, which led us out onto Oxford Street. My partner and I breathed a sigh of relief, and said to each other that this was a better, and safer, place to be. Out in the open, overlooked by other members of the public – there were quite a few families and tourists out walking around, window-shopping. We marched past Bond Street Station, and the atmosphere was calm – the police had seemingly left us alone, and it felt more like a “normal” march. I started to daydream and chat to my partner.
Suddenly a female police officer was standing right in front of me, looking straight at me. “Turn round and go home now, or you risk being arrested”, she said. This took me aback. “No, I don’t think I’m going to turn round, I’m allowed to walk along here”, I said. “Turn around now or I will arrest you”, she said again. And within a couple of seconds two other officers, one on either side of me, took my arms around my back and put me in handcuffs.
I have never been arrested before and the whole thing was pretty rushed and surprising. I guess I didn’t really believe it was happening. It’s uncomfortable being cuffed, and I just stood there dumbly while my partner asked, “Why are you arresting her?” A reasonable question. “Do you want to be arrested too?” was the reply, as if that was a perfectly reasonable response, and then, “She’s an adult, she’ll be allowed a phone-call home.”
I was led off back down Oxford Street, and me, my arresting officer and another policewoman stood around outside Body Shop waiting for a police van to come and pick us up. The van came after about 10 minutes and I got in and sat in the back with one other protestor and six police officers – not the greatest way to travel. We got to King Charles Street, which I’d heard the police describe on their radios as the “Processing Centre”. We were told it was “full”, and sat there in the van for a while, waiting to be let in.
Finally, we walked in. King Charles Street was completely enclosed with makeshift corrugated iron barriers at either end. I joined a long line of “prisoners” who stood at one side, each one guarded by their arresting officer. I stood there for about an hour-and-a-half, during which time I was searched twice. Every now and then, a more senior officer would come along with a clipboard, and check my details, and explain what was going to happen. I’d get to the front, my details would be logged in the computer, and I’d receive a fine. Probably £200, reduced to £100 if I paid quickly.
And that is what happened. I reached the front of the ‘queue’, and my arresting officer was cued to deliver her speech to me: “I’m reporting you for breach of Coronavirus Regulations. You will receive a Fixed Penalty Notice by post in a few working days.” And that was it. I was walked to the corrugated iron gate at the other end of King Charles Street and sent on my way. I’d been arrested for walking down Oxford Street carrying a homemade placard with “freedom” written on it in felt-tipped pen.
If you’re in any doubt that Britain in 2020 has changed beyond all recognition, then you haven’t been paying attention.
We have put her in touch with Richard Parry, Piers Corbyn’s solicitor. When it comes to heavy-handed policing and vexatious arrests, he’s probably the world’s leading expert.
Infection Fatality Rate in Norway: Slightly Worse Than Influenza
Reader Katherine Jebsen Moore – author of the brilliant knitting trilogy in Quillette – has drawn our attention to the latest data on the infection fatality rate in Norway. It is good news.
“The lethality rate for COVID-19 in Norway is 0.12%,” says Norway’s National Institute for Public Health, according to Nettavisen. In its latest report, the Institute has attempted to map Covid-related illness in Norway in the past six months. 73,000 Norwegians had the virus between June 1st and November 30th. 0.12% of those died, while 0.15% needed intensive care, and 1% were admitted to hospital, according to the report. In comparison, the death rate for influenza is around 0.1%, and around 1.5% of patients need hospitalisation. The numbers from Norway, which has a population of 5.4 million, are considerably lower than the best estimates in the rest of the world, which are around 0.4-1 %. So far, almost 90% of deaths have occurred in the over 70s. For people over 80, the illness has a lethality of more than 5%. The country has so far had only 332 deaths from the virus.
Has Lockdown Affected Your Mental Health?
King’s College London is seeking volunteers for online study of personality and mental health in the COVID-19 pandemic. Personality profile for all and £10 expenses if you complete the follow-up. Sign up here at measureyourpersonality.com. The study code is 57894876.
Round-up
- “MPs who vote against draconian tiers will be on the right side of history” – Unarguable piece by Dan Wooton in the Sun
- “Lance Foreman: The whole political class has been tainted by 2020” – Something “desperately” has to be done, he tells Mike Graham on talkRADIO
- “Australia will pay people $300 after they get tested for COVID-19, another $1,500 if they test positive” – Hmmm. That one may have unintended consequences. From the India Times
- “Pubs in Wales to close by 6pm under new COVID-19 restrictions” – Looks like the Welsh “firebreak” didn’t do much good. What’s the response? Double down, of course
- “Viral impact in England. The empirical truth – Part 1” – Latest from the mighty Ivor Cummins on the Fat Emperor podcast featuring Lockdown Sceptic contributors Joel Smalley, Dr Clare Craig and Jonathan Engler
- “Chinese sociologist: ‘As long as 1.4 billion Chinese people eat and sleep every day we will drive the U.S. to its death’.” – A startling admission reported in the Blaze, in which a Chinese academic says Covid has been good for China, bad for the West
- “Mark Steyn takes on government officials flouting their own holiday orders” – Title says it all. From the Chestnut Post
- “Arcadia goes bust with 13,000 jobs at brands including TopShop and Burton on the line and a ‘£350m pension black hole’“– I never thought I’d feel sorry for Sir Phillip Green, but Covid makes for strange bedfellows
- “The big question about the new tier system: do ministers actually understand it themselves?” – Michael Deacon’s latest Parliamentary sketch in the Telegraph
- “The Laura Perrins interview – Peter Hitchens” – Two titans of lockdown scepticism meet. In the Conservative Woman
- “Were tiers working before lockdown?” – Ross Clark in the Spectator poses the same question Will Jones has been asking for weeks. No prizes for guessing the answer
- “Pictured: Rita Ora at her lavish lockdown-flaunting 30th birthday” – The Daily Mail has the low-down on Rita Ora’s 30th birthday. It cost her a £10,000 fine
- “We all break lockdown in France” – John Lewis-Stempel in UnHerd. Sounds like a good national sport
- “I’ve sold my wedding ring to provide for my late son’s kids” – Dan Wootton interviews Irene on talkRADIO. Heart-breaking. Starts at 2 hours, 6 minutes
- “The NHS isn’t my church and salvation” – MailOnline reports on Laurence Fox’s latest row on Twitter
- “Francis Hoar on Lockdown Legality” – The lawyer acting for Simon Dolan gives Unmasked Doco a legal overview of COVID-19 policy. A must watch
- And from the same filmmaker, Roger Bowles, who’s working on a definitive documentary about Covid, this heartbreaking interview with a nurse:
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “Two Pints of Lager and A Packet Of Crisps Please” by Splodgenessabounds, “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie, “I Won’t Back Down” by Johnny Cash and “Banned From The Pubs” by Peter and the Test Tube Babies.
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 so you can share it. To do that, click on the headline of a particular story and a link symbol will appear on the right-hand side of the headline. Click on the link and the URL of your page will switch to the URL of that particular story. You can then copy that URL and either email it to your friends or post it on social media. Please do share the stories.
Social Media Accounts
You can follow Lockdown Sceptics on our social media accounts which are updated throughout the day. To follow us on Facebook, click here; to follow us on Twitter, click here; to follow us on Instagram, click here; to follow us on Parler, click here; and to follow us on MeWe, click here.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, from the Telegraph, the story of the students who want the adjective “black” expunged from textbooks and lectures:
University students have demanded the word “black” be banned from lectures and textbooks amid claims it symbolises “negative situations”. Undergraduates from the University of Manchester say the colour’s use as an adjective stems from our “colonial history”, which has become outdated in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Supporters are calling for commonly used phrases such as “black sheep” to be removed from lecture slides and books, while concerns have also been raised about “blackmail” and “black market” during an audit of racism concerns on campus.
The University said it is preparing to roll out new training and research in response to the unease in order to tackle “racist terminology” and “aggressions”.
In documents seen by the Telegraph, students called for: “The University to ban the use of these words listed above and any other use of the word ‘black’ as an adjective to express negative connotations”. This is because black is “linguistically and metaphorically associated with negative situations” and “used for bad and unsavoury situations or objects”.
This is part of an “accepted consciousness” of using colours as adjectives that is “situated in colonial history”, the student report stated.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The National Trust has hired strategic advisory firm Hanbury Strategy to help it de-woke-ify its image in the wake of the backlash which followed the report addressing its properties’ links with slavery and colonialism. The firm was co-founded by Paul Stephenson, who was formerly a Director of Vote Leave. MailOnline has the details.
“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.
If you’re a shop owner and you want to let your customers know you will not be insisting on face masks or asking them what their reasons for exemption are, you can download a friendly sign to stick in your window here.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.
Stop Press: Sometimes academic studies comes up with results that were obvious all along. Researchers from the University of Manchester have investigated the “Impacts of face coverings on communication: an indirect impact of COVID-19“. They conducted an online survey of 460 members of the public, oversampling people with hearing loss. The results, which were published in the International Journal of Audiology, are no great surprise:
With few exceptions, participants reported that face coverings negatively impact on hearing, understanding, engagement and feelings of connection with the speaker. Impacts were greatest when communicating in medical situations. People with hearing loss were significantly more impacted than those without hearing loss. Face coverings impacted communication content, interpersonal connectedness and willingness to engage in conversation. They increased anxiety and stress and made communication fatiguing, frustrating and embarrassing, both as a speaker wearing a face covering and when listening to someone else who is wearing one.
Their research is worth reading in full and the MailOnline has a report which is worth reading too.
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 month and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you Googled it a week after launch, 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 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 Toby’s 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 700,000 signatures.
Update: The authors of the GDB have expanded the FAQs to deal with some of the arguments and smears that have been made against their proposal. Worth reading in full.
Update 2: Many of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration are involved with new UK anti-lockdown campaign Recovery. Find out more and join here.
Update 3: You can watch Sunetra Gupta set out the case for “Focused Protection” here and Jay Bhattacharya make it here.
Update 4: The three GBD authors plus Prof Carl Heneghan of CEBM have launched a new website collateralglobal.org, “a global repository for research into the collateral effects of the COVID-19 lockdown measures”. Follow Collateral Global on Twitter here.
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.
Quotation Corner
We know they are lying. They know they are lying, They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie.
Alexander Solschenizyn
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Mark Twain
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
Charles Mackay
They who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions…
Ideology – that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get into the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man, who knows where it hurts, is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialist.
Sir Winston Churchill
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.
Richard Feynman
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C.S. Lewis
The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.
Albert Camus
We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
Carl Sagan
Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Marcus Aurelius
Necessity is the plea for every restriction of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
William Pitt the Younger
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.)
And Finally…
Listen to the latest episode of London Calling with Toby and James Delingpole here. This week, the two curmudgeons discuss today’s Parliamentary vote, the attack on free speech at Eton, James’s stubborn insistence that Trump won the US Presidential election, the latest Free Speech Union victory and whether Rogue One is better than the last three Star Wars movies (spoiler alert: yes).
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.
Nothing says ‘proportionality’ like jailing someone for memes/FB posts in England while in Ireland the Albanian migrant that stabbed a man gets bail;
”A MAN CHARGED over a knife attack in Dublin, which resulted in another man being hospitalised, has been granted bail with “strict” conditions.
The incident happened at around 1pm on Monday at Marlborough Street in the city centre, where thousands had turned out to celebrate the homecoming of the Irish Olympians.
Viron Hykaj, 39, of Parnell Street, Dublin 1, was accused of assault causing harm to a named man and production of “a large filleting knife” as a weapon during the incident.
The injured male, who is in his 40s, was conveyed to the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital for treatment for injuries believed to be non-life-threatening.”
https://www.thejournal.ie/man-accused-of-marlborough-street-knife-attack-released-on-bail-6462389-Aug2024/
Somebody must’ve researched his name because it doesn’t say in the article that he’s Albanian;
https://x.com/EoinLenihan/status/1823380085484769451/photo/1
I think she would have been fine had she stabbed someone and not been British;
”A woman accused of buying eggs and water for rioters to throw at police outside a hotel housing asylum seekers has been remanded into custody.
Barbara Barker, 52, of Tyndall Avenue, Manchester, pleaded not guilty to violent disorder at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday afternoon.
Prosecutor Suzanne Ludlow alleged Barker was a ‘willing participant in the disorder’ and ‘aided and abetted the riots’ by buying eggs and water from a nearby shop for protesters on July 31.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13739407/Woman-accused-buying-eggs-water-rioters-throw.html
Her mistake was buying them. If it was just a case of shoplifting she would not be challenged.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-justice-turning-into-vengeance-against-some-of-the-rioters/
Mr O’Neill dancing around the edges in order to remain on side. No mention of the third world thuggery of the islamists, the machetes and knives, oh no or the siege of Birmingham. In fact muslim and islam don’t get a single mention in this article. Coming to this article without knowing the background a reader could be forgiven for thinking the rioting and subsequent court dealings were all about white, working-class, mindless hatred rather than British anger at being alienated in their own country.
“No one is going to lose sleep over the 29-year-old sentenced to 30 months for trying to set fire to a police van in Liverpool”
Why not mention the non-English speaking tw#t torching a double decker bus during the Harehill riots?
All a question of balance.
“Don’t lock me up, I’m just asking questions.”
Which will probably get you locked up ! Spot as usual HP
Thanks Freddy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/13/britain-has-blinded-itself-to-the-growing-islamist-threat/
Tom Harris having a go at the ‘far right.’
Met any ‘far right’ Mr Harris?
Exactly how I saw this
Tuesday Morning A404 & A4155 Little Marlow Rd Marlow SL7 1RA
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/37338
Russian regional authorities have announced the largest evacuation of Russian citizens from a war zone since the Second Chechen War.
Nearly 194,000 people are set to be evacuated from areas in the Kursk and Belgorod regions due to the ongoing Ukrainian military offensive, according to statements from regional governors.
What is really going on?
As we have seen, none of the pro Putin duraks on here have any clue….
In a spirit of helpfulness:
Mechanised warfare for dummies: Lesson No. 0
Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted.
Chaos can ensue from inefficient communications, command and control.
Dismounted infantry are unable to sustain offensive operations for several days, are quickly exhausted.
Combined arms tactics are critical. The coordination and integration of air and ground combat assets is key. Integration of all arms into combined arms units at the lowest levels maximizes the speed and shock effect of manouevre armour.
Emphasis on training and individual preparedness is a traditional military virtue. In this regard, one volunteer is worth several pressed men.
Offense is the best means of defence. Offensive tactics require leaders who can react swiftly to changing conditions and circumstances. Flexibility and initiative on the part of junior leaders is important.
Of course the Kiev Post is the place to look for accurate information on what is going on in Russia.
The significance of a battle at Kursk isn’t going to be lost on either side.
This ‘incursion’ is another piece of evidence that the Russian military isn’t very effective. They aren’t going to be in Paris by Christmas. The Russian Maginot Line of giant minefields obviously didn’t extend far enough.
Should it be surprising that civilians are leaving a war zone? Are you not aware that a military force attacking civilians is a war crime, whereby Ukraine is certainly a specialist in this area? And Ukraine being frustrated at not having reached the Kursk nuclear power plant has resulted in them once more releasing drone attacks against the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant: are they insane? How can anyone with an ounce of common sense shell a nuclear power plant? And the elite ‘Ukrainian’ forces attacking Kursk are heard speaking Polish, French and English, i.e. they are mercenaries. What a shambles this war is.
A military force attacking civilians is most definitely a war crime.
All evidence of such war crimes should be presented to the International Criminal Court so that they can issue a warrant of arrest, as they have in this example:
On 17 March 2023, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber II issued warrants of arrest in the context of the situation in Ukraine: Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/
Ukraine is not a State Party to the Rome Statute, but it has twice exercised its prerogatives to accept the Court’s jurisdiction over alleged crimes under the Rome Statute occurring on its territory, pursuant to article 12(3) of the Statute.
How convenient. And the supposed crime of the Russian President? Allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute).
And that is the only crime? And who is reporting the alleged crime? The western world, in deference to its US masters.
And no mention of the 16,000 or so Ukrainian civilian casualties killed since 2014 by Ukraine’s shelling of the eastern areas of the country, to ‘cleanse’ the country of ethnic Russians. What a surprise.
https://hub.conflictobservatory.org/portal/sharing/rest/content/items/97f919ccfe524d31a241b53ca44076b8/data
Credible evidence of the transfer of at least 6,000 unaccompanied Ukrainian children, many of whom ended up in “re-education” camps inside Russia.
What is surprising is that our Kiev supporter has not yet realised that a frquent Russian tactic is to select a location to lure opposing forces into in which they can then indulge in their favourite pastime of extreme attrition.
If they can persuade the opposition to use elite troops, then so much the better.
At least on commentator has suggested that this was a planned Russian operation to speed the demise of the Ukrainian regime
When this ultimately fails then Zelensky’s fingerprints are all over this initiative, and his many critics may well use it as a popular excuse to oust him.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
John Donne
Belgorod declares a state of emergency.
“We are making a decision to declare a regional emergency situation throughout the Belgorod region with a subsequent appeal to the government to declare a federal emergency situation,”
Vyacheslav Gladkov, Belgorod Governor
However, a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that, in accordance with international law, Kyiv has no intention of annexing the Russian territory it is holding.
In exercising its right to self-defence, in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter, Ukraine has the right not only to defend itself, but will also comply with all international conventions and requirements of international humanitarian law. For the purposes of self-defence, the Ukrainian military has formed a buffer zone within the Kursk region.
https://t.me/Tsaplienko/58617
“In accordance with international law” – what a joke, as though marching through civilian areas and shooting anyone at will is “in accordance with international law”.
The perpetrators of war crimes will be found and prosecuted.
If you have any evidence, I have already told you where to send it.
If you are that concerned, get off your backside and do something, as others already have:
‘Their investigations also confirmed previous findings that Russian authorities used torture in a widespread and systematic way in various types of detention facilities.
New evidence collected in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions found Russian authorities used the same pattern of torture in areas under their control, mainly against men suspected of passing information to the Ukrainian authorities or supporting the Ukrainian armed forces.
The commissioners said their interviews with victims and witnesses revealed “a profound disregard towards human dignity by Russian authorities”. Witnesses reported situations in which torture had been committed so brutally that the victim died.
Recent investigations in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions showed that rape and other sexual violence were often committed together with additional acts of violence, including severe beatings, strangling, suffocating, slashing, shooting next to the head of the victim, and wilful killing.
In one instance, a 75-year-old woman who stayed alone to protect her property, was raped and tortured by a Russian soldier who hit her on the face, chest, and ribs, and strangled her, while interrogating her.
The soldier ordered the woman to undress and when she refused, he ripped off her clothes, cut her abdomen with a small sharp object and raped her several times. The woman also suffered several broken ribs and teeth.’
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/coiukraine/A-78-540-AEV.pdf
‘According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the operation to destroy Ukrainian formations in the Kursk Region is still underway.’
Tass
‘President Vladimir Putin appointed his aide and former bodyguard Alexei Dyumin to oversee Russia’s military response to the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region. His main qualification appears to have been shooting at a bear with his pistol, and missing…..That’ll do it……
‘As part of my research, I analyzed about 80,000 news articles published by separatist media outlets between 2014 and 2018, many of which repeated familiar tropes: that the Euromaidan revolution as a fascist coup by the CIA, the US as an evil puppet master, and Ukraine as an oppressive, genocidal state.
The objective was to delegitimize Ukraine’s new government and sow division, hoping especially to convince Russian-speaking Ukrainians that there was no future for them in Ukraine. This effort failed: studies show that the Euromaidan revolution and the subsequent events catalyzed a cohesive, civic Ukrainian identity, rather than splitting society apart.’
The Kremlin bought into its own propaganda so much that it believed many Ukrainians would join the invading Russians in battle. The overwhelming lack of support among the very people it professed to come to save should make it realize that Ukrainians have little appetite for returning to the Russian fold.’
The Moscow Times
So let me get this right, if you call the police nasty names then you get an 18 month custodial sentence, but if you violently attack the police, breaking a female police officers nose in the melee, you walk away with a smile? Right. Got it.
Alex from ThinkingSlow is spot on, these are the equivalent of the Communist Russia show trials.
Funny, but depressingly true:
https://x.com/LeoKearse/status/1823494485843841529
Chins had them as well I believe , then public shaming leading to actual executions !
Opinions please. I’ve always considered Unherd a sensible voice, so too Silkie Carlo from Big Brother Watch, but after listening to their recent interview I’ve got major doubts – https://unherd.com/watch-listen/get-ready-for-the-crackdown/
The language Silkie uses only comes from someone who either a) exists solely in a metropolitan bubble b) is a bit thick c) is a limited hangout. I think it’s likely c)
I’d possibly agree with you, if I had the slightest notion of what ‘a limited hangout’ means!
A purveyor of carefully controlled anti-narrative information, whose intention is to appease dissenting voices whilst deflecting from the more sinister bigger picture.
I support Tommy Robinson’s efforts to expose what’s going on but keep an open mind about his situation and motives. In the process I found an interesting interview with Nick Griffin who reminds us how complicated the whole picture is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd2y6cu7H3g&ab_channel=JACK%27D
Yes, the problem is the forever paranoia that we inevitably have to deal with. All deliberate of course… said my paranoid mind!
Listen to this Unherd podcast and jot down the points Ms Carlo makes. Most of these are about the use of facial recognition surveillance. There’s nothing in the language to suggest that she is anything other than genuine. She isn’t some decoy.
If anything, as Dr McGrogan has observed, she may misunderstand the government’s purpose in the use of it.
The language related to the riots is what I was specifically talking about – nothing else – I should have been clearer. The language she uses when she talks about ordinary people is very concerning to me, as it appears to position her inside of elitist thinking.
It seems to me that most, if not all, fighting the cause of free speech are picking their battles very carefully so it’s difficult to know where they really stand.
They are lying
You may or may not like the ‘Geoff Buys Cars’ site but there is a sense in which Geoff epitomises the role of the car in the lives and culture of ordinary people, cars do seem to be a common topic for discussion in pubs and clubs. And so it is worrying to think where this crack-down on free speech is going next. In this video clip (which if you put it on fast play is quite short) Geoff gets quite irate about road pricing plans and boldly states that ‘they’ are lying to you;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2JYPTIs-pY
In discussing these issues and being so bold he is directly challenging some of the sacred cows of net-zero and the surveillance society. With TPTB now embolden following their re-enactment of the Bloody Assizes to deal with the recent riots; how long before the likes of ‘Geoff Buys Cars’ are subject to draconian restrictions on freedom of speech?
Yes Geoff is a comforting side issue away from all the poisonous Governmental rhetoric but in a way equally important !
If anyone has ever met one of the ‘Small Totalitarians’ they will know the accuracy of Pimlico’s description of such a person.
Judge Jeffreys would be perfectly suited to presiding over these current trials. It appears he may have had ‘personal issues’ that can be satisfied only through becoming a Small Totalitarian.
Or there’s the judge in the court scene in Ghostbusters 2 who longs for the return to a more purer age of retribution to be visited upon the insolent peasants who disrespected the state. “You, girlie! You have been found guilty of shouting hurty words at helmeted, body-armoured police officers jangling with metal handcuffs, only protected with tasers, and standing in a shield wall of the sort deployed in the Battle of Hastings! What can you expect but to be burned at the stake!!!”
There was indeed a purer, simpler age. Even as late as the Tudor period the modern tradition of public service, and even the outlook of mechanical impersonal bureaucracy, had not yet come into existence. The agents of government were the servants of their immediate superior. They had none of the 19th or 20th century civil servant’s or police officer’s sense of duty to the public. Even Parliament had no sense of itself as a body that enabled it to become one of the contending elites of the Civil War.
In the 16th century a person could find themselves in danger from their spoken word. While religious affiliation could be recanted, any idle or ill-tempered sally or complaint, a justified criticism of government policy, spoken among acquaintances, could not. These words could be hoarded in an informer’s memory and produced years after by a spiteful enemy of an officious time-server with fatal consequences for the speaker. The 21st century has the recording angel of the internet and still many spiteful persons with ‘personal issues’.
The Bloody Assizes comparison is surely apt: back then there was an actual armed rebellion (against a rubbish government), but history remembers still Jefferys as an agent of injustice, not as a corrector of evils. He certainly had personal “issues” (ie he was evil) – witness that he was as foul-mouthed and vindictive against saintly Richard Baxter as against armed rebels.
But the “rough justice = necessary to make examples” mentality present both then and now seems much less like the strict rule of law, and much more like a powerful but scared establishment making sure it keeps the whip hand over the peasants. James II didn’t do too well in the longer term, nevertheless.
“How the worklessness crisis has made Britain dangerously dependent on foreign labour”
The climate department are telling us we need to move to zero population growth, whilst the rest of the government says we need mass immigration because of zero population growth.
Which department is calculating what will happen to the world economy when cheap immigrants run out under Net Zero?
Are you assuming that the Departments are working together for a common cause?
They won’t run out don’t worry !
A quick look at population distribution and growth around the world will show that, for all intents and purposes, from the perspective of the UK, there is a limitless supply of cheap immigrants.
Free speech is Britain is alive and well…as long as you’re a man in a dress calling for famous women to be raped or inciting rape or gbh of women who object to men in dresses spying on them in changing rooms.
https://www.ft.com/content/237e1e55-401d-4eeb-875b-03fe68f81575
More leaked Russian documents from inside the Kremlin show that Russia has trained its navy to strike targets deep inside Europe using nuclear-capable missiles in the event of a conflict with Nato.
Maps showing targets as distant as the west coast of France and Barrow-in-Furness in the UK were part of a detailed presentation for officers from before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
29 leaked Russian military files show Russia’s plans for extensive strikes across Western Europe, anticipating a conflict with the West extending beyond Nato borders. Prepared between 2008 and 2014, the files include targets for missiles, highlighting the early use of nuclear strikes.
What’s really going on?
Russia has a kill list not just of citizens in the West but of whole cities.
The leaked documents also reveal that Russia has retained the ability to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on surface ships, despite a 1991 agreement with the US to eliminate such capabilities.
Forget negotiating with Putin. Just like the Taliban, Hamas, he will swallow whatever is offered and come back for more, one way or another.
Would you not expect Russia to always have plans thought about like that, just as every major power probably does? Seems sensible surely? Thinking about and executing are entirely different things as we know… ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’
I’m surprised how little the DS has to say about the TIerry Breton letter to Elon Musk regarding his Trump conversation.
To me it struck me as a watershed moment. It was a gambit coordinated between the US, UK and EU states to see how far they could push the throttle on their censorship machine.
Two things are stunning. One, how outrageous the action is. Two, how little outrage it elicited from the population of the US (or EU for that matter), which is also exactly what the gambit was looking to test.
And it isn’t over. The letter is just one move of the gambit.
I can’t describe how pessimistic I am about the future of free speech and therefore our freedom going forward.
The state of the law in this country reminds me of the Hanseatic cities around the Baltic where Germans had their own enclaves (ghettos) where they operated their own rules and the local population lived outside.
From what I have read the locals had to do what the Germans wanted if it affected their way of life or their ability to trade.
It looks like we may get three tiers here: the elites, the non-white non-Brits and the rest of us.
“It looks like we may get three tiers here: the elites, the non-white non-Brits and the rest of us.”
I have to say I have almost reached the same conclusion. There is a possibility that “the rest of us” may also factionalise further – those who believe in old Britain, the Britain of Jerusalem and those woke whiteys who think they should associate with the non-whites simply because they do not believe in a traditional Britain and who hope that a spot of treason might help them towards a marginal elite status.
“Sutton man, 61, who chanted ‘Who the f*** is Allah’ is jailed for 18 months”
“She’s a witch”
“How do you know she’s a witch?”
“Because she looks like one!”
Welcome back to the 15th century!
Interesting video above from Cressida Gethin’s brother.
He has apparently had online threats of his upcoming wedding being disturbed by people trying to block the visitors and having “orange paint strewn everywhere”.
His wedding “should not be inconvenienced because of the actions – the correct actions I may add – of my sister Cressy. Now we have got people flying in from all over the world to my wedding and, if need be, we will have very strong police action because we shall not, and will not, be bullied by thugs who think that, just because they believe in a certain thing, that they can stop other people from moving on with their lives and getting on with their day …”
So he has people flying in from all over the world, which is supposed to be environmentally damaging, he can arrange for a strong police force at his wedding, which is an interesting capability, and he is against “thugs” preventing people from getting on with their day: but is that not exactly what his sister and other ‘environmentalist’ colleagues were/are doing at every opportunity?
Amazing hypocrisy.
Ah yes but this is entirely different – this could impact ‘his’ life… not just those ‘others’
https://www.galwaybeo.ie/news/ireland-news/garda-hunt-over-honesty-box-9479534
Sign of the times?
The changing ethics of our new world!
It’s sad to have to witness this slide into depravity,…we once held all things so dear!
This is a bigger red flag than any riot!
The west is heading for its era of sodom and gomorrah
“Man described by judge as the ‘least involved’ in riot jailed for a year”
“Nail em up I say, nail some sense into em!”
“Terrific race the Starmerites, Terrific!”
Now this is how a coup begins,slowly, creeping, silent..and before you know it, its too late!
https://youtu.be/wie8VsR2XKM?si=BiargU5VCePjoHnC
This how dementia begins – slowly, creeping, silent – but, perhaps mercifully, you never know it.
It’s never too late, as Izaak Walton advised during the English Civil War, to go fishing.
“A commonwealth of communities” – ‘Two-tier’ societies are inevitable, says Ed West”
Not in United sovereignties there not!
Not in places without mass immigration there Not!
A community of communities, especially those overtly ethnic or religious, requires the authorities to act as a colonial government, keeping the peace between these groupings by adjusting their approach accordingly.
In Hungary Orban just states “bugger off, your not coming in!”
I like Orban
Me, too!
“For the first time in its history, Britain is in grip of state terror”
Wah? English civil War against the elites!
First time in history my arse!
The Levellers were suppressed by Cromwell. He opposed the enclosure of the common land but from within the establishment, the minor squirearchy.
A civil war requires two sets of elites. The current disturbances are more of a peasants revolt. Lollardy never altered the beliefs of the ruling elite.
Long before there was the apparatus of the modern state, the Apostle Paul declared that a ruler wasn’t a terror to the law-abiding. But what if the criminal isn’t in terror of the government?
That’s nice, what’s it mean in English?
“Britain’s leaders have blinded themselves to the growing Islamist threat”
Who needs violence? You can take over western countries with tea and biscuits these days! and they are to thick to see it happening,..Beyond terrorism!
Britain’s leaders blind to the Women’s Institute.
And that most subversive of all publications, Nice Cup of tea and a Sit Down. Someone needs to investigate the sinister suppression of the Lincoln Cream.
“China just built the biggest ever offshore oil platform. There is no green energy ‘transition’”
https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/giant-chinese-twin-rotor-floating-wind-turbine-sets-sail/2-1-1691090
Guess which one will be sold to the west (or fools..as they’re known in China) and which one will be kept by China?
(laughing all the way to the bank!)
https://www.gbnews.com/health/sloth-virus-oropouche-virus-symptoms
Here we go again!
So now humans are not quick enough to out run a sloth? Lub a duck!!
Bats live in caves,purposely to keep out of our way, and sloths live in trees in rain forests miles from humanity and yet we seem to be able to contract their diseases?
“Thousands of more pensioners”
Aside from the terrible grammar of main stream reporters, why isnt foreign aid (running at £8.3 BILLION 2023/2024) and immigration/asylum cost (running at 8 million A DAY!) equally as strictly means tested?
https://www.gbnews.com/money/winter-fuel-payment-pensioners-energy-bill-scotland
“Man described by judge as the ‘least involved’ in riot jailed for a year”
Crucial public comments in DM about the harsh sentence of this Army veteran:
— “Hold on a minute— after the Bristol riots, the toppling of the statue, and the attack on the police station, the accused received a jury trial and some (not all) were deemed not guilty. The wording of this story sounds like this man, and therefore presumably the rest, DIDN’T RECEIVE A JURY TRIAL, and were convicted by a judge only following orders from the government. This is very dangerous territory.”
— “Doesn’t everyone have the right to trial by jury? Obviously not. Depending on your political beliefs of course.”
— “No ,they were warned that if pleading Not Guilty, they go before a jury, and if they lose, they have bigger sentences and court costs. So really it’s a lose-lose situation.”
— “Now the country pays him back for his service.”
— “We now have more political prisoners than Russia.”
— “Drunk and disorderly would be the correct charge.”
“Being drunk and disorderly is a summary only offence, so it can only be heard in the Magistrates Court. It is also a NON-IMPRISONABLE OFFENCE, which means the MAXIMUM PENALTY that can be imposed is a FINE. The Court has no lawful power to impose either a Community Order or Prison Sentence for this offence.”