Gavin Williamson U-Turns Over Primaries Reopening
In a last-minute change-of-plan, the Education Secretary has declared that all primary schools in London will remain closed on Monday, regardless of whether they’re located in Covid “hotspots” – prompting renewed calls from the teaching unions to close all schools across the country. MailOnline has more.
A teaching union has called for all schools across the country to be closed for the start of the new term after the government U-turned on its decision to keep some primaries in London open despite rising Covid cases.
The Government bowed to protests, legal pressure and scientific advice on New Year’s Day after it initially omitted a number of the capital’s boroughs from the forced closures.
But Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, questioned why the same restrictions are not being rolled out across the rest of the country where cases are also surging.
Gavin Williamson had this week released a list of London primary schools in coronavirus ‘hotspots’ that would stay shut for two weeks after the start of term next week.
The list did not include areas where Covid rates are high such as Haringey whose leaders said they would defy the Government and support schools that decided to close.
Under the Government’s initial plan, schools in the City of London and Kingston were set to reopen but those in 22 other London boroughs would have remained closed.
The leaders of Camden, Islington, Greenwich, Haringey, Harrow, Hackney and Lewisham boroughs, and the City of London, said in a letter to Education Secretary Gavin Williamson: ‘We ask in the strongest terms that your recommendation is urgently reviewed and our primary schools are added to the list of those advised to move learning online.’
The action prompted an emergency Cabinet Office meeting today where they decided to abandon the original plans and order the remaining area to close their primary schools.
The move is expected to see similar arrangements to the spring lockdown when schools continued to accept children from key worker families but moved to online learning for the vast majority of pupils.
The main argument against keeping primaries open in some London boroughs is that that Covid infection rates in those boroughs are no different to the rates in neighbouring areas where schools will remain closed.
“It never made sense that neighbouring boroughs were being instructed to have different arrangements despite having similar rates of infection,” said Caroline Kerr, leader of Kingston Council.
But if the only objection to the Government’s school closures policy was that it was inconsistent, that could just as easily have been addressed by opening more schools rather than closing more.
This is a disappointing development and suggests the so-called “hawks” in the Cabinet – lockdown zealots like Matt Hancock and Michael Gove – have prevailed in their ongoing power struggle with the “doves”.
Gavin Williamson’s stock has never been lower. Expect him to be exiled to Northern Ireland (or the back benches) in next week’s reshuffle.
Stop Press: When secondary schools reopen, pupils could be in for a nasty shock. According to Schools Week, the Government is considering making face masks mandatory in secondary school classrooms.
Doctors in Revolt Over Single-Jab Covid Strategy
The Telegraph‘s Paul Nuki has a story in today’s paper about the global debate over whether the UK Government’s decision to focus on maximising the number of people who’ve been given just one jab – at the expense of giving people two jabs – is sensible. Answer: Probably not.
Scientists across the world were locked in fierce debate on Friday over the wisdom or otherwise of the UK switching to a single dose strategy for COVID-19 vaccines.
White coats were flapping on social media after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) published its rationale for the move on Thursday night.
“The advice… is aimed at maximising protection in the population”, said the JVCI.
“Given the high level of protection afforded by the first dose, models suggest that initially vaccinating a greater number of people with a single dose will prevent more deaths and hospitalisations than vaccinating a smaller number of people with two doses”.
The move to prioritise first jabs of the vaccines was initially proposed by former prime minister Tony Blair. There is little doubt it is an innovation, though some prefer the word gamble.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Eric Topol, the American medic with a large social media following, isn’t a fan of the single-dose strategy.
New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square
One intrepid reader ventured into Central London on Thursday night to celebrate New Year’s Eve. She didn’t have much fun.
Last night I went to London. I live east of the city and drove in down the A11. Which, for those who don’t know, goes right past the Royal London Hospital, as mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter.
I could not resist a little drive round the block to go past the ambulance and A&E entrance of the hospital. Only one ambulance to be seen and no people. Pretty bloody unusual for 10pm on New Year’s Eve…
Carrying on, I parked in Covent Garden, which was deserted except for covid marshals. On the way, I took another detour over London Bridge to see the river. It was boarded up on the sides. Lots of ‘guards’ in high vis but there might have been fireworks set up on it.
Having parked, Covent Garden was like a ghost town. I got a Boris bike and went for a ride. Trafalgar Square was totally boarded up. Large police presence, not many people. Picadilly and Leicester Square were empty. Then I went down Whitehall towards Parliament Square – it was getting close to midnight by then. Loads of police, including the Tactical Support Group (TSG) and horses. A few hundred people waiting. Most people in very small groups or pairs, all very calm and well behaved. I did not see any sign of the protestors organised by Piers Corbyn but they might have been blending (no placards).
I stopped on the Embankment about 50 yards from Westminster Bridge. It was five to midnight according to my photo of Big Ben. Then, at about two minutes to midnight, the TSG decided to move everyone on…
That made the crowding bad as everyone was being shepherded in the same direction and there was a fair bit of traffic so people could not walk in the roads. Seemed a mad thing to do – to wait until so close to midnight.
One of the police horses was getting extremely fractious (I am a horse person for a living, I can tell) and it was between myself and the bike rack where I was going to return the bike, so I held my ground. A police woman told me to move along. I said no way while that horse is between me and the exit. Even she could see it was dangerous so she let me be and then the clock struck.
There was massive cheering, the fireworks went off across the river and then everyone did start dispersing, without being asked really as there was no real reason for staying.
As we left I found myself beside a young woman with a scooter. Turns out she was a nurse of 10 years experience at one on the large London hospitals. She said it was busy and hard work, everyone was doing 12 hour shifts, but no worse than usual for the time of year. She said she had decided to come (unmasked) because she had been working so hard she was treating herself to a night out because it was a historic night and you would never see London like this again on New year’s Eve.
She said people’s good will kept them all going at her hospital, but many of her colleagues felt as she did, that the measures were out of proportion to the risk and the NHS has been badly managed in preparation for this crisis. She said the staff shortages were being created by constant testing so many staff perfectly fit for work were sitting at home.
Is the London Nightingale Really Reopening?
Something a bit fishy going on. Matt Hancock did the rounds of the broadcast studios on December 30th claiming that the London Nightingale had been “reactivated”. But to date there isn’t any sign of the ExCel Centre being readied for new patients. And how does Hancock plan to overcome the staffing shortages we’ve heard so much about? The Telegraph has more.
Nightingale hospitals will not be able to come to the rescue of hospitals overwhelmed by Covid patients because there is no “magic pile” of nurses to staff them, health leaders have warned.
Consultants and nursing leaders said high levels of nursing vacancies, coupled with large numbers of staff off sick with coronavirus or stress will make it nearly impossible to use the Nightingale hospitals, which [were] built around the country at the start of the pandemic.
The makeshift hospitals were built at an estimated cost of £220 million, with sites in London, Manchester, Bristol, Sunderland, Harrogate, Exeter and Birmingham.
Of these, the Exeter site received its first Covid patients in November while Manchester, Bristol and Harrogate are currently in use for non-Covid patients.
London’s Nightingale has been “reactivated”, the NHS said earlier this week, while other sites currently not in use are being readied.
But Mike Adams, the Royal College of Nursing’s England director, said on Friday the expectation that the Nightingale hospitals could deliver a significant increase in capacity was “misplaced”.
He said: “I have real concerns that the expectation that this mass rollout in capacity can happen is misplaced because there aren’t the staff to do it. If we are having to cancel leave to staff these areas, the obvious question is where will the staff come from to open the Nightingales?
“Nursing is already stretched beyond capacity, so there is no magic pile of nurses we can call upon.”
The top doctor who provides Lockdown Sceptics with regular updates from inside the NHS says he thinks it’s unlikely the London Nightingale will be reactivated. “My understanding is that it will ‘reopen’ as a vaccination centre,” he tells me. “St John Ambulance people to redeploy there from Jan 11th for vaccination. Can’t see how it can reopen as an inpatient facility and none of my colleagues think it will either.”
Stop Press: MPs have branded the empty Nightingale Hospitals an “expensive PR stunt“.
Stop Press 2: Richard Tice paid a visit to the ExCel and found no evidence it’s about to be converted into a hospital again. Watch the video he made about his fact-finding mission on Twitter.
NHS Nightingale decommissioned! Did @MattHancock deliberately mislead MPs & on media yesterday? It’s not on standby, nor being readied. NHS media now confirmed its been dispersed. Why did he let it go, given his 2nd wave worries? Shocking waste taxpayers cash. pic.twitter.com/3YGFXV1Qg6
— Richard Tice(@TiceRichard) December 31, 2020
Deaths Don’t Add Up
The senior financial journalist who regularly writes snippets for Lockdown Sceptics has spotted that the number of people who’ve been recorded as having died of Covid sits a little uncomfortably with the actuarial data
I’ve been thinking about the data you linked to a couple of days ago stating that actuarially-adjusted deaths are only 6.9% above average this year.
From the ONS data to Dec 25th there have been 592,525 deaths in England and Wales year to date. If the estimate from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries is correct, then excess deaths are running at around 38,245.
Yet the ONS says that COVID-19 has been mentioned in 68,341 deaths. If we assume that every excess death has been caused by Covid, then reported Covid deaths exceed “excess deaths” by 30,096 (44% of total reported C-19 deaths).
This rough number-crunching appears to confirm the sainted Professor Neil Ferguson’s comment, from earlier in the year, that many of the Covid deaths would have occurred anyway within a few months.
N.B. Fraser Nelson in the DT piece you flagged up mentions that an old biddy in Switzerland died after being given a vaccine “but at the age of 91-years old with multiple illnesses”. Fair enough. But this comment might be applied equally to nearly half of C-19 reported deaths.
Van Tam’s Bingo Slip
There follows a guest post by Freddie Attenborough, a regular Lockdown Sceptics contributor.
On 28 December, the UK’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Van Tam, joined the Prime Minister for one of his now semi-regular Covid press conferences. According to Breitbart News, at one point, “The top doctor said people should not think, ‘after the second dose of your vaccine, it’s okay to behave with wild abandon and go off to the bingo halls and whatever you like and so forth’.”
Bingo halls. What a wonderful sliver of rhetorical spite. By this rhetoric doth the activist behind the ostensibly objective scientific façade reveal himself. The condescension for the working-class, Brexit voting scum couldn’t be any clearer, could it? Bingo halls. A place-holding metonym drawn from the realm of fish and chips, pubs, boozing, council estates, seaside holidays, nail bars, self-employment. All that toxic masculinity, all those “Karens.” Yuck.
Some of what’s happening with lockdown now is, to me at least, usefully considered as a visceral, psychological reaction to the lack of control these people were able to wield when it came to Brexit. Sounds over the top, doesn’t it? Until you peruse their Twitter pages. These are not happy people. There’s anger, but, perhaps most importantly, there’s an unmistakeable sense of anxiety too. “Tory Scum” got in the way of Corbyn’s utopian society; Trump got in the way of corporate friendly (sorry, I mean “migrant friendly”) global capitalism; Brexit got in the way of their beloved European research networks and funding opportunities.
Lack of control is arguably the root cause of a psychological dysfunctionality like anxiety. For four years they’ve had to live as part of a society that was doing something they didn’t like and that they couldn’t control. They’ve never forgiven the “Bingo Hall” povs for that. It makes them anxious. And what do anxious people really want most of all? Control.
But here’s the thing, because, when you think about it, what is anxiety? It’s simply a location on a wider psychological spectrum that has “desire for minimal control” at one end (e.g. the figure of the hedonist), and “desire for high levels of control” at the other (e.g. the figure of the neurotic). Generalised anxiety is towards the latter end, the right-hand end, of this spectrum. Some anxious people can of course get by in life simply by establishing minimal types of control over their own local environment (their house, their living room, their routines, etc). Some need to manage and regulate the behaviours of others too. Beyond that, and a little further along the spectrum, some need to control everything and everyone around them. And, as we move across towards the very extreme right-hand end of this spectrum of control, we get to sadism; that is, the need to completely control others and, further, to dole out harsh punishment or humiliation to those who can’t be controlled. Have some of our scientific bureaucrats started to slide out towards this end of the spectrum? Is it the peculiar constitutional and political positioning of SAGE – ostensibly just “advisory,” but, thanks to the power of media-relations and clandestine leaking, also a de facto executive body – that has allowed them to do so?
Put another way, is what’s happening now with our never-ending lockdown the biomedical equivalent of an occupying army sadistically razing a village that’s been found to have been aiding and abetting the resistance? It makes me wonder. After all, those villages aren’t destroyed solely because of psychopathic anger; there’s also the functional need to reassert control over what hitherto hadn’t been controlled adequately. It isn’t just “we will hurt you for your disobedience,” (punishment response) but also, and at the same time, “never again will we not know what you’re doing behind our backs” (reassertion of control response). It’s this combination that creates the peculiar phenomenon we term “sadism.”
I’m not a psychologist, but I’m struggling for psychological answers, because I don’t think what’s happening is analysable in any strictly political, social or economic way. J.G. Ballard is probably the greatest sociologist of lockdown, because he saw more clearly than most that it wouldn’t be the violence of the Marxian working-classes, but rather, the neuroses of the well-paid and cosseted middle classes who would in the end destroy western, liberal, capitalist societies. So when people like Van Tam let slip these odd little comments, I feel I’m more right than I am wrong. It’s also the type of analysis that would shed a little more light on Professor Ferguson’s otherwise curious “getting away with instigating lockdown” comment from his recent interview with The Times. Getting away with … well, what, precisely? Revenge? The reassertion of technocratic control over Parliamentary unpredictability? I ask simply because it isn’t a socially recognisable thing for someone to remark that they’re “getting away” with keeping people safe, or that they’re “getting away with” saving lives. Okay, maybe he meant, “getting away” with doing what’s right in order to keep the povvy Bingo players alive. But if that is indeed what he meant, then what would that statement imply? That he and his colleagues have been hoping to find an opportunity for reasserting technocratic control over the great unwashed and that they’d finally found one… which then leads us back to my psychological analysis of their motivations.
I’m not saying that they know at any literal, conscious level that this is what they’re doing. I’m sure they feel they’re acting for the best of reasons. In that sense, they’re no different to the rest of us, are they? Most social actions require most of us, most of the time, to lie to ourselves: e.g. “I’m happy at work!” “I cheated on my wife because she wasn’t making me happy, so, really, all of this is her fault!” “Money doesn’t buy happiness!” etc., etc. But at a social psychological level, somewhere between the unknowable unconscious and the rationality of the cerebellum, I wouldn’t be surprised if a literally “sadistic” need for control now drives people like Van Tam and Ferguson; a desire to re-establish control, and to do so overtly enough that he and his colleagues can convince themselves that, after four years in the wilderness, they finally have re-established control.
Half of Britons Think BBC Does Not Share Their Values
Almost half of Britons think the BBC no longer represents their values amid declining levels of trust in the broadcaster, down from 62% in 2016. The Times has more.
The results are understood to chime with the unpublished research recently conducted by the BBC which found that residents of well-off and diverse neighbourhoods held the broadcaster in higher esteem than people from poorer and less diverse communities.
The findings also tally with an Ofcom report in November which said that the BBC’s bedrock older middle-class audience was going off it. The report added that it was seen as the least impartial public service broadcaster, below ITV, Channel 4, Sky and Channel 5. Fifty-four per cent of adults believe that it provides impartial news.
The new research, by YouGov, found 44% of the public thought that the BBC represented their values badly. This was particularly true of older people, with 48% saying that the BBC did not adequately represent their views. In the north of England it was 51% and Scotland 47%. Among those who voted for Brexit, 58% were unhappy with the overall stance of the corporation.
Asked how their views of the BBC had changed over the year only 4% said that its values had become more like theirs while 33% said it had become less like theirs. Older male viewers outside London and the southeast were the most likely to be dissatisfied with the BBC’s perceived values.
The findings come before a government review on public sector broadcasting. Boris Johnson has made little secret of his desire to reform the BBC amid speculation that the licence fee in its present form could be scrapped.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Darren Grimes has added his 10 cents worth to the BBC’s expenditure of £1.5 million on a woke New Year’s Eve fireworks display.
Poetry Corner
Today, a poem composed by an NHS doctor. He calls it ‘Pandemic Polemic’.
Better hunker in your bunker, for Corona’s here today,
Do not try to take an aeroplane, they’ll turn you all away;
Wear a mask to catch the sneezes though not much good will it do,
And send a friend or neighbour for a cold compress or two.Better listen to the experts, they will tell you how to cope
Although as messages conflict you really haven’t got a hope,
So panic, panic, panic – try to remember why
If you sweat up in a fever you are surely going to die.If you’re pregnant try to miss out on the rush hour on the bus
For you do not want to run the risk of catching it from us;
And you cannot have the vaccine they’ve developed for the flu
For what it does to foetuses we haven’t got a clue.Do not come into Casualty with “query dose of flu”
As the last thing that the doctors want is catching it from you;
Wash your hands and smear them with that antiseptic goo;
Sneeze only in a tissue and then flush it down the loo.And stock up with provisions for a month or maybe three
(You can order them from Tesco, and delivery is free)
But for most of us, including the disabled and the old
The coronavirus symptoms won’t be
much
more
than
a
cold.
Round-up
- “Let’s admit what we got wrong in 2020, and shake things up in 2021” – Excellent leader in yesterday’s Telegraph
- “Word of the week: NERVTAG” – Andy Shaw continues to flesh out his seditious dictionary in Spectator LIFE
- “Trying to lock down until Covid is eradicated would be dangerous folly” – Prof Robert Dingwall in the Telegraph says we need an exit strategy
- “NHS staff fear speaking out over crisis in English hospitals” – Good piece in the Guardian – although it neglects to say that if the “speaking out” involves arguing for more restrictions there’s no price to be paid
- “Giving people false hope about the pandemic isn’t ‘balanced’ – it’s dangerous” – In an entirely predictable development, leftwing firebrand Owen Jones has appointed himself the Guardian‘s chief enforcer of Covid orthodoxy. Surely his column can’t be much longer for this world?
- “Drug Overdoses in San Francisco Have Killed Four Times as Many People as Covid” – Official figures out of San Francisco show that drug overdoses have killed almost four times more people than COVID-19 this year
- “New York mayor celebrates New Year in Times Square… after telling everyone else to stay home” – Hypocrite of the week?
- “France brings forward nightly curfew from 8pm to 6pm” – More bad news from across the Channel
- “First country bans ivermectin, a lifesaver for Covid – will the US be next?” – Ivermectin has been banned in South Africa. Bit odd, given that the WHO has just confirmed its effectiveness as a treatment for COVID-19
- “Locked-down California runs out of reasons for surprising surge” – More proof, if proof were needed, that lockdowns don’t work. California has some of the toughest restrictions in the US, yet infections are surging
- “Why 2021 could be the year of economic Armageddon” – Cheery piece by Chris Snowdon in the Spectator
- “Ignore the gaslighting – cancel culture is real” – Andrew Doyle in Spiked urges us to put a stop to the malicious vogue for shaming anyone who speaks out of turn in 2021
- Season 2 of the Real Normal Podcast is back with a letter from an actor who attended the Bristol protests
- “Nightingale closures, ‘defeating Covid’ and vaccine protection — a few niggling lockdown questions I’d like answered” – Rod Liddle’s column in the Sun in case you missed it
- “2020 in review: The year in 12 cartoons, by Matt” – The second best Telegraph cartoonist gives us some of his best cartoon of the year
- And the best Telegraph cartoonist gives us his (via Twitter)
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Four today: “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds, “Abandoned Luncheonette” by Daryl Hall and John Oates, “Why Am I Drinkin’” by Merle Haggard, “Only A Pawn in Their Game” by Bob Dylan
Stop Press: I spoke too soon when I said a reader had compiled a definitive list of all those pop songs with the word “Tears” in the title. Another reader has come forward with some additions. This one could run and run!
Tiers (Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grapelli)
Tiers and Pavan (The Strawbs)
Tiers of Rage (The Band)
Tiers Dry On Their Own (Amy Winehouse)
Tiers Are Not Enough (ABC)
A Little Bitty Tier (Burl Ives)
“No More Tiers (Enough is Enough)” (Barbara Streisand)
Drown In My Own Tiers (Aretha Franklin)One shouldn’t overlook the band – Tiers for Fears
Stop Press 2: This ditty about the year gone by sung to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” is a corker.
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 as well as post comments below the line, 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, it’s the turn of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has just unveiled some new rules for the next Congressional term: the elimination of gendered terms, such as “father, mother, son, and daughter”. Breitbart News has more.
Within the proposals are the creation of the “Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth”, which would require Congress to “honour all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral”.
In clause 8(c)(3) of rule XXIII, gendered terms, such as “father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, grandson, or granddaughter” will be removed.
In their place, terms such as “parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling, first cousin, sibling’s child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, stepparent, stepchild, stepsibling, half-sibling, or grandchild” will be used, instead.
Something to look forward to next Christmas: being able to see your “parent’s sibling”, your “sibling’s child” and your “sibling-in-law”.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: RT celebrates the 10 anti-woke media heroes of 2020.
Stop Press 2: RealClear Politics has a list of the top 10 suppressed news stories in 2020.
“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. Another reader has created an Android app which displays “I am exempt from wearing a face mask” on your phone. Only 99p, and he’s even said he’ll donate half the money to Lockdown Sceptics, so everyone wins.
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. See also the Swiss Doctor’s thorough review of the scientific evidence here.
Stop Press: Is the Government about to make face coverings mandatory in outdoor spaces? Yesterday’s edition of the World at One included an interview with Professor Catherine Noakes, who chairs the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours on SAGE and is supporting further measures. What SAGE wants, SAGE gets. Interview starts at 21m 10s.
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 in October 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 my Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over three quarters of a million signatures.
Update: The authors of the GBD 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. Sign up to the newsletter here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many legal cases being brought against the Government and its ministers we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
The Simon Dolan case has now reached the end of the road.
The current lead case is the Robin Tilbrook case which challenges whether the Lockdown Regulations are constitutional. 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 and Runnymede Trust’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.
And last but not least there was the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. A High Court judge refused permission for the FSU’s judicial review on December 9th and the FSU has decided not to appeal the decision because Ofcom has conceded most of the points it was making. Check here for details.
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.
Stop Press: Read Oliver Kamm in the Times on how he overcame clinical depression. He has written a book on the subject that’s out next week.
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…
Yes Minister anticipated the Nightingale Hospitals fiasco over 30 years ago. Watch this clip on YouTube of Jim Hacker visiting an empty hospital.
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I love these comedic pieces by IRons.
I do agree on how frustrating it is that so many Covid sceptics are unable to appreciate nuances in the Ukraine war. Wars have never been black and white before, and it’s naïve to think that for some reason this one is a historical exception.
Of course the media is aggressively pedalling a narrative, as they did with WMD in Iraq, and also with support for the Mujahedeen during the Soviet-Afghan war (remember the unbelievably accurate Rambo III).
Russia nor the West is the ‘good guy’ here. Ukraine is the geopolitical destination where they have chosen to do battle. NATO was expanding, Russia was countering by creating a ‘sphere of influence’ (Yanukovych was Putin’s man), and then the CIA decided to engineer the Euromaidan coup.
As if this wasn’t complicated enough, the Ukraine already has diverse demographics with pro-Russian and pro-European elements.
bio labs
one party, no free speech Uke state
Jewlensky and the kleptocracy (send money now or…)
money laundering to the criminal US political elite
endless wars for the criminal US military industry
NWO
Nazi Azov brigade….. but according to LRonHubbard the Uketopia is a democracy and the last hope. I think the Russians should copy all of this in say Mexico.
Oh FFS. Tell me you know nothing about Ukraine in one easy phrase.
Yeah but more importantly, is this Zalensky or has he been ‘deep-faked’? Please tell me it’s the latter because he looks way too comfortable in those stilettos!
Even BoJo couldn’t pull off getting elected if he had this camptastic skeleton lurking in his closet, and he’s a professional buffoon.
https://rumble.com/v1gyrgl-zalensky-bdsm-video.html
Hard hitting post laced with truths. Well done
“Kiev” isn’t the Russian form: they don’t use the same alphabet as us.
It’s the name of the city in English. Just as Florence is the English name for Firenze, and Londres is the French name for London.
I’m 62 and had never seen the city called Kyiv before last February.
Exactly. The Russian Cyrillic form of Kiev is Киев.
Agreed. I’ve used ‘Ukraine’ and ‘The Ukraine’ interchangeably for my entire life. ‘Kyiv’ is just a load of nonsense. Since when do you randomly change the spelling of cities in foreign countries because someone invaded it? Do I start calling Paris ‘Paree’ if someone from Berlin starts firing off a capgun in the middle of the street?
Do we start calling Helsinki ‘Helsingfors’ if a Russian decides to take a dump in one of their bathrooms?
It’s Kiev and it’s always been Kiev, the same as there was Kievan Rus centuries ago (which Putin wants to re-establish.) When the BBC was taking about ‘Harrr-heave’ (with lots of phlegm, I had to look it up. Turns out it’s Kharkov, which I’d always known of.
The Ukraine is the first real social media war with all the imbecilic virtue signalling associated with that particular cultural cancer.
If we’re not supposed to call it “the Ukraine” why does the MSM call it “the Donbas?”
In my experience, Ukrainians are happy to hear “the Ukraine”, because historically it referred to a region defined by purely natural characteristics (as opposed to a purely political entity defined by a disconnected elite). Ukrainians would rather ally themselves to a region to which they feel bound naturally.
I am proud to say I am born and bred in the Yorkshire Dales; in no way do I see the definite article as demeaning to the region or the people therein.
Load of fuss about nothing. Our Rons has fallen for it.
Same. I’m from the South West (of England). We’ve always called it ‘The South West.’ Sure it’s part of the Kingdom of England, which is part of the modern political entity called ‘The UK’, but my real loyalty is to the region.
Why is the West supporting Ukraine?
It’s definitely not because the West opposes armed aggression as a matter of principle, supports democracy and freedom or gives a toss about the horribly white Ukrainian people.
Waitrose still sell Chicken Kievs
And I’ve never seen Mumbai Mix.
Even M&S are calling the bloody things Kyivs.
I buy Birds Eye because they still call them Kiev. I feel pathetic doing it but can’t bring myself to buy the other ones. I guess I’m not more pathetic than all the virtue signalling.
They aren’t diffcult to make yourself …. then you can pick any name!
They’re a handy freezer standby for those ‘can’t be arsed’ days!
Or Mumbai Duck, Sapphire, Cat or aloo.
How is this long war going to end? With compromise? Or when one side totally destroys the other side?
If it’s going to end with compromise, why wait, why not compromise now, and save a lot of lives and destruction?
Yes please.
When the Ukrainian people realise that the West doesn’t care two figs about them and only wants to use their country as a proxy battlefield outside of Western territory to try to take down Russia, they’ll be within their rights to turn on the West. It’s so sad: I’d long hoped to visit Russia and the Ukraine. The hatreds that have been created here will take at least a century to die down
And where is our supranational wannabe-world dictatorship government, the UN, in all of this? They were fast enough to pile into the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The two sides should have been dragged to the negotiating table a year ago! Someone or someones are getting rich and powerful from all this…
100% correct
like Eisenhower warned the military industrial complex. me too want to visit russia the ukraine and kiev , i refuse to call it the new way.
Both sides are Soviets. The USSR was not a healthy society.
This war is, essentially, between Gorbachev/Yeltsin Soviets and Brezhnev Soviets.
And if you look at a map, Putin wants to incorporate Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and the Baltic States into a ‘Union State’ with an iron curtain stretching from Kaliningrad in the west to Izmail in the east.
We know this because he makes no secret of his intentions, supported by leaked Russian government documents.
He is backed, economically, by China and, to some extent, by India, Turkey.
So, essentially, any peace short of the full restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity promised by this country and the U.S.A. in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 is a win for Putin and China.
And a win for Putin is the de-europeanisation of occupied Ukrainian territory and de-europeanisation is described by Putin’s mouthpiece, RIA Novosti, as de-nazification.
So where, logically, does such a policy end……maybe a town nearer to you, vicar?
Tomorrow Moldova, a week next Thursday Russian marines arriving on Skegness beach to discover they’ve been beaten to it.
You total tit
You have embarrassed yourself.
Of course” leaked” Russian documents can’t possibly be misinformation, can they?
They certainly can be. And they can also be genuine. That is why individuals who have seen FSB documents before are used to assess their authenticity.
In much the same way that 51 “experts” assessed the Hunter Biden laptop?
The answer will be based on political expedience, not reality
I’m sure you are right.
These documents were, no doubt, fakes as well:
‘……classified intelligence from the Pentagon revealed details of Ukraine’s plans for a counteroffensive against Russia, as well as secret assessments of U.S. allies.
The latest leak includes material from the U.S. National Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Directorate for Intelligence.
The documents reveal the FSB’s behind-closed-doors accusations that officials in Russia’s Defense Ministry have been underreporting Russian troop casualties in Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
The FSB has also been critical of the Defense Ministry’s death toll not including casualties suffered by the Russian National Guard, the Wagner Group, or fighters under the command of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, the leak revealed.
In September, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that 5,937 Russian soldiers had been killed in Ukraine since the war began. No subsequent death toll from the Russian side has been made public since then.
The FSB “calculated the actual number of Russians wounded and killed in action was closer to 110,000,” one document cited by The New York Times reads.
Official U.S. estimates of Russian casualties over the past year total around 200,000. However, documents made public in the earlier leak put this figure somewhere between 189,500 and 223,000, including as many as 43,000 dead.
While The New York Times was unable to independently verify the documents, U.S. officials consulted on the matter did not dispute the information revealed.
The security breach, which has embarrassed Washington and shaken its allies, has given observers a rare insight into how the Pentagon’s intelligence gathering works in Russia. Most significantly, it appears to show that U.S. intelligence has penetrated nearly every branch of the Russian military including the General Staff, the Defense Ministry, Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, and the notorious mercenary group Wagner.’
The Moscow Times 13 Apr 23
..not forgetting their third largest customer…the EU…. Who have spent around €40 billion on Russian energy……
Nothing like that was promised in the Budapest Memorandum, no matter how many times you try to pretend it was…or try to twist it to your purpose…
”assurances, unlike guarantees, do not impose a legal obligation of military assistance on its parties. It gives signatories justification if they take action, but it does not force anyone to act in Ukraine…”
The United States refuses to sign or to ratify foundational international laws and treaties that the vast majority of countries in the world have signed, such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), ( even though the ‘warrant’ for Putin was issued at their behest… CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women), ICESCR (the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights), CRC (the Convention on the Rights of the Child), ICRMW (the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families), UNCLOS (the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea), PAROS (the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space), the Ottawa Treaty (the Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention), and many more….
There are also a slew of international treaties the United States has signed, but simply violates anyway: examples include the Biological Weapons Convention, UN treaties prohibiting torture, rendition and kidnapping and of course, wars of aggression which are considered ”the supreme international crime”—a crime that the United States engages in routinely at least once a decade, not to mention routine drone attacks, which are in violation of international law. Most recently, the AUKUS Agreement signed between the United States and Australia violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by exploiting a blind spot of the (IAEA).
I could go on, but of course there is no equanimity here..only one is doing something wrong and one is always innocent and right..apparently …..
Both sides are Soviets. One is backed by China. One is backed by the U.S.A.
Which side are you on?
For the past 45 years I have been well read on modern world events and modern history and obtain my information from a variety of “trusted” sources.
I compare this information to the lies, propaganda and omissions from Western governments and their “presstitutes” in the main stream media to formulate a well informed opinion.
I find some of the current Russian media and independent Western alternative media are more trustworthy than the Western main stream media.
Consequently, having been well informed on the situation in Ukraine, I find Russia were provoked by the US and Nato and I support their actions against Ukraine which are more legal and more justified than the US/Nato similar actions against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. etc. etc.
How will the war end?
Only 200,000 members of the Russian army are currently fighting, and about 400,000 to 600,000 are waiting in reserve for the Ukraine attack. While they wait they are in constant training; so waiting works to Russia’s advantage.
Once the famous “counter-offensive” peters out, Ukraine will be hit with massive force. There will be no negotiated settlement. Only unconditional surrender.
Dead right. The tragedy is the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands in support of this proxy war.
Another long update last night from a Russian volunteer on the battle situation in and around Bakhmut.
He says the Ukrainians have massive superiority in air recon and “unlimited shell supply”, softening targets before any infantry advances.
He confirms officer kills in the 4th Brigade of the DPR yesterday.
The defensive lines built by Russia are too weak and shallow, some of the trenches only knee deep.
The defensive lines are too wide to be covered by fire across their frontage.
So believe what you will because you will see……
What will we see, Monro? Genuine question, I think I agree with your assertion that Russia is not at all incapable and is quite far from being exhausted.
There are only two options. It is not complicated.
Deluded ranker
You have embarrassed yourself again.
Is this volunteer fighting in the front line? If so, I call bulls**t on his claims. It is impossible for an individual soldier to draw any conclusion about “the situation on the battlefield”, especially in a complex, rapidly changing urban situation like Artemovsk.
He’s been right before.
Go on, when and with what?
‘Of course, the infantry have nothing but the R-159 to communicate with tanks. Tankmen and artillerymen along the whole frontline are frantically looking for at least some portable radios operating in the 30-50 MHz range. Things that the KTsPN [Novorissiya volunteer organisation] brought before 2022 immediately became a drop in the ocean of “things urgently needed yesterday”. And of course, it’s not even about the numbers of the R-159s, but about the amounts of decent batteries for them, and the number of charging devices. Old ones, god knows when made. Replaced by devices such as Imax B6, but these Imax B6 still need to be bought and brought and people taught how to use them.
However, signalmen from the tank battalion called next, and now I realise that no one will survive until the problem with radios actually emerges, since headsets have run out too. And no, dear reader, a headset is not a cloth cap with foam inserts protecting the head of a tankman. It’s a cloth cap with foam inserts in which a tank intercom device is installed, which connects to the intercom via the appropriate connector. And through this intercom the tankman speaks to other crewmen, and if necessary gets into radio contact with other vehicles, infantry or command. Head phones, throat phones, etc. This all has run out. The working “stuffing” of the headsets has run out. Everything possible has already been taken off the winter headsets and put into the summer ones. And that ran out too. And there are no supplies.
You already know everything about the intercom tangents, I covered the topic many times.
So, in principle, there are no doubts about the fate of the remnants of the “tank relics”. Without communications, these miserable remnants will be finished off.’
‘Why is everything so slow and difficult?
A lot of people are wondering why is the war in the Donbass being fought so slowly? Why the offensive in the Donbass has begun, but after taking Pisky it’s not really moving forward? Why did they say ten times as if the enemy was running from Siversk and abandoning it, but Siversk is still not taken? Why so slow?
Fine, I’ll act as an explanatory brigade, although I wrote about this already. Even Strelkov talks about this day after day mentioning the personalities and events of the First World War that are widely known in close circles.
It’s actually pretty simple. Due to presence and constant replenishment of military air defence in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including MANPADS, there is no complete superiority of our aviation in the air, and it’s unlikely to happen soon. Accordingly, it is not possible to hang in the air over the front line of the enemy and destroy all of their vehicles and all artillery positions. Accordingly, we come to the conclusion that both a successful offensive with a breakthrough of the enemy’s defence, and a successful defence with the ability to stop such breakthroughs come from the presence of artillery, the ammunition needed for it, its controllability, mobility, accuracy, range, and more, more, and more. If you do not conduct encircling operations, then you are not destroying the enemy’s most valuable resource – their experienced military managers, their experienced military signalmen and their experienced artillerymen. If a cauldron is closed then all these people either go for a breakthrough and, with your correct approach to suppressing it, for the most part die or surrender. If you create a threat of an encirclement, but do not close it, these people dump all their metal and leave the encirclement on cars, taking with them the most important thing – their experience.
– What do I need the sights for, son?! – the Colonel interrupted bitterly. – What do I need the sights for, my dear fellow … There will be guns, but not people…
It doesn’t take much time to prepare new infantry, “any infantry”, just to drive them into the trenches instead of those knocked out – two weeks of “training” and a person will be able to play “pow-pow”. He will not resist a competent assault, but how many “competent assaulters” do we have now?
But the new skilful, trained and experienced artillery officers and signalmen do not lie on the road and do not grow on trees in the forest. It takes a lot of time. If you knock them out, degradation of enemy’s speed and quality of control and fire damage will begin. But how to knock them out? Only with encirclement operations, with cauldrons with dense walls, from where the only way out is to the cemetery or to the prisoner of war camp. Do we have such operations? Apart from the capture of “Azov” in Mariupol, we have no such operations. This means that there will be an exchange of infantry in positional battles, and the coefficient of the exchange depends on the quality of control and fire damage on our part.’
Totally incomprehensible.
‘….there are no doubts about the fate of the remnants of the “tank relics”. Without communications, these miserable remnants will be finished off.’
Correct.
‘…there will be an exchange of infantry in positional battles….’
Correct
It will end when USA does another Afghanistan.
Or Vietnam.
Bit of a track record …..
Is Ian Rons there in order to prove that The Daily Sceptic is pro free speech, or do the guys actually take his ad hominem arguments seriously? He never deals in terms of the fundamental issues.
The one thing I am sure of is that I don’t believe any of them.
Not a fan of Putin.
But Zelensky seems dodgier than a nine bob note (did he get to speak at Eurovision by the way?).
I feel for ordinary Russians and ordinary Ukrainians.
The article above has a whiff of protesting too much.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this war, like WW1 and WW2, is essentially about killing and mutilating lots of white Christian men.
Yet more inane drivel Ian Rons
I’m not pro Putin. I am against foreign wars of aggression started by America masquerading as NATO and paid for by me and the rest of the British taxpayers. However if a national leader was to say publicly “mothers are women and fathers are men” I might feel well disposed towards them, as opposed to the snivelling charlatans that sit in the House of Commons.
I’m so pleased the downvoter got around to sneaking in his opinion. He doesn’t seem to be getting much traction.
There’s scarcely anything more unappealing than sanctimony, especially when it is spread over more than 30 paragraphs.
On a different tack, was the fact that Zelensky’s Charlemagne award fell on the floor during his thank-you diatribe an omen?
Thanks, Ian Rons, for another interesting piece challenging the ‘Team James’ view on this topic. I think you’re probably right.
Reading through other comments on this thread, however, I’m perplexed. Having opposed the authoritarianism experienced in the West in recent yrs, what’s the point of then effectively supporting the even worse authoritarianism of Putin’s regime – like so many of the black-pilled nihilists commenting on this thread seem to do?
.
Most of the people you refer to belong to the same organisation, or similar organisations, all adding to the gaiety of the nation!
Thanks, Monro. But what organization or organizations do you mean?
‘That Russia serves as a reliable cash machine for Europe’s far-right political forces has long been an open secret.’
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/russia-ukraine-war-putin-europe-far-right-funding-conservatives/
‘Britain First’s links to Russia and support for Putin go far beyond what they are now claiming.’
https://hopenothate.org.uk/2022/05/03/putins-british-mouthpiece-britain-first-leader-paul-goldings-long-history-of-pro-putin-propagandising/
A pathetic reply like that could only have come from WEF Wales.. another parasite hanging onto the taxes of English tax payers.. FO..
” It doesn’t seem to occur to Calvin that if a lot of Brexiteering, lockdown-sceptical, free-thinking people like me think differently to him about Ukraine, then maybe we might just have a point – especially when those who know Russia best, like Konstantin Kisin, are pretty adamant about it.”
———–
I didn’t watch Calvin Robinson. Personally, I prefer an arrangement whereby if I want to be preached at, I go to church – where I can listen to the prattlings of people like him, or Welby, based on their biased and very selective extractions from a book compiled several millennia ago by people unknown who also “had an agenda.”
I do take issue with the extract I’ve quoted above. Interesting and intelligent though Konstantin Kisin undoubtedly is, he can’t be included in a group called “Brexiteering, lockdown-sceptical, let alone free thinking when it comes to Ukraine.
He didn’t vote for Brexit, he has stated several times that he voted Remain. His lockdown-scepticism was a little belated and he has made it perfectly clear that his personal family history has (quite naturally) had a major influence on his attitude towards Ukraine, Russia and Putin. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t provide some insight into the conflict, but “free-thinking” it most definitely ain’t.
“The definite article in “the Ukraine” pre-dates the Soviet Union, but it’s been dropped in English and in Russian because it later came to imply ownership of Ukraine by Russia, as Ukraine was “the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic” before it became independent in 1991.”
Wrong. The Russian language does not have the definite article. This is only an issue in English.
And we speak English.
I used to attend Clatterbridge Hospital on the Wirral, as we locals refer to it.
I think I would worry a lot less about anything Calvin says when the goofy royals are virtue signalling like mad. The caped dresses on Kate and her daughter like something from a creepy movie, Kate in her Ukrainian blue dress playing the piano on Eurovision show. The carpeting in the church where the coronation took place, blue and yellow. honestly when your “king” and his handlers virtue signal like this, you better wake up folks, things are going to get messy.
So.. so right.. the bar-stewards are going for it now.. and it needs to be recognised..
I wish you had given us the 20 pence version of that ramble. It would have saved both you and I a lot of time.
Yeah he does go on a bit!
He’s only trying to get his
pointbull across guys..Replace the nouns Covid and EV’s and you have Ukraine. Bombarded with more lies from the media and the elites. 30000 more churches in Russia under Putin, whilst Satan’s acolyte Welby gleefully closes ours.
‘All I said was this war has to stop’
I seem to remember John Lennon (and so many others) singing something similar.
Would be great if it worked…….
The Donald had it spot on.
What a lot of words. Jesus, Trump cut to the heart of it “I want them to stop dying.” Yes there’ll be conditions and it’s pretty obvious what those will be: Crimea stays Russian, Donbas is left ambiguous with low-level violence, Nato gets lost. That may be unjust, especially insofar as those bastard, depraved war criminals don’t receive the justice due to them, but it’s reality. Ukraine isn’t our responsibility because we don’t run the world and shouldn’t want to. Our meddling is anyway prolonging the suffering and raising the risk of direct war.
As a general rule, it appears safer to avoid and ignore religious zealots.
Is ‘the’ or ‘not the’ Ukraine with its chicken Kyiv, or is it chykvin kevov- still the Latest Thing we are all to care so deeply and passionately about? Must I put my flag back up?
I thought is was passé – they didn’t even win the Eurovision Freak Contest this year.
Who is ‘Ian Rons’ ?
A to$$er.. sorry.. but the truth must out..
Today…LOL!
KyivPost
@KyivPost
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has detained the head of the Supreme Court, Vsevolod Knyasev for accepting a bribe of $2.7 million…
Ian artfully skirts over the Euromaidan revolution of 2014, a colour revolution whipped up by television if ever there was one. It transparently served the purposes of the State Department and the European Commission. NATO (oops, The NATO) must expand into the Ukraine to defend it from Russian expansionism. Moreover, The EU (oops, EU I mean) must extend its hard border up to Russia to integrate the Russian and Ukrainian economies with… er what?
Oh, and the television news channels which did the whipping were owned by the oligarch Petro Poroshenko. This is a war for the Blob.
Almost immediately lockdown restrictions ended, the war in the Ukraine started and Archbishop Welby sent his nauseating letter to be read out to all Church of England parishes telling congregations exactly how the conflict was to be interpreted and who was ‘the bad guy.’ Good on Calvin Robinson for presenting a different and more nuanced view. As for the so-called ‘genocidal’ Russian Orthodox church, a read of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago is in order to see how abysmally the Russian Orthodox, its clergy and faithful were treated under the Soviet Regime – a Regime that, according to Anthony Sutton’s extensive research, was backed by Western financial and big business interests. Who’s genocidal?
Rather than taking sides, how about calling out the interests promoting war: the Military-Industrial Complex, the banks financing it, the commercial interests seeking to monopolise Europe’s gas supplies, the Chinese Communist Party to whom Russia, now alienated from the West, is obliged to sell its natural resources, the USA, whose world dominance has historically depended on East-West division between Europe and Asia, governments seeking a distraction from the ongoing financial collapse and effects of their COVID policies, the Biden family looking to cover-up its money-laundering, etc….
I’ve just listened to the debate on this issue between Toby and James Delingpole on London Calling. First of all I would say that there is no good reason for a media service like The Daily Sceptic to take a position on political issues such as the Ukraine war. It’s job is surely to expose the arguments and leave readers to draw their own conclusions. I would support Ian Rons or anyone else making a case and defending it with evidence rather than slurs. There is therefore no need for Toby to attempt to be even handed between his contributors such that each has their say – his editorial job is surely to ensure that anyone contributing is making a proper evidence based case, and not, as the Daily Sceptic, adopting a particular position on Ukraine, Bridgen, the shots or anything else. The evidence will do the job of ferreting out the truth.
Maybe I’m looking at the past through rose tinted glasses, but 40 or 50 tears ago, wasn’t this the way the press behaved? Sure, different papers did have different political leanings but this didn’t mean that all they did was support the political narrative.