Laurence Fox Runs for London Mayor on Anti-Lockdown Platform
Actor-turned-activist Laurence Fox, who shot to national prominence last year when he challenged an audience member on Question Time for describing him as a “white privileged male”, has announced his candidacy for the London Mayoralty. The Sunday Telegraph has the exclusive.
Laurence Fox is to fight Sadiq Khan in the upcoming Mayor of London elections, vowing to “offer a voice to those who are being dominated into silence”.
The actor and leader of the anti-Woke Reclaim Party has revealed to The Telegraph that he is entering the race for City Hall as part of the fight against “extreme political correctness”.
Mr Fox will also fight on a platform for lifting lockdown as soon as he is elected in May rather than waiting until June, when all restrictions are due to be removed.
The news came as new polling showed a significant minority of Londoners are uncomfortable about the London Mayor’s ‘woke’ policies such as his review of statues.
One in four voters in the capital thought Mr Khan was “too woke” – although 27% found him “not woke enough”.
A similar proportion – 25% – were against a review ordered by Mr Khan into whether statues should be removed because of links to slavery or colonialism, against 39% in favour.
Mr Fox hopes that his push to end lockdown sooner will see him win votes from Mr Khan, who launched his re-election campaign last week and has been noticeably keener to go further with lockdowns than the Conservative government.
The survey, conducted by Savanta ComRes among 1,000 people in London in late February for the Reclaim Party, found that 25% of Londoners wanted lockdown lifted by the end of this month. Some 58% wanted it gone by the end of May. Among Londoners aged 18-34, the latter figure rises to 63%.
The poll reveals shifting public concern over the economic impact of lockdown in London. More people than not are concerned about losing their job (43% concerned to 35% unconcerned) and 75% say that they expect small businesses in their area to close permanently as a result of the pandemic.
Mr Fox said: “I am standing for London mayor. With almost all older and vulnerable people having got their jab, I want the lockdown lifted straight away. The Government has said vaccines are working, hospitalisations and deaths are tumbling, but we are still being told we won’t be able to resume normal life until mid-summer at the earliest.”
“Both the main parties are competing in this dreary race to be the last to set the country free. Both Tory and Labour have got this badly wrong. I want London – and indeed the rest of the country – to be allowed to get back to work and play immediately – not by late June.”
Many readers of Lockdown Sceptics have been complaining that they feel politically homeless, given the support for the lockdown by the three main political parties and the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum and it looks as though a leader has emerged.
Worth reading in full.
Variants Schmariants
One of the four tests underpinning the roadmap out of Lockdown is that new “variants of concern” do not create unforeseen risks. Should we be worried about new variants derailing the reopening? In a widely reported interview with the Times, Professor Sharon Peacock, head of the COVID-19 Genomics UK scientific body, says no. Here is the report of the interview from Sky.
Professor Sharon Peacock, who is in charge of tracking strains of the virus in Britain, said the country is well equipped to “stay ahead” by adapting vaccines quickly.
The head of the COVID-19 Genomics UK scientific body told the Times she was “very optimistic” that immunisation would allow Britain to ease restrictions as planned. …
Prof Peacock told the Times: “I’m very optimistic that the vaccines will be rolled out, that they’ll be effective, and that we’ll be in a better place by the summer and autumn.’
“I think we’ve got the capabilities to stay ahead by adapting vaccines, and so I’m an optimist.”
New variants are “very unlikely to send us back to square one”, she added.
Nature highlights a new study, still only in preprint, which suggests that the four key variants – UK, South African, Californian and Brazilian – will have a hard time evading T Cells.
Emerging coronavirus variants do not seem to elude important immune-system players called T cells, laboratory studies suggest.
Some recently discovered SARS-CoV-2 variants can partially evade antibodies generated in response to vaccination and previous infection, raising fears that vaccines will be less effective against the variants than against the original strain of the virus. Alessandro Sette and Alba Grifoni at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California and their colleagues looked at whether these variants’ mutations might also help them to evade T cells — a component of the immune system that is particularly important for reducing the severity of infectious diseases
The team collected T cells from volunteers who had either recovered from infection with the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain or had received an mRNA coronavirus vaccine. The researchers then tested the cells’ ability to recognise protein snippets from four emerging variants, including the B.1.351 variant first identified in South Africa.
Most of the volunteers’ T cells recognised all four variants, thanks to viral protein snippets that were unaffected by the variants’ mutations. The results suggest that T cells could target these variants.
From the discussion section of the paper itself:
The present study addresses a key knowledge gap pertaining to the potential of emergent SARS-CoV-2 variants to evade recognition by human immune responses. We focused on T cell responses elicited by either natural infection or vaccination with the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. We found negligible effects on both CD4+ or CD8+ T cell responses to all four variants investigated, to include the B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P.1 and CAL.20C variants found in the UK, South Africa, Brazil and California, respectively. …
The data provide some positive news in light of justified concern over the impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern on efforts to control and eliminate the present pandemic. Undoubtedly, several of the variants are associated with increased transmissibility, and also have been associated with decreased susceptibility to neutralising antibodies from infected or vaccinated individuals. In contrast, the data presented here suggests that T cell responses are largely unaffected by the variants.
Home Testing is a Waste of Time
A Lockdown Sceptics reader has written in to flag up Dr Martin Scurr’s view of home testing in the Daily Mail
In an ideal world, all tests would be 100% accurate – but they aren’t. And when it comes to determining whether you are carrying COVID-19, you need to be able to have faith in the results.
Yet the Innova lateral flow tests, which we are told will be sent out to those with children at school or college, as well as to bus drivers and teachers, are barely fit for purpose. They were recently tried out in a mass-testing exercise in Liverpool, but failed to detect 60% of cases.
The issue lies largely with the way the test is used. I’ve never yet seen one done properly on news bulletins. The swab should be passed backwards along the floor of the nose (i.e., parallel to the soles of the feet) for about the length of a matchstick. This is unpleasant.
The proposal to increase home testing underestimates the potential harms if faulty data is collected; it will only be of value if asymptomatic people who are infectious are detected and isolated, and their contacts traced.
There is a solution to this emerging chaos: abandon the Innova tests and utilise the simple saliva test, which is widely used in Austria.
Stop Press: There’s a risk the majority of positives detected by the lateral flow tests in schools will be false, according to the Telegraph, reporting on a new paper.
Children may be wrongly kept off school because there is a risk that the “majority” of positive cases detected by the Government’s lateral flow tests “could be false positives”, experts have warned.
Ministers have distributed 57 million of the tests to schools in England as Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday declared the reopening of classrooms a “truly national effort to beat this virus”.
However Sheila Bird, a member of the Royal Statistical Society that produced a new paper on the accuracy of lateral flow tests, said on Saturday every positive quick-result test of a school pupil should be double checked with a PCR test to ensure it was accurate.
A false positive occurs when someone who doesn’t have COVID-19 is wrongly told by the test they have the virus.
The paper, published on Friday, also warns the opposite – that 60 per cent of positive cases may be missed by the tests, meaning people could be inadvertently spreading the virus among peers.
Worth reading in full.
Vaccine Passports Make a Mockery of Consent
There has been a growing movement in favour of vaccine passports and they are currently – under the name of Covid-status certificates – being considered by the Government as a means “of reopening the economy, reducing restrictions on social contact and improving safety”. Today we’re publishing an original piece by a post-doc in the arts at a Russell Group university who argues that vaccine passports violate the principle of free and informed consent, as set out in the Nuremberg Code. Here are the opening paragraphs:
I once read a children’s story about a princess who wanted to write a book. Unfortunately, she couldn’t write, and sales were disappointingly low. The king then announced (I quote from memory):
that the people must have their choice. And so he issued a proclamation which gave all citizens a choice of:
a) Buying a copy of the princess’s book
Or
b) Going to prison for one yearSales boomed.
Buying a bad book and receiving a vaccination are different things, and prison has not yet been proposed for those who do not receive a COVID-19 vaccine. But that children’s story wittily makes the point that any tyranny could be justified by a certain definition of ‘choice’, and I recalled it when I read Guy de la Bédoyère’s recent article on this site:
‘“I’ll lay my cards on the table. I am going to be vaccinated as soon as I can. That is my choice, and I am glad that it is my choice.
“I accept for example that in order to protect other people I needed to learn to drive and to have a driving licence to prove it. Similarly, I accept the normal passport as a means of proving who I am and protecting me and everyone else from maniacs and others not entitled to come to this country. I also accept that there are consequences of making choices. If I choose not to have a driving licence, then I would have to accept I cannot drive on a public road. And I doubt if anyone would want me to. If I chose freely not to have a passport then I would not be allowed to travel. So, I have no problem with the notion of vaccine choice as another facet of choice with consequences. I grew up at a time when large numbers of children had polio, a disease that gradually dwindled away as a result of the vaccine program.“That is all about freedom of choice…“
Here I attempt to lay out the basic case against the ‘vaccination certificates’ currently suggested, by various people, for everything from international travel to shopping. These proposals differ qualitatively as well as in degree.
Not a driving licence
Justifying comparisons along the lines of driving licences or hard hats do not resolve the issue, because there is a qualitative difference: this is not a proficiency test or a piece of clothing, it is a medical procedure.
That medical procedures require the explicit and free consent of the individual concerned, is accepted by legal authorities and international bodies.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Israel has already rolled out a vaccine passport scheme which operates through an app. It’s a bit of a disaster, according to a recent report in Hareetz, and might not even do the job for which it was designed:
Cryptographers and information security experts who examined the official mobile app for Israel’s “Green Pass”, a Government-validated certificate for Israelis who have received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine, have found a string of flaws that pose a threat to its functionality. …
Initially the app was supposed to be extremely simple and quick but the final product, experts and users says, is heavy and slow, taking up a large amount of memory. Moreover, the choice to use closed (as opposed to open) source code and the lack of involvement by security and privacy specialists has also caused concern among developers. Security experts and cryptographers who examined the app’s code have discovered several problems that cast doubts on the reliability of its verification that someone has been vaccinated.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press 2: Vaccine passports are only a temporary solution and should die out in due course, according to André Rogaczewski, Chief Executive of Netcompany, which has received contracts to develop a certification system. Andrew Bud, Chief Executive of iProov, which is also working on certification, is less sure: “If, on the other hand, Covid continues to flare up and become more transmissible, it’s possible that . . . vaccine certificates will be a routine part of daily life.”
Stop Press 3: The Adventure Island theme park in Southend-on-Sea has adopted what might well turn out to be a winning recruitment strategy: An absolute rejection of ‘No Jab, No Job’, as the Southend Echo reports.
James Miller, Operations Director at Adventure Island, told the Echo: “Let there be no misunderstanding. Adventure Island is not against taking the jab nor are we encouraging people not to have it.
“Both my Dad (Philip Miller) and my cousin Marc, Managing Director, have taken the vaccine, so our position has nothing to do with the jab itself.
“It is the bullying, peer pressure, invasion of privacy, and the fact that it is not our right to tell people what to do with their bodies, that we cannot condone as a company.”
Watch James Miller’s interview with Mike Graham on talkRADIO here.
Protest in Stockholm
Sweden has been famously light on lockdown restrictions, but the Government has gradually been tightening them. The rules remain rather lenient by comparison with the UK, but they were tight enough to bring protesters out on the streets of Stockholm yesterday as MailOnline reports.
Hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters clashed with police in Stockholm on Saturday as they took to the streets in defiance of Sweden’s coronavirus ban on gatherings.
Swedish police dispersed opponents of coronavirus measures that came after the government – which initially took a hands-off approach to COVID-19 rules – tightened restrictions further as cases continue to rise.
The tighter measures come after Sweden this week reported a 10% rise in the number of COVID-19 cases for a third week in a row, increasing fears that the country is in its third wave of the virus.
Police blocked a bridge in the centre of the city and said on their website they were in dialogue with organisers to persuade demonstrators to disperse. TV images showed police shoving some protesters, while the police said one officer had been slightly injured and taken to hospital.
“Police have taken the decision to break up the non-authorised gathering which is ongoing,” Stockholm police said on their website on Saturday.
Earlier this week, protest organiser Filip Sjöström told local media that he was expecting around 2,000 people to join the demonstration, which had been announced on Facebook.
TV images showed hundreds of people had gathered. According to Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, demonstrators had travelled from several parts of Sweden, which has a ban on public gatherings of more than eight people.
Worth reading in full.
Ontario Doctor Cautioned for lockdown scepticism
Last week, Ontario Pediatrician Dr Kulvinder Kaur Gill was cautioned by the College of Physicians and Surgeons for her “inappropriate”, “irresponsible” and “unprofessional” tweets last year about COVID-19. Global News has the details.
An Ontario doctor has been cautioned by the College of Physicians and Surgeons for social media posts about COVID-19 that were deemed inaccurate and irresponsible.
Dr. Kulvinder Gill was issued three cautions for “inappropriate” and “unprofessional” statements she posted on Twitter that claimed neither lockdowns nor vaccines were necessary.
The Brampton doctor had claimed there was “absolutely no medical or scientific reason for this prolonged, harmful and illogical lockdown”, the College wrote in one of the decisions.
She had also written that “we don’t need a vaccine”, and shared a Tweet claiming that contact tracing, testing and isolation were “ineffective, naïve & counter-productive against COVID-19″.
The College’s complaints committee cautioned Gill for all three posts, citing a “lack of professionalism and failure to exercise caution in her posts on social media, which is irresponsible behaviour for a member of the profession and presents a possible risk to public health”.
Worth reading in full.
The regulator’s decision makes for interesting reading. Of course there is evidence that lockdowns work, it argued, citing China and South Korea, even though South Korea didn’t impose a nationwide lockdown.
The complaint referred to a tweet the Respondent posted that states: “There is absolutely no medical or scientific reason for this prolonged, harmful and illogical lockdown.” The Committee found this tweet inappropriate and unprofessional for the following reasons:
The Committee accepts that there is a range of views about the effectiveness of using provincial lockdown as a means of controlling the spread of COVID-19. The Committee has no interest in shutting down free speech or in preventing physicians from expressing criticism of public health policy. It is valid to point out that there are drawbacks to lockdown. It is also valid to question whether the benefits outweigh the negative aspects or whether the measure is working as expected in Ontario
The Respondent did not raise these points in her tweet, however. She stated unequivocally and without providing any evidence that there is no medical or scientific reason for the lockdown. Her statement does not align with the information coming from public health, and moreover, it is not accurate. The lockdowns in China and South Korea provide evidence that lockdowns can and did work in reducing the spread of COVID-19. For the Respondent to state otherwise is misinformed and misleading and furthermore an irresponsible statement to make on social media during a pandemic.
There’s nothing wrong with Dr Gill’s colleagues disagreeing with her on lockdowns, even if some of them are hopelessly misinformed about virus containment measures in South Korea. But the issue extends beyond that, as Professor Martin Kulldorff points out.
Gill, the co-founder of the advocacy group Concerned Ontario Doctors, is expected to appeal the decision. Her twitter feed remains on point.
America’s National Restaurant Association Condemns CDC Report
As day follows night, so the announcement that some states – Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, Montana and North Dakota – are dropping their mask mandates and reopening restaurants was followed by an academic study from the CDC demonstrating how useful masks are in suppressing the spread of COVID-19 and singling out restaurants as a site of infection. Here’s NBC News with the details:
A new national study adds strong evidence that mask mandates can slow the spread of the coronavirus, and that allowing dining at restaurants can increase cases and deaths.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Friday.
“All of this is very consistent,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House briefing on Friday. “You have decreases in cases and deaths when you wear masks, and you have increases in cases and deaths when you have in-person restaurant dining.”
The study was released just as some states are rescinding mask mandates and restaurant limits. Earlier this week, Texas became the biggest state to lift its mask rule, joining a movement by many governors to loosen COVID-19 restrictions despite pleas from health officials.
“It’s a solid piece of work that makes the case quite strongly that in-person dining is one of the more important things that needs to be handled if you’re going to control the pandemic,” said William Hanage, a Harvard University expert on disease dynamics who was not involved in the study.
The new research builds on smaller CDC studies, including one that found that people in ten states who became infected in July were more likely to have dined at a restaurant and another that found mask mandates in ten states were associated with reductions in hospitalisations.
The CDC researchers looked at US counties placed under state-issued mask mandates and at counties that allowed restaurant dining – both indoors and at tables outside. The study looked at data from March through December of last year.
Worth reading in full.
The National Restaurant Association responded Robustly.
As vaccination rates continue to rise and indoor dining capacity in many states is increasing, it is critical that diners have reliable information about the safety of restaurant dining. The report issued by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today is more an ill-informed attack on the industry hardest-hit by the pandemic than a reliable piece of scientific research.
In its own publication, the CDC notes numerous flaws in the report. First, although research models did control for mask mandates, restaurant and bar closures, stay-at-home orders, and gathering bans, the models did not control for other policies that might affect case and death rates, including other types of business closures, physical distancing recommendations, policies issued by localities, and variances granted by states to certain counties (some variances were not made publicly available).
As a result, the observed phenomena could be attributable to myriad variables.
Furthermore, correlation does not equal causation. For example, if a positive correlation between ice cream sales and shark attacks is found, that would not mean that ice cream causes shark attacks. For restaurants, customer behaviour outside the venue remains the major contributing factor in COVID-19 transmission.
Second, the CDC did not measure compliance with and enforcement of safe operating policies. We still do not find evidence of a systemic spread of the coronavirus coming from restaurants who are effectively following our COVID-19 Operating Guidance, encouraging guests and employees to wear masks, social distance, and practice good hand hygiene. In effect, this lack of a direct correlation should be evidence that, when restaurants apply effective mitigation efforts, the transmission risk is low when dining outside or inside.
Finally, the analysis did not differentiate between indoor and outdoor dining, adequacy of ventilation, or adherence to physical distancing and occupancy requirements.
Stop Press: In a reminder that people don’t actually need a Government order to wear masks, CBS news reports that most retailers will continue to require them on their premises
Stop Press 2: The Daily Mail reports that the people of Mississippi have hit the streets mask free after the mandate was lifted on March 3rd.
Stop Press 3: Alabama has bucked the trend, extending the mandate by a month
Changes Coming to Lockdown Sceptics
From tomorrow, you’ll see some changes at Lockdown Sceptics. Email subscribers will still receive a daily update that looks similar to the one they get at the moment, but visitors to the website will see a rolling news blog, constantly updated throughout the day, rather than a static page. The option to view it in its present form will still be available – you’ll just have to click on a button at the top that says “Today’s Update” – but the home page will be different.
Our reasons for doing this are partly to make it easier to comment on and share individual stories, but also so we don’t have to take turns to stay up until dawn every day to prepare the daily update. The update subscribers will receive, and which will still be viewable on the site, will consist of a newly refreshed version of everything from the Round-Up on downwards and all the stories that have been posted to the rolling news blog in the previous 24 hours.
We still plan to bring you plenty of original articles, like today’s one about vaccine passports, as well as analysis by Toby and Will Jones, readers’ comments, poems, and so on.
If all restrictions – or nearly all – are lifted on June 21st, we will switch from a daily to a weekly update, but continue to post stories to the rolling news blog every day. And if, God forbid, the lockdown is reimposed in the Autumn, we’ll restore the daily updates.
Round-up
- “COVID-19: Is school mask and testing policy flawed?” – The BBC’s Nick Triggle explains why school testing could do more harm than good, and how the mask policy might have opened a can of worms
- “COVID-19: Public urged to join slow handclap protest as nursing unions being strike discussions over pay row” – Sky News reports that people are once again being called to their doorsteps to clap for carers, but slowly this time in protest at their meagre pay rise. Perhaps the Treasury could find them an extra few quid by cutting the last few months of furlough
- “Car insurance might be void if you have an accident caused by the side effects of a coronavirus vaccine, lawyers warn” – The Telegraph reports a warning in respect of a potential consequence of vaccine side effects
- “Tony Blair dismissed pandemic fears as ‘panpanics’ and did ‘minimum’ to prepare for flu crisis” – The Telegraph reports on the great man’s scepticism while he was in office
- “Worship of Science” – Yanoson Rosenblum reflects on the consequences of the modern-day worship of science for Mishpacha. “The current pandemic” he writes, “is likely the result of science gone mad”
- “Legacy of the Lockdown and Experts?” – In the latest episode or Irreverend, the Revs Tom, Jamie and Daniel consider whether lockdowns will be the end of experts
- “First great apes at US zoo receive COVID-19 vaccine made for animals” – National Geographic reports that the vaccine rollout has now been extended to animals
- “Vindication for Ron DeSantis” – The media vilified Florida Governer Ron DeSantis for rejecting lockdowns, says Allysia Finley in the Wall Street Journal, but the state’s Covid numbers are better than California’s or New York’s and its economy is thriving
- “Fact-Checking Facebook’s Fact Checkers” – Good editorial in the Wall Street Journal criticising Facebook’s ‘fact-check’ its recent op-ed on how the US is nearing herd immunity
- “The Contradictions of Vaccine Politics” – Australian Paul Collits examines the internal contradictions of the Covidocracy for the Freedoms Project
- “Windsor court ruling puts COVID-19 ‘hoax’ belief at centre of custody fight” – Views on Covid have become a custody issue in Ontario, Canada, according to CBC
- “Sweden is a success story and the rest of the world should emulate it” – Video by arch-sceptic Hector Drummond on the 2020 all-cause death rate for Sweden which was only slightly elevated by comparison with previous years
- “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” – Dr. Jay Bhattacharya returns to the Ricochet podcast with the actor Lawrence Fox to talk about plans for reopening
- “Our freedoms will not be ended by a jackboot, the algorithms are watching and will just switch us off” – Former MSP Brian Monteith recounts his experience of being silenced by Facebook in the Mail on Sunday and pays tribute to the Free Speech Union for intervening successfully on his behalf
- “David Perks, the Principal who refused to mask his pupils, is subjected to ‘bully boy tactics’” – The department of education is threatening to withdraw support for his school’s 6th form lease – so it could close – unless he U-turns
Theme Tunes Suggested by Readers
Sixteen today: “God Put A Smile Upon Your Face” by Coldplay, “Kernkraft 400“, the song from Shaun of the Dead by Zombie Nation, “The Gonk” by Herbert Chappell, “Lockdown” by Ellis Dee, “The World Needs Guts” by Alice Cooper, “Back To Normal” by Anthony B, “Land of Confusion” by Genesis, “Most People I Know” by Cosmic Psychos, “No Happy Endings” by Roki Taylor, “Get Up, Get Into It , Get Involved” by James Brown, “Escape” by Dreadzone, “Rules and Regulations” by Rufus Wainwright, “Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend” by John Cale, “Daily Life” by Disorder, “Fear and Confusion” by Subhumans and “The Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden
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 Lockdown Sceptics 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, we bring you British business, which, according to Michael O’Dwyer in the Telegraph, has more diversity and inclusion executives than anywhere else in the world:
The UK is becoming the diversity and inclusion capital of the business world. British organisations employ twice as many inclusion professionals per capita as any other country in the world, according to LinkedIn.
This week, the City lost one of its most powerful diversity champions. Dimple Agarwal’s role was not a tick-box exercise to make Deloitte’s accountants and consultants feel a sense of belonging at the firm.
She was deputy chief executive, likely to have been earning a pay package well in excess of the average £731,000 handed to the firm’s partners last year.
Agarwal’s initiatives included a Black Action Plan in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and increasing paid leave for “non-birthing parents” as part of “our commitment to inclusion, where we are creating an environment of respect, dignity and belonging for all”.
She championed respect but staff complained that she was making their working lives a misery. An investigation was launched into claims Agarwal bullied subordinates, was aggressive on calls and emails during the pandemic and scheduled meetings with blatant disregard for work-life balance despite publicly championing employee wellbeing. …
Diversity officers started out as a compliance requirement to reduce the risk of lawsuits and breaching regulations.
Now they have a more strategic remit to create “an inclusive organisation culture where staff can feel included and be able to express themselves”, says Abdul Wahab, policy adviser for inclusion and diversity at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Issues crossing their desks will include everything from diversity in recruitment, retention of talented women and staff from ethnic minorities, protecting employee mental and physical wellbeing, creating a welcoming environment for LGBTQ workers and ensuring minorities such as people with disabilities get equal opportunities.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Matthew Lynn, also in the Telegraph, has more to say about Dimple Agarwal’s departure from Deloitte. “By embracing woke agenda,” he writes, “companies are empowering staff to simply remove any senior manager they do not like.”
Perhaps Agarwal was a horrible person to work for, and perhaps she wasn’t. Even so, the woke workplace is increasingly devouring itself.
By embracing a politically correct agenda, firms are creating anarchy where there should be leadership. They are adopting a box-ticking culture, where form is always more important than substance.
And perhaps most importantly of all, after a year of lockdown, many workplaces are going a little haywire, with bosses lashing out, and staff turning mutinous.
In truth, everyone needs to get back to checking accounts, fixing tax returns, and re-configuring supply chains, or whatever it is the business they work for actually does – and agree that wokery and business are a bad combination.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press 2: Father of Capitalism Adam Smith appears to be at risk of finding himself on the wrong side of a woke inquiry. According to MailOnline, his grave and Royal Mile memorial have been listed among the sites to be investigated by the Scottish Councils review of Edinburgh’s links to slavery and colonialism.
Stop Press 3: The Babylon Bee speculates about what a woke Dr Seuss book might look like.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to obtain a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card – because wearing a mask causes them “severe distress”, for instance. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and the Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. And 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.
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.
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 and Prof Carl Heneghan and Dr Tom Jefferson’s Spectator article about the Danish mask study here.
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 Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. In February, Facebook deleted the GBD’s page because it “goes against our community standards”. 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, although that case, too, has been refused permission to proceed. There’s still one more thing that can be tried. You can read about that and contribute here.
The GoodLawProject and three MPs – Debbie Abrahams, Caroline Lucas and Layla Moran – brought a Judicial Review against Matt Hancock for failing to publish details of lucrative contracts awarded by his department and it was upheld. The Court ruled Hancock had acted unlawfully.
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.
Scottish Church leaders from a range of Christian denominations have launched legal action, supported by the Christian Legal Centre against the Scottish Government’s attempt to close churches in Scotland for the first time since the the Stuart kings in the 17th century. The church leaders emphasised it is a disproportionate step, and one which has serious implications for freedom of religion.” Further information available here.
There’s the class action lawsuit being brought by Dr Reiner Fuellmich and his team in various countries against “the manufacturers and sellers of the defective product, PCR tests”. Dr Fuellmich explains the lawsuit in this video. Dr Fuellmich has also served cease and desist papers on Professor Christian Drosten, co-author of the Corman-Drosten paper which was the first and WHO-recommended PCR protocol for detection of SARS-CoV-2. That paper, which was pivotal to the roll out of mass PCR testing, was submitted to the journal Eurosurveillance on January 21st and accepted following peer review on January 22nd. The paper has been critically reviewed here by Pieter Borger and colleagues, who also submitted a retraction request, which was rejected in February.
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.
Stop Press: Following the recent court ruling that the Government acted unlawfully when it failed to publish all its Covid contracts, Boris reassured MPs that all Covid related contracts would be published. But in saying that, he misled Parliament, according to an update from the Good Law Project.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email [email protected] 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.
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…
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
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Link to the red dot group https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSceptics/
I have just been unable to comment on the new blog without signing up again. This time I have been asked for my phone number in order to post.
Anyone else had this? I really object to being tracked.
i can’t even find the comments on the new blog and if you have to give your phone number i will just re read old comments instead .it’s like the vaccine no way will i g et a vaccine .
have enjoyed lockdown sceptics so much thank you toby and will and everyone
it ‘s been a life saver
i found the comments! you just have to go to the article itself.
The Swiss have recently voted to ban face coverings in public – aimed at the burka I believe. Will it apply to face masks?
No.Face knickers are explicitly exempted from the ban.
No virus has been isolated or purified, EVER.
All vaccines are biological agents, not medicine.
Please, Do not take the death-jab.
https://thefreedomarticles.com/no-virus-isolation-sars-variants-rest-on-big-assumption/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9336849/As-pupils-prepare-return-school-Government-eyes-plan-immunise-millions-autumn-term.html
Please make it stop. Lord please please make it stop.
It’s the governments plan to keep lockdown going for as long as possible.
To any fellow teachers on this forum. Good luck for tomorrow. We’re gonna need it to not get fired!!
yer good luck
Mention human rights, diversity, inclusivity, and disability rights…don’t just say “I don’t like masks”! Good luck.
Are our lives now so dominated by technology that our societies are dying?
Don’t get me wrong. Technology has brought us great benefits, but perhaps there is an optimum beyond which the continuation of human society is threatened.
We’ve been drifting that way for a while. This is the culmination. Remember, none of this madness would be possible without the Internet.
The birth rates in the West and in East Asia seem to indicate that.
Not ‘technology’ but Technocrats.
I think you definitely have a point there. At least I think I do, I read the first 140 characters and then got distracted…
When I went for my dental cleaning in the fall the hygienist said she couldn’t imagine what the pandemic and lockdown would have been like 10 years ago. I shocked her when I said there wouldn’t have been a “pandemic” 10 years ago because the technology wasn’t there to enable people to work from home, order merchandise and groceries online, etc. Lockdown is only possible because of technology. She had never thought of it that way. Like you, I don’t propose throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but I’m old enough to understand that technology is a double-edged sword.
The sainted Elon Musk has warned about the dangers of AI. AI is a qualitative leap into the dark.
No doubt in part because of media technology, we seem to have lost the ability to debate issues in any meaningful sense. It’s interesting that there are now far fewer debate-style programmes around, People seem to be fed views now and a large number appear happy with that arrangement.
It is of course highly dangerous.
I agree we are past some sort of optimum. The beginning of the IT revolution was very liberating – people suddenly had access to information previously available only to say British Library ticket holders…but gradually the globalist elite have been eating into this freedom. We heard a few days ago that Gates has bought up Telegram no doubt so he can stop it being a platform for free exchange of views. After our 2016 populist revolution (the Brexit Referendum) both the Mail and Express were bought up by pro-globalist interests.
We now face an Orwellian future of digital monitoring, vaccine permits, total censorship and groupthink (to be extended to all corners of the Internet as well), long prison terms for free speech… Read more »
Posho airhead The Honourable Sophia Money-Coutts writing in the Sunday Telegraph leisure section thinks we should stop using the phrase “new normal” (yes), as masks and frequent handwashing are now just normal (no).
The point is to teach the children that their bodies are not their own.
Their minds certainly aren’t, and nobody has told them they have souls.
Someone may have already mentioned this but I see that Mike Yeadon and Reiner Fuellmich have now disappeared from Wikipedia- so anyone who disagrees with their government’s handling of this scam is ‘disappeared’. It’s taken us a year and we’ve gone back 90 to the 1930s except this time it’s the whole of the (developed?) world so there’s no escape across any border to a safer place. They clearly don’t want any disagreement or dissent and will do what to stop it? I’m beginning to understand why Hitchens and Sumption capitulated but what is this world now? How have we let this happen?
Or did they remove their entries themselves because they were being used to smear them?
Deeply disturbing either way.
Could well be. Go on Vernon Colemans page, or Riche Allen’s. They certainly didn’t write that themself. Richie Allen had a back and forth recently were he changed the anti semitism slurs but they were re edited within hours to label him. It’s just pointless.
On Coronaaschuss they had a lot of people on who delved a bit deeper into the murky world of Wikipedia, so I would say Reiner Fuellmilch is not bothered to be taken down. One cannot do it yourself.
I randomly searched for Reiner yesterday. The first entry that came up was a wiki page about conspiracy theories, yet his name didn’t feature on the page once.
Anyone in any doubt about the motives of big pharma should take a look at the corruption and greed now being exposed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kIRDjY9xMts&fbclid=IwAR2rUpAstCfvOV6dTwLb6ZjwdDab1_yfkxWfyl1b7mQMwrN2ADxg4Y6g2Go
“We want no liability for anything and also want to take all your national assets in the process – then you can have our gene therapy treatment.”
The vaccine idemnity offered by states across the world to Big Pharma is an absolute outrage. It’s also used to buy silence.
Vaccine indemnity is an admission that vaccines are unavoidably unsafe for some people. That has been admitted by the pharma companies and by governments. They don’t deny that some people will be harmed by their products. While we can make risk-adjusted decisions about how we want to live our lives with Covid based on IFR and our own age and health status, no such risk adjustments are possible with the experimental gene therapy. The deaths and adverse reactions cannot be predicted and seem to hit people indiscriminately. It’s a total crap shoot.
Indeed. Meanwhile, although as you say, indemnity is an admission of harm .the MSM still, even now, continue to peddle the “vaccines are safe” disinformation.
Absolutely, why seek indemnity if there is nothing to fear from your actions?
the only thing wrong with the report is describing these vaxseens as life saving.
Reminds me of how the Structural Adjustment Programmes were introduced in S America in the 80s, under the guise of economic crisis and the intervention of the IMF and World Bank, with the CIA in the background. Power and control.
It’s bribe and blackmail. These companies have a vaccine paid for by Trump’s government, and now they act like the mafia. I don’t watch MSM but sure hope this is on the cover of The Economist or the NYT. Thanks for the video tip btw.
It’s a cult. Just be happy you’ll not be part of it when the mass suicide occurs.
I think I asked a few days ago – but has anyone ever seen a ”No mask – we won’t ask” sign in any retail premises?
just taken today in a newsagent, and our independent heath food shop has the one on the right.
Not in Gulag Wales.All shops sport variations on ‘Knickerless faces banned”. Hardly anybody knows that exemptions even exist.
This is a useful summary of post-vaccine adverse events recorded worldwide to date. As with all these compilations it doesn’t and cannot claim to be comprehensive but it gives an insight into statistics and data which the UK government holds and has access to but chooses not to publicly acknowledge.
https://healthimpactnews.com/2021/460-dead-243612-reported-injuries-from-covid-19-vaccines-reported-in-the-u-k/
Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind
How & when and does all this ever come to a head?
At what point does this become so overwhelming that they have to do something?
I am guessing that it will be actions in other countries that start to raise the real challenges over these Covid Potions.
Given the amount of vaccinations in the UK if they ever have to pull back it will have huge political ramifications, can they just brazen it through come what may?
I wonder if maybe when any other covid vaccines come along these current ones will be phased off the scene?
I’d agree with you – in the event of severe side-effects they’ll try to keep it quiet till they can introduce a new or ameliorated ‘vaccine’.
They are now so deeply committed to their course of action that they will continue at whatever cost, Macbeth-like:
“I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er”
The difference is these people are enjoying it. Macbeth has some awareness of the horror of his choices.
True enough. Macbeth has some awareness.
I keep wondering how much they are enjoying it. I’m sure Hancock is. I feel he is the embodiment of evil.
As for Johnson I’m not sure how much he is enjoying it – I think he has some of that awareness because he looks haunted at times as though he could collapse in mental breakdown.
I think he had the breakdown months ago.What remains is a dried-up husk.
Wankok made his contract with Satan a long time ago. But, as Faust discovered, Satan has a way of calling in the loan.
https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1368621958045315074
Interesting twitter thread on Israel and vaccination. It seems that efficacy is 75% after 2nd dose and the 95% claim in trials can’t be found in the current data. In one of the critical responses to the thread somebody claimed that only 3 % cases had had 2 doses of vaccine which would make the vaccine effective.
But there are some puzzling things like serious cases in February going down but in the last 2 weeks stable and but today rising over 700. Total cases have not fallen as predicted and R is still over 1.Israel has given the same amount of doses as population meaning that all the elderly have had 2 doses. If the 3% claim is correct the hospitals would be full of young unvaccinated cases also in ICU or the few elderly with only one vaccine dose but rather unlikely as we would have heard about that age profile immediately.
Anyway concern for UK that 1 dose is not effective in the real world of ongoing C-19 transmission .Perhaps UK was lucky that the C-19 was quickly declining compared to Israel, which now blames variants behind the ongoing transmission in Israel.
You can tell things haven’t gone according to plan in Israel because we haven’t got wall-to-wall “vaccine success story” from Israel in our MSM. Not just any old variants – but the British Variant is mainly to blame according to the Israelis! I presume that’s what we call the Kent Variant.
As a matter of interest why are people taking so much notice of this guy, just because he has some sort of profile on twitter that has nothing to do with statistical analysis?
I am not saying he is getting stuff wrong, but how does anyone have any idea if its correct?
He put out a book on the Corona fraud early on. Got a lot of noteriaty as Amazon banned it for a time. So a following grew.
Hes a journalist, but has always been worth dipping in on.
He is not doing any statistical analysis himself.It is always referring to someone else usually always linked. You coud argue that he is selecting but to his defence the links are always correct. I find him very useful if you read with care especially about vaccine side effects and Israel studies. You could always find negative comments in his links and if they are using statistical data you can judge yourself which is the most plausible.
Can anyone link vasculitis to vaccine caused deaths? My dad died tonight with vasculitis 1 month after vaccine. I have found that it could be cause by allergic reaction to certain medications or it can be after an infection sets off an unusual response in immune system.
Sorry to hear that Rose. Good luck with getting to the bottom of it.
Best wishes.
Thank you TJN
Wishing you well. Lost both parents in 2020. Check that link above here for vasculitis, or VAERS in the US database.
The Ivermectin train keeps rolling. Hancock gets more and more exposed for the vaccine shill he is. First Vit D and now this.
https://youtu.be/ix8i7dfsCJg
This guy has never been a huge sceptic on the whole coronavirus thing, just more of a middle of the road overview of the science. You can see the wheels turning for him now. Seems like he’s just happened on the Ivermectin success and wonders why the the UK government haven’t acted on it.
Of course we know the answer but it’s like watching someone on the cusp of the rabbit hole. But just won’t jump in, as is his way. UK Gov continue to ignore it but for how long. 5mins is enough, the rest is the detail.
Great news again to support it though. Won’t be long before its available here
He actually spoke of Ivermectin in May last year. Yes – sometimes he seems as if he’s just parroting the ‘party line’ and telling us all to ‘be afraid’ just as the others do. But at least he’s a mine of information.
And now – if only he pushes this then that’s great news. He’s got a lot of followers.
But of course the lobbyists for Pharma will do their best to sideline Ivermectin, won’t they?
They have to. Because the sidelining of the treatment was delibrate and cost lives for sure. All so the vaccines had an easier time getting emergency approval. They can’t admit to that now.
You cannot escape this bollocks, I was just looking to buy a tent on gumtree and the advert was finished off with this:-
“Genuine enquiries only please, we are a vaccinated household, tent can be viewed in garden.”
Jesus.
Sounds like they’ve got real faith in the efficacy of the ”vaccine” – not.
They probably quarantine their shopping for 72 hours in the tent!
perhaps just turn up in the night and steal their tent
Not a bad suggestion and I would be doing them a favour by keeping my distance
Vaccine-developer gert vanden bossche says the mass vaccination in the middle of the pandemic is a grave mistake, it produces the highly infectious variants. The virus will soon be unstoppable….
And we are programmed, theough the 1st vaccination, with the wrong response for the new variants,, that will forever outxompete our natural immuneresponse….
https://youtu.be/ZJZxiNxYLpc
These are serious issues that are totally ignored by the MSM. We are seeing more and more novel pathogens arise. Since the spread of flu vaccination unusual respiratory viruses have been gaining ground.
I do see disaster ahead if we continue down this path.
Off the scale frightening. His CV is hard to argue with.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/geertvandenbossche?originalSubdomain=be
Yes, I just watched this and got his paper. It’s really scary. I wonder how long the YouTube video will remain online.
BBC launching a political assassination attempt on Laurence Fox now he is standing against their Beloved Khan.
http://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-bbc-goes-fox-hunting.html
They are trying to nail him for proposing an illegal action. That’s to be tested. Presumably Laurence would argue lifting the lockdown in London would be legal as it would be in accord with fundamental human rights legislation. That would then be tested in the courts.
This is a Facebook post I received 12 months ago.
”I’m a doctor and an Infectious Diseases Specialist. I’ve been at this for more than 20 years seeing sick patients on a daily basis. I have worked in inner city hospitals and in the poorest slums of Africa. HIV-AIDS, Hepatitis,TB, SARS, Measles, Shingles, Whooping cough, Diphtheria…there is little I haven’t been exposed to in my profession. And with notable exception of SARS, very little has left me feeling vulnerable, overwhelmed or downright scared.
I am not scared of Covid-19. I am concerned about the implications of a novel infectious agent that has spread the world over and continues to find new footholds in different soil. I am rightly concerned for the welfare of those who are elderly, in frail health or disenfranchised who stand to suffer mostly, and disproportionately, at the hands of this new scourge. But I am not scared of Covid-19.
What I am scared about is the loss of reason and wave of fear that has induced the masses of society into a spellbinding spiral of panic, stockpiling obscene quantities of anything that could fill a bomb shelter adequately in a post-apocalyptic world. I am scared of the… Read more »
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56312621
Above Link is to an article on BBC saying U.K. will have to prepare for a hard winter this year as community immunity to flu may well be lost.
Two thoughts:
1) So we can’t have community immunity to covid, as we all know Hancock says there is no such thing, but we can have it to influenza!!!!!
2) I envisioned there would be great fear from the authorities for next winter, covid vaccines can’t be tested until the next winter.
So will there be a lockdown next winter?? I don’t see an end to this if we don’t take back our lives somehow! Any thoughts?
If lockdown is the acceptable response to one virus, why not any other? No one must ever be allowed to sadlidie again – though non virus deaths remain perfectly acceptable, of course. I do think we are in real trouble – society has been warped catastrophically and I doubt it will spring easily back in shape, if at all. I have to continue to hope that more people will cotton on (and care once they do) long before the autumn.
I think if we can get a declaration that lockdown is over, then there is hope. Because people may come to see they were had and be determined never again to go back into that situation. “Never again” is a powerful sentiment in politics. And of course this is ALL about politics.
There are no non-virus deaths!
NoCock, Witless, Unbalanced and Van damned will not give up their power over us.
New variants, continued restrictions, they love it.
We need to ban mask mandates and lockdowns. Neither work. Once we agree to that we can put in place prep for a tough flu winter if that is a risk now.
We cannot be ramping such fears all of 2021. Fear is demoralising and ultimately ruinous to health and wellbeing. We need to regain this quickly. Space needs to open up and the Covid cult needs to end. I feel a lot of hope coming from the US and States outright banning mandates. We need to start now.
I cannot see how we won’t be in lockdown again next winter. I have no idea how I will cope as a single person I am actively building my support networks now and will need to find romance in the short window I have over summer. I’ll try not to come across too desperate lol.
If we’re in lockdown next winter, JHUNTZ, you and I (also single: usually with plenty of friends) will meet up for coffee at some suitable train station in the middle of England. It’s going to become a life project for people living alone to survive this collective insanity.
Can I come along too, please?
Lovely! Do.
I’m in the same boat, though I fear that if this madness doesn’t stop soon, we’ll have more to worry about than being alone (like where the next meal is coming from).
I’m due to start stocking up on long life foods shortly. I feel like a crazy person, maybe I am now haha…
You’re not the only crazy person. Two of my friends have been stockpiling for months now. I’ve started collecting firewood 🙂
Yes, I had so much that I had to go through the expiry dates and ‘prioritise’ consumption of some items! I don’t know what to expect, apart from some form of trouble in the coming weeks and months. I’m trying to be optimistic that a critical mass that is opposed or at least sceptical will be reached soon, thanks to better weather, the ‘magic vaccines’ and boredom. Look at the demonstrations here in the UK last year after someone in Minnesota was killed. Didn’t take much to set bored people who had been locked up for weeks off and the police were reluctant to intervene (I don’t believe it was all about police becoming woke; my police sergeant friend is constantly talking about how few police there are and that if consent is withdrawn on a large scale, that’s it – they can’t handle it). So, I’m hoping for mass protest, as well as the continued mass ‘quiet’ disobedience that is obviousy happening, pushing this to a conclusion soon.
I hope you are right Tom. The problem with the George Floyd stuff was that it was heavily backed by the media something us sceptics are not.
Hopefully the disobedience can stretch the police I note they didn’t intervene with the rangers fan celebrations which I welcomed despite the mass condemnation. Notably, Nicola has jumped straight on the bandwagon.
Yes, I don’t live in Glasgow anymore but saw the media coverage of what happened in George Square and was happy to see so many people close together, mainly without masks. I think some of the condemnation of this came from those who hate Rangers (and Unionists), and not necessarily Covidians. Scotland is a very divided place and I’m not optimistic about any improvements anytime soon.
‘Love is in the air, do do do do do de de…’
Haha us ‘anti vaxxer’ ‘covid deniers’ need love too!
That is certinaly an offer I would take you up on if this insanity continues into Winter 2021.
We’ve got to survive some how. I’ve found chatting here so important, we’ve got to keep it going for each other.
I have also, just to know others are going through the same difficulties, in a weird way it is comforting.
My daughter took full advantage of the nice weather to date and found her current boyfriend in August. She knew if she didn’t find someone before the winter that would be it until the spring. She didn’t settle — he’s amazing and could be “the one.” My divorced brother missed the window and hasn’t dated since it got cold here. I’m hoping he has better luck this year. You’re smart to be thinking ahead and I hope you find a romantic partner who is a fellow sceptic!
Thanks Lisa glad to hear your daughter found a partner and potentially ‘the one’. Always nice to hear!
If they are trying to scare the sheeples with next winter’s flu, they must be scraping the bottom if the sheeple-dip barrel.
Nah fake news, I was assured flu had been eradicated!
.A sign up at our local nature reserve. Not my handiwork, someone beat me to it!
There have been some high winds round our town recently, played havoc with Covvinotices. Sad, eh?
Live now:
Windows on the world with Mark Windows
Health Pass Horror Show
https://windowsontheworld.net/live-shows/
Chat on discord here: https://discord.gg/r7g8z9sE
or in the live chat window
Electronic advertising hoardings have started appearing at railway stations such as Brighton promoting a Universal Basic Income (this advertising doesn’t come cheap, so the project clearly has wealthy influential backers).
I am sure many of the slaves will be grateful to Big Brother for another handout, inevitability this will eventually be conditional on following the controllers narratives (social engineering for the masses).
So, Social Credits is being brought in for the ‘greater good’ on the sly. They get away with this because the media which is dominated by a few globalist companies works in tandem with the establishment and polling companies to con the public. The ‘Free Press’ is yet another scam believed by the sleeping masses.
Yes, it’s the old issue of the mouse not knowing why the cheese on the trap is free.
Shocked that those writing above the line can still get away with pretending there is nothing going on apart from ‘Covid’. It’s a huge social engineering and psychological operation.
Why do they continue to link to controlled media articles where the columnists are seemingly trying to get the wider public conditioned for punishing and discriminating against us? are we being warn down deliberately by any chance?
These may be of interest to Christian sceptics:
https://www.thefbc.uk/
https://defytyrants.com/
Thanks for this, and great to see some Christian solidarity here.
I understand that the FBC is a Protestant organisation, but it is a shame the statement does not allow signatures from fellow travellers. As an Orthodox Christian I can see nothing in that statement with which I disagree (alright, the bit at the end about reform I would have to interpret in a slightly different light, but not one that would strain the words beyond reason), and much with which I whole-heartedly agree.
Regardless of the fact that I can’t sign, I am glad this statement is being made.
Thank you very much for these; the video on Romans 13 is very interesting.
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
I’m not getting it just because I can
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
Please don’t take it just because you can
Your promotion is beyond compare
With headlines out on media air
With propaganda everywhere we see
Your profiteer’s smile’s an evil thing
Your voice can hypnotise our kin
And I cannot compete with you
Vaccine
We hear your message in our sleep
And there’s nothing we can do to keep
From crying when you call our name
Vaccine
And I can easily comprehend
How you could drive me round the bend
But you don’t know what freedom means to me
Vaccine
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
I’m not getting it just because I can
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
Please don’t take it just because you can
You could have your choice wealth
But I need to protect my health
It’s the only life I have
Vaccine
I had to have this talk with you
My future can’t depend on you
And whatever I decide to do
Vaccine
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
I’m not getting it just because I can
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine
Please don’t take it just because you can
I dunno why Dolly Parton thinks I’ll have the same medical procedure that she’s had. I never have done before.
I understand she has a big shareholding in Moderna, she is protecting and boosting her investments.
Excellent! It works well too if you sing a long like Dolly.
If I only had a tiny bit of musical talent, unfortunately, I’m tone deaf with a voice that sounds like a hungover frog.
You’ll harmonize well with my singing voice, which sounds like a glede under a door.
Uptick for glede.
Apparently it can also mean a red kite, which I imagine might make a noise if stuck under a door. Poor thing.
Best video and song I’ve seen all year—-top of the charts here it comes!!
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/maskerade-explicit-freedom-song_pzDeGw6xOB4o9N9.html
Oh, I like it!
Uncompromising. Pretty damn good rock. He’s got a good voice. Lyrically a little weak at points but the message gets 10 out of 10 points from me.
Hi all, had a couple weeks off from this site to focus on some other things- it’s also
nice to have a more consistent mindset instead of the endless good cop/bad cop/downright evil cop gaslighting and really reinforces the ridiculousness of the clownworld without the
propaganda context. But it all still heavily dwells on my mind though, especially with all the
non-vax coercion and the continuously very high, if not quite 100%, mask compliance at the shops is very depressing. Doesn’t help it’s been a tough week for me anyway with more family issues, including a divorce which from what I’ve heard LD has added to, feeling really bad for the child involved in that.
Just for some positivity in a personally typical downbeat posting, at least the local outdoor and car maskoids have been visibly declining and the parks are getting decent usage again over the past few weeks. Encouraging but still feeling pessimistic given our side’s poor record in significant victories.
Nice to see you again, DRW. Sorry to hear about family problems. It’s still zombie central where I live. Went to a garden centre this afternoon and the muzzled were out in force. Still plenty of mask wearing idiots driving alone in their cars too. Feel very despondent today.
Thanks, it really is a rollercoaster of good and bad days.
Nice to have you back, DRW.
Bear in mind that sane human beings hate, loathe, detest and avoid shopfuls of nappied zombies, and that’s probably why nappying in said shops is so prevalent. Real people don’t have to shop in Knickertesco’s if they don’t want to. (All the more credit to the courageous few who do.)
Thanks Annie. I don’t go to them very often any more but every now and them my curiousity gets the better of me. My country bike rides are immensely preferable though.
Sceptic extraordinaire Ian Brown (formerly of the Stone Roses)
https://twitter.com/ianbrown/status/1367173085980418055
My Saturday night headline show at NHBD Weekender Festival will now not happen! I refuse to accept vaccination proof as condition of entry.Refunds are available! X
Seems to be a rare example of someone in the public eye who isn’t controlled opposition.
Can’t imagine many other musicians or ‘celebrities’ making a stand, can’t bite the hand that controls them.
Presumably it was in his contract.. which begs the question when was the contract written & delivered? these things don’t often happen overnight!