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The Daily Sceptic
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The Darkness and the Light

by Toby Young
23 March 2021 3:18 PM

I initially created Lockdown Sceptics – with the help of Ian Rons, co-founder of the Free Speech Union and computer whizz – in March of last year as an aide-mémoire for personal use. I was writing a lot about the new and still largely unknown virus and wanted to create a kind of online reference library, collating all the articles and papers and interviews about different aspects of the pandemic under separate headings. Then, when I’d created it, I decided to make it public in case anyone else would find it useful. I got into the habit of constantly updating it because so much new information about the virus was being published every day and, to do that, I found myself spending the best part of the the evening looking through news sites and blogs and medical journals. That, in turn, led to the daily update – I had gathered all this information, so why not publish it in one place? And so Lockdown Sceptics, as a daily news blog, was born.

Many readers have contacted me in the past 12 months to say that reading the blog has kept them sane because, until they discovered it, they thought they were the only ones who weren’t buying into the official narrative. Compiling it has also been therapeutic for me, although in a slightly different way, which I’ll try and explain.

First, the darkling plain.

For me, the most depressing thing about the past 12 months is that it’s destroyed my faith in so many of the people and institutions that I used to have some respect for – Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, the Conservative Party, the judiciary, the police, the BBC, Sky News, the Civil Service, Imperial College, the Lancet, Nature, the Royal Society… the list goes on. I’ve always been alive to the risk that crowds are susceptible to collective hysteria and I’ve witnessed a few manias and moral panics first hand, but I hoped that Britain’s elites, particularly those who bear responsibility for steering the ship of state, would be immune to such madness. And it seemed they would be for a few weeks, which made their eventual surrender to a global psychosis that much harder to witness. To see them not only succumb to mass hysteria but consciously whip it up, using sophisticated psychological techniques, has been a shock. (I blame that, in part, for the British public’s willingness to surrender their liberty and hope they will recover their good sense once the propaganda ceases.) I won’t say this has been a deep shock because I’ve always been pretty cynical, but I used to have a sliver of confidence in Britain’s elites and I have struggled to hold on to that. It’s not an exaggeration to say my belief in Britain has been knocked for six.

But what has kept me from slipping into the slough of despond has been all the thoughtful, intelligent people who’ve contacted me, offering not only to help put out Lockdown Sceptics, but to contribute to it, too. They’ve come from all walks of life, different sides of the political spectrum and from a wide range of academic fields, all united in doubt about the wisdom of the Government’s approach to managing the pandemic. Some of them have been based overseas, but most have been my fellow countrymen and their presence and willingness to help has gone some way to restoring my faith in Britain. I often think, when reading a submission from a retired professor of economics or a lecturer in philosophy just starting out on her career, that here is the best of Britain – the heirs of Isaac Newton and David Hume and Rosalind Franklin. Like Orwell, writing in the Lion and the Unicorn during another crisis in our history when the people at the helm seemed to be steering us towards the rocks, I have persuaded myself that the problem isn’t with the country, just the people at the top. As he wrote: “A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.”

The wrong people have been in charge during this crisis in almost every sphere of public life. But there are good people out there – still – and not a few of them have been involved in this website – above and below the line. And the fact that Lockdown Sceptics has become such a thing – a kind of focal point for dissent from the official narrative, with an average of 1.25 million page views a month and – even more heartening – attacked and ridiculed almost daily by the lackeys of the Establishment is also a source of hope. And a tribute to the talent and energy of all those who’ve helped and contributed.

As a country, this has not been our finest hour. But I still believe in Britain – just.

Tags: Henry VLockdown ScepticsThe Lion and the Unicorn

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161 Comments
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WeAllFallDown
WeAllFallDown
4 years ago

Thank you for your insights, but frankly, I find it so shockingly naive that I’m not quite sure where to start. There are so many parallels between pharmaceutical behaviours and that of Criminals behind bars currently serving crime for truly evil behaviours, that I can’t actually command the energy to respond. It just reminds me of someone who has become so inured to the disregard for human life that they cannot comprehend that what they are witnessing is systematic annihilation. Like soldiers in Iraq clearing dead bodies with a bulldozer so they the military vehicles can pass.

It is shocking and crushing to discover that your industry and by extension you, have been complicit in doing much human harm. (I have been there myself). Especially when you entered it first altruistic reasons, and with high hopes. But you do owe yourself the examination needed to actually hold your industry to account.

And as to genocidal cabals? Who knows. Not you and I. They certainly don’t seem to be needed if outcomes are to be judged.

Last edited 4 years ago by WeAllFallDown
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-4
sophie123
sophie123
4 years ago
Reply to  WeAllFallDown

I am very certain nobody is actively trying to make a vaccine that harms people.
Governments and regulators have removed the barriers and safeguards you would usually expect to expedite vaccine development. This carries risk. We are seeing these risks materialise. Personally I don’t think it was the right thing to do, but if you are CEO at Pfizer or Moderna, you are probably thinking “great! I can use this crisis to accelerate development of this technology we have been developing for years and hopefully make some money…especially if we are first to market. And then use this technology for future vaccines”

They have a vested interest in the vaccines being safe and efficacious. It helps their reputation, it helps their share price. The fact that they are perhaps not as safe as one might like, would lead to them being abandoned (in my opinion) if the threat of COVID were given anything like a sensible risk assessment and everyone were behaving rationally.

So now there is a motivation to maintain the fear. And for governments too, given that they are committed to buying loads of vaccines regardless. They don’t want to look like they overreacted,

I don’t think I am naive. I’m incredibly cynical compared to many in my industry. Maybe I am a unique case, but I have never seen anything in all my years in the companies I have worked in that has made me feel like patient safety wasn’t a priority, balanced against the benefit of treatment. COVID has skewed that, as it’s being treated like raging global Ebola, when plainly it is not.

I didn’t ask for my comment to be posted as an article so I am not about to get into a debate about it. I am just reporting what I have seen, Money and reputation, that’s what drives actions at CEO level.

26
-2
TJN
TJN
4 years ago
Reply to  sophie123

Many thanks Sophie. A balanced account that carries a sound ring of truth and plausibility.

6
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
4 years ago
Reply to  TJN

Seconded. And will all those people who have had their lives or those of their families, saved by pharmaceutical interventions such as semi-synthetic penicillins, beta-blockers, analog insulins, antidepressants, etc., etc., etc. please calm down and reflect on the totality of what the pharmaceutical industry has provided

0
0
TJN
TJN
4 years ago
Reply to  DevonBlueBoy

Thanks – but that’s not to say I don’t think there may be some serious problems with the pharmaceutical industry – although Sophie’s post quoted above the line does, I think, implicitly concede that.

0
0
helenf
helenf
4 years ago
Reply to  sophie123

I’m surprised that someone “incredibly cynical” can continue to work for Big Pharma. Must cause a lot of cognitive dissonance.

2
0
B.F.Finlayson
B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  sophie123

I am very certain nobody is actively trying to make a vaccine that harms people.

They certainly wouldn’t want to harm people if they had to cough up financial compensation for side effects, but that essential safeguard against corporate greed and short-cuts is currently missing.
Even so, once the damage actually being done by these experimental gene therapies is pointed out (as it has been from the beginning of the roll out) is it still OK to turn a blind eye and keep rolling this stuff off the production line rather than stop, think and go through a full testing program?

5
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  WeAllFallDown

Harsh on the author.

3
0
TJN
TJN
4 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

And unfair.

1
0
TORs
TORs
4 years ago

So he’s saying (1) that Big Pharma is just doing what governments want it to do? Google “Pfizer” and “$2.9 billion fine” — hardly an example of government-Big Pharma cooperation. Also, read the British Medical Journal investigation of 2010 into the role of “experts who had declarable financial and research ties with pharmaceutical companies producing antivirals and influenza vaccines” for the 2009 influenza scamdemic. https://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c2912

bb.png
12
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AfterAll
AfterAll
4 years ago

Could we say the same about the BMGF? Have they now withdrawn their funding from the organisations that have been issuing wildly exaggerated projections of deaths in the non-lockdown case? Have they now withdrawn their funding from ResearchGate for censoring scientists? Have they now withdrawn their funding from all those organisations that systematically sidelined and demonised cheap, safe and effective prophylactics and treatments that might have saved hundreds of thousands of lives? Or are they OK with these things?

Last edited 4 years ago by AfterAll
15
0
Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
4 years ago

It’s called Capitalism.

9
-2
catchmatt
catchmatt
4 years ago
Reply to  Fingerache Philip

Or selective capitalism, apparently Mr Johnson doesn’t believe it to be the case for football and the Superleague.

2
0
RickH
RickH
4 years ago

Whether on not one agrees with all the details here, I reckon the article provides a good overview of the fact that there are always a network of forces determining a particular outcome at the system level.

There’s always a tendency tho simply vilify individuals, and whilst that may be justified (see : ‘Johnson’), it’s not the whole story.

The last point is the crucial one :

“They will only do things that make money, or might make them money in future. They are not charitable organisations. Drug development is risky and expensive, and shareholders want their returns. Sounds obvious, but it underpins everything and people seem to forget that at times.”

Or as another commentator has said (above) :

“It’s called Capitalism”

Trying to abolish that impulse is futile, but it goes terribly wrong if no checks and balances are in place. The whole Covid debacle has been about that systemic flaw.

20
-1
AfterAll
AfterAll
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Part of the problem is pharmaceutical IP rights, which are relatively recent; some European countries didn’t recognise IP on drugs until the 1970s. IP rights are not the same as physical property rights, they are about creating monopolies; there’s an interesting (free of course) book on this theme here: http://dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm . Germany had a flourishing pharma industry without IP in the early 20th century. Without IP rights, priorities for COVID would have been testing low-cost prophylactics and treatments, there would have been no incentive for the lockdown/mask theatre, there would have been no epidemic of malnutrition in low-income countries.

8
0
RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  AfterAll

Thus my comment about ‘checks and balances’. This covers a whole range of issues, from the basic constitution (or lack of) to such nitty-gritty specifics as IP rights that you mention.

If government is allowed to ally simply with the most powerful interests, without checks, the the whole political process becomes corrupted. Like fly-paper, it attracts money-grubbers and power-seekers much more than a wider representative selection of candidates.

The whole process then enters a downward spiral as the token vilification of politics and politicians reinforces exclusion rather than inclusivity.

8
-1
I am Spartacas
I am Spartacas
4 years ago

Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi … ‘this experimental vaccine roll out is so “goddamn dangerous” I cannot understand how my own colleagues don’t realize this?’

Worth watching …

https://twitter.com/_taylorhudak/status/1385067952534401027

Last edited 4 years ago by Ember von Drake-Dale 22
19
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RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

A ‘must watch’.

10
0
iane
iane
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

Yes: it really beggars belief that ANYONE (even the politicians) would give such an enormous hostage to fortune.

Just imagine what the consequences would be if, say, 1% of the jabbed develop serious ill-health within a year or two of being vaccinated – that would really put a strain on the NHS! And the politicians think they could avoid blame after all their assertions of safety?

16
0
alw
alw
4 years ago

Big Pharma was in trouble until Covid came along.

6
0
iane
iane
4 years ago

The lady doth protest too much, methinks!

2
-4
RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  iane

Not at all. In the same framework, I don’t reckon all Tory voters are inherently evil.

3
-1
B.F.Finlayson
B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago

Sophie 123 can expect a promotion, or at least an index linked pay rise, for this bit simplistic white-washery. The term ‘Evil’ should perhaps be banned from all rational discourse in the first instance, as opposed to it being held up in the headline as an indefinable mediaeval moral yardstick against which to judge corporate ethics. Such methodology renders rational discourse meaningless.

If the final paragraph is not the most disingenuous, it is certainly the most naive:

6) They will only do things that make money, or might make them money in future. They are not charitable organisations. Drug development is risky and expensive, and shareholders want their returns. Sounds obvious, but it underpins everything and people seem to forget that at times.

Nobody forgets this, Sophie, but everybody is encouraged to overlook the big fat indemnification bribe that has effectively upset the delicate corporate RISK-BENEFIT control mechanism. As the AZ exec member said July 2020, the company could not have gone into production without the global guarantee of exemption from civil action (regarding death, side effects etc, from the experimental vaxx) being in place.

This is the main issue here, for with these rushed C19 experimental vaxes (whether mRNA or GMO) there is NO RISK attached for Big Pharma in taking short cuts, and the corresponding rewards for ditching medical ethics are of course potentially massive. The companies don’t have to be ‘evil’ to be in breach of long established codes of practice – just creative with their ethical code and less than thorough with their testing.

Might I ask if any Pharma company has refused this global exemption, insisted on the full carefully monitored trial period before release, and then agreed to stand four square behind its product financially?

15
-2
Evison1
Evison1
4 years ago

This is a very helpful comment. Tullock and Buchanan were awarded a Nobel Prize for coming up with the economic theory of Public Choice – stated simply, that ‘actors’ and institutions act out of ‘enlightened self interest’. This is exactly what you appear to be describing. The same will be true of Whitty, Valance, Ferguson and SAGE, Farrar, the various civil servants involved – and of course the power hungry politicians. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to see that the influential figures are acting out of self-motivation and are not necessarily evil or acting with malintent (although some sure seem to be). The law (as well as ethics and human rights codes, and pandemic preparedness guidelines, and so on) – and parliament – should have protected us. They didn’t. That needs to be addressed quickly.

13
0
RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Evison1

“ the economic theory of Public Choice – stated simply, that ‘actors’ and institutions act out of ‘enlightened self interest’.”

Like most economic theory – a partial rather than general explanation in this most overblown of the social sciences. (see the number of dickheads sporting a first in PPE!).

3
0
10navigator
10navigator
4 years ago

See “Money Vs Science” on Youtube. A nine minute watch and well worth it.

3
0
Catee
Catee
4 years ago

“How to Understand Big Pharma: They’re Not Evil, But They Do Want Money”
Except that money is the route of all evil.

7
-2
RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Catee

“money is the route of all evil”

Another bit of pat nonsense.

Have you taken up the hermit’s life yet?

3
-3
Catee
Catee
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

What hermits life? Have to say I find your contributions on here patronising in the extreme. I realise from your posts that we’re all supposed to bow down to your superior knowledge but frankly I think you’re a tosser.

2
-1
RickH
RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Catee

Getting into ad hominem stuff is never a good idea if you have a coherent point to make.

I was just expressing a dislike of simplistic untruth in the same league as ‘Covid is unprecedented’. As to the ‘hermit’s life’ – it was just an ironic question as to whether you’d forgone worldly goods to back up your claim – or whether you – like most of us – continue to use money and are thus encouraging evil?

… and who’s asked you to ‘bow down’? Just argue back – or follow the other saw about heat and kitchens.

Sorry you’re upset – but not much I can do about that.

4
-1
scuzbert
scuzbert
4 years ago
Reply to  Catee

Actually, the correct wording is ‘the love of money..’ etc.. Poor old money always gets it in the neck. 🙂

4
0
Tillysmum
Tillysmum
4 years ago
Reply to  Catee

I think the phrase is “The love of money is the root of all evil”

0
0
karenovirus
karenovirus
4 years ago

Thank you very much for your informed insider view. Much of it perhaps to be expected but some interesting surprises.

4
0
Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago

Blimey, you might as well say “they’re not evil but they do want racial hygiene”. Remind me what is the root of all evil?

6
0
JohnK
JohnK
4 years ago

Although all the commentary is related to the pharma trade, it is also valid w.r.t. many industrial structures, and associated political activity, such as all branches of transport technology, power delivery and so on. More of a psychological issue, in fact.

I’m not criticising Sophie123’s article though; it’s a good job, well done.

2
0
TJN
TJN
4 years ago
Reply to  JohnK

Yes, I’ve seen it in an entirely different industry.

2
0
imp66
imp66
4 years ago

As ever, it’s all about the money, honey ( oh, and power and control)

2
0
helenf
helenf
4 years ago

I’m sorry, but it’s just win win for big pharma. Regardless of whether or not they want side effects from their products, there ARE side effects, for millions of people, many adversely impacting on people’s quality of life and physical and mental health, many serious, some fatal. But rather than make those drugs safer, unless the product is withdrawn (presumably due to external pressure), big pharma profits again by developing and selling drugs to treat the side effects, drugs which have the their own side effects, and so it goes on (until the patient or gp says no more drugs, or until the person dies). It is an industry based on and driven by profit and greed (otherwise drugs would be much more affordable and safer). If any drugs or vaccines are pulled from the market, you can bet that those drug companies have another to replace it up their sleeve. Look how quickly the covid vaccines were ready to be rolled out! No questions asked. Anyone working within big pharma turning a blind eye to the harms and suffering caused by those drugs to millions of people (many of whom didn’t need the drug or vaccine in the first place!) are complicit. And now they want to test their covid vaccines on toddlers and children?! If that’s not evil, I don’t know what is.

6
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
4 years ago
Reply to  helenf

Wakey wakey. Pharmaceuticals are chemicals produced to work on relieving/removing problems with the body’s chemistry. ALL product have side effects as they are foreign to the body. Generally, the more powerful the product, the bigger the side effects. There is a view that if the product has no side effects then it won’t be very effective.

0
-1
helenf
helenf
4 years ago
Reply to  DevonBlueBoy

There are many effective natural alternatives to pharmaceuticals, but the medical industry isn’t interested in these because there’s no profit to be made. “The more powerful the product, the bigger the side effects”. So, poisoning people back to health. What could possibly go wrong.

2
0
DavidDLM
DavidDLM
4 years ago
Reply to  helenf

Many pharmaceuticals ARE natural products or are derived from them. And naturally occurring agents frequently have worse side effects than purely synthetic ones. One reason for modifying naturally occurring agents is to produce derivatives with less serious side effects. The idea that something natural is inherently innocuous is ignorant superstition. Many of the most lethal poisons known to science are natural products.

0
-1
helenf
helenf
4 years ago
Reply to  DavidDLM

I never said all naturally occurring agents are inherently innocuous. So you are either trying to gaslight me, or you are just stupid. Or both.

1
0
DavidDLM
DavidDLM
4 years ago
Reply to  helenf

The problem isn’t that the pharmaceutical industry favours synthetic over natural products. There’s no essential difference between them. It’s that it favours medications that need to be taken long term as these provide the highest profits. That’s why we’re running out of effective antimcrobials to treat evolving bacterial strains. Most research into new antibiotics is carried out by academic research groups rather than by industry.

0
0
catchmatt
catchmatt
4 years ago

Big pharma are not evil, just misunderstood says senior big pharma employee. Don’t know about you but I’m convinced particularly by the last point “they will only do things that make money”. Somewhat contradicts the propaganda about vaccines being supplied at cost.

2
0

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