Michael Gove has asked readers of his article in the Telegraph today to “keep sharing their views on the way ahead” regarding Covid vaccine passports.
Certification will be an inevitability for international travel. It could be a valuable aid to opening up our domestic economy and society faster. Unless the Government takes a lead we risk others establishing the rules of the road. So where should the lines be drawn to help protect freedoms, respect privacy, promote equality and get us back to normality? And how can we ensure our approach is proportionate and time-limited? Those are the questions we need to ask in the days ahead – and I know Telegraph readers will help us find common-sense answers.
Judging from some of the top-rated comments, Gove may regret having asked!
Sam Spencer (761 likes at the time of publication): Absolutely abhorrent idea, forcing a vaccine on people for a virus so deadly most people need to be tested to know that they have it…
89 deaths for people under 40 in England without pre-existing health conditions (according to NHS statistics) – why on EARTH should we tolerate any more of this dictatorship?!
You and your party have completely misjudged the mood of the nation and to be quite frank with you most people aren’t listening to the “rules” anymore. You’ve become obsessed with Covid to the point where no other death matters, we’re all sick to death of the goalposts constantly shifting and the barrage of lies.
I, like clearly every other Tory voter here will be voting with our feet. You’re a disgrace.
~ ~
Nick Jones (790 likes): Why do we need any of this if 99% of those at risk of dying are now vaccinated?!
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David Barlett (780 likes): It’s a disgraceful idea without justification.
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Jane Kerr (217 likes): If the aim is to “get us back to normality”, then there is absolutely no role for Covid certification of any type. It absolutely is not normal to have to prove you’re not infected with any particular disease in order to participate in normal life.
Your own Government is warning vaccinated people they mustn’t meet indoors because the vaccine is not 100% effective, so it would be utterly nonsensical to allow/exclude people from anything on the basis of whether they are vaccinated or not. Vaccinated people can still catch/transmit Covid.
If this is allowed, don’t imagine it’ll stop with Covid: how long before everyone is being tested for flu twice a week, or any other virus the Government cares to conjure up as the new bogeyman?
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James Wright (303 likes): You needed to address in your article why you were previously against vaccine passports whereas now you are in favour of them.
And don’t pretend this is some kind of consultation – we all know you are pushing it through, regardless of what anyone says, and regardless of your previous public commitments.
Can’t you see you are the epitome of why politicians are distrusted?
~ ~
Peta Seel (911 likes): I didn’t get past the first paragraph. The average age of death worldwide of (or with) Covid is 82. Almost all of them were either very old, had severe underlying conditions or both. That hasn’t changed from the start. Children almost never get it. Few young people who get it even show symptoms. Worldwide deaths are under three million since the beginning of last year. Spanish flu killed 50 million, mostly young people, in the same time span. Now just go away, you lying, deceitful, power-hungry and power-grabbing charlatan.
Perhaps most plainly stated:
Clare Spencer (833 likes): No, no, no. That clear enough for you?
Read more comments at the bottom of Gove’s article here.
Stop Press: The Telegraph has published its own compendium of the best responses to Michael Gove’s article. Here’s one of the comments:
Jonathan Powell: “Absolutely and emphatically not. It is a terrible idea that will destroy freedom, divide society and enable government overreach. And that’s the best that could happen. The worst is more chilling than can be imagined. It should not even be discussed.”
Well worth reading in full.
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Part 4 of 4 (yes I know, I got it back to front. I’m tired)
If anything, persuasion by education would be far and away the best and only option, as long as the ‘education’ used is transparent and empirical with commentary and supervision from ‘senior scientists’ and true experts in the field, from all sides. Not just those with likely their own best interests at heart.
Anyway, what’s the problem you’re really trying to address? the vaccinated are the safe ones surely? You’ve achieved that. Or is that not really the case?
Do you have different numbers to those I see published by the ONS and similar trustworthy sources relating to the IFR of this virus that you haven’t shared? Numbers that give you cause for consternation of such import they have led you to even consider forcing such a madly tyrannical, authoritarian, dystopian tracking system on the UK’s population? If so please share. You’ll get my support if those fears are truly such a threat to the future of the Human Race that they justify measures even approaching what you are considering forcing onto the population of the UK.
If you can’t, what on earth is there left… Read more »
Part 3 of 4
How is this different?
It will mean different permissions for different human beings. Segregation too, of the haves and the, have nots (Vax Passports).
Already mooted, hence your feedback request, or pretty darned close to being in place are, segregated pubs, cafes, restaurants, segregated football/sports stadiums, segregated shopping areas, public conveniences, segregated schools, buses, segregated, taxis for Vaxed? Taxis for unvaxed? segregated public transport? etc.
Can’t you see where this leads? I certainly can and so can many other voters with the eyes to see.
Anyone who knows their history will recognise this step-by-step removal of our freedoms for what it is.
Why do you feel the need to coerce ANYONE? Let people decide for themselves!
Never has force or coercion been the road to successful medication programs, the whole concept somehow smacks of a ‘Hitleresque’ approach to dealing with this issue. Anyway, surely the point of the vaccine is to protect those who need/want to be protected. What’s the problem?
The vaccinated are the safe ones, aren’t they? Or has that changed now?
ANY coercion is especially inappropriate given that these vaccines are under temporary license pending publication of long-term safety information.
… Read more »
Part 2 of 4
Mr Gove et al, you’re advocating what could be seen as a new form of ‘apartheid’ whereby those who choose not to, or simply cannot have, the currently unlicensed vaccine, people like me; I suffer from an autoimmune syndrome called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (look it up), which means it’s much more likely the vaccine would kill me than the virus; are discriminated against via a digital tagging device called a vaccine passport or certificate. That is just wrong whichever way I look at it.
If you’re going to suggest it’s because of the ‘new variants’ let’s have a proper grown-up discussion about that. Include all of the top 2 or 3 per cent of the world’s leading virologists in the debate, a debate about something so desperately life and civilisation altering surely warrants at least that. Not just your select whispering cronies who each have so much to gain and so much to lose. Why wouldn’t you include ALL the leading lights and the myriad of knowledge from these highly respected experts in the field we are talking about? Why would you wish to silence them? This sort of decision is serious. Even if you disregard everything else that has happened in the… Read more »
Part 1 of 4 of my attempt to post my thoughts in the DT re Mr Goves feature
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute.
Sadly, I doubt this will get read: it’s a bit long. But there is so much that simply has to be said. It is now absolutely critical that the message gets out transparently and coherently. History shouts at us what can happen when the masses are coerced, even tricked into compliance by authority. We are once more at a vital juncture in human history. I suggest probably the most important since the end of the Second World War.
That is not an exaggeration.
The insidious, yet rapid removal of civil liberties in the last 14 months has been terrifying to me, and many others who can see it, having been around long enough to recognise it for what it is. “Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.” Somebody much wiser than me once said.
Everyone should take note. We stand at the edge of a precipice, a disaster the like of which the Human Race has not seen since Hitler attained power in March 1933, after the Reichstag adopted… Read more »
I tried to post a fairly lengthy and heartfelt piece, I kept it polite and not too controversial, couldn’t get it posted for some reason. Probably a bit long for on here. I might try anyway stuff I need to say.
Is the ‘Digital Green Pass’ reminiscent of the old apartheid Era Dompass?
In Apartheid South Africa I was well accustomed to seeing the racial segregations of whites and blacks and the document that kept it so. I was a young student constable in the South African police, when this injustice finally came to an end (1986).
Yes, I was one of the privileged, I grew up in a middle class home, my grandad, who died the year I was born, was arrested under the ‘Immorality act’. After the death of my grandmother, he had a relationship with a black woman and they had children, family I have never met.
Rosie was my nanny, I call her my second mom. As a child she showed me her Dompass and explained to me how it worked. She could not move around freely, she could only go to, and be at places where she had permission to go and be. She couldn’t ride on the same bus as me, she couldn’t sit on the same park bench as me. For heavens sake, she couldn’t even go into the same post office as me.
This is the way, the then Nationalist government restricted those… Read more »
Here my email to Gove MP at the beginning of the public consultation on certificates. As you would expect, other than a auto response it has not been read. So maybe you guys will enjoy the read:
Rt.Hon. Gove MP,
I, a concerned member of the public. A veteran with service in Northern Island, Belize, Cyprus and The Falklands(1982). Now a retired commercial pilot I am utterly shocked at the stance government has taken since this time last year. Politicisation of a, treatable virus of no greater risk to the public than influencer.
Any such requirement will be further degradation of our civil liberties, freedoms and confidentiality rights. NO such documents must ever be required to be held on person whether hard or electronic. Nor should anyone be unreasonably discriminated against in any way or form be it, not having, showing, or requiring to possess this or any other to access service we have always had access to prior to the decronian measures our present Stasi government impose.
All testing and tracing activities, including for international travel, must stop forever and never be introduced again for the same reasons. The current Act must not be renewed and new statute established… Read more »
Its so boring and time consuming writing to my MP but felt compelled to do so yet again.
Here is my email just in case anyone else is finding it tedious to keep pointing out the obvious. If any of it is useful help yourself.
Sorry to put it in two parts but I haven’t worked out how to do a long post on here
Dear Mr Baker,
I am writing to urge you to gather your courage and join with the 41 Tory MP’s who have signed the pledge to oppose the introduction of vaccine passports. No doubt you are already aware of the solid ground they stand upon. You must be aware of the compelling civil rights and the practical arguments against the introduction of such a totalitarian measure. Remember the proud tradition of freedom in this country.
These are my reasons for urging you to do the right thing:
There are those of us who regard the introduction of a vaccine passport as a devious, back door method of forcing a vaccine on those who do not want it. The need for a vaccine passport in order to travel from one place to another, use public transport, sit… Read more »
part 2 of email to Mr Baker:
Much else is not yet known about the vaccines. Contrary to the common understanding of what a vaccine actually does, these ‘ vaccines’ do not confer immunity to the disease, neither do they prevent transmission. They merely, so far as is known this point, reduce the chances of transmission and lessen symptoms. They are in fact a prophylactic, not a vaccine as is conventionally understood. So, what possible practical use could a vaccine passport be?
It does not prove a person is free from the disease or incapable of passing it to others.
All that a vaccine passport offers is proof that a person has complied with government wishes, nothing more.
If the presence of infectious disease in the population justifies the introduction of a vaccine passport why have we not had them in the past? What is it about this particular virus that makes this a necessity?
It is a very discriminating virus, dangerous only to the very frail and elderly, at or very close to their lives end, and to those whose health is already seriously compromised. It is not any danger to the population at large as other infectious diseases are i.e. TB, flu, any number of STD’s, including Aids. There was a great panic when AIDs first appeared. Why did we never have… Read more »
I despair. Not only will I NOT be a card carrying member of the Covid Passport brigade but I will be returning to sender the lateral flow tests to be sent out to each household (at what cost to the taxpayer?) and asking to be removed from their mailing list. How could any of us voted for this shambolic lot.
Apparently on TalkRadio this morning, it was reported that an Ipsos Mori poll showed that the majority of the British public are in favour of vaccine passports! I have serious concerns about both YouGov and Ipsos Mori polls. How can they be so different?
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/majority-britons-support-vaccine-passports-recognise-concerns-new-ipsos-mori-uk-knowledgepanel-poll
Opinion polls are used to influence public opinion, not report it. Reading the comments on the Telegraph and Mail letters pages is a better measure (although still not perfect). The way people vote in elections and referendums is the only real measure of public opinion worth considering.
I signed up for the YouGov polls, and every few days they ask if you want to chat, and give you several questions with very loaded answer choices, such as “Would Kier Starmer make a better job of dealing with covid”. You may think he’d do an even worse job, but an answer of “no” would confirm that the British Public thinks Boris is doing well.Recently there was a question asking whether I’d be happy to have some “sensible measures” in place to enable the country to open up “safely”. This alone could be interpreted to mean that people were in favour of vaccine passports.
Further to this, the polls are “live” for a while so will change, so small numbers in the early stages won’t reflect the end result. If the first 4 people vote and 3 people are “for” something, and 1 against, that will show as 75% in favour, as a snapshot they could publish, even though the next 100 voters are against.
There’s sometimes a space for free text, and that’s where I give it to them with all barrels!
The public have been bamboozled into submission. Thus in favour as the “only” solution to gain a degree of illusionary freedom. The whole thing has been an exercise in Psy Ops.
Why give us vaccine passports, the way they are controlling us, we may as well have mug tattooed over our foreheads and we will be able to go anywhere and do anything!
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/04/no_author/our-species-is-enduring-largest-uncontrolled-experiment-ever-we-shouldnt-ignore-vanden-bossches-warning/
Self explanatory.
VdB might be corrupted and offering the wrong solution, but his basic premise and concern could well be right and shouldn’t be dismissed by anyone, incl. the vaccine sceptical.
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
― Albert Einstein
https://gab.com/Dennis_Rucker/posts/105986369583216183
Closely followed by the BBC.
a PUBLIC consultation through a NEWSPAPER BEHIND A PAYWAL?? well, thats Rich isn’t it…… Grove should invite All those in opposition to gather at Parliment square is he was not SINISTER or had Balls
I’ve just opened a free trial with the Telegraph in order to post my view, which goes as follows:
Mr Gove, you ask for the views of the public in a poor bid to appear democratic. I doubt there’s anyone here who believes they can alter your trajectory on this creeping communist nightmare merely by sharing their opinion.
It’s the same every time I have attempted to appeal to my local Tory MP who was elected with the thanks to my vote (regrettably). Such contempt he must hold for us serfs that most of the time he doesn’t reply, and when he does, it’s a copy/paste list of lies and falsehoods that support your scam.
In symmetry with the rest of the globalist UN nations, you have successfully terrified the majority of this country into obedient captives. A sizeable number demonstrate signs of Stockholm Syndrome when they scorn others for not strictly following your ‘rules’.
It is perhaps these people you should have approached for their views on your evil passport system to get the reply you wanted. The BBC/Sky forums are a good starting point.
BTW I fibbed about voting in the Tory-boy. I spoiled my paper because I had already come to understand there is no real opposition in the HOP. That we now have the most historically extreme socialist politics being waged on the country by a supposedly ‘conservative’ government proves this point entirely.
The surreal charade that has manifested itself during the past year has been further enhanced by yet another example of a despicable politician attempting to impose more restrictions with the proposal to introduce “vaccine passports”. All that needs to be said about this disgusting idea has probably been said but I do take reassurance that my opinion of most politicians has been confirmed. I don’t think I could take the shock if reason and balanced sanity were to motivate loveable Boris and his chums. I just wonder what the next lunatic suggestion will be. How about sterilisation for the sinful scepticism of doubting anything this egregious gang of dictatorial charlatans spews forth; in their eyes nicely acceptable.
Bounce back better Boris and his troop of diktat monkeys have come to have the same effect on me as sticking a finger down my throat.
Perhaps if we put as much money and effort and national focus into cancer research and treatments we might even find a cure or way to save 99% from death or severe conditions. That would save far more lives than this covid nonesense.
Or any of the other diseases that hundreds/thousands of us every year.
I’m afraid that they argue that rna vaccines will be the key to curing cancer. That’ll be the next push.
Moderna already working on it. In the pipeline.
Completely and unequivocally the best definition if insanity I’ve ever heard.
Go away and leave us all alone.
I think the latest proposal to test everyone twice-weekly trumps that !!
I agree. Absolutely ridiculous!
On The Telegraph comments threads, see how people such as ‘Adam Hill’ and ‘Owen Smith’ seek to derail the discussion with usually one liners making ad hominem attacks.
I’m all for open discussion and no censorship, but we have a major problem challenging the status quo when this disruption to serious discussion is allowed.
What we desperately need are genuine open forums where important matters of policy can be discussed in a serious manner, and where people hiding behind pseudonyms are discouraged from derailing discussion.
Taxpayer-funded media such as the BBC in the UK, and ABC and SBS in Australia, should provide these forums, but on the rare occasions when they do, the government propaganda line is protected, in my experience.
Going forward, we have to think about how we insist on the people’s viewpoint being heard.
At the moment we are dominated by elected ‘representatives’ who refuse to respond because they’re too busy, or if they do, patronise us with self-serving form letters.
In our liberal democracies the government should serve the people, but instead we are being dominated by people who appear to be working on behalf of vested interests, and not for the people’s benefit.
Perhaps we… Read more »
Yes, we need a Great Reset. And it will come. But not the one this lot are planning on.
I have written several times using WriteToThem. It’s very good unlike my MP who is unfortunately a “Tow the Party line” Socialist. Chocolate fire guards spring to mind judging by the automaton replies I receive.
My favourite post of the day:
“Andy Anderson
4 Apr 2021 5:43PM
You invite comments, but as a party you are so out of touch, and lacking in any kind of common sense that you’ve almost certainly already decided to go ahead. Like petitions, this is just a sop to make people think they have some input, when they really don’t.
This whole sorry episode has been caused by your reliance on the PCR test, run at such a high cycle threshold any fragments of RNA discovered are almost certainly of no relevance. When looking at covid deaths, sensible countries like Singapore demand that for any death to be regarded as a covid death, the person concerned had to have a respiratory disease prior to passing. As a result their death rate per 100,000 is just 2.5% of ours. You though, seem intent on counting anybody, just to get the numbers as high as possible, in order to justify your scaremongering tactics.
In my opinion, you realised pretty quickly that abandoning the long held pandemic preparedness plan was a mistake. By that time though, your thinking was almost certainly on the lines of ‘if we admit the error now, it will… Read more »
Nail on head Rich – we;ll said sir!
Prof Balloux has been conspicuously absent from the vaccination debate (he is employed UCL)but this wisdom has been tweeted
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1378438734564196360
“Arguing that you don’t care about the downsides of vaccine passports because you have been, or are being, vaccinated is no different than saying you don’t care about health discrimination because you are healthy and financially well off
I did not read his article, there is no point in listening or reading to anything from this Government or its laughable Opposition. However, I read an immense number of the comments. My opinion is that the Tories are toast come the next election. Numerous Tory voters, myself included, stated they will never vote Tory again and the obvious place for us to go is Reform.
I’ve also written to my MP and pointed out what happened with the self induced damage Gove asked for yesterday. I then laid out the case against the introduction of any sort of ID system and pointed out that Jokeson himself stated he would publicly eat any form of ID card so heinous is the idea.
I urge you all to also contact your MP for free:
WriteToThem – Email your Councillor, MP, MSP, MS, MLA or London Assembly Member for free
Richard
I am busy emailing all the clubs, businesses taking part in the government trials of larger venues. Some are testing, others are taking part in this medical apartheid.
Hot Water Club Liverpool has back-pedalled to testing before and after.
Wembley Stadium
The Luna Cinema Liverpool
ACC Liverpool
Crucible Theatre Sheffield
Hatfield House Hertfordshire
they will be complicit in the coercion of the taking of vaccine which should be by informed consent
I suspect that one of Boris’s four changes possibly could be the opening of pubs at the same time as non essential businesses to stave off the high court demand that health minister provides reasoning for the delay, by 10am tomorrow. As the government never provide logical reason I maybe overthinking it.
FYI, one of my comments on Michael Gove’s article (I also tried to post a version here with hyperlinks to references included in the comment, but it disappeared.)
I see Graham Brady’s article on the Telegraph has been buried already… ‘Vaccine passports show the state is reaching too far into our lives’.
I left this comment on it:
“No government in future should have the power to tell you whether you can see your children or grandchildren, nor should it be able to force you to publish your medical records as a condition for living a normal life.”
Can you believe you even need to say this Graham Brady?
What a horrible disaster has been foisted upon us by the Johnson government, with the complicity of Starmer’s Labour Party too.
I’m in Australia, and what is happening in the UK is having a massive deleterious impact around the world.
An urgent investigation must be initiated right now.
Much of this stems from Neil Ferguson et al’s Imperial College Report 9, dated 16 March 2020, which set the scene for ‘suppression’ of the virus, until ‘the vaccine is ready’.
Largely due to the influence of Ferguson et al’s report, restrictions on… Read more »
Really encouraging to read comments like yours and so many others, Thank you. What really puzzles and shocks me is why and how soooo many people seem to welcome this kind of “voluntary servitude” as La Boétie called it. At the end of the day, don’t people realize that in order for A to have power over B, B must accept to “play the game” and ALLOW A to have power over him/her…
Yes. It may be he has the best of intentions. The nuclear bomb was invented with those. But his wall of money and vaccination obsession and certainty that he is right has unleashed terrifying greed and despotism across the world, and killed many – perhaps millions, when the final count of the impact on the third world as well as nursing homes and untreated cancers is in.
One of my comments on Gove’s article…
I see Graham Brady’s article on the Telegraph has been buried already… ‘Vaccine passports show the state is reaching too far into our lives’.
I left this comment on it:
“No government in future should have the power to tell you whether you can see your children or grandchildren, nor should it be able to force you to publish your medical records as a condition for living a normal life.”
Can you believe you even need to say this Graham Brady?
What a horrible disaster has been foisted upon us by the Johnson government, with the complicity of Starmer’s Labour Party too.
I’m in Australia, and what is happening in the UK is having a massive deleterious impact around the world.
An urgent investigation must be initiated right now.
Much of this stems from Neil Ferguson et al’s Imperial College Report 9, dated 16 March 2020, which set the scene for ‘suppression’ of the virus, until ‘the vaccine is ready’.
Largely due to the influence of Ferguson et al’s report, restrictions on freedom of movement and association were imposed around the world.
How did this happen?
Who decided on a global vaccine response… Read more »
how is that accountability going to come about??
The simple response to Gove is to tell him to stick his vaccine passports where the sun don’t shine, although judging by the above photo he may have just done it.
It’s hard to see how we escape from this. Frankly with over 50% vaccinated and that number steadily climbing there’ll be plenty of folk willing to sacrifice liberty for a foreign holiday, a restaurant etc. I’m very down about the whole thing and would love to emigrate to Florida or some other free state but don’t know how…the government will seemingly stop at nothing to fulfil their agenda
I have been trying all evening to post on the DT comments section. Strangely, since about 10pm, the site has been closed “for maintenance”.
However, I could read the comments and was certainly heartened by the swell of opinion against what I can only describe as a “bonkers” idea.