Guido Fawkes reminds us today that over 1,200 so-called experts signed ‘the Declaration’ – cooked up by the same people behind the John Snow Memorandum – warning of the terrible effect easing coronavirus restrictions on July 19th would have. The Declaration originally took the form of a letter in the Lancet, published on July 7th, in which 120 self-described ‘scientists’, many of them members of Independent SAGE, described ‘Freedom Day’ as “dangerous and premature”. They cited the SAGE modelling showing there would be 100,000 new Covid cases a day if the Government went ahead with its plans and set out the dire consequences for Britain and the rest of the world. “We believe the Government is embarking on a dangerous and unethical experiment, and we call on it to pause plans to abandon mitigations on July 19th, 2021,” they wrote.
Two weeks on from ‘Freedom Day’, their predictions aren’t holding up terribly well.
According to Public Health England, the number of new daily cases fell to 21,691 today, another five-week low. So the 1,200 signatories of the Declaration exaggerated the number of daily cases that would follow ‘Freedom Day’ by 500%.
The Lancet letter also predicted that hospital admissions would soar as a result of Boris’s recklessness:
The link between cases and hospital admissions has not been broken, and rising case numbers will inevitably lead to increased hospital admissions, applying further pressure at a time when millions of people are waiting for medical procedures and routine care.
Perhaps they should have thought twice before inserting that word “inevitably” because the latest data shows hospital admissions falling. “Another 731 admissions were recorded by officials on July 30th, the latest date available – down 15% on the week before,” reports MailOnline.
And it wasn’t just these 1,200 ‘experts’ who were sounding the alarm. Let’s not forget that Keir Starmer also described Boris’s plan to ease restrictions as “reckless”.
And, of course, our old friend Neil Ferguson said on July 18th that it was “almost inevitable” that daily cases would climb to 100,000 a day if Boris went ahead with the unlocking the following day and added that “the real question” was whether they would reach 200,000 a day or more and warned of a “significant burden on the healthcare system”. Out by 1000% – which is actually pretty modest by Ferguson’s standards.
As Guido Fawkes says: “Guido can’t remember a time 1,200 so-called experts were proven so wrong in one fell swoop…”
Boris’s decision to go ahead with ‘Freedom Day’ is the first time I can think of in the past 16 months when he’s stuck to his guns in the face of wildly apocalyptic claims from various ‘experts’ about the consequences of “letting it rip” (their phrase for giving us our freedoms back). On every previous occasion, because he’s done exactly as these gloomsters have asked, they haven’t been proved wrong. Admittedly, locking down three times hasn’t stopped the U.K. from having one of the worst Covid death tolls in Europe, and Sweden’s excess deaths in 2020 were lower than ours in spite of not locking down. But the crystal ball gazers have always been able to argue that things would have been so much worse if we hadn’t locked down. Yet this time – finally – Boris ignored their doom-mongering and, as a result, they have been proved spectacularly – and humiliatingly – wrong.
Will this experience stiffen Boris’s backbone the next time he’s prevailed upon by the Government’s scientific advisers, sundry public health experts and the chin-wobblers in the Cabinet to lock down again, which really is inevitable? We can but hope.
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I’m glad you’ve closed down London Calling. Because your interlocutor has gradually transformed from a reasonable right wing dandy into some species of cultic fruitcake, complete with thin skin, it became impossible to sustain discussion. In the first place he responded with peevish insults to the first suggestion of disagreement; and worse, his “theories”, for want of a better word, boil down to a childish belief in a tribe of all powerful bogeymen. I stopped listening months ago for just this reason. Not only did JD reject the perfectly obvious point that there will never be a single explanation for all things; not only did he dismiss the role that accident plays in life, he wouldn’t even accept the perfectly proper point that in “woke” we are dealing with a tide of intellectual fashion among the whole educated class. No, for him it was bogeymen. At this point I have just heard the typically moderate and generous Young-point that JD is not mad, he’s just evangelical. Well, that sort of Christianity verges on madness in any case, does it not? Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox faith allows for science and reason – free-floating, late-comer’s amateur Protestantism amounts to a belief in UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster. It also explains his appalling sympathy for Islam – among the deadliest enemies freedom has ever had. Finally, to Mr Dixon, no it is not an insult to be called an ethnic nationalist. Ethnic nationalism is there in the belief systems of Churchill and de Gaulle and is wholly distinct from the beliefs of their famous German antagonist.
Clearly there are at least twenty-six religious nuts who worship at the shrine of Little Jim and his fight against the all-powerful Bogeymen. They can’t seem to muster an argument between them. What a surprise!
Like all religious fruitcakes, anything that it is beyond his intellect to understand is ascribed to a god or gods.
This is true of religious fruitcakes but not true of the more rationally religious, for example Dr Johnson, who had little truck with efforts at “theodicy” and dismissed all certainty as to the particular intentions or interventions of God.
And he would certainly not have ascribed all our misfortunes to some ongoing cabal of human agents as it seems the “born again” James is happy to do.
Indeed, with his obsessive focus on particular individuals he is close to viewing them as supernatural powers; and worse, he sees them as involved in a conspiracy over centuries.
Here we meet the ultimate nonsense which mutters darkly about secret societies, Freemasons et al – really, little better than taking Dan Brown seriously. And this, I fear, is why he reacted in such a prickly fashion – or so I understand – to some phantom accusation of anti-Semitism, for that is the really nasty creature which lurks at the end of so many such “rabbit-holes” – and he knows it.
Happily, he is clearly resisting that particular temptation; but one wonders how long it will take to overcome his resistance? After all, a once rational individual now rejects opposition, ascribes every evil to a thousand year conspiracy, denies evolution, palaeontology, the routine precautions of due scepticism and in their place relies on childish, fairy-tale explanations with horrible antecedents and horrifying possibilities. In claiming to be down this “rabbit hole” he evinces a last, uncomfortable sense that he is losing touch with truth; is, perhaps, giving out a final distress signal in hopes that someone might rescue him.
This, ultimately, is why I stopped tuning in. He needs help.
I stopped listening to London Calling simply because the show notes told me in too great a detail who thought what about which topic, so there was no need to listen.
I continued listening to hear Toby calmly and logically dealing with the ever more extreme Delingpole outbursts. I quite like JD and although I tend to dismiss his theories, I found it interesting to listen to them.
Interesting? Surely it was embarrassing? Like listening in on a private session between shrink and fruitcake. As for liking the poor fruitcake, well – he was once likeable, in his downright, right-wing hedonist days. Now that he’s a particularly aggressive member of some sort of pensioners’ Christian Union, complete with American Bible-bashing, he must be quite ghastly to meet.
Like all religious fruitcakes, anything that it is beyond his intellect to understand is ascribed to a god or gods.
Richmond was the capital of the Southern states in the Civil War. The men North of Richmond are yankees and bankers etc
Anthony wasn’t saying he lived there – he’s in NC I think
Good listen and good restaurant dish!! I used to listen to London Calling from the beginning, so will miss friends trying to work stuff out but there was getting less discussion about what might be happening.
I feel more optimistic after listening thank you but I wonder if one of you could listen to JDs latest podcast with the nice Irish guy about covid but worrying if he is right !?
Tuning in next week !
The ad-lib of “Re-wolving the Guardian” was so good that you must make the film. Toby drooling over the Moonbot trans-wolf going through Owen Jones like butter shows Toby’s inner psychopath, the more sinister for his veneer of urbanity.
I might add that I walked my dogs for years among leafy NJ suburbs less than an hour from NYC, happily co-existing with occasional bears and coyotes. Coyotes are half-wolf in the Eastern US and the ones I saw looked as big as wolves. Picking ticks off the dogs was more trouble.
It is hardly surprising that the podcast failed. It is one thing to punctuate something compelling by advertisements but times have moved on and there is no pretending that things are normal anymore. Such a conceit runs contrary to evryone’s lived experience and so such a podcast just gets consigned to background noise like a dog barking in the back garden. I don’t give advice except to say that God hates a coward most of all.
La Proudman is a wank-stain on the fabric of humanity
I was thinking skid mark. Even a wankstain had a degree of potential at some point in its existence.
Sadly I have reached a point with several sets of friends with regard to views on issues like leaving the EU, Covid, Lockdowns, Masks, “Vaccines”, Net Zero, DIE (yes there are HR managers among my friends). With one group we have had to agree not to discuss political issues. Another group (predominantly career long public sector employees) I have let go because we cannot talk about anything much any more due to their deep immersion in their narrative, which is infuriating.
It’s nuclear Toby, just say new-clear, not Dubya’s mangled nu-cu-lar. And regarding the crazy plane lady Nick, you should probably watch this, it may be helpful:
https://youtu.be/pInk1rV2VEg
NEW PODCAST OUT FROM THE REAL NORMAL PODCAST!
We’re back on the airwaves talking about the ‘Bibby Stockholm’ and her massive hull…plus we’re picking the bones out of light fingered museum curators. We cover the awful story of Lucy Letby, whilst also chatting about the usual madness that swirls around the woke, namely Graham Linehan.
https://therealnormalpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1268768/13442825-ep-53-get-your-big-bibby-stockholm-s-out
PLUS SILLY SONGS you unfortunate proles!