There’s good news and bad news on the travel front today. The good news is that the ‘traffic light’ travel system could be (partially) scrapped next month under plans being drawn up by ministers. The bad news is that officials have been told not to allow a return to normal but to create a new system based on Covid vaccination instead. The Telegraph has the story.
Officials have been told to develop a new system based on the vaccination status of travellers rather than the Covid rating of the country they are visiting.
It is likely to mean ‘Amber’ and ‘Green’ will disappear as separate categories, although ‘Red’ will continue with travellers still required to quarantine in hotels on returning from high-risk destinations.
Double jabbed holidaymakers can already travel to Amber countries without having to quarantine on their return after the Government ditched the requirement to self-isolate.
It means that for fully vaccinated travellers, visiting Amber or Green countries is exactly the same, requiring only pre-departure tests and then a PCR test within two days of returning to the U.K.
The proposed new two-tier system is only likely to have an impact on those who are not vaccinated. It is unclear, however, whether they would be required to continue to quarantine or face a more intensive testing regime on returning to the U.K.
The rethink of the traffic light system has been triggered by the Government’s promise to review it by October 1st when it was originally unveiled earlier this year.
It also coincides with the completion of the vaccination roll-out with all adults aged 18 and over offered both their jabs by the end of September.
Worth reading in full.
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Not surprising in the least. The establishment will not allow the fundamental premises of its ideology to be questioned.
You can just about discuss the problem of the costs without violent retribution and censorship. But challenge the basis of the whole thing? Never.
It was the same with covid. They quickly laid out the premises: it’s a pandemic, the virus is the deadliest threat to society in living memory, the only way out is farmacological
Those were and remain largely the unquestionable premises. And we were all left to squabble about the cost and the right approach, thereby not only leaving the flawed assumptions unchallenged but in fact reinforcing them by being forced to debate the logical consequences of them and only that.
This is how society has been mind controlled since time immemorial and it isn’t about to change.
This was a defamation case not a case about the fraudulent climate hooey and hockey stick. Steyn lost mostly because he equated Mann with the rapes of young athletes at U Penn (something to the effect that we should expect Mann to be raping climate science at a school which rapes young people and covers it up etc). That is why he lost.
We should be clear that this trial had nothing to do with the quackery and criminality called ‘climate science’. It was purely a case about slander and reputation degradation.
I am not quite sure why you have received a number of red thumbs down. It is true that the Hockey Stick graph is not a representation of temperature on earth over the last one thousand years. Steve McIntyre showed that to be the case, despite Mann refusing to provide data, methodology and computer code. ——This is a bit like me claiming Elvis Presley is alive and living in Egypt. When I am asked for my data, my evidence or my film of Mr. Presley I point blank refuse and call all those asking for it “”Elvis Deniers”. ——-It is true that this case is not about science or whether the Hockey Stick is some kind of ultimate truth regarding temperature, because it clearly is not. It is about “reputation” or “loss of earnings” or some other spurious stuff. ——–But as far as I am concerned, in science if you refuse to provide evidence, data etc for others to be able to reproduce your work then your reputation is in the gutter and you are a total imposter. —Mann is a total imposter.
I think FerdIII has received a number of red thumbs down for stating that “Steyn lost mostly because he equated Mann with the rapes of young athletes at U Penn”. That’s simply false. Steyn never “equated Mann with the rapes of young athletes at U Penn”.
It was Simberg who wrote, “Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science”, which Mark Steyn repeated, saying, “Not sure I’d have extended that metaphor all the way into the locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr. Simberg does, but he has a point.”
Neither of them “equated Mann with the rapes of young athletes”, they compared Penn State University’s findings that allegations about a pedophile were unfounded with the university’s findings that allegations of scientific wrongdoing by Mann were unfounded. Although the jury may have been too stupid to understand the difference.
(Also, by the way, it wasn’t ‘U Penn’, it was Penn State University. It has nothing to do with the University of Pennsylvania. They are two completely different universities.)
While that may strictly be true, in practice this guy is able to bring this to court because he has the support of people that want to defend what he stands for.
Many people say many things about others that are defamatory but few make it to court.
On the other hand many things end up in court that never should. Ask Trump.
I don’t believe for a minute this man’s reputation was damaged to the tune of 1m dollars and if it was it was because the lies of his theories were exposed, not because of the rhetorical flourishes used to expose him.
Yep
Penn State looked the other way when their prize winning coach Sandusky was molesting young boys, and they looked the other way when their funding champion Mann was ‘molesting’ data. That’s a criticism of Penn State, it is not equating Mann to a rapist.
Good point. ———In the end though a charlatan is let of to continue being a government funded data adjuster and climate change imposter.
No he didn’t. He compare the treatment of both men. NOT both men. An entirely different matter.
He really didn’t do that, and you are accepting the MSM spin. All Mark said was a college that hid child abuse perpetrated on an industrial scale would have little compunction about covering up scientific fraud. He didn’t for a second equate scientific fraud with child abuse.
Bizarre quantity of downticks! The post was not a criticism of Steyn, you twits! It was merely a clarification of what happened. Steyn shouldn’t have lost, of course – and FerdIII didn’t say he should have!
This was supposed to be a defamation case, but it was all about climate quackery and the hockey stick. The Plaintiff’s closing statement made that clear – “These attacks on climate scientists have to stop.” and “Election denial is the same as climate denial”.
As plaintiff (Mann) was given the right to chose where the case was heard, it’s small wonder he elected to have it heard in DC. Mann’s senior counsel, in summing up, appealed to the jury to send out a strong message to stop attacks on other scientists out there and proceeded to conflate “science deniers” with “election deniers,” the precedent already having been set by the verdict against Trump for the january 6th 2021 ‘insurrection.’ The US justice system is a laughing stock. Cold comfort for the redoubtable and always excellent Mark Steyn.
The woke regime was never going to find against one of its own.
‘The core purpose of the constitutional protection of freedom of expression is to ensure that all opinions on such issues have a chance to be heard and considered’
So, an unconstitutional verdict; an absolute and shameful disgrace.
Life has not been kind to Mark Steyn or the climate realist community. This case could never be won on the basis of good science. That argument was lost a long time ago because people believe the narrative ‘The consensus of climate scientists blah blah…..’. But the battle isn’t lost and I pray, that one day, Mark is fully vindicated. He was and is one of the best journalists I’ve ever listened to. Principled, articulate, witty and a joy to listen to.
What a wonderful, brave and good man Mark Steyn is, and what a price he is paying for being such. A great encouragement to keep stepping up to the plate of truth.
Even a year ago one was walking on thin ice to go near this subject in anything but revered tones, regardless of the wall of scientific facts one might have had. But now address it with the ridicule it deserves and bystanders to a conversation start to see the emperor has no clothes at all.
I did this at dinner with a senior cabinet member and tory leadership contender recently, and they got very cross indeed – flak is heaviest when you’re over the target, etc. – and one could feel the table of 14 suddenly starting to question their beliefs.
The ground is shifting quickly now, and it doesn’t favour the liars.
What a good comment and so true.
We often underestimate the value of just one person being prepared to go against the grain and say openly what many only dare think privately.
And sadly these people tend to take bullets on behalf of many.
Thank god for people like Steyn.
Most in government already know that this climate change crisis issue isn’t really about science. ——-But as in all walks of life it is hard to get a man to disagree with something when his ability to feed his family and pay his mortgage depends upon agreeing. ——–That is why not a one person stood in Parliament in 2019 and asked a single question as to the cost/benefit of NET ZERO. ——-It was simply waved through. They waved it through knowing full well that the cost would be in the trillions, and that even if it was achievable (which it isn’t) it would have no measurable effect on climate. ——-So why did they do it? —-Because it isn’t about the climate and they know it.
Mark showed the nonsense up on his broadcasts and for that he will be hounded by the blob until he is gone. I have donated to help him with costs and will continue fighting in my own way and hope fellow Sceptics feel the same.
What a good comment, and what a sound decent chap (I assume) you must be raising the topic to an over preened fool in the cabinet. These idiots do need to hear the truth. I can only say thank you for doing it.
The Globalists were never going to let Steyn win. Their planned futures, and the one they have planned for us, depended on Mann’s Hockey Stick nonsense being upheld.
So sad to see Mark looking so frail and ill. He should never have allowed himself to be jabbed.
Mark Steyn has been very courageous. ——But what is courage? ——It is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it. ————————-Twain.
I enjoyed Mark Steyn’s presentations on GBNews. He was the only one tackling some particularly serious issues, which the rest of the media – and the UK government – studiously ignore. It was a shock to see his present condition, but I think, and hope, that he will regain his health and strength.
The regulator is there it seems to protect the establishment position. The position that we are all to be impoverished based on junk science and discredited temperature graphs. The position based on falsified Malthusian ideas about population and resources, with exaggerated fears about a climate crisis for which no empirical evidence exists.
What courage!
Steyn has more backbone than the rest of our MSM combined.
He knew a Washington Deep State jury wouldn’t give him a fair trial, but entered the Lion’s den anyway.
To the surprise of no one. The hockey stick fraud is repeated all over the internet. Every time you search for historical temperatures, there it is. Every time someone uses a graph to motivate their adherence to the cult, there it is. To admit that the hockey stick graph is fraudulent would be like NASA coming out and admitting the Moon landing was shot in a studio.
Do read Steyn’s book “Lights Out”. Based on articles he was writing in the 90s and early 2000s. Much of what he writes about rings alarm bells, and describes how Canada, in particular, was succumbng to the slow destruction of free speech in the name of one particular religion by the weaponisation of human rights.
Also “A Disgrace to the Profession”
Look at the face on Mann. ———Would you trust this piece of s..t?
Mann is evil. If there is a God, he will make sure that Mann gets his just desserts.
I heartily concur with praise for Mark Steyn he is brave and clever man, like many others I support him regularly at via his website – (buying his books is no chore as they are excellent).
He has of course taken UK’s Ofcom to court over his being forced to leave GB News….so another battle to come.
This wonderful brave warrior for Free Speech needs our support.
I followed this case and couldn’t believe the outcome. A disgraceful mockery, akin to the morons that were found not guilty for pulling down Cabot’s statue in Bristol.
This is not justice, it’s a travesty. Shame on the jury.
Free speech is dead, justice is dead,
Brilliant insightful article.
The problem is that it should never have been a jury trial. It was never going to be fair. This was bound to be biased by billions of dollars of climate change propaganda yearly. In cases of clear miscarriage of justice, the Judge can override the jury verdict. Hopefully he will do so in this case.
Only orthodox opinions are now allowed?
Free speech – it was nice to know you.
I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for the eloquent and witty Mark Steyn and it is tragic to see him looking so frail and battered. He was always uneasy about the jab. This is a sinister vendetta against him and we can only trust he will be given the strength to overcome it. Fighting for what is right is so very very hard. As Beethoven said, the cross a man bears is like the cross (sharp) in music – it raises you higher.