Covid Flip-Flopping is Cock Up, Not Conspiracy

2 min read

I’ve written a piece for Mail+ today trying to explain communications omnishambles of the past few days. Here is an extract:

Boris Johnson has executed so many U-turns in the past 18 months, it’s as if his solution to the supply chain problem is to retrain as an HGV driver. But even by this Government’s standards, the past few days have seen some spectacular flip-flopping.

Will vaccine passports be introduced for nightclubs, sports stadiums and other large venues? Judging from the string of contradictory ministerial statements about this, the answer seems to be: “No, but, yeah, but…”

The week began with Boris saying he wanted a “bonfire of Covid regulations”, only for him to give a press conference yesterday warning of more restrictions to come this winter.

Then there was Professor Chris Whitty’s bizarre remarks on Monday about vaccinating healthy 12 to 15 year-olds, which will have left most parents none the wiser about whether it’s a sensible precaution or not.

The only thing Boris seems to have set fire to this week is his last vestige of credibility.

According to some cynics, this conflicting advice is a deliberate attempt by the Government to gaslight us. Trying to discover some rhyme or reason beneath the recent spate of back-of-the-envelope announcements is to misunderstand what Boris is really doing, which is to deliberately confuse us.

In their conspiratorial eyes, it’s designed to soften us up for the mass rollout of ID cards, digital currency and – eventually – a Chinese-style social credit system in which anyone who challenges the billionaire-financed technocratic elite will be socially isolated and financially impoverished. They refer to this diabolical plan as ‘the Great Reset’.

I’m not convinced. As a journalist who has been writing about politicians and their shenanigans for more than 30 years, I’m a subscriber to what’s known as ‘Hanlon’s razor’ – never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. In other words, it’s usually cock-up rather than conspiracy. Most politicians I know couldn’t even reset their alarm clocks.

Worth reading in full.

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241 Comments
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Jane T
Jane T
5 years ago

Hi Toby – I think this is your answer, sadly … we have a problem.

https://twitter.com/21wire/status/1437183550218981377?s=12

Jason Salvesen
Jason Salvesen
5 years ago

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing you that he didn’t exist”

sevart
sevart
5 years ago

Politicians are just useful idiots that work for the big money boys. They get the blame, that’s what they’re for.

TheBigman
TheBigman
5 years ago

Drinking the Koolaid anyone who thinks this isn’t planned.

flyingjohn
flyingjohn
5 years ago

It’s not cock up, Toby, it’s deliberate and planned. Johnson makes it look like a cock up, because his default blundering and bumbling style is an act. You underestimate him, he is a dangerous, cunning, lying narcissist.

B2ED4C83-AB8E-40A1-993B-A9351B54EA6E.jpeg
Victoria
Victoria
5 years ago
Reply to  flyingjohn

You underestimate him, he is a dangerous, cunning, lying narcissist.

Exactly!!!

kate
kate
5 years ago

https://txti.es/covid-pass/images

The article about Lithuania now has pictures, and looks to me just like China with it’s social credit score system, and the videos I have seen of people having to scan in and out everywhere they go.
I am amazed this is not being publicized more. Their government will know about your every move, and can ban you at the drop of a hat, I would never have believed this could ever happen at the start of all this.

This is what is coming….not a cock-up then????

kate
kate
5 years ago
Reply to  kate

For shopping, if you don’t have the Opportunity Pass, you are only allowed to shop in small stores (<1500 m2) which have street entrances and whose main activity is to sell food, veterinary goods, pharmaceuticals, glasses and contact lenses, or farming supplies. You may not enter stores which mainly sell any other products. You may not enter any shopping mall. You may not enter large stores, including supermarkets (a recent estimate is that 186 large supermarkets in our country currently bar non-Pass holders). For eating and drinking, you cannot visit any restaurant, cafe, or bar. This includes all indoor areas and most outdoor areas. For transportation, local city buses do not require the Opportunity Pass. But political leaders have indicated all forms of public transportation might require the Pass if they can figure out how to make it work. For medical care, inpatient services require the Covid Pass. For outpatient medical care (e.g., doctors’ offices, specialist clinics, dental offices), medical facilities may allow a patient to enter who does not have the Opportunity Pass. But in practice, many clinics require the Opportunity Pass except for emergency situations. In my area, outpatient medical facilities require the Covid Pass or certifications. Four days ago, my family… Read more »

Spritof_GFawkes
Spritof_GFawkes
5 years ago
Reply to  kate

Wow! Are you in Lithuania?

Spritof_GFawkes
Spritof_GFawkes
5 years ago

Sorry, ignore me. I misinterpreted what I was reading.

Anonymous
Anonymous
5 years ago

‘Cock-up’ is unintentional, human-error for which there is no blame, thus no guilt, which undermines all lawyers’ efforts to stop lockdowns.
Instead of ‘conspiracy’, saying ‘knowing and intentional’ clarifies alternative that supports lawyers’ efforts to stop lockdowns.
‘Cock-up’ implies that not only does Eton accept dunces, but so too does Oxford, undermining people like Dr Sunatra Gupta.
Johnson excels in ‘playing the clown’; it’s an infallible escape-route that only the very bright can pull off.
Calling it ‘cock-up’ is arrogant know-it-all, which learns nothing itself, so is easily tricked by the few with Johnson’s ability to ‘play the clown’.
All of all actions since Feb 2020 have been highly skilled, knowing, fully intentional maximising of Pharma/IT’s profits.
Our good health is bad for Pharm/IT’s profits.
Fear and restrictions inflicted on normal biochemistry and physiology destroy our physical health, escalating need for all Pharm/IT’s products; 18 months plenty to shorten life-expectancy of healthy adults to 2 – 5 more years. Jabs being ‘back-up’.
The know-how is Pharm/IT’s who bought academia, WHO and governments decades ago and recruit other wealthy ‘agendas.’

mishmash
mishmash
5 years ago

So it’s not a conspiracy when….

-Known, cheap and effective treatments are blocked for use by the medical system, and MSM lies are published to discredit them?
-Government medical officers produce manipulated data live on television as their ‘proof’ of the pandemic?
-They lie about hospital bed occupancy?
-Flu data stops being separately published?
-They claim flu cases worldwide have dropped by 97% but in their place we have Covid with flu like symptoms…and they still push the flu shots?
-They say passports are a conspiracy theory and “not how we do things in this country” before shortly announcing passports, or not, or yes?
-They ignore data from countries that imposed no social restrictions, and even lie about their success in the media?
-‘Covid-19 Diagnostic Test Instruments and Apparatus’ entries show up in 2018 on the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) website?

Victoria
Victoria
5 years ago
Reply to  mishmash

-The CDC now only regard you as vaccinated 14 days after receiving the 2nd covid vaccination (Pfizer & Moderna) and 14 days after receiving the 1st vaccination (Janssen).

80% of Covid vaccine deaths occur during the first 14 days

Death 14 days.png
8bit
8bit
5 years ago

Tom Luongo puts it nicely in a recent article:

“When you see government policy an order of magnitude more incompetent than can be explained by internal squabbling and petty corruption, you are dealing with something willful.”

“This is always what I’ve envisioned the ‘failure’ of the Great Reset to look like whenever I’ve invoked that idea. They’ve (Davos Inc.) taken their shot at it. Where they have the most control and favorable
laws/infrastructure — i.e. the English Commonwealth, France, Italy, Germany, Spain — they are ramping up the tyranny.”

BungleIsABogan
BungleIsABogan
5 years ago

I tried very hard for a long time to believe that the present position we find ourselves in was simply the recurring utter incompetence from those like Bozo – who it appears is intellectually ignorant in relation to anything that didn’t occur in the Greco-Roman era – to deal with anything resembling a problem in the present day.

However, as time has elapsed and certain things have become known about the highly debatable aims of those in the WEF and the support from some very rich and dangerous individuals like Bill Gates, with his very disturbing views about how to achieve control of population, climate etc, and also highly dubious creatures like Fauci, then my view has changed completely.

Given how here in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, many countries in Europe, and now via the obviously controlled and senile individual in the Whitehouse, basic inalienable human rights – to move freely without restriction, no requirement to identify yourself to perform normal everyday tasks, freedom of thought and speech, taking responsibility for our own bodies and those of our children – are all being restricted or removed completely, at the will of a few of those “in control”, I… Read more »

chas cowie
chas cowie
5 years ago

Sorry Toby, but I disagree. It is conspiracy disguised as cock up. Why else would we have the situation where the government is doing everything it can to vaccinate the young.

mishmash
mishmash
5 years ago

Just go take your jabs and watch the football, Toby.

RedhotScot
RedhotScot
5 years ago

Personally, my belief is there are intertwining strands of ambition in operation. Whether by accident or design (more likely accident) the virus was released from the Wuhan Lab where Gain Of Function research was undoubtedly being conducted. But that’s nothing unusual, what do we imagine goes on at Porten Down and innumerable labs. around the world. They’re not concocting knitting patterns, and clearly not inventing vaccines or counter Bio weapon materials.

Politically, I think Toby’s right, most of us are old enough to go back to Ted Heath and every intervening PM and cabinet have got more things wrong than right with the possible exception of Thatcher who told us she was going to free the country from tyrannical governments, which she did, but in the end became just as tyrannical.

However, this has been a bonanza for opportunists and corporate predators to pile in on, not just pharmaceutical companies. The Davos clique have also been pulling strings to further their globalist ambitions, as have every NGO which thinks it can scramble for more power.

The insane NetZero ambitions are also confusing matters as there are powerful corporate entities gunning to profit from it, not least the Banks who will… Read more »

WeWantEvidence
WeWantEvidence
5 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

Sweden, Denmark and others don’t really need to implement the full package to coerce their populations to accept the coming Global Digital ID. They already have a digital ID system in place. It’s the populations that have so far resisted that level of state control that have to be coerced into compliance.

RedhotScot
RedhotScot
5 years ago
Reply to  WeWantEvidence

So why not coerce them further by adopting all the measures every other country has? The fact is, the global balance of wealth hasn’t really changed other than every country is further in debt, so why not Sweden?

Jon Mors
Jon Mors
5 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

It’s statistically unlikely that ALL countries would follow the same path. Too many random variables.

It was always likely that the red states in the US would resist.

In Sweden its a combination of three things: constitution forbids restriction on movement, it also forbids politicians micromanaging public agencies (a bit like the Bank of England in the UK is nominally independent, so is the public health agency in Sweden), and the fact that the head of that agency (Tegnell) has an independent streak. If the latter weren’t the case then everything would have been different.

Jon Mors
Jon Mors
5 years ago
Reply to  WeWantEvidence

The interesting thing is that the only individuals that obey the state are law abiding folk, so really there is no purpose to the ID cards.

The Z-man calls this ‘anarcho-tyranny’ in the US context (it makes less sense in the UK context). Tyranny for the law abiding, but they also have to put up with the lawlessness of the non-law abiding, whom the government does not try and control.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

“Thatcher who told us she was going to free the country from tyrannical governments”

… and, instead laid the foundations for an out of control dominant financial system …. leading to …. the scamdemic.

Jez Hewitt
Jez Hewitt
5 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

WeWantEvidence is right. I live in Denmark. They’ve already proved they can do the Vax Pass – you needed it to go to the hairdresser and even a bar. They’ll have no problem bringing it back if need be. Both Sweden and Denmark have punitive taxation rates with bureaucracy to boot, so they’ve both got form for screwing the taxpayer.

This ain’t no cock-up. This is self preservation, an attempt to get control through fleecing Joe Public’s purse and getting the numbers down to more manageable levels before the fiat shit hits the fans. They’re fucking toast once everyone realises their pensions and savings are worthless. Whatever happened to interest rates huh?

Cock-up my arse. Sure feels like it though.

unmaskthetruth
unmaskthetruth
5 years ago

Toby I hope you’re right. Having travelled around the World during the plandemic it is clear that there is a huge amount of co-ordinated response, even down to the wording and signage of the responses from ALL countries. The fact that some are ahead makes it easy to see where the World is heading. Lithuania no longer allow you to work without your vaccine pass or even watch your kids play tennis at the outdoor clubs. It’s shocking but being put in place in more and more places, not less and less. I have never been scared of ‘the virus’ but I am absolutely terrified of the vaccine passes, digitial ID and continuation of emergency laws.

PatrickF
PatrickF
5 years ago

Toby Young, read Agenda 21 and 30.
Boris Johnson is following the Agenda that’s been written for him. The ‘cock-ups’ are planned. He knows when the next lockdown will happen and for how long. Psy-Ops are on board as is the MSM. Each day we get closer to the Great Reset and a totalitarian world.

Hopeless
Hopeless
5 years ago

To think that this is a “cock-up” is to presume that a bunch of nice, well-intentioned but wholly incompetent people (Old Etonians, medics, pseudo-modellers, Communists and the rest) are at the helm, with no other consideration but the welfare of the nation, its prosperity and so forth, and getting it through a tricky time. The problems they’re having are only because they’ve just taken up yachting and are learning the ropes, from a foreign sailing manual.

That is a preposterous notion.

There is no doubt that the entire thing is as malign as it can be. Whether this is because of an organised “conspiracy” might be debated, but there can be no doubt, to anyone not blinkered, that the entire incompetent fiasco is founded on malevolence, not beneficence, and compounded by complete arrogance, stupidity and amorality, with more than a fair smattering of monetary greed and corruption. In fact, a reflection of how the CCP runs things.

Mayflower
Mayflower
5 years ago

Johnson saw what happened to Trump. The American President publicly attacked Globalism and pulled out of the WHO, then in co-ordination with the Chinese CP a man made virus was released. Though mild, it was globally hyped and most politicans fell into line. A choice of being attacked like Trump (or worse – see anti-scamdemic former President of Tanzania – a ‘heart attack’) or getting richly paid sinecures after office, it was a no brainer.

This country is paying dearly for Johnson’s venal weakness, backed by control loving leftists on the opposite benches in Parliament.

AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
5 years ago

The greatest ‘conspiracies’ are the hardest to see, even for seasoned journalists like Toby Young. What is really strange is that he has been party to all the information that counters the official narrative. He has seen the levels of propaganda and censorship that exist in the media and the complete blanking of anything that goes against this. He has seen all the reports – or at least knows about them – about vaccine harm, infection mortality rates etc etc and all of the other alternative evidence that counters official arguments. BUT…for some reason, he would rather go down the ‘Carry on’ version, the comical Keystone Cops knockabout version that it is all some huge cock-up, a ‘mind me drawers Mrs Grimthorpe, oooh don’t mind if I do’ comedy that will eventually lead to a safe, happy conclusion as we all fall about laughing. For god’s sake, Toby, your obtuseness knows no bounds. This flip-flopping is a softening up. This government knows exactly what they are doing. No for one moment did I believe that they were going to abandon their intent on the digital ID. Not for one moment did I not believe that ‘The Great Reset’, (the awkwardly… Read more »

concrete68
concrete68
5 years ago

so give us the details of the plan? The strategy, the tactics, the coordination, the project managers, the comms strategy, the leadership team, the budgets,

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  concrete68

I don’t think there is a plan – I think it’s opportunism. But there is malice, evil, dishonesty. It’s beyond a cockup.

Jez Hewitt
Jez Hewitt
5 years ago
Reply to  concrete68

Have a word with yourself. They’re not gonna leave a briefcase containing the plans lying around. But if you shake some of that concrete between your ears, you might just join the dots playing out in real time. You’re truly taking the piss – they’re injecting this shit into kids, shit which has already killed a lot of people and harmed hundreds of thousands in the UK to what, cover their arses? Either wake up, grow up, or do one.

marebobowl
marebobowl
5 years ago

Speaking of supply chain problems. Anyone else been refused a blood test at their local GP surgery lately? My husband was yesterday. He has cancer and relies on these tests to monitor his condition. The NHS which is so obviously on its knees does not have any blood vials. Who ever thought it would come to this?

Funny I didn’t here one of our great MP’s mention this minor problem in PM’s questions yesterday. On that same train of thought, did any of the 600+ MP’s bother to mention the 5 million plus citizens, waiting for non urgent surgery? You know things like hernias, new knees and hips, cataracts etc etc.

But hey, if you want a lateral flow test or just want to test yourself twice a week as this great gov’t recommends, you can pick up a dozen or more kits at any of the thousands of mobile Covid test centres located on every corner in the country. Flu shots now available, closely followed by another Covid jab. No shortage of cash for this nonsense.

bagpusskitty
bagpusskitty
5 years ago

Toby seems increasingly desperate to convince himself. I think few people now believe this is accidental, just look at Australia rubber bullets against protesters, just look at the jab rollout, where previously 52 deaths worldwide would halt a new drug here we’re into the tens of thousands and they’re moving on to jabbing kids and all for a virus comparable in most cases with flu!

concrete68
concrete68
5 years ago
Reply to  bagpusskitty

You are looking at the effects. Tell us how the conspiracy works in practice. The boring details about how it’s coordinated and planned.

AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
5 years ago
Reply to  concrete68

How would any one of us know? We’re not in the inner circles and can only guess at it. What are you getting at exactly anyway?

divoc origi 19
divoc origi 19
5 years ago
Reply to  concrete68

We all value and welcome alternative viewpoints, and you have been quite vocal that you don’t think that there is an agenda / plan. Can I ask (in all seriousness) how you would explain the global desire to introduce vaccine passports (while specifically not acknowledging the immunity brought on by natural infection) and why absolutely everybody has to be vaccinated for a virus (with technology that has no long term safety studies) that statistically poses very little threat to the vast majority of people under a particular age?

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  divoc origi 19

Could it not be just opportunism, and copying each other, and the desire for more power? All these things are pretty common to the political classes everywhere.

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  concrete68

I think the “conspiracy” is within the UK senior government – cabinet, some parts of SAGE. How openly they talk about it I don’t know, but they know what they are doing is useless and wrong from a public health point of view.

mishmash
mishmash
5 years ago
Reply to  concrete68

Read David Icke’s books if you want to better understand the structure and reasoning behind it.

Ruth Learner
Ruth Learner
5 years ago

TY being not convinced is irrelevant- BJ being a fuckwitless human is irrelevant- the only relevancy is action – here is the summary – go cash, make connections and do not comply. https://odysee.com/@AussieFighter:8/Reiner-Fuellmich-Message-To-The-World:5

Rudolph Rigger
Rudolph Rigger
5 years ago

There is little doubt that COVID-19 can be a serious disease for the unlucky few. However, for the vast majority it is not fatal. A healthy 30 year old is at orders of magnitude less risk than an unhealthy person in their 80’s. Even in the 80 plus age group, with all their associated health problems and vulnerabilities, you’re looking at about 1 fatality for every 10 infections, as a rough benchmark.

It is so very hard to see why this constitutes a medical emergency. Serious? Absolutely – so is a bad flu. Emergency? Maybe I am callous, but I just can’t see it.

Yet we’ve been subjected to massive amounts of propaganda aimed at pushing the message that we need to be afraid, that this is a deadly pandemic of unprecedented proportion. The actual mortality figures do not show this at all, and yet this “deadly, unprecedented” myth persists.

The propaganda wasn’t a “cock up” was it? The continuing propaganda isn’t a cock-up is it? The extreme censorship and suppression of alternative scientific views, some from very qualified and eminent scientists, is not a cock-up is it?

The propaganda and censorship campaigns have been extremely competent. Ruthlessly so.… Read more »

marebobowl
marebobowl
5 years ago
Reply to  Rudolph Rigger

My whole family had Covid last year pre vaccinations. It truly was like a bad cold. That was it. The two 70+ year olds commented, if they knew this was the extent of it they wished they had it sooner!

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Rudolph Rigger

You’re right in essence – but your concept of actual risk is way, way exaggerated.

The base magnitude, even for the 80+ is indistinguishable from the normal age profile of mortality.

Rudolph Rigger
Rudolph Rigger
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

I’m not sure I’d agree with the “way, way” part – but yes, definitely exaggerated. I calculated the risks based on the ONS data – and this is flawed for the reasons we all know. The risk here is the risk given infection (again I stress based on the faulty ONS data).

But you’re absolutely right. The question we need to ask is whether the pre-pandemic risk of mortality has been significantly changed by the pandemic in the 80+ group. And in that I suspect there has been only a small increase.

In that age group your risk of succumbing to a variety of things is higher – and we might suppose that whilst covid19 was a significant factor over the last 18 months, if it hadn’t been covid19 it would have been something else, for many.

Jon Mors
Jon Mors
5 years ago

“Cock-up” is plain wrong and Toby should stop using that word. I don’t see how that suggestion can be controversial to anybody.

It’s also not a conspiracy. Left wing people are doing what they always do, it just looks weird because it’s at 10 times the normal speed at which they usually act.

concrete68
concrete68
5 years ago
Reply to  Jon Mors

Left wing? I missed that bit.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  concrete68

Oh, didn’t you know? The mega-rich, global capital and the financial system are all agents of the Communist Party of Great Britain 🙂

It’s known as ‘Conspiracy for Dummies’.

RTSC
RTSC
5 years ago

There’s a huge great conspiracy elephant in the room …… which Toby Young refuses to see.

concrete68
concrete68
5 years ago
Reply to  RTSC

The only conspiracy is among capitalists who want more of your money and your time, everything, everything is an opportunity for them to make money. Gas chambers, vaccines, bombs, guns, tanks.

zacaway
zacaway
5 years ago

I think perhaps Boris is cocking up the conspiracy. Klaus must be irritated that we’re not quite as oppressed as Australia (yet). Keep the resistance up!

Iain McCausland
Iain McCausland
5 years ago

It is in the nature of governments to continually seek more power and control.
Digital ID + digital currency = THE TRAP! Use cash, refuse ID.
Aldous Huxley believed all ideological or religious tyrannies may eventually be overthrown, however a tyranny based on science is inescapable.

Health Seeker
Health Seeker
5 years ago

If he meant science in the sense of the pursuit of knowledge, he got that one wrong. The tyranny taking over is The Science™ and it is highly ideological.

Hugh_Manity
Hugh_Manity
5 years ago

With thanks to “TheBlogMire” :
“Name one instance where it looks like the Government was seriously trying to climb out the hole it has apparently accidentally fallen in.”

Zoomer@14
Zoomer@14
5 years ago

No Cock-up…its monetary greed. These government ‘idiots’ will be on the payroll for life so will never suffer the upcoming super inflation…

Iain McCausland
Iain McCausland
5 years ago

Cockspiracy

adamsson
adamsson
5 years ago

No you’re wrong it is a conspiracy, Johnson won’t be trusted with the details but no way would so many different countries keep making the same mistakes at the same time by accident.

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