David Paton is a professor of industrial economics at Nottingham University Business School. He’s also a lockdown sceptic and a member of the Health Advisory & Recovery Team. During the pandemic, he’s written articles about lockdowns, Sweden, the pingdemic and Covid forecasting. He tweets under @CricketWyvern. I interviewed him via email.
On 4th February, you wrote a piece for The Critic titled ‘Seven indicators that show infections were falling before Lockdown 3.0’, which argued that infections probably peaked before England entered full lockdown on 6th January. Could you briefly summarise the evidence you presented?
Working out when infections start to go up or down can be tricky for several reasons: not everyone with an infection will be tested, symptoms typically appear some time after the initial infection, and there will be a longer lag before an infection results in hospitalisation or death. These lags will vary from case to case and in an unknown proportion of cases, there are no symptoms at all.
The interesting thing about January’s lockdown is that every single indicator tells us that infections peaked well before the full lockdown was in place. Since my article in The Critic, two further pieces of evidence have confirmed this.
First, we now have the more formal analysis of mortality data by Professor Simon Wood of Edinburgh University, which concludes that infections were falling before each of the three English lockdowns.
Second, the ONS Official Incidence Estimates were published in mid-March and put the peak of infections between 20th and 26th December. By the time of lockdown, the ONS estimate infections had already fallen by 40%. These are estimates, but even the lower bound of the 95% confidence interval for 20th–26th December is higher than the upper bound for the week of lockdown.
In my view, saying infections “probably” peaked before the lockdown is no longer a fair reflection of the evidence. Rather, we can be “virtually certain” that they did.
This has important implications. It means that, like the first two lockdowns, the January national lockdown was not necessary for infections in England to start falling. Put another way, hospital admissions would not have continued to rise to unsustainable levels in the absence of lockdown. Of course, this does not answer the secondary question of whether earlier tiered-restrictions had any significant impact on infections. However, it is worth noting that infections were falling pre-lockdown even in regions like Yorkshire which were never put into Tier 4.
Then on 18th March, you wrote an article for Spiked titled ‘The myth of our ‘late’ lockdown’, which argued that locking down earlier wouldn’t have made much difference. In the article, you referred to “the discredited assumption that governments can turn infections on or off like a tap”. What did you mean by that?
For the past two years, Governments around the world have made policy based on the assumptions that: Covid cases continue rising indefinitely unless restrictions are introduced, restrictions and lockdowns inevitably lead to lower infection rates, and lifting restrictions always leads to cases surging. All of these assumptions are wrong.
Time and again, we’ve seen infections go down before lockdowns were introduced or, as in Sweden in spring 2020, Florida a year later and many other cases, without significant additional restrictions. In other cases like Germany and the Czech Republic in early 2021, we’ve seen infections continue to rise during strict lockdowns. Particularly striking for me was England last November when infections in London and the South East actually started to rise in the middle of our national lockdown.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that lockdowns and other restrictions have no effect at all. In some cases, they may lead infections to fall a bit sooner than otherwise, or somewhat faster. But even the evidence for some small, marginal effect is not particularly strong, especially when you take a long term perspective. And for many restrictions like curfews, vaccine passports, table service at pubs and the rule of 6, it is hard to identify any supporting evidence at all. At a minimum, Governments (and often their scientific modellers) overestimate the impact of their interventions, particularly on serious health outcomes.
For many people this is counterintuitive – surely lockdowns reduce human interaction and hence have a very large impact on infections and deaths? In fact, the reality is more complicated. People respond to rising infections and deaths by changing their behaviour voluntarily. And these voluntary changes will be concentrated among the more vulnerable, meaning compulsory restrictions do hit activity (and hence the economy) even more, but because the vulnerable have already limited their interactions, they have less effect on serious outcomes.
In addition, restrictions can have unintended consequences that may outweigh any benefit of the intervention. Who can forget the scenes of packed tube stations when the 10pm curfew caused thousands of people to leave pubs and restaurants at the same time? And if you shut pubs for months on end, it is no surprise that young people simply decide to meet up in unlicensed venues and private homes. I discuss other reasons why lockdowns are less effective than people imagine in this article for Spiked.
Economists are trained in concepts like trade-offs, cost-benefit analysis and unintended consequences. Yet “most either stayed silent or actively promoted lockdown”, to quote Mikko Packalen and Jay Bhattacharya. Why have there been so few critics of lockdown within the economics profession?
In terms of our value judgements and personal stances, economists are probably no less susceptible to fearmongering messages from Government and social pressures to conform than other people. However, you are right that we should expect economists to be more prominent in pointing out the flaw of basing a policy almost entirely on one outcome, i.e., trying to control short run infections.
There has been some excellent work by economists looking more closely at the cost and benefits. An early example is the work of Professor David Miles and colleagues, who estimated that the costs of continuing restrictions were likely far higher than any benefits. A more recent paper by Professor Doug Allen of Simon Fraser University in the International Journal of the Economics of Business concluded that, using mid-point estimates, the costs of lockdowns probably exceeded the benefits by a factor of 141 times. As a result, Professor Allen suggests that “lockdown will go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in modern history.”
The reality may be even worse than that. Recent research by economist Professors Karli and Anthony Glass and colleagues provides evidence that the first English lockdown probably had the net effect of increasing excess mortality. In other words, even if lockdowns averted some deaths due to Covid (and we cannot even be certain about that), these were outweighed by the deaths caused by lockdown.
There are other economists who have spoken out about the damage caused by lockdowns. However, one worrying thing which cannot be ignored is the vilification many academics experience when they do speak out against the mainstream policy response. I have been contacted personally by academics who have been threatened with disciplinary action for discussing evidence against lockdowns in a public forum. Given this, it is perhaps no surprise that many economists prefer to keep their heads under the parapet. It is hard to suppress the truth for ever, and I suspect that as more research comes out on the high costs of our interventions and their limited (at best) effectiveness, history will judge the lockdown sceptics favourably.
Some people argue that vaccine passports are needed to encourage take-up of the vaccines. What do you make of this argument?
It is a fundamental principle of medical ethics that treatment should only be given if there is full and informed consent. To introduce vaccine passports as a way of blackmailing young people to get vaccinated is, in my opinion, reprehensible. Indeed, I find it remarkable that politicians openly admit this is their intention. That in itself reveals a moral vacuum among many of our leaders.
Although such an approach is wrong in principle, there is little evidence to justify it even on public health grounds. A policy of offering vaccination to the elderly and vulnerable has a strong basis in terms of the impact on serious illness and deaths. The public policy benefits on infection rates from broader vaccination programmes of the general population is less clear.
For example, a recent paper in the European Journal of Epidemiology found that increases in infections were not associated with vaccination levels across countries or US counties. This should perhaps not be surprising given the increasing evidence on how fast vaccine effectiveness against infection (not necessarily serious illness) wanes, and the fact that a large proportion of the unvaccinated have immunity from previous infection.
There seems to be little acknowledgement of the possibility that, for some people, the risks of vaccination, even if low, may outweigh any benefits. Take, for example, a healthy 20-year old male who has recently had Covid. Given the immunity from previous infection and the very low risks of Covid for his age group, any benefit (public or private) of vaccination will be vanishingly small. In contrast, he faces a small but non-trivial risk of heart problems, particularly after the second dose. It is disgraceful that public policy is pressurising and (in the case of healthcare workers) coercing people into getting vaccinated when they judge that vaccination is not right for them at this time.
Apart from being unethical, authoritarian vaccination policies are likely to have adverse long-term consequences for public health by increasing vaccine hesitancy and distrust among key groups. Dr Alex de Figueiredo and colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have published some interesting research data on this. Vaccine mandates and passports may well increase take up to some extent, but the danger is they will cause some people to get vaccinated when it is not in their interests, whilst others in vulnerable groups for whom vaccination may be very beneficial will double down on their hesitancy.
The official reason given for offering the vaccine to 12–15 year olds, against the recommendation of the JCVI, is that doing so would “reduce disruption to education”. But that doesn’t stack up, does it?
No it does not. I wrote about this for the Spectator when the rollout was announced. The official modelling suggested that, by reducing the number of infections and subsequent isolation, vaccination would only save an average of 15 minutes of education per child. But even this ignored time lost from vaccination process itself during the school day, as well as time lost due to vaccine side effects.
There are also problems with the modelling which, remarkably, ignored immunity from previous infection and assumed 55% vaccine effectiveness from one dose for a 6 month period. A recent pre-print (which hasn’t yet been peer reviewed) by researchers from the UK Health and Security Agency finds that, for the first 9 days following vaccination, children experience close to 30% negative effectiveness: i.e. for 9 days, vaccinated 12–15 year olds are more likely to test positive than the unvaccinated. Effectiveness rises to 75% by 2 weeks but then wanes very quickly: just 4 weeks later, vaccine effectiveness is already below the 55% used by in the Govt model.
The authors conclude that if the aim is to prevent infection, “regular Covid-19 vaccine boosters will be required” for adolescents. We can wonder what the response of parents would have been if they had been given this information when the vaccination rollout for children started in October.
You’re a Brit. Given what we know now, what should Boris Johnson have done in March of 2020?
We now have copious evidence that Government lockdowns and restrictions have very limited (and in many cases zero) benefit in terms of reducing serious illness and death. But they cause huge economic, social and psychological damage. As we discussed earlier, it is now also clear that infections were already decreasing at the time of the national lockdown. This is important as it means that, in contrast to the messages being put out at the time, there was no prospect of infections rising to such an extent that health services would have been overwhelmed.
So Boris Johnson could and should have avoided mandatory restrictions and lockdown back in March. Apart from investing in health service capacity and capability, the more general policy focus should have been on providing accurate information and advice (especially for the most vulnerable) and voluntary guidance. Instead, the Government did exactly the opposite with messaging designed to create fear, attempts to manipulate behaviour and a very one-sided presentation of statistics.
For example, as early as 13th April 2020, it was clear from the “deaths by specimen date” which I presented daily in my Twitter feed, that deaths in England had started to decline by 8th April. Given the lag from infection to death, this was the first evidence we had that infections peaked before the national lockdown on 23rd March.
Without a doubt Government advisors were aware of this too. Yet for weeks afterward, they continued to talk at the daily press conferences about increasing death numbers, focusing on days when there was a particularly high number of reported deaths, even though many of the deaths had occurred several weeks earlier. Had they presented the data fairly, the case for continuing lockdown would have been fatally weakened. Perhaps Ministers saw their approach as one of political necessity, but it will cause long term lack of trust in Government messaging.
It is sometimes argued that politicians can be excused for going down the lockdown route in the spring of 2020, as they were facing a new virus and there were so many uncertainties. I disagree. In such circumstances it is more important than ever to hold fast to principles and ethics.
We need to remember that the Government took it upon itself to decide who we could invite into our own homes, and even our gardens. They shut down schools for millions of children for months on end. They criminalised public worship. They ordered millions of healthy young people to stay locked up in their houses for most of the day. That they did all this without presenting any strong evidence that such measures have significant public health benefits makes it even worse.
Irrespective of any benefits, for the Government to criminalise normal human activity for months on end is simply wrong. It should never have happened and it should never happen again. The tragedy is that, given recent events in Parliament, I am not sure that any lessons have been learnt.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Yes. I think China’s CCP might just have problems fulfilling their 2049 goals…
Whilst I don’t think they will necessarily lose a grip on power any time soon (and whilst acknowledging the serious shortcomings of many “Western” governments), it looks increasingly likely that their lies and tyranny and “literally stupid” communist ideology will do for them sooner or later. There’s their idiotic and evil one child policy of course (now two child – for all the difference it’s made, and with Taiwan having a similarly low birth rate without the tyranny) which sees them importing wives from other countries and will have caused horrendous psychological damage, but there are plenty of other aspects to their evil and extreme tyranny which will make it difficult for them to have long term success.
Are they bigger liars than the rulers of Britain, France, one-family-owned Sweden, or the “pragmatic” narcocriminal state of the Netherlands?
I am not convinced by your train of thought. If the one-child policy has the same effect as not having a one-child policy, it’s not a problem.
It all turns on whether or not the rulers of mainland China are stupid. What’s the basis for thinking they are? Does anyone in the business world think so? One could focus on say the “Garterist” symbology in Britain and call it “stupid”…
“If the one-child policy has the same effect as not having a one-child policy, it’s not a problem.”
That’s a very collectivist approach to the issue. Yes, it amounts to the same thing for the state, but it’s very different for the people when it has been imposed by coercion, and it’s definitely a problem.
They’re not particularly stupid (even George W “don’t misunderestimate me” Bush wasn’t stupid as such).
Their problem is that they have participated in a large-scale demographic experiment, in common with many other countries of course, though theirs has been a particularly extreme form. I think they have realised this to a degree, hence their “relaxation” to a two child policy. For various reasons China’s CCP are not going to go back to their early policy of encouraging “hero” mothers to have large families to provide workers for the People’s Republic, and it likely wouldn’t work if they did. We don’t know exactly how this global population experiment will end up long term (we are only part way through it) but we do know that the global economy appears to be on the brink of collapse, hence what has been described as its controlled demolition. We further know that the CCP’s legitimacy depends on being able to provide a certain standard of living for its people. If this demographic experiment ends up how I suspect it will, they will have problems. If they go on importing wives from places like the Philippines, it will introduce ideas which could see long term change to their culture. If they don’t, they will have a substantial dissatisfied male population, and all that implies (I think the gender imbalance will be here for some time to come). They may be able to avoid some of the expected consequences of their past mistakes through their neo-imperial designs, or by distracting their population with foreign adventurism. However it is not clear whether this will be enough to save them. I don’t particularly expect them to see a serious challenge imminently (but then again, who foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1988), but I do suspect that meeting their 2049 objectives will be difficult and maybe impossible.
Incidentally, I am quite happy to acknowledge the shortcomings of some Western countries as I suggested, and they may face their own day of reckoning.
Gosh, Empire of Lies propagandist tells lies, shock!
Of course Russia can win – it’s weathered the “shock and awe” sanctions that the US sphere globalist elites were certain would “collapse” the ruble and the Russian economy and bring about regime change, and it’s close to having achieved its main objective, namely securing the freedom of the Donbass republics.
The Russians haven’t even needed to mobilise for war or over-commit their standing military to achieve this.
There’s no plausible way the Ukraine can stage any sustained strategic counter offensive without meaningful amounts of fuel, so that’s the end of that fantasy.
All that’s left to determine is how long the US neocons can drag out the Ukrainian people’s suffering, with the ultimate settlement terms getting worse for the Ukrainians as time goes on.
“there can be no lasting peace with Putin, argues Jonathan Shaw“
Funny how “there can be no lasting peace” with Putin, but Bush and Blair who waged a far worse war of aggression, and Cameron who was responsible for the appalling ongoing bloodbath in Libya, are still members of the US sphere elites in good standing.
I suspect that he is assuming a total takeover of the Ukraine as a war aim (and to be fair, it did look like that when they encircled Kiev, even if it was more a case of “counting their rifles”).
“I suspect that he is assuming a total takeover of the Ukraine as a war aim“
Probably, but that’s an obvious outright lie.
The Russians doubtless were ready to take advantage if the Ukrainians folded without a fight, but the forces deployed weren’t within an order of magnitude of being enough to occupy Kiev against resistance.
Occupying the whole of the Ukraine has never been a stated, nor a remotely plausible objective for Russia, and it’s literally stupid to try to pretend or even imply that a war can’t be won by means short of complete occupation. Just more propaganda from the Empire of Lies’ propaganda arm.
Even taking Kiev wouldn’t suggest a total takeover of the Ukraine as a war aim.
The aim is to kick Kiev forces out of the Donbas and keep whatever government there is in Kiev out of NATO, or in other words, to keep US bases out of the Ukraine and the US airforce out of Ukrainian skies. Those aims are likely to be achieved within a few months.
The status of other territory such as Kherson and Odessa going down from the Donbas to Moldova is probably more of a bargaining counter than anything. That’s where the most uncertainty is.
The Russians have recently conceded that it’s going to be very difficult to hand back any territory to the Ukrainian regime, given its clear track record in the Kiev and Kharkov areas of brutally persecuting anyone suspected of having been other than actively hostile to the Russians.
My feeling is that they are now committed to holding onto Kherson as well, long term, which they might not have been previously (though they undoubtedly would have required guarantees for eg water to Crimea).
If the war goes on much longer the same will apply to Odessa, probably, if they once have to take it.
The other issue is that they clearly cannot trust this Ukrainian regime to uphold any agreement that is not directly policed by Russia, given the Kiev regime’s record of ignoring past agreements, and for the same reason they cannot trust either the US or EU countries as guarantors.
So any deal is going to be tricky.
I suspect they hoped a defeat would trigger regime change in the Ukraine, bringing someone more trustworthy to power.
The move towards Kiev had nowhere near enough troops committed to it to be anything more than a serious gesture which required the Ukrainian government’s attention, while the battleground was prepared elsewhere.
On February 21 Putin said, “We are ready to show what real decommunizations would mean for Ukraine”, after pointing out that the nation of Ukraine was largely a Soviet creation.
The Russian-speaking Donbass was given to it in 1922; more land was donated by Stalin, at the expense of Poland, Rumania and Hungary; Khrushchev (in Putin’s words) “took Crimea away from Russia for some reason and also gave it to Ukraine”.
I take his remarks as an indication to the Ukraine government that Russia, which had already regained the Crimea, was ready and able to take back the Donbass.
Reference to the complicated land-swap in Ukraine’s far west would seem to have been included to point out that a Ukraine which included Nazis in its military organisation had been rewarded for the defeat of Nazism.
Even those remarks were not the declaration of a “war aim”, but a realistic warning to a belligerent neighbour of the possibilities they faced.
The Ukrainian government is taking the p*ss like nobody’s business when it goes on about how the Crimea is rightfully Ukrainian.
Even regarding Odessa – how strange that they appointed a former president of GEORGIA to be the governor of that city (Mikheil Saakashvili), if they think it’s sooo Ukrainian.
And we know excactly where his bread and butter come from!
For some background on “Russian speaking”: the language used in the popular Kolomoisky-owned Ukrainian TV series “Servant of the People” that was used as a vehicle to put its principal actor Zelensky into the president’s office was…Russian.
Now that’s the definition of ironic!
The languages are mixed in Ukraine – like the people – everyone knows that …or perhaps not Liz Truss – who thinks Rostov on Don… is in Ukraine.
I don’t think that was ever the aim. Kiev, I suspect, was to try to put pressure on for an early negotiated end on Russia’s terms. Once they realised that wasn’t going to happen they switched back to the real war aims; which – if they were to control eastern Ukraine – seem to be going pretty well.
I think Putin underestimated the extent of Ukranian propaganda/brainwashing, it looked like he expected a warm welcome from a majority, although just as likely it could have been a military feint, maybe a bit of both.
I think underestimating the level of submission to authority is something we’re all a bit guilty of re covid/lockdowns etc. demonstrating propaganda is very effective.
Stanley Milgrams famous experiments showed around 80% of people will submit to authority even when it’s clear the orders are abhorrent.
Though I’m not sure we can take comfort from the fact, it looks like around 30% of people refused the death jabs, maybe the number of people who have the resources needed to resist authority is increasing. If this is the case, we may well see a tipping point.
Though on the original point re Ukraine I’m still of the mind to think Putin is controlled oppersition since Russia is all in with the globalists re Agenda 2030 and CBDC.
Putin is a nationalist. As far as I can gather he want’s nothing to do with globalism.
Have a read of the joint statement he did with Xi in Feb, full of sustainable development BS, aligning with the UN 2030 BS too, Russia is also well on the road to CBDC, as is China. Not to mention the timing of Ukraine just when the covid BS was becomming transparrent to a lot of people.
http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770
It’s team red NWO Vs Team Blue NWO, all pissing in the same pot
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Blimey, when you read it, it actually makes no sense at all, and it’s littered with contradictions, massive ones, and doublespeak.
Followed rapidly by:
Ahem – In other words, we aint gonna to be preached to by the WEF, WHO or the UN.
First, what is the current “global governance architecture”? There isn’t one I’m aware of, and do you imagine Putin or Xi turning over their governance architecture to the UN?
Come on. That’s just not going to happen.
Secondly, it’s notable that the term “world order” is used and not “new world order”.
Huh?
I get what you’re saying but to coin Eric Morecambe – “I’m [they’re] playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.”
I think you have to view this as an exercise in using all the right buzzwords, but saying absolutely nothing.
You have to imagine Xi and Putin sitting down composing this and having a giggle whilst they include ‘their history of democracy’. Like two schoolboys winding up their teacher.
They know full well neither country has a history of democracy (other than Russia’s in the last 30 years). Both have a rich history of Feudalism, Tribalism and every other ‘ism’ you can imagine. China only abandoned its last Emperor in 1912.
Tons more in there but I think you get the idea.
Yeah but it’s things like this:
and this:
which make it all look like red team Great Reset Vs blue team Great Reset aka two sides of the same NWO but with different flags/uniforms
Coupled with the fact they’re all in on CBDC, and the timing of Ukraine, then look at everything economic the west did re Ukraine, and everything Russia did to counter it, all conincidentally moving towards the same goals as the Great Reset agenda, you can see why I lean towards controlled op.
I knew I’d read about the globalist plan to pivot towards china but I can’t seem to find where it was atm, this Soros quote will have to do…
from here:
https://newspunch.com/george-soros-china-new-world-order/
couple of choice quotes from a 1961 Rockefeller book on that page too
Putin has undoubtedly caused a huge problem for the Great Reset. Digital currency, brain chips, all that nightmare stuff, runs into huge problems without energy or silicon chips. We know about the energy problem but there’s a “little” problem with noble gases like neon, and Russia has just banned the export of them (according to RT).
The article below lays out the difficulties of getting gases like neon. Not impossible but manufacture is concentrated in Ukraine, around former Soviet steel plants. There have been supply issues since the 2014 coup, but nothing has been done to resolve the problem of supply in eight years. If western leaders and the Davos clowns are serious about the Great Reset, you’d think they would have done something about this by now.
I wonder if Klaus will wake up one morning and exclaim, in his German accent, “Vot? No chips?”
https://www.vox.com/recode/22983468/neon-shortage-chips-semiconductors-russia-ukraine
Andrei Martyanov has suggested that the defining characteristic of this global elite is that it is really, really stupid.
They create “disturbance” and do not receive the feedback that should inform behaviour (17.25), largely because nobody dares pass on anything to them which they might find disagreeable.
Elites – YouTube
But Russia & China is all in on this too.
It’s like red team Great Reset Vs Blue team Great Reset.
The globalists make it look like there’s going to be supply issues re Neon etc. but if we look at past wars they still manage to get around export bans/sanctions etc. see Antony C. Suttons books, e.g. the US was exporting nuclear tech to Russia during the cold war, Nazi Germany was recieving chemicals to make avgas etc. all under the nose of the state dept. Same thing happened during Vietnam, the vietcong were runing Gaz trucks made with ball bearings exported from the US etc.
Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
What I found disturbing, although not entirely surprising, was the fact that a man who had been in a position of considerable responsibility in the UK military and had been asked to write an article for a national newspaper had not taken care to attempt to be factually correct.
For example, General Shaw claimed the Russian speakers in the Donbass had been settled there by Stalin after WW2 to make up for losses of Ukrainian speakers in the famines during collectivisation and the war. The Donbass had been a major industrial area before the First World War, with many Russians moving in to work in the mines and iron and steel mills. The whole of the south of the Ukraine had been inhabited primarily by nomadic Nogai people and so almost empty when Russia took over in the late 18th century. At that point, the area was settled by what would now be termed both Ukrainians and Russians.
Pretending the people of the Donbass, or those who have been queuing for hours to apply for Russian passports in Kherson and Zaporozhye oblasts the last couple of days have no roots in the areas they live is false and it is worrying that our military decision makers are pushing these falsehoods. I only hope, for the sake of the lives of the men under their command, that they don’t actually believe their own BS.
Believing our own BS seems to be a core characteristic of modern US sphere states. Certainly it’s central to all the woke, climate change, BLM, Ukraine nonsense.
One would hope that men responsible for military and related matters would have a degree of protection from this kind of delusion, having to confront hard realities, but consider:
Russian Army Ad Makes Woke US Army Ad Look Like a Joke …
and
MI6 boss criticised for tweet about LGBT rights
The poison goes deep.
Nothing but falsehood since Johnson took power!
US Republicans torn and frayed over Ukraine
Pretty straightforward, for me. The neocon, interventionist wing represents the Washington borg – globalist big government. They are wrong, and they represent the manifestation of the world’s big problem within the US Republican Party.
Their globalist warmongering equivalents within the Democrats are the liberal interventionists, who have been completely dominant in that party for decades.
Together, the liberal interventionists and the neoconservative interventionists make up the political aspect of the bipartisan US War Party, the political arm of the military industrial complex and the foreign identity lobbies. The issue of the next few years is whether the Republicans can be detached from that War Party and become a genuine opposition.
Americans can have Empire or they can have a Republic. They can’t and won’t have both.
Historically they’ve been pretty poor empire builders haven’t they?
DO you think that the “United States” have proved that the republican model of government can be a success? It seems today like almost any system of government can go badly wrong (even our own constitutional monarchy, which has seen less problems than many other European countries in recent centuries).
“Historically they’ve been pretty poor empire builders haven’t they?”
They never built an empire, they foreclosed and repossessed the British Empire after its foolish elites self-destructed it in two stupid interventionist world wars.
“DO you think that the “United States” have proved that the republican model of government can be a success? “
Probably depends who you mean a success for.
I understand that the Philippines (and possibly Puerto Rico) have been suggested as examples of their poor “empire building”.
If I have relative stability and no excessive hardship (I heard they ate dung and some sorts of grass in North Korea during the famine), that is enough of a success for me – at least when you considered what has happened in most countries. It has been suggested as an irony that the republican “US” is actually rather less equal than the United Kingdom.
You set a rather low bar for success. Especially for a country like the US, which was established with the unique, immense advantage of taking (by force) a virtually unexploited continent from primitive peoples and exploiting it from scratch with modern technology, and then watching from a position of continental security while all its initially more wealthy and powerful but far less fortunate rivals imploded in disastrous wars.
I think you’d expect something better from a government in such circumstances than not requiring its people to eat grass and dung.
Ah yes, the “United States of America”, which the natives of course had other names for.
Certainly they had a lot of advantages with all that land they grabbed. Then again, they have still done better than plenty of other countries in America (Venezuela springs to mind, and presumably a republic).
The issue of the next few years is whether the Republicans can be detached from that War Party and become a genuine opposition.
I think there are already some encouraging signs and will be more, as the consequences of the latest War Party misadventure affect enormous numbers of American voters.
From what I have been hearing, blaming it all on Putin isn’t really working. Biden simply isn’t popular enough for people to want to believe him.
Americans have a tradition of wariness with regard to “foreign entanglements”, as you know; and the latest is a doozy.
Skilful or merely ambitious politicians can make much of that.
I hope you are right, but I have no illusions about the sheer power of the militarists and their allies to manipulate opinion and shape events to suit their needs.
“Americans have a tradition of wariness with regard to “foreign entanglements”, as you know;”
Until they’ve been fully roped into them. then they are enthusiastic participants, until it starts to look as though they are likely to lose.
” and the latest is a doozy.”
You say that, and you’re not wrong, but there are signs we are moving towards two more wars that could make the Russian intervention in the Ukrainian civil war look like a minor sideshow – a general conflagration in the ME based around Israel/US versus Iran, with Syria and the Gulf despots thrown in, and a war between China and the US and its satellite states over Taiwan.
These are all, in their own ways, consequences of the threat to US hegemony and the foolishly aggressive response of the US’s ruling elites to that situation.
Eisenhower wasn’t wrong about the military-industrial complex!
American suspicion of “foreign entanglements” was still real enough in the thirties, but ever since Pearl Harbor they have re-invented themselves as mighty warriors for freedom and “the arsensal of democracy”.
There are Republicans reviving the old tune, however (in a suitably patriotic manner, of course).
My hope – and it is just hope – is that the position of the wary (and there must have been some from the start of this exercise) has been strengthened.
America is pregnant with promise and anticipation but is condemned by the hand of the inevitable.
With apologies to the Nice.
Again, ask your parents or even grandparents.
Good post!
Empire of lies
A useful reminder that this isn’t the first time recently that the US regime has armed murderous zealots in order to achieve aggressive objectives:
Ambassador Ford Lied About Giving TOW Missiles to Al-Qaeda in Syria
“Ford’s comments here are a clearly false. There is considerable evidence that Nusra was able to obtain large numbers of TOW missiles, both by capturing them from U.S.-backed groups, and by co-opting U.S.-backed groups who then deployed the missiles on Nusra’s behalf during the spring 2015 campaign to conquer Idlib.
Further, even before the start of the program to provide TOW missiles, U.S. officials were clearly aware that U.S.-supplied weapons were falling into Nusra’s hands. The New York Times reported in October 2013 that Obama administration officials chose to arm what they referred to as Syrian rebels via a covert program run by the CIA, rather than via a publicly acknowledged program through the Pentagon, not only to avoid the legal issues associated with toppling a sovereign government, but also because, in the words of one former senior administration official, “We needed plausible deniability in case the arms got into the hands of Al Nusra.”
Further, U.S. planners continued shipping the missiles to U.S.-backed groups long after it became clear they had played a key role in Nusra’s conquest of Idlib province. Fearing that not only Idlib, but also Damascus would fall to jihadists fighting with the support of U.S.-backed FSA groups, Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian air force to intervene on behalf of the Syrian army in September 2015. U.S. planners responded by immediately accelerating shipments of additional TOW missiles.
The New York Times reported on October 12, 2015, just two weeks after the start of the Russian intervention, that FSA groups were now receiving as many TOW missiles as they asked for, and that the U.S. was effectively fighting a proxy war with Russia as a result. One FSA commander explained, “We get what we ask for in a very short time,” while another rebel official in Hama called the supply “carte blanche,” suggesting, “We can get as much as we need and whenever we need them.”
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) observed that “at this point it is impossible to argue that U.S. officials involved in the CIA’s program cannot discern that Nusra and other extremists have benefited” from CIA weapons shipments, “And despite this, the CIA decided to drastically increase lethal support to vetted rebel factions following the Russian intervention into Syria in late September [2015].””
Meanwhile, it looks like the going price for a Javelin ATGM (presumably sans control unit and with the trademark unfit for purpose US batteries) on the Ukrainian black market is $30k
Support Peace In Ukraine, Buy Javelin Online
Yes. They armed the Mujahideen as well didn’t they? I remember finding it striking when watching that James Bond film (i.e. CIA propaganda, and I watched it some years after 9/11 you understand, not when it originally came out) where they were clearly the good guys.
I remember watching this 1988 film a few years after 9/11 and enjoying its very different American portrayal of Afghans from the later prevailing view:
The Beast of War
I’m not sure whether its unapologetically Russophobic (anti-Soviet) bent would make up for the pro-mujahideen bent, these days. Though come to think of it, iirc while the Soviets were the bad guys, the real villain was a psychopathic individual Russian veteran and the hero was a Russian soldier as well, so it’s a bit of a wash in that regard for the modern neocons, I suppose.
Ah, now 18-rated as it portrays smoking…
LOL! In response to your comment I went to look at the IMDb “Parents Guide” section and saw under “Sex and nudity”: “A nude baby is shown from behind sitting.”
There are some very strange people out there!
It does indeed also warn us that: “Men smoke cigarettes in the background.”
The horror!
US sphere societies have certainly gone collectively insane.
It’s odd, isn’t it? I’m just watching the new series of Stranger Things and the IMDB ‘Parent’s Guide’ is more concerned about the effect on children of smoking, kissing and a scene where one of the kids is wearing underpants, than they are about any possible psychological effects of faceless demons coming to you in your dreams and mutilating your body horrifically… I’m pretty sure which aspect might have given my kids nightmares, perhaps they’re different today?
The reference to a “nude baby” under the heading “Sex and nudity” is disgraceful, even sickening. Who puts those two words together?
And it’s men smoking that we should be warned about?
What the hell is wrong with these people? The kindest interpretation is that they are insane.
Corruption in the Ukraine? I’m shocked; shocked I tell you!
Very many lessons have not been learnt from the SyrIan experience. Anyone paying attention would have been able to advise that the Russian military was extremely well-led by people with first-class strategic capabilities, and that it was likely to prove formidable anywhere.
Despite all the bravado the military in the US and UK will have had their eyes opened by Russia’s carefully orchestrated operation.
NATO would not stand a chance in all out war with Russia.
The US military budget is not a budget for the defence of a republic, rather it is the budget of a world hegemon. Americans need to chose whether they want to be the impoverished subjects of a world empire, or free citizens of a republic.
For ourselves, we need to free ourselves from foreign (US) control by sweeping aside the existing elites and setting policies that are in our national interest for the first time in decades – the interests of the people of the nation, not the interests of the globalist rulers of Airstrip One.
Peace through Strength? Excessive US Military Spending Encourages More War
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought America’s foreign policy interventions under the limelight once again. Ryan McMaken argues that the US administration’s claim that countries should not have the right to a sphere of influence, implicitly addressing Russia, is hypocritical. The US opposes a sphere of influence for Russia and other regional powers, while at the same time has steadily expanded its own global outreach. Among other, one can judge how true this is by looking at the amount of US military spending and size of its foreign military interventions.
The USA not only spends a disproportionately high amount of money on military relative to the rest of the world, but has also continued doing so when the Cold War was over and it could have set in motion a virtuous cycle of international disarmament. The USA has also multiplied its foreign military actions and engaged in controversial and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, harming both international peace and the global economy.“
It’s coming to something if he actually has to spell this out to people!
This will inevitably end up in court, particularly as I think the company HQ is still in California? It will be interesting to see which way the judges go, Musk is a bit of a bête noire to the establishment…
He might have to buy himself a new Californian government to go with his new Californian company.
I thought Musk was talking about moving the HQ to Texas last year.
Something about woke California and its effect on business
“More than two years since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, it’s back to crisis management school for Members of the European Parliament. A special covid committee has convened to ‘holistically’ review ‘lessons learned’. But take a look at the European Parliament’s Decision on its remit, and you’ll see that the post-pandemic lesson plan for Europe is a little light on critical thinking.
In recent times, MEPs brushed aside legal worries about everything from closing schools to limiting freedom of movement. Who’s been affected and how, an investigation might be expected to ask—but not this one.
In the recital to the Decision, Parliament feeds the Committee with an answer to this crucial question. In the first place, it’s women. ‘During the #COVID19 pandemic, women took the hardest hit: literally, mentally and financially,’ pronounced Roberta Metsola, the Parliament’s President, citing a survey exclusively composed of female respondents.” (Substack)
One wonders whether they actually know the meaning of “holistic” (or the Birkenhead drill).
I think the survey should have been composed entirely of child respondents…
“Prince Andrew tests positive for Covid and will miss St Paul’s service.”
Useless piece of shyte needs a booster.
Good morning, hp. Poor man must be devastated to be missing out on his devotions.
Greetings AE.
“In a pathetic image of what government indifference and overreach means, we see scores of green refuse bags filled with terrified, squirming cats and dogs being dumped on streets, destined for mass culling, likely gassing. The act – late in the lockdown and in plain sight – is an exercise in pure power. A vindictive cruelty intended to further terrorise a people already crippled by years of oppression into accepting the unacceptable.” (TCW)
Yep. That’s what tyranny looks like, and that’s what we are fighting against. One day, I hope there will be a memorial to those who endured state brutality to protest against tyranny during lockdowns in London, Victoria and elsewhere. Heroes every one.
“Warning: Disturbing material in text and on links”
Yes. Isn’t it just? 2049? You’re having a laugh.
More crimes against humanity by Peterloo Trudeau:
Chilling.
Very similar things have happened and continue to happen in Australis, with devastating consequences for public trust of the medical profession.
Seems Kim Jong Dan (and that guy in the Northern Territory) have rivals in Canada and California…
The bullying in Australia came largely from doctors’ own professional bodies; aided and abetted in Victoria by the police.
Didn’t a German regime of the 1930’s take their cue from medical and scientific professionals? Following the “science” is nothing new unfortunately.
Neither our governments nor the German regime of the 1930’s can be let off the hook so lightly. They share authoritarian attitudes.
Especially ‘science’ twisted by poltics and dreams of world domination!
Like the Big Pharma cartel that got the creator of GcMAF, the cancer cure, prosecuted and jailed.
Can’t have their profitable but ineffective drugs shown up by real medicines that actually cure people.
Is there still a medical profession somewhere?
My experience of the U.K. OURNHS staff is that they are catalogue jockeys for Big Pharma.
They no longer examine patients – they simply ask what symptoms the patient thinks he/she/zee/it has, look it up in the Big Pharma catalogue and issue the prescribed drug.
That is becoming the norm, if it isn’t already.
I was actually shocked when my new GP examined me, made a quick and accurate diagnosis (confirmed by a test) and suggested rest. No pills; no bill.
He’ll be called in by the BMA for a little chat, and reminded that he is there to push drugs.
I think the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service are somewhat better.
Ah. Safe and effective, safe and effective…
I wonder what would happen to the CEO in Tyrant Trudeau’s Canada?
He’d be invited to meet Trudeau so they could compare their fake vaccine certificates!
Does anyone believe British MPs haven’t been promoting wed safe saline shots for them and their families, so they can show photos of them to kid their constituents to line up and drink the KoolAid?
Should be ‘promised safe saline shots’.
This is a very difficult website to use and be sure it won’t re-write it for you.
“Will it be 2042 or 2062 when Netflix releases a documentary about a certain medical scandal in the early 2020s, when a mandated government vaccine killed and damaged thousands of children and young people? The documentary makers and their audiences will ask, ‘Why did no one listen? How was this allowed to happen?’
A peer-reviewed Israeli study published in January concluded that heart inflammation rates were higher in double-vaccinated young men than in partially vaccinated young men, and much higher than in unvaccinated young men.
It followed earlier warnings of the serious risk and evidence of post-vaccine myocarditis in young men, evidence-based warnings that have continued while the public have watched athletes collapse or die.” (TCW).
Perhaps someone should tell this to those “holistic” Eurocrats and their five presidents…
Why are the Israelis so keen on killing their own people?
You think they’d know a dodgy narrative when they heard one.
Only thousands?
‘Sophie Cook has been appointed the CPS’s “speak-out champion”. ‘She’ will work four days per week’
What’s the matter can’t Sophie do a full five days because of her period?
Seriously do not refer to a biological man as she, just say the transgender male to female who changed names to Sophie.
“Transgender” isn’t even in our 1968 dictionary, let alone our older one.
Still, I suppose “cissy” would be a “non-crime hate incident” (I’m not sure about “tomboy”).
Re the Spanish Pharma CEO being afraid of the vaccine: I have heard that taking Ivermectin reduces or nullifies the action of the spike protein and that this could therefore mitigate potential adverse events if one had to take the vaccine. It seems logical, even if there is no actual test data.
Sadly nothing nullifies the toxic effects of the other ingredients such as the PEG, the graphene etc….
Avoiding the injectable bioweapon is the only safe option.
Call me cynical but I don’t believe Andy has China virus.
Well, there is a lot of it about amongst the under-16s!
Could that be Andy’s mum looking after him with a downtick?
Its what used to be called a “diplomatic cold”
But Covid-19 allows him to isolate with Gemma-14.
How did this do in the charts
https://princeandrew.info/
Sly News at least went so far as to inform the reader that this guy suffered chest pains before tragically dying at a relatively young age.
Still no sign of them asking why so many young people are suddenly dropping down dead though.
JP Morgan capitalists, along with Rochefeller capitalists, funded Trotsky and Lenin’s Red Revolution.
I’m comfident Mr Dimon means it both literally and ideologically when he describes himself as ‘red-blooded’.
Peter North bemoaning the lack of political action over at TurbulentTimes, as some politicians try to backbeddle Brexit, hard to disagree…
Worth reading in full
https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/trade/bigger-problems-than-brexit/
Is Shakespeare racist? Probably, by the current amorphous definition. So is 90% of all art on those terms. Then you have to ask yourself, what’s more important – the collective culture of 1000 years or someone’s feelings? And at that point you have to conclude that maybe racism isn’t really that important. It’s not very nice, but it’s not that important. Or that bad in most cases.
Elon Musk is really giving it some, on his way down the drain – at least if typing a few angry words on his keyboard counts as “giving it some”. To recap: this guy offered $54.20 per Sh*tter share. Funny how since he made his “offer” nobody in the real world has bought a Sh*tter share on the open market for more than $41.
He’s all mouth and no trousers!
Anyone who believes he has got the credit to support a $44bn offer for Sh*tter, a company capitalised at about three-quarters of that figure – this guy who is known to be invested in building luxury plug-in electric cars (vehicles that might embarrass Liberace) as the world economy teeters on the f***ing brink – must be living in cloud cuckoo land.
But I’m told he once “liked a tweet” by Toby
Prince Andrew tests positive for Covid
Welby also has COVID and can’t attend either. There’s a lot of it about, isn’t there, well, *if* you were injected with the safe and effective wonder drug. I think that these VIPs may have got the real medicine.
Was there some mistake …?
The people that count got the saline shot.
The proles got the lethal jab.
“Testing positive for covid” is a marvellous excuse, when you think about it.
You don’t have to look ill, act ill, or be ill, but by virtue of saying you’ve “tested positive” you can get out of all sorts of things. And you don’t even have to test yourself, you can just say it and be believed. No one will question it. What luck!
Might give it a go myself if there’s something I want to avoid.
Were the pair of them hanging around school gates too long perhaps?
Lots of ‘asymptomatic’ kids there judging by conventional covid wisdom.
It sounds a bit like the old ‘upset stomach’ note from Mum – the ruse to avoid ‘bodily contact’ School games.
Further to the link I posted earlier showing Javelin missiles for sale on the black market (Support Peace In Ukraine, Buy Javelin Online), here’s Interpol pointing out the bleeding obvious, for any still in denial:
Interpol Warns of Flood of Illicit Arms After Ukraine War
Have any of the Ukraine dupes actually tried to pretend this flood of weaponry won’t end up being sold to bad actors (other than the Ukrainian regime itself, I mean), just like every other flood of US weaponry used to try to achieve US aggressive goals? I have a feeling I’ve seen one or two of them at it here.
You’d have to be profoundly stupid or ignorant, but these after all are the kinds of people who actually believe that the government of Russia chooses to use a ridiculously dangerous and exotic chemical to poison old men in foreign countries for no apparent rational reason, presumably out of sheer gratuitous evilness, happily accepting the inevitable disastrous diplomatic costs because they didn’t want to do it the traditional way for…reasons.
All part of the ‘Create Global Chaos’ trope from the US Deep State?
I don’t want to join a lynch mob against Tim Hartford, for whom I have the greatest respect, but like all of us, he has his blind spots. He missed a great opportunity on the More or Less program 6 April 2020 in his interview with Jason Okes to see that there was a possibility that the London lockdown occurred after the horse had bolted, namely that the peak in infections had already occurred by 6 April, and the lockdown was futile. But instead he jumped on the week prior “voluntary lockdown”, as the only possible explanation. Am being a bit unfair?
Not 6 April, that was when the program was broadcast. Whatever date, it’s in the interview.
More or Less program went out on 22 April 2020.
Got the dates wrong here. Peak deaths 8 April, peak infections 18 Mar, lockdown 23 Mar. Point being that at lockdown, London was beyond the peak in infections, so was on the downward slope towards herd immunity, making the London lockdown pointless..
Fauci knew it was airborne 4th Feb 2020, so they all shoulda known lockdowns were pointless.
Tho I think they all knew before that personally, they funded it into existance.
https://twitter.com/CharlesRixey/status/1510395369053732870/photo/1