Boris deserves little credit for the decision not to impose tighter Covid restrictions over Christmas. On the contrary, he was planning to do the bidding of SAGE hysterics until an intervention by David Frost, Rishi Sunak and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Mail on Sunday has more.
Boris Johnson was forced to abandon his plans to cancel Christmas after a revolt by furious Cabinet colleagues who warned that the idea was “insane”, anti-lockdown Ministers have told the Mail on Sunday.
They described how a three-pronged attack by former Brexit Minister David Frost, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg forced the Prime Minister to ignore demands by his scientific advisers for families to be banned from mixing over the festive period.
Their account of how close the country came to another lockdown in December can be revealed now for the first time, at the end of a week in which the Cabinet’s anti-restriction Ministers have been vindicated.
Plan B restrictions such as compulsory face masks in indoor venues have now been lifted in England and new economic data predicts the UK will have the fastest growth of any of the world’s leading economies this year.
Allies of Mr Johnson contest the claims that the PM was determined to lock down the country, insisting that he kept an open mind throughout the discussions.
But other insiders have painted a detailed picture of how political pressure from Cabinet colleagues ultimately persuaded him to overrule dire warnings from experts.
The drama started on December 15th when the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, used a press conference to warn that the NHS faced being overwhelmed because of the “absolutely phenomenal pace” at which the new Omicron variant was spreading.
Prof. Whitty also claimed that there would be an “inevitable increase in hospitalisations”, because cases were doubling every two days. Although there was evidence from South Africa, where Omicron had first been identified, that the variant was actually linked to a substantial reduction in the number of patients ending up in hospital, the adviser urged “really serious caution” over those reports.
Prof. Whitty, in tandem with Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and experts on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), stands accused by senior Whitehall figures of taking a selective approach to the data which was emerging at the time.
As one insider said: “When the early evidence from South Africa suggested that Omicron cases were rising dangerously fast, Whitty and the scientists took it seriously, saying ‘the South Africans are very good at data’.”
The actual evidence showed that it wasn’t translating in hospital admissions or into deaths. Despite this, the advice was to lock down.
“But when subsequent data then indicated that rates of hospitalisation and deaths were not increasing, their stance changed: they argued that the data was highly unreliable, and we should look instead at the increase in our own hospitalisation rates.”
The anti-lockdown Ministers – known as Covid ‘hawks’ – were particularly angered by Prof Whitty’s advice to limit social mixing in the run-up to Christmas, which they knew would have an immediate impact on the hospitality industry.
When Prof. Whitty made his remarks, Mr. Sunak was 5,000 miles away in California, having flown out the previous day for his first holiday in two years.
Fearing that the Prime Minister would cave in to the scientists and cancel Christmas, the Chancellor rang Mr. Johnson to urge restraint; he then made immediate arrangements to fly back to London.
Mr. Sunak, who has been the most consistent opponent of Covid restrictions since the pandemic first broke out, arrived back in the UK on Friday December 17th.
He went straight in to No 10 to see the Prime Minister, who was, it is claimed, preparing to use a press conference that weekend to impose new restrictions on social interactions.
Worth reading in full.
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So now are we to see Rishi Washi as a ”good guy” after all?
Aren’t we supposed to notice that we’re being manipulated any more?
Another Where’s Wally. Whitty has disappeared for weeks now ….. has he been put back in a locked box at last and the key thrown away?
So now we accept the word of ‘insiders’ and ‘sources’. And even if true, isn’t that simply proper Cabinet Collective responsibility? Based on that article, which could be based on malevolent fiction, Mark Dolan on GBN has flipped 180 degrees and is now calling for Sunak to replace Boris. Nice one Mail; job done!
DARPA admits HCQ and Ivermectin are effective treatments aganist Covid. However doctors in US had their medical license revoked for “spreading Covid misinformation” and treating patients with Ivermectin. Doctors who go aganist the narrative are under investigation for daring to speak out against the Biden Regime and for daring to question Big Pharma. They want to block every way possible to reach people for cheap and alternative treatments. You can get your ivm by visiting https://ivmpharmacy.com
Yeah not buying it. This story is planted to make Johnson look worse so they can get someone else in there.
I’m going to throw this out there. Dislike or hate this opinion as you will.
Viewing covid-19 through the traditional liberal versus conservative axis just doesn’t really work. Neither does the worldwide elite conspiracy theory model really work either. Sorry, but that needs to be said.
Those models don’t work. Any more than Neil Fergusson or Chris Whitty’s models don’t work.
Find a new equilibrium. One that conforms to your values (freedom, safety, efficiency, prosperity) and also is consistent with experience. That is backed up by real-world data.
Otherwise, you’re just wasting all of our time.
Going to be great to have a World Economic Forum and former elite Banker in charge of the country to help the UK lead the world in the –
I am sure he will receive loads of resistance from Trilateral commission / Fabian wolf in sheep’s clothing Sir Kier Starmer.
The establishment always win, and the media play the Pied Piper.
The Lab Con WEF owned Parliament is problem No 1.
Until people pluck up the courage to vote for or act for change nothing will change.
Canada leads the way.
This is why the corrupt Globalist stooge Parliament rowed back a little here, they read the tealeaves correctly, the saw what was happening in nations where restrictions became brutal and authoritarian saw the growing kick back and realised it could happen here, don’t fall for it, its a ploy, they’ll be back.
Until Sheeple stop voting for the LabCon con trick it will not change,
What may bring change finally is Net Zero, the insaninty of it, the cost of it, and the suffering it will cause, Sheeple have to suffer before they finally get it.
And suffer they will.
Then and only then will they finally “get it”.
People are suffering now, that number will grow and when the balance tips the whole rotten Globalist structure will come crashing down.
We live in hope. Unfortunately, I can’t see enough voters cottoning on any time soon.
They might when their next energy bills plop onto the doormat. Coming to a house near you soon.
As long as the morons don’t go out and vote Labour, who pushed the FAKE Climate change act through Parliament in 2008, also supported by the phoney Conservatives I may add.
“…new economic data predicts the UK will have the fastest growth of any of the world’s leading economies this year”
Amazing what a recovery from zero can be made to look like.
… meanwhile, despite one right decision, the ship of fools sails on, with the navigators who constantly run it aground get gongs for their services.
Jacinda Ardern Exposed! in 7 minutes or less PLEASE SHARE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kcWHiTehF8
Not sure that’s something I want to see.
…
A man who despises “individual freedom” has no place in British politics.
Nor a party.
Totally agree
What a disgusting disgraceful human being. This man is not fit to seep up in the corridors of power.
This has a ring of truth about it, after all Kim Jong Johnson is a self declared vaccine zealot, a proven lock down enthusiast and is in the process of sacking 100,000 NHS staff as well as impoverishing the country with net zero. He has to go.
Ideally to a prison cell.
If Rishi Sunak did do what is being reported he deserves the Premiership.
I am not a supporter of his but Interesting and surprising level of hostility to Sunak.
Off topic but yesterday I tried to go and see an old school friend who’s dying in hospital (multiple comorbidities, but not covid). I informed his wife I wasn’t “vaccinated” and had never taken a LFT and didn’t posses any. She was more than happy for me to visit and she had spare LFTs as she has to do one every-time she visits. I went to their house and asked about the LFT and what needed to be done. She said all I had to do was show a negative test and she had some “spare” negatives if I didn’t want to do the LFT.
She then realised that because of covid visiting slots have to be prearranged and booked with the hospital so she had better book and see if it’s ok for 3 of us to visit. As we were not family we couldn’t visit so no need to do a LFT. His wife said the whole things a farce as the system goes on honesty and showing a negative test result and she has spare negatives. (She also said he has suffered enough and it would be a mercy if he died and seeing friends of… Read more »
There is no room for compassion and true caring in the diabolical NHS that now exists. Shameful.
It is much better for a person to die at home in peaceful surroundings with friends and family, rather than be left to rot (by the staff) in a hospital. The hospital should be happy to go along, ridding of a ‘bad blocker’.
These mindless rule followers are truly despicable. Conceivably there was a case back when real case fatality rate was ~20% for the elderly or those with multiple comorbidities. Now, it is just a common cold variant with a scary name.
I seriously doubt that Bunter wanted to lockdown over Chrismas; he’s just a Classics graduate know-nothing who gets blown by whatever wind prevails.
Of course Kim Jong-Johnson was going to lock down again until his backbench MPs threatened to oust him.
Story planted for a reason
Answers on a postcard please
Davos has waited long enough to get their boy rather than their bagman into Number 10. Make way, fat oik, Dishy Rishi has been anointed.
No, public perception of their BS stopped it.
Fulham fan dies after cardiac arrest during Blackpool game – BBC Sport
Sadly, another victim of imaginary psychosomatic complications from our totally safe vaccines.
BBC didn’t report his age……..one therefore assumes that he was not a typical heart attack victim.
Someone else said he was 22.
https://thesportsgrail.com/paul-parish-passes-away-during-fulham-vs-blackpool-know-who-he-has-age-death-cause-obituary/
Much as I oppose the snake oil, and am aware of the frequency of adverse events, it’s unwise to assume every cardiac arrest is due to the jabs.
Then why did you just do so?
How is it that so called experts can get their predictions so far wrong all the time?
Let’s face it, they simply ‘predict’ what they want to happen. This article, esp over interpretation of South African data, makes that abundantly clear. Take away their knighthoods and throw them in jail!
ONS data shows children up to 52 times more likely to die following covid-19 vaccination.
If that is the case then DOH should immediately halt vaccination of children with this product.
Thanks really due to the 100 Tory backbenchers that voted against the pointless and ridiculous Plan B.
Johnson is a windsock politician. Having to rely on Starmer’s pusilanimous Labour MP’s to get legislation through the house will have spooked him. That and all the 1922 executive voting against him.
Omicron has clearly demonstrated what a malign influence SAGE, Whitty, Vallance et al. have been and will continue to be. Their influence must be removed. Covid legislation must be removed from the statute book in March.
And no, Johnson doesn’t get a pass in all this.
Correct about Johnson, he does what he believes will be popular or what he will be unpopular for not doing.
That’s how simple this is.
The others you mentioned are Piltdown Man hoaxers masquerading as scientists.
OTOH, Johnson got us in this mess. Hence, it should be his responsibilty to get us out of it again. After this has happened, he should seriously consider taking the political responsibilty for it.
All signed up to global green policies, exporting gas to Belgium, ROI, and Netherlands, while we import expensive gas from elsewhere.. Taking money from the economy to throw it a Covid. Are we supposed to feel confidence in this Parliament
I’m a bit slow on the uptake but it has just dawned on me how central to the ‘vaccine’ fraud is the claim that covid ‘vaccines’ prevent serious illness or hospitalisation
Big Pharma knew from the start that the covid ‘vaccines’ did not prevent people transmitting or contracting the virus
Big Pharma also knew that sooner or later people who cotton on to this fact when those who had been jabbed caught covid
So, what to do? Invent a lie. Where did this lie originate? The lie had it’s origins in Big Pharma’s now discredited ‘vaccine’ trials
The NHS ‘vaccine’ letter uses such words as ‘vaccine’ and ‘protection’ whilst never pointing out that the jab does not prevent contracting or transmitting covid
The only justification now used for the jabs is that in effect they will prevent health care systems collapsing; a rather dubious justification for the continuation of medical experiments on an uninformed population
“The only justification now used for the jabs is that in effect they will prevent health care systems collapsing”
Please provide evidence in support of this statement.
‘Protection against hospitalisation’ was central when they first rolled the vaccine out to ‘the vulnerable’, but then the story changed, didn’t it? While the paperwork handed out to victims at jab centres continued to point out there was no effect on effectiveness or transmission, the government (or the ‘nudge unit’ in charge) realised that wouldn’t be enough to get the whole population jabbed. Then we saw headlines in all major outlets saying the jabs were highly effective in preventing you catching or transmitting the disease. Few read the small print that this was modelling and assumptions. Now the jab has negative effectiveness, something which only readers of a few obscure (sorry Toby) websites are aware of. I think your last paragraph hits the nail on the head, the government was bounced into an initial response by news coming out of Italy.
it has just dawned on me how central to the ‘vaccine’ fraud is the claim that covid ‘vaccines’ prevent serious illness or hospitalisation
It was the only arse-covering myth left after the ineffectiveness and safety concerns were known.
In the last March version of the leaflet I have it said: “….two doses will reduce your chance of becoming seriously ill. We do not yet know whether it will stop you from catching and passing on the virus” and then went on to emphasise the usual rubbish ideas. It was a classic use of negative output, and avoiding telling the whole truth.
E.g. it implied that it does not prevent infection (but did not explicitly say so), and was a “white lie” to the extent that they probably knew, in reality, that it does not actually protect any third party against being cross infected from you.
You’d expect that they do know more now.
I suspected this for a while. I actually think Jacob Rees Mogg has been the best member of the cabinet on this: calm, assertive and intellectually convincing.
I can understand why he was reticent and out of his depth, nervous and so on. But I have always seen Boris, despite being better than Starmer, has been a brake on freedoms, delaying them last summer, rather than pushing our case.
His test now is to abolish vaccine mandates. He seems to be delaying that, suggesting a review which hasn’t started, and maybe will only drop it when forced by more pressure or the courts. If he wants to prove otherwise, drop mandates now.
Yes you’re right. Last summer was a joke. Well it was all a farce since that stupid November “firebreaker”, reopening then cancelling Christmas, giving into unions and closing schools with one days notice, the whole outside dining inside debacle and pretending that people had to wait until July to be allowed to legally hug someone!
????? I don’t think Rees Mogg has ever voted against any of the nonsense. He may have worked behind the scenes, but I am pretty sure he voted FOR all the fascist lies. Sometimes as a tactical move I can see that a politician may publicly acquiesce to what they believe are wrong decisions, but the nature of what they’ve been doing is so egregious that only resignation and active opposition could be considered honourable. The first to break ranks were the likes of Swayne, Walker, Baker and a few others. For a long time there were only 30ish of them. Hardly anyone has resigned. Rees Mogg and Sunak may have come to their senses, very late, or they may have read the mood of the public and felt it best to take the path they chose. But they are all guilty and can never be forgiven in this life.
Exactly so. There is inevitably a slew of attempts by the Guilty Men and their apologists to rewrite the history.
We might have to tolerate them in office faute de mieux, but their deeds should not be forgotten and they should not be forgiven, short of resignations and full, genuine mea culpas
I had a good laugh at the oxymoron of Rees-Mogg’s intellect. 🙂
Let’s face it – opposition has been astoundingly minimal on both sides of the House
“Jacob Rees Mogg has been the best member of the cabinet on this: calm, assertive and intellectually convincing.”
Rees-Mogg, disappointingly, was fully on board with the panic agenda. “Calm, assertive and intellectually convincing”, he most certainly was not.
He might have been one of the ones quickest to grasp the appalling error he and the rest of the cabinet made, but the best you could say of him, honestly, would be that he might have been among the least worst.
Ha. Surprised at all the upvotes – Rees-Mogg is an absolute joke.
If he thought dropping the mandates for NHS staff would save his skin and make him popular with the Tory rebels and keep him in post he would do it tomorrow.
This feels like a massive nudge into accepting Sunak as our new leader.
I am not sure I believe any of it….
They are willing to stand up and be counted now – when it’s clear no further restrictions were needed?!
They should have been saying this in the papers in December.
December 2020
It was clear in Dec 22 that further restrictions were not needed and the government was overblowing the fear over Omicron.
GB News interviewed the SA Doctor who discovered the variant on 2 separate occasions. I saw both interviews. She could not have been clearer about it.
All the patients she saw were soooo mildly affected that they didn’t even know they had it until they did a test, and she could not even devise parameters which would have justified her referring any of them to hospital.
The man is a sham, an empty suit and has no moral principles.
Get him and the whole cabinet that supported the wrecking of Britain over the last 2 years out.
Watch it – or he’ll send his mate Darius Guppy round to give you a black eye and a cracked rib!
Caption competition
‘Not me guv’
Whilst holding a list of party invitations in his right hand
We supposed to thank Sunak now?
Fast forward to 2023, a Whitehall insider says Sunak was urging the PM to roll back on vaccinating kids. He really did want to save them.
If Sunak takes over, might as well call the ‘United Kingdom’ as ‘West India’. The Jewel in The Crown.
It’s not at all clear that this report in the Mail harms Boris Johnson.