Paul Bird

There follows a letter that Paul Bird, a Lockdown Sceptics' reader, imagines getting from Boris Johnson in the run up to the May 6th local elections. Dear Voter, At the election in December 2019, just 16 months ago, you weighed up the competing offers of the Conservative Party – sound economic policy, living within our means, reducing the burden of the state on the British people; and the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn – a creeping increase in state power, loss of freedoms, and unsustainable spending pushing up the national debt. You overwhelmingly chose the former and handed a landslide victory to the Conservatives. I am immensely grateful to you for putting your trust in me to deliver on the promises we made. With the local elections coming up in May I would urge you to consider this Conservative Government’s achievements since coming to power. I hope this impressive list will convince you to ‘Vote Conservative!’ in the election. Here’s what we have done: Fundamentally modified the British Constitution to break the link between Parliament and the Executive. Removed all those famous but irritating ‘safeguards’ and ‘checks and balances’ on Government power.Put the entire population into house arrest, including eight million in solitary confinement.Severed the links between family members and between friends.Closed down all social structures and cultural activity to...

by Paul Bird In assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the country, the most important statistic has been the number of deaths Covid has caused. That figure is relayed to us many times a day by the BBC and all other media. But does it really convey the impact reliably, or are we being misled? I believe it is misleading. Firstly, there is some difficulty in defining the number itself. There have been many attempts, with definitions including: primary cause on the certificate; contributory cause on the certificate; death for any reason within 28 days or 60 days of having tested positive. None is regarded as completely satisfactory. More misleading than that though is the question of interpreting the number. Does it tell us how much impact Covid is having on the UK population? How can you compare it with the impact of other diseases? Crucially, the figure says nothing about how much life the victims would have had left to live if they had not died from the disease. Quoting a number of deaths carries the implication that had the victims not succumbed to the disease then they would not have died. But we all have to die sometime. So a fatal Covid infection does not so much cause a death as bring it forward. Life is lost. In...