by Christine Brett
Christine Brett is a freelance market access consultant and holds a Master’s degree in Economic Evaluation of Healthcare from City University in London. Her career spans 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry, with experience in sales, marketing and health economics. You can see her LinkedIn profile here.
Schools are due to open on June 1st for certain year groups after several weeks of lockdown (although this is looking increasingly unlikely). Anxiety and tensions are high. Parents and teachers are worried with unions calling for working conditions to be safe. There are a lot of opinions and data interpretations appearing in the media about children’s susceptibility to the virus. The noise around this topic is adding to the anxiety parents naturally feel about their children returning to school after a period of absence longer than the summer holidays. All across the mainstream media and social media, we are seeing horrifying pictures of children in playgrounds in France playing solo in a chalk circle or being sprayed down before entering school buildings in other countries. Headlines are screeching that children are super-spreaders of flu and other respiratory viruses, so naturally, they must be walking biohazards for Covid. On my Facebook feed, worried friends are sharing letters from headteachers emphasising their concern about children’s safety. But what are the risks really, and how do we rationally make sense of this?
In the interests of full disclosure, I fully understand the anxiety parents feel about their children. My first son was born with a congenital heart condition and spent the first ten days of his life on the cardiac intensive care unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital. He underwent 8 hours of open-heart surgery at three days old. He had his oxygen levels, and weight monitored weekly. He was rushed back into the hospital after having his first set of vaccines. Ultimately, my husband and I decided that since he had survived, we wanted him to live. Yes, I was nervous being around people with a cold, but I wheeled him down the street choked with traffic fumes to take him to baby groups – yoga, massage, singing. We travelled on trains, buses and even planes to visit friends and family.
He died at 19 weeks – the post-mortem showed evidence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) is his lungs. CMV is a common virus that is usually harmless. Most people don’t know they have CMV because it rarely causes problems in healthy people. However, for people with weakened immune systems, it is a cause for concern. For Matthew’s delicately balanced circulation, it was fatal. I always knew he didn’t have a long life ahead with his condition, but he lived a short, fun-filled life.
So I appreciate the fear that coronavirus holds for people. That fear is especially acute for those who are immune compromised be that through age, underlying health condition or generally poor health. And now having two healthy children, I understand the fear parents have about their children and their wellbeing. However, there are other consequences to fear beyond the coronavirus itself. Is it in our children’s best interests to be isolated from their friends? What will the impact be of lengthy social distancing and lack of access to education?
I’ve spent the last 25 years working in health economics – looking at the data about the costs and benefits of medicines and presenting this information to bodies such as the National Institute of Health & Care Excellence (NICE). Part of that work weighs up the likelihood of getting a condition and the risks and benefits of treating it or not. When we don’t know the answers to some of the questions, as with new drugs that haven’t been used widely, we take the information we have and try to predict what is going to happen. This approach is what we describe as modelling- effectively, it is making a best guess. But as time goes on, our knowledge increases. We accumulate actual data. And with that data in hand, we transform our original modelling into a much more accurate picture of the reality.
When coronavirus first hit we were all scared, we didn’t know what was going to happen. It looked like people were dying in droves, and we thought of the worst scenario. We hunkered down to protect our young and eventually schools were closed as the UK entered lockdown on March 23rd 2020. Sweden has been an outlier choosing to not lockdown, and schools have remained open throughout the pandemic.
Sweden didn’t lockdown and didn’t close schools so let’s look at what happens when we don’t lockdown and compare it to when we do as in the UK.
Figure 1 shows there were 27,903 cases reported of coronavirus in Sweden at 13 May 2020. The number of cases in children under 19 years old is 433 (1.5%).
Let’s look at the picture in England. As of May 13th, there were 138,264 confirmed cases of coronavirus of which 2235 (1.6%) were children aged under 19 years. This is shown in Figure 2.
So there is the same proportion of cases in children in Sweden as there are in England. Therefore, despite being at school and not socially distancing and “being exposed” to the virus, more children in Sweden are not getting the virus anymore than the children are in England who are locked down.
However, I recognise there is some uncertainty about the number of cases and the amount of testing. So let’s look at the thing that scares us most – death. Before I explore this data, I must stress again that I know how devastating it is to lose a child. It’s our deepest most primitive fear – parents don’t expect to outlive their children. Every single death is a tragedy and the death of a child is unspeakable. Sadly though, these tragedies happen. During the course of the pandemic, many children have died of causes other than COVID-19. In the same time period that deaths from Covid have been reported from March 6th to May 1st (latest mortality data available other than for Covid), 722 children have died in England, but in nearly every case for conditions other than Covid.
Sweden has reported 3460 deaths in total from coronavirus of which one was of a child under the age of 19 – in an environment where children are attending school as normal up until the age of 15. In England there have been 23,953 Covid deaths, of which 12 have been of children under 19. These figures for both countries are shown in Figure 3.
This means that out of the 433 children in Sweden who have confirmed cases of coronavirus (this obviously excludes asymptomatic or mild cases who were never tested), the mortality has been 0.2% and out of the 2235 children in England the mortality has been 0.5%. So over 99% of confirmed cases in both countries survive. The true infection fatality rate is likely to be even higher.
Therefore in the UK, we have had more deaths of children than Sweden although we of course have a larger population. If we take that larger population into account and examine the population of children, we can see that Sweden has had 1 Covid death in just under 2.4 million children and in England we’ve had 12 Covid deaths in just under 13.4 million children. This means that one child has died from coronavirus out of 1.1 million children in UK versus 2.4 million children in Sweden.
So why are we still scared about sending our children back to school? We can see if we look at the data from other countries that regardless of lockdown, children aren’t getting as many cases of coronavirus around the world. Table 1 shows the number of cases of coronavirus in a number of countries and the number of deaths and the picture is pretty consistent.
What’s striking is that in terms of number of cases in children, Sweden has the lowest and is the country where schools have remained opened so if children are such super-spreaders wouldn’t we have expected to see more cases there than elsewhere rather than fewer?
A number of reviews have been published on the role of children in community transmission of COVID-19. Munro and Faust looked at studies in China, South Korea, Iceland, Italy, Japan, France, the Netherlands and Australia and concluded that “these data so far have been consistent across regions and continue to push the evidence in one direction” which means that children do not appear to be significantly implicated in spreading coronavirus even to siblings and family members.
Viner et al performed a systematic review of studies on the effectiveness of school closures during the pandemic. They could find no evidence that closure of schools has contributed to the control of the epidemic.
This morning’s Times reported that the “children and adults have the same chance of getting ill” based on newly-published data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). This survey was conducted on 10,705 people in the community in England and excluded anyone in hospital, care home or institution. Of the 33 individuals who tested positive from COVID-19 from 30 separate households there were as many children who tested positive as adults. However, what the data don’t say is how many of the 10,705 who were tested were actually children! The numbers are quite low to be able to draw any robust inference and we know that the majority of these infections take place in hospitals and care homes which house the population at risk – the elderly and those with other illnesses. If indeed there are as many children in the community who are testing positive and they are not presenting for treatment it must be more likely that they are asymptomatic. It will be interesting to find out as this survey continues whether there are children who are testing positive with no adults testing positive in the same household. Then we might be able to add more meaningfully to the evidence around transmission.
The fact remains that most of the available evidence so far points to the fact that children are not spreading coronavirus or suffering from it. Closing schools as the government deemed unnecessary initially was an emotional rather than a scientific response. The majority of cases are in adults and the vast proportion of deaths are also. Whilst there have been some cases of severe reactions in children lately, it is unclear whether this is related to their underlying co-morbidity and their immune response to the virus.
Having reviewed many submissions of new drugs and devices in my career, I think we have more data than most for making a decision. We have data available from lots of other countries as well as our own which is not always the case.
Given the volume of available data, the question must be asked – what further evidence is needed to make that decision and what is the cost of acquiring it? We never have all the desired information about a new drug before it is approved, and we make decisions to use it without testing it on every patient who is ultimately prescribed. There will never be perfect information that can guarantee 100% safety but we balance the risk of the drug having a side-effect with the need to relieve the symptom.
If we do not accept the data that is already out there, are we any more likely to believe it if we wait to see what happens when other countries open their schools?
As much as I understand a parent’s desire to protect their child, from the risk of illness, as I did with Matthew, we cannot do that at the expense of them living. Being isolated from their friends, washing their hands until they bleed and wearing masks which ultimately reduce the oxygen intake and suppress their immune system is likely to do more harm than if they catch coronavirus.
Liz Cole helped with the editing of this article.
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The media doesn’t seem very interested this morning in whatever happened in Bath yesterday (“suspected chemical attack”)
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/local-news/people-stripped-hosed-down-amid-9445215
No description appears to be given of the woman with the bag, who appears not to have been detained. Is this person a risk to other members of the public?
Monday morning Sandhurst Rd & Finchampstead Rd Wokingham
An Israeli minister amongst the mob.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sde-teiman-israeli-soldiers-under-arrest-raping-palestinian-prisoner
Nine Israeli soldiers in the notorious Sde Teiman detention centre were arrested on Monday on suspicion of raping a Palestinian detainee …
Amazing, I do not believe it. Has law and order returned? Not possible.
“Police were called to a popular beauty spot in the Peak District after a fight broke out between several people wielding large sticks, reports LBC.”
It’s fairly clear from the footage that efforts to bring more “diversity” to the countryside are bearing fruit.
Just watched the footage. FFS. It’s difficult to draw any other conclusion than we’re being invaded by an enemy that’s not civilised enough to share a small stretch of river, but who are motivated enough to destroy, from the inside out, the country that welcomed them and gave them a home. An incredibly dangerous mix.
Not a scintilla of self-awareness as to the possible cause of the much trumpeted ‘racism’ of the countryside…
Very clear tof.
I suppose it was fortunate for all that the stick-wielding thugs didn’t have knives or machetes.
There’s always a next time!
One crucially important fact few people are aware of:
The reason Muslims, in particular, feel entitled to take over peaceful areas of outstanding natural beauty in the West is that Islam teaches that simply reading a passage from the Koran aloud in any place claims that place as part of the territory of the Global Caliphate, forever.
That’s why they do things like go to the rim of the Grand Canyon, for example, and read passages from the Koran aloud.
You can be sure they have been quietly doing the same all over Britain and the West.
And that’s why they feel entitled to be as rude, arrogant, and even violent towards any non-Muslim in any place that they have thus claimed, be it a church or government building like the British Parliament, or in the great outdoors.
That’s also why they insist on “prayer rooms” being set aside for them, and why composer Karl Jenkins sneaked the horrible caterwauling Muslim Call to Prayer into his musical composition entitled “The Armed Man”, sometimes performed in churches.
Net-zero and CBDC at once. What can possibly go wrong?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but every morning, I wake up wondering what today’s piece of earth-shattering news is going to be. I note also that the massive story from a day or two ago is no longer being forefronted by the MSM. This would explain a lot!
https://futurism.com/the-byte/former-nasa-scientist-experiment-live-in-simulation
Alternatively, Hermetic philosophy has it that the universe is a mental construct in an infinite mind which would also explain a lot.
“If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.”
That was the stark statement from Rachel Reeves, her cuts included;
Rachel Reeves has scrapped some winter fuel payments, along with a raft of other government programmes and policies to plug a projected government overspend of £22bn.
The chancellor said those not in receipt of pension credit will no longer receive the extra money as she repeatedly told MPs: “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.”
The chancellor also announced that adult social care charging reforms, which had been delayed by the previous government, would also not go forward on the new government’s watch – in a move that will save more than £1bn by the end of next year.
Road scheme cancellations
Two road schemes have definitely been scrapped – a planned two-mile tunnel for the A303 under Stonehenge, and work on the A27, including a Chichester bypass. This, as well as not reopening old rail lines under the Restoring Your Railway programme, will save nothing this year but nearly £800m next.
If she really means her “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.” then I would say that should include Ed Miliband and his net-zero GB Energy nonsense.
Interestingly the A303 tunnel at Stonehenge was planned to relieve the holiday traffic jams that occur at that spot as people head down to the west country for a holiday. Maybe this is a tacit admission that under Milibands net-zero plans for EVs, in a few years time most people will not have a car and therefore cannot head down the A303 and cause traffic jams.
The decision to scrap social care charging reforms will ensure that more people will have to cash in the value of their homes to pay for end of life care, so not only will we not have a car we will have no property either! A brave new world indeed!
And similarly with the decision not to re-open old railway lines, the population is to be ghettoed in 15 minute cities so there will be no need for these lines.
Social care charging is simply theft of property which is behind much of what is happening these days and on which I have commented often.
Still, there is sufficient to fund a 22% wage rise for doctors we never see, inflation busting rises for teachers and other public sector workers who apparently are even less productive than pre C1984, so it’s not all bad then.
This agenda is blatantly not the Labour Party’s because they haven’t got the intelligence for all this, it is straight from the WEF and delivered via T. Bliar.
Re the A303 project, some will be content that it’s been shelved for the long term, given the legal battle against it, e.g. https://stonehengealliance.org.uk/a303-stonehenge-what-is-the-latest-position/ I’ve got no interest in that, just aware of it.
Another project that seems to be on the shelf that was reported by the local news outlet was the redevelopment of the Portishead branch near Bristol: https://www.portisheadrailwaygroup.org/history.html
“If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.”
It depends on what “it” is.
“New Defence Secretary pledges to step up support for Ukraine on visit to Odesa”
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-defence-secretary-pledges-to-step-up-support-for-ukraine-on-visit-to-odesa
Has anyone else noticed there seems to have been a sudden decrease in the amount of uptick/downtick votes in general on the DS?
I think the requirement to login in order to vote has hurt the site a bit. Makes it look far less active for one thing, but also removes a bit of interaction from “the other side”. I used to like getting the red marks from the floppy lot lol.
Nah, I have to disagree. I think actual dialogue should be encouraged and getting a gazillion red or green numbers under your post isn’t the way. It’s just petty and manipulative. It should have no influence but maybe some people would be less keen to share a point of view if they thought they’d get a pile-on from faceless people and not a single actual reply. That was what pissed me off, and I’ve much experience. I’d get about 50 red numbers and I’d be lucky to get a single person respond as to why they disagree with me. That’s when you know it’s all saddos sat at home with no accounts, and presumably no lives or Netflix sub either. In my opinion, if you’re gonna be a hater at least have the bollocks to be a hater with a response and engage in discourse.
With you Mogs.
I can see both sides of the coin. I preferred it before though.
Yes, it’s rude to downvote a comment and not say why…
Plenty of people did ( and still do. Example above ) it out of spite and pettiness though. Plus they get their kicks if you show your irritation because all they want is to get a rise out of you, which is beyond pathetic. But I know exactly who my haters are on here anyway and I’ll either ignore or call them out on their bullshit, depending on what mood I’m in. One common trait they share is an inability to take a dose of their own medicine.
Seconded
Nonsense! Have you seen the thousands of commenters on Daily Mail articles? Some comments get tens of thousands of upvotes or downvotes! What would their website be like if everyone who downticked a comment had to give an explanation, as well as another explanation of why they upticked others? It would take up a huge amount of space on their website, for a start, and for what?
No one has to say why they upvote comments, or downvote comments, or click the Like or Dislike buttons on Youtube videos— the whole idea is ridiculous, and paranoid.
If they feel like giving further explanations, they can choose to give them OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL, not be forced by some Stalinist Paranoid.
If you don’t care, why provide such a detailed response?
How do you know who is down-ticking? Does DS give you that information?
DHJ, you have unknowingly hit the nail on the head!
Judging from Mogwai’s comments in the past, it seems she does have access to information about all the commenters here, which is how she was able to suddenly “out” one commenter, stating his real name as a researcher whose book famously challenged the Islamic Invasion of the West, and thereby violating his right to privacy and anonymity as a paying DS member, and possibly even endangering his life.
It seems Mogwai is masquerading on here as a member of the public, when she is actually either on the DS staff, or in a special “relationship” with one of the editors, thereby deceiving all the other DS commenters while invading their right to privacy and anonymity.
Thanks, this is very strange as the Mogwai comment has gone.
I’m fairly certain I responded to that comment and not yours but when comments have been removed in the past, the whole branch of responses goes with it (which would be correct).
My comment now shows in response to yours, which is misleading.
It doesn’t matter. You were right to suspect Mogwai had some private inside information on all the commenters, while she masquerades as a member of the public.
Yes that would be bad in itself but the comments do also matter. If I did respond to that comment and it was deleted, my response should also be removed, not associated with another comment.
That could happen anywhere on the site such that historic discussions look very different and who would know until someone then decides to de-anonymise users and use the modified version of the discussion against them.
It looks like I responded to Heretic but I didn’t.
What happened to the Mogwai comment on how they don’t care about downticks etc.?
and there the comment is, magically back again.
Edit: my mistake, that’s a new one on a similar theme.
It’s just happened again. The Mogwai comment was removed and my comment is now out of context.
But I took a copy this time (see attached). So now it’s evidenced that DS either has poor comments management or is intentionally manipulating the discussion.
Hardliner is offended by the word, “shitmuncher” but not “pissed”, apparently!
I agree 100%. There are so many interesting websites, all asking for subscriptions, it is just not feasible to satisfy them all but it makes a site interesting if you can still express an opinion, even if it is only a thumbs up or down. DS will know but I would expect general readership of this website to decline over time which is not a good thing.
But people without accounts can still read all the comments plus most of the articles, so what meaningful difference does it make? I’ve noticed a few new usernames crop up on here of late so it could actually have the opposite effect and motivate people to finally get an account so that they can join in properly, as opposed to being mere voyeurs, sitting on the sidelines, contributing nothing but a silly thumbs up/down, as if we regulars are nothing more than characters to be influenced and manipulated on a video game. Personally, I don’t need a boatload of little green numbers to give me positive feedback and galvanize me to comment further, by the same token loads of little red numbers don’t put me off either. The whole thing is just very childish and irrelevant, to my mind. I’m afraid clicking on a little thumb does not ”express an opinion”, but typing and sharing actual words does.
Exactly.
The other side of this, is found at the Spectator, where opening comments to App users has resulted in an avalanche of nonsense and a system where one is unlikely to ever find one’s own comment, buried among hundreds of others, nor ever know if anyone has replied or ‘voted’.
I think it is because you have to be logged in to vote.
A couple of weeks ago the site settings were changed so you need to be a subscriber to vote, is my understanding. Sadly I think very few people subscribe – my guess is we’re in the 100s.
No, it’s because every subscriber’s vote on any comment can now be scrutinised by the DS staff, removing the Freedom of Anonymity and Opinion, so subscribers are more hesitant to vote at all.
This new system was installed because people like yourself constantly complained about getting even one measly downvote, even though you got loads of upvotes.
You lot wanted everyone to be hunted down and forced to explain why they downvoted anyone, so it’s no fun at all anymore.
My “complaints” were an attempt to stimulate a response and certainly not intended to change site policy. I want people to disagree here, but say why – I think it’s helpful.
It’s Stalinist and Paranoid.
You have removed everyone’s Freedom of Choice.
Well I don’t make the site rules and I certainly wouldn’t want to have much if any influence over them – that is a matter for those who run the site. I can’t get excited about the “voting” buttons one way or the other. Broadly speaking I am in favour of whatever brings more people to the site and gets more people commenting and subscribing.
You constantly complained about it, every single time anyone dared to give you even one downvote, and others joined you in those complaints, demanding downvoters be “Hunted Down and Forced to Explain”.
The DS editors were responding to all your complaints, and yet now you are still complaining, as if it was nothing to do with your complaints at all.
I demanded no such thing, and the DS editors are free to do whatever they choose to do, and I am certainly not responsible for their choices.
You demanded it of downvoters every time, not of the DS editors, but the editors responded to the constant complaints of yourself and others such as Mogwai and Huxley.
If you disagree the discussion may be modified such that you are then disagreeing with something else. This sort of modification has been happening further up this comments section.
The Mogwai account has had their comments cherry-picked from the discussion while all else remains but now out of context. Added to Heretic’s concerns, it all seems a bit suspicious and untrustworthy.
At least some of the accounts, yourself included, I took as genuine.
There is an edit function on comments, but I think you’d have to be pretty quick to get in before an edit because it’s time-limited.
I am not aware of comments being deleted – the original posters can flag that up if it’s happening.
I am genuine, though I cannot prove it (but at least one person on the Lockdown Sceptics subreddit has met me in real life, so you could ask there if I am a bot).
My gut feel is that the mods and people who run this site do their best, have genuine motivations, are a pretty open book, and are not worthy of too much suspicion.
Here’s an example of comments being selectively deleted.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/07/30/news-round-up-1235/#comment-970628
Discussions have previously been truncated when a parent comment was removed. This happened in a discussion we had which was then re-instated after I raised it.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/03/04/the-dangers-of-banning-islamophobia/#comment-939748
I can cope with some bots, paid-for influencers and those harvesting information for Other Reasons but not when it looks like it could be in collusion with the site owners or when the site owners have dubious data management that can misrepresent what was said. All the worse for being on a site promoting free speech.
The first example you give I imagine was deleted as it was seen as an overly personal attack – I don’t have strong feelings about that one way or the other. I think pages and pages of name calling just makes a comments section tedious so it should be discouraged, but if it only happens occasionally I don’t see the harm in leaving them in.
The second example I don’t remember we ever got to the bottom of – I guess something went beyond a red line. Again I don’t think it happens often and on the whole I think these sections work well – just not enough people!
Erm, ”overly personal attack”?? It’s called a retaliation to somebody who’s ensured my previous post got erased due to them not being able to take a dose of their own medicine. This is what happens when you have the same person trolling you around the comments sections, leaving nasty, snarky little comments, making up blatant bullshit about you, trying to turn other posters against you and they apparently resent it when you turn the tables and give them it back with interest.
That’s what that is!
I would not have deleted it personally
It’s why I keep banging on about freedom of speech being just an illusion and how the goalposts seem to be continually moving, at least on this site, so nobody knows exactly what the parameters are and what they can safely say. But the troll can keep on trolling and carry on being defamationtastic, so it’s all good. Just so long as there’s no rudy words, right?
I’ll always be brash and they’ll have to kick me off this site because I’m not changing who I am for anyone. Nobody’s forcing anyone to read my posts, so to pot with them.
So come get me, Gestapo boy!
I don’t think you will be or should be kicked off!
I think this site does OK – better than many.
Cheers, tof. Though I won’t take it personally seeing as you’re an absolutist so you would say that!
That previously deleted discussion “may have been done in error”.
When a comment is removed and the responses are then associated with the parent comment, that’s a false representation of the discussion that took place.
The removed comment could be marked as “Deleted” (or “Censored” – accurate but not a good look), as readers can then see that responses were originally to another comment.
Commenters could be given the option to delete their own comment. I think it’s fine for people to retract their own comment but not for it to be censored by the site.
Yes mine were removed and I’ve emailed the DS team over it as I’d like some rationale for them doing so. Well, I say ”them”, but it’s obvious that, once again, Hardliner has me in his crosshairs, but that’d be because the one-man toxic clown show that calls himself ‘Heretic’ snitched like a weeny crybaby, because his precious ”freedom of speech” only works one way, you see. He gets to leave me the usual snarky, rude comments but I apparently have no right of reply. That’s how his warped version of ‘free speech’ works. Hypocrisy off the charts.
Well, Hardliner doesn’t need much encouragement to stick his Gestapo oar in, let’s be honest. He’s got significant form. Ain’t that right, Mr Watcher? LOL Expect this post to self-destruct in 3, 2, 1….
But I am loving how I’m now apparently a double-agent, mole, shacked up with a DS team member….OMFG…the fantasy world of the resident whack job never ends! LMFAO Totally libelous but then I’m not a two-faced hypocrite whingebag that bleats on tediously about ”freedom of Speech” then tries to police everybody else’s, so I let it slide..
That’s because the vast majority of people ( who weren’t bots ) who used this function didn’t have accounts, so now they’re out of the picture and can’t ‘vote’, and those of us with accounts aren’t so invested or easily manipulated into using a pointless and inconsequential function.
Many times I’ll like someone’s comment but I don’t actually ‘like’ it, because I refuse to play along, IYKWIM. Can you see little red/green numbers making one iota of difference to anybody’s posting? Because I can’t.
That’s ok then chaps, I thought people were leaving in droves!
I do agree you should be a member to vote it just looked odd that once popular comments dropped from the 200s to the 10s
It’s because members’ every vote is now exposed to be marked and analysed by the DS staff, if they choose to do so. It removed all Freedom of Anonymity in voting, since the DS staff can now trace all your voting patterns directly back to your home.
All because a few people whined about getting even one downvote!
This new system actually removed Freedom of Speech and Opinion.
The system seems to be suffering from bugs…
I have to log in twice, as my attempt is always rejected on the first go and accepted on the second, and then I can comment myself, but not up/down tick others comments.
it’s a bit tiresome but it has caused me to muse on why we seek validation of our outpourings from people we’ll likely never know?
Precisely! “Why do we seek validation of our outpourings from people we’ll likely never know?”
And why should we be upset if they do not validate our outpourings, like anxious teenagers?
“Brawl between stick-wielding walkers erupts at Peak District beauty spot”
Apparently the countryside is racist!
Take a close look at the demographics involved in this dovedale brawl, I’ve visited the place many times and never witnessed behaviour like this!
Maybe they are fighting for the right of the most viable demographic to represent minorities in the countryside?!
“Just stop oil….” There was a clip of that on GBN yesterday. At the time it occurred to me that one of the culprits might have something heavy accidentally dropped on them, or perhaps accidentally kicked in the head, given where they were sitting in the queue.
..Or some big red throbbing fingers! “Oops, sorry mate, did I step on you?”
https://x.com/stevenjonmiller/status/1817636026489217375?s=46&t=R21CfODPbaIEdqga4ocKHw
Report from LBC on Saturday’s Freedom Rally – he’s bob on.
Yes, bang on
I saw that TR had his collar felt after screening his film at the rally… terrorism, apparently?
Anyway, I thought I’d take a gander at this banned film, to see what the fuss was about… I’m still not at all sure.
Either it’s all lies, which should be easy enough to refute or, it’s true in which case there should be an inquiry as to just what is going on?
At the end, I was reminded of the proper investigative work that the BBC used to do and programmes like Panorama, when they cared.
I know we’re supposed to hate him but, on the basis of the film, I’m not sure why. He raises serious question, in my opinion, that need answers.
By the way, the registration number on the Merc sitting outside his house, really doesn’t exist…
It’s terrible that he has reportedly been forced to flee his own ancestral homeland of Britain to avoid being thrown into prison yet again by a vindictive judiciary, this time the Relentless Emily Thornberry hunting him down, as he pointed out.
Who can blame the poor lad from fleeing, after the Muslim/Marxist B*s tards nearly starved him to death last time?
It’s horrific, reminding the world of how the Brazilian Patriot Jair Bolsonaro and the Russian Patriot Alexei Navalny were ruthlessly hunted down.
And the honest, noble-hearted Dr. Andrew Wakefield was hunted down and driven out of his own ancestral homeland, for warning the world about the dangers of childhood vaccines causing neurological damage…
Sally Beck at TCW with a report into the grotesque failures of the NHS in looking after women who are pregnant and ready to give birth.
Uncomfortable reading.
Population reduction?
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/maternity-in-crisis-things-have-never-been-so-bad/
“Brawl between stick-wielding walkers erupts at Peak District beauty spot”
One look at the accompanying video will show that these are not Ethnic Europeans. Here are some great DM comments from the public:
—“We visited there last year as we had heard it was a beauty spot. We walk a long way to get there only to see people of a certain minority completely monopolizing the whole area. There were people sitting on chairs eating in the river and many huge family groups eating everywhere. we felt very outnumbered and uncomfortable and left very quickly. Such a shame the beauty was lost.”
—“It was the same on Hornsea beach recently. I felt out of place.”
—“We went to Bidury trout farm in the Cotswolds couple of weeks ago exactly the same….we paid to go in then left ten minutes later.”
—“I have never seen a fight breakout before at beauty spots like this – their behaviour is an utter disgrace.”
—“Then you look at the picture and see why!! It’s our replacements as always, I have been there loads of times and it’s the most peaceful place going, when I saw fighting with sticks I thought this sounds a bit weird… Then you see why.”
—“Ah, Liblabcon’s Enrichment programme. Cultural dissolution.”
—“It looks a bit like Manchester airport without the police.”
—“I had fond childhood memories of the Dovedale stepping stones and took my grandson there last summer. I was shocked to find large family groups everywhere, cooking food, playing loud music and littering. The place has been ruined.”
—“And where do you suppose they all relieve themselves, since there are no toilet facilities?”
—“I was there for the first and only time three years ago. I could see it was a magnet for Derby’s ‘finest’ citizens. There would be no point in reporting them, those airport scenes show what might be the reception some poorly paid outdoor ranger would get.”
—“This will just be two families. They pack into SUVs and minibuses and arrive in number. One from the M persuasion and other H. They brought their old grievances over from the old country and it’s just surprising it doesn’t kick off more often.”
—“You’re so right, I am seeing that much more often at these sorts of places. Huge groups of people babbling noisily in the middle of the peaceful national parks making a right ruckus. When you get down to the carpark there’s a minibus/large SUV waiting for them all and they all pile in.”
—“Try visiting Canada.”
—“YES!! We visited the Canadian Rockies this year & couldn’t believe then number of them. Hogging the photo spots, loudly, in large groups trying to get the right selfie.”
—“I said before in another story about where they want to buy a Scottish Island and convert it. This group of people are in the news every single day for something like this. They are totally barbaric and do not belong here.”
—“The Scottish Highlands too, the men are very rude and arrogant to locals.”
—“This thread is the last bastion. The Torygraph is too chicken to allow [free speech].”
—“My Scots parents brought our family to live in Australia long ago, and for a long time we used to refer to Britain as “home.” I’ve been back to visit and work maybe ten times during my life, but I’ve got to ask — who are these people? Where have they come from? What kind of behaviour is this?”
—“We took our children for a walk there and to show them the giant stones we would visit as children. It was shocking when we walked into the area. No longer calm and peaceful. It was over run heaving, tents up families cooking in giant pans. Hammocks in trees even a few families playing cricket (not exactly safe with so many people close by) the stones were totally blocked people just stood on them not moving, not letting people get across. Pushing and shoving it was shocking we were one of very few white people. Definitely won’t be visiting again the craziness of it all was very off putting felt like I was at a festival.”
Stockport ?? Anyone ???
Good point (you mean Southport?). I think one of the commenters did a post on it promptly yesterday.
It seems the Rwandan Muslim Terrorist Filth may have been radicalised by the Southport Mosque into stabbing the Southport children for the same reason that the British Army officer and the British prison officer were stabbed earlier:
Revenge for the conviction of Pakistani Muslim Terrorist Filth Anjem Choudary.
Yes Southport sorry all ! This is what I thought – Choudrys last acts before he went down !
Well done to you for your perspicacity, because not many other people have made that connection!
Notice how the police have rushed to claim it was not a terrorist attack, and will no doubt shortly be trotting out the Bog-Standard Mental Health Excuse.
Judging from Mogwai’s comments in the past, it seems she does have access to information about all the commenters here, which is how she was able to suddenly “out” one commenter, stating his real name as a researcher whose book famously challenged the Islamic Invasion of the West, and thereby violating his right to privacy and anonymity as a paying DS member, and possibly even endangering his life.
It seems Mogwai is masquerading on here as a member of the public, when she is actually either on the DS staff, or in a special “relationship” with one of the editors, thereby deceiving all the other DS commenters while invading their right to privacy and anonymity.
The recent coverage of the stabbings in Southport reminded me of an incident that happened relatively close to my area some years ago. Alright, the age group was different, but it transpired that the culprit that killed someone on the way home from work late at night was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, being a paranoid schizophrenic. He was detained indefinitely in Broadmoor as a result of the trial. However, soon after the offence, there was a lot of “something must be done” output from the usual sources, even to the extent of draconian proposals for certain footpath closures etc.
Of course, we don’t know yet, but the output from the MSM is quite familiar, and it may be that some senior politicians have over reacted. Seen any of that recently?