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YouTube Censors Me
A few weeks ago I took part in a discussion about the coronavirus crisis organised by the Institute of Arts and Ideas. The other participants were David Alexander, Professor of Risk and Disaster Reduction at University College London; Anne Johnson, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at University College London; and Michael Levitt, Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Among other things, we discussed the pros and cons of lockdowns and I set out the case against, which is what I’d been invited to do.
Afterwards, I extracted a four-minute clip featuring me and Michael Levitt – although he was nodding along enthusiastically to what I was saying rather than speaking – and put it on my YouTube channel, calling it “The Case Against Lockdowns”. I also created a two-minute clip and posted that on Twitter which you can see here.
This morning at 12.20am I received an email from YouTube which said the following:
Hi Toby Young,
As you may know, our Community Guidelines describe which content we allow – and don’t allow – on YouTube. Your video The Case Against Lockdowns was flagged to us for review. Upon review, we’ve determined that it violates our guidelines and we’ve removed it from YouTube.
As regular readers will know, when I post links to controversial YouTube videos I often joke that they should watch them before they’re taken down by the censorious video platform. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told CNN’s Reliable Sources back in April that the company would be “removing information that is problematic”. Wojcicki told host Brian Stelter that this included “anything that is medically unsubstantiated”. She continued:
So people saying “take vitamin C; take turmeric, we’ll cure you”, those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy.
Anything that would go against World Health Organisation recommendations would be a violation of our policy.
In the four-minute clip of the Nobel Laureate and me, I don’t recommend any miracle cures for COVID-19, or indeed say anything “medically unsubstantiated”. So what did I say that violated YouTube’s “Community Standards”? Presumably, just challenging the idea that lockdowns are effective, or disputing the notion that states are entitled to suspend the civil rights of their citizens without any compelling evidence that doing so is necessary to reduce fatalities, is what set off alarm bells at YouTube since indiscriminately quarantining whole populations was one of the WHO’s recommendations. Readers will recall that the WHO initially praised China’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, which involved more or less imprisoning up to 60 million people in Wuhan and surrounding cities, before it changed tack and praised Sweden’s response.
I’ve now reposted my video on Bitchute and you can watch it here. Is this so dangerous that it needs to be removed by YouTube? Judge for yourself.
Stop Press: The FT’s Izabella Kaminska has written about this latest example of big tech silencing a dissident in a piece headlined “Censortech strikes again“.
France Passes New Censortech Law. Will Britain be Next?
In France, YouTube would have no choice about whether to take down my video. Two weeks ago, the French parliament passed a new law forcing social networks to remove problematic content within 24 hours or face fines of up to €1.25 million. Signed into law on May 13th, the “Lutte contre la haine sur internet” requires digital platforms to remove discriminatory and sexually abusive comments within 24 hours of being flagged by users.
It’s based on a similar law passed in Germany in 2018 – the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) – and before it became law in France it was vigorously opposed by pro-free speech advocates. As with the German law, one of the flaws of the new French law is that there are no penalties if social media networks wrongly remove content that is later found not to be in violation of any laws or community guidelines. This will inevitably mean legitimate freedom of expression will be curtailed. For instance, anyone challenging the view that “transwomen are women”, however respectable their argument or impressive their credentials, will no longer be able to express that view on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube or Twitter because the social media companies will remove it rather than risk being fined for permitting “hate speech”.
The law doesn’t explicitly mention the coronavirus pandemic, but according to Simon Chandler writing in Forbes, “the French Government and the Assemblée Nationale has exploited fear over online coronavirus misinformation to pass it”.
Will the British Government take advantage of coronaphobia to fast-track its own censortech law?
Under the ‘Online Harms‘ proposal, published in the form of a White Paper last year and on course to become an Act of Parliament, the British Government would appoint Ofcom, currently the broadcasting watchdog, to regulate social media companies, empowering it to levy fines of up to four per cent of annual worldwide turnover – and jail company directors – if they don’t comply with Ofcom’s new guidance on harmful content. According to the White Paper, the regulator would ban online material “that may directly or indirectly cause harm” [my emphasis], although it neglects to define “harm” and says that content may be deemed harmful even if it’s “not necessarily illegal”.
As an example of what it has in mind, the White Paper singles out “offensive material”, as if giving offence is itself a form of harm. In effect, Ofcom would have the power to prohibit speech which isn’t unlawful but which it believes may indirectly cause harm because it’s offensive. That gives it almost limitless scope to prohibit the expression of opinions which some people find disagreeable.
There’s much talk in the White Paper of a “right of appeal”, but this turns out to apply to the tech companies only — individual social media users cannot appeal the regulator’s decisions — and would necessitate the companies applying for a judicial review. Not only is that a lengthy and cumbersome procedure, but it’s unclear how Facebook, YouTube or Twitter could demonstrate that a particular viewpoint won’t under any circumstances cause harm, particularly when “harm” isn’t defined. Merely showing that the content in question hasn’t caused the complainant any tangible harm won’t be sufficient, since all the regulator will need to show is that it may cause them indirect harm. More or less anything falls into that category, including any content challenging the Government’s guidance relating to the virus.
The part of the White Paper concerned with “fake news” would give the new regulator almost limitless discretion when it comes to removing content that dissents from Covid orthodoxy. In a section entitled “Disinformation”, the document says tech companies will “need to take proportionate and proactive measures… to minimise the spread of misleading and harmful disinformation and to increase the accessibility of trustworthy and varied news content”. But who’s to say what content is “misleading” and what’s “trustworthy”? Presumably, the BBC is “trustworthy” and sites like Lockdown Sceptics are “misleading”.
The White Paper suggests social media platforms should promote “authoritative news sources” and make use of “reputable fact-checking services”, by which it means organisation like the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which is currently urging social media companies to remove anything suggesting SARS-CoV-2 originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology rather than the Huanan seafood market, as Douglas Murray wrote about for UnHerd a few weeks ago. (Incidentally, Chinese scientists have now uncovered even more reasons to doubt the virus originated in the seafood market.)
If you want to read more about the ‘Online Harms’ White Paper and why it should be resisted at all costs, read this piece I wrote about it in the Spectator last year. At that point, the Government hadn’t decided whether it was going to create a new, stand-alone regulator or enlarge Ofcom’s jurisdiction. It has decided to do the latter – and that in itself is worrying, given that Ofcom recently reprimanded Eamonn Holmes merely for suggesting on ITV’s This Morning that David Icke’s theory linking 5G masts to COVID-19 symptoms should be discussed in the public square. This was in spite of the fact that he described the theory as “not true and incredibly stupid”. The Free Speech Union has written to Ofcom to complain about this.
How Have We Responded to Previous Pandemics?
I’ve put up a new page on the right-hand menu entitled “How Have We Responded to Previous Pandemics?” Apart from this being historically interesting, the idea is to draw attention to the fact that the indiscriminate quarantining of whole populations has never been attempted before as a way of mitigating the impact of a pandemic, save for in Mexico in 2009 in response to the swine flu outbreak. That particular experiment was abandoned after 18 days due to the rising social and economic costs.
I will be adding to the page in due course, but also publishing sub-pages about specific pandemics – and today I’m publishing the first one.
In “The 1957-58 Asian Flu Pandemic: Why Did the UK Respond So Differently?“, the brilliant young academic who’s written for Lockdown Sceptics before under the pseudonym “Wilfred Thomas” contrasts the stoicism of the British response to the flu pandemic of 1957-58 with the hysterical over-reaction of today.
Globally, Asian Flu (H2N2) killed between two and four million people – the equivalent of three to six million people in today’s money. It was just as infectious as SARS-CoV-2 – an isolated outbreak in Hong Kong managed to spread across the world – and young people were more susceptible than older people, so in that respect it was more dangerous.
In total, it’s estimated that anywhere from 9 – 12 million people contracted H2N2 in the UK. That’s the equivalent of 15.4 million reported cases in the UK of 2020. To put that into context, the UK currently has 267,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases. There were around 33,000 deaths directly attributable to H2N2 and if you scale that up to the UK’s current population it’s the equivalent of 42,000. As I don’t need to tell you, that’s higher than the current death toll from coronavirus.
Yet the Asian Flu caused very little fuss. Mr “Thomas” has trawled through the British Newspaper Archive for 1957 and can only find 427 articles about the epidemic between January 1st to December 31st. As he points out, it’s probable that the BBC alone produces that many stories about COVID-19 across its various news platforms in an average day. He continues:
It’s fascinating to sit here, in the lockdown society of 2020, and read about a pandemic response from history that involved society doing its best to keep going. Back then you got ill, you went to bed, you got better, you re-joined society, and society continued to function. That was it. In the UK, something of this stoic philosophy was at the heart of the pandemic response rolled-out by a then recently instilled Conservative Government under the leadership of Harold Macmillan. Rather than dragging power and authority towards Whitehall, Macmillian seemed happy enough to devolve most of the operational, day-to-day responsibility for responding to the pandemic down to local and regional medical authorities. To be sure, the Government advised those with symptoms to stay at home, but otherwise took little national action as the flu spread right across the country during the autumn. Senior figures within the medical establishment of the time also seemed happy to adopt this hands-off approach. “In the end, and in spite of the scare stuff in the lay press,” wrote Ian Watson, Director of the College of General Practitioners’ Epidemic Observation Unit to a local GP on June 24th, 1957, “we will have our epidemic of influenza, of a type not very different from what we know already, with complications in the usual age groups.”
The result was a pandemic response that by today’s standards looks astonishingly laissez-faire. Some mines and factories shut, but that was due to a shortage of fit employees rather than Government diktat. Public gatherings were not stopped. In some areas, schools were closed (up to 100,000 children were off in London at the height of the outbreak), but few sporting events or other mass gatherings were cancelled. By early June, as the first cases were beginning to appear, Macmillan’s health secretary Dennis Vosper had yet to make a public statement setting out the threat posed by H2N2. The virus was at its peak when Aneurin Bevan was heckled at the Labour Party Conference on October 3rd 1957 for arguing that unilateral disarmament wasn’t possible. It was still going about its infective business when CND held its first meeting at Westminster Central Hall on February 17th 1958. During the winter of 1957, Macmillan was kept busy not by the Asian Flu pandemic but by the events that followed the world’s first nuclear reactor accident, when Windscale Pile No. 1 caught fire. President Eisenhower meanwhile was preoccupied by the Russians’ launching of Sputnik 1 on October 4th. In October, during the peak of the outbreak in Britain, the Conservative party conference went ahead as usual. In his speech to conference Macmillan speech didn’t even mention the pandemic.
Partly as a result of this much more stoical approach, the total cost to the British economy of the Asian Flu epidemic was around £2.6 billion in today’s money. In the four quarters of 1957, only one saw negative economic growth – Q3 saw GDP shrink by -0.6% – and only one did in 1958 (Q2). Overall, 1957 saw growth of +1.5%, as did 1958. Quite a contrast with the financial and economic cost of Britain’s management of the coronavirus epidemic, with the Bank of England forecasting a -35% contraction in Q2 alone. If we generously assume that the cost of the measures the current Chancellor has put in place will be £108.35 billion, that’s 4,358% more expensive than the cost of managing the 1957-58 epidemic.
Mr “Thomas” concludes by analysing the difference in our response to these two remarkably similar episodes, detecting a profound cultural shift:
In 1957, the UK responded to a global pandemic with cool, calm stoicism. The pandemic was “just” a pandemic, not a social catastrophe. Citizens could cope. Death was the exception not the rule. Society (and the economy that paid for it) would struggle on. People would continue to go about their everyday lives. Fast forward to the UK of 2020, and we encounter a society that’s responding to a similarly infectious, similarly dangerous pandemic with what amounts to shrill, hyperventilating hysteria. The pandemic will destroy everything we know and hold dear about life. Individuals can’t cope. Death lurks around every corner. Society (and the economy that pays for it) must be suspended. People must be protected from the myriad risks posed by everyday life. Whereas the stoic proclaims, “I’ll manage, let me be!” the hysteric wails, “I can’t cope, help me!”
Mr “Thomas” has put a huge amount of work into this. Please do read it in full.
Excess Deaths Much Higher That Reported Covid Death Count
In its latest weekly update, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) notes that the total number of deaths in care homes England and Wales in Week 20 (May 8th – 15th) was 2,350 higher than the five-year average for Week 20 and COVID-19 only accounted for 1,078 of them. As the Times points out, 12,335 more people have died at home this year than usual. “There have been almost as many unexplained deaths at home as there have been as a result of COVID-19, according to analysis of official figures,” it reveals, in a story based on the latest ONS data.
But this isn’t a phenomenon that’s unique to England and Wales. On the contrary, excess deaths have exceeded the total number of deaths attributable to COVID-19 all over the world, as the above FT graph makes clear.
Some statisticians believe the reason excess deaths cannot be accounted for by deaths from coronavirus alone is because the latter are being under-counted. But another explanation – more plausible, in my view – is that the lockdowns themselves are causing excess deaths. Note that the number of of excess deaths relative to the average for recent years, expressed as a percentage, is lower in Stockholm (88%) than in London (142%) or New York (398%).
BBC Death Porn
Yesterday, the BBC’s News at Six (and the News at Ten) led with an eight-minute report about “the growing fears among doctors of a second peak of coronavirus infections as the lockdown restrictions are eased in England”. Huw Edwards, introducing the report, said: “Medical staff say a rise in cases is now inevitable as more people have contact with each other.” Bit odd to report the fears of “medical staff” so uncritically when the easing of lockdown restrictions hasn’t seen a rise in infections anywhere. Not in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland… not in any US states… not in China… The “second spike” that’s been so confidently predicted by epidemiologists touting their infallible computer models simply hasn’t materialised. Why then would the BBC give such credence to this clearly unfounded “fear”?
One reader was so incensed he sent me the following screed:
I have just sat and watched the BBC1 News at Six tonight. It led with the most extraordinary virus death porn story to date. This one was by Clive Myrie, the latest “embedded” BBC hack to be parked in a hospital (in this case the Royal London Hospital in East London). It almost amounted to a nostalgia piece for the glory days of COVID-19. We were treated to the tear-sodden exhausted medics waxing lyrical about how it been only a few days ago with people dying left, right and centre, and how shattered they are. They are terrified of a second wave that’s supposedly going to be caused by people interacting with one another. Lots of shots of patients on ventilators and some speeded up footage to show how frantic it had all once been and how it might be again if anyone speaks to anyone outside their households. I was completely incredulous.
If you knew nothing else about the virus and watched this piece you’d have visions of the streets piled with corpses, hospitals completely out of control and total armageddon imminent. Incredibly, the piece built to its climax by actually tracking a 55-year-old male patient in his final minutes, the ultimate Covid death porn scene as medics piled in to try and save him. The drama building, Myrie sidestepped to interview medics who told us how close the hospital came to be broken, briefly showing another patient having a ventilator removed (successfully). But the piece finished with Myrie ponderously announcing the 55-year-old patient had died. The whole piece had turned into a real-time death scene. “Another soul lost,” Myrie intoned solemnly, in case you hadn’t realised what death amounts to.
Myrie doesn’t seem to have been keeping up with current events. He seemed mainly worried, naturally using his best doom-laden ponderous tone, that with declining cases he might not have been able to make these reports in time for his moment in the Covid media sun. In the general poverty of BBC journalism during this crisis, this slavish lockdown propaganda was a new low. Totally unbalanced, it foundered first and foremost on the belief that by interviewing people in a foxhole you are likely to get an accurate take on what’s going on. It was a perverse celebration of the height of the virus being some sort of Battle-of-the-Somme moment that he and his NHS subjects seemed unable to move on from. “Now you understand what the peak of the pandemic was like,” Myrie intoned in his best gloom-laden, ponderous tone.
What’s next? This wasn’t just Covid death porn, it was competitive death porn.
The entire agenda of Myrie’s commentary and interviews seemed to be that we should be locked down forever. Naturally, there was a trailer for the next instalment, coming tonight, flagging up “prayers for the dying”, over-flowing morgues and showing a body being pushed into one of the racks. It was like a Monty Python “bring out your dead” homage.
Around the World in Eighty Lockdowns
I’ve started a new section today called “Around the Work in 80 Lockdowns“. My aim is to build up a picture of what it’s like to be locked down in different countries by publishing first-hand accounts from readers in those countries. So far we’ve published three “Postcards” – one from Spain, one from Sri Lanka and one from Belarus. If you fancy writing one from a country we haven’t included yet, please email me here.
Here’s an extract from the “Postcard from Belarus“, published today:
I took an eventful 12-hour coach journey from Warsaw to Belarus. Arriving in Minsk was like stepping into a different realm. The mood of the city was not one of fear – things felt pretty normal. Roughly one in ten people chose to wear a mask, and while there were fewer people out and about than usual, by and large they went about their everyday business as if life was normal. Had nobody told them to be terrified of one another? That by simply stepping outside they are risking not just their own life, but the lives of everyone around them? What on earth would Neil Ferguson and his infamous Imperial College model say?
Belarus decided against the nuclear option: they have not pressed the panic button and destroyed the country’s economy, like most of the world. That’s not to say they haven’t introduced some measures. In Minsk, universities have switched to remote lectures; museums and theatres are closed; business trips have been cancelled, with meetings moved to video conferencing; care homes are closed to visitors, and arrivals into the country must self-isolate for fourteen days. But schools remain open, as do cafés, restaurants, bars, shopping malls and most outdoor events. Indeed, many thousands of people lined the streets for the annual Victory Day parade on May 9th. Belarus has struck a refreshing balance: one which has not led to a population in fear of one another.
Round-Up
And on to the round-up of all the stories I’ve noticed, or which have been been brought to my attention, in the last 24 hours:
- ‘How a suburban church-going Conservative found himself confronting police in Hyde Park‘ – Chris Larkin in Hector Drummond Magazine on how he found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Piers Corbyn at an anti-lockdown protest
- ‘Wankers Lovin’ Lockdown‘ – Comedy Unleashed‘s Leo Kearse thinks he may have discovered the common thread linking all lockdown enthusiasts
- ‘What the Dominic Cummings saga tells us about lockdown‘ – Dr John Lee’s latest for the Spectator in which he marvels at the media’s focus for days on the alleged behaviour of one Government advisor, while failing to question the rationale for the ongoing devastation of education, health and the economy unfolding in front of us
- ‘France’s facemask fiasco burns deep for Macron‘ – The Times reports on the mass burning of facemasks by the French army just as coronavirus arrived in the country
- ‘Superdrug suspends sales of antibody tests following questions over reliability‘ – Misleading headline from the Times. In fact, Superdrug has been forced to suspend sales of its tests because the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has banned all private testing. The Mail‘s version is better. More on this scandal tomorrow
- ‘What does the Covid-proof gym of the future look like?‘ – Something tells me this isn’t going to boost David Lloyd’s share price
- ‘National helpline charity reveals ten-fold increase in visits to its domestic abuse website‘ – The Telegraph reports on the huge surge in domestic abuse in Lockdown Britain
- ‘More People Are Taking Drugs for Anxiety and Insomnia, and Doctors Are Worried‘ – The WSJ reports on the psychological toll inflicted by the lockdown in the US
- ‘REOPEN WIDE: Dentists should plan for treating patients again “in three weeks”, say MPs‘ – The Sun reports that dentists’ surgeries are set to reopen on June 15th
- ‘Boris’s Corona Catastrophe‘ – Simon Heffer with a hard-hitting piece about Boris’s failures in the June issue of the Critic
Theme Tune Suggestions From Readers
Some more suggestions for theme songs from readers: “I Aint Been Nowhere” by Chuck Mead, “I’m Bored” by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and “Set Me Free” by the Kinks.
Small Businesses That Have Reopened
A couple of weeks ago, Lockdown Sceptics launched a searchable directory of open businesses across the UK. The idea is to celebrate those retail and hospitality businesses that have reopened, as well as help people find out what has opened in their area. But we need your help to build it, so we’ve created a form you can fill out to tell us about those businesses that have opened near you. Please visit the page and let us know about those brave folk who are doing their bit to get our country back on its feet.
Shameless Begging Bit
Thanks as always to those of you who made a donation in the last 24 hours to pay for the upkeep of this site. It still takes me about nine hours a day, what with doing these updates, moderating your comments and commissioning original material. If you feel like donating, however paltry the amount, please click here. And if you want to flag up any stories or links I should include in tomorrow’s update, email me here.
And Finally…
This video is worth watching. An MSNBC reporter chastises locals in Wisconsin for not wearing facemasks – while wearing one himself, of course – and is then ambushed by a passer-by who casually points out that his cameraman isn’t wearing one either. Busted!
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.
Youtube are evil censors
It will be very interesting to see if they censor Joe rogans latest video, well worth a look.
Ohhhh I am doing the ironing and need something to watch, thanks for the tip!
Which one is it, MMA show or Adam Eget?
Adam eget. To give some background Joe is the most watched podcast in the world I believe. Gets very heavy YouTube traffic and has recently signed a big bucks deal with Spotify citing concerns (in part, not exclusively) with YouTube censorship.
Yeah Ive watched a few before, the episodes with Elon Musk and I enjoyed the Graham Hancock ones too. Watching the Adam Eget now, Joe probably doesn’t care now he has his Spotify deal…he is letting rip!
Even better if they censored Joe Wicks, quite frankly. Orthopaedic surgeons must be overrun at the moment.
Joe rogan is controlled opposition
I tried to warn you about peston too but my comments aren’t being approved
With any luck, if they carry on with this policy of censorship, YouTube will eventuallycensor itself out of existence.
I have said before there is a branch of the army called the 77th Brigade monitoring the internet for so called mis-information regarding the virus.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/british-military-information-war-waged-their-own-population
Not a free as we think we are.
They’ll probably censor this video from Dr Vernon Coleman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa6LszZa7pg
Worth sharing (while it lasts), especially with zealots.
“YouTube Censors Me“
This is a proud moment for you, Toby. You have arrived.
I”m sure you’d like to take this opportunity to thank your sponsors, your wife, your readers, your dogs, ….
Here’s an interesting interview on France24 with the President of Madascar. He claims the WHO tried to bribe him with $20M to suppress an organic tonic – Artemisia – they have been using to successfully treat Covid 19. The interviewer from France 24 asks if it is pharmaceutical companies behind suggestions that Artemisia is ‘dangerous’. “People are badmouthing this product but all it does is save lives” said the President. I wonder how long this video will stay up on Utube? If there is anything in it, it’s absolutely scandalous.
https://youtu.be/Qp7KB-rY1Aw
Author Michael Moorcock writing in 1993: “If we continue to make any sort of social progress, I suspect that the political battle lines of the twenty first century will not be between socialism and capitalism but democracy and paternalism.”
I’d say communism, socialism and fascism.
I’d say communism, socialism and fascism are all the same thing. The divide today is between autocracy and self-determination.
I can quite beleive that, communism is dead as a force, but the evils of “paternalism” are the easy first steps of every authoritarian dictator.
Written by Albert Pike in 1871: The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic Communism. The divergences caused by the “agentur” (agents) of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war, Communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions. The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm.” The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the “agentur” of the “Illuminati” between the political Zionists and the… Read more »
Some great additions to the campaign today – well worth waiting for.
I’m already looking forward to the coverage of the soon-to-be debacle/horror of the ‘track and trace’. Time to turn off the phone and refuse to answer the door!
Just spotted this gem in the Daily Mail: Dido Harding, executive chair of NHS Test and Trace, today claimed the app is just the ‘cherry on the cake, not the cake itself’ but ministers had wanted the technology, currently being trialled on the Isle of Wight, to roll out nationwide in the middle of this month. (My emphasis.) Would that be the same Dido Harding whose Wikipedia entry includes this choice paragraph? ‘In October 2015, TalkTalk experienced a “significant and sustained cyber-attack”, during which personal and banking details of up to four million customers is thought to have been accessed.[10] City A.M. described her responses as “naive”, noting that early on when asked if the affected customer data was encrypted or not, she replied: “The awful truth is that I don’t know”. Her “inflexible line” on termination fees was also criticised.[11] Marketing ran a headline, “TalkTalk boss Dido Harding’s utter ignorance is a lesson to us all”.[12] The Evening Standard noted that “It has been a tough week for TalkTalk boss Dido Harding, facing complaints from customers and calls for her head.”[13] The company admitted the hack had cost it £60 million and lost it 95,000 customers. [14]‘ Answers in an email to be hacked by anyone, anywhere, who may be… Read more »
There’s an excellent Darknet Diaries podcast about this TalkTalk breach that’s well worth a listen:
https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/4/
Worth noting also that the Guardian describes her as “super driven” , as opposed to an incompetent crap-wit.
This is a weird new form of propaganda. The Government are always called lazy; Boris is bumbling and amiable but doesn’t want to do any work. And “the great and the good” are really hard working and energetic because they care so much.
But it is never said if the “hard workers” are any good, or if they are doing the right thing.
It’s an oddly puritan thing – Arbeit macht frei
Aren’t Didos supposed to be extinct?
Some apt song titles from the non extinct Dido:
“Let’s Do the Things We Normally Do”
“Lost”
“Let Us Move On“
“Honestly OK”
“I Eat Dinner (When the Hunger’s Gone)”
“Day Before We Went to War”
“Don’t Leave Home“
“One Step Too Far“
“See You When You’re 40”
“See the Sun”
“This Land Is Mine”
“Worthless”
NHS: “Trust us with your personal and private data. Don’t worry!”
*Dido Harding appears doing a thumbs up*
British public: Oh.
You know you are doing a fine job when you tube censors you! Keep up the good work Toby.
Serious question. What has happened to the seasonal flu this year? I have tried to find information about this but have been unsuccessful.
Flu? What’s that? In fact, there are no other respiratory or infectious diseases around either.
Flu! Flu!! FLU!!! IT’S NOT FLU!!!!
YOU’LL KILL MY GRANNY!!!!!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I’ve had a bit to drink……
It was cancelled.
Even the BBC admitted that there had been more than 30,000 flu/pneumonia deaths in 2020 in England and Wales by April (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52361519), which seems to check out with the ONS.
ONS
So that’s more than Covid 19?
I can’t believe this isn’t headline news. So even with the precious lockdown flu deaths have been more than double the average? Surely this means not only that Covid-19 isn’t that serious, but also that lockdown doesn’t actually seem to negatively affect viral spread whatsoever?
Don’t suppose you have a link Marcus – can’t seem to find it on the website!
I’ve just added it up from the week by week ONS data, from week 1 – 20 there have been 40,028 deaths from flu and pneumonia, specifically not mentioning COVID19. If you added in the tail end of last year could get to the 44k number mentioned
Or people were dying of Covid 19 in Jan and Feb and it was just called flu or pneumonia because we weren’t aware of Covid 19 back then and couldn’t test for it. This thing has been around for at least 6 months and will be gone in 6 months time. Pandemic ran through population already so end the lockdown.
Any link on ONS, can’t find it there.
It’s been off sick with covid-19. Expected to make a full recovery and return in the autumn.
It’s disappeared along with cancer, stroke, heart disease, depression, schizophrenia, etc.
I think the Chinese rebranded it, in order to destroy every Western economy.
Why it will end: It all depends not on the science or on the politics or on the economy or anything else, but on the epsilon-minus semi-morons who clearly constitute the bulk of the British population. They can cope with pubs being closed because they would never dare go back into them because the virus is OUT THERE, and if they stay at home they can swill the drink the gloved-and-masked wife brought back from the supermarket. They can cope with no new films or TV dramas being made and no cinemas being open, because there’s always Netflix. They can cope with no Eurovision Song Contest, because all the songs sound exactly alike year after year, so a recording of last year will do nicely. They can cope with schools and universities being closed, because they know that the instant the kiddies re-enter schools they will drop dead, so they won’t be sending them back until it is 100% safe, and they never thought much to education anyway, and their eldest is doing a degree in media studies that involves a detailed study of Donald Duck cartoons and was always conducted entirely online. They even can cope with the demise… Read more »
Netflix will die soon, actors will have to wear masks and stay 2 metres apart!!!
Very good: spelldispel doing the ironing and you doing the ironying!
Love this, as a ballroom/latin competitive dancer I desperately want the 2m social distancing removed cos you can’t dance 2m from your partner. Dancing check to check and all that jazz 💃
Two words, line dancing.
Dance cheek to cheek and tell objectors to eff off.
I’ve resumed dancing at my studio in South Carolina. We have to wear masks, but otherwise it’s business as usual.
how ridiculous that you *have* to wear a mask
Glad to see your comment is virus-free! Now we can all rest easy knowing we won’t be infected by reading it…
(BTW, guessing it wasn’t intentional, but a good giggle anyway)
It wasn’t intentional originally, but I giggled too.
Means you don’t have to read it from six feet away…
Congratulations on joining the ‘”Banned Video Club! You must have been saying something relevant and important. These bans are becoming more and more farcical and contributing to the “What the hell is going on” feeling so prevalent today.
Has some kind of Chinese AI hijacked the West’s social media – this does not seem like human behaviour. Why does an organisation like the WHO have such power? Alternate views have always been tolerated before but why is it so important to suppress them now? Could it be that the usual discrediting campaigns don’t work any more? People are wising up? Slurring people as crackpots means they may have something important to say? Who knows, but watching this unravel feels like we are living in the Twilight World.
This is the same YouTube that recently banned an interview with Professor Karol Sikora (later reinstated). When the day of reckoning comes, I’d like to think that Susan Wojcicki will be among those called upon to account for their actions.
It’s US election year. Trump wasn’t supposed to have won last time, so the social media companies are going in for censorship in a big way, as they want to make sure he doesn’t win again.
Plus, the WHO are in cahoots with the Chinese Communist Party, along with social media companies, who believe in far left policies, ergo censorship of anything the CCP and WHO don’t like.
Plus: governments around the world don’t like being left out of the censorship movement. Can’t have the population publicly disagreeing with their wisdom and policies. So, let’s shut them up, and only allow approved opinio
I just started reading the witness statement document from the legal challenge, keen to see the answers to that one!! Also been perusing the comments section of the Telegraph all day and boy are they savage, the tide is turning there that’s for sure.
I’m fully onboard with the sentiment, you can shove your track and trace right where the sun doesn’t shine! 14 day isolation or mandatory swabbing because someone said they brushed past you in a shop, what has this country come to. Then if we don’t comply they will be ‘forced’ to force us to comply, lock down the whole town!
It’s an utter farce, of course there could be a rise in cases WE’VE ALL been forced to stay away from all humans and other germs for months with shit food, no sun, deteriorating mental and physical well being, being criminalized for going outside more than once and heaven forbid you stop moving for a second to rest.
I could go on for hours, honestly it’s tiring, heads absolutely need to roll over this complete and utter shit show by our government, if you bet them to do handle it more poorly they would struggle.
You are right about the comments over on the Daily Telegraph website. They are spitting anger over there, all directed at the Government. Wow.
Wow Telegraph readers are the Tory heartland. I’ll bet Boris thinks he can win them back over the next 5 years. Don’t bet on it.
If…. There is a general election
It seems to me they are long passed caring about elections! Worst case the other communist party gets in.
“Wow Telegraph readers are the Tory heartland. I’ll bet Boris thinks he can win them back over the next 5 years. Don’t bet on it.”
Don’t confuse Tories criticising Tories as a sign they won’t vote for Tories. Who else are they going to vote for?
This pantomime of indignation is more of a “media vs the rest” thing than anything else. The people who bother to post are not a representative sample. They are the people handing over their 50p to be propogandised.
Sadly my parents are in this category. Boy have i tried (in vein so far..)
Well, whatever else happens, they won’t want Starmer, Abbott and co. When it really comes down to it, they’ll get themselves back on side. Protest against your own party is always a sign that you don’t think they’re about to lose, after all.
It’s four years to the next general election. There might be some pretty hairy locals and by-elections to come, but the majority’s pretty sound. As long as they can get rid of Johnson in good time they’ll be fine.
By which I mean, if they can get rid of Johnson, scapegoat him and his team for the lockdown and put some distance between them and that policy by establishing that Labour would have done the same but worse, then they will be in with a shout, and it’ll be up to them to come up with a leader, team and policies that will compete.
Ah but what are the main subjects of their anger? I fear that they will often not be getting to the heart of the matter. But it’s a step in the right direction.
I imagine a lot of people will be denying they were in contact with anyone. ;o)
Me included.
To be fair I won’t even answer my phone so…. good luck Big Bro Army.
Completely agree. I would only add that I guess we can stop anti-social distancing and wearing masks (for those who are still doing these things) if we are just going to be thrown in medical prison once more if we are in the vicinity of one of these chosen few track and tracers.
This may disappear into the void but feel the need to scream into it! I have remained working throughout all of this, the only person in my company not to be put on furlough. It made me cross from the start, as everyone else’s work didn’t just ‘disappear’, it just meant that I had to do it, for no more pay, whilst they all got their full salaries to sit in the gardens drinking G+Ts. I worked from home for a bit, then gave up and went back to the office. Today everyone got told that they would be expected back in the office next week. The resistance they have been putting out has been exceptional – you would think they’d been asked to stick their head in a microwave! I fully expect to still be the only person working, carrying the full weight of the company on my shoulders. I like to think they’ll be taken off furlough, which might get them back to work, but the way they cry about ‘discrimination’ if they’re forced back into an ‘unsafe office situation’, I think they’ll probably get their full pay from the government until at least October. It drives me… Read more »
You sound like an asset as an employee. Maybe you should in the long run look for a better company to work for where bosses and colleagues are more appreciative of your efforts and people pull together.
Yes. This.
My husband and I have had the great good fortune to have jobs that can be done online, and we have kept working throughout this nonsense. Well and good. But sometimes, just sometimes, I think – there are lots of people getting paid to do nothing. And while it’s not their fault that they’re not working, and I definitely don’t want to not have a job, it just seems a little unfair. If you let yourself think about it.
I try not to think about it too much.
Threaten to leave unless at least 50% of the other employees return STAT.
You sound so valuable that they will be willing to do a lot not to lose you.
I’m in two minds whether the furlough was appropriate – on the one hand, there is still work for people to be doing. On the other hand, I work for a charity very much on the breadline and I think there’s been an element of “yay free money!” from up high. I think there should have been proof required that your business income was hit due to lockdown before you received furlough (or at least retrospectively), because a lot of places are just using it to save on 3-6 months of salaries.
No reflection on you, obviously, but why did it not surprise me at all that all these people complaining about going back to the office all worked for a charity?
Yes, it will be interesting come 1 August and when those who still have a job will, in effect, have to return to work (not many companies will want to pay 25% of salaries for people to sit at home). And, at which point, those returning will want to take their four weeks holiday and before schools go back in early September and, if not, by year end. Madness.
I know companies who have already started the consultation process for redundancies so they won’t have to take anyone back after furlough if they don’t need them.
Wheres the Piers Morgan outrage over this censorship? Or does he only get worked up with freedom of speech for things he agrees with?
Last I heard he was in a Twitter ratings competition with Sir Alan Lord Sugar. Piers is winning having chosen the side of coronaphobia.
Piers is creating disillusionment with the government, so will do for me. The more questioning the status quo the better.
He cares about freedom of speech?
Yes, he cares about HIS freedom of speech!
It’s all about saving lives:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11626718/wonderful-student-dead-park-worried-lockdown-grades-heartbroken-family/
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/great-granddad-took-life-struggled-21953919
https://www.newsraiser.com/dads-heartbreak-as-son-12-takes-his-own-life-after-struggling-during-lockdown/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/25/attempted-suicides-elderly-may-increasing-six-fold-says-royal/
https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/thailand-the-coronavirus-suicides/
I could continue but the point is clear. More needless deaths due to the criminal actions of governments worldwide.
People must be held to account, they have to be held to account.
Ps no clapping round here tonight for the first time.
Isn’t it Wednesday? (It is round here!)
That’ll be why then!! Honestly lost track of the days.
Top ‘Sceptics today, Toby, you (and your helpers) have excelled yourselves. Just reading through that piece by “Wilfred Thomas”, and it’s a stonker. You’re spoiling us.
Yep, the Simon Heffer piece is pretty devastating reading also.
Yes, Heffer was brilliant!
There’s surely a book in the “Wilfred Thomas” piece. Brilliant.
On a related subject, I live overseas and ever since I have made comments here my regular emails to UK seem to be arriving at their destination hours or days after I have sent them. I wonder if this is an innocuous technical issue or if are they being intercepted and monitored?
Why?
They’re being swabbed, tested, covidified and locked diwn.
14 day quarantine innit.
Aww, how disappointing, I though that GCHQ might have me on a list of seditionists or such which would have been much more exciting.
You probably are on a list and that would explain the delayed emails
I would consider not using your personal email on sites like this
I was able to get the antibody test yesterday and will have the results on Friday. I’m sure I had it in December and am now immune.
My contribution to the song list: Panic by the Smiths. The line about jogging around provincial towns makes me giggle every time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMykYSQaG_c
Every Day is Like Sunday?
Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.
Suffer Little Children….
This could run and run 😳
Depends if you want to go shopping at 7pm.
Any – let us know your results, please
Oops. Amy! (Pesky autocorrect)
Don’t want to be a nuisance but I get 1,006 articles for “asian flu” in the British Newspaper Archive. Were I actually reeseaching, I would put in a few other options such as “influenza” or +Asian +Influenza as well, to dredge up absolutely everything. I’m too lazy to do this, but my main point is simply that there are more than 427 articles. And the BNA doesn’t include The Times, SundayTimes, the Telegraph, the Manchester Guardian, the Observer and a number of other big titles.
Spoilsport
It says that he did try other search options. I’ve done it too – you take out duplicate articles and advertisements and you’re not far away from 400-500 articles. Also, local daily newspapers had much, much bigger circulations back then. Besides, doesn’t really damage the thrust of his argument whether it’s 400 or 1,000.
Total mentions in a search aren’t equal to total articles on the topic – I hypothesise that there are plenty of articles with “footballer x is off the field today due to a bout of the asian flu” somewhere in the body. I unfortunately don’t have access, but from the preview in the search i have been i number of examples of this: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000560/19571125/071/0011
Additionally, these obscure non-related articles will be buried in the later pages, since the default search is ordered by mentions, so the top pages will be the best results, giving the impression that there are more articles on the topic.
Also, having given a cursory look, there is also a number of duplicates in the search. Perhaps the author of the article identified 427 articles specifically on the topic of Asian flu, without duplicates?
Good point on the major big titles though, but I guess that this is simply a limitation on the resources available.
It’s precisely because I think that “Wilfred Thomas’s” article is actually spot on that I would encourage him to check his figures. Nothing is more annoying than to have a generally correct thesis spoiled by trivial numerical inaccuracy, that critics will latch onto.
My search criteria (for the phrase “Asian flu”) should actually have proved more restrictive than his, and I filtered out advertisements. I’m just finishing a PhD for which the primary resource is about 2,000 newspaper articles, so believe me when I say I know the BNA and its (rather clunky) search engine very, very well indeed.
I went for a walk today as I have done on most days since this kicked off. (I have for many years worked from home.)
I returned to a route that I had not covered in all that time which runs along a canal.
It was very busy with people and I’m pleased to report that I saw not a single person in a mask. The towpath alongside the canal is only about 6ft wide, but people seemed happy to walk past me without showing off their dance moves.
Part of the route took me along a river and teenagers were congregated, some of them even swimming in the river. It must be filthy – Lord know what they’ll catch in there. Still, it was good see normal human interaction.
Tomorrow, I may christen my #nolockdown tee shirt purchased last week.
Good to hear; same around me.
The teenagers were simply following the advice given by the distinguished immunologist Professor George Carlin, in this famous TED talk:
https://youtu.be/X29lF43mUlo
RIP George Carlin. I would rather listen to him than the MSM venerated Bill Gates any day.
I went for a walk on the Ridgeway today. Lots of folks, walking and cycling and nearly all acknowledging us with friendly greetings. However, in one spot where the route passes through a car park a couple were walking towards us. There was a gap between me and the adjacent fence of about 2m. The male in the couple physically turned his body away from me and his face was wincing with the extreme discomfort of getting within 2m of a stranger. Honestly his demeanour was akin to someone trying to walk past a blazing fire, I thought he was about to break into a run.
Just how long will it take for these damaged individuals to adapt to a world where there is little or no killer virus? What kind a re-education and counselling are they going to require in order for them to operate sensibly in a world without 2m distancing?
Three months of 24/7 horror hysteria from the BBC , Sky etc will change your brain ; this behaviour will last for many years.
It’s very sad. I’ve had similar experiences, but not for some time.
Did some longsword sparring this morning – first since the panic. Only three of us (four willing but only three available this morning) out of a dozen or so on a typical club night. Rest are disappointing coronapussies.
I went training last night, second time as well 🙂
Only me, our instructor and one other.
We really ‘socially distanced’ each other 🤣 no gloves either 😱
My ears have only stopped ringing 😁
It’s really helped my mental health 🙏🏻
Good to hear some of you are braving the elements. It’s a jungle out there!
You are call.
Still want those lessons. (Also archery… know anyone?)
Call? COOL. You are cool.
I do have a nephew who is an archery teacher, but he’s down in Cambridge. Swords, I can give you an intro some time but I’m no teacher and more enthusiasm than ability on my part 🙂
I may honestly take you up on that regardless 😉 Any excuse to swing a sword around although last time I could hardly lift the thing….
I wish people around where I live would act normally,if anything most of them are acting stranger than at any time so far in this nonsense.This morning walking on a countryside footpath that is at least 10 feet wide three out of the four people I met in the space of five minutes looked absolutely horrified to be approached by another human being,all of them quickly moving get as far away from me as possible.One poor chap in particular had a look of sheer terror on his face when he couldn’t physically get more than 10 feet away,I felt sorry for him,the genuine fear in his eyes was sad,this is what the government and especially the media have done to some people.
I know, I agree.
I was talking to a friend yesterday and when I suggested coming over for a glass of wine in the backyard when this is all over she winced and said, “Only if there comes a time when I feel safe.” There have been ZERO cases in our county.
I have started responding to the inevitable “Stay safe!” with “Stay STRONG!” and most look baffled.
The stay safe thing has always been creepy but now it’s really starting to freak me out. It reminds me a lot of the “Blessed be the fruit” “May the lord open” “Under his eye” crap from Handmaid’s Tale. At least most of those characters seemed genuinely brainwashed though, whereas everyone seems to just say “Stay safe” every five minutes now like it’s become an unthinking verbal tic.
I like to respond with Stay SANE I can see in their face they’re asking themselves if I think they are mental 😂
Same where I am. The unmuzzled a clear majority, and among the muzzled most were elderly. Best day I’ve had since this began.
The medical profession and the health service was very different in the 1950s and 1960s at the time of Hong Kong flu and Asian flu I can’t imagine what Sir Lancelot Spratt and Matron would make of Tik Tok videos , rainbow clappers and the antics of the modern NHS . We have certainly lost a lot over the last 50 years . Along with loosing the large asylums and welcoming ” care in the community ” also known as ” care on the streets ” we also as a nation decided to close the large Infectious disease hospitals and sell them for housing or supermarket development. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(73)91689-9/fulltext The large Infectious Disease hospital were purposely built in the countryside with sunshine and fresh air , however were considered old fashioned as they stigmaitised people as though they were lepers. Much more modern and humane to have infectious patients in the ususal district general. Wouldnt it have been so much better if covid19 patients could have been sent to a local infectious disease hospital , one which had the ability to increase facilties rapidly in emergencies and de escalate . We would have avoided the many deaths of patients who caught… Read more »
Well said. But couldn’t these bloody Nightingale hospitals have served such a turn?
Many years ago there was an isolation hospital in the fields just behind where I live,it was always known locally as ‘the fever tents’.
Agree 100%. At least this published 11th May .Could it lead to renaissance of the fever hospital?
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-reestablishing-fever-hospitals/
I agree, and looking at the horror show photos of the London Nightingale hospital, where adequate nursing would be impossible should you even manage to staff it with adequate numbers. Zoom in and take a look at those facilities, with lack of bins or decent washing facilities, open dusty ceiling, etc. Where, oh where, would those bed pans or catheter bags be emptied – how far a walk to the nearest disposal/toilet? Food and fresh water – forget it – staff were reliant on a coffee shop, fridges of donated pop and a Tesco Metro for snacks.
I think Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s prefabricated hospitals beat the modern Nightingales hands down. They had latrines and bathrooms with fresh running water and drainage, staff rooms and kitchens as well as natural light and ventilation. 165 year old design, and still a better option than the so-called ICU beds of a modern field hospital in London.
https://www.ssgreatbritain.org/your-visit/collection-stories/isambard-kingdom-brunel’s-design-renkioi-hospital-1855
Florence must be spinning.
Florence believed in the ‘miasma’ theory of disease: that it was spread by ‘corrupted air’.
It was a wholly incorrect theiry of disease transmission, which cost thousands of lives (Covviespeak) as doctors refused to accept e.g. that cholera was transmitted via contaminated water.
But the miasma theory has now re-emerged, hasn’t it? Florence is probably happy to be so posthumously vindicated.
The stranglehold of the left gets tighter. They have poured contempt on every pillar of freedom: democracy? The plebs are too ignorant. Free speech? Hatred; Gender roles? Misogyny – and on the basis of this paranoid, binary vision they are striving to stifle the public’s access to debate and truth. They have advanced this agenda with great stealth and dedication. First, humour was neutered and then junked. Laughter was called “punching down”, while chippy sneering was blessed as “punching up”. Then, debate was shackled with a thousand petty objections to words, preventing ordinary members of the public from speaking up. Why? For fear of nasty accusations on the one hand, or sounding like a canting tit on the other. And all the while, this mesh of regulations, conventions, objections and taboos was seeping into every aspect of life. The old and tired, the middle aged and frivolous would chuckle mirthlessly about “PC” and do nothing to oppose it. And now we are in the net. Well done, Mr Young for slashing it with vigour.
I never joined twitter and abandoned facebook years ago. Let’s all stop using these platforms. Ban youtube, facebook, twitter and all other NONfreedom of speech social media. We CAN live without!
But if we ban things, doesn’t that make us just as bad?
They shouldn’t be banned, their opinions should just be given less prominence in the media. Every story from all the MSM contains many tweets in them now, proper journalistic articles are a thing of the past because of this.
It’s no coincidence that the rise of social media has happened at the same time all the cuts were closing down public toilets, so those idiots who used to write messages on toilets walls and doors all moved to social media where they now have a platform that dictates daily life!
Out and about today, lots of groups of youths and middle aged people and multiple families ignoring laws about gatherings. No police in sight. It’s encouraging, though we’re just at the start.
Same here Julian. The gig is over – get the pubs open and the slackers back to work.
It’s similar around here but then other commenters appear to be living in the land of the living dead. Any chance someone could identify cornonaphobic zombie hotspots and why?
Absolute zombies near me, rural midlands
I want to grab them and shake some sense into them! Obviously this mightn’t be a good idea..
The sheer expressions of real fear (terror almost) i have seen as i approach people is both astonishing and extremely saddening.
Media must be destroyed. Look at what they have done
Got sent a survey to full in from the Train Operating Company I used to use for travel to work, before my office was closed by order of HMG.
They were asking some interesting questions about attitudes to social distancing and mask wearing being compulsory – mainly angled towards seeing if people would insist on those things before they would feel safe enough to travel. I made it clear if there was any of that then I’ll not be using their services. I may be the only one that bothers, but if anyone else gets such a survey maybe they should do the same.
Just wanted to add a link to you tube video posted by the passer-by who captured that reporter’s team not wearing masks.
https://youtu.be/6RmzI0HrOs8
Read the BBC report of the Commons Liaison Committee today, questioning the PM for the first time in ages.
Very disappointing – mostly tripe about Cummings, special interest stuff, very little questioning the reasons for the massive blunder and how to get out of it Some stuff about disclosure of the SAGE advice. But it’s all largely point-scoring, petty crap.
Still not seeing a single MP stand up and be counted. Interested to hear if anyone has seen any public statement by an MP that gives them hope.
The anti-‘internet hate’ law that came into effect in France includes a clause which outlaws “Direct provocation or incitation of acts of terrorism, disobedience or dissent”:
“Provocation ou incitation directe a des actes de terrorisme, de disobedience, ou de dissidence.”
They parcel righteous acts of disobedience and dissent in with terrorism to make it seem reasonable. It’s awful.
I’m guessing they have also included a clause for mandatory castration of any free-born Frenchman to make sure they don’t go about doing the thing they tend to do given the slightest opportunity.
Quite some joke that a parliament full of 68er rioters would then outlaw the very thing they were so proud of having done themselves.
“Provocation ou incitation directe a des actes de terrorisme, de disobeissance, ou de dissidence.”
Corrected, sorry was typing it out from memory. Scuse my French.
There was a time when the left understood that political freedom of speech is an all or nothing thing and once you start to infringe on it you lose. They used to say things like “I hate what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it”, and pretend to themselves that they meant it. But as gradually they themselves became the establishment, the ones with the power, they started to worry less about protecting freedom of speech and to look more and more for ways to suppress opinions they disliked and disapproved of, and they invented “hate speech” and “no platforming” to pretend that what they were doing was not really suppressing freedom of speech, and they made up “rights” that were to be balanced against freedom of speech in order to suppress the opinions of which they disapproved. Where they could not outright ban, they ensured that only companies suppressing the opinions they hate were allowed to operate on any scale. The process of forcing the corporate internet to comply with this self-contradictory notion of pseudo-free speech has been a longstanding one, since internet communications were first established, in many cases by people… Read more »
France was actually the first country to break internet freedom waaaaay back in the futuristic year 2000, when they forced Yahoo to comply with a court ruling made in France, and despite the details of the case only being relevant under French law they changed the behaviour of Yahoo for the rest of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!
(It involved the sale of Nazi memorabilia, perhaps distasteful to some, but it was a landmark case which still has lasting ramifications).
Is wearing a yellow vest in public to be an actual offence ?
Must admit the timing of all this is veeeeeeeeery convenient for Macron.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Liberte, egalite…. vos papiers sil vous plait.
A friend (sympathetic to the cause) shared this image on Facebook some time ago.
Das niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.
From Power Line (American’s Don’t Get Ruled): Michael McHaney is a state court judge in Clay County, Illinois. On Friday, he ruled from the bench in a case brought by a Clay County small business owner against Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, contesting the validity of Pritzker’s shutdown order. Via RedState, these are excerpts from Judge McHaney’s ruling:Since the inception of this insanity, the following regulations, rules or consequences have occurred: I won’t get COVID if I get an abortion but I will get COVID if I get a colonoscopy. Selling pot is essential but selling goods and services at a family-owned business is not. Pot wasn’t even legal and pot dispensaries didn’t even exist in this state until five months ago and, in that five months, they have become essential but a family-owned business in existence for five generations is not.A family of six can pile in their car and drive to Carlyle Lake without contracting COVID but, if they all get in the same boat, they will. We are told that kids rarely contract the virus and sunlight kills it, but summer youth programs, sports programs are cancelled. Four people can drive to the golf course and not get… Read more »
Huzzah for Judge Mike ! 🙂
HOORAY! (wanted to say something more than a thumbs up)
p.s. with all due respect (aware that I’m an American minority here), I’m a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and I was thinking last night that my great-great-great-great-great grandfather who fought in that war would be horrified at our petty tyrant governors.
I see that condescending oaf Lieutenant Gruber (aka Hancock) has been at it again. Lecturing the British people as though they are children, he said people had a “civic duty” to follow instructions to self isolate: “This will be voluntary at first, because we trust everyone to do the right thing. But we can quickly make it mandatory if that’s what it takes.” You might have thought he’d learnt his lesson after Lord Sumption tore a strip off him for just this sort of attitude.
He’s such a shit weasel isn’t he?
He has the sort of attitude that, in my part of the world, would earn him a kiss. A Glasgow kiss that is (for English friend not familiar with Scots vernacular it means giving him a good head butting).
He reminds me of that chap, C, in Spectre, the one who M (Ralph Fiennes) notes ‘you’re a cocky little b…’. He has done nothing of note in his life, he is just a professional hack.
They never learn. I’ve never watched these government sermons. it’s not even that they are condescending. It’s that they are doing this at all.
Boris and his cabal have no moral authority. In fact they have no authority.
They don’t talk to me – and I’m not listening anyway.
I kinda want him to keep staying stuff like this, because at some point people will crack.
I do hope so, but unless the media turn full force it isn’t going to happen. Especially not the fucking pathetic BBC
I dunno Ian, I think there’s enough people who are already ridiculously frustrated with the BBC no matter what those ‘everyone turned to the BBC in their time of need’ polls say.
Even if they’re broadly in support of lockdown I imagine they’re pissed off with the stupid questioning and now the Cummings obsession.
So from one side, you’ve got the genuine critics of the government who think the media are dishonest/feckless, and then from the other you’ve got the supporters of the government who think the media are petty activists with an axe to grind.
They’ve kind of got nowhere to run except to their Guardianista colleagues. And we all know how representative they are of the general public.
It’s our civic duty to disobey the government
Ugh ugh ugh. Yeuch. Vomit.
Put him back in his little tank.
There was a typo in the Forbes “report” (or reprinting of political press release). I’m sure the sentence should have read:
“the French Government and the Assemblée Nationale has exploited fear over online coronavirus TRUTH to pass it”.
On the subject of all the w****s loving the lockdowns, can I propose a response for when the zealots accuse of of being “cov-idiots”. I suggest we describe them as “cor-onanists”.
I was at my local (not scared and frightened UK) shopping centre yesterday and the number of cars in the car parks was about what I would expect on a Wednesday. The only masks saw being worn were an Asian (as in SE or eastern Asia as India and Pakistan don’t count) female and an old white guy who had his around his chin while taking on his phone. There are still some “stand here” signs on the ground but by-and-large they are being ignored. My local chemist has removed its “stand here” signs complete and the staff now breathe freely once again. My quack wore a mask for a week about 5 weeks ago and then stopped the stupidity. Schools are back and all seems to be better with the world.