Latest News
Treasury Made No Forecast For Lockdown 2.0
SAGE say it’s not their job to take into account the economic impact of lockdown. It’s the Treasury’s job. Why then has the Treasury now admitted that it produced no forecasts in the run up to the second lockdown? Why did SAGE on September 21st claim they were in hand? These were the questions MPs put to Treasury officials on Wednesday. Kate Andrews in the Spectator has the details.
Chair of the Committee Mel Stride asked Clare Lombardelli, Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury, to comment on specific economic analyses conducted around lockdown restrictions, ranging from the closure of pubs, gyms and restaurants to “circuit breakers” and working from home directives. It was quickly revealed that no analysis has been done.
Stride’s interest stemmed from SAGE meeting minutes dated September 21st, which referenced a “package of measures” that the Committee said “need to be adopted to reverse [the] exponential rise in cases”. These included some of the more radical measures implemented during the first lockdown, including changes to “working from home” rules, banning contact between households, the closure of hospitality and leisure sectors, and even the return of a (shorter) lockdown. In the minutes, SAGE states that the economic impact of these measures was being modelled by the Treasury: “Policy makers will need to consider analysis of economic impacts and the associated harms alongside this epidemiological assessment. This work is underway under the auspices of the Chief Economist.”
In yesterday’s session, Lombardelli revealed that no such work was ever underway. The impact of the specific restrictions on the economy were not forecast or predicted by the Treasury before they came into force: “As the Chancellor set out in Parliament last week, we haven’t done a specific prediction or forecast of the restrictions… what we do is ongoing policy that feeds into decisions ministers take, which they consider alongside the health impacts, the social impacts, and they also consider the economic impact.”
Without this analysis and these forecasts, what was the basis on which the Government was weighing up whether to shut down the country again?
The Treasury’s lack of forecasting does not mean Chancellor Rishi Sunak would have been without any data when in discussions with the Prime Minister and other senior Cabinet figures about lockdown. Lombardelli notes the Treasury has been compiling forecasts done by other bodies, including the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Bank of England.
But yesterday’s admission from the Chief Economist calls into question the priorities of the Treasury: the Sage minutes are dated over a month before England’s second lockdown was announced, giving the Treasury at least four weeks (though the minutes imply longer) to forecast the impact of specific lockdown measures on the economy. That the institution did not produce any forecasts or predictions also raises serious questions about the extent to which the economic implications of such radical measures were considered before the Government brought them in.
Worth reading in full.
Why Does Europe’s “Second Wave” Have Almost No Excess Deaths?
Lockdown Sceptics regular Dr Clare Craig pointed out on Twitter last night that there’s a discrepancy in Europe between the number of “cases” (positive tests), the number of “Covid deaths” (validated with a positive test) and the number of excess deaths, i.e., there are plenty of the former two, but excess deaths in autumn 2020 are close to the five-year average.
“We are in a false positive pseudo epidemic,” she concludes.
Hard to disagree.
“Victoria in Lockdown Resembled 1970s East Germany More Than a Liberal Democracy”
A friend and life-long Melbournian writes of his despair at the state of his home state under the rule of Kim-Jong Dan.
I am increasingly sad about the prospects for Victoria in the next decade. The political leadership this year has highlighted a number of trends built up over some 20 years under Labour governments with characteristics to the left of their federal and interstate counterparts, and not dealt with by the few weak state coalition governments. It is now evident that Victoria in lockdown resembled 1970s East Germany more than a liberal democracy, and most Victorians seem happy with that. The public service seems stuffed at the top with overpaid and sinecured people whose values and principles are far from what public service should be. This is evident in all sorts of ways that line up with the current Government’s totalitarian agenda of emergency legislation removing basic liberties, bypassing Cabinet, largely side-lining Parliament, setting up a pathetically tame inquiry to investigate, ignoring human rights protections, destruction of the Country Fire Authority, destruction of the hardwood timber industry threatened, etc., not to mention meekly signing on to China’s Belt & Road influence. While the lockdown-induced anger may achieve a change of government in 2022, unravelling the mess is likely to be nearly impossible. At the least it will require the reinstitution of values of public sector independence and robust accountability mechanisms. There is not enough widespread pushback, and while there is critique across most of the media it is muted (Kevin Rudd is upset about Murdoch media influence – perhaps the others could raise their game).
Postcard From East Fife
Lockdown Sceptics reader Dean Fraser has sent us a postcard from north of the border and tells of a world that freedom has abandoned under the rule of Nic Sturge-On.
You could almost have been forgiven for thinking we weren’t living in a dystopian nightmare up here in the Kingdom of Fife. Because back in April and May this year you could not have witnessed anything more spectacularly bucolic. The picturesque, almost leafy country lanes. The tractors, ever so gently meandering and bobbing through partially ploughed fields. Hares darting, for what seemed like their lives, from still motionless ‘lies’ on the brown earth, or females fending off randy jacks (“not at the moment mate, thanks”). The birds, squirting into hedge rows, and then into trees – beaks full. And let’s not forget the farmhouses and cottages, releasing small wisps of smoke via the chimneys up into the blue still skies. My God, like something out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (the weather, all over the UK, was glorious, then).
We cycled along main roads, with virtually no traffic, having to pinch ourselves to properly recall what kind of hell this was.
Worth reading in full.
“COVID-19 is a Force Largely Beyond the State’s Control”
Lockdown Sceptics contributor Guy de la Bédoyère has a letter in the New Statesman this week on the conceit of the tyrannical efforts to “defeat” and “control” the virus.
When Simon Heffer quotes Enoch Powell – “the supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils” – he slightly misses the main point (“A crisis of statesmanship”, November 6th). Most human beings have always been prepared to sacrifice some of their autonomy in return for leadership that provides a buffer against disorder, famine and fear. This is, and always has been, the contract between the state and the people.
COVID-19 is a force largely beyond the state’s control; many governments, especially ours, have tried to convince us otherwise. They have used fear as a weapon and promised salvation in return for unprecedented losses of freedom. They have failed to deliver, mainly because they cannot rein in a natural phenomenon on this scale.
No government has found a permanent solution, even New Zealand. Their current virus-free state is no better than a mirage and has been bought at the price of isolation from the rest of the world. Our own Government has offered mainly time-buying slogans and glib promises. It has preferred to listen only to a small cabal of well-paid and securely employed scientists who seem incapable of contextualising the problem and the collateral effects of their solutions on the wider health and well-being of the population.
Perhaps this week’s exciting news about a vaccine will turn the tide at last, but it will be no thanks to governments and the games they have played, and the damage they have done to public trust.
Jailed By The Covid Stasi For Painting A Pub
A retired police officer and Lockdown Sceptics reader found himself thrown in jail when he dared engage in some lawful voluntary labour during the last lockdown.
At 5.30pm the police arrived. One constable and five PCSOs. They first entered the private accommodation of the landlord by saying they had power to enter under the Coronavirus Regulation.
(First mistake. No such power existed at the time.)
They then entered the pub, bodycams whirring. I don’t know what they were hoping to find but they must have been bitterly disappointed. There was no furniture in the place and there was no alcohol being consumed. It would have been obvious even to the chronically thick that the place was being renovated. People were working drills etc. in hand. The landlord was carted off to a separate room to be interrogated by the constable.
The PCSOs were deployed to take everyone’s name and address. Kate dutifully gave her name and address.
PCSO: “What’s your telephone number?”
Kate: “I’m not giving you that.”
PCSO: “What if we need to ring you?”
Kate: “Why on earth would I want you to ring me?”
We’ve given this one a permanent home on the right-hand side under “Are the Police Being Too Authoritarian?”. Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: A couple in Yorkshire have been stripped of their pub licence under Covid lockdown laws for giving out free drinks on Remembrance Sunday to people paying their respects at the war memorials in the village. They told the Mail:
People going to or returning from the memorials were welcome to stop on the pavement and raise a glass, both to the fallen and indeed to the late landlord, Andrew Henstock [an ex-serviceman].
We never dreamt this might be against either the letter or the spirit of the law – these were drinks we provided, not the pub. Some people took their drinks to the smoking shelter at the rear of the building when three vans of police turned up.
This severe response to a gesture of goodwill is in stark contrast to the soft treatment given to the highly disrespectful Extinction Rebellion protest at the Cenotaph. As Spiked say, Britain has become “a state where Covid means protesting is banned, unless it’s the right kind of protest, in which case the police will turn a blind eye or even endorse it”.
“The Only Thing Lockdowns Do Is Make Us All Poorer”
Lockdown sceptic Sir Desmond Swayne MP, a member of the new Covid Recovery Group (CRG) of Conservative MPs – now 70 strong – appeared on Julia Hartley Brewer’s show on talkRADIO yesterday morning. Watch him here. Also Lord Sumption here, and Dr Clare Craig here. A sceptical bonanza!
Stop Press: Sceptic legend Professor Sucharit Bhakdi appeared on the TRIGGERnometry podcast, asking: Are we being told the truth about COVID-19? Listen here.
“Cases” All Over the Place
Imperial’s REACT study is now showing R fell below 1 before lockdown, bringing it into line with KCL’s ZOE app, which yesterday reported R at 0.9. On the other hand, yesterday saw a record number of “cases”: 33,470 reported, up by more than 10,000, or 46%, on the day before. Unusually, Stephen Powis, the NHS Medical Director speaking at the Downing Street briefing downplayed the rise, saying it is important to look at the seven-day average, which is about 22,000, rather than one day. Is Project Fear on pause for a moment? Worth noting that testing was also at record levels yesterday, which may be part of the explanation.
The positivity rate dropped last week for the first time since July. Meanwhile, acute respiratory infections are still trending well below the baseline according to the Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance System (EDSSS) that monitors emergency hospital attendance. A pretty ordinary autumn so far – save for the totalitarian Government, of course.
Round-Up
- “Dominic Cummings to leave role as PM’s chief adviser by end of the year” – The Vote Leave veteran and controversial senior Government adviser is to follow his chum Lee Cain out the door, reports Sky News
- “Ticketmaster says fans may need proof they’ve had the vaccine or a negative Covid test result to attend concerts and sports games when they return” – The Mail reports on the ever-extending creep of the optional compulsory vaccine
- “We have one last chance to stop Britain’s descent into a post-Covid socialist nightmare” – Allister Heath in the Telegraph on the risk that changes to British attitudes to freedom and the state this year become embedded
- “Deadly toll of care homes ban: Halting visits is linked to 5,000 EXTRA dementia deaths in nursing units, figures reveal” – The Mail on yet more deaths caused by lockdown
- “False-positive COVID-19 results: hidden problems and costs” – Good article in the Lancet on the problems with improper use of PCR tests
- “England test-and-trace system hit by ‘huge’ IT problems last month” – 48 hour delays in contacting vulnerable contacts, the Guardian reports
- “The secret thoughts of a GP in lockdown” – A London GP speaks from frontline experience of the scandal that is the National Covid Service, in the Telegraph
- “NHS waiting times show backlog caused by coronavirus” – Report in the Times that there were 139,545 people who had been waiting more than a year for treatment in September 2020 compared to 1,305 in September 2019, a 100-fold increase
- “Barnardo’s should know better about ‘white privilege’” – Patrick West in the Spectator on the pernicious wokery of a charity that looks after children in care telling them they have “white privilege”. Surely that’s a form of abuse?
- “Lifetime pub ban for Warrington MP who backed 10pm curfew” – The pubs strike back, on BBC News
- “Man Who Rammed Police Station in Car ‘Snapped’ After £10,000 Covid Fine” – Report from Breitbart on a man who resorted to criminal violence after reportedly being hit with the maximum lockdown penalty
- “This ‘travel ban’ is not legally enforceable and at odds with our human rights” – Barrister Francis Hoar makes the legal case against travel restrictions in the Telegraph
- “MS drug almost halves hospitalised patients’ risk of severe Covid symptoms” – Some good news for those battling the severe form of the disease, in the Telegraph
- “Coronavirus could infect rats, mice and ferrets and become a ‘revolving door virus’ which keeps mutating” – SAGE member and director of the Wellcome Trust Sir Jeremy Farrar says that SARS-CoV-2 is “now part of humanity, it is an endemic infection now, and I don’t think it’s going to go away”, in the Telegraph
Love in the Time of Covid
We have created some Lockdown Sceptics Forums, including a dating forum called “Love in a Covid Climate” that has attracted a bit of attention. We have a team of moderators in place to remove spam and deal with the trolls, but sometimes it takes a little while so please bear with us. You have to register to use the Forums, but that should just be a one-time thing. Any problems, email the Lockdown Sceptics webmaster Ian Rons here.
Sharing stories: Some of you have asked how to link to particular stories on Lockdown Sceptics. The answer used to be to first click on “Latest News”, then click on the links that came up beside the headline of each story. But we’ve changed that so the link now comes up beside the headline whether you’ve clicked on “Latest News” or you’re just on the Lockdown Sceptics home page. Please do share the stories with your friends and on social media.
Woke Gobbledegook
We’ve decided to create a permanent slot down here for woke gobbledegook. Today, Toby in his latest Spectator column wonders whether under the proposed hate crime laws his children won’t turn on him, at least for blackmail purposes.
If Humza Yousaf has his way, there will be less free speech in Scotland than anywhere else in Europe – but not for long. The Law Commission of England and Wales has proposed that we pass a similar law. Actually, I say “similar” but in some respects the Commission’s proposals are even worse. Andrew Tettenborn, a law professor at Swansea University, describes the 533-page ‘consultation’ as “the Scottish Hate Crime Bill on steroids”. For instance, the Commission wants to make ‘sex and gender’ protected characteristics. It proposes that a vast array of groups and subcultures should be given similarly special status, including ‘migrants’, ‘asylum seekers’, ‘asexuals’, ‘non-binary people’, ‘cross-dressers’, ‘goths’, ‘punks’ and ‘sex workers’. And it wants to ban ‘inflammatory cartoons’, particularly ‘Islamophobic cartoons’. Talk about handing a victory to terrorism!
Like Humza Yousaf, the Law Commission wants to remove the ‘dwelling exemption’ from the Public Order Act 1986, meaning people could be prosecuted for stirring up hatred in their own homes. Toby recounts his efforts to explain the full horror of this to his four children.
“If this becomes law, one of you could call the police and have me arrested if I call your mother a whore,” I said. “Not that I would, obviously, but you get the point.”
They got the point all right. Suddenly, they began rubbing their hands with glee.
“So how much will you pay me not to tell the police what you’ve said about Black Lives Matter?” asked my 13-year-old son Freddie.
I began to explain that nothing I’d said about the unashamedly Marxist group which wants to defund the police came remotely close to an offence under the Public Order Act, when I was forced to reconsider. After all, if Darren Grimes can be investigated by the Met for ‘stirring up hatred’ against black people simply for publishing an interview with David Starkey, maybe the police would be interested if Freddie told them my views of BLM. That is, if the Law Commission gets its way and you can be charged with ‘hate speech’ for something you say in private and not just in public.
Funny as well as disturbing. Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Dr Radomir Tylecote, the Research Director of the Free Speech Union, has produced a briefing doc about the Law Commission’s proposals that you can find here.
“Mask Exempt” Lanyards
We’ve created a one-stop shop down here for people who want to buy (or make) a “Mask Exempt” lanyard/card. You can print out and laminate a fairly standard one for free here and it has the advantage of not explicitly claiming you have a disability. But if you have no qualms about that (or you are disabled), you can buy a lanyard from Amazon saying you do have a disability/medical exemption here (takes a while to arrive). The Government has instructions on how to download an official “Mask Exempt” notice to put on your phone here. You can get a “Hidden Disability” tag from ebay here and an “exempt” card with lanyard for just £1.99 from Etsy here. And, finally, if you feel obliged to wear a mask but want to signal your disapproval of having to do so, you can get a “sexy world” mask with the Swedish flag on it here.
Don’t forget to sign the petition on the UK Government’s petitions website calling for an end to mandatory face masks in shops here.
A reader has started a website that contains some useful guidance about how you can claim legal exemption.
And here’s an excellent piece about the ineffectiveness of masks by a Roger W. Koops, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry.
Mask Censorship: The Swiss Doctor has translated the article in a Danish newspaper about the suppressed Danish mask study. Largest RCT on the effectiveness of masks ever carried out. Rejected by three top scientific journals so far.
The Great Barrington Declaration
The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition started by Professor Martin Kulldorff, Professor Sunetra Gupta and Professor Jay Bhattacharya calling for a strategy of “Focused Protection” (protect the elderly and the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with life), was launched last month and the lockdown zealots have been doing their best to discredit it ever since. If you Googled it a week after launch, the top hits were three smear pieces from the Guardian, including: “Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’.” (Freddie Sayers at UnHerd warned us about this the day before it appeared.) On the bright side, Google UK has stopped shadow banning it, so the actual Declaration now tops the search results – and Toby’s Spectator piece about the attempt to suppress it is among the top hits – although discussion of it has been censored by Reddit. The reason the zealots hate it, of course, is that it gives the lie to their claim that “the science” only supports their strategy. These three scientists are every bit as eminent – more eminent – than the pro-lockdown fanatics so expect no let up in the attacks. (Wikipedia has also done a smear job.)
You can find it here. Please sign it. Now over 650,000 signatures.
Update: The authors of the GDB have expanded the FAQs to deal with some of the arguments and smears that have been made against their proposal. Worth reading in full.
Update 2: Many of the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration are involved with new UK anti-lockdown campaign Recovery. Find out more and join here.
Update 3: You can watch Sunetra Gupta set out the case for “Focused Protection” here and Jay Bhattacharya make it here.
Judicial Reviews Against the Government
There are now so many JRs being brought against the Government and its ministers, we thought we’d include them all in one place down here.
First, there’s the Simon Dolan case. You can see all the latest updates and contribute to that cause here.
Then there’s the Robin Tilbrook case. You can read about that and contribute here.
Then there’s John’s Campaign which is focused specifically on care homes. Find out more about that here.
There’s the GoodLawProject’s Judicial Review of the Government’s award of lucrative PPE contracts to various private companies. You can find out more about that here and contribute to the crowdfunder here.
The Night Time Industries Association has instructed lawyers to JR any further restrictions on restaurants, pubs and bars.
Christian Concern is JR-ing the Government over its insistence on closing churches during the lockdowns. Read about it here.
And last but not least there’s the Free Speech Union‘s challenge to Ofcom over its ‘coronavirus guidance’. You can read about that and make a donation here.
Samaritans
If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch. Samaritans is available round the clock, every single day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them.
Quotation Corner
It’s Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled.
Mark Twain
Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.
Charles Mackay
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions…
Ideology – that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of insipid common sense.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get into the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man, who knows where it hurts, is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialist.
Sir Winston Churchill
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.
Richard Feynman
We’re Hiring
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Shameless Begging Bit
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And Finally…
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Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
It seems they never do – and we are entirely and eternally grateful to them for staying up until the wee hours compiling all this information. Thank you!
Dear Everyone 6:56am
Write your MP a short sweet email.
“If you continue to vote through jobs destroying lockdown I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR YOU OR YOUR PARTY AGAIN”
https://www.writetothem.com/
(Don’t try and persuade them with facts. The only facts the care about tis THEIR jobs)
Keep writing – it’s free – don’t worry if you don’t get a reply)
My MP voted FOR this lockdown, and now she’s joined the Tory ”rebel” group. Is that hypocrisy, or what?
Perhaps she has changed her mind, when the revised figures were made known. I wish no-one had voted for the lockdown, but if everyone changed their minds now it would stop. That has to be a better thing, in my view.
Agreed. There’s nothing to be gained by turning away those who may have reconsidered their position.
She is controlled opposition with the Tory party, or has she seen the light.
I have written to Greg Knight (‘who?’ you may ask) about 3 or 4 times and had only an automated reply. If events in the recent news about No. 10 reveal that even the Cabinet don’t know what’s going on, and backbenchers even less, one has to ask what is the point and why are we bothering?
We are bothering because our lives, not just livelihoods, are going to depend on it.
Exactly. What else should we do? Lie down and take it?!
I have grandkids and I’m very concerned what they’re being led into.
I know, and I’ll probably keep on at him, but with even less optimism than previously. Doesn’t sound as though GBHQ pay any attention to their own party MPs, and if the MPs disregard their constituents….
I can’t be bothered to do that and content myself with asking my MP, on his Facebook posts, when he is going to step aside and make way for someone whose nostrils are not buried in the Westminster trough.
Yep. Just got a reply this evening from Caroline Lucas. As a remainer, former Guardian reading vegan I was proud to be her constituent. Her reply was terrifying. Long list of massaged figures culminating in a condemnation of anti-vaxxers for spreading FEAR!!!! The IRONY. You could not make this shit up. I chastised her immediately for being deeply irresponsible. The notion that a vaccine, rushed and politicised, should be rolled out arbitrarily without all the usual criminal trials, that it should be used as a bargaining chip, disallowing young people from going to concerts and sports fans attending events unless they consent to a vial of poison going into their arm… is inhumane and disgusting. Even hardened vaccine advocates I know would NEVER go near this one. The MPs are all either colluding or brainwashed. I have lost hope. Where can we go and live???
UPDATE: I considered correcting the “criminal” to “clinical” typo but decided it was too apt to change!
As a Leaver, former Telegraph reading omnivore I agree with you entirely.
Absotively!
I totally second that! LS is the one thing that has kept me properly informed and SANE these last eight months. Thanks for all the hard work. Also, I heartily recommend the London Calling podcast with James Delingpole and Toby, which despite the doom and gloom subjects, they always make me laugh. Cheers!
Yes especially when they have a buddies fall out!
Doesn’t the behaviour of the police in enforcing the Rona Act tell folks all they need to know that this is far from being about public safety in fighting a virus?
This is all about compliance through fear and intimidation. They know there won’t be many popping their heads up and openly flouting the regulations but when there is a chance of one of us lowly entrepreneurial plebs daring to oppose the bulls**t, they swoop down in large numbers and make a big show of it. Might as well start tasering us in the streets for an exposed nose peeking out above a mask.
They have so much riding on the big move and the behaviour of the police is clear evidence they can’t afford dissent to spread or be inspired by a few small pleb victories on the streets. It is vital they crush us dissenters right down no matter what it takes.
In other words, they are afraid of us.
In the long term, they have reason to be.Truth will out, and the evidence against the evildoers will be overwhelming. They will have nowhere to hide. We’ll find them, and justice will be done.
And they can’t hide behind “we was only following orders” when the day of reckoning arrives.
Dont you find it suspicious how much the police seem to know. They never bothered their backsides to get to you quickly with real crime now they seem to have eyes and ears everywhere and I dont believe it’s a nosy parker reporting each time. They are turning up in way out obscure places ( country pubs ect). Mass surveillance eyes and ears everywhere??
Yep 5G is wonderful 🙁
Yep all the roads dug up and not to repair the potholes …..
Yes they are afraid of us but no, justice will not be done. Those who have controlled the narrative for the last hundred years have realized in the last few years, as more people migrate away from the mainstream media, that this is no longer possible. Hence the broad assault on all remaining civil liberties, on-line freedom of expression, national pride and any nascent resistance to their agenda. Any real opposition is ruthlessly suppressed by the banking system banning dissenters from possessing even a bank account.
These people are ruthless and will not give up their power over us without a gargantuan struggle.
COVID Stasi make the case for de-funding the police more convincingly, if equally as thuggishly, as BLM mobs
They’d probably be replaced with something worse.
The police aren’t the problem. It’s those who make the policies and strategy and tell the police what to do that need to be defunded.
‘The Police’ are very much part of the problem.
Destroyed by first the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and since by common purpose and equal opportunities recruitment.
You make a very good case for the view that there is far more to this coronavirus event than meets the eye. The close involvement of depopulation freak Bill Gates, only adds to the potential villainy of what is now taking place across the country and most of the rest of the world. I would suggest that even the horror stories coming out of the WEF are meant only as distractions and that the real aims of our global masters are really far far worse. If people aren’t now very concerned for the lives of themselves and their kin, then they simply haven’t been paying sufficient attention.
Yes its the old mayor of New York approach known as zero tolerance policing. Crack down on the little things so the big things never get out of hand.
Seen in the Times today;
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/false-news-on-covid-19-vaccine-threatens-herd-immunity-wdglvkwkp
Look through the comments. The posts with the highest likes are mainly wanting to make vaccines mandatory or keep people excluded from school/travel etc for not vaccinating.
Chilling.
Don’t be too concerned. The comment sections of such newspapers are the favourite stamping-ground of 77 Brigade.
Tobias Ellwood: the deep stater’s deep stater.
And as thick as two short planks.
Ellwood – ‘deep’? Sorry – doesn’t compute.
Yes a lot of it is likely the handiwork of 77th Brigade, but that really doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned. These things will come to pass if we don’t resist forcefully.
By the same token, the comments on the DM are very ant-, both lockdown and jab, and usually get upticked heavily. Yes, the occasional one is for a continual lockdown until ‘we have eradicated the virus’, or how selfish you are If you refuse the jab, type of thing, but these comments are usually downvoted by loads. If I’m on a site where I can comment easily I often just answer with ‘Come in, no77, your game.., sorry time is up.’. Probably pointless but it gives me pleasure. And that’s in short supply at the moment.
Have you notice how calling them out tends to shut them up? They probably move on to another paper and put a different shill in their place.
Cynic? Moi?!
I’ve noticed from here they possibly work as tag teams with an offence and defence. The role of the defence is to provide some qualified support (“could be something in what you say”, “hear him out”, “yes that happened to my Nan, so he’s not wrong”) the idea being to.spread seeds of doubt in sceptic minds.
Paywall plus shills. Don’t feed the trolls, it just plays into their hands.
I’ve never thought of Christmas as the inevitable result of enfranchising turkeys, however, in a metaphorical sense I can that the Christmas that is coming is just that.
Brigade at work? Pretty chilling to think it could be but we’d have no way of knowing.
This rabble of socioeconomic vandals, these fascist disciples of the WEF are Conservative in name only. How you can make a monumental decision such as shutting down the economy without commissioning any kind of forecast or analysis into the consequences is an act rooted in the most criminal negligence imaginable.
This lot need to be rounded up and sent to the gulags before they inflict the same fate upon us.
They can go and socially distance themselves on Rockall.
Tough on Rockall!
—and i they don’t like Rockall, we’ll give then Fuckall.
They need Rentokill
Who is going to round them up?
PCR tests and Rapid Express tests for Corona Virus- None of these tests measure the viral load- none of these tests actually tell you if you have an infection- infection means you have an active virus and it’s replicating- the viral load is an amount that would cause an immune reaction and would hence make you sick- none of these tests can do that- they are not diagnostic tests And all of these monstrous policies are being developed based on this hugely flawed and unreliable testing system. The first time I heard the “new normal” term and this mantra of “things will never be the same”, I had a gut feeling there was something “off” about it. It’s just a flu-like disease, why does the world have to change dramatically to cope with it? Of course, since then it’s become fairly evident to those who want to see that “the new normal” is a carefully crafted psyop-term to get people along with whatever changes are planned. And people are falling for it en masse, like the brilliant “conspiracy theory” concept has effectively shut down all public discourse on certain topics. The carrot is their belief that they will return to life… Read more »
I share your concerns. But who is driving this? China, big Pharma are clearly taking advantage of the situation, but did they create it and if not who did?
That’s the million dollar question.
My view, Its ordinary people who have been given the power of anonymous expression of their innermost fears and amplified them through social media which has reflected on the traditional media and therefore the politicians.
No, that’s the multi-billion dollar, trillion dollar question.
Start here:
SARS: Osterhaus, Drosten, Fouchier
H1N1: Osterhaus, Koopmans, Fouchier, Drosten
MERS: Osterhaus, Koopmans, Fouchier, Drosten
SARS-CoV-2: Koopmans, Fouchier, Drosten.
Notice a pattern?
From there you will get right into the WHO and the Gates Foundation and Big Pharma ghouls.
From there you will see the financial parasites that run Repo markets, hedge funds and all manner of private equity firms that prop up Big Pharma (legalized drug lords) and Silicon Valley scum.
Forget China that is a distraction and/or a Western bias you hold.
You pension fund will no doubt invest in them – so they are your companies really…
I don’t have a pension- they are not my companies.
Sorry, don’t quite understand the names after each virus.
Drosten is responsible for the assay and protocols used for the SARS-COV-2 PCR. He comes up many times in Corona – False Alarm which is a book you should read if you haven’t already.
The Banks initially. Those at the centre of the dark web. Those people we never see.
We did it. All of us. We weren’t vigilant enough for the past twenty years or so and just let things slide.
Look no further than Bill Gates and his henchman Klaus Schwab, they are currently the globalist frontmen. Sars-cov-2 coronavirus may not even exist and if it does, it has no more lethality than a seasonal flu. So on that basis we are clearly being mega scammed by our own corrupt governments, which are now pushing the globalist agenda. This became even more became obvious when they started to use the PCR test as their main weapon of fear.
The PCR test cannot diagnose infection and that was the opinion of its inventor Kary Mullis. Is it just a coincidence, that Mullis died in August 2019, just before the corona scam kicked off? Mullis was unafraid of controversy and stuck to his opinions forcefully. Perhaps he was just too big a risk and something had to be done about him.
More like Klaus Schwab and his henchman Bill Gates other than that fully with you!!
I had that same gut feeling too – it’s all a bit weird, we haven’t done it before, why this time, there’s something funny going on – the day they locked us up.
I wasn’t a full sceptic then, as some here were, but that feeling never wained.
And the masks is the most horrific outward sign of everything that is going on. The English language doesn’t have a word strong enough for me to express my feelings about them. Maybe we should invent one.
I don’t think I was on board enough at the time they mentioned ‘new normal’, but well before Rishi spoke of ‘permanent change’ and ‘viable jobs’ – that speech really terrified me.
When people start suggesting he could be the next PM I get the shivers!
Whatever we do we’ll get a shill. The LabLibCon is busted. Lost all faith in any of ‘em.
There are numerous questions raised with tests If covid is a dangerous disease with produces severe symptoms and there is clear evidence you have the disease, why would it be necessary to test people to see if you have it. Below are the symptoms of bubonic plague. The symptoms are so horrific you wouldn’t need a test to see if someone has it. https://www.bing.com/search?q=black+death+symptoms&cvid=270b65b86db146caadbebefc65823991&pglt=43&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=HCTS Why is it necessary to rely on unreliable tests to see if people have the disease. Why is it necessary to ask people to be tested in a pandemic. If our country is being ravaged by a deadly and dangerous disease, why is it necessary to include people who tested positive but don’t have a clinical illness in case statistics? If covid is such an infectious disease, why is necessary to rely on intrusive tests to see if someone has the virus. This is from a leaflet on covid “Why is it necessary with this test for the swab to be inserted all the way to the cribriform plate connected to the brain when according to doctors an in-cheek swab would be sufficient? Modern science can take a swab from the inside of your mouth and… Read more »
Excellent point.
I haven’t done any research on this, but I have a deviated septum, and the thought of this nose test makes me feel faint. I would hope they could do a cheek swab test on people like me who have wonky noses.
I have the same! The ENT consultant had serious trouble getting his probe up my nose, I’m not sure some partially trained tester could get a swab up there.
They do the cheek swabs.or just dont have a test 😁
As a llama, I’ve got ear, nose, throat and ear issues.
Your comments about the intrusive swabbing are spot on. Another submission ritual like masks?
It is absolutely ridiculous to pretend that a truly infectious viral load would need to be chased around the head and then magnified by 30+ cycles in a PCR amplification.
… only if you’re chasing fictions.
A major justification for lockdown is that Covid is highly infectious and if lockdowns were not in place, we would be infecting each other. Having to rely on intrusive tests to find a virus destroys this argument.
Coronavirus situation in my home, Antigua.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/antigua-and-barbuda/
131 ‘cases’, 3 deaths for the whole year.
We still have the ~ 800 or so deaths per year from every other cause going on as usual.
Locals and tourists have been coming and going from all over the world carrying this deadly virus with them all year except in March / April when all flights to here were cancelled.
Why these low figures?
Is it because we do not have a PCR testing lab here and all tests have to be sent overseas, and its expensive, therefore little testing is carried out?
Conclusion; Little or no testing = no epidemic.
P.S. Thanks Boris for cancelling all our BA flights for the next month or two, Proper kick in the gonads that is!
There are still flights from Miami and I think one Virgin flight per week from UK. Its pretty relaxed here once you get through the travel BS.
Glad to hear that Antigua did open up again. I was under the impression that you were all still “self” isolated. I guess the cruise ships are still not visiting are they?
What cruise ships?
It will be a mixture of the climate and demography genuinely inhibiting the virus, the (as you say) lack of a PCR scam, and the fact that the virus has f.ed off, anyway.
With the Welsh government having assumed de facto independence and imposed a hard border it is now time to talk about reparations for centuries of oppression.
The billions England already sends to Wales annually is hardly sufficient – mere chickenfeed, as Boris would say.
A fast-tracked EU rejoin application will be welcomed by Brussels and a new flag is ready – the red dragon tastefully surrounded by yellow stars.
The 1536 Treaty of Union between England and Wales can now be safely scrapped as King Henry VIII is dead.
Wales looks forward to a new EU border from the Dee to the Severn and the tight little Third Country being squeezed tighter still and tighter.
I would turn the dragon yellow, the Welsh having become a mob of grovelling cowards, and the stars red, in tribute to Dungford and his Politburo.
And they can officially name the country as the Democratic People’s Republic of Wales.
Snowdonia is going to be privatised.
It’s already privately-owned.
But Wales had a majority in favour of Brexit! Cardiff could rejoin the EU I suppose, That might suit the rest of the country as the Cardiff bubble are not keen on the rural areas.
Big cities never are…look at the USA!
It seems to vary from place to place, around here the Police are still largely absent despite large numbers of people milling about but Alex Belfied YouTube reports on 30 officers descending on a gym in London yesterday to close it down. Thirty !
Yet, when the cenotaph was being trampled on by XR scum, they stood by and let it happen!!! Imagine if that had been Sceptics demonstrating, foreign speaking Police would have waded in with shields and truncheons. Who is telling them to do this, Pritti Patel or Clarise Dickhead?
Patel I suspect…she is a nasty little authoritarian hiding behind the big boy coppers.
Don’t forget Khan. As Mayor he has the lead role and I think is consulted on how to respond to all major demos. He favours political policing. He will indicate to Dick when to go in heavy and when not. BLM, anti-Israel, XR, SWP, Islamic all good.
And no doubt some of them were armed, you just can’t be too careful.
There is still a ‘lack of resources’ to attend a burglary though.
So What will be and who will deliver our ‘Princess Diana shakes hands with an AIDS sufferer’ moment for the MSM? And will it work to turn the tide with the public?
Out today seeing the demented mask wearers, instead of my usual inner scream (mask less) I just pictured the scene in Toy Story where Buzz Lightyear’s visor retracts and he launches into dramatic ‘last breath’ gasps expecting immediate death (that he’d been programmed to believe)……..then looks up rather foolishly when he realises Woody had been right all along and I he was fine.
Wasn’t that what bozo was trying to achieve by shaking hands with covids before supposedly catching it himself?
Aha, the ‘Boris has Covid’ story……..a nice little cover for Carrie booking him in for the ‘snip’.
Previous Mrs would have been delighted to issue the two brick clap to his nether regions
At the hospital that had no patients with COVID at the time?
A Lady of Leather perhaps.
Clever. 😉
By way of local confirmation for Toby’s second item
Local news (not Local Live)
Headline “More Covid cases in County hospitals than ever”
Before the usual ramblings about Second Wave overwhelming the NHS but saved by lockdown 2 the accompanying graphic reveals.
1. Number of open (?) beds 2,800
2. Number of beds occupied by Covid cases 220.
3. Covid cases in ITU 12.
4. Inpatients diagnosed with Covid past 24 hours 10
5. New admissions with Covid past 24 hours 8.
So less than 10% of beds occupied by covids of which 5% seriously ill.
Strangely the lengthy report says nothing about discharges or indeed Deaths.
My belief is that they expect readers to skim the headline, be scared off by the graphic and then move onto the latest news about Meghan or Strictly.
Zombies are addicted to fear, and it’s in the Fascists’ interests to ensure that the addiction is lavishly fed. Otherwise, the zombies might start getting withdrawal symptoms, such as glimmers of common sense.
Unfortunately, the bulk of their readership no doubt lives up (down?) to their expectations.
http://www.contrarianprize.com/news.html
I’ve nominated Professor Gupta for the next contrarian award.
Secondly, here in The Progressive Republik of Saor Alba, masks are now worn everywhere, increasingly seen in the open air and in cars and gagging small children.
What a thoroughly dismal, divisive and rancorous place this now is, as we anticipate many more months of pointless, mind numbing isolation, paranoia, deprivation and virtuous compliance ,all the while listening to the shrill effusions issuing from Holyrood.
Demand more dosh while denouncing the English and spinning the SNP mantra.
The zealots are unmoved by the rising impoverishment, unemployment, economic fallout and despair: why? Well, they’re financially secure.
’I’m alright Jack’ hides behind the sturdy support for lockdown, lockdown, and whipped up loathing of The Donald and his supporters provides a convenient safety valve:( I encountered the full unabridged version yesterday, while conversing with an acquaintance in local supermarket).
Happily around here muzzling in the open has fallen below 50%, virtually none at the school gates, none at all near The (6th form) College where there is no social distancing either.
I drove through the University campus yesterday, there were relatively few students wandering about but hardly any had masks apart from the Chinese but they wore them before Covid was a thing.
Lucky you! Signs of common sense in your area.
Let’s hope it’s highly contagious!
I seen a wee girl (must have been about 4 years old) muzzled up with a face mask by the Portland St suspension bridge yesterday when I was jogging past. Such a disgusting sight. Her daft mother was knelt in front of her, aggressively scolding her in the street for some misdeed – with a mask on too. Poor wee lassie looked utterly miserable. I wanted to tip the mother straight into the Clyde.
Maybe we should start haranguing these child-abusers about the harm they’re doing to their kids in the same sanctimonious meddling way the mask-lovers like to dish out to us?
I really hate seeing little kids in masks; it’s one of the very worst aspects of this lunacy.
Especially when it has never been recommended for anyone to wear masks outdoors, least of all children.
Oh, gosh, I saw a little boy in a restaurant the other day wearing a mask and it nearly brought me to tears. He looked both confused and brave. I feel so sorry for these kids, who knows what it will do to their mental health in the future.
I keep making this point,but it seems to fall on deaf ears.
What will happen to children’s development if this craziness continues ad nauseam?
Us too. It’s like the same blank stare when you mention the care home deaths. MW
That’s really bad but I’ve seen worse:
London Underground – little girl around 4-5 years old, muzzled but clearly hating it and tugging it on one hand in order to breathe I suppose while other hand was tugging at dad’s sleeve in order to get his attention.
So what does dad do? Remove kid’s muzzle? Talk to kid? Oh no, no. He shoves a mobile phone on the kid’s hand and tells her to keep quiet.
I was so furious at that double child abuse that I wanted to beat the dad up and throw him out of the carriage on the next stop.
Not one trace of Covid has ever been found on London Underground. What’s the point of the masks ?
You’re guess is as good as mine. TFL is just sprouting the usual propaganda and lies.
Kerrrrchinggggg!
Wish you had…he sounds like he deserved it. Its so hard to hold it together these days!
I will have a degree of schadenfreude when dad wonders what went wrong when kid grows up and develops a multitude of physical and psychological ailments.
Bart, this makes me angry. What the f have we become as a society?
We can’t get to these people through any kind of media; one way would be by way of handbills, stickers and leaflets. I wonder if there is an artist or cartoonist who would be willing to illustrate how a mask user breathes in mask fibres combined with many of the bacteria, yeasts, fungi that they have just exhaled and becomes affected by oxygen deficiency and excess CO2. Scare tactics to counter the official narrative.
Ivor Cummings showed clearly that the US Second Wave was simply the first wave arriving months later in mainly southern States as you say.
Toby’s piece on hate speech coming to England.
Two simultaneous phone calls to his local Police station
1. ‘Freddie called me a fat spaz’
2. ‘She called me a smelly gay’
Kerrrrching for the lawyers, paid for by Toby.
From the Grand Master of agitprop:
“Trust is good, control is better.”
“It is true that liberty is precious — so precious that it must be rationed.”
― Vladimir Lenin
There’s a small problem with how they have presented those figures, NN.
I don’t know about the other countries listed, but that 33,923,171 ‘Tested’ figure for the UK isn’t individual people, it’s number of tests. PHE says on the GOV.uk page, “Number of confirmed positive, negative or void COVID-19 test results, by test type. This is a count of test results and may include multiple tests for an individual person.”
The ‘Confirmed’ number is people: from PHE: “Number of people with at least one positive COVID-19 test result (either lab-reported or lateral flow device), by specimen date, by nation. Individuals tested positive more than once are only counted once, on the date of their first positive test.”
Because of that, it’s also a bit misleading to suggest that that means 50.8% of the UK has been tested; that’s not true either. A lot of those 33 million tests are people being tested multiple times, e.g. health and care workers.
Meant to add: The swab up the nose and the swab down your throat, on each person, are counted as two tests, not one.
That sleight of hand would suggest that Every number quoted for tests should in reality be halved ?
Does that mean the spivs get paid twice per person?
I don’t think this is correct, at least for tier 2 testing it is the same swab which goes up the nose/back of throat.
I’d have to clarify this for tier 1 tests thou.
Really??
What kind of medical procedure requires you to use the same swab for your nose, with all its trapped pathogens and then wipe them onto your throat?!
Not quite, it’s throat first, then nose. Nearly as disgusting, mind.
You’re correct, Henry; my mistake.
I checked with an NHS contact who works with the team doing the testing in UCLH; London.
One swab; throat first, then nose.
Sorry for the confusion, all.
PS. The bit about multiple testing is correct, though. Hospital and care home staff (docs, nurses, carers, etc) can be tested over and over. Patients can also get tested multiple times during their stay. The 33 million figure includes people tested multiple times.
Looks like no standardisation, then
It’s separate swabs in hospitals.
Is that 100% correct ? One person. Two swipes = 2 cases ?
No, it’s not correct, Lee; my mistake. See my reply to Henry, above.
My evidence to the Digital, Cuture, Media and Sport Committee FAKE NEWS Inquiry warned that we were headed towards an East German/Stasi type situation with bureaucracies deciding what is true:
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/fake-news/written/73097.html
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/fake-news/written/76219.html
Of course, Matt Hancock was DCMS Secretary in those days.
I can confirm the limited number of titles available in East European bookshops.
In L’viv (Lemburg) one was piled high with the collected speeches of Leonid Breshniev going cheap since he was dead. I thought its colourful cover might look good on my but I don’t know what he said because it’s in Russian and cyrillic.
On my shelves 😕
I know NickR did a nice little graph, or two, yesterday re. The Great Admissions Scam. Thanks Nick. I’m away at the moment and I only managed to get a brief look at the new NHS monthly report that came out yesterday: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/Covid-Publication-12-11-2020_v4-CB.xlsx I’ve noticed that they are still pulling the same scam that I mentioned back on 14th October: https://staging.dailysceptic.org/2020/10/14/latest-news-162/#comment-186272 Yes, they are still adding people going into hospital with Covid symptoms, (who have had a positive test already), to those patients who are already in hospital and test positive for covid, whether they have symptoms, or not, or whether they are being treated for covid, or not… …and calling them all New Admissions! This is the number shown daily on the Healthcare page at: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare It’s also the number the MSM and the Government are using to try to scare people into thinking the NHS is being overrun. Toby’s doctor friend covered it here on October 15, after seeing my post: https://staging.dailysceptic.org/2020/10/15/#how-many-hospital-cases-are-really-covid He says: So, in summary, the headline figure broadcast of ‘patients admitted with Covid’ includes:– Patients who really are ill with Covid and need treatment– Patients who test positive but have no symptoms and are in… Read more »
Without DNA sequencing you cannot really tell whether a respiratory case is Covid so likely in most cases they still don’t know.
And this is the crux: they never did.
If we take Clare Craig’s idea and test people with the new test it may bring numbers down. But the issue is that uniquely identifying Covid was never done. Either through assumptions being made or lack of time and resources to eliminate other respiratory diseases.
Looking at respiratory diseases over the year you may think that’s due to a virus. But it can also be due to neglect and changes in care as those patients are mostly elderly who tend to get these things in a manner of ways.
This has been a mania from the start. And yet still we aren’t cutting this nonsense out
Old people dying of respiratory disease will have a range of pathogens in their lungs. Only a major autopsy would have any chane of establishing and kind of hierarchy of causality in individual cases, and even then it’s doubtful. Excess deaths and in particular excess respiratory deaths are our best guide. Clearly in the Spring Covid was having a major impact.
False accounting!
I wonder if Dom’s resignation will mean that the PM will change course on Covid and go back to his liberal ways. Maybe he will start questioning Witless a bit more too.
Let’s hope for the best.
So far as I can see this ‘news’ about Dom’s resignation stems solely from a tweet by one Alex Whickam retweeting
Laura Kuenssberg in which she quotes Dom
“my position hasn’t changed since my January blog”
and she concludes
“when he planned to make himself ‘redundant’ by the end of 2020-he’s off”
Hardly news but the press is all over it.
Is it news or speculation? After all, the Express stated at the start of this month that Lizzie will abdicate next year but multiple news sources reported yesterday that there will be an extra bank holiday in 2022 to mark her 70th anniversary.
Laura was a lead item on this mornings R4 8am news. At no point did she offer anything more substantial than in my post.
It might not be popular with people on here, and I won’t be getting into a row about the rights and wrongs, but as a countryman I really wouldn’t get your hopes up about Symonds. She does not have the vaguest notion of a grasp of science so I expect more lockdowns rather than fewer.
I tend to agree.
I doubt Symonds will be forcing Boris into lockdowns. It was Cummings that had the main authority behind it.
for a brief moment I attempted to consider whom I despise the most. Then I stopped myself from such a draining thought process. DePiffle, symonds, Cummings …the quad…they’re all despicable. It reminded me of when I was a kid, and we used to try and work out which Nazis were the most evil in descending order. It’s a game that can go on for a long time unless you check yourself; and you feel sick by the end of it.
I fear the PM has come himself to love Big Brother (Big Brother being nebulous and beyond the human). Moreover, within a few weeks of entering No 10 having pledged to defend free speech he was engaged with the attempt to suppress discussion of vaccine safety, using ad hominem rhetoric against “antivaxxers”, but apart from the fact that he he was and is using disgraceful hate language it was fundamentally an attempt to stop people talking about a subject altogether. Most people probably at the time didn’t think it was any big deal, but apart from the language sounding slightly cracked it has come to mean in not many months a hell of a big deal in terms of the future of democracy and the openness of society. Something is going to be done to us which we are ever increasingly not allowed to talk about. And if you are not allowed to talk about something in terms the history of human institutions the reasons can only be bad. It was in fact Seth Berkley, CEO of the Global Vaccine Alliance (ie an industrial group) who in 2017 first proposed in Spectator on-line that “antivaxxers” should be banned from social… Read more »
All these tables look very impressive, but as there is no guarantee that different countries are applying the same criteria, or that any of them are telling the truth, the figures are effectively meaningless.
I’m not sure that would invalidate the overall conclusion.
I am quite sure that it would invalidate the overall conclusion.
According to Worldometer, deaths due to Covid have been above 500 a day for three days now. And still it seems that acute respiratory infections are well below the average for this time of year.
Either there is something funny going on with someone’s data, or there never really was a Coronavirus crisis…?
As it happens i was just looking at causes of deaths as it often seems to me that mithering on about precisely why an elderly person dies is not helpful, why can we not just put old age as the cause of deaths?
It turns out you can, these days it is not encouraged as for some strange reason most people seem to want to know a precise reason. But you can put old age as a cause of death, if the death is under 80 this is then referred to the coroner, but over 80 it is an accepted cause of death without further question. If all the over 80 ‘covid’ deaths had simply been put down as old age, you wonder what effect that might have had on the covid deaths statistics?
There were a load of reasons put on my Mum’s death certificate but if anyone asks me i say she died of being 90, I really do not need any other reason.
I suspect you are right, that Covid is being put on the death certificate in the necessity to put something specific, and because it is fashionable these days.
Back in March/April, the death rate really was over the average for the time of year and the Covid death rate only breached 1000 on nine day. Yet now, the death rate – from acute respiratory diseases in particular – is actually below the seasonal average.
My friends mum (99) went into hospital because she fell. She already had a bad knee and twisted both ankles in the process. Since admission she has had every test possible although not sure if they have looked at her ankles. They have found out that she has an old heart and some old lungs….what a surprise. I’m sure she will have Covid soon.
This discouragement of ‘old age’ as cause of death on a cert started after the Shipman case.
I know a guy who, so I’ve been told, has the Covid. He has all the symptoms, struggling to get out of bed. Plot-twist: he’s tested NEGATIVE for Covid, but his GP has told him he has it, based on symptoms.
This time last year his GP would have told him he had the ‘flu. Which is what he clearly has. But in 2020, even without a test, any respiratory illness is automatically Covid.
A medic told me early in lockdown 1 that this is known as Clinical Covid, got some of the symptoms but test negative-, not uncommon apparently.
I was desperately sick last December (it lasted for three month, wheezing and coughing, fever and deep exhaustion) and my GP said it was “unspecified respiratory illness” and gave me an inhaler and a Z-pack. I went home knowing that eventually I would heal.
I cringe to think about what protocol they’d put me through now. Probably in a hospital away from my family.
“Lifetime ban for Warrington MP”. Congratulations to Pubwatch. That’s the way to signal disapproval. Maybe the restaurant and independent shop owners in our towns and cities should follow suit. Might make some of these lazy and self satisfied MPs take more notice of the damage they are causing to businesses in their local areas.
Go for it kh1485. We are behind you all the way. Include their families as well, if you can afford the hit!
Since March 2020, the form of rule that has been systematically unfolding since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989/1990 has been fully in evidence: A transnationally operating oligarchic caste has taken over rule in the Western “democracies”. The mass base of “traditional” fascism was the enthusiastic petty bourgeoisie, incited by propaganda (1). The leader (state) promised the masses salvation from all evils. The leader carried the masses, the masses carried the leader (state) and the latter led them into war and ruin in the interest of (monopoly) capital. In the course of recent decades, a transnational, well-connected caste has emerged, which no longer conducts its wars only outwardly, but has recognized civil societies as a whole as a threat to its power. Since March 2020, the centers of power have expanded their wars inwards in the name of the corona infection regime. By transnational “elite” fascism I mean an alliance of transnational capitalist class, transnational power elite (2) with the transnational digital, military, intelligence, science and media complex and the governments as their executive committees. I refer to this conglomerate as the parasites of civil societies, which serve as their “host” bodies. Their new means of rule is… Read more »
As H.G. Wells, C.S. Lewis, Orwell and others warned us.
A quick story of how I escaped Sturgeon’s northern gulag into the wasteland formerly known as England. I got in my car, filled up with fuel and drove south on the M74. The end. To expand on this, I’m currently sitting in a deserted hotel somewhere near the M25. Quite how this hotel is “allowed” to be open isn’t clear to me, but it is. And it feels like I’m the only one staying in it. The bar and restaurant are closed, but I was able to order a pizza and a small tub of vegan salted caramel ice cream and a Diet Pepsi (we don’t have Diet Coke, will Diet Pepsi be ok?) to my room. The journey was entirely uneventful. I stopped off at two service stations on the drive here, entered and used their facilities without putting a mask on. I entertained myself by listening to Triggernometry. And I didn’t encounter heavy traffic at any point. I counted 3 police vehicles on the roads, which works out at about 1 police vehicle per 115 miles. No roadblocks. No being pulled over based on my Scottish number plate and no demands to provide my papers (I had considered… Read more »
Don’t believe all the scare stories about England. We are not that bad.
In my neck of the wood, all traffic normal, actually the A143 yesterday very busy. Besides the closure of our lovely pubs and independent shops, no lockdown apparent.
Dear Seceptice 6:56am
Write your MP a short sweet email.
“If you continue to vote through jobs destroying lockdown I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR YOU OR YOUR PARTY AGAIN”
https://www.writetothem.com/
(Don’t try and persuade them with facts. The only facts the care about tis THEIR jobs)
Keep writing – it’s free – don’t worry if you don’t get a reply)
I’ve already done that. I’m not sure what is the point of repeating it as she did and now I won’t.
Good morning everyone
I was wondering did anyone else see the 1000 lucky fans allowed into Windsor Park for last nights match with Slovakia?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8943693/1-000-fans-disinfection-pods-allowed-watch-Northern-Ireland-play-football.html
https://twitter.com/danroan/status/1326964911889653762
This is the website of the company who supplied the pod – https://www.4urprotection.com – https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/NI672021-4-ur-protection-ltd – setup just a couple of months ago.
One of the 2 owners Michael Lamont runs Lamont Cleaning & Support Services – which looks like a standard cleaning company.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/business/casestudy/lamont-cleaning.htm
One one hand, you can’t but applaud 2 savvy businessmen seeing a gap in the market (I’m sure Alan Sugar would be proud!), but honestly doesn’t it just sum up the lunacy that is 2020, and that people actually went through the thing – not even stopping to ask what might be being sprayed at them.
Best regards
Simon
How long did it take to get the crowds into the grounds?
Isn’t covid supposed to be an airborne infection, hence the “need” for masks?
Nuts!
One of the mad behaviours that Covid seems to trigger is the compulsion to voluntarily take a PCR test.
The only possible outcomes are (a) “negative” i.e. nothing or (b) “positive” and you disrupt your life and the life of those around you who you have to “turn in” for having been near you.
You don’t get anything out of it. No extra medical care, no free medicine, nothing. At best you get nothing, at worst forced isolation and potential forced isolation for those you’ve been around.
Covid is primarily a mental disorder.
So well put
Increasing evidence of that, mass hysteria.
These volunteers are wittingly or unwittingly a huge part of the problem. Without any volunteers, it’d be much harder for the ‘power’ to compel testing at the same scale. Casedemic would fall away, and the fascistic measures would be considerably harder to ‘justify’ in the eyes of the population. The ‘power’ would then be forced to switch again; they would talk about ‘inferred cases’ or ‘calculated cases’ or some other BS to fuel the casedemic.
But you can congratulate yourself for not killing someone’s granny and helping the NHS not to be overwhelmed. Who doesn’t want to be a hero?
Apparently my little Northumberland town is to be subjected to ‘mass testing’; welcomed by our utterly useless MP, Opperman. We already have so many people testing positive in Northumberland that it will soon be a higher figure than the actual population. What is the purpose of these tests, other than to provide evidence for most house arrests? And what will happen if someone knocks on my door and I politely say, ‘No thank you’?
I kept telling people Carrie had power.. works for a Rockerfeller eco organisation..
Terrifying. A silent green marxist Davos coup.
I sometimes wonder if we’re witnessing what’s similar to the last days of Tsarist Russia:
Johnson = Nicholas II
Carrie = Alexandra Feodorovna
Cummings = Rasputin
Where is our Lenin, then?
Keir Starmer might fancy himself as one but he ain’t.
Starmer is our Kerensky. He’s fully complicit
And even wants worse – lockdown on par with France, Spain, etc#
No idea, but our Stalin is probably currently a footsoldier in the ranks of ideologically motivated thugs like BLM/XR/antifa, working his way up and waiting for the idealists to clear the way for him.
Biden to send Obama as US ambassador?
Let’s hope not. 8 months of Soviet style government and centrally planned economy society is more than enough for me. If there is 70 years of this madness ahead of us I may just decide to migrate to an isolated frozen tundra myself before they send there…
Agree but we’re already in the totalitarian stage. That’s why we need to push back before its too late.
I’ve just started reading ‘The Race To Save The Romanovs’ by Helen Rappaport; fascinating.
I’ve read that too and would recommend it.
Plus Rappaport’s Four Sisters is worth a read too.
I’ve just finished it; before that I read her ‘Caught In The Revolution’. She’s a wonderful writer and essential for all Russian history fans.
Agree. She’s also written an excellent book on Queen Victoria in the aftermath of Prince Albert’s death – Magnificent Obsession
Many thanks for the recommendation, will add it to my ‘to read’ list. I’ve recently read Stephen Kotkin’s first two volumes of his trilogy on Stalin. He certainly was a tyrant in a league of his own. Russian history is fascinating for sure.
I’ll add your Kotkin books to my ever growing Russia list. Thank you.
A black joke indeed. (See origin of name of HMS Black Joke most successful ship of West Africa Squadron)
When you get vetted for the highest security clearance they look at how you may be bribed or influenced by family. Something amiss here if the person with high clearance is being influenced.
Maybe that’s why he hasn’t married her. She doesn’t count as ‘family’.
Soylent Green marxist Davos coup.
The capitalists are all Marxists and environmentalists. I didn’t know that.
I think it should read “green”.
This the the latest from The Bernician. Sceptical sceptics make of it what you will, but time will tell.
COVID-1984 UPDATE |12-11-20COVID-1984 PCP UPDATE | Here is a useful evidence bundle relating to the case brought against Wancock. Also a few more bits of info
Following on from the 11th day of the 11th month at 11:11:11, by direct email to the address which is solely for laying papers electronically at the magistrates court in question.
When the papers are received, an automatic acknowledgement is generated and from that moment the information is considered duly laid.
Because it is an indictable offence, it will be transferred immediately to the crown court, where a judge will be instructed to issue a warrant for Wankock’s arrest, to prevent him committing any further crimes.
If they refuse to issue the warrant, they still have no choice but to issue the summons, ordering him to appear in court to plead innocent or guilty.
This has been submitted under the Peoples Union of Britain PUB
Soooooo someone called the Police in our village because they’d seen someone in the beer garden of the local pub. It’s a small village and only a few people would be stupid enough to do this.
The police turned up and asked the landlord and landlady what was going on. The pub has B and B rooms out the back and it was the guests (there for work at a local science park) who were the seen and reported.
I don’t know whats more worrying, the police state we’re entering into or the compliance of the health Stasi who don’t research a fucking thing and think they have the right to sneer down at us who actually take the time to research whats happening and subsequently think its all a load of bollocks.
https://therealnormalpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
A few people like Brendan O’Neill and David Kuerten have called out on what the former has called “selective policing” with the likes of BLM and XR getting a free pass while anti-lockdown protesters are given short shrift.
Also it makes you wonder why the police are constantly bleating about cuts and poverty when they have the resources to turn up in order to attempt to shut down a gym but are nowhere to be seen when someone is being robbed, assaulted or a victim of grooming gangs. The next time they cry poverty and cuts, they should not be believed and told in no uncertain terms that they ain’t getting more taxpayer cash.
It’s mental. You could compare lockdown sceptics to black people being stopped and searched in London. This country is getting more fucked up by the day! Might edit the next podcast offering to calm down!
Agree. The police find it easy to go after low hanging fruit and call it work but don’t seem to want to do real work which is to solve REAL crimes not pretend ones or as Lord Sumption says “ministers’ preference”
They will rue the day they alienated the Great British Public. It will come.
Not really because young black men commit a disproportionate amount of crime.
The situation is more akin to a totalitarian state where people are persecuted for not following government policy.
Try being a Catholic during the Troubles. Don’t know how many times I was stopped and questioned by police and army for just going about mu business. The UK has form but sad to see it on the mainland.
About 1% of what happened in NI has ever been reported in the main stream media on the mainland.
The people who snitch are the lowest of the low. They should read up on what happened to their counterparts in France after WW2 and Germany following reunification.
Their day of reckoning will come.
Stay strong and you’ll get through this.
I’ll buy some hairclippers and happily volunteer to get shearing!
They were hung from the lamposts in Hungary in 1956 before the Soviet tanks rolled in.
you should have rung the police after and report a suspected burglary and see how fast they respond to that