News Round Up
- “Thousands march in fury over lockdown and vaccine passports” – The Express reports on yesterday’s anti-lockdown protests in London
- “Dominic Cummings to blame Boris Johnson for Covid death toll” – A new theatre of combat is opening up in the war between Number 10 and Dominic Cummings, the Sunday Times reports
- “We no longer need to fear Covid” – Matt Ridley argues in the Telegraph that the hyper-cautious approach “is now impossible to justify given the success of vaccines”
- “Van Morrison claims blind obedience to Covid lockdown rules is like a ‘cult’” – Van the Man has attacked the Covid cult, the Mail on Sunday reports, and accused those objecting to his scepticism of “attacking free speech”
- “Boris’s vaccine propaganda film jumps the gun” – Number 10 released a film heralding the wonders of the vaccine on Friday, but Kate Andrews argues in the Spectator that they’d have been better releasing it after things are back to normal
- “UK Citizen’s Declaration of Freedom and Human Rights” – Authored by an independent team on behalf of UK citizens, this declaration reasserts the fundamental principles of a free society
- “Covid financial crisis leaves charities having to ration services” – Fundraisers are warning that reduced income is forcing charities to ration their services, the Telegraph reports
- “COVID-19: Taking Stock” – “The pro-lockdowners are building the narrative fortress higher and higher to protect it from the inevitable future attacks,” says Dr. Malcolm Kendrick
- “Prior infection vs vaccination” – Dr. Sebastian Rushworth looks at whether prior infection or vaccination provides a higher degree of immunity
- “When the Opposition neglects to oppose…” – “When the major parties are agreed, the dissident voices will have to be heard outside instead,” says Rolf Norfolk, writing in the Conservative Woman
- “Common features of the Covistance” – Covidian resistance around the world have five features in common, according to Paul Fritjers on the Club Troppo blog
- “Who Cares? – The COVID-19 Pandemic, Global Heating and the Future of Humanity” – Will the world respond to global warming with the vigour that it did to COVID-19? Probably not, argues Torbjörn Tännsjö in The Journal of Controversial Ideas
- “A sign of the times: Vaccines, corruption and football” – The 16th episode of the Week in Review sees the Bournbrook contributors delve into the latest on vaccines and much else
- “Why it’s time to bring back the balance” – The latest episode of the Pandemic Podcast sees Dan Astin Gregory speaks to Alan Miller from the campaign group Recovery about why it is now time for a more proportionate response to the pandemic
- “Belgium lowers minimum age limit for AstraZeneca vaccine” – The age limit for the AstraZeneca jab in Belgium is to be reduced from 55 to 41, the Brussels Times reports. There will be no minimum age limit on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine
- “Germany’s ’emergency brake’ rules take effect” – A summary of Germany’s new Covid restrictions from Deutsche Welle, which vary around the country according to the rate of infections
- “There’s a word for it when the state determines the extent of civil liberties” – And the word is not ‘democracy’, says the Cyprus Mail
- “Coercive compliance in the age of coronavirus” – “There is a moral imperative to revisit the word ‘compliance’ and the way it’s being used in the age of coronavirus,” says Mary Dawood Catlin in the Jerusalem Post
- “The dangers of COVID-19 immunity-based licenses” – Shirly Bar-Lev argues in the Jerusalem Post that “authorising workplaces to vaccinate employees against their better judgment violates employees’ autonomy over their minds and bodies”
- “The Rise of Ron DeSantis” – David Frum charts the Florida Governor’s rise to prominence in the Atlantic, noting that it has been helped in no small part by his response to COVID-19
- “Lockdown origins and harms” – “If lockdowns were such a great idea there would surely be thousands of books and tens of thousands of articles prior to 2020 in their support,” writes Sanjeev Sabhlok in a blog for the Times of India. “But there are none”
- “‘I’ve escaped!’: Aussies use Kiwi bubble as back door to defy travel ban” – The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Aussies are using the new travel corridor with New Zealand to escape to the world beyond, risking fines and even imprisonment upon their eventual return
- “Sheriff Resists Covid Crazies” – Tom Woods talks to Sheriff David Hathaway of Santa Cruz County who was elected on a landslide after he said he would not take action against somebody who wouldn’t wear a mask
- “Fascinating thing about anti-lockdown marches is the next door aesthetic” – Clive Martin was pleased to notice that Saturday’s anti-lockdown protests in London were full of ordinary people
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“Thousands march in fury over lockdown and vaccine passports”. Firstly heartfelt thanks and congratulations to LS readers who attended and made our feelings known*. One up to the Daily Express for reporting Tens (plural) of thousands attending whereas other titles stuck with 10k even those with neutral, or at least not hostile, reports including the Mail, Telegraph and Mirror. All of those titles omitted such negative words as ‘conspiracy’, ‘deniers’, ‘ant- vax’ and ‘covidiots’. A wind of change ? Sadly the Express article quickly degenerates into quoting multiple social media comments mostly along the lines of ‘Why are they protesting now since we’re not really in lockdown anymore?’. Really ? Schoolchildren still wearing masks in class, the rest of us still supposed to be wearing them everywhere indoors, near mandatory vaccines and probably vax permits; virtual ban on foreign travel, hospitality venues so over-regulated as to be not worth going to even when we’re permitted to go inside, uniform curtailment of cultural social and family events not to mention the looming threat of some version of CCP Social Credit. Plenty left to protest against. *I will be attending any future rallies that I hear of in my small provincial city… Read more »
I hope all those people can vote for Laurence Fox!
Unfortunately there are too many players that will split the anti lockdown vote not least good old Pieres Corbyn.
I walked past him yesterday. He looked worryingly frail I thought.
Chim chimernee chim chimernee chim chim cheree, we are the bastards who want liberty
I say, sport, this totalitarianism jolly well sucks
My sentiments exactly – I struggle to see why the march of this size has not made either the BBC or ITN – until I read this Express piece I thought that it must not have happened – such is the censorship we are living with. If this had been XR or BLM a full 8 minute segment minimum at the top of the bulletin would have been allocated to it. And then I got to the comments and I am afraid it shows us the magnitude of what we are up against. Apologies if this is rude but the vaccinated sheep seem to be incapable of seeing what is beyond the end of their noses nor can they see what is staring them in the face – the surveillance state via the vaccine passports, the totalitarian state in all its forms, permanently under emergency legislation, censorship, absence of functioning democracy and freedoms being eroded one by one by one until there are none left. They don’t seem to realise that “lockdown” might be partially lifted now, the sun is shining, they can sit in a beer garden and have a pint, but for how long? when will the next… Read more »
Not rude at all Milo, the comments quoted in the Express article simply reflect the fact that they no longer employ proper journalists.
They could have written that piece simply by looking at any other news source and then sinking into the Twitter sewer.
I think it important that that what little journalist input their was is neutral at worse, certainly not anti-sceptic.
(‘Antisceptic’, there must be a good joke there somewhere!).
Big reps on the London march from Oz! Well done!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-5F2twDSgk
Fantastic, best footage to date.
Best quote. from Sky Oz.
“Boris Johnson is a joke, he’s not a Conservative”
“Boris’s vaccine propaganda film jumps the gun”
Flipping through it bozo does not seem to appear, just the three unwise men. Van Tams crocodile tears are not as good as hancocks.
It’s on the 10 Downing St. YouTube account, comments turned off, viewers voted 3/2 against.
Shout out for Annie in ‘Common features of the Covistance’.
I recognize all of the five common features that the author identifies in lockdown Sceptics all around the world here at LS.
1. Incredulity at the gullibility of family, friends and colleagues falling for the coronabollocks. Case after case has been posted here st LS.
2. Disbelief in what ridiculous nonsense the press is giving out to the point of abandoning it altogether.
Although sometimes it is quite funny.
3. Dogged resistance not to be sucked into the madness around them.
(Take a bow Annie).
4. Abandonment of tribalism; in our case ignoring left/right, Brexit/Remain, Union or breakup, regionalism, religious divides, education/class differences in the face of a common enemy.
5. The search for the culprits which in the case of the UK is easy.
It isn’t me, it’s all of us.
The only thing I claim credit for is freeing parts of my local environment from Covvigarbage notices.
It’s your poem quoted Annie, credit where credit is due.
Ah well…
‘Coercive compliance in the age of Coronovirus’.
The Jerusalem Post discusses Bidermans Chart of Coercion and how it underlies much of lockdown.
It’s a 1950’s CIA (?) analysis of North Korea Brainwashing techniques as used on captured US service personnel.
First posted here @LS last summer as masks were introduced for no good reason
My apologies but I cannot recall the name of the poster.
And alongside it how it applies in the age of lockdown; since then very many of the techniques came to be used after these were first posted.
Erm, enforced mask wearing when having sex – how do they plan to police that one wonders!!
I believe that referred to
A. Safe gay sex practises as recommended by Stonewall.
B. Overcoming Social Distancing rules when using a prostitute on the grounds that she/(he ?) was an ‘essential worker’.
Socially distanced blow jobs while wearing face nappies would be quite an achievement.
we are in the “Occasional Indulgences ” phase at the moment
Indeed, just like ‘lockdown lite’ last summer and 24 hour Xmas leave for which we got blamed for lockdown 3.
‘Lockdown Origins and Harms’
Sanjeev Sabhlok of The Times of India also briefly looks at historic examples of lockdown and concludes that they failed.
He does not include the 430 BC Plague of Athens which killed 25% or more of the population, a much greater mortality than in the surrounding region.
It’s a bit of an unfair example really since Athens was not so much Locked Down as Locked In by virtue of being besieged by the Spartans.
The Spartans won.
On a lighter note, a brief exchange on the Daily Mail comments section.
Brilliant to see the numbers in London yesterday. Congratulations to all who made it there.
Now, the big question is how to best mobilise those million people and the millions of others who could not make it.
There must be vehicles available to pick up on and increase the momentum.
Really important right now with the growing threat of vaccine passports to be challenged.
The mainstream media, having largely ignored the protest, are now likely to be abuzz with the Dominic Cummings revelation. This might just unseat the government, but beware as one of his messages is that lockdowns should have been earlier and tighter.
Delirium Tremens.
8 police injured as they ‘worked to disperse crowds in Hyde Park’
Wonder what that means. I can’t see the people described at the bottom of todays roundup suddenly turning violent.
Well – I did see police with batons (and using them!) and riot helmets, whereas all the protestors I’ve seen were just looking perfectly normal (no weapons etc of any description). Add that it was rather expected the police would start “having a go” come evening (ie as the crowds thinned).
Dr Malcom Kendrick is always 100 % spot on in everything I’ve read from him and this is not an exception.An absoulte worth reading.The politicians will not admit LD fails until they find the next culprits, bad advisors. This might come sooner than later and Fauci seems to be in trouble,they might ditch him for the Chinese reason but if he goes there will be a chain reaction.
someone in the MalcomK comments says :
“The Bozo, Cumming spat is an entirely manufactured thing to distract from the continuing lies, corruption and incompetence. Don’t fall for it, keep your eyes on the target.”
Highly likely.
Malcom’s article is, as always, excellent. However, it doesn’t address the elephant in the room – why are we moving from “itching to press the red button on a deadly virus” to the end of democracy and permanent world totalitarianism in less than 12 months which is what is coming, according to Naomi Wolff, if the vaccine passport scheme is introduced.
Absolutely, just as Cummingsate 1. (Barnard Castle edition) was a distraction to save the press from having to notice the then plummeting number of Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths.
By the time they got over over it last years ‘first wave’ was gone.
The MSM seem to think masks are to be worn outside too. My partner and I are going on the next march.
Indeed the ‘many not wearing masks’ comments are commonplace. Just plain bad journalism.
Something which I found particularly distasteful was the condemning of those who wore yellow stars as ‘holocaust deniers’. Questionable taste most definitely but deniers’?
The State Broadcaster has finally acknowledged yesterday’s protest, but of course for all the wrong reasons. Apart from focussing on the injuries to police (unforgivable but no background information), they wheel out another SPI-B Muppet.
Professor Stephen Reicher, from the University of St Andrews, said anti-lockdown protesters who touch, shout and shun masks are “at the very least a potential risk” to the spread of coronavirus, adding there is some evidence of mass events having an impact.
‘Shun Masks’, outdoors? Another Zero Covid mask everywhere fanatic.