News Round-Up

• “Covid cases plunge by a quarter in a week, and deaths sink by a third” – Even Tim Spector has admitted it is “reassuring” to see infections falling, reports the Mail.
• “Omicron doctor attacks U.K. Government ‘pressure’” – The South African doctor who discovered the Omicron strain has given an interview to German newspaper Welt in which she reveals she was ‘pressured’ by the U.K. Government among others into describing the variant as more dangerous than it really is, reports the Spectator. Story also in ZeroHedge.
• “London Tube and bus passenger numbers recovering after lockdown” – The easing of working from home restrictions on January 19th is likely to have influenced the recovery, reports BBC News.
• “Freedom Convoy protests disrupt traffic at border for third day” – The Freedom Convoy protesting Covid mandates blocks the busiest border crossing to the U.S. as a GM plant in Michigan is forced to cancel a second shift due to lack of supply for production, reports the Mail.
• “Ottawa trucker: Why we’re not going anywhere” – Freddie Sayers in UnHerd speaks to Tim, an unvaccinated trucker-turned-protester, who tells him what first motivated him to join the convoy and why he still isn’t moving.
• “What the Truckers Want” – Rupa Subramanya on Common Sense has spoken to 100 of the protestors gathered in the Canadian capital and says what’s happening is far bigger than the vaccine mandates, many of whom are vaccinated – it is about opposition to life under Government control.
• “Canadian truckers are the wrong kind of protesters” – A mantra much employed by Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau is ‘diversity is our strength’ – except of course when the little people disagree, writes Dr. Campbell Campbell-Jack in TCW Defending Freedom.
• “Authoritarian Trudeau has no excuse for his irrational assault on freedom” – Like Jacinda Ardern, Canada’s ‘liberal’ leader has abandoned the fundamental tenets of democracy, writes Michael Taube in the Telegraph.
• “Canadian truckers – the movie!” – The ‘David and Goliath’ movie that fickle Hollywood will no doubt one day make – a surefire hit around 2030, writes Gail MacDonald in Think Scotland.
• “The Spirit Rises: The Photography of John Napper Inside Australia’s Protests” – See images from the Canberra Convoy in a Sense of Place.
• “Brussels joins Paris in banning Canada-style ‘freedom convoys’” – The Paris police prefecture said the convoy was an “undeclared mobilisation”, and those taking part risk a two-year prison sentence, a three-year driving ban and a €4,500 fine, reports the Mail.
• “Six ways holidays can still be ruined by Covid, even after isolation is scrapped” – Your next overseas jaunt could still be halted, should you or a close contact return a positive test, either pre-departure or in country, writes Greg Dickinson in the Telegraph.
• “Just how impartial are the SNP’s Covid experts?” – Those heading up Scotland’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as Professor Devi Sridhar, have had some well-documented trouble separating their fandom for Nicola Sturgeon from their public health role, says the Spectator.
• “U.S. plans to roll out COVID-19 shots for children under five years in February” – The U.S. Government is planning to roll out COVID-19 shots for children under the age of five as soon as February 21st, according to a document from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Reuters reports.
• “Education Secretary says masks in the classroom ‘inhibit learning’” – Nadhim Zahawi said masks made it “much harder to communicate, much more difficult for children to learn” when schools reopened at the start of January, reports the Mail.
• “Backlog of patients waiting to see a dentist stands at 40 MILLION” – There is now a backlog of 40 million appointments, but half of all practices could stop offering any NHS care from April, research from the British Dental Association has revealed, according the Mail.
• “Joe Rogan Turns Down $100 Million Offer: ‘No, Spotify Has Hung in With Me’” – The comedian and podcast host told an audience in Texas that he will not accept a $100 million offer from Rumble, as it emerged that it was his choice to remove some of his older content to avoid causing offence, reports the Mail.
• “Breaking the silence” – Read the account of Dr. Dave Cartland in Insights From Beyond the Grave – another GP who’s had enough of the silence and lies.
• “Have doctors blindly become foot soldiers of the global elite?” – Why have so many leading medical organisations been seemingly blind to the basic human indecency of forcing staff to take an experimental injection, asks Neville Hodgkinson in TCW Defending Freedom.
• “Revoking vaccination as a condition of deployment across all health and social care” – Government consultation seeking views on revoking provisions which require COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of deployment in health and social care settings.
• “Is scrapping self-isolation safe?” – The Prime Minister hasn’t yet committed to lifting all restrictions at the end of the month and is watching Denmark closely, writes Ross Clark in the Spectator.
• “Assessing accuracy of Covid death diagnosis” – HART’s take on when a Covid death isn’t a Covid death.
• “Innate Immune Suppression by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccinations: The role of G-quadruplexes, exosomes and microRNAs” – New paper from Dr. Peter McCullough and colleagues setting out evidence that vaccination, unlike natural infection, “induces a profound impairment in type I interferon signaling, which has diverse adverse consequences to human health”.
• “Durham University told its Covid policies are a ‘disgrace’ as donor suspends support” – Retired financier Mark Hillery, who has donated more than £7 million to his old college, objected to the continuation of restrictions, reports the Telegraph.
• “Revealed, the true cost of Net Zero insanity: £18,000 a year for every household” – In 2010, the World Bank concluded that simply adapting to climate change would set economies back just 0.17% of GDP, perhaps £120 billion per year in current prices – meaning the bill for decarbonising the U.K. economy is around five times the cost of the whole world simply adapting the problem away, writes Andrew Mountford in TCW Defending Freedom.
• “Let them drive Teslas!” – Once driving is made too expensive for lowly ordinary citizens, the roads will be left to the pampered enjoyers of public-sector largesse, writes Frederick Edward in Bournbrook.
• “National Grid to drain electric car batteries at times of peak demand” – Trial will see cars plugged into grid to ease burden on Britain’s creaking energy infrastructure, reports the Telegraph.
• “The BBC’s bias is making the energy crisis even worse” – The national broadcaster conveniently ignores that it is Government policy that has landed us in this mess in the first place: rushing into a Net Zero target, phasing out coal and nuclear power regardless of the dependability of wind and solar alternatives, running down the North Sea, demonising the few companies still willing to operate there, closing down gas storage facilities and effectively banning fracking, even though we have plentiful reserves in the U.K., writes Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph.
• “Sorry Justin Welby, but rewriting our history should be ‘difficult’” – That those who wish to erase our heritage cannot see why their project might be contentious is part of the problem, writes Robert Tombs in the Telegraph.
• “Looking Back on British Universities” – British universities have largely lost their way and Vice-Chancellors are more likely to refer in graduation speeches to zero carbon policies, and equality and diversity than educational excellence or contribution to society, writes Roger Watson in Country Squire.
• “Nurses ‘sacked for speaking out about transgender patients on single-sex wards’” – The House of Lords heard that medics are “inhibited” from speaking out about NHS policies for fear of being branded “bigots”, reports the Telegraph.
• “When did artists become the mob?” – “The arts industries are quickly ossifying in orthodoxy. Dissenters are punished. For me it was far-left extremism. For the podcaster Joe Rogan it is going rogue on Covid. Those who happen to agree with dissenters learn to zip it. And so develops a culture of compliance,” writes ex-Mumford & Sons guitarist Winston Marshall as he launches his new show on Spectator TV.
• “Eight weeks ago modellers were producing scenarios saying it would be a very bad winter. Actually the exact opposite happened. In reality viruses will take care of themselves” – Watch Professor Carl Heneghan talking to JHB on talkRADIO about the failure of the Government modellers and the end of the pandemic.

If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.