Fraudsters May Have Stolen £37 Billion in Covid Money From Public Purse, According to Oxford University Analysis

Fraudsters might have stolen as much as £37 billion of Covid money from the public purse, experts say. The Mail on Sunday has more.

The staggering sum, based on an analysis by academics from the University of Oxford, is vastly higher than previous estimates, and more than double the £16 billion presented as a possibility to the Public Accounts Committee earlier this year.

In a damning review of the latest evidence from several public bodies, the report says criminal organisations – who were ‘fraud ready’ before the pandemic – took advantage of the ‘reckless’ lack of anti-fraud measures to siphon huge amounts from Government initiatives such as the Bounce Back Loan Scheme and Eat Out To Help Out.

Around 374 such schemes were introduced by various Government departments during 2020 and 2021 to support individuals and businesses hit hard by Covid measures, as well as to further research and support vaccine development.

The National Audit Office’s Covid cost tracker estimates that they have cost £370 billion to implement.

But the Oxford team’s review, which was given to the Mail on Sunday ahead of being published Saturday, concludes ‘at least ten per cent’ of the cash – equivalent to £37 billion, or one third of the total NHS annual budget – is likely to have been lost to fraud.

“When the decision to put into place severe and unprecedented restrictions was taken, governmental support for those worst affected was a sensible and humane act, regardless of the sums involved,” the review read.

“However, because of the size of the programmes and the speed with which they were put in place, anti-fraud checks should have been part of the programmes. However, in several instances, they were not.

“If we add the lack of pandemic preparation, the Government’s appetite for hasty risk-taking fed by flawed predictions of modellers and general media frenzy, together with the fragmentation of anti-fraud activities, all these factors created a greenhouse effect for criminals to fleece the public purse.”

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, last night condemned the scale of the fraud highlighted by the review.

“Abuse of the Covid schemes will appal hard-working taxpayers, who will ultimately have to foot the bill,” he said.

“Support had to be deployed quickly without reams of red tape tying things up, but the scale of the abuse will shock those who played by the rules while worrying about their jobs and families.

“Ministers should protect taxpayers with more stringent measures to fine and prosecute the fraudsters that fiddled the system.”

The detailed analysis, which focused on the largest of the government schemes, was carried out by Dr Tom Jefferson and Professor Carl Heneghan, from the CEBM.

Worth reading in full.

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John Dee
4 years ago

Added to the cost of the useless track-and-trace app, that’d be closer to £74 billion.
And to think we once threw up our hands in disbelief when May blew a mere £1 billion to buy 12 DUP votes… How times have changed.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  John Dee

Nothing useless about track and trace. It was a multi billion pound experiment in compliance. They now know who will succumb and how quickly. They’ll be targeted first with the social credit system; a kind of early adopters group if you will. Download the app and get money off vouchers for Waitrose etc

It only cost you a chunk of your pension. An absolute bargain for them.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

It’s Test and Trace (Track and Trace is the Post Office’s parcel locating system) and it’s run by Serco who have their fingers in all minds of pies with juicy Government contracts. Running prisons in the UK, for example:

https://www.serco.com/uk/sector-expertise/justice/full-prison-management

“Our public sector ethos is to pursue a compassionate, rehabilitative approach to reduce the demand on the custodial system and to successfully integrate those in our care back into the community.
From the secure and safe operation of prisons, court, and escorting services, to managing the reintegration of ex-offenders into society, we work in partnership with agencies, specialists and voluntary organisations to deliver successful and efficient ways of delivering service to the benefit of all.”

My guess is that Serco does it for the money.

czerwonadupa
czerwonadupa
4 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

The CEO of Serco is Rupert Soames fellow member along with Johnson, Cameron & Osborne of the infamous Oxford University Bullingdon Club. And we wonder why Serco receives so many government contracts.

Marcus Aurelius knew
4 years ago
Reply to  John Dee

I would rewrite the title to say “Clever People Manage To Prepare For Coming Crisis by Clawing Back Monies Robbed By Past Governments”

I would happily join them.

Call me immoral. I dare you!

tom171uk
4 years ago

You’re immoral. But I like you! 🙂

Seriously, though, you’d have to go a long way to match the government for immorality. They make the Kray twins look like social benefactors.

J4mes
4 years ago
Reply to  John Dee

Does anyone know the how much was thrown into advertising (read as propaganda)? And how much did all those billboards and signs cost the tax payer?

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  J4mes

good point!

Julian
4 years ago

Surely you should multiply that 37 by at least factor 10. Hasn’t the whole thing been something of a fraud – mainly political theatre?

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

We are the all victims of the biggest fraud in history and it is our money our lives and our children’s lives they are stealing!

rayc
rayc
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Fortunately the extent of the fraud is well documented, all you need to do is look at Pfizer/Biontech/Moderna earnings reports.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Like so much of this medical theatre of the past 2 years it’s by design, not by accident.

oblong
4 years ago

The world is your lobster

emel
emel
4 years ago

But it kept us all safe, so it was worth every penny.

rayc
rayc
4 years ago
Reply to  emel

Just think of all the criminal bosses who no longer have to worry about their pension. Truly, it was a grand social welfare project.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  rayc

A few million frozen people this winter is a small price to pay knowing some already rich people will own a slightly longer yacht to meet more “internet” “celebrities” on.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago

A perfect opportunity to remind all who will listen this happens all the time and is a normal feature of centralized government.

They have zero incentive to be efficient. It doesn’t matter if it is your local authority or the British Government at Westminster. There is no effective check on their behaviour. When we outsource so many decisions to politicians and bureaucrats we create a circus. Covid has just enabled us to focus on a single area, the pandemic response, but the underlying phenomena of corruption, ineptitude and disinterest is commonplace.

RW
RW
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

This is absolutely not a normal feature of centralized government. It’s a normal feature of a so-called democratically elected government because that’s essentially about different parties holding Tell them porkies! competitions in order to get access to taxpayer money to distribute it to their buddies. Corruption is built into the system because it ultimatively rests on majority decisions of unqualified people no one’s individually responsible for. The saving grace of this highly unfit-for-purpose method of selecting people who are supposed to govern was the claim that it would at least prevent despotic government. Since COVID, we know that this wasn’t true. Someone with the necessary PR skills can play a parliament like a musical instrument and get it to approve everything he wants to get approved. Ultimatively, parliamentary particularism, ie, the inability to ever come to a consenus on anything, will reassert itself, but since this can literally take years to happen, that’s cold comfort. That’s the real fallout from the last two years: The Western method of government isn’t qualitatively different from any other method. Even supposedly inalienable rights can be cancelled by the executive overnight, parliament will obidiently legalize this ex post factum, and the judicature will declare… Read more »

DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

As with the bureaucrat who was the ex-head of ethics for the Government being fined for breaking lockdown rules LOL. Of course, a history graduate who has spent their whole working life funded by the taxpayer is exactly the right appointment for such a superfluous role!!

Dame Lynet
Dame Lynet
4 years ago

There wasn’t a ‘lack of pandemic preparedness’, though. There was a perfectly good rational plan devised and in place which was jettisoned for reasons still not addressed by Johnson et al.

Gallingly, in the light of the above, it seems it would have been the infinitely better plan all round – maybe why it had to go.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  Dame Lynet

Doing absolutely nothing except maybe cautioning people something was doing the rounds, maybe avoid crowded areas for a while, was the right response.

We have forgotten this. There is no role for government in medical issues. They fund the NHS via taxation, but we train doctors and nurses to do the actual doctoring.

caipirinha17
caipirinha17
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

I’m not so sure about that, it seems to me that most doctoring (medical not financial) these days is done by following guidelines set by the government. Not to mention that what Med/nursing students get taught isn’t about health, only how to treat disease using big farmer approved methods.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  caipirinha17

Nonetheless your doctor or nurse has to look you in the eye. What doctor would refuse to treat symptoms if he is solely responsible for his decisions and unable to hide behind government dictats?

In the UK ivermectin and comparable treatments were banned by the state. An unconscionable act.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

A criminal act and one that led directly to the deaths of many who could have been saved and effectively forced the experimental jabs on many people who did not want them .

See Dr Tessa Laurie’s interview with Andrew Hill for the explanation of why the Ivermectin was misrepresented as dangerous and who was responsible for this, when in fact it was a life saver for meany who took it in India and elsewhere

Moist Von Lipwig
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

“Don’t just do something, stand there” would have been the right policy.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago

I bet no-one here has actually gone round to their MP’s home and dared to ring the doorbell during the past 2 years.
“They work for us!” – yeah.

RW
RW
4 years ago
Reply to  Dame Lynet

It was jettisoned because the WHO claimed the innovative Chinese method for eliminating Sars-CoV2 would produce a superior COVID public health outcome and everything else was declared to be of no concern. In an ideal world, the people who supported this declaration out be barred from holding public office and tried for their actions in office. Unfortunately, in the real world, they’ll all be back as soon as the WHO declares the next pandemic (provided it ever declares the present one over, which is not yet certain).

Smelly Melly
4 years ago

Didn’t the government (joke of) piss £37 billion up the wall for the track and trace app?

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

See my comment above. YOU paid £37bn to confirm who was compliant and a perfect target for future schemes. Quite brilliant.

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

They could have gained that knowledge for free becasuse Nordic nations have open source track and trace apps that were tried and tested and free for the UK to use. So it was in large part a £37bn rip off opportunity for the government’s chums.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

Nonetheless it wasn’t wasted. They don’t care if it is free or expensive. We are paying for it with no effective method to stop it.

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

I suspect that the wholesale looting is designed to collapse the existing financial systems whereupon governments will introduce digital central bank money as the solution.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

It is part of a larger initiative to discredit the concept of the nation state. A visibly poor response to a supposed pandemic opens the door to a “better” international response, pitched initially as helping avoid local cockups. After all, the WHO are not driven by profit etc etc.

That’s why the mania against Russia is so strong. Russia, whatever you think of the situation in Ukraine, responded as a nation state. We ourselves did the same with Brexit, which caused apoplexy in the elites. The election of Trump triggered a similar round of irrationality.

Nation states are not on their roadmap. They make it hard to create a blend of compliant serfs. We see the statues and the flags and at some level are reminded of who we are and where we come from. All anathema to those with grander plans for our future.

Centralized digital currency is about the same kind of nonstop monitoring and control they salivate over. We can stop the plebs smoking and drinking, we can guide them to enlightenment. It is all nonsense.

RW
RW
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

Russia, whatever you think of the situation in Ukraine, responded as a nation state.

Russia is a multi-ethnic empire spanning (parts of) two continents inhabitated by some 200 ethnically different peoples who all got subjugated via Russian military actions during the course of centuries. Calling that a nation state is laughable. Further, most of the European nation states are artifical contructs created by the winners of the two word wars in the 20th century by agreeing on arbitrary borders and using mass deportation of civilians in order the create the very peoples supposed to govern themselves in the first place. This is really little more than the holy roman empire recreated (as EU) in order to ensure a permanent (if possible) power vaccuum in central and eastern Europe.

Paul B
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

The App didn’t costs £37 billion, the tracers sitting at home watching TV doing 1 call a week would have been a large part of it.

NeilParkin
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

The app was a significant amount, but not in the context of £37bn, most of which was the sticks to put up your nose and all the apparatus and bureaucracy to count how many were positive (about 1 in 10, to as low as 1 in 20).

Boomer Bloke
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

I think the technical term is ‘spaff’

huxleypiggles
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

Track and Trace was used as a cover for lots of other spending particularly on road / traffic measures to ensure our travel can be regulated and monitored.

PhantomOfLiberty
PhantomOfLiberty
4 years ago

Presumably, this does not include the mysterious vaccine contracts.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago

Those politicians who approved (and those civil servants who signed off) the contracts in question should be made personally liable for taxpayer losses. It’s not hard. Moving forward that would mean all in ministerial positions should carry professional indemnity insurance, and they will not get that unless competent. It would, of course, change government appointments overnight.
Mandatory examinations, with results open to public scrutiny, should be passed by all would be ministers to confirm necessary expertise before appointment. Only then we might see a restoration of basic standards and accountability at the top.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

🤠

735d8d1978dd5d4a60f2480cb3863d59.jpg
B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

What he didn’t say was: “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who have genuine expertise and experience in the subject they are making a decision on.”

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

Your faith in expertise and a public method of accountability is touching, but unrealistic. Doctors are accountable, and they go through long training. But it is an open secret they kill many patients. Unless it becomes blatant, like Harold Shipman, it goes unnoted. Politely overlooked.

No one should be making any major decisions about your life except you. I don’t need insured public agents. I’m an adult.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

This is another argument altogether. Whether you like it or not, and you clearly don’t, we have a centralised government. So, simply on that basis, as in the private sector, competence should be prized and incompetence weeded out in all aspect of policy making and administration. The same applies at Parrish council level, perhaps moreso, and it is crucial at an individual level. As I will directly suffer from my own decision making, then I need to ensure I’m up to speed whether on house repairs, financial decisions or health matters.
However, on matters beyond my ken, I need to ensure I receive competent professional advice. And it can often take a few goes to find a reliable and competent motor mechanic, for example. No person is an island.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

You are advocating for choice in a market. I know little about plumbing but I can choose a plumber.

What we don’t need is elaborate government controlled schemes to improve things.

As for central government, absolutely. Let’s cut it down to size. Localism is preferable.

Paul B
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

Who oversees the checks and certification to ensure your plumber isn’t going to flood your house the first time you flush the loo

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

I have seen you make the fallacious local government argument on several occasions, it is a non starter for more reasons than I could fit in here. Referencing your previous comment:

No one should be making any major decisions about your life except you. I don’t need insured public agents. I’m an adult.

But public agents ARE making those decisions for you, every day, whether you like or not. You can’t ignore this fact, as all you are then doing is giving a free ride to those corrupt and incompetent public agents to carry on as usual.
The ‘because the system ain’t what I want I’m gonna look the other way’ argument is a zero sum utopian paradox, which crony politicians the world over will always encourage – especially at local government level (T Dan Smith anyone?), and maybe even give a small rake off to promote.

RW
RW
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

You are advocating for choice in a market. I know little about plumbing but I can choose a plumber.

The plumber will then probably conclude that your private issue isn’t lucrative enough to be worth his time and that he’ll rather work on something else where more money is to be made. That’s an experience I had not that long ago.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

Now clearly more dangerous than stupid – the tyrants control most of our lives and now want our bodies as well!

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  B.F.Finlayson

Where is the law to protect us from thieves in high places ? It appears it no longer functions.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

Politicians are not accountable or liable in this respect (except in extreme and difficult to prove cases) so we lurch back into Lord Acton’s dictum. Hence why I am advocating for public scrutiny, proven competence for position, and professional liability; especially in the light of the last 2 years. It might also make them think twice before signing up as the POTUS poodle on foreign adventures.

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago

You can just imagine all the Tory MPs feverishly contacting their chums and supporters and letting them know about this opportumity right from the start.

twinkytwonk
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

Handcock had no idea that the bloke who he gave that contract to was the landlord at his local. Pure coincidence🤔

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  twinkytwonk

Easy mistake to make 😉

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  twinkytwonk

Hancock was on a roll – he could do exactly as he pleased – and did!

MikeAustin
4 years ago

In Common Law terms, the whole public purse is a fraud. What sovereign human being has signed an agreement to pay any tax to the government beast that it created?

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  MikeAustin

Exactly. That needs to be hammered into everybody’s skulls from a young age.

B.F.Finlayson
4 years ago
Reply to  MikeAustin

Then what sovereign human being can expect protection from the ensuing state of true Hobbesian freedom, where (tax free) life is correspondingly ‘nasty, brutish and short’?

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago

This is just more background noise.
Come the next election the same bell ends that always vote Tory will vote Tory again and the destruction of the British people will continue.
We have a population that is incapable of rational thinking, of critical thought, these mongs are going to drag us all down with them and feel virtuous as they do so.

Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

With very few exemptions usually small businesses I think that “management” either in private or public organisations is totally useless and incompetence is endemic.
I would not trust most managements to run an hot dog stall.
But what is the answer?
After 73 years I’ve finally given up even caring.
Any suggestions?

JeremyP99
4 years ago

Cider works for me at 70 😉

twinkytwonk
4 years ago

Carry on as you are. I can’t wait until I reach your level of expectation. At the moment I know in my head they will do the wrong thing but my heart still , just about, thinks they will do what’s good for us

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

Totally agree. And the last two years has left me wondering if my fellow citizens are even sentient never mind intelligent.

I do wonder if a cleansing collapse is perhaps our only hope. Most are not going to reason their way out of the problems created by big gov, mass immigration and a debt based economy.

TheBluePill
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

Great first paragraph. It does seem a distinct possibility that the vast majority no longer think their own thoughts. They just rely on a library of other peoples’ thoughts to regurgitate at will. Maybe it was always this way, except that now we have the technological means for villainous powers to target and inject what they want into these broken brains.

NeilParkin
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

It could be said that similar ‘bell-ends’ vote for labour without a thought too.

Right now there is little to choose between a Tory government that is hijacked by socialism, and the socialists, other than the socialist appear to be even more confused and ignorant and lacking any form of plan for what they would do in power. I can’t think of a Shadow Minister who I would rather see in post as the Minister.

The alternatives on the right could not command a vote from the centre, so although it looks credible that all the Tory voters should defect to Reform and get a proper right of centre government, it is wishful thinking. They wont defect, not in large numbers, and if they did without securing power then we end up having an even worse version of what we thought we were voting against.

Its quite the dilemma, even for the mongs (as you so charmingly put).

Arum
Arum
4 years ago

A few years ago I would have been shocked and horrified by this. Now I just think, ‘Why am I so stupid? Why didn’t I get a million or two?’

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago
Reply to  Arum

Because you failed to line the pockets of a Tory MP.
If you had kept someone like Owen Paterson on side he would have made the necessary looting opportunity available to you.

Moist Von Lipwig
4 years ago

Kim Jong-Johnson pished it away, you mean, then raised taxes, the great fat communist fraud.

JayBee
4 years ago

All the money spent for the ‘vaccines’ can safely be added to that amount- big pharma fits that definition “criminal organisations – who were ‘fraud ready’ before the pandemic – took advantage of the ‘reckless’ lack of anti-fraud measures to siphon huge amounts from Government initiatives” perfectly anyway.
The billions doctors got just for administering the shots (€1000/day in Germany) can therefore also be added to that.
Most of the money spent on hospitals, ventilators, Covid bonuses can safely be added to that, as they refused to treat patients properly and focussed most on fraudulently inflating and obtaining Covid bed and ICU bonuses (USA and Germany more so than UK).
All the money spent on this objectively bogus testing, ‘moonshot et. al.’, can also safely be added to that.
As for tracing and the cost of the app, Germany did it via its existing civil service infrastructure and the app itself only cost £15 million, which was still too expensive and a waste, of course.

rayc
rayc
4 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

But 63% of polled Germans declare that they will continue wearing masks without a mandate to do so (i.e. starting from tomorrow). So it appears the entire fraud was democratically supported and desired by the dumb mass.

Unless of course, the polls are lying… Within a week or so it will be revealed how many of these “63%” keep their magic talismans on. Sheep being sheep, I predict that it will rapidly drop to “almost nobody” simply based on the few who “dare” to be “bold”.

CrouplessCoup
CrouplessCoup
4 years ago
Reply to  rayc

We need to keep vigilant. Maybe these mask wearers are taking desperate measures to try and reduce the uptake of spike protein from vaxxed shedders. Anything is possible…

twinkytwonk
4 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

Nt

CrouplessCoup
CrouplessCoup
4 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

Hehe, had to scroll down a bit to find a reference to the REAL fraud.
Bravo.

Star
4 years ago

Today’s DSMA Notice:

  • 1. Note to all editors and journalists: don’t even THINK of speculating as to who stole the £37 billion.
  • 2. Be like Toby Young, whom we thank dearly for posting the Arthur Daley photo. Of course it must have been petty crooks like Daley who were responsible. Don’t encourage readers to suspect any other explanation.

Wait…what’s this?

comment image

twinkytwonk
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

My brother in law works for Citibank. He believes that rising house prices help you get closer to getting your next bigger house on the ladder. I told him that if your 200k house goes up 10% (220) then the 300 one goes up to ( 330) meaning your 10k worse of than if they had stayed the same.

That’s Citibank risk assessment for you🤣

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  twinkytwonk

You can make a lot of money selling your house when you no longer need shelter I.e. You’re dead.

A passerby
A passerby
4 years ago

Self identifying as fraudsters, that’s funny!

Star
4 years ago

There was no lack of pandemic preparedness. See Event 201. Bit of a giveaway, that. Or reason about why every government in the world started singing to the same tune within a week or so, barring minor policy differences. E.g. there have been far more similarities than differences between say Sweden and Britain.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  Star

Well said.

Smelly Melly
4 years ago

Anybody what to buy a cheap ventilator or unused hospital/s?

Doom Slayer
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

Would they stop me snoring?

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

Meanwhile the old freeze in their homes and choose between heating and eating and kids are jabbed with a dangerous potion – isn’t Britain under Johnson just a wonderful place?

We must have caused great offence to the Gods to be punished by the presence this man – a latter day Nero- and his Cabal of fools.

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

More of a Cicero; out of his depth and no match for a Caesar.

Alter Ego
Alter Ego
4 years ago
Reply to  Vaxtastic

Beautiful!

TheBluePill
4 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

As disgusting a creature as Johnson is, we would have had something similar with any approved flavour of government. Actually, his sheer incompetence and greed has probably resulted in somewhat lesser cruelty than that inflicted on the rest of the west. Ridding ourselves of Johnson would have minimal effect.

Alter Ego
Alter Ego
4 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

We must have caused great offence to the Gods to be punished by the presence this man – a latter day Nero- and his Cabal of fools. Let’s look on the bright side and say that we (adults everywhere) are being tested, rather than punished. The key question, if people will forgive its Russian provenance, is “What is to be done?” Our vulnerable elderly and our young children (and many more beside) are being treated with contempt, at the least. People can choose not to know, and plenty of them do that. They prefer to ignore life’s tests. But we know. So we find others, share our shocked discoveries, and learn more. Now we have a choice. We can spend the rest of our lives heaping scorn upon the “lazy” and the “stupid” “sheeple”; or bewailing our fate. When Hamlet observes that “the time is out of joint”, he is horrified “That ever I was born to set it right”. I don’t think we were born to set it right – personally, I’d rather just have a bloody good time and try to be as decent to as many people as possible – but maybe that’s our job now? I… Read more »

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  Alter Ego

Well put AE. While out for my walk earlier I was musing to myself that the bulk of the jabbed population probably have no idea that the likes of us are examining and scrutinising and dissecting all of this in this minute detail, and if they did they would likely conclude that we are barking mad. To them, it is all over, they have no idea of what has been done to them and what is likely coming down the tracks. They don’t see that any of it is at all fraudulent, after all if the BBC pumps out enough propaganda and scare stories on it, and lauds the vaccine and encourages you to get it with every news bulletin then why would they? Me, on the other hand, have now had my antennae so fine tuned that every time I look at the BBC’s headlines (you have to keep up with the lying) I am saying, “yep, fraud, another fraud, bit of manipulation there, no, that’s not true, a downright lie, looks like propaganda” and so on down the list. “I’d rather just have a bloody good time and try to be as decent to as many people as… Read more »

Alter Ego
Alter Ego
4 years ago
Reply to  Milo

Thanks, Milo. What I meant was that although we weren’t born “to set it right”, it has perhaps become our job; though my personal preference (it certainly was back in 2019) was to have a good time and be a decent human being.

Feeling powerless sucks; but deciding that one is might be a dereliction of duty?

I think of those people during the Second World War who found themselves forced, more or less, to be brave and resolute – because the alternative was unbearable.

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  Alter Ego

Maybe in what feels like WWIII all we can do is do our best to “set it right” – perhaps that is our job now.

I personally feel I can do very little and as someone else said the other day, if our only contribution is to come here, educate ourselves, post stuff and in so doing educate others who also visit here then maybe that, in itself, is our contribution.

I tried today to explain to someone that this possibly is WWIII (they thought that Ukraine might be the start of WWIII and I pointed out we were already 2 years in and it began far earlier than Ukraine) but I’m not sure they got it.

Alter Ego
Alter Ego
4 years ago
Reply to  Milo

I strongly believe that everyone who comes here (barring the occasional troll) is doing what they can already – here and elsewhere.

That’s true of many people who don’t visit DS. I think they should – they’d enjoy themselves, as well as learn more!

Who knows what opportunities arise? What I don’t support is either a retreat into perpetual gloominess, or dashing into quixotic recklessness. Self-destructiveness is a waste of resources.

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  Alter Ego

“Who knows what opportunities arise? What I don’t support is either a retreat into perpetual gloominess, or dashing into quixotic recklessness. Self-destructiveness is a waste of resources.”

Excellent philosophy AE! I will try to apply same approach more IRL – plot a more middle line, although some days with the constant bombardment of the propaganda et al on so many different fronts (which is hard to stomach when you know so much of it is fraudulent) it is hard not to succumb to the gloom sometimes.

And you are totally right about DS – not a day goes by that I don’t learn something when I visit.

Boomer Bloke
4 years ago

I wonder how much the Chancellor’s wife managed to accrue?

Vaxtastic
4 years ago
Reply to  Boomer Bloke

Bagloads of rupees no doubt. When will we learn?

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  Boomer Bloke

Indeed!

“We’re all in this together eh?”

And no wonder Fishy Rishi doesn’t see the need to intervene and cushion the worst effects of the cost of living crisis.

psychedelia smith
4 years ago

Yes, it’s called the pharmaceutical industry and the number is currently approaching $500 billion.

https://dailyexpose.uk/2022/04/02/distracted-russia-moderna-created-virus-and-vaccine-before-release/

A passerby
A passerby
4 years ago

I confess that I’ve not read the document but if your understanding is correct and the document is genuine it all begins to make sense. If true, the fact that the vaccine did not work is largely academic, they still benefitted at the expense of everyone not in on the scam, courtesy of ‘hopeless worldwide government oversight’, I use those last four words in the loosest possible sense.

huxleypiggles
4 years ago
Reply to  A passerby

The “vaccines” have worked but not in the way they were sold to the public.

In terms of maiming and killing, which is the real purpose of the injections they have been a great success, as will be seen in the coming years.

Alter Ego
Alter Ego
4 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

It’s very difficult to avid coming to that conclusion – at least at higher levels of manufacture and distribution.

We don’t want to believe it, because it forces us to consider our relationship with evil.

But when Mike Yeadon insists that certain people had to know what the “vaccines” were, I find him convincing. I see an exhausted, deeply concerned and knowledgeable man, acting under genuine moral compulsion.

huxleypiggles
4 years ago

What is utterly shocking is that information disclosed by the likes of The Daily Expos confirming that C1984 was brewed in a lab, years before its “official” release, is not headline news.

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Indeed I would imagine there are concerted MSM/OFCOM efforts to make sure that speculation of that nature (as they would likely term it) gets shut down PDQ and dissed as “conspiracy theory”/misinformation

Rowan
Rowan
4 years ago

Are not the vaccine makers and their government facilitators the biggest fraudsters of all. Big Pharma is being paid hundreds of billions for products that don’t work and is in the process of killing millions?

Bobby Lobster
Bobby Lobster
4 years ago

So, on top of the rest of the wasted lockdown money, these “bribes” were sprayed around with abandon, with no checking. More proof that this lot are Socialist in nature.

Bring on the costs of Net Zero next, the plebs wont notice.

Paul B
4 years ago

My singular goal in life right now is to never pay taxes again or get as close to “Tax Zero” as I can. This government haven’t a clue, I’m actively turning down overtime and pay rises/more responsibility, crypto generation/investment, investing outside ISAs, etc. Why should I sacrifice and risk(!) my currency and life capital to give over half away to be wasted by w***ers on wasters.

MrTea
MrTea
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul B

You’ll pay whatever they tell you to pay when the new new central bank digital currency is rolled out.

Paul B
4 years ago
Reply to  MrTea

We’ll see

Arfur Mo
Arfur Mo
4 years ago

Taking inflation into account the £370 billion over 2 years is comparable to the debt incurred in fighting WW II for the same period.

BJs Brain is Missing
4 years ago

It’s not a photo of Arthur Daley that should be in the headline. I can think of at least four prominent people who should be there instead.

Milo
Milo
4 years ago

If I was Arthur Daley I’d be thinking of suing for defamation – however good he was he was no-where near the levels of fraud these people have been capable of.

Woodburner
Woodburner
4 years ago

The next time some ignorant bully, who seems to think that it’sa public-health disease-control situation, berates me about mask-wearing, social distancing and hand-sanitising, I shall remember…

Stephanos
Stephanos
4 years ago
Reply to  Woodburner

Unfortunately, millions of people will NOT remember.

Francis64
4 years ago

When you think about it this £37Billion is money lost through waste or fraud by one grossly incompetent highly centralised national government – can you imagine the astronomical amounts of money being lost through waste and fraud currently going on in the EU right now – can imagine the collosal amounts of money that would be wasted and lost through fraud should we ever come under the control of a highly centralised global government – the kind of highly centralised totalitarian regime Klaus Schwab wants to usher in along with the rest of the WEF/New World Order mob.

‘The history of government management of money has, except for a few short happy periods, been one of incessant fraud and deception.’ – Hayek

NeilParkin
4 years ago

Never mind, they will double up the investigations on small businesses who might have made small overclaims, and hurriedly put them out of business for the odd £100.

Stephanos
Stephanos
4 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

This is EXACTLY what will happen. They will ignore the clever fraudsters and prosecute to the utmost limit the little people who may have made an innocent mistake.
This is entirely typical of the bloated, incompetent and inefficient public sector. Civil servants, who are neither civil nor servile, are not interested in serving the public; they are ONLY interested in stealing as much money as possible from those who are working for a REAL living.

Draper233
4 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Absolutely.

Just like the financial fraud causing the crash in 2008 or the PPI scandal, did we see any meaningful effort to prosecute big banks or bankers?

Nope, but what we did see was a systematic dismantling of the sub-prime financial sector by the establishment with a combination of diverting blame and virtue signalling (sound familiar?), supported by useful idiots (ie. Stella Creasey), culminating in their eventual big win when Wonga went bust.

Hooray! – victory for the little man against the nasty usurers right? Err, not quite. The only reason Wonga was able to come into existence was because of the obscenely high overdraft charges being applied by the big banks. People were actually better off going to a payday lender than incurring these overdraft charges.

But the establishment had found its bogeyman, the MSM got behind the witch-hunt, and the real criminality was gently swept under the carpet.

Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  Draper233

In true “Yes, Minister” fashion.