News Round-Up

• “We are now living through the dire consequences of lockdown” – The health service is on its knees and the public is owed a full explanation of who is to blame for this scandalous situation, writes Allison Pearson in the Telegraph.
• “Meet the man preparing Britain for the next pandemic (from a portacabin)” – Sir Professor Peter Horby – who in June 2021 argued for a delay to ‘Freedom Day’ – is hard at work devising a defence blueprint for the next outbreak, the Telegraph reports. Oh goody.
• “The NHS in 2022: more funding, more staff, but treating fewer patients as Covid impacts linger” – A new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies examines how NHS funding, resources and treatment volumes compare with pre-pandemic levels, and finds the service is doing less with more.
• “Chinese hospitals are ‘swamped’ with Covid patients and running out of medicines while an increasing numbers of doctors are catching virus days after brutal lockdown was finally relaxed” – Chinese hospitals are struggling to cope, according to the Mail – though we’ve heard this before.
• “Setting the Record Straight on Ivermectin” – “Ivermectin has a distinguished history, and it may have benefits comparable to those of penicillin,” write David Henderson and Charles Hooper for Brownstone. “The anti-parasitic’s discovery led to a Nobel Prize.”
• “The New York Times’ shameless Covid contortions” – Even as China relaxes its lockdown, the U.S. liberal media are still whipping up fear, says Heather Mac Donald in Spiked.
• “Jeremy Farrar Promoted to be WHO’s Chief Scientist After Acting as Lead U.K. Lockdown Advisor” – Former SAGE member and China-lockdown cheerleader Jeremy Farrar – one of Anthony Fauci’s co-conspirators in the lab leak cover-up – has been promoted to be the WHO’s top scientist, says Michael Senger.
• “The dumbest, most dishonest argument for Covid jabs yet” – Alex Berenson reports on a computer model widely reported in the media that assumes an Omicron fatality rate of 2% and 100% vaccine efficacy to reach the ludicrous conclusion the vaccines prevented 3 million American deaths.
• “Understanding the current circulation of respiratory agents” – Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan write: “As our technologies improve and the number of identified respiratory agents increase, we should be careful not to close down society, isolate children, run away from the elderly, allow crooks to run away with billions and persecute dissenters – oh and wreck the economy in the process.”
• “Suffolk man died as ‘direct result’ of Covid jab, coroner rules” – Suffolk man Jack Last, from Stowmarket, died as a “direct result” of receiving an AstraZeneca Covid vaccination, a coroner has concluded, reports East Anglian Daily Times.
• “The Devil’s Advocate: An Exploratory Analysis of 2022 Excess Mortality” – Norman Fenton and Martin Neil review the international data and conclude the vaccines appear to be playing a role in driving excess mortality.
• “The masquerade will always be with us” – El Gato Malo revisits the reasons why masks don’t stop Covid.
• “It takes 17 years for green home improvements to pay for themselves” – NatWest spent an average of £21,171 improving each of the nine properties selected, and each household will save around £1,208 a year on their energy bills, according to This is Money.
• “Renewables won’t keep us warm this winter” – The cold snap is exposing the limits of wind and solar – and the insanity of the green agenda, writes Ralph Schoellhammer in Spiked.
• “Driver blocked by Just Stop Oil threatened with fine for beeping horn at protesters” – Cancer patients travelling to hospital and NHS staff were among those stuck in mass gridlock on Wednesday as police threatened drivers rather than protestors with a fine, the Telegraph reports. Someone should ask plod why the driver’s protest is unlawful but the road-blocking protest itself is not.
• “I’d leave Just Stop Oil protesters on gantries but I’m not allowed, says Met chief” – Sir Mark Rowley blames MPs for leaving a ‘grey space’ about what is lawful and what is disruption as activists cause further disruption, the Telegraph reports.
• “HSBC to stop funding new oil and gas fields after greenwashing criticism” – Britain’s biggest lender vows to achieve Net Zero emissions in its projects by 2050, according to the Telegraph.
• “Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health than meat” – Vegan fast food is often full of salt, high in fat and has none of the nutrients that animal products can offer, reports the Mail. “This high salt and nutrient deficient diet can cause brain fog, weight gain and fatigue.”
• “‘This is my fault alone’: Twitter founder Jack Dorsey takes blame for not fending off ‘Government control’ – says he ‘gave up’ when activist investor took control of the platform in 2020 and he started to ‘plan my exit’” – In a blog post, ex-CEO took the blame for Twitter’s many failures, but also blamed activist investor Elliot Management, whose managing partner Jesse Cohn tried to oust him in 2020, the Mail reports.
• “There’s worse to come in Scotland than the Hate Crime Bill” – Jamie Gillies writes in the Spectator that the worst of Scotland’s social policy agenda may be yet to come, as the Government looks to move towards a ban on extremely vaguely defined ‘conversion practices’.
• “Meet the secretary of state for trans indoctrination” – ‘Conservative’ Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is all too happy for schools to push a woke identitarian agenda, while casually dismissing all concerns presented to her, writes James Esses in Spiked.
• “Harry and Meghan have signed up to the woke war on British institutions” – Their deeply unfair portrayal of the monarchy and our society is playing into the hands of the hard-Left, says Allister Heath in the Telegraph.
• “Negative stories ‘were not fed’ by Palace in ‘war against Meghan’” – Daily Mail Royal Editor Rebecca English says Meghan’s latest claims are flatly false: “I can honestly say that I never heard a negative word said about the couple until at least six months after their marriage – and then not from anyone inside the palace walls.”
• “She’s absolutely right! We can see that in the Harry and Meghan documentary” – Toby on GB News reacts to Joanna Lumley saying “the new fashion is to be a victim” in a recent interview.

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