A Celebration of Dissent

An event organised by the online magazine TCW Defending Freedom (formerly the Conservative Woman) at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster on Thursday night was a sellout and attended by over 900 people. It probably brought together under one roof the biggest and most influential group from the U.K. Covid dissent movement. It is notable that all the U.K. mainstream media outlets were invited to attend but were conspicuous by their absence.

Originally, it was due to be hosted by Mark Dolan of GB News, but he unexpectedly had a clashing GB News event which prevented him from attending. There were moans and not a few laughs from the audience when this was announced. Already billed to speak, journalist, podcaster and leading Covid dissenter James Delingpole hosted the evening.

The evening started with the London Premiere of the film Safe and Effective: A Second Opinion (2022) produced by Oracle Films, directed by Philip Wiseman and narrated by John Bowe. The focus of the film is on people who believe they’ve been harmed by the mRNA vaccines, with some moving interviews. The film features some clips of Bill Gates, Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, which were drowned out by booing from the audience.

Following the film, two panel discussions, which were supposed to be followed by Q&A sessions, were hosted by James Delingpole, interviewing members of the panel, while injecting as much humour as possible along with his self-confessed view from “the rabbit hole”. The first panel was comprised of medics including doctors Clare Craig and Ros Jones along with Professor Angus Dalgleish, all of whom have bravely shared their concerns, to much opprobrium, about the wisdom of the Covid vaccine rollout. However, this session was stolen by the much-heralded special guest, former Pfizer Vice-President and respiratory pharmacologist Dr. Mike Yeadon. While the others modestly took to the stage and sat down, Yeadon remained in the wings and was loudly introduced, with much whooping and hollering from the audience, by Delingpole. Yeadon, dressed down in jeans, bounded on to the stage seemingly lapping up the adulation. He has the demeanour of an ageing rock star and if he had turned to a handler at the side of the stage and said “hand me my axe” I would not have been surprised.

That said, he is a very engaging and entertaining speaker. But he spoke for too long, ignored those trying to impose a time limit on him and strayed well off course on to central bank digital currencies (the evening was supposed to be about vaccine harms). Nevertheless, his explanation of how respiratory pandemics, except for the common cold, which is relatively harmless, are impossible and how asymptomatic transmission is an oxymoron were clear, if not universally accepted by those present. Yeadon’s digressions meant that there was no time for the Q&A session.

Mike Yeadon’s approach is interesting; he seems to be ‘all things to all men’ in the Covid debate. An early dissenter regarding the nature of Covid and its dangers, he thus became a darling of the lockdown sceptics. He later turned his attention to the vaccines and became a hot favourite amongst the Covid vaccine sceptics and outright anti-vaxxers. He then aligned himself with the virus sceptics (sometimes described as virus deniers) who do not believe that any viruses exist, let alone SARS-CoV-2, yet he is not a confirmed virus sceptic himself; he told the audience how he had twice had flu – an anathema to the virus sceptics. He also said he reserved the right to be wrong on occasions, which is not a notable trait of the virus sceptics. He made a perhaps telling reference to his time at Pfizer, where he said he won people round by always being well-intentioned even when he was wrong. This may not have been as reassuring as he intended. Referring to his wife, who was in the audience, he told us they had just flown in from Florida which, last time I checked, was still in the USA, where a vaccine passport is required for entry. Far be it from me to cast aspersion, I am merely curious.

The final panel, after which there was a very much attenuated Q&A session, consisted of Right Said Fred, Andrew Bridgen MP, Sir Christopher Chope MP, Revd Calvin Robinson and the cartoonist Bob Moran. Again hosted by James Delingpole, this was a very lively session with both Chope and Bridgen, the latter more vociferously, explaining how dissent over Covid within Parliament was nearly impossible. Bridgen gave a window into the minds of our politicians when he recounted his recent efforts to bring the vaccine safety data to the attention of senior colleagues; one seemed open but said that like thalidomide it would have to come out in 20 years, not now; another simply refused to accept the validity of any data showing harms at all, including coroners’ reports.

Robinson was vitriolic about how the Church of England, in which he trained for ordination, closed its doors during lockdown. Bob Moran just thought he was doing his job as a journalist-cartoonist in deflating the increasingly ridiculous Covid narrative. However, it was his outburst at a doctor which finally cost him his job at the Daily Telegraph. Right Said Fred have had it made very clear to them that a great many acts whom they used to appear alongside now refuse to work with them.

Despite Delingpole’s request for short questions and not life stories, the brief Q&A session was hijacked by several people giving their well-rehearsed views, advertising their own organisations and one woman who even led us in a rendition of the Lord’s Prayer. Since this was the Protestant and not the Roman Catholic version, I was very offended.

Also spotted in the audience were: Piers Corbyn handing out leaflets about his latest conspiracy theories; Robin Tilbrook of the Workers of England Union, a large and jovial figure; comedian and scourge of Aseem Malhotra, Abi Roberts; James Bembridge, Deputy Editor of Country Squire Magazine, conspicuous by his Panama hat; and our own Will Jones, Editor of the Daily Sceptic. Kathy Gyngell and her team at TCW Defending Freedom should be well pleased with this event.

Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry.