Atticus Fox

19 Things You Should Know About Covid19 (That Your Government is Keeping From You)

I thought now would be a good time to summarise what we have learnt since those frightening days from early 2020 when we were told that 1 in 100 of us were going to die:

1. The Government official death figure is highly inflated

This is because the Government is including in the figures anyone who died ‘with’ Covid19, not ‘from’ Covid19. This means that anyone who died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid19 is counted as a Covid19 death. So, if you have terminal cancer and you are in the final stages and your immune system is on life support and you test positive for Covid19 and you die then it is chalked up to Covid19. Insane. There is no UK precedent for counting viral deaths in this way. Plus, in the early days of the spread, anyone dying with Covid19 symptoms was also labelled as Covid19 death, irrespective of no Covid19 test having taken place. There are also a number of publicised cases whereby Covid19 was added to death certificate by the Doctor even without the presence of a positive test result. I have heard estimates that the number of genuine deaths ‘from’ Covid19 is about 20,000 (compared to official figure of approx. 128,000 as at mid-May). Dr Clare Craig is starting a project to investigate every Covid19 death in the UK. She intends to discover the number of deaths directly attributable to Covid19. It will be interesting to study Dr Craig’s findings.

Every Official UK Covid Death to be Investigated: Dr Clare Craig Launches The Covid Deaths Audit – Covid19 Assembly

2. The Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) for Covid19 is similar to that of the flu

The IFR for flu is approximately 0.1%. Dr John Ioannides of Stanford University conducted a study of Covid19 IFR across 51 locations in July 2020 and deduced that the IFR for Covid19 was 0.23%. Refer to first link below. However, he also pointed out that: “If one could sample equally from all locations globally, the median infection fatality rate might even be substantially lower than the 0.23% observed in my analysis.”. However, the figures are not directly comparable because flu deaths are not inflated in the same way as Covid19 deaths. Also, there are flu vaccines around which mean that many of the most vulnerable, particularly in Western countries, are protected each year (which made these same people more susceptible to Covid19).

Dr Ioannides performed a further study in March 2021 – refer to second link below – in which he deduced that the IFR was now 0.15%. As such, Covid19 is roughly equivalent to flu on terms of fatalities so can we stop over-reacting now?

WHO | Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data

Reconciling estimates of global spread and infection fatality rates of COVID‐19: An overview of systematic evaluations – Ioannidis – 2021 – European Journal of Clinical Investigation – Wiley Online Library

3. More people will die from preventable, non-Covid deaths than will die from Covid19

The benchmark for this observation is the genuine number of deaths attributable to Covid19, not the inflated Government figure. Already we have witnessed ‘excess deaths’ in the home in 2020. These were deaths resulting from people who were having medical issues such as heart attacks or strokes who ignored the early signs because they didn’t want to burden the NHS (because Government propaganda tells us we must Protect The NHS). Some of these excess deaths could also have been suicides caused by the anti-social effects of lockdown.

The scandal of excess deaths at home | The Spectator

These will not be the only deaths directly attributable to lockdowns: over 4 million cancer screenings were cancelled in 2020. This will result in a number of cancers not being found until it is too late.

‘Tumour size of a tennis ball’: Warning over cancelled cancer screenings during coronavirus lockdown | London | ITV News

And, of course there will be more suicides from the mental health havoc that has been unleashed on the country. Overall, the costs of lockdown will prove to be much greater than the benefits.

What is the Cost of the Lockdowns? – Lockdown Sceptics

It is likely that ‘Addition’ refers to ‘Addiction’

4 . Lockdowns don’t work

Lockdowns were implemented in the UK because the Government panicked: cases were rising fast, the media were on their case and so they decided they had to do something. Plus, it feels, intuitively, that lockdowns ‘should’ work so the public lapped it up (and have done ever since). Yet, there are over 30 peer-reviewed, published papers – see link below – that conclude that lockdowns are ineffective. Lockdowns can slow the spread if you lockdown early but the lockdown would have to be much more severe than it was (with a much greater cost to the economy). Importantly, travel into the country would also need to be halted early on. However, by the time the UK implemented lockdown, it was already too late: the virus was close to being endemic. The epidemiological curve did not change shape in any country that implemented lockdown: if the death rate was increasing, it continued to increase and if it was falling, it continued to fall. It would not be possible to look at the epidemiological curves for any country that implemented lockdown and correctly determine at what point on the curve the lockdown was implemented.

Published Papers and Data on Lockdown Weak Efficacy – and Lockdown Huge Harms — The Fat Emperor

5. Masks don’t work

As for lockdowns, masks don’t work and everyone knows they don’t work.. Health organisations used to know the truth about masks:

Masks are purely Political Theatre, introduced to make the Government look good. Masks are usefula to the authorities by serving as a visual reminder to everyone that we are in the midsts of a ‘dangerous pandemic’. They make no difference to the spread of infection.

Are Face Masks Effective? The Evidence. – Swiss Policy Research (swprs.org)

Do these curves look like the masks made any difference at all to infection numbers?

6. Antibodies are a rubbish method of determining immunity. Most healthy people use T-cells for immunity

This is information I learned from Dr. Mike Yeadon. I’m sure you’ve come across Mike: he’s been all over the alternative news media pointing out the many ways that Government actions have failed to ‘follow the science’. Dr Yeadon spoke up again when the UK government published, in late 2020, results of their studies into the percentage of the UK population that were now protected from Covid19. Dr Mike pointed out that the Govt were basing their analysis purely on the numbers of people with antibodies and ignoring the T-cell aspect of immunity.

Here are Dr Yeadon’s opinion on the matter:

Viruses are really tiny, and their business is to get as quickly as they can inside your cells. So, they bind to a receptor on the surface and inject themselves into your cell. So, they’re inside. Antibodies are big molecules and they’re generally outside your cells.

So just think about that for a moment. Antibodies and viruses are in separate compartments. The virus is inside the cell, the antibodies outside the cell. I’m not saying antibodies have no role, but they’re really not very important. This has been proven. There are some people in whom a natural experiment has occurred.

They have a defect and they actually don’t make antibodies, but they’re able to fight off COVID-19, the virus SARS-CoV-2, quite well. The way they do that is, they have T-cell immunity, cellular immunity. [T-cells] are cells that are trained to detect virus-infected cells and to kill those cells. That’s how you defend yourself against a virus.

So, all of these mentions of antibody levels, it’s just bunk. It is not a good measure of whether or not you’re immune. It does give evidence that you’ve been infected, but their persistence is not important as to whether you’ve got immunity …

We’ve known this for decades. We’ve known about T-cells for decades. They were clearly in my undergraduate textbooks. And we’ve known about their importance in defending you against respiratory viruses since probably the 1970s, certainly the 1980s. So, don’t believe anything where people suggest to you that their role is uncertain. We’ve known for a very long time that they are absolutely central.”
Dr Michael Yeadon

http://totalhealthmatters.co.uk/a-massive-fraud-has-been-perpetrated-by-dr-michael-yeadon-phd/

I have greatly appreciated Dr. Yeadon’s contributions throughout this disaster. He has brought home to me, time and again that the Government is not giving us all of the information. Every time, there is a new aspect to the Covid19 story, the Government present it in the worst possible light every time. It’s almost like they are deliberately trying to keep us fearful, for some reason.

7. The average age of covid deaths is the same as life expectancy

This should tell you something. It tells me that these are people at the end of their life expectancy. They have weak immune systems. If it wasn’t Covid19 that finished them off, it would have been something else. We, as a country, have not lost a lot of Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) to Covid19. However, we will lose a much greater number of QALY as a result of the avoidable devastation forced upon younger people as a result of lockdowns (refer to point 3, above).

8. Soft number of flu deaths in 2019 have led to more ‘dry tinder’ that were susceptible to Covid19 this year

‘Dry Tinder’ is an unfortunate term but it’s not my term. It is a term I came across to describe those people that were ripe for death ‘from’ Covid19. Pre-Covid19, if there were one or two ‘soft’ flu years, Medical Professionals would recognise that a reckoning was in the pipeline: a ‘hard’ flu year would be imminent that would take those people that ‘escaped’ previously. ‘Dry tinder’ is the term used to describe those people that will most readily be consumed by a severe flu. 2018 and 2019 were soft flu years. It’s like the film ‘Final Destination’: you cannot cheat death, it will find you eventually (and so will respiratory viruses).

9. The epidemic was over by end of May 2020

We then entered the ‘endemic’ phase which means that the virus had spread throughout the population. Like flu, the Covid19 virus is with us now. It’s not going away.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the following animals can be infected with the virus: cats, dogs, voles, ferrets, fruit bats, hamsters, mink, pigs, rabbits, raccoon dogs, tree shrews and white-tailed deer.

A disease that affects both humans and animals can never be eradicated.

People who think that Covid19 can be controlled are arrogant fools. People advocating for ‘zero covid’ are clowns. These people know nothing about respiratory viruses. Or, maybe they are pretending not to know?

By the way, you may be interested to know that on 19th March 2020, the UK Government downgraded Covid19 from its classification of ‘High Consequence Infectious Disease’ (HCID) because of Covids ‘low overall mortality rates’. 3 days later, the same Government announced the country was being placed into lockdown. Ever feel you’ve been played?

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid#status-of-covid-19

10. Covid19 is seasonal like all respiratory diseases

As such, it will be more prevalent during Winter and fade away during Spring. Yet that didn’t stop SAGE from predicting, in early 2021, that a third wave of Covid19 deaths would likely hit during Summer 2021 – ie. once the UK emerged from current restrictions – that would rival the hospitalisations witnessed during the peak of the second wave in January 2021.

With Its Latest Model of Doom, Predicting 10,000 Hospital Admissions a Day in Mid-July, SAGE’s Connection to Reality Has Finally Snapped – Lockdown Sceptics

It’s this sort of blatant scaremongering that has made me mistrust everything we are being told about Covid19 from official sources. If you are going to lie, your lie needs to lay on a foundation of credibility. SAGE’s ‘prediction’ fooled no one and they quickly performed a U-turn:

Coronavirus UK: SAGE advisers downgrade warnings on third wave Covid death toll | Daily Mail Online

11. PCR tests return lots of false positives

This is due to the sensitivity of the tests and their inability to differentiate between active and inactive viruses.

The PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) test was invented by Kary Mullis in 1993. Mullis died in August 2019.

PCR was designed to detect genetic mutations in order to identify genetic diseases such as sickle cell anaemia. It was never designed to diagnose infectious diseases.

The PCR test for Covid19 was created by Christian Drosten. The test was first shipped on Jan 10th, 2020 before the viral genome sequence for Covid19 was known. Drosten then managed to get the WHO to endorse the test and the rest is history.

Read the investigation by Sonia Elijah – link below – into the Drosten PCR test. It’s unbelievable how this test that has no credibility became the international gold standard for tracking Covid19:

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-many-scandals-of-the-pcr-test-part-1/

Kary Mullis is rumoured to have said that PCR was not suitable for mass testing. However, this is disputed. Nevertheless, I found this article that explains why PCR method is unsuitable for mass testing (spoiler alert: it’s because samples are easily contaminated):

PCR test for coronavirus not suitable for mass use – genuineprospect

The other issue with PCR is that the number of cycles used for analysing the results are critical. Cycles refer to the orders of amplification that the test sample is subjected to in order to detect the viral RNA. Each additional ‘cycle’ is an additional order of amplification. The expert opinion is that any number of cycles above the low 30s delivers useless results (even if contamination can be prevented). I have not been able to find out how many cycles the UK is using but it is rumoured to be 45 which would be ridiculous, if true. Last year I saw a Freedom of Information (FOI) request – shared on social media – directed to the UK government that asked for transparency on the number of cycles being run. I have attached a link to the response below (spoiler alert: they don’t know!)

Freedom of Information request on PCR test for detecting Covid-19 (FOI 20-573) – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

12. SAGE is not fit for purpose

Throughout the Covid19 crisis, the Government has repeatedly told the public that they were ‘following the science’. The scientific advice was provided by SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies). Yet, at the start, membership of SAGE was top secret. The Government was in thrall to a group of people and we had no idea who they were. By the end of April 2020, the Government was forced to reveal the SAGE membership and we immediately discovered that the group billed as ‘the very best of the best’ for handling the response to the virus did not contain any epidemiologists or molecular virologists or immunologists or intensive care experts. SAGE was chiefly comprised of civil servants, computer modellers, academics and behavioural scientists. The group that recommended lockdowns to the Government were not qualified to provide that advice.

The government’s secret science group has a shocking lack of expertise | Anthony Costello | The Guardian

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/sages-covert-coup/

13. Every prediction of fatalities made by SAGE have been way off

Not much to add to this. We all know that Neil Ferguson from Imperial College (and also a member of SAGE until he had to resign for breaking lockdown rules) had a computer model that predicted 500,000 UK deaths if the Government did nothing. So the Government did something that was useless and we’ve had nowhere near the number of deaths or hospitalisations that have been predicted by SAGE at any point of the process. SAGE would point to the low numbers as evidence that their good advice has saved thousands of lives. I would say that, as per lockdown studies, some deaths may have been delayed but no lives were saved. I would also point out that SAGE have been delivering Project Fear for over a year now without providing any of the context provided by viral experts like Dr. Mike Yeadon, Dr. John Ioannides, Dr.John Lee, Dr. Dolores Cahill, Sunetra Gupta, Martin Kulldorff, Nick Hudson and many, many others that we have turned to in order to learn the truth. If you are interested, you may like to read this devastating critique of Neil Ferguson’s computer model:

Code Review of Ferguson’s Model – Lockdown Sceptics

14. Vaccines typically take 10 years to come to market

But this one took just 10 months. In fact, you wait 40 years for a coronavirus vaccine and 6 come along at once (if we include the Russian and Chinese Covid ‘vaccines’). These vaccines have been licensed for ’emergency use only’ because their clinical trials have not yet completed and will not complete for at least another 2 years. We are the test subjects (and we are not even being paid for it!)

We have already seen from the UK Government’s ‘Yellow Card’ card scheme that there are already high numbers of immediate adverse reactions. (More than expected? Only the vaccine companies will be able to answer that and they are keeping very quiet). It will amaze me if there are not found to long-term unintended health consequences from the vaccine. Time will tell. Taking a vaccine always comes with a cost to your immune system. Here is an explanation of that cost written by Dr David Carmen of PANDA (Pandemics Data and Analytics):

‘The Covid vaccine comes at a cost to our immune systems. Is it worth it?
When we are born, our T-cells are ‘naïve’ and capable of reacting to a wide range of non-self signals. Throughout life, we are exposed to various infections and those T-cells that recognise the infection are amplified, and some of those T-cells become memory T-cells. We are also developing cancer every day, and our T-cells are dealing with it.
We have a finite number of T-cells in our body. Over time, our naive T-cells are replaced by T-cells with memory of infections and cancers that we have experienced. This leaves us with less and less ability to respond to new infections and cancers. This is the reason why old people die of Covid, pneumonias and cancers. Their cause of death is actually immune system failure.
So what happens when we inject a massive signal of non-self, packaged to elicit an immune response large enough to generate antibodies, into our arms in the form of a vaccination? Naive T-cells that recognise it will react and multiply, and then some of them will remain as memory T-cells. This means that our naive T-cell population became a little smaller, and we got a little closer to death.
So there must be good reasons to give vaccines, and there are two very good reasons to give them.
Firstly, we have eradicated smallpox and polio, and are on our way to eradicating measles. Eradication of a human disease is wonderful, and we have vaccination programmes to thank, but this is not going to happen with Covid. Covid is here to stay forever, vaccine or not, because it also infects animals. If an infectious agent can infect animals, it can never be eradicated by vaccine.
Secondly, we save lives with vaccines against debilitating diseases like diptheria, pertussis and tetanus. These cause severe disease in whoever gets them. Any negative effect on the immune system is far less severe than the disease itself. So what about Covid?
The majority of people who are infected don’t experience any symptoms and the vast majority experience less than a bout of flu. We know exactly who has a high probability of getting very sick and dying, and we know that children have next to a zero percent chance of getting very sick and dying. The infection fatality rate for age 0-19 is just 0.0003% and age 20-29 is just 0.0016%, and that is the majority of the world’s population right there. For the old and infirm, the risks from Covid are much higher and vaccine risk equation shifts.
Remember, we cannot eradicate Covid because it infects animals – we are vaccinating purely for the sake of the patient. We know that every vaccine recipient pays a small price in the form of naive T-cells. Who should get the vaccine, and who should get the Covid cold?
If you have followed the basic science and logic above, you should know.’

So, only those that are confident the upsides of the vaccine will outweigh the (unknown) downsides should be taking the vaccine. There is no need for the entire population to take the vaccine, despite the Government’s intentions.

15. There is no evidence of asymptomatic transmission

Fauci himself has previously dismissed the concept of asymptomatic transmission:

“asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks” and that “an epidemic is not driven by asymptomatic carriers.”

Yet Government Covid19 propaganda that, like all good propaganda, is run as never ending cycles on all forms of communication insists that asymptomatic transmission is a key spreader of the virus. This conclusion seems to be based on the number of asymptomatic people who are testing positive with the dodgy PCR test. Rather than recognising that the PCR test may be delivering high numbers of false positives, the Government has found another interpretation: tens of thousands of people who only took the test because they were made to – and consequently failed it – must be spreading the virus. There is no evidence for this. In the link to point 6, above, Dr Yeadon says the following about asymptomatic transmission:

‘Asymptomatic spread is a fallacy capitalized upon to spread fear and induce compliance. Only people who have discernible symptoms of a respiratory infection pose any health risk to others, because to be an efficient source of infection, you need a high viral load. If you have a high viral load, your immune system will fight back, which always induces symptoms.’

Also, this:

https://21stcenturywire.com/2021/05/24/the-myth-of-the-asymptomatic-spreaders-dealt-another-blow-this-week/

16. Brief, casual encounters do not transmit Covid19

The CDC in US (Centers for Disease Control) state that 15 minutes of close contact are required to transmit Covid19. Which means that walking past someone in the supermarket is not going to lead to infection. Which means that social distancing is a waste of time for transitory encounters.

Here’s what the new CDC guidance on 15 minutes of COVID-19 exposure means for you | PBS NewsHour

17. The Government have not promoted non-vaccine Preventatives and/or treatments for Covid19

The reason for the seasonality of respiratory viruses – refer to point 10 – is that our immune system is at its weakest during the Winter. Vitamin D helps boost our immune systems. How do we receive most vitamin D? From the Sun, i.e. in the summer. As such, we should all be taking vitamin D during the Winter and any time there is a major outbreak of a respiratory virus.

Dark skinned people living at Northern latitudes have difficulties synthesising sufficient vitamin D from the reduced amount of available sunshine, hence the high numbers of BAME people adversely affected by Covid19 in Western countries. Recognising this fact, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) sent a letter to its members in April 2020 advising them to take supplements of Vitamin D to help protect them against Covid19. I have attached a link to this letter below. I am not aware of any similar messages from the UK Government to the UK population. Why ever not? Here was a Government that was so concerned about hospital admissions running out of control that they placed the country into lockdown but they did not think to advise us of simple, cheap steps we could take at home to protect ourselves. Is this incompetence?

Vitamin D recommendations for BME staff (harmonynews.uk)

Here is a link to study showing the different Covid19 outcomes between those people who are vitamin D deficient compared to those that aren’t:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/1-in-4-hospitalized-covid-patients-who-lack-vitamin-d-die-israeli-study/

Zinc is also known to aid our immune systems yet has also received no promotion from the Government.

There are also a number of possible treatments that can be provided to patients who have contracted Covid19 to alleviate their symptoms: Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are two that have received the most attention on alternative news media.

However, there are others: Remdesivir; Lopinavir/retonivir (also marketed as Kaletra); Interferons; Naproxen (marketed as Aleve); and Convalescent blood plasma. I do not know to what extent these treatments have been used on Covid19 patients. However, I know that these treatments have been consistently downplayed by the Government and the Media. All the hype has been about the vaccines. Vaccines are the only game in town.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/i-dont-know-bigger-story-world-right-now-ivermectin-nytimes-best-selling-author

https://takshakpost.com/2021/05/28/indian-bar-association-serves-legal-notice-upon-dr-soumya-swaminathan-the-chief-scientist-who/

18. Our governments have massively under funded the NHS for years.

The UK has the lowest number of hospital beds in Western Europe. That should be a source of deep shame to us all. This shortage was possibly responsible for the Government’s decision to impose lockdown since they knew that the NHS could be easily overrun. I sometimes wonder about all that money spent on the Nightingale hospitals that were never used. It seems that the country would not have had the staff to run the Nightingale’s even if they had been full of patients so perhaps that was all just for show.

19. Mainstream and Social Media are not questioning the official Government narrative

This is particularly true of the television media. I only became aware of the homogeneous views of the TV news media in 2016 in the run up to the Brexit referendum. Every TV channel shared the same editorial line that Brexit was bad. Once the UK voted for Brexit, the TV media put every effort into undermining the result. We are seeing exactly the same homogeneity now, except this time the TV media is entirely supportive of the Government’s position. No one is challenging the Government position. No one is raising the issues that are being raised on alternative media by credible experts in the fields.

Here is an article the describes how the investigation into the origins of Covid19 was delayed for a year because the media were happy to listen to small selection of politicised experts and smear as ‘conspiracy theorists’ any experts with a different opinion:

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/01/the-dangers-of-scientific-groupthink/

Social Media companies are censoring posts that criticise ‘official’ narratives about Covid19 (even though official narratives have changed repeatedly throughout the last 15 months). The media are not interested in scepticism because they have all bought into the lockdown propaganda. I don’t think this uniformity of opinion is healthy for the country.

Here is link from Project Veritas who have unveiled systemic efforts by Facebook to suppress Vaccine Hesitancy posts:

https://www.projectveritas.com/news/breaking-facebook-whistleblowers-expose-leaked-internal-docs-detailing-new/

Here is a link that contains just a small number of the many examples of censorship of unacceptable Covid19 opinions that have been applied by the Social Media companies:

Are Sceptical Voices Being Suppressed? – Lockdown Sceptics

When the media and the government grow too comfortable with each other, fascism is never far away.

Take Your Pick: Big Government or Society

People used to look out for their neighbours. People did favours for each other. People protected the vulnerable within their communities. Communities were small and close-knit. Then the Government introduced The Welfare State which destroyed that culture of looking out for your friends and neighbours. People now look to the Government to look after them. As a result, communities have been atomised. Who amongst you knows the names of your neighbours? All of your neighbours, not just the ones living either side of you? Why would you, you have nothing in common. Your lives are lived in parallel. Your work and social lives never intersect. You have no need of each other. If you were to need anything, chances are you would investigate if the State could provide it for you.

As more responsibilities are assumed by the State, the more that people will look to the State to help in times of need. This explains the hysterical ‘Save Me’ calls made to the government when Covid19 arrived.

The historian AJP Taylor once wrote the following:

“Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman”.

That is not the case anymore.

In olden days a man’s first line of defence was himself. The second line of defence was his community, although a man would need to be fairly desperate to turn to his community as it was a source of shame to not be able to look after yourself. The State did not figure.

Nowadays, a man’s first line of defence is himself and the State is his second line. However, this ordering is debatable. Certainly, the level at which a man decides that external help from the State is required is much, much lower than in days of yore. And why wouldn’t it be? The government is giving stuff away for free. You don’t have to be indebted to anyone if you take government money. It’s not as thought the government’s money belongs to anyone: it’s just a pool of money lying around waiting to be claimed (and if you don’t claim it, someone else will). There’s an old Eastern European saying – dating from the Communist days – that ‘if you aren’t stealing from the Government, you are stealing from your family’. There is a similar ethos creeping into Western mindsets due to the largesse of the State: Take what you can.

The other consequence of The Welfare State, as Provider is that marriage is undermined. If the State will look after you, why do you need a Husband – or a Wife? I’m not saying that unsuitable couples must be be locked together out of financial necessity but knowing the State will provide you with accommodation and spending money rather neutralises any requirement to work through things together “for better or worse”. The bonds are weaker when alternative options are so readily available.

Margaret Thatcher famously once said “There is no such thing as society” which caused a huge uproar from the sort of people that like to separate words from their context. Here is the context of Thatcher’s words:

‘I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement unless someone has first met an obligation.’

Thatcher was lamenting the negative influence the Welfare State has had on Communities. The Welfare State leads to apathy, and waste, marital breakdown and loss of freedom.

Why loss of freedom? Because the organ grinder calls the tune. If the State is paying for the services that you are using, the State can apply conditions to that usage. The State can choose to restrict those services. We saw that with Covid19: lots of routine medical treatments were cancelled because the State owns the hospitals and the State decided that Covid19 was a higher priority. And the State shut down the schools because the State owns the Schools and the State decided that children were going to spread Covid19 if they went to school.

The State introduces ever more rules and regulations that restrict our ability to act with autonomy. The State reaches into every area of our lives in a way that is best exemplified by the Covid19 situation.

Covid19 signalled just how much power the State has accumulated since 1914. In 2020 the State took on the responsibility of deciding how much risk we would accept. All personal autonomy was stripped from us. We, the people, were no longer able to study the information about Covid19 and decide for ourselves whether we wanted to shield or go to about our lives. We were not able to judge for ourselves how strong our immune systems were, nor could we decide if we were in the demographic vulnerable to Covid19. Nor could the healthy amongst us deliberately catch Covid19 in order to take the community as a whole towards herd immunity. Nor could the elderly weigh up longevity versus love and affection from their friends and families when making the decisions about what lifestyle changes they would incorporate in the face of Covid19. None of that autonomy was allowed. The State made the decision for all of us – young and old, healthy and infirm – that everyone would be subject to lockdown: a one-size-fits-all policy. The State could do that because the State owns the National Health Service which gives them the right to make decisions based on everyone’s health. Monopolies are never good things and the UK Government runs too many of them and, consequently, has the power to dictate how we live.

The State decided, on our behalf, that none of us could be exposed to Covid19. This situation is without precedent but it sets an alarming precedent: Any future public health risk will now be measured against the benchmark of the State’s handling of Covid19. Lockdowns will now become a default tool in the armoury of the State to protect us. The politicians that were lauded by the media for their handling of the early days of the Covid19 outbreak were those that went authoritarian soonest and hardest. This lesson will not have been lost on politicians. The scope of the State has just taken a big leap forward. Lockdowns, and other population control measures, will be used much more liberally going forward. A new rubicon of government intervention has been crossed, the boundaries of which will be explored by future governments.

The State introduced lockdowns to keep us away from our friends and family. In effect the State, having atomised our wider support group – our communities – now atomised our close support groups – our friends and family. Grandparents were told they couldn’t see their grandchildren (and, in case they thought about flouting the rules, a stream of fear-inducing propaganda was put into action by the Government to make the threats of the virus much more serious than they were). Support bubbles were allowed but these were highly restrictive in that you could just about leave a loaf of bread and a pint of milk on the doorstep of a vulnerable person in your support bubble, but that was about it. We certainly weren’t allowed to see aunts and uncles and cousins or siblings or nieces or nephews or friends. The choice had been removed from us by Big Government. Who do we poor atoms look to support us when we have been split asunder from our support groups? Why, the State, of course! The more the State grows, the more we need the State.

It’s classic divide and conquer: the communitarian strength of the masses is weakened if you can separate them, or, even better, if you can get them to attack each other. That’s why the recent growth in Identity Politics has been so useful for governments: If you can pit race against race, gender against gender and religion against religion, all of those groups are much easier to ignore than one unified group with common objectives.

And so the long arm of the state grows ever longer. And our personal agency grows ever less.

Is this what Democratic Socialism feels like? A pretence of being free because you can vote but, actually, the government is in full control of your life choices? The State is only ever going to continue growing. I dread to think what aspects of our lives will come under State control in the future.

Big Government is a pernicious influence. It grows on our misery and its growth makes us miserable. It seeks to replace a support network of family, friends and neighbours with anonymous civil servants. People say “We need the The Welfare State as a safety net for those that fall through the cracks”. Yes, Big Government comes carrying gifts. But not everything you like is good for you. Big Government is like white bread or sugar: it is comforting but it is not going to do you any good in the long run. We need to ween ourselves away from our addiction to Big Government.

Lefty Hypocrisy

The Left is riddled with hypocrisy. Their views are entirely subjective, based as they are on the context of the political ideologies of those involved. It is often the case that the subjective ‘truth’ that is the foundation of Leftist ideology conflicts with objective truth. When such conflicts occur, Leftist hypocrisy is readily exposed in their efforts to reconcile the two. If you consider any contemporary talking point in society, I guarantee that the Left will have inconsistent views. Let’s go through some of them..

Science:
Leftists disparage science. They say there are ‘other ways of knowing’. Yet when it came to Covid19 they insisted we follow the science.

Transgenderism:
Leftists insist that gender is a social construct. Yet when it comes to transgenderism they support the idea of binary genders where a woman has been born into a man’s body, or vice verse. In these situations Leftists demand that the binary is sacrosanct.

Defund the police:
Leftists spent the 2010s attacking Tories for austerity cuts, including the police. Yet as soon as the BLM protests happened they issued calls to ‘defund the police’

Sadiq Khan calls for more police funding and powers on community march with Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton’s family

Racism:
Self-confessed ‘anti-racists’ are always from the hard left. Yet anti-racists are very comfortable in being racist to white people. But they justify white racism with the weak argument that you cannot be racist to white people, only brown people, thereby being racist to both to both white and brown people within the space of a single sentence.

Sexual Assault:

When Hollywood women were offered the opportunity to ‘do things’ to get that million dollar role, Leftist women created the ‘MeToo’ hashtag to highlight how oppressed they are. When thousands of working class British girls were exploited by Asian grooming gangs, Leftist women did not say a word. That’s hypocrisy.

This is how we learn of relative values on the totem pole of intersectionality: women are worth more than men, unless the men are brown. And middle class women are worth more than working class girls (because middle class women are very good at painting themselves as victims).

Homophobia and misogyny:

Leftists are always on high alert for any instances of homophobia and misogyny except….it rather depends on who – or which group – is being homophobic and misogynistic. If a white man commits either of these sins, Leftists will engage hyperactive hyperdrive in an effort to destroy the man’s life. However, Islamic homophobia and misogyny are never challenged. That’s not very consistent. What’s that word for when different races receive different treatments for the same offence based on their race? 🤔🤔🤔

Big State:

The Left state that government institutions are systemically racist. But the Left also say that the State should run everything.

Free speech:

The Left say they believe in free speech…except when people disagree with them and then they say there must be limits to free speech and that certain things are hate speech and need to be outlawed. Or, that certain statements constitute ‘microaggressions’. Such confused thinking is never going to lead to consistent policy.

Fascism:

The Left say that the Right is fascist yet it is the left that are:

Pulling down statues; Re-writing history; Attacking police; Pursuing censorship of the media; Pursuing censorship of the people by the (social) media; Trying to overturn democratic mandates (ie Brexit and Trump election); Trying to get transgressors fired (Cancel Culture).

Promotion of BAME people:

Leftists say the UK is systemically racist yet when Johnson appoints the most ethnically diverse cabinet in history, the Left attack these BAME politicians for being shills and uncle toms.

Terrorism:

When a white man goes on a murder spree, the Leftist media – particularly the US media is quick to highlight his race and to exaggerate the frequency of white terrorism. They conclude that white terrorism is out of control and steps need to be taken to abolish whiteness. Whiteness is the problem and we are all equally guilty!

However….if the suspect is ethnic, the editorial line is very different! Then, the ethnicity is downplayed by the media. If the ethnicity cannot be avoided – typically because he screamed ‘alla’s snack bar’ just prior to detonating his dirty bomb then the media solemnly intones that we mustn’t paint all [insert minority group here] with the same brush just because of one bad apple. Then everyone sings ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ and we all carry on as though nothing had happened.

Look how Amy Siskind’s tone changed once she found out the Boulder shooter was non-white…

I’m a Theorist in Search of a Conspiracy

The Western response to Covid19 has been bewildering to everyone of a rational disposition: lockdowns; mask mandates; social distancing; ever-changing rules on when and where you can meet people (that sometimes depend on the time of day); creation of ‘social bubbles’; no-fly mandates; vaccination coercion; Government sponsored propaganda; Claims of protecting the vulnerable (even though the vulnerable in care homes weren’t protected) etc etc. A lot of people have observed all of this and decided that this doesn’t add up. Something’s missing.

Here is photo of a sticker put up by anti-lockdown activists

This post isn’t going to discuss the merits or inconsistencies of any of these authoritarian measures.

The intent of this post is to explore the Conspiracy Theories that have emerged to filling in that missing piece that would make sense of the over-zealous overreaction by Western Governments.

Here are some of the conspiracy theories I have heard over the last year, that seek to explain either the cause of the pandemic or the reaction to the pandemic: New World Order (aka ‘The Great Reset’); Depopulation (via the vaccine); Implant of tracking devices (via the vaccine); Corruption (ie politicians making money from PPE, vaccines etc); Satanic (Satan and His worshippers seeking an opportunity in these Godless times); Virus was made and released deliberately; the virus doesn’t exist; 5G signals are causing the symptoms we are blaming on Covid19..

These theories have emerged because people are unable to rationalise the gap between their perceived risk from Covid 19 and their Governments’ reaction to Covid 19. When faced with a Government narrative that seems inconsistent with the evidence, people look for plausible explanations to fill in the gaps. And as ‘three weeks to flatten the curve’ now, 13 months later, has no end in sight, the ‘plausible explanations’ that are spreading are not only becoming less plausible but increasing numbers of people are subscribing to them. The mistrust of government is tangible and growing.

I’m one of those people struggling to find a motive for what I am witnessing. I’ve always viewed myself as a rational being. As such, I have always steered clear of conspiracy theories. I believe that most conspiracy theories would have needed to involve so many people that the secret could not have been kept: the truth would have emerged. ‘9/11’, for example, would have needed hundreds of people to set up. It’s just not a credible theory, in my opinion. In such cases I apply the rule of ‘Occam’s Razor’: after you have ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth. I apply the same approach to the Covid19 actions: it would be impossible for hundreds of Western Politicians, all fired up from the January 2020 Davos shindig, to have deliberately set about putting in place authoritarian controls and organising an economic collapse in order to bring about ‘The Great Reset’. Politicians are neither competent enough, nor trustworthy enough to bring about such a collaborative venture. A more credible alternative theory is that most Western politicians are incompetent. This doesn’t even seem improbable. On the contrary, it seems more than probable! Furthermore, there is very little political cost to Western Governments to being over-cautious but huge downsides to being seen as overly risky.

Yet, I can fully understand why people are embracing conspiracy theories like never before. I have been forced to question my own conclusions numerous times over the last few months, each time some new, clunky, authoritarian regulation to ‘save us’ comes into force. And I will continue to keep a close eye on developments. I don’t want to take anything for granted, right now, as the stakes are too high for complacency.

It’s a strange time, unlike anything that any of us have ever experienced and we are all trying to make sense of it, as best we can. Each time the government moves the goalposts further into the distance, we find it unnerving. Each time Tony Blair or George Soros or Bill Gates pops up on our timelines telling us to get ready for ‘the new normal’, we are entitled to fondly recollect ‘the old normal’ and wonder why can’t we return to that.

The thing is, once people buy into covid19 conspiracy theories, all of a sudden the entire shopfront of historical conspiracy theories become available to them. The moon landings were faked? 9/11 was an inside job? The Royal Family had Diana bumped off? Once people become suspicious of the motives of the authorities, everything is viewed as ‘PsyOps’ (Pyschological Operations), i.e. non-military methods designed to manipulate a group of people in order to achieve a political objective. Once you have this mindset, I imagine you are never going to lose it.

So, in summary, the government is probably incompetent, although there is a slight risk that something much worse is unfolding behind the scenes: we will find out in due course. In the meantime distrust of authorities is on the rise. It will be interesting to see how that unfolds over the coming years.

Distrust is yet another consequence of the lockdowns that our governments did not consider when they started down this road. Let’s add it to the rest of the pile: unemployment; depression; suicides; fractured education; preventable deaths of healthy individuals through suspended routine medical procedures; anxiety; the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in history etc etc.

Lena Dunham: Toxic Feminist

Lena Dunham, the American actress and feminist is a classic example of the modern progressive: hypocritical; devious; manipulative; mendacious; sexist and racist.

I’m going to report on just one incident from Lena’s back-catalogue that highlights all of these traits and, thereby, exposes her as the toxic individual she truly is.

The incident in question relates to accusations of sexual assault made by an actress by the name of Aurora Perrineau against Murray Miller, a Producer and co-writer on Dunham’s show ‘Girls’ (which ran from 2012-2017).

In November 2017, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Aurora accused Murray of raping her in 2012, when she was 17 (Aurora was staying at Miller’s house with friends and awoke to find Miller having sex with her).

The #MeToo movement blew up in early October 2017, following the publicisation of allegations against Harvey Weinstein. #MeToo was accompanied by another hashtag to #BelieveAllWomen

Dunham was a forceful promoter of both hashtags:

‘Things women do lie about: what they ate for lunch. Things women don’t lie about: rape.’— 💎 Lena Dunham 💎 (@lenadunham) August 4, 2017

However, when Aurora’s accusation against Dunham’s friend and colleague surfaced, Dunham proved that she didn’t ‘believe all women’ if the alleged rapist was a friend of hers. She and ‘Girls’ colleague Jenni Kenner issued the following statement on 18th Nov, 2017:

The particular part of this craven message that requires special focus is this bit…

‘Our insider knowledge of Miller’s situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3% of assault cases that are misreported every year. We stand by Murray and this is all we’ll be saying about this issue.’

Unsurprisingly, everyone rushed to point out Dunham’s hypocrisy. Plus, it was pointed out that Dunham had a pattern of only supporting the claims of sexual assault made by white women (#BelieveAllWhiteWomen?) So, one day later, Dunham was forced to row back on her unequivocal support for Miller:

So, Dunham has thus far shown herself to be a hypocrite, a racist and devoid of any principles whatsoever. But, there was to be one final turn in this delightful saga.

In Dec 2018, Dunham admitted that she had lied when her original statement, supporting Miller, claimed she had “insider information on Miller’s situation”. This admission was made in an open letter in The Hollywood Reporter

‘I didn’t have the “insider information” I claimed but rather blind faith in a story that kept slipping and changing and revealed itself to mean nothing at all. I wanted to feel my workplace and my world were safe, untouched by the outside world‘.

But, it gets even better: Dunham managed to re-direct the blame for her treatment of Perrineau. You see, Dunham was a victim of misogynistic forces beyond her control:

‘It’s painful to realize that, while I thought I was self-aware, I had actually internalized the dominant male agenda that asks us to defend it no matter what, protect it no matter what, baby it no matter what…

And in a speech Dunham made to accompany the letter, she only went and blamed The Patriarchy for her behaviour:

Can you believe the gall of this woman? She is saying that it is men’s fault when she behaves like a lying piece of shit. This is increasingly the position adopted by radical feminists these days: women are noble and pure who never do anything wrong (but if they do, it’s men’s fault)! (Ever notice that progressives claim that gender is just a social construct, except for when they want to blame men for something, in which case they make the case that men are inherently evil? Pick the bones out of that conundrum).

So now we can conclude that Dunham is also sexist, mendacious, devious and manipulative.

Dunham truly is the product of our age: a repellent, toxic, hypocrite grifting under the guise of oppressed noble social justice warrior.

Lockdowns: Freedom or Safety, You Decide

Lockdowns have made me realise there are 2 types of people: advocates for freedom and advocates for safety.

I have been a lockdown sceptic since about May 2020. At one point last year I posted on Social Media Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote about freedom:

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”

To which a friend, who I know to be an ardent supporter of lockdowns, responded as follows:

“They who can’t give up a little temporary liberty to obtain essential safety don’t deserve safety or liberty.”

So, that was all quite funny. However, this response revealed a truth to me: some people value freedom over safety while others value safety over freedom, and neither side can quite understand the other side’s position.

Those who are more concerned with freedom will believe that the lockdowns are an over-reaction. Such people will then be drawn to evidence that supports their view: that the costs of lockdown are going to be much greater than the benefits; that the PCR tests are not fit for purpose; that the deaths have been exaggerated; that lockdowns are going to cost more lives than they save.

When lockdown sceptics talk about the ‘costs of lockdown being higher than the benefits’, lockdown zealots tend to think we are just referring to economic costs. They then attack us for only thinking about money while they lecture us from the moral high ground about the value of human life. We then have to point out that their thinking is one-dimensional if they can only equate ‘costs’ with money. There are many costs of lockdown that don’t involve money: unemployment; collapsed businesses; depression; anxiety; lost education; under-socialised children; State authoritarianism; preventable deaths caused by cancelled treatments; cancelled weddings; the inhumanity of lockdown-era funerals; people dying in hospital without the presence of their families; people not being able to visit their relatives in care homes suspended lives etc.

Also, scientific evidence that neither lockdowns nor masks have made any difference will enforce the opinion amongst advocates for Freedom that freedoms have been removed for no good reason.

We also know from history that, once freedoms are lost, it is incredibly hard to win them back. For example, the Government are going to be much more prepared to implement lockdowns in the future now that they realise how compliant we are. This has set a dangerous precedent. Freedom lovers are increasingly distrustful of the Government.

Those who are more concerned with safety are preoccupied with the Covid death rate and fear that worst case predictions of future deaths are about to come true. They are not so concerned with predictions of non-covid future deaths caused by lockdowns because they are living in the moment of current deaths. They are prepared to accept any limitations on their freedom in order to reduce current deaths. They believe that lockdowns and masks have saved lives. They are not concerned about future deaths caused by lockdowns because they believe those numbers are but a small fraction of the lives saved by lockdowns. Loss of freedom does not concern them: they are more than prepared to pay the cost. They look to the Government to protect them. They will gladly accept a vaccine that is licensed for ‘Emergency Use Only’ for which the manufacturers have immunity from liability for harmful side-effects. The Safety brigade will happily accept a vaccine passport. These are the people you see wearing masks while they drive alone in their cars. This group support every restriction introduced by the Government (many of them think the Government hasn’t gone far enough).

These two groups will never see eye to eye on lockdowns which explains why I have never been able to change the mind of a single lockdown supporter: members of each group have a fundamentally different mindset. They have a different prioritisation as to what is important, which is not answerable to reason.

“A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” ~ John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873)

Unfortunately, for me, the ‘safety at any cost’ brigade outnumber the ‘if we give away our freedoms we will have to fight to win them back’ group.

I would say that ‘safety’ is the emotional argument in that it is myopically focused on the single metric of deaths while ignoring all other considerations. ‘Freedom’ is the rational position that asks why 100% of people have had their rights and freedoms removed for a disease that kills 0.03% of people.

The Freedom argument reflects a healthy mistrust of authority. The Safety argument reflects total trust in authority. History has taught us that it is never wise to place all your trust in authorities.

The freedom vs safety theory also explains why The Left have embraced lockdowns so much: The Left are very much drawn the the care/harm moral foundation (as described fully in ‘The Righteous Mind’ by Jonathan Haidt). Also, The Left always look to the Government to look after them. Those on the Right, on the other hand, having a wider spread of moral foundations and placing greater emphasis on personal responsibility than State control, will place freedom first.

Here is a freedom vs safety meme that I like:

Corporations are Undermining Democracy

Governments working hand-in-hand with Corporations is never a good idea.

Both of these structures have a lot of power. In a well-functioning capitalist economy, each structure would be antagonistic to the other. Problems arise if the objectives of these functions start aligning with each other. Such alignment is not going to be healthy for democracy. In fact, it’s a feature of fascism:

Fascism can be defined as a capitalist economy that is subject to stringent government controls.

Which is why I have become concerned in recent years as to how much influence Corporations have over our Governments. It began to occur to me that Corporations may never have had so much influence and control of both government and cultural policy. So, the twist from ‘normal’ fascism is that rather than governments controlling business, we are seeing a model emerge whereby business is controlling governments. Either way, the co-operation between these two branches of the nation is too close to be healthy.

So what symbiosis am I referring to?

Well, I am writing this in early 2021 and we all know that Big Tech has given hints of its true power in recent weeks. Big Tech is now feeling brave enough to dispense with the pretense that it is merely a platform and not a publisher. Big Tech now revels in its preferred publisher role. These companies can promote their social justice, anti-white ideologies with gay (LGBT?) abandon which they achieve by censoring, suspending and deactivating posts, memes and people that they disagree with. Even President Trump has been silenced.

Now that Big Tech are ardent publishers, are governments going to revisit the communication laws that treated these companies as platforms only? It doesn’t look like it. In fact, Western governments are mimicking the behaviour of Big Tech by suppressing free-speech through the introduction of hate speech legislation. Here is an example of Governments and Corporations working in perfect harmony to undermine a key freedom of liberal democracies: free speech.

“True power resides with their [politicians’] donors: the bankers, the CEOs, financiers, and tech oligarchs who don’t run for office, but are content to buy off those who do. The end result is the same either way: economic globalism and financial consolidation of power in a declared meritocratic but actually semi-hereditary class.”

https://www.patrioticalternative.org.uk/a_black_pill_or_a_fork_in_the_road

The Left have always distrusted large corporations. However, more and more, people from the Right are realising that corporations are a threat to our way of life. Perversely, this is happening at just the time when most of the Left are embracing the attacks on free speech and enjoying the ‘woke’ advertising campaigns from multinational corporations.

Multinational corporations do not care about their employees. If they could replace 50% of their staff with AI tomorrow, they would do it.

Such companies benefit hugely from globalisation: they gain access to a much bigger pool of resources, either people or commodities or markets – and can leverage these to increase profits. Also, they can offset their revenues and profits in loss-making countries to minimise their tax obligations. Furthermore, they ensure that any tax they do pay is paid in tax friendly locations. These are the reasons that all large corporations were anti-Brexit. The EU was another example where corporate and political governance were perfectly aligned. In fact, the unaccountability and non-transparency of the EU provides the perfect cover for corporate lobbyists and EU politicians to work together for their mutual benefit.

I wrote the following about lobbyists in my blog piece arguing for Brexit. I wrote the following:

‘…let me describe the ‘jobs for the boys’ culture in play within the EU: senior EU politicians usually walk into heavily remunerated roles with multi-nationals as soon as they relinquish their EU roles. For example, Jonathan Hill – the UK’s former (unelected) EU commissioner – had taken on 6 lucrative roles with multi-national firms within 2 years of leaving his post: Aviva Insurance; Deloitte; Freshfields; Iberdrola; Times Newspapers and UBS. Is it probable that Mr Hill was offered at least some of these positions whilst still in his role as commissioner? It seems likely. Either way, this represents a huge conflict of interest. The role of a commissioner is to define the laws that will be voted on by the EU parliament. Who was Mr Hill representing during his time at the top of the EU power structure: multi-national firms or the citizens of Europe?‘

Further evidence of the anti-demicratic influence of lobbyists is provided in this Guardian article that describes how 30,000 lobbyists influence 75% of EU legislation:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/lobbyists-european-parliament-brussels-corporate

This is not healthy. We are seeing more and more evidence that Corporations and Governments are working closely together. In fact, Corporations are unofficially taking on roles that the Government would like to expedite but cannot be seen to do so for political reasons. An example of this is the Covid19 health identity cards that are being pushed by the media, under direction from the government. ID cards are a tricky thing for a liberal government to introduce. Tony Blair failed in his attempt to introduce them. However, many corporations – almost certainly at the behest of governments – are introducing rules whereby unvaccinated people will not be able to use their products or services, eg. airline flights, hotels etc. This is unofficial vaccine coercion that achieves government objectives.

The noose is tightening.

I predict this situation is going to get worse. We need to recognise how anti-democratic this is and fight it. This is creeping fascism. We, the people, are being ‘nudged’ by undemocratic forces.

Update 16th April 2021:

This article treads the same ground

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/04/16/woke-capitalism-is-a-menace-to-democracy/

I’m Done With The Conservatives

I’m done with the Conservatives. 10 years now. They’ve had every chance to instill proper conservative policies and they have failed every time. They talk the talk and then nothing happens. The only worthwhile thing they have done was Brexit (and that was an accident). There is nothing else I expect them to deliver because I have realised they won’t stand up for British people and British history and British culture. Nor will they confront the woke mob. Nor will they tackle TV news bias or Ofcom’s new hate speech regulations.

The police have turned into a liberal joke under the Tories. That is not going to change now that only graduates can become police officers.

The Tories have been in government for 10 years but they haven’t been in power. That honour goes to the liberal left that is dominating the culture wars. What a wasted opportunity. I won’t be voting for the Tories again. That’s my pledge. #nomoretories #mypledge

I wrote all of the above as an angry post on social media a couple of weeks ago in response to some new failure of the Tories to stand up for Conservatism (I can’t remember what it was now). I stand by it. Basically, the Tories are not challenging the woke agenda that is dominating political debate. They are the Progressive-lite party. They will take us to the same end point as Progressive maniacs, like the left wing parties of Labour and Lib Dems, but we we will arrive at the destination slightly later.

I cannot see that Conservative policies are going to help the working class people of this country.

Some examples:

Zero carbon: This policy is going to hit the working class hardest. It will cause energy costs to shoot up. Petrol cars will no longer be available from 2030. This will push up the costs of driving which will also hit the poorest. I imagine that taxes on flights will be levied. We know that the minerals required for batteries are becoming increasingly hard to find which will lead to hikes in the cost of batteries and the associated effects that will cause.

Hate speech laws: the Left are mad keen on such laws. In response the Tories repeatedly flirt with the idea despite the fact such laws trample all over the right to free speech which used to be the cornerstone of any Liberal Democracy.

Update 18 March 2021: The Tories are going to add women to the list of groups protected by hate crime laws. This means that the only group not protected by hate crime legislation will be white men.

Transgender identification:

Theresa May tried to bring in rules that transgender people could self ID as whatever gender they wanted and that is how they would be treated in law. Boris has moved away from the idea but it’s only a matter of time.

ID cards: Tony Blair tried to implement identity cards when he was PM but couldn’t carry enough support. Now, when faced with a bad flu season – i.e. Covid19 – the Tories are pressing ahead with the idea:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/papers-please-immunity-ids-are-on-the-way

Big Tech: Big Tech grows ever more censorious in its assaults on free speech. The Tories have had 11 years to kerb its excesses. They have done nothing.

Legal Immigration: Tony Blair opened the floodgates on immigration promising to “shove diversity down our throats”. Since 2010, the Tories have down nothing to stem the tide. In 2010 David Cameron promised to bring the annual immigration figure down to “tens of thousands” per year. However, in the year to March 2020 total immigration by non-UK citizens reached 633,000. Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that post-Brexit, immigrants to UK would need to earn >£30k so that only skilled workers entered the country. However, in Feb 2020 that requirement was reduced to £25,600. Is that a salary a skilled worker would receive?

Illegal Immigration: illegal crossings of the Channel, by dinghy and by vehicular stowaway, have escalated in recent years. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary as of writing, makes frequent promises to : a) put a stop to this activity and b) find a way to deport those illegals that have arrived in recent years. Patel’s sounded tough and determined, at first. However, over time as her credibility has collapased, she has responded by making her pronouncements ever tougher to the extent that, today, her threats ellicet merely an eye-roll and a shake of the head

Cancel Culture: Right wing voices are attacked for cultural transgressions and non-alignment with group think on a regular basis. They are deplatformed. They often lose their job. Example: Toby Young. The Tories never stand up for these people. Silence, in this case, equals “we’re scared”.

BBC: Boris Johnson said during the 2019 election campaign that he was looking at abolishing the BBC licence fee. This was a wonderful piece of news. Needless to say, after the election the message changed. He’s going to give the BBC another chance.

The Police: The police have become a joke over the last 10 year. They are more interested in street dancing at Pride Festivals and investigating ‘incorrect’ opinions on social media than they are in preventing or investigating genuine crime. However, the Tories have implemented a rule change that guarantees absurd behaviour from the police for decades to come: the Tories have decided that, from 2021, only graduates can become police officers. Which means that the police are going to be inundated with over-educated, metropolitan twits that love to dance at Pride festivals and chase down ‘hate crime’. The police are going to become completely disconnected from large portions of the commumities they serve. It won’t end well.

Policing Bill: Authoritarian measures to control public dissent

Online Harms Bill: Clampdowns on Freedom of Speech.

I will continue to add more examples. It won’t take long.

‘If (2018 version)’ With Thanks to Kipling

In July 2018, students at the University of Manchester painted over a mural of a poem by Rudyard Kipling, arguing that the writer “dehumanised people of colour”. Kipling’s poem was replaced by a poem by the civil rights activist Maya Angelou.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/19/manchester-university-students-paint-over-rudyard-kipling-mural

In response, I wrote my own 2018 version of ‘If’ to reflect the difficulties of being a conservative in this era. Here it is:

If you can keep your shit together when all about you
Are freaking out and blaming it on racism
If you can get through the day without being accused of a microaggression
By keeping a very low profile
If you can speak to a liberal and give that liberal freedom
Of expression despite knowing that the liberal despises everything you stand for
And doesn’t really understand the consequences of their virtue-signalling
But likes the feeling of being on the moral high-ground.

If you can live with accusations of white privilege but not make white privilege your master
If you can know that your success is down to diligence and hard work
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
Yet not try to blame the patriarchy for the disaster
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
Or watch the culture you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop to pick up the pieces in the name of ‘progress’

If you can be an advocate for equality of opportunity
And know that equality of outcome is a fool’s errand
And take responsibility for those around you
And realise that there can only be ‘society’ when everyone else does the same
If you can force yourself, through your own endeavours,
To not be a drain on society
To give more than you take
Yet accept that sometimes you will need help

If you can be true to yourself
To the values and traditions that were instilled in you
If you realise that sometimes difficult decisions need to be made
If you can make those decisions yet not shun the consequences
If you can keep your head raised high and know
That you are doing the right things for the right reasons
Everything will be ok
And this insanity will pass.

Covid19: The Perfect Storm

‘A Perfect Storm’ describes a situation whereby a number of seemingly unrelated factors came into alignment to cause an awful situation that no one could have predicted. The sinking of the Titanic is the classic example. Stock market crashes provide many other examples where many, often quite slow moving forces create an unstable environment that is poised for disaster.

It is my contention that the Covid19 policies that have been enacted in the UK are another example of A Perfect Storm whereby egos, incompetence, opportunism, corporate and media influence, globalism, censorship, virtue-signalling and unpreparedness have coalesced and led to the worst possible outcomes: lockdowns and a rushed vaccine.

The factors I believe are in play here:
1. Boris Johnson as PM: Johnson’s hero is Churchill. Churchill is credited with winning WWII. Johnson has said that Covid19 is the biggest threat faced by the UK since WWII. This has created an obvious parallel whereby Johnson could become a hero like Churchill if he could be credited with winning the war on Covid19.

2. The symbiosis between Corporations and Government: Corporate lobbying of Government is more widespread than it has ever been. Private enterprise now carries out many government functions. Corporations expect to make big profits from these arrangements. The Government sees Corporations as an extension of itself. Corporations see lockdowns and vaccines as an opportunity to make money. Governments and Corporations have different, non-aligned objectives but the Government does not appreciate this difference. Instead, the Government like to outsource to Corporations those functions that might make it unpopular. So the Government encourages Big Tech firms to censor certain ‘misinformation’ and hospitality businesses are encouraged to bring in checking of vaccination status.

3. The reduction of capacity in the NHS over recent decades: This exacerbated government fears that NHS would quickly be overwhelmed.

4. The expectations of the public: As the State becomes ever larger, people look to it to service their every need. As such, the remit of the Government expands. The public expected the Government to take measures to protect them from a viral infection. This explains why Johnson retreated from his original position to follow WHO guidelines for pandemics. The Government also thought they could benefit politically by providing a strong, pro-active response to Covid19. It also explains the Government’s u-turn on masks: the Government went from saying masks don’t work to mandating masks when they realised mandates would look good politically.

5. An aggressive, politicised media: The MSM no longer pretends it is neutral. It chooses a position and actively promotes that position. In the case of Covid19, the MSM decided early on that it wanted lockdown. A Government policy that is aligned with the wishes of the MSM (eg lockdowns and mass vaccination) will face a much easier time than a policy that is contrary to wishes of MSM (eg Brexit). This leads to an echo chamber where the Government policy is not adequately scrutinised and contrary positions are not given air-time.

6. Following the science: The government insisted throughout they were following the science. However, they were following the science they wanted to hear. There were plenty of relevant scientists that disagreed with the government’s policy from the start. But the Government aligned themselves with the pessimists in SAGE that included modellers and psychologists but no epidemiologists and no immunologists.

7. Globalisation: we live in a connected world. The news of the new coronavirus coming out of China and moving across the planet towards the UK had a huge impact on levels of fear amongst the public. Videos ‘smuggled’ out of China also added to fear. Intranational organisations such as the WHO were chief scaremongers when covid19 first emerged. This made the public much more amenable to policy of lockdowns. We now realise that the videos of people in China falling ‘dead’ as they walked along the street were fake.

8. Censorship: All media – mainstream and social – have worked hard to support and encourage Government propaganda whilst ignoring experts with contrary opinions. Censorship never works out well, however governments tend to become addicted to it.

9. Virtue-signalling: We live in an age where no one does a good deed without publicising the fact on social media. Social media also give people the perfect platform to show how righteous their political opinions are. Governments are tapping into this epidemic of morality one-upmanship to promote a vaccine that people are encouraged to take in order to protect others! No one wants people to think they are selfish so they are falling over themselves in their excitement to get to the vaccination centres so they can show everyone how caring they are.

I believe that the alignment of these 9 factors led to the non-scientific overreaction to covid19 that we have witnessed. I would say it is down to the combined influence of all 9 of these factors that has led the government to focus so myopically on this virus despite the relatively small number of deaths.
The impact of this Perfect Storm has taken the form of economic destruction and preventable non-covid deaths. Many other impacts, such as divorce and loneliness will never be quantifiable. Not to mention a vaccine that I guarantee will have unforeseen consequences.
If there are found to be harmful, long lasting side effects from the vaccine(s), this will be another impact caused by the ‘Perfect Storm’ that is whirling around us.
I hope there are no harmful effects from the vaccines but I am not confident that there won’t be.

The 9 factors above have led to a government that is desperate for a vaccine to dig them out of the hole in which they have placed themselves. The fact that the vaccine development has been rushed through in record time, despite being an entirely new type of vaccine, is another red flag that everyone is choosing to ignore. Ignoring red flags is ALWAYS a key component of a Perfect Storm. If there are no big problems with the vaccines, I would put it down to luck rather than design.

This Perfect Storm perfectly captures the idiocy of the point our civilisation has reached. A civilisation that is ready and willing to cut off one of its legs to cure a blister won’t continue much longer.