Boris won't get away with it (Adrian Dennis-WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Just as an experiment, let’s take the Government at face value. They’re worried about the new Omicron variant, which is even more transmissible than Delta and somewhat more resistant to immunity from vaccination or previous infection. It’s already spreading rapidly in England, doubling every couple of days; the UK Health Security Agency estimates it could be the dominant variant in as little as 2-4 weeks.
A big new wave like this, if it passes through the population, will always hit a small minority of vulnerable people badly who will then need hospital care — and as we are constantly being reminded, a small percentage of a big number can still be a big number. To make matters worse, this wave looks like it might peak in the beginning of January which is the busiest week of the year in UK hospitals, and an annual pinch point at which (because of bad resourcing and planning) we have almost no spare NHS capacity. So they are worried, as ever, about terrifying footage of overflowing hospitals.
What would be the correct response to this concern?
The first thing to make clear is that if the underlying premise is correct — that Omicron spreads like wildfire and will lead to significantly more reinfections and breakthrough cases — it is going to be very hard to stop it. You’d have to go for a full-on nationwide lockdown to seriously attempt to slow it down — and even that may only delay the peak by a couple of weeks.
But there is no appetite for another full-on lockdown, especially as it would ruin Christmas again, and the Government is already unpopular. They simply don’t have the political strength to do it — and there are doubtless many people who wouldn’t obey it. Meanwhile, a small selection of minor rule-changes such as “Plan B” entails will not make much meaningful difference. Advising working from home but still going to parties, increasing the wearing of masks in shops but not in pubs and increasing use of vaccine passports for a variant that spreads easily among the vaccinated is not a serious policy response to Omicron. Might it push the peak of the wave out by a day or two? Who knows, but if we are going to be at a million cases before Christmas, it’s a meaningless difference.
So why do such a pointless thing? The answer, as always, is politics.
The first calculation is within parliament: No 10 figures they can afford to upset their own backbenchers and that Boris Johnson’s position is not genuinely vulnerable (despite media stories). In any case, Keir Starmer will blindly support any restrictions, so they will win any vote.
Within the wider electorate, they calculate that the voters who will be most upset by such a move are in the minority, and will either vote for them anyway or not vote at all. At this level, the restrictions are a minor inconvenience for most and will still command majority support.
Most important, they imagine a bad scenario in early January with hospitals really under pressure, and they don’t want to be vulnerable to the charge that they “did nothing”. It’s all too reminiscent of the charge of “too little too late” that caused them such grief last winter. This way, they can at least say that they took action.
But will they get away with it? This time, I don’t think so.
First, it will cause genuine harm to businesses, costing the economy billions and leaving a long tail of uncertainty and unease.
Second, the level of disobedience regarding the new regulations will increase, and further diminish the authority of the Government. The timing of the announcement will be deemed suspicious by a cynical public, coming so hard on the heels of the Christmas party scandal, and distrust will increase. The absurd inclusion of vaccine passports as a measure to combat a variant whose main threat is vaccine escape will result in the anti-vax and anti-lockdown minority growing, hardening and entrenching. They will be increasingly estranged from mainstream society.
Most gravely of all, it sets a precedent that will now take years to roll back. Last winter’s lockdown was justified in order to get us to the first vaccines; vaccines have now been offered to everyone. With this second winter intervention, the principle is being established that lockdowns or lockdowns-light — centralised diktats about the movements of every citizen — are the proper response to new variants or potential pressures on the health service. And we all know there will be new variants that escape vaccines better than Omicron in the future; and new viruses after that.
We had a chance, this winter, to show Europe and the world that the UK could achieve a better outcome by avoiding pointless and divisive vaccine passports and further lockdown-style measures. That chance was squandered yesterday, and this cynical, superficial Government will eventually pay the price.
Freddie Sayers is the Editor-in-Chief & CEO of UnHerd. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of YouGov, and founder of PoliticsHome.
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SubscribeThe tail is wagging the dog at the moment. The health service says it can’t cope unless everyone else locks down, so the population dance to the doctor’s tune.
Turn it around. Five in six adults are vaccinated and case severity is pretty good with low mortality, and hospitalisation are still low, compared to last year’s peak. So if the country actually really wants to keep everything open. what would the health service need to cope?
Covid is here for the long term. Instead of spending a few billions on lockdown, what if those billions were spent on dedicated Covid treatment facilities and we let it pass through, building up natural herd immunity that we haven’t got from vaccines?
We are no longer a country, merely a life support system for a terrible healthcare system. To call it a health Service is a joke, except in the sense that we have to serve them.
The NHS covid pass will soon apply to pubs, restaurants etc as these passes now do in all other countries that initially only required them for clubs.
If we pursue the Scottish route we will soon be required to do a test whenever we wish to leave our prison cells (sorry I meant homes).
And people support this.
WHO said this week that current advice is that masks should be worn whenever outside the home from age 5 to protect from covid and all future disease. Labour has said that it always supports WHO health advice.
FFS we are 90% vaccinated and are introducing new extreme measures (tests, passes etc) without any exit strategy. It is time to fight against this now. I will never comply with my own enslavement.
After My Father’s insane handling by the NHS – so crazy I had to take him from London to live in USA with me to get him away from their clutches – I came to realize the NHS is basically a Social Engineering/Political organization which does healthcare on the side to justify their money. That and they also see their second primary mission is to redistribute money from Old People to the state by confiscatory regulations of home and facilities Care – basically all owned and done by Developing World Migrants.
Clapping for the NHS? you are clapping for some illusion you have been conditioned to think exists, not what is really there behind the curtain.
Nonsense – My Mother had fantastic end of life care from the NHS which would have cost hte family $100,00 in the USA. Completely fatuous and non factual
I suggest that every manager in the NHS is made Master of the Stool and needs to clean bed pans. You will see that the organisation becomes very efficient within weeks. More output with fewer people.
I agree but it would even be more accurate to say we are an entrapped client of an international drugs mafia protection racket. I don’t doubt your integrity but I am simply too scared to check your fact about the WHO advice. I don’t want it to be true but I know it probably is. The masks really are the blank inhuman face of truly radical evil, the symbol of the boot of ideological utopianism stamping on the human face. But most people don’t see it that way, for most people they are a harmless intervention that show you care about other people or you’re taking a prudent course of action to protect yourself and your family, or something like that. Particularly decent, public spirited, warm and caring – if somewhat, perhaps, innocently misguided – Labour people (which describes a large part of the membership of that party, but not its truly disturbed and disturbing Leader). How can we get them to look this anti-human, diabolical evil in the eyes and see it for what is?
I really do despair.
Did anyone notice the dissonance in yesterday’s announcement?
We have to introduce new measures because we have a new variant which escapes vaccines – solution, don’t let people mix unless they can prove that they are vaccinated.
We are insisting that people do something (get vaccinated and prove this) because that thing is less effective than we thought.
Also Vallance said that this virus would soon mutate to a point that there would be no more mutations to bother us so we didn’t need to worry about restrictions lasting too long.
Er, annual flu jab due to new variants?
I am truly sick of the BS not being challenged by the press.
You do not want this vax bi-annually – the spike proteins it injects are way too toxic according to many experts.
It is like the old days when Mercury was used to cure syphilis, Worked that once, but not a long term strategy, not something to take every 6 months, less one became ‘Mad as a Hatter’. (hatters in the old days of beaver felt used mercury in their process, and so the old hatters were mad from it by the end – No telling what the _______ as a vaxer (fill in the blank) cliche will end up to be – long term studies are not done yet. I just suspect it will not be ‘Healthy as a vaxer’.
This is complete nonsense. Reference your ‘experts’ please
I would hold off on your “complete nonsense”, or apply it to both yourself & the person are responding to. The point is, it’s impossible to ascertain the truth about the vaccines right now. Take Pfizer for example. According to The Daily Sceptic, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that it will take 75 years to process a Freedom of Information Act request relating to the release of important documents associated with the approval of the Pfizer vaccine.”
If this is true I’d advise both of you to stop bickering and go and have a strong drink. And try and pick up some Pfizer shares too. That’s one company which is making a killing on the stock market!
Robert Malone for one, pioneer of mRNA medical treatments, who has repeatedly warned against the toxic effects of the spike protein, and its worrying concentration in certain key organs such as the ovaries and the brain.
You should have been watching GB News tonight, they were on fire.
Which commentators on GB News?
Sorry, I missed this. I had it on most of the evening, so all presenters, was it Thursday, starting with Farage through to Wootton. But Mark Dolan, Michelle Dewbury, Neil Oliver, Alex Philips are all outraged at prospect of mandatory jabs and Covid passports.
I’m not sure if Vallance is right or not, but Covid-19 is different to flu. For example, flu viruses mutate much more frequently than this virus
It’s a classic non sequitur if ever there was one. I’ve thought that numerous times this past two years, but this is the most obvious yet. I don’t think they care how irrational they sound anymore.
A new very disturbing indication has appeared in Sweden of all places, where the new PM Magdalena Andersson advised those vaccinated not to hug or contact those who were suspected of being unvaccinated. This was at a press conference where a 3-stage plan for introducing preventative measures was presented, most of these being sensible and motivated if the infection spreading takes off, as it seems to be doing there. She has added herself to the list of national leaders who don’t seem to understand that vaccines don’t seem to make a lot of difference to infection spreading. Her general attitude is fairly confrontational and arrogant and it won’t worry her that she might upset some sections of the population. I just hope she doesn’t override most of the sensible measures coming from Anders Tegnell and his colleagues in the interests of political posturing. Only time will tell, but she doesn’t possess her predecessor’s tortoise shell.
Would you rather have an authoritarian lockdown, or advice that you can take or leave?
the latter, which is what we’ve been getting in Sweden for the last 20 months. If the advice is sensible, logical and evidence based then it will be taken. In the UK this had not been the case and the consequences will follow. My apartment in the UK has been lying empty during this time, with no idea when I’ll be able to make a risk-free visit.
A point I tried to make in a letter to the Times the day after Johnson’s initial announcement two weeks ago. Of course it was binned because it goes against the narrative.
There is a massive lack of wider perspective in this mad political fear campaign underway at the moment. In the winter of 2018/19, the excess deaths due to ‘flu related pneumonia was unusually high at approx 30,000. Divided by 186, that suggests the daily death rate over that winter from ‘flu was approx. 161. The latest daily death figures from Covid is 126. To me, that looks very like a disease that is under control, not an excuse for yet another authoritarian attack on the freedom of the individual.
The health service will never be able to “cope” . The people in it and the politicians who cynically advocate for it, thrive on the idea of an NHS “crisis”. And by the way, you could have left out the “Five in six adults are vaccinated” bit. The idea that “the unvaccinated” are swamping the health service is a canard.
The fact that the NHS reduced its capacity by 5000 beds during the pandemic and refused to send patients to paid for places in private hospitals should be right at the top of the scandal list. To compound this, we now find that the vaccine booster rollout is being stalled because of, guess what, NHS bureaucracy.
The fact that this deeply mediocre service, though with some good people working for it, has not been torn to shreds for its inefficiency and inability to cope proves beyond doubt that it is the national religion. It’s like Catholic priests managing to get away with mass abuse of children, any criticism is blasphemy
“It’s like Catholic priests managing to get away with mass abuse of children, any criticism is blasphemy”
IS THAT WHAT IT IS LIKE?
Do you know why Nurses were/are called sister in UK? Because till very recently nursing was a vocation done by Religious women led by Nuns. That the Church sponsored Charities did almost all health care from Middle Ages to 1900s.
The Leper Colonies were established in the Great Depression around the world by the head of the WHO (by an American doctor from Indiana). Before then the lepers were basically just run off into the wilds to die. He established these colonies in the worst parts of the world – and staffed them with young Religious People willing to give their life to these sufferers. They went to Seminary, did fast medical school or classes, say dentistry, and nursing – and went off from their comfortable homes in the West – NEVER TO RETURN, as Leprosy was contagious from long exposure pre antibiotics, so they could never leave the colony – moving from the staff side to the inmate side when they became ill with it. Never to marry, to have family, to see family again, and they went KNOWING THIS – these were bright young people full of Love and the vocation of Christ.
This is just one example of millions of those who gave their lives to serve the unfortunate because of their love of Christ.
You snide and sneering haters of the thousands of years of Morality and Charity and Justice and Intellectualism Christianity brought to the Pagan world, and so to all the world, have had your minds so twisted, and show your ignorance of History one despairs of modern society.
So now, on top of all your other conspiratorial, incoherent and barely grammatical rants (a non-existent world government that wants to enslave us etc) you seek to defend or deny the huge amount of child abuse that was condoned and covered up in recent years by the Catholic Church? And I wonder how much more occurred when that institution was under much less scrutiny in the past?
By the way, filling up your posts with CAPITALS and BOLD all the time doesn’t make them make more sense.
There were some good people in the Church, there was also as an obvious matter of historical record, mass repression, murder, torture, not to mention hundreds of years of censorship and obscurantism. It puts the methods used by the ‘woke’ brigade’ rather in the shade.
A trenchant and cogent response to his absurd rant.
Galeti was not “defending and denying” the abuse (which was the work of individuals not the group anyway). He was rightly pointing out the gigantic positive contribution of Christianity, without which you would have no modern science, or electricity, let alone internet you can type your ignorances into here. Our whole modern society was built on Christianity and Christians such as Newton and Faraday (and even Christian minister Darwin).
well said.
He has used capitals and bold three times: a total of 11 words in a few dozen lines; there is nothing wrong with that AND it does allow more sense as it indicates emphasis. You know this so your comment is curmudgeonly to say the least. Also his comment makes perfect sense; yes I know this isn’t always the case.
My mum went nursing at the outbreak of war in 1939, aged 16, and worked in an infectious diseases hospital in the North of England run by Irish nuns. Being a devout Catholic herself, she considered nursing a vocation (living in, one day off a month) and managed to stay healthy nursing TB, Diptheria, Scarlet Fever etc prior to the introduction of antibiotics. Till her dying day she spoke fondly of fellow nurses, some of whom were volunteers from the aristocracy, who became infected and died whilst caring for patients. Post war she became a district nurse and midwife, delivering babies in farmhouses and terraces in the countryside and towns of Lancashire. Her Faith was central to her life. She gave up her ‘career’ when I was born, her 2nd child of ten, having married my dad, who was a pilot in the RAF and had survived being shot down over Germany in WW2. Religion gets bad press these days, but true selfless Christianity, when witnessed, is a wonder to behold.
Well said!
Rules for dealing with respiratory disease:
1. Don’t go to work if you are ill.
2. Avoid contact with people who are ill, if you can.
3. Get fresh air and keep fit.
I would suggest that 70 percent of the effect of a lock-down is obtained by point 1, and another 10-20 percent by point 2. Anybody knowing of a calculation proving the opposite?
However, we are now deep down in a mess of man-made problems on top of the basic medical ones. First the man-made problems close to medical:
1. The negative placebo- effect of a disease which is probably overestimated regarding real danger.
2. The stress put upon the population by the measures, of which social isolation and dubious mask-wearing are the two worst.
3. Doubt and loss of self-confidence, for which the most important source would be the lack of correspondence between “the public alarm” and the lack of (medical) drama you can see in your own neighbourhood.
And yet we have not started to calculate the costs on society level, such as economy, the loss of education etc. The worst in this category I guess would be the potential loss of confidence in the political system.
Why this movement has occurred is a yet deeper question. My suggestion would be: we have a bad conscience towards elderly people. We are now concerned about their sheer survival as a proxy for proper concern about their lives and their position in our lives. As a way out I suggest being honest, also towards those of your neighbours and friends who are caught up in the movement.
Excellent points!
I agree – I think the common-sense components of lockdowns would have done 95% of the job. With the huge benefit of not requiring us to become passive subjects of an all-controlling state, but still able to *make our own decisions*.
As regards the underlying reasons for this all happening – I’d say it’s about decades of comfortable, affluent life (for most) with modern healthcare. The consequences being extreme risk-aversion, no comprehension of death, being completely divorced from nature, and the expectation that the machinery of modern society (the government, science, experts etc.) can always prevent anything nasty happening.
We are fed an unrelenting diet of worst case scenarios. Whether it’s Covid, climate change or your plumbing leaking “so take out an over-priced insurance policy with us”. When I worked in social care I was constantly told the priority was safety. Even when it imposed severe restrictions on the lives of disabled people the importance of the organisation avoiding any potential litigation was drummed into us. Being slaves to the great god Safety means we’re not living lives at all, just creating a nation-wide prison compound.
It always seemed strange the way the insurance policies are sold as “giving you peace of mind” when it should be “something new to worry about”.
And in the case of COVID, the main feeder of these worse case scenarios are those at SAGE, which walking disasters like Neil Ferguson, Susan Michie and Jeremy Farrar are prominent members of. The problem with today’s society is that many can’t distinguish an arbitrary labcoat (or whatever uniform for the respective field) from a truly relevant credential, thus will gullibly listen to the wrong folks just because “they are experts, thus they speak science!” Both Neil Ferguson & Susan Michie have literally ZERO degrees in virology, evolutionary biology, epidemiology AND public health policy, yet their ‘lockdown evangelism’ has been taken seriously by many people especially in the establishment. Would you trust an astrologer with no knowledge in aviation or aeronautics to fly you to the moon?!
Thanks, and also thank you for suggesting further underlying reasons for the movement. I see you pointing to reasons circling “the machinery of modern society”.
It makes sense to search broadly. I guess it would be even better, though, to pin-point one or two “synoptic” points. How about arrogance? I believe there is some arrogance at play in the movement, believing to have science on board and holding state power. The surer you are of your case, the more you are willing to enforce …. Or shouldn’t it be the other way round? The surer you are, the easier to sell on a voluntary basis?
Actually, it could be both. The movement could be arrogant (overly proud) and at the same time submissive (overly humble). Such a weird combination we know from individual immaturity.
Hoping to understand the “weird combination” better, let me point to a concrete (opposite) example. Why did the Swedes choose a different approach? The assassination of their premier Olof Palme (in 1986), and the sobering effect of not being able to have his murderer convicted, may have made them less prone to (collective) arrogance. On the other hand their long-standing political neutrality (staying out of both world wars) can have made them less prone to submission (thus staying out of the Corona movement too).
Would “The Swedes know that the state is not God” encompass both points?
The very notion of “rules for dealing with respiratory disease” is evidence that the government’s pseudoscience backed, politically driven gibberish is infecting a nation.
Nature doesn’t care about your comfortable existence and increased attempts to desocialise an entire species whose very existence depends upon socialising will end the species not the threat.
The chattering classes who have established far too much influence can’t cope with such brutal realities as herd immunity. Their weak constitions will struggle far more with eventual stark realities of survival of the fittest.
4. Don’t overeat to point where you’re obese.
There: I said it.
Come on, its not that simple. The cheapest food is the highly processed/lowest nutrition/highest calorie – take a loaf supermarket white bread, might as well be eating a loaf of sugar. Many people simply cannot afford to eat healthily.
Asking questions is so 2019 please. My answer from elsewhere here: The lockdown had NO beneficial effect whatsoever:
The very first lockdown was charlatanism from the outset. The deaths data of nine countries proves this beyond doubt. You can see the cherry-picking deceit at http://www.pseudoexpertise.com/cherry.pdf. And you can see how the deaths data of 9 countries just followed the natural Gompertz curve anyway, with no effect of lockdowns – at http://www.pseudoexpertise.com/clarke-covid3.pdf
Pure refined criminality from the “leading experts”, “fact-checkers”, and BBC etc media. The large “second wave” was predictable consequence of the huge harms from the lockdowns criminality.
Boris is deceitful but calculative. He has the measure of this country’s public, its media & its opposition. He is looking at us and calculating. He sees us as unmotivated to take action, a bit of lazy and sheeplike, forever caught in headlights not knowing where to run, waiting for government to tell them to run away or be still. He knows the opposition will support him to lockdown till next century. He knows the media is hated by everyone for being manipulative and sensational.
The only way anything changes if everyone took to the streets and called him out and all the Tory MPs revolted and chose a new successor. It’s just not going to happen. We need a miracle & that’s my Christmas wish this year.
My old Gran often used a word for folk like Boris, sly…
“The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in” ,Dostoyevsky.
My Gran put it a little differently:
The smart ones are the dumb ones!
You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the guardian. For example, I read an entire article about a young man who died on reinfection with Covid, only to read in the final paragraph of the alarmist diatribe that he also had bone cancer that had spread to his lungs. Most people would have led with that.
You also shouldn’t assume that any genuine outliers in the profile of victims (and just how many non smokers do you think die of lung cancer each year or regular marathon runners have heart attacks?), should excuse the enormous collateral damage of these measures.
These include hundreds of millions in extreme poverty in the global south; national increases in child abuse; mandatory vaccines and health apartheid in nation’s who should have learnt better from such ostracism in recent history; hundreds of thousands put back below the poverty line in the UK; science turned in to a tool of technocracy etc
I could go on but, frankly, I doubt it would hit home. You make sure you don’t get a nasty cold now.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the guardian”
Of course you shouldn’t.
Equally, you shouldn’t disbelieve everything either, as many who post here seem to
I really wish they were attempting to show the world a better way. But it seems to me that all they’re doing is the same thing as everyone else.
Absolutely Freddie, it’s the unions and the public sector pushing this as the future standard response to every pressure they may face.
They are meant to be working and serving the public. The public does not exist just to pay taxes to pay for what they do and then to be locked up periodically when they are busy.
They have to be called out on this. Already blue hearts NHS on Twitter campaigning on this. It has to stop.
More noise has to be made letting the public know what’s really behind this and it’s lockdowns forever if we allow this.
Er?
I was at a meeting of a large health-NGO of Europe and listened to an intervention by a representative of the WHO regarding vaccines: these were the words he used:
‘’The whole population vaccination program is not necessary and makes no difference: one should only vaccinate the vulnerable. The vaccination programs in the EU and North America have to do with populism and one government boasting over another that they have more vaccination and better vaccination programs: it is a macho thing’’
Basically the governments are in a : mine is bigger than your’s mode…
Good luck for the future….
Was it next to the article about the 10,000,000 or so other 40-something year olds that didn’t succumb to covid?
Yes indeed, it is easy to zone in on one case and it is entirely typical of the Guardian that they should do that. There are a number of young people who – apparently inexplicably – die from flu every year. It was a fatuous post.
“I was Blinde but now I can see things that aren’t even there…..”
Go.now Boris and take your ridiculous Plan B with you. You have evidently learnt nothing from your previous experience except how to throw more of our economy and society under the bus while surrounding yourself with sycophants and not keeping the Rules you impose on everyone else yourself.
Yes, it is ridiculous. Stay away from the office unless you want to party – which is ironic under the circumstances
Possibly, but with such ineffective opposition and as such no viable alternative, I can’t see it happening.
the alternative timeline to this one is the one where Jeremy Corbyn became prime minister, the only difference this would have made is vaccine passports would have been brought in immediately and would have a section identifying if the holder is Jewish or not.
I hope you’re right. Plan B doesn’t actually change much and that is almost as creepy as the fact that they are implementing it.
That is the trouble with choosing a terminally untrustworthy prime minister. If he had demonstrated earlier that he took the pandemic seriously and took considered decisions based on evidence, he might have had enough credibility to convince the anti-lockdown brigade that some measures were necessary – OR to convince the worried-about-virus brigade that it was sensible and safe to keep holding Christmas parties. As it is he has to ‘do something’ just enough so that he has a good excuse no matter which side attacks him afterwards.
I think the ‘trouble’ is far bigger than on person named Prime Minister. There is nobody who could hold that position with a high degree of trustability any longer because it is an outdated institution on top of a wider crumbling of institutional trust.
Well, the Danish prime minister seems to have managed – even after she made an illegal snap decision to cull all mink in Denmark and close down a flourishing fur industry. The problem with the UK system, if anything, is that it chooses to elect a man like the Boris.
What kind of institution do you think would do better?
Proportional representation may work marginally better or different?
Glædelig Jul Rasmus
Not for me, thanks. What with Traffic lights or Jamaica coalitions, proportional representation is clearly a recipe for stalemate, horse-trading and stultifying bureaucracy. No wonder the EU like it!
In Britain, we had a taste recently, with the hung parliament under Theresa May.
First-past-the-post with a good majority is living, breathing politics in comparison – life and death creative destruction.
More importantly, the voice of the people gets results with FPTP. Elections can be a real change, not just an endless shifting of coalition tiles at the fringes, as you see in prop rep countries.
PR can work quite well, but it depends on the political culture; it would be a huge change forr the UK. True that FPTP is better at making radical changes – it would be hard to get Thatcher or hard Brexit under PR. On the other hand, FPTP disenfranchises huge numbers of people (Lib Dems, greens, the less dominant fractions in the big parties) and makes it possible for a fairly small minority like Militant, Momentum, or the ERG to capture one of the big parties and govern unopposed with only minority support in the population.
Yep – the worst of all systems, except for all the others. (Churchill) 🙂
I believe he said that about democracy, not specifically FPTP.
PR works nowhere. All it does is give a lot of power to minorities that are required to form a coalition. i.e. the minority parties blackmail the majority party.
PR works brilliantly in Denmark, for instance. And considering the total power the UK has given to the ERG and (almost) to Corbyn, FPTP is no better at limiting the power of minorities.
Perhaps you should then go and live in Denmark.
<slowly shakes his head>
‘The voice of the people gets results with FPTP.’ Sorry, but simply stating something does not make it true. As less than 40% of the electorate voted for the Johnson ‘landslide’ victory, your statement is quantifiably false. FPTP is intrinsically undemocratic as demonstrated by the very concept of ‘safe seats’, of which the bulk of the electoral map of the UK is made.
I lige maade!
The people in the UK elected Boris because they knew he was the only person to get Brexit done. This was very obvious to me sitting in South Africa.
Yes, but it isn’t ‘done’! Like the lies on the side of the bus, it was just a dishonest political soundbite with no more substance than Johnson’s concept of honesty.
True enough. But surely it is kind of interesting that it was impossible to find anybody more serious or honest who was willing to promise people what they wanted to hear?
Well cases are flying up in Denmark now
Yes, but the “Zombie mink” came back from the grave (mass graves) to haunt her!
Deer in the US–everywhere–apparently have Corona in huge numbers. Good luck with the cull!
Your comment shows a total lack of understanding or self-awareness of the course of the pandemic over the last 2 years. Any critical analysis of what has happened in virtually every western country is that it doesn’t matter what mitigation measures are put in place, whether lockdowns, masks, vaccines, hand washing, etc…., nothing and I mean nothing has had any significant impact. In fact, it is likely that every single intervention has had severe negative consequences. The government should have followed their own pandemic preparedness document and guidance rather than running scared. But run scared they did, just like about every other government with the exception of Sweden. At least Boris isn’t alone; his pal Fauci in the US has totally jumped shark and gone off the deep end to a future with endless boosters every 6 months, mask wearing in the home, covid police in the home, etc…..
Every intervention has led to bad outcomes with no significant impact on the course of COVID, other than prolonging the agony. Lockdowns: huge social harms and not to say major downsides with regard to all other medical conditions. Masks: pure theater outside certain controlled environments such as hospitals, and then one really should be wearing a fitted N95 mask (and these are so uncomfortable they are impossible to wear for any length of time). Hand washing with soap and water: completely senseless – did they expect people to rush to the toilet every time they touched something so that they could wash their hands. And vaccines: a jolly good try as a Hail Mary but they have proven fruitless to stop anything. But more importantly widespread use of vaccines as opposed to targeted use for those at high risk (and we know exactly who is at high risk) may simply promote the emergence of vaccine-resistant mutations (and specially for Rasmus here’s a link to a very recent paper in J. Phys. Chem. Lett: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c03380. Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 Evolution Revealing Vaccine-Resistant Mutations in Europe and America).
The truth of the matter is that Freddy’s analysis is absolutely spot on, and the government’s reaction is simply to appear to do something, anything, rather than actually have a backbone and tell the truth. What’s even more ironic is that the Omicron variant is probably a blessing in disguise and may well mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic, if it is indeed more transmissible but far milder as appears to be the case not only from South Africa but also the Scandinavian countries.
My claim here is that the Boris has taken his credibility and pissed it up against a wall, and that without credibility he has no way of taking people with him. That holds whatever you think about COVID.
For the rest I am not re-running our debates. Just one question: You are saying that no intervention helped and all of them had severe negative consequences. We would all have been much better off with a do-nothing policy. Apart from the fact that it did not work for Bolsanaro, how can you know?
Because the only thing any mitigation measure is broaden the curve. The area under the curve remains the same. The only thing that is effective is focussed protection for a very specific group of people (e.g. the old).
Broadening the curve means lowering the peak, which would allow hospitals to treat more non-covid illnesses over the winter
Yes, that was Sweden’s strategy since March 2020 and they succeeded. The problem was in succeeding they shut down most of the routine treatment for non-covid illnesses. The UK is often lambasted for this but it wasn’t a lot better in Sweden.
Except that’s incorrect because the hospitals were never overloaded with COVID patients. Either in the UK or US.
Or is that “mainstream society”, whatever that is, is shrinking, hardening and entrenching as they become the minority?
It just goes to show how low a once fine publication has sunk, but that’s what happens when you get millions in covid advertising from the govt and pharma companies, and sizeable ‘grants’ from dubious charities with a big vested interest in vaccines.
I have known cans of baked beans with higher levels of intellect than “Julie”
Better to contest rather than insult
Agree! Is it now a crime to have a different point of view on this site or has it become an echo chamber?
The problem is not her different point of view but her mindless adherence to the cheap charlatanism.
Just about everywhere else is STRICTLY censored towards the corporate charlatanism agenda of the vaccine-peddling industry.
Unherd is full of people who spend their time ranting against lefties and the like. That sort of thing doesn’t advance any arguments. In fact, I just skim such posts.
This is not me ranting against you 🙂
We know that Big Pharma is making a killing. They always have. Is there a conspiracy, or is it just normal profiteering?
The question I haven’t fully decided is about how useful, or useless, are the current vaccines. I think they are safe enough, but they may just be encouraging the virus to mutate into more transmissible variants.
If you are fully vaccinated you are probably not going to get seriously ill, but what does it do to the chance of passing it on?
I don’t think it’s useful to simply assume that vaccines are evil just because they come from the vaccine-peddling industry, and are almost enforced by our increasingly authoritarian governments. I want to make my own mind up independently of all that
That was exactly my point. She is not advancing a point of view but instead is trolling. There are plenty of posters I frequently disagree with but am happy yo engage with them on the level. JB offers nothing that is serious or worthy of respect.
While Boris is clearly the main fall guy amidst all this and will probably fall sooner or later, the most crucial folks we need to get rid of ASAP is definitely that bunch of deranged banshees at SAGE, for regardless of regardless of who 10 Downing St.’s occupant is SAGE is the place that these terrible advice and models came from, and when you have ultra-unreliable and incompetent people like Neil Ferguson or Susan Michie(both of which have ZERO degrees in evolutionary biology, virology, epidemiology or public health policy) pushing for lockdowns with little regard for small businesses and societally disadvantaged, yet here they are still sitting on SAGE. It shouldn’t have been allowed to stay there for so long, let alone bullying(most notably done by Jeremy Farrar who is arguably UK’s counterpart of Fauci) other eminent scientists who disagree with them and even proposed better alternatives, among one of which that were UK’s loss but Sweden’s gain. Plus keep in mind that the E in SAGE stands for Emergencies- without them these mad scientists’ public image and salaries would simply SAG! In other words, the fearmongering helps them to keep their power, so it’s up to us the people and dissenting scientists to sabotage it!
Blimey, Julie,
what would you do with all the time you have on your hands, then, eh?
I like the comments. I like to exchange views with those in the comments section. I like being exposed to the ‘other side’ of an issue, and if I feel strongly enough, I’ll put my tuppence worth in; like this
MESSAGE TO UNHERD
Do you realise that your site is judged by the comments section?
You shouldn’t consider not having comments!
All the best
Red
As the Swiss Doctor said recently: with the Omicron variant, all the arguments for vaccine passports and for vaccine mandates are false. The only people it is safe to be around are the recovered unvaxxed and the tested unvaxxed. All the others should be locked up in an Australian-type Covid penitentiary until this is over. The reverse will probably happen given the misconceptions that politicians suffer from.
Look at the stats Julie and the average age of death to Covid.That tells you that the young and fit,rarely get it.If he was so fit why did he die ????
There is no collateral damage to wearing your seat belt; unless your seat belt comes with six inch spikes laced down the inside. In which case, yes, I would recommend you don’t wear that one.
Oh dear
Yeah, I was right first time; nothing will hit home with the likes of you.
Carry on telling yourself it’s worth it, that way you’ll feel less guilty that your grandparents risked their lives for your freedom whereas you are sacrificing your grandchildrens’ freedom for your life.
Because that’s how humanity now works in the 21st century.
Pathetic.
Indeed. She, he or it attempts lofty commentary laced with drollery, which is in fact trollery and is fairly unsophisticated at that and only succeeds in being disingenuous vacuity.
Are you alluding to collateral damage from vaccines or lockdowns? I would need reliable evidence for the former
There are some early indications that Omicron may affect under 5s equally to over 60s. I really hope it turns out to be mild
Especially when clicking your seat belt is so easy
Please if you are interested sign this petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/592632
Having read a few comments.. Why we needed at all to go through so many false promises? Yes, it is enslavement, Yes of course natural immunity is the best, but why and how millions of people have been persuaded to give up their freedoms so easily and even healthy people receiving vaccination they do not need? (by the way that specific one is no vaccine but genetic treatment)… and with unknown future damages to their health? Who holds the responsibility? Why the parents sacrifice their children? Why the teachers no longer serve none of the values they should be committed to? For how long more until everyone have been involved in this tyranny to be brought to justice ? Why not start reflecting of how much have we learn the past two years, Have we learn anything at all?
I notice that Nicola Sturgeon, that arch lockdowner from whom Boris Johnson always seems to take his cue, was talking today about a “tsunami of cases”. Note: cases, not deaths. The continued concentration on cases rather than deaths has been one of the most egregious aspects of this whole business.
The very first lockdown was charlatanism from the outset. The deaths data of nine countries proves this beyond doubt. You can see the cherry-picking deceit at http://www.pseudoexpertise.com/cherry.pdf. And you can see how the deaths data of 9 countries just followed the natural Gompertz curve anyway, with no effect of lockdowns – at http://www.pseudoexpertise.com/clarke-covid3.pdf
Pure refined criminality from the “leading experts”, “fact-checkers”, and BBC etc media. The large “second wave” was predictable consequence of the huge harms from the lockdowns criminality.
It’s a fait accompli unless you erudite types join the workers who have already smelled the rat. None of you are up on the research that proves your government is lying, has been lying, and whose end goal is digital passports=plan B. Omicron is a nonevent and the booster from heaven since it is proven mild. More NHS staff dancing in empty wards for you guys. And yes, there are many studies prior to 2020 showing increasing toxicity of mRNA with exposure. Two reasons, Spike protein and the technology itself. Look at your mortality graphs and how they jump with each vax campaign. Pfizer 6 mo data told us. 21 vaxxed vs 17 control. All cause.
Membership fee justified by this article alone. Great stuff!
Wouldn’t it be strange if it turned out that the key factor in determining whether you’ll get seriously ill from COVID is your BMI?
Boris Johnson is failing to learn the lessons of Theresa May when she tried to get her Surrender Bill through Parliament. A Conservative prime minister who has to rely on Labour to get its legislation through is finished.
I read again and again that ‘most people’ are in favour of mask wearing, more restrictions, lockdowns, etc. Who says so? Why is this idea so rarely challenged? Should we have to believe opinion polls and telephone interviews of a tiny few ‘representatives of the whole’ allegedly, really have any meaning? Would we be so pliable to accepting of this assertion if the supporting evidence came from China?
If it is true that a vast majority in the UK support more covid restrictions and assaults on their liberty, then I have to say a surprising amount of the remaining tiny minority seem to.have found time to write to Unherd and other publications.
It might have been true last year as so many were so hypnotized by the ‘experts’ and genuinely thought that these restrictions/lockdowns actually worked(I for one have always been skeptical, even as a leftist), BUT I do see that the tide is slowly turning after the the 1st 2 jabs are rolled out and the dissenting scientists are now censored to a slightly lesser degree in 2021, as well as the studies that have debunked the supposedly sacred myths on these restrictions/lockdowns, and I can tell you that this ‘vast majority’ has markedly shrunk, just a matter of what degree. I’ve spoken to a number of people of my same age i.e. mid-20s who openly expressed leftist views and their dislike to the Tories(note: the left are often portrayed as being much more pro-restrictions/lockdowns) who simultaneously think that Plan B is absolutely ridiculous, and some of them even said that the gov just wants to keep locking us up! And in supermarkets & public transports, at least 1/3 don’t wear masks(myself included), and the age demographic of these non-complaint 1/3 ranges from teens up till seniors who appear to be in their 60s/70s. And of course the hospitality industry(where I’ve just got a job in) are also strongly opposing them. The MSM clearly cherry-picked the affluent, authoritarian factions among the left(who are the most likely to support these measures) out of the rest of the left, and probably the same with what they’ve done with those on the right. And I tell you, many people now have seen the successes of Florida & Sweden, and of course the disasters in Australia(where I lived as an immigrant till past March) & New Zealand, and of course their friends getting seizures from the jabs! So no, the MSM exaggerated about the ‘vast majority’ supporting these restrictions/lockdowns, it’s not as vast as they claim it to be, and in fact I’d even suspect that this ‘majority’ might merely be marginal as we speak!
Look at what is happening in Australia with Covid quarantine camps, women being issued with $1000 fines for stopping to chat in a park, people wrestled to the ground by groups of black clad robocops for not wearing a mask and tell me it is not going to come to this country and I will laugh at you. Last year vaccine mandates and passports were deemed conspiracy theories along with Covid originating in a lab. Seems that the conspiracy ‘theories’ were on to the global conspiracy that is being enacted under the guise of Covid right now in plain sight with the complicit aid of the mainstream media from the get go. Omicron is nothing but they needed a bogeyman in order to enforce more jabs, get rid of the control group and enforce biometric information passports. Democracy is all but dead. The question is: what do we do?
Please interview Kate Wand. Her videos throughout the last two years of COVID madness have been the high watermark of communicating the moral and historical reflections of this time.
The point with him is that (very sadly) he didn’t get vaccinated. Some kind of “plan-B” mini-lockdown would probably have made no difference to the outcome. Gettting vaccinated may well have.
Getting vaccinated would probably have made no difference to the outcome. Some kind of “plan-B” mini-lockdown may well have.
Sounds just as wrong as your comment.
As long as many people remain unvaccinated, it is premature to conclude that the main threat of Omicron is vaccine escape. Regarding restrictions, after over a year there is still no evidence that they had a significant effect. The staircase of new infections that began on 28 July sharp may be caused by reopening of schools or workplaces but that is not definitive and it seems no-one cares anyway.
We know however that vaccination, especially with the booster, has had a significant effect on morbidity. International travel caused the pandemic – I don’t mean the outbreak, I mean the pandemic. Some people are pillorying developed countries for not doing more to get people in poorer countries vaccinated, especially in Africa. At the same time is pointed out the difficulty of getting access to those people, with which I hazard superstitious mistrust of vaccination is correlated. Poor access means poor mobility, and the virus relies above all on human mobility.
Putting all this together, one possible conclusion is that we should concentrate, aggressively, on vaccinating the most potentially mobile; and restrict air travel to the fully vaccinated, who can for good measure get tested in the days before they travel and if they have any sense take extra precautions to avoid having to cancel. At the same time forget the disruptive quarantine rules that may catch only a percentage of the infected who are a tiny percentage of those forced to ‘self-isolate’ at great expense.
If Omicron ‘evades’ vaccination then nothing is going to stop it being around, but if its ability to invade and multiply in human cells is curtailed then it won’t be so able to give rise to new mutations. If we still feel at risk, then by all means shut down night clubs and other mass indoor partying, even require FFP2 masks in theatres etc (as in aircraft), but don’t wreck normal life, family relationships and economy without good reason.
Omicron is credited with having many mutations. I add an interesting observation by Per Bak and colleagues as long ago as 1994, that the least fit organisms mutate the most. Only human behaviour gives an advantage to the least fit.
The point surely is about whether Omicron will cause an increase in serious disease and death not how many people will get it and how quickly. To that end I think Freddie is right – a mini-lockdown is pointless and its economic negatives far outweigh any health benefits. However, I think he is wrong about vaccines. We don’t yet know the extent to which Omicron evades the current vaccines or, more critically, whether they do or don’t reduce serious illness as they do aginst the previous variants. (Although anecdotal evidence suggests booster jabs may still be very effective). The real issue is that we still have too high a percentage of people who are unvaccinated and they are the ones who are clogging up the hospitals with covid and will continue to do so. We need urgently to take action to fix this and if “nudging” has proved ineffective then it is time for the stick to take over from the carrot, in whatever form may be appropriate. Otherwise, the majority who are prepared to be vaccinated (to protect themselves and society as a whole) should not be punished by the minority who won’t.
Can you please point to the data which shows that the unvaccinated are “clogging up the hospitals”. Actual data, cleaned up with respect to what “hospitalised” means, what “unvaccinated” means and what is the definition of “Covid patient”, and then statistically analysed. This can give quite a different picture from what is reported in a newspaper in order to attract readership and therefore advertising.
Mainly ONS study (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19byvaccinationstatusengland/deathsoccurringbetween2januaryand24september2021) which states that “Between 2 January and 24 September 2021, the age-adjusted risk of deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19) was 32 times greater in unvaccinated people than in fully vaccinated individuals.”. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence out there (e.g. from hospital doctors) that backs this up. Ok so the data is a few months out of date and obviously doesn’t yet include the impact of Omicron.
There seems to be a regrettable number of people on this platform who seem flatly not to want to accept that the Earth is round! That really is a shame as generally the standard of discussion is high.
not so, some question, as they should; other believe. It amazes me that everyone doesn’t believe the politicians about almost everything, until they are told about a freeing injection to get their liberties back, liberties that should never have been taken, not even in March 2020 and freeing injections that patently do not…but hey ho, the world must be flat.
Yes, but in that time period the vaccines were being rolled out in the UK from approx 2% to approx 70% of the population, so the statistics are totally meaningless for what you may want to maintain.
ICNARC reports. Latest one is dated 3 December. Pages 44 – 47
https://www.icnarc.org/our-audit/audits/cmp/reports
these figures are not correct, plus they are not “audits”, they are info given from whichever trusts happen to send info. Also, re ICU admissions by vaccination status: ‘unvaccinated’ includes those who received a jab less than 14 days prior to testing positive. This causes what is called a “survivorship bias” https://www.hartgroup.org/why-do-they-hide-what-happens-in-the-first-two-weeks-after-vaccination/
Does anyone know how many surgeries have been canceled because of a lack of hospital beds? Also, does anyone know how many years it is estimated that it will take to clear the backlog of cancelled surgeries?Does anyone commenting here have a family member waiting for surgery? If so, it might be prudent to start saving your money for a trip to a private clinic or hospital.
Jeremy,
Freddie is right; the mini lock down will do nothing – nor will the “stick”, either.
CV-19 (in all its wonderful variants) is now endemic – the emergency is largely over, and we need to start to behave as such.
I, personally, have had my two+booster shots. I accept that it is NOT a vaccine, as it is not a steriliser. However, I think it a reasonable precaution, based on the fact that it reduces my chances of contracting the virus, and, if I do, reduces the severity; that is why the overwhelming majority of hospitalisations are from the unvaccinated community.
Now, if I have had my shots (which do not guarantee immunity) that reduce the severity of the illness, and be unlucky enough to contract it; and I have a really horrible time at home, and recover – what do I have to fear from those who are unvaccinated? If the unvaccinated contract the virus, and have a horrible time at home/in hospital, and recover or die; what do I have to fear?
No amount of vaccination will now eliminate the CV-19 virus; that horse has well and truly bolted.
I chose to have my shots, and would have kicked up holy-hell if someone had tried to prevent me from having them; so what right do I have to force someone else to have them against their will? The whole point of living in a (relatively) free society is that we get to choose what to do with our body.
The problem that we have with the CV_19/NHS issue is that the system is not fit for purpose. Figures released yesterday show that at the time of suspension of counting (02/2020) there were over 5,000 beds being blocked by ‘transfer of care’ patients (https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/delayed-transfers-of-care). A figure that I would suggest has not fallen, and in all possibility has risen. We undoubtedly have CV-19 patients in hospitals who, I would offer, should be being treated in the ‘Nightingales’; in a sanitarium type setting. If those facilities are 100 miles away, so beit. The result would be freeing up some of the beds that could be used for real emergencies and (where possible) elective treatments for those on the waiting lists.
Just a thought
All the best
Red
Excellent points, Red, with which only hardened conspiracy theorists could find fault.
Except if you read:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-surveillance-reports
you will see that “the overwhelming majority of hospitalisations are from the unvaccinated community” is incorrect. The majority are vaccinated but the proportion of total unvaccinated is higher than the proportion vaccinated. As the document says on page 33: ” it is expected that a large proportion of cases, hospitalisations and deaths would occur in vaccinated individuals, simply because a larger proportion of the population are vaccinated than unvaccinated”.
Indeed we won’t eliminate Covid and it will become endemic (if it hasn’t already). Hopefully, we will move to a “maintenance” phase where we live with it as we do with colds and seasonal ‘flu. But we haven’t reached that phase yet (or we are perceived not to have reached it) and vaccination is still the best tool we have to reduce serious illness and death. And whilst it may not directly affect the vaccinated if lots of people remain unvaccinated it does still increase the risk of transmission and more importantly put (avoidable) strain on the healthcare system. I am generally in favour of personal choice in most things but some times “society” has to win and trump individual choice.
“No amount of vaccination will now eliminate the CV-19 virus; that horse has well and truly bolted”
AFAIK, there is research on vaccines that may suppress all variants.
Although they would need to be rolled out to all countries in sufficient quantities to achieve herd immunity (which big pharma would love), so you point probably still stands
There is also data out of Public Health Scotland that would suggest that the likelihood of dying from COVID is actually higher in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated: https://dailyexpose.uk/2021/12/09/distracted-by-christmas-party-data-shows-9-in-10-covid-deaths-vaccinated/
Now who really knows as no doubt there are plenty of confounding factors. Nevertheless it’s pause for thought. Similarly, there is pause for thought when the all-cause mortality in Germany in the 2nd half of November was a good deal higher than in the first half, especially since they were late to vaccination and it’s only in September or so that vaccination approached the 70& level – yet in summer and spring, the all-cause mortality was not raised. The increase in all-cause mortality in November in Germany is NOT due to Covid but to other things (e.g. cardiovascular). Isn’t all of this a touch suspicious and worthy of investigation by the Public Health Authorities.