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Journalist and author Peter Hitchens joins Freddie Sayers to reflect on the world 5 years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As society grapples with the lasting impact of lockdowns, Hitchens questions whether those who advocated for severe restrictions should be forgiven.
Hitchens explores whether the fervour surrounding the pandemic has been replaced by a new wave of political and media hysteria, particularly with the war in Ukraine.
Is society moving from one crisis mentality to another? Are we learning from past mistakes, or doomed to repeat them?
Watch the full interview above.
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SubscribeOf course we are moving from one crisis to another! It’s been the case ever since CNN started broadcasting. Now, inventing, developing and “covering” a crisis is a business model, split into 2 sides, left and right, which has taken over much of the media and this has led to much of society’s hysteria over every subject today. The exhaustion this causes will lead to its demise, hopefully, and we can get back to simply and civilly discussing current events again.
Hard to believe it’s been 5 years!
Shame that you didn’t discuss the vaccines.
As I recall, Hitchens held out for a long time, then caved.
Would it be possible for you to have a 5 year recall interview with Prof Johann Giesecke as well?
His was the most significant interview for me. With his WHO background, he appeared to be dissenting from within the global establishment.
Freddie Sayers touched on the question if the political class paid a price for their actions during the lockdowns, citing the election loss the Tories suffered last year. Peter Hitchens contested this, pointing to the trivial reasons for which Johnson was ousted mid-premiership. It is the case that the opprobrium now being poured on to Johnson is attributed to the magnitude of the migration wave in the aftermath of the lockdowns, but I think the sheer affrontery of the numbers caused the scales to fall from a lot of peoples eyes, certainly they did mine. Lifelong conservatives dropped any remaining vestige of tribal political loyalty and reassessed the entire period since 2010, coming to the inescapable conclusion that they were taken for a ride. That same assessment has spilled over onto Labour as well, and I don’t believe either will be forgiven in a hurry, if ever.
YouTube and X and Facebook are not the country, but to get an inkling of the scorn that Johnson is retrospectively attracting, just take a look in the comments section of the Triggernometry interview from yesterday – I didn’t listen to the interview, because I’m no longer willing to give the charlatan (and most of his colleagues) a hearing, but I glanced through the comments, and they are uniformly negative about Johnson.