He told Lady Hallett’s inquiry: “Social measures, many of which are longstanding – quarantine, individual isolation, closing schools, many of these go back to the Middle Ages or beyond – these are not new ideas, however the very big new idea was the idea of a lockdown, I am talking here very very specifically about the state saying people have to go home and stay at home… It’s a very radical thing to do.”
Archiv: Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) / New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) / Covid-O committee
Lockdown was ‚very radical thing to do‘ – Whitty to Covid inquiry
. The chief medical adviser, Sir Chris Whitty, tells the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that lockdown was a „very radical thing to do“
– He calls the lockdown „extraordinarily major“ and a „big new idea“ that wasn‘t considered in advance
– He also says he saw the damage from the disease „first-hand“ as a working medic
– Earlier, Cobra chief Roger Hargreaves talked about the emergency regulations in the Civil Contingencies Act never being used
– The government‘s chief scientific adviser during the pandemic, Sir Patrick Vallance, is due to give evidence later
– zYou can watch the hearings by pressing play at the top of the page
The lockdown files: Rishi Sunak on what we weren’t told
(27 August 2022)
Lockdown – closing schools and much of the economy while sending the police after people who sat on park benches – was the most draconian policy introduced in peacetime. No. 10 wanted to present it as ‘following the science’ rather than a political decision, and this had implications for the wiring of government decision-making. It meant elevating Sage, a sprawling group of scientific advisers, into a committee that had the power to decide whether the country would lock down or not. There was no socioeconomic equivalent to Sage; no forum where other questions would be asked.
So whoever wrote the minutes for the Sage meetings – condensing its discussions into guidance for government – would set the policy of the nation. No one, not even cabinet members, would know how these decisions were reached.
Rishi Sunak is just the start. The great lockdown scandal is about to unravel
(25.08.2022)
For some time, I’ve been trying to persuade Rishi Sunak to go on the record about what really happened in lockdown. Only a handful of people really know what took place then, because most ministers – including members of the Cabinet – were kept in the dark. Government was often reduced to a “quad” of ministers deciding on Britain’s future and the then chancellor of the exchequer was one of them. I’d heard rumours that Sunak was horrified at much of what he saw, but was keeping quiet. In which case, lessons would never be learnt.
His speaking out now confirms much of what many suspected. That the culture of fear, seen in the Orwellian advertising campaign that sought to terrify the country, applied inside Government.
Rishi Sunak replaces third of Liz Truss‘s Cabinet as he vows to fix mistakes of her premiership
Three were given their old jobs – Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, Mr Gove, the Communities Secretary, and Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary.
Netanyahu congratulates Liz Truss on succeeding Boris Johnson as UK PM
“I am sure that under your leadership the deep friendship between Britain and Israel will be further strengthened in all fields,” tweets Netanyahu.
The former prime minister also adds his thanks to outgoing PM Boris Johnson “for his valued contributions to the excellent relations between our two countries.”
New Prime Minister LIVE: Liz Truss on course to be named next Tory leader at 12.30PM after brutal six-week battle with rival Rishi Sunak to succeed Boris Johnson
Follow updates here as the next Prime Minister is revealed as the winner of the Tory leadership contest is announced at Westminster‘s Queen Elizabeth II Centre:
Is Liz Truss the British Trump?
If you are a right-wing MP or ambitious wonk on the Truss campaign ‘pivot’ is such a useful word. Far better to say ‘we need to pivot from campaign mode to governing mode,’ than to blurt out that ‘now we have their votes we can forget the lies we told to win over Conservative members’. Far better for Truss herself to say, ‘I am pivoting from my previous position on tax cuts’ to ‘I admit that I was wrong’.
Pivoting calls to mind the elegance of a ballerina turning on her points. Not the cynicism of a politician breaking promises she made only a few days before.
Why didn’t more people resist lockdown?
As it will take years for culpable parties to retire, I once feared that a full generation would need to elapse before we recognised lockdowns for what they were: the biggest public health debacle in history. Yet everywhere I turn lately, still another journalist is decrying the avoidable social, medical and economic costs of this hysterical over-reaction to a virus, while deriding lockdown zealots for having vilified sceptics of a policy that may well end up killing more people than it protected. The Covid revisionism is welcome – though it’s a good deal easier to publish these opinion pieces now than it was two years ago, and I speak from experience.
The lockdown files: Rishi Sunak on what we weren’t told
(27 August 2022)
Lockdown – closing schools and much of the economy while sending the police after people who sat on park benches – was the most draconian policy introduced in peacetime. No. 10 wanted to present it as ‘following the science’ rather than a political decision, and this had implications for the wiring of government decision-making. It meant elevating Sage, a sprawling group of scientific advisers, into a committee that had the power to decide whether the country would lock down or not. There was no socioeconomic equivalent to Sage; no forum where other questions would be asked.
So whoever wrote the minutes for the Sage meetings – condensing its discussions into guidance for government – would set the policy of the nation. No one, not even cabinet members, would know how these decisions were reached.
Empowering Sage scientists over Covid lockdown left us ‘screwed’, claims Sunak
The meetings were “literally me around that table, just fighting”, which “was incredibly uncomfortable every single time”.
At one meeting he raised the impact on children’s education: “I was very emotional about it. I was like, ‘Forget about the economy. Surely we can all agree that kids not being in school is a major nightmare’, or something like that.
“There was a big silence afterwards. It was the first time someone had said it. I was so furious.”
Setting out the problems he found with Government policy being influenced by outside academics, he said: “If you empower all these independent people, you’re screwed.”
Rishi Sunak says he wasn‘t ‚allowed to talk about the side effects of lockdown‘ during the pandemic
Mr Sunak said one of the Government’s biggest mistakes was giving too much power to scientists and claimed the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) edited its minutes to hide dissenting opinions.
The former chancellor made the statements in an interview with the Spectator magazine.
“We shouldn’t have empowered the scientists in the way we did,” he is quoted as saying.
Großbritannien – mehr Tote durch Lockdowns als durch Corona?
In Großbritannien findet momentan eine bemerkenswerte Diskussion über die vergangenen Lockdown-Maßnahmen statt. Einer der beiden konservativen Regierungschef-Kandidaten, der bisherige britische Finanzminister Rishi Sunak, hat diese Diskussion vor wenigen Tagen dramatisch intensiviert. Der staatliche Nachrichtensender BBC berichtete am 25.8.2022[1] über die Aussagen von Rishi Sunak gegenüber der Zeitschrift „The Spectator“: Ministern sei es untersagt worden, über Kollateralschäden (trade-offs) der Lockdowns zu diskutieren[2]; es sei falsch gewesen, eine staatliche Angstkampagne zu fahren. Das Regierungs-„Script“ sei ein ungerechtfertigtes Angst-Narrativ gewesen („the fear narrative“). Die vorgegebene Leitlinie sei gewesen: „Es gibt keine negativen Auswirkungen“.[3] Interne Kritik in dem wissenschaftlichen Beratungsgremium (SAGE) sei nicht veröffentlicht worden.
Liz will deliver. As Prime Minister, I will deliver for the British people so we can succeed like never before
I may have gone over the top about Rishi’s clothes… But I don’t want my party to be fooled by appearances the way many of the Cabinet were, writes NADINE DORRIES
My comments were widely interpreted to be anti-aspirational and it was suggested that I was seeking revenge against the man who, while Chancellor, had been planning a coup for a very long time and who had ruthlessly and metaphorically stabbed Boris Johnson in the back.
Rishi had been plotting against the most electorally successful Prime Minister the Conservative Party has known since the days of Margaret Thatcher. His actions made Michael Gove’s betrayal of Boris Johnson during the 2016 leadership campaign appear like a rank amateur rehearsing for the role of Brutus in a village hall play.
(…)
I wanted to highlight Rishi’s misguided sartorial style in order to alert Tory members not to be taken in by appearances in the way that happened to many of us who served with the Chancellor in Cabinet. The assassin’s gleaming smile, his gentle voice and even his diminutive stature had many of us well and truly fooled.
Britische Ministerin empört mit „Attentäter“-Sager
In einem Beitrag für die Zeitung „Mail on Sunday“ warnte Dorries die Mitglieder der Konservativen Partei vor dem früheren Finanzminister: „Das strahlende Lächeln des Attentäters, seine sanfte Stimme und sogar seine winzige Statur haben viele von uns wirklich getäuscht“, schrieb Dorries. Zudem retweetete sie ein Bild, das zeigt, wie Sunak als Brutus den Premier als Julius Cäsar von hinten ersticht.
MP Greg Hands says Nadine Dorries’ retweet of Sunak as ‘Brutus the backstabber’ is dangerous
MP Greg Hands has branded ‘dangerous’ a retweet by culture secretary Nadine Dorries, showing Rishi Sunak stabbing Boris Johnson in the back.
… All politicians are corrupt especially nowadays. Name just one politician of ANY PARTY who has spoken out against the theft of our civil liberties and the abuse of our laws by Boris Johnson over the past 30 months? JUST COMPLICIT SILENCE!!
He’s still there because the Conservative party has no obvious credible replacement for him. I wonder if the 1922 committee already has the number of letters required for a no confidence vote but is sitting on it’s hands until the party has decided who they want to get behind?
What’s the point of the Met Police investigating the No 10 Parties? Everyone knows Cressida Dick is biased in favour of Boris Johnson. We all know the truth won’t be told and justice will not be delivered. Another example of corruption & a waste of everyone’s time.
(…)
Partygate report to be delayed for WEEKS because of police probe: Met chief announces criminal investigation as ‚upset‘ Cabinet minister refuses to defend Boris‘s birthday party (so has Cressida done PM a FAVOUR?)
Police to investigate Downing Street lockdown parties
Commissioner Cressida Dick said they were looking into „potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations“ in Downing Street and Whitehall since 2020.
Partys in Downing Street: Polizei leitet Ermittlungen ein
So sollen Kollegen von Regierungsmitarbeitern mit der Veröffentlichung kompromittierenden Materials in der Presse bedroht und eingeschüchtert worden sein, sagte Wragg dem „Telegraph“. Damit solle ein parteiinternes Misstrauensvotum verhindert werden. Die Parteimitglieder hätten erklärtermaßen oder mutmaßlich eine Abstimmung über die Parteiführung des Premierministers angestrebt.
No 10 police give ‚extremely damning‘ evidence to Sue Gray over ‚partygate‘
The statements, described by one source as “extremely damning”, are expected to form a key part of Ms Gray’s report, which is due to be published within days.
The senior civil servant has also spoken to the Prime Minister, civil servants and political advisers, and accessed security pass logs and even Boris Johnson’s official diary.
Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s former chief aide turned hostile adversary, will be interviewed by Ms Gray on Monday, according to report
MPs subjected to ‘blackmail’ as Boris Johnson fights for political life, claims senior Tory
Senior Conservative William Wragg sensationally revealed that he had received reports of Johnson loyalists threatening to place smear stories in the press about Tories considering declarations of no confidence in the prime minister.
And he said that MPs had told him of warnings that investment in their constituencies would be at risk if they failed to back Mr Johnson in battle to save his political life.
He too once ruled supreme. So what lessons does Bibi have for Boris?
The British PM is discovering that his supporters are not quite as loyal as Netanyahu‘s
‚Boris Johnson is unfit for office‘: Ex- Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson takes aim at the PM and warns he is in a ‚perilous situation‘ with growing ‚fatigue‘ among MPs amid Partygate scandal
Tory peer Ruth Davidson, who successfully campaigned against Scottish independence in 2014 and quit frontline politics five years later, said the Prime Minister is in a ‘perilous situation’ ahead of Sue Gray’s report into the lockdown party scandal.
In an interview with The Times, the former MSP said that she would have already submitted her letter of no-confidence in Mr Johnson to the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers if she were a Member of Parliament.
She also warned that Mr Johnson’s authority was teetering in part because of a growing ‘fatigue’ within the party ‘for the amount of drama that has been emanating from No10’ over allegations of lockdown-busting gatherings across government.
Scotland Yard to meet with William Wragg over Downing Street blackmail claims
Scotland Yard will meet with a leading rebel Conservative to discuss claims of threats and blackmail of backbenchers by government whips early next week, The Telegraph can disclose.
A detective from the Metropolitan Police will meet with William Wragg, a senior Tory MP who first raised the concerns, to discuss the allegations, including threats to withdraw investments from constituents.
About a dozen Tory MPs said to have accused party whips of blackmail
“It is illegal. We are meant to operate as MPs without fear or favour. The allocation of taxpayer funding to constituencies should be according to need, not according to the need to keep the prime minister in his job.”
He described the government’s levelling up fund as “an open opportunity for government ministers to corruptly hand out money to some MPs and not to others”.
Government whips and advisers ‚not above the law‘ says Speaker, after claims rebel MPs were ‚blackmailed‘
William Wragg, the chairman of a scrutiny committee, claimed several Tories who oppose Boris Johnson had been subjected to „pressures and intimidation“ in the wake of the Downing Street party scandal.
Downing Street staff, special advisers and government ministers had sought to encourage „embarrassing“ stories in the media about those who no longer back the Johnson premiership, Mr Wragg alleged.
Our acceptance of a mass lock-in is more dangerous than any party
Let’s put aside for the moment the immediate furore over Boris Johnson’s future and the further flood of Downing Street festivity stories which may not be finished yet. We need to ask the question that must, given what has prevailed in our lives for the past two years, be most serious. How on earth did we get to a point where events and decisions which would once have been regarded as commonplace, even virtuous – an employer expressing good wishes to staff at a party, a child embracing elderly grandparents, a relative making regular visits to a dying hospital patient – became illegal?
England ‚WILL scrap Covid passes and WFH at the end of the month’ because they are ‚hard to justify‘ now that Omicron is subsiding — with masks on trains and in shops the only curb left
Currently, people in England need to show proof of vaccination or a negative lateral flow to enter large events and nightclubs.
A Whitehall source told the newspaper: ‚There was always a very high threshold for the policy and it looks increasingly likely in a couple of weeks that threshold won‘t be met. The way cases are going it will be hard to justify renewing.‘
Im guessing whitty and most of SAGE will disappear too they where only safe whilst Boris was P.M. Van-Tam is sensing the end of the Boris Johnson regime it will be like rats jumping ship now !
#BorisResign #BorisOut #BorisJohnson #BorisMustGo
BREAKING: England’s deputy chief medical officer Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam will be leaving his role, according to sources.
Latest statistics on England mortality data suggest systematic mis-categorisation of vaccine status and uncertain effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccination
(December 2021)
At first glance the ONS data suggest that, in each of the older age groups, all-cause mortality is lower in the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. Despite this apparent evidence to support vaccine effectiveness-at least for the older age groups-on closer inspection of this data, this conclusion is cast into doubt because of a range of fundamental inconsistencies and anomalies in the data. Whatever the explanations for the observed data, it is clear that it is both unreliable and misleading. While socio-demographical and behavioural differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated have been proposed as possible explanations, there is no evidence to support any of these. By Occam‘s razor we believe the most likely explanations are systemic miscategorisation of deaths between the different categories of unvaccinated and vaccinated; delayed or non-reporting of vaccinations; systemic underestimation of the proportion of unvaccinated; and/or incorrect population selection for Covid deaths.
MPs are losing their marbles over Omicron…we must remain serene like the Queen
Government scientific advisers are issuing blood-curdling warnings, again, about the NHS being overwhelmed.
There is overblown talk of life-or-death decisions on desolate wards emptied of afflicted staff.
Of new nationwide closures and a furlough.
And politicians themselves are falling like nine-pins.
MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Spare us from the mental torture of crazy travel rules
It sometimes seems as if someone wants to punish us for wanting to live normally again.
I refuse to be imprisoned by an incompetent Government invoking bogus science
The „amber plus“ regime for those returning from France is on one level a trivial detail, hardly newsworthy when set against the magnificent fiasco of the British pingdemic.
Yet nothing quite so illustrates the bureaucratic incoherence of Britain’s post-vaccination policy as this lunatic quarantine rule for travellers.
Furthermore, it is slightly alarming to see the authorities deploy the coercive power of the state so breezily, in such a random fashion, and in violation of the known scientific data. Bad habits are being formed.
UK‘s daily Covid cases drop for the SIXTH day in a row: Infections plummet 38% to 24,950 and deaths fall 24% to 14 – but No10 warns we‘re ‚not out of the woods yet‘ despite virus declining in every region of England
The Government and its scientific advisers had been expecting cases to rocket to at least 100,000 every day this autumn, with top SAGE member ‚Professor Lockdown‘ Neil Ferguson claiming they could even top 200,000.
But daily infections now appear to be falling or levelling off in every region of England. The North East, a hotspot for the Indian ‚Delta‘ variant, was the first to see its outbreak peak on July 14, according to the data.
UK records 44,104 Covid cases in just a 4% week-on-week jump but deaths continue to rise with 73 more victims amid fears Freedom Day could be watered down in a FORTNIGHT unless hospital admissions start to slow
– SAGE has told PM he may need to roll back some curbs by end of first week of August if admissions don‘t slow
– Would mark another extraordinary U-turn just three weeks after Freedom Day was given go-ahead on July 19
Coronavirus data contractors engaged in dirty tricks and disinformation campaigns
(10.05.2020)
Palantir was co-founded in 2004 by Paypal owner and billionaire Peter Thiel. What the blog doesn’t reveal is that Palantir’s client list has included amomgst others, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the Centre for Disease Control, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point and the IRS.
Furthermore, in 2016, it was revealed Palantir had a $34.6m contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and helped the Customs and Border Protection Agency create the Analytical Framework for Intelligence (AFI) system to track immigrants.
Nor does the blog mention that Palantir worked for UK intelligence and was awarded contracts to handle vast data sets on UK citizens for British spy agency GCHQ.
Sir Patrick Vallance corrects mistake about Covid hospital admissions and says 60% of infected patients needing NHS treatment are unvaccinated after wrongly claiming majority have had both jabs
(yesterday)
– Sir Patrick Vallance corrected a mistake about Covid hospitalisation rates
– He originally said 60 per cent of people going to hospital were doubled jabbed
– But he later tweeted the figure applied to the unvaccinated people
AZ jab: People may be three times more likely to get Covid symptoms than Pfizer‘s – study
(16.07.2021)
THE ASTRAZENECA vaccine has given the UK a decisive edge in the vaccine race but with Freedom Day fast approaching, new SAGE figures may provide a cause for concern. According to the panel of experts advising Downing Street, those fully vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine have a three-fold risk of getting Covid symptoms if infected compared with those who got Pfizer and Moderna.