Statistics, lies and damned lies are all around us. And then there’s ‘modelling’ and ‘Next slide please . . .’
On the basis of alarmist projections by ‘experts’ who have been spectacularly wrong time and again, Christmas has been thrown into disarray.
Welcome to I Can’t Believe It’s Not Lockdown. As this newspaper’s front page headline declared yesterday: ‘IT’S BORIS VERSUS THE SCIENTISTS’. Despite the PM’s protestations to the contrary, the scientists are winning on away goals.
Again, city centre are deserted. Customers are not coming into shops, bars or restaurants. Public transportation is practically empty. There is much frustration, particularly within the Tory Party.
100 backbenchers have voted against vaccination passports. This anger has spread to the lowest reaches of Government.
On the basis of alarmist projections by ‘experts’ who have been spectacularly wrong time and again, Christmas has been thrown into disarray. London Bridge seen at 7.35 AM
Tory MP Joy Morrissey, a junior bag carrier at the Foreign Office, tweeted on Wednesday: ‘Perhaps the unelected Covid public health spokesperson should defer to what our ELECTED Members of Parliament and the Prime Minister have decided. I know it’s difficult to remember but that’s how democracy works. This is not a public health socialist state.’
Morrissey meant Chris Whitty (one half of Two Ronnies of Doom), who had done everything he could to make the holiday season a mockery. We should be ready for another 18-months of misery, he said last night.
England’s Chief Medical Officer Whitty, a man with the funereal demeanour of a pox doctor’s clerk, used a Downing Street press conference to ramp up Project Fear 2.0. Painting an apocalyptic picture of the Omicron variant spreading like Triffids, he urged people not to mix unless it ‘really matters to them’.
What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t blame me if you die of Covid, kicking and screaming in agony? Are you surprised that so many people choose to tread cautiously?
His priapic graphs closely resemble climate Jeremiah Michael Mann’s notorious global warming hockey stick and are designed to maximise alarm and despondency. Statistics can be used to prove any thing, as long as you choose the right starting point.
As the eminent statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter has admitted, the claim that millions of people will soon be infected with Omicron was ‘a bit naughty’.
That’s putting it mildy. Regular readers of this blog will know that I gave up on believing anything they had to say about Covid 18 months ago. That’s largely down to their cynical refusal to define what they mean by people dying with the virus, rather than from it.
Even Lockdown Lite isn’t severe enough for the fanatics of so-called Independent SAGE, who are demanding a ten-day circuit breaker — in other words, another complete shutdown backed by the full force of the law
As the distinguished oncologist Karol Sikora said this week: How do we know the first patient to die with Omicron wasn’t knocked down by a bus? We don’t, and the Government isn’t saying. But it wouldn’t be the first time.
Despite blood-curdling assurances that we face a tsunami (Wee Burney) or tidal wave (Boris) of Omicron cases, the Health Minister Gillian Keegan was forced to admit yesterday that there were just ten — or was it 11? — Omicron patients in hospital.
Yet based on suspect ‘modelling’, the Government has been prepared again to restrict civil liberties and send the economy into a tailspin. An allegedly Conservative Government, with an 80-seat majority, elected on a promise to ‘take back control’, continues to capitulate to ‘The Science’, a catch-all term for everyone from proper doctors to college lecturers and ‘public health professionals’ without a medical qualification to their name.
How some of us cheered in 2016, during the Brexit campaign, when Michael Gove said people were tired of ‘experts’ who claimed to know what was best, while consistently getting everything wrong.
Again, city centre are deserted. Customers are not coming into shops, bars or restaurants. The public transport system is almost empty. There is an overflowing of frustration within Tory parties. Waterloo Station can be seen above
Now we’re told the Govester has morphed into the most gung-ho minister in favour of a Wuhan-style clampdown. If he had his way, we’d be barricaded into our homes and shot on sight if we dared to venture outside.
Who’d have thought it? Michael Gove (the Manchurian Candidate). Boris was also captured by Zero Covid despite having once been a libertarian. He insists that Lockdown Lite’s latest restrictions were entirely voluntary, unlike the one last year.
‘We don’t want to make your choices for you about your social life, we are not closing things,’ he said.
But as long as his sidekicks like Whitty keep implying that ‘YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!’ is it any wonder most people choose to vote with their feet and head for the hills?
Even Lockdown Lite isn’t severe enough for the fanatics of so-called Independent SAGE, who are demanding a ten-day circuit breaker — in other words, another complete shutdown backed by the full force of the law.
Boris panics because he fears being remembered by the NHS killer Prime Minister.
Boris will not cave in to the 100-strong revolt of backbenchers if he has any chance. However, the PM appears to be frightened by the sheer volume of opposition from his own party.
The truth hurts, which is why Joy Morrissey’s tweet was unceremoniously taken down in double-quick time and her promotion prospects disappeared down the gurgler. (Heaven knows, she’s miserable now.)
But Morrissey got one thing wrong when she wrote: ‘This is not a public health socialist state.’
Sorry, Joy, that’s exactly what Britain has become. An socialist public health care state.
Boris is afraid of being remembered for his role as Prime Minister that killed the NHS.
It’s his own stupid fault, for mythologising Our Amazing NHS as the envy of the world. It isn’t. However, we all must pay the price in order to keep the dream alive.
It’s not easy to ruin Christmas, destroy the hospitality industry and cancel tens, thousands of long-overdue lifesaving operations. For the Great God Science to be satisfied, we must all sacrifice our lives on the altars of Covid.
Slide 2: Please…
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has just blown £9 million to eradicate rodents on a South Atlantic island.
Helicopters were used to drop poison on Gough Island, part of the UK’s Tristan da Cunha overseas territory, which is one of the most important nesting sites for seabirds.
Alarm was raised following reports that mice had been eating eggs and chicks of the Tristan albatross.
The largest South Atlantic operation since the Falklands War of 1982 saw RSPB’s crack team rush to the island. But monitors found only one mouse even after all the bombing. Yep, one. You’ve heard of the Six Million Dollar Man.
Meet the Nine Million Quid Mouse.
Air Miles Andy, an ex-Navy pilot and former Navy pilot, would be more cost-effective if he was willing to share his Falklands exploits. It’s not as if he’s got much else on at the moment, and it might have helped him salvage some of his ragged reputation.
Gough Island’s answer to Danger Mouse would have been no match for a helicopter gunship.
On Tuesday’s BBC tea-time quiz Pointless, contestants were asked to name any PM or Chancellor since 1910 whose surname contained the letter ‘A’ as its first vowel.
Many brilliant historical answers were provided, such as those of Campbell-Bannerman or Ramsay MacDonald. One contestant, Sajid Javid (ex-Chancellor, now Health Secretary), was nominated from the present group.
What percentage of 100 people were named The Saj by the interviewees? None.
It was an inexplicable answer. There are no chances that Javid will win any leadership contest if Boris is killed or forced to leave.
Points nul
What’s the worst job you ever had? The Brussels sprout eater must rank high. Ben Harrison, a Leeds native, disagrees. Ben, a 26-year old graduate in nutrition and food studies, is Asda’s official sprout-taster.
He loves it. At this time of year he’s in his element, getting through 50 sprouts a day in a quest to discover which goes best with Christmas dinner.
What do climate change zealots really know about Ben? He sounds like the template for Viz magazine’s Johnny Fartpants.
Tribunal ruled asking anyone over 60 about their plans to retire was hateful. I don’t know why. Since I was 35 years old, people have told me that it’s time to end the day.