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Guardian: ANTI-VAXXERS ARE JOINING RACIST MILITIAS

OffGuardian | January 23, 2022

This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.

1. “ANTI-VAXXERS ARE JOINING RACIST MILITIAS”

We’ve covered the increasing demonisation of the “anti-vaxxers” regularly for over a year now. Ever since Joe Biden announced his new “domestic terrorism bill”, it was obvious that “Anti-vaxxers” were going to be re-branded as some kind of violent threat to democracy (and they were).

Now it’s happening in the UK too, with a story being published warning that “anti-vaxxers” are becoming more militant and there are fears they will “evolve towards US-style militias”, according to the Guardian.

The article references nameless “counter terrorism” officials and anonymous “Whitehall sources”, who warn that…

Latest intelligence assessments describe the anti-vaxxer movement as ostensibly a conveyor belt, delivering fresh recruits to extremist groups, including racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist organisations.

So there you have it, being anti-Covid “vaccines” is a gateway protest. Before you know it you’ll be shaving your head and sieg hieling all over the place.

Absolutely pathetic propaganda, and hopefully not an early warning sign of legislation to come.

2. “WHAT IF DEMOCRACY AND CLIMATE MITIGATION ARE INCOMPATIBLE?”

OK, this is from two weeks ago, but it’s too important to skip. The title says it all, Foreign Policy is genuinely wondering if climate change is too much of a threat to let democracy stand in the way of fighting it.

It’s a long read, soaked to the bone in double-talk and built on some very shaky assumptions, but there’s some good material on there…

Democracy works by compromise, but climate change is precisely the type of problem that seems not to allow for it. As the clock on those climate timelines continues to tick, this structural mismatch is becoming increasingly exposed. And as a result, those concerned by climate change—some already with political power, others grasping for it—are now searching for, and finding, new ways of closing the gap between politics and science, by any means necessary.

It warns in the opening section, before concluding…

… democracy, in its current form, is not necessarily the path to a solution. It might, instead, be part of the problem.

It’s not hard to see where this is going. We warned, several times, that we would be moving on from Covid to climate, and that “climate lockdowns” were a very real possibility. This kind of talk is setting the groundwork for that movement.

3. ‘MORE PEOPLE IS THE LAST THING THIS PLANET NEEDS’

Another from the Guardian, this time interviewing all the hip and happening young men who are “getting vasectomies to save the world”

It’s about the climate. Again.

Apparently, there are already too many people (that’s not true, but whatever), and so young men are getting the snip. Bravely preventing placing the burden of climate catastrophe onto the next generation… by making sure there isn’t one.

One of the (anonymous, and therefore potentially made-up) interviewees went right out cut his balls off the week Donald Trump was elected. That’ll show ’em.

But wait… It’s not just about climate, it’s also about feminism.

Specifically, it’s about correcting the “gender imbalance” traditionally associated with birth control:

Vasectomies address the gender imbalance that still accompanies the choice and practice of birth control. They come with less risk than more invasive and less reliable methods of female contraception, including sterilisation and the coil.

They are genuinely arguing that making yourself sterile forever is less risky and less invasive than having a completely 100% reversible IUD inserted.

Then they start bemoaning that vasectomies can be “hard to come by, especially for younger, childless men“. NHS GPs are apparently reticent to simply sterilise perfectly healthy young men for no good reason:

While there are no laws on the age at which men in the UK can get a vasectomy, the NHS advises that they may be more likely to be accepted if they are older than 30 and have children. “Your GP can refuse to carry out the procedure … if they don’t believe it’s in your best interests,”

Not only that, but the NHS has cut funding to for vasectomies, and perhaps as a result of this, vasectomy numbers are down nationwide. The Guardian want us to think this is a bad thing, but considering the UK’s birth rate has been falling for decades, it might not be.

Nevertheless, there is hope that “world vasectomy day”, and its links to the fight against climate change, will help “burnish” the vasectomy’s progressive image.

The story ends with inspiring words from one of the voluntarily snipped…

“A lot of people are happy to point and say: ‘That’s wrong,’ or film it on their phone… I look at the world and say: ‘That’s not right; I’m going to try to do something about it.’”

A wonderful attitude. I hope he can pass that wisdom on to his children and his children’s children.

… oh, wait.

BONUS: (NEW) HELLHOLE OF THE WEEK

Not Australia this time, well done guys.

This time it’s New Zealand, where Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just put in place strict new rules to “combat” the spread of Omicron.

Starting today, the whole of the country will move into the red on New Zealand’s “traffic light” system, meaning mandatory masks, lockdowns for the unvaccinated and an increased self-isolation period of 24 days.

How many cases prompted this decision? Nine.

Nine Covid cases in Motueka are confirmed to have the Omicron variant, prompting the decision, Ardern said.

Australia has been pretty aggressive in the game of “anything you can do, I can do worse” they have going with both New Zealand and Canada, so expect a move from them sometime this week.

IT’S NOT ALL BAD…

Yesterday marked 2022’s first “Worldwide Freedom Rally”, with marches taking place all over the world, from London to Bern, to Vancouver to Warsaw to Liverpool to Genoa.

Bilbao, Graz, Brisbane. The list goes on and on and on.

Huge crowds turned out in Toronto… Stockholm… and Sydney.

In London NHS staff threw down their uniforms in front of Downing Street.

These are the people who they want to classify as domestic terrorists and militias.

Also, someone also sent us this sign, which is our new favourite:

All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention that the world’s ten richest men have doubled their fortunes during the pandemic or the Fed’s report on a digital dollar.

January 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Environmentalism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

News the BBC couldn’t ignore as top doctors demand jab mandates are ditched

By Will Jones | TCW Defending Freedom | January 23, 2022

THE NHS vaccine mandate should be cancelled to prevent staff shortages, the Royal College of GPs has said, as thousands took to the streets across England to protest against the policy. The BBC reported:

‘NHS workers who oppose the Government’s mandatory vaccination policy have staged a protest in central London.

‘Demonstrations were also held in other cities across England including Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds.

‘Martin Marshall, Chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said compulsory vaccination for health professionals in England was “not the right way forward”.

He said the vast majority of staff were vaccinated but some 70,000 to 80,000 were not and they accounted for 10 per cent of staff at some hospital or GP surgeries.

If unvaccinated staff were taken out of frontline roles by April 1st there would be “massive consequences” for the NHS, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

‘He said a delay would allow time for booster jabs and a “sensible conversation” about whether vaccines should be mandatory at all.

‘Danny Mortimer, deputy chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said some frontline staff would have to leave their roles if they choose not to be vaccinated.

‘He said: “This will reduce frontline NHS staff numbers even further and lead to more gaps in capacity at a time of intense pressure and patient demand.”

‘In London, demonstrators marched from Regents Park to the BBC headquarters in Portland Place in a peaceful protest against mandating vaccines for health workers.’

Update:

The Telegraph and Daily Mail report that mandatory vaccines for NHS staff could now be pushed back by six months, following these nationwide protests over the requirement and amid demands by Tory backbenchers to drop the rule entirely.

January 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Net Zero Watch pours scorn on Tony Blair Institute claims about ‘cheap’ onshore wind

Net Zero Watch – January 21, 2022

London — Net Zero Watch has ridiculed claims by the “Tony Blair Institute for Global Change” that the recent sharp rise in energy prices could have been avoided if the UK had only erected more onshore wind turbines over the last decade.

Given that Tony Blair introduced lavish subsidies for land owners and wind investors 20 years ago, it is unsurprising that his institute is trying to downplay their contribution to rising energy bills. However, its claim that more onshore wind turbines would have avoided rising energy bills is simply untrue.

The “Tony Blair Institute for Global Change” has claimed that the falling cost of onshore wind means that the UK has lost out by not building more of this technology, first introduced in bulk by the Blair government after 2002. Similar statements have been made by Carbon Brief.

Neither claim stands up to scrutiny.

Onshore wind farms cost consumers in the UK just under £1.5 billion in subsidy in 2020, or about £50 per household in total, one third hitting consumers through electricity bills and the rest finding its way to them through the cost of goods and services as shops and businesses pass on their own share of the subsidy. Because of this subsidy, onshore wind electricity was supplied at an average cost of about £90/MWh, roughly double the cost of conventional energy.

Analysis of the audited accounts of onshore wind farms between 2008 and 2019 conducted by Professor Hughes of the University of Edinburgh, showed no significant reduction in capital or operational costs over this time. Windfarms built in 2008 broke even at about £92/MWh, and those built in 2018/19 at about £91/MWh.

Both the “Tony Blair Institute” and Carbon Brief rely on an estimated break-even cost for new wind farms over the last decade of about £50/MWh. This is wishful thinking for which there is no empirical evidence in the audited accounts.

Furthermore, as is well-known, but not apparently to the “Tony Blair Institute” or Carbon Brief, onshore wind was restricted in England by the willingness of communities to accept it and not at all in Scotland, which has 60% of all the onshore wind in the UK. Mr Cameron’s “ban” was half-hearted and had no real effect. Insofar as onshore wind development was limited, it was discouraged by reductions in subsidy driven through by the Treasury.

The only realistic option for developing more renewable capacity at the time would have been to increase the amount of offshore wind. This would have involved a commitment to pay between £140 and £180 per MWh – the current prices for offshore projects developed in the 2010s. Those prices are 3.5 to 4.5 times the average market price in real terms for 2015-19 and would have imposed a huge burden on electricity customers, not just temporarily but for another 12-15 years.

It should also be remembered that the wind does not blow on demand. The current gas crisis has been exacerbated by low wind conditions that would have becalmed any additional onshore capacity that Mr Cameron might have built.

Advocates of more reliance on wind generation should tell us how we are to ensure that the electricity system continues to function in such conditions without relying on gas – and what the cost will be. Gas generation is the cheapest form of backup to intermittent wind generation.

By opposing the extraction of Britain’s massive shale gas reserves, Tony Blair’s Institute together with other green NGOs, MPs and ministers have directly contributed to the UK’s gas supply and energy cost crisis.

What is more, they also sabotaged any prospect of building new – and much more efficient – gas plants which would have met the current needs at lower cost and with lower carbon emissions.

The authors of those policies should reflect on their part in making the current situation worse than it might have been.

Professor Hughes said:

The ‘Tony Blair Institute’ and Carbon Brief authors appear to live in an alternative universe of speculative numbers. We have plenty of actual evidence about the cost of onshore wind in exactly the period under discussion. It was (and still is) extremely expensive. To have built more of it would have made the current situation even more painful for consumers.”

January 22, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

Ethical concerns arising from the Government’s use of covert psychological ‘nudges’

Health Advisory and Recovery Team | January 20, 2022

Letter to Mr William Wragg, MP

18th January 2022

Mr William Wragg, MP

Chair of the Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC)

Dear Mr Wragg,

Re: Ethical concerns arising from the Government’s use of covert psychological ‘nudges’ in their COVID-19 communications strategy

We are writing to you as a group of psychological specialists and health professionals to highlight our major ethical concerns about the deployment of covert behavioural-science techniques (commonly referred to as ‘nudges’) in the Government’s COVID-19 communications strategy. Our view is that the use of these behavioural strategies – which often operate below people’s conscious awareness and frequently rely on inflating emotional distress to change behaviour – raises profound moral questions. In light of these pressing concerns we respectfully request that, in your role as chair of the Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC), you instigate a comprehensive inquiry into the acceptability of using these strategies on the British people as a means of promoting compliance with public health directives.

Background

The appetite for using covert psychological strategies as a means of changing people’s behaviour was boosted by the emergence of the ‘Behavioural Insights Team’ (BIT) in 2010 as ‘the world’s first government institution dedicated to the application of behavioural science to policy’ (1). The membership of BIT rapidly expanded (2) from a seven-person unit embedded in the UK Government to a ‘social purpose company’ operating in many countries across the world. A comprehensive account of the psychological techniques recommended by the BIT is provided in the Institute of Government document, MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy (3), where the authors claim that their strategies can achieve ‘low cost, low pain ways of nudging citizens … into new ways of acting by going with the grain of how we think and act’.

Since its inception in 2010, the BIT has been led by Professor David Halpern who is currently the team’s chief executive. Professor Halpern and two other members of the BIT also currently sit on the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) (4), a subgroup of SAGE that advises the Government on its COVID-19 communications strategy. Most of the other members of the SPI-B are prominent British psychologists who have expertise in the deployment of behavioural-science ‘nudge’ techniques.

It is important to emphasise that the use of behavioural science in this way represents a radical departure from the traditional methods – legislation, information provision, rational argument – used by governments to influence the behaviour of their citizens. By contrast, many of the ‘nudges’ delivered by the BIT are – to various degrees – acting upon us automatically, below the level of conscious thought and reason.

The ‘nudges’ of concern

The BIT and the SPI-B have encouraged the deployment of many techniques from behavioural science within the Government’s COVID-19 communications. However, there are three ‘nudges’ which have evoked most of our alarm: the exploitation of fear (inflating perceived threat levels), shame (conflating compliance with virtue) and peer pressure (portraying non-compliers as a deviant minority) – or “affect”, “ego” and “norms”, to use the language of the MINDSPACE document.

AFFECT/FEAR

Aware that a frightened population is a compliant one, a strategic decision was made to inflate the fear levels of all the British people. The minutes of the SPI-B meeting (5) dated the 22nd March 2020 stated, ‘The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent’ by ‘using hard-hitting emotional messaging’. Subsequently, in tandem with a subservient mainstream media, the collective efforts of the BIT and the SPI-B have inflicted a prolonged and concerted scare campaign upon the British public. The methods used have included:

  • Daily statistics displayed without context: the macabre mono focus on showing the number of COVID-19 deaths without mention of mortality from other causes or the fact that, under normal circumstances, around 1600 people die each day in the UK.
  • Recurrent footage of dying patients: images of the acutely unwell in Intensive Care Units.
  • Scary slogans: for example, ‘IF YOU GO OUT YOU CAN SPREAD IT, PEOPLE WILL DIE’, typically accompanied by frightening images of emergency personnel in masks and visors.

EGO/SHAME

We all strive to maintain a positive view of ourselves. Utilising this human tendency, behavioural scientists have recommended messaging that equates virtue with adherence to the Covid-19 restrictions and subsequent vaccination campaign. Consequently, following the rules preserves the integrity of our egos while any deviation evokes shame. Examples of these nudges in action include:

  • Slogans that shame the non-compliant: for example, ‘STAY HOME, PROTECT THE NHS, SAVE LIVES’.
  • TV advertisements: actors tell us, ‘I wear a face covering to protect my mates’ and ‘I make space to protect you’.
  • Clap for Carers: the pre-orchestrated weekly ritual, purportedly to show appreciation for NHS staff.
  • Ministers telling students not to ‘kill your gran’.
  • Shame–evoking adverts: close-up images of acutely unwell hospital patients with the voice-over, ‘Can you look them in the eyes and tell them you’re doing all you can to stop the spread of coronavirus?’

NORMS/PEER PRESSURE

Awareness of the prevalent views and behaviour of our fellow citizens can pressurise us to conform and knowledge of being in a deviant minority is a source of discomfort. The Government has repeatedly encouraged peer pressure throughout the COVID-19 crisis to gain the public’s compliance with their escalating restrictions, an approach that – at higher levels of intensity – can morph into scapegoating. The most straightforward example is how, during interviews with the media, ministers have often resorted to telling us that the vast majority of people are ‘obeying the rules’ or that almost all of us are conforming. However, in order to enhance and sustain normative pressure, people need to be able to instantly distinguish the rule breakers from the rule followers; the visibility of face coverings provides this immediate differentiation. The switch to the mandating of masks in community settings in summer 2020, without the emergence of new and robust evidence that they reduce viral transmission, strongly suggests that the mask requirement was introduced primarily as a compliance device to harness normative pressure.

Ethical questions

Compared to a government’s typical tools of persuasion, the covert psychological strategies (outlined above) differ in both their nature and subconscious mode of action. Consequently, we believe there are three main areas of ethical concern associated with their use: problems with the methods per se; problems with the lack of consent; and problems with the goals to which they are applied.

First, it is highly questionable whether a civilised society should knowingly increase the emotional discomfort of its citizens as a means of gaining their compliance. Government scientists deploying fear, shame and scapegoating to change minds is an ethically dubious practice that in some respects resembles the tactics used by totalitarian regimes such as China, where the state inflicts pain on a subset of its population in an attempt to eliminate beliefs and behaviour they perceive to be deviant.

Another ethical issue associated with these covert psychological techniques relates to their unintended consequences. Shaming and scapegoating have emboldened some people to harass those unable or unwilling to wear a face covering. More disturbingly, the inflated fear levels will have significantly contributed to the many thousands of excess non-COVID deaths (6) that have occurred in people’s homes, the strategically-increased anxieties discouraging many from seeking help for other illnesses. Furthermore, a lot of older people, rendered housebound by fear, may have died prematurely from loneliness (7). Those already suffering with obsessive-compulsive problems about contamination, and patients with severe health anxieties, will have had their anguish exacerbated by the campaign of fear. Even now, when all the vulnerable groups have been offered vaccination, many of our citizens remain tormented by ‘COVID-19 Anxiety Syndrome’ (8), characterised by a disabling combination of fear and maladaptive coping strategies.

Second, a recipient’s consent prior to the delivery of a medical or psychological intervention is a fundamental requirement of a civilised society. Professor David Halpern (the BIT Chief Executive and prominent member of SPI-B) explicitly recognised the significant ethical dilemmas arising from the use of influencing strategies that impact subconsciously on the country’s citizens. The MINDSPACE document (9) – of which Professor Halpern is a co-author – states that, ‘Policymakers wishing to use these tools … need the approval of the public to do so’ (p74). More recently, in Professor Halpern’s book, Inside the Nudge Unit, he is even more emphatic about the importance of consent: ‘If Governments … wish to use behavioural insights, they must seek and maintain the permission of the public. Ultimately, you – the public, the citizen – need to decide what the objectives, and limits, of nudging and empirical testing should be’ (p375).

As far as we are aware, no attempt has yet been made to obtain the public’s permission to use covert psychological strategies.

Third, the perceived legitimacy of using subconscious ‘nudges’ to influence people may also depend upon the behavioural goals that are being pursued. It may be that a higher proportion of the general public would be comfortable with the government resorting to subconscious nudges to reduce violent crime as compared to the purpose of imposing unprecedented and non-evidenced public-health restrictions. Would British citizens have agreed to the furtive deployment of fear, shame and peer pressure as a way of levering compliance with lockdowns, mask mandates and vaccination? Maybe they should be asked before the Government considers any future imposition of these techniques.

The position of the British Psychological Society

The British Psychological Society (BPS) is the leading professional body for psychologists in the UK. According to their website (10), a central role of the BPS is, ‘To promote excellence and ethical practice in the science, education and application of the discipline’. [Our emphasis]. Mindful of their important position as the guardian of ethical psychological practice, on the 6th January 2021 46 psychologists and therapists (including many of the signatories of the present letter) wrote to the BPS (11) raising the ethical questions outlined above.

A month later, on the 5th February 2021, a reply (12) was received from Dr Debra Malpass (Director of Knowledge and Insight at the BPS) which failed to directly address our ethical concerns and was, in our view, evasive and disingenuous. Dr Malpass’s response included questioning whether the strategies deployed by Government psychologists were actually covert, stating that the role of specific psychologists had not been evidenced, and expressing how ‘incredibly proud’ the BPS was about the ‘fantastic work done by psychologists throughout the pandemic’.

Dissatisfied with this initial reaction, we contacted the BPS again to question whether our expressed concerns had actually been considered by their ethics committee. We received a brief reply from Dr Malpass on the 16th February 2021 informing us that our initial letter would be considered at their next BPS Ethics Committee on the 1st March; we understood this to be an admission that the covert psychological strategies recommended by psychologists had yet to be scrutinised in regards to their ethical acceptability.

By 12th March, and not having received any further communication from the BPS, we prompted them again. On the 23rd March a message was received from Dr Roger Paxton (Chair of the BPS Ethics Committee) apologising that ‘owing to a very full agenda and an oversight’ no discussion about our concerns had taken place but that they would be included on the agenda of their June meeting.

On the 30th June, and not having received any further communication from the BPS, we prompted them again. On the 1st July we received a response (13) from Dr Paxton, comprising three paragraphs, informing us that the issues we raised had been considered and that their ethics committee had endorsed all previous BPS responses. In this communication, Dr Paxton acknowledged that he had received a large number of recent emails raising the same issues, but rejected our ethical concerns arguing that the strategies referred to were ‘indirect’ rather than covert, the application of psychology in this instance fell outside the realm of individual health decisions (so informed consent was not an issue), levels of fear within the general population were proportionate to the objective risk posed by the virus, and the psychologists’ role in the pandemic response demonstrated ‘social responsibility and the competent and responsible employment of psychological expertise’.

We believe the BPS responses to our ethical concerns about the deployment of covert psychological strategies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic have been defensive and disingenuous. Also we believe the BPS is impeded by a major conflict of interest on this issue in that several members of the SPI-B are also influential figures within the BPS. As such, the impartiality of the BPS in addressing the ethical issues we raised is highly questionable.

Finally, it is worth noting that serious concerns about the Government’s use of behavioural science have previously been raised in relation to other spheres of government activity. An All Parliamentary Group Report (APGR) (14) analysing the recommendations of the Morse Report (15) (a Treasury-commissioned review into the Loan Charge, published in December 2019) found that the distress evoked in those people targeted by behavioural insights may, in some instances, have led to victims taking their own lives. In the words of the APGR:

‘HMRC continue to apply pressure to taxpayers by using 30 behavioural insights in communications, something that has been cited in one of the seven known suicides of people facing the Loan Charge’.

In further recognition of the suffering and anguish associated with these ‘nudge’ techniques, the APGR recommends:

‘An independent assessment and suspension of HMRC’s use of behavioural psychology/behavioural insights in light of the ongoing suicide risk to those impacted by the Loan Charge’.

Clearly, a truly independent and comprehensive evaluation of the ethics of deploying psychological ‘nudges’ on the British people – during public health campaigns and in other areas of government – is now urgently required. We respectfully ask the PACAC to consider performing this important role.

Co-Signatories

Psychology/therapy/mental health

  • Dr Gary Sidley (M.Sc., ClinPsy, PhD) Retired Consultant Clinical Psychologist
  • Ms Jen Ayling (UKCP registered counsellor) Psychotherapeutic Counsellor
  • Dr Faye Bellanca (DClinPsy) Clinical Psychologist
  • Dr Christian Buckland ((PsychD) Psychotherapist
  • Alison Burnard (Dip Gestalt Therapy) Gestalt Psychotherapist
  • Daran Campbell (PG Dip Counselling) Substance Misuse Practitioner
  • Dr Tom Carnwath (FRCPsych, FRCGP) Consultant Psychiatrist
  • Dr Maria Castro Romero (DClinPsy) Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology
  • Gillian England (PG Dip Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy) Cognitive Behavioural Therapist
  • Dr Elizabeth English (M.Phil, DPhil) Mindfulness Teacher & Trauma Therapist
  • Mr Patrick Fagan (M.Sc.) Chief Scientific Officer, Capuchin Behavioural Science
  • Dr Tracey Grant Lee (DClinPsy) Chartered Clinical Psychologist
  • Andy Halewood (Advanced M.Sc. in Counselling Psychology) Chartered Psychologist
  • Sue Parker Hall (CTA, MSc, PGCE) Psychotherapist
  • Andrew D Harry (RPP PTP) NLP Master Practitioner
  • Mrs Nicole Harvey (B.Sc, Pg Dip) Mental Health Practitioner/CBT Therapist
  • Ms Julie A Horsley (Advanced Diploma in Counselling) Counsellor/Therapist
  • Dr Richard House (MA, Ph.D, C.Psych. AFBPsS) former Senior Lecturer in Psychology
  • Emma Kenny (MA Counselling, Advanced Diploma Counselling) Media Psychologist & Psychological Therapist
  • Rachel Maisey (MA, PGCE, PgDip Counselling) Integrative Counsellor
  • Jane Margerison (PG Dip Integrative Psychotherapy, RMN) Psychotherapist
  • Kate Morrissey (Advanced Diploma in Counselling, MA Social Work) Counsellor
  • Lucy Padina (Diploma in Psychology, Advanced Diploma in the Management of Psychological Trauma) Independent Consultant & Registered Social Worker
  • Carolyn Polunin (M.Sc.) Integrative Psychotherapist
  • Dr Livia Pontes (DClinPsy) Clinical Psychologist
  • Dr Kate Porter (DClinPsy) Clinical Psychologist
  • Ian Price (M.Sc. Organisational Behaviour) Business Psychologist
  • Dr Bruce Scott (B.Sc., PhD) Psychoanalyst
  • Professor David Seedhouse (PhD) Honorary Professor of Deliberative Practice
  • Deborah Short (MA Gestalt Psychotherapy) Psychotherapist
  • Ms Deborah Sharples (B.A. [Hons] Social Work) Mental Health Social Worker
  • Susan Sidley (RMN) Retired Psychiatric Nurse
  • Dr Angela Smith (DClinPsy, PhD) Psychology Lead
  • Dr Helen Startup (DClinPsy, PhD) Consultant Clinical Psychologist
  • Dr Dov Stein (MA, MB, BCh, BAO DCH Dobs) Consultant Psychiatrist & Psychotherapist
  • Dr Zenobia Storah (DClinPsy) Child & Adolescent Clinical Psychologist
  • Professor Ellen Townsend (PhD) Professor of Psychology
  • Sarah Waters (BA, Dip Counselling & Therapy) Psychotherapist
  • Dr Alice Welham (MA, DClinPsy, PhD) Clinical Psychologist
  • Dr Damian Wilde (DClinPsy) Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist

Other health professionals

  • Mr John Collis (PGCert in Advanced Practice, BSc [Hons] Nursing, BA [Hons] Retired Nurse Practitioner
  • James Cook (Bachelor of Nursing [Hons], Master of Public Health [MPH]) Registered Nurse
  • Dr Clare Craig (BM, BCh, FRCPath) Consultant Pathologist
  • Dr David Critchley (BSc, PhD) Clinical Pharmacologist
  • Roisin Dargan-Peel (MA) Former Registered General Nurse, Midwife & Health Visitor
  • Mr Paul Goss (MCSP, HCPC, KCMT) Clinical Director & Chartered Physiotherapist
  • Dr Ros Jones (MD, FRCPCH) Retired Consultant Paediatrician
  • Mrs Alison Langthorne (RGN) Staff Nurse
  • Jenna Leith (RGN) Advanced Nurse Practitioner
  • Dr Sam McBride (MB, BCh, MRCP, FRCP, FRCEM) Clinical Gerontologist
  • Mrs Julie Noble (M.Sc, RN) Senior Forensic Nurse Examiner & Advanced Practitioner
  • Mrs Christine Mary Proctor (RGN) Former Registered General Nurse
  • Dr Annabel Smart (MBBS, BSc, DFSRH) Retired General Practitioner
  • Nat Stephenson (B.Sc Audiology) Paediatric Audiologist
  • Dr Helen Westwood (MBChB, MRCGP, DCH, DRCOG) General Practitioner

January 22, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Join the global rally for freedom

By Kathy Gyngell | TCW Defending Freedom | January 20, 2022

THIS Saturday, January 22, will see another worldwide freedom rally. It starts at 1pm in London and other UK cities as well as globally.

To find the details of where, please join the Together Declaration’s Telegram Channel for updates. The Together organisers will be in London and will have placards available on the day. You can find the details on Twitter @togetherdec and on Instagram: @togetherdeclaration […]

Please continue to share Together links to drive their message home. They are doing a vital campaigning and lobbying job. It’s essential that we all keep pushing to end all restrictions on January 26 and to insist on the revocation of an end to all vaccine mandates and coercion.

Together ask us to use the following hashtags in our Twitter communications:

#WorldWideDemo

#StandTogether

and to follow their news and share it on the following platforms:

Twitter: @togetherdec

Instagram: @togetherdeclaration

Facebook

TikTok

LinkedIn

YouTube

GETTR

Gab

Telegram

January 21, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

SPOOKS, RUSSIA, AND DISINFORMATION

By Paul Robinson | IRRUSIANALITY | January 20, 2022

Jeremy Morris has an interesting post on his Postsocialism blog about the malicious role played by Western intelligence services in shaping narratives of Russia. I’m somewhat sceptical about his thesis – or at least the extent of the phenomenon he describes – but as if by chance, today I also came across a story that kind of backs him up.

Morris complains of two “elephants in the room,” who together distort our understanding of Russia. The first is the “clear leveraging of latent public sympathy abroad for the Russian regime by our friends at the English-language offices of RT.” I guess that would be me.

The second is “academic and think-tank contacts with the security services in the West.” Given my former involvement in the intelligence world, and the fact that I’ve taught courses at the University of Ottawa with members of the Canadian security and intelligence services, I guess that would be me too.

Double elephant!

I imagine that Morris thinks that elephant number one distorts things in favour of Russia, and elephant number two distorts them against. That must make me some sort of push-me-pull-you doing both at once. Perhaps that explains why I always end up occupying the middle ground!

Anyway, I digress, because this isn’t meant to be about me. Back to the point.

“If you underestimate the hidden motives of those that comment on Russia – from both elephants, then you are guilty of the ‘fallacy of insufficient cynicism’,” writes Morris. I must confess myself guilty as charged. I can be pretty cynical, but I don’t think that everybody has “hidden motives.” People who write what one might call “pro-Russian” articles for RT aren’t doing it for the money or because the FSB has got some dirt on them any more than people writing Russophobic stuff for think tanks are doing it because they’re taking orders from the FBI, MI5, or CSIS. People tend to believe what they’re doing.

In any case, I worry less about spooks and more about the military industrial complex and its funding of think tanks and the like, all of which work together to inflate threats, keep us in a state of fear, and justify increased defence spending and aggressive foreign policies. But even there, the think tankers etc believe in what they’re doing. The problem is that believers get funded whereas non-believers don’t. I don’t think “hidden motives” are the issue.

That said, Morris has a point, in that security and intelligence services do maintain contacts with chosen favourites and feed them information that they hope will further their chosen narrative. The story I came across today illustrates how this works quite well.

A while back, I mentioned a law case in the UK involving Guardian journalist Carol Cadwalladr and British businessman Arron Banks. Banks is suing Cadwalladr for libel for having claimed that the Russian government offered him money for use in the Brexit referendum campaign, and that he lied about his relationship with the Russians. The case is now before the court, and Cadwalladr’s defence is becoming clear.

The Guardian journalist isn’t claiming that what she said about Banks was true, merely that given the evidence she had at the time she had good reason to believe that it was in the public interest for her to report it. So what was this evidence, and where did she get it from? This is where it becomes interesting. For as the Guardian reports,

In her written evidence statement, she [Cadwalladr] said she had obtained two intelligence files from an organisation contracted to undertake work countering Russian disinformation in Europe on behalf of a government agency, one file of which raised concerns about Banks’s Russian wife.

In other words, British intelligence fed the information to her via another source.

The accusation that Banks took Russian money to fund Brexit received widespread coverage. It was even repeated in a parliamentary report. Yet no evidence to support the claim has ever been produced, and as we have seen, Cadwalladr isn’t trying to say that it was true. In short, it was disinformation. And yet, what prompted it was in part documents leaked by British intelligence to a third party “contracted to undertake work countering Russian disinformation” and then in turn given by that organization to Ms Cadwalladr.

Doesn’t that strike you as a bit iffy?

In the first place, the story reinforces what I have said several times before, namely that the “disinformation industry” set up to “counter Russian disinformation” is itself a major source of disinformation. And second, it reveals an excessively cosy relationship between the media – supposedly an independent guardian of the truth that holds the state to account – and state organizations, including secret intelligence.

Personally, I find it more than a little disturbing.

Maybe Mr Morris is right after all!

January 20, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Unboostered Brits Infected and Dying at Higher Rates than Unvaccinated

UKHSA Vaccine Efficacy Statistics: Week 3

eugyppius | January 20, 2022

The UK Health Security Agency has been condemned for literally months now to report incredibly inconvenient vaccine efficacy statistics. How they have struggled. They have composed disclaimer after disclaimer. They filled a whole blog post with special pleading. They have greyed out the inconvenient numbers.

In their latest report, published just this evening, they’ve tried something new and bold. They now only calculate case, hospitalisation and death rates for the unvaccinated and the triple vaccinated. The double vaccinated have been banished entirely from Table 12. This will make the evil negative efficacy go away, right?

Ha, no:

The numbers are unadjusted, it is true; much certainty surrounds the size of the unvaccinated population and therefore case rates within that group. What is more, these are cases, not true infection statistics. Nevertheless, res ipsa loquitur. It does not look great.

In fact, the UKHSA have given us a great gift, in that they finally provide separate case and severe outcome statistics for the triple-vaccinated and the double vaccinated, allowing us to compare rates across all three groups. They don’t do that themselves, of course, but no matter. We can use the raw numbers and rates from last week’s report to derive the total number of double and triple vaccinated, and the rates in this week’s report to derive the triple vaccinated population. A little subtraction then gives us a decent estimate of how many double but not triple vaccinated people there are in each age bracket.

Here is the graph the UKHSA don’t want you to see:

This is plainly a pandemic of the vaccinated.

The double vaccinated death rate is also a problem. You can tell this just from looking at the numbers in each category:

The crucial 70+ demographic is over 90% boostered, and yet the very few double vaccinated in this cohort manage to match or exceed theeir death numbers.

The death rates have the double vaccinated worse than the unvaccinated in the 70+ cohort, and roughly matching the unvaccinated in the 60–69 group:

This isn’t all that surprising, given that Public Health Scotland data has shown across-the-board negative efficacy for the unboostered for some weeks now:

This is also true of deaths, but beware of the extremely low numbers, particularly in the singly vaccinated:

January 20, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Forget the headlines, these are the vaccine facts

By Geoff Moore | TCW Defending Freedom | January 20, 2022

WE were told before the Covid vaccine rollout that it wouldn’t block transmission, but that it would reduce symptoms and therefore hospitalisation. Throughout 2021 we saw many warning headlines like ‘Pandemic of the unvaccinated’, becoming ever more alarmist like this one in the Guardian towards the end of November when Professor Sir Andrew Pollard opined that ‘Getting jabs to the unvaccinated has never been more critical’. The article said that the horrors of Covid are now restricted to those who won’t or can’t have a jab, and further claimed that Covid patients in ICUs are ‘now almost all unvaccinated’. The BBC too was not backwards in coming forwards, in December reporting a spokesman for Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, saying that ’80 per cent of patients we’ve seen over the last few months in general wards and critical care have been unvaccinated’.

In his statement to Parliament yesterday the Prime Minister continued with this narrative: ‘When there are still over 16,000 people in hospital in England alone, the pandemic is not over. And, Mr Speaker, make no mistake, Omicron is not a mild disease for everyone – and especially if you’re not vaccinated.’

So, let’s report what Mr Johnson so blatantly ignored – the latest government data on Covid-positive hospitalisations: the facts, not his opinions. It makes for interesting reading.

Public Health Scotland’s Winter Statistical Report states that 541 vaccinated people were hospitalised versus 168 unvaccinated, see page 36 table 12 (I used December 25-31 as it’s not provisional) which by my count is over three times as many vaccinated.

NHS Wales Surveillance of Vaccine Status states that 433 vaccinated people were hospitalised versus 90 unvaccinated, see page 4 table 4. That’s nearly five times as many.

Northern Ireland’s Vaccination Status of Deaths and Hospitalisations states that 395 vaccinated people were hospitalised versus 289 unvaccinated (page 8 table 1). That’s 108 more vaccinated than unvaccinated.

UK Health Security Agency Covid-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report states that 8,566 vaccinated people were hospitalised in England versus 4,738 unvaccinated (Page 40 table 10).That’s nearly twice as many.

All confirmed in the report of the 95th Sage meeting on Covid-19 which states: ‘For patients admitted after 16 June 2021 the majority of patients had received two doses’ (Page 3 item 3).

I don’t know what Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, University of Oxford and the media were basing their headlines on but it certainly wasn’t this data.

Meanwhile Johnson did his best with something that’s come to be understood with the phrase, ‘lies,damn lies and statistics’, telling us that from ‘our NHS data, we know that around 90 per cent of people in intensive care are not boosted’. Never mind that the totally unvaccinated are the minority in intensive care.

Sir Andrew Pollard might buy that one. Others won’t.

January 20, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

What is the truth about jabs and baby deaths?

By Sally Beck | TCW Defending Freedom | January 20, 2022

LAST October TCW reported on the concerning numbers of miscarriages and stillbirths reported to our drugs watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Pregnant women who had received a Covid jab and then lost their baby filled out Yellow Card reports in their hundreds. At that time nearly 600 mothers-to-be had suffered spontaneous abortions, as the MHRA refer to miscarriages, and felt the jab had been responsible. In just three months, that number increased by 100 to a total of 709.

Pfizer’s jab is associated with the highest casualty rate, with 425 miscarriages reported. That figure includes one premature baby death, one miscarriage-related death and 13 stillbirth/foetal deaths. Since May last year, the under-40s have not received the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine because it increases your risk of developing blood clots. AZ, introduced in January 2021, still has 229 reports of miscarriage with five stillbirths, while the Moderna jab, introduced in April 2021, has 51 miscarriage reports. Five mothers reported they did not know which vaccine they had received.

Since February last year, the BBC have been urging pregnant women to take the Covid vaccination despite the fact that no manufacturer was due to complete a scientific trial in expectant mothers before December. Their results are still to be released so all we have is the MHRA’s real-time data, which it seems is being ignored.

Instead, British health chiefs have relied on information from women in the US who accidentally found themselves pregnant having taken the Covid jab and reported the results of their pregnancy to the V-safe app. V-safe is hosted by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) but it is not a scientific study. It is a self-reporting database like the MHRA Yellow Card scheme which Reuters fact checkers like to tell us should not be relied on. So if we cannot rely on the Yellow Card, how can we rely on V-safe?

‘We cannot,’ said an obstetrician who did not want to be named, based in Scotland. ‘Frankly, it’s a mess and when you consider what is at stake, the healthy development of a baby, and the health of the mother, it’s a disgrace.’

This fact has not been acknowledged by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who updated their advice to pregnant and nursing mothers on 20 December 2021. They said: ‘Covid-19 vaccines are strongly recommended in pregnancy. Vaccination is the best way to protect against the known risks of Covid-19 in pregnancy for both women and babies, including admission of the woman to intensive care and premature birth of the baby.’

Three months ago TCW exposed how figures had been manipulated by the NHS to make unvaccinated pregnant mums think they had a higher risk of ending up in ICU than vaccinated mums. It was not true.

The chief scientific adviser to the Department of Health, Professor Lucy Chappell, has never satisfactorily addressed parents’ concerns about whether the vaccine can harm their unborn babies. Ms Chappell, who is also Professor in Obstetrics at King’s College London, tweeted last November: ‘Covid-19 vaccines have protected millions of women around the world – and are safe for pregnant women and women considering pregnancy.’ The tweet had a cool reception with just 116 likes and Dr Chappell had no data from any vaccine manufacturer to support her claim.

The same applies to MHRA chief executive Dr June Raine, who said in a statement in November: ‘We want to reassure all pregnant women that the Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective for them to use at all stages of pregnancy. Our rigorous safety monitoring of these vaccines in pregnancy shows that the vaccines are safe and that there is no increased risk of pregnancy complications, miscarriage, or stillbirth.’

A British funeral director known only as Wesley tells another story. On camera, he says how he saw newborn baby deaths increase tenfold after vaccination began.

Wesley says: ‘There are a lot of newborn babies in fridges in mortuaries. There were 30 in one hospital. Mortuary fridges usually hold about 6-10 babies maximum and they’re never normally full. ‘Now, they’re full and (the deceased babies) are being kept in the adult section.’ He agreed with the interviewer that the number was ten times higher than normal, and went on: ‘The babies have either been miscarried or they are full term stillbirths but not a lot has been said about it.’

If anyone wants to speak out, we promise we are listening.

Latest Yellow Card scheme figures published below with 1,932 fatalities reported to January 5 2022.

Adult – Primary & Booster/Third Dose, Child Administration

Pfizer – 25.3million people – 47.2m doses – Yellow Card reporting rate – 1 in 162 people impacted

AstraZeneca – 24.9m people – 49.1m doses – Yellow Card reporting rate – 1 in 103 people impacted

Moderna – 1.6m people – 3m doses – Yellow Card reporting rate – 1 in 50 people impacted

Overall, 1 in 120 people injected experiences a Yellow Card adverse event. A significant proportion require urgent medical care, may be life changing or long-lasting in effect. This may be less than 10 per cent of actual figures according to MHRA.

Adult Booster or 3rd Doses = 34,834,288 people

Booster Yellow Card Reports – 24,402 (Pfizer) + 371 (AZ) + 13,156 (Moderna) + 121 (Unknown) = 38,050

Reactions – 446,903 (Pfizer) + 855,968 (AZ) + 106,996 (Moderna) + 4,426 (Unknown) = 1,414,293

Reports – 156,250 (Pfizer) + 241,657 (AZ) + 32,133 (Moderna) + 1,442 (Unknown) = 431,482 people impacted

Fatal – 684 (Pfizer) + 1182 (AZ) + 29 (Moderna) + 37 (Unknown) = 1,932

Spontaneous Abortions – 425 + 1 premature baby death + 1 miscarriage related death/ 13 stillbirth/foetal deaths (9 recorded as fatal) (Pfizer) + 229 + 5 stillbirth (AZ) + 51 (Moderna) + 4 (Unknown) = 709 miscarriages

Blood Disorders – 16,056 (Pfizer) + 7,728 (AZ) + 2,228 (Moderna) + 62 (Unknown) = 26,074

Pulmonary Embolism & Deep Vein Thrombosis – 801 (Pfizer) + 2,991 (AZ) + 73 (Moderna) + 25 (Unknown) = 3,890

Anaphylaxis – 615 (Pfizer) + 863 (AZ) + 76 (Moderna) + 2 (Unknown) = 1,556

Acute Cardiac – 10,703 (Pfizer) + 10,766 (AZ) + 2,408 (Moderna) + 83 (Unknown) = 23,960

Pericarditis/Myocarditis – 1,047 (Pfizer) + 414 (AZ) + 256 (Moderna) + 6 (Unknown) = 1,723

Infections – 10,568 (Pfizer) + 19,679 (AZ) + 1,861 (Moderna) + 136 (Unknown) = 32,244

Herpes – 2,048 (Pfizer) + 2,639 (AZ) + 208 (Moderna) + 20 (Unknown) = 4915

Blindness – 142 (Pfizer) + 309 (AZ) + 23 (Moderna) + 4 (Unknown) = 478

Eye Disorders – 7,310 (Pfizer) + 14,641 (AZ) + 1,276 (Moderna) + 82 (Unknown) = 23,309

Deafness – 268 (Pfizer) + 418 (AZ) + 40 (Moderna) + 4 (Unknown) = 730

Skin Disorders – 31,329 (Pfizer) + 52,749 (AZ) + 11,702 (Moderna) + 308 (Unknown) = 96,088

Psychiatric Disorders – 9,307 (Pfizer) + 18,117 (AZ) + 2,075 (Moderna) + 104 (Unknown) = 29,603

Headaches & Migraines – 33,635 (Pfizer) + 93,545 (AZ) + 8,280 (Moderna) + 323 (Unknown) = 135,783

Vomiting – 4,914 (Pfizer) + 11,594 (AZ) + 1,587 (Moderna) + 59 (Unknown) = 18,154

Nervous System Disorders – 75,192 (Pfizer) + 180,996 (AZ) + 17,398 (Moderna) + 816 (Unknown) = 274,402

Strokes and CNS haemorrhages – 707 (Pfizer) + 2,245 (AZ) + 34 (Moderna) + 13 (Unknown) = 2,999

Guillain-Barré Syndrome – 83 (Pfizer) + 483 (AZ) + 9 (Moderna) + 6 (Unknown) = 581

Facial Paralysis including Bell’s Palsy – 1,001 (Pfizer) + 978 (AZ) + 119 (Moderna) + 10 (Unknown) = 2,108

Tremor – 2,020 (Pfizer) + 9,897 (AZ) + 570 (Moderna) + 50 (Unknown) = 13,538

Seizures – 1,023 (Pfizer) + 2,028 (AZ) + 232 (Moderna) + 16 (Unknown) = 3,299

Paralysis – 463 (Pfizer) + 855 (AZ) + 81 (Moderna) + 8 (Unknown) = 1,407

Respiratory Disorders – 19,633 (Pfizer) + 29,211 (AZ) + 3,489 (Moderna) + 185 (Unknown) = 52,518

Reproductive/Breast Disorders – 27,738 (Pfizer) + 20,196 (AZ) + 4,211 (Moderna) + 177 (Unknown) = 52,322

CHILDREN & YOUNG PEOPLE SPECIAL REPORT

Suspected side effects reported in individuals under 18

Pfizer – 3,000,000 children (1st doses) plus 900,000 second doses resulting in 2,471 Yellow Cards

AZ – 11,600 children (1st doses) plus 10,000 second doses resulting in 248 Yellow Cards – Reporting rate 1 in 47

Moderna – 21,500 children (1st doses) and 16,000 second doses resulting in 16 Yellow cards

Brand Unspecified – 11 Yellow Cards

Total = 3,033,100 children injected

Total Yellow Cards Under 18s = 2,746

Full reports including 339 pages of specific reaction listings are here. 

January 19, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Do face masks make you more attractive?

By James Townsend | January 18, 2022

Cardiff University published a news story on their website about a new scientific study suggesting “protective face masks make wearers look more attractive”. It was framed around experts finding a “surprising new reason to mask up”.

At the time of writing this, the study had been covered in media in six different countries, spanning print, online, broadcast, & radio — the whole spectrum of earned media. Sky News framed their coverage most positively and put forward that people previously reluctant to wear one “may change their minds” thanks to this academic discovery.

The headlines all scream in unison: face masks make you look more attractive – ‘The Science’ says so. A resounding success for the Cardiff Uni team!

Knowing that many who wear masks do so under duress, and then accounting for the significant proportion of the population who hate the very concept of them, I immediately smelt a rat. Besides which, even if you agree with their usage from a public health point-of-view, it is surely a stretch of anyone’s imagination to claim that most people find a germ-ridden mouth blanket more attractive than being exposed to a naked face? Nonetheless, that’s what the scientists were claiming.

In this weird, post-Covid world where fiction is often pushed as fact, I decided to do what any journalist worth their salt would do, and explore the veracity of such claims.

Various articles only quoted Dr Lewis directly from the press release, and it was obvious they hadn’t spoken to him. As a journalist, this immediately set alarm bells ringing for me. If they didn’t speak to the lead scientist, did they even read the study? If they didn’t read the study, how can they be sure what they are reporting is correct? What if they missed some crucial context?

Call me old fashioned but I then did what the journalists should have done, and I read the actual study.

Before even clicking onto the study, I already knew from the initial press release that only 43 participants had taken part. Had the group of 43 included women from all walks of life and parts of society, perhaps the small number would have stood up to scrutiny more robustly. So, it was genuinely bemusing to then read that every single participant was a psychology student from the same course being run by the report authors. On top of that, they were 93% white and all aged 18 to 24. No diversity in a small sample to start with, is bad news.

Beautiful Cardiff is the capital city of Mark Drakeford’s Labour-run Wales – a country which has seen and, in many cases, embraced some of the most draconian reactions to this pandemic we have seen; including wearing masks with pride, introducing scientifically illiterate vaccine passports, and even banning people from buying books from supermarkets during the 2020 lockdowns. With this in mind, it’s not beyond the realms of sensible possibility to think that psychology students logging onto their laptops – who, by the way, received “course credits as compensation” for their participation – already knew what the ‘right’ answer was before rating their first masked and unmasked face.

This feeling was confirmed pretty swiftly when I stumbled across what I would describe as the key nugget of information:

It’s little wonder they hid this line at the end of the paper, given it confirms the vast majority of the participants were essentially pro-maskers talking favourably about men in masks.

It is an indictment of the sad state of journalism today that the enthusiastic coverage of this woeful study has not excavated this nugget. One of the reasons I left the newsroom, was the slow transition from journalist to churnalist – churning out other organisations’ press releases rather than discovering your own stories. So, in many respects, I haven’t been surprised to witness what I have since March 2020.

Of course, declining journalistic standards are nothing new and have been apparent for some years. The pandemic has merely shone a light on how dangerously out of control it is, and what a devastating impact it can have on the relationship of trust that should exist between citizens and the people who are employed to disseminate news and information to serve the public interest.

The uncomfortable truth is that agenda-driven scientists sometimes try to prove a pre-determined outcome. Misinformation based on flawed data create headlines around the world. And another ugly truth? Masks don’t make you more attractive.

January 18, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

UK government hires ad agency to convince the public they don’t need privacy

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | January 17, 2022

The UK is stepping up its “war on encryption,” reports are saying, and like in any good old war, propaganda comes first to “prepare the ground.” And a new campaign is expected to launch as early as this month.

In this case, they call it publicity, with the Home Office being behind the effort whose goal is to sway public opinion in favor of undermining the privacy of the very members of that public – using their own money from public funds, to the tune of over half a million pounds.

Meanwhile the “hired gun” is ad agency M&C Saatchi. The Rolling Stone said it had a chance to review documents thanks to a Freedom of Information request, and that what it discovered were “some shockingly manipulative tactics.”

The main target seems to be Facebook’s Messenger app, specifically, the giant company’s move to better encrypt communications of its users. The government’s narrative is old – “think of the children” – the way many politicians try to push through policies of deeper and broader restrictions that eventually end up hurting everybody.

But the UK government appears to want to wrap that “classic” message in some new advertising glitz – as it launches what the Rolling Stone calls “a publicity blitz” to undermine privacy of people’s chats.

“We have engaged M&C Saatchi to bring together the many organizations who share our concerns about the impact end-to-end encryption would have on our ability to keep children safe,” said a statement from the Home Office.

The advertising agency has reportedly gone with visualizing end-to-end encryption – which safeguards people’s security and privacy online and keeps bad actors out – as something sinister and dark. The report says that this is done by putting two actors, an adult and a child, both appearing to be on their phones, in a glass box installed in a public space, which gradually becomes black.

The idea here is that allowing law enforcement near unfettered access to people’s communications would represent the clear glass, while encryption dims it until the goings on inside the box become invisible.

The documents, a presentation to get non-profits on side, also contains a slide saying that since “most of the public” is ignorant about end-to-end encryption they can be easily swayed, while the recommendation is not to allow the campaign to turn into “a privacy vs safety debate.”

But that’s exactly what it is, advocates suggest.

“The Home Office’s scaremongering campaign is as disingenuous as it is dangerous. Without strong encryption, children are more vulnerable online than ever. Encryption protects personal safety and national security… what the government is proposing puts everyone at risk,” said Robin Wilton, a director with the Internet Society.

January 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

In a minority of one, the maskless would-be martyr

By Liz Hodgkinson | TCW Defending Freedom | January 17, 2022

As Nicola Sturgeon announces that the Scots may have to wear facemasks ‘for years to come’, all I can say is how glad I am that I don’t live in Scotland.

Since the new mask-wearing rules were introduced on November 30, I have refused to wear one and touch wood, fingers crossed, have got away with it.

In that time, I have been on buses, coaches, the London Underground, stayed in a hotel for three days over Christmas, been to the cinema and to the hairdresser, the beauty salon, nail bar and in many shops and supermarkets, blessedly mask-free. I have taken taxis all over the place. Only once have I been apprehended, and that was in Sainsbury’s, where a member of staff came up to me and asked: ‘Where is your mask, madam?’  I told him that I was medically exempt, and he nodded and went away.

In the hotel where I was staying, there were signs everywhere saying that masks were compulsory, and that anybody not wearing one may be reported to the authorities. Yet I did not wear one, nobody said anything and nor was I reported to the authorities.

I have also got away with not wearing a mask in a clinic where I went for hearing tests. I told the audiologist there that I didn’t believe in masks and he accepted it, although both he and the receptionist were wearing them, as were the other patients in the waiting room.

It is true that on buses I have been on the receiving end of some nasty stares, or as nasty as they can be when most of the faces and thus the expressions, of the other passengers, are hidden. It is also true that some people edge away from me as though I have got a deadly plague. My next-door neighbours, masked up to the eyeballs even when walking down the street, asked why I was not wearing a mask and I gave them the same response: ‘I am medically exempt.’  That, so far, has precluded further questioning although the truth is that I have exempted myself. I have no actual doctor’s exemption although if challenged, I have an exemption card in my wallet which I downloaded from a government site and which I can produce if demanded. So far, nobody has asked to see it.

The government website says quite plainly that if wearing a mask causes undue distress, you can exempt yourself from wearing one. In order to drive home the obvious fact that I am not wearing a mask, I make sure I am wearing bright red lipstick every time I leave the house. That way, I am making a clear statement that I am defying the rules and showing in no uncertain way that am proud to be mask-free.

We were warned that we could face on-the-spot fines of £200 if we refused to wear a mask on the London Underground. Since the end of November, I have taken the Tube many times, always maskless, and have never been confronted or asked to see proof of exemption. I decided that if I was fined, I would refuse to pay it and go to prison for my principles if it came to that. I would be a martyr for the cause! But none of the Underground staff has said a word and nor have any of the passengers. True, there are signs all over the place saying that masks are compulsory, both on trains and in stations, but I have just taken no notice.

The sad thing is that I seem to be in a minority of one. Everywhere I go, I am the only person, child or adult, who is not muzzled. It is monstrous that all secondary school pupils and children over the age of 11 have been told to wear masks in public indoor venues and on public transport. My neighbour, employed by Oxford University, says that she is required to wear a mask for work, even though most days she is the only person in the office. She also has to keep taking tests.

Actually, I am going further than not wearing a mask. I have never had a PCR or lateral flow test, not had the booster and am not going to have it, either in spite of Sir Chris Whitty telling me in the cinema that I must have it to protect myself and others. There are huge posters at bus stops and ads in every newspaper bullying me to get jabbed, but I ignore them all. And guess what? I have remained completely well, never had so much as a sniffle throughout all this so-called pandemic, while just about everybody I know who had had the jabs, the boosters, the tests and who never dares to venture out without a muzzle round their face, has had Covid or what passes for it. Most of my refusenik friends, the few I have left who are defying all the strictures, say the same.

The mask mandates in England at least are due to be reviewed on January 26 but if they are relaxed, as I expect them to be, I will place a bet here and now that the majority of people will continue to wear them and tell you that it is their choice. Such is the state of fear that governments don’t need to impose rules or threaten us with fines and imprisonment. We have become so cowed and terrified that we are imposing them on ourselves.

I just wonder how many people will be brave enough to defy the First Minister in Scotland, if she carries out her threat to make her compatriots wear masks for ever more?

January 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

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