MHRA Finally Admits it Failed to Test the Safety of Mass Manufactured Covid Vaccine Batches
UK’s medicines regulator comes clean
By JJ Starky| The Stark Naked Brief | September 28, 2023
On December 8th, 2020, June Raine, the Head of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), publicly declared that “no corners have been cut” during the temporary authorisation of the Pfizer Covid vaccine. However, thanks to the persistence of former Ministry of Defence employee, Nick Hunt, recent findings prove Raine’s statement was not true.
For context, it’s common in development trials across various sectors to first use products made in small-scale facilities or laboratories. Investing in mass production usually comes later, once there’s sufficient confidence in the product’s design. Scaling up, naturally, introduces new risks.
With pharmaceuticals, regulations are in place to manage this process. This is to ensure the final product remains consistent and effective.
Concerns first arose in 2022 regarding the Pfizer Covid vaccine. There were suspicions that the vaccine MHRA approved in December 2020, manufactured using “Process 2”, differs from the version tested in Pfizer’s clinical trials, manufactured using “Process 1”. Josh Guetzkow, an Israeli academic, brought the difference to light, referencing Freedom of Information requests from various countries and Pfizer documents released by U.S. courts.
In May 2023, he published this rapid response in the British Medical Journal alongside Professor Retsef Levi, airing his concerns.

Guetzkow highlighted two things. First, there is a lack of publicly available reports comparing vaccines produced by both processes. Second, there is significant variability in the rate of serious adverse events across different vaccine lots, underscoring the need to better understand variability in the production process.
In October 2020, Pfizer had committed to comparing safety and immunogenicity results between vaccines produced by both processes. Yet, when Hunt submitted his initial FOI request concerning the latter to MHRA in July, their initial response directed him to the European Medicine Agency’s archive without specific guidance.
Here’s the bombshell.
Nick then requested an internal review. In their response, MHRA admit their replies “were not compliant with the (FOI) Act and did not provide or address the specific information (Nick) asked for”.
They then confess they do not possess the “Process 2” report.
The document goes on to state the “Process 2 drug… was shown to be comparable through side-by-side comparability studies and heightened characterisation testing”. In short, trust us, we’ve seen the data but we can’t show it to you and we don’t have it.
Worse yet, MHRA also revealed they failed to chase Pfizer on the promised report that the company should have published comparing the products. This was because of the “extensive usage of vaccines manufactured via Process 2”.
NATO’s 77th Brigade’s Set Their Legal Attack Dogs on Russell Brand
By Declan Hayes | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 29, 2023
Not content with conspiring with the British Parliament in throttling Russell Brand’s voice, NATO has set the entire British legal establishment against him.
Victoria Prentis KC, Britain’s attorney general, has warned the nation’s editors that any pertinent coverage about either Russell Brand or any criminal case that may be taken against him “may amount to contempt”, even though no arrests have yet taken place or cautions to Brand issued and no warrants have yet been issued against him. Legally, even in NATO’s corrupt British heartland, Brand should be free as a bird to go about his business, as should we be to make reasonable comments about him.
That is not now the case. Having been traduced at the behest of the 77th Brigade by the British media, Prentis has now decreed that any salient comments on Brand’s as yet non-existing case is in contempt of court, despite the fact that Brand has not yet got his day in court and no jury of his peers has yet been appointed to adjudicate on the case which, to repeat, as of yet does not exist.
Although the British Contempt of Court Act 1981 makes it illegal for newspapers to publish anything that could prejudice a criminal trial once a suspect has been arrested or a warrant issued, because this is Perfidious Albion we are talking about, laws exist to shut everyone up with or without either a bullet or a judge’s gavel.
As those rarely used laws are now being deployed against Brand, one must wonder why Brand is being singled out for this treatment and why, for example, political prisoner Julian Assange, currently being interned in Belmarsh high security prison, has been spared this further cudgel.
Writing in, of all places, the lifestyle section of Ireland’s regional Cork Examiner newspaper, reformed alcoholic Suzanne Harrington puts NATO’s case as well as any other randomly hired NATO scribe could. Suzanne begins by telling us that she feels “a crushing sense of weariness. Exhaustion, disgust. Fury, obviously, but smothered in a heavy blanket of disillusionment” and asks if we feel the same way about how Brand has betrayed us all.
Suzanne was one of those who went to hear Brand “speak in 12 step meetings.” But now, there is Brand’s “slide to the right. The alt-right. The yoga-Nazi alliance, heightened during lockdown when the entire world went a bit mad. What on earth? Conspiracy theories, rants, dubious company. It felt like he’d started smoking crack again — loony right wing crack, in the company of loony right wing crackheads. Globalist masterplans, great resets, Bill Gates, ivermectin — why? For the clicks? For the millions of followers? Because that’s how you make money away from the mainstream media. You dog-whistle the loonies.”
Although non-loony Suzanne opines there may be an off chance Brand is innocent (of what precisely?), she goes on to say “you only have to look at those who have come out in Brand’s support to see where he has positioned himself politically. He’s way over there, at the extreme toxic end, supported by the shrill voices of Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, Tucker Carlson, and — oh the shame — Donald Trump Jr. Lower down the rung, voices of hate speechers like Alex Jones, Katie Hopkins, and Tommy Robinson. Sad gits like Laurence Fox. And Piers Morgan, obviously. Imagine having that lot standing up for you.”
One of the reasons such “voices of hate speechers” may be amplified in arrays of obscure corners is because the lifestyle columns of the Cork Examiner and the Irish Independent, Irish Times and the Guardian where this “journalist, TEFL teacher, dole claimer, backpacker, youth worker, painter, wardrobe assistant, washer-upper, pen pusher, house cleaner, comic bagger, market stall holder and cake maker” also opines bring no light to this or any other matter.
And that is not primarily the fault of “mainstream media” grifters like Suzanne but of newspaper proprietors like Rupert Murdoch, who have been destroying the quality of the broadsheets ever since the Sunday Times Insight Team was first eviscerated almost 50 years ago.
But what would I know as I am only a potato eating Irish peasant, who aced Australian legal exams experienced Australian lawyers failed. Not much but I do know this. There are times, as in the notorious Stephen Lawrence murder case or the gangland killing of Irish journalist Veronica Guerin when the media sailed as close to the libel law winds as is possible. And let’s not forget ageing mega pop star Cliff Richard, who was witch hunted by the 77th Brigade’s BBC in a manner that would have appalled even the lynch mobs of America’s Wild West.
And nor should we forget the Bloody Sunday Widgery Tribunal, the Ballymurphy massacre, King Rat, Robin the Jackal Johnson, the Glenanne Gang, the Pat Finucane murder, Stakeknife, the sabotaged Stalker Enquiry, the ongoing 1981 Stardust Inquest and countless more where the entire British and Irish judiciary should be in the dock if not on the gallows.
And then there is this nonsense of a jury of one’s peers, which the great Zsa Zsa Gabor once famously ridiculed. Although NATO’s Parliamentarians are generally exempted from jury service, most of them would be debarred anyway. As over 40% of serving British MPs have criminal convictions and as not one of them has been demonetised as Brand has, one must conclude that the 77th Brigade has one law for those who slavishly collaborate with it and another for the Russell Brands of this world.
And how could we get a jury of our peers from the Nazi worshipping Parliament of Canada, whose dictator, Justin Blackface Trudeau, lies that the standing ovation the Canadian Parliament gave a decorated Waffen SS war criminal is a result of the old reliable Russian disinformation canard. Just what kind of high heel wearing moron is Trudeau?
And what about the moronic Ya’ara Saks, Canada’s clearly unhinged “Jewish” Minister for Mental Health, who tried to distance herself from her collusion in welcoming the Waffen SS to the Canadian Parliament on the eve of the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday before finishing her grovelling non-apology with the Nazi Azov Slava Ukraini salutation. This, incidentally, is the same “Jewish” moron who contended that Canadian Freedom Convoy truckers honking their horns were doing so in secret tribute to Hitler, whose Waffen SS volunteers she gladly venerated.
There is, in intellectual terms, no difference between those Nazi worshipping Canadian Parliamentarians and the hundreds of Germans who gather at Berlin train stations and howl up to the moon for their right to live their lives as “Canine Beings”, as dogs and bitches in plain English.
Plain English, however, cuts no ice in the British courts where one must hire a word wizard, who is totally familiar with its rabbit warren array of quirks, which exist to perpetuate the King’s arbitrary, ad hoc writs. Here is one such barrister expertly talking us through common law contempt as it applies to the Brand (non-) case and cautioning those, like Britain’s newspaper editors who believe they have a dog in this fight or in any other such circumstance as the King’s 77th Brigade may decree is verboten.
The situation with regard to Brand is that the 77th Brigade, working primarily through Caroline Dinenage, has prejudiced Brand’s defence (against what precisely?) and has warned hosting companies like Rumble that, thanks to the Online Safety Bill and the (BBC-Approved) Trusted News Initiative, they are next for NATO’s abattoir.
Although NATO’s British media would claim that they used American journalist Heather Brooke to break their Parliamentary expenses scandal scoop, critics have opined that that was just a ploy to remove some troublesome Parliamentary pebbles from the jackboots of the 77th Brigade and their MI6 body in a bag colleagues. As Brooke disparages political prisoner (and truth-teller?) Julian Assange “a supposed campaigner for truth, manipulated information to build up a cult of personality around himself – and also to see how many people fell for it”, she would, a priori, seem a low level CIA cretin best avoided, lest she morally corrupts us.
But who is to judge her or Pfizer’s track record in Africa? Not us, if the 77th Brigade and their MI6 and CIA colleagues have their way. If you or anyone you know has an opinion on Russell Brand and if your opinion diverges from that the 77th Brigade enforces, you and any site like Rumble that might give you a platform best watch out as Trudeau and his high heeled Nazi worshipping collaborators are clumsily goose stepping their way to morally corrupt and physically destroy you, wherever you may be.
Crime and Impunity… One Year Lying About U.S.-Led NATO’s Nord Stream Terrorism Breeds More War
Strategic Culture Foundation | September 29, 2023
The sheer total impunity over the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines raises an appalling vista of the lawlessness and barbarity in today’s world.
The United States and its NATO accomplices are recklessly and callously pushing a war in Ukraine against Russia which has seen up to half a million Ukrainian soldiers slaughtered and is putting the world at risk of a nuclear conflagration. The criminal insanity stems from the lack of any legal accountability for the United States, which grotesquely declares itself the custodian of “rules-based order”.
One year ago this week, an outrageous crime against international peace was committed and yet the Western governments and media perform like the proverbial monkeys who incredibly refuse to see, hear or speak of any evil.
The profound moral and philosophical challenges are worthy of exploration in an epic novel akin to Dostoevsky’s classic Crime and Punishment.
But this is not fiction. They are cold facts of real life.
By far, the most credible explanation for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines is provided by the investigative reporting of veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh.
Many other independent observers concur with Hersh’s account that the gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea were blown up by a covert U.S. military operation in collusion with other NATO forces.
According to Hersh, the sabotage was ordered by President Joe Biden and his top White House aides.
The infrastructure intended to pump natural gas from Russia to Germany was owned by those two nations as well as several other European companies. It cost at least $20 billion to construct over a decade. On September 26, 2022, the pipes were rendered inoperable by a series of underwater explosions.
Biden had explicitly threatened in February 2022 to take out the gas pipes during a White House press conference accompanied by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The motive for the Americans was to cut off Europe and Germany, in particular, from Russian energy fuel which was to be replaced by vastly more expensive U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas. Great for American business, absolutely detrimental for Europe, as the recession-hit European economies now attest.
The motive and means for carrying out the crime have been thoroughly described by Hersh and others.
And yet in an audacious act of collective denialism, the Western governments and media refuse to investigate this monumental crime. Official reports into the incident carried out by Denmark, Germany and Sweden have been suppressed with no conclusions published about the identity of the perpetrator.
Russia has been refused permission by European states to participate in a joint criminal investigation.
This week Moscow once again called on the United Nations Security Council to issue a condemnation of the sabotage and to launch an impartial probe into the extraordinary violation of international law. Previous appeals at the Security Council from Russia have been rebuffed by Western powers.
Laughably, Western media have feigned an agnosticism about the “mysterious explosions”. Such media have credulously indulged in blatant diversionary disinformation, for example, initially claiming that Russia carried out self-sabotage, and then later claiming that the sophisticated and highly complex military operation was the feat of “pro-Ukrainian militants” working off a yacht.
There is a pre-eminent reason for the Western silence. That is, to avoid the proverbial elephant in the room that this was a terrorist crime committed by the United States under the orders of its president.
To acknowledge this fact would of course bring the United States into fatal disrepute. It would be seen more than ever as a rogue terror state that presumes itself to be above the law.
Washington’s imperialist interests of dominating Europe and displacing Russia as an energy supplier are central to the reason for the war in Ukraine. This selfish and criminal agenda becomes evident if the Nord Stream act of terrorism is acknowledged and properly understood. The Western public would be up in arms over the false propaganda about the Ukraine war and the supposed “defense of democracy”.
Not only that but the European and NATO states would be seen as the criminal accomplices and pathetic vassals that they are. The United States sabotages European civilian infrastructure and the economies of its supposed allies – and yet those allies utter not a word of protest. Indeed, they have willingly and meekly participated in their self-harm.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other European leaders should be prosecuted for complicity in international terrorism and treason against their national interests.
Ironically, this week, Joe Biden while in Arizona dared to tell American voters that they face a stark choice in the presidential elections coming next year. Biden said the choice would be for U.S. citizens to either “support democracy” under his continued leadership or “elect extremism” under Donald Trump or some other Republican candidate.
What could be more extreme than Biden ordering his military agencies to blow up gas pipelines owned by Russia and other European states?
The fact that Biden and the United States have been permitted to get away with the outrage of Nord Stream terrorism is why Washington and its NATO acolytes have continually escalated the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia over the past year.
The astounding impunity afforded to the U.S. and its NATO accomplices over the Nord Stream incident is consistent with the way these same imperialist powers have gotten away with mass murder and waging criminal wars for decades without any prosecutions. The U.S. establishment and its clandestine agencies are a criminal syndicate that also suffers from delusions of virtue.
Impunity breeds more criminality. The United States and its Western partners have rarely, if ever, been held to account for their historic crimes against the rest of the world. When such a transparent, brazen act of terrorism is perpetrated as in the Nord Stream sabotage and it is ignored then the world has shifted to an even more perilous situation where crimes have no punishment and even greater, more nefarious crimes can be engaged in.
The U.S. and its NATO henchmen, in particular Britain, are arming a Nazi regime in Kiev with tanks, cluster bombs, depleted uranium shells and longer-range missiles to strike Russia. The impunity that the Americans and their partners believe that they have acquired is shocking and hideous. There is no restraint.
For years, the NATO axis has been arming and training Nazi battalions in Ukraine to cynically take an imperialist war to Russia’s doorstep. Canada’s scandalous adulation of a Nazi war criminal in its parliament last week is a sign of the depraved times we live in. But we have reached this degeneration because, as the Nord Stream incident illustrates, the Western powers, primarily the executive American power, feel they are not just above the law but entitled to smash the law for whatever objective they deem desirable.
When those who profess to uphold the law, break the law, then there is no law. That is the frighteningly barbaric world we live in today.
Biden warned this week of fascism creeping up on the United States in the form of domestic political rivals. The reality is fascism, imperialist lawlessness and barbarity are already well-ensconced in this White House.
Media and Architects of Online Censorship Law Heap Pressure on Rumble After it Defends Principle of Neutrality
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | September 25, 2023
Media outlets and architects of the UK’s censorship law, the Online Safety Bill, are increasing the pressure on neutral video sharing platform Rumble after it refused to bow down to the UK Parliament’s pressure to demonetize comedian Russell Brand.
The pressure to demonetize Brand came after anonymous sexual assault allegations were made against him. Brand has denied the allegations and has not been arrested, charged, or convicted of any of the allegations made against him.
Several companies, including YouTube, took action against Brand after the allegations surfaced, despite Brand having no content violations on YouTube. But Rumble stood up to the pressure and rejected the UK Parliament’s request to cut off Brand’s monetization, with CEO Chris Pavlovski noting that the allegations against Brand have “nothing to do with content on Rumble’s platform.”
Now, several media outlets and people who helped craft the UK’s online censorship law, the upcoming Online Safety Bill, are targeting Rumble’s stance.
Lord Allan of Hallam, a former Facebook executive who advised on the Online Safety Bill, branded Rumble a “crazy American platform” and expressed disdain at Rumble’s philosophy of allowing free expression.
He and internet law expert Professor Lorna Woods, an architect of the Online Safety Bill, also complained about Rumble’s refusal to bow down to pressure from UK officials and framed it as “grandstand[ing] before the press.”
The Times also took aim at Rumble by noting that under the Online Safety Bill, Rumble will have to “prevent children from seeing pornography… material that promotes self-harm, suicide or eating disorders… violent content… material harmful to health, such as vaccine misinformation” and “take down material that is illegal, such as videos that incite violence or race hate.”
However, Bryn Harris, the Chief Legal Council for The Free Speech Union, pointed out that The Times’ article doesn’t actually provide examples of any of the alleged illegal or harmful to kids content on Rumble.
Additionally, the Associated Press piled in on Rumble after it stood up to the demands of UK officials by claiming that Rumble is a “haven for disinformation and extremism.”
This mounting pressure comes days after the UK passed the Online Safety Bill — one of the most sweeping censorship laws to ever be introduced in the UK. The controversial censorship and surveillance bill is set to come into law next month.
The censorship provisions in the Online Safety Bill can be aimed at both citizens who post speech that’s deemed to cause “harm” and companies that fail to censor this so-called harmful content. The harms in the bill extend beyond physical or direct harm and into the realms of “psychological” harm and “potential” harm. Certain types of “false” communications are also prohibited under the bill.
As UK officials heap pressure on Rumble, reports have revealed that several UK politicians have ties to the pro-censorship Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and the UK politician that pressured Rumble to demonetize Brand received a donation in kind from Google.
Scotland To Set Up New Police Unit To Tackle “Hate” and “Misgendering,” Ignites Free Speech Concerns
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | September 25, 2023
On the brink of implementing Humza Yousaf’s highly contentious legislation early next year, a specialized hate crime unit has been announced by Police Scotland. With the unit scheduled to be operational by November, a comprehensive training of about 16,400 law enforcement officers will follow in December.
This is all in anticipation of the Hate Crime and Public Order Act, expected to be ratified early in 2024. This Act expands upon the existing law, offering a broader protective net for “vulnerable” groups and introduces the notion of “stirring up hatred”.
However, some critics and free speech advocates have raised concerns that the Act, which holds potential to elevate sentencing if prejudice is based on factors such as age, race, disability, religion, transgender identity or variations in sex characteristics, may invigorate the increasingly toxic culture wars surrounding gender issues. It is posited that the law may sidetrack police resources from tackling violent conduct to address “harmful” words.
The thought of free speech being stifled by the new laws is particularly horrifying for some, with warnings that women’s rights advocates may find themselves entangled in allegations of transphobia.
Critics argue that a significant portion of police time may now be geared towards a subjective concept of hate crime, such as “misgendering,” instead of dealing with tangible violent acts.
Helen Joyce, part of the human rights group Sex Matters, asserted her alarm at the creation of this specific hate crime unit. She voiced concern for those who stand for the rights of women and children, warning of a “chilling effect” on free speech, as reported by The Scottish Express.
Police Scotland remains tight-lipped about the size of the proposed unit plus the financial implications of the new laws – a cause for concern for many.
Values Of Used EVs Plummet, As Dealers Stuck With Unsold Cars
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | Septmber 24, 2023

Research by online motor marketplace, AutoTrader, revealed the average price for a used EV has dropped by 21.4 per cent this month, compared to a year ago.
Marc Palmer, the head of strategy and insights at AutoTrader, told MailOnline : “The used market will now be slower to mature. There will be fewer new EVs registered and fewer used cars coming to market.
“There will be sections of the public, especially those who are sceptical, who will want to wait.”
The expert explained that used cars are the “biggest” section of the industry, however motorists are likely to “take longer” in the switch to electric.
According to the Mail :
Mid-month figures for September released by AutoTrader – the largest online marketplace for cars – reveal that the average price of a used EV has fallen by 21.4 per cent to £32,463.
Premium sector EVs, including Tesla, BMW, Mini and Mercedes-Benz, were hit hardest – with values falling by up to 24.1 per cent year-on-year.
The data, reported by The Times, showed that prices of second-hand premium sector EVs peaked at £51,704 last August and have since plummeted by more than £10,000 to £39,268.
The second hand EV is between a rock and a hard place!
Increasing numbers are now coming onto the market, corresponding to the increasing number of new sales in recent years.
Yet at the same time, there seems to be little appetite from buyers. Most new EVs go either to Business/Fleet purchasers, or rich, virtue signallers. Neither sector is interested in buying second hand EVs.
Private buyers of second hand cars cannot afford the inflated price of EVs – if they could, they would buy a new petrol car anyway. And they are less likely to have off street parking, therefore making charging more expensive and problematic. Hence the low turnover of second hand EVs.
EV manufacturers have taken a huge risk in offering cheap PCPs, in the hope attracting buyers. These deals are ultimately based on EVs holding their value well.
With plummeting second hand values, they and the lease companies could be facing massive losses.
What is remarkable about these reports is that the so-called experts seem genuinely surprised about all of this. It was utterly predictable all along.
One “expert”, Marc Palmer, the head of strategy and insights at AutoTrader, told the Mail that the used market will now be slower to mature, and that motorists are likely to “take longer” in the switch to electric.
And the SMMT said “A faster and fairer mass transition [to zero-emission vehicles] is threatened by the absence of support for private buyers, many of whom plan to go electric but are delaying due to concerns over affordability and uncertainty regarding the availability of a charging network.”
They have obviously been believing their own propaganda about EVs for too long.
They still do not seem to have worked out that EVs are utterly useless for most private drivers, who will refuse to make the switch until forced to.
Why are Ukrainian Flags Flying Over British Universities
Ukrainian flags over UK universities
Professor Dame Sally Mapstone
President
Universities UK
Woburn House
20 Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9HQ
11 September 2023
Dear Professor Mapstone
We have noted, with increasing concern, the practice of flying Ukraine flags above many universities across the United Kingdom. We are aware that UUK is a forum and does not direct the work of UK universities. Nevertheless, we wonder if the issue of Ukraine flag flying by UK universities has ever been discussed and, if it has not been discussed, if it should be.
In relation to this, we have several questions the first of which is ‘why?’ The conflict in Ukraine is not one in which our country is directly involved, although we are providing aid along with other western countries. However, we provide military aid to other regions of the world and have, until recently, been directly involved in military action in support of other countries. We do not recall at any time in our university careers having seen the flags of other nations being flown above any UK university. What is so unique about the conflict in Ukraine?
According to figures published by Clarivate in Research Professional News at the end of last year, there were 800 Ukrainian university students in the UK and over 3000 Russian students. Has anyone at UUK evaluated the consequences for the mental health and security of those Russian students? We are aware that not every Russian student will support their country’s military involvement in Ukraine; nevertheless, it could be alienating for them to see the Ukraine flag. How much more so for those Russian students who do support their country? It appears that they may have been judged and found guilty for merely being patriotic.
It is too easy to take sides, as many UK universities clearly have, in the conflict in Ukraine. That the immediate cause of the conflict is Russian’s invasion of a sovereign territory is indisputable. However, it also seems naïve, especially for seats of learning which exist to look beyond immediate facts, to analyse situations and to propose solutions, to make partisan displays of support.
As explained with meticulous supporting information in How The West Brought War to Ukraine by Benjamin Abelow, the roots of the conflict are deep. There are undeniably faults on both sides and some indisputably dangerous elements vying for position on both sides. Moreover, the west is not innocent in its ambitions regarding the region and courting NATO membership of Ukraine contrary to previous agreements with Russia about the status of countries on its borders, while ignoring overtures from Russia about NATO membership now seems very foolish. The presence of the Ukraine flag above UK universities defies these complexities.
We urge UUK to consider this matter and to urge its members to keep UK universities out of the conflict in Ukraine.
Yours sincerely
Professor Roger Watson
Honorary Professor
The University of Hull
Dr Niall McCrae
Workers of England Union
Canada Launches UN Declaration Pledging Restrictions On Online “Disinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 22, 2023
A “global” declaration – that only manages to garner the support of 27 out of 193 UN member countries. How dreadfully humiliating – some might say.
But rest assured, Canada’s government will find a way to spin this abysmal result of its effort to use this year’s (likely, as ever, a waste of time and taxpayer money) UN General Assembly gathering in NYC to push some of its own agenda – or the agenda it’s tasked to push.
First, what is this yet another “global declaration” – and why has it failed so spectacularly? (The answer may in fact be the same.)
According to an announcement by the Canadian government, cited by the press, the purpose of the “global” declaration is to combat “disinformation.”
“Global Declaration on Information Integrity Online,” is what it’s called, and besides the “trusty” Canadians, the Dutch were also seemingly randomly thrown (an EU country, one or the other) into drafting it.
And look who was readily on the side, to sign it: the US, the UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, Korea, etc.
There are (not many, though) more countries here, but their alignment on “issues” was never in question; and now, instead of a UN General Assembly as a place of the meeting of the minds and meaningful discussions, we have it as a showdown for a world aligning into different, this time huge and truly global blocs, to showcase their different allegiances.
How dreadful – for world peace, going forward.
Meanwhile – what does the Canadian document that only managed a meager backing at the UN have in mind?
It’s “necessary and appropriate measures, including legislation, to address information integrity and platform governance.”
If any of us tried to make the Canadian proposal more ludicrously broad-worded than this is, I’m sure we’d not succeed. But there is an attempt to narrow the “declaration” down. If suitable, “we” go back to “international human rights law.”
So – those who sign the document will do so in a way that complies “with international human rights law.” (?)
Problem: a number of full-fledged UN members are saying, the very UN founding Charter really any longer means anything – having been broken by the likes of Canada, time and time again.
There’s other usual declarative tosh as you might see from these governments’ daily briefings – the only time they ever try to narrow down or clearly define any of the “definitions” is when they mention the tech they’d like to better control – such as ChatGTP.
Sunak’s Net Zero ‘U-turn’ – or is it?
By Ben Pile – September 20, 2023
Rishi Sunak’s ‘watering down’ of certain Net Zero targets is the first time that the green policy agenda has had ANY scrutiny of any consequence, despite many failures, starting with the ruinously expensive Renewable Obligation, extending into the totally failed CfDs that allowed wind farm developers to lie to achieve planning consent over rival generators and technologies. Not one part of the green policy agenda has lived up to any promise to deliver good to the British public.
It was the mildest possible reversal. It is in fact an attempt to SAVE Net Zero, not roll it back.
Complaints that it has left Britain without an ‘industrial policy’ or has left ‘investors’ without ‘confidence’ are for the birds. It has put the UK in the same policy position as the EU (more on which in a bit), and there is no evidence of green policies having delivered any significant industrial development to these shores. No green jobs. No green growth. No green industrial revolution. Not even a BritishVolt. It is a farce.
Politicians, who know nothing of the subject in fact, have been misled into believing that strong climate targets encourage domestic manufacturing. That is a lie. The main beneficiary of UK & EU climate laws has been China, of course, which benefits from cheaper energy prices (among other things) precisely because China does not have energy policies like ours. Strict targets are not industrial policy. Nobody was looking to develop ‘Gigafactories’ in the UK for the fact of the UK having the earliest ICE car sales ban. It’s a nonsense.
Sunak has taken stock of the simplest elements of green policy failure:
1. No politician has any clue how to realise Net Zero targets. To understand this, you need to drill down into the Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) advice to Parliament, and advice from wonks and academics to the CCC itself. They speak more candidly the deeper you investigate. The promises of upsides are simply lies. There are no drop-in replacements for the things that make our lifestyles today. That is why the CCC told Parliament that up to 62% of emissions reduction is going to come from ‘behaviour change’, which is to say that Net Zero requires government to use the criminal law and price mechanisms to regulate what people can do. That is what Sunak means when he says that previous governments have not been straight with the public. It is fact.
2. The green lobby has LONG promised lower prices and greater energy security but has failed to deliver. There have been many claims that the costs of wind power have fallen based on low ‘strike prices’ offered by wind farm developers since the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme was introduced in 2017. None of those miraculous strike prices have been achieved. The wind farm developers simply reneged on them. They were never going to take them up. They calculated that they would never have to. This came to crunch in the latest auction, when the government removed the wind farm operators’ ability to walk away from the contract — they called the wind sector’s bluff. No bids were offered. The major promise of renewable energy has been utterly debunked by the green lobby’s own actions.
3. Behind the scenes, the failure of both global and national climate policy has been known for a long time — since the Paris Agreement (PA) at the latest. The PA is not in fact a ‘global agreement’; it allows countries to determine their own commitment. And all that has done in turn is reignite the talking point that beset global climate policymaking in the 1990s and 2000s: the ‘free rider’ problem. Some emerging one-time ‘developing’ economies, are now booming, whereas much of the West/G7 is stagnant and facing deindustrialisation, precisely as critics of climate policy had argued, decades ago. This is why there has been so much emphasis since the PA on LOCAL government, such as LTNs/ULEZ/CAZs, using ‘air pollution’ as a proxy battle in the climate war. This was encouraged by central government, which accelerated this fake ‘localism’ during lockdowns by making large grants available to local authorities to restrict private car use. Sunak has seen the robust response to this in London, in Wales, and in cities that have adopted them, and has realised that the public has been setting down its own red lines. The green agenda is now visible to all and politically toxic.
4. Despite claims that other countries are steaming ahead with boiler bans, car bans, heat pumps, and championing Net Zero policies, especially in Europe, they are in fact creating deep schisms between and within EU member states. Auto manufacturers in Germany are warning that they cannot compete with Chinese rivals. Germany, struggling to find energy, itself is racing towards deindustrialisation, threatening the economic foundations of the Union. Its boiler ban, advanced by psychopathic Greens threatens to destabilise its own political centre of gravity, with a huge surge of interest in the AfD, now biting on the heels of the CDU in the polls. This risks not only the destabilisation of Europe, but geopolitical schism that could ultimately undermine NATO. Poland is pushing back against EU climate targets. The Netherlands, having overextended its green agenda looks set to oust its political establishment at the November election following the growth of the BBB movement, and the even newer New Social Contract party. There is the obvious polarisation of French politics, which needs no repetition here. And there is the case of Sweden’s new right-of-centre government abandoning its Net Zero targets in favour of a technology-first approach. Sunak can see all this green policy failure *everywhere* that green blobbers point to, while claiming such chaos is success.
5. ESG is failing. Former BoE governor Mark Carney, who just this week ranted against Liz Truss, disgraced his former office. Carney was appointed by Johnson to lead the The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which claimed to have aligned financial institutions with $130 trillion AUM. Vanguard and BlackRock seem to be reversing out of the Alliance. And a number of major insurance firms, including Munich Re and Zurich too, have joined the backlash. And Sunak knows about markets.
6. Ukraine, Russia, and the realignment of geopolitics. Who really believes that Western diplomats now have any chance of bringing Russia, China, and India into the Net Zero suicide pact? The drawbridge is up. And the G20 meeting saw Modi humiliate the entire green movement. Sunak offered the climate fund £1.6 billion — roughly speaking a quid per Indian. And as many Indians said “What?!! We’re going to the Moon, mate!”
Sunak can see all of these problems. And none of them are going to be solved by banning petrol and diesel car sales in 2030, or by banning boilers. The world is a fundamentally different place now, post-Brexit, post-covid, post-Russia-Ukraine, after 15 years of Climate Change Act failures, and the deindustrialisation of the West. All that carrying on with Net Zero as usual is going to do is, far from strengthening Britain’s position on the ‘world stage’, is further undermine our economy and industries, and political stability. Nobody else, except countries facing equivalent problems, perhaps, cares about our degenerate political class’s ideological fantasies. Global climate policy is collapsing as global politics shifts, whereas the basis for the UK’s draconian domestic climate policy agenda was ALWAYS global political institutions: the EU & UN etc, not domestic popular support. It’s not 2008 any more. Neither the ROW nor the UK public are as tolerant of being pushed around. And utopian, technocratic, supranational political ambitions look like so much cynical build-back-better bullshit that simply do not wash.
The histrionics that are now the counterpoint to Sunaks mildest possible Net-Zero flip-flop are the chorus of an extremely small, but extremely noisy and over-indulged part of British society that has got far to used to not being slapped down by reality, and, like spoilt infants, they are determined to find the boundaries of their behaviour. They are utterly deranged by ideology, and incapable of allowing their claims to be tested by simple arithmetic. They speak glibly in the most superficial terms about things they know nothing about: how the world must be organised; how the entire economy will be powered; how ordinary people’s lives will be managed. They lie. They try to tell people that banning things and imposing expensive restrictions will make them better off, make them safer and ‘create jobs’. From bottomless bank accounts, they commission idiot wonks at remote think tanks to produce glossy ideological bunk.
Sunak could not have done less to correct this mess. But what he has done is a good thing. And it includes setting a trap for the eco-catastrophists. The more they howl and wail, the more they will expose their utter contempt for ordinary people. It is not in Sunak’s gift, even if he wanted it, to reverse the entire sorry policy agenda. Too much stands in his way. But every scream and tantrum from the blobbers will bring that possibility closer to him or a successor. Because no person with a functioning brain believes that banning the boiler later, rather than earlier, is a good thing. And so the blobbers are set to out themselves, for the duration of this controversy, as brainless ideological zombies. Long may it continue.
Iran’s top medical association blasts The Lancet for ‘spreading disinformation’
The Cradle | September 21, 2023
The president of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Iran, Dr. Alireza Marandi, on 18 September issued an open letter blasting renowned UK medical journal The Lancet for publishing “completely false information” about Iran’s healthcare system and the circumstances that led to the death of Mahsa Amini one year ago.
“We are very disappointed to see the republishing of completely false information about the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially regarding doctors and the health service delivery system, in a publication that is known as a scientific magazine,” Marandi writes in a letter addressed to The Lancet’s Editor-in-Chief, Professor Richard Horton.
Marandi says the article, published on the one-year anniversary of Amini’s death, “does not have any scientific documentation” and accuses the UK publication of getting involved in “material and political interests [by] writing such false reports.”
The article in question, penned by Horton, claims Amini “died in Kasra Hospital … after being arrested, tortured, and beaten” by the Gasht-e-Ershad, or Guidance Patrol, for the alleged improper wearing of the mandatory hijab.
“She was 22 years old and her murder, for that is what it was, triggered unprecedented nationwide protests,” Horton continues, alleging the mobilizations “continue in more muted forms to this day.”
Horton’s accusations are a word-for-word repetition of claims made by western governments, news agencies, and US-funded “human rights” groups since last year. These have, for the most part, ignored visual evidence that shows Amini calmly speaking with an officer before suddenly collapsing in the waiting room of a police station, as well as an autopsy report that concluded her death was caused by severe cerebral hypoxia aggravated by a pre-existing condition.
Nonetheless, eyewitnesses of her detention alleged she had been mistreated.
“As I wrote to you in the previous letter, if the accusations mentioned in that article were supposed to be based on science, they would at least been quoted from sources that are not so utterly hostile to our people and country,” Dr. Marandi writes in his letter to Horton, taking aim at several anti-government Iranian activists cited by the editor-in-chief of The Lancet.
“I wish you had for once exposed the enormous support of Western countries and the US for Saddam Hussein, who committed unique and historical crimes with chemical weapons against our people, including Iranian and Iraqi Kurds residing relatively close to where Mahsa Amini lived. All carried out amidst the deadly silence of western-dominated scientific and international bodies,” the letter continues.
The article by The Lancet last week came as part of a renewed anti-Iran campaign led by western media outlets and governments, which included new economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, some of which targeted news organizations.
Recent US efforts to spark unrest that could force regime change in Iran date back to the so-called “Green Revolution” in 2009.
