Britain sends warplanes to ‘deter Russian strikes’
RT | September 9, 2023
Britain has dispatched military planes to protect grain ships coming from Ukraine as the future of the UN-backed deal to provide a safe passage for the exports of agricultural produce remains uncertain after its suspension by Russia.
“We will use our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to monitor Russian activity in the Black Sea, call out Russia if we see warning signs that they are preparing attacks on civilian shipping or infrastructure,” the UK government said in a statement on Friday.
“As part of these surveillance operations, RAF aircraft are conducting flights over the area to deter Russia from carrying out illegal strikes against civilian vessels transporting grain,” the statement read.
The Russian Defense Ministry warned earlier that all vessels entering Ukrainian ports would be “treated as potential deliveries of military cargo.”
Moscow suspended the grain deal in July, arguing that Western countries had failed to hold up their end of the bargain by not removing obstacles to the shipment of Russian agricultural produce and fertilizers. Although Western sanctions do not target such exports directly, Russian officials said restrictions on their country’s banking sphere and logistics effectively hamper the deliveries of Russian goods.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said after a meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Monday that Moscow would immediately return to the deal once its demands are met. Erdogan told reporters that consultations with the UN were underway in hope of reviving the arrangement.
Reuters reported on Friday that Rosselkhozbank, Russia’s main agricultural lender, might be allowed to gain access to the SWIFT international banking system in the near future. Russian top banks were removed from SWIFT last year as part of sanctions placed on Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine.
Energy bill authorises “reasonable force” to install smart meters that allow authorities to turn customers’ energy on and off
BY DAVID CRAIG | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 7, 2023
You probably know that a massive Energy Bill is being rushed through Parliament by our fake ‘Conservative’ Government in the first two days of our parliamentarians’ return from their generous summer break. The Bill is 446 pages long and written in dense, largely-incomprehensible-to-any-normal-person legalise. Moreover, many clauses in the Energy Bill make reference to other pieces of previous legislation. So, to fully understand the Bill, you would have to read at least a thousand pages of dense legalistic gobbledegook. Given that our MPs have just passed the Bill with a mere nine voting against it, one must assume that they have spent their summer holidays diligently reading through the Bill and other relevant legislation in order to fully understand what they were voting for.
Here’s the full title of the Bill:
‘A Bill to make provision about energy production and security and the regulation of the energy market, including provision about the licensing of carbon dioxide transport and storage; about commercial arrangements for industrial carbon capture and storage and for hydrogen production; about new technology, including low-carbon heat schemes and hydrogen grid trials; about the Independent System Operator and Planner; about gas and electricity industry codes; about heat networks; about energy smart appliances and load control; about the energy performance of premises; about the resilience of the core fuel sector; about offshore energy production, including environmental protection, licensing and decommissioning; about the civil nuclear sector, including the Civil Nuclear Constabulary; and for connected purposes’
As you’ll see, this legislative monster covers an awful lot of areas – energy production, regulation of the energy market, CO2 transport and storage, carbon capture, hydrogen production, low-carbon heat schemes, hydrogen grid trials, heat networks, smart appliances, load control, energy performance of industrial and residential premises, offshore energy production and the civil nuclear sector. We must be considered fortunate in Britain to have MPs who have such a strong work ethic and such a deep understanding of all these disparate issues to be able to vote for the new Energy Bill knowing exactly what they are voting for.
Life is too short for any normal person to read and to try to understand this massive abomination of almost impenetrable legalise. But here are some choice titbits which I think I understand.
The Bill explains what a ‘Smart Meter’ is:
“Energy smart appliance” means an appliance which is capable of adjusting the immediate or future flow of electricity into or out of itself or another appliance in response to a load control signal; and includes any software or other systems which enable or facilitate the adjustment to be made in response to the signal.
So it seems that the conspiracy theorists were right yet again – a key purpose of ‘Smart Meters’ is not only to measure power usage but also to allow energy providers to control how much energy we are allowed to consume using “a load control signal”.
Moreover, authorities will be allowed to use “reasonable force” to enter any homes or premises to ensure we have the approved ‘Smart Meters’ installed:
Requiring persons to supply evidence of their compliance to enforcement authorities; conferring powers of entry, including by reasonable force.
All electricity and gas meters have dates by which they should be replaced. From what I have read the Bill gives representatives from energy companies the power to enter any home, with police protection if required, to replace traditional meters at the end of their lives with smart meters. Again, “reasonable force” may be used.
The Bill gives the Government the power to force us to have energy assessments for any premises:
The Secretary of State may make regulations for any of these purposes: (a) enabling or requiring the energy usage or energy efficiency of premises to be assessed, certified and publicised;
We can be fined up to £15,000 or face one year in prison for failing to meet any future energy performance levels any government imposes:
Energy performance regulations may provide for the imposition of civil penalties by enforcement authorities in relation to cases falling within subsection (1)(b), (c) or (d); but the regulations may not provide for a civil penalty that exceeds £15,000.
Under the totally misleading title of ‘Energy Savings Opportunity Schemes’, authorities can force any person or company to make energy savings using the threat of criminalisation for failure to comply:
The Secretary of State may by regulations (“ESOS regulations”) make provision for the establishment and operation of one or more energy savings opportunity schemes. An “energy savings opportunity scheme” is a scheme under which obligations 30 are imposed on undertakings to which the scheme applies for one or more of the ESOS purposes.
I could go on. But I imagine you get the picture by now. This ‘Energy Bill’ creates the means by which some puffed-up public-sector mini-dictator could gain powers to control us in ways most people would find completely unacceptable. Yet our useless MPs passed the Bill with a massive majority and the Lords are set to do the same.
If there really was a ‘climate crisis’ caused by humans burning fossil fuels and threatening the existence of the human race as the BBC and others of its ilk repeatedly claim, then you might be able to argue that some of the measures in the Bill could be justified. But given that changes in atmospheric CO2 levels have little to no influence on the Earth’s temperatures, that Britain only contributes less than 1% of world CO2 output and that developing countries like India and China each increase their CO2 output by more each year than Britain’s total CO2 emissions, we are creating a totalitarian regime which will intrude on people’s lives, restrict people’s freedoms, wreck the British economy and immiserate our country to fix a problem which doesn’t even exist and, if it did, would not be solved by our action anyway.
And if you fear this horror will lead to an intrusive, oppressive police state under the Tories, imagine how this will be used and abused by Ed Miliband and the climate fanatics in the next Labour Government.
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
Tactics for shutting down debate: Pandemic Preparedness narratives in the UK Parliament
During the UK Parliamentary debate on the WHO Treaty there was a noticeable contrast between those supporting the petition and those opposing it. This article analyses the arguments made by those rejecting the petition, drawing on insights from Behavioural Science.
BY ALICE ASHWELL, SINEAD STRINGER, DR DAVID BELL | PANDA | AUGUST 25, 2023
On 17 April 2023, a petition [1] was debated in the UK Parliament calling for the Government “to commit to not signing any international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness established by the WHO, unless this is approved through a public referendum.” The petition had received 156,086 signatures. Of the thirteen Members of Parliament (MPs) who spoke during the debate [2] four strongly supported the motion, three took a more neutral stance, and six strongly opposed the petition or elements of the argument. Examples of arguments in support of the petition can be viewed in a collation of clips taken from the video of the debate [3].
There was a noticeable contrast between the arguments presented by MPs supporting the petition — who exhibited concern for the constituents who had signed the petition and approached them directly — and those opposing it. All those who, like the petitioners, were concerned about the growing power and influence of WHO and threats to national sovereignty were familiar with the contents of the so-called ‘pandemic treaty’ [4], since labelled the WHO CA+, as well as proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) [5]. While some opposing the petition were also familiar with the document, others had not even read it, prompting Andrew Bridgen (MP for North West Leicestershire) to plead with members to do so.
Those concerned about these proposals presented well-reasoned arguments reflecting an understanding of the history of WHO [6], its many failures during Covid-19, and its current problematic relationships with non-state funders [7,8]. Those supporting WHO’s proposals uncritically supported WHO, focusing on its public health successes and ignoring obvious concerns. Perturbed by the lack of parliamentary scrutiny of the Covid response measures, some MPs worried that the UK government, having played a leadership role in drafting the treaty, might ratify it without parliamentary debate. This reservation was flatly denied by those opposing the petition, with some denying that WHO would in any way threaten UK sovereignty, that its role would remain advisory in nature, and that those opposing the treaty were in effect opposing international cooperation.
This article analyses the arguments made by those rejecting the petition, drawing on insights from Behavioural Science. During the debate, these MPs tended to rely on the following tactics:
- Using derogatory language or false claims to discredit speakers and their arguments
- Making inaccurate and unsubstantiated statements
- Using globalist slogans
- Patronising the petitioners
- Using the debate as an opportunity for party-political point-scoring
- Downplaying or normalising threats to sovereignty
- Promoting internationalism over sovereignty.
The debate was a sad reminder that it is not necessarily the quality of arguments, or even the sincerity of the individuals making them, that wins the day.
1. Using derogatory language and labels to discredit speakers and their arguments
A tactic used to shut down discussion and debate was to attach derogatory labels to those supporting the petition. In the debate, two such labels used in relation to the Covid event and the pandemic treaty were ‘conspiracy theory/theorist’ (ten references made by four speakers) and ‘anti-vax’ (one speaker). Some opposing the petition used these labels early in their presentations, their comments and tone indicating that these were untenable positions that no sane person could possibly subscribe to.
Using such labels at the beginning of the debate set the scene, immediately employing a behavioural science tactic to prime the participants and the wider audience. Priming is a ‘nudge’ [9] tactic; techniques that are used to modify people’s behaviours or emotions in a way that is unconscious and therefore difficult to identify or counter. Priming [10] occurs when the emotional attachment or views held about one issue are then used to influence the emotional attachment on a separate and unrelated issue; an emotional contagion if you like. This can be utilised to produce a positive or negative relationship. Over the past three years in particular, the phrase ‘conspiracy theorist’ has become strongly and negatively associated with an archetype of someone whose views are not based in fact and who are not community minded, and therefore not socially acceptable. By stating in his introductory comments that “I have no time for conspiracy theories”, leader of the debate Nick Fletcher (MP for Don Valley) activated this already negative mental construct and associated it with the question of the WHO pandemic treaty. Whether this was purposeful or not is debatable but concerns about conspiracies do seem strangely placed in a debate which should be about publicly documented proposals, and UK and international legislation.
Similarly, Sally-Ann Hart (MP for Hastings and Rye), who herself was committed to representing the concerns of constituents who had signed the petition, warned that, “We must be wary of … conspiracy theories distorting the facts and scaring people. Transparency of debate is therefore needed to squash those conspiracy theories.”
Some comments could only be described as invective. Language such as that used by John Spellar (MP for Warley) was entirely inappropriate in the context of a Parliamentary debate:
… the poisonous cesspit of the right-wing conspiracy theorist ecosystem in the United States … an appalling subculture of those who live by conspiracy theories … Unfortunately, we have some people — a very limited number … who wallow in the realm of conspiracy theories.
The ‘conspiracy theorist’ label has become a catch-all term used to discredit numerous perspectives that disagree with the dominant narrative. It has also taken on the power of a curse, which those who hope to remain accepted by their peers must protect themselves from by declaring their immunity.
Another such label is ‘anti-vax’, used by Mr Spellar who interjected early in Mr Fletcher’s introduction:
I thank the hon. Gentleman … for highlighting both smallpox and polio. Is the fact of the matter not that it has been a worldwide vaccination programme that has enabled us to achieve that? Does that not demonstrate the falseness of the anti-vax campaigns?
This is another example of priming, where an exceptionally negative construct (anti-vax), which was set up in mainstream and social media over the past few years, is associated with those who may have genuine concerns about the powers being delegated to a non-elected body. When attached to a person, the related term ‘anti-vaxxer’ is an example of an ad hominem attack [11], which is an example of a false argument. Instead of the argument being discussed on its own merit in terms of data or facts, the audience and other participants are misdirected toward a perceived ‘failing of character’ in those who might have a different view and legitimate questions.
Mr Spellar used this terminology to discredit those wary of vaccinations, in particular the Covid-19 genetic therapy. He continued his interruption of Mr Fletcher’s introductory remarks with the following tirade against academic gastroenterologist Dr Andrew Wakefield who, in 1998, co-authored a research study in The Lancet, linking inflammatory bowel symptoms in 12 autistic children to the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine:
Part of this argument has been about vaccination. We go back to Dr Wakefield and that appalling piece of chicanery that was the supposed impact of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which has now been completely exposed and discredited. Indeed Mr Wakefield is now no longer a recognised doctor.
This argument is an example of ‘false equivalence’ [12], another propaganda tool that has the effect of misdirecting the audience away from the key facts of the debate. Those who doubt the safety and efficacy of the novel Covid ‘vaccine’ have not necessarily questioned the safety and efficacy of all other vaccines, and should therefore not be considered ‘anti-vaxxers’. By associating arguments against the Covid shot with the MMR vaccine debacle, the purpose is to tar objections to this entirely novel and inadequately tested therapy with the same brush as arguments levied against an earlier, unrelated, conventional vaccine.
Mr Spellar’s interjection also reflects another tactic of those who wish to quash debate, namely the use of threats to intimidate those who might be inclined to consider alternative narratives. The story of the suppression of harms caused by the MMR vaccine has much in common with the current censorship of reports of serious adverse events and deaths following the Covid injections. Raising the 25-year-old case of Dr Wakefield who is “no longer a recognised doctor” represents a threat, already a reality for many ethical doctors and scientists, that those who speak out against the harms caused by the Covid injections face being dismissed and deregistered.
2. Using inaccurate and unsubstantiated statements
Justin Madders (MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston) also used derogatory language in denying concerns about threats to national sovereignty posed by global organisations such as WHO:
On the absurd side, a narrative has been created that the World Health Organization is a body intent on world domination. Borrowing tropes from conspiracy theories, I found one website referring to the WHO as ‘globalists’ … That sentiment is clearly ludicrous, as is the reference to the WHO being owned by Bill Gates or the Chinese Government.
The treaty has nothing to do with Bill Gates, and it is not the first step in creating a world-dominating authoritarian state.
The first sentence in the quote above is an example of a behavioural science nudge tactic called ‘framing’. In framing, words, metaphors and perspectives are used in a way that makes the message more attractive and activates certain emotional reactions. The image created by the MP’s statements is quick to evoke a mental picture of a film-like villain plotting to take over the world. Being ‘absurd’ (untrue) and a ‘narrative’ (story), this should clearly be discounted.
Beyond the language used, Mr Madders’s claims are not substantiated and as such are simply opinions. Firstly, as the United Nations (UN) agency responsible for global public health, WHO can indeed be considered a ‘globalist’ organisation, along with numerous other international bodies such as other UN agencies, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and international corporations and foundations. But, largely due to the growing influence exerted over national governments by WHO and other unelected supra-national bodies during Covid, the term ‘globalist’ has taken on more sinister connotations. Its use by those critical of the dominant narrative may account for Mr Madders treating the term as a ‘red flag’.
Secondly, Mr Madders may be unaware of the significant changes to WHO’s funding model that have taken place in recent years, with assessed contributions [13] from Member States having declined to less than 20% of WHO’s financing, and Bill Gates now being one of its major funders. WHO’s own website records that, as of Quarter 4 of 2021, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) was their second-largest donor (9.49%) after Germany [14]. While on this point, Steve Brine (MP for Winchester) asserted that “the UK is the second-largest contributor to the WHO”, which is incorrect; in fact, the UK is the sixth-largest contributor (5.99%). Gates is also a founding partner and second-largest contributor to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which is the fifth-largest funder of WHO (6.43%). And with 56.14% of BMGF’s funding going to support WHO’s Headquarters [15], it is unlikely that “The treaty has nothing to do with Bill Gates”, as asserted by Mr Madders.
Many unsubstantiated statements regarding Covid ‘vaccine’ safety and effectiveness were also made during the debate. Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) asserted that “AstraZeneca saved lives worldwide”, despite the use of this adenovirus viral vector vaccine being restricted or suspended in numerous countries due to many reports of recipients suffering blood clots [16].
Similarly, Mr Spellar, referring to the Pfizer mRNA ‘vaccines’, stated that it “certainly was not unproven or unsafe, and it had a huge beneficial impact across the world.” There is, in fact, mounting evidence showing that the Covid injections, released under emergency use authorisation before adequate testing could be undertaken, have been neither safe nor very effective. All vaccine adverse events tracking systems, including the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Yellow Card system in the United Kingdom, the European Medicines Agency’s EudraVigilance system in the European Union, and the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in the United States, have recorded unprecedented numbers of serious adverse reactions, including deaths. Furthermore, an increasing number of studies are reporting evidence of a broad range of serious adverse events [17]. An independent systematic review of serious harms of the Covid-19 vaccines, currently in pre-print, adds significant weight to these findings [18].
Furthermore, after a group of scientists and medical researchers successfully sued the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [19] to release many thousands of documents related to licensing of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, it was revealed that early trials had resulted in hundreds of adverse reactions [20 (Appendix 1)]. This information had been withheld from the public by the authorities.
The injections have also been been unable to stop SARS-CoV-2 infection or transmission, with Dr Peter Marks of the FDA admitting in a letter responding to a citizens’ petition that proof of efficacy had not been required for authorisation [21]:
It is important to note that FDA’s authorization and licensure standards for vaccines do not require demonstration of the prevention of infection or transmission. (p.11)
Furthermore, the applicable statutory standards for licensure and authorization of vaccines do not require that the primary objective of efficacy trials be a demonstration of reduction in person-to-person transmission. (p.13)
In addition, there is growing concern that claims that the boosters prevent severe illness and deaths amount to a “wishful myth” [22].
Three years of pro-vaccine propaganda and ongoing efforts to censor reports of vaccine harms have effectively blinded many people to the possibility that the rollout of Covid injections may be related to the sharp rise in excess deaths now being experienced in many countries [23; 24]. This is despite the fact that many vulnerable people, such as the elderly and those with multiple comorbidities, had died previously as a result of Covid-19, lockdown measures and medical interventions.
Despite having had the opportunity to peruse the evidence presented by the petitioners, Mr Spellar was still sure that the vaccination campaign had been a huge success, stating:
… mobilisation of [the] intellectual power and production capacity [of the major pharmaceutical companies] in producing a vaccine in record time to stem the tide of covid was absolutely magnificent.
3. Using globalist slogans
Just as certain terms (conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer) have become modern-day curses causing those so labelled to be socially shunned, so have other terms and slogans become the mantras of those wishing to demonstrate their membership of the mainstream. These catchy but often meaningless slogans are building blocks of a collective reality, introduced and normalised through the presentations, publications and public relations communications of powerful individuals, and globalist organisations such as the UN, WHO, WEF and BMGF.
Mr Madders, for example, echoed Bill Gates [25] when he stated: “We need to be better prepared for the next pandemic.” This also represents an unsubstantiated claim, as it ignores the reality that pandemics are actually extremely rare. Since 1900, only five pandemics, each responsible for over one million deaths, have broken out, namely the Spanish flu (1918-1920), the 1957-1958 influenza pandemic, the Hong Kong flu (1968-1969), the AIDS pandemic (ongoing since 1981), and Covid-19 [26]. It also powerfully illustrates the effectiveness of presupposition, where the speaker inserts a statement or assumption as a fact agreed by all and therefore requiring no evidence of its own. The phrase “the next pandemic” provides a nudge by inserting itself unconsciously into the psyche of the listener and readily bypassing the conscious thought process [27].
The Covid event did, however, demonstrate that a pandemic can mean big gains for certain people. It can literally be used to “reset our world” [28], creating unprecedented numbers of billionaires while destroying the lives of billions or others, stripping citizens of their rights and freedoms, unleashing a tyrannical and repressive security apparatus, and creating a ‘polycrisis’ [29], in response to which governments and even citizens will beg for unprecedented levels of global control.
One of the most meaningless slogans, which appears to have been invented by the UN at the beginning of the Covid event, and which has become a mantra reiterated by countless organisations and individuals, is ‘nobody is safe until everyone is safe’. It is not clear what this unsubstantiated statement even means, but what is clear is that it is demonstrably untrue. Nonetheless, this mantra was recited in some form by four speakers, with Anne McLaughlin (MP for Glasgow North East) stating, “It is only when the world is safe from Covid-19 that any of us are truly safe.”
Not only does such an obvious fallacy, a propaganda trope, have no place in a parliamentary debate, its use as some type of rational fact by four MPs across the political spectrum does bring into question the quality and independence of any literature provided to them ahead of this event. It is worth considering this much-used slogan and its ramifications in terms of any safety incident. The ideology underpinning it is one of collectivism, even socialism, in that the individual and their relative safety is merely incidental compared to the safety of all. Some might argue that this contradicts the fundamental principles of the International Declaration of Human Rights, which puts the individual at its core. Certainly, it is not an idle statement and reflects the underlying changes being proposed by WHO, which is seeking under their ‘One Health’ initiative [30] a more far-reaching remit where ‘everyone’ will include not only all sovereign citizens of participating nations, but animals and the environment as well.
Slogans infuse documents produced by UN agencies such as WHO. In referring to the zero-draft of the Pandemic Treaty, Preet Kaur Gill (MP for Birmingham, Edgbaston) used a number of them, including: ‘leave no country behind’, ‘global health is local health’, ‘we are stronger together’, and ‘vaccine equity’. Trotting out vacuous statements like this might be appropriate at a protest rally but should have no place in a parliamentary debate. Slogans are rallying cries. They are right-sounding and apparently well-meaning, even moral, in nature. Their repetition is quite hypnotic and they seem to act as spells, potentially binding those who faithfully recite them to an outcome they may live to regret [31].
The repetitive nature of any phrase or slogan is a tool of both behavioural science and propaganda. Both the repetitive effect and the rhythmic phrasing allow such phrases to easily enter the unconscious. Over time we simply accept the statement as true, as it bypasses our conscious thought processes that might critically assess such a phrase and see it as false or simply nonsensical. The use of such tactics, particularly by people in positions of authority or trust, allow the effect to be amplified. This is known as the ‘messenger effect’. Simply put, we are more likely to trust the message because it was issued by someone representing expertise and trust [32].
One such case relates to the slogan ‘vaccine equity’. Referring to the “terrible divide in coverage between richer countries and the global south,” Ms Gill lamented that “just 27% of people in low-income countries have received a first dose of a Covid vaccine.” What she does not go on to say, disappointingly, is that there was no correlation between high vaccination rates and low death rates from Covid-19. Indeed, some low-income countries (especially in Africa) with young populations and low vaccination rates experienced very low death rates due to Covid-19, while the USA, one of the richest and most highly vaccinated countries in the world, had one of the highest Covid-19 death rates [33].
Figure 1: Comparing Covid-19 deaths in Africa and the USA [33]
4. Patronising the petitioners
Regarding the aim of the petition, which was to request that a referendum be held before the Government could agree to signing the pandemic treaty, Mr Fletcher declared:
Referendums are divisive; they polarise positions and leave a lasting legacy of division. Whether a referendum is appropriate is for the Government to decide, and if they think it is, they must make all the facts known. I suggest that petitioners, while playing their part in the education process, must do so in a sensible manner.
The patronising tone of this comment is ironic. While the referendum on Brexit did indeed sharpen the edge between ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’, the UK Government’s Covid-19 response was possibly even more effective at dividing the populace into camps and pitting one side (those who complied with the mandates) against the other (those who chose not to comply). Furthermore, insisting that citizens should be “sensible” ignores the fact that constituents in favour of a referendum contacted their MPs to raise thoughtful, well-researched concerns, while some MPs arguing against the referendum tended to rely on slogans, unfounded generalities, and invective, rather than “sensible”, factual, reasoned arguments.
Mr Spellar not only used disparaging language to deny the request for a referendum, but also predicted that it would be rejected by the House:
We cannot be arguing to have [a referendum] for every bloomin’ issue, every policy and every treaty. … What we are seeing is overreaction and hysteria, and I would argue that we should give the petition a firm rejection, as I am sure we would do if it ever came to the Floor of the House of Commons.
Inasmuch as MPs in the UK are supposed to represent and take seriously the concerns of their constituencies, it is disturbing that an elected Member should respond with such contempt to a petition signed by more than 150,000 people.
5. Party-political point-scoring
Disappointingly, despite the importance of the debate and the number of citizens who had taken the time to express their concerns about the pandemic treaty, Ms McLaughlin and Ms Gill spent much of their time criticising the Conservative Government’s response to the Covid event. Instead of focusing on the debate, they chose to score party-political points by indicating the readiness of the Scottish National Party and Labour Party to implement WHO’s agenda, including enabling vaccine equity; sharing technology, knowledge, and skills; and strengthening global health systems using, ironically, the failing National Health Service as a model.
6. Downplaying or normalising threats to sovereignty
The Covid-19 event has been a classic case of the popular dialectic of ‘Problem-Reaction-Solution’. The engineered over-reaction to the problem of Covid-19 (whether or not there was an engineered virus), and the subsequent societal fall-out, have left traumatised people and their governments desperate to be better prepared for the much-anticipated ‘next one’, and ready to accept a ‘solution’ that few would have countenanced just four years ago.
In her presentation, Ms Gill expressed the need for an international approach to tackle transnational threats and improve global public health:
Negotiating an effective international treaty on pandemic preparedness is an historic task, but, if we can achieve it, it will save hundreds of thousands of lives.
If we can use the WHO to support basic universal healthcare around the world, infectious diseases are less likely to spread and fuel global pandemics.
It is through multilateral efforts, strengthened through international law, that we can ensure that the response to the next pandemic is faster and more effective, and does not leave other countries behind.
… the Opposition absolutely support the principle of a legally binding WHO treaty that sets the standard for all countries to contribute to global health security.
We need a binding, enforceable investment and trade agreement among all participating countries to govern the coordination of supplies and the financing of production, to prevent hoarding of materials and equipment, and to centrally manage the production and distribution process for maximum efficiency and output in the wake of a pandemic being declared.
The last few comments (underlined above) point to one of the most worrying issues for those concerned about sovereignty: if accepted, the pandemic treaty and amendments to the IHR would no longer be non-binding recommendations subject to government oversight but would become legally binding. WHO would be given legislative powers to mandate medical and non-pharmaceutical interventions; to commandeer intellectual property, production capability and resources; and to sanction those who refused to comply.
Some MPs downplayed concerns about these threats to national sovereignty. Mr Madders stated that “creating a global treaty [was] entirely reasonable and responsible” and that it was possible to “both protect our values of freedom and democracy and work more closely with other countries in the face of a global threat.”
Mr Spellar agreed, noting that they were “signatories to hundreds of treaties around the world” and that signing trade treaties was “part of engaging with the world.” He added that during Covid, “international scientific cooperation” had “enabled us to produce a vaccine within something like twelve months instead of the normal ten years … [thus] stabilising the situation.” What was not mentioned is that it was not primarily international collaboration among scientists that allowed the rapid deployment of these Covid-19 countermeasures, but the institution of emergency use authorisations, which allowed inadequately tested products to be dispensed worldwide. Far from “stabilising the situation”, these injectables continue to cause unprecedented numbers of adverse events and deaths, resulting in ongoing destabilisation of society post-Covid.
Steve Brine (MP for Winchester) observed that, “We cede sovereignty through membership of organisations. We cede the sovereignty to go to war by being a member of NATO.” It is true that all manner of treaties exist between countries and that these are essential for international cooperation; but cooperating as sovereign nations is entirely different to taking instructions from an unelected, supra-national body that is unaccountable to populations. Once in place, WHO’s pandemic treaty and the amendments to the IHR threaten to reduce national sovereignty, giving full power to WHO and its director-general to call pandemics and health emergencies and to regulate the responses of member states.
Those in favour of the pandemic treaty provided no evidence that a one-size-fits-all, legally mandated response to future pandemics would actually prove effective. In fact, Covid-19 was an object lesson in the foolishness of imposing the same public health ‘solutions’ on radically different nations and communities. In reality, mandating centralised protocols disrespects human rights, cultural diversity, national sovereignty, the scientific method, and innovation in healthcare. Instead of trusting human ingenuity to create a multitude of locally appropriate responses, it increases the risk of spectacular failure should the single global solution prove ineffective.
In an attempt to counter fears about a loss of sovereignty, Mr Madders stated that “We live in a liberal democracy and … are determined to keep it that way.” He denied people’s:
fears that the treaty will restrict freedom of speech to the extent that dissenters could be imprisoned, that it will impose instruments that impede on our daily life, and that it will institute widespread global surveillance without warning and without the consent of world leaders … [and that] Under this treaty, those things will apparently be done without our Government having a say.
He did, however, acknowledge that the measures mentioned above were “already in the power of the Government under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984.” Referring, without giving any details, to “fact checkers” and an unnamed “WHO spokesperson”, he reassured citizens that “WHO would have no capacity to force members to comply with public health measures.” The tyrannical actions during Covid of governments worldwide against their own citizens — many of whom assumed that they did, in fact, live in a “liberal democracy” — makes one wonder why these governments would behave any more independently in future, especially if legally required to follow WHO’s dictates. The repressive regulations and laws passed in various countries since 2020 suggest that this is unlikely, as governments seem to have become addicted to the sweeping emergency powers granted them by this convenient global ‘pandemic’.
Mr Madders and Ms Gill also attempted to allay citizens’ fears by pointing out that there was “over a year of negotiations to go” and that the treaty “would still have to be ratified by the United Kingdom”. Ms Gill also commented that:
The draft treaty is primarily about transparency, fostering international cooperation, and strengthening global health systems … the very first statement in the zero draft text reaffirms “the principle of sovereignty of States Parties” [and that] the implementation of the regulations “shall be with full respect for the dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons.”
Noting the dismissive attitude of the majority of MPs to the petitioners’ concerns, there is little chance that another year of negotiations will convince the UK Government to reject the treaty.
7. Promoting internationalism over sovereignty
The UK, as an erstwhile imperial and colonial power, continues to play a leadership role internationally. This may be why some MPs, such as Ms McLaughlin, could not believe that WHO might threaten UK’s sovereignty:
The treaty would have absolutely no effect whatsoever on the UK’s constitutional function and sovereignty … [Imagine a] terrible situation whereby the UK might be unable to make its own decisions if it is outvoted by other countries … the UK is a leading member of the WHO and a primary architect of the treaty, so that is not what is happening here.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) also stressed that the UK was:
a sovereign state in control of whether we enter into international agreements … with its voice, expertise and wisdom, and our trusted partner status with so many other member states in the UN family, [it] is respected and listened to.
Ms Trevelyan also referred to the UK’s role as “a global leader, working with CEPI, Gavi and the WHO,” stating that she was “proud to lead the fundraising for Gavi and COVAX.”
A deep chasm appears to have formed between the UK Government and its people. The discussions during this debate suggest that a minority of MPs [3] [link to PANDA video] view themselves as representatives whose duty it is to serve their constituents and respond to their concerns. Most, however, appear to have shifted their focus and allegiance to the international sphere, identifying as members of the “UN family”, playing a leading role in developing WHO’s pandemic instruments, and raising funds, which will ultimately benefit vaccine manufacturers and their investors, impoverishing the majority in the process. Under these circumstances, it is clear why Parliament is unwilling to risk a referendum on WHO’s Pandemic Treaty. There are just too many globalist interests at stake.
At home, increasing numbers of UK citizens are growing weary of a government that speaks glibly of ‘no country left behind’, while leaving its own nation in the dust. Where the people are concerned, trust is gone.
As Danny Kruger (MP for Devizes) warned:
At the moment, we do not have a commitment from the Government that they would bring the proposals to Parliament, which is very concerning. They say that in our interconnected world we need less sovereignty and more co-operation, which means more power for people who sit above the nation states. I say that in the modern world we need nation states more than ever, because only nation states can be accountable to the people, as the WHO is not.
Concluding comments
After two-and-a-quarter hours of deliberation, Mr Fletcher concluded the debate by thanking the Minister for assuring Members that UK sovereignty was not at risk, and then delivering the most inconclusive resolution:
That this House has considered e-petition 614335, relating to an international agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
For the 156,086 citizens and their representatives who had made the effort to engage Parliament thoughtfully and actively using the relevant democratic process, this ‘resolution’ resolved nothing at all. The exercise amounted to all form and no substance; not only were requests for a referendum dismissed out of hand without adequate discussion, but there were indications that the matter might not even be discussed in the House of Commons.
Illustrating just how little impact was made by those representing the petitioners despite the strength of their arguments, subsequent to the debate and in response to this petition, the government’s official response published on their website [1] commenced with the words:
To protect lives, the economy and future generations from future pandemics, the UK government supports a new legally-binding instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
This ominous response was followed by the now familiar slogan that would sit comfortably in the pages of Orwell’s 1984 but has no place in an official government statement: “Covid-19 has demonstrated that no-one is safe until we are all safe.” Its use further erodes the expectations that such debates will be carried out without bias, undue influence, or ignorance.
MPs have a duty of care to their constituents to ensure that they are as knowledgeable as possible about the issue being debated, and that they consider the facts rationally and honestly; and citizens deserve to have their concerns taken seriously. Yet two critical questions remain unanswered: firstly, having explicitly stated their support for WHO’s pandemic instruments, will the UK Government bring this matter to Parliament to be debated? And secondly, would agreement with these instruments, ‘in effect’ if not legally, mean the relinquishment of sovereignty? After all, if the only way the UK will be able to make a sovereign decision in future is by removing itself from membership of WHO, then why would the country wish to sign this treaty in the first place?
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What Surfing Taught Me About Crumbling Concrete
BY DR MARK SHAW | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 6, 2023
The news that so much disruption is being caused by the construction material RAAC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) brings to mind a decision I had to make a couple of years ago as to whether to buy a more modern, so called ‘advanced technology’ epoxy surfboard, or to stick with my more traditional fibreglass ones.
Being typically sceptical I decided to look in depth as to how each type of board was constructed and what the relative pros and cons were. It turned out to be an easy choice but I seemed to be swimming against the tide and could well have been accused by some of being too sceptical.
The epoxy boards are sold as being much lighter, stronger and ‘progressive’. It is true that they have particular advantages for some and allow for more radical surfing – aerial manoeuvres in particular – for those skilful enough, but the major drawback for me was that if you damage your board with just a small ding and you don’t get out of the water immediately, the heavily aerated (98% air) lightweight eps foam can absorb huge amounts of water capable of spreading rapidly through the board and potentially making it economically unviable to repair. As an experienced surfer I know how often surfers can emerge from the sea only then to realise that their board (fibreglass or epoxy) has been cracked during their surf. I also have heard enough reports to know that the epoxy boards are nowhere near as strong or dense as the manufacturers claim and that the manufacturers and retailers don’t inform their customers adequately about the drawbacks of these expensive boards – only the advantages. I speak to surfers about their new purchases and it is clear many of them are unaware.
A similar material science lies behind the retrofitting of insulation (especially cavity wall insulation and external wall insulation) where devastating disruption to people’s lives and thousands of pounds may have been wasted on materials that eventually absorb excessive moisture, rendering them ineffective, and then possibly thousands more being spent to repair the resulting damage. The Grenfell disaster has similar echoes of a complete failure to recognise a very basic link between material science, structural engineering and health and safety. As soon as I looked Into RAAC it became clear that it should never have been used as a load bearing construction material in buildings that people occupy for any reason whatsoever.
And so it was confirmed this week in an interview with Dr. John Roberts, a past President of the Institute of Structural Engineers, on BBC Radio 4’s World at One.
What the mainstream media seem to be focusing on is a lack of funding as a root cause of the whole problem. This allows for a lot of political mudslinging that has diverted attention from the more salient issues that are brought up in the interview:
- RAAC was not properly assessed by those who should have been responsible as a potentially immediate problem rather than a medium to long term one;
- the material never resembled ordinary concrete in the slightest;
- RAAC was not truly designed by structural engineers but bought out of a catalogue by manufacturers;
- the ‘concrete’ wasn’t marketed as a short-life material, should never have been used for the purpose it ended up being used for and was inherently mis-sold.
Known as ‘aerobar’, ‘aircrete’ and RAAC, the cheap lightweight alternative to traditional concrete mixes was used in thousands of U.K. public buildings from the 1950s to 1990s. By the 1980s it had started to fail and buildings had to be demolished.
Through the decades that RAAC has been allowed to be installed, where is there any accountability? The manufacturers have long since gone bust or disappeared and those responsible for signing off the projects seem to be missing. Who can explain why there are no proper records of exactly which public (and private) buildings are involved and thus the true extent of the problem – or should we say scandal?
Schoolchildren and the public at large shouldn’t have to wait until all the affected buildings are demolished and reconstructed, or until the cost of living goes up yet again to pay for repeated mistakes, to realise that those responsible for all these gross failures in due diligence and poor evidence-based risk assessments really haven’t a clue. As with lockdowns and coercive experimental vaccinations, the ignorance and lack of accountability by so-called experts is so extensive and staggering that being a ‘daily sceptic’ should immediately be everybody’s priority for their health and safety in the 21st century.
Dr. Mark Shaw is a retired dentist.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith Says He is “Happy” for ‘Blade Runner’ Ulez Vandals to Destroy Cameras Because They Have Been “Lied To”
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 1, 2023
Conservative MP and former party leader and Government minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith has said he backs the ‘blade runners’ who are disabling Ulez cameras. The Mail has more.
Usually he prides himself on being tough on crime, but the former cabinet minister said today he was ‘happy’ for the residents of his Chingford and Woodford Green constituency to destroy cameras because they have been “lied to”.
Sir Iain said: “A lot of people in my constituency have been cementing up the cameras or putting plastic bags over them.
“I am happy for them to do it because they are facing an imposition that no-one wants and they have been lied to about it.
“The actions you are seeing show how angry people are at what is being imposed on them. Sadiq Khan has gerrymandered all the information – people have had enough.”
Since his comments were first published, Sir Iain told the Evening Standard that “I do understand the frustrations of the people in my constituency who are being hit by these charges and who feel like they are not being listened to by the mayor. These sort of actions show how angry people are. But I don’t condone law breaking of any kind.”
It’s notable that no one besides Khan seems willing to defend the scheme or even state their opposition to the vandalism of the cameras. At this point it feels like it’s Khan versus the whole of London.
Meanwhile, the Transport Secretary, Mark Harper, told GB News this morning that he would stop the rollout if he had the power to do so and highlighted his reservations about the true motives behind the expansion.
I don’t have the power to stop it coming into force. That’s a decision for the Mayor of London backed by the Labour leader. I think he should think again.
He says this has to do with air quality, his own impact assessment says this will only have a minor to negligible effect on air pollution.
It’s not about air pollution, it’s about a money-raising exercise and this is absolutely not the time to be putting all those costs on hard-pressed and hard-working Londoners and those in the area outside London.
What Harper didn’t mention, though, is that the reason he doesn’t have the power to stop it is because the Government’s lawyers have said it would be contrary to the Government’s own policies on air pollution. That’s despite the impact assessment showing it will have a negligible impact on air quality! In truth, the Government could challenge it if it wished, either by changing its own policies (perhaps via legislative amendment) or by arguing that the impact is too negligible to contravene its commitments.
Harper also told LBC’s Nick Ferrari programme that the Government will be backing an amendment to the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill to make changes to the 1999 law that created the role of Mayor of London. According to the Mail:
Under the amendment, brought forward by Tory peer Lord Moylan, London boroughs would be able to opt out of future Transport for London (TfL) clean air schemes if they are meeting air quality targets.
The Transport Secretary said: “One of the problems here is that a number of London local authorities don’t support this scheme coming into force, so for the future, we are backing an amendment, a backbench amendment to a piece of legislation which will mean in future any road user charging schemes like this would have to be also backed by London boroughs.
“And that’s important because if you look at the Mayor of London’s own website for his Project 2030 scheme, he wants to roll out more road user charging schemes, pay-per-mile schemes across London.”
Sadiq Khan countered on BBC Breakfast this morning that it wasn’t about the money:
This is about helping our air be cleaner. In a couple of years’ time, TfL has predicted there will be no additional money made because the number of non-compliant vehicles (will decrease).
But if it’s not expected to make money and it won’t make the air appreciably cleaner, what’s the real motive for forcing through such an electorally disastrous policy? Could it be because, as highlighted in yesterday’s Daily Sceptic, Khan is Chair of C40 Cities, an organisation committed to “reducing car ownership” and cutting travel by car? Is it, in other words, the latest move in the global war on the motorist and the crazed scramble to ‘cut emissions’ at the expense of humanity?
More Stick, Less Carrot – Prison For Not Complying With Energy Rules?
Climate Change Fanatics Upping Their Game
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | September 2, 2023
In a recent World Economic Forum discussion, it was acknowledged that governments will need to start using more sticks and less carrots.
“We’re going to need to change behaviours of individuals but also how our industries, corporations and also our governments work and practise. We’re going to need to do this through a mixture of carrots and hopefully, errr, perhaps not so many sticks… But we’re likely to see an increasing move towards a more stick-like intervention into the future, as things worsen, if we’re not able to act”.
The UK government seems to be taking the WEF’s advice seriously because, according to the Telegraph, they are looking to introduce new powers allowing new criminal offences to be created. This is in addition to increasing penalties for property owners who don’t comply with new energy rules.
Ministers want to grant themselves powers to create new criminal offences and increase civil penalties as part of efforts to hit net zero targets. Under the proposals, people who fall foul of regulations to reduce their energy consumption could face up to a year in prison and fines of up to £15,000.
The proposals will come before Parliament on Tuesday when MPs return back to work to discuss the Energy Bill.
It provides for “the creation of criminal offences” where there is “non-compliance with a requirement imposed by or under energy performance regulations”. People could also be prosecuted for “provision of false information” about energy efficiency or the “obstruction of… an enforcement authority”.
As seen with the Coronavirus legislation, ministers “are giving themselves broad umbrella powers to redraw and enforce the system before consulting on precisely which changes to make. Tory MPs have expressed alarm that ministers would be able to create new offences with limited parliamentary scrutiny under the update”.
The Bill is festooned with new criminal offences. This is just unholy, frankly, that you could be creating criminal offences… The ones we’ve found most offensive are where a business owner could face a year in prison for not having the right energy performance certificate or type of building certification.
Instead of undergoing scrutiny, criminal offences will be created using statutory instruments. These are still approved by Parliament but “typically nodded through”. There has not been a statutory instrument rejected in the last 35 years.
At the same time, Ultra Low Emission Zones (ULEZ) in London have been causing controversy. The newly expanded scheme means that drivers of certain vehicles (i.e. poor people who can’t afford Teslas) are forced to pay £12.50 ($15.75) every day to drive in any of London’s 32 London boroughs. The fine for not paying on time is £180.
Whilst this might not sound a lot of money to some, an additional £400 per month just to drive to work, will be an absolute killer for a lot of families. Another tax on the poor in the name of climate change.
A vigilante group calling themselves “Blade Runners” are going round London disabling or destroying the new ULEZ cameras. According to some reports, 90% of cameras have already been “retired”.
Sales of angle grinders are through the roof and the usual suspects are all over social media congratulating the Blade Runners but is all that it seems?
Problem, Reaction, Solution.
As a result, London Mayor, Sadiq Khan has deployed fleets of camera vans to catch people on the go. Clearly these camera vans were ready and waiting to go, they just needed an excuse. And how long will it be until some legislation is brought in to deal with these climate change vandals!?
And when Labour wins the election next year, deputy leader Angela Rayner, confirmed that “this is coming to towns and cities across the whole of the United Kingdom”.
It won’t stop there either. Whilst rumours of pay per mile schemes have been branded conspiracy theory nonsense, on Transport for London’s website they confirm that this is planned for 2025/26.
The climate change fanatics will do anything to reach their 2030 goals. The carrots haven’t been as effective as they’d hoped and with only 6.5 years left, get ready for more and more sticks.
Sadiq Khan’s Green Globalist Gang Suggests Daily 44g Meat Allowance and Rations Lower Than Second World War
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 31, 2023
London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Ulez punch-down on cars and vans owned by the less affluent is just one example of the attacks planned against town dwellers living in modern industrial societies. Khan is the current chairman of C40, a global network of city mayors backed by numerous hard-Left billionaire foundations. Removing cars from cities is just one of its aims. In a Headline Report published by the group in 2019 and re-emphasised earlier this year, a “progressive” target for 2030 was set of a daily per person allowance of 44g of meat (enough for two small meatballs), a daily limit of 2,500 calories, (less than the ration in the Second World War), one short haul flight every three years, eight new clothing items a year and private cars available for only one in five people. This “pioneering piece of thought leadership” was said to seek a “radical, and rapid, shift in consumption patterns”.
When the report about future urban consumption was first published in 2019, it received little publicity in the media. Some of its proposals looked a bit cranky even for mainstream publications. For instance, under an “ambitious” 2030 target, the mayors looked to ban meat and private vehicles altogether. But groundwork was clearly being laid. Mark Watts, executive director of C40, observed that average consumption-based emissions in the wealthier C40 cities must fall by “two thirds or more” by 2030. It was said that reducing vehicle ownership would lead to significant reclamation of roads and 25,000 kms of cycle lanes. This plan is now well advanced since the Covid lockdowns provided cover for mass street closures. Recent years have also seen large increases in cycle lanes, and of course the Ulez war on those driving older vehicles, not necessarily by choice.
Signatory cities are committed to “high impact accelerators”, which include creating low or zero emissions zones along with “implanting vehicle restrictions or financial incentives/disincentives such as road use or parking charges”. An early sighting here, perhaps of Khan’s suspected wish to implement road pricing after his Ulez infrastructure is in place.
There is also an early sighting of unsourced statistics with a claim that eating less meat and more vegetables and fruit could prevent 160,000 annual deaths associated with diseases such as heart attacks, diabetes and strokes in C40 cities. It is not immediately clear if these deaths actually occur in such precise numbers, or whether they are a Ulez-style ‘statistical construct‘.
Over 100 cities around the world are part of the C40 network and they are required to sign up to “performance-based requirements” based on a number of leadership standards. One of these standards specifies that they must innovate and start taking inclusive and resilient action, “to address emissions beyond the direct control of city government, such as associated with goods and services consumed in their city”. The largely unpublicised C40 operation is backed by finance and support from many well-known green foundations including Climate Works, Hewlett, IKEA, Oak, FR and Clinton. Three “strategic funders” are identified including Christopher Hohn’s Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, a major financial contributor to Extinction Rebellion. Another strategic funder is Bloomberg Philanthropies, whose controller Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, is president of the C40 board.
Of course interest is now growing in what all these people have been smoking over the last few years, as the Con/Lab green blob (different countries, different mainstream political combinations) organise to de-industrialise and cut human progress in the name of tackling a supposed ‘climate crisis’. The C40 Headline Report gives clear guidance of the scale of economic and societal change required under a collectivist Net Zero agenda. U.K. Fires is an academic project funded by the British Government, and it also gives a brutal assessment of life under what it terms absolute net zero carbon dioxide emissions. Again it is not discussed much in the public prints, but the Daily Sceptic has reported on its findings. These include no flying and shipping by 2050, drastic cuts in home heating, bans on beef and lamb consumption and a ruthless purge of traditional building materials such as bricks, glass, steel and cement. Such is the admirable honesty on display in their reports that they note these building materials can be replaced with “rammed earth” – mud huts for the lower classes in other words.
Sadiq Khan has been badly shaken by a popular uprising against his hated Ulez scheme. Backing in his own Labour party is wearing thin, not because most senior members are particularly anti-Ulez, but because after the Uxbridge by-election they can see a little more clearly that attacking the cars of the poor is a slam-dunk vote loser. For his part, Khan seems to have become more hysterical attacking those who oppose Ulez as conspiracy theorists. Earlier this year, reports the Daily Mail, Khan said that some of those who opposed the scheme’s growth across all London boroughs were “anti-vaxxers, Covid deniers, conspiracy theorists and Nazis”.
The evidence provided by Khan’s own C40 Headline Report, along with the work of U.K. Fires, shows clearly the actual agenda that is now being ruthlessly deployed. The only conspiracy rabbithole in sight would appear to be that occupied by a freaked Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
The climate scaremongers: Playing fast and loose with the facts
By Paul Homewood | TCW Defending Freedom | September 1, 2023
Climate alarmists love summer. It gives them an opportunity to exploit every heatwave, wildfire and hurricane. It is much harder to scare people in winter, when snow is supposed to be a thing of the past, and who doesn’t welcome a nice spring day or Indian summer?
So here are some of the silly scare stories which have appeared in the few weeks while we’ve been away.
1 Wildfires in Portugal
THE BBC went into full alarmist mode after some fires during a bit of hot weather in Portugal early last month. They reported: ‘Firefighters in Portugal are battling to contain wildfires engulfing thousands of hectares amid soaring temperatures. Around 800 personnel attended a fire near the southern town of Odemira overnight on Monday, with more than 1,400 people having to evacuate. At least nine firefighters have been injured tackling the fires. Temperatures in excess of 40C (104F) are expected to hit much of the Iberian peninsula this week.’
The BBC would like you to believe that hot weather is somehow unusual in Spain and Portugal! And as usual they provide no context at all. The big fire near Odemira burned 6,700 hectares (16,500 acres) but this is a tiny figure compared with the annual wildfire area in Portugal each year. And the data clearly shows there is no upward trend.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/08/09/shock-news-its-hot-in-portugal/
As for temperatures of 40C, what is so unusual about that? Temperatures of 39C in Cadiz are certainly not unheard of:
2 Wildfires in Hawaii
THE media quickly tried to link the wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui to global warming, with the BBC blaming a ‘dry summer’. The Guardian went one step further saying the fires were made worse by the climate crisis.
Summers in Maui are always dry. But as local experts have been warning for years, the intensity and rapid spread of this fire was the direct result of the spread of savanna-type grasslands in the last couple of decades.
Clay Trauernicht, a professor of natural resources and environmental management at the University of Hawaii, said it would be misleading simply to blame weather and climate for the blazes. Millions of acres of Hawaii was cleared for plantation agriculture in the early 20th century, principally pineapple and sugar cane. Plantations were by and large fairly resistant to fire. However since 1980 they have shut one by one because of economic pressures, and now there are barely any left. In their place have come uncontrolled invasive species of savanna plants, such as Guinea grass which grows rapidly in the wet winters to a height of 10ft. In summer, these grasses quickly dry out, creating a tinderbox. All it needs is a spark and a strong wind to spread it, and the inevitable disaster will follow, just as it did last month.
Local fire and agricultural experts issued this very warning in a 2014 report, and recommended that the grasslands be properly managed and fire breaks be constructed. The authorities did nothing.
I doubt if you will read any of this in the Guardian.
3 The heatwave that never was
CAN the Met Office become an even bigger laughing stock than they are already?
On Wednesday August 16, they and the clowns at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced a Yellow Heat Alert for most of England, saying that temperatures would peak at 28C (82F) on Friday the 18th. This in itself was absurd as 28C is hardly life-threatening!
Friday arrived, and most of us were trying to keep warm under grey skies and rain. If you were lucky enough to find a bit of sunshine, you might have got temperatures of 23C.
How can the Met Office have got it so wrong? Maybe in future they might try getting their forecasts right instead of spending their time pumping out global warming propaganda.
4 The storm that never was
ON THE same day that the Met Office announced the Yellow Heat Alert, they also issued a Yellow Warning for Storm Betty, as the Irish Met Office were to name it, which was due to hit us on the day on Saturday August 19.
According to the Met Office forecast on Friday morning, we could expect up to 80mm (3in) of rain and winds in excess of 70mph in exposed places, and 50mph more widely, particularly in West Wales which would see the strongest winds.
The reality was much more mundane. Ballypatrick in the hills of Northern Ireland saw the most rain, 36mm (1.4in), and the extremes in England and Scotland were much less. As for winds, the Met Office managed to find a handful of extremely exposed sites. Capel Curig, for instance, at an altitude of 216m (708ft) in the middle of Snowdonia, recorded 66mph.
Down in the real world it was no more than a breezy day. Even on the West Wales coast, which was supposed to be worst affected, gusts reached only about 20mph, with sustained winds of about 10mph. According to the Beaufort Scale, that would be described as a ‘gentle breeze’.
But Gentle Breeze Betty does not have quite the same ring about it!
5 It does rain in Southern California
TROPICAL storms rarely hit California, but that does not mean they never do. The reason has nothing to do with climate, it is simply that Eastern Pacific hurricanes usually head west, away from the coast.
Last week, Hurricane Hilary headed north instead, and made landfall in California as a weaker tropical storm. Naturally the BBC went into full alarmist mode, blaming it on climate change in an article full of misinformation. They claimed that rainfall records had been broken across the state and in particular in Palm Springs, though why one solitary town should be of any consequence is a mystery to me.
To push home their message, they said that Los Angeles was in ‘recovery mode’ after 2.48 inches of rain, a record for August apparently.
In reality, Hilary was no wetter than other tropical storms to hit California, and 2in of rain in a day is not unusual at all in Los Angeles:
As for Palm Springs, even that record claim does not stand up to scrutiny, since it was wetter in 1922.
The September 1939 tropical storm, El Cordonazo, followed the same path as Hilary, and dropped twice as much rain on Los Angeles as Hilary, as well as larger amounts elsewhere. Hurricane Kathleen in 1976 is generally accepted as by far the wettest to hit California, with the 14.76 inches that fell on Mount San Gorgonia in a day still the official state record. Kathleen was described as a 1-in-160-year event, with hundreds of homes damaged and parts of California declared a disaster area. The highest rainfall recorded from Hilary was 11.74 inches, and the damage was considerably less than in 1976.
So once again we find that the BBC is playing fast and loose with the facts so that it can promote its political agenda. The same applies to the MSM and the Met Office.
The Government’s Plan to Install Heat Pumps in Homes They Won’t Work In is Branded “Desperate” and “Unethical”
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 31, 2023
A Government plan to relax rules to allow heat pumps to be installed in uninsulated homes they will fail to heat properly has been branded “desperate” and “unethical”.
Faced with a widespread boycott of the pricey technology, ministers are hoping that they can kickstart uptake by removing the requirement that properties be adequately insulated before gas boilers are removed.
Campaign group Net Zero Watch criticised the decision. Director Andrew Montford said:
The insulation requirement was put in place to ensure heat pumps were only installed where they were likely to work. Removing a key consumer protection is hardly going to help the Government’s cause.
Mr. Montford points to a recent study of heat pump economics, which shows that, even in a well-insulated property, most heat pump installations do not give lower bills, let alone justifying the substantial capital costs. This is because electricity is four times the price of gas.
Mr. Montford said:
The contradictions in Government policy are becoming clear. Renewables are incompatible with heat pumps because they make electricity so much more expensive than gas. In their desperation to persuade consumers to switch anyway, ministers are proposing steps that would be foolish, are arguably unethical, and would certainly be counterproductive. This is a brand of fanaticism as dangerous as Mr. Khan’s Ulez obsession.
Yet another green technology being rejected by consumers because it is overpriced and doesn’t do the job.
Elon Musk to Sue George Soros-Linked NGOs For Spreading ‘Misinformation’ to Stifle Free Speech
BY DR FREDERICK ATTENBOROUGH | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 28, 2023
Elon Musk has announced that his company, X (formerly Twitter), will sue partner organisations of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation (OSF) after the NGO network was accused of spreading ‘hate misinformation’ to justify an unprecedented crackdown on lawful free speech.
Musk made the statement in response to an article by journalist Ben Scallan, in which he claims that OSF-linked leftist NGOs are manipulating the statistics to show a steep rise in hate crimes across Ireland – despite the government’s own data indicating the opposite is true – and helping to usher in a new hate speech law that will restrict free speech and open up new pathways for political persecution.
The article was reposted on X by Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenberger, who added: “The reason politicians and Soros-funded NGOs are spreading hate misinformation is to justify a draconian crackdown on freedom of speech.”
To this, Elon Musk simply replied, “Exactly. X will be filing legal action to stop this. Can’t wait for discovery to start!”
It’s unclear which OSF-linked groups Scallan is referring to exactly or which NGOs will be the target of Musk’s suit – although interestingly the self-styled “free-speech absolutist” has recently threatened to sue the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), having accused the U.K.-registered NGO of using flawed methods to promote “misleading narratives” and of running a “scare campaign” that has driven away advertisers from the platform. Although the CCDH – which is listed in journalist Matt Taibbi’s report into the organisations comprising the “censorship-industrial complex” – doesn’t declare its funding on its site, Companies House information shows it received almost £1 million in 2022.
Despite an Ipsos survey commissioned by Ireland’s Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth showing that over eight in 10 Irish people feel “very comfortable” living next door to people with different nationalities, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, religious beliefs (and non), or marital statuses, the most up-to-date Garda Síochána data suggests the country has actually seen a 29% increase in reported ‘hate crimes’ in 2022 compared to the previous year.
Of course, an increase in reporting is not necessarily the same thing as an increase in actual hate crimes or incidents. As Scallan points out, the discrepancy between these two data sets is partly if not entirely explained by the fact that Soros’s NGO network has for many years been running campaigns to lower the threshold for hate crime reporting in Ireland, while encouraging citizens to report hate crimes and hate incidents to the police.
In fairness, the Garda does at least acknowledge this, having conceded that a “very low threshold of perception” currently applies to hate crime reporting. Yet methodological sophistication of this kind has been curiously absent from proposals put forward by Ireland’s governing classes that argue for a new, allegedly desperately needed, hate crime law. In those proposals the distinction between perceived and actual hate crimes has all but collapsed: ‘increased reporting’ is breezily conflated with ‘increased crime’ such that for politicians like Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Senator Pauline O’Reilly the need for intensified state censorship of perfectly lawful speech that certain sub-sections of Irish society happen to regard as ‘hateful’ now seems entirely unproblematic.
This confusion isn’t just to be found in the debating chambers of the Dáil and Seanad Éireann. It constitutes the underlying philosophy of the country’s draft Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, in which a hate crime is defined as an episode “perceived by the victim, or any other person, to have been motivated by prejudice, based on actual or perceived age, disability, race, colour, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender”.
As Scallan points out, under this definition, you don’t even have to be the victim of an alleged crime to report it. “A random bystander who has nothing to do with the event can say, ‘I think it was based on prejudice,’ and it will be categorised as such.”
By and large, of course, it won’t be “random bystanders” with a priggish manner, flapping ears, and a little too much time on their hands that end up weaponising this definition of what constitutes a ‘hate crime’. The real damage will be done by activist groups and George Soros-funded NGOs bent on criminalising perfectly lawful views that they happen not to like for doctrinaire ideological reasons.
“Will mocking memes be tolerated?” asked independent senator Ronan Mullen during a debate on the proposed legislation in the Senate earlier this year. “Will carrying a placard stating, ‘Men cannot breastfeed’ warrant a hate-speech investigation or up to five years’ imprisonment, a lifelong label as a criminal hater, and all of the stigma and life limitation that goes with that? Nobody actually knows.”
Nobody actually knows, no. But each of Mr Mullen’s hypothetical scenarios could potentially lead to a reported ‘hate crime’, which would then feature in the Garda’s annual reporting dataset, which would then perpetuate the myth that Ireland is becoming less tolerant, which would then lead to calls for even more draconian hate speech laws, which would then… and so on and so forth, in an endless cycle of intensifying state censorship.
Perhaps the most shocking of all the authoritarian provisions in the Bill that flow from this vague, entirely subjective definition of ‘hate’, is one that will make it a criminal offense to possess material on one’s person or in one’s home likely to “incite hatred”.
With regard to the obvious question of how something saved on, say, a mobile phone could possibly “incite hatred”, the Bill simply reverses the usual burden of proof in criminal cases, presuming “that the material [is] not intended for personal use”, and that a suspect must be planning to disseminate it, unless they can prove otherwise.
If passed, this provision will allow police to raid homes and seize devices, with a potential penalty of a year in prison and a €5,000 fine just for refusing to give up your passwords. Possession of hateful material will carry a penalty of up to five years in prison.
Despite many critics calling the law “Orwellian” and campaigning against it, the Irish parliament’s lower house adopted it by a vote of 160 against 14 earlier this year. The legislation now only needs the approval of the upper house in October to become law.
Dr. Frederick Attenborough is the Communications Officers of the Free Speech Union.
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The Crusades – colliding narratives
Ashes of Pompeii | June 13, 2026
They say history is written by the victors, but the Crusades offer an interesting historical contrast: a two-century collision that produced not one history, but two parallel, irreconcilable realities. The dates and the battles are identical in both accounts, but the moral axis is entirely flipped.
In the traditional Western narrative, the Crusades are framed as a heroic, if tragic, epic. The First Crusade is a pious pilgrimage; the knights are romanticized figures of chivalry in shining armor, bravely holding the line in a hostile, exotic land. The eventual loss of the Holy Land is mourned as the “fall of Outremer,” a tragic retreat of European civilization. In this telling, the East is often reduced to a passive backdrop, its inhabitants viewed through a lens of mystique or backwardness, mere obstacles to a divine mandate.
But cross the Mediterranean, and the exact same timeline reads like a chronicle of foreign invasion and eventual, hard-won restoration against the barbarous northerners. The dates do not change, but the adjectives do. Here is the history as it is remembered in the Levant… continue
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