Where would our wonderful MSM be without ‘that’ Cummings hearing! It’s perfect material for their indulging in nit-picking and shifting ‘the narrative’, but in the Sunday Times today there’s a comment or opinion piece which deserves to be kept ‘for the record’. The author, Matthew Syed, demonstrates that critical thinking and a critical look at the historical texts is all that’s needed to pull the rug from under the experts’ attempts to re-write covid history.
The title of the article is “Scientists make mistakes.That’s fine, but they shouldn’t deny them” (link, paywalled) – that’s reasonably gentle. The subtitle though contains the warning which applies not just to scientists but to all the covid ‘experts’ sat in MSM newsrooms: “Our experts seem to have short memories about what they really advised during the first wave”. (link, paywalled)
Mr Syed starts with a little anecdote, plucked from the modern-day ‘news source’ that is twitter. Well, if covid scientists think this is the way to influence people or ‘frame the narrative’ then they deserve what’s coming:
“A conjuring trick is taking place before our eyes, an attempt to rewrite history even as it is unfolding. One aspect of this struck me this week after seeing a tweet from Sir Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust. He linked to that famous clip of Yes, Prime Minister where Sir Humphrey is talking about the art of strategic dithering. Above the clip, Farrar posted the words: “Sent to a friend in March 2020!”
Farrar’s point was not difficult to discern. On the day after the testimony of Dominic Cummings, he was seeking to bolster the narrative that Boris Johnson vacillated in the early days of the pandemic. Boris dithered. Those in government had their minds on other things. They thought the economy was more important than saving lives. Despite the warnings of scientists, politicians failed us.” (link, paywalled)
After this gentle introduction, here’s the first blow landed by Mr Syed:
“But there was a problem with this tweet and Farrar knows it. The government was not dithering in March 2020, but acting in accordance with the advice of its scientific committee. In other words, people such as Farrar himself, a leading member of Sage.
This is not a pro-Boris point, or a pro-Tory point, or pro-right-wing point. Rather, it is a pro-truth point. This can be seen from the published minutes of Sage, which are unequivocal. In February, these endorsed the flu playbook, with the assertion that halting the virus was “a waste of resources”. The minutes of March 13 are even more explicit: “Sage was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak.” Politicians were not dithering; they were following the judgment of people like Farrar.” (link, paywalled)
Indeed – and this is something we must not forget. We’ve seen last week how some in the MSM were already telling us that SAGE ‘didn’t want lockdowns’ – implying that ‘Cummings made them do it’. Well, they can’t have it both ways: either BJ followed SAGE’s advice which was ‘correct’, or he succumbed to Cummings, locking us down. If SAGE was ‘anti-lockdown’ – why are they now so keen to keep us imprisoned? One can’t help but wonder if this is about power politics in No 10 rather than about the health of the nation! Perhaps it’s only about fixing blame on politicians who ‘followed the science’? Next:
“This is, however, just one aspect of the smoke and mirrors of recent weeks. Look at the subtle repositioning of the goalposts by Professor Neil Ferguson in interviews. Look at how the narrative is now so entrenched that it is scarcely challenged when people say that Johnson “bottled” lockdown, or when a profile of Sir Patrick Vallance says, “it now seems clear that Johnson was slow to heed Vallance’s early advice”, or when a blog by Laura Kuenssberg says that on March 13 Sage had “concluded the virus was spreading faster than thought”. All categorically untrue.
I hear from critics, even today, allegations like “Boris got it wrong on masks”. In fact, Nervtag (the advisory group on new and emerging respiratory virus threats) explicitly argued last year that masks were a bad idea. “There is no evidence to support that the wearing of facemasks by the general public reduces transmission.” Or take the idea that Johnson was oblivious to the dangers of mass events. Again, he was following the published advice: “Many outdoor events, particularly, are relatively safe.”
Or take the idea that testing was a waste of time, a key reason it wasn’t scaled up in January and February 2020, leaving stocks dangerously short. Again, scientists were unequivocal, with Jennie Harries — then the deputy chief medical officer — saying that testing is “not an appropriate mechanism”. Or take scientific advice on border control: “International travel restrictions are highly unlikely to interrupt the spread of an epidemic significantly.” (link, paywalled)
Interesting, isn’t it! Why is it suddenly wrong to have ‘followed the science’ in those early months of 2020 but is eminently correct to do so now? Why should we accept the ‘advice’ of those experts who were ‘wrong’ then? How do we know they’re correct now? Moving on – my emphasis added:
“I have no problem with scientists making mistakes, by the way. I haven’t whispered a single criticism of Vallance, Whitty or Farrar since the beginning of the pandemic, recognising that everyone learns during a crisis. No, what troubles me is not the making of mistakes, but the systematic attempt to edit them out of history.” (link, paywalled)
Precisely – and as Mr Syed shows, this is exactly what is happening now. He uses the dratted question of ‘herd immunity’ – something, as we all know, was never properly investigated from the moment this expression first drifted into the MSM:
“For a particularly telling example, consider the emerging fantasy over the central policy dilemma. We know from published documents that the government plan was to develop herd immunity via natural infection. Vallance said so publicly, as did Whitty and others connected to the Sage groupthink. They were not saying this because they are callous or seeking to “kill your granny”, or any of the other familiar slurs. No, they were acting on sincere beliefs. The documents show they thought that if lockdown was imposed too early, it would lead to a higher winter peak, and therefore more deaths. The problem wasn’t their motives, but their analysis.” (link, paywalled)
This brings us to the main point Matthew Syed is making;
“And yet today, Vallance, Harries and others are looking squarely at TV cameras and in effect saying: “Herd immunity [via infections] was never the strategy.” It is like pointing at a blue sky and saying: “It’s purple.” On this point, Cummings is entirely correct. […] But this brings me to a nagging fear about whether we will have the maturity to learn from this experience. For there is little doubt that the reason scientists are seeking to “get ahead of the story” is anxiety about being scapegoated by a future inquiry. Could Vallance admit to pursuing herd immunity without people accusing him of killing their mothers? When so many politicians have a promiscuous relationship with the truth, it is even more imperative that scientists tell it as it is.” (link, paywalled)
Sorry, Mr Syed: when ‘experts’ and politicians are trying to escape being ‘scapegoated, they don’t behave like mature adults or indeed scientists bent to learn from experience and past mistakes. It’s only ever about saving their skins, their ‘reputation’. One of the lessons dinned into us lowly science students many years ago was that there would be no blame when a practical experiment went wrong – provided we described where it went wrong and why. Have all our SAGEs unlearned that early lesson? Is blame and the avoidance of blame the only driving force? Is that the reason why Mr Syed saw fit to conclude thus:
“So, let me finish with the words of Anthony Hidden, the QC who investigated the Clapham Junction rail disaster in 1988: “There is almost no human action or decision that cannot be made to look flawed and less sensible in the misleading light of hindsight.” These words should be pinned to the door of a future inquiry and used in response to anyone who rushes to judgment on frontline professionals making decisions in complex circumstances.
It is, I think, the only way to get the truth. It is also the only way to subvert the false narratives that are threatening to harden into conventional wisdom.” (link, paywalled)
Ah – but who is ‘rushing to judgement’? Not us peasants who’ve observed the games played by SAGE, No 10 and not least the MSM who all ‘rush to judgement’ now that an inquiry is on the horizon. As for ‘subverting false narratives’: well, this ought to have been the task of proper reporters. Alas, it didn’t happen then and isn’t happening now. After all, who are those reporters, who are we to doubt, never mind criticise the ‘experts’!
There’s one tiny bit of silver lining though: we’ve got good memories, we’ve got the records, we remember what and how the MSM, the experts and the government acted. Unless they all act in concert and eradicate all their papers, tweets and TV interviews we uneducated riff-raff will know how and when they try to subvert history by their false ‘narratives’.
It seems likely that most governments actions at the beginning was to do ‘something’ that made them look like they were doing ‘something’ and so rejected the majority of skilled advice from the knowledgeable which was to do a focused little and instead latched on to the ‘Professor Pantsdown’s’ advice to do a lot – They really believed their theatre of ‘3 weeks’ to flatten the curve would look so good and dramatic but then realised they did not have the courage to end the ‘3 weeks’ …….. All very much a rehash of when they imposed lower speed limits to be seen to do be doing ‘something’ in the ’70’s fuel crises and few were brave enough to raise them again for decades if ever – Everything since the ‘3 weeks’ has been to look busy and double down amidst ever increasing revelations of how pointless their actions are like hosing down the streets, deep cleaning, masks, lockdowns, testing, testing, testing…….. Lets hope this experiment in manipulating our RNA is not another round in an ever more sinister Mad Hatters Tea party.
I might be way out on a limb here but does anyone else think as I do that all this current ‘posturing’ could be something to do with protecting their behinds against the furore that will break out when the brown-gooey-stuff hits the fan when the ‘vaccine’ disaster results comes home to roost? Who said what to whom is all very damning but….. the ‘vaccines’ (read gene therapy) is surely the real long term career breaker! ‘They’ have pushed ‘vaccines’ so hard that huge blame will be unavoidable and will stick like glue when the statistics and the unreasonable reasonings are finally totted up!
Not out on a limb at all Frederica. It seems that deaths from the vaccine are more likely a couple of years after the jab… Let’s bear in mind too that a massive reduction in world population is one of the aims of the globalists.
It is extraordinary how sanguine or indeed enthusiastic our authorities are about unleashing an entirely unique and genuinely experimental manipulation of the RNA of their entire population – It is not just an experimental vaccine which would be risky enough it is not a vaccine at all but never before used manipulation of RNA – What could possibly go wrong – An item that sticks in my mind is the reported spontaneous simulated periods in mature women after the injection – Locally there is what seems true descriptions post injection of younger women having disrupted periods as in lasting for days or the opposite of being minimal and impotence in men – One thing is for sure as Covid deaths were exaggerated by authorities so Vaccine complications will be minimised by authorities – If the injection does reduce fertility it will have achieved Bill Gates ambition of population reduction but it is hard to believe the whole thing is one huge conspiracy surely more like opportunistic use of one error after another – Surely the virus accidentally escaped from the Weapons Lab but was then deliberately allowed to spread World wide so the CCP did not suffer alone as per Wuhan internal travel banned but Wuhan international travel promoted – Fear was promoted to carry out dramatic actions and then more of it to justify ever more dramatic actions and opportunistic billions of profit was grabbed to feed the monster with some therapies denigrated to keep the road open for the more profitable ‘vaccine’ and the possibility to create a new trillion dollar industry of ‘Vaccine Passports’ obviously with short renewal periods and ever more vaccines added to the mandate – It seems on a knife edge whether or not this new regime beloved of Big Pharma and authoritarians everywhere can be established as particularly in the US states are outlawing vaccine passports and the virus is fading away as they all do eventually regardless of human shenanigans – They need to get the regime established before no one is dying of Covid.
I’m going to stick my neck out anyway, what can ‘they’ do to me.
I believe that the Chinese deliberately manufactured this virus AND deliberately introduced it into Western Nations, probably beginning with Italy. Though I can’t remember where the Diamond Princess fits into the time frame.
Their motives are obvious, given that they are competing on a global stage.
They are also not committing themselves to going carbon neutral at an early date, like so many others are.
Well that’s where posturing politics gets you/us dummies Pauline.
To actually enact laws committing your nation to national suicide is not just stupid, it’s downright dangerous and certainly not looking after the interests of the inhabitants which is your primary elected duty.
What I am getting at is your last sentence “they are not committing themselves to going carbon neutral at an early date, like so many others are”
We should never “go it alone” and somehow there always seems to be something in some of our psyches to need to “set an example ” to others or show how good we are or something
Could nobody realise how “banning the bomb” ( I assume our exclusive use/ban was envisaged, when they knew it would never happen with the USA or Russia)
I remember when George Galloway wanted to make Dundee a Nuclear Free Zone – pure posture politics
It’s alright for some to posture, but it is not alright to enact laws to abide by yourselves, when others don’t or what’s worse don’t even intend to
Pure culpable stupidity by our government
I remember hearing Call me Matt, somewhere near the start of Covid Panicdemic bleating
“You’re hanging me out to dry”
I wonder who was doing the hanging ( I would suggest Boris)
And over what?
Has anybody any suggestions because if recorded anywhere it might have a bearing on his and Cummings tale of events.
The oddest thing I’ve seen in the MSM is the phrase ‘respected epidemiologist Neil Ferguson’. Respected? Only a purblind STEM – illiterate politician would respect someone with his track record.
Things unravelled from the moment the virus was named SARS 2 – one of Dr Ferguson’s babies was SARS so his forecasts were for 30% lethality. Then the scientists started talking about herd immunity which requires political nerves of steel to implement. ‘Hancock killed my granny’ would have been the least of it.
Useless modelling by mediocre scientists, politicians in hock to vested interests e. g. Cheltenham, and an irresponsible Press. I doubt any of them realise that they are to blame.
JF
I think you’ve put your finger on it Julian Flood.
Were the media calling Ferguson a respected epidemiologist, prior to March 2020? And was it in March the virus was named SARS2?
Was the advice of science wrong in March 2020 ff, or has it been wrong since. Where DC ‘s marathon leaves me unimpressed is the fanaticism about lockdowns and his absence of criticism of unethical, immoral psyops and gaslighting.
For me, the enquiry has already been written by Lara Dodsworth in her account “A State of Fear”.
I don’t want another expensive whitewash.
I’ve read this three times and am still not sure what you mean.
Maybe a plain English ”Golden Bull” candidate?
Marathon – 26 mls; psyops – who knows?; gas lighting – discontinued in my lifetime; Dodsworth – who (s)he, a respected what?
Laura Dodsworth wrote the recently published and highly publicised book ‘A State of Fear’ all about the psyops that have been visited upon the population. Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where a person or group makes someone question their sanity, perception of reality, or memories.
F – thanks for the clues. I genuinely did not understand the comment. And only a little wiser.
I get the feeling now, that you are talking about the sort of thing Maj William E Mayer wrote about in the 1950s.
i looked up psyops in the dictionary. It does not appear. Below is the nearest.
And where do I find the ‘left handed, high handshakers’ club that uses these queer terms?
psy-
(saɪ)
orig. U.S. Abbrev. of psychological a., used esp. in psy-war: see psychological warfare s.v. psychological a. 3.
1954 Britannica Bk. of Year 638/1 Mental tensions were reflected in psy-war (psychological warfare). 1965 Wall St. Jrnl. 27 July 1/1 In the local bureaucratic jargon, this can come under the heading of ‘civic action’ or ‘rural reconstruction’ or ‘psy war’. 1966 New Statesman 14 Oct. 549/1 As psy-op cadres take the field And start to reconsolidate. 1971 Times Lit. Suppl. 7 May 519/1 In one sense, ‘psywar’ is not the same as propaganda—is its opposite even: while propaganda aims to influence belief, psywar influences action, and above all persuades those it is directed at into inaction. 1974 Jrnl. R. United Services Inst. June 38/1 Good Psy-Ops must be addressed to the need level in force and this need level is determined by multiple factors, not simply by the efficiency of an army’s logistical services or the level of combat losses. 1974 Black Panther 16 Mar. 13/3 Such tactics amount to nothing less than psychological warfare, or as they say in Vietnam—‘psy-war’.
Oh do keep up Biscotte, even I’ve heard of modern gaslighting , can’t remember what facet of behaviour it covers exactly, but I’m sure somebody will “en-gas-lighten” us
RT – gas lighting is heating a form of calcium to make it glow very, very bright – the footlights worked like this in a theatre.
As to the rest, speak your truth quietly and clearly.
And RT if / when part of my engineering group, be prepared to say what you mean. Or rewrite it to be comprehensible to most readers. As many times as it takes.