“We tell you what to think! Don’t criticise, just believe”

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I scanned the front pages of our MSM early this morning. They all, in their own inimitable ways, report on BJ’s ‘plan’ – the one he’ll announce to the HoC this afternoon and later this evening to us peasants in his PR event. The funny thing is that it’s all speculation, that the ‘four steps to freedom’ which BJ will allegedly announce are only nice headline material so far, with nothing but speculation to support them.

The proverbial gold star for imagination though goes to the DT and The Times – not! I think you’re allowed to see the headline photos even though the articles are paywalled, go here and here. They used the same photo to garnish their leading article on BJ’s plan to ‘end lockdown’ in small steps. Could The Times not find another photo? After all, they published their article hours after the DT did.

Well, I’m not going to play this game of the covid MSM applauding the covid PM for something he hasn’t yet said. I prefer to have the actual ‘New Rulz’ set out in authenticated black-and-white before commenting. Meanwhile, a non-paywalled article on these speculations on what BJ will or won’t do is here in the DM. 

Obviously, these ‘reports’ on BJ’s “Four steps to Freedom” are due to targeted leaks, so that the covid politburo can gauge our last-minute reactions and tweak things here and there before the ‘event’ in the HoC. I do wonder if those ‘senior sources’, if BJ himself, is aware of the fact that people have simply stopped obeying ‘teh rulz’ wherever they can and that this is why the government is trying to re-set the pace by dangling ‘freedom carrots’ in front of our collective noses.

They must have noticed that yesterday, for example, in those parts of the country where it was warm and not raining, people were out in force, disregarding all those covid rulz: no ‘social distancing’, and, the horror! – they weren’t even wearing muzzles as the photos in the DM’s report (link) document! I cannot help but wonder if the people’s general obedience to lockdown rules which we’ve seen and lamented these last weeks were more due to the cold and horrible weather than to covid fear. 

Perhaps people were out yesterday because they’re fully aware that the group of ‘the vulnerable’, i.e. the old at home or in care homes have been vaccinated so that the ‘don’t kill granny’ fear slogan no longer applies. Methinks that this can’t have been the intended consequence of the mass-jab propaganda of the covid politburo!

Speaking of vaccination, the EU’s campaign against the AstraZeneca vaccine has now entered into the field of view of some of our broadsheet editorial offices. We remember the outrage of Ms vdLeyen and the EU’s “Health Commissioner” about AstraZeneca not having produced or provided the EU with their vaccine. In the following weeks, the main EU papers were attacking that vaccine and denouncing it as ‘bad’, ‘ineffective’, ‘not for the old’.

This has gripped the collective souls of the Germans, French and Spanish to such an extent that ‘vox pop’, i.e. comment posters, kept screeching they wouldn’t take that vaccine at any costs:

“The vaccine’s reputation has been undermined by briefings against the jabs by politicians from across Europe and by a decision in Germany not to use the vaccine for the over-65s, despite the European Medicines Agency having approved it to be given to all adults.” (link, paywalled)

This campaign is now bearing fruit. I found it interesting that, after the outcry about perfidious Albion not giving sufficient doses to EU countries, the doses now available are being rejected:

“Germany’s vaccination programme is in trouble, with people failing to keep appointments if they are going to be given the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. Only 150,000 out of 1.5 million doses of the vaccine had been used on Friday, threatening to derail what is already a flagging national inoculation plan. Whereas Britain has vaccinated more than 26 per cent of its population, Germany has managed less than 6 per cent. At the Tegel vaccination centres in Berlin, which give only the AstraZeneca product, fewer than 200 people are turning up for the 3,800 daily appointments.” (link, paywalled)

Do the Germans not want to go on their summer holidays then? Are they happy to be kept under lock and key? Not that the situation in Belgium is any better:

“In Belgium too, where the jab is not given to anyone over 55 despite authorisation, there have been problems with the rollout of the vaccine to the first priority group of healthcare workers.“If it turns out that we will be vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, we will go on strike,” a nurse in a Flemish hospital told the Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper yesterday.” (link, paywalled)

Oh dear – how sad – never mind!  In his opinion piece for the DT Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has more on this. Firstly referring to the ‘nocebo effect’ he writes that “Europe has succumbed to the nocebo effect. If people are primed to believe that something makes them ill, they discover illness. It is the reverse placebo.” (paywalled link). This is what is happening across the EU.

Their politicians have primed their people to fear the Oxford vaccine, aided by their MSM, so that it’s irrelevant that millions have had the Oxford jab not just here in the UK but also in India with no such nocebo effects. This propaganda has worked only too well so that

“Frontline health workers in Germany, Austria, France, and Spain have convinced themselves that it is doing them real harm, and that it is also ineffective. […] The difficulty is that the German press has now completely trashed the AstraZeneca vaccine, and in doing so fed the broader anti-vax movement.” (paywalled link)

Not really, AEP – not when they all clamour for the Pfizer jab of which there are also insufficient doses available. But that jab is expensive, very expensive compared to the Oxford one, so clearly it must be better! Who in Germany and elsewhere wants ‘cheap stuff’ when they can have the expensive one, some day! The situation is similar in France:

“Mr Macron will then need the AstraZeneca vaccine urgently. But having falsely declared it “quasi-ineffective” among those over 65 — for whatever political motive — he has poisoned the well. The French no longer want to take the vaccine. Hospital workers in Perigueux are demanding that they be given the Pfizer jab instead.” (paywalled link)

The danger is that France and other countries such as Italy are facing another lockdown because of the spread of the British mutant. The real price for this anti-Oxford vaccine propaganda will be the EU economy as AEP explains:

“The pandemic will not be contained in time to avert an extra quarter of double-dip slump. There will be deeper labour hysteresis and economic scarring. Thousands more businesses will be pushed over the edge into insolvency once loan moratoria expire. Southern Europe risks losing a second tourist season, or much of it. Public debt ratios will be further beyond the point of no return later this year. The EU’s €750bn Recovery Fund  – in reality €390bn of grants spread across 27 states over five years – is trivial by US standards and is rapidly being overtaken by events.” (paywalled link)

Yes, well, that’s what is bound to happen when the summer holidays this year are again being cancelled due to inter-EU lockdowns, third waves and all that jazz thanks to the irresponsible anti-Oxford jab propaganda. Will British holiday makers be celebrated as ‘economic saviours’ when they come, armed with the ‘vaccine passport’ which nobody in government is thinking about? Or will they be regarded as horrible spreaders of more covid mutants and must be shunned if not tarred and feathered? Time will tell.

I leave you with the one-day-old news that Sir John Redwood in his diary yesterday wrote a sweetly-veiled attack on the BC. Under the title “Paying for journalism” (link) he writes that he ‘is a fan of good journalism’ and then he politely and trenchantly goes on the attack:

“I am particularly critical of the BBC because I have to pay for it whether I want to use it or not. It regularly fails to live up to the ideals of its Charter. […] For much of the last year the two story lines of pandemic and global warming have dominated most news broadcasts. It is often not a case of “news”,  but recycling “olds”. It is often not hard news but regurgitated opinion or forecasts, not reported events and government statements but opinion surveys and lobby group reports inspired to prove a viewpoint.” (link)

Precisely, Sir John! This is not just the modus operandi of the BC, it’s that of all our MSM. How pernicious such ‘reporting’ is can be seen by the influence this has had in the various EU countries where their MSM have trashed the Oxford jab, to the detriment of their own people’s health. 

Since we are paying for it, it’s surely not too much to ask that the MSM and especially the BBC should do their job properly, by giving us duly researched reports as opposed to copy&paste PR material, no matter if it’s from NGOs or No 10. It’s not too much to ask that they separate reports strictly from opinion pieces. Ah well – we can  live in hope …

KBO!