Boris Johnson told scientists he was in favour of a Swedish-style approach to the pandemic, rather than more lockdowns, in Autumn 2020, an Oxford University epidemiologist has told the Covid Inquiry.
As the inquiry prepares to hear from Mr Johnson’s closest advisers this week, evidence from Professor Sunetra Gupta suggests that the former prime minister was persuaded by a Swedish expert that lockdowns could be avoided by implementing less restrictive rules.
Given that the Swedish plan was the original British plan of course it was a good idea.
The main purpose of lockdowns was to get rid of Boris.
SW1 takes all its cues from Washington DC (and Grindr). After Our Greatest Ally used a cold to cancel democracy and Trump, the same solution quickly arrived here to defeat Blond Man and Brexit.
NB they’ve severely tightened up all the other ways in which rogue politicians and voters might wrest control – social media is locked down and the banks are now ready to cut you off from the financial system if you challenge the political status quo.
The Tories “couldn’t” frack a single whiff of natural gas, “couldn’t” cut any taxes or spending and “couldn’t” even let you do 80 on the motorway.
But they sure could bring in the Online Harms Bill, to harm you online.
Boris was apparently blindsided by his Conservative ministerial colleagues being evil, lying cunts not once – but twice!
First time, he outsourced his leadership campaign to Michael Gove. Then he allowed an Indian billionaire playboy to run his Cabinet. Laziness is Boris’s Achilles Johnson.
One might have more confidence in the report if one hadn’t seen the vans delivering the 50 gallon drums of whitewash.
So Boris is rather like Trump: many sound political instincts but lacks the subtlety, spine, and allies to put them into action.
He shoulda hired machine gunners.
DM – So Boris is rather like Trump
In many ways, yarp.
Trump is a lot less lazy than Boris, but he was never going to get anywhere in the DC hall of mirrors.
They both have an amazing knack of hiring people who later stab them in the back. You could probably count on one hand the number of Trump appointees who weren’t actively working to coup him.
They’re both Designated Enemies of the establishment now. Neither will be allowed to take public office ever again. Boris and The Donald seem to be the last men on Earth who don’t understand this.
There should be some excellent panto chez Hallett this week with Cummings and Cain. Both men feel they have considerable axes to grind and Cummings in particular makes the mistake of thinking he’s a genius.
While it’s true that he cut his teeth on the proposed regional devolution in the NW and used that experience successfully to lead the Brexit campaign, he gulled himself into thinking he had become a data mastermind where greater complexity betokens greater wisdom. His substack in the wake of Brexit consisted of interminable rambling and was perfectly impenetrable.
Dante, poor fellow, could not conceive of a circle in hell where Captain Potato and Dominic Cummings would spend eternity together.
“chez Hallett”: she looks like a grumpy panda with a hangover. She is there, presumably, to whitewash everything. Maybe she was chosen on the grounds that she lacks any spirit of scientific curiosity and isn’t the brightest. She also seems to be devoid of good manners.
Maybe when the time comes to hang all the Covid crooks and killers she could be added to the list. An accomplice after the fact, eh?
Boris lost his bottle after the foctors got at him. Did they intubate him, I wonder.
The enquiry is embarrassed enough that there was an alternative to lockdown, school closures and the rest of the nonsense. They will do a Hennigan on Professor Gupta.
“Given that the Swedish plan was the original British plan of course it was a good idea.”
Not necessarily British. The swedish merely kept to the standard protocol that was devised for just these eventualities.
Of course, that would have meant that Politicians would have had to make statements along the lines of “So Sad Granny Died, But ….”.
And “Yes, those “At Risk” do run an increased risk… Then again, we’re not going to shut the country down just to appease the Pearlclutchers.”
Just wasn’t going to happen…
But we got a good taste of what we’re actually fighting against from that, so… Positive Thinking, Maximum Effort..
“Not necessarily British”: but it so happens it was, as reported by Dan Hannan after a conversation he had with a Swedish MP (or perhaps MEP) who teased him on the subject.
The “Swedish plan” was actually UN / WHO policy until 2019. In 2020 it was replaced by the China / WHO / SAGE tyranny.
It has been obvious from the start that the whole purpose of the ‘Covid Enquiry’ is to publish official findings that the only thing wrong with lockdowns is that they were too late and too light.
They will use this to bat back whatever criticism manages to squeak out when they lock us down longer and harder for climate change, or what they’re already describing as the ‘inevitable next pandemic’.
They’re both Designated Enemies of the establishment now. Neither will be allowed to take public office ever again. Boris and The Donald seem to be the last men on Earth who don’t understand this.
I see no evidence that Boris has a cunning plan to get him back into No10, or that he even wants to achieve this, given his earning potential outside of being an MP.
Interested: They will use this to bat back whatever criticism …
I’m more sanguine than you because even the MSM is allowings misgivings about Hallett and her KCs into print. The treatment of Carl Heneghan was outrageous and might have passed in the obscure surroundings of the Court of Protection or the employment tribunal hearing of some thick stroppy minion of little consequence. The mistake the Enquiry made was to think that “we’re all on the same side” and that Heneghan was riding for a fall and got what he deserved.
It’s too late for Lady Hallett, Hugo Keith KC and Andrew O’Connor KC to wind their necks in because they stand revealed as thoroughly partisan.
I can’t see anyone going along with lockdowns again, should we get another “pandemic”. Not in the foreseeable anyway.
@TMB
I’m more sanguine than you because even the MSM is allowings misgivings about Hallett and her KCs into print.
I suspect they’re doing that precisely to keep a given percentage of the population sanguine!
Until they can completely end social media/blog freedom of speech*, allowing some dissent is the best way of puncturing, or at least deflating, the obvious point that they are lying by omission, obfuscation and conflation every bit as much as they are simply lying.
‘How can we be on the side of the regime when we publish criticism of the regime?’
‘Ah yep, fair point. I guess I can trust you then.’
Court jesters doing Potemkin dissent, basically.
*They are going to end freedom of speech on Twitter and places like this. Have you seen the new False Communications Offence contained in s179 of the Online Safety Act 2023?
It will be a criminal offence to send messages you ‘know to be false’. Leaving aside that this is absurd – they’re criminalising fibbing – the definition of ‘know to be false’ is going to be very interesting.
Interestingly, s180 provides exemptions for licensed broadcasters and other ‘recognised news publishers’ – they can knowingly lie to you and face no charges…
Interested
They are going to end freedom of speech on Twitter and places like this. Have you seen the new False Communications Offence contained in s179 of the Online Safety Act 2023?
Curious to understand how that might happen in practice. I’m presuming that this website is protected by the 1st amendment, where UK speech law can essentially go screw itself? It’s more complicated than that of course, but simply wrt principle?
(got a sudden sense of déjà vue, like we’ve played this one out before!)
‘PF
I don’t know – I suspect there will be a lot of stuff ignored but it will give them the opportunity to pick people up if they really want to?
The inequality of the manner in which law is applied is a serious issue these days.
I use a VPN, but I’m not so naive as to assume that the State couldn’t identify me if it really wanted.
And the fact that I’m writing on a US-hosted website – even assuming the US government wouldn’t co-operate, which it would because it’s every bit as determined to destroy free speech as our own bunch of cunts is – wouldn’t alter the fact that the ‘message’ I’m ‘sending’ is being sent from the UK, I don’t suppose.
Ah, I understand.
Not that Timmy might be affected but the people posting. I agree. I can’t be bothered to VPN at the moment, but if the UK started going too much further with this bullshit, then yes, I’d quickly shift tack in that direction and more. That’s the risk any country has – go full Nazi on people and then everyone quickly makes the effort, risks being counterproductive (for the snoopers that is).
Yes, Snowden showed us exactly how UK/US coordination works, and that was a full decade ago.
I might be paranoid, of course. But they do seem to be out to get us!
Interested: Court jesters doing Potemkin dissent, basically.
What you describe is what, for example, the BBC has been doing for years in order to demonstrate impartiality but a growing number of people don’t accept the reasoning and recognise spurious impartiality for what it is.
Pessimists tend to see the incremental encroachments of the state upon our lives as a ratchet process but there is an argument which has it that individuals if sufficiently aggrieved will push back and rebel against authority. This does not overthrow the entire system in one fell swoop but undermines it piecemeal (by refusing smart meters, not buying EVs and one thing and another) and hampers its scope for interference.
There are welcome side effects in that folk tend to accept theories that chime with their own preferences so there is every likelihood that their rejection of net zero measures will supersede a belief in climate crises. By the same token the vast majority who accepted the “Safe & Effective” propaganda and acted upon it are unlikely to turn around in short order and call for reprisals because it’s more comfortable, still, not to. If excess death numbers fall back they will have been proved right but if not there will be widespread calls for lions and lamposts.
@TMB
I don’t think there’ll be any call of that type irrespective of what happens – people don’t seem to care – but I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.