Moral Compass Spinning Like a Catherine Wheel

 It is hard to work out Rishi Sunak’s motives for his remarkable and belated revelations about his ‘opposition’ to the government’s Covid policies including lockdown, closing schools, terrorising the population and, perhaps most important of all, handing decision-making to an unelected bunch of ‘independent’ ‘scientific’ ‘advisers’, many of whom had personal agendas and interests.

Why has he decided to give his version of events more than two years after they happened, when it is too late to change anything? 
Why, even more importantly, has he chosen to admit that none of his supposedly profound concerns was of sufficient import for him to resign over? As Chancellor of the Exchequer wasn’t he the most senior member of Cabinet and the most responsible? 
What, after all, is the point of a Chancellor who cannot say no?

Perhaps he thinks that he will appear a good guy who did his humble best against the irresistible forces ranged against him? 
Perhaps he hopes this will give him the impetus he needs to overtake Liz Truss and become Prime Minister?
If that is really what he thinks, it is a terrible misjudgement. For if he had spoken out at the time, if he had taken the honourable course, resigned and opposed policy from the back benches, who knows how the course of history might have been different. 
Could Johnson have ignored his Chancellor’s warning that his measures would be a disaster for the country?
And that his unelected science and medical advisers were not just calling the shots but editing Sage meeting minutes to suppress contrary advice?

He could not. And the chances are that economy would not have been trashed, businesses would not have gone to the wall, ‘our’ NHS would not have been converted into a Covid-only service resulting in a backlog of millions of patients, hundreds of thousands of children would not have had their education and social lives damaged, in some cases beyond repair. It does not bear thinking about that a man with great power, the second-most important politician in the country, sat on his hands knowing that the policy he supported in public was ruinous.

In his interview with Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, Sunak says that when Neil Ferguson delivered his infamous prediction that lockdown could cut Covid casualties from half a million to 20,000, no cost-benefit calculation was carried out.

Nelson writes: ‘[Sunak says] “I wasn’t allowed to talk about the trade-off.” Ministers were briefed by No 10 on how to handle questions about the side-effects of lockdown. “The script was not to ever acknowledge them. The script was: oh, there’s no trade-off, because doing this for our health is good for the economy.” If frank discussion was being suppressed externally, Sunak thought it all the more important that it took place internally. But that was not his experience. “I felt like no one talked,” he says. “We didn’t talk at all about missed [doctors’] appointments, or the backlog building in the NHS in a massive way. That was never part of it.” When he did try to raise concerns, he met a brick wall. “Those meetings were literally me around that table, just fighting. It was incredibly uncomfortable every single time”.’

What does he mean by ‘I wasn’t allowed’? He is not a schoolboy. As Chancellor it was directly his remit, indeed it was his responsibility, to insist on the necessary cost-benefit analysis – and to resign if his advice was refused on a matter of such national importance and economic significance. He also recalls one meeting where he raised education: ‘[Sunak said] “I was very emotional about it. I was like: ‘Forget about the economy. Surely we can all agree that kids not being in school is a major nightmare’ or something like that. There was a big silence afterwards. It was the first time someone had said it. I was so furious”.’

If this is really what happened, it is beyond unforgivable that Sunak didn’t yell from the rooftops about the disaster he foresaw. Similarly with the campaign to terrify people about Covid, as recommended by Sage:

‘One of Sunak’s big concerns was about the fear messaging, which his Treasury team worried could have long-lasting effects. “In every brief, we tried to say: let’s stop the fear narrative. It was always wrong from the beginning. I constantly said it was wrong.” The posters showing Covid patients on ventilators, he said, were the worst. “It was wrong to scare people like that”.’

Why didn’t he say so at the time? Is there any material evidence he even raised these concerns (which says little for his leadership abilities)? He surely must have been aware of the many millions – upwards of one billion by the end – that were being spent, with the Treasury’s blessing, on the Cabinet Office’s deliberate fear-engendering campaign. 

Sunak reveals that Sage recommendations were implemented by No 10 without consultation with Cabinet members. This meant, writes Nelson, that whoever wrote the minutes for the Sage meetings – condensing its discussions into guidance for government – would set the policy of the nation.

But in the early days, at least, Sunak knew that the minutes of Sage meetings were being edited to silence dissenting voices, because unknown to the Sage members one of his staff was listening in to their conference calls.

His mole apparently told him: "Well, actually, it turns out that lots of people disagreed with that conclusion", or "Here are the reasons that they were not sure about it".

Nelson writes: ‘For a year, UK government policy – and the fate of millions – was being decided by half-explained graphs cooked up by outside academics. “This is the problem,” [Sunak] says. “If you empower all these independent people, you’re screwed”.’

It surely goes further than that. As lawyer Francis Hoar has tweeted, if the minutes of Sage were false, and Sunak knew they were false, there are grounds for criminal investigation into misconduct in public office.

This is absolutely shocking. If this is true then those responsible – and it is reasonable to suppose that Whitty and Vallance were at least aware – should face a criminal investigation for misconduct in public office.https://t.co/WEMTO0pWX9 pic.twitter.com/GuVPjsT2EB

— Francis Hoar (@Francis_Hoar) August 25, 2022

But Sunak said nothing. Worse, he gave every appearance of backing Boris Johnson and Sage until last December when Sage said that without a fourth lockdown, Covid deaths could hit 6,000 a day (a prediction soon proved to be rubbish). By this time, Sunak says, he had taken advice from elsewhere and met Johnson: ‘I just told him it’s not right: we shouldn’t do this.’ The unspoken implication is that his advice carried the day.

Nelson says he asked Sunak if he should have gone public or resigned. The answer: ‘To quit in that way during a pandemic, he says, would have been irresponsible. And to go public, or let his misgivings become known, would have been seen as a direct attack on the PM.

‘At the time, No. 10’s strategy was to create the impression that lockdown was a scientifically created policy which only crackpots dared question. If word leaked that the chancellor had grave reservations, or that a basic cost-benefit analysis had never been applied, it would have been politically unhelpful for No 10.’

Politically unhelpful for No 10?! Is that what mattered when the country was being ripped apart by useless if not deliberately destructive advice from biased ‘experts’ while people who really knew their business were being cancelled, smeared, ignored and ruined? When, he all but admits, the pandemic was one more of fear than microbe?

Sunak has shown himself by these revelations to be a man without moral character or understanding of his public duty. It is beyond doubt that he is not fit to be PM. It is equally clear that the same applies to everyone from the present regime.

Cost of Freedom

The Prime Minister said when Sue Gray’s report was released on Wednesday that the hundreds of billions spent on dealing with the pandemic had left the UK in a "very difficult fiscal position", or to put it another way, our cost of living crisis is actually a £370 billion cost of lockdown crisis. 

I'm not writing this with the benefit of hindsight, as I always thought lockdowns achieved nothing, but Sue Gray's report tells us that Boris, Party Marty Reynolds and the rest of the Downing Street Frat boys clearly didn't believe in them either.

And they appear to have got away with everything!

They have got away with trashing our economy, imposing lockdowns and even breaking those oh-so-important lockdowns on multiple occasions because large numbers of people still believe that lockdowns were a good, some sort of necessary evil.  

The general public will not accept otherwise because they don’t want to believe what is (and in my opinion always was) something very obvious: we were subjected to three absolutely pointless lockdowns. 

That the government didn’t believe in these rules is evidenced by the fact that while you were having your cancer treatment cancelled or your small business closed down again, Downing Street was partying to the extent that at one point there were so many empties the bin was overflowing. 

The truth is that the public don't want to believe that all the pain was for nothing. It would be embarrassing for them to contemplate the thought that they'd collaborated with their own needless oppression, which as John Tierney in City Journal says, "Adults meekly surrendered their most basic liberties, cheered on leaders who devastated the economy and imposed two years of cruel and unnecessary deprivations on their children. They don’t want to admit that these sacrifices were in vain".

The Sue Gray report also tells us what many of us have known for many years: we already knew: Boris Johnson lacks discipline, character, maturity, integrity and any sense of responsibility.

While everybody's local pub was closed, the Downing Street gang were having "work events" which consisted of drinking in the afternoon, getting into fights, vomiting, spilling red wine, leaving at 2am and were responsible for "multiple examples of lack of respect and poor treatment of cleaning and security staff".

Under Johnson’s premiership, the "work force" under him have trashed the office of the government, trashed the economy with lockdown and they have trashed the country. 

So if you think that our political elite are laughing at you, it is because they are laughing at you. 

If you feel they've "got away with it", it is because they have got away with it, and if, like me, you think that maybe you shouldn’t have gone along with the masochistic lockdowns, then it’s because you shouldn’t have gone along with them. 

Lockdown – the joke is on us.  

Many a Slip Twixt Cup (or Glass) and Lip

After Downing Street apparently pulled Grant Shapps from the media round yesterday (Sky said he'd been due to appear), the unenviable job of defending the Prime Minister was given to the Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis just after Jacob Rees-Mogg added fuel to the Partygate fire by describing Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross as a “lightweight“.

Speaking on Sky News, Lewis said:

“It’s difficult to explain, but the reality of how Downing Street works – and the garden is actually an integral part of Downing Street – I absolutely can see the logic of the Prime Minister going outside to talk to the staff who’ve been working together and focused on things around Covid all day…”

So not only did Mr Lewis follow his leader by failing to offer up any sort of clarification as to what a "work event" was (or is?) when there was nothing in the guidance other than instructions/orders telling us to go to work only if was essential or stay at home, he also claimed that the Prime Minister went "outside to talk to the staff who’ve been working together"; a statement made using the past tense!

Did he mis-speak? Was it a subconscious slip of the tongue because he's well aware that working staff tend not to hang around gardens sharing bottles of wine? Or has he simply assumed that it wasn't anything like a "work event" (whatever that means) and that's why he claimed the staff "had been" working together, not "were" as should have been the case had the gathering in groups (as it was described at PMQs yesterday) not been social when Boris went out to congratulate people on a job well done, even though not all the "attendees" even worked at Downing Street!!  

You've got to fight for your right to (deny a) party!

No one can deny, even among his fiercest critics (of which I admit to being one), that Boris Johnson's time as Prime Minister has been remarkable. We have not had an event as seismic as the pandemic in terms of impact on the UK since the Second World War, and the Prime Minister has had to make a number of hugely difficult decisions to steer the country through it.

However, no matter how difficult the circumstances, he must still be held to a certain standard expected of the office. The leaked email from his Principal Private Secretary (a man who at the time of writing is still in a job!) inviting Downing Street staff for drinks at a time when the rest of the country was confined to socialising with one person from outside of their household, is the latest in a number of controversies to hit the PM in recent weeks and months, and the public are growing not just angry, but tired.

Boris has always been a divisive figure, especially among his own party, but his ability to cut through the political noise and appeal to people on a personal level has allowed him to stand out. This personal appeal has also given him more leeway than any modern British leader. 

He often references Churchill and Churchillian rhetoric, yet his hero was ousted at the first possible opportunity after the Second World War, and his second period as leader from 1951 to 1955 saw the beginning of the period known as "thirteen wasted years".

Boris's personal appeal, along with his success in "getting Brexit done" has allowed him to swat away some controversies, such as the questions surrounding the renovation of his Downing Street flat, with relative ease. In an era when people ultimately care very little about politics because they feel it doesn't impact their lives, politicians complaining about decorating a flat doesn't resonate with people. Yes he might have made mistakes, but he's a "nice guy" and "got Brexit done" when others didn't.

The Owen Patterson scandal ramped the pressure on the Prime Minister up a notch. The image of Tory sleaze has always been a difficult one to shake, and with his initial defence of Patterson's conduct, followed by a swift change of direction, Johnson's appearance as a breath of fresh, jovial air, in comparison to Tories of old no longer fitted quite as well. But ultimately, when the issues at hand strike a clear chord with the public, that's an entirely different story.

The pandemic has touched everyone's lives, for many in the most devastating way. Losing loved ones is bad enough, not being able to say goodbye to them because of having to stay at home is something none of us could have ever imagined dealing with. So the latest scandals, both relating to the breaking of pandemic restrictions, and both at the heart of the Prime Minister's office, are not ones where Boris' charisma alone can pull him back from the edge of the precipice.

On their own, the images of Allegra Stratton laughing during a practice press conference in December 2020 alone were bad enough. Days before, a Christmas party is alleged to have taken place at a time when regulations would not have permitted such a gathering. Denials such a party ever took place continued even after Stratton's resignation ("but if it did then the rules were followed " etc !!!!), but to many, a business meeting with wine and cheese didn't cut it.

Add to this the latest Partygate at the height of the first lockdown where Boris is now admitting to attending a party he has previously said didn't happen  when the public were being urged to be ultra-cautious, the NHS was being clapped and deaths were beginning to rise, and you wonder how much more damage the Prime Minister can take.

Over the years, Prime Ministers have met their downfall for a variety of reasons. For Anthony Eden, it was Suez and a failure of foreign policy. For Callaghan, it was industrial militancy from the unions. For Major, it was plain fatigue with a Conservative Party that had been in power for 18 years. For Boris Johnson, it may be as simple as common sense. Even the most basic, fundamental logic should tell anyone (despite the Beastie Boys old exhortation to fight for it) when mass gatherings aren't allowed, you simply don't have them. The reaction "is this for real?" from one of those invited to that gathering at the centre of Partygate, conveys the disbelief of many. One Johnson loyalist was quoted in The Telegraph earlier this week as saying that the "distance between Downing Street and the public right now… it's so damaging."

Whether the Johnson train does or does not reach the end of the line on the back of Partygate remains to be seen. The issue of who would take over as leader is not as clear as when Theresa May resigned (with Johnson having been the obvious heir-apparent for some time), and the current 80 seat majority in the Commons would not have been achieved without his leadership. One thing, however, is abundantly clear: the pressure on the Prime Minister is the most he has faced in his entire period in office, and quite frankly, he has no one but himself to blame.

Despatch Box Delusions

I'm writing this not as someone who was worked in an advisory role for this and previous governments, and is upset at not getting any invites to Westminster/Whitehall parties last year, but as someone dismayed that anybody with a University education such as the man stood by the Despatch Box yesterday could possibly think anybody (everybody?) is so stupid that they'll believe any of the absurdities he told at PMQs. 

I've been given many elaborate and inconsistent excuses by HE students over the last 20 years of working in HE, but nothing like our PM's desperate attempts to tell the world that a party didn't happen, but if it did (which it didn't), then no rules were broken as he's been assured that the guidance was followed by the people who attended the party which wasn't a party even though it didn't actually happen!

(Un) Masking the Truth

Some users of social media are claiming that a “Stanford University” or “NIH” (part of the USA's Department of Health and Human Services) study has shown that face masks are ineffective against the Covid-19 coronavirus and even harmful. There’s one problem with that claim though. It’s not really a Stanford study or a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study.

OK, there are two problems with that claim: it’s not a Stanford study, it’s not an NIH study, and, in fact, it’s not even really a study. All right, there are three problems with that claim: it’s not a Stanford study, it’s not an NIH study, it’s not really a study, and oh, it didn’t really show that face masks are ineffective against the Covid-19 coronavirus. Check that, there are four problems with that claim: it’s not a Stanford study, it’s not an NIH study, it’s not really a study, it didn’t really show that face masks are ineffective against the Covid-19 coronavirus, and by the way it didn’t really show that face masks are even harmful.

Umm, let’s start again.

Recently, there have been posts on social media, claiming that a “Stanford study”, “Stanford mask”, or a “Stanford face mask study” showed that face masks are ineffective against the Covid-19 coronavirus and may have “devastating health consequences”, and that the same “study” is from the NIH or was supported by the NIH.

But, and it's a big BUT, the sole author of the publication is someone named Baruch Vainshelboim, PhD who is not actually “from Stanford,” when it comes to properly designating from where the study came. It looks like the publication has him listed  as being affiliated with the Cardiology Division at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and Stanford University. However, that appears to be like a worn out underwear band as Stanford Medicine describe him as a one -year visiting scholar, and that's very different from being a true faculty member.

Also, the publication’s only connection with the NIH is that it can be found on PubMed. PubMed is a database and search engine maintained by the NIH’s National Library of Medicine (NLM). The database includes all articles that are published in a variety of biomedical and life sciences journals.

So rather than being published by, for, in, at, through, on, over, under, or on top of the NIH, the publication entitled “Facemasks in the Covid-19 era: A health hypothesis,” was actually published in a journal called Medical Hypotheses, one of over 5,000 titles that are currently indexed in PubMed which range significantly in type, quality, and focus. Some of the journals in PubMed don’t even publish scientific studies, instead focusing more on other types of papers such as commentaries, review papers, or, in the case of Medical Hypotheses: “theoretical papers.”

Yes, this journal actually published papers “which describe theories, ideas which have a great deal of observational support and some hypotheses where experimental support is yet fragmentary.” Can you imagine being asked or told to eat something with a caveat like “support that the thing is edible and won’t hurt you is fragmentary” or telling you just before a skydive that “the quality checks for parachute have been fragmentary?”

The journal description also states that that Medical Hypotheses will “give novel, radical new ideas and speculations in medicine open-minded consideration, opening the field to radical hypotheses which would be rejected by most conventional journals.” Would you feel reassured just before an operation by the surgeon telling you that he/she is "going to try a radical hypothesis that would be rejected by most conventional medical journals?”

After all, Dictionary.com indicates that “a scientific hypothesis is made before testing is done and isn’t based on results. Instead, it is the basis for further investigation.” It also says that hypothesis refers to “a proposition assumed as a premise in an argument,” or “mere assumption or guess.”

Medical Hypotheses is the journal that has published things like “Is there an association between the use of heeled footwear and schizophrenia”, “Ejaculation as a potential treatment of nasal congestion in mature males”, and “Losing weight by defecating at night.” Before you start wearing flip-flops all the time, masturbating furiously when you’ve got a stuffy nose, and sleeping on the toilet bowl, keep in mind that such articles, commentaries, and letters in Medical Hypotheses merely advance hypotheses without necessarily providing enough scientific evidence or any for that matter. After all, how many legitimate doctors will tell you, “hmm, to help us decide what treatment to give you, let’s take a look at Medical Hypotheses?” So if you have a radical idea that would be rejected by other scientific journals and a spare $1850 to pay the journal, you may be able to publish that idea in Medical Hypotheses.

Anyway, back to Vainshelboim’s article (which is not a study) about face masks presents arguments that fly in the face of scientific evidence and does so in highly flawed manner. First, when trying to claim that face masks are not effective against the Covid-19 coronavirus, the article interestingly focuses on studies of other types of respiratory viruses instead. It fails to mention the studies from 2020 that supported the use of face masks in preventing the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV2). As has been repeated over and over again, Covid-19 is not the flu. The SARS-CoV2 is not like influenza and some of the other respiratory viruses that Vainshelboim mentions. It seems to be more transmissible through the air, hence the face mask requirements.

Secondly, the article makes a number of leaps that really are not justified. For example, it claims that “trapped air remaining between the mouth, nose and the facemask is rebreathed repeatedly in and out of the body, containing low O2 and high CO2 concentrations, causing hypoxemia and hypercapnia,” and then cites some book chapters without really explaining how exactly these book chapters might support this claim. Is this a bit like claiming that you are an amazing lover and then citing The Joy of Sex?

Keep in mind that wearing a standard face mask is not the same as wearing a fish bowl or solid concrete and a microwave oven around your head. Oxygen and carbon dioxide should be able to move through the face mask material, assuming that you didn’t just take a condom and stretch it over your nose and mouth.

Then the article says, “severe hypoxemia may also provoke cardiopulmonary and neurological complications and is considered an important clinical sign in cardiopulmonary medicine.” How exactly would a standard face mask, which again allows oxygen to pass through its material, even cause “severe” hypoxemia, which is very low levels of oxygen in the blood, in most healthy people? If your oxygen levels have ever gotten that low, there’s a good chance that you would have already felt lightheaded, short of breath, and like you are going to pass out before experiencing any more longer term problems. This makes the next statement in the article potentially misleading: “low oxygen content in the arterial blood can cause myocardial ischemia, serious arrhythmias, right or left ventricular dysfunction, dizziness, hypotension, syncope and pulmonary hypertension.” A person doesn’t just develop conditions like a heart attack (which is apparently myocardial ischemia) or pulmonary hypotension just from wearing a face mask. These are conditions that develop over time from other factors. For example, a person typically has underlying coronary artery disease before suffering a heart attack.  

I'm all for debate and the sharing of information, but it needs to be open, honest and accurate. In this instance, it's surely theoretically possible that someone convinced by the article to not wear face masks, catches and transmits the Covid-19 coronavirus to someone else as a result? The other person could end up suffering or even dying. And that’s not just a hypothesis, given how much the article is getting shared on social media and used an ammunition in a war against mask wearing, it’s a real concern.

Embarrassing Confession or What?

Quite what's wrong with me, I've no idea, but something must be when I agree with Piers Morgan!

Admittedly, he does occasionally stray towards the side of common sense, but it's not exactly something that sane, sensible, people associate with his points of view. 

As a rule, he comes across as a not particularly pleasant character with a penchant for being difficult and contrarian which is probably how he has carved such a successful media career. Nevertheless, it often lands him on the wrong side of the argument and means that he can never be talked down from whichever hill he has chosen to die on, which in this case is everyone’s favourite doe-eyed D-list princess: Meghan Markle. 

As is ever the case, the discussion surrounding Meghan has been turned into a discussion about race. Anyone daring to question the motives of such an obviously ambitious self-aggrandiser has to field a barrage of ludicrous accusations that they dislike her only due to the pigmentation of her skin because there are no unpopular white royals - I mean we could start with Andrew and go from there depending on how monarchistic our base line is... 

Nevertheless, blatant lies about the Royal Family – particularly the suggestion that Meghan and Harry’s son would not receive a title due to his skin colour – are little match for concocted outrage in the arena of public debate. The fact that Archie never was in line for a title at this point vanishes like a snowflake in a blast furnace when up against Meghan’s ‘perceptions’ and ‘lived experiences’. 

But it was not merely the smears of racism where nobody and therefore everybody was put under the spotlight of speculation Meghan was also supposedly suicidal. She didn’t want to live any more. So cruel had the world been to her – bagging a prince, becoming part of the world’s most glamorous monarchy, and having her life’s wishes served up on a platter – she had not realised such a lifestyle comes with responsibilities. Spoon-fed Disney and hollow to the core – a prerequisite of modern stardom – she saw the position as a platform for magazine exclusives and a brand name with which to peddle meaningless modern PR slogans such as ‘body positivity’, ‘wellbeing’ and ’empowerment’.

And in amongst expressing his doubts that dear old misunderstood, victimised, Megan might not be the most credible of interviewees, Piers Morgan dared question her claim to suicidal thoughts, which when we're being encouraged to believe all victims, is apparently tantamount to heresy. The very idea that someone he called a "Pinocchio Princess" could be conflating a period of depression (which assumes that there is at least some basis to her claim and its not completely fabricated) into an existential battle in order to court sympathy and bolster her status as victim extraordinaire hardly comes into play. 

Morgan is (very) often wrong, but in this instance, I'm with him. If Megan is going to sit in front of one the most high-profile women in the world giving a 2 hour TV interview claiming to desire privacy, whining that "The Firm" had confiscated her passport but was still able to take private jets, saying she hadn't seen her sister for 20 years despite attending the latter's graduation, that she'd "never Googled Harry and didn't know who he was before their first date " (who on this planet DOES believe that!? ) then why should the rest of it be believed?

Harry, has a seagull dropped what Piers Morgan said was the Bovine version of what I've been saying on my dress?