Tag: united kingdom

Police chief calls for power of entry into homes of suspected lockdown breakers

The government should toughen the lockdown by giving officers the right to force entry into homes of suspected law breakers, a policing leader has said.

David Jamieson, the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands police, England’s second biggest force, said: “For the small minority of people who refuse entry to police officers and obstruct their work, the power of entry would seem to be a useful tool.

“I have raised this issue with the policing minister previously and clarity on the power of entry would help police officers enforce the new Covid regulations more easily.”

As the third lockdown comes into force in England at midnight on Wednesday, the rising infection rate is also causing increasing absences from the ranks of officers needed to help enforce the lockdown.

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We are putting woke idiocy above saving lives

After a year of the Covid pandemic, the rollout of the vaccine promises to be the light at the end of the tunnel. And while the work to develop and test the vaccines has been done successfully and at record speed, the rollout poses an enormous logistical challenge.

In the UK, retired doctors are volunteering to become Covid vaccinators to speed up the process. But the bureaucratic hurdles to volunteering are bordering on the absurd.

Retired GP Claire Barker, in a letter to the Telegraph, writes that she is expected to have documentation that she has received training in ‘conflict resolution, equality, diversity and human rights, fire safety, and preventing radicalisation’.

In other words, medically qualified doctors cannot administer a life-saving vaccine unless they have had diversity training.

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Rendlesham Forest UFO: Are we any closer to the truth 40 years on?

Forty years ago, a remote forest in Suffolk was the scene of one of the most famous purported UFO sightings in history. So just what did happen, and will we ever know for sure?

Vince Thurkettle was out chopping wood one morning in Rendlesham Forest in late December 1980 when a car drew up.

Out stepped two men, aged about 30, dressed in suits.

“Good morning. Do you mind if we ask you some questions?” asked one, in a well-spoken English accent.

Earlier, on 26 and 28 December, United States Air Force (USAF) security personnel stationed at nearby RAF Woodbridge had reported seeing strange lights in the surrounding forest.

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Another Flawed Data Model From Imperial College To Blame For Latest UK Lockdown

The source behind the claim that a new COVID-19 strain in the UK is 70% more transmissible, Dr. Erik Volz of Imperial College, admits that the model that produced that statistic is flawed and that it is “too early to tell” if the strain is more easily spread.

On Saturday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced extreme new measures just before the holidays due to the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant. Per Johnson, as well as the UK’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty who also spoke at Saturday’s press conference, the new strain – nicknamed VUI-202012/01 – is around 70% more transmissible, but no evidence shows it to be any more severe or deadly than previous strains.

According to the BBC, Johnson’s assertion that the new variant “may be up to 70% more transmissible,” was based on the information discussed the day prior by the UK government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, or NERVTAG. Yet, as the BBC notes, this figureapparently comes from a single source, a 10 minute presentation delivered by Dr. Erik Volz of Imperial College given last Friday, the same day as the NERVTAG meeting.

Volz – a close colleague of the discredited Neil Ferguson – delivered the presentation to COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK), a research consortium largely funded by the UK government and the Wellcome Trust and, in particular, the Wellcome Sanger Institute. The Wellcome Sanger Institute recently came under fire for “misusing” the DNA of Africans to develop a “gene chip without proper legal agreements” and an upcoming Unlimited Hangout report will detail the ties of the Wellcome Trust to the UK eugenics movement, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Notably, the Wellcome-funded scientist behind that vaccine candidate, Adrian Hill, was recently quoted by the Washington Post as saying that “We’re in the bizarre position of wanting COVID to stay, at least for a little while…But cases are declining.”The UK government, Google and other powerful stakeholders are positioned to profit from sales of that particular vaccine candidate.

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Brits who refuse COVID-19 vaccine may be denied entry to restaurants, bars

No coronavirus vaccine, no service?

Brits could soon be denied entry to restaurants, bars, movie theaters and sporting events if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine, a top official said Monday.

Nadhim Zahawi, the minister in charge of the UK’s vaccine rollout, said that information about whether people have received a coronavirus vaccine might become available on the phone app already used for contact tracing.

“But also I think you’d probably find that restaurants and bars and cinemas and other venues, sports venues, will probably also use that system as they’ve done with the app,” Zahawi told the BBC.

“The sort of pressure will come both ways: from service providers — who will say, ‘Look, demonstrate to us that you have been vaccinated’ — but also we will make the technology as easy and accessible as possible.”

When asked whether it will become nearly impossible to do anything without the shot,Zahawi said he believes that most businesses will want to adopt protocols that take into account a person’s vaccine status.

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What they DON’T tell you about Covid: Fewer beds taken up than last year, deaths a fraction of the grim forecasts, 95% of fatalities had underlying causes… and how the facts can be twisted to strike fear in our hearts

How accurate were the Government’s grim predictions?

The short answer is: not very. In a July report commissioned by Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, scientists estimated that there could be 119,000 deaths if a second spike coincided with a peak of winter flu. Yesterday, that figure stood at 54,286 – less than half that.

In fact, the second peak seems to have passed – over the past week there has been an average of 22,287 new infections a day, down from 24,430 the week before.

In mid-September, Sir Patrick made the terrifying claim that the UK could see 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by mid-October unless more draconian restrictions were introduced. Yet we have never got near that figure.

What about its prophecies on deaths?

Ditto. Its warnings simply don’t bear any relation to reality.

During the ‘Halloween horror show’ press conference used by Sir Patrick and Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty to scare the Government into implementing a second lockdown, one of their slides suggested that daily Covid-19 deaths could reach 4,000 a day by December.

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UK terrorism chief calls for ‘national debate’ on criminalizing doubts about Covid-19 vaccine

The UK’s top counter-terrorism cop has suggested society stop allowing people to question the wisdom of a rapid Covid-19 vaccine rollout, regarding such skepticism to be life-threatening “misinformation.”

Met Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu has pointedly questioned whether it is “the correct thing for society to allow” the sharing of “misinformation that could cost people’s lives” — demonizing all doubts about quickly developed Covid-19 vaccines whose potential long-term effects are not yet known and tying them to extremist radicalization efforts.

While he didn’t go so far as to call for a law to be passed banning such content, his suggestion of a “national debate” will presumably light a fire under ministers already mulling such legislation.

Basu also expressed worries about a “sharp increase in extremist material online in the last few years” during Wednesday’s press conference, warning of a “new and worrying trend in the UK” of young people being radicalized. Officials told UK media that Islamic extremists and far-right groups were using “false claims about coronavirus” to radicalize their followers. 

Social media users already wary of the rush to roll out the vaccine were disturbed by the attendant rush to criminalize criticism of it.

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Metropolitan Police counter-terror chief Neil Basu calls for action on coronavirus anti-vaxxers

Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer today called for a nationwide debate on the introduction of new laws to punish people who spread anti-vaccination conspiracy theories.

Met Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said that there should be a discussion about whether it is “the correct thing for society to allow” people to spread “misinformation that could cost people’s lives” as he responded to concern that false claims online could undermine the take up of Covid-19 vaccines.

Mr Basu stopped short of endorsing the idea of a new law but his intervention will strengthen pressure on ministers to act against conspiracy theorists making false claims about the vaccines.

“There is a debate for society to have about free speech and responsibility and people who are spreading misinformation that could cost people’s lives… whether that is the correct thing for this society to allow to happen,” said Mr Basu.

Officials said that one reason for Mr Basu’s concern was that Islamist and far-Right groups were using false claims about coronavirus to radicalise followers. 

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