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Opinion

As an ITU doctor, I cannot clap for the NHS – Spiked

I can’t clap for the NHS because of a truth that all NHS staff come to learn – that the NHS runs only by exploiting its workers.

This unaccountability is not limited to hospital management. The failures of procurement departments and of Public Health England during this crisis are by now well-documented. As for how much time and money is wasted by countless other NHS bodies – including (but not limited to) NHS Digital, NHS Resolution and NHS Business Services Authority – I can only guess. No one seems interested in holding these bodies to account, either.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/26/as-an-itu-doctor-i-cannot-clap-for-the-nhs/

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Opinion

The public must lead us out of the lockdown – Spiked

Covid conformism must be confronted. In their echo chambers, where they’re all trying to outdo each other in their levels of commitment to smashing Covid, the political and media elites have become increasingly blinkered, dogmatic and intolerant on everything related to Covid-19. The lack of relaxed, freely stated opposition to their lockdown mania means they become madder and madder in their commitment to it. The corrosion of freedom of thought in relation to Covid-19 has deadly consequences, because it means the lockdown endures – nine weeks now – when many people know in their heart of hearts that it is wrong and deeply damaging to the future of this country.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/25/the-public-must-lead-us-out-of-the-lockdown/

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News

The people are leading Italy out of lockdown – Spiked

[M]any of these measures were not included in the government’s initial decree for phase two of the easing. Many of these changes are due to pressure applied by the public and civil society.

It was striking that one of the first changes was made after pressure from what is traditionally one of the most conservative sections of Italian society: the Catholic Church…Some brave priests were violating the lockdown.

Officially, the [lockdown] process has been led by experts.  The government has created various committees of more than 450 experts to guide its coronavirus policies. These include a taskforce established on 10 April of economists, scientists, managers and psychologists to help the government navigate the path out of lockdown. 

Economic hardship was undoubtedly a major factor compelling people to protest….Lots of Italians are angry because they can see there is no rationale or fairness in the way the government has chosen to ease the lockdown.

Only a truly democratic government, which draws its authority from the people, has a chance of dealing effectively with Covid-19 and the emerging social and economic crisis.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/21/the-people-are-leading-italy-out-of-lockdown/

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Opinion

The war on transport – Spiked

It is hard to know where to start with transport. One certainly shouldn’t start from home, if at all possible. In our age of lockdown, transport away from the home is considered anti-social, if not downright dangerous.

In this atmosphere, it is worth recalling that democratic rights relate not just to free speech, but also to freedom of movement and freedom of assembly. Some restrictions on travel have been lifted recently. But with every new official statement about how we can and cannot move around, the government confirms that the state and only the state holds the cards in relation to our basic freedoms.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/21/the-war-on-transport/

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Opinion

Why the government should not always ‘follow the science’ – Spiked

‘Evidence’ has been turned into a gospel truth and that’s bad for political decision-making.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/20/why-the-government-should-not-always-follow-the-science/

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Opinion

How Covid panic caused the carnage in care homes – Spiked


Shockingly, the UK government was not alone in pushing the crisis into care homes. In New York, the centre of the world’s worst outbreak, it is a similar story. Care homes were not only neglected for PPE and testing, but were also ordered to take in Covid patients. Homes could be fined $10,000 or lose their operating licence if they refused to comply with the rules. In Lombardy, the hardest-hit region of Italy, care homes were paid extra to take in Covid patients from hospitals.

The carnage in care homes ought to be the biggest scandal of the Covid crisis.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/19/how-covid-panic-caused-the-carnage-in-care-homes/

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Opinion

Social distancing corrodes society – Spiked

This level of social distancing cannot go on indefinitely. It will break down, more than it already has. As much as people tell the pollsters that, if anything, the current regime is too soft-touch, many are already bending if not breaking the rules on meeting friends and family, weighing the risks, being careful, and deciding for themselves. And it’s not just among the supposedly selfish young, either. Older people want to see their kids and grandkids and to make the most of the time they have left.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/17/social-distancing-corrodes-society/

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Opinion

Fear kills – Spiked

The media in this country have no shame. For two months they’ve been ramping up fear and hysteria over Covid-19. They predicted apocalypse. They reported the daily death tolls like gleeful grim reapers. 

And now, after all that, after pumping out 24-hour rolling doom for weeks on end, they have the gall to wonder why so many people have been too scared to visit a hospital during the pandemic. And why there has been a huge number of excess deaths from treatable ailments other than Covid-19. And why there was a policy of ‘Protecting the NHS’ at all costs from the coming viral calamity that involved sending even infected elderly people away from hospitals and back to care homes. ‘How could this happen?’, they cry.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/fear-kills/

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Opinion

The lockdown left is no friend of the working class – Spiked

It is now the left that wants working people to be decommissioned, put out to pasture, languishing on state-paid wages or Universal Credit and uncertain of whether their job will even exist once the lockdown is finally lifted. And it’s the Tories saying: ‘Erm, don’t you think it would be better if working people worked?’

Of course, the left’s justification for its new policy of preventing the working classes from working is that they might catch Covid-19 and die. They’re ramping up the culture of fear in a desperate effort to present their bizarre, historically unprecedented anti-work outlook as a good, noble thing. Actual facts – like the fact that under-40s have made up just 0.75 per cent of deaths from Covid – don’t get so much as a look-in. No, keep all workers at home, even the fit, healthy young ones.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/13/the-lockdown-left-is-no-friend-of-the-working-class/

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Opinion

In London today, the police behaved disgracefully – Spiked

I have not seen the police like this before. Sure, I’ve seen police heavy-handedness; I’ve actually encountered it, on demonstrations many years ago. I’ve seen police harassing homeless people for no good reason. I’ve seen the over-policing of certain streets and certain communities and seen how dispiriting people find it. But this arrogant, sneering barking of orders at sunbathers and mums and homeless people resting under trees on a warm day is completely new. It is lockdown fanaticism in action. This rude and heartless officiousness is the logical conclusion of the culture of hysteria our political and media elites have whipped up over Covid-19.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/09/in-london-today-the-police-behaved-disgracefully/

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Opinion

We need to stop the spread of Big Tech censorship – Spiked

It is time to draw a line. In the fight against Covid-19, people across the world have been required to suspend many hard-won freedoms – to give up travel, loved ones, places of worship, the pub. They have gone along with it because they understand that some temporary restrictions on liberty are sometimes needed in times of crisis (even though we must ensure they do not become permanent). But one thing we cannot give an inch on is freedom of speech, our right to speak and our right to hear others, which is under serious threat right now.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/08/we-need-to-stop-the-spread-of-big-tech-censorship/

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Opinion

Lockdown fanatics scare me far more than Covid-19 – Spiked

The Covid threat is not the apocalypse we were warned about. Its death rate is low. Its impact on younger people is negligent. Just 0.75 per cent of deaths in the UK have been among under-40s, and the majority of those were people with underlying health conditions. And yet most under-40s – fit, healthy workers – remain locked at home, denied the right to work and play and keep society going.

The horror stories that were spread about Covid-19 by government officials and media fearmongers have been exposed as inaccurate, and in some cases hysterical. As the government adviser Professor Robert Dingwall says, the government has ‘effectively terrorised’ us into ‘believing that this is a disease that is going to kill you’. When in the vast majority of cases that simply isn’t true. As Professor Dingwall points out, 80 per cent of people who get the virus never have to go to a hospital, and of those who do, ‘most of them will come out alive – even those who go into intensive care’.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/08/lockdown-fanatics-scare-me-far-more-than-covid-19/

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Opinion

‘This is international hysteria’ – Spiked

Lionel Shriver and Brendan O’Neill discuss the irrational response to Covid-19 and the cruel regime of social distancing.

https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast-episode/this-is-international-hysteria/

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News Opinion

The importance of courage – Spiked

Science is not a good guide for society. Of course science is essential to our understanding of the world and to the creation of the new insights, technologies and treatments our societies need. But it cannot tell us what is best for our societies in political, moral or economic terms…

If it is true that Boris put the country into lockdown partly in response to media pressure, then the media themselves may have a lot of questions to answer about the damage currently being done by this unprecedented freeze on working life and the economy.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/24/the-importance-of-courage/

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News

How the media made the crisis even worse – Spiked

The coronavirus crisis has clearly demonstrated the value of good journalism. Yet the response of too much of the media has also shown how bad journalism can help to make a terrible situation even worse.

Self-important media outlets have crossed over from ‘speaking truth to power’ to assuming that they should have the power to tell governments what to do.

The overwhelming pressure of this shrill Something Must Be Done journalism quickly helped to push the UK government into changing tack and imposing a general lockdown, with far-reaching consequences for society.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/23/how-the-media-made-the-crisis-even-worse/

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News

Don’t gag NHS workers – Spiked

NHS staff have been warned against speaking out on ‘political’ issues in relation to coronavirus, including the widespread shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE).

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/22/dont-gag-nhs-workers/

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News

There is no empirical evidence for these lockdowns – Spiked

Overall, however, the fact that good-sized regions from Utah to Sweden to much of East Asia have avoided harsh lockdowns without being overrun by Covid-19 is notable….And empirical analyses of national and regional response strategies…do not necessarily find that costly lockdowns work better against the virus than social distancing.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/22/there-is-no-empirical-evidence-for-these-lockdowns/

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News Opinion

There’s no direct evidence that the lockdowns are working – Dr John Lee, Spiked

The UK government has extended its lockdown for another three weeks. But could the shutdown of society be doing more harm than good? In fact, is there any evidence it is doing any good at all? Dr John A Lee, a recently retired professor of pathology and NHS consultant pathologist, has repeatedly called for a critical and dispassionate examination of the evidence in relation to Covid-19, raising questions about the government and its advisers’ interpretation of the data.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/17/theres-no-direct-evidence-that-the-lockdowns-are-working/

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News

Coronavirus: whatever happened to the right to protest? – Spiked

The mass arrest of anti-lockdown protesters in Berlin shows we have given up our freedoms far too easily.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-whatever-happened-to-the-right-to-protest/