2025-06-12
Colin Meade writing for the Daily Sceptic apparently seeks to perform some limited form of damage limitation on behalf of our miscreant "authorities".
His primary assertion - that the population brought the Covid measures on themselves - the authorities merely pandered to their demands.
"without the assent of a substantial proportion of the general population, elites can do nothing and, except in cases of direct foreign colonialism, well-established ruling classes are always broadly representative of the political culture of the society they lead"
I'm not buying it.
By his own admission:
" ... the initial inclination of both the political leadership and its key advisers was to follow the pre-existing Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, which explicitly or implicitly rejected all the draconian policies that were in fact implemented"
Quite so.
"The practical measures implemented after the sudden authoritarian shift in March 2020 certainly followed a script promoted by the media-expert mob (representing ‘The Science’), but that promotion would not have succeeded had it not chimed in with a rising tide of mass hysteria"
But which came first, the rising tide of mass hysteria, or the media promotion of Prof Ferguson's entirely false but totally doom-laden projections of imminent death?
My recollection is that the population was obviously concerned and rightly looking to the "experts" for guidance (as was I), but wasn't clamouring hysterically for draconian measures. They were confused and puzzled and looking for guidance.
Had the authorities stuck to their pre-existing Pandemic Preparedness Strategy (as did Anders Tegnell in Sweden), the majority of the population would have been perfectly content in the circumstances to go down that route (as were the Swedes) - after all, why would they not trust the science that had been so thoughtfully researched for precisely these circumstances?. At the time there was nothing other than alarming tales emanating from China (and later Italy) to indicate that we were in any real trouble. Even the Italian deaths were mostly among the aged with comorbidities.
But the media and Prof Ferguson had other ideas.
As always, it's your view that counts.
